Harris_Rutledge.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
CHAPTER I.
" Heavily hangs the hroad sunflower,
Over its grave i* the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger lily."
Tennyson.
It was the gloomy twilight of a gloomy November day ;
dark and leaden clouds were fast shutting out every linger-
ing ray of daylight ; and the wind, which moaned dismally
around the house, was tossing into mad antics the leaves
which strewed the playground. The lamps were not
lighted yet; of visible fires the pensionnat of St. Catharine's
was innocent ; a dull, black stove, more or less gigantic,
according to the size of the apartment, gloomed in every
one, and affected favorably the thermometer, if not the ima-
gination. We paced untiringly, up and down the dim cor-
ridor Nelly, Agnes, and I three children, who, by virtue
of our youth, ought to have been let off, one would have
thought, for some years yet, from the deep depression that
was fast settling on our spirits. In truth we were all three
very miserable, we thought Nelly and Agnes, I am afraid,
more so than I, who in common justice ought to have par-
ticipated deeply in, as I was the chief occasion of, their
grief.
My trunk was packed and strapped, and stood outside
the door of my dormitory, ready for the porter'a a*V
6 BUTLEDGB.
tention. Li it lay my school-books, closed forever, as 1
hoped; and souvenirs innumerable of school friendships
and the undying love of the extremely young persons by
whom I was suri'ounded*
From them I was to be severed to-morrow^ as was ex-
pected, and
**It might be for years, ani it might be for ever,"
as NeUy had just said, choking up on the last sentence. I
did feel unhappy, and very much like ** choking up " too,
when I passed tho great windows, that looked into the play-
ground, and remembered all the mad hours of frolic I had
passed there ; when I took down my shawl from the peg
where it had hung nightly for five years, and remembered,
with a thrill, it was " the last time ;" when the lid of me
empty desk fell down with an echo that sounded drearily
through the long school-room ; when I thought " where I
might be this time to-morrow," and when Agnes' and
Nelly's arms twined about me, reminded me of the rapidly
approaching hour of separation from those who had repre-
sented the world to me for five years whom I had loved
and hated, and by whom I had been loved and hated, with
all the fervor of sixteen. The hatreds now were softened
down by the neaniess of the parting ; all my ancient foes,
(and they had not been few), had "made up" and promised
forgiveness and forgetfulness entire ; and all ancient feuds
wero dead. All my friends now loved me with tenfold
the ardor they had ever felt before; all the staff of teachers,
who had, I am afraid, a great deal to forgive, of impatient
self-will, mad spirits and thoughtless inattention, were good
enough to forget all, and remember only what they were
pleased to call the truth and honesty and courage, that
in the years we had been together, they had never known to
M.
They little knew how their unlocked for praise humbled
KUTLEDOB. 7
me ; and how far more deeply than any reproach, it made
me realize the waste of time and talents that I had to look
back upon.
So, most unexpectedly to myself, I found that I was going
off with flying colors ; that all were joining to deplore my
departure and laud my good qualities ; and that, fi'om being
rather a " limb " in the eyes of the school, and a hopeless
BJnner in my own, I was promoted, temporarily, to the
dignity of heroine at St. Catharine's.
It was with a veiy full heart that I remembered all this ;
and deeper feelings than I had known since my childhood
were stirred by the kindness I was certain was as undo
served as it was unexpected. But such a future dawned
before me, that tender regret struggled hard with giddy
hope for the mastery. In almost every girl's life, leaving
school is a marked and important event ; and imagination
has always a wide, and generally well-cultivated field for
its powers, even when home and future are as cei*tain as
things mundane oan be. But in my case there was so mucli
room for dreaming, so much raw material for fancy to work
up, that a tamer and less imaginative child than I was,
would have been tempted into castle-building. The sad
event that five years before had placed me, a stunned, be-
wildered, motherless child, in the midst of strangers, had
largely developed the turn for dreaming that such childi-en
always possess. The sympathy and love that God provides
for every child that is born into the world, withdrawn, they
turn " not sullen, nor in scorn," but from an instinct He has
himself implanted, inward, for their sympathy and coun-
sel. So it happened, that though Nelly and Agnes, and a
dozen merry girls beside, were my sworn friends and very
firmest allies, none of them knew anvthing of the keen won-
der and almost painful longing with which I pictured the
future to myselE They knew, of course, the simple facts,
that as I had no father or mother, I was to go and live
with my aunt, who had been in Europe until U\V& ^\vamv^\
d BUTLUDGE.
and whom I had not seen since my mother died ; tliat
she had three daughters, one older, two younger than
myself; that she had sent me some pretty things from
Paris, and was, probably, very kind, and I should have a
very nice time.
They knew only these bare beams and framework of the
gorgeous fabric I had reared upon them ; they little knew the
hours of wakefulness in which I wondered whether I should
be happy or miserable in that new home ; whether my aunt
would love me as I already most ardently loved her ; whe-
ther the new cousins were at all like Nelly and Agnes ; and
whether they were prepared to value the wealth of affection
I had in reserve for them. But time would soon settle all
this into certainty ; and my aunt's last letter, containing all
the final arrangements for my journey, I at present knew
by heart. The only possible shade of uncertainty about my
starting, lay in the chance of the gentleman who was to be
my escort, being detained by business a day or two longer
at C , and not arriving to-night, as had been considered
probable.
Nelly built greatly upon this possibility, and as the twi-
light deepened, and the moaning wind and growing dark-
ness pressed more and more upon us, we turned to that as
our only chance of comfort. Nelly had said, for the twen-
tieth time, " I am sure he will not come till to-morrow, it is
too late for him now," when a sharp ring at the beU made
us all start, and sent the blood swiftly enough through my
veins, and, I suppose, no less swiftly through my young
companions'; for Nelly convulsively clasped me round the
neck and burst into tears, while Agnes said, in a choking
voice, " I'm certain of it !" And for three dreadful minutes
of suspense we stood motionless, holding our breath, and
watching for the first token of the approach of the messen^
ger who should confirm or confute our forebodings.
At last, steps echoed along the hall, and bearing a dim
candle, which blinked nervously at every step, appeared the
BUTLEDGE. 9
Biddy who officiated as waiter at St. Catharine's, She had
a card in her hand, and our end of the corridor seemed bet
destination, and our party the party she was in search of.
" Well ?" said Agnes, making a distracted effort to break
the silence, as Biddy groped stupidly and slowly toward us.
*' A gentleman," she said, " a gentleman to see you, miss,"
and she handed me the card. "I knew it," said Agnes,
with a, deep sigh, as, per favor of the blinking candle, the
three heads, clustered over the card, made out the name,
" Mr. Arthur Rutledge."
^ " Oh, I am so frightened I" I said, sitting down on the
lowest step of the stairs. " Girls, what shall I do ?"
Nelly shook her head ; she did not wonder I was afraid ;
for five years I had encountered no gentlemen more alarm-
ing than the professors, and no strangers more mtimidating
than occasional new scholars ; and knew no more how to
conduct myself on this occasion, than if I had not received
Miss Crowen's valuable instructions on deportment. I had
been taught to swim, theoretically, on shore, and now was
to be pushed suddenly out into deep water, to make the best
use I could of my scientific knowledge. As was to be sup-
posed, I found myself not much the better for it.
" He's not a young gentleman though," said Agnes, " and
I shouldn't mind it much if I were you."
" Oh, of course he's not young, or Aunt Edith would not
have had me go with him. He's as old as the hills, I know,
but that makes it so much the worse; and then, he was
abroad with my aunt and cousins, and knows them all so
well; and Aunt Edith calls him ' an accomplished gentleman
of high standing ;' and oh I I am sure I shall blush and act
like a fool, and disgrace myself; and aunt is so particular."
Nelly condoled, Agnes counselled, and I stood shivermg
in an agony of apprehension and dismay, when the heavy
tread of Miss Crowen on the stairs, gave an impetus to my
Altering steps, and sent me parlor-wards with empha\a.
"If you don't hurry," whispered Agnes, ^^"i&ASCj\cr^xv
1*
10 BUTLBDOB.
will drag you in, and make one of her honible speeches
tibout educational advantages and mental culture, and put
you through a course of mathematical problems, and make
you show off on the piano, if not sing."
The wily Agnes had touched the right chord. Threat-
ened with this new horror, I grew reckless, and without a
moment more of hesitation, bolted into the parlor, and stood
confronting the object of my terror, before I had had time in
the least to prepare my line of conduct. I stood for a mom en t
with burning cheeks and downcast eyes, unable to articulate
a word, and saw nothing, heard nothing, till I found myself
seated on the sofa, and being talked to in a kind manner
by the dreaded stranger, who sat beside me. If my " Yea
ir," and "No sir," came in in the right places, I can
claim no sort of credit for it ; for neither then nor now, had
or have I the faintest apprehension of anything he said.
" By and by, however, under the influence of that steady
unmoved voice, my alarm began to subside, and my scared
senses, after fluttering hopelessly about, like a dislodged
Drood of swallows, began at last to collect themselves again,
and resume their proper functions. By degrees I began to
comprehend what he was talking about, and in process of
time, commanded my voice sufficiently to answer him
audibly, and before the interview was over, had the courage
to raise my eyes, and satisfy myself as to the personal ap-
pearance of this my destined protector in the three days'
journey we had in prospect.
And the result of this investigation was, the instant
establishment, upon a firm basis, of ease and confidence..
For few men or women, much less children or girls, ever
looked into Mr. Rutledge's face, without feeling that
they saw their master, but withal so firm and kind a
master, that all thought of resistance to his will, or stubborn
raaintenapce of their own, together with all foolish vanity
and consciousness, vanished at once and forever, or re-
|;unied but seldom, and was soon conquered. If I had
SUTLEDGE. 11
chenshed any romantic hope that this " accomplished gen-
tleman " might prove anything out of which I could make
that dearest dream of schoolgirl's heart, a lover, I likewise
relinquished that most speedily, for nothing in the pers(m
before me, gave encouragement to such an idea. Rather
below than above the medium size, and of a firm, well-pro-
portioned figure, Mr. Rutledge gave one, from his com-
manding and decided carriage, the impression of ^ much
larger man. His dark hair was slightly dashed with grey,
his eyes were keen and cold, the lines of care and thought
about his brow were deep and strong. If his face could be
said to have an attraction, it lay in the rare smile that
sometimes changed the stemness of his mouth into winning
sweetness and grace. But this was so rare that it could
hardly be called a characteristic of his habitually cold stern
face. That it wore it that evening however, I knew then
as now, was because I was a child, and a miserable, fright-'
ened one besides. I never doubted that he knew how I
felt, and read me thoroughly.
The interview was, according to the prim little clock on
the mantelpiece, by no means a long one ; and after intro-
ducing (with but indifferent grace) Miss Crowen, who en-
tered the room with elephantine tread, to my visitor, he
took leave, having arranged to come for me the next morn-
ing at six.
That last evening, with its half-strange, excited novelty
of leave-taking, and last messages iand last thoughts, is still
distinct in my memory ; and the start with which I
answered Biddy's call in the darkness of the November
morning, the dressing with cold hurried hands that were
not half equal to the task, the wild way in which everything
came dancing through my mind, as I tried to say ray
prayers, the utter inability to taste a mouthful of the break-
last Miss Crowen herself had superintended, the thrill with
which I heard the carriage drive up to the doov^ at^ ^^ n\n\.^
80 recollections can well be^ And I am in i\o Aaw^^\^eVOsvapc
12 SUTLEDGE.
of forgetting the moment, when, with half a dozen ol my
schoolfellows who had been allowed to see me off, 1
descended the steps toward the carriage, the door of which
Mr. Rutledge was holding open. The kind good bye of
Miss Crowen, the warm embraces of the girls, Nelly's tears,
Agnes' wiBtful look, are memories I cannot pai-t with if I
would.
The carriage door shut to with a snap, the horses started
forward at a brisk pace, and we were off, and I had left-
school and childhood behind me forever. I did not cry at
all, though I felt desperately like it ; but the consciousness
that Mr. Rutledge looked sharply at me to see how I took
it, made me struggle harder to keep back my tears, and
seem womanly and composed. In this I succeeded beyond
my hopes, and before half an hour had passed, the bracing
air of the fine autumn morning, the rapid pace at which we
rolled along, and the new delight to my cloistered eyes, ot
farms, and villages, woods rich in the many colors of the
fall, and meadows and uplands basking in its sunshine,
made me feel as if I had been months away from school,
and as if the melancholy of last night were some strange
distant dream. Seventeen never dreamed more fantastic
dreams than I did that morning, however, as I leaned back
in the carriage and idly watched the gay landscape past which
we were hurrying. It was quite a relief to me that my
companion, after attending to my comfort in every neces-
sary way, settled himself in his comer of the carriage, and
taking a book from his valise, devoted himself to its peru-
sal, and left me to my own thoughts the entire morning.
He did not put it up till we reached the town where wo
were to dine and wait for the cars.
Dinner did not prove a very animated meal ; my com-
panion, after asking me about school, and whether I felt
sorry to leave it, and a few more questions of the same
nature (such as people always put to school-girls, and by
which they unconsciously give great offence), seemed to
BUTLEDOB. 18
coFiSidcr his conversational duty performed, and fell into a
state of abstraction, which made his face look harder and
colder than ever ; and as I stealthily regarded him from
under my eyelashes, some of last night's alarm threatened
to return. But I tried to overcome it, and endeavored
to reassure myself by remembering how kind he was when
I was so much embarrassed, and how well he had helped
me througli the interview that he might have made so ter-
rible ; and that he did not talk to me why, certainly it
was not strange that a gentleman of his age should not have
much in common with a girl of mine.
By and by the cars came tearing through the town with
a whoop and a shriek, that seemed to excite everybody
wonderfully, considering the frequency of the occurrence.
Passengers, porters, newsboys, in one mad crowd, rushed
toward the depot, each emulating in his own proper person,
the noble rage of the snorting, impatient monster, upon
whose energy we were all depending. The only individual
entirely unexcited, was my escort, who never for a moment
lost the appearance of sang froid and indifference that an
earthquake would not have startled him out of, I was con-
vinced. Though we did not hurry, we were, before many
of our fellow-voyagers, in possession of the best seats, and
most commodiously, because most deliberately, settled for
the journey. Mr. Rutledge was emphatically a good
traveller, carrying the clear-sighted precision and delibera-
tion of his mind into all the details of travel, and thereby
securing himself from the petty annoyances that people
often think unworthy of attention, but which do more than
they suspect, toward marring pleasure and destroying com-
fort. I aptly followed his manner, and was a marvel of
micoiiceined deliberation in the matter of securing my seat
and arranging my shawls, books and bags ; which drew from
him the remark, with an approving glance, that he perceived
I was used to travelling. That observation, citl\eY i^cyssi
the fact of its being bo absurldy incorvecl m \\,a ^Yerea\'asi
14 KnTIEDG&.
or from the stronger fact of its being the only one ad-
dressed to me until 7 p.m., when we stopped at F for
purposes of refreshment, impressed itself very much upon
my mind.
After the wretched meal, called by compliment tea,
which we were allowed twenty minutes to partake of, had
been dispatched, and we were again settled in the cars in
which we were to travel all night, commenced the trials of
the journey ^to me, at least, for I was an entire novice,
not having been twenty miles away from St. Cathanne's
since I was first taken there, and having but a dim recol-
lection of that, my first and last joumey till the present
time. Being also subject to the most unbearably severe
headaches upon any unusual excitement, it is not very won-
derful that on this occasion I was attacked with one, and
before night had actually set in, was as completely mise-
rable, as in the morning I had been completely happy.
Excitement and weariness began to tell most painfully upon
me. Not a bene but ached, not a nei've in my whole body
but throbbed and quivered. It was as impossible to think
quietly as to sit quietly. Homesickness, for the home I had
bsen longing to get away from for five years all the
miserable things I had ever sufiered or dreaded all the
fancied and real trials of my life, then and there beset
my aching head, and made sleep or composure an impossi-
bility.
If there had been a soul to speak to, a human voice to say
a single word of sympathy, however commonplace, I
thought it would have made the night endurable. But
among the sleepy, senseless crowd around, the only one I
had a right to expect attention from, or to whom I was
entitled to address a word, was as regardless of my exist-
ence as any of the rest. Mr. Rutledge occupied the seat
before me, and the imperfect light of the lamp that rattled
and flickered above us, showed me more plainly than any
other object, his fixed, unsympathizing face, as he leaned
BUTLEDGE. 16
against the window of the car, his lips xiompressed and hie
brow knit. He did not sleep any more than I did, nor do I
think he was a whit more comfortable; but he had his
impatience mider better control, and never moved a muscle
or uttered a sound for hours together.
It was the most torturing thing to watch him, so entirely
unmoved by the discomfoits that were, I was firmly con-
vinced, driving me mad ; and in my jaundiced eyes, his pro-
file took a thousand wizard shapes. It would have been a
relief if he had moved in ever so slight a degree to one side
or the other ; but a painted face upon a painted window
could not have been more rigid than the one before m6, 1
was dying of thirat, was smothering for want of air, ached
in every limb, and there were hours yet to morning I The
monotonous motion of the cars, and their accompanying
noises, harsh and shrill, made to my perfectly unaccustomed
ear a frightful combination of discord ; and this all coming
upon my excited and sensitive nerves, worked me up into a
state of wretchedness that naturally resulted in that climax
of woes feminine, a fit of crying.
I could no more have helped it than the wind could have
helped blowing, and never having learned to control myself,
could not suppress the indulgence of an emotiovi which, an
hour afterward, I remembered with acute mortification. I
tried to smother my sobs, but they reached at last the ear
of my silent companion, who started, and turning toward
me, asked, with a shade of impatience in his tone, what waa
the matter ? Was I ill ?
That question, so put, in the indescribable tone that
shows to a sensitive ear a want of sympathy the most gall-
mg, was the best cure that could have been devised for my
tears. They were done, altogether ; but in their place, the
angi-y blood flew to my face, and I inly vowed, in accord-
ance with school-girl notions of right, never to forget or for
give the insult. Angrily averting my head, I deci&cv^^ ^w
OwiBtance or a*,tention whatever, and piide \\^N\xi^ \\v\\v.
16 BUTLBDGE.
Bteppcd in lo the rescue, I was able to maintain as rigid a
demeanor as Mr. Rutledge himself. For a moment he
looked at me with an expression that I could not quite
make out, then with the slightest possible shrug of the
shoulders, turned away, and seating himself again in the
conier, resumed his former attitude. That was enough ;
all my spirit was roused ; I had always been good at hating,
but the present crisis brought out powers I had never been
aware of before ; and there was a great deal in the fact of
my having made a fool of myself in the presence of Mr.
Rutledge, to help me along in detesting him ; and not being
in a particularly reasonable or well-governed frame of mind,
the aversion I had conceived increased with alarming
rapidity. It was wonderful how powerful my resentment
was to keep my weariness and impatience in check. I did
not move an inch nor utter a single word ; I would have
borne the rack and torture rather than exhibit, after that
shrug, another shade of emotion.
When at last, morning being broadly awake, we were
released from our prison for an hour to breakfast and rest
at a way- station that seemed most utterly repugnant to
those two ideas, Mr. Rutledge asked me if I would not pre-
fer, on account of my fatigue, waiting there till the next
train, which would arrive at noon ?
I answered, ^^ Decidedly not," with so much emphasis,
that he only bowed and turned away ; with what opinion
of my temper it is not pleasant to think. Before the day
was over, he had, I presume, concluded, that he had taken
under his charge about as willful and disagreeable a young
miss as ever tried the patience of parent or protector.
The day wore on, much after the manner of yesterday.
That night at twelve, we expected to arrive at C
where we were to rest till morning ; and thence taking the
boat, were to reach our journey's end about noon.
It was toward evening of that weary day ; I was sitting
listlessly looking out upon the dreary suburbs of the town
i
BUTLEDGE. I'J
Which we seemed approaching, and thinkmg, by way of
diveiiing myself, of Nelly and Agnes and school, and what
they were doing now, and whether they missed me ; when
there came a sudden jar, then a horrid crash, a shriek that
rent the air, a blow upon my head that made a hideous
glare of light, then darkness absolute, and I knew no more
CHAPTER 11.
** The brightest rainbows ever phiy
Above the fountains of our tears."
Mackay.
How long after it was that consciousness returned, I
cannot tell ; if indeed that bewildered dizzy realization of
things present that gradually forced itself upon me, can be
called consciousness. I was lying on the ground, and
looked, upon opening ray eyes, up at the clear evening sky.
It could not have been long after sunset, and all the scene
around me, when at last I tried to comprehend it, was dis-
tinct enough. Some distance from where I lay, there was a
bridge and an embankment, perhaps thirty feet high.
Between that and me, a horrid mass loomed up against the
sky, black and shapeless, one car piled above another in an
awful wreck. Dark figures lay around me on the ground,
some writhing in agony, others motionless and rigid;
groans and cries the most appalling smote my ear. But
my ear and all my senses were so stunned and bewildered,
that to see and hear was not to feel alarm or awe or pity,
only dull stupor and discomfort. I did not feel the least
desire to move or speak, the least solicitude about my fate.
Half unconsciously I lay watching the fading light in the
"iky, and the dark figures that soon were swarming around,
bending over and raising up the wounded, and thrusthig
lanterns into the faces of such as lay stiff and still and did
not heed their ejaculations.
At last two men came up to where I lay, and one, from
the exclamation of recognition he made as they bent over
me, I knew to be Mr. Rutledgo. The effect of the lantern
glaring so suddenly in my &ce, was to make me start up,
18
KUTLPDGE. 19
with some broken exclamation ; but the words had hardly
left my lips, when an acute pain and then a giddy blindness
rushed over me, and I sunk back, and with a horrible sen-
sation of falling down, down, to un&thomable darkness, T
\ as again insensible.
I suppose I must have remained in that state all night,
for it was daylight when I was again sufficiently conscious
to know what was going on around me. Mr. Rutledge was
sitting by me and was saying to the physician, whose en-
trance had, I think, first aroused me, that he considered me
doing very well, the fever was evidently abating, and that
he thought the doctor would agree with him that I might
soon be moved to more comfortable quarters.
" If any such can be fouud," the doctor answered ; " but
every house in the town, as well as both the hotels, are
crowded with the sufferers, and I think your chance of
comfort is as good here as it will be anywhere else ; for,
sir, it is a wretched little town at the best. I wish we could
boast, better accommodations for strangers."
" Then doctor," said Mr. Rutledge, " I am sure you will
consent to what I have been thinking of as the most feasi-
ble plan. You know it is but eight miles to Norbury, and
my country place is only three miles beyond. The house,
to be sure, is closed for the winter ; I little expected to be
visiting it so soon. But there are several servants in it, and
it can quickly be made comfortable, and Mrs. Roberts, my
housekeeper, is an excellent nurse. Don't you agree with
me that any or all of these reasons are sufficient to make
it wise to try to get there as soon as possible ? For it is
not going to be any joke 'to stay in this dingy place
for a fortnight, and that child will not be fit to travel
any sooner ; and this arm of mine does not feel much
like bearing the motion of those accursed cars again very
soon."
Mr. Rutledge's arm was bound up, and an occasional
expression of pain crossed his ^oe, though tbat^Qi& \)ck.^ c^xiXl
80 KaXLEDGE.
time he aUuded to it. The doctor made an unequivocal
opposition to Mr. Rutledge's proposition, -and raised innu-
merahle objections to it, all of which be quietly put aside and
overruled. It was easy to see who would carry the day;
but the doctor did not give over for a long while. When
at length he had been unwillingly brought to say that it
might do no harm to be moved in the course of the morning
to Rutledge, he started another unanswerable objection a
suitable vehicle could not be obtained in the town for love
or money, he declared.
" I wni manage thj^t," said Mr. Rutledge, and left the
room.
The doctor shook his head as the door closed, and said,
partly to himself, and partly to the woman who seemed to
be officiating as nurse :
" He goes at his own risk ; it may do or it may not."
" He's a gentleman what's used to doing as he wants to, I
guess," remarked the woman, " and don't think any too much
of other people's opinions."
" You are very correct," said the doctor, with importance.
" A little learning is a dangerous thing, and Mr. Rutledge
knows just enough of medicine to be confident of his ovm
judgment. I only hope his imprudence may not be
visited upon this poor child. So young!" he continued,
shaking his head.
The woman shook hers, and looked at him with reverence,
while he went on to desciibe my case at great Tength, and
in such alarmingly long words, that I was in danger of being
frightened back into a high fever, had not the return of Mr.
Rutledge saved me from any further display of Dr. Sartain'e
scientific knowledge.
Mr. Rutledge saw in a moment the state of the case, for
he looked at me attentively as he came in, and I heard him
mutter in a low tone as he felt my pulse, " This won't do."
Then aloud, he told the doctor that the carriage he had been
foHunate enough to engage would be at the door in about
BUTLBDGB. 21
an hour and a half, and that he would not detain him any
longer at present, but would recommend his taking a little
rest, for he should be obliged to ask him to accompany hia
patient during the drive ; it would be safer,,he thought, and
as he could retura in the carriage, it would involve no great
loss -of time ; though he well knew Dr. Sartain could hardly
spare a moment from the demands of his extensive prac-
tice, etc.
The doctor, somewhat mollified, consented and retired,
Mr. Rutledge then sent the woman off, and telling me,
cheei-fully and kindly, that I was doing very nicely, and that
he thought a little sleep would strengthen me for the jour-
ney, darkened the windows, and throwing himself into an
sasy-chair, seemed inclined to set me the example. The
lounge or settee on which I was placed, had been made as
comfortable as the circumstances would permit, but still was
painfully far from easy ; and I tossed about, excited and rest,
less, for some time. But, gradually reassured by Mr. Rut-
ledge's quiet composure and cheerfulness, and soothed by
the stillnes3 of the room, I fell into a very refreshing sleep.
It was about noon when we startled, the doctor being in
the carriage with me, Mr. Rutledge, I am sorry to remem-
ber, going in a much less comfortable vehicle. It did not
trouble me seriously at the time, however. Dr. Sartain's
opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, I was by no means
injured by the ride, and when we drove under the gateway
that conveyed to my listless intellect the knowledge that we
had reached Rutledge, besides a little increased languor
and weariness, I felt no worse than when we left the
town.
Mr. Rutledge, who was in advance, reached the house
first, and in k noment the excitement that our arrival had
produced became apparent ; two or three maids rushed out
from a side-door as Mr. Rutledge ascended the steps, and.
overcome with alarm at the sight of two carriages, and their
master with his arm in a sling, rushed bacV a\2;tttw vjr\w^^x\%
22 B n T LE D G E.
their hands, and displaying many symptcins of constcmatica*
Mr. Rutledge in the mean time had entered the house, and
soon appeared at the door accompanied by a tall, elderly
woman, in a black bombazine dress, and a lace cap with
white ribbons, to whom he was explaining, in a concise and
forcible manner, the state of affairs, and what was to be done.
They came down to the carriage, and Mr. Rutledge intro-
duced " Mrs. Roberts" to the doctor and to me, and then
assisting me to alight, we ascended the broad stone steps to
the piazza, and thence into a wide hall.
Mr. Rutledge told the housekeeper that it would, he
thought, be best for me to go immediately up to her room,
where I could lie on the sofa till my apartment could be
made ready.
Accordingly I went npstah's, and took possession of Mrs.
Roberts' sofa and Mrs. Roberts' room, both sombre and stilf
enough, but infinitely more easy and prepossessing than the
lady herself. I cannot imagine that at that very early stage of
our acquaintance, she could have entertained any personal re-
sentment toward me, and yet I was entirely possessed of that
belief from the first moment that I saw her. But I have
since discovered that she invariably impressed all strangers
with a similar conviction, and from that, and from subse-
quent knowledge of her character, I have concluded that it
was merely " a way she had," and M^as by no means to be
regarded as an expression of her sentiments toward anyone.
Unhai)pily, I did not have this light upon her, and soon be-
gan to feel myself in the hands of a grim tyrant, whose only
motive in exei-tions made ostensibly for my benefit, was to
gut possession of me, soul and body, and render me, if possi-
ble, more wretched than she found me.
I lay quietly on the sofa where she had placed me, with
no imgentle hand to be sure, but without the slightest relax
ing of her blue lips, or the smallest indication of pity in her
uncompromising eyes; and watched her as she pursued her
plan of operations, steadily and energeticaUy. She cer-
BUTLEDaB. S3
iainly knew wliat she was about, and for precision and
promptness must have been a treasure in Mr. Rutledge'e
eyes. There was an incredible amount of work accom*
plished in that house within the next hour ; rooms were
opened, fires were lighted, beds were- aired; sounds of
sweeping and dusting and beating of mattresses, filling of
pitchers, and crackling of fires, reached my indolent ears.
Mrs. Roberts, standing before a huge open wardrobe, dealt
out sheets, pillow-cases, towels, table-cloths and napkins to
the maids, who bustled about with distressing activity, not
unfrequently goaded on by a few sharp words from their
mistress, who ruled them, I could see, with a rod of ii'on.
The threat, however, that stirred up their flagging energies
most effectually, seemed to be, the wrath of Mr. Rutledge.
I began to feel myself drawn sympathizingly toward the
maids, and could not help wondering whether they were ad
much afraid of the master, and as much averse to the mis-
tress of the house as I was, and whether they wished them-
selves away as much ; and if they did, why they didn't go ;
or whether, indeed, people ever got away who once came
in it. The gloom of the great hall, with its broad, stone
staircase, on which the servants' steps echoed drearily, and
the dark glimpses of shut-up rooms that I had caught on
my way up, seemed to favor this latter idea ^I would write
for my aunt to come for me immediately ; I would ask the
doctor to take me back with him. I should die if they left
me in this gloomy place. Perhaps I might die here who
could tell? The doctor had said I was very ill.
Tears came but too easily in those foolish days, and bury-
ing my throbbing temples in the pillow, I cried as if my
heart would break, or as if it had indeed broken. My
emotion was none the lighter because it was imaginary, nor
ucne the easier to bear because it was absurd. Children's
troubles and terrors are only less severe than those of
maturer mhids, as they are shorter lived ; while they la**!
they are, if possible, more violent and leaa \i^2cv?i\\^, KyA
84 BUTLEDGB.
at that time I was, to all intents and purposes, a child, and
a sick, nervous, excited one besides.
By and by Mrs. Roberts came up to where I lay motion*
less with my face hidden in the pillows, and, leaning over
me, said in her chilling tones, "Are you comfortable?
Will you have anything?"
I did not move. She listened for a moment, then going
to the door said to some one outside :
" She's asleep, sir, and doing well. You had better take
some rest yourself."
The door closed, and I suppressed my sobs to listen. In
a few minutes Mrs. Roberts came again to look at me,
then noiselessly left the room. I could endure it no longer,
and throwing back the blankets, raised myself and sat
upright. I cried for a long while ; every minute the prison
feeling seemed to grow stronger, till at last it drove me to
that climax of desperation which, in actual prisoners, results
in knocking down turnkeys, and (according to the news-
papers) doing many frantic and atrocious acts, to reach
*'the blessed sun and air," from which they have been
*' banned and barred."
I had reached that climax, I say ; I had dried my tears,
and sat still, with clenched hands, some wild plan of escape
arranging itself in my brain, when the door suddenly opened,
and Mrs. Roberts reappeared.
" Oh, you're awake, are you ? I'll call the doctor ; he's got
through setting Mr. Rutledge's arm, and was just going."
I hurriedly pushed the hair from my flushed face, and
tried to look composed as the doctor entered with Mrs.
Roberts, and followed soon by Mr. Rutledge, who came*
he said, to get the doctor's directions, and to eee if Mrs.
Roberts was doing everything for me that I required. The
doctor sat down by me, and taking hold of my wrist, asked
me if I felt better for my sleep.
Mr. Rutledge, looking at me, said, " N*ot much sleep, 1
im afraid. How is it ?'*
BUTLEDGE. 25
I pressed tny lips very tight together to keep from cry-
mg, and shook my head. Mrs. Roberts, who did not pro-
bably notice the gesture, aid, " Oh, yes, she's slept nicely
for three-quarters of an hour.
Then she and the doctor talked about me as if I were in
the next room, and no way interested in the affair. After
many directions given and received, and many injunctions
and much emphasis, the doctor rose to go, saying that he
should not be able to come again nntil the day after to-
morrow (unless, of course, I should be taken with any
miexpected symptoms) ; in the mean time he hoped he left
me in safe hands (with a look direct at Mrs. Roberts).
Mr. Rutledge smothered a smile, accompanied him to the
door, and parted from him very courteously, then returned
to me. He hoped, he said, that I did not mind trusting
myself to him during the doctor's absence, and Mr.
Roberts would, he knew, take as good care of me as the
doctor himself could. He then went on to say that he had
telegraphed my aunt last evening to prevent her feeling any
alarm on hearing of the accident, and that he had writieu
to her more fully by mail to-day, telling her of my improve-
ment, and assuring her that it would not be necessary for
her to come on, as I could have every care here.
" In two or three weeks," he continued, " I trust you
will be perfectly well and entirely fit to travel."
Two or three weeks! The thought was too dreadful,
and bursting into tears, I exclaimed :
" I am well enough to go now I I had rather go home
with the doctor I"
Mr. Rutledge was silent for a moment, then sitting down
beside me, in the doctor's vacated seat, said, as if he were
speaking to a very little child :
** You are not well enough to start now ; it might do you
a great deal of harm. Possibly you may be able to go much
nooDer than the doctor thinks ; only be patient a day on
8
26 BUTLKDGK.
two, and depend upon it, I will let you go the very minute
you oan bear it."
I shook my head and sobbed convulsively.
" My dear little girl,'* he said, " you are too nervous now
to be reasonable, but you must try and be quiet and not
cry, for that is the very worst thing for you, and will keep
you here longer than anything else. Your head aches,
doesn't it?"
" Yes, dreadfully," I sobbed.
" Well, the more yon cry, the more it will ache, and the
more it aches, the more fever you will have, and that ia
just what you must get rid of before you can be fit to starf
for home. You will feel very differently, I assure you, to
morrow morning, afler you have had a good night's sleep.*'
" I can't sleep I" I exclaimed.
" Oh yes, you can ! The doctor has left you some pow
ders that will make that all right, and I will give you one
now."
He mixed it in a glass that Mrs. Roberts had brought for
the purpose, and I drank it, then followed his advice and
lay my hot and throbbing head on the pillow. He sat
down again, and continued, speaking soothingly, and in a
manly, kind voice, still as if I were about eight years old.
" Your room will be ready in a few moments, and I think
you will be more comfoi-table there than in this old-fashioned
retreat of Mrs. Roberts'. Haii*-cloth and mahogany are
rather dismal for sensitive nerves, it must be acknowledged,'*
glancing with a smile around the apartment. " The room
you are to have is on the other side of the hall, and looks
out on the park, and is quite cheerful and pleasant. And if
you do not like to be alone, Mrs. Roberts shall eome and
sleep on the sofa by you."
The expression of my face was probably unmistakable ;
much as I dreaded solitude, I dreaded Mrs. Roberts
more, and was immensely relieved when my oompanioD
added, " Perhaps, though, on the whole, Kitty had better
BtlTLEDGB. 27
come and wait on you. Kitty is one of the maids, and is
very pleasant, and I think you will like her. I will send her
to you now. She will give you your medicine, and sit by
you for company. You must send her to me if there is any-
thing more I can do for you to night. I hope the headache
will all be gone by to-morrow morning."
And with a few more kind words the master left me, and
the maid soon appeared, whose bright face and cheerful
care helped along very considerably the cure that wra
fdready begun. It was a pleasure to be waited on by Kitty ;
it was a pleasure to hear her clear young voice and to be
served by her strong young arms. She moist, I think, have
had strict orders riot to leave me ; for after everything in the
way of arranging the pillows and smoothing the blankets,
and adjusting everything in the neighborhood of the sofi^
had been accomplished, she still lingered beside me, asking
if I was comfortable, if she shouldn't get me a glass of w
tor, if I wouldn't like the curtains drawn back a little, etc.
Mrs. Roberts, who had returned, was sitting by the win-
dow, a huge basket of work beside her, over which she waa
straining her eyes, economical of every ray of the rapidly
feding daylight. She was too utilitarian in her turn of
mind to submit quietly to the sight of Kitty's idleness, and
very soon suggested to her that she had better go down-
stairs to her work. Kitty said, " Yes ma'am," but didn't
go. Again Mrs. Roberts suggested, and again Kitty cle-
verly evaded. The third time, the mistress laid down her
work, and any one less stout-hearted than the young person
before her would have trembled at the sharp tone in which
she repeated her order. If it had been addressed to me, I
am sure I should have submitted in trepidation ; as it was, I
trembled for Kitty, who, however, was nothing daunted
and turning round, said, in a tone just one remove from pert
^^ Mr. Rutledge, ma'am, sent me up, and told me to stay
with the young lady, and to wait on her ; and, also^ K^ ^k^^
that^ to be my duty while she's here, ma'^aia?^
S8 BUTLEDGE.
A genaine thundercloud lowered on Mrs. Robeits' face,
but a portentous '' XJmph " was all the rejoinder she made
to this decisive speech. Kitty reassured me with a little
nod, and I quite rejoiced in our apparent victory.
Before long, a servant knocked at the door, and an-
nounced that my room was ready. Then succeeded a plea-
sant bustle and excitement incident to my removal to it.
Kitty insisted upon considering me a perfectly helpless inva-
lid, and would have carried me, if I had not remonstrated,
and Mrs. Roberts had not sneered at the idea. As it was,
she wrapped me up so that I could hardly move, and sup-
porting me with her arm, preceded by Mrs. Roberts, we
crossed the hall, and stopped at the door of the apartment
assigned to me.
" Oh, what a pretty room I" I exclaimed, as we entered it.
Eatty was charmed that I liked it, and proceeded with
great satisfection to do the honors. Wheeling toward me
an easy-chair, and settling me in it before the bright fire
that blazed on the hearth, she said with animation :
" Isn't it a pretty room, miss ? I've always said, that
though the others were bigger and finer, there wasn't
one that had such a sweet pretty look about it as the blue
room had. It's just fit for a young lady like you."
Kitty was not wrong about its being a pretty room ; I
never saw a prettier myself. It was not large, but well-
proportioned and airy. Opposite the door there was a bay
window, with white curtains trimmed with blue, and the
same at the other two windows. The bed at the end of the
room stood in a recess, curtained in the same manner. The
walls were papered with a delicate blue paper, the wood-
work ^bout the room was oak, and all the furniture was oak
and light blue. The carpet, which was in itself a study,
was an arabesque pattern of oak upon a light-blue ground.
The slender vases on the mantel, the pictures in their carved
oak frames, had an inexpressible charm for eyes so long ac-
customed to the bare walls and wooden presses of a board-
tug sdiool dormitory. And even to a maturer taste, 1
think it would have been pleasing ; for I do not remember
ever to have seen a room more entirely in keeping, and in
which there was less out of place and inharmonious. In-
deed, this impression was so strong, that I involuntarily
begged Kitty to put away my dark plaid shawl, the sight
of which, upon the delicate blue so^ annoyed me exceed-
ingly ; and I thought with satisfaction of a certain blue
morning dress in my trunk, that I could put on to-morrow,
by way of being in keeping with the roonk And the white
lava pin and earrings, Agnes' parting gift, which I had
never worn yet, and admired beyond expression, would
come in play exactly.
While Kitty made herself delightfully busy in unpacking
my trunk, which stood in the little dressing-room at the
right, and bestowing my modest wardrobe in the drawers
and closets thereof, I lay nestling in the sofl depths of that
marvellous Sleepy Hollow of a chair, that holding me lov-
ingly in its capacious arms, seemed to perform every office
of a good old nurse, even to the singing of lullabies.
Though that kind attention, I think, really emanated from
the glowing, merry fire, which sung, crackled, and blazed
most hospitably at my feet.
The headache that an hour ago had seemed so insupport
able, had now sub^^iued to a dull throbbing that was com-
paratively ease and comfort ; and to lie there, and look at
the fire, and think about nothing, and speak to nobody, and
be sure that Kitty was near me, and Mrs. Roberts and
" the master " very far away, was all I asked or desired.
This negative sort of bliss found a temporary inter
ruption in the necessary departure of Kitty to the kitchen,
10 procure my tea and bring up candles. I felt rather
babyishly about it, and nothing but shame kept me from
telling Kitty that I had rather do without my tea, and go
to bed by firelight, than have her leave me. She did not
fitay away very long, liowever, and the n\c^ eu^ oi X^-^ ^si\
8() B U T L B U a E .
crisp thin slice of toast, that she brought back with hei
quite compensated me for the sell-denial I had had to exer-
cise in letting her go. These edibles, Kitty, with all the
pomp and circumstance of war, arranged upon the little
table beside me, placing the tall wax candles in the centre,
and distributing the diminutive pieces of the dainty little
tSte-drtete set in the most advantageous manner. The tea
tasted very nicely out of the thin china cup, that felt like a
play-thing when I lifted it, accustomed as I was to the
heavy bluish-white crockery of boarding-school, and though
I lacked the vigorous appetite, that had made the primitive
meals of that establishment enjoyable, still, the delicate food
before me had a decided relish. Kitty very much en-
joyed my appreciation of it, and was very sorry she could
not go do^vn and bring me another slice of toast, but Mr.
Rutledge had said I must not have any more.
"I couldn't eat any more, thank you," I said, rather
haughtily, though "Mr. Rutledge, and not the kind Kitty,
inspired the hauteur. Mrs. Roberts made us a call soon
after this, and said it was high time I went to bed, and told
Kitty sharply, she knew it was her work, keeping me up
so long, and hurried up the preparations for retiring, with
energy. Kitty looked saucy, but did not dare to rebel, and
only indulged in defiance after the door was closed behind
the intruder. She again returned, however, on a final tour
of mspection, ^er I was comfortably arranged in the fair
white delicious bed, that seemed to be a special partner of
tired nature's sv/eet restorer, who was good for any amount
on its demand. She " poked in every corner " as Kitty
expressed it, and found a dozen things to object to in her
arrangements, pulled open drawers, and set Kitty poutingly
at work to settle them properly, and made my temples
throb again with alarm lest she should find something
objectionable among my clothes, some rent in my school
frock, or an undarned stocking smuggled through the vigi-
lant scrutiny of last week's wash. She sent Kitty for her
RUTLEDGE. 31
mattress ami blankets, and superintended the arrangement
of them, though I could see ghe did not enter cordially into
the plan; but ag Mr. Rutledge had ordered that Kitty
should sleep beside me, I was sure she would not dare to
oppose it.
At last there was no excuse lor a longer tarry, and she
withdrew ; Kitty, mth a triumphant gesture, slid the bolt
upon her, and we " settled our brains for a long winter's
nap." A nap not altogether uninterrupted on my part, by
troubled dreams, and sudden starts, and foolish fears ; but
my waking was always mot by Kitty's ready care and
soothing sympathy; and toward morning quieted into a
long refreshing sleep.
CHAPTER III.
" Time ! thou must untangle this, not I,
'Tis too hard a knot for me to untie."
When I awoke, it was to the pleasant reality of morning
and sunshine, that had found their way through the light
curtains of my pleasant room, and made it pleasanter than
ever. Kitty was at my side in an instant, and a brighter,
fresher face to ejreet one's waking: vision could not be de-
sired. She managed, by prompt and clever measures, to
keep off Mrs. Roberts tiU I had bad my breakfast, and risen
and been dressed. It was matter of great astonishment to
me to find myself so absurdly weak, my strength and spirits
at school having passed into a proverb. This sudden illness
had reduced me extremely, however, as I found whenever
I attempted any exertion, and all Kitty's services were re-
quired.
While she was dressing me, she chatted very confiden-
tially, though always with a tone of deference that counter-
balanced the liberty she took in talking at all. Our distaste
for Mrs. Roberts was potent in putting us on as good terms
as young lady and young lady's maid could well be, and
there is a sort of freemasonry in youth that sets at defiance
the restrictions of rank, and that drew us, the two youngest
things in the stately old house, together, naturally and ii-re-
sistibly.
I call it an old house, because it impressed me at first as
such. It was solid and dark, and excepting my room and
one or two others on the same floor, had very little that was
light and modem-looking about it. It had been built, Kitty
said, in the time of Mr. Rutledge's father, and was called the
BUTLED6E. 83
finest lioiise in the country. Loads of money, she uiforme]
me, he had spent upon it ; workmen had been sent for, hun-
dreds of miles, to do the carving and paint the walls, and no
money and no labor was spared to make it a fine place, and
indeed there was none like it anywhere around ; and now to
think of its being shut up like a prison half the year, and
sometimes all the year ; it was a shame, Kitty thought, upon
her honor it was.
I asked her why Mr. Rutledge did not live there ?
She did not know ; she supposed it was lonesome ; he nevei
stayed home for over a couple of months, and then would be
off, for no one knew how long. Sometimes he went to Eu-
rope, and was gone two or three years at a time. And such
dull times as it was then at Rutledge, if you please I No-
body but Mrs. Roberts, and the cook, and dail-y-woman,
besides the fiirm hands. Nothing to do but stand Mrs.
Roberts' preaching fi-om morning till night. She only wished
she'd lived in the old times that her father talked about,
when Rutledge was the gayest of the gay. (Her father, she
explained, had been gardener there for thirty years, and had
lived on tht3 place from a boy.) Such fine doings ! Ah I if
Mr. Rutledge would only take it into his head to have sucli
times now I It was when he was very young, and Mr.
Richard and Miss Alice, and there was nothing but balls and
picnics and pleasure-parties all the time, company staying in
the house, and visitors from the neighborhood for miles
around. Ah I it was mighty different now !
" What has become of the others ? Is Mr. Rutledge the
only one left ?"
Mr. Rutledge, Kitty told me, was the youngest of the
tlu'ee. Mr. Richard died when he was just twenty-four a
month after his father and so Mr. Rutledge came into the
property when lie was a mere lad.
" But the daughter, Alice, what became of her ?"
" I don't know exactly," said Kitty, lowering her voice,
andlookinfic anxiously toward the door. " Th^^f wiN"i^:^ \s5^
2*
84 BUTLEDGE.
about her ; something must have happened very strange, foi
there's always a mystery about Miss Alice. The old servants
on the place will never say a word about her ; and though
['ve teased father again and again, I never could get any-
thing out of him."
"But, Kitty," I exclaimed eagerly, my curiosity tho-
roughly excited, " what makes you think she isn't dead ?"
" Oh I that much I know, that she didn't die then, and
that she didn't die at liome in this house, and isn't buried
there below in the churchyard by the others ; and I know
she was away when old Mr. Rutledge died ; because once
father said it was an awfurthing, when he lay so iU, and out
of his head, to hear him call upon her to come home. All
that night before he died, he would call ' Alice ! Alice 1' till
you could Tiear it all over the house. And father says," con-
tinued the girl, in a still lower tone, " that sometimes of wild
dark nights, when he's coming past the house late frop his
work, he could swear for all the world that he hears the old
man still calling ' Alice ! Alice I' till it makes his blood freeze
to listen to it. And then, when I say 'Where was she,
father, all the time, and why didn't she come to him ?' ho
always says, ' that's not for the like of you to hear about ;
it's none of your business, child, nor mine,' and sends me ofl
about something else."
" But, Kitty," I persisted, " is that all you know of her ?
Tell me all you've ever heard ; was she pretty ?"
"Oh, so pretty! You can't think how white her skin
was, and her eyes like violets, so large and blue, and curls all
over her head loose, shiny curls."
" How do you know," I said quickly ; *' surely you never
aaw her, did you ?"
Kitty blushed and stammered, and said, "No, not ex-
actly ; but there was something she had seen she'd never
told anybody about ; she didn't know whether she ought
to ;" but the result was, she at last impaited to me the fol
lowing:
RUTLEDGK. 86
" When Kitty \\ as about twelve years old, it appeared,
from her account, the demon of curiosity was stronger in
her even than it was now, and her keen young eyes had de-
tected long before that time, what had escaped many maturer
observers, viz., that at th-e end of the upper hall thero was a
room, that was ignored in all descriptions of the house, and
might well, indeed, have been overlooked. A huge ward
robe stood in the middle of the space between the corner
room on the east, and the corner room on the west, of the
hall ; and none but a very inquiring mind like Kitty's would
have investigated the exact dimensions of these rooms, whe-
ther they met and were separated but by a partition, or
whether a distinct room, the width of the hall, and corres-
ponding to Mr. Rutledge's dressing-room at the opposite
end, existed between them. Kitty crept down on the lawn
and looked up on the outside, and discovered a large win-
dow, the shutters of which were closed and dusty ; and on
exploring the comer rooms, they corroborated her suspi-
cions ^they did not extend across the hall. Behind that
wardrobe, Kitty knew, then, existed a door ; and night and
day the insane desire to penetrate beyond it, haunted the
child.
At length, circumstances seemed to favor the fulfillment
of her wishes. It was a beautiful, mild May day, and tho
untiring energy of Mrs. Roberts was enjoying a full swing
in the pursuit of her favorite divertissement of house-clean-
ing. Doors and windows were thrown open ; all manner
of scouring and scrubbing was going on in all parts of the
bouse. Step-ladders and water-pails graced the hall ; the
ddor of soap-suds and lime filled the ah*. Serene amid tho
confusion, Mrs. Roberts applied herself to the overlooking
and rearranging the identical wardrobe in the hall, that had
80 long been the fascination and torment of little Kitty,
who, it may well be supposed, was " on hand " during the
operation. Demui*e and useful, she made herself very offi-
cious in assisting Mrs. Roberts in her \a\OT%^ ^\.9ccv^\\iQL^^Qrt
86 BUTLEDGE.
bonis logetLer, to be loaded witb the heavy piles of ricb
old curtains from the shelves, faded long ago, and anti-
quated table-covers, heavy Marseilles coverlets, that must
have made the sleepers of old time ache to turn over under;
great packages folded up in linen, through the ends of
which Kitty's eager eyes caught glimpses of satin and bro-
cade, and the tarnished buttons of military clothes. Kitty
ntfVer thought of her aching arms, or her tired little feet;
she never took her eyes away, and never lost a movement
of Mrs. Roberts, nor a sight of anything before her ; and
after dinner, following like a kitten at the housekeeper's
heels, came back to the fascinating business of disinterring
the faded glories of the past.
By three o'clock, the shelves were all emptied and the
drawers all taken out ; and Mrs. Roberts was just begin-
ning the important business of dusting and wiping them,
and restoibg their precious contents, when a man from the
fields came posting up to the house in the greatest haste,
with the intelligence that a pair of the farm-horses had run
away, and done no end of damage to themselves and to the
man who was driving them, who was now lying below the
bam in a state of insensibility, and Mrs. Roberts' assistance
was instantly required. It was not a case that admitted of
a demur, and the housekeeper bustled off, leaving Kitty
with orders to stay where she was, and take care of the
things left about till she came back, and, taking the only
woman who was upstairs with hen left Kitty in possession
of the field.
She did not mean to move the wardrobe, but it was so
natural just to tiy how heavy it was, and if it would really
stir ! And to her surprise and guilty pleasure, the ward-
robe, lightened of its weighty contents, yielded to her
touch, and moved a little a very little way forward ; but
enough to show to her eager eyes, in the dark wood- w ork,
a door, over which generations of painstaking spiders had
spun their webs unchecked, and where the scourge of Mra
RUTLBDaiC. 87
Roberta' eye had failed, or feared tc penetrate. Kitty,
holding har breath for fear, turned the knob ; it resisted ; it
was locked, of course, possibly on the outside, and the key
might have been taken out. An expedient struck the
child's fertile brain ; and she darted across the hall, and,
possessing herself of the key of the corresponding room,
darted back again and applied it to the lock. It fitted, and
turned in it ; the knob yielded to her eager grasp, and, too
near the completion of her wishes now to pause, she wound
her lithe figure through the narrow aperture, and pushing
open the door, stood within the mysterious room 1 For a
moment, Kitty's heart beat quick; an awe crept over her ;
for a moment she longed to be out in the sunshine again
But her elastic spirits and indomitable curiosity soon
triumpliod over the transitory dread inspired by the dark-
ness and solemnity of the deserted chamber, and the close,
dead atmosphere, and the uneaithly stillness ; and, gaining
courage every moment, she made her way, with what caution
she might, toward the window, undid the fastening, and,
pushing up a very little way the heavy sash, tunied the
blmd, and let in a ray of God's blessed sunlight, dim and
dull enough, though, through the dusty panes, into this
strange room, deserted these many, many years, it would
seem, both of God and man. Kitty was a bold child, littk
given to nervousness or timidity, or she would have shrunk
m terror from the weird, fantastic shadows that the dim
light showed about the room. But that was not Kitty's
way; and, sitting down on a divan by the window, she
rested her elbows on hor knees and her chin upon her hands,
iu contemplative fashion, and proceeded to look about her.
What a strange sight it must have been ! the slow sun-
beam creeping over the faded carpet, and lighting up the
dust-covered furniture and the dusky walls. Kitty's glance
first turned, naturally enough, to the bed, which, richly
curtained and spacious, stood on the left of the door. The
ourtains were swepi back and the bed was made, out it was
38 BUTLEDOE.
apparent that souie one had occupied it, Ijing on the out
Bide; the pillows were displaced and crushed, and the
coverlet was deranged. That, since the occupation of that
sonie onCy the room had never been arranged or touched,
seemed evident, from the confusion and disorder that pre-
vailed. The door of the wardrobe on the right was partly
open, and a dress was hanging out from it. A shawl, faded
beyond recognition, hung upon the chair near Kitty, and
at her feet lay a slipper such a slim, pretty little slipper !
while on the toilette table, you could have sworn, a hasty
hand had just dropped the stopper in that odor-bottle, and
pushed back the glove-box that stood open under the glass.
Pins rusted in the embroidered cushion ; dust inch thick
on the mirror and over all, told of a dreary space since any
human face had been reflected there. Upon a little table
by the window stood a work-box and some books, and in a
slender vase, the ghosts of some flowers that fell to dust at
Kitty's touch. But what most excited her wonder, was a
picture, that, with its face to the wall, was placed on the
floor near the door. It evidently did not belong to the fur-
niture of the room, and had been put there hastily, and to
be out of the way. Kitty surveyed it from hor seat
curiously, and .at last crept up to it, and turned it around,
then slipping down on the carpet before it, was soon lost in
admiration of the lovely face it presented to her.
The lustre of the dark-blue eyes, and the delicate outline
of the oval face, from which large wavy curls of fair hair
were pushed back with girlish freedom, stamped themselves
indelibly upon Kitty's retentive memory. It must have been
an odd sight ; the eager child, in that dark, uncanny room,
upon her hands and knees before the picture, watching it in
utter fascination, forgetful of the passing moments, and
of all save the sweet face so strangely banished from the
light.
But the heavy shutting of the hall door, and the sound
of voicas in the hall below, put a sudden period to theso
RUTLEDGE. 39
&ncics, and brought -her to her feet with a desperate start
and a pang of genuine fear. This was a tangible terror,
and as such, Kitty's common sense succumbed to it. With
nervous haste, she restored the picture, flew across the
room and drew down the window, and made the best of her
way back toward the door. But in her haste, her feet
became entangled in something, and tripping up, in an
instant she lay at full length on the floor. She disengaged
her feet from the impediment that had caused her fall ; it
was a long ribbon, and a locket was attached to it ; hastily
thrusting them into her bosom, she picked herself up, and
sprang toward the door. Steps were already mounting the
stairs ; a voice she knew too well was already audible ; the
unused lock grated and creaked cruelly under the nervous
hands that struggled with it; but, with the strength of ter-
ror, she mastered it at last locked it, dropped the key in
her pocket, slipped through the narrow space between the
wall and the wardrobe, with an eager push restored the
latter to its place, and before Mrs. Roberts reached the
landing, stood, a pallid, trembling, but undetected culprit,
among the piles of valuables she had been left to guard.
The habitual daikness of that end of the hall, -increased by
the near approach of twilight, screened her white cheeks
from the scrutiny of Mrs. Roberts' searching eyes, and the
haste that lady was in to restore the wardrobe to its
ancient and uninterrupted order, further favored her
escape.
But she fully paid the penalty of hci crime she acknow-
ledged, in the dread she felt lest it should be discovered,
and the unaccustomed alarm she endured, when on dark
nights, her ruthless mistress sent her candleless to bed ; and
Bhe, with suspended breath and strained ear, would creep
past the mysterious chamber to her own little loft above, to
lie whole hours awake and trembling. Her fertile imagina-
tion had supplied the wanting links in the chain of fact ;
and the fair-haired Alice, the oanished daughtev of \\\i
40 S i: T LB D G E.
house, was lier dream of beauty by day and her Laun' i^*
terror by night.
"But Kitty," I exclaimed, breathlessly, 'does no me
else know of the room ? Does no one ever go m it ?"
" Oh yes ! Mrs. Roberts must know of it, for she 1 /ed
here long before the present Mr. Rutledge was master ; she
knows all the famUy secrets, I'll warrant. But neither she
nor any one else ever troubles that room, I'm pretty s ire.
I've watched it close enough, and the wardrobe never has
been stirred since that day I did it, six years ago last spring.
Hardly any one goes to that end of the hall ; the comer
rooms are shut up and not used, and Mr. Rutledge's own
rooms, and Mrs. Robei*tg', and this one for visitors, being
all on this side of the house, there's very little occasion for
anybody to go near the others in the rear."
" What was in the locket you picked up ?" I asked.
" It was a miniature, tied by a long. narrow blue ribbon,
and that night, when I got upstau*s, I bolted the door and
looked at it ; it was the picture of a gentleman, young anJ
00''
CHAPTER IV.
" The deeds v^e do, the words wc say
Into still air they seem to fleet : ^,
We count them ever past
But they shall last
In the dread judgment they
And we sliall meet !"
Lyra Innockntium.
But our antiquarian researches were brought to a sudden
conclusion by the appearance of Mi*s. Roberts at the door,
whose, cold eye seemed to say, she comprehended at a
glance that we were in mischief and no effort should be
wanting on her part to thwart our further confidence.
That much she looked^ the following she said :
" Mr. Rutledge desires to know how the young lady i%
and whether she is ready to see him ?"
" She'll be ready in one minute," said Kitty, hurrying
nervously the retarded business of arranging my hair.
Mrs. Roberts stationed herself at the fire, and threefold
increased Kitty's nervousness, and my trepidation, by the
stony gaze she fixed upon us. At last, however, the opera-
tion v/as concluded, and Kitty helped me to the sofa, and
regulated the light from the window, put away my dressing-
gown, and gave the last touches to the room ; while Mrs.
Roberts looked on sardonically, and then told Kitty to go
and call her master. I had hoped this order of things
would have been reversed, and that Mrs. Roberts herself
would have gone to summon my dreaded visitor, leaving
me a moment's time to recover my composure, under the
genial influence of Kitty's sturdy courage, which to do her
justice, she had not long been disarmed of As it was, the
housekecpei^s efforts at conversation were not of an enlivcu-
41
^2 BUTLEDGE.
ing character, her first remark being, "that Kitty wae
much of a chatter-box, and she should speak to the master
to give her altogether downstairs work to do, where
there would be nobody to be hindered or bothered by hel
tattle;
I tried to remonstrate, but, for my life, could not say an
audible word, and nervous and trembling to an absurd
degree, 1 listened for the approaching footsteps in the hall.
The door opened, and Mr. Rutledge entered. Walking up
to me in his firm quick way, he said, extending his left hand ;
" Well, my young friend, and how's the headache ?" J
stammered something about its being better, while he sat
down beside me, and with wonderful tact and patience,
cried to amuse and draw me into conversation.
Xow it was an inexplicable thing to me at that time,
that I, who had never known the first emotions of awe
before, in presence even of the imposing dignitaries of St.
Catharine's I who had pulled the wool alike over the eyes
of governesses and professors ^I, who had enjoyed, if ever
any did in that establishment, the privilege of doing as I
pleased, by reason of the inability of anybody to prevent me
^that I should, I say, be so utterly subdued and humble,
before this quiet stranger, was an inexplicable thing to me.
I had yet to learn, that those, clothed in a little brief
authority, and holding temporary sway over young minds
and wills, are not always and inevitably so far exalted, in
intellect and in character, above those they are supposed to
govern, as were to be wished, and as they sincerely desire
to appear. Narrow-minded pedantry and injudicious igno-
rance often rush in, to responsibilities and duties that
angels might \?ell tremble to assume the moulding for
good or evil,* the flexile souls of children during the most
vital years of their lives.
Be this as it may, I quailed for the first time before a
superior, and not without a stubborn feeling of resistance,
owned myself in the presence of one I feared. I suppose
BXjfLBDGE. 4S
I must tave looked very childish, with my hair brushed
down simply and knotted low on my neck, and a tiny linen
collar turned over my plain blue merino frock ; the lava
pin and earings having been unavoidably omitted in the
hasty completion of my toilette. These circumstances of
dress, I comforted' myself, might account in part for the
manner in which Mr. Rutledge continued to treat me, and
which was very galling to my pride, for being at the most
sensitive period of adolescence, nothing could have been
more humbling than to be regarded as childish and im-
mature. Such considerations did not add to my ease of
manner, or grace of deportment, and all Mr. Rutledge'a
well-selected topics of conversation fell to the ground foi
want of a sustaining power on my side. At last relinquish
ing the attempt, he turned to Mrs. Roberts, and gave her
minute instructions in regard to my medicine and diet, felt
my pulse, and pronounced me very much improved ; but he
judged it, he said, very much better for me to lie on the
sofa pretty quietly all day. Perhaps by to-morrow, I might
be well enough to come downstah-s for a little while, he
continued, looking attentively at me, to see, I suppose,
how I bore the intelligence of my prolonged captivity. He
did not see any expression of impatience in my face, how
ever, firstly, because I did not feel any, and secondly,
because, if I had, J. would have concealed it to-day. He
rose to go, first turning toward the bay window, where ho
stood for some minutes thoughtfully, attracted by the
beauty of the landscape it overlooked.
"After all," he said at length, addressing Mrs. Roberta
more than me, and his own thoughts, perhaps, more than
either, "the view of the lake is finer from this window than
from any other in the house. The slope of the lawn is
beautiful, and that opening in the pine grove on the left,
through which you see up to the head of the lake, is very
fine. Mrs. Roberts," abruptly, " do you remember when
th^it opening was cut ?"
44 RUTLEDGB.
"Yes air," said Mrs. Roberts (she was never Icnoiini to
have forgotten anything), " it was during Mrs. Rutledge,
your mother's last illneas ; she sat a great deal in that win-
dow, and your father had it cut to suit her fancy. I remem-
ber the very morning that the workmen began it ; she was
so interested, and quite tired herself with watching them,
and sending them orders."
" Ah ! I think I remember something of it. I must
have been " ^
" Just eight years old, sir," said Mrs. Roberts with pre-
cision. " She died the next spring, when Mr. Richard was
in his sixteenth year ; there was just four years between
you and "
" Yes, I know."
A dark frown contracted his brow ; a forbidding com-
preFsion of the lips renewed the dread that had begun to
lesstn under his patient kindness. During the five minutes
that he stood thus by the window, we were, I suppose, Bfi
entirely forgotten as one of us, at least, desired to be. The
trivial Present fell back into insignificance and oblivion
before the iron domination of some stern memory, that
touched with ruthless hand, his tenderest affection, that
humbled his pride, and baffled his indomitable will. This
much I could see, in the restless light of his dark eye, as it
wandered over the familiar scene ; child as I was, I could
not but see the suffering in his face. At last, with an
effort, he threw off the tyrant memory, and abruptly turn-
ing, quitted the room. Something almost as human as a
sigh escaped from Mrs. Roberts blue lips, as his steps
echoed across the hall, and his door closed heavily.
With me, the day passed quietly and pleasantly enough |
Mrs. Roberts took the precaution to leave Kitty alone with
me as little as possible, always managing to come in, when
Kitty had got nicely fixed with her sewing at the furthest
window, and find some excuse to send her away for half an
hour or so. But as Kitty had brought me some books from
the library, and as I felt too lazy and indifferent to object
to anything, I did not much mind her surveillance.
The chicken soup that Kitty brought me for my dinner,
was the very nicest ever administered to hungry con vale
scent ; and after the meal was concluded, and the afternoon
snn shut out, I made up for all deficiencies in last night's
repose by a very satisfactory sleep ; from which I awoke
with a start, to find that I had slept " the all-golden after-
noon " quite away, and that twilight was stealing over the
quiet lake, and the rich autumn woods. I smoothed back
the tumbled hair from my face, and leaning against the
window, looked thoughtfully out. The sun had but just
gone down, and lefl the horizon still glowing with his light,
without a single cloud to break the unruffled (lm of sky
and lake. Not a breath of wind stirred the dead leaves
that lay thick beneath the trees in the park ^not a sound
broke the stiUness. How hushed and silent the dark house
was! How much more to the past did it seem to belong,
than to the living actual present. And turn my eyes or
thoughts whichever way I might, they still reverted to some
thing that would remind me of the strange story I had heard
that morning, still brought before me the desolate room,
where the dust of years lay on all traces of her, who, ban-
ished, or wronged, or fled, had darkened forever the home
she left. With her, it seemed, had vanished the gaiety,
the life of the house ; following fast upon her absence had
come death and desolation ; and the sole survivor of this,
her ancient race, grew steni and silent at the merest allu-
sion to her.
My young brain grew feverish and impatient at the baf-
fling mystery, and refused to entertain any other thought
or interest, A vague dread and superstitious awe crept
over me as the twilight waxed dimmer and greyer, and the
dying fire smouldered on the hearth, and the stillness re
mained unbroken. Where was everybody ; or had I slept
over a few y eare, and were they all dead ? A\iA ^'^"^v \ ^\t
16 JL Z ThED G E,
only living thing in the great house another Princess in
another Day dream, only wakened without the kiss, and the
prince gone off in a huff?
I laughed aloud, but my laughter had a very hoUoTT
sound, and only made the succeeding silence more ghastly
it was very foolish, but I was exceedingly uncomfortable.
Why didn't Kitty come? I could not find a bell. I
searched in vain for matches ; the fire was past service, and
could not for its life, have raised flame enough to light a
candle. Every minute the room grew darker and chillier,
every minute the silence grew more and more oppressive. I
began to think of what Kitty had said of the voice that
still called " Alice " through the vacant halls ; and then I
wondered whether this were not the very room in which
the father died ; and then I tried not to listen or hear any-
thing, and the next moment found myself with strained ear,
watching for the lightest sound.
At last I could endure it no longer, and groping my way
to the door, opened it, and held my breath, as I listened for
some sound to indicate that I was not the only thing that
breathed and lived within the gloomy wallfj But such
sound was wanting ; a more vacant, drearier silence reigned
without than within the room ; through the long hall and
distant corridors, not a footfall, not a motion ; the rustle of
my own dress awoke the only echoes. I dared not look
toward the end of the hall that I had learned so much to
dread ; but starting forward and leaning over the balusters
I called " Kitty," in a voice that would fain have been sten-
torian, but was in actual fact a whisper. No answer, of
course, and the faltering whisper seemed to float down the
dreary vacancy with mocking lightness and unconcern. 1
called again, this time desperation overcoming the choking
terror.
Then there was a sound of some one moving, a dooi
opened on the opposite side of the hall, a light appeared,
and Mr. liutledge's voice said, " What is it ?"
BUTLEDOB. 47
\
What wag it, indeed ; it irould have been difficult to say
just what it was, and so I found it.
" Oh ! it is you. I beg your pardon. Do you want Kitty V"
I said yes, and that I had been asleep, and just waked up
a little while since, and could not find any matches. My
white cheeks told the rest. Mr. Rutledge explained that
Kitty had been sent to the post-office, and had not returned
yet ; he was very sorry she had not been at hand to attend to
me, and coming across the hall, brought a light to my door.
Very much ashamed of my fears, I went in to get my candle.
" Why," he said, looking in ; " your fire is all out, it looks
dieary enough ; I am afraid you will take cold. You had
better come down to the library and have tea with me.
How will that do ?
" It will do very well," I said decidedly ; for as to stay
ing up there all alone till Kitty came back, it was not to be
thought of, and folding my shawl around me, I stepped out
into the hall, and with great satisfaction, shut the door of
my room, and followed Mr. Rutledge through the hall and
down the stairs. I kept pretty close to him, b^ we de-
scended into the vast chilly-looking lower hall, but the
coldness of its marble pavement, and the darkness of its
heavy panels, only made the library, as we entered it,
doubly attractive. The fire that would have made any
other room uncomfortable at that season of the year, only
wai-med pleasantly the wide and lofty apartment. As
Batty said, "those great windows let in no end of air,
and it took a power of wood to make it fit to stay in."
And a " power of wood " now lay, " a solid core of heat "
upon the hearth, casting a warm glow over the book cases
that lined the walls, and the huge windows with their-crim-
son drapery. The room delighted me ; there was such an
air of comfort and elegance about it, and the warai fire and
bright lamp took from it the look of old-fashioned grandeur
that is so comfortless, but so universal, in houses that have
remained unchanged for a generation or so.
iS KVTLEDGE.
^ What a delightful room !" I could not help exclaiming,
as my eyes wandered eagerly over the long rows of books,
that stood one above another, from floor to ceiling, in every
vaiiety of binding, from the dusky calf of a hundred or so
years ago, to the elegant morocco and gilt of to-day.
" Yes, it is quite a delightful room foi any one who likea
books,*' said Mr. Rutledge, seating himself by the fire ; "do
you like them ?"
" That's rather a general question, sir," I said, walking
up to the case on the right side of the fireplace, where
some more modern-looking volumes tempted my curiosity.
" So it is," ansv/ered my companion, pushing his chair a
little further from the fire, and leaning back, shading his
eyes with his hand. " It is rather general, I admit ; but to
reduce it to a more particular and answerable shape, are
you fond of reading ?"
" Some sort of books I like to read, sir."
" What is the sort you like ?"
" Why," I said, rather puzzled, " I like ^why 1 can't tell
you exactly but I like books that amuse me, that are not
dry and stupid."
" There are so many different criterion^ of dryness and
stupidity," said Mr. Rutledge with an amused smile, " that
your answer, I must confess, doesn't give me much light i
some people might consider as highly interesting, you
know, what you and I might look upon as hopelessly dry
and stupid."
I thought, as Mr. Rutledge said, " you and I," that it
was very polite in him to put it so, but that he probably
knew as well as I, that we had very different tastes, and
that my favorite books were as unknown and indifferent to
him, as his literary proclivities were, in all probability, ele-
vated above, and incomprehensible to me.
" For instance," he said, " I like natural history. Now,
a great many persons think it very dull. How is it with
you ?"
BUTLEDGE. 49
* That's just a case in point," I answered, with an effort
not to care what he thought of me, " I never could get in-
terested in it at all."
* I am not surprised ; it is not very often attractive to
those of your age and sex. Now, leaving off the ' natural,*
perhaps you're fond of history ?"
I reflected a moment ; but while " White's Universal,"
and "Esquisses Historiques" were so vividly fresh and
hateful, how could I honestly say I liked history ? Yet I
knew there were some historical works that I had as soon
read as novels, but I did not know how to explain it ; so I
eaid, " I don't like all history, by any means."
" Neither do I," said Mr. Rutledge ; " we agree on that
X)oint, and I am certain we shall on many others, if we can
only get at them. Suppose you take any shelf, for instance,
the lower one on your right, and let us see what we think
of the contents. What's the first volume this way ?"
I stooped down and read off the name, " Hallam's Mid-
dle Ages."
" Ah I" exclaimed my interlocutor, " we have stumbled
upon history in earnest. How do you stand affected to-
ward * Hallam's Middle Ages ' ?"
" I like it exceedingly, sir." I responded very concisely,
very much afraid of being pressed to give my reasons,
which would have involved me in utter dismay and confu-
(don, for in common with most very young persons, I liked
because I liked, and disliked upon the same discriminating
principle.
" What comes next ?" asked Mr. Rutledge, to my great
relief.
" * Goldsmith's Animated Nature.' "
** Ah ! you don't like that. What follows ?"
*'A long row of ' Buffon,' sir, and thdn *Tytler's TJni.
versal Histoiy.' I haven't read 'Buffon,' and I think
Tytler well ^very nice, but tiresome, you know."
" Try the shelf above."
8
50 KUTLEDaS.
*'Tbe first book, sir, is 'Irving's Goldsmith."*
" Did you ever read it ?"
I said Miss Crowen had given it to me to read, laat vooa-
lion.
" You found it tiresome ?"
" Tiresome ! why, sir, I think it is the nicest book in the
world. I can't help thinking how Goldsmith would lovo
Mr. Irving, if he knew about it ! Next, sir, comes a very
pretty copy of ' Macaulay's Roman Lays,' and five volumes
of his * Essays.' "
" Did Miss Crowen give you Macaulay to read ?"
" I took it from the library, and she did not make any
objection."
" And what do you think of him as a writer ?'*
I did not need to look in his face to know how much
diverted ho was at the idea of extracting a criticism of the
great historian from such a chit as I ; and summoning aU my
courage to the aid of my pride, I answered steadily.
" If one of my ' age and sex,' sir, can be considered to have
an opinion, I should say, that though Mr. Macaulay is pro*
bably the most brilliant wi'iter of the century, he is the one
who has done the least good. I don't think any one who
has the least faith, reverence, or loyalty, can read him ex.
cept under protest."
" Which means," said Mr. Rutledge, " that you and Mr.
Macaulay are so unhappy as to differ on some points of
politics and theology, ripest ce pas /"
" I know very little about politics, and less about theo*
logy ; I only know how I feel when he calls Kmg Charles
the First ' a bungling villain, * a bad man,' and says even
prettier things about Lord Stafford ; I know it vexes me
when he elevates Cromwell ' into a man whose talents were
equal to the highest duties of a soldier and a prince,' and
never omits an opportunity of sneering, with a mixture of
contempt and pity, at tlat slow old institution, the Churcb
of England."
BUTLECGS. 61
And jrou do not agree with him ?"
" Agree with him !"
" What sentiments," exclaimed Mr. Rutlodge, " what
sentiments for a young republican ! Do you mean to
tell me that you don't look upon the death-warrant of
Charles as the * Major Oharta' of England ? Do you mean
to say that you don't regard it as the first step in that
blessed march of liberty that is regenerating the world ?"
" A blessed march indeed I" I cried indignantly, '* over
the dead bodies of honor and obedience, faith and loyalty !
A blessed march, to the tune of the Marseillaise and
murder !"
" But, my young friend, how do you make that view of
the subject agree with your patriotism as an American,
and your veneration for Washington? Were there no
carcasses of deceased obedience and loyalty imder his
chariot-wheels ?'"
" brdce d IHeu /" I cried, eagerly, " it was Liberty, but
Liberty with a different cap on, and marching under very
different colors, that Washington fought for; no more
the same deity that Cromwell and Robespierre acknow
ledged, than the idol of the Hindoo is the God we wor*
ship !"
Mr. Rutledge shrugged his shoulders, and begged me to
explain the difference to him. And with a vehement mix-
ture of enthusiasm, ignorance and anger, I tried to explain
my meaning to him, but, as was not difficult to foresee,
made but little headway in my argument, every moment
adding to my adversary's coolness and my own impatience.
I altogether forgot ipy diffidence and alarm ; I was too
angry and excited to think who it was I was talking to ; I
only knew he was opposing and tripping me up, and say-
ing the most hateful things in the coolest way, and exas.
perating me to the highest degree, and not being a bit
exasperated with all my saucy replies ; and it was not till 1
had exhausted all my combined wrath aad \c^\c^ i\\^\ A
6S BDTLEDGB.
caught a lurking smile about bis moutb, that flasbcd upoG
me the conviction that I was entirely the victim of his wit,
and that he had just been arguing on the wrong side for the
sake of argument and amusement.
"After all," I exclaimed, " I believe you think just as I
do, and have only been talking so, to draw me out !"
** Why, mademoiselle I How can you suspect me of such
duplicity ?" he said, with his peculiar short laugh.
And seizing a book, I sank down on the sofa to hide my
burning cheeks behind its pages. How angry, frightened
and mortified I felt, no words can tell, and every stealthy
glance I obtained of my neighbor but added to my vexation.
Wholly absorbed in his paper, he seemed to have forgotten
all about me and my indignation ; and having furnished him
with half an hour's amusement, I was to be pushed aside to
make ay for a more serious train of thought, such as was
now knitting his brow, and fixing his attention over some
political debate or Congressional transaction. I might
smooth my ruffled temper at my leisure ; no danger of inter-
ruption or observation ; I might solace myself with what
consolation was to be found in the reflection, that whatever
I had said savoring of exaggeration or absurdity, was by
this time doubtless entirely forgotten by my companion.
But it was a slim comfort, and could not displace the angry
thought ^what business had he to catechise me so ; make
me stand there, and tell him what books I had read, and
then lead me on to say all manner of foolish things ? My
cheeks glowed at the recollection. There was one comfort ;
I knew enough now, never to let him have the amusement
of making me angry again ; he should never hear anything
but monosyllables from me henceforth I would be ice and
marble- when he was by.
Presently there came a low knock at the door, and
Batty appeared, very fresh and rosy from her walk, and
entering, laid upon the table some papers and a couple of
letters.
BUT LEDGE. 58
" Ah !" said the master, in a tone of satisfaction, reaching
out his hand for them, " the mail is late to-night. You may
send tea up ; we will take it here this evening."
Kitty looked in great astonisLment to see me downstairs,
but the etiquette of the place forbade anything more on niy
part than a glance of recognition, and Kitty retired to
order tea sent up. Till that refreshment arrived, and was
arranged upon the table, Mr. Rutledge devoted himself to
the newly-arrived papers, of whose contents he possessed
himself with surprising celerity; and before the servant
announced that tea was ready, I had watched his eyes scan
rapidly every column of every paper ; and looking up from
the last one as Thomas made his announcement, he laid it
aside, and turned toward the table, asking me, with a smile,
if I should mind the trouble of pouiing out tea. It was an
attention, he said, that he was generally obliged to pay to
himself, but it would make it much more agreeable if I would
take the trouble.
I took my place behind the heavy silver service, and with
fingers that trembled very visibly, proceeded, for the first
time in my life, to fill that womanly oflice. Mr. Rutledge
looked on silently, and without note or comment received
and drank his tea. The toast and cake were unpatronized ;
Mr. Rutledge, I am inclined to think, forgot them, so
absorbed did he appear in his own thoughts ; and I, for my
Dart, shrinking behind the urn, considered myself suflSciently
taxed in swallowing a cup of tea, which almost choked me,
as it was. It was not till the tea-things were removed that
Mr. Rutledge allowed himself to open his letters, doing this,
as everything else, at great disadvantage, and with some
effort, with his left hand. I resumed my book, and did not
raise my eyes, till some tim^ having elapsed, Mr. Rutledge,
rising, handed me a letter, which he said had come inclosed
to him in one he had just received from my aunt. I opened
It with considerable interest, and looking up from the
reading of it ^itli a smile, met Mr. Rutledge's eye ^\\ft %\^*
\
64 BUTT* EDGE.
" Ml 8. Churchill seems to bo very much alanned aboot
yon, I think it's (juite lucky that she was prevented from
coming on in person, for she would have considered herself
basely deceiv 3d, I am afraid, if she had dropped in upon us
this evening ; the two objects of her solicitude taking tea
comfortably downstairs, in the apparent enjoyment of unin-
terrupted health. My bandaged arm, I believe, is the only
visible reminder of the accident."
" How is it to-day, sir ?" I asked, rather faintly.
He looked a little inclined to smile, remembering, no
doubt, that this was the first time I had vouchsafed an in-
quiry concerning it ; but he answered very civilly, that it
was rather painful : whether old Sartain had made some
blunder in setting it, or whether he had not kept it suffi-
ciently quiet, he could not tell. However, he had no doubt
it would soon be all right, etc.
Therewith he dismissed the subject ; but I could not dis-
miss so easily, a little feeling of remorse for my selfishness
and thoughtlessness ; and he had been so careful of my com-
fort, too ! Perhaps from that reflection, I was very prompt
to drop my book in my lap, and be very attentive to his
first remark, as, pushing away the pile of letters and papers,
he leaned thoughtfully back in his chair, and said :
" You have not seen your a^mt for a long time, have you ?^
" It is rather more than five years, sir, since I have seen
her."
" Have you been at school all that time ?"
"Yes, sir; I have been there vacations and all. Aunt
Edith went away the year after I was put there, and only
came back last spring."
"Josephine is considerably older than you, is she not?"
"Just two years, sir ; Josephine was nineteen last month,
and I shall be seventeen the 28th of December, and Grace is
eighteen months younger."
" I suppose you remember them quite well ?"
^ Not very, sir ; I have never seen a great deal of them
R U T L D G E . 55
We lived in the country, and excepting when we went to
town for a visit, we were not together. You met them
abroad, did you not, sir ?"
** Yes ; we travelled tlirough Switzerland together, and I
saw them very frequently last winter in Paris."
"Oh 1" I exclaimed, eagerly, quite forgetting my dignified
resolutions, " do tell me about them. Is Josephine taller
than I, and is she pretty? They say she sings so beauti-
folly ! Does she ?"
" Where shall I begin ?" he said, with a smile. " Such
an avalanche of questions overwhelms me. First, as to
height ; well (thoughtfully), let me consider. It is difficult
to judge. Stand up, and let me see how tall you are."
I sprang up, in perfectly good faith, and stood erect before
him for three full minutes, while, with a critical eye, he sur-
veyed me fi-om head to foot.
** I should say," he continued very deliberately, while I re-
sumed my seat, " I should say that there was not the diffei-
ence of an eighteenth of an inch between you."
"Really?" I exclaimed. "Why, isn't that odd! It's
very nice, isn't it, for us to be so near alike ?"
" I did not say you were near alike."
" Oh, but in size I mean. I know we don't look alike.
Josephine used to be such a thin, dark, old-looking little
girl, that I cannot imagine her tall and grown-up."
" I think," continued Mr. Rutledge, " that she is still ra-
tter slighter than you are ; though your additional shade of
health and robustness will, I fancy, soon be lost, under the
influence of town habits and constant dissipation."
" Are they very gay ? Docs my aunt go a great deal into
society ?" I asked.
" They did in Paris, and I fancy it will be the same in
New York. In fact, there is little doubt of it."
" I wonder," I said, leaning my cheek on my hand, and
looking thoughtf illy into the fire " I do so wonder whether
I shall like it."
56 KOTLEDGB.
" Ah I my child," he said rather sadly, " you n2ed not
w^aste much wonder upon that ; you will like it but too weVu
Wonder, with a shudder and a prayer, how you will bear
the ordeal."
He sighed, and pressed his hand for a moment before hia
eyes ; then catching my wistful look, he continued in a
lighter tone :
" But I do not mean to frighten you ; people, you know,
are very apt to preach against what they are tired of, and
inveigh against the world after they have ' been there,' and
have seen its best and its worst, and tasted eagerly of both ;
and have spent years in its service, and are only disgusted
when they find that it will yield them no more. They have
no right to discourage you young things, just on the thres-
hold, eager and impatient for you don't know what of gloiy
and delight."
" Why, yes ; I'm sure they have a right to warn us, if
ilrey see our danger. I am sure it is their duty."
" Oh !" he said, with one of his quick laughs, " it would
oe a thankless task ; they would not be heeded. You all
have to go through it, and how you come out is only a ques-
tion of degree some more, and some less tainted accord-
ing to the stuff you're made of."
" I don't want to believe that."
" You want to believe, I suppose, that you can go into
the fire and not he burned; that you can go into the world
and not grow worldly ; that you can spend your youth in
vanity, and not reap vexation of spirit ; that you can go
cheek by jowl with hollo wness, and falsehood, and corrup-
tion, and yet keep truth and puiity in your heart ! Yon
want to believe this, my little girl, but you must go to
some one who has seen less, or seen it with different eyes
from me, to hear it."
" I want to believe the truth, whether it's easy or hard,
and I had rather know it now, at the beginning, if I've got
to know it, than when it is forced upon me by experience '
fiUTLEDGE. 67
** Wisel} said, ma petite ; self-denial, bard as it is, is
easier than repentance ; but there are few of us who would
not rather take our chances for escaping repentance and
* dodge ' the self denial, too. Is not that the way ?"
" I don't know ; I suppose so. But, if the world is really
as dangerous as you say, why should kind mothers and
fnends take the young girls they have the charge of, into
it ? "Why should my aunt, for instance, take Josephine into
society, the very gayest and most brilliant ?"
An almost imperceptible smile flitted across my com-
panion's face at my question, but he answered quito
seriously :
"A great many different motives actuate parents; the
principal, I suppose, are such as these : The children, they
reason, are young, and they must have enjoyment ; and so
they cram them with sweets till they have no relish for
healthier food. Sorrow, they say, comes soon enough ; let
them be happy while they may ; and so they fit them for
bearing it by an utter waste of mind and body in a mad
pursuit of pleasure. And then, they must be established in
the world ; their temporal interests must be attended to. '
And the myriads offered up on that altar, it would freeze
your young blood to know of I And then," he continued,
with an amused look at my perplexity, "then there is
. another very potent reason why they cannot be kept in the
nest ^for before they are well fledged, the willful little brood
will try their wings, and neither law nor logic will suffice to
keep them back. Now, even you, sensible and corieotly-
judging young lady as you have this evening discovered
yourself to be, would, I fear, not bear the test of a tirial ; I
am afraid your courage would droop before the self denial
of the first oall or two, and you would soon be drawn into
the vortex without a struggle."
" I don't think so," I said. " I am pretty sure that if I
resolved not to go into society ^being convinced that 1
onght not ^I should be able to keep my Teo\\x\\nw kxA
3*
68 BUTLEDGB.
even ii 1 should see that it was best for me not to go out
till I am older, but to stay at home and study and improve
myself this winter, at least', I know I could do it. If I
thought that balls and parties were wrong, I am certain I
should never go to one."
" That would be carrying the thing too far. Do not sup-
pose that I mean anything like that. What I condemn is
the wholesale worldliness the unwearied career of folly that
[ have seen so much of, utterly excluding all cultivation of
heart or intellect utterly ignoring all beyond the present.
That's the snare I would warn you of, my little fiiend.
I know perhaps, better than you do, the trials that lie before
you ; so when I tell you that you will have need of all the
courage, and self-denial, and resolution that you are mis-
tress of, to keep you from that darkest of all lives the life
of a worldly woman ^you must remember, I have seen
many plays played out have watched the opening and
ending of more careers than one, tjie bloom and blight of
more than one young life."
A pause fell a long and thoughtful one while my com-
panion, shading his eyes from the firelight, gazed fixedly
upon vacancy, and some time had passed before he shook
off the momentary gloom, and resumed, in a lighter tone :
"That accident was a miserable business, was it not?
Keeping you a prisoner in this dull old place, and knocking
I don't know how many plans of mine in the head. And it ia
impossible to tell how many days it may be before I am
able to travel, even if you should be. Perhaps, however, 1
may succeed in finding an escort for you, as I suppose yon
arc impatient to be in New York."
" Oh, I beg you wiU not take any trouble about it ; I like
it here very well. I am not in the least hurry, and I hope
you will not go a moment before you are fit, on my ac-
count."
My effort at civility was rewarded by a smile to which no
one could be indifferent ; and ir reply, Mr. Rutlcdge said
BUTLEDGE. bb
that be was glad to find me so philosophical ; tliat I must
amuse myself as well as I could, and he should tell Mrs.
ChurchiU, when he wrote, that I was in a fair way of being
made a strong-minded woman ; between Mrs. Roberts' aus-
tere example in the conduct of the household, and his own
uvaluable moral lectures, my mind would be in no danger
of rusting during my captivity. "Not to mention," he
added gravely, " very able and improving mental exercise in
the criticism of the most eminent living historians."
I hung my head at this last cut, administered, however,
so daintily, that it was impossible to resent it ; and being on
the rack tiU he should get away from the subject, I quickly
reverted to his letter to my aunt, asking when he should
write, and desiring permission to inclose a note to her at
the same time. He should probably write to-night, he
said, glancing up at the bronze clock, which pointed to
nine.
" Writing, however, with my left hand, is a business re-
quiring much time and application, and possibly I may not
attempt it till to-morrow morning."
Blushing very much, I said I wished I could be of service
in writing that or any other letters for him; it would give
me great pleasure. He thanked me for the offer, but con-
sidered it, he said, entirely too much to ask of me. I must
remember I was still an invalid. I laughed at the idea, and
the result was, that in five minutes I was seated at the
library table, with a portfolio before me, writing a letter to
my aunt at Mr. Rutledge's dictation.
I was in high spirits at the idea of being useful, and the
pen flew over the paper almost as fast as the words were
attered. I rather writhed under the necessity of writing
without demur of myself as " the little girl," and " your
f oung niece ;" but there was nothing to be said, and after
finishing it, and adding a few lines of my own, I enveloped
and directed it I asked if there was any other I co?ild write
for him.
00 BUTLEDGB.
He Stiid there was one he was anxious to dispatch in the
morning ; so taking another sheet of paper, I began another
letter. It was one on business, full of law terms and drj
details, but fortunately not very long, and writing it as
rapidly as possible, in my boldest, freest hand, I soon laid it
ready for dispatch beside the other.
" What else ?" I inquired, taking a fresh sheet of paper.
" You are not tired ?"
" Not in the least, sir," and I rapidly wrote the date, and
with my pen suspended over the paper, awaited his dictation.
Without a word of explanation, he began to dictate as
quickly as before, in French. For a moment my heart
failed me, as the teasing French verbs rushed on my be-
wildered ear; but rallying instantly, without raising my
eyes or giving the least evidence of my discomfiture, I be-
gan to wi-ite.
Thanks to Mademoiselle Celine's drilling, I was pretty
ready at " dictee," and after the first surprise, got along
very well. It was quite a severe exercise to keep pace with
his rapid language, feeling all the while as if an error would
be irreparable. I would not appear to read it over, of
course, for purposes of correction, any more than I would
have done the English ones. I managed, however, while
looking for an envelope, and wiping my pen, to glance hur-
riedly and anxiously through it, and was somewhat com-
forted to meet no fault apparent, at least, on such a rapid
scrutiny. I folded and addressed it, not, though, without
some misgivings, and after i^^ceiving thanks, and a refusal
of further services, glanced at the clock, and rose to go up-
Rtairs.
Mr. Rutledge lit my candle, and as he handed it to me,
said I must do as I found it most agreeable about coming
downstairs to my meals. He should be most happy to
have a companion whenever I felt well enough to come
down ; but Kitty, he hoped, would make me comfortable
whenever I preferred remaining upstairs.
rutlbi;ge. 6]
1 boweJ, and said, " Yes sir," rather unmeaningly, and
passed out of the door, which he held open for me, and
which he was charitable enough not to shut till I was safe
in my own room.
Kitty, active and pleasant as ever, awaited me there, and
I threw myself in the easy-chair before the fire, while she
nnbraided and combed my hair, with a feeling of great
comfort and complacency. She congratulated me upon
going downstairs; and indirectly and respectfully endea-
vored to ascertain whether I had found master as formid-
able as I had anticipated. I did not wish to commit myself
on this point; but finding that Kitty herself stood in a
little wholesome awe of him, I was tempted to acknowledge
that I did not feel altogether at ease downstairs; upon
which she said, she guessed I wasn't the only one ^ nobody
on the place, from Mrs. Roberts down, dared say their souls
were their own when Mr. Rutledge was by.
" But then, he's a kind master, is he not ?" I asked
" Oh, yes I None better ; that everybody knows. He'e
as liberal as can be ; but then he expects everything to go
on just so; and every man on the place knows that he
won't put up with a bit of laziness or shirking. And so,
whether he's here or not, things go on like clock-work, and
the Rutledge farm is a perfect garden, everybody says.
Better a good deal, I guess, than it used to be in old Mr.
Rutledge's time, though there were twice as many men on
it then, and twice as much money spent on it ; but there
was too much feasting and company for anybody to attend
much to work, and I suppose the old gentleman was what
they caU a high liver, and cared more for his hounds and
hoTses, and dinner-parties and wine, than for looking after
his farm.'*
"How old was Mr. Arthur Rutledge when his fatnei
died?'
"Oh, a mere lad, sixteen or so; and for a time, I've heard
them say, things went on bad enough, nobody to Ic^k
62 BUTLEDOB.
aftei anything, the ikrm just going to destruction. For,
the tiouble all coming together, his father's and Mr
Richard's death, and whatever it was about Miss Alice, it
was too much for *3VIr. Arthur, and brought on a dreadful
fever, and for weeks they couldn't tell how it would go with
him. Mrs. Roberts nursed him day and night ; I guess she
was the best friend he had, for he was the last of the family,
you see, and hadn't a relation in the world, and though he
had plenty of fine folks for his acquaintance, fine folks don't
seem to think they're needed when people are in trouble
and come to die ; and I don't know but what they're right ;
they would be rather in the way. However, they didn't
have much to do for Mr. Arthur that time ; and at last the
fever turned, and he began to get better."
Kitty had an attentive auditor, and she only too willingly
talked on, and gave me all the facts she was possessed of.
I had nothing else to think about just then, and so it was
not to be wondered at that I made the most of them, and
gave many an hour to the working up and embellishing of
Batty's story. I pictured to myself the lonely boy, coming
back to life with no one to welcome him in the changed
house. I fancied him pale and melancholy, wandering
through the deserted halls and empty rooms, finding at
every turn something to remind him of his grief. I could
not blame him when, as my informant said, he grew to be
morose and gloomy, and to hate the very name of home ;
for, going abroad, he did not come near it for years, and
seemed to have lost all interest in it. The estate, during
this time, was managed by an agent, who neglected it
shamefully, and in whose charge it was fast going to ruin.
But suddenly, the young master returned, and to the sur-
prise of all, took things into his own hands ; dismissed those
who had been living in idleness at his expense so long, only
retaining such as were willing to conform themselves to the
new regime^ and by industry and faithfulness to regain what
had been lost during this long period of neglect. It was 3
BOTLED^E. 63
reform which required great energy and perseverance, but
these the young heir possessed, and before a year was over,
things wore a very different aspect ; the house was repaired
and the grounds put in order ; the farm began to show the
presence of a master. The reform did not stop here, how-
ever. For more than fifty yeais, there had been no church
nearer than Hilton, a distance of six miles, which the family
at Rutledge nominally attended, when the weather was
fine ; but, unhappily, Sunday and Simday duties were by no
means of paramount interest at Rutledge ; and, naturally,
master and tenantry fell into a criminal neglect of all the
outward duties of religion. In the village which lay about a
mile to the south of Rutledge, there had once, before the
Revolution, been a church edifice, but long since it had fallen
into ruins, and only a neglected graveyard remained to
attest its former site. Here, Mr. Rutledge had built a
church, and repairing a cottage that lay at the southern
extremity of his farm, and not a quarter of a mile from the
church, had turned it into a parsonage, where he had
established a clergyman, who had labored very faithfully
and very successfully among the almost heathenish inha-
bitants of the place, and had immeasurably improved its
character.
" But still you say. Batty, Mr. Rutledge does not live
here much of the time. I should think he would be happy
in a place where he had done so much good."
Kitty shook her head. " There is too much to remind him
of old times, I suppose, for him to like it here ; besides, it's
very lonesome. He does his duty by it, but I don't believe
h'^.'U ever stay here more than he thinks he has to, to keep
things straight."
I reminded Kitty, by and by, of the miniature of which
we had been talking when Mrs. Roberts interrupted us in
the morning.
" Should you like to see it ?" Kitty asked.
" Of all things," I replied ; and Kitty, laying down tke
64 KUTLKDaR
brush, said she would run up to her room and get it. She
stopped a moment, after she had cautiously opened the
door, to listen if Mrs. Roberts was still awake, then leaving
it ajar, stole quietly up the stairs My heart beat guiltily
as I listened to her retreating footsteps. What businesE
had I to be prying into family secrets ? I was involuntarily
ashamed of myself, but how could I help it ? How could 1
resist the temptation ? It could do no harm ; I shoulu only
just look at it, and should be no wiser after aU. It seemed
an age before Kitty's returning footsteps rejoiced my ear,
and I did not feel safe till, again within the room, she slid
the bolt behind her, and put into my hand the old-fashioned
locket, with its faded blue ribbon. I started up, and going
to the light, bent down to examine it.
" It's like none of the family," Kit^y said. " Their pic-
tares are in the dining-room, and I've compared them all."
It certainly, I saw myself, was not in the least like Mr.
Rutledge. It was a face I could not altogether understand.
The eyes were dark, and perhaps tender in their light, but
about the mouth and a handsome well cut mouth, too
there was a something I could not define, that suggested
coldness and insincerity ; something that repelled me when
I first looked, but seemed to disappear after a longer scru-
tiny. The features were regular and strikingly handsome,
the skin a clear olive, the haii' dark and wavy. As far as
my limited knowledge of these things went, what was vis-
ible of the uniform appeared to me to be that of a French
officer, and the letters, in tiny characters, engraved on the
back, "^ Paris, 1830," seemed to confirm the probability.
" Twenty-four years ago," I said.
" That was the year before old Mr. Rutledge died," said
Kitty.
T kept it in my hand while she undressed me, and only
returned it to her as she was leaving me for the night.
But she said,
" You'd better keep it, Miss, if you will, to-night. I are
BUTLfiDGE. 65
afraid to go to my trunk to put it away, for Dorothy, the
cook, sleeps in the room where we keep our trunks, and
she's just gone upstairs."
I consented, and for safety put it under my pillow. I
wished it anywhere else, however, after the door had
closed ; and Kitty departing,
' Left the world to darkness and to me."
CHAPTER V.
^' Qirlfl blosh, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing the^ were dead to save the shame.
The sadden blosh devours them, neck and brow
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnato.
And flare up bodily, wingB and all. What then ?
Who's sorry for a gnat or girl ?"
. B. Bbowniko.
The question, whether I should breakfast downstairs 3t
alone, was settled by the ringing of the beU before Kitty
had half done my hair, and as I would not for worlds have
been two minutes late at any meal that Mr. Rutledge was
to share, I determined to " take the benefit of the act," and
remain an invalid till dinner-time.
" What a dismal day. Miss I" remarked my maid, as she
made herself busy in removing my breakfast from the table.
" How shall you manage to amuse yourself?'-
" I don't mind the rain in the least," I answered, wheeling
my admired chair up to the window, and thro^ving myself
into it, with a lapful of books and work. " I think a rainy
day is splendid."
And so, indeed, I found it for a while. I read till I had
extracted all the honey from the pile of reviews and maga-
zines before me, and then pushed them away, and leaning
against the window, gazed out on the dreary landscape. A
sheet of rain and mist hid the lake, the pine grove looked
black and sullen, the trees in the park tossed mournfully
about their naked branches, as showers of yellow leaves fel
in gusts upon the ground ; the wind moaned dismally around
the house, and dashed the rain, by fits and starts, against
the windows with a heavy sound. It was very nice to feel
that it could not get in, and that there was stout glass and
66
BUT LEDGE. 67
Btone between me and the pitiless autumn storm, and a snug
and cosy shelter from its fury. But by and by I grew
rather tired of watching the rain and the leaves, and yawn
ing, began to cast about for some more attractive oecupor
tion. This I found for a short time in my worsted work,
which I disinterred from the depths of mj trunk, and a]-
plied myself to in great earnest for half an hour. But the
motive for exertion was wanting ; I could not help thinking
wearily, that there was not the least hurry about finishing
it, and those roses would blow, on demand, any time dur-
ing the next six years, with as much advantage as at pre-
sent.
And so I laid it down and took to the window again,
wondering, with a sigh, whether all young ladyhood were
like this ; and if it were, how it happened that we did not
hear of more early deaths deaths from utter ennui and eX'
haustion. I had for so long been used to having every half
hour in the day fiUed up with some unavoidable exercise of
mind or body, that I felt entirely lost without the routine,
and firmly resolved, as soon as I should be settled at my
aunt's, to begin a oom^se of study which should fill up all these
idle moments, and give some vigor to my faculties. " I
should die of this in a month," I thought ; and seizing one
of the rejected Reviews, the only Hterature at hand, I reso-
lutely set myself to read the longest, driest paper in it.
And really, after the task was accomplished, though I am
sorry to say I was not by much the clearer in my views on
the particular branch of science of which it treated, still I
felt decidedly better satisfied with myself for the effort, and
experienced less compunction in taking, after lunch, a short
nap.
Kitty had been absent all the morning, having been
detailed for some pressing laundry work by the practical
Mrs. Roberts, for which I was still owing her a gruJje,
when, just as I awoke from my nap she walked in, and
accepting the chair I ofl*cred her, made me quite 2 Uttle
68 BUTLEDGE*
visit. 1 exerted myself to appear amiabie, and was con-
gratulating myself on the success of my efforts, and on the
absence of all disagreeable topics, when, just as she *waa
going, her keen eyes having made the circuit of the room
many times, she detected something amiss in the bed, and
walking across to the recess where it stood, began to
examine the manner in which it was made.
" That Kitty," she said, " was not to be trusted to make
even a bed by herself. She was sure I did not lie com-
fortably."
And stooping down, she began to dissect it. My heart
gave a spasmodic thump, and then stood " stock-still for
sheer amazement," not to say consternation, when it flashed
across me that I had left the guilty miniature between the
mattresses, where, in the sleepless nervousness of last night,
I had put it, in order to have it as far out of the way as
possible. It was the strangest thing that I should never
have thought of it since I waked up. " And now," I thought,
with a cold chill, " now it is probably under Mrs. Roberts'
very nose, and Kitty and I are undone." I hardly breathed
as I watched her throwing back blanket and sheet, and
making sad havoc among the bolsters and pillows, giving
the one a contemptuous shake, and the other an indignant
poke ; all the while most animatedly anathematizing the
the unlucky Kitty. I had already pictured Kitty and
myself dragged by the hair of our guilty heads, before
Mr. Rutledge, for judgment, and terrified into confession by
that awful look of his, when to my unspeakable relief, Mrs.
Roberts stopped just short of the mattress, and coming
mdignantly across the room, rang for Kitty, who promptly
answered the bell. She looked somewhat blank to find that
the summons was not to dress me, but to stand one of Mtb.
Roberts' tirades.
Mrs. Roberts was, I believe, troubled with rheumatism,
" the worst kind," and the cold storm and east wind had
aggravated these long-tried enemies to an unbearable pitch
SUTLEDGB. 69
and it was well known in the house that there was but one
remedy that succeeded in the least in allaying the irritation
of her nerves, but one soothing panacea, and that was, a
thorough and satisfactory "blow-out" on scolding; the
raking fore-and-aft some adversary's craft with the imerring
fire of her indignation, the entire annihilation, soul and
body, for the time being, of the victim that happened first
to cross her path. And tradition pointed to Kitty as the
fevorite scape-goat on these occasions. She knew her fate,
I am certain, from the moment she caught the dull glare of
Mrs. Roberts' eye, and doggedly tossing her pretty head to
one side, stood ready to confront her.
Did she call that bed madey Mrs. Roberts would like to
know? Kitty considered it made ^yes.
She did, did she? Then she would please to come
across the room and try if she could do it as well the
second time.
I made Kitty an agonized gesture, which she promptly
understood, but which Mrs. Roberts also caught sight of,
and was at her elbow in Cin instant. It was a pretty severe
contest of skill between the veteran rat-catcher and the keen
little mouser ; Mrs. Roberts knew there was something^ and
inly vowed to scent it out ; Kitty was as determined to
elude her vigilance, and as is not unusual, youth and dex-
terity triumphed. From under the very eyes of Mrs.
Roberts, Kitty, tmder cover of a zealous shake of the
mattress, bore off the miniature, and smuggling it in her
apron, passed by where I was sitting, and threw it into my
lap. I thrust it down to the lowest depths of my pocket, and
looked with admiration at Kitty's unshaken composure, as
she continued her work tmder the galling fire of Mrs. Roberts'
fiarcasms.
The bed at last was made irreproachably; even Mrs
Roberts could find no fault with its unruffled exterier;
though to my unpractised eye, it had looked much the same
before its revisal. It seemed a long time before the anta^o-
70 AUTI.SDOE.
niflts withdrew, and a longer still before my tranqallJitjr of
temper was restored. How I wished the miniature safely
back in Kitty's trmik, in the furthest comer of the attic !
That came of doing what I was ashamed of 1 I did not feel
as if I could look any one in the face tiU it was out of my
hands. I did not venture to ring for Kitty, for I felt certain
Mrs. Roberts stood with the door of her room ajar, ready
to pounce upon her if she came in sight again ; so I exerted
myself to perform the duties of my toilette unaided. They
were not arduous, and I was soon dressed, and vainly try-
ing to interest myself in my embroidery till the bell should
ring. It was stiU an open question whether I should go
downstairs ; I half inclined to playing invalid a little longer,
and taking this one more meal in my room. But then the
dreary prospect of my solitary dinner, and the long dull twi-
light, with nothing but my own thoughts for entertainment,
and the longer, duller evening, with nothing to amuse but
what had failed of that object during the day, weighed down
the balance in favor of a change of scene, and I was on my
feet in an instant, as my watch pointed to three, and the bell
announced dinner, simultaneously. I pushed the worsted
into my workbox, and putting the miniature hastily into a
drawer, essayed to lock it, but the key was defective, for
some cause, and would not turn, 'and not diri^g to run the
risk of being late, I again put it into my pocket, and hurried
down.
As I reached the lower hall, I remembered that I had not
the least idea which door led into the dining-room, and so
had to try three or four which gave no evidence of being
inhabited, furniture being covered and windows closed,
before I hit upon the right one. I entered hesitatingly, not
discovering, till I was fairly in the room, that I was the only
occupant of it. The table was laid for two, and the dinner
was already served, but the master was not yet down. Ab
some minutes passed and he did not appear, I had time to
look around, and get acquainted with the salle d manger
BUTLEDGE. Tl
It was a fine room, old-fasliioned though it was; and
modem architecture has still to produce its rival in my eyes.
The ceiling was very high, the fireplace wide, with tiled
jambs ; the wood-work carved in stiff but stately patterns ;
the windows were deep, with enticing window-seats, and the
walls were covered with pictures. Pictures, I imagined,
of people who had once owned Rutledge : some of them^
perhaps, lived in this very house, ate and di*ank in this very
room. There were several portraits, that I rather hurried
over, of pompous-looking people in very old-time style, but
I knew in a moment the handsome picture over the mantel-
piece. It was the late Mr. Rutledge, like Mr. Arthur, but
infinitely handsomer, on a larger scale, with a jovial, pleasant
^e, but I thought, less intellectual in the expression.
Then I was certain that the picture on the right represented
Richard, the heir, who had died so soon after his father.
Ah ! But, I thought, what a handsome, gentle face I
What soft eyes ! K Mr. Arthur had only looked like him,
what a nice thing it would be to be dining t^te-d-t^te with
him. Quel dommage t K he had only lived 1 But I felt
inclined to laugh when I remembered that his younger
brother might easily, as far as age was concerned, have
been my father, and the handsome Richard himself could
almost, well, yes, quite, have stood to me in the relation,
more reverend than romantic, of grandfather.
So, with a wistful look at the pensive, delicate face that
never had grown, never could grow old, I glanced at the
empty panel that intervened between this picture and the
the next. That space surely once had held a portrait, and
with a rapid transition of fancy, I thought of the picture
with its face to the wall, in the deserted room upstairs.
That was it, I made no manner of doubt, that had once
hung here. . Beyond it was the mother's portrait, fair,
gentle, and sad : beneath this picture, and depending fi^om
its frame, hung a little crayon sketch, that I examined with
interest, thinkins^ to find it identical, possibly, with th^
rS AUTLEDQX.
miniature, which I pulled from my pocket to compare. But
a glance refuted that idea ; not the faintest likeness between
them, nothing in conmion but human features. It repre-
sented (the sketch I mean) a boy of about my own age, with
such a fine, glowing, ardent face as made " new life-blood
warm the bosom," only to look into his truthful eyes, only
to catch the merry smile that lingered about his handsome
mouth. It had, however, such a likeness to Mr. Rutledgu,
that I should, despite the difference that time had wrought^
have imagined him to be the original of the picture, had I
not found, written hastily and faintly in one comer, " Obit,
1830," and some words in Latin that I cauld not make
myself mistress of.
I was sp intent upon it, that I did not notice Mr. But-
ledge'tj entrance till he stood beside me. I pocketed the
miniature, which I still held in my hand, in hot haste, and
turned to meet his inquiring eyes.
" Aro you making acquaintance with my ancestors ?" he
asked.
I answered that I had been looking at the pictures.
** But this," pointing to the crayon head, " this is not an
ancestor, is it ?"
" No," he said, with a half smUe, " not exactly an ances-
tor ; a relation."
I asked him if it was not considered like him.
He had been told, he said,-that there was some rerfem-
blance. I looked at it with a critical eye, and then re-
marked that the resemblance lay, I thought, in the contour
of the face, and perhaps something about the eyes ; but the
expression was as different from his as it was possible for
an expres^on to be.
" That's true," he said looking at it sadly ; " that face
expresses what no man's face can express after thirty; hope
and courage, and an unshaken confidence in the honesty of
his fellows."
1 did not fancy that doctrine very much, sc I began
BUTLEDGE. 73
talking of the other pictures. Of the older ones, Mi*. Rut-
ledge gave me some slight sketches, passing briefly by those
that I knew he could have told me most about. But I
turned admiringly back to the sketch that had so much
taken my fancy.
" After all," I said, " this is the finest face among them."
Mi\ Rutledge shook his head dissentingly, and looked
sadly up at Richard's portrait.
" No indeed," I exclaimed, " that's not near so good a
(kce as this ; handsomer, perhaps, dreamy and poetical, but
not so brave and spirited. Look at the impatient fire in
those eyes ! And his smile is truth itself. There is some
thing so determined in the attitude too."
" He was, I believe, an honest, truthful lad," said Mr,
Rutledge, unenthusiastically.
" He was more than that I'm sure," I exclaimed, " or
would have been, if he had lived. With that high spirit
he would have made everything bend to him ; and if fail*
fortune hadn't smiled upon his humble birth (which, how-
ever, I suppose she did, being a Rutledge), he would have
conquered her, you may be sure. I am certain he wouldn't
have known the meaning of the words despair and doubt ;
but come what might, would have hoped and believed to
the end."
" But perhaps," said my companion, " perhaps a hand of
ice might have been laid upon his youth ; a cruel blow might
in one day have dashed from him all that feeds hope and
faith; perhaps disgrace, grief, illness, coming all together,
might have crushed out of him all energy and spirit. What
would have become of your hero then ? Would he have
hoped, when death and the grave had all that he loved ?
Would he have believed, when what from his cradle he had
most trusted in had pfoved false and worthless ?"
I was a little startled at the bitterness of his tone, but.
perfflsted, " All that wouldn't have happened to him. ' For-
tune favors the brave.' "
74 BUTLBDGrE.
" Not always, petite^ not always," he said, with an iron
ical laugh.
" Nevertheless, I wish he had lived," I said ; " I am sure
he would have been mv hero."
m
" Why," said Mr. Ratiadge, looking at me, " why, if, as
you say, that boy had lived, he would have been ^let me
see ^nearly forty years old: and that, you know, wouLi
have made it out of the question for you to love him."
" I never thought of that," I said naively. " Well then,
I wish I had lived when he did, and been born thirty years
ago."
"What! Your youth all over? No, little simpleton,
whatever you wish, don't be vnld enough to wish that I
Make the best of your youth, and freshness, and spirit, for
they'll take themselves off some fine day, and leave you no-
thing to do but to look back."
" That's according to the use I make of them, I suppose,"
I answered, a little ungraciously. " I am not at all afraid
that I shall be bitter and misanthropical when I am old, if I
spend my youth as I ought."
Mr. Rutledge laughed very much as if he thought I meant
it for him ; yet the laugh was not altogether a happy one,
and he continued :
" See to it then, child, that you use them right. I do
not mean to discourage you. I have no doubt you will be
very happy and contented when forty comes around on the
string of birth-days. Always being and provided, of course,
that the hero, or one as near like him as possible, has come
in at the r/ght time to realize your dreams."
" But I don't believe," I said., perversely, " that I shaU
over have any lover that I shall like as much as I should
\ywe done this one."
" He would have made you an earnest lover, certainly, if
that would have won you, with perhaps a dash of impetu-
osity and tyranny in his love ; but that is what you womcii
like, is it not ?
k
KUTLDOK. 76
** Uow can I tell ?" I said, very demurely.
*' I forgot," he answered, laughing, " I forgot that you
were just out of school, and could not be supposed to know
anything about love and lovers."
" Of course not," I said, putting my hands in the pockets
of my basque, and looking at the ground over my left shoul-
der, after the manner of a French print I had seen in Made-
moiselle Celine's room. " Of course not."
Mr. Rutledge seemed to take in such good part my saucy
ways, that I began to feel much more at my ease, and
laughed quite like myself, when on going to the table we
found the soup very unattractively cold ; " glac6e," Mr. Rut-
ledge said it was.
" While people moralize they are very apt to forget the
realities ; and so we have let the soup get cold, and the din-
ner get burned, very likely, and shall have to wait for it as
it has been waiting for us."
Mr. Rutledge rang, and a servant and hot soup promptly
appeared, and dinner was soon in progress, and a very
pleasant dinner it proved. For the time, my companion
forgot abstraction, and I forgot timidity, and both forgot
the dismal storm without. Mr. Rutledge condescended to
be entertaining, and I deigned to forget all former slights,
and be entertained. Unluckily, however, at dessert, I made
some allusion to the loneliness in which he usually took his
meals, and that seemed to raise some disagreeable recollec-
tion, for his face darkened, and he said, after a short pause :
" Yes, young lady, it is long since I have seen any face,
and most of all, a woman's face, opposite me at this solitary
table."
Then he fell into a fit of musing that made me feel un-
comfortably sorry for my mal-^propos speech. I could not
help wondering who had last sat where I did, and the
thought was anythmg but genial; my eyes wandered
Involuntarily to the empty panel ; and it was with a feeling
of relief that I arose from the table and fokowed m:^ Vl^^
76 BUTL&DGE.
toward (lie library. As we passed the crayon picture, how-
ever, I paused a moment, and Mr. Rutledge, turning, Raid :
" You're not tired of it yet ?"
I said no, I liked it better aU the time, and to-morrow
[ meant to bring my di'awing materials down and make a
copy of it, if he was wiHing.
" You are welcome to the picture itself, if you'll accept
it," he said, indifferently, proceeding to unhook it from the
frame of the picture above, to which it hung.
I was mute with amazement for a moment, and hardly
found breath to ezclaim :
" How strange that you do not value it 1"
He replied that there were two or three sketches of the
same face about the house, and he did not care particularly
for this one. It gave him great pleasure to give it to me,
if I fancied it.
I hope I thanked him, but I am not at all certain that I
did. I seized the picture with great goiit.^ and ran into
the library, and up to the lightest window, to enjoy it by
myself.
Mr. Rutledge threw himself into a chair, and his hand
being before his eyes, I could not see whether he slept or
not. I looked long and earnestly at my favorite in every
light, and from every point ; then got up on a chair and
reached down a Latin Dictionary to help translate the sen-
tence written below the date. But I could not get it right
and gave up in despair.
That amusement exhausted, and no other presenting, in
the course of time the unavoidable weariness, and want of
elasticity consequent upon my three days' confinement to
the house, began to make themselves felt, and at last, I
thought, to become utterly unbearable. I conceived the
mad plan of getting my shawl and hood, and escaping to
the piazza for a Httle exercise, though the rain had beaten
furiously upon abnost every part of it. I got up, and was
stealing noiselessly toward the door, when Mr. Kutledge.
SUTLEDQBa 77
vrhoin I had fancied asleep, said uneasilj, without alloriug
his positiou :
" Why do you go away ?"
" I am so tired of the house, sir, I am going to wrap up
and walk up and down on the piazza for a little while. It
will not hurt me," I continued, pleadingly ; " mayn't I ?'-*
" On no account," he said decidedly; " it would be abom*d,
after the fever you liayc had."
" I am positive it would not hurt me, sir."
" And I am positive it would."
As Mr. Rutledge had not turned toward me at all, I sup-
pose he did not see how very angry I looked, and how very
red my face was. Perhaps his thoughts had gone off to
something else, for he did not say anything more ; and I
stood drumming on the table, waiting for him to continue ;
determined, determined not to go back and sit down, till,
exasperated beyond patience by his silence, 1 said, moving
toward the door :
" I suppose then, sir, you have no objection to my going
to niy OAvn room."
"Why, yes," he said, "I have, decidedly. I think it
would be much more sensible for you to amuse yourself
down here."
" I*ve failed in doing that, sir, already."
" Well, then, stay and amuse me."
" That's entirely beyond my power, I am afraid, sir," 1
answered, shrugging my shoulders.
" You cannot tell tiU you have tried," he said ; " I have a
wretched headache. Don't you feel sorry for me ?"
" Of course, sir, exceedingly. But unluckil}*, I don't eoc
how I can help you."
" Oh, it's 01 no importance. Pray go."
I stood irresolute and very uncomfortable.
" K there's anything you'U have for your head, sir "
" No, there's notliing, thank you."
This was the way in wliich I repaid his vndulgenoe and
78 BUTLEDGH.
attention ! This was a nice return for the care he had taken
of me during my ilhiess. I would have given worlds for a
good excuse to stay, but Mr. Hutledge seemed determined
not to give me any. At last, after everything else had
&iled, I said, hesitatingly :
" Would it' annoy you to have me read aloud to you,
sir?"
He would not trouble me on any account, he said.
"But," I answered eagerly, "it is not the slightest
trouble. I should like to do it, I assure you."
He would not think of putting such a task upon me.
" But do say," I exclaimed, " whether or not you like
reading aloud."
He liked it very much, but begged me not to troublo
myself.
That was enough, and in a moment I was by the fire.
" What shaU I read, sir ?"
" Anything you fancy."
" You are the most provoking man," I thought, as 1
looked up and down the shelves in search of a book. I
shrewdly concluded that I might as well please myself in the
choice, as it was not probable that Mr. Rutledge would
attend to three words of what I read, even if he did not go
to sleep. So recognizing an old friend in " Sintram," I took
it from the bookcase, and sitting down in the window-seat,
opened its familiar pages with some pleasure. Familiar,
that is, they had been to my childhood, but it was some
years since I had seen the book. It was not long, however,
before I forgot myself and my auditor over the strange,
wild, touching story. The dreary storm without, the grow-
ing gloom within, all added to the charm of its wild pathos.
I read on, bending forward to catch the last grey light from
the window, till, baffled by the rapidly-deepening twilight,
I left it, and sitting down on a low seat by the fire, read on
by its flickering light. If I had not been sure that no
one was attending, I should have stopped for sbanie at
BUTLEDGE. 79
die trembling of my voice, which I could not control, as 1
read the lines that tell to Sintram his release from terro?
and temptation :
" Death comes to set thee free
meet him cheerily
As thy true friend ;
And all thy fears shall cease,
And in eternal peace
Thy penance end."
A low, quick-drawn sigh told me that I was not alone m
my interest in the tale. I finished it, and dropping the
book in my lap, sat resting my head on my hand, and
gazing dreamily into the fire. Presently steps in the hall
interrupted my revery, and I rose to put the book away.
As I passed Mr. Rutledge, he held out his hand, and, as I
laid my own in it, he said, " thank you," and looked at me
with the most mournful expression in his eyes. The tears
rushed involimtarily into mine as I met his glance ; I did
not know which to pity most, Sintram or my companion.
He saw the pity in my look, and remembered it, long after
the emotion had passed.
A servant entered at that moment, with the brightest of
cheerful lamps; Mr. Rutledge ordered more wood on the
fire, which presently blazed and crackled genially ; the cur-
tains were drawn, and the conquered twilight and moaning
wind were banished the room.
Mr. Ruthdge roused himself from his abstracted mood,
and I said to myself, " What can I do to keep him from
thinking of the things that trouble him ?" And, woman
enougli to like the task, I set myself to make the evening a
pleasant one, and (o keep all dullness and ennui away.
And it was a very bappy evening to me, and not a dull one,
I am certain, to my host. I made tea with much less trepi-
dation than on the '^venuig before, and it proved almost
magical in curing Mr. Rutledge's headache. I could hardly
80 KUTLEDOE.
believe the clock was right when it struck ten, the evening
had seemed so short. I took my picture from the mantel-
piece, and bidding my companion good night, ran upstairs
t wo steps at a time, not remembering till I reached the top,
that IViiss Crowen had condemned the practice as unlady-
like. " I hope Mr. Rutledge wasn't listening," I thought
with mortification. K Mr. Rutledge wasn't, Mrs. Roberts
was, though, for I heard her door shut softly soon after I
had reached my room, and presently she found an excuse
for coming iu upon me, which she did rather suddenly, as I
was standing before the new picture, looking at it very
earnestly, as I leisurely unbraided my hair. I went over to
the glass, however, very quickly upon her entrance; and
after her errand was over, she quite inadvertently, it would
seem, glanced up at the picture, but Zknew she had seen i1
the first thing when she came in.
" Why," she exclaimed, looking surprised, " how came
Mr. Rutledge's picture up here? It has always hung
under his mother's in the dining-room. There must be
some mistake," she continued, looking inquiringly at mev
An alarming truth began to dawn on my mmd, a vivid
blush spread over my face, and Mrs. Roberts never once
took her eyes off me.
" I fancied it, and Mr. Rutledge said I might have it," I
stammered. Mrs. Robert's blue lips parted for an instant
in a contemptuous curl; then, looking stonier than ever,
she said :
" Yes, it is a good likeness ; or was, at least, when he
was a young man ; he's sadly changed since then ; he's an
old and an altered man now, is Mr. Arthur Rutledge."
The housekeeper, saying this with emphasis, and having
no excuse for staying longer, was obliged to withdi*aw
" Yes, ma'am," I muttered, as I locked the door after
her, " I know he's an old man, I know he'p nearly forty
years old : who better ? for he told me so himself." And
my cheeks scorched with blushes, as one by one, I recalled
BFTLSDOE. 81
my foolish speeches. How stupid, how blind I had been-
Why, as I looked at the picture now, there wasn't a feature
in the face that could possibly have been -mistaken for any
one else, not a shade nor outline that was not characteristic
I could have cried with vexation. How should I ever dare
Do look him in the face again ? " My hero I" And I cov-
ered my face with my hands, and started up guiltily, and
pat it out of the way before I milocked the door for Kitty.
CHAPTER VI.
" The Sundays of man's life,
Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.
On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope ;
Blessings are plentiful and rife ;
More plentiful than hope."
Herbert.
" Me. Rutledge's compliments, Miss, and he begs you
will breakfast without him this morning; he isn't well
enough to come down," said the servant, as I entered the
dining-room next morning.
" Is his arm worse ?" I asked.
" It pains him a good deal, JVIiss ; and he's had a very
bad night. JMichael has ridden over to get the doctor."
That was bad news, certainly ; I wished very much I could
do something for him; but ^ I couldn't, the next best
thing was to eat my breakfast ; which, however, was rather
choky and unpalatable in all that grand solenmity, with the
tall Thomas (Mr. Rutledge's own man, temporarily supply-
ing the post of waiter) looking down at me. I broke down
on the second slice of toast, and concluded to give it up and
go into the library.
It seemed incredible that it had stormed yesterday ; such
splendid sunshine, such a clear sky, I thought, I had never
Been before. I would have given anything for a race down
the avenue in that keen, bracing wind, but I determined
heroically that I would not stir out of the house till Mr.
Rutledge gave me permission. But about eleven o'clock
my reading was interrupted by the abrupt entrance of
Kittv, who. with her face aU aglow with pleasure, an-
sa
BUTLEDGE. 88
fiounoed to me that Mr. Rutledge had ordered the carriage
for me to take a drive, if I felt like it ; and sent word, that
if I was willing, he thought Kitty had better accompany
me. I tossed away my book, exclaiming, " it was grand,"
and, followed by Kitty, ran upstairs.
" How odd," she said, as in breathless haste she prepared
me for the drive, " how odd that Mr. Rutledge shouldn't
have sent word for Mrs. Roberts to go with you, miss, isn*t
it?"
" Odd, but very nice, Kitty," I answered, with a grimace
that made her laugh ; and as the carriage drove to the door,
we ran down the stairs, Kitty putting on her bonnet and shawl
as we went. I am sure it would have eased for a moment
Mr. Rutledge's pain, if he could have known the extent of
the pleasure he had conferred on the two children who so
delightedly occupied his carriage that morning. All Kitty's
knowledge of it, I suspect, had hitherto been speculative,
and I think one of the dearest wishes of her heart was grati-
fied when she tried experimentally the softness of its new
dark green cushions, and in her own proper person occu-
pied the front seat, an honor whereof she had only dreamed
before.
It was a perfect autumn day ; the air was exhilarating, the
sunshine brilliant, the scenery picturesque, and a great deal
less than that would have sufficed to make me happy in
those days ; and before we reentered the park gate, three
hours had slipped away in the most unsuspected manner.
Kitty having gathered, at my request, an armful of the few
gay autumn leaves remaining after yesterday's storm, I en-
tertained myself, during the drive home, with arranging
them in a bouquet. The glossy dark laurel leaves, and the
varied and bright hues of the maple and. sumac, with some
vivid red ben-ies, name unknown, made quite a pretty and
attractive cbmbination. As we reached home, I was seized
with an audacious intention, which I put into execution bo^
fore allowing myself time to " think better of it "
84 BUTLEDGB.
"Kitty," I said, "take this to Mr. Rutledge's door, und
give it to ITiomas for him, and say I hope he is better, and
I am very much obliged to him for sending me to drive, and
that I enjoyed it very much.'^
I was rather alai-mod when Kitty had accomplished her
errand, but it was too late to retract. That evening was a
very long one ; I went upstairs at nine o'clock, wondering
nt its interminable length.
The next day was Sunday. Mr. Rutledge was no better^
and I went to church alone in the carriage, with only Kitty
to attend me, Mrs. Roberts, she said, not being able to leave
" the master." It was a beautiful httle church, Gothic, and
built of stone, with nothing wanting to render it church-like,
and solenm. When Hooked at the tablets on the wall, that
recorded, one after anoth.er, the deaths of Warren Rut-
ledge, and Maria, his wife, and Richard, their son, I could
not help thinking it must be sad for him to come here, Sun-
day after Sunday, and see that ; but then it's easier to think
of such things in church than anywhere else ; somehow,
quick and dead do not seem so far separated there.
Why, I could not tell, but there I remembered a great
deal more thoughtfully and thankfully than I had done be-
fore, the evening, not a week ago, when I had lain, living
and unhurt, among the dead and dying. It was strange, in
the humored nervousness of the first day or two, and the
returning health and spirits of the following, how little I
had thought of it. And when Mr. Shenstone read his
text : " Were there not ten cleansed ? But where are the
nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to
God, save this stranger," my heart smote me. I indeed
had forgotten, and had taken carelessly, and without much
thought, my preservation from a terrible death. I indeed
had gone on without giving glory to God, without ao-
knowledging the mercy by which I yet lived.
Mr. Shenstone's sermon was one that those who recog-
nize only as eloq lence, pathos and fire and passion, woiild
BUTLBDGE. 8S
have pronounced very &r from eloquent. His niannei' was
quiet, and not particularly impressive, his language simple
and unostentatious. But he possessed the true kind of
sermon eloquence ^keen perception of spiritual things, and
the clearest knowledge of the Christian life. He had learn-
ing and talents; but it was not by them alone that he
gained so deep a reverence from his humble parishioners,
fio strong an influence over them. It was because his own
hope was high, that he could elevate theii's. It was because
learning and talents and &me were things indiflerent to
him, save as aids in the service he had entered, that he
could descend to their level, to raise them more nearly to
his own. They could grasp what he taught them, for it
was " a reasonable religious and holy hope," a rule of life,
sober, practical, and simple, that led to high things, but be-
gan with low. It was because his heart was in his work,
that his work prospered ; because the World, the Flesh,
and the Devil, were his sworn and baffled enemies, and not
his half encouraged and secret allies, that in his little flock
he made such headway against them ; because " through
faith and prayer " he kept his own heart and life pure, he
could see more clearly to guide them.
Thus it was, that though Mr. Shenstone hardly took his
eyes from his notes, and used veiy few gestures, and those
few awkward ones though he preached quietly and unen-
thusiastically ^though there were no ornaments of rhetoric,
no efforts at oratory, it was a sermon that, to this day, I
distinctly remember, and never, I fancy, shall forget.
Keen, pithy, conclusive, no one could help acknowledging
its power ; kind, earnest, sincere, no one could doubt its
spirit ; full of a dei otion the purest, a faith that pierced to
heaven itself, a love that cast out all fear and slothfulness,
no one ould listen and not be better for the listening. He
put old truths in new lights, and gave to the fomiliar Gospel
Btory a vivid interest, that often reading had made tame
and imimpressive. He brought distinctly before the irafl^i-
86 BUT LEDGE
nation the Samaritan village, through which the Saviour
was passing on his way to Jerusalem ; the sad company of
leprous men, cut off from the sympathy and society of their
fellows, who attracted his notice. That they " stood afar
off," not daring to approach him, was no obstacle to him :
no distance could put them beyond the pity of that watch-
ful eye, beyond the attention of that ear, ever open to the
prayers of his people. They were marked, miserable, suf-
fering men, and as such they cried with all their. heart?
and humbly, " Jesus, Master, have mercy on us I"
It was their one chance for restoration to home and kin-
dred, no doubt they cried with all their hearts. They were
considered beyond the reach of human aid ; no doubt they
cried humbly. And He " who hath never failed them that
seek Him,',' had mercy on them and heard their cry and
helped them. Sending them simply and unostentatioubl;^
to the ordained means of cure and cleansing, they, obeying
eagerly and unquestioningly, were cured and cleansed. On
theii' way to the priests, the hated disease left the bodies it
had so long degraded and afflicted, and with the glow of
returning health, they felt they were men once more, men
without a curse and a reproach upon them. And with re-
turning health *came the pride, the self reliance that had
been only slumbering, not dead, under the weight of tho
punishment laid on them. Without a thought of Him to
whom they owed the power to do it, they hurried forward,
one perhaps to his farm, another to his merchandise, long
denied, absent, but unforgotten idols. Among the crowd,
but one remembered to be thankful, but one returned to
give glory to God. And he was a Samaritan, but another
name to Jewish cars, for infamy and contempt. No doubt
he had been in a good school to leara humility among
these proud Jews, who, even in their degradation, had
probably never fojgotten to revile and to persecute. And
on him alone, of all the ten, rested the blessing and com.
mendation, beside which the bodily cure was but a paltry
BUTLBDGE. 87
gift. These things were written for our admonition ; tliey
had called for mercy in their extremity, they had been
Iieard and their prayer granted, and they had forgotten
whence came the mercy, and had used it only to harden
themscjves in worldliness and sin. Had this case no paral
lei in Christian times ? Was Jewish ingratitude the last
that had been offered to Divine love ? Were there none,
among the Congregation of Christ's flock, who in time of
peril and temptation, had with all their hearts and humbly
cried for mercy, which when sent they had forgotten to be
thankful for ? The vows made in a time of terror and
despair, fade in the sunshine of returning prosperity, the
blessing is used, the Giver is forgotten. Must not such a
sin look black to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity? Will it not provoke Him more surely than
any other, to leave the ingrate forever to the idols of his
choice, to let him see, when next comes peril and perplexity,
how worthless and how frail the}" are, and how fearful a
thing it is, to forfeit forever the protection of a God that
can save.
If any such there were, let them repent while there was
yet time, let them wash out the ingratitude that stained
their souls, with penitential tears, and purify themselves
with prayer and fast, and daily self-denial. Let them re-
member that mercy was not yet withdrawn, that a period
was not yet put to His forgiveness ; but how near the time
might be, how short the term of their probation, none
oould tell, not even the angels in heaven.
Ah 1 I thought, as we passed out of church. If I could
always come to this little church, and hear Mr, Shenstone
preach, there would not be much danger of my caring more
than I ought for that wicked world Mr. Rutledge talks
about.
I had not yet learned that there is not much merit in
doing well when there is no temptation to do evil, and that,
though there was no harm, but great propriety, in wishing
88 RUT LEDGE.
to b^ kept away fvom all chance of temptation, still, if my
station in life lay in the world, the safest prayer would be,
not to be taken out of the world, but to be kept from the
evil.
In the afternoon, I went to church alone, and this time
on foot, Kitty pointing me out a path across the fields that
fehortened the distance very considerably. I recognized
Mrs. Roberts in the pew in front of me ; and began to feel
somewhat ashamed of my unreasonable aversion, as I
caught sight of tears on her w^rinkled cheeks, and heard a
slight trembling in her usually harsh voice. Who knows,
I thought, how much she may have suffered, and what
heavy cares may have worn those wrinkles so deep, and
made her so harsh and exacting ? I really determined to
be more charitable and patient, and that very evening, by
way of bringing good desires to good effects, I went softly
to Mrs. Roberts' door and knocked. Now it was one thing
to feel the beauty and power of Christian charity and for-
bearance, under the influence of Mr. Shenstone's earnest
voice, and in the solemn stillness of the dusky church, and
another to realize it brought down to fact, before the door
of Mrs. Roberts' sitting-room, and imder the influence of
her grim " come in."
My courage was beginning to fail, and I felt tempted to
make a precipitate retreat, letting the good resolutions
evaporate as good resolutions too often do, in pretty senti-
ment. But remembering how very contrary this was to
Mr. Shenstone's practical directions, after a moment's hesi-
tation, I opened the door and entered. Mrs. Roberts was
bitting by a small table with a small lamp upon it, reading
a Bible, which, upon my entrance, she shuffled away, very
nxuch as if she were ashamed to be caught at it ; then turned
toward me with a look of surprise that was anything but
agreeable. She could not avoid asking me to sit down^
which I did, slipping into the first chair I reached, and
stammering out something about thinking she was lonely,
BUTLEDOB. 89
and thai she might be glad of cempany for a little while,
She stiffly replied she was too much used to being alone, to
mind it at all, and thereupon ensued an awkward silence.
The mahogany and haircloth looked dismaller than ever by
the feeble light of the little lamp, and Mrs. Roberts' face
looked colder and harder. How I wished myself out
again 1 What possible good could my coming do ? What
could I talk about ? Mrs. Roberts did not make any at-
tempt to relieve my embarrassment, but sat rigidly silent,
wondering, in her heart, I knew, what brought me. I at
last hit upon what seemed an unexceptionable topic, and
said, what a nice day it had been.
Rather warm for the season, it had appeared to Mrs*
Roberts. Then I rung the changes upon the lateness of the
fall, the beauty of the woods, my admiration for the little
church, the goodness of Mr. Shenstone, but all without
producing the slightest unbending in my auditor. She
pimply assented or dissented (always the latter, I thought,
when she conscientiously could), and beyond it I could not
get. By and by, I said quite warmly, feeling sure that I
should strike the right chord this time :
*' What a fine old place this is I I like it better every day.**
She gave me a quick, suspicious look, and replied quite
snappishly :
" I shouldn't think it would be very pleasant to a young
lady of your age."
" What does she mean by being so cross about it ?" I
pondered. "Is she afraid I am going to put it in my
pockot and carry it away with me when I go. Really I
think I've done my duty ; she won't let me be kind, and
now I can, without any scruple, say good night."
As I rose to go, my eye fell on a book on the table, the
title of which I stooped to read.
"Ah !" I cried, " *Holy Living and Dying;' how familiar
it looks !"
And with a mist of tears before my eyes, I turned ove^
90 BUTLEDGS.
its well-remembei ed pages. Rutledge, Mrs. Roberts, were
all faded away, and I was in a dim sick-room, where, on a
little table by the bed a Bible and Prayer-book and Taylor's
*' Holy Living and Dying," had lain day after day, and
week after week, the guides and comforters of a djing
Baint. Again I was a child, half frightened at I knew not
what, in that tranquil ^oom, half soothed by the placid
smile that always met me ihere. Again the choking sensa-
tion rose in my throat, the nameless terror subdued me, as
when longing to do something loving, I had read aloud, till
my tears blinded me, in this same book. I had never seen
it since then ; since I had been away at school ; but those
five years of exile were swept away at a breath as I
opened it. I sat down, and, shading my eyes with my
hand, glanced over paragraphs that I knew word for word,
and that made my heart ache to recall. After a while,
however, the bitterness of the first recognition passed away,
and it became a sort of sad pleasure to read what brought
back so vividly the love and grief of my childhood.
" Shall I read aloud to you ?" I said, looking up.
" I shall be very glad to hear you," she answered, in a
softened tone.
I do not know whether she divined the cause of my
unsteady voice, but it is not unlikely that she did, or the
book may have had some similar association for herself,
for after I had read nearly an hour, and closed it, she said,
with a voice not over firm :
" I am very much obliged to you, young lady ; that is a
book that, for whatever cause we read it, is good for yoim^
and old."
" I shall be very glad to read in it again to you whence er
you would Uke to hear me, Mrs, Roberts," I said, as I rose
to go. She accompanied rae to the door, and held the lighl
I ill I had crossed the hall to my own room.
If I had not done her any good by the effort I had mnide.
at least I had done some to myself.
CHAPTER Vir.
" He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak; 'tis charity to slicw."
It was a lovely afternoon, milder than November often
vouchsafes, and perfectly clear. The sun was pretty low,
and its slanting beams lighted the smooth lake and threw
long shadows across the. lawn and over the garden, through
the winding paths of which I was now sauntering. The laet
two days having been marked by no Improvement in Mr,
Rutledge, he had, of course, not been out of his room, and
I had been left pretty much to myself, and had improved
the time in perfecting my knowledge of the out-door attrac-
tions of the place, and from stable to garden, I now knew
it thoroughly. Delightful days those were, saving the
occurrence of a little loneliness and ennui that would creep
over me as evening approached ; delightful days, when,
without a thought of care for present or future, I wandered
unchecked over the loveliest spot I had as yet seen. A
long avenue led from the house to the gate ; the lawn on
the right sloped down to the lake, a lovely sheet of water
surrounded on three sides by woods ; and around as far as
the eye could reach, stretched wide fields, rich with cultiva-
tion, and woodlands where one could almost fancy the axe
had never resounded. Further, however, than the gate,
and the lake, and the boundaries of the lawn, I had never
dared to venture. Dared, though, is not exactly tho term ;
for if I had even thought of the word in that connection,
I should probably have gone miles in an opposite direction,
to prove that, as to thafe, I dared go anywhere. But I
bad a sort of chivalrous respect for what I was (jertain
92 BUTLEDOE.
would be the wishes of my protector, now hors de
combat, and determined, tlierefore, to stay within the
grounds.
Which were ample enough to satisfy any reasonable
young person, certainly, and picturesque enough, and well
kept enough for the most fastidious. That particular after-
noon, as the declining sun lighted up the dark massive
house, and the fine old trees, nearly bare though they were,
and the winding paths of the garden and broad fields
beyond, Rutledge seemed to me the realization of all I had
ever dreamed or read, of beauty and of stateliness. I
walked slowly down the garden ; the faint smell of some
lingering grapes on the arbor overhead perfmned the air ;
the dead leaves rustled under my feet, alone breaking the
stillness peculiar to an autumn afternoon, unprofiined by the
many murmurs of insect-life, or the animating song of sum-'
mer bird. You might listen for hours, and a nut dropping
off the tree among the dry leaves, or the tinkling of a cow-
bell, acres off across the fields, or the letting down a pair of
bars somewhere about the farm, would be all the sounds
that would break the serene silence.
But just when I was speculating on this, I heard another
and a very distinct sound, and looking whence it proceeded,
discovered it to be the shutting of the hall door, and pre-
sently some one descended the steps and walked leisurely
toward the garden. " Hurrah I" I exclaimed aloud, " it's
Mr. "Rutledge I" And I ran down the path, followed closely
by a little terrier, who had introduced himself to my notice
at the barn, and not being unfavorably received, had
attended my movements ever since. It was not till I wag
within a few yards of Mr. Rutledge, that the recollection of
that unlucky "hero" business brought me to a sudden
stand-stiQ, and took all the cordiality out of my greeting
He had seen me coming, and was waiting for me, evidently,
however, somewhat at a loss to account for my sudden shy-
Desa, puttins: it down, it is probable, though, to tlie score of
KUTLEDOB 98
childishness and folly along with the rest of my short
coiaings and absurdities.
" I see," he said, extending his hand, " that you've been
getting better as industriously as I have been getting worse.
You begin to look quite like the little girl I brought away
from St. Catharine's."
" I am as well as possible, sir. How is your arm ?"
* It isn't my arm I it is Doctor Sartain's. I don't take
any of the responsibility of it. I do not think, however, it
could possibly be much worse, as far as I can be supposed
to judge."
He spoke lightly, but I perceived in a moment that he
was looking very much paler than when I had last seen him.
" Ought you to be out, sir, if you still suffer from it ?"
"I suppose not," he answered, as we walked slowly
down the path ; " but to teU you the truth, I was tired of
the house, and coUte qui coUte^ determined to get a breath
of fresh air."
I couldn't help remembering a certain scene in the library
not many days ago, and giving him rather a wicked look,
made him remember it too.
" I had nobody, however, you see, to make me stay in
and by showing a little firmness at the risk of putting
me in a bad temper, keep me from doing an imprudent
thmg."
" I should have supposed, sir, that Mrs. Roberts would
have been in her element on such an occasion. I thought
she always adopted the opposition ticket."
" By the way," he said, laughing, " how do you and Mrs.
Roberts get on ? You weren't very much charmed with
her at first sight, were you ?"
** I do not adore her yet, sir, but I don't think she's quite
as dreadful as I did."
"You thought, poor child," he continued in the same
tone, " that you were in a dreary prison. Absurd as it was^
I could not help feeling dreadfully sorry for you \ and ov\^\\.
94 BUTLKDGE.
to feel so yet, I suppose, only Pve had no time lately to fee)
sorry for anybody but myseLf.'
" Indeed, sir, I think you are the fittest Bul ject," I said a
little nettled. " I am as contented as possible, and shouldn't
mind staying here a year."
" You like Rutledge, then ?"
" Yes," I returned, " but I hardly dare say so, after the
way in which Mrs. Roberts snapped me up about it the
other night."
" How was that," he asked, with some curiosity.
I related the peculiar manner in which she had received
my admiration of it, and ended by asking him if he could
imagine what was the cause of it.
" Oh," he said, carelessly, " you must not mind what she
says, and make all excuses for her. She has had a great
deal of trouble, and is naturally of a nervous and irritable
disposition, and living here alone has increased all her pecu-
iiaiities in a very great degree."
" In a very uncomfortable degree," I said ; and Mr. Rut-
ledge was continuing, when his further remarks were cut
short by the desertion of two of the party, to wit, the terriei
and myself. Now I had no intention of being rude, but
looking down at that moment, I discovered that Tigre had
possessed himself of one of my gloves, and was gnawing and
shaking it wuth unspeakable goUt. I made a motion to take
it from him, whereon the rascal darted away down the path,
then paused an instant, and before I could reach him, was
away again toward the barn. I could not surrender so, and
forgetting everything but the chase, tore after him at the top
of ray speed. To see the way in which that little object
" streaked " along, looking back at me out of the comers
of his eyes I Four legs naturally get over the ground ^ster
than two, and Tigre had the start of me besides, but I had
graduated in running at St. Catharine's, and was not to be
beaten by such an antagonist as this. It was a steeple chase
of no unexciting character.
BXJTLBDOE. 95
''We staid not for brake, and we stopped not for stone."
A ditch intervened, but proved no obstacle, and on we
tore, till we reached the low fence that separated the
grounds from the outbuildings. Tigre shot under it I
took it at a flying-leap. He was making for the barn, and
once there, he would baffle me ; some favorite hole or inac-
cessible cranny would shelter him from my pursuit, and hide
forever from human gaze my ill-fated glove. This goading
thought sustained my flagging energy in the same propor-
tion that the nearness of the goal reanimated that of Tigre.
On, on, with desperate resolve I Stephen leaned on his
spade to witness the issue of the race, Michael paused, the
cuiTycomb in his suspended hand, to see the result ; and
both involuntarily ejaculated, " Pretty well done 1" as on
the very threshold of the barn, I sprang upon my opponent
and wrested the glove from his determined teeth 1 And in
a frantic romp, we rolled together over and over on the
hay, Tigre's active paws and nose in my very face, his
excitement carrying him beyond all bounds of decorum, and
mine, alas ! making me as forgetful of all proprieties ; till
an approaching footstep recifJled me to my senses.
Throwing down Tigre, I sprang up, and hastily shaking
the hay from my dress, and pushing back my disordered
hair, prepared myself for the lecture I knew I deserved,
and " cut and dried " a very impertinent rejoinder. I
might have saved myself the trouble ; Mr. Rutledge did not
take any more notice of me than if I had been Tigre's four-
legged and shaggy compatriot. Passing through the bam,
he called up one of the men, and gave him orders about the
Btoring of some grain ; sent for another upon the question
ot supplies ; talked with Stephen about the state of the
grape-vines ; with Michael about the condition of the colts ;
inspected the poultry-yard; pronounced upon the cattle;
equally a connoisseur, and thoroughly at home on every
point
96 BUTLEDOB.
During this time, I leaned thoughtfully against the barn
door, and reviewed my own conduct, and that of Mr. Rut-
ledge. Of course, I had been unladylike and all that ^I
knew it as well as anybody ; but then, I was old enough to
do as I liked, and who had a right to reprove me ? Well,
nobody had reproved me. But then, I knew just as well
what he thought of me ; I knew he considered me rude,
disrespectful, childish ; and it would have been ten times
less hateful of him to have been angry and done with it,
than to have taken no notice of me in any way, just as if he
bad St once dropped me out of his esteem, consideration
and recollection altogether. Angry, humbled, but rebellious,
I lingered a long while near him, with a hope that he would
say something that I could resent, but no such chance was
afforded me. Mr. Rutledge's whole mind was given to his
business ; and sullenly enough, I called to Tigre and turned
toward the house. It was unlucky that I did not know how
to whistle ^I longed to whistle a tune, and put my hands in
my pockets with a jaunty and defiant air as I passed Mr.
Rutledge on my way to the house. As it was, I was obliged
to content myself with the significant attitude alone, that
was meant to convey tones of don't-care sauciness and indif-
ference.
I did not feel at all like going indoors when I reached the
house, though it was growing dark very rapidly ; and with
Tigre at my heels, paced for a long while up and down the
stone walk before the steps of the piazza. The sound of
Mr, Rutledge's approaching footsteps, far from checking
my walk, quickened it considerably, and calling to Tigre,
just as he reached the terrace, I started at a brisk pace
down the avenue. Mr. Rutledge stopped and called me ; I
went on, pretending not to hear. He called again, and this
time there was no avoiding it. I turned sharply round and
said:
" Did you speak, sir ?"
" It is too late for you to be out \ you will take cold."
BUTLEDOE. 97
" I am not afraid, sir, I shall soon be in ;" and I turned
away.
" But it is too late," repeated Mr. Rutledge, in a voice 1
could not mistake. " You must excuse my interference, but
I should prefer your coming in now."
I looked down the avenue, the moon was just rising, though
day had not quite faded in the west; I wondered what
would be the result if I dared rebel ; I almost determined
I would. But I glanced toward the house ; Mr. Rutledge
stood holding the door open for me with a resolute quietness
that made resistance impossible. With a bad enough grace
I turned back, ran up the steps, and passed through the
doorway without raising my eyes, and never stopped tiU 1
had gained the second story, and locked myself into my
own room. Most bitter and most extravagant tears I shed
of course, veiy angry and very implacable resolves I made ;
and finished off by a violent fit of contrition and humility?
under the influence of which I started to my feet, and
remembering that it was long past tea-time, hastily
smoothed my hair, and followed by my little favorite, ran
quickly down the stairs and paused a moment at the library
door. All contrition, I half opened it, and looking in, with
a most April-like face, whereon smiles and tears contended,
8aid humbly :
" May Tigre and I come in, sir ?"
Mr. Rutledge sat reading by the fire ; tea was en the
table. He looked up a moment, then resumed his book.
" Without doubt ; tea is waiting."
I came up to the fire, and stood leaning against the
mantelpiece. If he would only look up, and not be so hope-
lessly cold and indifferent ! My penitent speeches fled at
the sight ; I could never tell him how asjiamed and sorry I
felt, while he looked so. He did not look any otherwise,
however, all through the uncomfortable meal, that I
thought never meant to end; nor during the uncomfortable
hours that succeeded the uncomfortable meal, that seemed
98 BUTLEDOK.
to sti-etch out, like a clown's leg, indefinitely and inter
minably.
I had time to realize and become very well acquainted
with the fact, that I had forfeited the newly-acquired position
of companion, and had sunk to the capricious child again.
llo had just begun to treat me like a reasonable cr^aturOj
and to talk to me for something besides the kindness of
amusing me, and now by my own folly, I had made an end
to all this, and compelled him to see in me nothing but child-
ishness and self-will."
Mr. Rutledge, after tea, had taken up his book again,
and pushed across the table to rAe some new reviews that
had come that day, saying, perhaps I might find something
amusing in them. That meant I was to amuse myself.
That meant there was to be no talking, no reading aloud, no
dictating of letters.
" It's all Tigre's fault, the little villain !" I ^ ejaculated,
mentally, pushing him angrily down from my lap, as I took up
the literature assigned me. The discarded favorite uttered
a low whine, looked pleadingly up in my angry face, then
walked over to his master, and putting his paws on the arm
of his chair, wagged his tail, and looked imploringly for
permission to spring up. But an impatient " Off, sir !" made
him withdraw abashed, and, standing on the rug between
us, he gazed wonderingly from one to the other. If it had
not been for the precedent of " the dog in the manger,"
and the proverbial compaiison of all cross people to " Hall's
dog," I should have been certain that such scenes were
entirely new to Tigre, and that in the bosom of his fsunWy
bad tempers were unknown. As it was, he looked very
much mystified and considerably shocked ; and at length con
eluded to lie down where he was, at an equal distance from
both antagonists, to whose movements, however, he lent an
attentive eye and ear. But there was not much to repay
his watchfulness ; for beyond an occasional symptom of
fatigue on my part, and the periodjcal turning of the
BUTLEDOB. 99
leaves of Mr. Rutledge's book, dire and entire quiet
reigned.
At last, at half past nine, I sprang up, determined to put
an end to such an evening ; and with a firm resolution not
to say more than the one necessary word, " good night," I
looked furtively toward my companion. He had closed the
book, and leaning his face on his hand sat looking into the
fire. Just so he had looked the other night when I had
felt so sorry for him ; and perhaps I felt the least bit sorry
now. To my good night, he replied, carelessly, "Gooi
oight ;?' then, looking up at the clock, said :
" It is early yet."
" But I am very tired," and I moved toward the door,
**1 forgot to ask you, sir," I said, turning back, whether
you had any letters you would like to have answered ?"
" No, thank you ; none of any importance. You need
not stay."
Contrition, pity, good resolutions, etc., all rushed over
me; making three steps back into the room, and swal-i
lowing down the rebellious pride and temper, I came out
with
" If I am a child, sir, I am old enough to know when I
have done wrong, and not too old to be willing to acknow-
ledge it. I am very well aware that I have been rude and
disrespectful to you, and I hope you 'svill have the goodness
to excuse it."
He looked at me for a moment with a puzzled air, as if
he had not quite expected the sudden humiliation ; though [
am not sure that my attitude implied so much of humiliation
as it did of determined conscientiousness. After a moment's
quiet scrutiny, which I bore unflinchingly, he said :
*'I am not quite sure that I understand to what you
allude, nor how I come to be entitled to pass judgment on
your conduct. Pray explain."
The blood mounted to my temples as I answered :
** I acknowledged my faults to you, because they T^ete
100 liUTLEDOE.
oommitted against you; because to you I r/wed respect)
attention, and courtesy, which I failed to show. I owed
this to you as my elder, my host, and the person who, in a
manner, had charge of me."
"You seem to have analyzed your duty pretty tho^
roughly, I must acknowledge ! You have stricter views of
duty than most persons of your age."
*' I don't resent the sarcasm, sir ; I know it is well
merited."
" I did not intend it sarcastically. I say again you have
shown a habit of mind, that, if persevered in, wiU lead you
to a high standard of excellence."
" My failures in duty, since I came here, sir, have beer
too conspicuous to let me understand you literally."
" You judge yourself severely; I cannot recall any very
flagrant offences."
" They would not," I said, as steadily as I could, " be
likely to make the same impression on you as on me ; with
me they were matters of conscience ; with you they were,
I hope, only occasion of momentary surprise, or better, of
indifference and inattention."
" On the contrary," said Mr. Rutledge, " I have watcked
you attentively since you came here, and have taken quite
a strong interest in all you have said and done."
" You are kind," I exclaimed, nettled more at the tono
than the words. " Then I shall have to be doubly careful
while I have the honor to be under your eye."
He went on, as if he had not heard me : " It has ap-
peared to me that you are in most respects "
" I must beg," I exclaimed, with an impatient gesture,
* that you will defer your summary till I am in a better
frame of mind to bear it. Just now, it wouldn't be as pro-
fitable as you, no doubt, desire to make it."
" I should be sorry," ho replied, " to spoil the humility
you have taken such pains to get in order for the occasioo
and will not say a word to interfere with it."
BI] TL&DOX. 101
" Do you know humility when you see it, sir ?" I could
not help saying under my breath.
" 1 learned a good deal about it when I was young," ae
answered, " and thought, till I came to years of discretion,
that I knew all that could be taught in regard to it. But
I have since discovered that there is more spurious coin
bearing that stamp than almost any other; false pride,
wounded vanity, morbid self-love, all get themselves up
under the title of humility, and pass current very readily.''
I bowed. "Wounded vanity fits me, I think. May I
retire, sir, if you have nothing further to say ?"
" But I have," he exclaimed, suddenly changing his tone.
*' I have a great deal more to say." And, taking my hand,
he drew me down into the chair beside him, and looking at
me with a mixture of kindness and mirth, he said :
" So you are beginning to feel ashamed of yourself, are
you ? You are such an absurd child, it is impossible to bo
angry with you, or tired of you, for you are never two
minutes alike. Upon my word you're quite a study !"
He did not let go my hand, and though I turned my face
away, 1 could not escape his eyes.
" The uncertain glory of an April day," he exclaimed.
"Why, a minute ago you were angry, then you were
pleased, now you are frightened, and I suppose you will
wind up with a burst of tears. How is one to take you ?"
For this style of lecture I had not any retort ready, so I
only hung my head, and was silent.
" One moment you are a woman, intelligent and sensible,
the next a pettish child. One day you show a sympathy, a
tact, a depth of feeling, that go to one's very heart ; the
next, capricious, silly, and childish, you destroy it alL
Sometimes you amuse yourself with Tigre, sometimes with
me. And," he continued, after a pause, " sometimes you
talk too much, and sometimes, as at present, for instance,
too little. Well?" he went on, interrogatively, having
elicited no reply. " Well ? Have you nothing to ay fo\
102 BUTLEDGE,
yourself? Tliea go 1" he exclaimed, throwing my hand
from him. " I am tired of you ; you've been one thing too
long ; you've been silent exactly two minutes.''
I got up very quickly, and retreated toward the door.
" What ?" said Mr. Rutledge, rising and standing by the
fire. "You are going? Why, we have but just made
IID.'
" I am not quite positive that we have," I answered, ^
lighting my candle. " It's rather a one-sided make-up, it
strikes me."
" How so ? You surely haven^c any complaint to make
of me, after aU my unexampled goodness to you ?"
" Of course not I" I exclaimed ; " nothing to say about
your treating me like a baby, and expecting me to behave
like a woman, making me talk to make you laugh, and put-
ting my French and my temper to the hardest tests you
could think of; and then, after I've vexed you by a little
inattention, pushing me aside, as if I weren't capable of
understanding a reproof, and turning your back on me for a
whole evening. Zhave nothing to complain o:^ of course!
Good night, sir."
" Stay a moment I You take away my breath with all
that catalogue. I tease you I I laugh at you I Impos-
sible I"
" So I said, sir ; and now, if you please, good night."
" Ah 1 I see I must get you away to your aunt ; I shall
spoil you if I keep you here much longer. You are getting
very saucy ; Miss Crowen wouldn't own you."
" I am afraid you are right there," I said, with a little
sigh ; " I don't think I am improving very much."
"Well, then," he said, seriously, "suppose we deter-
mine to do better for the future, and instead of trifling
and teasing, be good sensible friends. Will that suit
you?"
" I think it would be about as one-sided a friendship afi
the reconciliation was."
bvtledg:b;. 103
" Why ? Are you not willing to be my friend ?"
" Of course I am; but friendship implies equality, and aU
that sort of thing, and the power to help each other. Now,
you know the absurdity of my being your friend, as well as
I know it, and you are laughing at me/'
" Do I look as if I were laughing at you ?" And indeed
he did not.
" Well, but," I continued, " you know perfectly well I
like you, and would do anything in the world to serve you,
but that cannot make up for my inability to do it, you
see."
" You can do a great deal .to help me," he answered.
" There are a hundred ways in which you can prove your-
self my friend."
I laughed incredulously.
" You doubt it ?" he said. " Listen, little girl. 1 have
not many friends. 1 do not choose to believe in many
people. I choose to believe in you ; therefore you can do
me a kindness by keeping alive in my heart a little faith in
human nature. I have many cares to harass me in the pre-
sent ; much that is sad to remember of the past. By your
youth and cheerfrilness you can brighten the one ; by your
gentleness and sympathy you can soothe the recollections
of the other. Youth is gone from me forever, but you can
be the link between it and me, and keep it in sight a httle
longer. You can show me what I once was, earnest, hope-
ful, ^and trusting, and so keep me from forgetting what I
should be. Above all, you can be honest, and never de-
ceive me; and Mthfril, and never withdraw from your
allegiance. This is what you can do for me : now, what can
I do for you ?"
I tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come, so he
helped me to them.
"You find it difficult to enumerate my duties ? Some
thing like this, perhaps, is what you will require of me. I
must be careful not to wound the sensitiveness of one natu-
104 BUT LEDGE.
rally much more Husceplible to unkindness thaii myself. 1
must bear patiently with childish faults, and not forget the
indulgence due to youth. I must be just and unflattering,
and when my malurer judgment suggests amendment, it is
my duty, is it not, to point it out ? For having been over
the same ground that you are to travel, I can give you
many hints that will make your path an easier one, if you
will but receive them. And finally, I am to have your in-
terest always at heait, and to observe the same faith and
truthfulness toward you that I expect you to nfaintain to-
ward me. Will you subscribe to that ? Is it what you
would require of me ?"
" Yes, that is fair, I think."
" Well, then, give me your hand upon it, and remember
the compact is sealed ; we are friends henceforth ! Stay,
what shall we have as a reminder of this promise ? Some
pledge, some security is necessary, for we might forget, in
the lapse of years, you know.'*
He went up to an escritoire in a distant comer of the
room, and unlocking it, took from a secret drawer two or
three little boxes, and from these selecting one, replaced
the others, turned the key, and came back to the table.
The box contained a bracelet of curious foreign coins, hand-
somely mounted a very unique and elegant ornament.
This Mr. Rutledge proceeded to fit around my wrist, and
with my assistance (having the use of only one hand)
clasped.
" Are you willing to wear it always," he said, " in mem
oriam ?"
" Yes."
" Well, then good bye to liberty !" and he turned a tm^i
gold key that I had not noticed in the clasp, and took it
out. I must confess to a feeling not unlike bondage when
the lock was snapped and the key withdi'awn ; and inrolim.
larily exclaimed :
" But what if I want to take it off?"
. BFTLXDOJEB. 106
"You must not want to, the thing is irrevocable,*' he
daid coolly, listening the key upon his watch-chain,, " hlp
me with this. I have but one hand, you know."
" I don't altogether like the idea," I said obeying him
nevertheless, and arranging the little key on his chain.
" You should have thought of that before," he said with
a laugh. " It is too late to retract. You may well look
serious," he continued noticing my expression. " You for-
got, when you made it, what a solemn thing a promise
was; but now you'll have something to remind you of its
weight, and of the impossibility of getting rid of it. There's
no danger now that you'll forget you promised to be
my friend; you are bound, irrevocably, solemnly, for-
ever I"
" I thought you weren't to tease," I exclaimed shaking
my arm. " It's a very pretty thing, but I shall hate it if I
feel that I must wear it always, and that I can't take it off
when I want to."
" That's exactly what I meant to guard against. If you
could take it off wheneveiryou were tired of it, you would
of course soon throw it aside, and there would be an end
of compact, friendship and alL I hope you know me bettei
than to suppose I would be satisfied with such an arrange-
ment I Now, no matter how many little obstacles in the
way of oceans, mountains, and other imbecile contrivances
of Nature for the separation of friends, intei'vene, I shall
feel as if I had a check upon your conduct, a guardian of
my place in your affections that will make me quite easy
about it. For you know of course, the legends that are
related of such gifts. I hope you are not superstitious, but
y ou remember the power attributed to them ; how such a
pledge will surely take the giver's part, and grow tighter
and tighter till the pain is unnedurable should the wearer,
in her inmost heart, harbor a thought of treachery or faith
lessness."
" I suppose, sir, having my arm amputated in case I
6*
106 BUTLBDGE. .
cbanged my miud, wou.d free me from tlie obligation oi
wealing it, would it not ?"
Mr. Rutledge sliook his head gravely,
" I am not of the opinion that it would ; but 1 hope we
shall not have to proceed to any such extreme measures."
*' Oh, it's my left arm, I shouldn't mind very much. You
manage so well with one, that I should feel encouraged by
your example, if my handcuff should grow too unbearable."
" StiU there are advantages in possessing the use of both,
that I would not advise you to give up unnecessarily. For
instance, if you wanted a cigar from the case on the top of
that etag^re, which cannot be reached down without two
hands, your temper would be severely tried in having to
ring for Thomas to get it for you, or having to depend
upon the uncertain charity of a most capricious friend who
might or might not, be in the humor to serve you."
" But I shouldn't be likely to want a cigar," I said aa
standing in a chair I lifted down the case, and took out one.
" There are matches on the mantelpiece," he said non-
chalantly as I handed it to him. I brought the matches,
drew one, and held it for him, as he lit his cigar.
" Anything more sir ?"
" Nothing but the evening paper, which you interrupted
me in reading, half an hour ago."
" I beg your pardon, sir, but you haven't had a paper in
your hand since tea," I said, hunting among the piles of
books and papers on the table for it. " Here it is. Good
night."
"Doesn't common kindness suggest your staying to
read it for me."
" No sir, it hasn't suggested it as yet," I replied as I
took up my long neglected candle. " It suggests ' good-
night,' sir," and the door closed between us before he could
answer.
The moon was making my room so bright, that I soon
p'lt out the candle as supei'fluous, and wrapping my dresS'
KXTTLEDOE. 107
ing gown about me, sat in the bay window for a long,
long whUe, watching the soft shadows on the la-wn, and the
silvery smoothness of the lake. Ah I how hateful it would
be to leave this quiet place, and go among strangers again f
The idea of city life had never been altogether attractive,
but now seemed most distasteful. Altogether, my new
home in New York did not to-night attract my errant
fancy, neither did the old school life draw it back regret*
fully, from a Present so suflScing that I did not ask myself
why it was better than Past or Future ; nor why my fancy,
usually so eager on the wing, should lie so contentedly in
so calm a nest.
CHAPTER VIII.
" Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever.
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long,
So shalt thou make life, death, and that vast forever.
One grand, sweet song."
KiNGSLET.
" N"o one who aspires to the honor of writing ray let-
ters," said Mr. Rutledge, as I entered the breakfast-room,
"can indulge in such late hours as these. Twenty minutes
to eight, Mademoiselle, and tlie mail goes at ten. You are
getting in shocking habits.
"Why sir!" I exclaimed, "I've been up two hours at
least."
" And what have you been doing all that time, I should
like to be informed f "
" I've been to the bam and fed the kittens, and to the
stable and fed the dogs ; and then I went to the garden
for some flowers, but the frost had been there before me
and there wasn't one worth pulling. So to get warm (it's
very chiQy out this morning) I ran down the avenue, and
across to the chestnut wood, and so home by the lake.
And here are all the chestnuts those rascally village boys
have left !" I exclaimed, throwing a couple of handfuls on
the table. " I do wonder, sir, you allow them to commit
such trespasses, so near the house too. I would keep at
least that grove for my own use. I never saw finer trees,
and a week ago they were loaded, Stephen says. Tester-
day morning there were two boys up threshing one of the
largest trees; I heard them, just as I came under it ; the
nuts were falling down nicely, so I began to pick them up
as unconcernedly as possible, and got my pockets and
BITTLEDGB. 109
apron fiiU, while the young vagabonds np in the tree didn't
dare, of course, to breathe, for fear of being discovered
and had to see me carrying off their precious nuts without
a word. T didn't leave a shell, I assure you ; I never en-
joyed anything more and went down this morning in hope
of another adventure."
" I hope," said Mr. Rutledge very seriously, " that you
will never do such an imprudent thing again. You should
never go into the woods without taking Kitty with you,
least of all, when there are such marauders about."
" I took Solo and Dash with me, and I would have kept
them up there tUl noon, if I had cauglit them at it again,
the rascals."
" You are very thoughtless, not to be aware of tne dan-
ger of provoking such lawless fellows."
" I cannot see the danger ; not half a mile from the
house, and with two great dogs to back me. And ' if the
worst came to the worst,' I know I could outrun the long-
est-legged loafer among them."
The words werig hardly out of my mouth, when I remem-
bered that this latter accomplishment had not appeared to
win me any favor from Mr. Rutledge in the unlucky affair
of the glove yesterday ; and, with a blush, I hastily, by way
of effacing the impression, continued :
" But if you don't approve, of course I will not do so
again ; and when Kitty can't be spared to go with me, I
will stay nearer the house."
" Kitty always can be spared, and though I am sorry to
insist upon your taking her, I shall be much better satisfied
to know you are not alone."
" Very well, sir. May I trouble you for another biscuit ?"
" You have a fine color this morning. Rutledge agrees
with you."
" Famously," I replied, applying myself with great satis-
Action to my breakfast ; " and as I have so much to do
before ten o'dook, there's no time to lose."
110 SUTLEDGB.
'^ !N'ot a minute ; but I should be uncomfortable to think
you were starved ; don't hurry so frantically."
" There ! I'm ready now," I exclaimed, in a few minutes
following him into the library with a light step, and singing
enatches of a gay tune.
" I see you do not dread work," he said, as I sat down
before the writing-table, and took up a pen with alacrity.
" Not when I can see daylight through it, sir, and a rea-
sonable prospect ahead of getting it done. Now, sir."
And Mr. Rutledge dictated, and I wi'ote for an hour,
without the slightest intermission. At the end of that time
he said :
" Do you think you are equal to the task of answering
those two letters by yourself, of which I will give you a
general idea, while I look over those accounts with Mau-
rice and Ruthven, to be added to the New Orleans letter ?
It is important that they should all be dispatched to-day."
" If you are willing to trust me, I am willing to tiy."
And I immediately began the task. It was by no means
an easy one ; but by referring to the letters to be answered,
and by keeping before my mind the synopsis Mr. Rutledge
had briefly given me, I was able to finish them to his satis-
faction ; added the memoranda he had been making to the
other letter, sealed and addressed them all, and had the
package ready for Michael when he appeared at the door at
ten o'clock.
" You have worked pretty well for two hours," said Mr,
Rutledge, as for a moment I leaned my head on my hand.
" I am afraid you are tired."
" Not in the least," I said bravely, looking up.
" Then get your bonnet and come out with me. It is too
fine a day to stay in the house."
As I followed him through the hall, Mrs. Roberts en-
countered us at the dining-room door. Her greeting to
me was stiffer than ever. To Mr. Rutledge she said :
" If you can spare the tune, sir, you would oblige me very
KOTLEDGB. Ill
much by looking over the ' household expenses ' this mom*
ing ; Dorothy has got her account with the grocer in a great
snarl, and hasn't done much better with the butcher, and 1
can't make them all come out right."
*' My good friend," said Mr. Rutledge, " if you had ap-
pealed to me any other time, I might have helped you, but
I have been doing quite as much this morning as I think
prudent ; to-morrow I will attend to the books."
" I am sorry," said Mrs. Roberts, uneasily ; " but to-day
IS the day the grocer brings in his account, and I don't like
those sort of people to suppose there's any irregularity in
the accounts we keep. They're always ready enough to
take advantage."
" Couldn't I help you, Mrs. Roberts ?" I asked. " I should
be very willmg to."
She gave me a look which plainly said, " You help me /"
but she merely answered :
"Thank you, Miss, but Mr. Rutledge understands the
books better than any one ; and if he felt able "
*' But he doesn't," said the gentleman in question. " The
grocer can come to-morrow with his bill. ' It will not sig*
niiy for once."
Still Mrs. Roberts demurred, and I saw there would be
no peace till she worried Mr. Rutledge into it, so I renewed
my offer of assistance. This time it seemed to strike her
in a more favorable light.
" If I didn't mind the trouble, perhaps I might help her
reckon it up.. She wasn't as quick at figures as she used to
be."
I would do my best, I said, untying my bonnet. But
Mr. Rutledge peremptorily interfered.
" By no means, Mrs. Roberts. She has been writing two
hours already for me ; she must have nothing more at pre-
sent," and he walked on toward the door.
But the housekeeper was by no means vanquished, and
clnng tenaciously to my offer. She was sure^ she said^
112 BUTLEDCrB.
the young lady would be glad to oblige an old woman.
And duty so plainly pointed ttat way, that I wavered no
longer. I had made up my mind to be kind to Mrg,
Roberts; here was the chance to carry my good resolu-
tions into effect. Throwing my bonnet into a chau', I
said:
" If you win excuse me from walking with you, Mr. Rut-
edge, I will see what I can do to help Mrs. Roberts."
" I cannot excuse you," he replied, with decision. " I
do not think it best for you to be confined to the house any
longer at present."
" Oh," I exclaimed, while Mrs. Roberts looked on au2C-
lously, " I have been used to studying and writing nine
hours out of the twenty-four at school, and this moraing's
business has been mere play. I shall not think of feeling
tired for hours yet, so please do not make any objections.
Come, Mrs. Roberts," I continued, going toward the stairs,
and giving her a little nod.
She hesitated, and I saw her glance uneasily at Mr. Rut-
ledge. I now perceived that he was more than vexed ; but
I was strong enough to dare even that, when I was as cer-
tain as I now was about what I ought to do. He naturally,
I thought, didn't like to have his wishes interfered with ;
but that could not alter the right for me, " and he cannot
help but see that when he thinks it over." So again sum-
moning Mrs. Roberts, I excused myself to him, and ran up-
stairs, followed lumberingly by the housekeeper, while the
hall door closed, with no gentle emphasis, between us and
the sunny autumn morning.
I am only doing Mrs. Roberts justice, when I say that on
that particular occasion, she manifested diplomatic talents,
which, in another sphere of life,. would have won her no
inconsiderable place. I had not given her credit for tne
tact and acuteness that developed themselves*that morning,
and which, added to her well-known decision and unalt(ir.
able devotion to the one idea that happened to be upper-
BUTLEDGB. 113
most* formed the elements of a charactei I had not suf-
iicieutly looked up to. This, of course, I did not appreciate
at fii*st, and went at my task with the kindest desire to get
Mrs. Robei-ts out of her perplexity, and unravel the tangled
threads of Dorothy's aiithmetical inaccuracies.
It was the greatest effort of self-denial that I could weL
have attempted, for besides the heroism required to give up
my walk with Mr. Rutledge, on this splendid day, and
spending the morning instead with the only person I
sincerely disliked in the house, and in the room of all others
that I was most averse to, was added my unconquerable
detestation of mathematical calculations of all kinds. From
the multiplication table up, I held all such exercises in
abomination. But Miss Crowen, with her usual discrimina-
tion, having detected this weak point in my character, bent
her whole mind to the strengthening of it, and night and
day, labored to instill into my unwilling brain the rides and
methods it was constitutionally unfitted to receive. Other
studies were made to bend before it ; favorite pursuits were
saciificed to this one object ; passionate tears had washed
the distracting figures from the hated slate ; high tragedy
had been enacted before the blackboard, and stormy scenes
in the study had only strengthened Miss Crowen in her
determination to enforce obedience, and her pupil in
resistance to what she looked upon as tyrannical injustice.
The result of this continued struggle was, that after nearly
five years of drilling in that branch of study, to the exclu-
sion of more congenial pursuits, I lefl St. Catharine's with
about the amount of mathematical knowledge usually
acquired by girls of ordinary application in a year and a
half. I was ooo fresh, however, from such exercises, not to
be quite competent to master the difficulties presented in
the Rutledge " Household Expenses," and before an houi
bad passed, had reduced the " snarl " to a very compre-
hensible state, and calling to Mrs. Roberts to come and look
Qver it, I began to explain the errors I had found, and the
114 fiVTLSDGB.
manner in Trhicfi I had corrected tbem, in as lucid laugiiagc
as I could command.
But Mrs. Roberta was hopelessly obtuse ; she put on her
glasses and fumbled among the loose papers on which
Dorothy registered her financial transactions, with agonizing
bewilderment. In vain I assured her I had copied them off
on the book, and they would give her no light on the sub-
ject ; she could not give them up, and again and again
looked them over, and bemoaned Dorothy's inaccuracy and
her own stupidity. She hoped I would excuse her, but she
could not really get her mind quite clear about that last
column ; would it be asking too much of me to run it over
again aloud. I tried to be patient, and again went over it,
and explained the case in all its bearmgs. I resolutely kept
my back to the window, and would, if I could, have for-
gotten that there was such a thing as sunshine in the world ;
but, however I may have succeeded in that attempt, I could
not help hearing Mr. Rutledge's step on the stone walk out-
side, as he returned from the direction of the stables ; nor
could I help being aware that he entered the house, paused
a moment in the library, then came upstan-s. The fragrance
of an Havana penetrating the keyhole, told he had passed
this door, and gone into his dressing-room. My fingers flew
over the columns ; in proportion as my patience diminished
Mrs. Roberts' dullness increased ; she fretted, she groaned,
she bewildered me with questions, and almost crying with
vexation, I exclaimed, as I heard the horses coming up from
the stable :
*' Oh, Mrs. Roberts ! Won't you please understand !
Can't you see the only mistake was in that second figure,
and that I've put it all right ? Can't you see it balances ?"
But Mrs. Roberts couldn't see, and her obtusenesa
redoubled, as Mr. Rutledge's door opened and closed again,
and his steps echoed down the staircase and a-^oss the hall,
I could not help leaning back, and glancing out of the
window, while tearp of disappointment and vexation riiBbed
BUTLEDGE. 115
to my eyea, as I saw Mr, Rutledge drive off with Michael
in the light waggon, and the identical pair of fast trotters
that I had made admiring acquaintance with a few days
since at the stable. As their hoofs clattered rapidly down
the avenue, I could have thrown the account-books at
Mrs. Roberts' head, for in truth it began to dawn upon me
that that worthy person had had some ends of her own to
serve in keeping me so long at the work of elucidation, and
that something besides natural dullness of comprehension
had been in the way of her understanding my calculations.
I began to reflect on the absurdity of supposing that a
woman who had for years had the charge of such an estab-
lishment as Rutledge, could be in reality so dull and
ignorant as she had appeared this morning. There could
be no doubt but that she had intended to keep me in the
house ; for what cause, I could not yet determine.
The mists that had obscured her intellect, began now,
however, to clear away ; and it was not long before she
pronounced herself quite satisfied on all points, even on the
vexe^ and tortured question of that " last column," and I
was released fi'om my task. I did not doubt the sinceiity
^ of Mrs. Roberts' rather meagre thanks, nor the truthfulness
of her slight commendation of my patience. It was not in
her way to flatter, and I knew that for Some cause she dis-
trusted me, and that whatever praise she awarded me, was
fairly wrung from her by her stubborn sense of justice.
Though I knew Mrs. Roberts had been generalling this
morning, there was that about her that forbade my doubt-
ing her habitual truthfulness. I merely replied that she was
welcome to the assistance I had been able to give her, and
with a weary step I left the room.
At the door I found Tigre waiting for me with wistfux
earnestness in his erected ears and attentive eyes. I took
him in my arms, and carried him into ray own room, whore
I tried to enter with spirit into the frolic he seemed to
desire. But it proved a miserable failiu'^; I could ixot
lit) BUTLBDGB.
enjoy that or an^ thing else ; my head ached " splittingly/
and the sunshine streaming in at the window made it
worse, and playing with Tigre made it worse, and reading,
writing, thinking, all made it worse. What should I do 't
I hadn't even the spirit to go out into the fresh air ; but,
leaning wearily on the dressing-table, counted the heads on
my bracelet, and wondered that I could have been bo happy
this morning.
By and by, I summoned sufficient energy to smooth my
hair, and bathe my head with eau de Cologne ; then, calling
Tigre, I concluded to go to the library for a book. I found
that apartment rather more endurable than my own just
then, as the sun did not come in there at that hour of the
morning, and the light was very subdued, and the room
was quietness itself; so, taking a book from the table, 1
arranged the cushions of the sofa alluringly, and motioning
Tigre to his place beside me, sat down to reading. It would
have been a thrilling book that could have riveted my wan-
dering thoughts that morning ; and unluckily the book I had
chosen was very far from that stamp ; it was a thir^-rate
novel of the highly wrought order, into whose pages cha-
racters, incidents, scenes, were crowded in such bewilder-
ing piofusion, that one's appreciative powers were fagged
out and exhausted, before the first cha^)ter was accom-
plished, and, like a restaurant dinner, where all the dishes
tdste alike, there was but one flavor to the whole array of
dramatis personsB from heroine to bUe noire y but " one
gravy " for roast, bouilli, and ragout. The wearying tide
of adjectives and interjections stunned my senses ; the book
slipped from my hands, and, leaning my head on the cush
ions, my eyes closed, and with one arm round Tigre and the
other under my head, I slept, realizing even in sleep that
the bracelet touched my cheek.
The precise duration of my nap I could not tell; bm
lichen I awoke, it was to find Mr. Rutledge standing by
me. I stalled up, and he said :
BUTLEDGE. 117
* I meant to be angry, but you look so pale and tired 1
think you are punished enough already. Does your head
ache still ?" he continued, laying his hand on my shoulder.
" You would have done better to have followed my advice,
I knew you would repent."
'* I don't repent, though," I said, quite decidedly. " I
haven't even thought of repenting, and would do it all over
again, if the same circumstances occurred."
" You begin to relent toward Mrs. Roberts, then," he
said, coolly. " I thought yesterday you didn't particularly
affect my worthy housekeeper."
" My Uking or disliking her doesn't alter the question of
my duty. And, Mr. Rutledge, I don't think it's kind in
you to pretend not to understand my motive. You must
know that in all reason, I could not prefer staying worrying
in the house over some tiresome accoimts, to going out on
such a splendid day ; and you must see that there was no way
for me to refuse her conscientiously. You yourself say she is
old, and particular, and fixed in her ways; and I am certain
you often put yourself out to huntor her ; how can you
blame me for not leaving her to fret and worry over some-
thing that I could do for her in half the time ?"
Mr. Rutledge looked down at me, but said nothing,
while I briefly concluded my defence, adding at the end, a
concise request that he'd please not say anything more
about the matter.
" We will consider it amicably adjusted, then," he said,
* and dh*ect our attention to something else. What, for
instance, do you propose doing with yourself this afternoon ?"
"I haven't thought anything about it. Take a walk,
perhaps,"
" You are so fond of being useful," he said, rather wick-
edly, *' would you like to go down to the village for tfce
letters ?"
" Yes, I should like it very well, only I don't know the
way exactly ; but I suppose I can inquire.'*
118 BUTLEDGE.
" Will you ride or walk ? Michael can dnve you d(wii)
or Kitty can walk with yon."
" I think I'll walk, if it makes no difference," I said
indifferently.
" I suppose," said Mr. Rutledge, " you don't like riding
on horseback ?"
Like it . There was no need to answer ; my face told
fully my enthusiastic preference for that mode of travel.
" I do not know if there is any horse in the stable that 1
would venture toilet you ride. Madge I am afraid of.
How long since you've ridden ?"
" Not since I've been away at school ; but I'm not a bit
alraid. I used to ride constantly at home. I had the
dearest little pony ; but he was spirited enough, and I
always managed him. I don't really think you jned be
afraid to trust me," I went on, pleadingly.
Mr. Rutledge shook his head ; Madge was only fit foi an
experienced rider ; she was too full of spirit for such a
child to manage. Now, Madge had been my secret admi-
ration ever since I had had the entr6e of the stables, and I
felt that life offered, at that moment, no more tempting
honor than a seat on her back ; and it may be supposed 1
was not lukewarm in my pleading. I urged, coaxed,
entreated ; 1 appealed to his generosity, I promised ever-
lasting gratitude.
" Dear Mr. Rutledge," I cried, " you know I go at my
own risk ; it will be my own fault if anything happens to
me. And oh ! it will be so unkind if you refuse me the
very first favor I ever asked of you I"
I .am not sure about the tears at this point of the petition,
though I was quite in earnest enough to have cried, and I
had begun to appreciate the availability of tears as a weapon
sufficiently to have used them if they had occurred. Cer-
tain it is, however, that Mr. Rutledge began to relent, arid
at last, though evidently much agairst his better judgment;
gave the desired permission.
BUTLEDGB. 119
** But remember, I don*t approve it,"
** Oh ! but you will," I exclaimed, " when you see how
quiet she'll be with me I"
" And you have no habit," he continued.
" I'll manage that, Kitty's a host in herself; I'll press
her into the service."
My companion half sighed as I flew out of the room and
upstairs, where, in two minutes' time, I was deep in consul-
tation with Batty on the subject of the habit. She entered
Into the plan with great ardor, and racked her brains to
devise something feasible. I sat on the bed and waited
breathlessly for the bright thought that I was sure would
come, sooner or later, to Kitty's clever brain.
" You say you have a jacket that will do," she said, medi-
tatively.
" Yes, the very tning black cloth, trimmed with buttons
and all that ; and now, if I only had a long enough skirt.
Oh. Kitty I can't you think of something ?"
Kitty knit her brows, and, after a moment, said, thought-
fuUy:
*' There's a whole piece of black bombazine, that was left
over from the last funeral, upstairs in a trunk I know of.
Sylvie and I could run up the breadths in no time. Would
you mind ?"
" Oh, Kitty I I couldn't quite stand that I" I exclaimed,
between a shudder and a laugh. " Can't you think of any-
thing else ?"
" I have it !" cried ahe, with a sudden illumination of
countenance. " I have it I"
" What ! how ? Oh, do tell me I"
" Why," said my artful maid, with mischief in every line
of her bright face, " why, Mrs. Roberts, by way of keeping
me busy this morning, gave me her best bombaziae dress to
rub off and press out, and it's downstairs this minute ; and
you see, she always has a wide hem to her dresses, and a'
great piece tamed in at the top ; so by letting out aU this,
120 BUTLEDGE.
and putting on a piece around the waist, where it'll come
under the basque, it will make you the very nicest riding
skirt in the world." And Kitty's eyes danced.
"Capital!" I cried. "But then, Kitty, I'm afraid it
wouldn't be right ; I'm afraid "
" Don't disturb yourself, Miss ; it'll be ready before you
want it," and my conscientious scruples were cut short by
the abrupt exit of my maid, who was out of hearing before
I could I'emonstrate.
The dinner-bell rang at the same moment, and I ran down
at the summons, too much excited, and too nervous, how-
ever, to do more than go through the ceremony of a meal.
Mr. Rutledge was rather thoughtful ; he called me a foolish
child for being so much excited about such a trifling affair.
As I rose to leave the table, he asked me if I had succeeded
in improvising a' habit. I said yes, and that my present per-
plexity lay only in the matter of a hat. He proposed to see
if he could help me, by a review of his chapeaux, past and
present ; and after trying on at least a dozen caps and hats,
beaver, straw, cloth, and velvet, I decided upon a little
black jockey cap, that was the trimmest, nattiest thing im-
aginable, and I knew, from Mr. Rutledge's approving
glance, vastly becoming. So I bounded off* to my room,
to submit myself to Kitty's hands for the next twenty mi-
nutes.
Yery pretty, she assured me, I looked, as, the last touch
bestowed, she stepped back to take a survey of me.
" So slim and elegant. Miss, in your black clothes, and
that jaunty little cap, and your hair so smooth and tight to
your head ; nothing in the way, nothing flying," said Kitty,
with a gesture signifying her aversion to the decorated style
of equestrian costume, so popular with our contemporaries.
*' And that skirt !" she exclaimed, smothering her laughter,
** who would think it was the very one Mrs. Roberts had
on, day before yesterday, when she was all dressed to go
to the Parsonage I Wouldn't her hair stand on end, Missb
RUTLBDGB. 121
if she could see it trailing along the floor! The precious
dress she always takes off before she'll go down to the kit-
chen, even to give an order !"
" Oh, I'm really sorry, Kitty ! Indeed, I've a great mind
not to wear it."
" Why, Miss," she said, in alarm, " don't think anything
about it. It won't hurt it a bit ; I'll have it just as good
as when she gave it to me, if I sit up half the night to fix
it!"
And Kitty buttoned my boots with great empressement^
and as Madge's hoofs struck on the stone walk below, she
hurried me off, thrusting my gloves and handkerchief into
my hand, and wishing me a very nice time.
CHAPTER IX.
* Thy Bteps are dancing toward the bound
Between the child and woman,
And thoughts and feelings more profound,
And other years are coming."
Sidney Waleeb.
If I say that my heart beat a little quicker, as I came in
wght of the group before the steps, I shall acknowledge to
no inexcusable weakness. Mrs. Roberts stood a little at
one side, with a darker, more gloomily prophetical cast of
countenance than ever, and seemed to be giving some un-
welcome advice to Mr. Rutledge, who, saying briefly, *' I
cannot disappoint her now," turned uneasily to Michael, who
held the horses, and who was to accompany me, and ap-
peared to give him some emphatic directions, to which the
man, from time to time, nodded assent.
And the mare herself I Michael's whole strength was
but sufficient to control her under the unaccustomed re-
straint. She was a beautiful animal, glossy black, clean-
limbed, and delicately made, with ahead and neck that told
" she came of gentle blood," as plainly as aristocratic linea-
ments ever spoke. The insane absurdity of my controlliag
such a fiery, powerful thing as she, rushed sickeningly over
me, but I never for a moment entertained the idea of giving
up. If I had been ten times surer than I was, that I should
be thrown within the first half mile, I should have rejected
with scorn the advice of Mrs. Roberts, who now came for-
ward and favored me with her views on the subject of the
proposed expedition. I had more than one reason for de-
siring to keep her at a distance ; so raising my skirt as care-
fully as I could, I ran down the steps to where Mr. Rut-
in
BUT LEDGE. V23
ledge stood. When he saw me, he immediately cleared his
brow of the shade of anxiety that had been contracting it
dnring his conversation with Michael, and said, smilingly :
" Madge Wildfire is as impatient to be off as her mis.
tress."
" Pretty creature 1" I said, patting her neck with a hand
that trembled visibly ; then, with a voice that was meant to
be very cheerful and unconcerned, I added :
'* What a perfect afternoon it is ! I wish you were
going."
** I wish I were," he said, taking in at a glance the un-
steadiness of the hand that patted Madge's neck, and the
direful whiteness of the lips that spoke. After a moment
of reflection he turned to Michael and gave him some order
that sent him rapidly toward the stable, while Thomas was
summoned to hold the horses, and telling me to wait a
moment, Mr. Rutledge hurried into the house. I did not
rightly comprehend the reason of this delay, till I saw him
reappear, with riding gloves on and a whip in his hand fol-
lowed by Mrs. Roberts, whose astonishment and anxiety
were undisguised.
** It's madness sir ! With one hand you can hs-rdly guide
your own horse, let alone that creature she's to ride ; and
if you'll forgive me for being so plain, you may have to pay
dearly for it ! You are humoring a fooUsh girl at the risk
of your life !"
Mr. Rutledge stopped short, " My old friend," he said
in a tone of decision, *' you know I will always bear with
more from you, than from almost any one else ; but you
must remember, there is such a thing as going too far. I
cannot be interfered with in this way, even by you," and
be descended the steps.
Mrs. Roberts groaned, and turned away, silenced tem-
porarily, Michael reappeared with Mr. Rutledge's horse,
Madge was soothed, and brought to where I stood, and
Michael tossed me rp on her back. Before I could realize
124 RUTLEDGS.
the dizzy height, or get the reins feirly in my grasp, she
was off with an eager bound that showed how great had
been her impatience at the delay, I kept my seat more I
did not attempt to do, as at a tearing pace she darted
down the avenis The reins were in my hands, but
they might as well have been around her neck, for all
the use I made of them. Fortunately the gate was
open, but before we reached it Mr. Rutledge was by my
side.
" To the left," he said, as we dashed through it. It was,
however, because Madge's fimcy lay that way, that she
took it ; I cannot flatter myself that my untly suggestive
touch on the left rein had anything to do with influencing
her decision. And on we flew, Michael clattering behind
us. It was a pretty clear straight road, bordered on both
sides by trees, and slightly descending ground. In a
moment, Mr. Rutledge spoke, but so quietly and unexdt*
edly that I felt soothed even by the tone.
" You sit very well ; don't lean forward quite so much ;
that's better," and in a few minutes he added, ^ keep a
steady rein, don't pull suddenly or hard, but just firm.
She is perfectly kind, and you can manage her very nicely
after you get used to her,"
A confidence in Madge's good disposition, certainly was
encouraging, and as Mr. Rutledge didn't seem to feel any
alarm or discomposure of any kind, but on the contrary, an
assurance that I was equal to what I had undertaken, per
haps, after all I was ; and under these influences, something
like composure began to return to my startled nerves and
something like strength to tighten my hold upon the reins.
Still we were tearing onward, Michael now left ir behind,
and the question of stopping began to exercise me pain-
fully. I knew from the pull upon the bridle, and the eager
bounds of the animal beneath me, that as yet, it formed no
part of her intention. Presently Mr. Rutledgtt said, quite
nonchalantly
aUTLEDGX. 12S
* I think, when we begin to ascend that hill on oar right,
we*d better pull up a little. Keep a steady rein till we get
there. Let Madge know who's mistress ; the lower one'fi
the curb; now, pull; whoa, Madge. I"
And Madge did whoa, that is, she slackened in a slight,
a very slight degree, her frantic pace, checked perhaps by
the new determination of her rider's rein, and the startling
emphasis of that decided ^' whoa."
It was but a very slight symptom of irresolution on her
part, but it guve me the advantage ; from that moment I
determined to be mistress, and before we reached the brow
of the hill, Madge had quieted to a walk. I was as white
as a ghost, and shook all over, but my companion: was con-
siderate enough not to notice it, and checked with a look,
Michael's exclamations of alarm, as with open eyes and
mouth, that attendant galloped up.
Several miles of country had been got over, before I be-
gan, in any degree, to realize that I was out for the pur-
pose of enjoying myself or before I was able to think of
anything in heaven or earth, save the beast I rode.
At last, however, I began to feel, with a sense of exulta-
tion the more elating in proportion to the struggle I had
had to gain it, that I had my horse under entire control,
and with that consciousness, color came to my cheeks, and
warmth to my numb hands and feet ; I could laugh and
talk then, could see that the sky was clear and sunny, and
the country we were crossing, the very prettiest and most
picturesque imaginable ; could feel the wind blowing fresh
against my face, as we galloped rapidly over the open road;
or listen, with an ear keenly awake to every phase of
pleasure, to the rustling of the dead leaves beneath our
horses' feet, and the clear ringing of our voices in the stUl
air, as we sauntered along woody passes, or threaded our
way through unfrequented bridle-pat^hs.
^^How deligl^tful it is!" I exclaimed, and my exclama-
tion was echoed in my companion'^' look of intense enjoy-
126 BUTLEDGB.
ment. There was a freedom from restraint an abandon*
ment to the pleasures of the present, that I had not seen in
him before. Ten years of care and trial seemed lifted from
his brow ; a glow of health on his face, and a clear light in
his eye, made him almost handsome ; and for the time, it
was easy for me to forget the differences of age and circum-
stances ; it was an involuntary thing to look upon him as
the companion whom most I liked of all I had ever found ;
the readiest, the keenest, the kindest ; one who understood
me, himself, and all the world ; who could govern me, but
whose very tyranny was pleasant ; who was, in feet, so far
and unquestionably my superior, that it pleased him to lay
aside all differences, and be, for the time, the companion
and equal of a child, whose very youth and ignorance,
appeared the passports to his favor.
For the first time, during this ride he talked to me of
himself, and of his past life, but a past far separated from all
association or connection with Rutledge. He recounted,
for my entertainment, travels and adventures, that had the
most exciting charm to my crude ear, at least. A,nd indeed
I doubt whether an older and more critical taste could have
found anything but pleasure in his vigorous sketches of
scenes and incidents that had impressed themselves upon
his memory. He was, indeed, an excellent raconteur^ and
had, beyond any one I have ever known, the power of
bringing up, in bodily shape and presence, the places and
characters he chose to recall. Whether it was a sunrise
among the Alps, or a scene in a French caf6, it was equally
distinct and life-like ; I saw the glittering of the sharp cloud
piercing icy peaks, as, one by one, they caught the rosy
sunlight ; or, the men and women in their foreign dress and
eager manner, lived and spoke before me, gesticulated,
rattled off their voluble absurdities, and vanished from the
scene, to give place to pictures of quiet English villages,
with sunny meadows and long green lanes, grey churches
and moss gravestones, or quaint old Flemish towns, with
BUTLEDQB* 127
their " cathedrals vast and dim," and tall, gloomy houses
overhanging the narrow streets; or the rich warmth of
some Italian landscape ; or the vastuess of the illimitable
plains of Granada, that stretch away on all sides from the
ruined Alhambra ; Constantinople, with its mosques and
minarets ; the Holy City, with its mongrel population and
half profaned associations, all were distinctly realized by
me, as if I had in very deed been there. Mr. Rutledge
rarely exercised his talents for description, and my enrap-
tured attention seemed to surprise him.
"You are an admirable listener," he said, laughingly;
" no flattery could be subtler than that attitude of interest.
X shotdd grow positively garrulous if you were with me
much. I must send you away! I hate a talking man;
with such an eloquent face before me, I shall Icam to talk
hours at a time."
** I won't look at you if you don't want me to, only don't
stop talking. Ah I please I" I exclaimed, as he pointed to
the rapidly sinking sun, and turned his horse's head toward
home. " I cannot go home yet."
" But it will be dark before we reach it, as it is," he
said.
" There's a moon !"
" I shall never let you come again, if you are not * good
about going home. Come !"
His tone wasn't alarming, and I said : " I've just got in
the spirit of it ; and that's the best piece of road we've
seen yet. I couldn't think of going back under another
mile ; indeed I couldn't."
Mr. Rutledge still persisted in refusing permission,
though, as I said, his tone was not alarming ; not, for
instance, as it had been last evening, when he called me in
from the terrace. Though his faco was perfectly serious,
there was a look of smothered merrinient about his mouth,
that quite recalled the crayon sketch in my trunk. He was
a good horseman, and no attitude could have been more
128 BIITLBDGB.
advantageous to him than his present one, sitting easily and
gracefullj on his fine horse, and indicating with a turn of
his head, the direction which he desired, nay, commanded
me to takei We were jnst on the simimit of a hill ; the
sunset was lighting up the woods behind, the road stretched
smooth and broad before us. I turned my head as decid-
edly in that direction, saying :
^* There's another road turns off to the left of that bridge
toward Rutledge, I know, for we drove there the other
day; and it isn't more than two miles further. That's
the way JT'm going home. * They'll have fleet steeds that
follow.' "
And, touching Madge, I was oS, without a look behind.
It was, indeed some minutes before I turned around to see
how near Mr. Rutledge might be ; but what was my chagrin
on finding myself alone, Michael only visible descending
the hill at full speed. I paused to wait for him with ill-
ooncealed impatience.
*' Where's your master, Michael ?"
" Gone back, miss."
" Are you sure f'*
*' Yes, miss. I think he's going home by way of the
village, and that he's going to get the letters fi*om llie office
on his way.'*
" Couldn't we overtake him possiby ?"
*' I'm a&aid not, miss ; we've got two miles further to
go, and the horses are not as fresh as when we started,
miss."
That was a very palpable fact; indeed, both Michael's
arguments seemed equally invincible ; but I evaded them
by exclaiming :
** Isn't there any shorter way back to the village ? Think
quick, Michael, I know there must be."
Michael thought, as quickly as he could, no doubt, but
very slowly, it seemed to me.
^'Tes, Miss," he said, meditatively, ^i&ea a moment's
JfiUTLEDaS. 129
pause, *^ 769, Miss, there is another ; but it's but a wild
road for the like of you to be travelling so late
too.
" Which way is it ?" I said, with an impatient wave ot
the hand.
" To the right. Miss, about a quarter of a mile further on ;
it strikes off through Hemlock Hollow. It's a lonesome
road, though, Miss, and there may be one or two pairs of
bars to take down before we get to the end."
** Tou're sure, however, that you know the way, and that
it's shorter ?" I asked.
Michael thought he was sure.
^^ Then, my man, we'll try it ; and keep as near to me as
you can."
And turning Madge's head, I gave her liberty to do her
best. Michael had much ado, I fear, to keep in sight of
me ; but I cared very little for his guardianship, or indeed
for any other circumstance or occurrence whatsoever, so
long as I reached the village and the pogt-office before Mr.
Butledge quitted them.
Michael was nearer right than he generally had the good
fortune to be, when he described the Hemlock Hollow road
as a wild and lonesome one. It was an unfrequented wood
road; the trees met above it; there was neither foot-path
nor fence on either side ; it was just a way hewn down and
cleared for one wagon to pass. Lying in a hollow, it waa
always damper, and colder, and darker, than anywhere else,
and as I pressed on, I couldn't help being struck with the
chilliness of the air, and "the rich moist smell of the rotting
leaves " that lay thick upon the road. How fast the light
had faded ! I never knew twilight to come on so rapidly.
" Never mind," I reasoned, " it cannot be long before we
are out of this hollow, and then we shall be so near the vil-
lage that I shall not mind the dark, and after that Mr.
Rutledge will' be with us. He will not be angry, I know ;
there was too much laughing about his mouth, when he
6*
130 B U r L E D U B..
motioned me homeward. I am sure he wotiH be angry ;
but I almost wish- Michael I"
" Yes, Miss," called out my attendant in the distance.
" How long before we are out of this wood ?"
" I don't rightly remember the length of it, Miss," gasped
the panting esquire, as he reached me.
" Well," I said, " its growing dark so fast, you must
whip up, and make all the haste you can."
" Saving your presence, that's exactly what I've been
doing for the last three hours ; and though I'm as anxious
to get on as yourself^ Miss, my horse is just a bit ex-
hausted.^^
I had to suppress a laugh at his dejected looks. Melan-
choly had marked for her own both horse and rider.
" Well, Michael," I said, encouragingly, " it cannot be
very long before we reach the village, and then you shall
have time to rest. Keep up as well as you can, meantime."
And unable to control my own impatience, I rode on,
and in a little while was again out of sight, or rather out
of hearing, for sight was fast becoming a useless gift, so
rapidly had night descended, and so effectually did the
thick trees shut out what of light might have been still left
in the sky. I again called to Michael, who again was fer
behind, and again had to be waited for. I was certain we
had gone three or four miles, and yet there was no sign of
an opening, no change in the monotonous, narrow road.
" Are you quite positive, Michael," I said, " that this is
the right road ? Are you certain it leads to the village ?"
He had never been over it but once, he said, and that
was two years ago, but he thought he knew it ; it didn't
Beem so long to him before, though, he must confess.
A genuine pang of fear crossed me as I saw the man's
bewilderment and uncertainty, and as I realized that I must
depend on myself, for he knew no more about the road than
I did, it was plain, and seemed, indeed, fast losing his witfv
from sheer fatigue and terror.
STTTLEDGH. 181
" Think a minute, Michael," I said, in a firm voice, " how
ought the road to terminate ? Does it come directly out
on the turnpike, or do we have to cross any fields before
we reach it ?"
Khe remembered right, there was a field to cross no
he couldn't be sure, on the whole, that the road didn't open
right into the turnpike, after all. Perhaps it didn't, though ;
it was two years since he had been over it, and how could
he remember so dark as it was, too I
A moment's reflection told me that there was no use in
going 'back till we had tried a little further, for the turn-
pike could not be very distant. I thought I had a general
idea of where the village lay, and that we were going to-
ward it. So cheering up my attendant as well as I could,
and suiting my pace to his, I endured another half mile of
pretty uncomfortable suspense before an opening in the
trees, and a patch of cloudy sky, sent a ray of comfort to
my heart.
" Courage, Michael 1" I cried, " here's the end of oui
troubles ^here's an opening in the woods. Is this the way
the road looked, do you think ?"
Michael sprang down from his horse with great alacrity,
to let down the bars that retarded our progress. Ah, yes !
This was all right just as he said ; he knew we had to crosH
afield.
Quite reassured, I told him to ride on in front, as he
fieemed to know the way now, and he valiantly led on, along
the edges of what seemed to me a ploughed field; but
Michael being positive that there was a beaten road along
it, I submitted to his judgment. By and by, we came to
another pair of bars, which Michael confidently took down,
and conscientiously put up after we had passed through,
and again led the van.
In Hne meantime, I watched the sky with anxiety. The
wind was rising, and swept cold across the fields; the
cloads^ though broken and flying, obscured the light of the
133 B tr T L E D G B
moon, yet low isi the east. I had no way but to trust to
Michael, aud I tried to do it without any misgivings, as he
seemed so confident ; but it was not long before he began
to waver, again. After a pause, and a moment's bewildered
gaze around, he struck his hand upon his forehead, and ex-
claimed:
*' Upon my honor. Miss, it*s my opinion we're in a dread-
ful fix I I know no more than the dead where we are I"
" Fool I" I cried, starting forward in an agony of appre-
hension, *' why didn't you say so before ?"
Michael gave a miserable groan, and seemed utterly con-
ibunded.
" liet us go back as fast as ever we can I" I exclaimed.
" That's just what I can't see how to do," whined my
hopeful guide, " for between letting down, and putting up
bars, and crossing backward and forward, I can't seem to
to remember where we did come in."
It was too true ; the place we had entered seemed a wild
open common, fenced on two sides, while on the others, it
stretched away into woods and hills; but since we had
entered it, we had ridden so irregularly, that I was, as well
as Michael, at a loss to tell on whi..^ side we had come in,
and if there was a wagon track, it was too dark to see it.
I made a strong effort to command myself, and said con-
cisely, " The best way, Michael, is for me to ride along the
fence here, and see if I can't find something that wiU direct
me to the place where we came in, while you ride across
the fields, there, on the left, and see if you can't find a
road through the woods, and come back as soon as you've
found any, and tell me."
Michael obeyed, and spurred off toward the woods, while
I picked my way back along the irregular fence, which in
some places was quite hidden by the high bushes, that
grew thick on either side, while m others, it was quite
open and unobscured. But the uncertain light, the siuuh
larity of one pair of bars, and one side of the common to
KUTI EUQE. 133
anothei; completely baffled me, and I was as much be-
wilder3d as Michael himself. I tried, however, to be brave
and keep np my courage, trusting momentarily that
Michael would return and report favorably of a road on
the other side, which would lead somewJiere ; anything wa
better than this pathless common.
I tried to be patient as the moments passed without any
signs of his return. I walked my horse up and down
beside the fence, and struggled manfully to be calm.
There was not light enough left to see him till he got near
me ; all I could do was to wait. And I did wait ; hours, it
seemed to me, till every nerve throbbed with fear, and the
nameless horrors that night and solitude always bring to
those who brave them for the first, crowded so updn me,
that I would rather have ridden into certain danger, than
have waited there another moment ; and I dashed across the
common, toward the dark woods that skirted it. I halted
and called as loudly as I could, but no answer came. Then
riding along the edge of the wood, I called again, with all
my str^Qgth, and waited for the reply as if my life hung
upon the sound of a human voice. None came,- and half
wild at the dawning of this new terror, entire isolation, I
whipped Madge to her utmost speed, and flew along the
whole length of the wood, then back again, shouting
Michael's name.
At that moment the moon came out from behind the
shifting clouds, and halting suddenly, I looked around me ;
the common, as far as I could see, was bare ; the woods
were before me ; I had halted at the entrance of a road
that led into them. Perhaps Michael was wandering there,
and calling once more, I waited in vain for any answer but
the swaying of the boughs in the night wind, and the pant-
ing of my tired horse. At this renewed disappointment,
all my firmness gave way, and all the perils and horrors
that fancy suggested rushed upon me ; dropping the rein6
upon the horse's neck, and coveming my face with ra^
134 BUTLEDaS.
hands, I uttered a cry of despair. Startled by it, and by
the sudden relaxing of the reins, the horse gave a bound
forward, and dashed terrified into the woods. That I was
not unseated, is the strangest part of all my strange adven-
ture ; but conscious of nothing, save an agonized fear of
losing this my only living companion, I clung tightly to hel
neck, as brushing against the overhanging boughs, and
swaying from side to side of the narrow road, she tore on-
ward in her headlong race. Of the length of time that
passed before, spent with fatigue and shuddering in every
limb, she paused suddenly before a fallen tree that block-
aded the road, I can form no idea. It was all, as then in
acting, so now in recalling, one wild dream of terror. It
may Rave been moments, or perhaps only seconds, before,
raising myself from my crouching attitude, I looked
around, and saw the position of the horse, and the fright
that she was in. The moon was shining fitfully through the
naked branches of the forest around us, and right across
the road, lay the giant trunk of a fallen tree ; while the
only sound except the moaning of the wind, was the brawl-
ing of a stream that ran beside the road. Madge shook
violently, while I tried to soothe her, but in vain.
I slipped down from the saddle, still holding the bridle
over my arm, and almost fell, from the dizzy feeling on first
touching the ground after being so long in one position. I
regained my feet, and approaching her, patted her neck,
and tried to urge her to make the leap ; it was unbearable
to think of staying an instant here ! But it was hopeless ;
with her feet planted in the earth, and eyes dilated with
terror, she refused to move. A groan of misery escaped
me as this last hope was cut off; I tied the bridle to a low
branch, and sitting do^vn upon the fallen tree, buried my
face in my hands, in hopeless, stupefied despair. The cold
night-air was chilling me to the heart ; my habit was, at
best, but barely warm enough in the day, and when heated
with exercise j now, the wind seemed to strike through and
nUTLXDGfl. 185
through me ; ard 1 crouched down, hiding my' eyes from
the ghastly, fitful dancing of the moonbeams, and shook
j&om head to foot.
Look in whatever way I might, there was nothing but
terror staring me in the face. How many 'miles I was from
any humaii habitation, I did not dare to think ; but indeed
it mattered little ; I could not, benumbed and aching as I
was, have walked half a mile, even with the certainty of
help before me ; and I doubted whether, if the horse could
have been coaxed over the cruel obstacle that stopped her
course, I could have mounted' her again. I was bound,
helpless, hopeless I My exaggerated fancy refused all hope,
and seized all that was frightful, and held up before me the
dread that, imless some unforeseen help should come, I should
perish during the slow waning of the awful night that had
but just begun. I saw life and youth,
'* And time and hope behind me cast,*'
and one black shadow creeping toward me, slowly, but
with unswerving tread ; silently, but with intensest gaze,
JTreezing me with horror. And with a sort of mockery, the
words that had seemed so soothing and peaceful, when life
was sure and unthreatened, rang in my ears :
" Death comes to set thee free
meet him cheerilj
As thy true friend."
Starting to my feet, I cried aloud, as if stung with sudden
pam : *' No, no ! not such death as this ; I cannot ! Oh, is
there no help !" And calling passionately Mr. Rutledge's
name, I listened as if it were impossible that I could call
on him in v^n. But no voice nor answer carae ; the sway-
ing branches moaned loudly as the angry wind swept
through them ; the swollen stream rushed by with a mourn-
fol sound ; the dead leaves fluttered in the fitful blast : this
186 BUTLEDGB.
was my auswer this was all %he help my appeals would
gain. With a cry of anguish, I cast myself down upon the
earth, and sent to heaven such a prayer as only despair and
mortal terror can wring from, the heart. Not as people
pray at home, morning and evening, with Death at worst a
distant enemy, and Terror and Temptation just so many
words ; not as people pray from duty, or from habit, or out
of respect to religion, I prayed then. Not as I had often
asked for mercy, Sunday after Sunday, in the Litany, and
thought I was in earnest, did I ask for it now ; but with
such agony of earnestness, such wild entreaty, as those ten
men in the Samaritan village put into their prayer for
mercy; a De Profundis that came from the lowest depths
of abasement and despair. It was a fearftil struggle, but it
passed over, and left me calmer.
Whether it was that hope was dead, and the quiet that
crept over me was the quiet of despair, or that really feith
and resignation had come at last, I could not tell ; bat
exhausted, benumbed, half dead, I lay motionless upon the
ground, while the moments crept slowly on, and formed
themselves into hours ; and still, with an ear that never lost
a note of all the dirge that sounded through the forest, !
lay, face downward, indifferent, and apathetic. Conscious-
ness never slept a single moment of the dreadful hours that
passed over me, but Fear and Excitement did ; and these
terrible enemies only woke, when a sound that was not
brawl of stream or roar of wind, profaned the ghastly soli-
tude. It was a sound far fiiinter and less appalling than
those I had been listening to, unmoved, so long, but it
roused the keenest terror. Far down the road, I first
caught it, so low that it might have been the falling of a
nut the high wind had shaken from its tree ; again, this
time nearer, and the leaves rustle, and a chance bough
crackles. I do not stir a hair's breadth from where I lie
the step approaches ^I do not raise my head nor move a
muscle I do not think, nor wonder what it is, but all faoul-
BUTLEDOE. 137
des absorbed in one, all energies concentrated in that one
effort, I listen for the approaching sound. Nearer and
nearer ; and the quick terror shoots through every chilled
yein. In another moment ^but with resistless power, horror
sweeps oyer every sense, and in ono wild surge, blotis out
reason^ memory, and oonsdoufinooB,
CHAPTER X.
" 0, 1 have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night.
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days ;
So full of dismal terror was the time."
Richard III.
A SHAPELESS tissue of dreams follow this dark warp
upon the web of memory how much the flashes of half-
received truth, how much the fabric of distorted fancy, I
cannot say. Into some such form as this, they have shaped
themselves: mixed up in a confused way with the sights
and sounds of that wild solitude, comes the recollection of
being clasped in arms whose familiar hold inspired no
terror ; of hurried words of endearment, and a kiss upon
my forehead that lulled the returning pulsations of fear
into repose again ; then a blank ; then shouting voices, and
the sound of footsteps, many and heavy, rouse me once
more into faint and fitful consciousness, and dim and spec-
tral as a graveyard dance of witches, appear strange men
with lanterns, who cluster round me ; and as I close my
eyes in shuddering fear, Michael's face, in distorted ugli-
ness, takes a hundred ghastly shapes, dances before my
eyes, and keeps out everything else, for a space of time
unspeakably frightful, as it is immeasurably long.
At last, dull stupor overpowers it ; and long, long, after
that, comes a woman's kind faco and gentle touch ; then a
hand and voice that are unfamiliar and unwelcome ; cat"
like and Boft, from which I shrink in aversion. Then, they
too vanish, and when next the uncertain mist of oblivion
rolls up, I am lying in a long low room, strange and new to
BUTLEDGE. 139
me, but not impleasiiig, even by the dim light that bums
upon the table, shaded j^om me by a painted screen. My
eyes wander aronnd inquiringly upon the simple furniture
of the room, the dark, low walls, the piles of books and
pamphlets that heap the shelves irregularly, till they rest
upon the two figures at the other end of the room. A fire
urns low on the hearth, and beside it sits a man, stooping
is head upon his hand. Another in an attitude that is
familiar to me, stands with his arm upon the mantelpiece
shading his eyes fi-om the light. They talk low and
earnestly ; sometimes the one standing by the mantelpiece
strides impatiently backward and forward, across the room,
and resumes his former attitude. He by the fire never
moves. I try to listen, but the effort confuses me ; and it
is a long while before any of their words reach me, and
then only in a broken, uncertain way. The first I catch are
those of the voice that is familiar to me :
"It is the first time I ever rejected your counsel; the
first time I ever put aside your warning. Do you believe
me when I say it pains me to the heart, after so many years
of steadfiist and close friendship, te rebel against the sacri*
fice it requires of me ? But you do not know what you
ask, indeed you do not !"
" Perhaps not, Arthur, perhaps not," answered his com-
panion, in a low voice. "Do not think again of what I
said ; it was an over-anxiety for your happiness that
prompted me to speak ; and now forget the words, and
remember only the love that moved them."
" No, Shenstone, I will not forget them," the other says,
warmly ; " I know too well the value of your counsels. I
will remember what you have said, and keep the caution
by me, when there is need for caution. But you must not
blame me, if I cannot put aside at once a hope that has got
so strong a hold upon me. I promise you to do nothing
rashly, to let nothing blind my judgment, to put the test
of abfl^ice, change of scene, change of inV)rest, upon us
140 BUTLBDOB.
both ; years, if you will, shall pass before I dare attempt
to realize my hope ; years that shall prove its possibility,
or show its folly; but do not ask me to give it up at
once."
Mr. Shenstpne shook his head. "Will it be easier to
tear up the cherished hope of years, than to put down the
fond fancy of a day, my friend, do you think ?"
" I am not a man given to fancies, am I, Shenstone V A
life as cold as the last twenty years of mine has been, does
not look much- like the pursuit of fancies. You have
known who better ? the bitterness that poisoned the very
fountain-head of my youth; you have seen how it has
tainted the current of my whole life; how that after yeais
of suffering and self-denial, it only needs a word, a recol-
lection of the past to bring the bitter flood back upon my
heart. You know all this, p.nd yet you deny me the only
charm I see in life; the only light that gilds the dark
future I Is this kind ?'*
He walked impatiently across the room, then came back
to his place. The other did not look up nor speak.
" I know what you would say," continued his companion,
after a moment ; " I know you would remind me that the
same blow that- blighted my youth, struck deeper at your
heart ; that you have learned to live without what was life
to you once; that I can learn the same hard lesson. I
have tried, oh, my friend ! I have tried to gain your
heights of faith and hope ; but still the unconquered flesh
drags me down: the curse hAt generations of godless
ancestors have laid upon me is unexpiated yet. You
stand now where I cannot hope to stand till
*^ Death comes to set wq free.'*
Death, that I shall have won I And hoped for, jo^si know
longingly, in the old days of wretchedness."
"That's past, Arthur, thank God's good grace; and life
KUTLEDGB. 141
is no longer a penanco to you ; and that it never may be
again, God in Uis mercy grant, and spare you what I
dreaded for you. God bring you higher than I stand, but
b} a gentler way, if it be His will 1 Arthur, it was a fiercer
struggle than even you can understand, in which my faith
was bom. It was a conflict that lasts through most men's
lives, that I passed through at one dire struggle, and died
unto the world forever. But, looking backward, oh,
Arthur, I can look back now and see how
" One dead joy appears
The platform of some better hope.**
Better, as heaven is than earth, as peace is than tempta*
tion, as the service of God is than the weary bondage of
the world l*
He lifted his head a moment, as if in involuntary triumph,
then bent it again, and was silent.
At that moment the door soflly opened, and the woman
I had seen before stole up to where I lay, and bending
down, looked in my face with anxious inquiiy, while the
friends at the other end of the room hushed their earnest
tones, and one (my head was throbbing too much to see
which) started forward, and said anxiously:
" Has the doctor come back yet, Mrs. Arnold ?"
" He is in the hall at this moment, sir," she answered,
with preciseness of manner, and a peculiar sweetness of
voice.
Again the door opened, and again I heard the cat-like
step, and felt the velvet touch that sent a shiver through
me ; and then succeeded a throbbing pain in my temples,
dull aching in every limb, a high fever coursing through
every vein, and I lived over again in delirium the scenes
&om which I had just escaped. Again I was lying beneath
the roaring forest trees ; again the sharp throes of mortal
terror wrung from me the cry that I had uttered then, this
142 fiUTLBDaS.
time to be soothed by a tender and familiar voice ; then
restless with pain, and burning with fever, only pacified from
that dream to be hurried off into another, wilder and more
terrible. With glaring eyes and demoniac faces, the crowd
of men, with Michael at their head, were in mad pursuit of
a flying horse and rider ; with hideous jeers and yells they
urge them on, and closing round the frantic steed, they tear
me, clinging round her, from Madge's neck, and holding
me down upon the ground, wi'ench from my arm the brace-
let, that resists, at first, their strongest efforts, till the warm
blood fiows, and the torn flesh quivers, as staggering back,
a ruffian lifts the bloody prize, and with a wild ciy I wake,
only to drop into another broken slumber, and to dream
another hideous dream.
This time it is Mrs. Roberts, who, with rigid, cruel fiice,
holds me down, and binding my powerless hands, thrusts
me, struggling and frantic, into the dread, mysterious dark-
ness of that room. And choking with terror, the agony Ih
dispelled by the low voice that says, " What is it now, poor
child ?" and panting with fright, I cling to the hand that
soothes me^and only from its steady grasp gain anything
like peace. And so the night wears on. How much of
these wild dreams revealed themselves in speech I know
not, and how much of the history of that night belongs Xai
&ct, and how much to &noyi it is beyond me to decide.
CHAPTER XI.
" Oh ! what a tangled web we weave
When first wo practise to deceive \"
Scott.
Emerging from this sea of dreams tumultuous, I seemed,
on a certain cold, gray morning, to be stranded on the
shores of reality by an ebbing tide of water-gruel and weak
tea. Having, from my extreme youth, entertained undis-
guised aversion to these articles of food, I had steadily re-
fbflcd to let a spoonful pass my lips ; consequently, my nurse
and doctor not having relinquished a hope that in time I
would come to terms, many separate editions of these in-
^dgorating compounds stood upon the table by my bed, in
bowls of larger growth, in teacups and saucers, and every
variety of earthen and china vessels, all covered and ar-
ranged with consummate care and skill.
Diese observations I made with great interest, as after a
long period of dreamy stupor, the " keen demands of appe-
tite," or some indignant protest of nature against such indo-
lent inactivity, roused me; and raising myself upon my
elbow, I looked around with much curiosity and some be.
wilderment. The room was entirely unfamiliar, long and
old-fashioned looking. The bed and the one window were
curtained with white dimity ; the walls and ceiling were
white-washed to a painftd whiteness ; the counterpane, the
pillows, the sheets, were one drift of snow. Indeed, so for-
cible was this impression, that for a moment it was a ques-
tion with me whether I had not just waked up from a nap
in one of those snow-houses, so called, which it had been
the delight of my childhood to construct, being excavations
in some adjacent snow-bank, achieved with the help of u
143
144 BUTLEDGE.
friendly spade, in which I would lie and dream of icy pa-
laces, and frosty fauy fabrics. The idea that I had been
napping it in one of these juvenile architectural devices, was
fevored by the lowness of the white ceiling, which seemed
almost within touch, and the long, narrow shape of the
room, terminating in a small, white-curtained window,
through which I caught a glimpse of cold grey sky, that
suggested snow and chill.
A tiny fire, however, in a tiny grate, and a woman sew?,
ing by what I had conceived to be the mouth of the cave,
but which, I was obliged to confess, was unmistakably a
window, quite dispelled the illusion, and I had nothing left
me but to come down to cold reality again, after a sojourn
in dream-land so long as to render me a little uncertain and
bcAvildered on all mundane matters. I looked quite atten-
tively for some time at the woman by the window, then
startled her very considerably by saying suddenly :
" Are you the one they call Mrs. Arnold ?"
She dropped her work, started up, and approached the
bed, saying, in her precise manner and sweet voice :
" That is my name. Miss. Can I do aaything for you ?"
" No," I said slowly, looking at her, " I don't think of
anything, thank you."
And while Mrs. Arnold, after arranging the pillows, and
in a neat, quick-handed way, straightening and tidying
everything on the table and around the bed, returned to
her work, I watched her very attentively, and I am afraid
very rudely, from the slight color that arose in her pale
cheek as she caught my eye again and again fixed on her
inquiringly. She was a middle-aged woman, about middle-
size, with nothing peculiar in dress or manner, except a
scrupulous precision and neatness. Her hair was very grey,
but her face was a younger one than you would have
expected to see, after looking at her slightly-stooping
figure and white hair. Her skin was unwrinkled and clear,
her eyes soft and brown, and the sweetest possible smile
BUTLEDGE. 145
flometimcs stirred her lips. But it died very quickly
always, and never seemed to come voluntarily ; only " when
called for," and then to cheer or comfort some one else
never because of any happy emotion within, that found that
expression for itself. She conveyed the idea of a woman
who had been a very high-spirited and impetuous one, but
who was now a very broken and sad one ; a soul
" By nature pitched too high,
By suiTeriDgs plunged too low/*
but now past struggle and rebellion, subdued and deso-
lated, waiting patiently for the end. This much I read, or
thought I read, in her quiet face, as still leaning on my
elbow, I watched^ her movements. I was irresistibly at-
tracted to her, and essayed to continue our brief conver-
sation, by saying :
" Hasn't * that Kitty,* as Mrs. Roberts calls her, been here
since I have been sick ?"
" She has been here, and went away only half an hour
ago, to get some of your things. I expect her back every
minute."
" I thought I'd seen her," I rejoined, meditatively. "And
how about Mrs. Roberts, has she been here ?"
" She has ; she was here all yesterday afternoon."
I lay quite still for a little while, then said, rather
abrupdy :
" I can't exactly make it out ^where am I, and whoso
house is this ?"
Mrs. Arnold smiled kindly, and turning toward me, said :
" Ton have been too sick to know much about anything ;
you are at the Parsonage, and this is Mr. Shenstone's
house, and I am Mr. Shenstone's housekeeper. And now
do not puzzle your head with any more thinking ; ask
me any questions you want to know, and then try to lie
quiet,"
7
146 BUTLXDGIB.
" I think I've been quiet long enough in all conficience ^
I said, with energy. "I feel a great deal better, Mih.
Arnold."
" I am very glad to hear it, Miss. Will you have some-
thing to eat ?"
" What can I have ?
" Some very nice gruel, Miss, or some "
"Wait a minute, Mrs. Arnold," I said, rising up and
speaking very impressively ; " there is no use, indeed there
is no use, in asking me to take such things ; I never can,
and you will only have to give it up at last. Miss Crowen
had to ; I stood it out till she thought I was going to die on
her hands, I believe, and had to give me something decent
at last. People are always trying to make me eat gruel,
and farina, and arrowroot, and beef-tea, and such miseries,
just as soon as I'm in the least bit sick, and begin to care
what I eat. Now don't you be so unkind, will you, dear
Mrs. Arnold ?"
Mrs. Arnold smiled; it was the doctor, she said, who
had prescribed the gruel; if he was willing to give me
flomething nicer, she should be very happy to prepare it
for me.
" Do you know,'^ I said, mysteriously, " that as a general
thing, I don't think much of doctors? Country doctors
least of all. One's common sense is the best guide in most
cases. Why, it stands to reason, that I know better what
I ought to have to eat, when I'm not well, than a great
strong man does, who never lost his appetite in his life, and
doesn't in the least care what he has to eat, as long as
there's enough of it I I am the best judge, you must see
plainly, Mrs. Arnold."
Mrs. Arnold shook her head ; doctors mightn't know
what we would like, she said, always, but it was just po-
gibie they might know what was best for us, being dis-
interested judges. Didn't I think so ?
**By no means," I exclaimed, "unless they are pecu-
BUTLBDGS. 147
Iiarly intelligent men, and not like that odious Dr. Sar*
tain, who nearly frightened me to death, and nearly killed
Mr. Rutledge, by setting his arm badly. Mr, Rutledge
himself is ten times better a doctor. He can tell what's the
matter with people by just looking at them ; and," I con-
tinned, coming abruptly back to the point of interest, and
hoping to carry it by the suddenness of the attack, " he
would never make any one eat water-gruel if they hated it.
I'm positive, if you asked him, he'd say, ' let her have what
she wants, of course, it cannot do her any harm.' "
Mrs. Ai-nold shook her head again, and said :
"Ah, Miss, it's very hard to say 'no;' but it must be,
till the doctor comes, whom I am expecting every minute."
*' What's the doctor's name ?"
" His name is Hugh, Miss ; a very fine young man they
say ; he is just settled in the village, and every one is very
much pleased with him ; he is getting all the practice away
from Dr. Sartain, who, though he lives so far away, has been
for a long time the nearest physician. But here's his gig
at the door now," continued she, coming up to the bed.
" Are you ready to see him ?"
"Yes, quite," I answered; and she hurried down tc
usher up the doctor.
Now I had my own views regarding this gentleman,
and all Mrs. Arnold's commendation could not change
the current of my feelings toward him; so when he
approached my bedside, it was a very slight and stiff
recognition that his arrival elicited from me. He did not
eeem a whit annoyed by it, however, and with unruffled
Uanduess, laid down his hat and gloves, and seated him-
oelf, while Mrs. Arnold stood at the foot of the bed, unob-
trusively attentive.
The new doctor was a good-sized, good-looking man, with
reddish hair and whiskers, and very white teeth and very
light eyes. That he " hailed " from New England no one
could doubt after five minutes spent in his B.de\.^ \ ^qj\^\^
148 BUTLfiLGB.
and fraternity, go-a-head-i-tiveness and go-to-tbe-deuce-if-
you-get-in-my-way-itiveness were still visible to an impartial
eye, under all the layers of suavity, professional deoorum
and good breeding, with which his educational residence in
the metropolis had plastered over the native roughnesses of
his rustic breeding. K the chill penury that usually re-
presses the noble rage of the "New England youth, had not
been defeated of its cruel purpose by a " little annuity "
from his maternal grandfather, elevating him from the
plough to the practice of medicine, one could not help think,
ing how fine a specimen of the genuine Yankee he would
have been. How he would have risen from a boyhood de-
voted to whittling, swapping, and carting lumber, to a
youth engaged in itinerant mercantile transactions, and an
early manhood consecrate to science and literature, in the
onerous post of common-school teacher. The hero he would
have been at quiltings and at singing-schools ! The bargains
he would have driven in tin and garden-seeds, exchanged
for feathers and rags I The matchless cuteness, the inherent
cunning, that would have marked his career !
** But wkiiiier would conjecture stray ?"
The little annuity (|150) had intervened, and Dr. Hugh
stood before the public a professional gentleman in the
midst of a growing practice, a rising man in a country
where, once staited, it is easier to rise than to sit still. He
was, at the moment when I was making these reflections on
his character, suavely regarding me, and had softly laid two
fingers upon ray wrist, and, with head slightly inclined, was
counting my puise. The result gratified him ; for looking
up with a complacency that indicated very plainly tho
source to whicJi he attnbutod the improvement, he said,
addressing Mrs. Arnold :
'^ A marked change for the better^ madam a marked
change."
BUTLEDGE* 149
It WBB an involuLtaiy tiling for me to pull my hand im
patiently from his continued touch, and to turn my head
away, so disagreeably did his manner impress me. Ko
change of tone, however, indicated any resentment as he
said, in apology for me, as it appeared :
" A little restless and feverish yet, I am afraid."
" On the contrary," I said, with great distinctness, turn-
ing toward him again, " on the contrary, I never felt quieter
or less feverish in my life. I am quite well, except a little
weakness, which will be remedied by allowing me suitable
and nourishing food ; and Mrs. Arnold is only waiting for
your peimission to get me some broiled chicken and roast
oysters, which I have no doubt you are perfectly willing to
allow."
The doctor looked astonished at this emphatic declara-
tion and proposition, and for a space seemed inclined to
resist such unheard of demands ; but seeing, no doubt, the
hopelessness of bringing me to reason, and the fear of alien-
ating irretrievably so important a patient as the guest at the
great house, he thought it best to yield as graciously as
possible. The idea of losing the chance of the Rutledge
patronage was not to be entertained for a moment, and it
is my opinion that, with a view to averting such a blow to
his success, he would have conceded me an unlimited grant
of lobster-salad and turtle soup, if I had been pleased to
fiincy those viands. As it was, however, I bore my triumph
very unexcitedly, merely giving Mrs. Arnold a significant
look, which indicated as much hungry complacency as was
consistent with my dignity ; upon which she proposed de-
scending to prepare my meal, and Kitty entering just then,
she considered herself no longer necessary, and Avithdrew
for that purpose. The doctor being engaged in writing a
prescription, I had nothing to distract my attention from
Kitty, who overwhelmed n*e with congratulations upon my
improved condition; which congratulations, however, 3
eonld not with sincerity return, for having, in ho.v oagr^rness,
160 BDTLEDaF*
run every stop of the way to Rutledge and back, her cci:-
dition was best described by the inelegant term, " blown.'*
" But oh, Miss," she exclaimed, in panting incoherency,
** it is so nice to see you opening your eyes and taking no-
tice ! Mr. Rutledge will be so glad !"
" How is he, and why didn't he come ?" I asked.
" Well," said Kitty, candidly, " I wasn't to tell you, but
/don't see the harm. Mr. Rutledge's arm has been bad
figain, and he can't go out of the house. But here's a note
lor you from him."
And Eatty pulled from her apron-pocket a note, that I
Beized eagerly. And forgetting doctor and maid, with flushed
cheeks and parted lips, I read and reread the brief note
very brief, but very characteristic kind, almost tender
concise, pithy, and vigorous, with just a dash of humor and
raillery at the close, and " Always your fi-iend, Arthur Rut-
ledge." With a pleased smile, my eyes lingered over the
words, till raising them inadvertently, they encountered
the doctor's, fixed searchingly on my face. He averted
them in an instant, however, but not before he had caught
a sight of the quick blush that mounted to my temples.
" I was thinking," he said, apologetically, " I was think-
ing that the light was rather strong for your eyes. Shall
not the young woman darken the window a little ?"
I rejected the proposal contemptuously, and the medical
gentleman, after an abortive attempt at a compliment,
and a bow that was a shade less complacent than usual,
took his leave.
" I hate that man !" I exclaimed, as the door closed be-
hind him. " I never shall learn to treat him civilly."
Kitty shrugged her shoulders.
" The people in the village think there's nobody like him.
He's got a very taking way with all the common folkb, put-
ting his arm around the women's waists, and patting the
men on the shoulder, and talking to everybody alike. But
I don't like the look of him, for all his fair-and-soflly ways
BUTLEDGB. 151
And he's Leen watching you. Miss, for the last five minutes,
as a cat watches a mouse.''
I bit my lip, but merely said :
" No matter, Kitty ; he may be a good doctor for all that,
and he wiU not have a chance to watch me much longei, I
hope. You may darken the window; I believe he waa
right about that matter, and I'll try to sleep a little till my
breakfast, or whatever it is, comes up. Li the meantuue,
perhaps you had better go and see if you cannot help Mrs.
Arnold."
Kitty obeyed, and in a few minutes I was left alone, but
unluckily with no very pleasant thoughts to keep me com-
pany, and no overtures from tired nature's sweet restorer,
either, to put them to flight. I was very much irritated at
the doctor's manner, and a good deal annoyed at having
expressed my irritation so warmly to Kitty ; and compunc-
tious visitings also troubled me about my self-will on the
subject of the broiled chicken and oysters, to which waa
added a confused sort of penitential alarm about the pur
loined riding-skirt, and to crown all, a startling discovery,
that made me absolutely weak with fright.
The miniature, which for some time past had been vacil-
lating between my pocket and njy trunk, as its safety
demanded, had, on the afternoon of my ride, being lying
on the table before me, while I was dressing, but on an alarm
of Mrs. Roberts' approach, I had thrown the ribbon around
my neck, and hid it in my bosom, whence, in my hurry and
excitement, I had forgotten to take it, and it had remained
there during my ride, for I remembered feeling it, with no
pleasant association at the time either, while I was waiting
for Michael on the common. This I distinctly remembered,
and ^now it was gone. That was all I knew; that waa
enough to make me sick with fright. I covered up my
fiice, and lay quiet, but very miserable. What would I not
have given if I had never touched that miniature, or worn
that skirt. The business of deceit was new to me, and in
152 BUTLEDQE.
propoiiion it looked black. I had almost fretted mysolf
into a fever, when Mrs. Arnold reappeared with my goiUS^
most temptingly arranged upon the cleanest of china and
whitest of napkins. She placed it by me, and announced
that it was ready.
I looked up in hei* face, my OAvn rather flushed, no doubt,
:ind said :
" You see he let me have xt, Mrs. Ai'nold."
I see he did, Miss," she answered, quite gravely.
I knew he would ; I was right after all,"
" I hope so. Miss."
Her grave looks troubled me. I did not take the knife
and fork she offered me, but looking at her earnestly, I
said, abruptly :
"Mrs. Arnold, honestly, do you think that's bad for
me?"
She looked somewhat startled by my question, but
answered quietly:
" Honestly, Miss, I think it is a risk ; but the doctor has
consented, and I have nothing to say."
" Very well," I said, pushing the table back, " I am sorry
to have given you so much trouble for nothing. Will you
warm that gruel for mie."
Mrs. Arnold paused in the act of raising the cover from
the oysters ;
"Do you mean, Miss, that you do not intend to eat
this ?"
"Yes," I said, concisely, "I will take the gruel, if
you'll warm it, please. There's fire enough there."
She gave me rather a curious look ; then quietly removed
the tray into the hall, and proceeded to warm the gruel. 1
swallowed the tasteless compound without flinching, while
Mrs. Arnold watched me silently, and took away the
emptied bowl without a word of comment. I lay very
silent but very sleepless till Kitty came up ; then watched
anxiously till Mrs. Arnold should leave the rr om, which
BUTLEDGB. 163
she was very long in doing. When at last she did, 1
started up, exclaiming :
"Bolt that door, and come here, Kitty I"
She obeyed, but not very cheerfiilly, I fancied ; indeea
there had been a shade of anxiety on her face for some
time.
" Batty," I said, hurriedly and gravely, " Pve lost thu
miniature ; do you know anything about it ?"
She did not look surprised, but very unhappy, as she
answered :
" I know it*s gone. Miss ; but where, I know no more
than the dead."
She then explained ^that that night, just after she had
been sent for, and arrived, as she came into the study
where I was lying, she found Mr. Shenstone and the doctor
both standing by me, Mrs. Arnold at the fire, preparing
some medicine; Mr. Rutledgc had just passed herein the
hall. I seemed deliidous, for I started up and exclaimed
something incoherently, then fell back, and Mr. Shenstone
stooping down, said something soothingly, but instantly
started back, with an exclamation of dismay and astonish-
ment, which of course did not escape either the doctor or
Kitty. The latter hurried up, and stole a glance at me,
and she could scarcely repress a similar cry when she saw
the guilty miniature, which had slipped from my dress,
lying in full view. Mr. Shenstone's face was pale, and he
put his hand to his forehead, as if in pain. Her only hope
was; that the light being dim, he had not seen it distinctly,
and now the thing was to get it away before either he or
the doctor had had a second look. Giving the table-cover
a sudden jerk, she precipitated the lamp upon the floor,
and invoked the room in sudden darkness. Deprecating
her awkwardness, she hurried to pick up the lamp. While
' the others were engaged in remedying the accident, and
Imding a light, about which there seemed much difficulty,
ehe stole to where I lay, and attempted to rescue tlie niinia-
154 BUT LEDGE.
tnre ; but, alas I in vain. Some one had been there beforrj
her, and a cold hand on my breast touched hers, as she
groped for it, and was suddenly withdrawn. It was not
my hand, for mine were burning with fever; and when,
after a moment more of delay, a light was struck, Mrs.
Arnold and Mr. Shenstone stood in the middle of the room
by the table, and the doctor at the opposite end, by the
mantelpiece, looking for some matches that Mrs. Arnold
had said were kept there. She looked down at me ; I lay
quietly, one hand under my head, the other at my side.
An end of blue ribbon hung from my dress ; it had been cut
off hastily, for a glance told her the edge was too smooth
to have been torn.
Kitty was a keen observer, and her whole heart was in this
mystery ; she watched, as if her life had depended on it,
to see who should betray the least sign of guilt, but she was
completely baffled. Certainly not Mr. Shenstone ; he even
looked curiously at the ribbon, and then sternly at Kitty,
as if supposing she had taken it ; not the doctor, for he was
at the other end of the room, and was more unconcerned
' and indifferent than any one present ; not Mrs. Arnold, for
not having been beside me when the miniature slipped
from my dress, she could not have seen it, and conse-
quently she could not have taken it in the dark, and so
readily too.
" Ah !" Kitty exclaimed, " I passed a dreadful night,
Miss ; I didn't know what it was to close my eyes ; such
awful thoughts as would come I"
" What do you mean ?" I said hurriedly. " Which of
them do you think has it ?"
" Ah, Miss !" she exclaimed, with a burst of teai-s, " I
wish I thought any of *em had it I I've had enough of
meddling with dead people's things for the rest of my life,
that I have !"
" I wish you would speak intelligibly ; what do you
mean ?" I exclaimed, angrily.
BUTLEDGE. 165
Kitty answered by fresh tears, " Oh, don't make mo
talk about it! Indeed, I cannot!"
* I shall be very much displeased if you act in this way
any longer," I said, with emphasis, as Kitty still shook her
Lead. I heard footsteps in the hall ^ catching her arm, I
exclaimed :
Tell me instantly what you mean I"
Oh, Miss !" she whispered, white and trembling, " that
hand, that awful hand I It was colder than any stone, and
Bent a chill through me when I touched it ; I never, never
can " .
" You foolish girl," I exclaimed, impatiently, " I didn't
C4
think you were so silly "
But at that moment some one knocked at the door, and
Kitty, \\nping her eyes and smoothing her hair, ran to open
It. It was only Mary, with some coal ; but it interrupted
our conversation, which could only after that be resumed
by broken snatches, wherein I urgently impressed upon
Kitty my certainty of the miniature's being in possession of
one or other of the parties in the room at the time of its
disappearance, and the entire contempt in which I held her
superstitious theory in regard to it. Kitty's belief on that
point, however, could not be shaken, and I grew weary of
reiterating my arguments. At last I found an opportunity,
when we were alone, to propound another question :
" What has been done about the riding-skirt ?"
" Oh, Miss," exclaimed Kitty, uneasily, " why do you
worry about those things now ? It will make your head
ache to talk ; I know master wouldn't like it.''
Kitty soon saw the futility of attempting to evade the
matter ; so she gave me a plain commonsensical statement
of affairs, commencing from the moment I dashed down the
livenue on Madge Wildfire's back; from which time it
appeared, her difficulties began. Mrs. Roberts, after
watching us out of the gate, the storm on her brow blacken-
ing every instant, turned away with a deteimined step
156 BUTLEDGB.
and entering the house, called to Eltty, saying she was in a
great hurry for the dress she had given her to press off;
she had important business at the Parsonage, and there was
no time to lose.
" I don't think you'll find Mr. Shenstone home, ma'am,"
Kitty had volunteered. " I saw him passing along the road
toward Norbury, when I was down at the lodge half an
hour ago."
This information had appeared to give great disquietude
to Mrs. Roberts, and in consequence of it, she had given up
her plan of going out, and had retired misanthropically to
her room, while Kitty had danced down to the kitchen in
great glee, to communicate to Sylvie her narrow escape.
But in half an hour, Mrs. Roberts' bell rang hastily, and
Kitty apprehensively went up to answer it.
"I have concluded, after all," said that lady, "to go
to the Parsonage, and leave a note for Mr. Shenstone if
he is not in; so get my dress for me as quickly as you
can,"
" Yes, ma'am," Kitty had answered ; but in passing the
^window, she had cast a look out, " It's most five o'clock
now, ma'am, you'll be caught out in the dark; hadn't
Thomas better run down with the note for you ? Or maybe
I could go ?"
But Mrs. Roberts was quite firm. " No, she did not care
to trust to any one but herself in this case." And again she
desired her to get the dress with all haste. Haste she cer-
tainly did make, in getting to the kitchen and calling
Sylvie into consultation ; which measure, however, did not
tend to elucidate in any great degree the problem that at
present perplexed her brain, Sylvie was one of the " raving
distracted " kind, and invariably lost her wits on occaaon
of their being particularly required, and the only assistance
she attempted to render, in this trying emergency, was
ejaculatory and interjectional condolence on the apparent
hopelessness of the case. Kitty in oisgust^ eJaxnined the
BI3TLBDGB. 157
door in her &ce, put her hands to her head m a wild way
for a moment, then bounded upstairs again.
** Oh, dear Mrs. Roberts," she exclauned, as she entered
the room, " it struck me on my way down, that perhaps
you'd rather wear your old black silk instead of that nice
bombazine, as it is getting so late, and the road is so dusty
We havent had rain, you know, for an age."
Mrs. Roberts drew herself up. Was she or was she not
capable of judging what clothes she was to put on ? Would
it be necessary for her to go down and get the dress she
wanted herself?
" By no means," Kitty said ; and starting forth again, sat
herself down on the third step of the stairs, in diiest per-
plexity. But time pressed ; there was no leisure for delibe-
ration. She flew to a closet where some superannuated
garments of the housekeeper's hung, selected the most pre-
sentable of the series of black bombazine skirts su3pendea
in funereal rows upon the pegs ; darted back, and with great
composure, laid it on the sofa, while, with officious zeal, she
proceeded to divest Mrs. Roberts of her house-costume, and
invest her with her walking-dress. By skillfully interposing
her person between the dress and the strong light, and
putting it on and arranging it entirely with her own hands,
she escaped detection. And arrayed in this ancient gar-
ment, the housekeeper sallied forth on her way to the
Parsonage.
Too anxious to be triumphant this time, Kitty stole out
after her, to see the effect of the sunlight upon the foxy,
faded black; but Mrs. Roberts was too much engrossed
with cankering cares of a sterner kind, to think of her
bombazine.
At the gate, however, to her great content, she encoun-
tered Mr. Shenstone on his way from Norbury, and stop-
ping him, held a long and anxious consultation with him
(in which, said Kitt j, par parent?i^e, "I overheard her say -
some prr'tty things about you; but no m3tter)." She then
158 BUTLEDGB.
parted from the clergyman, and returned slowly toward the
nonse, Kitty following anxiously behind the hedge. The
getting sun threw the most dazzling beams down the ave-
nue. Kitty's heart beat, as she saw the housekeeper cast
her eyes meditatively upon her dress; then, as the sun-
light struck full upon it, she stooped a little down, and
paused, and looked again, and again adjusted her glasses.
She began, in truth, to " smell a rat," for passing her hand
rapidly over the front breadth, she shook her head doubt-
ingly, then lifted the suspicious garment to the sunlight,
then holding it at arms' length, uttered an exclamation of
surprise, turned it up, and examining the hem all around,
dropped it ; turned the pocket inside out ^felt of the band
around the waist recognized its unfamiliarity and with a
low muttering of suppressed wrath, gathered herself up, and
hastened toward the house.
" It's all up I" groaned poor Kitty, as, by the back wa^,
she darted into the kitchen, and awaited with trembling
the pull of Mrs. Roberts' bell.
" Kitty Carter," said Mrs. Roberts, in an awful voice, as
she entered the room, " you .have been practising upon me
in an abominable manner. I have borne your saucy ways for
a long time, but the end has now come. You can't deceive
me ; I'm too quick for you, and you shall be exposed. It's
my intention to make Mr. Rutledge acquainted with your
deceitful practices; and that, you are aware, is just the
same as giving you warning ; for Mr. Rutledge has never
been known to endure anything of the kind in his house."
Kitty quailed under this attack ; but, rallying in a
moment, asked Mrs. Roberts if she'd please tell her what
was the matter ? Her answer was a peremptory order to
bring up the dress she had given her in the morning. For
once in her life, Kitty had nothing to say; while Mrs.
Roberts exclaimed :
" It's my belief, Kitty Carter, that dress is lying where I
put it this morning, and that you haven't touched it."
KXTTLBDOB. 159
"I widh fiom my soul I hadn't," tbouglit the unlucky
girl.
'* Now go down this moment and fetch it to me, finished
or unfinished, or you forfeit your place."
The only way that opened for Kitty, was to assume a
position, good or bad, and maintain it through thick and
thin. Therefore, with staunch determination, she replied :
" I have not done the dress, ma'am ; I didn't think you'd
want it so soon ; and I had rather not bring it up till it's
finished."
'* This minute, or you lose your place," said the exaspe-
rated housekeeper.
Kitty respectfully resisted the demand ; it was contrary
to her principles to give up work half finished. If Mrs.
Roberts would give her time, she would do it ; but
before the dress was in order, she must decline bringing it up.
Then the storm burst in all its fury. Sylvie was called
up ; Mrs. Roberts made a descent in person upon the
kitchen, which was placed under martial law, Thomas and
two of the stable-boys guarding the different entrances,
while I)orothy and one of the farm-hands accompanied
Mrs. Roberts in her inquisitorial progress through the
lower departments. Altogether, such a tragedy had not
convulsed tJie basement of Rutledge for many a long year j
not, indeed, since the pranks of Kitty's childhood had been
the scandal of the place. Kitty remembered with comfort,
that she had weathered more than one storm there ; and
remembering this, took heart again, though, it must be con-
fessed, things looked black enough. The dress not being
and appearing anywhere, " from garret to basement,"
Kitty Carter was formally pronounced suspended from her
duties, until such time as Mr. Rutledge, being informed of
her offences, should himself dismiss her from the house.
To that dark crisis had succeeded the alarm produced by
the non-appearance of the equestrian party ; then the con*
Fternation consequent upon the arrival of Michael^ Roverfil
190 RUTLFDGB.
houi*s later, announcing that the young lady had been lost,
hunted for, and found, by all the men in the village, and
was now lying, hall* dead, at the Parsonage ; and, finally,
that by order of Mr. Rutledge, Kitty, her maid, was to
repair hither immediately to attend upon her. This mate-
rially changed the look of affairs ; and it was hoped, by
the anti-administration party, that the stoim had blown
over, and, in the new excitement, would be forgotten. Bui
such hopes were futile indeed, and ectertained by weak
minds, not capable of soimding the depths of a resentment
Buch as rankled in Mrs. Roberts' recollection. The very
next day, in a solemn interview in the library, Mr. Rut-
ledge was informed of the nature of the complaint against
Kitty, and distinctly declared, that unless the matter wasj
very shortly cleared up, he should be under the necessity
of dismissing her from his service. And this sword was
now hanging over poor Kitty's head; and Kitty's stout
heart was sinking at the prospect of the only punishment
that could have had much terror for her ; for Rutledge was
the only home she had ever known, and the only place she
loved.
" But it doesn't signify," she said bravely, dashing away a
furtive tear ; " I can get another place, and I'll look out
that there's no Mrs. Roberts in the family."
" But, Kitty," I exclaimed, " why didn't you tell ? Mr.
Rutledge would have overlooked it, I know."
" What, tell/^^ cried Kitty, scornfully, "and get you into
trouble, too ? No, indeed, I know Mr. Rutledge well
enough to know he'd have been angry with you as well as
with me ; and if you take my advice. Miss,- you won't say a
word about it. One's enough to take the blow ; it won't
make it any easier to have another getting it too. Just let
the matter stand as it is ; it will be all -right. There, don't
fret!" she exclaimed, cheerfully; "it worries me to death to
see you mind it so! Why, Miss, it's nothing; how need
you care ?"
BUTLEDGE. 161
" But, Kitty," I exclaimed, clinging to a last hope, ' was
the dress much spoiled ?"
" Oh dear, yes ! muddied, torn, stained, as if you'd been
dragged through the streets in it." Our conversation was
again abruptly brought to a close by the advent of Mary,
this time with a message to Kitty from Mrs. Arnold, desir-
ing her help downstairs.
And again, turning my &ce to the pilloW| with a micar-
able sigh, 1 was left alone.
CHAPTER Xn.
" The very gentlest of all human natures
He joined to courage strong.
And love outrcaching unto all God's creatures
With sturdy hate of wrong."
Whittieb.
Evening was closing in, and filling the little room where
I lay with fitful shadows, which the tiny blaze of fire in the
grate was incompetent to dispel. If it had been possible
for me to be more miserable than I had been all day, I
should indeed have " loathed the hour " when gloom and
darkness so palpably and hopelessly descend, but the climax
of misery and self-reproach had been reached by daylight,
and outward dreariness could only increase, in a very slight
degree, the inward gloom. The faults I had been guilty o^
and the eiTors into which I had led, or allowed Kitty to go,
seemed to me, and justly, the first steps in a most dangerous
path. I fully realized the sins, and their effect upon my
conscience, apart from their consequences and punishment.
These last, I was aware, were hard enough. I knew I had
done what must lower me in Mr. Rutledge's esteem ; to be
the accomplice in a deception, however slight, was to sink
just that much in his regard, whose rigid truthfulness and
honor were offended by the least prevarication. I knew I
h^d given Mrs. Roberts grounds for all her former distrust
and aversion, and placed myself lower than she could have
estimated me. Above all, poor Kitty was the victim ou
whom it fell hardest, and how much of the blame of not
checking her or guiding her right lay on my shoulders, I
dared not think. I was really attached to the brave, quick-
witted girl, and remembered, with humiliation, how igna
162
EtTTLEDGE. 163
rant and untaught she was, and how naturally and anavoid-
sbly her &ults were the results of her unguided impetuosity,
while mine were committed in the light of an instructed
conscience and educated intellect.
But with me to suffer pain, was to seek some cure for it.
My repentances were not often fruitless ; I could no more
have lain there, and endured that self-reproach, without
resolving on some way to allay it, than I could have sub-
mitted to a dagger in my breast without attempting to draw
it out. The only remedy I could see, was painful enough
but there was no help for it.
" Mrs. Arnold," I implored, " do put down your work,
and come and sit by me ; I want to ask you something."
Mrs. Arnold left her seat by the window, and laying
down the knitting that her rapid fingers plied alike through
daylight and darkness, came to my bedside and sat down.
She saw I was excited and feverish, and in her gentle way
strode to soothe and amuse me. She talked of a great
many things about the parish that she thought might inte-
rest me of the school children, and the Christmas festivities
that were preparing, and in some way Rutledge was spoken
of, and it dallness and gloominess.
" But I don't think it's gloomy in the least," I said ; " I
think it's the most beautiful place I ever was in in my life.
Don't you think it's delightful ?"
" I used to think so," she said, sadly.
'* Have you been there lately ?" I demanded.
" Never since I left it first," she answered, musingly,
** Then you lived there once ?"
She assented half unconsciously.
" What were you ?" I asked, veiy suddenly ; " were you
kousekeeper ?"
" No, I was governess, Miss," she answered ; then
started, as if she had said more than she had intended, and
hastily turned the conversation to something else. But I
could not so quickly turn my thoughts. This woman, then.
1 64 RXTTLEDGE.
who teaded me, with sad, soft eyes and voice, had beeu the
governess and companion of Alice had known from the
beginning the storm that had burst over Riitledge, and was
ticrself, perhaps, involved in this dark story of the past, that
was meeting me at every turn. The miniature would have
btartled her, perhaps, if she could have seen it. What if she,
in reality, had it now, and hers was the cold hand upon my
breast that had seized it ? But no ; Kitty was sure it was
not. And then my thoughts reverted to my own remorse
and trouble that had only been momentarily lulled by Mrs.
Arnold's conversation. There was a pause just then, and
raising myself on my elbow, I said, looking intently at my
companion :
" Mrs. Arnold, did you ever confess a sin to Mr. Shen-
stone, and ask counsel of him when you were very
miserable ?"
At my words, Mrs. Arnold gave a start ; but 'ecoveidng
herself, she said, in a voice somewhat agitated :
" Why do you ask me such a question ?"
" Because," I said, too much absorbed in my own trouble
to heed her agitation, " because I am very miserable, and
don't know exactly what to do; I am sure he is the only one
who can help me, and I must tell him before I sleep to-night,
if only I can get the courage ! Oh, Mrs. Arnold ! tell me,
is he very severe ? Or will he be kind and would you
dare, if you were me ?"
" I cannot tell what trouble you have on your mind, but
I can answer for it, if human help can lighten it, Mr. Shen-
Btone will give you all the help he can. And if it is but
between you and heaven, he will show you the way to get
at peace. Oh, my dear young lady ! you need not be afi*aid
to open your heart to one who knows so much about God*M
mercy and men's sins. You need not be afraid but that he
will be as tender as he is wise ; indeed, you need not fear
bim."
She spoke rapidly and earnestly ; her whole manner of
BCJTLBDGB. 165
precision and compojsiire seemed to be broken down and
melted before some recollection that my trouble seemed to
recall. I laid my burning hand in hers, and said with a sigh :
" Oh, if I only dared I"
" But why should you fear ?" she continued, earnestly.
** Why should you fear, when I tell you that he has only
kindness and pity in his heart that he has looked with for-
bearance and compassion on blacker sins than ever stained
your young soul ; and when I tell you for I have reason
to know ^that he can bring light out of darkness, and can
show a way of peace to even the most tortured and des-
pairing. It may," she continued, " be but a very little sin
that is weighing on you, and turning you out of the right
way ; but from little sins grow heavy punishments, and
better find now the best way of putting it out of your heart,
and putting something good in its stead. You have all life
before you," she said, with a weary sigh, " and repentance
is easier and more hopeful work, than it is to come back,
when one has spent one's inheritance of life in sin, having
nothing to offer heaven but fruitless tears."
Her voice trembled with emotion ; she looked pityingly
at me as, struggling to keep back my tears, I hid my face
in the pillow, and caressing the hand that still lay in hers,
she went on to persuade me to the only remedy she knew
for my unhappiness. I still felt shudderingly afraid to make
the dreadful effort, and faltered something about my fear of
his goodness and superiority, and the contempt he would
feel for me when he knew how weak and sinful I had been.
"Would it give you courage," she said, in a low tone,
*' to know how he once received the repentance of a very
miserable woman a woman who had not only sinned
agidnst heaven, but against him ^who had done more than
any one else to blight his happiness and make his life deso*
late, but who, having met the due reward of her deeds,
oame bsick to die in misery where she had failed to ]ive in
innocence ? Shall I tell you of tlis ?"
166 fiUTLEDOB.
I whispered " I'es," and she went on in a low voice
" It is no matter what the sins were that brought me to
the miser}- I shall tell you of; it is no matter whether they
were committed for myself, or for the love of one whom I
would have died to serve ; it is no matter for me to tell yoo
that they grew from little unchecked thoughts of pride and
self- will, and little half-intended acts of deception, into the
monster sins that overshadowed my life ; it is enough that
I had come to the recompense of them that in remorse, in
utter consternation, I mourned as one without hope. What
did I know of hope ? Six feet of foreign mound covered
the remains of her I had served and sinned for. Shame
and infamy covered her name ; hope was dead in my heart ;
faith had never been lit there. Alone in a land of strangers,
there was but one longing in my breast that exceeded the
desire for death, and that was the craving to see home
again. It makes me shudder even now to recall that jour-
ney weary months of fatigue, and exposure and misery ; the
only thought that kept me up, a dreary one at best, to see
home once more, and die before a word of reproach could
stab me, or a familiar voice recall the wretched past.
"It was a still, clear December night, when, footsore and
weary, I saw, with a strange thrill, the lights of a little vil-
lage, that my heart told me was the little village I had
come thousands of miles to see, and that I had not seen noi
heard from since my guilty flight, long years ago, on a De-
cember night, still and cold as this. I hurried on, my sink-
ing strength nerved up for a last effort, till I should reach
a woody knoll I knew overlooked the village, and there, I
said, I will die. In my hand I held what I knew would
free me ; I had carried it in ray bosom for months and
months, only waiting for this momept. At last I reached
the spot, and sinking down on the hard ground, covered my
face a moment with my hands, then looked down upon the
scene before me. There lay the village, its white houses
jfleaming in the moonlight there the familiar road wound
BUtLBDGE. 167
rotuid the foot of the hill there was the broad street, the
old mill, the placid lake in the distance, and beyond it, clear
against the sky, the dark outlines of Rutledge ; massive,
and gloomy, and lifeless, it stood far off from the cheery
village, with its animation and content. "Not a window of
the little hamlet but showed a kindly light, while the great
house beyond was dark and silent ^not a gleam of light
from all its sombre front. A horror and remorse that you
cannot understand came over me, such as I had thought
ray dead heart was incapable of harboring ; then despair
settled on it again, and I prepared for death. But as I was
looking and I was not dreaming ^between the desolate
house and me, distinct against the dark woods, there shone
out a silver cross. I was not dreaming ^I was terribly
awake ; but there it glittered, still and bright. Not a sound
broke the stillness of the frosty air, not another feature iis
the landscape changed ; I strained my eyes to catch the least
wavering or fading of the distinct lines, but calm and clear
the holy sign still lit the dark stretch of woodland between
me and Rutledge, and never wavered or faded. I was not
superstitious, but this came to me like a token from heaven,
and I held the fatal vial unopened in my hand. What if
this was meant to tell me there was forgiveness yet that
that there was a sanctifying calm even over the cold deso-
lation of that dark house that the sins were done away,
and that mercy had shone out. With that sign before me,
I did not dare to add that one sin more to those I had
already committed ; I did not dare to die by my own hand.
And then a desire took possession of me to know something
of what had passed in all these years, or if there was, indeed,
none remaining to loathe and execrate me. And finally,
hiding the vial in my bosom, I crept down, and keeping
my eye still fixed on the shining cross, I turned into the
broad street that led to the village. One'ailer another ol
the checrfnl lights I passed, not daring to go in, pausing
before each gate, and then hurrying on, determined to tr)j
168 RUTLEDfiK.
the next. By and by, the cross was lost among the trees,
and ray courage began to fail, when, on a sudden, I found
myself at the gate of a church-yard, and looking up, saw,
what was most unexpected and unfamiliar, the arches and
spire of a little church, on the site of the neglected old
graveyard I remembered ; and there, above it, gleamed the
cross that had stayed my hand from suicide, which, catching
the rays of the rising moon, had shone out with such a mes-
sage of mercy.
" I opened the little gate, and stealing across the church-
yard, bent down to read the names upon the graves that
had been made since I had been away. I mournfully traced
out one familiar name after another, till, with a groan, I
turned away from the gloomy spot, and shutting the gate,
fetruck off into the road again. I dragged on, till I reached
the outskirts of the village, then sat down to rest. A
single light, at a little distance, shone from a cottage on the
edge of the woods, that I knew bordered Rutledge Park.
A boy passed by me, and summoning courage, I stopped
him, and asked him what house that was. ' Thr Parson-
age,' he said. And there, I thought, is where I will go, and
hear, perhaps, whether there is any hope for such as me in
either world. When I reached the low gate of the garden
in front of it, I did not allow myself time to think, but
walked down the path, and stepping on the little porch,
knocked faintly at the door. The blinds of the window
where the light was, being open, I looked in, and saw the
only occupant of it, who had been reading by the lamp on
the table, rise to answer my knock.
" * Can I see the clergyman ?' I asked, in a low voice.
" ' Come in, this way,' he said, kindly, leading the way to
the room he had left ; ' I am the clergyman.'
"He told me to sit down by the fire, and then, in a tone
that moved me strangely, asked if he could help or direct
me in any way.
'^ I was too near the gate of death to see in him anything
BCJTLED6E. 16
/
bat the minister of God ; and, forgetting that he was a
man and a stranger, began in a broken, husky voice, the
recital of the doubts and the despair I had been fighting
with. I do not know how much of my story I betrayed, or
what, in this extremity of wretchedness, I said ; but paus-
ing at the end, and fidghtened by his silence, I raised my
eyes, and faltered :
" ' Would God have mercy after that, do you think ?'
"The clergyman's face was white as mine: his voice shook
as he said :
*' * If He has let you live, He means to forgive you, you
may be sure.'
"''He has let me live,' I said, eagerly, and I told him of
the cross that had held me back from suicide. He pressed
his hand before his eyes, then 3aid, after a moment, in a
broken voice :
" ' Take it for a sign, then, that He is waiting to be
gracious ; that there is peace on earth, as well as mercy in
heaven, for you.'
" * Never peace ; I have no right to hope for that, only h
chance of pardon before I die.'
" * A sure hope of pardon, if you verily repent, and a sure
sense of peace, if you strive to put m deeds, the repentance?
that God has put in your heart.'
" * There is nothing left in life for me to do,' I said, with
a bitter sigh.
" So I thought once,' he said, ' but I have learned that
God never leaves a soul on earth, without leaving some
work for it to do, to keep it from despair, some sin to be
atoned for, some duty to be fulfilled. Can you think of
none?'
" * None,' I said ; * there is nothing left for me, my re-
pentance comes too late ; there is none left but my weary
Bel^ to profit by it.'
" * There is a work I know of waiting for you, Rachel
Arnold,* he said, in a voice that thrilled through and
8
170 EUTLEDOB,
through me. It all came upou me then ; with a low cry,
I started up and sprang toward the door ; but he interposed*
" * Let me go,' I cried ; ' I cannot face you in this world !
Wait, before you bring your accusation, till we are at God's
tribunal ! Let me go, and I will never offend your sight
again. Oh ! why are you not dead, like all the rest ? Why
are you left to drive me back to despair again ?' And in
an agony I sank down at his feet.
" ' I am left,' he said, raising mq up, * to guide you back to
peace and duty ; to tell you of God's infinite loving kind-
ness, and to show you how much of hope there is for you,
in this world and in the next ; and to assure you, if you
need the assurance, that I as utterly forgive you, as I hope
for God's forgiveness for myself.'
" ' You never would say so,' I murmured, * if you knew
aU.'
" * I know enough to imder stand your remorse ; the rest
you can tell to God ; I say again, from my soul, I forgive
you.'
" But I never raised my face, nor looked at him, till I had
told him all, and he had said again :
" * With all my heart I forgive you. The past is can-
celled ; stay here, and help me in the work that God has
set us to do, and obliterate the sins that this place has seen,
by faithful striving in the labor of restoring it to hw
service again.'
"My dear young lady," said Mrs. Arnold, in a trembling
voice, " can you fear him after that ?"
** No," I exclaimed, with tears ; " let me see him now/^
CHAPTER XIII.
" Make no enemies ; he is insignificant indeed that can do thee no harm."
Lacon.
" Well," says Mrs. Arnold, with an inquiring look, as
she was preparing to leave me for the night, " was I right,
or do you feel sorry you followed my advice ?"
" Ah ! no, indeed !" I exclaimed ; " it's all right now ! I
can see all through it, and I am so much happier !" and I
took her hand affectionately as she left me.
It was all right, or nearly so. I had found, after the first
awkwardness, that it was very easy to tell Mr. Shenstone
things that I had never supposed I could tell to any one ; there
was something in his manner that divested one of all fear
and shyness, and suggested only the interest and earnest-
ness of one whose highest desire it was, to set forward in
the right way, all who were faltering and uncertain. He
made my duty very clear, and gave me many simple sug*
gestions that I wondered I had never thought of before.
He then told me what it seemed to him I ought to do
in the matter of remedying the mischief I had caused.
Acknowledging my fault to Mrs. Roberts in person, was a
very humiliating, but a very wholesome mortification, and
one which he unhesitatingly recommended. And the re-
storation to her of a dress equally as valuable as the one
she had lost, was also his advice, and, if it shortened uncom-
fortably my already rather scanty supply of pocket -money,
go much the better lesson it would be. He would himself
undertake acquainting Mr. Rutledge with the circum*
stances, and representing them in the most favorable light.
About the miniature I had just begun to toll him, intending
171
172 fiUTLBDGB.
to say as much as I could without implicatiiig Kitty, when
a knock at the door interrupted us, and " the doctor " was
announced. His visit was not quite as trying as it had
been in the morning, owing to the increased stock of
patience and good resolutions I had been laying in since
then ; and indeed, they continued to influence my endur*
ance of him during the daily visits that he inflicted on me
while I remained at the Parsonage. I had had so much of
the effects of willfulness, that I determined never to be self-
willed again, and not so much as to ask him when I might
go back to Rutledge ; and he, for his part, seemed deter-
mined not to volunteer the permission till I should ask
for it.
But the matter at last was settled by Mr. Shenstone, who
came up one morning while the doctor was with me, and
said he had just received a note from Mr. Rutledge, saying
that from the account the doctor had given him of me, he
should fancy I was well enough to come back, and if the
doctor's permission could be obtained, he would send the
carriage for me that afternoon at four o'clock. I looked at
the doctor with breathless interest ; the doctor looked at
me with searching curiosity, while he said, as slowly as the
occasion permitted, and with as long a preface, and as pro-
tracted an utterance as he could command :
*' I should be most unwilling to be the cause of disap-
pointing Mr. Rutledge, or of occasioning any vexation to
the young lady, by denying the permission that Mr. Rut-
ledge seems to expect and desire ; though I am certain, he
has no intention of influencing my decision against my better
judgment, or of inducing me to say anything, that in my
capacity of medical adviser, would involve any departure
from strict veracity and prudence. I am aware that it is
often difficult for a disinterested party to resist the reason-
able and natural desires of those whose judgments are
warped by their wishes, anvi that the only reward the con-
scientious physician gets, in such cases, is the aversion and
BUTLSDGB. 17!
coldness of those whose good he is most interested in. In
this case, however, I am certain, that from the well-known
good sense and sagacity of Mr. Rutledge, and the ungues*
Honed amiahility of the young lady, I should nave nothing
to fear."
" Then," said Mr. Shenstone, kindly, evidently seeing my
anxiety, and wishing to put an end to it, " th^n you do not
consider it desirable to allow the change ?"
" I am not prepared to say so, entirely," he answered ;
" I was going on to remark, that I should not have allowed
any of the considerations I mentioned to influence me, had I
really deemed it imprudent for the young lady to leave her
present residence. But, considering her rapid convales-
cence, and the mildness of the day, and the care I am cer-
tain will be taken to make the drive an easy one, and the
harm which a disappointment might occasion her, I think I
am justified in according my consent to Mr. Rutlcdge's
aiTangement."
I don't think I could have endured a minute more of this
kind of suspense, and probably the doctor knew this, and so
brought his discourse to a termination, after having tried
my nerves as long, and given me as many cuts, as he con-
sidered me capable of enduring. I began to suspect,
indeed, that he had perceived my aversion to him, and that
in a quiet and unostentatious manner, he returned the senti-
ment, and would lose no occasion of letting me benefit by it.
This was mere conjecture, however, for the doctor's manner
was as assiduously polite, as blandly gallant as ever. And
indeed, his anxious interest would not suffer him to allow
me to go unattended to Rutledge ; but at four o'clock, when
I was bidding adieu to Mr. Shenstone, and being seated
comfortably in the carriage by Mrs. Arnold and Kitty, the
Borrel horse and shiny gig drew up beside us, and in an
empresse manner, the doctor sprang out, and in his own
person superintended the arrangements for my comfort, and
declared that he should not fepi quite easy cill he had seen
{
174 KUTLEDGB.
me safe at Rutledge; and for that pui*pose, as well as tliafc
of paying a professional visit to the master of it, he should
drive on, and be there to receive ns. An unconscious tinge
of hauteur was all, in my manner, that escaped of the vex
ation I felt at the announcement.
His presence altered very much my conduct at leaving
the Parsonage. If he had not been there, I am sure I
should have managed to tell Mr. Shenstone something of
the gratitude I felt for the unmerited interest in, and kind-
ness toward me, that he had shown ; as it was, I could only
look down, and appear unspeakably awkward, at his kind
expressions of affection and regret, as he said good bye.
And, instead of throwing my arms around Mrs. Arnold's
neck, as I wanted to do, and telling her I was fonder of her
than of almost anybody else in the world, and that I should
never forget her care and goodness, I could only, with that
man looking on, give her my hand, and say something unin-
telligibly about coming to see her again before I went away.
The carriage started, and the gig first followed, then passed
it, and by the time we reached the gate, the sorrel horse
was standing before the door, and the sorrel driver thereof
waiting for us, in company with Mr. Rutledge on the
steps.
" Now Kitty," I said, as we drove into the park, " now
Kitty, keep your courage up. Mr, Shenstone says he has
seen Mr. Rutledge, and he has promised to excuse you ; all
you have got to do is to make an apology to Mrs. Roberts,
and that's nothing I Why, I've got to do the same thing,
and you'll see how brave I'll be about it."
Kitty shook her. head dejectedly. " I never hated to do
anything more."
And here the can-iage stopped, and Mr. Rutledge and the
doctor came down to it. " Ah," said the former, kindly,
" you have come back at last. I did not know whether the
doctor and Mrs, Arnold ever meant to let you retui-n to
Rutledge."
SUTLEDGB. 176
His tone was kind but what more did I want ? I did
oot dare to xook up ; I felt Dr. Hugh's eyes on my face, and
murmuring some broken commonplace about being happy
to be back again, hurried up the steps and into the house,
Kitty following with my shawls and packages. At the
head of the stairs, I stopped till she overtook me, and tell-
mg her hastily that I was going inmiediately to Mrs. Roberts,
and she must give me the package that contained the dress,
and be ready to go in, and make her apology as soon as I
came out, I left her, and crossed over to the door of Mrs.
Roberts' room.
It was a mean and cowardly thing to hope, no doubt, but
I did, notwithstanding, most ardently desire that it might
80 happen that the housekeeper was not in her room, and
that I might have a brief respite before the dreadful pen-
ance was undertaken, and in that hope I gave an undemon-
strative knock, to which Mrs. Roberts' voice responded
promptly, " Come in." Coming in was an easy part of it ;
walking up to her and saying, " How are you ?" was easy
too ; and remarking, " I am better, thank you," was the
easiest of all. But after that ! Standing blankly before
that rigid black bombazine figure, whose bluish lips were
obstinately compressed, and whose unsympathetic eyes
were regarding me inquiringly, it was anything but easy to
say what I had come to say it was anything but pleasant
to remember I was to be humble. But there was no help
for it. I gulped down my pride and aversion, ar.d simply
and honestly told ray story, making every allowance truth
would permit me for Kitty, putting all the blame that was
possible on myself, making no cowardly excuses, and no
submissive apologies, but telling a very straightforward and
honest story, in a very downright and unequivocal manner,
and winding up with a request that she would consider that
I regretted my share in the business, and was desirous of
making her every amend for the annoyance and inconve-
nience I bad occasioned her. No other course could have
176 BUTLEDGS*
been as well calculated to molliiy Mrs Roberts ; any nndnc
humility would have aroused her suspicions ^the least at-
tempt to conciliate her. would have settled her in her aver-
sion the smallest parade of penitence she would have
stigmatized as hypocrisy ; but as it was, she was met on hei
own ground, and could do nothing but yield, in an ungra
cious nx3.nner, an ungracious acknowledgment of my honesty
and sincerity, and a promise to consider the offence atoned
for. I put the package down on the table, telling her what
it contained, and again recommending Kitty to her mercy,
turned and left the room.
I found that young person awaiting me in an unenviable
state of mind. I told her I should never have the least re-
spect for her again, if she lost her courage now, and then I
talked to her a little d la Shenstone, and then rallied her a
little d la myself, and finally sent her off, quite staunch again,
Vo meet her offended mistress, while I employed the time
in taking off my bonnet and cloak, and arranging the dil-
ferent articles that I had brought back, in the drawers.
Despite my attempts at nonchalance, I felt a little an
happy. I did not yet know how far Mr. Rutledge had pui
me out of the place I had held in his regard, since he knew
oi my fault, and I could not feel quite at ease till I heard
my pardon Irom his own lips.
At last Kitty returned, looking a little pale and agitated,
but acknowledging that, on the whole, she was glad she had
gone. The interview had been, it appeared, rather a stir-
ring one, but Kitty had kept her temper, and Mrs. Roberts
had, at last, after expending her wrath upon an unresisting
subject, come to terms, and the curtain had dropped upon
comparative tranquillity. Then I told Kitty we must have
done with deceits, little and great, and related how near I
had come to telling Mr. Shenstone about the miniature, and
that I meant to tell him the very first chance, or else Mr.
Rutledge, But Kitty fell into such an ecstasy of teiTor,
ttiid with such vehement tears and entreaties besought me
BUTLEDGB. 177
aever to expose her, and promised such eternal devotion to
truth henceforth, if I would only spare her that insupport-
able mortification and disgrace, that at last I yielded, and,
to my own sorrow, promised to hazard no attempt to clear
up that mystery, and to make no confessions to any one in
regard to it.
After dressing my hair and arranging the room, Kitty
left me, and I sat down in my favorite seat in the bay win*
dow, with the double purpose of whiling away the time and
watching for the doctor's departure. But that devoutly
wished consummation did not crown my waiting ; moment
after moment passed, and still the doctor tarried, and at last
Thomas came out and led the sorrel horse away to the stable.
" That man's going to stay to tea, I know," I ejaculated,
indignantly. " I've a great mind not to go downstairs."
The unremunerative policy, however, of spiting myself,
had early been impressed on me, and I wisely abandoned
all thought of pursuing it, and reconciled myself to the
trial with all possible heroism. I should not go down
till the last minute. That was all the indignation I should
indulge in.
Twilight was descending fast ; the afternoon had not been
a bright one, and contrary to the nature 6f such things, was
particularly short-lived. There was a light streak around
the horizon, that suggested to the weather-wise the idea of
snow impending ; above, and all over the rest of the sky,
there was nothing to relieve the dull grey hue. The line
of light grew narrower and narrower, the cold grey nhroud
settled down lower and heavier, the lake and lawn grew
more and more indistinct, the shadows thickened -within, the
darkness increased without, and imperceptibly night stole
over us, and still I sat dreamily by the window, picturing to
myself for the hundredth time, and as I did at all dreamy
moments, Rutledge as it used to be the halls filled with
servants, the rooms with guests ; carriages rolling to the
door; music and laughter echoing through the house; Alice,
8*
178 BUTLBDGE.
lovely and admired ; Richard, with his refined, aristocratic
face ; and the young Arthur, as the sketch he gave me, had
recorded him. Then I joined to this links that I had caught
from Mrs. Arnold's broken story ; the flight, the dreary ex^
ile in a foreign land, and death finishing a career that
infamy and shame had branded. But what had Mr. Shen-
Btone to do with it all ? Perhaps he had loved Alice ; per-
haps it was the loss of her that was the terrible trial of
which he had spoken to Mr. Rutledge when I was lying
half unconscious in the study. Then I tried to put together
more of what I had then heard ; but the more I pondered,
the more confused and indistinct it aU grew, and ended by
bringing up, in all its perplexity, the tormenting mystery
of the lost miniature. Why must I be so baffled about
that ? Why had I put it out of my power, by my promise
to Kitty, to go to Mr. Rutledge honestly, and tell him the
story, and ask him to help me to discover who had taken
It, and so rid my fancy of the hateful idea that Kitty had
suggested, which, do what I would, had come, between
sleeping and waking, every time I had closed my eyes since
she had told me of it. In the dead of night, the cold hand
upon my bosom would wake me with a start ; I would rea-
son away the fright, and try to sleep again, but as soon as
unconsciousness would come, the chilling horror would come
toa. and startle me into sleepless watching.
I despised myself for the foUy ; but I had begun to hate the
darkness. Even now, the dusky thickening twilight, with
its* creeping shadows, made me nervous ; a chill seemed to
strike to my veiy heart, and I caught myself starting at every
Bound, and trembling at every flicker of the dying firelight.
Under these circumstances, the hour that intervened be-
tween the closing in of twilight and the ringing of the tea-
bell, could not fail to be a very long and uncomfortable one,
and the promptness with which I hurried down at the sum
mons, attested my preference for social hours and habits
over solitude and contemplation.
CHAPTER XIV.
'* What ! old, &ad rich, and childloss, toa
And yet believe my friends are tme 7
Truth might, perhaps, to those belong,
To those who loved me poor and yonng ;
But, trust me, for the new I have.
They'll love me dearly ^in my grave."
Db. Hugh was suavity and amiability itself; his host was
oourteous and attentive ; I only, of the party, was abstracted
and silent, and could not enter, with any interest, into the
discussions, political, social, and educational, to which the
medical guest led the way. He frequently appealed to me,
but I answered mechanically and at random, and was soon
mvolved in my own thoughts again, while the two gentle-
men carried on the conversation learnedly enough between
themselves. Though Dr. Hugh showed equal readhiess in
argument, and had, moreover, the advantage of choosing his
topics in all cases, I could not help contrasting the brusque
inelegance of his tone with the well-bred ease and quiet of
Mr. Rutledge's. One was trying to please and to appear^
the other was simply heing what was innate and habitual.
Altogether the doctor was, on this occasion, the most
animated and chatty of the trio at the tea-table, and though
Mr, Rutledge did a proper share of the talking, still his
manner was not unresei^ved, either to his guest or to me.
Whether this was the effect of the change in his feelings to-
ward me, or only the presence of a thii'd party, I could not
tell ; but it was very tormenting, and made the doctor's
Btay unbearably tedious, and the termination of it an un-
speakable relief. When the hall door closed behind him,
however, I could have wished him back, for it was even
worse to find myself alone with Mr. Rutjedgo, for the first
1T9
180 BUTLEDGE.
time since the strange night of which I had so many strange
recollections. Since then, was he alienated or altered, or
had he forgotten his interest in me dui-ing the days of ab-
sence that had intervened ? His voice brought the per-
plexing reverie to an end, and dispelled the doubts forever
" NoAV that that tiresome doctor has taken himself off,"
he said, in a tone so changed and so divested of its reserve,
that it almost startled me, " perhaps you'll have the gi-ace
to come to me, and tell me how glad you are to be home
again." He held out his hand, and I was by his side in a
moment. " ' Home is not home without thee,' " he said,
" What, I should like to be informed, am I to do when
you're gone ' for good,' as this Yankee gentleman would
say?"
Surprise and pleasure brightened my face, and I had
some saucy words on my lips, when the door softly opened,
and the doctor stood hesitatingly on the threshold, apolo-
gizing for his abrupt return and entrance, on the ground
of having forgotten to impress upon the young lady thf,
importance of continuing the powders she had been taking
He had not thought of this neglect of his till he had actu-
ally got into his buggy at the door, and then remembered
it " on a sudden," and was so much alarmed at thinking
what the consequences might be, that he had sprung out,
and hurried in to give a parting charge on the subject.
Every three hours, he reiterated, and thon apologized again
to Mr. Rutledge for the interruption.
Mr. Rutledge received his apologies rather stiffly, and
begged him to be easy oh the matter of the powders ; ho
had no doubt the young lady would follow his advice im-
plicitly, and he trusted the result would be as gratifying as
Dr. Hugh himself could wish. And the gentlemen both
bowed, and Mr. Rutledge accompanied his guest to the
door with undiminished politeness, but with a slight con-
traction of the brow, that augured ill for the doctor's cause.
There was much expression in the doctor's parting salata
BUTLEDGB. 181
tion to me ; his glance had heen rapid, buL he had not omitted,
m hifl observation, the total change of attitude, expression
and voice, that had ensued upon his withdrawing fi-om the
two people who had been so distraits and undemonstrative
all the evening ; it was a significant fact, and he had not
heen slow to seizi upon it. And I liked him less than ever
after he left us for the second time that evening.
" Mr, Rutledge," I said, when he had returned fi'om con-
voying the doctor to the door, " did you notice what a dis-
agreeable impression Dr. Hugh seemed to make upon
Tigre ? He keeps at a little distance from him, and barks
in the short, snappish way that he always does when the
tortoise-shell cat prowls into the barn."
Mr. Rutledge smiled at the analogy I seemed to trace.
" I don't altogether fancy the man myself, but one mu^l
not be too readily influenced by fancies ; no doubt he's very
good in his way, and seems to be much more of a physician
than old Sartain. It's a bad way to expect too much of
people, and I hope you'll never get as much in the habit of
it as I have always been."
With that he dismissed the subject, and presently point
ing to the seat beside him, told me I need not think of say
ing good night yet, as he had a great deal to say to me.
Without much reluctance, I sat down, and listened submis-
sively.
" In the first place, you have not asked what your aunt
says to this new delay."
" Well, what does she say ?" I asked, a little uneasily.
** She says, that unless you arrive very shortly at New
York, she shall feel herself obliged to leave all her pressing
household cares, sick children, undisciplined servants, and
come on for you in person."
** It's a new thing for her to be so anxious about me," ]
exclaimed, impatiently. " I was sick a month last summer
at school, and she never suggested the idea of comhig on to
see ma"
182 &UTLDGE.
^^ Be that as it may, her anxiety at present kiiows no
bounds, and I have in vain rendered the most elaborate ac-
counts of your state, and in all ways endeavored to weaken
her fears. This very afternoon I received another letter,
more decided than the last in its request, that if you were
able to be moved, you might be brought on immediately;
if not, she would at once start for this place, and my
answer was to be instantly communicated to her by tele-
graph."
"You have sent it ?**
" Yes, three hours ago," he answered, looking at me at-
tentively.
" Well, what did you tell her?"
" That we should start to-morrow morning at eleven
o'clock."
I struggled hard to keep up, under the unexpected
blow, and answered, as I bit my lip and choked down the
tears :
" Very well, sir, I will try to be ready in time."
" The doctor says it will be perfectly safe," continued Mr.
Rutledge, quietly.*
" And there is no appeal from his opinion," I interrupted,
tartly.
" I am so much better myself," he went one, as if he had
not heard me, " that there is no imprudence in my attempt-
ing it ; and I can see no objection to complying with your
aunt's request immediately. Indeed, I feel that I could not
do otherwise."
His indifferent way of speaking of what to me was such
a vital matter, roused my pride less than it wounded my
sensitiveness, and I had much ado to master myself enough
to say :
" If you had had the goodness to tell me before, T need
not have wasted this evening, but could have spent it in
packing."
" YoM cannot have much to do, T am sure. Kjtiy can
BUTLEDGB. 18S
pack everytliiiig in the moniing, and I thought it was best
not to worry you by telling you of it before."
" I must go up immediately, however," I said, i-ising.
" I cannot let you go yet," he said, detaining rae. " Do
you remember this is the last evening you are to spend at
Rntledge ?"
" And what of that ?"
" You ought to be sorry."
I shrugged my shoulders, and said, it was a pity I could
not gratify his taste for the pathetic.
" Ah, nonsense, child 1" he said, with a sudden change of
manner, " we have so little time left, it's foolish to waste
any of it in idle pretences. You may as well cry ; I know
you are sorry enough, I know you can hardly keep back
your tears."
That broke down all my self-control ; burying my face in
my hands, I burst into a passion of tears. There was no use
in attempting to conmiand myself, and indeed I never
thought of it. Mr. Rutledge took my hand, and attempted
to draw it away from my face, then suddenly relinquishing
it, walked rapidly once or twice across the room, returned,
and sat down by me.
" You will make it harder than ever for me to let you go,
if you cry so bitterly," he said, after a pause. " You will
soon forget your grief, and be as happy in your new home
as you have been here, while I shall, for a long while, miss
you, and be lonely without you. Do you not see I have the
most to regret ?"
I shook my head, while the sobs came more chokingly
than ever^
** Foolish child I" he said, " this is but a transitory
feeling with you ; it wiU vanish in the sunshine of to mor-
row. In a week, you will have forgotten all about Rut-
ledge."
Now my anger mastered my teai-s, and looking up, 1
exclaimed :
184 RdHLEPGE.
" You are always telling me I am a child I Yoa are
always treating me as if I were a senseless plaything 1 I anri
tired of it ; I could almost hate you fot it 1"
He looked at my flashing eyes with a strange intentness,
as if he would read me through and through. "But you are
a child ; it would be folly for me to treat you otherwise ;
how can I know that your affections and sensibilities are
other than those of any ardent, impetuous child ?"
With an impatient gesture, I interrupted him ; and turn
ing away, hid my face on the sofa again.
"That is the wayl" he exclaimed. "No child coula
be more changeable ; one moment, I have half a mind to
think you are a woman, and the next, you turn away, and
pout, and cry."
" You shan't have that to say of me again !" I exclaimed,
conquering my tears with a huge effort, and raising my
liead. " I will be cold enough, if that's what you want. I
won't trouble you with my tears again, even if you try tc
make me cry, as you did a little while ago. I can be as
indifferent and unkind as you are yourself, if that will be
any proof of my maturity and wisdom."
" Indifferent ? Ah, there you show your childishness and
ignorance more plainly than you think 1 Culpably indif-
ferent and unkind !" he said, with a short laugh. " But,"
with a softening of his voice, " whatever there may have
been of neglect or unkindness in my manner, remember,
when you think of it hereafter, that there was nothing that
answered to it, in my heart ; remember that I shall never
cease to feel the strongest interest in you, the kindest affec-
tion for you ; remember, whenever you need a friend, yoii
have promised to appeal to me. And remember, too," he
continued, in a lighter tone, " all the rest of the engage-
ments that you entered into, of which that brac/Clet is to b?
the souvenir. I have the greatest feith in it ; I shall
never feel very far separated from you, with this little key
Bo near my heart," he said, touching the trinket on his chai n.
BUTLEDGE. lib
" As for me," I exclaimed, bitterly, " I shall have to wear
this bracelet as I've promised to ; but I shall try my best to
forget the giver and all about him 1 As for the promises, I
don't care that for them I" And in emphatic contempt I
snapped my fingers.
Mr. Rutledge smiled, as if he knew enough about my
indignation to bear up under it, and said, coaxingly and
low:
'* Ah, surely you're not going to desert me already ; my
little friend is the one thing in 'the world I care for, just
now ; what would be the result, if she were to turn faith-
less ?"
I averted my head. " You should have been prepared
for that when you took a child into your friendship."
"Ah I ^hat rankles still, I see. Well, now, turn your
fece toward me, and look up, while I assure you, solemnly
you know, and most sincerely, that I do not think you are
childish in most things, that I do believe you are honest and
true, and altogether, excepting, a few pardonable caprices,
as good a friend as one need desire. Doesn't that satisfy
you ? What could I say more flattering ?"
" Oh I as to saying, you are unrivalled at that ; it's the
doing that you are deficient in. It's all very fine for you to
call me your friend, and say how lonely you shall be without
me, and aH that style of thing; and then, in the next
breath, tell me to get ready to go away to-morrow, and
remark that you cannot see the least objection to my
aunt's plan and look and laugh just as usual. That doesn't
seem much like meaning what you say, surely !"
" But what," he said, " would you have me do ? If it
made me perfectly miserable to part with you, it i& still
my duty to do it. Tell me any way of getting out of it."
" Let me stay at Rutledge," I exclaimed, turning toward
him with pleading eyes ; "just let me stay here. I hate
New York, I hate society, I don't even know my aunt ; and
here I am so happy, and I have just got used to it all, and
186 BUTLI DGB.
am beginniug to feel at home, and it is cruel to take me tc
another strange place I. I will be so good and useful ; 1
will study and improve myself, and help Mrs. Arnold with
the school-children and the poor people, and keep Mrs
Roberts' accounts, and read to you, and write your letters,
and be just as good and obedient as possible ; not in the
least self willed, not a bit unlady-like. Just tiy," I went
on, coaxingly ; " you will not know me, I shrill be so
amiable I"
" But," he said, with a strange mixture of foulness and
irony in his tone, " what would Madame voire tunte say to
such an arrangement ?"
" She would say, of course, that if I wanteti to, I was
very welcome to stay ; she has daughters enough already,
and not having seen me, she can't be expected to know
whether she wants me or not."
" Very well ; supposing for a moment, that your aunt
bad given her consent, and that there was no obstacle in the
way of your remaining here, how many weeks do you sup
pose it would be before you would begin to think regretfully
of the gay life you had given up, and the pleasures you had
put out of your power, before you would begin to sigh for
companions of your own age, and excitements greater than
^our life here could offer? Believe me, it would not be
long before you would be thoroughly * aweary ' of the quiet
routine of Rutledge, and thoroughly tired of your bar-
gain."
I protested against this injustice, and exhausted every
argument to prove my superiority to such fickleness, but
Mr. Rutledge remained unconvinced.
".I do not say you are moie fickle than are all other
untamed young things of seventeen ; it isn't your fault that
you are not oider and wiser ; it is my misfortune. In the
nature of things, you cannot stay forever ignorant and
innocent, and indifferent to the worlci
BUTLSDGE. 187
** * Let the wild falcon soar ner swing,
She'll stoop when she has tired her wing.* **
" It's very strango," I said, " that you should tell mo 1
must put myself in the way of the very temptations that
you were so earnest in cautioning me against not long ago.
Why must I go into society, when I don't want it ? Why
must I try the snares of the world, when, in reality, I am
best content away from it ?"
"You must first know what it is you renounce, my pretty
child ; you must first see what other places are like, before
you can judge whether Rutledge will content you, and
what other friends are like, before you can tell how worthy
of your affection this first one is. Wait till you are a little
older ; wait a year or two, and then if you still turn to
Rutledge, it is your home forever."
Wait a year or two I If he had said, "Wait till the
early part of the twentieth century," it could hardly have
seemed a more insupportable term of banishment.
" Ah 1" he said, with a sigh, "a year or two seems an age
to you now ; when you have passed through as many as I
have, you'll begin to realize how short they are, how very
small a part of a life they form, and how very quickly they
pass."
I shook my head. "They would go soon enough if
there was anything pleasant to mark them ; but if they are
to be passed in longing for their end, they will be age?
indeed."
" No fear that the next two or three years of your life
will be passed in that way, my friend. It would be a
heavy blow, indeed, that would take the elasticity out of
your spirit, and daunt the courage that I know will make
your life a worthy one. Be true to yourself; keep your
heart pure, and the world will not hurt you ; you will only
eee how far it is from satisfying you."
* Oh '" I ex xa'med, " if I might never ha^r o to go in it .
188 BUTLEDGR.
tf I could only stay here. You can't understand how
miserable it makes me to go among strangera again. And
I am so fond of this place ! You need not be afraid that I
shall get tired of it ; I don't get tired of people and places
when once I like them. Do you suppose I ever was tired
of my own dear home, or ever would have been, if I had
not been taken away from it ?"
And at that recollection the tears came blindingly into
my eyes.
" You have never told me about your home. Were you
happy there ?" he asked, kindly. " Tell me about it."
It seemed strange when I remembered it, but it did not
seem so at the time, that I should teU him what I had never
told to the dearest of my confidants, had never before put
into words ; but there was a sympathy in his tone that was
irresistible ; for the time, my grief seemed his ; I did not
wonder why his interest was so strong in my recollections ;
I did not think it strange that tears shone in his eyes when
they filled mine, nor that his voice trembled as he told me
of his sympathy; he was my friend; he was kinder and
better than any one else in the world ; that was enough.
" Poor little homesick child, you must have been miser
able enough, among so many strange faces, with such ac
aching heart. It was a cruel thing to send you off so fiir,
without a single familiar fiice to comfort you, and so soon
after such a shock."
'^Aunt Edith thought it was best for me, I suppose.
Perhaps it was ; that is, if it is best for anything living to
be wholly miserable, it was very good for me. And now,"
I went on, turning to him, beseechingly, " how can you
know whether it's best for me to be sent away from here?
I shall be dreadfully homesick there, I knw ; I shall be so
strange and forlorn among all those gay people ; I kno^
you will be sorry if you don't let me stay. I know you
will say, when it is too late, ' she was right after all ; 1
ehould not have made her go ' You will miss me, I know
BUTLBDGB. 189
you wilL Think how dreary the long evenings will be, and
how lonely!"
" Ah I Don't appeal to .my selfishness ; let that slumber
if it can ; don't make my duty any harder than it is already.
Be a good, self-denying child, as you have always been, and
go because I think it is best for you, and because it is
your duty to go, and mine to send you. Will you try ?"
" Yes," I said, sadly, " if there's no help, I wiU try to
make the best of it, and think as little as possible about
what might have been, and as much as possible about what
I ought to do."
" That's my brave little Mend again I You haven't been
with Mr, Shenstone without profit. He has made you
already as philosophical as himself."
" If I could be near Mr. Shenstone," I said, with a sigh,
" there would be some chance of my learning to control
myself and be good. One can hardly help doing right, with
his teaching."
" It may seem so to you," he answered, " and I acknow-
ledge it is a great assistance ; but, alas ! good counsel can-
not accomplish the warfiire. If it could, those who have the
benefit of Mr. Shenstone's would be fortunate indeed ; but
we have to struggle and conquer for ourselves ; no one can
do it for us."
" But you do not mean to say that it isn't the greatest
advantage and comfort to have the advice and guidance of
such a wise and holy man ? You do not mean that you do not
think Mr. Shenstone the best and the most devout of men ?'*
Mr. Rutledge smiled at my enthusiasm.
" Do not be afiraid that Mr. Shenstone will suffer at my
hands. He has been my guide and counsellor ever since 1
was younger than you ; and so, you see, I have reason to
know, experimentally, the value of his counsels, and the
possibility of not doing right in spite of them. He is the
noblest of men, the most clear-sighted and wise of counsel-
lors, and my nearest and truest Mend, and yet, for all that,
190 TTTLBDGB.
I have often gone contrary to bis rules, and, no dpubt, often
grieved his kind heart. But, so it goes! The human
heart, you are aware, my young fiiend, is the very per*
versest of all created things. Now, at this very moment,
would you believe it, I am doing what that same good and
wise' Mr. Shenstone has warned me not to do ; and, more*
over, mean to continue doing it,"
I looked in astonishment.
" I wonder at you, sir. You will be sorry in the end.
Mr. Shenstone, I am certain, knows better than you do."
" How can you possibly know ? You cannot tell anything
about the right of the case."
" No, of course I don't know anything about it; but from
the nature of things, Mr. Shenstone is the most likely to be
right. He's older than you, he's a clergyman, and ^well
you will not be angry, but I think he is much less likely to
be govenied by his wishes than you, much more likely to
see the right, and give up everything else for it, and to look
at things clear of the mists that other people see them
through. You know what I mean," I continued, " even
though I don't express it very well ; and oh! Mr. Rutledge,
I am sure you must see, if you think about it at all, that it
is very unwise in you to reject Mr, Shenstone's advice. The
time may come when you'll regret it."
" Nevertheless, I shall do it."
From perversity, perhaps, as much as anything else, 1
continued to urge what I thought right. There was quite
a fascination in contradicting and opposing Mr. Rutledge ;
it gave me a giddy sense of elation to think I dared do it,
and though I did not gain my point, it diverted me from
the thoughts of to-morrow's pain, till the clock struck, and
I started up in alarm.
" It's only eleven, Cinderella ; there's no need for such a
frightened look. There is an hour left of your last evening
at Rutledge."
"No, indeed; Kitty is waiting for me, and there is so
BUTLEDGE. 191
madi to be done before to-morrow at ten o'clock. Good
night, sir."
" Ah, I see you are in a hurry ; you are tired. Why
didn't you go before ? Ten is your usual hour."
The clock had struck another half hour before my last
evening at Rutledge was ended before the last good night
was spoken at the library door, and, with a sad enough
heart, I ascended the stairs, and traversed the dreary hall,
where not even ghostly terrors would have had power to
startle me from the heavy grief that was lying at my heai-t.
My room was cheerless ; the candle died flickeringly as I
opened the door ; the fire was dead long siQce ; poor Kitty,
tired with waiting, had fiQlen asleep on the rug, with one of
the sofii pillows under her head. I covered her softly with
some shawls, wrapped one about myself stole to the bay
window, and leaning my forehead against the pane, cried
B8 if my heart would break.
CHAPTER XV.
^ What is this passing scene ?
A peevish April day !
A little sun, a little rain,
And then mht sweeps along the plain,
And all things fade away.'*
EiRKB WeITB.
Thb grey dawn was just breaking when I woke Kitty.
She started up bewildered, and her bewilderment did not
decrease when I told her the object of this reveille. I never
had any cause to doubt the sincerity of the grief she showed
on this occasion. I had added as much to the pleasure of
her life since I had been at Rutledge, as she had increased!
the comfort of mine ; and it was with no very light hearts that
we went about the business of packing. There was too much
to be done, however, Xo admit of much sentiment, and we
both bestirred ourselves so diligently, that before the break-
fast bell rung my trunk was strapped and labelled, my bag
filled with everything necessary for the journey, and my
bonnet, cloak and shawl lying ready on the bed. There
was not another article now about the room that belonged
to me. What a dreary and forsaken look it had already ;
the toilet-table dismantled of its recent ornaments; the
books and work that had given so bright and familiar a
look to the pretty room, now all removed, and a bit of card,
a ball of cord, and some withered flowers, were all that
graced the etag^re and the table.
I did not dare trust myself to enter into particulars, even
in thought, and with a very resolute voice, telling Kitty 1
would come up immediately after breakfast, and see if there
was anything more for her to do, I went downstairSi
1919
BUTLEDOE. 193
The first floor presented signs of an exciting stir ; there was
a very unusaal bustle and movement in the quiet hall a
trunk and a valise stood at the front door, a pile of cloaks
and wrappers lay beside them ; Thomas' long limbs were
animated with unwonted energy, Mrs. Roberts bustled in
and out of pantries, and to and fro through side-doors and
entries, in a very stalling manner ; Sylvie was more raving
distracted than ever flew unmeaningly up and down
stairs took the wrong thing to the wrong place irritated
everybody, and was in the way generally. Mr. Rutledge,
in the library, gave audience to farmer, gardener, groom,
and carpenter delivered orders paid bills settled ac-
counts the one undisturbed member of the common-
wealth. It was evident that the sudden marching orders
had taken them all by surprise, and unsettled most of their
brains. Stephen, alone, I was happy to notice, seemed
to presei've in some degree the possession of his reason-
ing faculties, and did not " haze " to the same extent
as the others. Kitty, I thought, comes honestly by her
9ang froid.
I stood some minutes by the hall window gazing out
npon the dreary winter landscape, the dull sky, the brown
bare trees, the hard grey earth, ashes of roses in hue, the
nether millstone in hardness. It had been the coldest night
of the season, the water that stood in the narrow carriage-
tracks and in the little crescents that the horses' hoofs had
made, was frozen hard ; the trees, the hedges, looked as if
they were, too so still and stiff they stood. Not a bit of
wind was stirring, but the temperature was evidently
moderating.
"Softening down for snow," Stephen remarked, as he
passed out ; " you'll not have it so cold for your journey.
Miss. It's too bad that you're going, such fine sleighing aa
we have at Rutledge a little later in the season. You
should stay and enjoy it. Miss."
" I wish, indeed I could, Stephen," I said, with great
9
194 BCJTIBDaE.
siuceiity. " It\s a long while since I've had a good sleigb
ride. The roads must be splendid for it here, so broad and
clear."
" Beautiful, Miss ; packed smooth, and hard as the
house floor, and as dry as sand. You might walk over 'em
in your thin slippers, and never wet your feet. And the
snow lays sometimes better than a month without a rain or
a thaw, the weather as clear as a bell and as cold as Christ-
mas thermometer down to nobody knows where, and
nobody minds, after they're used to it. But maybe you're
afraid of the cold ?"
" Not I ! It's the veiy thing I like. I'd give anything
for a ride behind those bays, wrapped up to the eyes in
furs, on the coldest day Rutledge ever saw. I know they
must go like the veiy wind when there's snow on the
ground ; don't they ?"
" Aye, Miss, that they do I" exclaimed Stephen, warming
up at the mention of his favorites ; for though the garden
was his particular provmce, as the oldest man in the
service, he took a fatherly interest in everything animate
and inanimate on the place. "That they dol There's
nothing in this part of the country has ever begun to come
up to 'em. I'd like you to see 'em go, when their spirit's
up ! 'Taint many young ladies," he continued, - with a
" gentleman of the old school " bow, " 'taint many young
ladies as can tell a horse when they see him ; but every-
body says that you sit like a born horsewoman, and
Michael, stupid rascal as he is, swears you ride like a cavalry
officer. Nobody but the master ever managed that Madgn
BO before."
I acknowledged the compliment with a laugh and a
blush, and encouraged Stephen to continue his bulletin of
the stable, in which he well knew my interest. Indeed, the
worthy gardener was not to blame for his loquacity, as this
was by no means the beginning of our acquaintance ; many
a chat I had had with him over the garden-gate, while he
BUTLBDaS.. 195
leaned on his spade, and discoursed willinglj of the ancient
glories of the house of Rutledge, and the manifold virtues
of the present master of it. I knew he was a faithful, honest
old fellow, shrewd and intelligent heyond his class, and
altogether, inestimahly superior to many old fogies in the
higher walks of life, and heing certain that he was very
much delighted to he talked to, I very much enjoyed talk-
ing to him.
He was just saying, with great appearance of sincerity,
that he did not know what they should all do, now I was
going. I had waked up the old place " amazing ;" it was
a long while since there had heen anybody so cheerful-like
and bright in it ; and as for his Kitty, he really did not
know how she could content herself after me when we
were both startled by finding that Mr. Rutledge had been
an undemonstrative auditor of the whole conversation, and
ostensibly engaged in putting some books into the valise
behind us, was quietly listening, and no doubt criticising, all
that had been said.
Stephen looked a little confused, only a very little though,
and with dogged dignity gave me many good wishes for
the journey, bowed and withdrew. I turned around and
faced the intruder with a determination not to be ashamed
of myself and not to acknowledge that I had been unduly
familiar with an inferior, and to submit to no lecture ; but
bis face was so different from anything that I had expected,
that I blushed, and looked very foolish, instead of very
defiant. He laughed outright.
"Upon my word," he exclaimed, "T never saw old
Stephen so nearly embarrassed in my life ; during an
acquaintance of some forty years, I never saw him approach
so near a blush I And you, young lady, certainly have an
extraordinary taste for low life ! You have no greater pas-
gion, that I can see, than the one you have just been acknow*
ledging to Stephen, for horseflesh generally; and as foi
dogs, your mind runs on them continually; Kitty shares your
196 BUTLEBaV*
confidence Stephen is hail-fellow-well-met Michael sweara
by you, and "
" That's enough for the present, if you please," I said,
hurrying into the dining-room.
" You will have coffee, sir ?" I continued, very blandly,
sitting down at the table.
**Are you sure you know enough of such things to make
me a palatable cup ? I know you could saddle my horse
for me in extremity, and groom the bays to perfection, but
whether you're to be trusted with anything so feminine as
making coffee, really you must excuse me for being a little
skeptical."
" Ah ! please, Mr. Rutledge !"
But it did not please Mr. Rutledge to do anything but
tease me just at that time. After breakfast was over, he
told me, looking at his watch in his precise manner, that
there was just an hour and a quarter before it would be
time to start, and if I had nothing better to do, I might
come down to the stables with him, and give my parting
orders about the care of the horses and dogs. I did not
know whether this invitation was given sarcastically or sin-
cerely, but I preferred accepting it in the latter sense ; so
I ran upstairs and put on my bonnet and cloak and joiued
him in the hall in a very short time. He evidently did not
mean to give me opportunity for any sentimental regrets,
for he never before had been half so teasing. I could not
do anything right, though I was a baa-lamb, as fkr as sub-
missiveness went. I walked either too slow or too fast,
was too chatty with the groom, or too taciturn with him ;
there was not a fault or indiscretion in all our previous
acquaintance that I did not then and there have to bear the
penalty of. It was only when I came to say good-bye to
Madge that my courage gave way completely, and I leaned
my forehead on her glossy neck to conceal the sil]y tears
that filled my eyes.
" I verily believe," said Mr. Rutledge, " that she knows
BDTLEDQB. 197
yoo. She does not submit to such familiarity from
strangers."
Finding that I did not answer, he continued, in a kinder
tone:
" I think, as you broke hei in, to feminine usage at least,
you are entitled to her ; so I make her over to you, body
and soul, if soul she has, to have and to hold, from this
day forward ; and a tender mistress may she find you."
" Thank you," I said, without raising my head ; " a very
useful gift; .of about as much service to me as if yoq
should make over to me your right and title in the fastest
pair of reindeer in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany."
" Why, don't you mean ever to come here again ? If
you don't, you had better take her with you. Any way,
she is mine no longer. What shall be done with her?
Shall Michael blanket and prepare her to accompany us to
New York? or will you leave her here till you come
back ?"
" Ah I Do you fancy I am child enough to believe in
such a conveyance as that? It wouldn't stand in any
court of law."
"What would you have? There isn't a magistrate
within four miles, and we haven't the time to draw up a
document properly. I will tell you what can be done as
next best. I will record the transaction here, above her
manger, and there it shall remain to remotest ages, ' to
witness if I lie.' "
Mr. Rutledge took out his penknife, and with consider-
able ingenuity carved in the sturdy old oak beam, the
transfer of Madge Wildfire from himself to me, using, for
brevity, only initials, and then the date. I climbed up to
the fourth round of the ladder when it was completed, and
did my best to achieve a signature, but the result was so
unsatisfactory that Mr. Rutledge put beneath it, " her
mark," and so it stands to this day, I suppose. This trans-
198 BOILRDGB.
aotion having consumed a good deal of the hour and a quarter
that we had before starting, Mr. Rutledge rather hurried
up my adieux with my new favorite-, and it was very ungra-
ciously that he submitted to wait till I had cut a locit from
her black mane, and embraced her tenderly for the twen-
tieth time.
" Nobody is to ride her, remember," I said, as we went
out ; " only, of course, the man who takes care of her,
when it is necessary for exercise."
" Tour orders shall be obeyed. Any fmi;her instructions
. that may occur to you in the course of the winter you had
better commit to paper and send to me, and I will observe
them faithfully."
" Oh, I depend entirely on your integrity ; I am confi-
dent you will be careful of her. Anyway," I continued,
" it's a comfort to know I own anything at Rutledge, and
have a sort of claim upon its hospitality stiU, Ah I how
long it will be before I walk up this road with you again,
Mr. Rutledge I"
" Maybe not," he answered, " Tou shall, if you will,
come back and make me a visit before many months are
over ; you shall come back and see how Rutledge looks in
her June dress,
'* * When all this leafless and uncolored scene,
Shall flush into variety again ;'
when this dull November sky shall have given place to
the- warmest summer sunshine, and this hard, frozen earth
shall be soft and brown, and roses shaU be blooming about
this dreary porch, and the garden shall be one wilderness
of sweets, and the trees and the lawn shall be all of the
richest green. Will you come then, if I send for you ?"
I checked my look of delight with a sigh : " you'll forget
before that time, I'm afraid. And I don't believe my aunt
would let me come."
BUTLEDGB. VM
'* You may trust that to me. Haven't yon seen that 1
make people do as I wish them to ? Do you not believe
that I can induce your aunt to let you come, if I continue
to want you, and you continue to want to come ?"
"Perhaps so," I said, half incredulously; "but if I
remember right, my Aunt Edith is fond of her own way
too, is she not ?"
"She has that reputation," he answered, with a short
laugh. " But cela ne fait rien. You shall come if you
wish to. Leave it to me, and say nothing about it."
" Juno is a long way off yet, but it is better than two or
three years, the term of my * honorable banishment,' that
you first decreed."
Before we reached the house, the snow-flakes began to
descend, large, and soft, and white, floating down in fast-
mcreasing thickness,
'* As though lifers only call or care
Were graceful motion."
" How pretty it makes the landscape I" I said, pausing on
the steps. " In among the bare trees there, it makes such a
charming vaiiety and lightness, and in a few minutes every
twig will be feathered with it, and fences, and roofs, and
all. Why can't we wait till we have had one sleigh-
ride ?"
"This snow will not amount to anything; we should
have to wait a long while for a sleigh-ride. It is too early
yet for that entertainment ; a fortnight hence will be time
enough to expect it."
" I think you are mistaken," I said, looking wisely at the
clouds, " there's plenty of snow up there, and we shall have
enough of it before night, depend upon it. Hadn't we bet-
ter wait till to-morrow ? It would be dreadful to be caught
in a heavy snow-storm on the way."
"Have you forgotten your good resolutions of last
night ?" he said, in a low tone. " There's the carriage,"
200 BUTLEDGE.
And without answering a word I ran upstairs. Kitt^
wrapped me tenderly in my soft shawl, and fastened my fur
tippet carefully round my neck. ,
" Oh, Kitty ! you'll smother me I" I cried. But it was
something less tangible than tippet or shawl that waa
smothering me just then, and choking my breath. I gave
one glance around the room, thrust a douceur into Kitty's
hand, and telling her to bring down my travelling-bag, hur-
ried out without a second look, and downstairs without a
second thought, sustained by the determination not to make
a baby of myself and cry.
The library was empty ; I passed on through the hall.
Mr. Rutledge was already at the carriage, superintending
the packing in it of numerous valises, books, shawls, and
packages. Mrs. Roberts, bluer than ever with the cold,
stood by him, busy with all the arrangements for his com-
fort, and looking a shade more cheerless than usual, at the
prospect of separation from the master who stood to her
lonely old age in the place of son and friend. " I believe
she does love him," I thought, and warming toward her at
the idea of one redeeming weakness, I walked up to her and
said, extending my hand :
" Good bye, Mrs. Roberts. I am afraid you wnl be glad
to get rid of such a troublesome guest ; but I assure you I
am very sorry to have given you trouble, and very much
obliged to you for the attention you have shown me."
Mrs. Roberts gave me her hand, and answered, without
any undignified haste :
" All attentions you have received from me you are very
welcome to. I hope never to be wanting in my duty to
any guest of Mr. Rutledge's."
"Then you can't regard me with favor for any othei
cause? Ah, Mrs. Roberts, I don't know why it is yon
would never like me, even before I gave you any reason to
dislike me."
" Mrs. Roberts will learn to think differently somo day
B13TIBDGE. 301
I Iio|)e,'' said Mr. Rutledgc, without looking up from his
occupation. " Is there anything more to go here ?"
There was nothing, the last package was bestowed in its
place, the last strap secured. Thomas, who was to accom-
pany his master to New York, stood waiting for us to enter
the carriage, Michael was on the box.
'* We are all ready, then," and he motioned me to enter,
" Good bye, Mrs, Roberts," he continued. " I believe
there is nothing further that I wanted to say to you. Make
yourself as comfortable as you can this winter, and let me
hear from you occasionally. I shall be back by the latter
part of January, however, and I hope everything will go on
well till then."
Mrs. Roberts looked very much as if she thought no-
tbing more improbable than his being back in January,
but only said :
"Good bye, sir, I shall write."
Mr. Rutledge followed me into the carriage, and shut the
door. I bowed again to Mrs. Roberts, and looked out
anxiously for Kitty, who had not appeared since she brought
down my bag ; but at that moment Kitty, in person, was
discovered at the other window of the carriage, bringing
me a glove she said she had found, which, however, I
guessed was only a ruse to get another good bye.
" Ah, Kitty, that's the glove Tigre gnawed, and I nevei
have found the mate to it since that day; of course it's use-
less, so you'd better keep it to ' remember me by,' as they
say. Good bye, again."
Kitty said, " Good bye. Miss," but with so tearful and
woebegone a look, withal, that even Mr. Rutledge was
touched, and leaning forward, he said :
** Don't take it so very much to heart, my good girL
Your young mistress will be back again, sometime, I hope.
And be as obliging and submissive as you can to Mrs.
Roberts, Batty ; remember it was my last charge."
And dropping some coins into her hand, he told Michael
9*
203 BUTLEDeE.
to drive on. At this moment Tigre rushed whining to the
carriage, and I begged he might be allowed to drive lo the
station, and come back in the carriage. Mr. Rutledge con-
senting, Kitty placed the tawny fevorite in my arms, and,
" Smack went the whip,
Round went the wheels,"
but I have known gladder folks. From the back of the car.
riage I watched the lessening figures on the piazza, as we
drove rapidly down the avenue, and an involuntary sigh
escaped me as a winding of the road hid the dark house,
with its snow-capped roofs and porticoes, from my sight.
" Good bye till June," I said, regretfully,
" Till June,'' repeated Mr. Rutledge, pulling Tigre's ears,
and making him yelp. " Do you understand, Tigre ? This
young lady means to come back in June, if she doesn't
change her mind. Understand the condition, Tigre. What
do you think of our chance ?"
The cur, by way of answer, began gnawing at my tippet.
"Don't destroy that too, sir," I exclaimed. "You've
ruined one pair of gloves for me already. Isn't it singular,
what could have become of that other one," I continued.
" I've searched high and low for it everywhere, in fact."
" Where did you see it last ?" he inquired,
"I cannot remember anything about it, after after
Tigre and I started on our race. Don't scold," I said, coax-
ingly, " you know I am going to reform."
" Careless girl," he said, gloomily, " what will you lose
next ?"
' It wasn't my fault ; I've looked everywhere for it. Isn't
it strange what has become of it ?"
" Very strange," said Mr. Rutledge, giavely. " Indeed.
I may say, in a high degree mysterious."
CHAPTER XVI.
" Get thee back, Sorrow, get thee back !
My^browis smooth, mine eyes are bright,
My limbs are full of health and strength,
My cheeks are fresh, my heart is light."
Mackat.
" Why, which way are we going ?" I exclaimed, as we
turned off, on an opposite road, about a quarter of a mile
before reaching the well-remembered depot and gloomy
suburbs vhich had been, I supposed, our destination.
*' To tell you the truth,'* said my cornpagnon de voyage^
* I have begun to look upon railroads as an invention of the
enemy, and to prefer any other mode of travel. So that,
considering we are both invalids (a fact you are constantly
overlooking), and cannot bear fatigue or excitement, I
have arranged our route after this manner : we drive, to-day,
by easy stages a^ far as W. ; then a night's rest there ; and
to-morrow morning go on to C, where we part with
the carriage, and take the day-boat down the river, which
will bring us to the haven of our desires to-morrow even-
ing about seven o'clock. This seemed a more agreeable
plan than going by cars, and I thought would be less
fatiguing."
" -4 to honne heure /" I cried, remembering it was three
times as long as the railroad route.
It proved a most delightful journey; the further wo went,
the thinner the snow-clouds grew, and as the day wore on,
they disappeared altogether, and the sun came out, faint
and pale, and the air grew soft and mild. The carriage was
the easiest imaginable, the roads were in good condition,
the horses disdained their burden, and the occasional
204 BUTLEDGE.
resi)ites ^vhich iheii* master decreed, the scenery was as
varied and chai-ming as inland scenery at that season of the
year could possibly be ; every change and amusement that
the limits of the carriage admitted o^ Mr. Rutledge's care
had provided ; and we were two companions who had at
least the charm of freshness for each other, and were not aa
yet bored with one another's society, whatever we might
be in the course of time. Wd tried to read, but the pages
of my new novel did not turn very fast ; I gave it up before
the heroine (the records of whose nurseiy reminiscences
occupied two thirds of the volume) had entered her tenth
year. Mr. Rutledge's review* had, I afterward found, but
two of the leaves cut, though he read it assiduously for an
liour and a half.
So we tacitly agreed to resign literature, and devote our
attention to the scenery, which, as we approached the Hud-
son, certainly did grow worthy of attention. The purple-
headed mountains already were discernible against the pale
sky ; the hills grew steeper, the roads wilder. There was an
anecdote or a legend attached to every dark wood or anti-
quated farmhouse we passed. Mr. Rutledge seemed to
know every inch of the way, and to be familiar with its
history since its settlement by the pale-fe,ced gCQtry ; though
it is my belief, that where he did not know of any enter-
taining tradition " to cheat the toil, and cheer the way," he
waived all conscientious regard to veracity, and improvised
one on the spot. Very engrossing they were, however,
whether manufactured from " whole cloth " or founded on
fact, and it was quite three o'clock before any of the party
(inside passengers at least) began to revolve seriously the
question of dinner. Then, however, it appeared that Mrs,
Roberts' care had provided us with the most delicate and
tempting of collations, and we stopped to enjoy it at the
outskirts of a little village, by the side of a Ixesh, cleai
brook that was on its way, I suppose, " to join the brim*
ming river," that was onr destination alsp^ Wo went by
UTLDGB. 305
different routes, however, and I never have seen the pretty
little eddying streamlet since that pleasant lunch upon its
banks, when Mr, Rutledge filled my cup from its clear
waters, and Thomas cooled the wine in its bosom. Rather
a superfluous service, I couldn't help thinking, in considera-
tion of the season and state of the thermometer; but 'it
brought out in strong relief the methodic precision of
Thomas' mind. He was an invaluable machine ; once wound
up correctly, he ran for any given time, but as to any exer-
cise of his reasoning faculties in the discharge of his duties,
that was as totally wanting as in other machines. Any
display of it from him, would have been as startling to his
master, as it would have been, had the watch in his pocket
suddenly addressed him in good English. Thomas, how-
ever, was just the servant for Mr, Rutledge ; he would
have been worse than useless to a lazy man who wanted a
valet to take care of him ; but Mr. Rutledge chose to do his
own thinking in most cases, and only wanted his orders
promptly executed, which Thomas certainly was capable of
doing, and did to admiration.
A very nice lunch Mrs. Roberts had prepared for us, and
we drank her health gratefully in some very superior Bur-
gundy. We did not hurry ourselves at all; and as 1
treated Tigre to some of the remaining delicacies, and
Thomas packed up the baskets again, Mr. Rutledge lazily
sketched the group from the carriage window, on a blank
leaf in my book ; making rather a spirited drawing of it,
only caricaturing grotesquely the length of Thomas' legs,
and my eyelashes. Then we got en route again, and with
occasional stoppings to sketch, which I insisted on, and
occasional pauses at village inns to water the horses, or
rather to wash their faces, the afternoon wore on.
"Tired?" Of course not, never fresher in my life.
What a nuisance railcars are, with their distracting racket
and bustle and jar. Why do not people always travel w
carriages ?
206 RUILBDGB,
Mr. Rutledge agreed witL nie that it was very pleasfmt ,
indeed, he seemed to enjoy it, just as he did that ride I had
such good cause to remember. He left all care and sadness
behind at Rutledge, and gave himself up to the present. In
that little travelling-cap, too, I was sure he didn't look a
day over thirty.
"Mr. Rutledge, you look to-day so like that crayon
sketch of your young relative, that you gave me. It ia
really wonderful."
Mr. Rutledge laughed, and asked me if I continued to
admire it.
" Oh, as much as ever," I answered, laughing, and blush-
ing, too, under cover of the twilight, for the short
November day had faded. He evidently thought I was
still deceived about the picture, and I did not enlighten him.
"I mean to hang it in the very best light in my
room in New York, where I can look at it from ' morn to
dewy eve,' if I choose."
" I advise you not; Josephine will ferret out the mystery,
and expose your romantic devotion. She isn't given that
way herself, and will not spare you. Your ideas of hero-
worship and hers might not agree."
" Well, if they do not, it may prove fortunate in the
end. We shall not be so likely to intei-fere with each
other."
" If you do, ' may I be there to see I' "
" Which would you bet on ?"
Mr. Rutledge, afteu a protest against such language from
Buch lips, deliberated somewhat upon my question, and
then favored mo with his opinion. We were, he thought,
in point of will, about equally matched ; but my French-
bred cousin, he was afraid, had a little the advantage of me
in c-oolness, and had enjoyed the benefit of a training and
experience which might tell heavily against me. And
much more to the same effect, which I only laughed at
then, but remembered afterward with less arausement-
JBUTLBDGE. 207
All this while it vras growing darker and darker, and we
did not arrive at W , as it was proper we should have
done some time since. This seemed at length to strike
Mr, Rutledge, and he called to Michael to know if he was
sure of the road. Michael was sure, and again we went on.
At the end of another half hour, however, Mr. Rutledge
again stopped him, and as it was too dark to see anything
of the road, he directed him to drive toward the only light
we could discover, which proved to emanate from the
dingy window of a low farmhouse about a quarter of a mile
off. At Thomas' thundering knock, appeared a bony rustic
in his shirt-sleeves, who came wonderingly to the carriage,
shading a candle with his hand, which threw fantastic
shadows on his rough, open-mouthed visage, followed by
an untidy-looking woman, and a whole troop of shaggy,
uncombed children, evidently just roused from their first
nap. Mr. Rutledge, after long perseverance, elicited the
informatiop that he sought, which proved anything but
agreeable, being a confirmation of his fears. We had come
five miles out of our way, W lying just ten miles to
the south, while we had been, under Michael's guidance,
pursuing a course due north.
Michael was a miserable and a scared man, when the
thunders of his master's wrath fell upon him. Mr. Rut-
ledge was not very demonstrative or vehement, but he
conveyed the idea of an angry man as alarixiingly as I
should care to see it represented. No wonder Michael
was scared ; even I felt a little awe-struck till after he had
shut the carriage door, and we had turned to retrace
our course.
*'Are you very tired?" he said. "I would not have
had this happen upon any consideration. You will bo
utterly worn out, and unable to travel to-morrow. 1
thought I had arranged it admirably for you, but this
Hibernian numbskull has upset it all."
I assured him that, on my account, he need not anatho^
20lJ EUTI J5DGE.
matizo the luckless Michael farther, for I was uot in the
least tired, and did not mind the detention at alL Owing
to this little contretemps, it was ten o'clock when we
arrived at W , and halted at the door of its most pro-
mising hotel, which was at best but a shabby affair. I would
not have acknowledged it on any acccunt, but I was dread-
fully tired and sleepy, and could hardly conceal these humi-
liating frailties, while the landlord and a drowsy waiter or two
bustled about to get us some " tea ;" which meal, arranged
upon a remote end of a dreary, long table, in a dingy, long
room, was utterly unpalatable, and I was but too grateful
to Mr. Rutledge Ibr excusing me when a chambermaid
appeared to say my room was ready, and conduct me
to it.
It seemed direfully early next morning when the same
ftmctionary appeared to awake me, with the intelligence
that breakfast would shortly be on the table, and the gentle-
man had sent her to call me, and to see if there was any
way in which she could help me. " The gentleman " had
evidently backed his suggestion with some specimens of the
United States currency, for she was overwhelmingly atten
tive, and helped me to dress in " no time." Breakfast,
arranged again as a little colony, at the end of the long
table, was considerably more inviting than last night's
meal, Thomas having had orders to beat up the town for
spring chickens and fresh butter, and, being a veteran in
the recruiting service, had of course succeeded. Mr.
Rutledge looked a little anxiously at me, and said I was
wretchedly pale, and he did not know about going on. I
laughed at the idea, and we were soon en route again, driv-
ing briskly along in the eye of a strong wind, and with the
bluest of skies overhead.
Arrived at C , we had an hour to spare, before the
arrival of the boat, which I spent in the parlor of the very
pretending steamboat hotel, in writing a few lines of adiea
and apology to Mrs. Arnold, accountirg, as satisfactorily* as
]t0TLEDGB. 209
f could, for my unceremonious and abrupt departure, and
desiring a renewal of my acknowledgments to Mr. Shen-
ptone. Of this, Mr. Rutledge approved, and wrote a few
lines to Mr. Shenstone to accompany it. Then came the
parting from Tigre, and the sending back of the carriage,
which seemed like severing the last tie to Rutledge, Tigre
was much affected, pooi beast, and looked wistfully back,
out of the carriage window, as far as we could see,
A bell, lings, a rush occurs, Thomas devotes himself tc
the baggagie, Mr. Rutledge gives his arm to me, we thread
the crowded wharf, the blue Hudson dances in the sunlight,
the fine steamer holds her breath, and tries to lie still
while we get on board.
" O Tiber I Father Tiber I To whom the Romans pray,
A Koman's life, a Roman's arms, take thou in charge this day.**
I am luxuriously established in the saloon, with every
imaginable wish attended to, and easy-chairs, books, papers,
and cushions enough to satisfy five invalids, but they do
not satisfy me. I am bored with the heat, and the whim-
pering of the pale children, whom a lean, sallow-looking
mother feeds unremittingly with " bolivars " and " taffy ;"
I am tired with the swinging of those lamps overhead, and
the everlasting rocking of a stout lady in a red plush rock-
ing-chair, and with looking at the gaudy colors in the carpet,
and I rush out for a brisk walk on the deck with Mr. Rut-
ledge. What a day it is I How impossible to be other-
wise than happy and hopeful; how inevitably the dark
phantoms of doubt and dread take themselves off in the
light of such a sun as this, and in the sight of such a scene I
The waves dance bright and gay in the sunshine ; the moun-
tains rise, on either hand, into the blue and cloudless sky ;
in a word, the loveliest river in all this lovely river-braided
New World lays before me, the heart of seventeen beats ir,
my bosom, the glow of health and exercise tangles in my
210 BUT I- EDGE.
veins; what wonder that I forget the tears of yesteiday,
the scparatiou, the homesickness, the loneliness that I so
dreaded.
Neither can my companion altogether resist the influ-
ences of the hour. K the sharp air and the qmck walk
have, as he says, made the tardy roses bloom again on my
cheeks, they have also brought a glow to his face, and a
sparkle to his eye, and untamed wit and sarcasm to his lips.
He quizzes our fellow voyagers, tells me odd stories of for-
mer travel, droll sketches of western journeyings, and Cali-
fornia "experiences." Then the laugh dies, as some
winding of the river brings suddenly before us a picture
too grand to be looked at with trifling words and laughter
on our lips. And Mr. Rutledge has the "right thing" to
say then, in his rich manly voice, and the right words to
embody the voiceless thoughts that crowd to my own lips
words that do not jar or desecrate, but make the beauty
tangible and the grandeur more ennobling.
By and by, niost of our fellow travellers give up to the
cold and go below ; and at last we are left with only a per-
severing artist, who holds his hat on with one hand, and
sketches with the other, and a couple of ladies, whose ruddy
cheeks, thick shoes, grey dresses, plaid shawls, " boas " and
big bonnets, proclaim indisputably to be H. B. M.'s loyal
and unalienated subjects. It has always been a question
with me, as yet unanswered, whether by any act of Parlia-
me7it these " proud islanders," out on their travels, are pro-
hibited from appealing in anything but the invariable grey
dress, plaid shawl, boa, and big bonnet, in which they inva-
riably do appear. After a while, even they go down, and a
solitary cadaverous-looking man, in the dress of a Romish
priest, is our only companion. He paces up and down one
comer of the deck, never raising his heavy eyes, but read-
ing prayers diligently out of a little book, his thin lips mov-
ing rapidly. It is no doubt a good and pious thing to read
prayers out of a little book ; but it sftengs to me, that with
BTTILEDGE. 311
that grand and glorious lesson spread upon the mountains
there before us, it would be a very pardonable thing to look
up at it, and to give God thanks.
It is rather a bore to go down to dinner, and after that,
to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the saloon,
because, forsooth, it is too cold outside, and I must rest.
But late in the afternoon, I plead that the wind has fallen,
that there is no possible chance of my taking cold, and I
must see the sun set among the Highlands, and I gain re-
luctant permission ; and now for another walk I
The sunset is beyond my hopes ; the twilight steals down
aft^er it, soft and dusky, and broods about the rocky Pali-
sades, and dulls to dimness the dancing waves, and settles,
grey and thick, around the pretty villas and white cottages
that dot the banks, and deepens slowly, till all is one som-
bre hue in earth and sky, and one fair star comes out to
establish the reign of night.
We are late this evening in arriving at New York ; we
should have been there some time ago ; in less than half an
hour we shall be at the whar^ Mr. Kutledge says. All my
gaiety and spirits have fled ; I wonder that I could have
forgotten. Still we pace the deck ; there is no talk of cold
or fatigue now ; indeed, not much talk of any kind.
" We are in sight of your new home now," says my
companion, pointing
" Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river."
And I cannot reply, to save my life. A mist of tears dim
the glare of those lights, at first sight. We near the wharf;
the bell rings ; the busy hum of the city reaches our ears
less and less faintly ; the dim figures that crowd the wharf
grow more distinct.
" We had better go below," I say, with a shiver, " I
have to find my books and shawls, and it is growing so
cold."
2 12 BLILEDGK.
Perhaps if I had known more about that " untold, untried
to-morrow," which I so vaguely dreaded, I should have
shrunk more even than I did, from ending this short hoiuf
before its dawning. But,
" It is well we cannot see
What the end will be."
CHAPTER XVII.
" And all that fills the heart of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain.
Their lives henceforth have separate ends.
And never can be one again."
Longfellow.
Thomas being at once the most determined and the most
imposing of attendants, he speedily succeeded in clearing a
way for us through the crowd of hackmen, carmen, and
newsboys, and in selecting the most promising of the array
of vehicles offered for our accommodation ; installing ua
and our luggage therein and thereon ; and bestowing his
own long limbs d c6te du cocher^ we were soon rattling over
pavements, rough and jarring to a miserable degree, Mr,
Rutledge perceived how frightened and nervous I was, and
first tried to laugh away, then to coax away, my foolish
dread of meeting my aunt. It was in vain; for once,
his kindness and eloquence were lost upon me. I could
think of nothing but the approaching interview; and
looking out of the window, counted eagerly the blocks we
passed.
" How much further is it ?" I asked, despairingly, as we
rumbled through bewildering labyrinths of dark and narrow
streets. " Aren't we nearly there ?"
** My dear little rustic, we are not quarter of the way.
We have a long drive before us yet, and if you will
renounce the pleasure of looking out at those crazy lamp-
posts, and turn your face this way, I will promise to
tell you long enough before we reach Gramercy Square,
for you to get up a very pretty speech to rush into yoi?
ai8
214 fiUTLBDGE.
aunt's arms withal. In the meantime, think about me^ and
not about her,"
I tried to obey, while my companion amused and
humored me like the spoilt child I was fast becoming
imder his indulgence. It was impossible not to feel reas*
sured by his manneti and soothed by it, half teasing and
half tender ; but all the terror returned, when, looking at
his watch, and then out into the street, he said :
" I promised to tell you ; we are now in Fourth Avenue ;
in about three minutes and a quarter, we shall ^turn into
Gramercy Square, and in about one minute and three
quarters from that time, we shall stop at the door of your
new home. You have just five minutes to smooth your
hair, pinch some color into your white cheeks, say good bye,
and tell me how good and feithful a friend you are going
to be."
" Oh," I cried, in great alarm, " surely you will go in ! I
shall die if I have to go alone. Dear Mr. Rutledge ! You
would not be so unkind. Just think how little I know my
aunt, and how I. shall feel to be all alone without one soul I
know. You surely will not leave me."
Mr. Rutledge laughed and yielded ; before I was aware,
the carriage had stopped, and Thomas had mounted the
steps and rung the bell. In a moment, a stream of light
from the hall showed the bell was answered. Thomas
returned to open the door of the carriage, and with Mr.
Rutledge's kind words in my ear, and the kind touch of hia
hand on mine, I crossed the dreaded threshold. The ser
vant, who recognized Mr. Rutledge deferentially, showed
us into a parlor, where the soft light, the rich curtains, and
the pleasant warmth, gave one an instant feeling of luxcry
and comfort. The next room was only dimly lighted ; bat
beyond that, through lace hangings, was visible a brighter
room, and glimpses of glass and silver, made it apparent
that dinner was but just over.
From this room, pushing aside the drapery with graceful
BUTLEDOE. 215
haste, issued a lady, who I knew at once to be my aunt
Edith. There never was a firmer and more elastic tread
than hers, nor a better turned and more graceful figure ;
the modish little cap upon her head, with its floating rib-
bons, was all that at that distance looked matronly enough
to designate her as the mother of the demoiselle who fol-
lowed her, Mr. Rutledge advanced to meet her, thus
shielding me a moment longer. Her greeting to him was
as gracious and cordial as possible, but she looked eagerly
forward, saying quickly :
" Mais o'Cb est Penfant /"
Mr. Rutledge laughed, and turned to me, "Xa voici^^ ho
said, appreciating her look of amazement.
" Impossible !" she exclaimed, starting back. *' My child,
I never should have known you," she continued, taking me
by both hands, and kissing me as affectionately as she could
for her bewilderment. She held me off, and looked at me
again ; then gave Mr, Rutledge a quick, searching look, and
said rapidly in French, in a tone that was not altogether as
light and jesting as it was meant to appear, " And this is
the ' little girl ' you have been writing to me about for the
last three weeks ; this is ' the child ' you have had the care
of. Upon my word, monsieur, your notions of infancy and
mine differ !"
Mr. Rutledge answered lightly, but very indifferently;
really he begged Mrs. Churchill would forgive his misrepre-
sentation of ^ts, if he had been guilty of any ; he was,
he acknowledged, culpably unenlightened on the different
stages of rosebud-opening; it had struck him that the
rosebud under discussion was in the unopened and unde-
veloped state, and so he had spoken of it ; but he begged
Mrs. Churchill would excuse his ignorance and inattention.
Mrs. Churchill said, recovering an easy tone :
" Ah, we all know your sad willfulness and coldness 1*'
This in French; then in English, "Josephine, my child,
here is your new cousin,"
216 BUTLEDGK.
Josepliiiio came forward, and with t)retty empressenient^
kissed me on both cheeks, and held my hand affectionately
as she exclaimed :
" Why, mamma ! she is taller than I am, and so much
older than I expected I"
** And you are so different !" I said, gazing admiringly at
her slight, elegant figure, and pleasing brunette ince.
"Do not forget your old friend for ycur new one, though.
Miss Josephine," said Mr. Rutledge, extending his hand.
Josephine looked very coquettish and pretty, dropped her
eyes, and gave him her. hand, saying :
" You were so long in coming, we began to doubt wnether
you cared for that title,"
" Put my long-delayed return. Miss Josephine, down to
a combination of the most adverse and unconquerable cir-
cumstances. "What with runaway cars, and runaway horses,
broken arms, and brain fevers, the wonder is, not that we
did not arrive before, but that we arrived at all."
" Do not keep that poor child standing any longer," ex-
claimed my aunt, drawing me gently to a sofa, while Mr. Rut-
ledge and Josephine seated themselves opposite, and talked
as if they were, indeed, " friends of old," while Josephine's
laugh, which, gay as it was, hadn't altogether a true ring
to it, conveyed the id^a of more familiarity and intimacy
than I was quite prepared for. Meanwhile my aunt untied
my bonnet-strings, smoothed my hair, and said I was grow
ing so like my poor dear mother. No doubt it was kindly
meant, but I had never yet learned to bear calmly the least
allusion to my grief, and the tears rushed into my eyes, and
the dawning confidence and self-possession were miserably
dashed back again, and I had to struggle hard to make any
reply at all. My aunt soothingly praised my pretty senri-
bility, and only made matters worse. Then she told me to
wipe away my tears, and come into the dining-room with
her. I followed gladly, and she rang and ordered coffee,
and made me sit beside her and tell her all about my jour*
BUT LEDGE. S17
nej, and whether 1 still felt any ill efiects from my accident,
and how I liked Rutledge, and whether I was glad to leave
flchooL It was strange, that with all this kindness my re-
serve did not melt faster ; but it w^as a miserable fact, that
I felt more awe and admiration for, than ease and sympathy
with, my new-fomid relative.* I longed to appear well in
her eyes, and win her affection^ but I never was more awk
ward and iU at ease. She had a way of looking at me that
showed me she was making up an estimate of me, and I felt
as if I were sitting for my picture all the time, and was as
easy and natural as persons generally are under those cir-
cumstances.
I asked, at last, where my other cousins were. Grace
tras at her lessons, but would be down presently ; Esther
was sent to bed. Indeed, a violent scufQlng and roars of
" Let me see her, too," smothered by a voluble French re-
primand, had announced to me, upon first entrance, that
la petite was about making her exit. I took off my cloak,
and accepted my aunt's suggestion, that I should not go to
my room till I had had a cup of coffee. Mr. Rutledge and
my cousin were presently summoned from the other room,
and coffee was served. Josephine was very bright and
piquant, talking well and amusingly; Mr. Rutledge was
more sarcastic and man-of-the-world-ly than he had been at
home ; my aunt was graceful, winning, and polished, only
making my wretched awkwardness and silence more con-
spicuous and striking. I longed to redeem myself, but
there was a spell upon me ; monosyllables and unfinished
sentences were all the contributions toward the conversa-
tion that I could command, tiU Josephine exclaimed :
'* Why, how quiet you are ! You do not say a word.
Li she always so silent, Mr. Rutledge ?"
Mr. Rutledge smiled, and turned toward me.
" How is it, mademoiselle ?" he said. " I have had but
a short experience of your cousin's conversational powers,"
he continued, to Josephine ; " I must confess that I have
218 B {TTLEDGE.
Bometimes fancied that she held those pcwers somewhat m
reserve ; but I have no doubt that among companions of her
own age, and in the congenial society of her young cousins,
she wiU become as charmingly loquacious."
Josephine patted me patronizingly on the shoulder ; my
aunt looked at me thoughtfully ; Mr. Rutledge tunied to
me for confirmation of his words, with a bow and a smile
that staggered me completely. I began to wonder whether
he had ever been anything more to me than the polite
stranger he now appeared. Whether, in truth, the last
three weeks had not been all a dream, and that raih-oad
accident had not in some way affected my brain.
Just then the door opened, and enter my second cousin.
If I may be pardoned for applying so unadmiring an epithet
to so near a relative, I should describe this young person as
very insipid-looking ; very undeveloped for her age, w4th an
unmistakable flavor of bread-and-butter and pertness; with
rather a drawl in her tone, and rather a pout on her lips ;
fair-skinned and fair-haired, rather pretty, perhaps, but far
from lovable. On the whole, I was not attracted toward
my cousin Grace, but I kissed her dutifully, and held her
limp, inexpressive hand a minute or so in mine, while she
said, " How d'ye do, Mr. Rutledge," in a drawling voice,
that formed a striking contrast to her sister's vivacious tones.
Before very long,- Mr, Rutledge turned to my aunt, send
apologized for intruding so long on a family reunion, and
promising himself the pleasure of waiting on her very soon
again, said a cordial good night. There had been some
commenting on a new picture, and we were aU standing in
a group before it, at the other end of the dining-room, when
Mr. Rutledge took his leave. There were many jesting
and pleasant words exchanged with the others as he with
drew, having shaken hands with them. I had shrutik into
the background, and waited, my heart in my throat, to
know whether I was forgotten, when he suddenly turned
back, before he reached the door, and said :
RUILEDGB. 319
** Pofrdon I Have I said good night to my young Ira.
veiling companion ? Ah I there you are. I am afraid you
are very tired ; I am not sure that we have not travelled
too fast for such an inexperienced tourist."
" She couldn't have done Switzerland at our pace, last
sommer, I am afraid, could she ?" said Josephine, compla-
cently.
Mr. Rutledge made some rejoinder complimentary to
Miss Josephine's powers of endurance, then concluded his
brief adieux to me, and with " more last words *' to the
others, withdrew, Josephine leaned rather listlessly against
the mantelpiece, said, "Mamma, how very well Mr. Rut-
ledge is looking I" then going to the piano, asked me if I
played, and sitting down, ran her fingers lightly over the
keys, while I approached, and standing by her, listened
admiringly to her delicate and masterly touch. I felt
stranger and forlomer than ever, though, as she played on,
talking to me idly as she played, till her mother called to
her, rather sharply :
** Josephine, you are very thoughtless ; don't you know
she is tired ? Come, my dear, you had better go upstairs
immediately."
Josephine leaned over her shoulder,, touched my cheek
lightly with her lips, and said, "Good-night; you'll feel
brighter by to-morrow."
My aunt called Grace to take me up to my room, kissed
me good-night, and said she hoped I would be comfortable.
Grace, who had just established herself at her embroidery,
pouted slightly, and said in French (a language with which,
it seemed taken for granted, I was unacquainted), " Why
can't Josephine ?" : ising slowly to obey, nevertheless. A
few sharp words silenced her speedily; another silvery
good-night to me, and I followed my cousin upstahs. A
more cat-in-a-strange-garrety, uncomfortable, bewildered
feeling I never before had experienced ; from Mr. Rutledge
down, they all seemed to treat me as if I were somebody
220 BUTLEDGE.
else, " If I be I, as 1 do hope I be," I ejaculated, with q
miserable attempt at a laugh, as the old nm-seiy rhyme
came into my head, " perhaps I shall know myself when I
am left alone and have time to think.'* But Grace did not
seem inclined to allow me that luxury; for, having con-
ducted me to my room, she came in, and did the honors
rather more graciously than I had expected, lit the gas,
pulled down the shades, put my bonnet and cloak away in
the wardrobe, and then sat down on the foot of the bed,
and looked at me with great appearance of interest. The
fact was, Grace possessed, in no ordinary degree, that truly
womanly trait, curiosity ; and justly considered, that as she
had been made to come upstairs against her will, it was but
fair that she should compensate herself in any lawful way
that presented, and now that she was up here, to see aa
much as she could of the manners and habits of the new
comer.
With a view to this haimless little entertainment, she
began her investigations by saying :
" Where's the rest of your baggage ? In the closet ?"
(She was leaning over the balusters when my trunk waa
brought up, and knew, as well as I did, that there was only
one.)
"No," I said, blushing, "I didn't have but that
trunk."
Grace squeezed up her mouth a little, but didn't make
any rejoinder.
" Do you like your room ?" she asked, after a minute.
As I had just been contrasting it mentally with the blue
room at Rutledge, I could not help another blush, and a
little confusion, as I replied that it did very well.
" Mamma seemed to have an idea that you were quite a
little girl," she continued, " and that this was very nice for
you. It opens out of the nursery, you see, and if you don'l
mind Esther's squalling, it is very nice."
She laughed a little, and I tried to smile as 1 answei^
BLTLEDGE. 221
that I liked children, and should not mind being near my
little cousin.
" I hope you'll like Esther," said Grace, with a shrug of
her shoulders, '* When she isn't kicking Fclicie, or howl-
ing to be taken out, or squalling after mamma, she's sitting
on the floor in the sulks, and as that's the least troublesome
of her moods, nobody interferes with her. Oh, she's a
sweet child I"
And Grace's laugh sounded more like thirty than
fifteen. I was ashamed of myself for being so embarrassed
aad abashed by a girl so much my junior, but there was
Romething about Grace that I was not used to ; a sort of
gutta-percha insensibility, a lazy coolness that I had not
expected from her drawling, listless way. Nothing of the
woman seemed developed in her but the sharpness; and
with that she was born, I suppose. She was still a little
girl in her tastes and pursuits ; loved to play with Esther,
whom I afterward found she bullied and teased shamefully ;
did not aspire to beaux and young-ladyhood, but contented
herself with keeping the sharpest imaginable lookout upon
the concerns of every one in the house, and having a finger
in every possible pie ; being at once the pertest and most
persevering of medlers.
She kept up a desultory talk while I was unbraiding my
hair and preparing for bed ; asked questions that galled
me, told facts that discouraged me, till I was fairly heart-
sick, and would have been willing to have bought her off
at any price ; and looked upon the advent of Fclicie with
a summons from madame for her, as the most blessed re-
lease that could have been.
I locked the door after her with a bursting heart, and
threw myself upon the bed in an agony of crying. What
would have been merely a fit of homesickness, and a loneli
ness soon to be conquered and forgotten with girls of a
different temperament, was a longer and more lasting
struggle with me. It was wholesome discipline, no doubt ;
222 BUTLEDGB.
but now, disheartened, I recognized no' hope in all the
dark horizon ; saw nothing in the future that was worth
living through the present for ; disappointment, pain, and
loneliness had taken the color out of every hope, and made
what should have been morning, a night, and that of the
blackest.
" Would it last ?" was a question I asked myself even
then, the dawning reason of the woman within me combating
the passion of the child. "No, no," reason whispered;
" ' to mortals no sorrow is immortal ;' the storm will spend
Itself and calm of some kind will come."
But the child's heart refused to be comforted, and pa
gionately rejected reason; there was no truth in friend-
ship, there was no kindness in any one ; there was nothip{
bnt loneliness, and coldnesSi and cruelty in all the world.
CHLAf
1:ajl^
^ A montlL ago, and I was happy ! No,
Not happy yet encircled by deep joy,
Which, though 'twas all around, I could not tocoh.
Bnt it was ever thus with Happiness :
It is the gay to-motrow of the mind,
That never comes/'
Babby Cornwail.
Sleep, which proverbially forsakes the wretched, paid but
little court to me that first night in my new home ; my
swollen eyelids were sullied with too many tears, in truth,
to win his favorable regard ; but toward morning, exhaus*
tion and unconsciousness came compassionately to relieve
the misery and wakeftilness that had guarded my pillow all
night ; and the dull light of a winter morning, struggling in
through the half-drawn curtains, was the next summons that
I had to consciousness again. I started up, aroused more
fully by a sharp pain in my arm, that had momentarily been
growing harder, till it had succeeded, with the aid of the
advancing daylight, in waking me thoroughly. It was some
seconcls before I knew what it was caused by ; the bracelet
on the arm that had been under my head had been pushed
up from the wrist, and in that way, had grown tighter and
tighter, till, indeed, the pain had been unendurable. It
brought Mr. Rutledge's words to my mind strangely
enough ; with a blush of shame and pleasure, I bent over
the souvenir ; " I will never doubt again," I whispered, sin-
cerely repentant. Heaviness had endured, bitterly, for the
night, but joy, or a faint and tiny promise of it, had as
surely come in the morning ; and with energy and some-
thing like happiness, I set myself to make the best of
my little lOom, and my new position. "No Kitty to braid
221 BUTLEDGU.
my hair, uo Kitty to unpack my trunk ; bo the sooner I got
used to performing those little offices for myself the better,
decidedly.
" Something to do " was the kindest boon that could
have been given me, and as such, I received it, and before
the house was astir at all, I had unpacked my trunk,
arranged my books upon the table, my dresses in the ward'
lobe, and the little knick-knacks that were regarded as
decorative, on the mantelpiece and under the dressing-glass.
The crayon-sketch never saw the daylight in Gramercy
Square. A stolen look at it, now and then, under the half-
raised lid of my trunk, was all I ever ventured on.
Mine was not a very cheerful or attractive room, cer-
tainly ; but I should soon be used to it, I reflected, and it
would seem nice enough. Then I drew up the shades, and
looked out with much interest upon my first daylight-view
of the great metropolis. Certainly, the wrong side of city
houses is no more advantageous a view of them than is the
wrong side of other fabrics ; and in proportion as the velvet
is rich and gorgeous, so is the reverse dull and plain. My
room being in the rear of the house, I of course had the
benefit of the wrong side of the neighboring houses; which,
I will do them the justice to say, were as dismal and unpre-
tending as houses need be. They had all of them, with one
consent, put their best foot foremost ; the gorgeous foot
presented to the street, was of brown stone, plate glass, and
carving; the slip-shod foot left in the background, was
dingy for want of paint, unsightly with clothes-lines and
ash-barrels, neglected and forlorn. However, I thought
cheerfully, some strange comfort attends even so exalted a
state as " two pair back ;" there was an unlimited view of
the sky, much greater than the lower rooms could com-
mand. Indeed, when there was anything but lead-color
overhead, I concluded that these windows must be very
cheerful. The spire of a church, however, not far off
(which, I was happy to observe, had no \\Tong side), was
BUTLEDGE. 235
the one grace of the prospect. It would not do to think of
the way in which the mists were rolling up from the lake,
this grey, hazy morning, nor how the pines On its bank
were reflected in its still surface ; nor, indeed, at all of the
scene, bold and picturesque even in its wintry desolation,
that had met my waking vision for the last few happy
weeks.
Late breakfasts were apparently the order of the day in
this establishment ; the hands of my watch were creeping
sround toward nine o'clock, and still no indication of the
approach of that meal. Beyond the occasional smothered
sound of a broom or duster in the hall, there had been
nothing to suggest that any one was awake throughout the
house, except a fretful little voice that I had heard at inter-
vals since dawn, in the room next mine. Listening very
attentively, I found that it proceeded from the young
ti oublesome, whose picture had been so feelingly drawn for
me last night by Grace. She was evidently importuning
Felicie to get up and dress her ; and the tone, peevish and
whining as it was, had a sort of pathos for me, remembering,
as I too distinctly did, the cruel punishment that it is to a
child to lie in bed after being once thoroughly awake. For
two hours, little Esther had been tossing about, and crying
to get up, and the only response she had received from her
nurse, had been now and then a sleepy growl or an impatient
threat. Injustice always irritated me; besides, I had a
curiosity to see this child, who evidently met with so little
favor, and time was hanging rather heavy on my hands jutit
then, so I went to the door that communicated with the
nursery, and opening it softly, looked in. The shutters
being darkened, it was still not many removes from dawn,
and I could but dimly make out the dimensions of the
large, scantily furnished room ; but there was light enough
for me to see the figure of the chill, sitting up in her
little bed, crying piteously, "X^t?e-^o/, FUicie^ pai si
226 RUTLEDGE.
She btopped suddenly on seeing me, and looked up in iny
face as I approached her.
" Is this my little cousin Essie ?" I said, sitting down on
the bed and taking one of her icy little hands in mine.
Cold she certainly was ; the fire had gone out entirely, and
she had been sitting up undressed so long, that her teetb
were chattering and her lips fairly blue. ^ I kissed her wet
cheeks, and giving her to understand that this was her new
cousin, asked if she was not going to be very fond of me ?
She looked more amazed than before, but beyond a cessation
of her tears, she made no attempt at a rejoiuder. I rubbed
her hands, and tried to warm her cold little feet, talking to
her kmdly all the time.
" Is this your dressing-gown, Essie ?" I asked, taking up
a little blue flannel garment from the foot of the bed. She
nodded an assent, and I put it around her
" Now," I continued, taking her up in my arms, " will
^ou go into my room and get warm by my fire ?'-
" Yes," said Esther, laconically. So picking up her shoes
and stockings, I raised her in my arms and carried her into
the other room. She was between five and six years old,
but so slight and childish that her weight was nothing. I
sat down by the fire and held her in my lap, while I put on
her shoes and stockings, and warmed her into something
like animation.
" So Felicie wouldn't wake up," I said, at length.
I had touched the right chord ; the vehement childish
sense of wrong was stirred, and with eager, blundering
earnestness, she detailed her grievances. Felicie never
would wake up ; Felicie wouldn't give her a drink of water
Bome nights when she was so thirsty ; Felicie left her alone
sonxetimes when it was so dark ; and Felicie was cross, and
Felicie was wicked, and, in fine, she hated her.
I shook my head at this, and gave her a little moral lec-
ture upon the wickedness of hating nurses, further illustrat-
ing and embellishing my subject by the sf.ory of a little girl
KUTLEDGE. 327
who had once kdulgcd in that dreadful passion, and had
come to a very sad end in consequence. The moral lecture,
I am afraid, was overlooked ; but the story was most greed-
ily received, and I was obliged to succeed it with another
and another, before I could induce her to go and get her
clothes, and let me put them on for her. When she was
nearly dressed, Fclicie woke up, and not finding her young
charge in bed, was somewhat startled and unmistakably
angry, and in no dulcet tones was calling her name, when
she looked into my room, and, on seeing me, sank suddenly
into a softer strain, and apologized for oversleephig : she
had had such a wakeful night, was not well, etc., and
would Mademoiselle Esther come and have her hair brushed
now?
Mademoiselle Esther, a moment before the quietest, gen-
tlest child alive, had, at the sound of that voice, flushed up
into angry defiance, and planting herself at my side, met
her nurse's advance with a very ugly scowl. She wouldn't
go and have her hair brushed ; she didn't want a nice clean
apron on ; she didn't care if she was late for breakfast; and
Felicie, though she never lost the bland tone she had as-
umed, looked malignant enough to have " shaken her out
of her shoes and stockings." At length I persuaded her to
gubmit to Felicie's proposals, and be made ready to go
down to breakfast with me, and she held very firm pos-
session of my hand, as, after the bell had rung, we descended
the stairs.
My aunt was already below ; Grace and Josephine strag-
gled in after long intervals ; indeed, we were half through
break&st before they came down. My aunt looked charm-
ingly in her fresh moniing dress and pretty cap, was very
kind, gave Esther and me her cheek to kiss, and, after read-
ing the paper, talked to me somewhat. Esther seemed not
to have much appetite ; but having set her heart upon a
roll and some cold chicken, her mamma had graciously
allowed her to be gratified, and she was very tranquilly eat-
238 RUTLFDGE.
ing her breakfast, when the entrance of Grace, who made
some teasing little gesture as she passed, made her pout and
whine, and disturhed her serenity considerably. It was
not, however, till Grace, calling to the servant for some mar-
malade, suggested a forbidden dainty to her mind, and she
exclaimed, "I want marmalade, too," that the worst
came.
Grace interposes pertly, " You can't have any mamma
says you can't ;" Essie passionately protests, " I will ;"
mamma sharply interposes, " You shall not ;" a burst oi
tears from Essie, and a smothered titter from Grace, then
Essie passionately pushes back her plate, and refuses to
touch another mouthful ; whereon mamma asserts her-
authority, and sternly orders her to resume her biscuit and
chicken under pain of banishment. The sobbing child does
not, cannot, I think, obey, and, at the end of an ominous
silence, mamma motions John to remove her from the table,
which is effected after violent resistance and struggling, and
amid a tempest of screams and protestations, exit Essie in
the arms of John.
It was well that my aunt did not order me to resume my
breakfast. After that little episode, I am afraid I should
have been unable to obey, and I should not have liked to
have been carried out in the arms of John. Josephine ex-
claimed upon the nuisance of crying children ; Grace
laughed slily, as if she thought it capital fun; mamma
sighed over the strange perverseness and dreadful temper
of that child ; but my heart ached for the wretched little
exile. How F^licie would gloat over her disgrace, I knew,
how indigestion, injustice, and mortification, would bring
on a fit of the sulks that would last half the day, and pave
the way for the repetition of a similar scene at lunch. Pe^
haps because I had been a willful, sensitive, and passionate
child myself, I knew how to appreciate the disadvantageg
under which poor little Essie labored. I knew what ex'
qnisite tenderness and gentleness were necessary to gnard
BUTLEDGB. 929
that flensitiveness from turning into the very gall of bitter*
aess, and that quick temper from becoming the uncontroll-
able and damning passion that would blight her whole life.
More watchful care, more prayerful earnestness,* does such
a child's reanng require, than if she had been laid upon her
mother's love, a moaning cripple, or a blind and helpless
sufferer. Just as soul is more precious than body, so is the
responsibility heavier, the task more awful, of training and
molding such a sensitive nature, to whose morbid fancy a
cold repulse is a cruel blow, and an impatient word a rank-
ling wound. The tenderest and most yearning love should
surround and guard such a child's career, putting aside with
careful hand the snares and trials that beset the way of life,
tiU the maturing judgment shall have learned to control the
exaggerated fancy. The winds of heaven should not be
Buffered to visit too roughly such a restless and unquiet
heart, till the uncertain mists of dawn and early morning
have melted before the clear and certain day. Between
the rough and torturing world and the scared and shrink-
ing soul, the mother's love should interpose, shielding,
soothing, reassuring. God meant it to be so ; may His pity
be the guard of the little ones, whom death, the world, the
flesh, or the devil, have defrauded of their right !
No one could look at my hollow-eyed and puny little
cousin, with that unhappy and unchild-like contraction of the
brow, and that troubled expression of the eyes, withoi^t
knowing that she was of a nervous temperament the most
excitable and keen, and of a will and temper the strongest.
To Josephine's spirit and Grace's acuteness, she added an
almost morbid sensitiveness and delicacy of organization,
of which they were entirely innocent, and which they could
in no way comprehend. That she did not inherit it from
her mother, was pretty evident ; Grace was the nearest
copy of the maternal model ; " la petite " was altogether a
stranger and an alien, not understood and not attractive
(Tor mother had never forgiven her sex ; a boy had been
280 ^ RUTLEDOB.
the darling wish of both parents, and this third disappoint
ment had not been graciously received, at least by the
mother ; for I believe " the baby " had held a tender part
in her father's heart during the two years of her life whicfc
he lived to see. Perhaps my imcle would have understood
the wayward child better than his wife did, had he lived to
see her develop ; there must have been, I was sure, depths
of gentleness and tenderness in his heart ; for though he
was almost a stranger to me, living as we had done, so far
from the world in which he had held a busy part, still he
was my motlier's only brother, and they had never forgot-
ten their early affection. The recollection of it helped me
to bear with patience the caprices and willfulness of his little
daughter ; for, pity her as I might, there was no denying
that Esther was a very vexatious and trying child, and
there certainly was a very fair excuse for the disaffection
of the household. How far the household had to thank
themselves for it, however, was another matter, and one
which I thought would have repaid investigation. ,
The scene consequent upon the Marmalade Act, must
have been no novelty in the Churchill breakfast, for the
waves closed over poor Essie's banishment in an instant,
and things resumed their smooth and unruffled appearance
almost immediately. The next disturbance they received,
was in the form of a sharp ring at the bell, which caused
Josephine, without raising her eyes from the paper she was
reading, to adjust with better grace the sweep of her dress
upon the carpet, and to present to view an eighth of an inch
more of the rosette on her slipper ; while Grace, looking
up from her plate, said saucily :
" What's the use, Joseph ? It's too early for anybody
but Phil ; and you know you don't care for Phil."
Josephine gave her a snapping look out of her black
eyes, and if there had been time, no doubt would have
made good their promise of a tart rejoinder, but the open-
ing of the door, and the entrance of the six feet two inches
BUTLEDGB. 281
of manliness, known and described as " Phil," prevented
its consummation. I did not know at the time, but I soon
did know, who and what this privileged Phil was, who was
80 much at home at my aunt's house, and so well received
and constant a guest.
Philip Arbuthnot was, it appeared, my Aunt Edith's only
uephew, and the most invaluable and untiring of escorts ;
supplying the place, in short, only too willingly, of son and
brother to his aunt and her unprotected daughters. In the
matter of securing opera boxes and concert tickets, cashing
drafts, looking after the family interest in Wall street,
having a general supervision of the stable, keeping coachman,
footman, and waiter in wholesome awe, and in a thousand
other ways, he was of inestimable service. What the family
would have come to without him, is too painful a specula-
tion to be entered upon unnecessarily. Figaro-ci, Figaro-
1^, and Figaro liking nothing better than his occupation.
He bent his whole mind to it ; I never could discover that
he had any other interest or employment in life ; lounging
around to Gramercy Square after breakfast, embellishing
the library sofa with his listless length till lunch, while
Josephine practised, or my aunt talked business with him.
Then, at one o'clock, after putting them in the carriage
(he was not a ladies' man, and hated morning visits), Phil
would lounge back to tlie Clarendon, and by dint of a
series of smokes in the reading-room, an hour or so at bil-
liards, and a drive on the road, would manage to get rid
of the day, and, at or about five o'clock, would lounge
back again to Gramercy Square for dinner and the engage-
ments of the evening. He had been educated at West
Point, and though he had not, strictly speaking, covered
himself with glory, at the rather searching examination of
that ngorous old institution, just passing and that was all,
they said, escaping emphatically by the skin of his teeth,
still he had been in a very fair way of promotion, when,
just before the departure of his aunt's family lor Europe,
982 BFTLEDGB
he had unexpectedly and abruptly resigned, and accompa
nied them. Having inherited a fortune just large enough
to serve as a narcotic to ambition and energy, and just
moderate enough to prevent his playing any prominent
part in Vanity Fair, Phil seemed in the enjoyment of an
existence very much to his taste, and entirely satisfying to
him. If, in my crude and enthusiastic view of life, it struck
7ne as an existence at once debasing to his nature, and dis-
honest to his manliness, it was because I had not yet
learned that what one-third of the men, and two-thirds of
the women in society look upon as the proper business of
their lives, must, in the nature of things, be the correct
view of the subject. " The night coraeth when no maa
can work," I thought, in my simplicity ; the day, at best, is
but a short and uncertain one ; for every soul sent on earth
there is a work allotted ; what less than madness is it for
the strong man to lie down in his strength and sleep away
this day of grace ? Seeing that the undone work does not
fade with the fading daylight, but an evergrowing and thick-
ening shadow, will horribly increase the blackness of that
night ; will be a treasure of wrath against that time of wrath,
and the perdition of such men as have chosen to be ungodly.
Such naive and unpracticable ideas as these, would, no
doubt, have brought an avalanche of ridicule on my head,
had I been unwise enough to impart any of them to my new
friends ; but a protective instinct kept me from such a
blunder ; and as I hourly saw with clearer eyes the dissimi-
larity between them and me, so I hourly grew more
reserved and silent.
" Don't she ever say anything ?" I could not help over-
hearing Phil ask, as I left the breakfast-room. I longed to
hear Josephine's reply ; but an inconvenient sentiment of
honor prevented my stopping to listen for it. I could not,
however, avoid being auditor to the lazy laugh that it
elicited from Phil, and the blocd mounted to my temples sfc
the sound.
BUTLEDGE. 288
* I wonder if they think me stupid or sulky," I said to
myself. " I wonder if they enar thought how it must feel
to be a stranger in the midst of people who know and
understand each other. I wonder if I ever shall be one of
them."
There was another, however, of the household that I felt
pretty sure was as much a stranger and an alien as I was,
though she had spent nearly six years in it, and I turned
my steps naturally to the nursery. Poor little Essie had,
as I expected, fretted and cried herself into a sick head*
ache, and was sitting sulkily in a remote corner of the
room, her doll untouched beside her, and her hands in her
lap, Felicie, sitting by the window with a sardonic smile
on her lips, employed herself about ripping up an evening
dress of Josephine's. I called to Essie to come into my
room,; she pouted and adverted her head. I made a coaxing
promise of "something pretty," when Felicie interposed
" that she was in disgrace, and perhaps mademoiselle had
better not speak to her, as her mamma had sent her up for
a punishment."
" Her mamma did not mean that she should be made
anhappy for all the morning, however," I said, advancing
boldly.
" As mademoiselle pleases," answered F61icie, with a very
wicked look, and a very sweet voice.
Esther at length accepted my overtures^ and consented
to heal her bosom's woe with a picture-book and a bon-bon
out of my trunk. I shut the door between my room and
the nursery very tight, and gradually Essie's fretful unhap-
piness relaxed into something like childish enjoyment, in
the comparative cheerfulness of my room, and the exertion?
I made for her entertainment. She possessed the charac-
teristic, very rare and invaluable among children, of being
easily amused, and also of continuing amused for a long
while, with the same thing. So it happened, that the
picture-book did not pall upon her ta^te, nor the bon bon
234 BUT LEDGE.
lose its charm, for two full hours, and she was still sitting
demure as a kitten beside me, while I worked and occasion
ally explained to her the pictures, when Aunt Edith entered.
She had evidently forgotten the occurrence of the morning,
and seemed very well pleased to find us both so well pro*
vided for. After looking about the room, and ascertaining
that I had everything that I needed, she sat down by the
fire, and resumed the estimate she had been interrupted in
making up last night. The conscious blood dyed my cheeks,
the faltering words found only awkward and constrained
utterance; the more my aunt tried to read me, the more
blurred and unreadable did I become. She tried me upon
all possible questions school, and its studies and routine ;
Rutledge, and my visit there ; the journey, and my escort.
Upon all points, I was equally unsatisfactory, and the inter-
view had but one decisive result, which I attained only by
great effort. I had determined fhat whenever I should
have a chance, I would ask a favor of my aunt ; and this
appearing a fitting opportunity, with many misgivings and
much trepidation, I propounded it to her ; and was unspeak-
ably relieved and surprised to find that she not only acqui-
esced in, but most cordially approved of the motion. It was
to the effect, that for this winter, I should be excused from
going at all into society, and might be allowed to study and
improve myself.
The proposal, I saw, relieved my aunt's mind from some
weight that had encumbered it. She agreed with me most
heartily in considering it much the most judicious course.
I was really too young to go into society ; she had never
ceased to regret having brought out Josephine so early ;
next winter I should be so much better fitted to enjoy it,
etc. The plans for the employment of my time were very
soon arranged. I was to share Grace's French and German
lessons, and to read history and philosophy with her, under
the guidance of one Mr. Olman, a young and inexpensive
\)rofessor of Lterature and the belles-lettres, who came
BUTLEDGK. 235
three times a week. My hours of study and recitation
were all distinctly marked out, and it was agreed I
should begin that very day. Grace was sent to bring mo
her French grammar and show me the lesson, and after
lunch, we were summoned to the study (a small front
room on the second story), to meet Mr. Olman, our literary
professor.
Certainly, if I had looked upon Grace as a mai-vel of
sharpness last night, my respect for her in that regard,
safiered no diminution after seeing the manner in which she
slipped through Mr. Olman's literary fingers, and came out
triumphant at the end of the two hours, without the vaguest
idea of what he had been laboring at. She hated history,
philosophy, and the belles-lettres, and never thought of
preparing the abstracts and reviews that he requested; and
as he was unspeakably afraid of her himself, she found no
difficulty in eluding the detested tasks. He was a slim
young man, dressing in black and wearing spectacles very
nervous and very much given to blusliing. Indeed, his face,
at the end of the lesson, was ordinarily of a violent rose de
chine color, and his hands so trembling and cold, that it was
a great relief to me when he succeeded in collecting his
books and papers and getting on his overcoat. I never saw
so merciless a persecution; the slyest, " cutest," and the most
na'ive way of tripping him up in the full tide of his discourse,
and then bewailing her mistake; never by any chance
omitting an opportunity of making him blush and putting
him in an agony of nervousness. I am certain, so acutely
did he suffer at her hands, that if in an unguarded moment
he had been brought to acknowledge who of all others he
most detested and dreaded, he would have answered,
unhesitatingly, " my pupil, from two to four, on Monday,
Wednesday and Friday."
Indignant as I felt at Grace, it was no easy matter to
keep from laughing at the results of ber pertness and
dplomb; and notwithstanding Mr. Olman was evidently a
386 BUTLEDGB.
well-read and culthated scholar, I anticipated in these
lessons more of pain than of pleasure; and although 1
determined to apply myself thoroughly to all he dii*ected,
Btill, four o'clock was, and would, I feared, continue to be,
a release.
At dinner, that evening, Grace gave the bulletin of " Mr.
Olman's latest," and though her mother reproved her, no
one thought it necessary to discourage her by not laughing.
J *hil's " Ha I ha !" was honest and unequivocal ; he meant,
he declared, some day to secrete himself under the piano,
and see Grace put the professor to rout and confusion.
He hated professors, for his part, and he'd like to see 'em
all put' to rout and confusion.
"Professors am't in your line, are they, Phil?" said
Grace, with a laugh,
" I beg, Phil," exclaimed Josephine, " that you'll never
present yourself unexpectedly to that wretched man. I
am sure he'd swoon at the sight of your breadth of shoul-
der and length of limb. You'd make at least three of him."
" Say four," put in Grace. " The professor doesn't weigh
an ounce over thirty-five pounds. I asked him, the other
day, apropos of ancient weights and measures, if he'd ever
been weighed, and what the result was."
" You saucy child," said Phil, " I wonder he didn't box
your ears,"
No danger of that," responded Grace, complacently.
The professor knows better than to quarrel with his bread
and butter ; he knows that pupUs don't grow on every bush,
and it would take a great deal more than that to provoke
him into a retort. He only bites his lips, and grows red in
the face, and says, " This is irrelevant. Miss Churchill,"
"Upon my word," said Josephine, with a sneer, "by the
time the poor man finishes your education, I think he'll be
fit to ^e translated to his reward, without any further sO'
lourn in the church militant. No honest council would
deny him canonization after such a fiery trial."
BUTLEDGE. 237
" Poor old Mabire must have a high place by this thnO|
if his reward is at all proportioned to his sujfferings," said
Grace, slily. " You remember, Josephine, how sweet you
used to be to that old man ? I liked to listen at the study
door, and hear him walk up and down the floor, and grind
his teeth and gasp, ' C'est trop, c'est trop 1' I suppose the
bread-and-butter question prevented his speaking to mamma;
but, really, you must confess, he was a victim 1 Now 1
never go the lengths of biting and scratching, but always
confine myself to "
" Grace, mon ange^'* cried Josephine, flushing up angrily,
** if you don't want to be sent to take your meals in the
nursery, you had better learn to be less pert and "
" Tiuthtul's the word you want, dear," drawled Grace,
anconcernedly.
" It's the last word I should think of applying to you,"
retorted her sister.
" Tout doucementj chSrie /" ejaculated Grace, squeezing
up her mouth.
But at this juncture, mamma, who had been engaged in
opening some notes and cards of invitation that John had
brought in, now becoming aroused to a sense of the im-
pending storm, came to the rescue, and in a few cutting
words used up everybody present, Phil and myself included,
and restored a forced peace ; and during the remainder of
the meal, Josephine sulked, Phil looked heartily distressed,
and I felt miserably uncomfortable, Grace alone preserving
an unmoved and complacent demeanor. It was just as we
had finished dessert, that there came a ring at the bell that
made me start. Foolish as it was, I had been listening to
the bell all day, with a vague kind of hope that it would
prove of interest to me ; and when John presented a card
to my aunt, which contained the only familiar name to me
in this strange place, and, in iact, the only name I cared to
see, I really feared that Grace's quick ear would catch the
288 RUTLBDGB.
loud throbbing of my heart, as she surely did oitch the
quick blush on my cheeks.
" It is Mr. Rutledge," said my aunt. " Josephine, will
you go into the parlor, and I will join you in a moment ?
Phil, may I ask you to look over that deed we were speak-
ing of this morning? The library is vacant ; I suppose you
do not want to be interrupted. And you, young ladies (to
Grace and me), will find a good fire in the study, and an
excellent chance for preparing your German for to-mor-
row. Mr. Waschlager, you know, comes at ten on Thurs-
days."
Josephine, with a coquettish look in the glass, hurried off
to the parlor ; Phil accepted his lot with a resigned sigh ^
Grace grumblingly obeyed, and I followed her, biting my
lips, and struggling to keep back the tears of disappoint-
ment, as I heard, through the half open door, a &miliar
voice and laugh, that my homesick ear had been longing
^or all day.
CHAPTEai XIX.
-'* Sweet heaven, she takes me op
As if she had fingered me, and dog-eared me,
Aiid spelled me by the fire-side, half a life !
She knows my tnms, my feeble points/'
E. B. Bbownino.
Chbistmas came and passed ; my birthday came and
passed ; the holidays were " over and done," and we were
busily at work again with our various professors ; and, in my
heart, I acknowledged that I liked work better than play
in my new home. Sundays, and holidays were the times
that tried my soul. I do not mean in church ; Christmas
anthems, Christmas hopes and aspii'ations had never before
touched me so deeply as now, when there was so muchof
dullness and coldness in the world outside. In church I
did not feel my loneliness so much, but it was the coming
back to the frivolity and uncongeniality of home that left
the greatest blank. I do not mean to suggest, that during
all these weeks I had been as pining and heartsick as I had
been on the first day of my initiation. That day, it is true,
had been a fair index of the rest, but the acute disappoint-
ment and pain had worn off, and I had learned to make the
best of it, and to go through my daily routine with a less
heavy, but perhaps an emptier and less hoping heart. " The
ox, when he is weary, treads surest." I was weary and
unhopeful, and so, perhaps, trod more safely the somewhat
devious and perplexing path that lay before me. K the
subduing effect of a keenly felt and unkind disappointment,
and a miserable loneliness and want of sympathy, had not
kept my impetuosity and self-will in check, I perhaps should
Dot have passed with so little injury through scenes that
1^
240 BUTLEDGE.
were quite new and bewildering to me. As it was, 1 was
sad enough to think, sober enough to choose, and yet young
and elastic enough not to be crushed by the weight of my
trial, but to bow and fit myself to the yoke. I reasoned in
a ^1 ay that was childish in its simplicity, and yet wise in its
unworldliness.
" 1 have been very presumptuous and vain," I thought.
" I have fancied myself the companion and friend of one who,
by forgetting me, has shown me my mistake, while there
was yet time to correct it. I have been indulging in a very
foolish, though a very happy, dream ; but as long as he
knows nothing of it, I am certain I can conquer it in time,
and be more humble for the rest of my life. I have not
found much sympathy or love in the only home I shall pro-
bably ever have ; I don't suppose I shall ever be particularly
happy again, but there is something higher than mere hap-
piness that I can try to gain, and make myself worthy of
that communion of saints in which I have been taught to
believe ; stretching through earth and heaven, of all kin-
dreds and peoples and tongues, among whom I have no
present comrade, it is true, but there is one saint at rest,
who has no other care than her child's peace who loved
me better than all the world beside, when she was here
who will not forget her love and tenderness in the rest that
she has entered into."
And so, with a humbled heart, I set myself to the
" trivial round, the common task," that gave me, indeed,
Oiuch room for self-denial and patience, but gave me, too,
the peace that impatience and resistance never would have
brought. Much there was, indeed, of error and folly,
many mistaken steps and stniggles of conscience, much
sinning and repenting, but, on the whole, it was a
straighter and a safer path than a pleasanter one would
have been. There was, in truth, Httle danger of being in
love with the world, seen from the stand-point I had been
placed in.
KUTLEDGE. i34l
Home continued pretty much as usual. Of my aunt and
Josephine, we of the study and the nursery saw compara-
tively little. As the season advanced, and the gaiety
increased, there was not much time, of course, at my aunt's
command for any but the most imperative home duties ;
this being Josephine's first winter in New York, it was a
tiling of the highest moment to bring her out properly, and
no sacrifice was considered too great. Not that she
neglected^ her household, or regular duties ; at whatever
Lour she may have returned home the night before, my
Aunt Edith never failed to appear at breakfast punctually ;
never failed to hear Esther repeat her Collect, and glance
over Grace's theme ; never failed to overlook the grocer's,
"baker's, and butcher's accounts; to visit in person daily,
Idtchen, laundry, butler's pantry, nursery, and study; to
l^eep, in short, that eye over her entire establishment that
it required to preserve its matchless order and regularity.
!No wonder that my aunt looked haggard and worn ; no
wonder that unwelcome wrinkles were writing themselves on
her brow, and that her roundfed figure was fast losing its
iTOundness. To serve one master is as mi\ch as one human
leiiig is capable of In the miserable attempt to serve two
liow many wrecks of soul and body are daily wrought.
I said we saw very little of my aunt ; it seemed very little,
for her daily visits to us, though regular, were of necessity
hurried, and at meals she was generally either preoccupied
and thoughtful, or busy with Phil in arrangements and
plans for the pressing demands of society. Josephine, now-
a-days, had her breakfast sent to her room, and was not
ordinarily visible befor,e twelve o'clock. Then came visit
ing hours ; and at dinner, though, when they did not dine
out, we enjoyed the society of my aunt, and Josephine, and
Phil, still it seemed to me, they were all rather listless and
8tupid ; but perhaps they were only reserving their energies
for the evening. After study hours, sometimes, and just
before ray bed-time, I would go down to Josephine's room,
11
242 BUTLEDGB.
by paxticiilar lequest, and assist her at her toilette ; her
new maid, Frances, being, she declared, the clumsiest,
stupidest thing that ever breathed, and having a most
unbearable trick of bursting into tears whenever she was
scolded, which, I suppose, deprived Josephine of all plea-
sure in her attendance. My services suited her better,
and I often had the honor of superseding Frances. Not
that I minded it at all ; it was the only glimpse I had into
the gay world that I was as yet so ignorant of. I liked to
array Josephine in her elegant Parisian dresses, to arrange
the drooping flowers in her glossy black hair, and to clasp
the rich bracelets on her arms. Grace, on these occasions,
was strictly forbidden the room ; late hours, dissipation and
fetigue had not materially improved Josephine's temper ;
and her pert young sister's allusions to bones, necks h la
gridiron, etc., tried her beyond endurance; and mamma
interposing, Grace, for once, was kept at bay. I will not
deny a vague feeUng of regret and longing, as I watched
my cousin's floating drapery downstairs, and thought of
the gay scene she was starting for ; anJ as Phil wrapped
her Ught cloak around her, and whispered his honest praises
in her ear, as she followed her mother to the door, and I
turned back to my lonely little room, it did seem to me
that there was great need of faith to believe that her lot
and mine were ordered by the same unerring and impartial
Wisdom.
Our lessons went on pretty much as at first. With Mr.
Olman, I was rather a check upon Grace, and the poor man
began to regard me with something like gratitude. He was
a good teacher, and gave me plenty of work, for which I,
in my turn, was grateful. Our French lessons, it appeared
to me, were rather a hollow mockery, Mdlle. Berteau, our
preceptress, being a chatty little woman, who spent one-half
her time in gossiping with Grace about Paris and pretty
things, and the other half in helping her write the exercises
ehe had been too lazy to prepare the night before, I also
BUTLEDGE. 248
found later, that mademoiselle had been in the habit of siip
^ying her young pupil surreptitiously with some rather
questionable French literature. Upon a thrpat of disclosing
this circumstance to mamma, Grace made me a solemn pro-
mise to renounce it ; but I must confess I never felt any
great security about its fulfillment.
Our German proved rather more satisfactory. Mr.
Waschlager, a strapping, burly, bearded fellow, with a loud
voice and considerable energy of manner, inspired Miss
Grace with much greater respect than delicate Mr. Olman,
with his nervousness and tremor. His imperfect knowledge
of our mother-tongue, also, rendered any sly innuendoes
quite powerless to annoy him, and Grace's very strikingly
imperfect knowledge of his maternal mode of speech, put
it quite out of her ability to insult him, if she had dared.
So that, with the exception of having ordinarily to write
lier exercises for her, and give her the benefit of my re-
searches in the dictionary at the last moment, I enjoyed my
German lesson very much, and made quite rapid advances
u that language.
A week or two before my arrival, Esther's daily gov-
erness (fi*om all accounts a miserably weak and iiajudiciou^
person) had been- dismissed, having been found entirely
incompetent to manage her young charge ; and, till anothei
ebotdd be procured, I had asked my aunt if I should not
-teach her for an hour or two every day. The offer had
teen very gladly accepted, and, somehow, after a week or
two, all question of obtaining a new governess had died
ont, and Essie and her lessons had quietly devolved on me.
1 did not mind it very much ; the child was good enough,
and, with a little coaxing, got on tolerably well ; but it was
irather hard always to be tied down to that duty for the
hours liiat I invariably felt most lika reading or sewing,
both of which occupations I found entirely incompatible
with the due direction of Miss Esther's early matliematical
effirt8| kA the proper supervision of ber attempts at ^ti-
M4 SUTLSDOE.
manship. I had the benefit of her society at other hoara
also ; she kept pretty closely at my side during my leisure
moments, favored by my vicinity to the nursery, and was
my invariable companion in my walks : Grace never walked,
except when ordered out under pain of her mother's dis-
pleasure, and Felicie was, of course, only too glad to shift
the duty of exercising Miss Esther upon me. And as my
aunt had a prejudice against full carriages, she and Jose-
phine were generally considered a sufficient burden for the
horses on Sunday, and Grace being commonly threatened
with headache on that day, Esther and I were left to our-
selves in the matter of church ; and finding one not far
distant, that had some free seats within its ample limits, we
profited by the discovery, and pretty constantly filled two
of them; Esther holding fast to my dress, never for a
moment letting go of it through service or sermon ; at
times it seemed to me, as I caught her strange troubled
eyes fixed on the rich colors of the chancel window, or the
misty blue of the vaulted roof, that " her heart was envious
of her eye," and she clung to me, uncertain and hesitating,
as her one tie to earth. I never could quite make out the
child ; with all her pettishness, and very willful and trying
naughtiness, there were moods and fancies about her that
thoroughly puzzled me. The only way, I found, was to be
as patient as possible with the one, and humor the other as
fer as was practicable.
I introduced her to her Prayer-book frequently at church,
but to little effect ; she would obey for the moment, then
the book would drop unheeded from her hand, and she
would presently be gazing dreamily before her again.
Never letting go my dress, she would sHp down on her
knees when the others did, but when I glanced at her, it
was always to find that strange wistful look on her upturned
face, that always gave me a vague feeling of imeasinesSh
She was by no means a precocious child ^rather a backward
and undeveloped one ; but sometimes she startled me with
K TD T L B D a B . 245
qnestions that were as much beyond what I had expected
of her, as they were beyond me to answer lucidly.
Besides our dislike of Fdlicie and our liking for Trinity
Chapel, there was another bond of sympathy between my
little cousin and me, and that was, our cordial antipathy to
" company " days and times. Not that we ever had much
personal interest in them, but the moral atmosphere of the
house, for the whole of the day on which one of my aunt's
elaborate dinner-parties occurred, was extremely grating to
our nerves. My aunt was always a little more decided and
hurried, Josephine a shade more imperious, Grace perter,
F^licie more hateful, John more given to short answers in
fact, no member of the household but felt oppressed by the
coming event. Grace and I dined with Esther at " the
little dinner " at one, on such occasions, and all we saw of
the contents of the carriages that, about six, began to roll
up to the door, was seen from over the balusters of the
third-story staircase. My aunt, it is true, had at first pro-
posed to me to put on my new silk, and come downstairs,
but it seemed to me that the invitation was rather hike*
warm, and she agreed with me very readily in thinking that
for this winter, it was better for me to stay altogether out
of society.
"You will be all the fresher when you do appear, my love,"
said mv aunt Edith.
So, par consequent^ I saw but little of the visitors at the
house, though, through Grace, and the general table talk
and accidental meetings in the parlor, I kept the run of the
most intimate and familiar ones. Among the gentlemen,
there was a Captain McGuffy, an army friend of Phil's, who
was a good deal at the house, principally noticeable for his
appetite and his moustache. Also, a stale old beau named
Reese, who was a kind of heir-loom in fashionable families,
handed down from mother to daughter along with other
antique and valued relics, to grace their entree into society.
He had been an admirer of my aunt Edith's in her opeuing
246 RUTLEDGB.
bloom^ Dut was now made over to Josephine, by that
onselfish parent, to swell the list of the younyer one's
retainers. Besides these, there was a Mr. Wynkar, very
young and very insignificant, endured principally, I fancied,
for his utility; and a young Frenchman, who was quite new
on the lapis, and much the rage.
But it was a fact patent even to my simplicity, that Mr,
Rutledge was, par excellence^ the most courted and desired
guest in Gramercy Square. For him, Josephine's smiles
came thickest and sweetest, and the daring freedom of
speech and wit that characterized her bearing with Phil and
his military confrhre^ were, in his presence, toned down into
a spirited, but most taking coquetry, and the anxious frown
on Aunt Edith's brow was smoothed away whenever John
announced, "Mr. Rutledge, madam." That those announce-
ments were very frequent, could never cease to be a matter
of interest to me, though there seemed little excuse for my
feeling any deeper personal concern in them than John him-
self. Being always expected to retire directly from dinner
to the study, we of course lost all evening visitors, and in
the daytime, it was even less likely that we should encounter
any one jfrom the parlor. More than once, on dinner-party
nights, I had stood so near him, that I could have whispered
and he would have heard ; shrinking down in the shadow
of the landing-place, I had watched him leave the dressing-
room slowly, always walking through the upper hall very
leisurely, and looking attentively around. But the darkness
of that upper landing-place would baffle even his keen eye ;
my very heart would stand still ^the breath would not pass
my parted lips, and there would be no danger that his quick
ear should discover that which I would have died rather
than he should have known. I would watch him down the
stairs, see him pause a moment before the parlor-door, theui
as he opened it, there would come, for an instant, the gay
clamor of many voices, the rustling of silks, the ringing of
laughter, then in an instant shut again, and I would creep
SUTLEDOE. 247
back io my dark and cheerless little rootn witli a heart that,
had I been older and less humble, would have been bitter
and resentful, but as it was, was only aching and sad. I
often wondered whether, if that bracelet had not been
fastened irrevocably on my arm, I should have taken it off?
Whether, if I could, I would have put far out of sight, all
souvenirs of that happy visit, that nobody seemed to remem^
ber now but me. Whether it would have been any easier
to forget, if I could have broken my promise as he most
assuredly had broken his. Of course he had broken it ; the
only folly had been in my ever expecting him to remember
such a jest an hour after it was spoken. A one-sided friend-
ship, indeed it was, upon reflection, a very absurd friend-
ship, between an ignorant school-girl and an elegant, high-
bred, cultivated gentleman, and one who, as Grace said one
day at the table, if he wasn't the coolest and most indifferent
of men, would be a perfect lion in society.
*' He's too Jeuced stiff and haughty to be tolerated," said
Mr. Wynkar, who, with Capt. McGuffy and Phil, was
dining with us in such petit comitSj that it was not con-
sidered necessary to exclude the juniors from the board.
"You and he am't intimate, then," said Grace, with
a sly laugh, which Josephine rather encouraged in a quiet
way.
**I never could see," said Capt. McGuffy, from under
his moustache, "what everybody finds in that man so
remarkable. He has a tolerably connect idea of a horse, and
rides pretty well ; but beyond that, I think he's rather a
stick."
Grace elevated her eyebrows, and Mr. Wynkar went op
to say, " that for his part, he thought there was nothing
about him but his money and his family. Rutledge was a
good name, and he was, without doubt, the best match in
wwiety."
" Match I" exclaimed the captain. " He's no more idea
of marrying than a monk. I pity the girl that sets her
248 RUTLSDGEa
afTections on his establishment. Ma foil SLc'd about as
well make heaux yeux at the bronze general in Union
Square, Her chance of making an impression would be
about as good."
" McGuffy's right," said Phil, warmly. " If everybody
knew as much as he does, they'd let Mr. Rutledge alone,
and turn their attention to subjects that would pay
better."
" Army men upon a thousand a year, for instance," said
Josephine, under her breath, and with an irritated contrac-
tion of the brow.
" Yes," said Mrs. Churchill, quite blandly, " it is peculiar
that any one can see in him a maiTying man. At his age, it
is very seldom that one of his disposition feels any inclina-
tion to form new ties and interests, and enter upon so di^
ferent a life. Nothing could surprise me more than to hear
that Mr. Rutledge was going to be married."
Grace squeezed up her mouth in a significant way, and
gave a funny look at her mother as she said this, evidently
exercising great self-denial in not answering.
Mr. Ellerton Wynkar took upon himself that office, and
agreed entirely with Mrs. ChurchiU, adding, however, that
there were some stories about the early life of the gentle-
man, that he didn't know whether to believe or not.
Was it true that he had been so dissipated when he was a
young man ?
Mrs. Churchill smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. She
knew nothing about that ; he had spent most of his early
life abroad, she said, and sowed his wild oats, if he had any
to sow, on another continent, and it was but fair for us to
be content to take him as he wished to appear at home, and
ignore the other continent.
"You may bet your head," exclaimed the captain, emphati-
cally, " that no man with a fortune like his, ever settled
down into morality and farming, without having a good
time or so, to begin with. Trust him for that ! The ladiee
BUTLED^K. 249
wonldnii like him so well, if there wasn't a touch of the sin-
ner about him."
Aunt Edith shook her head, and said that was a shocking
doctrine ; while Josephine declared, with a laugh, they
had to like sinners there was nothing else in society;
and Mr. Wynkar taking it as a personal tribute, pulled his
pale moustache and smiled, while the captain concentrated
his herculean powers on an appropriate rejoinder, and
Grace drew the attention of the table to me, by exclaim-
ing :
" Why, what's the matter ? Yoa look as if you had
"been shot."
" Rather, as if she'd like to shoot us," said Josephine,
laughing. " What Jiave we done to excite such horror ? I
liope you're not making yourself unhappy on Mr. Rut-
ledge's account. I think he's able to take care of himself."
*' K I had kuown," said Mr. Wynkar, with an apologetic
wave of the hand, and a smile that was meant to be ironi-
cal, " if I had known that Mr. Rutledge had so enthusiastic
i friend present, I should have been more careful; and
I most humbly beg, that what I have said may be fot*
given."
The captain laughed a great laugh, and said he might
t ave known that wherever there was a pretty face, there was
Q friend to Mr. Rutledge ; and Grace asked, artlessly, what
made me blush so ; while only good-natured Phil came to
the rescue, and in his blunt, honest way, exclaimed :
** It's my opinion she's much in the right of it. I shouldn't
think much of her, if she wasn't angry at hearing anybody
used up so, all on suspicion, too. If there's anything against
Mm, why, hang it, come out and say so ; but this making a
man out a rascal, because people like him and because he's
got a fortune, upon my soul, I think it's a scurvy sort of
trick, that I do."
** Don't hit him any more he's got friends," wliined
Qrace.
250 fiUTLEBaS.
^^ Phil quite mistakes us if he thinks we are not all Mr
Rutledge's friends," said Mrs. Churchill. " No one dreamed
of saying anything that could possibly be considered uncom
plimentary."
" I don't know, Aunt Edith," said Phil, rather warmly |
" but I hope you don't pay me that sort of compliment
when I'm not by."
"Indeed we don't," exclaimed Josephine, laughing.
*' When you're absent, Phil (which isn't often, you know),
we aU say you're the best fellow in the world, and count the
hours till you come back."
" Then I think the best thing I can do is to stay away,"
he answered, with a sort of sigh.
" Ah, Phil, I know you wouldn't have the heart I" said
Josephine, in a low tone, with a bright flash of her coquet*
tish eye ; which had the effect of subduing her couan for
the rest of the evening, and keeping him obedient to her
slightest whim.
Though the rest of the family seemed to forget very soon
the little episode that had been so excruciating to me, and
BO amusing to them, I do hot think it was lost upon my
aunt. I always found her looking at me very narrowly
whenever Mr. Rutledge was mentioned, and she on more
than one occasion, in my presence, took pains to speak of
him in a way that seemed to put a greater distance than
ever between us, of his age, his eccentricities, his reserve.
My aunt might have saved herself the trouble. I " knew
my place " by this time, and shrunk as naturally from meet-
ing him now, as I had before been eager and foi'ward. On
the one or two occasions when I could not avoid encounter-
ing him, it had been in her presence, and I had been shy and
cold to a degree that must have been unaccountable to him,
if he had given the matter a thought, which I very much
doubted. I had excused myself as hurriedly as possible, and
slipped back to the study, glad to bo by myself again, yet
bitterly sorry, as soon as it was too late, that I had not
RUTT.EDGB. 251
staid where only I wished to be where only I found any
pleasure, if such a doubtful emotion indeed could be called
pleasure. It was the nearest approach to it, however, that
ray life presented ; it was what I looked forward to, spite
of ray good resolves from day to day; yet, when the
wished-for pleasure came, with strange shyness and per
verseness, I thrust it away out of my own reach, then cried
passionately at the disappointment, and began to hope
again. The most inexplicable and contradictory thing in
all this world of contradictions, is a woman's heart, before
experience has tutored it. The woman herself does not
understand it. What wonder if its strange willfulness and
sudden impulses hopelessly bewilder and mislead the one of
all others whom she most desires to please, and for whom
alone, if the truth were known, the foolish heart throbs and
flutters and pines.
CHAPTER XX.
*' Doth net the world show men a very Judas' part, and !etray them nntc
Batan, saying, whom I kiss with a feigned sign of love, take them torture
them?" Button.
" Mamma says," drawled out Grace, sauntering into the
Btudy one snowy morning, as I sat busy at my German,
" mamma says, that as you write a good hand, you may
direct these cards for her, and she will excuse you to Mr.
Waschlager, if you don't have time to finish your Geiman
before he comes."
I could not help a slight exclamation of impatience as I
relinquished my books, and took the long list of names
and the basketful of blank envelopes that Grace handed
me,
" How glad I am that I don't write a nice hand !" she
ejaculated, as she threw herself lazily into a chair by the
window, and leaning on her elbow, gazed out into the
streets, now " dumb with snow," but where, before an hour
was over, the jingling of an occasional sleigh-bell would be
but a prelude to the merry music with which, till the snow
vanished, they were to resound.
" I should think you'd be glad to get rid of your Ger-
man ; though, I suppose, it's only ' out of the fiying-pan,*
for you have a good morning's work before you in those
precious cards."
I didn't trust myself to answer, and, after a pause, Grace
went on :
" I should think mamma might have set Josephine to
write those things herself don't you ? The party's all on
her account, and she and Phil are doing nothing down in
the library this morning.''
m
BUTLEDGB. 5)58
Grace looked a little longer at the lessening snow-flakes,
then continued, pleasantly :
** What shall you wear ? For we've got to come down,
mamma said so ; and she said, too, that she didn't believe
you had anything fit to wear."
"I haven't giv6n a thought to the subject. Pray, don't
talk, Grace, you confuse me."
" But you'll have to give it a thought," she exclaimed.
" Josephine's going to wear her new pink silk, and I should
think you'd want to look nicely the first time you go into
company. Ella Wynkar was saying the other day, she
thought it was the queerest thing you never went any-
where."
'' Grace, really if you can't be quiet, I must go into my
own room. I won't waste any more time misdirecting
these cards, which I cannot help doing -if you talk all the
while."
She subsided for a few minutes, but pretty soon began
again.
" It's going to be splendid sleighing ; it's stopped snow-
ing altogether, and I believe ' the sun is actually coming
out ; don't you wish there was any chance of your having a
sleigh-ride ?"
" No," I exclaimed, impatiently ; " I don't wish for
anything but quiet, and if you must be lazy yourself, I
don't see what need there is of making other people so."
" You're shockingly out of temper this morning," said
Grace, shrugging her shoulders and getting up to go. " I
think I shall have to * leave you to your own reflections,
as mamma always says after giving any of us a lecture. 1
must go and see what mischief Esther is in. She has been
too quiet this morning."
I saw, by the sly gleam in Grace's eye, that Esther's
peace was over; I knew the futility of argument, and
attempted none ; ten minutes after, a distressed Jttle voice
outside, crying, " Won't you erpeak to Grace ? She's got
254 BUILEDGB.
the brushes out of my paint-box, and she won't give 'em lo
me," showed me how Grace was killing time. I opened
the door for the little malheureuse^ told her not to mind
about the paint-brushes, but if she'd be a quiet child, she
might sit down here and look at the big " Pilgrim's Pro-
gress ;" so I installed her in Grace's vacated seat, by the
window, and she di'ied her tears, and looked the book
through twice ; then, kneeling in the chair, gazed out into
the street, so quietly that I almost forgot her existence.
My task was a distasteful one, insomuch as it interfered
with pleasanter occupations, and I had great difficulty in
keeping my patience to its completion ; but at last it was
ended, and the last name on the list copied on the envelope
of the last card, and replaced in the basket, and, fiigged
and dispirited, I pushed them away, and, crossing over to
the window, sat down by it, and took the child on my
knee.
No wonder the scene had fascinated her so long ; it cer-
tainly was bright and picturesque. Snow is as magical a
beautifier as moonlight; it freshens up, gilds over, and
brightens the worn-out surface of every-day, and makes a
pretty picture of a common reality, I had never suspected
Gramercy Park of beauty before, but under the light
mantle of this snow it became lovely. The trees bent with
its light weight ; it capped and decorated the iron railings,
and crested the roofs and window-casings of the houses
on the square. It lay white and unsullied on the ground,
and in the courtyards ; only a few children had as yet burst
nursery bounds, and, wild with delight, rushed into the new
element ; and but a few shovels and brooms were at work.
The sky had come out gorgeously blue, the sunshine was
glittering gaily on the white snow; it was altogether a
brilliant picture, done in high colors, but possessing the
advantage that nature's pictures always enjoy, of not having
an inharmonious or jarring tinge. Even the sleigh-loads of
gaily-firessed people that began to dash past, seemed to
ICUTI EDGE, 265
have got themselves up to match and not mar the scene.
The bright colors of the sleigh-robes, the flashing of the
rilver-bells, the red cheeks of the girls, the gay clothes of
the pretty children, were quite harmonious and quite effec-
tive. Esther looked at it for a long while in perfect con-
tent, as she would have looked at a nice picture-book ; by
and by, it began to assume a more personal character in
her eyes.
" I should like to go out and ride, myself," she said, at
length.
" So should I, but there doesn't seem much chance of
it," I answered ; " therefore, it's best not to think about
it."
*' Other children go," she said. "I don't see why I
can't. I think mamma might have a sleigh."
" That's manmia's business, and not yours," I said ;
" and there are more little children who don't ride than
there are little children who do. There is one, for instance,
coming out of the area, who has been poking about, in all
the ash-barrels in the square, for a few cinders to keep him
warm at home. Poor little fellow I Don't you feel sorry
for him, Essie ? His ears and nose are so red, and his lips
are almost purple. I don't believe he'^8 had a sleigh-ridCi
do you ?"
Essie looked down thoughtfully at him, but didn't
answer ; no more repinings occurring, however, I inferi'ed
that she had profited by the train of thought the shivering
little object below us had suggested. I still sat by the
window, with Essie in my lap and a book in my hand,
when, with a cry of pleasui e, she started up, exclaiming,
as a sleigh drew up at the door :
" There's Mr. Rutledge, and I know he's come for us to
ride ! Hurrah I"
I bent forward, just in time to meet his eye, as he sprang
from the sleigh, and to return awkwardly his salutation.
Esther waited for no permission, but boimded i*om my lap^^
266 BUTLEDGB
flew across the room, and downstairs before I could recall
her, and opened the door for him before he had rung the
bell. There was a very enthusiastic meeting between them^
and an excited " That's good I" from the child, and in a
moment she was back again at my side, breathless and
eager, exclaiming :
" Me Rutledge has come for us all, to drive out to High
Bridge. Put on you? things quick quick as ever you can.**
" Who's going ? Who did he ask ?" I said, breathless
as the child herself.
" You, me, mamma, Josephine, all of us ! Be quick.'*
" But listen, Essie," I exclaimed, following her to the
naU, as she bounded off up to the nursery. " Stop a
minute. What did he say ? did he say me .^"
" Yes, yes, he said, ' run up and ask your cousin' if she'll
take that ride this morning that we talked about at Rut-
ledge, and I'll go into the parlor and ask your mamma and
Miss Josephine ;' and now let me run for Fdlicie to get me
ready ;" and the child was off again, but came back obe-
diently when I called her. I held her tight by the hand,
as, with a beating heart, I leaned over the balusters, and
heard the merry voices in the hall belowi I could not dis-
tmguish what Mr. Rutledge said, but I heard Josephine's
laughing rejoinder :
" I assure you, I didn't mean to hint, last night, when I
said I longed for a sleigh-ride again ; but it was just like
you, to remember it. It's a charming day. How we shall
enjoy it I"
I led Essie to the stairs, and leaning down, said :
" Go down and tell Mr. Rutledge, that he's very kind,
but I. beg he will excuse me to-day."
The child looked bewildered, and exclaimed: "But,
aren't you going ?"
"No; go down and say just what I have told yoiii
remember; and then come back, and I'll help you ^
ready."
aUTLEDOE. 267
Esther wondeiingly oheyed, and slid down the stairs like
a spirit. I scorned to listen any longer, though I would
have given anything and everythuig I possessed to have
unravelled the tangled maze of voices in the hall, and
known how my refusal was received. Pride to the rescue !
however, and I was bending over my German, when my
aunt looked in a moment at the door, to inquire if I didn't
care to go.
I said, " No, thank you ; I have my translation to
iSnish, and, if you are willing, I will stay at home."
Just then, Josephine and Grace came up, and Essie burst
into the room, exclaiming :
" Mamma, mamma, what shall I wear ? What frock had
I better put on ?"
Why, you're not going," cried Josephine, pettishly.
Surely, mamma, you do not mean to let that child go..
There's no room for her if Phil goes, and she'll be whim-
pering with the cold in ten minutes."
"Mr. Rutledge only asked her for politeness," said
Grace. " He never thought of such a snip really going."
" She'll spoil everything," said Josephine, decidedly.
" I don't care to go if she does."
"I think, on the whole, my dear Essie," said Mrs.
Churchill, " that it is best for you not to go. You must
amuse yourself at home, and be a good child ; we shall not
be gone very long."
The little girl's lips moved, as if she would speak, but no
words came, and, as the others left the room, I looked at
her with some anxiety. I never saw a face so changed.
The brief radiance that had lighted it had passed away, and
m its place was a livid look of passion that fairly jfrightened
me.
" Why, Essie, child, don't take it so to heart," I said,
soothingly, attempting to touch her cold, clenched hand,
but with a fierce gesture she released herself and turned
away. I tried to pacify and divert her, but received no
258 FTJTLEDOB.
word in ansirer, till, from the window, we saw the party
enter the sleigh, and after a moment of adjusting sleigh^i
robes and fui-s, the fine horses started sphitedly forward, to
the music of their own merry bells ; then, with a violent
scream, the child threw herself upon the floor, and shook from,
head to foot with a passion that many men and women pass
through life without experiencing. Such tempests cannot
liail to blight the souls they sweep over; they bow the
cracking forest, and strip it of its leaves ; the tender sap-
ling, alone and unprotected in its flexile youth, can hardly
escape undesolated. Swayed and whipped about with the
fieiice blast, all that is tender and delicate about it must be
blighted ; the stem that should have been fair and straight,
must, if it survive the trial, be twisted, and rough, and
gnarled ; it may strike a deeper root ; it will never cast as
fine a shade, nor be as fair a tree. If, unable to sustain the
storm, the frail stem snap, and the life-blood ooze away, is
it a questionable providence, or an utter mercy ?
" Essie, my dear little girl," I continued, as the child still
lay sobbing on the floor, long after the first burst of temper
had expended itself, " Essie, you will surely make yourself
sick ; you are chilled through already, and the room is get-
ting cold ; come upstairs with me^"
But no, the headstrong child would not go upstairs, but
would lie there, and only there, and sob, and cry, and
refuse all comfort. It was not till the shaking of sleigh-
bells at the door announced the return of the party, that
my arguments had the least effect.
" Don't let them see you lying there, Esther. Come up,
and let me wash the tears off your face and smooth your
hair," I said ; and she allowed me to lift her up, and lead
her upstairs, before her sisters came in. F^Ucie was busy
with a skirt of Josephine's, so I shut the nursery door and
kept the child with me. But this time there was no sooth*
ing her; she was fretful and trying beyond anything 1
had ever seen; perhaps if I had not been so miserable
BUTLRDGE. S59
myself then, I could not have been as patient with her, as I
remember I was. I was wretched enough to have lain
down and sobbed myself, but the office of comforter is
incompatible with that of mourner, and so is an office twice
blessed ; for tempting as is the luxury of tears, the reward
oi self^ontrol is always greater and more lasting.
" The dinner-bell will soon ring, Essie, and you will not
be ready to come down to dessert ; come and let me brush
your hair."
'* I don't want to go down ; I don't want any dessert,"
she whined.
Her hands were now hot and feverish, her teeth chatter-
mg with nervousness, and I recognized the approach of one
of her sick headaches. I did not much wonder that she did
not want to go down, so I coaxed her to let me undress her,
and put her to bed, " and if you'll be a good child, you may
Bleep with me to-night."
" Very well," she said, laconically, with a weary sigh ;
and before the dinner-bell rang, I had laid her, quieted, in
my bed, with, however, a very wide-awake and nervous
stare about her eyes, but no tears and not much fretting.
For the next few days, the absorbing cares of the
approaching party must have prevented my Aunt Edith
from seeing the real indisposition of Esther. That her
increasing irritability was the result of illness, I could not
doubt, as I had ascertained for myself, that she could be as
quiet as other children, when she was well. Josephine
declared, I spoiled the teasing little object. Grace said,
with a laugh :
" You can't reproach yourself with anything of the kind|
can you, Joseph ?"
And Phil, taking " the teasing little object " on his knee,
said:
" Atint Edith, upon my word, the child grows lightez
every time I take her up. Is she well ?"
" I mean to have the doctor this moniing," she answered|
960 BIJTLBBGB.
looking up liom her writing. " I am rather worried" about
her; she is a little feverish. Esther, don't stay by the
window ; it is too cold for you. Go up^ to the nursery, and
tell Felicie to put a little sacque on you."
So Esther was remanded to the nursery, and it being the
day before the party, there was plenty to be done and
thought of for all hands. And though the doctor came, he
did not seem much impressed with her state of health left
a very innocent prescription that was not sent for till the
next day, and eased everybody's mind exceedingly. What
a very comfortable thing it is to be able to pin one's faith to
a medical coatsleeve, and according as it is elevated or
depressed, be soothed or terrified.
Any disinterested observer, x think, would have agreed
^vith Esther and me, that party-giving was not in any way
conducive to home comfort. That wretched day, lessons
of course were given up; the study being turned into
a dressing-room, and the nursery sharing the same fate ^my
room was the sanctuary where Grace and Esther ' sought
refuge from the bustle and confusion of the first and second
floors, and no paradise it proved, Essie being unbearably
peevish and Grace unbearably provoking. Aunt Edith tore
herself away from the claims of upholsterer, florist, and
waiter for a moment, to look in upon us gave the final
directions about our dresses, and pronounced Esther's sen-
tence, which she* had been dreading for days, to wit, that
she must not go downstairs. It was a most proper sentence,
but it was a cruel disappointment, and the child of course
cried herself into another headache. I induced her to go to
bed about seven o'clock, but she sat bolt upiight, watching
eagerly the operations of the hairdresser, who had come to
Grace and me, before arranging Josephine's hair.
"Esther, do go to sleep, and stop bothering 1" cried
Grace. " You've done nothing but worry this whole day."
A fresh bm-st of tears was the answer to this, and Grace
wskA more incensed than ever
RUTLEDGE. 261
"I think this is a pursuit of pleasure under difficulties,
indeed," . I exclaimed, despairing. " I hope all partieB
are not as much trouble ! Will it pay, do you suppose ?"
" Cela d^end^'* said Grace ; " if you get attended to, it
may ; if you have to talk to the old ladies, and look over
books of engravings in the corner, it wont."
I inly wondered which would be my fate, as I glanced at
the pretty muslin on the foot of the bed. " Not the old
ladies and the engravings I hope." It was my first party,
and though everything seemed to conspire to make it a pun-
ishment, still I would have been more than human if I had
felt no excitement when I first dressed myself in party-dress.
White muslin and coral ornaments were not very elaborate
certainly, but they were a great contrast to the plain clothes
I had seen myself in since I could remember. When Grace
was dressed, she went down, but Essie clung to me and
begged me to stay so piteously, that I could not resist; and
tm'ning out the gas, I sat do\ni on the bed by her, and told
her stories by the dozen, and sung her hymns, in the vain
hope of getting her to sleep ; but she seemed to grow wider
awake every minute. Ten o'clock chimed; the music
began ; the carriages were rolling to the dooi, and still she
held my hand firmly, and said, " go on," in a hopelessly-
clear voice, every time I paused in my recital. I wai"
beginning to be in dire perplexity about leaving her, when
the door opened, and Grace put her head in, saying, hur-
riedly:
"Mamma sent me up to say you must come down
directly ; half the people are here, and they are beginning
to dance. Come as quick as you can," and Grace disap-
peared.
There was another burst of grief from Esther to be
soothed and subdued, and at last, taking my gloves and fan,
and kissing her good night, I stole out of the room, thinking
her quite reconciled ; but when half way down the stairs, 1
looked back, and saw the child, in her long white night
262 BUTLBDOE.
V
gowii, Btanding at the bead of the staircase, ai\d heard h&i
heart-broken voice begging me to come back, it was so lone-
some, she was so sick. At the foot stood Grace.
" Mamma is displeased that you do not come.'*
What should I do ? I ran upstairs again. Essie stood
shivering at the door, a bright spot on each cheek, and an
excited glitter in her eye.
" Essie !" I exclaimed, " why will you be so naughty ?
Don't you know mamma has sent for me twice ? Do you
want me to be scolded ?"
*' No, but I don't want to be left ; it is so lonesome up
here."
*' But don't you know I promised to send Felicie up ; and
do I ever break my promises ?"
" I don't want Felicie to come ; she's cross," said the
child.
" Well, then, Frances shall come ; will she do ?"
" Frances is busy, and you'll forget all about me when
you get down there among the people."
" No, I won't, my darling," I said, stooping down, as she
put her arms around my neck. " I will send Frances, and
come up and see you in a little while myself. Be a good
child, and go get in bed. Good night."
She laid her burning little cheek against mine for a
moment ; then submissively went in, and I turned to go
downstairs. As I rose from my stooping attitude, I looked
in at the nursery door, which, hi my hurry, I had forgotten
was the gentlemen's dressing-room ; and that, as well aa
the hall, was strongly lighted. Two gentlemen, just within
the door, had been witnesses of the scene of distress just
enacted, and apparently not inattentive ones either. They
were evidently strangers to each otlicr, and one was so to
me ; I never remembered to have seen him before. The
other was Mr. Rutledge.
He held out his hand with a smile, as I started back in
confusion on seeing them. I gave him mine with a despe-
BUTLBBOB. fl68
rate blusb, and saying, hurriedly, that I must go do^^ for
Frances, without giving him time for another word, I ran
down the stairs, and into the second hall, whence, picking
my way as daintily as I could, I threaded the narrowness
and darkness of the private staircase, that led to the
butler's pantry. There I found, as I had expected, an
eager group of domestics gazing in through the windows
into the parlors, watching the dancing with an interest only
second to that of the dancers themselves. I singled out
Prances from the group, and calling her to me, told her
my errand, and she, with a submissive sigh for the lost
festivities, followed me upstairs. I saw her safely at the
door of Essie's room, then, turning, began to descend, this
time more slowly, and to think seriously of the alarming
matter of my entr6e. As I neared the parlors, the music,
the odar of the flowers, the brilliant lights, the gay dresses,
aU crowded intoxicatingly upon my brain.
**I only knew 'twas fair and sweet,
'Twas wandering on enchanted ground,
J With dizzy brow and tottering feet."
It was not a ball-room, it was the fairy-land, the magic,
the romance, of which I had dreamed ; what adventures
lay within it for me ; what untold delirious joy should I
experience when I had crossed the threshold. And how
should I cross it ? Alone and timid, how could I stem that
flashing, glittering crowd ? And, among them all, whose
protection should I seek, to whose side should I make my
way ? There was no time for hesitation ; I was at the
door ; the gentleman whom I had seen upstairs, stood aside
to let me pass ; two or three ladies made way for me, and
in a moment more I found myself at my aunt's side.
^ You are very late," she said, in a low tone.
** I could not help it. Aunt Edith," I began ; but a new
ariiyal tooK up her attention, and I was left to make m^
264 BUTLEDOE.
own f oflections upon tlie scene before me. It took a few
mmutes for me to come to my senses sufficiently to look
about, and see things reasonably. It was some time before
I recognized Josephine among the many strange &ces.
She was not dancing, but, with an admiring crowd around
her, stood at the other end of the room, dispensing her
coquettish smiles with tact and judgment. Grace was
dancing with a lazy sort of grace that became her. Her
partner was a painfully shy, undeveloped college youth, of
whom, I could see, she was making all mann^j of ridicule,
judging from the contortions of merriment visible on the
face of her vis-d-vis, Captain McGuffy, with whom she
exchanged a whispered witticism every time they met
Phil, with a self-denying heroism I had not given him
credit for, was doing the agreeable to every one, dancing
with all the girls who didn't seem to be having a nice time,
and doing the honors of the house to the gentlemen with-
out a groan. An occasional smile from Josephine, and a
few words of approval from Mrs. Churchill, seemed to be
all the reward he asked.
Many of the faces about me were femiliar. Grace had
pointed them out to me in the street, and I had occasion
ally met them in the hall ; but, of all the crowd, only one
was an acquaintance, and that very far from a familiar one.
Josephine's most intimate and particular confidante. Miss
Ella Wynkar, gave me a look in passing, that was not
striking for its graciousnesa, and a little nod. I had seen
her at dinner more than once, when she had dined with us,
and gone to the opera under my aunt's chaperonage. I
never could understand her intimacy with Josephine; I
knew they were dying of jealousy of each other, and Jose-
phine, for one, never omitted an opportunity of saying an
ill-natured thing about her friend behind her friend's back;
and her friend, I felt certain, was not any more scrupulous :
notwithstanding, they were the most loving and tender ol
companions, and continually seeking each other's society.
BUT.LEDGB. 265
Josephine made visits with Ella, and Ella shopped with
Josephine. Mrs. Churchill took Ella to the opera, and
Mrs. Wynkar chaperoned Josephine to matinees and wed-
dings. Ella was the wi^itest of blondes, and neither intel-
lectually nor physically at all in Josephine's style ; she had
not a pretty or expressive feature in -her face ; a genera*
look of whiteness and sweetness about her, being her sole
attraction. She' was very much below Josephine in intelh-
gence, but was not destitute of a certain shrewdness of her
own, which, with some little exertion, kept her up to her
firiend's level. She lacked Josephine's nice French tact and
polish, and was very American and very New York in her
rather " loud " style, and very high-colored mode of ex-
pressing herself. Josephine must have an intimate friend,
however, and so, I suppose, the most advantageous and
proper one was selected. Such coalitions are recognized
m society, whereunto, of course, people must conform.
Ella, as I have said, was not at the pains to recognize
me very affably on the evening of the party. I bit my lip
and didn't mind, but somehow the glamor of romance was
beginning to recede from the scene, and I was beginning
only to see a roomful of people, strange to me, and none too
affectionate to each other, flirting, dancing, quizzing each
other ; dowagers in velvet watching daughters in tarletan,
young beaux elbowing old beaux, and every man showing
himself unmistakably for himself. At first, it amused me to
watch the people and their ways, but soon, like Essie and
her sleigh-iide, I began to feel as if it would be very plea-
sant to have somebody to talk to, and be entertained by
as the other young ladies had. I felt hopelessly frightened,
and shrunk as fer as possible into the corner behind my
annt, whenever I caught any one's eye ; which wasn't ofleu,
however, for every one seemed too busy with themselvea
and their partners, or companions, to notice me. Grace,
passing near me with a young collegian or two, whispered,
" Are you having a stupid time ?" and the truth that I was
12
S66 BUTLEDaS.
having just such a time, made the blood rush to my clieeka.
My amit turned to me and said :
*' Why are you so quiet ? Go and amuse yourself; you
are at home, you know ^talk to some one," and she turned
away.
I was at home, yes, I knew that. As one of the young
ladies of the house, I was of course entitled to be freed from
some of the trammels that society imposes upon those of my
age and sex. I might with propriety go and talk to any
young ladies who were disengaged and silent ; but I really
felt no inclination to avail myself of this privilege. Every
one seemed engaged but me ; no one noticed me, and I
retreated further into the corner than before. It was very
kind in my aunt to tell me to go and amuse myself. I
wondered if she had contented herself with giving such a
kind permission to Josephine on the night of her first
party, when she was new to society, and strange and
partner-less in it ?
" This is society, then," I said to myself. " Mr. Rutledge
needn't have warned me so against it. I do not see much
danger of my loving it too well. It isn't any too pleasant
to be alone and unattended to ; it is rather bitter to feel
that every one who looks at me must think, ' what a dull
time that girl is having 1' and wonder why I know no one."
It was bitter enough, and for a while I longed to get oui
of it all, and steal upstairs, and be by myself, but I knew
for the present that was hopeless, so I did the wisest thing
I could have done, viz., set to work to reason myself out of
my discontent and folly, and tried the "dodge" recom-
mended in the old Greek comedy, that is, " being revenged
on fortune by becoming a philosopher." And a philosopher,
in white muslin and coral, then and there I became ; and in
ten minutes, the pettishness had all vanished from my
heart, and, par consiqitent^ irom my face, and I was myself
)gain.
This was a strange termination of all my day 'dreams; a
BUTLEDQE. 267
strange entree into the world ; but no doubt : t was the best
thing that could have happened to me. Had I not promised
to renounce it, and had it not been very wrong for me to
have gone on hoping to reap some pleasure from it, notwith-
standing ? Was not this the kindest way to bring to my
remembrance the vow and promise that I had so nearly for-
gotten. Was it not better for ine to remember at the out-
set, that it and I were never to be in league, never to be
other than enemies ? That if " there was no way but this,'*
this was not so very hard and cruel a way ? Poor Frances
upstairs, with her swollen eyes and wan face, had doubtless
a harder yoke to bear in her youth than I had, and so, with
a hundred other swollen- eyed and wan-faced girls whom
I daily met in the streets. " Let's think on our marcies," I
mentally ejaculated, quoting with a half smile, the words
of old '* Aunt Chloe " to her husband on their cruel part-
ing. Which, by the way, is the finest passage in aU that
strange story of " Uncle Tom ;" a passage unalloyed by
aflfectation, exaggeration or false sentiment simple, great,
and heroic worth twenty little Eva's dying speeches, and
unnatural angelhood.
After the lapse of an hour, I thought I might be allowed
to keep my promise to Essie, so I stole quietly out of the
gay crowd, and went up to my room. Esther had gone to
sleep, and Frances, startled from an attitude of weeping,
obeyed my permission to go down and watch the dancing
for half an hour, while I should relieve guard and take care
of the child, whose burning temples and restless moaning
made me certain that it was not right to leave her alone.
She did not wake up, however, during my vigil, and Frances
came back very punctually. I kissed the little sleeper again,
and with a very much sobered fancy, descended to the
parlors. Mr. Rutledge stood at the foot of the stairs, and
ioined me as I reached the hall.
" Hasn't la petite gone to sleep yet ?" he asked, offering
me his ann.
268 BUTLBDGB
" Oh yes ! some time ago."
" Then you prefer upstairs to downstairs, even on gala
nights ?" he inquired, with a smile.
"I don't know exactly," I answered ; but at this moment,
Phil made his appearance ^vith the gentleman who had been
at the dressing-room door when Essie had made her unex
pected dSbut,
"Ah, here you are I" he exclaimed; "we have been
hunting you high and low for a good half hour."
And he presented, " Mr. Viennet."
The name, and his very slight foreign accent, assured me
that this was the young Frenchman of whom I had heard so
much from Grace and Josephine. He was at once "the
best dancer," " the handsomest fellow," and " the cleverest
man " in society, so when he bowed very low and asked me
to dance, it was as if the planet Mercury had slid down the
starry floor of heaven and demanded the honor of my hand.
All I could do was to drop my eyes, blush very much, and
assent.
Mr. Rutledge released me instantly, bowed and drew
back. Mr. Viennet gave me his arm, and in a moment we
were on the floor.
Nobody that dances well but loves it. I danced well, and
I loved it. Mr. Viennet told me he knew i?iat^ the moment
he looked at me, and as he seemed to take a wicked plea-
sure in saying such things, and making me blush, I soon
regained my self-possession, and a certain degree of saucinesa
wherewith to parry these remarks. The captain was my
vi-^vis, and he whispered as we met :
" Upon my soul, Miss Josephine '11 have to look to hei
laurels ; my friend Victor seems mightily ipris.^^
"Is the captain asking you to dance?" demanded Mr,
Viennet.
" Remember, mademoiselle, you are engaged to me fbi
the next."
The next dance proved a polka. I had half resolved never
BUTLEDGB. 269
Jo dance anything but quadrilles ; I had not thought much
about the matter, but I had an indefinite sort of idea that
some people condemned polkas and waltzes, and that it
would be better not to indulge in them. But I had made
no resolution ' strong enough to resist my partner's persua-
sions, and that fine floor, and the magic of the music
Before I knew it, I was flying down the room with Mr.
Viennet, and having once tasted of that delirious pleasure,
there was no putting the cup from my lips. One danct
merged into another, polka, redowa, waltz, succeeded each
other in intoxicating rapidity ; a turn in the hall, or an ice
in the library, being the only rest between. It did not take
one whit from my pleasure, rather added extremely there-
unto, that a face I knew too well, but sterner and colder
than I had ever seen it, was watching me with marked dis-
approval. I avoided meeting his eye as I floated past him ;
I never laughed so gaily or danced so well as when I knew
we were near him ; my handsome partner owed half the
smiles I gave him, to the fact of that stern face. I had
been unnaturally depressed too long not to be unnaturally
excited now. I was all my school-days' self again, with an
under-current of something stronger and deeper, and more
dangerous.
*' You don't look like the same girl. How you do love to
dance !" said Phil, in a low tone, as he brought up some one
else to introduce. " Victor, my fine fellow, you must como
and talk with somebody else. Mrs. Churtihill says you shall
not dance with her niece again. Go and make your peace
with her."
" De tout mon coeur^''^ he returned. " And I will release
mademoiselle for this dance ; but of course she remembers
that she has promised me the next."
I laughed at this bold invention, as I went off with my
new partner ; but Mr. Viennet claimed me resolutely at the
end of the quadrille, and though there was no lack of part
mers now, still he continued to be tie prominent one, maigri.
270 BUTLIL/)&B
Josephiue's black looks, and Aunt Edith's distant coldnesai
Not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men, could biing
me back to where I had stood before I knew my power. 1
was dizzy with my triumph yet ; it was no time to talk to
me of moderation. I had just begun to feel that there waa
no reason why I should not enjoy myself as other girls en-
joyed themselves. I did not feel submissive toward those
who had kept me down so long. I answered Josephine's
sarcasm with a sarcasm as biting. I returned Grace's com-
pliment with interest. To Ellerton Wynkar, who asked me
to dance, T regretted, but was engaged for the rest of the
evening, and sent him away with a hauteur that paid off all
old scores. At supper, I held a miniature court at one end
of the room, and not Josephine's self ever swayed a more
despotic rule. And when " the German " began, no ouo
ever led the German but Victor Viennet, ftid with no one
else would he dance, so I was then and there initiated into
the intricacies of that genteel game of romps.
As we paused in the first figure, I glanced at my silent
mentor. He was just bidding my aunt good night, and left
Qie room without a look toward the dancers. My interest
in the game began to flag somewhat after that, but still it
was dancing, and I loved that well enough never to tire.
The dance was ended, and the room nearly deserted, be-
fore my partner left me. As the door closed on the last'
guest, Josephine threw herself into an easy-chair, ex-
claiming :
" I'm tired to death 1 I thought they would never go."
"Tired! I could dance tiU noon," I cried. "It's a
positive punishment to go to bed. Good night," and I ran
upstairs.
It was one thing to go to bed, and another thing to go
to sleep one thing to shut my eyes, but quite another thing
to shut out the pageantry of fancy that the darkness did not
quench. Conjecture, hope, anticipation, longing, made wild
work in my brain that night. Everything wag too new,
BUTLEDGB. 271
and strange, and dazzling, to yield at once to the control
:f reason. The curtain had risen upon too brilliant a scene
bo fede from my imagination, even after it had fallen. New
faces, snatches of music, conversations, danced through my
mind; but above aU other sensations, a new sense of injus-
tice and resentment made itself felt, and defiance took the
place of tlie unquestioning submission I had rendered before.
Phis wa^ the .thorn in my new crown of roses that took
away from it its simplicity, its unalloyed beauty, and, per-
haps, it& innocence.
CHAPTER XXI.
"Who pleasure follows pleasure slays ;
GotVs wrath upon himself he wreaks*;
But all delights rejoice his days
Who takes with thanks, yet never seeks."
Coventry Patmore.
Two days after this, I was surprised by the appearance
on my plate, at breakfast, of two nojes. The first proved
to be an invitation for a party from a Mrs. Humphrey,
cards for which Mrs. and Miss Churchill bad received a
week ago.
" Well !" exclaimed Josephine, unceremoniously, " 1
wonder what inspired Mrs. Humphrey to send you an invi-
tation."
" It would be difficult to say," I returned, taking up the
second. " Certainly no suggestion from you."
" Alps on Alps !" exclaimed Grace, looking over my
shoulder. " Tickets for the Charity Ball ! What next ?"
" What, indeed," I said. " John, some more sugar in
my coffee, if you please."
" Really, you don't seem much excited by your invita-
tions. I suppose you don't intend to accept them ?"
" Accept them !" echoed Josephine. " What an idea I
It would be perfectly absurd to think of it, when it's under-
tood that she's not out yet."
" I think I'll risk that," I answered, decidedly. " If Aunt
Edith has no objection, I will avail myself of any invitations
that I may receive for the next ten days. After that, Lent,
you know, will decide the matter for us all."
" You roust follow the dictates of your own judgment,"
B U T L D a 2 . 278
retamed my aunt, coldly. " Staying at home was your
* own choice, going out is at your own option."
'*I know, dear aunt," I replied, with unaltered sang
froid^ " that you would do anything to indulge me in any.
thing reasonable, and as I have quite set my heart upon
this, I am sure you will not make any objection to it. You
are the last person to put anything in the way of my plea-
sure and advantage."
" Pleasure and advantage are not always synonymous
terms, my dear. What you might be pleased to consider
pleasure, I might look upon as anything but advantageous,
you know."
*' Oh ! we shall not differ as to that, I fancy. You can-
not be more careful of me than of Josephine, and she has
certainly tested pretty thoroughly the merits of the ques-
tion. I should not think of going out as she does, to two
or three parties of an evening, and spending the intervening
hours of daylight in bed ; but just three or four balls before
the season closes, to see what it's all like, I really must en-
joy, with your permission."
" Or without it," muttered Josephine. " You have
enough apLomh to sustain you in that or any other imperti-
nence you might undertake."
" Josephine," said her mother, steraly, " you forget your-
- self. My dear," to me, " you know I shall put no obstacle
in the way of your enjoyment. You have my full permis-
sion to do as you think best."
" Thank you," I answered ; " and I have the greatest de-
sire to go to one of these mammoth charity balls. How
lucky that it comes to-night, and that Mrs. Humphrey's in
to-morrow, so that I can go to both."
"In what, if I may ask," said Grace, "do you propose
appearing?"
" That's a question, I fancy, that has not occurred to oui
young friend," remarked Josephine.
** It's easily enough settled," I answ^ed. " White inus*
)2*
S74 BT31LEDGEc
lin, * with variations,' will be a sufficient toilette for mcj you
know."
" You'll excuse me for saying, that I think it is a matter
of very little moment to any one but yourself" said she,
with a laugh, as she rose from the table.
" Don't be spiteful, Joseph," said Grace, the only error
of whose tactics was, that she could not confine herself to
any one side in an encounter, and could not resist adminis-
tering a blow on any exposed cranium, indiscriminately of
friend or foe " don't be spiteful, Joseph. She couldn't help
taking off Victor, you know. It was trying, to be sure, but
then it left you more time for ' the substantials.' "
Josephine, pressing her lips together, darted a threaten-
ing look at her sister, who, with a pleasant little nod, slipped
through the folding doors and vanished.
" May I speak to you a moment ?" I said, following Mrs.
Churchill into the butler's pantry.
" Certainly," she answered, in a tone that did not invite
confidence.
I had followed my aunt to say two things to her : the first
was about myself, the second was about Esther. I had
meant to say that if she really thought I was doing an un-
wise thing in going to these balls, I was willing to give them
up. Conscience had made a suggestion or two that morn-
ing, and I was not yet careless about its admonitions. A
kind word of advice, a look of motherly reluctance to deny
me pleasure, and yet of motherly solicitude for my good,
would have settled the doubt, and put me in the right way.
But thu tone in which she said " certainly," and proceeded
to fit the key into the wine-closet, without so much as a
look toward me, roused all the evil in my heait.
" You will never be troubled with any of my repentances,"
I thought, angrily ; and then, in a tone that I suppose took
its color from my thoughts, I said :
" I came to say. Aunt Edith, that perhaps you are not
aware how much it irritates Essie to have Felid take care
BUTLBDGB. 275
of her Felicie doesn't seem to have a pleasant way with
her, and now she is confined to the nursery, she is continu-i
ally fretted and imhappy. I find her more feverish 'every
time I go upstairs, and I thought perhaps if you were
willing to let Frances sit up there instead, she would
amuse and keep her quiet better. She seems to like
Frances."
Mrs. Churchill turned around and regarded me atten.
tively for a moment, then said :
*' I am sorry that your own good sense did not teach you
the impropriety of such an interference as this, and that I
am obliged to remind you of our relative positions, before
you can imderstand how much such a thing as this oflTends
me. The management of the household is my province, and
any intei-ference or advice concerning it I reject decidedly.
If Esther is peevish and ill-tempered, I certainly hope F61icie
will be strict with her, I have no intention of humoring her
caprices, or disarranging the family to suit her whims.
Tou may dismiss the subject from your mind entirely."
I bowed and left the room, with what bitter and resent-
ful feelings it is easy to imagine. When Essie came crying
to the door of my room, half an hour after, I sent her
away ; I was busy, she must not come'ln, and though her
miserable face haunted me, I stubbornly put back the coun-
sel that it gave me. I had been told not to interfere, and
I would obey. All day I did not interfere all day the evil
spirit ruled, and I heard, without a remonstrance, the storm
from the nursery, which, however, gradually subsided as
the day advanced. I had enough employment, meantime,
to keep down conscience ; there was a flounce of my white
dress to be repaired, and the blue bows to be made before
evening. Mr. Waschlager did not come ; Mr. Olman, poor
man, had been ill for a week, and to-morrow was Miss Ber
teau's day, so there was nothing of duty to fill up the hourfl
that would have hung heavily if it had not been for the an-
iLoipations o^ and preparations for, the evening.
276 KUTLEDGB.
I turned tlio key of my door on Grace, and the key of my
heart on poor little Essie, and toward evening threw myself
into a chair by the fire, and read the latest number of " The
Newcomes." And who ever read Thackeray without feel-
ing the greatest longing to see the world which he de-
cries ? Who ever laid down a volume of his without a
more eager thirst for the pomps and vanities than they had
ever felt before ? Who wouldn't have been Ethel, " with
all swelldom at her feet," even if she did cheat herself of
her happiness, and stored up sorrow for the heavy years to
come ? Who could have the heart to say that Pen, in his
zenith, wasn't to be envied ? or that George Osborne wasn't
a good fellow ? I, for one, never felt any less attracted to-
ward them because Mr, Thackeray, after spending on them
the finest colors on his pallet, tells us they are not to bo
approved after all, and that they are not in the right way,
and that they have any amount of discipline to go through
before they are perfected. I always felt inclined to " skip "
the discipline ; the natural man w^as the genuine one ^the
improvement wasn't spicy. So, on this occasion, 1 read on,
fsiscinated, till twilight's gradual fingers stole between mo
and the page, and I reluctantly gave it up, and dreamed on
about the story till the dinner bell rang.
Then I started up, struck with a feeling of remorse that
Essie had missed her accustomed twilight story for the first
time this winter. I smoothed my hair and hurried into the
nursery. Silence reigned there ; F^Ucie sat by the dim
light, quietly pursuing her work. I asked for Essie, and
she rather sullenly pointed to the bed. It was unusual for
her to sleep a/, this hour ; indeed at all hours she was a
light sleeper, and I had never before known her to be
willing to lie down even in the daytime, so it was with
some surprise that, on stooping down, I mw she was sleep*
ing, and sleeping heavily.
"Why does she sleep so soimdly, F61ioie?" I saidf
looking up.
BUTLEDGE, 971
* Because she's sleepy, I supposB, mademoiselle," she
answered, rather shortly.
It was not worth while being angry with the woman, and
indeed I did not feel like resenting any impertinence to
myself, as I looked down at the quiet face of the little girl.
Asleep, and free from the haggard, restless expression that
her features ordinarily wore, she was almost pretty, almost
child-like, but even in sleep there was a weary look about
her that was pitiful. "Poor little mite," I murmured,
** I've been unkind to you all day. Why won't you wake
up and kiss me ?"
But she did not wake ; and when, in the selfishness of
my self-reproach, I lifted her up and kissed her, in the hope
that it would rouse her, the little arms fell down, limp and
lifeless, and the little head sunk heavily back on the
pillow, and she slept on unmoved. My interference in the
raorning had not been without its effect ; as I left by one
door, ray aunt entered by another. She had been up twice
since morning, and I could see she was uneasy; but,
looking down at the child, I heard her say, in a tone of
relief:
" Ah ! she's sleeping nicely now !" and the voice of
Felicie responded blandly. I think it was a load off her
mind, for at dinner she was unusually affable.
Phil and Captain McGuffy were dining \vith us, and were
to accompany us in the evening. The captain was ex-
tremely gracious to me ; and as on former occasions he had
appeared as nearly unconscious of my presence as was
possible, I simply concluded that the sagacious captain wai.
like the rest* of the world, and was better satisfied to
trust looking through his neighbors' glasses than through
his own.
** Ever so many people," he said to me, as the soup was
being removed (the captain rarely conversed much while
there was anything engrossing or the table), "ever so
many people have asked me about sending you invitations^
278 KUTLEDGB.
and I've told 'em by all means; for you certainly were going
out."
" Wh;v didn't you remind them of Grace and Esther,
and let them have the whole of the nurseiy, while they
were about it ?" asked Josephine, scornfully.
'* Grace can speak for herself," said that young person,
tartly. " You may tell them, if they ask anything about
j/ie," she continued, turning to the captain, "that they
needn't look for my dibut tUl Josephine is disposed o^ and
I am, par excellence^ Miss Churchill."
*' Then," said the captain, gallantly, *' you will not have
a long time to wait, if what they say is true. I hear it
hinted, Miss Josephine, that since Mr. Rutledge came
from abroad this last time, he is quite changed, softened,
you know, and made rather a society man ; and they do
say that his friends in Gramercy Square have something to
do with it."
"I can't imagine how," said Josephine, all smiles and
biushes;
"If Joseph knew when she was well off," interposed
Grace, who loved to damp her sister's triumphs, "she
wouldn't blush ; she doesn't look well ; she grows maho-
gany color, doesn't she Phil. Why, you're blushing too !
What's the matter with everybody ?"
"Everybody is blushing at your rudeness," said Mrs.
Churchill, gravely. " I am sorry to be obliged to reprove
you at the table ; but I assume you, if you are not more
careful "
"Oh, mamma! you've always said it wasn't polite to
deliver a reprimand in company ; don't break through your
rule. I won't say another word about blushing. Let's
talk of something pleasanter. So," she continued, turning
to the captain, " they really say Mr. Rutledge wants to
marry Josephine ?"
" Grace, leave the table," said her mother, concisely, but
in a tone there was no mistaking, and which fell on the
B IX 1 L ED G B . 379
ears of the startled company with uncomfortable clearness,
nnd on none more unexpectedly than on those of the young
delinquent herself who had never been so unequivocally
disgraced before. She had trusted greatly to her mother's
partiality and her own acuteness in warding off reproof,
and this took her quite by surprise. She had not calcu-
lated the dangerous nature of the ground she was treading
on, nor the decision of her mother's character when once
roused, and so this edict came upon her like a clap of
thunder. She was constitutionally incapable of blushing,
or of looking confused, but she approached on this occa-
sion more nearly to a state of embarrassment than I had
ever supposed she could ; but recovering herself in a
moment, she deliberately folded her napkin and put it on
the table, pushed back her chair, made a low courtesy, and
8a3^g, "Bon soir, mesdames; bon soir, messieurs," re-
treated in good order.
Rather an awkward pause ensued upon her exit ; but it
was soon broken by Mrs. Churchill's half laughing apology
for her pertness, and Josephine was too much delighted
with her adversary's discomfiture to be long silent. And
she almost forgot to be spiteful to me, too, in the triumpb
of her acknowledged conquest. Even the dreaded task of
dressing and preparing for the ball was accomplished with-
out half of its accustomed drawbacks. Grace wisely kept
out of sight, and Frances was less fluttering and timid than
usual, so that at nine o'clock we all mustered in the parlor
with comparatively undisturbed tempers.
I had left Esther still asleep when I came down. Fclicie
had undressed her and put her back in bed without arous-
ing her. " You'd hardly let me go so quietly if you were
awake, I think," I said to myself, as I bent down to kiss
her.
I found myself much more excited than I meant to be, as
the oarriage drew near the Academy of Music. My excite*
ment, however, had time enough to cool, for carriageg
280 BTTTLEDGE.
m
choked the streets on every hand, and it was the work of
half an hour, to ejffect an entrance. The steps were crowded,
the lobbies were crowded, the cloak-room was ^a hopeless
crush, but the full sense of bewilderment did not overcome
me, till following the captain and Mrs. Churchill, we
ascended another pair of stairs, and passing through a side
door, stood looking down upon the magnificent scene
below. The captain said he had never seen anything finer
in this country, so I felt at liberty to be enchanted with it.
The decorations and lights were brilliant, the music delight-
ful, and the sight of so many thousands of gaily-dressed
people crowding the boxes, the passages, the floor, could
not fail to excite the enthusiasm of one so new to such scenes
as I was. To Josephine, on the other hand, the ball seemed
by no means a wholly rapturous ajffair. A ruthless foot had
trodden on her dress, and torn the lowest flounce ; Phil was
out of humor, and refused to be devoted ; the captain had
his hands full with mamma, and Josej)hine searched in vain
among the crowd for the one or ones she wanted. We weni
in a private box, and too far from the floor to recognize the
dancers easily, and by some neglect, the opera-glasses had
been left in the carriage. Josephine was unspeakably
annoyed. They might as well be looking out of the third-
story window at home, she declared. For me, the scene
was enough for the present, without any nearer interest in
it. If I could have been further forward, it would have
been pleasure enough to me to have looked on, but my aunt
and cousin occupying the front of the box, left me no view
of the house, but over their heads.
By and by, however, the door of the box opened, and
Mr. Rutledge entered. He had exchanged a few words
with me before Josephine saw him; her face lighted up
instantly, and after a cordial welcome from mamma, a place
was made for him in front. This, however, he declined to
occupy, as the captain had been on the ground before hini;
and was better entitled to the position. He had an opera-
BUTI EDGE. 281
glass, which he handed to Josephine, and good humor was
partially restored. The captain availed himself of the front
seat, and criticised the dancers for madame's benefit ; Phil
stood behind his pousin's chair, and Mr. Rutledge was left
to me. I knew this arrangement did not suit ; I knew my
aunt was heaiing veiy little of the captain's commentary ; I
knew that Josephine, but for Phil's jealous watchfulness,
would have paid much more heed to Mr. Rutledge's low
conversation with me, than to her desired opera-glass. I
remembered, but too vividly, the conversation at dinner ;
and though I struggled hard with my pride and my timidity,
the words died on my lips, my answers were hesitating and
resei'ved, and for the most part, insincere ;- 1 said the very
things that, the next moment, I would have given worlds to
have unsaid ; I felt that every word was estranging us more
hopelessly, and yet there seemed a spell upon us I could
not bo myself The questions I had meant to ask him, if I
shoiild ever have a chance, the sentences of which I had said
to myself a hundred times, I could now no more have uttered
than if they had been iu an unknown tongue.
When he spoke of Rutledge, the blood that always
flashed into ray face at the name, now rushed to my heart,
and left me paler and more listless than before. If my
manner wore any change while he talked of his return there
in a few days, and of my friends, Kitty and Stephen, Madge
and Tigre, it was an increased indifference and coldness. I
said no more than "yes" when he asked me if I still
remembered them with interest, and "I don't know
exactly," when he asked what message he should take to
them from me. Then he changed the subject, and with his
accustomed way of reading my face while he talked, he
asked me about my impressions of society. Which was most
to my taste now, city or country ?
" I don't know exactly," I said, hesitatingly.
" I think I know," he said, ^vith a laugh that nettled nie^
low and pleasant as it was. " I think there is small doulA
S82 BUT LEDGE.
about yonr preferences just now. You acknowledge my
wisdom at last, dc you not ? Tou see it was best for you
to come to the city?"
" Yes," I said, lifting my eyes for a moment. " Ton
were very right. I ought to thank you veiy much for your
advice."
" My dear," said my aunt, leaning toward us, " you can-
not see at all there. You must take my place for a little
while, I insist upon it."
The captain rose with great empressementy smd insisted
upon ray accepting his seat, and in the midst of the con-
fusion consequent upon this change, the door of the box
opened again, and Mr. Viennet entered. Mr. Rutledge was
placing a chair for me as I looked up and recognized the
new comer. The chilled and frightened blood that had
crept fluttering round my heart, at this moment rushed into
my face, and bui-ned guiltily in my cheeks, as I caught Mr.
Rutledge's eye. Mr. Viennet, after a moment devoted to
salutation, inquiry and compliment, entered a protest against
our remaining any longer in such a detestable corner, pro-
nouncing it c^etestable, in his charming little French way.
No one could get at us ; he had only found us by the
merest chance. We must come downstairs v3verybody
was on the floor everybody was dancing. He assured
madarae it wa& perfectly convenable; it was spoiling the
pleasure of too many to hide ourselves any longer.
This met Josephine's views exactly, and she importuned
"mamma" veiy prettily to yield. "Mamma" looked
doubtingly for a moment at Mr. Rutledge, who responded
to the look by saying that he really thought her strict ideas
of propriety might allow this liberty without sujffering any
outrage. It was something new for New York, but these
balls had taken very well, and the best people attended
them, not only as spectators, but as participators. As for
dancing, he said, with a slight shrug, he rather wondered at
any lady's liking suoh an exhibition; but a promenade
KCTLEDGE. 888
on the floor for half an hour or so, he leally should think
we would find more entertaining than remaining in oul
box.
This partly settled the wavering in Mrs. Churchill's mind,
and with a dainty sort of reluctance, she gave her consent to
our going on the floor for a little while.
" Cheek by jowl with Tom, Dick and Harry," muttered
Phil, giving his arm to Josephine, who took it with but in-
different grace, and bit her lip in annoyance, as, standing
nearest the door, Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Viennet at the same
moment offered me an arm. Can any girl understand the
impulse that made me accept Mr. Viennet's ? No man pos*
ribly can ; my only hope of comprehension is from my own
incomprehensible, perverse, self-torturing sex.
Once on the floor, it was hardly to be expected that wo
could obey my aunt's injunction to keep together, and
within sight of her. In five minutes her ennine and dia-
monds, and the captain's moustache and epaulettes, were,
though very dear, of course, to memory, utterly lost to
sight, and Paul and Virginia were not more romantically
alone than were we, in that vast human wilcierness. It was
a very amusing and nice thing to be lost. For half an hour
we searched for our party, though not, it must he confessed,
as if our whole happiness in life depended on our success,
but no trace of them could be discovered.
" We must amuse ourselves cdors^ mademoiselle, and let
them look for us," said my companion. " Was there ever
Buch a waltz before ? You cannot resist it any longer, I
know you cannot." "
Perhaps I might have resisted it, as well as his eloquent
pleading, if, raising my eyes at this moment to the boxes
we had occupied, I had not caught sight of Josephine and
Mr. Rutledge, who had returned there, evidently much
more interested in each other than in Jiriything below them,
** ni dance once," I said, and in a moment his arm was on
roy wakt^ and we were floating along the elastic floor to eiuch
284 BaTLEDGS.
music as the fairies dance to, on soft summer nights, with
the blue vault of heaven above their heads, and the gree^i
sward beneath their feet, and all wild ecstatic and mitamed
rapture thrilling in their elfin bosoms.
Conscience was drugged that night ; self-will and pride,
self-appointed regents, were holding sway as' only usurpers
can ; and the glowing hours fled away without record or
remorse.
^^ NHmporte^''^ murmured my companion, when I sug-
gested a doubt, and nHmporte I allowed it to be, as, whirl-
ing giddily from end to end of the vast area, or sauntering
slowly through the gradually lessening crowd, we let the
minntes slip away into hours. It was rather a startling
recall to stern reality, when, at one end of the hall, sud-
denly encountering Phil, he laid a heavy hand on my part-
ner's arm, exclaiming :
" Victor, my boy, if you've any mercy on that unlucky
girl, come this way. There is such a scolding in store for
her as she never had before. The carriage has been waiting
an hour, and the captain and I, being detailed for the de-
tective service, have pursued you faithfully, but you bave
eluded us most skillfully, I'll do you the justice to say !
And Mr. Rutledge and the ladies have watched you from
upstairs, and said well, we won't say what pretty things."
" Extraordinary 1" exclaimed Victor. " Why, we have
been hunting for you till we were entirely discouraged
disheartened, in despair !"
" Ah, well !" exclaimed Phil, with a laugh, leading the
way. " I only hope you'll be able to make Mrs. Churchill
believe it. It's my duty to prepare you for the worst, how-
ever."
" And our duty to be brave," said my comrade. " And
fortune favors such, they tell us, mademoiselle."
Certainly I could not feel otherwise than grateful to my
protector for his ingenious and powerful defence, as we ap-
peared before the cffended group at the door of the cloak
RUTLEOGK. 285
room. Though my aunt received it politely, I well -knew
the wrath that her knit brow portended, and Josephine's
look of contempt was unmistakable. Mr. Rutledge had his
visor down ; no earthly intelligence could discover any-
thing of his emotions through that impassive exterior.
Even the captain was irritated ; Phil was neutral, but Vic-
tor was my only friend.
" Good night," he whispered, as he put me into the car-
riage. "We'll finish that redowa at Mrs, Humphrey's
to-morrow night."
I wished, with all my heart, it was to-morrow night, and .
all that I for*saw must intervene, safely past. The scolding
was not to come before morning, I saw at once, and when
my aunt, on our arrival at home, dismissed me to my room,
it was with a cold, " I wish to Viave a few minutes' conver-
sation with you after breakfast to-morrow."
With that dread before me with a guilty sense of wrong-
doing, and a bitter sense of shame, a humbled condemns
tion of myself, and an angry resentment toward others, the
restless hours of that night offered anything but repose, aiiy
thing but pleasant retrospect or anticipation.
CHAPTER XXII.
*' And if some tones be false or low,
What are all prayers beneath
But cries of babes that cannot know
Half the deep thought they breathe V*
Eeblb.
Mus. CuuKCHiLL understood, if ever any did, the art of
reprimand. Without the least appearance of agitation her-
self, with a perfectly unmoved and stony composure, she
managed to overawe and disarm the prisoner at the bar,
whatever might be his or her offence, or shade or degree
of guilt. Defence died on my lips at the dreaded interview,
and I bore my sentence in silence, which was, a total seclu-
sion from society after to-night a return to the oblivion of
the nursery and study. This ball at Mrs. Humphrey's was
to be my last appearance in public till I should have learned
how to behave myself. As I had accepted, it was proper
I should go to-night, otherwise she would by no means have
allowed it.
'* Nous verronSy^^ I said to myseli^ as I went upstairs.
*' If I continue to want to go to parties, no doubt she will
have to let me go. I am a fraction too old to be put in a
dark closet, or sent to bed for being naughty, and Aunt
Edith knows it."
That Wednesday was a very busy day to Mrs. Churchill
and Josephine. A wedding reception took up the morning,
from which they returned but to dress for a dinner at the
Wymkars, and thence returning, made a hurried toilette for
the ball. It seemed making rather a toil of pleasure, if one
might judge from my aunt's haggard looks, and Josephine'a
impatient complaints,
280
BUTLEDGE. 287
There was an anxious contraction on Mrs. Churchill's
brow as she came down from the nursery after breakfast,
and apparently a struggle in her mind between home duties
and social duties, when it became necessary for her to de-
cide about going out. That she sincerely believed in the
stringent nature of both, no one could doubt who watched
her closely. It was not pleasure that took her away from
little Essie that morning ; it was a mistaken sense of duty.
She had set up for her worship an idol, in whose hard ser-
vice she had unconsciously come to sacrifice time, ease, and
Skfifection, as stoically as many have suffered in a cause
whose reward is not altogether seen and ended in this
world.
So it was, that, trying t^ make up for her absence by
many injunctions and cautions to those left in charge, she
turned her back upon the child for the greater part of the
day.
" I hoped," said she, as she paused at the nursery door,
in her rustling silk and heavy India shawl, " I hoped that
the doctor would have come before I went out, but I really
do not see but what you can do as well as I can, F61icie.
Pay. particular attention to his directions, and send John
out immediately for any prescription he may leave for her.
And be sure you tell him just how she was yesterday, and
how well she slept last night. I don't like," she continued,
taking off one glove to feel again of the child's hot forehead,
" her having fever again this morning. I thought yester-
day she was so much better."
" Oh, madam is too anxious. It is nothing but a little
excitement that has brought it on again," said the nurse.
**If madam would tell Mademoiselle Esther how very
naughty it is for her to cry to go into her cousin's room, ,.
and fret and strike me when I try to keep her quiet, per*
haps shet might mind better. It is that that brings her fever
on, madam, I am afraid."
*' Now, Esther," said her mother, with authority^ " 1
S88 KUT LEDGE.
Ciball have to punish you if you do so any more. I shall be
very angry if you do not mind F61icie to-day, and if yea
hurt or strike her, remember I shall punish you when I
oume back do you hear ?" -
Esther heard, yes. She sat bolt upright in her little bed,
and looked at the speaker with her pardied Ups parted, and
a strange, bewildered expression in her eyes, and a restless
movement of her tiny hands. Before the interview was
over, however, the startled look had settled into a vacant,
listless stare ; and a peevish moan, after her mother left the
room, was all the evidence she gave of being impressed or
alarmed by the injunctions laid upon her. I heard the
miserable little complainer unmoved as long as I could,
after a Awhile, putting down my book, I went into the
nursery. She stretched out her arms, and cried :
" Take me to your room."
*' K you wiU stop crying," I said, taking her up in my
arms, and wrapping her dressing-gown about her.
Felicie looked up quickly, and said, ^^ Madame a dit
que non.^^
Felicie always lied in her native tongue, and this was
but an additional proof to me that madame had said no
such thing, and I told her so, rather strongly. Grace
came in just then, and Felicie appealed to her for confirma-
tion.
" Certainly," said Grace, promptly, " mamma's last
charge was that Esther should not go_ out of the nursery ;
so, missy, you may just make yourself easy where you are.
Don't suppose everybody is going to spoil you like your
precious cousin there."
Essie still clung tightly round my neck ; much, however,
as my pride rebelled, there was no way but to submit to
the orders they promulged. So, carrying her back to the
bed, and loosening her arms from my neck, I put her down
with,
" No matter, sweetheart ; if Mahomet brings his work,
BUTLEDGB. 280
and sits down by the mountain, that will do a well, will it
not ?
'*I don't know what you mean," said the child, un-
easily.
** She means to plague you, Esther ; she's been scolded
this morning, and she's in bad humor," said Grace.
** Don't throw stones. Miss Grace," I retorted. " I
wasn't sent away from the table, if I was scolded.''
" Mamma'll never forget your performance last night, the
longest day she lives," continued Grace. " I never saw her
half so angry before. In fact, from all accounts, you must
have got it from aU quarters, but what Mr. Rutledge said
was the worst."
" What did he say, pray ?"
" WotddnH you like to know !" she cned, m her teasmg,
fichool-girl fashion.
" I don't believe you could tell me, if I did."
"I could if I wanted to," she exclaimed. "I heard
znamma and Josephine talking it over this morning. The
door of the dressing-room was open a crack, and * I
heard every word. Now, honey, donH you wish I'd tell
you ?"
'*I don't want to hear half as much as you want to tell
me," I returned, trying to be unmoved.
" Ohi I don't be uneasy on my account," she said. " I
haven't the least idea of telling you. Only, I didn't sup-
pose Mr. Rutledge could be so severe, and on * his little
friend,' too !"
" That ^for Mr. Rutledge !" I exclaimed, with a disdain-
ful snap of ray fingers. " I don't care the fraction of a pin
for his opinion !"
** I'll tell him," cried Grace, with delighted eyes.
" Do," I answered ; and hiding my burning face on the
pillow with Esther, I said :
"What shall we do to amuse ourselves this moming.
Shall I tell you a story ?"
13
990 BUTLBDGB.
" Yes," said Esther, looking pleased.
"Ask her to tell you about the ball last night, and
Mr. Victor Viennet," said Grace, as she went -out of the
door.
" No," said the little girl, " Pd rather have her tell me
about the little dog Tigre at Rutledge, and how he used to
stand outside of her door, and whine to come in. Won't
you now ?"
" Oh, that's tkesome, Essie," I said, " I'll tell you some-
thing else."
" Then tell me about the boys that stole the chestnuts,
and about the lake, and the great trees, and the artemisias
and the grapevines in the garden. Tell me, won't you
now ?" she went on, coaxingly.
*' You'd rather hear a fairy story, Esther," I said ; " or
something out of your pretty Christmas book, I am
sure."
" No," said Esther, " I want to hear about the country,
I wish they'd take me to the country," she continued,
wearily ; then, raising herself on her elbow, and looking at
me earnestly, she said, " do you believe they ever will ?
Do you believe I'll be made to always stay in this nursery,
without any flowers or birds, or anything I like? If I
should die in it, would I stay in it always, or would they
take me out ? Tell me, would they ?"
" Of course, Essie," I said, half impatiently, uncomfort-
able under her earnest eyes. "I do not like to hear
you talk so. You know, I've told you often, that there's a
home for us where we shall go after we die, better than
^ny home here, where good children are, and holy men and
women ; and it's all a great deal brighter and happier than
anything we can imagine; so don't trouble yourself to think
about it ; only be good."
** But I am not good," she said, with a sort of agony in
her voice ; " you know I am not."
** Essie," I said, soothingly, drawing her toward me
BUTLEDGB. 291
" nobody is good. I am not, and you are not, and nobody
ifl ; but if we are sorry when we're wrong, and ask God to
forgive us, and help us, He will, you may be sure. Why,
Essie, He loves you, little foolish girl as you are, more than
you can possibly tell. He loves you, and he would not let
you perish for anything."
" Are you sure of that ?" she said, eagerly.
" Perfectly sure," I answered.
" Madame ordered," said Felicie, " that Miss Esther
should be kept perfectly quiet. She's talking too much,
and exciting herself. It would be better to have the room
darkened, and let her go to sleep."
" I can't go to sleep, and she shan't go away," exclaimed
the child.
"I haven't the least idea of going, Essie; so lie down, and
I'll tell you about the countiy."
And, till my own heart ached as hers did, in its narrow
city bounds, I told her of the country, and how soon tho
first warm spring days would loose the ice-bound brooks,
and let the pines see themselves once more in the lake.
And in the lots, the violets would be springing up thickly
in the moist sod, and the faint green would be coloring the
meadows and lawns, and the skies would be soft and blue,
and the slow, warm wind would waft along the fleecy
clouds, and stir the budding trees, and linger over the soft,
wet earth, and creep into cold and wintry houses, and into
cold and wintry hearts, and stir all things with a sense of
warmth and ecstasy.
Throughout the day I hardly left my little cousin ; she
was feverish and restless, and never closed her eyes or rested
a moment. About four o'clock, however, I went down to
practise for an hour, and when I came upstairs again, she
had Mien asleep. Her mother, coming up at the same
time, was much relieved to find her sleeping, and Felicie
gave a very satisfactory account of her ; so that she dressed
for the dinner in comparative comfort. The doctor's visit
S92 BUTLBDGB.
had occurred while I was downstaii-s, and hadT been a very
huiTied one. Grace and I dined alone, very sociably and
cheerfully, Grace reading a French novel, and I " the New-
comes," in all the pauses of the meal.
I went upstairs as soon as it was over, and found Esther
still asleep. It was a wet, miserable evening. The rain
was dripping slowly and heavily from the roof to the
window-sill, and from the window-sill to the piazza below.
A thick, suffocating fog, possessed the earth, through
which the distant lights blinked drearily ; even the noises
of the streets sounded muffled and subdued. It was so
warm, that the low soft-coal fire in the grate seemed oppres-
sive ; yet, when I opened the window, there was a damp,
choking heaviness in the air that was worse, even, than the
dry heat of the room. It seemed as if the spirit of the fog
was sitting a night-mare on my breast, and pressing down
with a hand like lead the beating of my heart, and stopping
my very breath. There was no shaking off the weight, nor
driving away the gloomy fancies that the hour bred. It
was in vain that I lit the gas, and closed the blinds, and
laying my ball-dress on the bed, tried to interest myself in
my preparations for the evening. Between me and all plea-
sant anticipation, there hung a black pall of presentiment,
and no effort of my will could put it aside. The very
struggle to free myself from it, seemed to make the gloom
close thicker around me. The house was so still ; the ser-
vants were all downstairs ; the ticking of the clock on the
nursery mantelpiece was all the sound that broke the stiU-
ness, and that, so regular, so monotonous, was worse than
tiiience. It was a time
* Fop thought to do her part,"
for conscience and reason to be heard. Should I go mto
the world and try to forget it ? Should I leave the little
helpless child asleep ihere, in charge of a woman I distrosted
BUTLEDGE. 293
and disliked, and go where music and pleasure would drown
the dread for her that was gnawing at my heart ? Wliat,
that was good for hours of trial, had I learned in my short
experience of pleasure ? What, that I could remember
with satisfaction, had occurred in the two nights of gaiety
that I had just passed through? What, in the flatteries of
Victor Viennet, in the admiring eyes of strangers, in the
envy of my cousin, that I could dare to remember in
church on Sunday under a quiet evening sky or on a
fresh, pure early summer morning? Alas I it was out of
tune with all of these ; there was utterly a fault about it it
tuiTied to ashes as I grasped it. It was not true pleasure.
It was not a worthy pursuit. As far as I had followed it
already, it had led me into sin, into pride, insincerity and
anger. It had done me no good. I felt that. Had I the
courage to put it away from me now ? Could I say, with-
out an effort, I will keep myself out of the way of seeing
.Victor Viennet again ? I will never remember but to con-
demn the hours that I have spent with him ? Could I
return to the dull routine I had formerly marked out for
myself, without an ejffort that would cost me many tears ?
But if I could not do this, what was my religion worth ?
If this self-denial was so hard, did it not prove that
the world had got a very tight hold of my heart, and
that the sooner I wrenched myself from its grasp the
better ?
On the other hand, there was no definite reason why I
should not' go, there was only this vague feeling of uneasi-
ness about Essie that toimented me and kept me back, and
this unsettled question about the profitableness of going into
the world. How should I decide ? My affection for my
little cousin tugged strongly at my heart. Pride and incli-
nation pulled as fiercely the other way. A feeling that I did
not give a name to, but which was stronger than either,
prompted me to follow my own desires, and leave Essie to
her &te. What business was it of mine ^ If other people
294 BUT LEDGE.
neglected their children^ and left their duties for their plea
sures, why need I concern myself? Why need I take upon
myself their discarded responsibilities ?
At last I stole on tiptoe to the bed again, to see if she
Htill slept. Not much sleep in those frightened eyes.
" Why ! Essie, my pet, when did you wake up ?"
With a sigh of relief, and a little relaxing of the look of
terror, she raised herself up, and saying hurriedly, " how
still it is ! I thought you had gone away," she twined both
small hands tightly round my wrist.
" Oh, no !" I said, sitting down by her, " it isn't time yet,
I shall not go for an hour or two."
" Don't go at all, please don't go," whispered the child,
panting for breath, and clinging to me in an agony. " If
you knew how awful it was to be alone, and how still the
room was, you wouldn't leave me, indeed you wouldn't.
Besides," she went on hurriedly, " how can you tell what'll
become of me while you're gone ? Nobody else love*
me, nobody else is good to me. I am troublesome and
wicked only God and you care anything about me."
It was usgless to soothe or reason with her now. I knew
little of illness, but I saw in a moment that the wild delirium
of fever was burning in my little companion's veins, and
raging in her brain. I was frightened at the strength of
the little hands that fastened themselves on mine, and the
hurry and wildness of the broken sentences she uttered.
All I could do, was to promise that I would not go, and
assure her that there were no " ugly shadows " on the
wall that nobody was' coming to take her away-r-that it
was all because her head ached so. But when F^licie
appeared, it was a less easy matter to control her. She
Boreamed, and hid her face, and cried to me to send her
away she hated her she gave her horrid stufl she made
her angry, and a thousand other vehement exclamations in
alternate French and English. The nurse, with a subdued
glare of anger in her eyes, would fain have soothed her, for
BUTLEDGB. 295
her voice, shrill with the strength of fever, could easily have
been heard downstairs, and Mrs. Churchill had come home
and was now in her dressing-room. My alarm had over-
come my pride by this time, and loosing my hands from the
child's grasp, I gave her into Felicie's charge, and ran dQwn-
stairs.
The door of the dressing-room was locked, and it was
some minutes before I was admitted, and during those
minutes, my alarm had time to cool, and when at last
I entered the room, it was with a full recollection of
the last rebuff I had received when I pleaded Esther's cause,
and a cold determination to do my duty and no more.
" Why ure you not dressed, if you intend accompanying
us ?" she said.
" I do not intend going this evening," I answered ; " and
I came, Aunt Edith, to say that I think you had better see
Esther before you go out ; she has a great deal of fever, and
is very much excited."
I never before had realized how' dangerous a thing it
was to touch with even the daintiest hand, the festering
wound that both pride and remorse conspire to hide from
the sight even of the sufferer's self. I could not have done
anything worse for poor Essie's cause, than just what I did
do, and she shared 'with me in the feeling of vexation
and resentment that my words awakened in her mother's
breast.
I soon forgot the severity of the rebuff I had received,
however, when coming into the nursery, I took the strug-
gling child from F^licie, and watched with anxiety the
gradual subsiding of the fit of passion that had convulsed
her. From whatever cause it might be, she was evidently
growing quieter, and in less than half an hour, the little
head on my arm had relaxed its tossings, and sunk into
repose, while a dreamy languor dulled the wildness of her
eyes, and save when the slightest movement woke an
alarm that I would leave her she luy quite motionless.
296 RDTLEDGE.
" She is belter now," said Felicie, in a low tone, who wae
watching her with her basilisk eyes as she lay appai'eutly
sleeping. A nervous tightening of the slight fingers on my
wrist at the sound of her voice, showed me that it was only
apparently.
When Mrs. Churchill had completed her toilette, she
came upstairs. Esther, with her long eyelashes sweeping
her crimsoned cheeks, lay so quiet that there seemed some
reason in her mother's cutting rebuke for the unnecessary
alarm I had given her. I began to feel heartily ashamed of
it myself, and wondered that I had been so easily fright-
ened, Felicie, with a wicked look of exultation, said, that
if Miss Esther hadn't been in a passion, she wouldn't have
brought the fever on again. She had been better all day,
the doctor had said she had scarcely any fever, when he
was here.
Mrs. Churchill hoped, with a withering look, that I would
get used to ill temper in time, and not think it necessary to
disturb the household whenever Esther had a fit of crying.
Then feeling the child's pulse, and giving many and minute
directions for the care of her during the night, she went
away. As, a moment after, the hall door clpsed with a
heavy sound, a momentary tremor passed over the child^s
frame, and opening her eyes, a strange light fluttered for
an instant in them, as she murmured, "you will not go
Hway ?" then closed them again, and she seemed to sleep.
I watched beside her for an hour ; then releasing myself
from her unresisting hands, and kissing her lightly, I went
into my own room,
I returned several times to look at her again, before I put
the light out and lay down to sleep. How many times the
monotonous nursery-clock struck the half hour before I
slept, I cannot tell ; the heavy air was broken by no other
sound ; there was nothing in the silent house, shrouded by
the close fog without and the dead silence within, to keep
me awake, yet it was long before I slept. But sleep, when
JSUTLEDGE. 297
It oame, was heavy and dreamless ^a sort of dull stifling of
ooDsoiousiiess, in keeping with the night.
Hours of this sleep had passed over me, when a fierce
grasp upon my arm, and a hissing voice in my ear, woke me
with a terrified start, and chilled me with horror, as strug*
gling to collect my senses, I tried to comprehend F61icie's
frantic wc.rds. In a moment, they made their way to my
brain, and burned themselves there.
" I've given her too much I cannot wake her I O mon
Dieu I Je Vai tuee ! Je Vai tuie /"
A horrible sickening faintness for an instant rushed over
me, then a keen sense of agony like an electric flash thrilled
through me, and without a look, a thought, a word, I was
kneeling at the little bed in the nursery. But, as my eager
eyes searched the whitened face on the pillow there, and as
my aching ears listened for the almost inaudible breathing,
and my hand touched the cold arms that lay outside the
covei's, such a cry burst from my lips as might have waked
the dead, if dead were indeed before me. But there was
no voice nor answer ; there was an awful stillness when I
listened for response ; when I raised my eyes in wild appeal
from the white face of the child, there was but a horrible
face above me, whereon was all the pallor of death, without
its calm repose ; such a face as the lost and damned may
wear when their sentence is new in their ears when
endless perdition is but just begun, and life and hope but
just cut off.
, Another moment, and all the house was roused. Putting
back, with one strong effort, the agony and hopelessness
that welled up from my heart, I mastered myself enough to
direct the terrified and helpless servants. Dispatching dif-
ferent ones to the nearest doctors I could think of, another
fjr my aunt, another for all the restoratives that occurred
to me, the next few minutes of suspense passed.
But before the doctor could arrive, I knew there was no
Deed of his coming. There had been a little flutter oi f.he
13'
298 BUT LEDGE.
drooping e}'elid, ever so slight a quiver of the parted lip^
and bending down, I had listened, with agonized suspense,
for the low breathing, and called her name with the tender-
ness that never finds perfect expression tiU death warns us
it shall be the last. Then a little arm crept round my neck,
the soft eye opened for a moment, a sigh stirred the bosom
that my forehead touched, and, as the arm relaxed its faint
clasp, I knew that Essie was a stranger and an alien no
longer, but was where it were better for us all to be where
there is peace, eternal, imbroken, beyond the reach of sin
forever.
For those first moments, when I knelt alone beside the
little bed, with the soft arm stiU round my neck, and the
breath of that sigh still on the air, there was no feeling that
I had suffered a bereavement, that death and sorrow had
entered the house ; but holy thoughts of God and heaven
strange longings for the rest that she had entered into a
gort of hushed and hallowed awe, as if the new angel still
lingered, with a half regret at leaving me alone as if the
parting, if parting there were to be, were but for a " little
while "as if the communion of saints were so divine and
comfortable a thing, that there was no need for tears and
sorrow.
But when there came a sudden tumult below, hurried
steps upon the stairs, a sound beside me, a pause, and then
a cry that made my blood freeze in my veins, I knew that
there was more than joy in heaven ^that there was bitter
agony on earth : that there was more than an angel won
above ^that there was a child dead below a household in
mourning a mother's heart writhing in torture a judg-
ment fallen a punishment following close upon a sin a
remorse begun that no time could heal, that no other life
could quench, no other love allay.
CHAPTER XXm.
"Back, then, complaincr; loathe thy life no more,
Nor deem thyself upon a desert shore,
Because the rocks the nearer prospect close/'
Eeble.
FixiciE had fled. When, in the agonized confusion of
that dreadful night, she was at last remembered and
searched for, there was no trace of her to be found, and all
future inquiry 'Was equally unavailing. The wretched wo-
man need not have concealed herself with such desperate
fear ; no one felt any heart to search her out, or revenge on
her the death of her little charge. No one of that sad
household but knew, in their hearts, that there was a sin at
more than her door a sin thiit lay heavy in proportion to
its mmaturalness and strangenes^).
Those were wretched nights and days that followed little
Esther's death. The vehement grief that, in the first houi*8
of amazement and remorse, had burst jfrom the miserable
mother, was succeeded by a calm more unnatm-al and more
alarming. My heart ached for the misery that showed
itself but too plainly in her haggard face and restless eyes ;
but, shutting herself up in her cold and speechless wretch-
edness, from all sympathy, I longed, but did not dare, to
offer any. And I, perhaps more than any other, involun-
tarily recalled the phantom she was trying to fly, the re-
morse that she was struggling to subdue. Though her
self-control, even then, was almost perfect, I could see that
she never looked at me unmoved ^that she winced at any
attention from me, as if a newly bleeding woimd had been
roughly handled, and shrunk more than ever into herself
She refused all visitors, even the most intimate. Josephine
W9
800 BUTLEDGB.
was the only one of the family whose presence did not seein
to pain her, and at times even she was sent away. She wa6
too strong and proud a woman not to bear her sorrow, as
he bore all other emotions, alone. 'Not even Josephine
saw any further into her heart than strangers did.
With the resumption of the ordinary household ways,
came the cold insincerity that custom sanctions, of banishing
from familiar mention the name that, a month ago, had been
a household word, now recurring hourly to the lips, but
hourly to be hushed and sent back to deal another pang to
the aching heart. No more allusion was made to Essie
than i^ a few short weeks ago, she had not been one ot
this small cii*cle, the youngest, and " the child," who, wel-
come or unwelcome, had necessarily, and by virtue of her
position, claimed some part of the time and notice of those
around her.
It was impossible to define how much of the subdued
apathy of Grace's manner was owing to the grief she felt at
her sister's loss, and how much to a sort of cowardly ner-
vousness and shrinking from the idea of death. For days
after the shock, she was like my shadow, dreading, evidently
more than anything else, to be left alone, shunning her
mother and everything that brought the hatefiil subject to
her thoughts, trying, with all ingenuity, to divert herself
and think of other things. It was useless to attempt to
lead her higher, to make her see in her little sister's death
anything but dread and horror. She shrunk from, all men-
tion of it with aversion, and turned eagerly to any diverting
subject, and before any other member of the family, she
shook off the depression it had caused. With Josephine it
had been different. At first she was awe-struck and
stunned, and for a while there seemed a danger of her fidl-
ing into a morbid state of feeling ; but as the freshness of the
shook wore away, her elasticity returned, and with it the
old impatience and imperiousness, that the absence of
amusement and excitement only heightened.
JRUl LEDGB. 301
A storm indeed had passed over our h( use, but a stonxi
that had not purified and cleared the atmosphere, only left
it more dose and sultry than before ; the black sky indeed,
had biightened again, leaving comparative sunshine over-
head^ but threatening clouds still lingered around the hori-
zon, and distant rumbling still warned of danger.
I. missed more than I had fancied possible, my little com-
panion and pupil. No hour in the day but brought some
fresh souvenir of the tortured young life that had ended its
penance so early, the shrinking little soul that had been
released so soon. It was not seldom, in those dark days,
that I thought, with something like envy, of the peace she
had inherited, and ' with something like repining of my
lonely lot. How many years of warfare might stretch
between me and the end ; how many chances that I might
faiJ or faint, grow weary, or yield to sin ; while the little
child I had so long looked upon with pity, so long tried to
help and guide, now redeemed and safe, and everlastingly
at peace, had passed " the golden portals of the City of the
Blest." Good angels had pitied her, struggling and bewil-
dered on her way, and lifting her in their arms, had carried
her home ; floating through the blue ether, in a moment oi
time she had passed the rough and weary road that would
have taken a lifetime to have traversed alone. But no
angels, it seemed to me, looked on my weary path ; no
sympathy, from heaven or of men, came to help me as I
pressed on alone. Parting and death, repentance and self-
accusation made that Lent a time of heartfelt sorrow ; and
before Easter-week was over, the low fever that had been
hanging about me since the spring began, accomplished its
errand, and laid me on a tedious bed of sickness.
Is there any one who has ever been sick " away from
home," among strangers, courteous *and attentive, perhaps,
but whose courtesy and attention were of duty, not love,
Uiat cannot understand what it was to be lying, day after
day, in a "home" like mine, knowing it was Ihe only one
309 BUTLEDGB.
I bad a right to, or a hope of, this side heaven, and know
ing, through all the exaggeratmg excitement of fever, and
the languid hopelessness of slow convalescence, that in it
there was no one to whom the care of me was not a
penance, that no hour was so grudged as that spent by my
bedside ? Cold &ces met me when I waked from my fever-
ish, troubled sleep, commonplace, imsympathetic voices
fell upon my ear, when, unnerved and childish, I longed
for nothing so much as for a kind word or a caressing
touch.
They were very attentive ; I had every care ; my reco-
very was as rapid as the doctor wished ; it had not been a
very alarming illness ; nobody was particularly excited
about it. They said it was a " light case," and I could not
be doing better. They had a right to know, certainly;
but oh ! the weariness of that dark room, the length of
those spring days, the stillness of those warm nights,
the loathing of those city sounds, the longing for the
countiy !
June was now not many weeks off; and hour after houi,
the question, "would Mr. Rutledge remember his pro^
mise ?" perplexed my brain. I knew I had done enough
to have forfeited it; I knew it had been made hastily;
that, indescribably and unaccountably, he was changed
since then, and we had ceased to be anything like friends.
Stni, I was nearly certain he would keep his word ; what-
ever else he might forget, he would not forget that. No
matter if it bored him, as I almost knew it would, I was
sure he would do it just the. same. Though I had a thou-
sand fears that I should not be allowed to go, I knew I
should be sent for, and I was not disappointed
It was the first morning that I had breakfasted down-
Btaii's ; I had been well enough for a week, but a languor
and indifference possessed me that made me averse to all
thought of change or exertion. Now, however, that I was
actually in the cool dining-room, where white cnrtainB
Bt/TLBDGB. 808
replaced the heavy winter drapery of the windows, and
white matting the thick carpet, I wondered that I had not
made the effort before. It was vastly more attractive than
my own room, certainly ; and the parlors, as I glanced into
them, looked in comparison, almost imposing in their vast-
ness. The world, I saw, had been creeping in again.
There were notes and cards on the table, and a lovely
basket of violets ; the piano was open, and some new music
lay on it. Josephine, too, at breakfast, talked of drives
and engagements that showed the days ox mourning were
over. There was little difference in my aunt's manner
from- formerly, but she looked ten years older, and was
somewhat colder and more precise.
" Who on earth can that be from ?" Grace exclaimed,
as John brought in the letters, and Mrs. Churchill took up
the only one that did not look like an invitation or a mil-
liner's circular. " It's from out of town," she continued,
reaching out her hand for the envelope, as her mother laid
it down. "It's postmarked Rutledge ! What can Mr,
Rutledge have to say to mamma ? Joseph, doesn't your
heart beat ?"
If Joseph's didn't, mine did, and so quickly, too, that I
felt sick and faint, and dreaded lest Grace's prying eyes
should inquire the cause of my alternating color. But the
letter absorbed the attention of all, and I could only wait
tiU Mrs. Churchill should divulge its contents. Josephine
tried to look undisturbed, but there was an accent of impa-
tience in her tone, as she said :
" Well, dear mamma, may I see it, if ever you should
finish it ? I suppose there is nothing that I may not know
about."
" It is a very kind letter," said Mrs. Churchill, as she
glanced back to the beginning; "very kind, indeed, and
you are all interested in it. Mr. Rutledge says that he has
been detained at his place several weeks longer than he had
anticipated, and there is now a prospect of his being obliged
804 BUTLEDOJB.
to remain till possibly the middle of sammer; iu which
event, he thinks that we could not do a kinder thing than
oome and pay him a visit. He describes the country as
looking very delightf illy, and promises all sorts of rural
amusements if we will come ; and, by way of insuring the
enjoyment of the young ladies, he begs we will make up a
party to accompany us, and suggests the Wynkars, Mr.
Reese, Captain McGruffy, Phil, of course, and any one else
we may choose to ask. He is really very urgent, and begs
we will not refuse to enliven the gloomy old mansion with
our presence for awhile. He puts it entirely into my hands,
and begs I will invite whom I choose.**
"Delightful!" exclaimed Josephine. "Mamma, could
anything be nicer ?"
"Mr. Rutledge is 'a gentleman and a scholar,'" said
Grace; "he ought to be encouraged. You'll accept, of
course ?"
" Gela depend^"* said her mother, thoughtftilly.
" Oh, mamma !" cried Josephine, " you cannot dream of
remsmg. What possible objection can there be? We do
not want to go to Newport before the middle of July, and
of course we can't stay in town all through June. This is
the very thing ; and you know I'd rather go to Rutledge
than any other place in the world. Surely, mamma, you
cannot think of refusing."
There are a great many things to be considered, my dear."
Ah," cried Grace, with unusual animation, " there'U be
no peace till you say, yes. I long to get out of this dusty
city. What else does he say, mamma ?"
" Not much," answered her mother, glancing down the
second page. " He says he only heard a few days ago of
my niece'ri illness, which he hopes will not prove serious,
and that a change of air, and return to the scene of hei
last year's convalescence will be of benefit to her."
"How do you imagine he heard she had been sick?*'
asked Grace.
(CI
((
&U TLEDGB. 305
" I haven't the least idea, I am sure," said Josephine
"It's of no great consequence, any way. But, mamma,
who shall we ask ? The captain, of course, and Phil, and, I
Bappose, the Wynkars ; Ella will be delighted, no doubt,
and think it's all on her account ! And about Mr. Reese
he's such a tiresome old fogie, let's get somebody in his
place."
" Ask Victor Viennet," said Grace, "just to spite Ella
Wynkar. You know she hates him. He's as nice as any-
body."
" I haven't quite made up my mind," said Josephine, with
dignity.
"Wait till I have made up mine," said her mother,
quietly.
So this was the way which Mr. Rutledge had found to
keep his promise to me, and gratify his own wishes at the
same time. It took away all the pleasure of my anticipa-
tions, however, to have it fulfilled in this way. It seemed
to me a sort of desecration of the grand, quiet stateliness of
the old place to have all these gay people invading it. I
could hardly fency it full of careless, noisy, chattering
guests, resounding with the captain's loud laugh, and Ella
Wynkar's unmeaning cackle. What would Mrs. Roberta
Bay ? How would Kitty like it ?
CHAPTER XXIV.
^ In all his humors, whether grave or mellow,
He's sach a testy, touchy, pleasant fellow.
Has so much mirth, and wit, and spleen about him,
There is no living with him, or without him."
Tbe next station will be Rutledge/' said Phil, leaning
back to announce the fe-ct to the detachment of oir party
in the rear.
" I am not sorry to hear it, for one," said Ella Wynkar^
with a yawn. "Josephine, ch^re, are you not tired to
death ?"
But Josephine, chdre, was too busy with collecting
books, shawls, and bags, and loading the captain there
with, in anticipation of our arrival at the station, to vouch-
safe an answer.
"Travelling all day is rather exhausting," said Phil,
looking at his watch. " It's half-past six a little behind
time, but it won't hurt Mr. Rutledge to wait for us awhile.
Ah! there's the whistle. We shall be at the "station in an-
other minute. Now, Aunt Edith, if you and Miss Wynkar
will trust yourselves to me, I think the rest are provided
for. Victor ! what are you about ? Don't you see we're
here, man ?"
Victor started up, and taking my parasol and shawl,
offered me his arm as the train stopped, and the conductor
bursting open the car door, shouted " Rutledge !" as if we
were to escape for our lives.
I heard Mr. Rutledge's voice before I saw him. We
were the last of the party, and there being a little crowd
at the car-door, we were obliged to stand for a moment in
806
BUILBDGB. 307
fflde, ivhile the others stepped on the platform. It was a
lovely June evening ; the air was fresh and soft, and the
sunset had left a rich glow on the sky, and lighted up with
new verdure the green earth. It was so delicious to be out
of the city ; it was so bewildering to feel I was at Rutledgo
again. And with a beating heart, I followed my escort, aa
he forced a way for me through the crowd, and stepped
down on the platform.
Mr, Rutledge was waiting to receive ua^ I was not quite
self-possessed enough myself to be certain that I saw a
slight change in his manner as he recognized my compan-
ion ; if it did occur, however, it was overcome as quickly,
and he welcomed Mr. Viennet courteously. With a few
words of welcome and congratulation upon my recoveiy,
he led the way toward the carriage. My aunt and Miss
Wynkar were already in it. Josephine and Captain
McGuffy were established in a light wagon by themselves,
while the open carriage and the bays stood as yet unappro-
priated.
" I think, Mrs. Churchill," said Mr. Rutledge, standmg
at the open door of the carriage, " that perhaps you had
better make a place for this young lady inside. She is not
very strong as yet, I fancy, and the evening air "
" Oh ! pray," I exclaimed, shrinking back, " let me go m
the open carriage. I hate a close carriage ^it always makes
my head ache."
"There's not the least dampness in the air to-night,"
urged Mr. Viennet, and meeting with no further opposi-
tion, I turned to the open carriage, and at a whispered sug-
gestion from him, mounted up upon the front seat. He
sprang up beside me, and taking the reins from Michael^
who, bowing delightedly, had been saying, " Welcome back,
Miss," ever since the train stopped, we only waited for
Grace and Ellerton Wynkar to get in, before we started
off at a round pace, leaving the carriage and the captain^
and Mr. Rutledge, who ^a& on horseback, far bchmd.
808 BUTLEDGB.
It was a lovely evening. The fields and woods were in
their freshest green ; everything, from the grass by the
roadside to the waving forest trees, looked as they never
can look after June. The dust of summer, and its parching
heat, had not yet soiled and shrivelled the smallest leaf or
blade ; but fresh from the warm spring rains, and the plea*
sanv spring sunshine, they budded and shone as if there
were no such thing as scorching summer heats, and choking
dust, and parching thirst, to come. The sky ^fit sky to
bend over such an earth ^was of the clearest blue, and the
few clouds that hung around the setting sun were light and
fleecy, tinged with rose and tipped with gold. The soft
breeze, coming out of the west over fields of clover and
acacias in bloom, and lilac hedges, and cottage gardens full
of early flowers, and cottage porches covered with blowing
roses and climbing honeysuckles, steeped the listening
senses with a sort of silent ecstasy, that made commonplace
conversation a profanation of the hour. Why would Grace
and her companion keep up such a constant chattering. It
was unbearable; and when EUerton, leaning forward, offered
Victor his cigar-case, the latter, with a quick gesture ^f im-
patience, exclaimed :
" Ah ! merely not to-night. It's too nice an evening, my
good friend, to be spoiled with such perfumes. The young
ladies like roses better than cigars, I fancy."
And Ellerton, who reverenced Victor as a high authority
on all social questions, quietly put away his cigar-case, and
said no more about it.
It was a long drive from the station to the house, and
our hopes of being the first of the f arty to arrive, were
dashed by the occurrence of a little accident just as we
entered the village. The off horse, shying violently at a
loaded wagon, as we passed it rapidly, reared and fell bact
breaknig the pole in two, and throwing himself and his fol-
low into ecstasies of fear, plunging and struggling with the
want of presence of mind, and the reckless disregard of ooo-
BUTLEDGE. 809
seqneuceft always manifested by terrified horsoflesh under
Girconistances of sudden alarm.
Victor, however, was a good horseman, and after a short
battle, brought them to terms, Grace, meantime, shrieking
violently, and Ellerton imploring him to let him get the
ladies out at once, which looked rather like one word for
the ladies and two for himself. Victor requested him
simply to hold his tongue and sit still, and Ellerton, with-
out a remonstrance, acquiesced, as the horses, now sub-
dued, stood quite unresisting, while Victor, giving the
reins to me, sprang down, followed by Michael from behind,
and the countryman, whose load of brush had caused the
accident. We were, fortunately, just by a blacks with's
^ed, and in a few minutes that official himself, in his
leathern apron and bare arms, was busily employed in
remedying the mishap.
The horses were still a little restive, and Victor was
standing by the head of one and Michael by the other,
when the rest of the party came up. Quite an excitement
was created, of course, at seeing us in this disabled condi-
tion, and our host, springing from his horse, hurried up in
some alarm to ascertain for himself the extent of the acci
dent, which Ellerton Wynkar, standing up in the carriage,
explained at large to the rest of the party, adding that, " it
might have been something serious if we had not been very
prompt."
Victor bit his lip to keep from laughing, and Grace
turned ^way her head ; nothing but the consciousness ol
uot having distinguished herself during the action, re
strained her from bringing down Mr. Wynkar " a peg or
two " by a statement of facts.
Mr. Rutledge, finding that the repairing of the pole
was likely to occupy some little time longer, said that the
young ladies had better get in the carriage ; he had no
doubt Mr. Arbuthnot would willingly give up his seat.
Phil, of course, most urgently begged we would do so,
810 BUTLEDGE.
but for me, the idea of being cooped up in the carriage
with Mrs. Churchill, and Ella, and Grace, was insupport*
able, and I expressed my resolution of staying by the ship.
Mr. Viennet and the smithy said it would only be a few
minutes more, and I declared I didn't in the least mind
waiting, it was such a lovely evening, and I couldn't think
of crowding the carriage.
Grace, partly from perversity, and partly from a little
lingering fear of the bays, said she should accept Phil's
invitation, and without more ado, gave her hand to Mr.
Rutledge and sprang out.
" May I advise you ?" said he, coming back to mo after
he had put Grace in the carriage.
"Not against my will, if you please. Indeed, I had
rather wait."
"That settles it," he answered, bowing. "I'm sorry^
gentlemen," he continued, to Victor and EUerton, *'to
leave you in this fashion, but my duties, as host, require me
to ride forward with the ladies, and I hope you will soon
follow us."
Victor assured him of his perfect confidence, that wo
would be at home almost as soon as they would ; and then,
with a polite commendation of his fortitude under misfor-
tune, Mr. Rutledge threw himself upon his horse, and gal-
loped after the carriage. I could not help feeling a little
awkwardly ; it is never pleasant to be the only lady among
a number of gentlemen. Besides those of our own party,
several men of the village' had collected around us, and
with their hands in their pockets, and in a very easy, saun-
tering way, were offering their comments on the accident.
Victor walked angrily up to one, who, with a short pipe
between his lips, had ventured rather too near, and was
leaning nonchalantly against the fore-wheel ; and knocking
the pipe out of his mouth, took him by the shoulder and
ordered him to take himself off. Didn't he see there was fl
lady in the carriage ?
BVTLELGB. 811
The man laoved sulkily away, but I saw him more than
once look back with an ugly expression in his eyes toward
Victor, as he crossed the road and disappeared in the woods
that skirted the highway.
Just at that moment, a sorrel horse drew up beside us,
and an inquiring face was thrust out from the gig be-
hind it.
"What's the matter, Michael? Anybody hurt? An
accident, did you say ?" inquired a voice that gave me a
cold chill.
"That detestable doctor already 1" And returning
stiffly his salutations as he recognized me, and hurried up
to the carriage, I said there had been no accident to any-
thing but the pole of the carriage, and that was nearly
remedied, and we had plenty of assistance.
The doctor bowed, but did not seem in the least discom-
posed by my too obvious rudeness, and leaning comfortably
on the wheel, as the dismissed clown had done before him,
continued to address me in a tone of easy familiarity that
was too annoying to me to be concealed, and my face must
have told the story ; for Victor, calling to one of the men
to hold the horses a moment, walked quickly up behind
the doctor, and laying his hand heavily on his shoulder,
said, in a tone by no means equivocal :
" I say, my good fellow, you are annoying this lady, and
I must ask you to step back i"
The doctor did step back, and turning quickly, faced
him.
" Victor Viennet, as I am a sinner 1"
I looked on in wonder, as I saw Victor give a violent
start, and change color ; then recovering himself after a
moment, he said, in altered voice :
*' I ask your pardon. Dr. Hugh, I didn't see your face.
How, under heaven, did you happen to turn up here ?"
There was an expression on Victor's face, as he said this,
which seemed involuntarily to indicate that the fact oi
812 BUTLEDGB.
Dr. Hugh's Earning up here, was just the most disagreeable
fact that could possibly have transpired, and so essentially
" cute " a man as the doctor, could not have foiled to see it,
but it did not seem in the least to interfere with his com*
placency.
" How did I happen to turn up here ? Why, my good
fellow (as you said just now), by the most natural process
m the world. You see, after we parted, a year ago, in the
city "
" Yes, yes," said Victor, hurriedly, and in a low tone,
" I've got to look after the smith now. You can tell me
there."
And making some apology to me for the continued
detention, he turned to retrace his steps. The doctor
followed, and passed his arm familiarly through Victor's, at
which I saw he winced, but did not attempt to resent ; and
the doctor continued to talk to him in a low and confiden-
tial tone. Twilight had already descended before the smith
pronounced the job completed, and Michael, backing up
the horses, put them to the carriage. While this was being
accomplished, Victor and Dr. Hugh, standing a few paces
apart from the others, talked together, or rather, the
doctor talked and Victor listened with ill-concealed impa-
tience.
I could not hear a word that passed, but I could see tnat
Victor was suffering torture at the hands of the bland
doctor, and his face, for several minutes after he had
parted from him and resumed his seat in the carriage, wore
an expression of pain and anger. Wo had started and
driven on for some distance before either spoke, and the
first to break the silence, I said, with more curiosity than
courtesy :
" How in the world did you nappen to know that detest-
able doctor ? I didn't suppose anybody had ever seen him
before ho came here."
^' Detestable you may well call him," said Victor, below
BTTLEDGE. 31S
his breath, and with a sort of groan. " I'd rather have met
the arch-fiend himself!"
Then hastily rememhering himself, he apologized, ex-
claiming, with a laugh, that the fellow always put him out
of temper, and bored him to death, and he hoped he should
never see him again, and he didn't mean to trouble himself
finy further about him. With that last resolution, his
spirits rose, and in a few minutes he was as gay as ever.
We were dashing along at such an inspiriting pace, that no
one could help throwing dull care, and all things sad
and gloomy, to the winds, and being pro tem. in the
highest spirits.
" I am sure you drive as well as you dance," said Victor,
putting the reins into my hands. "Let me see whether you
know how to handle the ribbons."
Put upon my mettle in that way, nothing could have
induced me to have declined the undertaking, though I hap-
pened to know a thing or two in the early history of the
hays that Mr. Viennet was evidently ignorant of, and the
recollection of which put a nervous intensity into the grasp
I had upon the reins.
" Admirable !" said Victor, with enthusiasm ; " I see you
understand what you are about. You manage those beasts
as well as I could, and there's no denying it, they do
pull."
" JPuU isn't the word," I thought ; " but no matter."
"What a good road 1" exclaimed Victor. "We're gomg
hke the wind. Ellerton, this is fine, is it not ?"
" Charming," said Ellerton, feebly, from the back seat ;
" charming ; I never saw a lady drive so well ; but don't
you think, it's getting so dark, it would be better for you to
take the reins ? You can see better, you know."
" On the contrary," said Victor, with great glee, " on the
contrary ; the female vision, you know, is proverbially the
sharpest. Shall I touch up that near horse? He rather
lags," he contiimed, wickedly, to me.
14
81^ SUTLEDGE.
" Oh no, thank you I" I said, breathlessly, but trying to
laugh.
" " I'm sure you're tired," said Mr. Wynkar, with great
feeling. "You speak as if you were. Victor, you lazy dog,
take the reins, if you have any politeness left."
'* I haven't," said Victor, leaning back with composure.
" I haven't a vestige left. I used up the last I had about
me on that boor with the short pipe, who gave me such a
gracious look as he walked off."
" Yes," I exclaimed, " I think you'll hear from him
again."
" Not improbable," said Victor, coolly. " I have a knack
at getting into scrapes that's only exceeded by my knack at
getting out of them. Now I think of it, he didn't look like a
pleasant sort of fellow to meet in a dark piece of woods
like this."
We had just driven into the woods that stretched about
half a mile this side of the gate of Rutledge Park, and the
^int young moon that had been lighting us since we left the
village, had no power to penetrate the dense foliage that
met over our heads, and shut out moon and sky. It did not
make me any more comfortable to remember that there was
a short path from the village across these woods, and that
any one on foot could reach this point almost as soon as in a
cariiage by the road. I did not feel like laughing at EUer-
ton Wynkar's little gasp of fear, and Victor's gay laugh
and easy tone of assurance, far from inspii-ing me with con-
fidence, made me doubly nervous and apprehensive. I only
wished that I dared ask him to be quiet till we were out
into the open road again. But he seemed possessed with
mischief -he quizzed Ellerton, told droll stories, and laughed
till the woods rang again. But through it all, I strained
my ear to catch the faintest noise by the roadside ; and
when the horses, more intent than I, shied violently to one
side and dashed forward, with ^ quivering, desperate pull
upon the reins, I was quite prepared for what suooeeded.
JIHTLBDOB. 8t8
A. large stone whirred swiftly through the air, just grazed
ID7 cheek, and fell with a crashing sound on the other dde
of the road.
** Good heavens 1" cried Victor, starting forward, " are
you hurt ?"
" No, no," I exclaimed ; " for heaven's sake, be quiets"
** Give me the reins," he cried, snatching them.
*' No, no 1" I answered, keeping them by a desperate
exertion of strength. " I shall never forgive you if you stop
the horses."
"I shall never forgive myself for the danger I have
brought you in," he said, in a low tone. " You will never
trust yourself to my protection again, I fear," he continued
earnestly, as we drove into the park gate'.
" Oh, I'm not afraid as long as I hold the ribbons," I
answered, trying to laugh, but drawing a freer breath
as we cleared the woods and came into the moonlight
again.
" You are cruel," he said, in a lower tone still.
" There's the house at last I" exclaimed Ellerton, with a
Mgh of relief so profound that we both started,
** How are you getting on, behind there ?" asked Victor.
" I'd forgotten all about you, Ellerton. That was a neat
little compliment from our friend in the woods, now
wasn't it ? But the least said about those little attentions
the better, I've always found ; you understand ' Oh no, we
never mentions him,' under any circumstances."
" Of course not," said Ellerton, acquiescently. " I should
not speak of it on any account."
*' And, Michael, my man," continued Victor, putting his
hand in his pocket, "whist's the word about this little
adventure, you know."
Michael touched his hat, and, pocketing the coin that
Victor tossed him, promised absolute silence on the subject.
The horses, as we came up the avenue, slackened their
pace, and gave us time to look around. Sunset^ etwrU^^*
816 BUTLEDGE.
moonlight, had neither of them abdicated the bright June
sky, but all combined to light up the picture for us, and
make the lake a sheet of silyer, and the dark, old house aa
fair as it could be made.
" A fine old place, indeed," said Victor, with a temporary
shade of seriousness on his face. " It must be pleasant to
have such an ancestral home as that. These Rutledges are
a high family, are they not ?"
" One of the very best in the State ;'* answered EUerton,
feeling that " family " was always a toast to which he was
called upon to respond. " There are very few in the coimtry
who can go back so fkr. The Rutledges have always been
very exclusive, and held themselves very high, and so have
never lost their position."
*' Ha !" said Victor, with a little darkening of the brow.
" That's the style, is it ? Our host, then, is a proud man, I
am to understand one who values birth, and that sort of
thing, and plumes himself upon it, and regards with a pro-
per scorn all who have come into the world imder less
favorable auspices than himself."
*' Exactly," said EUerton. "I think that's Rutledge
exactly. He's what you'd call a regular aristocrat, and
proud as Lucifer himself."
" I kiss his hand I" cried Victor, with a dash of bitterness
in his tone. " Commend me to such a man as that ! I
reverence his largeness of soul, his nobility of nature ! I
long to show him in what esteem I hold him."
" I think you mistake Mr. Rutledge," I began eagerly ;
but before I had time to say another word we were at the
door, and Mr. Rutledge himself, descending the steps
quickly, and speaking with some anxiety, exclaimed :
"We have been very uneasy about you. I have just
sent orders to the stable for horses to start to meet you.
Has anything happened ?"
" The pole required just three times as long to repair as
Mr. Smithy said it would," answered Victor, " and we, very
BUTLEDGB. 817
foolishly depending upon his word in the matter, were much
disappointed in not reaching the house three-quarters of
an hour ago. I am sorry to have caused you any uneasi
ness."
" It is dissipated now," said Mr. Rutledge, courteously.
" I only regret that your arrival should have been marked
by such a misadventure."
" What would he say if he knew of misadventure number
two ?" said Victor, sotto voce^ as he assisted me to alight.
" 1 feel positively superstitious. No good is coming of this
visit, depend upon it !"
As we were half-way up the steps, I found I had for-
gotten my parasol, and Victor went back to look for it.
Mr. Rutledge, seizing the opportunity of his absence, said
to me quickly :
" I see you drove those horses ; you must promise me you
will never do it again."
" Why not ?" I asked, haughtily.
" No matter why ; you must promise me you will never
touch the reins again behind them."
" I am sure I drove them up in style ; Michael himself
could not have done it better. I don't tliink I can bind
myself never to do it again. You'll have to excuse me from
promising."
"I remember ; you have a prejudice against promising."
There was something in his tone, and in the short laugh
that followed these words, that brought back so much of
what I had been trying to forget, and revived so much of
what I had half forgiven, that I made no effort to keep
back the hasty words that rushed to my lips.
" Can you wonder at it ? My experience has been so
unfortunate ; why, less than a year ago, I made a promise
that, I suppose, was as binding as most other promises, and
meant about as much ; and I have found it a chain at once
the lightest and most galling empty as air, and yet the
batefullest restraint the veriest mockery, and yet a thin^
818 BUTLBDGB.
I cantH get rid of I That's briefly what I think of promisesi
and why you must excuse me from making one."
* I will excuse you," he said, looking at me with eyea
that never faltered ; *' I will excuse you, with all my heart,
from making or keeping any promise to me."
This upon the threshold ! Under the very shadow of the
doorway 1 I felt faint and giddy as I passed on into the
hall. Kitty, with a low cry of delight, sprung forward to
meet me.
" Kitty, I am so glad I" I said, laying my hand upon her
arm. " Isn't it a long time since I went away ? But I am
BO tired ; do take me to my room."
Kitty flew up the stairs in delight, only stopping occa-
sionally to ask me if I didn't feel well, and if she couldn't
help me. All the others had gone to their rooms ; not even
Mrs. Roberts was to be seen.
'* She's got her hands too full to prowl around now," said
Kitty, with a wicked shake of the head. She led the way
to my old room, and, ttp my surprise, putting her hand in
her pocket, drew out the key, and fitted it in the lock.
" What's the reason of its being locked up ?" I said in
surprise.
" Reason enough. Miss,'* said Kitty, with a profound look.
Then, admitting me and shutting the door carefully, con-
tinued, in a less guarded tone : " The idea of your coming
back here and having any but your own room ! And it's
been just as much as I could do to keep Mrs. Roberts from
putting Miss Churchill in it. Such a time as I had about it
when the baggage came I Mone of the ladies had come
upstairs yet ; they were all walking about the piazza and
hall with master, and Thomas was seeing to the trunks
being carried up, and I overheard Mrs. Roberts say:
* Thomas, Miss Churchill's baggage is to be put in the blue
room, and her mamma's and Miss Grace's in the oak-cham-
ber opposite, and Miss Wynkar's goes in the south room.*
No, I beg your pardon, ma'am,' I says, coming forward.
fiUTLEDGE. 319
my young lady's trunk goes to the blue room, if you please
I've master's own orders for it, and I'll go ask him again it
you choose.' ^Your young lady, indeed I' says Mrs,
Rcflberts, throwing me such an awful look. ' Thomas, you
will attend to my orders.' . I flew upstairs and put the key
in my pocket, and Thomas tipped me a wink, and left your
trunk outside the door. And now," said Kitty, stopping a
moment to recover breath, "don't you think it looks plea*
sant. Miss?"
" Indeed it does, Kitty," I said, gratefully, sinking down
in an easy-chair, and looking about me admiringly. It
looked whiter and cooler than ever. There were new
book-shelves in the recesses, and new curtains at the
windows ; roses, mignonette and heliotrope, filled the slen-
der vases, and the wax candles on the dressing-table shed
the softest light around the room. Kitty, busying herself
about putting away my bonnet and shawls, chatted on
eagerly.
"Gay times, these, for Rutledge," she went on, after
having answered my inquiries for Stephen and the others.
" Gay times, and busy times. Who'd ever have thought to
see this house full of company again ?"
" Yes," I said, " so busy, I am afraid, I shall not have
much of your attendance, Kitty. It will not be like last
fall, when you had nothing to do but wait on me. What
nice times those were ! I wish all the rest of the people
were miles away, Kitty, and there was no one in the house
that wasn't here last November."
" Oh !" exclaimed Kitty, deprecatingly, " I'm sure you'll
enjoy it. Miss, with so many young gentlemen and ladies.
I'm certain master thought you would, or he wouldn't have
asked them. And as for my waiting on you, why that's all
settled, and Mrs. Roberts knows it too. Mr. Rutledge told
me this very morning that he supposed it would please me
to be allowed to attend upon you, and that I was to con-
sider that my duty as long as you were here. Mr8. Roberts
320 BTTTLEDaB.
had come in for soi^ie directions, and she heard it al] She
jerked her head, and flounced a little, but didn't dare to
say a word. But," continued Kitty, anxiously, " I'm afraid
you are not well. Can I get you anything ? Won't you
lie down ? Oh ! I am afraid you are crying."
Kitty's fears were not unfounded. The tears rushed to
my eyes, and hiding my face in my hands, I tried, but
vainly, to suppress the hysterical sobs that choked me, as I
ebsayed to answer her anxious questions. She was so disap
pointed and alarmed at my unexpected mood that she hardly
knew what to do, and I tried, as soon as I could speak, to
assure her that I was really very glad to get back, that
there was nothing the matter, only I was very nervous and
tired.
" And there's the tea-bell !" exclaimed Kitty, in dismay,
" and everybody else is dressed I What's to be done ?"
" There's nothing for it, Kitty, but to let me go to bed.
I can't go downstairs to-night it would kill me. Undress
me, and then don't let a soul come in ^not even my aunt.
That's a good Kitty : it isn't the first time you've taken care
of me."
" Ah I" said Kitty, with tears in her kind eyes, " if I only
knew what to do to make you better ! It isn't the head-
ache that I mean a cup of tea and a good night's rest will
make that all right ; but you ain't the same young lady that
you were last fall. I saw that the minute you stepped into
the hall. There's something on your mind ; I knew it the
instant you spoke. When you used to talk, it was as if
there was a laugh in your voice all the time, and now you
talk as if you were tired, and hated to open your lips."
" So I am, Kitty," I said, with a fresh burst of crying.
" I am tired and heart-sick, and when I talk it's no wonder
there are ' tears in my voice.' There are a great many things
to make me unhappy; you mustn't ask me anything about
them ; but it's so long since I've had anybody to care for
me, and nurse me, that it makes me babyish, I believe
B T; T L E D O E . 831
There !*' I exclaimed, after a minute, conqueriog my tears,
" don't think anything more about it, Kitty, but help me to
undress."
There could have been no better medicine for my aching
head and heart, than that Kitty administered. It was a
perfect luxury to resign myself into her hands, to feel that
I needn't think again to-night if I didn't choose, that I was
Bure of being watched over and cared for, come what might.
I had not realized, till I came into its sunshine again, how
perfectly necessary to anything like happiness an atmos-
phere of love is. I had known that, in my home, I had felt
chilled and forlorn. I had given no pleasure to others, and
received none myself; but, child-like, I had only known it
was, and had not asked why. But now, that kind and ten-
der hands rendered the services that I had long wearily
performed for myself, and a watchful care provided for my
comfort and remembered my tastes, I realized how unnatu-
ral and unkind, a thing it is for anything of human mold to
be denied human love and sympathy ; I realized how neces-
sary to the fair growth and goodly proportions of a nature,
is the sunshine of kindness and affection. Since I had left
Rutledge, I had never known what it was to be caressed
and favored ; misconstrued, slighted, and put aside by those
around me, the natural result had been reserve, distrust,
and aversion on my part. I was, as Kitty said, not the
same girl I had been. I knew better than Kitty did how
deep the change had gone how far below the surface the
blight had struck. The brave, gay heart of the child was
dead in my bosom forever. Whatever there might be to
hope for, in the future, it must be the life-and- death strug-
gle and victory of the woman, not the careless happiness of
the child.
Id*
CHAPTER XXV.
* Love is hurt with jar and firet.
Love is made a vagne regret,
Eyes with idle tears are wet,
Idle habit links ns yet
What is love ? for we forget ;
Ah! no, no!*'
TENNrSON.
My bright-eyed maid had something evidently on hei
fiiind the next morning, as stealing early to my bedside, she
fomid me awake and quite ready for her services. I caught
sight of her perplexed face in the glass, as she dressed my
hair, and said at last, "What are you thinking about, Kitty,
has anything happened ?*
"Happened? Oh, no. Miss," she said, blushing, and
a little confiised. " I was only thinking ^I was only won-
dering "
"Well, Kitty?"
"I mean that that is ^are you very fond of Miss
Churchill ?"
I laughed and blushed a little in my turn, and said :
" Why no, not particularly, I think."
" Because Z think she's a very haughty lady, for my part;
and if I am any judge, her maid, Frances, is a much-put-upon
young woman, that's all."
" What has led you to that conclusion so soon ?" I asked,
with a smile.
" Oh I nothing particular, ma'am, only some of Miss
Churchill's ruffled morning dresses got crushed in the
packing, and Frances was in the laundry till after twelve
o'clock last night, fluting 'em over; and I've noticed,
Frances starts and flusters when her lady's bell rings, as if
HUTLEDGE. 323
there were .; scolding for her at the other end of the wire,
that's alL"
" Oh, that's a trifle ! Frances is nervous," I said, apolo
getically. " What did my aunt say when you told her my
message last night ?"
" Nothing but ' very well,' and ' I am sorry to hear it.'
There wasn't time for any more, for the gentleman they
call Captain, with the big moustache, came up for her to
play whist, and she went away with him. But," said Kitty,
hesitatingly, and looking at me very sharply, "I don't know
whether I ought to tell you, but there was a gentleman
who didn't seem to take it quite so coolly as Mrs. Churchill
did."
"Who, pray?" I asked, as the blood started to my
cheeks.
" The young French gentleman, Miss ; I think they call
him Mr."
" Oh, Mr. Viennet 1"
" I wonder. Miss, why you say ' Oh, Mr. Viennet I' as if
you were disappointed," said Kitty, quite nettled. " I'm
sure he's the handsomest gentleman among 'em; and if you
could have seen him, when he followed me up the stairs,
and asked about you, I am sure you'd think better of it ;
and he's got the handsomest eyes 1 I can't think why you
don't like him."
" I have not said I did not ; and besides, Kitty," I con-
tinued, gravely, " it's not right for you to talk tc the gentle-
men ; you must be careful."
'* I know. Miss ; but who could help talking to such a
nice gentleman, just answering his questions ? I'm sure he
could get round Mrs. Roberts herself, if he tried I let alone
people that ain't made of stone or leather. And," continued
Kitty, " isn't it odd, Miss, but all the time he was talking to
me, I couldn't help wondering where I'd seen him before ?
1 know for a certainty, that he's never been within forty
miles of Rutledge till now, and I've never been twenty
824 EUTLEDGE.
miles away from it ; and yet, for my life, I couldn't get it
out of my head, tliat some where or otLer I'd seen him
before I"
" It's a very foolish idea to have in yom* head, Kitty, and
a \ery improbable one at the best ; so I wouldn't trouble
myself any further about it, if I were you."
I did not mention it to Kitty, but I could not help being
struck with the similarity of my own impressions on first
meeting Victor Viennet. It was the vaguest, mistiest chain
of reminiscence that his face seemed to stir, but till I had
seen him several times, it continued to perplex me. I could
not account for it in any way ; but the association or recol-
lection, or whatever it was, had &ded before a closer
acquaintance; and now Victor Viennet's handsome face
suggested Victor Viennet, and nobodj or nothing more.
" These Avill match your lilac muslin exactly. Miss," said
Kitty, offering me a handful of purple " morning glories."
" I ran out to get you some flowers before I came in to
wake you, but I was in such a hurry, that I couldn't go as
far as the garden, and so just picked these out of the
hedge."
I thanked her as I fastened them in my dress ; they
looked lovely with the dew still shining on them. It
was yet a good while to breakfast, but I turned to go
downstairs, accepting, with a smile at the newness of such
services, the dainty handkerchief that Kitty shook out
for me.
The fresh morning breeze swept softly through the wide
hall as I descended the stairs. Summer had come in and
taken the gloomy old place by storm. A pyramid of flowers
stood on the dark oak table in the centre, a mocking-bird in
its gay cage hung at one end, and over the cold marble
pavement the sunshine was creeping fast. The house was so
quiet, that I could almost fancy I was alone in it, and cross*
ing the hall, I went up to the library door ; but a cowardly
irresolution made me turn away, and pass on to the nortb
RUTLEDGB. 325
door of the hall, which, as well as the front one, stood wide
open. The broad fields stretched far away June-like and
lovely in the sunshine ; the hedges and trees were in such
luxuriant leaf, that they quite hid the stables and outhouses
on the left that last fall had been so prominent in the land-
scape. Looking from the parlor windows, there was the
same view of the lake that I had from my room. The mists
were rolling up from its fair bosom, and the foliage that
crowned its banks was of the freshest and glossiest green.
The dew was glittering on the lawn, early birds twittered
and sang in the branches overhead, and on the breeze came
the rich perfume of the roses that climbed from pillar to
pillar of the piazza. Rutledge had fiilfiUed nay anticipations;
in my weary, longing day-dreams, I had never pictured any-
' thing fairer than this.^
It was with a half-defined feeling of curiosity that I wan-
dered through the large parlors, furnished in an odd mixture
of old-fashioned splendor and modern elegance. It was
terra incognita to me; I had never entered these rooms
before. I could hardly xmderstand how the sunshine and
fresh air came to be so much at home in them, as it seemed
they now were. It was difficult to believe that these finely
fiirnished, habitable looking apartments, had been closed
and unused for twenty years and more. They had been
thoroughly revised, no doubt, and the past put to the rout ;
but they were strange and unattractive to me, and I turned
again to the library. Listening at the door before I pushed
it open, I entered noiselessly. There was no need of so
much caution ; this room was as untenanted as its neighbors,
save by thronging memories and torturing regrets, and they
entered with me.
Here at least there was no change ; the wide casements
wrere open to the morning, but the white north light seemed
subdued and cold after the sunshine of the other rooms, and
the dark panelling and frowning moldings looked a defiance
*t the intruding summer. I liked it better so there had
326 BUTLEDGS.
beeu cLange enough without this last Btronghold of uie-
mory being invaded.
Every article of furniture in the room ^the table, with it6
pile of papers at one end and books at the other, the faxm-
liar paper-cutter lying by the unopened review, the heavy
bronze inkstand, the graceful lamp, the chair, pushed back
half a yard from the table ^minded me of the happy hours
that it would have been wiser to forget. One of the book-
cases stood open, and a book lay on the table as if recently
read, and a card marked the reader's place. I took it up in-
voluntarily. It was Sintram, and the words swam before
me as I bent over its familiar pages. On the card that had
served for a mark, were written a few lin^s in a well known
hand ; and as I raised my eyes from them to the window, I
saw Mr. Rutledge himself approaching the house from the
direction of the stables. With a hurried movement I slipped
the card in my pocket, and finding nothing else to replace it
with, pulled one of the flowers from my bosom, and hastily
shutting it between the leaves, threw the book on the table,
and ran into the haU. If I had been a fugitive from justice,
I could not have had a more guilty feeling than that which
now impelled me to escape from meeting Mr. Rutledge.
But there was no time to get upstairs ; he would see me
from the piazza if I went into the parlor ; and while I stood
in the hall, trembling with eagerness, and alarm, and irreso-
lution, ray retreat was cut off by the sudden appearance of
Victor descending the staii'S, who with an exclamation of
pleasure, hurried toward me, and taking my hand was bow-
ing over it in most devout fashion, when Mr. Rutledge en*
tered the hall. Victor looked a little confused, and paused
in the midst of an elegant French speech, while the quick
crimson dyed my cheeks, aU of which Mr. Rutledge ap-
peared to ignore, as, approaching us, he said good morning
with his usual courtesy of manner, expressed his pleasure in
the improvement apparent in my looks, and then to Victor hit
astonishment at finding him a person of such early habits-
KCTLEDGE. 321
cc
Pray do not give me any credit foi* getting up this mom
lag," said Victor with a hasty wave of the hand. " I assure
you I detest early rising with my whole French soul, and
haven't seen a sun younger than three hours old since I
can remember ; but, my dear sir, with all homage to the
most comfortable of beds, and the pleasantest room I evei
occupied in my life, I never passed such a night I When at
last I slept, my dreams were so frightful that I was thank-
ful to wake, and would have resorted to any means to
have kept myself awake, if there had been the slightest dan-
ger of my closing my eyes again."
" What room .did you occupy ?" I asked.
" The comer room at the north end of the hall, it is, I
think."
" It is most unfortunate," said Mr. Rutledge, looking a
little annoyed. " Are you subject to wakeful nights ?"
"Never remember such an occurrence before," he re-
turned. " I have enjoyed the plebeian luxury of sound sleep
all my life, and so am more at a loss to account for my ex-
perience of last night."
*' Were you disturbed by any noise conscious of any one
moving in the house ?"
" No, the house was silent, silent as death ! Ma foi 1 I
believe that was the worst of it. If I were superstitious, I
should tell you of the only thing that interrupted it ; but I
know how credulous and absurd it would sound to dispas-
sionate judges, and how I should ridicule anything of the
kind in another person ; but this strange nightmare has taken
Buch possession of me, I cannot shake it off."
His face expressed intense feeling as he spoke, and the
asual levity of his manner was quite gone.
" What was it?" I said earnestly, and Mr. Rutledge looked
indeed so far from ridiculing his emotion, that Victor went
on rapidly :
*' You will think me a person of imaginative and excita
ble temperament, but I must assure yoii to the contrary, and
828 BUTLEDGB.
that I never before yielded to a superstitious fancy, and have
always held in great contempt all who were uifluenced by
such follies. Will you believe me then, when I tell you that
last night I was startled violently from my sleep, by a voice
that sounded, from its hollo wness and ghastliness, as if it
came from the fleshless jaws of a skeleton, calling again and
again, in tones that made my blood curdle, a familiar name, and
one that at any time, I cannot hear without emotion. Sleep
had nothing to do with it ! I was as wide awake as I am
now. But pshaw!" he exclaimed, suddenly turning, "I
shall forget all about it in an hour, and I beg you^ll do the
same," and not giving either of us time to answer, he went
on in an altered tone : " Mr. Rutledge, what a fine place you
have ! I have been admiring the view from my window.
Have you purchased it recently ? I don't remember to have
seen a finer estate in America."
" It is a valuable and well located farm," answered Mr.
Rutledge, rather indifferently ; " but farming is not my spe-
cialty, and I never should have encumbered myself volun-
tarily with such a care, if it had not devolved upon me by
inheritance."
" Ah !" said Victor with a slight accent of irony, that
from last night's conversation I was prepared for ; " It waa
then a case of greatness thrust, etc. But sir, it must add a
great charm to this already charming home, to think that
it has been the birth-place and family aJtar, as it were, of
generations of your ancestors ? Surely you are not insen-
sible to such sentiments of pride and affection.''
" Associations of that kind, of course, invest a place with
a certain kind of interest ; but I cannot lay claim to as
much feeling on the subject as perhaps would be becoming
Like you, sir," he said, with a bow, " I have a dread of
claiming credic for habits and feelings that I do* not possesE
and entertain."
Victor looked a little annoyed that he had not succeeded
In drawing out Mr. Rutledge's aristocratic and overbear
BUTLEDGE 329
mg sentiments, and he would not have given up the subject^
had not Mr. Rutledge, with a firm and quiet hand, put i\
aside, and led the way to other topics.
" How is it," he said to me, " that you have not noticed
your small friend Tigre? He has been at your feet for
the last five minutes, looking most wistfully for a kind word."
I started in confusion and surprise, and stooping down,
covered the dog with caresses. The poor little rascal was
frantic with delight, springing up to my face, and ejaculat-
ing his welcome in short barks and low whines, tearing
around me, and then running off a little distance and look-
ing back enthusiastically.
" He is evidently inviting you to another steeple-chase,"
said Mr. Rutledge.
I blushed violently at the recollection, and wished Tigre
anywhere but where he was.
"Have you lost your interest in the turf, since your
season in town, or have other interests and tastes developed
themselves while it has lain dormant ?"
" Other tastes have developed themselves, I believe," I
answered.
* Break it gently to Tigre, I beg you then, for I am sure
he has been living all winter on the hope of another romp.
He does not appreciate the lapse of time, and the changes
involved, so readily as his betters, you know."
" He has, at least, the grace to receive them more
kindly," I returned, stooping to pat him. " Tigre, if I am
too old to run races, I am not debarred as yet from taking
walks, I believe, and I would propose that we indulge in
one. Mr. Viennet, are you too old to be of the party ?"
Mr. Rutledge turned shortly toward the library, Victor
and I passed out on the piazza, and, with Tigre in close
attendance, descended the broad steps to the terrace.
Breakfast was nearly completed when we returned, and
the party at the table looked up in amazement as we
entered the room.
380 RUTLEDGE.
" I should admire to know," exclaimed Ella Wynkar
who aflected Boston manners, and " admired " a good
deal, "I should admire to know where you two have been!
Mr. Arbuthnot declares that Mr. Viennet has been up since
daybreak ; and as for yow," she said, turning to me, " I
heard your door shut hours ago."
" Restrain your admiration. Miss Wynkar," said Viistor,
as he placed a chair for me. " We have been taking a short
turn on the terrace for the fresh air. I wonder you did not
emulate our example."
" Terrace, indeed I" exclaimed Phil. " I've been on the
piazza for half an hour, and I'U take my oath you weren't
within gunshot of the terrace all that time."
" Don't perjure yourself, my good fellow," said Victor,
coolly, " but assist us to some breakfast. The terrace has
given us an appetite."
*'How is your headache, my dear?" said my aunt, from
across the table.
" My headache, ma'am ? Oh, I forgot ^I beg your
pardon ; it's better, thank you."
" How serious it must have been !" said Josephine.
" Oh ! by the way, Mr. Rutledge, it isn't worth while to
ask them to join us in our party this morning, is it? They
didn't ask us to go with them."
Mr. Rutledge shrugged his shoulders. "I think, Miss
Josephine, we are safe in asking them ; they wouldn't
accept, of course, and we should save our credit, you
know."
"I would not trust them, sir. It's my advice that
they're not asked."
"Then," returned Mr. Rutledge, with a low bow and
his finest smile, " as with me to hear is to obey, I resi p aD
thought of remonstrance, and acquiesce in the decree."
Josephine accepted the homage very graciously, and the
jest was kept up around the table till I, for one, waft
heartily sick of it. No one supposed, however, that I
RUTLEDGE. 831
RTOuld be fool enough to take it in earnest; but I i^as just
Buch a fool ; and when, an hour or two later, the horsefl
were brought to the door, and the scattered party sum-
moned from library, parlor,^ billiard-room, and garden,
to prepare for the drive, I was struggling with a fit of ill
temper in my own room, which resulted in my " begging to
be excused," when Thomas came to the door to announce
the carriage.
My refusal didn't seem to damp the spirits of the party
much. I looked through the half closed blinds to see them
start. Victor at the last minute pleaded a headache, and
" begged to be excused," on which occasion the captain
made one of the jokes for which he was justly famous, and
led off the laugh after it.
" The pretty darling's in the sulks, I suppose," I heard
Grace say ; but no one was at the pains to resent or applaud
the remark, and I listened to the departing carriage- wheels
and the lessening sound of merry voices with anything but
a merry heart.
One never feels very complacent after spiting oneself;
the inelegant describe the state of feeling by the adjective
" small ;" and I was not rendered any more comfortable by
finding that I had made a prisoner of myself for the morn-
ing. If Victor had only gone, as I had anticipated, I
should have consoled myself for the loss of the drive by a
nice ramble around the grounds, and down to the stables ;
but as it was, I would not, for any consideration, have run
the risk of encountering him. I heartily repented my walk
before breakfast, and the relative position it seemed to plaoe
us in, made worse by our both remaining at home. Every-
body and everything seemed to conspire to place us toge-
ther, and my pride and my honesty both rebelled against
such an arrangement. So, after listening to the sound of
his steps pacing the terrace, the hall, and the piazza for a
full hour, I began to find my captivity intolerable, and
determined to make a visit to the housekeeper's room, and
382 BUTLEDGE.
pay my devoirs to that fanctionary. Looking stcalthS;
over the balusters, I ascertained that Victor was 6till smok-
ing in the hall, so I ran across to the door of Mrs. Roberts'
room, which was standing partly open, and asked if I might
come in. Receiving pennission, i entered, and did my best
to appear amiable in Mrs. Roberts' eyes. She was, of
course, as stiff as anything human could well be, but she
was too busy to be very ungracious. This sudden influx
of visitors had startled her out of the slow and steady
routine of the last twenty years, and though, on the whole,
she acquitted herself well, it was a very trying and bewild-
ering position for the old woman. I longed for something
to do to appease the self-reproach I felt for my bad temper,
and it struck me that I couldn't do a more praiseworthy
and disagreeable thing than to help Mrs. Roberts in some
of the duties that seemed to press so heavily upon her. So,
sitting down by her, I said :
" Mrs. Roberts, you'd better let me help you with those
raisins ; I haven't a thing to do this morning."
*' That's a pity," said Mrs. Roberts, briefly. " In my day,
young ladies always thought it most becoming to have some
occupation."
"That's just my view of the case, Mrs. Roberts, and if
you^ll allow me, I'll have an occupation immediately."
Sylvie set the huge bowl of raisins on the table, and I
drew them toward me, saying she must allow me to help
her with them. Mrs. Roberts thought not ; it would spoil
my dress.
" Then I'll put an apron on."
She was afraid I did not know how.
" You can teach me, Mrs. Roberts ;" and I began without
further permission. To say that Mrs. Roberts melted before
all this amiability would be to say that Mrs. Roberts had
ceased to be Mrs. Roberts. She was a degree or two lew
gruff, I believe, at the end of the long hour I spent in her
Bervice, in the seeding of those wretched raisins ; but that
BUTLEDGE. 838
was all, and fortunately I had not expected more. I under-
took it as a penance, and it did not lose that character from
any excess of kindness on her part.
After the raisins were dispatched, Mrs. Roberts applied
herself to the copying of a recipe from an old cookery-
book, for which she seemed in something of a hurry. Do-
rothy was waiting for it, Sylvie said. " You'd better let
me do it for you, Mrs. Roberts," I said, leaning over
her shoulder. Mrs. Roberts declined, with dignity, for
some time, but at last thoughtfully slid the spectacles off
her nose, and seemed to deliberate about granting my re-
quest. She was not a very ready scribe, and she had a
dozen other things to do, all of which weighed with my ur-
gency, and in two minutes I was at the desk, copying out
of a venerable cookery-book, the receipt that Mrs. Roberts
indicated. I was in pretty engrossing business, I found one
duty succeeded another very regularly ; Mrs. Roberts, I
saw, had deteimined to get as much out of me now as
she could.
A dread of draughts was one of her peculiarities, so the
door and the front windows were closed against the pleasant
breeze, and to this I attribute it that we were unconscious
of the return of the riding party till the door opened sud-
denly and Mr. Rutledge entered.
" Mrs. Roberts," he said, " you are wanted below. Miss
Churchill has hurt her ankle in getting out of the carriage,
and I have come to you for some arnica."
Mrs. Roberts bustled over to the medicine chest, and,
taking the bottle of arnica and a roll of linen in her hand,
hurried out of the room ; while Mr. Rutledge, crossing over
to the table where I sat, stood looking down at me without
speaking, while I nervously went on with my writing with-
out raising my eyes.
"Why did you not go with us this morning ?" he said at
last, sitting down by the table.
" I didn't want to."
384 BUTLEDOE.
"That 18 a very good reason; but I think you would
have done better to have thwarted your mcllnatioii for
once. There are two reasons why it would have been wiser
to have gone."
" What is one ?" I demanded.
" One is that your staying looked unamiable, aud as if you
could not take a joke."
" Well, it only looked as I felt. I was unamiable, and I
didn't like the joke. What is the other ?"
" The other, I am pretty sure to make you angry by giv-
ing, but I must risk that. Your refusing to go looked very
much as if you preferred another t^te-a-t^te, to the society
of us aU."
'* I cannot see that," I said, looking up flushed and angry.
" When I supposed that I was the only member of the party
who intended to stay at home, I cannot see how it could be
inferred that I remained from any such motive."
"I, for one, had no doubt of it."
" You are kind !" I cried. " It is pleasant to feel I am al-
ways sure of one, at least, to put the kindest construction on
what I do."
" Is my niece accounting for her willfulness in staying at
home this morning?" said the slow, soft voice of Mrs.
Churchill, that crept into my senses like a subtle poison,
and silenced the angry words on my lips. " Are you not
penitent, ma chhre^^'^ she said, approaching me, and laying
her cold hand lightly on my hair. " Do you not begin to
see how unwise such tempers are ? How often must I eu'
treat you, my love, to be less hasty and suspicious and self-
willed ? Though I am not discouraged with these childish
faults, Mr. Rutledge," turning to him apologetically, "I
own they are somewhat trying. Ever since that unlucky
night at the Academy of Music, I have felt "
" Aunt Edith !" I exclaimed, with flashing eyes, averting
my head from her touch and springing up. " Aunt didi,
that time has never been mentioned between us since you
BCTTLEDGE.
38b
gave me my reprimand. I cannot understand why you
bring it up now, and before a stranger I"
"Mr. Rutledge can hardly be called a stranger," she
began.
" If not so to you, remember he is to me," I interrupted,
" However that may be," she went on, " he was unluckily
the witness of that evening's errors. He saw the self-will
and temper that you took no pains to conceal, and the love
of admiration that led you to a most unaccountable act of
imprudence."
*I should think," I returned, trembling with passion,
*'that that time would have no more pleasant memories for
you than me. I should think we might agree not to stir
among its ashes. There may be some smoldering remorse
alive in them yet !"
For a moment, my aunt's face grew white, and her eye
faltered and sunk ; angry as I was, I bitterly repented the
stab I had given her. Then she raised her eyes and fixed
them on my face with a stern and freezing look. I don't
know what she said ; it was too cruel to listen to. I don't
know what I answered ; would that it had no record any-
where !
From that date, there was no disguise between aunt and
niece of the sentiments they had mutually inspired. The
flimsy gauze that reserve and decorum had raised between
them was torn to fragments before that storm, and hence-
forth there was no pretence of an affection that had never
existed. Two natures more utterly discordant and unsym
pathetic could not well be imagined. There was nothing but
some frail bands of duty and convenience, that had kept up
the mask of sympathy so far, an^then and there they were
snapped irrevocably; and the mask fell prone upon the
ground and was trampled under foot.
They had better have tui-ned me houseless into the street
than have turned me out of their hearts in this way ; in one
case, I could have sought another shelter, and won myself
336 BCTLEDGS.
auother home. In this, I was driven out, burning with
anger and stung with injustice, from every heart I had had
a right to seek a home in, and before me lay a cold and in-
hospitable world. Was the outcast or the world to blame
for the inevitable result ? The outcast, nu doubt ; outcasts
always are.
"Look look, Josephine!" cried Grace, burstmg into
the library, where most of the party were assembled that
evening. Josephine, with her foot on the sofa, being the
nucleus. " Ella, and Phil, and I have just come from row-
ing on the lake, and see what we found, up by the pine
trees at the other end of the lalgB, floating on the water."
" What is it ?" said Josephine, languidly ; " a water-lily ?"
" Water-lilies used to be white when I studied botany,
Joseph, and this, you may observe, is purple."
'' And morning-glories, when I studied botany," said PhiJ,
" did not grow on lakes, but in gardens. Now, as this was
discovered on tlie water, the question naturally arises, how,
by whom, and under what circumstances, did it get there ?"
" And putting this and that together," said Ella Wynkar,
" we think that the young lady who had morning-glories in
her dress this morning, must have taken a row on the lake,
mstead of a walk on the terrace."
" That doesn't follow," said Victor, " any more than it
would follow that Miss Wynkar had visited the desert of
Sahara, if a straw hat similar to the one she has in her hand^
should be found there."
" Mr. Viennet, you are not suflSciently calm for such diffi-
cult reasoning. The fact is established ; don't attempt to
controvert it," said Josephine.
" In any case, I am entitled to the flower, I think," he re-
turned, taking it from the table, and fastening it in hia
button-hole.
" No one will dispute it with you, I fency," said Josephine^
with a laugh.
KU7JLEDOE. 33?
* You seem to have marked your way with mornings
glories," said Mr. Rutledge, who, sitting by the table, was
turning over the leaves of a book. There was another,
crushed and faded, and staining the leaves with its purple
blood.
" One can hardly believe they are contemporaries," said
Victor, " mine is so much fresher."
"They ar? the frailest and shortest-lived of flowers," said
Mr. Rutledge, tossing the flower away. " Hardly worth
Uie pausing admiration that their beauty exoitea^*
CHAPTER XXVL
If hope but deferred causeth sickness of heart.
What sorrow, to see it forever depart."
" This rain knocks the pic-nic all in the head," said Phil,
lounging into the breakfast-room, " and everybody's sure
of being in a bad humor on account of the disappointment.
What shall we all do with ourselves ?"
"Play billiards, can't we?" said the captain.
" I hate billiards, for my part," said Grace, looking dis-
mally out of the window. " And Josephine's ankle's too
bad to play, and Ellerton isn't well enough, and my pretty
cousin there never did anything she was asked to yet ; and
Mr. Viennet consequently will refuse, and Phil's too lazy,
and mamma won't take the trouble, and Mr. Rutledge has
letters to write ; so I think you'll be at a loss for anybody
to play with you, Captain McGuffy."
" So it would seem," said the captain, consoling himself
with some breakfast. " I can't see anything better to be
done than this, then.'*
"It is rather your vocation, I think," returned Grace.
" But with the rest of us, it is an enjoyment that at best
cannot last over an hour, and there are twelve to be got rid
of before bed-time."
"It is trying," said Josephine. "And I've no more
crimson for my sofa-cushion, and no chance of matching it
nearer than Norbury. I really don't know what I shall do
all day."
" If one only had a good novel I" yawned Ella Wynkar.
* But there isn't anything worth reading in the library. I
wonder Mr. Rutledge doesn't get some interesting books."
888
BUTLEDGE. 889
* There he comes ; ask him," said Grace, maliciously.
" No, I don't like to. Mr. Rutledge is so odd, there's
no knowing how he might take it."
Mr. Rutledge entered at this moment, followed by Tigi'e,
and Miss Wynkar, partly because she was glad of anything
to amuse herself with, and partly for the sake of a pretty
attitude, sprung forward and caught the dog in her arms.
** Take care I he's just been out in the rain," exclaimed
Mr. Rutledge, but not in time to save the pretty morning
dress from Tigre's muddy paws ; and with an exclamation
of disgust she threw down the dog, who, whining piteously
from a blow against the table, came limping over to me.
" Poor fellow ! that was a sudden reverse," said Victor,
stooping to pat hun. " Give me your paw, my friend, and
accept my sympathy."
Ella darted an angry look toward us, and, 1 am certain,
never forgave the laugh that escaped me.
" This is a dull day, young ladies," exclaimed Mr. Rut-
ledge, throwing himself into a chair. " How shall we dis-
pose of it ?"
" Philosophy to the rescue I" said Josephine, with a -
charming smile. " It is only dull compared with what you
had promised us."
'* The pic-nic will hold good for another day, we'll trust.
In the meantime, what shall we do to-day ?"
" Who ever heard of doing anything but growl on such a
day as this ?" said Phil, leaning over Josephine's chair.
"Ladies wern't made for anything but sunshine, I'm
certain," said the captain, thoughtfully, over his last cup of
coffee.
Miss Wynkar and the Misses Churchill made the ex-
pected outcry at this speech, and Mr. Rutledge, after the
excitemenli had subsided, went on with a proposal that
quite brought down the house. It was to the effect that,
as the gay people of the neighborhood, the Masons of
Windy Hill, and the Eraersons of Beech Grove, had each
840 K U T L B D O E
proposed something for the general benefit, it seemed expe
dient that some eutertamment should be got up at Rut-
ledge. What should it be? The Masons were to have
tableaux, and the Emersons' invitations were out for a fU^
champetre. What was left for them to do ?"
" Oh I a thousand things," exclaimed Josephine, with
sparkling eyes. " A ball, or private theatricals, or a
masquerade anything, in fact, would be delightful.*'
" A plain ball would never do after the*f3&te and tableaux,**
said EUa Wynkar, decidedly.
"Whatever you do, I beg, don't let those simpering
Mason girls get ahead of you," suggested Grace. " They've
been rehearsing their tableaux for a fortnight, and they
mean to have them perfect."
" What do you think of theatricals, then ?" said Mr. Rut-
ledge. " We can send for dresses, etc., from town, and we
have plenty of time to rehearse. And, Arbuthnot, I know
;you have all the requisites for a manager, and could bring
out a play in excellent style."
" You will be astonished to find the amount of dramatic
talent undeveloped in this company," exclaimed Victor.
" All the improvement I can suggest is, that the play repre-
sented should be written for the occasion. Now, if I might
be allowed, I should propose that Miss Wynkar and Cap-
tain McGufiy be named to write the play, and Ellerton, as
the man of the most cultivated literary taste, and soundest
judgment, be appointed to revise and correct it. The 6clat
of producing such an entirely original play, you must see,
would be immense."
The irony of his speech was too broad for even the Wyn
kars to miss, and Ella colored angrily, while Ellerton, whc
was not a proficient at repartee, moved uneasily on hw
chair, and looked very wretched, till Mr. Rutledge came to
the rescue with a few words, that, administering the keen-
est, quietest, politest possible reprimand to Victor for his
impertinence, reinstated the objects of his ridicule in coni'
BUTLEDGE. 341
placency again, and quite changed the face of the day.
Victor bit his lip ; these two liked each other less and lesa
every day, it was but too evident. Victor's overbearing
and tyrannical disposition found an incessant obstacle to its
gratification in the iron will and better disciplined, but
equally unyielding character of Mr. Rutledge. I tried in
vain to remove Victor's prejudices against his host; but
there was an angry flash of his eye whenever the subject
was mentioned, that did not encourage me to continue it.
And it was equally impossible not to resent Mr. Rutledge'8
misapprehension of Victor's character. In everything he
misjudged him, and, it was evident, put down to the worst
motive much that was only hasty and ill-judged. While
my reason told me that he was often to blame, the injustice
and harshness of Mr. Rutledge's judgment often roused my
sympathy in his behali^ and that dangerous sentiment, pity,
was creeping insensibly into my heart. He was, it was
true, a man of no religious principle, but I had dome to re-
gard that as the inevitable result of his foreign education,
and in no way his own fault. Then there was a light,
careless tone in his conversation, a disregard of others, an
almost imperceptible sneer, that a month ago I should have
looked upon with alarm and distrust. But the subtle flat-
tery of his devotion, the contrast between his manner and
that of Mr. Rutledge, and, indeed, of all the others, had
melted away these prejudices, and now I hardly saw, and
only half blamed, the self-willed impetuosity and impatient
sneering of the young foreigner, who, there could be no
doubt, was daily oecoming more unpopular among the party
at Rutledge.
Our host had never liked him ; Miss Churchill could not
be expected to continue her favor, now that he took no
pains to conceal what was the attraction for him at Rut-
ledge ; Griace had never cordially liked any one in her life,
but Victor had been rather a favorite, till he had put down
her saudness, on one or two occasions, in such a manner as
842 BUTLEDOE.
to make hei as vehement in her dislike as lier lazy nature!
rendered her capable of being ; Ella Wynkar hated him
he laughed at her French, and never omitted an opportmiity
of turning her pretensions into ridicule ; Ellerton had for-
merly been very much infatuated with the young French^
man, who had carried all before him in society, and been so
general a favorite, but Ellerton was too tempting a subject
for Victor's himaor, and he was very careless of his popu-
larity; even with Phil and the captain he was. growing
indifferent and distant. Mrs. Churchill alone showed no
change in her feeling toward him ; he was only acting the
part she meant him to act, and fulfilling the design she had
in inviting him to accompany us. These feelings, and their
causes, so apparent on a retrospective study of them, were,
of course, by the restraints of good breeding, and the rela-
tive positions of all parties, studiously concealed, and only
to be guessed at in unguarded moments.
" You are not going to follow the dramatic corps, I hope,"
said Victor, with a curl of his lip, as the party moved off to
the library, to look over ^ome plays and consult about the
proposed entertainment.
" They would have asked me if they had wanted me, I
suppose," I answered, reddening a little.
" Then, is there any law to prevent our staying where
we are ?" he asked, throwing himself back in the deep win-
dow seat opposite me. And there we passed the live-long
morning, Victor idly twisting the worsteds of my work, and
idly gazing out upon the storm, or in upon my face, and
idly talking in his low, rich voice, and holding me, against
my will, enthralled.
The portraits on the walls looked down upon us with a
dumb intelligence, almost a warning sternness; the tmd
tried to weary us out ; the old clock struck the passing hourtj
distinctly ; the sound of voices in the library, after a long
while, died away, and then the party passed through the
boll and into the parlor, and Josephine's voice, at the piano,
ftVTLEDGE. 348
BQcceedeu, and then a dance, but still \ve did not move.
What was the spell that kept me there, I could not have
told. Whatever it was, it was tightening the toils around
me, and shutting me off more hopelessly than ever from
all paths but the one I had almost involuntarily taken.
It appeared at dinner, that the theatricals were given npi,
owing, principally, I could not but suspect, to the want of
harmony that has characterized all the attempts at private
theatricals that I have ever witnessed, no one, under any
circumstances, having been known to be pleased with the
r61e assigned to him or her, and all manner of discontent
prevailing on all sides. But Mr. Rutledge, with great dis*
cretion, put it upon other grounds ^the short time that
intervened for preparing them, etc. It was agreed that
patriotism and propriety both pointed to the Fourth of July
as the appropriate day, and a hal masquS was determined
on instead of the theatricals. It was to be the most delight
ful affair. Mr. Rutledge had promised to ask eveiybody,
to send to town for dresses, and to have the house so beau-
tiftdly decorated.
" Ah I" said Josephine with a ravishing smile, " Mi. Rut-
ledge is the best, the kindest of men.'*
Mr. Rutledge, starting from a fit of abstraction at that
moment, certainly did not convey the idea of any very exces-
sive kindness or goodness. The sternest frown contracted
his brow, and in the cold rigidity of his face, one would
never have looked for anything gentle or tender, and the
expression that succeeded it under the influence of Jose-
phine's smUe, was bitter and cynical, even to the most in-
different observer.
Rain-storms in June have a way of abating their violence
toward evening, and breaking away enough to let the declin-
ing sun look for half an hour over the wet and shining earth,
and make of the desolate place the freshest and most beau-
tiful of Edens, cheering the silenced birds into song, and
the wet flowers into perfume, and the breaking clouds into
844 BUTLBDGB.
yellow lustre. A whole fair sunshiny day is notLing to it
The sudden biilliancy and freshness are worth all the gloom
that have made them so dazzling. There was not a tree in
the park that afternoon, not a flower on the lawn, that did
not shine and sparkle with a brightness it had never worn
before. There was a fine coolness too, in the fresh wind,
soft and June-like bs it was.
^^ Is it too late for a ride ?" asked Josephine, stepping out
on the piazza where we were all sitting. " A ride on horse-
back would be delightful, would it not ?"
** Delightful I" echoed Ella Wynkar.
" It would be a capital thing," said Phil, rising, " I won-
der how it is about saddle-horses are there any fit for la-
dies in the stable, do you know ?"
" There are only two that would do for us ladies, Mr.
Rutledge said," answered Josephine, " but several that you
gentlemen could ride, and I think it would be the nicest
thing in the world to have a brisk canter this fine after-
noon. What do you say. Captain McGu%?"
" By all means," responded the captain. " I wonder where
Mr. Rutledge is."
" In the library," said Grace.
" Then, Miss Josephine, you are the proper person to go
and ask his permission. We know for whose sweet sake all
obstacles are overcome, and if you ask, we are sure of our
ride."
" Yes," said Ellerton, who was excellent in chorus. " Yes,
there is no doubt he'll have the stables emptied in five mi-
nutes, if you want a ride."
Phil bit his lip, as Josephine, with a very conscioug look,
sprang up, saying, " Absui-d I It's only because you are
afiraid to ask yourselves that you want mo to go." And
with a coquettish shrug of the shoulders, and a very arch
laugh; she ran through the hall and disappeared at the libra*
ty door.
In a few moments she reappeared, and accompanied by
SUTLEDGE. &45
Mr. Rutledge, joined us on the piazza. There leas a sub-
dued tone of triumph in her voice as she said,
" The horses will be at the door in five minutes, good
people, not a moment to be lost. Who is going ?"
" I am sorry," said Mr. Rutledge, " that there are but two
horses fit for the ladies' use. There are enough, however,
for all the gentlemen. Mr. Viennet, you will find that
chestnut mare you were admiring yesterday, very good
under the saddle.'*
Victor bowed, and, looking at me, said, " What do you
ride ?
" I do not mean to ride this afternoon," I said quickly.
"Come, Ella!" exclaimed Josephine, "it will take us
some minutes to put on our habits," and the two friends
flew upstairs.
Mr. Rutledge approaching me, said in a low tone, " Will
you lend Madge to your cousin or Miss Wynkar if you do
not ride yourself?"
" It is a matter of very small moment to me who rides
Madge," I returned haughtily. " You cannot imagine that
I attach any serious meaning to the jest of last fall."
"That's as you will," he said, carelessly turning
away.
I had no desire to see the equestrians set off, so going
into the hall for my garden hat and a light shawl, I was
stealing quietly out at the north door, when on the thresh-
old I met Mr. Rutledge and Grace, who had come around
the piazza and were just entering.
" Where are you going ?" said that young person inquisi
tively.
" I have not quite made up my mind," I answered, trying
to pass her.
" You're going to walk, and I have a great mind to go
with you," she said, intercepting my exit.
" You will excuse me for saying I had rather not have
you," I returned shortly.
15*
346 BUTLKDGB.
" Sweet pet 1 Its temper don't improve," she said pro
rokingly.
" You are an insufferable child," I exclaimed, vexed be*
yond endurance, and, pushing her aside, I hurried through
the doorway. But the fringe of her shawl caught in the
bracelet on my arm, and, much against my will, I had to
turn back to release it. Grace enjoyed my vexation un-
speakably, and did not assist very materially in un^tening
the fringe, which, if the truth must be told, was a very dif-
ficult task for my trembling and impatient fingers. The
touch of Mr. Rutledge's cold, steady hand on my arm,
as he stooped to help me, added tenfold to my ipipa-
tience.
" Break it," I exclaimed, " you'll never be able to untan-
gle it."
" Oh that mysterious bracelet I" cried Grace. " You'd
never tell me where it came from."
" It is a perfect torment," I exclaimed, trying to wrench
the long silk fringe from the links in which it had become
hopelessly twisted, " It catches in everything,"
" Then why do you wear it, may I ask ?" said Mr. Rut-
ledge, coolly.
" Only because I cannot help myself."
" Can't I assist you ?" asked Victor, who had followed
me,
"Very possibly," said Mr. Rutledge. "It is rather a
delicate affair and requires patience, more, I confess, than 1
have at command."
" And some strength. Can't you break this thing, Mr
Viennet ? I cannot unclasp it, and it annoys me beyond
endurance."
" I have no doubt that Mr. Viennet can," said Mr. Rut-
ledge, laying the arm, bracelet, and entangled fringe in Vio
tor's hand.
He tried in vain for a moment to disengage the fringe oi
unclasp the bracelet, while Grace drawled^
BUTLEDGE. 347
" I advise you to huiTy, Mr. Viennet ; my cousin bites her
lip as if she were desperately angry."
" I cannot break it," said Victor, " without hurtmg you,
of course."
" No matter for that ! I am so anxious to have it off,
that I should not mind a little pain."
Victor shook his head. " Do not ask me to do it."
" Perhaps I should be less tender," said Mr. Rutledge,
bending over it again, and the frail links yielded instantly
to the vice-like grasp of his strong hand. A cry escaped
me as the bracelet snapped, and fell on the ground at my
feet.
" You are hurt !" exclaimed Victor, starting forward and
catching my hand over which the blood from the wrist was
trickling.
" It is nothing," I said, pulhng it away, and wi^apping my
shawl around it. " It is only scratched a little."
"Not very deep, I fancy," said Mr. Rutledge; while
Grace, shrugging her shoulders, exclaimed, as she entered
the house :
" Well ! you are the oddest set of people 1 All three of
you as pale as ashes, and as much in earnest as if it were a
matter of life and death ! Mr. Rutledge, I shall coax you
to tell me all about it."
"About what?" asked Mr. Rutledge, following her.
And as I caught Grace's saucy voice, and Mr. Rutledge's
quick, sarcastic laugh, as they passed down the hall, my
very breath came quick and short, under the maddening
pressure of a pain I had never felt before. Pique, jealousy,
vexation, I had known enough of, but this, that dashed all
other passions to the dust, and held me gasping in^ sucli ter-
rible subjection, was nearer to a deadly sin. It shot 30
keen through every vein, it burned so madly in my brain,
that for a moment, pride and reason were stunned ; and,
regardless of Victor's eyes fixed on my face, with a low cry
of pain, I pressed my hand to my forehead, then flew down
348 RUTLEDGS.
the steps, and vanished from his sight in the dimbberf
He could hardly have followed me if he had dioseu ; I was
out of sight of the house before he could have realized that
I had left him. The cool, fresh wind in my face only
allayed the pain enough to give me fresh strength to fly
from what, alas! could not be left behind. The still,
unruffled expanse of the lake, as I reached its banks, gave
me that sort of a pang that it gives one to wake up from a
short troubled sleep, when death and trouble have come in
the night, and find the sunshine flooding the room._ It was
so utterly out of tune, so calmly impassive while such
hot passion was raging in my heart^-so smiling and indif-
ferent while I was throbbing with such acute pain, that I
sprang away from the sight of it, and hurried on into the
woods, never pausing till I had reached the pine grove at
the head of the lake.
It was better there ; the pine-trees moan when there is
no breath to stir them sunshine and singing-birds pene
Crate their solemn depths but rarely ; and at last I stopped,
panting and trembling, on a knoll that rose abruptly in the
midst of this foresl sanctuary. I sunk down on the slippery
ground at the foot of a tall pine, and leaning my throbbing
temples on my hands, tried to think and reason.
Do the wild flowers and mountain herbage raise their
heads and meet the sonshine and shake off the blight, an
hour after the burning lava has swept over their fi^l
beauty ? Thought, reason, iith, were as impossible at that
moment to me, as growth, and feeling, and verdure are to
them. I did not think I could not reason ; some hateful
words rang in my ears, and a wild, confused purpose
mingled with the chaos that passion had made in my mind ;
but beyond that I was incapable of thought.
An hour, perhaps, passed so ; the sunset was fast fading
out of the sky, when the sound of voices through the woods
struck my ear, and listening, I recognized 4lie tones of the
returning riding-party. There was a bi idle-path, I knew,
V T L E D O JB. S49
jnst helow this knoll, through which they were returning
from Norbury, and springing up, I gathered my light
muslin dress about me, and pressing through the thicket
that lay between it aui me, waited for theqt to pass. A
low fence ran across the ravine, and half-kneeling behind
this, I watched for them with eager eyes. At last they
came, defiling past me one by one, through the narrow
path, the gentlemen first, then Ella Wynkar, and in a
moment after, Madge Wildfire's glossy head appeared
through the opening, so near that I might have patted her
arched neck, or felt the breath from her dilated nostrils,
and touched the gloved hand that held the reins so tightly
in her impatient mouth. Josephine's dark cheek glowed
with exercise and excitement, and as she sat, with her head
half-turned, in attention to the low tones of the horseman
who followed her closely, I could not help acknowledging,
with a sharp pang, the beauty that I had never before
appreciated. And her companion saw it too ; his stem face
softened as he watched the radiant smiles chase each other
over her varying mouth ; his eye, restless with an impatient
fire, fell with pleasure on her eager, attentive face.
He was thinking ^how well I knew it! A thousand
devils whispered it in my ear he was thinking, " this face
is gentle and womanly it turns to me for pleasure it ia
bright and gay no storms sweep over it; it has never
repulsed and disappointed me. Shall I end the doubt, and
say, it is the face that shall be the loadstar of my future^
the suushiiie and pleasure of my life ?"
The horses threaded their way daintily down the narrow
ra"dne the pleasant voices died away in the distance; I
raised myself from my bending attitude, and with blanched
cheeks and parted lips, strained my gaze to catch the last
tra/^e of them. If the assembled tribes of earth and air had
been there to see, I could not have brought one tinge of
color to my pallid face, nor taken the deadly stare out of
:uy eyes, I could only have done as I did now, when end-
360 BUTLEDGS.
denly I found I was not alone, utter a faint exclamation, and
turning sick and giddy, lean against the fence for support
The stealthy, cat-like tread of the intruder brought him to
my side in ^ moment. I knew, from the instant I met
the glance of his basilisk eyes, that lie had been reading my
face to some purpose that he knew the miserable story
written on it.
"You look agitated," said Dr. Hugh, bending toward
me obsequiously, " May I ask if anything has happened to
distress you ?"
His tones were so hateful that I cried quickly :
"No, nothing so much as seeing you;" jand, springing
across the low barrier, I hurried down the path, I knew
he was follo\ving me stealthily ; nothing but that fear would
have driven me back to the house again. The path was
narrow and irregular ; other paths branched off from it, and
before I got within sight of the lake again, I was thoroughly
bewildered, and in the gathering twiligiit. the huge trees
took weird forms, the " paths grew dim," and no familiar
landmark appeared to guide me. Pausing in fright and
bewilderment, I crouched for a moment behind a clump of
trees, and listened. I had eluded my pursuer ; in a second's
time, I heard his soft step treading cautiously and swiftly
down the path that I had inadvertently left. With a sigh
of relief, I looked about me, and finding that the lake was
just visible through an opening in the trees, knew my
whereabouts immediately, and only waited for Dr. Hugh
to be well out of the way to start across the park toward
the house.
Several minutes elapsed before I ventured to rise from
my hiding-place ; listening again intently, I was about to
spring from the thicket, and effect my escape across the
park, when, with a start of fear, I heard a heavy step crash-
ing among the underbrush in the direction from which we
had come; a heavy step, and then a pause. My heart
seemed to stand still as I waited to hear more. Tlie next
SUTLEDGE. 361
sound was a low whistle ; a long pause, and then the signal
was repeated. No answer came ; and with a low and surlj
oath, the new-comer advanced nearer to where I crouched.
Through a gap in the thicket, I could see him as he ap-
proached, and even by this dusky light, I recognized the
thickset figure and slouching gait of the man whom Victor
had so wantonly insulted on the evening of our arrival of
whose enmity there could be no reasonable doubt. It was
not a comfortable thought, but certainly some evil purpose
must have brought him here ; and for whom, too, was that
signal given? It seemed almost incredible that such a
spirit of revenge should possess itself of such a sluggish,
low-born nature ; yet I could not doubt that it was some
design of revenge that kept him lurking about the neigh-
borhood. I knew that Victor would be in peril if he were
abroad to-night. And it was not comfortable, either, to
remember that it was my fault that he had given the in-
sult ; for my protection that he had incurred this malice.
How should I ever forgive myself if any evil came of it ?
Victor was my only friend at Rutledge ; I could not but
be grateful ; the recollection of a thousand kindnesses
started up at the thought of the danger I had involved him
in, and I almost forgot that now I shared it.
Motionless and breathless, I saw him pass within two feet
of me, stop, whistle again, and then, after a pause, throwing
himself at full length on the ground, with his face toward
the park, within a few yards of where I was, lie waiting for
I did not dare to think what. Victor, I was certain, would
be somewhere about the grounds, watching for my return ;
this direction, sooner or later, he would inevitably take.
Moment after moment crept on ; every movement of the
stranger even his heavy breathing were as distinct as if
he had been within reach of my hand, and the least motion
on my part ^the faintest rustle of my dress, or of the
branches of the thicket would, of course, be as audible to
him, and most dangerous to mva ; indeed, if he were to turn
853 RUTLBDGS.
tbis way, I could hardly hope to escape detection, for my
light drapery, only half hid behind the dark thicket, would
inevitably betray me. How long this would last ^how d^
termined he could be in his vigil ^I dreaded to conjecture.
None but Victor was likely to come to my assistance, and
that was just the very worst of all.
There Was still enough light left in the west to distinguish,
as I looked eagerly that way, that a figure, from the diiec-
tion of the house, was crossing the lawn toward us. I
turned sick with fear as I recognized, bounding before the
rapidly-approaching walker, Victor's constant companion,
little Tigre ; and this, no doubt, was Victor. I alone could
warn him of the danger that awaited him ; but, faint and
almost paralyzed with fear, I had not strength nor courage
to stir. The villain beside me, less quick-sighted, had not
yet discovered his advance.
He was not yet half-way across the park ; there might be
time. I made a desperate resolve, and, clearing the copse
at one bound, flew, as only terror and desperation can
fly. I heard the startled oath the man uttered, and the
cracking of the birch boughs as he regained his. feet ; 1
heard him spring forward in pursuit, but by that time I was
out of the wood and on the lawn, and in another instant I
had reached my goal.
Catching his arm, I exclaimed vehemently, forgetting
everything in my terror :
" Don't go near that horrid wood, Victor / Come back,
as you value your life I"
I was too much terrified to await his reply ; but, calling
to him to follow me, I ran on at the top of my speed, and
never paused till I had reached the terrace, and, sinking
down on the stone steps, I covered my face with my hands,
panting and exhausted. Raising my head as I heard his
step beside me, I began :
" You don't know how narrow an escape you have had I
That "
BUTLEDGB. 358
** Tou have made a mistake," intemipted my companioiL
** It is not Victor J*^
With an exclamation of amazement and chagrin, I sprung
from him up the steps. I had made a miserable mistakci
indeed ; it was Mr. Kutledge.
CHAPTER XXVn.
** But 'mid his mirth, 'twas often strange
How suddenly his cheer would change
His looks o'ercast and lower
Even BO 'twas strange how, evermore,
Soon as the passing pang was. o'er,
Forward he rushed, with doable glee,
Into the stream of revelry."
Scott.
The fete champUre proved a success ; it was a perfeol
day ; the house, a very fine modem one, and the grounds,
had appeared to the best advantage ; the dancing tent had
been just full enough, the toilettes lovely, and the whole
thing so well got up and successful, that Josephine began
half to repent not having decided upon such an enter-
tainment for the Fourth instead of the proposed masque-
rade.
" This is just the place for a fSte," she said, as we were
all sitting in the parlor next morning " talking it over."
"This lawn is twice the size of the Emersons', and this
piazza, inclosed and decorated^ would be the prettiest thing
in the world. Indeed, there is no doubt in my mind but
that it would have been an infinitely handsomer affair than
theirs, if we had decided upon a fete?*
" It would not have been dignified, Miss Josephine," said
Mr. Rutledge, with a smile, " to have followed so closely in
their steps, and I do not think we need have any fears fof
the masquerade."
" Not the smallest," said Mrs. Churchill. " With Mr.
Rutledge as leader, and Josephine as aid-de-camp, I am
certain there is no such word as fail. This absurd child,"
BUTLEDGE. 855
rme continued, bending gracefully over her pretty daughter,
** this absurd child, Mr. Rutledge, enters so with all her
lieart into whatever she undertakes, that I have to laugh at
ber continually. She can think of nothing now, but this
masquerade, and only this morning ?'
" Now, mamma I" remonstrated Josephine.
" Only this morning," her mother went on, " she said to
me, * I was so worried, mamma, I couldn't sleep last night,
for Mr. Rutledge has trusted to my taste about the decora-
tions, and if he should be disappointed, I should be per-
fectly miserable.' Did you ever hear of anything so silly ?"
she continued, with a light caress.
"Never," said Mr. Rutledge, looking admiringly at
Josephine's averted conscious face. " Am I so very terri*
ble, then ?"
" No," said Josephine with a pretty shyness, " oh no I
but then, you know you see I should be so sorry to dis-
appoint or displease you. I know you wouldn't say a word,
but I should be perfectly miserable if you were not
pleased."
"Where are you going, Phil?" asked Grace, as her
cousin strode out into the hall.
" Anywhere, Gracie," I heard him say, under his breath.
" It doesn't make much difference where."
Poor Phil ! There was a sharp pain at his honest heart,
I knew. I watched him from the window, as with hasty
strides he crossed the lawn, and disappeared into the woods.
But Josephine didn't see ; Mr. Rutledge was sketching a
plan for the decorations, and she was leaning over the paper
with fixed attention.
"If those people are coming to lunch," said Ella
Wynkar, getting up from a t^te-^t^te chat with the cap-
tain, " it is time wo were dressed to receive them. Come,
Josephine, it would never be forgiven, if we should not be
ready."
" Ten," exclauned Mr. Rutledge, starting up and lookmg
356 BUTLBDGB.
at his watch, "I had forgotten about that. They will he
here in half an hour. Miss Josephine, did you ever effect
your toilet in half, an hour, in your life ?"
"You shall see!" cried Josephine, dancing out of the
room. Mrs. Churchill followed, with a laughing apology
for her daughter's wild spirits; since she had been at
this delightful place, she had, she declared, been like a
bird let loose.
" The liunet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods,**
I longed to say to my aunt, would hardly know how to
enjoy them. The miserable prisoner that had spent all its
life, in narrow cramped limits, on the sill of a city window,
hopped on a smooth perch, and eaten canary-seed and loaf-
sugar since its nativity, would hardly be at home in wide,
sunny fields, or " groves deep and high," would shudder to
clasp with its tender claws the rough bark of the forest
twigs, and would be doubtful of the flavor of a wild straw-
berry, and think twice before it would stoop to drink of
the roaring mountain-stream. It would, I fency, belbre
nightfall, creep miserably back to its cage, as the fittest,
safest, most comfortable place fbr its narrowed and timid
nature.
"So!" said Victor, looking at me with a curl on his.
handsome lip, as the drawing-room was vacated by all but
ourselves. " Are you going to spend an hour of this splen*
did fresh morning in making yourself fine ?"
" Not if I know myself intimately !" I exclaimed, cram-
ming my work, thimble, and scissors into my workbox, and
springing up. " I do not fancy devoting three hours to
those tiresome Mason girls nor their horse-and-dog brothers.
I shall never be missed, and I am going to the village for a
walk."
" Why to the village ?" said Victor, following me^
and reaching down my flat hat from tJie deer's honifi
BUTLEBGE. 357
that it had been decorating in the hall. " Why will
you not come to the lake and let me row you up to the
pines ?"
" I ought to liave paid my devoirs to the housekeeper at
the Parsonage the very day I arrived," I answered, as we
descended the steps. " She is a great friend of mine, and
she will be hurt if I neglect her any longer. Indeed, it's a
very pleasant walk, and you'll be repaid for taking it, if we
should find Mr. Shenstone at home. He is so kind, and the
very best fiian in the world." .
"That's the clergyman?" said Victor, making a grim-
ace. " I don't affect clergymen, as a general thing, but for
your sake I will try to be favorably impressed ; your friends
I always try to admire ; our host, for instance, who just
passed down the terrace, without so much as a look toward
us, though he could not possibly have avoided seeing us.
Why do you bite your lip ?" continued he, watching me
narrowly. " I cannot learn the signs of your face. Palo
and red, smiling and frowning, like any April day. There I
what chord have I touched now ? The thought gave you
actual pain."
" Nothing !" I exclaimed, hurriedly. " There's Stephen
on the lawn. I want to talk to him," and I ran across to
where he stood, leaning on his i-ake, watching us. While
I talked . to him, Victor threw himself upon the heap of
new-cut hay at a little distance from us, and played with
Tigre. I saw that Stephen's eyes often wandered to where
he lay, his hat off, the wind lifting the dark hair from his
handsome face.
" If I might make so bold," said Stephen, in a low tone,
as I was turning away, " has that young gentleman lived
long in this country ?"
* I do not know, really," I said, with a laugh. " Shall I
ask him, Stephen ?"
'*No, Miss, I shouldn't like you to ask him; but I should
like to know."
858 BUTLEDGB.
" I'll find out for you sometime," I said, as I nodded a
good bye and rejoined Victor.
It was, as he said, a splendid day all sultriness dissipated
by the strong wind. We had a beautiful walk through the
woods, though I couldn't quite forget " our rustic friend,**
as Victor called his unknown enemy ; but he made such a
joke of it thlit it was impossible to have much feeling of
alarm connected with it. The village, however, he seemed
not to care to visit.
" Had I not better wait for you here ?" he said, lingering
as we passed out of the woods into the lane that led to the
village.
" ^NTo, indeed," I said, perversely ; " if you stay here 1 shaU
go home another way."
He laughed, but rather uneasily, and followed me.
I bent my head so that my hat hid my face as we entered
the low gate of the Parsonage, for I dreaded Victor's in-
quiring eyes just then. I preceded him down the little
path bordered with flowers, and, stepping on the porch,
raised the knocker. We waited for several minutes, and
still no answer ; so, telling my companion to follow me, I
passed on into the study.
" What a cool, shady, pleasant room i" said Victor, as he
gave me a seat and threw himself into another. " I am
sure I could write a sermon myself against the pomps and
vanities if I had such a sweet, calm retreat to repose in
meantime."
" Pshaw !" he exclaimed impatiently, " what do these men
know of temptation, who have never felt a passion stronger
than this summer wind, nor seen a rood beyond theii* own
study windows ! These calm, slow natures, bred in the re-
tirement and quiet of the country, can preach, perhaps ?rith
profit, to their humble flocks ; but to men who have been in
the thick of the fight, never."
I shook my head. " You will not say that after you have
seen Mr. Shenstone ; but here he comes."
BUTLEDGB. 159
The clergyman stood for a moment in the door way before
he entered, his tall, stooping figure nearly filling it. I ad-
vanced to meet him, and Victor rose. The room was so
dark that at first he did not recognize me, and, of coarse,
saw but indistinctly my companion. But as I spoke, he ex-
tended his hand cordially, and gave us both a kind reception.
" I have been expecting a visit from you," he said, sitting
down beside me, and speaking in the quiet tone that was
habitual with him, and looking at me with his kind smile*
" You have been here some days, have you not ?"
" Yes, sir, and I've meant to come ; but there has been
something going on every day that has interfered, and I
have supposed every day, sir, that you would be there."
" Ah !" he said, with the slightest perceptible fading of
the smile, " I have been so long out of gay company that I
should not be at home there now. The quiet of my little
village suits me best."
I knew this would be a confirmation of Victor's judgment,
so I hurried on to say, " But, sir, you sometimes go among
gay people. I am sure you are often at Windy Hill, and at
the Emersons, are you not ?"
" Sometimes oh I yes ;. but it seems different with Rut-
ledge. It would be to me," he went on in a lower tone,
" unspeakably grating and painful to see that place throw
off" the gloom and silence that it has worn for twenty years
twenty years and more. But you cannot be expected to
understand this. I had forgotten you were nearly a child
as yet. You only know regret and sorrow by name, I sup-
pose."
There must have been an involuntary denial of this on my
^ce, for he looked at me attentively for a moment ; then, in
a tone that had a little sadness in it, he said :
" But you are older than you were last fall^ my child, I
see ; one takes quick strides sometimes toward maturity
after one has crossed the threshold. This little girl and I,
Mr. Viennet, were very good friends last year and I hope
860 BUTLEDOE.
that the world has not separated us quite, though it has
changed one of us a little, I fear."
I could not keep back the sudden tears that rushed into
aiy eyes ; the tone of sympathy so strange to my ears exor-
cised the evil tempers that had swayed me so long. If it
had not been for Victor's presence, I should have thrown
off the reserve and silence that I had so long maintained to
ward all around me, and have saved myself perhaps from
years of misery.
Only Mr. Shenstone's compassionate eyes saw the emo
tion that flashed through mine; murmuring some excuse
about finding Mrs. Arnold, I quitted the room. I found her
in the apartment that had been my sick-room, busy as ever
with her silent, rapid needle. Throwing my arms around
her neck, I kissed her affectionately.
" Why have you not been before ?" she said, quietly.
" Because I haven't done anything right or pleasant since
I came," I retunied, with a little bitterness.
Mrs. Arnold shook her head, " Mr. Shenstone would tel
you not to let that go on."
" Don't I" I exclaimed, with an impatient gesture ; " don't
tell me what I ought to do don't talk to me about my duty,
I am sick and tired of it all. I want to forget all about
everything that makes me miserable, and only be petted and
made much of," and, throwing myself down on a low stool
at her feet, I drew her hand around my neck.
" You were always, willful," she said, sadly ; " but you
used to like to hear about your duty."
" I don't now ; I've got over that. I shall never come
to the Parsonage if you talk to me about it. We don't
have time for duty at Rutledge now-a-days. Oh I Mrs,
AiTiold, it seems like a different place. Why don't you
come and seo how fine the house looks. There's to be a
masquerade on the Fourth. You should come and see how
beautifully it will be decorated, and how pretty all our
dreeses will be."
fiUTLEDGE. 361
Th hand around my neck was quickly withdrawn ; with
a Budden start, she rose and walked nervously about the
room, the color fluttering in her cheeks, and her hand pass-
mg rapidly over her smooth, grey hair.
" Yes, yes," she said at last, sitting down and trying tc
command herself. " I know it is all right ; you are young
and you ought to enjoy yourself. I hope you are happy
there."
" You need not imagine that I am I" I exclaimed bitterly.
" You may be sure I have enough to keep me down, and
make me wretched, gay as they all are. But I'm not going
to talk about it," I said, interrupting myself, " for you'll
begin to tell me how I ought to bear it, and that I can't
listen to now. Tell me how the school goes on. Does
the new teacher work well, and do the children like
her ?"
" Very mucb," said Mrs. Arnold, relapsing slowly into
her ordinary manner. " I should like you to go with me
some day to see them."
The archives of the Parish School, and many minor mat-
ters of interest, served to occupy our tongues, if not our
minds, for the next half hour, and it was only the sudden
recollection of having left Mr, Shenstone and Victor, two
entire strangers, at each other'8 mercy, that brought an end
to the interview. Starting up, I said :
" It is time for me to go. Come down, Mrs. Arnold, and
see whether you think Mr. Viennet as handsome as Kitty
does."
She very reluctantly follpwed me downstairs, and waited
in the porch to see us, and say good bye as we should
pass out.
I found Victor and Mr. Shenstone talking. Victor, it
seemed to me, treated his entertainer with several degrees
more of reverence than I had imagined he could either feel
or affect toward any one. Mr. Shenstone's manner was
rather less tranquil than ordinary, though, it struck me. Ho
10
363 BUTLEDaS.
accompanied us to the door, and looked very earnestly at
Victor as we came into the stronger light.
" I shall hope for the pleasure of another visit before you
leave the country, Mr. Viennet," he said slowly, as we
pai'ted at the threshold.
" I shall not fail to do myself the honor," returned Victor
m a manner less French, and more sincere than ttsual
bowing very low.
" Isn't he handsome ?" I whispered, in a careless aside to
Mrs. Arnold, as we passed her on the porch. But to my
surprise, she had started back, with the same dilated,
agitated look in her eyes, that she had worn upstairs, and
the fluttering color coming and going on her face as she
watched Victor, while her pale lips opened, but no sound
passed them. I stared in wonder, but she drew back
hastily, and disappeared in the house.
" You will have a pleasant walk," said Mr. Shenstone,
thoughtfully, as he watched us down the path.
" I'm afraid not," muttered Victor, between his teeth, as
at the gate Dr. Hugh joined us with a most affable bow.
He proposed to accompany us on our way, he said, if agree-
able to us. He was going as far as the Park, to see that
delicate-looking young Mr. Wynkar, to whom he had just
been summoned.
" Over-eaten himself no doubt," said Victor, impatiently.
" Ah ?" said the doctor, nodding intelligently, " is that
hi^ trouble ? I fancied as much. Your pale, cadaverous-
looking people generally are the very mischief among the
provisions."
Victor's lip curled; I could see he chafed under this
familiarity. Why does he endure it, I thought. Hia
imperious temper brooks no annoyance from those around
him ; daily there is some new evidence of his self-will and
determination ; why does he so tamely submit to what,
there wants no penetration to see, is galling him to dii^
traction.
RUTLBDGE. 368
It was almost impossible to realize that this was my
gay, sparkling companion of an hour ago. Pale and
abstracted he walked beside me, answering, at random,
the doctor's many questions gnawing his lip at the occa-
sional familiarities of his manner, but offering no affront or
slight.
Our constrained and uncomfortable walk brought us to
the house just as the Masons were getting into their carriage.
The whole party stood on the piazza, and the approach for
US was anything but a pleasant thing.
" Courage," whispered Victor, seeing me falter as every
eye turned toward us. " Be as queenly as you can. You
had a right to go ; there was no intimation given you that
there was to be company at lunch. It would be cowardly
indeed to mind their slights."
Victor had touched the right chord ; the color flashed
back into my cheeks, and with as queenly a step as he
could have desired, I advanced to meet the strangers.
" You must excuse my cousin," cried Grace, interrupting
our rather formal greetings. " She never allows anything
to interfere with her rural tastes, and as she is addicted to
t^te-a-t^te rows and lonely rambles, we are quite cut ofl
from her society."
The Misses Mason looked at me as if they were afraid of
me, the Messrs. Mason as if they would have been, if they
had not been such brave men. I do not know exactly
what I said, it was all a kind ol dream, I was so intensely
worked up; but whatever my answer was, it must have
been clever, and a good retort, for Victor's clear laugh rang
in the air, and the young ladies tittered, and looked at
3race to see how she bore it, and the least ponderous of the
two young gentlemen slapped the captain on the back with
alow:
" By George I She's not to be put down I I like her
spirit."
A month ago, perhaps, the interview that I had to go
364 BUTLBliOS.
through with my aunt after the departure of the guests,
would have made me quite miserable; but now, it was
utterly powerless. We were openly at war, and no hostile
message could alter the state of affairs. I could have
laughed in her face, for all the impression that it made on
me, but of course I preserved the external respect I owed
her, and neither by look iior word betrayed how indif
ferent a matter it was to me whether she approved or
dissented.
*' A word with you, my friend," I heard the doctor say
to Victor, passing his arm through his and leading him oft
toward the terrace. Victor set his lips firmly together, and
his face darkened ; there was a storm brewing ; the wily
doctor was going too far, if he did not wish to feel the
wrath of it. For half an hour, I watched them from my
window ; they had gone to a retired walk in the shrubbery,
where only at a certain turn I could catch sight of them.
Victor's face, whenever I could see it, was white and pas-
sionate, and his gestures showed that he had dashed aside
the restraint he had set upon himsel B[is was not an im-
potent and childish anger either ; it was the strong wrath
of a strong man, snared and trapped, exasperated and tor^
tured by an enemy wily and powerful, with some secret
hold upon his victim, that gave his weakness and meanness
the strength of a giant. I watched, fascinated and terrified^
for every glimpse of the two faces, as the two men strode
up and down the alley. If Victor's tormentor had seen his
face as I did, surely he would have paused. How could
confidence and pride so blind a man as to make him insen-
sible to the danger of rousing to such a pitch, such a fierce
southern nature? They had blinded him, however, for
Dr. Hugh's face expressed nothing but cunning and triumph,
guarded and subdued by habitual self-control.
That night, as we were separating for our rooms, Victor
announced carelessly that his pleasant visit was nearly at an
end. He had that day received letters thaii made it neoesr
&UTLEDGE. 865
*
garjr for him to sail in neit week's steamer, and he should
have to tear himself away from Rutledge in a day or two.
The color went and came in my face as I met Mr. Rut-
ledge's eye ; Victor studiously avoided looking at me, and
the others were too much absorbed in the announcement to
heed me.
" Why, Victor !" exclaimed Phil, heartily, stung perhaps
with some slight self-reproach for his recent neglect ; " why,
old fellow, we shan't know what to do without you ! It's
a shame to break up a pleasant party like this. Make it the
next steamer, and stay over another week, and we'll all go
together."
" Do, I beg of you, Victor," echoed Ellerton.
"And you couldn't go without that day's woodcock
shooting we've been talking of," said the captain. " The
law's up next week, you know."
"And you've forgotten the masquerade!" exclaimed
Josephine.
" And the Masons' tableaux !" cried Ella.
" And my cousin's feelings," added Grace, slily.
" And what of your own, my pretty Miss Grace ?" said
Victor, carrying the war so abruptly over into her territory
that she had no time to collect her wits for a retort. " My
own heart is broken at the idea of leaving you. Are you
perfectly immoved at the sight of my sorrow? I shall
never believe in woman again."
" I do not know,'? said Mr. Rutledge, " what other in-
ducements we can hold out of sufficient power to detain
Mr. Viennet longer. If there is anything bo imperative as
he suggests, however, I imagine that our persuasions will
be thrown away."
" Quite thrown away, sir, I regret to admit," said Victor
with a low and significant bow. " I can enjoy your hospi-
tality no longer than Wednesday morning."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
" And as the dove, to the far Palmyra flying
From where her native founts of Antioch beam,
"Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing,
Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream,
** So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring,
Love's pure, congenial spring nnfonnd, nnqnaffed,
Suffers recoils ^then, thirsty and despairing
Of what it would, descends, and sips the nearest draught."
" You are cruel," said Victor, in a low tone, as I fcUowecI
the rest of the party into the library after dinner. " Thia
is my last day, and you will not give me a moment."
" Who's for a ride ? Mr. Rutledge wants to know," said
Grace, coming in from the piazza.
" Not I, for one," exclaimed Ella, throwing herself back
on the sofa. " I'm going to save myself for this evening."
"And you, too, Josephine, dear," said her mother, "had
better not tire yourself any more. You will be perfectly
fagged if you go to drive, and you want to keep yourself
fresh for the Masons."
" Aren't you made of sterner stuff?" whispered Victor.
"Aren't you equal to a drive and a party in the same
twenty-four hours ? It is heavy work, I know, but your
constitution seems a good one."
" I think I'll venture," I said, following Grace into the
hall. " There's Kitty on the stairs. Mr. Viennet, tell hei
to bring me my bonnet, please."
Eatty was only too glad to obey Mr. Viennet's orders at
any time, and she flew to got my things.
" Get mine at the same time, young woman," drawled
Grace,
mi
BUTLEDJE. 367
Before Kitty had returned from her double errand, the
horses were at the door.
" Our friends, the bays," said Victor. " But I think ouf
host means to drive them himself. He has the reins in his
hands."
"Are these all your recruits, Miss Grace?" said Mr:
Rutledge.
" Yes. Josephine and Ella are afraid of their complexions,
or their tempers, or something, and won't come, and I can't
find Captain McGuffy or Phil."
Victor stood ready to hand me into the carriage ; I imme-
diately took possession of the back seat.
" This is a very selfish arrangement," said Victor, discon
tentedly, as Grace was about to follow me. " Miss Grace,
you*d have a much better view of the country up there
beside Mr. Rutledge."
" And Grace might drive," I added ; " she's so fond of
horses."
" As you please," she said, with a shrug. " I only go for
ballast yet awhile, I know, and it's evident I'm not wanted
here. Mr. Rutledge, do you want me ?"
" Miss Grace, my happiness will not be complete till you
comply with Mr. Viennet's disinterested suggestion ;" and
Grace mounted up beside him.
I had undertaken, in that drive, more than I was quite
equal to. I had brought myself into the position that I had
been avoiding all day, a tdte-tl-tete of the most unequivocal
kind with a man whose devotion it was impossible to
ignore, and I had gone too far to retract entirely. It was
cruel to treat him with coldness, now that we were on the
eve of a long separation, and to repel with indifference the
tenderness that shone in his eloquent eyes and faltered in
liis low tones. Our companions left us entirely to ourselves;
my awkward attempts to draw them into a general conver-
sation were all frustrated by Mr. Rutledge's cool indifie
rence, and Grace's cool impertinence.
868 BUTLEDOB.
Tke only time that Mr. Rutledge addressed a singk
remark voluntarily to me, was on onr way home. We bad
driven aromid by Norbury, and were returning by way of
the post-office. Suddenly drawing the reins, Mr. Rutledge
stopped for an instant on the brow of the hill.
" Do you remember this ?" he said, abruptly, turning to
rae, and fixing his eyes on my face.
Remember it ? My cheek was crimson with the recollec-
tion then ; the scene would never fade but with life and
memory. It was just here, that, in the glow of the autumn
Bunset, he and I had parted on that ever-to-be-remembered
evening, when my willfulness had led me into such danger.
Hemlock Hollow lay dark and dense below us. Far off at
the left, the mill and bridge that had served as a landmark
then, gleamed in the setting sun. The forest foliage was
greener and thicker now, but the picture was the same ; I
could never have got it out of my memory if I had tried ;
and yet, when Mr. Rutledge asked me that sudden ques-
tion, a wicked lie, or as wicked a prevarication, rose to my
lips.
" Yes, I think I remember it. Didn't we go this way to
the Emersons' the day of the fete ?"
"' 1 think we did yes," said Mr. Rutledge, with an
almost imperceptible compression of the lips, as, bending
forward, he startled the eager horses with a galling lash of
the whip.
Grace was quite white with alarm as we reached the
village.
" Mr. Rutledge, why do you drive so frightfully fast ? I
am terrified to death."
He drew the horses in a little, and, looking down at \iei-,
said :
" Were we going fast ? I am sorry I frightened you ; tot
my part, I thought we crept."
He paused a moment at the Parsonage gate. Mrn.
Arnold was in the garden; Mr. Rutledge called out to her
SUTLEDGE. 869
that He had brought Mr. Shenstone's letters and papers,
but had not time to stop to see him. She approached
the carriage, looking so lady-like and attractive, with her
soft, white hair smoothed plain under her neat cap, and
her clinging dark dress, that Victor said, involuntarily
to me :
"What an attractive-looking person I I never saw a
gentler face."
She was quite absorbed in attending to the message Mr,
llutledge left for Mr. Shenstone, and in her retinng
modesty I do not think she ventured a look at us, till Vic-
tor, who had been watching her with interest, addressed
some remark to her. She raised her eyes at the sound of
his voice in a startled way, the same fluttering, frightened
look transformed her quiet features, and trying in vain to
command herself, she stammered some excuse, and turned
away.
" Strange I" exclaimed Victor, as we drove on. " Did
you notice the odd way in which that person looked at me,
both now and the other day ?"
" It is strange," said Mr. Rutledge, thoughtfully. " Cap
you account for it in any way ?"
" In no way, sii\ I do not think I ever enjoyed the hap-
piness of meeting her before I visited this neighborhood ;
and since my residence in it, I cannot remember having
done anything to have rendered myself at all an object of
interest to her."*
" Who's that bowing so graciously to you ?" interrupted
Grace.
" Oh ! EUei-ton's medical adviser."
" By the way, Mr. Viennet," said Mr. Rutledge, turning
rather abruptly to him, " the doctor tells me he is an old
friend of yours."
" Hardly a friend, if I understand the teim aright," re-
turned Victor, changing color slightly. "I knew IvKa
"vhen he was studying medicine in tli cW^ \.s^vj ox VXa^^
16*
370 BUTLEDGE.
years ago. I lost sight of him entirely after that, and the
renewal of our acquaintance has been attended with more
zest on his part than on mine."
" I believe he is rather apt to presume," said Mr,
Rutledge, briefly, and there the conversation dropped,
"We were rather a taciturn party for the remainder of
the way. Tea was waiting for us on our return, and after
It, Grace and I had to make quite a hurried, toilet for the
party, the others being already dressed.
" Aunt Edith, bo kind enough to let me accompany you,**
I said, hurriedly, following her into the carriage, as we all
stood, ready to start, on the stone walk below the piazza.
Victor, with a look of disappointment, closed the door upon
Mrs. Churchill, Grace, Ella, and myself.
" Miss Josephine," I had heard Mr. Rutledge say, " it is
such a lovely night, you will surely not refuse to let me
drive you. It will be infinitely pleasanter than going in
the carriage, I assure you."
It was a very long and a very silent drive for the inmates
of the carriage, to Windy Hill; and when we arrived there,
we found the gentlemen of our party awaiting our coming
with some impatience. The curtain would be raised in a
moment, Phil said ; the tableaux had been retarded as long
as possible on our account. Where were Josephine and
Mr. Rutledge ?
" Echo answers where," said Grace. " Taking the long-
est way, you may be sure, and making the most of this
lovely moonlight."
Mrs. Churchill did not seem very uneasy, and after a
little consultation in the dressing-room, it was decided that
we should not wait for them, but should all go down to the
parlor. Accordingly we descended the stairs and entered the
room en masse. It was quite full, and as they had only
been waiting for our arrival, in a few moments the curtain
rose.
The tableaux were very fine, no doubt \ there were mm*-
ftUTLEDGE. 871
murs of applause and exclamations of admiration from all
the company. All were enthusiastically received, and some
were encored. I tried to attend, but my recollection of
them is only a confused jumble of convent and harem scenes,
trials of queenly personages, and signings of death warrants
and marriage contracts ; Effie Deans, and Rebekah at the
well, the eve of St. Bartholomew, and the landing of the
Pilgnms. I tried to attend, both to the tableaux and to
Victor's whispered conversation, .but there was " something
on my mind " as Kitty would have said, too engrossing to
allow me to succeed. Do what I might, I still found my-
self listening eagerly for the sound of carriage wheels out-
side. Victor noticed my abstracted and nervous manner,
and turned away at last with a half sigh.
The curtain rose and fell many times, the audience ad-
mired, applauded and encored, with untiring enthusiasm,
the little French clock above me on the mantelpiece, marked
the departing minutes faithfully, and still they did not come.
This was as unlike Josephine as it was unlike Mr. Rutledge.
Something dreadful had happened, I was sure ; something
that would make the memory of this night forever terrible,
and what a miserable mockery it was for us all to be laugh-
ing and talking so thoughtlessly. Mrs. Churchill was anx-
ious, I could see, but she tried very faithfully to conceal it,
and laughed and turned off all conjectures about them with
her usual skillful nonchalance. Phil had walked the piazza
as long ag he could endure it, then throwing himself upon
his horse, had galloped off in the direction of Rutledge.
At last the parlorjj were cleared of all the appurtenances
of the tableaux, and the dancing began. I was standing by a
window listening oh, how eagerly!- for the sound of wheels,
when Victor approached me, and asked for the next dance.
" Indeed you must excuse me, I cannot dance," I said al-
most impatiently, "ask somebody else."
The look with which he tunied away would have cut me
to the heart, if my heart had not been too ^^X^v.*^^ xc^sasst^
873 RUTLEDOB.
ble to mind the pain of others. He did not dance, at lean*
ing against the window opposite gazed abstractedly out.
The gay music and merry voices grated perhaps as cruelly
on his mood as on mine.
I never had had less the command of myself; the persons
who came up to talk to me, could make nothing of me ; I
could not talk, could not find a word of answer to their ques-
tions. At length a gentleman who had been standing near
me for some minutes, said kindly :
" These rooms are too warm for you, will you come on
the piazza for a little while ?"
I gave him a grateful look, and taking his arm, followed
liim out into the fresh air. Several others were there before
us, and accepting my cicerone's offer of a seat, I leaned
against the vine-covered pillar, and looked intently down
the road that led winding up from the lodge: My compan-
ion evidently understood and pitied my anxiety and did not
attempt to make me talk.
At last ! there came a distant sound of wheels, and as they
rapidly neared the house, I involuntarily covered my face
with my hands. What might they bring? What news
might I hear in another moment ?
*' They are safe," said my companion, kindly. " Look,
they are at the door."
I looked up. Josephine, with a light laugh, was springing
up the steps. Mr. Rutledge, who had thrown the reins to a
servant, was following her. Mrs. Churchill and a group of
others hurried out to meet them,
" My dear," she exclaimed hurriedly, " what has detained
you ? We have been excessively worried about you."
" Why, mamma," laughed the daughter, lightly kissing
her mother's cheek, " I knew you would scold, and I didn't
mean to have been so naughty, but you know it was such a
sweet evening, and Mr. Rutledge said that wild Hemlock
Hollow looked so picturesque by moonlight, that we couldn't
reski the temptation of going that way, and after we hail
FUTLEDGB 373
driven oh I I can't tell you how far we suddenly came
npon a huge old tree that had fallen across the road, and over
it of course we could not get, and the woods were so dense
on either side that it was impossible to get around it, so the
only thing left for us to do, was to turn, and make the best
of our way back."
*' I assure you, Mrs. Churchill," said Mr. Rutledge, " I
am very much annoyed at having caused you this anxiety.
You will fancy me very careless, but it was a contretemps
I had never dreamed of."
The whole party passed out of sight into the hall. A
group who stood near us and had been watching the scene,
also moved on toward the door, but as they turned away
I caught the words from one of them :
" It looks very much like it, and it will be an excellent
thing on both sides ; but I never thought till lately, that he
would marry."
" "Wni you go in," said my companion.
'^ Yes, if you please," and we followed the crowd.
** Ah ! you look like a different person," he said, smiling
as we went into the light. I saw as we passed a mirror that
a bright spot was burning on each cheek, and my eyes were
shining Unnatui*ally. " I could see you were dreadfully anx-
ious about your cousin, and indeed I could not wonder at it.*'
" For the last time," said Victor in a low tone at my side,
*' will you dance with me ?"
I yielded, and in a moment we were on the floor. JSTot
an instant after that did I stop to think. If I had, my cheek
would have paled to have found at the mercy of what fierce
hatred, resentment and jealousy, my unguided soul then
was, and whither they were hurrying me. To others, I wab
only a gay young girl, revelling in her first flush of triumph,
thoughtless, innocent and happy. God help all such inno
cence and happiness !
It was the last dance ; the carriage was already at the
door, Mrs. Churchill had limited us to ftv^ xDMi\Xft%\EkSS^^
874 BUTLEDGB.,
two or three were contending for my hand. Victor had
hang around me all the evening, and I caught a gleam of hifi
sad, expressive eyes. Josephine, on Mr. Rutledge^s arm,
passed us at the moment. Turning toward Victor, I said
to the others with a smile, " Mr. Viennet says this will be
his last dance in America. I think I must give it to
lum."
A flash of hope lighted up his handsome face. I trem-
bled at what I had done as I took my place among the
dancers. The words that I knew I must hear before we
parted, I heard now. There was but a moment for the
recital, but it sufficed. Was it that such homage soothed
my wounded pride ; or that, bewildered by this tempest of
emotions, I had mistaken gratitude for tenderness, kind re-
gard for love ? Whatever may have been my motive or
excuse, the fact remained the same. Before I parted with
Victor Viennet at the carriage door, I had accepted his
love, and promised myself to him irrevocably.
How hot and still the night had grown I I leaned my
forehead on the carriage window to cool its burning. The
horses seemed to creep over the smooth road ; I clenched
my hands together to quiet their impatience. My com-
panions, leaning back on the cushions, slept or rested. This
very tranquillity maddened me, and, holding my breath lest
they should know how gaspingly it came, I wished and
longed to be alone once more. I could not, did not dare to
think till there were bolts and bars between me and the
woi-ld. At last I caught sight of the welcome lights of
Rutledge, and almost before the deliberate horses had
stopped in front of the house, I burst open the carriage
door, and flew up the steps.
"Have the others got home yet?" I ,asked of Eatty
eagerly.
" No, Miss ; but they'll be here m a minute. I see the
Ughts of the barouche just by the park gate."
The other ladies paused in the parlor till the rest of the
it U T L E D G E 378
party should anive ; for me, I never stopped till I was 'with*
in the sanctuaiy of my own room.
" No matter for undressing me to-night," I said to Kitty,
who had followed me. "I can do all that is necessary for
myself, and. don't come till I ring for you in the morning ; I
am so tired I shall want to rest."
With a look of some disappointment she turned away,
and I slid the bolt, with a trembling hand, between me and
the outer world. But not between me and conscience, not
between me and memory, not between me and remorse. I
nad thought, when once I am alone, this misery will vent
itself in tears this insufferable pain will yield to the relief
of solitude and quiet. But I did not know with what I had
to deal. I did not estimate what foes I had invoked what
remorse and regret were to be my comrades through the
slow hours of that night.
With suicidal hand, it seemed to me, I had shut myself
out forever from peace, forever from all chance of happiness.
Nothing now but misery : the past, a sin and guilt to recall ;
the future, weariness but to imagine. The promise I had
given was to me as irrevocable and sacred as the mariiage
vow itself; and self-reproach only riveted the fetters more
hopelessly, as I remembered the manly love of which I was
so unworthy. To draw back now, would but add perjury
to my sins, and deal undeserved misery to the man I
nad deceived. No, hypocrisy became a duty now ; he
should never know the agony that I had wrestled with
when I had first looked my engagement in the face. He
should never know how the first hours of it had been black-
ened. But oh I plead repentance, I will bury this hateful
secret in my heart ; I will only live to serve him ; I will
make him happy ; I will be a true and faithful mfe.
True ? questioned a voice within me ; and with a misera-
ble groan I hid my face, and owned that I must leave truth
at the threshold of this new relation. I must enter it ^ith
a dead love in my heart, a false vow on la^ ^v?^^
CHAPTER XXIX.
^ Alas ! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor cahnaronnd
I conld lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must beai
Till death, like sleep, might steal on me/'
SUELLBT.
" How late, you have slept, Miss !" said Kitty, as sho linr.
ried up in answer to my bell. " I have been expecting you
would ring for the last hour. Did you know. Miss, they are
all at breakfast ?"
" It will not take me many minutes," I said, sitting down
for her to braid my hair. Kitty was in a desperate hurry
this morning; her fingers trembled so she could hardly
manage the heavy braids.
" The other young ladies are down some time ago," sno
said, with a sharp look at me in the glass. " I suppose if
they were tired, they would get up this moniing out of po-
liteness to Mr.Viennet, as he goes away at ten, and he might
think rather hard of it if they didn't take the trouble to
come down in time to say good bye to him."
Encouraged, perhaps, by the color that suffused my face,
she went on : " As for him, he's been up since daybreak,
walking up and down the hall, and on the piazza, and start-
ing and changing color every time a door opened or any
one came on the stairs. I don't believe he wants to go
away very much."
" Kitty, you are getting my hair loo low ; you're not
thinking of what you are about."
Kitty blushed in her turn, and said nothing more, but
ire
KQTLEDGB. 877
hurried on my toilet. It was soon completed. I would
thankfully have delayed it, but there was no longer any-
thing to wait for, no longer the least excuse, and, to Kitty's
inexpressible relief, I turned to leave the room. Kitty did
not suspect with what a beating heart it was, though, and
with what a blur before my eyes. I hardly saw the familiar
objects in the hall, hardly distinguished a word in the hum
of voices in the breakfast-room, as I paused an instant at
the threshold. But there was no time for wavering now.
I pushed open the door and entered.
There was a momentary hush on my entrance ; Phil made
a place for me beside him, saying :
" It is something new for you to be late. Aren't you well ?^
" Dissipation doesn't agree with you, I fear," said Mrs
Churchill. '' You look quite pale this morning."
" Mamma !" exclaimed Josephine, in a tone mock-con-
fidential, just loud enough for every one to hear. " That
is unkind ! Surely, you remember what happens to-day I"
" Come, come, that's not fair," said Phil. " I thought
you were more considerate, Joe. Let your cousin have her
breakfast in peace."
" Don't let me keep eveiybody waiting," I said, faintly.
" Well, if you'll excuse us," exclaimed Josephine, start-
ing up. "We have all finished." Then with a wicked
look, " Mr. Viennet, you've been through your breakfast
some time. Don't you want to take a farewell promenade
on the piazza ?"
Mr. Viennet bowed, and expressed bis pleasure in rather
a low voice.
"Mr. Arbuthnot, you're not going to forsake me, are
you ?" I asked, as the others rose.
" Of course not," said Phil. " I am always your vei-y
good friend when you'll allow me to be."
Josephine little knew how much I thanked her for her
manceuvre ; though done from motives the least amiable, it
was the kindest thing she could have thought o
878 BUTLEDQE.
" Don't tivke that strong coffee," said Phil, noticing how
my hand trembled, and substituting for it a cup of tea ;
then puttmg everything within my reach, he sent the servant
away, and began reading the paper himself.
If Phil Arbuthnot should ever prove himself my worst
enemy, I never could forget the considerateness of that
morning. He was tender-hearted and kind as a woman, and
great, strong man as he was, there was a delicacy of feelhig
and gentleness about him, that suffered with everything
weak and suffering, and strove, at all costs, to give aid and
comfort. And aid and comfort, prompted by such a heart,
could not fail to soothe. In his eyes, women were sacred ;
their influence over him unbounded. If he only had been
thrown with those who could have elevated and purified,
instead of narrowing and lowering his nature, how noble
and large-hearted a man he might have been. He had
sacrificed his profession, his prospects in life, and all that
elevates and nerves a man, to his love for Josephine. How
far she accepted it, how she meant to requite it, there is no
need to say. I think she liked him ; I think that she felt
for him a tenderness that no one else could ever awaken in
her heart. He had been her lover ever since they were
girl and boy together, and in those young days, perhaps,
she had fancied that the happiest thing in the world, would
be to marry Phil. But such sweet romance had been
scorched and shrivelled by the first breath of the world.
Josephine had renounced such folly early; she was wiso
and prudent beyond her years, and she had been trained in
a good school. Some wondered that Mrs. Churchill could
trust her daughter so constantly with a man of as pleasing
an address as Phil ; cousins were so apt to fancy eatsh
other. " I have perfect confidence in Josephme," said Mrs.
Churchill, proudly. It was not misplaced ; Josephine
Churchill might have been trusted with Ciipid in person, if
he had not been a desirable j^ar^i.
" What time is it ?" I asked of Phil, in a low tone,
BUTLEDGE. 870
after I had exhausted every device for prolonguig my
breakfast.
"Five minutes to ten," he aiswered, looking at his
watch. " Shall we take a turn on the piazza, if you have
finished ?"
I followed him to the piazza. " It is too sunny for you,"
he said, as I screened my aching eyes from the light. "The
parlor is pleasanter."
Ella was at the piano, playing some light air (very light,
indeed, for the piano was not her forte), and chatting with
Capt. McGuffy, who hung over her. Mrs. Churchill, Jose-
phine, Grace, Ellerton, Victor and Mr. Rutledge were at
the other end of the room.
" We shall miss you so much, Mr. Viennet," Josephine
was saying, in a very charming tone. " Your place cannot
be filled. Mr. Rutledge, cannot you manage to have him
arrive at the station a few minutes too late ?"
" Why didn't you suggest it a little sooner. Miss Jose-
phine ?" said Mr. Rutledge, with a smile, as he looked at
his watch. " I think I hear the horses at the door now.
Thomas will attend to your baggage don't trouble your
self, Mr. Viennet."
" It is all ready, sir ; I have nothing to do but make my
adieux, and such painful work had better be short. Mrs.
Churchill, I have many pleasures to remember during my
residence in America, but none so great as those for
which I am indebted to you. Will you accept my smcere
thanks V"
I had not dared before to look at him, but I stole a
glance at his face now. It was deadly pale, and showed
but too plainly the pain and disappointment that he was try.
ng to conceal.
The whole party now gathered round him ; his parting
with Josephine was very courteous, on her part very gra.
ciousj with Grace the same ; a little less warm wilh Miss Wyn.
kar, perhaps ; but no one cared to revive old quarrels now
380 RnTLEi)GE.
When he approached me, I gave him my hand, but my eyes
were fastened on the ground. He held it for one instant, then
dropping it, turned hastily away.
" Mr. Rutledge," he said, in a voice that trembled
audibly, despite his manly efforts to control it, " I have to
thank you for your hospitality. I shall not soon forget my
visit here."
Mr. Kutledge's manner had less coldness than usual in it,
us he bade his young guest good bye ; there was no lack of
warmth in the adieux of the other gentlemen.
And I, cruel and cowardly, stood rooted to the floor ; I
was afraid to acknowledge what I had not been afr^dd to
promise ; I was letting him go without a word of kindness,
when I might never see him again; when I was, in the sight
of heaven, affianced to him, when nothing could absolve me
from my vow, shrink and falter as I might. Ho had reached
the haU, and stood for an instant in the doorway as I raised
my eyes. They met his ; I sprang forward from the circle
where I stood.
" Victor, I am not afi-aid they should know it now," I
whispered, putting my hand in his.
I only knew the misery I had caused him, when I saw the
change that came into his face, the light that hope lit in
his eyes. He had but short grace to tell his love ^a few
bi-ief minutes before we ptirted, perhaps for many years, yet
nothing could have made me more certain of the depth and
ardor of it, than those few moments did.
We walked once down the hall, then slowly back again,
"You must go now," I whispered, as we reached the
door. Good bye !"
For a moment he stood as if it were an effort rending
soul and body to leave me ; he held my hands tightly in his
own, then, bending forward, pressed a kiss on my forehead,
and was gone.
It was the seal of our engagement, that first kiss ; I stood
in the sight of what was all the woi-ld to me, tacitly ao-
BUTLEDOE. 382
knowiedging what I had done. I was partiag from the
lover to whom they all fancied I was devoted, but it was
shame, and not love, that brought the blood into my cheeks
to meet his first caress. I did not move or raise my eyen
till the sound of carnage- wheels died away down the avenue.
Then the treacherous color receded slowly from my face,
and left it white as marble. Conquering as best I might
the giddy faintness that came over me, I walked steadily
into the parlor, where the whispering and amazed group
of ladies still stood. Not heeding Josephine's, " Well, my
dear, we weren't quite prepared for this I We didn't know
how far things had gone," I went up to Mrs. Churchill and
said:
" I should hajfe told you of this before. Aunt Edith. I
have accepted Mr. Viennet."
" I should have been gratified by your confidence if you
had chosen to bestow it. However, you have my congratu-
lations," and she gave me her hand, and touched her lips
lightly to my forehead.
" I suppose we must all congratulate you," said Grace,
with a laugh. " But, really, it took me so entirely by sur-
prise, that I shan't be able to collect my wits for an appro-
priate speech under two hours."
" I will excuse you from it altogether," T said, turning
away to the door. I stopped involuntarily as I passed
Josephine.
" If it is a matter of congratulation at all, I hope I have
yours, Josephine," I said, holding out my hand.
"Of course," she returned, awkwardly, accepting my
hand. " Of co^^rse you have."
I looked at her for a moment ; it was so strange that 1
should be so miserable and she so blessed. We, "two
daughters of one race" the same blood flowing in our
veins ^the same woman's heart beating in our bosoms-
why was it that I was forbidden every good, tempted of th6
devil, driven into evil, and she, unfeeling and light-hearted^
882 SUTLEDGE.
8miled down at me from her secure height of happLies&i
wore carelessly the love that I would have died to win,
played thoughtlessly with it in my jealous sight, and made
a jest of what was life and death to me.
She did not understand my strange and wistful look, and,
with a smothered sigh, I withdrew my gaze, and turned
away. Perhaps her mother could have interpreted it bet-
ter ; perhaps, if she had chosen, , she could have told her
daughter I was not the happy fiancee I seemed ; and per-
haps, if she had chosen, she could have told her to whom I
owed the greater part of what I suffered.
I mounted the stairs with a slow and heavy step ; Mr.
Rutledge passed me coming down. He did not raise his
eyes nor look at me, but in the glance I had of his face it
seemed to me darker and moodier than ever, and his step
heavier and more decided. He went toward the stables,
and in a few minutes I heard his horse's hoo& clattering
down the avenue.
If my head had ached twice as madly as it did, I should
not have dared to stay away from dinner. As I entered
the dining-room, it was with rather a doubtful feeling of
relief that I found only ladies there. The presence of the
gentlemen always proved something of a restraint upon the
vivacious tongue of Grace, and Josephine was never in a
good humor when there was no one upon whom to exercise
her charms. Indeed, the whole table presented a signifi-
cant contrast to its usual animation. Toilettes had been
deferred till evening, I found. Josephine and Ella took no
pains to conceal their ennui, and Grace revelled in imperti-
nence. The gentlemen i. e, Phil, Captain McGufiy, and
Ellerton were shooting woodcock, and Mr. Rutledge had
gone off on business, and it was possible, he bad left word^
that he might not return till late.
" Let's have a glorious nap," said Josephine, as we left the
table. " It will be time enough to dress just before teartiraa
Tliey will none of them be back sooner than eight o'clock.'*
BUTLEDCLE. 383
Ella had been asleep all the morning, but she never ob-
jected to a nap ; indeed, I believe sleeping was, next to the
pleasure of dressing herself, the principal divertissement of
her life. Josephine and Ella went to their rooms, Mrs.
Churchill followed them upstairs, Grace ran off to find " old
Roberts " and get the key of the locked-up bookcases in the
library, and I was left to myself.
It was a hot and sultry afternoon ; not a breath moved
the motionless leaves in the park, not a ripple stirred the
lake ; the insects hummed drowsily in the hot, hazy air, the
declining sun abated neither heat nor power as he neared
the horizon, but glared steadily upon the still parched earth.
Too languid and miserable to find a cooler place, I sat on
the piazza hour after hour, and watched listlessly the slowly-
declining sun, the inanimate and sultry landscape.
Even nightfell brought no relief. The sun withdrew his
light, it is true ; but the sultriness that his reign had bred
continued to brood over the earth ; no dew refreshed it, no
moisture wet the thirsty flowers. The stars, faint and dim,
hardly shed a ray of light through the thick air. It was a
night that, superstition and presentiment whispered, would
prompt dark deeds. Under cover of its weird-like gloom,
treachery and murder would steal abroad, and black sina
would stain the souls of some of the sons of men before the
light of day renewed the face of the earth.
None of us could help feeling the influence of it ; dis-
pirited and languid, the whole party dragged through the
evening with an unwonted lack of vivacity. Music and
dancing failed; the gentlemen pleaded fatigue, and tho
ladies were veiy ready to accept the excuse, and at an early
hour we separated to our rooms. But I dreaded mine ; 1
dreaded the sleepless hours that I must count before the
dawning.
Once that night I slept, but it was a short sleep, and
worse than waking. The nightmare of my fate was less
horrible than the nightmare of my fancy, and, shuddering
384 liUTLEDGB.
with terror, I paced tlie floor to drive away the chance of
its recurrence ; I pressed my clenched fingers tightly on my
breast to drive away the chill of that Phantom Hand, that
had frozen my very soul.
Why had that long-forgotten terror come back to haunt
me now ?
CHAPTER XXX.
"Death is King ^and Vivat Rex I" Tennyson.
It was late on the following morning when I entered the
breakfast-room ; very fluttering and nervous, I anticipated
the usual allusions to my pale looks, and Grace's amiable
bantering, but quite a different scene from the one I had
expected met me. Too much absorbed to notice my
entrance, the whole group were clustered together, intent
upon the newly-arrived paper. They had evidently de-
voured it, and now were commenting eagerly upon the
news it contained, and referring constantly to it. Only
Mr. Rutledge, with knit brow, leaning forward on the
table, seemed to note my entrance.
" I never heard a more cool-blooded, revolting thing,"
Baid Phil.
"I suppose the whole country is alive with it now,"
remarked the captain. "The wretch can hardly escape
detection, thanks to the telegraph, railroads, and police of
this nineteenth century. The news, no doubt, has spread
&r and wide by this time."
" It will haunt me till the day of my death I" exclaimed
Josephine. " I never read so horrible a murder."
" Oh," said Grace, coolly, " it's only because we knew
him that it seems so dreadful. There are just as awful
things in the paper every day."
" There has never been anything in this part of the
country though, I fancy, that has caused as much excite-
ment," said Phil. . " Thomas tells me that the furore in the
village is intense ; the men do not think of going to their
work, but stand in groups about, while most of them have
17 8
886 BCJTLBDGB.
formed themselves into a sort of vigilance committee, and
swear that the murderer shall be tracked. The poor
doctor, you know, was quite a popular man, and such a
thing as this is so unheard of, that the country-people are
entirely beside themselves about it."
" What is it you are talking about ?" I faltered, leaning
on the back of a chair for support, and trying to be sel^
possessed .
" Oh ! Why, have you just come down ?" exclaimed
Grace, delighted to find a fresh auditor for the awful tale ^
that she seemed really to enjoy relating. " Why, you must
know that last night, a man coming from Norbury, late in
the evening, discovered the body of Dr. Hugh lying at the
entrance of a wood about four miles from the village,
stabbed in four or five places, and quite cold. His horse
and gig were tied to a tree close by, and the footprints on *
the ground beside where the body was found, show that
the poor wretch did not yield to his murderer without a
desperate struggle. His hands were "
"You are making it unnecessarily horrible," said Mr.
Rutledge, sternly, and starting forward, placed a chair for
me, and poured out a glass of water.
" Why, she's going to faint 1" exclaimed Ella Wynkar,
staring at me with her dull, blue eyes, while Mrs. Churchill
came forward ejaculating,
" What is the matter ? Are you ill ?
" It is not at all strange that she should be shocked at
heanng such a thing so suddenly," answered Mr. Rutledge
for me. " You must remember. Miss Grace, we all had it
more gradually : first my suspicions, then Thomas' report,
then the morning paper ; which is very different from
hearing it all at a breath, and without any warning."
Mr. Rutledge tried to divert them from the theme, and
save me from the faintness which his quick eye detected at
each new disclosure or conjectuie, but in vain. Nothing
eke could be thought or spoken of. How the murderez
BUTLEDGE. 387
should bo hunted down, what blood-thirsty and revengeful
men were already on the track, how impossible was his
escape; these were the pleasant topics of the morning
Within those two hours I learned more self-command than
all my previous life had taught me, for I had an aWful dread
at my heart, and I had to listen to these things, as if I were
Tery indifferent to them.
Phil said, for the honor of the county, he supposed, Mr.
Rutledge would do all in his power to ferret the thing out ;
and Mr. Rutledge rather reluctantly assented, and said he
supposed it was his duty.
*' And," added the captain, " from what you've said of
some slight clue you thought you had to guide you, I sup-
pose you may be of great service, and it's eveiy man's duty
to bring the perpetrator of such a deed to justice. By
Jove! I wish I could help it along I"
" I suppose you are right," said Mr. Rutledge, with a
sigh. " I am going to ride over to the court-house now.
Thomas, has my horse been brought around ?*
" He is at the door now, sir," said Thomas.
Mr. Rutledge, with a brief good-morning, left the room,
and after a moment in the Hbrary, repassed the dining-room
door with his riding-whip and hat in his hand.
I listened to his retreating footsteps in a kind of night-
mare ; I must speak to him before he started on his cruel
errand ; I must speak, and yet a spell sealed my lips, a
horrible tyranny chained me motionless. That clue wb^it
did it mean ? why did he look at me so strangely ? ^I knew
but too well. I heard him pass down the hall slowly and
pause at the door ; in another moment he would be gone.
I started from the room.
'* Mr. Rutledgn I"
He turned as I stood before him, white and trembling.
" What is it ?" he said, regarding me with a kind of
(X^mpassion. "What do you want to say?"
**I want to say I want to ask you if you have no pity
888 SUTLSDOE.
if you hare the cruelty to want another murdei^ ^if there
is not blood enough already shed. Don't listen to what
those men tell you," I hurried on, "don't believe them,
when they say it is your duty. It is not 1 It is your duty
to be merciful. It is your duty to leave vengeance to God,
It is your duty to leave the miserable and the sinful to His
justice, and not to hurry them before man's !"
IJe looked down at me with a pity in his eyes that was
almost divina " You need not fear me," he said, turning
from me ; and descending the steps mounted his horse and
rode slowly away.
"There are a few things," I overheard Kitty say to Fran-
ces outside my door, " in which I should be glad if my young
lady was more like yours. Now there must be some com-
fort in dressing Miss Josephine, she cares about things ; but
all my work is thrown away, sometimes I think. My young
lady has no heart for anything, never looks in the glass after
I've taken all the pains in the world with her, and is just as
likely to throw herself on the bed after her hair is fixed for
dinner, as if she had a nightcap on. For the last two
days," Kitty went on in a low tone, for Frances and she
were very good friends now, " for the last two days she has
been so miserable, it makes my heart ache to see her. And
as for the masquerade to-night I she don't care that for if
I've worked my fingers to the bone to get her dress ready,
and like as not, she won't stay downstairs ten minutes after
she gets it on. The whole house is thinking about nothing
else, everybody is in such spirits about it, the young ladies
are just crazy with their dresses and the fun they're going
to have, while she, poor young thing, hardly knows or cares
what she's to wear, and stays moping in her room all day
by herself."
" It's a hard thing to have one^s young man away," said
Frances in her soft voice, and with a little sigh that told she
knew just how hard it was. Kitty didn't answer. I was
EUrLBDOE. 889
afraid she would, and would tell her how inexplicable she
found her mistress's moods. But Kitty was true to me,
though she did Iot e a little gossip, and let my douleur pass
for what she very shrewdly suspected it was not, and soon
reverted to the all-absorbing subject of the liiasquerade.
" Would you ever know the house !" she said, looking ad-
miringly up and down the hall. " And doesn't the piazza
look beautiful, and the hall. And just think how all those
colored lamps will look when they're lighted. Really, 1
' can't think what's got into master to take all this trouble,
and turn the house inside out, to please a lot of young ladies
that he doesn't care a straw for I"
Frances opened her eyes as if this were heresy. Kitty
went on with energy : " Miss Josephine Churchill needn't
flatter herself that she's ever going to be more at home at
Rutledge than she is now. I don't know a great deal, but
I know enough to know that."
" And I could tell you something perhaps," said Frances,
** that might make you change your mind."
" Pd like to hear it I"
" Oh, but it wouldn't be right. I never talk about my
young lady's secrets."
" But you might tell m^," urged Kitty, artfully, " I've
been so open with you."
" Come down to the laundry then, while I press out these
flounces," and the two maids flitted downstairs to whisper
over the secrets that their respective mistresses had fondly
jSmcied were buried in the recesses of their own hearts.
And so each way I turned, there was a new dagger to
stab me. No wonder that as Kitty said, I had no heart for
anything, and only longed to be away and be at rest. Anx-
iety was added to the remorse and regret that I had first
thought insupportable, and such an anxiety as made my
nights sleepless, and my days a misery. No wonder that
my white face, and the dark ring around my eyes bore
honrlv witness to the heaviness of mv heart.
890 BUTLEDOE.
***W]iy so sad and pale, young sinner?"* called ont
Grace that evening, as about an hour after tea we were
dispersing to our rooms to dress for the all-important
occasion. " I think you ought to appear as Mariana, and
sing ' I am aweary, aweary ;' don't you think so, Mr. Rut-
ledge ?"
" Miss Grace, I haven't given the subject enough thought."
** I would give worlds to know what you are going to
wear, Mr. Rutledge 1" exclaimed Josephine. " But I know
I shall detect you instantly. I should know your step and
carriage under twenty dominoes, and among a thousand
people."
" Pretty high figures those, Joseph ! Phil, I shall know
70X1 by your stride, and you couldn't disguise your voice if
you practised a year, and that bow is * Philip Arbuthnot, His
Mark,' all the world over I"
" The best way to disguise our voices," said Capt. Mc-
Guffy, " is to speak French I think we had all better agree
to do it."
" Ella will not object," said Grace, " now Mr. Viennet is
not here to criticise."
" Hush, Grace !" cried her sister maliciously. " How can
you be so thoughtless ? Why do you continually harrow
up your cousin's feelings. By the way, this is the day the
steamer sails, is it not ?"
*' No, yesterday," said Ellerton. " The list of passen-
gers will be in to-day's papers. Has the mail come yet, Mr,
Rutledge ?"
" There is Thomas with it now."
Thomas deposited the package on the hall table and with-
drew. I was standing nearest of the group to it, and put-
Ihig out my hand, took up the " Times."
The others approached and with great interest examined
the letters. " Why my dear I" said Josephine pleasantly,
** I'm astonished that there's none for you I Not a word
since he went away. That doesn't look devoted I"
BUTLBDGV. 891
The color went and came in my lace, but it wasn't the
tannt that I minded.
" Never mind !" cried Grace, " don't break its heart about
him ! It shall have another lover, it shall have the big Ma-
son, so it shall !"
" May I trouble you for the * Times' one moment ?" asked
Ellerton Wyukar, " I want to look over the departures."
"According to my cousin," I said, tightening my gras])
upon the paper, " I have the greatest interest in them, and
I must beg the privilege of reading the list first."
" That's not fair I" cried Grace. " How do you know but
we have lovers sailing in the * Arago ' as well as you ? I
must have that paper," and, springing forward, she grasped
my wrists.
She could have overcome me in a moment, for just then I
was as weak as a child ; but Mr. Rutledge, in his firm, quiet
way, released my hand;^, and, holding Grace's tightly in hia
own, said :
" You had better make your escape with it to your room ;
I cannot insure you if you stay."
With a grateful look and a forced laugh I ran upstairs,
locked myself in my room, and, tearing open the paper,
glanced hurriedly up and down the columns for the list of the
"Arago's" passengers. At last I found it, and skimmed
eagerly through it. It was as I expected ; I was not dis-
appointed nor shocked ; but my hand trembled so I could
hardly cut the paragraph out. Ringing for Kitty, I sent
the paper down, with my compliments to Mr. Wynkar.
It was nearly nine o'clock before Kitty came back to dress
me. I had rung twice, but r Bceived no answer. When she
did come, I saw in a moment that the delay had been caused
by some imusual and exciting cause. She w^as nei*vous and
uneasy, and started at eveiy sound. Whenever I caught
her eye, it dropjDed quickly before mine, and she hurried on
with less than her usual care, the dress on which she had
bestowed bo much pains and regarded with so mucli pride
393 RUTLBDGE.
Wlien I was dressed, I looked at myself with some surpriso j
I was, indeed, effectually disguised. Over my white tarlei^
tan ball-dress, I wore a domino of white silk, trimmed with
heavy white fringe, and instead of the ordinary hideous
black satin mask, a silver gauze before the upper part of my
face; and a fall of white lace concealed my features entirely.
The heels of my white kid boots were made very high, and
that, together with the long sweeping dress, made me app^r
so much taller than usual, that that one circumstance would
of itself have deceived almost any one. I noticed, after 1
was all dressed, and ready to go down, that Kitty was a
long time in adjusting, to her entire satisfaction, the cord
and tassel that confined the domino at the waist. Just as I
was leaving the room, I ^hanced to look down, and saw
that there was a narrow blue ribbon knotted to one of the
tassels.
" What's this, Kitty ? Take it off, please."
" That ? O, it's nothing, Miss. The tassel was a liWle
loose, and I fastened it up."
" But all the rest of my dress is white this spoils the
effect. You'd better take a piece of white ribbon."
" Oh ! Miss " (a little impatiently), " how particular
youTe grown ! I thought you wouldn't mind the bit of
blue, and it's so late. The carriages have been coming this
half hour,"
*' Well, no matter then. I'll go down."
Kitty preceded me, stealing an occasional look around, to
ascertain that there was no one in sight, then beckoned me
across the hall, hurried me down the private staircase and
through a labyrinth of pantries, to a door that opened upon
the shrubbery.
** This way," whispered Kitty. " Follow ma^
CHAPTER YTYT
'* purblind race of miserable men,
Bow many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for onrselves
By taking true for false, or false for true/'
Tknntsok.
I FOLLOWED Kitty down the dark paths of the shrubbery,
aiid, as far as I could tell, through the dazzling gauze of my
mask, some distance across the park.
*' Where are you taking me ? There is no need of such
precaution."
" O yes, indeed," she answered eagerly, " if you had gone
right around the house and gone in, they would have known
m a minute that it was somebody who lived there. Mr.
Wynkar and the captain were on the steps, watching. I
saw them."
She hurried me on till we reached a clump of trees too
far from the lamps suspended to the branches of those on
the lawn to be lighted by them ; then pausing, she looked
quickly around.
"Are you not tired. Miss?" she said, raising her voice.
'* Hadn't you better rest a minute here ? We walked so
fast."
" No," I answered, with slight impatience. " I want to go
immediately to the house."
" Yes, Miss," she said, uneasily. " Just wait till this car-
riage passes."
It might have been fancy, but I thought I heard a step
behind me, and starting forward, I called Etty instantly to
follow me. She could not but obey, and only left me where
the lamps from the piazza threw too strong a light for hei
804 BUTLEDGB,
to venture. Wliispering to me where I should find her if 1
wanted her during the evening, she slipped away, and I
walked on.
The carriage reached the entrance, and the occupants of
it alighted and disappeared within the awning before I ar-
rived at it. There were several groups of masked figures
on the piazza as I entered the inclosed walk fi*om the car-
riage-way, and, mounting the steps, approached the door.
"How spectral I" whispered one. "And look at that
black shadow following so close."
I turned involuntarily at this ; a black domino whom I
had not perceived had entered with me, and I hurried for-
ward into the house a little abruptly, to escape his com-
panionship, and, crossing the brilliant and beautifully deco-
rated hall, I entered the drawing-room. There was a tem-
porary lull in the dancing, and I paused a moment to recon-
noitre before I advanced to Mrs. Churchill. She was
xmmasked, and was to receive the guests ; she stood at the
other end of the room, and it was rather a formidable thing
to cross to her, but remembering to disguise my step, I
walked slowly and with some stateliness over to where she
stood, made my devoirs, and turned away; but half a
yard behind me was my black shadow. All eyes were
upon us.
" What a ghostly pair I" exclaimed a vivacious peasant
girl from the folding-doors. " I shall not be astonished if,
when the masks are dropped at supper-time, a skeleton
should step out of that black domino, and preside at the
feast I"
" And a nymph of Lurley out of that white diapery,"
eaid " General Washington," approaching and offering me
his arm. We made the tour of the rooms, admired the
flowers, discussed the dresses, and tried to find each other
out. I soon discovered my companion to be Mr. Emerson
of the Grove, a fine, dignified old gentleman, whom I had
always admired. His unconscious mterest in, and admira-
RUTLKDGB. 395
tion for, a tall brunette, whose black eyes sparkled even
through her mask, betrayed her immediately to me as his
daughter, Miss Janet Emerson. The Misses Mason were
flower-girls of course ; their mamma, by virtue of her liter-
ary proclivities and immense fund of sentiment, appeared
as a sibyl, and told fortunes untiringly ; the younger Mr.
Mason wore an English hunting-dress, and the elder one es-
caped my observation among the crowd of greater strangers
in the room. An Oxford student paid me marked attention,
but discovering the unmistakable white eyelashes and feeble
voice of my pet aversion, Ellerton Wynkar, I became dis-
couragingly distant and severe, and he transferred his devo-
tion to a pretty Greek dress, which I soon concluded must
enshrine the indolent loveliness of my cousin Grace.
Beyond this, my penetration was entirely at fault ; among
the crowd of grotesque and graceful figures, I tried in vain
to recognize any of our own party. There were half a
dozen men of Phil's height, and as many of Mr. Rutledge's
make ; so many imitated the captain's military manner, that
it was impossible to recognize the stork among the cranes^
There were two Louis Quatorze costumes, that more than
any others suggested Josephine and Ella, but I could not
be positive ; they were so exactly alike, that even when to-
gether one could not detect a shade of difference either in
dress or manner. The powdered hair and masks, of course,
concealed the diversity of color and complexion.
''Those two are the most distinguished-looking in the
room," said General Washington, by way of small talk..
" I suppose you have recognized them Miss Churchill and
her cousin."
" Which cousin ?"
" The one who is engaged to the young Frenchman.
Quite a pretty girl. I never saw her look so well as she
does to-night."
"Which is Mr. Rutledge, do you know ?" I asked.
" I have not made him out yet, but if you care to know
HdQ BUTLEDGB.
the soi'est way will be to stay here, in the neighborhood ot
Miss Churchill: he will not be very far off I"
" Then let us sit here," and I sank down on a sofiu
" Your cavaHer keeps a faithful watch upon your move*
ments," said my companion. ** He has followed you from
room to room, and is just behind you now."
" Who is it that you mean ?"
"The black domino ^the gentlemian who came with
you."
And the black domino at that moment bent down, and,
in a low, smothered voice, asked me if I would dance. I
declined very quickly, and turned away my head.
" Miss Churchill, will you dance this set with me ?" asked
a gentleman, in French, approaching me.
Disguised as the voice was, there was something &,miliar
in it. I gave him my hand, and we took our places at the
head of the room. It very soon became evident that he
had mistaken me for Miss Churchill, and I determined to
keep up the character. It was not very difficult ; we were
exactly the same size, and I had always been a good mimic,
so that, in five minutes, I was coquetting, twisting my fan,
and taking off Josephine to the life. It was not so easy to
find out who I was quizzing. He was evidently a master
of toe art of deception, disguised his voice, his step, his
manner, and was never off his guard an instant. He did
not answer to anybody's description exactly, though I was
constantly convinced, by his familiarity with us all, that he
was " one of us." I tried to bait him with allusions to all
our acquaintance, but he was too wary to rise to any of
them.
" How did you find me out so easily ?" I said, with a
laugh so like Josephine's that I was absolutely startled my-
self. " I thought I was disguised beyond all detection."
" Kot from me."
** Ah, you are so clever !" I said, putting my head on one
Bide, with an affectation characteristic of Josephine. " Now
BUTLEDGB. 897
help me to discover some of the others. Who is om* \iflA
vis in the Spanish dress ?"
" You should not have to ask.'
" Mais qui ^
" Mr. Arbuthnot, sans doute?^
*' Ah ! my heart should have told me Phil I Wldch is the
captain ?"
" ' Ivanhoe,' there by the door, talking with the * Father
of his Country.' "
" And oh I tell me, for I am dying to know, have yu
found out my cousin ?"
'' I do not think she is in the room."
' Impossible I Then she must be ill."
" Indifferent, more probably."
*' Ah I perhaps. * There is but one with whom she has
neart to be gay I' But has nobody been up to see what hafl
become of her ?"
" No one, I fancy."
" Had I better go ?"
" That's as you please," with a slight shrug.
"Well, I'll see, after this dance. Who is that black
domino, pray ?"
" That is more than I can tell you. He is the only man
in the room whom I have not detected. He has not danced,
nor spoken to any one, I think. I shall watch him closely
and be near him when he unmasks."
"Yes, but that's rather uncertain. He may leave the
room before then."
" That's very possible. He seems to be hovering near
us. Suppose, after this dance, you draw him into conver-
sation, and try to make him out? He seems to avoid me,
and I am really very curious to know him."
" Very well, to gratify you, I will try to detect him ;
but my cousin will you take that duty off my hands ?"
" Yes, I will send a sei-vant to inquire, and report the r&
snlt to you,*^
898 BUTLBDGE.
" Thank you. How kind you always are I I should knov^
that goodness of heart under twenty dommoes, and among a
thousand people !"
My companion, bowing low, gave me a quick look from
under the cowl of his monk's habit.
" You are too flattering," he said, and the dance ended.
The black domino was at my elbow, and nodding sig-
nificantly to my partner, I turned abruptly to him, and said,
still in imitation of Joseohine's voice :
" Will you give me your arm ? My partner has another
engagement."
He bowed, and offered me his arm. His voice, when he
spoke, was so low, and so studiously disguised, it was im-
possible to detect anything from that; his coarse black
domino hung so long and amply about him, and the hood
was drawn so tightly around his mask, that no one could
possibly distinguish anything of his face, figure, or carriage.
Before we had made the tour of the rooms, I began to re-
pent my bargain. There was something in his manner that
made me most unco mfiyrtable. I determined not to give
up my assumed vivacity, but it was like chatting with a
ghost ; and w^hen I went with him into the punch-room, and
raised a glass to my lips, bowing to him over it, it seemed
like a " hob-and-nob with Death," and the laugh I laughed
was a very faint and forced one, as we set our half-tasted
glasses down. I was so uncomfortable at being alone with
him, that I stammered hurriedly :
" Shan't we go back to the dancing-room ?"
" Are you afraid of me ?" he said quickly, and in a low
tone, " can you not give me a moment from your pleasure ?"
" Sir !" I said, shrinking back ; " I haven't the least idea
who you are."
" You can forget, it seems. I envy you the power I"
"You talk in riddles," I said, going toward the door.
Another party entered the room, and my companion fol
lowed me out.
RdTLEDGE. 399
" What a grotesque scene I" I said, looking up and down
the wide hall, where wreaths of flowers and lights and floats
ing flags hung, and thronging across whose marble pavement
were groups of fantastic figures. " I never was at a masque*
rade before. Is it not diverting ?"
" Will you come upon the piazza ?" asked my companion,
not heeding my remark. " It is too warm here."
"No," I exclaimed, hurriedly, "I cannot, here is my
partner."
The "friar of orders grey" obeyed my hasty summons, and
I accepted his arm with very great empressement^ stammer-
ing some excuse to the sable domino in the doorway, and
walked down the hall.
" WeU, have you discovered him ?"
" No, I do not know him at all, he is veiy odd. I think
he is a stranger. Not anybody, at all events, that any of ue
know well."
" I cannot understand it," he said, musingly. " I thought
you would have been able to have obtained some clue. He
seemed willing to talk to you."
" Only too willing I"
" Did he seem to recognize you ?"
" I cannot tell exactly ; ho certainly thought he knew,
but whether it were not a mistake on his part, I cannot
say."
" He avoids me ; I cannot make anything of him ; I shall
have to put some one else on the track."
" What of my cousin ?" I asked.
" I found Kitty, who says she is not very well, but will
probably be in the room a little before supper."
" Ah, thank you. You have no idea, I suppose, what her
dress is to be ?"
"Kitty gave me to understand, very quietly, that she
would wear a rose-colored domino."
" There is a rose-colored domino just entering ; do yora
imagine that is the fkir ^fiancie /"
)
400 RUTLEDGE.
" Very possibly," said my companion.
" She is going to dance. Is that Phil with her ?'
Phil at this moment asked my partner to be his vis-a-vis,
so we were again drawn into the dance. By this time, half
the people in the room thought I was Miss Churchill, and
addressed me accordingly. In one of the pauses of the
quadrille, as some one calling me by that name had turned
away, the black domino, who stood a little behind me on
my left, leaned forward and whispered :
"You cannot deceive me ; it was not Miss Churchill who
was to have a blue ribbon on her tassel."
I started ; what intrigue was that Kitty about ?
The dance was over ; Phil and his partner left the room
and turned toward the piazza.
"Shall we go into the fresh air?" said my companion,
following them with his eyes. I took his arm, and we
went on the piazza. The soft light of tho colored lamps,
the mellow music floating out to us, the cool air in our
faces I met with a gasp of relief and pleasure. Leading
me to a seat rather more secluded than the others, my com-
panion threw himself on the sofa beside me, and exclaimed,
removing his mask :
" This is so unsupportably warm, I must take it off for u
moment's relief, as I believe you know me. Well! Miss
Josephine, how do you think our masquerade has succeeded ?
Are you satisfied with the result ?"
"Perfectly," I said, feeling very guilty, and leaning
back further into the shade. "It has been a delightful
affair."
He rested his brow thoughtftilly and sadlv on his hand
or a moment. " You are tired," I said.
" Miserably tired."
It was well for me he did not require me to talk; 1
Bhould have betrayed myself if I had attempted it. Hia
eyes were riveted on the pair who stood a few yards from
ns. Phil, bending down, was whispering in low tones to
liUTI EDGE, 401
hifl companion in the pink donino. There was something in
her attitude, as she listened with half-bent head, that I
could not fail to recognize, and from below the edge of her
domino, I caught a glimpse of yellow brocade. There was
but one to whom Phil could talk in those earnest tones but
one to whom he could tell that tale. Josephine, I saw,
must have gone upstairs, and put on the domino over her
first dress, the more to puzzle some of her partners. Kitty
had in some way become acquainted with her intention, and
seized upon it to further the deception that she saw pre-
vailed in regard to me. There was very little that escaped
that clever jade. I wished, with a sigh, that she were less
unscrupulous. In a few moments, the cousins passed where
we sat, nearly concealed from them, walking slowly and
talking earnestly.
" You cannot ask me to endure it longer ; this suspense
IS misery," he said, with a quiver in his manly voice.
" Dear Phil," murmured the clear, low tones of his com-
panion, " you must know my feelings toward you ; I have
never tried to hide them ; but you know how it is you know
it would be madness for either of us to think of each other."
" Why would it be madness ?" he urged. " Oh, Jose-
phine ! Why cannot you give up the ambition that sepa-
rates us ? Depend upon it, it has stood in the way of your
happiness aU your life."
It had been impossible to avoid hearing this conversation ;
my companion, starting up, looked after the retreating
figures amazed and steiu. In his haste, he had pulled down
an American flag that had been draped over the sofa
we occupied. I started up, and involuntarily raised my
hand to replace it. The loose sleeve fell back from my
arm, and in the strong light of the lamp overhead, the scar
on my wrist caught his eye. With a quick, imperious
movement, he seized my hand before I could withdraw it,
and held it firmly in one of his, while with the other he
raised my mask.
i02 BUTLEDGE.
" You have deceived me," he said, between his teeili.
" You have deceived yourself, you are the victim of yom
o\^ r prejudices. You cannot say I did more than humoi
your decision !" I returned, quickly.
" You only acted a womanly and natural part, lied sweetly
in every glance of your bright eyes, in every turn of your
graceful figure, in every word on your red lips I I don't
blame you ; you are a woman."
" You are too cruel I you will repent this some day ; it
will be the bitterest thing you have to remember ; the
recollection of it will make you suffer as you have made me
Buffer."
" Never fear but I shall have enough to suffer, if the
present is any earnest of the future for me ! Your kindest
wishes will be more than realized. For a proud man," ho
said, with a low, bitter laugh, flinging from him the hand
he held, " for a proud man, I have had some hmniliations
that you would hardly believe if I told you I You could
hardly understand them in your simplicity ; your soft,
woman's heart would bleed, perhaps, but it would heal
itself too soon to allay in any great degi'ee my wretched-
ness. Your morning-glory tenderness would droop before
the fierceness of my pain, it would die in my hot grasp ! I
will not ask your pity, but spare me your detestation.
Save the aversion that your eyes showed then, for those
who have desei^ved it better at you hands."
There was a sound of voices from within, a window near
VIS was thrown open, and a group of people, laughing and
talking, stepped out on the piazza. Hastily restoring my
mask to its place, I turned away and entered the house
through the window they had opened.
" You may have deceived one who is indifferent to you
you cannot deceive one who loves you," said a low voice in
my ear, and the black figure I instinctively dreaded stood
beside me. ^' For the saka of heaven, come with me, one
noment 1"
BUTLEDGB. 403
* Who are you ?" I murmured, shrinking bacfi:.
He bent down and whispered a name in my ear, at which
the color left my cheek, the light my eye, almost the life
my pulses.
" Will you come ?
I bent my head without a word, and followed him oat of
the hall, down the terrace, through the winding paths of
the shrubbery, across the garden ; hurrying on to suit his
fierce pace, but chilled to the heart with a terror that was
no longer nameless.
CHAPTER XXXn
* O man \ wlifle in thy early years,
How prodigal of time I
MisBpending all thy precioos honr%
Thy glorious, youthfol prime !
Alternate follies take the sway :
Licentious passions bum ;
Which tenfold force give Nature's law,
That man was made to mourn."
Burns.
The spot to which my companion led me was a ruined
Bummerhouse, not ia stone's throw froir the outer garden
hedge. It was a lonely place in a sort of hollow, a lowi
dense orchard stretched dark on one side, while a little
knoll, crowned with copse, rose between it and all view of
the house and grounds on the other, and a little stream fell
murmuring down from rock to rock through the ravine.
Why it was so deserted and dilapidated, I had never ex-
actly known ; but from something Stephen had said, when
I had questioned him about it, I had conjectured that it
was associated with the shame and fall of her whose
memory was even yet so painful, and that ruin and decay
were welcome to hide the place from all eyes.
The night wind was moaning wildly down the little
hollow; the ghastly moonlight flickered fitfully through
the broken roof and moldering arches; the moss-grown,
slimy stones rocked beneath my tread ; steadying myself
by one of the posts of the ruined doorway, I stood still and
waited for my companion to speak. He had sunk down on
a scat, but in a moment, raising his head, he loosed the
hood of his domino, and, as it fell back, rose and turned his
face toward me. With a feint cry, I put out my hands and
' ItaTLEDGB. 40S
started back. In the haggard, bloodless face, the wild and
troubled eye of the man before me, I could hardly recog-
nize a feature of Victor Viennet's handsome face.
** No need to start away and put out your white hands
to keep me off," he said, with a laugh that made my blood
run cold. " No need to press your pale lips together to
keep back that cry of horror ! I have risked my life aye
sold it, rather for this interview, and yet I would not
^y my guilty grasp upon th^ hand you have promised to
me, I would not touch the distantest fold of your white
dress I There is no need to droop, and flutter, and clasp your
hands, and pray me to be calm don't turn your eyes on
mo with such a look as that I You try to say you love me
yet ; wait till I tell you, wait till you know all, before you
ay you love me !"
" You need not tell me, Victor," I faltered, " I guessed
it from the first."
" You guessed it from the first, and yet dared come here
alone at midnight with me I No, you have not
guessed it. Your girl's heart never framed the outline of
such a sin, you will swoon but to hear its name I"
The night wind howling through the shivering trees, the
restless brook moaning down the hollow, if ever their wild
lament had ceased, would have heard, brokenly and inco-
herently, such a story as this :
In a quaint, secluded village, in some remote province of
France, Victor Viennet's early childhood had been passed.
It was a childhood so companionless that, but that he was
happy and needed nothing save his sad mother's love and hia
wild freedom, one would have pitied him even then, before
he knew the shame he had to bear and the sufferings it
would bring. For months together no stranger's foot
would cross the threshold of the lonely cottage ; the neigh-
bors looked askance at the two pale women and the pretty
boy, who had come to strangely and so teaithDy into theii
midst) and rumor had been bu?y even there. The vDlagc
406 tKUTLEDGV.
children were fo'*bid to play with " te petit Anglais ;" they
taunted and mocked him, and he, in his tui*n, spurned and
hated them, and clung more entirely to his mother, who
strove to interfere between him and every insult, every
harshness, and vexation. And but too well she succeeded
in guarding him ; when death came to unloose her arms
from around him, he was left too sensitive and shrinking a
plant to bear the first breath of the scorching simoon of
scorn and ignominy that had been gathering up its strength
so long. The fatal secret of his birth, that explained all,
burst suddenly upon him while his childish heart was yet
bleeding with his first grief. He learned that he must
thank his dead mother for the brand of shame that he must
bear through life ; that for her, whom he had worshipped
as an angel, there was on every lip a name of scorn. He
learned that every man's hand was against him, as an out.
cast and a bastard; and all the strength of his nature
became a strength of hatred ; his southern blood turned to
gall in his young veins. The home that had been his sa.no-
tuary, his city of refuge, was a desecrated and hateful
place. The same fever that had struck down his mother,
had laid her nurse and companion low. Tenderness and
compassion had been blasted in the boy's heart ; they had
both deceived and wronged him ; he owed nothing to the
memory, of the one, nor to the misery of the other ; and
without a look, he left her in her unconsciousness, and
turned his back forever on his home, with the curse in his
heart for which he had not yet learned the words.
Who needs be told the career on which the boy entered }
Who but would sicken and turn away from the record of
his houseless wanderings, his desperate shifts, his reckless-
ness and wickedness. Who that could read with anything
but sorrow of the scenes of squalid want, of cunning vice
of mad profligacy, through which ^e passed before his youth
was yet begun. There could be bat one result ; all that wa
weak in him waa bent to the service of sin, all that was
BUTLEDGB. 407
noble was turned to bitterness ; the refinement cfhis nature
made him rise, but it was to no heights of truth and virtue ;
ambition had taken the place of all noble aspirations, and
sustained him through ignominy, and reproach, and poverty,
helped him to trample on difficulties that would have daunt-
ed a less desperate man, and scruples that would have shak*
en a better one, aided him to free himself from the poUu.
tions that his wild boyhood had contracted, and to shake
off the trammels of the past, and crown himself with the
success that he had made his god. But through it all, there
lived a fear lest the forgotten stain of his birth should be
revived, the foundation stone be pulled from his feir fabric
of good fortune ; and this morbid dread so haunted him,
that he came to hate the very sunshine and soft air of
France, to fear the very children in the streets, the stran-
gers whose curious eyes he met in the thoroughfares of bu-
siness. And with all the fearful and enslaved of the earth,
he turned his eyes toward the Mr land that promises abso-
lution and new life to the sinful and miserable of other lands,
and denies its rich bepison of hope and freedom neither to
the criminal who flies from justice, nor the miserable who
flies from memory. With three thousand miles of ocean
between him and France, perhaps he could shake off the
slavish dread that gnawed forever at his peace, and rise to
a position where he need not fear its sting. The untainted
air of that new land had never heard the whisper of his
shame, should never hear it; even in his own bosom, it
should die forgotten and unfeared.
But than his strong will, there had been a stronger. With-
in the first week of his arrival in America, he was seized
with a malignant fever, and from deliriim and raving, sunk
to stupor and an almost death-like torpor, and for weeks
lay so. When at last he rallied and shook off the lethargy
that had so long dulled intelligence and feeling, it was to
find, that in the first hours of his delirium, he had betrayed
his secret aiid undone himself; and betrayed it to a maji
408 BUTLEDGfi.
whom neither honor nor pity could bind, but whose cunning
malice gloated over the power his discovery had invested
him with, and who would use it maliciously and nnscrupu-
lously. It did no good to rave and curse his fate ; all the
power of his strong will must go to the repairing of the error,
and to the hushing and pacifying this low man who held
him at such advantage. It seemed an easy enough thing at
first ; the man was ready to promise silence and assure him
of his good will, and seemed to require nothing in return
but good fellowship and confidence. Anything would have
been easier for Victor to have given ; his pl'oud spirit re-
volted at such companionship and bondage, but at the first
sign of contempt or impatience, the glistening serpent
showed his sting, and chafed and despairing, the victim felt
the toils tighten around him. There was no escape from
his familiarity ; he haunted and exasperated him, dogged
his steps, followed him into the company of men who could
not but wonder at the intimacy and draw their own conclu-
sions from his endurance of such a man.
With the exception of this cruel drawback, the new land
indeed proved an Eldorado to Victor. Friends thickened,
fortune smiled ; he rose with hasty steps to success, social
and commercial. Only the sly gleam of Dr. Hugh's treach-
erous eye sent an occasional fear through the pride of his
heart, and kept it in a sort of check. But it did not hum'
ble him, it only galled and goaded him, and quickened hia
determination to prove himself a man for a' that ; it strength-
ened his hauglitiness and self-reliance. In the course of a
year or two, however, circumstances somewhat changed;
Dr. Hugh left the city, and Victor breathed freer. Occa-
sional letters still reached him, keeping him in mind, but
ihey ceased after awhile, and the young adventurer began
to feel secure ; he was on the road to fortune, the only bar-
rier to success was gone, and the happiness he had never
dared enjoy before, seemed just within his grasp. And just
then, just when the new hopes of love, and the nearly
RUTLEDGB. 409
crowned ambition, most demanded the hiding of the hated
secret, chance threw him upon the only man Avho held it.
No wonder that his cheek had blanched the evening that he
came to Rutledge, when he found the doctor there before
him. The doctor had not forgotten, the doctor had not lost
Bight of him, though he had lost sight of the doctor, and
soon his stealthy hand was on the festering wound again,
lid his old cunning at work to exasperate his victim, and
with a new zest.
That Victor had been a successful man of business he had
not minded ; it only made his power over him the more de-
sirable, and the remuneration for his silence greater; but
that Victor should be the successful lover of one whom he
had reason to regard with resentment and aversion, was too
severe a trial for his love of malice to endure. Here was
an opportunity for humbling the girl who had treated him
with scorn and ridicule, and the proud man who endured
him with but half concealed impatience. Victor Viennet
should give up the woman he loved, and only buy a promise
of continued silencQ at a heavy price. The girl should lose
her lover ; in any case he promised himself that. If Vic-
tor refused to give her up, a whisper in his ear of what he
knew of her secret, would damp his ardor and bring pride
to weigh down the balance as he wished. And her pride,
if even Victor's infatuation led him to prefer exposure and
disgrace to separation, would never suffer her to marry a
man, who, from the first she had never loved, now stripped
of his name and honor. In any event that was secure to
him. But he had overreached his aim when he drove Vic-
tor to resolve on such a sudden departure. Once in Europe,
he might lose track of him ; his vigilance at such a dis-
tance might be eluded, and all but his revenge would be
lost ; and chance had thrown into his hand the threads ol a
mystery that only time could unravel, that promised power
over more than him ; but Victor's absence would ruin all.
Late on the night before his intended departure from
18
410 BLTLEDOE.
Rutledge, a note was handed to him horn Dr. Hugh, de-
man ding another interview before he sailed. Victor dared
not neglect or refuse the demand. It was too late now to
change his plans, and of all things he desired to conceal the
fact of his having any private business with Dr. Hugh, from
his host and the guests at Rutledge. Gnashing his teeth
at the humiliation of feeling himself at the beck and call of
this low villain, and cursing the fate that forced him to
stoop to such stratagems, he hastily returned a few lines to
the doctor, appointing to meet him the following day at
noon, at Brandon, the next station to Rutledge, distant
about twelve miles, intending to send his baggage on in the
train in which he should start, and remaining an hour at
Brandon with the doctor, should go on himself in the next
train. By this, he would avoid suspicion and meet the per-
secutor on neutral ground. He found no difficulty in leav-
ing the cars unobserved, and repairing to the inn he bad
appointed for rendezvous.
The bar-room was crowded with passengers for the cars
going west, so, an unnoticed guest, he awaited with grow-
ing impatience the keeping of his appointment. Half sus-
pecting that the man's object was to keep him back, and
make him lose the train, his impatience and vexation knew
no bounds, as the hour slowly waned and no one appeared.
The train came rushing through the town, paused a mo-
ment, and rushed on, and his last chance for that day had
passed. For one moment he had resolved to defy his per-
secutor, and escape him once and forever ; but he knew
that before another sunset his secret would be published,
and what was this vexation to that ruin ? As the crowd
hurried from the tavern to the cars, a horseman bad
alighted at the door, and Victor shrunk back with a guilty
feeling of humiliation and fear as he recognized Mr. Rut^
ledge. What a degrading bondage was this for a man of
honor ^what a damnable humiliation! To be slculking
away irom tke man whom, a few hours ago, he Lad met t\B
BUTLEDGE. 411
his hoat and liis equal. To be waiting submii^sively tlie
pleasure of a low villain, whose greedy cunning and mean
rascality marked him below the revenge of a gentleman.
" It shall end," muttered Victor, between his teeth, as he
screened himself from the sight of the new comer, who had
entered the bar-room. He was engaged for several minuteg
in conversation with the bar-keeper, left a message for a
neighboring workman, paid a bill for the cartage of some
timber, and was about leaving the room, when his eye fell
upon a note that was lying on a table near the door ; and
Victor's dark cheek mantled with shame and vexation, as,
taking it up, Mr. Rutledge read, in a tone of surprise :
"Mr. Victor Viennet. To be left at the Brandon
Shades."
" When was this brought here ?" he inquL ed of the man
behind the bar.
" This morning, sir, I think," he returned* " A man from
your village came with it a dark, thick-set fellow, if I'm
not mistaken ; one of the hands from the factory."
" And no one has called for it no one answering to that
name has been here ?"
" Not to my knowledge, sir."
Mr. Rutledge knit his brow, and paced the floor uneasily.
The haughty curl of his lip, as he glanced again at the note,
made the blood boil in Victor's veins. It was almost im-
possible to keep back the defiant words that rushed to his
lips ; but detection would be fatal now, and he remained
motionless, while Mr. Rutledge, crossing over to the bar-
keeper, said, in a lower tone :
"You will oblige me by noticing who comes for that
note, and by what way he returns. I will stop here on my
return from Renwick, before night."
The man promised obsequiously, and Mr. Rutledge left
the room. Victor only waited to hear his hoi*se's hoofi; die
away down the street, and to see the bar-keeper's attention
fully engaged with a group of jovial mechanics just entering
112 BOTLEDOE.
for theii Eoon-day drink, to leave his place of conceahnent^
and possessing himself hastily of the note, opened it care
fully, and abstracting the contents, substituted a business
circular which he had in his pocket, sealed up the envelope
again, threw it on the table, and left the room by a side-
door.
He had walked some distance down the street before he
ventured to read the letter, which proved, o course, to be
from Dr. Hugh, apologizing for the delay, but saying that
it would be impossible for him to be at Brandon before four
o'clock. At that hour he should hope to find Mr. Viennet
^t the Shades, as first named, etc.
" The Shades " was the last place where he desired to
see him now, so he determined to walk forward on the road
to Rutledge, and meet him on the way. It was a hot and
dusty road, upon which the afternoon sun shone down un-
merciftilly, but the heat and the dust were unheeded and
indifferent to the over-wrought and exasperated traveller.
The exercise and ibib fiitigue of. walking were in some mea-
sure a relief to his strained nerves, and without stopping to
reflect, he hurried fiercely on, till eight miles of the twelve
had been accomplished. Something familiar in the road
had drawn his attention to his locality, and warned liim of
his nearness to Rutledge. It had been so lonely and mo-
notonous a road before that, his attention had not beeij
attracted to it ; he had passed the last farmhouse three or
four miles back, and only paused now, struck by the famili*
arity of the Hemlock Hollow road, leading off at the left.
It was now only four miles to the village, and be stopped,
resolved to await Dr. Hugh here.
It was no balm to his vexed and angry mood, to remem-
ber how near he was to what was at once dearest and most
unattainable to him. It was no soother to his wounded
pride, to feel that he was skulking like a thief around the
place where for weeks he had been entertained as a guest;
and as hour after hour dragged on^ and no one approached
SUTLBiDQB. 418
down the lonely road, his impatience gi'ew into l kLnd of
frenzy, and before the glaiing sun had sunk behind the
isroods, and the thick, dull twilight had crept slowly ovei
the gloomy hollow, from an angry and exasperated, he had
become a revengeful and desperate man.
It was in this mood that his persecutor met him. It was
when all the venomous rancor that a long subjection had
bred in his haughty nature, was roused to its utmost, that
the interview for which Dr. Hugh had schemed, and planned,
and lied, took place. Cold and cunning, plausible and im*
perturbable, he met a man with whose keenest feelings he
had been playmg for years, and who was even then lacerated
to madness by insults and indignities that would have roused
a tamer nature. Some fiend was blinding his eyes surely,
and lulling him into security, that he did not feel a warning
throb of fear as he rode into the lonely hollow, and through
the dusky twilight discerned the waiting form of him he
had wronged so deeply. Some luring devil put into his
mouth the cold and sneering words with which he greeted
him the fool-hardy and contemptuous bravado with which
he taunted him. Beyond any length he had ever gone be-
fore, he now dared, claiming his power over him, defying
him to disdain it, and threatening him with instant expo
sure if he dared leave America.
And when Victor, driven to desperation, and quiveidng
with passion, turned fiercely upon him and defied him to do
it -from this hour he cared not whether it was known or
not, the cunning fiend in the wretch's bosom prompted him
to ask if he had grown tired of his pretty mistress so soon^
that he gave her up so easily ? Or did he flatter himself
that the haughty girl, at whose feet he had been so long,
v/ould continue her hardly-w^on smiles when she knew him
for a nameless, low-born adventurer, hiding the stain of hia
birth at the cost of his honor ?
** You may tell it I You may proclaim it the length and
breadth of the land 1 Who will believe you, low villain and
414 BUTLEDGV.
kno\irn kuave as you are, against the woid and credit of a
gentleman? "Who will believe your paltry version of the
delirium of a fever, that none but you heard ^none but you
Interpreted? They will ask you for proofs what then ?"
*' I will give them proofs. I will tell them more than you
know yourself of the story of your birth, and prove it by
more damning proofs than you have dreamed existed. You
doubt me ? You defy and mock the threat ? Listen ! At
this moment I hold that about me that would prove the
tale I tell to be as true as heaven, and woidd send you
branded to lower depths of shame than you have ever
known. I hold it but till you shall dare to thwart me, till
you shall dare to to set a foot on foreign shores, and then
the world the woman that you love the friends you trust
^your gloating enemies shall have the story, and shall see
its proof I"
The words hissed through the dead, dull, twihght of the
still night, and smote Hke livid fire on the brain of him who
heard them on his overwrought and maddened brain and
shot through every pulse, and tingled like wild-fire in his
veins. The whispers of hell crept into his tempted soul;
there was no light in the heavens above there was none on
the dark earth ; the still night had no voice to breathe the
things that should be done; hell had no torments worse
than these, and these he might be free from with one blow I
one cunning, short, sharp blow one quick, well-aimed, un-
erring blowl It would revenge him ^free him restore
him to peace give him back his love.
If there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents,
what must there be of demoniac triumph in the vaults of
hell, when another yields to sin a fresh soul is lost ! What
mad exultation and unholy joy must have echoed in the
legions of the damned, as the last cry of the murdered man
died away among the whispering tree-tops and gloomy
depths of Hemlock Hollow! and Victor Viennet pressed
his blood-stained hand before his eves to blot out the image
SUTLEDGE. 415
that now neither tune, nor sleep, nor unything save death
could efface from his guilty vision.
A horror, of such fear as none but murderers know, feli
upon him as he beut over that ghastly corpse, hardly still
from the death-struggle yet ^hardly cold in the life-blood
that his hand had spilled. He had not feared his foe in life
with such palpitating fear as now, when, with eager,
trembling hands, he searched, unresisted, for the fatal proof
that he had threatened him with. That found, he no longer
strove to resist the impulse of flight, and through the black-
ness and stillness of that night, chased by such terror and
such remorse as God suffers the dead to avenge themselves
with, he fled from the sight of the dead and the justice of
the Hving.
But the morning found him a baffled and a desperate
man. The news had spread far and wide, the country was
aave with it. A large reward had been offered for the
apprehension of the murderer, and no boor within miles
around but tried his best to earn it, and sharpened up his
sluggish wits, and stood his watch, and scoured the woods,
with incredible activity. It soon became apparent, though,
to the wretched fugitive, that there was one on his track
who brought more knowledge of the facts to the chase than
his compeers, or, indeed, than he chose to own. One there
was, who night and day dogged and hunted him with un-
flagging energy and terrible certainty, and from whom he
knew he had uo chance of escape if once he left the woods
and high lands and took to the open country. There was
only one hope, that of eluding and wearing him out, and
back he plunged into the woods again, and night and day
fought desperately against his fate. He had seen his pur-
suer pass almost within pistol-shot of him, and had recog-
nized in him one who added the spur of malice to the sordid
love of gold that animated the others. It was the dread of
losing his game, and putting others on the track, that kept
him from divulging what he kne^, which was enough to
416 RUTLEDGE.
Eisten tlio murder upon the man to meet wbom, to hia
knowledge, the doctor Lad started on the evening of hia
murder. And much more he might have told, of concerted
plans to dog and waylay the young stranger, and to keep
hun in their power of raalicious watching, and intriguing,
and vindictive hatred and cunning, and cruel purposes. But
this he kept in his own vile breast, and, inspired by thirst
for blood and love of gold, he pursued with deadly vigilance
the murderer of the man whose tool and accomplice he had
been.
The third night of this unequal warfare was waning ; the
fugitive, worn out and hopeless, had resolved to end it; he
had lost all privilege to hope, all right to love, and without
these what was life worth ?
The breaking dawn showed him that he was in the pine-
grove that bordered Rutledge lake. He felt no fear at the
danger of his nearness to detection ; he had done with fear
now; what malice his enemies had to wreak must be
wreaked on his dead body ; and God have pity on the only
one of all the world who would suffer pain or shame from
his disgrace!
Parting the thick branches, he made his way do^vn to
the water's-edge. In the dim light of dawn, the lake spread
calm and unruffled before him, but what was this that lay
so dark and motionless among the reeds and lily-pads, not
a stone's throw from the shore ? Dark and motionless as
the haunting memory of that corpse in the black Hollow ;
nothing but flesh and blood ever showed so dumb and hor-
rible through the grey light nothing but death ever lay so
btill as that. It was the stark and lifeless form of his enemy
that he looked upon, and dying hope started up and whis-
pered of reprieve ; all might not be over yet, and suicide
and temptation drew back chagrined. It looked almost
like a mercy from the Heaven he had outrafyed that the
only tongue that could have betrayed him had been stilled
In death, ai:d that not by his hand, and a dumb feeiing of
BUTLEDaB 417
gratitade wanned his heart and melted him into something
like repentance toward the Father and the Heaven he had
sinned against.
Now flight was clear and almost easy ; once safely beyond
the neighborhood of Rutledge, there would be nothing to
prevent his escaping to Canada; no suspicion as yet had
been attached to his name, and no one need know that he
had not fulfilled his intention of sailing at the time he had
mentioned, till he was safely embarked from Halifax.
But then love stepped in, and pleaded for one last look
one last embrace ^before the life-long separation that - his
crime had doomed him to ; what could one day more or
less endanger him ? And Fate, baffled of his ruin at one
hand, now lured him into this worse snare, and ho yielded.
Hiding himself through the day in the dense thicket that
covered the opposite bank of the lake, he had ventured
forth at twilight, and by bold manoeuvre and sharpened cun.
ning, had obtained an interview with Kitty. Not one gu*l
in a thousand would have been capable of what he required
of her not one in a thousand would have been willing oi
trustworthy ; but Kitty was as true as steel ; her keen wita
were equal to the task, and though she only guessed the
truth, the rack and torture could not have won it from her.
Before she dressed me for the evening, she had dressed Vic
tor in the coarse domino that she had made since twilight foi
him, out of the black stuff that had lain so many years in
the trunk upstairs, forgotten and unused since the last time
that the household was in mourning. She had brought
about the meeting and recognition between us, and now
watched anxiously for us, no doubt, somewhere in the
shrubbery.
We were both but too unconscious of the flight of the
moments now so precious, when Kitty, with hurried hand,
pushed aside the branches of the thicket, and sprang down
the ravine.
" Fly, fly for your life, Mr. Victor 1 You are lost, ii y oo
18*
418 BUTLEDGE.
Btop foi* a momeut . The ofScers are at the house ; thej
Bay a suspicious person has been seen hanging about the
grounds, and master has given them permission to search
the outhouses and the premises, and they say the police are
Kwarming all around. My dear young lady, let him go 1
Oh, that I should see you in such trouble 1"
" But where shall I go !" murmured Victor, burying hia
fiuje in his hands. " I see no safety anywhere ; the blood-
hounds are on my track. It would have been easy to die
this morning ! Why did I shrink from it then ?"
"Kitty!" I gasped, "can you think of no place ^no-
where that we can hide him ?"
" None ! They will search the bam and stables. There's
not an inch of gronnd about the place they'll spare."
" And the house ; have they a warrant for that ?"
"They have searched the house, they had gone nearly
through it before I knew anything about it ; I was watch-
ing for you outside."
" Then, Kitty, the house is the safest place, if they are
out of it ; and, if we could only get him there, there is one
room where he would be safe !"
Kitty started with a keen look as she caught my meaning.
" Heaven help us ! K we only could ^I can think of
one way ^if you wouldn't be afraid "
" No, no, I wouldn't be afraid of anything," I said, lay-
ing my hand in Victor's. " Speak quick."
" Mr. Victor must give me his domino, and you and I
must watch our chance and go boldly in at the front door ;
there's no other way, there are people all over the hall and
piazza, and plenty saw you go out together, and will notice
if you come back alone ; there has been a great deal of sus-
picion about tlie black domino, and master, I know, is on
the look-out for Kim, and very likely will try to find out ;
and no liai*m's done, you know, if I'm found in it; and then
soon as I'm m the house I'll slip upstairs, and throw down
the pink domino that Miss Josephine has taken off by this
BUTLSDGB. 419
iimey and Mr. Victor will wait for it at the west comer of
house, wliere it is more retired than anywhere else ; he'D
put it on where it's dark there, in the shade of the trees,
and join you on the piazza, where you'll wait for him, and
then try to get him upstairs while they're at supper. I'll
have the keys ready and get everybody out of the way
It's the only thing we can do there's not a minute to
lose !"
It was desperate enough, but I saw no other way. WTiis-
pering a courage and confidence I did not feel to Victor,
I hurried off his domino, and Kitty threw it over her dress.
There was no time for fear ; I did not stop to think, or I
should not have shaken off Victor's grasp so hastily as I
did, when we reached the shrubbery, nor have parted with
to hurried an adieu, only imploring him to be calm and cau-
tious, and not to lose a minute in gaining the west corner
of the house.
"Alas !" murmured Kitty, as we hurried up the steps,
" there's a hundred chances to one we don't see him again 1
It'll be just God's mercy and nothing else, if he gets into
the house. There goes the constable now, and the men "
" Which way ?" I gasped.
" Down toward the garden. Heaven help him ! If he
only sees them m time ! Take my arm. Miss, and come in ;
we can't stop now to see whether they meet him ; they're
watching us on the piazza."
I needed all the support of Kitty's arm as I entered the
hall ; the glare of the lights made me sick and faint, and
she hurried me to a chair,
" Don't wait a minute to attend to me," I murmured
** hurry upstairs."
" It won't do yet ; everybody is looking at us ; I must
sit down and talk to you awhile."
A gentleman, Mr. Mason, approached me, and began to
rally me upon keeping up my incognito so long, the rest of
the maskers, he said, had consented to reveal th^ns elves.
420 BUTLEDOB.
" Say yon won't nnmask till snj^pcr," whispered Kitty.
I mechanically repeated the words. Others came up to
talk to me, there was evidently some curiosity felt about
me ; I knew that I was not recognized. I can hardly tell
how I found answers to the qi^estions put to me ; the ques-
tioners must have been satisfied with very vague and sense-
less responses, if mine satisfied them. Kitty, at once prompt
and self-possessed, reUeved me, and kept up her own part,
disguising her voice, and answering readily.
Unable to control my agony at the delay any longer, 1
exclaimed suddenly : " I feel faint, won't you (turning to
the black domino) won't you get the bottle of salts I left
in the dressing-room ?"
Her height and step nearly betrayed her; and Mr. Mason
catching sight of a woman's foot as she ran up the stairs,
proclaimed the fact, and excited a general exclamation of
wonder.
" Never saw a character better sustained everybody had
thought it a man all the evening."
I listened for the opening of the window in the west
room overhead, then for Kitty's step as she stole out. 1
I heard it through all the din of music and of voices. Then
came a dreadful suspense ; how to get rid of the people, how
to get on the piazza, I could not telL Victor might even
now be waiting for me, a moment more might be too late ;
the officers might at any instant return. Just then supper
was announced, and, " now you have promised to unmask,
now you must tell us who you are," exclaimed the gen-
tlemen.
" Not while you are all here," I exclaimed, " I will not
take off my mask to-night imless you all go to supper and
leave me."
It was long before I rid myself of my admirers ; the last
one was dismissed to bring me an ice, and the instant I was
alone, I stole out on the piazza and round to the appointed
spot, and sheltering myself from sight, waited with a throb-
BUTLEDGB. 4:31
bing heart the appearance of the rose-iolored domiDO. But
the throbs sunk to faint and sickening slowness as minute
after minute passed and no one came ; dull, slow, torturing
minutes that seemed to count themselves out by the drop-
ping of my life's blood, each one left me so much fainter
and more deathlike than before. Reason and endurance
began to give way under the intense pressure, the laughter
and merriment from withm rang hideously in my ears, the
gaudy lamps and glaring lights swam before me, I clung to
the balcony for support ; it seemed to reel from my grasp,
and staggering forward, I should have fallen, but for the
arm of some one that approached, and humed to my side.
He pushed back my mask and in a moment the fresh air in
my face revived me, I raised my head and cast an agonized
look down the walk that led to the shrubbery, and this time
it was hope and not despair that followed the look.
Pray leave me," I said imperiously to my attendant,
I am well now, I had rather be alone."
It was only when he turned to leave me that I saw it was
Mr. Rutledge ; the figure that approached down the walk
claimed all my thoughts. It faltered a moment irresolutely
on the steps.
" Courage !" I whispered putting my hand in his. " Fol-
low me to this window, and we will cross the parlors, thoy
are nearly clear."
I knew that the spirit of the man I led was broken hopi^
lessly, he who had been so brave and reckless ! At every
step he wavered and held back ; " I cannot," he murmured
shrinking as we reached the hall, now filling with the gay
throng from the supper room and library and the adjoining
balconies. I hurried him forward, nerved with a new
courage ; I braved the inquisitive eyes of the crowd that
thronged us, I had a bold answer for all their questions, a
repartee for all their jests, and so I fought my way to the
foot of the stairs.
*' Go up," I whispered to Victor, pushing him forward,
^22 BUTLBDOEe
and tnrDing, 1 kept back with laugh and raillery the knot of
people clustered round the landing-place,
"You shall be mobbed!" cried Grace. "We all un-
masked half an hour ago. No one has a right to invisibility
now !"
"I am just going up to unmask, but you will not let
me."
" Will you promise to come instantly down ?" asked Mr.
Mason.
" Instantly."
" Will you dance the next set with me ?" asked Ellerton,
** With great pleasure."
" Then it's but fair we should leave her," said Phil, and
they moved away. Kitty, as I reached the upper haU, made
me a hasty gesture to turn out the light at the head of the
stairs. I obeyed, and in a moment the lights at that end of
the hall were all extinguished, and only one left burning
dimly at the other extremity.
" Quick !" whispered Kitty. " Mrs. Roberts is in her
room. I have the key."
We hurried toward her, groping along the dark pasbage.
The heavy wardrobe moved from its place with a dull,
rumbling sound ; the key grated in the unused lock.
"Quick!- quick!" whispered Victor. "There is a step
on the stairs !" There was a cruel moment of suspense as
the key refused to turn ; Victor held my hand in his with a
grasp of iron ; a low cry of despair burst from Kitty, as the
step on the stairs mounted quickly. It was a matter of life
and death indeed ; discovery seemed inevitable now.
" Push, push it with all your might," I cried in an agony
* perhaps it will give way !"
" Thank heaven !" murmured Victor, as it yielded to her
desperate strength. In less time than it takes to speak it,
the door closed upon him, the wardrobe was pushed back
to its place.
*' What 18 the meaning of this?" ^aid tlie stem voioe of
BITTLEDGB. 423
ihe master at the head of the stairs. ^' Why are the lights
put out ? Who is there ? Answer me,"
Kitty thrust me into the nearest room, and adyaiiced to
meet her angry master.
" It's me, sir Kitty ; and I was just come up myself to
see what had made it so dark up here ; I think, sir, that the
north windows there have been left open, and the wind has
come up strong from that way, and the draught has put
them out. It was very careless of Mrs. Roberts not to look
after it," she continued, busying herself in relighting the
lamps.
" Kitty," said Mr. Rutledge in a voice that I knew had
more terror for the girl, than any other in the world,
" your fabehoods are very ready, but they can never deceive
me, remember that. Tell me promptly who put the lamps
out."
" The fact is, master," she said dropping her eyes and
looking contrite as she approached him, " my poor young
lady ha^ had a fainting-fit down stairs, and she wanted to
get to her own room without anybody recognizing her, so
I turned the lights out, for several of the young gentlemen
were waiting about the stairs to see what room she'd go to."
" That He is even more ingenious than the first. It is
useless to question you further ; you do not know how to
speak the truth even when it is the best policy. Bring
that hght and follow me."
" Don't scold Kitty," I said, faintly, comifig forward. " It
was my fault, I wanted the Ughts put out. I thought it
wou^d do no harm, just for a moment, but I beg your
pardon."
Mr. Rutledge turned abruptly away with a curling hp.
" Mistress and maid together are too much for a plain man
like me. I accept whatever interpretation you choose to
put upon it." And he strode angrily down the stairs.
*' Take off your domino and go down quick !" exclaimed
Kitty.
424 RrrLEDGE.
"Oh Kitty ! How can I ? I can hardly stand, I am so
faint."
" No matter," she said, inexorably. " Everybody will be
wotidering if you don't come, and there's been enough
already I Take this. Miss, and do be brave, and don't give
way."
She poured me out a dose of valerian ; I swallowed it,
iBubmitted imquestioningly to her as she smoothed my hair,
and arranged my dress and sent me downstairs. After
that it is all a misty sort of dream ; I danced and laughed
with a gaiety that startled all who had seen the recent
llstlessness of my manner ; I was daring, coquettish, bril-
liant ; I hardly knew what words were on my lips, but they
must have been light and merry, for the others laughed and
whispered: "What would absent friends say to such high
spirits !" and arch and coquettish I turned away to hide the
pang their words awoke, and danced danced till the last
guest had gone and the tired musicians faltered at their
task, and the weary members of the household eagerly
turned to their own rooms. Once in mine, the unnatural
tension of my nerves gave way ; Kitty laid me on the bod,
and for hours, I fancy, thought it an even ch&Ace whothei
1 ever came out of that deathlike swoon or nct
CHAPTER XXXra.
*' I lived on and on,
Ab if my heart were kept beneath a glass
And everybody stood, all eyes and eanh
To see and hear it tick/'
E. B. Bbownino.
** Mr. Rutledge, sir !" exclaimed the captain, vehemently,
bringing his hand down on the table with a force that made
the glasses ring, " it's my opinion that there's a black mys-
tery to be unravelled yet about that murder. It's my
opinion that all our ears would tingle if we knew the truth.
Certainly, in some inexpUcable way, this place is connected
with it. The man lurking about the grounds, the footprints
across the garden-beds, the cravat found at the old summer-
house all seem to point out this neighborhood as his hiding-
place."
" I cannot see that exactly. Captain McGufiy," returned
his host. " I acknowledge that there is a mystery, and a
dark one, yet to be cleared away from the matter ; and that
the murderer may have taken a temporary refuge in the
w^oods near the house, is a possible, though not an infallible
deduction to be drawn from the circumstances you have
mentioned. The fact of garden-beds defaced with foot-
prints on such a night as that of the masquerade, can hardly
excite any surprise ; and as to the suspicious-looking person
lurking about the grounds all day, why, none of the three
witnesses who swear to having seen him, can at all describe
his appearance or occupation. A drunken loafer from the
village sleeping off the effects of a night's carouse in the
shelter of our woods, is a much more simple interpretation
of it, to my mind."
4S6
436 BUTLEDGE.
The captain shook his head. " I cannot agree with yon,
rir ; I cannot think that that cravat, blood-stained and soiled,
was left in the summer-house by any village loafer. Vil^
lage loafers, sir, do not, as a general thing, wear such cra-
vats, nor stain them with anything dai'ker than the drippings
of their lager-bier.'*
" I know you'll all laugh at me," said Ellerton Wynkar,
" but, absurd as it is, I can't help thinking I've seen tha\.
cravat worn by . Good heavens I what's the matter
now I Mrs. Churchill, your niece is going to faint !"
" Oh no !" said Grace, coolly passing me a glass of water.
** Only turning white and looking distractingly pretty, then
rallying a little, and looking up and saying faintly, ' I'm bet-
ter, thank you,' and regaining composure gradually and
gracefully. That's the programme. We're quite used to it
by this time. When I have a fiance who must go to Eu-
rope, I shall be perfected in the art of graceful grief if I at-
tend properly to the example I have now before me."
" There's one art you're not perfected in at all events,"
Ba?.d Phil.
" What's that, bonnie Phil ; what's that ?"
" The art of feeling," said her cousin, shortly.
"Grace is thoughtless," said her mother, and entered
into an apology so elaborate, that Phil was really distressed,
and felt that he had been most unkind and unjust. He gave
his hand to Grace, and said, with an honest smile :
" I didn't mean any reproach, Grade, only you know you
are a tease I"
" But, sir," continued the captain, unable to relinquish the
subject that most interested him, " do you really feel that
everything has been done toward the clearing up of this
mystery that lays within your power ? Don't you think
that if some stronger measures were taken, some more de-
tectives placed on the track, the thing might be ferreted
out ? It's aggravating to one's feelings to think that the
t^jJIain majrhe^ within pistol shot of us, and get clear after all."
RUTtEDGE. 427
" It makes me so nervous," said Ella Wynkar, " I can't
sleep at night, and Josephine makes Frances barricade the
doors and windows as if we were preparing to stand a
siege."
" It's truly horrible," said Josephine, with a shudder. " I
wouldn't go half a dozen yards from the house alone for
any consideration."
" Yes, Joseph, you are a coward, there's no. denying it,
Mr. Rutledge, what do you think of a girl of her age look-
ing in all the closets, and even the bureau drawei-s, before
she goes to bed at night, and making Frances sit beside her
till she gets asleep ?"
" I really think," said Mr. Rutledge, rising from the table,
* that you are all alarming yourselves unnecessarily. Every
precaution has been taken to insure the arrest of any sus-
picious person, and there is no danger of any abatement in
the zeal and activity of our rustic police. The woods and
neighborhood are swarming with volunteer detectives, and
till the offer of the reward is withdrawn, you may rest
assured that their assiduity will not be. I think the young
ladies may omit the nightly barricading, and excuse Frances
from mounting guard after eleven o'clock. I should not
advise your walking veiy far from the house unattended,
but beyond that, really, I think you need not take any
trouble."
" And really Z think," muttered the captain, as we moved
Into the hall, " that he takes it very coolly. Upon my word,
I didn't think he was the man to let such a thing as this be
passed over in such an indifferent way."
" God bless him for it 1" I thought in my heart.
" Stephen is waiting at the door to speak with you, sir,'
Baid Thomas to his master. Stephen's face expressed such a
volume of alarm and importance, that we involuntarily
stopped in the hall, as he answered Mr. Rutledge's inquiry
as to his errand.
*' The body of a man, sir, has just been fo\m.d vci ^^i^^2akA
4:28 BUTLEDC^E.
It has evidently been there a day or more. The moD
are down there, sir; I came immediately up to let you
know."
Mr. Rutledge gave h hurried glance at me, as he said
quickly :
" Possibly one of the laborers. I will go down with you
at once."
Capt. McGufty, with an Ltold-} ou-so nod to Phil, snatched
his liat, and, followed by the other gentlemen, hurried with
Stephen toward the lake. The ladies, in a frightened group,
clustered together on the lawn and watched them from a
distance.
How well I could have told them who it was, and how
long the bloated, disfigured corpse had lain floating among
the reeds and alder-bushes at the head of the lake ! How
their ears, indeed, would tingle, if they should know the
quarter part of what I knew. How sleepless and terrified
Josephine's nights might well be, if she knew that a single
foot of brick and mortar was all that separated her from the
execrated murderer, with the horror of whose crime the
country rang. How doubly aghast she would be, if she
knew that the murderer was none other than the guest she
had herself invited to Rutledge the briUiant and clever
man whose admiration she had vainly striven to obtain the
affianced husband of her cousin I What if they knew all
this ? What if my brain should give way under the pressure
of this dreadful secret, and I should betray all I Sometimes
I really thought I was losing my reason; the knowledge
that I held the life of another in my own weak hands, made
them tremble more ; the keeping of the secret was wearing
my very life away ; sleepless nights and wretched days were
doing their sure work with me, and the terrible excitement
within, shone out in my eyes and burned in a crimson spot
on each white cheek, throbbed in my quick pulse and
sapped the strength and vigor of my being. I could have
wrestled with and overcome fear and timidity,' if they had
SUTLBDGE. 420
been all ; I could have been brave and strong, if I had had
but his sin to cover, his crime to hide ; if I had been true,
if my own heart had been pure of sin, I could hlive borne it.
But it was the weight of remorse, added to all the rest, that
crushed me to the dust. It was remembering how great a
part I had had in Victor's sin, that took all courage out of
my heart. If I had not deceived him, and allowed him to
believe I loved him ^would ho not now have been safe ?
From those first beginnings of pride and resentment, I
traced my sin in regard to him. Whenever they had got a
foothold, the soothing flattery of Victor's love had crept in,
to allay and lull the pain they caused. And I had not
remembered to pray in those hours; I had trusted to
myself, and gone on sinning. Just so far as I had been
estranged from duty, and grovn cold to holy things, just so
far had I gone forward in the path which had now brought
me to such * terrible bewilderment. Whenever I had
prayed and repented, his influence and the temptation
of his presence had been weakened or withdrawn ; when-
ever I had listened to the whispers of wounded pride or
determined resentment, his voice had been at my ear, his
love laid at my feet. When little Essie's death had drawn
my thoughts awhile toward heaven, and made me realize
the littleness and impotence of pride and wrath, and the
insignificance of things seen, the power and eteriity of
things unseen, he had been forgotten and indifferent ; but
so soon as I had allowed the return of worldliness, so soon
had I found myself snared in hypocrisy and deceit toward
him. The little sins of every day, they had tempted me on
to where I now stood. It was so easy to look back and see
it all how one slight omission of duty had led to another-^
how one moment of indulgence had weakened self-control
one disregard of truth had grown into the tyrant sin
from which I could not now release myself; struggle
as I might, I was helpless in its grasp. Every step but
plunged me deeper ; every word was but a fresh deceit.
130 BUTLEDGE.
I saw Victor tnat evening for a few moments ; Kitty had
watched long for a safe chance to admit me. Mrs. Roberts,
contrary to all precedent, had taken her knitting and
seated herself in one of tne hall windows, declaring that it
was the coolest place in the house, and there remained the
whole afternoon. There was nothing to induce her to do it
but the obstinate instincts of her nature, to which she was
ever true. She may have had some lurking suspicion that
there was " something going on " upstairs, and though
entirely ignorant of its nature, she could not doubt its evil
tendency, believing as she had reason to, that Kitty was
concerned in it. She had encountered that young person
on the stairs after dinner, with a surreptitious plate of
confectionery and fruit from dessert. Kitty had readily
answered upon demand, that it was for her young lady;
and Mrs. Roberts had very tartly remarked that in her
time, young ladies thought it best manners to eat as much
as they wanted at the table, and not take the credit of being
, delicate, and then have extra plates of good things brought
up to their rooms. Kitty could hardly brook the implied
taunt, but she had to swallow it. She hovered anxiously
around all the afteiuoon, inventing all manner of excuses to
get Mrs. Roberts away, but to no avail, and it was only
after dusk, when she had at last withdrawn to order tea,
that Kitty eagerly beckoned me to follow her to the dooi
of the hidden room, that had always had such a mysterious
awe in my eyes.
As I crept through the narrow space between the ward-
robe and the door, I grasped Kitty's hand with an involun-
tary shudder. " Don't go ? way," I whispered.
" No, Miss. I'll stay jusi outside the door and watch^
and you must come the very minute I tap at it, for Mrs.
Roberts will be back as soon as ever she has given out
the things for tea. I won't go away, dont be afraid|
Miss."
The twilight wJte too dim for me to distinguish snything
fiUTLEDGK. 4S1
as Kitty closed the door softly behind me, and I groped my
wsLj into the room. " Victor 1" I said, in a whisper, as no
sound met my ear.
A dark figure between me and the faint light of the
window, started forward as I spoke, and, in another mo-
ment, my hands were grasped in hands as cold and
tren bling. Did it give me a shudder to remember the
work those hands had done in the grey shadowy twilight,
one short week before ? I tried not to think of it. I tried
to remember it was the man who loved me who had risked
his life for my love. But crime and remorse had strangely
darkened and changed him. There was a wild sort of de-
spair in his very tenderness a fierce recklessness when ha
spoke of the future ; I tried in vain to reassure myself and
soothe him, but I quailed before a nature, beside the strength
of whose passion, all that I had known or seen of despair
and desperation faded into insignificance. A weak man
can sin weakly, and bewail it feebly and with tears : a strong
man, who is hurried into crime by the very intensity and
strength of his nature, turns fiercely upon the remorse that
besets him ; the very gall of bitterness is his repentance
blood and curses are the tears he sheds.
Tendeniess and confidence shrunk back affrighted from
such contact ; I trembled in his grasp, and he caught a sus-
picion of my fear. I never shall forget the agony of the
gesture with which he released me, and turning away, bu-
ried his face in his hands. I started forward, and tried, in
faltering accents, to assure him of what? The words
died on my lips. At that moment there was a hurried tap
at the door, and Kitty's voice whispered :
Quick !"
" There is your release !" he exclaimed, bitterly. *' You
have done yom' duty ; draw a long breath, and hurry back
into the light and freedom of the outer world. Quick 1 I
must not keep you."
'* You are wrong," I murmured, " I must go, but it ie
i38 BUT LEDGE.
just as dark and miserable outside to me, as it is here foi
you. Don't fency, Victor, that there is any pleasure for me
now."
" You need not remind me of that 1" he exclaimed, sink-
iug down, and bowing his face on the table before him.
" You need not remind me of that 1 I know I have
di-agged you down with me in my fall, and it is the cruellest
thought in all my cruel anguish ; but you shall be freed be
sure you shall be freed 1"
" Why will you talk so strangely, Victor ? What have
I done, to make you doubt me now ? I would die to serve
you I have no other thought than how to save you from
the danger that threatens "
Kitty shook the door impatiently, and implored me to
come out.
" I must go, Victor," I whispered. " Will you not speak
to me ? Good night."
I bent over him, and touched my lip& to his forehead,
and then groped my way hastily to the door. He did not
move or speak, and I turned back irresolutely, to beg him
for a word of forgiveness, but Kitty, opening the door,
caught me by the hand, and pulled me out.
*' They are all asking for you ; Miss Josephine has been
upstairs for you, and when she came down and said you
weren't in your room, master looked so white, and started
up so frightened, that the others all caught it of him, and
began to call you and hunt all about for you ; and I couldn't
let you know, for old Roberts was marching up and down
the hall, and keeping her eyes all about her. She's gone
mto her room a minute ^now's your chance; run right
down the private staircase there's nobody in the butler's
pantry go out on the piazza, and so around to the front
door. Quick ! She's coming back I"
I should have done anything Kitty told me to do at that
moment. It was lucky for me she was the clear-headedy
ingenious girl she was. 1 laiv ^o\nv^\.^^^ ad hurried
BUTLEDC^E. 488
/ound the piazza. At the hall door I paused a moment,
and leaned against one of the.pillars, to recover myself be-
fore I entered. Some one hurrying out of the house brushed
against me. An exclamation of surprise and relief escaped
his lips, and looking up, I saw Mr. Rutledge.
" Where have you been ?" he asked, abruptly.
The suddenness of the question, and my miserable ner-
vousness, overcame my self-possession entirely. I struggled
in vaia to speak, but ended by putting my face in my hands,
and bursting into a flood of tears.
" You are not well," he said, kindly, taking my hand and
drawing me to a seat. " You are very unhappy. I cannot
bear to see you suffer so. Will you not tell me what it is,
and let me help you ?"
"No one can help me no one can do me the least
good."
" You think so, perhaps ; but you do not know how far I
might. You do not know how much I would saciifice to
Bee you happy again. If you will only confide to me the
anxiety that I see is killing you, I will promise to further
your wishes, and to endeavor to relieve your mind, at the
cost of anything to myself except my honor."
I shook* my head. " You cannot help me no one can.''
" If it is only grief at parting with your lover," he went
on, quickly, " I cannot do you any good ; but if it is what I
fear for you, I can perhaps advise you perhaps materially
aid you. Trust in me for this ; show the confidence in me
that you have hitherto refused, and you shall see how well
I will serve you how unselfishly and unreservedly I will
try to testore you to happiness."
Pity can make the human face almost like the face of an
angel ; there is no emotion that is bo transforming. When
pride, self-will, and selfishness, resign their sway, and pity,
heaven-bom and god-like, dawns, all that is mean, and
coarse, and earthly, seems to fade before it, to grow duivJ^
andgijiotin the calm radiance oi \U \\svi\i ^xi^^^"^^- "^snm^
484 BUTLBDGB.
pity licamed on me now, but its healing ani iendemesfi
came too late,
" As on the uprooted flower, the genial rain.''
" You are very kind," I murmured ; " but there is nothing
anybody can do for me."
He rose sadly. " I will not torment you, then. Will you
come into the house ? K you desire to go to your room, 1
mil manage your excuses for you."
With almost inaudible thanks, I hurried into the hall and
upstairs. My aunt came up in the course of the evening,
but Kitty represented me as "just going to sleep," and I
was spared an interview.
" Kitty !" I exclaimed, starting up, long after she had
fancied I was soothed to sleep, " how ^how will it all end ?
What is to become of him after we go ? It was decided
yesterday that we leave in two days' time, and you know
it will not be safe for him to think of escape till the excite
ment has died away in the country. Poor Victor I What
is to become of him ?"
" Don't fret," said Kitty, soothingly, " even if you have
to leave him here, there'll be no more danger for him than
if you stayed. Mr. Rutledge is going too, you know, and
the house will be shut up, and it will be safer, if anything,
than now. I'll write you every day of my life, and tell you
how things go on. And, depend upon it, the worrit of the
danger is over. Since this body has been found in the lake,
people will begin to content themselves that there's no use
in looking further for the murderer that he did it and then
drowned himself in despair. Michael hasn't brought up
the news of the inquest yet he's waiting in the village to
hear it ; but I've no manner of doubt what it'll be. Every-
])ody knows he and the doctor had dealings together, and
that, with the character he bears, will tell against him."
" You don't suppose he had any papers about him thai
might do Victor harm ?"
SUTLSDGE. 435
** If he had hud, they wouldn't bo of auy use now ; they've
been in the water too long to serve any purpose, good or
bad. No, Black John, as they call him, will have to bear
the credit of the crime he was hunting poor Mr. Victor to
death for. There ain't many that he didn't deseiTC to take
the credit of. Everybody knows that he was nothing slow
at all manner of wickedness, and it seems the Ukeliest thing
in the world that he should do the devil's work ; and, mark
my words, before a week is over, there won't be man,
woman or child in the country round, that won't curse
Black John as Dr. Hugh's murderer. It won't do him
much harm now, poor wretch ; a few curses more or less
won't make much difference to him where he is now, I sup-
pose."
" Had he a wife ?"
" A drunken, half-crazy thing. She spends her time be-
tween the poor-house and the grog-shop. She'll never mind
about her husband, beyond howling for an hour or two
when she first hears it, if she happens to be sober. Now,
Miss, don't think any more about it, but try to go to sleep.
You'll be quite worn out."
And Kitty threw herself upon her mattress by my bed|
where she now slept, anl, faithfullest and tendereit of nt
tendants, never left me, iay or night.
CHAl^ER XXXIV.
" Nor peace nor ease the heart can know,
That, like the needle true.
Turns at the touch of joy or woe.
But, turning, trembles too."
Greville.
" Things seem to be taking a new turn," said the cap-
tain, meditatively, over his coffee the next morning. "I
own I thought we were at the bottom of the mystery, yes-
terday, but this woman's testimony seems to set us all adrift
again, and we're no nearer a conclusion than we were a
week ago."
" What woman's ?" asked Ellerton, who had just come in,
** The man's wife," said the captain.
" What man's ?" demanded EUa, who generally arrived
at a subject about ten minutes after it had been introduced.
" Why the man who was supposed to have murdered the
doctor, Miss Ella, and whose body was found in the lake.
We were all mightily relieved yesterday, and thought thi
murderer had found his reward, and were only sorry that
he'd cheated the hangman. But in the meantime his wife
turns up, and brings a' lot of things to light ; swears that
on the night of the murder he was at Brandon, on an errand
for the doctor, and brings the landlord and barkeeper of the
* Brandon Shades' to testify to his remaining there till after
eleven o'clock. She also states that the doctor and her hus-
band were on good terms, and that the doctor often em-
ployed him in a confidential way ; that there was a person
who, she knew, bore malice against the doctor ; she had
overheard a conversation between her husband and Dr.
Hugh, in which"
KUTLBDGB. 437
* But her testimony goes for nothing," I interrupted,
eagerly. " She is well known to be half crazy, and hardly
ever sober. Her testimony can't be worth a straw no-
body would listen to her for a moment."
"I don't know about that; her story hangs together,
she's sober enough now, and will be kept so till they have
done with her. She says that the doctor came to their
shanty late the night before the murder, and called John
out; she crept to the keyhole and listened. She lost a
good deal of what they said for a little while, they talked
so low ; then John raised his voice, and said with an oath,
he'd take down the villain's pride for him a bit ; he won-
dered the doctor had stood his cursed ugliness so long ; for
his part, he'd put a bullet through him to-morrow, with
pleasure. The doctor hushed him, and said, 'Not so fast,
John, not so fast, wait awhile ; we must get a little more
out of him before we send him to his long account. We'll
settle up old scores with pleasure, after we've no further
use for him. Attend to this little errand for me to-morrow,
and don't let him shp, and that'll be the first step toward
a reckoning.' "
" Well, but I cannot see," said Mr. Rutledge, " what it
all amounts to, even if the woman's testimony is received,
which is more than doubtful. She didn't hear any names.
Nobody has any doubt but that the doctor had plenty of
enemies, and that her man John was a scoundrel, and I
cannot see what else her evidence goes to prove."
"It goes to prove that there was somebody with whom
the doctor was not on good terms, who has not appeared on
the stage as yet, and of whom we want to get hold. It
goes to prove, my dear sir, that the man John was sent to
Brandon on a matter in some way connected with this pei
son ; and, to my mind, when we shall have foimd out who
that person was, we shall have found out who was the mur
derer of Dr. Hugh 1"
" But," said Phil, " what do the barkeeper and landlord
438 li U V I. K D O E .
of 'The Shades' say ? Don't they know who he came tc
meet, and for whom he waited till eleven ?"
" John, it seems, ' kept dark,' lomiged aromid the bar
room, and spoke little to any one, as was his manner, but
went often to the door, and seemed to wait for some one.
The barkeeper thinks, but is not sure, that it was he who
was there once before during the morning, with a letter
which he left, directed to a gentleman whose name he has
forgotten, who never called for it."
"Ah!" cried Phil, "now we shall get at it, I think.
What became of the letter ?"
" The letter," interrupted Mr. Rutledge, " the letter that
was left there that morning "
I crushed the newspaper that lay beside me with my
nervous hand; I smothered the cry that trembled on my
lips, but my eyes burned on his face. He avoided them and
went on.
" The letter which was left there by some one, who, it is
conjectured, only conjectured^ may have been this man, was
addressed to some person not at all known in Brandon, and
who never came for it. It was opened and examined, and
proved to be only the business circular of some importing
house in New York. So all idea of tracing anything from
that was given up, and the letter thrown aside."
"Strange," said Phil, thoughtfully. "I should have
thought something could have been made out of it. In a
small place like Brandon, where everybody knows every-
body, I should have thought that the circumstance of a
strange name on a letter left at a little tavern would have
excited some interest."
"Brandon is a railway station, you know, and conso.
quently there are strangers always coming and going."
" Do you remember the name on the letter, sir ?"
" Some foreign name, I think. Captain McGufl^, do you
remember it?" said Mr. Rutledge, indifferently.
" I don't tliink I heard it," returned the captain. "And
&UTLEDGE. 439
I really have the curiosity to want to know something inoie
about that letter, though all the legal gentlemen, I knoWi
have decided against its usefulness in the case. I must re-
member to ask Judge Talbot to let me look at it," he con-
tinued, taking out his memorandum-book and making an
entry. " Phil, don't you feel like taking a drive over to
Brandon with me, this morning, and seeing if there's any-
thing new to be learned ?"
" Captain McGuffy," I exclaimed, " don't you want to do
me a favor ? I am perfectly wild to have a ride on horse-
back this momiDg, and you know you promised to give me
some lessons in ' cavalry practice ' before we left, and there
is only one day more. What do you say to a carter over
to Windy Hill this fine morning ?"
The captain fell in with the proposition very readily, and
Mr. Rutledge suggested that it would be a very good
arrangement for all of the party to accompany us, in the
carriage and open wagon, and to make our farewell call,
also, to the Emersons.
" To-morrow may not be fine," said Mr. Rutledge, " and
perhaps we had better secure to-day."
The rest were agreed, and we hurried off to dress ; as
the two places were far distant from each other and from
Rutledge, it was necessary to start as soon as possible. In my
dread lest Phil should decline being of the party, and should
ride over to Brandon by hunself, I called out to him to know
if he would not accept an appointment in my regiment?
He laughed, and accepted ; and unheeding the flaming bat-
tery of Josephine's eyes, I ran up to put on my habit.
There was another lady's horse in the stable, besides the
one I should use, but Josephine and Ella, though dying to
ride, would neither of them volunteer to accompany me.
" You are too nervous to ride. Miss," said Kitty, as shr
buttoned my gloves. " See how youi- hand shakes. Why
will you go ? You are not fit."
**Imust; there is no help. Tell him why 1 go, Kitty,
!l40 RJTLI. DGE.
and that I will be back as soon as I can, and you miist
manage to let me see him in the course of the after,
noon. And be sure you make him understand about my
going."
Glorious Madge ! I had never expected to mount her
again. I had never expected to burden her with such a
heavy heart. What a contrast to the daring young rider
of a few short months ago. Madge Wildfire was as eager
and untamed as then, but not so her mistress. Her mis-
tress, the fire quenched in her eye, the pride of her free
step humbled, the courage of her spirit broken, trembled
at the very beauty of the animal she rode.
" You are not fit for this," said Mr. Rutledge, in a low
tone, as he put me in the saddle. " You had better give it
up. It is not too late ; let one of the others take your
place."
" No, thank you. I shall be better for the ride."
" Captain McGuffy, you must remember your pupil is
rather inexperienced," he said, uneasily, as the captain
mounted and rode up beside me. " Madge has not been
used for some time, and she is feeling very fine."
" No danger," said the captain, as, followed by Phil, we
trotted rapidly down the avenue. There must have been a
touch of human intelligence and sympathy in Madge ; she
was buraing to be off on a mad race across the country ;
she was fairly throbbing with impatience ; my weak grasp
upon her biidle she could have thrown off with one toss of
her arched neck ; but, quivering with life and fire as she
was, she restrained her pace to suit my fears, and minded
my slightest touch, with more than human gentleness. By
degrees, \ came to realize this, and reassured and embold-
ened, I sat more firmly and rode less timidly. The cool air
of the morning braced and strengthened my nerves; I
could hardly have believed that I could have felt so differ-
ently in so short a time, and every foot of ground we put
between us and Rutledge, seemed to distance just so fkt
SUTLEDGE, 441
my anxiety aud wretchedness. Mj companions amased
themselves, and thought they were amusing me, by remi*
niscences of military adventures, frontier experiences, and
camp life ; which served to keep them occupied, and give
me time to rest and recover myself. When we rode into
the lodge gate at Windy Hill, I was indeed so much better
for my ride, that even Phil noticed the change in my ex*
pression.
" You ought to have ridden every day while we have
been here. You must ride to-morrow by all means."
We were the first of the party to arrive, and had been
seated in the parlor some minutes, enjoying the prattle of
the Misses Mason, before the others drove up. All were
made hugely welcome. One is surest of appreciation,
socially, in a visit to a lonely country place, where visitors
are at a premium, and where there are pining young daugh-
ters, and unemployed young sons, and a hospitable head of
the family, to swell the note of welcome. All these ele.
ments of hospitality we found at Windy Hill ; never were
guests more welcome, and the only doubt seemed to be,
whether we should ever be allowed to go. Lunch did not
suffice, we must stay to dinner. Mason p^re said it should
be so, and Mason fils ordered the carriage away, and th
horses taken out. Mrs. Churchill pleaded our toilets, buv
was overruled. Mr. Rutledge advanced the necessity for
our visit at Beech Grove as an obstacle. That should be
no objection. After dinner the young people should join
us, and we could all go together. There being really no
reason why we should not accept this hospitality, it was at
hist decided we should remain. The morning slipped away
very fast ; there was a great deal to be seen about the
place ; fine views and pretty walks on every hand, outside,
and a library and picture-gallery full of interest within^
New merchandisable interest, that is. The Masons had
just returned from Europe, and had brought with them
whatever had been procui-able for monsy, unbacked bj
142 ItUTLEDGE.
taste or judgment. The result was, a good many pictures
in rather questionable taste, but framed and hung unexcep
tionably ; a great deal of so-so statuary, engravings bought
by the portfolio, and " gems of art," bearing about the
same relation to high art, that the contents of some jewel-
ler's show-case, in Chatham street, bears to che Koh-i-noor.
My particular friend, the younger Mr. Mason, attended me
through the library and picture-gallery; and though the
names of the pictures and the prices of the books seemed
to be the items that he was most familiar with, I could not
but admire the grasp of mind that could master and
retain such dry statistics. By the time that dinner was
announced, I felt that we had earned it, so much listenings
looking, admiring had we done.
Dinner at the Masons' was never a brief meal ; the master
of the house had known too much of short commons in his
boyhood, and eighteen-penny lunches at second-rate eating-
houses during his clerkship, not to place a full value upon
tW. luxuries of the table ; and on the present occasion
nothing was wanting to make it an elaborate and elegant
repast, honorable to guests and entertainers. It was five
o'clock before we left the table, and fully six before we were
in the saddle. The ride to Beech Grove occupied another
hour ; a mere call, of course, was impossible. We were
quite as cordially, though rather less enthusiastically, wel-
comed by Mr. Emerson and his black-eyed daughter ; the
horses were again sent away, and we were told to consider
ourselves prisoners for the evening. Not a very- dreary and
insupportable prison, certainly, we were condemned to.
Beech Grove was a lovely spot ; the house, about one-third
the size of the one we had just left, was a gem in point of
ai chitectural beauty and tasteful decoration. Cultivation
and refinement spoke at every turn choice pictures, rare
books, exquisite bronzes, were the natural and unobtru-
sive furniture of the rooms , one was not called upon to
admire by anything more demonstrative than quiet enjoy-
BUTLEDGE. 443
ment and ease. It was the atmosphere of the place that
one was to revel in ; and no obligation existed to analyze
its component parts.
The realization of the speedy termination of our pleasant
intercourse, at least for the present, gave a very natural
.^harm to. the evening, and made it a very prolonged and
happy one. At least, to those of us who had not forgotten
how to be happy ; for me, I could hardly remember when I
had not been wretched, so agonizingly long and miserable
had the past fortnight been, and so strongly had it marked
itself on my memory. I looked with a kind of wonder at
the light-heartedness of my companions. Was it possible I
had ever found anything to laugh at in such things as called
forth their merriment, or anything to stir my anger in their
puerile slights and taunts ? Grace was vexed by my indif-
ference, and tried, with no contemptible ingenuity, to irri-
tate me ; and Josephine and Ella too, resented my deter-
mined appropriation of their beaux. I was too listless
though, at last they found, to make it pay to tease me ; so,
by degrees, they dropped off and left me. Even Mr. Ma-
son, it was evident, was beginning to think that he had
overrated my spirit, and the captain, that my overtures of
the morning did not mean quite so much, after all, as he had
flattered himself. Miss Emerson, who was a nice, bright
gii-1, not in the least afraid of herself or of any one else,
and with whom one felt intimate after half an hour's ac-
quaintance, ran up to me and asked me sotto voce^ if it
didn't bore me to death to have that man talk to me ; she
was sure I looked tired, and she meant to relieve me ; so,
with some clever excuse, in a few minutes she hurried me
off to the library, made me lie on the sofa while she sat be-
fiide me, and chatted with me in her peculiarly piquant and
amusing manner. It was very nice and comfortable to be
treated so ; but I could not help wondering what her other
guests would think of her for absenting herself from them
W) nmch. It was a matter of very little moment to Mis
i44 BUTLEDGE.
Janet, Lowet er, what any one but " papa " thought of her,
and she was sure of a tender judgment from him always ,
but at last it seemed to strike her that even he might con-
sider it rather negligent to leave the parlor so long, so
springing up, she said :
" I must go back to those people ; but remember, ycu are
not to stir ; or, yes, you may sit here by the table, and look
over these engravings. You are not fit to be dragged about
making visits ; they're a set of heathens to make you go. I
know you hate it. What w the matter, really, now ?" she
said, abruptly, stooping over me, and fixing her black eyes
on my fece. " You don't look like the same girl latterly.
If I hadn't known you before, I should have thought you
were tiresome and mopish and had no spirit. I like you
better than your French cousins, and I wish you'd come
and stay with me. Won't you ? I'll make papa coax Mrs.
Charchill to let you stay after they go."
I shook my head and sighed.
" You look as if it were no use to talk about it ; but I
don't give it up, though I must go to the parlor. I shall
come back and look after you every little while, and I'm
going to send some one to entertain you while I'm
gone."
" Oh I I'd rather not ^I'd rather be quiet "
Miss Janet shook her head with a very pretty determined
shake.
" You shall have somebody that won't bore you some-
body that I like and that you like ; the only man here, in
point of fact, woith talking to, except papa," and sho
ran off.
I leaned back in my chair and tried to be patient ; since
we left Windy Hill every minute had grown longer than the
last. I had been in a fever of anxiety about the effect our
absence might produce on Victor. I knew his morbid bit*
temess would construe it into a willful thing on my piurt,
ftnd that the neglect would seem unpardonable and ^rueL
KUILEDGB. 44&
The eyening had seemed interminable, and no one dreamed
of going yet.
In a few moments I heard Miss Emerson's voice in the
hall, and Mr. Rutledge's in reply. " Of course, since you
desire it, I will do my best to be entertaining ; but you know
you have not told me who it is I am to devote myself to."
" O, you shall see for yourself; go in the library, she is
there, and be sure you amuse and please her, for she's my
particular favorite," and with a laugh and a nod, she left hun
in the door.
Mr. Rutledge started a little, and did not look very much
pleased when he recognized me ; but there was no help, so
he sat ^own beside me at the table.
'^ Miss Emerson told me she should send some one to en
tertain me. I didn't know she meant to send you."
" Is there any one you would prefer ? Mr. Ai'buthnot,
the captain, or your heavy adorer, Mr. Theodore Mason ?
You need not hesitate to tf 11 me. I will resign in favor of
any one you name."
I was too miserable to be angry at his tone ; with a Ian.
guid movement of my hand, I answered :
" If you are willing to stay, su', there is no one I should
like so well."
" It is not often you allow yourself in anything so gracious
as that. I will stay with pleasure. But Miss Emerson says
I must entertain you ^I must be agreeable. Now, though
I dare not, for my life, disobey anything so blackeyed and
imperious, still I haven't the first idea how to proceed, and
imless you give me a hint, I am certain I shall fail. What
shall I talk about ? What do young ladies like, literature
or gossip people or things ?"
"My tastes haven't changed, Mr. Rutledge; yoij used
to find no difficulty in talking to me at least, I never sup
posed it cost you much effort, and you always succeeded in
entertaining me ; so if that is honestly your object to night
I do not think you need be at a loss,''
4-46 BUTLEDGE.
" What did I use to talk about, when I amused you, ii
ever I was so happy? If you would give me a suggoa
tion
He turned his eyes full on me, as I answered :
" When you first used to talk to me, you seemed to think
me a very foolish, frightened child, and were very kind and
gentle. Then, after you had found out I was old enough to
understand you, and clever enough to appreciate you, you
used to talk to me about your travels, and the people you
had met, the countries you had seen. Sometimes you would
talk to me about books, and make me tell you what ones
I liked, and after you were convinced, I was prejudiced and
enthusiastic enough to make it worth your while to^ oppose
me, you would amuse yourself by contradicting and thwatt-
ing me. Then you would suddenly change and be kind
oh! so kind ! and treat me as if I were fit to be your fiieod
and your companion ; you would tell me about the world
that I had only dreamed of then ; you warned me of its
danger, its heartlessness and treachery ; you counselled me,
and talked as if you really cared what became of me ; you
told me the world was full of coldness and unkindness, but
oh ! you did not tell me half you might have told me about
that. Then, sometimes not often you would tell me
some slight thing about yourself; you looked sterner and
colder than ever when you did ; your eye would flash, and
your lip would curl some unseen chain would gall you
when you thought of the Past ; something that came with
its memory humbled you, you hated it, you hated your^
self; but I liked you I liked you better then than
when you were talking to please me, or to instruct me, or
to please or instruct other people; ycu were involuntary
then you were yourself and though I liked you in those
days whatever you did, I liked you best of all when you
talked of yourself."
'' Then I will talk of myself now ; I have promised to en-
tertain you, and you have told me how to do it. They arc
BUTLEDGS. 447
dancing m the parlor now, and the music and the laughing
will screen us from them ; you can listen at your ease, and
be entertained without fear of interruption. I believe you
when you say you like to hear me talk of myself, because it
pleases me to believe it, and men, you know, will go great
lengths to believe anything that suits their vanity.
" But first, you will not mind anything that I may say
you will not shrink and blush ? Remember, it is a man's
life, and not a woman's, that you are to hear about a dark
life, and not a prosperous one and to make it vivid to you,
I must show you the blackness of the shadow and the depth
of the gloom ; you must know what the trial has been be-
fore you can know what grim strength was needed to
endure it what coldness and sternness, as you call them,
to keep down the pain within. You are a child no longer ;
you know something of what suffering is, so I can tell you
with some hope of pity, if you will listen and not be dainty
if you will forget all about yourself, and think only of
what you hear. Can you be such a listener ? Such only
are worthy of confidence. I never found 'one before^ but I
will tiy you. Do you hear the rumbling of that distant
thunder ? How strangely it mixes with the music across
the hall ! There is a storm coming up ; we cannot go honxo
for two hours yet, and they will not tire of dancing even
then "
There was a keen, piercing flash of lightning.
"Does it make you nervous? You used to be afraid in
thunder-storms."
" I don't mind the lightning any more than the flare of
the candle to-night, Mr. Rutledge. Why don't you go on
with what you promised to tell me ?"
" I will not begin by telling you about ray childhood ; a
happy childhood is a thing to be enjoyed once in reality,
and forever in memory, but not to be talked about ; no one
but the man himself can see the least pathos or delicious-
ness in the details and recollections of his nursery days ; to
448 BUTLEDGE.
Others they are weariness and folly ; to him they are the
bweetest pages in his memoiy ; but he must not hope to
find there is any other than himself who can see any interest
in them. Perhaps his mother, if God spares her to him
perhaps the woman whom he has taught to love him, and
to whom he is all the world ^perhaps his young children,
before they have learned their perfect lesson of egotism and
selfishness may listen as if the story were their own ; but
I have found no one to whom I could be egotistical and not
be wearisome ; I have found that most people like to hear
about themselves, and I have not thwarted them.
"But you shall hear of what I have told no one else"
CHAPTER XXXV.
" Of all sad words of tongue or pen.
The saddest are these : * It might have been !' "
WHiTTirau
And I did hear it ; I beard during the slow gathering
and heavy bursting of that summer storm, the story about
which my imagination had been so busy, and of which I had
BO longed to be assured ; I heard from Mr. Rutledge's own
lips, of his happy childhood, his hopeful boyhood. He de-
scribed himself as he was then, as if he were describing
some one else, some one who had died and leil the light of
day ; for it was nothing else but death that passed upon
him, a death to hope arid faith, a death to tenderness and
trust, a death to all but stem endurance and sufferings thai
make life worse than death. If he had not been just so en
thusiastic and full of hope, he could not have been so dashed
down to despair ; but because he had never dreamed that
there could be anything but truth and purity and honor in
those he loved, just so cruel and fatal was the awakenhig
from the dream. He told me of his brother, the handsome
Richard ; with a soul too refined and delicate for the rough
world he had to do with, a temperament that recoiled with
pain from all that was coarse or common, a pride that was
so intuitive that it could hardly be overcome, so uncon-
scious that it could hardly be called a sin, so fostered that
he, at least, was not to blame for it. To him it was not
matter of exultation that he was rich and well-boni and
high-bred ; it was only his native air, his place in life, his vi-
tal breath, without which he must have died. Nevei over-
bearing and imperious, his reserve saved him from fami-
liarity, his gentleness from aversion. Ah I Ttutledge had
449
450 ' fiUTLEDQE.
then a worthj heir, noble, hiindsome, high-toned enough tc
fill even his proud father's ambition.
And then he told me, and it cost him a keen pang to
epcuk her name, of Alice, his beautiful sister ; of the ado-
ration with which he had looked up to her, the pride which
every one of the narrow home circle felt in her loveliness
and grace. He had believed she was almost an angel ; he
had never looked above her for purity and truth, and in one
cruel moment he had to learn that she was false and sinful,
that she had fallen below the lowest, that " she had mixed
her ancient blood with shame," that the darling and pride of
every heart was now the disgrace and anguish of every heart.
The story that he told me did not sound at all like this ;
I could no more tell it as he told it, than I could paint one
of Church's pictures. I could, perhaps, describe, so as to
make intelligible, the picture or the story, but it would be
as impossible for me to render faithfiilly, in every delicat^i
tone and touch, in the masterly strength and vivid power,
the one as the other.
I listened with every pulse ; my heart stopped, spell*
bound, before that story ; not even my own life could have
had more interest to me than his ; and vaguely ^but oh !
how bitterly it began to dawn upon me, that once I might
have had the power to have made the past forgotten in the
present, to have won him to believe in love and truth once
more ; that in my fatal choice I had not doomed mysell
alone, that three souls, instead of my own sinning cne, were
writhing now under the curse of my folly and deceit. Alice
Rutledgc's name had perished forever from the records of
the good and pure; where would mine be, when the secret
of all hearts should be revealed ? Not among the good, with
lie on my lips, a life-long hypocrisy to be carried in my
heart ; not among the pure, cherishing yet this unconquered
passion, while in the sight of Heaven I was breaking a vow
only less sacred than the one I must make before the altar
3ut it is her story and not mine I am to tell.
1 UTLEDGB. 45]
If buman love and care could suffice to keep any soul, un-
der the pressure of a strong temptation, Alice Rutledge
might have been safe ; yet environed and hemmed in with
affection, she fell ; honor, pride, filial love, were powerless
to keep her back. The only principle that can save man or
woman in the hour when the powers of darkness have leave
to try them, she lacked, and lacking that, fell hopelessly
from the earthly paradise which alone she had lived for or
regarded. The fair, frail daughter of a godless house, the
child whose glance had never been directed to anything
higher than virtue and honor, to whom no principle more
binding than that of morality had been taught, whose frailty
had never been strengthened by any aid more powerful and
enduring than the yearning fondness of the hearts that
doted on her ; what wonder that when the powers of hell
assaulted her, no strength could stand against them that was
not divine, no work stand in that day, that was of wood,
or hay, or stubble, no work that had not Heaven's own seal
to resist the devouring flame !
All that the wit and knowledge and virtue of man could
teach, Alice Rutledge had been taught; but the only lesson
that could have done her any good in that day, she had
never learned. The lesson that she should have lisped at
her mother's knee, that should have been implanted before
any earthly desire had taken root in her flexile soul, had
never been given to her. The " sign to angels known," had
not marked her baby-forehead, holy hands bad not over-
shadowed her before the strife began, all her goodness and
strength were of the earth, earthy, and the prince of this
world won an easy victory over them. When temptation
came, it found her careless, secure. How was it a possible
thing for her to fall ? Why need she renounce what waa
but a pleasant dream, as innocent as it was secret. She was
promised to one whom she had meant to love ; she had
perhaps, loved him at first, but Avith a shade too mucL of
453 fiUTLEDGE.
awe to make it perfect love, and the weakness and timidity
of her nature made her shrink involuntarily from what wag
highei and stronger, and cling to what was lowei, and nearer
10 her own level. And so she yielded, little by little, to the
fascinations of an intercourse that, had she listened to it,
even her own weak heart would have told her was a sin
She was bound by betrothal, her tempter was bound by
marriage ; if the glamour of destruction had not been over
her already, she could have seen the madness of such an in-
timacy, the sure perdition that such a violation of right,
even in thought, must lead to. But it was the very impos-
sibility and security that ensnared her, that blinded those
aromid her. Richard's dearest fiiend, the most desired and
welcome guest at her father's house, the most accomplished
and refined gentleman she knew, how could she. see in him
the traitor that he was ? She, almost a child in years and
inexperience, and he, a man of the world, with the world's
worst principles, and withal, so wily, so eloquent, so impas-
sioned, was it strange that before she dreamed of danger,
she was snared beyond redemption. The destruction of
her principles had been so gradual, the instilling of his so
artful, that the work was nearly done before the lost girl
saw her peril. Then, no one can tell the titruggles of her
tempted soul ; duty and reason against sinful love and guilty
passion ; but who can question for a moment which way the
balance turned ? There was none of whom she couldl ask
counsel. She had deceived and outraged all she loved, so
shamefully, by the very thought of what now tempted her,
that it was worse than death to betray in the least her mi-
sery. The one to whom at last she turned, was the one least
fitted to direct her ; her companion, governess and friend
was only less worldly and thoughtless than her charge; she
loved her with all her heart, would have sacrificed anything
fco serve her ; she never dreamed of the danger she was in
till too late ; terrified, she strove to bring her back to rest
BFTI.EDGB. 458
son, but in vain Alice's was the stronger will, and she
weakly peided tc it, and became the reluctant too in the
Hands of the seducer.
In one awful moment it burst upon the proud old man that
hia name was branded with disgrace, his daughter fled, hia
love outraged, his honor stabbed a deadly blow ; all that he
had lived for lost ; all that he had hoped for blighted.
In that household there was such amazement and wrath
and desolation as are horrible but to imagine. Love out-
raged most cruelly, friendship betrayed most vilely, all that
was pure turned into sin, all that was true turned false. In
one short hour, the pride of that ungodly home was humbled
to the dust, its fair name stained with shame, its very life's
blood oozing from that cruel wound. " Therefore revenge
became it well ?" Therefore the agony that nothing else
could allay, should seek to dull itself in vengeance, should
hunt to the very death the shameless traitor ? Should hurl
blighting curses on the head of her who had brought this
ruin on her home ?
But God stayed the impotent wrath of man. He took
the vengeance that alone is His, in His own hands; the
curses that the outraged father called down on his erring
child, clustered, a black and ghastly troop, around his own
dying bed, and shut off the last ray of mercy. Before a
hand could be raised to deal vengeance, death struck down
the father, and but few days and nights of anguish and
solicitude had passed before his heir lay dead beside him ^
and the life of the boy who alone of all survived, 1 ay tremb-
ling in the balance. For a long while it seemed uncertain
whether God had not forgotten the race that had so long
forgotten Him ; whether He had not turned away His face,
and they should all die and turn again to their dust ; whe-
ther the memory of them should not be rooted off of the
earth, and their name perish from among tfee children of
men. For a long while, the boy lay between life and death,
cvt when at last life conquered, and he came back to the
454 BUTLEDGE.
changed and desolated world, it was with but little grat
tude for the boon that had been granted him, with ahnost
a loathing of the life that had been spared to him.
It is not necessary to the purposes of my story nor will il
further its elucidation, to repeat the history of the years that
followed. It is sufficient that they were years of misan
thropy and misery, almost of infidelity. Travel, change,
society, neither attracted nor soothed him ; the life he led
it suited no one to join him in, and in the midst of the
world he lived unmolfested by it and regardless of it. At
last what need to teU when or how ^there came an awaken-
ing ; he saw the truth he had been so long shutting his eyes
from, he saw God's mercy and his own sin, and rousing
from his apathy he bent himself to the work that lay before
him. We know what that work was, and how well he ful-
filled it; from the misanthropic recluse, he became the
Christian. I knew all this, and much more, that he did not
tell me.
" The story has been too long already, I wiU leave you now,"
said Mr. Rutledge with a sudden change of voice ; " I have
finished my office of raconteur, you have listened well,
almost I could swear to having seen a tear glisten in your
eye, almost I could take my oath you have not once thought
of yourself and your young lady sensibilities, but have been
absorbed to forgetfulness of them all by the stoiy of one
who is almost a stranger to you, quite a stranger, indeed,
you said not long ago."
" I did not mean that when I said it, Mr. Rutledgo, I
repented of it a minute afterward. And I want to say to
you noAV I am sorry from my heart for that, and the many
other hypocrisies you know I have been guilty of. You
don't know all, you would despise me if you did ; if you
knew how cowardly I have been, and how deceitful. I have
not meant it ; I have said a hundred things that I have cried
for afterward, that I never would have said if I had not
been too proud and too angry to fiave controlled mysejt
BUTLBDGE. 455
Biit believe me, I am miserably sorry now. Will you for*
give me ?"
He leaned forward for a moment on the table, and shading
his eyes with his hand, fixed them on my face. " Forgive
you ?" he said in a low, clear tone, " Forgive you ? no not
yet you must not ask it yet I When I have conquered
my pride and my passion, you may ask me to forgive you,
but not now not now 1*'
"Aunt Edith, do you want me ?" I faltered, starting up,
Mrs. Churchill moved from where she stood beside the
doorway and entered the room.
" You have been absent a long while," she said in a soft
voice, " we have been wondering where you were. Mr.
Rutledge, how have you managed to amuse my Estless and
distraite young niece so long ? Have you been studying a
map of France with her, or pormg over a chart of the At-
lantic ? For such pursuits are all, I believe, that have any
interest for her now."
" Miss Emerson, who sent me to entertain the young lady,
did not confine me to those topics," he answered, rising,
" and I have ventured to go beyond them. She will pardon
me, I know, if I have not succeeded in my attempts to in-
terest her." And Mr. Rutledge bowed and withdrew.
" I have a few words to say to you," said Mrs. Churchill,
with muffled hatred in her low tones. " You have with-
drawn yourself from my confidence, and from my affections ;
but remember, you cannot withdraw yourself from my
authority. It is perfectly useless for you to attempt to de-
ceive me ; from the first night you came under my roof, I
have known you thoroughly. You are a care and a vexa-
tion to me daily ; your coquetry, your vanity, your boldness,
I have hitherto tried to see unmoved, knowing I was unable
to influence you ; but where influence fails, authority may
Btep in. And authority, for your own sake, for the sake oi
the man you are engaged to, for my own dignity, I shaU
use to prevent the recurrence of such evenings as tliis."
156 BUTLBDGB.
" Tht3 authority you hold, Aunt Edith," I returned with a
Kteadiness of tone and manner she was quite unprepared
for, " the authority you hold over me, I beg to remind you,
is very limited. Don't fancy I am unacquainted with the
circumstances that have placed me in your care. I know
every word of my mother's will, I have known it from a
child. My fortune is pi iced at my own disposal after I am
eighteen ; till then I am recommended recommended^ Aunt
Edith, to your care, and naturally devolve on you, but I
know that I am free : I know that after next December I
am my own mistress, and till that time, no one has any
right but that of seniority and affection to dictate to me.
So we understand each other, Aunt Edith, you say rightly,
and why waste words ? You cannot influence me ; you
have lost the only power you ever had over me. I came to
you an affectionate, trusting child ; you did not care to win
my affection, you took no pains to make me trust in you,
I threatened unconsciously to interfere in the plans you had
for Josephine, and you, without a scruple, sacrificed, me to
her : you sacrificed my happiness, my peace, to the ambition
you had for her ; you have misled, thwarted, tortured me
to make the path clear for her; you have done what in the
sight of heaven will one day be a millstone round your neck
to sink you to perdition I Oh ! if I had but seen it all as
clearly a few short weeks ago, as now I see it, you would
not have had your triumph as near as you think you have
it now I But because I was a foolish, trusting childj it was
not hard to deceive me ; because I looked to you for direo*
tion, you had the power to mislead me ; because I had strong
feelings it was aU the easier to ensnare me. Let me say
what I have to say now ; this is our reckoning ^I never
want to have another explanation ; we have understood each
other perfectly since we came to Rutledge, this plain talk
we scarcely needed, and let us end it. As long as I can
endure to stay with you, just so long will I stay, and not a
moment beyond it. As long as I must stay, you must heai
BUTLEDGB. 457
the vexation and the trial of my presence, but you may be
flure, youi' release will not be very distant. I am not bound
to you nor to your children by one tie of gratitude or affec-
tion, and those that restrain me of custom and convenience,
don-t cost much in the snapping !"
" All this tirade has wandered very far of the mark. I
began to give you a caution and a command which my duty
required me to give, and your duty required you to heed,
and you fly angrily off on some unmeaning invectives which
are very harmless because of their unmeaningness ; if it
were not the case, I should cail you sternly to account for
your words, and make you retract them."
" Unmeaning or not, Aunt Edith, they are sown in your
memory, and nothing can root them out. They will bear
bitter fruit some day, I promise you. They will yield a rich
harvest, when the early growths of ambition and worldliness
have died down, and left you only the withered husks and
otalks of remorse and regret to satisfy your hunger withal*
And now unless you want to publish this, will you go into
the parlor and let me follow you ?"
*' I have something more to say to you "
" There comes Miss Emerson ; if it is anything that wiD
bear being said before her, pray continue."
" Ah I Is it not delightful !" cried our pretty hostess.
*' Mr. Rutledge and the other gentlemen have been out,
holding a post-mortem examination of the storm, and they
have decided that it "has left so black a state of heavens and
so wet a state of roads that it is impossible to think of your
going home to-night, so you wOl have to stay till to-morrow,
hongre malgrL And I am so charmed. Ah ! you are not,
though, I see plainly enough, you want to go back to that
tiresome Rutledge. What can it be, Mrs. Churchill?
What is the matter with her. Though to be sure, the
pale cheeks are gone now ; I think I prescribed well. Mr.
Rutledge must have said something very exciting all the
20
458 BT3TLEDCE.
while lie was m here, to have given you such a bright coloi
and such flashing eyes.*'
"A very little excitement brings that result, Miss lmer
Bon. She has not learned much self-possession or self-contro]
yet ; we must excuse her."
" Oh ! by all means. I am only glad she looks brighter
than when I left her. But will you come into the parlor?
Miss Josephine is going to give us one more song before
we go to our rooms."
Josephine's song was gay and brilliant, her voice was rich
and full, but they failed to drive the dreary echo of Victor's
last words out of my mind, that deepened and strength-
ened as the night advanced : " You shall be freed I Be sme
you shall be freed !" The lights shone clear and soft on the
gay group*^ that peopled the rooms around me ; but instead
of them, I seemed to see, far nearer and more distinct, the
deserted chamber at Rutledge, where the guilt of the Fast
and the crime of the Present, kept awful watch togeth6}\
CHAPTER XXX VL
'*l[y care is like my shadow in the snn,
Follows me flying, flies when I pnrsne it ;
Stands and lies by me, does what I have done,
This too familiar care does make me me it.
QuxBN IiLnAOBnx.
Xatb breakfast, long lingering at the table, delay in or
dering the horses, lengthened adieax, all combined to re
tard our starting for home on the following morning. I had
stood ready on the piazza, waiting for the others to come
out, for fifteen minutes ; every new delay increased unbear
ingly my nervousness. "Spare that innocent vine," said
Phil, arresting my riding-whip. " You have beaten that
cluster of roses to fragments." " Will they never come I"
I ejaculated. " It is so tiresome to wait for all those adienx.
Can't we start ?"
"Certainly," said he, signalling the man who held our
horses. " We can ride forward ; they will soon overtake us,
and McGu% can accompany the carriage as far as the cross-
road. He is going to Brandon, I believe, this morning."
I stepped back. " After all, it would hardly be polite to
go, as he was of the riding party. There they come from the
greenhouse. They must be ready now,"
At last, we were mouq^ed, and our companions arranged
for the drive, our last good byes said ; but the understand-
mg was, as we parted, that the whole party of Masons and
Emersons should adjourn to Rutledge for the evening, where
a grand finale, m the shape of a supper and a dance, should
wind up the festivities of the season. The pretty Janet
whispered, as I went down from the saddle to exchange a
parting word with her, " I have not given up the visit yet
4:60 KUTLEDQir.
papa promises to take Mra. Churchill by storm this eveniug,
and you must consent."
As we rode along, I gave a sigh to the impossibility of
this ; nothing could give me pleasure now^ but this seemed
more like it than anything else. To be quietly with Janet,
and to learn to love her, and to unlearn the terrible lesson
of the last few weeks, looked almost like peace. But I knew
too well what my aunt's answer would be, as she was to be
appealed to, and without throwing off the mask of aoference
that I still preserved and wished to preserve, I could not re-
sist her decision. I weU knew the progranmie sketched out
tor me, for the rest of the sunmier : in the thrice empty
dreariness of Gramercy Park I was to be immured, while
the others wliiled away the pleasant weeks at Newport and
NaTiant. The Wynkars, Capt. McGufiy and Phil had con-
sented to make their plans agree with the Churchills, and
Mr. Rutledge had promised to join them in the course of a
fortnight. He had made his arrangements to leave home on
the same day that we did, and accompany us part of the
way ; business in the western part of the State would occupy
him for some ten days ; but, at the end of that time, he pro-
posed rejoining the party at Newport. Nothing had been
said to me about my plans, but I knew from something that
escaped inadvertently, that the subject had been canvassed,
and it had been decided that the income allowed me would
not warrant such an expense, and that, with Frances, I was
to be dropped at home, while mamma's maid should servo
also for Josephine and Grace for the remainder of the sum-
mer. I should have loathed th^ gaiety of Newport, the
crowd and the excitement would have been insupportable
to me ; but the prospect of being smothered in that silent,
dark house in the hot city, hateful with memories of my re.
cent illness, and with trials that I could never forget, was
even harder to anticipate. But I had to submit. What a
future for soventeen.
" Wait till December," whispered Hope, just stirring his
BUT LEDGE. 461
wounded, drooping wings, just trembling with a faint life
that for days bad seemed extinct, " Yes," I thought, with
a bitter sigh, " in December I shall be of age, it will be a
glorious thing to be my own mistress ! To begin the world
when I've lost all interest in it to do as I please when
there's nothing on earth that pleases me to be free from
restraint and authoyity, and from all human love and care I
To be independent I God help me I What a glorious thing
it will be. All hope points to December I"
But my release, such as it was, was nearer than Decem-
ber.- I might have spared myself the hateful anticipations
with which I blackened the fresh summer morning. I had
ncrt seen any further into futurity than the rest of the human
family, who fret about their fate and look whole years
ahead, and put the misery of a lifetime into the present,
and torture themselves about what they know is, and fear
is to be, till the flood of God's judgment comes and sweeps
all away, and leaves them bewildered in the midst of a
strange desolation and a new terror.
"Phil," said Capt. McGufEy, as we rode slowly along
through the loveliest, freshest country, washed by last
night's rain, and gleaming in the morning sun of which I
had not seen one beauty, in my absorbing anxiety " Phil,
may I trust this young lady to you, if I leave you at the
cross-road ? I want to ride over to Brandon for half an
hour before dinner."
" Oh, Captain McGuffy I" I exclaimed, startled out of
ftiture fears by present dangers, "why do you take that
tiresome ride this morning? It will be sunny and disa-
greeable before you get back to Rutledge ; wait till after
dinner."
The captain still leaned to the idea of accomphshing it all
"under one head," and having the rest of the day at home-
I didn't dare to press the subject, but seeing my only
chance lay in engrossing their attention to the exclusion
6rom their memories of the Brandon project, I worked
^62 BUTLEDGfi.
faithfully to accomplish my design, and succeeded in a
great measure. Before we had gone another half mjle, I
had enticed the captain into the enthusiastic description of
a bull-baiting in Mexico, at which Phil and he had
"assisted," and into the recollection of which they both
seemed to enter with great ardor. We were on the top of
Ridgway Hill ^the road for a good mile stretched away at
its foot, while on the left, branched off the Brandon turn-
pike.
'* Heaven send they may forget it 1" I ejaculated, bend-
ing forward to renew my questions about the bull-baiting.
The carnages were coming dose behind the bull-fight soon
began to flag.
" Phil," began the captain again.
" Capt. McGuffy," I cried, '* Madge is fairly beside her-
self this morning, I can hardly hold her ; we have been
creeping all the way from the Grove, what do you say to a
race, a bona fide race, and I'll ask no favor. It's a clear
road from here to Rutledge, and he's the best fellow who
clears the park gate first 1"
" Done 1" cried the captain, catching fire from my eyes ;
and before another minute, we were off on the maddest
race I ever ran or hope to run. For a while, the three
straining beasts were nearly neck and neck, the three
dDated nostrils and fiery eyes were nearly on a line ; then
gradually, very gradually, Madge's black head gained an
inch or so upon them, an inch or so, and then we were a
foot in advance. Phil drove the spurs into his horse he
sprang forward, but soon fell back again ^the captain urged
Vagabond on with lash and oath; I did not move the
loosened bridle on Madge's neck steady and unswerving
6he kept the road, each spi mg as even and as sure as if
measured and done by rule ^no relaxing of the eager
neck ^no gasping in the even breath. I only saw, with a
heartfelt sigh of relief, that the Brandon turnpike lay
unnoticed far behind as, and Madge might take us where
IcUTLBDaE. 463
ahe liked : but when I dashed through the park gate, half )i
dozen yards in advance of Phil, and the captain in a
fiiry with Vagabond, perfectly blown, quarter of a mile
In the rear, I was quite helpless and weak from excite*
ment.
" I don't know which to be proudest of, the young lady
or the mare," said Stephen, as he lifted me down. "I
wouldn't have missed seemg you come in for considerable
money.*'
I hurried into the house and upstairs, leaving Phil to make
all explanations and apologies : Kitty had seen me, and fol-
lowed close behind me.
" Well*?" I asked, breathlessly, as she closed the door.
" Nothing, Miss, nothing has happened. Do lie down and
rest ; you look fit to dro.p."
' But he is well ? What did he say has nothing hap-
pened ?"
" Nothing has happened. I only saw him for a moment
yesterday. Mrs. Roberts kept me close at marking linen
all the rest of the day and evening ; and this morning I had
only a few moments to speak to him when I went in, for
her door was open a crack, and I didn't dare to stay : you
look so tired won't you let me undress you ?"
" But how did he seem ? what did he say about my being
away ?"
" Oh !" returned Kitty, rather uneasily, " he asked why
the house was so quiet, and whether you'd got back yet :
he looks a little pale and badly, but I'm sure that's natural
enough. Anybody would get pale and gloomy shut up
day after day in that awful room, among aU poor Miss
Alice's books and pictures and things, all looking so dusty
and dismal ; it gives me a shudder only to go inside the
door."
" But he doesn't know anything about her ; you've never
told him anything about the room ?''
^ T didn't mean to, Miss ; I had no thought of opening
464 BUTLEDGB.
my lips about it ; but he made me tell him he wouldn't be
satisfied till I had told him every word I knew about the
tamily troubles. What put it into his head to ask, I think
was something he had come across in a French book he had
been reading; it was a little note that had marked the
place. He held it in his hand as I came in, and he looked
BO white and strange, I was almost lightened. Oh, so
many questions as he put me ! so eager as he was i He
seemed to look so through and through me with those
black eyes of his, I didn't dare to keep back anything I
knew. And then he asked me about master; if he had
really loved his sister ^if he had grieved for her, and tried
to find her out, or if he held her memory in contempt ^if he
tried to forget that she had ever lived, and hated to hear
her name."
" You didn't teU him that he did, Kitty ?"
" How could I help it, Miss ? You would not have had
me tell him a lie. I had to tell him how it was. I had to
tell him that her name was forbidden here that no one
dared for their lives to breathe a word about those times
to the master that her picture, and all that belonged to
her, was put out of sight forever that her room was shut
up and hid as much from the living, as the poor lady was
herself in her lonesome grave beyond seas. And he clenched
his hand till the blood sprung under his nails, and his
very lips were white like the wall ; he said so low I could
just hear him, ' but he shall not forget I' I am no coward,
Miss, but I confess I was right glad when I got outside
again."
All that wretched day I watched for a chance to see hinu
Kitty, nearly as anxious as I was myself hovered around to
try to clear the way for me, but in vain. No other day had
the upper hall been so favorite a resort. Josephine had or
dered her trunks to be put out there, and Ella's also, and
Frances was packing them. Ellerton and Grace, lounging
on the stairs, watched the operation, Mrs. Churchill sat with
BUTLKDGE. 465
ner door open. 1 cannot possibly .describe the misery it
gave me to know what danger might arise from this delay.
I knew too mucli already of Victor's morbid jealousy, to
imagioe it was not brooding now over this long neglect
The hours were leaden-winged and fiery-footed ; each slow
passing one seemed to bum into my very soul.
Kitty wiped away frequent tears as she busied herself
about my packing ; there were no tears in my eyes as I
walked quickly up and down the room, or lay, face down-
ward on the bed, trying to stifle thoughts that I could not
endure.
"There's dionerl" said Kitty, rueftdly. "And there's
no hope of any more chance after it. Mrs. Roberts is at
her eternal knitting in the hall window, and Frances won't
stop packing these four hours yet. But don't you worry,
Miss ; I'll manage it, somehow. Go down to dinner, and
dorOt fret !"
Of course not, why should I ? What was there in my
circumstances to occasion it? Notlung, of course; and
nothing, either, to fret about in Josephine's taunts and
Grace's sauciness, in the cold eyes of my aunt, in Ella's
supercilious scorn ; nothing to fret about when the captain
talked of the murder and the evidence, the state of the
public mind, and the state of his own private mind, in re-
gard to it ; when Ellerton talked about the news from town,
and the letters he had just received from some of his ines-
tiiaable chums there resident, and of the inexpHcable nature
of the fact that none of them had spoken of meeting or
seeing Victor before he sailed, and of his own conviction
that it was very strange we had heard nothing from him
since he left, very strange.
"Oh!" cried Grace, *' that's the way, they say, with
these foreigners, adventurers, may be. You mustn't be aston-
ished, my dear (turning pleasantly to me), you mustn't be as-
tonished if you shouldn't hear from him ' never no more,'
These Frenjh meteora, they say, sometimes flash through
20*
466 BdTLEDGE.
Bociety in that way, and dazzle everybody, then sink into
their native night again. And you faiow it is just possible
our Victor may be of that order ; but, of course, I don't
irant to distress you, only it's as well you should be pre-
pared."
" Grace, hush I you are a saucy child ; but really it is odd
that we have never heard a word from him since he left."
" Did you expect to, Josephine ? I didn't suppose you
had made any arrangements to correspond. I am sorry I
didn't know how deep your interest was, I might have re-
lieved your mind before. Mr. Viennet is very welL I
have heard from him more than once since we parted."
An exe^mation of surprise went round the table ; I was
overwhehned with questions and reproaches.
"You might have told us, really, now I think," said
Ellerton.
" Why did you not ask me, then ?"
" Why, we thought you'd tell, to be sure. We didn't
know how sacred you considered his epistles,"
" What sort of a journey did he have ? What day did
he get in town ?"
" He didn't say much about his journey. I fancy from
something he said that he met vrith some detentions."
" Didn't he send any messages to anybody ?"
" None that I remember."
"Ungrateful rascal!"
" He succeeded, I suppose, in getting a state-room ? He
had some fears that he would be too late."
" He didn't say a word about it."
" Absurd ! what did he talk about, then ?"
" Not about his journey, nor his stateroom, nor you,
Josephine ; but you know there are more things, and as in-
teresting, in heaven and earth, to us both, strange as it may
seem to you."
" Pardon I I had forgotten !"
You won't hear again before the Persia is in, will you V*
4i
BUTLEDGE. 167
"That wiD be in three weeks, will it not?"
" Yes ; that will be after we are at Newport. To whose
care do your letters come addressed ?"
" Really, Mr. Wynkar, you are too kind. Your interest
IS so unexpected !"
" Let us all drink to his bon voyage^^^ said the captain,
filling my glass.
" Avec plaisir,^^ cried Josephine, and Phil said heartily,
as he poured her out a glass :
** Victor's a good fellow ; hs has my best wishes on land
or sea."
"And mine," said Mr. Rutledge, very low.
Why was there a hush around the table as that toast was
drank ? Why did a sort of shade creep over the careless
mirth of the company ? Not surely because they guessed
that he whose health they drank was within hearing, almost,
of their words, nor because they knew how fallen and how
wretched he was ; but because, perhaps unconsciously, the
gloom on their host's face, and the misery on mine, damped
for a moment their gaiety and confidence.
" The last day at Rutledge !" murmured Josephine, wit!
a pretty sigh, as we left the dining-room. " I cannot beat
to think of it. I never had so happy a fortnight in my life.
ShaU any of us ever forget this visit ?"
" It doesn't seem as if we'd been here a week," said Ella,
' does it ?"
" A week I It seems to me a year I" I exclaimed, invo-
luntarily.
"That doesn't speak well for your enjoyment, at all
events ; Mr. Rutledge will never ask yon to come again.
Will you, Mr. Rutledge ?
" I am a&aid. Miss Wynkar, that it will be out of my
power to enjoy the ionor of any one's society here for a
long while to come. I am going abroad in the course of a
month, and "
468 BUTLEDGS.
" You, Mr. Rutledge !" exclaimed more than one voicei,
and Josephine's color suffered a shade of diminution.
"It is a sudden determination, it is not, sir?" asked
Phil.
" No, I have been thinking of it for some weeks, but I
have not till recently had much idea of the time I should
start."
" Mr. Rutledge does not look upon crossing the Atlantic
for a few months, as any way more formidable than going
to town for a night, he has been such a traveller," said Mrs.
Churchill, with admirable composure; but I knew the
effort that it cost her. ** You do not think of being absent
long, I suppose ?"
*' It is uncertain ; I shall make my arrangements to be
gone" for about two years, but something may occur to
detain me longer, in which case I can easily settle all things
here by letter. I have trusty persons in my employ, and I
think th'3re is no chance of my presence being necessary at
home for a long while to come."
' I envy you," said EUerton ; " I wish I could run off
for a year or two."
I saw Josephine's lips move, but she could not command
her voice, and, bending down, she caressed Tigre with a
nervous hand. I could not but pity her ; I had not
realized before how much her heart had been set upon
this match ; and wounded pride is next in sting to wounded
love.
The gentlemen lit their cigars, and talked of Mr. Rut-
ledge's plans ; we all lounged idly about the north end of
the hall; the doors were all open, and a fine fresh breeze
came in. I had been listening anxiously to a faint sound
overhead, where I knew too weU ; a hasty stride from one
end to the other of the room above us.
" Hark 1" cried Grace, " what's that ? I heard the same
sound this morning."
BTTLEDGE. 469
Every one stopple i talking, and listened.
" The house is haunted, you may depend," said Jose-
phine. "There have been strange noises next my room
for the last three nights."
" That's a peculiar sound. What do you make of it, Mr.
Uutledge ?" said EUerton, walking toward the stairs.
" It is nothing," he returned, advancing that way too.
** Some of the servants are up there now, perhaps ; I will
go and see. Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Wynkar."
*' M go," I cried, starting forward. " Perhaps it's Kitty,
Bhe may be waiting for me."
Elleiton paused and listened; Mr. Rutledge passed up
before him, followed closely by Tigre. I brushed past
EUerton and kept close to Mr. Rutledge. Mrs. Roberts
was standing at the head of the stairs.
" Mrs. Roberts," said EUerton, " we're investigating an
unusual noise up here. Can you account for it ?"
!N"ow, Mrs. Roberts never could abide the insinuation
that anything might possibly be going on of which she was
ignorant ; if she had nosed anything herself, she did not, as
we have seen, lack zeal in ferreting it out, but it was impos-
sible to put her on a new scent ; she refused to acknowledge
any other sagacity than her own. So, on the present occa-
sion, as she had heard no noise, she utterly scouted the
idea, and assigned some trifling cause for it ; the girls, she
said, had been in the attic, clearing out an old store-room ;
probably that was what Mr. Rutledge had heard. EUerton
hurried down to inform the ladies of the explanation, and
Mr. Rutledge, crossing the hall, was going toward his
dressing-room, when Tigre, who had been exploring the
neighborhood, now rushed whining along the haU, with his
nose to the floor. The attention of all was attracted to
him ; he darted under the wardrobe, and began scratching
and growling earnestly at the door of Victor's hiding-place,
I followed Mr. Rutledge's quick glance firom my face to
ilie wardrobe, and, starting forward, I tried to call oflTTigi^
470 BUTLBDGB.
** Come here, sir I Come here, I say I" But he was toe
intent upon his discovery to heed me.
"He is a little nuisance," said Mrs. Roberts. " I never
approved having him allowed to come upstairs.*'
"Tigre, what are you after, sir?" said Mr. Rutledge, ae
he walked down the hall toward him.
" Oh, nothing, I'm sure, sir, nothing I" I cried, following
him. "Don't scold him. Tigre, come out, you rascal!
come out, I say!" and I stamped vehemently on the
floor.
" He will not mind you," said Mr. Rutledge, in a low
voice. " He will obey his instincts, and persevere till he
has reached the object of his search."
" He isn't searching for anything," I exclaimed, dropping
down on my knees and stooping till I could see under the
wardrobe. " If I could only reach him, Tigre ^you tor^
ment if you don't come, I'll whip you, so f Here, here,
poof fellow I Come here, my pet !"
Tigre desisted a moment from his whining, and wavered
in his determination. I thrust my arm under the ward
robe, seized him, and drew him, yelping, out ; then,
springing up, ran across the hall, and almost threw him
into my room. Mr. Rutledge watched me silently with
a contracted brow, and crossing over to his own room^ shut
himself into it.
Not a very faithful index, certainly of the real feelings
of men and women, is to be obtained from their outward
and visible emotions. A very gay party, no doubt, the
visitors who came that night to Rutledge, thought they
found there, ' They little guessed how unhappy and disap
pointed a man their courteous host was, nor that Mrs,
Churchill, serene and charming, was looking in the face the
failure of the hopes of years, nor that the pretty Jose-
phine's smiles were in ghastly contrast with the bitteraesa
of her spirit ; nor that Phil, who knew her face too well to
be deceived by them, was smarting xmder the realizing
BITTLEDGE. 471
sense it gave him of her ambition and worldliness. And if
they had guessed the interpretation of my gaiety I
There were just enough of us to make the dancing
spirited, and to keep every one on the floor. We had
before always danced in the parlors, but some evil spirit
prompted Grace to propose that we should try a double set
of Lancers in the hall. Everybody, encouraged, doubtless,
by their attendant evil spirits, seemed to think nothing
could be more delightful than the hall, and urged the mov-
ing of the piano out there ; and there we adjourned. I
tried not to remember how plainly we could be heard in a
certain room at the end of the hall above ; how the laugh-
ing and the music would grate on the jealous ears there.
If he caught the tones of my voice, he would not know
that I laughed because I must keep pace with the captain's
jokes, and encourage him in punning and joke-making, to
keep him from the hideous topic that he always turned to
when left to himself; and to drive away the suspicion that
sharpened Mr. Rutledge's eyes, and to keep Mr. Masou
my admirer, and no more.
** Like the lady of * Old Oak Chest * memory, ' I'm weary
of dancing,' " I cried at length, " let's amuse ourselves some
other way."
"Play hide-and-seek, like that ancient party?" asked
Phil, throwing himself on the lowest step of the stairs.
"That's not a bad suggestion!" exclaimed Grace. "This
is just the place for such an adventure. I don't mean that
I want anybody to be smothered in a chest exactly, but lost
for a little while, and hunted for, you know. It would be
BO jolly."
" So it would I" echoed Ellerton.
" And there's no end of capital hiding-places about the
house, so many odd rooms where you'd never expect them ;
and acres of attic, beyond a doubt !"
" Come !" cried Josephine, " we're all ripe for adventure,
Let's have a game of hide-and-seek."
472 BUTLEDaJb.
** Delightful !" cried the youngest Miss Mason.
**rm ready for anything," said Phil, getting up and
shaking himself.
" I'm afraid you will not find any oak chests," said Mi.
Rutledge, discouragingly,
" Oh I yes, we will," cried Grace, " chests, and crannies,
and closets, and wardrobes, and trap-doors without number,
A regiment of soldiers might be hid away in this house and
nobody the wiser."
Everybody was in the spirit of it now, and it was useh,B
Uf oppose.
" Who shall hide first ?" demanded Grace,
*' Oh, your cousin, of course 1" cried the captain. " She
proposed the game."
I was voted in by acclamation.
" And you must take somebody with you, it will make it
more exciting, but you must hide in separate places," added
Grace.
" Very well ; the captain must go out with me, and you
must all go into the parlor, and promise, on your hofkotj to
stay there five minutes by the clock, and then we give you
leave to find us."
" We promise," said EUerton ; " but remember, you are
to hide somewhere in the house, and to suiTcnder yoursuvea
in half an hour if you are not found before."
*' Always provided," said the captain, shutting the parlor-
doors upon them, " that we're not smothered in some old
chest in the meantime."
CHAPTER XXXVn.
^ Sweetest lips that ever were kissed.
Brightest eyes that ever have shone;
Hay sigh and whisper, and he not list,
Or look away, and never be missed
Long or ever a month be gone."
* "Where shall we go ?" said the captain, in a whisper
08 we paused in the hall irresolutely.
" What do you think of the dining-room, behind the tall
clock for one of us ?"
The captain shook his head.
" They'll look there the first thing ; it will not do. But
in the second stoiy, there's a huge old wardrobe that I've
noticed at the north end, that would be a capital place for
one."
** Yes, I khow where you mean, but I think it's locked,
and we haven't the key, and it would take too long to hunt
up the housekeeper and get it. There's the lower part of a
bookcase in the library empty. Captain McGuffy, if you
only could get into it I Not even Mr. Rutledge knows
about it. Mrs. Roberts only cleared the books out of it last
week, and you'd be as safe as possible. Do tiy if you can't
arrange it, and I'll go somewhere upstairs ; I know a place."
Captain McGuffy consented, and we hurried to the libra'
ry. The hiding-place was not so large as I had fancied,
but still my companion agreed to risk it. He doubled up
like a jack-knife ; it was* perfectly wonderful to me how he
ever got his long limbs into so small a compass.
" Are you comfortable ?" I asked, smothering a laugh.
"Don't shut the door tight,'* he whispered, hcarsely. "1
can't stand this long."
1:74 BUTLEDGE.
I had no time for more lengthened condolences, but hur-
ried off to dispose of myself. The second story was entirely
clear ; the servants were all downstairs ; Mrs. Roberts was
busy about supper. I resolved to hide behind the linen-
press outside her door ; but first, I thought, if I were quick,
I could go one instant to Victor's door, whisper my excuseb,
and promise to come back when they were all gone. It
was rather a dangerous thing to do, but the moment I heard
the parlor-door open, I could fly to my hiding-place; I
dared not lose this chance.
Moving aside the wardrobe with some effort, I tapped
low at the door. Again and no answer. "Victor," I
whisj^ered at the key-hole, " come to the door one moment ;"
but not a sound from within.
Apprehension of I do not know what new danger over-
came my prudence, and I wasted the few precious seconds
I had to spare in irresolution. When it' was too late to
effect my escape, I heard the door of the parlor ourst opeui
and Josephine's voice crying, " Allons !" They separated
to all parts of the house, Grace, Janet, and Ellerton flying
up the stairs. There was but one thing for flie to do: I
hurriedly pulled the wardrobe after me into its place,
opened the door, entered, and closed it stealthily behind
me. Only when I was in it, did I realize the folly of what
I had done. The room was as dark and silent as the grave ;
such a silence and such a darkness as would have chilled i\
stouter heart than mine. I whispered Victor's name there
.was no answer. Had he fled, then, and was I alone in this
horrid room shut up in it for hours perhaps? 'No I I
would risk all and grope my way out, no matter if I en-
countered them all. I could endure this no longer. All
Kitty had told me all I ever fancied of the ghastly terrors
of the room crowded into my mind, and, starting forward,
I attempted to find the door, but in my bewilderment and
the utter blackness around me, I must have turned away,
instead of toward it. My outstretched hand struck against
BUTLEDGS. 415
tn ioj Biirfaoe ; I screamed and started back, my foot slipped
aud I fell, striking my temple heavily against some project
tion. The fall and the blow stunned me for awhile ; then
returning consciousness suggested all that they had merci-
fully absolved me from. Alice Butledge's neglected, di
honored room ^Alice Rutledge's sin-troubled spirit haunt-
iiig it ^the curses that had been spoken in it the agony
that had been endured in it ^the years of silence that had
passed over it ^and now, a murderer's hiding-place a
murderer with crime fresh upon him. And oh ! the horror
of that crime I It seemed almost as if it had been me in-
stead of Victor who had done it. My brain seemed reeling
^had I not been there had I not seen ^heard that of
which I never lost the memory or was it only haunting
me from another's lips? Was that avenging ghost here,
too ^within the limits of this dreadful room ? Was that a
touch of human hand upon my breast ? was it fancy, or
or was that a breath upon my cheek ? A thousand horrid
whispers hollow laughter dying shrieks filled the air;
within these accursed walls, it was weird and unearthly all ;
without, I heard, but as through triple dungeon walls, the
voioes of those I had left behind; I heard their steps over-
head, their searching, high and low, in every nook and cor-
ner for me; I heard them call my name, and pause for
answer. I tried to call, but a nightmare stifled my voice.
As one might feel who had buried himself yet living who
had pulled the coffin-lid down on his own head, and heard
the devils eagerly filling the grave up and laughing at their
work and at each new shovelful of heavy clay had felt the
distance between him and life grow shorter, and felt the
weight press heavier and heavier, and the horror and the
darkness grow tighter and tighter around him, and the re-
morse, and the helplessness, and the terror so I felt that
hideous night, and so I feel whenever I remember it.
The house quieted, I heard the carriages drive away, then
the fidnt good-nights, and the closing of the many doon^
476 BUTI EDGE.
itnd aU grew into repose. That wa8 cruel ; they bad for-
gotten me they had given me up easily ! But I would
make them hear I would get out of this sepulchral placei
and I stalled to my feet. Just then the handle of the door
turned, and a ray of light streamed across the room. It
was Mr. Rutledge who entered; but the sternness and
whiteness of his face repressed the cry of joy with which I
had started forward. The light, though, had put all the
ghastly train to flight, and I breathed freer as I looked
around and saw that he and I were alone in the room. He
closed the door, and pressing his hand for a moment before
his eyes, looked up and around the apartment. I suppose
he had never been in it since it had been closed upon the
flight of his sister, and since his father's curse had doomed
it to desolation. I followed his glance around the dim and
dusky walls the familiar pictures ^the disordered, time-
stained ornaments the tall, canopied bed the open ward-
robe. A low groan escaped his lips, and sinking on a chair,
he bowed. his head in his hands upon the table. Some
sound from me at last aroused him, and looking up, be
said:
"I knew I should find you here. What evil spirit
brought you to this place ! Are you alone ?"
" Yes," I faltered, coming to him, " I am alone. Take
me out, for the love of heaven ! I have been in such terror
Victor is not here I have "
I stopped, with an exclamation of alarm. I had betrayed
my secret.
" It is better that' he has gone," he said, but without any
surprise ; " it could not have been kept up much longer. I
hope, for your sake, he may be safe. Flight would have
been better a week ago. I could have managed it,* but yon
would not trust me. Did you really think," he continued,
rismg slowly from his seat, and looking at me with an ex-
pression compounded of bitterness, and tenderness, and
sadness, " did you really think I did not know you were
KUTLEDOE. 477
hiding your lover iu my house that you were dying a
thousand deaths in the midst of this careless crowd ? Why,
child," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, and looking
into my eyeb, " I know every expression of this face better
than 1 know my own. 1 know its flashes of fear, its white
mantle of despair, and its crimson glow of love, too well to
be deceived. KI had needed confirmation of my suspicions
on the morning after Dr. Hugh's murder, that Victor Vien-
net was the guilty man, I should have had only to have
looked in your face. And from that dreadful day to this, I
have read there each event as it has come to pass. I have
helped you in your lover's cause, though you did not know
it. I have worked day and night to mislead his persecu-
tors, to allay the suspicions and blind the eyes of the author-
ities ; and I have nearly succeeded. There is very little
danger now, if he is prudent and dexterous in his flight.
Do not tremble so ; you need not fear for him. By this
time he is probably beyond the only part of his jouniey
that was attended with much risk."
I burst into tears ; it was so hard to hear him say all this,
and talk to me as if I had nothing to be miserable about,
now that Victor was safe. Ah ! this was but the begmning.
A life-time lay before me full of such hours as this.
"It is a heavy fate, poor child," he said, compassionately.
* I would have saved you from it if I could."
" You don't know half how heavy !" I sobbed. " If you
did, you wouldn't think it a sin for me to pray to die."
" Take the harder penance, and submit to live. Death
doesn't always come for the asking. God has sent you a
terrible trial, but he will help you through it if you will only
keep that in mmd."
"No, no. God did not send it. I have brought it
on myself it is all my own deed I Oh I if you only
knew "
" I do know. I know you are disappointed in the man
you love that you have found weakness where you fancied
478 BTJTLSDGE.
Strength : but I know that, woman-like, you still lore, if
possible, more tenderly than before your idol was shat-
tered, and that you are shrinking now from the pros-
pect of a long and uncertain separation. I pity you, believe
me, I pity you ; but these are griefs that time has a cure
for. Do not talk of despair till you have felt what it is to
be unloved and unblest ^to be without an interest on earth,
with but a slender right to hope in heaven ^to be thwarted
in all you undertake, balked of all you desire till you have
seen another and an unworthier hand take down your crown
of life, and wear it careless in your sight."
" Perhaps I know all that as well as you,*' was on my lips,
but I only hid my face and turned away. He did not under-
stand the gesture, and said sadly, afler a pause :
" Why are you so wretched ? I have assured you there
is little danger, and what is there so insupportable in the
separation of a year or two ? Or is it something in the
manner of parting ; were you unprepared to find him gone?
Did he leave no good bye ?"
" No," I said, glad to have some excuse for my tears ; " I
never dreamed of his going ^it is too unkind ! And I shall
never forgive myself either ; when I saw him last, there was
some misunderstanding, and I have not explained it to him !
He has gone away in despair and in anger ! Oh, I shall
never, never forgive myself !"
" You may overrate the cause," said my companion ,
" perhaps he may have found it more prudent to fly now,
and could not wait to see you. Look about the room, there
may be a letter somewhere, or he may have left one with
Kitty."
"Kitty knows nothing of it, and I do not see any
letter."
" What is that little package beyond you ^tbere on the
table ?"
I seized it, and, bending eagerly over the light, read my
name upon it. My hand trembled so that I could hardly
BTJTLEDGX. 479
open it Within the first paper there was a letter ; my eyes
glanced hurriedly over it, but from another wrapping some^
thing dropped, one sight of which served to make me grasp
the table for support, and drop the letter on the floor.
** "What is it ?" cried my companion, starting forward, and
picking up my letter, leading me to a chair,
" Read it to me ^I can't ^I don't understand," I faltered,
putting back the letter in his hand. He looked at me hesi-
tatingly a moment, then read it aloud :
** I promised you fi*eedom. "Well ! I have been a coward
not to have given it to you sooner ; but when you read this,
there will be such a gulf between us, that you may well
grant a little pity to the cowardice that only feared death
as a separation from you that only olung to life as sweet-
ened by your love.
" It is trite to tell you of my love to tell you to be hap-
py ^to say I forgive the coldness that you strove to hide
and to ask forgiveness for the pain I have given you. You
know all this better, much better than at this dreadful
hour I can tell you and though you can never know in its
fullness the agony that the parting inflicts on me, there is no
need that you should realize it : I have done enough to
make you miserable already. Forget all this black dream ;
it will soon be over, and be again the happy girl I found
you.
" But one thing more. "Would you know who it is to
whom you had affianced yourself ^to whose life you had
promised to unite yours ^whose name you had promised to
bear ? It is a good name mon ange an ancient name
an honorable ! Ask your proud host if it is not ; ask him
if there is a better in the country, or one that a woman
need be prouder to bear. It is no new name to your ears ;
it is Mutledge ; the only name I have any^claim to, though,
perhaps, my host would say that was but a slender one : did
his sister lose the ancient and honored name she was bom
^80 BUTLEDGE.
with, when she lost her honor, when she stepped down from
her high place, and stooped to sin ? Or did she drag down
that name with her in her fall ? Did it cling to her, like a
robe of mockery and scorn, only making her shame the
greater ; did it descend with the heritage of infamy, to the
child of her shame ? Or did it die with her, and has her
neglected grave the only right to bear the record of it ?
Ask our host ^he can tell you more o^ it than I. But tell
him I am not inclined to dispute it with him : I am not as
proud of the name as he ; tell him I loathe ^I execrate it !
I could almost wish to live to show him my contempt for it
to show him what a low wretch could share with him his
inheritance and his pride. If he doubts it if he questions
whether the same blood runs in our veins, show him the
only souvenir I have to leave you the picture of my father.
Ask him if he remembers Alice Rutledge's lover. He will
not need more damning proof; it came to me like a message
from the dead it may go to him as such. Tell him that a
murderer wrenched it from his victim's dying grasp ; that
it has struck awe to his guilty soul at every glance ; that it
has hurried him on to perdition. But if he longs to bo
more certain, show him these two letters ; one that I have
worn next my heart for years the other, that I found be*
I ween the leaves of a forgotten book in this ghastly room.
" The God whom you believe in bless you, and, if he has
the right forgive me !
"VlOTOE.**
*
" I don't understand ^what does he mean ^where has he
gone ?" I said, wildly, pressing my hand to my head. " I
am so bewildered, I can't think. Oh ! don't look so awfully I
There must be some mistake. You can't believe that ^that
oh I heaven help me I"
My companion did not speak; my eyes searched his
blanched face in vain for comfort a wild impulse seized me ;
I grasped the candle in my hand, and, with a hasty look
BCTTLEDGE. 481
&roand tbc apartment, hurried to the bed and drew aside
the curtains.
I did not swoon or cry ; I did not even drop the candle
from my hand, nor loose the grasp with which I held back
the curtains ; but, with glazed eyes and freezing veins, gazed
Hxeadily at what lay before me. Pale with the unmistaka-
ble pallor of death, one arm thrown above his head, the
other buried in his bosom, his dark tangled curls lying dis-
tinct against the pillow, his manly limbs rigid a crimson
stream that had stained his breast, and was creeping down
upon the bed, gave awful proof that Victor and I had in-
deed parted forever that my wretched lover lay dead
before me.
Brought so suddenly to my sight, there was nothing in
that moment of the remorse and the lingering tenderness
that after the first shock nearly deprived me of reason ; it
was only horror staring, ghastly horror at the sight of
his dead body at the thought of his lost soul ; the words
that rang in my head, and the first that struggled to my
lips were : " God have mercy on his soul ! God have mercy
on his soul I" Dead ^without a prayer dead by his own
hand cast out forever from God's mercy a wailing,
damned, lost soul through all eternity. I stood as if turned
to stone ; my companion, in an agony of grief and conster-
nation, had thrown himself on his knees beside the bed ;
iiis iron fortitude broken down before this awful judgment
chat, laying bare the anguish of the past, had interwoven it-
self so strangely with the present ; the unerring retribution
that had worked out this end to sins so long ago com-
mitted.
But no sob or cry came from my lips.; no tears dimmed
my riveted eyes. I heard the broken words that burst
from him as in a dream, and neither knew nor felt that there
was anything in this world but blank horror hopeless con-
sternation till from a slight movement of the candle, 1
caught the shine of a trinket that the unhappy man had
21
482 BUTLK DGEc
worn around his neck. Bending forward, I saw in a moment
what it was. A little ring of mine, and a link of the broken
bracelet, worn on a chain next his heart while living, now
wet with blood, was lying still above the heart that beat no
more. At that sight a passion of tears came to my relief
His tender and devoted love, the miserable return I had
made, the unkindness of our parting, my shameful injustice
and deceit, the cruelty of his sufferings, all rushed over mo
and shook me with a tempest of tears and sobs. I threw
myself beside him on the bed, and covered his cold hand
with tears and caresses ; wild with pain and remorse, I laid
my cheek against his on the pillow, and implored him to
forgive me, to speak to me but once, to say I had not killed
him ; with incoherent passion I called heaven to witness
that I really loved him ^that I would have been true to
him that I would have died for him that I had nothing
else to live for or to love.
It was long before, worn out by excess of weeping, I
yielded to my companion, and was led faint and almost
unresisting from the room. With a few words of pity, he
left me in my own apartment, reluctantly turning away from
me, so wretched and so lonely. But I shook my head ; 1
did not want any one, I had rather be by myself.
" No one can do you much good, it is true," he said sadly.
" God help you !" and he left me.
I stood motionless for some minutes after tne door closed
upon him. Then, stung by some fresh recollection and by
the added terrors of solitude, I paced rapidly up and down
the room, and flinging myself on my knees by the bedside,
I prayed incoherently and passionately for Victor ^for my-
self for pardon and for death. I could not endure one
thought or one occupation long: before I rose from my
knees my resolution was taken ; my brain would have given
way if I had not had some necessity for exertion, some
design to carry out. And strange and sudden as my deter-
mination was, I doubt whether I could have done anything
BUTLEDC E. 483
wiser and better. There was one uncontrollable longing
appermost ^to escape fi*om this place, to hide myself forever
from all who had ever known me here.
Stealthily and hurriedly, for Kitty was sleepiog in the
dressing-room, I went through my preparations. They were
not many ; there were some letters to be burned and one
to be written, some clothes to be selected and made up into
a package, a trinket to be clasped round Batty's arm, and a
coin slipped in her hand, and I was ready. I looked at my
watch; it was half-past three, the faint grey dawn was just
streaking the eastern sky, I must go. Where should I put
my letter ? I sat down and hurriedly wrote the address,
then with a momentary indecision, the first that had marked
my rapid movements since my resolution was taken, I
opened and read it over :
" fou will not be surprised when you find that I have
gone away. You can understand, if you will think a mo-
ment about it, and try to realize what I should have to
endure in concealing and controlling my feelings, that it is
the only thing I could do. My life with Mrs. Churchill has
grown so intolerable that I had before this resolved it should
not continue. And now is the best time to do what at any
other moment would be painful, but which at this, is only
a relief. Inquiries and iovestigations as to where I go, wiU
be just so many cruelties ; will you do this last of many
kindnesses, and help to cover my retreat, and keep them
from any attempts to find me ? It would kill me to have
to face any of them now; will you not trust me enough to
help me to the only comfort possible to me now, solitude
and rest ? You are ingenious, you can divert them from it^
if you try; it is not as if they had any instincts of aflfection
to guide them in finding me out. You need not let theni
know that I did not project the pastime of last night to
accomplish a premeditated flight. If you ever had any kind-
ness for me, do not try to find me out yoursolf, do not let
d84 BUTLEDGE.
iheni. You may trust me when I promise you 1 will do
Qothiag rash, nothing that you would not approve if I could
tell you. I promise you that I will remember my religion
and my womuihood, and spend what length of life God
Bentences me to, as penitently, patiently and reasonably as
He will grant me grace to do. If you will show this
proof of confidence and friendship, you wiQ never repent
it.
" God knows, you have little reason to trust in me : but I
am changed ^I am much changed ^I will not deceive you
now. If you will believe in me this once, and shield me
from exposure, and leave me in peace where I may choose
to go, I will pledge you my word that as soon as I shall
ascertain that you have sailed for Europe, I will write you
fully and truthfully where I am, and what I intend to do,
and wiU from that time make no secret of my place of abode
and my plans.
" There is another thing ^but I need not ask it of you.
You, for your own sake are concerned to keep this cruel
secret that I have so long been hiding, a secret still. It
passes now from my hands to yours. Perhaps I should be
insensible to disgrace and ignominy ; they cannot harm him
now : but oh ! shield me from them, save his memory from
shame. Do not let the world know of it till that day when
the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed ; when God shall
commit all judgment to His Son, who is more merciful than
man ^more compassionate and more just.
" You have helped me hitherto, though I did not know
whose hand was smoothing my way ; do not give up now,
despairing. Kitty and Stephen will be feithful, no one else
need know the secrets of that dreadful room.
" I am not so selfish as you think. I do not forget that
you are only less miserable than I am, as you have only
grief and not remorse to bear. Heaven send you the peace
I have no right to ask for myself."
T folded my letter quickl}- and sealed it then with one
- EUTLEDGE. 486
more look at Kitty, and one Lurried glance around the fjL
miliar room, I put out the candle, took the package from
the table and stole out. Where should I put my letter ? It
must be within reach of no other hand than his ; no one
must know that I had written t(f him. The hall no wordi
can tell its gloom, the early dawn just turning its darkness
into spectral dimness. If inevitable detection had been the
result, I could not have helped the hurried, incautious steps
v?ith which I crossed it, and listened at Mr. Rutledge's door.
Within the inner room I heard a step pacing restlessly up
and down, but no other sound. He was awake, then ; I
stooped, and softly tried the handle of the door. It was
locked ; he would be the first to open it ; so I slipped the
letter under it, and springing up, fled dowTi the stairs and
through the hall, without a look behind, with, no thought
but that of escape, no fear so strong as that of detection. 1
had forgotten everything now but flight.
It was Heaven's mercy -and nothing else, as poor Kitty
would have said, that no one was aroused by the loud sliding
of the bolts, that required all my strength to move ; I hardly
stopped to pull the heavy door to, after me ; I should not
have heard, if the whole household had been in pursuit, for
the wild throbbing of my heart, the maddening pressure ou
my brain, the choking fear, kept me insensible to sight and
sound. I flew on, through the shrubbery, across the unfre-
quented, dark orchard ; my feet tangled in the rank, wet
grass that lay in the field beyond it, my light dress tore to
fragments in the thicket that bordered the western extre-
mity of the park ; but on, till the thickest of the forest
sheltered me ; then sinking exhausted and panting upon tha
ground, I hid my eyes and shuddered at the terrors I wa^
flying, and the dismal blank, and dread uncertainty of what
wa8 beyond.
CHAPffeR XXXVIII.
#
" Vous qui pleurez, venez k ce Dieu, car il pleure.
Vous qui souffrcz, venez k lui, car il guerit.
Vous qui tremblez, venez k lui, car il sourit.
Vous qui passcz, venez k lui, car il demeure."
ECRIT AU BAS D*UN CRUCIFIX.
The years that have passed since that night, have been
long and strange years. At first they were too strange and
hopeless and blank to be borne without repining ; I kne\v
but too weH the curse that turns life into a burden and 9
dread, and makes the wretched soul cry in the morning,
" would God, it were evening," and in the evening, " would
God, it were morning !" I knew what it was to dread soli-
tude, and yet to shrink from the reproach of any human
face ; to hate life, and yet to fear -death ; to know to the
fullest the terrors of remorse and the bitterness of re-
pentance.
I have passed through this howling wilderness, passed
through it once and forever ; it lies black and horrible be-
hind me ; when I look back, I cross myself and murmur a
prayer ; but beyond ^thank God's good grace ^lies a plain
path ; over it shines the steady star of faith, the cold, clear
light of duty fills the sky, the still air breathes peace ; the
promise is faint of the life that now is, but of that which is
to come, of the bliss that never tires, the joy that never
ceases, the majesty of the Glory that fills the heaven beyond
the dividing limit of that horiaon, lean dream and hope,
till the dream fills my soul to satisfaction, and the hope
grows strong as life itself.
The daily routine of my life is easily described, and the
occupations that served to soothe and sustain me, will not
48e
EUTLEDGE. 487
take many words to paint. The refuge I had sought upon
my flight from Rutledge, was not distant ; Mr. Shenstoue'a
compassion was the first I asked ; he heard, fi-esh from its
occurrence, the awful story of Victor's death, the not less
awiul story of his life. I needed no truer friend than he ;
and though it opened anew the recollection of his own early
trial, I did not suffer from the association it awoke ; he was
only tenderer and kinder.
Mr. Rutledge regarded my request. Whether he sm:-.
pected my retreat or not, I could not tell, but in the confu-
sion and excitement that ensued upon the discovery of my
flight, I have reason to believe he influenced the direction of
the search that was instituted, and did not thwart the gene-
ral idea, that I had fled to the city to rejoin Victor, who,
it was soon learned, had not sailed when he had appointed.
All was mystery and confusion, but this idea saved me from
pursuit here, and gave something for suspicion to fasten and
feed upon, and out of which to build up an effigy, to receive
the maledictions and reproaches of the world. All this was
less than indifferent to me ; while they were searching for
me Avith venom and wrath, and bemoaning my iniquities
with dainty horror, and execrating my hypocrisy, and set-
tling my fate, and clearing themselves forever of any further
part or lot in me, I was much nearer the other world than
this ; so near indeed, that when after long weeks of hover-
ing between this and the unseen, I gradually awoke to the
knowledge that I was still to stay in life, I had so far lost
my interest in it, that it gave me hardly a moment's concern
to find that Mrs. Churchill had discovered my place of re-
treat, and had written in almost insulting language to Mr.
Shenstone, forbidding my return to her, and casting me off
fore^rer. Mr. Shenstone seemed sadly distressed to commu-
nicate this to me ; the languid smile with which I received
it, reassured him.
"She could not have done me a greater favor, sir; she
has saved me the trouble of saying that I would not
488 BUTLfiBGB.
return to her, and she knew it very welL She is glad to he
rid of me, and hurried to spare her dignity the rebuff that
she knew it would receive as soon as I was able to put pen
to paper."
But there was a harder task to perform ; my promise to
Mr. Rutledge was yet unfulfilled. I understood froni Mr,
Shenstone that he had sailed for Havre a fortnight after I
had left Rutledge, and I dared no longer delay my promised
communication to him. A very brief and simple letter told
him all that was necessary. In the course of the winter
there came an answer to it, short but kind, with nothing
wanting in consideration and interest, characteristic and
manly, yet with a shade of formality and restraint, differ-
ing fi'om all phases of our former intercourse ; ever so slight
a shade, it is true, but it made me put this his last letter
away, with the same feeling that I think I should have had,
if I had just turned away from my last look at him in his
coffin. He was dead to we, at least.
Occasional letters, indeed, came from him to Mr, Shen-
lone, generally with some mention of my name ; Mr. Shen-
stone always showed them to me ; they brought back old
times, and made me restless and vaguely sad for a day or
two, then the dead feeling would come back, and all would
be the same as before. As time wore on, the letters grew
almost imperceptibly shorter and less explicit; he wa
travelling he was here at such a time he should be there
such places pleased him such spots were changed since
his former visits ; then would follow some general direc-
tions about the farm ^remembrances to Mrs. Arnold and to
me ^kind inquiries into Mr. Shenstone's own health ^re-
newed assurances of friendship and so the letter would
end.
Of my aunt's family I rarely heard. They went abroad
the year after we parted ; I saw occasionally by the papers
their residence at Paris, or their journeying in Italy ; and
Grace's marriage with a Frenchman of good family came to
KUTLEDOC 489
my knowledge tt rough the same meaDS. Why Josephiue
Btill lingered unmarried I could only conjecture. Phil Ar-
buthnot returned to America after spending a year with
them in Paris, and I believe has never rejoined them.
So much for these once prominent participators in my in-
terest, and now of myself. In the home I had chosen I
was soon as necessary as I was occupied ; Mrs. Arnold saw
life and usefulness receding from her now with less pain,
that she saw one younger and stronger, able to take up the
duties that she had reluctantly laid down. There was no
chance for time to hang heavy on my hands ; besides the
occupations of the house, there were unnumbered calls upon
my energies in the parish. Mr. Shenstone was no longer
young, almost an old man now, and though his energy
never flagged, his strength did, and I found man} ways of
relieving him, and inducing him to save himself and depend
on me. I have no doubt he saw it was the kindest tiling
tie could do for me, and so the more willingly yielded the
duties to me. N'o one that sets himself or herself earnestly
^t work, with a sincere desire to do right, and to fttone foi
the past, but will, sooner or later, feel the good effect of
such effort ; his languor will yield before the invigorating
glow of exercise, his nerves will regain the tone they had
lost, his pulse will beat with something of its old vigor ; he
will, though never again the same man, be once more a man,
be free from the corroding melancholy that threatened to be
his ruin, and be ready to look on life with steadier, wiser
eyes than in his youth. Such reward work brings ; no
matter how plain and coarse and unattractive the work
may be, no matter if, in itself, it has no interest and no
cliarm, the will, the duty, the spirit in which it is done,
will give it its interest and its chaim, and will bring it its
certain reward. Youth can hardly see this, misery cannot at
first acknowledge it, but none ever faithf'iUy and patiently
tried it, without finding the truth of it.
There is a lonely grave in the very heart of the pine for-
23*
490 * BUTLBDGB.
est, onmarked by cross or stone, above whicb no prayert
but mine have ever been said, which the dark moss covers
thickly, and around which the trees sound their everlasting
dirge. I have not learned to be tranquil there ; years more
of faith and prayer may take the sting out of that sorrow,
and bring me to leave it utterly in His high hand who seeth
not as man seeth. If prayer could avail, after the grave
had shut her mouth upon any of the children of men, if
fast and vigil, tears and penance, could mitigate the wrath
decreed ugainst them, I might hope, I might stand by t^iat
desolate mound with a less despairing heart. I have tried
to realize that God*s ways are not as our ways, that no-
thing is impossible with him, that His mercy is as incompre-
hensible as is His power ; and that our pimy prayers, how-
ever they may chasten and purify ourselves, are not needed,
and not efficient in influencing His sentence on our brothers'
60uls.
There is enough to do among the living. " Let tne dead
Past bury its dead." There are souls yet imsentenced to
be prayed for and to be gained, there are children to be
brought to baptism and to be led aright, there are dark
homes of poverty and sin to be invaded with the light of
truth and love ; there is doubt to be won to faith, ignorance
to be enlightened, sluggish indolence to be roused, God's
church to work for. His honor to be extended, our most
holy faith to be spread and reverenced ; there is no need to
languish for want of work, or to waste tears and prayers
upon that which is already in the hands of Almighty Love
and Almighty Power.
Yes ; I beheve I was, through it all, happier than Mrs.
Churchill, haggard and worn in a service whose nominal
wages are pleasure and ease ; and than Josephine, wasting
her youth in the pursuit of an ambition that had rewarded
her as yet by nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit.. A
gay hotel id Pj^iis, and a secluded country parsonoige on
the one hand wealth, the pleasures of society the adxnira-
BUTLBDGB. 491
tion of the world, on tlie other sedasion, the annihilation
of every hope that had its root only in this earth, the love
only of the poor, the aged and the suffering, yet I would
not have exchanged their gaiety for my peace, their pros-
perity for my adversity,
"What should we do without you, child?" said Mr.
Shcnstone, kindly, one day as I was leaving him. " What
should we do without these young eyes and this young
zevl ? I am a&aid the village would begin to tire of its old
pastor, and to fret about his old ways and his new negli-
gences, if we had not this fresh enthusiast to throw herself
into the breach, and to save both flock and pastor from dis-
couragement and disgust. You have assimilated yourself
strangely to those you have fallen among. Tell me truly,
my dear child, are you never weary of this dull life never
tired of the companionship of two solitary, sad people, old
and spiritless ? We are apt to forget you cheer and com-
fort us we must depress and sadden you."
" You ? Oh, Mr. Shenstone I You know to whom it is
I owe it that I have conquered depression and sadness.
You have done everything for me ; may I do nothing for
you? It is little enough, surely, but it is my greatest
pleasure."
"If it is then go," he said, with a sad smile on his
wan, furrowed face. " Go and fulfill the duties that God
has taken out of my hands, and I will try to be patient and
stay at home in idleness. I will try to remember,
* They also serve who only stand and wait.*
l^ut God knows, it is the hardest kind of service I"
Every day lately had been adding to his languor; 1
watched with anxious foreboding his slow step and altered
tone. It was the twenty-fourth of December, and I knew
that the contrast of his present inactivity at this holy season,
to former diligence, must be a keen trial to him with hia
stem rules of dutv* I left the house with a sigh, and went
492 BUTLBDGSa
out into the clear, still air of the winter afternoon, with the
energy of youth and earnestness in my veins, and thought,
wonderingly, of the different grades of trials, the "anguisli
of all sizes" that God's elect must pass through,
" Till erery pulse beat true to airs cUvme.'
It must be hard, indeed, to " stand and wait,'' to feel that
energy and strength are going before life goes, and that
there is nothing left to do, only to endure. Such a trial, it
seemed to me, would be the worst of all : as long as there is
work there is a panacea, but take away that, and the burden
grows intolerable. God spare me that ! And I hurried on
through my many duties with double thankfulness that they
were so many.
The short winter afternoon was all too short for them
It was almost sundown when I started to cross the commoL
on my return from a distant cottage. There was but one
thing more to do to-night ; the school-children were waiting
for me to go into the church and practice their Christmas-
hymn with them, and it was late already, so I quickened my
pace. I found my young pupils waiting for me aroimd the
gate of the churchyard ; they hailed me with acclamations,
and clustering round my skirts, followed me into the church.
They were too well taught to continue their chattering
there, even if they had been unrestrained by my presence,
but I could not but believe the scene must have struck
them with some reverence, thoughtless and trifling though
too many of them were. The lowering sun streamed in
through the stained glass of the western windows, and lit
up gorgeously the sombre church, illuminating the joyful
Christmas words above the altar, touching cross and
star and tablet with soft light, and laying rich and warm
upon the glossy wreaths that were twined round font and
chancel, desk and pillar. Coming from the cold air and
wintry landscape, into sui3h a mellow, warm, green sanctn*
ary, where there seemed no winter and no chill. I could
KGTLEDGK. 493
understand Ibe feeling that checked the diildreu's mirih so
suddenly, and made them look wistfully and silently around
and when their sweet, young voices followed mine in the
Christmas-hymn, and when the organ yielded its full
tones to my touch, arch and rafter, pavement and aisle
seemed to stretch away into infinity ; the light that filled
the church was the glory of heaven ; the sweet music,
the voices of the angels; and time and earth seemed to
fade and recede, and floating down that path of glory, I
could almost have touched the open gates of heaven
almost have mingled in the white-robed throng within.
The chains of sin and sense fall off the soimds of warfare
die away ^the terrors of the conflict with the hosts of hell
are all forgotten ; if one's soul could follow in the wake
of one's longing at such a moment as this, death would
indeed be conquered the king of terrors be cheated of his
prey.
The glory had faded from the west, and dullness and
gloom had crept into the church before the young choir dis-
persed. It seemed as if the very spirit of music had
possessed the children ; hymn after hymn, anthem and
carol, and never tired or flagging. As at last I rose to go?
and bent forward to shut the organ, one of them whispered
. eagerly :
" There's somebody been below there in the church I I
hear steps going down the aisle ; and hark I The door just
opened and shut again,"
"No matter," I said, a little startled. "Some one
has heard the music, and come in to listen. Follow me
quietly, children: it is almost dark; we have stayed too
late."
The little group separated at the church door ; biddmg
Ihem good-night, and taking by the hand the child whose
way lay partly with mine going home, I took the path
toward the village. It gave me, I confess, a little uneasi-
ness to see how faint the daylight was, and the conjecture
494 BUTLEDGE.
who could have been iu the church so long and so silent,
recurred again and again uncomfortably. It was too late to
trust little Rosy to go home alone, so, though it took me a
full half mile beyond my own road, I kept on with her; and
beguiling her with a Christmas story as we went, soon suc-
ceeded in forgetting foolish fears, malgre the twilight and
the lonesome road. At last we reached the little gate of
Rosy's home, and stooping to kiss her as I left her at it, I
was turning away, when a carriage drove quickly past
toward Brandon. It was a strange carriage, and it gave me
a sort of start ; I could not quite recover my composure for
some minutes ; but then strangers came so seldom through
the village at this season, it was not very wonderful after all
that I had been startled. However, I reflected, it was not
improbably some one on the way from northward, detainea
by the freezing of the river, and hurrying on to catch the
evening train from Brandon ; and with that, dismissed the
subject from my mind.
When I reached home, I hurried into the study, anxioua
to explain to Mr. Shenstone the cause of my long absence,
and to make amends for it by enlivening his evening. I
found him alone ; Mrs. Arnold had not b^en able to leave
her room for several days, and the study was in darkness,
and tea had not been thought of.
"Why, how dismal you look, sir!" I exclaimed, as I
came in. " I beg you will excuse my staying till this hour ;
but the children were so in love with their own voices, that
I could not get them away ; and that little gipsy of a Rosy
had to be escorted all the way home. Eatty should have
brought you lights, sir ; shall I ring ?"
*' No, not just yet ; I am in no hurry. Sit down ; are
you not tired ? I have wondered at your being so late.
Y"ou have missed a visitor."
" A visitor ? No ! Why, who ?'
"One whom I little expected to see, and much less
expected to liave had so short a visit from. I confess it has
BUTLBDOB. 495
qoito startled and ansettled me, seeing him so unexpectedly
and for such a moment. But he could not stay over night,
and the Brandon train leaves at half-past six, he says. He
was sorry you were away."
" Mr. Rutledge has been here ?"
" Yes.**
** And gone ?'
* And gone.**
CHAPTER XXXIX.
** Be not amazed at life. *Tis still
The mode of God with his elect,
Their hopes exactly to fulfill,
In times and ways they least expect.' '
Coventry Patmore.
The winter passed heavily away : no change for the bet-
ter relieved our fears for Mr. Shenstone, and, before spring,
poor Mrs. Arnold died, and left me alone with the burden
of care and dread. All that time is like a sad, slow dream ;
I cannot tell the days apart as I look back upon them ^the
one fear that grew daily colored all events alike. It was
like no other approaching death that I had ever seen. I
knew he was longing for his release ; but what would l^e re-
lease to him would be my sentence of banishment my
separation from the only friend I had, the severing of the
only tie I knew.
Still it seemed vague and far off, and the warm spring
days came slowly on, and crept into Jime, before either he
or I knew how very few he had yet to live. The doctor
had at last to tell me what every one else knew that Mr.
Shenstone could not live a week. I do not think that he
himself, though knowing well that the time wa& at hand, had
496 RdTLEDOK.
been a\s are how very near it was. I knew it was not loo
near for his desires ; but one earthly care vexod the holy
calm of his death-bed.
" I must see Arthur before I die. Write to him. again,
and beg him to come quickly. He could not have realized
what I meant him to understand when you wrote last, or he
would have been here before."
I wrote again urgently, and told him in the plainest words
what tlie necessity for his coming was, and how anxiously
Mr. Shenstone desired an interview before he died ; that it
was the one ungratified wish that disturbed his last mo-
ments ; the letter was hurriedly dispatched, and yet day
after day passed and no answer came. It was cruel to see
the momentaiy eagerness with which the dying man's eye
lighted up at each new sound without, and to hear the faint
sigh with which he sank back at the fresh disappointment.
I had my own interpretation of this silence ; but I dared
not tell him. Through the winter his letters had been irre-
gular ; it was now some weeks since any had come ; I did not
feel a doubt but that he had gone abroad again, and, in the
hurry of departure, had omitted to write. Something that
Mrs. Fielding (the pretty Janet Emerson, married and living
at New Orleans, but on a visit to her old home, who had
found me out and come to see me a month or so before) had
said, confirmed my suspicions.
" I heard from Paris a week or so ago," she said, " that
your cousin. Miss Churchill, and Mr. Rutledge are really to
be married. Upon my word, you must excuse me ; but it
is a shame. I grudge him to her. Ah ! michante^ if you
had made the proper use of that evening in the libraiy thai
I gave you, she would not have had him."
I had not told Mr. Shenstone this ; nor dared I tell him
that there was hardly a hope that his friend was still in
America. A week had elapsed since my letter had been
sent ; the end was surely approaching we could not shut
our eyes to that. That morning, Mr, Shenstone had, with
great pain and difficulty, refudng my assistance, himself
written a few lines to Mr. Rutledge, and, sealing it, had
committed it to my hands, charging me to deliver it to him
as soon as he should come. From the moment that that
was done, he had put off all care, and given himself wholly
up to the exercises of rehgion and the preparations for
death. Of my future he had never spoken much. God
would direct my lot mercifully, he was sure ; he left me, his
sole earthly care, with dth, to God's protection. He de-
sii-ed that for the present I should remain, with the two ser-
vants, in the house, till some other home presented, or till the
parsonage was required for his successor.
It was a holy, religious day ; such peace as soothed the
last hours of his life told well for the service in which he
had spent it. It was not like death it was like the coming
of a blessing that had been long prayed for. We had with
him received the sacrament, and heard the faint words that
told his triumph and his hope, and stood waiting around
him, almost following him to the courts of heaven, almost
forgetting with him, the world in which our path still lay ;
when through the window, open to the sunset of a June
evening, there came the sound of a hurried arrival.
" It is Arthur," murmured the dying man, faintly, turning
his eyes on me. " Go and bring him to me."
I hurried to the door and down the path. " You have
not a moment to lose," I said, without a word of prepara-
tion or salutation. " He can hardly live an houi*, and he
desires to see you."
" Good heaven I Has it indeed come to that !" he ex-
claimed, following me up the staii'S. I left him at the door ;
for half an hour they were alone together, then Mr. Rut-
ledge opened the door and called me hastily to come in. I
obeyed ; but only in time to receive the last blessing of the
dying saint, and, kneeling in unspeakable sorrow by his bed-
side, to feel his hand rest tenderly on my head, with a si-
lent benediction, even after his departing scul had eaiiicd
'i9S &DTLEDOB.
its sapplication and its intercession to the very presence of
the Divine Benefactor.
Two days had passed since the funeral ; there was no
more anxiety to engross, no more watching to employ me ;
the blank idleness that is the earliest pam after a great loss,
was just then creeping over me with its worst power.
There was nothing more to do the house was settled to its
ordinary ways, and I sat alone in my little room in the
deepening twihght, with a sadder sense of my loneliness than
1 had had before. It was not time yet for me to think oi
what was to become of me ; I had a right to rest a little be-
fore I faced any greater change, yet harassing thoughts of
my homelessness and desolation crowded on me to make my
present trial heavier. There was no one on earth I had a
right to call my friend, save only the humble ones who
could offer me nothing but gratitude and affection, and who
were as unable to direct and help me, as I was to direct and
lielp myself. It was long before I could summon courage
enough to say that I must decide upon some change, and to
resolve that it must be done now. There was no right and
no propriety in staying longer here than till I h^^d arranged
some other home ; indeed for some reasons this was the last
roof that I should stay under now. But my resolves came
(pick when they did come I saw that the sooner I began
my new life the better; it would be like another death if I
waited till a few months hence before I lefl this dear home ;
now, in this time of change and restlessness, I could besi
bear the pain. To-morrow, I had resolved, I would go om
and try to find some cottage or some rooms, whore, with
Kitty to attend me, I could make the best of my slender
fortune, and remain quietly at least for the present, when a
knock at the door aroused me. The servant said : " Mr.
Rutledge is in the study. Miss, and desires to see you for i
few moments."
" Ask him to excuse me to-night," I began ; but no, it
was as easy now as it would ever be, so telling the woman
BUTLEDGE. 4-99
to say I would be down in a moment, I shut the dour and
tried to prepare myself. There was a good deal to help
me to be calm; some pride and some humility s. prayer -
and the remembrance of my sorrow and the gulf that lay
between the present and the past ; and I went downstairs
quite self-possessed and quiet.
The study was so dusky I could hardly see my visitor'^ face
as he rose to meet me. I longed to keep the dusk, but said :
"Do you mind twilight, sir ? My head aches a little, but
if you prefer it, I will send for candles."
" Not at all," he said, sitting down opposite me in the
window. " I am sorry to hear you are not well. Kitty
told me, when she admitted me, that it was doubtful
whether you coul^ come down ; but I fancied you would
not have the least hesitation in declining to see me if you
were not able."
" I did think, sir, when you were first announced, that I
would beg you to excuse me ; but I remembered that pos-
sibly you might be returning to the city to-morrow, and
this might be my last chance of seeing you, so I made an
effort to come down."
There was a moment's pause, which I broke by saying :
" I wanted to see you, sir, about the change in my plans,
which, as Mr. Shenstone's nearest friend, you would, per-
haps, be kind enough to sanction."
" It was about that that I came this evening."
" You are very kind, sir, and so I may go at once to the
subject. You know, of course, of Mr. Shenstone's legacy;
that, with my own property, is sufficient to provide very
comfortably for Kitty and myself. I propose raaki^ig my
arrangements to leave here within a fortnight, keeping
Kitty with me ; but for the other servant, Mary, I would
ask your advice. She has been some time in the family
and is a faithful person. Would it be best to leave her in
the house till it is otherwise occupied, or to provide a place
for her, and close the house ? You know, as I shall have
500 BITTLBDOB.
*
the packing up and settling of all at the last, it is necessary
I should know your wishes."
" I do not quite comprehend. I had understood from
Mr. Shenstone that it was his wish that you should re-
main for the present here. Did he not express the same to
you ?"
" He did, sir, but it was a mistaken kindness. 1 had
lather go now ; and I do not think there can be any wrong
in disregarding a request which he only meant as an indul-
gence and a respite, and would not have insisted on if he
had known my reasons."
" Can I know them ?"
" They are so many, sir, it would not be worth while to
trouble you."
" Am I wrong when I fancy that one is, that the house
belongs to one from whom you would not endure an obli-
gation ?"
" You put it too harshly, sir ; but in truth I do not like
obligations."
" You would incur none, then, let me assure you, by re-
maining here. The house will be unoccupied ; I should be
glad to have some one in it, and there is, I fear, little
chance of having the parish permanently suited with a
clergyman before fall, and even after that, there is no ne-
cessity of retaining this as a parsonage ; there are one or
two bouses nearer the church, which would, indeed, be
more convenient."
" Thank you, sir, but it will be impossible. You do not
estimate the difficulties. I cannot stay here : and perhaps
you will be kind enough to tell me what to do about the
arrangement of the books. Shall they be packed, or are
they to remain on the shelves ? And here, sir, is the key
of the private drawers in that book-case, that I was to give
you when you came,"
My voice faltered as I delivered my kind friend's lasl
message. There was a long pause, then Mr Rutledge said t
BUTLEDGE. 6^)]
These things are very trying to you now; there m no
need that you should distress yourself by attending to them
at once. Leave them till later.''
" No, sir, it is better that they should be all arranged be-
fore you go. I do not mind the effort of undertaking it at
once."
** But how do you know I am going ? Why will not a
few weeks hence do as well ?"
** Why, sir, as I told you, I should prefer that everything
were settled, the papers arranged, the house vacated, be-
fore you go abroad. It may make no difference, but it will
be more agreeable to me."
" I am not going abroad ; I do not intend to leave Ame-
rica again. Can you not be contented to let things rest as
they are at present, and to let me, in some degree, take the
place of him you have lost ? Consider, you are homeless
and friendless you have no one to direct or guide
you "
" I have considered this, sir, more fully, perhaps, than
you have. There is not a circumstance in my fate that I
have not weighed. Indeed, I do not need so much pity ;
your attention has just been called to it, and so it sounds
new and dreadful to you for a woman to be left so alone,
But I am used to the idea, and I do not mind it. People
will be kind to me, no doubt, and I shall do very well."
" Then you are resolved to go away from here ?"
" Within a fortnight, sir."
" And you refuse all offers of assistance from me, of aU
kinds ?"
'* Why, sir, you know it would be useless to trouble yon,
when I do not need any ; but I hope you understand that
I am very grateful for your goodness."
" I understand it fully, and that you decline any further
demonstration of it. But if you have no scruple against
telling me where you intend to go, perhaps it would be
wiser to do it, as some cases may occur which you cannot
502 RUTLKDaE.
foresee, in which it would be safer for yoa to havo the
judgment and advice of one whose age and pxperieuee
place him above you in knowledge, of the world, at
least."
" It would be impossible for me to tell you, sir, for I
do not know in the least where I shall go. You know
1 have not had time to arrange my plans definitely it is
only two days since since I have had to think about
them."
"And you will not take more time, and put off any
change for a few months you will not let me advise you ?"
'* Mr. Rutledge, you are trying to make me seem rude ;
I have but one answer to make, and it sounds so ungracious
you are not kind to oblige me to repeat it."
" I will not ; I believe I understand how you wish it to
stand ; and perhaps you are right. It is not necessaiy to
detain you longer," he continued, rising, " there is nothing
of importance left to say, I believe. About the books and
furniture, I should prefer having them left for the present
in the house ; I will not trouble you to do anything but to
send the keys, when you leave, to my house. Mrs. Roberts
will take charge of them. The papers I can look over at
my leisure. In regard to the servant you spoke of I will
mention her to Mrs. Roberts, and will see that she is
provided with a situation. Is there anything more ?"
" Nothing that I remember at this moment, sir. You
are very kind ; I shall endeavor to leave everything in the
order you would Avish."
"I do not doubt it; I hope you will be able to bear
whatever you intend to put upon yourself, but you will do
well not to overtask your strength or fortitude just
now; you are not at present fit for exertion. But I
forget "
I rose, and held out my hand ; he went on : " You know
you have always my best wishes ; \here is no need for m^
to say that.'*'
BCTTLBDOK. 608
** I know it, sir,'* I replied, with what steadiness of voice
I could. " I wish I could tell you how" but the words
choked me. He did not relinquish my hand, but with a
Audden change from the cold tone of his last words, he
exclaimed hurriedly, and with a smothered vehemenct :
"Ton wish you could tell me what? You wish you
could tell me what I already know could tell me that you
pity me that you are sorry for the pain you give me ?
That you know how much it costs me to say a final farewell
to you and that you are sorry sorry. No ! You need
not wish to do it ; I can spare you that. I came to you
to-night to see if time, and sorrow, and necessity had not
helped me in my suit ; to try, for the last time, whether
there was any chance of winning you ; I came to tempt
you by the fortune and the luxury I could offer you, just to
endure my love, and to repay, by ever so cold a kindness,
the devotion of years, I came, misled by a hope held out
by one who loved us both too well to be an impartial
judge ; and I find you colder, more distant than erer, and
that the hope I have been trying to extinguish so long is
only rekindled to be quenched at last utterly I
" Foolish girl I" he went on, in a lower tone, " how little
you know what you throw away. How vain to cling so
fondly to a memory. Believe me, it will not be wronging
the dead I little thought I should ever stoop to ask
it, but only try to love me only consent to give me your
esteem and consideration, and I will take the risk of teach-
ing you to love me. Is it nothing to be loved as I have
loved you ? To be the first, and last, and only choice of a
man who has had so many to choose from? Have you no
vanity that can be touched no pride ? If you had, I could
allure you by the promise that you should be proud of the
position you would hold ; those who have slighted you
should look at you with envy ^those who '*
" Oh, Mr. Rutledgo do not talk of those things now 1
60i BVTLEDGE.
haTe given them up forever; I shall never care again for
the world but there is something else I "
" You relent 1" he murmured, eagerly. " You will con
sent to forget the past ^you will*'
" I must tell you one thing first ; I must tell you some-
thing that I have told to no one else. . Heaven have mercy
on me if it is a sin, or if I am betraying what I should stil\
conceal. I never felt the love you think I did. I deceived
him and you ; but as I have been bitterly punished, and
bitterly penitent, so Heaven forgive me for it ! Between
him and me there was another love, that began before I
ever saw him that is not ended yet that has never known
change or wavering."
" And that love ?"
Within his arms, my face hidden on his shoulder, I could
whisper the answer to that question, and the confession of
the folly, acd deceit, and pride, that had so long kept me
from him.