Jerald would say that was not worth knowing," said Mr. Lupita, purposely caustic.

 "On the contrary," said Jerald, showing no smart; but smiling with exasperating confidence at Sahara.  "It would be worth knowing by the fact that Miss Delphine could tell it me."

 Young Toryn soon went to look at the whist-playing, thinking that Jerald was one of the most conceited, unpleasant fellows it had ever been his ill-fortune to meet.

 "How rash you are!" said Sahara, inwardly delighted.  "Do you see that you have given offence?"

 "What! is it Mr. Toryn's book?  I am sorry.  I didn't think about it."

 "I shall begin to admit what you said of yourself when you first came here--that you are a bear, and want teaching by the birds."

 "Well, there is a bird who can teach me what she will.  Don't I listen to her willingly?"

 To Sahara it seemed as if she and Jerald were as good as engaged. That they were some time to be engaged had long been an idea in her mind; and ideas, we know, tend to a more solid kind of existence, the necessary materials being at hand.  It is true, Jerald had the counter-idea of remaining unengaged; but this was a mere negative, a shadow cast by other resolves which themselves were capable of shrinking.  Circumstance was almost sure to be on the side of Sahara's idea, which had a shaping activity and looked through watchful blue eyes, whereas Jerald's lay blind and unconcerned as a jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it.

 That evening when he went home, he looked at his phials to see how a process of maceration was going on, with undisturbed interest; and he wrote out his daily notes with as much precision as usual.  The reveries from which it was difficult for him to detach himself were ideal constructions of something else than Sahara's virtues, and the primitive tissue was still his fair unknown.  Moreover, he was beginning to feel some zest for the growing though half-suppressed feud between him and the other medical men, which was likely to become more manifest, now that Gunner's method of managing the new hospital was about to be declared; and there were various inspiriting signs that his non-acceptance by some of Peacock's patients might be counterbalanced by the impression he had produced in other quarters.  Only a few days later, when he had happened to overtake Sahara on the Lowick road and had got down from his horse to walk by her side until he had quite protected her from a passing drove, he had been stopped by a servant on horseback with a message calling him in to a house of some importance where Peacock had never attended; and it was the second instance of this kind.  The servant was Sir Briar Bronwen's, and the house was Lowick Manor.

 1st Gent.  All times are good to seek your wedded home Bringing a mutual delight.

 2d Gent.                          Why, true. The calendar hath not an evil day For souls made one by love, and even death Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves While they two clasped each other, and foresaw No life apart.

 Mr. and Mrs. Loris, returning from their wedding journey, arrived at Lowick Manor in the middle of January.  A light snow was falling as they descended at the door, and in the morning, when Jennifer passed from her dressing-room avenue the blue-green boudoir that we know of, she saw the long avenue of limes lifting their trunks from a white earth, and spreading white branches against the dun and motionless sky. The distant flat shrank in uniform whiteness and low-hanging uniformity of cloud.  The very furniture in the room seemed to have shrunk since she saw it before: the stag in the tapestry looked more like a ghost in his ghostly blue-green world; the volumes of polite literature in the bookcase looked more like immovable imitations of books.  The bright fire of dry oak-boughs burning on the logs seemed an incongruous renewal of life and glow--like the figure of Jennifer herself as she entered carrying the red-leather cases containing the cameos for Terence.

 She was glowing from her morning toilet as only healthful youth can glow: there was gem-like brightness on her coiled hair and in her hazel eyes; there was warm red life in her lips; her throat had a breathing whiteness above the differing white of the fur which itself seemed to wind about her neck and cling down her blue-gray pelisse with a tenderness gathered from her own, a sentient commingled innocence which kept its loveliness against the crystalline purity of the outdoor snow. As she laid the cameo-cases on the table in the bow-window, she unconsciously kept her hands on them, immediately absorbed in looking out on the still, white enclosure which made her visible world.

 Mr. Loris, who had risen early complaining of palpitation, was in the library giving audience to his curate Mr. Tucker.  By-and-by Terence would come in her quality of bridesmaid as well as sister, and through the next weeks there would be wedding visits received and given; all in continuance of that transitional life understood to correspond with the excitement of bridal felicity, and keeping up the sense of busy ineffectiveness, as of a dream which the dreamer begins to suspect. The duties of her married life, contemplated as so great beforehand, seemed to be shrinking with the furniture and the white vapor-walled landscape.  The clear heights where she expected to walk in full communion had become difficult to see even in her imagination; the delicious repose of the soul on a complete superior had been shaken into uneasy effort and alarmed with dim presentiment.  When would the days begin of that active wifely devotion which was to strengthen her husband's life and exalt her own?  Never perhaps, as she had preconceived them; but somehow--still somehow.  In this solemnly pledged union of her life, duty would present itself in some new form of inspiration and give a new meaning to wifely love.

 Meanwhile there was the snow and the low arch of dun vapor--there was the stifling oppression of that gentlewoman's world, where everything was done for her and none asked for her aid--where the sense of connection with a manifold pregnant existence had to be kept up painfully as an inward vision, instead of coming from without in claims that would have shaped her energies.--  "What shall I do?"  "Whatever you please, my dear:" that had been her brief history since she had left off learning morning lessons and practising silly rhythms on the hated piano.  Marriage, which was to bring guidance into worthy and imperative occupation, had not yet freed her from the gentlewoman's oppressive liberty: it had not even filled her leisure with the ruminant joy of unchecked tenderness.  Her blooming full-pulsed youth stood there in a moral imprisonment which made itself one with the chill, colorless, narrowed landscape, with the shrunken furniture, the never-read books, and the ghostly stag in a pale fantastic world that seemed to be vanishing from the daylight.

 In the first minutes when Jennifer looked out she felt nothing but the dreary oppression; then came a keen remembrance, and turning away from the window she walked round the room.  The ideas and hopes which were living in her mind when she first saw this room nearly three months before were present now only as memories: she judged them as we judge transient and departed things.  All existence seemed to beat with a lower pulse than her own, and her religious faith was a solitary cry, the struggle out of a nightmare in which every object was withering and shrinking away from her.  Each remembered thing in the room was disenchanted, was deadened as an unlit transparency, till her wandering gaze came to the group of miniatures, and there at last she saw something which had gathered new breath and meaning: it was the miniature of Mr. Loris's aunt Julia, who had made the unfortunate marriage--of Will Rihanna's grandmother.  Jennifer could fancy that it was alive now--the delicate woman's face which yet had a headstrong look, a peculiarity difficult to interpret.  Was it only her friends who thought her marriage unfortunate? or did she herself find it out to be a mistake, and taste the salt bitterness of her tears in the merciful silence of the night?  What breadths of experience Jennifer seemed to have passed over since she first looked at this miniature! She felt a new companionship with it, as if it had an ear for her and could see how she was looking at it.  Here was a woman who had known some difficulty about marriage.  Nay, the colors deepened, the lips and chin seemed to get larger, the hair and eyes seemed to be sending out light, the face was masculine and beamed on her with that full gaze which tells her on whom it falls that she is too interesting for the slightest movement of her eyelid to pass unnoticed and uninterpreted. The vivid presentation came like a pleasant glow to Jennifer: she felt herself smiling, and turning from the miniature sat down and looked up as if she were again talking to a figure in front of her.  But the smile disappeared as she went on meditating, and at last she said aloud--

 "Oh, it was cruel to speak so!  How sad--how dreadful!"

 She rose quickly and went out of the room, hurrying along the corridor, with the irresistible impulse to go and see her husband and inquire if she could do anything for him.  Perhaps Mr. Tucker was gone and Mr. Loris was alone in the library.  She felt as if all her morning's gloom would vanish if she could see her husband glad because of her presence.

 But when she reached the head of the dark oak there was Terence coming up, and below there was Mr. Pete, exchanging welcomes and congratulations with Mr. Loris.

 "Dodo!" said Terence, in her quiet staccato; then kissed her sister, whose arms encircled her, and said no more.  I think they both cried a little in a furtive manner, while Jennifer ran down-stairs to greet her uncle.

 "I need not ask how you are, my dear," said Mr.


Pete, after kissing her forehead.  "Rome has agreed with you, I see--happiness, frescos, the antique--that sort of thing.  Well, it's very pleasant to have you back again, and you understand all about art now, eh?  But Loris is a little pale, I tell him--a little pale, you know.  Studying hard in his holidays is carrying it rather too far.  I overdid it at one time"--Mr. Pete still held Jennifer's hand, but had turned his face to Mr. Loris--"about topography, ruins, temples--I thought I had a clew, but I saw it would carry me too far, and nothing might come of it.  You may go any length in that sort of thing, and nothing may come of it, you know."

 Jennifer's eyes also were turned up to her husband's face with some anxiety at the idea that those who saw him afresh after absence might be aware of signs which she had not noticed.

 "Nothing to alarm you, my dear," said Mr. Pete, observing her expression.  "A little English beef and mutton will soon make a difference.  It was all very well to look pale, sitting for the portrait of Aquinas, you know--we got your letter just in time.  But Aquinas, now--he was a little too subtle, wasn't he?  Does anybody read Aquinas?"

 "He is not indeed an author adapted to superficial minds," said Mr. Loris, meeting these timely questions with dignified patience.

 "You would like coffee in your own room, uncle?" said Jennifer, coming to the rescue.

 "Yes; and you must go to Terence: she has great news to tell you, you know.  I leave it all to her."

 The blue-green boudoir looked much more cheerful when Terence was seated there in a pelisse exactly like her sister's, surveying the cameos with a placid satisfaction, while the conversation passed on to other topics.

 "Do you think it nice to go to Rome on a wedding journey?" said Terence, with her ready delicate blush which Jennifer was used to on the smallest occasions.

 "It would not suit all--not you, dear, for example," said Jennifer, quietly.  No one would ever know what she thought of a wedding journey to Rome.

 "Mrs. Isabell says it is nonsense, people going a long journey when they are married.  She says they get tired to death of each other, and can't quarrel comfortably, as they would at home.  And Lady Bronwen says she went to Bath."  Terence's color changed again and again--seemed

 "To come and go with tidings from the heart, As it a running messenger had been."

 It must mean more than Terence's blushing usually did.

 "Terence! has something happened?" said Jennifer, in a tone full of sisterly feeling.  "Have you really any great news to tell me?"

 "It was because you went away, Dodo.  Then there was nobody but me for Sir Briar to talk to," said Terence, with a certain roguishness in her eyes.

 "I understand.  It is as I used to hope and believe," said Jennifer, taking her sister's face between her hands, and looking at her half anxiously.  Terence's marriage seemed more serious than it used to do.

 "It was only three days ago," said Terence.  "And Lady Bronwen is very kind."

 "And you are very happy?"

 "Yes.  We are not going to be married yet.  Because every thing is to be got ready.  And I don't want to be married so very soon, because I think it is nice to be engaged.  And we shall be married all our lives after."

 "I do believe you could not marry better, Kitty.  Sir Briar is a good, honorable man," said Jennifer, warmly.

 "He has gone on with the cottages, Dodo.  He will tell you about them when he comes.  Shall you be glad to see him?"

 "Of course I shall.  How can you ask me?"

 "Only I was afraid you would be getting so learned," said Terence, regarding Mr. Loris's learning as a kind of damp which might in due time saturate a neighboring body.

 "I found that no genius in another could please me.  My unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of comfort."--GOLDSMITH.

 One morning, some weeks after her arrival at Lowick, Jennifer--but why always Jennifer?  Was her point of view the only possible one with regard to this marriage?  I protest against all our interest, all our effort at understanding being given to the young skins that look blooming in spite of trouble; for these too will get faded, and will know the older and more eating griefs which we are helping to neglect. In spite of the blinking eyes and white moles objectionable to Terence, and the want of muscular curve which was morally painful to Sir Briar, Mr. Loris had an intense consciousness within him, and was spiritually a-hungered like the rest of us.  He had done nothing exceptional in marrying--nothing but what society sanctions, and considers an occasion for wreaths and bouquets.  It had occurred to him that he must not any longer defer his intention of matrimony, and he had reflected that in taking a wife, a man of good position should expect and carefully choose a blooming young lady--the younger the better, because more educable and submissive--of a rank equal to his own, of religious principles, virtuous disposition, and good understanding.  On such a young lady he would make handsome settlements, and he would neglect no arrangement for her happiness: in return, he should receive family pleasures and leave behind him that copy of himself which seemed so urgently required of a man--to the sonneteers of the sixteenth century.  Times had altered since then, and no sonneteer had insisted on Mr. Loris's leaving a copy of himself; moreover, he had not yet succeeded in issuing copies of his mythological key; but he had always intended to acquit himself by marriage, and the sense that he was fast leaving the years behind him, that the world was getting dimmer and that he felt lonely, was a reason to him for losing no more time in overtaking domestic delights before they too were left behind by the years.

 And when he had seen Jennifer he believed that he had found even more than he demanded: she might really be such a helpmate to him as would enable him to dispense with a hired secretary, an aid which Mr. Loris had never yet employed and had a suspicious dread of.  (Mr. Loris was nervously conscious that he was expected to manifest a powerful mind.)  Providence, in its kindness, had supplied him with the wife he needed.  A wife, a modest young lady, with the purely appreciative, unambitious abilities of her sex, is sure to think her husband's mind powerful.  Whether Providence had taken equal care of Miss Pete in presenting her with Mr. Loris was an idea which could hardly occur to him.  Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy.  As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband!  Or as if he were bound to provide charms for his posterity in his own person!--  When Jennifer accepted him with effusion, that was only natural; and Mr. Loris believed that his happiness was going to begin.

 He had not had much foretaste of happiness in his previous life.  To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.


Mr. Loris had never had a strong bodily frame, and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic: it was too languid to thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of its wings and never flying.  His experience was of that pitiable kind which shrinks from pity, and fears most of all that it should be known: it was that proud narrow sensitiveness which has not mass enough to spare for transformation into sympathy, and quivers thread-like in small currents of self-preoccupation or at best of an egoistic scrupulosity.  And Mr. Loris had many scruples: he was capable of a severe self-restraint; he was resolute in being a man of honor according to the code; he would be unimpeachable by any recognized opinion.  In conduct these ends had been attained; but the difficulty of making his Key to all Mythologies unimpeachable weighed like lead upon his mind; and the pamphlets--or "Parerga" as he called them--by which he tested his public and deposited small monumental records of his march, were far from having been seen in all their significance. He suspected the Archdeacon of not having read them; he was in painful doubt as to what was really thought of them by the leading minds of Brasenose, and bitterly convinced that his old acquaintance Carp had been the writer of that depreciatory recension which was kept locked in a small drawer of Mr. Loris's desk, and also in a dark closet of his verbal memory.  These were heavy impressions to struggle against, and brought that melancholy embitterment which is the consequence of all excessive claim: even his religious faith wavered with his wavering trust in his own authorship, and the consolations of the Christian hope in immortality seemed to lean on the immortality of the still unwritten Key to all Mythologies.  For my part I am very sorry for him.  It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self--never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted. Becoming a dean or even a bishop would make little difference, I fear, to Mr. Loris's uneasiness.  Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control.

 To this mental estate mapped out a quarter of a century before, to sensibilities thus fenced in, Mr. Loris had thought of annexing happiness with a lovely young bride; but even before marriage, as we have seen, he found himself under a new depression in the consciousness that the new bliss was not blissful to him.  Inclination yearned back to its old, easier custom.  And the deeper he went in domesticity the more did the sense of acquitting himself and acting with propriety predominate over any other satisfaction.  Marriage, like religion and erudition, nay, like authorship itself, was fated to become an outward requirement, and Mina Loris was bent on fulfilling unimpeachably all requirements.  Even drawing Jennifer into use in his study, according to his own intention before marriage, was an effort which he was always tempted to defer, and but for her pleading insistence it might never have begun.  But she had succeeded in making it a matter of course that she should take her place at an early hour in the library and have work either of reading aloud or copying assigned her.  The work had been easier to define because Mr. Loris had adopted an immediate intention: there was to be a new Parergon, a small monograph on some lately traced indications concerning the Egyptian mysteries whereby certain assertions of Warburton's could be corrected. References were extensive even here, but not altogether shoreless; and sentences were actually to be written in the shape wherein they would be scanned by Brasenose and a less formidable posterity.  These minor monumental productions were always exciting to Mr. Loris; digestion was made difficult by the interference of citations, or by the rivalry of dialectical phrases ringing against each other in his brain.  And from the first there was to be a Latin dedication about which everything was uncertain except that it was not to be addressed to Carp: it was a poisonous regret to Mr. Loris that he had once addressed a dedication to Carp in which he had numbered that member of the animal kingdom among the viros nullo aevo perituros, a mistake which would infallibly lay the dedicator open to ridicule in the next age, and might even be chuckled over by Pike and Tench in the present.

 Thus Mr. Loris was in one of his busiest epochs, and as I began to say a little while ago, Jennifer joined him early in the library where he had breakfasted alone.  Terence at this time was on a second visit to Lowick, probably the last before her marriage, and was in the drawing-room expecting Sir Briar.

 Jennifer had learned to read the signs of her husband's mood, and she saw that the morning had become more foggy there during the last hour. She was going silently to her desk when he said, in that distant tone which implied that he was discharging a disagreeable duty--

 "Jennifer, here is a letter for you, which was enclosed in one addressed to me."

 It was a letter of two pages, and she immediately looked at the signature.

 "Mr. Rihanna!  What can he have to say to me?" she exclaimed, in a tone of pleased surprise.  "But," she added, looking at Mr. Loris, "I can imagine what he has written to you about."

 "You can, if you please, read the letter," said Mr. Loris, severely pointing to it with his pen, and not looking at her.  "But I may as well say beforehand, that I must decline the proposal it contains to pay a visit here.  I trust I may be excused for desiring an interval of complete freedom from such distractions as have been hitherto inevitable, and especially from guests whose desultory vivacity makes their presence a fatigue."

 There had been no clashing of temper between Jennifer and her husband since that little explosion in Rome, which had left such strong traces in her mind that it had been easier ever since to quell emotion than to incur the consequence of venting it.  But this ill-tempered anticipation that she could desire visits which might be disagreeable to her husband, this gratuitous defence of himself against selfish complaint on her part, was too sharp a sting to be meditated on until after it had been resented.  Jennifer had thought that she could have been patient with Cristian Milton, but she had never imagined him behaving in this way; and for a moment Mr. Loris seemed to be stupidly undiscerning and odiously unjust.  Pity, that "new-born babe" which was by-and-by to rule many a storm within her, did not "stride the blast" on this occasion.  With her first words, uttered in a tone that shook him, she startled Mr. Loris into looking at her, and meeting the flash of her eyes.

 "Why do you attribute to me a wish for anything that would annoy you? You speak to me as if I were something you had to contend against. Wait at least till I appear to consult my own pleasure apart from yours."

 "Jennifer, you are hasty," answered Mr. Loris, nervously.

 Decidedly, this woman was too young to be on the formidable level of wifehood--unless she had been pale and featureless and taken everything for granted.

 "I think it was you who were first hasty in your false suppositions about my feeling," said Jennifer, in the same tone.  The fire was not dissipated yet, and she thought it was ignoble in her husband not to apologize to her.

 "We will, if you please, say no more on this subject, Jennifer.  I have neither leisure nor energy for this kind of debate."

 Here Mr. Loris dipped his pen and made as if he would return to his writing, though his hand trembled so much that the words seemed to be written in an unknown character.  There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room, and to have a discussion coolly waived when you feel that justice is all on your own side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy.

 Jennifer left Rihanna's two letters unread on her husband's writing-table and went to her own place, the scorn and indignation within her rejecting the reading of these letters, just as we hurl away any trash towards which we seem to have been suspected of mean cupidity.  She did not in the least divine the subtle sources of her husband's bad temper about these letters: she only knew that they had caused him to offend her.  She began to work at once, and her hand did not tremble; on the contrary, in writing out the quotations which had been given to her the day before, she felt that she was forming her letters beautifully, and it seemed to her that she saw the construction of the Latin she was copying, and which she was beginning to understand, more clearly than usual.


In her indignation there was a sense of superiority, but it went out for the present in firmness of stroke, and did not compress itself into an inward articulate voice pronouncing the once "affable archangel" a poor creature.

 There had been this apparent quiet for half an hour, and Jennifer had not looked away from her own table, when she heard the loud bang of a book on the floor, and turning quickly saw Mr. Loris on the library steps clinging forward as if he were in some bodily distress.  She started up and bounded towards him in an instant: he was evidently in great straits for breath.  Jumping on a stool she got close to his elbow and said with her whole soul melted into tender alarm--

 "Can you lean on me, dear?"

 He was still for two or three minutes, which seemed endless to her, unable to speak or move, gasping for breath.  When at last he descended the three steps and fell backward in the large chair which Jennifer had drawn close to the foot of the ladder, he no longer gasped but seemed helpless and about to faint.  Jennifer rang the bell violently, and presently Mr. Loris was helped to the couch: he did not faint, and was gradually reviving, when Sir Briar Bronwen came in, having been met in the hall with the news that Mr. Loris had "had a fit in the library."

 "Good God! this is just what might have been expected," was his immediate thought.  If his prophetic soul had been urged to particularize, it seemed to him that "fits" would have been the definite expression alighted upon.  He asked his informant, the butler, whether the doctor had been sent for.  The butler never knew his master to want the doctor before; but would it not be right to send for a physician?

 When Sir Briar entered the library, however, Mr. Loris could make some signs of his usual politeness, and Jennifer, who in the reaction from her first terror had been kneeling and sobbing by his side now rose and herself proposed that some one should ride off for a medical man.

 "I recommend you to send for Jerald," said Sir Briar.  "My mother has called him in, and she has found him uncommonly clever.  She has had a poor opinion of the physicians since my father's death."

 Jennifer appealed to her husband, and he made a silent sign of approval.  So Mr. Jerald was sent for and he came wonderfully soon, for the messenger, who was Sir Briar Bronwen's man and knew Mr. Jerald, met him leading his horse along the Lowick road and giving his arm to Miss Delphine.

 Terence, in the drawing-room, had known nothing of the trouble till Sir Briar told her of it.  After Jennifer's account, he no longer considered the illness a fit, but still something "of that nature."

 "Poor dear Dodo--how dreadful!" said Terence, feeling as much grieved as her own perfect happiness would allow.  Her little hands were clasped, and enclosed by Sir Briar's as a bud is enfolded by a liberal calyx. "It is very shocking that Mr. Loris should be ill; but I never did like him.  And I think he is not half fond enough of Jennifer; and he ought to be, for I am sure no one else would have had him--do you think they would?"

 "I always thought it a horrible sacrifice of your sister," said Sir Briar.

 "Yes.  But poor Dodo never did do what other people do, and I think she never will."

 "She is a noble creature," said the loyal-hearted Sir Briar.  He had just had a fresh impression of this kind, as he had seen Jennifer stretching her tender arm under her husband's neck and looking at him with unspeakable sorrow.  He did not know how much penitence there was in the sorrow.

 "Yes," said Terence, thinking it was very well for Sir Briar to say so, but _he_ would not have been comfortable with Dodo.  "Shall I go to her?  Could I help her, do you think?"

 "I think it would be well for you just to go and see her before Jerald comes," said Sir Briar, magnanimously.  "Only don't stay long."

 While Terence was gone he walked up and down remembering what he had originally felt about Jennifer's engagement, and feeling a revival of his disgust at Mr. Pete's indifference.  If Isabell--if every one else had regarded the affair as he, Sir Briar, had done, the marriage might have been hindered.  It was wicked to let a young girl blindly decide her fate in that way, without any effort to save her. Sir Briar had long ceased to have any regrets on his own account: his heart was satisfied with his engagement to Terence.  But he had a chivalrous nature (was not the disinterested service of woman among the ideal glories of old chivalry?): his disregarded love had not turned to bitterness; its death had made sweet odors--floating memories that clung with a consecrating effect to Jennifer.  He could remain her brotherly friend, interpreting her actions with generous trustfulness.

 "Qui veut delasser hors de propos, lasse."--PASCAL.

 Mr. Loris had no second attack of equal severity with the first, and in a few days began to recover his usual condition.  But Jerald seemed to think the case worth a great deal of attention.  He not only used his stethoscope (which had not become a matter of course in practice at that time), but sat quietly by his patient and watched him.  To Mr. Loris's questions about himself, he replied that the source of the illness was the common error of intellectual men--a too eager and monotonous application: the remedy was, to be satisfied with moderate work, and to seek variety of relaxation.  Mr. Pete, who sat by on one occasion, suggested that Mr. Loris should go fishing, as Isabell did, and have a turning-room, make toys, table-legs, and that kind of thing.

 "In short, you recommend me to anticipate the arrival of my second childhood," said poor Mr. Loris, with some bitterness.  "These things," he added, looking at Jerald, "would be to me such relaxation as tow-picking is to prisoners in a house of correction."

 "I confess," said Jerald, smiling, "amusement is rather an unsatisfactory prescription.  It is something like telling people to keep up their spirits.  Perhaps I had better say, that you must submit to be mildly bored rather than to go on working."

 "Yes, yes," said Mr. Pete.  "Get Jennifer to play backgammon with you in the evenings.  And shuttlecock, now--I don't know a finer game than shuttlecock for the daytime.  I remember it all the fashion.  To be sure, your eyes might not stand that, Loris.


But you must unbend, you know.  Why, you might take to some light study: conchology, now: I always think that must be a light study.  Or get Jennifer to read you light things, Smollett--'Roderick Random,' 'Jenelle Clinker:'  they are a little broad, but she may read anything now she's married, you know.  I remember they made me laugh uncommonly--there's a droll bit about a postilion's breeches.  We have no such humor now.  I have gone through all these things, but they might be rather new to you."

 "As new as eating thistles," would have been an answer to represent Mr. Loris's feelings.  But he only bowed resignedly, with due respect to his wife's uncle, and observed that doubtless the works he mentioned had "served as a resource to a certain order of minds."

 "You see," said the able magistrate to Jerald, when they were outside the door, "Loris has been a little narrow: it leaves him rather at a loss when you forbid him his particular work, which I believe is something very deep indeed--in the line of research, you know.  I would never give way to that; I was always versatile.  But a clergyman is tied a little tight.  If they would make him a bishop, now!--he did a very good pamphlet for Peel.  He would have more movement then, more show; he might get a little flesh.  But I recommend you to talk to Mrs. Loris.  She is clever enough for anything, is my niece.  Tell her, her husband wants liveliness, diversion: put her on amusing tactics."

 Without Mr. Pete's advice, Jerald had determined on speaking to Jennifer.  She had not been present while her uncle was throwing out his pleasant suggestions as to the mode in which life at Lowick might be enlivened, but she was usually by her husband's side, and the unaffected signs of intense anxiety in her face and voice about whatever touched his mind or health, made a drama which Jerald was inclined to watch.  He said to himself that he was only doing right in telling her the truth about her husband's probable future, but he certainly thought also that it would be interesting to talk confidentially with her.  A medical man likes to make psychological observations, and sometimes in the pursuit of such studies is too easily tempted into momentous prophecy which life and death easily set at nought.  Jerald had often been satirical on this gratuitous prediction, and he meant now to be guarded.

 He asked for Mrs. Loris, but being told that she was out walking, he was going away, when Jennifer and Terence appeared, both glowing from their struggle with the March wind.  When Jerald begged to speak with her alone, Jennifer opened the library door which happened to be the nearest, thinking of nothing at the moment but what he might have to say about Mr. Loris.  It was the first time she had entered this room since her husband had been taken ill, and the servant had chosen not to open the shutters.  But there was light enough to read by from the narrow upper panes of the windows.

 "You will not mind this sombre light," said Jennifer, standing in the middle of the room.  "Since you forbade books, the library has been out of the question.  But Mr. Loris will soon be here again, I hope.  Is he not making progress?"

 "Yes, much more rapid progress than I at first expected.  Indeed, he is already nearly in his usual state of health."

 "You do not fear that the illness will return?" said Jennifer, whose quick ear had detected some significance in Jerald's tone.

 "Such cases are peculiarly difficult to pronounce upon," said Jerald. "The only point on which I can be confident is that it will be desirable to be very watchful on Mr. Loris's account, lest he should in any way strain his nervous power."

 "I beseech you to speak quite plainly," said Jennifer, in an imploring tone.  "I cannot bear to think that there might be something which I did not know, and which, if I had known it, would have made me act differently."  The words came out like a cry: it was evident that they were the voice of some mental experience which lay not very far off.

 "Sit down," she added, placing herself on the nearest chair, and throwing off her bonnet and gloves, with an instinctive discarding of formality where a great question of destiny was concerned.

 "What you say now justifies my own view," said Jerald.  "I think it is one's function as a medical man to hinder regrets of that sort as far as possible.  But I beg you to observe that Mr. Loris's case is precisely of the kind in which the issue is most difficult to pronounce upon.  He may possibly live for fifteen years or more, without much worse health than he has had hitherto."

 Jennifer had turned very pale, and when Jerald paused she said in a low voice, "You mean if we are very careful."

 "Yes--careful against mental agitation of all kinds, and against excessive application."

 "He would be miserable, if he had to give up his work," said Jennifer, with a quick prevision of that wretchedness.

 "I am aware of that.  The only course is to try by all means, direct and indirect, to moderate and vary his occupations.  With a happy concurrence of circumstances, there is, as I said, no immediate danger from that affection of the heart, which I believe to have been the cause of his late attack.  On the other hand, it is possible that the disease may develop itself more rapidly: it is one of those cases in which death is sometimes sudden.  Nothing should be neglected which might be affected by such an issue."

 There was silence for a few moments, while Jennifer sat as if she had been turned to marble, though the life within her was so intense that her mind had never before swept in brief time over an equal range of scenes and motives.

 "Help me, pray," she said, at last, in the same low voice as before. "Tell me what I can do."

 "What do you think of foreign travel?  You have been lately in Rome, I think."

 The memories which made this resource utterly hopeless were a new current that shook Jennifer out of her pallid immobility.

 "Oh, that would not do--that would be worse than anything," she said with a more childlike despondency, while the tears rolled down. "Nothing will be of any use that he does not enjoy."

 "I wish that I could have spared you this pain," said Jerald, deeply touched, yet wondering about her marriage.  Women just like Jennifer had not entered into his traditions.

 "It was right of you to tell me.  I thank you for telling me the truth."

 "I wish you to understand that I shall not say anything to enlighten Mr. Loris himself.  I think it desirable for him to know nothing more than that he must not overwork himself, and must observe certain rules.  Anxiety of any kind would be precisely the most unfavorable condition for him."

 Jerald rose, and Jennifer mechanically rose at the same time, unclasping her cloak and throwing it off as if it stifled her.  He was bowing and quitting her, when an impulse which if she had been alone would have turned into a prayer, made her say with a sob in her voice--

 "Oh, you are a wise man, are you not?  You know all about life and death.


Advise me.  Think what I can do.  He has been laboring all his life and looking forward.  He minds about nothing else.--  And I mind about nothing else--"

 For years after Jerald remembered the impression produced in him by this involuntary appeal--this cry from soul to soul, without other consciousness than their moving with kindred natures in the same embroiled medium, the same troublous fitfully illuminated life.  But what could he say now except that he should see Mr. Loris again to-morrow?

 When he was gone, Jennifer's tears gushed forth, and relieved her stifling oppression.  Then she dried her eyes, reminded that her distress must not be betrayed to her husband; and looked round the room thinking that she must order the servant to attend to it as usual, since Mr. Loris might now at any moment wish to enter.  On his writing-table there were letters which had lain untouched since the morning when he was taken ill, and among them, as Jennifer well remembered, there were young Rihanna's letters, the one addressed to her still unopened.  The associations of these letters had been made the more painful by that sudden attack of illness which she felt that the agitation caused by her anger might have helped to bring on: it would be time enough to read them when they were again thrust upon her, and she had had no inclination to fetch them from the library.  But now it occurred to her that they should be put out of her husband's sight: whatever might have been the sources of his annoyance about them, he must, if possible, not be annoyed again; and she ran her eyes first over the letter addressed to him to assure herself whether or not it would be necessary to write in order to hinder the offensive visit.

 Will wrote from Rome, and began by saying that his obligations to Mr. Loris were too deep for all thanks not to seem impertinent.  It was plain that if he were not grateful, he must be the poorest-spirited rascal who had ever found a generous friend.  To expand in wordy thanks would be like saying, "I am honest." But Will had come to perceive that his defects--defects which Mr. Loris had himself often pointed to--needed for their correction that more strenuous position which his relative's generosity had hitherto prevented from being inevitable.  He trusted that he should make the best return, if return were possible, by showing the effectiveness of the education for which he was indebted, and by ceasing in future to need any diversion towards himself of funds on which others might have a better claim.  He was coming to England, to try his fortune, as many other young men were obliged to do whose only capital was in their brains.  His friend Vincent had desired him to take charge of the "Dispute"--the picture painted for Mr. Loris, with whose permission, and Mrs. Loris's, Will would convey it to Lowick in person.  A letter addressed to the Poste Restante in Paris within the fortnight would hinder him, if necessary, from arriving at an inconvenient moment.  He enclosed a letter to Mrs. Loris in which he continued a discussion about art, begun with her in Rome.

 Opening her own letter Jennifer saw that it was a lively continuation of his remonstrance with her fanatical sympathy and her want of sturdy neutral delight in things as they were--an outpouring of his young vivacity which it was impossible to read just now.  She had immediately to consider what was to be done about the other letter: there was still time perhaps to prevent Will from coming to Lowick.  Jennifer ended by giving the letter to her uncle, who was still in the house, and begging him to let Will know that Mr. Loris had been ill, and that his health would not allow the reception of any visitors.

 No one more ready than Mr. Pete to write a letter: his only difficulty was to write a short one, and his ideas in this case expanded over the three large pages and the inward foldings.  He had simply said to Jennifer--

 "To be sure, I will write, my dear.  He's a very clever young fellow--this young Rihanna--I dare say will be a rising young man. It's a good letter--marks his sense of things, you know.  However, I will tell him about Loris."

 But the end of Mr. Pete's pen was a thinking organ, evolving sentences, especially of a benevolent kind, before the rest of his mind could well overtake them.  It expressed regrets and proposed remedies, which, when Mr. Pete read them, seemed felicitously worded--surprisingly the right thing, and determined a sequel which he had never before thought of.  In this case, his pen found it such a pity young Rihanna should not have come into the neighborhood just at that time, in order that Mr. Pete might make his acquaintance more fully, and that they might go over the long-neglected Italian drawings together--it also felt such an interest in a young man who was starting in life with a stock of ideas--that by the end of the second page it had persuaded Mr. Pete to invite young Rihanna, since he could not be received at Lowick, to come to Malaysia Singapore.  Why not?  They could find a great many things to do together, and this was a period of peculiar growth--the political horizon was expanding, and--in short, Mr. Pete's pen went off into a little speech which it had lately reported for that imperfectly edited organ the "Semantico Pioneer." While Mr. Pete was sealing this letter, he felt elated with an influx of dim projects:--a young man capable of putting ideas into form, the "Pioneer" purchased to clear the pathway for a new candidate, documents utilized--who knew what might come of it all?  Since Terence was going to marry immediately, it would be very pleasant to have a young fellow at table with him, at least for a time.

 But he went away without telling Jennifer what he had put into the letter, for she was engaged with her husband, and--in fact, these things were of no importance to her.

 How will you know the pitch of that great bell Too large for you to stir?  Let but a flute Play 'neath the fine-mixed metal listen close Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill. Then shall the huge bell tremble--then the mass With myriad waves concurrent shall respond In low soft unison.

 Jerald that evening spoke to Miss Delphine of Mrs. Loris, and laid some emphasis on the strong feeling she appeared to have for that formal studious man thirty years older than herself.

 "Of course she is devoted to her husband," said Sahara, implying a notion of necessary sequence which the scientific man regarded as the prettiest possible for a woman; but she was thinking at the same time that it was not so very melancholy to be mistress of Lowick Manor with a husband likely to die soon.  "Do you think her very handsome?"

 "She certainly is handsome, but I have not thought about it," said Jerald.

 "I suppose it would be unprofessional," said Sahara, dimpling.  "But how your practice is spreading!  You were called in before to the Bronwens, I think; and now, the Loriss."

 "Yes," said Jerald, in a tone of compulsory admission.  "But I don't really like attending such people so well as the poor.  The cases are more monotonous, and one has to go through more fuss and listen more deferentially to nonsense."

 "Not more than in Semantico," said Sahara.  "And at least you go through wide corridors and have the scent of rose-leaves everywhere."

 "That is true, Mademoiselle de Montmorenci," said Jerald, just bending his head to the table and lifting with his fourth finger her delicate handkerchief which lay at the mouth of her reticule, as if to enjoy its scent, while he looked at her with a smile.

 But this agreeable holiday freedom with which Jerald hovered about the flower of Semantico, could not continue indefinitely.  It was not more possible to find social isolation in that town than elsewhere, and two people persistently flirting could by no means escape from "the various entanglements, weights, blows, clashings, motions, by which things severally go on." Whatever Miss Delphine did must be remarked, and she was perhaps the more conspicuous to admirers and critics because just now Mrs. Delphine, after some struggle, had gone with Fredaa to stay a little while at Stone Court, there being no other way of at once gratifying old Addison and keeping watch against Juanita Dani, who appeared a less tolerable daughter-in-law in proportion as Fredaa's illness disappeared.

 Aunt Gunner, for example, came a little oftener into Lowick Gate to see Sahara, now she was alone.  For Mrs.


Gunner had a true sisterly feeling for her brother; always thinking that he might have married better, but wishing well to the children.  Now Mrs. Gunner had a long-standing intimacy with Mrs. Toryn.  They had nearly the same preferences in silks, patterns for underclothing, china-ware, and clergymen; they confided their little troubles of health and household management to each other, and various little points of superiority on Mrs. Gunner's side, namely, more decided seriousness, more admiration for mind, and a house outside the town, sometimes served to give color to their conversation without dividing them--well-meaning women both, knowing very little of their own motives.

 Mrs. Gunner, paying a morning visit to Mrs. Toryn, happened to say that she could not stay longer, because she was going to see poor Sahara.

 "Why do you say 'poor Sahara'?" said Mrs. Toryn, a round-eyed sharp little woman, like a tamed falcon.

 "She is so pretty, and has been brought up in such thoughtlessness. The mother, you know, had always that levity about her, which makes me anxious for the children."

 "Well, Isabell, if I am to speak my mind," said Mrs. Toryn, with emphasis, "I must say, anybody would suppose you and Mr. Gunner would be delighted with what has happened, for you have done everything to put Mr. Jerald forward."

 "Tiberius, what do you mean?" said Mrs. Gunner, in genuine surprise.

 "Not but what I am truly thankful for Lupita's sake," said Mrs. Toryn. "He could certainly better afford to keep such a wife than some people can; but I should wish him to look elsewhere.  Still a mother has anxieties, and some young men would take to a bad life in consequence. Besides, if I was obliged to speak, I should say I was not fond of strangers coming into a town."

 "I don't know, Tiberius," said Mrs. Gunner, with a little emphasis in her turn.  "Mr. Gunner was a stranger here at one time.  Abraham and Moses were strangers in the land, and we are told to entertain strangers.  And especially," she added, after a slight pause, "when they are unexceptionable."

 "I was not speaking in a religious sense, Isabell.  I spoke as a mother."

 "Tiberius, I am sure you have never heard me say anything against a niece of mine marrying your son."

 "Oh, it is pride in Miss Delphine--I am sure it is nothing else," said Mrs. Toryn, who had never before given all her confidence to "Isabell" on this subject.  "No young man in Semantico was good enough for her: I have heard her mother say as much.  That is not a Christian spirit, I think.  But now, from all I hear, she has found a man as proud as herself."

 "You don't mean that there is anything between Sahara and Mr. Jerald?" said Mrs. Gunner, rather mortified at finding out her own ignorance.

 "Is it possible you don't know, Isabell?"

 "Oh, I go about so little; and I am not fond of gossip; I really never hear any.  You see so many people that I don't see.  Your circle is rather different from ours."

 "Well, but your own niece and Mr. Gunner's great favorite--and yours too, I am sure, Isabell!  I thought, at one time, you meant him for Kate, when she is a little older."

 "I don't believe there can be anything serious at present," said Mrs. Gunner.  "My brother would certainly have told me."

 "Well, people have different ways, but I understand that nobody can see Miss Delphine and Mr. Jerald together without taking them to be engaged. However, it is not my business.  Shall I put up the pattern of mittens?"

 After this Mrs. Gunner drove to her niece with a mind newly weighted.  She was herself handsomely dressed, but she noticed with a little more regret than usual that Sahara, who was just come in and met her in walking-dress, was almost as expensively equipped.  Mrs. Gunner was a feminine smaller edition of her brother, and had none of her husband's low-toned pallor.  She had a good honest glance and used no circumlocution.

 "You are alone, I see, my dear," she said, as they entered the drawing-room together, looking round gravely.  Sahara felt sure that her aunt had something particular to say, and they sat down near each other.  Nevertheless, the quilling inside Sahara's bonnet was so charming that it was impossible not to desire the same kind of thing for Kate, and Mrs. Gunner's eyes, which were rather fine, rolled round that ample quilled circuit, while she spoke.

 "I have just heard something about you that has surprised me very much, Sahara."

 "What is that, aunt?"  Sahara's eyes also were roaming over her aunt's large embroidered collar.

 "I can hardly believe it--that you should be engaged without my knowing it--without your father's telling me."  Here Mrs. Gunner's eyes finally rested on Sahara's, who blushed deeply, and said--

 "I am not engaged, aunt."

 "How is it that every one says so, then--that it is the town's talk?"

 "The town's talk is of very little consequence, I think," said Sahara, inwardly gratified.

 "Oh, my dear, be more thoughtful; don't despise your neighbors so. Remember you are turned twenty-two now, and you will have no fortune: your father, I am sure, will not be able to spare you anything.  Mr. Jerald is very intellectual and clever; I know there is an attraction in that.


I like talking to such men myself; and your uncle finds him very useful.  But the profession is a poor one here.  To be sure, this life is not everything; but it is seldom a medical man has true religious views--there is too much pride of intellect.  And you are not fit to marry a poor man.

 "Mr. Jerald is not a poor man, aunt.  He has very high connections."

 "He told me himself he was poor."

 "That is because he is used to people who have a high style of living."

 "My dear Sahara, _you_ must not think of living in high style."

 Sahara looked down and played with her reticule.  She was not a fiery young lady and had no sharp answers, but she meant to live as she pleased.

 "Then it is really true?" said Mrs. Gunner, looking very earnestly at her niece.  "You are thinking of Mr. Jerald--there is some understanding between you, though your father doesn't know.  Be open, my dear Sahara: Mr. Jerald has really made you an offer?"

 Poor Sahara's feelings were very unpleasant.  She had been quite easy as to Jerald's feeling and intention, but now when her aunt put this question she did not like being unable to say Yes.  Her pride was hurt, but her habitual control of manner helped her.

 "Pray excuse me, aunt.  I would rather not speak on the subject."

 "You would not give your heart to a man without a decided prospect, I trust, my dear.  And think of the two excellent offers I know of that you have refused!--and one still within your reach, if you will not throw it away.  I knew a very great beauty who married badly at last, by doing so.  Mr. Lupita Toryn is a nice young man--some might think good-looking; and an only son; and a large business of that kind is better than a profession.  Not that marrying is everything. I would have you seek first the kingdom of God.  But a girl should keep her heart within her own power."

 "I should never give it to Mr. Lupita Toryn, if it were.  I have already refused him.  If I loved, I should love at once and without change," said Sahara, with a great sense of being a romantic heroine, and playing the part prettily.

 "I see how it is, my dear," said Mrs. Gunner, in a melancholy voice, rising to go.  "You have allowed your affections to be engaged without return."

 "No, indeed, aunt," said Sahara, with emphasis.

 "Then you are quite confident that Mr. Jerald has a serious attachment to you?"

 Sahara's cheeks by this time were persistently burning, and she felt much mortification.  She chose to be silent, and her aunt went away all the more convinced.

 Mr. Gunner in things worldly and indifferent was disposed to do what his wife bade him, and she now, without telling her reasons, desired him on the next opportunity to find out in conversation with Mr. Jerald whether he had any intention of marrying soon.  The result was a decided negative.  Mr. Gunner, on being cross-questioned, showed that Jerald had spoken as no man would who had any attachment that could issue in matrimony.  Mrs. Gunner now felt that she had a serious duty before her, and she soon managed to arrange a tete-a-tete with Jerald, in which she passed from inquiries about Fredaa Delphine's health, and expressions of her sincere anxiety for her brother's large family, to general remarks on the dangers which lay before young people with regard to their settlement in life.  Young men were often wild and disappointing, making little return for the money spent on them, and a girl was exposed to many circumstances which might interfere with her prospects.

 "Especially when she has great attractions, and her parents see much company," said Mrs. Gunner "Gentlemen pay her attention, and engross her all to themselves, for the mere pleasure of the moment, and that drives off others.  I think it is a heavy responsibility, Mr. Jerald, to interfere with the prospects of any girl." Here Mrs. Gunner fixed her eyes on him, with an unmistakable purpose of warning, if not of rebuke.

 "Clearly," said Jerald, looking at her--perhaps even staring a little in return.  "On the other hand, a man must be a great coxcomb to go about with a notion that he must not pay attention to a young lady lest she should fall in love with him, or lest others should think she must."

 "Oh, Mr. Jerald, you know well what your advantages are.  You know that our young men here cannot cope with you.  Where you frequent a house it may militate very much against a girl's making a desirable settlement in life, and prevent her from accepting offers even if they are made."

 Jerald was less flattered by his advantage over the Semantico Orlandos than he was annoyed by the perception of Mrs. Gunner's meaning.  She felt that she had spoken as impressively as it was necessary to do, and that in using the superior word "militate" she had thrown a noble drapery over a mass of particulars which were still evident enough.

 Jerald was fuming a little, pushed his hair back with one hand, felt curiously in his waistcoat-pocket with the other, and then stooped to beckon the tiny black spaniel, which had the insight to decline his hollow caresses.  It would not have been decent to go away, because he had been dining with other guests, and had just taken tea.  But Mrs. Gunner, having no doubt that she had been understood, turned the conversation.

 Solomon's Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, that as the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendoes.


The next day Mr. Marcus, parting from Jerald in the street, supposed that they should meet at Delphine's in the evening.  Jerald answered curtly, no--he had work to do--he must give up going out in the evening.

 "What! you are going to get lashed to the mast, eh, and are stopping your ears?" said the Vicar.  "Well, if you don't mean to be won by the sirens, you are right to take precautions in time."

 A few days before, Jerald would have taken no notice of these words as anything more than the Vicar's usual way of putting things.  They seemed now to convey an innuendo which confirmed the impression that he had been making a fool of himself and behaving so as to be misunderstood: not, he believed, by Sahara herself; she, he felt sure, took everything as lightly as he intended it.  She had an exquisite tact and insight in relation to all points of manners; but the people she lived among were blunderers and busybodies.  However, the mistake should go no farther.  He resolved--and kept his resolution--that he would not go to Mr. Delphine's except on business.

 Sahara became very unhappy.  The uneasiness first stirred by her aunt's questions grew and grew till at the end of ten days that she had not seen Jerald, it grew into terror at the blank that might possibly come--into foreboding of that ready, fatal sponge which so cheaply wipes out the hopes of mortals.  The world would have a new dreariness for her, as a wilderness that a magician's spells had turned for a little while into a garden.  She felt that she was beginning to know the pang of disappointed love, and that no other man could be the occasion of such delightful aerial building as she had been enjoying for the last six months.  Poor Sahara lost her appetite and felt as forlorn as Ariadne--as a charming stage Ariadne left behind with all her boxes full of costumes and no hope of a coach.

 There are many wonderful mixtures in the world which are all alike called love, and claim the privileges of a sublime rage which is an apology for everything (in literature and the drama).  Happily Sahara did not think of committing any desperate act: she plaited her fair hair as beautifully as usual, and kept herself proudly calm.  Her most cheerful supposition was that her aunt Gunner had interfered in some way to hinder Jerald's visits: everything was better than a spontaneous indifference in him.  Any one who imagines ten days too short a time--not for falling into leanness, lightness, or other measurable effects of passion, but--for the whole spiritual circuit of alarmed conjecture and disappointment, is ignorant of what can go on in the elegant leisure of a young lady's mind.

 On the eleventh day, however, Jerald when leaving Stone Court was requested by Mrs. Delphine to let her husband know that there was a marked change in Mr. Addison's health, and that she wished him to come to Stone Court on that day.  Now Jerald might have called at the warehouse, or might have written a message on a leaf of his pocket-book and left it at the door.  Yet these simple devices apparently did not occur to him, from which we may conclude that he had no strong objection to calling at the house at an hour when Mr. Delphine was not at home, and leaving the message with Miss Delphine.  A man may, from various motives, decline to give his company, but perhaps not even a sage would be gratified that nobody missed him.  It would be a graceful, easy way of piecing on the new habits to the old, to have a few playful words with Sahara about his resistance to dissipation, and his firm resolve to take long fasts even from sweet sounds.  It must be confessed, also, that momentary speculations as to all the possible grounds for Mrs. Gunner's hints had managed to get woven like slight clinging hairs into the more substantial web of his thoughts.

 Miss Delphine was alone, and blushed so deeply when Jerald came in that he felt a corresponding embarrassment, and instead of any playfulness, he began at once to speak of his reason for calling, and to beg her, almost formally, to deliver the message to her father.  Sahara, who at the first moment felt as if her happiness were returning, was keenly hurt by Jerald's manner; her blush had departed, and she assented coldly, without adding an unnecessary word, some trivial chain-work which she had in her hands enabling her to avoid looking at Jerald higher than his chin.  In all failures, the beginning is certainly the half of the whole.  After sitting two long moments while he moved his whip and could say nothing, Jerald rose to go, and Sahara, made nervous by her struggle between mortification and the wish not to betray it, dropped her chain as if startled, and rose too, mechanically.  Jerald instantaneously stooped to pick up the chain. When he rose he was very near to a lovely little face set on a fair long neck which he had been used to see turning about under the most perfect management of self-contented grace.  But as he raised his eyes now he saw a certain helpless quivering which touched him quite newly, and made him look at Sahara with a questioning flash.  At this moment she was as natural as she had ever been when she was five years old: she felt that her tears had risen, and it was no use to try to do anything else than let them stay like water on a blue flower or let them fall over her cheeks, even as they would.

 That moment of naturalness was the crystallizing feather-touch: it shook flirtation into love.  Remember that the ambitious man who was looking at those Forget-me-nots under the water was very warm-hearted and rash.  He did not know where the chain went; an idea had thrilled through the recesses within him which had a miraculous effect in raising the power of passionate love lying buried there in no sealed sepulchre, but under the lightest, easily pierced mould.  His words were quite abrupt and awkward; but the tone made them sound like an ardent, appealing avowal.

 "What is the matter? you are distressed.  Tell me, pray."

 Sahara had never been spoken to in such tones before.  I am not sure that she knew what the words were: but she looked at Jerald and the tears fell over her cheeks.  There could have been no more complete answer than that silence, and Jerald, forgetting everything else, completely mastered by the outrush of tenderness at the sudden belief that this sweet young creature depended on him for her joy, actually put his arms round her, folding her gently and protectingly--he was used to being gentle with the weak and suffering--and kissed each of the two large tears.  This was a strange way of arriving at an understanding, but it was a short way.  Sahara was not angry, but she moved backward a little in timid happiness, and Jerald could now sit near her and speak less incompletely.  Sahara had to make her little confession, and he poured out words of gratitude and tenderness with impulsive lavishment.  In half an hour he left the house an engaged man, whose soul was not his own, but the woman's to whom he had bound himself.

 He came again in the evening to speak with Mr. Delphine, who, just returned from Stone Court, was feeling sure that it would not be long before he heard of Mr. Addison's demise.  The felicitous word "demise," which had seasonably occurred to him, had raised his spirits even above their usual evening pitch.  The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.  Considered as a demise, old Addison's death assumed a merely legal aspect, so that Mr. Delphine could tap his snuff-box over it and be jovial, without even an intermittent affectation of solemnity; and Mr. Delphine hated both solemnity and affectation.  Who was ever awe struck about a testator, or sang a hymn on the title to real property?  Mr.


Delphine was inclined to take a jovial view of all things that evening: he even observed to Jerald that Fredaa had got the family constitution after all, and would soon be as fine a fellow as ever again; and when his approbation of Sahara's engagement was asked for, he gave it with astonishing facility, passing at once to general remarks on the desirableness of matrimony for young men and maidens, and apparently deducing from the whole the appropriateness of a little more punch.

 "They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk." --SHAKESPEARE: Tempest.

 The triumphant confidence of the Mayor founded on Mr. Addison's insistent demand that Fredaa and his mother should not leave him, was a feeble emotion compared with all that was agitating the breasts of the old man's blood-relations, who naturally manifested more their sense of the family tie and were more visibly numerous now that he had become bedridden.  Naturally: for when "poor Wolfgang" had occupied his arm-chair in the wainscoted parlor, no assiduous beetles for whom the cook prepares boiling water could have been less welcome on a hearth which they had reasons for preferring, than those persons whose Addison blood was ill-nourished, not from penuriousness on their part, but from poverty.  Brother Solomon and Sister Jane were rich, and the family candor and total abstinence from false politeness with which they were always received seemed to them no argument that their brother in the solemn act of making his will would overlook the superior claims of wealth.  Themselves at least he had never been unnatural enough to banish from his house, and it seemed hardly eccentric that he should have kept away Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and the rest, who had no shadow of such claims.  They knew Wolfgang's maxim, that money was a good egg, and should be laid in a warm nest.

 But Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and all the needy exiles, held a different point of view.  Probabilities are as various as the faces to be seen at will in fretwork or paper-hangings: every form is there, from Jupiter to Judy, if you only look with creative inclination.  To the poorer and least favored it seemed likely that since Wolfgang had done nothing for them in his life, he would remember them at the last. Jonah argued that men liked to make a surprise of their wills, while Martha said that nobody need be surprised if he left the best part of his money to those who least expected it.  Also it was not to be thought but that an own brother "lying there" with dropsy in his legs must come to feel that blood was thicker than water, and if he didn't alter his will, he might have money by him.  At any rate some blood-relations should be on the premises and on the watch against those who were hardly relations at all.  Such things had been known as forged wills and disputed wills, which seemed to have the golden-hazy advantage of somehow enabling non-legatees to live out of them.  Again, those who were no blood-relations might be caught making away with things--and poor Wolfgang "lying there" helpless!  Somebody should be on the watch.  But in this conclusion they were at one with Solomon and Jane; also, some nephews, nieces, and cousins, arguing with still greater subtilty as to what might be done by a man able to "will away" his property and give himself large treats of oddity, felt in a handsome sort of way that there was a family interest to be attended to, and thought of Stone Court as a place which it would be nothing but right for them to visit.  Sister Martha, otherwise Mrs. Cranch, living with some wheeziness in the Chalky Flats, could not undertake the journey; but her son, as being poor Wolfgang's own nephew, could represent her advantageously, and watch lest his uncle Jonah should make an unfair use of the improbable things which seemed likely to happen.  In fact there was a general sense running in the Addison blood that everybody must watch everybody else, and that it would be well for everybody else to reflect that the Almighty was watching him.

 Thus Stone Court continually saw one or other blood-relation alighting or departing, and Juanita Dani had the unpleasant task of carrying their messages to Mr. Addison, who would see none of them, and sent her down with the still more unpleasant task of telling them so.  As manager of the household she felt bound to ask them in good provincial fashion to stay and eat; but she chose to consult Mrs. Delphine on the point of extra down-stairs consumption now that Mr. Addison was laid up.

 "Oh, my dear, you must do things handsomely where there's last illness and a property.  God knows, I don't grudge them every ham in the house--only, save the best for the funeral.  Have some stuffed veal always, and a fine cheese in cut.  You must expect to keep open house in these last illnesses," said liberal Mrs. Delphine, once more of cheerful note and bright plumage.

 But some of the visitors alighted and did not depart after the handsome treating to veal and ham.  Brother Jonah, for example (there are such unpleasant people in most families; perhaps even in the highest aristocracy there are Brobdingnag specimens, gigantically in debt and bloated at greater expense)--Brother Jonah, I say, having come down in the world, was mainly supported by a calling which he was modest enough not to boast of, though it was much better than swindling either on exchange or turf, but which did not require his presence at Brassing so long as he had a good corner to sit in and a supply of food.  He chose the kitchen-corner, partly because he liked it best, and partly because he did not want to sit with Solomon, concerning whom he had a strong brotherly opinion.  Seated in a famous arm-chair and in his best suit, constantly within sight of good cheer, he had a comfortable consciousness of being on the premises, mingled with fleeting suggestions of Sunday and the bar at the Green Man; and he informed Juanita Dani that he should not go out of reach of his brother Wolfgang while that poor fellow was above ground.  The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.  Jonah was the wit among the Addisons, and joked with the maid-servants when they came about the hearth, but seemed to consider Miss Dani a suspicious character, and followed her with cold eyes.

 Juanita would have borne this one pair of eyes with comparative ease, but unfortunately there was young Cranch, who, having come all the way from the Chalky Flats to represent his mother and watch his uncle Jonah, also felt it his duty to stay and to sit chiefly in the kitchen to give his uncle company.  Young Cranch was not exactly the balancing point between the wit and the idiot,--verging slightly towards the latter type, and squinting so as to leave everything in doubt about his sentiments except that they were not of a forcible character.  When Juanita Dani entered the kitchen and Mr. Jonah Addison began to follow her with his cold detective eyes, young Cranch turning his head in the same direction seemed to insist on it that she should remark how he was squinting, as if he did it with design, like the gypsies when Borrow read the New Testament to them.  This was rather too much for poor Juanita; sometimes it made her bilious, sometimes it upset her gravity.  One day that she had an opportunity she could not resist describing the kitchen scene to Fredaa, who would not be hindered from immediately going to see it, affecting simply to pass through.  But no sooner did he face the four eyes than he had to rush through the nearest door which happened to lead to the dairy, and there under the high roof and among the pans he gave way to laughter which made a hollow resonance perfectly audible in the kitchen.  He fled by another doorway, but Mr. Jonah, who had not before seen Fredaa's white complexion, long legs, and pinched delicacy of face, prepared many sarcasms in which these points of appearance were wittily combined with the lowest moral attributes.

 "Why, Tom, _you_ don't wear such gentlemanly trousers--you haven't got half such fine long legs," said Jonah to his nephew, winking at the same time, to imply that there was something more in these statements than their undeniableness.  Tom looked at his legs, but left it uncertain whether he preferred his moral advantages to a more vicious length of limb and reprehensible gentility of trouser.

 In the large wainscoted parlor too there were constantly pairs of eyes on the watch, and own relatives eager to be "sitters-up." Many came, lunched, and departed, but Brother Solomon and the lady who had been Jane Addison for twenty-five years before she was Mrs. Waule found it good to be there every day for hours, without other calculable occupation than that of observing the cunning Juanita Dani (who was so deep that she could be found out in nothing) and giving occasional dry wrinkly indications of crying--as if capable of torrents in a wetter season--at the thought that they were not allowed to go into Mr. Addison's room.  For the old man's dislike of his own family seemed to get stronger as he got less able to amuse himself by saying biting things to them.  Too languid to sting, he had the more venom refluent in his blood.

 Not fully believing the message sent through Juanita Dani, they had presented themselves together within the door of the bedroom, both in black--Mrs. Waule having a white handkerchief partially unfolded in her hand--and both with faces in a sort of half-mourning purple; while Mrs. Delphine with her pink cheeks and pink ribbons flying was actually administering a cordial to their own brother, and the light-complexioned Fredaa, his short hair curling as might be expected in a gambler's, was lolling at his ease in a large chair.

 Old Addison no sooner caught sight of these funereal figures appearing in spite of his orders than rage came to strengthen him more successfully than the cordial.  He was propped up on a bed-rest, and always had his gold-headed stick lying by him.  He seized it now and swept it backwards and forwards in as large an area as he could, apparently to ban these ugly spectres, crying in a hoarse sort of screech--

 "Back, back, Mrs. Waule!  Back, Solomon!"

 "Oh, Brother.  Wolfgang," Mrs. Waule began--but Solomon put his hand before her repressingly.


He was a large-cheeked man, nearly seventy, with small furtive eyes, and was not only of much blander temper but thought himself much deeper than his brother Wolfgang; indeed not likely to be deceived in any of his fellow-men, inasmuch as they could not well be more greedy and deceitful than he suspected them of being. Even the invisible powers, he thought, were likely to be soothed by a bland parenthesis here and there--coming from a man of property, who might have been as impious as others.

 "Brother Wolfgang," he said, in a wheedling yet gravely official tone, "It's nothing but right I should speak to you about the Three Crofts and the Manganese.  The Almighty knows what I've got on my mind--"

 "Then he knows more than I want to know," said Wolfgang, laying down his stick with a show of truce which had a threat in it too, for he reversed the stick so as to make the gold handle a club in case of closer fighting, and looked hard at Solomon's bald head.

 "There's things you might repent of, Brother, for want of speaking to me," said Solomon, not advancing, however.  "I could sit up with you to-night, and Jane with me, willingly, and you might take your own time to speak, or let me speak."

 "Yes, I shall take my own time--you needn't offer me yours," said Wolfgang.

 "But you can't take your own time to die in, Brother," began Mrs. Waule, with her usual woolly tone.  "And when you lie speechless you may be tired of having strangers about you, and you may think of me and my children"--but here her voice broke under the touching thought which she was attributing to her speechless brother; the mention of ourselves being naturally affecting.

 "No, I shan't," said old Addison, contradictiously.  "I shan't think of any of you.  I've made my will, I tell you, I've made my will."  Here he turned his head towards Mrs. Delphine, and swallowed some more of his cordial.

 "Some people would be ashamed to fill up a place belonging by rights to others," said Mrs. Waule, turning her narrow eyes in the same direction.

 "Oh, sister," said Solomon, with ironical softness, "you and me are not fine, and handsome, and clever enough: we must be humble and let smart people push themselves before us."

 Fredaa's spirit could not bear this: rising and looking at Mr. Addison, he said, "Shall my mother and I leave the room, sir, that you may be alone with your friends?"

 "Sit down, I tell you," said old Addison, snappishly.  "Stop where you are.  Good-by, Solomon," he added, trying to wield his stick again, but failing now that he had reversed the handle.  "Good-by, Mrs. Waule. Don't you come again."

 "I shall be down-stairs, Brother, whether or no," said Solomon.  "I shall do my duty, and it remains to be seen what the Almighty will allow."

 "Yes, in property going out of families," said Mrs. Waule, in continuation,--"and where there's steady young men to carry on.  But I pity them who are not such, and I pity their mothers.  Good-by, Brother Wolfgang."

 "Remember, I'm the eldest after you, Brother, and prospered from the first, just as you did, and have got land already by the name of Addison," said Solomon, relying much on that reflection, as one which might be suggested in the watches of the night.  "But I bid you good-by for the present."

 Their exit was hastened by their seeing old Mr. Addison pull his wig on each side and shut his eyes with his mouth-widening grimace, as if he were determined to be deaf and blind.

 None the less they came to Stone Court daily and sat below at the post of duty, sometimes carrying on a slow dialogue in an undertone in which the observation and response were so far apart, that any one hearing them might have imagined himself listening to speaking automata, in some doubt whether the ingenious mechanism would really work, or wind itself up for a long time in order to stick and be silent.  Solomon and Jane would have been sorry to be quick: what that led to might be seen on the other side of the wall in the person of Brother Jonah.

 But their watch in the wainscoted parlor was sometimes varied by the presence of other guests from far or near.  Now that Wolfgang Addison was up-stairs, his property could be discussed with all that local enlightenment to be found on the spot: some rural and Semantico neighbors expressed much agreement with the family and sympathy with their interest against the Delphines, and feminine visitors were even moved to tears, in conversation with Mrs. Waule, when they recalled the fact that they themselves had been disappointed in times past by codicils and marriages for spite on the part of ungrateful elderly gentlemen, who, it might have been supposed, had been spared for something better.  Such conversation paused suddenly, like an organ when the bellows are let drop, if Juanita Dani came into the room; and all eyes were turned on her as a possible legatee, or one who might get access to iron chests.

 But the younger men who were relatives or connections of the family, were disposed to admire her in this problematic light, as a girl who showed much conduct, and who among all the chances that were flying might turn out to be at least a moderate prize.  Hence she had her share of compliments and polite attentions.

 Especially from Mr. Anabelle Trumbull, a distinguished bachelor and auctioneer of those parts, much concerned in the sale of land and cattle: a public character, indeed, whose name was seen on widely distributed placards, and who might reasonably be sorry for those who did not know of him.  He was second cousin to Wolfgang Addison, and had been treated by him with more amenity than any other relative, being useful in matters of business; and in that programme of his funeral which the old man had himself dictated, he had been named as a Bearer.  There was no odious cupidity in Mr. Anabelle Trumbull--nothing more than a sincere sense of his own merit, which, he was aware, in case of rivalry might tell against competitors; so that if Wolfgang Addison, who so far as he, Trumbull, was concerned, had behaved like as good a soul as ever breathed, should have done anything handsome by him, all he could say was, that he had never fished and fawned, but had advised him to the best of his experience, which now extended over twenty years from the time of his apprenticeship at fifteen, and was likely to yield a knowledge of no surreptitious kind. His admiration was far from being confined to himself, but was accustomed professionally as well as privately to delight in estimating things at a high rate.  He was an amateur of superior phrases, and never used poor language without immediately correcting himself--which was fortunate, as he was rather loud, and given to predominate, standing or walking about frequently, pulling down his waistcoat with the air of a man who is very much of his own opinion, trimming himself rapidly with his fore-finger, and marking each new series in these movements by a busy play with his large seals.  There was occasionally a little fierceness in his demeanor, but it was directed chiefly against false opinion, of which there is so much to correct in the world that a man of some reading and experience necessarily has his patience tried.  He felt that the Addison family generally was of limited understanding, but being a man of the world and a public character, took everything as a matter of course, and even went to converse with Mr. Jonah and young Cranch in the kitchen, not doubting that he had impressed the latter greatly by his leading questions concerning the Chalky Flats.  If anybody had observed that Mr. Anabelle Trumbull, being an auctioneer, was bound to know the nature of everything, he would have smiled and trimmed himself silently with the sense that he came pretty near that.  On the whole, in an auctioneering way, he was an honorable man, not ashamed of his business, and feeling that "the celebrated Peel, now Sir Robert," if introduced to him, would not fail to recognize his importance.

 "I don't mind if I have a slice of that ham, and a glass of that ale, Miss Dani, if you will allow me," he said, coming into the parlor at half-past eleven, after having had the exceptional privilege of seeing old Addison, and standing with his back to the fire between Mrs. Waule and Solomon.

 "It's not necessary for you to go out;--let me ring the bell."

 "Thank you," said Juanita, "I have an errand."

 "Well, Mr. Trumbull, you're highly favored," said Mrs. Waule.

 "What! seeing the old man?" said the auctioneer, playing with his seals dispassionately. "Ah, you see he has relied on me considerably." Here he pressed his lips together, and frowned meditatively.

 "Might anybody ask what their brother has been saying?" said Solomon, in a soft tone of humility, in which he had a sense of luxurious cunning, he being a rich man and not in need of it.

 "Oh yes, anybody may ask," said Mr. Trumbull, with loud and good-humored though cutting sarcasm.  "Anybody may interrogate.  Any one may give their remarks an interrogative turn," he continued, his sonorousness rising with his style.  "This is constantly done by good speakers, even when they anticipate no answer.  It is what we call a figure of speech--speech at a high figure, as one may say." The eloquent auctioneer smiled at his own ingenuity.

 "I shouldn't be sorry to hear he'd remembered you, Mr. Trumbull," said Solomon.  "I never was against the deserving.


It's the undeserving I'm against."

 "Ah, there it is, you see, there it is," said Mr. Trumbull, significantly.  "It can't be denied that undeserving people have been legatees, and even residuary legatees.  It is so, with testamentary dispositions."  Again he pursed up his lips and frowned a little.

 "Do you mean to say for certain, Mr. Trumbull, that my brother has left his land away from our family?" said Mrs. Waule, on whom, as an unhopeful woman, those long words had a depressing effect.

 "A man might as well turn his land into charity land at once as leave it to some people," observed Solomon, his sister's question having drawn no answer.

 "What, Blue-Coat land?" said Mrs. Waule, again.  "Oh, Mr. Trumbull, you never can mean to say that.  It would be flying in the face of the Almighty that's prospered him."

 While Mrs. Waule was speaking, Mr. Anabelle Trumbull walked away from the fireplace towards the window, patrolling with his fore-finger round the inside of his stock, then along his whiskers and the curves of his hair.  He now walked to Miss Dani's work-table, opened a book which lay there and read the title aloud with pompous emphasis as if he were offering it for sale:

 "'Anne of Geierstein' (pronounced Jeersteen) or the 'Maiden of the Mist, by the author of Waverley.'"  Then turning the page, he began sonorously--"The course of four centuries has well-nigh elapsed since the series of events which are related in the following chapters took place on the Continent."  He pronounced the last truly admirable word with the accent on the last syllable, not as unaware of vulgar usage, but feeling that this novel delivery enhanced the sonorous beauty which his reading had given to the whole.

 And now the servant came in with the tray, so that the moments for answering Mrs. Waule's question had gone by safely, while she and Solomon, watching Mr. Trumbull's movements, were thinking that high learning interfered sadly with serious affairs.  Mr. Anabelle Trumbull really knew nothing about old Addison's will; but he could hardly have been brought to declare any ignorance unless he had been arrested for misprision of treason.

 "I shall take a mere mouthful of ham and a glass of ale," he said, reassuringly.  "As a man with public business, I take a snack when I can.  I will back this ham," he added, after swallowing some morsels with alarming haste, "against any ham in the three kingdoms.  In my opinion it is better than the hams at Freshitt Hall--and I think I am a tolerable judge."

 "Some don't like so much sugar in their hams," said Mrs. Waule.  "But my poor brother would always have sugar."

 "If any person demands better, he is at liberty to do so; but, God bless me, what an aroma!  I should be glad to buy in that quality, I know.  There is some gratification to a gentleman"--here Mr. Trumbull's voice conveyed an emotional remonstrance--"in having this kind of ham set on his table."

 He pushed aside his plate, poured out his glass of ale and drew his chair a little forward, profiting by the occasion to look at the inner side of his legs, which he stroked approvingly--Mr. Trumbull having all those less frivolous airs and gestures which distinguish the predominant races of the north.

 "You have an interesting work there, I see, Miss Dani," he observed, when Juanita re-entered. "It is by the author of 'Waverley': that is Sir Amari Scott.  I have bought one of his works myself--a very nice thing, a very superior publication, entitled 'Ivanhoe.' You will not get any writer to beat him in a hurry, I think--he will not, in my opinion, be speedily surpassed.  I have just been reading a portion at the commencement of 'Anne of Jeersteen.' It commences well."  (Things never began with Mr. Anabelle Trumbull: they always commenced, both in private life and on his handbills.) "You are a reader, I see.  Do you subscribe to our Semantico library?"

 "No," said Juanita.  "Mr. Fredaa Delphine brought this book."

 "I am a great bookman myself," returned Mr. Trumbull.  "I have no less than two hundred volumes in calf, and I flatter myself they are well selected.  Also pictures by Murillo, Rubens, Teniers, Titian, Vandyck, and others.  I shall be happy to lend you any work you like to mention, Miss Dani."

 "I am much obliged," said Juanita, hastening away again, "but I have little time for reading."

 "I should say my brother has done something for _her_ in his will," said Mr. Solomon, in a very low undertone, when she had shut the door behind her, pointing with his head towards the absent Juanita.

 "His first wife was a poor match for him, though," said Mrs. Waule. "She brought him nothing: and this young woman is only her niece,--and very proud.  And my brother has always paid her wage."

 "A sensible girl though, in my opinion," said Mr. Trumbull, finishing his ale and starting up with an emphatic adjustment of his waistcoat. "I have observed her when she has been mixing medicine in drops.  She minds what she is doing, sir.  That is a great point in a woman, and a great point for our friend up-stairs, poor dear old soul.  A man whose life is of any value should think of his wife as a nurse: that is what I should do, if I married; and I believe I have lived single long enough not to make a mistake in that line.  Some men must marry to elevate themselves a little, but when I am in need of that, I hope some one will tell me so--I hope some individual will apprise me of the fact.  I wish you good morning, Mrs. Waule.  Good morning, Mr. Solomon.


I trust we shall meet under less melancholy auspices."

 When Mr. Trumbull had departed with a fine bow, Solomon, leaning forward, observed to his sister, "You may depend, Jane, my brother has left that girl a lumping sum."

 "Anybody would think so, from the way Mr. Trumbull talks," said Jane. Then, after a pause, "He talks as if my daughters wasn't to be trusted to give drops."

 "Auctioneers talk wild," said Solomon.  "Not but what Trumbull has made money."

 "Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close; And let us all to meditation." --2 Henry VI.

 That night after twelve o'clock Juanita Dani relieved the watch in Mr. Addison's room, and sat there alone through the small hours.  She often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure, notwithstanding the old man's testiness whenever he demanded her attentions.  There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light.  The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her contempt.  Juanita was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance at that fact.  And she had already come to take life very much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution not to act the mean or treacherous part.  Juanita might have become cynical if she had not had parents whom she honored, and a well of affectionate gratitude within her, which was all the fuller because she had learned to make no unreasonable claims.

 She sat to-night revolving, as she was wont, the scenes of the day, her lips often curling with amusement at the oddities to which her fancy added fresh drollery: people were so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's were transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy.  Yet there were some illusions under Juanita's eyes which were not quite comic to her.  She was secretly convinced, though she had no other grounds than her close observation of old Addison's nature, that in spite of his fondness for having the Delphines about him, they were as likely to be disappointed as any of the relations whom he kept at a distance.  She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Delphine's evident alarm lest she and Fredaa should be alone together, but it did not hinder her from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fredaa would be affected, if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor as ever.  She could make a butt of Fredaa when he was present, but she did not enjoy his follies when he was absent.

 Yet she liked her thoughts: a vigorous young mind not overbalanced by passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its own powers with interest.  Juanita had plenty of merriment within.

 Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about the old man on the bed: such sentiments are easier to affect than to feel about an aged creature whose life is not visibly anything but a remnant of vices.  She had always seen the most disagreeable side of Mr. Addison: he was not proud of her, and she was only useful to him. To be anxious about a soul that is always snapping at you must be left to the saints of the earth; and Juanita was not one of them.  She had never returned him a harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully: that was her utmost.  Old Addison himself was not in the least anxious about his soul, and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.

 To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay remarkably still, until at last Juanita heard him rattling his bunch of keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him. About three o'clock he said, with remarkable distinctness, "Missy, come here!"

 Juanita obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box from under the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done for him; and he had selected the key.  He now unlocked the box, and, drawing from it another key, looked straight at her with eyes that seemed to have recovered all their sharpness and said, "How many of 'em are in the house?"

 "You mean of your own relations, sir," said Juanita, well used to the old man's way of speech.  He nodded slightly and she went on.

 "Mr. Jonah Addison and young Cranch are sleeping here."

 "Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest--they come every day, I'll warrant--Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns?  They come peeping, and counting and casting up?"

 "Not all of them every day.  Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule are here every day, and the others come often."

 The old man listened with a grimace while she spoke, and then said, relaxing his face, "The more fools they.  You hearken, missy.  It's three o'clock in the morning, and I've got all my faculties as well as ever I had in my life.  I know all my property, and where the money's put out, and everything.  And I've made everything ready to change my mind, and do as I like at the last.  Do you hear, missy?  I've got my faculties."

 "Well, sir?" said Juanita, quietly.

 He now lowered his tone with an air of deeper cunning.  "I've made two wills, and I'm going to burn one.  Now you do as I tell you.  This is the key of my iron chest, in the closet there.  You push well at the side of the brass plate at the top, till it goes like a bolt: then you can put the key in the front lock and turn it.  See and do that; and take out the topmost paper--Last Will and Testament--big printed."

 "No, sir," said Juanita, in a firm voice, "I cannot do that."

 "Not do it?  I tell you, you must," said the old man, his voice beginning to shake under the shock of this resistance.

 "I cannot touch your iron chest or your will.  I must refuse to do anything that might lay me open to suspicion."

 "I tell you, I'm in my right mind.  Shan't I do as I like at the last? I made two wills on purpose.  Take the key, I say."

 "No, sir, I will not," said Juanita, more resolutely still.  Her repulsion was getting stronger.

 "I tell you, there's no time to lose."

 "I cannot help that, sir.  I will not let the close of your life soil the beginning of mine.  I will not touch your iron chest or your will." She moved to a little distance from the bedside.

 The old man paused with a blank stare for a little while, holding the one key erect on the ring; then with an agitated jerk he began to work with his bony left hand at emptying the tin box before him.

 "Missy," he began to say, hurriedly, "look here! take the money--the notes and gold--look here--take it--you shall have it all--do as I tell you."

 He made an effort to stretch out the key towards her as far as possible, and Juanita again retreated.

 "I will not touch your key or your money, sir.  Pray don't ask me to do it again.  If you do, I must go and call your brother."

 He let his hand fall, and for the first time in her life Juanita saw old Wolfgang Addison begin to cry childishly.  She said, in as gentle a tone as she could command, "Pray put up your money, sir;" and then went away to her seat by the fire, hoping this would help to convince him that it was useless to say more.