Husks

Lucy expostulated here. "But, mother, this is the first of November."

"I know that, my dear; but the ceremony will not come off until Christmas, and much can be done in six weeks for your sister—your work is so forward. Then, again, 'tisn't as if Sarah couldn't get everything she needs right here, if she shouldn't have enough. It will be tremendously expensive—awful, in fact; but we must make sacrifices. We can live economical after you're married and gone, and save enough to meet the bills."

"If you please, madam, I prefer a plain outfit and no debts," said Sarah's most abrupt tones.

"If you please, my dear, I understand my affairs, and mean to do as I think proper," retorted the no less strong-willed mother.

Sarah was not cowed. "And as to the time you set, I cannot agree to it. I presume that in this matter I have some voice. I say six months instead of six weeks!"

"Very well, my love." Mrs. Hunt went on polishing a tumbler with her napkin. She always washed her silver and glass herself. "You must settle that with your father and Mr. Hammond. They are crazy for this plan. They were talking to me about it last night, and I told them that I would engage to have everything ready in time; but you must be consulted. I never saw your father more set upon anything. He said to me, private, that he did hope that you wouldn't raise any squeamish objections, and upset their arrangements."

Mrs. Hunt took up a handful of spoons as composedly as if she had never stretched her conscience in her life.

Sarah's head drooped upon the table. She was very, very miserable. In her morbid state of mind she did not dream of questioning the accuracy of her mother's assertion. That a marriageable single daughter was a burden to one parent, she knew but too well; that to this able financier the prospect of getting two out of the way, with the eclat of a double ceremony that should cost no more than Lucy's nuptials would have done, was a stupendous temptation, she also perceived. But that the father whom she so loved; whose sickbed she had tended so faithfully; whose lonely hours it was her province and delight to solace—that he should acquiesce—nay more, rejoice in this indelicate haste to get rid of her, was a cruel stab.

"Very well," she said, raising an ashy face. "Let it be as you say. The sooner it is over, the better."

This clause was unheeded by her mother and sister. Had they heard it, they might have understood it as little as they did the composure with which she joined in the work which was begun, without an hour's delay. In this trying juncture, Mrs. Hunt came out in all her strength. Her sewing machine (she was one of the earliest purchasers of these inestimable time, labor, and money savers) went night and day; she shopped largely and judiciously, giving orders to tradespeople with the air of a princess; "Jewed" her butcher; watched her pantry, and served up poorer dinners than ever. Jeannie's winter outfit was ingeniously contrived from her sister's cast-off wardrobe; Mr. Hunt's and the boys' shirts and socks were patched and darned until but a trifling quantity of the original material remained; and this pearl of mothers had her two-year-old cloak and last season's hat "done over" for this year's wear.

Foremost among the visitors to the Hunts, after this latest engagement was made public, was Mrs. Marlow, the wife of Mr. Hammond's benefactor and partner. Sarah was out when she called; so Mrs. Hunt received her, and discovering very soon that in spite of her husband's wealth and her splendid establishment, she was not, as Mrs. Hunt phrased it to her daughters, "one mite proud, and thought the world and all of Lewis"—the mother opened her heart to her so freely, with regard to the prospective weddings and her material anxieties, that Mrs. Marlow was emboldened to introduce a subject which had taken hold of her thoughts so soon as she heard from Mr. Hammond of his expected marriage.

She had a daughter, resident for the winter in Paris, whose taste in female attire was unquestionable, and her good-nature as praiseworthy. If Miss Sarah Hunt would prepare a memorandum of such articles as she would like to have selected in that emporium of fashion, she would promise, for her daughter, that they should be forwarded in time for "the occasion."

"Some friends of mine, now abroad, have kindly offered to bring me over any quantity of fine dresses with their baggage," said the complaisant old lady; "and, as I do not need their services for myself, I can smuggle in whatever your daughter may order. You would be surprised at the difference in prices here and there—to say nothing of the superior excellence and variety of the assortment from which one can choose. My friends will return early in December. Therefore, should you like this arrangement, I ought to have the list and write my letters to-morrow."

Energetic, fussy, snobbish Mrs. Hunt! She stood an inch taller in her shoes at the imagination of this climax to the glory of the dual ceremony. "Trousseau ordered directly from Paris!" She seemed already to hear the envious and admiring buzz of her set; saw herself the most blessed of women—her daughters the brides of the season. She would order for Lucy, also; for the longer the list the more importance would the future Mrs. Hammond acquire in the sight of her husband's friends. They could not know that it was not for her alone. Then, as Mrs. Marlow intimated, it would be a saving. Here, like a cold shower-bath, came the agonizing query, "Where was the money to come from?" It would never do to run in debt to such people as the Marlows. If they were hard-pressed shopkeepers, who needed the money, it would be another thing. No! the cash in hand, or its representative, must accompany the memorandum.

Sarah was secretly pleased at this obstacle, for she despised the ostentation and extravagance going on in their hungry household. Strive as she did, with wicked pertinacity, to conform herself to the world's code, there was as yet too much of the ancient and better leaven left to permit more than an outward obedience to the dictates of customs so irrational and tyrannical.

That very evening there arrived a letter that settled the question, and inflated Mrs. Hunt's collapsed spirits to an expansion hitherto unequalled. It was from Aunt Sarah to her namesake niece; a guileless, fervent expression of good wishes and unabated affection, and a request from "husband" and herself that she would accept the enclosure as a mark of that hopeful regard.

"Since our daughters died"—wrote this true and gentle mother—"we have always intended to give you just exactly what we would have done one of them, as a wedding present—as you were named for me, and I had nursed you before your mother ever did, and you seemed in some way to belong to us. But since you paid us a visit we have felt nearer to you than ever, and seeing that the Lord has prospered us in this world's goods, we have made up our minds to give you a double portion, dear, what both of our girls would have had, if it had pleased our Father to spare them to have homes of their own upon earth. Living is high in New York, but we have calculated that what we send will buy your wedding clothes and furnish your house."

The enclosed gift, to Sarah's astonishment, was a check upon a city bank for a thousand dollars!

"Was there ever such a child for luck?" exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, clapping her hands. "What a fortunate thing we sent you down there when we did! That was one of my plans, you remember, Mr. H. Really, Lucy, our little Sarah understands how to play her cards, after all. I never did you justice, my dear daughter. I ain't ashamed to confess it. This puts all straight, and is real handsome in sister Benson—more than I expected. Go to work right away upon your list, girls! We'll have to set up the best part of the night to get it ready. Ah, well! this comes of putting one's trust in Providence and going ahead!"

Sarah thought, with aching heart and moistened eyes, of Aunt Sarah's mind-pictures of the neat apparel and snug dwelling she deemed proper for a young couple just beginning housekeeping, and rebelled at this waste, this frivolous expenditure of her love-portion. Mr. Hunt sided with her, so far as to urge the propriety of her doing as she pleased with what was her exclusive property; but, as in a majority of former altercations, their arguments and powers of endurance were no match for the determination and mind of the real head of the family. With a sigh of pain, disgust, and despair, Mr. Hunt succumbed, and, deserted by her ally, Sarah contended but a short time longer ere she yielded up the cause of the combat to the indomitable victress.

CHAPTER X.

The bridal day came; frosty and clear, dazzlingly bright, by reason of the reflection from the snow, which lay deep and firm upon the ground.

"What a delightful novelty this is, coming to a wedding in a sleigh!" lisped one of the triad of bridesmaids, who were to do double duty for the sisters. "How very gay it makes one to hear the bells outside! Have they come, Vic.?"

Victoria, whose marriage was but one week off, was, true to instinct and habit, on the lookout behind the friendly curtain.

She nodded. "Yes—both of them, but not together. What a magnificent sleigh that is of the Marlows! They brought Mr. Hammond. See the bridegrooms shake hands on the sidewalk! That looks so sweet and brotherly! They will be up here almost directly, I suppose."

The attendants immediately began to shake out their robes and stroke their white gloves. They were collected in the sitting-room so often mentioned, and the sisters were also present. In accordance with the ridiculous custom of very parvenu modern marriages, although the ceremony was to take place precisely at twelve o'clock, daylight was carefully excluded from the parlors below, gas made its sickly substitute, and the whole company was in full evening costume.

"Am I all right?" inquired Lucy, with a cautious wave of her flowing veil. "Look at me, Vic.!"

"You are perfect, my dearest!" replied the devoted parasite. "How I admire your beautiful self-possession! And as for you, Sarah, your calmness is wonderful! I fear that I should be terribly agitated"—blushing, and casting a meaning smile at Lucy.

Sarah's statuesque repose was broken by a ray of scorn from the eye, and a slight disdainful smile. Whatever were the feelings working beneath her marble mask, she was not reduced to the depth of wretchedness that would humble her to accept the insolent pity couched under the pretended praise. She vouchsafed no other reply; but remained standing a little apart from the rest; her gloved hands crossed carelessly before her; her gaze bent downwards; her whole posture that of one who neither waited, nor hoped, nor feared.

"Who would have thought that she could be made such an elegant-looking woman?" whispered one of the bridesmaids aside to another.

"She has actually a high-bred air! I never imagined it was in her. So much for a Parisian toilette!"

"I am so much afraid that I shall lose my color when we enter the room," said Lucy, surveying her pink cheeks in the mirror. "They say it is so trying to the nerves, and I am odious when I am pale."

"Never fear, my sweetest. It is more likely that the unavoidable excitement will improve your complexion. There they are!" returned Victoria, hurriedly, and—unconsciously, no doubt—the three attendants and one of the principals in the forthcoming transaction, "struck an attitude," as the sound of footsteps approached the door.

Lucy had only time for a whisper—a last injunction—to her faithful crony. "Remember to see that my veil and dress hang right when we get downstairs." And the masculine portion of the procession marched in in order.

Sarah did not look up. She bent her head as the formal exchange of salutations was executed, and yielded her hand to the person who took it in his warm pressure, and then transferred it to his arm. It was one of the freaks, thus denominated by her acquaintances, in which she had been indulged, that she desired to have her marriage ceremony precede her sister's. She assigned what Lucy at least considered a sufficient reason for this caprice.

"Nobody will care to look at me after you stand aside, Lucy. Keep the best wine until the last. My only chance of getting an approving glance lies in going in before you attract and fix the public gaze."

She had her way. A limited number of select friends were admitted to behold "the ceremony;" yet the parlors were comfortably filled, excepting in the magical semicircle described by an invisible line, in the center of which stood the clergyman in his robes.

Still dull and calm, Sarah went through the brief role that fell to her share. "Behaved charmingly," was the unanimous verdict of the beholders, and surprised other people, as well as the complimentary bridesmaid, by her thoroughbred air and Parisian toilette. Without the pause of a second, so perfect was the drill of the performers, the wedded pair stepped aside, and made way for the second happy couple. Lucy's solicitude on the score of her complexion was needless. As the solemn words were commenced, a rosy blush flickered up to its appointed resting-place—another and another—until, when Philip released her to the congratulatory throng, she was the most enchanting type of a radiant Hebe that poet ever sang, or painter burned to immortalize on canvas.

Philip stood beside her and sustained his portion of the hand-shaking and felicitations until the press diminished, then stepped hastily over to where Hammond and his bride were undergoing a similar martyrdom. Until this moment Sarah had not looked at, or spoken to him—had never met him face to face since their parting in the summer at Aunt Sarah's. Now, not aware who it was that approached her, she raised her eyes with the serious dignity with which she had received all other salutations, and met his downward gaze—full of warm and honest feeling.

"Sister!" he said, and in brotherly fondness he bent towards her, and left a kiss upon her mouth.

A hot glow, the lurid red of offended modesty or self-convicted guilt, overspread her face; the lips parted, quivered, and closed tightly, after an ineffectual effort to articulate; the room swam around her, and Mr. Hammond caught her just in time to save her from falling. It was Nature's vengeful reaction for the long and unnatural strain upon her energies. She did not faint entirely away, although several moments elapsed before she regained perfect consciousness of her situation and surrounding objects. She had been placed in an easy-chair; her head rested against her father's shoulder, and on the other side stood Lewis, almost as pale as herself, holding a glass of wine to her lips. Around her were grouped her mother, Lucy, and Philip. The guests had withdrawn politely to the background, and maintained a respectful silence.

"What have I betrayed?" was her first coherent reflection; and, with an instinctive perception of the quarter where such disclosures would do most harm, her eye turned with a sort of appealing terror to Lewis. His heart leaped at the movement, revealing, as he fancied it did, dependence upon his strength, recognition of his right to be with and nearest to her.

"You are better," he said, with a moved tenderness he could not and cared not to restrain.

The words, the manner, were an inexpressible relief to her fears, and trying to return his smile, she would have arisen but for her father's interposition.

"Sit still," he advised. "Mrs. Hunt, Lucy, Mr. Benson, will you entertain our friends? She will be all right in a little while, Mr. Hammond."

"Tableaux vivants!" said Lucy's soft, rich voice, as she advanced towards the reassured guests. "This is a part of the performance not set down in the programme. Quite theatrical, was it not?"

It is very possible that Philip Benson would not have regarded this as an apropos or refined witticism, had any one else been the speaker; but as the round, liquid tones rolled it forth, and her delicious laugh led off the instant revival of mirth and badinage, he marvelled at her consummate tact, her happy play of fancy (!), and returned devout thanks to the stars that had bestowed upon him this prodigy of grace, wit, and beauty. Sarah rallied speedily; and, contrary to the advice of her father and husband, maintained her post in the drawing-room during all the reception, which continued from half-past twelve to half-past two.

It was a gay and shifting scene—a sparkling, murmuring tide, that ebbed and flowed to and from the quartette who formed the attractive power. Silks, laces, velvets, furs, and diamonds; faces young, old, and middle-aged; handsome, fair, and homely; all decked in the same conventional holiday smile; bodies tall and short, executing every variety of bow and courtesy; voices sweet, sharp, and guttural, uttering the senseless formula of congratulation—these were Sarah's impressions of the tedious ceremonial. Restored to her rigid composure, she too bowed and spoke the word or sentence custom exacted—an emotionless automaton in seeming, while Lucy's matchless inflections lent interest and beauty to the like nothings, as she rehearsed them in her turn; and Philip Benson, having no solicitude for his bride's health or ability to endure the fatigue, was collected enough to compare the two, and, while exulting in his selection, to commiserate the proprietor of the colder and less gifted sister.

At last the trial was over; the hospitable mansion was closed; the parlors deserted; the preparation for travelling hurried through; and the daughters went forth from their girlhood's home. Philip had cordially invited Sarah and Lewis, by letter, to accompany Lucy and himself to Georgia; but Sarah would not hear of it, and Lewis, while he left the decision to her, was not sorry that she preferred to journey instead with him alone. It was too cold to go northward, and the Hammond's now proposed to proceed with the others as far as Baltimore, there to diverge upon a Western and Southern tour, which was to occupy three weeks, perhaps four.

CHAPTER XI.

During the month preceding his marriage, Lewis Hammond had spent much time and many thoughts in providing and furnishing a house for his wife. His coadjutor in this labor of love was not, as one might have expected, Mrs. Hunt, but his early friend, Mrs. Marlow. His omission of his future mother-in-law, in his committee of consultation, he explained to her by representing the number of duties already pressing upon her, and his unwillingness to add aught to their weight. But when both girls were married and gone, and the work of "getting to rights" was all over, this indefatigable woman paid Mrs. Marlow a visit, and offered her assistance in completing the arrangements for the young housekeepers.

"There is nothing for us to do," said Mrs. Marlow. "Lewis attended to the purchase of everything before leaving; and the orders are all in the hands of a competent upholsterer whom he has employed, as is also the key of the house. I offered to have the house-cleaning done, but Lewis refused to let me help him even in this. He is very methodical, and rather strict in some of his ideas. When the premises are pronounced ready for the occupancy of the future residents, you and I will play inspectors, and find as much fault as we can."

Mrs. Hunt went around by the house on her way home. It was new and handsome, a brown stone front, with stone balconies and balustrades; but three stories high, it was true, yet of ample width and pitch of ceiling, and—as she discovered by skirting the square—at least three rooms deep all the way up. The location was unobjectionable; not more than four blocks from the paternal residence, and in a wider street. On the whole, she had no fault to find, provided Mr. Hammond had furnished it in such style as she would have recommended. She had her fears lest his sober taste in other respects should extend to these matters, and hinted something of the kind to her husband.

"I have confidence in Mr. Hammond to believe that he will allow his wife every indulgence compatible with his means," was the reply.

Mr. Hunt did not deem it obligatory upon him to state that his son-in-law had conferred with him upon numerous questions pertaining to Sarah's likes and probable wishes; that he had examined and approved of the entire collection of furniture, etc., selected for her use. Why should he, how could he, without engendering in his wife's bosom the suspicion that he had accounted to him for Lewis' choice of the father as an adviser? namely, that the newly-made husband had gained a pretty correct estimate of this managing lady's character, her penny-wise and pound-foolish policy, and intended to inaugurate altogether a different one in his house.

Regardless of Mrs. Marlow's polite insinuation that their room was preferable to their company until all things should be in readiness for inspection, the ambitious mother made sundry visits to the premises while they were being fitted up, and delivered herself of divers suggestions and recommendations, which fell like sand on a rock upon the presiding man of business.

On the day appointed for the tourists' return, Mrs. Marlow's carriage drew up at Mr. Hunt's door, by appointment, to take the mistress of the house upon the proposed visit of criticism of her daughter's establishment. Mrs. Marlow was in a sunny mood, and indisposed to censure, as was evinced by ejaculations of pleasure at the general effect of each apartment as they entered, and praise of its component parts. Mrs. Hunt was not so undiscriminating. The millionaire's wife must not imagine that she was dazzled by any show of elegance, or that she was overjoyed at the prospect of her child's having so beautiful and commodious a home.

"The everlasting oak and green!" she uttered, as they reached the dining-room. "It is a pity Mr. Hammond did not select walnut and crimson instead! Green is very unbecoming to Sarah."

"Then we must impress upon her the importance of cultivating healthy roses in her cheeks, and wearing bright warm colors. This combination—green and oak—is pretty and serviceable, I think. The table is very neatly set, Mary," continued Mrs. Marlow, kindly, to the tidy serving-maid. "Keep an eye on the silver, my good girl, until your mistress comes. Mrs. Hunt, shall we peep into the china closets before we go to the kitchen? I have taken the liberty, at Lewis' request, of offering to your daughter the service of a couple of my protegees, excellent servants, who lived for years with one of my own children—Mrs. Morland, now in Paris. They are honest, willing, and, I think, competent. The man-servant, if Lewis sees fit to keep one, he must procure himself."

The china, glass, and pantries were in capital order; the kitchen well stocked, light, and clean, and dinner over the fire.

"You will be punctual to the minute, Katy, please!" was the warning here. "Mr. Hammond is particular in the matter of time."

"And you will see that my daughter has a cup of clear, strong coffee!" ordered Mrs. Hunt, magisterially. "She is delicate, and accustomed to the very best of cookery." And, having demonstrated her importance and superior housewifery to the round-eyed cook, she swept out.

To an unprejudiced eye, the whole establishment was without a flaw; and, undisturbed by the captious objections of her companion in the survey, Mrs. Marlow saw and judged for herself, and carried home with her a most pleasing imagination of Lewis' gratification, and Sarah's delighted surprise with the scene that was to close their way of cold and weariness.

By Mr. Hammond's expressed desire to his father-in-law, there was no one except the domestics in the house when they arrived. As the carriage stopped, the listening maid opened the door, and a stream of radiance shot into the misty night across the wet pavement upon the two figures that stepped from the conveyance.

"In happy homes he sees the light." The mental quotation brought back to Sarah the vision of that lonely evening, ten months before, when she had moaned it in her dreary twilight musings at the window of her little room. "Dreary then, hopeless now!" and with this voiceless sigh, she crossed the threshold of her destined abode. With a kindly greeting to the servants in the hall; Lewis hurried his wife onward, past the parlor doors, into a library sitting-room, back of the show apartments, warm and bright, smiling a very home welcome.

Here he placed her in a deep cushioned chair, and, pressing her hands in his, kissed her, with a heartfelt—"May you be very happy in our home, dear wife!"

"Thank you!" she replied. "It is pleasant here, and you are too kind."

"That is impossible where you are concerned. Sit here, while I see to the trunks. When they are carried upstairs, you can go to your room. Throw off your hat and cloak."

He was very thoughtful of her comfort—too thoughtful, because his love made him watchful of her every look, word, and gesture. She was glad of the brief respite from this vigilance, that allowed her to bury her face in her hands and groan aloud. She had no heart to look around her cage. No doubt it was luxurious; the bars softly and richly lined; the various arrangements the best of their kind; still, it was nothing but a cage—a prison, from which death only could release her.

The trim maid came for her wrappings, and directly afterwards Lewis, to take her upstairs.

"Not a very elaborate toilet, dear," he said, as he left her for his dressing-room. "You will see no one this evening but our father and mother, and they will remember that you have been travelling all day."

When she was ready, it lacked still a quarter of an hour of dinner-time, and she acceded to Lewis' proposal that they should go over their dwelling. By his order, there were lights in every room. The graceful furniture, the well-contrasted hues of the soft carpets, the curtains and pictures showed to fine advantage. Every thing was in place, from cellar to attic; not a symptom of parsimony or cheapness in the whole; and all betokened, besides excellent judgment, such conformity to, or unison with her taste, that Sarah, with all her heaviness of heart, was pleased. She was touched too with gratitude or remorse; for, when they were back in the cozy sitting-room, she laid her hand timidly on that of her husband, and said, falteringly:

"I do not deserve that you should take so much pains to gratify me, Mr. Hammond."

Over Lewis' face there flushed one of the rare smiles that made him positively handsome while they lasted. He grasped the shrinking fingers firmly, and drew his wife close to his side.

"Shall I tell you how to repay me for all that I have done, or ever can do, to promote your ease and enjoyment?"

"If you please." But her heart sank, as she foresaw some demands upon a love that had never existed—a treasure that, to him, was sealed and empty; yet whose poverty she dared not avow.

"Call me 'Lewis,' now that we are at home, dear. I cannot realize that you are indeed all mine—that our lives are one and the same, while you continue that very proper 'Mr. Hammond.'"

"It comes more naturally to my tongue, and don't you think it more respectful than—than—the other?"

"I ask no such form of respect from you. I do not fear lest you should fail to 'honor and obey' me, you little paragon of duty! Believe me, dearest, I fully understand and reverence the modest reserve that has not yet ceased to be shyness, in the expression of your sentiments towards me. You are not demonstrative by nature. Neither am I. But since you are my other self, and there is no living being nearer to you than myself, ought we not to overcome this propensity to, or custom of, locking up our feelings in our own breasts? Let me begin by a confession of one uncomfortable complaint, under which I have labored ever since our engagement. Do you know, darling, that I absolutely hunger—I cannot give any other name to the longing—I hunger and thirst to hear you say that you love me! Do you remember that you have never told me in so many words what you have given me other good reasons for believing? I need but one thing this evening to fill my cup with purest content. It is to have you say—openly, fearlessly, as my wife has a right to do—'Lewis, I love you!'"

"It need be a source of no unhappiness to be married to a man whom one does not love, provided he is kind and generous!" say match-makers and worldly-wise mothers. Perhaps not, after one's conscience is seared in callosity by perjuries, and her forehead grown bold as brass; but the neophyte in the laudable work of adaptation to such circumstances will trip in her words and color awkwardly while acquiring this enviable hardihood.

Sarah's head fell, and her face was stained with blushes. One wild impulse was to throw herself at the feet of him whom she had wronged so foully, and, confessing her mad, wicked deception upon his holiest feelings, pray him to send her away—to cast her adrift, and rid himself of a curse, while he freed her from the gentle, yet intolerable bondage of his love.

"Dinner is ready!" announced the servant. Sarah's senses returned, and with them self-control. With a strange smile, she glanced up at him—a look he did not understand, yet could not guess was born of anguish—and said, with a hesitation that seemed pretty and coquettish to him—"Lewis! do you hear? May it please your worship, I am very hungry!"

"Tease! I will have my revenge yet! See if I do not!"

Laughing lightly, she eluded his outstretched arm, and sprang past him into the hall leading to the dining-room. She assumed the seat at the table with a burlesque of dignity, and throughout the meal was more talkative and frolicsome than he had ever seen her before. So captivated was he by her lively discourse and bright looks, that he was sorry to hear the ring, proclaiming the coming of the expected visitors. The dessert had not been removed, and the girl was instructed to show them immediately into the dining-room.

A toast was drunk to the prosperity of the lately established household, and the gentlemen went off to the library.

"Always see to putting away your silver, Sarah!" counselled the mother. "And you had ought to get a common set of dinner and breakfast things. This china is too nice for every-day use. Of course, Mr. Hammond can afford to get more when this is broken; but it's a first-rate rule, child, as you'll find, to put your money where it will show most. That's the secret of my management. Mr. Hammond must give you an allowance for housekeeping and pin-money. Speak to him about it right away. Men are more liberal while the honeymoon lasts than they ever are afterwards. Strike while the iron is hot. You can't complain of your husband, so far. He has set you up very handsome. If I had been consulted about furnishing, I would have saved enough off of those third-story chambers and the kitchen to buy another pair of mirrors for your parlors. The mantel has a bare look. I noticed it directly I went in. To be sure, the Parisian ornaments are pretty and tasty, and expensive enough—dear knows! but they don't make much of a display."

"I do not like the fashion of lining walls with mirrors," said Sarah, in her old, short way; "and am satisfied with the house as it is. Shall we join the gentlemen?"

Nothing had ever showed her more plainly the degradation of her false position than the confident air her mother wore in making her coarse observations, and instructing her as to the method of managing her generous, confiding husband. It was the free-masonry of a mercenary wife, whose spouse would have been better represented to her mind by his money-bag than his own proper person, towards another of the same craft, who rated her lawful banker by corresponding rules.

"Will I then really grow to be like her and her associates?" Sarah questioned inly. "Will a fine house and its fixtures, will dress and equipage and pin-money so increase in importance as to fill this aching vacuum in my heart? Will a position in life, and the envy of my neighbors, make up to me for the loss of the love of which I used to dream, the happiness which the world owes me yet? Is this the coin in which it would redeem its promises?"

Mr. Hunt's mild features wore their happiest expression this evening. He arose at the ladies' entrance, and beckoned his daughter to a seat on the sofa beside him.

"You are a little travel-worn!" he said. "Your cheeks are not very ruddy."

"Did you ever see them when they were?" asked Sarah, playfully.

"She was always just that pale when she was a baby," said Mrs. Hunt, setting herself in the arm-chair proffered by her son-in-law. "Lucy stole all the roses from her." Sarah may have thought that other and more grievous thefts had succeeded this doubtful one, but she neither looked nor said this. "And that reminds me, Mr. H.! Did you bring Lucy's letter for Sarah to read?"

"I did." Mr. Hunt produced it. "Keep it, and read it at your leisure, Sarah."

"They are supremely happy, I suppose?" remarked Lewis, with the benevolent interest incident to his fellowship of feeling with them.

"For all the world like two turtle-doves!" Mrs. Hunt rejoined. "Their letters are a curiosity. It is 'Phil.' and 'Lucy' from one end to the other. I mean to save them to show them five years from now. Hot love is soon cool, and by-and-by they will settle down as sensible as any of the rest of us. You don't begin so, I see, Sarah, and I am pleased at it. Between me and you, it's two-thirds of it humbug! There is Victoria West that was! She looks ready, in company, to eat up that lean monkey of a George Bond. I don't believe but she shows him the other side of the picture in private."

Sarah heard her father's suppressed sigh, and felt, without looking up, that her husband's eyes sought hers wistfully. The unobservant dame pursued her free and easy discourse. Mr. Hammond was "one of the family" now, and there was no more occasion for choice grammar or fine sentiments before him.

"Not that I blame Victoria for taking him. He was a good offer, and she wasn't much admired by the gentlemen—rich as Mr. West is. Mr. Bond is twenty-five years older than she is, and wears false teeth and a toupee; but I suppose she is willing to overlook trifles. She watches out for the main chance, and will help him take care of his money, as well as spend it. Vic. is a prudent girl."

"Lucy—Mrs. Benson—was at home when she wrote, was she not?" interrogated Mr. Hammond.

"Yes, at his father's. His mother keeps house, and Lucy has nothing to do but ride, visit, and entertain company. She says the house is crowded the whole time, and she has so many beaux that Philip stands no chance of speaking a word to her. She is perfectly happy."

Notwithstanding the various feelings of the listeners, none of them could resist this picture of a felicitous honeymoon, so naively spoken. Lewis' laugh cleared the vapors from his brow, and the pain at Sarah's heart did not hinder her from joining in.

"And the ousted bridegroom, perforce, seeks consolation in the society of his fair friends?" said Lewis. "If this is the way young married people show the love-sickness you complained of just now, Mrs. Hunt, I am content with our more staid ways—eh, Sarah?"

"Quiet ways suit me best," was the answer.

"'Still water runs deep,'" quoted Mrs. Hunt. "I used to worry over your stay-at-home habits and eternal study of books, Sarah; but I'm ready to say now that you was sensible to behave as you did, as it has turned out. I don't mean to flatter Mr. Hammond, but I'd ten times rather you had taken him than a dried-up widower like George Bond."

"Thank you!" bowed Lewis, desirous of diverting attention from Sarah's growing uneasiness beneath her mother's congratulations.

Mrs. Hunt held on her way. "I never had a fear lest Lucy shouldn't marry well. She was pretty and attractive, and knew too much about the world to throw herself away for the sake of love in a cottage. But now the danger is over, I will allow that I used to mistrust Sarah here sometimes. You was just queer enough to fall in love with some adventurer with a foreign name, and never a cent in his pocket—yes, and marry him, too, in spite of all that could be said and done to prevent it. I was forever in a 'feaze' about you; fancying that you was born to make an out-and-out love-match—the silliest thing a girl can do, in my opinion."

"You never dreamed of her 'taking up,' as the phrase is, with a humdrum individual like myself," said Lewis. "Nor, to be candid, did I, for a long time, Mrs. Hunt. Yet I cannot say that I regret her action, disadvantageous to herself though it was. I wrote to you of our visit to New Orleans, did I not, sir?" he continued to Mr. Hunt, inwardly a little disgusted by the frank revelations his mamma-in-law was making of her principles and plans.

The subject so interesting to most wedded people, so embarrassing to one of the present party, was not again introduced during the elder couple's stay. When Lewis returned to the library, after seeing them out, Sarah sat where he had left her, her hand shading her eyes—deep in thought, or overcome by weariness.

"You had better go up to your room, dear," said Lewis. "I wonder you are not worn out completely."

She arose to obey; walked as far as the door, then came back to him.

"It may appear strange to you that I should speak openly to such a suspicion; but I must beg you not to suppose for an instant that in my acceptance of your offer of marriage, I was actuated by mercenary motives. You look surprised"—she hurried on yet faster while her resolution lasted—"but I could not rest without doing myself this act of justice. Much that mother said to-night might—must have led you to this conclusion. I would not have you think worse of me than I deserve, and of this one act of baseness I am innocent."

"My precious little wife, how excited you are! and over what a nonsensical imagination! Suspect you—the noblest as well as the dearest of women—of selling yourself, body and soul, for money? Listen to my speech now, dear Sarah!"

He sat down and pulled her to his knee. "I esteem you, as I love you, above all the rest of your sex—above any other created mortal. I know you to be a pure, high-minded woman. When I part with this persuasion, may I part also with the life that doubt on this point would render wretched! Judge, then, whether it be possible for me to link this holy realization of womanhood with the thought of another character, which I will describe. I hold that she who enters the hallowed state of wedlock through motives of pecuniary interest, or ambition, or convenience—indeed, through any consideration save that of love, single and entire, for him to whom she pledges her vows, stands, in the sight of her Maker and the angels, on a level with the most abandoned outcast that pollutes the earth she treads. I shock you, I see; but on this subject I feel strongly. I have seen much, too much, of fashionable marriages formed for worldly aggrandizement—for riches; sometimes in pique at having lost a coveted lover. With my peculiar sentiments, I feel that I could endure no heavier curse than to contract an alliance like any of these. I repeat it, I believe in Woman as God made her and intended she should live, if for no other reason than because I recollect my mother, boy as I was when she died; and because I know and have you, my true, blessed wife!"

CHAPTER XII.

A year and five months had passed away since the evening when Lewis Hammond held his conscience-stricken wife upon his knee, and told her—in fervid words that singularly belied his calm and even demeanor at other times—of his faith in and love for her, and his abhorrence of the sin she felt in her trembling soul that she had committed. Yet she had not the superhuman courage required to contradict a trust like this. There was no alternative but to keep up the weary, wicked mockery.

"But in all these months she must have learned to care for him!" cries Mrs. Common Sense. "There is nothing disagreeable about the man. He is not brilliant; yet he has intelligence and feeling, and is certainly attached to his wife. I have no doubt but that he indulges her in every reasonable request, and comports himself in all respects like an exemplary husband."

Granted, to each and every head of your description, my dear madam! But, for all that, his obdurate wife had not come to love him. I blush to say it; but while we are stripping hearts let us not be squeamish! There had been seasons, lasting sometimes for weeks, when her existence was a continual warfare between repugnance to him and her sense of duty; when she dreaded to hear his step in the hall, and shrank inwardly from his caress; watched and fought, until strength and mind were well-nigh gone. Mark me! I do not deny that this was as irrational as it was reprehensible; but I have never held up my poor Sarah as a model of reason or propriety. From the beginning, I have made her case a warning. The fates forbid that I should commend it to any as an example for imitation! A passionate, proud, reticent girl; a trusting, loving, deceived woman; a hopeless, desperate bride—whose heart lay like a pulseless stone in her breast at the most ardent love-words of her husband, and throbbed with wild, uncontrollable emotion at the fraternal tone and kiss of her lost and only love—I have no plea for her, save the words of Infinite compassion and Divine knowledge of human nature and human woe: "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her!"

The highly respectable firm of which Mr. Hammond was the junior member, was adding, if not field to field, thousand to thousand, of the wherewithal for the purchase of fields, or, what was better still, city lots. Mrs. Lewis Hammond had set up her carriage about a year after her marriage; said equipage being a gift from her generous husband on the occasion of the first airing of the little "Baby Belle," as she was always called in the family. Not until subsequent events had endowed it with deeper and saddest interest did Sarah read Aldrich's beautiful poem bearing the above title. Lewis' mother's name was Isabella. Her grandchild received the same, which became "Belle" on the mother's tongue, and then, because it was natural to say "Baby" too, the pretty alliteration was adopted.

To a man of Lewis' domestic tastes the advent of this child was a source of the liveliest pleasure, and the tiny inmate of his household was another and a powerful tie, binding him to a home already dear. But to the mother's lonely life, so bare of real comfort or joy—haunted by memory and darkened by remorse—the precious gift came like a ray of Heaven's purest light, a strain of angel music, saying to care, "Sleep!" to hope, "Awake, the morning cometh!" Beneath the sunshine of so much love, the infant throve finely, and without being a greater prodigy than the nine hundred and ninety-nine miracles of beauty and sprightliness who, with it, composed the thousand "blessed babies" of the day, was still a pretty, engaging creature, whose gurgling laugh and communicative "coo" beguiled the mother's solitude and made cheerful the lately silent house.

It was late in the June afternoon, and arrayed in clean white frock, broad sash, and shoulder-knots of pink ribbon, the small lady sat on her mother's lap at the front window, awaiting the appearance of the husband and father. Sarah had altered much since her marriage; "improved wonderfully," said her acquaintances. There was still in her mien a touch of haughtiness; in her countenance the look that spoke profound thought and introspection. Still, when in repose, her brow had a cast of seriousness that bordered on melancholy; but over her features had passed a change like that wrought by the sculptor's last stroke to the statue. The mould was the same—the chiselling more clear and fine. Especially after the birth of her child was this refining process most apparent in its effects. There was a softness in her smile, a gentle sweetness in her voice, as she now talked to the babe, directing its attention to the window, lest the father's approach should be unnoticed, and he disappointed in his shout of welcome.

"How affected! gotten up for show!" sneered the childless Mrs. Bond, as she rolled by in her carriage, on her way to her handsome, cheerless home and its cross master.

"She has chosen her position well, at all events," rejoined her companion, a neighbor and gossip, who had taken Lucy's place in Victoria's confidence.

"Ridiculous!" She spat out the ejaculation from the overflowing of her spleen. "I could laugh at her airs, if they did not make me mad! One would think, to see her as she sits there, that she had decked herself and the child to please a man that she doted upon—like the good wives we read of in novels."

"And why shouldn't she be fond of him? He is a good-hearted fellow, and lets her do pretty much as she pleases, I imagine, besides waiting on her like any lover. I often meet them riding out together. That is more than your husband or mine ever does, my dear."

"They go quite as often as we desire their company, I fancy. Mine does, I know. Perhaps if we had the reason for parading our conjugal devotion that Mrs. Hammond has, we might wheedle our lawful lords into taking a seat alongside of us once in a while. There's nothing like keeping up appearances, particularly if the reality is lacking. If Lewis Hammond knew some of the pretty stories I could tell him about Sarah's love-scrapes, he would not look so sublimely contented with his three-story paradise. The elegant clothes he piles upon that squaw of his are preposterous, and she carries them off as if she had dressed well all her days. I tell you, she never looked decent until she put on her wedding-dress. You have heard of the fainting-scene that took place that morning, I suppose? Old Mother Hunt said it was 'sensibility,' and 'nervous agitation;' the company laid it to the heat of the room; and I laughed in my sleeve, and said nothing. If that woman aggravates me much more, I will remind her of some passages in her experience she does not dream that I know."

"Do tell me what you mean? I am dying of curiosity! Did she flirt very hard before she was married?"

"She never had the chance. Lewis Hammond was her only offer."

"What was the matter, then?"

"I can't tell you now. It is too long a story. The next time she frets me, as she does whenever she crosses my path, maybe you will hear the romance. Shall I set you down at your door, or will you enliven me by spending the evening with me? I do not expect other company, and George falls asleep over his newspaper as soon as he has despatched his dinner. Come in, and I will show you the loveliest sofa-pillow you ever beheld; a new pattern I have just finished."

"Thank you! I would accept the invitation with pleasure, but I have not been home since breakfast, and James makes such a fuss if he does not find me in the nursery, tending that whimpering baby, when he comes up at night, that it is as much as my life is worth to stay out after six o'clock. Anything for peace, you know; and since we wives are slaves, it is best to keep on the blind side of our masters."

The day had been warm down town, and as Lewis Hammond stepped from the stage at the corner nearest his house, he felt jaded and dispirited—a physical depression, augmented by a slight headache. A business question which he had talked over with Mr. Marlow, before leaving the store, contributed its weight of thoughtfulness, and he was not conscious how near he was to his dwelling until, aroused by a sharp tap upon the window-pane, he glanced up at the animated tableau framed by the sash—the smiling mother, and the babe leaping and laughing, and stretching its hands towards him.

"This is the sweetest refreshment a man can ask after his day of toil," he said, when, having kissed his wife and child, he took the latter in his arms. He was not addicted to complimentary speeches, and while his esteem and attachment for his chosen partner were even stronger than they had been in the heart of the month-old bridegroom, he was less apt to express them to her now than then. In one respect, and only one, his wedded life had brought him disappointment. Unreserved confidence and demonstrative affection on his side failed to draw forth similar exhibitions of feeling from Sarah. Kind, thoughtful, dutiful, scrupulously faithful to him and his interests in word, look, and deed, she ever was. Yet he saw that she was a changed being from the fond, impulsive daughter, whose ministry in her father's sick-room had won for her a husband's love. Her reception of his affectionate advances was passive—a reception merely, without apparent return. Never, and he had ceased now to ask it, had she once said to him the phrase he had craved to hear—"I love you!" Yet he would as soon have questioned the reality of his existence as that she did love him. He held inviolate his trust in the motive that had induced her to become his wife, and in this calm confidence he was fain to rest, in the absence of protestations that would have gladdened his soul, while they could hardly have strengthened his faith in her affection.

Few wives, however loving, have been more truly cherished than was Sarah, and of this she was partially aware. If she had remained ignorant of Lewis' sentiments and wishes with regard to herself, until the grieved and unrequited love had subsided into the dull aching that does not, like a green wound, create, by its very smart, a species of excitement that helps one bear the pain; had he glided gradually into the joyless routine of her life's duties, and abided his time of speaking until he had made himself necessary to her comfort and peace, he might have won a willing bride. But what omniscient spirit was there to instruct and caution him? He met and loved her, supposing her to be as free as himself; like an honest, upright man, he told that love, and, without a misgiving placed his honor and his happiness in her hands.

Sarah could not have told why she revolved all this in her unquiet mind as he sat near her, playing with their child; yet she did think of their strange sad history, and from the review arose a feeling of pity, sincere, almost tender for him, so worthy and so deceived. She remembered with abasement of spirit how often she had been ready to hate him as the instrument of her bondage; how wrathful words had arisen to her lips at the moment of his greatest kindness; how patiently he had borne her coldness; how unflagging was his care of and for her. Over the dark, turbulent gulf of the unforgotten past that sundered their hearts, she longed, as she had never done before, to call to him, and confessing her sin against Heaven and against him, to implore pardon for the sake of the spotless babe that smiled into the father's face with its mother's eyes. Would he be merciful? Slowly and emphatically memory repeated in her ear his denunciation of the unloving wife, and courage died before the menaced curse.

"Fudge! Fiddlesticks! what frippery nonsense!" cry out, in a vehement storm of indignation, a bevy of the Common Sense connection. "Are we not staid and respectable matrons all? Do we not rear our daughters virtuously, and teach our sons to honor father as well as mother? Yet who of us troubles herself with raking in the cold ashes of her 'long ago' for the bones of some dead and gone love—a girlish folly of which she would be ashamed now? What cares Mr. Common Sense, among his day-books and ledgers, in his study or in his office, how many times his now correct helpmeet pledged eternal fidelity to other lovers before she put her last crop of wild oats into the ground, and settled for life with him? What if some of us, may be all, if driven hard, should admit that when we stood up before the minister we underwent certain qualms—call them pangs, if you like—at the thought of Tom This, or Harry That, or Dick The Other, who, if circumstances had permitted, we would have preferred should occupy the place of 'The man whom we actually held by the hand!' While men can choose their mates, and women can only take such as propose to them, these things will happen. After all, who is hurt? You aver that none of you are, mesdames, and we would not call your word in question. Ladies so conscientious must, of necessity, be veracious, even in love affairs."

"I am a thoughtless animal!" said Lewis at the dinner-table. "There is a letter from Lucy! Open it—don't mind me! I will crack your nuts for you while you read it."

There was a troubled look in Sarah's eye when she laid it down. "Lucy says they are certainly coming North this year—that we may look for them in a week from the date of this. This is rather sooner than mother expected them. Her housecleaning is late this season, in consequence of her rheumatic spell in May."

"Let them come straight here! What should prevent them? There is an abundance of room for them—baby, nurse, and all. It will be a grand arrangement!" said Lewis, heartily.

Sarah was backward in replying. "Father and mother may object. I would not wound them by interference with their guests."

"I will answer that mother will thank us to take care of them until her scrubbing and scalding are done. And Lucy would not be willing to risk her baby's health in a damp house."

"I will go and see mother to-morrow about it," concluded Sarah. She still appeared dubious as to the expediency of the proposed step, a thoughtfulness that did not wear away during the whole evening.

The Bensons had not visited New York the preceding year. They were detained at the South by a combination of causes, the principal of which was the long and fatal illness of Philip's mother. Lucy had written repeatedly of her intense desire to see her home once more, declaiming against the providences that had thwarted their projects, like an impatient, unreasonable child.

"Philip says it is not convenient for him to go just yet," said her letter to her sister, "and that our part of the country is as healthy as Saratoga itself; but I have vowed that I will not wait one day beyond the time I have set. It sets me wild to think of being in Broadway again—of visiting and shopping, and seeing you all. We have been so dull here since Mrs. Benson's death, and Philip is as solemn as a judge. One of his married sisters will stay with the old gentleman while we are away. O Sarah, I am sick of housekeeping and baby-nursing! It will do well enough for me when I need spectacles and a wig; but now, while I am young enough to enjoy life, it is insufferable!"

"Not very domestic, is she?" observed Lewis, folding up the letter, which Sarah had handed him. "Ah! it is not every man who has such a gem of a wife as I have! It appears to me that the married women of these days are not satisfied unless they have a string of beaux as long as that of a popular single belle. How is it, little one? Do you ever catch yourself wishing that your husband were not such an old-fashioned piece of constancy, and would give some other fellow a chance to say a pretty thing, when you are in company?"

"I do not complain," said Sarah, demurely.

"Not in words, perhaps; your patience is wonderful in everything. But how do you feel when you see your old neighbor, Mrs. Bond, waltzing every set with the gayest gallant in the ball-room, while your jailor does not like to have you 'polk' at all, and favors your dancing only with men whom he knows to be respectable?"

"I feel that Mr. Hammond is a sensible man, and careful of his wife's reputation, even in trifles, while Mr. Bond"—

"Go on! finish your sentence!"

"And his lady are a well-matched pair!"

Much as she disliked Victoria, and knowing that she was hated still by her, Sarah deemed it a necessary and common act of courtesy to her sister's friend to call and apprise her of Lucy's probable visit.

"It is not convenient for mother to receive them for a week yet, on account of certain household arrangements," she stated, in making known the object of her visit to her ancient enemy. "So you will find Lucy at our house, where her friends will be received as if they were my own."

"You are very polite, I am sure!" replied Mrs. Bond, smothering her displeasure at Sarah's studied civility, and noting, with her quick, reptile perceptions, that she was to be tolerated as she fancied Sarah would imply, merely as Lucy's early associate. "And the Bensons are to be with you! I shall call immediately upon their arrival. Poor, dear Lucy! I long to see her. She has had a vast deal of trouble since her marriage—has she not?"

"Except the death of her mother-in-law, she has had nothing to trouble her that I have heard of," answered Sarah, rising to go.

"My dear creature! what do you call the wear and tear of managing a husband, and a pack of unruly servants, and looking after a baby? And she was such a belle! I wonder if she is much broken!"

"Come and see!"

Mrs. Hammond was at the parlor door.

"I will—most assuredly! How do you like their being quartered upon you? What does that pattern husband of yours say to this?"

"Madam!" said Sarah, surprised and offended by the rude query.

"Oh! I don't mean that it would not be very delightful to you to have your sister with you; but there was a foolish rumor, about the time of your marriage, that you and Mr. Benson had some kind of a love-passage down in the country; and I thought that Mr. Hammond, with his particularly nice notions, might retain an unpleasant recollection of the story, which would prevent him from being on brotherly terms with his old rival. Men are terribly unreasonable mortals, and perfect Turks in jealousy! We cannot be too careful not to provoke their suspicions."

Not for the universe would Sarah have betrayed any feeling at this insolence, save a righteous and dignified resentment at its base insinuations; but the ungovernable blood streamed in crimson violence to her temples, and her voice shook when she would have held it firm.

"Mr. Hammond is not one to be influenced by malicious gossip, Mrs. Bond, if, indeed, the report you have taken the liberty of repeating was ever circulated except by its author. I cannot thank you for your warning, as I recognize no occasion for jealousy in my conduct or character. I am accountable for my actions to my conscience and my husband, and I release you from what you have assumed to be your duty of watching and criticising my personal affairs. Good-morning."

"I struck a sore spot! no doubt of that!" soliloquized Mrs. Bond, recalling Sarah's start of pain and blush at the indelicate allusion to Philip Benson. "That woman stirs up all the bile in my system if I talk two minutes with her. If there were half the material to work upon in that vain, weak Lucy, that there is in this sister, I would have my revenge. As for Lewis Hammond, he is a love-sick fool!"

Sarah's cheeks had not lost their flush, nor had her heart ceased its angry throbbings, when she reached home. In the solitude of her chamber, she summoned strength and resolution to ask herself the question, so long avoided, shunned, as she had imagined, in prudence, as she now began to fear, in dread of a truthful reply.

When she married Lewis Hammond, she loved another. Fearful as was this sin, it would be yet more terrible were she now to discover a lurking fondness, an unconquered weakness for that other, in the heart of the trusted wife, the mother who, from that guilty bosom, nourished the little being that was, as yet, the embodiment of unsullied purity. It was a trying and a perilous task, to unfold deliberately, to pry searchingly into the record of that one short month that had held all the bloom and fragrance of her life's spring season; to linger over souvenirs and compare sensations—a painful and revolting process; but, alas! the revulsion was not at memories of that olden time; and as this appalling conviction dawned upon her, her heart died within her.

The nurse was arranging Baby Belle for the possible reception of her unknown aunt and uncle, that afternoon, when Mrs. Hammond came into the nursery, her face as pale and set as marble, and silently lifted the child from the girl's lap to her own. For one instant her cheek was laid against the velvet of the babe's; the ringlets of fair hair mingled with her dark locks, before she set about completing its unfinished toilette. With a nicety and care that would have seemed overstrained, had other than mother's hands been busied in the work, the stockings and slippers were fitted on the plump feet; the sunny curls rolled around the fingers of the tiring woman, and brushed back from the brow; the worked cambric robe lowered cautiously over the head, lest the effect of the coiffure should be marred; the sleeves looped up with bands of coral and gold, a necklace, belonging to the same set, clasped around the baby's white throat, and she was ready for survey.

"Now, Baby Belle and mamma will go down to meet papa!"

And with the little one still clinging to her neck, she met, in the lower hall, her husband ushering in Lucy and Philip Benson.

CHAPTER XIII.

Breakfast was kept back an hour next morning to await Lucy's tardy appearance. "She was sadly wearied with her journey," apologized Philip, and Sarah begged that she would keep her room and have her meals sent up to her—an hospitable offer, which Mr. Benson negatived.

Lucy did look tired and unrefreshed, and, to speak more plainly, very cross. Her hair, in its dryest state of pale yellow, was combed straight back above her temples; her skin was sallow; her wrapper carelessly put on, and its dead white unrelieved by even a bow of ribbon at the throat. Involuntarily Lewis glanced from the uninviting picture to his household deity, in her neat breakfast-dress of gray silk faced with pink, her glossy hair and tranquil features, and said to himself, in secret triumph, "Which is now the beauty? None of your trumpery ornamental articles for me!"

Philip's eyes were as keen as his host's, and the probability is that he instituted a similar comparison, however well his pride succeeded in concealing the act and its result. Cutting short his wife's querulous plaints of the discomforts of travel, and the horrors of nervous sleeplessness, he opened a conversation with Mr. Hammond in the subdued, perfectly-managed tones Sarah remembered so well, selecting such topics as would interest a business man and a citizen of a commercial metropolis. Lucy pouted, and applied herself for consolation to her breakfast.

With a strange mingling of emotions, Sarah listened to the dialogue between the gentlemen. She was anxious that Lewis should acquit himself creditably. Brilliant, like Philip, he could never be; but in sterling sense, not many men were his superiors. She had never had cause to be ashamed of him; for one so unpretending and judicious was not liable to make himself ridiculous. Whence, then, the solicitude with which she hung upon his every word? her disappointment when he did not equal the ideal reply she had fashioned, as she heard the words that called it forth? Several times she joined in the conversation, invariably to corroborate Lewis' assertions, or to supply something he had omitted to state. Philip Benson was a student of human nature. Was his mind sufficiently abstracted from his domestic annoyances to divine the motive that Sarah herself only perceived afterwards in solitary self-examination? Not love of, or admiration for the intrinsic excellence of the man whose name she bore; not fear lest his modesty should lessen his merits in the eyes of others; but a selfish dread that his acute interlocutor, discerning in him nothing likely to attract or win the affection of a woman such as he knew her to be, might guess her true reason for marrying Mr. Hammond. The timorous progeny of one guilty secret can only be numbered by the minutes during which it is borne in the bosom. Like the fabled Lacedæmonian boy, Sarah carried the gnawing horror with a fortitude that looked like cheerfulness. Habit cannot lighten the weight of a clinging curse; but strength and hardness come in time, if the burdened one is not early crushed by his load.

The sisters spent most of the day in Lucy's room; the latter stretched upon the lounge, as she declared, "completely used up." Mrs. Hunt came around early in the forenoon, and into her sympathizing ears the spoiled child poured the story of her woes and wrongs; Sarah sitting by with a swelling, rebellious heart. With indecorous contempt for one of the most binding laws of married state—inviolable secrecy as to the faults of the other party to the momentous compact—mother and daughter compared notes upon their husbands, and criticised the class generally as the most wrong-headed, perverse, and dictatorial of all the necessary evils of society.

Mrs. Benson, the elder, and her pleasure-loving daughter-in-law had differed seriously several months before the death of the former. Philip, while espousing his wife's cause to the rest of his family, had, in private, taken her to task for what he considered objectionable in her conduct; her heads of offence being mainly extravagant love of gay company, and the gallant attentions of gentleman visitors; neglect of dress and all efforts to please, when there was no company by; and a decided indisposition to share in the household duties, which his mother's increasing feebleness made onerous to her.

"Ah, mother!" sighed the interesting complainant, raising herself to shake up her pillow, then sinking again upon it. "If girls only realized what is before them when they marry, few would be brave enough to change their condition. When I picture to myself what I was at home—a petted darling—never allowed to inconvenience myself when it could possibly be avoided; courted in society; free as air and light-hearted as a child; and then think of all that I have endured from the unkindness of strangers, and the—well—the want of sympathy in him for whom I had given up my dear old home and friends—I ask myself why I did not remain single!"

The prudent matchmaker shook her head. "Marriage is a lottery, they say, my dear; but I am very sure that single life is a blank. You had no fortune, and in the event of your father's death would have been almost destitute. I am sorry your father did not insist upon Mr. Benson's giving you your own establishment at once. I hope, now the old lady is out of the way, you will have things more according to your notions."

"Don't you believe that! As if there were not two sisters-in-law, living but four miles off, and driving over every other day to 'see how pa is.' That means, to see whether Lucy is letting things go to wreck and ruin. I understand their spiteful ways! Philip shuts his ears when I talk about them; but I am determined that I will not bear much more meddling!"

Decidedly, Lucy Benson married was a woeful declension from the seraphic spinster depicted in our earlier chapters; but, as in time past, so in time present and to come, the sparkling sugar, whose integrity and sweetness appeared indestructible, while it was kept dry and cool, if dampened, undergoes an acetous fermentation, and the delicate sweet-meat, exposed to the air at a high temperature, becomes speedily a frothing mass, evolving pungent gases. The pretty doll who anticipates, in the connubial state, one long fete-day of adoration received, and benign condescension dispensed, is as certain to awake from this dream as from any other, and upon the temper in which she sustains the disenchantment, depends a vast proportion of her future welfare and peace.

Lucy's behavior to her babe was a mixture of childish fondling and neglect. Fortunately, the little "Hunt's" special attendant was an elderly woman, long established as "Maumer" in the Benson family, and her devotion to her charge prevented any present evil effects from his mother's incompetence or carelessness. Philip's pride in, and love for his boy were extreme. When he came in that evening, Sarah chanced to be in the nursery adjoining her chamber, watching and inciting the two babies to a game of romps. She held one on each knee, the nurses standing by in amused gratification.

"That is surely my little man's voice!" said Philip, as he and Lewis came up the stairs.

"Let me see!"—and Mr. Hammond peeped into the playroom. "Walk in!" he continued, throwing the door wide open. "Isn't there a pair of them?"

"And a nurse worthy of the twain!" returned Philip. He stooped to the invitation of the lifted arms, fluttering, as if the owner would fly to his embrace. "What do you say of him, aunty? Is he not a passable boy?"

"More than passable! he is a noble-looking fellow. He resembles you, I think," said Sarah, quietly.

"Do you hear that, Hammond? Your wife pronounces me 'more than passable—a noble-looking fellow!' So much for an adroit hint. Is she given to flattery?"

"Not she!" returned Lewis, laughing. "She never said as much as that for my looks in all her life. I have one consolation, however; the less she says the more she means!" He went into the dressing-room, and Philip, still holding the child, seated himself by Sarah.

"How odd, yet how familiar it seems, to be with you once more, my good sister! What a succession of mischances has made us virtual strangers for many months past! I had almost despaired of ever holding friendly converse with you again. I wonder if your recollections of our visit to Aunt Sarah are as vivid as mine. Do you remember that last sad, yet dear day on the Deal Beach?"

Baby Belle was standing in her mother's lap, her soft, warm arms about her neck; and around the frail, sinking human heart invisible arms, as warm and close, were upholding and strengthening it in the moment of mortal weakness.

"Very distinctly. Many changes have come to us both since then."

"To me very many! I have grown older in heart than in years." Then, evidently fearing that she might otherwise interpret his meaning, he subjoined: "We have had a heavy bereavement in our household, you know. Your changes have all been happy ones. The enthusiastic, restless girl has ripened into the more sedate, yet more blessed wife and mother."

Press your sweet mouth to the convulsed lips, Baby Belle! Veil with your silky curls the tell-tale features, whose agitation would bewilder, if not betray! Philip was stroking the head of his boy, and did not see the uneasiness of his companion.

"Have you heard of Uncle Nathan's death?" she asked, clearing her throat.

He looked surprised at the inquiry. "Yes! Aunt Sarah wrote immediately to my father."

"Ah! I had forgotten that they were brothers. My memory is treacherous. Excuse me! I am wanted in the dining-room!"

Lewis met her just outside the door, and stopped her to bestow the evening kiss he had not cared to offer in Philip's presence.

"Why, you are as rosy as a peony!" he said, jestingly. "Has Benson been paying you compliments, in return for yours to him? I must look after you two, if you carry on at this rate."

With a look he had reason subsequently to recall, but which only pleased him at the time, she raised his hand to her lips—a look of humility, gratitude, and appeal, such as one might cast upon a slighted benefactor—and vanished.