Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters: A Novel

AFTER THE CROSS, THE CROWN.

The glare of a brilliant April sunset shone in the rainbow-hued western sky, and on the fresh, green earth, all arrayed in the budding promise of spring.

Grace Danton stood by the window of a long, low room, looking thoughtfully out at the orange and crimson dyes of the far-off sky.

The room in which she stood was not at all like the vast old-fashioned rooms of Danton Hall. It was long and narrow, and low-ceilinged, and very plainly furnished. There was the bed in the centre, a low, curtainless bed, and on it, pale, thin, and shadowy, lay Grace's brother, as he had lain for many weary weeks. He was asleep now, deeply, heavily, tossing no longer in the wild delirium of brain-fever, as he had tossed for so many interminable days and nights.

Grace dropped the curtain, and went back to her post by the bedside. As she did so, the door softly opened, and Kate, in a dark, unrustling dress and slippers of silence, came in. She had changed in those weeks; she looked paler and thinner, and the violet eyes had a more tender light, a sadder beauty than of old.

"Still asleep," she said, softly, looking at the bed. "Grace, I think your prayers have been heard."

"I trust so, dear. Is your father in?"

"No; he has ridden over to see how the builders get on. You must want tea, Grace. Go, I will take your place."

Grace arose and left the room, and Kate seated herself in the low chair, with eyes full of tender compassion. What a shadow he was of his former self—so pale, so thin, so wasted! The hand lying on the counterpane was almost transparent, and the forehead, streaked with damp brown hair, was like marble.

"Poor fellow!" Kate thought, pushing these stray locks softly back, and forgetting how dangerously akin pity is to love—"poor fellow!"

Yes, it has come to this. Sick—dying, perhaps—Kate Danton found how dear this once obnoxious young Doctor had grown to her heart. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" Now that she was on the verge of losing him forever, she discovered his value—discovered that her admiration was very like love. How could she help it? Women admire heroes so much! And was not this brave young Doctor a real hero? From first to last, had not his life in St. Croix been one list of good and generous deeds?

The very first time she had ever seen him, he had been her champion, to save her from the insults and rudeness of two drunken soldiers. He had been a sort of guardian angel to poor Agnes in her great trouble. He had saved her brother's life and honour. He had perilled his own life to save that of her sister. The poor of St. Croix spoke of him only to praise and bless him. Was not this house besieged every day with scores of anxious inquirers? He was so good, so great, so noble, so self-sacrificing, so generous—oh! how could she help loving him? Not with the love that had once been Reginald Stanford's, whose only basis was a fanciful girl's liking for a handsome face, but a love far deeper and truer and stronger. She looked back now at the first infatuation, and wondered at herself. The scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw her sister's husband in his true light—false, shallow, selfish, dishonourable.

"Oh," she thought, with untold thanksgiving in her heart, "what would have become of me if I had married him?"

There was another sore subject in her heart, too—that short-lived betrothal to Sir Ronald Keith. How low she must have fallen when she could do that! How she despised herself now for ever entertaining the thought of that base marriage. She could thank Father Francis at last. By the sick-bed of Doctor Frank she had learned a lesson that would last her a lifetime.

The radiance of the sunset was fading out of the sky, and the gray twilight was filling the room. She rose up, drew back the green curtains, and looked for a moment at the peaceful village street. When she returned to the bedside, the sleeper was awake, his eyes calm and clear for the first time. She restrained the exclamation of delight which arose to her lips, and tried to catch the one faint word he uttered:

"Water?"

She gently raised his head, her cheeks flushing, and held a glass of lemonade to his lips. A faint smile thanked her; and then his eyes closed, and he was asleep again. Kate sank down on her knees by the bedside, grateful tears falling from her eyes, to thank God for the life that would be spared.

From that evening the young man rallied fast.

The Doctor, who came from Montreal every day to see him, said it was all owing to his superb constitution and wondrous vitality. But he was very, very weak. It was days and days before he was strong enough to think, or speak, or move. He slept, by fits and starts, nearly all day long, recognizing his sister, and Kate, and Eeny, and the Captain, by his bedside, without wondering how they came to be there, or what had ailed him.

But strength to speak and think was slowly returning; and one evening, in the pale twilight, opening his eyes, he saw Kate sitting beside him, reading. He lay and watched her, strong enough to think how beautiful that perfect face was in the tender light, and to feel a delicious thrill of pleasure, weak as he was, at having her for a nurse.

Presently Kate looked from the book to the bed, and blushed beautifully to find the earnest brown eyes watching her so intently.

"I did not know you were awake," she said, composedly. "Shall I go and call Grace?"

"On no account. I don't want Grace. How long have I been sick?"

"Oh, many weeks; but you are getting better rapidly now."

"I can't recall it," he said, contracting his brows. "I know there was a fire, and I was in the house; but it is all confused. How was it?"

"The Hall was burned down, you know—poor old house!—and you rushed in to save Eeny, and—"

"Oh, I remember, I remember. A beam or something fell, and after that all is oblivion. I have had a fever, I suppose?"

"Yes, you have been a dreadful nuisance—talking all day and all night about all manner of subjects, and frightening us out of our lives."

The young man smiled.

"What did I talk about? Anything very foolish?"

"I dare say it was foolish enough, if one could have understood it, but it was nearly all Greek to me. Sometimes you were in Germany, talking about all manner of outlandish things; sometimes you were in New York, playing Good Samaritan to Agnes Darling."

"Oh, poor Agnes! Where is she?"

"Taken to the high seas. She and Harry had to go, much against their inclination, while you were so ill."

"And Eeny—did Eeny suffer any harm that night?"

"No; Doctor Frank was the only sufferer. The poor old house was burned to the ground. I was so sorry."

"And everything was lost?"

"No, a great many things were saved. And they are building a new and much more handsome Danton Hall, but I shall never love it as I did the old place."

"Where are we now?"

"In the village. We have taken this cottage until the new house is finished. Now don't ask any more questions. Too much talking isn't good for you."

"How very peremptory you are!" said the invalid, smiling; "and you have taken care of me all this weary time. What a trouble I must have been!"

"Didn't I say so! A shocking trouble. And now that you are able to converse rationally, you are more trouble than ever, asking so many questions. Go to sleep."

"Won't you let me thank you first?"

"No, thanks never would repay me for all the annoyance you have been. Show your gratitude by obedience, sir—stop talking and go to sleep!"

Perhaps Doctor Frank found it very pleasant to be ordered, for he obeyed with a smile on his face.

Of course, with such a nurse as Miss Danton, the man would be obstinate, indeed, who would not rally. Doctor Frank was the reverse of obdurate, and rallied with astonishing rapidity. His sister, Eeny, and Kate were the most devoted, the most attentive of nurses; but the hours that Captain Danton's eldest daughter sat by his bedside flew like so many minutes. It was very pleasant to lie there, propped up with pillows, with the April sunshine lying in yellow squares on the faded old carpet, and watch that beautiful face, bending over some piece of elaborate embroidery, or the humble dress of some village child. She read for him, too, charming romances, and poetry as sweet as the ripple of a sunlit brook, in that enchanting voice of hers; and Doctor Frank began to think convalescence the most delightful state of being that ever was heard of, and to wish it could last forever.

But, like all the pleasant things of this checkered life, it came to an end all too soon. The day arrived when he sat up in his easy chair by the open window, with the scented breezes blowing in his face, and watched dreamily the cows grazing in the fields, and the dark-eyed French girls tripping up and down the dusty road. Then, a little later, and he could walk about in the tiny garden before the cottage, and sit up the whole day long. He was getting better fast; and Miss Danton, concluding her occupation was gone, became very much like the Miss Danton of old. Not imperious and proud—she never would be that again—but reserved and distant, and altogether changed; the delightful readings were no more, the pleasant tête-à-têtes were among the things of the past, the long hours spent by his side, with some womanly work in her fingers, were over and gone. She was very kind and gentle still, and the smile that always greeted him was very bright and sweet, but that heavenly past was gone forever. Doctor Frank, about as clear-sighted as his sex generally are, of course never guessed within a mile of the truth.

"What a fool I was!" he thought, bitterly, "flattering myself with such insane dreams, because she was grateful to me for saving her sister's life, and pitied me when she thought I was at death's door. Why, she nursed every sick pauper in St. Croix as tenderly as she did me. She is right to put me back in my place before I have made an idiot of myself!"

So the convalescent gentleman became moody, and silent and generally disagreeable; and Grace was the only one who guessed at his feelings and was sorry for him. But he grew well in spite of hidden trouble, and began to think of what he was to do in the future.

"I'll go back to Montreal next week, I think," he said to his sister; "now that the fever has gone, it won't pay to stay here. If I don't get on in Montreal, I'll try New York."

Man proposes, etc. That evening's mail brought him a letter that materially altered all his plans. He sat so long silent and thoughtful after reading it, that Grace looked at him in surprise.

"You look as grave as an owl, Frank. Whom is your letter from?"

Doctor Frank started out of his reverie to find Kate's eyes fixed inquiringly upon him too.

"From Messrs. Grayson & Hambert, my uncle's solicitors. He is dead."

Grace uttered a little cry.

"Dead! Frank! And you are his heir?"

"Yes."

"How much has he left?" Mrs. Danton asked, breathlessly.

"Twenty thousand pounds."

Grace clasped her hands.

"Twenty thousand pounds? My dear Frank! You have no need to go slaving at your profession now."

Her brother looked at her in quiet surprise.

"I shall slave at my profession all the same. This windfall will, however, alter my plans a good deal. I must start for Montreal to-morrow morning."

He rose and left the room. Grace turned to her step-daughter.

"I am afraid you must think us heartless, Kate; but we have known very little of this uncle, and that little was not favourable. He was a miser—a stern and hard man—living always alone and with few friends. I am so thankful he left his money to Frank."

Doctor Frank left St. Croix next morning for the city, and his absence made a strange blank in the family. The spring days wore on slowly. April was gone, and it was May. Captain Danton was absent the best part of every day, superintending the erection of the new house, and the three women were left alone. Miss Danton grew listless and languid. She spent her days in purposeless loiterings in and out of the cottage, in long reveries and solitary walks.

The middle of May came without bringing the young Doctor, or even a letter from him. The family were seated one moonlight night in the large, old-fashioned porch in front of the cottage, enjoying the moonlight and Eeny's piano. Kate sat in a rustic arm-chair just outside, looking up at the silvery crescent swimming through pearly clouds, and the flickering shadows of the climbing sweetbrier coming and going on her fair face. Captain Danton smoked and Grace talked to him; and while she sat, Father Francis opened the garden gate and joined them.

"Have you heard from your brother yet?" he asked of Grace, after a few moments' preliminary conversation.

"No; it is rather strange that he does not write."

"He told me to make his apologies. I had a letter from him to-day. He is very busy preparing to go away."

"Go away! Go where?"

"To Germany; he leaves in a week."

"And will he not come down to say good-bye?" inquired Grace, indignantly.

"Oh, certainly! He will be here in a day or two."

"And how long is he going to stay abroad?"

"That seems uncertain. A year or two, probably, at the very least."

Grace stole a look at Kate, but Kate had drawn back into the shadow of the porch, and her face was not to be seen. Father Francis lingered for half an hour, and then departed; and as the dew was falling heavily, the group in the porch arose to go in. The young lady in the easy-chair did not stir.

"Come in, Kate," her father said, "it is too damp to remain there."

"Yes, papa, presently."

About a quarter of an hour later, she entered the parlour to say good-night, very pale, as they all noticed.

"I knew sitting in the night air was bad," her father said. "You are as white as a ghost."

Miss Danton was very grave and still for the next two days—a little sad, Grace thought. On the third day, Doctor Frank arrived. It was late in the afternoon, and he was to depart again early next morning.

"What are you running away for now?" asked his sister, with asperity. "What has put this German notion in your head?"

The young man smiled.

"My dear Grace, don't wear that severe face. Why should I not go? What is to detain me here?"

This was such an unanswerable question that Grace only turned away impatiently; and Kate, who was in the room, fancying the brother and sister might wish to be alone, arose and departed. As the door closed after her, Captain Danton's wife faced round and renewed the attack.

"If you want to know what is to detain you here, I can tell you now. Stay at home and marry Kate Danton."

Her brother laughed, but in rather a constrained way.

"That is easier said than done, sister mine. Miss Danton never did more than tolerate me in her life—sometimes not even that. Impossibilities are not so easily achieved as you think."

"Suppose you try."

"And be refused for my pains. No, thank you."

"Very well," said Mrs. Grace with a shrug; "a wilful man must have his way! You cannot tell whether you will be refused or not until you ask."

"I have a tolerably strong conviction, though. No, Mrs. Grace, I shall go to Germany, and forget my folly; for that I have been an idiot, I don't deny."

"And are so still! Do as you please, however; it is no affair of mine."

Doctor Frank rode over to the new building to see how it progressed. It was late when he returned with the Captain, and he found that Kate had departed to spend the evening with Miss Howard. If he wanted further proof of her indifference, surely he had it here.

It was very late, and the family had retired before Miss Danton came home. She was good enough though, to rise, very early next morning to say good-bye. Doctor Frank took his hasty breakfast, and came into the parlour, where he found her alone.

"I thought I was not to have the pleasure of seeing you before I went," he said, holding out his hand. "I have but ten minutes left: so good-bye."

His voice shook a little as he said it. In spite of every effort, her fingers closed around his, and her eyes looked up at him with her whole heart in their clear depths.

"Kate!" he exclaimed, the colour rushing to his face with a sudden thrill of ecstasy, and his hand closing tight over the slender fingers he held. "Kate!"

She turned away, her own cheeks dyed, not daring to meet that eager, questioning look.

"Kate!" he cried, appealingly; "it is because I love you I am going away. I never thought to tell you."

Five minutes later Grace opened the door impetuously.

"Frank, don't you know you will be la—Oh, I beg pardon."

She closed it hastily, and retreated. The Captain, standing in the doorway, looked impatiently at his watch.

"What keeps the fellow? He'll be late to a dead certainty."

Grace laughed.

"There is no hurry, I think. I don't believe Frank will go to Germany this time."

LONG HAVE I BEEN TRUE TO YOU, NOW I'M TRUE NO LONGER.

Far away from the blue skies, and bracing breezes of Lower Canada, the twilight of a dull April day was closing down over the din and tumult of London.

It had been a wretched day—a day of sopping rain and enervating mist. The newly-lighted street-lamps blinked dismally through the wet fog, and the pedestrians hurried along, poising umbrellas, and buttoned up to the chin.

At the window of a shabby-genteel London lodging-house a young woman sat, this dreary April evening, looking out at the cheering prospect of dripping roofs and muddy pavement. She sat with her chin resting on her hands, staring vacantly at the passers-by, with eyes that took no interest in what she saw. She was quite young, and had been very pretty, for the loose, unkempt hair was of brightest auburn, the dull eyes of hazel brown, and the features pretty and delicate. But the look of intense sulkiness the girl's face wore would have spoiled a far more beautiful countenance, and there were traces of sickness and trouble, all too visible. She was dressed in a soiled silk, arabesqued with stains, and a general air of neglect and disorder characterized her and her surroundings. The carpet was littered and unswept, the chairs were at sixes and sevens, and a baby's crib, wherein a very new and pink infant reposed, stood in the middle of the room.

The young woman sat at the window gazing sullenly out at the dismal night for upwards of an hour, in all that time hardly moving. Presently there was a tap at the door, and an instant after, it opened, and a smart young person entered and began briskly laying the cloth for supper. The young person was the landlady's daughter, and the girl at the window only gave her one glance, and then turned unsocially away.

"Ain't you lonesome here, Mrs. Stanford, all alone by yourself?" asked the young person, as she lit the lamp. "Mother says it must be awful dull for you, with Mr. Stanford away all the time."

"I am pretty well used to it," answered Mrs. Stanford, bitterly. "I ought to be reconciled to it by this time. Is it after seven?"

"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Stanford comes home at seven, don't he? He ought to be here soon, now. Mother says she wishes you would come down to the parlour and sit with us of a day, instead of being moped up here."

Mrs. Stanford made no reply whatever to this good-natured speech, and the sulky expression seemed to deepen on her face. The young person, finished setting the table, and was briskly departing, when Mrs. Stanford's voice arrested her.

"If Mr. Stanford is not here in half an hour, you can bring up dinner."

As Mrs. Stanford spoke, the pink infant in the crib awoke and set up a dismal wail. The young mother arose, with an impatient sigh, lifted the babe, and sat down in a low nurse-chair, to soothe it to sleep again. But the baby was fretful, and cried and moaned drearily, and resisted every effort to be soothed to sleep.

"Oh, dear, dear!" Rose cried, impatiently, giving it an irritated shake. "What a torment you are! What a trouble and wretchedness everything is!"

She swayed to and fro in her rocking-chair, humming drearily some melancholy air, until, by-and-by, baby, worn out, wailingly dropped off asleep again in her arms.

As it did so, the door opened a second time, and the brisk young person entered with the first course. Mrs. Stanford placed her first-born back in the crib, and sat down to her solitary dinner. She ate very little. The lodging-house soups and roasts had never been so distasteful before. She pushed the things away, with a feeling of loathing, and went back to her low chair, and fell into a train of dismal misery. Her thoughts went back to Canada to her happy home at Danton Hall.

Only one little year ago she had given the world for love, and thought it well lost—and now! Love's young dream, splendid in theory, is not always quite so splendid in practice. Love's young dream had wound up after eleven months, in poverty, privation, sickness and trouble, a neglectful husband, and a crying baby! How happy she had been in that bright girlhood, gone forever! Life had been one long summer holiday, and she dressed in silks and jewels, one of the queen-bees in the great human hive. The silks and the jewels had gone to the pawnbroker long ago, and here she sat, alone, in a miserable lodging-house, subsisting on unpalatable food, sleeping on a hard mattress, sick and wretched, with that whimpering infant's wails in her ears all day and all night. Oh! how long ago it seemed since she had been bright, and beautiful, and happy, and free—hundreds of years ago at the very least! She sighed in bitter sorrow, as she thought of the past—the irredeemable past.

"Oh, what a fool I was!" she thought, bursting into hysterical tears. "If I had only married Jules La Touche, how happy I might have been! He loved me, poor fellow, and would have been true always, and I would have been rich, and happy, and honoured. Now I am poor, and sick, and neglected, and despised, and I wish I were dead, and all the trouble over!"

Mrs. Stanford sat in her low chair, brooding over such dismal thoughts as these, while the slow hours dragged on. The baby slept, for a wonder. A neighbouring church clock struck the hours solemnly one after another—ten, eleven, twelve! No Mr. Stanford yet, but that was nothing new. As midnight, struck, Rose got up, secured the door, and going into an inner room, flung herself, dressed as she was, on the bed, and fell into the heavy, dreamless sleep of exhaustion.

She slept so soundly that she never heard a key turn in the lock, about three in the morning, or a man's unsteady step crossing the floor. The lamp still burning on the table, enabled Mr. Reginald Stanford to see what he was about, otherwise, serious consequences might have ensued. For Mr. Stanford was not quite steady on his legs, and lurched as he walked, as if his wife's sitting-room had been the deck of a storm-tossed vessel.

"I s'pose she's gone to bed," muttered Mr. Stanford, hiccoughing. "Don't want to wake her—makes a devil of a row! I ain't drunk, but I don't want to wake her."

Mr. Stanford lurched unsteadily across the parlour, and reconnoitred the bedroom. He nodded sagaciously, seeing his wife there asleep, and after making one or two futile efforts to remove his boots, stretched himself, boots and all, on a lounge in the sitting-room, and in two minutes was as sound as one of the Seven Sleepers.

It was late next morning before either of the happy pair awoke. A vague idea that there was a noise in the air aroused the gentleman about nine o'clock. The dense fog in his brain, that a too liberal allowance of rosy wine is too apt to engender, took some time to clear away; but when it did, he became conscious that the noise was not part of his dreams, but some one knocking loudly at the door.

Mr. Stanford staggered sleepily across the apartment, unlocked the door, and admitted the brisk young woman who brought them their meals.

Mr. Stanford, yawning very much, proceeded to make his toilet. Twelve months of matrimony had changed the handsome ex-lieutenant, and not for the better. He looked thinner and paler; his eyes were sunken, and encircled by dark halos, telling of night revels and morning headaches. But that wonderful beauty that had magnetized Rose Danton was there still; the features as perfect as ever; the black eyes as lustrous; all the old graceful ease and nonchalance of manner characterized him yet. But the beauty that had blinded and dazzled her had lost its power to charm. She had been married to him a year—quite long enough to be disenchanted. That handsome face might fascinate other foolish moths; it had lost its power to dazzle her long, long ago. Perhaps the disenchantment was mutual; for the pretty, rose-cheeked, starry-eyed girl who had captivated his idle fancy had become a dream of the past, and his wife was a pale, sickly, peevish invalid, with frowsy hair and slipshod feet.

The clattering of the cups and saucers awoke the baby, who began squalling dismally; and the baby's cries awoke the baby's mamma. Rose got up, feeling cramped and unrefreshed, and came out into the parlour with the infant in her arms. Her husband turned from a dreary contemplation of the sun trying to force its way through a dull, yellow fog, and dropped the curtain.

"Good-morning, my dear," said Mr. Stanford, pouring out a cup of tea. "How are you to-day? Can't you make that disagreeable youngster hold his confounded tongue?"

"What time did you get home last night?" demanded Mrs. Stanford, with flashing eyes.

"It wasn't last night, my dear," replied Mr. Stanford, serenely, buttering his roll; "it was sometime this morning, I believe."

"And of course you were drunk as usual!"

"My love, pray don't speak so loudly; they'll hear you down stairs," remonstrated the gentleman. "Really, I believe I had been imbibing a little too freely. I hope I did not disturb you. I made as little noise as possible on purpose, I assure you. I even slept in my boots, not being in a condition to take them off. Wash your face, my dear, and comb your hair—they both need it very much—and come take some breakfast. If that baby of yours won't hold its tongue, please to throw it out of the window."

Mrs. Stanford's reply was to sink into the rocking-chair and burst into a passion of tears.

"Don't, pray!" remonstrated Mr. Stanford; "one's enough to cry at a time. Do come and have some breakfast. You're hysterical this morning, that is evident, and a cup of tea will do you good."

"I wish I were dead!" burst out Rose, passionately. "I wish I had been dead before I ever saw your face!"

"I dare say, my love. I can understand your feelings, and sympathize with them perfectly."

"Oh, what a fool I was!" cried Rose, rocking violently backward and forward; "to leave my happy home, my indulgent father, my true and devoted lover, for you! To leave wealth and happiness for poverty, and privation, and neglect, and misery! Oh, fool! fool! fool! that I was!"

"Very true, my dear," murmured Mr. Stanford sympathetically. "I don't mind confessing that I was a fool myself. You cannot regret your marriage any more than I do mine."

This was a little too much. Rose sprang up, flinging the baby into the cradle, and faced her lord and master with cheeks of flame and eyes of fire.

"You villain!" she cried. "You cruel, cold-blooded villain, I hate you! Do you hear, Reginald Stanford, I hate you! You have deceived me as shamefully as ever man deceived woman! Do you think I don't know where you were last night, or whom you were with? Don't I know it was with that miserable, degraded Frenchwoman—that disgusting Madame Millefleur—whom I would have whipped through the streets of London, if I could."

"I don't doubt it, my dear," murmured Mr. Stanford, still unruffled by his wife's storm of passion. "Your gentle sex are famous for the mercy they always show to their fairer sisters. Your penetration does you infinite credit, Mrs. Stanford. I was with Madame Millefleur."

Rose stood glaring at him, white and panting with rage too intense for words. Reginald Stanford stood up, meeting her fierce regards with wonderful coolness.

"You're not going to tear my hair out, are you, Rose? You see the way of it was this: Coming from the office where I have the honour to be clerk—thanks to my marriage—I met Madame Millefleur, that most bewitching and wealthy of French widows. She is in love with me, my dear. It may seem unaccountable to you how any one can be in love with me, but the fact is so. She is in love with me almost as much as pretty Rose Danton was once upon a time, and gave me an invitation to accompany her to the opera last night. Of course I was enchanted. The opera is a rare luxury now, and la Millefleur is all the fashion. I had the happiness of bending over her chair all the evening—don't glare so, my love, it makes you quite hideous—and accepted a seat beside her in the carriage when it was all over. A delicious petit souper awaited us in Madame's bijou of a boudoir; and I don't mind owning I was a little disguised by sparkling Moselle when I came home. Open confessions are good for the soul—there is one for you, my dear."

Her face was livid as she listened, and he smiled up at her with a smile that nearly drove her mad.

"I hate you, Reginald Stanford!" was all she could say. "I hate you! I hate you!"

"Quite likely, my love; but I dare say I shall survive that. You would rather I didn't come here any more, I suppose, Mrs. Stanford?"

"I never want to see your hateful, wicked face again. I wish I had been dead before I ever saw it."

"And I wish whatever you wish, dearest and best," he said, with a sneering laugh; "if you ever see my wicked, hateful face again, it shall be no fault of mine. Perhaps you had better go back to Canada. M. La Touche was very much in love with you last year, and may overlook this little episode in your life, and take you to his bosom yet. Good morning, Mrs. Stanford. I am going to call on Madame Millefleur."

He took his hat and left the room, and Rose dropped down in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

If Kate Danton and Jules La Touche ever wished for revenge, they should have seen the woman who so cruelly wronged them at that moment. Vengeance more bitter, more terrible than her worst enemy could wish, had overtaken and crushed her to the earth.

How that long, miserable day passed, the poor child never knew. It came to an end, and the longer, more miserable night followed. Another morning, another day of unutterable wretchedness, and a second night of tears and sleeplessness. The third day came and passed, and still Reginald Stanford never returned. The evening of the third day brought her a letter, with Napoleon's head on the corner.

COALS OF FIRE.

One afternoon, about a fortnight after the receipt of that letter from France, Rose Stanford sat alone once more in the shabby little parlour of the London lodging-house. It was late in April, but a fire burned feebly in the little grate, and she sat cowering over it wrapped in a large shawl. She had changed terribly during these two weeks; she had grown old, and hollow-eyed, a haggard, worn, wretched woman.

It was her third day up, this April afternoon, for a low, miserable fever had confined her to her bed, and worn her to the pallid shadow she was now. She had just finished writing a letter, a long, sad letter, and it lay in her lap while she sat shivering over the fire. It was a letter to her father, a tardy prayer for forgiveness, and a confession of all her misdoings and wrongs—of Reginald Stanford's rather, for, of course, all the blame was thrown upon him, though, if Rose had told the truth, she would have found herself the more in fault of the two.

"I am sick, and poor, and broken-hearted," wrote Mrs. Stanford; "and I want to go home and die. I have been very wicked, papa, but I have suffered so much, that even those I have wronged most might forgive me. Write to me at once, and say I may go home; I only want to go and die in peace. I feel that I am dying now."

She folded the letter with a weary sigh and a hand that shook like an old woman's, and rising, rang the bell. The brisk young woman answered the summons at once with a smile on her face, and Mrs. Stanford's baby crowing in her arms. They had been very kind to the poor young mother and the fatherless babe during this time of trial; but Mrs. Stanford was too ill and broken down to think about it, or feel grateful.

"Here, Jane," said Mrs. Stanford, holding out the letter, "give me the baby, and post this letter."

Jane obeyed; and Rose, with the infant in her lap, sat staring gloomily at the red coals.

"Two weeks before it will reach them, two weeks more before an answer can arrive, and another two weeks before I can be with them. Oh, dear me! dear me! how shall I drag out life during these interminable weeks. If I could only die at once and end it all."

Tears of unutterable wretchedness and loneliness and misery coursed down her pale, thin cheeks. Surely no one ever paid more dearly for love's short madness than this unfortunate little Rose.

"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," she thought, with unspeakable bitterness. "Oh, how happy I might have been to-day if I had only done right last year. But I was mad and treacherous and false, and I dare-say it serves me right. How can I ever look them in the face when I go home?"

The weary weeks dragged on, how wearily and miserably only Rose knew. She never went out; she sat all day long in that shabby parlour, and stared blankly at the passers-by in the street, waiting, waiting.

The good-natured landlady and her daughter took charge of the baby during those wretched weeks of expectation, or Mrs. Reginald Stanford's only son would have been sadly neglected.

April was gone; May came in, bringing the anniversary of Rose's ill-starred marriage and finding her in that worst widowhood, a day of ceaseless tears and regrets to the unhappy, deserted wife. The bright May days went by, one after another, passing as wretched days and more wretched nights do pass somehow; and June had taken its place. In all this long, long time, no letter had come for Rose. How she watched and waited for it; how she had strained her eyes day after day to catch sight of the postman; how her heart leaped up and throbbed when she saw him approach, and sank down in her breast like lead as he went by, only those can know who have watched and waited like her. A sickening sense of despair stole over her at last. They had forgotten her; they hated and despised her, and left her to her fate. There was nothing for it but to go to the alms-house and die, like any other pauper.

She had been mad when she fancied they could forgive her. Her sins had been too great. All the world had deserted her, and the sooner she was dead and out of the way the better.

She sat in the misty June twilight thinking this, with a sad, hopeless kind of resignation. It was the fifth of June. Could she forget that this very day twelvemonth was to have been her wedding-day? Poor Jules—poor Kate! Oh, what a wretch she had been!

She covered her face with her hands, tears falling like rain through her thin fingers.

"I wonder if they will be sorry for me, and forgive me, when they hear I am dead?" she thought. "Oh, how I live, and live; when other women would have died long ago with half this trouble. Only nineteen, and with nothing left to wish for but death."

There was a tap at the door. Before she could speak it was opened, and Jane, the brisk, came rustling in.

"There's a gentleman down-stairs, Mrs. Stanford, asking to see you."

Rose sprang up, her lips apart, her eyes dilating.

"To see me! A gentleman! Jane, is it Mr. Stanford?"

Jane shook her head.

"Not a bit like Mr. Stanford, ma'am; not near so 'andsome, though a very fine-looking gentleman. He said, to tell you as 'ow a friend wanted to see you."

A friend! Oh, who could it be? She made a motion to Jane to show him up—she was too agitated to speak. She stood with her hands clasped over her beating heart, breathless, waiting.

A man's quick step flew up the stairs; a tall figure stood in the doorway, hat in hand.

Rose uttered a faint cry. She had thought of her father, of Jules La Touche, never once of him who stood before her.

"Doctor Frank!" she gasped; and then she was holding to a chair for support, feeling the walls swimming around her.

Doctor Frank took her in his arms, and kissed her pale cheek as tenderly and pityingly as her father might have done.

"My poor child! My poor little Rose! What a shadow you are! Don't cry so—pray don't!"

She bowed her weary head against his shoulder, and broke out into hysterical sobbing. It was so good to see that friendly familiar face once more—she clung to him with a sense of unspeakable trust and relief, and cried in the fullness of her heart.

He let her tears flow for awhile, sitting beside her, and stroking the faded, disordered hair away from the wan, pale face.

"There! there!" he said, at last, "we have had tears enough now. Look up and let me talk to you. What did you think when you received no answer to your letter?"

"I thought you all very cruel. I thought I was forgotten."

"Of course you did; but you are not forgotten, and it is my fault that you have had no letter. I wanted to surprise you; and I have brought a letter from your father breathing nothing but love and forgiveness."

"Give it to me!" cried Rose, breathlessly; "give it to me!"

"Can't, unfortunately, yet awhile. I left it at my hotel. Don't look so disappointed. I am going to take you there in half an hour. Hallo! Is that the baby?"

Reginald Stanford, Junior, asleep in his crib, set up a sudden squall at this moment.

Doctor Frank crossed the floor, and hoisted him up in a twinkling.

"Why, he's a splendid little fellow, Rose, and the very image of—What do you call him?"

"Reginald," Rose said, in a very subdued tone.

"Well, Master Reginald, you and I are going to be good friends, aren't we, and you're not going to cry?"

He hoisted him high in the air, and baby answered with a loud crow.

"That's right. Babies always take to me, Rose. You don't know how many dozens I have nursed in my time. But you don't ask me any questions about home. Aren't you curious to know how they all get on?"

"Papa is married, I suppose?" Rose said.

"Of course—last January. And Danton Hall was burnt down; and they have built up another twice as big and three times as handsome. And Mr. Richards—you remember the mysterious invalid, Rose?"

"Yes."

"Well, Mr. Richards turned out to be your brother Harry, who lived shut up there, because he thought he had committed a murder, some time before, in New York. And Agnes Darling—you have not forgotten Agnes Darling?"

"Oh, no."

"Agnes Darling turns out to be his wife. Quite a romance, isn't it? I will tell you all the particulars another time. Just now, I want you to put on your bonnet and come with me to my hotel. Don't ask me why—I won't tell you. We will fetch the baby too. Go, get ready."

Doctor Frank was imperative, and Rose yielded at once. It was so indescribably delightful, after all these weeks of suspense and despair, to see Frank Danton's friendly face, and to listen to his friendly voice, commanding as one who had the right. Rose had her hat and shawl on directly, and, with baby in her arms, followed him down stairs. A hansom stood waiting. He helped her in, gave the cabman his orders, took his place beside her, and they rattled off.

"When am I going home?" Rose asked, suddenly. "Have you come to fetch me?"

"Not precisely. You are to return with me, however."

"And when are we going?"

"That is not quite decided yet. It is an after-consideration, and there is no hurry. Are you particularly anxious to be back to Canada?"

"I am tired of being lonely and homeless," poor Rose replied, the tears starting. "I want to be at rest, and among the dear familiar faces. Doctor Frank," she said, looking at him appealingly, "have they forgiven me, do you think?"

"Whom do you mean by they, Mrs. Stanford?"

"Papa and—and Kate."

"I have reason to think so. Of course, it must have been rather disagreeable to Kate at first, to have her lover run away and leave her, but I really think she has got over it. We must be resigned to the inevitable, you know, my dear Rose, in this changeable world."

Rose sighed, and looked out of the window. A moment later, and the cab drew up before a stately hotel.

"This is the place," said the Doctor. "Come!"

He helped her out, gave his arm, and led her up a long flight of broad stairs. It was quite a little journey through carpeted corridors to the gentleman's apartments; but he reached the door at last. It opened into a long vista of splendour, as it seemed to Rose, accustomed so long to the shabby Strand lodgings. She had expected to find the Doctor's rooms empty; but, to her surprise, within an inner apartment, whose door stood wide, she saw a lady. The lady, robed in bright silk, tall and stately, with golden hair twisted coronet wise round the shapely head, stood with her back to them, looking out of the window. Something in that straight and stately form struck with a nameless thrill to Rose Stanford's heart; and she stood in the doorway, spell-bound. At the noise of their entrance, the lady turned round, uttered an exclamation of pleasure, and advanced towards them. Doctor Frank stood with a smile on his face, enjoying Mrs. Stanford's consternation. Another second and she was clasped in the lady's arms.

"Rose! Rose! My dear little sister!"

"Kate!" Rose murmured, faintly, all white and trembling.

Kate looked up at the smiling face of the Doctor, a new light dawning on her.

"Oh, he has never told you! For shame, Frank, to shock her so! My darling, did you not know I was here?"

"No; he never told me," Rose said, sinking into a chair, and looking hopelessly at her sister. "What does it mean, Kate? Is papa here?"

"I leave the onerous duty of explaining everything to you, Kate," said the Doctor, before Kate could reply. "I am going down stairs to smoke."

"That provoking fellow!" Kate said, smilingly, looking after him; "it is just like him."

"Is papa here?" Rose repeated, wonderingly.

"No, my dear; papa is at Danton Hall, with his wife. It was impossible for him to come."

"Then how do you happen to be here, and with Doctor Frank?"

Kate laughed—such a sweet, clear, happy laugh—as she kissed Rose's wondering face.

"For the very best reason in the world, Mrs. Stanford! Because I happen to be Doctor Frank's wife!"

Rose sat, confounded, speechless—literally struck dumb—staring helplessly.

"His wife!" she repeated. "His wife!" and then sat lost in overwhelming amaze.

"Yes, my dear; his happy wife. I do not wonder you are astonished, knowing the past; but it is a long story to tell. I am ashamed to think how wicked and disagreeable, and perverse, I used to be; but it is all over now. I think there is no one in all the wide world like Frank!"

Her eyes filled as she said it, and she laid her face for a moment on her sister's shoulder.

"I was blind in those past days, Rose, and too prejudiced to do justice to a noble man's worth. I love my husband with my whole heart—with an affection that can never change."

"And you forgive me?"

"I forgave you long ago. Is this the baby? How pretty! Give him to me."

She took Master Reginald in her arms, and kissed his chubby face.

"To think that you should ever nurse Reginald Stanford's child! How odd!" said Rose, languidly.

The colour rushed into Mrs. Frank Danton's face for a second or two, as she stooped over the baby.

"Strange things happen in this world. I shall be very fond of the baby, I know."

"And Grace, whom you disliked so much, is your mother and sister both together. How very queer!"

Kate laughed.

"It is odd, but quite true. Come, take your things off; you are not to leave us again. We will send to your lodgings for your luggage."

"How long have you been married?" asked Rose, as she obeyed.

"Three weeks; and this is our bridal tour. We depart for Paris in two days. You know Frank has had a fortune."

"I don't know anything. Do tell me all about it—your marriage and everything. I am dying of curiosity."

Mrs. Doctor Danton seated herself in a low chair, with Reginald Stanford's first-born in her lap, and began recapitulating as much of the past as was necessary to enlighten Mrs. Stanford.

"So he saved Eeny's life; and you nursed him, and fell in love with him, and married him, and his old uncle dies and leaves him a fortune in the nick of time. It sounds like a fairy tale; you ought to finish with—'and they lived happy forever after!'"

"Please Heaven, we will! Such real-life romance happens every day, sister mine. Oh, by-the-by, guess who was at our wedding?"

"Who?"

"A very old friend of yours, my dear—Monsieur Jules La Touche."

"No! Was he, though? How did you come to invite him?"

"He chanced to be in the neighbourhood at the time. Do you know, Rose, I should not be surprised if he accomplished his destiny yet, and became papa's son-in-law."

Rose looked up, breathlessly, thinking only of herself.

"Impossible, Kate!—What do you mean?"

"Not at all impossible, I assure you. Eeny was my bride-maid, and you have no idea how pretty she looked; and so Monsieur La Touche seemed to think, by the very marked attention he paid her. It would be an excellent thing for her; he is in a fair way of becoming a millionaire."

A pang of the bitterest envy and mortification she had ever felt, pierced Rose Stanford's heart. Oh! what a miserable—what an unfortunate creature she had been! She turned away, that her sister might not see her face, and Kate carelessly went on.

"Eeny always liked him, I know. She likes him better than ever now. I shall not be at all surprised if we find her engaged when we go home."

"Indeed!" Rose said, trying to speak naturally, and failing signally. "And when are we going home?"

"Early in November, I believe. Frank and I are to make Montreal our home, for he will not give up his profession, of course; and you shall come and live with us if you like the city better than St. Croix."

Rose's slumbers that night were sadly disturbed. It was not the contrast between her handsome bedroom and downy pillows, and the comfortless little chamber she had slept in so long; it was not thought of her sister's goodness and generosity: it was the image of Eeny, in silk and jewels, the bride of Jules La Touche, the millionaire.

Somehow, unacknowledged in her heart of hearts, there had lingered a hope of vengeance on her husband, triumph for herself as the wife of her deserted lover! There would be a divorce, and then she might legally marry. She had no conscientious scruples about that sort of marriages, and she took it for granted Monsieur La Touche could have none either. But now these hopes were nipped in the bud. Eeny—younger, fresher, fairer, perhaps—was to have him and the splendid position his wife must attain; and she was to be a miserable, poor, deserted wife all her days.

I am afraid Mrs. Stanford was not properly thankful for her blessings that night. She had thought, only one day before, that to find her friends and be forgiven by them would be the sum total of earthly happiness; but now she had found them, and was forgiven, she was as wretched as ever.

The contrast between what she was and what she might have been was rather striking, certainly; and the bitterest pang of all was the thought she had no one to blame, from first to last, but herself.

Oh, if she had only been true! This was what came of marrying for love, and trampling under foot prudence, and honour, and truth. A month or two of joy, and life-long regret and repentance!

Doctor Danton, his wife, and sister, took a hurried scamper over London, and departed for Paris.

The weather in that gay capital was very warm, indeed, but delightful to Rose, who had never crossed the Channel before. Paris was comparatively familiar ground to the young Doctor; he took the two ladies sight-seeing perpetually; and Mrs. Stanford almost forgot her troubles in the delights of the brilliant French city.

A nurse had been engaged for baby, so that troublesome young gentleman no longer came between his mamma and life's enjoyment. Her diminished wardrobe had been replenished too; and, well-fed and well-dressed, Rose began to look almost like the sparkling, piquant Rose of other days.

The Dantons had been three weeks in Paris, and were to leave in a day or two en route for Switzerland. The Doctor had taken them for a last drive through the Bois de Boulogne the sunny afternoon that was to be their last for some time in the French capital. Kate and Rose, looking very handsome, and beautifully dressed, lay back among the cushions, attracting more than one glance of admiration from those who passed by.

Mrs. Danton was chatting gayly with her husband, and Rose, poising a dainty azure parasol, looked at the well-dressed Parisians around her.

Suddenly, the hand so daintily holding the parasol grasped it tight, the hot blood surged in a torrent to her face, and her eyes fixed and dilated on two equestrians slowly approaching. A lady and gentleman—the lady a Frenchwoman evidently, dark, rather good-looking, and not very young; the gentleman, tall, eminently handsome, and much more youthful than his fair companion, Rose Stanford and her false husband were face to face!

He had seen them, and grown more livid than death; his eyes fixed on Doctor Danton and his beautiful wife, talking and laughing with such infinitely happy faces.

One glance told him how matters stood—told him the girl he had forsaken was the happy wife of a better man. Then his glance met that of his wife, pretty, and blooming and bright as when he had first fallen in love with her; but those hazel eyes were flashing fire, and the pretty face was fierce with rage and scorn.

Then they were past; and Reginald Stanford and his wife had seen each other for the last time on earth.

The summer flew by. They visited Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and were back in Paris in October. About the middle of that month they sailed from Havre to New York, and reached that city after a delightful passage. It being Rose's first sight of the Empire City, they lingered a week to show her the lions, and early in November were on the first stage of their journey to Danton Hall.

AT HOME.

Late in the afternoon of a dark November day our travellers reached St. Croix, and found the carriage from the Hall awaiting them at the station. Rose leaned back in a corner, wrapped in a large shawl, and with a heart too full of mingled feelings to speak. How it all came back to her, with the bitterness of death, the last time her eyes had looked upon these familiar objects—how happy she had been then, how hopeful; how miserable she had been since, how hopeless now. The well-known objects flitted before her eyes, seen through a mist of tears, so well-known that it seemed only yesterday since she had last looked at them, and these dreary intervening months only a wretched dream. Ah! no dream, for there sat the English nurse with the baby in her arms, a living proof of their reality. One by one the old places spun by, the church, the presbytery, with Father Francis walking up and down the little garden, his soutane tucked up, and his breviary in his hand, all looking ghostly in the dim afternoon light. Now the village was passed, they were flying through wide open gates, and under the shadow of the dear old trees. There was Danton Hall, not the dingy, weather-beaten Danton Hall she knew, but a much more modern, much more elegant mansion; and there on the gray stone steps stood her father, handsome and portly, and kindly as ever; and there was Grace beside him—dear, good Grace; and there was Eeny, dressed in pale pink with fluttering ribbons, fair and fragile, and looking like a rosebud. A little group of three persons behind, at sight of whom Kate uttered an exclamation of delight.

"Oh, Frank! there are Harry and Agnes! To think papa never told us! What a charming surprise!"

That was all Rose heard; then she was clasped in her father's stalwart arms, and sobbing on his breast. They all clustered around her first—their restored prodigal—and Grace kissed her lovingly, and Eeny's soft arms were around her neck. Then the group in the background came forward, and Rose saw a sunburned sailor's face, and knew that it was her brother Harry who was kissing her, and her sister Agnes whose arms clung around her. Then she looked at the third person, still standing modestly in the background, and uttered a little cry.

"Jules! M. La Touche!"

He came forward, a smile on his face, and his hand frankly outstretched, while Eeny blushingly hovered aloof.

"I am very happy to see you again, Mrs. Stanford—very happy to see you looking so well!"

So they had met, and this was all! Then they were in the drawing-room—how, Rose could not tell—it was all like a dream to her, and Eeny had the babe in her arms, and was carrying it around to be kissed and admired. "The beauty! The darling! The pet!" Eeny could not find words enough to express her enthusiastic rapture at such a miracle of babydom, and kissed Master Reginald into an angry fit of crying.

They got up to their rooms at last. Rose broke down again in the seclusion of her chamber, and cried until her eyes were as sore as her heart. How happy they all looked, loving and beloved; and she, the deserted wife, was an object of pity. While she sat crying, there was a tap at the door. Hastily drying her eyes, she opened it, and admitted Grace.

"Have you been crying, Rose?" she said, tenderly taking both her hands, and sitting down beside her. "My poor dear, you must try and forget your troubles, and be happy with us. I know it is very sad, and we are all sorry for you; but the husband you have lost is not worth grieving for. Were you not surprised," smiling, "to see Mr. La Touche here?"

"Hardly," said Rose, rather sulkily. "I suppose he is here in the character of Eeny's suitor?"

"More than that, my dear. He is here in the character of Eeny's affianced husband. They are to be married next month."

Rose uttered an exclamation—an exclamation of dismay. She certainly had never dreamed of this.

"The marriage would have taken place earlier, but was postponed in expectation of your and Kate's arrival. That is why Harry and Agnes are here. M. La Touche has a perfect home prepared for his bride in Ottawa. Come, she is in Kate's room now. I will show you her trousseau."

Rose went with her step-mother from her chamber into Eeny's dressing-room. There was spread out the bridal outfit. Silks, in rich stiffness, fit to stand alone; laces, jewels, bridal-veil, and wreath. Rose looked with dazzled eyes, and a feeling of passionate, jealous envy at her heart. It might have been hers, all this splendour—she might have been mistress of the palace at Ottawa, and the wife of a millionaire.

But she had given up all for love of a handsome face; and that handsome face smiled on another now, and was lost to her forever. She choked back the rebellious throbbing of her heart, and praised the costly wedding outfit, and was glad when she could escape and be alone again. It was all bitter as the waters of Marah, to poor, widowed Rose; their forgiveness, so ready and so generous, was heaping coals of fire on her head; and at home, surrounded by kind friends and every comfort so long a stranger to her, she felt even more desolate than she had ever done in the dreary London lodgings.

But while all were happy at Danton Hall, save Captain Danton's second daughter, once the gayest among them, the days flew by, and Eveleen Danton's wedding-day dawned. Such a lovely December day, brilliant, cloudless, warm—just the day for a wedding. The little village church was crowded with the rich and the poor, long before the carriages from the Hall arrived. Very lovely looked the young bride, in her silken robe of virgin white, her misty veil, and drooping, flower-crowned head. Very sweet, and fair, and innocent, and as pale as her snowy dress, the centre of all eyes, as she moved up the aisle, on her father's arm. There were four bride-maids; the Demoiselles La Touche came from Ottawa for the occasion. Miss Emily Howard, and Miss La Favre. The bride's sisters shared with her the general admiration—Mrs. Dr. Danton; Mrs. Stanford, all auburn ringlets, and golden brown silk, and no outward sign of the torments within; Mrs. Harry Danton, fair as a lily, clinging to her sailor-husband's arm, like some spirit of the sea; and last, but not least, Captain Danton's wife, very simply dressed, but looking so quietly happy and serene. Then it was all over, and the gaping spectators saw the wedding party flocking back into the carriages, and whirling away to the Hall.

Mr. and Mrs. La Touche were to make but a brief tour, and return in time for a Christmas house-warming. Doctor Frank and his wife went to their Montreal home, and Mrs. Stanford remained at St. Croix. The family were all to reassemble at Ottawa, to spend New Year with Madame La Touche.

Rose found the intervening weeks very long and dreary at the Hall. Captain Harry had gone back to his ship, and of course Agnes had gone with him. They had wanted her to stay at home this voyage, but Agnes had lifted such appealing eyes, and clung in so much alarm to Harry at the bare idea of his leaving her, that they had given it up at once. So Rose, with no companion except Grace, found it very dull, and sighed the slow hours away, like a modern Mariana in the Moated Grange.

But the merry New Year time came round at last; and all the Dantons were together once more in Eeny's splendid home. It made Rose's heart ache with envy to walk through those lovely rooms—long vistas of splendour and gorgeousness.

"It might have been mine!—It might have been mine!" that rebellious heart of hers kept crying out. "I might have been mistress of all this retinue of servants—these jewels and silks I might have worn! I might have reigned like a queen in this stately house if I had only done right!"

But it was too late, and Mrs. Stanford had to keep up appearances, and smiles, though the serpents of envy and regret gnawed at her vitals. It was very gay there! Life seemed all made up of music, and dancing, and feasting, and mirth, and skating, and sleighing, and dressing, and singing. Life went like a fairy spectacle, or an Eastern drama, or an Arcadian dream—with care, and trial, and trouble, monsters unknown even by name.

Mme. Jules La Touche played the rôle with charming grace—a little shy, as became her youth and inexperience, but only the more charming for that. They were very, very happy together, this quiet young pair—loving one another very dearly, as you could see, and looking forward hopefully to a future that was to be without a cloud.

Mrs. La Touche and Mrs. Stanford were very much admired in society, no doubt; but people went into raptures over Mrs. Frank Danton. Such eyes, such golden hair, such rare smiles, such queenly grace, such singing, such playing—surely nature had created this darling of hers in a gracious mood, and meted out to her a double portion of her favours. You might think other ladies—those younger sisters of hers included—beautiful until she came; and then that stately presence, that bewitching brightness and grace, eclipsed them as the sun eclipses stars.

"What a lucky fellow Danton is!" said the men. "One doesn't see such a superb woman once in a century."

And Doctor Frank heard it, and smiled, as he smoked his meerschaum, and thought so too.

And so we leave them. Kate is happy; Eeny reigns right royally in her Ottawa home; and Rose—well, poor Rose has no home, and flits about between St. Croix, and Montreal, and Ottawa, all the year round. She calls Danton Hall home, but she spends most of her time with Kate. It is not so sumptuous, of course, as at Ottawa, in the rising young Doctor's home; but she is not galled every moment of the day by the poignant regrets that lacerate her heart at Eeny's. She hears of her husband occasionally, as he wanders through the Continent, and the chain that binds her to him galls her day and night. Little Reginald, able to trot about on his own sturdy legs now, accompanies her in her migratory flights, and is petted to death wherever he goes. He has come to grief quite recently, and takes it very hard that grandpa should have something else to nurse besides himself. This something else is a little atom of humanity named Gracie, and is Captain Danton's youngest daughter.

THE END.