Trumps

CHAPTER XXIII. — BONIFACE NEWT, SON, AND CO., DRY GOODS ON COMMISSION.

Abel Newt smoked a great many cigars to enable him to see his position clearly.

When he told his mother that he could not accompany her to the Springs because he was about entering his father’s counting-room, it was not so much because he was enamored of business as that his future relations with Hope were entirely doubtful, and he did not wish to complicate them by exposing himself to the chances of Saratoga.

“Business, of course, is the only career in this country, my son,” said Boniface Newt. “What men want, and women too, is money. What is this city of New York? A combination of men and machines for making money. Every body respects a rich man. They may laugh at him behind his back. They may sneer at his ignorance and awkwardness, and all that sort of thing, but they respect his money. Now there’s old Jacob Van Boozenberg. I say to you in strict confidence, my son, that there was never a greater fool than that man. He absolutely knows nothing at all. When he dies he will be no more missed in this world than an old dead stage-horse who is made into a manure heap. He is coarse, and vulgar, and mean. His daughter Kate married his clerk, young Tom Witchet—not a cent, you know, but five hundred dollars salary. ‘Twas against the old man’s will, and he shut his door, and his purse, and his heart. He turned Witchet away; told his daughter that she might lie in the bed she had made for herself; told Witchet that he was a rotten young swindler, and that, as he had married his daughter for her money, he’d be d——d if he wouldn’t be up with him, and deuce of a cent should they get from him. They live I don’t know where, nor how. Some of her old friends send her money—actually give five-dollar bills to old Jacob Van Boozenberg’s daughter, somewhere over by the North River. Every body knows it, you know; but, for all that, we have to make bows to old Van B. Don’t we want accommodations? Look here, Abel; if Jacob were not worth a million of dollars, he would be of less consequence than the old fellow who sells apples at the corner of his bank. But as it is, we all agree that he is a shrewd, sensible old fellow; rough in some of his ways—full of little prejudices—rather sharp; and as for Mrs. Tom Witchet, why, if girls will run away, and all that sort of thing, they must take the consequences, you know. Of course they must. Where should we be if every rich merchant’s daughters were at the mercy of his clerks? I’m sorry for all this. It’s sad, you know. It’s positively melancholy. It troubles me. Ah, yes! where was I? Oh, I was saying that money is the respectable thing. And mark, Abel, if this were the Millennium, things would be very different. But it isn’t the Millennium. It’s give one and take two, if you can get it. That’s what it is here; and let him who wants to, kick against the pricks.”

Abel hung his legs over the arms of the office-chairs in the counting-room, and listened gravely.

“I don’t suppose, Sir, that ‘tis money as money that is worth having. It is only money as the representative of intelligence and refinement, of books, pictures, society—as a vast influence and means of charity; is it not, Sir?”

Upon which Mr. Abel Newt blew a prodigious cloud of smoke.

Mr. Boniface Newt responded, “Oh fiddle! that’s all very fine. But my answer to that is Jacob Van Boozenberg.”

“Bless my soul! here he comes. Abel put your legs down! throw that cigar away!”

The great man came in. His clothes were snuffy and baggy—so was his face.

“Good-mornin’, Mr. Newt. Beautiful mornin’. I sez to ma this mornin’, ma, sez I, I should like to go to the country to-day, sez I. Go ‘long; pa! sez she. Werry well, sez I, I’ll go ‘long if you’ll go too. Ma she laughed; she know’d I wasn’t in earnest. She know’d ‘twasn’t only a joke.”

Mr. Van Boozenberg drew out a large red bandana handkerchief, and blew his nose as if it had been a trumpet sounding a charge.

Messrs. Newt & Son smiled sympathetically. The junior partner observed, cheerfully,

“Yes, Sir.”

The millionaire stared at the young man.

“Ma’s going to Saratogy,” remarked Mr. Van Boozenberg. “She said she wanted to go. Werry well, sez I, ma, go.”

Messrs. Newt & Son smiled deferentially, and hoped Mrs. Van B. would enjoy herself.

“No, I ain’t no fear of that,” replied the millionaire.

“Mr. Van Boozenberg,” said Boniface Newt, half-hesitatingly, “you were very kind to undertake that little favor—I—I—”

“Oh! yes, I come in to say I done that as you wanted. It’s all right.”

“And, Mr. Van Boozenberg, I am pleased to introduce to you my son Abel, who has just entered the house.”

Abel rose and bowed.

“Have you been in the store?” asked the old gentleman.

“No, Sir, I’ve been at school.”

“What! to school till now? Why, you must be twenty years old!” exclaimed Mr. Van Boozenberg, in great surprise.

“Yes, Sir, in my twentieth year.”

“Why, Mr. Newt,” said Mr. Van B., with the air of a man who is in entire perplexity, “what on earth has your boy been doing at school until now?”

“It was his grandfather’s will, Sir,” replied Boniface Newt.

“Well, well, a great pity! a werry great pity! Ma wanted one of our boys to go to college. Ma, sez I, what on earth should Corlaer go to college for? To get learnin’, pa, sez ma. To get learnin’! sez I. I’ll get him learnin’, sez I, down to the store, Werry well, sez ma. Werry well, sez I, and so ‘twas; and I think I done a good thing by him.”

Mr. Van Boozenberg talked at much greater length of his general intercourse with ma. Mr. Boniface Newt regarded him more and more contemptuously.

But the familiar style of the old gentleman’s conversation begot a corresponding familiarity upon the part of Mr. Newt. Mr. Van Boozenberg learned incidentally that Abel had never been in business before. He observed the fresh odor of cigars in the counting-room—he remarked the extreme elegance of Abel’s attire, and the inferential tailor’s bills. He learned that Mrs. Newt and the family were enjoying themselves at Saratoga. He derived from the conversation and his observation that there were very large family expenses to be met by Boniface Newt.

Meanwhile that gentleman had continually no other idea of his visitor than that he was insufferable. He had confessed to Abel that the old man was shrewd. His shrewdness was a proverb. But he is a dull, ignorant, ungrammatical, and ridiculous old ass for all that, thought Boniface Newt; and the said ass sitting in Boniface Newt’s counting-room, and amusing and fatiguing Messrs. Newt & Son with his sez I’s, and sez shes, and his mas, and his done its, was quietly making up his mind that the house of Newt & Son had received no accession of capital or strength by the entrance of the elegant Abel into a share of its active management, and that some slight whispers which he had heard remotely affecting the standing of the house must be remembered.

“A werry pretty store you have here, Mr. Newt. Find Pearl Street as good as Beaver?”

“Oh yes, Sir,” replied Boniface Newt, bowing and rubbing his hands. “Call again, Sir; it’s a rare pleasure to see you here, Mr. Van Boozenberg.”

“Well, you know, ma, sez she, now pa you mustn’t sit in draughts. It’s so sort of draughty down town in your horrid offices, pa, sez she—sez ma, you know—that I’m awful ‘fraid you’ll catch your death, sez she, and I must mind ma, you know. Good-mornin’, Mr. Newt, a werry good-mornin’, Sir,” said the old gentleman, as he stepped out.

“Do you have much of that sort of thing to undergo in business, father?” asked Abel, when Jacob Van Boozenberg had gone.

“My dear son,” replied the older Mr. Newt, “the world is made up of fools, bores, and knaves. Some of them speak good grammar and use white cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, some do not. It’s dreadful, I know, and I am rather tired of a world where you are busy driving donkeys with a chance of their presently driving you.”

Mr. Boniface Newt shook his foot pettishly.

“Father,” said Abel.

“Well.”

“Which is Uncle Lawrence—a fool, a bore, or a knave?”

Mr. Boniface Newt’s foot stopped, and, after looking at his son for a few moments, he answered:

“Abel, your Uncle Lawrence is a singular man. He’s a sort of exception to general rules. I don’t understand him, and he doesn’t help me to. When he was a boy he went to India and lived there several years. He came home once and staid a little while, and then went back again, although I believe he was rich. It was mysterious, I never could quite understand it—though, of course, I believe there was some woman in it. Neither your mother nor I could ever find out much about it. By-and-by he came home again, and has been in business here ever since. He’s a bachelor, you know, and his business is different from mine, and he has queer friends and tastes, so that I don’t often see him except when he comes to the house, and that isn’t very often.”

“He’s rich, isn’t he?” asked Abel.

“Yes, he’s very rich, and that’s the curious part of it,” answered his father, “and he gives away a great deal of money in what seems to me a very foolish way. He’s a kind of dreamer—an impracticable man. He pays lots of poor people’s rents, and I try to show him that he is merely encouraging idleness and crime. But I can’t make him see it. He declares that, if a sewing-girl makes but two dollars a week and has a helpless mother and three small sisters to support besides rent and fuel, and so on, it’s not encouraging idleness to help her with the rent. Well, I suppose it is hard sometimes with some of those people. But you’ve no right to go by particular cases in these matters. You ought to go by the general rule, as I constantly tell him. ‘Yes,’ says he, in that smiling way of his which does put me almost beside myself, ‘yes, you shall go by the general rule, and let people starve; and I’ll go by particular cases, and feed ‘em.’ Then he is just as rich as if he were an old flint like Van Boozenberg. Well, it is the funniest, foggiest sort of world. I swear I don’t see into it at all—I give it all up. I only know one thing; that it’s first in first win. And that’s extremely sad, too, you know. Yes, very sad! Where was I? Ah yes! that we are all dirty scoundrels.”

Abel had relighted his cigar, after Mr. Van Boozenberg’s departure, and filled the office with smoke until the atmosphere resembled the fog in which his father seemed to be floundering.

“Abel, merchants ought not to smoke cigars in their counting-rooms,” said his father, in a half-pettish way.

“No, I suppose not,” replied Abel, lightly; “they ought to smoke other people. But tell me, father, do you know nothing about the woman that you say was mixed up with Uncle Lawrence’s affairs?”

“Nothing at all”

“Not even her name?”

“Not a syllable.”

“Pathetic and mysterious,” rejoined Abel; “a case of unhappy love, I suppose.”

“If it is so,” said Mr. Newt, “your Uncle Lawrence is the happiest miserable man I ever knew.”

“Well, there’s a difference among men, you know, father. Some wear their miseries like an order in their button-holes. Some do as the Spartan boy did when the wolf bit him.”

“How’d the Spartan boy do?” asked Mr. Newt.

“He covered it up, laughed, and dropped dead.”

“Gracious!” said Mr. Boniface Newt.

“Or like Boccaccio’s basil-pot,” continued Abel, calmly; pouring forth smoke, while his befogged papa inquired,

“What on earth do you mean by Boccaccio’s basil-pot?”

“Why, a girl’s lover had his head cut off, and she put it in a flower-pot, and covered it up that way, and instead of laughing herself, set flowers to blooming over it.”

“Goodness me, Abel, what are you talking about?”

“Of Love, the canker-worm, Sir,” replied Abel, imperturbable, and emitting smoke.

It was evidently not the busy season in the Dry-goods Commission House of Boniface Newt & Son.

When Mr. Van Boozenberg went home to dinner, he said:

“Ma, you’d better improve this werry pleasant weather and start for Saratogy as soon as you can. Mr. Boniface Newt tells me his wife and family is there, and you’ll find them werry pleasant folks. I jes’ want you to write me all about ‘em. You see, ma, one of our directors to-day sez to me, after board, sez he, ‘The Boniface Newts is a going it slap-dash up to Saratogy.’ I laughed, and sez I, ‘Why shouldn’t they? but I don’t believe they be,’ sez I. Sez he, ‘I’ll bet you a new shawl for your wife they be,’ sez he. Sez I, ‘Done.’ So you see ma, if so be they be, werry well. A new shawl for some folks, you know; only jes’ write me all about it.”

Ma was not reluctant to depart at the earliest possible moment. Her son Corlaer, whose education had been intercepted by his father, was of opinion, when he heard that the Newts were at Saratoga, that his health imperatively required Congress water. But papa had other views.

“Corlaer, I wish you would make the acquaintance of young Mr. Newt. I done it to-day. He is a well-edicated young man; I shall ask him to dinner next Sunday. Don’t be out of the way.”

Jacob Van Boozenberg having dined, arose from the table, seated himself in a spacious easy-chair, and drawing forth the enormous red bandana, spread it over his head and face, and after a few muscular twitches, and a violent nodding of the head, which caused the drapery to fall off several times, finally propped the refractory head against the back of the chair, and bobbing and twitching no longer, dropped off into temporary oblivion.

CHAPTER XXIV. — “QUEEN AND HUNTRESS.”

Hope Wayne leaned out of the window from which she had just scattered the fragments of the drawing Arthur Merlin had given her. The night was soft and calm, and trees, not far away, entirely veiled her from observation.

She thought how different this window was from that other one at home, also shaded by the trees; and what a different girl it was who looked from it. She recalled that romantic, musing, solitary girl of Pinewood, who lived alone with a silent, grave old nurse, and the quiet years that passed there like the shadows and sunlight over the lawn. She remembered the dark, handsome face that seemed to belong to the passionate poems that girl had read, and the wild dreams she had dreamed in the still, old garden. In the hush of the summer twilight she heard again the rich voice that seemed to that other girl of Pinewood sweeter than the music of the verses, and felt the penetrating glance, that had thrilled the heart of that girl until her red cheek was pale.

How well for that girl that the lips which made the music had never whispered love! Because—because—

Hope raised herself from lightly leaning on the window-sill as the thought flashed in her mind, and she stood erect, as if straightened by a sudden, sharp, almost insupportable pain—“because,” she went on saying in her mind, “had they done so, that other romantic, solitary girl at Pinewood”—dear child! Hope’s heart trembled for her—“might have confessed that she loved!”

Hope Wayne clenched her hands, and, all alone in her dim room, flushed, and then turned pale, and a kind of cold splendor settled on her face, so that if Arthur Merlin could have seen her he would have called her Diana.

During the moment in which she thought these things—for it was scarcely more—the little white bits of paper floated and fell beneath her. She watched them as they disappeared, conscious of them, but not thinking of them. They looked like rose-leaves, they were so pure; and how silently they sank into the darkness below!

And if she had confessed she loved, thought Hope, how would it be with that girl now? Might she not be standing in the twilight, watching her young hopes scattered like rose-leaves and disappearing in the dark?

She clasped her hands before her, and walked gently up and down the room. The full moon was rising, and the tender, tranquil light streamed through the trees into her chamber.

But, she thought, since she did not—since the young girl dreamed, perhaps only for a moment, perhaps so very vaguely, of what might have been—she has given nothing, she has lost nothing. There was a pleasant day which she remembers, far back in her childhood—oh! so pleasant! oh! so sunny, and flowery, and serene! A pleasant day, when something came that never comes—that never can come—but once.

She stopped by the window, and looked out to see if she could yet discover any signs of the scattered paper. She strained her eyes down toward the ground. But it was entirely dark there. All the light was above—all the light was peaceful and melancholy, from the moon.

She laid her face in that moonlight upon the window-sill, and covered it with her hands. The low wind shook the leaves, and the trees rustled softly as if they whispered to her. She heard them in her heart. She knew what they were saying. They sang to her of that other girl and her wishes, and struggles and prayers.

Then came the fierce, passionate, profuse weeping—the spring freshet of a woman’s soul.

—She heard a low knock at the door. She remained perfectly silent. Another knock. Still she did not move.

The door was tried.

Hope Wayne raised her head, but said nothing.

There was a louder knock, and the voice of Fanny Newt:

“Miss Wayne, are you asleep? Please let me in.”

It was useless to resist longer. Hope Wayne opened the door, and Fanny Newt entered. Hope sat down with her back to the window.

“I heard you come in,” said Fanny, “and I did not hear you go out; so I knew you were still here. But I was afraid you would oversleep yourself, and miss the ball.”

Hope replied that she had not been sleeping.

“Not sleeping, but sitting in the moonlight, all alone?” said Fanny. “How romantic!”

“Is it?”

“Yes, of course it is! Why, Mr. Dinks and I are romantic every evening. He will come and sit in the moonlight, and listen to the music. What an agreeable fellow he is!” And Fanny tried to see Hope’s face, which was entirely hidden.

“He is my cousin, you know,” replied Hope.

“Oh yes, we all know that; and a dangerous relationship it is too,” said Fanny.

“How dangerous?”

“Why, cousins are such privileged people. They have all the intimacy of brothers, without the brotherly right of abusing us. In fact, a cousin is naturally half-way between a brother and a lover.”

“Having neither brother nor lover,” said Hope, quietly, “I stop half-way with the cousin.”

Fanny laughed her cold little laugh. “And you mean to go on the other half, I suppose?” said she.

“Why do you suppose so?” asked Hope.

“It is generally understood, I believe,” said Fanny, “that Mr. Alfred Dinks will soon lead to the hymeneal altar his beautiful and accomplished cousin, Miss Hope Wayne. At least, for further information inquire of Mrs. Budlong Dinks.” And Fanny laughed again.

“I was not aware of the honor that awaited me,” replied Hope.

“Oh no! of course not. The family reasons, I suppose—”

“My mind is as much in the dark as my body,” said Hope. “I really do not see the point of the joke.”

“Still you don’t seem very much surprised at it.”

“Why should I be? Every girl is at the mercy of tattlers.”

“Exactly,” said Fanny. “They’ve had me engaged to I don’t know how many people. I suppose they’ll doom Alfred Dinks to me next. You won’t be jealous, will you?”

“No,” said Hope, “I’ll congratulate him.”

Fanny Newt could not see Hope Wayne’s face, and her voice betrayed nothing. She, in fact, knew no more than when she came in.

“Good-by, dear, à ce soir!” said she, as she sailed out of the room.

Hope lingered for some time at the window. Then she rang for candles, and sat down to write a letter.

CHAPTER XXV. — A STATESMAN—AND STATESWOMAN.

In the same twilight Mrs. Dinks and Alfred sat together in her room.

“Alfred, my dear, I see that Bowdoin Beacon drives out your Cousin Hope a good deal.”

Mrs. Dinks arranged her cap-ribbon as if she were at present mainly interested in that portion of her dress.

“Yes, a good deal,” replied Mr. Alfred, in an uncertain tone, for he always felt uncomfortably at the prospect of a conversation with his mother.

“I am surprised he should do so,” continued Mrs. Dinks, with extraordinary languor, as if she should undoubtedly fall fast asleep before the present interview terminated. And yet she was fully awake.

“Why shouldn’t he drive her out if he wants to?” inquired Alfred.

“Now, Alfred, be careful. Don’t expose yourself even to me. It is too hot to be so absurd. I suppose there is some sort of honor left among young men still, isn’t there?”

And the languid mamma performed a very well-executed yawn.

“Honor? I suppose there is. What do you mean?” replied Alfred.

Mamma yawned again.

“How drowsy one does feel here! I am so sleepy! What was I saying? Oh I remember. Perhaps, however, Mr. Beacon doesn’t know. That is probably the reason. He doesn’t know. Well, in that case it is not so extraordinary. But I should think he must have seen, or inferred, or heard. A man may be very stupid; but he has no right to be so stupid as that. How many glasses do you drink at the spring in the morning, Alfred? Not more than six at the outside, I hope. Well, I believe I’ll take a little nap.”

She played with her cap string, somehow as if she were an angler playing a fish. There is capital trouting at Saratoga—or was, thirty years ago. You may see to this day a good many fish that were caught there, and with every kind of line and bait.

Alfred bit again.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk in such a puzzling kind of way, mother. What do you mean about his knowing, and hearing, and inferring?”

“Come, come, Alfred, you are getting too cunning. Why, you sly dog, do you think you can impose upon me with an air of ignorance because I am so sleepy. Heigh-ho.”

Another successful yawn. Sportsmen are surely the best sport in the world.

“Now, Alfred,” continued his mother, “are you so silly as to suppose for one moment that Bowdoin Beacon has not seen the whole thing and known it from the beginning?”

“Why,” exclaimed Alfred, in alarm, “do you?”

“Of course. He has eyes and ears, I suppose, and every body understood it.”

“Did they?” asked Alfred, bewildered and wretched; “I didn’t know it.”

“Of course. Every body knew it must be so, and agreed that it was highly proper—in fact the only thing.”

“Oh, certainly. Clearly the only thing,” replied Alfred, wondering whether his mother and he meant the same thing.

“And therefore I say it is not quite honorable in Beacon to drive her out in such a marked manner. And I may as well say at once that I think you had better settle the thing immediately. The world understands it already, so it will be a mere private understanding among ourselves, much more agreeable for all parties. Perhaps this evening even—hey, Alfred?”

Mrs. Dinks adjusted herself upon the sofa in a sort of final manner, as if the affair were now satisfactorily arranged.

“It’s no use talking that way, mother; it’s all done.”

Mrs. Dinks appeared sleepy no longer. She bounced like an India-rubber ball. Even the cap-ribbons were left to shift for themselves. She turned and clasped Alfred in her arms.

“My blessed son!”

Then followed a moment of silent rapture, during which she moistened his shirt-collar with maternal tears.

“Alfred,” whispered she, “are you really engaged?”

“Yes’m.”

She squeezed him as if he were a bag of the million dollars of which she felt herself to be henceforth mistress.

“You dear, good boy! Then you are sly after all!”

“Yes’m, I’m afraid I am,” rejoined Alfred very uncomfortably, and with an extremely ridiculous and nervous impression that his mother was congratulating him upon something she knew nothing about.

“Dear, dear, DEAR boy!” said Mrs. Dinks, with a crescendo affection and triumph. While she was yet embracing him, his father, the unemployed statesman, the Honorable Budlong Dinks, entered.

To the infinite surprise of that gentleman, his wife rose, came to him, put her arm affectionately in his, and leaning her head upon his shoulder, whispered exultingly, and not very softly,

“It’s done without the wagon. Our dear boy has justified our fondest hopes, Budlong.”

The statesman slipped his shoulder from under her head. If there were one thing of which he was profoundly persuaded it was that a really great man—a man to whom important public functions may be properly intrusted—must, under no circumstances, be wheedled by his wife. He must gently, but firmly, teach her her proper sphere. She must not attempt to bribe that judgment to which the country naturally looks in moments of difficulty.

Having restored his wife to an upright position, the honorable gentleman looked upon her with distinguished consideration; and, playing with the seals that hung at the end of his watch-ribbon, asked her, with the most protective kindness in the world, what she was talking about.

She laid her cap-ribbons properly upon her shoulder, smoothed her dress, and began to fan herself in a kind of complacent triumph, as she answered,

“Alfred is engaged as we wished.”

The honorable gentleman beamed approval with as much cordiality as statesmen who are also fathers of private families, as well as of the public, ought to indulge toward their children. Shaking the hand of his son as if his shoulder wanted oiling, he said,

“Marriage is a most important relation. Young men can not be too cautious in regard to it. It is not an affair of the feelings merely; but common sense dictates that when new relations are likely to arise, suitable provision should be made. Hence every well-regulated person considers the matter from a pecuniary point of view. The pecuniary point of view is indispensable. We can do without sentiment in this world, for sentiment is a luxury. We can not dispense with money, because money is a necessity. It gives me, therefore, great pleasure to hear that the choice of my son has evinced the good sense which, I may say without affectation, I hope he has inherited, and has justified the pains and expense which I have been at in his education. My son, I congratulate you. Mrs. Dinks, I congratulate you.”

The honorable gentleman thereupon shook hands with his wife and son, as if he were congratulating them upon having such an eloquent and dignified husband and father, and then blew his nose gravely and loudly. Having restored his handkerchief, he smiled in general, as it were—as if he hung out signals of amity with all mankind upon condition of good behavior on their part.

Poor Alfred was more speechless than ever. He felt very warm and red, and began to surmise that to be engaged was not necessarily to be free from carking care. He was sorely puzzled to know how to break the real news to his parents:

“Oh! dear me,” thought Alfred; “oh! dear me, I wonder if Fanny wouldn’t do it. I guess I’d better ask her. I wonder if Hope would have had me! Oh! dear me. I wonder if old Newt is rich. How’d I happen to do it? Oh! dear me.”

He felt very much depressed indeed.

“Well, mother, I’m going down,” said he.

“My dear, dear son! Kiss me, Alfred,” replied his mother.

He stooped and kissed her cheek.

“How happy we shall all be!” murmured she.

“Oh, very, very happy!” answered Alfred, as he opened the door.

But as he closed it behind him, the best billiard-player at the Trimountain billiard-rooms said, ruefully, in his heart, while he went to his beloved,

“Oh! dear me! Oh!—dear—me! How’d I happen to do it?”

Fanny Newt, of course, had heard from Alfred of the interview with his mother on the same evening, as they sat in Mrs. Newt’s parlor before going into the ball. Fanny was arrayed in a charming evening costume. It was low about the neck, which, except that it was very white, descended like a hard, round beach from the low shrubbery of her back hair to the shore of the dress. It was very low tide; but there was a gentle ripple of laces and ribbons that marked the line of division. Mr. Alfred Dinks had taken a little refreshment since the conversation with his mother, and felt at the moment quite equal to any emergency.

“The fact is, Fanny dear,” said he, “that mother has always insisted that I should marry Hope Wayne. Now Hope Wayne is a very pretty girl, a deuced pretty girl; but, by George! she’s not the only girl in the world—hey, Fanny?”

At this point Mr. Dinks made free with the lips of Miss Newt.

“Pah! Alfred, my dear, you have been drinking wine,” said she, moving gently away from him.

“Of course I have, darling; haven’t I dined?” replied Alfred, renewing the endearment.

Now Fanny’s costume was too careful, her hair too elaborately arranged, to withstand successfully these osculatory onsets.

“Alfred, dear, we may as well understand these little matters at once,” said she.

“What little matters, darling?” inquired Mr. Dinks, with interest. He was unwontedly animated, but, as he explained—he had dined.

“Why, this kissing business.”

“You dear!” cried Alfred, impetuously committing a fresh breach of the peace.

“Stop, Alfred,” said Fanny, imperiously. “I won’t have this. I mean,” said she, in a mollified tone, remembering that she was only engaged, not married—“I mean that you tumble me dreadfully. Now, dear, I’ll make a little rule. You know you don’t want your Fanny to look mussed up, do you, dear?” and she touched his cheek with the tip of one finger. Dinks shook his head negatively. “Well, then, you shall only kiss me when I am in my morning-dress, and one kiss, with hands off, when we say good-night.”

She smiled a little cold, hard, black smile, smoothing her rumpled feathers, and darting glances at herself in the large mirror opposite, as if she considered her terms the most reasonable in the world.

“It seems to me very little,” said Alfred Dinks, discontentedly; “besides, you always look best when you are dressed.”

“Thank you, love,” returned Fanny; “just remember the morning-dress, please, for I shall; and now tell me all about your conversation with your mother.”

Alfred told the story. Fanny listened with alarm. She had watched Mrs. Dinks closely during the whole summer, and she was sure—for Fanny knew herself thoroughly, and reasoned accordingly—that the lady would stop at nothing in the pursuit of her object.

“What a selfish woman it is!” thought Fanny. “Not content with Alfred’s share of the inheritance, she wants to bring the whole Burt fortune into her family. How insatiable some people are!”

“Alfred, has your mother seen Hope since she talked with you?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you warn her not to?”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“But why didn’t you think of it? If you’d only have put her off, we could have got time,” said Fanny, a little pettishly.

“Got time for what?” asked Alfred, blankly.

“Alfred,” said Fanny, coaxing herself to speak gently, “I’m afraid you will be trying, dear. I am very much afraid of it.”

The lover looked doubtful and alarmed.

“Don’t look like a fool, Alfred, for Heaven’s sake!” cried Fanny; but she immediately recovered herself, and said, with a smile, “You see, dear, how I can scold if I want to. But you’ll never let me, I know.”

Mr. Dinks hoped certainly that he never should. “But I sha’n’t be a very hard husband, Fanny. I shall let you do pretty much as you want to.”

“Dearest, I know you will,” rejoined his charmer. “But the thing is now to know whether your mother has seen Hope Wayne.”

“I’ll go and ask her,” said Alfred, rising.

“My dear fellow,” replied Fanny, with her mouth screwed into a semblance of smiling, “you’ll drive me distracted. I must insist on common sense. It is too delicate a question for you to ask.”

Mr. Dinks grinned and look bewildered. Then he assumed a very serious expression.

“It doesn’t seem to me to be hard to ask my mother if she has seen my cousin.”

“Pooh! you silly—I mean, my precious darling, your mother’s too smart for you. She’d have every thing out of you in a twinkling.”

“I suppose she would,” said Alfred, meekly.

Fanny Newt wagged her foot very rapidly, and looked fixedly upon the floor. Alfred gazed at her admiringly—thought what a splendid Mrs. Alfred Dinks he had secured, and smacked his lips as if he were tasting her. He kissed his hand to her as he sat. He kissed the air toward her. He might as well have blown kisses to the brown spire of Trinity Church.

“Alfred, you must solemnly promise me one thing,” she said, at length.

“Sweet,” said Alfred, who began to feel that he had dined very much, indeed—“sweet, come here!”

Fanny flushed and wrinkled her brow. Mr. Dinks was frightened.

“Oh no, dear—no, not at all,” said he.

“My love,” said she, in a voice as calm but as black as her eyes, “do you promise or not? That’s all.”

Poor Dinks! He said Yes, in a feeble way, and hoped she wouldn’t be angry. Indeed—indeed, he didn’t know how much he had been drinking. But the fellers kept ordering wine, and he had to drink on; and, oh! dear, he wouldn’t do so again if Fanny would only forgive him. Dear, dear Fanny, please to forgive a miserable feller! And Miss Newt’s betrothed sobbed, and wept, and half writhed on the sofa in maudlin woe.

Fanny stood erect, patting the floor with her foot and looking at this spectacle. She thought she had counted the cost. But the price seemed at this instant a little high. Twenty-two years old now, and if she lived to be only seventy, then forty-eight years of Alfred Dinks! It was a very large sum, indeed. But Fanny bethought her of the balm in Gilead. Forty-eight years of married life was very different from an engagement of that period. Courage, ma chère!

“Alfred,” said she, at length, “listen to me. Go to your mother before she goes to bed to-night, and say to her that there are reasons why she must not speak of your engagement to any body, not even to Hope Wayne. And if she begins to pump you, tell her that it is the especial request of the lady—whom you may call ‘she,’ you needn’t say Hope—that no question of any kind shall be asked, or the engagement may be broken. Do you understand, dear?”

Fanny leaned toward him coaxingly as she asked the question.

“Oh yes, I understand,” replied Alfred.

“And you’ll do just as Fanny says, won’t you, dear?” said she, even more caressingly.

“Yes, I will, I promise,” answered Alfred.

“You may kiss me, dear,” said Fanny, leaning toward him, so that the operation need not disarrange her toilet.

Alfred Dinks kept his word; and his mother was perfectly willing to do as she was asked. She smiled with intelligence whenever she saw her son and his cousin together, and remarked that Hope Wayne’s demeanor did not in the least betray the engagement. And she smiled with the same intelligence when she remarked how devoted Alfred was to Fanny Newt.

“Can it possibly be that Alfred knows so much?” she asked herself, wondering at the long time during which her son’s cunning had lain dormant.

CHAPTER XXVI. — THE PORTRAIT AND THE MINIATURE.

The golden days of September glimmered through the dark sighing trees, and relieved the white brightness that had burned upon the hills during the dog-days. Mr. Burt drove into town and drove out. Dr. Peewee called at short intervals, played backgammon with his parishioner, listened to his stories, told stories of his own, and joined him in his little excursions to the West Indies. Mrs. Simcoe was entirely alone.

One day Hiram brought her a letter, which she took to her own room and sat down by the window to read.

“SARATOGA.

“DEAR AUNTY,—We’re about going away, and we have been so gay that you would suppose I had had ‘society’ enough. Do you remember our talk? There have been a great many people here from every part of the country; and it has been nothing but bowling, walking, riding, dancing, dining at the lake, and listening to music in the moonlight, all the time. Aunt Dinks has been very kind, but although I have met a great many people I have not made many friends. I have seen nobody whom I like as much as Amy Waring or Mr. Lawrence Newt, of whom I wrote you from New York, and they have neither of them been here. I think of Pinewood a great deal, but it seems to me long and long ago that I used to live there. It is strange how much older and different I feel. But I never forget you, dearest Aunty, and I should like this very moment to stand by your side at your window as I used to, and look out at the hills, or, better still, to lie in your lap or on my bed, and hear you sing one of the dear old hymns. I thought I had forgotten them until lately. But I remember them very often now. I think of Pinewood a great deal, and I love you dearly; and yet somehow I do not feel as if I cared to go back there to live. Isn’t that strange? Give my love to Grandpa, and tell him I am neither engaged to a foreign minister, nor a New York merchant, nor a Southern planter—nor to any body else. But he must keep up heart, for there’s plenty of time yet. Good-by, dear Aunty. I seem to hear you singing,

“‘Oh that I now the rest might know!’

“Do you know how often you used to sing that? Good-by.

“Your affectionate, HOPE.”

Mrs. Simcoe held the letter in her hand for a long time, looking, as usual, out of the window.

Presently she rose, and went to a bureau, and unlocked a drawer with a key that she carried in her pocket. Taking out an ebony box like a casket, she unlocked that in turn, and then lifted from it a morocco case, evidently a miniature. She returned to her chair and seated herself again, swaying her body gently to and fro as if confirming some difficult resolution, but with the same inscrutable expression upon her face. Still holding the case in her hands unopened, she murmured:

“I want a sober mind, A self-renouncing will, That tramples down and casts behind The baits of pleasing ill.”

She repeated the whole hymn several times, as if it were a kind of spell or incantation, and while she was yet saying it she opened the miniature.

The western light streamed over the likeness of a man of a gallant, graceful air, in whom the fires of youth were not yet burned out, and in whose presence there might be some peculiar fascination. The hair was rather long and fair—the features were handsomely moulded, but wore a slightly jaded expression, which often seems to a woman an air of melancholy, but which a man would have recognized at once as the result of dissipation. There was a singular cast in the eye, and a kind of lofty, irresistible command in the whole aspect, which appeared to be quite as much an assumption of manner as a real superiority. In fact it was the likeness of what is technically called a man of the world, whose frank insolence and symmetry of feature pass for manly beauty and composure.

The miniature was in the face of a gold locket, on the back of which there was a curl of the same fair hair. It was so fresh and glossy that it might have been cut off the day before. But the quaintness of the setting and the costume of the portrait showed that it had been taken many years previous, and that in the order of nature the original was probably dead.

As Mrs. Simcoe held the miniature in both hands and looked at it, her body still rocked over it, and her lips still murmured.

Then rocking and murmuring stopped together, and she seemed like one listening to music or the ringing of distant bells.

And as she sat perfectly still in the golden September sunshine, it was as if it had shone into her soul; so that a softer light streamed into her eyes, and the hard inscrutability of her face melted as by some internal warmth, and a tender rejuvenescence somehow blossomed out upon her cheeks until all the sweetness became sadness, and heavy tears dropped from her eyes upon the picture.

Then, with the old harshness stealing into her face again, she rose calmly, carrying the miniature in her hand, and went out of the room, and down the stairs into the library, which was opposite the parlor in which Abel Newt had seen the picture of old Grandpa Burt at the age of ten, holding a hoop and book.

There were book-shelves upon every side but one—stately ranges of well-ordered books in substantial old calf and gilt English bindings, and so carefully placed upon the shelves, in such methodical distribution of shapes and sizes, that the whole room had an air of preternatural propriety utterly foreign to a library. It seemed the most select and aristocratic society of books—much too fine to permit the excitement of interest in any thing they contained—much too high-bred to be of the slightest use in imparting information. Glass doors were carefully closed over them and locked, as if the books were beatified and laid away in shrines. And the same solemn order extended to the library table, which was precisely in the middle of the room, with a large, solemn family Bible precisely in the middle of the table, and smaller books, like satellites, precisely upon the corners, and precisely on one side an empty glass inkstand, innocent of ink spot or stain of any kind, with a pen carefully mended and evidently carefully never used, and an exemplary pen-wiper, which was as unsullied as might be expected of a wiper which had only wiped that pen which was never dipped into that inkstand which had been always empty. The inkstand was supported on the other side of the Bible by an equally immaculate ivory paper-knife.

The large leather library chairs were arranged in precisely the proper angle at the corners of the table, and the smaller chairs stood under the windows two by two. All was cold and clean, and locked up—all—except a portrait that hung against the wall, and below which Mrs. Simcoe stopped, still holding the miniature in her hand.

It was the likeness of a lovely girl, whose rich, delicate loveliness, full of tender but tremulous character, seemed to be a kind of foreshadowing of Hope Wayne. The eyes were of a deep, soft darkness, that held the spectator with a dreamy fascination. The other features were exquisitely moulded, and suffused with an airy, girlish grace, so innocent that the look became almost a pathetic appeal against the inevitable griefs of life.

As Mrs. Simcoe stood looking at it and at the miniature she held, the sadness which had followed the sweetness died away, and her face resumed the old rigid inscrutability. She held the miniature straight before her, and directly under the portrait; and, as she looked, the apparent pride of the one and the tremulous earnestness of the other indescribably blended into an expression which had been long familiar to her, for it was the look of Hope Wayne.

While she thus stood, unconscious of the time that passed, the sun had set and the room was darkening. Suddenly she heard a sound close at her side, and started. Her hand instinctively closed over the miniature and concealed it.

There stood a man kindly regarding her. He was not an old man, but there was a touch of quaintness in his appearance. He did not speak when she saw him, and for several minutes they stood silent together. Then their eyes rose simultaneously to the picture, met again, and Mrs. Simcoe, putting out her hand, said, in a low voice,

“Lawrence Newt!”

He shook her hand warmly, and made little remarks, while she seemed to be studying into his face, as if she were looking for something she did not find there. Every body did it. Every body looked into Lawrence Newt’s face to discover what he was thinking of, and nobody ever saw. Mrs. Simcoe remembered a time when she had seen.

“It is more than twenty years since I saw you. Have I grown very old?” asked he.

“No, not old. I see the boy I remember; but your face is not so clear as it used to be.”

Lawrence Newt laughed.

“You compliment me without knowing it. My face is the lid of a chest full of the most precious secrets; would you have the lid transparent? I am a merchant. Suppose every body could look in through my face and see what I really think of the merchandise I am selling! What profit do you think I should make? No, no, we want no tell-tale faces in South Street.”

He said this in a tone that corresponded with the expression which baffled Mrs. Simcoe, and perplexed her only the more. But it did not repel her nor beget distrust. A porcupine hides his flesh in bristling quills; but a magnolia, when its time has not yet come, folds its heart in and in with over-lacing tissues of creamy richness and fragrance. The flower is not sullen, it is only secret.

“I suppose you are twenty years wiser than you were,” said Mrs. Simcoe.

“What is wisdom?” asked Lawrence Newt.

“To give the heart to God,” replied she.

“That I have discovered,” he said.

“And have you given it?”

“I hope so.”

“Yes, but haven’t you the assurance?” asked she, earnestly.

“I hope so,” responded Lawrence Newt, in the same kindly tone.

“But assurance is a gift,” continued she.

“A gift of what?”

“Of Peace,” replied Mrs. Simcoe.

“Ah! well, I have that,” said the other, quietly, as his eyes rested upon the portrait.

There was moisture in the eyes.

“Her daughter is very like her,” he said, musingly; and the two stood together silently for some time looking at the picture.

“Not entirely like her mother,” replied Mrs. Simcoe, as if to assert some other resemblance.

“Perhaps not; but I never saw her father.”

As Lawrence Newt said this, Mrs. Simcoe raised her hand, opened it, and held the miniature before his eyes. He took it and gazed closely at it.

“And this is Colonel Wayne,” said he, slowly. “This is the man who broke another man’s heart and murdered a woman.”

A mingled expression of pain, indignation, passionate regret, and resignation suddenly glittered on the face of Mrs. Simcoe.

“Mr. Newt, Mr. Newt,” said she, hurriedly, in a thick voice, “let us at least respect the dead!”

Lawrence Newt, still holding the miniature in his hand, looked surprised and searchingly at his companion. A lofty pity shot into his eyes.

“Could I speak of her otherwise?”

The sudden change in Mrs. Simcoe’s expression conveyed her thought to him before her words:

“No, no! not of her, but—”

She stopped, as if wrestling with a fierce inward agony. The veins on her forehead were swollen, and her eyes flashed with singular light. It was not clear whether she were trying to say something to conceal something, or simply to recover her self-command. It was a terrible spectacle, and Lawrence Newt felt as if he must veil his eyes, as if he had no right to look upon this great agony of another.

“But—” said he, mechanically, as if by repeating her last word to help her in her struggle.

The sad, severe woman stood before him in the darkening twilight, erect, and more than erect, drawn back from him, and quivering and defiant. She was silent for an instant; then, leaning forward and reaching toward him, she took the miniature from Lawrence Newt, closed her hand over it convulsively, and gasped in a tone that sounded like a low, wailing cry:

“But of him.”

Lawrence Newt raised his eyes from the vehement woman to the portrait that hung above her.

In the twilight that lost loveliness glimmered down into his very heart with appealing pathos. Perhaps those parted lips in their red bloom had spoken to him—lips so long ago dust! Perhaps those eyes, in the days forever gone—gone with hopes and dreams, and the soft lustre of youth—had looked into his own, had answered his fond yearning with equal fondness. By all that passionate remembrance, by a lost love, by the early dead, he felt himself conjured to speak, nor suffer his silence even to seem to shield a crime.

“And why not of him?” he began, calmly, and with profound melancholy rather than anger. “Why not of him, who did not hesitate to marry the woman whom he knew loved another, and whom the difference of years should rather have made his daughter than his wife? Why not of him, who brutally confessed, when she was his wife, an earlier and truer love of his own, and so murdered her slowly, slowly—not with blows of the hand, oh no!—not with poison in her food, oh no!” cried Lawrence Newt, warming into bitter vehemence, clenching his hand and shaking it in the air, “but who struck her blows on the heart—who stabbed her with sharp icicles of indifference—who poisoned her soul with the tauntings of his mean suspicions—mean and false—and the meaner because he knew them to be false? Why not of him, who—”

“Stop! in the name of God!” she cried, fiercely, raising her hand as if she appealed to Heaven.

It fell again. The hard voice sank to a tremulous, pitiful tone:

“Oh! stop, if you, are a man!”

They stood opposite each other in utter silence. The light had almost faded. The face in the picture was no longer visible.

Bewildered and awed by the passionate grief of his companion, Lawrence Newt said, gently,

“Why should I stop?”

The form before him had sunk into a chair. Both its hands were clasped over the miniature. He heard the same strange voice like the wailing cry of a child:

“Because I am the woman he loved—because I loved him.”