Trumps

CHAPTER LV. — ARTHUR MERLIN’S GREAT PICTURE.

Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a hundred times. He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of boxes of cigars during the conversations. He had completed what he called the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting upon Latmos while Endymion slept. He pointed out to his companions, especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the composition.

“You know,” he said, as he turned his head and moved his hands over the study as if drawing in the air, “you know it ought somehow to seem silent, and cool, and remote; for it is ancient Greece, Diana, and midnight. You see?”

Then came a vast cloud of smoke from his mouth, as if to assist the eyes of the spectator.

“Oh yes, I see,” said every one of his companions—especially Lawrence Newt, who did see, indeed, but saw only a head of Hope Wayne in a mist. The Endymion, the mountain, the Greece, the antiquity, were all vigorous assumptions of the artist. The study for his great picture was simply an unfinished portrait of Hope Wayne.

Aunt Winnifred, who sometimes came into her nephew’s studio, saw the study one day, and exclaimed, sorrowfully,

“Oh, Arthur! Arthur!”

The young man, who was busily mixing colors upon his pallet, and humming, as he smoked, “‘Tis my delight of a shiny night,” turned in dismay, thinking his aunt was suddenly ill.

“My dear aunt!” and he laid down his pallet and ran toward her.

She was sitting in an armchair holding the study. Arthur stopped.

“My dear Arthur, now I understand all.”

Arthur Merlin was confused. He, perhaps, suspected that his picture of Diana resembled a certain young lady. But how should Aunt Winnifred know it, who, as he supposed, had never seen her? Besides, he felt it was a disagreeable thing, when he was and had been in love with a young lady for a long time, to have his aunt say that she understood all about it. How could she understand all about it? What right has any body to say that she understands all about it? He asked himself the petulant question because he was very sure that he himself did not by any means understand all about it.

“What do you understand, Aunt Winnifred?” demanded Arthur, in a resolute and defiant tone, as if he were fully prepared to deny every thing he was about to hear.

“Yes, yes,” continued Aunt Winnifred, musingly, and in a tone of profound sadness, as she still held and contemplated the picture—“yes; yes! I see, I see!”

Arthur was quite vexed.

“Now really my dear aunt,” said he, remonstratingly, “you must be aware that it is not becoming in a woman like you to go on in this way. You ought to explain what you mean,” he added, decidedly.

“Well, my poor boy, the hotter you get the surer I am. Don’t you see?”

Mr. Merlin did not seem to be in the least pacified by this reply. It was, therefore, in an indignant tone that he answered:

“Aunt Winnifred, it is not kind in you to come up here and make me lose my time and temper, while you sit there coolly and talk in infernal parables!”

“Infernal parables!” cried the lady, in a tone of surprise and horror.

“Oh, Arthur, Arthur! that comes of not going to church. Infernal parables! My soul and body, what an awful idea!”

The painter smiled. The contest was too utterly futile. He went slowly back to his easel, and, after a few soothing puffs, began again to rub his colors upon the pallet. He was humming carelessly once more, and putting his brush to the canvas before him, when his aunt remarked,

“There, Arthur! now that you are reasonable, I’ll tell you what I meant.”

The artist looked over his shoulder and laughed.

“Go on, dear aunt.”

“I understand now why you don’t go to our church.”

It was a remark so totally unexpected that Arthur stopped short and turned quite round.

“What do you mean, Aunt Winnifred?”

“I mean,” said she, holding up the study as if to overwhelm him with resistless proof, “I mean, Arthur—and I could cry as I say it—that you are a Roman Catholic!”

Aunt Winnifred, who was an exemplary member of the Dutch Reformed Church, or, as Arthur gayly called her to her face, a Dutch Deformed Woman, was too simple and sincere in her religious faith to tolerate with equanimity the thought that any one of the name of Merlin should be domiciled in the House of Sin, as she poetically described the Church of Rome.

“Arthur! Arthur! and your father a clergyman. It’s too dreadful!”

And the tender-hearted woman burst into tears.

But still weeping, she waved the picture in melancholy confirmation of her assertion. Arthur was amused and perplexed.

“My dear aunt, what has put such a droll idea into your head?”

“Because—because,” said Aunt Winnifred, sobbing and wiping her eyes, “because this picture, which you keep locked up so carefully, is a picture of the Holy Virgin. Oh dear! just to think of it!”

There was a fresh burst of feeling from the honest and affectionate woman, who felt that to be a Roman Catholic was to be visibly sealed and stamped for eternal woe. But there was an answering burst of laughter from Arthur, who staggered to a sofa, and lay upon his back shouting until the tears also rolled from his eyes.

His aunt stopped, appalled, and made up her mind that he was not only a Catholic but a madman. Then, as Arthur grew more composed, he and his aunt looked at each other for some moments in silence.

“Aunt, you are right. It is the Holy Virgin!”

“Oh! Arthur,” she groaned.

“It is my Madonna!”

“Poor boy!” sighed she.

“It is the face I worship.”

“Arthur! Arthur!” and his aunt despairingly patted her knees slowly with her hands.

“But her name is not Mary.”

Aunt Winnifred looked surprised.

“Her name is Diana.”

“Diana?” echoed his aunt, as if she were losing her mind. “Oh! I beg your pardon. Then it’s only a portrait after all? Yes, yes. Diana who?”

Arthur Merlin curled one foot under him as he sat, and, lighting a fresh cigar, told Aunt Winnifred the lovely legend of Latmos—talking of Diana and Endymion, and thinking of Hope Wayne and Arthur Merlin.

Aunt Winnifred listened with the utmost interest and patience. Her nephew was eloquent. Well, well, thought the old lady, if interest in his pursuit makes a great painter, my dear nephew will be a great man. During the course of the story Arthur paused several times, evidently lost in reverie—perhaps tracing the analogy. When he ended there was a moment’s silence. Then Aunt Winnifred looked kindly at him, and said:

“Well?”

“Well,” said Arthur, as he uncurled his leg, and with a half sigh, as if it were pleasanter to tell old legends of love than to paint modern portraits.

“Is that the whole?”

“That is the whole.”

“Well; but Arthur, did she marry him after all?”

Arthur looked wistfully a moment at his aunt.

“Marry him! Bless you, no, Aunt Winnifred. She was a goddess. Goddesses don’t marry.”

Aunt Winnifred did not answer. Her eyes softened like eyes that see days and things far away—like eyes in which shines the love of a heart that, under those conditions, would rather not be a goddess.

CHAPTER LVI. — REDIVIVUS.

Ellen Bennet, like May Newt, was a child no longer—hardly yet a woman, or only a very young one. Rosy cheeks, and clustering hair, and blue eyes, showed only that it was May—June almost, perhaps—instead of gusty March or gleaming April.

“Ellen,” said Gabriel, in a low voice—while his mother, who was busily sewing, conversed in a murmuring undertone with her husband, who sat upon the sofa, slowly swinging his slippered foot—“Ellen, Lawrence Newt didn’t say that he should ask Edward to his dinner on my birthday.”

Ellen’s cheeks answered—not her lips, nor her eyes, which were bent upon a purse she was netting.

“But I think he will,” added Gabriel. “I think I have mistaken Lawrence Newt if he does not.”

“He is usually very thoughtful,” whispered Ellen, as she netted busily.

“Ellen, how handsome Edward is!” said Gabriel, with enthusiasm.

The young woman said nothing.

“And how good!” added Gabriel.

“He is,” she answered, scarcely audibly. Then she said she had left something up stairs. How many things are discovered by young women, under certain circumstances, to have been left up stairs! Ellen rose and left the room.

“I was saying to your father, Gabriel,” said his mother, raising her voice, and still sewing, “that Edward comes here a great deal.”

“Yes, mother; and I am glad of it. He has very few friends in the city.”

“He looks like a Spaniard,” said Mr. Bennet, slowly, dwelling upon every word. “How rich that lustrous tropical complexion is! Its duskiness is mysterious. The young man’s eyes are like summer moonlight.”

Mr. Bennet’s own eyes half closed as he spoke, as if he were dreaming of gorgeous summer nights and the murmur of distant music.

Gabriel and his mother were instinctively silent. The click of her needle was the only sound.

“Oh yes, yes—that is—I mean, my dear, he does come here very often. I do go off on such foolish fancies!” remarked Mr. Bennet, at length.

“He comes very often when you are not at home, Gabriel,” said Mrs. Bennet, after a kind glance at her husband, and still sewing.

“Yes, mother.”

“Then it isn’t only to see you?”

“No, mother.”

“And often when your father and I return from an evening stroll in the streets we find him here.”

“Yes, mother.”

“It isn’t to see us altogether, then?”

“No, mother.”

Mrs. Bennet turned her work, and in so doing glanced for a moment at her son. His eyes were upon her face, but he seemed to have said all he had to say.

“I always feel,” said Mr. Bennet, in a tone and with an expression as if he were looking at something very far away, “as if King Arthur must have lived in the tropics. There is that sort of weird, warm atmosphere in the romance. Where is Ellen? Shall we read some more in this little edition of the old story?”

He laid his hand, as he spoke, upon a small copy of old Malory’s Romance of Arthur. It was a kind of reading of which he was especially fond, and to which the rest were always willing and glad to listen.

“Call Ellen,” said he to Gabriel; “and now then for King Arthur!”

As he spoke the door-bell rang. The next moment a young man, apparently of Gabriel’s age, entered the room. His large melancholy black eyes, the massive black curls upon his head, the transparent olive complexion, a natural elegance of form and of movement—all corresponded with what Mr. Bennet had been saying. It was evidently Edward.

“Good-evening, Little Malacca!” cried Gabriel, gayly, as he rose and put out his hand.

“Good-evening, Gabriel!” he answered, in a soft, ringing voice; then bowed and spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

“Gabriel doesn’t forget old school-days,” said the new-comer to Mrs. Bennet.

“No, he has often told us of his friendship with Little Malacca,” returned the lady calmly, as she resumed her work.

“And how little I thought I was to see him when I came to Mr. Newt’s store,” said the young man.

“Where did you first know Mr. Lawrence Newt?” asked Mrs. Bennet.

“I don’t remember when I didn’t know him, Madam,” replied Edward.

“Happy fellow!” said Gabriel.

Meanwhile Miss Ellen had probably found the mysterious something which she had left up stairs; for she entered the room, and bowed very calmly upon seeing Edward, and, seating herself upon the side of the table farthest from him, was presently industriously netting. As for Edward, he had snapped a sentence in the middle as he rose and bowed to her, and could not possibly fit the two ends together when he sat down again, and so lost it.

Gradually, as the evening wore on, the conversation threatened to divide itself into têtes-à-tête; for Gabriel suddenly discovered that he had an article upon Hemp to read in the Encyclopedia which he had recently purchased, and was already profoundly immersed in it, while Mr. and Mrs. Bennet resumed their murmuring talk, and the chair of the youth with the large black eyes, somehow—nobody saw how or when—slipped round until it was upon the same side of the table with that of Ellen, who was busily netting.

Mrs. Bennet was conscious that the chair had gone round, and the swimming eyes of her husband lingered with pleasure upon the mass of black curls bent toward the golden hair which was bowed over that intricate purse. Ellen was sitting under that portrait of the lady, with the flashing, passionate eyes, who seemed to bear a family likeness to Mrs. Bennet.

The more closely he looked at the handsome youth and the lovely girl the more curious Mr. Bennet’s eyes became. He watched the two with such intentness that his wife several times looked up at him surprised when she received no answer to her remarks. Evidently something had impressed Mr. Bennet exceedingly.

His wife bent her head a little nearer to his.

“My dear, did you never see a pair of lovers before?”

He turned his dreaming eyes at that, smiled, and pressed his lips silently to the face which was so near his own that if it had been there for the express purpose of being caressed it could hardly have been nearer.

Then slipping his arm around her waist, Mr. Bennet drew his wife toward him and pointed with his head, but so imperceptibly that only she perceived it, toward the young people, as if he saw something more than a pair of lovers. The fond woman’s eyes followed her husband’s. Gradually they became as intently fixed as his. They seemed to be curiously comparing the face of the young man who sat at their daughter’s side with the face of the portrait that hung above her head. Mrs. Bennet grew perceptibly paler as she looked. The unconscious Edward and Ellen murmured softly together. She did not look at him, but she felt the light of his great eyes falling upon her, and she was not unhappy.

“My dear,” began Mr. Bennet in a low tone, still studying the face and the portrait.

“Hush!” said his wife, softly, laying her head upon his shoulder; “I see it all, I am sure of it.”

Gabriel turned at this moment from his Encyclopedia. He looked intently for some time at the group by the table, as if studying all their thoughts, and then said, gravely, in a loud, clear voice, so that Ellen dropped a stitch, Edward stopped whispering, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet sat erect,

“Exactly. I knew how it was. It says distinctly, ‘This plant is supposed to be a native of India; but it has long been naturalized and extensively cultivated elsewhere, particularly in Russia, where it forms an article of primary importance.’”

CHAPTER LVII. — DINING WITH LAWRENCE NEWT.

Gabriel Bennett was not confident that Edward Wynne would be at the birthday dinner given in his honor by Lawrence Newt, but he was very sure that May Newt would be there, and so she was. It was at Delmonico’s; and a carriage arrived at the Bennets’ just in time to convey them. Another came to Mr. Boniface Newt’s, to whom brother Lawrence explained that he had invited his daughter to dinner, and that he should send a young friend—in fact, his confidential clerk, to accompany Miss Newt. Brother Boniface, who looked as if he were the eternally relentless enemy of all young friends, had nevertheless the profoundest confidence in brother Lawrence, and made no objection. So the hero of the day conducted Miss May Newt to the banquet.

The hero of the day was so engaged in conversation with Miss May Newt that he said very little to his neighbor upon the other side, who was no other than Hope Wayne. She had been watching very curiously a young man with black curls and eyes, who seemed to have words only for his neighbor, Miss Ellen Bennet. She presently turned and asked Gabriel if she had never seen him before. “I have, surely, some glimmering remembrance of that face,” she said, studying it closely.

Her question recalled a day which was strangely remote and unreal in Gabriel’s memory. He even half blushed, as if Miss Wayne had reminded him of some early treason to a homage which he felt in the very bottom of his heart for his blue-eyed neighbor. But the calm, unsuspicious sweetness of Hope Wayne’s face consoled him. He looked at her for a moment without speaking. It was really but a moment, yet, as he looked, he lay in a heavily-testered bed—he heard the beating of the sea upon the shore—he saw the sage Mentor, the ghostly Calypso putting aside the curtain—for a moment he was once more the little school-boy, bruised and ill at Pinewood; but this face—no longer a girl’s face—no longer anxious, but sweet, serene, and tender—was this the half-haughty face he had seen and worshipped in the old village church—the face whose eyes of sympathy, but not of love, had filled his heart with such exquisite pain?

“That young man, Miss Wayne, is Edward Wynne,” he said, in reply to the question.

It did not seem to resolve her perplexity.

“I don’t recall the name,” she answered. “I think he must remind me of some one I have known.”

“He is as black as Abel Newt,” said Gabriel, looking with his clear eyes at Hope Wayne.

“But much handsomer than Mr. Newt now is,” she answered, with perfect unconcern. “His eyes are softer; and, in fact,” she said, smiling pleasantly, “I am not surprised to see what a willing listener his neighbor is. I wish I could recall him. I don’t think that he resembles Mr. Newt at all, except in complexion.”

Arthur Merlin heard every word, and watched every movement, and marked every expression of Hope Wayne’s, at whose other hand he sat, during this little remark. Gabriel said, in reply to it,

“The truth is, Miss Wayne, you have seen him before. The first time you ever saw me he was with me.”

The clear eyes of the young man were turned full upon her again.

“Oh, yes, I remember now!” she answered. “He was your friend in that terrible battle with Abel Newt. It seems long ago, does it not?”

However far away it may have seemed, it was apparently a remembrance that roused no especial emotion in Miss Hope Wayne’s heart. Having satisfied herself, she released the attention of Gabriel, who had other subjects of conversation with May Newt than his quarrel with her brother for the favor of Hope Wayne.

But Arthur Merlin observed that while Hope Wayne listened with her ears to him, with her eyes she listened to Lawrence Newt. His simple, unselfish, and therefore unconscious urbanity—his genial, kindly humor—and the soft, manly earnestness of his face, were not unheeded—how could they be?—by her. Since the day the will was read he had been a faithful friend and counselor. It was he who negotiated for her house. It was he who daily called and gave her a thousand counsels in the details of management, of which every woman who comes into a large property has such constant need. And in all the minor arrangements of business she found in him the same skill and knowledge, combined with a womanly reserve and softness, which had first so strongly attracted her.

Yet his visits as financial counsel, as he called himself, did not destroy, they only heightened, the pleasure of the meetings of the Round Table. For the group of friends still met. They talked of poetry still. They talked of many things, and perhaps thought of but a few. The pleasure to all of them was evident enough; but it seemed more perplexed than formerly. Hope Wayne felt it. Amy Waring felt it. Arthur Merlin felt it. But not one of them could tell whether Lawrence Newt felt it. There was a vague consciousness of something which nearly concerned them all, but not one of them could say precisely what it was—except, possibly, Amy Waring; and except, certainly, Lawrence Newt.

For Aunt Martha’s question had drawn from Amy’s lips what had lain literally an unformed suspicion in her mind, until it leaped to life and rushed armed from her mouth. Amy Waring saw how beautiful Hope Wayne was. She knew how lovely in character she was. And she was herself beautiful and lovely; so she said in her mind at once, “Why have I never seen this? Why did I not know that he must of course love her?”

Then, if she reminded herself of the conversation she had held with Lawrence Newt about Arthur Merlin and Hope Wayne, she was only perplexed for a moment. She knew that he could not but be honest; and she said quietly in her soul, “He did not know at that time how well worthy his love she was.”

CHAPTER LVIII. — THE HEALTH OF THE JUNIOR PARTNER.

“I call for a bumper!” said Lawrence Newt, when the fruit was placed upon the table.

The glasses were filled, and the host glanced around his table. He did not rise, but he said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, commercial honesty is not impossible, but it is rare. I do not say that merchants are worse than other people; I only say that their temptations are as great, and that an honest man—a man perfectly honest every how and every where—is a wonder. Whatever an honest man does is a benefit to all the rest of us. If he become a lawyer, justice is more secure; if a doctor, quackery is in danger; if a clergyman, the devil trembles; if a shoemaker, we don’t wear rotten leather; if a merchant, we get thirty-six inches to the yard. I have been long in business. I have met many honest merchants. But I know that ‘tis hard for a merchant to be honest in New York. Will you show me the place where ‘tis easy? When we are all honest because honesty is the best policy, then we are all ruined, because that is no honesty at all. Why should a man make a million of dollars and lose his manhood? He dies when he has won them, and what are the chances that he can win his manhood again in the next world as easily as he has won the dollars in this? For he can’t carry his dollars with him. Any firm, therefore, that gets an honest man into it gets an accession of the most available capital in the world. This little feast is to celebrate the fact that my firm has been so enriched. I invite you to drink the health of Gabriel Bennet, junior partner of the firm of Lawrence Newt & Co.!”

There was a moment of perfect silence. Then every body looked at Gabriel except his mother, whose eyes were so full of tears that she could see nothing. Gabriel himself was entirely surprised. He had had no hint from Lawrence Newt of this good fortune. He had worked faithfully, constantly, and intelligently—honestly, of course—that was all Gabriel knew about his position. He had been for some time confidential clerk, so that he was fully cognizant of the state of the business, and knew how prosperous it was. And yet, in this moment of delight and astonishment, he had but one feeling, which seemed entirely alien and inadequate to the occasion, for it was merely the hope that now he might be a regular visitor at the house of Boniface Newt.

Hope Wayne’s eye had hung upon Lawrence Newt, during the little speech he had made, so intently, that Arthur Merlin’s merriment had been entirely checked. He found himself curiously out of spirits. Until that moment, and especially after the little conversation between Hope and Gabriel, in which Abel Newt’s name had been mentioned, Arthur had thought it, upon the whole, the pleasantest little dinner he had ever known. He was not of the same opinion now.

Edward Wynne and Ellen Bennet showed entire satisfaction with the dinner, and especially with Lawrence Newt’s toast. And when the first hum of applause and pleasure had ceased, Edward cried out lustily,

“A speech from the junior partner! A speech! a speech!”

There was a general call. Gabriel could not help rising, and blushing, and bowing, and stuttering, and sitting down again, amidst tempestuous applause, without the slightest coherent idea of what he had said, except that he was very happy, and very glad, and very sure, and very, etc., etc.

But he did not care a song for what he had said, nor for the applause that greeted it, when he saw certain blue eyes glistening, and a soft shyness upon certain cheeks and lips, as if they had themselves been speaking, and had been saying—what was palpably, undeniably, conspicuously true—that they were very happy, and very glad, and very sure, and very, etc., etc. Very, indeed!

CHAPTER LIX. — MRS. ALFRED DINKS.

It was but a few days after the dinner that the junior partner was taking the old path that led under the tower of the fairy princess, when lo! he met her in the way. In her eyes there was that sweet light of expectation and happiness which illuminated all Gabriel’s thoughts of her, and persuaded him that he was the happiest and unworthiest of men.

“Where are you going, May?”

“I am going to Fanny’s.”

“May I go too?”

May Newt looked at him and said, gravely, “No, I am going to ask Little Malacca to go with me.”

“Oh, very well,” replied Mr. Gabriel Bennet, with equal gravity.

“What splendid, melancholy eyes he has!” said May, with unusual ardor.

“Ah! you think so?”

“Of course I do, and such hair! Why, Mr. Bennet, did you ever see such magnificent hair—”

“Oh, you like black hair?”

“And his voice—”

“Now, May—”

“Well, Sir.”

“Please—”

What merry light in the fairy eyes! What dazzling splendor of love and happiness in the face that turned to his as he laid her arm in his own! One would have thought she, too, had been admitted a junior partner in some most prosperous firm.

They passed along the street, which was full of people, and Gabriel and May unconsciously looked at the crowd with new eyes and thoughts. Can it be possible that all these people are so secretly happy as two that we know? thought they. “All my life,” said Gabriel to himself, without knowing it, “have I been going up and down, and never imagined how much honey there was hived away in all the hearts of which I saw only the rough outside?” “All my life,” mused May, with sweet girl-eyes, “have I passed lovers as if they were mere men and women?” And under her veil, where no eye could see, her cheek was flushed, and her eyes were sweeter.

They passed up Broadway and turned across to the Bowery. Crossing the broad pavement of the busy thoroughfare, they went into a narrow street beyond, and so toward the East River. At length they stopped before a low, modest house near a quiet corner. A sloppy kitchen-maid stood upon the area steps abreast of the street. A few miserable trees, pining to death in the stone desert of the town, were boxed up along the edge of the sidewalk. A scavenger’s cart was joggling along, and a little behind, a ragman’s wagon with a string of jangling bells. The smell of the sewer was the chief odor, and the long lines of low, red brick houses, with wooden steps and balustrades, and the blinds closed, completed a permanent camp of dreariness.

“Does Fanny Newt live there?” asked Gabriel, in a tone which indicated that there might be hearts in which honey was not abundantly hived.

“Yes,” said May, gravely. “You know they have very little to live upon, and—and—oh dear, I don’t like to speak of it, Gabriel, but they are very miserable.”

Gabriel said nothing, but rang the bell.

The sloppy servant having stared wildly for a moment at the apparition of blooming love that had so incomprehensibly alighted upon the steps, ducked under them, and in a moment reappeared at the door. She seemed to recognize May, and said “Yes’m” before any question had been asked.

Gabriel and May walked into the little parlor. It was dark and formal. There was a black haircloth sofa with wooden edges all over it, so that nobody could lean or lounge, or do any thing but sit uncomfortably upright. There were black haircloth chairs, a table with two or three books; two lamps with glass drops upon the mantle; a thin cheap carpet; gloom, silence, and a complicated smell of grease—as if the ghosts of all the wretched dinners that had ever been cooked in the house haunted it spitefully.

While May went up stairs to find Fanny, Gabriel Bennet looked and smelled around him. He had not believed that a human home could be so dismal, and he could not understand how haircloth furniture and dimness could make it so. His father’s house was certainly not very large; and it was scantily and plainly furnished, but no Arabian palace had ever seemed so splendid to his imagination as that home was dear to his heart. No, it isn’t the furniture nor the smell, thought he. I am quite sure it is something that I neither see nor smell that makes the difference.

As he sat on the uncomfortable sofa and heard the jangling bells of the ragman die away into the distance, and the loud, long, mournful whoop of the chimney-sweep, his fancy was busy with the figures of a thousand things that might be—of a certain nameless somebody, mistress of that poor, sombre house, but so lighting it up with grace and gay sweetness that the hard sofa became the most luxurious lounge, and the cheap table more gorgeous than ormolu; and of a certain other nameless somebody coming home at evening—an opening door—a rustle in the hall as of women’s robes—a singular sound as of meeting lips—then a coming together arm in arm into the dingy furnished little parlor, but with such a bright fire blazing under the wooden mantle—and then—and then—a pattering of little feet down the stairs—Hem! hem! said Gabriel Bennet, clearing his throat, as if to arouse himself by making a noise. For there was a sound of feet upon the stairs, and the next moment May and her sister Fanny entered the room. Gabriel rose and bowed, and held out his hand. Mrs. Alfred Dinks said, “How do you do?” and seated herself without taking the hand.

Time had not softened her face, but sharpened it, and her eyes were of a fierce blackness. She looked forty years old; and there was a permanent frown of her dark brows.

“So this silly May is going to marry you?” said she, addressing Gabriel.

Surprised by this kind of congratulation, but also much amused by it, as if there could be nothing so ludicrous as the idea of May not marrying a man who loved her as he loved, Gabriel gravely responded,

“Yes, ma’am, she is set upon it.”

Fanny Newt, who had seated herself with an air of utter and chronic contempt and indifference, and who looked away from Gabriel the moment she had spoken to him, now turned toward him again suddenly with an expression like that of an animal which pricks up his ears. The keen fire of the old days shot for a moment into her eyes, for it was the first word of badinage or humor that Fanny Newt had heard for a long, long time.

“A woman who is such a fool as to marry ought to be unhappy,” she replied, with her eyes fixed upon Gabriel.

“A man who persuades her to do it ought to be taken out and hung,” answered he, with aphoristic gravity.

Fanny was perplexed.

“Better to be the slave of a parent than a husband,” she continued.

“I’d lock him out,” retorted Gabriel, with pure irrelevancy; “I’d scotch his sheets; I’d pour water in his boots; I’d sift sand in his hair-brush; I’d spatter vitriol on his shirts. A man who marries a woman deserves nothing better.”

He wagged his foot carelessly, took up one of the books upon the table, and looked into it indifferently. Fanny Newt turned to her sister, who sat smiling by her side.

“What is the matter with this man?” asked Mrs. Alfred Dinks, audibly, of May.

“There is a pregnant text, my dear Mrs. Dinks, née Newt, a name which I delight to pronounce,” said Gabriel, striking in before May could reply, with the lightest tone and the soberest face in the world, “which instructs us to answer a fool according to his folly.”

Fanny was really confounded. She had heard Abel in old days speak of Gabriel Bennet as a spooney—a saint in the milk—a goodsey, boodsey, booby—a sort of youth who would turn pale and be snuffed out by one of her glances. She found him incomprehensible. She owed him the first positive emotion of human interest she had known for years.

May Newt looked and listened without speaking. The soft light glimmered in her eyes, for she knew what it all meant. It meant precisely what her praises of Little Malacca meant. It meant that she and Gabriel loved each other.

The junior partner was still holding the book when a heavy step was heard in the entry. Fanny’s eyes grew darker and the frown deeper. There was a blundering movement outside—a hat fell—a cane struck something—and Gabriel knew as perfectly as if he could look through the wall what kind of man was coming. The door opened with a burst, and Mr. Alfred Dinks stopped as his eye fell upon the company. A heavy, coarse, red-faced, dull-eyed man, with an air of brutish obstinacy in every lineament and movement, he stared for a moment without a word or sign of welcome, and then looking at his wife, said, in a grunting, surly tone,

“Look here; don’t be fooling round. The old man’s bust up!”

He banged the door violently to, and they heard his clumsy footsteps creaking up the stairs.

CHAPTER LX. — POLITICS.

“In course; I sez to ma—why, Lord bless me, it must have been three or four years ago—that ‘twould all turn out so. What’s rotten will come to pieces, ma, sez I. Every year she sez to me, sez she, why ain’t the Newts failed yet? as you said they was going to. Jest you be quiet, sez I, ma, it’s comin’. So ‘twas. I know’d all about it.”

President Van Boozenberg thus unburdened his mind and justified his vaticinations to the knot of gentlemen who were perpetually at the bank. They listened, and said ah! and yes, and shook their heads; and the shaky ones wondered whether the astute financier had marked them and had said to ma, sez he, that for all they looked so bright and crowded canvas so smartly, they are shaky, ma—shaky.

General Belch heard the news at his office. He was sitting on the end of his back-bone, which was supported on the two hind legs of a wooden chair, while the two fore legs and his own were lifted in the air. His own, however, went up at a more precipitate angle and rested with the feet apart upon the mantle. By a skillful muscular process the General ejected tobacco juice from his mouth, between his legs, and usually lodged it in the grate before him. It was evident, however, that many of his friends had not been so successful, for the grate, the hearth, and the neighboring floor were spotted with the fluid.

The Honorable Mr. Ele was engaged in conversation with his friend Belch, who was giving him instructions for the next Congressional session.

“You see, Ele, if we could only send something of the right stamp—the right stamp, I say, in the place of Watkins Bodley from the third district, we should be all right. Bodley is very uncertain.”

“I know,” returned the Honorable Mr. Ele, “Bodley is not sound. He has not the true party feeling. He is not willing to make sacrifices. And yet I think that—that—perhaps—”

He looked at General Belch inquiringly. That gentleman turned, beamed approval, and squirted a copious cascade.

“Exactly,” said Mr. Ele, “I was saying that I think if Mr. Bodkins, who is a perfectly honorable man—”

“Oh, perfectly; nothing against his character. Besides, it’s a free country, and every body may have his opinions,” said General Belch.

“Precisely,” resumed Mr. Ele, “as I was saying; being a perfectly honorable man—in fact, unusually honorable, I happen to know that he is in trouble—ahem! ahem! pecuniary trouble.”

He paused a moment, while his friend of the military title looked hard at the grate, as if selecting a fair mark, then made a clucking noise, and drenched it completely. He then said, musingly,

“Yes, yes—ah yes—I see. It is a great pity. The best men get into such trouble. How much money did you say he wanted?”

“I said he was in pecuniary trouble,” returned Mr. Ele, with a slight tone of correction.

“I understand, Mr. Ele,” answered the other, a little pompously, and with an air of saying, “Know your place, Sir.”

“I understand, and I wish to know how large a sum would relieve Mr. Bodley from his immediate pressure.”

“I think about eight or nine thousand dollars. Perhaps a thousand more.”

“I suppose,” said General Belch, slowly, still looking into the blank, dismal grate, and rubbing his fat nose steadily with his fat forefinger and thumb, “I suppose that a man situated as Mr. Bodley is finds it very detrimental to his business to be engaged in public life, and might possibly feel it to be his duty to his family and creditors to resign his place, if he saw a promising way of righting his business, without depending upon the chances of a Congressional career.”

As he drew to the end of this hypothetical harangue General Belch looked sideways at his companion to see if he probably understood him.

The Honorable Mr. Ele shook his head in turn, looked solemnly into the empty grate, and said, slowly and with gravity:

“The supposition might be entertained for the sake of the argument.”

The General was apparently satisfied with this reply, for he continued:

“Let us, then, suppose that a sum of eight or nine thousand dollars having been raised—and Mr. Bodley having resigned—that a new candidate is to be selected who shall—who shall, in fact, serve his country from our point of view, who ought the man to be?”

“Precisely; who ought the man to be?” replied Mr. Ele.

The two gentlemen looked gravely into the grate. General Belch squirted reflectively. The Honorable Mr. Ele raised his hand and shaded his eyes, and gazed steadfastly, as if he expected to see the candidate emerge from the chimney. While they still sat thoughtfully a knock was heard at the door. The General started and brought down his chair with a crash. Mr. Ele turned sharply round, as if the candidate had taken him by surprise in coming in by the door.

A boy handed General Belch a note:

“MY DEAR BELCH,—B. Newt, Son, & Co. have stopped. We do not hear of an assignment, so desire you to take steps at once to secure judgment upon the inclosed account.

“Yours, PERIWING & BUDDBY.”

“Hallo!” said General Belch, as the messenger retired, “old Newt’s smashed! However, it’s a great while since he has done any thing for the party.—By Jove!”

The last exclamation was sudden, as if he had been struck by a happy thought. He took a fresh quid in his mouth, and, putting his hands upon his knees, sat silently for five minutes, and then said,

“I have the man!”

“You have the man?” said Ele, looking at him with interest.

“Certainly. Look here!”

Mr. Ele did look, as earnestly as if he expected the General to take the man out of his pocket.

“You know we want to get the grant, at any rate. If we only have men who see from our point of view, we are sure of it. I think I know a man who can be persuaded to look at the matter from that point—a man who may be of very great service to the party, if we can persuade him to see from our point of view.”

“Who is that?” asked Mr. Ele.

“Abel Newt,” replied General Belch.

Mr. Ele seemed somewhat surprised.

“Oh—yes—ah—indeed. I did not know he was in political life,” said he.

“He isn’t,” returned General Belch.

Mr. Ele looked for further instructions.

“Every body must begin,” said Belch. “Look here. If we don’t get this grant from Congress, what on earth is the use of having worked so long in this devilish old harness of politics? Haven’t we been to primary meetings, and conventions, and elections, and all the other tomfoolery, speechifying and plotting and setting things right, and being bled, by Jupiter!—bled to the tune of more hundreds than I mean to lose; and now, just as we are where a bold push will save every thing, and make it worth while to have worked in the nasty mill so long, we must have our wits about us. Do you know Abel Newt?”

“No.”

“I do. He is a gentleman without the slightest squeamishness. He is perfectly able to see things from particular points of view. He has great knowledge of the world, and he is a friend of the people, Sir. His politics are of the right kind,” said General Belch, in a tone which seemed to be setting the tune for any future remarks Mr. Ele might have to make about Mr. Newt—at public meetings, for instance, or elsewhere.

“I am glad to hear he is a friend of the people,” returned Mr. Ele.

“Yes, Sir, he is the consistent enemy of a purse-proud aristocracy, Sir.”

“Exactly; purse-proud aristocracy,” repeated Mr. Ele, as if conning a lesson by rote.

“Dandled in the lap of luxury, he does not hesitate to descend from it to espouse the immortal cause of popular rights.”

“Popular rights,” returned the Honorable Mr. Ele, studying his lesson.

“Animated by a glowing patriotism, he stands upon the people, and waves above his head the glorious flag of our country.”

“Glorious flag of our country,” responded the other.

“The undaunted enemy of monopoly, he is equally the foe of class legislation and the friend of State rights.”

“Friend of State rights.”

“Ahem!” said General Belch, looking blankly at Mr. Ele, “where was I?”

“Friend of State rights,” parroted Mr. Ele.

“Exactly; oh yes! And if ever the glorious fabric of our country’s—our country’s—our country’s—d—— it! our country’s what, Mr. Ele?”

That honorable gentleman was engaged with his own thoughts while he followed with his tongue the words of his friend, so that, perhaps a little maliciously, perhaps a little unconsciously, he went on in the same wooden tone of repetition.

“D—— it! Our country’s what, Mr. Ele?”

General Belch looked at his companion. They both smiled.

“How the old phrases sort o’ slip out, don’t they?” asked the General, squirting.

“They do,” said Mr. Ele, taking snuff.

“Well, now, don’t you see what kind of man Abel Newt is?”

“I do, indeed,” replied Ele.

“I tell you, if you fellows from the city don’t look out for yourselves, you’ll find him riding upon your shoulders. He is a smart fellow. I am very sorry for Watkins Bodley. Any family?”

“Yes—a good deal,” replied Mr. Ele, vaguely.

“Ah indeed! Pity! pity! I suppose, then, that a proper sense of what he owes to his family—eh?”

“Without question. Oh! certainly.”

General Belch rose.

“I do not see, then, that we have any thing else that ought to detain you. I will see Mr. Newt, and let you know. Good-morning, Mr. Ele—good-morning, my dear Sir.”

And the General bowed out the representative so imperatively that the Honorable B. Jawley Ele felt very much as if he had been kicked down stairs.