Winter Evening Tales

"Thank you, sir. The message is of the gravest importance to my brother. I gratefully accept your offer."

Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor's party; so that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands. It was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which, even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger's offer of money for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted. She had seen in the door of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother's, and his speedy arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.

When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.

But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to her that no change could make her happier.

But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he whispered this opinion to her.

"It is only four months since we met, dear."

Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.

"What did you think, dear?"

"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was not going to seek up any other W. Smith."

"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it was intended for me. I can imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W. Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was coming back to New York to look for you."

"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."

"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was written to the wrong Smith."

"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith. Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what you like with the letter."

Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.

Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty—where with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being prepared for the heavenly temple.

This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.

And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was "poor" in every bitter sense of the word.

A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears," what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.

Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she needed—a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.

As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been here that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then solemnly repeated:

Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines from the same grand hymn:

"Is it very dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the last for her on earth.

"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold my hand."

After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive, while that greatest of all struggles was going on—the struggle of the Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn and anxious:

Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the dark river almost dry shod.

Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and excitement had come—the master was returning with a young bride, whom report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty. It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor and extravagant.

For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers, had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds, was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.

Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over, nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the reward of her seductive attentions came.

"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."

She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made herself marvelous.

"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."

In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."

"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."

"Everything is possible in New York—if you have money—and Uncle Gray will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering dinners and running up bills, the better."

"Poor Philip Lee!"

"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor lawyer—especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr. Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations he is sure to indulge in."

This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success. She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said. It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should be feeling a contempt for her duplicity—that he should use her to cure his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.

It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.

This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.

Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home, which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in the country.

Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed. Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty, supported by wealth and position.

Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.

No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now been many years dead.

Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her. However—though she knew it not—no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston's heir; indeed, nothing in her father's conduct sanctioned such a conclusion. True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.

But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with either of them. So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.

To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing. The elegantly dressed young lady who met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a genuine surprise. Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed her. But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground; she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the vantage-ground of her retirement sent Félicité to take observations.

"Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we arrived?"

This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner she had always found omnipotent.

"That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina."

This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the defensive generally assume.

"Miss Kurston? Your sister, Frederick?"

"No; my daughter, Clementina."

"But you were never married before?"

"So people say."

"Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person of—"

"I see no reason why you should not—that is, if you live in the same house with me."

A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the infatuated husband was willing to promise anything—everything—that his charmer demanded—that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler feelings.

One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her, assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum; but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.

This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband. He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for her—a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.

Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master. Gradually, as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.

Two years passed away. There was no longer on Clementina's part, any pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted herself to her own interests and amusements. He wearied with a hopeless search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive him of life.

One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock the door and sit down.

"I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust. I do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter—the lawful heiress of the Kurston lands—whom my wife drove, by subtle and persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in possession of her rights."

"But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?"

Mr. Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank gradually during the following week, and died—his last word, "Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying injunction, to Philip Lee.

A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of a sentimental woman to her first and—as she chose to consider it—her only true affection. She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer, dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of the Kurston property.

Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered. The world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.

The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his engagement. There was but one way to free himself from the toils the artful widow was encompassing him with—he must marry some one else.

But whom? The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him; yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again. He had half a mind to do so, and "half a mind" in love is quite enough to begin with.

So he put on his hat and went to his sister's house. He knew she was out driving—had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park. Then what did he go there for? Because he judged from experience, that at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister's daughters, was at home and alone.

He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it by the other. The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.

"Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"

"Dead! dead! Oh, Philip! Oh, my father! my father!" And the poor girl threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.

This was a revelation. Here, in Pauline Alexes, the girl he had fondly loved for nearly three years, Philip found the long-sought heiress of Kurston Chace!

Bitter, indeed, was her grief when she learned how sorrowfully her father had sought her; but she was scarcely to be blamed for not knowing of, and responding to, his late repentance of the life-long wrong he had done her. For Philip's sister moved far outside the narrow and supreme circle of the Kurstons.

She had hidden her identity in her mother's maiden name—the only thing she knew of her mother. She had never seen her father since her flight from her home but in public, accompanied by his wife; she had no reason to suppose the influence of that wife any weaker; she had been made, by cruel innuendoes, to doubt both the right and the inclination of her father to protect her.

Of course, he had to bear many unkind suspicions—even his friends believed him to have been cognizant all the time of the identity of Pauline Alexes with Athel Kurston—and he was complimented on his cleverness in securing the property, with the daughter, instead of the widow, for an incumbrance. But those may laugh who win, and these things scarcely touched the happiness of Philip and Athel.

As for Mrs. Kurston she made a still more brilliant marriage, and gave up the Kurston estate with an ostentatious indifference. "She was glad to get rid of it; it had brought her nothing but sorrow and disappointment," etc.

But from the heights of her social autocracy, clothed in Worth's greatest inspirations, wearing priceless lace and jewels, dwelling in unrivalled splendor, she looked with regret on the man whom she had rejected for his poverty.

She saw him grow to be the pride of his State and the honor of his country. Loveless and childless, she saw his boys and girls cling to the woman she hated as their "mother," and knew that they filled with light and love the grand old home for which she had first of all sacrificed her affection and her womanhood.

Over the solemn mountains and the misty moorlands the chill spring night was falling. David Scott, master shepherd for MacAllister, of Allister, thought of his ewes and lambs, pulled his Scotch bonnet over his brows, and taking his staff in his hand, turned his face to the hills.

David Scott was a mystic in his own way; the mountains were to him "temples not made with hands," and in them he had seen and heard wonderful things. Years of silent communion with nature had made him love her in all her moods, and he passionately believed in God.

The fold was far up the mountains, but the sheep knew the shepherd's voice, and the peculiar bark of his dog; they answered them gladly, and were soon safely and warmly housed. Then David and Keeper slowly took their way homeward, for the steep, rocky hills were not easy walking for an old man in the late gloaming.

The stranger then came forward; asked David if there was any cottage near where he could rest all night, said that he had come out for a day's fishing, had got separated from his companions, lost his way and was hungry and worn out.

David looked him steadily in the face and read aright the nervous manner and assumed indifference. However, hospitality is a sacred tradition among Scotch mountaineers, whoever, or whatever the young man was, David acknowledged his weariness and hunger as sufficient claim upon his oaten cake and his embers.

It was evident in a few moments that Mr. Semple was not used to the hills. David's long, firm walk was beyond the young man's efforts; he stumbled frequently in the descent, the springy step necessary when they came to the heather distressed him; he was almost afraid of the gullies David took without a thought. These things the old man noted, and they weighed far more with him than all the boastful tongue could say.

"Archie, here is a strange gentleman I found up at Donald's cairn."

The two youths exchanged looks and disliked each other. Yet Archie Scott rose, laid aside his book, and courteously offered his seat by the fire. The stranger took it, eat heartily of the simple meal, joined decently in their solemn worship, and was soon fast asleep in Archie's bed. Then the old man and his son sat down and curtly exchanged their opinions.

"I don't like yon lad, fayther, and I more than distrust his being aught o' a gentleman."

David smoked steadily a few minutes ere he replied:

"He's eat and drank and knelt wi' us, Archie, and it's nane o' our duty to judge him."

When Archie spoke again it was of other matters.

"Fayther, I'm sore troubled wi' MacAllister's accounts; what wi' the sheep bills and the timber and the kelp, things look in a mess like. There is a right way and a wrong way to keep tally of them and I can't find it out."

It was an old trouble that Archie complained about. He was MacAllister's steward, appointed by virtue of his sterling character and known worth; but struggling constantly with ignorance of the methods by which even the most honest business can alone satisfactorily prove its honest condition.

When Mr. Semple awoke next morning, Archie had disappeared, and David was standing in the door, smoking. David liked his guest less in the morning than he had done at night.

"Ye dinna seem to relish your parritch, sir," said David rather grimly.

Mr. Semple said he really had never been accustomed to anything but strong tea and hot rolls, with a little kippered salmon or marmalade; he had never tasted porridge before.

"More's the pity, my lad. Maybe if you had been brought up on decent oatmeal you would hae thankit God for your food;" for Mr. Semple's omission of grace, either before or after his meat, greatly displeased the old man.

"Wha are you rinnin awa from, my lad?"

"Sir!"

There was a moment's angry silence. Suddenly David raised his hand, shaded his eyes and peered keenly down the hills. Mr. Semple followed this movement with great interest.

"What are you looking at, Mr. Scott? Oh! I see. Two men coming up this way. Do you know who they are?"

"They may be gangers or they may be strangers, or they may be policemen—I dinna ken them mysel'."

"Mr. Scott! For God's sake, Mr. Scott! Don't give me up, and I will tell you the whole truth."

"I thought so!" said David, sternly. "Well, come up the hills wi' me; yon men will be here in ten minutes, whoever they are."

There were numerous places of partial shelter known to the shepherd, and he soon led the way to a kind of cave, pretty well concealed by overhanging rocks and trailing, briery stems.

"You'll fare best wi' me, lad, if you tell the truth in as few words as may be; I dinna like fine speeches."

"Mr. Scott, I am Duncan Nevin's bookkeeper and cashier. He's a tea dealer in the Gallowgate of Glasgow. I'm short in my cash, and he's a hard man, so I run away."

"Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. Begin at the beginning."

The young man told his shameful story. He had got into gay, dissipated ways, and to meet a sudden demand had taken three pounds from his employer for just once. But the three pounds had swollen into sixteen, and finding it impossible to replace it, he had taken ten more and fled, hoping to hide in the hills till he could get rowed off to some passing ship and escape to America. He had no friends, and neither father nor mother. At mention of this fact, David's face relaxed.

"Puir lad!" he muttered. "Nae father, and nae mother, 'specially; that's a awfu' drawback."

"It's not David Scott that will make himself hard to a broken heart, when God in heaven has promised to listen to it. I'll tell you what I will do. You shall gie me all the money you have, every shilling; it's nane o' yours, ye ken that weel; and I'll take it to your master, and get him to pass by the ither till you can earn it. I've got a son, a decent, hard-working lad, who's daft to learn your trade—bookkeeping. Ye sail stay wi' me till he kens a' the ins and outs o' it, then I'll gie ye twenty pounds. I ken weel this is a big sum, and it will make a big hole in my little book at the Ayr Bank, but it will set Archie up.

"I'm a good bookkeeper, Mr. Scott," he said; "the bargain is fair enough for you."

"I ken Donald Nevin; he's a Campletown man, and I ken you wouldna hae keepit his books if you hadna had your business at your finger-ends."

The next day David went to Glasgow, and saw Mr. Semple's master. The £9 odd was lost money found, and predisposed him to the arrangement proposed. David got little encouragement from Mr. Nevin, however; he acknowledged the clerk's skill in accounts, but he was conceited of his appearance, ambitious of being a fashionable man, had weak principles and was intensely selfish. David almost repented him of his kindness, and counted grudgingly the shillings that the journey and the carriage of Mr. Semple's trunks cost him.

Still, Archie cordially disliked his teacher, and about the middle of summer it became evident that a very serious cause of quarrel was complicating the offence. Coming up from MacAllister's one lovely summer gloaming Archie met Semple with Katie Morrison, the little girl whom he had loved and courted since ever he carried her dinner and slate to school for her. How they had come to know each other he could not tell; he had exercised all his tact and prudence to prevent it, evidently without avail. He passed the couple with ill-concealed anger; Katie looked down, Semple nodded in what Archie believed to be an insolent manner.

Archie's anger cooled at once; he saw the dilemma; to these simple people a good name was better than gold. It took nearly half the savings of a long life, but the old man went to Ayr and drew sufficient to replace the stolen money. He needed to make no inquiries about Semple. On Tuesday it was known by everyone in the village that Katie Morrison and Alexander Semple had been married the previous Friday, and sailed for America the next day. After this certainty father and son never named the subject but once more. It was on one calm, spring evening, some ten years after, and David lay within an hour of the grave.

"I will, father."

During these ten years there had been occasional news from the exiles. Mrs. Morrison stopped Archie at intervals, as he passed her door, and said there had been a letter from Katie. At first they came frequently, and were tinged with brightest hopes. Alexander had a fine place, and their baby was the most beautiful in the world. The next news was that Alexander was in business for himself and making money rapidly. Handsome presents, that were the wonder of the village, then came occasionally, and also remittances of money that made the poor mother hold her head proudly about "our Katie" and her "splendid house and carriage."

But suddenly all letters stopped, and the mother thought for long they must be coming to see her, but this hope and many another faded, and the fair morning of Katie's marriage was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and mystery.

One night, twenty years after the beginning of my story, he was passing through the old town of Edinburgh, when a wild cry of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" arose on every side of him.

"Where?" he asked of the shrieking women pouring from all the filthy, narrow wynds around.

"In Gordon's Wynd."

He was there almost the first of any efficient aid, striving to make his way up the smoke-filled stairs, but this was impossible. The house was one of those ancient ones, piled story upon story; so old that it was almost tinder. But those on the opposite side were so close that not unfrequently a plank or two flung across from opposite windows made a bridge for the benefit of those seeking to elude justice.

In a few moments the planks bridged the distance between death and safety; but no entreaties could make the man risk the dangerous passage. Setting tight his lips, Archie went for the shrieking coward, and carried him into the opposite house. Then the saved man recognized his preserver.

"Oh, Mr. Scott!" he said, "for God's sake, my wife and my child! The last of seven!"

"You scoundrel! Do you mean to say you saved yourself before Katie and your child!"

Archie did not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly time to save his own life.

"They are dead, Semple!"

After this Archie Scott strove for two years to do without taint of selfishness what his father had begun twenty years before. But there was not much now left to work upon—health, honor, self-respect were all gone. Poor Semple was content to eat the bread of dependence, and then make boastful speeches of his former wealth and position. To tell of his wonderful schemes, and to abuse his luck and his false friends, and everything and everybody, but the real cause of his misfortune.

Archie gave him some trifling post, with a salary sufficient for every decent want, and never heeded, though he knew Semple constantly spoke ill of him behind his back.

However the trial of Archie's patience and promise did not last very long. It was a cold, snowy night in mid-winter that Archie was called upon to exercise for the last time his charity and forbearance toward him; and the parting scene paid for all. For, in the shadow of the grave, the poor, struggling soul dropped all pretences, acknowledged all its shortcomings, thanked the forbearance and charity which had been extended so many years, and humbly repented of its lost and wasted opportunities.

I am addicted to making strange friendships, to liking people whom I have no conventional authority to like—people out of "my set," and not always of my own nationality. I do not say that I have always been fortunate in these ventures; but I have had sufficient splendid exceptions to excuse the social aberration, and make me think that all of us might oftener trust our own instincts, oftener accept the friends that circumstance and opportunity offer us, with advantage. At any rate, the peradventure in chance associations has always been very attractive to me.

In some irregular way I became acquainted with Petralto Garcia. I believe I owed the introduction to my beautiful hound, Lutha; but, at any rate, our first conversation was quite as sensible as if we had gone through the legitimate initiation. I know it was in the mountains, and that within an hour our tastes and sympathies had touched each other at twenty different points.

People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to Petralto's rooms. Their locality might have cooled some people, but not me. It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the streets not very far "up town;" comfortably contiguous to the best hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other necessaries of a pleasant existence.

He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went together. I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, "You had better take half an hour's ride, Jack," I felt like going, and I went.

I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we passed on; but there was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence. He soon complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still passed and repassed the couple who had caused him such evident suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of meeting them. During this interval I had time to notice the caressing, lover-like attitude of the beauty's companion, and I said, as they entered a stately house together, "Are they married?"

"Yes."

"He seems devotedly in love with her."

"He loved her two years before he saw her."

"Impossible."

"Not at all. I have a mind to tell you the story."

"Do. Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together."

"No. I need to be alone an hour or two. Call on me about nine o'clock."

I lit my own cigar, made myself comfortable, and waited until it was Petralto's pleasure to begin. After a while he said, "Jack, turn that easel so that you can see the picture on it."

I did so.

"Now, look at it well, and tell me what you see; first, the locality—describe it."

"A dim old wood, with sunlight sifting through thick foliage, and long streamers of weird grey moss. The ground is covered with soft short grass of an intense green, and there are wonderful flowers of wonderful colors."

"Right. It is an opening in the forest of the Upper Guadalupe. Now, what else do you see?"

"Describe the girl to me."

I turned and looked at my querist. He was smoking, with shut eyes, and waiting calmly for my answer. "Well, she has—Petralto, what makes you ask me? You might paint, but it is impossible to describe light; and the girl is nothing else. If I had met her in such a wood, I should have thought she was an angel, and been afraid of her."

"No angel, Jack, but a most exquisite, perfect flower of maidenhood. When I first saw her, she stood just so, with her open palms full of yellow jasmine. I laid my heart into them, too, my whole heart, my whole life, and every joy and hope it contained."

"What were you doing in Texas?"

"What are you doing in New York? I was born in Texas. My family, an old Spanish one, have been settled there since they helped to build San Antonio in 1730. I grew up pretty much as Texan youths do—half my time in the saddle, familiar with the worst side of life and the best side of nature. I should have been a thorough Ishmaelite if I had not been an artist; but the artistic instinct conquered the nomadic and in my twentieth year I went to Rome to study.

"But one must awake out of every pleasant dream, and one day I got a letter urging my immediate return home. My father had got himself involved in a lawsuit, and was failing rapidly in health. My younger brother was away with a ranger company, and the affairs of the ranch needed authoritative overlooking. I was never so fond of art as to be indifferent to our family prosperity, and I lost no time in hurrying West.

"I had been riding one day for ten hours, and was so fatigued that I determined to spend the night with one of my herdsmen. He had a little shelter under some fine pecan trees on the Guadalupe, and after a cup of coffee and a meal of dried beef, I sauntered with my cigar down the river bank. Then the cool, dusky shadows of the wood tempted me. I entered it. It was an enchanted wood, for there stood Jessy Lorimer, just as I had painted her.

"I did not move nor speak. I watched her, spell-bound. I had not even the power, when she had mounted her pony and was coming toward me, to assume another attitude. She saw that I had been watching her, and a look, half reproachful and half angry, came for a moment into her face. But she inclined her head to me as she passed, and then went off at a rapid gallop before I could collect my senses.

"I gave him immediately a plentiful supply of cigars, and sitting down beside him opened the conversation with horses, but drifted speedily into the subject of new settlers.

"'Were there any since I had left?'

"'Two or three, no 'count travelers, one likely family.'

"'Much of a family?'

"'You may bet on that, sir.'

"'Any pleasant young men?'

"'Reckon so. Mighty likely young gal.'

"So, bit by bit, I found that Mr. Lorimer, my beauty's father, was a Scotchman, who had bought the ranch which had formerly belonged to the old Spanish family of the Yturris. Then I remembered pretty Inez and Dolores Yturri, with their black eyes, olive skins and soft, lazy embonpoint; and thought of golden-haired Jessy Lorimer in their dark, latticed rooms.

"That is a great deal to say, Petralto."

"Perhaps; and yet I will not recall it. In those few months everything that was good in me prospered and grew. Jessy brought out nothing but the best part of my character. I was always at my best with her. No thought of selfish pleasure mingled in my love for her. If it delighted me to touch her hand, to feel her soft hair against my cheek, to meet her earnest, subduing gaze, it also made me careful by no word or look to soil the dainty purity of my white lily.

"I feared to tell her that I loved her. But I did do it, I scarcely know how. The softest whisper seemed too loud against her glowing cheek. She trembled from head to foot. I was faint and silent with rapture when she first put her little hand in mine, and suffered me to draw her to my heart. Ah! I am sick with joy yet when I think of it. I—I first, I alone, woke that sweet young heart to life. She is lost, lost to me, but no one else can ever be to her what I have been."

Tears come like blood from men of cold, strong temperaments, but they were the natural relief of Petralto's. I let him weep. In a few minutes he leaped up, and began pacing the room rapidly as he went on:

"Mr. Lorimer received my proposal with a dour, stiff refusal that left me no hope of any relenting. 'He had reasons, more than one,' he said; 'he was not saying anything against either my Spanish blood or my religion; but it was no fault in a Scotsman to mate his daughter with people of her own kith.'

"There was no quarrel, and no discourtesy; but I saw I could bend an iron bar with my pleadings just as soon as his determination. Jessy received orders not to meet me or speak to me alone; and the possibility of disobeying her father's command never suggested itself to her. Even I struggled long with my misery before I dared to ask her to practice her first deceit.

"Yet I did not know how much Jessy really was to me until I suddenly found out that her father had sent her back to Scotland, under the pretence of finishing her education. I had been so honorably considerate of Jessy's Puritan principles that I felt this hasty, secret movement exceedingly unkind and unjust. Guadalupe became hateful to me, the duties of the ranch distracting; and my brother Felix returning about this time, we made a division of the estate. He remained at the Garcia mansion, I rented out my possessions, and went, first to New Orleans, and afterward to New York.

"In New York I opened a studio, and one day a young gentleman called and asked me to draw a picture from some crude, imperfect sketch which a friend had made. During the progress of the picture he frequently called in. For some reason or other—probably because we were each other's antipodes in tastes and temperament—he became my enthusiastic admirer, and interested himself greatly to secure me a lucrative patronage.

"One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments, penetrated to my private room. There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first saw the woman you saw with him to-night—the picture which you are now looking at—and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality. I cannot tell you how much it cost me to restrain my anger. He, however, never noticed I was angry. He had but one object now—to gain from me the name and residence of the original.

"He came to me one day and offering me a large sum of money, asked me finally to reveal at least the locality of which I had painted the picture. His free, frank unembarrassed manner compels me to believe that he had no idea of the intolerable insult he was perpetrating. He had always been accustomed to consider more or less money an equivalent for all things under the sun. But you, Jack, will easily understand that the offer was followed by some very angry words, and that his threat to hunt the world over to find my beauty was not without fear to me.

"I heard soon after that Will Lennox had gone to the South. I had neither hidden nor talked about my former life and I was ignorant of how much he knew or did not know of it. He could trace me easily to New Orleans; how much further would depend upon his tact and perseverance. Whether he reached Guadalupe or no, I am uncertain, but my heart fell with a strange presentment of sorrow when I saw his name, a few weeks afterward, among the European departures.

"Will you call there?"

"I have no power to resist it. Did you not notice how eagerly she pressed the invitation?"

"Do not accept it, Petralto."

He shook his head, and remained silent. The next afternoon I was astonished on going up to his rooms to find Will Lennox, sitting there. He was talking in that loud, happy, demonstrative way so natural to men accustomed to have the whole world minister unto them.

He did not see how nervous and angry Petralto was under his easy, boastful conversation. He did not notice the ashy face, the blazing eyes, the set lips, the trembling hands, of the passionate Spanish nature, until Petralto blazed out in a torrent of unreasonable words and taunts, and ordered Lennox out of his presence.

Even then the stupid, good-natured, purse-proud man could not see his danger. He began to apologize to me for Petralto's rudeness, and excuse "anything in a fellow whom he had cut out so badly."

"Liar!" Petralto retorted. "She loved me first; you can never have her whole heart. Begone! If I had you on the Guadalupe, where Jessy and I lived and loved, I would—"

"Lennox tortured me," he said, passionately. "How could he be so unfeeling, so mad, as to suppose I should care to learn what chain of circumstances led him to find out my love and then steal her? Everything he said tortured me but one fact—Jessy was alone and thoroughly miserable. Poor little pet! She thought I had forgotten her, and so she married him—not for love; I won't believe it."

"But," I said, "Petralto, you have no right to hug such a delusion; and seeing that you had made no attempt to follow Jessy and marry her, she had every right to suppose you really had forgotten her. Besides, I think it very likely that she should love a young, rich, good-looking fellow like Will Lennox."

That winter the beauty of Mrs. Lennox and the devotion of her husband were on every tongue. But married is not mated, and the best part of Jessy Lorimer's beauty had never touched Will Lennox. Her pure, simple, poetic temperament he had never understood, and he felt in a dim, uncertain way that the noblest part of his wife escaped him.

He could not enter into her feelings, and her spiritual superiority unconsciously irritated him. Jessy had set her love's first music to the broad, artistic heart of Petralto; she could not, without wronging herself, decline to a lower range of feelings and a narrower heart. This reserve of herself was not a conscious one. She was not one of those self-involved women always studying their own emotions; she was simply true to the light within her. But her way was not Will Lennox's way, her finer fancies and lighter thoughts were mysteries to his grosser nature.

I did not much blame Will Lennox. It is very hard to love what we do not comprehend. A wife who could have sympathized in his pursuits, talked over the chances of his "Favorite," or gone to sea with him in his yacht, would always have found Will an indulgent and attentive husband. But fast horses did not interest Jessy, and going to sea made her ill; so gradually these two fell much further apart than they ought to have done.

"Whither bound?" I asked. "To Rome?"

"No; to the Guadalupe. I want to try what nature can do for me. Art, society, even friendship, fail at times to comfort me for my lost love. I will go back to nature, the great, sweet mother and lover of men."

So Petralto went out of New York; and the world that had known him forgot him—forgot even to wonder about, much less to regret, him.

I was no more faithful than others. I fell in with a wonderful German philosopher, and got into the "entities" and "non-entities," forgot Petralto in Hegel, and felt rather ashamed of the days when I lounged and trifled in the artist's pleasant rooms. I was "enamored of divine philosophy," took no more interest in polite gossip, and did not waste my time reading newspapers. In fact, with Kant and Fichte before me, I did not feel that I had the time lawfully to spare.

Of course, under the circumstances, I could not avoid feeling congratulatory; and my affection for the handsome, loving fellow came back so strongly that I resolved to break my late habits of seclusion, and go to the Brevoort House and see his bride.