Chapter II: Part 2

I must say the speaker’s earnestness and unmistakable sincerity began to make an impression upon me. I had fancied once or twice that Mr Foster exercised an unusually close surveillance over Edith and me. Were Dr Archer’s words true, and was I merely a lay-figure at Gorton Hall, to deceive the world? Had I been taken into society by my employers, and my praises trumpeted forth to all their acquaintances, merely in order that my presence should disarm suspicion? ‘You have made me very uncomfortable,’ I candidly confessed.

‘Believe me, Miss Armitage, I would not have taken this course but that I was compelled by necessity. Edith’s step-father has such a complete ascendency over her, that it is difficult to know what to do. But you are always with her, and can watch over her.’

‘But I am only a paid companion, liable to dismissal at any time.’

‘True; but I hope you will try and stay as long as you can, for Edith’s sake.’

‘I fear she is very delicate.’

‘She is delicate; she needs care. But, as she gets older, her health will probably improve. There is really no reason, humanly speaking, why she should not live for many years. But I fear—I fear many things, but chiefly poison, slow and secret. Mr Foster is an accomplished chemist; and his antecedents—better known to me than to most people—give me little confidence in him. If you knew as much as I do about him, Miss Armitage, you would not wonder at my suspicions. But be sure of this: there is danger. I have no proof against Mr Foster, and therefore cannot interfere in any way. Promise, promise me, Miss Armitage, that you will inform me of everything suspicious that you may see from this time. Here is my address.’

I hastily took the proffered card and gave the promise, anxious to return before Mrs Morrell should be uneasy at my absence. She laughingly remarked that the sermon must have been unusually long, and in a casual manner asked what was the text. Luckily, I was able to supply chapter and verse and a lengthy catalogue of my fellow-worshippers. It then struck me for the first time that if, by chance, I was allowed to go out alone, either Mr Foster or Mrs Morrell might find out, by skilfully put questions, everything I had said, seen, and done.

Now that suspicion had once entered my mind, I saw grounds for it everywhere, as might have been expected. The most absurd fancies entered into my head. I persuaded Edith in secret to lock her door at night before retiring to rest, which she had never done before. I do not know what I expected to happen. The precaution was a senseless one; for the foes I was fighting against were far too clever and subtle to contemplate anything so foolish as commonplace midnight murder.

I will do my employers the justice to say that with all this I spent a delightful summer. They took Edith and me to Scotland for a two months’ tour; and I never enjoyed a holiday so much. A more charming cicerone than Mr Foster could not be. Then we went back to Gorton, and settled down for the winter. For some time, absolutely nothing of any importance occurred. I wrote occasionally a brief, reassuring, cautious note to Dr Archer, but carefully refrained from speaking when we met, to avert suspicion. Edith and I grew daily more attached; and nothing could exceed my employers’ kindness.

Edith had been decidedly better in health, until she received a severe chill in November. Mrs Morrell at once sent for the doctor, the same old family practitioner who had attended her from her birth.

Dr Stevens was a worthy man, and once a skilful physician, no doubt; but when I saw him, he was nearly eighty and quite past his work. Feeble, weak in sight and hearing, the old man seemed more fit to be in bed himself, than to be employed in his professional capacity. I hinted as much to Edith; but she was quite indignant, and reiterated her assurances that she had more confidence in Dr Stevens than in any one else; so I had to rest satisfied.

Miss Thorndyke’s illness dragged on with fluctuating strength. She was too delicate to shake off anything easily; and she had frequent relapses, which sadly weakened her strength. Mrs Morrell nursed her most assiduously, declining professional attendance, but permitting me to help her to the best of my ability. But although I was allowed to be in the invalid’s room all day, if I chose, Mrs Morrell would not permit me to exhaust my strength in night-nursing. She had had her bed placed in a dressing-room communicating with Edith’s room, and there she slept, ready, at the slightest movement of the invalid, to spring up and wait upon her. Edith spoke warmly of Mrs Morrell’s kindness and devotion; and certainly she spared no pains to humour the fancies of the sick girl.

About Christmas, the disease assumed a new phase. Symptoms of stomach derangement set in, which Dr Stevens attributed to the long-continued recumbent position and lack of exercise; and he set himself to combat the new evil by every means in his power. This was all discussed in my presence, for no mystery was made of the matter; and indeed I was usually accustomed to administer Edith’s food and medicines when I sat in her room. This, however, never occurred in the evening; for Mr Foster so pathetically pleaded his loneliness in the deserted drawing-room after dinner, when his sister always went to the invalid, that in common civility I could not refuse to play chess and cribbage with him, and occasionally accompany his violin on the piano.

But one night about nine o’clock I slipped quietly out of the drawing-room, and went up-stairs to Edith’s room to see if she was awake. She had been worse that day, and I was beginning to feel rather anxious about her. For a wonder, Mrs Morrell was not on duty, and I entered unchallenged. I had not been into Edith’s room so late as this since the beginning of her illness, and was astonished to find it lighted up by eight large wax candles, dispersed about the apartment, although the glare was carefully screened from the invalid’s face. I stooped over the thin face on the pillow, and received a faint smile. I could not help remarking: ‘How light your room is! I wonder you can sleep in such a blaze.’

‘Mrs Morrell likes it,’ was the languid answer. ‘She always burns eight candles like that, all night. I don’t mind them.—O Alice dear, I am so tired of lying here! and I’m always so thirsty, so dreadfully thirsty! Do give me something to drink!’

I poured out a tumblerful of a cooling drink from a handsome red glass jug on the table near me. She drank it eagerly, and sank back on her pillow as Mrs Morrell came into the room.

I fancied that an angry gleam shot at me from under the widow’s black eyebrows; but if so, she smoothed away her irritation before she addressed me. ‘Alice, my dear, it is most kind of you to be here, but I left my darling girl, as I hoped, to sleep. She is more likely to get a good night’s rest, if she is not disturbed by late visitors. After nine o’clock, please, I must request you for the present, dear, not to come here again.’

I apologised, and said good-night, turning, however, at the door to ask if Mrs Morrell did not think so much light might have a disturbing effect upon the invalid.

‘Now, my dear Miss Armitage, that is not like your usual common-sense,’ answered the widow sweetly. ‘Above all things, plenty of light is essential in a sickroom, where medicines have to be accurately measured out, and where at any moment the nurse may be summoned to her patient’s side. I should be tumbling over the furniture in the dark, if the candles were not kept burning. And now, my dear girl, I must really request that you go; Edith is nearly asleep. Good-night.’ So I ran down-stairs, to be gently scolded by Mr Foster for my long absence.

When a week went by and Edith grew worse every day, I became seriously alarmed, and expressed my uneasiness in a letter to Dr Archer, which I posted myself, for fear of accidents. He sent me a brief note by a trusty messenger, in reply, which did not tend to allay my fears:

‘Your account of her symptoms was most alarming. You say she is wasted and prostrate, and suffers from painful cramps and insatiable thirst. These are the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. You must contrive to secure portions of all her food and medicine, and bottle them securely, and bring them to me. Be in the fir plantation at four o’clock to-morrow to meet me; it is a matter of life and death.’

You may imagine how terrified I was; but luckily I had nerve enough to hide it. I looked out all the small bottles I could find, washed them out carefully, and determined to put them into my pocket one at a time, to fill as occasion should serve. At the same time I could hardly believe that Dr Archer was right in his suspicions. I believed they could not poison Edith without my knowledge. I was in and out of the sickroom all day, from about ten o’clock in the morning, until I was dismissed at five to dress for dinner; and at least half of her food and medicine I administered with my own hands. The medicine bottles I frequently opened fresh from Dr Stevens’ wrappings; and it was difficult to imagine that poison could get into puddings and jellies brought straight from the kitchen to the bedside. I could only conclude that at night must occur Mrs Morrell’s opportunity—if at all.

I felt like a conspirator, as I contrived to secrete small portions of everything of which Edith partook. I secured the last drops remaining of the cooling drink which Mrs Morrell had had to administer to the invalid during the night; also a portion of the farinaceous pudding which Miss Thorndyke had had for her dinner, a part of her sleeping-draught, a wine-glassful of the mixture she was taking every two hours, and some of the beef-tea which Dr Stevens had ordered for her. If poison were really being administered, it must be present in one or other of these. I chiefly suspected the remains of the cooling drink. I was young and unsophisticated, and my experience as a novel-reader made me believe it quite possible that Mrs Morrell should carry small packets of arsenic about in her pocket, to mix in Edith’s medicines and food, as occasion should serve. I can only smile at my credulity now.

It was a difficult matter to meet Dr Archer in the fir plantation unobserved. Mrs Morrell had first to be evaded, and then Mr Foster, who manifested a most amiable and pressing desire to accompany me in my walk. I dared not linger, but hastily thrust the phials into the young doctor’s hands, telling him I particularly suspected the cooling drink. He informed me that he was going to send them at once to an eminent analyst at one of the London hospitals; and that, if they proved to contain poison, he should instantly apply to a magistrate for a warrant.

I could not control my feelings that evening sufficiently well to prevent Mr Foster remarking, as we sat at chess: ‘Your walk to-day did not do you much good, Miss Armitage.’

‘I have rather a headache,’ I hastily answered. It was perfectly true. ‘I sat with Edith all the morning, and her room seemed to me very stuffy.’ Indeed, I had frequently noticed a strange closeness pervading it, especially when I first entered it in the morning; and I very often found my head the worse for a prolonged sojourn in it.

‘As soon as Dr Stevens will allow it, she shall be moved into a larger room,’ he answered, as if he wished to evade a discussion of the subject.

SOME ANECDOTES OF AMERICAN CHILDREN.

The subject of children is one in which every one is more or less interested; for even those who have none of their own were babies themselves in some dim period of the past, and probably most of us have wondered at times what sort of babies we were. Happy they who have it on the authority of those who ought to know, that they were ‘well-behaved children’—lumps of good-nature, and never addicted to crying. How kindly does Charles Lamb revert to the days of his childhood, dwelling with something of reverence on the image of that ‘young master’ whom he could scarcely believe to have been indeed himself, and whose pure memory he cherished as tenderly ‘as if it had been a child of some other house,’ and not of his parents. So perhaps some of us also have yearned over those little phantoms of the past, our own child-selves.

But it is of American children that we have now a few words to say. Perhaps, however, we make a mistake at the outset in calling them _children_ at all, for many of them seem to belong to some species of fairy changelings, so remarkable and almost uncanny is their precocity, and that, too, from the earliest infancy, while they are still in their nurses’ arms, or at the bottle. Gilbert’s little urchin of the _Bab Ballads_ who chucked his nurse under the chin when she fed him, and vowed by the rap it was excellent pap, was nothing to them. They would be too _blasé_ for such infantine manifestations as these. We have one of them before our ‘mind’s eye’ now, an ideal-looking little maid, with sunny hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks, the youngest darling of a happy household. Being of a wakeful disposition, she was indulged with her bottle at night up to the mature age of nearly two years. Her mother, waking once at midnight, was aware of some disturbance in the cot beside her, where baby seemed to be searching vigorously in the moonlight for something. Hoping the little one might forego her search and drop to sleep, the mother lay quiet, when suddenly baby raised her soft fair head, and with the startling question, ‘Where de debil is my mouf-piece?’ fairly banished all slumber from her fond parent. It must be explained that this occurred in a part of the country where children were liable to overhear the talk of negroes, both indoor and outdoor servants; and this race, as represented in the States of America, are evidently of the opinion of the old sea-captain’s Scotch wife who, while agreeing with her minister as to the advisability of her husband’s giving up the habit of swearing, was yet constrained to acknowledge that ‘nae doubt it was still a great set-off to conversation.’ Baby’s grandmamma, however, on being informed of this last addition to her darling’s vocabulary, remarked somewhat grimly that it was about time the bottle should be given up.

The foregoing was scarcely so bad as what a little two-year-old neighbour was guilty of; for on this young scapegrace being mildly remonstrated with for some misdemeanour by his grandfather—a venerable old doctor, of much repute with all who knew him—he retorted, in his half-articulate baby speech, ‘Gan-pa, you’se a old fool!’—waking a burst of unhallowed merriment from all within hearing distance.

The propensity on the part of their children to use profane language is a source of great uneasiness to American mothers. One lady, the daughter of a clergyman, who had brought her up on strictly old-fashioned principles, was much distressed to note the habit growing on her only child, a fine manly little boy of four years. At her wits’ end for a timely cure, she at last resorted to the expedient of a whipping, threatening, with the most unmistakable air of sincerity, that it would be repeated if ever a certain word were used by him again. The morning after this occurrence, Georgie was, as usual, at his spelling lesson with his mother, the task for the day consisting of a string of words all rhyming with ‘am.’ The first few of them had been accomplished with praiseworthy accuracy, when suddenly the young student came to a dead-stop. ‘Go on, sonny,’ said his mother encouragingly, not seeing for the moment where the difficulty lay. ‘C-a-m—cam,’ repeated Georgie in evident embarrassment, the next word apparently presenting some insurmountable obstacle. ‘Go on!’ insisted his mother—when, with a sudden blurt, out came the monosyllable ‘D-a-m—_dam_, a millpond dam,’ added Georgie, the threatened punishment being uppermost in his mind.

The same little boy had a cousin, a year older than himself, and ages ahead of him in knowledge of the world, so much so, that he would sometimes assume the part of mentor towards his more unsophisticated junior. When the two were together one day, the elder announced his intention of paying a visit to a family living near them. ‘But I won’t take you with me,’ said he. ‘Why not?’ asked Georgie, disconcerted. ‘Because they’ll teach you to swear,’ returned the other gravely. ‘But you go there yourself,’ argued little George. ‘O yes,’ rejoined his senior with a world-worn air; ‘I swear already.’

Young America does not take kindly to correction in any form, probably resenting it as an infringement of natural liberties. One little boy having been punished for some childish transgression, astonished his family by coming down suddenly from his room up-stairs with a small bundle under his arm, saying, ‘I’m going to leave this blessed house.’

American children are, as a rule, more practical and less imaginative than those of the old country—inclined from the very beginning to look on life as a struggle, though a pleasant one on the whole, and on the world as their oyster, which they, with their sharp-set wits, must open. They bring this matter-of-fact element even into their devotions. A little girl was promised by her father, on his leaving home for a few days, that he would bring dolls for her and her sister when he came back. That night, when at her prayers, she put in the very laudable petition, ‘Pray God, bring papa home safely;’ but somewhat compromised the effect by adding with great emphasis, after a moment’s rapt reflection—‘with the dolls.’ But this was devotion itself compared with the following. A little mite of a creature running out of her room one morning was called back by her mother: ‘Dolly, you haven’t said your prayers.’ ‘I dess Dod tan wait,’ returned little Miss Irreverence; ‘I’se in a hurry.’ In both these cases, the utter unconsciousness of presumption on the part of the tiny speakers took away the effect of profanity from their words.

Reverence is certainly not the strong point of our small kinsfolk across the water. Almost from their entrance into the world, they begin to assume airs of equality with all around them. One sweet little damsel, who was of peculiarly small and fairy-like proportions, could with difficulty be prevailed upon to call her parents otherwise than by their Christian names; and the effect was quaint to hear her, when offered candy or such-like forbidden dainties, refuse them with a wistful look and the words: ‘Willie not likes it’ (Willie being her father); or, ‘Annie’ (her mother) ‘said no.’ Nay, she did not scruple even to call her grandmother by _her_ name, as far as she could pronounce it, for ‘Margaret’ offered some obstacles to the baby lips. You would have fancied this same little maiden too soft and gentle to brush the down from a butterfly’s wing; but on one occasion she shocked the sensibilities of her young cousin, fresh from England, by exclaiming, on an innocent, newly fledged chicken being brought in for the inspection of the family: ‘Me have dat pitty bird for my dinner!’

From the youngest age, American children are ready to share—as Wordsworth once expressed it—‘in anything going.’ A visitor injudiciously offering a little boy some wine at dinner, was requested by his watchful mother not to give him ‘too much;’ when young Hopeful took the words out of her mouth by protesting with vehement eagerness: ‘I _like_ too much!’

It is no easy task to impose any restrictions, even of time or place, on one of these little free-born Americans, or to impress them with any sense of restraint or regard of persons. One little daughter of Eve, brought up for baptism at the ripe age of two—episcopal visits being rare in the part of the country where she lived—somewhat scandalised the bishop by calling his attention, just before the ceremony, to her attire, thus: ‘Look at my new dess;’ and drawing it back to display her dainty feet—‘Look, bissop, at my pitty new boots!’ The good father took it all in very amiable part, though he remarked to her mother afterwards, that the little one had evidently no intention of giving up the vanities of the world just yet.

But we must say good-bye for the present to our little American cousins, on whom we must not be understood to have cast the shadow of an aspersion. Their intelligence and quickness, indeed, combined with the other charms of infancy—of which they have their full share—make them as attractive, to say the least, as any of their kind. We can assert, moreover, from our own knowledge, that some of these tiny gentry, with whose scarce-conscious childish profanity we have dallied for a while, are growing up at this present moment into decent and in every way excellent members of society.

A STRANGE LOVE AFFAIR.

Hector Mackinnon, the hero of the strange story we are about to unfold, a story perhaps unequalled for uniqueness in the annals of love, was a divinity student. He had just completed his fourth year of the Hall, and expected soon to be licensed as a probationer. He was the only son of a wealthy merchant, and had been destined for the ministry from his birth.

Mr Mackinnon, senior, was a prominent and influential adherent of one of our strictest dissenting bodies, and had brought up his son in the belief that there was little else good in the world outside the pale of its communion. There was some mystery about Hector’s mother, who had died shortly after giving him birth. Some people whispered that she had been on the stage before she was married, and that Mr Mackinnon had fallen violently in love with her pretty face, and married the young girl while in the ecstasy of his passion, and before the cold dictates of prudence, or the counsel of his friends, could intervene. The marriage had not been, it was said, a happy one. While the magic glamour of love lasted, all went well; when it began to wane, the angular austerities of Mr Mackinnon’s disposition became painfully apparent to the young bride. On his part, he looked without sympathy, if not indeed with positive contempt, on what he termed the ‘worldly frivolities’ of her gay and joyous nature. Above all, he felt keenly the loss of social status which the marriage entailed on him in the estimation of his own sect. The young wife was sternly forbidden to have any intercourse with her relatives and friends; and her husband’s sister, who was a maiden lady of very gloomy religious views, was installed as housekeeper ostensibly, but really to play ‘propriety’ to her unregenerate young relative. Happiness could not, of course, exist in this state of matters; and when the grim messenger arrived with the fiat which dissolved the ill-assorted union, it was perhaps a relief to all.

Brought up under a terribly severe code of social ethics, the theatre, concert, and ballroom were represented to Hector as only so many roads to perdition; and being of an amiable disposition, and desirous of pleasing his father, he had up till now, when he had attained his twenty-third year, sedulously eschewed these enticing forms of social amusement. It was not destined, however, that he was always to remain in this state of innocent ignorance. A brilliant theatrical star visited the city, and turned the heads of all—both young and old, male and female, alike. Her stage-name was Violet d’Esterre (no one knew her real name), and it was on her exquisite delineation of Shakspearean tragedy that her justly earned fame rested. The college students were particularly enthusiastic in her praise, and crowded the theatre nightly to admire her beauty, and listen entranced to the melody of her sublime elocution. One evening, Hector, persuaded by his companions, consented to accompany them to hear this paragon of passionate declamation. The play was the old, old story of the hapless lovers of Verona. Such a hold had her impersonation of the intensely loving Juliet taken of the public, that they insisted on it being performed night after night, to the exclusion of other tragic parts in which she was equally celebrated. If any of our readers have not been in a theatre until they were about the age of Hector, they will be able to realise the very powerful sensuous effect the music, beautiful scenery, bright dresses, and decorations had on his imagination, and how they conduced to give full effect to the sense of bewildered admiration he felt when the curtain rose on the banqueting hall in Capulet’s house, and the fair daughter of Capulet. How feebly, it seemed to him, did Romeo express his feelings in saying:

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear:
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

Mademoiselle d’Esterre’s physical qualifications for the part were superb. Her countenance, which was Italian in cast of features and complexion, boasted of a pair of orbs of the deepest violet black. Large and lustrous, they were mobile and expressive in the highest degree. When they first rested on Romeo’s form, they dilated with the eager fire of southern passion, and as quickly drooped in maidenly confusion and modesty. Her whole attitude showed she felt she had met her destiny; and before she had even spoken a syllable, the audience felt they were under the spell of an enchantress. Then, with what simple natural dignity did she invest the few words the girl-lover addresses to love-stricken Romeo, already commencing his love-making as ‘holy palmer.’ From the moment the curtain was raised until it descended at the end of the fifth act, Hector sat spellbound, oblivious to everything on earth save the scenes that were being enacted on the stage. His companions had to arouse him when it became time to quit the theatre.

‘Well, Mackinnon,’ said Charley Smith, ‘what do you think of the d’Esterre? Jolly-like girl, isn’t she?’

‘Don’t speak of the young lady in that vulgar way,’ he replied. ‘I am certain that girl is as pure and good as Juliet was.’

‘I am not saying a word against her—nobody can do that,’ his companion rejoined. ‘Surely, surely, you’ve not got hit with her charms—you, of all men!’

Hector was in no mood for badinage at that moment, and pleading a headache, he hurried off to his lodgings. He could not imagine what was the matter; but after tossing all night uneasily in bed, he had to confess to himself next morning that he, Hector Mackinnon, the budding clergyman, the lifelong hater of things theatrical and bohemianisms of every sort, had fallen hopelessly and irretrievably in love with an actress he had seen for the first and only time a few hours ago! There was no use in trying to disguise the truth to himself; he felt—or fancied he felt, which comes to much the same thing—that life without possession of this fair divinity would not be worth living; but that, with her by his side, the roughest tempests that fate could send would feel like gentle wooing zephyrs.

It was not to be expected that this state of matters could long remain secret from Hector’s companions. His theses and themes remained unwritten; his answers to the Professor’s questions were of the most incoherent description, and at last he discontinued his attendance at college altogether. Inheriting a considerable share of his father’s stern determination, he was not of a nature to suffer in silence the agonies of a secret and unrequited passion. The inspirer of the consuming yet delicious flame which burned within his bosom must, he admitted, be some few years older than himself; for had she not been a celebrity in her profession for over a dozen years now? Well, what of that? Was that any reason why he should deny himself the lifelong companionship of the only woman he ever loved or could love? To marry her meant, he knew, an open rupture with his father, and the abandonment of his ministerial career; but were these trifles for one moment to be weighed in the balance against the pure and unalloyed bliss of a lifetime spent in the society of his darling? No—a thousand times, no! In this wise did he reason with himself, as many a lover has done before, and, we may safely predict, will do again. His life had now only one object, and that was to gain an introduction to Mademoiselle d’Esterre, and press his suit with all the ardour of a lover who felt that his life’s happiness depended on the result.

Every night found him at the theatre, gazing on the unconscious cause of his distraction ‘till his life’s love left him through his eyes.’ The rich clear notes of her magnificent contralto voice seemed to flood the theatre with the music of the spheres, and filled his soul with an agony of delight. At this period, it would have been an unspeakable relief to his overcharged feelings, if he had had some sympathetic friend to make a confidant of. But, alas, the sufferer from the darts of the rosy god, like the victim of prosaic toothache, obtains no sympathy from his kind.

Time wore on, and the posters announced the last six nights of Mademoiselle’s engagement. He had tried his best to procure an introduction, but without success, the friends and associates of his past life being widely outside of theatrical circles. He found out, however, where she lodged, and the hour at which she usually took her daily promenade. In vain did he follow her at a respectful distance, in the fond hope that some drunk man, runaway horse, or other street casualty, might afford the means of an impromptu introduction; unfortunately, the pedestrians were all sober, and the horses jogged on in a manner remarkably sedate and correct. At last, when almost reduced to despair, an ingenious thought occurred to him. The talented actress occasionally gave morning recitations and readings. He was possessed of considerable literary ability, and what was to hinder him from composing a suitable piece for recitation, sending it to her for approval, and by that means obtaining a personal interview? Being favourably impressed with the feasibility of the scheme, he set to work, and composed a hundred-line poem in blank verse, in which the torments of unrequited love were very forcibly if not elegantly portrayed. With a trembling hand, he dropped this in the letter-box, accompanied by a polite note craving her acceptance of the offering.

Who shall attempt to describe the thirty-six dreary hours of suspense that elapsed before a reply came, in a polite little epistle redolent of patchouli, thanking Mr Mackinnon for his kind present, which she would be glad to use on the first suitable occasion? She was, however, of opinion that, from an elocutionary point of view, certain alterations would tend to make it much more effective. Would Mr Mackinnon honour Mademoiselle by calling on her at her residence at noon the following day, when said alterations could be discussed? The poor fellow almost cried as he again and again pressed the precious missive to his lips; and it was some time before his spirits were sufficiently calmed down to admit of his inditing a coherent reply. Hope now lent her roseate hues to our hero’s love prospects, and it was with difficulty he compelled himself to await the slow progress of the hands on the dial of his watch till they were conjoined over the happy hour appointed for his interview with her who held his life’s happiness at her sole command.

Arrived at his destination, he timidly rang the door-bell, and on giving the servant his card, was informed the lady was ‘at home.’ On entering the drawing-room, he beheld Mademoiselle reclining in a graceful attitude on a low ottoman. She wore a _négligé_ costume of some sort of soft warm cream-coloured material, which harmonised delightfully with her clear, transparent, olive complexion, and displayed the symmetry of her exquisitely formed figure to great advantage. She wore no jewelry; her only ornament was a beautiful Marshal M‘Mahon rose, the deep crimson petals of which formed a charming contrast to the raven tresses on which they reposed. There were two other occupants of the room; and it was easy to see, from their ‘at-home’ air, that they were not merely visitors. One was a brisk little lady, with a pleasant good-humoured expression, who it would be safe to guess had seen at least fifty summers. The other was a tall stately girl of not more than seventeen or eighteen. She had evidently been practising at the piano, which lay open, with the score of a new opera on the music-holder. Had Hector’s mind not been so fully engrossed, he probably would have noticed a considerable resemblance between her and the fair object of his devotions. The principal difference lay in the colour of the hair, the complexion, and the stature. The young lady was a pronounced blonde, possessing large azure orbs of almost dreamy softness, and a wealth of light reddish-golden hair carelessly twisted and fastened in a coil at the back of the head.

As Hector advanced, Mademoiselle rose gracefully from her seat and, glancing at his card, said in the same rich contralto tones which had so inthralled him in the theatre: ‘Ah, Mr Mackinnon, I perceive! Good-morning, sir. Pray, be seated.’ Holding out her hand, he had the brief precious delight of pressing it for a second in his trembling palm.—‘Now, you needn’t leave the room,’ she said, addressing her two companions. ‘This is the gentleman who did me the honour of sending me the poem entitled _Amor in Mors_.—Permit me to introduce you to my good friend Mrs Eskell; and to Mademoiselle Andresen, my niece.’

The introductions being over, Hector resumed his seat. He never felt so embarrassed in the whole course of his life. How fondly had he rehearsed in his mind the many brilliant tender speeches he would give utterance to on this occasion! Now that the wished-for opportunity had arrived, he sat speechless. It is but fair to say, however, that he did not contemplate the presence of third parties at the interview. Still, their presence should not have tongue-tied him as it did—he, the glibest debater and the best elocutionist in the college.

Seeing his embarrassment, the lady came to his relief. ‘Well, Mr Mackinnon, I am very much pleased with your poem, and I think, with a few slight alterations, it might make a very effective recitation. Do you not think, though, the title is a little too lugubrious? Could you not substitute some other word for Mors? Just reflect! Fancy me dying every night for the past fortnight as Juliet! It is really too bad of the good folks of your city to insist on my manager making me repeat night after night a part which I have begun really to detest.’

‘O Mademoiselle, do not say that,’ cried Hector. ‘Ah, if you but knew the delightful thrill you send through the audience in the balcony scene—and—and—the tears you cause them to shed when the unfortunate heroine—Shakspeare’s greatest creation’——

‘Shakspeare’s greatest fiddlestick!’ she replied, laughing merrily. ‘What people see in her, I’m sure I don’t know! To my mind, she’s a forward young chit, that would have been much better employed in mending Papa Capulet’s hose and helping her mother to keep house, than philandering with her Romeo.—But about _Amor in Mors_. Don’t you think, now, you could make it just the tiniest little bit funny? I do so long to get out of this continued round of love-making, murder, and suicide.’

Could he believe his ears? Was this cynical, matter-of-fact woman identical with the fair embodiment of transcendental, ethereal love, on whose accents he had hung with enraptured delight for the past few nights? No, it could not be; there must be some strange mistake. Yet, when her mobile features were for a moment in repose, there he beheld the same deep, lustrous, unfathomable eyes—the same sweet innocent mouth, with its half-childlike pouting lips. He was bewildered, and as in a dream.

‘You are pleased, Mademoiselle, to be satirical this morning,’ he replied. ‘I cannot do you the injustice of supposing you are in earnest in what you say. No one could enact the part of Juliet so nobly unless she were capable of imbuing herself thoroughly with the divine passion attributed to her by her creator.’

‘Believe me, you are quite wrong there, Mr Mackinnon. It is not by any means those parts which actors have the natural emotional qualifications for, that they excel in portraying. Nature in that case _destroys_ art; and hence it is that parts that actors like best are precisely those they act worst. For myself, I am guided entirely by public criticism, and confine myself to those rôles that draw the best houses. Of course I have my own predilections. I have a very fair singing voice, and think I should be able to do very well in opera-bouffe. Oh, I _do_ dote on opera-bouffe!—But about _Amor in Mors_. I really think the language is splendid—quite as good as Shakspeare’s, I daresay, although I don’t profess to be a literary critic. Well, if you would alter the conclusion in such a way as to make the audience take a good hearty laugh after I had wound them up to the crying pitch, I believe it would be effective, and I will line it in the bills for my first Saturday morning readings.’

‘Alas, Mademoiselle, I fear my poor verses are not susceptible of being changed in the way you wish; but if you allow me, I shall endeavour to write something in a lighter vein, that may have the happiness to merit your approval. Permit me to ask you to retain the verses you have.’

‘With pleasure, sir,’ she replied.—‘I presume you are of the literary profession?’

Hector was not very sure whether a divinity student came of right under that category or not, but he replied in the affirmative.

‘Well, then, we shall be glad to see you, if you can come along here to supper at twelve o’clock on Friday first. It is a farewell entertainment I am giving to a few friends of the press, and others. If you have your new piece done, bring it with you; I’ll recite it, and we’ll see what they think of it.’ Thus saying, she rose, as if to indicate the interview was at an end; and after making his adieux, Hector departed in a very anomalous state of mind. The bright, girlish, gushing Juliet of the footlights was for ever annihilated in his mind. In her stead stood an undeniably handsome, accomplished woman of the world, gay, good-humoured, and apparently good-hearted; but so utterly devoid of all sentiment as to frankly avow a longing for opera-bouffe! By all the rules of common-sense, our hero being disillusioned, should have at once fallen _out_ of love. This, however, did not happen. After the first shock of finding her so different in her ideas from what he expected was over, the subjectivity of his passion asserted itself, and his mind soon formed a fresh ideal of female perfection, of which she was again the incarnation.

He had but two days in which to compose his second recitation. Striking a new chord, he wrote it in a light cynical vein, such as he thought would please the fair actress, judging from her conversation with him. He wrought hard at it, polishing and repolishing every line, until it reached, as he thought, as near as possible to a state of brilliant perfection. When the eventful Friday night arrived, he started for Mademoiselle’s residence with a much greater feeling of confidence than he had experienced on the former occasion. He was the first arrival, and while he sat in the drawing-room, Mademoiselle Andresen and Mrs Eskell entered. On his first visit, he had not paid much attention to the appearance of the former, and he was almost surprised to see how exceedingly pretty she was. The old lady was very talkative, and was not long in making him aware she was a distant relative of Mademoiselle’s, and always played ‘Nurse’ to her Juliet. Mademoiselle Andresen, whose father was a celebrated violinist in Stockholm, had just completed her course of training for the lyric stage at the Conservatoire, and was now on a visit to her aunt, to benefit by her instructions in the technicalities of stage business. On being invited by Hector, the young lady sat down to the piano, and sang an exquisite Danish ballad, which fairly charmed him. The company now began to arrive, and he conducted the two ladies down to the supper-room.

Exceedingly pretty, and exceedingly happy too, did Mademoiselle d’Esterre look, as she sat at the head of the table listening to the cheerful conversation of her guests. There were not more than a dozen and a half present—four ladies and four gentlemen of them being members of Mademoiselle’s company. After supper, and a due period of vivacity over the wine, the fair hostess called for silence, and intimated her intention of reciting Mr Mackinnon’s new poem. The author felt himself blushing to the tips of his ears as he heard the—to him—familiar lines tripped off in her melodious voice with rare elocutionary art. At the conclusion, the applause was great; and the gentlemen of the press declared with one voice it was the best thing of the season, and that the author would be sure to make his mark if he applied himself to dramatic literature. With toast and song the hours sped pleasantly away till two o’clock, when the cabs began to arrive for the guests. Hector had been all night in brilliant spirits, and fairly astonished himself with the smartness of his witty repartees, and the ease with which he accommodated himself to society so different from that to which he had been accustomed. His intoxication of bliss reached its climax when, as the dispersing company were singing _Auld Langsyne_ in the lobby, his hostess whispered in his ear: ‘Wait; I wish to speak with you. Go up to the drawing-room.’

He did so, and awaited her coming with trembling, eager impatience. When she came into the room, she looked grave, even sad, he thought. ‘We may never see each other again, Mr Mackinnon, and I cannot think of letting you go away to-night without some recompense for the pretty poem you wrote for me. Pray, accept of this in recognition of it, and—and as a token of my regard for you;’ and she handed him a magnificent cluster diamond ring.

His head swam; he scarcely knew what he was doing, and fell on his knees before her.

‘O Mademoiselle!’ he cried, his voice hoarse with emotion, ‘you are an angel!—infinitely too good for me—too good for any one on earth. Oh, how can I dare look in your sweet face and utter the words which burn on my tongue! Forgive me for my presumption in daring to say so, but I love you—love you with my whole heart and soul. Dare I ask you to be my wife!’

Mademoiselle d’Esterre at first looked frightened, thinking her friend had taken leave of his senses, or was giving her a small sample of his histrionic powers. When he had made an end of his speech, however, she apparently could not help bursting into an immoderate fit of laughter.

‘Rise up, you silly fellow!’ she cried, ‘and don’t make a baby of yourself.’

Her suppliant, who was in a state of bewilderment, mechanically obeyed.

She continued: ‘Upon my word, Mr Mackinnon, you have paid a great compliment to my skill in preserving my looks. Why, my poor boy, I could easily be your mother! I was forty-three on my last birthday!’

It might have been expected that this astounding piece of information would have effectually quenched the flame in the breast of the unfortunate lover, yet it had not that effect. ‘Alas! Mademoiselle, I am sorry that the disparity in our years is so great, although I knew you must be a few years older than myself. But what is age where true love exists? Believe me, if you consent to our union, never will you hear me refer to the dis’——

‘Stop, stop, you foolish boy!’ the lady cried. ‘Even were I such a terrible fool as you suppose, there is an insuperable legal obstacle in the way.’

‘What is that?’ he asked, wonderingly.

‘Why, I’m your aunt!’ she replied. ‘My sister Agatha was married to your father!’

* * * * *

The mortification experienced by our hero, in consequence of the ludicrous incident we have described, was extreme, and it was a few weeks before his mind recovered its accustomed equanimity. When it did, he resumed his college studies; but from the time lost, and the still partially unsettled state of his mind, he failed to pass his examination, and gave up his intention of qualifying for the ministry in disgust. His aunt’s company soon paid another visit to the city, and she advised him to try ‘adapting’ French plays. He was tolerably successful in this, and by her influence, was able to get them placed with some of the London managers. He then determined to devote himself entirely to dramatic literature, and being much thrown into the company of his fair cousin, Miss Andresen, a mutual affection grew up between them, which culminated in marriage. We understand they live very happily, although his wife does sometimes joke him on his love-adventure with his aunt.

MEHALAH.

[This poem is written on the chief character in the novel of the same name.]

Sleep on, Mehalah; let the rude waves beat
Their sullen music in thy deafened ear;
Whether they roar in storm, or whisper peace,
Thou canst not hear.

What matter though the gale in fury rave?
Beneath the surface, all is calm and fair;
Held close by flowers too beauteous for the day,
Thou slumberest there.

Unseen by mortal eye, the ocean sprites
Vie who shall deck thy form with fairest grace,
And many a sea-born flower and waving weed
Adorn thy face.

But when the shadows of descending day
Gleam on the marsh, and fire the western sea,
Thy spirit ’scapes the chains that bind it down,
And rises free.

As vesper chimes grow dimmer and more faint,
And sink to silence, conquered by the storm,
The fishers, hast’ning home to those they love,
Behold thy form,

Thy face so proud, thine eyes so dim and sad,
Thy hair unshackled streaming towards the west,
The crimson ‘Gloriana’ burning bright
Upon thy breast.

But as they gaze, the vision fades away,
Dragged to the depths by iron hand and chain;
The seamew shrieks, and darkness o’er the world
Resumes his reign.

J. B. F.

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Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

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_All Rights Reserved._