Chapter VI: Book II: Life and Death (1)

XIV.

MISS BELINDA HAS A QUESTION TO DECIDE.

“I pray you in your letters,

* * * * *

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.”
—OTHELLO.

Miss Belinda sitting before her bedroom fire on a certain windy night in January, presented a picture of the most profound thought. A year had elapsed since, with heavy heart and moistened eye, she had bidden good-bye to the child of her care, and beheld her drift away with her new friend into a strange and untried life. And now a letter had come from that friend, in which with the truest appreciation for the feelings of herself and sister, he requested their final permission to adopt Paula as his own child and the future occupant of his house and heart.

Yes, after a year of increased comfort, Mrs. Sylvester, who would never have consented to receive as her own any child demanding care or attention, had decided it was quite a different matter to give place and position to a lovely girl already grown, whose beauty was sufficiently pronounced to do credit to the family while at the same time it was of a character to heighten by contrast her own very manifest attractions. So the letter, destined to create such a disturbance in the stern and powerful mind of Miss Belinda, had been written and dispatched.

And indeed it was matter for the gravest reflection. To accede to this important request was to yield up all control over the dear young girl whose affection had constituted the brightness of this somewhat disappointed life, while to refuse an offer made with such evident love and anxiety, was to bring a pang of regret to a heart she hesitated to wound. The question of advantage which might have swayed others in their decision, did not in the least affect Miss Belinda. Now that Paula had seen the world and gained an insight into certain studies beyond the reach of her own attainments, any wishes in which she might have indulged on that score were satisfied, and mere wealth with its concomitant of luxuriant living, she regarded with distrust, and rather in the light of a stumbling-block to the great and grand end of all existence.

Suddenly with that energy which characterized all her movements, she rose from her seat, and first casting a look of somewhat cautious inquiry at the recumbent figure of her sister, asleep in the heavy old fashioned bed that occupied one corner of the room, she proceeded to a bureau drawer and took out a small box which she unlocked on the table. It was full of letters; those same honest epistles, which, as empowered by Mr. Sylvester, she had requested Paula to send her from week to week. Some of them were a year old, but she read them all carefully through, while the clock ticked on the shelf and the wind soughed in the chimney. Certain passages she marked, and when she had finished the pile, she took up the letters again and re-read those passages. They were necessarily desultory in their character, but they all had, in her mind at least, a bearing upon the question on hand, and as such, I give them to my readers.

* * * * *

“O aunty, I have made a friend, a sweet girl friend who I have reason to hope will henceforth be to me as my other eye and hand. Her name is Stuyvesant—a name by the way that always calls up a certain complacent smile on Cousin Ona’s countenance—and she is the daughter of one of the directors of Mr. Sylvester’s bank. I met her in a rather curious way. For some reason Ona had expressed a wish for me to ride horseback. She is rather too large for the exercise herself, but thought it looked well, she said, to see a lady and groom ride from the front of the house; moreover it would keep me in color by establishing my health. So Mr. Sylvester who denies her nothing, promised us horses and the groom, and as a preparation for acquitting myself with credit, has sent me to one of the finest riding academies in the city. It was here I met Miss Stuyvesant. She is a small interesting-looking girl whose chief beauty lies in her expression which is certainly very charming. I was conscious of a calm and satisfied feeling the moment I saw her. Her eyes which are raised with a certain appeal to your face, are blue, while her lips that break into smiles only at rare moments, are rosy and delicately curved. In her riding-habit she looks like a child, but when dressed for the street she surprises you with the reserved and womanly air with which she carries her proud head. Altogether she is a sweet study to me, alluring me with her glance yet awing me by her dainty ladyhood, a ladyhood too unconscious to be affected and yet so completely a part of her whole delicate being, that you could as soon dissociate the bloom from the rose, as the air of highborn reserve, from this sweet scion of one of New York’s oldest families.

“I was mounting my horse when our eyes first met, and I never shall forget her look of delighted surprise. Did she recognize in me the friend I now hope to become? Later we were introduced by Mr. Sylvester who had been so kind as to accompany me that day. The way in which he said to her, ‘This is Paula,’ proved that I was no new topic of conversation between them, and indeed she afterwards explained to me that she had been forewarned of my arrival during an afternoon call at his house. There was in this first interview none of the unnecessary gush which you have so often reprobated as childish; indeed Miss Stuyvesant is not a person with whom one would presume to be familiar, nor was it till we had met several times that any acknowledgement was made of the mutual interest with which we found ourselves inspired. Cousin Ona to whom I had naturally spoken of the little lady, wished me to cultivate her acquaintance more assiduously, but I knew that if I had excited in her the same interest she had awakened in me, this would not be necessary; our friendship would grow of itself and blossom without any hot-house forcing. And so it did. One day she came to the riding-school with her eyes like stars and her cheeks like the oleanders in your sitting-room. Her brightness was so contagious, I stepped up to her. But she greeted me with almost formal reserve, and mounting her horse, proceeded to engage in her usual exercise. I was not hurt; I recognized the presence of some thought or feeling which made a barrier around her sensitive nature, and duly respected it. Mounting my own horse, I rode around the ring which is the somewhat limited field of my present equestrian efforts, and waited. For I knew from the looks which she cast me every now and then, that the flower of our friendship was outgrowing its sheath and would soon burst into the bud of perfect understanding. At the end of the lesson we approached each other. I do not know how it was done, but we walked home together, or rather I accompanied her to the stoop of her house, and before we parted we had exchanged those words which give emphasis to a sentiment long cherished but now for the first time avowed. Miss Stuyvesant and I are friends, and I feel as though a new stream of enjoyment had opened in my breast.

“The fact that I still call her by this formal title instead of her very pretty name of Cicely, proves the nature of the respect she inspires even in the breasts of her girlish associates.”

“Why is it that I frequently hesitate as I go up the stairs and look about me with a vague feeling of apprehension? The bronze figure of Luxury that adorns the landing, wears no semblance of terror to the wildest imagination, and yet I often find myself seized by an inexplicable shudder as I hurry past it; and once I actually looked behind me with the same sensation as if some one had plucked me by the sleeve.

“It is a folly; for recording which, I make my excuses.”

* * * * *

“Cousin Ona has decided that I must never wear colors. ‘Soft grays, my dear, dead blacks and opaque whites are all that you need to bring out the fine contrast of your hair and complexion; the least hint of blue or pink would destroy it.’ So she says and so I must believe, for who else has made such a study of the all important subject of dress. Behold me, then, arrayed for my first reception in a colorless robe of rich silk to which Ona after long consideration allowed me to add some ornaments of plain gold with which Mr. Sylvester has kindly presented me. But I think more of the people I am going to meet than of anything else, though I enjoy the home-feeling which a pretty dress gives me, as well as a violet does its bright blue coat.”

* * * * *

“I have heard a great preacher! What shall I say? At first it seems as if nothing could express my joy and satisfaction. The sapling that is shaken to its root by the winds of heaven, keeps silence I imagine. But O Aunty, if my smallness makes me quake, it also makes me feel. What gates of thought have been opened to me! What shining tracks of inquiry pointed out! I feel as if I had been shown a path where angels walked. Can it be that such words have been uttered every week of my life and I in ignorance of them? It is like the revelation of the ocean to unaccustomed eyes. Henceforth small things must seem like pebble stones above which stretch innumerable heavenly vistas. It is not so much that new things have been revealed to me as that old things have been made strangely eloquent. The voice of a daisy on the hill side, the breath of thunder in the mountain gorges, the blossoming of a child’s smile under its mother’s eye, the fact that golden portals are opened in every life for the coming and going of the messengers of God, all have been made real to me, real as the voice of the Saviour to his disciples as they walked in the fields or started back awe-stricken from the stupendous vision of the cross. It is a solemn thing to see one’s humble thoughts caught by the imagination of a great mind and carried on and up into regions you never realized existed.

“I was so burdened with joy that I could not forbear asking Mr. Sylvester if he did not feel as if the whole face of the world had changed since we entered those holy doors. He did not respond with the glad ‘Yes’ for which I hoped, and though his smile was very kind, I could not help wondering what it was that sometimes fell between us like a veil.”

“O Aunty, how my heart does yearn towards Mr. Sylvester at times! As I see him sitting with clouded brow in the midst of so much that ought to charm and enliven him, I ask myself if the advantages of wealth compensate for all this care and anxiety. But I notice he is much more cheerful now than when I first came. Ona says he is in danger of losing the air of melancholy reserve which made him look so distinguished, but I think we can spare a little of such doubtful distinguishment for the sake of the smiles with which he now and then indulges us.”

* * * * *

“I feel as if a hand had gripped my throat. Cousin Ona spoke to Mr. Sylvester this morning in a way that made my very heart stand still. And yet it was only a simple, ‘Follow your own judgment, Mr. Sylvester.’ But how she said it! Do these languid women carry venom in their tongues? I had always thought she was of too easy a disposition to feel anger or display it; but the spring of a serpent is all the deadlier for his long silent basking in the sun. O pardon me for making such a frightful allusion. But if you had seen her and heard Mr. Sylvester’s sigh as he turned and left the room!”

* * * * *

“Mr. Bertram Sylvester has awakened my deepest interest. His uncle has told me his story, which alone of all the things I have heard in this house, I do not feel at liberty to repeat, and it has aroused in me strange thoughts and very peculiar emotions. He is devoted to some one we do not know, and the idea surrounds him in my eyes with a sort of halo that you would perhaps call fanciful, but which I am nevertheless bound to reverence. He does not know that I am acquainted with his story. I wish he did and would let me speak the words that rise to my lips whenever I see him or hear him play.”

* * * * *

“There are moments when I long to flee back to Grotewell. It is when Cousin Ona comes in from shopping with a dozen packages to be opened and commented upon, or when Mrs. Fitzgerald has been here or some other of her ultra-fashionable acquaintances. The atmosphere of the house for hours after either of the above occurrences is too heavy for breathing. I have to go away and clear my brain by a brisk walk or a look into Knœdler’s or Schaus’.”

* * * * *

“The panel where Cousin Ona’s picture used to hang, has been filled by one of Meissonier’s most interesting studies; and though I never thought Mr. Sylvester particularly fond of the French style of art, he seems very well satisfied with the result. I cannot understand how Cousin Ona can regard the misfortune to her portrait so calmly. I think it would break my heart to see a husband look with complacency on any picture, no matter how exquisite, that took the place of my own, especially if like her’s, it was painted in my bridal days. I sometimes wonder if those days are as sacred to the memory of husband and wife as I have always imagined them to be.”

* * * * *

“Why does Cousin Ona never speak of Grotewell, and why, if by chance I mention the name, does she drop her eyes and a shadow cross the countenance of Mr. Sylvester?”

* * * * *

“There is a word Mr. Sylvester uses in the most curious way; it is _fuss_. He calls everything a fuss that while insignificant in size or character has power either to irritate or please. A fly is a fuss; so is a dimple in a girl’s cheek or a figure that goes wrong in accounts. I have even heard him call a child, ‘That dear little fuss.’ Bertram unconsciously imitates his uncle in this peculiar mannerism and is often heard alluding to this or that as a _fuss of fusses_. Indeed they say this use of the word is a peculiarity of the Sylvester family.”

* * * * *

“I think from the way Mr. Sylvester spoke yesterday, that he must have experienced some dreadful trouble in his life. We were walking in the wards of a hospital—that is, Miss Stuyvesant, Mr. Sylvester and myself—when some one near us gave utterance to the trite expression, ‘O it will heal, but the scar will always remain.’ ‘That is a common saying,’ remarked Mr. Sylvester, ‘but how true a one no one realizes but he who carries the scar.’”

* * * * *

“It may be imagination or simply the effect of increased appreciation on my part, but it does seem as if Miss Stuyvesant grew lovelier and more companionable each time that I meet her. She makes me think of a temple in which a holy lamp is burning. Her very silences are eloquent, and yet she is never _distraite_ but always cheerful and frequently the brightest of the company. But it is a brightness without glitter, a gentle lustre that delights you but never astonishes. I meet many sweet girls in the so-called heartless circles of society, but none like her. She is my white lily on which a moonbeam rests.”

* * * * *

“This house contains a mystery, as Ona is pleased to designate the room at the top of the house to which Mr. Sylvester withdraws when he desires to be alone. And indeed it is a sort of Bluebeard’s chamber, in that he keeps it rigidly under lock and key, allowing no one to enter it, not even his wife. The servants declare that no one but himself has ever crossed its threshold, but I can scarcely believe that. Ona has not, but there must surely be some trusty person to whom he allots the care of its furniture. Am I only proving myself to be a true member of my sex when I allow that I cannot hinder my own curiosity from hovering about a spot so religiously guarded? Yet what should we see if its doors were thrown open? A study surrounded with books it displeases him to see misplaced, or a luxurious apartment fitted with every appointment necessary to rest and comfort him when he comes home tired from business.”

* * * * *

“I never saw Mr. Sylvester angry till to-day. By some inadvertence he went down town without locking the door of his private room, and though he returned immediately upon missing the key from his pocket, he was barely in time to prevent Cousin Ona from invading the spot he has always kept so sacred from intrusion. I was not present and of course did not hear what was said, but I caught a glimpse of his face as he left the house, and found it quite sufficient to assure me of his dissatisfaction. As for Ona, she declares he pulled her back as if she had been daring the plague. ‘I do not expect to find five beautiful wives hanging up there by their necks,’ concluded she with a forced laugh, ‘but I shall yet see the interior of that room, if only to establish my prerogative as the mistress of this house.’

“I do not now feel as if I wished to see it.”

* * * * *

“There is one thing that strikes me as peculiar in Miss Stuyvesant, and that is, that as much pleasure as she seems to take in my society when we meet, she never comes to see me in Mr. Sylvester’s house. For a long time I wondered over this but said nothing, but one day upon receiving a second invitation to visit her, I mentioned the fact as delicately as I could, and was quite distressed to observe how seriously she took the rebuke, if rebuke it could be called. ‘I cannot explain myself,’ she murmured in some embarrassment; ‘but Mr. Sylvester’s house is closed against me. You must not ask me to seek you there or expect me to do myself the pleasure of attending Mrs. Sylvester’s receptions. I cannot. Is that enough for me to say to my dearest friend?’ I hardly knew what to reply, but finally ventured to inquire if she was restrained by any fact that would make it undignified in me to seek her society and enjoy the pleasures she is continually offering me. And she answered with such a cheerful negative I was quite reassured. And so the matter is settled. Our friendship is to be emancipated from the bonds of etiquette and I am to enjoy her company whenever I can. To-morrow we are going to take our first ride in the park. The horses have been bought, and much to Cousin Ona’s satisfaction, the groom has been hired.”

* * * * *

“I was told something the other day, of a nature so unpleasant that I should not think of repeating it, if you had not expressly commanded me to confide to you everything that for any reason produced an effect upon me in my new home. My informant was Sarah, the somewhat gossiping woman whom Ona has about her as seamstress and maid. She said—and she had spoken before I could prevent her—that the way Mrs. Sylvester took on about her mourning at the time of little Geraldine’s death was enough to wear out the patience of Job. She even went so far as to tell the dressmaker that if she could not have her dress made to suit her she would not put on mourning at all! Aunty, can you wonder that Mr. Sylvester looks so bitterly sombre whenever mention is made of his child? He loved it, and its own mother could worry over the fit of a dress while his bereaved heart was breaking! I confess I can never feel the same indulgence towards what I considered the idiosyncrasies of a fashionable beauty again. Her smooth white skin makes me tremble; it has never flushed with delight over the innocent smiles of her firstborn.”

* * * * *

“Mr. Sylvester is very polite to Cousin Ona and seems to yield to her wishes in everything. But if I were she I think my heart would break over that very politeness. But then she is one who demands formality even from the persons of her household. I have never seen him stoop for a kiss or beheld her even so much as lay her hand on his shoulder. But I have observed him wait on her at moments when he was pale from weariness and she flushed with long twilight reclinings before her sleepy boudoir fire.”

* * * * *

“There are times when I would not exchange my present opportunities for any others which might be afforded me. General —— dined here to-day, and what a vision of a great struggle was raised up before me by his few simple words in regard to Gettysburg. I did not know which to admire most, the military bearing and vivid conversation of the great soldier, or the ease and dignity with which Mr. Sylvester met his remarks and answered each glowing sentence. General —— spoke a few words to me. How gentle these lion-like men can be when they stoop their tall heads to address little children or young women!”

* * * * *

“What a noble-hearted man Mr. Sylvester is! Mr. Turner in speaking of him the other night, declared there is no one in his congregation who in a quiet way does so much for the poor. ‘He is especially interested in young men,’ said he, ‘and will leave his own affairs at any time to aid or advise them.’ I knew Mr. Sylvester was kind, but Mr. Turner’s enthusiasm was uncommon. He evidently admires Mr. Sylvester as much as every one else loves him. And he is not alone in this. Almost every day I hear some remark made of a nature complimentary to my benefactor’s character or ability. Even Mr. Stuyvesant who so seldom appears to notice us girls, once interrupted a conversation between Cicely and myself to inquire if Mr. Sylvester was quite well. ‘I thought he looked pale to-day,’ remarked he, in his dry but not unkindly way, and then added, ‘He must not get sick; he is too valuable to us.’ This was a great deal for Mr. Stuyvesant to say, and it caused a visible gratification to Mr. Sylvester when I related it to him in the evening. ‘I had rather satisfy that man than any other I know,’ declared he. ‘He is of the stern old-fashioned sort, and it is an honor to any one to merit his approval. I did not tell him that I had also heard Mr. Stuyvesant observe in a conversation with some business friend of his, that Edward Sylvester was the only speculator he knew in whom he felt implicit confidence. Somehow it always gives me an uncomfortable feeling to hear Mr. Sylvester alluded to as a speculator. Besides since he has entered the Bank, he has I am told, entirely restricted himself to what are called legitimate operations.’”

* * * * *

“Mr. Sylvester came home with a dreadful look on his face to-day. We were standing in the hall at the time the door opened, and he went by us without a nod, almost as if he did not see us. Even Ona was startled and stood gazing after him with an anxiety such as I had never observed in her before, while I was conscious of that sick feeling I have sometimes experienced when he came upon me suddenly from his small room above, or paused in the midst of the gayest talk, to ask me some question that was wholly irrelevant and most frequently sad.

“‘He has met with some heavy loss,’ murmured his wife, glancing down the handsome parlors with a look such as a mother might bestow upon the face of a sick child. But I was sure she had not sounded his trouble, and in my impetuosity was about to fly to his side when we saw him pause before the image of Luxury that stands on the stair, look at it for a moment with a strange intentness, then suddenly and with a gesture of irrepressible passion, lift his arm as if he would fell it from its place. The action was so startling, Ona clutched my sleeve in terror, but he passed on and in another moment we heard him shut the door of his room.

“Would he be down to dinner? that was the next question. Ona thought not; I did not dare to think. Nevertheless it was a great relief to me when I saw him enter the dining-room with that set immovable look he sometimes wears when Ona begins one of her long and rambling streams of fashionable gossip. ‘It is nothing,’ flashed from his wife’s eyes to mine, and she lapsed at once into her most graceful self, but she nevertheless hastened her meal and I was quite prepared to observe her follow him, as with the polite excuse of weariness, he left the table before desert. I could not hear what she asked him, but his answer came distinctly to my ears from the midst of the library to which they had withdrawn. ‘It is nothing in which you have an interest, Ona. Thank heaven you do not always know the price with which the splendors you so love are bought.’ And she did not cry out, ‘O never pay such a price for any joy of mine! Sooner than cost you so dear I would live on crusts and dwell in a garret.’ No, she kept silence, and when in a few minutes later I joined her in the library, it was to find on her usually placid lips, a thin cool smile that struck like ice to my heart, and made it impossible for me to speak.

“But the hardest trial of the day was to hear Mr. Sylvester come in at eleven o’clock—he went out again immediately after dinner—and go up stairs without giving me my usual good-night. It was such a grief to me I could not keep still, but hurried to the foot of the stairs in the hopes he would yet remember me and come back. But instead of that, he no sooner saw me than he threw out his hand almost as if he would push me back, and hastened on up the whole winding flight till he reached the refuge of that mysterious room of his at the top of the house.

“I could not go back to Ona after that—she had been to make a call somewhere with a young gentleman friend of hers;—yes on this very night had been to make a call—but I took advantage of the late hour to retire to my own room where for a long time I lay awake listening for his descending step and seeing, as in a vision, the startling picture of his lifted arm raised against the unconscious piece of bronze on the stair. Henceforth that statue will possess for me a still more dreadful significance.”

“It is the twenty-fifth of February. Why should I feel as if I must be sure of the exact date before I slept?”

* * * * *

The next extract followed close on this and was the last which Miss Belinda read.

“Mr. Sylvester seems to have recovered from his late anxiety. He does not shrink from me any more with that half bitter, half sad expression that has so long troubled and bewildered me, but draws me to his side and sits listening to my talk until I feel as if I were really of some comfort to this great and able man. Ona does not notice the change; she is all absorbed in preparing for the visit to Washington, which Mr. Sylvester has promised her.”

* * * * *

Miss Belinda calmly folded up the letters and locked them again in the little mahogany box, after which she covered up the embers and quietly went to bed. But next morning a letter was despatched to Mr. Sylvester which ran thus:

“DEAR MR. SYLVESTER:

“For the present at least you may keep Paula with you. But I am
not ready to say that I think it would be for her best good to
be received and acknowledged as your daughter—yet. Hoping you
will appreciate the motives that actuate this decision,

“I remain, respectfully yours,

“BELINDA ANN WALTON.”

XV.

AN ADVENTURE—OR SOMETHING MORE.

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven.”—WORDSWORTH.

“_Oph._—What means this, my lord?

_Ham._—Marry, this is the miching mallecho; it means
mischief.”

—HAMLET.

A ride in the Central Park is an every-day matter to most people. It signifies an indolent bowling over a smooth road all alive with the glitter of passing equipages, waving ribbons and fluttering plumes, and brightened now and then by the sight of a well known face amid the general rush of old and young, plain and handsome, sad and gay countenances that flash by you in one long and brilliant procession.

But to Paula and her friend Miss Stuyvesant starting out in the early freshness of a fair April morning, it meant new life, reawakening joy, the sparkle of young leaves just loosed from the bonds of winter, the sweetness and promise of spring airs, and all the budding glory of a new year with its summer of countless roses and its autumn of incalculable glories. Not the twitter of a bird was lost to them, not the smile of an opening flower, not the welcome of a waving branch. Youth, joy, and innocence lived in their hearts and showed them nothing in the mirror of nature that was not equally young, joyous and innocent. Then they were alone, or sufficiently so. The stray wanderers whom they met sitting under the flowering trees, were equally with themselves lovers of nature or they would not be seated in converse with it at this early hour; while the laugh of little children startled from their play by the prance of their high-stepping horses, was only another expression of the sweet but unexpressed delight that breathed in all the radiant atmosphere.

“We are two birds who have escaped thralldom and are taking our first flight into our natural ether,” cried Miss Stuyvesant gaily.

“We are two pioneers lit by the spirit of adventure, who have left the cosy hearth of wintry-fires to explore the domains of the frost king, and lo, we have come upon a Paradise of bloom and color!” responded the ringing voice of Paula.

“I feel as if I could mount that little white cloud we see over there,” continued Cicely with a quick lively wave of her whip. “I wonder how Dandy would enjoy an empyrean journey?”

“From the haughty bend of his neck I should say he was quite satisfied with his present condition. But perhaps his chief pride is due to the mistress he carries.”

“Are you attempting to vie with Mr. Williams, Paula?”

Mr. Williams was the meek-eyed, fair complexioned gentleman, whose predilection for compliment was just then a subject of talk in fashionable circles.

“Only so far as my admiration goes of the most charming lady I see this morning. But who is this?”

Miss Stuyvesant looked up. “Ah, that is some one with whom there is very little danger of your falling in love.”

Paula blushed. The gentleman approaching them upon horseback was conspicuous for long side whiskers of a decidedly auburn tinge.

“His name is—” But she had not time to finish, for the gentleman with a glance of astonished delight at Paula, bowed to the speaker with a liveliness and grace that demanded some recognition.

Instantly he drew rein. “Do I behold Miss Stuyvesant among the nymphs!” cried he, in those ringing pleasant tones that at once predispose you towards their possessor.

“If you allude to my friend Miss Fairchild, you certainly do, Mr. Ensign,” the wicked little lady rejoined with a waiving of her usual ceremony that astonished Paula.

Mr. Ensign bestowed upon them his most courtly bow, but the flush that mounted to his brow—making his face one red, as certain of his friends were malicious enough to observe on similar occasions—indicated that he had been taken a little more at his word than perhaps suited even one of his easy and proverbially careless temperament. “Miss Fairchild will understand that I am not a Harvey Williams—at least before an introduction,” said he with something like seriousness.

But at this allusion to the gentleman whose name had been upon their lips but a moment before, both ladies laughed outright.

“I have just been accused of attempting the rôle of that gentleman myself,” exclaimed Paula. “If the fresh morning air will persist in painting such roses on ladies’ cheeks,” continued she, with a loving look at her pretty companion “what can one be expected to do?”

“Admire,” quoth the red bannered cavalier with a glance, however, at the beautiful speaker instead of the demure little Cicely at her side.

Miss Stuyvesant perceived this look and a curious smile disturbed the corners of her rosy lips. “What a fortunate man to be able to do the right thing at the right time,” laughed she, gaily touching up her horse that was beginning to show symptoms of restlessness.

“If Miss Stuyvesant will put that in the future tense and then assure us she has been among the prophets, I should be singularly obliged,” said he with a touch of his hat and a smiling look at Paula that was at once manly and gentle, careless and yet respectful.

“Ah, life is too bright for prophesies this morning. The moment is enough.”

“Is it Miss Fairchild?” queried Mr. Ensign looking back over his shoulder.

She turned just a bit of her cheek towards him. “What Miss Stuyvesant declares to be true, that am I bound to believe,” said she, and with the least little ripple of a laugh, rode on.

“It is a pity you have such a dislike for whiskers,” Cicely presently remarked with an air of great gravity.

Paula gave a start and cast a glance of reproach at her companion. “I did not notice his whiskers after the first word or two,” said she, fixing her eyes on a turn of the road before them. “Such cheerfulness is infectious. I was merry before, but now I feel as if I had been bathed in sunshine.”

Cicely’s eyes flashed wide with surprise and her face grew serious in earnest. “Mr. Ensign is a delightful companion,” observed she; “a room is always brighter for his entrance; and with all that, he is the only young man I know, who having come into a large fortune, feels any of the responsibilities of his position. The sunshine is the result of a good heart and pure living, and that is what makes it infectious, I suppose.”

“Let us canter,” said Paula. And so the glad young things swept on, life breaking in bubbles around them and rippling away into unfathomable wells of feeling in one of their pure hearts at least. Suddenly a hand seemed to swoop from heaven and dash them both back in dismay. They had reached one of those places where the foot path crosses the equestrian and they had run over and thrown down a little child.

“O heaven!” cried Paula leaping from her horse, “I had rather been killed myself.” The groom rode up and she bent anxiously over the child.

It was a boy of some seven or eight years, whose misfortune—he was lame, as the little crutch fallen at his side sufficiently denoted—made appear much younger. He had been struck on his arm and was moaning with pain, but did not seem to be otherwise hurt. “Are you alone?” cried Paula, lifting his head on her arm and glancing hurriedly about.

The little fellow raised his heavy lids and for a moment stared into her face with eyes so deeply blue and beautiful they almost startled her, then with an effort pointed down the path, saying,

“Dad’s over there in the long tunnel talking to some one. Tell him I got hurt. I want Dad.”

She gently lifted him to his feet and led him out of the road into the apparently deserted path where she made him sit down. “I am going to find his father,” said Paula to Cicely, “I will be back in a moment.”

“But wait; you shall not go alone,” authoritatively exclaimed that little damsel, leaping in her turn to the ground. “Where does he say his father is?”

“In the tunnel, by which I suppose he means that long passage under the bridge over there.”

Holding up the skirts of their riding-habits in their trembling right hands, they hurried forward. Suddenly they both paused. A woman had crossed their path; a woman whom to look at but once was to remember with ghastly shrinking for a lifetime. She was wrapped in a long and ragged cloak, and her eyes, startling in their blackness, were fixed upon the pain-drawn countenance of the poor little hurt boy behind them, with a gleam whose feverish hatred and deep malignant enjoyment of his very evident sufferings, was like a revelation from the lowest pit to the two innocent-minded girls hastening forward on their errand of mercy.

“Is he much hurt?” gasped the woman in an ineffectual effort to conceal the evil nature of her interest. “Do you think he will die?” with a shrill lingering emphasis on the last word as if she longed to roll it like a sweet morsel under her tongue.

“Who are you?” asked Cicely, shrinking to one side with dilated eyes fixed on the woman’s hardened countenance and the white, too white hand with which she had pointed as she spoke of the child.

“Are you his mother?” queried Paula, paling at the thought but keeping her ground with an air of unconscious authority.

“His mother!” shrieked the woman, hugging herself in her long cloak and laughing with fiendish sarcasm: “I look like his mother, don’t I? His eyes—did you notice his eyes? they are just like mine, aren’t they? and his body, poor weazen little thing, looks as if it had drawn sustenance from mine, don’t it? His mother! O heaven!”

Nothing like the suppressed force of this invocation seething as it was with the worst passions of a depraved human nature, had ever startled those ears before. Clasping Cicely by the hand, she called out to the groom behind them, “Guard that child as you would your life!” and then flashing upon the wretched creature before her with all the force of her aroused nature, she exclaimed, “If you are not his mother, move aside and let us pass, we are in search of assistance.”

For an instant the woman stood awe-struck before this vision of maidenly beauty and indignation, then she laughed and cried out with shrill emphasis:

“When next you look like that, go to your mirror, and when you see the image it reflects, say to yourself, ‘So once looked the woman who defied me in the Park!’”

With a quick shudder and a feeling as if the noisome cloak of this degraded being had somehow been dropped upon her own fair and spotless shoulders, Paula clasped the hand of Cicely more tightly in her own, and rushed with her down the steps that led into the underground passage towards which they had been directed.

There were but two persons in it when they entered. A short thickset man and another man of a slighter and more gentlemanly build. They were engaged in talking, and the latter was bringing down his right hand upon the palm of his left with a gesture almost foreign in its expressive energy.

“I tell you,” declared he, with a voice that while low, reverberated through the hollow vault above him with strange intensity, “I tell you I’ve got my grip on a certain rich man in this city, and if you will only wait, you shall see strange things. I don’t know his name and I don’t know his face, but I do know what he has done, and a thousand dollars down couldn’t buy the knowledge of me.”

“But if you don’t know his name and don’t know his face, how in the name of all that’s mischievous are you going to know your man?”

“Leave that to me! If I once meet him and hear him talk, one more rich man goes down and one more poor devil goes up, or I’ve not the wit that starvation usually teaches.”

The nature of these sentences together with the various manifestations of interest with which they were received, had for a moment deterred the two girls in their hurried advance, but now they put away every thought save that of the poor little creature awaiting his Dad, and lifting up her voice, Paula said,

“Are either of you the father of a little lame lad—”

Instantly and before she could conclude, the taller of the two, who had also been the chief speaker in the above conversation, turned, and she saw his hand begrimed though it was with dirt and dark with many a disgraceful trick, go to his heart in a gesture too natural to be anything but involuntary.

“Is he hurt?” gasped he, but in how different a tone from that of the woman who had used the same words a few minutes before. Then seeing that the persons who addressed him were ladies and one of them at least a very beautiful one, took off his hat with an easy action, that together with what they had heard, proved him to be one of that most dangerous class among us, a gentleman who has gone thoroughly and irretrievably to the bad.

“I am afraid he is, sir,” said Paula. “He was attempting to cross the road, and a horse advancing hurriedly, struck him.” She had not courage to say her horse in face of the white and trembling dismay that seized him at these words.

“Where is he?” cried he. “Where’s my poor boy?” And he bounded up the steps, his hat still in his hand, his long unkempt locks flying, and his whole form expressive of the utmost alarm.

“Down by the carriage road,” called out Paula, finding it impossible for them to keep up with such haste.

“But is he much injured?” cried a smooth voice at their side.

They turned; it was the short thickset man who had been the other’s companion in the conversation above recorded.

“We trust not,” answered Cicely; “his arm received the blow, and he suffers very much, but we hope it is not serious;” and they hurried on.

They found the father seated on the grass holding the little fellow in his arms. The look on his once handsome but now thoroughly corrupt and dissipated face, made their hearts melt within them. However wicked he might be—and that sly treacherous eye, that false impudent lip, that settling of the whole face into the mould which Vice applies to all her votaries, left no doubt of his complete depravity—he dearly loved his child, and love, no matter how it is expressed, or in what garb it appears, is a sacred and beautiful thing, and ennobles for the time being any creature who displays it.

“’Twas a hard knock up, Dad,” came from the white lips of the child as he felt his father’s trembling hand feel up and down his arm, “but I guess the ‘little fellar’ can stand it.” “Little feller” was evidently the name by which his father was accustomed to address him.

“There are no bones broken,” said the father. “To be lame and maimed too would be—”

He did not finish, for a delicately gloved hand was here laid on his sleeve, and a gentle voice whispered, “Money cannot pay for an injury like that, but please accept this;” and Paula thrust a purse into his hand.

He clutched it eagerly, but at her next request that he should tell her where he lived that they might inquire after the boy, he shook his head with a return of his old emphasis.

“The haunts of bats and jackals are not for ladies.” Then as he caught sight of her pitiful face bending in farewell over the little urchin, some remembrance perhaps of the days when he had a right to stoop to the ear of beautiful women and walk unrebuked at their side, returned to him from the past, and respectfully lowering his voice, he asked her name.

She gave it and he seemed to lay it away in his mind; then as the ladies turned to remount their horses, rose and began carrying the little fellow off. As he vanished in the turn of the path that led towards the main entrance, they perceived a tall dark figure arise from a seat in the distance and stand looking after him, with a leer on its face and a malicious hugging of itself in a long black cloak, that proclaimed her to be the same ominous being who had before so grievously startled them.

XVI.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

“And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s smithy.”

—HAMLET.

“Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy.”

—MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Mrs. Sylvester reclining on the palest of blue couches, in the slanting sunlight of an April afternoon, is a study for a painter. Not that such inspiring loveliness breathed from her person, conspicuous as it was for its rich and indolent grace, but because in every attitude of her large and well formed limbs, in every raise of the thick white lids from eyes whose natural brightness was obscured by the mist of aimless fancies, she presented such an embodiment of luxurious ease, one might almost imagine they were gazing upon the favorite Sultana of some eastern court, or, to be for once poetical as the subject demands, a full blown Egyptian lotos floating in hushed enjoyment on the placid waters of its native stream. Indeed for all the blonde character of her beauty, there was certainly something oriental about the physique of this favored child of fortune. Had the tint of her skin been richened to a magnolia bloom instead of reminding you of that description accorded to the complexion of one of Napoleon’s sisters, that it looked like white satin seen through pink glass, she would have passed in any Eastern market, for a rare specimen of Circassian beauty.

But Mr. Sylvester coming home fatigued and harassed, cared little for Circassian beauties or Oriental odalisques. It was a welcome that he desired, and such refreshment as a quick eye and ready hand can bestow when guided by a tender and loving heart; or so thought the watchful Paula as she glided from her room at the sound of his step in the hall, and met him coming weary and disheartened from the side of Ona’s couch. The sight of her revived him at once.

“Well, little one, what have you been doing to-day?”

Instantly a shade fell over her countenance. “I hardly know how to tell you. It has been a day of great experiences to me. I am literally shaken with them. I have been wanting to talk to Ona about what I have seen and heard, but thought I had best wait till you came home, for I could not repeat the story twice.”

“What! you look pale. Nothing has happened to frighten you I hope,” exclaimed he, leading her back to Ona’s side, who stirred a little, and presently deigned to take an upright position.

“I do not know if it is fear or horror,” cried Paula, shuddering; “I have seen a fearful woman—But first I ought to tell you that I took a ride with Miss Stuyvesant in the Park this morning—”

“Yes, and persisted in going for that lady on horseback instead of sending the groom after her, and all starting from the front of our house,” murmured Mrs. Sylvester with lazy chagrin.

Paula smiled, but otherwise took no notice of this standing topic of disagreement.

“It was a beautiful day,” she proceeded, “and we enjoyed it very much, but we were so unfortunate as to run over a little boy, at that place where the equestrian road crosses the foot path; a lame child, Mr. Sylvester, who could not get out of our way; poor too, with a ragged jacket on which seemed to make it all the worse.”

Ona gave a shrug with her white shoulders, that seemed to question this. “Did you injure him very much?” queried she, with a show of interest; not sufficient however to impair her curiosity as to the cut of one of her nails.

“I cannot say; his little arm was struck, and when I went to pick him up, he lay back in my lap and moaned till I thought my heart would break. But that was not the worst that happened. As we went hurrying up the walk to find the child’s father, we were met by a woman wrapped in a black cloak whose long and greasy folds seemed like the symbol of her own untold depravity. Her glance as she encountered the child writhing in pain at my feet, made my heart stand still. It was more than malignant, it was actually fiendish. ‘Is he hurt?’ she asked, and it seemed as if she gloated over the question; she evidently longed to hear that he was, longed to be told that he would die; and when I inquired if she was his mother, she broke into a string of laughter, that seemed to darken the daylight. ‘His mother! O yes, we look alike, don’t we!’ she exclaimed, pointing with a mocking gesture frightful to see, first at his eyes which were very blue and beautiful, and then at her own which were dark as evil thoughts could make them. I never saw anything so dreadful. Malignancy! and towards a little lame child! what could be more horrible!”

Mr. Sylvester and his wife exchanged looks, then the former asked, “Did she follow you, Paula?”

“No; after telling me that I—But I cannot repeat what she said,” exclaimed the young girl with a quick shudder. “Since I came home,” she musingly continued, “I have looked and looked at my face in the glass, but I cannot believe that what she declared is true. There is no similarity between us, could never have been any: I will not have it that she ever saw in all the days of her life such a picture as that in her glass.” And with a sudden gesture Paula started up and pointed to herself as she stood reflected in one of the tall mirrors with which Ona’s boudoir abounded.

“And did she dare to make any comparison between you and her own degraded self?” exclaimed Mr. Sylvester, with a glance at the exquisite vision of pure girlhood thus doubly presented to his notice.

“Yes, what I am, she was once, or so she said. And it may be true. I have never suffered sorrow or experienced wrong, and cannot measure their power to carve the human face with such lines as I beheld on that woman’s countenance to-day. But do not let us talk of her any more. She left us at last, and we found the child’s father. Mr. Sylvester,” she suddenly asked, “are there to be found in this city, men occupying honorable positions and as such highly esteemed, who like Damocles of old, may be said to sit under the constant terror of a falling sword in the shape of some possible disclosure, that if made, would ruin their position before the world forever?”