The town-clock was on the last stroke of twelve, the solitary candle measured but two inches from its socket, and, as the summer wind rushed through the half-closed shutters, the melted tallow dripped slowly into the brightly-burnished brazen candlestick. The flickering light fell upon grim battalions of figures marshalled on the long blue-lined pages of a ledger, and flashed fitfully on the face of the accountant as he bent over his work. In these latter days of physical degeneration, such athletic frames as his are rarely seen among the youth of our land. Sixteen years growth had given him unusual height and remarkable breadth of chest, and it was difficult to realize that the stature of manhood had been attained by a mere boy in years. A gray suit (evidently home-made), of rather coarse texture, bespoke poverty; and, owing to the oppressive heat of the atmosphere, the coat was thrown partially off. He wore no vest, and the loosely-tied black ribbon suffered the snowy white collar to fall away from the throat and expose its well-turned outline. The head was large, but faultlessly proportioned, and the thick black hair, cut short and clinging to the temples, added to its massiveness. The lofty forehead, white and smooth; the somewhat heavy brows, matching the hue of the hair; the straight, finely-formed nose, with its delicate but clearly-defined nostril, and full firm lips, unshaded by mustache, combined to render the face one of uncommon beauty. Yet, as he sat absorbed by his figures, there was nothing prepossessing or winning in his appearance; for though you could not carp at the moulding of his features, you involuntarily shrank from the prematurely grave, nay, austere expression which seemed habitual to them. He looked just what he was—youthful in months and years, but old in trials, sorrows, and labors; and to one who analyzed his countenance, the conviction was inevitable that his will was gigantic, his ambition unbounded, his intellect wonderfully acute and powerful. It is always sad to remark in young faces the absence of that beaming enthusiasm which only a joyous heart imparts, and though in this instance there was nothing dark or sinister, you could not fail to be awed by the cold, dauntless resolution which said so plainly, “I struggle, and shall conquer. I shall mount, though the world defy me.” Although he had labored since dawn, there was no drooping of the muscular frame, no symptom of fatigue, save in the absolute colorlessness of his face. Firm as some brazen monument on its pedestal he sat and worked on, one hand wielding the pen, the other holding down the leaves which fluttered, now and then, as the breeze passed over them.

“Russell, do you know it is midnight?”

He frowned, and answered without looking up—

“Yes.”

“How much longer will you sit up?”

“Till I finish my work.”

The speaker stood on the threshold, leaning against the door-facing, and, after waiting a few moments, softly crossed the room and put her hand on the back of his chair. She was two years his junior, and though evidently the victim of recent and severe illness, even in her feebleness she was singularly like him. Her presence seemed to annoy him, for he turned round and said hastily:

“Electra, go to bed. I told you good-night three hours ago.”

She stood still, but silent.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

He wrote on for some ten minutes longer, then closed the ledger and put it aside. The candle had burned low; he took a fresh one from the drawer of the table, and, after lighting it, drew a Latin dictionary near to him, opened a worn copy of Horace, and began to study. Quiet as his own shadow stood the fragile girl behind his chair, but as she watched him a heavy sigh escaped her. Once more he looked up with a finger still in the dictionary, and asked impatiently:

“Why on earth don't you go to sleep?”

“I can't sleep; I have tried my best.”

“Are you sick again, my poor little cousin?”

He stretched out his arm and drew her close to him.

“No; but I know you are up, hard at work, and it keeps me awake. If you would only let me help you.”

“Irene, your father will be displeased if he sees you in that plight.”

“Pray, what is wrong about me now? You seem to glory in finding fault. What is the matter with my ‘plight,’ as you call it?”

“You know very well your father can't bear to see you carrying your own satchel and basket to school. He ordered Martha to take them every morning and evening, but she says you will not let her carry them. It is just sheer obstinacy in you.”

“There it is again! because I don't choose to be petted like a baby or made a wax-doll of, it is set down to obstinacy, as if I had the temper of a heathen. See here, Aunt Margaret, I am tired of having Martha tramping eternally at my heels as though I were a two-year-old child. There is no reason in her walking after me when I am strong enough to carry my own books, and I don't intend she shall do it any longer.”

“But, Irene, your father is too proud to have you trudging along the road like any other beggar, with your books in one arm and a basket swinging on the other. Just suppose the Carters or the Harrisses should meet you? Dear me! they would hardly believe you belonged to a wealthy, aristocratic family like the Huntingdons. Child, I never carried my own dinner to school in my life.”

“And I expect that is exactly the reason why you are for ever complaining, and scarcely see one well day in the three hundred and sixty-five. As to what people think, I don't care a cent; as to whether my ancestors did or did not carry their lunch in their own aristocratic hands is a matter of no consequence whatever. I despise all this ridiculous nonsense about aristocracy of family, and I mean to do as I please. I thought that really well-bred persons of high standing and birth could afford to be silent on the subject, and that only parvenus—coarse, vulgar people with a little money—put on those kinds of airs, and pretended to be shocked at what they had been accustomed to in early life.”

“I do not see where you get such plebeian ideas; you positively make me ashamed of you sometimes, when fashionable, genteel persons come to the house. There is such a want of refinement in your notions. You are anything but a Huntingdon.”

“I am what God made me, Aunt Margaret. If the Huntingdons stand high, it is because they won distinction by their own efforts; I don't want the stepping-stones of my dead ancestry; people must judge me for myself, not from what my grandmother was.”

Irene Huntingdon stood on the marble steps of her palatial home, and talked with the maiden aunt who governed her father's household. The girl was about fourteen, tall for her age, straight, finely-formed, slender. The broad straw hat shaded, but by no means concealed, her features, and as she looked up at her aunt the sunshine fell upon a face of extraordinary beauty, such as is rarely seen save in the idealized heads of the old masters. Her hair was of an uncommon shade, neither auburn nor brown, but between gold and bronze; and as the sun shone on it the rippling waves flashed until their burnished glory seemed a very aureola. It was thick and curling; she wore it parted on her pale, polished forehead, and it hung around her like a gilded veil. The face was an oval; you might measure it by all the rules of art and no imperfection could be found, unless the height of the brow were considered out of proportion. The nose was delicate and clearly cut, and in outline resembled that in the antique medals of Olympias, the wife of Philip of Macedonia. The upper lip was short, and curved like a bow; the lower, thin, firm, and straight. Her eyes were strangely, marvellously beautiful; they were larger than usual, and of that rare shade of purplish blue which borders the white velvet petals of a clematis. When the eyes were uplifted, as on this occasion, long curling lashes of the bronze hue of her hair rested against her brow. Save the scarlet lines which marked her lips, her face was of that clear colorlessness which can be likened only to the purest ivory. Though there was an utter absence of the rosy hue of health, the transparency of the complexion seemed characteristic of her type, and precluded all thought of disease. People are powerfully attracted by beauty, either of form, color, or a combination of both; and it frequently happens that something of pain mingles with the sensation of pleasure thus excited. Now, whether it be that this arises from a vague apprehension engendered by the evanescent nature of all sublunary things, or from the inability of earthly types to satisfy the divine ideal which the soul enshrines, I shall not here attempt to decide; but those who examined Irene's countenance were fully conscious of this complex emotion, and strangers who passed her in the street felt intuitively that a noble, unsullied soul looked out at them from the deep, calm, thoughtful eyes. Miss Margaret muttered something inaudible in reply to her last remark, and Irene walked on to school. Her father's residence was about a mile from the town, but the winding road rendered the walk somewhat longer; and on one side of this road stood the small house occupied by Mrs. Aubrey. As Irene approached it she saw Electra Grey coming from the opposite direction, and at the cottage-gate they met. Both paused; Irene held out her hand cordially—

“Good-morning. I have not seen you for a fortnight. I thought you were coming to school again as soon as you were strong enough?”

“No; I am not going back to school.”

“Why?”

“Because Auntie can't afford to send me any longer. You know her eyes are growing worse every day, and she is not able to take in sewing as she used to do. I am sorry; but it can't be helped.”

“How do you know it can't be helped? Russell told me he thought she had cataracts on her eyes, and they can be removed.”

“Perhaps so, if we had the means of consulting that celebrated physician in New Orleans. Money removes a great many things, Irie, but unfortunately we have n't it.”

“The trip would not cost much; suppose you speak to Russell about it.”

“Much or little, it will require more than we can possibly spare. Everything is so high we can barely live as it is. But I must go in, my aunt is waiting for me.”

“Where have you been so early, Electra? I hope you will not think me impertinent in asking such a question.”

“I carried this waiter full of bouquets to Mr. Carter's. There is to be a grand dinner-party there to-day, and Auntie promised as many flowers as she could furnish. However, bouquets pay poorly. Irie, wait one minute; I have a little border of mignonette all my own, and I should like to give you a spray.”

She hurried into the garden, and returning with a few delicate sprigs, fastened one in her friend's belt and the remainder in the ribbon on her hat.

“Thank you, Electra; who told you that I love mignonette so well? It will not do for you to stay away from school; I miss you in my class, and, besides, you are losing too much time. Something should be done, Electra. Good-by.”

They shook hands, and Irene walked on.

“Something should be done,” she repeated, looking down fixedly yet vacantly at the sandy road. Soon the brick walls of the Academy rose grim and uninviting, and taking her place at the desk she applied herself to her books. When school was dismissed in the afternoon, instead of returning home as usual, she walked down the principal street, entered Mr. Watson's store, and put her books on the counter. It happened that the proprietor stood near the front-door, and he came forward instantly to wait upon her.

“Ah, Miss Irene! happy to see you. What shall I have the pleasure of showing you?”

“Russell Aubrey, if you please.”

The merchant stared, and she added:

“I want some kid gauntlets, but Russell can get them for me.”

The young clerk stood at the desk in the rear of the store, with his back toward the counter; and Mr. Watson called out:

“Here, Aubrey, some kid gauntlets for this young lady.”

He laid down his pen, and taking a box of gloves from the shelves placed it on the counter before her. He had not noticed her particularly, and when she pushed back her hat and looked up at him he started slightly.

“Good-evening, Miss Huntingdon. What number do you wish?”

Perhaps it was from the heat of the day, or from stooping over his desk, or perhaps it was from something else, but his cheek was flushed, and gradually it grew pale again.

“Russell, I want to speak to you about Electra. She ought to be at school, you know.”

“Yes.”

“But she says your mother can't afford the expense.”

“Just now she can not; next year things will be better.”

“What is the tuition for her?”

“Five dollars a month.”

“Is that all?”

He selected a delicate fawn-colored pair of gloves and laid them before her, while a faint smile passed over his face.

“Russell, has anything happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“What is troubling you so?”

“Nothing more than usual. Do those gloves suit you?”

“Yes, they will fit me, I believe.” She looked at him very intently.

He met her gaze steadily, and for an instant his face brightened; then she said abruptly:

“Your mother's eyes are worse?”

“Yes, much worse.”

“Have you consulted Dr. Arnold about them?”

“He says he can do nothing for her.”

“How much would it cost to take her to New Orleans and have that celebrated oculist examine them?”

“More than we can afford just now; at least two hundred dollars.”

“Oh, Russell! that is not much. Would not Mr. Watson lend you that little?”

“I shall not ask him.”

“Not even to restore your mother's sight?”

“Not to buy my own life. Besides, the experiment is a doubtful one.”

“Still it is worth making.”

“Yes, under different circumstances it certainly would be.”

“Have you talked to Mr. Campbell about it?”

“No, because it is useless to discuss the matter.”

“It would be dangerous to go to New Orleans now, I suppose?”

“October or November would be better.”

Again she looked at him very earnestly, then stretched out her little hand.

“Good-by, Russell; I wish I could do something to help you, to make you less sorrowful.”

He held the slight waxen fingers, and his mouth trembled as he answered:

“Thank you, Miss Huntingdon. I am not sorrowful, but my path in life is not quite so flowery as yours.”

“I wish you would not call me ‘Miss Huntingdon,’ in that stiff, far-off way, as if we were not friends. Or maybe it is a hint that you desire me to address you as Mr. Aubrey. It sounds strange, unnatural, to say anything but Russell.”

She gathered up her books, took the gloves, and went slowly homeward, and Russell returned to his desk with a light in his eyes which, for the remainder of the day, nothing could quench. As Irene ascended the long hill on which Mr. Huntingdon's residence stood she saw her father's buggy at the door, and as she approached the steps he came out, drawing on his gloves.

“You are late, Irene. What kept you?”

“I have been shopping a little. Are you going to ride? Take me with you.”

“Going to dine at Mr. Carter's.”

“Why, the sun is almost down now. What time will you come home? I want to ask you something.”

“Not till long after you are asleep.”

He took his seat in the buggy, and the spirited horse dashed down the avenue. A servant came forward to take her hat and satchel and inform her that her dinner had waited some time. Miss Margaret sat crocheting at the front-window of the dining-room, and Irene ate her dinner in silence. As she rose and approached her aunt the door swung open and a youth entered, apparently about Russell's age, though really one year older.

“Irene, I am tired to death waiting for you. What a provoking girl you are! The horses have been saddled at least one hour and a half. Do get on your riding-dress. I am out of all patience.”

He rapped his boot heavily with his whip by way of emphasis, and looked hurriedly at his watch.

“I did not promise to ride with you this evening, Hugh,’ answered his cousin, seating herself on the window-sill and running her fingers lightly over the bars of a beautiful cage, where her canary pecked playfully at the fair hand.

“Oh, nonsense! Suppose you did n't promise; I waited for you, and told Grace Harriss and Charlie that we would meet them at the upper bend of the river, just above the Factory. Charlie's new horse has just arrived from Vermont—Green Mountain Boy he calls him—and we have a bet of a half-dozen pairs of gloves that he can't beat my Eclipse. Do come along! Aunt Margaret, make her come.”

“I should like to see anybody make her do what she is not in the humor for,” said his aunt, looking over her glasses at the lithe, graceful figure on the window-sill.

“Hugh, I would rather stay at home, for I am tired, but I will go to oblige you.”

Miss Margaret lifted her eyebrows, and as his cousin left the room Hugh Seymour exclaimed:

“Is n't she the greatest beauty in the United States?”

“She will be a belle when she is grown; just such a one as your mother was, only she lacks her gayety of disposition. She is full of strange notions, Hugh; you don't know the half of her character—her own father does not. Frequently I am puzzled to understand her myself.”

“Oh! she will come out of all that. She is curious about some things now, but she will outgrow it.”

“I am afraid she will not, for it is as much a part of her as the color of her hair or the shape of her nose. She has always been queer.”

Irene appeared at the door with a small silver porte-monnaie in her hand. She counted the contents, put it into her pocket, and, gathering up the folds of her habit, led the way to the front door. Hugh adjusted the reins, and laying one hand on his she sprang lightly to her saddle, then stroked her horse's silky mane and said:

“Erebus can leave Green Mountain Boy so far behind that Charlie would find it no easy matter to count the plumes in my hat. Are you ready?”

The beautiful jetty creature, as if conscious of her praise, tossed his head and sprang off in a canter, but, wheeling round, she called to the groom who stood watching them:

“Unchain Paragon!”

Five minutes later the cousins were galloping on, with a superb greyhound following close at Erebus heels, and leaping up now and then in obedience to the motion of Irene's hand. The road ran through a hilly country, now clad in stern ancestral pines, and now skirted with oak and hickory, and about a mile beyond the town it made a sharp angle and took the river bank. The sun had set, but the western sky was still aglow; and near the bank, where the current was not perceptible, the changing tints of the clouds were clearly mirrored, but in the middle of the stream a ledge of rock impeded its course and the water broke over, with a dull roar, churning itself into foam and spray as it dashed from shelf to shelf of the stony barrier. Just opposite the Fall Irene checked her horse and paused to admire the beauty of the scene; but in another moment the quick tramp of hoofs fell on her ear, and Hugh's young friends joined them. Green Mountain Boy was flecked with foam, and as Irene measured his perfections at one hasty glance, she patted her favorite's head and challenged Charlie for a trial of speed.

“No; Charlie and I must have the race. Miss Grace, you and Irene can take care of yourselves for a few minutes. We will wait for you on the edge of town, at the graveyard. Now, Charlie, I am ready.”

They took their places in front, and were soon out of sight, as the road followed the curves of the river. Erebus plunged violently at first, not being accustomed to lag behind Eclipse, but by much persuasion and frequent kind touches on his head, Irene managed to reconcile him to the temporary disgrace.

Grace looked at his antics rather fearfully, and observed that no amount of money could tempt her to mount him.

“Why not?”

“He will break your neck yet.”

“He is very spirited, but as gentle as Paragon. Come, Grace, it is getting late; they will be waiting for us. Quicken your sober, meek little brownie.”

“So Electra is not coming back to school. It is a great pity she can't have an education.”

“Who told you anything about her?”

“Oh, everybody knows how poor her aunt is; and now, to mend matters, she is going blind. I would go to see Electra occasionally if the family had not been so disgraced. I like her, but no genteel person recognizes Mrs. Aubrey, even in the street.”

“That is very unjust. She is one of the most refined, elegant women I have over seen. She ought not to be blamed for her husband's misfortune. Poverty is no crime.”

If she had been treated to a Hindostanee proverb Grace could not have looked more stupidly surprised.

“Why, Irene! Mrs. Aubrey wears a bit-calico to church.”

“Well, suppose she does? Is people's worth to be determined only by the cost or the quality of their clothes? If I were to give your cook a silk dress exactly like that one your uncle sent you from Paris, and provide her with shawl and bonnet to match, would she be your equal, do you think? I imagine you would not thank me or anybody else who insinuated that Mrs. Harriss' negro cook was quite as genteel and elegant as Miss Grace herself, because she wore exactly the same kind of clothes. I tell you, Grace, it is all humbug! this everlasting talk about fashion, and dress, and gentility! Pshaw! I am sick of it. When our forefathers were fighting for freedom, for a national existence, I wonder whether their wives measured each other's respectability or gentility by their lace collars or the number of flounces on their dresses? Grace Harriss, your great-grandmother, and mine, and probably everybody's else, spun the cotton, and wove the cloth, and cut and made their homespun dresses, and were thankful to get them. And these women who had not even bit-calicoes were the mothers and wives and sisters and daughters of men who established the most glorious government on the face of the broad earth! The way the women of America have degenerated is a crying shame. I tell you, I would blush to look my great-grandmother in the face.”

Grace shrugged her shoulders in expressive silence, and, soon after, they reached the spot where the boys were waiting to join them.

“Eclipse made good his name!” cried Hugh, triumphantly, while Charlie bit his lip with chagrin.

Whether the general rule of implicit obedience to parental injunction admitted of no exceptions, was a problem which Irene readily solved; and on Saturday, as soon as her father and cousin had started to the plantation (twenty-five miles distant), she put on her hat and walked to town. Wholly absorbed in philanthropic schemes, she hurried along the sidewalk, ran up a flight of steps, and knocked at a door on which was written, in large gilt letters, “Dr. Arnold.”

“Ah, Beauty! come in. Sit down, and tell me what brought you to town so early.”

He was probably a man of fifty; gruff in appearance, and unmistakably a bachelor. His thick hair was grizzled; so was the heavy beard; and shaggy gray eyebrows slowly unbent as he took his visitor's little hands and looked kindly down into her grave face. From her infancy he had petted and fondled her, and she stood as little in awe of him as of Paragon.

“Doctor, are you busy this morning?”

“I am never too busy to attend to you, little one. What is it?”

“Of course you know that Mrs. Aubrey is almost blind.”

“Of course I do, having been her physician.”

“Those cataracts can be removed, however.”

“Perhaps they can, and perhaps they can't.”

“But the probabilities are that a good oculist can relieve her.”

“I rather think so.”

From early childhood Irene had experienced a sensation of loneliness. Doubtless the loss of her mother enhanced this feeling, but the peculiarity of her mental organization would have necessitated it even under happier auspices. Her intellect was of the masculine order, acute and logical, rather deficient in the imaginative faculties, but keenly analytical. It is an old predicate that women are deductionists—that womanly intuitions are swift and infallible. In richly-endowed female minds it not unfrequently happens that tedious, reflective processes are ignored; but Irene was a patient rather than brilliant thinker, and with singular perseverance searched every nook and cranny, and sifted every phase of the subject presented for investigation. Her conclusions were never hasty, and consequently rarely unsound. From the time her baby-fingers first grasped a primer she became a student; dolls and toys such as constitute the happiness of most children had never possessed any attraction for her, and before she was eight years old she made the library her favorite resort. She would climb upon the morocco-covered table where stood two globes, one celestial, the other terrestrial, and spend hours in deciphering the strange, heathenish figures twined among the stars. When weary of studying the index of the thermometer and barometer, and wondering why the quicksilver varied with sunshine and shower, she would throw herself down on the floor and fall asleep over the quaint pictures in an old English encyclopedia, numbering thirty volumes. She haunted this room, and grew up among books centuries old. Thus until her tenth year there was no authority exerted over her, and the strong, reflective tendency of her mind rapidly developed itself. This was an abnormal condition, and indisputably an unfortunate training, and perhaps in after years it might have been better had she spent the season of careless, thoughtless childhood in childish sports and childhood's wonted ways, for anxious inquiry and tedious investigations come soon enough with maturity.

She was not an enthusiastic, impulsive nature, fitful in moodiness or ecstacy, inclined to passionate demonstrations of any kind; but from infancy evinced a calm, equable temperament, uniformly generous and unselfish, but most thoroughly firm, nay obstinate, in any matter involving principle or conflicting with her opinions of propriety. How she obtained these notions of right and wrong in minor details, was a subject of some mystery. They were not the result of education in the ordinary acceptation of that term, for they had never been instilled by anybody; and, like a wood-flower in some secluded spot, she lived, grew, and expanded her nature, without any influences to bias or color her views. In her promiscuous reading she was quite as apt to imbibe poisonous as healthy sentiments; and knowing that she had been blessed with few religious instructions, her father often wondered at the rigidness of her code for self-regulation. Miss Margaret considered her “a strange little thing,” and rarely interfered with her plans in any respect, while her father seemed to take it for granted that she required no looking after. He knew that her beauty was extraordinary; he was proud of the fact; and having provided her with a good music-master, and sent her to the best school in the county, he left her to employ her leisure as inclination prompted. Occasionally her will conflicted with his, and more than once he found it impossible to make her yield assent to his wishes. To the outward observances of obedience and respect she submitted, but whenever these differences occurred he felt that in the end she was unconquered. Inconsistent as it may appear, though fretted for the time by her firmness, he loved her the more for her “wilfulness,” as he termed it; and despotic and exacting though he certainly was in many respects, he stood somewhat in awe of his pure-hearted, calm-eyed child. His ward and nephew, Hugh Seymour, had resided with him for several years, and it was well known that Mr. Huntingdon had pledged his daughter's hand to his sister's son. The age of infant betrothals has passed away, consequently this rare instance gave rise to a deal of gossiping comment. How the matter became public he never knew; probably Sparrowgrasse's “carrier-pigeon” migrated southward, for it is now no uncommon thing to find one in our cities and country towns; and at all events Mr. Huntingdon soon found that his private domestic affairs were made an ordinary topic of conversation in social circles. Irene had never been officially apprised of her destiny, but surmised very accurately the true state of the case. Between the two cousins there existed not the slightest congeniality of taste or disposition; not a sympathetic link, save the tie of relationship. On her part there was a moderate share of cousinly affection; on his, as much love and tenderness as his selfish nature was capable of feeling. They rarely quarrelled as most children do, for when (as frequently happened) he flew into a rage and tried to tyrannize, she scorned to retort in any way, and generally locked him out of the library. What she thought of her father's intentions concerning herself, no one knew; she never alluded to the subject, and if in a frolicsome mood Hugh broached it, she invariably cut the discussion short. When he went to college in a distant state she felt infinitely relieved, and during his vacations secluded herself as much as possible. Yet the girl's heart was warm and clinging; she loved her father devotedly, and loved most intensely Electra Grey, whom she had first met at school. They were nearly the same age, class-mates, and firm friends. That she was beautiful, Irene of course knew quite as well as her father or any one else; how could she avoid knowing it? From her cradle she had been called “Queen” and “Beauty;” all her acquaintances flattered her—strangers commented on her loveliness; she no more doubted it than the fact of her existence; and often, stopped before the large parlor mirrors and admired her own image, just as she would have examined and admired and enjoyed one of the elegant azaleas or pelargoniums in the greenhouse. I repeat it, she prized and enjoyed her loveliness, but she was not vain. She was no more spoiled by adulation than a meek and snowy camellia, or one of those immense golden-eyed pansies which astonish and delight visitors at the hothouses on Long Island. God conferred marvellous beauty on her, and she was grateful for the gift—but to the miserable weaknesses of vanity she was a stranger. In the midst of books and flowers she was happy, and seemed to desire no companions but Erebus and Paragon. She rode every day when the weather permitted, and the pretty horse, with its graceful young rider, followed by the slender, silky greyhound, was a familiar spectacle in the vicinity of her home. She knew every hill and valley within ten miles of the town; could tell where the richest, rarest honeysuckles grew, where the yellow jasmine clambered in greatest profusion, and always found the earliest sprays of graybeard that powdered the forest. Often Mr. Huntingdon had ordered his horse and gone out in the dusky twilight to search for her, fearing that some disaster had overtaken his darling, and at such times met Erebus laden with her favorite flowers. These were the things she loved; and thus, independent of society, yet conscious of her isolation, she grew up what nature intended her to be.

As totally different in character as appearance was Electra Grey. Rather smaller and much thinner than Irene, with shining purplish black hair, large, sad, searching black eyes, from which there was no escape, a pale olive complexion, and full crimson lips that rarely smiled. The forehead was broad and prominent, and rendered very peculiar by the remarkable width between the finely-arched brows. The serene purity characteristic of Irene's features was entirely wanting in this face, which would have seemed Jewish in its contour but for the Grecian nose; and the melancholy yet fascinating eyes haunted the beholder with their restless, wistful, far-reaching expression. Electra was a dreamer, richly gifted; dissatisfied because she could never attain that unreal world which her busy brain kept constantly before her. The child of Genius is rarely, if ever, a happy one— “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.” If so, its recollections cling tenaciously to those who, like Electra, seek continually for the airy castles of an ideal realm. Her vivid imagination shaped and painted, but, as too often happens, her eager blood and bone fingers could not grasp the glories. The thousand cares, hardships, and rough handlings of Reality struck cold and jarring on her sensitive, highly-strung nature. She did not complain; murmuring words had never crossed her lips in the hearing of any who knew her; she loved her aunt too well to speak of sorrow or disappointment. Fourteen years had taught her an unusual amount of stoicism; but sealed lips can not sepulchre grief, and trials have a language which will not be repressed when the mouth is at rest. She looked not gloomy, nor yet quite unhappy, but like one who sees obstacles mountain-high loom between her and the destined goal, and asks only permission to press on. Hers was a passionate nature; fierce blood beat in her veins, and would not always be bound by icy fetters. There was no serene plateau of feeling where she could repose; she enjoyed keenly, rapturously, and suffered acutely, fearfully. Unfortunately for her, she had only Himalayan solitudes, sublime in their dazzling height, or valleys of Tophet, appalling with flame and phantom. She knew wherein she was gifted, she saw whither her narrow pathway led, and panted to set her little feet in the direction of the towering steeps crowned with the Temple of Art. To be an artist; to put on canvas the grand and imperishable images that crowded her brain, and almost maddened her because she could not give them tangible form—this was the day-dream spanning her life like a bow of promise, but fading slowly as years thickened o'er her head and no helping hand cleared the choked path. “Poverty! poverty!” Many a night she buried her face under the pillow and hissed the word through closed teeth, fearful of disturbing the aunt who slumbered at her side. Poverty! poverty! What an intolerable chain it binds around aspiring souls! And yet the world's great thinkers have felt this iron in their flesh, and, bursting the galling bonds, have carved their way to eminence, to immortality. It is a lamentable and significant truth that, with a few honorable, noble exceptions, wealth is the Cannæ of American intellect. Poverty is a rigid school, and the sessions are long and bitter; but the men and women who graduate therein come forth with physical frames capable of enduring all hardships, with hearts habituated to disappointment and fortified against the rebuffs of fortune, with intellects trained by patient, laborious, unbending application. The tenderly-nurtured child of wealth and luxury very naturally and reasonably shrinks from difficulties; but increase the obstacles in the path of a son or daughter of penury, inured to trial, and in the same ratio you strengthen his or her ability and determination to surmount them.

Electra's love of drawing had early displayed itself; first, in strange, weird figures on her slate, then in her copy-book, on every slip of paper which she could lay her hands upon; and, finally, for want of more suitable material, she scrawled all over the walls of the little bedroom, to the great horror of her aunt, who spread a coat of whitewash over the child's frescos, and begged her to be guilty of no such conduct in future, as Mr. Clark might with great justice sue for damages. In utter humiliation Electra retreated to the garden, and here, after a shower had left the sandy walks white and smooth, she would sharpen a bit of pine, and draw figures and faces of all conceivable and inconceivable shapes. Chancing to find her thus engaged one Sunday afternoon, Russell supplied her with a package of drawing-paper and pencils. So long as these lasted she was perfectly happy, but unluckily their straitened circumstances admitted of no such expenditure, and before many weeks she was again without materials. She would not tell Russell that she had exhausted his package, and passed sleepless nights trying to devise some method by which she could aid herself. It was positive torture for her to sit in school and see the drawing-master go round, giving lessons on this side and that, skipping over her every time, because her aunt could not afford the extra three dollars. How longingly the eyes followed the master's form—how hungrily they dwelt upon the sketches he leaned over to examine and retouch! Frequently during drawing-hour she would sit with her head bent down pretending to study, but the pages of the book were generally blistered with tears which no eye but the Father's looked upon. There was, however, one enjoyment which nothing could steal from her: the town contained two book-stores, and here she was wont to linger over the numerous engravings and occasional oil-paintings they boasted. The proprietors and clerks seemed rather pleased than otherwise by the silent homage she paid their pictures, and, except to tender her a seat, no one ever interfered with her examinations. One engraving interested her particularly: it represented St. John on Patmos, writing Revelations. She went as usual one Saturday morning for another look at it, but a different design hung in its place; she glanced around, and, surmising the object of her search, the proprietor told her it had been sold the day before. An expression of sorrow crossed her face, as though she had sustained an irreparable loss, and, drawing her bonnet down, she went slowly homeward. Amid all these yearnings and aspirations she turned constantly to Russell with a worshipping love that knew no bounds. She loved her meek, affectionate aunt as well as most natures love their mothers, and did all in her power to lighten her labors, but her affection for Russell bordered on adoration. In a character so exacting and passionate as hers there is necessarily much of jealousy, and thus it came to pass that, on the day of Irene's visit to the cottage, the horrible suspicion took possession of her that he loved Irene better than herself. True, she was very young, but childish hearts feel as keenly as those of maturer years; and Electra endured more agony during that day than in all of her past life. Had Irene been other than she was, in every respect, she would probably have hated her cordially; as matters stood, she buried the suspicion deep in her own heart, and kept as much out of everybody's way as possible. Days and weeks passed very wearily; she busied herself with her text-books, and, when the lessons had been recited, drew all over the margins—here a hand, there an entire arm, now and then a face, sad-eyed as Fate.

Mrs. Aubrey's eyes became so blurred that finally she could not leave the house without having some one to guide her, and, as cold weather had now arrived, preparations were made for her journey. Mr. Hill, who was going to New Orleans, kindly offered to take charge of her, and the day of departure was fixed. Electra packed the little trunk, saw it deposited on the top of the stage, in the dawn of an October morning saw her aunt comfortably seated beside Mr. Hill, and in another moment all had vanished. In the afternoon of that day, on returning from school, Electra went to the bureau, and, unlocking a drawer, took out a small paper box. It contained a miniature of her father, set in a handsome gold frame. She knew it had been her mother's most valued trinket; her aunt had carefully kept it for her, and as often as the temptation assailed her she had resisted; but now the longing for money triumphed over every other feeling. Having touched the spring, she took a knife and cautiously removed the bit of ivory beneath the glass, then deposited the two last in the box, put the gold frame in her pocket, and went out to a jewelry-store. As several persons had preceded her, she leaned against the counter, and, while waiting, watched with some curiosity the movements of one of the goldsmiths, who, with a glass over one eye, was engaged in repairing watches. Some had been taken from their cases, others were untouched; and as her eyes passed swiftly over the latter, they were suddenly riveted to a massive gold one lying somewhat apart. A half-smothered exclamation caused the workman to turn round and look at her; but in an instant she calmed herself, and, thinking it a mere outbreak of impatience, he resumed his employment. Just then one of the proprietors approached, and said politely, “I am sorry we have kept you waiting, Miss. What can I do for you?”

“What is this worth?”

She laid the locket down on the counter and looked up at him with eyes that sparkled very joyously, he thought. He examined it a moment, and said rather drily:

“It is worth little or nothing to us, though you may prize it.”

“If I were to buy another just like it, would you charge me ‘little or nothing?’ ”

He smiled good-humoredly.

“Buying and selling are different things don't you know that? Come, tell me what you want to sell this for?”

“Because I want some money.”

“You are Mrs. Aubrey's niece, I believe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, how do I know, in the first place, that it belongs to you? Jewellers have to be very particular about what they buy.”

She crimsoned, and drew herself proudly away from the counter, then smiled, and held out her hand for the locket.

“It is mine; it held my father's miniature, but I took it out because I want a paint-box, and thought I could sell this case for enough to buy one. It was my mother's once; here are her initials on the back—H. G., Harriet Grey. But of course you don't know whether I am telling the truth; I will bring my cousin with me; he can prove it. Sir, are you so particular about everything you buy?”

“We try to be.”

Weeks and months slipped away, and total darkness came down on the widow. She groped with some difficulty from room to room, and Electra was compelled to remain at home and watch over her. Russell had become a great favorite with his crusty employer, and, when the labors of the office were ended, brought home such books as he needed, and spent his evenings in study. His powers of application and endurance were extraordinary, and his progress was in the same ratio. As he became more and more absorbed in these pursuits his reserve and taciturnity increased, and his habitually hasty step and abstracted expression of countenance told of a strong nature straining its powers to the utmost to attain some distant, glimmering goal. His employer was particularly impressed by the fact that he never volunteered a remark on any subject, and rarely opened his lips except to ask some necessary information in connection with his business. Sometimes the silence of the office was unbroken for hours, save by the dull scratching of pens, or an impatient exclamation from Mr. Campbell. Respectful in deportment, attentive to his duties, never presuming upon kindness, constantly at work from morning until night, yet with an unmistakable sorrow printed on his face—a sorrow never obtruded on any one, never alluded to—he won first the rigid scrutiny of the lawyer, then his deepest, most abiding affection. Naturally cold and undemonstrative in manner, Mr. Campbell gave little evidence of feeling of any kind, yet the piercing blue eye lost its keenness when resting on the tall, stalwart form of the clerk, and once or twice the wrinkled hand sought his broad shoulder almost caressingly. He had not married; had neither mother nor sisters to keep his nature loving and gentle; and, though he occasionally visited his brother, who was a minister in the same town, he was held in awe by the members of that brother's family. He comprehended Russell's character, and quietly facilitated his progress. There was no sycophancy on the part of the young man; no patronage on that of the employer.

One afternoon Irene tapped lightly at the cottage-door, and entered the kitchen. Mrs. Aubrey sat in a low chair close to the fireplace, engaged in knitting; her smooth, neat calico dress and spotless linen collar told that careful hands tended her, and the soft auburn hair brushed over her temples showed broad bands of gray as the evening sun shone on it. She turned her brown, sightless eyes toward the door, and asked in a low voice:

“Who is it?”

“It is only me, Mrs. Aubrey.”

Irene bent down, laid her two hands on the widow's, and kissed her forehead.

“I am glad to hear your voice, Irene; it has been a long time since you were here.”

“Yes, a good many weeks, I know; but I could not come.”

“Are you well? Your hands and face are cold.”

“Yes, thank you, very well. I am always cold, I believe. Hugh says I am. Here are some flowers from the greenhouse. I brought them because they are so fragrant; and here, too, are a few oranges from the same place. Hush! don't thank me, if you please. I wish I could come here oftener. I always feel better after being with you; but I can't always come when I want to do so.”

“Why not, Irene?”

“Oh, because of various things. Between school and music, and riding and reading, I have very little time; and, besides, father wants me with him when he is at home. I play chess with him, and sometimes we are three or four days finishing one game. Somehow, Mrs. Aubrey, though I don't mean to be idle, it seems to me that I do very little. Everybody ought to be of some use in this world, but I feel like a bunch of mistletoe growing on somebody else, and doing nothing. I don't intend to sit down and hold my hands all my life, but what can I do? Tell me how to begin.”

She lifted a large tortoise-colored cat from a small stool and drew it near the hearth, just at the widow's feet, seating herself and removing her hat.

“That is more easily asked than answered; you are a great heiress, Irene, and in all human probability will never be obliged to do anything. For what is generally denominated work, you will have no occasion; but all who wish to be really happy should be employed in some way. You will not have to labor for your food and clothes like my Russell and Electra; but you will have it in your power to do a vast deal more good. In cultivating your mind, do not forget your heart; it is naturally full of very generous, noble impulses but all human beings have faults; what yours may be you know best, and you should constantly strive to correct them. Read your Bible, dear child; not now and then, but daily and prayerfully. Oh, Irene! I have had some bitter, bitter sorrows, and frequently I thought that they would crush out my life. In those times of trial, if I had not had my Bible and my God I believe I should have lost my reason. But I read and was comforted. His promises sustained me; and in looking back I see many places which should be called Jehovah-Jireh, for the Lord saw and provided. Your Bible will teach you your duty much better than I possibly can. You owe your father a great deal; his hopes and joys centre in you, and through life he will look to you for his happiness. When you are grown, society, too, will claim you; you will be sought after and flattered; and, Irene, under these circumstances—with your remarkable beauty and wealth—you will find it a difficult matter to avoid being spoiled. Your influence will be very great, and a fearful responsibility must attend its employment. Let it be for good. Try to keep your heart free from all selfish or ignoble feelings; pray to God for guidance that you may be enabled through His grace to keep yourself ‘unspotted from the world;’ those words contain the whole: ‘unspotted from the world.’ You have not been spoiled thus far by luxury and life-long petting, and I hope and believe that you never will be; but remember, we must be continually on the watch against temptation. Irene, have I spoken too plainly?”

“No; I thank you for your candor. I want you to advise me just as you would Electra. I don't read my Bible as often as I ought, but there are so many things in it which I do not understand that I hardly ever open it now. I have nobody to explain the difficulties.”

“It is very clear on the subject of our duty; God left not the shadow of mystery in his laws for the government of the heart and regulation of the life. He commands us to receive certain rules, to practice certain principles, and to abstain from certain sinful things, all of which are specified, and not to be mistaken by even the most obtuse. Melvill has said, in one of his beautiful and comforting sermons: ‘God breathed himself into the compositions of prophets and apostles and evangelists, and there, as in the mystic recesses of an everlasting sanctuary, he still resides, ready to disclose himself to the humble and to be evoked by the prayerful. But in regard to every other book, however fraught it may be with the maxims of piety, however pregnant with momentous truth, there is nothing of this shrining himself of Deity in the depths of its meaning. Men may be instructed by its pages, and draw from them hope and consolation, but never will they find there the burning Shekinah which proclaims the actual presence of God; never hear a voice as from the solitudes of an oracle pronouncing the words of immortality.’ ”

“How then does it happen, Mrs. Aubrey, that different churches teach such conflicting doctrines? Why are there so many denominations? If the teachings of the Bible are so plain, how can such various creeds arise?”

“Because poor human nature is so full of foibles; because charity, the fundamental doctrine of Christ, is almost lost sight of by those churches; it has dwindled into a mere speck, in comparison with the trifles which they have magnified to usurp its place. Instead of one great Christian church holding the doctrines of the New Testament, practising the true spirit of the Saviour, and in genuine charity allowing its members to judge for themselves in the minor questions relating to religion—such for instance as the mode of baptism, the privilege of believing presbyters and bishops equal in dignity or otherwise, as the case may be, the necessity of ministers wearing surplices or the contrary, as individual taste dictates—we have various denominations, all erected to promulgate some particular dogma, to magnify and exalt as all-important some trifling difference in the form of church-government. Once established, the members of each sect apply themselves to the aggrandizement of their peculiar church; and thus it comes to pass that instead of one vast brotherhood, united against sin and infidelity, they are disgracefully wrangling about sectarian matters of no consequence whatever. In all this there is much totally antagonistic to the principles inculcated by our Saviour, who expressly denounced the short-sighted bigotry of those who magnified external observances and non-essentials at the expense of the genuine spirit of their religion. I wish most earnestly that these denominational barriers and distinctions could be swept away, that the names of Methodist and Episcopal, Presbyterian and Baptist could be obliterated, and that all the members were gathered harmoniously into one world-wide pale, the Protestant Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Mrs. Aubrey, do you belong to any church?”

“Yes, Irene, because Christ founded a church, and I think every man and woman should belong to some religious organization. Moreover, unless a member of some one of the denominations, you can not commune; and, as the sacrament particularly established by our Saviour, all ought to be able to partake of it. I think it a matter of little consequence which of the evangelical sects one selects. Do not imagine that I believe people can only be saved by entrance into some church; I think no such thing; the church is a valuable instrument, but God who established it can work without it. Still, it is very reasonable to suppose that regular attendance on divine service fosters piety, and keeps the subject of our duty more constantly before us.”

She had finished her knitting, and sat with her thin hands folded in her lap—the meek face more than usually serene, the sightless eyes directed toward her visitor. Sunshine flecked the bare boards under the window, flashed on the tin vessels ranged on the shelves, and lingered like a halo around Irene's head. Her hair swept on the floor, and the cat played now and then with the golden rings so softly as not to attract notice, as though conscious the new toy was precious. The countenances of the group contrasted vividly: the sweet resignation of the blind sufferer, the marble purity of Irene's face, and, just in the rear, Electra's broad, pale brow and restless, troubled, midnight eyes. The latter had been drawing at the table in the middle of the room, and now sat leaning on her hand, watching the two at the fire. Presently Irene approached and began to examine the drawings, which were fragmentary, except one or two heads, and a sketch taken from the bank opposite the Falls. After some moments passed in looked over them, Irene addressed the quiet little figure.

“Have you been to Mr. Clifton's studio?”

“No; who is he?”

“An artist from New York. His health poor, and he is spending the winter South. Have n't you heard of him? Everybody is having portraits taken. He is painting mine now—father would make me sit again, though he has a likeness which was painted four years ago. I am going down to-morrow for my last sitting, and should like very much for you to go with me. Perhaps Mr. Clifton can give you some valuable hints. Will you go?”

“With great pleasure.”

“Then I will call for you a little before ten o'clock. Here are some crayons I bought for you a week ago. Good-by.”

She left the room as quietly as she had entered, and found Paragon waiting for her at the door. He gambolled before her all the way—now darting off, and as suddenly returning, to throw himself at her feet and wonder why she failed to caress him as usual. Other thoughts engaged her now; she could see nothing but the form of the widow, and to-day she realized more than ever before how much she needed a mother. Low, sweet, gentle tones rarely fell upon her ear, and, except her father and Dr. Arnold, no one had ever attempted to caress her. She wearied of the fourteen years of isolation, and now on entering her fifteenth looked about her for at least one congenial spirit. She knew of none but Electra and Mrs. Aubrey who in any degree sympathized with her, and from these she was debarred by parental interdict. Miss Margaret, seconded by Mr. Huntingdon, now constantly prescribed a course of conduct detestable to the girl, who plainly perceived that as she grew older these differences increased. Was it her duty to submit unhesitatingly to their dictation? Did the command of filial obedience embrace all such matters, or was it modified—limited by the right of individual conscience? This consultation was long and patient, and the conclusion unalterable. She would do what she believed to be proper, whatever she thought her duty, at all hazards. She had no one to guide her, and must rely only on God and her own heart.

The following day Miss Margaret accompanied her to the studio. As the carriage approached the cottage-gate Irene directed the driver to stop.

“For what?” asked her aunt.

“Electra Grey is going with me; I promised to call for her. She has an extraordinary talent for drawing, and I want to introduce her to Mr. Clifton. Open the door, Andrew.”

“Irene, are you deranged? Your father never would forgive you if he knew you associated with those people. I can't think of allowing that girl to enter this carriage. Drive on. I must really speak to Leonard about your obstinacy in visiting at that—”

“Stop, Andrew! If you don't choose to ride with Electra, Aunt Margaret, you may go on alone, for either she shall ride or I will walk with her.”

Andrew opened the door, and she was stepping out, when Electra appeared in the walk and immediately joined her. Miss Margaret was thoroughly aroused and indignant, but thought it best to submit for the time, and when Irene introduced her friend she took no notice of her whatever, except by drawing herself up in one corner and lowering her veil. The girls talked during the remainder of the ride, and when they reached Mr. Clifton's door ran up the steps together, totally unmindful of the august lady's ill-humor.

The artist was standing before an easel which held Irene's unfinished portrait, and as he turned to greet his visitors Electra saw that, though thin and pale, his face was one of rare beauty and benevolence. His brown curling hair hung loosely about his shoulders, and an uncommonly long beard of the same silky texture descended almost to his waist. He shook hands with Irene, and looked inquiringly at her companion.

“Mr. Clifton, this is Miss Electra Grey, whose drawings I mentioned to you last week. I wish, if you please, you would examine some of them when you have leisure.”

Electra looked for an instant into his large, clear gray eyes as he took her drawings, and said he would be glad to assist her, and knew that henceforth the tangled path would be smoothed and widened. She stood at the back of his chair during the hour's sitting, and with peculiar interest watched the strokes of his brush as the portrait grew under his practised hand. When Irene rose, the orphan moved away and began to scrutinize the numerous pictures scattered about the room. A great joy filled her heart and illumined her face, and she waited for the words of encouragement that she felt assured would be spoken. The artist looked over her sketches slowly, carefully, and his eye went back to her brilliant countenance, as if to read there answers to ciphers which perplexed him. But yet more baffling cryptography met him in the deep, flashing, appealing eyes, on the crimson, quivering lips, on the low, full brow, with its widely-separated black arches. Evidently the face possessed far more attraction than the drawings, and he made her sit down beside him, and passed his hand over her head and temples, as a professed phrenologist might preparatory to rendering a chart.

“Your sketches are very rough, very crude, but they also display great power of thought; some of them singular beauty of conception; and I see from your countenance that you are dissatisfied because the execution falls so far short of the conception. Let me talk to you candidly: you have uncommon talent, but the most exalted genius can not dispense with laborious study. Michael Angelo studied anatomy for twelve years; you will require long and earnest application before you can possibly accomplish anything of importance. The study of Art is no mere pastime, as some people suppose; an artist's life is an arduous one at best. I have been told something of your history; you are very poor, and wish to make painting a profession. Think well before you decide this matter; remember that long, tedious months must elapse before you can hope to execute even an ordinary portrait. You must acquaint yourself with the anatomy of the human system before you undertake anything. I thought I had finished my course seven years ago, but I went to Italy and soon saw that I had only begun to learn my profession. Think well of all this.”

“I have thought of it; I am willing to work any number of years; I have decided, and I am not be frightened from my purpose. I am poor, I can barely buy the necessary materials, much less the books, but I will be an artist yet. I have decided, sir; it is no new whim; it has been a bright dream to me all my life, and I am determined to realize it.”

“Amen; so let it be, then. I shall remain here some weeks longer; come to me every day at ten o'clock, and I will instruct you. You shall have such books as you need, and with perseverance you have nothing to fear.”

He went into the adjoining room and returned with a small volume. As he gave it to her, with some directions concerning the contents, she caught his hand to her lips, saying hastily:

“My guardian angel certainly brought you here to spend the winter. Oh, sir! I will prove my gratitude for your goodness by showing that I am not unworthy of it. I thank you from the very depths of my glad heart.”

As she released his hand and left the studio he found two bright drops on his fingers—drops called forth by the most intense joy she had ever known. Having some commission from her aunt, she did not re-enter the carriage, and, after thanking Irene for her kindness, walked away. The ride home was very silent; Miss Margaret sat stiff and icy, looking quite insulted, while her niece was too much engrossed by other reflections to notice her. The latter spent the remainder of the morning in writing to Hugh and correcting her French exercises, and when summoned to dinner she entered the room expecting a storm. A glance sufficed to show her that Miss Margaret had not yet spoken to her father, though it was evident from her countenance that she was about to make what she considered an important revelation. The meal passed, however, without any allusion to the subject, and, knowing what she had to expect, Irene immediately withdrew to the library to give her aunt an opportunity of unburdening her mind. The struggle must come some time, and she longed to have it over as soon as possible. She threw up the sash, seated herself on the broad cedar window-sill, and began to work out a sum in algebra. Nearly a half-hour passed; the slamming of the dining-room door was like the first line of foam curling and whitening the sea when the tempest sweeps forward; her father stamped into the library, and the storm broke over her.

“Irene! did n't I positively order you to keep away from that Aubrey family? What do you mean by setting me at defiance in this way, you wilful, spoiled, hard-headed piece? Do you suppose I intend to put up with your obstinacy all my life, and let you walk rough-shod over me and my commands? You have queened it long enough, my lady. If I don't rein you up, you will turn your aunt and me out of the house next, and invite that precious Aubrey crew to take possession. Your confounded stubbornness will ruin you yet. You deserve a good whipping, Miss; I can hardly keep my hands off of you.”

He did not; rough hands seized her shoulders, jerked her from the window-sill, and shook her violently. Down fell book, slate, and pencil with a crash; down swept the heavy hair, blinding her. She put it back, folded her hands behind her as if for support, and, looking up at him, said in a low, steady, yet grieved tone:

“I am very sorry you are angry with me, Father.”

“Devilish sorry, I dare say! Don't be hypocritical! Didn't I tell you to keep away from those people? Don't stand there like a block of stone; answer me!”

“Yes, sir; but I did not promise to do so. I am not hypocritical, Father.”

“You did not promise, indeed! What do I care for promises? It was your duty to obey me.”

“I don't think it was, Father, when you refused to give me any reason for avoiding Mrs. Aubrey or her family. They are unfortunate, but honorable people; and, being very poor and afflicted, I felt sorry for them. I can't see how my going there occasionally harms you, or me, or anybody else. I know very well that you dislike them, but you never told me why, and I can not imagine any good reason for it. Father, if I love them, why should not I associate with them?”

“Because I say you shan't! you tormenting, headstrong little imp!”

“My Father, that is no reason.”

“Reason! I will put you where you will have no occasion for reasons. Oh! I can match you, you perverse little wretch! I am going to send you to a boarding-school, do you hear that? send you where you will have no Aubreys to abet your obstinacy and disobedience; where that temper of yours can be curbed. How will you relish getting up before day, kindling your own fire, if you have any, making your own bed, and living on bread and water? I will take you to New York, and keep you there till you are grown and learn common sense. Now get out of my sight!”

With a stamp of rage he pointed to the door. Hitherto she had stood quite still, but now an expression of anguish passed swiftly over her face, and she put out her hands appealingly—

“Father! my Father! don't send me away! Please let me stay at home.”

“Not if I live long enough to take you. Just as certainly as the sun shines in heaven, you will go as soon as your clothes can be made. Your aunt will have you ready in a week. Don't open your mouth to me! I don't want to hear another word from you. Take yourself off.”

She picked up her slate and book and left the room. Her hat hung on the rack in the hall, and, taking it down, she passed out through the rear piazza. Paragon leaped and whined at sight of her; she unchained him, and, leaving the yard, turned into a narrow zigzag path leading in an opposite direction from the front of the house. The building stood on quite a hill, one side of which sloped down to the brink of a creek that emptied itself into the river a mile above the town. This declivity was thickly wooded, and, on the opposite side of the stream, a dense swamp stretched away. Cypress, pine, beech, magnolias, towered far as the eye could reach, and now, in the gathering gloom of evening, looked sombre and solemn. This was a favorite haunt of Irene's; she knew every nook of the forest and bend of the creek as well as the shy rabbits that flitted away at her approach; and on this occasion she sought a rude seat formed by the interlacing of two wild grape-vines. At her feet the channel ran deep and strong, and the rocky bed was distinctly seen; but a few yards off the stream widened into a small lake, and there, on its dark, still surface masses of water-lilies spread out their broad, green, glossy leaves. It was a lonely place; even in the day owls hooted one to another; and strange, harsh cries were heard from birds that never forsook the swamp. It was April, early April, and from the hill-side, fringed with honeysuckles of varied hue, and festooned with yellow jasmine that clambered in wild luxuriance over tree and shrub, the southern breeze wafted spicy, intoxicating aromas. Redbuds lifted their rosy limbs against dark, polished magnolias, and here and there masses of snow told where the dogwoods grew. Clusters of violets embroidered the hill-side, and crimson woodbine trailed over the ground, catching at every drooping bough, and climbing stealthily, anxious, like all weak natures, to hang on something sturdy. Irene usually revelled amid this wealth of floral beauty, but now she could not enjoy it. She looked at her favorites, and understood what was meant by the words—

The first great grief of her life had fallen on her; heretofore all had been so serene, so flowery, that she could not easily understand or endure the crushing weight on her heart. Reared in seclusion, the thought of being sent from her beautiful, luxurious home, and thrust among utter strangers, startled and filled her with dread. She was astonished, pained, and mortified by her father's harsh language; and, loving him very sincerely, she shrank from the long separation he threatened; yet, amid all these complex emotions, she felt not the slightest regret for the course she had pursued; under similar circumstances she would again act just as she had done. Then came the remembrance that she might meet her unfortunate friends no more. Mrs. Aubrey was evidently declining rapidly, and what would become of Electra and Russell? They might move away; they, too, might die; nay, she might never come back to the home of her birth; death's harvest was in all seasons, and, looking upon the lakelet, she shuddered and moaned. The snowy water-lilies glanced up at her, and seemed to say, as they trembled unceasingly in the current far below the surface, “Bend! bend!” A passage in Dante, which she had read the week before, crossed her mind now, as she noted the constant swaying of the fragile flowers, so impotent to resist that under-current sweeping their roots:

He had selected reeds as a type of Patience, but the pale, pure, quivering lilies were to her a far more impressive symbol of Resignation. An aged gnarled cypress towered above her, and from the knotted limbs drooped long funeral wreaths of gray moss, fluttering mournfully in the evening wind, like badges of crape in houses of death. From amid this sombre drapery came the lonely hoot of an owl, and, with a strange sensation of desolation, Irene fell on her knees and committed herself to the care of the Great Shepherd. Darkness closed around, but as she prayed the silver rays of the evening-star peered down through the trembling streamers of moss and gleamed on the upturned face. She broke one of the lilies, and, fastening it among her curls, followed Paragon up the hill-side.

The week which succeeded was wretched to the girl, for her father's surveillance prevented her from visiting the cottage, even to say adieu to its inmates; and no alternative presented itself but to leave for them (in the hands of Nellie, her devoted nurse) a note containing a few parting words and assurances of unfading friendship and remembrance. The day of departure dawned rainy, gloomy, and the wind sobbed and wailed down the avenue as Irene stood at her window looking out on the lawn where her life had been passed. Although Nellie was weeping bitterly at her side, she had not shed a tear; but the face was full of grief, and her little hands were clasped tightly as the faithful nurse pressed them affectionately in her palms. Disengaging herself, Irene took an umbrella and went to the stable for a last look at Erebus. This tried her sorely, and her lip was unsteady when she left him and sought Paragon. The latter, little suspecting the true state of affairs, gambolled and whined as joyously as ever at her approach; and, when the crowned head went down moaningly on his silky neck, he barked and frisked in recognition of the caress. The breakfast-bell summoned her away, and, a half-hour after, she saw the lofty columns of the old house fade from view, and knew that many months, perhaps years, must elapse before the ancestral trees of the long avenue would wave again over the head of their young mistress. Her father sat beside her, moody and silent, and, when the brick wall and arched iron gate vanished from her sight, she sank back in one corner, and, covering her face with her hands, smothered a groan and fought desperately with her voiceless anguish.

Youth is hopeful, beautifully hopeful, and fresh pure hearts rebound from sorrow with wonderful elasticity. When clouds lower and the way seems dark and tangled, Hope flies forward, pioneer-like, to clear away all obstacles. Huge barriers frowned between Electra and the heights she strained every nerve to reach, but never for an instant did she doubt the success of the struggle. Like Orpheus seeking Eurydice, to look back was fearful and hazardous; and, fixing her eyes steadily on the future, she allowed herself no haunting foreboding.

What human powers can endure and accomplish is to be measured only by the necessity which goads, and all herculean trophies are won by desperate needs. The laws which govern our moral and intellectual natures are as rigid and inevitable in their operation as those whose workings we constantly trace in the physical world—of which truth the history of nations and memoirs of great men furnish innumerable exemplifications. Consequently it is both unjust and illogical to judge of the probability of this or that event or series of events, or the naturalness of this or that character, whether in authenticated history or fictitious works, without a thorough acquaintance with all antecedents and the various relations surrounding the actor. Reader, as you walk side by side with these whose lives I am narrating, bear this in mind—the silver-winged pigeons that flash in and out of the venerable trees shading the old homestead, and coo and flutter amid the rainbow-spray of the fountain, would droop, shiver, and die on bald, awful Alpine pinnacles, where in the fierce howl and scourging of tempests eaglets wheel in triumph, and scream defiantly; and tender pet lambs, coaxed into flowery, luxuriant meadows, would soon make their graves in the murderous snow over which young chamois bleat and skip in wild glee, fearless as the everlasting hills.

Day after day Electra toiled over her work; the delicate frame learned its destiny, sighed at its future, but grew strong; and complaining nerves, catching some of her iron resolve, endured patiently—became finally thoroughly inured to their arduous duties. Her aunt constantly claimed her attention for the various little offices so grateful to an invalid, but by an extraordinary alchemy she contrived to convert every interruption into an occasion of profit. If lending her arm to support the dropping form in a short walk around the little garden, she would describe the varying tints of sky, as the clouds shifted their gorgeous curtains of purple and scarlet and gold, until thoroughly familiarized with the varied chameleon hues and strange, grotesque outlines traced by every rift. Nature was a vast storehouse of matchless, unapproachable beauty to that eager, thirsty soul—a boundless studio, filled with wonderful creations, open to her at all times—in the rosy, opaline flush of morning, the blazing splendor of full-orbed noon, the silver-gray of twilight, peopled with dusky phantoms, weird and shifting as Fata-Morgana—the still sublimity, the solemn, sacred witchery of star-crowned, immemorial Night. She answered the first hoarse call of thunder by stationing herself at the window to watch the stormy panorama sweep over the heavens; and not Ruysdael, nor Vandervelde, nor Turner ever gazed with more intense delight on the hurrying masses of vapor than that fragile girl, as she stood with the forked lightning glaring luridly over her upturned, enraptured face. Favored ones of fortune lean against marble pillars in royal museums to study the imperishable works of earth's grandest old artists; but she lived in a cosmopolitan temple whose skyey frescos were fresh from the hands of Jehovah himself. The rapidity of her progress astonished Mr. Clifton. He questioned her concerning the processes she employed in some of her curious combinations, but the fragmentary, abstracted nature of her conversation during the hours of instruction gave him little satisfactory information. His interest in her increased, until finally it became absorbing, and he gave her all the time that she could spare from home. The eagerness with which she listened to his directions, the facility with which she applied his rules, fully repaid him; and from day to day he postponed his return to the North, reluctant to leave his indefatigable pupil. Now and then the time of departure was fixed, but ere it arrived he wavered and procrastinated.

Electra knew that his stay had been prolonged beyond his original intention, and she dreaded the hour when she should be deprived of his aid and advice. Though their acquaintance had been so short, a strangely strong feeling had grown up in her heart toward him; a feeling of clinging tenderness, blended with earnest, undying gratitude. She knew that he understood her character and appreciated her struggles, and it soothed her fierce, proud heart, in some degree, to receive from him those tokens of constant remembrance which she so yearned to have from Russell. She felt, too, that she was not regarded as a stranger by the artist; she could see his sad eyes brighten at her entrance, and detect the tremor in his hand and voice when he spoke of going home. His health had improved, and the heat of summer had come; why did he linger? His evenings were often spent at the cottage, and even Mrs. Aubrey learned to smile at the sound of his step.

One morning, as Electra finished her lesson and rose to go, he said slowly, as if watching the effect of his words:

“This is the last hour I can give you. In two days I return to New York. Letters of importance came this morning; I have waited here too long already.”

“Are you in earnest this time?”

“I am; it is absolutely necessary that I should return home.”

“Mr. Clifton, what shall I do without you?”

“Suppose you had never seen me?”

“Then I should not have had to lose you. Oh, sir! I need you very much.”

“Electra, child, you will conquer your difficulties without assistance from any one. You have nothing to fear.”

“Yes, I know I shall conquer at last, but the way would be so much easier if you were only with me. I shall miss you more than I can tell you.”

He passed his hand over her short shining hair, and mused for a moment as if laying conflicting emotions in the balance. She heard his deep, labored breathing, and saw the working of the muscles in his pale face; when he spoke, his voice was husky:

“You are right; you need me, and I want you always with me; we must not be parted. Electra, I say we shall not. Come to me, put your hands in mine—promise me that you will be my child, my pupil; I will take you to my mother, and we need never be separated. You require aid, such as can not be had here, in New York you shall have all that you want. Will you come with me?”

He held her hands in a vice-like grasp, and looked pleadingly into her astonished countenance. A mist gathered before her, and she closed her eyes.

“Electra, will you come?”

“Give me ten minutes to think,” she answered shiveringly. He turned away and walked up and down the floor, taking care to conceal his face. She sat down before a table and dropped her forehead in her palms. What slight things often shape human destiny; how little people realize the consequences of seemingly trivial words, looks, or actions! The day before Electra would unhesitatingly have declined this proposition: but only that morning, as she passed Russell's door before breakfast, she saw him with Irene's farewell note in his hand; saw him press his lips hastily to the signature. Her jealous heart was on fire; the consciousness of his love for another rendered her reckless and indescribably miserable. In this mood she reflected: Mr. Clifton seemed to have become warmly attached to her, and could help her to attain the eminence she had in view; she was poor, why not accept his generous offer? Russell would not miss her—would not care whether she left him or remained. If she were far away, at least she would not be tormented by his coldness and indifference. The future (barring her ambitious dreams) was dim, joyless; she had to earn a support, she scorned to be dependent on her cousin, fame lured her on. Yes, she would go. Mr. Clifton took out his watch and paused beside her:

“Ten minutes have passed; Electra, will you come?”

She raised her bloodless face, stamped with stern resolve, and ere the words were pronounced he read his answer in the defiant gleam of her eyes, in the hard, curved lines of the mouth.

“Mr. Clifton, I can not go with you just now, for at present I can not, ought not, to leave my aunt. Helpless as she is, it would be cruel, ungrateful, to desert her; but things can not continue this way much longer, and I promise you that as soon as I can I will go to you. I want to be with you; I want somebody to care for me, and I know you will be a kind friend always. Most gratefully will I accept your generous offer so soon as I feel that I can do so.”

He stooped and touched her forehead with his lips.

“My dear Electra, I will shield you from trials and difficulties; I will prize you above everything on earth; I know you are making a great sacrifice to be with me; I know how hard it is for you to leave home and relatives. But, my child, your aunt has only a short time to live; she is failing very fast, and your duty to her will not keep you here long. You are right to remain with her, but when she needs you no more I shall expect you to come to me in New York. Meantime, I shall write to you frequently, and supply you with such books and materials as you require. My pupil, I long to have you in my own home. Remember, no matter what happens, you have promised yourself to me.”

“I shall not forget;” but he saw her shudder.

“Shall I speak to your aunt about this matter before I go?”

“No, it would only distress her; leave it all with me. It is late, and I must go. Good-by, sir.”

He promised to see her again before his departure, and she walked home with her head bowed and a sharp continual pain gnawing at her heart.

In the calm, peaceful years of ordinary childhood the soul matures slowly; but a volcanic nature like Electra's, subjected to galling trials, rapidly hardens, and answers every stroke with the metallic ring of age. Keen susceptibility to joy or pain taught her early what less impressive characters are years in learning, and it was lamentably true that, while yet a mere girl, she suffered as acutely as a woman. The battle of life must be fought, and if one begins skirmishing in the cradle tactics are soon learned and the conflict ends more speedily. But Electra had also conned another lesson: to lock her troubles in her own heart, voicing no complaint, and when she sought her aunt, and read aloud the favorite chapters in the Bible, or led her up and down the garden-walk, talking of various things, telling of the growth of pet plants, there was no indication whatever of any unusual strife or extraordinary occurrence. Russell knew that a change had come over his cousin, but was too constantly engaged, too entirely absorbed by his studies, to ask or analyze the cause. She never watched at the gate for him now, never sprang with out-stretched arms to meet him, never hung over the back of his chair and caressed his hands as formerly. When not waiting upon her aunt she was as intent on her books as he, and, though invariably kind and unselfish in her conduct toward him, she was evidently constrained in his presence. As the summer wore on Mrs. Aubrey's health failed rapidly, and she was confined to her couch. There, in a low chair close to the pillow, sat Electra reading, talking, exerting herself to the utmost to cheer the widow. She filled the thin fingers with dewy roses, and expatiated on the glories of the outer world, while the thoughts of the invalid wandered to the approaching shores of another realm, and she thanked God that, though thick folds of darkness shrouded earth, the veil dropped from her soul and the spiritual vision grew clear and piercing. If faith and resignation could be taught like music or arithmetic, then had Electra learned the grandest truths of Christianity; but it is a mournful fact that the bloody seal of Experience must stamp the lesson ere deep thinkers or strong natures receive it, and as she watched that precious life fade, like the purple light of summer in evening skies, the only feeling she knew was that of grief for the impending loss—undefined apprehension of coming isolation. If Mrs. Aubrey could have seen the countenance which bent over her pillow, her serene soul would have been painfully disturbed. She felt hot tears fall on her hands and cheeks, and knew that the lips which pressed hers often trembled; but this seemed natural enough under the circumstances, and she sank quietly down to the edge of the tomb ignorant of the sorrows that racked the girl's heart. One morning when Mr. Campbell, the pastor, had spent some time in the sick-room praying with the sufferer, and administering the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Electra followed him to the door, leaving Russell with his mother. The gentle pastor took her hand kindly, and looked at her with filling eyes.

“You think my aunt is worse?”

“Yes, my child. I think that very soon she will be with her God. She will scarcely survive till night—”

She turned abruptly from him, and threw herself down across the foot of the bed, burying her face in her arms. Russell sat with his mother's hands in his, while she turned her brown eyes toward him and exhorted him to commit himself and his future to the hands of a merciful God. She told him how the promises of the Saviour had supported and cheered her in times of great need, and implored him to dedicate his energies, his talents, his life, to the service of his Maker. Electra was not forgotten; she advised her to go to a cousin of her mother residing in Virginia. Long before she had written to this lady, informing her of her own feebleness and of the girl's helpless condition; and a kind answer had been returned, cordially inviting the orphan to share her home, to become an inmate of her house. Russell could take her to these relatives as soon as possible. To all this no reply was made, and, a few moments later, when Russell kissed her tenderly and raised her pillow, she said faintly—

“If I could look upon your face once more, my son, it would not be hard to die. Let me see you in heaven, my dear, dear boy.” These were the last words, and soon after a stupor fell upon her. Hour after hour passed; Mrs. Campbell came and sat beside the bed, and the three remained silent, now and then lifting bowed heads to look at the sleeper. Not a sound broke the stillness save the occasional chirp of a cricket, and a shy mouse crept twice across the floor, wondering at the silence, fixing its twinkling bright eyes on the motionless figures. The autumn day died slowly as the widow, and when the clock dirged out the sunset hour Russell rose, and, putting back the window-curtains, stooped and laid his face close to his mother's. Life is at best a struggle, and such perfect repose as greeted him is found only when the marble hands of Death transfer the soul to its guardian angel. No pulsation stirred the folds over the heart, or the soft bands of hair on the blue-veined temples; the still mouth had breathed its last sigh, and the meek brown eyes had opened in Eternity. The long, fierce ordeal had ended, the flames died out, and from smouldering ashes the purified spirit that had toiled and fainted not, that had been faithful to the end, patiently bearing many crosses, heard the voice of the Great Shepherd, and soared joyfully to the pearly gates of the Everlasting Home. The day bore her away on its wings, and as Russell touched the icy cheek a despairing cry rolled through the silent cottage—

“Oh, Mother! my own precious dead mother!”

Falling on his knees, he laid his head on her pillow, and when kind friendly hands bore her into the adjoining room, he knelt there still, unconscious of what passed, knowing only that the keenest of many blows had fallen, that the last and bitterest vial of sorrows had been emptied.

Night folded her starry curtains around the earth; darkness settled on river and hill and valley. It was late September; autumn winds rose, eager for their work of death, and rushed rudely through the forests, shaking the sturdy primeval monarchs in token of their mission and mastery, and shivering leaves rustled down before them, drifting into tiny grave-like hillocks. Gradually the stars caught the contagious gloom, and shrank behind the cloud-skirts sweeping the cold sky. It was a solemn, melancholy night, full of dreary phantoms, presaging a dark, dismal morrow. Amy Aubrey's still form reposed on the draped table in the kitchen, and the fitful candle-light showed only a dim, rigid outline of white linen. Mr. Campbell and his wife sat together in the next room, and the two young mourners were left in the silence of the kitchen. Russell sat at the open window, near the table; his head leaned on his hand, tearless, mute, still as his mother. At the opposite window stood Electra, pressing her face against the frame, looking out into the moaning, struggling night, striving to read the mystic characters dimly traced on the ash-gray hurrying clouds as the reckless winds parted their wan folds. The stony face of her merciless destiny seemed to frown down at her cold, grim, Sphinx-like. Hitherto she had walked with loved ones; now a vast sepulchre yawned to receive them; a tomb of clay for the quiet sleeper, one of perhaps final separation for Russell, and over this last hideous chasm Hope hovered with drooping wings. To leave him was like inurning her heart and all the joy she had ever known; and then, to crown her agony, a thousand Furies hissed “Irene will come back, and loving her he will forget that you toil among strangers.”

She crushed her fingers against each other and stifled a groan, while the chilling voice of Destiny added, “Trample out this weakness; your path and his here separate widely; you are nothing to him, go to work earnestly, and cease repining.” She shrank away from the window and approached her cousin. For two hours he had not changed his position—as far as she knew, had not moved a muscle. She sat down at his feet and crossed her arms over his knees; he took no notice of her.

“Oh, Russell! say something to me, or I shall die.”

It was the last wail she ever suffered to escape her in his presence. He raised his head and put his hand on her forehead, but the trembling lips refused their office, and as she looked up at him tears rolled slowly down and fell on her check. She would have given worlds to mingle her tears with his, but no moisture came to her burning eyes; and there these two, so soon to separate, passed the remaining hours of that long, wretched night of watching. The stormy day lifted her pale, mournful face at last, and with it came the dreary patter and sobbing of autumn rain, making it doubly harrowing to commit the precious form to its long, last resting-place. Electra stood up beside her cousin and folded her arms together.

“Russell, I am not going to that cousin in Virginia. I could owe my bread and clothes to you, but not to her. She has children, and I do not intend to live on her charity. I know you and I must part; the sooner the better. I would not be willing to burden you a day longer. I am going to fit myself to work profitably. Mr. Clifton offered me a home in his house, said his mother was lonely, and would be rejoiced to have me; that letter which I received last week contained one from her, also urging me to come; and, Russell, I am going to New York to study with him as long as I need instruction. I did not tell aunt of this, because I knew it would grieve her to think that I would be thrown with strangers; and having fully determined to take this step, thought it best not to distress her by any allusion to it. You know it is my own affair, and I can decide it better than any one else.”

His eyes were fixed on the shrouded table, and he answered without looking at her:

“No, Electra, you must go to Mrs. Harden; she seems anxious to have you; and as for being dependent on charity, you never shall be, so long as I live. You will merely reside under her roof, and shall not cost her a cent; leave this with me.”

“I can not leave it with anybody; I must depend upon myself. I have thought a great deal about it, and my resolution is not to be shaken. You have been very kind to me, Russell, all my life; and only God knows how I love and thank you. But I will not accept your hard earnings in future; I should be miserable unless at work, and I tell you I must and will go to Mr. Clifton.”

As tall tyrannous weeds and rank unshorn grass close over and crush out slender, pure, odorous flowerets on a hill-side, so the defects of Irene's character swiftly strengthened and developed in the new atmosphere in which she found herself. All the fostering stimulus of a hot-bed seemed applied to them, and her nobler impulses were in imminent danger of being entirely subdued. Diogenes Teufels-dröckh's “Crim Tartary Enclosure of a High Seminary” is but the prototype of hundreds, scattered up and down through Christendom; and the associations which surrounded Irene were well calculated to destroy the native purity and unselfishness of her nature. The school was on an extensive scale, thoroughly fashionable, and thither pupils were sent from every section of the United States. As regarded educational advantages, the institution was unexceptionable; the professors were considered unsurpassed in their several departments, and every provision was made for thorough tuition. But what a Babel reigned outside of the recitation-room. One hundred and forty girls to spend their recesses in envy, ridicule, malice, and detraction. The homely squad banded in implacable hatred against those whom nature had cast in moulds of beauty; the indolent and obtuse ever on the alert to decry the successful efforts of their superiors; the simply-clad children of parents in straitened circumstances feeding their discontent by gazing with undisguised envy at the richly-apparelled darlings of fortune; and the favored ones sneering at these unfortunates, pluming themselves on wealth, beauty, intellect, as the case might be—growing more arrogant and insufferable day by day. A wretched climate this for a fresh, untainted soul; and it is surprising how really fond parents, anxious to promote the improvement of their daughters in every respect, hasten to place them where poisonous vapors wreathe and curl about them. The principals of such institutions are doubtless often conscientious, and strive to discharge their duty faithfully; but the evils of human nature are obstinate, difficult to subdue under even the most favorable auspices; and where such a mass of untrained souls are turned into an enclosure, to amuse themselves at one another's expense, mischief is sure to follow. Anxious to shake off the loneliness which so heavily oppressed her, Irene at first mingled freely among her companions; but she soon became disgusted with the conduct and opinions of the majority, and endeavored to find quiet in her own room. Maria Ashley, who shared the apartment, was the spoiled child of a Louisiana planter, and her views of life and duty were too utterly antagonistic to Irene's to allow of any pleasure in each other's society. To cheat the professors by ingenious stratagems, and to out-dress her companions, seemed the sum total of the girl's aspirations; and gradually, in lieu of the indifference she evinced toward her room-mate, a positive hatred made itself apparent in numberless trifles. Feeling her own superiority, Irene held herself more and more aloof; her self-complacency grew amazingly, the graceful figure took a haughty, unbending posture, and a coldly contemptuous smile throned itself on her lip. The inevitable consequence was, that she became a target for the school. Thus the months crept away; her father wrote rarely, and Miss Margaret's letters contained no allusion to the family that had caused her banishment. Finally she wrote to Dr. Arnold, inquiring concerning Mrs. Aubrey, but no reply reached her. Early in winter a new pupil, a “day scholar,” joined her class; she resided in New York, and very soon a strong friendship sprang up between them. Louisa Young was about Irene's age, very pretty, very gentle and winning in her manners. She was the daughter of an affluent merchant, and was blessed in the possession of parents who strove to rear their children as Christian parents should. Louisa's attachments were very warm and lasting, and ere long she insisted that her friend should visit her. Weary of the school, the latter gladly availed herself of the invitation, and one Friday afternoon she accompanied Louisa home. The mansion was almost palatial, and as Irene entered the splendidly-furnished parlors her own Southern home rose vividly before her.

“Mother, this is Miss Huntingdon.”

Mrs. Young received her cordially, and as she held the gloved hand, and kindly expressed her pleasure at meeting her daughter's friend, the girl's heart gave a quick bound of joy.

“Come up stairs and put away your bonnet.”

In Louisa's beautiful room the two sat talking of various things till the tea-bell rang. Mr. Young's greeting was scarcely less friendly than his wife's, and as they seated themselves at the table the stranger felt at home for the first time in New York.

“Where is Brother?” asked Louisa, glancing at the vacant seat opposite her own.

“He has not come home yet; I wonder what keeps him? There he is now, in the hall,” answered the mother.

A moment after he entered and took his seat. He was tall, rather handsome, and looked about thirty. His sister presented her friend, and with a hasty bow he fastened his eyes on her face. Probably he was unconscious of the steadiness of his gaze, but Irene became restless under his fixed, earnest eye, and, perceiving her embarrassment, Mrs. Young said—

“Harvey, where have you been? Dr. Melville called here for you at four o'clock; said you had made some engagement with him.”

“Yes, Mother; we have been visiting together this afternoon.”

Withdrawing his eyes, he seemed to fall into a reverie, and took no part in the conversation that ensued. As the party adjourned to the sitting-room he paused on the rug and leaned his elbow on the mantle. Louisa lingered, and drew near. He passed his arm around her shoulders and looked affectionately down at her.

“Well, what is it?”

“Come into the sitting-room and help me entertain Irene, instead of going off to your stupid study; do, Harvey.”

“A very reasonable request, truly! I must quit my work to talk to one of your schoolmates; nonsense! How old is she?”

“Fifteen. Is not she a beauty?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Harvey! you are so cold! I thought you would admire Irene prodigiously; and now you say ‘yes’ just exactly as if I had asked you whether it was snowing out of doors.”

“Which is certainly the fact; the first flakes fell as I reached home.”

He stepped to the window and looked out, saying carelessly—

“Go to your friend, and when you are at a loss for conversation, bring her to my study to see those sketches of Palmyra and Baalbec.”

He passed on to his work and she to the sitting-room. The study was simply the library, handsomely fitted up with choice old books in richly-carved rosewood cases, and antique busts peering down from the tops of each. Crimson damask curtains swept from the ceiling to the carpet, and a luxurious armchair sat before the glowing coal-fire. The table was covered with books and loose sheets of paper were scattered around, as if the occupant had been suddenly called from his labor. The gas burned brightly; all things beckoned back to work. He sat down, glanced over the half-written sheets, numbered the pages, laid them away in the drawer, and opened a volume of St. Chrysostom. As the light fell on his countenance it was apparent that he had been a student for years; that his mind was habituated to patient, laborious investigation. Gravity, utterly free from sorrow or sternness, marked his face; he might have passed all his days in that quiet room, for any impress which the cares or joys of outdoor life had left on his features; a strong, clear intellect; a lofty, earnest soul; a calm, unruffled heart, that knew not half its own unsounded abysses. He read industriously for some time, occasionally pausing to annotate; and once or twice he raised his head and listened, fancying footsteps in the hall. Finally he pushed the book away, took a turn across the floor, and resumed his seat. He could not rivet his attention on St. Chrysostom, and, folding his arms over his chest, he studied the red coals instead. Soon after, unmistakable steps fell on his ear, and a light tap at the door was followed by the entrance of the two girls. Irene came very reluctantly, fearful of intruding; but he rose, and placed a chair for her close to his own, assuring her that he was glad to see her there. Louisa found the portfolio, and, bringing it to the table, began to exhibit its treasures. The two leaned over it, and as Irene sat resting her cheek on her hand, the beauty of her face and figure was clearly revealed. Harvey remained silent, watching the changing expression of the visitor's countenance; and once he put out his hand touch the hair floating over the back and arms of her chair. Gradually his still heart stirred, his brow flushed, and a new light burned in deep clear eyes.

“Louisa, where did you get these?”

“Brother brought them home when he came from the East.”

Irene lifted her eyes to his and said:

“Did you visit all these places? Did you go to that crumbling Temple of the Sun?”

He told her of his visit to the Old World, of its mournful ruins, its decaying glories: of the lessons he learned there; the sad but precious memories he brought back; and as he talked time passed unheeded—she forgot her embarrassment; they were strangers no longer. The clock struck ten; Louisa rose at once.

“Thank you, Harvey, for giving us so much of your time. Father and Mother will be waiting for you.”

“Yes, I will join you at once.”

She led the way back to the sitting-room, and a few moments afterward, to Irene's great surprise, the student came in, and sitting down before the table, opened the Bible and read a chapter. Then all knelt and he prayed. There was a strange spell on the visitor; in all this there was something so unexpected. It was the first time she had ever knelt around the family altar, and, as she rose, that sitting-room seemed suddenly converted into a temple of worship. Mutual “good-nights” were exchanged, and as Irene turned toward the young minister he held out his hand. She gave him hers, and he pressed it gently, saying:

“I trust this is the first of many pleasant evenings which we shall spend together.”

“Thank you, sir. I hope so too, for I have not been as happy since I left home.”

He smiled, and she walked on. His mother looked up as the door closed behind her, and exclaimed:

“What a wonderfully beautiful face she has! Louisa often rhapsodized about her, and now I am not at all surprised at her enthusiasm.”

“Yes, such perfection of features as hers is seen but once in a lifetime. I have travelled over the greater part of the world; I have looked upon all types of beauty, from the Andalusians whom Murillo immortalized, to the far-famed Circassians of Kabarda, but never before have I found such a marvel of loveliness as that girl. In Venice I spent a morning studying one of Titian's faces, which somewhat resembles hers; there is an approximation to the same golden hair—forming a nimbus, as it were—the same contour of features, but Titian's picture lacked her pure, unsearchable, indescribable eyes. Have you noticed what a rare, anomalous color her hair is? There never was but one other head like it; the threads of fine gold in that celebrated lock of her own hair which Lucretia Borgia gave Cardinal Bembo, match Irene Huntingdon's exactly. Well and truly has it been said of that glittering relic in the Ambrozian Library, ‘If ever hair was golden, it is this of Lucretia Borgia's; it is not red, it is not yellow, it is not auburn; it is golden, and nothing else.’ I examined it curiously, and wondered whether the world could furnish a parallel; consequently, when that girl's head flashed before me I was startled. Stranger still than her beauty is the fact that it has not spoiled her thus far.”

He folded his arms over his chest as if crushing out something.

His mother laughed.

“Why, Harvey! What a riddle you are. Take care, my son; that child would never do for a minister's wife.”

“Of course not; who ever dreamed that she would? Good-night, Mother; I shall not be at home to breakfast; do not wait for me; I am going to Long Island with Dr. Melville.”

He bent down to receive her customary kiss, and went to his own room.

“Louisa, how came your brother to be a minister?” asked Irene, when they had reached their apartment.

“When he was a boy he said he intended to preach, and father never dissuaded him. I was quite young when he went to the East, and since his return he has been so engrossed by his theological studies that we are rarely together. Harvey is a singular man—so silent, so equable, so cold in his manner, and yet he has a warm heart. He has declined two calls since his ordination; Dr. Melville's health is very poor, and Harvey frequently fills his pulpit. Sometimes he talks of going West, where ministers are scarce; thinks he could do more good there, but mother will not consent for him to leave us. I am afraid, though, he will go—he is so determined when he once makes up his mind. He is a dear, good brother; I know you will like him when you know him well; everybody loves Harvey.”

The inclemency of the weather confined the girls to the house the following day. Harvey was absent at breakfast, and at dinner the chair opposite Irene's was still vacant. The afternoon wore away, and at dusk Louisa opened the piano and began to play Thalberg's “Home, sweet home.” Irene sat on a sofa near the window, and as she listened visions of the South rose before her, till she realized— “That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.” She longed inexpressibly for her own home, for her father, for the suffering friends of the cottage, and, as she thought of his many trials, Russell's image was more distinct than all. She closed her eyes, and felt again his tight clasp of her hands; his passionate, pleading words sounded once more, “Oh, Irene! believe in me! believe in me always!” It seemed to her so unnatural, so cruel that they should be separated. Then came the memory of Mrs. Aubrey's words of counsel: “Pray constantly; keep yourself unspotted from the world.” What would the blind woman think if she knew all the proud, scornful, harsh feelings which were now in her heart? A sensation of deep contrition and humiliation came upon her; she knew she was fast losing the best impulses of her nature, and experienced keen regret that she had yielded to the evil associations and temptations of the school. How could she hope to grow better under such circumstances? What would become of her? The snow drifted against the panes, making fairy fretwork, and through the feathery flakes the gas-light at the corner burned steadily on. “So ought the light of conscience to burn,” thought she; “so ought I to do my duty, no matter how I am situated. That light is all the more necessary because it is stormy and dark.”

Somebody took a seat near her, and, though the room was dim, she knew the tall form and the touch of his hand.

“Good-evening, Miss Irene; we have had a gloomy day. How have you and Louisa spent it?”

“Not very profitably I dare say, though it has not appeared at all gloomy to me. Have you been out in the snow?”

“Yes; my work has been sad. I buried a mother and child this afternoon, and have just come from a house of orphanage and grief. It is a difficult matter to realize how many aching hearts there are in this great city. Our mahogany doors shut out the wail that hourly goes up to God from the thousand sufferers in our midst.”

Just then a servant lighted the chandelier, and she saw that he looked graver than ever. Louisa came up and put her arms around his neck, but he did not return the caress; said a few kind words, and rising, slowly paced the floor. As his eye fell on the piano he paused, saying, “Come, Louisa, sing that song for me.”

She sat down and began, “Comfort ye my people;” and gradually the sadness melted from his features. As Irene listened to the solemn strains she found it difficult to control her feelings, and by degrees her head sank until it touched the arm of the sofa. The minister watched the effect of the music, and, resuming his seat, said gently:

“It is genuine philosophy to extract comfort and aid from every possible source. There is a vast amount of strength needed to combat the evils and trials which necessarily occur in even the sunniest, happiest lives; and I find that sometimes I derive far more from a song than a lengthy sermon. We are curious bits of mechanism, and frequently music effects what learned disputation or earnest exhortation could not accomplish. I remember once, when I was a child, I had given my mother a great deal of trouble by my obstinacy. She had entreated me, reasoned with me, and finally punished me, but all to no purpose; my wickedness had not been conquered. I was bitter and rebellious, and continued so all day. That evening she sat down to the piano and sang a hymn for my father. The instant the strains fell on my ear I felt softened, crept down stairs to the parlor-door, and before she had finished was crying heartily, begging her forgiveness. When a sublime air is made the vehicle of a noble sentiment there is no computing the amount of good it accomplishes, if properly directed. During my visit to London I went to hear a very celebrated divine. I had just lost a dear friend, the companion who travelled with me to Jerusalem and Meroe, and I went to church full of sorrow. The sermon was able, but had no more effect in comforting me than if I had not listened to it. He preached from that text of Job treating of the resurrection, and at the conclusion the very words of his text, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ were sung by the choir. When the organ rolled its solemn tones under the dim arched roof, and I heard the voices of the choir swelling deep and full— ‘Throb through the ribbed stone,’ then, and not till then, I appreciated the grand words to which I had listened. The organ spoke to my soul as man could not, and I left the church calmed and comforted. All things are capable of yielding benefit, if properly applied, though it is a lamentable truth that gross abuse has involved many possible sources of good in disrepute; and it is our duty to extract elevating influences from all departments. Such an alchemy is especially the privilege of a Christian.”

As he talked she lifted her beautiful eyes and looked steadily at him, and he thought that, of all the lovely things he had ever seen, that face was the most peerless. She drew closer to him, and said earnestly:

“Then you ought to be happy, Mr. Young.”

“That implies a doubt that I am.”

“You do not seem to me a very happy man.”

“There you mistake me. I presume there are few happier persons.”

“Countenance is not a faithful index, then; you look so exceedingly grave.”

“Do you suppose that gravity of face is incompatible with sunshine in the heart?”

“I think it reasonable that the sunshine should sparkle in the eyes and gleam over the features. But, sir, I should like, if you please, to talk to you a little about other things. May I?”

“Certainly; speak on, and speak freely; you may trust me, I think.”

He smiled encouragingly as he spoke, and without a moment's thought she laid her delicate hand in his.

“Mr. Young, I want somebody to advise me. Very often I am at a loss about my duty, and, having no one to consult, either do nothing at all, or that which I should not. If it will not trouble you too much, I should like to bring my difficulties to you sometimes, and get you to direct me. If you will only talk frankly to me, as you do to Louisa, oh! I will be very grateful.”

He folded his hands softly over the white, fluttering fingers.

“Louisa is my sister, and therefore I do not hesitate to tell her unwelcome truths. But you happen to be a perfect stranger, and might not relish my counsel.”

“Try me.”

“How old are you? Pardon my inquisitiveness.”

“Fifteen.”

“An age when young ladies prefer flattery to truth. Have you no brother?”

“I am an only child.”

“I am so glad to see you, Mr. Young. Louisa is not sick, I hope?”

“I came for you in Louisa's place; she is not well enough to quit her room. Did you suppose that I intended leaving you here for another month?”

“I was rather afraid you had forgotten me; the prospect was gloomy ten minutes ago. It seems a long time since I was with you.”

She stood close to him, looking gladly into his face, unconscious of the effect of her words.

“You sent me no note all this time; why not?”

“I was afraid of troubling you; and, besides, I would rather tell you what I want you to know.”

“Miss Irene, the carriage is at the door. I am a patient man, and can wait half an hour if you have any preparation to make.”

In much less time she joined him, equipped for the ride, and took her place beside him in the carriage. As they reached his father's door, and he assisted her out, she saw him look at her very searchingly.

“It is time that you had a little fresh air. You are not quite yourself. Louisa is in her room; run up to her.”

She found her friend suffering with sore throat, and was startled at the appearance of her flushed cheeks. Mrs. Young sat beside her, and after most cordial greetings the latter resigned her seat and left them, enjoining upon her daughter the necessity of remaining quiet.

“Mother was almost afraid for you to come, but I teased and coaxed for permission; told her that even if I had scarlet-fever, you had already had it, and would run no risk. Harvey says it is not scarlet-fever at all, and he persuaded mother to let him go after you. He always has things his own way, though he brings it about so quietly that nobody would ever suspect him of being self-willed. Harvey is a good friend of yours, Irene.”

The artist stood at the window watching for his pupil's return; it was the late afternoon hour, which they were wont to spend in reading, and her absence annoyed him. As he rested carelessly against the window, his graceful form was displayed to great advantage, and the long brown hair dropped about a classical face of almost feminine beauty. The delicacy of his features was enhanced by the extreme pallor of his complexion, and it was apparent that close application to his profession had made serious inroads on a constitution never very robust. A certain listlessness of manner, a sort of lazy-grace seemed characteristic; but when his pupil came in and laid aside her bonnet, the expression of ennui vanished, and he threw himself on a sofa, looking infinitely relieved. She drew near, and without hesitation acquainted him with the discovery of her relatives in New York. He listened in painful surprise, and, ere she had concluded, sprang up. “I understand! they will want to take you; will urge you to share their home of wealth. But, Electra, you won't leave me; surely you won't leave me?”

He put his hands on her shoulders, and she knew from his quick, irregular breathing that the thought of separation greatly distressed him.

“My aunt has not explicitly invited me to reside with her, though I inferred from her manner that she confidently expected me to do so. Irene also spoke of it as a settled matter.”

“You will not allow them to persuade you? Oh, child! tell me at once that you will never leave me.”

“Mr. Clifton, we must part some day; I can not always live here, you know. Before very long I must go out and earn my bread.”

“Never! while I live. When I offered you a home, I expected it to be a permanent one. I intended to adopt you. Here, if you choose, you may work and earn a reputation; but away from me, among strangers, never. Electra, you forget; you gave yourself to me once.”

She shuddered, and tried to release herself, but the hands were relentless in their grasp.

“Electra, you belong to me, my child. Whom have I to love but you, my dear pupil? What should I do without you?”

“I have no intention of living with my aunt; I desire to be under obligations to no one but yourself. But I am very proud, and even temporary dependence on you galls me. You are, I believe, the best friend I have on earth, and until I can support myself I will remain under your care; longer than that, it would be impossible, I am bound to you, my generous, kind master, as to no one else.”

“This does not satisfy me; the thought that you will leave me, at even a distant day, will haunt me continually—marring all my joy. It can not be, Electra! You gave yourself to me once, and I claim you.”

She looked into his eyes, and, with a woman's quick perception, read all the truth.

In an instant her countenance changed painfully; she stooped, touched his hand with her lips, and exclaimed:

“Thank you, a thousand times, my friend, my father! for your interest in, and your unvarying, unparalleled kindness to me. All the gratitude and affection which a child could give to a parent I shall always cherish toward you. Since it annoys you, we will say no more about the future; let the years take care of themselves as they come.”

“Will you promise me, positively, that you will not go to your aunt?”

“Yes; I have never seriously entertained the thought.”

She escaped from his hands, and, lighting the gas, applied herself to her books for the next hour.

If Irene had found the restraint of boarding-school irksome, the separation from Russell was well nigh intolerable to Electra. At first she had seemed plunged in lethargy; but after a time this mood gave place to restless, unceasing activity. Like one trying to flee from something painful, she rushed daily to her work, and regretted when the hours of darkness consigned her to reflection. Mrs. Clifton was quite aged, and though uniformly gentle and affectionate toward the orphan, there was no common ground of congeniality on which they could meet. To a proud, exacting nature like Electra's, Mr. Clifton's constant manifestations of love and sympathy were very soothing. Writhing under the consciousness of her cousin's indifference, she turned eagerly to receive the tokens of affection showered upon her. She knew that his happiness centred in her, and vainly fancied that she could feed her hungry heart with his adoration. But by degrees she realized that these husks would not satisfy her; and a singular sensation of mingled gratitude and impatience arose whenever he caressed her. In his house her fine intellect found ample range; an extensive library wooed her, when not engaged with her pencil, and with eager curiosity she plunged into various departments of study. As might easily have been predicted, from the idealistic tendency of her entire mental conformation, she early selected the imaginative realm as peculiarly her own. Over moth-eaten volumes of mythologic lore she pored continually; effete theogonies and cosmogonies seized upon her fancy, and peopled all space with the gods and heroes of most ancient days. She lived among weird phantasmagoric creations of Sagas and Puränas, and roamed from Asgard to Kinkadulle, having little sympathy or care for the realities that surrounded her. Mr. Clifton's associates were principally artists, and the conversations to which she listened tended to increase her enthusiasm for the profession she had chosen. She had no female companion except Mrs. Clifton, and little leisure to discuss the topics which ordinarily engage girls of her age. The warm gushings of her heart were driven back to their springs, and locked from human gaze; yet she sometimes felt her isolation almost intolerable. To escape from herself she was goaded into feverish activity, and, toiling Today, shut her eyes to the To-morrow.

“You are better, to-day, Mother tells me.”

“Yes, thank you, my foot is much better. You have not been up to see me for two days.”

Irene sat in an easy-chair by the open window, and the minister took a seat near her.

“I have not forgotten you in the interim, however.” As he spoke he laid a bouquet of choice flowers in her lap. She bent over them with eager delight, and held out one hand, saying:

“Oh, thank you; how very kind you are. These remind me of the greenhouse at home; they are the most beautiful I have seen in New York.”

“Irene, the man or woman who is impervious to the subtle, spiritualizing influence of flowers may feel assured that there is something lamentably amiss in either his or her organization or habits of life. They weave rosy links of association more binding than steel, and sometimes of incalculable value. Amid the awful solitude of Alpine glaciers, I recollect the thrill of pleasure which the blue gentians caused me, as I noted the fragile petals shuddering upon the very verge of fields of eternal snow; and among cherished memories of the far East are its acacias and rhododendrons; the scarlet poppies waving like a ‘mantle of blood’ over Syrian valleys, and the oleanders fringing the gray, gloomy crags and breathing their exquisite fragrance over the silent desolation of that grand city of rock—immemorial Petra. I have remarked your fondness for flowers; cultivate it always; they are evangels of purity and faith, if we but unlock our hearts to their ministry. Callous and sordid indeed must be that soul who fails in grateful appreciation of gifts designed especially to promote the happiness and adorn the dwellings of our race; for, in attestation of this truth, stand the huge, hoary tomes of geology, proving that the pre-Adamic ages were comparatively barren of the gorgeous flowers which tapestried the earth so munificently just ere man made his appearance on the stage. A reverent student of the rocks, who spent his life in listening to the solemn, oracular whispers of their grand granite lips, that moved, Memnon-like, as he flashed the light of Revelation upon them, tells us: ‘The poet accepted the bee as a sign of high significance; the geologist, also, accepts her as a sign. Her entombed remains testify to the gradual fitting up of our earth as a place of habitation for a creature destined to seek delight for the mind and eye as certainly as for the grosser senses, and in especial mark the introduction of stately forest-trees and the arrival of the delicious flowers.’ A profound thinker and eloquent writer, who is now doing a noble work for his generation by pointing it to unstained sources of happiness, has said of flowers: ‘They are chalices of Divine workmanship—of purple and scarlet and liquid gold—from which man is to drink the pure joy of beauty.’ There is, you know, a graduated scale of missionary work for all created things; man labors for God and his race through deep, often tortuous, channels, and nature—all animate and inanimate nature—ministers in feebler yet still heaven-appointed processes. The trouble is that, in the rush and din and whirl of life, we will not pause to note these sermons; and from year to year the whispered precepts of faith, hope, and charity fall on deaf ears. Nature is so prodigal of refining, elevating influences, and man is so inaccessible in his isolating, inflated egotism.”

He paused, and busied himself in cutting the leaves of a new book, while Irene looked into his calm, noble face, pondering his words; then her eyes went back to the bouquet, and his dwelt once more upon her.

“Irene, you look sober to-day; come, cheer up. I don't want to carry that grave expression away with me. I want to remember your face as I first saw it, unshadowed.”

“What do you mean? Are you going to leave home?”

“Yes; day after to-morrow I bid farewell to New York for a long time. I am going to the West to take charge of a church.”

“Oh, Mr. Young! surely you are not in earnest? You can not intend to separate yourself from your family?”

She dropped her flowers and leaned forward.

“Yes, I have had it in contemplation for more than a year, and, recently, I have decided to remove at once.”

He saw the great sorrow written in her countenance, the quick flutter of her lip, the large drops that dimmed the violet eyes and gathered on the long golden lashes, and far sweeter than Eolian harps was the broken voice:

“What shall I do without you? who will encourage and advise me when you go?”

She leaned her forehead on her hands, and a tear slid down and rested on her chin. The sun was setting, and the crimson light flooding the room bathed her with glory, spreading a halo around her. He held his breath and gazed upon the drooping figure and bewitching face; and in after years, when his dark hair had grown silvery gray, he remembered the lovely sunlit vision that so entranced him, leaving an indelible image on heart and brain. He gently removed the hands, and holding them in his said, in the measured, low tone so indicative of suppressed emotion:

“Irene, my friend, you attach too much importance to the aid which I might render you. You know your duty, and I feel assured will not require to be reminded of it. Henceforth our paths diverge widely. I go to a distant section of our land, there to do my Father's work; and, ere long, having concluded the prescribed course, you will return to your Southern home and take the position assigned you in society. Thus, in all human probability, we shall meet no more, for—”

“Oh, sir! don't say that; you will come back to visit your family, and then I shall see you.”

“That is scarcely probable, but we will not discuss it now. There, is, however, a channel of communication for separated friends, and of this we must avail ourselves. I shall write to you from western wilds, and letters from you will most pleasantly ripple the monotonous life I expect to lead. This is the last opportunity I shall have to speak with you; let me do so freely, just as I would to Louisa. You are young and rather peculiarly situated; and sometimes I fear that, in the great social vortex awaiting you, constant temptation and frivolous associations will stifle the noble impulses nature gave to guide you. As you grow older you will more fully comprehend my meaning, and find that there are social problems which every true-hearted man and woman should earnestly strive to solve. These will gradually unfold themselves as the web of time unravels before you. You will occupy an elevated stand-point of view, and you must take care that, unlike the great mass of mankind, you do not grow callous, turning a deaf ear to the cry ‘the laborers are few.’ It is not woman's place to obtrude herself in the pulpit or harangue from the rostrum; such an abnormal course levels the distinctions which an all-wise God established between the sexes, but the aggregate of her usefulness is often greater than man's. Irene, I want you to wield the vast influence your Maker has given you nobly and for His glory. Let your unobstrusive yet consistent, resolute, unerring conduct leave its impress for good wherever you are known. I would not have you debar yourself from a single avenue of pure enjoyment; far from it. Monkish asceticism and puritanic bigotry I abhor; but there is a happy medium between the wild excesses of so-called fashionable life and the straitlaced rigidity of narrow-minded phariseeism; and this I would earnestly entreat you to select. To discover and adhere to this medium path is almost as difficult as to skip across the Arabic Al-Sirat, of which we read last week. Ultraism is the curse of our race, as exemplified in all departments of society; avoid it, dear child; cultivate enlarged views of life, suppress selfishness, and remember that charity is the key-stone of Christianity.”

“I have not the strength which you impute to me.”

“Then seek it from the Everlasting source.”

“I do, but God does not hear me.”

“You are too easily disheartened; strive to be faithful and He will aid you, brace you, uphold you. Will it be any comfort for you to know that I remember you in my prayers, that I constantly bear your name on my lips to the throne of grace?”

“Oh, yes! very great comfort. Thank you, thank you; will you always pray for me? If I thought so it would make me happier.”

“Then rest assured that I always shall; and, Irene, when sorrows come upon you—for come they must to all—do not forget that you have at least one firm, faithful friend, waiting and anxious to aid you by every means in his power.”

Disengaging her fingers, which still clasped his tightly, he moved his chair backward and took a small blank-book from his pocket, saying:

“You once asked me to give you a catalogue of those works which I thought it advisable for you to study before you plunged into miscellaneous reading. Such a list you will find here, and my experience has enabled me to classify them so as to save you some of the trouble which I had at your age. In examining it, you will see that I have given prominence to the so-called ‘Natural Sciences.’ As these furnish data for almost all branches of investigation nowadays (there being a growing tendency to argue from the analogy of physics), you can not too thoroughly acquaint yoursef with all that appertains to the subject. The writings of Humboldt, Hugh Miller, Cuvier, and Agassiz constitute a thesaurus of scientific information essential to a correct appreciation of the questions now agitating the thinking world; and, as you proceed, you will find the wonderful harmony of creation unfolding itself, proclaiming, in unmistakable accents, that the works of God ‘are good.’ As time rolls on, the great truth looms up colossal, ‘Science and Christianity are handmaids, not antagonists.’ Irene, remember:

“Can't you stay longer and talk to me?” said Irene, as he gave the blank-book to her and rose.

“No; I promised to address the——street Sabbath-school children to-night, and must look over my notes before I go.” He glanced at his watch, smiled pleasantly, and left her.

The following day was dreary to all in that dwelling; Mrs. Young went from room to room collecting various articles belonging to her son, making no effort to conceal the tears that rolled constantly over her cheeks; and now and then Louisa's sobs broke the sad silence. Harvey was engaged in the library packing his books, and Irene saw him no more till after tea. Then he came up with his mother, and kindly inquired concerning her arm. He saw that she shared the distress of the family, and, glancing over his shoulder at his mother, he said, laughingly:

“She looks too doleful to be left here alone all the evening. Can't we contrive to take her down stairs to the sitting-room? What think you, Mother?”

“Let her decide it herself. Shall Harvey take you down, my dear? It is his last evening at home, you know.” Her voice faltered as she spoke.

“I should like to join you all at prayer once more, and I think I could walk down slowly, with a little help. Suppose you let me try? I walked a few steps yesterday, by pushing a chair before me.”

“Be very careful not to strain your foot.” She wrapped a light shawl around the girl's shoulders, and, leaning on the minister's arm, she limped to the head of the stairs; but he saw, from the wrinkle on her forehead, that the effort gave her pain, and, taking her in his arms as if she were an infant, he replaced her in the chair.

“I see it will not do to carry you down yet. You are not strong enough, and, beside, you ought to be asleep. Irene, would you like for me to read and pray with you before I say good-by?”

“Yes, sir; it would give me great pleasure.”

Mrs. Young drew the candle-stand and Bible from its corner, and taking a seat near the arm-chair, Harvey turned over the leaves and slowly read the sixty-third and sixty-fourth chapters of Isaiah. His voice was low and sweet as a woman's, and the calm lofty brow on which the light gleamed was smooth and fair as a child's, bearing no footprints of the thirty years that had crept over it. When the reading was concluded he knelt and prayed fervently for the girl, who sat with her face hidden in her arms; prayed that she might be guided by the Almighty hand into paths of peace and usefulness; that she might be strengthened to do the work required of her. There was no unsteadiness in his tone, no trace of emotion, when he ended his prayer and stood up before her. Irene was deeply moved, and, when she essayed to thank him, found it impossible to pronounce her words. Tears were gliding down her cheeks; he put back the hair, and, taking the face softly in his palms, looked long and earnestly at its fascinating beauty. The great glistening blue eyes gazed into his, and the silky lashes and rich scarlet lips trembled. He felt the hot blood surging like a lava-tide in his veins, and his heart rising in fierce rebellion at the stern interdict which he saw fit to lay upon it; but no token of all this came to the cool, calm surface.

“Good-by, Irene. May God bless you, my dear little friend!”

He drew the face close to his own as though he would have kissed her, but forbore, and merely raising her hands to his lips, turned and left the room. Verily, greater is “he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city.” He left before breakfast the ensuing morning, bearing his secret with him, having given no intimation, by word or look, of the struggle which his resolution cost him. Once his mother had fancied that he felt more than a friendly interest in their guest, but the absolute repose of his countenance and grave serenity of his manner during the last week of his stay dispersed all her suspicions. From a luxurious home, fond friends, and the girlish face he loved better than his life, the minister went forth to his distant post, offering in sacrifice to God, upon the altar of Duty, his throbbing heart and hopes of earthly happiness.

A cloud of sadness settled on the household after his departure, and scarcely less than Louisa's was Irene's silent grief. The confinement grew doubly irksome when his voice and step had passed from the threshold, and she looked forward impatiently to her release. The sprain proved more serious than she had at first imagined, and the summer vacation set in before she was able to walk with ease. Mr. Huntingdon had been apprised of her long absence from school, and one day, when she was cautiously trying her strength, he arrived, without having given premonition of his visit. As he took her in his arms and marked the alteration in her thin face, the listlessness of her manner, the sorrowful gravity of her countenance, his fears were fully aroused, and, holding her to his heart, he exclaimed:

“My Daughter! my Beauty! I must take you out of New York.”

“Yes, Father, take me home; do take me home.” She clasped her arms around his neck and nestled her face close to his.

“Not yet, Queen. We will go to the Catskill, to Lake George, to Niagara. A few weeks' travel will invigorate you. I have written to Hugh to meet us at Montreal; he is with a gay party, and you shall have a royal time. A pretty piece of business, truly, that you can't amuse yourself in any other way than by breaking half the bones in your body.”

“Father, I would rather go home. Oh ! I am so tired of this city, so sick of that boarding-school. Do, please, let me go back with you.”

“Oh, nonsense, Irene. Lift up your sleeve and let me see your arm; stretch it out; all right, I believe; straight enough. You were walking just now; how is your foot?”

“Almost well, I think; occasionally I have a twinge of pain when I bear my whole weight on it.”

“Be sure you do not overtax it for a while. By Monday you will be able to start to Saratoga. Your aunt sent a trunk of clothing, and, by the way, here is a letter from her and one from Arnold. The doctor worries considerably about you; is afraid you will not be properly attended to.”

Thus the summer programme was determined without any reference to the wishes of the one most concerned, and, knowing her father's disposition, she silently acquiesced. After much persuasion, Mr. Huntingdon prevailed on Louisa's parents to allow her to accompany them. The mother consented very reluctantly, and on the appointed day the party set off for Saratoga. The change was eminently beneficial, and before they reached Canada Irene seemed perfectly restored. But her father was not satisfied. Her unwonted taciturnity annoyed and puzzled him; he knew that beneath the calm surface some strong undercurrent rolled swiftly, and he racked his brain to discover what had rendered her so reserved. Louisa's joyous, elastic spirits probably heightened the effect of her companion's gravity, and the contrast daily presented could not fail to arrest Mr. Huntingdon's attention. On arriving at Montreal the girls were left for a few moments in the parlor of the hotel, while Mr. Huntingdon went to register their names. Irene and Louisa stood by the window looking out into the street, when a happy, ringing voice exclaimed:

“Here you are, at last, Irie! I caught a glimpse of your curls as you passed the dining-room door.”

She turned to meet her cousin, and held out her hand.

A halo seems to linger around the haunts of Genius, as though the outer physical world shaped itself in likeness to the Ideal, and at the door of Mr. Clifton's studio crude, matter-of-fact utilitarians should have “put off their shoes from their feet” before treading precincts sacred to Art. It was a long, lofty, narrow room, with a grate at one end and two windows at the other, opening on the street. The walls were stained of a pale olive hue, and the floor was covered with a carpet of green, embroidered with orange sheaves of wheat. In color, the morocco-cushioned chairs and sofas matched it well, and from the broad, massive cornice over the windows—cornice representing writhing serpents in clusters of oak leaves—folds of golden-flowered brocatel hung stiff and stately to the floor. The ceiling rose dome-like in the centre, and here a skylight poured down a flood of radiance on sunny days, and furnished a faint tattoo when rain-drops rattled over its panes. Crowded as the most ancient catacombs of Thebes was this atelier, but with a trifle less ghostly tenants. Plaster statues loomed up in the corners, bronze busts and marble statuettes crowned mantle and sundry tables and wooden pedestals; quaint antique vases of china, crystal, alabaster, terra-cotta, and wood dark as ebony with age and polished like glass, stood here and there in a sort of well-established regular irregularity, as if snatched from the ashy shroud of Herculaneum, and put down hastily in the first convenient place. An Etruscan vase, time and lichen-stained, was made the base for an unframed piece of canvas, which leaned back against the wall; and another, whose handles were Medusa-heads, and before which, doubtless, some Italian maiden, in the palmy days of Rome, had stood twining the feathery sprays of blossoms whose intoxicating perfume might still linger in its marble depths, was now the desecrated receptacle of a meerschaum and riding-whip. The walls were tapestried with paintings of all sizes, many richly framed, one or two covered with glass, and so dark as to pass, without close examination, for a faithful representation of Pharaoh's ninth plague; some lying helplessly on the olive background, others leaning from the wall at an acute angle, looking threatening, as if fiery souls had entered and stirred up the figures—among which Deïanira, bending forward with jealous rage to scan the lovely Iole, destined to prove the Atè of her house. Where a few feet of pale green would have peered forth between large pictures, crayon sketches were suspended; and on the top of more than one carved frame perched stuffed birds of gorgeous tropical hues; a mimic aviary, motionless and silent as if Perseus had stepped in to a choral throng and held up the Gorgon's head. In the centre of the room, under the skylight, stood the artist's easel, holding an unfinished picture, and over its face was drawn a piece of black silk. Farther off was another easel, smaller, and here was the dim outline of a female head traced by the fair, slender fingers of a tyro. It was late October; a feeble flame flickered in the grate; on the rug crouched an English spaniel, creeping closer as the heat died out and the waning light of day gradually receded, leaving the room dusky save where a slanting line of yellow quivered down from the roof and gilt the folds of black silk. At one of the windows stood Electra, half-concealed by the heavy green and gold drapery, one dimpled hand clinging to the curtains, the other pressed against the panes, as she watched the forms hurrying along the street below. The gas was already lighted on the crowded highways of the great city, and the lamp just beneath the window glared up like an electric eye. She was dressed in half-mourning, in sober gray, with a black crape collar at the throat. “There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportions,” says Baron Verulam; and the strangeness of Electra's countenance certainly lay in the unusual width between the eyebrows. Whatever significance learned phrenologists or physiognomists attach to this peculiarity, at all events it imparted piquancy to the features that I am striving to show you by that flaming gaslight. Her watching attitude denoted anxiety, and the bloom on her cheek had faded, leaving-the whole face colorless. The lower lip was drawn under and held hard and tight by the pearly teeth, while the wide-strained eyes—“Shining eyes like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone”—searched every face that passed the window. “That hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” she stood there in attestation; yet it was not passive sorrow printed on her countenance—rather the momentary, breathless exhaustion of a wild bird beating out its life in useless conflict with the unyielding wires of its cage. The dying hope, the despairing dread, in that fair young face beggars language, and as the minutes crept by the words burst from her lips: “Will he never, never come!”

For three weeks she had received no letter from Russell; he was remarkably punctual, and this long, unprecedented interval filled her, at first, with vague uneasiness, which grew finally into horrible foreboding. For ten days she had stood at this hour, at the same window, waiting for Mr. Clifton's return from the post-office. Ten times the words “No letter” had fallen, like the voice of doom, on her throbbing heart. “No letter!”—she heard it in feverish dreams, and fled continually from its hissing. Only those who have known what it is to stake their hopes on a sheet of letter-paper; to wake at dawn, counting the hours, till the mail is due, working diligently to murder time till that hour rolls round; to send a messenger, in hot haste, to watch the clock, giving him just so many minutes to go and come; to listen for the sound of returning steps, to meet him at the door with outstretched hands, and receive—“no letter;” only those who have writhed on this rack know the crushing thought with which they pressed cold hands to aching hearts; “another twenty-four hours to be endured before the next mail comes in; what shall I do till then?” These are the trials that plough wrinkles in smooth, girlish brows; that harden the outline of soft rosy lips; that sicken the weary soul, and teach women deception. Electra knew that Mr. Clifton watched her narrowly, suspiciously; and behind the mask of gay, rapid words, and ringing, mirthless laughter, she tried to hide her suffering. Ah! God pity all who live from day to day hanging upon the brittle thread of hope. On this eleventh day suspense reached its acme, and time seemed to have locked its wheels to lengthen her torture. Mr. Clifton had been absent longer than usual. Most unwittingly we are sometimes grand inquisitors, loitering by the way when waiting hearts are secretly, silently dropping blood. At last an omnibus stopped, and Mr. Clifton stepped out, with a bundle of papers under his arm. Closer pressed the pallid face against the glass; firmer grew the grasp of the icy fingers on the brocatel; she had no strength to meet him. He closed the door, hung up his hat, and looked into the studio; no fire in the grate, no light in the gas-globes—everything cold and dark save the reflection on that front window.

“Electra!”

“I am here.”

“No letter.”

She stood motionless a moment; but the brick walls opposite, the trees, the lamp-posts spun round, like maple leaves in an autumn gale.

“My owlet! why don't you have a light and some fire?”

He stumbled toward her, and put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrank away, and, lighting the gas, rang for coal.

“There is something terrible the matter; Russell is either ill or dead. I must go to him.”

“Nonsense! sheer nonsense; he is busy, that is all. Your cousin has forgotten you for the time; after a while he will write. You are too exacting; young men sometimes find constant, regular correspondence a bore; a letter every week is too much to expect of him. Don't be childish, Electra.”

As she noticed the frown on his face, a dark suspicion seized her: “perhaps he had intercepted her letters.” Could he stoop to such an artifice?

“Electra, I would try to divert my mind. After all, his letters are short, and, I should judge, rather unsatisfactory.”

“What do you know of the length or contents of his letters?”

“I know they are brief, because I occasionally see them open in your hand; I judge that they are unsatisfactory from the cloud on your face whenever they come. But I have no disposition to contest the value of his correspondence with you. That article on chiaro-scuro has arrived at last; if you feel inclined, you can begin it at once.”

Chiaro-scuro, forsooth! Mockery! She had quite chiaro-scuro enough, and to spare; but the smile on the artist's lips stung her, and, without a word, she took a seat at his side and began to read. Page after page was turned, technicalities slipped through her lips, but she understood as little of the essay as if the language had been Sancrit instead of Saxon; for, like the deep, undying murmur of the restless sea, there rang in her ears, “No letter! no letter!” As she finished the pamphlet and threw it on the table, her hands dropped listlessly in her lap. Mr. Clifton was trying to read her countenance, and, impatient of his scrutiny, she rose to seek her own room. Just then the door-bell rang sharply; she supposed it was some brother-artist coming to spend an hour, and turned to go.

“Wait a minute; I want to——;” he paused, for at that instant she heard a voice which, even amid the din of Shinar, would have been unmistakable to her, and, breaking from him, she sprang to the threshold and met her cousin.

“Oh, Russell! I thought you had forgotten me.”

“What put such a ridiculous thought into your head? My last letter must have prepared you to expect me.”

“What letter? I have had none for three weeks.”

“One in which I mentioned Mr. Campbell's foreign appointment, and the position of secretary which he tendered me. Electra, let me speak to Mr. Clifton.”

As he advanced and greeted the artist she heard a quick, snapping sound, and saw the beautiful Bohemian glass paper-cutter her guardian had been using lying, shivered to atoms, on the rug. The fluted handle was crushed in his fingers, and drops of blood oozed over the left hand. Ere she could allude to it he thrust his hand into his pocket and desired Russell to be seated.

“This is a pleasure totally unexpected. What is the appointment of which you spoke?”

“Mr. Campbell has been appointed Minister to——, and sails next week. I am surprised that you have not heard of it from the public journals; many of them have spoken of it, and warmly commended the selection. I accompany him in the capacity of secretary, and shall, meanwhile, prosecute my studies under his direction.”

The gray, glittering eyes of the artist sought those of his pupil, and for an instant hers quailed; but, rallying, she looked fully, steadfastly at him, resolved to play out the game, scorning to bare her heart to his scrutiny. She had fancied that Russell's affection had prompted this visit; now it was apparent that he came to New York to take a steamer, not to see her; to put the stormy Atlantic between them. The foaming draught which she had snatched to her lips so eagerly, so joyfully, was turning to hemlock as she tasted; and though she silently put the cup from her, it was done smilingly; there were no wry faces, no gestures of disgust.

“New York certainly agrees with you, Electra; you have grown and improved very much since you came North. I never saw such color in your cheeks before; I can scarcely believe that you are the same fragile child I put into the stage one year ago. This reconciles me to having given you up to Mr. Clifton; he is a better guardian than I could have been. But tell me something more about these new relatives you spoke of having found here.”

Mr. Clifton left the room, and the two sat side by side for an hour, talking of the gloomy past, the flitting present, the uncertain future. Leaning back in his chair, with his eyes fixed on the grate, Russell said, gravely:

“There is now nothing to impede my successful career; obstacles are rapidly melting away; every day brings me nearer the goal I long since set before me. In two years at farthest, perhaps earlier, I shall return and begin the practice of law. Once admitted, I ask no more. Then, and not till then, I hope to save you from the necessity of labor; in the interim, Mr. Clifton will prove a noble and generous friend; and believe me; my cousin, the thought of leaving you so long is the only thing which will mar the pleasure of my European sojourn.”

The words were kind enough, but the tone was indifferent, and the countenance showed her that their approaching separation disquieted him little. She thought of the sleepless nights and wretched days she had passed waiting for a letter from that tall, reserved, cold cousin, and her features relaxed in a derisive smile at the folly of her all-absorbing love. Raising his eyes accidentally he caught the smile, wondered what there was to call it forth in the plans which he had just laid before her, and, meeting his glance of surprise, she said, carelessly:

“Are you not going to see Irene before you sail?”

His cheek flushed as he rose, straightened himself, and answered:

“A strange question, truly, from one who knows me as well as you do. Call to see a girl whose father sent her from home solely to prevent her from associating with my family? Through what sort of metamorphosis do you suppose that I have passed, that every spark of self-respect has been crushed out of me?”

“Her father's tyranny and selfishness can never nullify her noble and affectionate remembrance of Aunt Amy in the hour of her need.”

“And when I am able to repay her every cent we owe her, then, and not till then, I wish to see her. Things shall change; mens cujusque is est quisque; and the day will come when Mr. Huntingdon may not think it degrading for his daughter to acknowledge my acquaintance on the street.”

Once more the labors of a twelvemonth had been exhibited at the Academy of Design—some to be classed among things “that were not born to die;” others to fall into nameless graves. Many, who had worked faithfully, recognizing the sacredness of their commission, had climbed higher in public estimation; and a few, making mere pastime, or resting upon reputation already earned, had slipped back. Mr. Clifton was represented by an exquisite OEnone, and on the same wall, in a massive oval frame, hung the first finished production of his pupil. For months after Russell's departure she sat before her easel, slowly filling up the outline sketched while his eyes watched her. She lingered over her work, loath to put the final stroke, calling continually upon Memory to furnish the necessary details; and frequently, in recalling transient smiles, the curl of his lip or bending of his brow, palette and brush would slip from her fingers, while she sat weaving the broken yet priceless threads of a hallowed Past. Application sometimes trenches so closely upon genius as to be mistaken for it in its results, and where both are happily blended the bud of Art expands in immortal perfection. Electra spared no toil, and so it came to pass that the faultless head of her idol excited intense and universal admiration. In the catalogue it was briefly mentioned as No. 17—a portrait; first effort of a young female artist.” Connoisseurs, who had committed themselves by extravagant praise, sneered at the announcement of the catalogue, and, after a few inquiries, blandly asserted that no tyro could have produced it; that the master had wrought out its perfection, and generously allowed the pupil to monopolize the encomiums. In vain Mr. Clifton disclaimed the merit, and asserted that he had never touched the canvas; that she had jealously refused to let him aid her. Incredulous smiles and unmistakable motions of the head were the sole results of his expostulation. Little mercy has a critical world for novices, particularly those clad in woman's garments; few helping hands are kindly stretched toward her trembling fingers, few strengthening words find her in her seclusion; and when these last do come in friendly whispers, are they not hung up “as apples of gold in pictures of silver” along the chequered walls of memory? Cold glances generally greet her earliest works; they are handled suspiciously, the beauties are all extracted, set in a row, and labelled “plagiarisms;” the residue, like dross in crucibles, is handed back as “original, and her undoubted property.” Or, perchance, the phraseology varies, and she hears “This book, this statue, this picture, is no unpractised woman's work; we speak advisedly, and pronounce the fact that pen, or rasp, or chisel, or brush, belongs unmistakably to a master—an experienced writer or veteran artist.” It is this bent of human nature to load with chaplets well-established favorites of fame, to “whitewash” continually with praise, to jealously withhold the meed of beginners, rendering grudgingly “Cæsar's things to Cæsar,” which tips many a pen with gall, and shadows noble pictures with unseemly clouds. Electra was indignant at the injustice meted out to her, and, as might have been expected, rebelled against the verdict. Very little consolation was derived from the argument by which her master strove to mollify her—that the incredulity of the critics was the highest eulogy that could have been pronounced upon her work. Some weeks after the close of the exhibition the OEnone was purchased and the portrait sent home. Electra placed it on the easel once more, and stood before it in rapt contemplation. Down from the arched roof flowed billows of light, bathing her rounded form as in a sea of molten topaz, and kindling a startling, almost unearthly, beauty in the canvas. What mattered the brevity and paucity of Russell's letters now?—what though three thousand miles of tempestuous sea roared and tossed between them?—she had his untarnished image in her heart, his life-like features ever before her. To this shrine she came continually, and laid thereon the offering of a love passionate and worshipping as ever took entire possession of a woman's heart. Coldness, silence, neglect, all were forgotten when she looked into the deep, beautiful eyes, and upon the broad, bold, matchless brow.

“Cities give not the human senses room enough,” says a latter day seer, and Electra Grey sometimes felt that her heart and soul were in the stocks, or ironed down to a stake, leaving only a periphery of a few feet. Brick walls and paving-stones uttered no kindly message; hurrying foot-passengers and crowded omnibuses told of the din and strife of life, but whispered no word of cheer, no lesson of uncomplaining fortitude, no exhortation to be strong and patient. She saw colossal Selfishness crushing along its Juggernautic way; Wealth jostled Poverty into the gutter, and Beauty picked a dainty crossing to give a wide berth to Deformity; hard, stern, granite-like faces passed her window day by day; princely equipages, with haughty, supercilious occupants, rolled along the street, and bridal trains and funeral processions mingled in their windings. If man be, indeed, a “microcosm,” to what shall I liken that great city wherein dwelt the painter and his pupil? Isis, the great nursing-mother—genial Nature, teeming with soothing influences, and missals of joy and strength, seemed sepulchred—and in her place, a flint-featured, miserly, and most intolerable step-mother frowned upon the luckless young artist. City life! City starvation, rather, she found it, until a long and painful apprenticeship taught her the priceless alchemy whereby smiling Plenty beamed upon her. Reared on the outskirts of a country-town, she longed for the freedom and solitude of the old pine-woods at home, and sickened at the thought of spending her life within walls of brick and mortar. She had selected an attic room, with dormer windows looking eastward, and here she daily watched the pale gray dawn struggle with the vapors and shadows of night. “Quiet fields of crimson cirri,” fleecy masses of restless, glittering cumuli, or the sweep and rush of “inky-fringed,” lowering rain-clouds, alike charmed her. Long before the servants stirred below she was seated at the window, noting the waning shimmer of the Morning-Star as the waves of light rolled up and crested the horizon, whitening the deep dark blue with their sparkling spray. The peculiarities of each sunrise and sunset were jotted down assiduously:“Cloud-walls of the morning's grayFaced with amber column,Crowned with crimson cupolaFrom a sunset solemn,” were sketched with great care, and put aside for future use; and it rarely happened that, on a dull, rainy morning, she came down to breakfast looking other than moody and disappointed, as though her rights had been infringed, her privileges curtailed. Constituted with keen susceptibility to impressions of beauty or sublimity, whether physical, moral, or intellectual, Nature intended her as a thing for sunshine and holidays, as a darling to be petted; but Fate shook her head, and, with a grimace, set the tender young soul on a bleak exposure, to be hardened and invigorated.

With the characteristic fitfulness of consumption, Mr. Clifton rallied, and, for a time, seemed almost restored; but at the approach of winter the cough increased, and dangerous symptoms returned. Several months after the rejection of his suit, to which no allusion had ever been made, Electra sat before her easel, absorbed in work, while the master slowly walked up and down the studio, wrapped in a warm plaid shawl. Occasionally he paused and looked over her shoulder, then resumed his pace, offering no comment. It was not an unusual occurrence for them to pass entire mornings together without exchanging a word, and to-day the silence had lasted more than an hour. A prolonged fit of coughing finally arrested her attention, and, glancing up, she met his sad gaze.

“This is unpropitious weather for you, Mr. Clifton.”

“Yes, this winter offers a dreary prospect.”

“There is the doctor now, passing the window. I will come back as soon as his visit is over.” She rose hastily to quit the room, but he detained her.

“Do not go—I wish you to remain and finish your work.”

Dr. LeRoy entered, and, after questioning his patient, stood on the rug, warming his fingers.

“The fact is, my dear fellow, this is not the place for you. I sent you South four years ago nearly, and saved your life; and, as I told you last week, you will have to take that same prescription again. It is folly to talk of spending the winter here. I can do nothing for you. You must go to Cuba or to Italy. It is of no use to try to deceive you, Harry; you know, just as well as I do, that your case is getting desperate, and change of climate is your last hope. I have told you all this before.”

Electra laid down her pallette, and listened for the answer.

“I am sorry you think so, but I can't leave New York.”

“Why not?”

“For various good reasons.”

“My dear fellow, is your life of any value?”

“A strange question, truly.”

“If it is, quit New York in thirty-six hours; if not, remain, ‘for various good reasons.’ Send to my office for an anodyne. Better take my advice. Good-day.”

Passing by the easel, he whispered:

“Use your influence; send him South.” And then the two were again alone.

Resting her chin in her hands, she raised her eyes and said:

“Why do you not follow the doctor's advice? A winter South might restore you.”

He drew near, and, leaning his folded arms on the top of the easel, looked down into her face.

“There is only one condition upon which I could consent to go; that is in your hands. Will you accompany me?”

She understood it all in an instant, saw the new form in which the trial presented itself, and her soul sickened.

“Mr. Clifton, if I were your sister, or your child, I would gladly go; but, as your pupil, I can not.”

“As Electra Grey, certainly not; but, as Electra Clifton, you could go.”

“Electra Grey will be carved on my tombstone.”

“Then you decide my fate. I remain, and wait the slow approach of death.”

“No, before just Heaven! I take no such responsibility, nor shall you thrust it on me. You are a man, and must decide your destiny for yourself; I am a poor girl, having no claim upon, no power over you. It is your duty to preserve the life which God gave you, in the way prescribed by your physician, and I have no voice in the matter. It is your duty to go South, and it will be both weak and wicked to remain here under existing circumstances.”

“My life is centred in you; it is worthless, nay, a burden, separated from you.”

“Your life should be centred in something nobler, better; in your duty, in your profession. It is suicidal to fold your hands listlessly and look to me, as you do.”

“All these things have I tried, and I am weary of their hollowness, weary of life and the world. So long as I have your face here, I care not to cross my own threshold till friendly hands bear me out to my quiet resting-place under the willows of Greenwood. Electra, my darling, think me weak if you will, but bear with me a little while longer, and then this, my shadow, shall flit from your young heart, leaving not even a memory to haunt you. Be patient! I will soon pass away, to another, a more peaceful, blessed sphere.”

A melancholy smile lighted his fair waxen features, as waning, sickly sunshine in an autumn evening flickers over sculptured marble in a silent chuch-yard.

How she compassionated his great weakness as he wiped away the moisture which, even on that cold day, glistened on his forehead.

“Oh! I beseech you to go to Cuba. Go, and get strong once more.”

“Nothing will ever help me now. Sunny skies and soft breezes bring no healing for me. I want to die here, in my home, where your hands will be about me; not among strangers, in Cuba or Italy.”

He turned to the fire, and, springing up, she left the room. The solemn silence of the house oppressed her; she put on her thickest wrappings, and took the street leading to the nearest park. A steel-gray sky, with slowly-trailing clouds, looked down on her, and the keen, chilly wind wafted a fine snow-powder in her face as she pressed against it. The trees were bare, and the sere grass grew hoary as the first snow-flakes of the season came down softly and shroud-like. The walks were deserted, save where a hurrying form crossed from street to street, homeward-bound; and Electra passed slowly along, absorbed in thoughts colder than the frosting that gathered on shawl and bonnet. The face and figure of the painter glided spectrally before her at every step and a mighty temptation followed at its heels. Why not strangle her heart? Why not marry him and bear his name, if, thereby, she could make his few remaining months of existence happy, and, by accompanying him South, prolong his life even for a few weeks? She shuddered at the suggestion, it would be such a miserable lot. But then the question arose: “Who told you that your life was given for happiness? Do you imagine your Maker set you on earth solely to hunt your own enjoyment? Suppose duty costs you pain and struggles; is it any the less duty? Nay, is it not all the more urgent duty?” She knew that she could return to the artist, and, with one brief sentence, pour the chrism of joy over his suffering soul; and her great compassion, mild-eyed, soft-lipped, tender-hearted, whispered: Why not? why not?

“Nature owns no man who is not a martyr withal.” If this dictum possessed any value, did it not point to her mission? She could no longer shut her eyes and stumble on, for right in her path stood an awful form, with austere lip and fiery eye, demanding a parley, defying all escape; and, calmly, she stood face to face with her Sphinx, considering her riddle. A young; motherless girl, without the girding of a holy religion, a free, untamed soul, yielding allegiance to no creed, hearkening only to the dictates of her tempestuous nature, now confronting the most ancient immemorial Destroyer who haunts the highways of society. Self-immolation, or a poisoning of the spring of joy in the heart of a fellow-creature? Was duty a Moloch, clasping its scorching arms around its devotees?—a Juggernaut, indeed, whose iron wheels drank the life-blood of its victims? “Will you see your benefactor sink swiftly into an early grave, and, standing by with folded arms, persuade yourself that it is not your duty to attempt to save him at all hazards? Can nothing less than love ever sanction marriage?” Such was the riddle hurled before her, and, as she pondered, the floodgates of her sorrow and jealousy were once more lifted—the rush and roar of bitter waters drowned, for a time, the accents of conscience and of reason.

But out of these fierce asphaltic waves arose, Aphrodite-like, a pure, radiant, heavenly form—a child of all climes, conditions, and ages—an immortal evangel; and, as the piercing, sunny eyes of womanly intuition looked upon the riddle, the stony lineaments of the Sphinx melted into air. If womanly eyes rest on this page the answer need not be traced here, for in every true woman's heart the answer is to be found engraved in God's own characters; and, however the rubbish of ignoble motives may accumulate, it can never obliterate the divine handwriting. In the holiest oratory of her nature is enshrined an infallible talisman, an ægis, and she requires no other panoply in the long struggle incident to trials such as shook the stormy soul of the young artist. Faster fell the snow-flakes, cresting the waves of hair like foam, and, setting her teeth firmly, as if thereby locking the door against all compassionating compunctions, Electra left the park and turned into a cross-street, on which was situated an establishment where bouquets were kept for sale. The assortment was meagre at that late hour, but she selected a tiny bunch of delicate, fragrant, hothouse blossoms, and, shielding them with her shawl, hastened home. The studio was brilliant with gas-glare and warm with the breath of anthracite, but an aspect of dreariness, silence, and sorrow predominated. The figures in the pictures shrank back in their frames, the statues gleamed mournfully white and cold, and the emaciated form and face of the painter, thrown into bold relief by the dark green lining of the easy-chair, seemed to belong to realms of death rather than life. On the edge of the low scroll-sculptured mantle, supported at each corner by caryatides, perched a large tame gray owl, with clipped wings folded, and wide, solemn, oracular eyes fastened on the countenance of its beloved master. A bronze clock, of exquisite workmanship, occupied the centre, and represented the Angel of Revelations “swearing by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that Time should be no longer.” One hand held the open book, the other a hammer, which gave out the hours with clear metallic ring; and along the base, just underneath the silver-dial-plate, were carved, in German characters, the words of Richter: “And an immeasurably extended hammer was to strike the last hour of Time, and shiver the universe asunder.”

With swift, noiseless steps Electra came to the red grate, and, after a moment, drew an ottoman close to the easy-chair. Perhaps its occupant slept; perchance he wandered, with closed eyes, far down among the sombre, dank crypts of memory. She laid her cool fingers on his hand, and held the bouquet before him.

“My dear sir, here are your flowers; they are not as pretty as usual, but sweet enough to atone for lack of beauty.”

He fingered them caressingly, laid them against his hollow cheeks, and hid his lips among their fragrant petals, but the starry eyes were fixed on the features of the pupil.

The year that ensued proved a valuable school of patience, and taught the young artist a gentleness of tone and quietude of manner at variance with the natural impetuosity of her character. Irksome beyond degree was the discipline to which she subjected herself, but, with a fixedness of purpose that knew no wavering, she walked through the daily dreary routine, keeping her eyes upon the end that slowly but unmistakably approached. In midsummer Mr. Clifton removed, for a few weeks, to the Catskill, and occasionally he rallied for a few hours, with a tenacity of strength almost miraculous. During the still sunny afternoons hosts of gay visitors, summer tourists, often paused in their excursions to watch the emaciated form of the painter leaning on the arm of his beautiful pupil, or reclining on a lichen-carpeted knoll while she sketched the surrounding scenery. Increased feebleness prevented Mrs. Clifton from joining in these outdoor jaunts, and early in September, when it became apparent that her mind was rapidly sinking into imbecility, they returned to the city. Memory seemed to have deserted its throne; she knew neither her son nor Electra, and the last spark of intelligence manifested itself in a semi-recognition of her favorite cat, which sprang to welcome her back as friendly hands bore her to the chamber she was to quit no more till death released the crushed spirit. A letter was found on the atelier mantle, directed to Electra in familiar characters, which she had not seen for months. Very quietly she put it in her pocket, and in the solitude of her room broke the seal; found that Russell had returned during her absence, had spent a morning in the studio looking over her work, and had gone South to establish himself in his native town. Ah! the grievous, grievous disappointment. A bitter cry rolled from her lips, and the hands wrung each other despairingly; but, an hour later, she stood beside the artist with unruffled brow and a serene mouth that bore no surface-token of the sorrow gnawing at her heart. Winter came on earlier than usual, with unwonted severity; and, week after week, Electra went continually from one sufferer to another, striving to alleviate pain and to kindle a stray beam of sunshine in the darkened mansion. As one living thing in a charnel-house she flitted from room to room, sometimes shrinking from her own shadow, that glided before her on the polished wall as she went up and down stairs in the dead of night. Unremitted vigil set its pale, infallible signet on her face, but Mr. Clifton either could not or would not see the painful alteration in her appearance; and when Mrs. Young remonstrated with her niece upon the ruinous effects of this tedious confinement to the house, she only answered, steadily: “I will nurse him so long as I have strength left to creep from one room to another.”

During Christmas week he grew alarmingly worse, and Dr. LeRoy counted the waning life by hours; but on New Year's eve he declared himself almost well, and insisted on being carried to the studio. The whim was humored, and, wrapped in his silken robe de chambre, he was seated in his large cushioned chair, smiling to find himself once more in the midst of his treasures. Turning back the velvet cuff from his attenuated wrist, he lifted his flushed face toward the nurse, and said eagerly:

“Uncover my easel; make William draw it close to me; I have been idle long enough. Give me my palette; I want to retouch the forehead of my hero. It needs a high light.”

“You are not strong enough to work. Wait till to-morrow.”

“To-morrow! to-morrow! You have told me that fifty times. Wheel up the easel, I say. The spell is upon me, and work I will.”

It was the “ruling passion strong in death,” and Electra acquiesced, arranging the colors on the palette as he directed, and selecting the brushes he required. Resting his feet upon the cross-beam, he leaned forward and gazed earnestly upon his masterpiece, the darling design which had haunted his brain for years. “Theta” he called this piece of canvas, which was a large square painting representing, in the foreground, the death of Socrates. Around the reclining form of the philosopher clustered Apollodorus, Cebes, Simmias, and Crito, and through the window of the prison came the last slanting, quivering ray of the setting sun, showing the street beyond, where, against the stone wall, near a gleaming guardian Hermes, huddled a mournful group—Xantippe and her weeping children. The details of the picture were finished with pre-Raphaelite precision and minuteness—the sweep and folds of drapery about the couch, the emptied hemlock cup—but the central figure of the Martyr lacked something, and to these last touches Mr. Clifton essayed to address himself. Slowly, feebly, the transparent hand wandered over the canvas, and Electra heard with alarm the labored breath that came panting from his parted lips. She saw the unnatural sparkle in his sunken eyes almost die out, then leap up again, like smouldering embers swept by a sudden gust, and, in the clear strong voice of other years, he repeated to himself the very words of Plato's Phædo: “For I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be quiet, therefore, and bear up.”

Leaning back to note the effect of his touches, a shiver ran through his frame, the brush fell from his tremulous fingers, and he lay motionless and exhausted.

Electra threw up the sash, that the wintry air might revive him; and as the red glare of declining day streamed down from the sky-light upon the group, she looked from the easy-chair to the canvas, and mutely questioned: “Which is most thanatoid—painter or painted?”

Folding his hands, like a helpless, tired child, he raised his eyes to hers and said, brokenly:

“I bequeath it to you; finish my work. You understand me—you know what is lacking; finish my ‘Theta,’ and tell the world I died at work upon it. Oh! for a fraction of my old strength! One hour more to complete my Socrates! Just one hour! I would ask no more.”

She tried to persuade him to return to his own room, but he obstinately refused, and when she insisted, he answered, pleadingly, “No, no; let me stay here. Do let me be quiet here. I hate that gloomy, tomb-like room.”

She gave him a powerful cordial which the physician had left, and, having arranged the pillows on the lounge, drew it close to the easel, and prevailed on him to lie down.

A servant was despatched for Dr. LeRoy, but returned to say that a dangerous case detained him elsewhere.

“Mr. Clifton, would you like to have your mother brought down stairs and placed beside you for a while?”

“No; I want nobody but you. Sit down here close to me and keep quiet.”

She lowered the heavy curtains, shaded the gas-globe, and, placing a bunch of sweet violets on his pillow, sat down at his side. His favorite spaniel nestled at her feet, and occasionally threw up his head and gazed wistfully at his master. Thus two hours passed, and as she rose to administer the medicine he waved it off, saying:

“Give me no more of it. I won't be drugged in my last hours. I won't have my intellect clouded by opiates. Throw it into the fire and let me rest.”

“Oh, sir! can I do nothing for you?”

“Yes; read to me. Your voice lulls me. Read me that letter of Iamblichus to Agathocles, which I marked last summer.”

She read it, and, without questioning, laid the book aside and took up a volume of Jacob Behmen, of which he was very fond, selecting, here and there, passages designated by pencil-marks. He had long revelled among the echoless abysses of dim, medieval, mystical lore, and, strange as it may appear, the quaint old books preserved their spell and riveted the wandering mind, even on the verge of dissolution. She knew that Cornelius-Agrippa, Theophrastus Paracelsus, and Swedenborg held singular mastery over him; but she shrank from all these now, as though they had been bound in flames, and a yearning to comfort him from the sacred lips of Jewish prophets and apostles took possession of her. Passages which she had read to her blind aunt came back to her now, ringing trumpet-toned in her ears, and she rose to bring a bible from Mrs. Clifton's room.

“Where are you going?”

“To your mother's room, for a moment only. I want a book which I left there.”

“Sit still. Do not leave me, I beg of you.” He drew her back to the seat, and after a short silence said, slowly:

“Electra, are you afraid of death?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know that I am dying?”

“I have seen you as ill several times before.”

“You are a brave, strong-hearted child; glazed eyes and stiffened limbs will not frighten you. I have but few hours to live; put your hand in mine, and promise me that you will sit here till my soul quits its clay-prison. Will you watch with me the death of the year? Are you afraid to stay with me and see me die?”

She would not trust herself to speak, but laid her hand in his and clasped it firmly. He smiled, and added:

“Will you promise to call no one? I want no eyes but yours to watch me as I die. Let there be only you and me.”

“I promise.”

For some moments he lay motionless, but the intensity of his gaze made her restless, and she shaded her face.

“Electra, my darling, your martyrdom draws to a close. I have been merciless in my exactions, I know; you are worn to a shadow, and your face is sharp and haggard; but you will forgive me all, when the willows of Greenwood trail their boughs across my headstone. You have been faithful and uncomplaining; you have been to me a light, a joy, and a glory! God bless you, my pupil. There was a time when, looking at the future that stretched before you, I shuddered on your account. Since then I have learned to know you better; I feel assured your nature will be equal to its trials.. You can conquer difficulties, and, better still, you can work and live alone; you can conquer your own heart. I am passing to a higher, purer, happier sphere; but my spirit will hover constantly around you here, in the midst of your work, overlooking you continually, as in the days that have gone by. I have one request to make of you, and unhesitatingly I make it: remain in this house and watch over my poor mother's last hours as you watched over and cheered mine. It is a heavy burden to lay upon you; but you have patiently borne as heavy, and I have no fear that you will desert her when the last of her sons sleep under marble. She will never know that I have gone before her till we meet in another world. In my vest-pocket is the key of my writing-desk. There you will find my will; take charge of it, and put it in LeRoy's hands as soon as possible. Give me some water.”

She held the glass to his lips, and, as he sank back, a bright smile played over his face.

“Ah, child! it is such a comfort to have you here—you are so inexpressibly dear to me.”

She took his thin hands in hers, and hot tears fell upon them. An intolerable weight crushed her heart, a half-defined, horrible dread, and she asked, falteringly:

“Are you willing to die? Is your soul at peace with God? Have you any fear of Eternity?”

“None, my child, none.”

“Would you like to have Mr. Bailey come and pray for you?”

“I want no one now but you.”

A long silence ensued, broken only by the heavily-drawn breath of the sufferer. The memory of her aunt's tranquil death haunted the girl, and, finally, the desire to direct his thoughts to God triumphed over every other feeling. She sank on her knees beside the lounge, and a passionate prayer leaped from her pale lips. She had not prayed for nearly four years, and the petition went up to God framed in strange, incoherent language—a plaintive cry to the Father to release, painlessly, a struggling human soul. His fingers clung spasmodically to hers, and, soon after, the head sank on his chest, and she saw that he slept.

The glittering cortege of constellations moved solemnly on in their eternal march through the fields of heaven, and in midsky hung a moon of almost supernatural brightness, glaring down through the skylight like an inquisitorial eye. Two hours elapsed; the measured melancholy tick of the clock marked the expiring moments of the old year; the red coals of the grate put on their robe of ashes; the gaslight burned dimly, and flickered now and then as the wind surged through the partially opened window; and there by the couch sat the motionless watcher, noting the indescribable but unmistakable change creeping on, like the shadow which slowly-sailing summer clouds cast down upon green meadows or flowery hill-sides, darkening the landscape. The feeble, thread-like pulse fluttered irregularly, but the breathing became easy and low as a babe's, and occasionally a gentle sigh heaved the chest. Once his lips had moved, and she caught the indistinct words—“Discreet degrees”——, “influx——,” “type-creature.” She knew that the end was at hand, and a strained, frightened expression came into her large eyes as she glanced nervously round the room, weird and awful in its gloomy surroundings. The damp masses of hair clung to her temples, and she felt heavy drops gathering on her forehead, as in that glance she met the solemn, fascinating eyes of Munin staring at her from the low mantle. She caught her breath, and the deep silence was broken by the metallic tongue that dirged out “twelve.” The last stroke of the bronze hammer echoed drearily; the old year lay stark and cold on its bier; Munin flapped his dusky wings with a long, sepulchral, blood-curdling hoot, and the dying man opened his dim, failing eyes, and fixed them for the last time on his pupil.

“Electra, my darling.”

“My dear master, I am here.”

She lifted his head to her bosom, nestled her fingers into his cold palm, and leaned her cheek against his brow. Pressing his face close to hers the gray eyes closed, and a smile throned itself on the parted lips. A slight tremor shook the limbs, a soft shuddering breath swept across the watcher's face, and the “golden bowl” was shivered, the “silver cord” was loosed.

She sat there till the iciness of the rigid form chilled her, then laid the head tenderly down on its pillow, and walked to the mantlepiece. The Angel of Time lifted the hammer and struck “one;” and as she glanced accidentally at the inscription on the base, she remembered a favorite quotation which it had often called from the cold lips of the dead painter:“Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir.”The seed-time had ended; the calm fields of Eternity stretched before him now; the fruits of the harvest were required at his hands. Were they full of ripe golden sheaves, or——? She shrank from her own questioning, and looked over her shoulder at the dreamless, smiling sleeper.

The vigil was over, the burden was lifted from her shoulders, the weary ministry here ended; and, shrouding her face in her arms, the lonely woman wept bitterly.

Four years had wrought material changes in the Town of W——; new streets had been opened, new buildings erected, new forms trod the sidewalks new faces looked out of shop-windows and flashing equipages, and new shafts of granite and marble stood in the cemetery to tell of many who had been gathered to their forefathers. The old red school-house, where two generations had been tutored, was swept away to make place for a railroad depot; and, instead of the venerable trees that once overshadowed its precincts, bristling walls of brick and mortar rang with the shrill whistle of the engine, or the sharp continual click of repairing-shops. The wild shout, the rippling laugh of careless, childish glee were banished, and the frolicsome flock of by-gone years had grown to manhood and womanhood, were sedate business-men and sober matrons. If important revolutions had been effected in her early home, not less decided and apparent was the change which had taken place in the heiress of Huntingdon Hill; and having been eyed, questioned, scrutinized by the best families, and laid in the social scales, it was found a difficult matter to determine her weight as accurately as seemed desirable. In common parlance, “her education was finished”—she was regularly and unmistakably “out.” Everybody hastened to inspect her, sound her, label her; mothers to compare her with their own daughters; daughters to discover how much they had to apprehend in the charms of the new rival; sons to satisfy themselves with regard to the truth of the rumors concerning her beauty; all with curiosity stamped on their countenances; all with dubiety written there at the conclusion of their visit. Perfectly self-possessed, studiedly polite, attentive to all the punctilios of etiquette, polished and irreproachable in deportment, but cold, reticent, grave, indulging in no familiarities, and allowing none; fascinating by her extraordinary beauty and grace, but tacitly impressing upon all, “Thus far, and no farther.” Having lost her aunt two years before her return, the duties of hostess devolved upon her, and she dispensed the hospitalities of her home with an easy though stately elegance, surprising in one so inexperienced. No positive charge could be preferred against her by the inquisitorial circle; even Mrs. Judge Harriss, the self-constituted, but universally acknowledged, autocrat of beau monde in W——, accorded her a species of negative excellence, and confessed herself baffled and unable to pronounce a verdict. An enigma to her own father, it was not wonderful that strangers knit their brows in striving to analyze her character, and ere long the cooing of carrier-pigeons became audible: “Her mother had been very eccentric; even before her death it was whispered that insanity hung threateningly over her; strange things were told of her, and, doubtless, Irene inherited her peculiarities.” Nature furnishes some seeds with downy wings to insure distribution, and envy and malice, and probably very innocent and mild-intentioned gossip, soon provided this report with remarkable facilities for progress. It chanced that Dr. Arnold was absent for some weeks after her arrival, and no sooner had he returned than he sought his quondam protégé. Entering unannounced, he paused suddenly as he caught sight of her standing before the fire, with Paragon at her feet. She lifted her head and came to meet him, holding out both hands, with a warm, bright smile.

“Oh, Dr. Arnold! I am so glad to see you once more. It was neither friendly nor hospitable to go off just as I came home, after long years of absence. I am so very glad to see you.”

He held her hands and gazed at her like one in a dream of mingled pain and pleasure, and when he spoke his voice was unsteady.

“You can not possibly be as glad to see me as I am to have you back. But I can't realize that this is, indeed, you, my pet—the Irene I parted with rather more than four years ago. Child, what is it? What have you done to yourself? I called you Queen in your infancy; when you clung to my finger and tottered across the floor to creep into my arms, but tenfold more appropriate does the title seem now. You are not the same Irene who used to toil up my office-steps, and climb upon the tallest chair to examine the skeletons in my cases—the snakes and lizards in my jars. Oh, child! what a marvellous, what a glorious beauty you have grown to be.”

“Take care; you will spoil her, Arnold. Don't you know, you old cynic, that women can't stand such flattery as yours?” laughed Mr. Huntingdon.

“I am glad you like me, Doctor; I am glad that you think I have improved; and, since you think so, I am obliged to you for expressing your opinion of me so kindly. I wish I could return your compliments, but my conscience vetoes any such proceeding. You look jaded—overworked. What is the reason that you have grown so gray and haggard? We will enter into a compact to renew the old life; you shall treat me exactly as you used to do, and I shall come to you as formerly, and interrupt labors that seem too heavy. Sit down, and talk to me. I want to hear your voice; it is pleasant to my ears, makes music in my heart, calls up the by-gone. You have adopted a stick in my absence; I don't like the innovation; it hurts me to think that you need it. I must take care of you, I see, and persuade you to relinquish it entirely.”

“Arnold, I verily believe she was more anxious to see you than everybody else in W——except old Nellie, her nurse.”

She did not contradict him, and the three sat conversing for more than an hour; then other visitors came, and she withdrew to the parlor. The doctor had examined her closely all the while; had noted every word, action, expression; and a troubled, abstracted look came into his face when she left them.

“Huntingdon, what is it? What is it?”

“What is what? I don't understand you.”

“What has so changed that child? I want to know what ails her?”

“Nothing, that I know of. You know she was always rather singular.”

“Yes, but it was a different sort of singularity. She is too still and white and cold and stately. I told you it was a wretched piece of business to send a nature like hers, so different from everybody's else, off among utter strangers; to shut up that queer, free, untamed young thing in a boarding-school for four years, with hundreds of miles between her and the few things she loved. She required very peculiar and skilful treatment, and instead, you put her off where she petrified! I knew it would never answer, and I told you so. You wanted to break her obstinacy, did you? She comes back marble. I tell you now I know her better than you do, though you are her father, and you may as well give up at once that chronic hallucination of ‘ruling, conquering her.’ She is like steel—cold, firm, brittle; she will break, snap asunder; but bend!—never! never! Huntingdon, I love that child; I have a right to love her; she has been very dear to me from her babyhood, and it would go hard with me to know that any sorrow darkened her life. Don't allow your old plans and views to influence you now. Let Irene be happy in her own way. Did you ever see a contented-looking eagle in a gilt cage? Did you ever know a leopardess kept in a paddock and taught to forget her native jungles?”

Mr. Huntingdon moved uneasily, pondering the unpalatable advice.

“You certainly don't mean to say that she has inherited——.” He crushed back the words; could he crush the apprehension, too?

“I mean to say that, if she were my child, I would be guided by her, instead of striving to cut her character to fit the totally different pattern of my own.”

He put on his hat, thrust his hands into his pockets, stood for some seconds frowning so heavily that the shaggy eyebrows met and partially concealed the cavernous eyes, then nodded to the master of the house and sought his buggy. From that day Irene was conscious of a keener and more constant scrutiny on her father's part—a ceaseless surveillance, silent, but rigid—that soon grew intolerable. No matter how she employed her time, or whither she went, he seemed thoroughly cognizant of the details of her life; and where she least expected interruption or dictation his hand, firm though gentle, pointed the way, and his voice calmly but inflexibly directed. Her affection had been in no degree alienated by their long separation, and, through its sway, she submitted for a time; but Huntingdon blood ill brooked restraint, and, ere long, hers became feverish, necessitating release. As in all tyrannical natures, his exactions grew upon her compliance. She was allowed no margin for the exercise of judgment or inclination; her associates were selected, thrust upon her; her occupations decided without reference to her wishes. From the heartless, frivolous routine marked out she shrank in disgust; and, painful as was the alternative, she prepared for the clash which soon became inevitable. He wished her to be happy, but in his own way, in accordance with his views and aims, and, knowing the utter antagonism of taste and feeling which unfortunately existed, she determined to resist. Governed less by impulse than sober second thought and sound reasoning, it was not until after long and patient deliberation that she finally resolved upon her future course, and steadily maintained it. She felt most keenly that it was a painful, a lamentable resolution, but none the less a necessity; and, having once determined, she went forward with a fixedness of purpose characteristic of her family. It was the beginning of a life-long contest, and, to one who understood Leonard Huntingdon's disposition, offered a dreary prospect.

From verbal differences she habitually abstained; opinions which she knew to be disagreeable to him she carefully avoided giving expression to in his presence; and, while always studiously thoughtful of his comfort, she preserved a respectful deportment, allowing herself no hasty or defiant words. Fond of pomp and ceremony, and imbued with certain aristocratic notions, which an ample fortune had always permitted him to indulge, Mr. Huntingdon entertained company in princely style and whenever an opportunity offered. His dinners, suppers, and card-parties were known far and wide, and Huntingdon Hill became proverbial for hospitality throughout the state. Strangers were feted, and it was a rare occurrence for father and daughter to dine quietly together. Fortunately for Irene, the servants were admirably trained; and though this round of company imposed a weight of responsibilities oppressive to one so inexperienced, she applied herself diligently to domestic economy, and soon became familiarized with its details. Her father had been very anxious to provide her with a skilful house-keeper, to relieve her of the care and tedious minutia of such matters; but she refused to accept one, avowing her belief that it was the imperative duty of every woman to superintend and inspect the management of her domestic affairs. Consequently, from the first week of her return, she made it a rule to spend an hour after breakfast in her dining-room pantry, determining and arranging the details of the day.

The situation of the house commanded an extensive and beautiful prospect, and the ancient trees that overshadowed it imparted a venerable and imposing aspect. The building was of brick, overcast to represent granite, and along three sides ran a wide gallery, supported by lofty circular pillars, crowned with unusually heavy capitals. The main body consisted of two stories, with a hall in the centre and three rooms on either side; while two long single-storied wings stretched out right and left—one a billiard-room, the other a greenhouse.

The parlors and library occupied one side—the first opening into the greenhouse; the dining-room and smoking-room were correspondingly situated to the billiard-saloon. The frescoed ceilings were too low to suit modern ideas; the windows were large, and nearly square; the facings, sills, and doors all of cedar, dark as mahogany with age, and polished as rosewood. The tall mantle-pieces were of fluted Egyptian black marble, and along the freshly-tinted walls the elaborate arabesque moulding or cornice hung heavy and threatening. A broad easy flight of white marble steps led up to the richly-carved front-door, with its massive silver knocker bearing the name of Huntingdon in old-fashioned Italian characters; and in the arched niches, on either side of this door, stood two statues, brought from Europe by Mr. Huntingdon's father, and supposed to represent certain Roman penates.

From the hall on the second floor, a narrow, spiral, iron stairway ascended to a circular observatory on the roof, with arrow of small columns corresponding with those below, and a tessellated floor of alternating white and variegated squares of marble. Originally the observatory had been crowned by a heavy pagoda-shaped roof, but recently this had been removed and a covering of glass substituted, which, like that of hothouses, could be raised and lowered at pleasure by means of ropes and pulleys. Two generations had embellished this house, and the modern wings forming the cross had been erected within Irene's recollection. In expectation of her return, an entirely new set of furniture had been selected in New York, and arranged some weeks before her arrival—costly carpets, splendid mirrors, plush and brocatel sofas, rich china, and every luxury which wealth and fastidious taste could supply. The grounds in front, embracing several acres, were enclosed by a brick wall, and at the foot of the hill, at the entrance of the long avenue of elms, stood a tall arched iron gate. A smoothly-shaven terrace of Bermuda grass ran round the house, and the broad carriage-way swept up to a mound opposite the door, surmounted by the bronze figure of a crouching dog. On one side of the avenue a beautiful lawn, studded with clumps of trees, extended to the wall; on the other serpentine walks, bordered with low hedges, carved flower-beds of diverse shapes; and here delicate trellis-work supported rare creepers, and airy, elegant arbors and summer-houses were overgrown with vines of rank luxuriance. Everything about the parterre, from the well-swept gravel walks to the carefully-clipped hedges, betokened constant attention and lavish expenditure. But the crowning glory of the place was its wealth of trees—the ancient avenue of mighty elms, arching grandly to the sky like the groined nave of some vast cathedral; the circlet of sentinel poplars towering around the house, and old as its foundations; the long, undulating line of venerable willows waving at the foot of the laws over the sinuous little brook that rippled on its way to the creek; and, beyond the mansion, clothing the sides of a steeper hill, a sombre background of murmuring, solemn, immemorial pines. Such was Irene's home—stately and elegant—kept so thoroughly repaired that, in its cheerfulness, its age was forgotten.

The society of W——was considered remarkably fine. There was quite an aggregation of wealth and refinement; gentlemen, whose plantations were situated in adjacent counties, resided here, with their families; some, who spent their winters on the seaboard, resorted here for the summer; its bar was said to possess more talent than any other in the state; its schools claimed to be unsurpassed; it boasted of a concert-hall, a lyceum, a handsome court-house, a commodious, well-built jail, and half-a-dozen as fine churches as any country-town could desire. I would fain avoid the term, if possible, but no synonym exists—W——was, indisputably, an “aristocratic” place.

Thus, after more than four years absence, the summers of which had been spent in travel among the beautiful mountain scenery of the North, the young heiress returned to the home of her childhood. Standing on the verge of nineteen, she put the early garlanded years behind her and looked into the solemn temple of womanhood, with its chequered pavement of light and shadow; its storied friezes, gilded architraves, and fretted shrines, where white-robed bands of devotees enter with uncertain step, all eager, trembling Mystoe, soon to become clear-eyed, sad-eyed Epoptoe, through the unerring, mystical, sacred initiation of the only true hierophant—Time.

From her few early school associates she had become completely estranged; and the renewal of their acquaintance now soon convinced her that the utter want of congeniality in character and habits of life precluded the possibility of any warm friendships between them. For several months after her return she patiently, hopefully, faithfully studied the dispositions of the members of various families with whom she foresaw that she would be thrown, by her father's wishes, into intimate relationship, and satisfied herself that, among all these, there was not one, save Dr. Arnold, whose counsel, assistance, or sympathy she felt any inclination to claim. Human nature at least is, beyond all cavil, cosmopolitan in its characteristics (barring a few ethnologic limitations); and a given number of men and women similarly circumstanced in Chili, England, Madagascar, Utah, or Burmah would, doubtless, yield a like quota of moral and intellectual idiosyncrasies. In fine, W——was not in any respect peculiar, or, as a community, specially afflicted with heartlessness, frivolity, brainlessness, or mammonism; the average was fair, reputable in all respects. But, incontrovertibly, the girl who came to spend her life among these people was totally dissimilar in criteria of action, thought, and feeling. To the stereotyped conventional standard of fashionable life she had never yielded allegiance; and now stood (not in the St. Simon, Fourier, Owen, or Leroux sense) a social free-thinker. For a season she allowed herself to be whirled on by the current of dinners, parties, and picnics; but soon her sedate, contemplative temperament revolted from the irksome round, and gradually she outlined and pursued a different course, giving to her gay companions just what courtesy required, no more.

Hugh had prolonged his stay in Europe beyond the period originally designated; and instead of arriving in time to accompany his uncle and cousin home, he did not sail for some months after their return. At length, however, letters were received, announcing his presence in New York and fixing the day when his relatives might expect him.

The carriage had been despatched to the depot, a servant stood at the end of the avenue waiting to throw open the gate, Mr. Huntingdon walked up and down the wide colonnade, and Irene sat before the fire in her own room, holding in one palm the flashing betrothal-ring, which she had been forced to wear since her return from New York. She had looked into the rooms to see that all was bright and cheerful, had looped back the curtains in the apartment prepared for Hugh, had filled the vases with flowers that he preferred in his boyhood, and now listened for his approach with complex emotions. The sole companion of her infancy, she would have hailed his arrival with unmixed joy but for the peculiar relationship in which she now stood to him. The few years of partial peace had passed; she knew that the hour drew near when the long-dreaded struggle must begin, and, hopeless of averting it, quietly waited for the storm to break. Dropping the ring in her jewelry-box, she turned the key, and just then her father's voice rang through the house.

“Irene! the carriage is coming up the avenue.”

She went slowly down stairs, followed by Paragon, and joined her father at the door. His searching look discovered nothing in the serene face; the carriage stopped, and he hastened to meet his nephew.

“Come at last, eh! Welcome home, my dear boy.”

The young man turned from his uncle, sprang up the steps, then paused, and the cousins looked at each other.

“Well, Hugh! I am very glad to see you once more.”

She held out her hands, and he saw at a glance that her fingers were unfettered. Seizing them warmly, he bent forward, but she drew back coldly, and he exclaimed:

“Irene! I claim a warmer welcome.”

She made a haughty, repellent gesture, and moved forward a few steps to greet the stranger who accompanied him.

“My daughter, this is your uncle, Eric Mitchell, who has not seen you since you were a baby.”

The party entered the house, and, seated beside him, Irene gazed with mingled emotions of pain and pleasure upon her mother's only brother. He was about thirty, but looked older, from life-long suffering; had used crutches from the time he was five years of age, having been hopelessly crippled by a fall during his infancy. His features were sharp, his cheeks wore the sallow hue of habitual ill-health, and his fine gray eyes were somewhat sunken. Resting his crutches against the sofa, he leaned back and looked long and earnestly at his niece. Very dimly he remembered a fair flaxen-haired baby whom the nurse had held out to be kissed when he was sent to Philadelphia to be treated for his lameness; soon after he heard of his sister's death, and then his tutor took him to Europe, to command the best medical advice of the Old World.

“From the faint recollection which I have of your mother, I think you strongly resemble her,” he said, at last, in a fond, gentle tone.

“I don't know about that, Eric. She is far more of a Huntingdon than a Mitchell. She has many of the traits of your family, but in appearance she certainly belongs to my side of the house. She very often reminds me of Hugh's mother.”

Conversation turned upon the misfortune of the cripple; he spoke freely of the unsuccessful experiments made by eminent physicians; of the hopelessness of his case; and Irene was particularly impressed by the calmness and patience with which he seemed to have resigned himself to this great affliction. She could detect no trace of complaining bitterness, or, what was still more to be deplored, the irritable, nervous querulousness so often observed in persons of his situation. She found him a ripe scholar, a profound archæologist, and philosophic observer of his age and generation; and, deeply interested in his quiet, low-toned talk, she felt irresistibly drawn toward him, careless of passing hours and of Hugh's ill-concealed impatience of manner. As they rose from the tea-table her cousin said, laughingly:

“I protest against monopoly. I have not been able to say three words to my lady-cousin.”

“I yield the floor, from necessity. My long journey has unfitted me for this evening, and I must bid you all an early good-night.”

“Can I do anything for you, Uncle?”

“No, thank you, Irene; I have a servant who thoroughly understands taking care of me. Go talk to Hugh, who has been wishing me among the antipodes.”

He shook hands with her, smiled kindly, and Mr. Huntingdon assisted him to his room.

“Irene, come into the library, and let me have a cigar.”

“How tenacious your bad habits are, Hugh.”

“Smoking belongs to no such category. My habits are certainly quite as tenacious as my cousin's antipathies.”

He selected a cigar, lighted it, and drawing a chair near hers, threw himself into it with an expression of great satisfaction. “It is delightful to get back home and see you again, Irene. I felt some regret at quitting Paris, but the sight of your face more than compensates me.”

She was looking very earnestly at him, noting the alteration in his appearance, and for a moment his eyes drooped before hers. She saw that the years had been spent, not in study, but in a giddy round of pleasure and dissipation, yet the bright, frank, genial expression of boyhood still lingered, and she could not deny that he had grown up a very handsome man. She knew that he was capable of sudden, spasmodic impulses of generosity, but saw that selfishness remained the great substratum of his character, and her keen feeling of disappointment showed her now how much she had hoped to find him changed in this respect.

“Irene, I had a right to expect a warmer welcome than you deigned to give me.”

“Hugh, remember that we have ceased to be children. When you learn to regard me simply as your cousin, and are satisfied with a cousin's welcome, then, and not until then, shall you receive it. Let childish whims pass with the years that have separated us; rake up no germs of contention to mar this first evening of your return. Be reasonable, and now tell me how you have employed yourself since we parted; what have you seen? what have you gleaned?”

“Irene, it is past midnight.”

She gave no intimation of having heard him.

“Surely, Uncle Eric, there is room enough in this large, airy house of ours to accommodate my mother's brother? I thought it was fully settled that you were to reside with us. There is no good reason why you should not. Obviously, we have a better claim upon you than anybody else; why doom yourself to the loneliness of a separate household? Reconsider the matter.”

“No, Irene; it is better that I should have a quiet little home of my own, free from the inevitable restraint incident to residing under the roof of another. My recluse nature and habits unfit me for the gay young associates who throng this house, making carnival-time of all seasons.”

“I will change the library, and give you two rooms on this floor, to avoid stair-steps; I will build you a wall of partition, and have your doors and windows hermetically sealed against intrusion. No sound of billiard-ball, or dancing feet, or noisy laughter shall invade your sanctuary. Not St. Simeon, of isolated memory, could desire more complete seclusion and solitude than that with which I shall indulge you.”

“It is advisable that I should go.”

“I appreciate neither the expediency nor necessity.”

“Like all other crusty, self-indulgent bachelors, I have many whims, which I certainly do not expect people to bear patiently.”

“You are neither crusty nor self-indulgent, that I have discovered; as for your whims, I have large charity, and will humor them.”

“Irene, I want a house of my own, to which I can feel privileged to invite such guests, such companions, as I deem congenial, irrespective of the fiats of would-be social autocrats and the social ostracism of certain cliques.”

She was silent a moment, but met his keen look without the slightest embarrassment, and yet when she spoke he knew, from her eyes and voice, that she fully comprehended his meaning.

“Of course, it is a matter which you must determine for yourself. You are the best judge of what conduces to your happiness; but I am sorry, very sorry, Uncle Eric, that, in order to promote it, you feel it necessary to remove from our domestic circle. I shall miss you painfully.”

“Pardon me, but I doubt the last clause. You lean on no one sufficiently to note the absence of their support.”

“Do you recognize no difference between a parasitic clinging and an affectionate friendship—a valued companionship based on congenial tastes and sympathies?”

“Unquestionably, I admit and appreciate the distinction; but you do not meet me full-eyed, open-handed, on this common platform of congeniality, strengthened as it is, or should be, by near relationship. You confront me always with your emotional nature mail-clad, and make our intercourse a mere intellectual fencing-match. Now, mark you, I have no wish to force your confidence; that is a curious and complex lock, which only the golden key of perfect love and trust should ever open; and I simply desire to say that your constitutional reticence or habitual reserve precludes the hope of my rendering you either assistance or sympathy by my continued presence.”

“Uncle Eric, it arises from no want of trust in you, but in the consciousness that only I can help myself. I have more than once heard you quote Wallenstein; have so soon forgotten his words: “ ‘Permit her own will.For there are sorrows,Where, of necessity, the soul must beIts own support. A strong heart will relyOn its own strength alone.’ ”

“But, my dear girl, you certainly are no Thekla?’

Was there prescience in his question, and a quick recognition of it in the quiver which ran across her lips and eyelids?

“The Fates forbid that I should ever be!”

“Irene, in the name and memory of your mother, promise me one thing: that if sorrows assail you, and a third party can bear aught on his shoulders, you will call upon me.”

“A most improbable conjunction of circumstances; but, in such emergency, I promise to afflict you with a summons to the rescue. Uncle Eric, I think I shall never gall any shoulders but my own with the burdens which God may see fit to lay on them in the coming years.”

He looked pained, puzzled, and irresolute; but she smiled, and swept her fingers over the bars of her bird-cage, toying with its golden-throated inmate.

“Have you any engagement for this morning?”

“None, sir. What can I do for you?”

“If you feel disposed, I should be glad to have you accompany me to town; I want your assistance in selecting a set of china for my new home. Will you go?”

A shadow drifted over the colorless tranquil face as she said, sadly:

“Uncle Eric, is it utterly useless for me to attempt to persuade you to relinquish this project and remain with us?”

“Utterly useless, my dear child.”

“I will get my bonnet, and join you at the carriage.”

Very near the cottage formerly occupied by Mrs. Aubrey stood a small brick house, partially concealed by poplar and sycamore trees, and surrounded by a neat, well-arranged flower-garden. This was the place selected and purchased by the cripple for his future home. Mr. Huntingdon had opposed the whole proceeding, and invited his brother-in-law to reside with him; but beneath the cordial surface the guest felt that other sentiments rolled deep and strong. He had little in common with his sister's husband, and only a warm and increasing affection for his niece now induced him to settle in W——. Some necessary repairs had been made, some requisite arrangements completed regarding servants, and today the finishing touches were given to the snug little bachelor establishment. When it was apparent that no arguments would avail to alter the decision, Irene ceased to speak of it, and busied herself in various undertakings to promote her uncle's comfort. She made pretty white curtains for his library-windows, knitted bright-colored worsted lamp-mats, and hemmed and marked the contents of the linen-closet. The dining-room pantry she took under her special charge, and at the expiration of ten days, when the master took formal possession, she accompanied him, and enjoyed the pleased surprise with which he received her donation of cakes, preserves, catchups, pickles, etc., etc., neatly stowed away on the spotless shelves.

“I shall make a weekly pilgrimage to this same pantry, and take an inventory of its contents. I intend to take good care of you, though you have moved off, Diogenes-like.”

She stepped forward, and arranged some glass jars which stood rather irregularly.

“How prim and old-maidish you are!” laughed her uncle.

“I never could bear to see things scattered in that helter-skelter style; I like bottles, jars, plates, and dishes drilled into straight lines, not leaning in and out, in that broken-rank fashion. I am not given to boasting, but I will say that no housekeeper can show a nicer, neater pantry than my own.”

“What have you in that basket?”

“Flowers from the greenhouse. Come into the library, and let me dress your new vases.”

He followed her into the next room, and watched her as she leisurely and tastefully disposed her flowers; now searching the basket for a sprig of evergreen, and now bending obstinate stems to make stiff clusters lean lovingly to each other. Placing the vases on the mantle, she stepped back to inspect the effect, and said, gravely:

“How beautiful they are! Let me always dress your vases, Uncle. Women have a knack of intertwining stems and grouping colors; our fingers were ordained for all such embroidery on the coarse gray serge of stern, practical every-day life. You men are more at home with state papers, machine-shops, navies, armies, political economy, and agricultural chemistry than with fragile azaleas and golden-dusted lilies.”

Before he could reply she turned and asked:

“What do these large square boxes in the hall contain?”

“Books which I gathered in Europe and selected in New York; among them many rare old volumes, which you have never seen. Come down next Monday, and help me to number and shelve them; afterward, we will read them together. Lay aside your bonnet, and spend the evening with me.”

“No, I must go back; Hugh sent me word that he would bring company to tea.”

He took her hand and drew her close to his chair, saying gently:

“Ah, Irene! I wish I could keep you always. You would be happier here, in this little unpretending home of mine, than presiding as mistress over that great palatial house on the hill yonder.”

“There you mistake me most entirely. I love, better than any other place on earth, my stately, elegant, beautiful home. Not Fontainebleau, Windsor, Potsdam; not the vine-yards of Shiraz, or the gardens of Damascus, could win me from it. I love every tree, every creeper, every foot of ground from the front-gate to the brink of the creek. If you suppose that I am not happy there, you err egregiously.”

“My intuitions rarely deceive me.”

“At least, Uncle Eric, they play you false in this instance. Why, sir, I would not give my grand old avenue of primeval elms for St. Peter's nave. Your intuitions are full of cobwebs; have them well swept and dusted before I see you Monday. Good-night, Uncle; I must really go. If you find we have forgotten anything, send Willis up for it.”

He kissed her fingers tenderly, and, taking her basket, she left him alone in his new home.

A few weeks passed without incident; Hugh went to New Orleans to visit friends, and Mr. Huntingdon was frequently absent at the plantation.

One day be expressed the desire that Judge Harris' family should dine with him, and added several gentlemen, “to make the party merry.” Irene promptly issued the invitations, suppressing the reluctance which filled her heart; for the young people were not favorites, and she dreaded Charlie's set speeches and admiring glances, not less than his mother's endless disquisitions on fashion and the pedigree of all the best families of W——and its vicinage. Grace had grown up very pretty, highly accomplished, even-tempered, gentle-hearted, but full of her mother's fashionable notions, and, withal, rather weak and frivolous. She and Irene were constantly thrown into each other's society, but no warmth of feeling existed on either side. Grace could not comprehend her companion's character, and Irene wearied of her gay, heedless chitchat. As the latter anticipated, the day proved very tiresome; the usual complement of music was contributed by Grace, the expected quantity of flattering nothings gracefully uttered by her brother, the customary amount of execrable puns handed around the circle for patronage, and Irene gave the signal for dinner. Mr. Huntingdon prided himself on his fine wines, and, after the decanters had circulated freely, the gentlemen grew garrulous as market-women.

Irene was gravely discussing the tariff question with Mr. Herbert Blackwell (whom Mrs. Harris pronounced the most promising young lawyer of her acquaintance), and politely listening to his stereotyped reasoning, when a scrap of conversation at the opposite end of the table attracted her attention.

“Huntingdon, my dear fellow, I tell you I never made a mistake in my life, when reading people's minds; and if Aubrey has not the finest legal intellect in W——, I will throw up my judgeship. You have seen Campbell, I suppose? He returned last week, and, by the way, I half-expected to meet him to-day; well, I was talking to him about Aubrey, and he laughed his droll, chuckling laugh, snapped his bony fingers in my face, and said:

“Aye! aye, Harris! let him alone; hands off! and I will wager my new office against your old one that he steps into your honor's shoes. Now you know perfectly well that Campbell has no more enthusiasm than a brick wall or a roll of red tape; but he is as proud of the young man as if he were his son. Do you know that he has taken him into partnership?”

“Pshaw! he will never commit such a faux pas.”

“But he has; I read the notice in this morning's paper. Pass the madeira. The fact is, we must not allow our old prejudices to make us unjust. I know Aubrey has struggled hard; he had much to contend—”

“Hang Campbell and the partnership! He will find that he has played the fool before he gets rid of his precious pet. Miss Grace, do let me fill your glass? My young prude there at the head of the table just sips hers as if she feared it was poisoned. Mrs. Harris, you have no sherry; permit me.”

“The young man's antecedents are most disgraceful, Mr. Huntingdon, and I told the judge last night that I was surprised at Mr. Campbell's infatuation,” chimed in Mrs. Harris over her golden sherry.

“Whose antecedents, Mother?”

“My dear, we were speaking of Russell Aubrey, and the stigma on his name and character.”

“Oh, yes! His father was sentenced to be hung, I believe, and committed suicide in prison. But what a splendid, dark-looking man he is! Decidedly the most superb figure and eyes in W——. Shy, though! shy as a school-girl; will cross the street to avoid meeting a body. When he finds that he can not dodge you, he gives you the full benefit of his magnificent eyes, and bows as haughtily as Great Mogul. Maria Henderson goes into raptures over his figure.”

With head slightly inclined, and eyes fixed on Mr. Blackwell's face, Irene had heard all that passed, and as the gentleman paused in his harangue to drain his glass, she rose and led the way to the parlors. The gentlemen adjourned to the smoking-room, and in a short time Mrs. Harris ordered her carriage, pleading an engagement with Grace's mantua-maker as an excuse for leaving so early. With a feeling of infinite relief the hostess accompanied them to the door, saw the carriage descend the avenue, and, desiring one of the servants to have Erebus saddled at once, she went to her room and changed the rich dinner-dress for her riding-habit. As she sprang into the saddle, and gathered up the reins, her father called from the open window, whence issued curling wreaths of blue smoke:

“Come out on the colonnade; the air is delicious.” As he spoke, Hugh drew his cousin's arm through his, and led the way from the tea-table.

“You had company to dine to-day?”

“Yes; if I had known that you were coming home to-day, I would have postponed the invitation till to-morrow. Grace expressed much disappointment at your absence.”

“Indeed! Of course I am duly grateful. What a pretty, sweet little creature she is! So sprightly, so vivacious, so winning; so charmingly ignorant of ‘Almacantar’ and ‘Azimuth,’ and all such learned stupidity. Unlike some royal personages of my acquaintance, who are for ever soaring among the stars, she never stretches my brains the hundredth part of an inch to comprehend her delightful prattle. Like Dickens' ‘Dora,’ she regards any attempt to reason with her as a greater insult than downright scolding. Your solemn worshipper was also present, I believe?”

“To whom do you allude?”

“Your tedious, tiresome, pertinacious shadow, Herbert Blackwell, of course! Do you know that I detest that man most cordially?”

“For what reason?”

“I really do not feel in the mood to enumerate all his peccadilloes and disagreeable traits; but it is supremely ridiculous to see the way in which he hovers round you, like one of those large black moths about the hall-lamp.”

“Come, come, Hugh! Mr. Blackwell is a man whom I respect and esteem, and you shall not make him a target for your merriment.”

“Oh, doubtless! my Czarina! and, as a reward for your consideration, he would fain confer on you his distinguished hand and fortune. It is quite a respectable farce to watch him watching you.”

“I wish you had a tithe of his industry and perseverance. Did it ever occur to you that life is given for nobler purposes and loftier aspirations than hunting, fishing, horse-racing, gambling, and similar modes of murdering time which you habitually patronize?”

“You are too young to play the role of Mentor, and those rare red lips of yours were never meant for homilizing. Irene, how long do you intend to keep me in painful suspense?”

“I am not aware that I have in any degree kept you in suspense.”

“At all events, you know that you torture me with cool, deliberate cruelty.”

“I deny your charge most solemnly.”

“My dear Irie, let us understand each other fully, for——.”

“Nay, Hugh—be honest; there is no misapprehension whatever. We thoroughly understand each other already.”

“You shall not evade me; I have been patient, and the time has come when we must talk of our future. Irene, dearest, be generous, and tell me when will you give me, irrevocably, this hand, which has been promised to me from your infancy?”

“To-whit—to-whoo!” Munin stretched his broad gray wings, and, quitting the mantlepiece, perched upon the top of the easel, gazing down at the solitary artist, and uttering all the while a subdued melancholy note of complaint, as if to attract her attention. She looked up and held out her hand coaxingly.

“Munin! Munin! what do you want? You haunt me like my shadow. Poor pet, true to your name, you pine for your master.”

The ruffled plumes smoothed themselves, the plaint was hushed. He fluttered to her shoulder, received her soft, caressing touches with evident satisfaction, nestled his beak in her shining hair, and then, as if soothed and contented, flitted to the open window. Resuming her brush, Electra leaned forward and continued her work. “Laborare est orare;” if so, no more ardent devotee ever bowed at the shrine of toil, bearing sacrificial offerings. Thoughts, hopes, aspirations, memories, all centred in the chosen profession; to its prosecution she brought the strength and energy of an indomitable will, the rich and varied resources of a well-stored, brilliant intellect. It was evident that she labored con amore, and now the expectation of approaching triumph lent additional eagerness to her manner. The fingers trembled, the eyes sparkled unwontedly, a deeper, richer crimson glowed on the smooth cheeks, and the lips parted and closed unconsciously. The tantalizing dreams of childhood, beautiful but evanescent, had gradually embodied themselves in a palpable, tangible, glorious reality; and the radiant woman exulted in the knowledge that she had but to put forth her hand and grasp it. The patient work of twelve months drew to a close; the study of years bore its first fruit; the last delicate yet quivering touch was given; she threw down palette and brush, and, stopping back, surveyed the canvas. The Exhibition would open within two days, and this was to be her contribution. A sad-eyed Cassandra, with pallid, prescient, woe-struck features—an overmastering face, wherein the flickering light of divination struggled feebly with the human horror of the To-Come, whose hideous mysteries were known only to the royal prophetess. In mute and stern despair it looked out from the canvas, a curious, anomalous thing—cut adrift from human help, bereft of aid from heaven—yet, in its doomed isolation, scorning to ask the sympathy which its extraordinary loveliness extorted from all who saw it. The artist's pride in this, her first finished creation, might well be pardoned, for she was fully conscious that the cloud-region of a painful novitiate lay far beneath her; that henceforth she should never miss the pressure of long-coveted chaplets from her brow; that she should bask in the warm, fructifying rays of public favor; and measureless exultation flashed in her beautiful eyes. The torch of Genius burned brightly, as, buoyant and eager, she took her place in the great lampadrome of life; but would it endure till the end? Would it light up the goal standing upon the terminus of Time?

The door opened, and Russell came into the studio. She was not expecting him; his sudden appearance gave her no time to adjust the chilling mask of pride, and all her uncontrolled affection found eloquent language in the joyful face.

“Russell! my own dear Russell!”

He drew his arm around her and kissed her flushed cheek, and each looked at the other, wondering at the changes which years had wrought.

“Electra, you have certainly improved more than any one I ever knew. You look the impersonation of perfect health; it is needless to ask how you are.” And again his lips touched the beaming face pressed against his shoulder. Her arms stole tremblingly around his neck, past indifference was forgotten in the joy of his presence, and she murmured:

“I thought I should not see you before I left America. I can not tell you what a pleasure this surprise is to me. Oh, Russell! I longed inexpressibly to be with you once more. Thank you, a thousand times, for coming to me at last.”

“Did you suppose that I intended to let you put the Atlantic between us without making an effort to see you again? Were you unjust enough to believe that I had forgotten the only relative whom I love? My dear little sceptic, I have come to prove my affection, and put yours to the test.”

He pressed her closer to his heart, but suddenly she shrank from him, unclasped his arm, and, wheeling two chairs to the window, said, hurriedly:

“Sit down, and let me look at you. You have grown so tall and commanding that I am half-afraid of my own cousin. You are less like Aunt Amy than formerly.”

“Allow me to look at your painting first, it will soon be too dark to examine it. This is the Cassandra of which you wrote me.”

He stood before it for some moments in silence, and she watched him with breathless eagerness—for his opinion was of more value to her than that of all the dilettanti and connoisseurs who would soon inspect it. Gradually his dark, cold face kindled, and she had her reward.

“It is a masterly creation; a thing of wonderful and imperishable beauty; it is a great success—as such the world will receive it—and hundreds will proclaim your triumph. I am proud of it, and doubly proud of you.”

He held out his hand, and, as she put her fingers in his, her head drooped and hot tears blinded her. Praise from the lips she loved best stirred her womanly heart as the applause of the public could never do; and, in after years, when grief and loneliness oppressed her, these precious words rang sweet and silvery through the darkened chambers of her soul, working miracles of comfort infinitely beyond the potent spell of Indian O-U-M or mystic Agla. Without perceiving her emotion he continued, with his eyes fixed on the picture:

“Some day you must make me a copy, and I will hang it over the desk in my office, where I can feast my eyes on its rare loveliness and my ears with your praises from all who see it. How long have you been at work upon it?”

“I can't recall the time when it first took hold of my imagination; it paced by my side when I was a child, brooded over me in my troubled dreams, looked out from the pomp of summer clouds and the dripping drab skies of winter, floated on snow-flakes, and flashed in thunder-storms; but I outlined it about a year ago. For my Exhibition picture, I wavered long between this and an unfinished Antigone; but finally decided in favor of Cassandra.”

“And selected wisely. While in Europe I saw, in a private house, an exquisite head of the ‘Erythroean Sybil,’ which somewhat resembles your painting. The position is almost identical—the nose, mouth, and chin very similar; but the glory of this Cassandra is the supernatural eyes, brimful of prescience. It might afford matter for curious speculation, however, and some time we will trace the subtle law of association of ideas by which two artists, separated by the Atlantic and by centuries, chanced, under totally different circumstances, to portray similarly the two distinct prophetesses who both foretold the doom of Troy.”

“If such is the case, the world will be very sceptical of the coincidence. I did not even know that there was an ‘Erythroean Sybil,’ much less a picture of her; so much for ignorance! The critics who knew that I did not paint your portrait, simply because it was well done, will swear that I stole the whole of my Cassandra,” answered Electra, perplexed and troubled.

“You need not look so rueful, and plough your forehead with that heavy frown. In all probability I am the only person in New York who has seen the other picture; and, granting the contrary, the resemblance might not be detected. If you suffer it to annoy you, I shall be sorry that I mentioned it. Yet, I doubt not, the withering charge of plagiarism has often been hurled in the face of an honest worker quite as unjustly as it would be in your case. Very startling coincidences sometimes occur most innocently; but carping envy is a thrifty plant, and flourishes on an astonishingly small amount of soil.”

“Who painted that Sibyl?”

“It is not known positively. Travelling through the northern part of France, I was detained some hours at a village, and employed the delay in rambling about the suburbs. Following a winding road it brought me to the enclosure of a chateau, and I leaned on the fence and admired the parterre, which was uncommonly pretty. The owner happened to be among his flower-beds, saw me, and, with genuine French politeness and urbanity, insisted that I should enter and rest myself while he gathered me a bouquet of mignonette and pinks. The afternoon was warm, and I asked for a glass of water. He took me into the house, and on the parlor wall hung this picture. It riveted my attention, and flattered, doubtless, by my evident admiration, he gave me its history. His father had found it at a picture-shop in Germany, I forget now exactly where, and bought it for a Dolce, but doubled its genuineness; and my host, who seemed thoroughly au fait in Art matters, asserted that it belonged to a much earlier school. That is all that I or the owner know of it; so dismiss the subject from your mind.”

“I shall not, I promise you. Give me minute directions, and I will hunt up chateau mignonette, gentlemanly proprietor, Sybil, and all. Who knows but metempsychosis may be true after all, and that the painter's soul possesses me bodily, striving to portray the archetype which haunted him in the last stage of existence? According to Vaughan, the Portuguese have a superstition that the soul of a man who has died leaving some duty unfulfilled, or promised work unfinished, is frequently known to enter into another person, and, dislodging for a time the rightful soul-occupant, impel him unconsciously to complete what was lacking.”

“You are growing positively paganish, Electra, from constant association with the dead deities of classic ages, and I must reclaim you. Come, sit down, and tell me something of your life since the death of your friend, Mr. Clifton.”

“Did you receive my last letter, giving an account of Mrs. Clifton's death?”

“Yes; just as I stepped upon the platform of the cars it was handed to me. I had heard nothing from you for so long, that I thought it was time to look after you.”

“You had started, then, before you knew that I was going to Europe?”

“Yes.”

He could not understand the instantaneous change which came over her countenance—the illumination, followed as suddenly by a smile, half-compassionate, half-bitter. She pressed one hand to her heart, and said:

“Mrs. Clifton never seemed to realize her son's death, though, after paralysis took place, and she became speechless, I thought she recovered her memory in some degree. She survived him just four months, and, doubtless, was saved much grief by her unconsciousness of what had occurred. Poor old lady! she suffered little for a year past, and died, I hope, without pain. I have the consolation of knowing that I did all that could be done to promote her comfort. Russell, I would not live here for any consideration; nothing but a sense of duty has detained me this long. I promised him that I would not forsake his mother. But you can have no adequate conception of the feeling of desolation which comes over me when I sit here during the long evenings. He seems watching me from picture-frames and pedestals; his face—his pleading, patient, wan face—haunts me perpetually. And yet I tried to make him happy; God knows I did my duty.”

She sprang up and paced the room for some moments, with her hands behind her, and tears glittering on her cheeks. Pausing at last on the rug, she pointed to a large square object closely shrouded, and added:

“Yonder stands his last picture, unfinished. The day he died he put a few feeble strokes upon it, and bequeathed the completion of the task to me. For several years he worked occasionally on it, but much remains to be done. It is the ‘Death of Socrates.’ I have not even looked at it since that night; I do not intend to touch it until after I visit Italy; I doubt whether my hand will ever be steady enough to give the last strokes. Oh, Russell! the olden time, the cottage-days seem far, far off to me now!”

Leaning against the mantle-piece she dropped her head on her hand, but when he approached and stood at the opposite corner he saw that the tears had dried.

“Neither of us has had a sunny life, Electra; both have had numerous obstacles to contend with; both have very bitter memories. Originally there was a certain parallelism in our characters, but with our growth grew the divergence. You have preserved the nobler part of your nature better than I; for my years I am far older than you; none of the brightness of my boyhood seems to linger about me. Contact with the world is an indurating process; I really did not know how hard I had grown, until I felt my heart soften at sight of you. I need you to keep the kindly charities and gentle amenities of life before me, and, therefore, I have come for you. But for my poverty, I never would have given you up so long; I felt that it would be for your advantage, in more than one respect, to remain with Mr. Clifton until I had acquired my profession. I knew that you would enjoy privileges here which I could not give you in my straitened circumstances. Things have changed; Mr. Campbell has admitted me to partnership; my success I consider an established fact. Give up, for a season, this projected tour of Europe; wait till I can go with you, till I can take you; go back to W——with me. You can continue your art-studies, if you wish it; you can prosecute them there as well as here. You are ambitious, Electra; so am I; let us work together.”

She raised her head and looked up at the powerful, nobly-proportioned form, the grand, kingly face, calm and colorless, the large, searching black eyes, within whose baffling depths lay all the mysteries of mesmerism, and a spasm of pain seized her own features. She shaded her brow, and answered:

“No, Russell, I cou