Alone

Transcriber's Notes: Italics are indicated by _underscores_.

Alone.

By Marion Harland,

Of Richmond, Virginia.

"Through long, long years, to seek, to strive, to yearn For human love,--and never quench that thirst; To pour the soul out winning no return-- O'er fragile idols, by delusions nursed,-- On things that fail us, reed by reed, to lean, To mourn the changed, the far-away, the dead, To send our troubled spirits through the unseen Intensely questioning for treasures fled."

Hemans.

Nineteenth Thousand.

NEW YORK: J.C.DERBY, 119 NASSAU STREET. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO. CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY. 1856.

ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

A. Morris,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Dedication.

_To my Brother and Sister._

It is meet that those whose sympathy has been dew and sunshine to the nursery plant, should watch over its transplantation into the public garden. And as this Dedication is the only portion of the book which is new to you, you do not require that it should remind you of the welcome stormy evenings, when I laid down my pen, to read to you the chapters written since our last "select party;" how the fictitious names of my real characters were household words to our trio: and your flattering interest--grateful because sincere--stimulated my flagging spirits in the performance of my task. You know, too, what many may not believe--with what misgivings it was entered upon, and prosecuted; what fears of the licensed critic's ban, and the unlicensed public's sneer;--above all, you comprehend the motive that held me to the work--an earnest desire to contribute my mite for the promotion of the happiness and usefulness of my kind. Coming as it does from my heart--penned under the shadow of our home-altar, I cannot but feel that the mission of my offering is to the hearts of others,--ask for it no higher place than the fireside circle. Readers and judges like yourselves, I may not, do not hope to find; but I trust there are those who will pardon the lack of artistic skill in the plot, or the deficiency of stirring incident, in consideration of the fact, that my story is what it purports to be, a simple tale of life--common joy and sorrow, whose merits, if it has any, consist in its truthfulness to Nature, and the fervent spirit which animated its narration.

Marion Harland.

Richmond, 1854.

Alone.

Chapter I.

The Sermon was over; the funeral psalm chanted brokenly, by reason of quick-drawn sobs, and bursts of tender remembrance; the heart's tribute to the memory of the departed. "The services will be concluded at the grave," pronounced the clergyman in an unwilling voice; and a shuddering awe fell, as it ever does, upon all. "The Grave!" Even in the presence of the sheeted dead, listening to the rehearsal of excellences lost to earth,--set as living stars in a firmament of unchanging splendor;--we cannot comprehend the dread reality of bereavement. Earth smiles the same; familiar faces surround us; and if the absence of one is painfully noted, the soul would fain delude itself with the belief that his departure is not forever;--"he is not dead, but sleepeth." But "the Grave!" These two words convey an irrevocable sentence. We feel for the first time the extent of the gulf that separates us from the clay, beloved, although inanimate; the dissevering of every bond of companionship. For us the earth has, as before, its griefs, its joys and its duties;--for the dear one--but a grave! The story of a life is ended there. The bearers advanced and took up the coffin. They were no hired officials, performing their work with ill-concealed indifference, or faces robed in borrowed lugubriousness; but old family servants, who had sported with the deceased in infancy; faithfully served her in later years, and had now solicited and obtained this mournful privilege. Tears coursed down their dusky cheeks as they lifted their burden and bore it forth from the portal which seemed to grow darker, as she, the light of the dwelling, quitted it, to return no more. They wound through the flowery labyrinth whose mazes were her care and delight. The dews of evening were beginning to descend upon the thirsting petals, and in the breezeless air hung, in an almost visible cloud, the grateful return of spicy and languishing odors. A tall rose tree drooped over the path, and as the bearers brushed by its stem, a shower, like perfumed snow-flakes, lay upon the pall. The end of the journey was reached; a secluded and beautiful spot in the lower part of the garden, where were many mounds clustered together--graves of a household. A weeping willow, years before, a little shoot, planted by the hand of the wife to mark her husband's resting-place, now grown into a stately tree, swept its feathery pendants above her pillow. The cords were lashed around the coffin, and the word given to lower it into the pit; when--with a shriek that chilled the blood of the bystanders--a slight figure darted forward, and clasped it in her arms. "Mother! oh mother! come back!" Men of iron nerve bowed in childlike weakness, and wept, as this desolate cry rent the air. She spoke not another word, but lay, her cheek to the cold wood, enclosing the colder form, and her fingers interlocked in a vice-like grasp. "Ida! my child!" said the old minister, bending to raise her; "She is not here. She is with her God. Can you wish her again upon this sinful earth?" His consolation was addressed to an ear as dull as that of the corpse. In that outburst of frenzied supplication, consciousness had left her. "It is best so!" said the venerable man. "She could not have borne it else."

The ceremony was concluded--"dust to dust--ashes to ashes;"--and the crowd turned sorrowfully away. It was not in pity for the orphan alone. There were none there who could not recount some deed of love or charity done by her, whom they had given to the earth. Since the deaths of a fondly loved partner and three sweet children, Mrs. Ross had sought balm for her wounds, by binding up those of others. Environed by neighbours, whose position and means were more humble than her own, she had ample exercise for her active benevolence;--benevolence evincing itself,--not in studied graciousness and lavish almsgiving, but in kindly sympathy, and those nameless offices of friendship, so easily rendered, so dear to the recipient. "Her children shall rise up and call her blessed," was the text of her funeral discourse, and the pastor but uttered the feelings of his auditory, when he called the community in which her blameless life had been passed, her family--loving her, and through her, united together in bonds of fraternal affection. In this genial clime, had Ida Ross been nurtured;--beloved for her mother's sake, as for the warm impulses of her generous nature; petted and indulged; yet obeying the least expression of her parent's wishes, not in slavish fear, but a devotion amounting to worship. She had no companions of her own age who were her equals in education or refinement, and from intimate connection with vulgarity she shrank instinctively. Her pride was not offensively displayed. No one could live in the sphere of which Mrs. Ross was the ruling power and feel aught like superciliousness or contempt of inferiors. From infancy, Ida was her mother's companion; at an early age her confidante and co-adviser; had read her pure heart as a richly illuminated missal, from which self-examination and severe criticism had expunged whatever could sully or disfigure. Can we marvel that she shrined her in her heart of hearts as a being more than human--scarcely less than divine?

That mysterious Providence who guides the fowler's messenger of death to the breast of the parent bird, leaving the callow nestling to perish with hunger, recalled the mother's spirit ere her labor of love was completed. Ida was an orphan in her fifteenth year;--the age of all others when a mother's counsels are needed;--when the child stands tremblingly upon the threshold of girlhood, and looks with wondering, wistful eyes into the rosy vista opened to her sight. Babes in knowledge, nine girls out of ten are grown in heart at fifteen. A stroke, whether of extraordinary joy or sorrow, will oftentimes demolish the gew-gaws of the child, and reveal instead, the patient endurance, the steady faith, the all-absorbing love of a woman. A week had passed--a week devoted by the bereaved to thoughts of, and weepings for the lost, by others to preparations for her residence among strangers. Years might elapse before her return. That night, as stealthily as though seeking a forbidden spot, she trod the path to her mother's grave. It was clear starlight, and she sat down beside the newly sodded mound, and rested her brow upon it. Cold--cold and hard! but it entombed her mother;--aye! and _her_ heart! for what had she to love now? There was no loving breast to receive that aching head;--no solace for the wounded spirit. The dew-gems lay freshly upon the grass;--for her the dewiness of life was gone;--earth was one vast sepulchre. She looked up to the stars. In the summer evenings her mother's chair used to stand in the piazza, and she sat at her feet, her eyes fixed alternately upon her angelic face, and the shining orbs above them. Mrs. Ross loved to think of them as the abodes of the blest; the mansions prepared for those who had sojourned in this sin-stained world and yet worn their white robes unblemished; and the theory was confidently adopted by the imaginative child. She drank in descriptions of the glories of those celestial regions until her straining eyes seemed to catch a glimpse of a seraph's glittering robe, and she leaned breathlessly forward to hear the music of his golden harp. But to-night the sparkling smiles of those effulgent ones, "forever singing as they shine," were changed to pitying regards as they beheld her so sad and lonely;--the gleam of the seraph's wings was dimmed; his far-off melody plaintive and low, and the burden of his song was "alone." The wind waved the willow-boughs, and a whispering ran through the leaves--"Alone--alone!" The words were so audibly breathed that the girl started in her delirious sorrow, and gazed wildly around. "Oh mother! cannot you leave Heaven for one short minute to comfort your child? Who will love her now? Alone, all alone! mother! _dear_ mother!"

Chapter II

Two persons sat in the parlor of a handsome house situated in a pleasant street of the capital of our Old Dominion. The afternoon of a summer's day was deepening into twilight, but the waning light sufficed to show the features of the occupants. There was no hazard in pronouncing them father and daughter. The square forehead, indicative rather of keenness of perception and shrewd sense, than high intellectual faculties; the full, grey eye; flexible lips, and heavily moulded chin were the same in both, although softened in the younger, until her face might have been deemed pretty, had the observer omitted to remark an occasional steel-like spark, struck from the clear eyes, and a compression of the mouth, betokening a sleeping demon whom it would be dangerous to arouse from his lair. A turbulent light flashed there now. She had thrown herself into the corner of a sofa, after many restless wanderings through the apartment, and the shapely foot, oscillating rapidly, beat with its toe, a tattoo agitato upon the floor. Her father was immersed in thought or apathy. She repeated a question in a voice which savored of peevishness, before he withdrew his eyes from the watch-key, the twirling of which had been his occupation for a quarter of an hour. "At what hour will your ward arrive, sir?"

"She must be here in a short time. They have travelled slowly. The journey might have been accomplished as well in one day, as two."

"You said her escort was a clergyman, I think. Gentlemen of the cloth are not famous for inconveniencing themselves to gratify others," responded the young lady. "They inveigh against the emptiness and vanity of sublunary things; yet I know no class of men who enjoy 'creature comforts' more."

"Confounded humbugs!" was the rejoinder, and a muttered something about "priest-craft" and "blind leaders of the blind" finished the sentence so charitably begun.

Another pause was ended by the daughter. "Miss Ross' father was an early friend of yours,--a college chum,--was he not?"

"He was,--and a clever fellow into the bargain;" said her father, with a touch of feeling in his tone. "At his death, he left to me the management of his child's property,--(a snug operation I have made of it, too!) In the event of the mother's decease, I was appointed sole guardian, an office for which, it must be said, I have little partiality. If Mrs. Ross had given her up to me ten years ago, I might have made something of her; but she said a mother was the proper guide for her daughter. Women are wonderfully self-sufficient,--always undertaking what it would puzzle sensible men to do, and perfectly satisfied with the style in which it is done." If there was any meaning in the severity of this remark, the face and voice of the listener betrayed no consciousness.

"How old is Miss Ross?"

"What is your age?" and seeing her hesitate--"What does the Family Bible say? I want no school-girl airs."

"I am fifteen sir," raising her eyes coolly to his.

"And she is two months younger. A pretty time I shall have for six years; unless she takes it into her head to marry before she is of age. Very probably she will; for her fortune, although small, is large enough to attract some fool, too lazy to work, and too ambitious to remain poor."

"Is she pretty?"

"How should I know? I only saw her at her mother's funeral, where she got up quite a scene--fainting and such like. I came away the next day, and she was still too unwell to leave her room, they said."

"Romantically inclined! Pity she should be doomed to uncongenial associations!"

"You would indeed have profited little by my instructions if your mind were infected by these whimsies," said her parent, with a self-gratulatory air. "I pride myself upon your superiority to the generality of your sex, at least, in this respect"--

"There is a carriage at the door," interrupted the other, in an unvarying tone, and without changing her posture. The host met, in the entry, an elderly gentleman and a young girl, whom he saluted as "Mr. Hall" and "Miss Ross," introducing them to "Miss Read, my daughter." Ida glanced timidly into the face of her guardian, and then hastily scanned that of his daughter. That the scrutiny was unsatisfactory, was to be read in the deeper sadness that fell over her countenance, while the sinking lashes, and trembling lip showed how sharp was the disappointment. Youthful and inexperienced as she was, her heart told her that the bruised tendrils which had been torn from their original support could never learn to twine around these gelid statues.

"You will remain to tea, Mr. Hall," said Mr. Read, as the good clergyman arose.

"I thank you, sir; but our journey has been fatiguing owing to the extreme heat. I find myself in need of rest,--and my charge here requires it more than I do."

"You will call before you leave the city. May we not hope for the pleasure of your company to dinner to-morrow?"

The invitation was accepted; and after a silent pressure of the hand from Ida, and a courtly bow from father and daughter, Mr. Hall took his leave.

"Miss Ross would perhaps like to make some alteration in her dress, Josephine," Mr. Read said; his manner testifying how necessary he esteemed the proposed measure. Miss Read rang for a light, and signified to Ida that she was ready to show her up stairs. Any change from the bleak formality of their presence was a relief; and she longed to be alone, if but for half an hour, that she might give way to the emotions which had been rising and beating, through the livelong day, choking and blinding her. But Miss Read summoned a servant, whom she ordered to wait upon Miss Ross, now and in future; and seated herself in a rocking-chair to watch the progress of the toilette. Mechanically Ida went through the torture of dressing. There are times when it is such;--when the manifold details, heretofore so engaging, are to the preoccupied and suffering mind, like the thorn of the prickly-pear, too small to be observed, but pricking burningly in every fibre and pore. It was a woman--a sister--a girl as young as herself--perhaps as tender-hearted, who sat there. Why not, with the unrepressed sorrowfulness of a child, bury her face in her lap, and sob, "I have lost my mother!" to be fondled and comforted into composure? It would be sacrilege to ruffle the elegant propriety of her figure; and the glassy eyes said, by their tearless stare,--"Between you and me there is a great gulf _fixed_!" One weakness Ida could not overcome; the repugnance to beholding herself in her mourning garments. They as yet reminded her too vividly of the bier and the pall. She averted her eyes, as she stood before the mirror, to put the finishing stroke to her apparel. "I beg your pardon," said the calm voice of Josephine. "Your collar is all awry. Permit me"--Ida submitted in silence, while her volunteer assistant unpinned, and re-arranged the crape folds, but as she gathered them under the mourning brooch, a tear, large and pellucid, dropped upon her hand. It was but a drop of salt water to Miss Read, and she wiped it off, as she asked her guest "to walk down to tea." To the new-comer, the palatable food was as the apples of Sodom--bitter ashes. She could not swallow or speak. Her companions ate and chatted with great gusto. The ill-humour of an hour since had passed away. This exemplary daughter was her father's idol, when contrasted with other, and less favored girls. She was formed in his image, and when the plastic mind was wax to receive, and adamant to retain impressions, he moulded it after a pattern of his own. He taught her deceit, under the name of self-control; heartlessness, he called prudence; veiled distrust and misanthropy under clear-sightedness and knowledge of human nature. All those holy and beautiful feelings which evidence to man his kindred to his Divine model and Creator, he tossed aside, with the sweeping condemnation--"romance and nonsense!" The crying sin was to be "womanish;"--"woman" and "fool" were synonymes, used indiscriminately to express the superlative of ire-exciting folly. He delighted in showing things as they were. Men were machines, moved by secret springs of policy and knavery; the world a stage, viewed by others in the deceptive glare of artificial lights, and so made attractive. He had penetrated into the mysteries behind the curtain, and examined, in the unflattering day, the clumsy contrivances, gaudy daubing and disgustful hollowness of the whole. Fancy and the pleasures of imagination were empty, bombastic names; he would have seen in Niagara only a sizeable fall, and "calculated," amidst the rushing shout of its mighty waters, as to the number of cotton-mills it would turn, and the thousands it would net him, could he transport it, patent right secured, to Virginia. He tore the cloud-covering from the storm-god's brow, and beheld a roaring, vaporing giant, whose insane attacks might be warded off by philosophical precautions, and discretion in the disposition of lightning rods.

The party returned to the parlor. "You play, I presume, Miss Ross?" said her guardian. Inexpressibly hurt by this new proof of insensibility to her situation, Ida faltered an excuse of fatigue and want of practice; and with a very perceptible shrug, he addressed his daughter. "What apology have _you_, Josephine?" She replied by going to the instrument, but had just taken her seat, when the door opened to admit three visitors--two school-fellows of Miss Read's, and their brother. "The Misses and Mr. Talbot" were presented in due form to the stranger, who had risen to leave the room. Josephine saw the movement, and arrested it by the introduction. No attention was paid to her; and in the midst of the lively conversation, she seized an opportunity to speak aside to Josephine. "I wish to retire, if you please." Josephine started. If not so measured, the tone was as haughty as hers, at its proudest pitch. With a word of apology to her guests, she led the way into the hall, and lighted a lamp. Ida took it from her. "I will go up without you. Good night." She walked up the staircase with a steady step, for she was followed by a gaze of wonderment and anger; but when her chamber was gained, she sprang through the door--locked and double locked it, and dashed herself upon the floor. A hurricane raged within her--grief, outraged feeling and desperation. The grave had gorged her past, black walls of ice bounded the future. Meanwhile the sound of jocund voices came up through the flooring; bursts of laughter; and then music; brilliant waltzes and triumphant marches, to where the orphan lay sobbing, not weeping, with hysterical violence; her hands clenched upon her temples, through which each convulsion sent a pang that forced from her a moan of anguish.

"She is a weak, foolish baby! it will take an immensity of schooling to make her endurable;" said Mr. Read, when the guests had gone.

"She has temper enough, in all conscience!" rejoined Josephine, and she related the scene preceding her withdrawal.

"Bad! bad!" ejaculated the senior, with a solemn shake of the head. "I admire spirit in a girl; but a woman should have no temper!"

Chapter III.

In a crowded school-room, on a glorious October morning, a student was penning, with slow and heavy fingers, an Italian exercise. A physiognomist's eye would have wandered with comparative carelessness over the faces,--so various in feature and character--by which she was surrounded, and found in hers, subject for curious speculation; wondering at the contradictory evidence her countenance and form gave of her age; the one, sombre in its thoughtfulness, its dark eyes piercing through his, into his soul, said twenty--perhaps thirty--the lithe figure and rounded limbs, sixteen; but most, he would have marvelled at the listlessness of her attitude; the lack of interest in her occupation and external objects, when every line, in brow, eyes and mouth, bespoke energy; a spirit strong to do or dare; and which, when in arms, would achieve its purpose, or perish in the attempt. The hand moved more and more sluggishly, and the page was marred by blots and erasures. Thought had the crayon, and dark were the shades that fell upon the canvass. "Seventeen to-day! Who remembers that it is my birth-day? There are none here to know or care. If I were to die to-morrow, there is not a creature who would shed a tear above my corpse. I wish I could die! They say such thoughts are sinful, but annihilation is preferable to an aimless, loveless existence. Oh! this intolerable aching, yearning for affection--it is eating into my soul! gnawing, insatiable longing! can I not quiet you for an instant? I have intellect--genius--so says the world. I have sacrificed to knowledge, reason and poesy;--praying, first, for happiness, then comfort, then forgetfulness--to cast myself down, the same heart-sick, famished creature! Our examination was an imposing affair. The elite of intelligence and fashion honored us with their presence. The prizes for which others had expended sleepless nights and toilsome days, were for me, who had scarcely put forth an effort; and as the music swelled out to celebrate my victory--blent with the applause of my critics, my heart beat! I had not felt it before for a long, long time,--and as in a lightning flash, I saw what I might--what I would have been, had the sunshine of love been continued to me. But the pitchy cloud rolled over the dazzling opening, and I was again a stranded wreck upon a barren shingle--the wailing monotone of the deep in my ear. I read to them, that a tile was once cast upon an acanthus root, and the hardy plant thrust its arms in every direction, until they felt the light, then coiled in spiral waves, to convert their oppressor into a thing of beauty;--and bade them recognize in the Corinthian capital, an emblem of Truth, which had in all ages owed much of its transcendent loveliness to the tyranny that sought to stifle its growth;--and when I pointed to it as a type of our national freedom, I was forced to stop,--for snowy handkerchiefs perfumed the air, and eager hands beat a rapturous 'encore;' and I was reading a written lie! for my heart was dying--puny and faded--beneath its weight. Intellect! a woman's intellect! I had rather be little Fanny Porter, with her silly, sweet face, and always imperfect lessons, than what I am. She has a father, mother, brothers, sisters, who dote upon her. Nourished upon fondness, she asks love of all, and never in vain. If I could dream my life away, I should be content. I love to lock my door upon the real world, and unbar the portals of my fairy palace--my thought-realm. Those long delicious reveries which melt so sweetly into my night-visions--and the blessed rainy days spent by Josephine in worsted work! Yet all this is injurious--I am enervating my mind--destroying every faculty of usefulness. To whom can I be useful! 'Do your duty in your home'--said the sermon last Sabbath. I have no home--no friends--I am cut off from my species. Tired of the world at seventeen! weary of a life I may not end! Seventeen! seventeen! would it were seventy or seven! I should be nearer my journey's end--or once more a happy child, nestling in my mother's bosom!"

"Forgive me," said a gentle voice, "but your exercise is not finished, and it is near Signer Alboni's hour." The speaker was the owner of the adjoining desk. As their eyes met, hers beamed with sympathy and interest. Ida knew nothing of the wretchedness expressed in her features, but she felt the agony at heart, and taken unawares, she could not entirely repress the tide that sprang to her lids at this unexpected kindness. Ashamed of what she had been "schooled" to consider a weakness, she lowered her head over her writing, until the long curls hid her face. "Signor Alboni, young ladies!" called out Mr. Purcell, the principal of the seminary. Ida surveyed the unsightly sheet in dismay, but there was no time for alteration, and she repaired with the rest to the recitation-room.

Signor Alboni was a gaunt, bilious-looking Italian, whom a residence of ten years in America had robbed of all national characteristics, except a fiery temper. The girls feared and disliked him; but he was a popular and efficient teacher, and in virtue of these considerations, Mr. Purcell was inclined to overlook minor disadvantages. Ellen Morris, whose fun-making propensities no rules or presence could restrain, soon set in circulation a whispered report, that their "amiable professor had had a severe return of dyspeptic symptoms since their last lesson;"--and "don't you think he has a queer taste? They say his favorite drink is a decoction of saffron, spiced with copperas! No wonder he looks so like a piece of new nankeen." Then an impromptu conundrum, pencilled upon a fly-leaf, went the rounds of the class. "If a skeleton were asked to describe his sensations in one word, whose name would he pronounce?" Black, brown and sunny tresses were shaken, and smiling mouths motioned,--"We give it up." Ellen scribbled the answer,--"All-bone-I."

It is a singular fact, that when one person is the unconscious cause of amusement to others--although ignorant of their ridicule, he often experiences an odd feeling of displeasure with himself and the whole world,--a sudden fit of spleen, venting itself upon those who richly deserve the wrath, which in his sane moments, he acknowledges was unprovoked. It was impossible for the signor to observe the laughing faces that sought refuge behind open books and friendly shoulders, for he was occupied in the examination of the pile of manuscripts laid upon his desk, yet his brow was more and more wrinkled each second, and when he spoke, his tone was, as Ellen afterwards described--"as musical as that of a papa lion, administering a parental rebuke to his refractory offspring."

"Miss Porter!"

Poor Fanny's eyes started from their sockets, as she uttered a feeble response.

"Receive your exercise," tearing it in half, and giving her the fragments. "Remain after school-hours, and re-write it; also prepare the next one in addition to your lesson for to-morrow. Miss Morris, where do you purchase your ink?"

"Of Messrs. Politeness, Manners & Co.," she retorted, with an innocent smile. "You never deal there, I believe, sir?"

"Silence!" vociferated the infuriated foreigner. "Rest assured, Miss, I shall report your impertinence to Mr. Purcell. Miss Carleton!" and Ida's neighbour replied. "I find no important errors in your theme, but your chirography lacks dignity and regularity."

With a respectful courtesy, the paper and hint were received; and if a smile played around her mouth, as she contrasted her delicate characters with the stiff, upright hand, in which the corrections were made, he did not see it.

"You had some incontestable reason for omitting to write, Miss Ross," with a sardonic grin; "into its nature I shall not inquire, but plead guilty to curiosity to know the name of the friend who did your work, and appended your name to his or her elegant effort."

Ida was not of a disposition to brook insolence, and she answered with spirit,--"The exercise is mine, sir."

"By right of possession, I suppose?"

"It was written by myself."

"Do I believe you, when my eyes tell me this is neither your hand-writing or style? Who was your accomplice in this witty deception?"

"Sir!"

"Who wrote this theme?" he thundered, maddened by her contempt.

"I have told you--_I_ did. No one else has seen it."

_"You lie!"_

With one lightning glance, she arose; but he placed himself between her and the door.

"Let me pass!" she ordered.

"Signor Alboni!" said Miss Carleton, who had before endeavored to make herself heard, "I can certify to the truth of Miss Ross' statement. I saw her commence and complete her manuscript."

"Aha! yet she says it has been seen only by herself. You must tutor your witnesses more carefully. They convict, instead of exculpate."

"If you hint at collusion between Miss Ross and myself, I can say that we never exchanged a word until an hour since. My desk adjoins hers; it was this circumstance which furnished me with the knowledge of her morning's occupation."

"I beg you will not subject yourself to further insult, upon my account," interrupted Ida, whose figure had dilated and heightened during the colloquy;--then to him--"Once more I command you to stand aside! If you do not obey, I shall call Mr. Purcell." As if he had heard the threatened appeal, the principal appeared in the doorway, in blank astonishment at the novel aspect of affairs. Alboni commenced a hurried jargon, inarticulate through haste and rage; Ida stood with folded arms, her countenance settled in such proud scorn as Lucifer would have envied and striven to imitate. The prudent preceptor perceived at a glance the danger of present investigation; and abruptly declaring the lesson concluded, appointed an hour on the morrow for a hearing of the case. That evening, for the first time in many months, Ida voluntarily sought her guardian's presence. Josephine was in her room, and he was left to the enjoyment of solitude and the newspaper. He arose at the approach of his visitant, and offered her a chair. In these little matters of etiquette, he was particular to punctiliousness; carrying his business habits of law and order into every thing. The paper was replaced upon the stand; the spectacles wiped and returned to their case; and those matter-of-fact eyes raised with an interrogative look.

"You have been informed of the altercation that occurred in the Italian class to-day?" Ida said, waiving the preliminary remarks.

"Josephine mentioned it."

"May I ask what was her version of it?"

"It was a statement of _facts_."

"Doubtless. Then, sir, you are aware that I have been wantonly and grossly insulted by a man for whom I have no respect; that in the presence of the entire class, I was forced to listen to language, which, uttered by one man to another, would be met by prompt chastisement; you are furthermore advised of the _fact_ that he, whose duty it is to protect those whom he instructs, instead of compelling the creature to apologize upon his knees, 'postponed inquiry until to-morrow.'"

"And very properly, too."

"Unquestionably, sir!" with the sarcastic smile which accompanied her former assent. "My object in seeking this interview, is to request your attendance upon that occasion. I shall not be present."

"And why not?"

"Because, sir, I will not be confronted with that odious reptile, and give my testimony in his hearing. Judging from the past, and the knowledge of mankind I have acquired under your tuition, nothing that I can say will avail to secure me justice. Mr. Purcell cannot obtain a better teacher, and it is as politic in Alboni to remain. There will be an amicable settlement; and my word will be a knot in the chain of satisfactory evidence they will elicit. The young ladies will, of course, side with 'the gentlemen.'"

"But why am I to be there?--to receive Alboni's apology?"

"I want none, sir--I will hear none. I have been called a _liar_! his pitiful life could not expiate the offence!"

"You are savage, young lady! you wish, perhaps, that I should pistol him."

"I thank you, sir, for recalling by your ridicule, the remembrance that this is a business interview. What I ask is this:--that you announce to Signor Alboni the termination of my studies with him, and pay his bill."

"Do you know, that although it is only the second week of the session, you will be charged for the term?"

"I do, sir."

"What if I refuse to discharge the debt?"

"I shall liquidate it with the money intended for my personal expenses."

"And if I forbid this, and command you to continue your lessons?"

"I shall refuse obedience to a demand you have not the right to make."

"Miss Ross! do you know to whom you are speaking?"

"I address Mr. Read."

"And your guardian, young lady!"

"The guardian of my property, sir."

"You are under no obligations to me, I suppose."

"None that I am conscious of. You are paid for your services and my board."

"There are cares for which money can offer no adequate compensation."

"Indeed, sir! I thought gold a cure for every ill; a reward for every toil. But we are digressing. You will do as I wish?"

"Resume your seat, if you please! The hope that I might have regarded your request favorably, is lessened by your unbecoming deportment. You are ignorant of any benefits I have conferred upon you! Since you will have a debit and credit account, I will enlighten you on this point. You came into this house two years ago--a romantic, sentimental, mawkish, spoiled child; weeping at every word which happened to jar upon your exquisite sensibilities; an unsophisticated simpleton; a fit prey for any bungler in deception; unformed in manner; womanish in feeling, and extravagant in expression. You have now, although but seventeen years of age, more sense and self-possession than most women of double your years; control the weaknesses which rendered you so ridiculous; are accomplished and respected; in short, I say it without flattery to myself, or to you, bid fair to fill your position in society creditably. You have still obstacles to surmount; but I have judged your failings leniently, attributing them, mainly, to the defects in your early training. If your mother had had the wisdom and discretion"--

"Stop, sir, stop!" exclaimed the girl, rising from her chair, and trembling in every limb with excitement "Take not the name of my holy mother upon your lips--still less cast the shadow of reproach upon her conduct! You have taught me the corruption of human nature,--have crushed all the warm affections I had been instructed to cherish;--have made the life my young mind pictured so inviting, a desert waste, inhabited by wily monsters;--but over the wreck there shines one ray, the memory of an angel lent to earth! For her sake I live among those whose form she wore, but with whose foul hearts hers could have had no fellowship. You tell me she was like the rest, that the religion, in her so lovely, is a delusion--and I answer, I do not believe you. In her name I refute your vile sophisms! Heaven knows how little I have profited by her counsels and example. I loathe myself! 'A woman,' you said! rather a fiend! for such is woman when she buries her heart, nor mourns above its grave. 'Control my feelings!' I do! I have driven back the tears until the scalding waves have killed whatever in my soul could boast a heavenly birth. There is nothing there to prove my relationship to my mother, but her memory. When that is destroyed I shall go mad. I am on the verge of insanity now--I often am! I do not doubt your assertions as to your, and shame on me that I should say it, _my_ brethren; for in yourself I see all the traits you ascribe to them. Woman, you say, belongs to an order of yet inferior beings; and in your daughter I have an illustration of this; for she inherits her father's character, combined with a meaner mind. You consider that I owe you respect,--I do not! I am superior to you both, for I still struggle with the emotions our Creator kindled up within us, and sent us to earth to extinguish. Within your bosoms there are only cold ashes. Frown as you please! your anger intimidates as little as your ridicule abashes. The idea once entered my mind that I could win you and your child to love me. I could laugh at the thought; that was in my sentimental days, when I deemed that the desolate orphan must find affection somewhere. My most 'extravagant' imaginings never paint such a possibility now. I have done. We understand each other. The contempt you had for the 'mawkish' baby, cannot equal mine for you. You will say no more of obligation and respect. I _despise_ you, and I owe you nothing?"

"Is the girl mad in good earnest?" gasped the cause of this burning torrent, as the door closed upon her. "She's a dangerous customer when her blood is up--a perfect Vesuvius, and I came near being Herculaneum or Pompeii. I've seen Ross in these tantrums, when we were chums together. She looked like her father when she said she was my superior. Bah!" He picked up his "Enquirer," but the political news was stale and vapid: the "Whig" was tried with no better success. In the centre of the racy editorial, and oddly mixed with the advertisements, was that incarnation of pride and passion, which through her eyes, more plainly than her lips, said, "I despise you, and I owe you nothing." Thus stood her part of the account he had proposed to examine.

Chapter IV.

Miss Carleton acknowledged the appearance of her desk-mate on the succeeding morning, by an inclination of the head and a smile; and nothing more passed between them until the hour for Italian. She paused, seeing that Ida retained her seat. "Are you not going in?" she ventured to ask.

"No."

There was a moment of hesitation, and she spoke again. "I would not appear to dictate, but do you not fear Mr. Purcell may construe your non-attendance into disrespect to himself?"

"I fear nothing," was upon Ida's tongue, but her better nature would not allow her to return rudeness for what, suspicion could torture into nothing but disinterested kindness. With a gleam of her former frankness she looked up at her interlocutor, "You do not know as much as I do, or you would understand the inutility of my presence at the trial which comes off this morning. I would avoid a repetition of yesterday's scene. One will suffice for a life-time."

"You met then with insult and injustice. To-day, Mr. Purcell will shield you from both. As a gentleman, and a conscientious judge, he cannot but see that Alboni's attack was uncalled for, and decide against him."

"No man is conscientious when his conscience militates against his purse and popularity."

Miss Carleton seemed shocked, and Ida added, hastily, "Our views upon this, as upon most subjects, are very different, I fancy; therefore, discussion is worse than useless. In this instance, my determination is taken;" and she opened her book.

"I will not attempt to shake it," replied her companion. "But suffer me to hope for a longer conversation at some future time, upon these topics, concerning which you think we differ. There may be some points of agreement, and I, for one, am open to conviction."

Again was Ida thrown off her guard, and the smile that answered irradiated her face like a sudden sunbeam. But when her class-mate had gone, she thought,--"Weak fool! the reserve I have striven for two years to establish, melted by a soft speech of a school-girl. She is one of the would-be 'popular' sort, and would worm herself into confidence by an affectation of sympathy and sweetness."

"Miss Ross," said Mr. Purcell, a while later, coming up to her desk, "you will do me the favor to meet me in my study at two o'clock."

At the time designated, she walked with a stately tread through the long school-room, unabashed by the hundred curious eyes bent upon her; for a summons to "the study" was an event of rare occurrence, and had been heretofore the harbinger of some important era in the annals of school-dom. Ida was prepared for every thing partiality could dictate, and tyranny execute; but Mr. Purcell was alone, and his demeanor anything but menacing. "He thinks to cajole me," whispered the fell demon Distrust, and her heart changed to steel.

"Miss Ida," began the principal, mildly, "this is your third session in this institution, and I can sincerely declare that during that time, your propriety of behaviour, and diligence in study have not been surpassed. I have never had a young lady under my care, whose improvement was more rapid--of whose attainments I was more proud; but I regret to say, never one whose confidence I failed so signally to gain. A teacher's task, my dear Miss Ross, is at best an arduous one, but if he receive no recompense for his toil in the affection of those for whom he labors, his life is indeed one of cheerless drudgery. You appear to regard me as a mere machine. For a time I attributed your reserve to diffidence, and trusted that time and my efforts would dissipate it. On the contrary, the distance between us has increased. You hold yourself aloof from your school-mates, repelling every offered familiarity, yet I have seen you weep after such an act. Your cheek glows with enthusiasm when your favorite studies engage your mind, and you relapse into frigid hauteur when recalled to the actual world around you. You have feeling as well as intellect--you are acting a part assumed from some unaccountable fancy; or, I would rather believe, put upon you by necessity. The evidence of your want of reliance in my friendship which you have given me to-day, has determined me to speak candidly with you. I would not wrest a confession from you which you might afterwards repent, but I entreat you to look upon me as a friend who has a paternal love for each member of his numerous family, who desires to see you happy, and asks--not your confidence, but that you will let him serve you."

Ida sat like a statue. He resumed in a tone of disappointment--

"As to the unjustifiable charge brought by Signor Alboni--I am aware how galling is even the appearance of humiliation upon so proud a spirit. I have investigated the matter carefully. The testimony of your friend, Miss Carleton, would of itself have been sufficient to exonerate you. It was confirmed by the voice of the class, and the inevitable consequence is, that Signor Alboni no longer has a place in my school. I can safely promise that the teacher I have selected in his stead, will oppose no impediment to your progress."

Shame for her unjust accusations, and remorseful gratitude pierced Ida's bosom. Greatly agitated, she approached her instructor, when Mr. Read walked in;--a cynical iceberg! Every generous emotion--all softness vanished on the instant. His inquiring glance encountered one as freezing. "I will not detain you longer, Mr. Purcell," she said, as if concluding a business arrangement. "As nearly as I can understand, your object in sending for me was to secure me as a pupil of the new language-master. Having undertaken the study of the Italian, I prefer going through with the course. Mr. Read will settle the terms. Good afternoon, gentlemen;" and with the mien of a duchess she left them.

Mr. Read "had been delayed by pressing business. Miss Ross requested him to see Signor Alboni--was sorry he was late--presumed all was right, etc.," and walked out again. Mr. Purcell was too much hurt, and too indignant at his pupil's conduct, to care whether he stayed or not.

The misguided girl had alienated a true friend, and she knew it--felt it in her heart's core. In the solitude of her chamber she wept bitter tears: "I have cast away the gem for which I would sell my soul! While I thirsted for the waters of affection, I struck down the hand that held them to my lip. It is my fate--I was not born to be loved--I hate myself--why should I inspire others with a different feeling?"

In vain she tried to reason herself into a belief of Mr. Purcell's insincerity. Truth speaks with a convincing tongue, and she knew that the imputation of interested motives she had hurled at him in the unfortunate revulsion of feeling, was unfounded.

In intermission next day, a note was laid upon Ida's desk, inscribed in towering capitals, to "Misses Ross and Carleton;" It ran thus:--

"At a large and enthusiastic meeting of the Italian class of Mr. Purcell's Young Ladies' Female Seminary, convened on yesterday afternoon, the succeeding resolutions were proposed, and carried unanimously:

"_Resolved_, That whereas, Miss Ida Ross and Miss Caroline Carleton, members of the aforesaid class, have, by their spirited independence delivered us from an oppression as grinding as that under which our Revolutionary forefathers groaned, a vote of thanks shall be tendered them in the name of their compatriots. And--

"_Resolved_, Moreover, that we bind ourselves to assist them by our united suffrages in the attainment of any honor for which they shall hereafter be candidates, whether the dunce-block or the gold medal.

ANNA TALBOT, _Chairman_. ELLEN MORRIS, _Secretary_.

The event which had elicited this public manifestation, was to Ida, connected with too much that was unpleasant, to allow her to smile at the pompous communication. She passed it gravely to her neighbor. She laughed at the ludicrous repetition of feminist in the second line, and at the conclusion, bounded upon the platform where stood Mr. Purcell's desk, and commenced a flourishing harangue "for herself and colleague," expressing their gratitude at the flattering tribute from their fellow-laborers, and pledging themselves to uphold forever their honor and lawful privileges. "In the language of your eloquent resolution, my sisters, we form a 'Young Ladies' Female Seminary'--womanfully will we battle for woman's rights."

"Hush-h-h!" and Mr. Purcell was discovered standing behind the crowd. He stood aside to let the blushing orator return to her seat, remarking in an under-tone as she passed, "I must take care to enlist such talents in my service--I shall be undone if they are directed against me."

"Oh Carry! what _did_ he say?" whispered Fanny Porter.

"Nothing very dreadful," she returned, laughingly. Ida looked on in surprise, Josephine with scorn; but to the majority, this little episode in their monotonous life was a diverting entertainment.

"Give me a girl who is not too proud to relish a joke," said Ellen Morris. "Ida Ross is above such buffoonery. She would not have demeaned her dignity before the school."

"But Carry spoke for her too," said Emma Glenn, a meek, charitable creature: "Perhaps modesty, not pride, kept her silent."

"Fiddlesticks!" was the school-girlish rejoinder.

Ida had missed a chance for making herself popular. The girls were moved to admiration by her manner of resenting Alboni's rudeness, and their joy at getting rid of him, assumed the shape of gratitude to their champion. She was for the hour a heroine, and might have retained her stand, but for her cool treatment of their advances. She saw, without understanding the reason of the change, that there was now a mingling of dislike in their neglect; and as she sank in their esteem, Carry mounted. Mr. Purcell never noticed her out of the recitation room--Mr. Read was more lofty--Josephine more contemptuous than ever. Inmates of one house--occupying adjacent chambers--sitting at the same board at home, and within speaking distance at school, the two girls had not one feeling in common--a spark of affection one for the other. Open ruptures were infrequent now, although they were innumerable during the first months of their companionship. They appeared together in public--this Mr. Read enjoined "It was due to his reputation, people should not say that his daughter's privileges exceeded his ward's." Further than this he did not interfere. He saw them only at meal-times, and in the evening; then Josephine presided over the tea-tray with skill and grace, and amused him, if he wished it, by reading, singing or talking. Ida did as she pleased. There were no requirements, no privations. In the eyes of the world her situation was unexceptionable. They knew nothing of the covert sneers which smiled down any tendency to what the torpid minds of the father and daughter considered undue enthusiasm; their sarcastic notice of her "singularities," their studied variance with her views;--but to her, bondage and cruelty would have been more tolerable. Yet this mocking surveillance--this certainty of ridicule, could not always check the earnest expression of a grasping intellect and ardent temperament; and there were not a few who frequented the house, who preferred the piquancy of her conversation, when they could draw her out of the snow-caverns of her reserve, to the trite common-places and artificial spirits of Miss Read.

Among these was Mr. Dermott, an Irish gentleman of considerable scientific renown, and a traveller of some note; hard upon forty years of age, but enjoying life with the zest of twenty. Ida's intelligent countenance had pleased him at their introduction, and having letters to Mr. Read, he embraced every opportunity to improve the acquaintance.

"I shall not go to school to-day," said Josephine, one morning, "father expects Mr. Dermott and several other gentlemen to dine with him, and I cannot be spared. He says you must come home in time for dinner."

"As school breaks up at three, and you will not dine before five, there was no need to issue the command;" said Ida, irritated at her arrogant tone.

"Very well, I have delivered the message."

Mr. Read was dissatisfied that his ward did not enter the drawing-room until dinner was announced. "It did not look well,"--and her nonchalant air and slight recognition of the party, did not "speak well for his bringing up." But the current veered before meal was over. The fowls were under-done, and the potatoes soaked. His glance of displeasure at his daughter was received with such imperturbability, that he chafed at the impossibility of moving her, and his desire to render somebody uncomfortable. The latter wish was not left ungratified. One after another felt the influence of his lowering brow, and imitated his silence, until Mr. Dermott and Ida were the only ones who maintained a connected conversation. He talked fluently with the humor peculiar to his countrymen, and had succeeded in interesting his listener. She had naturally a happy laugh, which in earlier years rung out in merry music; and as the unusual sound startled him from time to time, Mr. Read took it as a personal affront. Could not she see that he was out of temper? He had punished the rest for the cook's misdeeds, how dare she, while they sat 'neath the thunder cloud of his magnificent wrath, sport in the sunshine? It was audacious bravado. She should rue it ere long. Josephine readily obeyed his signal to leave the table, so soon as it could be done with a semblance of propriety. "I will hear the rest, by and by," said Ida to Mr. Dermott, "_au revoir_." Neither of the girls spoke after quitting the dining-room. Josephine lay upon a lounge, with half-closed lids, apparently drowsy or fatigued, in reality, wakeful and watching. Ida walked back and forth, humming an Irish air--pleased and thoughtful. Then taking from the book-case a volume of "Travels," she employed herself in looking it over.

"See!" said she, at Mr. Dermott's reappearance, "it is as I thought. This author's account varies, in some respects, from yours; and at the peril of my place in your good graces, I must declare my prejudices to be with him. A spot so celebrated, so sacred in its associations, cannot be as uninteresting as you would have me to think. Come, confess, that the jolting camel and surly guide were accessories to your discontent."

Josephine lost the answer, and much that followed. She was joined by young Pemberton, a fop of the first water, with sense enough to make him uneasy in the society of the gifted, and meanness to rejoice in their discomfiture and misfortune. For the rest, he was weak and hot-headed, a compound of conceit and malice. Time was when he admired Ida. He had an indefinite notion that a clever wife would reflect lustre upon him; and a very decided appreciation of her more shining and substantial charms.

Her repulse was a mortal offence: small minds never forget, much less pardon a rebuke to their vanity, and he inly swore revenge. But how to get it? She rose superior to his witless sarcasms, and more pointed slights; reversing the arrows towards himself, and his mortification heated into hatred. Josephine was aware of this feeling, and its cause; and while despising, in a man, a weakness to which she was herself a prey, foreseeing that he might prove a convenient tool, she attached him to her by suasives and flatteries.

"It is a positive relief to talk to you, Miss Josephine," he yawned, "I am surfeited with literature and foreigners. These travelled follows are outrageous bores, with their bushy moustachios and outlandish lingo. How the ladies can fawn upon them as they do, I cannot comprehend."

"Do not condemn us all for the failings of a part. There are those who prefer pure gold to gilded trash."

"For your sake, I will make some exceptions," with a "killing" look. "But what do you imagine to be the object of that flirtation? No young lady of prudence or proper self-respect, would encourage so boldly the attentions of a stranger. Supposing him to be what he represents, (a thing by no means certain,) she cannot intend to marry him--a man old enough to be her father!"

"But, 'unison of tastes,' 'concord of souls,' etc., will go far towards reconciling her to the disparity of years," observed Josephine, ironically; not sorry to strike upon this tender point. He tried to laugh, but with indifferent success.

Ida's voice reached them, and they stopped to listen.

"I am afraid my conceptions of Eastern life and scenery are more poetical than correct. I picture landscapes sleeping in warm, rich, 'Syrian sunshine,' 'sandal groves and bowers of spice,'

'Ruined shrines, and towers that seem The relics of some splendid dream,'--

such a Fairy Land as ignorance and imagination create."

"The Utopia of one who studies Lalla Rookh more than 'Eastern Statistics,' or 'Incidents of Travel,'" said Mr. Dermott, smiling. "Yet Moore's descriptions are not so much overwrought as some suppose. His words came continually to my tongue. He has imbibed the true spirit of Oriental poetry; the melancholy, which, like the ghost of a dead age, broods over that oldest of lands; the passion flushing under their tropical sun; their wealth of imagery. Lalla Rookh reads like a translation from the original Persian. The wonder is that he has never been self-tempted to visit the 'Vale of Cashmere' in person."

"Campbell, too, having immortalized Wyoming, will not cross the ocean to behold it," said Ida.

There was a consultation between the confederates, and Pemberton crossed to Ida's chair, with a smirk that belied the fire in his eye.

"Excuse me, Mr. Dermott,--Miss Ida, I am commissioned to inquire of you the authorship and meaning of this quotation--

'Deeply, darkly, _desperately_ blue!'"

It is impossible to convey a just impression of the offensive tone and emphasis with which this impertinence was uttered. The quick-witted Irishman saw through the design in an instant. "It is from a Scotch author," said he, before Ida could reply, "and the rhyme runs after this fashion--

'Feckless, fairlie, farcically fou!'"

and not deigning a second glance at the questioner, he continued his account of a visit he had paid to Moore. The object of this merciless retort stood for a second, in doubt as to its meaning, and then walked off, still in incertitude. Ida's laugh, while it might have been in response to Mr. Dermott's story assured Josephine that her end was unaccomplished, before her messenger had delivered his lame return.

"She understood me, and it cut pretty deeply, but that puppy of a paddy answered for her. He repeated the next line, too, 'from a Scotch author,' he said, but I believe he made it up."

"What was it?" asked Josephine.

"'Fairly, farcically fou,' or something like that. If I were sure that last word meant fool, I would knock him down. Do you understand Scotch?"

"No," replied Josephine, vexed, but afraid to excite him further. "He is beneath the notice of a gentleman; we can let him alone."

But Ida's share in this was not to be overlooked. Josephine appeared as usual at breakfast: talkative to her father, and taciturn to her female companion. At length she inquired, meaningly, "by the way, Ida, when does your travelled Hibernian 'lave this counthry?'"

"If you speak of Mr. Dermott, I do not know."

"Is it not remarkable," said Josephine to her parent, "that polish and purify as you may, you cannot cure an Irishman of vulgarity? Irish he is, and Irish he will remain to the end of the chapter."

"Dermott behaves very decently, does he not? His letters of recommendation--introduction, I would say, describe him as a pattern gentleman."

Josephine lifted her brows. "It is a misfortune to be fastidious; my education has rendered me so. I cannot tolerate slang or abuse, especially when directed at a superior in politeness, if not in assurance."

"What now?" demanded Mr. Read, impatiently; and Ida, unable to hear more in silence, started up from the table.

"Wait, if you please," said Josephine, with that metallic glitter of her grey eyes. "I wish you to repeat your friend's reply to Mr. Pemberton, when he was the bearer of a civil message from _me_."

"I heard no message of that description," retorted Ida, unmoved.

"He did not repeat a line of poetry, and ask the author's name, I presume?"

"He did."

"And you furnished the required information?"

"I did not."

"Mr. Dermott did, then. What was his answer?"

"I do not choose to tell. _I_ am not in the habit of playing spy and informer."

"Then I shall repeat it. _I_ am not in the habit of winking at impudence or transgressions of the most common laws of society. What do you say, sir, of a man who, in the presence of ladies, calls another a 'farcical fool?'"

"That he is a foreign jackanape. He never darkens my door again. You heard this?" to Ida.

"I did not, sir, but Mr. Pemberton displays such penetration in discovering, and taste in fitting on caps that could suit no one else so well, I am not inclined to contest his title to this latest style."

"I do not wonder at your defence of your erudite suitor," said Josephine, laying a disagreeable stress upon the adjective. "If he were to single me out in every company, as the one being capable of appreciating him, I, too, should be blinded by the distinction attendant upon my notoriety. But as His Highness never gives token, by word or deed, of his consciousness of the existence of so unpretending a personage, I may be pardoned my impartial observation and judgment. I do not expect you to forbid his visits, sir, but I wish it understood that _I_ am not at home when he calls."

"And that you reject his attentions?" asked Ida, dryly.

Josephine did not like her smile, yet saw no danger in replying--"assuredly!"

"It is a pity," was the rejoinder, "that your resolution was not postponed until Tuesday."

"And why?" said Mr. Read.

"Mr. Dermott informed me last night that he had secured three tickets for the concert of Monday evening, and requested permission to call for Josephine and myself. I told him that she had expressed anxiety to attend, and that I was disengaged. She was not in the parlor when he left, and he entrusted the invitation to me. He will be here this forenoon for her answer. As things now stand, his visit will be extremely mal-apropos. I shall decline for myself; she can do the same."

Josephine prudently lowered her eye-lids, but her lips were white with rage. She had especial reasons for desiring to go to this concert. Every body was running mad after the principal performer:--absence from necessity would be a pitiable infliction;--to stay away from choice, irrefragable proof of want of taste. To be escorted thither by Mr. Dermott, would give her an eclat the devotion of a score of Pembertons could not produce. In seeking to mortify another, she had pulled down this heavy chagrin upon her own head,--common fate of those who would make the hearts and backs of their fellows the rounds of their ladder to revenge or to fame.

Even Mr. Read was momentarily disconcerted. "I will procure you a ticket," he said, consolingly.

That tongue was used to falsehood, yet it did not move as glibly as was its wont, as she replied, "I do not care to go, sir."

"That is fortunate," said Ida, "as every seat was taken yesterday. You do not object to my withdrawing _now_?"

The shot had gone home; her enmity was gratified; she had not been anxious to attend from the first, and therefore was not disappointed; she did not suffer from pained sensibility; the frequency of these encounters had inured her to ambushed attack; she was fast becoming a match for them in stoicism, and surpassed them in satire; in this skirmish she had borne flying colours from the field; but had the contrary of all these things been true, she could not have been more wretched. She hated, as spirits like hers only can hate, her cold-hearted persecutors, and exulted in their defeat; yet close upon triumph came a twinge of remorse and a sense of debasement.

"I am sinking to their level! I could compete with them upon no other ground. They are despicable in their worldliness and malice; shall I grovel and hiss with them? It seems inevitable--debarred as I am from all associations which can elevate and clear my mind. Oh! the low envy in that girl's face as she named my 'suitor!' Destitute of mental wants herself, she thinks of nothing but courtship and a settlement! But this matter must be arranged."

She opened her writing-desk. Her chamber was her retreat and sanctum, and she had lavished much taste and time in fitting it up. All its appurtenances spoke of genius and refinement. With a poetic love for warm colors and striking contrasts, crimson and black relieved, each the other, in her carpet and curtains. The bedstead, seats and tables, fashioned into elegant and uncommon forms by her orders, were draped and cushioned with the same Tyrian hue. Books and portfolios were heaped and strewed upon the shelves and stands; and in one corner, upon a wrought bronze tripod, was an exquisite statuette--a girl kneeling beside an empty cage, the lifeless songster stark and cold in her hand. Several of Ida's schoolmates were with her when she purchased it from an itinerant Italian. They saw in the expression of hopeless sadness, only regret for her bird. Ida noted that her gaze was not upon its ruffled plumes, but to its silent home; and that one hand lay upon her heart. Looking more narrowly she discerned upon the pedestal the simple exclamation, "_Et mon coeur!_"

Henceforward it had become her Lares. She had scattered flowers over it, kissed it weepingly, and with lips rigid in stern despair, laid her hot brow to the white forehead of the voiceless mourner. She must have something to love, and the insensate image was dear, because it told of a grief such as hers. Now, after she dipped her pen in the standish, she paused to contemplate it,--the red light bathing it in a life-like glow,--and the blood receded from her face, as she uttered aloud its touching complaint, "Et _mon_ coeur!"

Writing a note to Mr. Dermott, in which; without stating her reasons, she declined his offer, she dispatched it by one of her own servants, lately promoted to the office of Abigail, and attired herself for a walk. It was Saturday, and the weather faultless. A sigh of relief escaped her when she was in the outer air--she was free for a while. The streets were densely peopled--dashing ladies, and marble-playing urchins, glorying in the holiday; bustling, pushing men, and lazy nurses lugging fat babies; and through the incongruous crowd the pale thinker threaded her way, jostling and jostled, wrapped in herself, as they thought but of their individual personality, with this difference--they seemed happy in their selfishness; she was miserable in her isolation. She did not see that Pemberton passed her with a stiff bow, which, in punishment for her non-recognition, he resolved should be exchanged for a decided "cut" at their next meeting; did not catch Mr. Purcell's eye, as forgetting her rebuff in his pleasure at espying one, who could rightly value the prize he had discovered in an antiquated volume, musty with age, he beckoned to her from the door of the bookstore; did not hear Emma Glenn's modest "Good morning, Miss Ida," although she liked the child, and would have loved her if she had dared. She turned from the busy thoroughfare into an unfrequented street, keeping the same rapid pace; the mind was working, the body must be moving too--on, still on, with unflagging speed--'till she found herself upon the summit of the hill overlooking the lower part of the city, and near the old church-yard. She stopped, and looked in. A flight of steps led up to the burying-ground, several feet above the level of the walk. What tempted her to ascend? She had been there before, and was not interested--yet the irresolution ended in her entrance. It was very still in that Acropolis of the dead: the long grass, yellow in the October sun, waved without rustling; the sere leaves drifted silently to the ground; from the mass of buildings below her arose only a measured beat rather than hum--as regular, and not louder, than the "muffled drum" within her bosom. The warring elements of discord sank into a troubled rest, but their conflict was easier to be borne than the reaction that succeeded.

"Free among the dead;" forgotten as they, she sat upon a broken tombstone, in the shadow of the venerable church, with sorrowful eyes which looked beyond the city, the river, and the undulating low-grounds skirting its banks.

She had said to herself an hundred times, "I cannot be happy; it is folly to hope." But this morning she felt she had never until now relinquished hope; that despair, for the first time, stalked through the deserted halls of her heart, and the dreaded echo "alone" answered his footsteps.

It is easy to give up the world, with its million sources of delight, to share the adverse fortunes of one dearer than all its painted show; it is sweet to bid adieu to its frivolities, for the hope of another and a "better," but

"When the draught so fair to see Turns to hot poison on the lip;"

when the duped soul cries out against the fair pretence that promised so much and gave so little, when it will none of it, and puts it by with loathing disgust;--yet resorts to nothing more real and pure;--what art can balm a woe like this?

A click of the gate-latch, and voices warned her that her solitude was about to be invaded. "I will wait here half an hour," said familiar tones. "Thank you," was the reply; "you need not stay longer; if she is at home I shall spend the day." "Very well; good bye," and Carry Carleton ran up the steps. Retreat was impossible, for their eyes met at once, and to the new visitor the meeting appeared to give satisfaction.

"I am, indeed, fortunate," said she, saluting Ida, and taking a place beside her, "I expected to pass a solitary half-hour. One of the girls came with me to the gate. She has gone to see her aunt, and may not return to-day. This is a favorite spot of mine. I am laughed at for the choice, yet it seems I am not as singular as they would have me believe. Do you come here often?"

"This is only my second visit."

"Indeed! But it is a long walk from your house. I live nearer, although on the other hill."

"I understood you were from the country," said Ida.

"So I am--but my sister resides here, and hers is another home to me. I _love_ the country, yet I like Richmond. It is a beautiful city," she continued, her glance roving over the landscape.

"Outwardly--yes."

"You do not think the inhabitants adapted to their abode, then?"

"I do not know that they are worse than the rest of mankind. It is a matter of astonishment to me, that this globe should have been set apart as the theatre for so depraved a race."

"I don't know," said Carry, cheerily. "I find it a nice world--the best I am acquainted with; and the people harmless, good creatures--some dearer to me than others; but I entertain a fraternal affection for all."

"I have read of philanthropists," said Ida; "but you are the sole specimen I have seen. And this universal love--is it content to exist without a reciprocation?"

"The heart would be soon emptied were this so," returned the other, her bright face becoming serious. "There are many who love me; if any dislike, I am in blissful ignorance of the sentiment and its cause."

"But if your friends were removed, and replaced by enemies?"

"I would teach them friendship. My affection for the dead would make me more desirous to benefit the living."

"And if they would not be conciliated--if upon the broad earth you had not an answering spirit?"

"I should die!"

"How then do I live?" nearly burst from Ida's heart, but she smothered it, and replied, "It is easier to speak of death than to brave it."

"Death! did I say death?" exclaimed Carry. "I saw life as it would be were I bereft of father, sister, friends--and I said truly that it would not be worth the keeping--but death! I would not rush on _that!_ I have such a horror of the winding-sheet and the worm!" She shivered.

"Yet you like to be here?"

"Yes. This is a sunny, cheerful place, with no fresh graves to remind one that the work of destruction is still going on. I love life. Others may expose its deceits, and weep above its withered blooms; I see blue sky where they fancy clouds. It is the day--the time for action and enjoyment; who would hasten the coming of the night--impenetrable--dawnless!"

"'To die--and go--we know not where!'"

quoted Ida. "That line conveys all that I fear in death. There have been seasons when the uncertainty shrouding the abyss beyond alone prevented my courting its embrace. Were it eternal forgetfulness, how grateful would be its repose. Looking around me here, I think of calm sleepers under these stones, hands folded meekly upon bosoms that will never heave again; of aching heads and wearied spirits at rest forever."

"You are too young to covet this dreamless slumber," said Carry "With your talents and facilities you have a work to do in this world."

"What can I do? and for whom?"

"Why--for every body."

"Too wide a scope--define. For example, what are my school-duties, setting aside my studies?"

"We can help each other," was the modest rejoinder. "We can impart pleasure, and avoid giving pain. Not a day passes in which we cannot add a drop of sweet to the appointed draught of some one of our fellow-creatures."

"Apropos to honey--it suggests its opposite, gall, and our ei-devant professor. I have not thanked you for your generous interference in my behalf, on the day of our fracas," said Ida, with an ease and cordiality that surprised herself.

"You magnify the favor. I spoke the truth. To withhold it would have been dishonesty."

"Dishonesty!"

"Your character for veracity was assailed. I had the proof which would establish it. I should have felt like a receiver of stolen goods had I concealed it."

"Moreover, to your philanthropy, I was not an individual, but the impersonation of the sisterhood;" said Ida, jestingly.

"Perhaps so," returned Carry, in a like strain. "You remember the 'Young Ladies' Female meeting.'"

"That was a piece of Ellen Morris' grandiloquence. Do you know, I envy that girl her faculty of creating mirth wherever she goes!"

"I had rather be Emma Glenn," said Carry. "One is witty, the other affectionate, and they will receive respectively admiration and love."

"I do not quite agree with you. Ellen's high spirits will carry her through many a sharp battle, from which Emma's sensitive nature would never recover. To combat with the world one should have no heart; and I heard a clergyman once say that a woman had no use for sense."

Carry laughed. "Between you, you would represent us as a superfluous creation. Yet woman has her sphere, no less than man; and if he conquers in his by might of purpose and brute strength, she guides, instead of rules in hers, by love and submission. As for the world, that semi-fabulous ogre, supposed to live somewhere, all out of doors, whose cold charities are proverbial; who eats up widow's houses, and grinds the poor; we have no dealings with it. It is, to my notion, an innocent bugbear, kept by the men, to prevent us from meddling in their business matters; and to melt flinty-hearted wives into pity for one, who has been fighting this monster all day, and has now to drink smoked tea, and eat burnt toast for supper."

"Are you ever sad?" questioned Ida.

"Not often, why do you ask?"

"You appear so light-hearted. I was at a loss to determine whether it was natural or feigned."

"My spirits are good, chiefly from habit, I believe. My father is remarkably cheerful. It is a maxim of his, that we are unjust, when we cause others to do penance for our humors; they have trouble enough of their own to bear. Controlling the manifestations of temper and discontent, is generally followed by the suppression of the feelings themselves. It has been so with me."

"See that burlesque of life!" said Ida, pointing. "Children turning somersets upon a tomb-stone!"

The tomb was built with four brick walls, supporting a horizontal tablet; and upon this flat surface, the irreverent youngsters were gambolling. One, the most agile, and the leader of the troop, was, as she spoke, in the act of performing a vehemently encored feat, viz.: throwing two somersets upon the marble, another _in transitu_ for the ground, and a fourth, after landing upon the turf. Two were accomplished in safety, the third was a flying leap, and he did not move afterwards. The children screamed, and the girls ran to the spot. In falling, he had struck his head against a stone, and was senseless, the blood gushing from a wound in, or near the temple. Carry rested his head upon her arm, and with nervous haste, unbuttoned his collar. "Where are his parents?" inquired Ida. But they only cried the louder. "I fear he is killed!" said Carry. Ida shook her purse at the terrified group. "Who will bring me a doctor,--who, his mother?" Her collected manner tended to quiet them, as much as the clink of coin. Half-a-dozen scampered in as many directions, and she ordered the rest off, without ceremony. There was no rebellion. Each had a misgiving that he was to blame for the casualty, and they were glad to skulk away.

The handkerchief which Carry held to the gash, was saturated, and Ida supplied hers. He showed no sign of life, except that Ida imagined that she detected a feeble fluttering of the heart. Carry wept as though her heart would break. "Poor little fellow!" she exclaimed repeatedly. Ida did not shed a tear, but her compressed lips and contracted brow said this did not proceed from insensibility. "I cannot bear this suspense," she said. "I will look for a doctor myself, if you are not afraid to stay here alone."

"No, go!"

She met the medical man at the gate. It was Mr. Read's family physician, who chanced to be in the neighborhood. "Oh, Dr. Ballard!" exclaimed Ida. "I am rejoiced to see you!"

"And I am always happy to meet Miss Ross--but what is this about a boy killed? None of your friends, I hope."

Ida explained, as she led him to the scene of the disaster. It seemed ill-timed to the agitated girls, to see him touch his hat, with grave courtesy, to Carry, as he stooped to make an examination. "He is not dead," he said, feeling the pulse and heart; "but it came near being an awkward hurt. Miss Ross, I will trouble you to call one of those boys, and send him for my servant, who is in the street with my carriage. If I only had some soft linen!" looking around. Ida took an embroidered scarf from her neck. He tore it into strips, rolled them into a ball, and bound it tightly upon the cut. "Where does he live?" he asked.

The information was furnished by the boy's mother, who hurried up at this instant. She, with her reviving son, were put into the carriage, and the doctor stepped in after them.

The girls had no inclination to linger in the church-yard. The conversation, during their walk, ran upon the accident; but as they parted at the corner of the streets diverging to their separate abodes, Carry expressed a strong desire for the continuation of the acquaintance. "We have had an odd talk this morning;" said she smiling; "I would not have you regard it as a fair sample of my conversational powers."

Ida walked homeward with a lightened spirit. "Odd" as was their talk, and alarming as was the incident which interrupted it, she was better for both. There was a charm in Carry's frankness, which beguiled her confidence, and her cheerful philosophy was a pleasant, if not a prudent rule, for making one's way in life. She dwelt upon her declaration, that each day brought its opportunities for benevolent deeds; and her conscience responded joyfully to the appeal, "Have I contributed my drop of sweet to-day?" by pointing to her exertions for the relief of the unknown sufferer. Carry had praised her presence of mind, and the doctor complimented her warmly. "If I have not given pleasure, I have mitigated pain."

The struck chord ceased to vibrate as she reached the house where she had suffered and learned so much. When she came down to dinner, she was impassive and distant. Mr. Read vouchsafed to inquire if she had seen Mr. Dermott. She replied in the negative.

"I thought there was an arrangement to that effect;" said he, sneeringly.

"I addressed a note to him which made his call unnecessary."

"I do not presume to meddle with your correspondence, Miss Ross;" with "immense" stiffness; "but I trust neither my name, or that of my daughter was contained in that communication."

"I am responsible for my actions, sir; it is certain I never thought of referring them to your influence. I suppose Mr. Dermott is satisfied,--_I_ am."

Chapter V.

Mr. Purcell, himself an able connoisseur and liberal patron of the fine arts, never suffered a suitable occasion to pass, without endeavoring to implant, and cultivate like tastes in his pupils. No "Exhibition" or Collection was recommended unadvisedly. He justly considered a relish for a vicious or false style, worse than none. So well was this known, that the girls were equally eager to examine what he esteemed worthy of their inspection, and to avoid that which he condemned. An artist visited the city, and advertised a set of "choice paintings, on exhibition for a few days." They were much talked of, and the scholars impatiently listened for the verdict of their principal. There were many smiling faces, when he announced, that he accepted, with pleasure, the polite invitation of the artist to himself and the members of his school. "The pictures were the work of a master hand;--he recommended them to their careful study." That afternoon, the studio was full. Some went from curiosity; some to be in the fashion; comparatively a small number through genuine love for the art. Among the latter class was Ida Ross. Bestowing little notice upon her acquaintances present, she passed around the room, intent upon the object which had drawn her thither. She was not disturbed; her reserve repelled, and her intellectual superiority awed; she knew--and they knew that though with, she was not of them; as an institution, they were proud of her; as individuals, with a very few exceptions, they disliked and envied her.

The proprietor, or a gentleman, supposed to be he, was at a desk, writing. He must have possessed the power of abstraction in an extraordinary degree; for the chattering about him resembled the confabulations of a flock of magpies, more than the conversation of decorous young ladies. Groups came and departed; and Ida did not mark the changes, until, diverted from the contemplation of a splendid landscape by the sound of her own name,--she perceived a group near by, composed of four or five girls and as many young men, none of them her well-wishers or admirers;--their attention divided between herself, and a sketch of St. John's church. Josephine was the magnet of the circle, and behind her, was the smirking Pemberton. A single glance took in all this, and features and expression were immobile as before. It was Josephine's voice she had heard;--its tones higher than usual. She neither desired, nor affected concealment.

"As I was saying, the church-yard has been converted into a gymnasium. The cry is no longer, 'Liberty or Death!'--but 'Leap Frog or die!'"

A general cachinnation applauded this felicitous hit.

"On Saturday last"--continued the narrator--"the unrivalled troupe were in the midst of one of their most elaborate performances, encouraged by the presence--I am not sure, but assisted by a select company of spectators. I need only specify Miss Ross and friend, name unknown--to assure you of the high respectability of the assemblage. Smiled upon by beauty, and animated to superhuman exertions by soft glances from one, perchance too dear to his youthful heart,--the chief of the band threw his whole soul into his lofty undertaking, and alas! his body, also! He arose, like the Phoenix, from the ashes below, but to seek the earth again, having fallen from the frightful height of three feet. He lay upon the sod without sense or motion. The spectators pressed around,--but, breaking through the throng, came the fair nymphs aforesaid. One pillowed his head upon her arm, and drenched his dusty brow with tears; her comrade wrung her hands, and shrieked for 'help! lest he die!' The crowd, at a respectful distance, looked on; venturing a whisper, now and then, to the purport that 'it was as good as a play, and cost nothing.' Warm brine and sounding air are poor medicines for a cracked skull; and the sufferer remaining insensible, a frantic damsel was seen, vaulting over tomb-stones, bonnetless and shawlless, on the most direct route to the gate. A gallant man of healing was passing, and him she conducted to the prostrate hero. Handkerchiefs and scarfs were stripped from necks and arms to staunch the trickling gore; and supported by his affectionate nurses, the interesting youth gained his carriage. Miss Ross returned home with swollen eyes and downcast air. The afternoon, evening, and most of the next day were spent in retirement. This was a grief sympathy could not assuage."

"Did she tell you of it?" asked one.

"No. Madam Rumor is my informant, and her story is vouched for by a gentleman, an eye witness of the catastrophe."

In this lamentable caricature, there was so little truth, and so much less wit, that it should have been beneath the contempt of her, at whom it was aimed; but the ridicule was _public_. Her bonnet hid her face, but the angry blood surged over her neck in crimson streams. There was vengeful fury enough in the grasp, which drove the nails through the paper she held, into the palm, to have swept the tittering clique from the earth at a stroke. Whatever purpose of retaliation sprang into life, it was nipped in the bud. The desk of the supposed artist was in a niche; and the projecting wall concealed it from the view of the party. He was almost in front of her; and her burning eyes were arrested as they encountered his. There was no scorn, or none for her, in that regard; but warning, interest and inquiry were blended with such earnestness, that, like the charmed bird, he could not move or look away. Even when he cast his eyes upon his work again, she did not, at once, withdraw hers. He might have been thirty; was pale, and not handsome, yet anything but ordinary in his appearance. If his countenance had betrayed emotion the previous moment, it vanished as his pen began to move. He was the automaton scribe, and the subdued Ida, drawing her shawl around her, quitted the place, without exchanging a syllable with any one.

The spell of the silent rebuke was speedily dissolved, yet she was grateful that it had restrained her hasty retort. The heated in a quarrel, are always the defeated. Morbid sensibility is the engenderer of suspicion,--and vice versa; the two act and react, until a smile, a look, is the foundation of weeks--it may be, of years of wretchedness. To such a mind, ridicule is a venomed dart, piercing and poisoning, and pride but inflames the wound. Dr. Ballard had showed the courtesy of a gentleman, and the kindness of a friend in his intercourse with Ida. Unconsciously, she had come to like, almost to trust him--and this was at an end. He, and he, only, could have provided the outline of the narrative she had heard. She set her teeth hard, as she recalled her agitated greeting at the gate; and his composure; her subsequent offers of assistance--"officious"--she called them now,--and his calm acceptance. But it was base and unmanly, to make capital for sport of the weakness of a woman--a child, compared with himself! "They are all alike--I must believe it! with hearts rotten to the core! Heaven have mercy on me, until I am as callous as they!" And when he called, at some personal inconvenience, to impart the intelligence of her "protege's" recovery, she met him with a haughtiness that surprised and angered him; and his futile attempt to throw down the barrier, resulted in his cutting short the interview. He had told Mr. Read of Ida's adventure; but not in the spirit in which its events were coarsely retailed. He lauded her kindness and self-possession, in terms too extravagant to suit the zero humanity of her guardian's narrow soul;--as he wound up the story to his daughter--he "was not a man to get up a fit of heroics, and had no idea that Ballard had so much palaver about him."

If his vile doctrine were indeed true, if all men were alike, and like him, who of us would not unite in the orphan's prayer--would not cry, with her, in despairing bitterness, "Heaven have mercy upon us, until we are as callous as they!"

She had no mercy upon herself. There was an unholy joy in ruthlessly trampling upon the few flowers that grew in her path: the ebullition of a desperate despair, as when one is tortured by a raging tooth, he probes, and grinds and shakes the offending member, self-inflicting yet more exquisite pain, but bearing it better, under the insane impression that he is wreaking revenge upon its cause; saying, with the poor Dutchman, "ache on! ache on! I can stand it as long as you can!" And "ache on! ache on!" said Ida to her heart, "the nerve will be dead by and by!"

We consign to the lower pit of darkness the bloody demons, cloaked in priestly stole, and "speaking great, swelling words of wisdom" and peace, who tore limb from limb upon the rack, in "zeal for the Faith!" but for him who pours out his atheistical misanthropy,--deadening, petrifying the soul, and blinding the eyes, until in this, our lovely earth, they see but a mighty charnel-house, full of nameless abominations; who traduces God, in despising His noblest work, and says: "Behold the Truth!" the murderer of the _heart_,--what shall be his portion!

Carry Carleton's liking for the company of "that proud, disagreeable girl," and her defence of her when attacked, was a nine days' wonder. True, "she loved everybody," but here she manifested partiality, far more than accorded with her schoolmates' notions of justice and reason. Carry was unwavering. "I like her," said she, one recess, when her corps of affectionate teazers hung on and about her. "It wounds me to hear you speak disparagingly of her. You must admit that she has redeeming traits. She is one of our best scholars, and if inaccessible, is upright and honorable, and will not stoop to do an ignoble action."

"Yes," said Emma Glenn, happy to add her mite of praise, "Don't you remember she found Julia Mason's composition behind a desk in the cloak room, and brought it in examination day, although she knew that she was her most dangerous competitor for the prize? I'm afraid I should have been tempted to keep it, or leave it where it was."

"I should not be afraid to trust you, dear," said Carry. "You are too ready to commend such conduct in others, to act a contrary part yourself. As for Ida--have any of you reflected how much of what you call her pride you are accountable for?"

"We! how!" was the unanimous exclamation.

"I know my misdeeds are legion, and my good works, like Parson Wilkins' text, 'way off and hard to find,' but 'evil,' indeed, as well as 'few, have been the years of my pilgrimage,' if I had anything to do with the 'formation of Ida Ross' character!" said Ellen Morris, clasping her hands deprecatingly.

"Ellen! Ellen!" remonstrated Carry, "think what effect a remark like that would produce! Would it increase her confidence in you or us? Would she not avoid us more then ever? She is an orphan, and should be dealt with more charitably, than if her feelings had expanded in a home like yours."

"You do not believe she could love anybody!" said one of the group.

"Certainly I do, and I mean she shall love me. You would make the same resolution, if you knew her as I do."

"An idea strikes me, Carry," said the incorrigible Ellen.--"She and we have affinity for each other--water and oil--you are the alkali, which is to reconcile us; we shall be a soap manufactory, to cleanse and regenerate the world."

"A little vinegar facilitates the process, does it not?" asked Carry, good-humoredly.

"You have come to a poor market for it, my good Alkali; upon second thoughts, you must leave me out of the combination altogether--salt, Attic, particularly, being detrimental to the integrity of the article in question."

"Soap boiling and Attica!" said Anna Talbot, who was reading a little apart, "your conversation takes an extended range to-day, young ladies."

"Both are warm places," returned Ellen. "Our imaginations needed thawing after perching so long upon the North Pole, _id est_, Ida Ross."

"You have offended Carry," said Emma, apprehensively, as the former walked towards the other room.

"Not offended, but grieved," she replied, with sweet gravity. "I should not love Ellen as I do, if I did not believe her heart to be oftener in the right place than her tongue."

She passed into the recitation room, and there, her head bent upon a desk, was Ida! Carry was transfixed with dismay. The door was a-jar--she had heard it all! But the relaxed limbs--the unmoving figure--was she then asleep? A minute's stay confirmed this opinion; and greatly relieved, she tripped lightly out by another door. Ida did not sleep. She had left the larger room at the close of morning recitations, seeking in the comparative quiet of this, some ease from a severe headache. She did not think of concealment. After the gossip of the thoughtless circle turned upon herself, she still supposed that her vicinity was known; that their pretended unconsciousness was a covering for a renewal of mortifications. To move would have been matter for triumph, she was not disposed to supply. So unjust does suspicion make us!

Carry's disinterested vindication electrified her. To risk the forfeiture of the favor of the many, for one who had never conferred an obligation--whose good will could profit her nothing! in her experience, the act lacked a parallel. "Can it be," she thought, with stirring pulses, "can it be that I may yet find a friend?" then, as Carry's "I am resolved she shall love me," reached her, she bowed in thankfulness. "I will trust! will stake my last hope of ever meeting a kindred spirit upon this throw--will let her love me if she will, so help me God!" It was no light vow.

Carry's intrusion was unobserved; she was only sensible of the incalescence of her frozen heart. The afternoon was cloudy, and her maid was surprised to see her mistress preparing for her promenade.

"Indeed, Miss Ida, you'll get caught in the shower; 'twont be no little sprinkle, neither. When its starts to rain this time o' year, it never holds up."

"Oh, well!" returned Ida, familiarly, "if we have another deluge, I may as well be out of doors as in. But give me my cloak, Rachel, I must have a short run before it sets in."

Josephine crossed the hall as she was going out. She stared, but made no remark upon her unseasonable excursion. It was less wonderful than the smile and nod she received. "It is pleasant," said Ida to herself, "yet they talked of rain!" But the storm was not to be delayed by inward sunshine. The smoky fog grew denser; through the ominous calm which pervaded the city, the roaring of the distant "Falls" was distinctly audible; cows stood, solemnly herded together, the vapor from their nostrils scarcely thicker than the surrounding atmosphere; and an occasional rain-drop trickling down their roughened hides. Then the pavement was spotted with the precursors of the prognosticated deluge, and a dash of spray into Ida's face restored her to the perception of her actual position: a mile from home, night and a tempest approaching. Ere a dozen steps were retraced, she was met by the shower,--November rain, cutting and numbing as hail. Her veil, flimsy defence for her face, was dripping in a moment, and the water streamed in miniature cascades from her bonnet and shoulders. Bewildered and dizzy, she sprang, without a thought, except the instinct of self-preservation, into the shelter of a friendly porch. She laughed, despite her uneasiness at her situation. "Wet, not quite to the skin, but more damp than is comfortable; sans umbrella, over-shoes, carriage or servant, and where, I cannot precisely determine."

"Walk in, _do!_" said a pleasant voice behind her. A lady was holding the open door. "I thank you," Ida began, when a figure glanced out of the entry. "Why, Ida! my dear creature! how wet you are! don't stand there a moment. I am so glad you ran in! This is my sister, Mrs. Dana--my friend, Miss Ross--now we will go directly up stairs, and take off your damp things!" and in the confusion of congratulations and regrets, Ida did not know where she was, until she was seated in Carry's room; both sisters occupied in divesting her of such portions of her apparel, as were likely, by their humidity, to endanger her health.

"You are very kind," she said; "but I cannot wait to have these dried. I must go home."

"Impossible!" cried the impulsive Carry. "I will not hear of it. Just make up your mind to stay in your present quarters until clear weather."

"Let me insist upon your staying, Miss Ross;" said Mrs. Dana. "I will send a messenger to your friends to inform them of your safety."

"She will stay," said Carry, looking very positive.

Ida yielded with secret pleasure. Her guardian angel must have guided her into this haven. Mrs. Dana was Carry's senior by ten years or more, and resembled her more in voice and manner, than feature. They had the same kind eyes and dimpling smile. Having seen her guest comfortable, she gave her into Carry's charge, and went to forward her message to Mr. Read. "How it rains!" said Carry, drawing aside the curtain. "It is lucky you came when you did. Did you know we lived here?"

"No, it was entirely accidental. I was walking, and did not notice the clouds until the shower came; then I took refuge in the nearest house."

"A happy accident for me," said Carry. "I despaired of ever persuading you to visit me. This storm was sent for my express benefit. Sister and I are never tired of each other's company; but the little ones demand much of her time; and brother John--Mr. Dana, often brings home writing, or is detained at the store late at night, in the busy season, and I am rather lonely."

"You are bent upon convincing me that all the obligation is on your side," returned Ida: "but compare the mermaid-like fright which shocked you, with the decent young lady before you now, and recollect that my gratitude is proportionate to the improvement."

A pretty little girl, about five years old, crept into the room.

"Come to aunt, Elle!" said Carry. "And speak to this lady."

The child came up timidly to Ida, and slid her plump hand into hers. She did not struggle, as she lifted her into her lap, but looked steadfastly at her with her soft black eyes. "What is your name?" asked Ida.

"Elinor Dana," she answered, in her clear, childish voice.

"Elinor!" repeated Ida, and the little one felt herself pressed more closely to her breast."

"Do you like it?" inquired Carry.

"It was my _mother's_ name!" was the low reply. Elle put up her lips for a kiss. She saw a pained look flit over the countenance of the visitor, and administered the only panacea she possessed.

"Is she your sister's oldest child?" asked Ida, repaying the caress.

"Yes. She has two younger; a boy and a girl. The babe is my namesake."

"My brother is named Charles Arthur; after uncle Charley and uncle Arthur," ventured Elle.

"And you love him very dearly,--do you not?" said Ida.

"Yes ma'am; I love papa and mamma, and aunt Carry, and uncle Charley, and uncle Arthur, and grandpa, and sister and brother," said the child, running over the names with a volubility that showed how used she was to the repetition.

"Will you love me too?" asked Ida. The anxiety with which she awaited the reply will not be sneered at by those who have been, like her, starvelings in affection.

"Yes, you too, but I don't know what to call you."

"My name is Ida."

"Miss Ida, or cousin Ida?"

"Cousin!" exclaimed Ida, catching at the word. "Call me cousin!"

"Elle claims as relatives, all whom she loves," observed Carry; "and we encourage her in the practice. Miss is formal; and the absence of any such prefix gives a disrespectful air to a child's address."

"She speaks of her uncles. Have you brothers?"

"She alludes to Mr. Dana's brothers," said Carry, with a slight blush, which Ida remembered afterwards. "They were wards of my father's; and we regard them as a part of the family."

Ida amused herself by coaxing forth Elle's prattle; and related, as reward for her sociability, a marvellous fairy tale, which expanded her eyes to their utmost circle, and interested even Carry. Mrs. Dana entered at the finale.

"Papa has come, Elle, and would be happy to see Miss Ross. Tea is ready, too. I hope she has not annoyed you,"--to Ida.

"Annoyed! oh no, ma'am! we are good friends, and have had a nice talk, have we not, darling?"

Playing with a child is a very puerile amusement--what room is there for the exercise of the reasoning faculties; what opportunity for gaining new views of the world or of truth? Still Ida was happier, and she was silly enough to think, wiser. A germ was set, which should be developed by and by.

Mr. Dana was in the supper-room. He was tall and dark, grave-looking when silent; but as he acknowledged the introduction to herself, and stooped to kiss Elle, his smile rendered him exceedingly handsome. The proud tenderness of his wife was beautiful to behold; and he unbent all that was stern in his nature, in her presence, or Carry's. The repast went off delightfully. There were no sarcastic flings at society and individuals, and clash of combat, imperfectly drowned by courteous phraseology, such as characterized similar occasions at Mr. Read's. Free to act and speak, without dread of criticism, Ida acquitted herself well. She and her entertainers were equally charmed; and Carry sat by, contented with the success of her benevolent efforts. Mr. Dana's business required his attention immediately after supper; Mrs. Dana sat with the girls awhile, then repaired to her nursery. "We shall not be troubled by visitors to-night," said Carry. "What say you to adjourning to our chamber? It is more snug than these empty parlors."

They visited the nursery in their way. Elle opened her eyes as her friend kissed her coral lips, but their lids fell again directly, and her "good night" died in a drowsy murmur. The boy was sleeping soundly, and little Carry lay quietly wakeful upon her mother's lap. "These are my treasures," said the fond parent, smiling at Ida's admiration of the group.

"Treasures she would not barter for the wealth of both Indies," added Carry. "You are a diplomatist, Ida, you have found sister's blind side by praising her pets."

"You, who are so accustomed to these pretty playthings, do not know how lovely they are to one who is not so favored," replied Ida.

"Ah! there you are in error. No one can love the sweet angels as I do, except the mother who bore them. Now," continued she, when they were in their room, taking from a wardrobe two dressing-gowns, "I move that we don these, and make ourselves comfortable generally."

And cozily comfortable they appeared, ensconced in armchairs, in front of that most sparkling of coal-fires; a waiter of apples and nuts sent up by thoughtful Mrs. Dana, on a stand between them; shutters and curtains closed, and the storm roaring and driving without.

"I no longer wonder at your cheerfulness, since I have seen your home," said Ida. "All the good things of life are mingled in your cup."

"You are right. I am very happy, but not more so than hundreds of others. My contentment would be grievously marred, if I suspected this was not so."

"Fraternizing again. I have reflected and observed much since our talk in the cemetery, and am almost persuaded that you have chosen the easiest method of living; that 'where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.' Your system has brought most pleasure thus far, whether it will endure the test of time and experience, is another question."

"You alarm me," answered Carry. "Your vague hints excite my curiosity, yet do not indicate the description of dangers I am to encounter. Let us understand each other--as the Methodist class-leaders have it, 'tell our experiences.'"

"Mine may be briefly summed up," said Ida, sadly.

'The frigid and unfeeling thrive the best; And a warm heart in this cold world, is like A beacon light;--waiting its feeble light Upon the wintry deep, that feels it not-- Trembling with each pitiless blast that blows, 'Till its faint fire is spent.'"

"You have known this?" asked Carry.

"In all its bitterness!"

"And the writer felt, or thought he felt the force of their meaning, when he penned the lines. Have you ever met with a warm heart besides your own?"

"Yes, one--the home of excellence and affection."

"Then, 'this cold world' has produced three, to whom its biting atmosphere was uncongenial--may there not be more? I look into my bosom, and discover there charity and good-will towards men; why should I deny the existence of like feelings in those who are partakers of the same nature, in all other respects?"

"Fair logic; but let us examine facts. Take an example so frequently cited, as to appear hacknied, yet none the less true to nature. Your wealth, or situation, or influence enables you to benefit those who style themselves your friends. You are courted, beloved, popular. A change in these adventitious circumstances alters everything. With unabated desires for love or distinction, you are a clod of the earth, a cumberer of the ground. The stream of adulation flows in another direction; former acquaintances pass you with averted eyes, or chilling recognitions; you are sought by no new ones. Men do not go to a barren tree, or a dried fountain. You shake your head;--this is not a fancy sketch. Listen to a leaf from my history. Until two years ago I never received a harsh word, or an unloving look. My mother was the benefactress of the poor, for miles around, and I was her almoner. Blessings and smiles hailed me wherever I went. I had no conception of sorrows she could not alleviate; and I remember thinking--foolish child that I was! that her empire of hearts was worth the glory of an Alexander or Napoleon. She died! and where are the fruits of her loving kindness? If her memory lives in another breast than that of her only child, I do not know it!"

There were tears in Carry's eyes, already, and the slight tremor of her speech was grateful music to the orphan's ear.

"You quitted your home, and all who knew her, and came to a strange city, where it was necessary for you to earn love as she had done. I have no doubt, nay, I am sure, that by the creatures of her bounty, her memory is preserved as a holy thing; and that they are ready to extend the affection they had for her, to her child. Here, she was comparatively unknown. To carry out your metaphor of the tree, the graft cut from the parent stock must bear fruit for itself. I know the world is generally selfish, but I am convinced that our reprobation of it often arises from the growth of a similar weakness in ourselves. May it not be that the dearth of love, so painfully felt by you, proceeds in part, from the ignorance of your associates as to the real state of your mind, or from an exacting spirit in yourself! Pardon my freedom; it is meant in kindness."

"I thank you for your candor. The truth, if unpalatable, cannot offend."

"Then, trusting to your forbearance, I will go more into particulars. To curry favor, in school, or elsewhere, is as repugnant to me as to you; but do we sacrifice self-respect, by swaying to the popular voice, when no abandonment of principle is required? or play the hypocrite, in concealing prejudices and humors that conflict with the sentiments of others; in uniting, with apparent willingness, in the common cause? We cannot like--we may help all. I say it in humility--there is one rule by which I do not fear to be judged: 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.'"

"I understand your allusions. You think my reserve proceeds from pride alone. What if I were to tell you"--and her voice sank, "that haughty as I seem, I would cringe--lie in the dust--to the most inferior of my daily companions, if she would give me love. Believe me, it is this unquenchable thirst--this longing for what is unattainable by me, which has forced me to court its opposite--hate! I will not lay my heart bare to those who would spurn it. It is said, the hind seeks an obscure covert, to die from the wound for which his unhurt comrades would shun him. You cannot know--it would be improper for me to recount my fruitless endeavors to win the coveted blessing, at any price, even the loss of the self-respect you imagine I value so highly. It is enough that experiences, such as I hope may never be yours, have taught me to entrench myself in my fortress of self-confidence, from whence I hurl disdain upon besieging powers. I am thought independent; the world has made me so. No woman is independent from nature or choice."

Carry looked musingly in the fire. "I am not certain," she said, "that I have a right to repeat what was told me, by one who never thought that you would hear it. I do not see, how ever, that it can do harm, and I wish to show you, that I am not ignorant of some of your trials. A friend of mine, whose name I am not at liberty to mention, was in F----'s painting-rooms on the afternoon of your visit. The artist was an acquaintance, and having letters to write, he offered to occupy his desk while Mr. F---- should seek recreation. He was an auditor of Josephine's Read's garbled story of our church-yard adventure; he had heard a true statement from me. Had my name been used, as it would have been if she had known who your companion was, he would have spoken. As it was, his indignation nearly got the better of his prudence. He identified you as the heroine of the tale, by the significant gestures and winks of the ill-mannered party, and commended your equanimity and forbearance."

"He did not add, that his timely warning suppressed the responsive storm?" said Ida.

"Why! did he speak?"

"No. He only looked, but such a look!"

Carry laughed. "He is a strange mortal! But to return to yourself. These exhibitions of depravity and cold-heartedness, are not adapted to raise our estimate of mankind; yet even then, there was _one_ present, who was on the side of right and humanity; who saw no cause for mirth in the sufferings of a child, or the anxieties of two inexperienced girls."

"Dr. Ballard did, it seems," said Ida, the gloomy look returning.

"Did Josephine hear of the affair from him?"

"I suppose so. Who else knew it?"

"True. But is it not more probable that she gave it her own coloring, than that he made a jest of us? We will lean towards mercy in our judgment."

"You are a veritable alchemist," said Ida. "You would ferret out gold, even in the dross of my character."

"Try me!" replied Carry. "But bear in mind, nothing is to be secreted; no hard thoughts or jaundiced investigations. All must be cast into the crucible."

"And tried by what fire?" inquired Ida.

"Love!" said the warm-hearted girl, kneeling beside her, and winding her arms about her waist. "Love me, Ida! and if I prove heartless and deceitful, I will cease to plead for my brothers and sisters."

The glad tears that impearled her bright locks, replied.

Chapter VI.

"Teach me to gain hearts as you do!" Ida prayed, on the memorable evening of the storm, and Carry answered, blithely, "Love, and live for others!"

To her, natural disposition and practice made the task easy; for her pupil, it was arduous beyond her worst expectation. Her reputation was established; the wall she had erected between herself and her associates, was not to be undermined or scaled in a day. Her overtures of familiarity and service was unskilfully made; her very timidity construed into labored condescension. "It is a hopeless endeavor--they will never care for me!" said she, despondingly--once and again, and Carry still predicted--"Love will win love. Persevere!" The birth and growth of their attachment was remarkable. Dissimilar in mind; made more so in manner, by education and circumstances, there existed from the earliest stage of their friendship, perfect confidence in each other's affection. Carry had an infallible perception of genuine worth, hidden though it might be; and Ida clung drowningly to this last anchor--the sole tie that connected her with her race. Like most deep feelings, its current was noiseless. They were much together;--that was not strange, since their studies were the same. They had separate compartments of one desk; and none marked how often one book was conned by both; brown and fair curls mingling; and hands clasped in mute tenderness. Still less did they dream of the miraculous confluence of the sun-bright stream with the turbid torrent, and the wondrous music of their flow.

They were sitting thus one forenoon, when an assistant teacher drew near, and inquired if there were a vacant seat in their vicinity.

"A new scholar!" buzzed from fifty tongues; and the eyes of our two students strayed with the rest, to the door.

"Miss Pratt, young ladies!" introduced Mr. Purcell.

The girls arose, in conformance with their custom of reception, and bowed to the figure that followed him into the room. She was short and fat--"dumpy," in vulgar parlance; and so homely, as to countenance Ellen Morris' report to another department--"that the farmers in the neighborhood where she was 'riz,' had forwarded a petition, beseeching her to return, their corn having suffered greatly from the depredations of the crows since her departure; a thing unheard of, previously, in that part of the country." Her eyes were small and grey; her nose a ruddy "snub;" her lips curiously puckered up; and her skin might have owed its dappled red to the drippings of the carroty frizette overshadowing it. Her dress was showy and outre; a rainbow silk trebly-flounced; an embroidered lace cape; white kid gloves; a gold cable of startling dimensions; two bracelets of corresponding size, and different patterns; a brooch that matched neither, and out-glittered both; while blue, green, and red stones, with heavy settings, loaded the thick fingers to the knuckles.

Awe of their preceptor in some, good breeding in others, prevented any audible outbreak of amusement; but what school girl on the _qui vive_ for diversion could keep from smiling? Mr. Purcell frowned as his eye travelled from one mirthful face to another, but a twinkle from Ellen Morris' dancing orbs neutralized the effort; and there was a perceptible twitch of his risible muscle as he rapped for "order." Ida and Carry had not escaped the contagion, an indulgence for which they reproached themselves.

"Poor girl!" whispered Carry. "She knows no better. She is to be pitied instead of laughed at." And Ida thought of _her_ loneliness, upon her induction into these strange scenes. "I can lessen her discomfort, and, uninfluenced by prejudice, she will be thankful, perhaps will become fond of me."

Carry read her resolve in her thoughtful survey of the stranger; but while she loved and honoured her for it, her heart misgave her as she looked more attentively at the object of the purposed charity. Her physiognomy was not more irregular than unpleasant in its expression. She had opened a book, to be in the fashion in this as in every thing else, but her regards were wandering around the room in scared yet unblushing curiosity, flustered at being in a crowd, without a doubt as to her ability to cope with the best of them. Before the exercises of the forenoon were concluded, she was summoned to see a visitor, and did not reappear before intermission. Then Ida, having occasion to go into a small room, where bonnets and cloaks were hung, found her standing at the window, crying. She wheeled about sharply on hearing a step; her eyes swelled almost out of sight, and her whole appearance frightful in its disorder.

"What do you want?" she asked, querulously.

"I did not know you were here," said Ida. "What is the matter? Are you sick? Can I help you?"

"No. My pa's gone away!" A fresh burst.

"Gone! where?"

"Gone home! and I don't want to stay in this nasty, mean place. I don't want to go to school no more--nowhar!"

To hint at the obvious propriety of the deprecated measure was a temptation policy bade her resist, and Ida was actually nonplussed in casting about in her mind for appropriate consolation.

"You will like us better than you expect," she said, rather awkwardly; "and your father will come soon to see you again--will he not?"

"Yes; he's comin' next week. He is a representative!" mouthing the word magniloquently.

"A--what?"

"He belongs to the legislater. Lor! didn't you know that?"

"No," replied Ida, humbly; "I am so little conversant with State affairs. You will be glad to have him so near."

"I don't care much about it; I want to go home and stay with ma!" beginning to sob. Neither her unpolished manners, nor her accent, combining, as it did, the most vicious of Virginia provincialisms, with the gutturals of the African; nor her noisy grief, could make Ida forget that she was a home-sick child--weeping for her mother! _She_ too had mourned, and "refused to be comforted, because hers was not." Miss Pratt's sorrow, however, was very garrulous.

"Now, at home," she continued, "I did jest as I pleased; I lay down most all day. Ma said reading was bad for my head; and so 'tis; it makes me as stupid as I don't know what; and ain't no use besides. I can play on the pianny; gentle_men_ don't care for nothing else when they go to see the ladies. You all don't have no beaux while you're at school, do you?"

Ida smiled at this unlooked for query. "We do not have much leisure for amusements," she rejoined.

"And can't you go to the theatre, and to shows and parties?" asked Miss Pratt, alarmed.

"There are no rules on the subject; but it is thought that a young lady is better fitted to go into society, when her mind and manners are formed by time and study."

"Mine are enough formed, I know," complacently glancing from her attire to Ida's plain merino, and black silk apron. "How awful ugly all the girls dress! Ain't none of 'em rich?"

"I believe so; but the school-girls here dress simply."

"_I_ shan't! My pa's able to give me decent clothes, and I mean to have 'em. I don't like Richmond a single bit. Nobody don't take no more notice of me than if I wan't nobody--no better than other folks."

"You are not acquainted yet. There are some pleasant girls amongst us; and you will love Mr. Purcell."

"Is he strict, much? Does he make you get hard lessons?"

"He is very kind and considerate."

"I despise teachers and books. Thank patience! I am going to turn out after this session. Ma was married at fifteen, and I'm going on seventeen."

"I am quite seventeen, but I am not tired of books. When I leave school, I shall adopt a regular plan of study and reading."

"_Good_ gracious! Why, don't you expect to get married? What are you going to learn so much for? I reckon you're going to teach school."

"No; I study because I like to do it."

"Pshaw! you talk like your teacher was in the room. I don't believe _that_."

"The school-bell!" interrupted Ida, happy to be released.

Miss Pratt hung back. "I don't want to go where all them girls are. Will Mr. What's-his-name be mad if I stay here?"

"He will probably send for you."

"Then I might's well go now. I don't care--I'm as good as any of 'em."

"What, and who is she?" inquired Carry, when school was out.

"A silly, neglected child," responded her friend. "Shamefully ignorant, when we consider her father's station. He is a member of the legislature."

"Ah! can it be the delegate from A----? I have heard of him. He is a clever politician, and an educated man. I am astonished!"

So were all who made the acquaintance of his daughter. Mr. Pratt had done his best to serve his country and increase his fortune. The rearing of his children was confided to a weak and foolishly fond mother. The only girl was alternately stuffed and dosed, until the modicum of intellectual strength nature might have granted her, was nearly destroyed; the arable soil exhausted by the rank weed growth. It was just after his election to the House of Representatives, that the father made simultaneously two astounding discoveries--that physically, his daughter was no longer a child, and that she was a dunce. He had paid a teacher to superintend her education, and supposed she had done her duty; whereas, the prudent governess, having little more sense than her pupil, and loving her ease fully as well, had enjoyed her sinecure of a situation with no compunctious visitings of conscience. She acted "according to Mrs. Pratt's instructions." It was a thunderbolt to the feminine trio when the Representative introduced a bill of amendment, paid the soi-disant instructress for the work she had not performed, informing her that her services were at an end; and ordered the mother to resign her spoiled child to him, "he would see what could be done towards redeeming the time." He carried his point in the teeth of a windy and watery tempest, and "Miss Celestia Pratt" was duly entered on the roll-book of Mr. Purcell's justly celebrated institution. She soon ceased to complain that she was not noticed. The second day of her attendance she fell in with Ellen Morris and her coterie. By the time the half hour's recess was over, they were enlightened as to her past life, and future aspirations, and supplied with the material of a year's fun-making; while she was reinstated in her self-consequence, and ready to strike hands with them in any scheme they chalked out.

"It is a shame," said Ida, who, with Carry kept aloof, silent spectators. "Cannot she see what they are doing?"

"It will be a severe, but perhaps a salutary lesson," replied Carry.

"But the poor creature will be the butt of the school."

"And of the community," said Carry. "I have reasoned with Ellen;--she is not evil disposed, but would compass sea and land for as rich a joke as this promises to be. My influence can effect nothing."

"What if I warn the girl?" said Ida. "Must she pay the penalty of her parent's fault?"

"My darling," returned Carry, affectionately, "I am learning prudence from you, and I verily believe I have imparted to you some of my inconsiderateness. What hold have you on this Miss Pratt's confidence? Ellen and her clique are as likely to be in the right as yourself. In her estimation they are more entitled to credence. They play upon the string of self--you will utter a distasteful truth. Let her and them alone, except so far as your individual self is concerned. Attract each one to you, and you may be the means of bringing them together."

Ellen Morris burst into the school-room one morning in a gale of excitement.

It was early, and none of the teachers were present, the girls were gathered in knots about the stove and desks.

"Oh girls!" she cried, "I hurried to get here before my angel Celestia. I have the best thing to tell you. You must know she and I were invited, with several others, to take tea at Uncle James' last evening. We had not been there long before aunt said that Mr. Dermott was expected. 'I have it,' thought I. I gave Celestia a nudge, 'Do you hear that?'

"'What?' said she.

"'The great traveller, Mr. Dermott, is to be here presently. Ain't you glad?'

"'Who is he? I never heard of him.'

"'Oh Celestia! and you a representative's daughter! and he invited expressly to meet you--it is well no one overheard you--and you have not composed your conversation either? What will you do? He is one of the famous authors you hear so much of. They will make a statue of him when he dies, like Washington in the capitol, you know.'

"'You don't say so!'

"'Yes, and he has seen the seven wonders of the world, and elephants, and rhinoceros, and polypi, and hippopotami, and Dawalageri, and anthropophagi.'

"'_Good_ gracious!' said she, looking wild, 'You reckon he will speak to me? _do_ tell me something to say!'

"'Could you repeat those names?'

"'_That_ I couldn't, to save my life!'

"'Well,--let me see,--you must be very sober and wise; only saying 'yes' and 'no,' till he gets to talking of books. Then is the time to show off. Literary people never inquire what you remember in a book, if you say you have read it.'

"'Yes,' she struck in, with a grin. 'So when he asks me if I've read them he's talking about, I'm a-going to say 'yes'--(you know she is always 'going, going, gone.') 'He ain't a-going to catch me, I'll show him!'

"'Right,' said I; 'and question him about two or three, which you name yourself; that will finish the business.'

"'I don't know none.'

"'Don't you? Then I will write off a short list. Keep the paper in your hand; and when he is fairly under way talking, you steal a sly peep at it.' Oh! it was enrapturing to see how she held on to that slip of paper! poring over it every five minutes before Mr. Dermott's arrival, and once in two minutes afterwards. She would study it for a second, then her lips would move, until the time for another peep; she was getting it by heart, staring at him all the while. By and by he happened to be near her; and said something about the Panorama. She had been on tiptoe for the last hour, lest her trouble should be thrown away; and resolved not to lose this opportunity, she spoke out as loudly as addressing a deaf person--

"'Mr. _Dermarck!_ have you ever read Plutarch-es Liv-es, Homer's Eyelids, Dance's Diving Comedy and Campbell's Gratitude of Wimming?' I wish you could have seen him!"

"O Ellen! Ellen!" chorussed twenty voices; and the crowd rocked in uncontrollable merriment. Carry, and one or two more were grave; and an indignant voice said, "How wickedly heartless!"

There was no mistaking the meaning and emphasis of the interjection. Ellen crimsoned to the roots of her hair. She retorted with a spirit entirely opposite to her usual sportive gaiety.

"One, whose lowest thoughts soar so far above the common herd, as Miss Ross, cannot be expected to understand a piece of harmless pleasantry."

Ida had unluckily employed the oft-quoted words, "the common herd of mankind," in a written composition; and this was not the first time it had been used as an offensive missile.

"One must stoop low indeed, Miss Morris," was the instant rejoinder, "to see harmless pleasantry in a plot for the disgrace of an unoffending school-mate."

"Ida! Ellen!" exclaimed Carry, laying her hand upon Ellen's mouth, and stifling her reply. "For my sake, girls--if not for your own--say no more! Ida! what have you to do with this miserable affair?"

"I have done!" said Ida, bitterly; "Defence of right and truth is better left unattempted _here_!"

The girls fell back as she crossed to her seat. The sentence sank into every mind; and the expression of each one showed that she appropriated it. Carry's head dropped upon Ellen's shoulder; and sullenly vindictive as was the latter, she was not unmoved by the quiver of the slender frame. Mr. Purcell's entrance put an end to the scene. That was a wretched day to more than one heart. Ida's was well-nigh bursting. It mattered not that her prospects of popularity were, for the present, shipwrecked; that her resolutions of patience and gentleness had broken, like dry straws, at the breeze of passion;--Carry was wounded--perhaps offended--perhaps estranged! "Still, what have I done?" whispered pride, "spoken truth, and defended the absent!" But conscience answered--"Anger, not justice was the prompter," and again, every feeling merged in one--"What will Carry think?" She did not offer her book as usual--did not meet her eye. She would have read no resentment there; the pale, sad face told of suffering, with no admixture of baser motives. The intermission was dull. Miss Celestia's extravagant description of "the party," and "the gentle_men_" she "was interduced to," hardly excited a smile. A nameless depression was upon all. Ellen, their ringleader in mischief, and Carry, the willing participant in their innocent pleasures, were wanting from their band. They remained at their desks, seemingly engaged in study, until almost school-time, when Carry went around to the other, whispered a word; and they left the apartment together. They returned arm in arm, as Ida, who had gone home in recess, more to be quieted and refreshed by the cool air, than for luncheon,--entered from the street. She remarked their affectionate air, and happier faces with goading envy. "Ellen is worth conciliating. It would be dangerous to break with her. There can be no hesitancy, with the fair words of the crowd in one scale--and Ida Ross, unknown and unbeloved, in the other. Be it so!" But awakened affection had had a taste of its proper nutriment, and was not to be famished into silence. The afternoon wore heavily away in the unspoken anguish of love and pride and suspicion. Careless of remarks or conjectures, she declined dinner, and retired at once to her chamber, when she reached home. It might have been one hour;--it might have been three, that she had knelt or laid upon the floor, her head upon a stool, before the mourner for the dead bird;--weeping and thinking, and seeming to grow a year older with each flood of grief; when there came a tap at the door. "Josephine!" was the first thought--to spring to the mirror, brush the tumbled hair, and dash rosewater over the discolored cheeks, the work of the next minute; then she said sleepily--"Who is there?"

"It is I--Carry!"

The bolt was withdrawn, and the intruder lay, sobbing upon her breast.

"Oh, Ida! how could you be angry with me?"

Ida struggled with the answering drops, but they _would_ come.

"I thought you had thrown me off, Carry!"

"You could not--after my note."

"Your note!"

"I slipped it into your French Grammar, as it lay open before your eyes; and you shut the book and put it aside,--I supposed to read it at your leisure."

"I did not see it."

She went to her satchel, and brought forth the Grammar. "There it is!" said Carry, as a folded paper fell from within it. "Do not read it. I will tell you its contents. I asked your forgiveness for interrupting you so rudely this morning; but these public disputes lead to so much evil. Ellen was wrong; she has said so to me; and is ready to be your friend, if you consent. Her conduct was blameably thoughtless; and her quick temper could not submit to a rebuke so openly administered. I was abrupt, but it was not because I was angry with, or did not love you. Ellen's taunt was extremely provoking"--

"Stop! stop! Carry! It is I, who should sue for pardon, and excuse, if I can, my unbecoming heat, and after doubts of your friendship. I cannot tell you what a fearful warfare has waged within me;--how much incensed I was to see you and Ellen come in so lovingly, at noon;--how Ishmael-like I felt;--every man's hand against me, and mine against the universe, and Him who made it," she added, with an intonation of awe. "Can you love me after hearing this, Carry?"

"Always--always!"

Ellen was amazed, that afternoon, on being summoned to receive visitors, to find in them her two class-mates, and more astounded to hear from her antagonist of the morning, a frank and graceful apology for her hasty strictures upon her conduct and words. Ellen was, as she phrased it, "great upon high-flown speeches; but this was an extraordinary occasion, and demanded a deviation from ordinary rules; so I condescended, for once, to make use of simple language."

If simple, it was satisfactory, and they parted most amicably. It was past sunset, when the friends arrived at Mr. Read's door. Ida stood upon the steps, watching Carry, as she tripped away into the dusk. Others would have seen only a pretty girl, with a smile like May sunshine;--to the fond eyes that followed her, she was an angel of love, upon whom nothing of evil could gaze without adoration and contrition;--and now the light of a new blessing beaming upon her brow--the blessing of the peace-maker!

Chapter VII.

Spring had departed, and the good citizens of Richmond complained as piteously of the heat, as though every zephyr that awoke for miles around, did not sweep over their seven hills freighted with the perfume of gardens and groves, instead of the reeking odors of a thronged city. And in our day, as then, airy, spacious villas are forsaken, while their infatuated denizens hie away to pay $50 per week, for a genteel sty, six feet by ten; with the privilege of eating such fare, as in the event of its appearance upon their own boards, would find its way back to the place where it was concocted, accompanied by an anathematised warning to the cook;--and of gulping down unwholesomely-copious draughts of a nauseous liquid, which the stomach neither relishes, nor needs. There is dancing "all night, 'till broad day-light," a dusty drive to assist the digestion of a breakfast, one's common sense, no less than the digerent organs assures him is insured against chylifaction; promenading until dinner, which meal is taken in full dress;--another drive, or an enervating siesta, and it is time to dress for supper; then dancing again; and at the end of "the season," the fashionable votaries return, jaded and debilitated, to home and comfort, and tell you, with a ghastly smile, that they have been ruralizing at the "Carburretted, Sulphuretted, Chalybeate Springs." Ruralizing at the Springs! sketching a landscape from an Express train--sleeping in a canal-boat--reciprocating ideas with a talkative woman!

Mr. Read came home to tea, on a sultry July evening, with some crotchet in his brain. That could be seen with half an eye; and Josephine was affable to a distressing degree, to coax the stranger into an earlier incubation, than would occur without artificial warmth. The effects of her Eccolodeon were presently apparent.

"When does your session close, Josey?" he inquired.

"On Friday, sir."

"Then you will be on your head to quit town, like everybody else."

"I have no solicitude on the subject, sir. I am as indifferent to it, as to many other things people rave about."

"You are your father's child, cool and hard!" observed her parent, with a gratified look.

"But for a novelty, what say you to a trip to Saratoga?"

"I should like it, sir,--if you accompany me."

"I have business which takes me in that direction, and I thought, as you are to 'come out' next winter, it would sound well to have made your debut at such a fashionable place."

Josephine smiled; she could appreciate this argument. The journey was discussed--the expenses, dress, appearance, etc. Ida sat by, taciturn and unconsulted. She had a motive in remaining. Finally, she contrived to throw in a word.

"I wish to inform you of _my_ arrangements for the summer, sir, if you have time to listen."

"Yours! they are the same as ours, of course. Do you imagine that I would permit my daughter to travel without a female companion, or give her an advantage, you are not to share!"

The latter clause was so clearly an afterthought, and dove-tailed so oddly with its antecedent, that Ida's smile was almost a sneer.

"I am sorry, sir, that you are disappointed in your calculations; but as Josephine has a maid, I do not deem my attendance indispensable. If I leave town, I shall go in another direction, unless you positively forbid it."

"And what place is to be honored by your preference? May I presume to ask?"

"I shall go home with Miss Carleton."

"Ahem! I comprehend. I should have anticipated this from your overpowering intimacy. You have played your cards badly, Josephine. Why have you not ingratiated yourself with some 'divine creature,' who has a rich papa? It is a capital means of extending one's acquaintance, and sparing one's purse. How long do you intend to sponge--to remain, I mean, with _your friend_, Miss Ross?"

"I may not return before Christmas. I hear that the holidays are celebrated with much style and festivity, in the country," she replied.

Mr. Read suppressed something very like an oath, at her calm assurance.

"When do you go?"

"Next Monday. Dr. Carleton is expected daily. Did I understand you to say, that you did not object?"

"Confound it! what do I care where, or when you go?"

"Oh Carry!" apostrophized Ida, shutting herself in her room. "Even you could not be charitable and forbearing here. It is hard! hard!"

"That is unquestionably the most wrong-headed girl I know," said Mr. Read, to his daughter.

"I am heartily glad she is not going with us," was the answer. "She would be of no use to me, and an additional care to you."

"Maybe so, maybe not. Her travelling expenses would not have come out of my pocket; and there are advantages, sometimes, in having two ladies, a larger and better room, and such like; you pay the same price, and have twice the value of your money. You understand?"

"I don't care. I had rather sleep upon a pallet in a loft, by myself, than in the handsomest room in the house, with her for a room-mate. It frets me, though to see her airs! I wish the law allowed you absolute control."

"It won't do with her. If she suspected a design on my part to abridge her liberties, or defraud her of her dues, she would as lief enter a complaint against me as not. She has the temper of the Evil One; and watch as you may, will get the bit between her teeth."

The carriage was at the door by six o'clock on Monday morning. Ida was ready; but her trunk was strapped on, and her maid seated upon the box with the driver, before she appeared. The truth was, she dreaded to meet Dr. Carleton. She did not recollect her own father, and had no agreeable associations connected with any who bore that relation to her young acquaintances. She was inclined to look upon the class, as a set of necessary discords in life; Mr. Read being the key-note. Carry often spoke of her surviving parent with earnest affection; but Ida attributed this to a charity, that beheld no faults in those she loved. The thought of her ride and visit would have been unalloyed, but for this idiosyncrasy. "If he were like Mr. Dana!" she said, going slowly down stairs. He was in the porch, with Mr. Read and Carry. "My friend Ida, father," said Carry. He was not like Mr. Dana,--better than that! He was the image of Carry--her eyes, mouth and smile--his locks, although silvered by years, must in youth have waved in the same golden curls. He was handsome yet, how could he be otherwise! and had she failed to love him at sight, the unaffected geniality of his salutation would have captivated her. She had not a care in the world, as she reclined in the carriage, beside Carry, the revolving wheels bearing her towards the country. Mr. Read and his feminine prototype were sign-posts, marking rough and miry roads she had travelled; they were troubles no more; she was leaving them behind.

There had been a thunder-storm in the night, and in that brief fit of passion, nature had wept away every unkind or unpleasant emotion. The sky wore that rich, soft, transparent hue, which imparts its own pureness to the soul of him, who looks upon it; smilingly luring it to soar away, and "steep itself in the blue of its remembered home;" the forest-leaves glittered with rain-diamonds, and the bird-matin was warbled by a full orchestra. And on, through the slants of sunlight, and the alternations of deep, green shade; with the old, familiar chirpings in her ear, and the touch of the loved one's hand upon hers, rode the orphan; very quiet, through excess of happiness; afraid to speak or move, lest this should prove a never-to-be realized dream, whose awaking should bring bitter, hopeless yearnings!

Little by little, Carry broke up her musings; and her father seconded her. He was prepared to like his daughter's friend, and there was that in his eye and voice, which made Ida forget, as she had done with Carry,--that she was talking with a stranger.

"That is a fine specimen of your favorite tree, Ida," observed Carry, pointing to a majestic pine, grand and solitary, at the entrance of a grove of oaks.

"And superb it is, in its loneliness!" said Ida.

"Farmers would cavil at your taste," remarked Dr. Carleton. "'Pine barrens' are proverbial. A thick growth of them is an unmistakeable sign of poverty of soil. Nothing else can extract sustenance from the worn out ground."

"That is why I like them, sir. There is sublimity in their hardy independence, taking root, as you say, where pampered, or less robust vegetation would perish, and with never-furling banners, stretching up boldly towards the stars."

"They are emblems to you--of what?" asked the Doctor.

"Of the few really great ones, who have demonstrated that human nature is not of necessity, vile or imbecile, or yet a debtor to accident, for its spice of good."

"The gifted,--or the fortunate?"

"The _resolute_,--sir. They, who have riven the shackles of low birth or poverty, and made for themselves a glorious name--out of nothing!--have done it by the naked force of _will_. Call it 'talent' or 'genius,' if you choose;--upon analyzation, you will resolve it into this one element of character."

"It is a sorry task to pick flaws in your beautiful analogy," said the old gentleman. "You may not be aware that your pine, sturdy as it appears, is less fitted than any other tree, for standing alone; its roots running out laterally from the trunk; and lying near the surface of the earth. Cut down the outer row which have kept off the tempests, and helped to support him, and the first hard wind is apt to lay him low."

"And so there are fates, against which the mightiest of mortal energies are powerless. Leave the pine unprotected, and if it survive one blast, it strikes its roots deeper and deeper into the ground, until it has strength to brave an hundred winters. Adversity, if it does not kill--strengthens."

"Do you favor the philosophy, which teaches that a certain amount of trouble is necessary for the complete development of character?"

"Whether necessary or not--it comes. That is not a matter of hypothesis; but I have seen some, who, I did not think, required discipline; and many more, who wanted softening, instead of hardening."

"Is hardening the legitimate effect of sorrow?" asked he, more gravely. "When the chastening is guided by love, does it not melt and refine? Are strength and hardness synonymous?"

"I question the difference, sir,--as the world goes."

"Instead of referring to 'the world,' in an abstract sense--judge we of the influence of trials, by what we know of ourselves. I never tasted real happiness, until I learned to bear grief, by submitting to the will of Providence."

"And one affliction has embittered life for me!" returned Ida, gloomily.

"Poor child!" then recollecting himself, he addressed Carry in a jesting tone. "And you--Miss Carry--what is your vote upon this important question?"

"I have had no trouble, sir," replied she, lightly, "except school-quarrels. You would not class them in the category of tribulations."

There was sadness in her father's look of love, as he answered, "I hope you may long be able to say so, dear!"

Carry brushed away the mist from her lashes. "'A consummation devoutly to be desired,'--as Charley, or Shakspeare would say. Where is he, father?"

"Who? Shakspeare or Charley?"

"The latter, of course. Apart from his probable location being more easily decided upon,--he is, to me, the more interesting of the two."

"He is somewhere in the Western part of the State;--travelling, partly for pleasure. John told you, that they have committed the New York branch of the business to Mr. E----, and that Charley will in future reside in Richmond."

"Yes, sir. I was glad to hear it; I understood, however, that this change would not be made before Fall. In the interim, are not we to be favoured with his company?"

"I trust so. It will seem like old times for us all to be together again."

"I hope he will come while you are with us, Ida," said Carry. "I am so anxious you should know him!"

"You have seen him, surely, Miss Ida?" said Dr. Carleton.

"I have not yet had that pleasure, sir."

"He is an original worth studying."

"I can credit that. Elle's panegyrics would have created a desire to see this nonpareil of an 'Uncle Charley,' and Carry has raised my curiosity to the highest pitch, by naming him as the successful rival of Shakspeare."

"Oh!" cried Carry, laughing. "I said more interesting to _me_. Charley is one of my pets; and I am afraid I have presented you with an erroneously flattered picture of him. You must not look for an 'Admirable Crichton.' He is not one to please the fancy on a slight acquaintance."

"Is he as handsome as his brother?"

"Which brother?" inquired the Doctor; and Carry blushed.

"I have met but one," said Ida. "I consider Mr. John Dana very fine-looking."

"I will repeat Charley's ideas of what he styles, his 'personal pulchritude,'" responded Carry. "He says he thanks Heaven he is not handsome. To endow him with a moderate share of beauty, some one would have been deprived of his, or her good looks. No broken hearts are laid at the door of his conscience." 'Yes'--concluded he, triumphantly--'A man ought to be grateful for ugliness; and I am persuaded that not many have as much cause to rejoice on that score as myself!'"

"He is not homely," said her father, warmly.

"Ah father! other people tell a different story."

"That may be; but where you find one handsomer face than his, you see a thousand destitute of its intelligence and agreeableness."

"Granted. Homely or not, I prefer him to any doll-faced dandy of my acquaintance."

"He is fortunate in his advocates," said Ida. "He has the art of making friends."

"Because he is such a firm friend himself," replied Carry. "Yet some will have it that he is frivolous and unfeeling. The only satirical remark I was ever guilty of, was extorted by an aspersion of this kind. A lady was offended by a playful bagatelle of his; and thinking that I would be a sure medium of communicating her wrath to its object, criticised him unsparingly. She ridiculed his person and manners;--I said nothing. She said he was bankrupt in chivalry and politeness. I smiled; and she blazed out a philippic against his 'disgusting levity and nonsense--he had not a spark of feeling, or grain of sense--intelligent indeed! for her part she had never heard him say a smart or sensible thing yet.'--I put in my oar here--'You will then allow him one talent, at least; the ability to adapt his conversation to the company he is in.' I repented having said it; but it quieted her."

"You did not reproach yourself for taking the part of your friend!"

"No, but I might have done it in a less objectionable manner. It did not alter her feelings to him, and caused her to dislike me."

"How is it, sir, that I hear so much more of this one of your former wards, than of his younger brother?" said Ida to the Doctor.

The question was innocently propounded, and for an instant, she was puzzled by the quizzical demureness, with which he glanced at his daughter.

"This is a serious charge, Carry. Your predilection for one old play-fellow should not make you forgetful of another."

She was looking down, touching the shining tire of the wheel with the tip of her gloved finger. The truth beamed upon Ida; and with it a thousand little circumstances she had been blindly stupid not to understand before. Her intelligent eye said the mystery was explained, but she forbore to say so in words. Dr. Carleton went on in a changed tone.

"Arthur is not a whit behind his brothers in sterling worth, or personal graces. He is associated with me in the practice of medicine, and unites a skill and prudence, rarely found in one so young. He is popular, and deservedly so."

Carry bestowed a grateful smile upon him, and was answered in the same mute language. In such desultory chat, the sunny hours ran out They travelled well; only stopping an hour to dine and rest; yet twilight saw them eight miles from their destination. Each was disposed to silence, as the light grew dimmer; and when the moon smiled at them above the tree-tops, she elicited but a single observation of her beauty. The road was lonely and sheltered; bordered by forests on one side, and thicket-grown banks on the other; the soil sandy and heavy; the tramp of hoofs scarcely heard, and the wheels rolling with a low, crushing sound, that, to Ida, was not unmusical. Silver willows, and twisting 'bamboo' vines, and the long-leaved Typha Latifolia edged the road; and she watched through the openings in the woven screen, for a glimpse of the stream that watered their roots; sometimes deceived by the shimmer of the moon upon the leaves; sometimes, by the white sands, until she doubted whether there was indeed one there;--when the gurgling of falling waters betrayed the modest brooklet, and it widened into a pretty pool; the moon's silver shield upon its bosom. The thicket became taller, and not so dense; tulip trees and oaks in place of the aquatic undergrowth; and between them the fleeting glimmerings of the sky were, to her, an army of pale spectres, marching noiselessly past; no halting or wavering; on, on, in unbroken cavalcade, "down to the dead." And memory, at fancy's call, produced the long roll of those who had gone to the world of shades;--the master-spirits of all ages;--the oppressed and the oppressor;--the lovely and the loved;--had joined that phantom procession;--how few leaving even the legacy of a name to earth! With the Persian Poet, her heart cried out--"Where are they?" and echo answered--"Whe