“What is this Claude is talking of, Miriam?” asked Mr. Bainrothe a day or two after the interview I have described in my last pages. “Copenhagen again and he seems quite dispirited. He says you have sent him into banishment for a year, Miriam a long probation truly!”

“Our engagement was to have been for that length of time from the first,” I said, evasively; “my father was not willing for me to marry before I had attained my seventeenth year, you remember, and it still wants some months of that period.”

“Oh, yes! but all that is changed now by the force of circumstances. You are so well grown, so very womanly for your age, that I cannot see why it would not be just as well to shorten rather than lengthen the period of your engagement, especially as it seems Claude must go into exile until then, by some caprice of yours. You will be at the head of your own house too, after that ceremony takes place, which Claude is so impatient to have over. Evelyn would go to England for a time under such circumstances, for she will not oppose your views your father’s will was made before your betrothal to my son, or he would scarcely have made her your absolute guardian” (apologetically spoken). “For the matter of that,” he pursued, “I cannot doubt that, were you settled in life, she would gladly transfer Mabel to your care. Indeed, I have heard her say as much.”

“A great temptation, truly!” I said, grimly.

“Your manner is peculiar to-day, Miriam. I cannot understand it, I confess.”

“For all explanation, Mr. Bainrothe, I refer you to your son. I prefer not to discuss the matter.”

“Ah! it is just as I expected, from his behavior as well as your own. Some childish misunderstanding has taken place between you, which, he was loath to acknowledge or explain, but which in your womanly candor you will reveal at once, and tell me all about it. I am the very best mediator you ever saw on such occasions,” with a bland and confident air, taking my hand, smiling.

“Mr. Bainrothe, your mediation could effect nothing between me and Claude; we understand one another perfectly, I assure you.”

He was very much excited now, evidently; he relinquished my unwilling hand coldly on which he had, doubtless, missed the conspicuous ring, significant of my engagement. His chameleon eyes seemed to emit sparks of phosphorescent fire, as if every one of the dull-yellow sparks therein had become suddenly ignited. I saw then, for the first time, what his ire could be, and what reason I had to dread it.

“Have I been deceived in believing that you were attached to my son, Miriam Monfort, and that you meant to keep faith with him?” he asked, stiffly.

“You have not been deceived, Mr. Bainrothe, nor is it my wish to deceive you now. Again I beg to refer you to him for all explanation; whatever he alleges will be highly satisfactory to me.”

“I will bet my life,” he said, passionately, “that Evelyn Erle is at the root of all this! That girl,” he soliloquized, “who knew so well, from the first, what our intentions were; to throw herself at his head in the shameless way she did! A woman, without a woman’s modesty.”

“Beware, Mr. Bainrothe,” I interrupted; “it is of my sister you speak. I will not hear her slandered. Certainly, if propriety ever assumed female form, it is in that of Evelyn Erie. This was my father’s opinion it is mine.”

“Propriety! The pale ghost of it rather,” he sneered; “I thought you hated hypocrisy; you do not love that woman have little right to; yet you praise and defend her. How is this! Are you sincere in such a course? Ask your own heart.”

“Mr. Bainrothe, let us not discuss Evelyn, I beg, either now or hereafter; for some reason she is very sacred to me. I cannot say one word more on the subject of your son than I have said, without his own consent. As to our marriage, let me tell you frankly ” I hesitated the stricture of my throat, for a moment, interrupted me, and I was ashamed of my weakness.

“That it is indefinitely postponed, I suppose you would like to say, Miriam,” he added, ironically. “Well, I honor your emotion; don’t be ashamed of it. Claude is to blame, no doubt; but the poor fellow suffers enough already, without prolonged punishment. Suppose I send him up to you; he will fall at your feet.”

I shook my head silently.

“Now, don’t be hard-hearted; I have never seen any man more devoted than he is to you. A woman must forgive a few shortcomings, now and then, in one of our faulty sex. You lived so long with a man who was almost perfect, that you cannot make allowances for impulsive and indiscreet young manhood. What has poor Claude been guilty of?”

“I will tell you,” I said, recovering myself by the time this speech was ended, by a mighty effort. “I will tell you: Guilty only of doing violence to his own inclinations, from a mistaken sense of duty to his father; that is all. I never felt more kindly more affectionately to Claude Bainrothe than at this moment. If I can serve him in any way, but one, he may always command me. Let him go for the present to Copenhagen, I implore you; it will be best for him for all of us. He will know his own mind better then, than he can now. When he returns, I would like to see him happy. I doubt if he will be so, if he remains here,” I faltered; “I should dislike, very much, to see him make shipwreck of his happiness.” I hesitated, choked again. “I acknowledge ”

“You have cut him off, Miriam, that is plain, for the present, at least,” he interrupted. “Yet you speak in enigmas; but, if he be the man I think he is, he will make all clear to you at last, for I am sure he is incapable of any act radically wrong, and is the soul of chivalrous honor; always ready to repair a folly, and avoid it in future. The very best fellow living.”

I had never seen Mr. Bainrothe so moved before as he now certainly was. The glitter of a tear was in his mottled eye, and it stirred me strangely. It was as if a snake should weep, and what in Nature could be more affecting than such a spectacle? Or, rather, what out of Nature?

There must have been, despite this tender showing, an outbreak of some sort between father and son from the time of this call and the next visit of Mr. Bainrothe, which occurred some days later.

The expression of concentrated rage on his face was unmistakable on this occasion. Its usually placid, polished expression was laid aside, for one of unqualified displeasure. He was pale as marble too, which was a sign of excitement with him, with his complexion, usually clear and florid.

“Again I come to you, Miriam,” he said, “and this time with his permission to mediate between you and my unhappy son. Believe me, you attach too much consequence to hasty and half-comprehended expressions, uttered, as he avers, to appease the offended vanity of an angry and implacable ay, and dangerous woman. There are few things a man will not say for such a purpose. He went too far in his anxiety to conciliate malice, and allay an evil temper. This is all that can be imputed to him. Be reasonable, my dear girl! you are alone in the world; we are your truest friends. It shall be our study mine, as well as his to guard your life from every care, every anxiety even precaution so necessary in your case, and with your peculiar constitution. You love my son, or have loved him in this I could not be mistaken and his affection for you is sincere and unaffected, despite the concessions a designing woman, who conceives herself slighted, has wrung from his unwary lips, on purpose to mar his prospects, and blight your happiness, I well believe.”

“No, no, there was no design of this kind on her part, of that I am sure. She could not did not know that I overheard them. You must do her justice there I trust she may never know it. Claude promised me ”

“I know, I know it was with this understanding,” he interrupted, “that he confided to me the extent of his indiscretion, for which I have rated him soundly, I assure you. Evelyn is not to know that you overheard them. This is the compact a very sensible and politic one on your part, under the circumstances, for Evelyn, we all know, is, excuse me my dear, the devil, when fairly aroused. Now, as to this overhearing of yours might not your mind, laboring under recent coma, and a sort of mental mirage as it were, have had a tendency to magnify and only partially comprehend the conversation thus suddenly forced upon your attention? For I understand you were unable to make yourself heard at all, or even to give signs of life when the curtains of your bed were lifted by the interlocutors.”

“This last is true but that I could not have been mistaken, Claude’s own admissions confirm. He denied nothing that I suggested much was left by me unquestioned.”

“Yes,” catching wildly at this straw, “he finds himself quite in the dark still, I perceive as to the accusations brought against him; suppose you make your charges one by one, as it were in the shape of specifications?”

“There are no charges, no accusations brought nothing of that sort,” I said, proudly; “and I must entreat that from this hour, Mr. Bainrothe, this subject be dropped between us utterly. It is wholly unprofitable, believe me.”

“You are a person of extraordinary obduracy,” he said, “for one of your years. I should like to know how much the Stanbury influence has had to do with strengthening your unwise, unamiable, and stiff-necked resolution! If I were Claude Bainrothe, I should lay heavy damages against you in the courts of law, for your unjustifiable evasion of a formal contract one your father sanctioned, one of which all your friends are and were cognizant and proud, and which has subjected him, in its rupture, to so much distress and mortification; nay, even as I can prove, pecuniary loss.”

“If money can repay your son Claude, for any wrong I have done him, he is welcome to a portion of mine,” I said, deeply disgusted, “without intervention of law painful exposure of any kind. I cherish for him, however, even yet, too much regard and respect to believe him capable of such proceedings. The idea is worthy of the mind it springs from worthy of the author of all this sorrow and confusion worthy of Mr. Basil Bainrothe, the arch-conspirator himself.”

He turned upon me with clinched hands and blazing eyes. “You shall answer for these words, girl! if not now, years hence,” he said; “the seed of your insult has been thrown on fertile soil, I promise you!” and he laughed bitterly.

“I do not fear you,” I replied; all disguise was thrown off it was war to the knife between us now; “never have never can, in spite of your unmanly threats. Evelyn must protect me henceforth from any further contact with you, however, until I am of age to take in hand my own affairs; Evelyn Erie, my guardian, and your fellow-executor, owes me this safeguard. I trust, Mr. Bainrothe, we shall meet no more.”

I left the room left him in possession of the library, in which he paced up and down for an hour or more, like a caged panther. There was a sealed note for me in his handwriting, under the massive paper-weight on the table, when I entered it again, which he had written and left there before his departure. It ran thus for I read it derisively, and remember its contents still:

“We have both been wrong, dear Miriam. I, as the elder and more experienced offender therefore, the more responsible one claim it as my privilege to be the first to atone. I cannot think, from what I know of you, that you will be long in following my example. Let us forgive one another. Fate has thrown us together, and we must not afford a malicious world the spectacle of our inconsistency, or the satisfaction of seeing us quarrel, after so many years of harmony.

“As to Claude, you and he must settle your own matters. I wash my hands of the whole transaction from this hour, supposing that common-sense will triumph at last, and reconcile your differences.

“Yours as ever, truly and devotedly,

“BASIL BAINROTHE.”

I did not answer this note I could not discreetly, although I tried to do so several times. I could not conquer sufficiently my deep disgust of his insupportable behavior to respond kindly, at that time, to any overture of Mr. Bainrothe’s, nor did I wish to write one rude word to him in connection with so delicate a subject as that of our late discussion.

He came no more until after Evelyn’s return, and then only on necessary business; inquiring for her alone, and holding on such occasions secret conclaves with her invariably in the library. Whenever we met casually, however, whether in the street or my own house, he was polite and easy in his deportment, even gracious.

With Claude it was otherwise; he avoided me sedulously, and, although I have reason to think he met and joined Evelyn frequently, and even by appointment in her long walks, he never called to see her or paid her open attentions. Yet I found that he had followed my counsels.

A day or two before he sailed for Copenhagen to join the legation in Denmark, an exception to this rule of avoidance was made by both father and son, who came in as had been usual with them in other days, informally, in the evening.

This was Claude’s farewell visit a very unpleasant necessity evidently on his part. I was unconstrained in the cordiality with which I received both his father and himself for it was heart-felt on this occasion. Old feelings came back to me so vividly that night, and my own dear father seemed so visibly recalled by the presence once more of our unbroken circle, that I lost sight, for a season, of my wrongs and sufferings in the memory of the past, and broke temporarily through the cloud that oppressed me and dimmed my existence.

I saw Mr. Bainrothe gazing at me several times, in the course of his visit, with an expression of interest and surprise.

He had expected very different manifestations, no doubt, and he told Evelyn afterward that “no woman of thirty could have carried off matters with a higher hand than did that chit of sixteen, Miriam Monfort.”

“All that talk of yours, Miriam, about ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Elsinore,’ ‘Wittenberg,’ and the ‘fiery Dane,’ probably imposed on those two unsophisticated men; but I saw through the whole proceeding; you were afraid of yourself, my dear, that was evident, and ashamed, as you ought to have been, of your capricious conduct to poor Claude, who shows, however, as uncompromising a spirit as your own, I perceive. What was the matter, Miriam? I can get nothing out of him, and I have waited, until my patience is exhausted, for a voluntary communication from you.”

“Why have you not asked me before, Evelyn?” I questioned, calmly, in reply. “You have shown more than your usual forbearance, on this occasion.”

“My dear child, ‘Least said is soonest mended,’ is proverbial in quarrels of all kinds. I have no wish to pry or play mischief-maker, and, if Mr. Basil Bainrothe with his diplomatic talents could do nothing to mend the difficulty, I had no right to suppose that I could succeed better, with my very direct, straightforward disposition.”

“You were right, Evelyn, certainly, in your conclusion, and, if you please, will never ask for any explanation of the breach between Claude and myself. It is irrevocable; but I am sorry to see him so resentful. He cannot conceal his displeasure against me, and yet I have never offended him willingly, I am sure.”

“Caprice and coquetry are not so lightly estimated by every one, as you hold them, nor yet counted causes for gratitude by most men, let me assure you, Miriam.”

“Who has accused me of these?” I questioned, with a flashing eye, a flushing cheek.

“Does your own heart acquit you?” she asked, evasively.

“It does,” I answered, solemnly, “as does the God who reads all hearts, and to whom I am now alone answerable for any motives of mine.”

“Since when have you grown so independent, Miriam?” she asked, ironically.

“Since the death of my father,” I replied.

“Ah! you do not accredit delegated allegiance it seems,” turning her face aside.

“Not as far as my own feelings and their sources are concerned. As to my acts, I hope never to commit one of which all just men might not approve.”

“We shall see. However, a year more or less makes little difference. Claude Bainrothe, improved, will return within a year, probably, and all may still be well. Matters will then, I fancy, be in his own hands, pretty much.

“All is well, Evelyn, if you could only think so, and now, once for all, make up your mind, definitely, to let well alone, for I must not be approached again on this subject, I warn you!”

I spoke with a decision which, at times, had its effect even on the “indomitable Evelyn,” as my father often had called her, playfully, and again the broken engagement was consigned to silence.

Yet on my mind, my feelings, the effect of this severe and sudden trial was far more bitter and profound than met the outward eye.

I had been sustained at first by a sense of pride, self-respect, and womanly indignation, that prevented me from feeling the whole extent of the wound I had received; but with reaction came that dull, dumb, aching of the heart, which all who have felt it may recognize as more wearing than keener pain, or more declared suffering.

I suppose the Spartan who felt the gnawing of the hidden fox was a mere type of this species of anguish, which reproduces itself wherever wounded pride underlies concealment, or wherever injustice and ingratitude render us uncomplaining through a sense of moral dignity.

The first six months succeeding my rupture with Claude Bainrothe went by like a leaden dream. My heart lay like a stone in my bosom, and the gloss had dropped from life, and the glory from the face of Nature for me, in that dreary interval, as though I had grown suddenly old.

In routine, in occupation alone, I found relief and companionship. I compelled myself to teach Mabel, and pursue my own studies, lest my mind should fall back on my body, and destroy both.

A nervous peculiarity manifested itself about this time, that was singularly distressing to me, and which I confided to no one, not even that excellent physician who kept a quiet and observant eye fixed upon me during all this period of my probation.

I became nervously but not mentally convinced of the want of substance in every thing around me, and have repeatedly risen and crossed the room, and touched an article on the opposite side, to compel my better judgment to the conviction that it was indeed tangible and substantial, and not the merest shadow of a shade.

I was sustained in my resolution to conquer this besetting weakness, from a vague horror and fear that, should I suffer it to gain further ascendency, I might fall back into habitual lethargies, and, remembering what Dr. Pemberton had said, I was determined, if possible, to throw off that incubus of my being, by the strength of my own will, aided by God’s mercy.

There were no uttered prayers to this effect, that I remember, but an unceasing cry for strength, for light, went up from my heart, as continuously as the waters of a fountain, to the ear of my Creator. I have thought sometimes that, in this persistent wrestle of mind with matter, enduring so many weeks and months, so many weary, woful days and sleepless nights, the physical demon was exorcised at last, that had ruled my life so long, or was reduced to feeble efforts thereafter.

Once when Dr. Pemberton’s attendance had been necessary to me, during a severe spell of pleurisy, he said when I was recovering: “There is some favorable change at work in your constitution, Miriam, it seems to me. We hear no more of the ‘obliteration spells,’” for thus he called my seizures.

“Your drops have banished them, dear doctor, I suppose,” I rejoined, with a faint smile.

“They may have aided to do so,” he said, gravely, “but I think I have observed, Miriam, that you were doing good work lately for yourself. You have been struggling manfully, my little girl. Now, I am going for recreation to Magara, and the Northern cities, for a few weeks, next month, and I want you to go with me, in aid of this effort of yours. Quite alone, with Charity as sole attendant. My niece will be with me a good, quiet girl, you know, some years older than yourself, and also in feeble health; and I will see that you are both well taken care of, medically at least, while you are absent. How would you like this, Miriam,” patting my shoulder, “just for a change?”

“Oh, very much!” I said, eagerly. “Yes, I will go gladly, in this quiet way, for I do not wish to visit gay places, or to make strange acquaintance, under the circumstances. My deep mourning must be respected, you know, and ” I hesitated; looked in his kind, sympathizing face; then hid mine on his shoulder weeping. The first tears of relief I had shed for months.

He did not check me, for he knew full well the value of this outlet of feeling, to one situated as I was, physically as well as mentally.

“I would offer to take Mabel,” he added, after a time, “were I not solemnly convinced that it would be better for you both that she should stay here. Mrs. Austin seems necessary to her very existence; and that old woman is your vampire, I verily believe.”

“No, no, she is very good, indeed. You are mistaken.”

“No, I am not mistaken. There are persons who do sack away, unconsciously, the very life of others, from some peculiarity of organization in both. I have strong faith in this theory. I have been obliged sometimes to decree the separation of wife and husband for a time, to save the life of one or the other; of mother and child even. Every time you fall ill, I believe Mrs. Austin gains strength and energy at your expense. She absorbs your nervous fluid. It was from this conviction that I requested you two years ago to change your room, which, until then, she had shared on the pretence of your necessities, and to substitute a younger and less sponge-like attendant. You remember the stress I laid on this?”

“Yes, yes, one of your crotchets, dear doctor, nothing else. You are full of such vagaries always were but there is not another such dear old willful physician in Christendom for all that.”

“Little flatterer! But here is a piece of cassava bread, I brought you, as you thought you would like to taste it. My old West Indian patient keeps me well supplied. I fancy to nibble it as I drive about in my cabriolet, or whatever they call this French affair of mine.”

“For a wonder, you have the word right;” and I laughed in his honest face.

“I am going to France, next spring, when the Stanburys go over, just to see what strides medicine is making across the waters, and to rest myself a little, improve my Gallic pronunciation, and get the fashions, and I will take you as my interpreter, if you promise to be very good and obedient in the interval.”

“Oh, thank you; I would like it of all things. But what takes the Stanburys abroad? I have heard nothing of this plan of theirs before.”

“Pleasure and business combined, I believe. They will remain abroad some years, for the education of George Gaston. What an idol Mrs. Stanbury is making of that boy, to be sure, and Laura is just as foolish about him as her mother! By-the-by, she is to be married, they say, to that young Prussian nobleman, who was there so much last winter. I forget his unpronounceable name. They will reside in Berlin, I understand, should the marriage be ‘unfait accompli,’ as the French have it. Is not that right, Miriam?”

“Oh, admirably pronounced! You are becoming quite a Gaul in your old age.”

“I hope I shall never become gall and wormwood, in any event, like some old folks. Now, is not that being literal, Miriam?”

“And witty, as well! You must have been associating with Dr. C n, lately.”

“So you can’t give me credit for a little originality, because my facetious vein is new to you. Now, do your old friend justice, and believe even in his puns; if not pungent, he is self-sustaining and independent; but, remember, I count on you absolutely, next week. One trunk apiece and no bandboxes or baskets. A green-silk travelling-bonnet and pongee habit. This is my uniform, for my female guard. Carry Grey knows my whims, and will observe them. By-the-by, you will like my niece.”

We made a delightful tour, which occupied the whole month of August, and I came back refreshed, soul and body; as for Carry Grey, she revived, like a plant that had been newly tended and watered after long neglect. For the poor girl had been making a slave of herself for two years in her widowed brother’s household, consisting of many little children, and needed repose from her multifarious duties.

He was going to marry again soon, she told me, and then she hoped to feel at liberty to fulfill her own engagement of five years’ standing. Carry Grey was quite this many years over twenty-one, and was going to emigrate with her husband to Missouri, and to settle in the thriving young town of St. Louis, fast growing up then into a city. He was to have a church there, and they might be so happy, she thought, if God only smiled upon them! But all depended upon that.

It was a wholesome lesson to my morbid discontent and pride to hear what trials she had surmounted already, and how many more she was ready to encounter.

She had once been engaged to a very brilliant young man, she told me, but he was dissipated and careless of her feelings, and she let him go; since that he had drifted fast to destruction, and sometimes she reproached herself for not having held to him through thick and thin. It was just possible she might have saved him, she thought, but her friends had persuaded her that he would only drag her down, and so she broke with him forever.

“Did he love you?” I asked, eagerly. “Were you sure that he was not perfidious?”

“Oh, I believe he was true to me however false to himself.”

“Then you were wrong,” I said. “Wrong, believe me. Carry Grey! A woman should bear every thing but infidelity of heart for the man she loves every thing!”

“I am sorry to hear you say so,” she replied, somewhat coldly. “There is a great deal more than blind affection needful for a woman’s happiness, Miss Monfort so experience tells us. What I mean is, perhaps he might have reformed had I not broken with him; but it was the merest chance one too feeble to depend on; and I did wisely to discard him, I am convinced.”

“Forgive me! I did not mean to censure you,” I said; “I was only speaking generally too generally, perhaps, for individual courtesy. This is a theory of mine which as yet I have had no opportunity to put in practice, for I have never been attached to a dissipated man.” I smiled. “I dare say I too should drop such a man like a pestilence.”

“I hope so. But the best way is to avoid all intimacy with such men from the first. You are very young. Let me give you my advice on this subject before you form any attachment: keep your affections for a worthy object, if you keep them locked up forever. Better be alone than mismated.”

“This is to shut the cage after the bird has flown,” I thought, sadly; but I thanked her, and promised to profit by her good counsel.

We were fast friends ever after, and, when she went away to her distant Western home, Carry Ormsby bore some memorials of her summer friend away with her, in the shape of books, plate, and jewels, such as her simple means could have ill afforded. I felt that I could not have devised any means more sure to gratify her worthy uncle, to whom such gifts had been dross. He was a widower the father of sons indifferent to show, and, besides that, unwilling to incur obligations from any one, such as gifts entail on some minds.

There are persons made to give and others to receive, and neither can do the work of the other gracefully. He and I were both of the same order, so we accorded perfectly.

The autumn and winter passed very quietly. In Mrs. Stanbury and Laura I again found my chief consolation. George Gaston was in the South, for his health, on his own decayed plantation, with his uncle, who took charge of it. But, in the spring, as Dr. Pemberton had stated, they were all to go to Europe for some years. Laura would be married in Paris, if at all. Every thing depended on some investigations Mr. Gerald Stanbury was to make in person as to the character and position of her betrothed. “For a Prussian nobleman may be a Prussian boot-black for aught I know,” he observed, “and without derogation to his dignity, no doubt, in that land of pipes and fiddlers. But an American sovereign requires something better than that when he gives away the hand of the princess, his relative, and endows her with a goodly dowry. Every man, we feel, is a king in America.”

Our circle of society was much enlarged by Evelyn after our first year of mourning had expired. She insisted on taking me with her in turn to Washington, Boston, and Saratoga Springs, then at their acme of fashion. Mr. Bainrothe, who had by this time glided back into his old grooves of apparent sociability in our household, accompanied us, and did all in his power, it seemed, to promote our enjoyment and success.

Yet it was astonishing what an icy barrier still remained between us two, and how perfectly I managed, without a conscious effort, to set a limit to his approaches, even while treating him with apparent courtesy and confidence.

Something in his eye, his manner, had become extremely unpleasant to me since our social relations had been resumed. There was a controlled ardor in his expression of face and even in his demeanor that I could not reconcile with his position toward me nor understand, and yet which froze my blood in spite of my best endeavors to repel the thoughts suggested.

“I am very morbid and fanciful, certainly,” I said to myself, “even to think such a thing possible. At his age, and knowing full well my opinion of him, my sentiments toward him he surely would not dare!” I could not even in my own heart finish out a conjecture that dyed my face and throat crimson, or mahogany-color, as Evelyn would have averred contemptuously could she have witnessed my solitary confusion.

“I have clung to him too much,” I thought; “it is my own fault if he throws too much of the tone of tenderness in his manner, when, distasteful as he is to me, his arm, his protection, have seemed to me preferable to those of a stranger, and I have accepted them merely to avoid the advances of others.

“I am not in the mood to be sentimental, or susceptible either, after my bitter experience, and the idea he so carefully instills is ever present to me strive as I will to repel it the thought that I am sought alone for my fortune!

“Yet I am not wholly unattractive, probably, though less beautiful than Evelyn. But what, after all, is beauty? Plainer women than I are loved and sought in marriage, who possess no gift of fortune or accomplishment.

“Why should I suffer him to fill my mind with suspicions that embitter it against all approaches? Why should I seal my soul away in endless gloom, because one man, out of all Adam’s race, was faithless and falsehearted?”

Thus reasoning, I gained strength and self-reliance to receive other attentions and mingle with the multitude. Nor should I have known to what extent Mr. Bainrothe had carried his injustice and perfidy toward me, but for the loquacity of Lieutenant Raymond, a young adorer of mine, who revealed to me, the very evening before I left Saratoga, along with his passion a hopeless one of course, which, but for this connection, would not be noted here the strategic course of my guardian.

“I ought to have been warned, by what I saw and heard, that my suit was a hopeless one,” he said; “I had been told of your engagement, but could not believe it possible, although confirmed by Mr. Bainrothe’s manner. A rival of his age and experience, possessed too of such physical attractions, and such charm of manner, seldom fails to carry the day over a raw, impulsive youth who can only adore bow down and worship his idol, and who possesses no arts of conquest.”

“Pause there, Lieutenant Raymond; of what are you speaking?” I asked, coldly; “you have probably confounded matters, names, and ”

“No, no, it is all too evident now to admit of a doubt I You are affianced to Mr. Bainrothe your own timid and dependent manner might have enlightened me long ago, as well as his devoted one but a man in love is blinder than the blindest bat even! He is the maddest fool certainly! Forgive me for my presumption, and forget it if you can;” and he turned away, smiting his brow impatiently.

I laid my hand on his arm I drew it down from his face again, which he turned upon me with an expression of surprise. I felt that I was pale with rage and scorn as he looked at me. He misunderstood my feelings evidently, for he said, earnestly: “I am sorry to have caused you so much pain, Miss Monfort! I was premature, I have been indiscreet in my remarks. Your engagement is surely no concern of mine. I should have confined myself to my own disappointment exclusively, and respected your reserve;” adding, “I beg that you will pardon and look less angrily upon me, in this our parting.”

“I am not offended with you, Mr. Raymond.” (His boyish passion had, indeed, swept over me as lightly as the wing of a butterfly across a rose. I felt that it amounted to nothing but pastime on either hand a careless throw of the dice on his part, that might, or might not, have resulted to his advantage. He probably staked but little feeling in the enterprise I certainly none at all.) “I am not angry with you, Lieutenant Raymond, nay, grateful rather for your impulsive homage, which I regret not to be able to reward as you deserve; but this you must tell me, as a true, as an honorable man, if you care one iota for my regard, or the cause of truth and justice: what has that man been saying about me?” And I laid my hand upon his arm and shook it slightly.

“What man, Miss Monfort? I I, scarcely understand you! You surely do not mean Mr. Bainrothe your ”

“Guardian, nothing more, scarcely that,” I interrupted, almost fiercely; thus finishing out his sentence as he probably might not have done. “Answer me truthfully, honorably, as you are a gentleman, has he propagated this vile slander, for as such I feel it, and as such shall resent it?”

“I do, do not know positively but I have reason to think that, either directly or indirectly, the rumor comes from him. You know some men have a way of insinuating things. I I cannot recall any thing positive or definite. I cannot, indeed. He never spoke to me on the subject at all. There was only an expression at times, as he bore you off, that seemed to tell me that all my efforts to win you were vain. I can’t see why you lay such stress on the matter at all, Miss Monfort.”

He had evidently the gentleman’s true reluctance to make mischief.

“Lieutenant Raymond, I simply dislike to be placed in a false position, or grossly misinterpreted or misrepresented. Do you see that unfortunate person there?” I asked suddenly, “with his head drawn completely to one side, and his arms and legs swathed in flannel bandages, hobbling feebly along, followed by a youth (a relation, probably, bearing a camp-stool) and a dingy little terrier-dog, on his way to the pool of Bethesda?” As if he knew that he was the object of our attention, the man alluded to stopped, and turned just then a face grotesquely hideous in our direction, and, seeing me, smiled, and nodded feebly disclosing, as he did so, long, fang-like teeth, yellow, as if cut from lemon-rind, and fantastically irregular.

“You have the oddest acquaintance, Miss Monfort, for a young lady of fashion, certainly! This old man keeps a little one-horse book-store somewhere, I am told, and makes it his constant theme of conversation.”

“Yes, he has his hobby, like more distinguished men. I have known him from my childhood, however, and esteem him truly. He kept the choicest collection of children’s books I ever saw in former days, and was a child at heart himself, and an especial crony of mine. But I have other reasons for asking you to remark him now. He is old, diseased, and poor; yet, just as good and honorable as he is, I would rather put my hand in his as betrothed or married a thousand-fold, than become the wife of Basil Bainrothe. Repeat this, if you please, whenever you hear this very unpleasant and absurd report and subject agitated. It will be a simple act of justice to me, and a tribute to truth, such as I am sure you will be pleased to render and illustrate.”

“I will do so,” he said, quietly; “but I confess, you surprise me. I have always refused to give credit to the matter myself, blinded, I was assured, by my own impetuosity, but I acknowledge this engagement is very generally canvassed and believed at Saratoga; nor has Miss Erie in any instance refuted the impression. Of this I am quite certain, and deem it my duty now to tell you so.”

“Is it possible,” I thought, “that this can be one of Evelyn’s subtle schemes, reacting on Mr. Bainrothe? The father for me, the son for herself! My God! the grave would be preferable to me, to marriage with either one or the other, the loathed or the loathing! O papa, papa! why was I ever placed in hands like these? It must be so sweet, so delightful, to trust and love one’s associates, whether natural or accidental! I feel as if Fate had raised up for me this band of mocking fiends, to guard me from my kind, and mar my happiness. Day by day I hate and distrust them more and more nay, learn to tremble through them at myself.”

“You are silent. Miss Monfort,” he said; “will you not bid me a kind, a pardoning farewell?”

“Oh, surely, Mr. Raymond; and let me beg that, when you are near me, you will come freely to my house. I shall be most happy to entertain you.” And I gave him my hand, frankly.

“One word more, Miss Monfort. Are you engaged to any other and more fortunate man than Mr. Bainrothe and myself? Is it for another’s sake you have felt so very indignant? Forgive a sailor’s frankness, and a sailor’s interest, even if bestowed in vain. I fear you will add to these, a sailor’s undue curiosity.”

“No, Mr. Raymond, neither engaged nor likely to be. But hinge no hope on this declaration of mine. I am probably destined to walk through life alone, and, like many better women, to live for the good of others, in self-defense, if for good at all. I shall never marry, Lieutenant Raymond.”

The hand that held mine, trembled slightly, relaxed, relinquished its eager hold, and fell listlessly to his side. He believed me, evidently, as I believed myself.

“I have loved you,” he said, hoarsely, “far more than you will ever understand. Do not forget me!”

“That is scarcely probable,” I murmured; “but we shall meet again,” and I spoke cheerfully and aloud, “and under happier auspices, I trust. The world is fair before you, Mr. Raymond; this much let me counsel, and the counsel is drawn from experience: do not surrender your freedom too lightly it is a precious gift to man or woman, and those who drag broken fetters wear woful hearts. Farewell!”

We left Saratoga on the following day. It was autumn when we reached our home again sad and strange September my birth-month, and the grave of many hopes. Mabel was well, and finely grown for a child of her years; and the joy of seeing her, and holding her to my heart again, made me oblivious of all else for a season. After our brief separation even, her loveliness struck me afresh. How beautiful she was! not with the white radiance of Evelyn, but lovely as a young May rose, blushing among its leaves and peerless in grace, sweetness, and expression. She had her sainted mother’s great blue, soulful eyes, with finer features and more brilliant coloring, and her father’s gleaming teeth and clustering hair, “brown in the shadow, gold in the sun,” falling, like his, over a brow of sculptured ivory. I was not alone in my appreciation of her loveliness. It was a theme of universal remark. Even Mr. Bainrothe, who could never forgive my father for having married his children’s governess, confessed that she had the “air noble,” which he valued far above beauty. “And where she got it from, Miriam, is sufficiently plain,” he said, one day, glancing at me with undisguised admiration as he spoke. “Her mother was simple and unpretending enough, Heaven above knows, but you Monforts, and you, especially, Miriam, are truly distingue, which is a word that cannot often be justly applied in any land to man or woman either.”

“By-the-by, Miriam,” he continued, “you are growing into a very beautiful woman, after a somewhat unpromising childhood. You surpass Evelyn as rubies do garnets, or diamonds aqua marine, or sapphires the opaque turquoise. You do, indeed, my dear,” and he attempted to take my hand in the old fashion. I murmured something indicative of my disapprobation.

“It is an exquisite hand!” he remarked, as I coldly drew it away; “I have an artist’s eye, and can admire beauty in the abstract, even though I am an old man, you know.”

“Admire it also at a distance, I beg, hereafter,” I said, bowing coldly, smiling very bitterly, I fear, with lips white with anger and disgust.

“Those scars, Miriam!” he went on, as if unobservant of my manner, yet with the old sarcastic gleam in his eyes, in the most audacious way, “have nearly disappeared, have they not? I think I understood so from Dr. Pemberton. Let me see that on your arm, my dear,” and he extended his hand to grasp it.

“They are indelible, Mr. Bainrothe,” I replied, folding my arms tightly above my heart, “as are some other impressions; never allude to them again, I request you. It offends me.” And I left him, coldly and abruptly.

I give this little scene only as a specimen of his occasional behavior at this period, and of the humiliation to which his presence so often subjected me. But matters had not yet culminated.