CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Neckart, standing back in the shadow of the scrubby althea-bushes, his hands clasped behind him and his eyes following the skiff as it drifted down the river in the twilight, compelled himself to argue the matter out according to the rulings of common sense, just as he would the appropriation bill.

He had been coming too close of late to this little girl in a brotherly way—of course in a brotherly way. He must stand farther off. She must marry. He had always looked forward to her marrying, and the time, in all probability, had come now. Van Ness was a manly, strong fellow: her father would urge it, and Jane would soon be won. For Neckart, with the majority of men, regarded amiability and high-colored, beefy good looks in his own sex as the irresistible attractions in a woman's eyes.

"They both have youth and personal attractions and culture—everything to make a marriage suitable. I can find no objection to it," proceeded his most reasonable meditation.

"But I can never see it!"

He had not spoken, but it seemed to him as if he had cried out. Then he laughed to think what an egregious ass he was. What was this yellow-haired girl in the boat to him more than any other of the millions of women with whom the world was filled? Nothing. They all were nothing to him.

He turned his back on the river and struck into one of the dusky alleys of the garden, pacing up and down below the old plum trees. He whistled to himself, and ran his hand through his shaggy hair as if to be rid of some cobwebs in his brain. As he brushed against the branches a bird fluttered out of its nest and chirped angrily. Why, women and their love and their homes could no more come into his life than that silly robin or her brood! Two years ago this inexorable necessity did not even give him a moment's chagrin. The newspaper, his army of followers, the policy of the country,—these made life big and full enough. If he wanted little selfish pleasures, there was his arm-chair and open fire, his shelf of old books, or a dinner at Delmonico's with some clever fellow, or a dash to Europe, or across the continent, to pry into the background against which other clever fellows, whether white or yellow or black, lived and worked. He would go back to the office to-night; he could hear the engine puffing at the station now, making ready for the next train; he could finish the evening with his old friends, the books; he could order a dinner to-morrow that would satisfy even his palate,—and he used to be an epicure. He ought to go. He would go.

He walked up the open path leading to the house. Then he stopped, turned and struck directly through the trees and bushes to the river-side. The boat was at some distance: he called once or twice for her to come and take him on board before she heard him. His voice sounded hoarse and strange to himself: he did not know himself in what he did. As for the world, there was nothing in it but that boat yonder which shot through the water, and the woman with eager face rowing swiftly toward him.

There was not a Wall-street banker or a politician among Neckart's confrères who would not have looked upon him as insane for the moment. This dull wisp of a woman to blot out all business, power, place, from his life? But, after all, there is no insanity so practical or long-lived. Why does A bull and bear the market, or B sell himself and his party, but for the sake of some ugly, faded woman and the commonplace children she has borne him? They are not thought worth notice by anybody but himself, but he ignores honesty, death, God himself, for them his life long. A plodding, shrewd fellow too, probably not a whit heroic.

Neckart was tramping along the common road which all of us know, but it seemed to him that he was breaking ground in a new world full of misty splendors and untried action. When he called to her his breath failed him, as it used to do when he was a boy wild with excitement. The sand under his feet, the brambles on the bank, the overarching sky, were not the same they were an hour ago. When the boat darted up to the shore, rocking as she held it fast with the oar, it seemed strange to him that she should speak in her ordinary tone. Did she not know?

She stood up in the bow steadying the skiff as he sprang into it. His hand touched her fingers for an instant, and she noticed that it shrank from hers.

"Did my father call me?"

"No: I wanted to talk to you alone."

She pushed from shore and dipped her oars: in a moment they were out in the current. It was a rippling belt of steely blue, the banks making indistinguishable ramparts of shadow on either side. Overhead was the soft starless twilight of June, through which a nighthawk flapped heavily and vanished. When it was gone they were alone. Could she not understand that they were alone? In this wide dark world that there were only they two, a man and a woman?

He could not distinguish her face, and her figure was but a light dark outline like a silhouette against the air. But the power of her womanhood was upon him, a something which Neckart had never felt before—a terrible, pure passion.

"Give me the oars," he said. "Let me help you," reaching forward to take them. His hand rested on hers accidentally: he did not remove it. Now did she understand? His mouth was closed. It seemed to him as if words were poor to say what was in his blood, in his soul, in the water, the air, the very ground.

She was startled, and turned to him wondering. The moon, rising higher, showed him the childish, sensitive mouth, the dark eyes heavy with tears, for she had been crying. What was that which gleamed through them, half answering him, frightened at itself? It seemed to him in this brief pause that they had been waiting all their lives for this word—he to speak and she to hear.

"Jane!" He took her hand in both of his and held it close, and then he threw it from him, drawing back: "My God! I had forgotten."

"Forgotten?" She closed her eyes once or twice, bewildered, as if suddenly wakened from sleep. "You are in trouble," she said anxiously. "Can I help you?"

The question brought him to sober reason sharply enough. It was precisely the frank, tender tone which she would use to her father; and the truth was, that the girl to herself did not yet distinguish between her father and this friend. A moment before a strange emotion had touched her. But it had passed like a warm gust of summer. There was not a seven-year old child in the city yonder who did not know more about love than Jane. She had never heard servants or schoolmates chatter about it; novels had bored her; the captain, whatever he had left undone, had kept the air pure and cold about her as for a very nun.

"What is this trouble, Mr. Neckart? You have been ill for months, I know. Can I—? Or perhaps father—"

She leaned forward, the oars suspended in her hands, her lips apart, attentive and eager.

He leaned over the edge of the skiff and wet his forehead and eyes, forcing a careless laugh: "One moment, Miss Swendon, and I will explain to you," adding presently, precisely in the manner with which he would have discussed the weather, "We men each have our skeleton to hide, according to popular belief, and mine is no worse than the rest. It is the most practical of facts. Only I am apt to forget it, and then, when it meets me unawares, it is as grim as death."

She nodded, watching him intently as if he were physically ill: she would not let the oars strike on the water, lest the noise might jar on him. All kinds of wild plans for helping him filled her brain. If the trouble were anything which money could help, there was plenty of that, thank God! If it was political difficulty—bills maybe—she could not even understand it. If God had only not made her so stupid! the humble tears rising slowly to her eyes.

Mr. Neckart did not see them. He was careful not to look at her as he spoke, and hurried on with his explanation, as if it were business of small importance. But she was not deceived by that. "I never have talked of this matter, and least of all should I have told it to you. I can bear the trouble when it comes without difficulty. The most ordinary men meet disaster coolly which they know is inevitable. Commonplace fellows who are born with scrofula or consumption march along with them to early death cheerfully. They make no tragedy out of it. There is no reason why I should complain of my lifelong companion." His tone was harder than he had ever used in speaking to Jane before.

"I have never told you of my mother?"

"No," eagerly, hastening to spare him pain. "But I have heard of her from Cornelia Fleming, who was your neighbor in Delaware. I know all that she suffered. You need not tell me."

"She was the last of the Davidge family. There was not one of them for generations who had not inherited disease of the brain. They were either epileptics from youth, or became, as she did, incurably insane. The disease invariably manifested itself in that way after middle age, and from that time they were helpless burdens to their children. Yet there was not a Davidge who refrained from marriage, so entailing the curse on another generation. It would have been more righteous to have put a pistol to their heads and have blown out their brains."

His manner was quiet and cold. Jane made no answer.

"Naturally, I have studied the pathology of insanity closely. I know that I have inherited the disease. The symptoms within the last six months are unmistakable. I know that in five or ten years at the outside I shall be of no more use in the world than any other mindless animal. But I will have no woman, nor child, suffer for me."

When he ceased to speak the silence and the night fell oppressively on them. The boat had drifted down to the edge of the bank and grounded. The moonlight showed her to him sitting in the bow of the boat facing him, her hands clasped on her knees. She was so near that if he but opened his arms he could take her to his breast. Yet he knew that she was separated from him now as though death itself lay between.

"I have known this necessity which lay upon me for years, Miss Swendon," he said quietly, but leaning forward to watch her immovable face. "It is my duty to isolate myself as other men need not do. The more dear"—his voice failed suddenly, but he recovered himself in a moment and went on—"the more dear a woman is to me, the more I must shut her out of my sight. I can never try to win her nor marry her."

Was the girl stone? Had she not even common human sympathy for him?

"You understand why I do this?"

"Yes, I understand."

"And you think I am right?"

She looked up at him with her usual blunt directness: "You are altogether right. An honest man could not do otherwise." Her chin fell on her breast again. Not a moan, not a breath of regret, at the blow which struck them apart. Weaker women would have cried a little at parting from a dog who had been sometimes a companion. This cool-blooded Swede gave her verdict on the right and wrong of the matter as though it had been a sale of goods, and there was the end of it! All the long-latent passion in Neckart's nature revolted and flamed into life. He moved restlessly, watching her sit there stony and immovable. He would have flung away life, as men used to do against the dumb Sphinx, to tear from her some word of pity or life.

The boat rocked in the shallow water. She rose to leave it. Neckart mechanically held out his hand to help her jump ashore. She held it tightly, and when she stood beside him on the grass took it in both her own: "No. You ought never to marry. You ought to hold yourself apart from the world. These strange people would only irritate and wear you out. Now you can give yourself entirely to us. We are your nearest friends. You shall give up the paper and politics: it is the work and anxiety that are telling on your brain. You shall live here with father, in the quiet and country air. I will take care of you both." She stroked his hand as a mother might that of her dying child, trying to believe that it was not growing cold. For a year the girl had fought death back from her father step by step. Now, her one friend, who with the old man filled all the world for her, was to be taken from her.

He seated her on a fallen log and pushed back the hair from her clammy forehead: "Child! child! you do not understand! All I have told you has gone for nothing!"

"I do understand. I can cure you both. Rest and the air—I am dull, but you don't know how good a nurse I can be for my own people," with a pitiful laugh.

He did not speak. The soft golden hair lay in his hand, warm and alive. He looked down at her. He could soon turn this childish affection into love: he could wrench her soul into his own. Why should he not take what God had set before him? All the other men of his race had done it.

One moment he stood irresolute. Then the hair dropped from his hand. "Jane," he said, as if reasoning with a child, "when I remember my mother first she was a pretty, tender little woman, with hardly a thought outside of her boy. For years before she died I was forced to fasten her as one does a wild beast, that she might not kill me. Do you understand what that was to me? Do you think I can bring the misery I knew in those years to any woman? My wife shall never have it to bear."

"But you can have no wife!" she cried. "You said you dared not marry! I can bear the misery. You will come to us—us. Those women in Washington of whom you tell me—how could they know what you need? I have nobody but you and father."

She felt herself so young and strong! Death, a most horrible and certain death, was creeping upon him. In her agony of pity she held his hand to her wet, burning cheeks.

"Jane, you drive me mad!" stooping over her trembling. "It is you—you that I dare not marry!"

She stood erect: "I marry you? I never thought of that," simply.

"You never thought of it?" with a queer uncertain laugh. "You never thought that I loved you?"

"That you loved me, Mr. Neckart? Me?" The blue innocent eyes that had been fixed on his suddenly filled with light; she dropped her face into her hands; her whole body burned with blushes, and she turned away.

Neckart slowly followed her. Jane's thoughts were always transparent as crystal: he had read in that one brief glance all the delight, the tender passion, whose first impulse was to escape from him.

"I have been a damned scoundrel!" he said to himself: "I have ruined her life!"

He was now thoroughly awake to what he had done—saw it as any other practical, honorable man would do, unbiased by his passion or his pity for himself. He walked silently beside her as she went up the steep path to the house.

As for Jane, she did not know that he was silent: she would scarcely have heard if he had spoken to her. She did not know what this was that had come to her, that had lifted her whole life upward as by a touch. She could not look at him. If she could only reach her father and hide from him, that he might never find her—never! She remembered how a minute ago she had held his hand to her face, and the hot flood of shame covered every other thought: the next she glanced shyly at him with a sweet pride;—he loved her, he would understand! The terrible story he had told her had passed out of her mind like a breath of smoke in sunshine. He loved her: she could keep him out of all danger. Even if she had remembered that she could never be his wife, it would not have troubled her. He loved her! She thought no more of marriage than the bird in its first song of dawn thinks of the barred lines and visible notes to which its music might somewhere be written down.

Neckart followed her up the steps and into the wide hall, carrying his hat behind him in his hand. The damp air wet his hair, and it hung lankly back from his haggard face. He felt physically ill. He had acted like a brute, a coward! This was the end of his stern resolve, his lifelong self-denial!

A lamp burned at the foot of the wide staircase. He paused beside it: she had gone up a step or two, and halted, her hand on the rail, looking down. "Good-night!" she said shyly.

The light shone full on the pink glow in her cheeks, the loose hair glistening like a golden mist, the half-frightened, half-triumphant gleam shot down from the blue eyes.

He did not answer her.

The delicate virgin bloom of this love which he had coveted so madly an hour ago scarcely stirred his heart now with pleasure. A man cannot live all the time on the heights of emotion or of religion; the air is too rarefied up there for healthy lungs; he comes down punctually to the ordinary levels of his saner self; and Neckart, on his ordinary level, was an exceedingly practical, honest man. He knew that he had brought irreparable injury to this girl, and that it was his duty now to make amends as best he could.

Rebecca Harding Davis.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A WISH.

MADAME PATTERSON-BONAPARTE.

Mrs. Patterson came of that sturdy, independent Scotch-Irish race that has peopled Pennsylvania's prosperous valleys. Her grandmother, Mrs. Galbraith, was of remarkable force of character, taking a prominent part in Revolutionary stir, and on one occasion traversing on horseback the then almost wilderness to canvass votes for her husband's election to the Assembly, which she won—whether by robust argument or in the felicitous way of the beautiful duchess of Devonshire is not recorded. To Mrs. Patterson—tender, religious and well cultured—her daughter owes her familiarity with English and French classics, becoming versed in the literature of Queen Anne's Augustan age, and able when ten years old to recite from memory a large portion of that tough morsel, Young's Night Thoughts, a page of which she recently repeated to a friend with the remark that she "had not seen the poem for seventy-five years." She learned Rochefoucauld's Maxims by heart—an unfortunate guide, to whom doubtless she partly owes her cynical appreciation of human motives. She possessed a quick, logical mind and prodigious memory, while passing years developed sparkling wit, fascinating manners and woman's crown of beauty. This gifted child was repressed by her father with strange bitterness, as if unnaturally jealous of her talent. In what consisted her "folly, misconduct and disobedience"? The wayward self-will of a mere girl could hardly merit such stern reprisal. She had barely reached womanhood when she made the marriage on which his heart was set, which he instigated and urged forward, allured by the alliance of his name with that already reechoing through the world, although fully warned of the risk of his daughter being scorned by Napoleon. Previous to her marriage she said to her father, "Suppose the First Consul should refuse to receive me?"—"Do not fear," he replied: "you shall come back to me an honored daughter."

While in Martinique, Jerome Bonaparte said to a former resident of Baltimore, "Ah! il me faut une mariage de convenance." "Not so," rejoined the lady; "and I know the most beautiful woman in the world, whom you must marry—Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore." And so he first heard her name. Soon after Jerome's arrival in Baltimore one of his suite, M. Rubelle—his father a member of the famous French Directory—married a young lady of that city, to whom Jerome said, "Jamais je n'épouserai une demoiselle Américaine."—"Ne soyez pas si sûr," replied she: "Mademoiselle Patterson est si belle que la voir c'est l'épouser." Mrs. Patterson, with a maternal prevision of misfortune, wishing to prevent their meeting, carried her daughter to her country place, where they remained until November. This enforced exclusion from the festivities consequent on Jerome's arrival naturally excited the young girl, who was found by her brother in tears. "What ails you, Betsey?" Having sobbingly disclosed her woes, she was allowed to return to town. Meanwhile Jerome was saying, "Ma belle femme, pourquoi ne revient-elle de la campagne." One morning, as Mme. Rubelle entered her carriage, in which Miss Patterson awaited her as chaperon to the races, Jerome appeared, was presented and accompanied them, to the annoyance of the fair Betsey, who, irate at his rumored impertinence in calling her his belle femme, turned from him with indifference and even brusquerie, which, if coquetry, could not have been better designed: from that moment he was captive. On this momentous occasion she was attired in buff-colored silk, very scant as to drapery, a lace fichu and a huge Leghorn bonnet trimmed with pink gauze and long ostrich feathers. The wooing was ardent, but growing at one moment lukewarm, Mr. Patterson, wise in his generation, sent Miss Betsey to Virginia; which ruse had the desired effect, piquing the lover into an immediate declaration on her return. Mrs. Patterson yielded a reluctant consent. "Your father," she said, "would probably force you into something detestable for money, so this may be for you a happy escape." The marriage, the preliminaries of which are historically familiar, was celebrated in her father's house on Christmas Eve, 1803, in the presence of ecclesiastical, national and State dignitaries. There were only two bridesmaids, the Misses Brown, great folk of that day, and no groomsman.

Jerome had imported for her a superb trousseau, but her bridal attire was a simple India muslin, costly with old lace, a row of pearls encircling her lovely throat—"a gown I had frequently worn," she said in describing the event to the writer, "for I particularly wished to avoid vulgar display; and, truth to say, there was as little as possible of any gown at all, dress in that day being chiefly an aid in setting off beauty to advantage." These bridal garments are still preserved, as well as Jerome's wedding-suit of laced and embroidered purple satin—the white satin-lined pointed skirts reaching to his heels—knee-breeches and diamond buckles, the powdered hair enhancing his Napoleonic beauty.

In 1804, Aaron Burr wrote from Washington to his daughter: "Jerome Bonaparte and his bride are here. She is a charming little woman—just the figure and nearly the size of Theodosia Burr Alston, by some thought a little like her; perhaps not so well in the shoulders; dresses with taste and simplicity (by some thought too free); has sense, spirit and sprightliness." Jerome now began to quake at Napoleon's fulminations against his marriage, and but for his spirited wife would have longer delayed confronting the imperial wrath. In 1805 they set sail from Philadelphia, but before reaching the Capes a terrific gale drove them on a sandbank, each moment threatening destruction. Mme. Bonaparte's courage saved their lives. Clambering to the deck, she insisted that the sailors should man a boat. "Pray, are you commanding this vessel?" asked the captain.—"Yes, if necessary."—"How do you propose reaching that boat?" he queried when at length it was launched.—"You are to throw me in." He obeyed, but in attempting to lower her from the ship, now nearly on its side, his strength failed and she fell into the waves. Her wadded silk pelisse carried her down, but as she rose the sailors grasped and hauled her into the boat. "Where is Prince Jerome?" was her first question in that perilous moment. They reached land through a dangerous surf, and forgot their drenching in the hospitality of a farm-house. "You irreligious little wretch!" said her aunt: "instead of kneeling in thanksgiving for your deliverance, you are enjoying roast goose and apple sauce!"

Not disheartened by this ominous venture, in a few weeks they again embarked for Lisbon, where, after Jerome's desertion, his wife remained for seven days, and then sailed for Amsterdam. As the Erin lay in Texel Roads, the captain of a French frigate came daily to present "ses hommages à Mademoiselle Patterson," and to ascertain her orders for the day. "Prisoners, sir, have no orders to give," was her reply. Perceiving the futility of opposing the emperor's decrees, and justly apprehensive of personal peril should she force a landing on the Continent, she sailed for Dover, but here again she was immeshed in Bonaparte restrictions, as no member of that family could enter England without permission of the government. Mr. Pitt, then prime minister, sent a military escort, which lined the way, keeping off the crowd that strove to get a glimpse of her as she disembarked and entered her carriage. At Camberwell, her son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, was born, eighteen months after her marriage. Two months later she sailed for the United States. Her father in the marriage contract had guaranteed to her certain property and one thousand dollars per annum, but on her return he declined to redeem his promise, on the plea that her rejection by the First Consul, by invalidating the marriage, had nullified his agreement with his child, whose misfortune he resented as a crime. Prince Jerome at the birth of their son sent her a thousand guineas, and with this paltry sum she began life anew.

Neither poverty nor the humiliating overthrow of her happiness daunted this young creature's spirit, which rose always to the occasion. When King Jerome, after his marriage with the princess of Würtemberg, offered his repudiated wife the principality of Smalcand with forty thousand dollars per annum, her witty reply, that "Westphalia no doubt was a considerable kingdom, but not large enough to hold two queens," so pleased the emperor that he directed the French minister at Washington, M. Serrurier, to intimate his wish to serve her. "Tell the emperor that I am ambitious: I wish to be made a duchess of France." This the emperor promised to do at a later moment, and offered her twenty thousand dollars down and a life annuity of twelve thousand dollars, which she accepted, "proud to be indebted to the greatest man of modern times," but with the proviso that the receipt for payment should be signed by her as Elizabeth Bonaparte, which would be a virtual acknowledgment of the legality of her marriage and her claims on the head of the family. To this stipulation the emperor acceded, and until his abdication the annuity was regularly paid. Jerome was stung to a protest against her acceptance of aid from his brother while rejecting his own, to which she retorted that she "preferred shelter beneath the wing of the eagle to suspension from the pinion of the goose."

Mme. Bonaparte now applied to the Maryland Legislature for a divorce, which was at once granted. This action on her part was natural, but as a matter of policy questionable. His wife by every law human and divine, she could better have guarded her son's interests, and even maintained her own rightful position, by ignoring Jerome's alliance with the princess, which was regarded by Catholic Christendom as illegal, the pope stoutly refusing to nullify the previous marriage.

Mme. Bonaparte always expresses enthusiasm for the emperor, despite the despotism that shivered the fair fabric of her life, seeking its excuse in the exigencies of his anomalous position. During her residence in Paris after the Restoration, Louis Dix-Huit—Des Huitres, the wits styled him from his inordinate love of oysters—fancying that her presence would reflect contemptuously on the late "Corsican usurper," made known his wish to see her at court. This honor she declined, "not wishing to pose as a victim of imperial tyranny: she had accepted the emperor's kindness, and ingratitude was not one of her vices." Marshal Bertrand—"faithful among the faithless" Napoleon called him—who heard the last sigh of the great heart at St. Helena, visited this country thirty years ago and requested an interview with Mme. Bonaparte. "The emperor," he said, "had spoken of her talent with admiration tinged with regret for the shadow he had cast over her life, for he had heard of her generous sentiments toward him, alluding to which he one day said, 'Those whom I so wronged have forgiven me: those I overwhelmed with my bounty have forsaken me.'"

Mme. Bonaparte bore no malice to Jerome, whose nature was not of heroic mould; and yet what touching professions of fidelity he sent her!—letters unsurpassed in manly tenderness. A few months after their separation a gentleman writes of him: "He is always saying, 'My wife! my dear little wife!' He seems much affected, and declares that he 'shall for ever remember the shipwreck they had encountered: how well on that trying occasion did she behave! how, when danger was over, he pressed her in his arms!'" "Jerome loved me to the last," says Mme. Bonaparte: "he thought me the handsomest woman in the world, and the most charming. After his marriage to the princess he gave to the court-painter several miniatures of me from which to make a portrait, which he kept hidden from the good Catherine."

With the return of the Bourbons, Mme. Bonaparte was free to tread the soil of France, and among the throngs of lovely women who entered Paris after Waterloo she was no inconspicuous figure. Portraits and contemporaries represent her as uncommonly beautiful—the spirited head crowned with waving brown hair; large, lustrous, liquid hazel eyes, promising a tender sensibility that did not exist; a nose of delicate Greek outline; mouth and rounded chin nests for Cupid; arms, bust and shoulders to satisfy a sculptor. Surgeon-General Larrey, the medical attendant at St. Helena, meeting Mme. Bonaparte at dinner in Paris, requested their host, Count Rochefoucauld, to intercede with her for the privilege of looking at the back of her neck. After studying her a moment, he said, "It is extraordinary! The bend of the neck, the contour of face, the pose of the head, even the manner of rising from her chair, are singular in their resemblance to the emperor." The duchess D'Abrantes (Mme. Junot) describes in her Memoirs a meeting with Jerome, "who showed us a fine miniature of his wife, the features exquisitely beautiful, with a resemblance to those of the princess Borghese, which Jerome said he and many Frenchmen in Baltimore had remarked. 'Judge,' he said, replacing the portrait in his bosom, 'if I can abandon a being like her! I only wish the emperor would consent to see her, to hear her voice, but for a single moment. For myself, I am resolved not to yield.'" Walpole's friend, Miss Berry, met Mme. Bonaparte in the salon of Mme. Récamier, "who sat on a chaise longue with a headache and twelve or fifteen men, only two ladies being present—Mme. Moreau and Mrs. Patterson, the ex-wife of Jerome Bonaparte, who is exceedingly pretty, without grace and not at all shy.... Mme. Récamier is the beauty of this new world, if she can be called handsome: her manners are doucereuses, thinking much of herself, with perfect carelessness about others, for, besides being a beauty, she has pretensions to bel esprit: they may be as well founded as the other, yet not sufficient to burn her for a witch." Now, Miss Berry—called the black-Berry, in contradistinction to her duller sister, the goose-Berry—was jaundiced in her estimation of both beauties, and Mme. Bonaparte bears tribute to "that rare loveliness of temper and tact in displaying the good qualities even of rivals that were potent weapons in Récamier's quiver of charms." Miss Berry's dictum is also outweighed by the homage of Mme. de Staël's envying sigh, that she "would willingly exchange her genius for Récamier's beauty." Mme. Récamier was anxious that Mme. Bonaparte should know "Corinne." "No, no," she replied: "De Staël est une colosse qui m'écraserait; elle me trouverait une jolie bête et je ne veux pas être tuée à Paris par ce mot-là."

The duke of Wellington succeeded Napoleon in his residence at the Elysée-Bourbon, since then fitted up as the dower-palace of Eugénie, and now the head-quarters of President MacMahon. Gay, fickle Paris, oblivious of disaster, was shouting hosannas to the victor of its erewhile idol, and in this carnival of fêtes those of the duke were surpassingly magnificent. Mme. Bonaparte describes Wellington as "short, erect, spare of figure, with long pale face, thin-lipped, obstinate mouth, small light eyes, high, sharp, angular nose, the head disproportionately large, and as squarely flat as an Indian's, reverence and benevolence being undeveloped. Coldly quiet in voice and greeting, simple and high-bred in manner, there was in this reticence a suggestion of reserved force exceedingly attractive." At one of these balls Mme. Bonaparte was seated in conversation with the handsome and fascinating Lord Castlereagh, when Mme. de Staël approached, and stopping in front of her gazed steadily for a moment, then turning to her son, Baron de Staël-Holstein, on whose arm she leaned, an intimate friend of Mme. Bonaparte, she said, "Oui, elle est bien, bien jolie," and walked off without another word. Near by sat Lady Morgan, whose success, literary and social, was phenomenal. As Sidney Owenson, soon after her Wild Irish Girl made her famous, she sat awestruck opposite to Dr. Johnson at a large London dinner, when suddenly, to the terror of the child, untamed as her own heroine, burly Samuel called across in severe tones, "Little girl! little girl! where did you get so many hard words?"—"Please, sir, in your dictionary," was the naïve reply that disarmed the lexicographer. In Lady Morgan's Memoirs we read: "Mme. Bonaparte, wife of Jerome, who had abandoned her in a cruel and dastardly way, was not of the pâte out of which victims and martyrs are made. She held her difficult position with a scornful courage that excites pity for the woman's nature so scathed and outraged. Her letters bear the impress of a life run to waste: they are clever, mordant and amusing, but the bitter sense of wrong cannot be concealed: there is a dissatisfaction—one might almost call it jealousy—in the topics discussed." Mme. Bonaparte keeps her friend au courant with Paris gossip, but we have only space to glance at the revelation of her weary, empty heart: "Paris, November, 1816. Dear Lady Morgan: I have executed all your commissions except that auprès de Mme. de Genlis. I have been so unwell it has been impossible for me to visit the penitent at the Carmelites. I meet the princess de Beauveau every week at Mme. Rumford's, where there is an assemblage of gens d'esprit—not that I call myself one of them. However, people say that I am very good, which is my passport to these réunions. I have been asking after the Novice of St. Dominic, which has not yet been seen by any of your friends." [William Pitt read this novel for the fifth time a few days before his death.] "I have been very triste: tout m'ennuie dans ce mondeci, et je ne sçais pas pourquoi, unless it be the recollection of what I have suffered. I think the best thing for me is to return to my dear child. I love him so entirely that seeing him may render my feelings less poignant. Any inconveniences are more supportable than being separated from one's children. How much more we love them than our husbands! the latter are often so selfish and cruel; but children cannot force mothers from their affection."... "Paris, 1817 Your kind letter by Tom Moore reached me. He seldom sees me: I did not take with him at all.... How happy you must be at filling the world with your name! Mme. de Staël and Mme. de Genlis are forgotten, and if the love of fame be of any weight, your excursion to Paris was a brilliant success. Your work on France has appeared through a French translation, in which they have suppressed what they thought best. Its truths cannot at this moment be admitted here, but in all other countries it will have complete success. The violent clamor of the Paris gazettes proves it to be too well written. They are publishing it in America, where your talents are justly appreciated.... I have not seen Mme. d'H—— for a long time: she dines at half-past nine—wakes when other persons sleep, which makes it impossible to enjoy her society without paying the price of a night's repose.... Your friend and admirer Mr. S—— is dead of old age. I met him two weeks previous at a party. His widow gave a dinner the next week, because she was afraid of being triste—receives and appears on the Boulevards, because 'bon ami m'a dit qu'il fallait vivre.' Her friends flatter themselves that her sensibility will not kill her, at the same time that it enables them to give agreeable parties.... My desire to see my child is stronger than my taste for Paris. I am of your opinion: the best thing a woman can do is to marry: even quarrels with one's husband are preferable to the ennui of a solitary existence. There are so many hours apart from those appropriated to the world that one cannot get rid of—at least one like myself, having no useful occupation. You never felt ennui, because you cultivate talents which will immortalize you.... Mme. de Staël died regretting a life that she had contrived to render very agreeable. Her most intimate friends were ignorant that a marriage with M. Rocca existed, and unless her will had substantiated the fact they would have treated it as a calumny. Marrying a man twenty years younger than herself, without fortune or name, is in France un ridicule, pire qu'un crime. What think you of the Manuscript of St. Helena being attributed to her and Benjamin Constant? Is it possible to carry the desire of rendering her inconsistent further?... Adieu! Your recollection accompanies me to the New World, where I hope I may meet any one half so agreeable. They write me that my son is pétri d'esprit. I fear that after exciting my hopes he will become, like the generality of people, mediocre and tiresome. Yours affectionately, Eliza Patterson."

The next letter is preceded by Lady Morgan's comment: "Mme. Bonaparte, with her airy manner, beauty and wit, would have made an excellent princess, American as she was. One wonders that Napoleon should have been blind to her capabilities—he whose motto was, 'The tools to him who can use them.'"—"Baltimore, 1818. Dear Lady Morgan:... The demand for your work on France was so great that it went through three editions with us.... My son is intelligent, good and very handsome.... You have a great deal of imagination, but it can give you no idea of the mode of existence inflicted on us. The men are all merchants, and commerce may fill the purse, but clogs the brain: beyond their counting-houses they possess not a single idea; they never visit except when they wish to marry. The women are occupied in les détails du ménage and nursing children—useful occupations that do not render them agreeable to their neighbors. The men, being all bent on marriage, do not attend to me, because they fancy I am not inclined to change the evils of my condition for those they could offer me. I have been thought so ennuyée as to accept very respectable offers, but I prefer remaining as I am to marrying a person to whom I am indifferent. My letters from Paris say that Decaze, the minister of police, is created a peer and is to marry Princess de Beauveau. It appears very strange to my recollections of political feelings, but nothing is too surprising with politicians. He is very handsome at least—not a bad thing in a husband: they say, too, that he has talents and sensibility.... Suppose you were to come to this country: it is becoming the fashion to travel here, and you might find materials for an interesting work.... It is impossible for me to return to Europe: a single woman is exposed to so many disagreeable comments in a foreign land. Besides, I have only eleven hundred pounds a year—not enough to support me out of my own family.... I embroider and read. Do you remember Mme. de Staël's description of the mode of life Corinne found in an English country town, the subjects of conversation limited to births, deaths and marriages? My opinion on these topics has long been decided: that it is a misery to be born and married I have painfully experienced.... Have you a good college in Dublin? I might send my son there in two years, as he cannot go to France, and I do not wish him to be educated in England, where his name would not recommend him to favor."

"Geneva, 1819. Dear Lady Morgan:... I should never have ventured on another voyage to Europe could I have found the means of education for my son.... We have been nearly ruined by commercial speculations, and even I have suffered.... My son's education, too, demands no inconsiderable expense, and his father never has, and never will, contribute a single farthing toward his maintenance. We have no correspondence since the demand that he would pay part of his necessary expenditure, which he positively refused.... This town is intolerably expensive—as much so as Paris: there exists, too, an esprit de coterie appalling to women strangers, for men are les bien venus partout. They have a custom parmi les gens du haut of receiving strangers to board at a very high price seulement pour leur agrément, in which houses there is no feast to be found unless it be of reason: the hosts are too spirituels to fancy that we possess a vulgar appetite for meat, vegetables, tarts and custards; but as I cannot subsist altogether on the contemplation of la belle Nature, I have taken an apartment, hoping to get something to eat.... My health is restored, and I am much less in the genre larmoyant than when you saw me.... I am happy not to have gone to Edinburgh: the climate here is finer, living cheaper and the language French—more desirable for my son. Why do you persist in living in Ireland?"

King Jerome afterward allowed his son one hundred dollars per month for seven years, but with malignant cruelty ignored him in his will, which wrong at once to her son and her own wifely fame Mme. Bonaparte contested in Paris with a spirit that elicited the sympathy of Europe; but Napoleon III., for reasons of policy, permitted her defeat, and also at this time discontinued the annuity of fourteen thousand dollars allowed to her son, Jerome Bonaparte, although recognizing him at court as his cousin; but the six thousand dollars per annum granted to her grandson, Captain Bonaparte, ceased only with the Empire.

"Geneva, 1820. Dear Lady Morgan:... Baron Bonstetten came to see me to-day. You were the subject of our conversation: nothing but admiration. M. Sismondi has made my acquaintance—he is married too: I wonder that people of genius marry. I have been in such a state of melancholy as to wish myself dead a thousand times. What think you of a person advising me to turn Methodist? Have you read Lamartine's Méditations poétiques? There are some fine things in them, but he is too larmoyant and of the bad school of politics. Miss Edgeworth is here: she came to see me, but we have not met. She has a great deal of good sense, which I particularly object to in my companions unless accompanied by genius.... They are so reasonable and unmoved in this place, their mornings devoted to the exact sciences, their evenings to whist! There have been some English, but I have seen little of them: they are cold, formal, affected—just my antipodes; therefore we should not please each other: they require a year to become acquainted, and I have too little left of life to waste on formalities.... In this birthplace of Calvinism I found no trace of its originator, either in actual relics or asceticism: it was rather the centre of folly and license."

Baron Bonstetten, savant and philanthropist—whom Lady Morgan styles "that fresh, frisky old darling"—showed Mme. Bonaparte paternal kindness. In a morning visit she found him in his library examining letters. He said, "Asseyez vous un peu, mon enfant, en attendant que je finisse de ces papiers," and she sat for an hour reading letters from celebrities which he tossed to her—among others, perhaps inadvertently, from Mme. de Staël, proving the good baron's admiration for Corinne to have been "warmer than friendship if colder than love." At a ball at Bonstetten's, as Mme. Bonaparte entered the room, a stout, handsome man covered with orders eagerly exclaimed, "Qui est-ce? qui est-ce?"—"La première femme de Jérome Bonaparte," replied the princess Gallitzin. It was Duke William of Würtemberg, uncle of Jerome's second wife. He requested a presentation, took both hands affectionately, and after conversing half an hour led her to his duchess, to whom he said afterward, "Mais, mon Dieu! que Jérome a manqué son coup. Quelle grâce, quelle beauté, quel esprit! Et ma pauvre nièce! il faut être juste; jamais ne pourrait-elle régner comme cette belle Américaine, qui par tout droit est vraiment la reine. Jérome a été bête de la quitter."—"Ah," said Bonstetten, "si elle n'est pas reine de Westphalie, elle est au moins reine des cœurs."

Jerome sent for his son, then a lad, to visit him at Rome, where he remained several months, treated with affection by his father and with maternal kindness by the princess, who went two leagues to meet him, and taking his face between her hands said tearfully, "Ah! mon enfant, je suis la cause innocente de tous vos malheurs." She evinced always the utmost interest in her predecessor. Mme. Rubelle was appointed lady of honor to her when queen of Westphalia, and was meaningly questioned, "Are all the American ladies as beautiful as yourself?" Prince Woronzow said of these rival wives, "Je suis amoureux des deux reines de Westphalie."

On her arrival in France the princess of Würtemberg halted at Raincy to meet Prince Jerome, "who had sworn to me," says Mme. Junot, "never to forget the mother of his son, the young wife who had given him a paradise in a strange land.... The princess was not pretty; she seldom smiled; her expression was haughty.... Her complexion was fair and fresh, hair light, eyes blue, teeth very white.... As the princess had made up her mind to give her hand to Jerome, it was desirable that she should please him, as he certainly regretted his wife; and Miss Patterson was really his wife and a charming woman.... Her dress was in uncommon bad taste—the gown of bluish-white moire, trimmed in front with badly-worked silver embroidery in a forgotten style; a little train resembling the round tail of a beaver; tight, flat sleeves, pressing the arm above the elbow like a bandage after blood-letting. Her pointed shoes belonged to the era of King John, the hair old-fashioned in style. About her neck were two rows of very fine pearls, to which was suspended the portrait of the prince set in diamonds, and much too large to be ornamental, as it dangled from her neck and bestowed heavy blows at every step.... Marshal Bessières had espoused the princess by proxy.... As Jerome entered she advanced two steps and made him her compliments with grace and dignity.... Jerome seemed to be there because he had been told 'You must go.' After Jerome retired the princess fainted."

The duke of Würtemberg was a mere tool in Napoleon's hands, and his pliancy was rewarded. In 1809 the emperor greeted him as mon frère.—"Comment, Sire? No longer your cousin?"—"You were mon cousin: you are now Monsieur mon frère!" And yet the domestic tragedy of this new frère was known to the imperial king-maker! In 1780 the duke had married Princess Caroline of Brunswick, young and beautiful, who was accused of regarding too favorably a page in her service. Letters inculpating them were found, a family and state council was convened, and the page sentenced to death, while all concurred in the guilt of the duchess. A divorce was proposed, but finally her death was decreed. The page lodged in the palace, his door opening on a corridor beneath which were similar corridors, in each of which a trapdoor was now arranged, one below the other, a slight flooring concealing the one immediately above the apartment of the duchess. As the unsuspicious page stole at midnight to the rendezvous, the trap yielded, and from floor to floor he was dashed, mangled and dead, to the feet of the duchess. The infatuated woman, previously warned, had refused to abandon her lover; but now she sought escape, was intercepted, and the city executioner immediately brought blindfolded to the great hall, where he beheld a fair, noble woman bound hands and feet. He implored to be spared his terrible task, but, sworn to secrecy, he was forced under penalty of instant death to strike the fatal blow. He drew up a detailed account of the double murder and sent it to Baron Bretueil, then French minister of state, who laid the matter before King Louis XVI. Jerome's wife was the daughter of this unfortunate princess. The duke afterward married a daughter of George III. of England.

Mme. Bonaparte's last meeting with Jerome was at the Pitti Palace in Florence in 1822, and, singular to say, these once wedded lovers did not know each other! She chanced to be attired in her most recherché costume—a rich silk halfway to the knee, then the mode, displaying dainty prunella shoes; a gauze hat about three feet in circumference, with high-wired bows; a crimson cashmere shawl and large green velvet reticule. In passing through the gallery she was attracted by the eager, persistent stare of a very handsome man whom she did not recognize, but whose strange likeness to her son enchained her. Suddenly the truth flashed to her heart: "It is Jerome!" He meanwhile, gazing at her, said to one of the ladies with him, "Si belle! si belle! qui est-ce?"—"Vous devriez la connaître, c'est votre première femme," replied Mme. Joseph Bonaparte. Jerome started, and with an agitated whisper to the other lady, the princess Catherine, they left the gallery. For one moment only the two "discrowned queens" were face to face. The next day Mme. Bonaparte was driving in the Cascine, when from a passing carriage Jerome nearly precipitated himself in a last, lingering look at the wife of his youth.

At that period Florence was the focus of continental social brilliancy, and Mme. Bonaparte was received with due distinction at its charming court. "My presentation was special," she relates, "and being superbly dressed, though caring but little for chiffons, I advanced with entire composure and self-satisfaction through the apartments of the Pitti Palace, crowded with the élite of the court and diplomacy. Preceded by the chamberlain, I was welcomed by the grand duke and duchess with such kindness as quite to overcome me, and I nearly burst into tears; but saying to myself, 'Good gracious! I shall spoil my lovely satin gown, and be thought bête to make a scene,' this reflection restored my serenity and enabled me to go through the ceremony with becoming dignity."

"Si elle etait reine avec quelle grâce elle règnerait," said Talleyrand after one of their witty jousts, in which he was not always victor. "She charms by her eyes while she slays with her tongue," said Count Crillon: if her unsparing repartee inspired wholesome fear, she disarmed by her tact, sportive manner and childlike laughter. "Had she been near the throne the Allies would have found it even more difficult to dispose of Napoleon," said Gortschakoff, that brilliant and fascinating Russian, noted even then for the astuteness and diplomatic resource that still steady the Russian helm through Disraelian and Bismarckian breakers, and who now, after fifty years, faithful in friendship, recalls to his belle alliée the guerre spirituelle épigrammatique of their bright spring-time. The duke of Buckingham and Chandos in his Memoirs pays tribute to her talent, piquant charm and "untarnished name," while her enemy, Prince Napoleon—Plon-Plon—thus characterizes her: "Ambitieuse, un esprit indomptable, une réputation sans tâche."

She writes to Lady Morgan from Paris in 1825: "I passed only a few months in Rome, where I saw the most beautiful woman in the world, who has since died in her husband's palace in Florence, conjugally regretted by Prince Borghese. He buried her in the handsomest chapel in Europe. She left my son a legacy of twenty thousand francs.... I have paid a short visit to America. La Fayette was caressed, adored and substantially rewarded. I saw him, and talked to him of you, whom he loves and admires malgré le temps et l'absence. Fanny Wright was with or near him all the time he was in America. She is to write something of which he is to be the hero.... My son has grown up handsome—a classical profile and un esprit juste."

At Rome, Mme. Bonaparte first met her imperial relatives, by all of whom she was affectionately welcomed except Madame Mère. "Qu'est-ce que vous allez faire à son sujet?" questioned Pauline Borghese. "Je n'y ferai rien;" and to this armed neutrality she adhered, though by request sending her son daily to see his grandmother, until at length overtures were made and the spirited daughter-in-law received with cordiality. "She was not tall," says Mme. Bonaparte; "features like her great son; fine mournful eyes; a manner touching and majestic. She was then very dévote. Pauline was empty-headed, selfish and vain, cared only for luxury, but in every line exquisite as Canova's statue represents her. Hortense was not really handsome—irregular features, a wide mouth exposing the gums and defective teeth, a blemish in her mother, whose faultless figure, kindly nature and caressing manner she also inherited. She was lovely at the harp, and sang her own romances in a sweet voice."

Among the few celebrities of her day unknown by Mme. Bonaparte was Byron, who had expressed a great wish to meet her, so his friend Captain Medway told her. "I hate a dumpy woman," says the noble bard; and to that complexion did the Guiccioli come at last. Mme. Bonaparte knew her well—"a shower of golden curls; fair, with blue eyes, unlike the typical Italian; teeth and hands perfect; naïve and sweet of temper. Byron, she said, took a woman's care of his beauty; slept in gloves—he was so proud of his hands—and kept bits of cotton between his teeth to preserve their regularity."

In 1839, Mme. Bonaparte writes to Lady Morgan from Paris: "Death, time and absence have left me hardly an acquaintance here.... I hardly know which is most distressing—to hear that our friends have gone to the other world or have forgotten us in this.... My son is gone from Geneva to Italy to visit his relatives and to see after a legacy which his grand-uncle, Cardinal Fesch, had the goodness to leave him.... I have grown fat, old and dull—good reasons for persons not to think me an intelligent listener. They mistake: I have exactly the talent to appreciate the powers of others. Poor Mme. Junot made a sad end, the natural consequence of her prodigality: her pecuniary difficulties, it is said, caused her death. I liked her very much, and felt pained at the misery caused by her want of judgment. Her heart was generous and warm.... I know not if the late princess Charlotte, daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, was of your acquaintance: she possessed some mental superiority and many noble qualities."

"Lady Morgan," says Mme. Bonaparte, "was brilliant in wit, good-natured and flattering; short, with sparkling eyes; her hair close cut, in dark curls. 'Why is it,' she said to me, 'that you speak French perfectly, but English with such an American drawl?'—'For the same reason probably that yours is a brogue'—one of the miseries of her life."

"Baltimore, 1849.... No one expects me to be grateful for the evil chance of having been born here. Society and conversation belong to older countries: you ought to thank your stars for your European birth.... France, je l'espère, is in a transition state, and will not let her brilliancy be put under an extinguisher called la République. The emperor hurled me back on what I most hated on earth, my Baltimore obscurity: even that shock could not destroy the admiration I felt for his genius and glory. I have ever been an imperial Bonapartist quand même, and am enchanted at the homage paid by six millions of voices to his memory in voting an imperial President: the prestige of the name has elected a prince who has my most ardent wishes for an empire. Dear Lady Morgan, having been cheated out of my inheritance from my late rich and unjust father, I have only ten thousand dollars annually. You speak of my 'princely' income. I have all my life been tortured and mortified by pecuniary difficulties: but for my industry, energy and determination to conquer a decent sufficiency to live on in Europe, I might have remained as poor as you first saw me.... Lamartine and Chateaubriand are giving their memoirs to the public: the first de son vivant. When I knew Lamartine he was chargé d'affaires from Charles X. Florence was then a charming place. I met him every night in society. How little did I foresee that he was to become a poetical republican, and that dear Florence was to be travestied in a republic! Hoping that England may remain steady and faithful to monarchical principles, that at least some refined society may be left in the world, I shall, Dieu permettant, have the satisfaction of seeing you next summer."

Neither the climate nor "the freezing social convenance" of England pleased Mme. Bonaparte, though she was received with distinction. "Abroad, these fair insulars occasionally unbend and are charming" she says, "but at all times I have found Englishmen of birth the best bred and most agreeable men in the world."

Since her withdrawal from European life Mme. Bonaparte has lived secluded from society. Baltimore's shrewdest banker says that he knows "no man capable of creating legitimately, with so small a capital, the large fortune amassed by Mme. Bonaparte." She has no accomplishment in any branch of art, and although her love of study remains, her fast-increasing blindness deprives her of this resource. Her diary, if ever given to the public, will have the effect of a shower of cayenne; but her magnum opus, which discretion will probably forbid seeing the light, is entitled Dialogues of the Dead, the scene being laid in Hades, where her father and King Jerome rehearse her story. Her wit is still incisive, her conversation replete with interest, her memory retaining minutely every incident and figure of the wondrous diorama that has unrolled before her eyes close upon a hundred years. Her birth was nearly coeval with that of our republic, many of whose fathers she knew. She wept as the tidings of Marie Antoinette's tragedy reached our shores; she was a woman when Washington died; Jefferson was her friend; La Fayette has held her hand; and her name is imperishably associated with one "who kept the world at bay, whose game was empires, whose stakes were thrones."

A SUMMER EVENING'S DREAM.

"He hasn't got any. Miss Rood comes nearest to that. Oh no, you needn't open your eyes: there's not a properer old maid in town, or old bachelor either, for that matter."

"Are they relatives?"

"No, indeed."

"How long has this Platonic romance been going on, pray?"

"Oh, ever since they were young—forty years perhaps. I only know by tradition, you see. It began ages before my day. They say she was very pretty once. Old Aunty Perkins remembers that she was quite the belle of the village as a girl. It seems strange, doesn't it?"

"Tell me the whole story," said Mabel, turning round so as to face Lucy as the phaeton passed out of sight.

"There's not much to tell. Mr. Morgan has always lived here, and so has Miss Rood. He lives alone with a housekeeper in that fine house at the end of the street, and she entirely alone in that little white house over there among the apple trees. All the people who knew them when they were young are dead, gone away or moved off. They are relics of a past generation, and are really about as much shut up to each other for sympathy as an old married couple."

"Well, why on earth aren't they married?"

"People hereabouts got tired of asking that full thirty years ago," replied Lucy with a little shrug. "Even the gossips long since wore out the subject, and I believe we have all of us forgotten that there is anything peculiar about their relations. He calls on her two or three times a week, and takes her out driving on pleasant days; escorts her to places of amusement or social gatherings when either of them cares to go, which isn't often; and wherever they are, people take it for granted they will pair off together. He is never seen with any other lady."

"It's very strange," said Mabel thoughtfully, "and I'm sure it's very romantic. Queer old couple! I wonder how they really feel toward each other, and whether they wouldn't like to be married?"

A while after she suddenly demanded, "Don't you think Miss Rood looks like me?"

Lucy laughed at first, but upon closer inspection of the fair questioner admitted that there might be some such resemblance as the shrivelled apples brought up from the cellar in spring bear to the plump, rosy-cheeked beauties that went down in October.

If Mr. Morgan and Miss Rood, as they rode past, had chanced to overhear Mabel's question why they had not married, it would have affected them very differently. He would have been startled by the novelty of an idea that had not occurred to him in twenty years, but the blush on her cheek would have been one of painful consciousness.

As boy and girl they had been each other's chosen companion, and as young man and maiden their childish preference had bloomed into a reciprocal love. Thanks to the freedom and simplicity of village life, they enjoyed as lovers a constant and easy familiarity and daily association almost as complete in sympathy of mind and heart as anything marriage could offer. There were none of the usual obstacles to incite them to matrimony. They were never even formally engaged, so wholly did they take it for granted that they should marry. It was so much a matter of course that there was no hurry at all about it; and besides, so long as they had it to look forward to the foreground of life was illuminated for them: it was still morning. Mr. Morgan was constitutionally of a dreamy and unpractical turn, a creature of habits and a victim of ruts; and as years rolled on he became more and more satisfied with these half-friendly, half-loverlike relations. He never found the time when it seemed an object to marry, and now, for very many years, the idea had not even occurred to him as possible; and so far was he from the least suspicion that Miss Rood's experience had not been precisely similar to his own, that he often congratulated himself on the fortunate coincidence.

Time cures much, and many years ago Miss Rood had recovered from the first bitterness of discovering that his love had become insensibly transformed into a very tender but perfectly peaceful friendship. No one but him had ever touched her heart, and she had no interest in life besides him. Since she was not to be his wife, she was glad to be his lifelong, tender, self-sacrificing friend. So she raked the ashes over the fire in her heart, and left him to suppose that it had gone out as in his. Nor was she without compensation in their friendship. It was with a delightful thrill that she felt how fully in mind and heart he leaned and depended upon her, and the unusual and romantic character of their relations in some degree consoled her for the disappointment of womanly aspirations by a feeling of distinction. She was not like other women: her lot was set apart and peculiar. She looked down upon her sex. The conventionality of women's lives renders their vanity peculiarly susceptible to a suggestion that their destiny is in any respect unique—a fact that has served the turn of many a seducer before now.

To-day, after returning from his drive with Miss Rood, Mr. Morgan had walked in his garden, and as the evening breeze arose, it bore to his nostrils that first indescribable flavor of autumn which warns us that the soul of Summer has departed from her yet glowing body. He was very sensitive to these changes of the year, and, obeying an impulse that had been familiar to him in all unusual moods his life long, he left the house after tea and turned his steps down the street. As he stopped at Miss Rood's gate, Lucy, Mabel and George Hammond were under the apple trees in the garden opposite.

"Look, Mabel! There's Mr. Morgan going to call on Miss Rood," said Lucy softly.

"Oh, do look, George!" said Mabel eagerly. "That old gentleman has been paying court to an old maid over in that little house for forty years. And to think," she added in a lower tone, intended for his private ear, "what a fuss you make about waiting six months!"

"Humph! You please to forget that it's easier to wait for some things than for others. Six months of my kind of waiting, I take it, require more patience than forty years of his—or any other man's," he added with increased emphasis.

"Be quiet, sir!" replied Mabel, answering his look of unruly admiration with one of half pique. "I'm not a sugar-plum, that's not enjoyed till it's in the mouth. If you haven't got me now, you'll never have me. If being engaged isn't enough, you don't deserve to be married." And then, seeing the blank expression with which he looked down at her, she added with a prescient resignedness, "I'm afraid, dear, you'll be so disappointed when we're married if you find this so tedious."