CHAPTER III.

Party-giving was Mrs. Sherrard’s idiosyncrasy. According to the usual system in Virginia, during the lifetime of the late Mr. Sherrard, there was much frolicking, dancing, and hilarity at Turkey Thicket, the Sherrard place, and a corresponding narrowness of income and general behindhandedness. But since Mr. Sherrard’s death Mrs. Sherrard, along with the unvarying and sublime confidence in her husband, dead or alive, that characterizes Virginia women, had yet entirely abandoned Mr. Sherrard’s methods. The mortgage on Turkey Thicket had been paid off, the whole place farmed on common-sense principles, and the debts declared inevitable by Mr. Sherrard carefully avoided. As a matter of fact, the only people in the county who paid their taxes promptly were the widows, who nevertheless continually lamented that they were deprived of the great industry, foresight, and business capacity of their defunct lords and masters. Mrs. Sherrard gave as many parties in Mr. Sherrard’s lifetime as she did after his death; but, since that melancholy event, the parties were paid for, not charged on account.

When this startling information about the coming festivity was imparted, Jacqueline, who was sitting in her own low chair by the fire, gave a little jump.

“And,” said Mrs. Sherrard, who was a courageous person, “I’ll tell you what I am giving it for. It is to get the county people to meet George Throckmorton. Not a human being in the county has called on him, except Edmund Morford, and I fairly drove him to it. He began some of his long-winded explanations. ‘Aunt Kitty,’ he said, ‘what am I, even though I be a minister of the gospel, that I should set myself up against the spirit of the community, which is against recognizing Throckmorton?’ ‘What are you, indeed, my dear boy,’ I answered. ‘I’m not urging you to go, because it’s a matter of the slightest consequence what you do or what you don’t, but merely for your own sake, because it is illiberal and unchristian of you not to go.’ Now, Edmund is a good soul, for all his nonsense.”

Mrs. Temple was horrified at this way of speaking of the young rector.

“And I’ve intimated to him that I’m about to make my will—I haven’t the slightest notion of doing it for the next twenty years—but the mere hint always brings Edmund to terms, and so he went over to Millenbeck to call. He came back perfectly delighted. The house is charming, Throckmorton is a prince of hospitality, and I don’t suppose poor Edmund ever was treated with so much consideration by a man of sense in his life before.” Mrs. Temple groaned, but Mrs. Sherrard kept on, cutting her eye at Judith, who was the only person at Barn Elms that knew a joke when she saw it. Judith bent over her work, laughing. “I met Throckmorton in the road next day. ‘So you dragooned the parson into calling on the Philistine,’ he said. Of course I tried to deny it, after a fashion; but Throckmorton won’t be humbugged—can’t be, in fact—and I had to own up. ‘You can’t say Edmund’s not a gentleman,’ said I, ‘and he is the most good-natured poor soul; and if he had broken his nose, or got cross-eyed in early youth, he really would have cut quite a respectable figure in the world.’ ‘That’s true,’ answered George, laughing, and looking so like he did long years ago, ‘but you’ll admit, Mrs. Sherrard, that he is too infernally handsome for his own good.’ ‘Decidedly,’ said I.”

“Katharine Sherrard,” solemnly began Mrs. Temple, who habitually called Mrs. Sherrard Kitty, except at weddings and funerals, and upon occasions like the present, when her feelings were wrought up, “the way you talk about Edmund Morford is a grief and a sorrow to me. He is a clergyman of our church, and it is not becoming for women to deride the men of their own blood. Men must rule, Katharine Sherrard. It is so ordered by the divine law.”

“Jane Temple,” answered Mrs. Sherrard, “you may add by the human law, too; but some women—”

“Set both at naught,” answered Mrs. Temple, piously and sweetly.

“They do, indeed,” fervently responded Mrs. Sherrard, having in view General Temple’s complete subjugation. “But now about the party. The general must come, of course. I wish I could persuade you.”

“I have not been to a party since before the war, and now I shall never go to another one.”

“But Judith and Jacqueline will come.”

At this a deep flush rose in Judith’s face.

“I don’t go to parties, Mrs. Sherrard.”

“I know; but you must come to this one.”

Mrs. Temple set her lips and said nothing, but Jacqueline, who sometimes asserted herself at unlooked-for times, spoke up:

“If Judith doesn’t go, I—I—sha’n’t go.”

“You hear that?” asked Mrs. Sherrard, delighted at Jacqueline’s spirit. “Stick to it, child; there is no reason why Judith shouldn’t come.”

Here General Temple entered and greeted Mrs. Sherrard elaborately. Mrs. Sherrard immediately set to work on the general. She knew perfectly well that he could do no more in the case than Simon Peter could, but she poured her fire into him, thinking a stray shot might hit Mrs. Temple. Judith remained quite silent. She was too sincere of soul to say she did not want to go; and yet going to parties was quite out of that life of true widowhood she had laid down for herself; and life was intolerably dull. She loved gayety and brightness, and her whole life was clothed with somberness. She was full of ideas, and loved books, and nobody in the house ever read a line except General Temple, and his reading was confined to the science of war, for which he would certainly never have any use. She was full of quick turns of repartee, that, when she indulged them, almost frightened Mrs. Temple, who had the average woman’s incapacity for humor. Mrs. Sherrard and herself were great friends—and friends were not too plentiful with Mrs. Sherrard, whose tongue was a two-edged sword. Nevertheless, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard had been intimate all their lives, and Mrs. Sherrard was one of the few persons who ever took liberties with Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Sherrard was clear-sighted, and she knew what nobody else did—how starved and blighted was Judith’s life by that stern repression to which she had set herself; and she had known Beverley Temple, too, and sometimes said to herself: “Perhaps it is better for Judith as it is, for Beverley, brave and handsome as he was, yet was a dreadfully ordinary fellow. Luckily, she was hustled into marrying him so quickly, and she was so young, she didn’t find it out; but if he had lived—”

Mrs. Sherrard departed, impressing upon General Temple that she should certainly expect to see him at the party, with Judith and Jacqueline. Simon Peter in the kitchen reported the state of affairs to Delilah, who remarked:

“Miss Kitty She’ard, she know Miss Judy cyan go twell ole mistis say so. Ole marse, he got a heap o’ flourishes an’ he talk mighty big, but mistis she doan’ flourish none; she jes’ go ’long quiet like, an’ has her way.”

“Dat’s so,” answered Simon Peter, rubbing his woolly head with an air of conviction. “Mistis su’t’ny is de wheel-hoss in dis heah team.”

“An’ ain’ de womenfolks allus de wheel-hosses? Ole marse he set up an’ he talk ’bout de weather an’ de craps, an’ he specks de ’lection gwine discomfuse things, an’ he read de paper an’ he know more ’n de paper do, an’ he read de Bible an’ he know more ’n de Bible do, an’ all de time he ain’ got de sperrit uv a chicken.”

“De womenfolks kin mos’ in gen’ally git dey way,” cautiously answered Simon Peter.

“Yes, dey kin; an’ dey is gwine ter, ’long as menfolks is so triflin’ an’ owdacious as dey is.”

Jacqueline developed a strange obstinacy about the party. She declared she was dying to go, but she never wavered from her determination not to go without Judith.

“But your sister does not wish to go, Jacqueline,” her mother said to this.

“But I want her to go, mamma. You can’t imagine how I long to go to this party. It is so very, very dull at Barn Elms—and I have my new white frock.”

“Judith has no frock.”

“Oh, yes she has. She has that long black dress, in which she looks so nice, and she is so clever at sewing she could cut it open at the neck and turn up the sleeves at the elbow.”

Mrs. Temple said nothing more. Jacqueline went about, eager-eyed, but silent, and possessed of but one idea—the party. A day or two after this she said bitterly to her mother, when Judith was out of the room:

“Mamma, I know why you are willing to disappoint me about this party. It is because you love your dead child better than your living one.”

Mrs. Temple turned a little pale. The thrust went home, as some of Jacqueline’s thrusts did.

“And if I don’t go, I will cry and cry—I will cry that night so loud in my room that papa will come in, and you know how it vexes him to have me cry; and it will break my heart—I know it will.”

Mrs. Temple went about all day with Jacqueline’s words ringing in her ears. That night, after Jacqueline was in bed, her mother went into the room. It was a large, old-fashioned room, and Jacqueline’s little white figure, as she sat up in bed, was almost lost in the huge four-poster, with dimity curtains and valance. The fire still smoldered, and the spindle-shanked dressing-table, with the glass set in its mahogany frame, cast unearthly shadows on the floor in the half-light. Mrs. Temple sat down by the bed. Something like remorse came into the mother’s heart. This child was the least loved by both father and mother. Jacqueline began at once, in her sweet, nervous voice:

“Mamma, I have been thinking about the party.”

“So have I, child.”

“And may we go?”

Mrs. Temple paused before she spoke.

“Yes, you and Judith may go,” she said presently in a stern voice—ah! the sternness of these gentle women!

Jacqueline held out her arms fondly to her mother, but Mrs. Temple could not be magnanimous in defeat. She went out, softly closing the door behind her, without giving Jacqueline her good-night kiss, but Jacqueline called after her in a voice tremulous with gratitude and delight, “Dear, sweet mamma!”

The moment she heard the “charmber-do’,” as the negroes called it, shut down-stairs, Jacqueline slipped out of bed and flew across the dark passage into Judith’s room to tell the wonderful news. Judith was sitting before the fire, holding her sleeping child in her arms. The boy had waked and had clung to his mother until she lifted him out of his little bed. He had gone to sleep directly, but Judith held him close; he was so little, so babyish, yet so soft and warm and clinging.

“We are going to the party, Judith,” said Jacqueline, excitedly, kneeling down by her.

“Are we?” answered Judith. A gleam came into her eyes very like Jacqueline’s.

“And—and—” continued Jacqueline with a sly, half-laughing glance, “we will meet Major Throckmorton again.”

“Go to bed, Jacqueline,” replied Judith in the soft, composed voice that invariably crushed Jacqueline.

Next morning General Temple showed the most unqualified delight at Mrs. Temple’s capitulation. He considered it becoming, though, to make some slight protest against going to the party. He thought, perhaps, with his tendency to gout, it would scarcely be prudent to expose himself to the night air, and—er—to Kitty Sherrard’s chicken salad; and, besides, he really was not justified in postponing the drawings of some maps to illustrate the position of Temple’s Brigade at the battle of Chancellorsville; for, like all other dilettanti, General Temple’s work was always of present importance and admitted of no delay whatever.

Mrs. Temple did not smile at this, but treated it with great seriousness.

“Quite true, my dear; but now that I have promised Jacqueline, I can not disappoint her. You must go for her sake.”

“Rather let me say, my dear Jane, that I go for your sake—your wishes, my love, being of paramount importance.”

For a henpecked man, it was impossible to be more imposing or agreeable than General Temple. So on the night of the party he was promptly on hand, at eight o’clock, in his old-fashioned evening coat, the tails lined with white satin, and wearing a pair of large, white kid gloves.

Jacqueline and Judith soon appeared. Jacqueline, in her new white frock, looked her prettiest, albeit it showed her youthful thinness and all her half-grown angles. Judith’s beauty was of a sort that could stand the simplicity of her black gown that revealed her white neck, and, for the first time since her widowhood, she wore no cap over her red-brown hair. Delilah and Simon Peter yah-yahed and ki-yied over both of them.

“Dem little foots o’ Miss Jacky’s in de silk stockin’s ain’ no bigger ’n little Beverley’s, hardly, and Miss Judy she look like de Queen o’ Sheba,” delightedly remarked Delilah.

Judith could scarcely meet Mrs. Temple’s eyes. She felt inexplicably guilty. Mrs. Temple examined them critically, though, and the general was loftily complimentary.

“And, Delilah,” said Judith, gathering up her gloves nervously, “be sure and look after Beverley. He has never been left alone in his life before.”

“I will look after Beverley, Judith,” said Mrs. Temple, and Judith blushed faintly at something in the tone.

All the way, going along the country road in the moonlight, Judith could feel Jacqueline’s little feet moving restlessly with excitement. As they drove up to the house, and caught glimpses through the open hall-door of the dancers and heard the sound of music, Jacqueline began to bob up and down with childish delight.

Like most Virginia country-houses, Turkey Thicket had an immense entrance hall, which was not heated and was of no earthly use the best part of the year, and for which all the rooms around it were unnecessarily cramped. Mrs. Sherrard’s hall was of more use to her than most people’s, owing to her party-giving proclivities, and was brightly lighted up for dancing. As Judith came down the broad stairs on General Temple’s arm, a kind of thrill of surprise went around among the guests. Nobody expected to see her. Many of them had never seen her except in her widow’s veil and cap. Judith, remembering this, could not restrain a blushing consciousness that made her not less handsome; and, besides, her good looks were always full of surprises. One never knew whether she would be simply pale and pretty, or whether she would blaze out into a sudden and captivating beauty.

They made their way through the dancers, Jacqueline alternately pale and red with excitement, and the general bowing right and left, until they entered the small, old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Sherrard, in a plain black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: “My dear, I am dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a little better, but it isn’t a pronounced success by any means. I have been longing for you to come. You have so much more sense than any of the young people I know, I thought you would be a little less freezing to him.”

At this a warmer color surged into Judith’s cheeks. She could not remember ever to have seen a man who impressed her so instantly as Throckmorton. With her clear, feminine instinct, she had seen at the first glance what manner of man he was. As Mrs. Sherrard spoke to her, she turned and saw him standing by the fireplace, talking with Edmund Morford. Throckmorton could not have desired a better foil than the young clergyman, with his faultless red and white skin, his curling dark hair, his mouth full of perfect teeth, and his character as a clerical dandy written all over him. Throckmorton, whose good looks were purely masculine and characteristic, looked even more manly and soldierly by contrast. Both men caught sight of Judith at the same moment. Morford was thrown into a perfect flutter. He wondered if Judith had put on that square-necked, short-sleeved black gown to do him a mischief. Throckmorton, obeying a look from Mrs. Sherrard, came forward and was formally introduced. Judith offered her hand, after the Virginia custom, which Throckmorton bowed over.

“Mrs. Temple did not present me to you on Sunday,” he said, with a smile and a slight flush; “but I guessed very readily who you were.”

Judith, too, colored.

“Poor mother, you must not take her too hardly. You know how good she is, but—but she is very determined; she moves slowly.”

“Yes,” replied Throckmorton, with his easy, man-of-the-world manner; “but I am afraid there are others as unyielding as Mrs. Temple, and not half so kindly—for she is a dear soul! It seemed to me the carrying out of a sort of dream to come back to Millenbeck. My boy Jack—that young fellow yonder—looks rather old to be my son, don’t you think?”

“Y-e-s,” answered Judith, with provoking dubiousness and a wicked little smile.

“Oh, you are really too bad! I am very tired of explaining to people that Jack is nothing like as old as he looks. Well, the boy, although brought up at army posts, rather wanted to be a Virginian, and to own the old place; you know that sort of thing always crops out in a Virginian.”

“Yes,” smiled Judith; “I see how it crops out in you. You are immensely proud of being a Throckmorton, and you would rather own Millenbeck, if it were tumbling down about your ears, than the finest place in the world anywhere else.”

“Now, Mrs. Beverley,” said Throckmorton, determinedly, “I can’t have my weaknesses picked out in this prompt and savage manner. I own I am a fool about Millenbeck, but I’d have sworn that nobody but myself knew it. I’ve got a year’s leave, and I’ve come down here with Sweeney, an old ex-sergeant of mine, who has owned me for several years, and my old horse Tartar, that is turned out to grass; and if I like it as well as I expect, I may resign”—Throckmorton was always talking about resigning, as Mrs. Sherrard was about making her will, without the slightest idea of doing it—“and turn myself out to grass like Tartar. But my reception hasn’t been—a—exactly—cordial—or—”

“I am sorry you have been disappointed,” said Judith, gently; “but it seems to me that we are all in a dreadful sort of transition state now. We are holding on desperately to our old moorings, although they are slipping away; but I suppose we shall have to face a new existence some time.”

“I think I understand the feeling here—even that dead wall of prejudice that meets me. One look around Severn church, last Sunday, would have told me that those people had gone through with some frightful crisis. I thought, perhaps being one of their own county people originally might soften them toward me, but I believe that makes me blacker than ever.”

Judith could not deny it.

Throckmorton, who was worldly wise, read Judith at a glance, besides having learned her history since first seeing her. He saw that she was under a fixed restraint, and that a word would frighten her into the deepest reserve. He treated her, therefore, as if she had been a Sister of Charity. Judith, who made up for her lack of knowledge of the world by rapid perceptions and natural talents, had seen more quickly than Throckmorton. Here was a man the like of whom she had not often met. Throckmorton knew perfectly well the solitary lives these country women led, and he had often wondered at the singular fortitude they showed. He set himself to work to find out what chiefly interested this young woman, who showed such remarkable constancy to her dead husband, but who gave indications to his practiced eye of secretly loving life and its concerns very much. He had heard about her pretty boy. At this Judith colored with pleasure and became positively talkative. Her boy was the sweetest boy—she would like never to have him out of her sight. Major Throckmorton, with a sardonic grin, confided to Judith that he would frequently be highly gratified at having his son out of his sight, because Jack made the women think he, the major, was a Methuselah, and covertly made much game of him, for which he would like to kick Jack, but couldn’t.

Judith laughed merrily at this—a laugh so clear and rippling, and yet so rare, that the sound of it startled her. Was Mrs. Beverley fond of reading? Mrs. Beverley was very fond of reading, but there was nothing newer in the array of books at Barn Elms than 1840. Major Throckmorton would be only too happy to supply her with books. He had had a few boxes full sent down to Millenbeck. At this Judith blushed, but accepted, without reflecting how Major Throckmorton was to send books to a house where he was not permitted to visit.

She also protested that she had read nothing at all scarcely; but Throckmorton came to find out that, for want of the every-day modern literature, she was perfectly at home in the English classics, and knew her Scott and Thackeray like a lesson well learned. He began to find this gentle intelligence and cordiality amazingly pleasant after the cold shyness of the girls and the unmistakable keep-your-distance air of the older women. They sat together so long that Mr. Morford began to scowl, and think that Mrs. Beverley, after all, was rather a frivolous person, and with every moment Judith became brighter, gayer, more her natural charming self.

Meanwhile Jack Throckmorton had carried Jacqueline off for a quadrille, and was getting on famously. First they remarked on the similarity of their names, which seemed a fateful coincidence, and Jacqueline complained that the servants and some other people, too, often shortened her liquid three syllables with “Jacky,” but she hated it. Jack, who had a sweet, gay voice, and was an inveterate joker, which Jacqueline was not, amused both her and himself extremely.

“Will you look at the major?” he whispered. “Gone on the pretty widow—I beg your pardon,” he added, turning very red.

“You needn’t apologize,” calmly remarked Jacqueline. “Judith is a pretty widow, and the best and kindest sister in the world, besides. It is all mamma. Mamma loved my brother better than anything, and wants us all to think about him as much as she does.”

Jack, rather embarrassed by these family confidences, parried them with some confidences of his own.

“I shall have to go over soon and break the major up. You see, there isn’t but twenty-two years’ difference between us, and the major is a great toast among the girls still, which is repugnant to my filial feelings.”

Jacqueline listened gravely and in good faith.

“So, when I see him pleased with a girl, I generally sneak up on the other side, and manage to get my share of the girl’s attention, and call the major ‘father’ every two minutes. A man hates to be interfered with that way, particularly by his own son, which doesn’t often happen. The major has got a cast in one eye, and, whenever he is in a rage, he gets downright cross-eyed. Sometimes I work him up so, his eyes don’t get straight for a fortnight.”

“But doesn’t he get very mad with you?” asked Jacqueline in a shocked voice.

“Of course he does,” chuckled Jack; “and that’s where the fun comes in. But, you see, he can’t say anything; it is beneath his dignity; but his temper blazes up, although he doesn’t say a word. Sometimes, when I’ve run him off two or three times close together, he hardly speaks to me for a week—not that he cares about the girl particularly, but he hates to be balked.”

“What a nice sort of a son you must be!”

Jack laughed his frank, boyish laugh.

“Why, the major and I are the greatest chums in the world. I would do anything for him. And if he ever presents me with a step-mother, I’ll do the handsome thing—go to the wedding, and all that. And he’s a fascinating old fellow, too—just takes the girls off their feet.”

When the dance was over, Jack brought Jacqueline back to Judith, who still sat with Throckmorton. Jacqueline’s eyes were shining with childish delight, and she arched her thin white neck restlessly from side to side.

“I have had such a nice dance!” she cried, breathlessly.

Judith, smiling, said, “Major Throckmorton, this is my little sister Jacqueline.”

Throckmorton, having once fixed his eyes on Jacqueline, seemed unable to take them off, as on that Sunday he had first seen her in Severn church. Delilah, who noticed in her primitive way the wonderful power of attraction that Jacqueline had, used to say, “Miss Jacky she allus cotches de beaux.” She certainly “cotched” Throckmorton’s attention from the first. Something in this slim, unformed, provincial girl was suddenly captivating to him. His genuine but sane admiration for Judith seemed tame beside it. Jacqueline, however, only saw a rather striking man, well on toward old age, in her infantile eyes, and wished herself back with Jack, when Major Throckmorton took her for a little promenade. Morford then made up to Judith, but found her singularly cold and unresponsive, and her eyes and smile were quite far away, over Morford’s head, as it were. The truth is, the Rev. Edmund Morford was a considerable let-down from George Throckmorton; and, in Judith’s starved and pinched existence, it was something to meet a man of Throckmorton’s caliber. So in place of the charming sweetness Morford had learned to expect from Judith, he received a cold douche of listlessness and indifference. All the rest of the evening people noticed that Judith, who had a good deal of smoldering vivacity under her quietness, was remarkably cold and silent and rather bored, and they supposed it was because of her aversion to anything like gayety. In truth, Judith had realized rather more startlingly than usual the bareness and colorlessness of her life.

Mrs. Sherrard’s effort was a strong one, but, as she said, it was scarcely a success. General Temple ostentatiously sought out Throckmorton, and tasted the delights of a discussion regarding the trans-Alpine campaigns of Hannibal, in which Throckmorton was a modest listener, and the general a most fiery, earnest, and learned expounder—a past grand-master of military science. But, on shaking Throckmorton’s hand at saying good-night, with solemn but genuine effusiveness, he said not one word about calling at Millenbeck. Throckmorton went home feeling rather bitter toward all his county people, except his stanch friend Mrs. Sherrard; Judith, so gentle, clever, and well-read; and that fascinating child, Jacqueline.

CHAPTER IV.

“Oh, endless things—a beautiful young man, and a new piano, and a diamond comb like Mrs. Sherrard’s, and—Oh, I can’t tell you!”

“Miss Jacky she see evils, I know she do,” solemnly announced Simon Peter. “When folks sits fo’ de fire studyin’ ’bout nuttin’ ’tall, de evils an’ de sperrits dat’s ’broad come sneakin’ up ahine an’ show ’em things in de fire.”

General Temple, a few days after the party, fell a victim to a seductive pudding prepared by Delilah, and was immediately invalided with the gout. Dr. Wortley was sent for, and at once demanded to know what devilment Delilah had been up to in the way of puddings and such, and soon found out the true state of the case. A wordy war ensued between Dr. Wortley and Delilah, and the doctor renewed the threat he had been making at intervals for twenty-five years.

“Temple,” he screeched, “you may take your choice between that old ignoramus and me—between ignorance and science!”

“Ef ole marse was ter steal six leetle sweet ’taters an’ put ’em in he pocket,” began Delilah, undauntedly.

“Why don’t you advise him to steal a wheelbarrowful instead of a pocketful?” retorted the doctor.

“Kase he doan ’quire but six, an’ he got ter steal ’em, fur ter make de conjurin’ wuk. Den ev’y day he th’ow ’way a ’tater, an’ when he th’ow de ’tater ’way he th’ow de gout ’way, too. De hy’ars from a black cat’s tail is mighty good, too—”

“Temple, how do you put up with this sort of thing being uttered in your hearing?” snapped the doctor.

General Temple looked rather sheepish. He had never actually tried stealing six potatoes, or testing the virtue in hairs from a black cat’s tail, as a relief from gout, but he had not been above a course of tansy tea, and decoctions of jimson-weed, and other of Delilah’s remedies that scientifically were on a par with the black cat’s tail. But, being racked with pain, he took refuge in pessimism and profanity.

“Excuse me, Wortley, but all medicine is a damned humbug!—I mean—er—an empirical science. What is written is written. The Great First Cause, that decrees from the hour of our birth every act of our lives, has decreed that I should suffer great pain, anguish, and discomfort from this hereditary disease.”

“Marse, ef you wuz ter repent an’ be saved—”

“Hold your infernal tongue!”

“An’ jine de Foot-washers—”

“Damn the Foot-washers!” howled the general.

“Plague on it!” snarled Dr. Wortley, whirling round with his back to the fire. “If you’ve got as far as predestination, you’re in for a six weeks’ spell. I can cure the gout, but I’ll be shot if I can do anything when it’s complicated with religion and black cats’ tails and a constant diet like a Christmas dinner!”

In the midst of the discussion, the doctor’s shrill voice rising high over Delilah’s, who, with arms akimbo and a defiant air, only awaited Dr. Wortley’s departure to get in her innings with the patient, Mrs. Temple, serene and sweet, came in and quelled the insurrection. Delilah at once subsided, Dr. Wortley began to laugh, and the general directed that Mrs. Temple’s chair be put next to his.

“As your presence, my love, makes me forget my most unhappy foot,” he said.

Mrs. Temple’s adherence to either Delilah or Dr. Wortley would have caused victory to perch upon that side; but Mrs. Temple, like the general, had more faith in Delilah than she was willing to own up to. So, between Delilah’s feeding him high all the time, while the doctor only saw him once or twice a week, General Temple bade fair to remain an invalid for a considerable time. The attack of gout, though, just at that time, had its consolatory aspects. General Temple really wished to call at Millenbeck, but Mrs. Temple showed no sign of yielding. For the present, however, there could be no notion of his stirring out of doors. As long as the gout lasted there was a good excuse. But General Temple worried over it.

“My love,” he said one night, while Mrs. Temple and Jacqueline and Judith sat around the table in his room, where they had assembled to make his evening less dull, “I am troubled in my mind regarding George Throckmorton. It unquestionably seems heathenish for us to have one so intimately connected with our early married life—that truly blissful period—within a stone’s throw of us, and then to deny him the sacred rites of hospitality.”

Jacqueline gave a half glance at Judith which was full of meaning, and Judith could not for her life keep a slight blush from rising in her cheek.

Mrs. Temple said nothing, but looked hard at the fire, sighing profoundly. She had made herself some sort of a vague revengeful promise, that no man wearing a blue uniform should ever darken her doors. She had yielded first one thing, then another, of that scrupulous and daily mourning and remembrance she had promised herself, for Beverley—but this—

The pause was long. Mrs. Temple, looking at General Temple, was touched by something in his expression—a longing, a patient, but genuine desire. Occasionally she indulged him, as she sometimes relaxed a little the discipline over Jacqueline in her childish days. She put her hand over her eyes and waited a moment as if she were praying. Then she said in broken voice, “Do what seems best to you, my husband.”

General Temple took her hand.

“But, my own, I do not wish to coerce you. No matter what I think is our duty in the case, if it does not satisfy you, it shall not be done. I would rather anything befell Throckmorton, than you, my beloved Jane, should be grieved or troubled.”

Mrs. Temple received this sort of thing as she always did, with a shy pleasure like a girl.

“I have said it, my dear, and you know I do not easily recede. Like you, this thing has been upon me ever since Throckmorton’s return. I have felt it every day harder to maintain my attitude. Now, for your sake, I will abandon it. Have Throckmorton when you like. I will invite him over to tea on Sunday evening.”

General Temple fairly beamed. When Mrs. Temple gave in to him, which was not oftener than once a year, she gave in thoroughly.

“Thank you, my wife. It certainly seems unnatural that Millenbeck and Barn Elms should be estranged. It shall be so no longer, please God. And that George Throckmorton is a high-toned gentleman”—General Temple paused a little before saying this, hunting for a term magniloquent enough for the occasion—“no one, I think, will deny.”

This was early in the week. The very next afternoon, Jacqueline finding time more than usually hard to kill, went up into the garret and began rummaging over the remains of Mrs. Temple’s wedding finery of thirty years before. She dived down into a capacious chest, and brought forth two or three faded silk dresses, the bridal bonnet and veil, yellowed from age; and, among other antiques, a huge muff almost as big as Jacqueline herself. This suddenly put the notion of a walk into her head. Judith was engaged in reading Napier’s History of the Peninsular Wars to General Temple, and Jacqueline had only herself for company. So, carrying her huge muff in which she plunged her arms up to her elbows, she started off. It was a raw autumn afternoon. The leaves had not yet all fallen, although the ground was dank with them, and the peculiar stillness of a lonely and lowland country was upon the monotonous landscape. The entire absence of sounds is a characteristic of that sort of country, and it makes a gloomy day more gloomy. Jacqueline, tripping along very fast, did not find it cheerful. She would go as far as the gate of the lane that led into the main road, and then turn back. This lane was also the entrance to Millenbeck, and Jacqueline had some sort of a faint expectation that she might run across Jack Throckmorton. She looked longingly toward Millenbeck, visible at intervals through the straggling fringe of pines. What an infinity of pleasure could be had, if her mother only came round thoroughly regarding the Throckmortons! What rides and dances she could have with Jack, and Judith could talk to the major! “What a dull life Judith must lead!” she thought, stepping lightly along. It was true, Judith liked to read; but Jacqueline, who frankly confessed she could not read a novel through from cover to cover, hardly appreciated reading as a resource. Jacqueline’s imagination, with this superstructure to build upon, went ardently to work, and in a few minutes had installed Judith as mistress of Millenbeck, and herself as the young lady of the establishment. To do Jacqueline justice, she longed for Judith’s happiness, who, she sometimes bitterly felt, was her only friend. Just as she had arranged this scheme to her satisfaction, she looked up, and saw, not twenty feet ahead of her, Major Throckmorton coming out of the underbrush at the side of the lane. A big slouch hat half concealed his face. His usual trim and natty dress, with that unmistakable “military cut,” was exchanged for a shooting suit of corduroy, much stained, and otherwise the worse for wear. His stylish and immaculate hat was replaced by the flapping felt, and his gun and game-bag proclaimed his day’s employment. Yet Jacqueline thought she had never seen him look so handsome, and in some way she was not half so much afraid of him in his shooting-togs as in his perfectly fitting evening clothes. Jacqueline’s face turned a rosy red. As for Throckmorton, he too felt a thrill of pleasure. This pretty child, as he called her, had been in his mind rather constantly since he saw her at the party. He quickened his pace, and took his hat off while still some distance away.

“Any more parties in prospect?” he asked, smiling, as he took her little hand in his.

“No, I don’t suppose there will be. Delicious parties like that don’t happen very often,” answered Jacqueline, quite seriously, and not in the least understanding Throckmorton’s smile as she said this. “And—and young Mr. Throckmorton—oh, how I enjoyed dancing with him!”

The major did not smile at this. To have “young Mr. Throckmorton” thrust at him by a charming young girl was not particularly pleasing.

“Jack is a very jolly young fellow,” he replied, shortly. “We are great friends, Jack and I.”

Jacqueline had turned around, and they were now walking together toward Barn Elms.

“I—I should think,” said Jacqueline, giving him one of her half-glances from under the dark fringe of her eyelashes—“that J—Jack would be afraid of you.”

Throckmorton laughed aloud.

“Why should he be afraid of me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Everybody is afraid of one’s father,” replied Jacqueline, candidly.

“Jack and I entertain sentiments of mutual respect,” laughed Throckmorton again. “The only fault I find with him is that he is unduly filial sometimes. For example, when I am enjoying the society of a charming young lady he thinks too young for me, he behaves as if I were his great-grandfather instead of his father. Jack has a good deal of Satan in him.”

Jacqueline did not always follow Throckmorton’s remarks, but she noticed he had a rich voice, and he was the straightest, most soldierly-looking man she ever saw in her life. Throckmorton slung his game-bag around and held it open.

“Do you like robins?” he said. “They are delicious broiled on toast”—and he took out a bird by the legs and showed it to her.

Jacqueline stood perfectly still. Her eyes dilated and her breath came quickly. She took the bird out of his hand. It had long stopped bleeding, and its little cold head, with half-closed eyes, fell over piteously. Jacqueline took out her handkerchief and wrapped the poor robin in it.

“Oh, the poor bird!” she said, and suddenly two large tears ran down her cheeks.

Throckmorton stood surprised, touched, delighted, and almost ashamed. He had been a sportsman all his life, and could see no harm in knocking over a few birds in the season; but the picture of this tender-hearted child, that could not see a dead bird without weeping, struck him as beautifully feminine. But what could he say? If he was a bloodthirsty brute to shoot a robin, what must all the slaughter of birds he had been guilty of in his lifetime make him? He could only say, half shamefacedly and half laughing “My dear little friend, you wouldn’t have men as squeamish as women, would you?”

But to this Jacqueline only responded by pressing the poor bird’s cold breast to her cheek.

Throckmorton, however, with an air of gentle authority, took the bird from her and put it back in the bag.

“If you cry for such things as this, you will have a hard time in life,” he said.

Jacqueline’s face did not clear up at once.

“I want you to do something for me—to promise me something,” she said, gravely.

“What is it?” asked Throckmorton. Jacqueline had laid her charm upon him in the last ten minutes, but he did not forget his caution entirely.

“It is,” said Jacqueline, punctuating her words with tender, appealing glances, “that you won’t kill any more robins—never, never, as long as you live.”

Throckmorton refrained from smiling, as he felt inclined, but it was plainly no laughing matter to Jacqueline. And if he gave the promise—nobody knew the absurdity of it more than Throckmorton—suppose Jack heard of it, what endless fun would he poke at his father on the sly! Nevertheless, Throckmorton, calling himself an old fool, made the promise.

Jacqueline, flushed with triumph, now conceived a bold design. She would—that is, if her courage held out—tell him that her mother had at last come round. This delightful information she proceeded to impart.

“Do you know,” she said, smiling and showing her little even white teeth, “that mamma has at last agreed to—to let us have something to do with you and Jack?”

“Has she, indeed?” replied Throckmorton, with rather a grim smile.

“Yes,” continued Jacqueline, with much seriousness. “Occasionally she gives papa a little treat. You know she always liked you, and papa has been dying to call to see you. But mamma can’t forget the war and Beverley. At last, though—she’s been thinking about it ever since that first day at church—she concluded to give in—and—and—you’re to be asked to tea next Sunday evening!”

The way this was told was not particularly flattering to Throckmorton, but he was sincerely grateful and attached to Mrs. Temple, and he knew and pitied the state of feeling that had caused her to intrench herself in her prejudices. She must indeed remember those old days when she was willing to do what Throckmorton suspected she had promised herself never to do. “I want to be friends with Mrs. Temple—that’s plain enough,” he said, “and if she asks me I shall certainly come.”

“Do you know,” said Jacqueline, after a pause, in a very confidential voice, “I sometimes wish—now this is a secret, remember—that papa and mamma would forget Beverley a little—and think—of Judith and me? They seem to expect Judith to wear black all the time, and never to smile or to laugh or to sing, as if Beverley could know. I don’t believe the dead in their graves know or care anything about us.”

She was on delicate ground, but, her tongue being unloosed, Throckmorton’s attempt to check her was a complete failure.

“Judith, you know,” she continued, cutting in on Throckmorton’s awkward remonstrance, “only knew Beverley a little while. Her father and mother were dead, and papa was her guardian. She came to Barn Elms to live after she left school, and Beverley came home from the war, and they were married right away—almost as soon as they were acquainted. It was so sudden because Beverley’s leave was up, and Delilah says that Beverley knew he was going to be killed soon. She says he dreamed it, or something. Do you believe in dreams?”

“No, and you mustn’t believe all Delilah tells you.”

“Anyhow, he went away, and he never came back. That broke papa and mamma’s hearts. And you know—little Beverley—Judith’s child—is like her—and not a bit like Beverley, and mamma talks sometimes as if it was a crime on the child’s part. She says to everybody, ‘Don’t you think the child is like his father?’ and nobody answers her quite truthfully, and she knows it.”

Throckmorton hardly knew how to receive these family confidences, but he could not but admire the color coming and going in Jacqueline’s cheeks, and the fitful light that burned in her eyes as she talked.

“And Judith—I do love Judith. It seems hard—now this is another secret—that she should never have any more pleasure in this world. And she is so bright and clever. She understands the most wonderful books. And there’s something—I can’t help telling you this.”

“Perhaps you had better not tell me,” said Throckmorton in a warning voice.

“But I can’t help it, you are so—so sympathetic: I don’t believe Judith cared for Beverley much.”

Jacqueline drew off to see the effect of this on Throckmorton. She did not at all suspect him of any interest in Judith; but this family tragedy, that had stalked beside her nearly all her life, she thought was of immense importance, and she wanted to see how it affected Throckmorton. In fact, it only embarrassed him. He said, rather briefly:

“Mrs. Beverley is very handsome—very charming.”

“She’s the best sister in the world,” exclaimed Jacqueline. “Some people think that sisters-in-law can’t love each other. Sometimes I would throw myself in the river if it wasn’t for Judith.”

“Why should such a tender little thing as you want to throw herself in the river?” he asked; and if Jack had heard the tone in which this was spoken, he would, no doubt, have found food for ungodly mirth in it.

“You don’t know what sorrows I have,” responded Jacqueline, gravely. And then they were almost at the gate of Barn Elms, and Throckmorton bade her good-by, and tramped back home, while Jacqueline scudded into the house to confide the wonderful adventures of the afternoon to Judith.

In a day or two a note from General Temple came, inviting Throckmorton and Jack to tea at Barn Elms the following Sunday evening. It was rather a letter than a note, General Temple spreading himself—his honest soul loved a rhetorical flourish—and containing many references to their early association. Throckmorton accepted, in a reply in which he told, much more glibly than his tongue could, the grateful affection he had cherished from his neglected and unhappy boyhood toward the whole family at Barn Elms. On the Sunday evening, therefore, Throckmorton, with Jack, presented himself, and was effusively received by the general and Simon Peter, who were not unlike in their overpowering courtesy to guests. Judith was cordial and dignified, and Jacqueline full of a shy delight. No doubt they would be invited to Millenbeck, and she would see with her own eyes the Bruskins carpets and other royal splendors Delilah was never weary of recounting.

General Temple was able to be down in the drawing-room, but Mrs. Temple was not present. Delilah, however, soon put her head in the door, and, crossing her hands under a huge white apron she wore, brought a message.

“Mistis, she say, won’t Marse George please ter come in de charmber.”

Throckmorton at once followed her. The “charmber” at Barn Elms was a sort of star chamber, and utterances within its precincts were usually of a solemn character. As Throckmorton entered, Mrs. Temple rose from the big rush-bottomed chair in which she sat. Throckmorton remembered the room perfectly, in all the years since he had been in it—the dimity curtains, the high-post mahogany bed, the shining brass fender and andirons, the tall candlesticks on the high wooden mantel. He remembered, with a queer, boyish feeling, sundry moral discourses gently administered to him in that room on certain occasions when he had been caught in the act of fishing on Sunday, or poking a broomstick up the chimney to dislodge the sooty swallows that built their nests there in the summer-time, and other instances of juvenile turpitude. And he well recollected once, when Mrs. Temple was ill, he had hung about the place, a picture of boyish misery; and when at last he was admitted into the room where she lay, white and feeble, on the broad, old-fashioned lounge, how happy, how glad, how honored he had felt. He went forward eagerly and raised Mrs. Temple’s hand to his lips.

“George Throckmorton, this is nearer forgiveness than I ever expected to come,” she said.

“Dear Mrs. Temple, don’t let us talk about forgiveness. Let us only remember that we are friends of more than thirty years’ standing—because I can’t remember the time when I was a boy that I didn’t love you.”

“And I loved you, too—next to my own Beverley. I sent for you here that I might tell you my trouble as you used to tell me yours so long ago. Often you have sat on that little cricket over there and told me of your grandfather’s cruel ways to you—he was a godless man, George.”

“He was indeed,” fervently assented Throckmorton.

“And now I want to tell you of my sorrows, George.”

Throckmorton listened patiently while she went over all of Beverley’s life. She told it with a touching simplicity. Throckmorton well saw how that still stern unforgiveness might rankle in her gentle but immovable mind. Then he told her of his marriage—something he had never in all his life spoken of to any one in that manner; but the force of sweet and early habit was upon him—he could talk to Mrs. Temple about the young creature so much loved and so long dead. Mrs. Temple, who knew what such revealing meant from a man of Throckmorton’s strong and self-contained nature, was completely won by this. An hour afterward, when they came into the drawing-room, and found Jack and Jacqueline in a perfect gale of merriment, with Judith looking smilingly on, Mrs. Temple laid her hand on Throckmorton’s shoulder, and said to General Temple, with sweet gravity, “He is the same George Throckmorton.”

Judith was leaning a little forward in her chair, with her arm around her child. The boy was a beautiful, manly fellow, and gazed at Throckmorton with friendly, serious eyes. Throckmorton, whose heart was tender toward all children, smiled at him. Beverley at this marched forward and climbed upon Throckmorton’s knee, his little white frock, heavy with embroidery worked by Judith’s patient fingers, spreading all around him. The boy immediately launched into conversation, eying Throckmorton boldly, although his eyes usually had the shy expression of his mother’s. He wanted to know if Throckmorton had a gun, and could he beat the drum; also, if he could ride a horse. Sometimes grandfather would take him up and let him ride as far as the gate. Throckmorton answered all these questions satisfactorily, and then told about a pony he had at Millenbeck—a pony that had been Jack’s, when Jack was no bigger than Beverley, and that was now too old and slow for any but a very little boy. While Throckmorton talked to the child, Judith listened with a smiling look in her eyes. Throckmorton could not but be struck by the pretty picture the young mother and her child made. He saw the resemblance between them at once, and when he told of a tragic adventure Jack had with the pony, falling through a bridge, both pairs of large, soft eyes grew wide with grave amazement. Unconsciously Judith assumed the child’s expression. Beverley seemed determined to monopolize his new acquaintance, but presently Judith with a little air of authority sent him off with Delilah. Beverley paused at the door to say:

“You come again and bring the pony.”

Presently they went into the dining-room, and the old-fashioned tea was served. There was enough to feed a regiment, and all of the best kind, but nothing approaching vulgar display. Mrs. Temple put Throckmorton at her right, and every time she spoke to Jack she called him George. Throckmorton had forgotten nothing of the old days, and he not only began to feel young himself, but he made General and Mrs. Temple feel that time had turned backward. Jacqueline, on the opposite side of the table, smiled at him and talked a little. In her heart she could not quite make out Throckmorton. He had arrived at an age that seemed to her almost venerable; yet he quite ignored the fact that he ought to be old, and certainly was not old, nor could anybody say that he was young. Jack’s boyish fun she understood well enough, but Throckmorton’s shrewd humor, his confident, experienced way of looking at things, was rather beyond her. And as the case had been, whenever Throckmorton saw her, he had to exercise a certain restraint, lest everybody should see how strangely and completely she magnetized him. If anybody had asked him to compare Judith and Jacqueline, he would have given Judith the palm in everything—even in beauty; but Jacqueline’s young prettiness in some way caught his fancy more than Judith’s deeper and more significant beauty.

But Judith had her charm too for him. She captivated his judgment as Jacqueline captivated some inner sense to which he could give no name. Judith’s talk was seasoned with liveliness, and Throckmorton, who possessed a dry and penetrating humor of his own, could always count on a responsive sparkle in Judith’s eye.

When they returned to the drawing-room, Mrs. Temple said:

“Judith, my dear, sing us some of your sweet hymns.”

Judith sat down to the piano and in her clear and bell-like soprano sang some old-fashioned hymns, so sweetly and unaffectedly that Throckmorton thought it was like angels singing. The sound of the simple music, the soft light of fire and lamp, the atmosphere of love and courtesy that seemed to breathe over the quaint circle, had a fascination for him. It was the poetry of domestic life. He had often dreamed of what “home” might be, but he had never known it, for that brief married life of his had been too short, too flickering; they were boy and girl lovers, and, before the new life had had time to crystallize, he was left alone. But here he saw the sweet privacy of home, the repose, the family nest, safe and warm. He sighed a little. Money could not buy it, else he would have had it at Millenbeck, comfortable handsome country-house that it was. But here, at this shabby old Barn Elms, it was in perfection, in all its naturalness and simplicity. After all, women were necessary to make a home; even money, with a Sweeney as presiding genius, couldn’t do it.

It was late when they left. Mrs. Temple’s parting was as solemn as her greeting:

“I have done that which I never expected to do, and all because in my heart I can’t but love you, George Throckmorton!”

Throckmorton’s keen pleasure showed in his dark eyes.

“I always knew, if you would only listen to that dear, kind heart of yours, you would forgive the Yankees,” he laughed.