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This text has been proofread but is not guaranteed to be free from errors. Corrections to the original text have been left in place.
Title: New Love or Old, an electronic edition
Author: Clay, Bertha M., 1865-1922
Publisher: Street & Smith
Place published: New York
Date: [n.d.]
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Front Cover of Clay's New Love or Old"New Love or Old NEW LOVE OR OLD OR  FAITH AND TRUSTBY BERTHA M.CLAYWhose complete works will be published in this, the New  BERTHA CLAY LIBRARY STREET & SMITH CORPORATION  PUBLISHERS 79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW YORKCopyright information for Clay's New Love or Old.THE NEW LOVE OR THE OLD?CHAPTER I."DULL? yes, unutterably dull! Dreary as one of Mrs. Hibbit's lectures. It looks as if all the country were in mourning, or as if a great funeral procession had stopped short on its way to the place where all things are forgotten; the clouds like ink, the woods wrapped in black fog like a pall; the river—Yah! it makes one shudder to think how cold and deep it is under the ice.""When I was young I never gave way to foolish fancies."The voice that made this little announcement was a female voice, shrill and high-pitched."I bustled about and did what I had to do. I never thought of complaining of the cold. If you live in England, you must expect black weather in January.""Most true," the first speaker answered; "but still, in England there are plenty of coals for the making of big fires. How I adore a great blazing fire on a day like this!""When I was young," returned the high-pitched voice, "I never dared to dream of coming near to a fire. I should have been boxed well if I had; but now make haste and get the breakfast. I shall be down in less than a quarter of an hour. Tell Ann to fry me a rasher, and don't make the tea too strong."Miss Pringle was attired in a long flannel dressing-gown, and she wore a night-cap with a huge frill. A lean woman, over sixty years old, who had never gathered roses in the garden of youth, and who grudged now to the young the remotest chance of gathering any. Miss Pringle's face was yellow in tint and hard in expression; she had wide nostrils, a long mouth, and small, vicious eyes. People called Miss Pringle ugly.Velvet left the room, carrying a bunch of keys suspended by a steel ring on two of her slim, white fingers.Velvet was a romance-loving, dreamy, dissatisfied girl of sixteen; a slender creature, with great, watchful eyes of an uncertain color, and masses of nut-brown hair, wound somewhat carelessly round a small, well-poised head.Hitherto nobody had called her pretty. In fact, Velvet Snow was scarcely a pretty girl. Her face was pale, there was no classic splendor of outline to distinguish it from the faces of any dozen young English girls whom you might meet in a day's walk, only her smile was a subtle and a wonderful one, lighting up the grave and sometimes pensive countenance with a sudden gleam which spoke of the glory of youth and the sunshine of hope, that silver lining which they tell us lurks behind ever somber cloud.Velvet went down the small staircase into the narrow hall, and passed into a prim little parlor, furnished as prim parlors were some thirty years before the date of the opening of this strange story, which date is close to the present time of plushes, brackets, mantel-boards, Queen Anne cabinets, straight-legged chairs, and the craze for antique silver and blue china.None of these were to be found in Miss Pringle's parlor. Horse-hair chairs, a horse-hair sofa, a frightful mahogany chiffonier, a pier-glass which distorted human faces, a carpet of ugly color and enormous pattern. All of these were palpable as was the wretched, struggling little fire, which seemed composed of black smoke and thin, intermittent flame—a fire to blacken your hands, not to warm them if they went close to it."As grudging and as ugly as Miss Pringle," said Velvet; "and everything is ugly and grudging. There seems nothing worth living for in this world, if one looks at facts. It's only the fancies that keep one alive."She spoke with emphasis aloud, and she stood shivering in front of the ill-natured-looking fire, with its clouds of dirty smoke pierced now and anon by a pale flame which extinguished itself, then sprung up again into a fitful life, sputtering irritably like a fretful infant struggling through the first hours of its existence."Now, will it all go out?" said Velvet, who was a lonely girl, leading a lonely life, and thus much given to self-confidence and questionings. "Will it go out, and leave only the smoke, and the dust, and the blackness? I wish—yes, that I could go out; but it seems I can't? I am as strong as a Welsh pony, and I am dreadfully young, with a long list of miserable years before me. Ah! there it comes again,


stronger now. It's going to live and conquer all the black smoke, and grow hot, and bright, and beautiful. I love a great glowing fire on a winter's day as well as I love the sunshine in the spring-time.""Velvet—Velvet, does that kettle boil?"Velvet started, and a flash came into the eyes of uncertain color, and her red lips smiled with scorn."What a horrible thing is a shrewish voice!" she said. "How it rasps one's nerves, and sets one's teeth on edge!"Then she answered in a high, clear soprano:"The fire hasn't burned up yet.""Make it burn, then, you great stupid!" screamed Miss Pringle.Certainly this odd girl, with the odd and soft-sounding name, had done nothing to the ill-tempered fire, save talk to it, since she had entered the room.She bustled about now, for the flame grew stronger and brighter. She ran out into the narrow passage, with its strip of oil-cloth, and thence into the little, tidy, gloomy kitchen, which looked out upon a desolate bit of garden—a mere miniature cabbage-field.There was no fire in the kitchener. The household of Miss Pringle was conducted upon economical principles.Velvet began to take down the tea-cups and saucers from the shelves of the little dresser, a table-cloth from the drawer, and a few other articles necessary to the laying of a decent, if humble, breakfast-table.Meanwhile, the person called Ann came in from the cabbage-patch with a red, frosty aspect, as regarded her cheeks and elbows, and a bunch of winter greens in her cotton apron.Ann was forty-five, honest, hard-working, steady, with an abominable temper and a rasping tongue.Between Ann and Velvet there generally was waged war to the knife. But there were times of truce, when these adversaries allowed their chronic hatred to sleep, like a tired, somewhat sullen dog. It was during a truce of this kind that Ann brought in the greens, and carried them into the scullery, where they were given a cold bath in a large pan."And now a rasher," said Velvet; "and fry it in the parlors. She wants it at once.""You see to it, please," responded Ann. "I am a 'uman being, and 'uman beings can't live without fires this weather."So Velvet went to look again at the smoky parlor fire. Then Miss Pringle descended the narrow stairs, entered the


dingy parlor, and began to rave at the discomfort that awaited her.Velvet had a nonchalant air that some would have condemned as insolent, but which under the circumstances many people would have regarded as the proper armor to don during those daily domestic conflicts which formed the background of her existence at this period."When the fire burns up, the breakfast will be cooked," said Velvet, coldly."And why has it not burned up? Because you are lazy," said Miss Pringle, answering her own question."Because you won't allow it to be lighted in time, so as to save the expense of coal. You can't eat your cake and have it, Miss Pringle."Miss Pringle, in a dingy black gown, stiff, gray curls, and spectacles, had a suggestion of the female dragon about her. Miss Pringle was not pleasant to look upon."You are an impudent hussy," she said to Velvet, " and the sooner you take yourself off, and get a good hard place as maid-of-all-work in a plain family, where the work isn't put out, the better for you and for me. You'll have no fine times then, my lady, I can tell you. You'll have to be on your knees, scrubbing, from morning till night; and that's what you want to bring your airs down, and to whip the nonsense out of you. If I had left you in the work-house where I found you, I should have been a wiser woman, and you would have been what you ought to be, and what you shall be—a kitchen-maid; do you hear me?"In answer, Velvet took a small pair of bellows from a corner, crossed over, knelt down, and began to blow the fire.Her pale cheeks flamed, her large, sad eyes flashed, and she tossed her head with an air of haughty scorn that was grand and ludicrous at the same moment—grand, if one considered the poise of the small head and the uprearing of the throat—a throat that might have belonged to an earl's daughter, so delicate was it in its smooth whiteness, so slender, so proudly curved; grand even taken in conjunction with the dark-blue flannel wrapper that constituted the entire morning toilet of Velvet—a plain gown; with a turn-down collar and long sleeves—but ludicrous when one remembered who Velvet was, or, rather, what was her position in the kingdom of England on that cold January morning.A work-house girl has no right to be proud and haughty!" cried Miss Pringle in a grating voice; "but I believe you would be proud if you were a black slave in chains. I believe


you would toss that head of yours if—yes, if they were going to—to hang you!" cried Miss Pringle.And then Velvet put the bellows down, for the fire was flaming very hotly and fiercely by this time. She folded her arms, and laughed.When she laughed, a certain beauty woke up in her face—something that a painter would have loved to catch and to portray; the eyes widened and brightened, the short upper lip curled, and the even teeth gleamed white."I hope you will never have even a remote chance of knowing whether your supposition is a correct one, Miss Pringle.""Fine words—long, fine words—which you get out of the dictionary, and use when you speak to make people think you clever; and you are not clever. You are next door to a dunce, Velvet Snow.""Here comes Ann with your rasher," said Velvet.She arose, went away from the fire, and began to lay the tale, while Ann stood over the pan where the rasher was frying, and Miss Pringle went to the cupboard and took out the tea-caddy. A small kettle was by this time singing on the hob.It came to pass in due course that the breakfast was prepared and partaken of by the three female inmates of Jasmine Cottage.Miss Pringle treated Velvet as, in some respects, her equal, since she vouchsafed her the honor of sitting down to table with her, while Ann, of the frosty elbows, was relegated to the kitchen; but Ann had dwelt ten years with Miss Pringle, and they seldom disagreed openly, whereas it had been one of the aims and efforts of Miss Pringle's life to make the existence of Velvet Snow a burden to that young person during the twelve years that she had acted as her guardian, protectress, and tyrant.Such rough, hard training had not reared a plant likely to yield sweet fruit.Many people in the village were of opinion that if ever an individual was in great likelihood of going to the bad, that individual was Velvet Snow.CHAPTER II.FURTHER on in that same chill day when our story opens there is a hard frost, but the heavens hang low and black; no wind to speak of, yet every now and anon a great shudder


passes over the naked woods, an icy breath comes from the north, and the laurels in the garden-walk seem to shiver for a moment.The laurel-walk is of gravel, well swept, and ruddy in hue; it leads to a flight of white stone steps, at the foot of which is a large artificial sheet of water, upon which a young man is skating. This young man skates admirably.He is a splendidly built fellow, of some five-and-twenty years; his face is a fine one, with features chiseled nobly, though on a somewhat large scale, an aquiline nose, piercing black eves, a firm mouth; the complexion, of a natural brown, is tanned by the heat of the Eastern climes to a deep bronze. He is upright, and svelte, and muscular, and he skates with an ease and agility that would have elicited rounds of applause on any English public waters. As it was, the skater was solitary, and was only exercising himself for his own amusement.He wore a gray cloth coat trimmed with bear-skin, and a bear-skin cap.A girl stood just behind the tall fringe of laurel bushes, and watched the skater with eyes that gleamed and followed all the curves and involved patterns which he described.This girl drew a long breath of admiration when the young man came to the end of a series of fantastic rounds, This girl was Velvet Snow.Cold as was that January afternoon, Velvet did not look or feel cold; an inward excitement made her young blood course warmly through her veins.She was not a plain girl at that moment. The bright pink color on h0er cheeks, the red, parted lips, the glitter of excitement in the eyes, all lent beauty to the face; but the skater on the pond was quite unconscious of her presence.At last there fell a shadow on the little scene; it was only a shadow of coming dusk, for the wintery afternoon was far advanced.The skater looked up at the gloomy heaven, and then skated swiftly to the bank, scrambled up, sat down on the ground, and began to take off his skates.Still Velvet lingered—lingered and watched the young gentleman with a keen and absorbing interest that might almost have flattered him, only he was pretty well accustomed to the admiration of girls and women, with whom he was a vast favorite, whether he were deserving of being placed upon a pedestal or not.Velvet kept still and watched him take off his skates.Then he stood up with the skates in his hand, and came out swiftly along the path between the bushes; another moment and he stopped short, for there stood Velvet, in an unpicturesque white straw hat with wide brim—a very ugly hat, fit for a hot summer day and a quiet country lane, where nobody who knew anything of fashion or taste would be likely to meet the wearer. Such a hat! Such a shabby brown jacket, that once had been black!Certainly dress is a power, and mean garments consign their wearers to contempt in nine cases out of ten.That white straw hat was clearly defined amid the gathering gloom.Somehow the gentleman who had been skating was able to recognize Velvet Snow at once."Halloo!" he said.Now, "Halloo!" is not a polite or reverential interjection when used as a manner of greeting; it may be friendly, but it is not refined; it is not respectful; it is not flattering to the self-love of a "maiden in her bloom," that ideal whom Tennyson declares"Is worth a hundred coats of arms.""Why, what brings you here, Velvet, on this cold night?""I have been watching you skate.""By Jove!"—the young man stroked his mustache. "You must be half frozen, are you not?""No—yes—that is, I feel cold now; I did not while I was watching you skate, Mr. Stanford."Mr. Stanford laughed aloud."I hope you were amused; but it's cold work to stand and watch another. Should you like to skate yourself?"Velvet clasped her hands."Oh, if I could skate, I should fancy myself in paradise!"Stanford laughed."Paradise seems to belong to a softer clime—flowers, fruits, flowing streams, all that sort of thing—not ice and snow, and beastly east winds! Paradise, eh?""I meant that if I could skate I should feel so happy.""I'll teach you if you like, Velvet.""Will you? But when?""Oh," looking up at the gloomy sky, "if this frost keeps on, I will give you a lesson tomorrow afternoon at about three. Have you any skates?""No.""Ah, well, I think I have a pair that will fit you. I'll


bring them here tomorrow at half past two, and we will fetch a chair out of the summer-house for you to hold by, and I'll teach you."Velvet sighed deeply."I am stupid and very awkward," she faltered."Everybody is at first," the young gentleman answered, prosaically. "Well, will you come?""Perhaps. I don't know. I will if I can. But I can't do as I like.""Miss What's-her-name is a brute, isn't she?" asked Donald Stanford, carelessly."She is a cruel, hard, ignorant woman!"Velvet spoke slowly, with a bitter emphasis.Donald laughed."You must make haste and get away from her as soon as you can.""Yes; but how am I to do that? I am too ignorant to be a governess—too proud to be a servant.""You might get married, you know."As the young man spoke, he laid his hand caressingly upon the shoulder of Velvet.She trembled, and did not push away that white, firm, refined-looking hand."I never shall!"Whereupon Donald laughed."You are the sort of girl who is certain to marry, Velvet," he began.She wrenched herself violently away from that hand of his, and exclaimed in a voice half inarticulate from emotion:"I never—never—never will, if I live to be ninety years old!""Oh, indeed!" The tone of Donald was ironical. "And what are your objections to the inferior sex, the 'unfair sex' somebody calls us? Who has put all that nonsense into your dear little head?""Nobody, Mr. Stanford. It is only that I have made up my mind never to—to care for anybody, always to be independent.""Very well, so you shall., You shall never—never—never marry anybody, just as you say. Also you shall be fearfully and wonderfully independent, and you shall learn to skate. I'll teach you. Come here to-morrow at half past two, will you?""If I can.""That means you will—I know it does. Are you not cold? Should you like some cake and wine?"Velvet was both cold and hungry. Her dinner had consisted of some stale fish, which she had left untouched, some potatoes, which were hard from the frost, and a slice of bread. She had eaten the bread three hours before, and now she felt hungry."Come along," said Donald Stanford. " A glass of wine and a sandwich. I have plenty in the summer-house. I always keep some there in case I come home from riding this way, and get in at the west gate close here, you know. It's another mile and a half to the house, so I rush in, light the gas—it's all laid on—and I warm the room, open the cupboard, and make a good meal. I don't want anything now, because I lunched at home; but you do!""Yes," said Velvet, "I am hungry. I **eat no dinner—only bread.""Only bread!" said Donald. "What an old monster your Miss What's-her-name must be!"Velvet did not answer. She did not hesitate or feel that she was acting in an indecorous way when she mounted the steps of the summer-house that stood close to the pond in the grounds of Stanford Hall and accepted wine and sandwiches from Donald Stanford.Donald was a hero in her eyes—the noblest and handsomest being under the sun. She had been on friendly terms with him for three years, and every year he seemed to grow grander, and handsomer, and more heroic in her eyes. Was this what is called a dangerous intimacy, fraught with all sorts and kinds of possible evils and risks? It may seem so to read of this interview by the side of the frozen pond, but in reality Velvet was in no more danger of being led to confuse right with wrong, and falsity with truth, when she accepted the kindness of young Mr. Stanford, than when she went up as an humble guest to the vicarage to tea, and listened to the platitudes of Mrs. Hibbit, the rector's wife.The summer-house, when the door was shut and Donald had lighted the gleaming gas-jets in the low fire-place, presented a cozy and cheerful appearance.Velvet had had tea and hot muffins in that pretty room on several occasions, also strawberries and cream in the summer, and she had gone back to Jasmine Cottage, carrying great bouquets of flowers from the Stanford gardens, all given to her by Donald.Nobody thought any more of all this in the village of Ells-


mere than they thought of "the captain"—for Donald was an officer of dragoons who had seen service, and been invalided in consequence of a wound in the shoulder, which was still painful at times—nobody, we say, thought any more of this than they thought of the captain reading aloud from "Pickwick" at the penny readings in the village, or acting in amateur theatricals at the town hall at Yarrow Léas.The chairs and couches in the summer-house were covered with crimson damask; the carpet was bright with a pattern of flowers; there were mirrors, and cabinets, and fans, and peacocks' feathers. Velvet thought everything sumptuous. She did not know that a floral-patterned carpet is now a sin against good taste, or that crimson damask is as obsolete as the game of croquet.Donald Stanford was not remarkable for esthetic tastes; not that he was by any means a Goth, who despised the fine arts in their larger manifestations; still, he cared a little about the color of cushions or the pattern of carpets; he was a very Goth in those matters.Meanwhile, Velvet regarded the summer-house in the shrubbery as if it had been a palace, and Donald, Captain Stanford, as if he had been a prince.There were several gas-lights gleaming through globes of rose-colored glass, and there was a gas fire, as we said, in the grate, and the crimson furniture, floral carpet, and large rug of white hair, all glowed in the ruddy light.Velvet sat upon a soft chair close to the gas fire. Captain Stanford brought a cake and a plate of delicate-looking sandwiches from the recesses of a cupboard in the wall. These were supplemented by a decanter half filled with port, and two pink wine-glasses.Velvet was only sixteen, and she was dreaming the first enchanted dream of youth; still, that dream did not prevent her from eating several sandwiches (they were ham and chicken) with a keen relish, for she was hungry; and afterward she **eat a slice of cake, and then began to sip the wine which Donald handed to her.As for Donald, he had cast off his grand-looking overcoat and cap, for the room was warm. He leaned back in a luxurious attitude, with one long leg thrown over the other, and he smoked a cigarette with the air of a Sybarite, Velvet honestly thought him the noblest-looking man under the sun."Well, Velvet," said the young captain, "what have you been reading lately?""'Hamlet'," answered Velvet.She had just come to the end of her slice of cake. Donald handed her the plate, but she shook her head."You had better take the rest of that cake home with you," said the young gentleman. "I've got plenty of paper bags at the back of the cupboard.""Thank you," said Velvet, simply.She was only a child, and her affection for cake was still strong."'Hamlet,' eh?" said the captain. "And what do you think of it?""I could not tell you, Mr. Donald; it would take so long. I think of it a great deal.""Tell me part of what you think."" I can't." said Velvet.Captain Stanford laughed. He had a pleasant laugh, and splendid teeth, which reminded one of an ivory box."I suspect you can't understand it," he said, frankly."No; but I can think about it," the girl said, quickly."Hamlet," said the captain, stroking his mustache. "And Ophelia—what of her?""Don't ask me, please," said Velvet. "Some time I may tell you.""Mysterious," said Donald, laughing again. " And now I must hurry. I must turn you out, Velvet. Don't think me rude. We have a small dinner-party at the Hall, and I must find out something about the wine. Sir Huntly gave me his orders this morning, and I had almost forgotten it. Here is the cake; I have wrapped it up. Well, good-night. 'One kiss before we part.'"As he spoke, the young captain pressed his mustached lip to the soft cheek of Velvet, which glowed like fire; but he knew nothing of the hot blush on the maiden's cheek. To him she was only a village child who was an orphan, and not very happy—a rather clever child, with a dash of mystery surrounding her antecedents. He had patronized her since she was twelve, and he thought no more of kissing her cheek than he thought of giving her the cake.The young man and the maiden parted at the foot of the steps. The moon was watching in the heavens while they stood amid the shrubs, and each of them looked up at her, each one in their separate paths, which led in such opposite directions.Donald whistled as he walked, for his heart was light and full of hope.Velvet sighed and smiled, and tried to believe that her dream was a reality.Meanwhile, the ice on the pond hardened; the keen frost began its fanciful tracing on the window-panes of houses, while the wind held its breath, and the moon watched from her throne in the winter heaven.CHAPTER III.VELVET went out of the path and entered a narrower one, which sloped down steeply and terminated at a wooden gate leading into a narrow lane. Along this lane she walked, still dreaming that first dream of youth, still seeming to feel the light and hasty pressure of Captain Stanford's lip upon her cheek, still to hear his kind, gay voice in her ears.She was too young to desire to look too far into the future. The present was enough for her.He was her hero, and he was very fond of her. He had kissed her, and had held her hand in his with the warm pressure of affection, love.Well, she was (she thought) too young to be in love; but nobody knew what might happen. One thing was certain: she would never, never marry; because, of course, it was quite impossible that she could ever marry Captain Stanford, and to unite herself to anybody else would be horrible to her.No; she would try to do some service for him in the course of her life, she did not quite know what; but perhaps there would be war, and he would go out to fight, say, in Russia. Why should not she become an ambulance nurse, and follow the army, and nurse him if he were wounded? And then—well, if he recovered, and did not suffer much, Velvet would be the very happiest mortal on earth.It was a child's dream, in which there mingled, unconsciously, much of the passionate fervor of the woman, the desire to devote herself and to suffer for her hero, to die for him even if it would serve him.The cold wind uprose and swept down upon this fragile girl, the cold moon looked upon her from the great arch of the heavens, and somehow Velvet shivered in the midst of her dreams.Was it a presentiment of coming evil?A white ewe-lamb feeding in the green valley between the mountains might shrink and tremble if aloft; above the crags and peaks there hovered a huge black eagle on the look-out for prey.Not that the cruel king of birds is by any means a type of Donald Stanford, of Stanford Hall, who was every inch an English gentleman, and as open and frank as the daylight.Donald's path lay under thickly planted but now leafless trees; the young soldier walked along and whistled as he went.His heart was light; the world looked fair to him; he was well now, and he meant to join his regiment again in the spring and go to India. That was his present wish, and his ambition was to rise high in his profession, improve the condition of the army, and win laurels for himself.Lieutenant-General Sir Donald Stanford would be a prouder title than if he simply should inherit the Stanford estates and the title of baronet from his uncle, Sir Huntly, who was a childless bachelor.But there was little chance of that, for his cousin Roland stood next in succession, being the son of an elder brother, and Roland was a very Hercules in strength and muscle, a daring fox-hunter and country squire of the athletic and sportsman class, aged twenty-eight, clever in his way, arrogant, prejudiced, and— But let Roland speak for himself.He was a handsome man, and next heir to a fine estate, for Stanford Hall, even with the reduced rents of these changing times, brought in an income of eighteen thousand a year, as a profitable lead-mine at the other end of the county belonged to Sir Huntly.Donald owned about three hundred a year, inherited from his mother; his uncle allowed him two hundred. Thus he was, as a young bachelor, placed quite above want, even if he had not possessed a home at Stanford Hall. He was allowed a hunter, and enjoyed almost as many privileges as Roland, who was the heir to the estate.Both these young Stanfords were orphans. Donald, indeed, could not remember any other home than Stanford Hall, any other faces than those of the old servants who had nutured his childhood, for his father had died before his birth, and his mother in less than a year afterward.Roland had lived in London for the first fifteen years of his life; his father had been a barrister of somewhat spendthrift disposition, his mother a lady of fashion; both parents died young, and then Roland had been summoned to Stanford Hall to take up the position of heir-apparent, for Sir Huntly had been disappointed in love in his youth, and had announced his intention of dying a bachelor.Donald had now emerged from the path, and was walking swiftly over the park. In front of him rose the old house called Stanford Hall, picturesque, gabled, many-windowed, dating from the time of James the First—a home to love and to be proud of.But Donald never thought of envying his cousin his heirship. He was one of those light-hearted fellows who make themselves happy anywhere; and he was so unselfish and good-natured that he really seemed as cheerful in the society of persons who were not congenial to him as he was when he found himself among his chosen friends.Now, Donald did not care a fig for the companionship of the personages who were invited that night to dine at Stanford Hall, always excepting the Reverend Thomas Hibbit, the rector, who had been his tutor; still, he meant to make himself as agreeable as possible to them all, and to send them away with a sense of having been well entertained.Lights were gleaming in most of the windows. The old house presented a cheerful and hospitable appearance, in the midst of its broad park, now white and crisp with frost. The cold moon shone in the heavens, the red lights twinkled in the windows.Donald walked on, and still whistled as he walked.Should he be late? Had he mistaken the time? How was it that he saw two ladies on horseback just in front of him, approaching the steps of the terrace upon which the house was built? Two ladies? Yes, but without a groom, and they were walking their horses very slowly, so slowly, indeed, that he felt sure one of the horses must be lame. What could have happened? Who were these ladies?Captain Stanford was quick of eye and a keen observer, but he did not recognize these ladies in the least. He went on swiftly, and soon came up with them.Moonlight is a great refiner and beautifier of mortals; a plain, coarse face will become spiritualized in the rays of the "queen of the silver bow."Donald thought, as he advanced and took off his hat, that the lady who bowed so graciously to him was almost too lovely to be "real," as the children say.Real! Was she real? Who was she? What was she?Donald felt as if he stood in the presence of a being above the average of humanity—a goddess, a fairy princess. Was it the mystic glamour of the moonlight? Was it his own headlong and impetuous fancy? Was it—"I beg your pardon," stammered the young man; "is your horse lame? Can I help you in any way?""Thanks, a thousand thanks!" the fairy princess answered. "No, our horses are not lame, but my sister has been thrown, and she feels faint. As this is the nearest house, I thought we might venture to ask for shelter for her, while I ride home and send the pony-chaise for her, and a man to take her horse to Yarrow Leas.""Thrown!" echoed Donald. "What can I do for you? Do come on to the house, and let me send the horses back, and you shall have a carriage to take you home—one of ours.""Oh, you are very kind!" the young lady said, sweetly. "Might I ask if you are Mr. Roland Stanford?""No, I have not that honor. I am Donald Stanford, the younger nephew of Sir Huntly, at your service."As the young man spoke, he took off his cap, and for the first time in his life he found himself wishing that he were the elder nephew of Sir Huntly, and the heir to Stanford Hall."How kind you are!" said the beautiful lady, with a sweet frankness.Donald then went round and laid hold of the bridle of the horse of the lady who had been thrown.She appeared a handsome girl, but nervous and agitated, and her beauty paled before the splendor of her sister as the moon pales at the uprising of the sun.Donald led her horse safely and in silence to the foot of the stone steps; then he drew a whistle from his pocket, and the shrill sound of it brought a groom running round from the rear of the house.Donald lifted the nervous young lady to the ground; but the beauty had already sprung lightly from her saddle."Take both these horses round to the stables, Peters, and have them attended to, and I will tell you what to do presently. Allow me," said the young captain, offering his arm to the lady who had been thrown.So he assisted her up the steps and under the porch of the hospitable-looking mansion with its twinkling, lighted windows. Donald rang the bell, and he was forthwith admitted into a wide hall with a wide, winding oak staircase going out of it at one side, and a huge fire glowing in an enormous grate at the other. There was a tall window of stained glass facing the door, and several family portraits were against the oak walls."Oh, what a charming old hall! What an adorable old house!" cried the fairy princess.Again that sharp pang, cruelly and wickedly akin to envy, shot like a barbed arrow through the very being of Donald, and seemed to quiver in his heart—his heart, which had always been light and gay until he met this enchantress; for Bethel Vernon was a girl for whose sake many men had already done far more blameworthy things than merely indulge in an envious wish."What a home! Oh, Jane!" she said, turning to her sister. "Oh, Mr. Stanford!" looking up with such a smile as Raphael gives to his angel faces. "How happy you must be if you live here!"There were many lamps, in the hall, shedding a subdued light upon the white marble floor, the crimson carpet in the center, and reflecting their own brilliance in the polished oak paneling; but the loveliest thing on which their light fell was the face and form of Bethel Vernon, young—so young!—not more than nineteen at the outside, and with all her girlish grace set off and enhanced by the prettiest, most natural, most piquant manners in the world.She had taken off her hat, and she went about the hall holding it in one hand, and her dainty whip in the other, looking at the family portraits and then up at the oak roof, with all the enthusiastic delight of a very child.Donald stood spell-bound in the fire-light, and dedicated his heart to her then and there.Who was she? Where did she come from? What was her name? No, Donald knew none of those things; only felt here she was walking about the old hall, to which he was not the heir, like a fairy out of a story-book, or the incarnate realization of some great poet's dream.Thus, with a wave of her hand, with a glance of her eye, Bethel won this man's passionate love, his true heart, all the devotion of his soul, and the enthusiastic fervor of a nature that had never until this moment sounded its own depths.Outwardly, Captain Stanford was the same man on that evening of his uncle's dinner-party that he had been on the previous evening. There was nothing in his manner or on his face which testified to the sudden passion which had seized his heart and taken possession of the very citadel of his soul.Sir Huntly was a courtly gentleman of the old school. The fact of his having been once crossed in love in early youth, and having since consecrated his life to the discharge of his


duties as a country squire and landlord, devoting his leisure to the study of his favorite authors, and mingling not at all in the politics and questions of the day, will show that the baronet, if not remarkable for the brilliance of his rhetoric and the energy of his character, was still a man removed from the range of the commonplace.He was a very handsome man, with aquiline features, clear, pale skin, and fine blue eyes, more remarkable for their kindly gleams than for their penetrating keenness.Such as he was, he sat at the head of his handsomely appointed dinner-table, with its massive silver, its crystal, costly china, and hot-house flowers, looking grand enough for a duke; and there were present the following guests: Lady Prescot and her daughter Blanche; Colonel Fielding, his wife and daughter; Mr. Hibbit, the rector, and his wife. Besides these seven guests there were the three bachelor hosts, Sir Huntly Stanford and his two nephews.The dessert was on the table. Blanche Prescot was in the best possible spirits, for some good fairy had given her Roland Stanford as next neighbor at the dinner-table—Roland, the best parti in that part of the county, heir to Stanford Hall, eighteen thousand a year, and the title of baronet.Blanche was a tall, fine young woman of twenty-five, pale, with large light eyes, and very black hair and eyebrows.She was a woman of the world, bent on making the best possible match for herself.Her mother was the widow of a great railway contractor who had made a fortune, been knighted, who had speculated, reduced himself to poverty, and then died, leaving his widow only her marriage settlement to live on, which brought her in an income of four hundred a year.This sum meant genteel poverty to ladies like the Prescots, who lived on the outskirts, if not quite in the whirl of fashionable life, and who were anxious to be received in the best circles.Lady Prescot lived in a very small house in a good neighborhood. At present she and her daughter were on a long visit at the hospitable country mansion of Colonel Fielding.The colonel was an old friend of Sir Huntly. His wife was a large, placid lady who wore some fine diamonds. His only daughter and heiress was a plain, small, clever girl of twenty-three; who wore spectacles, and went in for art and literature.The Reverend Mr. Hibbit was a learned and gentle personage. His wife was short, keen-witted, shrewish, and despotic.Thus we have indicated the guests of the baronet; but one person remains to be noticed. That person is the heir to Stanford Hall and the baronetcy.Roland Stanford was a fair young man, with handsome features much resembling those of his uncle, Sir Huntly, in their outlines. He was tall and aristocratic-looking, with a pleasant smile; only that smile, when one came to know Roland better, struck one as being rather stereotyped. Looking close at the well-chiseled face, with its fair coloring and drooping blonde mustache, one read a something in the eyes that set one wondering and speculating. Was it a hard look, or a keen, clever expression, or a mixture of both? Perfectly dressed, with perfect manners and a winning smile, this heir to wealth and title won as many ladies' hearts as he chose; but there was as yet no record that he had ever given the least morsel of his own in return.He went to London in the season. Pretty married women with rich husbands whom they did not care for, but to whom, according to the canons of modern society, they had sold themselves—such women delighted in flirting with handsome Roland.He was not at all an industrious young man. There was not the slightest need for him to take the trouble to do anything except amuse himself and please his uncle.He had certainly contracted very heavy debts in his college days; but Sir Huntly had paid those off long ago; and at present Roland enjoyed an allowance of seven hundred a year for his private expenses.Whom did he mean to marry? This was the question which all the young ladies of the county were perpetually asking themselves.Blanche Prescot fondly hoped that to her would be awarded the solution of that problem.Blanche wore a black lace gown over rose color, and pink coral ornaments from Naples. Her arms were very white, and she saw Roland looking at them as if he thought them lovely.Donald was trying his best to make himself agreeable to the clever, plain daughter of Colonel Fielding."Vernon?" said Sir Huntly, helping himself to a candied apricot. "Did you say the name of these ladies was Vernon, Donald?"Donald was sufficiently a man of the world to repress the start which the mere mention of the name of his divinity gave him."Yes, Sir Huntly—Vernon. They have taken the Raggan.""Oh, that terrible old place!" cried Mrs. Hibbit. "Who can they be? Some nobodies, of course, or they could not live in such a place.""Have they gone away, Donald?" asked the hospitable baronet."Oh, yes. The young lady was not really hurt, only frightened; so when our housekeeper had given her some wine, I sent Thompson with them in the wagonette to drive them to the Raggan.""Oh, do tell me who they are?" asked Miss Fielding.Whereupon Donald related his experience of the past two hours; as much of it, that is, as the world was intended to know."The horses were hired from the livery stables at Yarrow Leas," he said, "so I have sent a groom with them. One of the horses shied at the mail cart as it came suddenly round the corner by the Moorland finger-post, and Miss Vernon was thrown, but she fell on a lot of hay fallen down from a haystack, most fortunately.""Providential," said the rector."Yes," returned Donald."And what are they like?" asked the rector's wife."They are ladies," said Donald.Mrs. Hibbit was a strong-minded woman, who considered herself privileged to say rude things. She had known Donald in the nursery, so she laughed, and exclaimed:"Ladies, eh? That means that they are good-looking, doesn't it, Donald?""Very good-looking," Donald answered, stroking his dark mustache.Blanche Prescot pricked up her small white ears and looked across the table at Donald."What style of good looks, Mr. Stanford?" she asked, with a very sweet smile."One is dark; the other is fair.""Oh, and who are they?" continued Blanche."I don't know," returned Donald, quietly."Why, the Raggan belongs to that insane old man, Doctor Flight, at Yarrow Leas!" cried Mrs. Hibbit—"a man who has no right out of a lunatic asylum. He won't even put a pane of glass in the windows, and the garden is a wilderness. He only asks about sixty pounds a year for the place, furnished. Only a care-taker and his wife have lived in it for


years, and they complained of the boards being in holes, and the broken panes. These people must be unsatisfactory, I feel sure of it. I shall make inquiries at Yarrow Leas.""Which is the prettier of the two?" asked Blanche Prescot, with the sweetest of smiles. "The fair one or the dark one?""The fair one," Donald answered, briefly."What is she like?" asked Blanche, clasping her white hands."Like a picture I have seen in Spain over an altar.""Oh, I see—a Madonna. Do you hear that, Sir Huntly? One of these ladies is like a Spanish Madonna! How very interesting!""Adventuresses, I should say," said Mrs. Hibbit. "Such people come down to a quiet seaside town like Yarrow Leas, and give themselves airs, and turn the heads of the tradespeople; talk of their grand connections, even bring letters of introduction to the county people. Be on your guard, Sir Huntly. Excuse me; I am an old friend, and I flatter myself I have a fair share of common sense.""I hate so very much common sense," said little Frances Fielding, in a confidential whisper to Donald. "But have these ladies a mother or a father?""Neither, I think," said Donald." Oh, that is odd!" said Fanny. "And are they quite young?""Quite," he answered.CHAPTER IV.BLANCHE PRESCOT broke into a mocking laugh."What a charming little story; is it not, Sir Huntly? Two very young ladies, and one of them quite divinely lovely, coming to live in an old, tumble-down, ghostly house, without any parents or guardians to look after them, or suggest anything prosaic, such as the proprieties, for instance! And these young ladies riding about without a groom, and getting thrown from their horses; and then coming as distressed damsels to Stanford Hall to look for a knight-errant, and—finding one, that's the best of it."Blanche had a musical voice when speaking, and her black eyes glinted with mischief and mockery. She appeared to Donald as a sparkling, vivacious, fashionable, and most detestable young woman. Still he smiled at her while he was cracking nuts for the keen-witted little plain girl by his side,


who scorned the idea of "making fun" of things of which she did not approve."I hope," said Donald, "that the Misses Vernon will after all show themselves in an orthodox light to the luminaries of this neighborhood.""Don't be sarcastic, Donald," said Mrs. Hibbit. "I shall have, of course, to call upon these people, and I shall then know what to think about them. Mind, you must not invite them to this house."The Reverend Mr. Hibbit here put in a word of kindness."These ladies are strangers," he said, "and unprotected. We must not set ourselves against them.""You would take their part if you found they were dynamitards," said his wife, with a hoarse chuckle."Perhaps they are."It was Lady Prescot, widow of the ex-knight, and mother of the fascinating Blanche, who spoke. She was a lady gayly attired in pale amber satin; her face was narrow, her nose pointed, her lips small."We can hardly be too much on our guard against strangers in these terrible times," continued Lady Prescot. "Don't you agree with me, Sir Huntly?""Vernon?" said Sir Huntly, not answering the lady's question, but yet looking at her, and smiling politely. "I seem to remember the name."At this moment Mrs. Hibbit gave the signal for the ladies to leave the table, and soon Sir Huntly and his nephews were left with their two male guests.Roland laughed aloud as he passed the wine to Colonel Fielding."We want something to wake us up here in the winter, don't we, colonel? It would be magnificent if we found out that these lovely creatures were deeply implicated in a plot to blow up the goody-goody town of Yarrow Leas. I should like the fun immensely."The Reverend Mr. Hibbit was a tall, pale gentleman, whose wife mostly ruled him; his will usually collapsed under her stronger one, and he submitted himself lowly and reverently to her behests. Yet he went his own way in many respects, and his own way led him through paths of peace and good-will toward all men.The rector seldom gave advice unasked, and he had a genius which is rarer than is supposed—a genius for holding his tongue so he did not lecture his young host on his heartless love of excitement at any cost.Colonel Fielding was a polished man who had been a brave soldier. He was naturally conservative to the finger-tips, and he had a horror of everything that leaned ever so lightly the other way."Impossible, he said, "surely, that girls like those you speak of should be mixed up in anything so diabolical!""You say they haven't a father or mother, or any relative or chaperon with them, Donald?"It was the handsome Roland who put this question, in a lazy, indifferent tone. As he spoke, he lighted a cigarette, and began to smoke.Sir Huntly looked uneasy. He did not at all approve of smoking in the dining-room, with its oak carved ceiling and paneled portraits; but Roland had forgotten this, or else he did not trouble himself to remember it."Shall we go to the billiard-room?" asked Donald.Neither the colonel nor the host were smokers, but the worthy rector had a weakness for an after-dinner pipe. He rose with alacrity."I will join you in the billiard-room, if I may, Donald?" he said, eagerly.The ease-loving Roland, who was tired by a long day's shooting on the Warren, arose reluctantly, and followed his cousin and the rector to the billiard-room, which lay at the other side of the wide entrance-hall."Do you say that these girls are worth looking at, Don?""They are wonderfully handsome!" returned Donald."We must cultivate them. Shall you call to ask how the injured damsel is?""Yes," Donald answered, looking straight at his cousin; "of course I shall.""Take me with you, and introduce me, will you?"" No," said Donald, bluntly.Roland leaned back and laughed."Jealous, by George!" he said. " They must be out-and-outers, tip-top beauties. I should think they must be actresses, Don.""Possibly," returned Donald, dryly."They may be Americans," continued Roland."Or Swedes, or Spaniards, or Italians, or Australians," suggested Donald, scornfully."Red-hot rebels!" said Roland, pleasantly. "What fun to get intimate at the Raggan, and then drop in upon them with a search-warrant and detectives, and to find the cellars full of dynamite!""Anyhow, Master Don, you are not going to keep these beauties all to yourself. You won't introduce me, you say?""No," returned Donald, shaking his head; "not until I know more of them.""That's wise," said the rector."Thank you," cried Roland, gayly. "I see that I shall have to introduce myself.""Poor girls!" said the gentle rector, with a sigh."It's quite refreshing, Don, my dear boy, to see you looking thoughtful and distrait; clearly a case of spoons—desperate spoons! Do you know, Mr. Hibbit, that I don't believe I could fall in love.""Nonsense!" said the rector, gruffly."I've tried hard, too," pursued the baronet's heir; "but I can't keep up the enthusiasm, all the women and girls are so confoundedly like one another!""Your time will come," said the rector."It won't," cried the heir, confidently; " I've been awful spoons sometimes for as long as a week, never longer.""You are peculiarly constituted," said the young man's former tutor; "but your time will come.""One will have to marry, of course," responded Roland, with a yawn; "and I shall marry three things—birth, beauty, and brains.""Blanche Prescot?" said Donald, mischievously."She may go—to Hong-Kong as soon as she likes!" returned Roland."A very clever and a handsome lady," said the rector."Hear, hear," said the two young cousins in a sort of mocking chorus."Oh! young ladies, if you could sometimes hear the speeches your apparent admirers make about you, you would indorse the line in the old song, which asserts that 'men were deceivers ever.'""Little Miss Fielding seems desperately gone on you, Don," pursued Ronald, "so that you need not chaff me about the lovely Blanche.""Miss Fielding is a sensible girl," said Donald, shortly."Certain to be an old maid," said mocking Roland; "she will devote herself to literature, and write trashy novels; or to art, and paint daubs called pictures; or else she'll go in for some sort of mission work—education of match-girls or societies for teaching the London shoe-blacks to appreciate Thucydides in the original. How I used to hate Thucydides! didn't I Mr. Hibbit?""Yes, you disliked the classics," said the rector, knocking the ashes from his pipe."And now I dislike plain women," pursued Roland; "no matter how clever or how saintly a woman is, if she is plain I don't like her!"Donald's lip curled just a little under his dark mustache as he glanced at his pleasure-loving, handsome cousin.Between Roland and Donald there was no sympathy, and they had never cordially liked each other.During their boyhood they had frequently disagreed. Once they had even fought, on which occasion Roland had come off rather badly, for Donald, though a couple of years his junior, had the more "pluck" and strength of the two. Of late years the relations of the cousins had been peaceful enough; their interests had not clashed as yet, but there was a certain scorn of Donald as a "beggar," compared to himself with his great prospects, in the arrogant soul of the heir.Roland might have been on the staff of that well-known paper which Thackeray called the "Superfine Review," so complete was his alienation from that mass of humanity commonly known as "all sorts and conditions of men."Donald had his own way of looking at things, and his lip curled in contempt of his cousin's arrogance and egotism."I think I shall go to New York for a wife," said Roland. "They are so handsome. A handsome American woman is a splendid creature to look at!"The Reverend Mr. Hibbit did not attempt to warn his young host, or to utter any well-worn platitudes, the meaning of which was "handsome is as handsome does," etc. He went on smoking, and he wondered what sort of wife his favorite Donald would chose.Roland then began to talk against the long frost, and to wonder when the hounds would meet again. Then Donald suggested that it was time to rejoin the ladies."I am afraid we shall suggest tobacco smoke," said the rector."No," said Roland. "We have some delightful attar or other which will take all the scent away in two minutes. I will ring for my fellow Stevens to bring it here."Roland was a pleasant and hospitable host.CHAPTER V.DONALD STANFORD had fallen desperately in love at first sight. That night he could not sleep. He was blunted by


the strange, bright eyes of the girl in the riding-habit. Who on earth were these Vernons? Bethel? Yes, her sister had called the beautiful one Bethel—a very, very odd Christian name. Bethel herself hardly seemed to him to be made of flesh and blood like other people—there was a something so rare, so powerful, so—yes, so maddening in her beauty—that was the word. Donald felt that he could have sold himself into slavery if that had been the only means by which he might hope to win that extraordinary girl.He did not even seem to care what her disposition was, so that he could gain her love. He did not mind if she were a Tartar or a Turk in temper. Even if she told fibs he would forgive her, and in time teach her to be as truthful as he was himself.Bethel had talked of a castle in the north of England, and of the regal splendors of her ancestors; also she had talked of earls and princes as if they had at some time been her daily companions. She had talked of the Spanish court, and that of Rudolpho in one of the Hungarian states, as if she had lived in the vie intime of both. Was all this true? or half of it? or none of it? Possibly none. Bethel might be a little story-teller, but Donald was so insanely in love with her that even if he found this out for a fact he would still choose her before any other woman in the world. He did not mean to wait any longer than the following morning before he hastened to fling himself, metaphorically, at the feet of this sweet, strange maiden.As soon as the cool dawn broke, Donald jumped up, took his cold bath, dressed in a riding-suit, rang his bell, and ordered out his horse. It was a quarter to nine, and he started on a rapid ride before breakfast.The sky was still low and dark, the wind piercing; the frost so hard that Donald had to pick his way along a frozen lane when he emerged from the park at the end of the shrubbery.He was going to ride straight to the house called the Raggan, which lay at two miles' distance from Stanford Hall. It was of course too early "to call"—this impatient lover must not dream of a "call"—until the afternoon, but he might see how the house looked; he might study the windows, and, who knows? he might be rewarded by a passing glimpse of that fair face which had changed the whole meaning of life to him.Passion, deep, delightful, and bewildering held his soul as in a vise. He was sensible of a jealous fear, amounting to hot anger, when he thought of his handsome, insolent cousin


Roland, and the chance that that arrogant gentleman might fall in love with Bethel, and that she might prefer the heir to the poor soldier."If so, if he marries her, England shall never, never see me again!"Lovers, when they are in as desperate a case as was Donald Stanford, are generally considered dolts by the rest of mankind.Soon Donald emerged from the narrow lane, and a wide expanse of country spread before him. Hills shut in a panorama of undulating plain, with farm lands lying red and bare under the leaden sky; thickets of pine woods to the left, and a broad stream winding slowly between the flat meadows toward a haze in the foggy distance, which he knew was the sea.The little village of Ellsmere lay in the hollow to the right.; but he turned his horse's head in another direction, and went, as swiftly as the frozen ruts in the road permitted, between the tall beeches on either side, which laced their bare boughs overhead.A short while, and he drew rein at the gate of the Raggan. He drew rein, but he did not mean to call there—certainly not. It was not yet half past nine.As for the Raggan, it was an old house which had a history, and that not a pleasant one. The Raggan had been built late in the last century, by a retired London wine merchant, who had made his fortune, and then returned in his old days to his native county to spend it.This merchant had sons and daughters, who all married and went their several ways, and the elder son came into possession of the Raggan at his father's death. He also married and brought up a large family. When he was an old man and a widower, he married a London actress. This woman ran away with a colonel of dragoons, and old Miles Wyatt hung himself in one of the gloomy, low-ceiled bed-chambers.Ever since then the house had had an evil name. It had been advertised for sale, for none of the descendants of the suicide would live at the Raggan. It was said to be damp; to be haunted; to be badly supplied with brackish water from an impure well. It was abandoned for years, and then at last it was knocked down cheap to a retired eccentric medical man called Doctor Flight. This person furnished it and let it during the summer months occasionally, for it lay within a mile of Yarrow Leas, a small seaside town on the coast. Of



late years, however, the Raggan had been tenantless, summer and winter, except for an old care-taker and his wife.Donald, then, had been immensely surprised to find this desolate place occupied in mid-winter by two lovely young ladies who knew the world well, and the fashions thereof—beings utterly distinct from the narrow-minded folks who dwelt in the neighborhood of Yarrow Leas.The Raggan was plainly visible from the lonely country road in which it stood. It was surrounded by much ground; there were rusty iron gates hanging half off their hinges; there was a most gloomy-looking, moss-grown carriage-drive, with large bushes of lauristinus on each side, now in full flower. The house was two-storied, built of dark-gray stone, and mostly covered with ivy. Two straight rows of windows, one above the other, seemed to stare at Donald like so many sullen eyes—curtainless, dingy windows.Surely nobody had taken the Raggan after all. That lovely creature must have been laughing at him. He had purposely abstained from questioning the man whom he had sent to drive the young ladies to this desolate place."Did you want to see Giles, please, sir?" said a chirping voice.Donald started, and then saw a small, sharp-featured lad, in very old garments, standing close to the gate."Giles?" he said. "Is that the care-taker?""Yes, sir.""But isn't the house let?""They haven't took it yet, sir.""What do you mean?" asked Donald, impatiently."They ain't in it yet, sir.""They? Who are 'they'?" he asked, petulantly.The small boy gave a sniff, looked wise, then he said:"Please, sir, I don't know.""Are you an idiot?" asked Donald, savagely.Poor Donald! he was always so courteous, so gentle to the poor, and behold this young imp had turned his head and spoiled his temper!"Open the gate, please," said Donald, presently. "I want to speak to the care-taker."As he spoke, he put a shilling in the boy's ready hand.The little fellow opened the rusty gate, throwing it well against the hedge of evergreens; and so Ronald rode up the drive, turned the corner, and drew rein in front of the house. The moment he did this he was startled excessively, for there was a loud, whirring sound, and a great swarm of birds flew



out from the ivy, disturbed-and frightened by the approach of a stranger.Good Heaven! what a desolate place! Empty, silent, dusty. Long-past years seemed to be shut up in those gloomy rooms, ghostly faces to be peeping through those dusty window-panes. The birds flew away, and Donald sat silent on his horse, and asked himself if the coming of Bethel Vernon had been a feverish dream? But still there was a care-taker, and his name was Giles, and surely he would be able to tell Donald something.But the bell seemed broken, and there was no knocker. Just as the young captain was thinking that he would find his way round to the back, he heard a footstep on the hard ground. Turning in his saddle, he found himself facing a young man, so tall that he was almost a giant. Six feet six, if he were an inch, was the gentleman, who pulled off a black, foreign-looking cap in salutation of Donald Stanford.The young captain returned the courtesy."Can I do anything for you, sir?"Now the voice was pleasant. The face of the young man was dark, sallow, with a thick, jet-black mustache, and very keen, light-colored eyes set somewhat close together.Not quite a pleasant face, but a very pleasant voice, had this stranger."I—understood that two ladies—in short, that this house was—was let," stammered Donald, who had quite lost his usual easy manner.The sallow face of the stranger flushed red up to the very brow, where the fur cap met it; the light eyes flamed, the nostrils dilated. Evidently the gentleman's emotions were for some reason excited."Two ladies?" he said, with an inflection of scorn in his tone. "And what might be the nature of your business with them, for instance?""Business? No," returned Donald; "not business; only to find out if this is really the house the Misses Vernon have taken.""Then you may find out that this isn't the house that the Misses Vernon have taken."Donald felt desperate. Was that lovely dream-maiden of the evening before to vanish into thin air? Was he never to see her again? And who was this sullen fellow, with his six feet six of altitude?—this giant, with his ill-natured, close-together eyes, and ferocious, brigand-like mustache?"You seem angry, sir," he said, trying to laugh; "but if


I tell you what happened last night, and who I am, I think you will not be suspicious of me.""Do you call me suspicious?"As the stranger spoke, he actually began to turn back his cuffs. Good Heaven, what a savage!"Sir, I have not the least wish to be offensive. Let me tell you my story.""Say on," returned the other, sulkily.He folded his arms as he spoke, perhaps to indicate that he had no intention of fighting just yet; whereupon Donald related the adventure of last night, the hospitality asked for, and joyfully bestowed upon the two ladies."And my carriage was ordered, and the man was told to drive the ladies here last night," concluded Donald."Then he didn't, sir. Nobody at present dwells in this old house, save the care-taker.""Then where are the ladies?" cried Donald.There was something positively painful in his extreme eagerness, and the tall man smiled more good-temperedly than he had done as yet."You're not the first," he said, " that has had a trick practiced on you by a couple of wild, harum-scarum girls"—he laughed now outright—"the mischievous hussies! Take my word for it, Jane Vernon never was thrown from her horse at all; it was just a trick to try and see the inside of your fine old Stuart mansion. No, I have taken the Raggan, not those children—their audacity is something awful!"—he now fairly roared with laughter. "They're my first cousins," he continued; "their father was my father's brother, and now they live with us.**(NO END QUOTATION MARK)"My father, the Reverend Mr. Vernon, is ordered to this coast, you see, for his health by the doctors, and we gave the girls a home. We are now stopping at the George at Yarrow Leas until this house is cleaned, and aired, and warmed with big fires, and until the windows are mended. There's my card, 'John Vernon, barrister at law.' I am known in the law courts a little."Immediately Donald became profuse in his apologies, yet in reality he had nothing to apologize for.This John Vernon, barrister, was a name known to all of those connected with the law, and Donald's one real friend was a barrister, named Morris."I have heard a great deal of you, Mr. Vernon," said Captain Stanford, "and I hope to see you at the Hall as soon as you can give us an evening.""Thanks—a thousand thanks!" said the barrister; "but my time will be taken up for the next ten days in seeing my father and my cousins settled into this den of a place. I have a notion that, grewsome as it looks now, it may be made a sort of Eden in the summer. The gardens are just what I like, lawns with hedges of rose-trees, and long gravel paths, with rose-trees arching over trellis-work, and two arbors and a walk, with box-trees on each side cut into the shapes of men and animals—something grotesque; and besides, there's a cherry orchard, and they tell me that in good seasons the cherries pay the rent—only sixty pounds a year for the place as it stands. Dirt cheap, isn't it?"Donald shrugged his shoulders. The place impressed him as the most comfortless abode he had ever looked on."Furniture?" he said, with a faint smile. "I wonder what kind of beds they have given you? They will want a month's airing."John Vernon laughed."Not a bit of it," he said; "two good days before a large fire is all they will want.""Plate and linen," said Donald; "how about those?""By George, my dear sir, you have a genius for details!" cried the barrister; and he roared again with laughter. "I never gave a thought to those things. The two girls will see to them somehow. I came here to look up old Giles, and ask him to have the stables put in order. The girls must keep at least one riding-horse; and then we must have a good carriage-horse to draw my father about. I have bought a strong old victoria second-hand, so that he can take the air when the summer comes on.""If there is anything wanted to increase your comfort, Mr. Vernon, I hope you won't scruple to ask favor it at the Hall. We are bachelors, but though I am young, I have been a soldier on active service, and I know a great deal about domestic comforts, or the lack of them. Most men do who have to cater for themselves, and our housekeeper is a treasure.""You are too good," said the barrister, and there was a mocking light in his eyes. "You are too good."Donald somehow felt very uncomfortable. He could gee that John Vernon was not astonished at his solicitude- but that he put it down to its right cause, namely, that Donald, Captain Stanford, had fallen over head and ears in love with his lovely cousin, Bethel Vernon."I very much regret," continued the barrister, "that I can't ask you into breakfast. I shouldn't be surprised a bit



if there was not a tea-cup in the house; but when we are all in trim, I'll be delighted to welcome you in a plain way to breakfast before a day's hunting, or to supper afterward, and a smoke and a game of billards. There's a small billiard-room goes out of the dining-room.""Many thanks," said Donald; but he sighed as he spoke.He had fallen most desperately in love, yet he did not like this barrister, with his clever face, and bright eyes set so close together. No, he did not like him one little bit, so to speak.He soon rode away from the Raggan, with the understanding that he was to call at the George Hotel, Yarrow Leas, very soon, there to inquire after the young lady who hadn't fallen from her horse after all, and to be presented to old Mr. Vernon; and—to see that divinely beautiful Bethel, who had stolen his peace and filled his soul with a wild hunger of passion."Strange thing he should tell me that it was a 'lark' of the young ladies—very strange thing!" muttered Donald. "I don't understand him—I don't trust him, There is something hateful about that man."Poor Donald!CHAPTER VI.THE frost was so hard that hunting was out of the question; skating or shooting were the only possible out-door amusements during that bitter weather.Roland Stanford prided himself upon being a crack shot. He was a fearless huntsman, but he had not had the advantage of a Canadian winter, as had his cousin, and he was not much of a skater; thus it fell out that he went off with two of the keepers to shoot wild fowl on a moorland called in those parts the Warren.The Warren lay beyond Yarrow Leas. It was a wild, desolate place, with the gray sea tumbling in upon the stormy beach to the left hand, and ridges of moor swelling up on the right, shutting off the view.Thither went Roland, with his dogs, his gun, and his two keepers on that same day when Donald had made his early expedition to the Raggan.Donald was delighted to find that his cousin had forgotten all about the beautiful visitors; not a word did he say concerning them, but he went off, soon after making an excellent breakfast, in high spirits.Very glad was Donald to see his back turned, and to feel free of his presence.As for Velvet Snow, the thought of that mere village child had passed completely out of his head in this whirl of his passionate, suddenly born love for the mysterious stranger. That promise to teach the slender girl to skate never occurred to him once during the whole of the morning while he was engaged, at his uncle's request, in the library, looking over some farming accounts lately received from the agent.Business details were not by any means the things wherein his soul delighted; but he was devotedly attached to his uncle, and always pleased to be of use to him. On this day, however, he made so many mistakes in his calculations, and returned such irrelevant answers to the baronet, who was seated in a large chair at the same table, that the elder gentleman, kind and courtly as he was naturally, lost patience at last."What is the matter with you, Don?" he asked, sharply; "are you ill or sulky?"Donald felt stung and irritated. He knew that he had, as he called it, been making a fool of himself over the figures, and this consciousness did not humble him; it exasperated him first with himself, next with his uncle."I hope I am not quite such a muff as to get into the sulks over a few figures, sir," he said, with a forced laugh; "but this room is awfully hot, and is stuffy enough to make any fellow's head ache.""That's it, then," said Sir Huntly, coldly, "you are not well. I think you young men smoke too much in that billiard-room; the present craze for smoking is a fearful and wonderful thing. Roland is just as bad—quite as bad—as you are. Will you send Williams to me, please?"Williams was the steward.Donald rose in a pet; but still he was quite respectful to his uncle."Very well, sir; I think perhaps Williams has a sharper head than I have for figures—this morning."He went away, and sent Williams to the baronet; then he asked himself if he should ride over to Yarrow Leas and call boldly at the George Hotel, and so obtain sight of and speech with his divinity.Why not? he said to himself—why not? There would be lots of time to equip myself and ride over, and the sky was so dark and the wind so keen, that he felt almost sure the ladies would be in the house. Yes, yes, he would ride over, and



then he could renew his offers of help to the family of Vernon in the matter of their moving into the Raggan.No sooner said than done. Donald ordered out his hunter for the second time that day, and he started in hot haste for Yarrow Leas.When he arrived at that place where the lane merged into the high-road, and whence he could see the roofs of the village of Ellsmere lying in the hollow, he suddenly remembered Velvet Snow, to whom he had not given a thought since his meeting with the Vernons."Poor child!" he said to himself. "She must not go down to the pond and wait for me. I sha'n't be at the Hall till six o'clock—perhaps later. No; I will gallop down to the village and try to see her."Donald went down the hill swiftly, and soon he and his horse were in the main street of the village of Ellsmere. It looked dreary on that bleak day; the houses were built of gray stone from the quarry in the neighborhood; the little front gardens were mere patches of frost-whitened soil not a shrub or a flower in sight. A village of humble cottages for the most part, with a general shop, from the stores of which Velvet Snow had been fed and clothed ever since she was five or six years old. This village street represented her ideas of an ordinary town, though the crooked, steep High Street of Yarrow Leas loomed before her mind as a typical populated city.Donald Stanford passed the general shop and then the Blue Boar, where the male inhabitants of Ellsmere spent more of their time and their money than the female part of the community approved of. Next came the small old church with its Norman tower clothed in ivy, then the large, red-brick dissenting chapel. Opposite to this structure stood Velvet's home—Jasmine Cottage.Donald Stanford on his black horse, curveting along the village street, was a sight which brought the faces of women to the windows, and children to the doors. Donald looked at the parlor window for Velvet, and he saw instead the unpleasant countenance of Miss Pringle, who had started from her snug place by the fire on hearing the clatter of the horse's hoofs.Miss Pringle bowed to the young captain, who took off his hat, and in another moment he had cantered further along the village, for he felt that Miss Pringle was a Turk, who would not allow Velvet the pleasure of learning to skate at any time if she could prevent it.How was he to prevent the poor child from walking to the pond in the grounds of Stanford Hall and there waiting for him in cold and disappointment for an hour that would seem like two? At last it struck him that he would go back to the cottage and boldly ask to see Velvet, as if on some other business, and then let her know that he was going to Yarrow Leas, and would not be back until late.He turned his horse's head round, and came this time up the village at a gentle canter. Then he saw Velvet standing in the little front garden, with nothing on her head, and no shawl to defend her from the piercing wind—Velvet, in a poor and worn gown of a dull lead-color, as badly made as a gown could be, but her glorious nut-brown hair crowned her young head with a grace that struck him as unique, even accompanied as it was by the shabby gown. Her face, as she turned it toward him, glowed with hope and expectation; her great eyes danced with joy.Velvet, he decided, was a very pretty girl, and might become quite beautiful some day."Velvet," said Donald, as he reined in his horse for a moment, "I can't go to the pond this afternoon after all."Her face fell. Looking at it, he read the bitter disappointment in the eyes, which became dull in a moment, and the pink cheeks paled."Can't go, because I must go to Yarrow Leas."His heart smote him as he saw the red mouth pinch itself into an expression of endurance, such as one assumes when one has to make up one's mind to bear silently some bodily smart or pain."I must go," he said; "but another day. Velvet—"There came a yearning look in the eyes. What color were they?—grayish-blue or brownish-hazel?—they looked so large, so bright, and so sad.Donald's heart was pitiful and generous; pity and kindness shone in his dark eyes, and Velvet, the dreamer of dreams, thought they spoke a yet more tender language. No other human eyes that she could remember in her short life had ever looked at her so earnestly or so kindly. A rich crimson flooded her cheeks, and her eyes drooped."Poor child!" thought the captain. "How disappointed she is about that skating!""Velvet," he said, "I can't tell what day I shall be free, but I will send a card with time and hour marked. Goodbye."He raised his hat, gave her another of his bright smiles, and then dashed away on his black horse.Velvet stood and watched him like some imprisoned maiden in a mediæval legend, who watches the departure of the gallant knight or fairy prince who has promised to rescue her."Velvet, come in this instant! Do you hear?" Miss Pringle opened the hall-door as she spoke, and came out under the little porch. "You are the laziest girl I ever saw in the whole course of my life. Come in, do you hear?"As she spoke, Miss Pringle came from the porch into the garden; bat Velvet was still watching the vanishing knight as he galloped along the street. She was dimly conscious of a rasping voice, and presently she felt a strong hand on her arm, a finger of this hand and a thumb then seized a piece of Velvet's flesh and pinched it so savagely that he girl uttered a cry of pain, and Miss Pringle broke into a mocking laugh."I thought I should wake you up," said the ill-natured old woman. "I called you twice, and you took no notice. If it hadn't been out here in the front, I would have laid the whip about your shoulders!"Velvet turned round and faced Miss Pringle. All the softness, all the charm, had faded out of the young face. She was deathly pale, partly from pain, partly from rage. Her great eyes looked coal-black when Velvet was in a temper, and now it was something more than temper in that face—it was fury. If it is true that a good angel and a bad one are always at our elbows, each in turn advising us to right or to wrong, it is certain that Miss Pringle had the power of calling up the bad angel of Velvet in full force.The very sound of the old woman's spiteful laugh threw the girl into a tempest of wrath."Come in, come in!" said Miss Pringle. "You shall mend all the stockings in the house before you go to bed. If there's one thing you detest, it's being obliged to darn; and you shall darn till your eyes ache. You sha'n't go up, to the rectory—no, that you sha'n't, though Mr. Hibbit did ask for you. I'll be even with you! You think you can defy me, don't you? But you will find you can't!"Velvet followed her tyrant into the house, still writhing inwardly with passion.Oh, how was it she had to put up so long with this wicked old woman's injustice and cruelty? She was sixteen, almost a woman in years, and she knew far more than her tyrant knew, or ever could know. This old woman was ignorant,


and cruel with the cruelty which oftentimes comes of ignorance."You shall darn every stocking in that basket—every one, do you hear?—before you go to bed."As she spoke, Miss Pringle put a large basket on the little table. This basket was full of woolen stockings—gray, brown, and black."There they are!" cried Miss Pringle; " the stockings of a month's wash, mine and Ann's and your own, and full of holes. Do you hear? And instead of going up to the rectory to read with Mr. Hibbit a lot of trash, which makes you forget your place, and having tea and. cake, and be made a fool of, you shall sit there and darn. Do you hear?""Yes, I hear," the girl answered. "I never hear anything from you but hard, and cruel, and evil things. You seem to put a demon in me. I think you do."As she spoke, she folded her arms and glared defiantly upon her tyrant.Miss Pringle glanced at her, and an odd feeling, something, akin to fear, awoke in her selfish heart. Ann was out—this was her half holiday. Miss Pringle and her rebellious slave were alone in the cottage.Velvet was strong with the strength of youth, a youth trained in hard physical work. Dreadful things had happened in country places and lonely houses before now. Certain hideous newspaper stories occurred to the memory of Miss Pringle. Velvet looked wicked. She was young and strong. If Miss Pringle kept her darning late into the night, as she had threatened, and if Ann stayed very late at Yarrow Leas, whither she had gone to spend the evening with a married brother, who kept a small chandler's shop in that town—well, Miss Pringle felt positively as if—as if she might not be safe. She went and stirred the fire into a blaze; she ceased to mock Velvet."It's so absurd of you," she said, "to provoke me so, to be so lazy, and good for nothing, and to set yourself up as if you were an equal of the rector and the young gentlemen at the Hall. The captain must be insane to take off his hat to you, but of course he only does it to make game of you; and now, since I told Mrs. Hibbit you should go—I had forgotten that—but since I told her so I will alter my mind. Go and change your gown, and you may go this once; but there must be an end to all this nonsense—I am tired of it.""So am I," said Velvet.She spoke in a hard voice. Miss Pringle had never heard that tone before. She really began to shiver a little."I have told you you may go," she said, impatiently. "Go and change your gown."But Velvet broke into a laugh—a ringing laugh, with music in it, for her voice was a wonderfully sweet one, only there was no mirth, nothing pleasant in the sound now."You are afraid of me," she said.Miss Pringle started as if she had been shot. The words of Velvet answered to her own cowardly fears. She rushed toward the door. Velvet folded her arms and stood before it."If you were not afraid of me you would chain me to a hook in the wall, and flog me as they used to flog men and women in the prisons in the bad old days. You hate me because you have been cruel to me, and your conscience tells you that every time you look at me. You hate me, too, because nobody has come to seek me, and to give you money for keeping me. You are afraid of me; you are wrong. I would not condescend to hurt you; you don't understand me. I will mend those stockings.""You sha'n't! Go and put on your best gown. Let me out, I say!"Velvet stood aside. Miss Pringle rushed into the passage, took a cloak from a peg, threw it over her head, and went forth into the front of the house."I shall go and take a cup of tea at Mr. Dicksey's," she said.Now, Mr. Dicksey was the master of the general shop. He was a man of good means; his house was well furnished, his table was well supplied, and his wife was not averse to a gossip with Miss Pringle. So that afternoon Jasmine Cottage vas looked up and left empty.Yarrow Leas has a quaint steep High Street. Most of the houses have gables and projecting fronts. It is a picturesque town, but the country lying near it is not rich or sylvan. On the right of it lies the Warren; on the left is the sea, spreading out into the immensity of the distance, a type of the mystery of the unknown.Donald rode along by the seaside toward the town; the mystic, dreamy distance looked sad to him in the grayness of the afternoon.Bethel Vernon! Why could he not get rid of the thought of those haunting eyes? They seemed to mean so much, but he could not tell what they meant.Soon he was in the suburb called Raston. Villas and terraces were on either side. These were let furnished to visitors in summer; now they looked cold and empty.He rode into the yard of the George Hotel, leaped from his horse, saw him led to the stable, then went round to the front door of the hotel, and stood in the warmth of the hall, where palms and flowers gave an air of refinement and taste to the place."Mr. Vernon?" he said, inquiringly."Yes, sir; please to walk up; the gentlemen are in.""And the ladies?" asked Donald."Yes, sir; both the ladies are in."CHAPTER VII.DONALD had been accustomed to what is called "good society" from his very earliest manhood. He knew London in the season, had been presented at the prince's levees, but he had never before felt shamefaced.He had often entered West End drawing-rooms, where were high-born dames draped by Worth, beauties haughty, critical, supercilious, and he had accepted with sang-froid the possibility that in his position of soldier of fortune such ladies might choose to ignore him.And yet, now he stood abashed on the threshold of the door which shut in his divinity. He heard the sound of a ringing laugh, and then the rattle of ivory balls."Twenty-five," said the adoring voice, triumphantly."The ladies are playing bagatelle, sir," explained the man-servant, who opened the door after a preliminary rap, and announced Captain Stanford.Then Donald stood in the presence of Bethel Vernon.Love such as that which this marvel of a girl inspired is a terrible power, an unholy element; it is as the meat offered to a dumb idol; it is the prostration of a human soul before a false god.There were four persons in the large room; but Donald only saw one-Bethel—although he bowed vaguely to everybody.He was made welcome in a hearty fashion by the elder gentleman and also by his son, the well-known barrister; the ladies smiled, gave Donald their hands, and asked him to come near the fire.He took his place like any other mortal, and began to talk about the weather.The invalid gentleman was, it seemed, a clergyman. He



had been the rector of a country parish in the north of England; but during the last two years, Mr. Vernon had fallen into a weak state of health; this had necessitated the abandonment of his clerical duties, and his residence on a softer coast.Captain Stanford, of the Highland Hussars, occupied a higher social status absolutely than the Vernons, but he felt humbled to the dust when he looked at Bethel, and when she spoke to him, he flushed, stammered, and, as he himself phrased it, "felt like a fool."Bethel did not appear in the least as if attired for conquest. She was one of those rare women who grace their costume, whatever it may be; such a woman could lead the fashions of Europe if she had only forty pounds a year to spend upon her toilet, always supposing her position to be a conspicuous one.Bethel Vernon wore something that might have been a tea-gown, yet it was not a fashionable tea-gown by any means, nor was it even of a fashionable tint. This fantastic robe was confined at the tiny waist by a cord with long tassels of the same bright purple as the gown itself; the material was soft woolen stuff; a collar of purple figured silk stood up round the slender throat; the sleeves were open, and fell back, disclosing round arms that seemed chiseled out of white marble.Bethel's beauty—how shall we attempt to give a just idea of that bewildering loveliness?Her eyes fastened themselves upon a man's face in such a way that unless his heart was in the safe keeping of another woman, the one was almost certain to be penetrated by their glances, and the other to go out toward her, and to lay itself at her feet.Those eyes were yellow hazel—almost the color of pale gold; they were soft, wistful, alluring; they seemed to say:"Do you love me? Will you love me? Oh! do love me!"The lashes were black as jet, the straight brows were less dark, but no mere description can give an idea of the witchery of that face. Lips red as coral, delicate nose, with that slight inclination to turn upward which gives a piquant charm to the expression; cheeks glowing pink as June roses.Bethel's hair, of a dark chestnut shot with gold, was gathered in one thick, long plait, and hung down far below her waist; it fell in a cloud of clustering short curls on the white brow.Bethel was about the middle height, very slender, and she had a sylph-like grace impossible to describe."She is unlike all other women, only she is like the Ma-


donna I saw over that altar in Spain," said Donald to himself. He fell from one depth of infatuated passion to another while he sat there drinking in the words of the innocent-looking siren. He did not know at all what the others were talking about, nor what he answered; he supposed, when he thought it all over afterward, that he must have answered properly, and that he most have talked like a man in his senses, because neither the Reverend James Vernon, nor John, the barrister, nor Jane, the tall, handsome, elder sister of the enchantress, seemed to think that he was out of his mind, neither did they appear at all astonished at what he said or did.In reality, he talked about the hunting and skating, the boating in the summer, the magnates of the neighborhood, the new railway that was projected, and all the small public affairs of the district in the most reasonable and orthodox manner possible. He invited the whole party to afternoon tea on the following Friday, and they accepted the invitation."Tea! Is tea in your line?" asked John Vernon.His tone was quite polite, yet Donald felt a little jarred, so to speak."Tea isn't in my line," he answered; "but that's only a plea—an excuse. I wish to present your father to my uncle, and I am sure that he will be charmed to make the acquaintance of your cousins; while as for yourself, your reputation at the bar has traveled before you, so that every door in the county will be open to you.""Will it, by George!" returned John Vernon, bluntly. "I'd be sorry if I had to go in at all those doors and make my bow; but as for your door, Captain Stanford, I'll be charmed to enter in at it and to shake your good uncle by the hand. Only when we are fixed up at the Raggan, you must all come and dine with us.""I hope to come often," said Donald. As he spoke, he looked eagerly at Bethel.Bethel did not blush; she only smiled like an angel peering through the clouds in one of Murillo's pictures."I hope you will, I do indeed," she said, as she gave him her small white hand, for he had risen to take his leave."Sit down," cried John Vernon, "and tell me what you can take—champagne, for instance?"" No, no," said Donald."Nonsense! you shall break your fast before you go. We will have cold pheasant pie, if you can eat it."Donald had taken nothing since the morning, and he would 



have been starving if he had not been so desperately in love. As it was, he felt that he could eat nothing; he said so, but John Vernon rang and ordered champagne in a rollicking, reckless fashion. It came up; glasses were filled all round; the two girls accepted the sparkling wine with unaffected delight."Do you ever play a hand at nap?" asked John Vernon, quietly."Yes, I can; I always lose," said Donald, with a short laugh."That means you don't care for the game," said John Vernon."I strongly object to the practice of playing for money," said the old gentleman."Certainly," the barrister answered, with a wave of his band. "As a parson, my father must protest, you see; but I'm not a parson, and I like a game of nap. The girls play also."Donald wished forthwith that he could sit down and lose a hundred pounds to Bethel straight off. It was time now for him, however, to take his leave. He shook hands with every one, with Bethel last, and he said, as he went away:"On Friday, then, at four, we shall expect you."As soon as the door was well shut on Donald Stanford, John Vernon came and stood on the rug in front of the fire, turning his back to it. His face had utterly changed in expression since the visitor had left the room. The black eyebrows met in a knot over the light-colored eyes, set so strangely close together—a scowling, angry, almost savage face."Confound his impudence!" he said."John," said the old gentleman, mildly, "don't lose your temper."John wheeled about, lighted a cigar which lay close at hand, and immediately began to smoke. His eyes were cast down, he folded his arms, his face was thoughtful, moody, not to say morose.Bethel and Jane returned to the bagatelle-board, and they began to play in a light, pleasant manner, chattering about nothing in particular.Old Mr. Vernon was a thin, pale man, with a gentle, weak face, and a placid air of resignation. He was carelessly attired in a long, loose coat."See, we haven't dined," said John Vernon, coming suddenly out of his reverie. "What shall we order, Bethel? What shall I order?"" Oh, I don't care much," she answered, with one of h most dimpled smiles. "I like the game, I think, best.""And soup?" asked her cousin.His large, keen eyes were fixed on her lovely face."Oh, yes, I love soup, if it's mock-turtle! And let us have jelly and dessert."John left the room.Jane Vernon looked at Bethel." Bethel, you always will order the most expensive things!" she said."Of course!" cried Bethel, petulantly. "Expensive things are the nicest. Why should we have nasty mutton-chops and rice-pudding?"She made a little grimace."Poor John!" said Jane; "he is so kind!""I shall be glad when we get into the house myself," said the old gentleman."Oh, uncle, it's such an awful place," said Bethel; "full of rats, and mice, and ghosts, and all those dreadful things.""There are no such things as ghosts, Bethel," said the old clergyman; "it's silly to talk like that.""But I believe in them," said the young beauty. "I feel sure that ghosts will cone and open the doors and creep up to the beds and draw the curtains when once we get into that horrible house!""Bethel," said Jane, suddenly, "what do you think of Captain Stanford?""I don't think him handsome," pouted Bethel, "and I don't think him amusing; but he is clever.""And he is a perfect gentleman," said Jane.Bethel yawned.At that moment John Vernon re-entered the room."John," said Bethel, looking at her cousin with her wonderful eyes, "I don't like Captain Stanford one bit!"CHAPTER VIII.MR. JOHN VERNON'S eyes flashed with a light that seemed electric, it was so vivid. His was a nature very difficult to fathom.Looking at him at the moment when lovely Bethel announced her indifference to Captain Stanford, one would have said that his good angel was counseling him. He appeared almost handsome with that light of happiness gleaming on his thin, dark face. Surely love is a beautifier of humanity!You don't like him a bit, Bethel, darling?" he said; and he seized both her small white hands and held them in his own large brown palms. "You don't? Why should you like him? You have no place in that warm little heart for any one but just your own old cousin John, who is such a—fool about you; eh, darling?""Of course I haven't," said Bethel, with a pretty childish air; "but—don't hold my poor little hands so tight, John, you do hurt me so.""There, then, my sweet."He released her hands; he gave her a look—such a hungry, yearning look of love—but Bethel never saw it at all; she was looking at the fire."I wonder if they will give a ball," she said, irrelevantly."A ball? Is it bachelors who would be giving a ball?" asked John, impatiently. "You know, Bethel, the last ball we were at how you did go on. I wonder I did not put a bullet into one of those fellow's heads!""How horribly you talk!" cried Bethel, starting to her feet. "Can I help it if men will follow me about and pester me with their compliments?""It's certain, Bethel, that whenever you are present all the men seem to become idiots or madmen," said John Vernon.His face was flushed, and he lifted a heavy brass coal-box half full of huge pieces of coal; he flung these on the already ample fire."Stop, John; you will make the room unbearable," said the old gentleman.John seemed not to hear or heed; he stood up now and folded his arms, an attitude of his when annoyed."Bethel, you like to make fools of men," he said, "you know you do.""I like fun, and balls, and theaters, and company, and riding, and skating. I hate dullness, and one day following like another. I am young; I like life."Here Jane Vernon, who was twenty-two years old, being two years older than Bethel, struck in:"Bethel, let us go and change our gowns for dinner; you have done nothing but play bagatelle and grumble all day long.""I hate changing gowns, unless I am going to a party," muttered Bethel; nevertheless, she arose and followed her sister out of the room. Jane had more influence with this spoiled child than any other person whom she had met as yet. She had not anything like affection for her cousin John,


whose passion for herself was of that headlong kind, which makes men commit follies, and has been even known to hurry them into sudden crimes.Bethel was the promised wife of this man of strong nature and selfish instincts. If she had not pledged herself to be his wife, both she and Jane must have been out in the world at that very time, earning their own bread, for they did not possess a five-pound note between them.The history of these young ladies up to this period had not been very remarkable for incident; except inasmuch as that whenever Bethel appeared she had the faculty of turning the heads of all the men and boys whom the chances of daily life cast in her path.It seemed to be an accepted fact in the family that everybody must bow down to Bethel.Jane and Bethel were the daughters of the Reverend Mr. Vernon's brother, a half-pay captain, who was left a widower, with no other means than his half pay, and with two girls, aged ten and twelve, to clothe, feed, and educate.There was an old nurse, who had lived with them when they were infants, and her injudicious kindness had had much to do with making lovely Bethel what she was.Captain Vernon had lived in a pretty English county town, not thirty miles from London—a town where there is an ancient grammar school, three or four churches, and a big town hall, where the assizes are held. Numbers of half-pay officers resided in the pretty town aforesaid; their families visited one another, and made merry after the fashion of the genteely poor, by means of a very few dinner-parties in the winter, and numerous lawn-tennis parties in the summer.In this genteel society the girls grew from childhood into girlhood; they had a daily governess, because the schools in the little town were too far mixed to allow of their associating with the other pupils.Bethel learned a little of everything and nothing thoroughly; Jane, on the other hand, had a larger capacity, and far more industry. She could work, she could read, and she could think; but she had literally brought herself up. Bethel never cared about knowing useful things. She was utterly unpractical, and so earned a reputation for childish simplicity which suited her delightfully. All the boys at the grammar school fell in love with Bethel before she was fourteen. They sent her such packets of valentines that she had an album full of them.Her old nurse told her that she must marry an earl; but


there were no earls on the visiting-list of the Vernons. The rector's son was deeply smitten; he was a foolish-looking, flaxen-haired young man with a white mustache. His father, who had other views for him, sent him to India, and Bethel did not care a bit.Captain Vernon had been taken suddenly ill with low fever about a year before this story opens. He had succumbed to the malady, and when his funeral expenses and debts were paid, there was not a sovereign to divide between the girls, although all the furniture was sold. Then friends and enemies began to regret the idleness in which the half-pay captain had reared his daughters."They are, unhappily, fit for nothing," said the Mrs. Captains and the Mrs. Majors and the Mrs. Colonels of their acquaintance.However, the Reverend James Vernon, uncle of the orphans, wrote to offer them a home in his rectory. Thither did they journey, accompanied by their faithful nurse.Soon after the arrival of the young ladies at the rectory, their cousin John, the barrister, came down on a visit to his father. Before the man of the world, the clever, reckless man of pleasure and of the law courts, had been a week under the same roof with Bethel, he had become her slave; "hopelessly, desperately, insanely infatuated," as some of his friends said.Bethel, meanwhile, was only nineteen. Her father was only just dead. She did not know her own mind.All this was urged upon John by his father; but the man's whole heart and soul were ingrossed by Bethel. He would take no denial; and the two girls were homeless.Thus it came to pass that Bethel and John Vernon plighted their troth to each other. John was almost savagely jealous. He was unwise in his overmastering love for this beautiful, petulant creature.He let her know how jealous and suspicious he was. He let her know that if she broke with him, and gave her love to another man, he would simply shoot the man dead.And thus Bethel, who had always been a little afraid of him, began to do something very like hate him in the depths of her heart.Old Mr. Vernon fell sick, and was ordered to a softer air. Chance, fate, call it what you will, so ordered it that John Vernon should see the advertisement of the Raggan in some house-agent's office.It struck him that he would establish his father and his


cousins in that quiet house on that western coast where they had not one acquaintance, and that he would visit them from time to time; and then in the autumn he would marry Bethel, and take her with him as his wife.We all know how often things fall out differently from the way in which man proposes.There was a large fire in the dressing-room where the young ladies were making their home toilets. Jane stood before the blaze, plaiting her long black hair, and looking at her own reflection in the chimney-glass, which reached nearly to the ceiling. Bethel sat in a low cane chair. Her chestnut hair fell about her in such rich profusion that she might have suggested a model for the Magdalene, only that her face was too girlish and too full of eager anticipation, despite the passive, idle manner in which her hands were folded in her lap."Bethel, you will not be ready when the bell rings," said Jane."I don't care," said Bethel."But uncle will care, and Cousin John, and the dinner will spoil.""I don't want any dinner," said Bethel, with a yawn."Well, but other people do.""Oh, you always think so much about eating!" said Bethel, sweetly.Jane accepted this little insult with a short laugh."Do you know, Bethel, my dear, I sometimes wonder if you are a little knave, or only a little fool.""I'm not a fool," said Bethel. "I would never waste a single thought upon a man unless I knew he was really ready to be cut into little pieces for my sake—ever such little, tiny pieces!"For some reason or other, this apparently childish speech seemed to have the effect of making Jane Vernon very angry.She wheeled about, and took up an ivory-handled brush from the mantel-piece."I should like to box your ears with this, my dear, and send you down to dinner with your cheeks smarting finely.""I know you would," Bethel answered, settling herself cozily into her chair, "because you are in love with John, and he doesn't care a snap for you—and he would be burned to death to save me! He doesn't even know how much you care for him; but some day, if you are so rude and horrid to me, I'll tell him."And she laughed a tittering, cruel little laugh.Jane's eyes flashed, and her well-cut lips moved as if she were about to speak.A look of deadly pain came into her face for an instant; but she made a great effort, conquered her emotions, whatever they were, and then she turned away with a forced laugh.Bethel's beauty and charm were so great that they had the effect of dwarfing the graces of other girls.Away from Bethel, Jane would have struck most persons as a very handsome lass. She was tall and upright, with a slim waist and a well-developed figure; her hair was long, black, glossy; her features regular, her complexion clear and pale, with a healthy pallor. Her large black eyes were full of intelligence; they could flash on occasion with anger, but they could soften with compassion also."You are in love with John," pursued Bethel; "you know you are.""I—I hope that I am not lost to a sense of what is right. John has asked you to marry him; you have said yes. Some day he will be my brother.""Brother-in-law," said Bethel; "and perhaps I won't have him, after all.""Bethel," said Jane, turning round and facing her sister, "if you throw him over he will do murder. Take care!""Nonsense! I am not afraid. I could talk him over. But I rather admire that young Stanford, and I know he admires me.""Yes; but he dare not marry you, Bethel.""Why not, please?" asked Bethel, pertly."Because we are poor, penniless nobodies, and he is a baronet's nephew, and must marry to please his uncle. How silly you were to tell him such a tale when we were walking our horses through the park, that I had been thrown! And I dared not contradict you.""No; I think it was very clever of me," said Bethel. "I didn't mean to do more at first than to ride through the park, and ask the way at the house for an excuse for being there at all; but when I saw such a nice-looking fellow, I felt inspired. And wasn't he pleased when I praised the grand old Hall! Pity he isn't the heir.""Bethel, I wish John would just make you marry him at once. It makes me shiver to hear you speak! You have no sense of right and wrong. You are every bit for self.""Who else should I be for, I should like to know," asked pretty Bethel, "if not for myself?"CHAPTER IX.WHILE Donald Stanford was riding toward Yarrow Leas on that same afternoon, after excusing himself to Velvet Snow, Velvet was attiring herself for a visit to the rectory.She was obliged to cross Stanford Park to reach the rectory, if she did not mean to take a long round which entailed quite another mile's walk.Velvet's "best" gown was of cheap mixture and unlovely color, something between gray and drab. It was warm, neat, and whole, however, and the natural grace of the girl's tall, svelte form triumphed over the disfiguring "cut" of the village modiste. A collar of the same stuff as the dress, standing up round the girl's white throat, had been ornamented by Velvet. She had covered it first with crimson silk (a bit of which remained after the making of a cushion for a bazaar), and she had covered this collar again with cheap black lace. Besides this, Velvet had pinned a few delicate ivy leaves to the front of her gown.She stood before the murky looking-glass which was on her deal toilet-table, and she wondered if she were really plain or at least good-looking."I wish that I were beautiful—quite beautiful. All the girls in story-books are either lovely or else they become so. I fear I sha'n't become so. My face is insignificant. Yet"—here she caught a certain gleam in the reflection of her own eyes which contradicted what she had said of herself—"if—if only I were free to speak—if I might be myself, if I had nobody to fear—I should be almost handsome," she said, aloud."I wish I were somebody. I am nobody—nobody at all. I might be somebody if I went to a place where people did not know that I was found, when I was two years old, sitting on the step of the work-house at Yarrow Leas, one awfully bitter morning."When they opened the gates the snow was falling fast; and I was howling, they have told me, just like, a dog howls when somebody is going to die. I was dressed in a black velvet pelisse lined with fur. I had a fur cap on my head, and pretty boots on my feet. All my underclothes were nice. But from that day to this nobody has ever found out one thing concerning me, nor concerning the wicked creature who put me there."Even if it were my own mother, and I saw her to know her, I would—yes, I would go close to her, look her in the face, and say: 'You are a wicked, wicked creature!'"Velvet spoke aloud, for she was the sole occupant of Jasmine Cottage at the moment, Miss Pringle having gone over to the general shop-keeper's to tea.Velvet clinched her hand and rehearsed her part in that scene in the future which would probably never be enacted in real life. Something in her own pose and expression reflected in the murky glass caught her attention, fired her fancy, even awoke her ambition.Twice only in her life had Velvet seen a play. On one occasion she had been taken to Yarrow Leas by a Mrs. Pratt, a sister of the village shop-keeper's wife.This Mrs. Pratt had invited Sarah, the eldest daughter of the family; and Sarah, expressing a wish for the companionship of a girl of her own age, Mrs. Pratt invited Velvet Snow, as the girl had been named in the parish books—Velvet, from the material of her dress, and Snow, from the fact of her having been left at the work-house gate in a snow-storm.A traveling company of some ability had been amusing the inhabitants and visitors of Yarrow Leas for some nights by a representation of that play called "Janet Pride;" and Velvet had been entranced, enraptured, fired with a wild, and some would have said a weak, ambition to go and do likewise—namely, "to act" Janet Pride as Miss Lightfoot acted it.Since then she had seen the same actress in Tom Taylor's "Sheep in Wolf's Clothing." How wonderful to the girl had seemed the versatility of the clever woman who could simulate such totally different characters!Now, when Velvet caught the reflection of her own impassioned face and dramatic pose in that miserable toilet-glass, a conviction, an inspiration, awoke within her."I could act if I had the chance," she said—"act so that all the people should laugh or weep with me—listen to me, hang on my words. Oh, yes, I could—I could—I could! I may be a base-born brat, as Miss Pringle so often tells me that I am; I may come from the very scum of those dreadful London slums which Mrs. Hibbit's parish magazine speaks so much about. I ought to be thankful and so on, first to the work-house people, and next to Miss Pringle, and even to Ann, which I am not—no, not—not a bit grateful, low, poor as I am, work-house brat as she so often says; fearful temper of miserable pride and vanity, as Mrs. Hibbit calls me—all that



and more—worse. Still, I could act—oh, I could act! I should love it if I never earned as much at if as would give me enough to eat. I should love it if I had to sleep on a plank bed, as they do in the prisons; if only I could show the people what I feel, and make them feel with me." Velvet had grown flushed with the excitement of the mere thought, and when she saw her red cheeks and shining eyes, she said: "I am not ugly—I am even pretty. Yes, I will—I will be an actress, if only for a year, if I have to die of cold and want at the end of it!"All this time there was a dash of bitterness in her heart on account of Captain Stanford's broken promise. She felt that if he liked her at all his liking was of a weak and shallow sort. She felt this, but she would not acknowledge it even to herself."I must go now, I suppose," she said, at last; so she put on her neat Sunday bonnet of black straw trimmed with red ribbon, and her very shabby jacket, and then she set out in the fast-gathering dusk of the wintery afternoon for the rectory.The Reverend Mr. Hibbit was a man of liberal mind and warm heart. He most sincerely pitied desolate Velvet Snow, and he had detected in this girl an intelligence which had astonished and delighted him when she came to his children's classes at the rectory, for the rector examined all the village school children six times a year at his own house. Velvet had attended the village school, and had quickly put herself in advance of all the other girls. Struck with the thoughtfulness of the child's answers, the good rector took Velvet under his especial care. He taught her French with one or two other intelligent children, giving her lessons twice a week. He lent her books, which she not only read but studied earnestly, and as she grew older, he lent her still more advanced works. During the winter it was his custom to invite all the village school children to tea and supper at the rectory. The younger ones came first, and were well entertained with tea, buns, a magic-lantern, a Christmas-tree, plum-cake, oranges, biscuits, and lemonade. Another night came girls from twelve to fifteen, who were encouraged to act charades, sing, and even dance, while one of the rector's daughters played for them on the school-room piano, Afterward came the treat for the elder girls. This was a well-spread tea-table with muffins, preserves, and other dainties, and afterward the rector's daughters sung and played for their amusement, and the good rector read aloud from the works of Dickens, Thack-



eray, Tennyson, and he intended to proceed, to Carlyle, Macaulay, and Ruskin.Mrs. Hibbit strongly disapproved of all this; but it was one of the rector's "fads," as she called it, this desire to educate and refine the masses; and he stood firm to his colors and refused to relinquish what gave him such delight, and, as he believed, benefited others.Behold Velvet, then, walking along, shuddering a little in the keen, cold wind, for she had no other wrap than her very shabby jacket aforesaid to protect her.She was in a narrow lane, with high hedges on either side. Presently she heard the sound of wheels behind her, and she drew close to the hedge and stood still so as to allow the vehicle to pass in safety.The lane was very narrow. Round a bend in the road dashed a dog-cart, in which were seated two men.Her quick eyes recognized them at once—Mr. Roland Stanford and Martin, one of the gamekeepers, returning from a day's shooting with their game and their guns."Halloo!" said Roland, "go and open the gate—the next one that leads into the park—do you hear?"Now, Roland had that manner of giving an order which sets proud spirits on their mettle, and makes rebel blood to boil in rebel veins.Velvet had inherited rebel's blood from some unknown ancestor. Neither the harsh discipline of the work-house, nor the tyranny of Miss Pringle, had been able to tame it. A spirit of insubordination awoke in her when the young gentleman called to her as if she had been his vassal.She stood still, as though she had been part of the hedge; immovable as a lamp-post, as it struck Roland."Do you hear? Are you deaf? Go and open the gate—don't stand staring like a muff. Are you out of your wits?"He drew rein as he spoke, and his voice lost its usual aristocratic tone of languor."I am not a bit out of my wits; but I am not your slave."Roland broke into a laugh. He was, it seemed, amused, yet he was infinitely annoyed."If you were not such a strapping wench," he said, "I would lay my whip about you, but you are too big to beat; still, I will have you punished for your insolence, never fear; .I don't forgive these things.""I will never forgive you, depend upon it, for speaking to me as if I were a slave.""Ha! ha! ha! Why, the creature is a lunatic, isn't she, Martin? Get down then, you, and open the gate."Martin leaped down; he took no notice of Velvet, but ran on toward the gate. Roland raised his whip and slashed it in the air."You shall be punished for this insolence, girl," said Roland. "I will let the woman you live with know, and I'll complain to the rector.""Mind you tell him the truth, then I sha'n't mind," said passionate Velvet, recklessly.Roland did not condescend to answer; he drove away, and as the sound of the wheels of his trap died in the distance, Velvet felt that she had made a mistake in seeking a quarrel and manufacturing an enemy.Scarcely any of the humbler sort of people liked the heir to Stanford Hall. She knew that; she knew how haughty and supercilious Roland was. With what an air he walked up the aisle in church, and how he looked on the people in the free seats, and others, as if they were beings of a different species!She remembered how that, a few Sundays ago, a little boy had asked her in her class in Sunday-school, where she always taught, if Mr. Roland Stanford would not be too proud to go to heaven with the other people, and if they would not have to give him a grander place."Hateful monster! said passionate Velvet to herself. "Because he is rich, and fine, and an 'heir' to a title, he thinks the people under him of no more account than the cattle in the fields—not nearly so important as his thorough-bred hunters! How different from the other cousin!"Velvet had now arrived at a small gate which led into the shrubberies of Stanford Park, and soon she was in the laurel-walk close to that frozen pond whereon Donald had skated so marvelously the afternoon before. It was now quite dusk, and the place looked eerie and weird; the moon was getting up, pale and sickly, in the cold heaven.Stay! was that the sound of a footstep just in advance of her? The path wound and twisted, and the evergreens grew high; thus, whoever was walking in advance of Velvet was out of her sight. She had not the least physical fear of tramps or ruffian footpads. She would have laughed fearlessly in the faces of highwaymen, had any such demanded her money, and she would have told them that she had never possessed a shilling of her own in her life; that, except for a much-grudged shelter, she was as homeless in the sense of pos-



session as the very winter robins who came hopping on men's window-sills when the world was white with snow.But Velvet was dreamy, imaginative, even tinged with superstition. Suppose that presence that was walking in front of her should be something uncanny?She shuddered at the thought.She had to cross an exposed part of the park as soon as she emerged from the laurel path; then she must see this creature, if it were human.She hastened on, and her heart beat fast. Mr. Roland Stanford had threatened her with punishment. Suppose he had—in vengeance—sent somebody to waylay her—beat her?She had an altogether unreasonable antipathy to that young gentleman; she considered him "capable of anything."Still, she was a simpleton to be afraid of a person who was not following her, but walking before her.Suppose she stood still and allowed yonder disquieting presence to get far ahead?Acting upon this suggestion of her fears, she stood still; the person ahead of her on the frozen path stopped also; not a step sounded. The moon came out with a sudden brightness from behind a cloud; a chill, biting, freezing wind swept over the laurel-trees; they seemed to shudder and shrink as they bent down in it.No, that person did not go on.Velvet began to hurry forward now; the creature in front hurried also; at last there only lay a few yards between Velvet and the open park; the path wound sharply round dust there, or she must have seen the pedestrian, but she heard no footsteps.The person was waiting for her, then?"A beggar—a beggar," she said to herself. "I have two-pence in my pocket to buy marking-cotton. I will give it to the person and hurry on."She went forward; hastily turned the corner, There stood the form of a woman under a leafless elm, at the end of the laurel-walk—a form wrapped in a shawl—this shawl went over her head. Velvet had an uncontrollable fear of looking at the face of this woman. What did she expect to see? Something fearsome, a horrible mask, a death's-head, even a headless phantom, carting its head in its hand, would not have seemed at variance with the desolation of the place.Velvet had read many translations of fantastic German stories and poems, and all of these sprung into her mind at once.The woman leaned with her back against the tree. Velvet hoped to pass unnoticed behind her. To her horror, however, the creature suddenly darted forward, intercepting her path, and standing right before her, still with her shawl over her head."Where are you going so late, Velvet Snow?"Oh, that voice! how awful it sounded in the ears of terrified Velvet!—a cultivated voice, but too deep to belong to any woman. Surely this was a man in disguise.Velvet trembled so that she could not speak, and the woman, or whatever it was, broke into a most shrill, unnatural laugh."You are afraid, eh?" she said, still in that deep voice of hers, which sounded masculine. "Afraid, eh? Do you love Miss Pringle, where you live? Is life
"All sugar and spice,
And all that's nice?'
as the nursery rhyme says. Ah! ha! ha! ha!"The laugh sounded wicked."Please let me pass," said Velvet."Not yet—not yet. I want to ask you some questions. Do you think the young man who skates so very well is in love with you?""How dare you!" cried Velvet. "Let me pass—let me pass!"She was no longer so much afraid. This creature was only a woman after all, and perhaps no stronger, if so strong, as Velvet herself."I sha'n't till you answer some questions. Do you ever go up to the Hall yonder?""No.""I don't believe you," said the woman."Let me pass!" cried Velvet."There are three bachelors, are there not?" pursued the strange woman, counting on her fingers—"three bachelors—three mighty fine gentlemen!""Let me pass!" was all that Velvet would say."I heard you answer one of them as such a fellow should be answered, just now in the lane. You did not see me, but I saw you; and, oh! how I laughed when you cheeked him! You did round on him, did you not?""Let me pass, please.""Not yet. I never mean to let you pass out of my sight.""Do you know who I am?"The question came eagerly from Velvet's lips on the sudden spur of the moment; but the shrill laugh of the woman in the shawl rang out upon the keen wintery air."Do I know who you are? Do I? Do I not? How should a beggar-woman know such a thing? You may be a princess, stolen at your birth; you may belong to a ducal house; you may he the true heiress to a kingdom, eh?""I hope I am—to the kingdom of heaven!" said Velvet.She spoke with a reverential awe, looking up into the bright, cold English sky as she spoke, with clasped hands."Are you saying your prayers?" asked the woman, sharply.And Velvet answered simply:"Yes.""What are you praying for?""To be saved from my enemies," the poor child answered.Then the woman started aside."Go up to the rectory," she said, "and tell the parson that you have met a lunatic, and you may give him this note from me. That is my real business with you."As the woman spoke, she held a small envelope toward Velvet Snow.CHAPTER X.VELVET instinctively seized the letter and secured it in her pocket. An odd feeling awoke in her. Was it attraction toward this woman, or an intense repugnance? Chiefly the latter, surely, for the woman had mocked her cruelly. Still, she would have liked to question her—to ask her if she could tell her anything of her unknown parents. And at last Velvet did venture to ask her, for the stranger still stood under the bare branches of the great elm, her shabby shawl enveloping her heart and shoulders."I believe," said Velvet, slowly, "that you know a great deal about my parents."The strange female listened in silence to this remark, and this silence convinced Velvet that her conjecture was correct—that she had struck home to the woman's conscience.She waited in desperate impatience for her answer. It came slowly:"I do know something, but nothing that would give you pleasure. Your father was a miserable coward, a ferocious ruffian!"Velvet's heart beat to suffocation. In a moment her quick


brain had woven a sad, disgraceful story. She saw her father, a scoundrel of the worst type—a forger, a thief, a burglar; her mother a forlorn and fallen woman; her father sentenced to penal servitude. Her mother—drunken, reprobate, desperate —bringing her child (the offspring of her unhallowed union with a scoundrel) to the doorstep of the work-house in the remote country town, and leaving her there to the tender mercies or cold charities of the world. And this woman, as bad as either of these people, had been a companion of theirs—one of themselves.Thus, her mind filled by the images of this ideal convict father, this drunken mother, Velvet was moved to say, in a voice of passionate fervor, clasping her hands and looking toward the woman:Oh, tell me that they are dead! Both—both dead! My ruffian father and my cruel mother!""No; they are both alive!" the woman answered; "but you need not fear; neither of them wants you. Neither of them will ever claim you.""If they did," said Velvet, vehemently, "I should spurn them as if they were the meanest vipers that crawl, especially the woman who is my mother. Oh, you don't know how I hate that cruel monster when I think of her. In all the pretty stories I have read of children who have lost their mothers without having known them, the child, whether boy or girl, had dreamed beautiful dreams of the unknown mother. In these dreams they have felt their kisses on their lips. They have fancied her singing in the choirs of heaven, singing sweet psalms and praying for her little one upon the earth. I never—never had one sweet dream nor one kind thought of that female monster whom the law would call my mother, and who left me on the work-house steps."The coarse laugh of the woman in the shawl rang out harshly on the night air. It was a long shout of pitiless mockery.Velvet rushed off to get away from the sound of it. An idea which ripened into a conviction sprung into her mind. Yonder mocking creature—yonder woman, whose face she had not seen, must be, was her mother."I know it—I know it—I know it! Yes, without being told of it. She is my mother, and she will publish the news in this place, and those who only taunted me before will contemn me. The very moment that people find out the truth, I will run away forever and ever and ever. Fancy his knowing who was my mother—a creature like that! I am glad I


spoke so to her; she laughed, but she felt it; something in my own soul tells me she felt it. It stung her. She has not a heart—no, but she still has vanity, self-love, and these were wounded when I spoke, as I did, and here is her horrible letter. Shall I fling it away? What can she have said to the rector? Has she told him who I am—that I am her child? Yes, she has told him, I believe, so that I will tell him first everything; he is always good; he will not despise me."Velvet hastened across the park, reached the road at the other side, and after ten minutes' walk she stood in the front garden of the rectory, a picturesque, gable-fronted house clothed in summer and autumn with a magnificent Virginian creeper.Velvet went under the porch and rang. She had seen lights in the windows, and when she stood in the hall she heard the tinkle of tea-cups. She smelled the toasting of muffins, and she knew that in the large morning-room a number of the elder girls, former pupils of the school, and several pupil-teachers and others, were assembled.She could hardly wait to take off her hat and jacket, and hang them up in the anteroom, before she said, in an excited whisper, to the maid:"I want to see the rector. I have something most important to tell him."The maid, a neat young woman, with a pale face and a white cap, stared blankly at Velvet."I must see him!" the impulsive girl said, speaking with an earnestness that there was no resisting."Stay here, then," she said, "and I'll call him."Thus it came to pass that, before Velvet had stood two minutes longer in the little carpetless anteroom, the step of the good rector was heard approaching. He entered spectacled, mild, surprised, not at all cross."Well, Velvet, what is this important business? A private telegram from the Russian court, eh?""No, Mr. Hibbit; it's—it's about myself. May I speak where nobody will hear?""Certainly; come this way;" and he led her down a passage, and into a cozy room at the end of it, which was his sanctum. There were well-filled book-shelves, a rather low fire, a large writing-table, with a lamp on it burning dimly. This lamp the rector turned up. "Now, then, what is this great news, Velvet?" said he.And thereupon Velvet told her story in a somewhat excited and extravagant fashion."And I feel sure, quite sure, Mr. Hibbit," she said, when she came to the end of it, "that that woman is my wicked mother.""Nonsense!" said the rector, calmly.It is always easy for us to be calm in judging of the affairs of others."Give me this letter," he said, quietly; " I think I shall be able to tell you who this poor woman is."As he spoke, he broke the seal of the letter and read it through, holding it close to his spectacles and in the full light of the lamp.Velvet watched his quiet face anxiously. At last he broke into a little laugh. "Most extraordinary thing!" he said."Is she my mother?" Velvet asked in a deep, tragic tone that would have "made her fortune" on the stage."That I can't tell you; but I should certainly say not. This woman is a clever person, who has been ruined simply by the evil of drink, by her own confession."Now, the worthy rector was a moderate drinker; he did not approve of total abstainers, except in the case of habitual drinkers; still, he had an absolute horror of drunkenness in all its forms, and anybody wishing to enlist his sympathies would have had a great chance of doing so by pleading past sins of inebrity and present desire to reform and redeem one's character."This woman," said the rector, touching the letter, "is a reformed drunkard, and she wishes me to find her a situation as servant in a good family. She gives me the name of a clergyman whom I know as reference as to her character and honesty; but she has been ill in a hospital at Bristol for ten months. This poor thing is a creature to be pitied, not to be hated, Velvet."Velvet felt relieved; and yet, though she seemed to acquiesce in all the rector said, she was not convinced.How did she know my name, and everything about me, Mr. Hibbit? And she said that my parents were alive, and that my father was a scoundrel.""I believe she picked up your name and history in the village, where she tells me that she has been lodging at the cobbler's for a week; and hearing of ,the pupil-teachers' party, and that you were going, she followed you in order to make you take this letter. You say that you asked her first if she knew who you were, and that put the love of mischief into her head, and she did it, as they say, 'for a lark.' But


now, Velvet, put the thought of this poor woman out of your head, and go and have your tea."Velvet obeyed; but although the rector that night read out some of the choicest of Charles Lamb's essays to the assembled girls, and although his daughters played duets from some of the more melodious Italian operas, arranged for violin and piano, Velvet hardly realized a single sentence of Elia's pleasant philosophy; and though the music cheered her, it did not soothe her irritated nerves.A supper of cold roast sirloin, followed by mince pies, was enjoyed by the whole party; then Velvet set out on her return home, accompanied by two or three girls whose homes were near her own. Since it was late, they avoided Stanford Park, and went round the long way by the high-road.CHAPTER XI.DURING the days that followed his visit to the George Hotel, at Yarrow Leas, Captain Stanford gave no more thought to the promised skating lesson, and to Velvet Snow, than if that young villager had never existed.Donald was desperately in love, and how to win the heart of his enchantress was the one thought and desire of his soul."I have asked the Vernons over to afternoon tea here on Thursday," he said, suddenly, to his uncle, one evening as he sat with him after dinner.Roland was at a hunt-dinner in the neighborhood."Asked the Vernons? Who are the Vernons?""Don't you know the young ladies who came here after one had been"—Donald felt guilty, and coughed slightly—"been thrown from her horse?""Ah, yes; now I recollect. What sort of people are they?""Their uncle is a clergyman, who has taken the Raggan; their cousin, his son, is John Vernon, a Q.C.—wonderfully clever fellow.""Oh, indeed! Have they brought introductions?""No; they don't want to visit—at least, the men don't; but the young ladies—it's so awfully slow and dull for them! I want to show them the house and the picture-gallery, and some little kindnesses," Donald went on, speaking with much confusion of manner."Well, we must be civil, of course, to everybody," said Sir Huntly, "but you must take care. Don't, for Heaven's


sake, get entangled! Don't make either of these girls fancy that you are in love with her, for instance.""Suppose that I were in love with one of them?" said Donald, impetuously."Indeed I will not for a moment suppose anything so absurd!" said the handsome, middle-aged baronet, with a dignified air. "You have nothing but what I allow you, and you own three hundred a year in land, which, in these times, is likely to dwindle to less than a third in money value. A wife who rides and hunts will want five hundred a year to spend on her clothes and her horses—more, in fact."Captain Stanford sighed very heavily.With what pitiless logic—what unanswerable logic of facts—his uncle cut down his wild, feverish hopes! Ah! there was nothing but despair before him—he felt it."Well, they must come, and we must treat them well, as you have asked them," said Sir Huntly. "But don't introduce me. Say I am a recluse—say anything you like in reason, but don't introduce me. I don't wish to make the acquaintance of these people.""Obtuse, stupid old man!" said Donald to himself, in scorn of his uncle's, fifty and odd years of mortal life. "Fancy shutting himself off from a chance of seeing such a face as Bethel's! Why, she would make the fortune of any artist if she sat to one! Nobody has really lived who has not seen Bethel's face and listened to her voice!"These rhapsodies did not express one half of the passion that was consuming Donald Stanford.Such idolatrous love is unwholesome, one had almost said insane; yet there was no taint of insanity in the warm young blood of Donald.It was rather that in Bethel's yellow-brown eyes there larked a spell impossible to account for on the mere hypothesis that the said eyes were beautiful in shape, lovely in color, wonderful in depth and clearness.They were the eyes that haunt a man's pillow and look at him all through the fevered dreams of the night, pleading, questioning, loving one moment, the next flashing with scorn or anger, or brilliant in a pitiless mockery.Donald was beginning to find all the "uses of the world" which did not bear reference to his divinity "stale, flat, and unprofitable." He could hardly have told himself how he got through those days and nights which lay between him and the Thursday afternoon.He was sensible of an intense desire to keep Roland out of


the way, not to allow him to see Bethel until—until when? Not until the words had been spoken which were to bind this young man and this maiden to each other till death should them part.Donald believed that if he won the love of Bethel Vernon, and she once promised to be his wife, that she would be faithful and "true as the needle to the pole."The hours swept by, and Thursday afternoon arrived.If he had possessed the power of ordering a fine day, he could not have had pleasanter English weather at that time of the year; the frost had broken, the ice had melted, the wind had veered from north-east to north-west, the sun shone, the heaven was blue as turquois.Sir Huntly had gone away, as he had threatened, and Roland was scampering after the hounds, which were having a fine run through the common lands and coppices on the other side of Ellsmere.Donald had the house to himself. He had invited no lady to act as hostess; he did not wish for women's prying eyes, women's pertinent remarks; the less he saw, in fact, of any other human beings at this time, save only Bethel Vernon, the better pleased was the young captain.As for the preparations he had made for the reception of his guests, he had enlisted the sympathies and co-operation of the housekeeper; and he had every reason to feel proud of the room where the tea was awaiting the arrival of the Vernon family, a charming apartment called the tulip-room, a square drawing-room leading out of the large hall.This room was paneled in oak, and the carvings of the high mantel-shelf, the cornice, the cabinets, all represented tulips of various sizes—some close shut, as when the summer dew has fallen and the summer sun has set, some partly open, some full blown—tulips everywhere, mingled with narcissi, daffodils, and other spring flowers.The floor was polished oak. In the center glowed a costly Persian carpet of the brightest mingled colors—rose, amber, and deep sapphire, harmonized with cinnamon-brown, gold, and amethyst. The furniture was nondescript; chairs light and heavy, fantastic, rich, and simple, were placed here and there, upholstered each in silk or plush of one or other of the colors found in the carpet. The curtains were of gold-colored satin tied with thick cords of gold. The windows were open; a great fire went flaming up the wide, old-fashioned chimney; fresh, sweet-scented flowers stood in vases of dark-blue faïence on the cabinets, side-tables, and brackets. A table placed


near the fire was laid for tea; the viands prepared might have tempted the fairies from Titania's kingdom to come and feast right merrily.Donald thought first of Bethel—next, of all that insignificant section of human kind, "the other people in the world."At last—at last he hears the sound of carriage-wheels, and he runs out to the porch, pale with emotion. Suppose—suppose that she should not arrive? Suppose only that pale Jane and the Cousin John, whom he did not like, should present themselves, could he be polite to them?But he was not put to the test. A smart hired carriage, from the George Hotel, drove up to the steps of the terrace, and there descended from it an old gentleman and two young ladies.John Vernon had not chosen to come out to afternoon tea. How delighted Captain Stanford was at his absence!Jane wore a fashionable bonnet and a long black cloak. Bethel's bonnet was gray, with pale pink plumes. She wore a long gray cloak trimmed with gray fur, and she carried a large bouquet of pink orchids in her small, gloved hands; the gloves were of a gray kind, with fur cuffs. They were a poem in themselves, Donald thought.It never struck him that these girls had been in a hurry to cast off their mourning garb. Nothing that could militate in the very slightest degree against Bethel Vernon ever did strike him at this period of his life. He hardly knew what he said in greeting to the old gentleman and the young ladies. He was in a seventh heaven, an enchanted country; and so, indeed, was his divinity.Bethel looked in rapture at the beautiful old hall, seen by daylight: the oak carvings, the family portraits, the winding sweep of the grand staircase, the magnificent window of stained glass; and when she entered the pretty tulip-room, with its scent of spring flowers, its oak floor, its dazzling, priceless Eastern carpet, its satin curtains, she stood still, and heaved a deep sigh of ecstasy."Oh, I have dreamed of just such a room as this!" she said. " It is not like anything I have seen in real life. Look, Jane, is it not divine?"A pang so acute that it resembled physical pain quivered through the soul of Donald. Why was he not the heir? Oh, why was not he the heir? Then he could have whispered in the ears of Bethel, the words:"All shall be yours one day, dearest!"Jane made the tea very prettily, pouring it out of the costly Dresden teapot, daintily fingering the Dresden teacups, the Queen Anne silver sugar-basin and cream-jug. There were relays of hot muffins, all sorts of rich cakes, and hot-house strawberries, and cream.When the tea was over, Donald led his guests through the show-rooms of the Hall; the great drawing-room, grand, gorgeous long, and wide enough for a drawing-room in a king's palace; the state bedroom, where George IV had slept when he paid a visit to Sir Huntly's grandfather; then the picture-gallery; but the dusk was beginning to close in by that time.Behthel was in a state of rapture from the very first moment that she set foot in the house."Lovely! Exquisite! Noble! How happy you must be, Captain Stanford, living in such a delicious place! Think of us poor creatures at that most dreadful Raggan! Oh, how I wish you had a nice mother, or a nice sister, or—a nice wife, who would invite me to come and visit her here!""Cruel!" said the young man, passionately. "Oh, how can you say such things?"Those two had fallen a little behind the others; they were walking along the picture-gallery, and acting on the mad impulse of the moment, Donald took Bethel's hand and led her into the recess of a window looking down into the gardens."Listen!" he said in a deep voice. "I—I love you so that I am almost mad. I know how soon it is to speak, but if I don't have some hope I shall do something desperate."His voice was choked and broken by emotion.Bethel Vernon felt her power, and rejoiced in it. She gave a little coquettish laugh—a dash of cold water, as it were, on his flaming words."It is quite absurd, Captain Stanford," she said; "it is impossible you could care all that for me so soon! I am an awful temper, they say, and so selfish, and so spoiled.""If you had the coldest heart and most violent temper that were ever found in mortal, I would still have my right hand chopped off if I might win you for my wife!" said the infatuated Donald.Bethel was not surprised. The rector's son, in the town where she first lived, had been just as desperate about her as Donald was.Several of the grammar-school boys had talked of drowning themselves for her sweet sake, and had expressed that tragic sentiment in verse at valentine time.Then John, poor, ugly John, whom she disliked, but whose promised wife she was! Well, John hadn't said half as much as any of the others; but then John looked more, felt more than all the rest put together—she was sure of it, and if she did not marry him he would kill himself.She was not surprised; she was rather pleased. She wished that Donald was the heir to Stanford Hall; but still, perhaps he had several thousand a year of his own?"I like you very much," she said, sweetly and suddenly, and she pat her hand into Donald's, "only it must be a secret. Listen: Cousin John is in love with me, and—so jealous; if he knew, he would kill you; I know he would."Donald was sensible of a certain cold shiver as the girl spoke; and yet, acting like an emboldened lover, he had caught that enchanting Bethel for one maddening moment to his heart, and pressed his lips to hers in all the frantic rapture of a stolen kiss."He would kill you!" Bethel repeated; "he is so sullen, so jealous; but, you see, he will be going away next week.""Thank Heaven, my own life!""And when he is gone, you will come and see us at the Raggan, and we shall come here? I will never—never marry John—I almost hate him!""Bethel, where are you?"It was the voice of Jane who had come back to look for her sister."Oh! I was looking at the garden," said Bethel, coolly; as she spoke, she walked out of the recess with calmness, and an air of being a little bored. "I can't see things in this light," she said, pettishly, "and Captain Stanford was pointing out the view of the park beyond there—"Donald thought her change of manner very clever, yet there mingled with the thought a feeling of pain."She who could deceive one could deceive another," said some good and wise spirit in his ear; but his ears were dead to these suggestions.They all went down to the fire, and Donald insisted on Mr. Vernon tasting some rare burgundy.The invalid gentleman felt a little uncomfortable at the absence of Sir Huntly, and he made a mental resolve not to repeat his visit unless the baronet should himself invite him."You have indeed a charming house, Captain Stanford; some of those pictures in the gallery have a wide-world fame.""We have two Murillos, and one genuine Veronese," said Donald."It must make a man worship old traditions to be the scion of a house like this?"The old gentleman did not say the heir; he knew that Donald was not the heir."I am believer in a landed gentry, and in the good influence they must have on the country," said Captain Stanford."Assuredly theirs is a great power; and, taken as a class, they use it well and wisely," returned Mr. Vernon.A few more platitudes were expressed on both sides, and then the moment of parting came—that dear, delightful, painful moment when Donald placed Bethel in the carriage, secretly squeezed her hand, and felt—oh! rapture of raptures—the pressure returned!She loved him—she loved him—she loved him! That was the song of his heart on that mild winter evening, when the wind blew soft and damp from the north-west, and the shadows hid the carriage in which Bethel sat, though he could hear the whirring and rumbling of its wheels for a long time after it was out of sight.She loved him; she should be his wife, his own. They twain should walk through life hand joined in hand. A long, blissful life, as he dreamed of it, leading on from youth to the full ripened time of manhood and womanhood, and so gently descending into the vale of years, still hand clasped in hand. Then the snows of age would fall gently upon their heads, and hush them to sleep, that last solemn sleep of the just, when they should lie side by side, not divided even in death.This was the dream of Donald Stanford on that night when the north-west wind blew so softly, and he listened to the sound of the carriage-wheels growing fainter and fainter in the distance.CHAPTER XII.Six weeks have rolled into the past since that winter evening when the wind had blown from the north-west, and Donald had listened, as in a dream, to the sound of the retreating wheels of Bethel's carriage.Since last we looked upon the place called the Raggan, a great change has come over the desolate house and melancholy gardens. The lauristinus bushes in the drive were still in full flower; the lawn in front of the house was smooth-shaven and rolled, and the large bed in the center was bright


with crocuses—white, purple, and gold—which have been transplanted, doubtless, from some nursery grounds. The house itself looked cheerful; all the windows shone like crystal; curtains of rich crimson draped those of the lower room, and boxes, filled with gay spring flowers, were on the sills of the upper ones. The dining-room windows opened to the garden; a fire was blazing cheerfully in the low grate.Bethel Vernon sat before it with her pretty, slippered feet upon the fender; she was reading a novel. Bethel seemed exquisitely attired; but as we have said before, it was not necessary for this young lady to be attired in the newest fashion in order to appear stylish and graceful.She only wore a gown of claret-colored cloth, made plain and high to the throat, and a few white crocuses, fastened by a golden brooch shaped like an arrow; her hair was reared high like a coronet on her small head.The furniture at the Raggan was shabby in itself; but new chintz covers, new carpets, flowers, brackets, books, had done wonders for the gloomy rooms.Bethel sat still and read. She had not anything else to do that morning.The family did not live at much expense; they kept two servants—a man and a woman.Jane, who was domesticated, was at the present moment in the kitchen making the pastry.The Reverend Mr. Vernon had not yet left his room; he seldom did until the afternoon.Cousin John was in Dublin.None of the county people had as yet called on the family at the Raggan.Sir Huntly Stanford had not left his card or done anything toward cultivating the acquaintance of the Vernons.Bethel resented this; she was anxious to conciliate the baronet, and to obtain a footing at the Hall; and although she was actually secretly pledged to become the wife of Captain Stanford, she had never happened to see either the baronet or Roland the heir."I wonder if the old man will be very angry when he finds it out?" said Bethel at length, speaking aloud and throwing down her book, which she did not care for. "I wish I knew him! I wish he would take a fancy to me, and adopt me, and settle five thousand a year on me, and let me marry Donald! Poor Donald!" the beauty yawned, "I wish he would not make that awful fuss about love, and real love, and lasting love, and all that stuff I can't understand it!"No, Bethel could not understand and it at all; this young lady had no capacities in her for affection, except of the very mildest sort.There was a white kitten in the house which she really had some tender feeling for; but when it came to the prosaic custom of loving uncle or sister, or even betrothed lover—the wicked little coquette had, as we know, two—she found the effort tiresome, and quite beyond her power."Dear me! I wish that something would only happen," said Bethel.She got up, walked to the window, and looked out upon the sunny lawn and the crocuses; and then, as if in answer to her wish, she heard the sound of carriage-wheels in the drive.Who could it be? It was too early for visits of ceremony. Donald always came on horseback.Another moment, and the carriage swept round the corner and drew up in front of the Raggan. It was a plain victoria, and from it stepped a short, bustling, energetic-looking woman of middle age, attired in brown cloth and brown fur, and wearing a brown bonnet.This lady's grayish hair was braided smoothly away from a large forehead. She had an inquisitive nose, and Bethel recognized to her horror Mrs. Hibbit, the rector's wife.She rushed out to the back of the house and into a large, low-ceiled kitchen, where Jane, in a neat holland gown, and with sleeves turned very far back, stood rolling paste at the kitchen-table."She's come!" said Bethel, excitedly. "That old horror is come! Leave the tart, wash your hands, change your gown; go to her—I won't!""Who has come?" asked Jane, her fine dark eyes opened in surprise."The old horror—the parson's wife! You know Captain Stanford told us she meant to call, and she's come. She has been shown into the dining-room, because there's no fire anywhere else.""Go and see her, and behave like a lady; pray do, Bethel.""I don't want to behave like a lady to that old thing," said Bethel, pouting."You must go to her, and be polite; you see that I can not come."Jane spoke with a certain decision.Bethel made a grimace, but finally she went along slowly


and unwillingly, and entered the dining-room, looking half shy, yet most dazzlingly lovely.Mrs. Hibbit had heard it rumored vaguely that one of the stranger girls at the Raggan was "sweetly pretty;" but she had not expected loveliness of this kind. She did not at all approve of it; penniless girls, whose fathers have not brought introductions for them into a neighborhood, have no business to be surpassingly beautiful.Mrs. Hibbit was a worldly religious lady of the severe order.Bethel, looking on her, hated her frankly, notwithstanding that she smiled upon the rector's wife that intoxicating smile of hers which set men's hearts beating fast and made the blood race in their veins.Mrs. Hibbit regarded Bethel as a flirt, almost as an adventuress; yet the middle-aged lady and the young one began to talk pleasantly of the weather and the views.This did not last long; the subject waxed thread-bare, and then Mrs. Hibbit plunged into other matters; she wished to find out the social status of these Vernons."Your father is a clergyman," she began, "and Mr. Hibbit will call on him, of course; but he has wished to give you time to settle into the house; it really looks quite bright and home-like.""My father is dead," said Bethel."Dead!" exclaimed Mrs. Hibbit, looking alarmed. "We have never heard of it.""Most likely not; he died more than a year ago," said Bethel, with a little sad sort of smile."Ah, I see! Mr. Vernon, then, is not your father?""My uncle," said Bethel."Ah! and then you and your sister came to live with him, I suppose?""Yes," said Bethel."It is an advantage to live with a clergyman of the Church of England," said Mrs. Hibbit."Is it?" said smiling Bethel."Well, certainly," the rector's wife answered; "but having no mother, no aunt, no chaperon, is a sad disadvantage.""I like it," said Bethel, with her winning smile. "I don't like elderly women, except my old nurse, who always let us do as we liked when we were children, and now she obeys us almost always.""But it's impossible for two girls as young as your sisters


and yourself to get at all into society here without somebody to chaperon you; people make remarks, you know.""People would make remarks if we had a mother, a grandmother, and two maiden aunts living here," said Bethel, sweetly."Certainly, we know that the world is censorious," responded the rector's wife; "and as that is so, you should take precautions. Advertise for an elderly lady as companion and chaperon.""I should go away if one came here," said Bethel.But Mrs. Hibbit was not dismayed. She delighted in setting people right, giving gratuitous advice, and putting her finger into the family pies of her neighbors.Bethel was such a mere stripling, such a pert chit, who ought to have been at school, that she put aside all ceremony and spoke her mind right plainly.You will probably see that none of the ladies of the neighborhood will allow their daughters to associate with you, unless you have an older lady to go about with you, my dear.""But I don't want to associate with people's daughters," said Bethel." My dear, you are very young, and you don't know what you are saying. You will find it dull in the summer if you have no friends. I have daughters, but I could not let them visit you, or ride or walk with you alone.""Then if you won't, I can't help it, Mrs. Hibbit.""But I shall speak to your uncle," said Mrs. Hibbit. "At least Mr. Hibbit will. You see, my dear, as the wife of the rector of the parish, I have a sort of privilege. I can give advice and speak my mind to young creatures like yourself, for your own good.""Thank you," said Bethel, stifling a yawn. "I am sure its very kind of you."Mrs. Hibbit had heard it rumored that Captain Stanford had been met in the lanes riding with the Vernon girls. She wished to find out if these rumors were correct."You know some of the Stanfords, don't you?" she asked, suddenly.But Bethel had been expecting the question, and she heard it without a blush, without her face changing the least in expression."Oh, yes," she said, raising her lovely brows in an indifferent manner. "Why?""Because the young men are, like other young men, apt


to flirt, and then mean nothing. If I were you and your sister, I would not ride about with them.""Wouldn't you?" said Bethel."And does your uncle know it, my dear?""Know what?" asked Bethel."That you ride about with these young gentlemen.""My uncle knows that Jane and myself are ladies. Our father was a captain in a line regiment; our grandfather was a, colonel in the army. We have a good pedigree, and we do as we like, and we never do the least little thing that we are ashamed of."Bethel was smiling all the while. How innocent the child's face was—just like a way-side rose—but how clever, how very clever she was, under this mask of fresh young beauty and sweet simplicity!Mrs. Hibbit did not know what to do or say. She felt sore; she felt conquered; she felt angry; and yet she felt as if she ought to apologize to this pretty, sylph-like creature."You know, my dear," she said, "that my motive is a good and kind one. I am an old woman compared to you.""Yes," said Bethel."And so I take the liberty of telling you a few things. You think me interfering and disagreeable; now, don't you?""No," said Bethel; "it makes me laugh. I always do as I like."Oh, the quiet force with which the young girl spoke!Mrs. Hibbit was a brave woman, and an obstinate woman; but she had not a chance of turning Bethel Vernon half a step out the road she had elected to tread. She took her leave at last, and Bethel accompanied her to the front doors and talked about the crocuses.Left alone, Bethel clapped her hands, danced about, and then began to sing, in a high, clear soprano, snatches from "The Mikado."Jane came out with a grave face, and she asked what was the matter."Oh, she is the most abominable old woman in the world!" cried Bethel. "She wants to advertise for an old hag of a chaperon to live with us and prevent us from enjoying ourselves. She says she can't allow her own daughters to call on us unless we do that; but I was as insolent to her as she was to me, every bit as insolent. I gave her as good as she sent, and better.""What did you say to her?" asked Jane."Well, I forget," Bethel answered. "I always forget


conversations, and what one said, and the other answered. I know it was all impertinence and insolence, every bit of it, and I liked it. I hope she'll come again, and I will give it to her still worse.""What a thoughtless, heartless, empty-headed creature my lovely sister is!" said Jane to herself, as she went into her own room to change her holland gown for a fashionable gray cloth, in which her grave beauty—for Jane was handsome—shone forth right well.Jane Vernon's nature was as deep as Bethel's was shallow. This girl had given her whole heart's rich treasure of love unasked—given it where it was not wanted, where it was not even seen. She had no hope, not the faintest, that John Vernon, the clever barrister, man of the world, would ever give her more than the lukewarm affection of a somewhat indifferent brother. She knew that all the hopes of his soul were centered on Bethel. She knew that Bethel was ready to throw away his love as if it had been a pair of old gloves, and to break her promise to be his wife as carelessly as she would snap a thread in her needle-work. She knew that if Bethel ever became John's wife, the chances were as ten against one that she would be false to him in heart, if not in fact.Certainly it would be a marriage more likely than not to come to ruin in a divorce court, and then John Vernon would do murder.Jane loved this man even as he loved Bethel; yet she knew how thrice scorned love, and jealousy cruel as the grave, would conspire to ruin his life, and turn the generous, passionate man into a ferocious, almost irresponsible being. She was not at all selfish, and if she could have put honest love for John into the heart of her sister, she would have done it.She did try to impress a sense of honor and duty on Bethel; but, as she said herself, she might just as well have given advice to the white kitten which was Bethel's pet—the white kitten which cared for milk and fish, and for nothing else.Bethel came into her sister's room, dressed for a walk or a drive."Make haste," she said, walking about the room, "Isn't this dark-blue cloth with the plush panel lovely? And don't you like me in this blue plush hat? I have told Watkins to bring the carriage round; so make haste. If it is a shabby old victoria, we are not shabby, and the horse isn't bad; and, so we'll go.""But where?" asked Jane, in surprise."Oh, you haven't heard? Well, it's to a matinée at Yarrow Leas—a sort of concert; and there's to be some acting, amateurs—you know; some of the school-teachers from Ellsmere. They are to act a scene from 'Hamlet'—two scenes, in fact; and Captain Stanford is to be Hamlet. It's for the hospital fund, you know; and the places are half a crown. Have you any pocket-money? I have only one sov., and I want that all for my pretty, dear, dear, little self.""You never think for a moment of any one else, Bethel."Jane spoke bitterly, and Bethel laughed livelily."You are quite certain to be an old maid, Jane," she said; "you do nothing but find fault—however, you must pay the five shillings for us both. Ah, there's the postman."And she scampered out of the room, presently returning with a white, aristocratic-looking envelope in her hand—an envelope sealed with the imposing crest of the Stanfords, which name had been De Stanford in the time of the Tudors."See," said Bethel, when she had broken the seal, "two tickets for the front row of the stalls. Isn't it kind of Captain Stanford?"Jane did not answer; she was only a girl in years, and the prospect of the drive through the bright fresh morning, and then the amusement of listening to singing and seeing acting, had its attraction for her. So the two girls soon set off in their shabby victoria for the town hall of Yarrow Leas.The matinée, for some reason or caprice of the county ladies, was wonderfully well attended. Perhaps it was be-cause Captain Stanford was actually going to take the character of Hamlet in two scenes; and his Ophelia was, they said, a girl from the work-house, who had been adopted by an old lady, and educated at the village school. The Reverend Thomas Hibbit had had a great deal to do with this affair, since the proceeds were to go to the county hospital, and he himself had coached the more promising of the villagers in their parts.Rehearsals had taken place at the rectory. When Mrs. Hibbit called on the Vernons that morning, she was on thorns to know if the young ladies were going to the town hall without a chaperon, and Bethel had guessed as much; but, as we have seen, neither of them had mentioned the subject."Here we are," said Bethel, gayly, when the victoria drew up in front of the town hall.She was not in the least abashed, that most lovely creature, when she sprung upon the pavement and saw the eyes of ladies in fine carriages, and not a few eyes of the other sex also,


fixed upon her, some in undisguised admiration, some in sickly envy and silent rage."Who in the name of madness is that girl?" asked a certain young gentleman of another.The gentleman in question was on foot; he had stabled his hunter at the George; he had agreed to put in an appearance at the town hall; but the effort cost him dear. It went against the grain of this keen sportsman and man of the world to attend what he designated as a "Tomnoddy affair" like this. The young man elbowed his way right up to the entrance-door so as to be near the girl who had so wonderfully struck his fancy. As for Bethel, she had noticed the young man, and had said to herself, "He is the handsomest man over saw—that's my style."Who was he, meanwhile? Bethel had not the remotest idea, nor had the gentleman any notion who that exquisite creature was. The two young ladies found their way to the front row. Eyeglasses were put up, whispers went round; the coquettish beauty found herself an object of attraction, and her heart beat high with gratified vanity. The sisters were not on speaking terms with any of the county, so that they had not the least idea who the tall, fair young gentleman was who went and stood near the door at the left side below the platform, so that he might stare with impunity at Bethel Vernon, stroking his blonde mustache the while, and wondering who she could be.It was a case of mutual attraction—love at first sight on both sides, some would have called it; not that Bethel was any more capable of love than was Madame de Deffaud, the elderly flame of Horace Walpole, who was accustomed to declare with emphasis that she never had found it possible to love any one.The performance began with a recitation, given with some grace and fluency by a young gentleman well known to the Vernons.Donald Stanford had a taste for the stage; his ear was true, his voice was fine; he was emotional without affectation, and dignified without being cold. He gave them "Hohenlinden," that much-hackneyed, but always grand lyric of the battle-field. He was a soldier, and a brave one, and the force and fire of his delivery brought down thunders of applause.After that some young lady—a professional—sung a song from one of the lighter operas.Then came Hamlet and the Ghost; this time a young naval


officer was Hamlet, and Captain Stanford, wrapped in a cloak, was the Ghost. Then came the scene with Ophelia."Now we shall see the work-house girl," said a lady who sat behind the Vernons; "they say she is wonderful; but I don't believe in her much myself, these village wonders are so commonplace as a rule.""Quite so," answered her companion, a fast-looking man of fashion, who was staring as much as he possibly could at Bethel Vernon. "Like the village shows, the live lion is always stuffed with straw."And the lady laughed.Then there came upon the platform Donald Stanford, attired in black, as Hamlet; and Velvet, the "work-house girl," in white. The strangest thing about this piece of acting was that Velvet seemed unconscious of all the heads of men and women; the faces, many of them mocking, nearly all a trifle contemptuous; the eyeglasses, the amused smiles. She saw nobody save Donald, Captain Stanford, with whom she had gone through so many rehearsals of this part in the parlor of the rectory.Velvet Snow was dressed entirely in white, and her hair was exquisitely arranged wound in shining nut-brown coils close to her small head. The face was pale and full of a passionate yet subdued sorrow.She advanced to meet the royal lover, who had grown cold, or was going mad—which? She seemed full of grief, and the intense passion in her tones when she sunk almost on her knees at Hamlet's feet, and exclaimed, "My lord, I have remembrances of yours," touched the more emotional - of the audience deeply.She went on; she never faltered; she was not for one moment Velvet Snow, the work-house girl. She was Ophelia, pleading with her cold, sullen, half-insane lover.The "Get thee to a nunnery " of Captain Stanford was tame after the impassioned sorrow of Ophelia.Plaudits long and loud filled the town hall, but Velvet did not seem to notice them. A rapturous encore was demanded and again the white-robed Ophelia came forward; the second time was even better than the first.Ten minutes later Velvet stood in the room at the back of the platform with the other performers.The Reverend Mr. Hibbit was there, and Donald Stanford, when there entered no less a person than Mr. Roland Stanford."I say," he said, addressing his cousin, "who are those two strange young ladies in the front row? Are those the Vernons?"CHAPTER XIII.INSTANTLY Donald Stanford understood what had happened. Instinct, prescience, call it what one will—that mystical power of reading between the lines and interpreting the hieroglyphics (so to speak) of men's words, looks, and action—was his for the moment, and he knew that Roland, the cold, cynical man of fashion, had fallen in love with that face which was to Donald as the face of an angel. It was quite impossible to fence with a man like Roland, to parry his question with another, and to ask him what young ladies he was speaking of. Donald did not attempt it."Yes," he said, slowly, "those are the Vernons.""I thought so," said Roland.As he spoke, a smile crept over his lip with its fringe of blonde mustache—a smile of secret triumph. Donald understood it. It meant-well—she is beautiful enough to be worth the winning, and I will win her.Captain Stanford was very glad that he had no more acting, no more recitations to go through. He could not have put life or spirit into either. He was in a fever of unrest.Velvet Snow felt happier than she had ever been in her life, because she was filled with conscious power. The plaudits of the audience yet rang in her ears. Mr. Hibbit had praised her, and so had Captain Stanford.Sometimes it seems as if things happened on purpose to deceive us and lead us wrong.Poor young Velvet had been following a false light, or jack-o'-lantern, as the country folks call that dancing luminance which rises out of marshy grounds on wintery nights, and has before now led men and women to their deaths, tempting them over the edges of precipices and into the deep swirl of rivers.Velvet fancied, poor child! that she was sweet and lovable in the eyes of Donald Stanford. He was so very, very kind; he thought her so clever; he had been so delighted with her acting during those rehearsals at the rectory; he had walked home with her more than once in the evening; and, oh, bliss! she had taken his arm!It never entered her head that he still regarded her as being


twelve years old or so, and that he hardly ever gave her a thought when once she was out of his sight.This afternoon she had "acted superbly!" Those were the very words of the Reverend Mr. Hibbit, and Velvet felt that, with study, she might become not only a popular actress, but a great one.She was happier than she had ever been in her life.Roland had walked away, giving her a little scornful, quizzical smile. He had by no means forgotten or forgiven her rebellion against his despotism as the heir to the lord of the manor. The servile obedience of those beneath him was necessary to Roland's happiness; and the insolent little pauper, who had not only refused to obey him, but had also, in vulgar parlance, cheeked him most abominably, was named in his black books for punishment at some future day."Did she not act splendidly, that child?" said the rector to Roland.The young squire raised his eyebrows."I never saw her, I did not listen to a word the minx spoke. It's all very well, and a good thing for the hospital that the hall filled so well, but the accents and manner of these people!" Roland shrugged his shoulders. "Never ask we to admire these country shows, rector."The Reverend Mr. Hibbit took these insolent words with an imperturbable smile. He knew Roland well—at least, he thought he did; he had no love for his former pupil, only tolerant Christian charity.The matinée came to an end, and everybody went home.Roland Stanford felt enraged with his cousin for not having introduced him to that magnificent girl."He sha'n't do it now," he said to himself; "I'll introduce myself. "I'll call at the Raggan with hot-house grapes for the old man, and I'll make that girl love me before I've been twice to the house."We said that every one went home. This was not quite correct, because Roland Stanford returned to the George Hotel, and Donald was obliged to remain some time at the town hall arranging payments, etc.The two Vernons were called for by their faithful Watkins, and they soon reached home, both of them much pleased with the entertainment.They soon established themselves in the little drawing-room, where a fire was now lighted, and they whiled away the time before dinner each in her own way.Jane read the paper, Bethel nursed the kitten. Jane was


beginning to feel uncomfortable about Donald; for a very little she would have told him that Bethel was engaged to her cousin.You ought to tell Captain Stanford that you have promised to marry Cousin John," she said."I have told him," Bethel answered, snappishly; "but he takes no notice; he can't help falling in love with me—nobody can."She spoke vehemently. Her lovely color deepened, her lovely eyes flashed.Jane sighed a short sigh, then smiled, and forthwith turned the conversation into some commonplace channel.Presently the sisters heard the rumbling sound of wheels.Another moment, and Captain Stanford, mounted in his dog-cart, and with a tiny boy in buttons perched alone in the back seat, drew up in front of the Raggan."Oh, here he is!" said Bethel, carelessly.No joy-lights in her eyes at the sudden arrival of the dashing young officer, who loved her with the whole of his warm, true heart.Bethel had seen another face that day—a face that she liked better.She had heard the name of the fair-mustached gentleman who had stared at her with such greedy admiration during the acting. She knew that he was Roland Stanford, heir to the title, to the great mansion, and the big fortune.Donald came in. The eye of love is quick to read a change in the face of the beloved one, the ear of love is quick to detect a new sound in the adored voice, so that before Donald had been ten minutes in the little drawing-room, where the smart new cretonne covered the ragged damask of the chairs, he was quite sure that something was wrong with Bethel Vernon.Jane left the secretly engaged lovers alone for a few moments while she went to hurry the dinner, which was to be at six."Bethel, darling," began Donald, "what is the matter? Have I offended you?""Oh, nonsense!" returned Bethel, stifling a yawn. "I am tired of this awful dullness. I want to go to a ball. I think it's abominable that your proud old uncle doesn't call upon Uncle James. He thinks we are not as good as he is, and our family is as old as yours, every bit. Ask Uncle James.""My dearest life, Bethel, I don't think you can realize


how much I love you. You are far dearer to me than my life."She received this announcement with a little chuckling sound that might have been a laugh or an expression of half-angry impatience."I will make my uncle call," said Donald."I hope you will. I am to marry you, you say. Well, then, I ought to he invited to the house, and your uncle ought to give a ball.""It shall be so, my darling," said Donald, fondly; "and now, Bethel, am I not to have a kiss?"She was sitting on a low stool in the full blaze of the fire, and the white kitten lay curled up like a ball of fur in her lap.She lifted up a lovely, discontented face toward Donald's, and his mustached lip pressed her rosy ones.At that instant a step sounded in the passage, and when Jane entered, the diplomatic Donald appeared to be admiring his own face in the chimney-glass."Will you stay and dine with us, Captain Stanford?""I should be enchanted; but they will wait for me at the Hall, and that will make Sir Huntly angry.""Horrid old thing!" pouted Bethel."You will like him when you know him," said Donald, smiling.Soon after this he took his leave; dinner followed, and afterward the evening at the Raggan set in with its usual dullness. But Bethel's marvelous eyes had done their work that day as thoroughly and completely as they ever had done since first they opened in this changing world.While Jane and her invalid uncle were engaged in a game of German whist, and Bethel was yawning over the illustrations in the "Graphic" by the side of the drawing-room fire, there came a sudden, loud, pealing ring of the front-door bell.Bethel sprung up, wide awake now."A telegram from John!" cried Jane, and she clasped her hands tightly; her face paled, a moment of breathless waiting, and Watkins, the factotum man-servant, had drawn the bolt and opened the door.A strange voice—quite a strange voice—but how was it that the hot blood rushed to Bethel's cheeks and even tingled in her ears? What small capacity lay in her for passion had awakened that very day into vigorous life. Instinctively she knew whose voice that was in the hall, and why he had called


at the Raggan; but with what excuse, in the name of wonder, had he come prepared?"It can't be the doctor, so late;" said Mr. Vernon.Watkins showed the stranger into the dining-room, then came to the drawing-room, and announced:"Mr. Roland Stanford.""Mr. Roland Stanford!" said the old gentleman. "Did he ask for me?""Yes, sir.""Show him in here," cried Bethel, starting impetuously to her feet."No, no, no! It is most likely private business," said Bethel's uncle. " Did you light the lamp, Watkins?"" Yes, sir."Mr. Vernon rose and walked with an air of courtly politeness out of one room into the other."Bethel," said Jane, looking sharply at her sister, when they were left alone, " this man is come to see you."I hope and trust he is," cried Bethel, vehemently. "Oh, if he would fall in love with me I would marry him straight off! Fancy being married to the heir of that glorious Stanford Hall!""And John?" said Jane in a mocking, angry tone."John may go to Hong Kong," answered Bethel. "Listen!" added the beauty; "uncle is going to bring him in here. Oh, I wish we had a piano. I would sing him my favorite songs."True enough, uncle did bring the heir to Stanford Hall into the cheaply furnished little drawing-room, and he introduced the stately young man to his two blushing nieces.Both of them blushed. Jane blushed for shame at Bethel's faithlessness; Bethel blushed for joy; and Roland, when he saw Bethel in that pretty gown, with her lovely hair tossed about her shoulders, as it was her whim sometimes to wear it—when he saw the bunch of golden daffodils abloom on her breast, and met her sweet, wonderful eyes, and her answering smile—he felt as intoxicated as if he had drunk much wine. He sat down, and talked of the weather and of the last meet of the hounds to Mr. Vernon; he also allowed the young ladies to learn the presumable cause of his visit at such a late hour—his first visit to the Raggan."It so happened," said Roland, addressing himself to Jane, "that I had bagged some specially fine game yesterday in Sir Mervyn Walden's coppice, and I heard to-day only from nay cousin that an invalid gentleman had taken the Raggan.


In an instant it struck me that if I told the gamekeepers to bring Mr. Vernon a brace, they would pick out the finest for their own sick friends—we always send a few to people of that kind—so I said to Sir Huntly, it's only a short ride to the Raggan, and a splendid night, and I will ride over and beg Mr. Vernon to do us the favor of accepting this brace. You see," looking now straight at Bethel, "you see it's a complete charity to take some of the game we shoot off our hands. We really don't know what to do with it, and unfortunately Mr. Vernon is not strong enough at present to shoot for himself."Mr. Vernon was in that state of health, or, rather, want of health, when a man, naturally gentle and ease-loving as he was, settles down gradually into something little removed from a nonentity. He accepted the gift politely, not without a feeble protest, but he accepted the game, and all the while he could see how transparent was this gentleman's conduct. He had come to the Raggan late at night with a tardy offering, a lame excuse, and all for the sake of—well, of one of the girls—Jane; could it be Jane?Mr. Vernon hoped so, because Bethel was the promised wife of his son John, and most certainly John would be "upset" if his cousin played him false. It was so much pleasanter to suppose Jane the attraction, that Mr. Vernon, who liked supposing pleasant things, refused to regard the young heir as an admirer, even suitor in the future, of his younger niece. Bethel knew better—so did Jane.Roland Stanford made himself very agreeable. Nobody could help being charmed with this young man when once he set to work to endeavor to please. He chattered of London society, of the opera, the pictures, the music, the books of the year. He could tell the girls stories of those celebrities whom it is the custom of so many English women to adore from a distance. He knew intimately the most brilliant actresses, the most gifted authors.Jane was much interested in books and their writers; Bethel liked to hear of the actresses, of the queen's Drawing-rooms, the gossip of the court. Her great soft eyes shone and widened.Donald never talked of those things; he did not seem to care for the tittle-tattle of high life. Countesses reckoned for little in his estimation, merely because they were countesses. Roland was different. All the trappings, and suits, and heraldry of rank were glorious in his eyes, as they were in Bethel's; his spirit was akin to hers, his conversation enchanted her. Roland sat till quite late in the little drawing-


room; he drank a glass of burgundy before he went away, and he asked if he might come again and bring some flowers from the hot-house, and some grapes? Bethel thanked him with her eyes alone; but they said far more than any mere words.Roland's horse was brought round, and he had shaken hands with all the Vernons, and soon found himself in his saddle, with his face turned toward Stanford Hall. He rode down the short drive and out into the road. In love? yes, in love with Bethel Vernon. The novelty of the sensation delighted, yet appalled him. He could not recollect ever having really made a sacrifice for another human being in his life. He had been a desperate flirt—nay, it is recorded of him that he was a dissipated young man if all were known; but he never had more than one idol, and that had been himself. Now it was different; now he felt that the moon shone more softly upon him from her throne in the heavens than she ever had shone before—the night winds had music in their voices.Sacrifice? Could he make a sacrifice for yonder girl with the yellow-brown eyes that opened on him in such sweet wonder? Yes—yes, he could and would; he would tell Sir Huntly soon, and if he were angry—well, he must get pleased again. That was how Roland settled the question with himself on that fee spring night while he rode briskly between the hedges on his way toward Stanford Hall.CHAPTER XIV.THE spring has advanced since that first most unceremonious visit of Roland Stanford to the Raggan, the buds are thick on the hawthorn hedges, the primroses are spangling the copses, and the violets are hiding in the grass. A bright April morning, the apple-trees are loaded with snowy bloom, pierced with rose-color, and Bethel Vernon stands under a large tree far down in the garden of the Raggan.She wears a gown of the same colors as the apple-blossoms, white with pink flowers; she wears a large straw hat. She looks like a Dresden china shepherdess, or like one of Watteau's maidens, only far lovelier than either of those ideals.Bethel is not alone under the apple-tree; there stands by her side a tall, graceful man in a fashionable riding-suit. This gentleman has a blonde mustache, and his name, the reader will have guessed, is—Roland Stanford."Yes, Bethel, I know you do love me; but I fear you won't do as I wish, after all, my darling."" And what is that, Roland?""Well, you see I have my uncle to please, and some busy-body has been telling him that one of us is going to marry one of the Miss Vernons right off. Nobody knows which—nobody really knows anything, except that Donald and I are always here. Donald, you know, I have humbugged; I have told him that I come to see Jane. He is like a lunatic about you.""I know he is," said Bethel, simply."Ah, Bethel, I am afraid you are a sad flirt. Haven't you made Donald believe you liked him?""Before you came," said Bethel, with a sweet frankness; "but he is so silly. Can't you get him away? Oh! how I wish his regiment was ordered to India!"She spoke with some vehemence, and clasped her hands."Bethel," said Roland, "you are a desperate flirt, but I believe you care more for me than for anybody, don't you?""A hundred times more!" said Bethel, eagerly."Well, darling, I want you to marry me, and keep it secret—live on here—let us be true to each other—but nobody must guess the truth.""It will be horrid!" said Bethel, frankly.Roland bit his lip."If we don't get married, my darling, perhaps we never shall. What is this tale about your being engaged to some Cousin John?""It's not true!" said Bethel, doggedly. "He may think it's true; but I would rather be an actress than marry him! I am pretty enough to be a first-rate actress," she added, with naïveté.Roland was so much amused that he caught her to his heart, and pressed a shower of kisses on her not unwilling lips."But tell me, love, why you let the poor fellow think that you will marry him?" he asked."Because—oh! Roland, we were so poor we hadn't a home, and then Uncle James sent for us to his vicarage, and John came, and—""And went mad about you, like everybody else," said Roland, a little irritably. "Well?""Well, it made it so much pleasanter for me and for Jane, and for uncle, and for John himself, when I said I would marry him some day," continued Bethel, speaking with a most provoking air of infantine simplicity. "He gives us money, plenty for everything—and he is very nice when he is


here—never rude or rough. I scarcely ever allow him to kiss me, and he is afraid to ask me.""Poor fellow!" said Roland.Still, he could not help seeing that there was much selfishness in this lovely Bethel; he adored her, but she was a cruel little thing all the same."What about Donald?" said he, roughly. " Have you promised to marry him also?"Bethel's eyes were cast down; the color deepened on her cheek; she was not naturally open or honest, perhaps; but her instincts taught her that she had better tell Roland all the truth, for he was as sharp as a needle, and would be sure to find her out in the end if she told any untruths."Yes," she faltered."You have?" cried Roland. "Then I am number three! I wonder who the dickens number four will be?""Roland," she said, raising her lovely eyes to his face, "I fancied I liked Donald well enough to marry him until I saw you—""And when you see another man you will find you were as much mistaken about me as you were about Donald, Bethel. You will have to marry me at once—""Then what will Sir Huntly say?" she asked, with a sharpness quite out of character with her pretty, babyish simplicity."Well, I don't know—he wishes me to marry Sir Mervyn Walden's daughter, who is an heiress, and niece to a duke.""Do—do!" said Bethel, stamping her foot; "do! I wish you would!""No; I'll die single first!""What will Sir Huntly do? Leave all his money to Donald?""If he did, would you marry me still?"Bethel felt his eyes upon her face. She raised hers, and looked up at him with a sweet smile."Of course I would," she said.Roland believed her. He had a vast, an overwhelming sense of his own importance; he could not conceive that any woman should prefer another man to himself; only he had fancied that perhaps Bethel would have shrunk a little from the idea of marrying him if he were disinherited. He would the liked her to be as madly in love with him as numbers of women had already been. Girls there were in the world at that very moment who would gladly have put their hands into his and have wandered with him to the other end of the


world, willing and eager to share his fate, whatever it might be—weal or woe, wealth or poverty, honor or contempt.Bethel was not one of these. She was no enthusiast for love, no enthusiast about anything but her own lovely and adorable little self, and her own happiness and comfort.These are the women who win the most passionate love; these are the women who rule the. masculine soul—who hold the lives of men so often in their soft, small hands."I don't mean Sir Huntly to make beggars of us, my darling. He must not know that we care for each other. Still, I want you to marry me quickly. Will you, Bethel?""He would be sure to find it out."Bethel shook her head, and there was a certain gleam of cunning in her lovely eyes that astonished Roland Stanford; it wit such a hard, worldly-wise expression. It was gone in a moment; but Roland felt almost as if he had suddenly seen a trap-door open in the midst of a gayly furnished and charming salon, and had looked down for an instant into the depths of a gloomy and horrible dungeon. Away with such thoughts! The young man of fashion was no dreamer! Bethel was the most divinely beautiful girl on the face of the earth, and she loved him."Well," he said, leave that to me, Bethel. I will engage that if you become my wife the old gentleman shall not know anything about it until—until he knows you quite well; and, when he does, he must be enchanted with you, and then we will tell him the truth, when you have become such a favorite with him that he will be delighted to welcome you as a niece. Meanwhile, Bethel, I am determined that you shall marry me soon.""Not just yet, please," said Bethel, sweetly.She took his hand in both her own, and kissed it gently."It's not as if it could be a nice, grand wedding, just such a wedding as one reads of, with bride-maids in pink, a hundred splendid carriages, a church strewn with hot-house flowers, two rooms filled with diamond necklets and ruby bracelets, and more gold and silver cups and dishes than one can count in an hour.""Oh, if have dreamed of just such a wedding! I dreamed of one last week, but although I was the bride, you were not the bridegroom; and they do say that to dream of such a wedding means a death—What's the matter?"She asked the question in a shrill voice of surprise, for Roland had tured pale; he was shivering, notwithstanding that


for a wonder the April wind was in the south-west and the sun was shining brightly."Nothing," he answered, with a laugh, "only you are such a dear little goose, and talk such pretty nonsense. A death! What an idea to creep into that lovely little head!""I know what would be the best thing," said Bethel, suddenly. "You say your uncle would like me if he knew me?""How could he help it, love?""Well," said Bethel, contracting her brows into a pretty frown, "introduce me. Make some excuse, and introduce me.""But how can I?" asked Roland, impatiently."Well, let me see; I have heard that there are to be amateur theatricals at Sir Mervyn Walden's, instead of a bazaar, in aid of the orphanage near Yarrow Leas. Now, these are to be held in May in the grounds of Moss Court. Ask the Waldens to let your place be the theater instead. Ask your uncle as well, and then let me be one of the actresses. Give me the best and prettiest part!" and she clasped her hands in entreaty."If I can get Sir Huntly to consent, I will. But how would you get to know the reserved old fellow in one afternoon?""Surely you will give lunch at the house, and he, as host, must do the honors. Only leave it to me, and give me a pretty part. I will engage to break in at the door of that hard old heart of his, see if I don't; and then, when he has invited us all to the house, and when he has taken a great fancy to me, tell him we are engaged, and it will be the old scene in the play, you know—'Bless you, my children!' spoken in his old, funny, shaky voice.""Sir Huntly has a very fine voice, Bethel; he is not quite an old nincompoop, to be despised, my darling; but, do you know, I consider you are vastly clever to have thought of all this. Women who don't read are always cleverer in practical things than your blue-stockings. I need not pretend that I admire you at all if I give these theatricals, and you happen—just happen, you see—to be one of the actresses; and if you are once introduced, he must think you the sweetest of the sweet, and wish that he had just such a niece.""I am sure he must," said Bethel, with such a sweet, childish frankness and confidence in her own charms, that Roland caught her to his heart in an ecstasy, and then the lovers heard footsteps approaching."I will be off," said Roland; "my horse is in the lane behind that clump of trees; here comes Jane, or somebody."Bethel's selfish little heart beat fast with a feeling akin to fear. She guessed who it was that was coming so quickly along the gravel path of the kitchen-garden, albeit that the blossoming branches of a wide-spreading cherry-tree hid the individual from her at the moment.Another instant, and Donald, the true and loyal lover who would have died to serve her, stood before her."Oh, Bethel, my darling!"He would have caught her in his arms, but something like shame stirred in Bethel's hard nature; and she shrunk away when she remembered that three minutes before she had nestled her pretty head against Roland's shoulder."Donald, there is somebody else in the garden; Jane, I think."He stood still, and looked at her with eyes that blazed with love, and something that, if it was not wrath, was akin to it."Bethel, you don't love me!" he said, slowly.She tried the subterfuge of a coquettish, yet uncomfortable laugh."What has happened now?" she said; "is the Thames on fire at last?""I know nothing about the Thames, Bethel, but I know that you don't love me!""Whom do I love, then?" she asked, boldly, and with pertness."You love, perhaps, my cousin Roland?"He was watching her, and his face was pale with suppressed, emotion; he saw the tell-tale color deepen on her cheeks, and the light in his eyes grew fiercer."Bethel, you are playing a false game. Take care that you don't drive me mad!"His words had a singular effect upon her. She shuddered in spite of herself. Donald's dark face looked dangerous at that moment. A presentiment of some horror came over her; she did not know what it was, but it was there. She felt and knew that she was false and wicked, but she really did not care how wicked she was, so long as she escaped punishment, only now it seemed as if, unless she exerted her skill to the utmost, that some one or other of these three men whom she had maddened with her beauty, and enslaved by her pretty wiles, might do some desperate deed that would set the whole world talking of a tragedy down among those country solitudes. John was away; the wide sea rolled between his foot


steps and hers; but he might come over—and if he did! And then there was Roland, whom she cared for more than for both the others put together—Roland, who was "exactly her style."I wish you would not talk such rubbish," she said, almost roughly. "What is Mr. Stanford to me, pray?"He comes here every day to visit you when I am out of the way."You condescend to listen to gossip and to question servants," she said, snapping off a lovely blossom of the apple-tree and pulling it ruthlessly to pieces in her agitation. "I can't help it; wherever I go, men will find me out, and persecute me with their attentions. As for your cousin Roland—""As for my cousin Roland," said Donald, scornfully, he is the heir of Sir Huntly Stanford—I am only a poor soldier. You will be very worldly wise if you can make him in earnest enough to wish to—marry you."Pain and mortification and jealousy were making Donald forget his usual courtesy. The fact was, he so thoroughly believed in Roland's selfishness, pride, and hardness, that he did not suppose him anxious to marry the penniless and obscure beauty.Bethel laughed a laugh of scorn."I shall be very worldly wise if I can manage that," she said, insolently. "Fancy being Lady Stanford, and going to court!""Yes," said Donald, bitterly, "I have no doubt the society papers would devote a whole page to a description of your charms.""I should expect at least two pages," said Bethel, defiantly; and then, having expended her own wrath—for her nature was too shallow to admit of her ever being seriously enraged for long together—she broke into a peal of musical laughter. Roland must have got safely off by this time, and it was better to pacify and conciliate Donald than to send him off like a raging lion, as she said to herself."You are a dear little goose," she said, " to take rubbish into your head like that. What is Mr. Stanford to me? What is anybody to me in the whole world except you?" As she spoke, she contrived to throw a sound of weeping into her voice, and to squeeze out a couple of crocodile tears, which looked exactly like dew on the petals of a rose as they rolled down her cheek.What could Donald do but clasp her in his arms, kiss the


tears away, and ask her to forgive him for his temper and jealousy—groundless jealousy, as she assured him.CHAPTER XV.IT is the merry month of May, and the whole country-side is decked in blossoms; the birds sing, the bees are busy, the butterflies are gay. A grand amateur performance is to take place at Stanford Hall on the twenty-fifth of the jocund month. It had been intended to hold this celebration in the grounds of Sir Mervyn Walden; but Mr. Roland Stanford had suddenly developed a most intense interest in theatricals, and he was desperately anxious to be the chief promoter of the affair, and the giver of the banquet which was to follow.Sir Huntly had been talked into giving his consent that the great lawns should be the scene of the festivities; and Sir Mervyn Walden had been talked out of wishing to be the entertainer of the guests.Numbers of outsiders were to be admitted as witnesses of the performance on payment of five shillings a seat. The proceeds were to be devoted to the funds of the female orphanage at Yarrow Leas.The Reverend Thomas Hibbit was busy and anxious regarding the affair; some of the girls of the village school were to act, amongst them Velvet Snow.Now the play was not an extract from a great masterpiece this time. It was to be a faithful representation of a comedy called "Lost," which was exciting much remark in London that season. The heroine—beautiful, faithful, and noble—is falsely accused to her husband, who repudiates her in a rage on the flimsiest evidence, and abandons her.She, refusing the pittance which he would have allowed her, goes out into the world to earn her living, and takes the first position that presents itself, that of nurse among the sick poor.The ramifications of the plot lead up to a happy ending, when the spotless innocence of the wife is proved, and the hasty, but all the while loving, husband receives her first upon his knees, where he sues for forgiveness, and next into his arms, when the curtain falls upon the reconciled pair.Velvet Snow was given the part of the nearly divine Margaret; Donald Stanford was the impatient husband, Lord Rathmines.As for Velvet Snow. she lived in her part during those early weeks in May. She was to receive the sum of three guineas


for her share in the performance, or else Miss Pringle, who was to pocket the money, would not have permitted her to act at all.Miss Pringle, indeed, announced to Velvet every day that this acting was to be the very last she ever engaged in.It was a lovely May morning, and Velvet was engaged in helping Ann with the spring cleaning of Jasmine Cottage. It is not to be supposed that the gifted girl, who felt her own power stirring mightily within her, and urging her to give it full scope, was allowed to relax one iota of her arduous duties and daily drudgeries because she was learning a part which had taxed the energies of the greatest English actress of the day.Velvet had been on her knees scrubbing the stairs before breakfast, the while Miss Pringle's sharp voice sounded in her ears, for the parlor door was open, and the lady sat at work sewing rings on the muslin curtains the while that she screamed out to Velvet in a voice that out-shrewed the veriest shrew."Only next Monday, and then good-bye to your fineries forever. Out you go after that! I've settled it all; I have arranged with Miss Valpin, and you will be bound to the institution for three years as apprentice to learn all the housework, beginning at the scullery and working on to the housemaid's duties, and then the plain cooking. And you won't have a moment of time for the play-acting, for every bit of your time in the evening is to be given to plain sewing. You are never to open a book, except Sundays, and then only children's Sunday-books; no more Shakespeare and such rubbish. No, no, my girl! I did wrong when I took you away from the work-house. There was your sphere, and you've been brought up in a false one ever since you were five years old. Now you shall go back to it again, and that will he the best thing in this world for you, apprenticed until you are qualified to be a servant; and I hope you will be a good one. It will be your own fault if you're not."Will it be believed that, although Velvet was scrubbing the stairs with hearty good-will, and although Miss Pringle's voice did not cease for an instant, she still kept repeating the lines spoken by Margaret, the high-souled, falsely accused heroine in "Lost"?Velvet, half-starved, overworked, badly fed, was happier in her dream-world than she had ever been in her life before. It was such a fool's paradise, if only she had known it. It was odd, but the rumor that Donald Stanford was in love with a beautiful young lady whom poor Velvet would have re-


garded as one of the county folk had never reached her ears. No, he was so sweetly kind to Velvet.Ah, how he had praised her acting at the last rehearsal! He was the lover-husband in the piece. How fiercely jealous he had seemed when the villain of the play had whispered to him that his wife's heart was false—her words of love base, hollow falsehoods. Then in the last scene of reconciliation and explanation, with what rapture he had caught her to his heart!It was only a stage embrace; but then, Velvet knew nothing of any other kind. She believed in his affection for herself—something sweet as love, if not love itself; but it quite filled her life with hope, happiness, joyful anticipations, and vain dreams. Was she to become a servant of servants for three years without wages, clad in a slave's livery, eating the bread of bondage? No, a thousand times no! As soon as all the acting was over, she meant to assert her rights as a free-born English girl; she would tell Mr. Hibbit; he would listen to her; he would help her. Captain Stanford himself would help her.Velvet Snow was a work-house child; she had not forgotten that fact—how should she, when her tyrant told her of it every day of her life? But she was not without friends; she was not without hope; she possessed talent, and she was young and strong. She went on scrubbing the stairs, not listening to the cruel gibes and threats of the old woman, whose adoption of herself was a marvel and a wonder to everybody, because Miss Pringle, though prim, strait-laced and severely proper, was known as close-fisted, hard-hearted, waspish. Velvet finished the stairs, and repeated one of her lines aloud. Miss Pringle came out and glared upon her."You are an idiot," she said, with a scornful laugh. "I should think your mother must have been one of those hussies who go about with the shows, or she might have worn a red turban and turned a hand-organ in the London streets."Any allusion to that unknown mother always recalled Velvet from her dreams. In a moment he thought of the woman who had given her the letter for the rector, the woman who told Velvet that both of her parents were alive, and that her father was a scoundrel.Where was the woman? What was her name? What had the rector done for her? Velvet had vaguely heard or overheard that the rector had found a situation for the woman, and that her name was Patience Wood.Velvet herself had never met her since that night in Stan-

ford Park, and she had never mentioned her to a soul save the rector."But I know I shall meet her again—I know she is connected with me in some way. Yet I should note know her again if I met her, because I never saw her face. I suppose it is a dreadful face—she was a drunkard.""Now go and help Ann clean the paint," said Miss Pringle.Velvet went through all the drudgery. She did not know that a bitter disappointment was in store for her that very evening. The day's work came to an end; then she had tea, and enjoyed the stale bread and salt butter, for hunger is the best sauce. She was going to the rectory after tea—going to see Donald—going up to the last rehearsal but one before the day of acting.She made herself as neat and nice as possible, and started for the rectory, light of foot, light of heart, feeling her life in every limb. She wore the simplest print, dark-blue stripes on a brown ground, but she wore it with a grace all her own, and she had discarded the ugly, broad-brimmed hat, and wore instead a dark one of brown velvet, a structure reared by her own hands out of some odds and ends. She felt quite content with her costume on that lovely May evening. She went along the lanes joyfully, hoping she knew not what, dreaming she knew not what, and so in time she reached the rectory, where the flowers were now all abloom in the garden, and the Virginian creeper already clothed the front of the house.She had no idea what a blow her ambitions and hopes were all to receive in a very few moments. She went under the porch, rang the bell, and was admitted into the neat hall; but instead of being taken to the anteroom, there to leave her hat and jacket as usual, she was shown into a prim parlor, barren of everything that could please the eye or interest the mind of a girl like Velvet Snow.A square table with a green cloth, a green carpet, five cane chairs, a horse-hair sofa, a window looking upon a prim grass-plat, flowerless, and bordered by a privet-hedge.It was still quite light.Velvet sighed, she hardly knew why."Mrs. Hibbit will see you presently," said the maid.Now, Velvet did not like Mrs. Hibbit, and Mrs. Hibbit did not like Velvet.Mrs. Hibbit had nothing to do with the theatricals; Mrs. Hibbit did not approve of them at all.This was her room, where she cut out work for the teachers and pupils in the schools, and listened to the complaints of the poor village women, and gave them very much advice and very little material help; none at all indeed, unless there were sickness in their families.What in the name of mystery had Mrs. Hibbit to say to Velvet Snow?Presently she came in, stiff and stern, in a gray gown, rattling a bunch of keys."Oh, it's you, Velvet Snow? Well, I have to tell you that you need not come here again about, the rehearsals; it has been decided that you are not to act.""Not to act!" she repeated.The news stunned her; she could not believe it."Isn't there to be a play after all, ma'am?""Oh, dear! yes, they will have the play, only your name is taken away; they have sombody else; they don't want you, and the performance is put off till the end of June!"" Why?" asked Velvet, impetuously.A lump rose into her throat; she did not know how to be civil to the rector's wife, who brought her such bad news."You forget yourself, Velvet; you have no right whatever to ask a single question, a girl in your position; it was quite a mistake to allow you to act at all; it has filled your head with nonsense, and made you forget your duties and your position in life.""No, it hasn't!" said Velvet, vehemently. "I have scrubbed, and swept, and sewed until I was ready to drop, and I have learned my part as well. I have done all my duties over and over again.""Velvet Snow, I have always regretted that so much has been made of you; it has placed you in a totally false position; you quite forget who you are.""No; I am a work-house girl, and I am told of it every day, every hour in the day. How can I forget it?""You act as if you forgot it; but I can not waste any more time with you. You are exceedingly rude; you are quite insulting. I shall tell Mr. Hibbit how ill you have behaved. I forbid you to come to this house again, do you hear?""Where is Mr. Hibbit?" asked Velvet, passionately."Mr. Hibbit went to London, this morning. Now go. Do you hear?""I will go," said Velvet, "and never, never enter your doors again.""Insolent!" said the rector's wife. "Go at once!"Velvet's head seemed on fire; she was rushing through the hall, when she heard a voice that she still recognized—the voice of Donald, Captain Stanford.A door—the door of the dining-room—stood ajar, and she caught a glimpse of her hero standing in the full light of a soft lamp. By his side was a young lady in a white gown, with a bunch of roses at her breast and a quantity of yellow hair raining down her shoulders.Donald was watching her so intently that all the rest of the world was a blank to him."Act? You will act divinely, darling!" he murmured.And the beautiful girl laughed a coquettish laugh.Then for the first time the serpent of jealous love stung Velvet's soul through and through. She comprehended it all at a glance. She, Velvet Snow, was not "good enough" to act such a part with Captain Stanford. This girl in white was a lady, more beautiful than any picture. She was to act with him, and he called her darling! He loved her! He had never cared for the work-house girl! She was dismissed without a word, as if she had been a "stray cat," she said to herself, which had dared to creep into some fine drawing-room and fall asleep on a silken cushion.She was to go out and become a drudge—a servant, a scullery-maid—for three years, was she?—was she?—was she?The state of Velvet's soul at that moment was dangerous. She felt mad; she felt desperate. She felt that she must do something to show these people—Donald also—what she felt, and how she hated and despised them all.She had reached the front door, and the servant was about to let her out, when she turned suddenly and rushed toward the dining-room, where the soft lamp-light fell upon the golden hair, white dress, and red roses of Bethel Vernon."Stop!" called out the maid. "There's company in there.""Company!" said Velvet, fiercely; then she ran into the room, and saw Captain Stanford with his arm round the waist of the beautiful young lady.When he saw Velvet, a flash of anger came into his eyes. "What do you want here?" he asked, fiercely."I want to know why I am treated like a mad dog, Captain Stanford; and—and suddenly told that I am not to act? And that because I am a work-house girl I have no right to act? Why was I sent for? Why was I asked to act? I have toiled; I have sat up all night to study, giving up my sleep and rest, and working myself to—to death! I hate all these


good, rich, grand people! I wish a great earthquake world come and swallow up Stanford Park, and all the people, on the day of the show! Do you hear? I wish it would! I wish that I could burn this very house to the ground!""You are mad!" said Donald, coldly; " or you are ill. You ought to see a doctor. Leave the room!""Leave the room! Get out of the house this instant!"It was the voice of Mrs. Hibbit that uttered the command. The rector's wife had entered the dining-room, and she pointed to the door.Was Velvet Snow mad?Yes, apparently, for the time. All the pent-up sense of injustice, all the crushed-down rebellion of years against cruelty, seemed to rise within her. Those passions and emotions which she had the gift of simulating so well now filled, her soul in reality.She was desperate; she spoke no further word; but she rushed to the table, seized the burning lamp, and raised it over her head."Now," she said; "now, who will dare to take this from me? If I fling it down, this house will be burned to the ground! Keep away from me whilst I hold it! I can make you afraid. But the moment anybody comes near me, I will dash it on the ground!""Velvet," said Donald, " be reasonable."CHAPTER XVI.VELVET SNOW was pale as death; her teeth were close shut.In after years the girl looked back upon her younger self, and wondered at the angry transport that had possessed her, her reckless, headlong fury.Was there just cause for such a display?She thought so while she stood in the rectory parlor looking at Donald Stanford and the beautiful young lady whom he loved, and, as she thought, was about to marry.She loved Donald Stanford; she did not know this in the ordinary sense of the word, so to speak. Sixteen seems, and probably is, an age too early for the tragedy of deepest passion; but she felt stung, she felt wronged, she felt outraged by all these goody and genteel people, represented, first, by Mrs. Hibbit, and secondly, by Captain Stanford and Miss Vernon.Mrs. Hibbit had told Velvet Snow that she had been taken


quite out of her sphere in being permitted to act at all, and that she must go back to the drudgery of her life and the cruelty of her tyrant. That tyrant had only that very day told her that she was to be bound out as a slave of servants in a public institution for three years.Slave, was she? drudge, was she? and for three years? And she was never to act again—not to be allowed to read the books which she loved, and scarcely to think her own thoughts—for three years? And there stood Donald, Captain Stanford (she thought), as cruel as any of them—more cruel even, as she liked to fancy, in the fury into which she had lashed herself.She lifted the lamp high in both her hands."If I dash this on the floor, it will burn this house to the ground," she said in a voice hoarse with rage and pain."Take it from her, Captain Stanford—call for the police! Oh, Velvet Snow, I always told Mr. Hibbit he was making a pet of a wolf-cub, that would turn round and tear us to pieces!"Mrs. Hibbit was dreadfully excited and terribly frightened; she used language quite unbecoming in a rector's wife.Velvet saw her own power, and exulted in it."I can burn this house down now if I like. You may shut me up in prison for it, but still I shall have done it! You will know how much I feel—you will know that I have done it to show you that, although you are a rector's wife, you are a poor, paltry sham, pretending to be a saint, while all the while your heart is as hard as the heart of Dives in the parable. You cringe to the rich, and you trample upon the poor. If you saw Lazarus at your gate—well, you would tell him to go to the work-house. 'The quality of mercy is not strained; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes,' so Shakespeare said more than three hundred years ago; but you have no mercy. If you give a poor wretch a shilling, you do it in such a way as to make him wish to throw it in your face!""She is mad, this wretched girl—quite mad!" cried Mrs. Hibbit.Indeed, there was something very odd about Velvet, so Donald thought; she must be ill, or—another hideous idea struck him—had some thoughtless person made the girl drink, say, more than one glass of wine or ale, and had the strong stuff mounted into her head?Velvet, who was innocent of all liquids save the weak trash which Miss Pringle called "tea," and gave twice a day to her drudge!*"Velvet," said Donald, advancing toward the girl, and speaking in a stern tone—"Velvet, you are behaving like a maniac. Put that lamp down this moment!"She met his stern look with another quite as defiant.He felt at that instant, when the white young face was turned toward him and the great eyes flashed, that this child really did possess the gift of a tragic actress—a grand and mighty gift."Velvet," he said, "you must be ill; put down that lamp!"His dark eyes had no power over her at that moment, although they were fixed in a sort of unwilling admiration on her impassioned face; her hands tightened upon the lamp; she did not mean to burn the rector's parlor furniture; she was too grateful to him for what she called the only gleams of kindness and of happiness that had crossed her life; besides, if Velvet were violent, she was not malignant; all her wrath found vent in words; still, her hands tightened upon the lamp." I will break this," she said, "and send the money for it, to the rector's wife—perhaps—some day!"The window of the dining-room led out upon the lawn; it stood wide open. Velvet went through, and then walked at a smart pace toward the little shrubbery, still holding the lighted lamp."Follow the wicked creature, Captain Stanford," said Mrs. Hibbit, "and when the lamp is safe, seize her and hold her. I shall send for the superintendent of police, and she shall pass the night in one of the cells; she shall go before the magistrate on a charge of attempted incendiarism!"Donald rushed forward; the moon was up now, and he saw Velvet standing under a sycamore-tree; still holding that terrible lamp alight in her hands."Velvet, for Heaven's sake, put that lamp down!"Then, as he spoke, she dashed the tall, heavy lighted duplex lamp from her with all her strength. It was smashed to atoms against the stump of a tree which formed a garden-set on the lawn.This at once was in a blaze, and a narrow stream of fire began to run along the grass; but it quickly died out. Only the stump was really and truly on fire.And then Velvet turned and fled—she knew not, cared not whither—only to escape forever and forever from all the hitherto surroundings of her life.We shall not have given a just estimate of the strength of


Velvet's nature if we let it be supposed that the girl felt beaten in the desperate struggle between her worldly circumstances and her will.She never thought for an instant of the bottom of the wide, deep river which flowed through Ellsmere being the answer to the reckless question she asked of herself:"What is to become of me?"She longed to show all these persons who had been cruel to her that she was superior to them and their injustice.Still, it might take long years to show them that. She might never show it to them at all; but if not—well, they should never hear of her again—not if she lived to be as bent and wrinkled as old Betty Proctor, the most aged of the white-haired crones in the village almshouse.She turned resolutely away from Stanford Park. How she hated the thought of it, and of the pond where our hero had skated in the winter, and of the summer-house, and of the kind words which Captain Stanford had so often spoken to her!She hated the memory of all those false dreams of a false happiness—a kindness which was only that of manner, after all. Yes, that was all.She took the road which wound round to the high-road and led into Ellsmere (if one followed the path to the right), but she went swiftly past that turning, and kept straight on until she reached the high-road.Then she set her face toward the east. This was the high-road leading to Switchly, a small railway station on the London line.Velvet had three loose pennies in her pocket, a clean, folded pocket-handkerchief, and nothing else in the world. This was exactly the fortune with which she started, quite resolved to make her own way in the world.She had no plan, no fixed idea of any one thing, save that she had only herself to depend upon, and that she meant to be true to herself, and—never to believe in man or in woman again as long as she lived.It was surprising how far and how fast the girl walked in her wrath-excited resolve to cast her past life behind her.Switchly was a good ten miles from the finger-post on the high-road, and the road was hilly. Velvet went up one hill and down on the other side. The woods stood still in the mild spring air. Not a leaf fluttered. They were woods of mixed beech, birch, and pine, which clothed the lower ledges of the chalky hills to the right hand; on the left were wide


fields of rye and barley. Beyond them lay the sea; but she could hear the plash of the waves from the high-road.The moon looked at her calmly from the sky. Presently fatigue, want of food, weariness, overcame her. She was almost asleep as she walked. She caught herself nodding and dreaming more than once, and the moon was shining on her with a lofty calm that had nothing of sympathy in it, and yet it somehow soothed her."I must sleep somewhere," she said to herself; "but I don't see any place. Yes, that is a farm-house in the distance. There must be sheds and places with clean straw. If I could get into a hay-loft, for instance!"A hay-loft seemed as a very haven of rest to the imagination of Velvet at that moment. She was fearfully tired by the time she reached the large gate leading up to the front door of the farm.She had been that way years before, when she was a child, and she knew the name of the farm, the Maythorn, and the family were named Bright. They knew Miss Pringle; and if they saw Velvet they would perhaps know her again, and speak of her; and her desire was to put so many miles between herself and Ellsmere, and all the people that had ever known her, that all trace of her might be completely lost.The farm-house was long and low, with two rows of windows, one above another, and a door with a wooden porch. It stood white in the moonlight. Velvet hated it for its look of peace, prosperity, and placid respectability.She was at war with prosperity, and what was called respectability, but what she called cant and hypocrisy.These Brights—well, they were all sound asleep in their soft, white-curtained beds, for it was past midnight; the cows, too, were asleep in the sheds in the farm-yards; and the birds in the dark woods under the chalk cliffs were all resting their little heads amid their soft feathers.Asleep!—asleep!—everything and everybody, save the runaway girl and the large, watchful moon in the sky.She went on then suddenly, and lifted the latch of a gate leading into the farm-yard. She picked her way over wet straw, and all the displeasing sloppiness of the yard, to the back, where were the stables, and above them a hay-loft.She remembered once having been in the hay-loft in her childhood. Fate, or chance, had left a ladder against the open door.In an instant Velvet had mounted it, and was safe in the low-coiled room. The hay was at the further end."Now, if I go to sleep, it must be only for two hours," she said to herself. "The farm-people will be awake and about at four or so."She coiled herself up in a heap on a soft shake-down of dry hay, and in two minutes she was in the loveliest dreamland. Deep, delicious, refreshing was that sleep. Her dreams were beautiful, full of promise, full of joys, which had hitherto been denied to her waking moments.All at once she awoke. Where was she? Not in her narrow pallet at Miss Pringle's? She remembered it all the next moment; she was a runaway in hiding; she had crept into the hay-loft at the Maythorn to get an hour's sleep on the hay, and two other people, who did not suspect her presence, were in the same place."I will be avenged on him if I have to wait till I am a hundred years old, I tell you!""I thought you had done something to annoy him," answered another voice, the mocking voice of a man. "Not much, but quite enough to upset his nerves a bit—eh?""Pshaw! he has no feeling; such a thing as that doesn't touch his heart! Ah! if you knew how I hate that man!""I don't believe it's true, genuine hate, my dear; it's spite. It's when you think over what you have lost, and what you might have been. You are the worst manager I ever saw, and for one who really has—well, the smallest amount of liking for her fellow-creatures that it is possible for a human being to have—I must say you surprise me to think of your getting yourself compromised, and losing everything that a woman of your sort values, and all for nothing. Not for love's sake, not for any man's sake, but, only because you were reckless and willful, and liked to do things because he thought them wrong, and you never cared for him.""I never cared for anybody," said the voice of the woman, scornfully; "not for anybody ornamented or disfigured by a head. Do you hear?""Thanks," returned the other voice; "I take that as one of the sweetest compliments you were so fond of paying me in the old times; but if I were you, I would try and cultivate a less bitter mode of speech. When you were young and handsome, a sparkling, vivacious insolence was becoming; but now—well, you are not exactly young, and you are not exactly pretty, are you?""I am hideous! I have lost my front teeth, and I fell down and burned my face. You have seen the scar; but I never could be civil to those I despise. Listen: I wish to


punish this man! You don't know what a plan I have in my head; if you will help me in it, I will get you twenty pounds!""How will you do that?""I will make him give me a hundred pounds to go away!""He won't do it. You can't make him.""If he won't, I will kill him!"The threat was spoken in a fierce whisper that suggested the hissing of a serpent.Velvet Snow had recognized the voice. This was the woman who had met her in the grounds of Stanford Park, and had told her that her parents were both alive, and had asked her to give a note to the rector. This was the woman whom she had taken it into her head was her mother, and as she crouched on the straw, trembling in every limb, this conviction came to her more strongly than ever; her horror of the woman deepened and intensified, her dread of coming into her power was greater than her dread even of being discovered, taken back by force, and put again under the tyranny of Miss Pringle."Caroline, tell me what has become of that unfortunate girl—your daughter?" asked the male voice."She is dead," returned the woman, shortly."Oh, is she?" returned the man. "Now, it strikes me that she may be alive.""I tell you that the child died when she was two years old.""Did you kill her?" asked the man, coldly.Velvet's heart beat so loud that the sound quite deafened her own ears; she only heard the last part of a speech made by the man; it wound up with: "I should have done the same under the like circumstances; but it strikes me that poor little creature is alive.""Anthony Cleaver, you think you have unearthed a secret, but you haven't; the girl is dead, and I am sorry. I should have liked to steep her to the lips in vice and drunkenness. I should have liked her to starve, and then to steal, and then to stand in a felon's dock, and then I should have liked to bring him there, that high and mighty gentleman, and to have said to him: 'Sir, allow me to present to you mademoiselle your daughter, respecting whose education you were so scrupulously exact.' But she is dead.""Is she?" said the man."Then," said Velvet to herself, "I am the girl of whom


they speak. I know it; every pulse in my frame seems to throb with the knowledge of it.""If your daughter were alive you could sell him the secret for a thousand pounds," said the man she had called Anthony."I will gain five times that sum from him before I have finished with him," said the woman; "but look, the dawn is getting up. I must not be seen here. You know that at present I occupy the position of dairy-maid at the Maythorn farm? You know I was a dairy-maid when I was young, and the rector at Ellsmere got me the place, since I am a reformed drunkard. Ha! ha! ha!""I hope you are reformed," said the man. "Drink always had attractions for you. Do you remember Paris? and the theaters? and the absinthe? and the dinners at the Café Royale? and the money we lost?"The woman, who seemed to have been standing at the entrance during this angry colloquy, now said, hastily:"I must go. When you write, direct 'Miss Patience Wood, the Maythorn.'"She went hastily down the ladder. The man turned over on his side, and Velvet presently heard, by his deep breathing; that he was asleep.She knew well, then, that a mystery hung over her birth. Yonder woman, called Patience Wood, was her mother, and her father was a rich man—a gentleman."Still he is a scoundrel!" the poor child said to herself. " I wonder who he is?"She crept noiselessly over the soft hay without awakening the man. She went swiftly down the ladder, across the yard, and so to the high-road.Then she began to run—whither?CHAPTER XVII.MRS. HIBBIT was fearfully excited when she saw the tree-stump on fire and the flames rising high in the air. Captain Stanford found means, however, to extinguish it all in a few moments, and then the servants came and picked up the remains of the broken lamp and threw them away. There was quite a commotion in the rectory by this time. The daughters of the house, the servants, Mrs. Hibbit, Captain Stanford, and lastly, Bethel, were all assembled in the hall, and it seemed that everybody was talking at once. The name of Velvet passed from lip to lip."She shall go before the magistrate,' said Mrs. Hibbit. "I am quite determined about that.""Oh, mamma, dear," said the eldest daughter, who was gentle, "don't think of such a thing for a moment."Bethel Vernon saw nothing save an excellent joke in the whole affair. While Mrs. Hibbit was scolding, and her daughter was expostulating, and the servants were throwing in a word here and there, which went to show that "they had never thought much good of that Velvet Snow, as she called herself," Bethel was shaking with suppressed laughter."Oh, do let us get off," she whispered to Donald; "it's getting late, and we have so far to walk to the park gate."Captain Stanford told Mrs. Hibbit plainly that he would not help her to take out a warrant for the arrest of Velvet Snow on a charge of trying to burn down the rectory by means of dashing a duplex lamp to pieces on the lawn."It couldn't be done, Mrs. Hibbit," he said; "I assure you it could not. Velvet is mad with disappointment; that's all.""Then, if she is mad, she ought not to be at large," said Mrs. Hibbit."She will be sorry for it tomorrow," said Donald."No matter how sorry she is," said Mrs. Hibbit, "she shall never enter this house again!"Soon afterward Captain Stanford and Bethel Vernon were walking across Stanford Park in the moonlight. The pair were arm in arm."I think that girl with the cold name and the fiery eyes superb," chuckled Bethel. "Wasn't it a treat to hear her tell that detestable old woman that her heart was as hard as the heart of Dives in the parable?—and it's true."Donald thought every word that Bethel spoke adorable."What a clever, brilliant Bethel you are!" said the enraptured lover. "Who could have described Velvet Snow better than to speak of her as the girl with the cold name and the fiery eyes? But though she is a splendid actress, you will take the part quite as well.""I can act," said Bethel," and the dresses are charming. John sent a check to uncle to give me for them.""Oh, Bethel, you must tell John the truth," said Donald."Must I? Not yet—not quite yet, Don; you see, it's not as if we could marry.""If you will share all that I have," began Donald."No—no; we must not be poor married people," said Bethel. "We must wait for better days.""I will speak to my uncle," said Donald.Bethel's breath came in short, panting sobs at this prospect. If Donald told Sir Huntly that she had promised to be his wife, Roland would hear of it, and then?—well, then the news of her perfidy would reach Cousin John in Dublin, and Bethel might end by losing all her lovers; and yet, no—she possessed a spell which would bind each one of them to her chariot-wheels, even if she dragged them through the dirt of life's highway. Still, it would be horrible to have them all three reproaching her, and if Sir Huntly knew it, he would perhaps refuse to allow either of his nephews to marry such a desperate flirt."Don't speak to your uncle," said Bethel, coaxingly, "not until I have been introduced to him; then perhaps he may think me rather nice, and he may give us a thousand a year. I want to see your uncle. I have only seen him in the distance. He isn't so very old, is he?""Not old at all," said Donald—"only fifty-six.""Then he might even live twenty years?""Most likely," said Donald. "He is strong."Bethel made a mental note of the situation." So that all the rehearsals are to be discontinued at the rectory?" she said. And there is to be one to-morrow at the Hall. Fancy if Sir Huntly came in while we were acting!""He may," said Donald, carelessly.Bethel had been many times lately to the rectory to discuss the question as to whether or not she would take part in the theatricals; she had always meant to act, but she had pretended to hesitate, and now at last she had plainly said that she would act in the piece—hence the summary dismissal of Velvet Snow.Donald had called at the Raggan and had driven Bethel to the lodge gates of the park. His horse had been driven away by his groom, who was there waiting to receive him. Now they found the same man and the same horse and dog-cart waiting for them again.Soon Bethel was seated next to Captain Stanford in his high dog-cart, bowling along the roads toward the Raggan.Where, meanwhile, was Roland? He was in London making arrangements for the fitting up of the grand pavilion which was to represent the theater in the grounds of Stanford Park. Every day he wrote to Bethel, and Bethel sent him a letter now and then; he had no idea that his cousin looked upon the younger Miss Vernon as his promised wife.Each young man kept what he considered his own secret.That Donald was over head and ears in love with Bethel was palpable to Roland, but he believed that Bethel only flirted with him; and meanwhile Roland had the greatest hopes that when Sir Huntly once was brought under the spell of Bethel's beauty and grace, that he would immediately be anxious to welcome her as his niece, the wife of his heir and nephew.Short-sighted is man; yet on he goes, ever taking forecasts of the future, ever building castles in the air.A huge surprise was on its road toward these actors in this little drama of life, and beyond that there was a still darker portent.Bethel was not at all fanciful or superstitious;. natures like hers—pleasure-loving, self-seeking, possessing a spell which made the other sex slaves—seldom are.Bethel went along accepting success as her right. She never took it into her head to anticipate failure. Donald, on the other hand, was sensitive, emotional, with deep affections, there was a certain strain of the poet in him, which made him less practical than most men.Thus it happened that while he was driving his false love toward the Raggan, he started and shivered a little when an enormous black raven flew suddenly out of a cluster of bushes at the side of the road and sailed over the heads of the young man and the maiden, uttering a doleful cry.Bethel burst into a laugh."It's a sign of death," she said, gayly. "I wish it might be your old uncle, Sir Huntly."A spasm of horror passed over Donald when his divinity spoke those words.We have read flesh-creeping legends of German lore, in which demons have assumed the guise of mortal maidens, and have walked about the world clothed in marvelous beauty, winning meanwhile the hearts of men and poisoning their souls at the same moment. While the lover has been kneeling at the feet of his beloved, the time has come when the demon has been forced to cast away the semblance of beauty, and to appear before the terror-stricken suitor as a hideous goblin, with one eye in the midst of its forehead, a tongue of flame, and the fangs of a beast of prey! Some such grotesque mediæval legend flashed across the memory of Donald when Bethel spoke those cruel words."My uncle is as dear to me as if he were my father," said he, sternly."Is he? Well, you would soon forget him. I have for-


gotten my father; it's very dull and miserable, of course, at first, but you soon get over it.""Bethel, are you trying to make me think that you have not a bit of human feeling?"She stared before her blankly, and pouted. She had said things of that sort often to Roland, and he had never found fault. No, he had always laughed—he had never wished her to have an atom of pity for any other being save himself. She began to hate Donald actively."I don't care what you think about me," she snapped. "I dare say I'm heartless; Jane says so, and I hope I am. I mean to be as heartless as ever I can.""Oh, Bethel, you dear little spit-fire!"Donald's voice was now humble and tender; but Bethel refused to be mollified, and when the dog-cart arrived at the Raggan, she would not ask Donald to enter the house; he sprung down, and lifted her out; but she would not let him kiss her—she wrenched herself out of his arms."Let me alone; I hate such babyish ways," she said.Donald was cut to the soul."Oh, Bethel," he said, piteously, "you are very cruel to me!""Leave me alone, then," said Bethel, who, engaged as she was three deep, as we know, to three young men, felt that she would be glad to cast one of them off, for so many were fearfully in the way. "Leave me alone. I don't want you. You can have all the things back that you have given me, the gold bracelets and all!"No, she did not love him; she was a perfectly heartless woman, but, oh! how unspeakably lovely. She had wrecked the peace of his whole life, poisoned his very soul, taken away the spring of hope and the sweetness of love from him, he thought, forever and ever.The agony of renunciation came upon him, and he felt that he could not let this creature pass out of his life without a frantic effort to retain her."Bethel," he said in a broken voice—"Bethel, darling, forgive me; don't cast me off. If you do, you will drive me mad!""That won't hurt me," she said, with a little cruel laugh. "They will shut you up in a lunatic asylum, I suppose, where you can't hurt anybody!"Then Donald's wrath arose; for a few moments he turned savagely on the heartless little flirt."I see your game," he said, furiously. "It is the estate


you want. That is why you wished Sir Huntly dead, and you are carrying on a double game with Roland. I have had a lot of anonymous letters telling me so, and I have burned them. Now I know it's true; but Sir Huntly won't die to please you, and Roland dares not marry without his consent.""I always thought you a prig and a tell-tale," said Bethel, viciously. "Now, if I were you, I would go and tell Sir Huntly all about it—yes, before your shoes wear out, as the children say to the tell-tits at school. I hate you—no! I won't forgive you—I—I never liked you! I always hated you! It's no good to whine and kneel!"—for Donald's fury had spent itself, and he seemed inclined to cast himself on his knees at the feet of his cruel goddess out there in the drive, where the moonlight fell between the lauristinus bushes whose flowers were now all withered as the hopes of Donald Stanford—"don't whine and kneel," she said. "I hate it! I tell you, I want to be rid of you—I do—I really do!"Bethel meant what she said, and Donald understood how he had been befooled.Love Bethel? Did he not rather hate her as she stood there in the moonlight, quivering with anger, most heartily sick of him and of all the rich treasure of his honest love?It is so easy to arrange other people's feelings for them, and to dictate and measure the amount of love, or contempt, or righteous indignation which they ought to experience under given circumstances.Bethel deserved to be flung away by Donald as he would have flung off some poisonous reptile which had bitten his hand; but her yellow-brown eyes had enslaved his soul, her red lips had been pressed to his, her white arms had wound themselves about his neck. It seemed to him that if he let her go out of his life, that life would not be worth living."Bethel," he said, "if you fling me up, I will shoot myself!"She only laughed."That's how men talk," she said. "I have had that said to me a dozen times; even John—"She paused; it was a slip of the tongue; she had not meant to mention John's name."Another poor dupe," said Donald, with a mocking laugh. "Well, and so he is to blow out his brains, is he? I believe that you still correspond with him. I don't believe what you have told me lately, that you have written to put him off.Bethel stood at bay."Write and tell him!" she cried. "I always knew you were a tell-tale-tit!" And with a school-girl giggle, the cruel little flirt turned and fled toward the house.CHAPTER XVIII.DONALD STANFORD sprung into his seat and drew up the reins, then he began to drive at a mad pace along the country roads.He almost wished that his horse would take fright, run off, and finally pitch him upon his head against a heap of stones, so as to settle at once and forever the question how he was to endure his life without Bethel Vernon.But the horse, though spirited, was of perfect temper, and not in the least nervous or capricious; he would not take fright at anything, not even at a traction-engine, and the end of it was that just as the dawn broke, Captain Stanford found himself in a lonely high-road some dozen miles from his home.On the left hand was the sea lying at the bottom of a shingly, sloping beach; to the right were the chalky hills, with brushwood growing half-way up their sides.The moon was sinking dim in the distant heaven; all the road was empty; not picture-like, as one might have dreamed of it, but desolate, weird, eerie.His horse was tired; he was even spent and exhausted; he walked slowly, and with lowered head.All at once Captain Stanford saw a figure crouching under a tree. He looked again.A woman—a girl! A slender, shrinking creature, a wanderer on the face of the earth at that unearthly hour!He did not seem to care what happened to anybody just then. If he had found a girl dead from hunger under that tree, he would have fancied that such a sufferer was not nearly so much to be pitied as himself.He walked his horse near to the spot, got down mechanically, and went close to the girl, who stirred, looked up, and recognized him.It was a strange freak of fate which brought those two stricken spirits so close to each other in the, summer dawning."Velvet Snow, what brings you here?""I am never going back to Ellsmere. I have left it forever and ever!"He had been saying to himself all night:"I will never return to my old life!"Yet he knew that he would go back again, though only to make some arrangements for a prolonged absence.Velvet never meant to go back at all."But—you have no money—no friends.""I have never had a friend since I was born."Somehow the words cut him to the quick."I have tried to be your friend."She gave a short laugh."A friend for the sunshine—a butterfly friend, who turned away the moment that I was shunned by others. I despise such friends!""Velvet," said Donald, slowly, "you are only a child, and you don't know what you are saying. I never turned away from you.""Yes, you did. I was to have acted at your amateur theatricals—I learned my part—I came up to the rectory to rehearse again and again. Last night Mrs. Hibbit told me I was not wanted, that acting took me out of my sphere. You were in the dining-room with a girl with a pretty face—a pretty, cruel face."Donald winced.How truly it seemed to him that this Velvet Snow read human faces!"I should have told you, I suppose, that your part had been taken by the lady with the pretty, cruel face, as you call it, but you gave me no chance.""And it is a cruel face!" persisted Velvet."You gave me no chance," repeated Donald."Anyhow, I am going away, Captain Stanford.""Where are you going? To London—without money or friends?""I have neither; perhaps I may die before I get there."Donald looked up at the gray heavens, and shivered in the chill breeze of the dawn; it seemed to him that all the hope and promise of his youth were crushed into the dust of life's highway; he must live on without hope of being happy.Still, he might do some good—he might save a young life from being a wreck."London, without money or friends, is a city of destruction, Velvet.""I am not afraid; you don't know what courage I have, and what determination.""You are only a girl—a child; but I will help you.""Thank you. I won't go back to Miss Pringle.""I will place you at a school in London for a year,—for


two years—where they will teach you whatever you have most talent for; after that you will earn your own living. I know two good women who keep a school at Hampstead; they were friends of my mother's—one of them is my godmother. She believes in me; if you told her how wicked you thought me, she would not believe you. I will write that lady a letter, and you shall take it to her. Do you understand?""Am I to thank you for this?" asked Velvet. "Am I to kneel at your feet and kiss them—tell me?""Velvet, you are a hard, scornful girl.""Yes, I am a hard, scornful girl. You have made me so.""I wish to do some good, and I will try; and even your great ingratitude shall not prevent me from helping you. Get into my dog-cart.""Never! You mean to drive me back to Miss Pringle's.""I give you my word of honor as a gentleman and a soldier that I will never let one of your old friends know where you are. I want to give you a chance in life. I, too, am going away from this country for years, perhaps forever.""And he will take the pretty, cruel face with him," thought Velvet. "Let him!""If you educate me out of your pocket, I must thank you," said Velvet; "but I will not rest until I have paid the money back to you.""All right," he answered, with a grim smile. "I will send you in the bill some day. Come, get into the cart. If you never betray yourself, I will never do so. You shall have a fair chance, a fair start; and you need not even be grateful to me, unless it strikes you that it would be as well to be civil and pleasant.""Nobody has been civil to me, or pleasant to me," said Velvet, bluntly.They were most peculiar relations that were entered into that early morning between these two young persons.On the one side was pity—a yearning to do a good action—a something that went near to admiration, yet was not admiration; for Donald could not have admired any other girl save Bethel.On the other side was smoldering anger, suppressed passion, unwilling hero-worship, and mortified self-love.Velvet felt toward Donald much as he felt toward Bethel Vernon.He led her to the dog-cart, lifted her in, took his place be-


side her, drove swiftly to Switchly Station, and arrived there just as it was opened.The London train would start in half an hour. While Velvet was taking some hot milk and coffee, ham and rolls, in the refreshment-room, Donald was writing a letter in pencil. This he twisted into the shape of a three-cornered handkerchief, and then handed it to his protégée."Give that to Miss Sayville, Savoy House, Hampstead," he said. "I have taken your ticket for London, second-class; and there is a sovereign's worth of silver in that purse. Do you understand?"Velvet looked up at him, and her heart stirred within her. "Oh, Captain Stanford," she began; "I am not ungrateful. I—"But he stopped her sternly."I want no thanks," he said. "Keep your independence; work and strive. Some day I may find that I have done some good. But, if you don't try yourself, I shall not have helped you.""I will try," she said; "and some day, after you have been married for a long—long time to—to her—"She was looking at him, and she saw how pale he was, and that his lip quivered; but just then the train ran into the station, and he hurried her to the carriage and shut her in.She had a memory of him long afterward, standing, with a white, stern face, on the platform, looking—she thought—almost as sad as she felt.And so Velvet Snow turned her back upon her past life, and began another one.CHAPTER XIX.IT was the hottest of July days. Bethel Vernon was in highest spirits, her loveliness radiant as that of the roses that bloomed in the old-fashioned gardens about the Raggan.This was the day of the theatricals. They had been postponed for several weeks. At twelve, a carriage was to call for Bethel, for Jane, and Uncle James. They were all to be driven to Stanford Hall. There was to be one final rehearsal, lasting from twelve to one o'clock, then lunch for the performers. After that, the said performers were to adjourn to the theater, and assume their dresses, etc. At three, the doors were to be opened, the invited guests were expected to arrive, and to take their places in the mimic theater. At four precisely, the performance was to begin.Bethel and Jane were attiring themselves in their own room. Bethel was in towering spirits."I haven't caught so much as a glimpse of the old horror yet!" she said. "But he is coming into lunch with us to-day. Roland has made him promise. Wouldn't it be funny, Jane"—here Bethel made an odd grimace, and twisted up her pretty nose into a grotesque shape—"wouldn't it be funny if he took an awful dislike to me? He might, you know. After all, he might"—with a still more pronounced twisting of the nose—"he might even think me ugly, you know.""Yes," said Jane, gravely; "so he might.""Only you say that for spite, of course, Jane.""Bethel," said Jane, "you are a very wicked girl. You will meet with punishment some day.""I don't believe it a bit," said Bethel, flippantly. "Pretty, little, light-hearted things like me never get punished. I won't take trouble, you know.""John will come home, Bethel, and find that you are flirting most desperately with Roland Stanford. Then he is quite likely to shoot him.""John is a brute!""Then there is Captain Stanford, who, because you led him on, and then laughed at him, I suppose, has sold out of the army, and gone on an exploring expedition to Africa, where he will most likely die of yellow fever.""Well, that I can't help either," cried Bethel in jubilant tones. "He had a bad temper, and the sooner bad-tempered people go to Africa, and never come back, the better.""You have no heart, no soul, no pity, no love. You are all for self—self—self. When you come to die—""Now stop!" cried Bethel, stamping her foot. "We don't want any sermons. You are not old mother Hibbit. If you were, and I had to live with you, I would pitch you out of the window." Here Bethel laughed merrily. "Now, where's my lovely silver-gray gown? Isn't this soft, sheeny stuff lovely, and so cool? And the crimson satin front to the jacket is divine; and my hat! You could tell that the whole came from Paris, couldn't you?""Thanks to John's check," said Jane, grimly.Soon the young ladies and their invalid uncle started for Stanford Hall.The rehearsals had hitherto taken place in a large anteroom leading out of the back hall.Bethel, accompanied by Jane in the character of chaperon, had paid a great many visits to the Hall, where she had met


several county people who were to take part in the performance; but although Sir Huntly had permitted his nephew to make use of the Hall and the grounds, and to entertain the amateur performers liberally, he had not as yet put in an appearance among them himself.Bethel entered "as fresh as a lark, as beautiful as a butterfly," said the gentlemen."As bold as brass, as affected as a peacock," said Blanche Prescot, who had accepted with empressement the invitation to enroll herself among the amateur actresses, but who found herself cast for an ungracious and difficult part.Roland was wise and crafty. He took as little notice as possible of Bethel in presence of the gossiping county ladies.Bethel was a piquant actress. She had a good memory, and liked her part, which had been changed to a saucy one.Roland was no actor. The place of the absent Donald had been taken by a certain Mr. Amos Flint, a young married man, son and heir of Sir William Flint, a baronet of the neighborhood.The Reverend Mr. Hibbit was among the audience. Blanche Prescot resolved to let him know what she thought of Bethel Vernon before the day was over.The performance began; there were the usual breaks and mistakes, the usual declarations that it would "never be possible to carry the programme out after all;" and then it came to an end, and with much laughing and chattering, the gay assembly went through the hall and thronged the great dining-room, where lunch was laid.Laughing herself, and making others laugh, Bethel passed in with the guests.Was that Sir Huntly—that tall, fair, grand-looking man, with a nobler cast of head than Roland's, yet with a distinct likeness to that gay and graceful youth?"Oh, yes, that was the host, Sir Huntly."And Roland had contrived to place his lady-love on the right hand of the baronet."Will he like her? Will he think her a pretty doll? Will he scarcely notice that she exists, and only be conscious that she has two eyes, one nose, one chin, etc.?"These are the anxious questions Roland, the heir, asks himself.Now she is talking, chattering, rather. Sir Huntly listens. At last he smiles, presently he laughs."She will win her way, the clever little angel," says Rowland to himself.There stood in the hall outside the dining-room a woman-servant, whose black cloth gown and white cap and apron did not distinguish her from the other maids who handed the dishes in and out; but if the garb of this woman were commonplace, her face was remarkable. A long, pale face, with perfectly chiseled features, and great, flashing black eyes; her hair was raven-black, abundant, glossy, and smoothly braided under her white cap. A large scar, which might have been the effects of a burn or some other disfiguring accident, made a face repulsive that might in youth have been lovely. This sear crossed the nose and one cheek; a livid, purplish hue gave a hideous emphasis to this mark. One shuddered as one looked at the woman.She went to the door and peeped in, her eyes fixed fiercely on Sir Huntly, her lip formed into a deadly smile that was more like a grin.At that moment the guests rose and began to pass out into the hall. The woman stood aside. As Mr. Hibbit passed out, he started and exclaimed:"Patience Wood! You here?""Yes, Mr. Hibbit," she said, and she smiled the smile of a hypocrite. "I found the dairy work so hard." As she spoke, she fell back among the other maids.Who was Patience Wood?There was only one man in all that company who could have answered that question; but Sir Huntly Stanford had believed yonder woman dead long years ago.CHAPTER XX.THE performers began to stream across the park toward the temporary theater. Roland was paying attentions to Blanche Prescot, which set her heart beating high with hope. This handsome young man was cynical and worldly wise beyond the average of the cynics of his age and generation. He was as much in love as it was possible for a man of his nature and temperament to be—so much in love that be would rather have fought a duel than have relinquished Bethel Vernon. Still, he did not mean to marry and live in poverty; he did not mean to offend his uncle; he did not mean to lose the estate.If Bethel would have married him secretly at the first part of their acquaintance, he would have been glad; but now he had other hopes. She must win her way into his uncle's


heart; the childless bachelor must love her as a daughter, and he must rejoice in receiving her as a daughter. Then marriage must follow speedily, and an increased income must be settled upon Roland. Stanford Hall ought to become his at once if the marriage really took place.Sir Huntly really mixed so rarely in society, he was such a complete country gentleman, such a recluse and book-worm, that it would not be very much loss for him to give up the state-rooms, and the stables, and coach-houses to Roland and his bride. Let him have his own apartments—his library, his rose-garden, his own carriage and pair of horses, his own favorite valet, Francis, and—let him subside quietly and quickly into the nonentity—the amiable, generous, quiet, gentle nobody. This was Roland's pet programme for the future.Meanwhile, he and Bethel were to pass all the seasons in London, and Bethel's marvelous beauty was to set society by the ears and to make the English court sigh to possess this marvel as an ornament.Why should not Roland have a peerage conferred upon him if he went into parliament? The present government had conferred many titles of late, and Roland meant to bring a new bill into the house which must make him popular with the party now in power. Hitherto he had not mingled in the. political excitement of the hour, but he felt that a time was coming when every man must give his opinion; and with Bethel's beauty shining like some newly discovered planet in the firmament of society, he expected to become a leader, a man of mark.He went softly over the greensward, smiling into Blanche Prescot's face, and fooling that young lady to the top of her bent; he wished to keep her envy of Bethel Vernon from outrunning its bounds and doing mischief at an awkward crisis."I don't admire that style of face," said pale, black-eyed Blanche.Roland looked at the hollows under her eyes which three weeks of the London season had deepened, and he said to himself that Miss Prescot would certainly be upon the shelf in less than three years, unless some worthy man took pity upon her."Do you admire that Miss Vernon with the extraordinary eyes, Mr. Roland?""Which Miss Vernon?" asked the hypocritical Roland, "Oh, the one who is to act, of course.""Well, you see, it's all a matter of taste," returned Ro-


land, "and I should say that her eyes sparkled too much, and that her complexion was too bright and transparent."Blanche did not quite know what to make of this speech."So many men pretend to make a fuss about her," she said. "You know, of course, that she is going to marry that cousin of hers who lives in Dublin and practices at the Irish bar?""Oh, indeed!" said Roland.Now, he had heard this tale again and again, and he knew that the "cousin" looked upon the girl as his future wife, yet the words of Blanche drove him nearly mad with a secret, raging, savage jealousy."I shall have to marry her right off," he said to himself. "I can't possibly endure the sight of that fellow's airs of ownership."Ah! Roland—Roland, had you but known what was in store for you, with your pride, your selfishness, your passion, and your jealousy, you would almost have howled like a mad-man, even there in the sunshine, while you walked across the rich park-lands to which you were the heir. But the ugly surprise which was waiting round the corner was out of sight.The sun shone, the birds sung, the guests laughed and chattered, and then the pretty, gay theater came into sight. It was made of wood, painted and decorated like a pagoda; the arrangements inside were on a handsome scale; the boxes were upholstered in crimson plush; there were rich curtains and painted scenes; there were upper and lower boxes, and a pit. The whole affair had cost Roland several hundred pounds; at then, to be sure, he had not paid for it yet. There were dressing-rooms and a "green-room." Those of the already assembled guests who were not going to act took their places, and the performers went out of sight for the time.Roland was not among these performers. He looked about for his uncle, and he saw Sir Huntly helping some middle-aged matrons to take their places.I wonder what the old boy really does think of Bethel?" he said to himself. "I hope he does not think her too flippant. I am afraid the darling laughed too much; and she does say such startling things! I'll go and find out."Ten minutes afterward, uncle and nephew were seated together in one of the private boxes.The theater was lighted throughout with the prettiest lamps, which diffused a pale, bright luminance, which every one said was far softer and more becoming than gas.Outside was the sound of carriage-wheels and voices. The


guests were now beginning to arrive, or, rather, the audience, for everybody paid for admission, and the money was to be devoted to the county hospital."Well, I think the arrangements do you credit, Roly," said the baronet."I wonder how that little Miss Vernon will acquit herself?" said Roland. "Isn't she"—he hesitated—"an amusing little thing?""She is," said the baronet, slowly, "the loveliest girl I ever saw in my life."Roland's heart thumped with joy; but he was not going to make a confession yet awhile."That," he said, with a laugh, "is a matter of taste, of course. She is rather pretty.""We must be neighborly," said Sir Huntly. "The uncle is a man of culture. I was pleased with him. You had better ask them all to stay and dine."Soon after this the curtain drew up on the first scene, and the play began.We will not linger over the performance; suffice to say that it was as good as that of most amateurs, and that Bethel Vernon's beauty and piquant grace drew down rounds of applause.Sir Huntly listened to every word the girl spoke with the keenest attention.When the play was over, most of the audience went out to their carriages and drove away. A few remained to exchange greetings with Sir Huntly.Roland went at once to Mr. Vernon and Jane, and told them that his uncle begged them to remain and dine in a friendly manner.Mr. Vernon was not inclined to accept the tardy civility of his titled host. He was fatigued after the performance, and anxious to reach home, and so he told Roland; but to his no small surprise, Sir Huntly Stanford came round to the place where he and Jane were seated, and entreated him to remain and dine."I thank you very much, Sir Huntly," said the invalid clergyman, "but I ought to retire early, and I have had too much excitement.""Remain the night," said the baronet, eagerly; "we have room enough for a regiment at the Hall, and servants who have next to nothing to do. It will be a charity if you will all three remain and take pot-luck. Anything that you want from home I will send for."Roland came up at this moment. The happiness which the success of his little scheme gave him shone in his handsome blue eyes; but he still had his game to play out. Sir Handy must not suppose him deeply interested in Bethel Vernon until she had completely won her way into his good graces.He pulled his blonde mustache, and politely added his invitation to that of his uncle, but not at all as if his heart were in it.Finally Mr. Vernon consented to remain.Jane wrote a note in pencil to Martha, asking for toilet necessaries for her uncle, sister, and self; and Sir Huntly at once sent it to the Raggan.A few other guests were invited to remain and dine—Mr. and Mrs. Hibbit; Frances Fielding, who remained without her parents; and Lady Prescot and her daughter Blanche.The Vernon girls found themselves in one of the most charming guest-chambers at Stanford Hall, preparing for the late dinner which was to follow the theatricals."How do I look in this silver-gray and pink?" asked Bethel, dancing up to her sister. "Is my complexion as much like cream and roses as possible? and is my hair stylish? Ah! to be the mistress of Stanford Hall I think that I should go mad!""Then you had better make up your mind to accept your fate, and be thankful.""And what is my fate, pray?""To marry John, and make him a good wife."Bethel, who carried a lace fan, and whose high-heeled shoes, and coiffure raised to a great altitude, gave her something the air of a court beauty of the time of the Pompadour, made her sister a sweeping courtesy."I certainly sha'n't marry John," she said; "and if I did, I should make him as bad a wife as I knew how. I would try to worry him into his grave, you may be sure.""I can't think," said Jane, looking up at her sister with a white, stern face and flashing eyes—"I can't think how wickedness like yours is allowed to prosper, but it always does.""Yes, it always does," the lovely Bethel answered, complacently; "the good, dull, prosaic girls get all the hard work, the cheap gowns, and the cast-off lovers," with a cruel little laugh, "or no lovers at all. You never had a real lover, and I have had so many that I haven't known what to do with them all. When I am married, I shall have still more. I'll


make half a dozen of them shoot themselves for me. I should love to read about it in the society papers; I should love to be called a 'heartless siren,' and I should love to wear the largest diamonds ever seen. I ought to be a princess; but I will be satisfied with Stanford Hall.""You may never be the mistress of this house, Bethel. I don't think you ever will.""Not if you can stop it, you mean," said Bethel, with a provoking laugh; "but you can't.""I will try," said Jane. "You shall not succeed in making yourself mistress of this place if I can help it.""Ah! you will write to John? Well, I don't care; I really don't. He will make his father turn us out because I have flirted with the Stanfords and mean to marry Roland. Well, you must go out as a governess. You know John is too fond of me ever to give you a thought.""I wish that I had gone out at first into the world to earn my bread," said Jane; "but that may be your fate some time—one can never tell.""I can tell," responded Bethel. "I know that I shall marry a vastly rich man, and become a great lady. I shall go to court, and wear diamonds the size of chestnuts.""Or pineapples!" cried Jane, scornfully."If there were any as large, I would have them!" cried Bethel. Her cheeks glowed a deeper pink, her eyes flashed. "You are silly to provoke me. When once I am a great lady, I shall have heaps of money at my command; but if you write to that hateful John, and bring him here to annoy me and set Sir Huntly against me, I will turn my back upon you—you sha'n't have a shilling of mine—not a shilling!""If Sir Huntly consents to allow you to marry his nephew—" began Jane.At that moment there came a quick tap on the door. The were both ready for dinner, so Jane said:"Come in."Thereupon there entered Patience Wood, who was now enrolled among the domestics at Stanford Hall, having induced the housekeeper to engage her, at a low salary, as one of the under-house-maids.Patience Wood was of middle age. She was clad neatly, in a plain black gown, white cap and apron; the scar upon her face, and her evil expression, made her unpleasant to look upon."I beg your pardon, miss," said Patience, looking at


Bethel, "but I thought you might need some help in your toilet?""No; I don't want the least help," said Bethel, ungraciously.Somehow, there was a look in that woman's black eyes which made the beauty shiver."You need very little help at present to make you look nice," said Patience Wood, with a grim smile, which showed the spaces where she had lost teeth; "but the time will come when you won't be quite so pretty, and I know a secret that will make you handsomer even than you are now.""Why don't you make yourself handsome, then, you absurd woman?" said Bethel, rudely.This young lady thought that the lower classes had no feelings, or that if they had, it was all the more fun to wound them. Patience Wood scowled, and registered a vow against Miss Vernon."House-maids must not be too handsome, miss," she said; "housekeepers would never engage them if they were—besides, I have had my day. All I want now is to sell my powders and ointments for a good price.""Thank you," said sharp-witted Bethel. "You may depend upon it, Miss House-maid, that if ever I require powders to make me prettier, I will not come to you."Clearly, Miss Bethel Vernon did not trouble herself not to make enemies. She despised people in the rank of Patience Wood."Oh, my lady," said Patience, with a harsh laugh—"oh, my lady!"Then she stopped short, and Bethel stared at her. Why had she called her my lady?"I am not quite my lady yet, house-maid," she said."No, miss, but you seek to be, and you will be—perhaps. I could tell you both your fortunes, young ladies," added Patience Wood, wheeling about so suddenly that she even startled Jane. "I could tell you true if you would let me shuffle a pack of cards.""No, no! I don't believe a bit in such stuff—not the least little bit," said the practical Bethel.Now, many sensible young ladies who read this story will, perhaps, **indorse the remark of Bethel Vernon—they will say that they don't believe the "least little bit in such stuff" as fortune-telling. Certainly Bethel did not; she had neither imagination enough nor sympathy enough to be superstitious. Jane, with larger intellectual capacities and warmer heart,


was very imaginative, consequently there was a vein of superstition—a dash of fatalism in her nature.She wished much to know what was to be the climax to John Vernon's desperate passion for her pretty, heartless sister."If you will tell my fortune," she said to Patience Wood, I will pay you.""Thank you, miss; you will have a much happier life than your sister. You will wed the man you love, and live a joyful life."Jane's pale, fine face flushed pink—a something in her heart—was it the voice of superstition?—whispered to her tat what the unpleasant-looking house-maid had said was true."How much do you charge?" she said."Half a crown, miss.""When will you tell me?" said Jane."I will come here at half past ten, miss, while all the company are singing and enjoying themselves, and I will tell you your fortune as true as true.""There is the dinner-bell," cried Bethel. "I did not think that you
were so silly, Jane.CHAPTER XXI.JANE VERNON was the least happy of the guests at that dither-party; yet she was a handsome girl, well dressed, and with a certain composure of manner that was natural to her and became her thoroughly.She wore a gown of cream-colored lace over dark crimson, and this suited the ivory pallor of her complexion and her ebony hair.Blanche Prescot, whose complexion and hair resembled Jane's, was not half as handsome; and though her dress was of amber satin and lace, and she wore a diamond cross, she aid not look so distinguished as the obscure young lady from the Raggan.There were only two young men present—Roland Stanford, and a certain Captain Standish. This last-named guest was on a visit it the neighborhood. He was a drawling, amiable, rather good-looking young man, with an eyeglass and a pleasant smile.Roland wished to keep the fact of his love for Bethel a profound secret for the present from the prying eyes of the


county. So he paid exaggerated attention to Blanche Prescot, putting her into a seventh heaven of rapture, but casting now and anon a look over at Bethel and his uncle.Evidently the baronet was more interested in the pretty child than he had been in anybody for years. Roland was delighted.Bethel continued to chatter. She showed him tricks with cards. He offered to teach her chess, but she shrunk away and laughed."I am not clever enough, Sir Huntly," she said, making a pretty little moue, which was too fascinating to be called a grimace; "but I will play écarté. I have a Cousin John, and he taught me; but I love bagatelle the best."She ended by going to a large table at the other end of the great room, and playing bagatelle with Sir Huntly."I can't endure that girl!" said Blanche Prescot, suddenly, to Roland, and à propos of nothing."Why?" asked Roland, bluntly; for once he forgot to be polite and charming.Oh, because she is so affected. I heard that your cousin Donald went away because she made such a dead set at him, and threatened to sue him for breach, because he wrote her a note about some flower-seeds for her garden.""What rubbish people talk!" said Roland."Dear me! I assure you I heard it from good authority, and I believe it's true," said Miss Prescot."Then you are intimate with some friend of Donald's, I suppose? Or is it with some friend of Be—I mean of the Vernons?"Blanche tossed her head."Call her Bethel, as you were going to do," she said, angrily."Bethel," said Roland, calmly.Blanche looked as if she would have liked to box the ears of Roland."I think it wrong to encourage these Vernons," she said. "You see, they have no lady at the head of the house—no mother, no aunt. I don't see how bachelors are to avoid making mistakes."Meanwhile, Mrs. Hibbit set herself to the task of lecturing Jane on the rules and regulations of society.The lieutenant sauntered up and asked Jane to sing; she declined, but it ended in Frances Fielding going to the piano, and "giving them all some music."Captain Standish began to pay Jane compliments; then


Frances crossed over to Mrs. Hibbit, and asked her some questions.What has become of that clever girl who acted at Yarrow Leas in the winter—that girl from the work-house with the odd name—'Frost,' was it?""Snow!" snapped Mrs. Hibbit."Is it true that she is dead?" asked Miss Fielding."Not that I know of," returned Mrs. Hibbit. "She was a most wicked girl.""Was she?" asked Frances. "What did she do?""Well, she tried to burn the rectory down," replied Mrs. Hibbit, "because she was not allowed to take part in the, acting to-day.""She must be a great actress to love it so," said Miss Fielding. "Do you know, I have an idea, that, if she lives, she will be one of the very finest actresses in England, or in the world.""That's rubbish!" said Mrs. Hibbit. "She was a wicked girl. She ran away that night, and has never been heard of since.""She may have drowned herself," said Frances." Well," said Mrs. Hibbit, "worse than that may have happened to her, if she reached London without a shilling or a friend.""She was cruelly treated, I should say," said Frances."Yes," responded Mrs. Hibbit, coldly, "it was cruel of poor Donald Stanford to give the girl a chance to make here self ridiculous; cruel, too, of my husband to lend the girl books, and educate her above her station. She felt it when she found her level. Poor Miss Pringle, who brought her up, was going to have her apprenticed to an institute where she would have learned thoroughly the business of a general servant. She ran away to avoid that.""I should have done the same, Mrs. Habbit," said Frances; "You, yes; you are a lady. Velvet Snow is a work-house girl raised out of her place.""I think it was quite monstrous to try to make a servant of that genius," said Miss Fielding.Meanwhile, Jane was sick with longing to find herself téte-à-téte with that repulsive-looking house-maid who had promised to tell her her fortune, "as true as true."Captain Standish found her handsome, but too cold; so he sauntered away to play bagatelle with Sir Huntly and Bethel, and Jane contrived to leave the drawing-room.It was a lovely summer night, and as Jane passed down the


long gallery leading to her room, she stopped at an open window overlooking the lawns and flower-gardens. The moon was hanging like a lamp of pearl in the deep blue of the heavens; there was a faint breeze astir, the gentlest fluttering of the south-west wind; the air was laden with the perfume of late, lingering roses.How full of beauty and repose was the summer-garden of this rich man's house! What an element of human happiness is wealth! Let moralists moralize as they will to the contrary, let wiseacres propound their wisdom to the same effect in lengthy lectures, delivered to the needy in penny pamphlets or on platforms where the doctrine of patience is preached in prettily worded platitudes, anybody who has had to struggle with this world, and has found it hard and cruel, must know that it is full of cant.Jane Vernon was not unhappy because she was poor, but because she had given her love unsought, and because the man she loved had given his heart to a girl who was tramping it under her feet.Still, the inequality of things, the apparent injustice of things, smote upon Jane with a new meaning and a new force when she went to the open window and leaned out, inhaling the perfumed air and watching the pearly globe of the moon.So much to belong to one man in the possibly near future, and Bethel to reign there as queen, and John to run mad, throw up his professional career, and go out of sight, a wrecked life, a wrecked manhood, and all because Bethel was so beautiful and so pitiless!Jane's tears fell fast upon the thick leaves and flowers of the white rose that clothed that side of the house and draped the window-place.She heard a step in the corridor; looking round, she found the mysterious maid, Patience Wood, by her side.Jane tried to hide her tears, but the house-maid was too quick for her."Don't cry, miss," she said; "your turn will come next.""My turn?" asked Jane, putting her cambric handkerchief to her wet eyes."Yes, your turn; your sister is—pardon me—cruel and wicked.""I have no right to allow you to speak so to me; still, my sister was rude to you—I apologize for her.""Don't, miss, don't! I like people to show themselves as


they are. Your sister is ambitious; she wishes to be the mistress of this fine house. Ha! ha! ha!""If she does," said Jane, "she is not alone in the wish; other ladies among the visitors have an eye on the heir.""On the heir, yes," said Patience Wood; "but the pretty childish rosebud is **paying a deeper game.""What do you mean?" asked Jane, startled; but the strange house-maid laughed mockingly."If you can't see it, miss, I am sure I don't know why I should. We all know that Mr. Roland Stanford is the heir of Sir Huntly—the heir to the entailed estates, and this great house, and the title. If your sister becomes Mrs. Roland Stanford—well, I suppose you think she may reasonably expect to become Lady Stanford one day, eh?""I hope she won't," said Jane, speaking between close-shut teeth. "I hope she will never marry Mr. Stanford.""It's my belief she never will," said Patience Wood. "There are all kinds of impediments in the way of her becoming Lady Stanford.""You seem to be deep in the family secrets," said Jane, with a touch of scorn. Whereupon Patience Wood broke into a strange, chuckling laugh."You will think of those words of yours, miss, one of these days—that I seem deep in the family secrets. Oh, if you only knew what I know! Sometimes, you know, the head that wears a coronet ought by rights to wear the convict's skull-cap. Have you never heard that, Miss Vernon?""Yes," said Jane; "but I hope you don't mean that anybody in this house deserves a prison?"There is one," said Patience Wood, "whom I should like to see put to torture. Ay, and I should laugh and clap my hands when I heard his cries of anguish!"Jane drew away from the house-maid as from something evil."It is fearful to harbor such feelings," she said. "I can't understand them. No; I refuse to let you tell my fortune.""Well and good," said Patience Wood in a soft, hissing whisper. "You may tell the housekeeper that you think me mad if you like.""No, indeed; I have not the least right to interfere in this house," returned Jane. "I know that you must have a grudge against Mr. Stanford. I dare say he is not a very good young man; but he is nothing to me."No, he is nothing to you, and he is nothing to me, re-


sponded Patience Wood. "The years have run on so fast—he is a man now, but I think of him as a child.""Is it Sir Huntly, then, whom you hate?" asked Jane, in surprise."Is it?" echoed Patience Wood. "There is an arch-hypocrite in this world who wears the garb of a saint; there is a man who wears a gold chain when a hangman's rope would suit his deserts better; but the hangman's rope will never ornament his neck. Still, a time shall come when he shall sit in the dust!"As Patience spoke, she ground her teeth together, and she seemed to growl like a wolf. The gallery was lonely, far from the other rooms and inhabited portion of the house. This woman was either a demon of wickedness or a maniac. A sick terror came over Jane Vernon—a foretaste of coming horror. Was this creature human?"The mistress of Stanford Hall—Lady Stanford," said the woman, speaking now in a light, bantering tone, "when that lady is wearing diamonds and orange-blossoms, will you think of me?"As she spoke, she went away swiftly; but before she turned the corner of the corridor, Jane heard her mocking laugh.Jane remained dazed for a few minutes; then the meaning of the woman's rage and her excitement seemed made plain to her comprehension.In the days of his youth, Sir Huntly Stanford had deceived this woman who now called herself Patience Wood. She had trusted him, and he had abandoned her. Afterward she had come out from her evil surroundings, had "reformed," and taken to hard work and domestic service. Fate or chance had placed her as an under-servant in the splendid house of the man to whom she owed the wreck of her life, and now the thirst of vengeance was awake within her, and she was ready to do anything."She ought not to stay here," thought Jane. "Sir Huntly ought to be warned. Can he know that she is here?"And then Jane saw that a feeling of jealousy had blinded Patience Wood, so that in the pretty, coquettish child of nineteen, Bethel Vernon, she actually saw a rival."How absurd!" said Jane to herself—"how very absurd! Still, I can see that the woman fancies she has still a claim on the handsome bachelor baronet. I won't warn Bethel. She delights so much in mischief, that she will find an opportunity of driving this Patience Wood madder than she is at


present, and then she will certainly do some mischief. Tomorrow we must all get back to the Raggan."The next day was one of intense heat, but the sun was hidden; the heavens hung low and black; the portent of storm was in the air; the birds flew close to the earth; the deer in the park crowded together in groups."No, you must not think of leaving to-day, Mr. Vernon," Sir Huntly said to his guest at the breakfast-table. "If the storm caught you on the way home, and the horses took fright, your nerves would get a shock. Do remain until tomorrow!"Things fell out most oddly, most unexpectedly at this time. Looking back to it all in after days, Jane seemed to see the finger of fate pointing out to her, and to her uncle, and sister, and also to Sir Huntly, and even to Roland, the paths which they were all to take, and which led to such a direful and and un-dreamed-of end.The storm burst in the afternoon with awful and ghastly sheet-lightning, fearful roars of thunder, deluges of rain, that flooded the park, and even the lawns and flower-gardens.Bethel's voice rose gayly above the tempest. She was playing billiards, in the billiard-room, with Roland.Sir Huntly invited Jane to go with him and join the game, and soon there was a match, with two on each side.Bethel's spirits rose so high that Jane stood amazed, and wondered what her sister would do next—what she meant to do.Sir Huntly seemed to have no eyes, no ears, for anybody save his pretty guest. He hung upon her words as if his life had depended upon them.This recluse, middle-aged bachelor had hitherto almost earned the name of being morose in the county, so little had he mixed in society, so cold and stilted had been his politeness to the fair sex. His farms, his mines, his lonely rides, his favorite authors, had filled his life; now he seemed to have awakened as out of a deep sleep; the lethargy of years had fallen from him as a mantle, and he stood erect in the strength and vigor of his fifty-five years, a hale, handsome man, whose fair hair was hardly touched with gray, whose physical health was perfect.What had come to him? What new thoughts were in his heart?Jane's great eyes opened in wonder, when, on the third day, as Roland somewhat irreverently put it, his uncle was like


Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, and "refused to let the people go."Bethel and Roland were together in the shrubbery. The morning was lovely. Roland had cast a fur rug on the grass, for the late rain had made the ground damp. Bethel sat on the rug, under a tree, looking at the illustrations in a weekly paper.Somehow she could not raise her eyes to those of Roland, who sat at some little distance, not looking at pictures, but sulkily tearing up handfuls of grass and daisies, and flinging them about."I shall speak to him to-day," said Roland, suddenly. "I shall tell him the truth—that we are engaged."As he spoke, he fixed his eyes on the beautiful face of Bethel, and he saw her start and grow a shade paler."Oh, what a funny manner those Hungarian ladies have of doing their hair!" she said."Bethel, did you hear me say that I intend to tell Sir Huntly to-day that you and I are engaged?"She looked up at him now, and she was paler than she had been before. The words she spoke petrified her lover with surprise."I don't consider that we are engaged."It was now the turn of Roland to change color. His face grew livid."Bethel, you are a false, wicked girl!" he said.Then she rose to the occasion. There was a combative spirit in this girl. Find fault with her, and, no matter who you were, she would defy you."That's it, then?" she said, with a scornful smile. "If I were foolish enough to marry you, you would abuse me when you liked? I break off my engagement. I won't have you at all. I thought I liked you, do you see? but I find I don't."Roland's face grew more livid still.Good Heaven! had this little fiend had this in her head when she had schemed so to be introduced to Sir Huntly?"Whom do you at present purpose honoring with your hand in marriage, Miss Vernon?" asked Roland, scornfully."I am engaged to be married to Sir Huntly Stanford," she said in a clear, distinct, and defiant tone. "He asked me last night, and I accepted him. I believe that he is now talking about it with Uncle James, in the library."Blank silence—deadly silence—for a space. In fact, heart-


less Bethel quite shivered as she looked at Roland's face, and wondered if he would strangle her.She even felt inclined to call out for help and then, partly to her horror, partly to her relief, this hard young man of the world, whom she had deceived, burst into a laugh."You are the cleverest young woman under the sun, Miss Vernon; but I am really afraid, do you know, that I must spoil this pretty game of yours. I hardly think Sir Huntly will wish to marry you when I tell him that you had promised to be my wife, and now only fling me up in order to be Lady Stanford. Do you remember calculating how long he would live? Do you remember talking of 'his dear, old shaky voice'?""That was before I knew him," said Bethel, truthfully. "He is much handsomer than you are. I like him a million times better.""So be it, Miss Vernon. Now, then, understand that it is war to the knife. I go to my uncle to let him know that you are a demon in the shape of an angel. You must know that if he marries I cease to be his heir.""Of course you do," cried Bethel. "I may be a baby, but I have sense enough to know that if I become Lady Stanford, and have a son, he will be the heir. I don't for a moment suppose you will be the heir now. You don't deserve it, and I hope you won't."If ever a young lady could be termed brutal and unfeeling, it was surely Bethel Vernon.Roland, even in that moment, could not conquer his love for this supreme enchantress. He went up to her, and, despite her struggles, clasped her to his heart."There, you little inhuman witch," he said, "there, those are my farewell kisses; but don't think that I will let the old man marry you in the dark. No; he shall know that you are engaged to your cousin John, and to my cousin Donald, and to me, and to the old boy himself, all at one and the' same time. If he likes to marry you when he knows all, let him. Ha! ha!"CHAPTER XXII.BETHEL VERNON had the prettiest, most interesting manners—child-like, simple, with a dash of shrewdness that redeemed them from insipidity, and a certain liveliness that even passed for wit.She had the talent of a raconteur, and could describe things


that had never happened, and persons who had never lived. We know what tales of this sort she related to Donald on the first night of her introduction to him.She had talked such pretty nonsense, and told such picturesque untruths to Sir Huntly, that she had quite turned that gentleman's head.Now, however, there was danger in the air. She had been too insolent, too cruel, too provoking, to Roland; she had made her late lover her deadly enemy.Bethel meant to be Lady Stanford, and mistress of Stanford Hall; she meant to spend two thousand a year on clothes and jewels; she would not have cared if the achieving of these ends had cost the lives of a thousand persons.When Nature manufactured Bethel, the great mother-goddess forgot to give her either a heart or a conscience.She was a born actress of light comedy, and she contrived to appear well-principled and affectionate to superficial observers.Roland had gone of to make mischief—to tell tales! She clinched her small, pearly teeth, then, with an effort, made up her mind.She rose and ran toward the house. She knew where Sir Huntly was; he was in the library, and Roland was with him.She went straight through the hall, and on reaching the library door, stood and listened.Yes, loud voices, angry voices. Her heart—Bethel had the physical organ healthily developed—began to beat fast. She stopped and put her ear to the key-hole."You have made a fool of me, sir!" Roland was saying in a voice hoarse with passion. "You have brought me up as your heir; you have accustomed me to look on this house and this estate as being mine in the future; now you coolly tell me that you are going to marry, and you offer me a paltry fortune in compensation! I have had seven hundred a year hitherto to spend upon my own personal expenses, now you coolly tell me that I may have two thousand, but I must find myself a home!"I have expensive tastes; you have never taught me to economize; but worse than all, this girl whom you are so infatuated as to fancy loves you "—here Roland paused to laugh bitterly—"this girl has promised to be my wife; she has also promised to be Donald's wife. It was because this shameless hussy threw him over that poor Don sold out of the army and Went to Africa. Besides all this, this girl is now engaged to


her cousin, John Vernon, the barrister of Dublin. Think what a pretty sort of Lady Stanford you are going to introduce to the county!""Silence, sir!" The voice of Sir Huntly was deep and loud with wrath, "Utter one more of those insults, and I will strike your name out of my will entirely, and you may go and darn your living as a billiard-marker if you like."Bethel rose up from her stooping attitude, There was a wicked smile on her red mouth, a wicked light in her eyes. She turned the handle of the door, and walked in upon the uncle and nephew, both of whom she had duped.She glanced up with a sweet shyness into the flushed, handsome face of Sir Huntly."Oh!" she said, clasping her white hands together, "do—do—do forgive me, Huntly, darling Huntly—you know you did beg me to call you Huntly—it's true I have been engaged to all those silly creatures. What could I do? Wherever I go, men will fall on their knees to me, and they will threaten to shoot themselves unless I promise to marry them. And so—oh! do—do—do forgive me, Huntly, darling!—I did promise to marry one, then another—then another. I never cared for one of them. When I met you—oh, Huntly dearest! I felt that I—I loved you, so that I would die to win your love.""No, Stanford Hall!" cried Roland in a voice of fury."Sir," said Sir Huntly, "leave this room; leave this house! Don't presume to come near me again until you come humbly apologizing for these insults to me and my future wife!""My future aunt!" said Roland, breaking into a peal of ironical and savage laughter. "Dearest Aunty Bethel! Old man"—here he turned toward his uncle, and there was a dreadful smile on his lip—"old man, you are playing with infernal weapons. You will repent this! Oh, yes, you will repent this!"Roland went out of the room.As soon as the door had closed upon him, Bethel broke into a silvery laugh merry as a peal of marriage-bells."How glad I am that he is gone!" she said. "I hope he will never come back any more! Don't you, Huntly?"What was the siren power over this creature, with her childish graces and her womanly wiles?Sir Huntly caught her to his heart, held her there for a space, and pressed his lips to hers."Oh, my love!" he said. "I am an old man, compared to you. It is May and December, it is not, sweet?""No, no," she said, softly. "It is April and August. There is no greater difference. Look at your beautiful, curly light hair! And then your face—handsomer a hundred times than that horrid boy's!"She did not put in one word for Roland; she sincerely hoped that the breach might widen between him and his uncle, and that she might never see him again as long as she lived.And thus Bethel became the betrothed wife of Sir Huntly Stanford, Baronet.The last week in August. Fruit is ripe and heavy on the trees at the Raggan. It is evening, long past six o'clock, and the sun red is sinking in the west. Jane Vernon sits on the grass in the back garden, under the spreading boughs of a great apple-tree loaded with ruddy fruit.Jane is dressed quietly in a cream-colored gown. She has a crimson verbena at her throat, the only spot of color in her attire. She wears no hat. Her black hair crowns her finely shaped head with a certain classic grace. She has a book in her hands, but her eyes are on the sunset clouds floating away in squadrons of pomp which outrival the most gorgeous earthly pageants.But Jane does not even see the sunset; her "eyes are with her heart, and that is far away."To-morrow Bethel is to become Lady Stanford.She has written and broken off the engagement with her cousin John herself; and John has never answered her letter—never uttered a reproach—taken no manner of notice.At first Mr. Vernon and Jane had been afraid, from this silence, that the sudden shock had made the man ill. But no; they always took the Dublin papers, and they saw his name still in the law courts. He defended a prisoner who was on trial for his life, and succeeded in carrying away the jury on the sweeping tide of his eloquence. The man escaped his doom, and John Vernon's name rose higher than ever in the estimation of man.No, John was not ill. Jane had written to him an impassioned letter of sympathy. She had called on him to be brave, to be worthy of himself. She had spoken frankly of Bethel as shallow and fickle, and she had told him that she had always known that she would wreck his life if ever she became his wife.John had not answered that letter.Only two hours before we find Jane under the apple-tree, she had received a telegram from Dublin, containing these words."I shall be at the Raggan some time to-night."JOHN."So that he was coming! Bethel had shut herself up in her room; she had vowed that she would not see John.A step on the gravel path; but the tall fruit trees hide the person who is approaching. Another moment, and Jane sees a tall man crossing the grass toward the apple-tree—the man she so passionately and hopelessly loves.John Vernon's clothes are travel-stained.. His face!—that change upon it is awful-indescribable—appalling!Jane's heart beats with a sick terror. Then he smiles, and says, softly:"Jane!"CHAPTER XXIII."JOHN," said Jane Vernon, "you must have wine and something to eat at once: You are famished."He threw himself upon the grass, at some little distance from where Jane stood, without clasping her hand, without looking at her a second time. He turned his face away, supporting his head upon his arm, as if overcome (as he was in truth) by weariness and exhaustion. John Vernon had traveled incessantly since the evening before, when he had left Dublin. He had then crossed from Howth to Holyhead, and had arrived at Yarrow Leas that afternoon. He had walked the distance between that town and the Raggan under a broiling sun, and had eaten nothing since having left Dublin the night before. Jane was leaving for the house, when he caught at her skirts."Stop!" he said. "Tell me all about it. I want to know everything.""What more is there to know, John? She is to be married tomorrow.""To that old ruffian, for the sake of his money and his title?"" For the sake of his money and his title. Yes, Bethel would do even wickeder things than break your heart, dear John, for the sake of title and money."John Vernon turned his lace toward the grass, and Jane heard him grind his teeth in his impotent wrath."Oh, why did you come, John?" she broke forth—"why did you come?""Why?" he repeated. He turned his white face toward her now, and looked at her with those bright eyes set so close together. There was a dreadful meaning in them, as of a deathless wrath, an unutterable anguish. "Why have I come? If she lay dying from the attack of some escaped wild beast, some wolf or tiger who had sprung upon her—if that had happened, and I had known that she must die, I should have come to look my last upon her, and"—with a grim mockery of a smile—"and to shoot the wild beast, if it were not dead already!"Somehow the words of John Vernon made his cousin's blood run cold."John, you are not mad through this? You don't mean that you—that you, in short, intend—"She paused."Intend," he said, "to shoot this old ruffian who dares to but youth and loveliness for his bride, and bribes a mere child to falsehood and cruelty with his diamonds and his title! What does he deserve?""He is not to blame," said Jane, stoutly. "Love has' blinded your eyes. You are intoxicated, stupefied, mad for love of Bethel Vernon! She is my sister, and she has the face of one of Murillo's angels; but her heart has always been like a stone. Self, nothing but self, has Bethel once cared for ever since she knew her right hand from her left. She schemed to get introduced to Sir Huntly. She was engaged to his nephew Roland and to his nephew Donald at the same time that she was engaged to you.""You mean, then, that if I shoot anybody, it should be Bethel?""I mean that murder will not make you any happier, but a million times more miserable than you now are. I mean that crime is not the medicine for a suffering soul to solace itself with. If Sir Huntly Stanford lay dead on the grass there under that apple-tree, you would not be any nearer to winning the love of Bethel Vernon. She has no love for you, for him, for any one.""If he were dead, you see, she could not become his wife," John Vernon answered, with his grim smile; "and I do not believe that she ever will be his wife.""Don't say so, John. Everything is settled. Your


father, knowing how you would feel this, would not give his consent to the match. He told Bethel, as I did also, that it was a monstrous breach of faith, a most unmaidenly and wicked action; and he refused to see Sir Huntly when he called, nor would he answer his letters. You can't blame your father, John.""I don't blame the poor, weak old man.""There is nobody to blame but Bethel, John.""You are hard upon her, Jane. Women are, they say, always hard upon one another. I don't blame the child. I—""The child!" echoed Jane, with a contemptuous laugh. "Bethel will be twenty next month, and she is forty in craft. Oh, let her run her worldly prosperous course; let her flourish like the green bay-tree. You will see all the glory wither in time; you will see that a woman without a heart and a conscience must come to grief. She will end in the divorce court—not end; there will be worse for her after that—humiliation, poverty, shame. Such wickedness must be punished if there is justice; and there is justice, John.""Yes; there is a wild justice called vengeance, is there not?"Did he look wholly evil, or did physical suffering, sorrow, and the dust and soil of the journey all conspire to make the powerful face as that of an ideal Lucifer?Jane Vernon loved this man in secret. She worshiped his intellectual prowess; she saw the generous and kindly side of his nature. He was the ideal of her girl's dreams, and yet she shrunk and shivered at the look of hungry vengeance which she read in his close-together eyes."A wild justice," he went on; with a hard laugh, "that will astonish the good people of Yarrow Leas. Bring me food. I must eat and drink.""And we must make you up a bed," said Jane."A bed, must you? Do you think that I shall sleep this last night before the wedding? Is it to be a very grand one?"Jane laughed scornfully."A grand one? Can you doubt that? Do you know so little of this angelic Bethel as to suppose she would be content with a quiet, modest wedding? No, John; it will be the very grandest wedding heard of in these parts for the last twenty-five years or so. It will take place at the village church of Ellsmere, and the Bishop of St. Crays is to perform the ceremony. The breakfast will be at the Hall, because Uncle James would not lend a hand to the affair in any way. Half
the county are invited. A certain fashionable old belle, a


Lady Proudmount, a second cousin of Sir Huntly, has been installed at the Hall for the last month as mistress of the ceremonies. She has helped Bethel to choose her trousseau. The family diamonds and the family rubies have been reset with such splendor that Colonel Fielding, who was for years in India, and is a judge of precious stones, says the sets are fit for an empress."Jane paused to take breath; and John, who had listened with an unnatural smile, said:"What empress ever could have graced her jewels as Bethel will grace these?""They ought to blister her white neck and arms!" said Jane, passionately.Just for a moment John Vernon raised himself upon his elbow, and he looked with a deep wonderment into the dark, glancing, beautiful eyes of Jane Vernon.What was this great and piteous indignation which move her soul as a coming tempest moves the deep waters of he sea? Pity for him—only pity for him?Instinct told him, as in a flash of lightning, the whole of her secret.This girl loved him, even as he loved Bethel—loved him nobly and truly, so that if Bethel had been true and worthy of him, she (Jane) would have abnegated self and have rejoiced in his joy; then nobody should have guessed her secret—it would have died with her; but when she saw the anguish of the man she loved, her heart bled for him, and a storm of wrath against the girl who had trampled on his affections woke up in her."Jane," he said, "give me your hand. Your sympathy is—sweet—to me. Jane, I wish that I could die this night."She gave him her hand, but calmly, as one gives one's hand to a friend."You will live this down," she said; "I know you will—but oh! why did you come here?""Tell me, Jane, all about this wedding which is to be in the morning, and to which half the county are invited. Diamonds, you said—and rubies—what else?""Wedding-presents from county folks invited to the wedding. who wish to conciliate the future Lady Stanford. Lade Proudmount has two daughters who are staying with her, and they would have had Bethel stay there all the time, and me also, but I would not, so Bethel has gone there every day, the carriage has come for her every morning, and has brought her home here at night.""Is she here now, or is she there at the house of the old scoundrel who has bought her?""She is here now; she will not go there till to-morrow, a carriage will come for her quite early at half past eight, then I must go with her. I have to be one of her bride-maids. Uncle James thought I could not refuse that. I am her only sister, and Sir Huntly so entreated me; it was a long time before I would yield, but at last I did. As soon as they are married, I shall come back here.""At what time does the wedding take place?""Not till eleven o'clock. Lady Proudmount's French maid is to dress us both. When I have worn my dress, I shall give it away, and the diamond locket Sir Huntly has sent me I shall sell and give the money to the county hospital.""Bring me something to eat, Jane. When I have eaten something and taken some wine, I will go back to Yarrow Leas.""You must see your father.""If I come under the roof, I may hear her voice, and even see her face. I might run mad, you see.""If you return to the inn at Yarrow Leas, you must drive there, and you must sleep and rest. Let to-morrow go by; after that you will come here, will you not?""After to-morrow has gone by," he said, repeating her words. "Yes, when to-morrow has gone; but there will be no forgetting to-morrow as long as I live. If I were going to be hanged to-morrow, eh, Jane, would your pretty eyes look as sad as they look now?""They would close in death before such a day dawned as that, John. Oh, be sure of it!"He laughed a dreary laugh."I have felt so like a murderer, Jane, at times. I have dreamed that I have stolen like a thief into this old scoundrel's mansion and driven a knife into his heart, and I have not flinched nor repented when he has given a great cry—a cry that has wakened me out of my dream.""An evil, unholy, horrible dream, John. Never—never—never dream it again.""And now you see that I am faint and starving. Bring me some wine and some food, won't you, Jane?"She hastened into the house; but when she returned with Martha, carrying refreshments, John Vernon was gone.Jane's heart seemed to stand still with fear."He can't be gone far," she said; "he was so worn out—


so ill. John—John!" she raised her- voice and called him again and yet again.She went searching all about the gardens; but she only startled the sleeping birds in the bushes. She heard no sound of answering voice or footsteps. After all, he might have gone indoors."Martha," she said, "he has gone indoors."So they went into the house, which was now filled with the gleam of the dusk, and they lighted the hall and parlor lamps, and searched diligently; but John Vernon was not there.Martha dropped her voice to an awful whisper."Are you sure it was Mr. John?" asked the old woman. "Did you feel his hand? It seems to me like the visitation of a spirit. Perhaps we shall hear in a day or two that the pour young gentleman has killed himself for the sake of Miss Bethel."Martha was, one of Bethel's most infatuated worshipers. If a whole regiment of men had committed suicide for the sake of her capricious young mistress, she would have regarded the occurrence as quite natural under the circumstances."Martha, you are absurd, superstitious, insane!" cried Jane. "John took my hand. I felt it—of course I did. Oh, he must be gone back to Yarrow Leas. He altered his mind. He would not come under the roof which covered her; he would not eat of the bread from under that roof; although he pays for most of it. He is gone back—gone back to the George Hotel at Yarrow Leas."But while Jane spoke- thus, a giant terror was at her heart—a dread worse than the dread of death was upon her. John Vernon was mad with jealous love. He had crossed the seas to prevent this marriage of Bethel with Sir Huntly, and the way he meant to prevent it was by means of murder. Jane felt that that sultry August night was heavy with the weight, dark with the shadow of an awful crime.CHAPTER XXIV.HE is mad, and he means murder! This was the thought in the heart of Jane Vernon. Hers was a deep nature, capable of much—honest, proud, a trifle stern toward the false, the weak, and the self-indulgent. Her faults were on the side of nobility. She was unforgiving toward evil-doers. She had no faith in moral reformations, yet she would have pardoned John Vernon a whole calendar of sins. But then—she loved him."John is mad—John is mad!" she kept repeating to herself. "He is gone up to Stanford Hall with evil intent. It would be better to arrest him before the act—but how? Anyway, this must not happen. Sir Huntly Stanford must be warned—cautioned. Or shall I watch about for John, and kneel to him, and entreat him to hold back his hand from this great crime?"Jane went to her room and enveloped herself in a black cloak with a black hood that covered her head. Walking in the brightness of the moonlight she might thus escape observation, for her white gown was now completely hidden. Nobody saw her thus equip herself. She left the Raggan, and began running rapidly along the dusty high-road. Would she be in time? If John were as mad as he had looked, he might almost have reached Stanford Hall by now, and have shot Sir Huntly dead in the presence of his guests. He was capable of that, Jane verily believed, and then of giving himself up. Great Heaven! and all this—all this crime and misery—on account of that cruel, selfish, petted Bethel!"She will not care if Sir Huntly dies. She will marry his heir. She is certain to triumph through it all. Oh, how hard it is to be obliged to hate and scorn Bethel so utterly! She is my own only sister, and I have no more love for her than if I had never seen her."But Jane wronged her own heart when she thought these thoughts; and time proved that love for this selfish beauty still lingered in her soul, all unawares to herself.The miles that lay between the Raggan and Stanford Hall seemed to glide away without Jane's making any effort. She was tall and supple.At last she was in the shady portion of the park, walking on the soft grass underneath the thick trees.It was always possible for foot-passengers to get into the park from the lane outside the shrubbery near the summer-house, and John Vernon most likely knew this, and he was in the park, watching about no doubt, or else he might be near the house, or in the house even.Jane's soul sickened at the thought. She was desperately heated after her rapid walk on that sultry night.She stood under the trees, and ventured, as she was in the shadows, to take off her hood and cloak, and to wipe her brow. She even sunk for a few moments on the grass, which was wet with heavy dew.Jane was not in the mood to care whether or no she caught her death of cold.The grand house stood in the near distance; lights twinkled in many windows; people were evidently not inclined to retire to rest early. To-morrow a wedding-party was to issue from under that porch, and to sweep down the stately terrace steps. All the drive would be crowded with the gayest equipages in the county. Flower-strewn would be those white stone steps; and Bethel, in ivory satin, wearing the resplendent Stanford diamonds—Bethel would look like a royal bride, chosen out of the width of the whole wide world for the sake of her glorious beauty.The terraces were cast into shadow. No sound came from the mansion.Suddenly Jane Vernon heard footsteps close to where she sat crouching on the wet grass. Startled, she sprung to her feet, and a glimmer of the moonlight caught her white gown and discovered her to the person who now approached her.Quickly Jane saw that her unwelcome companion under the trees was a woman, and soon that woman stood revealed to her in the brilliant moonlight.This was Patience Wood, the extraordinary house-maid whom she had refused to allow to tell her fortune."Oh, Miss Vernon, you are here, watching the house, and thinking what a fine wedding-cake they will have to-morrow? I mean to ask for a piece of it—oh, I do! I mean to ask Sir Huntly himself for it. Won't he be astonished when he sees me! I have lived in his big house as under-house-maid all these many months, but he has not once seen my face. I have talked of him to one and another, and I have almost thought that somebody would mention me to him; but who ever troubles themselves about what a mere house-maid says, eh?""If Sir Huntly did you a wrong, Patience Wood, you ought to seek him out and demand a redress from himself, not speak evilly of him to strangers, and trust to their telling him about you.""You ought to be a female lecturer, miss; don't you think so? Couldn't you speak upon a platform, miss, eh?""I hope I never shall," returned Jane, coldly.Here she put on her cloak again, and she shivered slightly."I will bet you two golden sovereigns, Miss Vernon, that the marriage for which the grand cake is made, and the splendid silk and satin gowns are prepared, will never take place. Come, will you bet?""I am not rich enough to bet two golden sovereigns, as you call them.""Bet me two silver half crowns, then?""No," said Jane, coldly."Ah, then, some little bird has whispered to you that there is change and storm in the air. Life and death!" she added, with a horrible laugh. "Life and death! What a storm it will be! What a toppling down of crowns and scepters! What a shriveling up of wedding-garments, eh, miss?""I don't understand you in the least," said Jane Vernon."Don't you? Wait until the morning, then you will see. There is such a thing as waiting patiently for one's revenge. There isn't much patience about me, though my name is Patience. Ha! ha! But still I have waited. But to-morrow his time will be up.""I wish," said Jane, speaking vehemently—" I wish that you would not choose me to tell these wild stories to. I don't want to hear them;" and as she spoke she strode rapidly toward the house.What she meant to do when she entered it she scarcely knew; but she had an idea that, if she were once inside the mansion, she might contrive to protect Sir Huntly, who was threatened by foes on two sides.She had come here in quest of John—perhaps John was in the house already? He might even, after the fashion of Charlotte Corday, have sought an interview with his rival and have stabbed him suddenly, then have given himself up. Anyhow, if Sir Huntly were safe up to this moment, Jane would contrive to get near him, and, if necessary, warn him—yes, warn him of a possible danger; but she would mention no name.Soon Jane had crossed the parterre, and gone under the porch. She rang the bell with a beating heart, and then a paltry excuse about a bouquet of white flowers came to her mind, and as soon as she was admitted into the hall, she asked to see. Lady Proudmount, and began to talk at once about this bouquet.It was not so very late for a summer night—not more than ten o'clock—and the guests were all laughing and amusing themselves in the drawing-room, the windows of which all opened upon the lawn.Lady Proudmount—a woman of the world, who thoroughly disapproved of Sir Huntly's unequal marriage in her heart, but who saw the way to benefiting herself by conciliation—came forward, all smiles, purple silk, graciousness and old lace, to receive Jane Vernon, and to listen to her silly tale about the bouquet."Oh, do come in," said her ladyship, speaking with as


much empressement as he,could infuse into her languid tones; "come in, dear Miss Vernon. Sir Huntly will be charmed, quite charmed, to see you, I am sure."The many lights from the wax candles in the drawing-room made Jane's bright eyes blink when she first went in there after the dusk of the park. She saw that there was an elegant assemblage—silken-flowered robes, old lace, fresh blooms from the gardens and hot-houses, pretty women, distinguished-looking men, were all to be seen in the drawing-room of this great country house on this night before the wedding.Sir Huntly came forth to welcome Jane, both hands extended. Jane could not help thinking what a fine-looking, handsome man he was; how young for his years; not a thread of silver to be seen as yet amid his thick, short fair hair, nor in his blonde mustache. Since he had fallen so madly in love with Bethel he seemed to have renewed his youth; he looked at least ten years younger. Hope and joy sparkled in his blue eyes, and his smile was singularly sweet."What is it, dear Jane?" he asked in a kind, friendly whisper. "Nothing wrong?""No, Sir Huntly—" and she began to tell her lame story about the bouquet.It was very odd, she thought, that nobody seemed at all aware how very lame her tale was. Everybody was in such high, joyous spirits; every face beamed with contentment."Surely you won't go back to the Raggan this evening, dear Miss Vernon!" said Lady Proudmount. "We will send a man at once with a message to say that you will sleep here, and your sister won't mind coming alone. She must be here by nine to breakfast; then we shall have plenty of time for dressing her. Ah, how lovely she will look! The ivory satin, with a panel of embroidered white flowers, and the skirt caught up with the most divine white roses, more fresh-looking and beautiful than nature!"Jane agreed at once to stay. She had come there to watch Sir Huntly, to keep guard over him, so that no harm should happen to him.John Vernon was mad, and he must not come near the happy, infatuated, unconscious bridegroom.Jane was not attired to take her place among the fresh and graceful toilets of the ladies assembled in the great drawing-room. Her white gown had dragged in the dewy grass after dragging in the dust. Her hair was rough; her shoes were soiled; but Lady Proudmount took all these things in at a glance."Your sweet Bethel has two or three gowns here," she said; "and I have heard you say that you can wear each other's dresses; so Rosetta, my maid, will go and help you, and you can put on the pale-blue cashmere, or the cream surah, and then come down."Jane thanked the lady, and followed Rosetta to a splendid room, where she quickly changed her gown and her shoes, and soon she entered the drawing-room wearing Bethel's cream surah, her sole ornament being a crimson rose.Jane Vernon, as the sister of the lovely creature who was to become Lady Stanford on the following day, was worth being civil to. Besides, notwithstanding the care and anxiety in her eyes, they were splendid eyes, and Jane was a handsome girl.There was no reason, with such introductions as she would have now, why she should not marry as well as her sister was about to marry.The star of these Vernons was decidedly in the ascendant.Among the visitors staying in the house was Lady Prescot, also her daughter Blanche, who had suffered the keenest pangs of jealous pain when suspicions had arisen and rumors had reached her that Roland, the heir, was infatuated with "that vain, silly girl at the Raggan."Roland, however, had paid her great court all the while; and then, on the day of the theatricals, the county had been startled at the manifest infatuation of the wealthy baronet for the pretty Miss Vernon.Afterward had come stranger news. Sir Huntly, the recluse and celibate, had proposed to, and been accepted by, that baby-faced chit; the wedding-day was fixed, the fact was announced, and now the county might declare for or against. It did not seem to matter very much which way the heads of the great folks were turned, so far as Sir Huntly was concerned. If the county refused to welcome his bride—well, let the county please itself.Somehow, the great people had all seemed to understand this without being told. Then somebody made a move in the direction toward civility, and congratulations poured in upon Sir Huntly.The Prescots, who were again on a visit at the Fieldings', came to stay with "dear Lady Proudmount" and her charming daughters; and Blanche wondered if it were true that Roland had ever been in love with the absurd little beauty who was so absurdly going to become his aunt."Had Roland quarreled with his uncle?" wondered Blanche; and she came to the conclusion that the whole tale


was a fabrication, and that the heart of the heir had never wandered from her charming self.Certain it was that Roland had repented of his violence toward his uncle. He saw that if he made him an enemy, the odds of life would be sadly against him.A young man of fashion and of pleasure, ease-loving, haughty, a favorite with women, looked up to as the heir to a great fortune and a sounding title, the world had hitherto keen to him as a rose-garden filled with all the pleasures of earth, which he had only to gather and to enjoy. Then all at once he had lost his lady love and his inheritance, for there seemed little chance that he would not be supplanted now that Sir Huntly was about to bring this loveliest Lady Stanford to rule at the Hall.Roland had rushed away for three days, furious with his uncle, the false Bethel, and his hard fortune. Then he had come back again, repentant, meek, submissive.What had passed between uncle and nephew was only known to themselves; but, whatever it was, Roland had agreed to submit to the inevitable.Indeed, he had every reason to regret his first hasty heat of passion, and those three days of rebellion, when he had gone away, vowing never to see his uncle again.During those three days Sir Huntly,had asked himself why he should be obliged to do so very much for Roland? It might happen that he would have many sons and daughters in the course of years, and the estate was not worth more than eighteen thousand per annum altogether.Should Sir Huntly's marriage prove childless, then of course Roland would remain his heir. Meanwhile, his uncle, who had allowed his eldest nephew a handsome income, was willing to settle upon him and his heirs forever the sum of two thousand per annum, to be paid out of the estate, so much and no more. Sir Huntly had sent for his family lawyer, Mr. Cave Curtis, of Bedford Row, and he had acted upon that gentleman's advice, who considered that he would do very generously by his nephew in settling so large a sum upon him.Sir Huntly, however, did not intend to give his nephew a home in the future at Stanford Hall. Common sense and good taste alike forbid it.Roland would lose his luxurious home, the dainties and fine wines of his uncle's table, his hunters, carriages, and men-servants; but his seven hundred a year was to grow into two thousand, paid in four quarterly installments of five hundred


pounds. Where was he to live? What was he to do? Clearly he must have chambers in London, keep a couple of horses, and set himself the task of enjoying life as much as possible under the circumstances. If the present government kept in power, Sir Huntly might possibly obtain some snug sinecure for his nephew. Meanwhile, was Roland Stanford still a prize worth striving for, or was he not?Blanche Prescot had always admired him immensely, and her heart still pleaded for him, disinherited though he probably would be by this "too absurd" marriage of his uncle. He would have two thousand a year; he had the entrée to the best society; he would probably obtain a place worth another fifteen hundred or so under the government; he was the handsomest man in the county, and he flattered Blanche so assiduously that she gave reins to her feelings; and plunged forthwith into a desperate flirtation with "the young squire," as the villagers and men-servants still styled him.Jane Vernon had never cared for Roland. There was a supercilious disregard for others manifest in his manner which she disliked extremely. On one or two occasions she had told him that Bethel was the betrothed of her cousin, and he had always treated the announcement as the lightest of jokes.Roland looked wonderfully well and happy that evening, considering what his uncle's marriage meant to him. He had a bright color, his eyes shone, his laughter was continual. Peace between him and his uncle, renunciation of Bethel, forgiveness of her perfidy, were certainly his best and wisest tactics; yet Jane Vernon could not help despising this shallow nature which could so soon reconcile itself to what was in reality falsehood and heartlessness."Still, some people are made so, I suppose," she said to herself, the while she watched Blanche and Roland flirting and chattering over there at the piano, "quizzing," the rest of the company doubtless, for that was a way which Blanche had—she was pitilessly satirical by nature.Soon Jane grew tired of watching "those two," and she found a young curate, the son of a baronet, paying her assiduous attention. She was young and handsome enough to receive attention as her right. All the while she kept glancing at the door, wondering if that reckless John would appear, or if he would send a message to say that he wished to speak to Sir Huntly, in which ease Jane must step forward and prevent the interview from taking place.Watching Sir Huntly, Jane perceived that he looked every now and anon toward his nephew with a satisfied smile.


Clearly he was glad to see that Roland was making the best of it. It would, of course, be a pity if he married a penniless girl like Miss Prescot; still, his uncle would never stand in his way—indeed, Sir Huntly rejoiced to think that his nephew had so soon forgotten Bethel."That boy's feelings never were deep," mused Sir Huntly. "I remember that he never seemed to mourn for his parents at all—he forgot everything connected with them in less than a month."Refreshments were handed round. Jane was rather hungry after her long walk, and Lady Proudmount professed to be in ecstasies on seeing her eat a couple of slices of cake and some fruit."Such perfect health," said her ladyship; "I am sure you enjoy the most perfect health. Your sister has more color, a most brilliant color; but a pure pallor always expresses to me a greater soundness of constitution, and a certain capacity for enduring fatigue. Now tell me, my dear, are you not stronger than Bethel—our dear, lovely Bethel?""I think I am. I can walk further and faster.""Ah! I thought so," said my **lady**CHAPTER XXV.WHEN all the polite platitudes had been spoken, and the good-nights said, Jane found herself in the pretty room appointed for her. She sat down when she had changed her dress for a dressing-gown, and she began to brush her long black hair. Although she had walked so far and so fast, sleep was far from her eyes. The air felt big, as with a portent of coming danger. The night was sultry, so sultry that the French window, opening to the balcony, was wide open, though the blinds were down and the curtains also; but there was not a breath of wind to flutter them."No, I can not sleep; I don't like a balcony outside a bedroom window. Anybody might be robbed, murdered, before they knew where they were. That dreadful Patience Wood! the thought of that woman oppresses me like a nightmare. What has brought her into the house of Sir Huntly, with whom she seems to have had a quarrel, in the disguise of a house-maid? I am sure he ought to be told; he ought to know it; he ought not to run the risk of living under the same roof with a secret foe."Jane bound up her hair, but she did not undress; a spirit of unrest, a spirit of fear was upon her. The night had


hitherto been still and sultry; she put out her lamp, and stole out on the balcony for fresh air. As she did so, the whole of the western heavens flashed with a sheet of sudden light. Storm? or was it only that luminance called summer lightning, which is harmless and innocent as moonlight? No; it came again and yet again. There was a ghastliness in the gleam—a sinister threat, which terrified and excited Jane.Still, there was no thunder, no rain. She came into the room again, and listened for the uproar which she felt sure would soon fill the great house. She had not long to wait. A growl that sounded savage, then a terrific roar, followed on the last quivering splendor of the lightning.Now the storm was up in right earnest. Presently she heard the tremendous deluge of the rain. It swept along the balcony like a river, and fell plashing in a torrent upon the gravel path below. Storm, storm, and tempest, through which. it was impossible that nervous people could sleep.Jane shivered. She felt suddenly very cold. She wished that the window could be shut; but she was afraid to go be-hind the curtain and face the lightning even for a moment.She was not a coward, but there came over her a sudden, strong objection to being alone. She would have given much for a companion, until at least the storm should abate.She was not the only one awake. Presently she heard voices and footsteps in the corridor. Other ladies, unable to sleep, had knocked at the doors of their friends, and had asked to be admitted so that they might enjoy the luxury of being nervous together.Jane had not one person whom she could call a friend among all the visitors. Her thoughts were full of John, and what he was doing. Was he out in the storm? Was he ill? Had the lightning struck him?She went to the door at last and opened it, and then a more awful roar than usual seemed to shake the very house, to threaten to tear off the roof, although Jane knew enough to be aware that it is not the noisy thunder, but the swift, silent lightning-shaft, which is fraught with death."I am sure some part of the house was struck then!" cried a high, screeching, female voice, raised in the most abject terror. "I heard the noise in Sir Huntly's library."This voice was the voice of Lady Proudmount."I think it's only the shutters falling back. I know they were left open," said another voice."How mad!" exclaimed Lady Proudmount. "Why, the house might be filled with robbers!""No," returned another voice; "Sir Huntly left the collie there to keep guard. He said the night was so hot he wished the windows left open, and that dog would tackle half a dozen men.Just at that juncture there came the most fearful sound to mingle with the storm. Who that has weak nerves and a strong fancy has not shuddered at the howling of a dog during the silent watches of the night?The sound of a howling dog mingled now in grewsome fashion with the uproar of the storm."It's Cato, the collie," said Blanche Prescot.Blanche never forgot herself. She came out of her room clothed from throat to heel in a becoming morning-gown of blue striped with silver and fastened with silver cords about the slender waist. Her hair was dressed for the night, but a few unfettered, short, fluffy ringlets clustered about her low, white brow. Her complexion had just been attended to. Blanche was as fair as pearl-powder could make her."We had better get somebody," she said, with a smile, "to close those shutters, and shut that dog up."All the ladies present understood that Miss Prescot meant Roland Stanford by the "somebody." Surely, while all the household were on foot, in more or less picturesque costumes, the gentlemen, as well as the ladies, would be astir, and Mr. Stanford would come forth to reassure the nervous ones, more especially Blanche."A most horrible noise," said Miss Prescot. "Oh, won't somebody go down and quiet that dreadful dog?"As Blanche spoke, she looked anxiously down the corridor; she was aware that the large room at the further end was that of Roland, for she knew every guest-chamber in the house by heart.Had she not made a study of the whole mansion which she had so often dreamed that she would one day reign over?Two of the guests came hurriedly out of a passage which crossed the one where the affrighted ladies were gathered—Mr. Cluny, the curate, who was to assist the bishop in the morrow's ceremony, and a Captain Standish, of the 101st, a crack regiment, several of whose officers were the chosen companions of Roland Stanford.Captain Standish was a masher, and he spoke with a lisp,"Confoundedly disagweeable dog!" said he. "I don't like to go down to him alone. You know, Lady Proudmount, he isn't overfond of me, somehow. Where is Woland?""Mr. Stanford's room is at the very end of the corridor, Captain Standish," volunteered Blanche."Cato's a friend of mine," said Jane Vernon, who came and stood among the others. "Let me go down to the library, and I will shut him up.""But we want a light," said Captain Standish, "and I haven't a match. Let us go and wake up Woland; he's the one to quiet the dog."Captain Standish went down the passage, and some of the ladies followed him.The thunder still roared; and the lightning flashed through the great window in the staircase which led down to the hall on the right."Woland—Woland! wake up, old man; Cato's making too much melody down in the libwawy, and the windows are open."A sleepy voice asked, peevishly:"What's the row?""The wow?" returned the captain; "don't you. hear it, old man? A storm loud enough to wake the Sleeping Beauty, which it has done several of 'em, and Cato howling like the old gentleman himself."There was a mingling of the horrible and the ludicrous is this scene which Jane Vernon never forgot.Roland appeared presently at the door in a dressing-gown; his eyes seemed half closed with sleep. The thought that struck Jane was not a charitable one. He has taken too much wine to drown his jealous pain, and he could sleep through a greater noise even than this.Roland struck a light, and soon a party of five set off for the library. Roland, Captain Standish, Blanche Prescot, Jane Vernon, and the curate—each of the gentlemen carried a lighted candle."I like to stir about and do something, when there is a thunder-storm," explained Blanche. "I can't remain still, and I think the furniture and carpet must be soaked with the rain.""Floating about, most likely," said Roland, with a laugh; "it was madness of Sir Huntly to make them leave the windows open."So down the wide grand staircase to the wide grand hall, and across that to the short passage, and there was the velvet curtain drawn before the library door."The servants would sleep through an earthquake," said the captain.Then they drew the curtain and walked in. Three French windows all wide open, the rain dashing in in a deluge, splashing the faces of the persons who entered. Roland went first."Hi, Cato—Cato, old man!" he called out in a loud, reassuring tone.Cato! No other words passed his lips; he stood stock-still for a moment like one dazed, and then a fearful cry broke from him—a cry of horror and anguish that overwhelmed the hideous howls of the great collie, who sprung toward him in friendly recognition, and whose howl changed to a nervous, whimpering cry.What had happened? What was the meaning of the awful scene that met Jane Vernon's sight, and made her brain reel so that she tottered and caught at the nearest chair for support?Three windows open to the night; the storm raging outside; darkness, torrents of rain; flashes of forked lightning, showing up the lawns and the woods beyond with a ghastly luminance, and—stretched on the floor of the room, lying in a pool of rain that had rushed in at the windows, the body of a man face downward.Gweat heaven!" cried the captain, as he knelt beside the prostrate form and gently lifted the head; "it's—it's Sir Huntly; he—he must have had a fit!"But, even as he spoke, a witness to a deadly crime was made manifest to the horrified young persons present. The captain's hands were stained with blood; and when the curate brought his lighted candle close, it was seen that there a fearful wound at the back of the baronet's head."Murder!" said Captain Standish in a loud, impassioned voice of righteous wrath. "A cowardly murder!"Blanche Prescot sunk senseless on the nearest coach, but Jane Vernon felt as if this horrible crime must weight her into her grave.She said to herself:"Oh! John—oh! John—you are mad—mad—mad!"CHAPTER XXVI.JANE VERNON was dumb with horror and deadly fear. The man for whose sake she would have cheerfully laid down her life was a murderer! His sin would find him out—he would be detected, imprisoned, tried, executed.Jane's imagination was vivid, rapid; ghastly on occasion as
 

the lightning flashes that were every three seconds revealing the wooded park, the terraces, lawns, and distant hills in a dazzling glare."Execution! Execution of John Vernon!" She saw those words in red letters floating in the air. Now they were outside in the garden—now they came into the room, and hovered over the rigid form that a few minutes ago had been Sir Huntly Stanford, the expectant bridegroom.His wedding-morn would break upon his dead, cold face.Execution of John Vernon! That was the most tangible idea that occurred to Jane. She lost sight of the victim in her solicitude for the criminal. Where was he? Would he drown himself in the river? Would he try to escape?—and even if he escaped, what could life be worth to a man burdened with the weight of a sin like yonder crime? Then she heard the voices of those who were bending over the body of the murdered man, and the meaning of the words penetrated to her consciousness."See, his chain is bwoken and his watch gone! No purse in his waistcoat. Wobbery, of course, Woland. But what in the world bwought him down here in the vewy middle of the night?""He must have remembered that he had told them to leave the windows open; and then, when he heard the rain, he must have gone down himself to close them, thinking it would save time, and then—""And then some wuffian pwowling in the gwounds must have seen the candle, and found out that the windows were open," said Captain Standish.Between them they laid the rigid form upon a couch. Captain Standish put his hand upon the heart of Sir Huntly.Cato, who had left off howling since the entrance of the party, came and sat close to the couch, and licked the cold, helpless hand of his master."Send for a doctor!" said Captain Standish, suddenly.At those words, Jane awakened out of her hideous dream, and started to her feet."Isn't he dead?" she asked in a shrill, unnatural voice."Not quite," replied the captain; "he can't live, I'm afraid, but he isn't quite gone. Has any one any bwandy?""See, where are the keys?" asked Jane, still in that high, shrill tone. "Keys—keys—to get brandy! Mr. Roland Stanford, tell us where—where they are."Roland, white as death, stared helplessly into Jane's face."Keys? I don't know.""To Halifax with keys!" said Standish; "bwandy—bwandy—bwandy; get some, Woland, and pour some down his thwoat!"Standish, usually languid and lazy, now stamped on the floor; and Roland, seizing a candle, rushed out of the room.Jane went forward then and closed the windows and the shutters, which every one had hitherto forgotten. Her head was still in a whirl, but a prayer went up to "heaven's high tabernacle"—a prayer from the depths of her heart—that John Vernon might escape the crime of murder; that Sir Huntly might recover—might not die, after all.Presently the library was full of people; the news had spread somehow. Blanche Prescot had recovered, and had rushed upstairs with the tidings. Visitors, servants, all crowded in, horror and consternation on every face. The old butler brought brandy, and Captain Standish succeeded in pouring some down the throat of the baronet."He isn't dead," said the young officer, triumphantly; "it would be more than glowious to find that he wasn't much hurt, after all."More than glorious! Yes, and John Vernon not a murderer after all!A man on horseback was dispatched at once to summon the nearest doctor, who arrived in less than an hour from the time the man set out; for the worthy surgeon mounted the servant's horse as soon as he had dressed himself, and galloped all the way to the Hall in a very, short time.Doctor Gason was a little man, with a small, keen face and bushy brows. He at once examined the wound at the back of the head."Is it fatal?" was the question on all sides.The surgeon shook his head."No hope whatever, I fear," he answered.Execution of John Vernon! Again those horrible words, printed in huge red letters, floated about the library Jane saw them with a terrible distinctness. Yes, it would come to that; the mad murderer would certainly betray himself before the world was two days older."The wound," said 'Mr. Gason, "is not from a sharp instrument; it has been dealt with a hammer, or—the knob of a poker."Immediately there was a rush toward the wide fire-place of the library; and there lay a brass-headed poker on the ground,


bearing ghastly evidence of having been used with murderous force.Then Jane Vernon heard the people saying that the poker proved that the crime had been committed on the spur of the moment by the ruffian who had stolen Sir Huntly's watch and purse."John would have brought a pistol with him," she said to herself. "He would not have thought of the poker; perhaps the assassin is a common thief, after all! Oh, if it might be so?"The men carried the unconscious Sir Huntly to his room, and then it was seen, with much surprise, that the baronet had not been to bed that night—the coverlid was not disturbed; besides, the baronet wore the suit in which the guests had last seen him. This added to the mystery. Why had he elected to remain up in his library for the whole of the night preceding his wedding-day? Why should he not rather have given to himself as much repose and healthful sleep as possible, so that he might appear fresh and bonny in the eyes of his guests and his young bride?"I heard him say he meant to have a good night's rest," said Captain Standish.Jane Vernon, alert, anxious, with a deadly fear at her heart, a horrible secret weighing upon her spirits, lifted up her head when she heard these words.Something, then, had happened since Sir Huntly had bidden his guests good-night and had retired to his room? A message or a note must have reached him. She went about now like a thought-reader in search of some hidden paper or missive, and she found one.Instinct, or whatever we may choose to call that influence which now and anon guides human actions, guided Jane to the toilet-table of Sir Huntly Stanford. It was a table of elaborately carved rosewood; there lay upon it a ring-case, on which hung two resplendent diamonds; there was a great toilet-glass, with artistic frame, and lying upon it a piece .of paper, on which were written some words. The 'light of tire wax candles on the table fell on those words. Jane Vernon read them:"So you think to get married to-morrow?—not so fast, if you please. I await you below in the library—at your peril, refuse me. **C. O."That woman—that woman—that Patience Wood! Jane fancied now that she had the key of the door which led into


the heart of this deep mystery. To whom should she apply? Her quick fancy at once showed her a murderess in the ill-looking house-maid who had wished to make a bet with her the evening before that the wedding would never take place. That woman had the countenance of an ideal fiend.Grasping the piece of paper, Jane rushed toward the bed in which the unfortunate baronet was now placed, and about which a crowd of friends and servants were gathered. Among the anxious, pale faces was Roland Stanford's."Look! cried Jane, "look at this paper which I have found! Whoever wrote that must have struck Sir Huntly!"Some instinct whispered to Jane not to mention the name of the person she suspected at first. Roland took the paper from her, read the words, and an exclamation of wild surprise broke from him."A woman's writing!" he said. "Good Heaven! Whose—whose?"He asked the question in an impassioned, eager tone.Whose writing?—what did it mean?Before long, there was a gathering and a consultation—not in the room where the stricken man lay motionless on the border-land of death, but in another apartment in the same wing of the Hall. It was extremely strange to mark how that hitherto languid and lardeda young man, who never could muster sufficient energy to ring his "r's," assumed the leadership in the present crisis, and suggested what had "better be done" in a fashion which conveyed the impression that he possessed a good stock of practical common sense.Captain Standish asked, in a clear voice, what woman in the household owned the initials "C.O." The answer came—no woman at all was known by any surname commencing with an "O.""Then she must have another name here. Now, then, who knows this writing?" and Captain Standish handed the paper about, that the writing might be identified."Who has seen this writing before?" asked the clergyman.It was handed round, but nobody in the room had ever seen the distinct, yet ugly and crooked, characters before. Jane Vernon felt that she must speak; she hoped, with all her power of hoping, that John was innocent of this foul crime. It seemed to her that the woman known as Patience Wood had a face evil enough to belong to one capable of doing even murder. Jane went up to the table at which Captain Standish had seated himself; she looked at him with her wonderful dark eyes, and she said:"I believe I know who the woman is who wrote that note; her name in the household is Patience Wood; she is an under-house-maid."Good gracious, my dear Miss Vernon, then how do you know anything of her?"Jane briefly told them all that she knew of the middle-aged housemaid known as Patience Wood. The first time that she had been to the house as a visitor to Sir Huntly, on the occasion of her sister's taking part in the amateur performance in the park, she and her sister had been invited to stay and dine, and in the room appointed for them appeared Patience Wood, who offered to tell their fortunes with a pack of cards."My sister treated her offer with contempt," said Jane; "but I was weak enough to think I should like it; and in the evening I was going to my room, to meet this woman, but I stopped at an open window to look out at the gardens in the moonlight; then up came Patience Wood, the house-maid, and she talked in such a dreadful way that I shuddered, and refused to let her tell me my fortune at all. She said Sir Huntly was a scoundrel, and that he had wronged her many years ago. She said that she had waited a long time for revenge, and that now she would have it. She said that Sir Huntly had never seen her since she had entered his service, but that she had had many good long looks at him. She laughed, and seemed full of a wicked spite and evil power. She seemed like an evil spirit in a human shape, and I was afraid of her. Only last night, as I was in the park on my way to the house, I met this woman for the third time, and she accosted me insolently, and wanted me to bet her two sovereigns that Sir Huntly Stanford's wedding would not take place in the morning."Then there was that buzz and commotion in the room which is described as "sensation" in a court of law."Bring the woman here at once," said Captain Standish, addressing the male servants.Roland bent down, and whispered into his ear:"If my uncle had any painful secret connected with this creature, it must not be exposed.""But it will have to be," said Standish, speaking loudly, leaning back, and looking full at his friend. "Whatever it is, it must come out now."Roland shrunk back and shuddered. He covered his face with his hands, and leaned down upon the table."Of course I know what a pwoud fellow you are, dear boy;


and to have one's family secwets waked up is most unpleasant, I admit; still, you know we can't make any bones about it—it will have to be done."In breathless anxiety did those assembled await the return of the servants who had been sent in search of Patience Wood; while the doctor, who had telegraphed for further medical assistance, was plying his remedies, and hoping against hope that the vigor of the patient's constitution would enable him to struggle out of the clutches of death.Captain Standish, Jane Vernon, and the rest waited for the arrival of the mysterious Patience Wood in an access of excited feeling that defies description. At last the servants came back with the news.No Patience Wood was to be found. The woman's bed had not been slept in. She had come to the Hall with no other luggage than a square leathern case, which she had herself carried, and now she was gone. She had taken her case with her, leaving not a thread of her belongings behind her in any shape, so that no clew to her whereabouts seemed obtainable.The housekeeper testified to having paid Patience her month's wages the day before."How did you manage to hire the woman, ma'am?" asked the captain, of the housekeeper."Well, Captain Standish, I knew quite well that she was under the patronage of the rector. She had been a drunkard, and had been reformed; then she lived at the Maythorn Farm, six miles from here, as a laundry-maid, and gave satisfaction as to honesty, industry, cleanliness; and I found her sober, and a very hard worker.""An adventuwess—a female wascal!" said the captain; "and a female wascal is the worst kind of wascal out! Now we must send for the supewintendent of the police."And so they did.The wedding-morning broke upon a house full of terrified women and bewildered men; the intended bridegroom lying senseless at death's door; doctors consulting in the library; policemen walking about the premises; messengers hurrying off with telegrams to the wedding-guests to warn them that a fearful thing had happened to prevent the marriage of the baronet.CHAPTER XXVII."STILL quivering between life and death, but far nearer to the gates of death than to those of life."Thus wrote Lady Proudmount to her sister, Lady Black, and also to her family lawyer. Lady Proudmount scarcely knew what to be at. What were the most prudent and worldly-wise measures to take under the circumstances? Should her ladyship remain and guide the household at the Hall, or should she and her two daughters arise, spread their wings, and flee to Switzerland for the autumn? For the present, Lady Proudmount decided to remain at the Hall.Captain Standish also stayed on for a few days. He was most anxious to discover the woman Patience Wood.Jane Vernon, who saw that she could not be of any use at the Hall, set off on the afternoon of the day that should have been the wedding-day, and walked all the way home to the Raggan.A messenger had been sent to the Raggan soon after nine o'clock to tell the bride-expectant briefly that Sir Huntly was seriously ill.Jane had not given many thoughts to Bethel and her bitter disappointment during the horror and excitement of the last night; but now she shuddered as she thought of her."She will be frantic—she will! Yes, I know what she will say—what she will do!"Jane's prescience was not at fault. Bethel spoke the very words which her sister expected that she would speak, and was as frantic in her disappointment as Jane anticipated.The storm had cleared the air; the afternoon was delicious; the leaves were bright and fresh after the rain; the way-side flowers were all lifting up their sweet faces toward the heavens; here and there a soft, white, fleecy cloud sailed across the deep blue.Jane Vernon felt as if she would give much to be able to pray a prayer, the answering of which would bring peace to all those whose lives were mingled with her own; but she could not. There was an oppression at her heart which the balmy air could not lift, though it went sighing softly past her, she could have fancied, like a kind whisper from an unseen friend."Upon my honor, Miss Vernon, you are a wemarkably fast walker for a young lady!"The tone was cordial and kind. Jane started, and found Captain Standish by her side. She blushed beautifully."How you startled me!" she said, smiling."By George! My dear Miss Vernon, I was startled to find that you had wun away—never asked for a cawage—and set off to walk thwee miles alone. I couldn't allow it, so I set off after you, and it's been as much as I could do to catch you up!""You are very kind, but I am used to walking alone. I am not nervous, and I am very strong.""That means. that you are bwave, and not a bit selfish. Why, you were up the whole night, and weady to help evewy one. I never in all my life saw a young lady that I admired so much! By George, it's twue!"The young officer actually meant all that he said, He had positively fallen in love with dark-eyed Jane in her white dressing-gown, in the midst of all the horror and confusion of the previous night. To him there had been something sublime in her calmness; something angelic in her effacement of self; something heroic in the manner in which she had come forward to show the ominous letter she had found, and to tell all that she knew about the missing house-maid. He admired Jane's classical head, regular features, and the pure pallor of her coloring. She was exactly his "style."Jane did not rejoice in the conquest she had made, although Captain Standish told her that he was the eldest son of his father, who was a wealthy iron-master, and that he had at present eight thousand a year of his own."And I think it's quite enough to mawy on, Miss Vernon;
I do, by George! I never spend more than half, as it is.""I think even that is fearful extravagance," said Jane."Do you now? By George! well, pewhaps it is! But if I had a wife with enconomical notions, I should save a lot."They were now at the Raggan."You will walk in and rest, will you not, Captain Standish, and take some tea?"Charlie Standish longed to walk up the avenue between the bushes of lauristinus, and to spend two or three hours in the quaint-looking old house; but he saw that the presence of a stranger at the family crisis would be very unwelcome.He was afraid that Jane did not like him much. She did not seem rejoiced that she had captivated him; and that made him twenty times more in love, if that were possible. But be would not come in then."**"No," he said; "no, Miss Vernon, not now. Another


time—to-morrow—if you will allow me; and then I will let you know if they have found out anything about that woman, She must be a maniac, you know."Jane did not believe that. Nobody who had listened to the cold sarcasm of Patience Wood's remarks, and had seen the cunning in her glittering eyes, could have supposed the woman mad."I hope they will find her," she said; "for if she did not strike that fearful blow, she knows who did.""An accomplice, pewhaps," said Standish; "for the watch and purse are gone; and I believe Sir Huntly, poor fellow! had fifteen or twenty sovereigns in it. I saw him with it open in his hand yesterday.""A robbery!" said Jane. "Yes, it is a robbery, of course."She said this to reassure herself; for the fear and horror that John's name would be associated with this horrible deed came over her again strongly."Good-bye," she said to the young officer; and then she hastened up the drive and entered the house, for the hall door was open."Uncle," she said, softly, as she passed through the hall; "where is uncle? Where is—"Before she could say "Bethel," that young lady rushed out of the drawing-room.Bethel wore a morning-wrapper of blue serge. Her hair was in disorder. She had not dressed herself that day. Her face was flushed on the cheeks to a brighter tint than ordinary. Her eyes flashed."Come here—come here!" she said to Jane, seizing her by the arm. "Come in here and let me tell you what I think about this. I have told Uncle James; I don't care if he turns us both out for saying the truth. John, his horrid son, with his wicked eyes set so close together, is a murderer, and he ought to be hanged—and he shall be, and I will go and see him! I will—I will—I will!"Jane turned white as her dress. She sunk down upon a couch; it was a moment or two before she could speak, then she said:"Where is John?""At the George Hotel, at Yarrow Leas; he has brain fever, and two doctors were with him all night.""All night? What time did he reach the George Hotel, then?""He didn't go there. A friend of his who came over with


him, and knew how wild he was, found him lying in a ditch at eleven o'clock last night, and so he woke him, and led him, or half carried him, to the George. He was close to the town, and he was soon in a raging brain fever. They say he will die—I hope he won't—I hope he will live to be hanged!""Bethel, you are a wicked girl; you ought to have been one of the fine ladies of ancient Rome. You are blood-thirsty, cruel; if they found John under a hedge at eleven, he is innocent. I saw poor Sir Huntly well as you are now at midnight.""So you say; but I know he murdered Sir Huntly. He said always that if I played him false, he would kill the man whom I married."CHAPTER XXVIII.HITHERTO Bethel's wrath had never been long lived; her nature had appeared too shallow to contain any deep feeling, good or bad. But now it seemed that a depth and capacity for hate and vengeance had suddenly revealed themselves in this beautiful young lady. Velvet Snow had once said that the beauty had a cruel face, and Bethel's face looked intensely hard and vengeful as she fixed her yellow-brown eyes on Jane, clinched her white teeth, and knit her pretty dark eyebrows."I mean to tell every spiteful word I ever heard him speak. I mean to try and get him hanged! I wish that I could have him tortured. I should like to hear him howl with pain—""Bethel, cease—you make me ill.""I don't care how ill you are. Think—think what I have lost—three thousand a year pocket-money I was to have had, and all the family diamonds; they were mentioned in the settlements. I can't touch them now; it's enough to drive one mad!""You are mad, I think.""He will die, poor old thing!" Bethel went on, furiously. " They say if he even lives he will always be an imbecile from that blow on the head. The lawyers and executors will hold all the power now over the whole estate; and when he is dead, his will leaving his fortune to his wife will go for nothing. I can't touch the settlements, since I am not his wife, Uncle James says.""Really, Bethel, you seem to have a keen eye for business," said Jane, scornfully."I'm not a sentimental miss, thank the powers, sobbed


Bethel. "I shall see the family lawyers at once, and find out what I can do, and what I can claim.""I—I—!" stammered Jane, angrily. What a fearful selfish nature yours is, Bethel! You seem almost too hard and cruel to be quite human!"This compliment did not wound Miss Bethel Vernon in the least. She was one of those women of whom there are many to be found in this mysteriously arranged world—one of those women who really do not care how selfish, cruel, and spiteful they are—nor even how selfish, cruel, and spiteful people may reckon them to be—so long as the said people admit that the unworthy woman in question is young, perfectly lovely, and faultlessly dressed."I am not a bit clever," Bethel would say, "and I hate books. I don't care for pictures. I like the theaters, and that's all. I am bad-tempered, and as lazy as it's possible to be, and I don't like people—only kittens."This was one of her methods of describing herself; and she was so supremely lovely that men found something half divine in these utterances; and women sometimes fancied that a creature so pretty must have some sweetness in her character after all."I don't care a single bit if I am quite human, or half human, or not human at all. I will see that lawyer, and will find out what I can claim, and I will have John put in prison."Jane found it quite useless to attempt to awaken a single fleeting sensation of pity for any other individual than herself in Bethel's hard heart. She went in search of her uncle, whom she found in deepest grief on account of John's illness."It's so hard that he should be away at that hotel, instead of being at home," said the old gentleman."I will go and nurse him," said Jane, quietly; and the brave, loving girl carried out her womanly resolve.Uncle James was much comforted at the thought that June, on whose strong, tender nature he had learned to rely, was anxious to nurse his beloved John, instead of leaving him to the mercies of a stranger."I shall obey the doctor in all things," she said; "and I hear that the first doctor at Yarrow Leas is now attending him."Jane's face looked brave and beautiful, when, having dressed herself in a dark-gray gown, and packed up a few necessaries in a trunk, she desired Watson to drive her to the George, at Yarrow Leas.When she arrived there she heard fuller particulars as to the finding of John Vernon senseless in a ditch, some quarter of a mile from the town of Yarrow Leas.Her heart felt an extra pang when she learned the truth—that the young barrister had not been found until four o'clock in the morning, by two men, on their way to work in the fields. Then he was lying flat on his back, wet through with the rain, stiff, senseless, cold. As soon as he was placed in a warm bed, he was in a burning fever."Four o'clock in the morning!" said Jane to herself. "And how long had he lain there? And where had he been from the time he left the Raggan until they found him in the ditch? Well, if it were his hand which struck that fatal blow, it was at the time the hand of a madman. But I don't believe it. Patience Wood and an accomplice tried to murder Sir Huntly."One thing Jane was grateful for during the days and the nights that she sat pale patient, firm, by the bedside of her cousin. No shadowy suspicion seemed as yet to enter the darkened room where the strong man lay quivering between life and death.The doctor was kindness and courtesy itself, so was the assistant nurse.John, with that strange and ghastly face of his, lay frowning, moaning, muttering; but Jane never heard him mention the name of Bethel, or speak of his love.Had he forgotten her amid the shadows of that mystic land of dreams, where his soul was wandering?Jane prayed many prayers during those dreadful days. She prayed that, if indeed his had been the guilty hand which had struck Sir Huntly that fearful blow, that his spirit might pass into the unseen before suspicion looked obliquely on him—suspicion with its "squinting eyes."And while John Vernon lay between life and death at the George, Sir Huntly lay like a senseless log on his luxurious bed at Stanford Hall, and it was said that his hours were all numbered.Patience Wood had disappeared, and left no trace whatever by means of which she might have been tracked to her hiding-place.Savoy House, Hampstead, stood in its own grounds. It was a large, square, red-brick house, with many small-paned, old-fashioned windows, a stone porch, a fan-light; long, wide


gardens stretching at the back of the premises, and a carriage-drive sweeping round a lawn thickly planted with evergreens.It was the holiday-time, and only one pupil remained at Savoy House out of all the twenty-five boarders. This pupil sat alone in a little summer-house deep down in the shady garden. She sat before the little table, reading—devouring, rather—a book of biographical essays. She was reading the "Life of George Sand," that genius of Bohemia who has been called the "spiritual daughter of Rousseau."The girl who read so eagerly under the honeysuckle and white rose-trees which formed the arbor, wore a plain though well-fitting gown of striped blue and white cotton.Those who had known Velvet Snow as the bond-slave of Miss Pringle—Velvet attired in dingiest garments, pale, ill-fed, overworked, tormented by a tyrant's tongue and a tyrant's temper from morning till night—would have been struck by the transformation which a few summer weeks of wholesome food, freedom from personal drudgery, the delight of books, the surroundings of pure air, refinement, kindness, and above all, justice had worked in this young creature.Velvet was more than merely pretty while she sat reading under the roses on that summer afternoon. There was a glow on her cheeks, a light in her deep gray eyes, which would have made plain features attractive; and Velvet's features were delicately cut, if not exactly classical or striking. Her hair had always been beautiful; but now, with the extra care bestowed upon it, it was lustrous and splendid. The nut-brown was shot with gold.She read on, on, absorbed, delighted. Presently she came to a sudden stop. "End of Vol. I." was printed in small letters at the end of the page."Oh, I must get the second vulume," the girl said to herself, starting up. "I will go out of the door in the wall and find my way to the library. How can it matter? Who knows me? Is there a remote chance that I shall meet a soul who knew me when I was at Miss Pringle's? Even if they did, could they seize me and make me go back? This is a free country—I am not a slave; but there might be a fuss. I believe that Miss Pringle has put an advertisement in the paper, offering a reward to whoever will tell her where I am; and the pupils, whim I only saw for a week before the breaking up, were not introduced to me as Velvet Snow, but as Viva Swan—that is my new name. I wonder what Miss Pringle wants with me? To bind me for those three years, and get the ten pounds? She must be an idiot to suppose


that she could do that against my will. No; there is another reason—she knows who I am. Well, who am I? Nobody that is wanted—nobody that is loved. My father is a scoundrel; that," continued Velvet, who had hung up her white sun-bonnet in the arbor, and now proceeded to put it on her head, and to tie the cotton strings under her chin—"that is certain. He would hate—hate me if he found that I lived, and he would pays hundreds, perhaps, to some people to keep the secret of my existence still a secret. That woman, Patience Wood, she knows who I am. But, for my part, I wish to grow and to change so that she shall never know me again; and with my name altered—"She paused in her rapid walk toward the door in the wall. She had been forbidden by the kind and wise Misses Saville (who had heard the whole of her strange story from their hero, Donald Stanford) to leave the grounds alone. Her individuality was to be kept out of sight until she had grown and altered. Captain Stanford and the governesses did not want any fuss with Miss Pringle."But she never comes a journey of a hundred odd miles to London," said Velvet to herself. "I might as well be afraid of meeting the tigress out of the Zoo that I have heard of."Velvet was not naturally docile and obedient. She went on hastily, book in hand, and passed out of the door in the wall; and locking it after her, took the key with her; then she went hurriedly along the lane under the wall, and then round the corner into a side street.Somehow a sudden nervous fear seized upon her.CHAPTER XXIX.VELVET was emotional, but hardly to be called nervous; and she never could account for the sudden tremor which came over her just before she struck into the lane or by-path leading into the main street.The moment she found herself in that by-lane, with a high wall on each side of her, she knew what the fear and presentiment meant.Advancing toward her, primly attired in her Sunday best, was the tyrant of her unhappy childhood, Miss Pringle.Bitterly did Velvet repent of her folly and disobedience. She had a faint—a very faint—hope that the old woman would not recognize her, since she could not have expected to melt bar at Hampstead. Velvet wore long, fashionable


fawn-colored gloves, and her white sun-bonnet shaded her eyes; besides, she had a little brown sunshade, which she placed before her face. She walked on resolutely."She can not be thinking of me," said Velvet to herself.So she had ventured to hope. In an instant Miss Pringle had recognized her, and rushed toward her, and now stood intercepting her path, brandishing a large, close-shut umbrella, menacing the runaway with its huge handle."I've caught you!—I've caught you!" shrieked Miss Pringle. "Police! Police! Police!" she screamed, at the top of her voice.Velvet became white with mingled anger and fear. She was not very learned in matters of the law. She did not know how much or how little power Miss Pringle might possess over her, since she had supported her from the age of four years or so. Anyhow, no mortal should induce her to return to that dreadful old life of her own free will."I know you! Don't think to pass me by with your fine sunshade and your fine gloves, shameless jade! You shall come straight before a police magistrate at once. You are not living honestly; any one could see that to look at you. Police! Police! Police!"Velvet stood still. She had already, even in the few weeks which she had passed at Savoy House, learned a certain dignity and self-repression which she had totally lacked while shrinking daily under the heel of tyranny."Miss Pringle," she said, speaking with a lofty calm which was mere manner, for her soul was tossed with fear and torn with anger—"Miss Pringle, nothing in this world will induce me to live with you again.""Live with me? No; but you shall serve your time. You shall go to the reformatory to learn to be a thorough servant. You think to do me out of the ten pounds, do you? Police! Police! Police!"Not a single member of the constabulary appeared to be in sight or within hearing.Velvet was slender, and swift of foot; Miss Pringle was stout, and short of breath. Why did not Velvet simply "take to her heels," and so escape?She could hardly have answered that herself. She wished to settle this Pringle question at once and forever."No policeman is within call, Miss Pringle," she said. "Even if one came," she added, with a little, provoking smile, "I am quite under the impression that he would listen to me and not to you."This was certainly an insult in a quiet way, but it was surely richly deserved.Miss Pringle would have liked at that moment to kill Velvet, but her coarse common sense grasped the truth of the stinging words.At Ellsmere, Miss Pringle, with her hundred a year or so of private income, her cottage, her maid, and her self-assertion was a personage, a somebody; and Velvet was a drudge, a work-house brat, and a nobody.The two or three policemen in the parish would have listened with deference to Miss Pringle, and would have looked down on Velvet Snow from the height of their official authority; either of them would have taken Velvet to the police-office at the bidding or accusation of her mistress.Here it was different. The Hampstead police knew not Miss Pringle. To them she would have appeared as an ugly old lady attired in ill-chosen, country-made clothes.Velvet was slim, erect, handsome, with a charming smile, a stylish, if plain, toilet, and the voice and manner of a lady.Certainly those surburban police would incline their ears rather to hear Velvet than to hear Miss Pringle.The force of this came home to the tyrant; she ceased to scream "police," but she seized Velvet by the collar, and with the other hand—having dropped the umbrella—she actually administered one of those savage slaps on the girl's cheek which it had been her delight to deal her in days gone by."Take that, you shameless jade!" she said; and she would have repeated the blow, but Velvet put out all her young strength and shook her off."Listen, woman," she said in a high, clear tone, "I will never—never live under you, or allow you to rule my life in the least degree. I can see your motive. I know the reason you took me from the work-house as well as you know it yourself. You think that there is a scoundrel, ranking as a gentleman, somewhere in the world, whom I have a right to call father. This man is rich. He believes me dead. If it were proved to him by you that I am his child, you think that he would pay you to continue to keep his secret. Is it not so?"Now Velvet spoke each sentence with emphasis, looking steadfastly at the cunning old woman the while with her bright, wise eyes, that seemed to pierce the mean, shrinking soul to its depths, and to read its paltry secrets as one reads a tale of vulgar selfishness in a daily paper. Just as plain, just 


as palpable, just as ugly was the sordid chronicle of Miss Pringle's hypocritical charity and tyrannical guardianship."I know everything," she went on; "and I suppose you know that dreadful woman, Patience Wood? Ah! I see that you do. Very well, Miss Pringle; you will not make one shilling by revealing or by hiding who I am. All the coarse food and old clothes you gave me, while I lived with you, I have paid for again and again by working and drudging from morning till night. I owe you nothing—nothing. You had better have left me in the work-house. I don't remember one kind word that you have ever spoken to me in my hapless childhood—only blows, abuse, cruelty! You can have no power over me. Go—go! Never dare to seek me again. If you do, I will bring an action against you for cruelty. See the blow you have just dealt me! I could punish you for that."Miss Pringle was a bully. A bully is always a coward. She began to wish herself well out of Velvet's reach. She began to fear that she really might bring counter-charges against her. She had been very cruel to the girl; she knew it. She did not repent; she would have done it all over again; still she knew it. She hated Velvet more and more as she thought of it all."Oh, you base-born—base-born brat!" she said. "Oh, you will end your days in penal servitude, or you will come to some other bad end! What are you doing for a living now? Will you tell me that?""Oh, no; I certainly shall not tell you that, Miss Pringle. I have friends—women who deserve the name!""Women, indeed!" echoed Miss Pringle, scornfully. "Pretty women, I expect!""Not exactly pretty," the girl answered. "They have passed the age when you speak of women as pretty. But they were pretty once, and long years of gentleness and goodness and purity of thought have left their marks on their faces, so that, as you look at them, you can say from your heart: 'God bless them!'""That's a bit out of one of your rubbishing plays," said Miss Pringle.Velvet did not tell Miss Pringle that the sentiment and the words in which it was clothed were all the productions of her own mind, her very own thoughts and ideas.The girl felt that, even in these few weeks of refined associations, she had left all her past and its sordid surroundings far behind her. She and Miss Pringle would never land


on the same mental platform again in this mortal life. It is possible that the same conviction reached the vulgar soul of Miss Pringle, and agitated her thoughts in some degree."I can force you to come back with me," she said, suddenly and spitefully; "and I will!""No, you will not," Velvet answered. "I will not come under your power again. I think that I would rather die!"She said this very quietly, but with emphasis."You shall go to prison, then," said Miss Pringle. "See if you don't!""I am not afraid," Velvet answered. " And now I will wish you good-morning."And she did what she might easily have done at first—she began to run very fast indeed toward the main street.Velvet was swift of food, and Miss Pringle was stout. To follow the girl would have been folly, and Miss Pringle did not attempt it. Still, she walked in the direction of the shops, her face red with heat and wrath, her eyes glaring with fury.Miss Pringle had always anticipated a time when she might make money, either by concealing the existence of Velvet, or by yielding her up to those who might be in search of her. She knew scarcely anything about the mystery that surrounded the antecedents of the two-year-old child left on the steps of the work-house at Yarrow Leas, on a snowy morning some fifteen years before, dressed in a rich velvet pelisse and delicate underclothing. Still she did know a little more about the matter than other people knew, and she had looked forward for years to the chance of being able to sell her secret for at least five hundred pounds.Now the wretched girl had altogether escaped out of her hands."At least I must find out where she is living, so that I may be able to put my finger on her when the time comes. Her mother may be a lady in the highest rank—a duchess even—who would pay thousands to have the child's existence remain a secret. Oh, that I should have allowed her to escape! Oh, that I had had her sent to a penal reformatory for seven years, on a charge of—well, theft, or anything! Then I could have put my finger on her at any moment when I had found out all the truth. And how easy it would have been to manage that!"Miss Pringle was one of those persons in whom the love of greed becomes a hideous and distorted idol-worship. To her, gold represented a deity to whom she would have sacrificed as


many human lives as a Bonaparte or an Alexander would have sacrificed to his ambition.Tears of rage came into her eyes when she found herself in the main street, and no sign of Velvet to be seen.She went into the first shop—a chemist's—sat down, and asked for a glass of water. "You had better have some ginger or something else with it, madame, while you are so warm," replied the chemist. "Cold water might almost kill you."Miss Pringle did not wish to be killed, but she did not wish to spend more than a penny at the most."I won't have anything," she said. "I'll rest, if I may. Did you see a hussy of a girl in a blue frock and a white sun-bonnet pass down the street just now?"The chemist, a good-looking young man, pleasantly smiled."A hussy?" he repeated."She is a hussy, a creature that I reared from her infancy. I took her out of the work-house when she was four, and brought her up as my own child out of pure charity. A few weeks ago she tried to burn down the house of the rector, who had been most kind to her. She threw down a duplex lamp, and used fearful language to the clergyman's wife. Then she ran off in the night. She had not twopence in her pocket, nor a change of clothes, and all search for her was unavailing."Well, I happen to have a widowed sister, who has been in Australia for years and years, and I thought she was dead; but she came back a month ago, her only son having married and gone to live at New York; and her husband having died, and left her a little money, she came home to her own country, bought an annuity, and furnished a house, where she lets lodgings. She found me out and invited me to come and spend a month. I live a hundred miles from here. I came, and this morning, while I am taking a quiet walk, whom should I meet, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, but that wicked hussy, as bold as brass! She insulted me fearfully! Her language," said Miss Pringle, taking her handkerchief to wipe her hot, red face—"her language was enough to, make the hair of a Christian, woman stand up like quills of the porcupine!"The young chemist, who was mixing something in a mortar, elevated his eyebrows in surprise, but he only said:"I should say, madame, you were well rid of such a person.""But I want to find her out," said Miss Pringle. "I must find her out!""You wish to reform her, I suppose?""No—yes," said Miss Pringle, correcting herself; "I feel responsible. I wish you had seen her go down the street, dressed in blue print, with a white sun-bonnet.""I thought you said in all the colors of the rainbow," said the chemist, quietly."Dressed," said Miss Pringle, "in a manner that she had no right to be dressed in, in a style or a fashion with the airs of—of a fine lady! A girl like that! It was enough to make me ill! It has made me ill!""Allow me, madame, to prescribe some **sal volatile.""No, no; nothing of the kind." Miss Pringle waved both her hands, which were incased in brown cotton gloves. "Only tell me if you have ever seen such a girl as I describe?""Such a girl?" questioned the chemist. "You have described the gown and the bonnet only.""She is a bold-faced hussy, plain, with pert, insolent eyes!""I have very often seen faces answering to that description," said the young chemist, struggling to hide a smile."She is tall, and she has quantities of brown hair, with yellow in it.""Like shot silk?" asked the chemist, gravely."Ah! don't I wish I had had her head shaved!" said Miss Pringle to herself. "That would have pulled down her pride!""If I see the young lady," said the chemist, "shall I let you know? What is your address?""There it is," said Miss Pringle, handing the printed card of her sister, who let furnished rooms:"Mrs. Butler, 4 Crawley Terrace, Hampstead."Then Miss Pringle took her leave.She walked along, looking at every one she met, and peeping into all the shops.If she only could find out where Velvet lived, and what she was doing, that would be at least something.Velvet Snow belonged more exclusively now to her than to any other person in the whole world, she considered, for that mysterious being called Patience Wood could scarcely dare to dispute possession of the secret with her.A warrant was out for the arrest of that woman; she was suspected of at least complicity in the robbery and attempted murder of Sir Huntly Stanford. Thus she dared not appear again with any claim against any one.Only Miss Pringle knew that there was some rich and mighty person—male or female, she knew not which—who would give five hundred pounds either to have the existence of Velvet Snow kept secret, or else to have her brought forward and identified."To think," said Miss Pringle, "of my being troubled with the horrid little wretch all these years, and now that she should escape me in this way! But I'll hunt for her day by day; she must live somewhere near here."CHAPTER XXX.VELVET, meanwhile, had not taken the turn into the main street. She had darted up a lane between two hedges, nursery grounds on one side and a large field on the other, and she had run as fast as her limbs would carry her."Let me only get into the house again," she said, "without Miss Pringle meeting me, and I won't stir out again until she is gone home, for she must be going home. She can't be living at Hampstead!"Velvet ran for a good half mile, and then began slowly to retrace her steps. She met nobody of any consequence, and she reached the lane between the walls and entered the pleasant, sheltered garden of Savoy House unseen and unsuspected.She lost no time, however, in seeking Miss Saville, in telling her the whole of the strange adventure which had befallen her, and in asking her advice.Miss Saville did not scold Velvet for her disobedience, because Velvet blamed herself bitterly; but she gently advised her never to do the like again."And what shall I do if she meets me, Miss Saville, if I am with you? If she sees me in church? What can she do? What power has she?"I do not believe that the law would give her any power over you," said Miss Saville. " Still, she might try it—she might annoy you and us also, and the safest thing is to hide from her. We will find out if she is living or visiting at Hampstead, and we will act accordingly."An inquiry at the post-office, judiciously managed, resulted in the discovery of Miss Pringle as a visitor at Crawley Terrace, where her sister, Mrs. Butler, let furnished rooms, and in the course of a couple of weeks it was ascertained that Velvet's tyrant had departed for the neighborhood of Yarrow Leas.As for the description which Miss Pringle had given the chemist—of a girl with a bold face, and insolent eyes, and brown hair shot with yellow, it never led to her identification; and as time went on, Velvet ceased to fear her former tyrant; her past life receded into the distance; her hopes and thoughts and efforts were all directed toward the future. Ambition woke up in Velvet's soul, and for awhile seemed to put aside all other things; but there was finer material in her than came to the front. She was honest; she was grateful; she was faithful if she was ambitious, impassioned, and what some who were a little envious of her called audacious. But without audacity how shall ambition achieve its ends?CHAPTER XXXI."No clew to the mystery of that fearful attack on the eve of the wedding—no clew at all; and that miserable Patience Wood has never been traced. No doubt she was the instigator of the attack. How you ever could have believed in the reformation of that most horrible creature!"The Reverend Mr. Hibbit was smoking an after-dinner pipe. It was a piercingly cold winter night; the snow lay white and thick in the rectory garden. Mr. Hibbit had retreated to his own study, but his wife had followed him there with some fancy-work in her hands. While her knitting-needles clicked and shone in the fire-light, her tongue went faster than her fingers. Mr. Hibbit smoked placidly, and listened patiently to all his wife had to say."If Sir Huntly lives, he will be an imbecile! Isn't it fearful? And how can the executors manage? His will has no force as long as he is alive. Roland can't touch anything but the seven hundred a year he has always had, and that of course Mr. Cave Curtis pays him as usual; but you know he was to have had two thousand a year, but poor Sir Huntly had never signed that. The deed was never properly made out when Sir Huntly was as good as murdered.""It's a most distressing, most harrowing case!" said the rector, taking his pipe from between his lips."And that you should have been the means of encouraging that awful woman to come into the nighborhood !" said Mrs. Hibbit. "I never see either of the Stanfords that I don't think of it; either the poor imbecile Sir Huntly, or poor Roland, or Lady Proudmount, or any of them.""And do you tell them that you consider your foolish hus-


band as the cause of all the mischief?" asked the rector with a weary smile."No; but I do consider that you are, all the same," said Mrs. Hibbit. "You take such absurd fancies to people. There was that Velvet Snow."The rector looked at the fire and smiled, and his wife saw it."Thomas Hibbit," she said, "I believe that you know what has become of that wicked girl. You would not smile in that way if you did not.""Then if I do, I can't know any harm of her, my dear; for if she were miserable, or if she had turned out ill, I should never smile.""Oh, then you do know?" said Mrs. Hibbit. "Where is she? In service?""If I know," returned the rector, "I am bound to secrecy.""And she," said Mrs. Hibbit, angrily—"she will do some fearfully wicked thing some day, and then say that she used to come to the rectory to learn of Mr. Hibbit. Oh, Thomas, you are a good man, but you are the weakest one I ever knew.""Make the best you can of me, my dear. A good weak man is better than a bad weak one, isn't he?"Mrs. Hibbit clicked her needles, but did not speak for a little time; then she said:"Is it true that Roland Stanford is always down at the Raggan, and that he and that girl are flirting desperately?""I fear it is true," said the rector. "They were once engaged, you know.""Most disgraceful," said Mrs. Hibbit, "when the girl would have married poor Sir Huntly!""Most extraordinary girl," said the rector, beginning to smoke again. "She seems as innocent as a child of seven.""Well, her waiting for Sir Huntly would be useless," said Mrs: Hibbit. "The doctors are all agreed that the injury to the brain is such that it's impossible he can ever recover his intellect.""Then the young lady ought to go away from the neighborhood," said the rector."If Sir Huntly died, would she inherit anything?""No; because his last will isn't signed," said the rector. "That was put off, like the signing of the deed conferring, the two thousand a year on Roland.""Dear me, what a terrible muddle it all seems!" said Mrs. Hibbit, clicking her needles still faster."I hope and trust that Roland will not marry her," said the rector. "It will look so ill on her part to have been engaged to him, then to his uncle, then to him again.""Determined to be Lady Stanford, you see," said Mrs. Hibbit. "But, even if the wedding came off, I am sure the county won't visit her.""No," said the rector, slowly, "they won't."Now, while this conversation between the rector and his wife was going on, a discussion on the self-same subject was taking place in a certain cozy but shabby drawing-room m a house situated some four miles or so from the rectory. There was a large fire flaming in the grate, and the drawing-room curtains were drawn close.Round the fire were placed the chintz-covered chairs and the sofa. Upon the sofa lay old Mr. Vernon. The winter was trying him sorely. He had a most severe cold. He looked worn, white, anxious.Jane Vernon sat apart at a little table. She was sewing energetically at some warm, coarse garment intended for a poor child.Jane, in brown velveteen, with a color on her usually pale cheeks, looked handsome—one had said noble—but there was not any one in that room who had eyes for her.Her uncle looked distressed, her sister looked perplexed, and the fourth person present had his eyes fixed on Bethel. He watched her every look, her every gesture, with a greediness of observation, a hunger of passion, so to speak.Bethel was the first to break the silence."If ever he comes to his senses again—" she began.Then Roland struck in, for the fourth person in the little assembly was Roland, the heir to Stanford Hall and the title."He will never come to his senses again. Such a thing is quite impossible. He can't live more than another three months at the outside.""What a fearful crime that was!" said Mr. Vernon, shading his pale face with his hands, and shuddering a little."Fearful!" echoed handsome Roland in a mildly acquiescent tone. "But he will never recover. And it seems a little hard to let a man who is as good as dead rule our lives and thoughts. Poor fellow," he added, hastily, "I would not distress him for the world; but, as it stands now, it seems absurd for us to go on wasting our lives waiting for him to do


what he never can do—recover his senses; and, even if he did, I don't think such a mere wreck as he would be could desire to carry out that monstrous marriage."Roland had become bold and open in his wooing of Bethel Vernon. His uncle was a hopeless imbecile, struck so suddenly by some unknown, murderous hand. He was the heir-expectant of eighteen thousand a year, a fine old mansion, and a title.In the course of nature all these good things must belong to Roland within the next twelve months at the very least. Why, then, in the name of love and common sense—who were for once, so he thought, of the same mind—why should he not marry Bethel, whom he loved with so passionate a love, and who at least preferred him to anybody else, and had only thrown him over because she wished to be Lady Stanford, and the mistress of a fine house, carriages, horses, all the pomps and vanities of life?Roland knew what Bethel was. Heartless, self-absorbed, ambitious, vain, pleasure-seeking. Love had blinded him at one time to all this; but his eyes were open now, and he saw his lady-love as she was. Still, he desired to have her for his wife—her and none other. Flimsy, selfish, cunning, heartless, her beauty and her witcheries held him captive. She seemed to him so adorable, in what he indulgently called her "naughtiness," that all the feminine virtues appeared homespun, dull, and uninteresting compared to her enchanting follies.Bethel was a Circe who intoxicated her lovers and warped them from their better instincts; and Roland was hopelessly intoxicated, pitiably warped away from all that was ennobling.He would have wronged and injured thousands of his fellow-men for the sake of calling yonder girl his wife. He wooed her openly, in the presence of her uncle and her sister, and held forth the advantages that would accrue to them both if they favored his suit."It seems such an unnatural thing to marry a girl whose wedding-gown is made in which she would have married your uncle," said the old clergyman. "What will people say?""They can say what they like," Roland answered; "and Bethel need not marry me in that ivory-colored gown; she can keep that for a Court dress.""I hope I shall be presented at Court," pouted Bethel."You will not be if you marry Mr. Stanford now while his uncle is alive. All the county will cut you—""Jane, you are a beast, and I hate you!" said lovely Bethel, flailing round upon her sister like an angry child."You shall go to Court—you shall be a queen of society—you shall be more famous throughout Europe as a beauty than Mrs. Langtry or Mary Anderson—and you shall wear the Stanford rubies and diamonds."Now, the said rubies and diamonds were locked up in iron caskets, and Mr. Cave Curtis, the family solicitor, had put his seal upon them; the jewels were to have been given to Sir Huntly's bride after the ceremony, and then sent to the bank until the return of the happy pair from their honey-moon. Roland could not lay a finger on those gems until after his uncle's death, and even then it was doubtful whether Lady Proudmount, Sir Huntly's nearest female relative, might not have a prior claim, supposing Sir Huntly to die without signing his will.Bethel heaved a very deep sigh."What a long time he takes dying," she said in her pretty, innocent, childish voice. "I wish he would make haste!""Bethel, my dear," said mild Uncle James, "you speak thoughtlessly. When will you behave like a grown-up woman?"Jane smiled bitterly."I think Bethel has a keener eye to business than scores of grown-up women, Uncle James.""Oh, yes! you always do say such spiteful things!" cried Bethel. "You are certain to be an old maid!""And you will marry me, Bethel, next week, will you?""I don't see why I should not," Bethel answered, "especially, if it's really true that he is going to make haste and die. And we shall live in London, of course?""Yes, for the season. We will take a furnished house. You know the Stanfords sold their town house in the first years of this century; but when once I come into the property, I shall buy a house out Kensington way.""And I will have the drawing-room furnished in **turquois velvet and cloth of silver, like one of the rooms I have read of in the palace of the czar, and pale-blue vases costing five hundred guineas each. Won't I make the money spin!""And so you shall—so you shall, my darling!" cried that intoxicated Roland, starting to his feet and rushing toward the cold, selfish little beauty, who pouted when he caught her round the waist."You tumble my stand-up collar so awfully!" she said.Before Roland could take his leave that night, arrange-


ments for a very quiet wedding by special license, in a new and sparsely attended, bare little church at Yarrow Leas, were agreed upon."No, I will not be her bride-maid!" said Jane, firmly. "I utterly disapprove of this marriage; no good will come of it.""Never mind her," said Bethel; "I don't want any bride-maid. Uncle James will give me away, and you will take me, and the parson will read it all out, and—and we'll go to Paris first, won't we?""Yes, my darling," answered Roland.London on a fine afternoon in May, the Row and the Ladies' Mile crowded—"crammed," as lovely Bethel expressed it.Seven hundred a year is all the income that Roland Stanford had to depend upon; that sum has been allowed him for years by his uncle, but he can not wring a shilling more out of that close-fisted gentleman, Mr. Cave Curtis, the family lawyer. Seven hundred a year, and Sir Huntly's heir lives as if he owned an income of three thousand.Bethel is his wife—his saucy, lovely wife, who has already created a furore in society. The county did not call when he returned with her for a fortnight to the Hall after the short trip to Paris; but Bethel vowed vehemently that she didn't care for the county.Blanche Prescot did her utmost to keep the "best" people from calling, and she told the truth when she stated that Bethel had only passed five minutes in the sick-room of Sir Huntly, and that when she saw his ghastly, unconscious face, she begged Lady Proudmount to let her leave the room, saying:"Anything like that makes me feel ill. I won't come here again; he looks too dreadful!"Bethel's frank selfishness had its charm for many of the so-called sterner sex. In London she was already the rage within certain limits; no grand lady, it is true, would present Mrs. Roland Stanford at Court; she was not invited to the "at-homes" of the Countess of Beryl, nor to the garden-parties of the Duchess of Opal, but there were many carpet-dances, water-parties, and little suppers at which she sparkled, the fairest of the fair, "the most perfect rosebud beauty," so the society papers called her.As for her dresses, they were enough to drive all the women with moderate means mad with envy.It was not that the materials were so rich, but that the "cut" was, so exquisite; and Bethel knew how to wear a gown and a hat in such a manner that it set all the women and girls scheming how to obtain a duplicate."Seven hundred a year! How can it be done on seven hundred a year?" a middle-aged lady, who had two daughters still unmarried on her hands, asked of Blanche Prescot.This lady was seated on one of the chairs under the trees, watching the "tide of fashion " sweeping along the path, and the horsemen and horsewomen cantering past in the Row.Bethel had just gone by, exquisitely mounted on a small, dark-gray horse. Her habit was blue. She did not wear the regulation chimney-pot hat, but a velvet Tam O'Shanter the same color as the habit. Her chestnut hair fell like a shower of gold to her slender waist. Her gloves, her arms, her attitude, were all "poignantly lovely," as Captain Tracy, of the Fifty-ninth Lancers, said to his friend.As for the piquant face, with its rose-bloom cheeks, its yellow, hazel eyes—so large, so lustrous, so full of a child-like wonder—there were already several artists in the crowd trying to sketch it as Bethel rode past.Bethel was not riding with her husband that afternoon, but with Colonel Markham, a haughty-looking man of middle age. He was an acquaintance of Roland, and was called his friend.Like all the rest of the world, the colonel was under the spell of the new beauty."How can she keep such a horse, and dress as she does, if they have only seven hundred a year?" asked the lady with daughters to marry, of Miss Prescot."There is such a thing as credit in the world, is there not?" asked Blanche, with a hard smile.Oh, how Blanche hated Bethel, Mrs. Stanford! She understood now what a tool Roland had made of her again, and yet again, in order that public attention might be diverted from his passion for Bethel.If ever a woman had a bitter enemy, Bethel had one in Blanche Prescot!CHAPTER XXXII.THE hollows had deepened under the fine dark eyes of Miss Blanche Prescot. Balls which lasted until five in the morning, late dinners, "at-homes," had occupied those hours when sleep should have refreshed her weary head. Blanche


was not physically strong, and she, with her mother, was working hard, fagging bravely through the arduous business of an exceptionally gay and desperately exciting London season. So small an income, so large an acquaintance, such numerous engagements, so few gowns, so few jewels, no carriage, only one small boy in buttons.A narrow, comfortless new villa on the outskirts of Kensington was the establishment where Lady Prescot and her fair daughter abided, and did their very utmost to promote that matrimonial scheme which they both hoped would lift the young lady out of genteel penury into luxurious splendor, and enable the elder one to relax her strenuous efforts to reach the front ranks of society. Already there was one distinct chance for Blanche, despite her thinner cheeks and the deepening hollows under her eyes.A certain wealthy widower of middle age was much struck by the charms and graces of Miss Prescot. This prize was in fact very close to her, if she would only stretch out that fair hand to grasp it. Blanche, however, hesitated. The fact was, she had, unfortunately, conceived something very like a mortal antipathy for Mr. Brassgood (who had made a large fortune out of a patent), and who was stout, bald, and not pleasant to look upon. Might not some younger, more dashing man present himself if she waited just a little longer? Not that there was an atom of love left in her heart for any one. Blanche had "loved" Roland Stanford for himself. She would have married him on his two thousand a year.Blanche had fondly hoped again for a little while. Suddenly all her hopes had been shattered, and the news of Roland Stanford's almost private marriage with "that girl" fell like a thunder-bolt amid county society at Ellsmere. Ah! how Blanche hated that girl! Little minx! how she must have laughed in her sleeve during those days and weeks when Roland purposely flirted with Blanche to draw off public attention from his secret devotion to yonder "hussy." Blanche never thought of Mrs. Roland Stanford by any other name than "that hussy." And how would it end?—how would it all end? if only poor Sir Huntly might regain his senses, and understand how the detestable Vernon girl had fooled him—married his nephew and heir, while he lay like a senseless log—if only he could wake up in the might and strength of vengeance and strike the name of that traitor Roland out of his will forever! Yes, strike it right out! That was the vengeance which the wounded heart and writhing pride of Blanche Prescot yearned for with a savage yearning.Ha! ha! what a mockery it would be if the handsome young man of the world found himself left utterly penniless, loaded hideously with debt, and with the burlesque of a title to make him a laughing-stock in the eyes of men and women There was—so the papers said—a baronet of ancient name and ruined fortunes to be found among the ragged and hungry dock-laborers who wait and strive, and almost fight for a
job every day in our starving eastern London.If Blanche Prescot could only live to see the man who had mocked her with the pretense of his love, standing among that suffering crowd, she fancied that she could die happy.Meanwhile, Roland and his lovely wife lived on credit. They were clothed in fashionable style—they rode good horses—they fared sumptuously. Everybody knew that it was only a question of time, and that ultimately the gay, reckless young man must step into a superb fortune and a title. And thus Roland obtained much credit, and went spinning gayly along the road to ruin.Blanche sat watching the riders in the Row pass and repass, and every time that the beauty in the blue habit, mounted on the dark-gray horse, went by, she bit her thin, red lip, and her dark-penciled brows were contracted in a frown.That night she was going to a ball at a Colonel Cumberland's, who lived in Park Lane, and there she knew that she would meet Roland and his fair wife; that all the men would stand as abject slaves in the presence of the "Rose Goddess." That was the fantastic name which the society papers had given to Mrs. Roland Stanford. Blanche would have to hide her spite and her hatred, and to smile with the rest; but she knew there would be Ellsmere people at the ball, and she hoped to hear some news of Sir Huntly which should make Roland's heart quake with fear.Even while she thought of him, and of his falsehood, she was startled by seeing the man she had once loved, and now hated, approaching her at a leisurely pace, walking in the languid style of the fashionable idler, attired faultlessly, and looking handsome, if a trifle pale.Anxious? Well, not—not anxious. Roland was far too wise to walk in that fashionable crowd with an anxious face.He had to take off his hat perpetually, because he knew such a number of people, and he smiled his stereotyped smile, which many thought so sweet."Hypocrite!" said Blanche to herself; and then she smiled a charming smile in answer to his bow, and as he approached her, she motioned him to take a chair by her side.She acted her part so well that she completely deceived Roland.Blanche had never to him betrayed the slightest annoyance when she alluded to his marriage. Certainly he did remember that she used to make severe remarks on Bethel at one time; but she seemed to have forgotten all that now, and to be anxious only to do honor to the "new beauty," like the rest of the world."I have just seen Mrs. Stanford riding by. How exquisitely she manages her horse; and what a lovely dark gray! Where did you buy him?"Roland pulled his long, fair mustache; a very faint increase or color stole into his cheeks.Blanche chuckled inwardly. She had heard a funny story about yonder horse, and she wondered if it were true."Oh, yes." drawled Roland. "He is a jolly little beast, isn't he?""Perfect," said Blanche, smiling sweetly, and showing her white teeth. "Where did you pick him up?""Oh. he belongs—belonged," correcting himself, "to Captain Ferrand, of the—Lancers. He sold out; went, in short, to the—dogs.""Oh," said Blanche; "and so you bought the jolly little beast, as you so prettily call him? Ah, if I could afford to give three hundred guineas for a horse like that, I should go wild with joy."Now, Roland knew that Miss Prescot was aware that he had only seven hundred a year, and could not afford to give three hundred guineas for a thorough-bred.He laughed."I don't think I can exactly afford it, you know," she said; "but if one lives at Rome—"She nodded vivaciously."Well, I, too, live at Rome," she said, brightly, "and I have to do a lot of things I can't afford."" Such is life," said he, languidly. "I suppose we shall see you at the Cumberlands' this evening?""Oh, yes," said Blanche."May I put my name down for the second waltz?""Certainly," said Blanche. "I shall be delighted."She watched his blue eyes. They were anxiously watching the riders in the Row and looking out for his wife, the "Rose Goddess."Was he jealous of the soldierly man by whom Bethel was


escorted? If he was, he was too wise and too deep to let Blanche guess it."So glad to hear that Sir Huntly has had intervals of consciousness," Blanche said suddenly.Then she saw Roland start, and his pallor intensified to ghastliness. She had him there. Oh, if only she could be sure that the report she had heard were true, she would stand by and glory in the fear and humiliation of this man!"Intervals of consciousness!" he exclaimed. "Who says so? It's all a lot of rubbish. I—"She broke into a silvery peal of well-trained laughter.Don't look so frightened!" she said, mischievously. "Of course I should be a hypocrite if I pretended to think you would not be a little afraid of his anger if he really came to his proper senses and found that you had married his promised bride; but I should say, poor fellow! that there was but a very faint chance of that. Still, I have heard that be was perfectly sensible for two hours the day before yesterday."Still watching Roland, Blanche saw that he was distraught, alarmed, desperately anxious. The rumor of the temporary recovery of Sir Huntly to reason, had, in reality, reached her from an Ellsmere gossip some day or two since; and she wished with all her soul that it might prove true.Yes, Roland was fearfully pale; it required his utmost efforts to concentrate his attention on the gay world around him, and the graceful Blanche in her piquant costume of salmon-color and fawn.At last he took her slender hand, in its exquisite glove of fawn kid, and he even held it with a show of respectful admiration for a moment or two."Good-bye for the present," he said, gently. "I shall certainty see you this evening in Park Lane; I hear it will be one of the jolliest balls we have had this season."And then he walked away, looking, Blanche still thought, although she hated him, one of the most distinguished men in the fashionable crowd."His pride shall come down though—he shall bite the dust!" she said to herself, between her close-shut teeth.Meanwhile, Roland went along, still raising his hat every three minutes; but he was in a desperate hurry to get away from all those graceful, sweeping skirts, dainty bonnets, stereotyped smiles, and fashionable stares, and soon he was in the comparative solitude of Park Lane and walking fast toward Union Street, Mayfair, where he rented a small house


out of order, inconvenient, cheaply if fashionably furnished, and heavily rented.This was his home, his sacred place of domestic joys, loves, and hopes.Home? The word meant little to him in his then frame of mind—indeed, he had not at all realized as yet that 200 Union Street was a home at all. No; he hoped some day to have a home when Stanford Hall became his. A long time might elapse before that day dawned.Suppose, for instance, that Sir Huntly lingered for five years, why, how deeply and inextricably in debt Roland would be by that time—and Bethel—would she have the patience?And a voice deep down in his soul answered:"No; she would never have the patience!"Suppose, too, that the worst happened, that which would be his ruin, he felt—that notwithstanding those long months of darkened intellect, the soul of his uncle, so to speak, should come unto him again, not at short intervals, not mere visits, but come again strong in wisdom, clear in judgment, and, oh! wrathful with a bitter indignation—then what would remain for him and for Bethel, save social ruin, poverty?Well, Bethel had often said lately that she would never submit to poverty. No; she would do anything rather than submit to it! She would run away from him, cross the Atlantic, and marry some rich American according to the divorce laws of that republic. Certainly she would do that or worse."No; I can't let that happen!" he said to himself, as he flung his hat on the rickety if esthetically covered little couch in the drawing-room at 200 Union Street. "He must not know of our marriage—he must not!"Just at that instant there came a loud ring at the front doorbell, and presently Roland, whose "well-bred insolence," so to express it, was calculated to put down the aspirations of these he deemed beneath him—presently Roland, of the supercilious stare and the languid drawl—heard the loud, angry voice of a man in the hall—a man who had called for the sum of twelve pounds ten shillings due for champagne, and who now refused to go away without "seeing Mr. Stanford." Twelve pounds ten shillings for champagne!Roland wished that he could fling the paltry sum to the fellow, and then kick him out of the house; as it was, the young man was impecunious; all the money he could absolutely command at that moment was three pounds four shillings, and he wanted every shilling of it.He could not offer the creature in the hall any of it, and the said creature was one of those men of hard nature and uncivilized manners whom certain tradespeople employ to collect their bills.Mr. Chelsford has sent the bill in six times," said the blatant voice in the hall, "and it's an understood thing that his firm does not give credit for longer than a week. Mr. Stanford will have his name in all the papers, and the expenses will be half as much again if he doesn't take care. I know he is in the house, for I saw him cross the road five minutes ago and let himself in with a latch-key!"Then was heard the voice of the page-boy."I'll give him your message," said the page-boy."If you don't," said the collector, "he will find himself in Queer Street pretty soon, and you may have to whistle for your wages."Roland went back into the drawing-room, shut the door, sat down, and buried his face in his hands on the table.Lately everything had gone against him. He had lost a hundred and fifty on the Derby, instead of gaining five hundred, as he had hoped to do.No; he could not go and face that man; he could not promise him his twelve pounds ten in a week, or a fortnight, or a month, or even in three months; he could not get a bill of sale on the furniture, for the house was a furnished one, in which nothing belonged to Roland and his wife save their clothes.No; he was desperate. And yet how soon—how very soon—things might right themselves! Only that maimed and helpless life lay between Roland and affluence. Dead? If he were only dead!Roland raised a white, dull face from the table, over which he had been bending, then he arose and rang the bell loudly.The page came in."Tell that man in the hall that I will send him a check next Monday. Next Monday—do you hear?""Yes, sir."Exit page.Roland listened until he heard the hall-door slam after the collector, then he went to his desk, sat down, and began to write off a letter in a hurry. This was a request for an extended loan at exorbitant interest. Soon he had addressed and fastened up the letter, then he stamped it, and went out to post it.He looked at his watch. Six o'clock. Seven was the


dinner-hour. He was to dine tête-à-tête with his lovely Bethel that evening—Bethel, for whose sake he had risked so much; Bethel, whose beauty had maddened him, and whom he still worshiped in proportion to her selfish indifference to himself, her heartless vanity, her unprincipled craving for pleasure, finery, and luxury at all costs.A brilliant day had gone by, a golden sunset was preparing in the west. Roland's heart was heavy with a new fear planted there by Blanche Prescot. Would Sir Huntly regain his senses? Would he waken up in wrath, and call for his lawyers and strike Roland's name forever out of his will?"In that case," muttered Roland to himself—"in that case×¢ But he did not finish the sentence, only the scowl on his brow when he had once more let himself into his house with his latch-key and encountered the page in the hall quite "flabbergasted " that youth, as the said youth expressed it.CHAPTER XXXIII.EIGHT o'clock, and the young husband and lovely. hate sent away the remains of their dainty repast. Roland found it quite impossible to eat anything not prepared by a professed cook. They sat over their wine, hot-house grapes, and candied fruits. It was too early for strawberries.Bethel wore a charming black lace dress over soft black silk, her lovely neck and arms gleamed like white marble. She wore one heavy gold bracelet with a great carbuncle glowing in the center, a wedding gift from Roland's friend, Captain Standish. She lolled back luxuriously, eat grapes, and now and then sipped her wine—a fine white burgundy procured from another wine merchant, and unpaid for, like the champagne.Roland also lolled back, his hands in his pockets; he was smoking a cigarette, and looking now at the ceiling, now at the fair and rosy face of Bethel, with its rich crown of auburn curls."Bethel," he said, suddenly, "we are going fast to the dogs!"She stifled a pretty little yawn."I can't help it if we are, Roland; I must have new things—every one does—all the ugliest old frumps; and one can't go out twice in the same gown—at least, not unless one has new trimmings, and they cost nearly as much as a new dress. I never heard of any one so exorbitant as that Madame Blink in South Audley Street. What ever do you think she has had


the conscience to charge me for the gown I shall wear tonight at Colonel Cumberland's?""Twenty guineas, perhaps.""Twenty!—good. gracious, Roland, you know nothing about women's gowns and trimmings—twenty! Madame Blink would fling such a sum at one if one offered it to her. No, indeed, fifty guineas; and I do think that's too much; it's not worth a farthing more than thirty pounds. I believe the silk isn't really more than five shillings a yard.""Fifty pounds!" said Roland; "well, I am afraid Madame What's-her-name will never get paid at all.""What a nuisance," said Bethel, calmly."Yes, because you will not be able to have any more gowns at all after this one," continued Roland, stung by her unfeeling carelessness. "And if things go on in the way they are now going, I am afraid we sha'n't have anything to eat."Whereupon Mrs. Roland Stanford broke into a peal of the merriest laughter."What funny things you do say, Roland—enough to make a cat laugh.""You won't laugh, I am afraid, when you have to go without your dinner.""No, not when I have to," she said, gayly; "but I wonder what all my friends would do if they even guessed that I wanted the least thing in the world? I could have"—she threw up her snow-white arms and laughed gayly—"I could have ten thousand pounds if I liked to ask for it, and the person who gave it me would think himself well repaid it I gave him my hand to kiss.""You mean that scamp of a Marquis of Hollywood? But he hasn't ten thousand pounds to throw away, my dear, in return for being allowed to kiss your hand; he is in debt—over head and ears in debt—and he spins yarns like a spider spins his web to catch flies.""Well, I only know that I am not going to make wrinkles come into my face by fretting about things that will never happen.""We owe more than we could pay if Sir Huntly recovered and let me have the two thousand a year that he was going to give me; and I hear that he recovered his senses yesterday, and is very likely to get well again.""Spiteful, nasty thing!" cried Mrs. Roland. Her face flamed crimson, her lovely brows met in a frown.Roland stared in amaze at his lovely young wife."Spiteful viper, toad!" said Bethel, speaking, it will be


seen, without an accurate knowledge of natural history. "I saw her sitting with you when I passed in the Row, and I know she told you that just to make me miserable. I mean that horrid old maid, Miss Prescot—I know she is thirty.""She may be twenty or sixty; it doesn't matter how old or how young she is; the fact remains that she is in correspondence with people at Ellsmere, and she has heard from good authority that Sir Huntly regained his senses for an hour or two—longer, I think she said—and the doctors think he will get quite right again, and then you know what will happen.""Oh, he will die," said Bethel, gayly. "He is certain to die, only they will keep on fussing over him and taking such pains to keep him alive."Roland gazed at his fair wife in a species of something like fascinated horror. Great Heaven! how utterly—utterly heartless this pretty creature was!"Bethel!" he said, quietly, after he had helped himself to wine and sipped some, "Bethel, suppose that Sir Huntly recovers, calls for his lawyers, strikes my name out of his will because I have married you who were to have been his wife—well, I must shoot myself."She took another large yellow grape and popped it into her mouth; she looked at him coolly and critically, but she did not speak. What thought was in her heart? Roland had no principle; he was selfish; he was not a good young man; but he loved yonder beautiful creature with a passion which shook his very soul. He was asking himself all the time if she would care at all for his death? He wanted to hear what she would say. No, he would not ask—he would leave it all to herself."What will you do after I am dead, darling?" he asked, with a smile—it was a terrible smile of its kind; but Bethel could not see anything ominous in it."I don't know, I am sure, Roland. How can I tell what I should do? I hate widows' caps.""Oh, you heartless little woman," he said in a voice hoarse with intense feeling. "I don't think you would shed a tear if you saw my funeral moving down the street; would you, Bethel?"Her heart was hard; she could not comprehend the meaning of the word love—she could not help it—the effort to care for another was beyond her moral nature; besides, she took some pleasure (when in the mood) in paining others; she was in the mood now, she was in a bad temper at hearing that Sir


Huntly might recover. She wished to be mistress of Stanford Hall; for that she had schemed, childish creature that she was in manner."I don't really suppose, if you ask me the real truth, that I would fret much," she said, with a charming smile. "Of course, I don't know, but I should have, oh! such a lot of offers, and—"She clasped her white hands, and nodded gayly at her husband.Then Roland rose and left the room, banging the door loudly after him, and Bethel went into convulsions of laughter.There was a small, fat, brown poodle asleep, coiled up on a cushion. Bethel awakened this dog, called it to her, put pieces of cake on its nose, and made it sit up and beg."Joy," she said, addressing the poodle by its name, "don't you think if your pretty mistress were left a widow that she could easily get a richer husband than that silly boy? One, two, three—no, not yet; you sha'n't have the cake yet. Up—up, you lazy little thing! Don't think you are going to have it all so sweet and nice without taking any trouble."As she spoke, she dealt the impatient dog a smart blow which made him whimper.Soon she grew weary of this pastime, and then she went off to her room to sleep for an hour or two, so that she should appear fresh and bright at Colonel Cumberland's ball. She did not see Roland, or ask for him, or even think of him."He won't shoot himself before the ball, of course," she said to herself; "in fact, I don't suppose he will really shoot himself at all."CHAPTER XXXIV.BETHEL undressed without calling her "maid."Mrs. Roland had surrounded herself at 200 Union Street with all the fashionable style of a society lady, but now she retired to rest unassisted; she lay down and slept like a baby. At nine her maid called her; then she arose and put herself into the adroit hands of Miss Steel, a lean, sallow woman, of middle age, who had lived with a duchess ten years before, and who came at a rather low salary to Mrs. Stanford, because she was the "new beauty," and thus the fame of her lady's-maid would rise in a short while.Bethel was dressed for the ball with the greatest care, the most scrupulous nicety, by that lean, sallow person, Miss


Steel. Her hair was raised to a height that made one think of the days of our great-grandmothers. High coiffures were in vogue that season, powder was the fashion, and Miss Steel wished much to send the lovely Mrs. Roland to the ball looking like the portrait of the Pompadour at Hampton Court."I should look like a princess," Bethel said, "and I know there is not a princess in Europe to compare to me! Lord Hollywood says so; not only to me, that's nothing, but to every one he meets. Yes, I should look like a princess though I have never been to Court; but a princess would have diamonds—I have none. Yet—and at Stanford Hall, or, at least, in the bank, where that horrid lawyer has sent them, there are two sets of rubies and three sets of diamonds, splendid enough for a Russian empress, and"—with a pretty pout—"they would have been mine.""And they will be yours, madame, one day," said Miss Steel, smiling her prim smile."I don't know. They say old Sir Huntly is going to get well."As Bethel spoke, she shrugged her shoulders, and made a funny little grimace at herself in the glass.Miss Steel smiled her grim smile. Nobody had ever seen the lady's-maid laugh."No, I won't wear powder," said Bethel, with another pretty pout. "I haven't any jewels to flash and dazzle. Oh, some day, I—yes, I'll blaze with diamonds, see if I don't! Money? Oh, Steel, there isn't anything else worth caring for, is there, now?"Miss Steel was well aware of the financial difficulties of her young master and mistress. All the servants understood how perilously near to ruin the flimsily furnished house_really was.At any moment the butcher, fishmonger, poulterer, and confectioner might cut off the supplies. And then? Why, then, somehow the wages were sure to be paid—wages always were paid—and the servants would all find it easy to obtain new places. It was a recommendation to have formed part of the household of the new beauty, and lovely Mrs. Roland was quite certain to fall on her feet.Already Roland counted for little in the estimation of the servants, Some day he would be a baronet—perhaps a rich one. Who could say? But Mrs. Roland? Well, the whole world would be at her feet.Bethel did not wear powder, but her own lovely golden auburn hair, with one rich pink camellia, made the most radiant coiffure As for her gown, the reader knows that Ma-


dame Blink, of South Audley Street, had sent in her bill for it, and that bill was fifty pounds."Enormous price, isn't it, Steele?" Bethel said to the maid.But Miss Steel shook her head. Had she not lived with a duchess—a rich duchess?—a house where money was reckoned of no more account than the pebbles in a country road?Miss Steel at present, it is true, consented to live in a house where money was unfortunately scarce; but this pretty, penniless lady must not for an instant imagine that a person of Miss Steel's experience would "come down" so far as to find fault with a paltry charge of a mere fifty pounds for a ball-dress! She shook her head."Fifty pounds, madame! Of course it did not come from Madame Superba's. South Audley Street, did you say, madame?""Yes—Madame Blink's.""Well," said Miss Steel, with a pitying smile at the young beauty who knew no better, "of course, for a person like Madame Blink, it is quite enough to charge.""Good gracious!" cried Bethel. "Did the duchess ever give more than fifty pounds for a gown?""When I was in Paris with her grace," said Miss Steel, "she had a dinner-dress from Monsieur Lombarie's. I saw the bill. It was two hundred guineas."If Miss Steel had run a sharp instrument into Bethel's soft white flesh, she could hardly have wounded her more. Envy, vanity, mortified self-love, all stung her like so many serpents."That Duchess of Greystone is a horrible woman, I have heard, Steel—just like a wild cat in temper, and fat now and ugly.""Fat now, madame, but always most beautiful.""And with a temper like a tigress, eh?""As a rule the ladies of the aristocracy are impetuous," replied Steel, discreetly, who would not have offended "her grace" for the world."Such rubbish!" said Mrs. Roland. " I hate most of their women; they are such cants. Come, make haste; help me on with the dress. You seem to me to spend such a lot of time in talking."The discreet Steel did not defend herself from this unjust aspersion. She put on the ball-dress, which cost fifty pounds—would it ever be paid?—and then she arranged the drapery, and stood at a short distance to admire the effect.Now, a Duchess of Greystone might have given four times as much for a gown, but no duchess ever looked more superbly lovely than did Bethel in pink.She had no precious stones to flash upon her white breast and round arms, but she was well off for golden ornaments.Another of Roland's military friends had sent the lovely bride a rich wedding-gift, a necklet and pendant, and heavy bracelets of the purest yellow gold and Indian workmanship—"almost too weighty," as Bethel said; but the workmanship was exquisite."Give me my bouquet—all white flowers, is it not? When did it arrive?""This afternoon, madame, at about three o'clock. I have kept it in water. It is quite fresh.""And lovely," said Bethel, putting the flowers to her delicate nostrils. "Do you know who sent me this bouquet, Steel?"Miss Steel shook her head; but everybody in "society," including the servants, knew well that the reckless Marquis of Hollywood was besieging the new beauty with bouquets which cost five guineas each.At the appointed time the carriage arrived which was to convey the Stanfords to the ball.Roland walked out of his room fresh and handsome, and in correct evening toilet; all traces of irritation and annoyance had left his face. He was going into the world to act the part of a careless and happy man, although he stood, as it were, upon a mine that might explode at any moment.Bethel was enveloped in a white velvet opera-cloak that reached to the ground. She took the most comfortable corner in the carriage, her husband subsided into the place beside her, and the pair were whirled off to Park Lane.It was one of the most superb balls of the season.Colonel Cumberland held an appointment at Court, and his rooms were filled with the élite of the land.How it was that the Stanfords—whose marriage had been attended with circumstances which did not redound to their honor, or testify to their good feeling—how it was that the Stanfords, who had been "cut by the county," contrived to make their way into the best London circles was a mystery with which we shall not concern ourselves; suffice it that here they were, this most impecunious young couple, received, smiled upon, made much of.How long was it going to last?Yes, that was the question which Roland asked himself.Sumptuous rooms opening one into another—the colonel's was the largest of the large Park Lane houses—flowers circling the spaces between rooms, white statues gleaming in recesses, gems of art against the walls; all these were in the drawing-rooms where the butterfly, diplomatic, artistic, and literary worlds met together; beyond all was the ball-room, where dancers danced, and a band, hidden by shrubs and hot-house flowers, gave forth sweet strains.Here Bethel waltzed with the reprobate marquis, the chronicles of whose scandalous life had already given the plot for more than one fashionable novel—a small, red-haired man, with hard, bright, steel-blue eyes, a pale, clear complexion, and beautifully cut features. A man with a bold brow and a sweet smile, who should have been noble and of good report, but who, whether through circumstances or temperament, was steeped to the lips in the worst vices of the age. Men called him a scamp—yet they invited him to their houses. His temper was perfect; he had the pleasantest manners in the world. Women adored him; there was nothing ugly about his wickedness; if he were an evil genius, he was clothed like an angel of light.Roland sat in a recess of the ball-room, watching his lovely wife whirling round in the waltz with the "wicked marquis," as people called him. He had not an atom of fear that Bethel would ever be what is called fascinated by the dashing, brilliant reprobate. Bethel—he knew her well now—had it not in her to give an atom of affection to any human creature—but she might be compromised—she might be "talked about"—she might—what might she not do?"If I were master of my own," he said, between his close-shut teeth, "I would take her right away from this life; she should come with me to India, to China, all round the world!" And then he saw things in another light the next moment.No; he would not like himself to leave this whirl of pleasure if he were rich. No; it was now that he wanted to get away, and to put the seas between himself and his creditors. Only if ever he had a fortune at his command, then Bethel would listen to him—heartless, beautiful, cruel creature!He was sitting in the shade, unseen, as he hoped, but a high-pitched female voice called him out of his gloomy reverie."Good-evening! How cheerful you are looking!"His fair face flamed; he knew that he was not looking cheerful; but he made room for Miss Prescot by his side, and tried to smile a careless smile


The lady read him like a book. Blanche was radiant in pale-blue silk and pearls; there was a bright color on her cheeks; she was looking her very best. Mr. Brassgood was in the rooms; she knew he was seeking her, but she did not wish him to find her yet. She took a seat on the low velvet conch next to Roland."I have had a letter by this evening's post from Ellsmere. Yesterday Sir Huntly awoke in the morning perfectly sane, with all his reasoning faculties, and with a distinct recollection of all the events that took place on the night of his attack. He telegraphed for his lawyer, Mr. Cave Curtis, who arrived there yesterday afternoon just before my friend posted her letter to me. Have you forgotten that this is the waltz you promised me?"No; he had not forgotten; but at that moment he would have given his last guinea to be allowed to rush away from the ball-room, and from London, and from all the life which had known him hitherto."You look pale," said Blanche, with a cruel smile. "Do you feel ill? Won't you come to the air?""No; I am perfectly well," he answered in a matter-of-fact tone, although he was deathly pale, "only, you know, the weather is rather warm."He waltzed with Miss Prescot swiftly, gracefully, lightly; the music was delicious, but it was like a dance of death to Roland Stanford. Ruin—worse than ruin—seemed to stare him in the face. Sir Huntly had recovered his senses, and he would never, never, never forgive him. Cave Curtis would help him to ruin Roland. The lawyer had always, he fancied, hated him, and he had never been kind or courteous to the man of business, but had treated him as an inferior. Stay! A will made by a man who had been out of his senses for months perhaps would not stand good. Would it?—would it not?The band played on, and it seemed to Roland as if that dance would never come to an end. It did though at last, and then he found himself leading Blanche to a seat, and listening to her high-pitched voice and cruel words:"Excuse my saying it, but as an old friend, and the marquis—well, you know his wife has divorced him, and they say that he is privately married to a laundress—anyhow, he has run through two fortunes, and now is running through a third—the worst man in England, Colonel Colwyn said only last night to mamma.""Thank you," said Roland, smiling; "I am sure it's very bad of you."All at once he felt that this woman was his enemy, and he understood the reason why.CHAPTER XXXV.THE ball at Colonel Cumberland's was well described in the society papers of that week, and a minute account was given of the pink dress and exquisite bouquet of the "new beauty."Bethel lounged in a luxurious chair in the breakfast-room, reading glowing accounts of her loveliness, her piquant, childish ways, and the sweet, wistful expression of her yellow-brown eyes.She was enchanted; she was intoxicated with her success as a beauty; her husband and his difficulties were to her incumbrances which she was in a hurry to have done with.Let it not for one moment be supposed that Mrs. Roland Stanford contemplated compromising herself in any degree; she had no great "liking" even for the Marquis of Hollywood, only his title was an adorable one; to be Marchioness of Hollywood would be, she said to herself, the height of bliss.Still, she would not for the world have run the risk of obtaining that title by crossing the dirty and slippery stepping-stones of the divorce court. No, she could never become Marchioness of Hollywood unless Roland died—then she might certainly—and she contemplated this possibility with the greatest equanimity."Only there was nothing so unlikely," she said to herself. "Roland was as strong as an ox!"She did not know what had become of him this day or two. She had heard that Sir Huntly was getting well, that his lawyer was closeted with him, that he had distinctly refused to see Roland. She supposed that she would have to use the bank-notes to the amount of two hundred pounds sent to her anonymously, and go on living where she was till Roland returned; then she was going to astonish him—she was going to tell him that a new career had opened for her, that she was about to become a brilliant, overpaid, idolized society actress.Roland, of course, could not live at her expense if his uncle disinherited him. Well, she thought, he had better go to Australia—people often went to Australia when they were ruined; but sorely old Sir Huntly would leave him in possession of the seven hundred a year?Bethel, in the most charming morning gown of white In-


dian embroidered muslin, a tiny cap surmounting her auburn curls, which only made her lovely face more childish, stretched out her pretty feet in their high-heeled blue slippers, with the silver buckles, and at last threw the paper down with a little yawn of fatigue."A water-party to-day," she said; "and to-night a dinner at Lady Flinders', and then the theater after—a box at the Lyceum. I have the ticket, and Lady Flinders will come, and Hollywood. Of all the men who ever went mad about me, I think Hollywood is the maddest!"She went into little delicious convulsions of amused laughter at the thought.A cab rolled up to the door, and she heard Roland's voice speaking to the cabman. Another couple of minutes and her husband stood before her, pale as ashes, looking thoroughly ill. There was a despairing expression in his blue eyes; there was indeed a something in the face and manner of Roland which terrified Bethel and startled her out of her easy-going egotism."What ever is the matter, Roland? Wherever have you been these two days?""Three days," he said. "You have fretted for me, my pretty wife? You have been anxious, haven't you, love? You have wetted your pillow with your tears, and—stopped awake all night, haven't you?""No, indeed," she answered, with the sweetest smile. "No news is good news, and you had gone down to see about that horrid old man. Isn't he really going to die?""Sir Huntly is as sane as you or I—saner far than I am; for I have made up my mind to blow out my brains!"As the young man spoke, he sunk into an easy-chair, removed his hat, and leaned back, folding his arms. His eyes were blazing with wrath and pain; they looked fierce, terribly fierce, and the light in them actually awoke something akin to terror in heartless Bethel."Good gracius, Roland, don't look like that! Won't you have some—coffee?""Brandy—yes, I'll have brandy! I want it to cheer me up for the work I have to do! Do you understand?""Don't look at me like that!" she said, half rising from her chair. "You look awful—you—oh, Roland!"Her voice rose to a discordant, piercing yell. She was horribly afraid, for she saw that Roland had taken a revolver from his pocket."Stop! If you do that again, I'll shoot you! Do you


hear?	If you move—if you attempt to cross the room-you die! Do you hear?"Beautiful Mrs. Roland was as white as her gown; her eyes seemed starting out of her head.Then Roland broke into a low laugh, and the color stole back to his cheeks."I can make an impression on you now while I hold this," he said. "It's a good way, my love, to induce you to listen to me. If you yell again as you did just now, I'll shoot you! I would rather shoot you than die myself and let you marry Dick Hollywood!"When Nature denied Bethel the capability of loving another human being, she at the same time endowed her with the power of simulating affection, tenderness, kindness, if not passion; and now, born actress as she was of light comedy, Mrs. Roland clasped her white hands, fell upon her knees, and raised her pretty, pleading face toward her husband.Roland's nature was not loving; but the beauty of his wife intoxicated him. What he felt for her was passion, savage jealousy, and her coldness piqued this passion into fiercer life."Roland, darling, don't kill me!" she sobbed. "What has poor little Bethel done to deserve death at your hands? Do you think I care one snap for that Hollywood, with his red hair?"Roland put the revolver in his pocket, clasped his hands, and smiled wistfully upon his wife."If you don't like him, why do you flirt with him so horribly?""Because—oh, Roland, we are so poor! and he has taken the new theater, the Hesper; and if I will be the prima-donna, I am to have a hundred pounds a week. Every one says that I shall be sure to draw immensely. You won't mind, will you, Roland, darling? Since this old man is so cruel, I must earn some pocket-money; and you will still have the seven hundred a year, of course.""Of course," he echoed, scornfully; "perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I have had an interview—a most delightful one—with Cave Curtis. You know that my seven hundred a year was wholly dependent on the will of my uncle, and not settled upon me legally? Well, now that his head is healing up, and the fractured skull knitting together, and the congestion of the brain cured, he has made them tell him the truth about you, and he has told Cave Curtis that he withdraws his allowance; that my name is never to be mentioned to him; that he disowns me entirely; and he has set to


work to have a new will made, settling his mines, his lance, his money in the funds, his house, plate, jewels, horses, wines, pictures, furniture, every guinea, every stick he now possesses, upon Donald."Bethel rose from her knees, went back to he seat, smiled complacently, and spoke two emphatic words or contempt."Old fool!" said Bethel.But Roland did not smile. He hid his white face in his hands."Don," he said, "is good-natured. He would scorn to take all and leave me nothing. He would share his fortune with me equally; I know he would. He is that sort of goody fellow, much better than I am; but Don hasn't written home for months. He is still in those African swamps. He may be dead.""Yes," said Bethel, with her sweet, childish smile; "yes, most likely he is dead—sunstroke, you know, or yellow fever, or the blacks may have eaten him. I think I would rather have yellow fever than let the blacks eat me. I feel sure he is dead," she added; "so that you will have it some day, after all.""Bethel, you called Sir Huntly a fool. You talk like one."She flushed. She was so used to adulation, even from her husband, that she could not bear a rough word in season. Her eyes flashed."Anyhow, Hollywood thinks I'm a genius," she said.Roland did not look at her."Sir Huntly Stanford will never forgive me for marrying you; and unless Don comes back, and shares with me, I have no more to call my own than the crossing-sweeper in the square has. If Don does not come home—if he is proved to be dead—then all the property is to be made over to the Crown. Cave Curtis has shown me a synopsis of the will.""Sir Huntly is an old beast!" said Bethel. "What a pity the burglar that took his watch and purse did not kill him, isn't it? That would have been—oh, such a good thing for us!"Roland did not answer. Bethel could not see his face at all: it was buried in his hands.Meanwhile, Bethel was making up her mind what to do; she had a sharp, intuitive business faculty, and nothing ever stood in her way for an hour if she had the means of sweeping it down.There sat Roland, so heavily weighted with debts that he


could not pay, that positively flight seemed the only thing left for him—flight or suicide; if the latter, then she might become the Marchioness of Hollywood; if he only ran away—then she would be content as the prima-donna at the Hesper an** her probably increasing salary of one hundred a week. She would send for Jane because that would be so respectable; not a soul should ever say with truth that Mrs. Stanford compromised herself. Men might go mad about her—that was only natural; but she would never treat any of them other than as serfs.Roland was not at all interesting now; he was even losing his good looks; his complexion was sodden white—a sort of dirty white. He was getting horrid, and she was in terror of that revolver.She rose stealthily and began to creep across the room. Suddenly Roland started to his feet."Stop!" he said in a voice of thunder. "Where are you going?""Only to my room to dress; I am invited to a water-party."Roland uttered some terrible words.Bethel stood aghast, but her mind was more firmly made up than ever that she must quit this falling house."For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer;" had she ever given these solemn vows a thought, or only to laugh at them in her sleeve, if not openly? Poverty, faith, love, what were all these? only words, mere words.Self—self—self, that one word was the keynote of Bethel's nature, the rule of her life, the object of her worship; and odd as it may seem, it is a fact that she looked with much complacency upon this self-worship as if it were a duty, almost a virtue. "Après moi le deluge" might have stood for her motto."You sha'n't go to this water-party," Roland said."Very well," she answered, "I'll send—an—excuse.""You have the depth of Lucifer," said Roland; "but I'll see that you don't go to this party; and as for your one hundred a week—""Well, what about my hundred a week?" she asked, pertly."I shall make the bargain about it. Do you see?""Yes," she replied; "you can settle all those money matters better than I can."Roland was not far wrong when he said his wife had the depth of Lucifer.She managed to glide out of the room, and he, left to himself, began to realize that the fatigue of his journey (he had traveled all night) had left him in need of sleep. As long as the means of refreshment and comfort were within his grasp, he would enjoy them; so he summoned his servant, and ordered a good breakfast, and when he had eaten it, he went to bed and slept until the evening.CHAPTER
XXXVI.A MONTH has passed since Roland Stanford took that revolver out of his pocket and threatened to shoot his wife with it if she screamed out again.It is the end of June, but the season is not yet on the wane.The balls, the at-homes, the dinners, and receptions, increase and multiply; and singular as it may seem, Mrs. Roland Stanford is still the spoiled beauty of the hour; notwithstanding the utter ruin of her husband and his disappearance, notwithstanding that his creditors have issued writs against him.Fashion is a strangely capricious goddess, and when she has decreed to set up an idol, she often astonishes soberly thinking people by her inconsistent scouting of all the most approved maxims of Mrs. Grundy.Bethel, Mrs. Roland Stanford, had been the fashion, and now remained the fashion. "Abandoned by her husband," said the gossiping world; "poor young creature! and not a soul dares to raise a finger against her fair name."No; and yet the wretched Roland could not justly be accused of having abandoned the fair wife about whom men, and even women, had "gone crazy."Bethel had applied to a solicitor on the afternoon of that day when Roland had showed her his revolver, and she had demanded judicial separation under the new act, in the shortest manner possible, without appearing in a law court. She said that she "went in constant fear of her life;" so the nearest magistrate granted her an order which at once enabled her to remove her clothes and private belongings.This she managed while Roland was out of the house, and she betook herself to elegant and expensive apartments in Jermyn Street, which she paid for a month in advance. Then she sent for Jane, imploring her to come and take up her abode with her, since, unless her relations lived with her, the "world would talk."Mr. Vernon was thinking of going to the south of France for the autumn and winter; and John, who had never thoroughly recovered his health since his desperate attack of brain fever at Yarrow Leas, was to accompany his father and cousin; for Jane was of course to have been of the party; but when Bethel's appealing letter came, Jane showed it to her uncle and sent it on to John to Dublin; and the end of it was that she sacrificed herself for the sake of her heartless sister, and gave up the delights of foreign travel and the society of the man who, whatever his faults—whatever the deep mystery surrounding that awful night of the attack on Sir Huntly—was still the man whom she loved with the deep, concentrated love of a fervid nature and a devoted heart.The Vernons, father and son, went to Nice; and Jane, who was in receipt of a small income for her personal expenses, from her uncle, had that increased to one hundred a year, fifty of which she was to pay Bethel for her board; and then she came to live with her in Jermyn Street, to save her name from scandal, and, if possible, to influence her for good.If possible! What a mockery it seemed to suppose for a moment that Bethel would take the smallest interest in any one's welfare save her own! Jane studied this hard, shallow nature in a new amaze; this utter want of human sympathy was marvelous.Mrs. Roland Stanford had not the remotest idea where her husband was, nor even if he were dead or alive, and she took not the smallest interest in those questions, except that, as she told Jane, if she could only be sure he were dead, she would marry the Marquis of Hollywood."He isn't rich for a marquis exactly, but the family seat in Northumberland is glorious. It seems so hard that I shouldn't ever be the mistress of a grand old country-seat. I believe that's about the only bit of what you good people call sentiment I ever had."This was true. Jane looked at her sadly."The marquis is, they say, a bad man, Bethel.""Oh, deliciously naughty, the ladies call him! Lots of them are in love with him for that very reason. They like a spice of the Old Gentleman in a man. So do you, with all your primness." Bertha's beautiful eyes flashed with a cruel light. "John isn't a good man. I sometimes think, even now, that he tried to kill Sir Huntly, and then ran out and fell in a fit in that field. Well, he isn't 'proper' and 'prim,' not 'goody,' and you love him. Don't wince; don't turn white, You—know you do.""Bethel, I forbid you to talk about John! I forbid you to mention his name! Do you understand?""Good gracious! don't get into a passion over the fellow. I never think of him unless I hear you say some very prim, severe thing; then I remember that you are no better than other people—you love a wicked man of the world.""John Vernon is not a wicked man, Bethel.""Isn't he? Ha! ha! what a lot of men have been ruined for life just because I am so pretty! Isn't it funny? There's Donald Stanford wandering about in Africa; and there's Sir Huntly an invalid for life; John, who has been half daft ever since, and obliged to suspend his practice at the bar; and then there's Roland ruined for life, disinherited, perhaps dead, all because he would marry me; then there's the marquis—"She paused."Do you hope to drive him to madness or to suicide, Mrs. Stanford?""I sha'n't drive him. I haven't driven one of them. They all run mad of their own accord."Jane wasted no words, no expostulations, on her extraordinary sister, who was certainly by temperament spared all the pangs that result from the affections, all anxieties when her friends were ill, all mournings after they were dead or separated from her by the widest seas. To Mrs. Roland men and women were but the puppets which she used for her own ambition and aggrandizement. Nothing could put human feeling into that stony heart.Meantime, Bethel had plenty to occupy her time and thoughts; she had been compelled to part from her expensive English maid; but she had now a young Italian girl of exquisite taste, who attended to her toilet and dressed her hair. Lucette lived with the beauty at a low salary, and yet she contrived to send her into the world looking lovelier than ever.Bethel was studying her part, the character of Lady Teazle; for the new theater was to open with the "School for Scandal." Bethel was really by nature a clever actress of light comedy, as we said before, and there was little doubt that, when once she had appeared on the boards of the Hesper, her fortune, artistically speaking, would be made.She had an excellent instructor in Mr. Saville, a great teacher of elocution; and all the mornings were devoted to rehearsals. In the evenings the beauty appeared at various balls, dinners, receptions, the marquis often in close attend-


ance; but Bethel never once compromised herself by word or look.Jane was amazed at her lovely sister's cleverness. She saw that les convenances were rigorously observed by her. She saw that she knew how to use that sweet, childish manner of hers with excellent effect, even in the salons of countesses."How does she live?" was asked sometimes. And the answer was:"Her uncle allows her four hundred a year."In reality, Mrs. Roland was in receipt of bank-notes sent anonymously. She showed them frankly enough to Jane."You see," she said, "these are an advance on my salary. I am to have one hundred a week; and you and I don't live up to more than fifteen pounds a week now, so that it is all right; and before the pay begins it's convenient, isn't it?"Still, Jane did not like it. She went into society with her sister, and was admired everywhere; but the grave dignity of her manner seemed to fence her round."Two most bewildering young women, those pretty sisters," said a certain old nobleman, who had been watching them at a ball given by a distinguished member of parliament, whose house was in Green Street, Hyde Park. "The pale one," putting his glasses to his old, weak eyes, "is 'perfect,' in my opinion."This old lord was a bachelor. He had been a younger brother—never, in consequence, expected to marry—and only within the last two years had the unexpected deaths of his brother the earl, and his nephew, the heir, put him in possession of a fortune and an earldom.An old man, whose face was covered with crow's-feet, whose back was bending downward, whose teeth were false, and whose eyes were dim—this Earl of Royden was falling, in his way, very desperately in love with pale, raven-haired Jane Vernon, the sister of the "new beauty."The old Earl of Roydon went shares with the Marquis of Hollywood in the lesseeship of the splendid new theater, the Hesper, which was to open with such éclat on the twenty-fourth of June.Jane was astonished at the attention she received. On many evenings her sister's rooms—they were a front and back drawing-room opening into each other—were filled with persons more or less distinguished in the great world; noblemen, officers, celebrated actors, actresses, and authors, all found their way to them.Mrs. Roland Stanford's "at-homes" cost her little in the


way of entertainment; coffee, tea, fruit, biscuits, cigarettes, bonbons, nothing more costly was provided; but then the lovely creature was the "fashion;" she was about to become the "rage."If only her good-for-nothing husband were dead, or if he would put it into her power to divorce him—well, she might become the Marchioness of Hollywood next week.And the best of it was that Mrs. Roland actually began to pass for a wit; her child-like, downright fashion of saving exactly whatever came into her head was considered so piquant and refreshing that Bethel was credited with being brilliant.It was the night before the opening of the theater; Bethel's rooms were crowd; Jane was pouring out tea at a side table.Jane wore a gown of black lace made high, and a single rich crimson rose at her throat. The old Earl of Roydon was in close attendance upon her.Her creamy complexion, dark eyes, straight profile, enchanted him; he was ready then and there to lay his old heart and his rich coronet at Jane's feet; but Jane knew nothing, cared nothing, for the great chance that lay in her path.Her heart was in the Riviera, her thoughts were following two men—her white-haired uncle, and the tall, slender cousin, with bronzed, thin, intellectual face, and close-together eyes, with all the hope quenched out of them by yonder laughing, lovely creature who was to act Lady Teazle to-morrow."You do not think of cultivating your talent as an actress, Miss Vernon?" whispered the old earl to Jane."I have no talent, Lord Roydon.""No talent? You have genius—we want some genius—some fire—some Sarah Siddons among us. I heard of a girl the other day whom they say will outrival all the English actresses that have ever gone before.""And who is that?" asked Jane, interested."She has a very odd name. We wish to secure her as an understudy, if we can, at the Hesper, but there are some difficulties in the way. She is at school, and under guardianship, and the guardians are old maids, governesses, who are afraid of the evil effects, etcetera, of the stage," said the old worldling, with a laugh.Jane looked at him gravely with her dark eyes."There are dangers connected with the stage, Lord Roydon.""Oh, my dear young lady, I know that perfectly; but I


wish this young person could be secured for the Hesper. It's not enough to have only one great actress, as no doubt your lovely sister will prove; we need another if the Hesper is to rise above all the other London theaters, as we hope it will.""I hope you will secure this marvel," said Jane. "What is her name?""Velvet Snow," said the old earl.Jane exclaimed:"That girl! Oh, yes, yes! she promised to be a genius nearly two years ago. I know her—at least, I have seen her act at Yarrow Leas! I heard that she was so much offended at not being allowed to act at an amateur performance for which she had prepared, that she ran away—nobody knew what had become of her. Do tell me all that you know?"Jane was interested at last, and the old earl at once told her as much as he knew of Velvet Snow."The Marquis of Hollywood has great faith in Saville as an elocutionist and instructor of pupils for the stage. You know that your lovely sister has much improved under his tuition. Well, Saville has two sisters, old maids, who keep a school prosaically enough at Hampstead, and among their pupils is this girl Velvet Snow, who was placed under their care to be educated as a governess, or something of the kind; but on one of Saville's visits to his sisters, this girl was asked to recite some part of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' She did so, and Saville has done nothing but talk about her ever since. She still remains with his sisters, but he visits her every week, gives her lessons, and she learns the parts of the most celebrated actresses, though she lives in such seclusion. Saville wishes her to embrace the profession at once—she wishes it also—but the old ladies shrink and shiver. I wish we could secure her as an understudy.""Have you seen her, my lord?""Yes; Saville took me with him and the marquis; he did not tell his good sisters our true names; we went in disguise," the old noble chuckled. "I was introduced as the rector of Seedcup, in Gloucestershire, and Hollywood as a barrister, and we saw the girl act a part in a scene from 'Richard the Third.' Well, I assure you I never saw such a piece of acting off the boards.""What a mystical thing," said Jane, musing; "that girl can't be more than seventeen or eighteen, and she's a work-house girl, brought up after that by a most cruel old woman, who made her life miserable, and they say she has a terrible


temper, and tried to burn the rectory down at Ellsmere, but I don't quite believe that.""Well," said the old earl, "we hope to get her as the understudy for the chief parts at the Hesper."Jane thought within herself that a rival might be even now preparing to outshine Bethel, whose gay laugh sounded from the other end of the room."Velvet Snow," she said; "there is something so strange in that name—it is such an odd name!""I know one that has a far sweeter sound," said the old earl, shaking his head. "I mean yours. I think Jane Vernon is the most beautiful name in the world!"And then, amid the tinkle of china and silver, and the subdued murmur of voices, the old earl of Roydon made an offer of his name and fortune to Jane Vernon, and when she would have refused him he would not listen to her."Take time—take time, my child," said the earl; "you don't know what you are rejecting. I shall ask you again in six months' time, and I hope and believe you will answer yes."But Jane shook her head; she was looking with her soul's mess upon that sunny shore by the blue sea, and watching the lights and shadows falling upon the face of the man whom she loved.CHAPTER XXXVII.THE opening night was a success; the Hesper was crammed from pit to gallery; and the society actress was spoken of in raptures by the whole of the press. Indeed, Mrs. Roland had many of the qualifications that go to make up a popular actress. She had "pluck;" she had a confidence in herself that nothing could shake; she had an excellent memory, a ready apprehension, a huge amount of that sort of vanity which delights in being stared at, no matter by whom. Besides all this, Mrs. Roland's physical health was perfect, her appetite excellent, her digestion of that iron kind which braces the nerves and seems to mold them into steel."Bold as brass," her enemies might have styled her; but then she was graceful as a fawn, and beautiful as the fairest rose in June. Besides all these advantages, Mrs. Roland Stanford possessed the most elaborate stage costumes it is possible to imagine. The rich, tasteful, picturesque costumes of the eighteenth century became her rose-like loveliness ex-


quisitely, and she was pronounced the loveliest Lady Teazle ever seen upon the English stage.Success was hers at a bound, as well as that fame to attain which hundreds of earnest, patient students of histrionic art may toil through a life-time and die at last without achieving."Such fair dames as Mrs. Roland Stanford are at once given to possess the promised land; for them no long tarrying in the wilderness; their paths are flower-strewn, and the crown of the victor is placed on their brows before they have run the race."Now, these last words, kind reader, were traced by the pen of a young girl, who was herself most ambitious to win that victor's wreath of which she spoke.Velvet Snow sat in the pretty little sleeping-room appointed for her at Savoy House. Into this she had brought book-shelves loaded with books, a writing-table, desk, a few good prints of celebrated pictures, and numbers of things which testified to the innate refinement of her mind.More than a twelvemonth's close and earnest study had developed her mental powers, and they were naturally (so her governess considered) of the highest order. But Velvet Snow wished to be an actress; her craving for the stage was not for the sake of the excitement, the gayety of an actress's life, but because she felt the power within her of doing great things, and she longed to do them.It was a Wednesday afternoon—a half holiday—and instead of joining her school-fellows in the lovely old garden, Velvet sat in her own room writing a short essay (for her own satisfaction) on the now most popular Mrs. Roland Stanford, whom she remembered at Ellsmere on the very night of her flight; that young lady whom she had so passionately described to Captain Stanford as having a pretty, cruel face.She was still human enough to feel jealous.What has been her history since?Donald had loved her, and had gone away when she threw him over. Then she had actually been about to marry Sir Huntly, when some burglar had half murdered the expectant bridegroom; and then, while the baronet lay at death's door, the girl with the pretty, cruel face had married Mr. Roland, the heir.Sir Huntly had unexpectedly recovered, had disinherited his nephew, who had fled to escape his creditors.All this Ellsmere news had penetrated somehow to Savoy House, Hampstead, and Velvet wondered, while her straight, brown eyebrows were drawn together in an expression of puz-


zled thought, how it came about that Mrs. Roland Stanford, instead of being overwhelmed in the ruin that had overtaken her husband, was able to soar triumphantly above all her troubles, and reap rewards for which she had not toiled."He loved her!" was the last and bitterest thought in Velvet's mind; "and he is most likely dead. I shall never look in that face again."Romantic love had died a sudden death in the heart of Velvet when she had seen the yearning look which Donald gave to the pretty, cruel face. But he was her hero still, nevertheless; and how much she owed to him—every hope for her future career—every present comfort was due to his goodness—his gentle compassion for her in her desolate misery, when he found her sitting forlorn, friendless, foodless, under the hedge, in the dawn of the May morning!What a long while ago that seemed now!She put down her pen for a moment to think of it all, and to wonder whether he would ever come back again.There came a light tap at the door of the room, and then entered Miss Margaret Saville, the younger of the two sisters. A slight, tall woman, of graceful presence, who wore black, and some white roses at her breast."Velvet, I am come to scold you for shutting yourself up in your room, instead of being out in the open air this lovely afternoon.""Dear Miss Margaret, I am thinking about this Mrs. Roland Stanford. I have seen her, you know. It does not seem fair that she should be called an exquisite, accomplished actress before she has worked. Oh! if you would only let me try!""Velvet, the stage is full of pitfalls; there are envyings, hatreds, injustices, and bitter difficulties to be overcome.""Well, Miss Margaret, I will overcome them!" As Velvet spoke, she stood up and threw out her arms with a gesture full of grace and power. "I will overcome them—I will work—toil—endure—suffer anything—everything; but let me speak—let me have a chance, Miss Margaret. My soul is in it!"But Miss Margaret shook her head."I will never help you to go upon the stage, Velvet. Temptation will meet you at every turn, and you are but a girl, impassioned, artistic, an enthusiast at heart. You will listen to the wolves in sheep's clothing, and one of them will devour you.""No, Miss Margaret; I will never hold parley with the wolves.""When Captain Stanford placed you here, Velvet, he gave the sum of three hundred pounds to us to be used for your benefit. Our terms, inclusive, are seventy pounds. There then remained thirty pounds over for your clothes and other needs. You were to have education for two years, and then you were to have one hundred pounds to begin the world with. Think how long it is before the majority of governesses cite save one hundred pounds; but you will have that sum to begin with.""My dear Miss Margaret, I will not be a governess.""You have capacity and health for work; you might take a first-class Cambridge diploma, and earn a salary of a hundred a year at once.""At once? That would be, say, in two years from now?""Well, say that.""But I will not. No, I will stay here and learn, if I must, for another year; then I will go upon the stage. You know your brother, Mr. Saville, has offered even to procure me an engagement if I begin to study now.""Most unfortunate that we ever introduced you to him," said Miss Margaret.But Velvet took her governess round the waist and kissed her pale cheek."You will never have occasion to be ashamed of me as a former pupil if I go on the stage, Miss Margaret.""I hope and trust with all my heart, my dear, that you will never go on the stage," said Miss Margaret, vehemently, "And now put on your hat and go into the fresh air."And reluctantly Velvet obeyed."Sir Huntly Stanford is himself again! What a miracle!" said Mrs. Hibbit. "I hear that he has actually been receiving callers in his usual style in the library. I shall certainly drive over and see him this lovely afternoon."The Reverend Mr. Hibbit was not overfond of more visits of ceremony; but he had always liked Sir Huntly, and pitied him for some mysterious sorrow in his past life; and now, when he heard his wife announce her intention of calling on the convalescent baronet, he thought that he would accompany her.Mrs. Hibbit was apt on occasion to talk fast and in a high key; also, she was apt to say things better left unsaid, and


her husband fancied that he might be able to stem the torrent of her eloquence by putting in a word here and there.So the worthy couple started in their little sociable, drawn by a strong, sleek, if not very handsome cob, and they drew up at the entrance on a glorious golden afternoon in July.Sir Huntly, in a light summer suit, was seated at a table, writing, when his visitors entered. He rose at once to welcome them.Not so much changed was the handsome baronet as might have been expected. Thinner, it is true, paler, and there was much silver mingled with the gold of his hair and his mustache, but otherwise there was little change."Sit down, Mrs. Hibbit," he said, cheerfully; "we will have tea in at once.""Oh, no; not yet, Sir Huntly. How well you are looking!"Sir Huntly bowed."Thanks," he said, smiling. "I am glad you think so.""I do wonder that you can endure this room," said Mrs. Hibbit."It was always my favorite room, you know.""Was—yes; but it should not be now. So that sister has gone off to London to live with the—other.""Indeed?" said the baronet, with his most self-possessed air. Sir Huntly spoke as if he had never taken the remotest interest in Bethel or her doings."Nobody has heard a word about Roland," continued Mrs. Hibbit.At the name of his nephew, a change came into the baronet's face. Now, it was a very peculiar, not to say sinister, change.CHAPTER XXXVIII.MRS. HIBBIT was wanting in "tact." She possessed a great capacity for treading on the "mental corns"—if one may be allowed the expression—of her neighbors.She trod very hard indeed on the sensitive feelings of Sir Huntly when she spoke of Roland and his beautiful, heartless wife; much harder even than she was aware of.The baronet winced. Mr. Hibbit, who was all sympathy, flew to the rescue, and began to talk about the German baths as a means of restoring the convalescent to health.Sir Huntly seemed relieved. He asked his visitors to stay to lunch; but Mrs. Hibbit was uneasy. She was watching


her opportunity to plunge again into the subject that the gentleman seemed to wish to avoid.At the first opportunity she began once more:"I see that that wicked girl is creating quite a sensation. People say that the season has been actually lengthened out this year on account of her performance; but it's only her beauty. The 'St. Clement's Review' says she has not one grain of imagination, not one atom of sympathy, so that it will not last, or, at any rate, only as a spectacle. She has vivacity, it's true, and any amount of audacity. As for her husband, it's my belief that Roland is gone thoroughly to the bad."Sir Huntly's pallor was intense. He laid down his knife and fork; he looked at Mrs. Hibbit steadily, keenly."Mrs. Hibbit, I wish you, and as many of my acquaintances as you can kindly warn, to know that I object to have the name of the young man—who is my nephew according to law, since he is my brother's son—mentioned to me. I ignore him at once and forever. I pray solemnly that he may be dead. I say this calmly, emphatically, without any stronger feeling than a most righteous anger; but it is a very deep feeling, as deep as my soul is capable of holding. The wicked, worthless young man, whose name I have vowed never to mention, is worse than dead to me. We forgive the dead their faults, and pity them. I can never forgive that young man. I shall cut off from him every available shilling, every penny. I shall even, in making my will in favor of my nephew Donald, put in the proviso that he must sign a deed promising never to help his cousin with any sum, during any twelve months, exceeding the sum of forty pounds. If Donald likes to give the rascal fifteen shillings a week, he may, but never a shilling more; and as for the lady whom he married, I prefer not to think of her. She is so lovely that the world will be at her feet for the next twenty years at least, and she may easily make a fortune as an actress. Now will you kindly drop the subject while I have the pleasure of being in your society, and whenever I enjoy the happiness of meeting you?"Nothing could be more emphatic, nothing more to the point; but Mrs. Hibbit was not a lady who knew how to subside.Nothing ever subdued her, and her husband had been heard to remark that he had never in his whole life heard her once admit that she had done wrong, or even made a mistake."I don't think you are wise, Sir Huntly," she said,


briskly. "I think when we brood over things they get more painful to bear. I like to talk of my troubles and of my enemies, and I am sure that my way is the wise way—the proper way; I am certain of it.""Your wisdom is your strong point," the baronet said, bowing his head courteously; "but you must in my case suppress it, at least when it would discourse on a subject which I forbid every human being, save my solicitor, to mention to me."Mrs. Hibbit tossed her head. However, she made an excellent lunch; and while she was driving home with her husband, she talked much of the folly of Sir Huntly in allowing all the world to guess how very deeply he had been smitten by the charms of the heartless beauty who was the latest craze of the London season.Meanwhile, Sir Huntly betook himself to the leafless shades of the Stanford Hall gardens, where the lawns sloped down to an arm of the river, and where a seat was placed under some spreading beeches. To this seat cushions had been carried, as well as a writing-table and several books.Sir Huntly liked to sit here of an evening and watch the sunset, and write a letter or so, and dip now and then into the pages of one of his favorite authors. Then, when the first bell rang, he would leisurely proceed to the house to dress for the eight-o'clock dinner.He had staying with him at this time his lawyer and friend, Mr. Cave Curtis, of Bedford Row. Between himself and this gentleman there existed the most perfect confidence. Whatever that dark, disagreeable, and perhaps disgraceful secret was connected with Patience Wood, Mr. Cave Curtis knew it all as well as Sir Huntly knew it himself.Sir Huntly leaned back in the cushioned garden-seat, and his eyes rested on the path of red light cast by the sinking sun going down fast behind the dark fringe of pines on the brow of the opposite hill. He heard a step on the gravel path, and looking up, saw Mr. Cave Curtis, who came round and stood by his side, or, rather, in front of him, near the edge of the water.Mr. Cave Curtis was a small, brown man who wore spectacles over a pair of remarkably keen gray eyes. Also, he wore a heavy brown beard and mustache. He had not a very genial countenance, and when he was listening to anybody attentively, there was an expression very like craft upon his face. His coat was often dusty, never very well cut, and often shiny about the cuffs. Such as he was, he possessed a


large and lucrative practice, and was respected—even feared—for he was an uncompromising man, and his craftiness was of the sort which obtains in the world—that is, he used it for the detection, not the concealment, of evil."Feeling tired?" he asked of his host, politely."Yes—no; bothered more than tired. I am thinking, naturally, of what you let me know for the first time last night—the finding of that piece of paper with the insulting words and the initials 'C.O.' I never saw it"—he hesitated—"on that night.""You don't think that you did see it, and went down to meet that woman, but forgot the fact?""Certainly not; everything that happened on that night is clear and plain before me. But that writing is hers, so that she is still alive.""Well, she must be found, or authentic proof of her death," said the lawyer, twirling his mustache, and looking straight at Sir Huntly."Unless I saw her burial-certificate, I would not again believe in her death. No; I must find her out, and the law must take its course.""So much wiser to have followed that course years ago, Sir Huntly.""So you said, Cave, long ago; you always were a wise man. But can she really have come into the house and lived here as house-maid, as you tell me? I must find out where Mr. Hibbit found this—creature. To-day he was here, but his wife was with him. There are some women whose tongues have a knack of stinging like scorpions.""Like wasps," said Cave Curtis. "One dies, I believe, from the sting of the scorpion, but a little cooling lotion will heal skin irritated by the sting of a wasp.""I came here to cool my temper, after listening, in politeness and patience, to Mrs. Hibbit's words of wisdom; but I must see Hibbit, and ask him where he found this Patience Wood.""Oh, he has answered all those questions long ago, for you know that a reward has been offered for the apprehension of Patience Wood, suspected of complicity in the murderous assault and robbery of Sir Huntly Stanford, Baronet.""Oh! Then who offered the reward?""I did."Sir Huntly extended his hand, which the other took, clasped, and then relinquished."All those things were gone through in a business-like way


while you lay ill and unconscious. But Patience Wood is not to be found; she is most likely in New York, living under another name.""Tell me where Hibbit found her.""She came to Yarrow Leas three years ago, wearing shabby clothes, and took a mean lodging, and she seems to have been drinking hard at that time. She could not pay for her room, and she was turned out, wandered into the street, and fell down in a heap close to the curbstone. It was night, and the driver of the mail-cart dashed round the corner and passed over her without seeing her; then he drew up, and called for assistance, and she was taken to the county hospital."She was only known as a drunken woman, who called herself Mrs. Wood. You and your nephews were all away at that time. It was late in autumn, and there was nothing remarkable in the vulgar details of the story, so that you heard nothing about it on your return to Stanford Hall in the spring; and if you had, you would never have dreamed of associating that horrible woman with your past life.""She had sent me a false account of her death in a Chicago paper.""Ah, I should at once have supposed her to be alive if I had seen that paper.""Well, what happened when Mrs. Wood reached the hospital?""She recovered; but first she had fever, and some terrible inflammation of the face, for the cart-wheel had passed over that, injuring the bridge of her nose. When she recovered, there was a fearful scar, so that her beauty was quite destroyed. Mr. Hibbit always pays a visit to the hospital once a week, and here he found this Mrs. Wood, who made him believe a long story of her having been married to an actor who provoked her jealousy so that she took to drinking to drown care. Whereupon the actor left her, and she sunk to the lowest depths, but now wished to reform. She got over Mr. Hibbit, so that he recommended her a situation in London, where, on her taking to the blue ribbon, she was given a situation in a laundry, and here she seems to have lived for twelve months, recruiting her strength by means of sober habits, good food, and so on; then she disappeared for some time, but turned up in the village here the winter before last, poor, shabby, but sober, and she applied to the rector again. He obtained a situation for her at the Maythorn Farm, and she managed while there to get an introduction to your house-


keeper, and to obtain a situation as under-house-maid in this house, for what purpose it seems difficult to guess, and her disappearance is a mystery. Yet I think I can find my way through it."I can not," said Sir Huntly. "You are the only human being to whom I have told the real secret of that horrible night, and this wretched woman need not have hidden herself.""This wretched woman was not without an accomplice," said the lawyer. "He took her away to secure his own safety. Your watch and purse with twenty sovereigns he was determined to have. Remember, they both—the woman and the man—believed that you were dead. They had not an atom of hope of extracting a farthing from anybody else.""She must be found if she is alive," said Sir Huntly. "She was alive. It was she who wrote that threat up n the paper. The writing is too peculiar to be mistaken; and she meant to threaten me and extort money. I have even thought she had something else to tell me—another rod to hold over me. Cave, how I have been punished for my mad infatuations twice over in my life! This last time has been the worst.""Do you mean—" said the lawyer; and then he stopped short and stared through his spectacles at the baronet."I mean, that I consider this beautiful maiden whom I so madly fancied was in love with my middle-aged face—ha! ha! ha!—is more desperately wicked even than the other one!"But the lawyer shook his thoughtful head."You are wrong, Sir Huntly. The popular actress about whom London has gone so crazy is a heartless, selfish creature, but not quite such a fiend as you suppose—not quite such a fiend as you suppose."CHAPTER XXXIX.TIME swept on; the summer ripened into autumn; the autumn faded into winter; the bleakness of the early English spring was over the land.It was a black, howling day in March. Every now and then the air was thick and misty with a fine, powdery snow which fell—or swept down, rather—upon the colorless turf in the parks, and melted, though it lay in patches here and there on the black earth of the flowerless flower-beds.It was in a secluded path of the Kensington Gardens that a tall, slight girl was walking rapidly up and down under the 


bare trees, through which the wind whistled in a shrill yet plaintive key.The girl was Velvet Snow. She is a handsome girl now—handsome in spite of the March wind which is buffeting her fair face, trying its best to make her cheeks blue and the tip of her nose red; but the wind had not succeeded in its vicious efforts. There is a glow like a rose on Velvet's cheeks, and her gray eyes shine with a splendor that they knew not in the days when Miss Pringle seemed the mistress of her destiny.Velvet is young, strong, full of hope, full of ambition. That burning desire to become an actress has never left her, and she still feels the same hopes, the same consciousness of power, the same conviction of success.Since we last saw Velvet, she has obtained the consent of the Misses Saville to become the understudy of the present popular actress, Mrs. Roland Stanford. She even comes up to rehearsals, always accompanied by one of her governesses. These rehearsals do not take place in the theater, but at Mr. Saville's house in Wimpole Street.How it happens that Velvet is pacing alone in a secluded part of Kensington Gardens, waiting apparently for the coming of somebody, we must explain as briefly as possible.Easter that year fell early, and the Easter recess began during the last days of March. Velvet was spending the time with a school-fellow whose home was at Kensington. Only that morning she had received the following letter, written in a bold, masculine hand:"MISS SNOW," it began,—"Your name is not Snow at all; but that you know as well as I do. However, I know your real name. It is not one to be ashamed of. A fortune goes with it. You may, perhaps, drive in your own carriage some day, and see the world crawling at your feet. On the other hand, you may not. You may be a governess all your life, and toil until you are old and you have to wear spectacles, and then perhaps somebody will get you a pension of thirty pounds a year. Still, if I can help you to your rights, I will, on one condition, and what that is I will explain to you to-morrow, Tuesday, at eleven in the morning, in that walk in Kensington Gardens where I met you yesterday with the lady you are visiting; but come alone. ***A FRIEND."Velvet loved an adventure. She had much courage, and she resolved to go to the walk in the gardens at the hour named, and meet her mysterious correspondent.She is here then, at the appointed time, well wrapped in a


long, warm, gray cloak, and wearing a dainty, piquant hat, quite unlike those terrible old summer straw hats she used to wear during the winter in the days when Miss Pringle ruled her life.A bleak, bitter day, and hardly a soul to be seen in the gardens. A few children, with their hoops, were in the distance, divided from Velvet by a wide plot of grass. Nobody else was in sight."It must be a hoax," she said to herself; then all at once she saw a dark, foreign-looking man approaching her. Her heart beat fast, not with fear. It was broad daylight, though the sky was dull, and there was help within call, if the man turned out to be a thief. Besides, she had taken the precaution to leave her purse at home, and she possessed no watch.The man came swiftly toward her and lifted his hat. A curiously handsome face; regular features, rather of the hawk type; glittering dark eyes, a rich bronze complexion—a wicked face, she felt it, with a little shudder.She stood still; so did the strange man. He smiled; Velvet looked grave."You are Miss Snow?" said the man."Yes; I am Velvet Snow.""Christened so?""Christened so?—yes," she answered."You are described in the parish books at Yarrow Leas as a foundling.""A true description. I was found on the steps of the work-house."She looked critically at the man, who was past middle age. Was this her father?"It was a cruel thing to leave you there, Miss Snow.""I do not need to be reminded of that, The cruelty lies at the door of my unnatural father and wicked mother.""Don't be too sure of that, Miss Snow. Your parents may have searched the world from one end to the other for you, and have broken their hearts and died of grief. Perhaps you were stolen, Miss Snow.""Stolen, and then abandoned! Is that likely?""More than likely. I believe that it is true.""Perhaps you stole me?" asked Velvet, coldly."I? Not I. I was not likely to burden myself with a child, But I know who stole you.""Then do you know who my parents were?""I know who they are.""Who are they? You said just now they might have died of grief.""That I do not tell unless—well, unless I am paid.""I am quite poor. I have no means of paying you.""Oh, Miss Snow, I have found out that a hundred pounds is put by for you. Pay me that, and I will write the name of your father on a card, and give it to you, and you shall take it to him and claim to be his heiress."Velvet looked at the man with an unflinching gaze."If I had the sum you name put by for me, as you say that I have, I would not pay it away in return for a name written on a card. I am only a girl, but not so silly as you suppose.""No, no, mademoiselle; nobody could suppose you silly. On the contrary, you are too clever. You will end by outwitting yourself. I will, then, have the honor of wishing you good-morning."As the man spoke, he raised his hat and walked off briskly.Velvet stood watching him. She felt sure—quite sure—that she had heard his voice before—heard him talk, in fact. But when, and where?The incidents that she could remember in her life were so few and so far between, that she had not to search her memory long before she found the time and the place when those slightly foreign accents last fell on her ears.It was on that night when she fled away from the rectory where dwelt Mr. Hibbit, and took refuge in the loft above the stables at the Maythorn Farm.She had slept soundly on the soft hay, and then she had been awakened by two voices—a man's and a woman's. The woman's voice had been that of the creature who had so alarmed and mocked her one wintery night when she was on her way to the rectory; and the man whom the woman had called Anthony was none other than the fellow who had just parted from her.Then there swept through her mind the story of the attack on Sir Huntly Stanford in the library at Stanford Hall, and the suspicion caused by the disappearance of a certain house-maid named Patience Wood.Rumors, more or less like the truth, respecting the finding of a certain written threat aimed at Sir Huntly, and supposed to have been penned by this woman who had disappeared, likewise had reached the ears of Velvet, as they had those of the general public—that Patience Wood was a woman whom Sir Huntly had deceived in the days of her youth, that she had


taken terrible vengeance upon him, and that some man, who shared in the plunder of the purse and watch, was her accomplice and the actual assailant of the baronet.These were the general current impressions respecting the nearly accomplished murder on the eve of the wedding.Velvet never had thought of the woman without a shudder; but now that fear increased tenfold. Yonder man was the accomplice, the ruffian. And then Patience Wood, who seemed ever and always to have her evil eyes fixed upon Velvet, who was she? Velvet's mother?How, in the name of mystery, did yonder man become acquainted with the arrangements made between Captain Stanford and the Miss Savilles for the benefit of Velvet? How did he know that she could claim a hundred pounds when she left school?There seemed the power of an evil magic in it all."Who am I?" Velvet asked herself. "And who is Patience Wood? If she could be found, she would be arrested on suspicion of complicity in that attack on Sir Huntly, and she remains in hiding. Yet she contrives to watch me, to follow my footsteps. Great Heaven! Can yonder horrible man be my father? If so, what evil, what extreme wickedness, I must inherit from such infamous parents, criminals of the worst dye! It would be better to die than to have to acknowledge them as parents."Thus she thought within herself while she paced up and town under the trees.Patience Wood in hiding, yet able to keep watch over Velvet, to note everything connected with her!Velvet did not for a moment allow herself to dream that she might be the legitimate daughter of a gentleman of fortune. Patience Wood was her mother, and that settled the question of the gentility of Velvet's birth at once in her own mind.Instead of being anxious to discover the secret of her birth, and the names of her parents, she prayed that the knowledge might be kept from her and from the world forever."I am Velvet Snow," she said, aloud, lifting her fresh and fair young face toward the leaden-colored sky, "found on a work-house doorstep, in the midst of a snow-storm, dressed in a velvet coat, and aged two years, crying with cold and hunger, and only able to pronounce one single word—Betty, only Betty—and so I am the child of the storm and the streets first, and next of the parish, and they christened me Velvet Snow. I desire no other name; I never wish to know what


my father's name is or was. To me he will ever remain what that woman said he was—a scoundrel!"She then turned her steps toward the house where she was visiting, and she buried the secret and the mystery in the recesses of her own heart.After Easter the theaters opened in full force, and the Hesper was more talked of than any of the others. The play was a new one, taken from a popular novel called "Tact." It was in the style that most obtains in these times, representing the social successes of a beautiful adventuress, who in the first scene is nursery-governess to three awkward little girls in sun-bonnets, who are paddling on the sands of the seashore, and in the last scene is a Russian princess, wearing diamonds as large as walnut-shells, attired in a court-dress, and about to be presented at St. James's.That Mrs. Roland Stanford played the part of this adventuress, known as Birdie Leigh, to perfection, goes without saying. The papers went into rhapsodies, and the house was crammed from pit to gallery.Velvet Snow and the Cunningham family, whom she was still visiting, arranged to go to the Hesper. Mr. Cunningham was a wealthy stock-broker, and he was liberal enough to pay for a box to hold four—his wife, daughter, self, and the visitor, Velvet Snow."Nothing to wear, Velvet?" asked her school-fellow Minnie, a dark girl, with a vivacious brown face, jet-black hair, and gleaming black eyes. "I am going in this cream surah, old as the hills, shabby enough for an East End work-girl by daylight, and just this pink coral necklace, and one crimson rose.""And you will look nice, Minnie; but I have only this dark-blue cashmere, new and well-fitting, but not an evening-dress.""Wear my black lace over amber silk; no fit, perhaps. You are slighter than I am, but the color will suit you gloriously. Not too proud to borrow a two-seasons' old gown from a friend, I hope?"Velvet was not too proud. The costume suited her fair coloring and rosy bloom admirably, and when she took her place in the box, several glasses were leveled in her direction.Suddenly she saw somebody enter the opposite box. Velvet's heart seemed to stand still.CHAPTER XL.WHAT is first love? How often has that question been asked, and answered according to the lights of the exponents? Some will tell you that "first love" is "calf love," a silly infatuation for a probably insipid hero, or a "mere doll" of a heroine, whose mission in life is simply to wear fashionable garments and arrange her hair in the newest mode.Others will tell you that first love is the only true passion of the soul; that love, like death, comes but once to every human being; that the intense yearning for the sound of a beloved voice, the sight of an adored face, the clasp of a dear hand, only fills the human heart once during this mortal life; while the emotions which follow in the course of years are but puny imitations of the great drama which was enacted long before—albeit that the said emotions may lead (joined with worldly considerations) to the marriage-breakfast and the plain gold ring.First love! It has a pleasant or a painful sound, as the case may be, and the question as to whether it is the deepest love must be answered by each individual heart in its own way."The heart knoweth its own bitterness," says the wise man in Holy Writ. So, also, does it know its own joy.Velvet Snow was white as the snowy flower at her breast when she saw "that man" enter the opposite box. That man! She had dreamed of him as a girl of sixteen will dream occasionally, if she only sees and meets with one heroic-looking man in all her every-day experience. And then a sudden jealous pang had struck fire in her soul, and she had found herself suffering the torture of "despised love," the anguish of disappointment, the humiliation of neglect.Well did Velvet remember what wild passion had possessed her when she had seized the lighted lamp in Mrs. Hibbit's parlor and dared all present to take it from her. She had tried to persuade herself that it was disappointment at not being allowed to act which had enraged her; but in the depth of her heart she knew that it was the sight of Donald Stanford, with his dark eyes fixed with a hungry look of love on Bethel's face.Since then Velvet had, she believed, conquered and crushed that old feeling. Donald, she had considered, was her benefactor; but she was to him merely a poor child, an object of


charity. He loved her not; he never would love her, and—he was gone away with a wound in his heart, dealt by that cruel Bethel—gone away to wander for years on the African plains, to die of sunstroke or fever, or to be torn to pieces by wild beasts. He would never come back again.Might he rest in peace." This had been her prayer for the man who had never loved her, never asked for her love; and so a sort of resignation had laid hold of her, and she looked forward to a life without love."Since I can never have his heart, I will never have any other man's," she had said to herself.Velvet Snow was a firm believer in the might, strength, and eternity of first love.She was pale as the flower at her breast, and quite unconscious of the lovely music of the orchestra.Opposite to her, in that box, sat Donald Stanford. Two years of wanderings and hardships had bronzed, changed—yes, and improved him—so the girl thought.The merry daring, the glancing fun in those dark eyes, were quenched; but in their stead burned a serious light, steady, tranquil.Oh, they were beautiful eyes, Velvet thought, with a stirring of the old rapture at her heart. What a noble face it was—how high-bred, refined, and manly, too! There was not another man on the face of the earth to compare to him; and—he had come back again!The next moment a bitter pain smote upon her, a keen memory of the events of the past. He had loved Bethel Vernon, now Mrs. Roland Stanford, the popular actress, with whom a dozen men were at this moment madly infatuated. Her husband was—well, nobody knew where, and would most likely never return, for he was hopelessly in debt, and he was disinherited, so that Donald might marry his first love after all. There was no law to prevent him from marrying his cousin's widow, and he loved her still. First love was once and forever. He had come to the Hesper to see his divinity; of course he had.Velvet had one advantage over Donald Stanford. She could watch him unsuspected, for her friends did not know him; and two years had so altered, beautified, elevated Velvet, that Captain Stanford did not recognize her in the least. She had grown half a head, a bright color had taken the place of her pallor, a color which the sudden sight of Donald had banished, but which now stole back to the fair face, and brightened it with the bloom of youth and health.No; he had no idea that the girl in black lace, with a white rose in her breast, who sat opposite to him, was Velvet Snow. She was a graceful, pretty girl. He saw that, and then he gave his attention to the stage.Velvet also looked now at the stage, for the curtain was up, and the society actress was in full force.Bethel wore a charming spring costume, when, in the character of a nursery-governess, she appeared in the first scene in "Tact." She fluttered a scarlet silk parasol; she glanced from beneath the brim of a modish hat. Her gown was cream-color, trimmed with lace and embroidery. Her gloves—or shall we say her gloved hands?—were worthy of a poem in their praise.She was walking on the yellow sands by the sea-shore, and her little pupils were building a castle with stones, and digging a trench around it with their wooden spades—two little boys and one little girl, charming stage-children in charming costumes.Then the play began. The governess sat down and read a newspaper. Then entered hero. We need not follow the play all through its mazes. Suffice it that Mrs. Roland Stanford, an accomplished coquette by nature, was able to act to perfection on the stage the part which she could play so well in real life.Plaudits followed her all through the twists and turnings of her mimic career. Lover after lover was encouraged, rejected, again encouraged, finally dismissed as a still richer suitor appeared. Her pleasantries were pettily expressed, her very heartlessness was excessively picturesque; she told falsehoods with an inimitable grace, and she never lost her sweet, innocent manner once during the whole play.She is supposed to have some real love for the handsome Russian prince whom she marries at last, and the curtain falls on her in her sumptuous court-dress, a lovely type of the success which crowns the head of a "beauty," when that beauty is joined to supreme tact.Velvet watched the piece through with dilating nostrils and sparkling eyes."Could I act that part?" she asked herself; and she decided that she could; but not so well as Bethel, for Velvet's nature was not represented in "Tact."And Donald? Well, nobody could possibly say what Captain Stanford thought of the piece or of the actress.Many people in the Hesper Theater knew him, and knew that he had returned from Africa more than three weeks ago;


also that the society actress, who had been engaged to his uncle, and then married his cousin, had been a "flame" of his own. Also, that he had come to the Hesper, most probably with the wish of seeing the lovely creature act.Captain Stanford was man of the world enough to know exactly what the world was saying of him, also that many eyes were watching him; also that society papers might even allude to him in their next issues. Consequently, he twirled his black mustache with an indifferent air the while lovely Bethel was glancing up coquettishly from the corners of her yellow-brown eyes, and laughing that musical laugh, both of which, the glance and the laugh, he remembered so thoroughly.Donald had not come to the Hesper that night to make a simpleton of himself—nothing of the kind.When the curtain fell, he went his way like other people. He did not attempt to see the popular actress; he had not met her once since his return; he had not sought to meet her. He went straight to his hotel and smoked a solitary cigar by the side of a blazing fire; he drank some seltzer, perhaps with a dash of something in it that had been quite unobtainable on those hot African plains which he had just left; and he thought as he sat smoking, thought of the past, the present, and the future.Velvet went home with her friends, unsuspected of the secret that burned at her heart like a live coal, so to speak. Would he call at Savoy House while she was away? What would he say if he heard of her determination to embrace the stage as her profession? Would he approve or disapprove, or simply not care a bit? That was the likeliest thing of all—not care a bit!She hardly knew how the days went that she spent with the Cunninghams. On the Saturday she and Minnie returned to Savoy House, and then she heard the news. Captain Stanford had come back to England, after passing through a host of adventures and "hair-breath 'scapes;" he had been for months away from all postal communication, all the comforts of civilized life, and he had lived the wild, free life of the untaught savage—he and a couple of friends whom he had met during his voyage out. He had come to England, having heard nothing of what had befallen his uncle."The first newspaper that came in his way," said the elder Miss Saville, "contained a notice of the new theater, the


Hesper, and the new actress, Mrs. Roland Stanford, who was about to appear in the new play-'Tact.'"He was not surprised, he told Miss Saville, because he quite understood, before leaving England, that his cousin was engaged to Miss Vernon; but he was amazed and horrified when he heard of all that had happened, and that his cousin had disappeared.He went to see his uncle at once, by whom he was most affectionately received. Then he came up to London on business for Sir Huntly, who was still much of an invalid; his nervous system had sustained a shock from which it would never entirely recover."And he called here to see us," Miss Saville added; "and he asked so kindly after you, Velvet, dear."Velvet said some calm and kind things which hid the deep feeling in her heart. Then she went away to her own room, to weep over her baseless dreams, and to pray for strength to solve the problem of her life."How shall I meet him?" she asked of herself. "How shall I be calm, conventional, grateful to him as my benefactor, not too humble, nor too independent, when I owe everything to his kindness? And how shall I teach myself that this wealthy young man of ancient family and gentle culture never can regard Velvet Snow as other than a poor girl to whom he has been very kind?"Donald did not call again at Saville House; he soon left London, and went down to spend the months of April and May with his uncle at Stanford Hall.Velvet plunged into her studies; read German with Miss Margaret, who was a great scholar, and practiced singing daily.It had been discovered that she possessed a contralto of the very finest quality. Music had been left too long for her to attempt to acquire more than was needful for the accompaniments of her own songs."That child will do something to distinguish herself," said Miss Margaret Saville, speaking of Velvet. "I can't guess what she will do, but she will do something."Whatever Donald thought of his cousin, of Bethel, of his uncle, and of all the human faults and follies of those three, he kept silence, and only occupied himself in assisting Sir Huntly in the management of the estates, which were to be his one day on certain conditions. The most stringent of these was the proviso that he was never to allow the unfortu-


nate Roland, who would be mocked with the title of baron, more than forty pounds a year for as long as he lived.Sir Huntly had been at the expense and trouble of cutting off the entail.Donald did not go a second time to see the celebrated Mrs. Roland Stanford perform in "Tact."CHAPTER XLI.MAY came smiling and jocund in a blaze of sunshine and a forest of blossoms. This was the country May. The London goddess was likewise heralded by sunshine, and country gardens had been rifled to fill the baskets of the London flower sellers.Luxury, pomp, and pleasure were astir in the West End, and among the most luxurious, the most pleasure-loving, was the popular society actress whom we first knew as Bethel Vernon.Hats, collars, and mantles were called after her; the Stanford hat was a gem in velvet, lace, and flowers, of so coquettish a shape that it set of an otherwise plain costume with an inimitable style and dash.Mrs. Roland was always perfectly dressed; she drove the prettiest little pair of brown ponies in the park, and her suppers and Sunday water-parties were considered the most piquant things of that season. Her sister Jane lived with her—her sister, who was of the gravest, the most exemplary manners; and though Bethel was plunged in a perfect vortex of gayety, not a finger could in justice be pointed at her, not a word could be spoken against her conduct.The Marquis of Hollywood, meanwhile, was as infatuated as he had ever been. He paid Bethel the heavy salary of one hundred pounds a week; and he gave her presents also, which she accepted in all good faith. It was now quite understood between them that if ever authentic news of Roland Stanford's death reached them. Bethel was to become the Marchioness of Hollywood.She was called "poor young creature!" and pitied on account of the desertion of her husband. She was praised for the strength of mind which enabled her to rise superior to her misfortunes; and, instead of fretting after a worthless fellow, as so many young deserted wives might have done, setting to work bravely to make money, taking excellent care of her reputation at the same time.Inordinate selfishness is a great power on earth when it is joined to tact, beauty, and pretty manners. Bethel had never shed a tear or heaved a sigh for any other mortal than herself in all her life, nor would she ever do so if she lived to be a hundred years old. Yet men thought she was the dearest, most innocent little thing in the whole world!It was one May day, the hour was twelve, and Mrs. Stanford had just finished her luxurious breakfast. She wore the most exquisite of morning-gowns, a lawn of pale blue, trimmed artistically with delicate lace. It was a warm day for May; the windows of the pretty drawing-room were open, and the balconies were bright with flame-colored tulips, white narcissi, and crimson and pink primulas. Also, there was a snowy azalea in glorious bloom, but that was inside in the shelter of the pleasant room.At a little distance from her picturesque sister sat Jane Vernon, busily engaged in knitting. Jane's beauty had increased since first we met her. Sorrow had softened her dark eyes, Love had lighted them from his divine torch, patience had chastened, and thought for other's welfare had elevated the expression of the always nobly cast face. Jane wore a simple, tasteful gown of white, and a crimson bow in her dark hair."I don't believe a bit that it was he whom we saw," said Bethel, who was amusing herself by making her little lazy, sleepy dog growl by pulling his long ears while he lay curled up on a stool by the side of her chair."It was a wonderful likeness, Bethel, if it were not your husband.""I don't consider that he is my husband now, Jane, after behaving as he has behaved. If we were in America, I could have divorced him long ago, and I could have married Hollywood.""Yes; but we are not in America.""I wish we were."As Bethel spoke, she gave the dog's ears a peculiarly vicious twist; he squealed with pain, and she broke into a laugh. "Bethel, you are too cruel to that creature.""I'm sure he's fat enough, and greedy enough, and lazy enough," said the society actress."Too fat, too greedy, too lazy, but you are too cruel, all the same.""It's my nature," said Bethel."Yes," returned Jane, shortly."Jane," said Bethel, after a pause, "there as a pair of dia-


mond ear-rings in a shop in Oxford Street awfully, desperately cheap. Have you seen them?""Oh, yes, I think I saw them. I admire beautiful stones, and those are certainly lovely!""And if they were in one of the Bond Street shops, they would ask, three or even four hundred pounds for them; those are only two hundred pounds, and each diamond as large as a sixpence," she went on in her usual exaggerated style. " Fancy a stone that size for a paltry hundred pounds, set in silver—the colors one sees in them.""They are lovely!" said Jane."And I mean to have them," said Bethel.Jane looked up from her knitting."Two hundred pounds for a pair of ear-rings?" she said."Dirt cheap!" said Bethel. "You know I have to take the character of Juliet next week. It's to be a Shakespearean revival, which is a bother; but it has to be done, for the sake of this American-Irishman, O'Hara, who is said to be such a wonderful Shakespearean genius; so they have engaged him as the Romeo for a month's run, and I must be Juliet, though it's a part I hate. Well, I won't wear any ear-rings if I can't have those. Those opals are rubbish.""And they cost—""No matter what they cost," said Bethel, sharply, "I will have the others. I shall tell Hollywood to stop my salary for a fortnight, and give me those instead.""And you know that he will send you the diamonds and not stop the salary. It is fearful! Where will it lead to?""To the altar. I mean to be Marchioness of Hollywood.""And Roland?""Oh, he's dead, all right enough. I feel sure that he is dead," returned Bethel."I believe that when our carriage was blocked, as we returned from the theater last night, that he stood in the crowd, wearing ragged clothes, and looking like a madman with glaring eyes.""Serve him right," said Bethel, pleasantly. "But, oh, dear me! if we could only hear he was really dead, how satisfactory it would be!" and the enchantress clasped her hands in the energy of her wish.Mrs. Roland Stanford maneuvered for her diamonds, and obtained them in due time, and she wore them in her small white ears when she appeared as the new Juliet to the American actor's Romeo.Now, never since the masterpiece of love stories was put upon the stage was there a Juliet more lovely than Mrs. Re land Stanford.The piece was most superbly mounted; and so far everything exquisitely harmonized. Eustace O'Hara was a splendid-looking man, and unquestionably a powerful actor. But—there was a "but" in this performance—an exception, a want.A Juliet may be peerless as a peri, and yet fail to convey the impression that she loves passionately or feels deeply; and so it came to pass that the pretty manners which suited so well the character of a mercenary, ambitious society belle were powerless to express the depth of an Italian maiden's fervid love, and the tragedy of overwhelming grief.Bethel made a lovely, soulless Juliet, and when the piece was over, even the enamored marquis felt that it was a failure. Still, he reflected that O'Hara would certainly "draw" for the time that the piece was advertised to run, and after that Bethel would again enchant the world in "Tact," or in some play of the same kind.The next morning, Mrs. Roland Stanford arose in the very worst of tempers."I hate acting, after all," she said to Jane as they sat over their late breakfast. "I am getting tired of it. I ought to marry Hollywood, and become a marchioness; and I don't think I would ever go inside a theater again as long as I live. It's abominable to pay me a paltry hundred a week for all the hard work that I do."Jane tried to be as sympathetic as she knew how, but Bethel's ill-humor defied all her efforts to soothe it. She said at last:"I shall drive to Richmond. I will go alone, and order lunch at the Star, and hire a boat.""Alone?" said Jane."Yes. I don't want any of the 'set.' Let them please themselves, and they will please me if they keep away.""Them" meant the marquis and a few other devoted admirers, with all of whom the spoiled beauty felt inclined to quarrel."I don't mean to put up with insolence," she said, shaking her clinched hand. "Just think, that Hollywood said I had not force enough for the part of that detestable, lovesick idiot of a Juliet! It was an insult, and he shall pay for it!" Her eyes—beautiful eyes, as we know they were—gleamed With a vicious light." I won't be civil, even to him, for a


whole week. I won't see him when he calls, except on business. Oh, I can punish him when I choose!"The dissipated Marquis of Hollywood was at a disadvantage compared with Mrs. Roland. He had affections, and unhappily they were entirely centered on the worldly-wise beauty, whom he could not marry until her husband was proved to be dead.She meanwhile treated him with an alternate good-natured friendliness and capricious disdain most galling to a man of his temperament."He shall pay," she said, "for telling me as good as that I had not brain or mind enough to act Juliet. I will go to Richmond alone.""Not alone," said Jane. "I will come with you."Bethel assented, and the two sisters costumed themselves exquisitely.In due time, the carriage, drawn by the pair of brown ponies, drew up in front of the house, and Bethel assumed the reins. Jane sat beside her. The ladies took no groom.The pretty equipage dashed along the streets, exciting as much remark as even the vanity of Mrs. Stanford could desire.Bethel was a skillful whip, and as fearless as she was beautiful; and so, in less than an hour, Piccadilly and Kensington, Hammersmith and Kew, were left behind, and the brown ponies were spinning along toward Richmond.A level road, with a high wall on one hand and open fields on the other. The sky was beautifully blue; the sun shone, the green fields gleamed in the light; the ponies were as fresh as when they started.Suddenly an ugly sound came to the ears of Jane Vernon—ugly, because it meant danger. It was the loud bellowing of an infuriated bull. A sharp turn in the road brought them in sight of an animal worthy to have fought before the haughty hidalgos and fair senoritas of Seville—a magnificent animal, milk-white, but with eyes blazing like live coals, stood just in front of the little pony-carriage, pawing the ground, tossing his head, mad with wrath."Turn the ponies' heads," said Jane.Somehow—how was it?—Bethel lost her presence of mind, her hold weakened instead of strengthening upon the bridle rein. She was slow or inapt. The ponies started, shied, and (are these things fated beforehand?) the reins broke in the hands of Bethel another moment, and the maddened ponies were rushing like furies along the level road.Jane held with all her force to the back of the carriage, which jerked and jolted in the most horrible manner."Hold on!—hold on tight!" she said to Bethel; but Bethel, white, dumb with fear, and perhaps less physically strong than her sister, could not hold on. It happened in an instant, Jane knew not how, she saw her sister flung, with hideous force, out, face downward, upon a heap of stones that lay in the road.Then a man leaped over a gate, ran to the ponies' heads, seized them, stopped their further flight, spoke to them softly. The panting, quivering creatures were long before they could be induced to stand still.Meanwhile, Jane sat white and trembling with a terrible fear at her heart.CHAPTER XLII.JANE VERNON was naturally strong and courageous, yet her heart beat to suffocation, and she trembled in every limb, when, having stepped out of the pony-chaise, she stood in the road, looking to where that inert form lay, face downward, upon the heap of stones.The man who had stopped the runaway animals was only a commonplace, decent day-laborer, of a dull, kindly countenance, and very few ideas of his own.He, meanwhile, was compelled to attend to the still frightened ponies; had he left them for two minutes, they would certainly have started off again, and the carriage would have been dashed to pieces. It was inevitable that Jane should go up to Bethel and raise her up."Suppose—well, suppose the worst—suppose that she is killed? What must I do? First, I must be as quiet as I can, and I mast have help."And then:Oh, poor Bethel—poor child!" The words escaped her in spite of the immense restraint she was putting upon herself. She clasped her hands. "I never knew that I loved her until now," Jane said to herself. "Oh, my poor, beautiful Bethel, I have tried to do you good, but I have been hard—hard—hard!"Poor Jane was in this moment hard upon herself, She had always been plain-spoken and unflattering, but she had been practically kind to the selfish, heartless beauty; she need not have reproached herself.Jane felt that she could not walk over to the form lying so


helplessly in the road and lift the face until she had steadied her nerves by drinking at least some cold water; and how was she to get that? When she tried to step forward, the trees and hedges whirled about, and the ground on which she stood rose up and rocked to and fro. No; she would fall down if she stirred then. So she sunk upon the soft grass, resolving to wait a few minutes until she felt better.She was half reclining on the turf, when a carriage dashed round the corner—a very high dog-cart, with two fashionably got-up young men in front, and a smart servant in livery seated, with his arms folded, on the back seat.In an instant Jane had recognized one of the gentlemen. It was the Marquis of Hollywood, and his companion was O'Hara, the new American actor.The recognition was mutual; few, if any, words passed. The marquis drew up his horse, sprung down, rushed to where Bethel lay; and Jane, feeling her nerves braced by the presence of a friendly face, rose up and went toward the heap of stones. The ground once more felt firm under her feet, and the trees kept in their places.And then? Well, we do not like lingering over shocking details. Bethel was not dead, only stunned by the force with which she had been flung out. Her arm was bent under her, broken, as it turned out, just below the elbow; but her face—that was the pain and the pity of it! That beautiful, bewitching face, which had robbed many men of their peace, which had haunted their thoughts with memories of its roguish laughter and its dimpled smiles; that face was changed, spoiled from that day forth—its beauty blotted out almost as completely as the beauty of some picture painted by the hand of genius on canvas, and then left in damp and dirt for long years, so that only a mere shadow and outline of its first divine charm is left to be guessed at by the curious student.They carried her between them to the dog-cart, where Lord Hollywood supported her in his arms, while his friend drove swiftly but steadily toward Richmond.Jane sat behind with the marquis. The unconscious face that would never look like Bethel's face again rested on Jane's shoulder. So they reached the hotel, a room was engaged, and a doctor sent for."A most horrible ending to a day's pleasure, and the worst is, the doctors both agree that her loveliness is destroyed forever; and all they can talk about is the pleasure they feel that the sight is not injured, and that there is no harm done to the


brain. It would have been less painful to look on her dead face if it were beautiful, than on that disfigured one upstairs. I think it would drive me mad—I am sure it will, Miss Vernon, if I stay here, or if I have to go into her room, and if she comes to her senses and asks to see a looking-glass. I pray that I may be at the other end of the world before that time comes. No; don't tell her I have seen her; let her think that I—that I—took offense before; don't let her guess that the sight of that broken nose, and the lips and cheeks, and the beautiful teeth knocked out, have made me into a madman—yes, a madman!"This was the kind of love which the Marquis of Hollywood had for the beautiful Bethel—a love of her beauty and of nothing else; and though the passion had held him as a bond-slave for months, the moment the chains were snapped, the man felt that he was free—free to run about the world, seeking a new idol, whom he would always prevent from driving about unattended by a male protector or a groom.Jane sat in the large private sitting-room overlooking the gardens and the river. The sun had set, but the light yet lingered in the sky; people were walking to or from the river, crossing the lawns under the hotel windows—happy, careless people they all seemed.Jane buried her face in her hands, and wondered how John would bear this news. He was still abroad, leaving his practice at the bar to take care of itself. Jane had not seen him since his recovery from the illness through which she had nursed him. He wrote to her pretty often, always with affection; he never mentioned Bethel; he never spoke of that dreadful night before the intended wedding; he never once named Sir Huntly, yet there always seemed an ugly secret between John and Jane. She loved him as much as ever, but the shadow of a crime made a sort of perpetual gloom around him in her thoughts.How would he receive this news? What would he say?The marquis was drawing on his driving-gloves. "I must get back to town," he said; "I have an engagement to dine with a man at his club."Jane looked up at the gay marquis in amaze."How could he?" she said to herself; all he seemed to wish to do was to escape from the once beautiful creature whom he had so loved."Good-bye, Miss Vernon," he said, clasping Jane's hand warmly. "Anything that I can do, you know. This was, most fortunately, an off-night for Mrs. Stanford, but—we


have to find another Juliet by to-morrow. O'Hara says he has been told of one—he means that village girl whom you know. She came from your part of the world. See—what is her name?""She was called Velvet Snow, if that is the girl from Ellsmere.""Ah, yes—yes, that's the name. It seems she has been making an understudy of Juliet under Saville, who, you know, has brought out some of the first; but I can't believe in these sort of village wonders. Tell Bethel—""Yes," said Jane, coldly."Tell Bethel I am most awfully cut up—mad, you know.""Yes," said Jane; and then he went out, having drawn on his gloves and taken his whip, and he and O'Hara drove away in the summer dusk.Jane broke into a passion of weeping. This was the world's love; this the world's friendship. Poor, wrecked life of Bethel! the beauty whose power of winning friends, lovers, slaves, gold, fame, and worldly honor, was vested wholly and entirely in her extraordinary and surpassing loveliness! Where could she turn now for comfort in her desolation? She was incapable, it seemed, by constitution of feeling anything like love, or even unselfish liking, for anybody save herself; and thus she would not be able to console herself with the love or the friendship of any true friend who should remain faithful in adversity. Nothing could fill her life with even placid content, save the consciousness that she was of the first importance in her own circle."Good Heaven!" sobbed Jane, passionately, "when she sees the eyes that used to dwell so slavishly on her lovely face turning away from it in—yes, I fear it will be in horror. When the pleading voices of her adorers sound cold in her ears; when she finds that her power and charm as an actress are gone, she will become mad, unless—unless some great change takes place within her—unless this affliction purifies her, and some long-dormant capacity for noble conduct, which they say is hidden in every human soul, were to awake up into life in Bethel. But that would be a miracle."Then Jane dried her wet eyes, and went softly to the bedside of the only half-conscious Bethel.The next day, about one in the afternoon, Velvet Snow was pacing up and down a secluded path in the wide gardens of Savoy House, Hampstead; an open book was in her hand. It was the play of "Romeo and Juliet."Absorbed in the part, her whole soul steeped in the love-sorrows of Juliet, she went up and down between the tall evergreens that shut in this sidewalk, her earnest gray eyes turned with a peculiar rapt expression now toward the dark-green bushes, now toward the bright blue heavens; but she saw neither foliage nor lofty sky, at least, not that English Jane sky that arched over the gardens of Savoy House. It was the purple night sky of Verona on which her rapt soul was geeing the while; her ears did not hear the gentle chirruping of the birds among the boughs in the English garden; but the deep tones of a dark-eyed hero, a lover whose love was fervid as the torrid sunshine of the clime where first he saw the light.That same Italian lad whom Shakespeare saw, looking back through the dim vistas of the centuries, seemed present now with the impassioned Velvet as she lingered over the answers so coyly tender, so fraught with an ardor of which English maidens, in these prosaic days of the nineteenth century, are supposed to be (falsely, we think) altogether incapable.An artist who should have seen Velvet Snow walking between the evergreens, book in hand, might have thought she would have made a sweet companion picture to one painted and exhibited years ago by Leslie. We mean that one representing Clarissa Harlow walking in the garden and reading a letter. The lovely Clarissa of the painter's fancy wears a dainty tiny cap, and her drapery is dainty also, a long plain skirt and white tippet, if we remember rightly; she has brown or auburn hair, and the refinement of her face is exquisitely rendered—a typical English maiden of the eighteenth century.Velvet Snow's costume was as simple and neat as that of Clarissa Harlow. A cream-colored gown, simply yet faultlessly cut, a red rose at her waist, her auburn hair uncovered, for there was no sunshine in that laurel walk."'Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I could say goodnight until to-morrow.'"She spoke the words aloud to that ideal, impalpable, shadowy Romeo of centuries ago. She saw the large, lustrous Italian moon glowing in the purple; silver bars quivering on the pavements, and lighting up the spaces between the gloomy, grand, mediæval houses; the lover's face darkly beautiful, almost terrible in its intensity of passion."Miss Snow," said a matter-of-fact voice in the near distance, "there is a gentleman asking to see you."Velvet came back in an instant from the moonlit Verona of the fourteenth century to the pale summer sunshine of the English June and the simple charm of the English garden.In place of Romeo there stood before her an English housemaid in white cap and apron."A gentleman to see you, Miss Snow," the maid repeated. Velvet looked blank and dazed for a moment; then, with a smile:"Oh, thank you, I will come," she said; and she went toward the house, not much surprised to hear from the maid that the gentleman was Mr. Saville, brother of the lady proprietors of the house, and celebrated master of elocution, who had trained so many actors for the stage with frequently great results.Mr. Saville had come to find out how she was getting on with her Juliet. Would he ever persuade his sisters to allow Velvet to act in public?She believed so. She longed for that time with an intense longing. She fancied that she had no fear whatever, and now what had Mr. Saville to say to her this fine afternoon?CHAPTER XLIII.VELVET went in, crossed the back hall, and entered Miss Saville's private sitting-room. The windows were open to the lawn. There sat Miss Margaret in her black lace afternoon gown, and there stood Mr. Charles Saville, her brother, a thin man, rather above the middle height; a man with a pale, eager face, strongly cast features, and dark eyes—his hair and mustache were gray—altogether rather a distinguished-looking man. Velvet gave him her hand; he held it, and looked at her with an eagerness she had never seen in him before."My dear child," he began, "if you have the courage, your fortune is made."In an instant an inkling of the truth swept in upon the girl's consciousness; she seemed to know what was coming, and she did not feel exactly surprised when she heard of the terrible carriage accident that had befallen Mrs. Roland Stanford, and of the need of another Juliet appearing that very evening on the boards of the Hesper."We have another understudy, of course—a Miss Pierson, who is clever, pretty. and has pluck. She is the paid understudy—paid, you understand, a salary on condition of qualifying herself to take the part in an emergency; but the lessees are not bound to her at all, and I am commissioned by the Marquis of Hollywood to offer you the part of Juliet to-night at the Hesper."Velvet felt giddy with excitement; the whole thing seemed too sudden to be real; and then prosaic facts forced themselves upon her mind."I have no costumes," she began."There are costumes ready which can be altered if they do not fit. You are much taller than Mrs. Stanford, but we have costumes, some lovely medieval dresses, all made large, so that they can be taken in; and your natural grace will set them off. Don't let the insignificant part of the matter deter you. Have you the courage? That is the question."Velvet was silent a moment; then, in a firm, clear voice, she said:"I have the courage if I have the power; and if I fail, I fail."But there was that in the deep tone of her voice which spoke volumes to the sensitive ears of Mr. Saville.He had heard her recite the whole of the part of Juliet only the week before, and he had wished then, with all his heart, that he had had the chance of bringing her out before the London public. He was, it is true, something of a sanguine and enthusiastic man, and some persons said of him that he had a mania for unearthing geniuses; but be that as it may, he had verily discovered something of the divine fire in this girl, Velvet Snow.Miss Margaret Saville gave an unwilling and reluctant consent to the appearance of Velvet on the boards of the Hesper."I shall come with you, my child. I shall not leave you for a single moment, except while you are actually upon the stage.""My dear sister, you will see and hear things that will—well, that will startle you," said Mr. Saville.But Miss Margaret was not to be prevented from following her pupil up closely, and surrounding her with her protecting influence.Then Velvet went upstairs to make her preparations for departure.In less than an hour she started in a hired carriage with Mr. and Miss Saville, and they drove straight to the theater, in the first place, where some professional dressers waited upon Velvet, and afterward accompanied her to the private house of Mr. Saville, bringing with them trunks filled with those mediæval costumes of which he had spoken.There was much turning over and discussion of these "stock" costumes, but they were undeniably rich and graceful.Velvet tried them all on, and it was found that a few rapid alterations could be easily made.Then she dined with Mr. Saville and his sister.After that there was a hasty rehearsal of her part with Mr. O'Hara, the Romeo, who arrived in some haste and agitation, to discover the best and also the worst of this new Juliet.Velvet felt her power stir within her like something mightier than herself when confronted with this ideal Romeo. No; he was not the dark-eyed Romeo of her dreams, but he was a genius notwithstanding—one who felt and knew what had been in the great poet's soul when the wrote the immortal "love tale;" and Velvet acted with him, was carried away on the tide of passion, poesy, and deep intensity of human feeling.O'Hara was enchanted, and he grew quite impatient for the important moment when the world should know that a new light had arisen to charm, enchant, and lead men and women captive by the might and majesty of genius.So the hours rolled on, the moment arrived, and the great curtain rose upon the first scene in the old town of Verona.There came a young man into one of the boxes soon after the piece began. He was a fair-complexioned, good-looking young man, with much style and dash about him. He looked on at the play with a smiling and contented air, then he nodded to one or two friends in various parts of the house. Presently another young man entered the same box, a dark, bronzed fellow. The two shook hands.I had your letter at the club this afternoon," whispered the dark one to the fair one, "and I came. You said a new Juliet was to appear whom there was no time to advertise?""Yes, Donald; I know Hollywood well, you know; not quite so black as he is painted. He came in in a hurry; he belongs to my club.""Yes?""Well, he said Mrs. Stanford was not well, and that a new Juliet—a real wonder—was to act, and he asked me to get some of my friends to come, so I thought of you.""Thanks," said Donald Stanford, languidly; "but who is the new Juliet?""Her name is a queer one—Velvet Snow.""Why, good heavens!" said Captain Stanford; "do you know who she is, Standish?""No," returned our old acquaintance. "Who is she?""A girl——a village girl!" stammered Donald; then, seeing


a very mocking light in the eyes of the other young soldier, he added: "Don't think any sort of bosh, you know. This girl is a mere child from our village, who used to have tea and cake at the rectory, and she took part in theatricals. She was clever, but had a naughty temper; very impertinent to the rector's wife."Donald's eyes twinkled."A nice, honest, hot-tempered girl, as innocent as a lamb; and she ran away, and some—friend put her to a good school.""Stop! here she comes," whispered Standish.The new Juliet came upon the stage, and from that moment she carried away her audience with her, and made them weep with her, laugh with her, feel with her, as only a true and heaven-gifted genius can.Donald looked on, and straightway the face he had known in the country village became to him as the ideal face of which he had dreamed in his earliest manhood, and before the weird beauty of Bethel Vernon had bewitched him.Yonder fair, spiritualized countenance was a face to be worshiped.Actress? yes, she ,was an actress—one of those daughters of the gods who lead men to higher things than the common-place selfishness and paltry aims of daily life in the civilized world.Yonder Juliet, or Velvet, was an ideal for whose sake Donald felt that he could have toiled, and bled, and died.It was not passionate love at sight so much as reverence. Velvet had grown into a beautiful young woman, but her mere beauty just then seemed the last thing he thought of while his eyes followed her every movement, while his ears drank in the tender tones of her deep, soft voice. He did not note that the house seemed moved as one man; that the whole audience was enraptured, enchanted. Then, at last, she came before the curtain, pale, and with flaming eyes. She thought not of the cheering crowd; she had lost her own identity in the passion and sorrow of her part. Her shimmering dress of white satin, embroidered with gold, draped her like a royal robe, and she wore it with a royal grace."By Jove!" said Captain Standish, "she's a stunner!"This remark recalled Donald to himself.All the papers the next morning went into blank verse in describing the power, beauty, majesty of the new Juliet.Velvet's fortune was made**"Enough to turn your poor little head, my darling," Miss


Margaret said to her in the quiet seclusion of Savoy House, whither they had returned very late in the small hours after the play."But I must act," Velvet said, "even if they pay me next to nothing; and if I kill myself with hard work, as I heard somebody say would happen, still I must act. Oh, dear Miss Margaret, as long as I am well, and have my senses, nothing shall keep me from the stage now!"And thus it came to pass, that, before the end of that same London season, the name of Velvet Snow was known throughout the whole of Europe as a great actress.Miss Margaret Saville had become the companion, the chaperon, the little mother of Velvet Snow.The two hired a furnished house in St. John's Wood, where Velvet studied, or rested according to her needs.The flatterers who always beset the path of a successful actress had done their best to drag her from her high ideal of the devoted votary of true art; but she had sent back diamonds to the donors, and had already established a reputation as
being an actress sans tache et sans reproche.It was the end of the season. The theater was closed, the August sun was hot in the heavens, and Miss Saville and Velvet had betaken themselves to a large, prosperous seaside boarding-house. Velvet did not wish for any notoriety, nor to pose as Velvet Snow, the actress. She was called Miss Saville, and passed as the niece of Miss Margaret.The house was full of all kinds of people—people with much money, who behaved as if they had little; people with little money, who pretended to have a great deal; showy people, reticent people, fashionable people, homely people.Velvet had no experience of boarding-houses; thus she chatted pleasantly with the other ladies in the morning-room and on the beach, and in the drawing-room after dinner.It was one hot night; the long windows of the drawing-room opened upon gardens which sloped down to the beach, for Garfield Hall boarding-house is situated on a certain coast where the rich foliage of the woods spreads to the yellow sands of the shore, that is the loveliest, not the boldest, coast in the British Isles.Velvet rose up from a couch, where, seated with a pleasant girl of her own age, she had been chatting."It is so hot," she said; "let us step into the garden."At that moment, the door of the room fell back, and a young man entered.In an instant Velvet Snow's heart was beating like a sledge-hammer, and the blood was tingling in her veins.There stood Donald, Captain Stanford, the hero of all her dreams, the ideal Romeo of this nineteenth-century Juliet, who had so strangely and suddenly taken the world by storm.In an instant he had recognized her. He hurried over to her."I had no idea—" he began.She interrupted him:"You did not know that I was here with my aunt, Miss Saville."He took the cue at once."I did not know it, Miss Saville."These two loved each other, yet neither guessed the other's secret.CHAPTER XLIV.DONALD STANFORD and Velvet Snow had met once or twice since that night when her tragic power and splendor of genius had broken upon the young soldier like a new light, a rising star, an unexpected revelation. He had been penetrated, carried away by the force, the majesty, the womanly grace of this girl whom he had known first as a shabbily clad, ill-fed child—a child that he had been kind to and who had been grateful to him in return.Since then he had often seen Velvet act, and his admiration had transformed itself into passion.What had become of the old madness—the nightmare dream of a love, the loss of which had for a space wrapped the world as in a funeral pall, and blotted out the light of the sun? That old dream had gone; that old love was dead. It amazed him to find that it was so, that he was awake to the truth concerning the unworthiness of that idol to which he had done homage. Meanwhile, this meeting in the drawing-room of the boarding-house where the windows were open to the moonlit lawn, sloping downward to the shore, was the first meeting that the two had had which in the least resembled a tête-a-tête.Velvet had become, outwardly, a woman of the world within the last few months, consequently she seemed perfectly at her ease when she smiled, gave Captain Stanford her hand, and remarked on the beauty of the weather.He was more confused, more awkward; he did not know how to begin to talk to this tall, graceful creature with flow-


ers at her breast, and a flashing diamond fastening the black lace at her throat. Was this the Velvet of the shabby white hat and poor cloth jacket who had stood behind the bushes to watch him skate?"I had no idea that you were here," he said in a low tone, after they had talked of the weather for awhile."No; I call myself Miss Saville. I have more freedom than if I were known as Velvet Snow.""Shall we walk in the garden a little?" he asked, timidly."I shall be delighted," she answered, standing up."Can I find you a shawl? The night air is treacherous."She laughed."Look, this crimson wool chair-cover will save me from a cold."She threw it around her, and the two strolled out to the lawn, and so to the steps which led to the beach, and in a short while they stood upon the sands. The sea spread before them wide, calm, flashing here and there in the moon-rays, mystical, beautiful; the air seemed full of dreams to both of them, yet neither guessed the other's secret."Are you glad to be under the cool, gray English sky again, Captain Stanford?" asked Velvet."Very glad—more glad than I can find words in which to express my happiness. I left England in a rage.""Yes, I heard; I—I guessed.""Everybody knew," he answered, "in a village like ours. I am sane now, I think; in my right mind; and my cousin's wife has not been seen since—her accident.""She is quite right to keep out of sight until she is better," said Velvet, speaking with hesitation. " I hope she will be better.""I hope it is not true that she is so much disfigured," said Donald, "and I wish, with all my heart, that I knew where my cousin was."Velvet did not understand his meaning; she did not know that the long months of African wanderings, the hardships, dangers, sufferings of exile among savages, and then the return to England to find that something like a fearful tragedy had happened; that his cousin had disappeared; that Bethel had been false to at least three other men besides himself—she did not know that all this had conspired to root Donald's love for the siren out of his heart, and to show him the truth concerning her.Velvet fancied that he loved Bethel still, hoped she would


regain her beauty, and that if Roland were dead he would wish to marry her.Donald thought that Velvet was ambitious to wed a coronet; he had heard rumors to the effect that the Marquis of Hollywood was assiduously paying her attentions, which she received with delight. Only an accident showed each of these the heart of the other."I pity your cousin;" said Velvet; "I pity him with all my heart, that he should have lost his inheritance and be turned out as a beggar, he who was so proud. The village children fancied he would be 'too proud to go to heaven.' I have heard them say so. You know that I, as a girl, was rebellious, and refused to open a gate for him to pass through in his dog-cart. I can not think of that haughty young gentleman as a wanderer on the face of the earth, living under a feigned name—it seems impossible.""It is mysterious," said Donald, "my uncle's unforgiveness toward him; he has even made a will, by which I forfeit all the fortune he leaves me if I give my cousin any more than fifteen shillings a week, and there are clauses about trusting to my honor, etc. Nothing I can say will soften my uncle's heart toward Roland.""And you, Captain Stanford, have really just as much reason to resent your cousin's marriage. I mean—"Velvet hesitated, fearing to touch on forbidden ground."You mean that the gossips said I was desperately smitten with Miss Vernon, and that, when she threw me over for my cousin Roland, I went away to try and get myself eaten by the lions in Africa. Well, the gossips were right. I was mad for the love of that girl; she is a species of siren—she charms a man's heart out of him, and intoxicates his senses, and then, when she has made him a raving lunatic, she laughs at him; but now I am as completely cured of that love-sickness as though a second enchantress had touched me with her wand and released me from the spell. I thank Heaven often on my knees for having delivered me from the fate of becoming Bethel's husband."There was a pause."A second enchantress," said Velvet to herself; "then he is in love with somebody else. I wonder whom? I wonder what her name is?—if she is lovely, or only stylish and distinguished-looking? Is she a genius? Is she some earl's daughter or foreign princess?"At this moment the pair of undeclared lovers heard the sound of steps on the hard sands, and turning, they saw the


form of a woman standing on the shore in the moonlight—a woman clothed in black, but with a white shawl over her head.Something stirred in Velvet's heart. Her blood seemed to curdle; instinct awoke within her, and a voice rang in her ears—a voice so loud that for a moment she was deafened by the uproar.Was it nerves, or a chill, or else something uncanny?Who was that woman? She thought of her interview in Kensington Gardens with the man who had professed to know the secret of her birth. Who was that man?Yonder woman—yes, she was sure of it—was the creature who had stopped her on the wintery night in Stanford Park, when she was going to the rectory that way; the woman whom she had heard talking in the hay-loft of the Maythorn Farm, while she, Velvet, lay crouching, hidden in the shadows.This was Patience Woods, the house-maid, supposed to be concerned in the attack on Sir Huntly, a woman for whom the police had long been searching.In a flash all this seemed revealed to Velvet, this and other things, which she felt as if she had known all her life long, somehow had forgotten, and suddenly had remembered again.She was not at all surprised when the woman darted forward, and stood close to her and to Donald.Even in the moonlight one could see that the hand she stretched out was bony and claw-like.Donald thought that she was a beggar, and began to feel for his purse."I know you, Patience Wood," said Velvet."That is not my name," a hoarse voice answered; "any more than yours is Velvet Snow. Ah, you won't be inclined to forgive me! Do you recollect once you told me that you never thought of your mother without horror?""Yes," Velvet answered, slowly; "because she abandoned me.""She died when you were born. Do you understand?""You told me that my father was a scoundrel.""He was unforgiving, hard, proud. He was not a thief, not a drunkard. He was respectable. He was, he is, a—a gentleman; one," wheeling about and addressing Donald-"one whom you have looked up to all your life. Sir Huntly Stanford is the father of Velvet Snow.** who is his lawful, legitimate daughter, born in the honorable bonds of wedlock,


christened in the town of Marburgh, in the United States, at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul."Velvet felt that this was true—no fiction, no falsehood, no tale "trumped up" for a purpose, but a strange, astounding fact.As for Donald, he was inclined, as a man of the world, to doubt the whole story, to throw cold water on the romance so suddenly woven and presented to him."You can not suppose, madame," he said, addressing the strange woman, "that your unlikely story will be accepted by people who can reason for themselves; and you do wrong to try and make this young lady believe an untruth.""Yes, Donald Stanford, if it were untrue, I should do wrong; but it is true. I will not waste more words, however, on this subject. I must see your uncle. You shall be present; likewise Velvet, whose real name is Gwendolyn. I have the copy of her baptismal certificate in my bosom, also that of the marriage of Sir Huntly Stanford in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, in the little obscure town of Marburgh, in the United States."Oh, bring me into the presence of Sir Huntly! True, he has long—long ago forbidden me to appear before him. He has refused to speak a word to me; and he would again refuse, if it were not that I can take his daughter by the hand, whom he believes dead, and say to him: 'Look into her face, and though you have not seen it since it was the face of an infant, you will read the story of the past upon it.'"Then, turning to Velvet, the strange creature cried:"Speak, child—speak! Do you forgive a repentant sinner?" Velvet was white as marble. The sea and the shore seemed to run into each other. She staggered.Donald encircled her with his strong arm."Fear nothing!' he said, passionately. I will defend you with my life, Velvet. Trust me. You have in me the most faithful servant.""Not servant," she said, tenderly.In that little moment their hearts were shown to each other, and the rapture of loving and being loved filled them both with that ecstasy compared to which all other earthly bliss is as tinsel to the jewels of Golconda."Do you forgive your enemy, Gwendolyn, whom they have called Velvet? Answer me, child.""Forgiveness," said Velvet, "is the duty of every human being; and the greater the wrong done, the greater the need


of forgiving it. Yes, I forgive you, for I believe that sorrow of some kind must have made you mad. Was it so?""I will not excuse myself," the woman answered. "I might say some things which should make you pity me—even me; and to-morrow you shall hear me, for I will tell the whole story to Sir Huntly in your presence. Such as I am, I am a converted woman. I have pretended before now to become a reformed drunkard, and I have reformed for months, and then got tipsy again. But now I am growing old, and my time is short, and I wish to repair what evils I have done. I call no names. I do not revile. Only to-morrow you shall judge between me and your father. Good-night."As the woman spoke, she turned and walked swiftly away. Donald looked at Velvet."You don't believe that woman, do you?""Yes, I believe her thoroughly."While she spoke, she saw Patience Wood approaching them again."Promise to meet me with Donald Stanford in Sir Huntly's private sitting-room at the Clarence Hotel tomorrow at one o'clock. He expects me.""I promise," said Velvet.The woman bowed her head, and then walked away at a rapid pace.CHAPTER XLV.How it came to pass that before Donald and the girl, whom we will always call Velvet, went again into the drawing-room through the open French window, betrothed lovers, neither of them could remember or explain; but some few words, burning from Love's furnace, were spoken by the young soldier; and the maiden's answers showed him that he reigned, and always had reigned, as the hero and king of her heart."Since first I watched you skate upon the pond," she said, "and, oh! long before that, you were always my ideal.""And I was blind.""Nay, I was a silly child; and, oh! what hats I used to wear, and what boots!"And so these happy lovers laughed.That night Sir Huntly, who was staying at the Clarence Hotel, received the following letter:
"You have forbidden me your presence, Sir Huntly, and I have worked you a great wrong in revenge; now I repent. If


you were cruel, I was wicked.  I wish to atone.  I ask for no reward.  We must all forgive one another some day.  It is an eternal law."Sir Huntly shivered. The tone of the woman was changed—a wicked woman! Yes, he knew how wicked she had been. Cruel?—had he been cruel? He was an unforgiving man; he could not help his nature—he was a very unforgiving man. Well, he would see this wretched woman, and refer her to Cave Curtis, as usual. He did not believe in her repentance, and yet—well—he would see her.His dreams that night were troubled. He had written to the address the woman gave him—a mean address—and he had said:"Come; I shall expect you; but I shall have witnesses, protectors. The truth may come out now once for all. I am sick of hiding it."And then the very next morning he said to Donald, who came to breakfast with him:"Donald, I wish you to be a witness to a strange interview which I have promised to a woman who was once my betrothed, and might have been my wife. Cave Curtis, strangely enough, is coming to-day. We will find out what this woman wants. Are you surprised?""Yes—no," said Donald. "I saw this woman last night, and she made me promise to be present at this interview, and she says—but can it be true?—that Velvet Snow, the beautiful, gifted genius, who was brought up at Ellsmere—you have heard of her even long ago—Mr. Hibbit's protégée—""Yes, yes; speak on!" cried Sir Huntly. "She was a foundling! What of that poor child?""Well, this woman says that Velvet is your lawful child."The baronet became ghastly white, and Donald hastened to give him brandy."What a mercy," he said, after he had recovered a little, "that you have broken this news! If she had brought the child suddenly, I should have fainted, I am such a weak old wreck. Tell me, Donald, what is this girl like?""She is beautiful; she is inspired by genius, and I think she is as good as an angel. I love her, Sir Huntly.""But after all she may not be my child. I must have it proved. Wait till one o'clock. You shall help me to decide."Velvet felt like one in a day-dream all through the waking hours that followed her parting with Donald, and right up to the hour when, gracefully dressed in a plain, cream-colored gown, with a touch of scarlet at the wrists and throat, and wearing a broad-leafed hat, which shaded, without hiding, her really beautiful face, she went out, side by side, with Donald, her betrothed, her beloved, to meet the rich and titled man whom she had been told was her father.Hitherto she had only seen Sir Huntly Stanford at a distance , riding along the country lanes, or in his pew at church, etc., and she had never spoken to the reserved gentleman in her life; never caught his eye. Nothing had ever happened to make her think of him except that he was the uncle of her hero.When she walked up the handsome stircase of the hotel, her heart beat fast with excitement. Soon she and Donald stood in the elegant private room of Sir Huntly.The windows were open to the wide balcony filled with flowers; beyond were the gardens, and then the sea.Almost immediately a door at the end of the room opened, and Sir Huntly walked straight across the room, holding out his hand to Velvet. He was pale, but his eyes flashed with excitement. Something—what was it?—in his face spoke volumes to her. Instinct, nerves, prejudice in favor of that idea that this gentleman, always respected by the world, was her father?She did did not know, but when he clasped her hand and looked with scrutinizing eyes into her face, she trembled and burst into tears."Sit down, my dear," said Sir Huntly, "and compose yourself. I think, somehow, that if you and I find that we are father and child, we shall talk to each other very kindly; and if we are not, well—we shall still be friends, I fancy, but we must hear what the person has to say who claims to know you."Just at this moment the door fell back, and the servant announced:"Mrs. Pope."Ah! What a strange-looking visitor for a baronet! A woman clad in a black, straight, neat gown, a large bonnet, a square white tippet, the costume of some worthy sisterhood. Her face was plain by reason of the scar caused by the passing over it of the heavy cart-wheel, of which we told our readers—a pale face; but the great eyes were wonderful, and Sir Huntly shrunk from their light.She advanced toward him. He retreated, but he bowed, and he placed a chair for her."I will not sit," she said, calmly, "not now. I will stand and tell you"—looking round on Donald and Velvet—"the story of my life. I have been a very wicked woman!"Sir Huntly had seated himself. He was looking at the odd visitor with piercing, keen eyes, in which no love, nor even the memory of love, mingled; but the marvelous change in the daring creature who had hitherto gloried in her lawlessness, astonished him."You once promised to make me your wife, Sir Huntly, did you not?""Yes, madame," he answered, firmly."In the States you dropped your title, and were not known as Sir Huntly Stanford, of Stanford Hall. Twenty-one years ago you were traveling in the States, a gay but not dissipated bachelor. You were traveling incog. as Mr. Stanford, so as to enjoy more privacy, and I was a public singer. I was as handsome as I am now hideous. I was a bold, bad, heartless, ambitious woman. Somehow you fell in love with me or with my voice. For my own part, when I found that you were rich, I tried my best to fascinate you. You promised to marry me, in writing, that gave you into my power. I didn't love, or even like you—you were too exacting—too stiff. I loved fast ways; I loved license in speech and action; I loved, more than all things, drink! You found this out; your love became disgust, and you offered me a large sum of money—five thousand pounds—to set you free. I accepted with delight, and even promised to sign a paper releasing you from all my claims."Before I did this, you had actually paid me the money—a thousand at a time—which my friend, Anthony Cleaver, said he would invest for me; then, Sir Huntly, you fell madly in love with the very young daughter of a poor clergyman. She loved you also, and you married her in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Marburgh; but though I felt annoyed, I was not mad with rage until Anthony, who has a knack of finding out everything, discovered that you were a rich English baronet, with a title and a fine ancestral seat, and an income of forty thousand or more a year. Then I was savage —I began to plan revenge."You had bought a lovely villa for your bride, and there you lived with her for a year. You were into two loving doves, but you only called yourselves Mr. and Mrs. Stanford; then your daughter was born, and the next day your wife


died. Your grief was intense, and you would have been mad had not your love turned toward the child. When I heard how much you loved the infant, I made up my mind to a desperate vengeance. I resolved to steal it; but I let you keep it till it was nearly two years old, so that your love and sorrow should be all the deeper. At last I heard that you intended to start with the child for England, and when there you meant to announce your marriage and widowhood. You did start with the baby and a nurse."My rage against that child, who was to be brought up as a model young lady, was intense. At first I thought I would steal the girl and bring her up in misery. Ah! you all shudder, but you forget I am only telling you of the evil thoughts of my heart; and most of us human beings know that we have had thoughts at different times which would make other people shudder."Well, but I did not act so. I came over in the same steamer with Sir Huntly, in disguise, as a steerage passenger. I stained my face; I dyed my hair. I stole into the cabin one night when the child was asleep. It was dressed. I took it up. It was a brave child, and did not cry."Sir Huntly will remember what happened. He was not on deck; but the others told him what I said, that a child had crept up the stars on to the deck, and that I saw it creep to the side of the ship. It was a dark night, and the sea was rough."I told the people that a wave had washed a little child overboard. I pretended to scream and faint. I had a confederate, of course—Anthony Cleaver—to whom I had in the darkness of the night at once given the child.The child was dressed, as I said. He quickly changed it, good clothes for some mean ones we had provided, and we took that child to the steerage as our own. One child more or less among the miserable little creatures was not noticed."Sir Huntly mourned desperately the loss of the infant."Ask me for no more details of an ill-spent life, of how I managed to smuggle the child on shore at Liverpool, of how I kept it as an instrument of vengeance against the man who, hated me, and whom I hated."I dressed the child in the nice clothes it had worn, and left it on the work-house steps at Yarrow Leas, the town near which was the lordly seat of the man whom I now knew was a baronet.I passed a day or two at the house of an inquisitive old woman named Pringle, whom I paid very well for accommo-


dation and board. I met her accidentally in the general shop in the village of Ellsmere."She had heard of the child, so well dressed, left on the work-house steps; and some feeling prompted me to tell that woman enough to make her think it was to her interest to keep an eye on the babe, whom I represented as being the child of a lady of high rank, who would claim it some day; and I gave the greedy creature a few sovereigns to look, in some measure, after it, and to hold her tongue."You know that it ended in her adopting the child as a drudge, giving her a board-school education, and a few other advantages, watching meanwhile anxiously for the great dame who was to turn up some day and make her a present of a thousand pounds or so."Well, I went away with my old companion Anthony, and we spent the five thousand pounds in a few years. I came back and haunted the neighborhood of Stanford Hall. I wished to see Sir Huntly, and get money from him."I always had taken too much stimulant, but now I was a real inebriate. I met with an accident which destroyed my good looks, and I was taken to the hospital, and after that I shrunk from going before Sir Huntly.At last I entered his service as a house-maid. It was during those months when I put a restraint upon myself and became sober. Then I found that he was going to be married."The idea that another woman—a mere girl—was about to usurp the place that should have been mine, drove me mad. I made up my mind to stop the marriage."I thought, though, that first I would make him see me, and I wrote him a note the night before his intended marriage, making an appointment with him."I stole down to the library in the dead of the night, and I found what I believed was his murdered body, with the rain splashing in at the open windows, mingling with the blood on the floor; the awful howling of the dog, the noise of the storm, the sight of what I thought was the corpse of the man—all acted like some fearful drug on my brain."I can't tell you how it was, but in that fearful moment I saw myself as I was—a sinner, unworthy the sacred name of woman. A great fear possessed me. I fancied that I should be accused of the murder, because I had used such threats in speaking of Sir Huntly to various people; and something of this sort did happen, for a reward was offered for my apprehension, and I was supposed to have a confederate who had


murdered Sir Huntly, because his watch and purse were gone. In reality I fled away and hid in barns and outhouses."I had several pounds in my possession, and I soon entered a large town and bought clothes, and disguised my hair and complexion, and, under a false name, I entered at last a sisterhood in the neighborhood of London, and there I have been ever since."I have come here to tell the truth, to restore the daughter to her father, and to submit to any punishment the law may inflict, if it even be imprisonment for life."Nobody can look on my past with such horror, such loathing, as I regard it with. The tears of repentance shall wash my footsteps for the remainder of my life."The penitent—for such she was—paused and stood with folded hands, looking on the ground.Sir Huntly's voice rose, calm and clear, and he said:"How am I to know that this is my child?""Look at this," said the visitor. As she spoke, she handed Sir Huntly a small plain gold locket. On one side were the initials G. S., on the other was engraved the coat of arms of the Stanfords. Sir Huntly seized this gold ornament with eager hands; he opened it. It contained a lock of fair hair on one side, on the other an exquisite face, painted on ivory—a face which he had loved, and which had been pillowed on his breast—the face of his dead wife. "How did that come into my hands?" said Patience Wood, with a sad smile. "Do you not remember that it was made for your child, and that she often wore it round her neck? When I stole the baby, she wore it attached by a string of beads of pure gold. Those I sold long ago for drink, but the locket I have kept as a proof of the truth of my story."Then Sir Huntly went close to Velvet, and looked her intently in the face; next he looked at the painting; the likeness was wonderful. He took the girl's hand."I acknowledge you," he said, quietly; "there is a look in those gray eyes which was there when you were an infant; they are still of the same color, and you had those thick black lashes then. Such wonderful lashes, I never forgot them. And all these years I have believed that my baby-girl had really crept up the stairs in the night and fallen over the vessel's side."As he spoke, he kissed Velvet calmly on the forehead."Henceforth you are my daughter and heiress."Patience Wood returned to her sisterhood, and refused the pension which Sir Huntly would have settled upon her. Hers was a true and earnest reformation, a real conversion from the ways of evil to the paths of right.How it was that her evil companion, Anthony Cleaver, had traced out Velvet, and made that strange appointment with her, was never known.One morning there was a long account in the paper of the violent death, in a street riot, of a young English gentleman in Chicago—Roland Stanford by name, and heir to a baronetcy. Sir Huntly Stanford, though, had cut him off without a shilling, through some unfortunate feeling of jealousy.Donald turned deathly white; Sir Huntly asked to see the paper. He read the account calmly to the end; then, lifting a pale face from the paper, he said to Donald:"Come to my room; the time has arrived for me to explain my harsh conduct."Donald went to his room, and then Sir Huntly said to him:"Donald, it was Roland who tried to murder me, and who left me for dead on the floor of the library. When I recovered consciousness, the whole thing came back to my mind with all its distressing details—how he was walking like a maniac on the grass in front of the library windows at one o'clock in the morning before the storm broke, thinking, I suppose, that not only had he lost his bride, but his heirship most likely; and then, when he saw me enter, an evil spirit took possession of him; he rushed in, seized the poker, and attacked me in a silent fury. I don't know how it was that I did not raise my voice, but I suppose shame for him held me dumb. Strange the dog did not attack him. I was unarmed, and before I knew it, I had received a heavy blow on the head. He must have taken my watch and purse, and thrown them away, to make it appear that the deed was the work of a common thief. After my recovery he knew well the cause of my enmity; in fact, Cave Curtis told him, at my request, and he fled away, and you see he has come to a bad end."Donald did not reproach his unforgiving uncle; but the conscience of Sir Huntly must have spoken to him at times, and on that secret tribunal we have no right to intrude.And Bethel? asks the reader. Mrs. Roland Stanford's beauty was gone forever. Nobody who had looked upon that enchanting loveliness could have recognized the young lady's scarred face. What the blow was to her vanity must be left to the 
imagination to conceive. Bethel had noble qualities


—at least, none that, were visible to limited human comprehension. Self was so completely her idol, that she seemed' incapable even for an instant of taking the well-being of another into consideration. Jane's faithful kindness she was not even grateful for.Sir Huntly, meanwhile, as she was the widow of his nephew, settled two hundred a year upon her for life. She has now quite recovered in health, only her beauty is destroyed."Jane," she said, suddenly, to her sister one day—the Vernons had taken a pretty furnished cottage by the sea-"Jane, is it true you have refused the rich old Earl of Roydon?""Quite true," said Jane in a low tone."I have been thinking," said Bethel, "that if you will write to John, I will marry him now. He has made a heap of money, and he visits wherever he likes. I shall go to Paris and try some new cosmetics. Do you think he thought me very ugly the last time he saw me?"Jane knew how shocked John had been—John, whose complete innocence of the crime she had once suspected him of had been established, for Sir Huntly had made a public statement, saying that he knew who his assailant (who was dead) had been; that he did this to exonerate all other disappointed suitors for the hand of Miss Vernon, for rumors to the effect that the barrister had been wild with jealousy had got about."Tell me, Jane," said Bethel, sharply, "will you write and tell John I'll have him now?""Bethel, I have promised to be John's wife.""Good Heaven!" said Bethel, bitterly. "I won't live with you—I'll go abroad!"And she did, and lived on her two hundred a year at moderate-priced continental boarding-houses. She is still vivacious, dresses stylishly—for John allows her a hundred a year for her clothes—and she is always trying new cosmetics in the vain hope of restoring her beauty.Poor, selfish Bethel!We have not many words more to speak of our heroine Velvet. When the happiness of a full life is awarded to any human being, there is little scope left for the story-teller and romancer.Velvet, the heiress of Sir Huntly Stanford, who soon became the idol of her father—Velvet, the happy affianced bride of her cousin Donald, whom she loved with the romantic first love of youth, and who loved her passionately—Velvet, whose stage triumphs were to be devoted henceforth only to the


cause of charity now and then, on great occasions, can not interest the reader so much as Velvet, the impassioned student of histrionic art with her fortune unmade, her love unreturned, her parentage unknown.Velvet's happiness is full, complete. Her days pass on like the golden tide of some grand river flowing through a beautiful and fertile land. Donald is virtually the master of Stanford Hall. Sir Huntly is more of a recluse than ever, and his affection for his daughter seems to strengthen and deepen as the days pass on. Wealth and honor are hers, and the fondest love that husband ever gave to wife is hers also. The last time we heard of the family at Stanford Hall, there was a lovely infant boy beginning to patter about the corridors and halls, filling the old house with the glad laughter of childhood, and Velvet was rejoicing in the name of mother.The boy is christened Donald.THE END., Advert included in back of Clay's "New Love or Old?" Advert included in back of Clay's "New Love or Old?" Back Cover of Clay's "New Love or Old?"