Keturah can bear a great deal, but there comes a limit even to her proverbial patience. She burst open the door without ceremony, and is under the impression that Amram received a shaking such as even his tender youth was a stranger to. It effectually woke him to consciousness, as well as to the gasping and particularly senseless remark, "What on earth was she wringing his neck for?" As if he mightn't have known! She has the satisfaction of remembering that he was asked in return, "Did he expect a solitary unprotected female to keep all his murderers away from him, as well as those wolves she drove off the other night?" However, there was no time to be wasted in tender words, and before a woman could have winked Amram made his appearance dressed and armed and sarcastically incredulous. Keturah grasped the pistol, and followed him at a respectful distance. Stay in the house and hold the light? Catch her! She would take the light with her, and the house too, if necessary, but she would be in at the death. She wishes Mr. Darley were on hand, to immortalize the picture they made, scouring the premises after those exceedingly disobliging burglars-especially Keturah, in the green wrapper, with her hair rolled all up in a huge knob on top of her head, to keep it out of the way, and her pistol held out at arm's-length, pointed, falteringly, directly at the stars. She will inform the reader confidentially—tell it not in Gath—of a humiliating discovery she made exactly four weeks afterward, and which she has never before imparted to a human creature-it wasn't loaded. Well; they peered behind every door, they glared into every shadow, they squeezed into every crack, they dashed into every corner, they listened at every cranny and crevice, step and turn. But not a burglar! Of course not. regiment might have run away while Amram was waking up. A Keturah thinks it will hardly be credited that this hopeful person dared to suggest and dares to maintain that it was cats! The insult is rendered more glaring by the fact that Amram is nothing but a Sophomore in Yale College. But she must draw the story of her afflictions to a close. And lest her "solid" reader's eyes reject the rambling recital as utterly unworthy the honor of their notice, she is tempted to whittle it down to a moral before saying farewell. For you must know that Keturah has learned several things from her mournful experience. 1. That every individual of her acquaintance, male and female, aged and youthful, orthodox and heretical, who sleeps regularly nine hours out of the twenty-four, has his or her own especial specimen recipe of a "perfectly harmless anodyne" to offer, with advice thrown in. 2. That nothing ever yet put her to sleep but a merciful Providence. 3. A great respect for Job. 4. That the notion commonly and conscientiously received by very excellent people, that wakeful nights can and should be spent in prayer, religious meditation, and general spiritual growth, is all they know about it. Hours of the extremest bodily and mental exhaustion, when every nerve is quivering as if laid bare, and the surface of the brain burning and whirling to agony, with the reins of control let loose on every evil and every senseless thought, are not the times most likely to be chosen for the purest communion with God. To be sure, King David "remembered Him upon his bed, and meditated upon Him in the night-watches." Keturah does not undertake to contradict Scripture, but she has come to the conclusion that David was either a very good man, or he didn't lie awake very often. But, over and above all, haec fabula docet: 5. That people who can sleep when they want to should keep Thanksgiving every day in the year. directly." "No, don't. I want to come up there." And she came. "Now tell me what you are doing among these old books," as she seated herself on a pile made up of the Spectator, the Rambler, and others of that ilk. "Only arranging them, to save aunt Edith the trouble." All these volumes of the Blackwood and the Metropolitan I shall take down to the book-shelves in the hall. Helen asked for some of them this morning. The dear old books! they have been meat and drink to us, Kate." "It is agreed," I answered. "You will be spared no details. I have never had a chance to write as many letters as I liked. I have made extensive investments in paper and envelopes, and I have never yet tried a pen which wrote as fast as my new one, aunt Edith's pretty gift." Dear aunt Edith; how little we motherless was in Washington Street, and I came to one of there is to be read at this tea-table a letter from those places I never can go by without stopping-Lou. It is to be minutely circumstantial, a real one of those book-stalls, the volumes all marked Bilderbuch ohne Bilder. Is it agreed?" twenty-five cents each. Miss Emerson was with me; she bought lots of odd volumes of Jean Paul. And there was this Uhland, and I seized on it for you. We were at Chickering's that morning. Oh, Lou! when my ship comes in you shall never again play those sonatas on that poor little old Broadwood. You shall have the very sweetest-toned Chickering, with the dark-girls had known the want of kindness! est rosewood and the whitest ivory in the whole had been to us father and mother both. world." After tea I finished my packing, and thought "Wouldn't it be pleasant if that ship of yours the while how much I should miss Kate's lilting. should come, Kate?" She had caught up "Wandering Willie;" but, finding it a little too sad for that particular evening, dashed away instead into "The Braes of Balquither." "You see it is stopping here and there and every where to take in freight, sister Lou. Spices and fruits, and silks and pearls; and, while I am about it, gold-dust and diamonds and rubies." "You would like to be rich, Kate?" "Then old Mr. Colfax should never wear that rusty over-coat more. His wife, dear old Mrs. Colfax, should have a new black silk gown stiff with richness. The parlor should have a new carpet, real Brussels, wood-color and crimson. In the house should be a furnace, and in the cellar unlimited fuel. A new fence around the garden-" Kate, come down and finish the ironing while the irons are hot." This from Helen below. "Au revoir, mes chateaux. Coming, Lady Helen." And presently I heard ringing out "Logie o' Buchan." What a rich, clear voice it was! reaching without effort the highest tones of that sweet old melody. I had heard it till it was familiar as summer rain, yet I stopped and listened. The house, I thought, would never be very lonely for aunt Edith and Helen, with Kate in it. I finished my work and then the tea-bell rang. There were four of us at table; aunt Edith at the head, Helen opposite her, and Grace and I at the sides. We always had tea in the library, because the windows were so pleasant-looking down the green slope to the Ashuelot, and beyond that to the West Mountain. We were cheerful that evening, though we knew it would be long before we should all meet there again. I was going away, not very far, however, and if it were needful I could come home on short notice. It was my free choice; I was glad, thankful to go. Many a comfort would reach the dear old home through this absence of mine. "It is coffee to-night," said aunt Edith. She had a particular liking for that beverage; and yet, despite our protestations, had resolutely relinquished it since the hard times came on. It was of no use that we all made the most of our own predilection for it. She persistently affirmed that it was an extravagance, and would permit its use only on especial occasions. "Now it is distinctly understood," began Kate, that every Wednesday and Saturday! VOL. XXXII.-No. 192.-3 G She There was a ring at the door. It was old Mr. Colfax, our clergyman; he had come with his wife to bid me good-by. "Louise," said Mr. Colfax, "I have met Miss Thorndyke, of Longwood, and you will find her a gentlewoman." "That is pleasant," I replied; "I thought so from her letters." "Yes, yes," he went on. "I once offered her my seat in the cars, and not only she thanked me, but she would not take it at all till she saw me provided with another. Yes, she is a gentlewoman." "When I am traveling in the cars, if any one offers me a seat I will remember what you have told me of Miss Thorndyke," said I. "I dare say you will, my dear," he replied. "I hope you will. Courtesy is like charity, in that it covers a multitude of sins. 'Be courteous;' that, you know, is a Scripture injunction." "Louise," said Mrs. Colfax, "I hope you will not learn to love the new home better than the old. Young persons are fond of change. I should be sorry if you left off caring most for home. I don't believe you will, my dear. I do not really think there is danger of that." I thought there was little danger of that. I loved so well the dear old house, every nook and corner. I loved every branch of the elms and maples that were grouped around it-trees that grandfather Reid had set out when he was a young man. Especially I loved the tall, fragrant pines, that sang at my window their low, sweet song all through the summer nights. They had sung me to sleep ever since I could remember. I went to the gate with our old friends, and as I came up the walk again I was sure I could never in the world so entirely love another place, and I thanked Heaven from a full heart that it was in my power to exchange a year or two of my life for the means of retaining the homestead. There was nothing more to be done. We went to bed early that night, because we must rise early in the morning, and by dint of lying still, that I might not hinder Kate from sleeping, myself lapsed away into the land of dreams. I A shaft of sunlight shot directly into my face awoke me. There was only just time for break- | idea that the world in which she lived was dif fast, when Tim Evans appeared at the gate with ferent from mine. the rockaway which was to convey myself and my belongings to the railway station a mile distant. Farewells were cheerily spoken, Kate's wet with a few flashing tears, and I was on my way. A drive through resinous pine woods, a rapid transit over some scores of miles by railway, a noisy city station, the clattering of vehicles over paved streets, cars again, at the terminus a carriage waiting, and then another drive of half a mile, and I was at Miss Thorndyke's at Longwood. A carriage-way, bordered on one side by a well-kept hedge, and on the other by a lawn green as emerald, led to the door. The house was of that soft, neutral tint, so prevalent among the better class of dwellings in the vicinity of Boston. A veranda surrounded it, draped with a vine whose delicate green sprays drooped toward great vases of scarlet bloom. Three ladies were sitting on the veranda, and one of them came to meet me as I ascended the steps. This was Miss Thorndyke, and I remembered what I had heard of her, for her friendly manner made me directly feel at ease. Of the other ladies the elder was Miss Winthrop, and the younger Mrs. Darussy. Miss Thorndyke was a person no longer very young, and not careful to seem young. I thought her handsome. She was dark, with black eyes and eyebrows, and a great deal of soft-looking hair already threaded with gray, which she wore in a style that exactly suited her face. She was not tall, yet she appeared so, because her figure was so slight and erect. She wore a black silk dress, with snowy lace at the throat and wrists. Her only ornament was a pin which fastened her collar, a ruby set round with great pearls. Meantime my luggage had disappeared, and Miss Winthrop, offering to show me to my rooms, preceded me up a long flight of stairs, then through a wide hall with a recessed window at one end, in itself a little conservatory, while from the opposite direction the light came through panes which transmuted it into floods of rich coloring. On the right of the bay-window was the chamber assigned to me. It was a pleasant room, and as I caught the view from an open casement before me I was arrested with delighted surprise. Presently Miss Winthrop, opening a door into a closet large enough for half-a-dozen wardrobes like mine, showed me my trunks already placed there, and saying that the hour for tea was seven o'clock, left me alone. Certainly I had never seen a more attractive apartment. The furniture was faultlessly pretty and well-arranged. The soft-tinted walls were hung with engravings; the carpet was like the mossy floor of a forest scattered over with bright and delicate wild flowers, sprays of partridge-vine and ferns and vivid-hued berries. A glass of fragrant violets stood on a little worktable, and on the mantle-shelf was a charming little clock, with a vase on either side full of blue-fringed gentian and maiden-hair. But at first I did not much regard any thing except the window. This, reaching nearly to the floor, opened entirely, so that the whole frame was one undivided space, and thus, twined around with abundant tracery of foliage from the ivy outside, it made a lovely frame for a lovely picture. The lawn, intensified in color by the sunset light, and broken here and there with darker thickets of shrubs, sloped to a sheet of shining water. A fairy boat-house terminaMiss Winthrop had a pure, sweet look, as if ted a narrow pier extending a little way from nothing unclean could approach her. She was the shore. From the opposite side of the waolder than Miss Thorndyke, but her smooth ter a forest of trees climbed one above another to chestnut hair had not a thread of gray. Her a rock-crowned summit. One single edifice, forehead was white and calm, and from beneath with graceful white towers, looked from its fasit looked out two clear brown eyes, at once pen-ness above. Over all-for the aspect was westetrating and frank, and her voice in speaking ward-in a sky of palest green were burning was particularly cheery and cordial. red sunset clouds. Mrs. Darussy impressed me at the first glance as a beautiful woman charmingly dressed. She wore that evening a sea-green silken tissue spotted with silver. In her really magnificent dark hair were some drooping clusters of delicate white flowers. I do not even now know the color of her eyes; they looked sometimes blue, sometimes dark-gray. The eyebrows straight and narrow, and the long curving lashes were black. She was very white, with only the faintest tinge of color on her checks, and this just matching, I thought, the bands of pink coral around her neck and arms. The bracelets kept slipping down, and when she pushed them back you saw how lovely the arms were, and how much fairer than the profusion of white lace which floated around them. She moved with grace and spoke in well-bred tones; and something in her demeanor suggested to me the While I sat and looked and thought that I could never look enough, the clock on the mantle-piece chimed out into the already dusk silence seven silvery sounds, and before the last had ceased I heard the summons to tea. Miss Winthrop met me on the stairs and led me to the table. There were two or three ladies besides those whom I had already seen, and several gentlemen. Miss Thorndyke sat at the table and poured tea, coffee, or chocolate. There was no formal gathering around, but all stood in groups or sat at pleasure; and the gentlemen served the ladies and themselves. The sounds of talking and laughter were pleasant to hear, and every thing was pleasant to see, and I sat by Miss Thorndyke and looked and listened. After tea every one went into the parlor, or else, the evening being warm, outside on the veranda. The window-curtains were raised, the blinds shut but turned, so that, as I walked up and down the veranda with Miss Winthrop, I could plainly see and distinctly hear the gay, graceful groups within. Some one asked for music, and a young lady played a fantasia with a good deal of sound and very marked rhythm, and afterward accompanied herself in a song much in the same style. We stood still and listened. Then the young lady crossed the room to the further end, where sat Mrs. Darussy. I wondered if this lady knew what a superb picture she was in that dark crimson chair-her check resting on her hand and the lace drapery partly fallen back from her wrist and arm, so revealing their perfect shape and pure, pale, flesh tint. Her eyes were bent downward, and the long fringes rested on her cheeks, whose tinge of pink was fainter than by daylight. I remembered what I had somewhere read, that paleness spiritualizes a woman's beauty, and I thought it true. No flush of health, I believed, could be so fair as that pallor. They were asking her to sing. So she sat down at the piano, and as she drew her hands over the keys in a soft, low prelude every thing else was perfectly stilled. Now, before she had begun to sing, two gentlemen came silently in at the door-that is, as silently as gentlemen can-and over Mrs. Darussy's face passed a swift, singular expression. One of these gentlemen she knew; for as he drew near and leaned against the window-frame she slightly bowed her head in recognition. I afterward heard Miss Thorndyke address him as Mr. Falkner. The other, who remained near the door, was Dr. Davidson. Every body listened while Mrs. Darussy sang; first something sweet and strange, of which I could not comprehend a word, and afterward, with exquisite skill and pathos, the Scottish ballad, "Auld Robin Gray." When she had finished no one seemed to care for any other music. The evening, as I have said, was warm, and it grew oppressive, so that the window-blinds were thrown open for air. Miss Winthrop and I sat on the window-scat and watched the groups gathering, breaking, and forming anew; and I saw that Mr. Falkner remained constantly near Mrs. Darussy. But if his aim were to draw that lady into conversation it was unsuccessful, for she spoke so little that I took it upon myself to wonder whether it was that she could not or would not talk. At length Dr. Davidson announced an impending thunder-storm. The guests separated, and every one in the house went to bed. But first I sat by my beautiful window and looked out at the lightning. The white towers over the water alternately gleamed forth and darkened back into blackness. By-and-by a clear, steady light shone from the window farthest to the right. I grew tired and sleepy and watched no more. I went to sleep and dreamed myself in Holyrood Palace, listening to the wily Dame Heron's music, only King James was Mr. Falkner, and the wily lady Mrs. Darussy. But when the storm came nearer, and the heavy thunder, peal after peal, shook the house, to sleep was impossible. In an interval of silence there came a knock at my chamber-door, and I opened it to find Mrs. Darussy standing there, a lamp in her hand, her dark hair falling all around her almost to her feet, and her great, luminous eyes wide open. In her white nightgown, with little bare feet, she looked just like a child. "I am afraid of the lightning," said she; "your room is the nearest-may I come in?" Now I have always loved and never feared the lightning. And if terror is contagious, so is its absence. Presently, when she had lain a while with my arm around her, she stopped shivering and lay quite still. "Have you sisters, Mrs. Darussy ?" I asked. "No, none," she answered; "I never had one." A minute or two afterward I felt, but did not hear, two or three little sobs. I was sorry that I had questioned her. My heart all at once felt full of love and pity for her. Not for the beautiful, nonchalant lady, but for her who, afraid of the lightning, had crept to my room, and who, in saying that she had no sisters, had sobbed, as if that had called to mind some great sorrow. At last the storm had spent itself, and from her regular breathing I thought that she was asleep. I slept myself, and soundly, for when I awoke in the morning I was alone. Breakfast was at nine. I had been a long time up, for at home we kept early hours. Mrs. Darussy was not at table, and Miss Thorndyke sent a bowl of chocolate to her room. After breakfast I was inducted into office. Miss Thorndyke took me up stairs to a room— to a chamber opposite my own. This room had a large oriel window on the south side; in the recess was a writing-table covered with books and papers. On the walls of the room werc pictures, maps, and some book-shelves. India matting covered the floor, and opposite the oriel was a little white-curtained bed. "This is my study," said Miss Thorndyke; "it is the quietest room in the house." And assigning to me my employment, she left me. It was no difficult task that lay before me. It was to make a translation into English of a German work, simple in style and easy to understand. Dictionary and grammar were before me for the solution of difficulties, and I was soon at work. I grew so absorbed in my occupation, eager as I was to accomplish it to the best of my ability and to Miss Thorndyke's acceptance, that I was not aware how rapidly the time was passing. When I had covered a few sheets Miss Thorndyke came in, and seating herself at the table, looked carefully over all that I had done. Then, avowing herself satisfied, she told me that study-hours were over, that it was already half past one, and within half an hour of dinnertime. Mrs. Darussy was at dinner. She gave me one quick, bright smile, but though the storm cent, though it looked formidable, was rendered was talked about she said nothing of having gone to my room until afterward, when I met her alone in the hall; then she thanked me with a pretty, gracious eagerness. And then I began to see in Mrs. Darussy two separate persons-one elegant, cool, well-bred, impassive; the other impetuous, affectionate, child-like, lovely. And it pleased me to watch this inner nature gleaming through its coverings, like a flame within a beautiful vase. really quite easy by a well-kept path. She said, I should have an opportunity of judging for myself if she overestimated the Pines; and when she learned that I could not row, promised me lessons in that craft. Miss Winthrop had some errands to do that afternoon; and an unexpected detention at one place prevented our reaching home till tea was over and every one gone into the parlor. When we also went thither the first object that met my glance was Mr. Falkner hovering around Mrs. Darussy. It occurred to me, After dinner I went to resume my work, but Miss Thorndyke said that four hours were enough of writing, and with great kindness made me understand that my position with her was to be that of a guest in a friend's house, and that the more I would feel myself really at home the more she would be satis-ssohn's songs without words with a facility of fied. looking at both, that his pride was enlisted in the effort to overcome her impassiveness. She did not sing this evening, pleading as excuse a slight cold; but she played some of Mendel execution which I had never seen equaled and have never since seen excelled. While she played Mr. Falkner seemed in a dream; and when she had finished-to do her justice she played till no one could venture to ask for more I found it to be a way of the house that each person disposed of the morning and afternoon hours at pleasure, independently of the rest. On pleasant days all who liked went out to walk or to ride, and the rest of the time read he thanked her with an ardor that seemed or worked, alone or with others, just as it chanced. In fact there was just as much freedom in this respect as in our own home in Keene. In the evening all were gathered in the parlor. Often there were guests, and these frequently from town-for Longwood was not more than half a mile from the station, and there were trains every two hours. A few weeks after I came to my new home Miss Winthrop took me on a long drive, and pointed out to me some of the pleasantest views in the neighborhood. That afternoon we made the discovery that Miss Winthrop was a distant relative of my mother and my aunt Edith. This was a great pleasure to me, and so was the account she gave me of some incidents of their child life, when all three used to spend months together at the home of their greataunt Lee in Cambridge. By-and-by we spoke of Mrs. Darussy, and Miss Winthrop said that Miss Thorndyke and herself were only slightly acquainted with that lady; that Mrs. Darussy had been invited to visit Miss Thorndyke's friend, Mrs. Eliot, who had met her in Baltimore. She had accepted the invitation, but through a misunderstanding had come to Boston before Mrs. Eliot's return. Mrs. Darussy had gone to the Revere House and written to Mrs. Eliot announcing her arrival. In this emergency Mr. Eliot, Miss Thorndyke's cousin, had come to her for aid, and she had good-naturedly cut the knot by going into town and bringing out the lady as her own guest. Next week Mr. Eliot expected his wife's return, and then Mrs. Darussy would probably go to them. The Eliots lived at the Pines. I could see the house from my window. It was a charming place, Miss Winthrop said, every thing about it of the best, tasteful, and elegant, like Mrs. Eliot herself. There was always a good deal of intercourse between Longwood and the Pines; they went across the water. The opposite as however scarcely to win her notice, or if it did, she was perhaps too much accustomed to such homage to receive it otherwise than as of course. The next day but one Miss Thorndyke told me that Mrs. Eliot had been detained in Cincinnati by the illness of her sister, and that therefore the period of her return was uncertain. So she had proposed to Mrs. Darussy to go for a few days to the White Mountains, and they expected to leave that afternoon. She asked me to go with them, but left me freedom of choice to do that or to remain at home with Miss Winthrop. I preferred to remain at home. I was interested in my work, and wished to get on with it. Besides, I had a secret conviction that my stay would be agreeable to Miss Winthrop. I quite enjoyed, and so did Miss Winthrop, the idea of these few days of profound quiet. To guard against any feelings of loneliness which we might experience at night, Miss Thorndyke dispatched a note to a nephew in Boston, who was to come out every evening in the seven o'clock train, and remain till morning. chanced, however, to be away from home, and thus, to our cordial acceptance, we were left alone. He They were four most pleasant days; every morning work that grew more and more engrossing; every afternoon a delightful drive; and for the evening, already of quite appreciable length, all the new magazines and the best of the new books. I had never neglected the letters home, but they were twice as long now. While we were at tea on the fourth evening Dr. Davidson came in. He had that morning met Miss Thorndyke in Boston, and had brought a message from her. The ladies were going to Nahant, and would be absent two days more. Miss Winthrop asked Dr. Davidson to stay. "I can't," he replied. "I should be charmed, but I missed the train out this afternoon, and I must go home." |