Chapter XI

One afternoon, about six months after the opening of our story, Mrs. Kinloch and her son were talking together concerning the progress of his suit. He complained that he was no nearer the point than on the first day he and Mildred rode out together. "It was like rounding Cape Horn," he said, "where a ship might lie twenty days and drift back as fast as she got ahead by tacking." In spite of all his attention and kindness, Mildred was merely courteous in return;--he could not get near her. If she smiled, it seemed as though it was from behind a grating, as in a nunnery. Her pulse was always firm; and if her eye was soft, it was steady as the full moon. He didn't believe she had any blood in her. If she was in love with that fellow, she kept it pretty closely covered up.

Mrs. Kinloch encouraged her son to persevere; she was sure he had not been skilful. "Mildred," she said, "was not to be won with as little trouble as a silly, low-bred girl, like--like Lucy, for instance."

"What the deuse are you always bringing up Lucy to me for?" said the dutiful son.

"Don't speak so!"

"Confound it! I must. You keep a fellow shut up here for six months, going to meeting five times a week; you give him no chance to work off his natural spirits, and the devil in him will break out somewhere. It's putting a stopper in a volcano; if you don't allow a little fire and smoke, you're bound to have an earthquake."

After this philosophical digression, the first topic was resumed, and Mrs. Kinloch gave the young man some counsel, drawn from her own experience or observation, touching the proper mode of awakening and cultivating the tender passion. It is not every mother that does so much for her son, but then few mothers have so urgent a motive.

"What was it that she advised him to do," did you ask? Really, I've quite forgotten; and I am sure Mrs. Kinloch forgot also, at least for that day, because something occurred which turned her thoughts for the time in quite a different direction.

The ponies were brought out for Hugh and Mildred to take their customary canter. The young heiress, for whom so much time and pains were spent, looked ill; the delicate flush had vanished from her cheek; she seemed languid, and cheerful only by effort. A moment after they had gone, as Mrs. Kinloch closed the door, for it was a raw November day, she saw and picked up a rudely-folded letter in the hall. "Good-bye, Lucy Ransom," were the words she read. They were enough. Mrs. Kinloch felt that her heart was struck by a bolt of ice. "Poor, misguided, miserable girl!" she said. "Why did I not see that something was wrong? I felt it, I knew it,--but only as one knows of evil in a dream. Who can calculate the mischief that will come of this? O God! to have my hopes of so many years ruined, destroyed, by a wretch whose power and existence even I had not once thought of! Has she drowned herself, or fled to the city to hide her disgrace? But if this should be imagination merely! She may have run away with some lubberly fellow from the factory, whom she was ashamed to marry at home. But no! she was too sad last evening when she asked to go to her grandmother's for a day. What if"--The thought coursed round her brain like fire on a train of gunpowder,--flew quicker than words could utter it; and the woman bounded to her bureau, as though with muscles of steel. She clutched at the papers and bank-notes in her private drawer, and looked and counted them over a dozen times before she could satisfy herself. Her thin fingers nervously opened the packages and folds,--the papers crackling as her eye glanced over them. They were there; but not all. She pored over the mystery,--her thoughts running away upon every side-avenue of conjecture, and as often returning to the frightful, remediless fact before her. She was faint with sudden terror. By degrees she calmed herself, wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, smiled at her fright, and sat down again, with an attempt at self-control, to look through the drawers thoroughly. As she went on, the tremor returned, and before she had finished the fruitless search her heart beat so as to stop her breath; she gasped in an agony that the soul rarely feels more than once in this life. She shut up the drawers, walked up and down the room, noticed with a shudder her own changed expression as she passed before the mirror, and strove in vain to give some order to her confused and tumultuous thoughts. At length she sat down exhausted. She was startled by a knock. Opening the door, there in a newly-furbished suit, with clean linen, and a brown wig worn for the first time on his hitherto shining head, stood Theophilus Clamp. He had even picked a blossom from the geranium in the hall and was toying with it like a bashful boy.

"A fine day, Ma'am!" said he, as he took a seat.

"Yes, very," she answered, mechanically, scarcely looking up.

"The young folks have gone out to ride, I suppose."

"Yes, Sir."--A pause, in which Mrs. Kinloch covered her face with her handkerchief.

"You don't seem well, Ma'am. Shall I call Lucy?"

"Lucy is gone," she answered,--quickly adding, "gone to her grandmother's."

"Well, that is singular. I've been today to look at my land above the old lady's house, and she asked me to send word to Lucy to come up and see her."

"To-day?"

"Yes, Ma'am; not two hours ago."

Mrs. Kinloch was rapidly revolving probabilities. What interest had Lucy to interfere with her affairs? As for Mildred, she was not to be thought of as prying into secrets; she was too innocent. Hugh was too careless. Who more than this man Clamp was likely to have done or procured the mischief? "Have you given her the message?"

"Of course not, Ma'am,--how could I?"

"Then you haven't sent Lucy away on any errand?"

"Certainly not, Madam," said the lawyer, beginning to wince under the cross-examination. "Lucy's gone, you say; didn't she leave things all right,--your papers, and--and so forth?"

"Papers? Lucy is not presumed to know that I have any papers; if any are missing, I'll warrant they are in the hands of some one who knows at least enough to read them."

"She suspects me," thought the lawyer, "but can't have discovered that hers are only copies; they're too well done." He then added aloud, "Perhaps, Mrs. Kinloch, if you had honored me, your associate in the administration of the estate, with your confidence touching the private papers you speak of, I might have saved you some trouble in keeping them."

"Very likely; but no one spoke of papers beside yourself," she replied, with a trace of sarcasm in the tone which ill suited the expression of her pallid face and drooping head.

"I'm sorry to see you looking so careworn, Mrs. Kinloch," said he, with his blandest air. "I intended to bring up a topic more agreeable, it is to be hoped, than runaway house-maids or old documents." He rubbed his hands softly and turned his eyes with a glance meant to be tender towards the place where her chair stood; if he had been a cat, he would have purred the while.

Mrs. Kinloch now, for the first time, observed the wig, the unusual look of tidiness, and, above all, the flower in his hand; she also saw the crucified smile that followed his last remark. "The ridiculous old fool!" thought she,--"what can he mean?" But to him she translated it,--

"What is the more agreeable topic?"

"Really, you attack me like a lawyer. Don't you know, my dear Madam, how it confuses one to be sharply interrogated?"

"It would be something novel to see you confused, Squire Clamp."

"Pray, don't banter, Mrs. Kinloch. I hoped to find you in a more complaisant humor. There are topics which cannot be discussed with the square precision of legal rules,--thoughts that require sympathy before they can be expressed." And he dropped his eyes with a ludicrous sigh.

"Oh, I appreciate your tender susceptibilities. Please consider me as asking the question again in the most engaging manner."

His new wig was becoming uncomfortable, and he fidgeted in his chair, twirling the luckless blossom.

"Why, Mrs. Kinloch, the long regard I entertained for your late lamented husband,--ah, I mean my regard for you,--ah, my lonely domicil,--ah, since the decease of my--my sainted wife,--ah, and since the Scripture says it is not good for man to live alone,--ah, your charming qualities and many virtues,--not that your fortune,--ah,--I mean to say, that, though not rich, I am not grasping,--and the cottage where you lived would be a palace,--ah, for me, if not unworthy,--ah, no desire to unduly shorten the period of mourning,--ah, but life is short and uncertain"----

There was a dead silence. His mouth was vainly working, and his expression confused and despairing. The flower had wilted in his moist hand. Little streams of perspiration trickled down his face, to be mopped up by his bandanna. Such was the ordeal of talking hollow sentiment to a cool and self-possessed woman. She enjoyed the exhibition for a time,--as what woman would not? But the waves of her trouble rushed back upon her, and the spirit of mischief and coquetry was overwhelmed. So she answered,--

"You are pleased to be polite,--perhaps gallant. You must excuse me from taking part in such conversation to-day, however little is meant by it,--and the less meant the better,--I am not well."

She rose feebly, and walked towards the door with as much dignity as her trembling frame could assume. He was abashed; his fine speeches jumbled in meaningless fragments, his airy castle ready to topple on his unlucky head. He would have been glad to rebuke her fickle humor, as he thought it; but he knew he had made a fool of himself, so he merely said,--

"No offence, I hope, Ma'am; none meant, certainly. Wish you good-afternoon, Ma'am. Call and see you again some day, and hope to find you better."

Would he find her better? While the mystery remained, while the ruin of her hopes impended, what could restore to her the cheerfulness, the courage, the self-command she had lost?

[To be continued.]

BRINGING OUR SHEAVES WITH US. The time for toil is past, and night has come,-- The last and saddest of the harvest-eves; Worn out with labor long and wearisome, Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home, Each laden with his sheaves. Last of the laborers thy feet I gain, Lord of the harvest! and my spirit grieves That I am burdened not so much with grain As with a heaviness of heart and brain;-- Master, behold my sheaves! Few, light, and worthless,--yet their trifling weight Through all my frame a weary aching leaves; For long I struggled with my hapless fate, And staid and toiled till it was dark and late,-- Yet these are all my sheaves. Full well I know I have more tares than wheat,-- Brambles and flowers, dry stalks, and withered leaves Wherefore I blush and weep, as at thy feet I kneel down reverently, and repeat, "Master, behold my sheaves!" I know these blossoms, clustering heavily With evening dew upon their folded leaves, Can claim no value nor utility,-- Therefore shall fragrancy and beauty be The glory of my sheaves. So do I gather strength and hope anew; For well I know thy patient love perceives Not what I did, but what I strove to do,-- And though the full, ripe ears be sadly few, Thou wilt accept my sheaves.