Captain Mayne Reid

"The Child Wife"

Chapter One.

The Isle of Peace.

Aquidnec—“Isle of Peace!”

Oh, Coddington, and ye Assistants of the General Court! what craze possessed you to change this fair title of the red aboriginal for the petty appellation of “Rhodes?”

Out upon your taste—your classic affectation! Out upon your ignorance—to mistake the “Roodt” of the old Dutch navigator for that name appertaining to the country of the Colossus!

In the title bestowed by Block there was at least appropriateness—even something of poetry. Sailing around Sachuest Point, he beheld the grand woods, red in the golden sun-glow of autumn. Flashed upon his delighted eyes the crimson masses of tree foliage, and the festoonery of scarlet creepers. Before his face were bright ochreous rocks cropping out from the cliff. Down in his log-book went the “Red Island!”

Oh, worthy Coddington, why did you reject the appellation of the Indian? Or why decree such clumsy transformation to that of the daring Dutchman?

I shall cling to the old title—“Isle of Peace”; though in later times less apt than when the Warapanoag bathed his bronzed limbs in the tranquil waters of the Narraganset, and paddled his light canoe around its rock-girt shores.

Since then, Aquidnec! too often hast thou felt the sore scathing of war. Where now thy virgin woods that rejoiced the eyes of Verrazano, fresh from Tuscan scenes? Where thy grand oaks elms, and maples? Thy green pines and red cedars? Thy birches that gave bark, thy chestnuts affording food; thy sassafras laurel, restorer of health and life?

Gone—all gone! Swept away by the torch and axe of the ruthless soldier-destroyer.

Despite thy despoliation, Aquidnec, thou art still a fair spot. Once more the Isle of Peace, the abode of Love—its very Agapemone; every inch of thy turf trodden by lovers’ feet—every ledge of thy cliffs listening to the old, old story.

Newport, in the year of our Lord 18—, in the “height of the season.”

An apartment in that most hospitable of American hostelries, the Ocean House, with a window looking westward.

On the troisième étage, commanding a continuous balcony, with a view of the Atlantic, spreading broad and blue, beyond the range of the telescope. Sachuest Point on the left, with the spray, like snowflakes, breaking over the Cormorant Rock; on the right, Beaver Tail, with its beacon; between them a fleet of fishing-craft, dipping for striped-bass and tautog; in the far offing the spread sails of a full-rigged ship, and the plume-like smoke soaring up from a steamer—both broadside to the beholder, on their way between the two great seaports of Shawmut and Manhattan.

A noble view is this opening of the great estuary of Narraganset—one upon which beautiful eyes have often rested.

Never more beautiful than those of Julia Girdwood, the occupant of the apartment above mentioned.

She is not its sole occupant. There is another young lady beside her, her cousin, Cornelia Inskip. She has also pretty eyes, of a bluish tint; but they are scarce observed after looking into those orbs of dark bistre, that seem to burn with an everlasting love-light.

In the language of the romance writer, Julia would be termed a brunette, Cornelia a blonde. Their figures are as different as their complexion: the former tall and of full womanly development, the latter of low stature, slighter, and to all appearance more youthful.

Equally unlike their dispositions. She of the dark complexion appears darker in thought, with greater solemnity of movement; while, judging by her speech, the gay, sprightly Cornelia thinks but little of the past, and still less about the future.

Robed in loose morning-wrappers, with tiny slippers poised upon their toes, they are seated in rocking-chairs, just inside the window. The eyes of both, sweeping the blue sea, have just descried the steamer coming from beyond the distant Point Judith, and heading in a north-easterly direction.

It was a fine sight, this huge black monster beating its way through the blue water, and leaving a white seething track behind it.

Cornelia sprang out into the balcony to get a better view of it.

“I wonder what boat it is?” she said. “One of the great ocean steamers, I suppose—a Cunarder!”

“I think not, Neel. I wish it was one, and I aboard of it. Thank Heaven! I shall be, before many weeks.”

“What! tired of Newport already? We’ll find no pleasanter place in Europe. I’m sure we shan’t.”

“We’ll find pleasanter people, at all events.”

“Why, what have you got against them?”

“What have they got against us? I don’t mean the natives here. They’re well enough, in their way. I speak of their summer visitors, like ourselves. You ask what they’ve got against us. A strange question!”

“I haven’t noticed anything.”

“But I have. Because our fathers were retail storekeepers, these J.’s and L.’s and B.’s affect to look down upon us! You know they do.”

Miss Inskip could not deny that something of this had been observed by her. But she was one of those contented spirits who set but little store upon aristocratic acquaintances, and are therefore insensible to its slights.

With the proud Julia it was different. If not absolutely slighting, the “society” encountered in this fashionable watering-place had in some way spited her—that section of it described as the J.’s and the L.’s and the B.’s.

“And for what reason?” she continued, with increasing indignation. “If our fathers were retail storekeepers, their grandfathers were the same. Where’s the difference, I should like to know?”

Miss Inskip could see none, and said so.

But this did not tranquillise the chafed spirit of her cousin, and perceiving it, she tried to soothe her on another tack.

“Well, Julia, if the Miss J.’s, and Miss L.’s, and Miss B.’s, look down on us, their brothers don’t. On you, I’m sure they don’t.”

“Bother their brothers! A fig for their condescension. Do you take me for a stupid, Neel? A million dollars left by my father’s will, and which must come to me at mother’s death, will account for it. Besides, unless the quicksilver in my looking-glass tells a terrible lie, I’m not such a fright.”

She might well talk thus. Than Julia Girdwood, anything less like a fright never stood in front of a mirror. Full-grown, and of perfect form, this storekeeper’s daughter had all the grand air of a duchess. The face was perfect as the figure. You could not look upon it without thoughts of love; though strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, commingled with an idea of danger. It was an aspect that suggested Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia, or the beautiful murderess of Darnley.

In her air there was no awkwardness—not the slightest sign of humble origin, or the gaucherie that usually springs from it. Something of this might have been detected in the country cousin, Cornelia. But Julia Girdwood had been stepping too long on the flags of the Fifth Avenue, to be externally distinguished from the proudest damsels of that aristocratic street. Her mother’s house was in it.

“It is true, Julia,” assented her cousin; “you are both rich and beautiful. I wish I could say the same.”

“Come, little flatterer! if not the first, you are certainly the last; though neither counts for much here.”

“Why did we come here?”

“I had nothing to do with it. Mamma is answerable for that. For my part I prefer Saratoga, where there’s less pretensions about pedigree, and where a shopkeeper’s daughter is as good as his granddaughter. I wanted to go there this season. Mother objected. Nothing would satisfy her but Newport, Newport, Newport! And here we are. Thank Heaven! it won’t be for long.”

“Well, since we are here, let us at least enjoy what everybody comes for—the bathing.”

“Pretends to come for, you mean! Dipping their skins in salt water, the Miss J.’s, and L.’s, and B.’s—much has that to do with their presence at Newport! A good thing for them if it had! It might improve their complexions a little. Heaven knows they need it; and Heaven be thanked I don’t.”

“But you’ll bathe to-day?”

“I shan’t!”

“Consider, cousin! It’s such a delightful sensation.”

“I hate it!”

“You’re jesting, Julia?”

“Well, I don’t mean that I dislike bathing—only in that crowd.”

“But there’s no exclusiveness on the beach.”

“I don’t care. I won’t go among them any more—on the beach, or elsewhere. If I could only bathe out yonder, in the deep blue water, or amid those white breakers we see! Ah! that would be a delightful sensation! I wonder if there’s any place where we could take a dip by ourselves?”

“There is; I know the very spot I discovered it the other day, when I was out with Keziah gathering shells. It’s down under the cliffs. There’s a sweet little cave, a perfect grotto, with a deepish pool in front, and smooth sandy bottom, white as silver. The cliff quite overhangs it. I’m sure no one could see us from above; especially if we go when the people are bathing. Then everybody would be at the beach, and we’d have the cliff shore to ourselves. For that matter, we can undress in the cave, without the chance of a creature seeing us. Keziah could keep watch outside. Say you’ll go, Julia?”

“Well, I don’t mind. But what about mamma? She’s such a terrible stickler for the proprieties. She may object.”

“We needn’t let her know anything about it. She don’t intend bathing to-day; she’s just told me so. We two can start in the usual style, as if going to the beach. Once outside, we can go our own way. I know of a path across the fields that’ll take us almost direct to the place. You’ll go?”

“Oh, I’m agreed.”

“It’s time for us to set out, then. You hear that tramping along the corridor? It’s the bathers about to start. Let us call Keziah, and be off.”

As Julia made no objection, her sprightly cousin tripped out into the corridor; and, stopping before the door of an adjoining apartment, called “Keziah!”

The room was Mrs Girdwood’s; Keziah, her servant—a sable-skinned damsel, who played lady’s maid for all three.

“What is it, child?” asked a voice evidently not Keziah’s.

“We’re going to bathe, aunt,” said the young lady, half-opening the door, and looking in. “We want Keziah to get ready the dresses.”

“Yes, yes,” rejoined the same voice, which was that of Mrs Girdwood herself. “You hear, Keziah? And hark ye, girls!” she added, addressing herself to the two young ladies, now both standing in the doorway, “see that you take a swimming lesson. Remember we are going over the great seas, where there’s many a chance of getting drowned.”

“Oh, ma! you make one shiver.”

“Well, well, I hope swimming may never be needed by you. For all that, there’s no harm in being able to keep your head above water, and that in more senses than one. Be quick, girl, with the dresses! The people are all gone; you’ll be late. Now, then, off with you!”

Keziah soon made her appearance in the corridor, carrying a bundle.

A stout, healthy-looking negress—her woolly head “toqued” in New Orleans style, with a checkered bandanna—she was an appanage of the defunct storekeeper’s family; specially designed to give to it an air Southern, and of course aristocratic. At this time Mrs Girdwood was not the only Northern lady who selected her servants with an eye to such effect.

Slippers were soon kicked off, and kid boots pulled on in their places. Hats were set coquettishly on the head, and shawls—for the day was rather cool—were thrown loosely over shoulders.

“Come on!” and at the word the cousins glided along the gallery, descended the great stair, tripped across the piazza outside, and then turned off in the direction of the Bath Road.

Once out of sight of the hotel, they changed their course, striking into a path that led more directly toward the cliff.

In less than twenty minutes after, they might have been seen descending it, through one of those sloping ravines that here and there interrupt the continuity of the precipice—Cornelia going first, Julia close after, the turbaned negress, bearing her bundle, in the rear.

Chapter Two.

A Brace of Naiads.

They were seen.

A solitary gentleman sauntering along the cliff, saw the girls go down.

He was coming from the direction of Ochre Point, but too far off to tell more than that they were two young ladies, followed by a black servant.

He thought it a little strange at that hour. It was bathing-time upon the beach. He could see the boxes discharging their gay groups in costumes of green and blue, crimson and scarlet—in the distance looking like parti-coloured Lilliputians.

“Why are these two ladies not along with them?” was his reflection. “Shell-gatherers, I suppose,” was the conjecture that followed. “Searchers after strange seaweeds. From Boston, no doubt. And I’d bet high that the nose of each is bridged with a pair of blue spectacles.”

The gentleman smiled at the conceit, but suddenly changed it. The sable complexion of the servant suggested a different conclusion.

“More like they are Southerners?” was the muttered remark.

After making it he ceased to think of them. He had a gun in his hand, and was endeavouring to get a shot at some of the large seabirds now and then sweeping along the escarpment of the cliff.

As the tide was still only commencing to return from its ebb, these flew low, picking up their food from the stranded algae that, like a fringe, followed the outlines of the shore.

The sportsman, observing this, became convinced he would have a better chance below; and down went he through one of the gaps—the first that presented itself!

Keeping on towards the Forty Steps, he progressed only slowly. Here and there rough ledges required scaling; the yielding sand also delayed him.

But he was in no hurry. The chances of a shot were as good at one place as another. Hours must elapse ere the Ocean House gong would summon its scattered guests to their grand dinner. He was one of them. Until that time he had no reason for returning to the hotel.

The gentleman thus leisurely strolling, is worthy a word or two by way of description.

That he was only an amateur sportsman, his style of dress plainly proclaimed. More plainly did it bespeak the soldier. A forage cap, that had evidently seen service, half shadowed a face whose deep sun-tan told of that service being done in a tropical clime; while the tint, still fresh and warm, was evidence of recent return. A plain frock-coat, of civilian cut, close buttoned; a pair of dark-blue pantaloons, with well-made boots below them, completed his semi-military costume. Added: that these garments were fitted upon a figure calculated to display them to the utmost advantage.

The face was in keeping with the figure. Not oval, but of that rotund shape, ten times more indicative of daring, as of determination. Handsome, too, surmounted as it was by a profusion of dark hair, and adorned by a well-defined moustache. These advantages had the young man in question, who, despite the appearance of much travel, and some military service, was still under thirty.

Slowly sauntering onward, his boots scranching among the pebbles, he heard but the sound of his own footsteps.

It was only on stopping to await the passage of a gull, and while calculating the carry of his gun, that other sounds arrested his attention.

These were so sweet, that the gull was at once forgotten. It flew past without his attempting to pull trigger—although so close to the muzzle of his gun he might have “murdered” it!

“Nymphs! Naiads! Mermaids! Which of the three? Proserpine upon a rock superintending their aquatic sports! Ye gods and goddesses! what an attractive tableau?”

These words escaped him, as he stood crouching behind a point of rock that abutted far out from the line of the cliff. Beyond it was the cove in which the young ladies were bathing—the negress keeping but careless watch as she sat upon one of the ledges.

“Chaste Dian!” exclaimed the sportsman; “pardon me for this intrusion. Quite inadvertent, I assure you. I must track back,” he continued, “to save myself from being transformed into a stag. Provoking, too! I wanted to go that way to explore a cave I’ve heard spoken of. I came out with this intention. How awkward to be thus interrupted!”

There was something like a lie outlined upon his features as he muttered the last reflection. In his actions too; for he still loitered behind the rock—still kept looking over it.

Plunging in pellucid water not waist-deep—their lower extremities only concealed by the saturated skirts that clung like cerements around them—their feet showing clear as coral—the two young creatures continued to disport themselves. Only Joseph himself could have retreated from the sight!

And then their long hair in full dishevelment—of two colour, black and gold—sprinkled by the pearly spray, as the girls, with tiny rose-tipped fingers, dashed the water in each other’s faces—all the time making the rocks ring with the music of their merry voices—ah! from such a picture who could comfortably withdraw his eyes?

It cost the sportsman an effort; of which he was capable—only by thinking of his sister.

And thinking of her, he loitered no longer, but drew back behind the rock.

“Deuced awkward!” he again muttered to himself—perhaps this time with more sincerity. “I wished particularly to go that way. The cave cannot be much farther on, and now to trudge all the way back! I must either do that, or wait till they’ve got through their game of aquatics.”

For a moment he stood reflecting. It was a considerable distance to the place where he had descended the cliff. Moreover, the track was toilsome, as he had proved by experience.

He decided to stay where he was till the “coast should be clear.”

He sat down upon a stone, took out a cigar, and commenced smoking.

He was scarce twenty paces from the pool in which the pretty dears were enjoying themselves. He could hear the plashing of their palms, like young cygnets beating the water with their wings. He could hear them exchange speeches, mingled with peals of clear-ringing laughter. There could be no harm in listening to these sounds, since the sough of the sea hindered him from making out what was said. Only now and then did he distinguish an interjection, proclaiming the delight in which the two Naiads were indulging, or one, the sharper voice of the negress, to warn then against straying too far out, as the tide had commenced rising.

From these signs he knew he had not been observed while standing exposed by the projection of rock.

A full half-hour elapsed, and still continued the plunging and the peals of laughter.

“Very mermaids they must be—to stay so long in the water! Surely they’ve had enough of it!”

As shown by this reflection, the sportsman was becoming impatient.

Shortly after, the plashing ceased, and along with it the laughter. He could still hear the voices of the two girls engaged in conversation—at intervals intermingled with that of the negress.

“They are out now, and dressing,” he joyfully conjectured. “I wonder how long they’ll be about that. Not another hour, I hope.”

He took out a fresh cigar. It was his third.

“By the time I’ve finished this,” reflected he, “they’ll be gone. At all events, they ought to be dressed; and, without rudeness, I may take the liberty of slipping past them.”

He lit the cigar, smoked, and listened.

The conversation was now carried on in an uninterrupted strain, but in quieter tones, and no longer interspersed with laughter.

The cigar became shortened to a stump, and still those silvery voices were heard mingling with the hoarse symphony of the sea—the latter, each moment growing louder as the tide continued to rise. A fresh breeze had sprung up, which, brought shoreward by the tidal billow, increased the noise; until the voices of the girls appeared like some distant metallic murmur, and the listener at length doubted whether he heard them or not.

“Their time’s up,” he said, springing to his feet, and flinging away the stump of the cigar. “They’ve had enough to make their toilet twice over, at all events. I can give no more grace; so here goes to continue my exploration!”

He turned towards the projection of the cliff. A single step forward, and he came to a stand—his countenance suddenly becoming clouded with an unpleasant expression! The tide had stolen up to the rocks, and the point of the promontory was now full three feet under water; while the swelling waves, at intervals, surged still higher!

There was neither beach below, nor ledge above; no way but by taking to the water.

The explorer saw that it would be impossible to proceed in the direction intended, without wading up to his waist. The object he had in view was not worth such a saturation; and with an exclamation of disappointment—chagrin, too, for the lost time—he turned upon his heel, and commenced retracing his steps along the base of the bluffs.

He no longer went strolling or sauntering. An apprehension had arisen in his mind that stimulated him to the quickest pace in his power. What if his retreat should be cut off by the same obstacle that had interrupted his advance?

The thought was sufficiently alarming; and hastily scrambling over the ledges, and skimming across the stretches of quicksand—now transformed into pools—he only breathed freely when once more in the gorge by which he had descended.

Chapter Three.

The Two Poetasters.

The sportsman was under a mistake about the girls being gone. They were still within the cove; only no longer conversing.

Their dialogue had ended along with their dressing; and they had betaken themselves to two separate occupations—both of which called for silence. Miss Girdwood had commenced reading a book that appeared to be a volume of poems; while her cousin, who had come provided with drawing materials, was making a sketch of the grotto that had served them for a robing-room.

On their emerging from the water, Keziah had plunged into the same pool—now disturbed by the incoming tide, and deep enough to conceal her dusky charms from the eyes of any one straying along the cliff.

After spluttering about for a matter of ten minutes, the negress returned to the shore; once more drew the gingham gown over her head; squeezed the salt spray out of her kinky curls; readjusted the bandanna; and, giving way to the languor produced by the saline immersion, lay down upon the dry shingle—almost instantly falling asleep.

In this way had the trio become disposed, as the explorer, after discovering the obstruction to his progress, turned back along the strand—their silence leading him to believe they had taken departure.

For some time this silence continued, Cornelia taking great pains with her drawing. It was a scene well worthy of her pencil, and with the three figures introduced, just as they were, could not fail to make an interesting picture. She intended it as the record of a rare and somewhat original scene: for, although young ladies occasionally took a sly dip in such solitary places, it required a certain degree of daring.

Seated upon a stone, as far out as the tide would allow her, she sketched her cousin, leaning studiously against the cliff, and the sable-skinned maid-servant, with turbaned head, lying stretched along the shingle. The scarped precipice, with the grotto underneath; the dark rocks here overhanging, there seamed by a gorge that sloped steeply upward—the sides of the latter trellised with convolvuli and clumps of fantastic shrubbery,—all these were to appear in the picture.

She was making fair progress, when interrupted by an exclamation from her cousin.

The latter had been for some time turning over the leaves of her book with a rapidity that denoted either impatience or dire disappointment in its contents.

At intervals she would stop, read a few lines, and then sweep onward—as if in search of something better.

This exercise ended, at length, by her dashing the volume down upon the shingle, and exclaiming:

“Stuff!”

“Who?”

“Tennyson.”

“Surely you’re jesting? The divine Tennyson—the pet poet of the age?”

“Poet of the age! There’s no such person!”

“What! not Longfellow?”

“Another of the same. The American edition, diluted, if such a thing were possible. Poets indeed! Rhymesters of quaint conceits—spinners of small sentiments in long hexameters—not soul enough in all the scribblings of both to stir up the millionth part of an emotion?”

“You are severe, cousin. How do you account for their world-wide popularity? Is that not a proof of their being poets?”

“Was it a proof in the case of Southey? Poor, conceited Southey, who believed himself superior to Byron! And the world shared his belief—at least one-half of it, while he lived! In these days such a dabbler in verse would scarce obtain the privilege of print.”

“But Longfellow and Tennyson have obtained it.”

“True; and along with, as you say, a world-wide reputation. All that is easily explained.”

“How?”

“By the accident of their coming after Byron—immediately after him.”

“I don’t comprehend you, cousin.”

“Nothing can be clearer. Byron made the world drunk with a divine intoxication. His superb verse was to the soul what wine is to the body; producing a grand and glorious thrill—a very carousal of intellectual enjoyment. Like all such excesses, it was followed by that nervous debility that requires a blue pill and black draught. It called for its absinthe and camomile bitters; and these have been supplied by Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate to the Queen of England, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, pet of the sentimental and spectacled young ladies of Boston. It was a poetic tempest, to be followed by a prosaic calm, that has now lasted over forty years, unbroken save by the piping of this pair of poetasters!”

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!” repeated Cornelia, with a good-natured laugh.

“Yes!” cried Julia, rather irritated by her cousin’s indifference. “By just such a paltry play upon words, by the imagination of small sentimentalities, and sickly conceits, plucked out of barren brains, and then machined into set stanzas, have these same poetasters obtained the world-wide reputation you speak of. Out upon such pretenders! And this is how I would serve them.”

She raised her little foot, and, with a spiteful stamp, brought her heel down upon poor Tennyson, sinking him deep into the spongy sand!

“Oh, Julia, you’ve spoilt the book?”

“There’s nothing in it to spoil. Waste print and paper. There’s more poetry in one of these pretty seaweeds that lie neglected on the sand—far more than in a myriad of such worthless volumes. Let it lie!”

The last words were addressed to Keziah, who, startled from her slumber, had stooped to pick up the trampled volume.

“Let it lie, till the waves sweep over it and bear it into oblivion; as the waves of Time will wash out the memory of its author. Oh, for one true—one real poet!”

At this moment Cornelia started to her feet; not from anything said by her cousin, but simply because the waves of the Atlantic were already stealing around her skirts. As she stood erect, the water was dripping from them.

The sketcher regretted this interruption of her task; the picture was but half completed; and it would spoil it to change the point of view.

“No matter,” she muttered, closing her sketch-book, “we can come again to-morrow. You will, won’t you, Julia, to oblige me?”

“And myself miss. It’s the very thing, this little plunge sans façon. I haven’t enjoyed anything like it since landing on the island of—of—Aquidnec. That, I believe, is the ancient appellation. Come, then, let us be off! To-day, for a novelty, I shall dine with something resembling an appetite.”

Keziah having wrung out the bathing-dresses and tied them in a bundle, the three prepared to depart.

Tennyson still lay crushed upon the sand; and his spiteful critic would not allow him to be taken up!

They started to return to the hotel—intending to go up the cliff by the same ravine through which they had come down. They knew of no other way.

On reaching the jutting rock that formed the flanking of the cove, all three were brought suddenly to a stand.

There was no path by which they could proceed; they had stayed too long in the cove, and the tide had cut off their retreat.

The water was only a few feet in depth; and, had it been still, they might have waded it. But the flow was coming in with a surge strong enough to sweep them off their feet.

They saw this, but without feeling anything like fear. They regarded it only as an unpleasant interruption.

“We must go in the opposite direction,” said Julia, turning back into the cove, and leading the way around it.

But here again was their path obstructed, just as on the opposite side.

The same depth of water, the same danger to be dreaded from the lashing of the surge!

As they stood regarding it, it appeared to grow deeper and more dangerous!

Back to the place just left.

There, too, had the depth been increasing. The tide seemed to have risen more than a foot since they left it. It was but the breeze still freshening over the sea.

To have waded around either point seemed no longer possible; and none of the three could swim!

The cousins uttered a simultaneous cry. It was the first open acknowledgment of a fear both secretly felt.

The cry was echoed by their dark-skinned attendant, far more frightened than they.

Back again to the other side—once more back and forward—and their panic was complete.

They were no longer in doubt about their situation. On both sides the path was obstructed. Clearly was their retreat cut off! Up the precipice went their eyes, to see whether it could be climbed. It needed but a glance to tell them “No!” There was the gorge running up the cliff; but it looked as if only a cat could have scaled it!

They turned from it in despair.

There was but one hope remaining. The tide might not mount above their heads; and might they not stay where they were till it ebbed again?

With quick glances they interrogated the waves, the grotto, the rocks overhead. Unaccustomed to the sea, they knew but little of its ways. They knew that the waves rose and fell; but how far? They could see nothing to tell them; nothing to confirm their fears, or assure them of their safety!

This suspense was even worse to endure than the certainty of danger.

Oppressed by it, the two girls clasped each other by the hand, raising their united voices in a cry for deliverance: “Help! Help!”

Chapter Four.

“Help! Help!”

Their cry of distress ascended to the summit of the cliff.

It was heard; and by one who had lately listened to the same voices, speaking in tones of the sweetest contentment.

It was he who carried the gun.

After scrambling up the gorge, he had faced northward in the direction of Easton’s Beach; for the reason only that this was his nearest way to the hotel.

He was reflecting upon the incident that had caused him such a toilsome détour; though his thoughts were dwelling less upon this than upon the face of one of the two naiads seen playing in the pool.

It was the one of darker complexion.

Her figure, too, was recalled. In that transitory glance he had perceived above the water-line, and continued in the translucency beneath, an outline not easily forgotten. He so well remembered it, as almost to repent the spasm of delicacy that had caused him to retreat behind the rock.

This repentance had something to do with the direction he was now taking.

He had hopes of encountering the bathers as they came up to the summit of the cliff.

Much time, however, had passed. He could see that the beach was deserted—the few dark forms appearing upon it being evidently those solitary creatures of bachelor kind, who become Neptune’s guests only at the second table.

Of course the two mermaids having exchanged their loose aquatic costume for the more constrained dress of the street, had long since gone home to the hotel. This was his conjecture.

A cry came to contradict it; close followed by another, and another!

He ran out to the edge of the cliff and looked downward. He could remember nothing of the landmarks. The tide, now well in, had changed the look of everything below. The ledges were covered—their position only to be told by the surf breaking over them.

Once more came up the cry!

Dropping on his knees, he crept closer and closer to the escarped edge—out to its very brink. Still nothing to be seen below! Neither woman nor human being. Not a spot on which one might find footing. No beach above water—no shoal, rock, or ledge, projecting from the precipice—no standing-place of any kind. Only the dark angry waves, roaring like enraged lions, and embracing the abutment as though they would drag it back with them into the abysm of the ocean!

Amidst the crashing and seething, once more ascended the cry! Again, and again, till it became a continuous chant!

He could not mistake its meaning. The bathers were still below. Beyond doubt they were in danger.

How could he assist them?

He started to his feet. He looked all round—along the cliff-path, and across the fields stretching back from the shore.

No house was near—no chance of obtaining a rope.

He turned toward Easton’s Beach. There might be a boat there. But could it be brought in time?

It was doubtful. The cries continuing told him that the peril was imminent. Those imperilled might be already struggling with the tide!

At this moment he remembered a sloping gorge. It could not be far off. It was the same by which the young ladies had gone down. He was a strong swimmer, and knew it. By swimming round into the cove, he might be able to effect their rescue.

Giving a shout, to assure them that their situation was known, he started at full speed along the crest of the cliff.

On reaching the ravine, he flung himself into it, and soon reached the sea-level below.

Without pausing, he turned along the shore, rushing over sand and shingle, over sharp ledges, and making his way among boulders slippery with seaweed.

He reached the abutment that flanked one side of the cove, from which he could now again hear the cries of distress, mingled with the hoarse shrieking of the sea.

To wade round the point was plainly impossible. The water was neck-deep, seething and swelling.

Kicking off his boots, and throwing his gun, cap, and coat upon a ledge, he plunged in, and commenced a struggle with the billows.

It cost him one—his life nearly. Twice was his body borne against the rock with fearful violence—each time receiving injury in the shock.

He succeeded in rounding the point and reaching the cove beyond, where the swell broke more smoothly upon a sloping bed.

He now swam with ease; and soon stood in the presence of the bathers, who, at sight of him, had ceased their cries, believing their danger at an end.

All were within the grotto, to which they had retreated, as offering the highest ground. For all this, they were up to the ankles in water!

At his approach they rushed out, wading knee-deep to meet him.

“Oh, sir!” cried the eldest of the young ladies, “you see how we are situated: can you assist us?”

The swimmer had risen erect. He looked right and left, before making rejoinder.

“Can you swim?” he asked.

“Not one of us.”

“It is bad,” he muttered to himself. “Either way, it is doubtful whether I could carry them through it. It’s been as much as I could do for myself. We’d be almost certain of being crushed. What, in heaven’s name, can be done for them?”

They were thoughts rather than words, and the girls could not know them. But they saw the stranger’s brow clouded with apprehension; and with eyes straining into his, they stood trembling.

He turned suddenly, and glanced up the cliff. He remembered the seam he had observed from above. He could now survey it from base to summit.

A gleam of hope flashed over his face. It could be scaled!

“Surely you can climb up there?” he asked, encouragingly.

“No, no! I’m sure we could never go up that way. I could not.”

“Nor I.”

“You might sustain yourselves by taking hold of the bushes. It is not so difficult as it appears. Those tufts of grass would help you; and there are points where you might place your feet. I could climb it easily myself; but, unfortunately, it would be impossible for me to assist you. There is not room for two to go up together.”

“I am sure I should fall before I was halfway to the top!”

This was said by Cornelia. Julia signified the same. The negress had no voice. With lips ashy pale, she seemed too much terrified to speak.

“Then there is no alternative but to try swimming,” said the stranger, once more facing seaward, and again scrutinising the surf. “No!” he added, apparently recoiling from the design, “by swimming I might save myself, though it is no longer certain. The swell has increased since I came in here. There’s been wind on the sea outside. I’m a fair swimmer; but to take one of you with me is, I fear, beyond my strength.”

“But, sir!” appealed she of the dark eyes, “is it certain we could not stay here till the tide falls again?”

“Impossible! Look there!” answered he, pointing to the cliff.

There could be no mistaking what he meant. That line trending horizontally along the façade of the precipice, here and there ragged with sea-wrack, was the high-water mark of the tide. It was far overhead!

The girls uttered a simultaneous scream as they stood regarding it. It was, in truth, the first time they had felt a full sense of their danger. Hitherto they had been sustained by a hope that the tide would not mount so high as to submerge them. But there was the tell-tale track, beyond reach even of their hands!

“Courage!” cried the stranger, his voice all at once assuming a cheerful tone, as if some bright thought had occurred to him. “You have shawls, both of you. Let me have them.”

Without questioning his purpose, both raised the cashmeres from their shoulders, and held them out to him.

“A plan has occurred to me,” said he, taking out his knife, and cutting the costly fabric into strips. “I did not think of it before. By the help of these I may get you up the cliff.”

The shawls were soon separated into several bands. These he knotted together so as to form a long, narrow festoonery.

With eager hands the young ladies assisted him in the operation.

“Now?” he said, as soon as the junction was completed; “by this I can draw you up, one by one. Who first?”

“Go, cousin!” said she of the dark eyes; “you are lightest. It will be easier for him in the trial.”

As there was no time for either ceremony or dispute, Cornelia accepted the suggestion. The stranger could have no choice.

The shawl-rope was carefully adjusted around her waist, then with equal care fastened to his. Thus linked, they commenced climbing the cliff.

Though difficult for both, the scaling proved successful; and the young girl stood unharmed upon the summit.

She made no demonstration of joy. Her cousin was still below—still in danger!

Once again down the gorge by which he had before descended. Once more around the rock, battling with the breakers—and again safe in the shelter of the cove.

The shawl-rope flung down from above had been caught by those below; and was for the second time put into requisition.

In like manner was Julia rescued from the danger of drowning!

But the efforts of the rescuer did not end here. His was a gallantry that had nought to do with the colour of the skin.

For the third time his life was imperilled, and the negress stood safe upon the summit of the cliff—to unite with the young ladies in the expression of their gratitude.

“We can never sufficiently thank you,” said she of the bistre-coloured eyes.

“Oh, never!” exclaimed her companion with the irides of azure.

“Another favour, sir,” said the first speaker. “It seems quite a shame to ask it. But we shall be so laughed at if this become known. Would it be too much to request, that nothing be said of our very unpleasant adventure?”

“There shall be nothing said by me,” responded the rescuer. “Of that, ladies, you may rest assured.”

“Thanks!—a thousand thanks! Indeed, we are greatly indebted to you. Good-day, sir!”

With a bow, dark eyes turned away from the cliff along the path leading to the Ocean House. A somewhat deeper sentiment was observed in the orbs of blue; though their owner took leave without giving it expression.

The confusion arising from their late alarm might perhaps plead their excuse.

None was needed by the negress.

“God bress you, brave massa! God bress you!” were her parting words—the only ones that appeared to be spoken in true gratitude.

Chapter Five.

The Scathed Retriever.

Filled with astonishment, and not without a slight feeling of chagrin, the sportsman stood looking after the trio he had delivered from almost certain death.

“A thousand thanks! Indeed we are greatly indebted to you?”

He repeated these words, imitating the tone in which they had been spoken.

“By my faith?” he continued, with an emphasis on each word, “if that isn’t a little of the coolest! What the dickens have I been doing for these dames? In the country of my christening I’d have had as much for helping them over a stile, or picking up a dropped glove. ‘Good-day, sir!’ Name neither asked nor given! Not a hint about ‘calling again’!

“Well, I suppose I shall have another opportunity of seeing them. They are going straight towards the Ocean House. No doubt a brace of birds from that extensive aviary. Birds of paradise, too—judging by their fine feathers! Ah! the dark one. Step like a race-horse—eye like a she-eagle!

“Strange how the heart declares its preference! Strange I should think most of her who appeared least grateful! Nay, she spoke almost superciliously. I wonder if likes were ever mutual.

“I could love that girl—I’m sure of it. Would it be a true, honest passion? Not so sure of that. She’s not exactly the kind I’d like to call wife. I feel convinced she’d aspire to wear the—

“Talking of inexpressibles makes me think of my coat, hat, and boots. Suppose, now, the tide has swept them off? What a figure I’d cut sneaking back to the hotel in my shirt-sleeves! Hatless and shoeless to boot! It’s just possible such exposé is in store for me. My God!” The exclamation was uttered with an accent quite different from the speeches that preceded it. These had been muttered jocosely, with a smile upon his lips. Along with the “My God!” came a cloud, covering his whole countenance.

The change was explained by what quickly came after.

“My pocket-book! A thousand dollars in it! All the money I have in the world! If that’s lost I’ll cut a still sorrier figure at the hotel. A long bill owing! My papers, too! Some of them of great importance to me—deeds and documents! God help me, if they’re gone!”

Once more along the cliff; once more descending the slope, with as much haste as if still another damsel with “she-eagle” eyes was screaming for help below!

He had reached the sea-level, and was turning along the strand, when he saw a dark object upon the water—about a cable’s length out from the shore. It was a small row-boat; with two men in it.

It was headed toward Easton Beach; but the rowers had stopped pulling, and were sitting with oars unshipped. They were nearly opposite the cove out of which he had so lately climbed.

“What a pity!” was his reflection. “Had these fellows shown themselves but twenty minutes sooner, they’d have saved me a set of sore bones, and the young ladies a couple of shawls that must have cost them a good round price—no doubt five hundred dollars apiece! The boat must have been coming up shore all the time. How stupid of me not to have seen it!

“What are they stopped for now? Ah! my coat and cap! They see them, and so do I. Thank heaven, my pocket-book and papers are safe!”

He was hastening on to make them still more secure, for the tide was close threatening his scattered garments—when all at once a dark monster-like form was seen approaching from the sea, surging toward the same point. As it got into shallow water, its body rose above the surface discovering a huge Newfoundland dog!

The animal had evidently come from the boat—had been sent from it. But for what purpose did not strike the sportsman till he saw the shaggy creature spring upward to the ledge, seize hold of his coat in its teeth, and then turning with it plunge back into the water!

A Broadway frock of best broadcloth; a thousand dollars in the pockets; papers worth ten times the amount!

“Heigh! heigh!” cried the owner, rushing on toward the spot where the rape was being committed, “down with it, you brute! down with it! drop it!”

“Fetch it?” came a voice from the boat; “come on, good Bruno! Fetch it!”

The words were followed by a peal of laughter that rang scornfully along the cliffs. The voices of both the boatmen took part in it.

Blacker than the rocks behind him became the face of the sportsman, who had paused in silent surprise.

Up to that moment he had supposed that the two men had not seen him, and that the dog had been sent to pick up what might appear “unclaimed property.” But the command given to the animal, with the scornful laugh, at once cured him of his delusion, and he turned toward them with a scowl that might have terrified bolder spirits than theirs.

It did not check his rising wrath to perceive that they were a brace of young “bloods” out on a pleasuring excursion. Perhaps all the more did he feel sensible of the insult.

He who had wandered far and wide; who had tracked Comanches on the war-path; had struck his sword against a chevaux-de-frise of Mexican bayonets, to be mocked after such fantastic fashion, and by such fellows!

“Command the dog back!” he shouted, in a voice that made the rocks re-echo. “Back with him; or, by heaven, you shall both rue it!”

“Come on, Bruno?” cried they, reckless, now they had committed themselves. “Good dog! Fetch it! fetch it!”

He in the shirt-sleeves stood for a moment irresolute, because feeling himself helpless. The animal had got out of his reach. It would be impossible to overtake it. Equally so to swim out to the boat, and wreak his wrath upon the rowers, whose speech continued to torture him.

Though seeming to him an age, his inaction was scarce of a second’s continuance. On looking around to see what might be done, his eye rested upon the gun, still lying upon the ledge where he had left it.

With an exulting shout he sprang toward the piece, and again held it in his grasp. It was loaded with large shot; for he had been sporting for water-fowl.

He did not wait to give warning. The scurvy behaviour of the fellows had released him from all ceremony; and hastily raising the piece, sent a shower of shot around the shoulders of the Newfoundland.

The dog dropped the coat, gave out a hideous growling, and swam, crippled-like, toward the boat.

Laughter no longer ran along the cliffs. It had ceased at sight of the gun.

“It’s a double one,” said he who grasped it, speaking loud enough for them to hear him. “If you’ll bring your boat a little nearer, I may treat you to the second barrel?”

The bloods thought better than to accept the invitation. Their joke had come to a disagreeable termination; and with rueful faces they pulled poor Bruno aboard, and continued the row so regretfully interrupted.

Fortunately for the sportsman, the tide was still “running,” so that his coat came ashore—dollars and documents along with it.

He spent some time in wringing out his saturated habiliments, and making himself presentable for the hotel. By good luck, there were no streets to pass through—the Ocean House being at this time separated only by farm fields from the rocky shore that had been the scene of his achievements.

“Adventures enough for one day!” he muttered to himself, as he approached the grand caravanserai swarming with its happy hundreds.

He did not know that still another was in store for him. As he stepped into the long piazza, two gentlemen were seen entering at the opposite end. They were followed by a large dog, that sadly needed helping over a stile.

The recognition was mutual; though only acknowledged by a reciprocal frown, so dark as not to be dispelled by the cheerful gong at that moment sounding the summons to dinner.

Chapter Six.

A Loving Couple.

“Married for love! Hach! fool that I’ve been!”

The man who muttered these words was seated with elbows resting upon a table, and hands thrust distractedly through his hair.

“Fool that I’ve been, and for a similar reason!” The rejoinder, in a female voice, came from an inner apartment. At the same instant the door, already ajar, was spitefully pushed open, disclosing the speaker to view: a woman of splendid form and features, not the less so that both were quivering with indignation.

The man started, and looked up with an air of embarrassment. “You heard me, Frances?” he said, in a tone half-surly, half-ashamed.

“I heard you, Richard,” answered the woman, sweeping majestically into the room. “A pretty speech for a man scarce twelve months married—for you! Villain!”

“That name is welcome!” doggedly retorted the man. “It’s enough to make one a villain?”

“What’s enough, sir?”

“To think that but for you I might have had my thousands a year, with a titled lady for my wife!”

“Not worse than to think that but for you I might have had my tens of thousands, with a lord for my husband! ay, a coronet on my crown, where you are barely able to stick a bonnet?”

“Bah! I wish you had your lord.”

“And bah to you! I wish you had your lady.” The dissatisfied benedict, finding himself more than matched in the game of recrimination, dropped back into his chair, replanted his elbows on the table, and resumed the torturing of his hair.

Back and forth over the floor of the apartment paced the outraged wife, like a tigress chafed, but triumphant.

Man and wife, they were a remarkable couple. By nature both were highly endowed; the man handsome as Apollo, the woman beautiful as Venus. Adorned with moral grace, they might have challenged comparison with anything on earth. In the scene described, it was more like Lucifer talking to Juno enraged.

The conversation was in the English tongue, the accent was English, the speakers apparently belonging to that country—both of them. This impression was confirmed by some articles of travelling gear, trunks and portmanteaus of English manufacture, scattered over the floor. But the apartment was in the second storey of a second-class boarding-house in the city of New York.

The explanation is easy enough. The amiable couple had but lately landed from an Atlantic steamer. The “O.K.” of the Custom House chalk was still legible on their luggage.

Looking upon the pair of strange travellers—more especially after listening to what they have said—one skilled in the physiognomy of English life would have made the following reflections:—

The man has evidently been born “a gentleman,” and as evidently brought up in a bad school. He has been in the British army. About this there can be no mistake; no more than that he is now out of it. He still carries its whisker, though not its commission. The latter he has lost by selling out; but not until after receiving a hint from his colonel, or a “round robin” from his brother officers, requesting him to “resign.” If ever rich, he has long since squandered his wealth; perhaps even the money obtained for his commission. He is now poor. His looks proclaim him an adventurer.

Those of the woman carry to a like conclusion, as regards herself. Her air and action, the showy style of her dress, a certain recklessness observable in the cast of her countenance, bring the beholder, who has once stood alongside “Rotten Row,” back to the border of that world-renowned ride. In the fair Fan he sees the type of the “pretty horse-breaker”—the “Anonyma” of the season.

It is an oft-repeated experience. A handsome man, a beautiful woman, both equally heart-wicked, inspiring one another with a transient passion, that lasts long enough to make man and wife of them, but rarely outlives the honeymoon. Such was the story of the couple in question.

The stormy scene described was far from being the first. It was but one of the squalls almost daily occurring between them.

The calm succeeding such a violent gust could not be continuous. A cloud so dark could not be dissipated without a further discharge of electricity.

It came; the last speaker, as if least satisfied, resuming the discourse.

“And supposing you had married your lady—I know whom you mean—that old scratch, Lady C—, what a nice time the two of you would have had of it! She could only have kissed you at the risk of losing her front teeth, or swallowing them. Ha! ha! ha!”

“Lady C— be hanged! I could have had half a score of titled ladies; some of them as young, and just as good-looking, is you!”

“Boasting braggart! ’Tis false, and you know it! Good-looking as me! How you’ve changed your tune! You know I was called the ‘Belle of Brompton!’ Thank heaven, I don’t need you to satisfy me of my good looks. Men of ten times your taste have pronounced upon them; and may yet!”

The last speech was delivered in front of a cheval glass, before which the speaker had stopped, as if to admire her person.

Certainly the glass gave out an image that did not contradict what she had said.

“May yet!” echoed the satiated rake in a drawl, that betokened either indifference, or its assumption. “I wish some of them would!”

“Indeed! Then some of them shall!”

“Oh! I’m agreeable. Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Thank God! we’ve got into a country whose people take a common-sense view of these questions, and where divorce can be obtained, not only on the quiet, but cheaper than the licence itself! So far from standing in your way, madam, I’ll do all I can to assist you. I think we can honestly plead ‘incompatibility of temper’?”

“She’d be an angel that couldn’t plead that with you.”

“There’s no danger, then, of your being denied the plea, unless fallen angels be excepted.”

“Mean insulter! Oh, mercy! to think I’ve thrown myself away on this worthless man?”

“Thrown yourself away? Ha! ha! ha! What were you when I found you? A waif, if not worse. The darkest day of my life was that on which I picked you up!”

“Scoundrel!”

The term “scoundrel” is the sure and close precursor of a climax. When passed between two gentlemen, it not unfrequently leads to a mutual pulling of noses. From a lady to a gentleman the result is of course different, though in any case it conducts to a serious turn in the conversation. Its effect in the present instance was to end it altogether.

With only an exclamation for rejoinder, the husband sprang to his feet, and commenced pacing up and down one side of the room. The wife, already engaged in like perambulation, had possession of the other.

In silence they crossed and recrossed; at intervals exchanging angry glances, like a tiger and tigress, making the tour of their cage.

For ten minutes or more was this mute, unsocial promenade continued.

The man was the first to tire of it, and once more resuming his seat, he took a “regalia” from his case, set fire to the weed, and commenced smoking.

The woman, as if determined not to be outdone in the way of indifference, produced her cigar-case, selected from it a tiny “queen,” and, sinking down into a rocking-chair, sent forth a cloud of smoke that soon rendered her almost as invisible as Juno in her nimbus.

There was no longer an exchange of glances—it was scarce possible—and for ten minutes more not any of speech. The wife was silently nursing her wrath, while the husband appeared to be engaged on some abstruse problem that occupied all his intellect. At length an exclamation, escaping involuntarily from his lips, seemed to declare its solution; while the cheerful cast of his countenance, just perceptible through the smoke, told of his having reached a conclusion that was satisfactory to him.

Taking the regalia from between his teeth, and puffing away the cloud that intervened, he leant toward his wife, at the same time pronouncing her name in diminutive—

“Fan!”

The form, with the accent in which it was uttered, seemed to say that on his side the storm had blown over. His chafed spirit had become tranquillised under the influence of the nicotine.

The wife, as if similarly affected, removed the “queen” from her lips; and in a tone that smacked of forgiveness, gave out the rejoinder:

“Dick!”

“An idea has occurred to me,” said he, resuming the conversation in a shape entirely new. “A grand idea!”

“Of its grandeur I have my doubts. I shall be better able to judge when you’ve imparted it. You intend doing that, I perceive.”

“I do,” he answered, without taking notice of the sarcasm.

“Let’s hear it, then.”

“Well, Fan, if there’s anything in this world clearer than another, it’s that by getting married we’ve both made a mucker of it.”

“That’s clear as daylight—to me at least.”

“Then you can’t be offended if I take a similar view of the question. We married one another for love. There we did a stupid thing, since neither of us could afford it.”

“I suppose I know all that. Tell me something new.”

“More than stupid,” pursued the worthless husband; “it was an act of absolute madness!”

“Most certainly, on my part.”

“On the part of both of us. Mind you, I don’t say I repent making you my wife. Only in one way, and that is because I’ve spoiled your chances in life. I am aware you could have married richer men.”

“Oh, you admit that, do you?”

“I do. And you must admit I could have married richer women.”

“Lady Scratch, for example.”

“No matter. Lady Scratch could have kept me from this hard scratch for a living, which promises to be still harder. You know there’s no resource left me but the little skill I’ve acquired in manipulating pasteboard. I’ve come over here under the pleasant hallucination I should find plenty of pigeons, and that the hawks only existed on our side of the Atlantic. Well, I’ve been round with my introductions, and what’s the result? To discover that the dullest flat in New York would be a sharp in the saloons of London. I’ve dropped a hundred pounds already, and don’t see much chance of taking them up again.”

“And what do you see, Dick? What’s this grand idea?”

“Are you prepared to listen to a proposal?”

“How condescending of you to ask me! Let me hear it. Whether I may feel inclined to agree to it is another thing.”

“Well, my dear Fan, your own words have suggested it, so you can’t reproach me for originating it.”

“If it be an idea, you needn’t fear that. What words, may I ask?”

“You said you wished I had married my lady.”

“I did. What is there in that?”

“More than you think for. A whole world of meaning.”

“I meant what I said.”

“In spite only, Fan.”

“In earnest.”

“Ha, ha! I know you too well for that.”

“Do you? You flatter yourself, I think. Perhaps you may some day find your mistake.”

“Not a bit of it. You love me too well. Fan, as I do you. It is just for that I am going to make the proposal.”

“Out with it! I shan’t like you any the better for thus tantalising me. Come, Dick; you want me to grant something? What is it?”

“Give me your permission to—”

“To do what?”

“To get married again!”

The wife of twelve months started, as if struck by a shot. In her glance there was anger and surprise, only subdued by interrogation.

“Are you in earnest, Dick?”

The inquiry was mechanical. She saw that he was.

“Wait till you’ve heard me out,” he rejoined, proceeding to the explanation.

She waited.

“What I propose, then, is this: You leave me free to get married again. More than that, give me your help to accomplish it—for our mutual benefit. It’s the very country for such a scheme; and I flatter myself I’m the very man who may bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. These Yankees have been growing rich. There are now scores—hundreds of heiresses among them. Strange if I can’t pick one of them up! They must either be daintier than you, Fan, or else I’ve lost my attractions.”

The appeal to her vanity, skilful though it was, failed to elicit a rejoinder. She remained silent, permitting her husband to continue his explanation. He continued:

“It’s no use shutting our eyes to the situation. We’ve both been speaking the truth. We’ve made fools of ourselves. Your beauty has been the means of spoiling my chances in life; and my—well, good looks, if I must say it—have done the same for you. It’s been a mutual love, and a reciprocal ruin—in short, a sell on both sides.”

“True enough. Go on?”

“The prospect before us! I, the son of a poor prebend; you—well, it’s no use to talk of family affairs. We came over here in hopes of bettering our condition. The land of milk and honey turns out to be but gall and bitterness. We’ve but one hundred pounds left. When that’s gone, what next, Fan?”

Fan could not tell.

“We may expect but slight consideration for gentility here,” continued the adventurer. “Our cash once spent, what can I do—or what you? I know of nothing, except to take hold of the delicate ribbons of a street hack; while you must attune your musical ear to the tinkle of a sewing-machine, or the creaking of a mangle. By heaven! there’ll be no help for it?”

The ci-devant belle of Brompton, appalled by the prospect, started up from the rocking-chair, and once more commenced pacing the room.

Suddenly she stopped, and, turning to her husband, inquired:

“Do you intend to be true to me, Dick?”

The question was put in an eager, earnest tone.

Equally earnest was the answer:

“Of course I do. How can you doubt me, Fan? We’re both alike interested in the speculation. You may trust me as steel!”

“I agree to it, then, Dick. But dread steel if you betray me!”

Dick answered the threat with a light laugh; at the same time imprinting a Judas kiss on the lips that had pronounced it!

Chapter Seven.

A Dutiful Daughter.

“An officer just returned from Mexico—a captain, or something of the sort, in one of the regiments raised for the war. Of course, a nobody!”

It was the storekeeper’s relict who spoke.

“Did you hear his name, mamma?” murmured Julia.

“Certainly, my dear. The clerk pointed it out on the hotel register—Maynard.”

“Maynard! If it be the Captain Maynard spoken of in the papers, he’s not such a nobody. At least the despatches do not say so. Why, it was he who led the forlorn hope at C—, besides being first over the bridge at some other place with an unpronounceable name?”

“Stuff about forlorn hopes and bridges! That won’t help him, now that he is out of the service, and his regiment disbanded. Of course he’ll be without either pension or pay, besides a soupçon of his having empty pockets. I got so much out of the servant who waits upon him.”

“He is to be pitied for that.”

“Pity him as much as you like, my dear; but don’t let it go any further. Heroes are all very well in their way, when they’ve got the dollars to back ’em up. Without these they don’t count for much now-a-days; and rich girls don’t go marrying them any more.”

“Ha! ha! ha! Who thinks of marrying him?” Daughter and niece simultaneously asked the question.

“No flirtations neither,” gravely rejoined Mrs Girdwood. “I won’t allow them—certainly not with him.”

“And why not with him, as much as any one else, most honoured mother?”

“Many reasons. We don’t know who or what he may be. He don’t appear to have the slightest acquaintance with any one in the place; and no one is acquainted with him. He’s a stranger in this country, and believed to be Irish.”

“Oh, aunt! I should not think any the worse of him for that. My own father was Irish.”

“Whatever he may be, he’s a brave man, and a gallant one,” quietly rejoined Julia.

“And a handsome one, too!” added Cornelia, with a sly glance towards her cousin.

“I should think,” pursued Julia, “that he who has climbed a scaling-ladder—to say nothing about the bridge—and who afterward, at the risk of his life, pulls two not very light young ladies up the face of a perpendicular precipice, might dispense with any farther introduction to society; even to the J.’s, the L.’s, and the B.’s—the ‘cream,’ as they call themselves.”

“Pff!” scornfully exclaimed the mother. “Any gentleman would have done the same; and would have done it for any lady. Why, he made no difference between you and Keziah, who is almost as heavy as both of you in a bundle!”

The remark caused the two young ladies to break forth into a fit of laughter; for they remembered at the time they had been saved from their peril the ludicrous look of the negress as she was drawn up to the crest of the cliff. Had she not been the last in the ascent, their remembrance of it might have been less vivid.

“Well, girls; I’m glad to see that you enjoy it. You may laugh as much as you like; but I’m in earnest. There must be no marrying in such a quarter as that, nor flirting either. I don’t want either of you talked about. As for you, Corneel, I don’t pretend to exercise any control over you. Of course you can act as you please.”

“And I cannot?” quickly inquired the imperious Julia.

“Yes you can, my dear. Marry Captain Maynard, or any other man who suits your fancy. But if you do so without my consent, you may make up your mind to be contented with your pin-money. Remember that the million left by your father is mine for life.”

“Indeed!”

“Ay! And if you act against my wishes, I shall live thirty years longer, to spite you—fifty if I can!”

“Well, mamma; I can’t say but that you’re candid. A charming prospect, should it please me to disobey you?”

“But you won’t, Julia?” said Mrs Girdwood, coaxingly, “you won’t. You know better than that: else your dear mother’s teaching has been so much waste time and trouble. But talking of time,” continued the “dear mother,” as she drew a jewelled watch from her belt, “in two hours the ball will begin. Go to your room, and get dressed.”

Cornelia, obedient to the command, tripped out into the corridor, and, gliding along it, turned into the apartment occupied by herself and cousin.

Julia, on the contrary, walked on to the balcony outside.

“Plague take the ball!” said she, raising her arms in a yawn. “I’d a thousand times rather go to bed?”

“And why, you silly child?” inquired her mother, who had followed her out.

“Mother, you know why! It will be just the same as at the last one—all alone among those impertinent people. I hate them! How I should like to humiliate them!”

“To-night you shall do that, my dear.”

“How, mamma?”

“By wearing my diamond head-dress. The last present your dear father gave me. It cost him a twenty thousand dollar cheque! If we could only ticket the price upon the diamonds, how they would glitter in their envious eyes. Never mind; I should think they’ll be sharp enough to guess it. Now, my girl, that will humiliate them!”

“Not much.”

“Not much! Twenty thousand dollars worth of diamonds! There isn’t such a tiara in the States. There won’t be anything like it at the ball. As diamonds are in full fashion now, it will give you no end of a triumph; at all events, enough to satisfy you for the present. Perhaps when we come back here again, we may have the diamonds set in a still more attractive shape.”

“How?”

“In a coronet!” replied the mother, whispering the words in her daughter’s ear.

Julia Girdwood started, as if the speech had been an interpretation of her own thought. Brought up amid boundless wealth, she had been indulged in every luxury for which gold may be exchanged; but there was one which even gold could not purchase—an entrée into that mystic circle called “society”—a mingling with the crême de la crême.

Even in the free-and-easy atmosphere of a watering-place, she felt that she was excluded. She had discovered, as had also her mother, that Newport was too fashionable for the family of a New York retail storekeeper, however successful he may have been in disposing of his commodities. What her mother had just said was like the realisation of a vague vision already floating in her fancy; and the word “coronet” had more effect in spoiling the chances of Captain Maynard, than would have been the longest maternal lecture on any other text.

The mother well knew this. She had not trained her dear Julia to romantic disobedience. But at that moment it occurred to her that the nail wanted clinching; and she proceeded to hammer it home.

“A coronet, my love; and why not? There are lords in England, and counts in France, scores of them, glad to grasp at such expectations as yours. A million of dollars, and beauty besides—you needn’t blush, daughter—two things not often tacked together, nor to be picked up every day in the streets—either of London or Paris. A prize for a prince! And now, Julia, one word more. I shall be candid, and tell you the truth. It is for this purpose, and this only, I intend taking you to Europe. Promise to keep your heart free, and give your hand to the man I select for you, and on your wedding-day I shall make over one-half of the estate left by your late father!”

The girl hesitated. Perhaps she was thinking of her late rescuer? But if Maynard was in her mind, the interest he had gained there could only have been slight—certainly not strong enough to hold its place against the tempting terms thus held out to her. Besides, Maynard might not care for her. She had no reason to suppose that he did. And under this doubt, she had less difficulty in shaping her reply.

“I am serious upon this matter,” urged the ambitious mother. “Quite as much as you am I disgusted with the position we hold here. To think that the most worthless descendants of one of ‘the old signers’ should deem it a condescension to marry my daughter! Ach! not one of them shall—with my consent.”

“Without that, mother, I shall not marry.”

“Good girl! you shall have the wedding gift I promised you. And to-night you shall not only wear my diamonds, but I make you free to call them your own. Go in—get them on?”

Chapter Eight.

A Nobleman Incog.

The strange dialogue thus terminated took place in front of the window of Mrs Girdwood’s apartment. It was in the night; a night starless and calm, and of course favourable to the eavesdroppers.

There was one.

In the room right above was a gentleman who had that day taken possession.

He had come by the night-boat from New York, and entered his name on the register as “Swinton,” with the modest prefix of Mr Attached were the words “and servant”—the latter represented by a dark-haired, dark-complexioned youth, dressed after the fashion of a footman, or valet du voyage.

To Newport, Mr Swinton appeared to be a stranger; and had spent most of that day in exploring the little city founded by Coddington, and full of historic recollections.

Though conversing with nearly everybody he met, he evidently knew no one; and as evidently no one knew him.

Want of politeness to a stranger would not comport with the character of Newport people; especially when that stranger had all the appearance of an accomplished gentleman, followed at respectful distance by a well-dressed and obsequious servant.

Those with whom he came in contact had but one thought:

“A distinguished visitor.”

There was nothing in the appearance of Mr Swinton to contradict the supposition. He was a man who had seen some thirty summers, with no signs to show that they had been unpleasantly spent. Amidst his glossy curls of dark auburn colour, the eye could not detect a single strand of grey; and if the crow had set its claw upon his face, the track could not be observed. Under a well-cultivated whisker uniting to the moustache upon his lips—in short the facial tonsure which distinguishes the habitué of the Horse Guards. There could be no mistaking him for any other than a “Britisher”; and as such was he set down, both by the citizens of the town, and the guests at the hotel.

The meal called “tea-supper” being over, and the stranger, having nothing better to do, was leaning out of the window of his sleeping room, on the fourth storey—tranquilly smoking a cigar.

A conversation that occurred between himself and his servant—exhibiting on the one side condescension, on the other a strange familiarity—need not be repeated. It had ended; and the servant had thrown himself, sans façon, on a sofa; while the master, with arms resting on the window-sill, continued to inspire the perfume of the nicotian weed, along with the iodised air that came up from the algae of the ocean.

The tranquil scene was favourable to reflection, and thus Mr Swinton reflected:

“Deuced nice place! Devilish pretty girls! Hope I’ll find one of them who’s got money, and command of it as well. Sure to be some old hag here with a well-filled stocking, though it may take time to discover it. Let me get a glance at her cornucopia, and if I don’t turn the small end upward, then—then I shall believe what I have heard of these Yankee dames: that they hold their purse-strings tighter than do their simple cousins of England. Several heiresses about, I’ve heard. One or two with something like a million a piece—dollars, of course. Five dollars to the pound. Let me see! A million of dollars makes two hundred thousand pounds. Well! that would do, or even the half of it. I wonder if that good-looking girl, with the maternal parent attached to her, has got any blunt? A little love mixed with the play would make my game all the more agreeable. Ah! What’s below? The shadows of women from an open window, the occupants of the apartment underneath. Talking they are. If they would only come out on the balcony, there would be some chance of my hearing them. I’m just in the humour for listening to a little scandal; and if they’re anything like their sex on the other side of the Atlantic, that’s sure to be the theme. By Jove! they’re coming out! Just to oblige me.”

It was just at this moment that Cornelia retired to her room, and Mrs Girdwood, following her daughter, took stand upon the balcony to continue the conversation which had been carried on inside.

Favoured by the calm night, and the natural law of acoustics, Mr Swinton heard every word that was said—even to the softest whisper.

In order to secure himself against being seen, he had withdrawn behind the Venetian shutter of his own window, and stood with his ear against the open lath-work, listening with all the intentness of a spy.

When the dialogue came to an end, he craned out, and saw that the young lady had gone inside, but that the mother still remained standing in the balcony.

Once more quietly drawing back, and summoning the valet to his side, he talked for some minutes in a low, hurried tone—as if giving the servant some instructions of an important nature.

Then putting on his hat, and throwing a light surtout over his shoulders, he hastened out of the room.

The servant followed; but not until an interval had elapsed.

In a few seconds after, the Englishman might have been seen sauntering out upon the balcony with a careless air, and taking his stand within a few feet of where the rich widow stood leaning over the rail.

He made no attempt to address her. Without introduction, there would have been a certain rudeness in it. Nor was his face toward her, but to the sea, as if he had stopped to contemplate the light upon the Cormorant Rock, gleaming all the more brilliantly from the contrasted darkness of the night.

At that moment a figure of short stature appeared behind him, giving a slight cough, as if to attract his attention. It was the servant.

“My lord,” said the latter, speaking in a low tone—though loud enough to be heard by Mrs Girdwood.

“Aw—Fwank—what is it?”

“What dress will your lordship wear at the ball?”

“Aw—aw—plain bwack, of cawse. A white chawker.”

“What gloves, your lordship? White or straw?”

“Stwaw—stwaw.”

The servant, touching his hat, retired.

“His lordship,” as Mr Swinton appeared to be, returned to his tranquil contemplation of the light upon Cormorant Rock.

There was no longer tranquillity for the relict of the retail storekeeper. Those magic words, “my lord,” had set her soul in a flutter. A live lord within six feet of her. Gracious me!

It is the lady’s privilege to speak first, as also to break through the boundaries of reserve. And of this Mrs Girdwood was not slow to avail herself.

“You are a stranger, sir, I presume—to our country, as well as to Newport?”

“Aw—yes, madam—indeed, yes. I came to yaw beautiful country by the last steemaw. I arrived at Noopawt this morning, by bawt from Nooyawk.”

“I hope your lordship will like Newport. It is our most fashionable watering-place.”

“Aw; sawtingly I shall—sawtingly. But, madam, you adwess me as yaw ludship. May I ask why I have the honaw to be so entitled?”

“Oh, sir; how could I avoid giving you the title, after hearing your servant so address you?”

“Aw, Fwank, stoopid fellaw! doose take him! Pawdon me, madam, faw seeming woodness. I vewy much wegwet the occurrence. I am twavelling incognito. You, madam, will understand what a baw it is—especially in yaw fwee land of libawty, to have one’s self pawpetwally pointed out? A howed baw, I assure yaw?”

“No doubt it is. I can easily understand that, my lord.”

“Thanks, madam! I am vewy much indebted to yaw intelligence. But I must ask a still greater fayvaw at your hands. By the stoopidity of my fellaw, I am completely in yaw power. I pwesume I am talking to a lady. In fact I am shaw of it.”

“I hope so, my lord.”

“Then, madam, the fayvaw I would ask is, that yaw keep this little secwet abawt ma title. Pway am I asking too much?”

“Not at all, sir; not at all.”

“Yaw pwomise me?”

“I promise you, my lord.”

“How vewy kind! A hundwed thousand thanks, madam! I shall be fawever gwateful. P’waps yaw are going to the bawl to-night?”

“I intend so, my lord. I go with my daughter and niece.”

“Aw—aw. I hope I shall have the plesyaw of seeing yaw. As I am a stwanger here, of cawse I know naw one. I go out of meaw quyuosity, or rather I should say, to observe yaw national cawactewistics.”

“Oh, sir; you need be no stranger. If you wish to dance, and will accept as partners my niece and daughter, I can promise that both will be most happy.”

“Madam, yaw ovawwhelm me with yaw genewosity.”

The dialogue here came to an end. It was time to dress for the ball; and, with a low bow on the part of the lord, and an obsequious courtesy on the side of the lady, they separated—expecting to come together again under the sheen of the chandeliers.

Chapter Nine.

Avant le Bal.

Terpsichore, at a fashionable watering-place in the New World, affects pretty much the same airs as in the Old.

In a ball-room, where all are not supposed to be best people, the solitary gentlemen-stranger finds but little opportunity of taking exercise—especially in the “square-dances.” As the coteries make the sets, and monopolise the choicest portions of the floor, when the room is crowded and everybody determined to dance, the unlucky wight, without acquaintances, finds himself sadly overlooked. The stewards are usually too much occupied with themselves, to remember those honorary duties represented by rosette or ribbon in the buttonhole.

When it comes to the “round,” the stranger stands a better chance. It is only a matter of mutual consent between two individuals; and he must be a very insignificant personage, indeed, who cannot then find some neglected wallflower willing to accommodate him.

Something of this frigidity might have been felt in the atmosphere of a Newport ball-room; even in those days, ante bellum, when shoddy was a thing unheard-of, and “ile” lay “unstruck” in the dark underground.

Something of it was felt by the young officer lately returned from Mexico, and who was in fact a greater stranger to the “society” of the country for which he had been fighting, than to that against which he had fought!

In both he was but a traveller—half-wandering waif, half-adventurer—guided in his peregrinations less by interest than inclination.

To go dancing among unknown people is about the dullest occupation to which a traveller can betake himself; unless the dance be one of the free kind, where introductions are easy—morris, masque, or fandango.

Maynard knew, or conjectured, this to be true of Newport, as elsewhere. But for all that, he had determined on going to the ball.

It was partly out of curiosity; partly to kill time; and perhaps not a little for the chance of again meeting the two girls with whom he had been so romantically made acquainted.

He had seen them several times since—at the dinner-table, and elsewhere; but only at a distance, and without claiming the privilege of his outré introduction.

He was too proud to throw himself in their way. Besides, it was for them to make the advance, and say whether the acquaintance was to be kept up.

They did not! Two days had passed, and they did not—either by speech, epistle, bow, or courtesy!

“What am I to make of these people?” soliloquised he.

“They must be the veriest—” He was going to say “snobs,” when checked by the thought that they were ladies.

Besides, such an epithet to Julia Girdwood! (He had taken pains to make himself acquainted with her name.) Not more inappropriate than if applied to a countess or a queen!

With all his gallantry he could not help some spasms of chagrin; the keener, that, go where he would, Julia Girdwood seemed to go along with him. Her splendid face and figure appeared ever before him.

To what was he to attribute this indifference—it might be called ingratitude on her part?

Could it be explained by the promise exacted from him upon the cliff?

This might make it in some way excusable. He had since seen the girls only with their maternal guardian—a dame of severe aspect. Had the secret to be kept from her! And was this the reason why they were preserving distance?

It was probable. He had some pleasure in thinking so; but more, when once or twice, he detected Julia’s dark eyes strangely gazing upon him, and instantly withdrawn, as his became turned upon her.

“The play’s the thing, wherewith to touch the conscience of the king,” Hamlet declared.

The ball! It promised a clearing up of this little mystery, with perhaps some others. He would be sure to meet them there—mother, daughter, niece—all three! It would be strange if he could not introduce himself; but if not, he must trust to the stewards.

And to the ball he went; dressed with as much taste as the laws of fashion would allow—in those days liberal enough to permit of a white waistcoat.

With only an occasional interval—transient as the scintillation of a meteor—it has been black ever since!

The ball-room was declared open.

Carriages were setting down by the piazza of the Ocean House, and silks rustling along the corridors of that most select of caravanserais.

From the grand dining-saloon, cleared for the occasion (and when cleared, making a dancing-room worthy of Terpsichore herself), came those not very harmonious sounds that tell of the tuning of fiddles, and clearing out the throats of trombones.

The Girdwood party entered with considerable éclat—the mother dressed like a grand-duchess, though without her diamonds. These blazed upon the brow of Julia, and sparkled on her snow white bosom—for the set comprised a necklace with pendants.

She was otherwise splendidly attired; and, in truth, looked superb. The cousin of more modest grace and means, though pretty, seemed as nothing beside her.

Mrs Girdwood had made a mistake—in coming in too early. It is true there were fashionable people already in the room. But these were the “organisers” of the entertainment; who, backed by a sort of semi-official authority, had gathered in little groups over the floor, scanning across fans, or through eye-glasses, the dancers as they came in.

Through these the Girdwoods had to run the gauntlet—as they made their way to the upper end of the room.

They did so with success, though not without being aware of some supercilious glances, accompanied by whispered words that, if heard, might have somewhat disconcerted them.

It was the second Newport ball—“hops” count for nothing—at which Mrs Girdwood and her girls had shown themselves.

The first had not given great satisfaction—more especially to Julia.

But there was a better prospect now. Mrs Girdwood had entered, with a confidence based on the conversation she had just held with the distinguished incognito, Mr Swinton.

She had seen this gentleman during the day: for, as already known, he had not shut himself up in his room. She was sufficiently discerning to see that he was possessed of a fine face and figure. His hair, too—of the most aristocratic kind! How could it be otherwise? She alone knew the reason—she and her daughter; to whom she had, of course, communicated the secret of her discovery. A bit of broken promise that need not be severely criticised.

She knew of my lord’s late arrival—from Canada he had told her—though he had paid a flying visit to New York.

She hoped no one in the ball-room would recognise him—at least not till after she had paraded him with her own party, and could assume the seeming of his introducer.

She had still stronger reason for this. Storekeeper’s widow, as she was, she possessed the true tact of the match-making mother. It belongs to no clime exclusively; no country. It can be as well acquired in New York as in London, Vienna, or Paris. She was a believer in first impressions—with the “compromises” that often spring from them; and in this theory—with the view of putting it into practice—she had instructed her dear Julia while dressing her for the ball.

The daughter had promised compliance. Who wouldn’t, with the prospect of earning twenty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds?

Chapter Ten.

A Previous Engagement.

In all the gradations of the thermal line, is there any atmosphere more unbearable than that of a ball-room before the dancing commences?

It is the very essence of discomfort.

What a relief when the baton of the conductor is seen elevated over his acolytes, and those strains, proverbially soothing to the savage, resound through the glittering saloon!

It was a relief to Mrs Girdwood and her girls. They had begun to fancy themselves too much observed. At least Julia had, half suspecting herself of being the subject of a cynical criticism, which she did not think of attributing to her diamonds.

She was burning with an ill-repressed spleen, by no means diminished as the sets commenced forming, and no one came forward to claim either herself or her cousin.

At that moment appeared a man whose presence changed the current of her thoughts. It was Maynard.

In spite of her mother’s precautionary counsels, Miss Girdwood could not look upon this gentleman with indifference. To say nothing of what had passed between them, a glance satisfied her that there was no handsomer man in the room, or likely to come into it.

He was approaching from the entrance, apparently making his way toward the Girdwood group.

Julia wondered whether he was going to join them. She hoped that he would.

“I suppose I may dance with him, mother—that is, if he asks me?”

“Not yet, my dear, not yet. Wait a little longer. His lordship—Mr Swinton—may come in at any moment. You must have the first with him. I wonder why he’s not here,” pursued the impatient parent, for the tenth time raising her eye-glass and taking a survey of the saloon. “I suppose it’s not fashionable for men of rank to come in early. No matter, Julia; you must reserve yourself till the last moment.”

But the last moment had now arrived. The introductory piece had been played and was succeeded by the hum of half-whispered voices, and the rustling of silk dresses—by that movement which precedes the taking of places—gentlemen gliding in short stages across the slippery floor, formally bending in front of expanded skirts, and mincing out the well-known speech, “May I have the pleasure?” Then a momentary show of irresolution on the part of the lady, perhaps the consulting of a slip of cardboard, an inclination of the head so slight as to be scarce observable, a rising to the feet, with the greatest apparent reluctance, and lastly the acceptance of the offered arm, as if conferring the supremest of favours!

Neither of the young ladies under Mrs Girdwood’s care had been yet called upon to take part in this pantomime. Certainly the stewards were not doing their duty. There were no finer-looking girls in the room, and there were scores of gentlemen who would have been delighted to dance with them. Their standing neglected could be only an accidental oversight.

The storekeeper’s widow began to find it disagreeable. She felt inclined to be less exacting about the description of partners. As there was no lord in sight, the ex-officer would not be much longer objected to.

“Does he intend coming at all?” she reflected, thinking of Swinton.

“Does he intend coming to us?” was the reflection of Julia, her thoughts dwelling upon Maynard.

Her eyes, too, were on him. He was still approaching, though slowly. He was hindered by the hurrying couples as they took position on the floor. But she could see that he was looking toward them—herself and cousin—where they stood.

He evidently approached with an air of indecision, his glance appearing to interrogate them.

It must have been met by one of encouragement, for his demeanour became suddenly changed and stepping up to the two young ladies, he saluted them with a bow.

By both the salutation was returned, perhaps more cordially than he had been expecting.

Both appeared to be still unengaged. To which ought he to offer himself? He knew which he would have chosen, but there was a question of etiquette.

As it turned out, there was no question of choice.

“Julia, my dear,” said Mrs Girdwood, presenting a very stylishly-dressed individual, who had just been given in charge to her by one of the stewards. “I hope you have not engaged yourself for the quadrille? I’ve promised you to this gentleman. Mr Smithson—my daughter.”

Julia glanced at Smithson, and then looked as if she wished him far enough.

But she had not engaged herself, and was therefore compelled to accept.

Lest a second Mr Smithson should be trotted up, Maynard hastened to secure Cornelia, and led her off to form “opposite couple.”

Seemingly satisfied with the disposal thus made, Mrs Girdwood retired to a seat.

Her contentment was of short continuance. She had scarce touched the cushion, when she saw coming towards her a gentleman of distinguished appearance, in straw kids. It was his lordship incog.

She started back to her feet, and glanced across the room toward the square that contained her girls. She looked interrogatively, then despairingly. It was too late. The quadrille had commenced. Mr Smithson was doing “right and left” with her daughter. Confound Mr Smithson!

“Aw, madam! How’d do, again? Ball begun, I pawceive; and I’m cut out of the kadwille.”

“It is true, Mr Swinton; you’ve come in a little late, sir.”

“What a baw! I pwesume yaw young ladies are disposed of?”

“Yes; they are dancing over yonder.”

Mrs Girdwood pointed them out. Adjusting his eye-glass, Mr Swinton looked across the room. His eye wandered in search of Mrs Girdwood’s daughter. He did not think of the niece. And his inquiry was directed more to Julia’s partner than herself.

A single look seemed to satisfy him. Mr Smithson was not the man to make him uneasy.

“I hope, madam,” he said, turning to the mother, “I hope Miss Girdwood has not filled up her cawd for the evening?”

“Oh, certainly not, sir!”

“Pewaps for the next—I pawceive by the pawgwam a valz—pwaps I might have the honour of valzing with her? May I bespeak yaw influence in my behalf; that is, if there be no pwevious engagement?”

“I know there is none. I can promise you that, sir; my daughter will no doubt be most happy to waltz with you.”