Front matter (continued 2)

"My dear, we have an invitation to go down to San Real to visit the Shallops. Mamma thinks we had better start to-morrow. Mr. Graham, here is a note for you which came enclosed in my letter. I fancy it carries the same invitation to you. It will be so nice at the seashore. You will like it, Millicent, won't you?"

"I like it here," Millicent answered, as she walked slowly up the steps; "but if you all want to go, I am willing. Who are the Shallops? Where is San Real?"

Graham had torn open his letter, which he quickly perused. Millicent looked inquiringly at him, and he answered her unspoken query:

"Yes, Mrs. Shallop asks me to join your party for a week at her pleasant house. Very kind of her, I am sure; but I never do that sort of thing. I--"

"Now, Graham," interrupted Mrs. Deering, "say nothing about it till I have talked it over with you. I have a particular reason for advising you to go. We will telegraph the answer in the morning, and can make up our minds in the course of the evening."

"I am yours to command in this and all things, Madame," said Graham, offering his arm to his hostess; "and there stands Ah Lam ready to weep because the muffins are growing cold; and I am famously hungry after our ride."

Tea being ended, Mrs. Deering and Graham paced the gravel path around the house for half an hour. It was evident to the group on the piazza that a discussion was going on between them. They spoke in low, earnest voices, whose tones did not escape Millicent's sensitive hearing, though she failed to catch the import of the words.

"For my sake," she finally heard Mrs. Deering say in a pleading voice.

"Dear my lady, is it just to put it on that ground?"

"But if you will hear to it on no other," she argued.

"Think what it is you ask of me. To leave my tower and my man Friday for a luxurious household with plethoric master and servants; to stagnate for a week among those ridiculous people who fill San Real in the summer; and all this not because it will do me or any one else any good, but to the end that I may begin the portraits I have already refused to paint. You know that I am not suited to that sort of hack work. How can I make a picture of that over-fed Shallop or his pinched, good little wife?"

"But our work cannot all be that which is best suited to us--"

"It should be--"

"Remember, Graham, that in three weeks the payment for the studio is due--"

"Ah, kindest one! you never forget me; bless you for your sweetness and thoughtfulness. Yes, I will go and do my best to make Shallop look like something other than an ex-blacksmith, but it is indeed bitter."

"You will find that there will be compensations," said Mrs. Deering, her eyes resting on the pretty group on the piazza: Barbara sitting at Millicent's feet, and Hal reaching up to pluck a spray of honeysuckles for her hair.

CHAPTER V.

Where have we lived and loved before this, sweet?

My will ere now hath led thy wayward feet;

I knew thy beauties--limbs, lips, brows, and hair--

Before these eyes beheld and found thee fair.

Mrs. Deering's arguments carried the day, and Graham decided to accompany the young ladies to San Real. Ferrara was to be of the party. It was a bright morning which saw the departure of the three travellers from the Ranch. Hal drove them to the station in a very disconsolate frame of mind. During Ralph Almsford's long absences, it was impossible for him to leave the Ranch, in which his interests were all vested; and it seemed rather hard that Graham should enjoy the pleasure which he had been obliged to decline. Henry Deering was a susceptible young man, and he was already enthralled by the soft voice and deep eyes of the girl on whom he had bestowed the title of Princess. His friendship for John Graham was one of the strongest feelings he had ever known. He admired him more than any person he knew. He respected the sterling character of the man, on whose honor he would have staked his life; and yet it was hard that Graham should devote himself to the Princess, for he said to himself there could be no chance for him against such a rival.

The country through which the railroad from San Rosario to San Real passes is most picturesque. Round the high hills winds the yellow line of the track, making horseshoe loops, so that the engine, Millicent said, sometimes turned round and looked the passengers in the face. Long, high bridges carry the shining steel threads of travel over deep canyons, with fierce rocky sides and stony bottoms. The scenery is very wild and beautiful, and the moderate pace at which the shaky little engine tugged along the rickety cars gave the travellers every opportunity for seeing and admiring the view.

A great mountain, lying among the low foothills, remained in view through the greater part of the route; it was conical and sharp-pointed, like the typical mountain of the atlas. A great fire had lately raged for days among the spreading trees and thick undergrowth; and now that the smoke had cleared away, the path which the flame had taken was distinctly visible from certain points. A great cross lay stamped on the mountain-side, for all men to see. The baptism of fire had left the symbol which was sanctified eighteen hundred years ago. Graham attracted Millicent's attention to this, which, she said, would have been considered a miracle in Italy.

"Are they not happy, those dear simple-minded Italians? A large portion of them do really believe in miracles to this day." Millicent was the speaker.

"Yes, far happier than those of us who have lost all belief in anything beyond our own bodies, and the facts which that body's senses reveal to us."

"And you believe--"

"Ask me not, maiden, what I believe. I can only hope. But this I know, that there is need to you and to me, to all of us of this generation, to whom the old fallacious dogmas of dead creeds are meaningless, of faith. This is not the age of belief. The things which have been considered necessary draperies to religion are stripped off; but because truth is naked, it is none the less truth. Faith in that part of ourselves which is not of earth, we must hold fast to, when all else is rent from our feeble natures."

"You should be a preacher. I think that you have got the right end of the truth, perhaps--"

Barbara, who had sat a silent listener to this conversation between the two young people, now spoke for the first time.

"I know little of the modern scientific theories, which Mr. Graham thinks have stripped religion of much that used to belong to it; but to me the denial of a Creator is the most illogical and ignorant act of which the human mind is capable. Look at that house we are just passing. If I should tell you that it never was built, that no architect or workman ever planned and executed its design, you would say that my talk was too idle to require contradiction. And yet you will tell me that the pleasant earth on which the house stands, the very trees which furnished its wood, the metals and stone which are wrought into it, exist, and yet knew no Maker."

"Barbara, do not let us talk any more about it; it is impossible for you and me to speak understandingly to each other on these subjects. Mr. Graham stands midway between your conventional faith and my unbelief; he can understand us both. Now let us talk about love and roses."

"Apropos of love and roses, here comes Ferrara, laden with both of those fragile commodities, which he will straightway lay at Miss Barbara's feet. If you like, Miss Almsford, we will make the next stage of our journey on the engine. I spoke to the engineer, at the last station, of your desire to see the mechanism of his locomotive. You will find the man quite clean and intelligent."

Ferrara joined the party at this moment, having come up to meet the train at this station. He carried a handful of great yellow roses, which he presented to Barbara with a low bow. The girl looked beseechingly at Millicent, who laughed rather heartlessly, and, escorted by Graham, proceeded to the engine. She was pleasantly received by its presiding genius, a hatchet-faced, sharp-voiced Yankee, who made a place for her on his little cushioned seat at one side of the locomotive. As soon as she was comfortably ensconced here, Graham sitting at her feet, the engineer rang the bell and allowed Millicent to pull the lever, which set the panting creature of iron and wood a-screaming. With a guttural shriek the engine pulled itself together and started off down the track at a good speed. Once in motion, the breeze, blowing through the windows, cooled the intense heat. Millicent looked straight down the narrowing steel rails with that keen sense of pleasure which every novel experience gave her. Presently she asked the small Yankee to explain the use of the steam gauge and of the various appliances crowded into the small space where she sat. The fireman, a hideous giant, black and grimy, occasionally opened a door and fed the furious fire with great lumps of coal. When it was well filled he varied his occupation by watering the wooden parts of the engine with a long rubber hose, lest they should ignite from the great heat. On a little shelf above her seat Millicent espied a book, toward which she instinctively stretched her hand. Books always acted on Millicent like magnets. The volume proved to be a Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, lately published in a cheap edition. She asked the sharp-faced engineer if he found the matter interesting, and was somewhat astonished by his astute remarks on the work and the personage of whom it treated. She looked at Graham in some astonishment, but he seemed in no-wise surprised at the phenomenon of a working-man in a blue blouse who could intelligently read and understand the seriously written biography of the great conqueror. The steam gauge rose higher and higher, while the engine tore along at a quicker speed in order to please the delicate visitor, who was now allowed to move the lever, and to pull the bell when they passed the signals requiring them to do so. The engineer was an interesting person, Millicent thought; he told her many humorous stories of his experiences, and some tragical ones. His wife had on one occasion accompanied him on a trip, sitting on the very place where Millicent now reposed. An accident had occurred, a broken rail throwing the cars down a high embankment, while the weight of the engine had saved them both from the terrible fate of many of the passengers. From that day his wife had refused ever to travel in any part of the train save in the small cabin where her husband sat. In a collision, Millicent learned, the dread fate of the engineer could only be avoided by desertion of his post; and the speaker bore witness to the steadfast bravery of more than one of his mates who had preferred death to such an act. As he talked he kept his eyes fixed on the two shining rails stretching before them. Sometimes, when interested in his own story, or their remarks, the engineer would look for a moment into Millicent's face; and she, with a terrified consciousness that her eyes were the only ones which could see any obstruction before the train thundering along at a great speed, would strain her vision to the utmost down the narrowing line of track. What an awful responsibility lay upon the shoulders of this cheerful little man, with his twinkling gimlet blue eyes, and how lightly he seemed to carry his burden. She grew quite white and silent at the thought; and when her hand, guided by the engineer, brought the panting locomotive to a standstill at the next station, she gladly stepped down upon the narrow platform, steadied by Graham's arm. They parted from the engineer with many expressions of pleasure for the ride they had enjoyed, and joined Barbara and Ferrara in the car.

San Real is one of the pleasantest sea-side towns to be found on the coast of California. It has become quite lately a fashionable summer resort, and boasts two large hotels, a colony of boarding-houses, and half a dozen private residences. All of these are of modest dimensions, with the single exception of the pretentious mansion of Mr. Patrick Shallop, which stands at the distance of a mile from the little village composed of one long street of shops and saloons.

At the station the party found a handsome carriage awaiting them, drawn by two prancing gray horses and decorated with sprawling coats-of-arms. The groom and driver were dressed according to the latest English fashion, and the tidy cart for the luggage was driven by a liveried menial. Millicent noted these details with surprise as she sank back on the satin cushions of the landau, and Graham laughingly commented upon her evident astonishment at the smart equipage.

"It appears, O fair Venetian, that you are surprised at this grandeur. Did not Miss Barbara prepare you for it?"

"No," answered the young woman quietly; she did not like to be laughed at. As the carriage rolled along the village street, Millicent gave a little cry of joy: "I smell the sea!" she cried.

Soon after they emerged from the shadow of the houses and struck the road which led to the brow of the cliffs. There, for the first time since she had left New York, Millicent looked out over the salt waves. The cool sea breeze twisted the curls which clustered about her forehead into tighter rings, and fanned a color into her marble cheek. She kissed her hand toward the great gray ocean as if gladly greeting the Pacific. Below the cliffs stretched the white beach, with its rows of bathing-houses, and booths hung with gay-colored wares. They had but time to glance at the view when the carriage turned from the road and entered a long avenue bordered with good-sized trees. Marble statues gleamed through the dark green of the luxuriant gardens, and odorous flowers made the air heavy with sweetness. Before the door of an enormous house the horses were drawn up, and Barbara and Millicent, followed by Graham and Ferrara, entered the wide hall. The exterior of the house was far from attractive. The material used was exclusively wood, which in California is almost universally employed in private dwellings. The fear of earthquakes always lurks in the mind of the Californian, and houses of brick or stone are very rare. The model adopted by the architect was a novel one, and seemed a combination of the Ionic, Corinthian, and Queen Anne styles. Stucco and lath represented decorations and columns which would have been appropriate in marble or granite. The massive style and the flimsy material gave an incongruous appearance to the great building. The wide terrace which surrounded the house, with its bright parterres of flowers, and the pleasant piazza, with roof and pillars like a Norman cloister, were, however, wonderfully attractive. Beyond the close-clipped emerald lawn was seen the ocean, whose white curling waves danced merrily in the unbroken sunshine.

The guests found Mrs. Shallop awaiting them in a long dim drawing-room. She was a skimpy pattern of feminality, with a pitiful, pinched face, great sad-looking eyes, colorless, sandy hair, and a thin, angular body. Though it was early in the afternoon, the elegance of her dress would have been suitable to a ball room. The heavy folds of rich blue brocade stood out from the poor little figure whose emaciated lines its rich fabric refused to indicate. She advanced toward her guests with something of an effort, as if the burden of dress which was laid upon her were greater than she could bear. Her welcome was, however, very cordial; and her bony little hands, with their weight of jewels, clasped Barbara's strong fingers affectionately.

"I am real glad you have all come, Miss Deering. I was awful fidgety about the train's being late. Miss Almsford, I am real pleased to see you. Mister Graham, happy to see you, sir. I hope your health is better, Mister Ferrara?"

Each of the guests acknowledged the kindly greeting, and some general conversation ensued. Millicent looked about the great drawing-room, noting the various beautiful articles of furniture, the Venetian glasses, the pictures and rich embroideries, the thousand-and-one bits of bric-à-brac which decorated the walls and cabinets of the lofty apartment. It was in truth a rarely beautiful room, the prevailing color a deep, soft crimson, the wood-work all painted white and delicately carved. Below the ceiling ran a frieze, the work of John Graham. The subject treated was the history of Cupid and Psyche. The scenes were divided into panels by twining sprays of rose-vines charmingly treated. The first represented the meeting of the two lovers, their marriage being the next in order. In the third compartment the doubting Psyche looks for the first time on the radiant beauty of the sleeping God. Next the artist had portrayed the forsaken, love-lorn bride sitting alone, crushed with grief, repenting the fatal curiosity which prompted her to peer too closely into the nature of love,--that greatest of boons, which should be accepted joyously and with thanksgiving, and to which doubt means death. The hard services required by Cytherea from the desolate Psyche were exquisitely rendered; and the final scene of the reunion of the two lovers was the masterpiece of the whole work. Psyche, radiant with new-found love and joy, her face touched with a more than mortal beauty by the grief she has endured, stands looking reverently into the face of the strongest of gods. Her rainbow wings can lift her now, to soar beside her lover, even to Olympus.

Millicent admired the beautiful frieze, which the hostess confessed troubled her sorely because of the scanty raiment which she said seemed to have been the fashion of the time it represented.

"Mister Graham," she explained, had induced her to keep it in the place for which it had been designed. Mrs. Shallop added that the artist had refused to follow her suggestion of adding clothing to the half nude bodies; and had, moreover, extracted a promise from her husband that he would never allow any other painter to be intrusted with thus supplementing the airy rainbow draperies of the figures.

Miss Almsford was much astonished at the very beautiful interior of the great Shallop house, and soon learned that its furnishing and decoration had been intrusted to Graham, who was gifted with that rarest and most valuable of aesthetic qualities, a perfect and original taste.

"It is the only house Mr. Graham has ever arranged, and he says he will never do another. He was in Europe while it was being built, and mamma persuaded the Shallops to give him carte blanche to buy all the beautiful things he could lay hands upon," Barbara explained.

The guests were shown to their rooms by the hostess, and Millicent gave an exclamation of delight on entering the apartment allotted to her. It was indeed a unique room. The walls were panelled in ebony to a third of their height, a bright light pattern in flowers running to the ceiling, and relieving what might otherwise have been sombre. The glossy black wood was carved into a wide, high fireplace, where two brass andirons, curiously wrought with twisted dragons, supported a fire whose bright blaze was most welcome to Millicent. She found the season very cold compared to the still, hot Italian summers. Below the mantel the fire shone out in welcome, but above the ebony shelf, set in the wall, was a picture which seemed fuller of light and color than the leaping flames. A Venetian scene with a terrace whereon sat men and maidens in the warm glow of the sunset, looking out over a stretch of many-toned water, in which were mirrored sky and clouds, trees, draperies, and graceful human figures. A black gondola, partly shown in the foreground, might have held the painter while he sketched the brilliant scene.

"It is my Venice!" cried Millicent, "it is my home!" Her eyes were full of tears. She caught Barbara by the arm and rapidly described to her the point from which the picture had been painted.

"Mr. Graham will be very much pleased that you recognized the spot."

"Is it his picture? Yes, I ought to have known it."

"Why, are you clairvoyant?"

"Yes, Barbara, sometimes."

Millicent seemed somewhat disconcerted at what she had said; and, without noticing anything more in the pretty room, ascended the dainty little ebon staircase with its fanciful rail, and, pushing back a panel which slid into the wall, entered her bedroom. Later, when both of the girls had exchanged their travelling dresses, Barbara knocked at Millicent's boudoir.

"Entraté," was the response, in obedience to which she opened the door, and found Millicent lying on the low, crescent-shaped sofa, her fair head resting on a pile of cushions. Her graceful figure was clad in a gown soft amber in color, her only ornaments wonderful strings of amber beads falling over the white neck, which the fashion of the frock disclosed, and encircling the smooth bare arms, with their delicate tracery of blue veins like the lines in purest marble. Her hands were hidden, clasped behind her head, and the expression of her face was almost vacant in its look of absorbing reverie. Beside her on the floor lay a small parchment book, ivory-clasped,--"The Sonnets of Petrarch." Her eyes were fixed on the panel over the mantel shelf, but they saw more than the artist had pictured with brush and color: a waking day dream of her home as she had last seen it, and ah! how much sweeter an imagining of how she might next see it,--with what surroundings, with what companionship! O blessed dream-castles of women, in which all the cares and privations of life are forgotten; in which there is never a weariness or a pain; where lonely watching is succeeded by joyous reunion; where those who have lived and know too surely that they must die without that greatest happiness which life can hold, drink the cup of joy innocently, purely, fearing no bitter after-taste, finding no foul dregs!

At Barbara's entrance Millicent slowly drew herself back from dreamland into the actual present. Her eyes, which had been staring widely with a blank look, now seemed to change color with returning consciousness. It was a long journey, and she gave a deep sigh when it was accomplished, and she realized that plump, pretty Barbara, with her best frock and ribbons, stood by her side looking curiously in her face.

"I was reading, and I fancy I had fallen asleep, Bab, what can I do for you?"

"Mrs. Shallop suggested our all having tea here, if you liked. They do not dine till eight to-night. Mr. Shallop has been detained in San Francisco."

"Very well, dear, just as you say. You did not mean to send for the gentlemen?"

"Oh, yes, this room is always used for a tea room, unless you object, of course. If you prefer to 'sport your oak,' you have a perfect right to do so, and we will go downstairs."

"No, no, let us have it here by all means, if it is the custom."

Barbara rang the bell, which was answered by a ponderous butler with a condescending manner, white neckcloth, bandy legs, and an apoplectic countenance. The individual had been imported by the Shallops along with the footman and driver, his two younger brothers, who, in common with all the other members of the household, from Mr. Shallop down to the boots, stood in awe of him. To this worthy Barbara somewhat timidly gave orders that tea should be brought, and the gentlemen warned that it awaited them.

"Very good, miss," answered the functionary in the driest possible tone, his features curled into an expression of scorn toward the whole human race. His bow was so terrific in its icy grandeur that Barbara shivered as he left the room.

"I hate that man, and he knows it. He always spoils my appetite by glaring at me all through dinner; and I think he takes an evil delight in handing all the most impossible dishes to me first, which I have to refuse, because I don't dare to attack them."

The man shortly after returned and laid a low round table in the bow-window for tea. Barbara placed herself behind the old-fashioned silver urn and busied herself with tea-making, while Millicent drew up the blinds and let the sunset into the room. Soon Graham came in, begging for a cup of tea, a sure bait to him, he said, especially when Miss Deering poured out the delicious beverage. This last speech he made with an exaggeratedly deep bow, which grotesqued the compliment and made the girl's cheek redden. Shortly after, Ferrara joined the party, and a pleasant tea-drinking ensued, though the last comer refused to be tempted by the pretty cups of smoking Souchong.

"Neither will I reproach my luncheon, nor insult the excellent dinner which I am sure Mrs. Shallop will give us, by the uncivilized fashion of drinking tea at this hour."

"Miss Almsford thinks we are too civilized here, Ferrara. She almost fainted when she learned that I was the possessor of a dress-coat. She hoped to find us in eternal suits of corduroy and flannel, with top-boots and bowie knives."

"You have exactly described the costume in which I first saw you, Mr. Graham; so you surely should not blame me for believing that, in wearing it, you followed the prevailing fashion of your country."

"That alters the case; but are you not mistaken? I remember having taken particular care to don a black coat on that evening--do you remember?--when I surprised you by the fire."

"But I had seen you before that, though you had never seen me."

"When, fair lady? May I hope that our first encounter was in your white dreams?"

The girl shook her head and laughed.

"Was it perhaps in another existence? Did we dance together, you and I, in the old happy days when Pan reigned? Now I think of it, were you not the wood-nymph who vanished from me into the arms of a great tree? Did you not tread one measure with me in the merry wood-dance, and then leave me desolate with a tryst appointed but never kept?"

"Did you not soon find another partner?"

"I waited long alone."

"And if I could not come sooner?"

"Well, you have come at last to keep the tryst. Will you finish that dance which was begun so many eons ago?"

"Ay me! and can we now dance the same measure, you and I? Would not our feet tread inharmonious steps?"

"Which of us can say? Shall we try?"

"If you say my word was given, I know not how to break it."

The room had grown dim, and Barbara and Ferrara in the recess of the window were speaking together, while Millicent sat gazing dreamily into the glowing heart of the low-burning fire, conscious that Graham was looking intently on her face. She dared not lift her eyes to his, and veiled them with the downcast lids. Not what she might read daunted her, but what might be revealed to the man who sat leaning forward in the quaintly-carven oak chair.

"It is understood then that you admit my claim to your hand,--for one dance at least? You acknowledge the promise made so many dim years back? You have come across wide, tossing seas and over broad, sun-parched fields to keep the tryst you made with me, a smile upon your face, a shadow in your eyes?"

For answer the girl bowed her head.

"Nay, I must hear it from your very own lips. Is it for this that you have come?"

"Yes." The word came soft as twilight shadows, sweet as Nature's harmony. A long pause preceded the low-breathed monosyllable, the word which fond women love best to speak and which listening lovers thrill, half cold, half hot, at hearing. And when it was spoken and heard came a second silence, even longer than the first; and yet what they had said was begun in badinage, and was finished without serious thought by either man or woman. Dangerous words! dangerous silence! happy time, how oft remembered in later days!

"Did I hear you asking Miss Almsford for a dance, Graham? What ball are you contemplating? I have heard of none unless you mean to invite us all to your tower for a frolic. Be sure you do not leave me out; I have long wished to visit your hermitage."

"If the ladies would so highly honor a lonely dweller in the woods as to allow him the felicity of being their host, be sure, my dear Ferrara, that you shall escort them to my humble abode."

"Really, are you in earnest? I have always wished to see your tower. When shall we come?"

"That is for you to say, Miss Deering. Any day which will suit your convenience will be agreeable to me."

"We will settle it after we return to the Ranch."

Soon after this Mrs. Shallop joined the group, and they all went out and walked on the wide terrace till dinner was served. Here Millicent met Mr. Shallop for the first time. He was a heavy-featured Irishman, with light-blue eyes, overhanging brows, and thick, coarse brown hair. His badly modelled nose had a decided upward tendency, and the broad mouth disclosed sharp, long teeth, like those of an inferior animal. When he smiled he showed the whole set, which gave him a rather ferocious aspect. His face was clean shaven, save for a fringe of whisker stretching from the lobe of the ear to the lower jaw. With a pipe and a shillelah he would have been an excellent specimen of a patron of Donnybrook Fair. On this occasion he wore irreproachable evening dress. His linen was finer than Graham's, and the cut of his collar and pattern of his studs were of a later fashion than those worn by Ferrara. A valet's care had smoothed the rough hair and cared for the ugly hands. One of his peculiarities was to address all ladies as "Marm." His conversation was not unintelligent, and betrayed a keen, sharp mind, which clearly understood those things which came in close contact with it, but whose mental vision was bounded by the physical one. Those things which he had learned by experience he knew absolutely, and he never questioned or theorized on subjects which did not directly touch himself or his own interests. California had been to him a place which held a gold mine, nothing more or less. His history, which he made no effort to conceal, was not an uncommon one. He had come out in '49, among the fevered crowd of gold-seekers drawn from every country, from every station in life, by the loadstone which had been discovered on the banks, of the American River, by James Marshall. He had come to San Francisco in those early days when law and order were not, save when the conscience of the public, stronger and purer in its united power than in the individuals which compose it, was awakened, and hastened to punish a crime by a rude and swift justice. Shallop had built a cabin in which he lived, and in which he sold, when he was networking in the gulches, any articles of food which he was able to procure. When there were no potatoes or bread, he closed the door of his shanty and started off with pick and washing-pan for the gulches. When these staple edibles were to be had, he made a brisk trade in catering to the half-starved miners. It had been said that though Shallop's bread was heavy, it cost nearly its weight in gold. In those days he had wooed and married the widow of a brother miner, one of the few women whose sad lot brought them to the land of disorder and bloodshed. A few weeks only elapsed, before the widowed woman gladly changed her state for the protection of the strong arm of Patrick Shallop, to whom she became deeply attached, with a pathetic love resembling that of a dog for a kind master. The bread grew lighter then, and sometimes the potatoes fed pitiful pale youths who brought no store of gold-dust to pay for them. Patrick Shallop, living in the most magnificent dwelling in the whole length and breadth of California, was sometimes moved to tell of the little cabin where he had brought home his bride on a wet night, borrowing an umbrella to place over the bed to keep the rain from wetting her to the skin. There had been times when things had gone badly with the inmates of the little cabin, and days had passed when the mother's ears were torn with the cries of children hungry for bread. It was at this time that Barbara's father had known the Shallops. Mr. Deering was a delicately bred, handsome young man, who had come with the eager crowd of men all pushing ruthlessly forward to the golden goal, sometimes trampling to death the weaker brothers who fell by the wayside. Sick of a fever, faint and dying, he was plundered of his hard-earned store of gold-dust, and would have been murdered by his robber but for the interposition of Shallop, who stood by to see fair play, and carried the sick man home to his shanty, where the tender nursing of the busy wife saved his life a second time. Adversity makes strange companionships between men; and the friendship between the saloon-keeper and the delicately nurtured youth with the blood of a Puritan ancestry in his veins, was one which lasted through both their lives. By some mining exploits which would hardly bear the light of day, but which were, alas! not more uncommon at that time than at the present day, the Irishman had made a colossal fortune which placed him among the richest men in the world. There could be little sympathy between the two men whom the chances of that wild time had thrown together for the moment, but a cordiality was always felt; and after Mr. Deering's death frequent visits were exchanged between the dwellers of the San Rosario Ranch and the inmates of the most celebrated house on the borders of the Pacific Ocean.

The dinner was a long one, served with all the tedious formalities which the fierce butler chose to inflict. It was not until the servants had withdrawn that the host and hostess, who stood in mortal dread of their chief functionary, their oracle on all matters of etiquette, seemed to feel themselves at home at their own table. The removal of this restraint, and the excellent wine, served to make the last quarter of an hour spent over the dessert the pleasantest part of the repast. Millicent, sitting at the right hand of her host, at last succeeded in making him tell some anecdotes of his early Californian experiences, to which she listened with breathless interest. Her feelings were undergoing a radical change; and if the country which she at first detested had not yet become dear to her, she certainly felt the greatest interest and curiosity to learn more of it. In the old dreamy life of Venice, her days had been spent in golden visions of a vanished grandeur. She was now awaking to the stirring reality of the present, and felt dimly that to be an heir to the glories of the past was but a part of living,--an inheritance which affects us less than the actual doing and striving of our own times.

The party sat together in the library, with its comfortable chairs and rows of undisturbed books sleeping between their gilded covers, until late in the evening. The conversation was general, and the quick mind of the stranger guest learned from it much that roused her attention. "If I only had four ears instead of two!" she cried at last, after a vain endeavor to follow at the same time a discussion between Ferrara and Mr. Shallop on the best method of vine culture, and a conversation between Graham and Mrs. Shallop on the subject of the public schools. Soon after this, the ladies left the room; and Millicent, her pulses all a-tremble with the various new experiences of the day, was slow in falling asleep. That night her lips forgot to give their wonted homesick sigh for Italy, for Venice.

CHAPTER VI.

"Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?

When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow do you say?"

The week's visit at the Shallops' slipped quickly away, each pleasant day passing too hastily into to-morrow, Millicent thought. The ordering of each day had something of a routine, beginning invariably with a gallop on horseback. The way sometimes led across wet, hard beaches where the horses' hoofs crushed, with a crisp sound, the tiny sea-shells left by the receding waves. The tall roan which Millicent rode was a young thoroughbred, with slender legs, a proud, arching neck, and unclipped mane and tail. Mrs. Shallop had given the fine animal to her guest; and Millicent, who had a magnetic influence over all animals, easily controlled the horse by word or touch. The young people usually paired off; Millicent riding beside Graham, Barbara and Ferrara following, while Mr. Shallop brought up the rear on a sturdy cob whose character and strength were well calculated to bear up the portly magnate. Sometimes they rode through the odorous woods, where the air was heavy with spices, and melodious with sweet bird-notes foreign to Millicent's ears. The tall and stately redwoods standing straight and unbending in their close serried ranks, seemed to her a noble symbol of the life of an upright man, who looks fearlessly into the wide heavens, raised far above the briers which grow about his lesser brethren.

On their return from their ride, glowing with the splendid exercise, breakfast was served; sometimes in the pretty morning room, oftener in a sheltered part of the wide veranda, from whence they might look out upon the shadowy woods stretching behind the house. After this meal, Mr. Shallop and Ferrara took the train for San Francisco; and the hostess and Graham disappeared into the temporary studio which had been arranged for the artist. The two girls were left to amuse themselves. Millicent, who had brought her usual store of books, did not open one of them, but moused about in the library, finding many works quite new to her and full of interest. If her knowledge of Italian and French literature was remarkable, her ignorance of the English classics was stupendous. Shakspeare alone was familiar to her among the great ones. The long rows of finely bound books were mostly uncut and showed little evidence of having been read, a copy of a lady's fashion book, and a volume treating of the manners of polite society, forming notable exceptions to this rule. At mid-day a beach-wagon conveyed the young girls to the shining sea-sands, and they indulged in the luxury of a bath. In the afternoon they took long drives, or played lawn tennis with friends from the hotel in the town. The evenings were sometimes spent on the long, cool veranda, oftener on Mr. Shallop's stanch yacht, the "Golden Hind." She was a fine vessel several tons heavier than her illustrious namesake, in which Sir Francis Drake sailed along the coast of California more than three centuries ago, and took possession of the land as "New Albion," in the name of good Queen Bess.

Pleasant days, full of incident and enjoyment, filled with new impressions to Millicent, and freighted with sunlight and merriment to all the party. No thought of the weather lent the anxious uncertainty to plans which so often to us in the East takes half the enjoyment from anticipation. From May to November in this favored land the blue of the sky is unclouded, save by gossamer white drifts of vapor, massed into soft shapes and mystic outlines. The sky smiles from spring to laughing summer, and the land lies steeped in sunshine through the late autumn.

The wide white beach, with its row of bathing-houses and little tents, was very attractive to Millicent. She sometimes sat in the warm sand for hours, chatting with Barbara or making friends with the bare-legged children, the tireless architects in sand. Finally, donning their bathing-suits, they ran, hand in hand, over the dry sands, across the wet space which the last wave had darkened, through the white fringe of the sea, into the cool green billows.

The last day of their visit had come, and the morrow would see them on their way back to San Rosario. Millicent and Barbara had prolonged their sea dip beyond their usual wont. Never before had the water seemed so bracing and delicious. As there were twenty or thirty bathers to keep her company, Millicent lingered among the breakers, while Barbara regained the shore. She swam leisurely about, displacing the clear water with her white arms and pretty, small feet. She suddenly became aware that a swimmer was gaining on her from behind, and her stroke instinctively quickened. Millicent swam as only the women of Venice can swim; and the race between her and her unseen pursuer bade fair to be hotly contested. With head high lifted from the waves which circled caressingly about the smooth round throat, knotting the tendril curls at the nape of the neck, the girl kept steadily on her course without turning her head to see who might be so audacious as to follow her. Strong as were her strokes, she slowly lost ground; and finally the water about her rippled with the strokes of the man who was gaining. Soon he had caught up with her, and side by side they swam for a space. Then the victor spoke in a voice well known to her, and the girl answered him with a laugh which rang out fresh and crisp as the sound of the wavelets. Then she turned her head and looked full at him as he moved by her side, strong and graceful as a young merman.

"So, my nymph, you are at home in Father Neptune's arms as well as in the embrace of the great tree. Which is your native element, earth, air, or water?"

"I am amphibious."

"And which of your three elemental homes do you like the best?"

"When I am dancing, the air; when I am walking, dear Mother Earth; and when I swim, the sea."

"When I paint you, it will be as I see you now, triumphing over the waves as our great mother, Aphrodite, triumphed over them before you."

"That compliment would go to my head were it not mixed with so much water."

Then they both laughed, because the sky was sapphire clear, and the sea beryl green; because the golden sun warmed them with its kind rays; because each was fair and good to look upon; because, when they were together, winds blew more softly, and sky and sea took on a more tender hue where they melted at the horizon into one ineffable kiss. A pair of white-winged gulls swept above them, shrieking their love-notes hoarsely, while the white-armed girl and the strong-limbed man breasted the waves together, side by side. Though lapped by the cool water, Graham felt the warm influence which folded about him like a cloak in Millicent's presence. When she grew tired the girl turned upon her side and floated; while Graham swam about her in little circles, first moving like a shark on one side, with long, far-reaching strokes, then swimming upon his back, and finally beneath the waves, looking always at her face seen dimly through the dark-green water.

After a space Millicent looked about to find herself alone, far from the shore with its group of bathers. At first she fancied that her companion must be swimming below the water as he had done before; but, as the slow-passing seconds went by, she realized that some ill must have befallen him. Stretching her arms above her head, she dived straight and swift through the clear water towards the pebbled bottom of the ocean shining through the pellucid waters. In that dim under-current she touched him, stiff and cold, rising toward the surface, but through no effort of his own helpless limbs. In that terrified heart-beat of time she saw his face set and white, with horror-stricken eyes widely strained apart. Into them she looked, her own firing with hope and courage, and giving a mute promise of rescue. She seized his rigid arm with her strong, small hands, and they rose together to the surface. The man was as if paralyzed; and the girl for an instant tried to support him, but, feeling such a strain would soon out-wear her half-spent strength, she cried,--

"Put your hand on my shoulder--so, and I will swim below you." Her voice was hoarse and shrill as that of the screaming sea-gulls. He could not speak, but looked toward the shore as if he would have her save herself and abandon him to his fate.

"No, no!" she cried, "I will save you;" and, placing his hands on her shoulders, struck out bravely toward the shore. To reach it seemed at first an easy thing, but the struggle proved a terrible one, cruelly unequal, between the girl's small strength, with the burden now added to her own weight, and the waves grown hungry for human prey. Their babbling music now was changed to Millicent's ears, and they clamored greedily for her life, for that other life which she was striving to snatch from their cruel embrace. Again and again the man would loosen his hold. She could not save him: why should she die too, she was so young, so fair! This he tried to tell her in gasping accents, but she only gripped his hand more firmly and placed it as before. They should both live or die. Fate, which had been so cruel to her, had cast their lots together for that day at least; and death seemed sweeter by his side than life without him. Her brave spirit fainted not, though her labored strokes grew slower and feebler. Then she gave one great cry for help to those who were so near them, and yet so unconscious of their danger. She heard their voices plainly,--the mothers talking to romping children, whose ringing laughter mocked her agony. Was it their death knell, this sound of sweet child-voices that drowned her frenzied cry, and filled the ears of the strong men and women, keeping out the fainting accents which pleaded for his life and her own? Once again, and this time with a thrilling vibration of despair, the woman's voice rang out across the waves. It was freighted with her last hope; it was the latest sound her gasping lungs could utter. Could love and hope of life outshriek the murmur of the waves, the shrill note of the sea-mews, the noisy prattle of the infants? The man, long since despairing, groaned: it seemed murder to him that his helpless weight should drag down the fair, brave young creature to her grave; his death agony was made more bitter by the thought. The girl's determination never wavered, and her little strength was not wasted in a longer struggle; she managed to keep his face above the waves, but now only held her own, and had ceased to make the slightest progress. She could now no longer see the bathers. Had her cry been heard? O waves! be merciful and still your clamor! White-winged partners, cry no more your mocking love notes! Sweet mothers, list no longer to your children's laughter, for there is other sound which must reach your fond ears and chill your warm hearts with horror! For a moment there grew a great silence as of listening, and then over the water came answering cries of women agonized with sympathy, came the hearty voices of strong men saying, "Keep up, keep up! for help is coming, it is close beside you." Ah, God! it is in time, for the two white faces, lying so close in the green waters, have but just vanished from sight; they still shine through the waves but a little space beneath the surface. Strong helping arms raise the nerveless bodies from the waves that murmur sullenly, bear them safely to the shore with its shining white sands, and, last, gently loose the maiden's white hands, clinging still, though all unconsciously, to the man whose life she has saved. Weeping women gather about them, lying there so still and fair upon the white beach; frightened children look curiously at the half-drowned figures of the man and the woman. Still are they man and woman, and not yet fallen to that terrible neuter of death, wherein age and sex are not, where serf and queen are equals.

CHAPTER VII.

"A flame! Her clear soul's essence slips,

To steep for aye with mine, from her fast-whitening lips!"

Several days passed before these two who, hand in hand, had looked death in the face, and felt his chill breath freezing up the current of their lives, again saw one another. Graham, after twenty-four hours, was able to be about, looking pale and ill. The congestive chill which had overcome him was the result of his having plunged into the sea while very much over-heated. The water at San Real, and indeed all along the Pacific coast, is very much colder than at the Eastern watering places of a corresponding latitude, where the genial influence of the Gulf Stream is felt. His vigorous constitution quickly threw off the effects of the terrible experience; but three long days and nights wore themselves out before Millicent's light step sounded on the stairs. Mrs. Shallop and Barbara were sitting alone at the luncheon table, when the latter caught the sound of the well-known footfall; she hastily left the room, and running up the stairs passed her arm about the feeble girl, supporting her into the room.

"Why did you not tell me that you were coming? Do you think it prudent, dear?"

"Yes, I wanted to come, and the doctor said I should do whatever I fancied," she answered a little fretfully; then she smiled, with that flashing of the eyes that always won her pardon for any little sin. It was a strange coincidence, Barbara thought, that Millicent should have come downstairs for the first time on the morning when Graham had gone to San Francisco. It was his first absence since the beginning of their visit. Why should she avoid meeting the man whose life she had saved at the risk of her own? Graham had every day begged to see her, but Millicent had not felt equal to the interview. Barbara was genuinely puzzled; but then Barbara was often puzzled by Millicent. During the days just past her gentle care and nursing had brought her much nearer to Millicent than she had been before. In those long mornings when Barbara, in a full, deep voice, read to her from her favorite books, Millicent had time to think more about her new friend; and the more she thought about her the better she liked the sweet, sound, womanly nature, with its domestic instincts, and maternal care of all creatures sick or sorry. One morning, as the invalid lay upon her couch, while Barbara's gentle hands plaited her long hair in thick strands, she said, somewhat abruptly,--

"Barbara, why have you not married?"

"What an odd question!"

"If you knew what a charming wife you would make, you would think the question a most natural one. I suppose you have been in love?"

"I suppose so," jestingly.

"Bah! talk seriously for a moment with me. Why do you not marry Ferrara? The poor fellow is perfectly pathetic in his devotion to you. You know, Barbara, that matrimony would suit you delightfully; there is nothing so becoming to a woman of your type as the background of a home of her own. There you would shine like Jessica's candle in this naughty world."

"I have never thought about it in the way of a background."

"Of course you never did; but, Barbara, do you think you could fall in love again?"

"Who knows?"

"Then I know that you have never been in love at all, ma belle--oh, I forgot, and have broken my vow to speak English pure and simple. Well, never mind, now we will talk about my broth, for I am very hungry. I feel like little Rosalba in the 'Rose and the Ring,' when she went about crying, 'Dutess Tountess, my royal highness vely hungy.'"

Long confidences had followed this conversation; and Millicent listened to Barbara's account of a childish romance with that deep interest which women all feel in the heart experiences of their sisters. Such sympathy is born in the feminine breast before the power of loving awakes there, and dies not when experience has brought nothing to it but grief and bitterness. The veriest chit of a girl of ten will read a love-story if she be allowed, while her brothers are inventing ingenious instruments for the torture of cats and nurses. The deafest grandam will listen with keen interest to her favorite grand-daughter's confession of love, and will be careful not to chill young hopes with her own sad memories. All those who have loved truly, with that love which outlasts grief, death, and human passion, which smiles at the cruelest neglect, which, like the love of the Most High, passeth all understanding, have sympathy and kindly interest for those who are in love. That "all the world loves a lover," is the truest of all sayings.

As soon as they were alone, Millicent told Barbara that she was anxious to return to the Ranch the following day. Since her first meeting with John Graham, her life had danced away through bright hours passed in his company, in remembering past interviews, in looking forward to future meetings. In the long days when she lay weak and helpless, slowly recovering from the terrible drain on forces, nervous and muscular, she had thought long and deeply; and now that she was well, she did not wish to meet Graham, and avoided his presence. She realized, as she had not done before, that she deeply and irrevocably loved this man, whose name six months ago had been unknown to her. Whether this understanding of what was in her own heart came upon her in one broad flash of quickened intelligence, when she lay half swallowed up by the jaws of death, still clasping him with feeble hands, or if, in the quiet hours of introspection which followed that awful moment, she gradually learned the truth, it would be hard to say, but that she now knew it, was indubitable. The fact that the man she loved should be indebted to her for his life was a distasteful one. Not through gratitude did she wish to attract him; the very thought of it was galling to her. She loved him, and longed, with the deepest power in her soul, to arouse in his breast that answering passion, which, like a deep bass chord, mingles with the sweet treble song of woman's love, their harmony making the one perfect note to which the keystone of the universe trembles sympathetically. Sweet as was the thought that her strength had sufficed for them both, she mourned the chance which had made her hand the rescuing one. Love that springs from gratitude or from pity is earth-born and earth-bound; she would have none of it; it was as if she had a claim upon him for that gift, which if not freely given is valueless. So, with a shyness new to her, she avoided meeting Graham; and the night of his return she sought her room again and did not appear until the following morning. If Graham did not know all, he was ready enough to understand that she avoided his thanks.

Mrs. Shallop passed the last evening of her guests' visit sitting with Miss Almsford, answering her many eager questions of the strange, wild days when law and order were not in the broad golden land. It seemed almost incredible to Millicent, and yet she felt it to be true, that the wife of the mining king regretted the past days of poverty and simplicity. The hard-earned crust, shared with a husband whose every thought was known to her, had tasted sweeter than the luxuries of a table at which she often sat alone, or with a partner absorbed in thoughts and enterprises in which she had no part. Her children had then been entirely hers; now they were far distant,--the boy at an English college, the girl in a French conventual school, whence they would both return grown too clever and proud to care for her simple-hearted companionship. What mattered it that she had toiled day and night to buy them food and clothing, had worn out her poor body and dulled her simple mind with anxious overstrain and grinding labor? Would they thank her for it now? When, a year before, she had visited these adored children, she had felt the distance between them and herself. If her son had not been ashamed of his poor mother, it was only because his heart was not quite weaned from hers. The girl was gentle and kind; but the pitying care with which she brought her conversation to the level of her mother's understanding was all too obvious to the sensitive woman, whose nervous strength had been shattered in the hard fight which she had made all those years ago, to keep the breath of life in their little bodies. Half her life had been passed at the wash-tub, half in the drawing-room; the transition had been too sudden for a person of her temperament. The soapsuds, which used to flash the splintered rays of light from her hands, were more appropriate to them than the diamonds with which they now glittered. Poor woman, the extremes of fortune were both known to her.

Though their visit had been a delightful one, Millicent was anxious to return to the Ranch; she longed for the quiet, refined atmosphere of the place, with its simple comforts, doubly attractive after this experience of the luxurious but inappropriate house of Mr. Patrick Shallop. There is a certain fitness in things; and the ex-miner, living in the palace of the railroad king, was less at home than England's monarch could have been in the cowherd's hovel. Millicent felt the social malaise which arises from the incongruity of persons with their surroundings. Graham, interested in his portrait, which was coming on famously, was not easily affected by a personal atmosphere to which he was indifferent; while Barbara and Ferrara, used to a similar condition of things, accepted it without question.

The morning of the last day of their visit dawned bright and clear; and Millicent, standing on the terrace, thought the wide view had never seemed so beautiful before. She was taking farewell of that sea which had so nearly swallowed her young life with all its hopes and fears. The waves murmured with a gentle sound, as if quite oblivious of their late rapacity. She went out into the thick pine woods behind the house, and stood for the last time among the great redwoods, which to her were so wonderful, and which everybody else accepted as a matter of course. A well-known footstep behind her on the dry leaves caused the slight pink tinge which the morning breeze had brought to her cheek to fade suddenly; the blood seemed rushing from every vein back to its source, and her heart stopped its pulsations for a moment. She did not turn her head, but stood quite silent, waiting for Graham's first word. When he was at her side, she felt her hand suddenly caught in a warm pressure which sent the blood rushing through the arteries again, tingling painfully in every fibre of her body, and loosening the cold silence of the heart, which beat out a quick answer to the words of greeting. They were but few and very earnest, the words of a brave man glad to be beholden to so fair a woman for his life. Was it gratitude that made his voice tremble, that lighted his grave eyes with a smile?

She answered him sweetly and seriously, with a steady voice and calm eyes, though the rose-flush flooded and ebbed from her cheek and brow. The man did not trouble himself to analyze the feelings which gave rise to the fleeting blushes; he was too full of his own enthusiasm to notice how it affected its object. He spoke as he felt and thought of the woman standing there so full of life and beauty,--only in the light of his relation to her. He knew how he felt towards her, and told her so with admiring frankness; of her feelings towards himself he never stopped to think. His was an egotistic nature, as are those of all strong men whose personality stamps the age in which they live. Weaker men and women receive the imprint of their time; only the few strong ones leave their images impressed when the soft clay of the present is transmitted into the unmalleable granite of the past.

They walked together for a time, Graham full of anxious inquiry for her health, and Millicent happy in his anxiety. When the artist learned of the proposed departure, he strongly opposed it, urging a longer stay. When he found that the young ladies had decided to leave San Real, he announced his intention of accompanying them. Mrs. Shallop shortly afterward joined the pair and handed Millicent a newspaper, at which the girl looked quite indifferently until her eyes caught her own name in large letters at the head of a column. She quickly read the article, which proved to be a highly sensational account of the rescue of Graham.

A FIGHT WITH DEATH!--Heroism of a Young Girl!--John Graham rescued from Drowning by Beautiful Millicent Almsford!--The Personal Appearance of the Heroine!--Early History of the Lucky Man!

These headings preceded the two-column article at which Graham laughed contemptuously, and which drew hot tears from Millicent's eyes. She had never before seen her own name in print, and the freedom with which the Anglo-Saxon press deals with the affairs of ladies who have no claim on the public interest was unknown to her. She only felt that her name was being spoken by people who never had heard of her; that the most sacred and awful hour of her life was revealed to the world; and that the event of which she had hardly spoken, and of which she barely dared to think, was now familiar to thousands of indifferent readers. The news had in fact been telegraphed to one of the large New York papers, and in the course of a week filtered down through the smaller organs of that city to the suburban press, and was read and forgotten by the careless public throughout the length and breadth of this enlightened land. To Mrs. Shallop and Barbara, accustomed to the vagaries of American journalism, the state of mind into which Millicent was thrown by the article in the San Francisco "Roarer," was entirely surprising. It was without doubt annoying, but they had both become so accustomed to seeing their own names and those of their friends in the columns of the daily journals, that Millicent's horror and indignation seemed disproportionate to the cause. This utter disrespect of the privacy of life which is the right of all men and women leading peaceable lives, breaking no law of the civil or social statutes, is the crying sin of modern journalism. When they are charged with this, the journals very tritely retort that "social news" pays better than any other class of matter; that its insertion is more often prized and sought after by the individuals mentioned than resented by them; that much of the personal news is actually furnished by the individuals whom it most concerns; and that they but supply the demand of their readers. It would be well for them to remember that to pander to the public taste is not the highest object open to journalism; to elevate that taste were a task more deserving of commendation, and less unworthy of good printer's ink and paper.

The next mail brought two letters for Millicent; one from a well-known photographer asking her for an early sitting, and begging that he might have the sole privilege of photographing her. The other communication was a civil letter from the editor of a weekly journal, asking for a slight autobiographical sketch from the hand of the heroine of San Real. In the course of the morning a reporter from the California "Bugle," a rival sheet, arrived and requested an interview with Miss Almsford and Mr. Graham, from which to compile an article on "The Rescuer and the Rescued." Millicent's eyes flashed angrily when the import of the small printed visiting-card bearing the name of this nineteenth-century inquisitor was explained to her. She was heard to murmur, beneath her breath, some Italian words highly inimical to the smart young person who was taking the opportunity to examine Mrs. Shallop's drawing-room with an eye to future "notes." She was astonished when Graham quietly lighted a cigarette, and asking that the gentleman might be shown into the smoking-room, joined him there.

"Why does he not beat him?" she cried. "If I were a man I should thrust him from the house."

"And be held up to the public as a brutal assassin?" laughed Barbara. "No, no, my dear, let Mr. Graham alone; he knows best how to manage the visitor. It never does to insult those gentlemen; they are dangerous enemies, and have the public's ear into which to pour all their grievances. Our friend will draw the fire on himself, I fancy, in order to spare you. News the news-fiend must have; he will make it himself if it be not provided for him. Poor thing! he must live, after all, as well as you or I. It is not his fault that he is obliged to interview people; it must be a very disagreeable profession."

Thus kindly and with wide sympathy did Barbara Deering judge all men and women; ay, and reporters too, together with babies, Chinamen, and other unfortunate works of God. Graham returned in a quarter of an hour, having appeased his visitor with the aid of a good cigar and a champagne cocktail, compounded by the careful hand of the solemn-faced butler.

Millicent was still flushed and excited, all Barbara's arguments having failed to soothe her nerves. Graham, with one sentence, banished the angry dint from her white forehead and brought a smile back to her face. The hour of the last good-bys had arrived; and the guests took leave of their kind hostess, with promises to repeat their visit before long. Little Mrs. Shallop really cried at parting with Millicent, to whom she had become greatly attached. She sighed as the carriage disappeared from view, bearing its freight of young people with their vivid lives and strong interests. When she went back to her great lonely drawing-room, with its splendid furnishings, she realized what a fitting frame it had made for the two pretty young guests, and how unsuitable it was to her simple tastes. The house was dreary without their joyous voices and quick footsteps.

Just after sundown the travellers reached the San Rosario station, where Hal was awaiting them in the great red-painted wagon. The two sturdy mules were supplemented by old Sphinx harnessed before them, making what is known as a spiked team.

"Hail! the conquering Heroine comes! sound the trumpets, beat the drums!" cried the irrepressible young rancher. "How is our most heroic Princess, and will she deign to enter the triumphal car which her humble slave has prepared for her?"

They all laughed; but, through all the lively nonsense which he reeled off to them on the way to the house, Millicent felt that he had been really moved by what had occurred. The grip which he gave her hand spoke a volume of approval; and the loud clap on the shoulder with which he greeted Graham expressed more than a dozen sentences of rhetorical eloquence could have done. The antics of the unicorn team were extremely diverting; and these, with the absurdities which Hal perpetrated at every step of the road, brought the quartette to the house door "in a state of merriment bordering on idiocy," as he expressed it. Mrs. Deering, with her sweet motherly greeting, made their return seem a home-coming to Millicent and Graham, as well as to Barbara, the tall daughter of the house. Her hospitality was so genuinely of the heart that the recipient of it was made to feel that it was simply his due, and that his presence was as great a favor to the hostess as her kindness was to him.

Graham was warmly urged to stay over night, but he resisted the temptation of remaining. Neither Millicent's voice nor Millicent's eyes had supplemented the invitation.

As they paced the path together, her hand lying on his arm, Graham told Mrs. Deering, in a low voice, of all that had happened since their departure,--of the pleasant days with their excursions; of the new impressions made on Millicent by all that she saw; of the friends whom he had met, remembering all the kind messages which had been sent to the gentle châtelaine of San Rosario; of Barbara's sweetness and Mrs. Shallop's hospitality; of the progress he had made on the portrait of his hostess; of the thousand-and-one little items of news so welcome to people leading a life of quiet isolation. Then in graver tones he spoke of his great peril and Millicent's bravery, of the strange thoughts which had crossed his mind in that last moment of consciousness, how her face as well as his mother's had been revealed to him as in a vision. All this was listened to with that perfect sympathy that is always ready to receive confidences, and which forbears to claim them when they are not spontaneously given. Blessed among women are these rare ones to whom motherless sons can confide every hope and disappointment, sure of a quick sympathy, and in whom the mighty instinct of maternity is not satisfied in ministering to their own flesh and blood, but springs forth to succor all who are suffering for the gentle mother love.

It was late when these two said good-night, and Graham went to find the others to take farewell. Barbara and Hal were singing duets. They had neither of them seen Millicent, and fancied that she must have gone to her room. With a sense of cold disappointment and injury the young man left the house. As he passed by the corner of the piazza he fancied he saw a figure standing close in the shadow of an angle. He stopped; the figure remained motionless; through the heavy drapery of the vines he could not tell whether it was a person or merely a shadow.

"Who is it?" he asked in a low voice. No answer came, but through the stillness of the night he thought he heard the sound of a quick-drawn breath. Putting the honeysuckle aside he stepped on the piazza, and found that his eyes had not deceived him. Millicent stood beneath the rose vines. When she saw that she was discovered she spoke with a light laugh:

"I did not want you to see me, for I have been unsociable this evening, and hoped you would all think I had gone to bed."

"Is it not damp for you to be sitting out-of-doors?" he asked, with a voice grown deep and tender.

"Oh, no! I am quite used to it. What a wonderful night! I think I never saw the stars so brilliant."

The girl seated herself on the edge of the piazza, Graham placing a cushion under her feet and taking his place at her side. It was a perfectly still evening, the only sound being the far-away tinkle of a sheep bell. There was a moment of dangerous silence, which Millicent broke a little nervously, speaking of Italy, of Mrs. Shallop and their late visit, of Hal's irresistible wit, of any one of the subjects which danced through her brain. She was afraid to be silent, and feared yet longed for what might be said if she left too long a pause. The spell which kept Graham at her side when he should have been half way to his lonely tower, began to assert itself over the woman, always the last to yield. The man had long since abandoned himself to that mysterious state of being in which every nerve of brain and every pulse of heart yearns for sympathy and reaches out toward its counterpart. At last she was silent, the last commonplace dying half spoken on her trembling lips. Silence now in all the land; only the sound of heart-beats which each felt must reach the other's ears. Stars more tender than those of heaven shone close to Graham through the blue-black night; a breath sweeter than the wind stirring the honeysuckle touched his cheek. At length that silence, more musical than sweetest harmony, was broken by a low, deep voice.

"May I kiss you?" said the voice.

What was the faint sound which the night wind wafted to his ear? Was it the whirring of the humming birds whose nest hung close by? Was it the far-off silver ripple of the brooklet, or the cadence of the distant sheep-bell? Was it that sweeter sound than note of mating bird, of falling water, or of faint bell-chime,--was it a loving woman's "Yes"?

CHAPTER VIII.

"Oui, les premiers baisers, oui, les premiers serments

Que deux êtres mortels échangerent sur terre

Ce fut au pied d' un arbre effeuillé par les vents,

Sur un roc en poussière."

When he awoke the next morning, John Graham gave a deep sigh. His dreams had been so sweet that no reality could equal their happiness. As he sat on the edge of his narrow bed disentangling what was real from what was dream-born in his thoughts, his eye fell upon the knot of roses which he had taken from Millicent's hair the night before, and had clasped to his lips as he fell asleep. They were faded now, but they still gave out a strong perfume. His cheek had been wounded by a thorn, but he kissed the wilted posies, for all that, placed the little bouquet tenderly in an exquisite Venetian vase, and then bounded down the stairway of his tower and across the narrow space which led to a clear deep pool where a crystal stream fell in a white cataract to a rocky basin. The foam-bubbles danced joyously in the clear dark waters, and the plashing of the fall had a sound of a sweet deep voice which had grown very dear to him. A mossy bank, shaded by two drooping trees, sloped to the edge of this natural bath, refreshing enough to have tempted Diana from the chase. As Graham plunged into the cool waters he shouted out a verse of a song he had learned long ago. Attracted by the sound of his voice, French John laid down his axe beside the young tree he was about to fell, and came down to the pool where Graham was vigorously tossing about the bright water. The old wood-cutter looked at the young man as if the sight did him good. He responded to the uproarious greeting which the artist shouted to him, by his usual silent nod of the head. Had words been worth their weight in diamond dust, the old soldier could not have been more chary of wasting them, but the look in his faded blue eyes was gentle and full of admiration. He had had a son of whom he had lost all trace since its infancy. If the boy had lived he would have been about Graham's age, and it was the man's fancy that he would have resembled his patron. He imagined he could trace in the splendidly modelled arms and legs and the strong, perfectly proportioned torso of the bather the shape into which the baby contours he remembered so well must have developed. Graham had by this time gained the green turf and stood shaking the water out of his thick hair, drawing quick panting breaths, meanwhile, and springing about to warm himself, with the grace and strength of a leopard. The old Frenchman gave a deep sigh as he looked at him.

"Yes; Hector certainly must resemble this young man," he murmured, as he wetted his hard hands, and, grasping the handle of his axe, smote heavily at the stem of a young pine-tree. Graham rapidly made his toilet in the open air. The plunge in the clear cold water had rather stimulated than expended the electric, nervous force which ran through his veins, quickening the life-blood in its flow. He felt ten years younger since yesterday morning. His thirty years and the gravity they had brought to him had shrunk to twenty. As he looked up at his tower he sang aloud a snatch of an old song which had been often on his lips in those happy, careless days in the Rue d' Enfer,--words which he had painted over the tiny grate in the cramped apartment under the leads, where he had suffered from heat all summer, and shivered all winter:

Dans un grenier qu' on est bien

A vingt ans, à vingt ans!

He would have liked to dance. Had his years in truth been but twenty, he would have yielded to the temptation. He would gladly have thrown his arms about the old Frenchman, for lack of another confidant, and have told him the cause of his happiness. But, after all, this reflex of youth could not entirely melt the reserve of manhood from him; he wore his thirty years lightly indeed, but could not shake them off.

"Give me your axe, John; I know something of your woodman's craft; let me show you how easily I can fell this young tree."

He took the tool from the woodcutter, and, whirling the sharp edge in the air, laid it at the root of the tree with a ringing blow.

"It appears in truth that monsieur 'ave 'andled an axe before."

"Surely, John. I once spent a summer with some friends of mine, who lived in a forest in Brittany; they were sabotiers."

"Monsieur is jesting?"

"Not in the least. I not only can fell a tree,--clumsily enough, be it confessed,--but if I had the tools I could shape you a pair of sabots, as good ones as you could buy for ten sous at Quimper; that is your town, I think?"

He talked in short, jerky sentences between the strokes, while the white splinters flew about him like a hail-storm. After a few moments the knack which he seemed at first to have forgotten came back to him. The smell of the bruised bark was aromatic; the death-sigh of the young branches was musical as they trembled for the last time together, reaching out to touch their sister trees in solemn leave-taking. Their sigh was now drowned in the groan of the swaying tree.

"Take care, monsieur, take care; it is about to fall," cried the Frenchman.

His warning was a timely one. Graham, so long unused to the exercise of the craft, had not noticed how deeply he had cut into the stem. The straight tree seemed to hesitate, tossing its branches helplessly heavenward, and then with a creaking sound crashed through the surrounding underbrush, and with a dull thud measured its slender length upon the earth. For a moment its branches shook convulsively, and then all was quiet. It seemed as if all nature paused at the fall of so fair a thing: the birds were silent in the thicket; the babble of the water-fall grew faint; and the wood creatures stirred not in their burrows. A mighty breeze crept through the forest, rustling the surrounding trees, wailing through the open gap as if in requiem, and a light cloud floated over the face of the sun, throwing its shadowy pall on the spot.

"That was well done, monsieur."

And, at the sound of the man's voice, the cloud floated by and the sun shone out once more, the wood birds took up their song again, the squirrel in the hollow of the white oak went on cracking her nut, and the brief mourning was over.

That man must feel himself indeed beloved, who fancies that the world will pause as long beside his grave as does the forest at the fall of one of its children.

Not until the branches had been lopped off and the long stem cut into lengths, did Graham cease his labor. The exercise did him good, and gave him an appetite for the breakfast which old John served him in the open air. He declared that the coffee was better than could be had at the Café de Paris; and assured John that neither Paris nor Vienna could produce such bread as that which the old man had baked in some mysterious manner in an oven of his own construction, made of flat stone sunk in the ground. Graham remembered that he had somewhere in the tower a bottle of rare old wine, which he sent John to fetch.

"Bring my glass and your tin cup, John."

He needed sympathy, he who had lived for years without asking man or woman to share his joys or sorrows; he felt a new need in himself for human companionship; and the silent old fellow who did his bidding was the only soul to whom he could look for it. The ice which had encased his heart was broken; and instead of sternly demanding from his fellow-men honor, truth, and sincerity, he embraced the whole world in a warm, unquestioning love and sympathy. Yesterday he was a man who labored for his kind; to-day he was content to love them. Yesterday he was a reformer; to-day he was a philanthropist. The henchman returning with the wine, Graham filled the crystal goblet and the humble cup to the brim, and together these two denizens of the balmy forest drank to the new day which had dawned on the young man's life. After the long, black night which for months obscures the face of nature in the far northern land, the first rising of the sun touches the hearts of men with a deeper, more profound joy than the dwellers in a temperate zone can well understand. So was the light of this new love more glorious a thousand-fold to the man in whose life there had so long been darkness, than if it had arisen in a heart unacquainted with grief. In the first flush of happiness, his whole nature rebelled against the joyless life he had been leading; his work lost its attraction for him, and he could not have painted a stroke that day if his whole future reputation had depended upon it. The new impulse had swung him far out of his accustomed orbit; that there might be a rebound, he never for an instant fancied.

He spent an hour in ransacking his tower to find the most beautiful thing he possessed to carry to Millicent. He wanted to go to her with something in his hand that might in some measure express the tide of generous feeling that flooded his whole nature. He still had a score of those treasures, souvenirs of his European residence, of which the greater part had found their way to the shelves and cabinets of his friends' houses. He spread them out before him on his one table, ruthlessly pushing aside paints, brushes, books, and drawing chalks, in a hubbub of disorder. With an intense interest he looked them all through. He had almost decided upon a rare Etruscan coin which he had seen roll from the palm of an exhumed skeleton, when his eye was caught by a tiny Tanagrine figure. The exquisite modelling of this clay toy, instinct with the beauty which pervaded every detail of Greek life, made it a more appropriate gift. The miniature woman was as truly proportioned as the Milo herself, and as surely constructed according to that greatest law of art that the world has yet seen evolved, the Greek, wherein are welded together the real and the ideal. A third article now struck his fancy as more appropriate than either of these for his first gift to Millicent. It was a crown of olive leaves of the purest gold, which might have bound Helen's brow. It had lain amidst the dust of eons which covers Troy with its pall; and now, in the nineteenth century, it was to serve as the gift of a Californian lover to his mistress. Surely, never before had the precious leaves encircled so fair a head as that which they were now destined to adorn.

Among the many sins which had been laid at Graham's door by friend or foe, the vice of foppery was missing. That minute attention to every detail of dress, which is found as often in man as in woman, had no place in his busy life. He was, however, always neatly dressed; and the prosaic fashions of our time were modified as much as possible in his wardrobe, especially while he inhabited the forest. On this occasion, instead of one absent look in his small mirror, merely to ascertain if his hair were properly parted and his cravat neatly tied, a full hour was given to the process of dressing. Every suit of clothes, and each possible combination of the garments which his wardrobe afforded, were carefully considered. When at last the decision was made, the vest needed a button, which the artist laboriously attached to the garment. Taking a coarse linen thread strong enough for a halter, he made the button fast, taking several turns of the thread about its eye, as if he were belaying a rope. His cravat occupied him fully a quarter of an hour. He must have brushed his hair at least half a dozen times. He caught sight of his anxious face in the mirror, just as he was settling his cravat for the last time, and burst into a peal of laughter at his own dandyism. At the foot of the tower his sturdy mustang Tasso stood ready saddled. French John had given an extra polish to the sleek gray coat, bright enough to reflect the silver-studded Mexican bridle. A pair of red cockades, set at the ears of the beast, were made from flowers yielded by the small garden patch behind the woodcutter's cabin, where he raised flowers and vegetables for his patron and himself. The tall cock gave a condescending crow of approval as Graham mounted his horse; while the three cats sunning themselves near by hunched their backs at him, as if to express their disapproval of his idleness. It was still early in the afternoon, and it was not his wont to sally forth until the shadows were long. Where could he be going? they asked one of the other, purring inquisitively together like a group of women-folk over a cup of afternoon tea. Of all his brute friends, Tasso alone knew whither his master was going; he snorted scornfully at cats and cock, and, shaking his head playfully, sped over the bridle path with flying feet, as if conscious of the eyes that were watching for him, the ears that were strained to catch the first faint echo of his hoofs as they flashed over the stony orchard road.

Those sweet eyes had not closed since they had last looked into Graham's; that white form had known no rest since it had slipped from his arms. The night, which had brought to him such peaceful dreams, was fraught with bitter memories to Millicent. She had paced her room through the long hours. No longer a half-yielding, shrinking maiden, but a woman, full of tears, before whom some great sorrow, long stifled, had risen up again. Was her nature then two-fold? While she was with other people, Millicent seemed a strong, self-reliant woman, pure and cold, with quick intellectual sympathies, and strong opinions and convictions. When in the society of the man she loved, his influence unfolded the closed petals of her heart as the sun kisses back the white leaves of the daisy, and uncovers its great golden centre to the eyes of all men. A new warmth shone from her eyes, and softened her silver voice. An unwonted shyness made her shrinking and timid under his gaze. A new life was born within her, so much stronger and more intense than any that she had ever known, that her past existence paled before it as the luminous circle of a night-lamp fades before the strong rays of morning. But when she was alone....

Whatever her sombre thoughts had been, they were banished before she next met her lover. When she learned that he had come, she longed to fly from him out into the dim reaches of the forest, where he had told her half in jest that they had lived and loved before man's time began; when nymphs and dryads danced together in the shade of the oak-trees; when Pan reigned, and the earth was young. If she could have seen him in her own sanctum, where the light was softened by the dull green hanging of the wall, where the air was warm from the ever-flaming fire, and sweet with the spices burning in a great sea-shell, she would not have greatly cared; but the stereotyped drawing-room, with its blank white walls, was no place for their greeting. She went down the stairway and stood a moment before Graham; then, as he advanced towards her as if about to speak, she glided swiftly from the room across the hall and out into the sunlight.

Barbara, standing near by, scattering corn to a flock of tame doves which fluttered about her, laughed as the light figure flitted by, with bare head, and delicate silken draperies fit only to rustle over soft carpets. Barbara laughed pleasantly, cheerily calling over her shoulder to her mother, who sat indoors,--

"Look at Millicent racing with her own shadow."

"'T is a substantial shadow, Bab, but otherwise the simile 's good," said Hal, as he passed by on his way to the dairy.

And Barbara looked again, and looking sighed. Another figure had sped by her, down the orchard road towards the wood,--the figure of a man, pursuing the flying girl, with kindled face and fleet steps. She threw her last handful of grain to the circling doves, went into the stiff drawing-room, mechanically set straight the disordered chairs and drew down a shade where the light fell too hotly upon a breadth of carpet. She paused before a mirror and looked at her own pretty face clouded by a pain she would not explain. More than one lover had sued for her hand, earnestly and tenderly, but she had listened to no suit. No man had ever pursued her with fleet steps and sparkling eyes, no man had ever brought that expression of half-shamed happiness to her face which had made Millicent look just now like a child racing with her own shadow.

In the forest Graham found her standing breathless beneath an oak-tree, whose branches had caught her gown and forced her to stay her flight.

"Again under that terrible oak; but I shall not lose you this time. Say that you will not vanish in his jealous arms."

"He opens them to me no longer; he offers me no refuge now."

"And I stand waiting for you, and hold out my hand for yours. Not for a dance now do I ask it, but for a happy walk which shall end only with our lives. Will you put your hand in mine?"

For answer a little warm palm creeps into his broad fingers; and the oak-tree sighs a blessing on the betrothal of which he is the only witness.

CHAPTER IX.

"And in the forest delicate clerks, unbrowned,

Sleep on the fragrant brush as on down-beds.

Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air

That circled freshly in their forest dress

Made them to boys again."

The life of John Graham had been one wherein the sorrowful days far outnumbered the joyous ones. His youth had been saddened by the reverses and griefs which had pursued his parents with a relentless persistence. His home life had not been a happy one. In the large family of brothers and sisters there had been a meeting and clashing of strong, positive characters and opposing wills. An intense family pride was the one bond which united them. This sentiment, almost amounting to a passion, made the members cling closely to one another when there was little of sympathy to make a sweeter bond. Graham's parents had moved to California, from the Eastern town where they were both born, while he was still an infant. The first sixteen years of his life had been spent on the Pacific coast. At this age he was sent eastward to pursue his studies. The youth had already determined on devoting himself to art. The years passed at the famous New England college were very busy ones. The painful economies by which his beloved mother defrayed his college expenses were well known to the young man, and he held himself responsible to that dear and honored parent for every hour of his time. His active mind eagerly grasped such fruits of knowledge as were offered by that garden of learning, and his career in the university fully repaid the sacrifices which it had entailed. During all this time he never for an instant relinquished his fixed determination to become a painter. In the leisure hours when his companions were amusing themselves according to their several tastes, Graham was always found at his easel. Some wiseacre once suggested to the young man that Greek and Latin were expensive acquirements, likely to prove useless to a painter.