BOOK IV.

FROM A. TO Z.

XXX.

MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WITH A CHRISTMAS GIFT.

“For, O; for, O the hobby horse is forgot.”—Hamlet.

It was a clear winter evening. Mr. Sylvester sat in his library, musing before a bright coal fire, whose superabundant heat and blaze seemed to make the loneliness of the great empty room more apparent. He had just said to himself that it was Christmas eve, and that he, of all men in the world, had the least reason to realize it, when the door-bell rang. He was expecting Bertram, whose advancement to the position of cashier in place of Mr. Wheelock, now thoroughly broken down in health, had that day been fully determined upon in a late meeting of the Board of Directors. He therefore did not disturb himself. It was consequently a startling surprise, when a deep, pleasant voice uttered from the threshold of the door, “I have brought you a Christmas present;” and looking up, he saw Miss Belinda standing before him, with Paula at her side.

“My child!” was his involuntary exclamation, and before the young girl knew it, she was folded against his breast with a passionate fervor that more than words, convinced her of the depth of the sacrifice which had held them separate for so long. “My darling! my little Paula!”

She felt her heart stand still. Gently disengaging herself, she looked in his face. She found it thin and wan, but lit by such a pleasure she could not keep back her smile. “You are glad, then, of your little Christmas present?” said she.

He smiled and shook his head; he had no words with which to express a joy like this.

Miss Belinda meanwhile stood with a set expression on her face, that, to one who did not know her, would immediately have proclaimed her to be an ogress of the very worst type. Not a glance did she give to the unusual splendor about her, not a wavering of her eye betokened that she was in any way conscious that she had just stepped from the threshold of a very humble cottage, into a home little short of a palace in size and the splendor of its appointments. All her attention was concentrated on the two faces before her.

“The ride on the cars has made Paula feverish,” cried she, in sharp clear tones that rang with unexpected brusqueness through the curtained alcoves of that lordly apartment.

They both started at this sudden introduction of the prosaic into the hush of their happy meeting, but remembering themselves, drew Miss Belinda forward to the fire and made her welcome in this house of many memories.

It was a strange moment to Paula when she first turned to go up those stairs, down which she had come in such grief eight months or more ago. She found herself lingering on its well-remembered steps, and the first sight of the rich bronze image at the top, struck her with a sense of the old-time pleasure, that was not unlinked with the old-time dread. But the aspect of her little room calmed her. It was just as she had left it; not an article had been changed. “It is as if I had gone out one door and come in another,” she whispered. All the months that had intervened seemed to float away. She felt this even more when upon again descending, she found Bertram in the library. His frank and interesting face had always been pleasant to her, but in the joy of her return it shone upon her with almost the attraction of a brother’s. “I am at home again,” she kept whispering to herself, “I am at home.”

Miss Belinda was engrossed in conversation with Bertram, so that Paula was left free to take her old place by Mr. Sylvester’s side, where she sat with such an aspect of contentment, that her beauty was half forgotten in her happiness.

“You remembered me, then, sometimes in the little cottage in Grotewell?” asked he, after a silent contemplation of her countenance. “I was not forgotten when you left the city streets?”

She answered with a bright little shake of her head, but she was inwardly wondering as she looked at his strong and picturesque face, with its nobly carved features and melancholy smile, if he had been absent from her thoughts for so much as a moment, in all these dreary months of separation.

“I did not believe you would forget,” he gently pursued, “but I scarcely dared hope you would lighten my fireside with your face again. It is such a dismal one, and youth is so linked to brightness.”

The flush that crossed her cheek, startled him into sudden silence. She recovered herself and slowly shook her head. “It is not a dismal one to me. I always feel brighter and better when I sit beside it. I have missed your counsel,” she said; “brightness is nothing without depth.”

His eyes which had been fixed on her face, turned slowly away. He seemed to hold an instant’s communion with himself; suddenly he said, “And depth is worse than nothing, without it mirrors the skies. It is not from shadowed pools, such bright young lips should drink, but from the waves of an inexhaustible sea, smote upon by all the winds and sunshine of heaven.”

In another moment, however, he was all cheerfulness. “You have brought me a Christmas present,” cried he, “and we must make it a Christmas holiday indeed. Here is the beginning:” and with one of his old grave smiles, he handed Bertram a little note which had been awaiting him on the library table. “But Paula and Miss Belinda must have their pleasure too. Paula, are you too tired for a ride down town? I will show you New York on a Christmas eve,” continued he to Miss Walton, seeing that Paula’s attention was absorbed by the expression of sudden and moving surprise which had visited Bertram’s face, upon the perusal of his note. “It is a stirring sight. Nothing more cheering can be found the wide world over, for those who have a home and children to make happy.”

“I certainly should enjoy a glimpse of holiday cheer,” assented Miss Belinda. And Paula recalled to herself by the sound of her aunt’s voice, gayly re-echoed her assertion.

So Samuel was despatched for a carriage, and in a few minutes they were all riding down Fifth Avenue, en route for Tiffany’s, Macy’s, and any other store that might offer special attractions. It was a happy company. As they rolled along, Paula felt her heart grow lighter and lighter, Mr. Sylvester was almost gay, while even Aunt Belinda condescended to be merry. Bertram alone was silent, but as Paula caught short glimpses of his face, while speeding past some illuminated corner, she felt that it was that silence which is “the perfectest herald of joy.”

“I shall make you get out and mix with the crowd,” said Mr. Sylvester. “I want you to feel the throb of the great heart of the city on such a night as this. It is as if all men were brothers—or fathers, I should say. People that ordinarily pass each other without a sign, nod and smile with pleasing recognition of the evening’s cheer. Grave and reverend seigniors, are not ashamed to be seen carrying packages by the dozen. Indeed, he who is most laden is considered the best fellow, and he who is so unfortunate as to show nothing but empty arms, feels shy if not ashamed; a condition of mind into which I shall soon fall myself, if we do not presently reach our destination.”

Paula never forgot that night. As from the midst of our common-place memories, some one hour stands out distinct and strange, like a sweet foreigner in a crowd of village faces, so to Paula, this ride through the lighted streets, with the ensuing rush from store to store, piloted by Bertram and Miss Belinda, and protected by Mr. Sylvester, was her one weird glimpse into the Arabian Nights’ country. Why, she could not have told; why, she did not stop to think. She had been to all these places before, but never with such a heart as this—never, never with such an overflowing heart as this.

“I have washed away my reproach,” cried Mr. Sylvester, coming out to the carriage with his arms full of bundles. “Aunt Belinda is to blame for this; she set the example, you see.” And with a merry laugh, he tossed one thing after another into Paula’s lap, reserving only one small package for himself. “I scarcely know what I have bought,” said he. “I shall be as much surprised as any one, when you come to undo the bundles. ‘A pretty thing,’ was all I waited to hear from the shop girls.”

“There is a small printing press for one thing,” cried Paula merrily. “I saw the man at Holton’s eye you with a certain sort of shrewd humor, and hastily do it up. You paid for it; probably thinking it one of the ‘pretty things.’ We shall have to make it over to Bertram, as being the only one amongst us who by any stretch of imagination can be said to be near enough the age of boyhood to enjoy it.”

“I do not know about that,” cried Bertram, with a ringing infectious laugh, “my imagination has been luring me into believing that I am not the only boy in this crowd.”

And so they went on, toying with their new-found joy as with a plaything, and hard would it have been to tell in which of those voices rang the deeper contentment.

The opening of the packages on the library-table afforded another season of merriment. Such treasures as came to light! A roll of black silk, which could only have been meant for Miss Belinda. A casket of fretted silver, just large enough to hold Paula’s gloves; a scarf-ring, to which no one but Bertram could lay claim; a bundle of confections, a pair of diamond-studded bracelets, a scarf of delicate lace, articles for the desk, and knick-knacks for the toilet table, and last, but not least, in weight at least, the honest little printing-press.

“Oh, I never dreamed of this,” said Paula, “when we chose Christmas eve for our journey.”

“Nor would you have done right to stay away if you had,” returned Mr. Sylvester gayly.

But when the sport was all over, and Paula stood alone with Mr. Sylvester in the library, awaiting his last good-night, the deeper influences of this holy time made themselves felt, and it was with an air of gentle seriousness, he told her that it had been a happy Christmas eve to him.

“And to me,” returned Paula. “Bertram too, seemed very happy. Would it be too inquisitive in me to ask what good news the little note contained, to work such wonders?”

A smile such as was seldom seen on Mr. Sylvester’s face of late, flashed brightly over it. “It was only a card of invitation to dinner,” said he, “but it came from Mr. Stuyvesant, and that to Bertram means a great deal.”

The surprise in Paula’s eyes made him smile again. “Will it be a great shock to you, if I tell you that the name of the woman for whom Bertram made the sacrifice of his art, was Cicely Stuyvesant?”

“Cicely? my Cicely?” Her astonishment was great, but it was also happy. “Oh, I never dreamed—ah, now I see,” she went on naively. “That is the reason she refrained from coming to this house; she was afraid of meeting him. But to think I should never have guessed it, and she my dearest friend! Oh, I am very happy; I admire Bertram so much, and it is such a beautiful secret. And Mr. Stuyvesant has invited him to his house! I do not wonder you felt like making the evening a gala one. Mr. Stuyvesant would not do that if he were not learning to appreciate Bertram.”

“No; there is method in all that Mr. Stuyvesant does. More than that, if I am not mistaken, he has known this beautiful secret, as you call it, from the first, and would be the last to receive Bertram as a guest to his table, if he did not mean him the best and truest encouragement.”

“I believe you are right,” said Paula. “I remember now that one day when I was spending the afternoon with Cicely, he came into the room where I was, and finding me for the moment alone, sat down, and in his quaint old-fashioned manner asked me in the most abrupt way what I thought of Bertram Sylvester. I was surprised, but told him I considered him one of the noblest young men I knew, adding that if a fine mind, a kind heart, and a pure life were open to regard, Bertram had the right to claim the esteem of all his friends and associates. The old gentleman looked at me somewhat curiously, but nodded his head as if pleased, and merely remarking, ‘It is not necessary to mention we had this conversation, my dear,’ got up and proceeded slowly from the room. I thought it was simply a not unnatural curiosity concerning a young man with whom he had more or less business connection; but now I perceive it had a deeper significance.”

“He could scarcely have found a more zealous little advocate for Bertram if he had hunted the city over. Bertram may be more obliged to you than he knows. He has been very patient, but the day of his happiness is approaching.”

“And Cicely’s! I feel as if I could scarcely wait to see her with this new hope in her eyes. She has kept me without the door of her suspense, but she must let me across the threshold of her happiness.”

The look with which Mr. Sylvester eyed the fair girl’s radiant face deepened. “Paula,” said be, “can you leave these new thoughts for a moment to hear a request I have to make?”

She at once turned to him with her most self-forgetful smile.

“I have been making myself a little present,” pursued he, slowly taking out of his pocket the single package he had reserved from the rest. “Open it, dear.”

With fingers that unconsciously trembled, she hastily undid the package. A little box rolled out. Taking off its cover, she took out a plain gold locket of the style usually worn by gentlemen on their watch-chains. “Fasten it on for me,” said he.

Wondering at his tone which was almost solemn, she quietly did his bidding. But when she essayed to lift her head upon the completion of her task, he gently laid his hand upon her brow and so stood for a moment without a word.

“What is it?” she asked, with a sudden indrawing of her breath. “What moves you so, Mr. Sylvester?”

“I have just taken a vow,” said he.

She started back agitated and trembling.

“I had reason to,” he murmured, “pray at nights when you go to bed, that I may be able to keep it.”

“What?” sprang to her lips; but she restrained herself and only allowed her glance to speak.

“Will you do it, Paula?”

“Yes, oh yes!” Her whole heart seemed to rush out in the phrase. She drew back as at the opening of a door in an unexpected spot. Her eye had something of fear in it and something of secret desperation too. He watched her with a gaze that strangely faltered.

“A woman’s prayers are a man’s best safeguard,” murmured he. “He must be a wretch who does not feel himself surrounded by a sacred halo, while he knows that pure lips are breathing his name in love and trust before the throne of the Most High.”

“I will pray for you as for myself,” she whispered, and endeavored to meet his eyes. But her head drooped and she did not speak as she would have done a few months before; and when a few instants later they parted in their old fashion at the foot of the stairs, she did not turn to give him the accustomed smile and nod with which she used to mount the stairs, spiral by spiral, and disappear in her little room above. Yet he did not grieve at the change, but stood looking up the way she had gone, like a man before whom some vision of unexpected promise had opened.

XXXI.

A QUESTION.

“Think on thy sins.”—Othello.

The next morning when Mr. Sylvester came down to breakfast, he found on the library-table an exquisite casket, similar to the one he had given Paula the night before, but larger, and filled with flowers of the most delicious odor.

“For Miss Fairchild,” explained Samuel, who was at that moment passing through the room.

With a pang of jealous surprise, that, however, failed to betray itself in his steadily composed countenance, Mr. Sylvester advanced to the side of the table, and lifted up the card that hung attached to the beautiful present. The name he read there seemed to startle him; he moved away, and took up his paper with a dark flush on his brow, that had not disappeared when Miss Belinda entered the room.

“Humph!” was her immediate exclamation, as her eye rested upon the conspicuous offering in the centre of the apartment. But instantly remembering herself, advanced with a cheerful good-morning, which however did not prevent her eyes from wandering with no small satisfaction towards this fresh evidence of Mr. Ensign’s assiduous regard.

“Paula is remembered by others than ourselves,” remarked Mr. Sylvester, probably observing her glance.

“Yes; she has a very attentive suitor in Mr. Ensign,” returned Miss Belinda shortly. “A pleasant appearing young man,” she ejaculated next moment; “worthy in many respects of success, I should say.”

“Has he—do you mean to say that he has visited you in Grotewell?” asked Mr. Sylvester, his eye upon the paper in his hand.

“Certainly; a few more interviews will settle it.”

The paper rustled in Mr. Sylvester’s grasp, but his voice was composed if not formal, as he observed, “She regards his attentions then with favor?”

“She wears his flowers in her bosom, and brightens like a flower herself when he is seen to approach. If allowed to go her way unhindered, I have but little doubt as to how it will end. Mr. Ensign is not handsome, but I am told that he has every other qualification likely to make a gentle creature like Paula happy.”

“He is a good fellow,” exclaimed Mr. Sylvester under his breath.

“And goodness is the first essential in the character of the man who is to marry Paula,” inexorably observed Miss Belinda. “An open, cheerful disposition, a clear conscience and a past with no dark pages in its history, must mark him who is to link unto his fate our pure and sensitive Paula. Is it not so, Mr. Sylvester?”

The advertisements in that morning’s Tribune must have been unusually interesting, judging from the difficulty which Mr. Sylvester experienced in withdrawing his eyes from them. “The man whom Paula marries,” said he at last, “can neither be too good, too kind, or too pure. Nor shall any other than a good, kind, and pure man possess her,” he added in a tone that while low, effectually hushed even the slow-to-be-intimidated Miss Belinda. In another moment Paula entered.

Oh, the morning freshness of some faces! Like the singing of birds in a prison, is the sound and sight of a lovely maiden coming into the grim, gray atmosphere of a winter breakfast room. Paula was exceptionally gifted with this auroral cheer which starts the day so brightly. At sight of her face Mr. Sylvester dropped his paper, and even Miss Belinda straightened herself more energetically. “Merry Christmas,” cried her sweet young voice, and immediately the whole day seemed to grow glad with promise and gaysome with ringing sleigh-bells. “It’s snowing, did you know it? A world of life is in the air; the flakes dance as they come down, like dervishes in a frenzy. It was all we lacked to make the day complete; now we have everything.”

“Yes,” said Miss Belinda, with a significant glance at the table, “everything.”

Paula followed her glance, saw the silver box with its wealth of blossoms, and faltered back with a quick look at Mr. Sylvester’s grave and watchful countenance.

“Mr. Ensign seems to be possessed of clairvoyance,” observed Miss Belinda easily. “How he could know that you were to be in town to-day, I cannot imagine.”

“I wrote him in my last letter that in all probability I should spend the holidays with Mr. Sylvester,” explained Paula simply, but with a slow and deepening flush, that left the roses she contemplated nothing of which to boast. “I did so, because he proposed to visit Grotewell on Christmas.”

There was a short silence in the room, then Mr. Sylvester rose, and remarking with polite composure, “It is a very pretty remembrance,” led the way into the dining-room. Paula with a slow drooping of her head quickly followed, while Miss Belinda brought up the rear, with the look of a successful diplomat.

A meal in the Sylvester mansion was always a formal affair, but this was more than formal. A vague oppression seemed to fill the air; an oppression which Miss Belinda’s stirring conversation found it impossible to dissipate. In compliance to Mr. Sylvester’s request, she sat at the head of the table, and was the only one who seemed able to eat anything. For one thing she had never seen Ona in that post of honor, but Paula and Mr. Sylvester could not forget the graceful form that once occupied that seat. The first meal above a grave, no matter how long it has been dug, must ever seem weighted with more or less unreality.

Besides, with Paula there was a vague unsettled feeling, as if some delicate inner balance had been too rudely shaken. She longed to fly away and think, and she was obliged to sit still and talk.

The end of the meal was a relief to all parties. Miss Belinda went up stairs, thoughtfully shaking her firm head; Mr. Sylvester sat down again to his paper, and Paula advanced towards the dainty gift that awaited her inspection on the library table. But half way to it she paused. A strange shyness had seized her. With Mr. Sylvester sitting there, she dared not approach this delicate testimonial of another’s affection. She did not know as she wished to. Her eyes stole in hesitation to the floor. Suddenly Mr. Sylvester spoke:

“Why do you not look at your pretty present, Paula?”

She started, gave him a quick glance, and advanced hurriedly towards the table; but scarcely had she reached it when she paused, turned and hastened over to his side. He was still reading, or appearing to read, but she saw his hand tremble where it grasped the sheet, though his face with its clear cut profile, shone calm and cold against the dark background of the wall beyond.

“I do not care to look at it now,” said she, with a hurried interlacing of her restless fingers.

He turned towards her and a quick thrill passed over his countenance. “Sit down, Paula,” said he, “I want to talk to you.”

She obeyed as might an automaton. Was it the tone of his voice that chilled her, or the studied aspect of his fixed and solemn countenance? He did not speak at once, but when he did, there was no faltering in his voice, that was lower than common, but deep, like still waters that have run into dark channels far from the light of day.

“Paula, I want to ask you a question. What would you think of a man that, with deliberate selfishness, went into the king’s garden, and plucking up by the roots the most beautiful flower he could find there, carried it into a dungeon to pant out its exquisite life amid chill and darkness?”

“I should think,” replied she, after the first startled moment of silence, “that the man did well, if by its one breath of sweetness, the flower could comfort the heart of him who sat in the dungeon.”

The glance with which Mr. Sylvester regarded her, suddenly faltered; he turned with quickness towards the fire. “A moment’s joy is, then, excuse for a murder,” exclaimed he. “God and the angels would not agree with you, Paula.”

There was a quivering in his tone, made all the more apparent by its studied self-possession of a moment before. She trembled where she sat, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again, awed by his steady and abstracted gaze, now fixed before him in gloomy reverie. A moment passed. The clock ticking away on the mantel-piece seemed to echo the inevitable “Forever! never!” of Longfellow’s old song. Neither of them moved. At length, in a low and trembling voice, Paula spoke:

“Is it murder, when the flower loves the dark of the dungeon more than it does the light of day?”

With a subdued but passionate cry he rose hastily to his feet. “Yes,” said he, and drew back as if he could not bear the sight of her face or the glance of her eye. “Sunshine is the breath of flowers; sweet wooing gales, their natural atmosphere. He who meddles with a treasure so choice does it at his peril.” Then as she hurriedly rose in turn, softened his whole tone, and assuming his usual air of kindly fatherhood, asked her in the most natural way in the world, what he could do to make her happy that day.

“Nothing,” replied she, with a droop of her head; “I think I will go and see Cicely.”

A short sigh escaped him. “The carriage shall be ready for you,” said he. “I hope your friend’s happiness will overflow into your own gentle bosom, and make the day a very pleasant one. God bless your young sweet heart, my Paula!”

Her breast heaved, her large, dark, mellow eyes flashed with one quick glance towards his face, then she drew back, and in another moment left his side and quietly glided from the room. His very life seemed to go with her, yet he did not stir; but he sighed deeply when, upon turning towards the library-table, he found that she had carried away with her the silent testimonial of another and more fortunate man’s love and devotion.

XXXII.

FULL TIDE.

“A skirmish of wit between them.”—Much Ado About Nothing.

Man thinks he is strong, and lays his foundations, raises his walls, and dreams of his completed turrets, without reckoning the force of the gales or the insidious inundating of the waters that may bring low the mounting structure before its time. When with a firm hand, Mr. Sylvester thrust back from his heart the one delight which of all the world could afford, seemed to him at that moment the dearest and the best, he thought the struggle was over and the victory won. It had not even commenced. He was made startlingly alive to this fact at the very next interview he had with Paula. She had just come from Miss Stuyvesant, and the reflection of her friend’s scarcely comprehended joy was on her countenance, together with a look he could not comprehend, but which stirred and haunted him, until he felt forced to ask if she had seen any other of her old friends, in the short visit she had paid.

“Yes,” said she, with a distressed blush. “Mr. Ensign was unexpectedly there.”

It is comparatively easy to restrain your own hand from snatching at a treasure you greatly covet, but it is much more difficult to behold another and a lesser one grasp and carry it away before your eyes. He succeeded in hiding the shadow that oppressed him, but he was constrained to recognize the sharpness of the conflict that was about to be waged in the recesses of his own breast. A conflict, because he knew that a lift of his finger, or a glance of his eye would decide the matter then, while in a week, perhaps, the glamour of a young sunshiny love, would have worked its inevitable result, and the happiness that had so unexpectedly startled upon him in his monotonous and sombre path, would have wandered forever out of his reach. How did he meet its unexpected rush. Sternly at first, but with greater and greater wavering as the days went by, each one revealing fresh beauties of character and deeper springs of feeling in the enchanting girl thus brought in all her varied charm before his eyes. Why should he not be happy? If there were dark pages in his life, had they not long ago been closed and sealed, and was not the future bright with promise? A man of his years was not through with life. He felt at times as he gazed upon her face with its indescribable power of awakening far-reaching thoughts and feelings in callous breasts long unused to the holy influence of either, that he had just begun to live; that the golden country, with its enticing vistas, lay all before him, and that the youth, which he had missed, had somehow returned to his prime, fresh with more than its usual enthusiasm and bright with more than its wonted hopes and projects. With this glorious woman at his side, life would be new indeed, and if new why not pure and sweet and noble? What was there to hinder him from making the existence of this sweet soul a walking amongst gentle duties, satisfied dreams and holy aspirations? A past remorse? Why the gates could be closed on that! A strain of innate weakness for the world’s good opinion and applause? Ah! with love in his life such a weakness must disappear; besides had he not taken a vow on her dear head, that ought to hedge him about as with angel’s wings in the hour of temptation? Men with his experience do not invoke the protection of innocence to guard a degraded soul. Why, then, all this hesitation? A great boon was being offered to him after years of loneliness and immeasurable longing; was it not the will of heaven, that he should meet and enjoy this unexpected grace? He dared to stop and ask, and once daring to ask, the insidious waters found their way beneath the foundations of his resolution, and the lofty structure he had reared in such self-confidence, began to tremble where it stood, though as yet it betrayed no visible sign of weakness.

Meanwhile, society with its innumerable demands, had drawn the beautiful young girl within its controlling grasp. She must go here, she must go there; she must lend her talents to this, her beauty to that. Before she had decided whether she ought to remain in the city a week, two had flown by, and in all this time Mr. Ensign had been ever at her side, brightening in her own despite, hours which might else have been sad, and surrounding her difficult path with proofs of his silent and wary devotion. A golden net seemed to be closing around her, and, though as yet, she had given no token of a special recognition of her position, Miss Belinda betrayed by the uniform complacence of her demeanor, that she for one regarded the matter as effectually settled.

The success which Bertram had met in his first visit at Mr. Stuyvesant’s, was not the least agitating factor in this fortnight’s secret history. He was too much a part of the home life at Mr. Sylvester’s, not to make the lightest thrill of his frank and sensitive nature felt by all who invaded its precincts. And he was in a state of repressed expectancy at this time, that unconsciously created an atmosphere about him of vague but restless excitement. The hearts of all who encountered his look of concentrated delight, must unconsciously beat with his. A strain sweeter than his old-time music was in his voice. When he played upon the piano, which was but seldom, it was as if he breathed out his soul before the holy images. When he walked, he seemed to tread on air. His every glance was a question as to whether this great joy, for which he had so long and patiently waited, was to be his? Love, living and apotheosized, appeared to blaze before them, and no one can look on love without feeling somewhere in his soul the stir of those deep waters, whose pulsing throb even in the darkness of midnight, proves that we are the children of God.

Cicely was uncommunicative, but her face, when Paula beheld it, was like the glowing countenance of some sculptured saint, from which the veil is slowly being withdrawn.

Suddenly there came an evening when the force of the spell that held all these various hearts enchained gave way. It was the night of a private entertainment of great elegance, to be held at the house of a friend of Miss Stuyvesant. Bertram had received formal permission from the father of Cicely, to act as his daughter’s escort, and the fact had transformed him from a hopeful dreamer, into a man determined to speak and know his fate at once. Paula was engaged to take part in the entertainment, and the sight of her daintily-decked figure leaving the house with Mr. Ensign, was the last drop in the slowly gathering tide that was secretly swelling in Mr. Sylvester’s breast; and it was with a sudden outrush of his whole determined nature that he stepped upstairs, dressed himself in evening attire, and deliberately followed them to the place where they were going. “The wealth of the Indies is slipping from my grasp,” was his passionate exclamation, as he rode through the lighted streets. “I cannot see it go; if she can care more for me than for this sleek, merry-hearted young fellow, she shall. I know that my love is to his, what the mighty ocean is to a placid lake, and with such love one ought to be panoplied as with resisting steel.”

A stream of light and music met him, as he went up the stoop of the house that held his treasure. It seemed to intoxicate him. Glow, melody and perfume, were so many expressions of Paula. His friends, of whom there were many present, received him with tokens of respect, not unmingled with surprise. It was the first time he had been seen in public since his wife’s death, and they could not but remark upon the cheerfulness of his bearing, and the almost exalted expression of his proud and restless eye. Had Paula accompanied him, they might have understood his emotion, but with the beautiful girl under the care of one of the most eligible gentlemen in town, what could have happened to Mr. Sylvester to make his once melancholy countenance blazon like a star amid this joyous and merrily-laughing throng. He did not enlighten them, but moved from group to group, searching for Paula. Suddenly the thought flashed upon him, “Is it only an hour or so since I smiled upon her in my own hall, and shook my head when she asked me with a quick, pleading look, to come with them to this very spot?” It seemed days, since that time. The rush of these new thoughts, the final making up of this slowly-maturing purpose, the sudden allowing of his heart to regard her as a woman to be won, had carried the past away as by the sweep of a mountain torrent. He could not believe he had ever known a moment of hesitancy, ever looked at her as a father, ever bid her go on her way and leave the prisoner to his fate. He must always have felt like this; such momentum could not have been gathered in an hour; she must know that he loved her wildly, deeply, sacredly, wholly, with the fibre of his mind, his body and his soul; that to call her his in life and in death, was the one demanding passion of his existence, making the past a dream, and the future—ah, he dared not question that! He must behold her face before he could even speculate upon the realities lying behind fate’s down-drawn curtain.

Meanwhile fair faces and lovely forms flitted before him, carrying his glance along in their train, but only because youth was a symbol of Paula. If these fresh young girls could smile and look back upon him, with that lingering glance which his presence ever invoked, why not she who was not only sweet, tender, and lovely, but gifted with a nature that responded to the deep things of life, and the stern passions of potent humanity. Could a merry laugh lure her while he stood by? Was the sunshine the natural atmosphere of this flower, that had bloomed under his eye so sweetly and shed out its innocent fragrance, at the approach of his solemn-pacing foot? He began to mirror before his mind’s eye the startled look of happy wonder with which she would greet his impassioned glance, when released from whatever duties might be now pressing upon her; she wandered into these rooms, to find him awaiting her, when suddenly there was a stir in the throng, a pleased and excited rush, and the large curtain which he had vaguely noticed hanging at one end of the room, uplifted and—was it Paula? this coy, brilliant, saucy-eyed Florentine maiden, stepping out from a bower of greenery, with finger on her lip, and a backward glance of saucy defiance that seemed to people the verdant walks behind her with gallant cavaliers, eager to follow upon her footsteps? Yes; he could not be mistaken; there was but one face like that in the world. It was Paula, but Paula with youth’s merriest glamour upon her, a glamour that had caught its radiant light from other thoughts than those in which he had been engaged. He bowed his head, and a shudder went through him like that which precedes the falling knife of the executioner. Even the applause that greeted the revelation of so much loveliness and alluring charm, passed over him like a dream. He was battling with his first recognition of the possibility of his being too late. Suddenly her voice was heard.

She was speaking aloud to herself, this Florentine maiden who had outstripped her lover in the garden, but the tone was the same he had heard beside his own hearthstone, and the archness that accompanied it had frequently met and encouraged some cheerful expression of his own. These are the words she uttered. Listen with him to the naïve, half tender, half pettish voice, and mark with his eyes the alternate lights and shadows that flit across her cheek as she broodingly murmurs:

He is certainly a most notable gallant. His “Good day, lady!” and his “Good even to you!” are flavored with the cream of perfectest courtesy. But gallantry while it sits well upon a man, does not make him one, any more than a feather makes the cap it adorns. For a Tuscan he hath also a certain comeliness, but then I have ever sworn, in good faith too, that I would not marry a Tuscan, were he the best made man in Italy. Then there is his glance, which proclaims to all men’s understandings that he loves me, which same seems overbold; but then his smile!

Well, for a smile it certainly does credit to his wit, but one cannot live upon smiles; though if one could, one might consent to make a trial of his—and starve belike for her pains. (She drops her cheek into her hand and stands musing.)

Mr. Sylvester drew a deep breath and let his eyes fall, when suddenly a hum ran through the audience about him, and looking quickly up, he beheld Mr. Ensign dressed in full cavalier costume, standing behind the musing maiden with a half merry, half tender gleam upon his face, that made the thickly beating heart of his rival shrink as if clutched in an iron vise. What followed, he heard as we do the words of a sentence read to us from the judge’s seat. The cavalier spoke first and a thousand dancing colors seemed to flash in the merry banter that followed.

Martino.—She muses, and on no other than myself, as I am ready to swear by that coy and tremulous glance. I will move her to avow it. (Advances.) Fair lady, greeting! A kiss for your sweet thoughts.

Nita. (With a start).—A kiss, Signior Martino? You must acknowledge that were but a sorry exchange for thoughts like mine, so if it please you, I will keep my thoughts and you your kiss; and lest it should seem ungracious in me to give nothing upon your asking, I will bestow upon you my most choice good day, and so leave you to your meditations. (Curtseys and is about to depart.)

Martino.—You have the true generosity, lady; you give away what it costs you the dearest to part from. Nay, rumple not your lip; it is the truth for all your pretty poutings! Convince me it is not.

Nita.—Your pardon, but that would take words, and words would take time, and time given to one of your persuasion would refute all my arguments on the face of them. (Still retreating.)

Martino.—Well, lady, since it is your pleasure to be consistent, rather than happy, adieu. Had you stayed but as long as the bee pauses on an oleander blossom, you would have heard—

Nita.—Buzzing, signior?

Martino.—Yes, if by that word you would denominate vows of constancy and devotion. For I do greatly love you, and would tell you so.

Nita.—And for that you expect me to linger! as though vows were new to my ears, and words of love as strange to my understanding as tropical birds to the eyes of a Norseman.

Martino.—If you do love me, you will linger.

Nita.—Yet if I do, (Slowly advancing) be assured it is from some other motive than love.

Martino.—So it be not from hate I am contented.

Nita.—To be contented with little, proves you a man of much virtue.

Martino.—When I have you, I am contented with much.

Nita.—That when is a wise insertion, signior; it saves you from shame and me from anger.—Hark! some one calls.

Martino.—None other but the wind; it is a kindly breeze, and grieves to hear how harsh a pretty maiden can be to the lover who adores her.

Nita.—Please your worship, I do not own a lover.

Martino.—Then mend your poverty, and accept one.

Nita.—I am no beggar to accept of alms.

Martino.—In this case, he who offers is the beggar.

Nita.—I am too young to wear a jewel of so much pretension.

Martino.—Time is a cure for youth, and marriage a happy speeder of time.

Nita.—But youth needs no cure, and if marriage speedeth time, I’ll live a maid and die one. The days run swift enough without goading, Signior Martino.

Martino.—But lady—

Nita..—Nay, your tongue will outstrip time, if you put not a curb upon it. In faith, signior, I would not seem rude, but if in your courtesy you would consent to woo some other maiden to-day, why I would strive and bear it.

Martino.—When I stoop to woo any other lady than thee, the moon shall hide its face from the earth, and shine upon it no more.

Nita.—Your thoughts are daring in their flight to-day.

Martino.—They are in search of your love.

Nita.—Alack, your wings will fail.

Martino.—Ay, when they reach their goal.

Nita.—Dost think to reach it?

Martino.—Shall I not, lady?

Nita.—’Tis hard to believe it possible, yet who can tell? You are not so handsome, signior, that one would die for you.

Martino.—No, lady; but what goes to make other men’s faces fair, goes to make my heart great. The virtue of my manhood rests in the fact that I love you.

Nita.—Faith! so in some others. ’Tis the common fault of the gallants, I find. If that is all—

Martino.—But I will always love you, even unto death.

Nita.—I doubt it not, so death come soon enough.

Martino. (Taps his poiniard with his hand.)—Would you have it come now, and so prove me true to my word?

Nita. (Demurely).—I am no judge, to utter the doom that your presumption merits.

Martino.—Your looks speak doom, and your sweet lips hide a sword keener than that of justice.

Nita.—Have you tried them, signior, that you speak so knowingly concerning them? (Retreating.) Your words, methinks, are somewhat like your kisses, all breath and no substance.

Martino.—Lady! sweet one! (Follows her.)

Nita.—Nay, I am gone. (Exit.)

Martino.—I were of the fools’ fold, did I fail to follow at a beck so gentle. (Exit.)

That was not all, but it was all that Mr. Sylvester heard. Hastily retreating, he went out into the corridor and ere long found himself in the conservatory. He felt shaken; felt that he could not face all this unmoved. He knew he had been gazing at a play; that because this Florentine maiden looked at her lover with coyness, gentleness, tenderness perhaps, it did not follow that she, his Paula, loved the real man behind this dashing cavalier. But the possibility was there, and in his present frame of mind could not be encountered without pain. He dared not stay where men’s eyes could follow him, or women’s delicate glances note the heaving of his chest. He had in the last three hours given himself over so completely to hope. He realized it now though he would not have believed it before. With man’s usual egotism he had felt that it was only necessary for him to come to a decision, to behold all else fall out according to his mind. He had forgotten for the nonce the power of a youthful lover, eager to serve, ready to wait, careful to press his way at every advantage. He could have cursed himself for the folly of his delay, as he strode up and down among the flowering shrubs in the solitude which the attractions of the play created. “Fool! fool!” he muttered between his teeth, “to halt on the threshold of Paradise till the door closed in my face, when a step would have carried me where—” He grew dizzy as he contemplated. The goal looks never so fair as when just within reach of a rival’s hand.

A vigorous clapping, followed by a low gush of music, woke him at last to the realization that the little drama had terminated. With a hasty movement he was about to return to the parlors, when he heard the low murmur of voices, and on looking up, saw a youthful couple advancing into the conservatory, whom at first glance he recognized for Bertram and Miss Stuyvesant. They were absorbed in each other, and believing themselves alone, came on without fear, presenting such a picture of love and deep, unspeakable joy, that Mr. Sylvester paused and gazed upon them as upon the sudden embodiment of a cherished vision of his own imaginings. Bertram was speaking ordinary words no doubt, words suited to the occasion and the time, but his voice was attuned to the beatings of his long repressed heart, while the bend of his proud young head and the glance of his yearning eye were more eloquent than speech, of the leaning of his whole nature in love and protection towards the dainty, flushing creature at his side. It was a sight to make old hearts young and a less happy lover sick with envy. In spite of his gratification at his nephew’s success, Mr. Sylvester’s brow contracted, and it was with difficulty he could subdue himself into the appearance of calm benevolence necessary to pass them with propriety. Had it been Paula and Mr. Ensign!

He did not know how it was that he managed to find her at last. But just as he was beginning to realize that wisdom demanded his departure from this scene, he suddenly came upon her sitting with her face turned toward the crowd and waiting—for whom? He had never seen her look so beautiful, possibly because he had never before allowed himself to gaze upon her with a lover’s eyes. She had exchanged her piquant Roman costume for the pearl gray satin in which Ona had delighted to array her, and its rich substance and delicate neutral tint harmonized well with the amber brocade of the curtain against which she sat.

Power, passion and purity breathed in her look, and lent enchantment to her form. She was poetry’s unique jewel, and at this moment, thought rather than merriment sat upon her lips, and haunted her somewhat tremulous smiles. He approached her as a priest to his shrine, but once at her side, once in view of her first startled blush, stooped passionately, and forgetting everything but the suspense at his heart, asked with a look and tone such as he had never before bestowed upon her, if the play which he had seen that evening had been real, or only the baseless fabric of a dream.

She understood him and drew back with a look almost of awe, shaking her head and replying in a startled way, “I do not know, I dare not say, I scarcely have taken time to think.”

“Then take it,” he murmured in a voice that shook her body and soul, “for I must know, if he does not.” And without venturing another word, or supplying by look or gesture any explanation of his unexpected appearance, or as equally unexpected departure, he bowed before her as if she had been a queen instead of the child he had been wont in other days to regard her, and speedily left her side.

But he had not taken two steps before he paused. Mr. Ensign was approaching.

“Mr. Sylvester! you are worse than the old woman of the tale, who declaring she would not, that nothing could ever induce her to—did.”

“You utter a deeper truth than you realize,” returned that gentleman, with a grave emphasis meant rather for her ears than his. “It is the curse of mortals to overrate their strength in the face of great temptations. I am no exception to the rule.” And with a second bow that included this apparently triumphant lover within its dignified sweep, he calmly proceeded upon his way, and in a few moments had left the house.

Mr. Ensign, who for all his careless disposition, was quick to recognize depths in others, stared after his commanding figure until he had disappeared, then turned and looked at Paula. Why did his heart sink, and the lights and joy and promise of the evening seem to turn dark and shrivel to nothing before his eyes!

XXXIII.

TWO LETTERS.

A woman who has submitted to the undivided attentions of a gentleman for any length of time, feels herself more or less bound to him, whether any special words of devotion have passed between them or not, particularly if from sensitiveness of nature, she has manifested any pleasure in his society. Paula therefore felt as if her wings had been caught in a snare, when Mr. Ensign upon leaving her that evening, put a small note in her hand, saying that he would do himself the pleasure of calling for his reply the next day. She did not need to open it. She knew intuitively the manly honest words with which he would be likely to offer his heart and life for her acceptance; yet she did open it almost as soon as she reached her room, sitting down in her outside wraps for the purpose. She was not disappointed. Every line was earnest, ardent, and respectful. A true love and a happy cheerful home awaited her if—the stupendous meaning latent in an if!

With folded hands lying across the white page, with glance fixed on the fire always kept burning brightly in the grate, she sat querying her own soul and the awful future. He was such a charming companion; life had flashed and glimmered with a thousand lights and colors since she knew him; his very laugh made her want to sing. With him she would move in sunshiny paths, open to the regard of all the world, giving and receiving good. Life would need no veils and love no check. A placid stream would bear her on through fields of smiling verdure. Dread hopes, strange fears, uneasy doubts and vague unrests, would not disturb the heart that rested its faith upon his frank and manly bosom. A breeze blew through his life that would sweep all such evils from the path of her who walked in trust and love by his side. In trust and love; ah! that was it. She trusted him, but did she love him? At one time she had been convinced that she did, else these past few weeks would have owned a different history. He came upon her so brightly amid her gloom; filled her days with such genial thoughts, and drew the surface of her soul so unconsciously after him. It was like a zephyr sweeping over the sea; every billow that leaps to follow seems to own the power of that passing wind. But could she think so now, since she had found that the mere voice and look of another man had power to awaken depths such as she could not name and scarcely as yet had been able to recognize? that though the billows might flow under the genial smile of her young lover, the tide rose only at the call of a deeper voice and a more imposing presence?

She was a thinking spirit and recoiled from yielding too readily to any passing impulse. Love was a sacrament in her eyes; something entirely too precious to be accepted in counterfeit. She must know the secret of her inclinations, must weigh the influence that swayed her, for once given over to earth’s sublimest passion, she felt that it would have power to sweep her on to an eternity of bliss or suffering.

She therefore forced herself to probe deep into the past, and pitilessly asked her conscience, what her emotions had been in reference to Mr. Sylvester before she positively knew that love for her as a woman had taken the place of his former fatherly regard. Her blushing cheek seemed to answer for her. Right or wrong, her life had never been complete away from his presence. She was lonesome and unsatisfied. When Mr. Ensign came she thought her previous unrest was explained, but the letter from Cicely describing Mr. Sylvester as sick and sorrowful, had withdrawn the veil from the delusion, and though it had settled again with Mr. Sylvester’s studied refusal to accept her devotion, was by this evening’s betrayal utterly wrenched away and trampled into oblivion. By every wild throb of her heart at the sound of his voice in her ear, by every out-reaching of her soul to enter into his every mood, by the deep sensation of rest she felt in his presence, and the uneasy longing that absorbed her in his absence, she knew that she loved Mr. Sylvester as she never could his younger, blither, and perhaps nobler rival. Each word spoken by him lay treasured in her heart of hearts. When she thought of manly beauty, his face and figure started upon her from the surrounding shadows, making all romance possible and poetry the truest expression of the human soul. While she lived, he must ever seem the man of men to charm the eye, affect the heart, and move the soul. Yet she hesitated. Why?

There is nothing so hard to acknowledge to ourselves as the presence of a blemish in the character of those we love and long to revere. It was like giving herself to the rack to drag from its hiding-place and confront in all its hideous deformity, the doubt which, unconfessed perhaps, had of late mingled with her great reverence and admiring affection for this not easily to be comprehended man. But in this momentous hour she had power to do it. Conscience and self-respect demanded that the image before which she was ready to bow with such abandon, should be worthy her worship. She was not one who could carry offerings to a clouded shrine. She must see the glory shining from between the cherubim. “I must worship with my spirit as well as with my body, and how can I do that if there is a spot on his manhood, or a false note in his heart. If I did but know the secret of his past; why the prisoner sits in the dungeon! He is gentle, he is kindly, he loves goodness and strives to lead me in the paths of purity and wisdom, and yet something that is not good or pure clings to him, which he has never been able to shake loose. I perceive it in his melancholy glance; I catch its accents in his uneven tones; it rises upon me from his most thoughtful words, and makes his taking of a vow fearfully and warningly significant. Yet how much he is honored by his fellow-men, and with what reliance they look up to him for guidance and support. If I only knew the secrets of his heart!” thought she.

It was a trembling scale that hung balancing in that young girl’s hand that night. On one side, frankness, cheerfulness, manly worth, honest devotion, and a home with every adjunct of peace and prosperity; on the other, love, gratitude, longing, admiration, and a dark shadow enveloping all, called doubt. The scale would not adjust itself. It tore her heart to turn from Mr. Sylvester, it troubled her conscience to dismiss the thought of Mr. Ensign. The question was yet undecided when she rose and began putting away her ornaments for the night.

What was there on her dressing-table that made her pause with such a start, and cast that look of half beseeching inquiry at her own image in the glass? Only another envelope with her name written upon it. But the way in which she took it in her hand, and the half guilty air with which she stole back with it to the fire, would have satisfied any looker-on I imagine, that conscience or no conscience, debate or no debate, the writer of these lines had gained a hold upon her heart, which no other could dispute.

It was a compactly written note and ran thus:

“A man is not always responsible for what he does in moments of great suspense or agitation. But if, upon reflection, he finds that he has spoken harshly or acted unwisely, it is his duty to remedy his fault; and therefore it is that I write you this little note. Paula, I love you; not as I once did, with a fatherly longing and a protective delight, but passionately, yearningly, and entirely, with the whole force of my somewhat disappointed life; as a man loves for whom the world has dissolved leaving but one creature in it, and that a woman. I showed you this too plainly to-night. I have no right to startle or intimidate your sweet soul into any relation that might hereafter curb or dissatisfy you; if you can love me freely, with no back-lookings to any younger lover left behind, know that naught you could bestow, can ever equal the world of love and feeling which I long to lavish upon you from my heart of hearts. But if another has already won upon your affections too much for you to give an undivided response to my appeal, then by all the purity and innocence of your nature, forget I have ever marred the past or disturbed the present by any word warmer than that of a father.

“I shall not meet you at breakfast and possibly not at dinner to-morrow, but when evening comes I shall look for my soul’s dearer and better half, or my childless manhood’s nearest and most cherished friend, as God pleaseth and your own heart and conscience shall decree.

“Edward Sylvester.”

Miss Belinda was very much surprised to be awakened early the next morning, by a pair of loving arms clasped yearningly about her neck.

Looking up, she descried Paula kneeling beside her bed in the faint morning light, her cheeks burning, and her eyelids drooping; and guessing perhaps how it was, started up from her recumbent position with an energy strongly suggestive of the charger, that smells the battle afar off.

“What has happened?” she asked. “You look as if you had not slept a wink.”

For reply Paula pulled aside the curtain at the head of her bed, and slipped into her hand Mr. Ensign’s letter. Miss Belinda read it conscientiously through, with many grunts of approval, and having finished it, laid it down with a significant nod, after which she turned and surveyed Paula with keen but cautious scrutiny. “And you don’t know what answer to give,” she asked.

“I should,” said Paula, “if—Oh aunt, you know what stands in my way! I have seen it in your eyes for some time. There is some one else—”

“But he has not spoken?” vigorously ejaculated her aunt.

Without answering, Paula put into her hand, with a slow reluctance she had not manifested before, a second little note, and then hid her head amid the bedclothes, waiting with quickly beating heart for what her aunt might say.

She did not seem in haste to speak, but when she did, her words came with a quick sigh that echoed very drearily in the young girl’s anxious ears. “You have been placed by this in a somewhat painful position. I sympathize with you, my child. It is very hard to give denial to a benefactor.”

Paula’s head drew nearer to her aunt’s breast, her arms crept round her neck. “But must I?” she breathed.

Miss Belinda knitted her brows with great force, and stared severely at the wall opposite. “I am sorry there is any question about it,” she replied.

Paula started up and looked at her with sudden determination. “Aunt,” said she, “what is your objection to Mr. Sylvester?”

Miss Belinda shook her head, and pushing the girl gently away, hurriedly arose and began dressing with great rapidity. Not until she was entirely prepared for breakfast did she draw Paula to her, and prepare to answer her question.

“My objection to him is, that I do not thoroughly understand him. I am afraid of the skeleton in the closet, Paula. I never feel at ease when I am with him, much as I admire his conversation and appreciate the undoubtedly noble instincts of his heart. His brow is not open enough to satisfy an eye which has accustomed itself to the study of human nature.”

“He has had many sorrows!” Paula faintly exclaimed, stricken by this echo of her own doubts.

“Yes,” returned her aunt, “and sorrow bows the head and darkens the eye, but it does not make the glance wavering or its expression mysterious.”

“Some sorrows might,” urged Paula tremulously, arguing as much with her own doubts as with those of her aunt. “His have been of no ordinary nature. I have never told you, aunt, but there were circumstances attending Cousin Ona’s death that made it especially harrowing. He had a stormy interview with her the very morning she was killed; words passed between them, and he left her with a look that was almost desperate. When he next saw her, she lay lifeless and inert before him. I sometimes think that the shadow that fell upon him at that hour will never pass away.”

“Do you know what was the subject of their disagreement?” asked Miss Belinda anxiously.

“No, but I have reason to believe it had something to do with business affairs, as nothing else could ever arouse Cousin Ona into being at all disagreeable.”

“I don’t like that phrase, business affairs; like charity, it covers entirely too much. Have you never had any doubts yourself about Mr. Sylvester?”

“Ah, you touch me to the quick, aunt. I may have had my doubts, but when I look back on the past, I cannot see as they have any very substantial foundation. Supposing, aunt, that he has been merely unfortunate, and I should live to find that I had discarded one whose heart was darkened by nothing but sorrow? I should never forgive myself, nor could life yield me any recompense that would make amends for a sacrifice so unnecessary.”

“You love him, then, very dearly, Paula?”

A sudden light fell on the young girl’s face. “Hearts cannot tell their love,” said she, “but since I received this letter from him, it has seemed as if my life hung balancing on the question, as to whether he is worthy of a woman’s homage. If he is not, I would give my life to have him so. The world is only dear to me now as it holds him.”

Miss Belinda picked up Mr. Ensign’s letter with trembling fingers. “I thought you were safe when the younger man came to woo,” said she. “Girls, as a rule, prefer what is bright to what is sombre, and Mr. Ensign is truly a very agreeable as well as worthy young man.”

“Yes, aunt, and he came very near stealing my heart as he undoubtedly did my fancy, but a stronger hand snatched it away, and now I do not know what to do or how to act, so as to awaken in the future no remorse or vain regrets.”

Miss Belinda opened the letters again and consulted their contents in a matter-of-fact way. “Mr. Ensign proposes to come this afternoon for his answer, while Mr. Sylvester defers seeing you till evening. What if I seek Mr. Sylvester this morning and have a little conversation with him, which shall determine, for once and all, the question which so troubles us? Would you not find it easier to meet Mr. Ensign when he comes?”

“You talk to Mr. Sylvester, and upon such a topic! Oh, I could not bear that. Pardon me, aunt, but I think I am more jealous of his feelings than of my own. If his secret can be learned in a half-hour’s talk, it must be listened to by no one but myself. And I believe it can,” she murmured reverently; “he is so tender of me he would never let me go blindfold into any path, concerning which I had once expressed anxiety. If I ask him whether there is any good reason before God or man why I should not give him my entire faith and homage, he will answer honestly, though it be the destruction of his hopes to do so?”

“Have you such trust as that in his uprightness as a lover, and the guardian of your happiness?”

“Have not you, aunt?”

And Miss Belinda remembering his words on the occasion of his first proposal to adopt Paula, was forced to acknowledge that she had.

So without further preliminaries, it was agreed upon that Paula should refrain from making a final decision until she had eased her heart by an interview with Mr. Sylvester.

“Meantime, you can request Mr. Ensign to wait another day for his answer,” said Miss Belinda.

But Paula with a look of astonishment shook her head. “Is it you who would counsel me to such a piece of coquetry as that?” said she. “No, dear aunt, my heart is not with Mr. Ensign, as you know, and it is impossible for me to encourage him. If Mr. Sylvester should prove unworthy of my affection, I must bear, as best I may, the loss which must accrue; but till he does, let me not dishonor my womanhood by allowing hope to enter, even for a passing moment, the breast of his rival.”

Miss Belinda blushed, and drew her niece fondly towards her. “You are right,” said she, “and my great desire for your happiness has led me into error. Honesty is the noblest adjunct of all true love, and must never be sacrificed to considerations of selfish expediency. The refusal which you contemplate bestowing upon Mr. Ensign, must be forwarded to him at once.”

And with a final embrace, in which Miss Belinda allowed herself to let fall some few natural tears of disappointment, she dismissed the young girl to her task.

XXXIV.

PAULA MAKES HER CHOICE.

It was evening in the Sylvester mansion. Mr. Sylvester who, according to his understanding with Paula, had been absent from his home all day, had just come in and now stood in his library waiting for the coming footfall that should decide whether the future held for him any promise of joy.

He had never looked more worthy of a woman’s regard than he did that night. A matter that had been troubling him for some time had just been satisfactorily disposed of, and not a shadow, so far as he knew, lay upon his business outlook. This naturally brightened his cheek and lent a light to his eye. Then, hope is no mean beautifier, and this he possessed notwithstanding the disparity of years between himself and Paula. It was not, however, of sufficiently assured a nature to prevent him from starting at every sound from above, and flushing with quite a disagreeable sense of betrayal when the door opened and Bertram entered the room, instead of the gentle and exquisite being he had expected.

“Uncle, I am so full of happiness, I had to stop and bestow a portion of it upon you. Do you think any one could mistake the nature of Miss Stuyvesant’s feelings, who saw her last night?”

“Hardly,” was the smiling reply. “At all events I have not felt like wasting much but pleasant sympathy upon you. Your pathway to happiness looks secure, my boy.”

His nephew gave him a wistful glance, but hid his thought whatever it was. “I am going to see her to-night,” remarked he. “I am afraid my love is something like a torrent that has once burst its barrier; it cannot rest until it has worked its channel and won its rightful repose.”

“That is something the way with all love,” returned his uncle. “It may be dallied with while asleep, but once aroused, better meet a lion in his fury or a tempest in its rush. Are you going to test your hope, to-night?”

The young man flushed. “I cannot say.” But in another moment gayly added, “I only know that I am prepared for any emergency.”

“Well, my boy, I wish you God-speed. If ever a man has won a right to happiness, you are that man; and you shall enjoy it too, if any word or action of mine can serve to advance it.”

“Thank you!” replied Bertram, and with a bright look around the apartment, prepared to take his leave. “When I come back,” he remarked, with a touch of that manly naïveté to which I have before alluded, “I hope I shall not find you alone.”

Ignoring this wish which was re-echoed somewhat too deeply within his own breast for light expression, Mr. Sylvester accompanied his nephew to the front door.

“Let us see what kind of a night it is,” observed he, stepping out upon the stoop. “It is going to rain.”

“So it is,” returned Bertram, with a quick glance overhead; “but I shall not let such a little fuss as that deter me from fulfilling my engagement.” And bestowing a hasty nod upon his uncle, he bounded down the step.

Instantly a man who was loitering along the walk in front of the house, stopped, as if struck by these simple words, turned, gave Bertram a quick look, and then with a sly glance back at the open door where Mr. Sylvester still stood gazing at the lowering heavens, set himself cautiously to follow him.

Mr. Sylvester, who was too much pre-occupied to observe this suspicious action, remained for a moment contemplating the sky; then with an aimless glance down the avenue, during which his eye undoubtedly fell upon Bertram and the creeping shadow of a man behind him, closed the door and returned to the library.

The sight of another’s joy has the tendency to either unduly depress the spirits or greatly to elate them. When Paula came into the room a few minutes later, it was to find Mr. Sylvester awaiting her with an expression that was almost radiant. It made her duty seem doubly hard, and she came forward with the slow step of one who goes to meet or carry doom. He saw, and instantly the light died out of his face, leaving it one blank of despair. But controlling himself, he took her cold hand in his, and looking down upon her with a tender but veiled regard, asked in those low and tremulous tones that exerted such an influence upon her:

“Do I see before me my affectionate and much to be cherished child, or that still dearer object of love and worship, which it shall be the delight of my life to render truly and deeply happy?”

“You see,” returned she, after a moment of silent emotion, “a girl without father or brother to advise her; who loves, or believes she does, a great and noble man, but who is smitten with fear also, she cannot tell why, and trembles to take a step to which no loving and devoted friend has set the seal of his approval.”

The clasp with which Mr. Sylvester held her hand in his, tightened for an instant with irrepressible emotion, then slowly unloosed. Drawing back, he surveyed her with eyes that slowly filled with a bitter comprehension of her meaning.

“You are the only man,” continued she, with a glance of humble entreaty, “that has ever stood to me for a moment in the light of a relation. You have been a father to me in days gone by, and to you it therefore seems most natural for me to appeal when a question comes up that either puzzles or distresses me. Mr. Sylvester, you have offered me your love and the refuge of your home; if you say that in your judgment the counsel of all true friends would be for me to accept this love, then my hand is yours and with it my heart; a heart that only hesitates because it would fain be sure it has the smile of heaven upon its every prompting.”

“Paula!”

The voice was so strange she looked up to see if it really was Mr. Sylvester who spoke. He had sunk back into a chair and had covered his face with his hands. With a cry she moved towards him, but he motioned her back.

“Condemned to be my own executioner!” he muttered. “Placed on the rack and bid to turn the wheel that shall wrench my own sinews! My God, ’tis hard!”

She did not hear the words, but she saw the action. Slowly the blood left her cheek, and her hand fell upon her swelling breast with a despairing gesture that would have smitten Miss Belinda to the heart, could she have seen it. “I have asked too much,” she whispered.

With a start Mr. Sylvester rose. “Paula,” said he, in a stern and different tone, “is this fear of which you speak, the offspring of your own instincts, or has it been engendered in your breast by the words of another?”

“My Aunt Belinda is in my confidence, if it is she to whom you allude,” rejoined she, meeting his glance fully and bravely. “But from no lips but yours could any words proceed capable of affecting my estimate of you as the one best qualified to make me happy.”

“Then it is my words alone that have awakened this doubt, this apprehension?”

“I have not spoken of doubt,” said she, but her eyelids fell.

“No, thank God!” he passionately exclaimed. “And yet you feel it,” he went on more composedly. “I have studied your face too long and closely not to understand it.”

She put out her hands in appeal, but for once it passed unheeded.

“Paula,” said he, “you must tell me just what that doubt is; I must know what is passing in your mind. You say you love me—” he paused, and a tremble shook him from head to foot, but he went inexorably on—“it is more than I had a right to expect, and God knows I am grateful for the precious and inestimable boon, far as it is above my deserts; but while loving me, you hesitate to give me your hand. Why? What is the name of the doubt that disturbs that pure breast and affects your choice? Tell me, I must know.”

“You ask me to dissect my own heart!” she cried, quivering under the torture of his glance; “how can I? What do I know of its secret springs or the terrors that disturb its even beatings? I cannot name my fear; it has no name, or if it has—Oh, sir!” she cried in a burst of passionate longing, “your life has been one of sorrow and disappointment; grief has touched you close, and you might well be the melancholy and sombre man that all behold. I do not shrink from grief; say that the only shadow that lies across your dungeon-door is that cast by the great and heart-rending sorrows of your life, and without question and without fear I enter that dungeon with you—”

The hand he raised stopped her. “Paula,” cried he, “do you believe in repentance?”

The words struck her like a blow. Falling slowly back, she looked at him for an instant, then her head sank on her breast.

“I know what your hatred of sin is,” continued he. “I have seen your whole form tremble at the thought of evil. Is your belief in the redeeming power of God as great as your recoil from the wrong that makes that redemption necessary?”

Quickly her head raised, a light fell on her brow, and her lips moved in a vain effort to utter what her eyes unconsciously expressed.

“Paula, I would be unworthy the name of a man, if with the consciousness of possessing a dark and evil nature, I strove by use of any hypocrisy or specious pretense at goodness, to lure to my side one so exceptionally pure, beautiful and high-minded. The ravening wolf and the innocent lamb would be nothing to it. Neither would I for an instant be esteemed worthy of your regard, if in this hour of my wooing there remained in my life the shadow of any latent wrong that might hereafter rise up and overwhelm you. Whatever of wrong has ever been committed by me—and it is my punishment that I must acknowledge before your pure eyes that my soul is not spotless—was done in the past, and is known only to my own heart and the God who I reverently trust has long ago pardoned me. The shadow is that of remorse, not of fear, and the evil, one against my own soul, rather than against the life or fortunes of other men. Paula, such sins can be forgiven if one has a mind to comprehend the temptations that beset men in their early struggles. I have never forgiven myself, but—” He paused, looked at her for an instant, his hand clenched over his heart, his whole noble form shaken by struggle, then said—“forgiveness implies no promise, Paula; you shall never link yourself to a man who has been obliged to bow his head in shame before you, but by the mercy that informs that dear glance and trembling lip, do you think you can ever grow to forgive me?”

“Oh,” she cried, with a burst of sobs, violent as her grief and shame, “God be merciful to me, as I am merciful to those who repent of their sins and do good and not evil all the remaining days of their life.”

“I thought you would forgive me,” murmured he, looking down upon her, as the miser eyes the gold that has slipped from his paralyzed hand. “Him whom the hard-hearted sinner and the hypocrite despise, God’s dearest lambs regard with mercy. I learned to revere God before I knew you, Paula, but I learned to love Him in the light of your gentleness and your trust. Rise up now and let me wipe away your tears—my daughter.”

She sprang up as if stung. “No, no,” she cried, “not that; I cannot bear that yet. I must think, I must know what all this means,” and she laid her hand upon her heart. “God surely does not give so much love for one’s undoing; if I were not destined to comfort a life so saddened, He would have bequeathed me more pity and less—” The lifted head fell, the word she would have uttered, stirred her bosom, but not her lips.

It was a trial to his strength, but his firm man’s heart did not waver. “You do comfort me,” said he; “from early morning to late night your presence is my healing and my help, and will always be so, whatever may befal. A daughter can do much, my Paula.”

She took a step back towards the door, her eyes, dark with unfathomable impulses, flashing on him through the tears that hung thickly on her lashes.

“Is it for your own sake or for mine, that you make use of that word?” said she.

He summoned up his courage, met that searching glance with all its wild, bewildering beauty, and responded, “Can you ask, Paula?”

With a lift of her head that gave an almost queenly stateliness to her form, she advanced a step, and drawing a crumpled paper from her pocket, said, “When I went to my room last night, it was to read two letters, one from yourself, and one from Mr. Ensign. This is his, and a manly and noble letter it is too; but hearts have right to hearts, and I was obliged to refuse his petition.” And with a reverent but inexorable hand, she dropped the letter on the burning coals of the grate at their side, and softly turned to leave the room.

“Paula!” With a bound the stern and hitherto forcibly repressed man, leaped to her side. “My darling! my life!” and with a wild, uncontrollable impulse, he caught her for one breathless moment to his heart; then as suddenly released her, and laying his hand in reverence on her brow, said softly, “Now go and pray, little one; and when you are quite calm, an hour hence or a week hence whichever it may be, come and tell me my fate as God and the angels reveal it to you.” And he smiled, and she saw his smile, and went out of the room softly, as one who treadeth upon holy ground.

Mr. Sylvester was considered by his friends and admirers as a proud man. If a vote had been cast among those who knew him best, as from what especial passion common to humanity he would soonest recoil, it would have been unanimously pronounced shame, and his own hand would have emphasized the judgment of his fellows. But shame which is open to the gaze of the whole world, differs from that which is sacred to the eyes of one human being, and that the one who lies nearest the heart.

As Paula’s retreating footsteps died away on the stairs, and he awoke to the full consciousness that his secret was shared by her whose love was his life, and whose good opinion had been his incentive and his pride, his first sensation was one of unmitigated anguish, but his next, strange to say, that of a restful relief. He had cast aside the cloak he had hugged so closely to his breast these many years, and displayed to her shrinking gaze the fox that was gnawing at his vitals; and Spartan though he was, the dew that had filled her loving eyes was balm to him. And not only that; he had won claim to the title of true man. Her regard, if regard it remained, was no longer an airy fabric built upon a plausible seeming, but a firm structure with knowledge for its foundation. “I shall not live to whisper, ‘If she knew my whole life, would she love me so well?’”

His first marriage had been so wholly uncongenial and devoid of sympathy, that his greatest longing in connection with a fresh contract, was to enjoy the full happiness of perfect union and mutual trust; and though he could never have summoned up courage to take her into his confidence, unsolicited, now that it had been done he would not have it undone, no, not if by the doing he had lost her confidence and affection.

But something told him he had not lost it. That out of the darkness and the shock of this very discovery, a new and deeper love would spring, which having its birth in human frailty and human repentance, would gain in the actual what it lost in the ideal, bringing to his weary, suffering and yearning man’s nature, the honest help of a strong and loving sympathy, growing trust, and sweetest because wisest encouragement.

It was therefore, with a growing sense of deep unfathomable comfort, and a reverent thankfulness for the mercies of God, that he sat by the fire idly watching the rise and fall of the golden flames above the fluttering ashes of his rival’s letter, and dreaming with a hallowing sense of his unworthiness, upon the possible bliss of coming days. Happiness in its truest and most serene sense was so new to him, it affected him like the presence of something strangely commanding. He was awe-struck before it, and unconsciously bowed his head at its contemplation. Only his eyes betrayed the peace that comes with all great joy, his eyes and perhaps the faint, almost unearthly smile that flitted across his mouth, disturbing its firm line and making his face for all its inevitable expression of melancholy, one that his mother would have loved to look upon. “Paula!” came now and then in a reverent, yearning accent from between his lips, and once a low, “Thank God!” which showed that he was praying.

Suddenly he rose; a more human mood had set in, and he felt the necessity of assuring himself that it was really he upon whom the dreary past had closed, and a future of such possible brightness opened. He walked about the room, surveying the rich articles within it, as the possible belongings of the beautiful woman he adored; he stood and pictured her as coming into the door as his wife, and before he realized what he was doing, had planned certain changes he would make in his home to adapt it to the wants of her young and growing mind, when with a strange suddenness, the door upon which he was gazing flew back, and Bertram Sylvester entered just as he had come from the street. He looked so haggard, so wild, so little the picture of himself as he ventured forth a couple of hours before, that Mr. Sylvester started, and forgetting his happiness in his alarm, asked in a tone of dismay:

“What has happened? Has Miss Stuyvesant—”

Bertram’s hand went up as if his uncle had touched him upon a festering wound. “Don’t!” gasped he, and advancing to the table, sat down and buried his face for a moment in his arms, then rose, and summoning up a certain manly dignity that became him well, met Mr. Sylvester’s eye with forced calmness, and inquired:

“Did you know there was a thief in our bank, Uncle Edward?”

XXXV.

THE FALLING OF THE SWORD.

Mr. Sylvester towered on his nephew with an expression such as few men had ever seen even on his powerful and commanding face.

“What do you mean?” asked he, and his voice rang like a clarion through the room.

Bertram trembled and for a moment stood aghast, the ready flush bathing his brow with burning crimson. “I mean,” stammered he, with difficulty recovering himself, “that when Mr. Stuyvesant came to open his private box in the bank to-day, that he not only found its lock had been tampered with, but that money and valuables to the amount of some twelve hundred dollars were missing from among its contents.”

“What?”

The expression which had made Mr. Sylvester’s brow so terrible had vanished, but his wonder remained.

“It is impossible,” he declared. “Our vaults are too well watched for any such thing to occur. He has made some mistake; a robbery of that nature could not take place without detection.”

“It would seem not, and yet the fact remains. Mr. Stuyvesant himself informed me of it, to-night. He is not a careless man, nor reckless in his statements. Some one has robbed the bank and it remains with us to find out who.”

Mr. Sylvester, who had been standing all this while, sat down like a man dazed, the wild lost look on Bertram’s face daunting him with a fearful premonition. “There are but four men who have access to the vault where the boxes are kept,” said he: then quickly, “Why did Mr. Stuyvesant wait till to-night to speak to you? Why did he not notify us at once of a loss so important for us to know?”

The flush on Bertram’s brow slowly subsided, giving way to a steady pallor. “He waited to be sure,” said he. “He had a memorandum at home which he desired to consult; he was not ready to make any rash statement: he is a thinking man and more considerate than many of his friends are apt to imagine. If the lock had not been found open he would have thought with you that he had made some mistake; if he had not missed from the box some of its contents, he would have considered the condition of the lock the result of some oversight on his own part or of some mistake on the part of another, but the two facts together were damning and could force upon him but one conclusion. Uncle,” said he, with a straightforward look into Mr. Sylvester’s countenance, “Mr. Stuyvesant knows as well as we do who are the men who have access to the vaults. As you say, the opening of a box during business hours and the abstracting from it of papers or valuables by any one who has not such access, would be impossible. Only Hopgood, you and myself, and possibly Folger, could find either time or opportunity for such a piece of work; while after business hours, the same four, minus Folger who contents himself with knowing the combination of the inner safe, could open the vaults even in case of an emergency. Now of the four named, two are above suspicion. I might almost say three, for Hopgood is not a man it is easy to mistrust. One alone, then, of all the men whom Mr. Stuyvesant is in the habit of meeting at the Bank, is open to a doubt. A young man, uncle, whose rising has been rapid, whose hopes have been lofty, whose life may or may not be known to himself as pure, but which in the eyes of a matured man of the world might easily be questioned, just because its hopes are so lofty and its means for attaining them so limited.”

“Bertram!” sprang from Mr. Sylvester’s white lips.

But the young man raised his hand with almost a commanding gesture. “Hush,” said he, “no sympathy or surprise. Facts like these have to be met with silent endurance, as we walk up to the mouth of the cannon we cannot evade, or bare our breast to the thrust of the bayonet gleaming before our eyes.—I would not have you think,” he somewhat hurriedly pursued, “that Mr. Stuyvesant insinuated anything of the kind, but his daughter was not present in the parlor, and—” A sigh, almost a gasp finished the sentence.

“Bertram!” again exclaimed his uncle, this time with some authority in his voice. “The shock of this discovery has unnerved you. You act like a man capable of being suspected. That is simply preposterous. One half hour’s conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant on my part will convince him, if he needs convincing, which I do not believe, that whoever is unworthy of trust in our bank, you are not the man.”

Bertram raised his head with a gleam of hope, but instantly dropped it again with a despairing gesture that made his uncle frown.

“I did not know that you were inclined to be so pusillanimous,” cried Mr. Sylvester; “and in presence of a foe so unsubstantial as this you have conjured up almost out of nothing. If the bank has been robbed, it cannot be difficult to find the thief. I will order in detectives to-morrow. We will hold a board of inquiry, and the culprit shall be unmasked; that is, if he is one of the employees of the bank, which it is very hard to believe.”

“Very, and which, if true, would make it unadvisable in us to give the alarm that any public measures taken could not fail to do.”

“The inquiry shall be private, and the detectives, men who can be trusted to keep their business secret.”

“How can any inquiry be private? Uncle, we are treading on delicate ground, and have a task before us requiring great tact and discretion. If the safe had only been assaulted, or there were any evidences of burglary to be seen! But we surely should have heard of it from some one of the men, if anything unusual had been observed. Hopgood would have spoken at least.”

“Yes, Hopgood would have spoken.”

The tone in which this was uttered made Bertram look up. “You agree with me, then, that Hopgood is absolutely to be relied upon?”

“Absolutely.” A faint flush on Mr. Sylvester’s face lent force to this statement.

“He could not be beguiled or forced by another man to reveal the combination, or to relax his watch over the vaults entrusted to his keeping?”

“No.”

“He is alone with the vaults where the boxes are kept for an hour or two in the early morning!”

“Yes, and has been for three years. Hopgood is honesty itself.”

“And so are Folger and Jessup and Watson,” exclaimed Bertram emphatically.

“Yes,” his uncle admitted, with equal emphasis.

“It is a mystery,” Bertram declared; “and one I fear that will undo me.”

“Nonsense!” broke forth somewhat impatiently from Mr. Sylvester’s lips; “there is no reason at this time for any such conclusion. If there is a thief in the bank he can be found; if the robbery was committed by an outsider, he may still be discovered. If he is not, if the mystery rests forever unexplained, you have your character, Bertram, a character as spotless as that of any of your fellows, whom we regard as above suspicion. A man is not going to be condemned by such a judge of human nature as Mr. Stuyvesant, just because a mysterious crime has been committed, to which the circumstances of his position alone render it possible for him to be party. You might as well say that Jessup and Folger and Watson—yes, or myself, would in that case lose his confidence. They are in the bank, and are constantly in the habit of going to the vaults.”