MOODS

PREFACE

When “Moods” was first published, an interval of some years having then elapsed since it was written, it was so altered, to suit the taste and convenience of the publisher, that the original purpose of the story was lost sight of, and marriage appeared to be the theme instead of an attempt to show the mistakes of a moody nature, guided by impulse, not principle. Of the former subject a girl of eighteen could know but little, of the latter most girls know a good deal; and they alone among my readers have divined the real purpose of the book in spite of its many faults, and have thanked me for it.

As the observation and experience of the woman have confirmed much that the instinct and imagination of the girl felt and tried to describe, I wish to give my first novel, with all its imperfections on its head, a place among its more successful sisters; for into it went the love, labor, and enthusiasm that no later book can possess.

Several chapters have been omitted, several of the original ones restored; and those that remain have been pruned of as much fine writing as could be done without destroying the youthful spirit of the little romance. At eighteen death seemed the only solution for Sylvia’s perplexities; but thirty years later, having learned the possibility of finding happiness after disappointment, and making love and duty go hand in hand, my heroine meets a wiser if less romantic fate than in the former edition.

Hoping that the young people will accept the amendment, and the elders will sympathize with the maternal instinct which makes unfortunate children the dearest, I reintroduce my first-born to the public which has so kindly welcomed my later offspring.

 

L. M. ALCOTT.

 

CONCORD, January, 1882.

CHAPTER I

Sylvia

“Come, Sylvia, it is nine o’clock! Little slug-a-bed, don’t you mean to get up to-day?” said Miss Yule, bustling into her sister’s room with the wide-awake appearance of one to whom sleep was a necessary evil, to be endured and gotten over as soon as possible.

“No; why should I?” And Sylvia turned her face away from the flood of light that poured into the room as Prue put aside the curtains and flung up the window.

“Why should you? What a question, unless you are ill; I was afraid you would suffer for that long row yesterday, and my predictions seldom fail.”

“I am not suffering from any cause whatever, and your prediction does fail this time. I am only tired of everybody and everything, and see nothing worth getting up for; so I shall just stay here till I do. Please put the curtain down and leave me in peace.”

Prue had dropped her voice to the foreboding tone so irritating to nervous persons whether sick or well, and Sylvia laid her arm across her eyes with an impatient gesture as she spoke sharply.

“Nothing worth getting up for,” cried Prue, like an aggravating echo. “Why, child, there are a hundred pleasant things to do if you would only think so. Now don’t be dismal and mope away this lovely day. Get up and try my plan; have a good breakfast, read the papers, and then work in your garden before it grows too warm; that is wholesome exercise, and you’ve neglected it sadly of late.”

“I don’t wish any breakfast; I hate newspapers, they are so full of lies; I’m tired of the garden, for nothing goes right this year; and I detest taking exercise merely because it’s wholesome. No, I’ll not get up for that.”

“Then stay in the house and draw, read, or practise. Sit with Max in the studio; give Miss Hemming directions about your summer things, or go into town about your bonnet. There is a matinée, try that; or make calls, for you owe fifty at least. Now I’m sure there’s employment enough and amusement enough for any reasonable person.”

Prue looked triumphant, but Sylvia was not a “reasonable person,” and went on in her former despondingly petulant strain.

“I’m tired of drawing; my head is a jumble of other people’s ideas already, and Herr Pedalsturm has put the piano out of tune. Max always makes a model of me if I go to him, and I don’t like to see my eyes, arms, or hair in all his pictures. Miss Hemming’s gossip is worse than fussing over new things that I don’t need. Bonnets are my torment, and matinées are wearisome, for people whisper and flirt till the music is spoiled. Making calls is the worst of all; for what pleasure or profit is there in running from place to place to tell the same polite fibs over and over again, and listen to scandal that makes you pity or despise your neighbors? I shall not get up for any of these things.”

Prue leaned on the bedpost meditating with an anxious face till a forlorn hope appeared which caused her to exclaim,—

“Max and I are going to see Geoffrey Moor this morning, just home from Switzerland, where his poor sister died, you know.You really ought to come with us and welcome him, for though you can hardly remember him, he’s been so long away, still, as one of the family, it is a proper compliment on your part. The drive will do you good, Geoffrey will be glad to see you, it is a lovely old place, and as it is years since you saw the inside of the house you cannot complain that you are tired of that yet.”

“Yes, I can, for it will never seem as it has done, and I can no longer go where I please now that a master’s presence spoils its freedom and solitude for me. I don’t know him, and don’t care to, though his name is so familiar. New people always disappoint me, especially if I’ve heard them praised ever since I was born. I shall not get up for any Geoffrey Moor, so that bait fails.”

Sylvia smiled involuntarily at her sister’s defeat, but Prue fell back upon her last resource in times like this. With a determined gesture she plunged her hand into an abysmal pocket, and from a miscellaneous collection of treasures selected a tiny vial, presenting it to Sylvia with a half-pleading, half-authoritative look and tone.

“I’ll leave you in peace if you’ll only take a dose of chamomilla. It is so soothing, that instead of tiring yourself with all manner of fancies, you’ll drop into a quiet sleep, and by noon be ready to get up like a civilized being. Do take it, dear; just four sugarplums, and I’m satisfied.”

Sylvia received the bottle with a docile expression; but the next minute it flew out of the window, to be shivered on the walk below, while she said, laughing like a wilful creature as she was,—

“I have taken it in the only way I ever shall, and the sparrows can try its soothing effects with me; so be satisfied.”

“Very well. I shall send for Dr. Baum, for I’m convinced that you are going to be ill. I shall say no more, but act as I think proper, because it’s like talking to the wind to reason with you in one of these perverse fits.”

As Prue turned away, Sylvia frowned and called after her,—

“Spare yourself the trouble, for Dr. Baum will follow the chamomilla, if you bring him here. What does he know about health,—a fat German, looking lager-beer and talking sauer-kraut? Bring me bona fide sugarplums and I’ll take them; but arsenic, mercury, and nightshade are not to my taste.”

“Would you feel insulted if I ask whether your breakfast is to be sent up, or kept waiting till you choose to come down?”

Prue looked rigidly calm, but Sylvia knew that she felt hurt, and with one of the sudden impulses which ruled her the frown melted to a smile, as drawing her sister down she kissed her in her most loving manner.

“Dear old soul, I’ll be good by and by, but now I’m tired and cross, so let me keep out of every one’s way and drowse myself into a cheerier frame of mind. I want nothing but solitude, a draught of water, and a kiss.”

Prue was mollified at once, and after stirring fussily about for several minutes gave her sister all she asked, and departed to the myriad small cares that made her happiness. As the door closed, Sylvia sighed a long sigh of relief, and, folding her arms under her head, drifted away into the land of dreams, where ennui is unknown.

All the long summer morning she lay wrapped in sleeping and waking dreams, forgetful of the world about her, till her brother played the Wedding March upon her door on his way to lunch.The desire to avenge the sudden downfall of a lovely castle in the air roused Sylvia, and sent her down to skirmish with Max. Before she could say a word, however, Prue began to talk in a steady stream, for the good soul had a habit of jumbling news, gossip, private opinions, and public affairs into a colloquial hodge-podge, that was often as trying to the intellects as the risibles of her hearers.

“Sylvia, we had a charming call, and Geoffrey sent his love to you. I asked him over to dinner, and we shall dine at six, because then my father can be with us. I shall have to go to town first, for there are a dozen things suffering for attention.You can’t wear a round hat and lawn jackets without a particle of set all summer. I want some things for dinner,—and the carpet must be got. What a lovely one Geoffrey had in the library! Then I must see if poor Mrs. Beck has had her leg comfortably off, find out if Freddy Lennox is dead, and order home the mosquito nettings. Now don’t read all the afternoon, and be ready to receive any one who may come if I should get belated.”

The necessity of disposing of a suspended mouthful produced a lull, and Sylvia seized the moment to ask in a careless way, intended to bring her brother out upon his favorite topic,—

“How did you find your saint, Max?”

“The same sunshiny soul as ever, though he has had enough to make him old and grave before his time. He is just what we need in our neighborhood, and particularly in our house, for we are a dismal set at times, and he will do us all a world of good.”

“What will become of me, with a pious, prosy, perfect creature eternally haunting the house and exhorting me on the error of my ways!” cried Sylvia.

“Don’t disturb yourself; he is not likely to take much notice of you; and it is not for an indolent, freakish midge to scoff at a man whom she does not know, and couldn’t appreciate if she did,” was Max’s lofty reply.

“I rather liked the appearance of the saint, however,” said Sylvia, with an expression of naughty malice, as she began her lunch.

“Why, where did you see him?” exclaimed her brother.

“I went over there yesterday to take a farewell run in the neglected garden before he came. I knew he was expected, but not that he was here; and when I saw the house open, I slipped in and peeped wherever I liked. You are right, Prue; it is a lovely old place.”

“Now I know you did something dreadfully unladylike and improper. Put me out of suspense, I beg of you.”

Prue’s distressful face and Max’s surprise produced an inspiring affect upon Sylvia, who continued, with an air of demure satisfaction,—

“I strolled about, enjoying myself, till I got into the library, and there I rummaged, for it was a charming place, and I was happy as only those are who love books, and feel their influence in a room whose finest ornaments they are.”

“I hope Moor came in and found you trespassing.”

“No, I went out and caught him playing.When I’d stayed as long as I dared, and borrowed a very interesting book—”

“Sylvia! did you really take one without asking?” cried Prue, looking almost as much alarmed as if she had stolen the spoons.

“Yes; why not? I can apologize prettily, and it will open the way for more. I intend to browse over that library for the next six months.”

“But it was such a liberty,—so rude, so—dear, dear; and he as fond and careful of his books as if they were his children! Well, I wash my hands of it, and am prepared for anything now!”

Max enjoyed Sylvia’s pranks too much to reprove, so he only laughed while one sister lamented and the other placidly went on,—

“When I had put the book nicely in my pocket, Prue, I walked into the garden. But before I’d picked a single flower, I heard little Tilly laugh behind the hedge and some strange voice talking to her. So I hopped upon a roller to see, and nearly tumbled off again; for there was a man lying on the grass, with the gardener’s children rioting over him. Will was picking his pockets, and Tilly eating strawberries out of his hat, often thrusting one into the mouth of her long neighbor, who always smiled when the little hand came fumbling at his lips.You ought to have seen the pretty picture, Max.”

“Did he see the interesting picture on your side of the wall?”

“No; I was just thinking what friendly eyes he had, listening to his pleasant talk with the little folks, and watching how they nestled to him as if he were a girl, when Tilly looked up and cried, ‘I see Silver!’ So I ran away, expecting to have them all come racing after. But no one appeared, and I only heard a laugh instead of the ‘stop thief’ that I deserved.”

“If I had time, I should convince you of the impropriety of such wild actions; as I haven’t, I can only implore you never to do so again on Geoffrey’s premises,” said Prue, rising as the carriage drove round.

“I can safely promise that,” answered Sylvia, with a dismal shake of the head, as she leaned listlessly from the window till her brother and sister were gone.

At the appointed time Moor entered Mr. Yule’s hospitably open door; but no one came to meet him, and the house was as silent as if nothing human inhabited it. He divined the cause of this, having met Prue and Max going townward some hours before, and saying to himself, “The boat is late,” he disturbed no one, but strolled into the drawing-rooms and looked about him. Being one of those who seldom find time heavy on their hands, he amused himself with observing what changes had been made during his absence. His journey round the apartments was not a long one, for, coming to an open window, he paused with an expression of mingled wonder and amusement.

A pile of cushions, pulled from chair and sofa, lay before the long window, looking very like a newly deserted nest. A warm-hued picture lifted from the wall stood in a streak of sunshine; a half-cleared leaf of fruit lay on a taboret, and beside it, with a red stain on its titlepage, appeared the stolen book. At sight of this, Moor frowned, caught up his desecrated darling, and put it in his pocket. But as he took another glance at the various indications of what had evidently been a solitary revel very much after his own heart, he relented, laid back the book, and, putting aside the curtain floating in the wind, looked out into the garden, attracted thither by the sound of a spade.

A girl was at work near by; a slender creature in a short linen frock, stout boots, and a wide-brimmed hat, drawn low over the forehead. Whistling softly, she dug with active gestures; and, having made the necessary cavity, set a shrub, filled up the hole, trod it down scientifically, and then fell back to survey the success of her labors. But something was amiss, something had been forgotten, for suddenly up came the shrub, and seizing a wheelbarrow that stood near by, away rattled the girl round the corner out of sight. Moor smiled at this impetuosity, and awaited her return with interest, suspecting who it was.

Presently up the path she came, with head down and steady pace, trundling a barrow full of richer earth, surmounted by a watering-pot. Never stopping for breath, she fell to work again, enlarged the hole, flung in the loam, poured in the water, reset the shrub, and, when the last stamp and pat were given, performed a little dance of triumph about it, at the close of which she pulled off her hat and began to fan her heated face. The action caused the observer to lean and look again, thinking, as he recognized the energetic worker with a smile, “What a changeful thing it is! haunting one’s premises unseen, and stealing one’s books unsuspected; dreaming one half the day and working hard the other half. What will happen next?”

Holding the curtain between the window and himself, Moor peeped through the semi-transparent screen, enjoying the little episode immensely. Sylvia fanned and rested a few minutes then went up and down among the flowers, often pausing to break a dead leaf, to brush away some harmful insect, or lift some struggling plant into the light; moving among them as if akin to them, and cognizant of their sweet wants. If she had seemed strong-armed and sturdy as a boy before, now she was tender-fingered as a woman, and went humming here and there like any happy-hearted bee.

“Curious child!” thought Moor, watching the sunshine glitter on her uncovered head, and listening to the air she left half sung.“I’ve a great desire to step out and see how she will receive me. Not like any other girl, I fancy.”

But, before he could execute his design, the roll of a carriage was heard in the avenue, and pausing an instant, with head erect like a startled doe, Sylvia turned and vanished, dropping flowers as she ran. Mr.Yule, accompanied by his son and daughter, came hurrying in with greetings, explanations, and apologies, and in a moment the house was full of a pleasant stir. Steps went up and down, voices echoed through the rooms, savory odors burst forth from below, and doors swung in the wind, as if the spell was broken and the sleeping palace had wakened with a word.

Prue made a hasty toilet and harassed the cook to the verge of spontaneous combustion, while Max and his father devoted themselves to their guest. Just as dinner was announced Sylvia came in, as calm and cool as if wheelbarrows were myths and short gowns unknown. She welcomed the new-comer with a quiet hand-shake, a shy greeting, and a look that seemed to say, “Wait a little; I take no friends on trust.”

Moor watched her with unusual interest, for he remembered the freakish child he left five years ago better than she remembered him. She was a little creature still, looking hardly fifteen though two years older. A delicate yet beautifully moulded figure, as the fine hands showed, and the curve of the shoulder under the pale violet dress that was both exquisitely simple and becoming.The face was full of contradictions; youthful, maidenly, and intelligent, yet touched with the melancholy of a temperament too mixed to make life happy.The mouth was sweet and tender, the brow touched with that indescribable something which suggests genius, and there was much pride in the spirited carriage of the small head with its hair of wavy gold gathered into a violet snood whence little tendrils kept breaking loose to dance about her forehead or hang upon her neck. But the eyes were by turns eager, absent, or sad, with now and then an upward look that showed how dark and lustrous they were. A most significant but not a beautiful face, because of its want of harmony, for the deep eyes among their fair surroundings disturbed the sight as a discord jars upon the ear; even when they smiled the shadow of black lashes seemed to fill them with a gloom never quite lost. The voice too, which should have been a girlish treble, was full and low as a matured woman’s, with a silvery ring to it occasionally, as if another and a blither creature spoke.

All through dinner, though she sat as silent as a well-bred child, she looked and listened with an expression of keen intelligence that children do not wear, and sometimes smiled to herself, as if she saw or heard something that pleased and interested her. When they rose from table she followed Prue upstairs, quite forgetting the disarray in which the drawing-room was left. The gentlemen took possession before either sister returned, and Max’s annoyance found vent in a philippic against oddities in general and Sylvia in particular; but his father and friend sat in the cushionless chairs, and pronounced the scene amusingly novel. Prue appeared in the midst of the laugh, and, having discovered other delinquencies above, her patience was exhausted, and her regrets found no check in the presence of so old a friend as Moor.

“Something must be done about that child, father, for she is getting entirely beyond my control. If I attempt to make her study, she writes poetry instead of her exercises, draws caricatures instead of sketching properly, and bewilders her music-teacher by asking questions about Beethoven and Mendelssohn, as if they were personal friends of his. If I beg her to take exercise, she rides like an Amazon all over the Island, grubs in the garden as if for her living, or goes paddling about the bay till I’m distracted lest the tide should carry her out to sea. She is so wanting in moderation she gets ill, and when I give her proper medicines she flings them out of the window, and threatens to send that worthy, Dr. Baum, after them.Yet she must need something to set her right, for she is either overflowing with unnatural spirits or melancholy enough to break one’s heart.”

“What have you done with the little black sheep of my flock,—not banished her, I hope?” said Mr.Yule placidly, ignoring all complaints.

“She is in the garden, attending to some of her disagreeable pets, I fancy. If you are going out there to smoke, please send her in, Max; I want her.”

As Mr.Yule was evidently yearning for his after-dinner nap, and Max for his cigar, Moor followed his friend, and they stepped through the window into the garden, now lovely with the fading glow of a soft spring sunset.

“You must know that this peculiar little sister of mine clings to some of her childish beliefs and pleasures in spite of Prue’s preaching and my raillery,” began Max, after a refreshing whiff or two. “She is overflowing with love and good-will, but being too shy or too proud to offer it to her fellow-creatures, she expends it upon the necessitous inhabitants of earth, air, and water with the most charming philanthropy. Her dependants are neither beautiful nor very interesting, nor is she sentimentally enamored of them, but the more ugly and desolate the creature, the more devoted is she. Look at her now; most young ladies would have hysterics over any one of those pets of hers.”

Moor looked and thought the group a very pretty one, though a plump toad sat at Sylvia’s feet, a roly-poly caterpillar was walking up her sleeve, a blind bird chirped on her shoulder, bees buzzed harmlessly about her head, as if they mistook her for a flower, and in her hand a little field mouse was breathing its short life away. Any tender-hearted girl might have stood thus surrounded by helpless things that pity had endeared, but few would have regarded them with an expression like that which Sylvia wore. Figure, posture, and employment were so childlike in their innocent unconsciousness, that the contrast was all the more strongly marked between them and the tender thoughtfulness that made her face singularly attractive with the charm of dawning womanhood. Moor spoke before Max could dispose of his smoke.

“This is a great improvement upon the boudoir full of lapdogs, worsted-work, and novels, Miss Sylvia. May I ask if you feel no repugnance to some of your patients; or is your charity strong enough to beautify them all?”

“I dislike many people, but few animals, because however ugly I pity them, and whatever I pity I am sure to love. It may be silly, but I think it does me good; and till I am wise enough to help my fellow-beings, I try to do my duty to these humbler sufferers, and find them both grateful and affectionate.”

There was something very winning in the girl’s manner as she spoke, touching the little creature in her hand almost as tenderly as if it had been a child. It showed the new-comer another phase of this many-sided character; and while Sylvia related the histories of her pets at his request, he was enjoying that finer history which every ingenuous soul writes on its owner’s countenance for gifted eyes to read and love. As she paused, the little mouse lay stark and still in her gentle hand; and though they smiled at themselves, both young men felt like boys again as they helped her scoop a grave among the pansies, owning the beauty of compassion, though she showed it to them in such a simple shape.

Then Max delivered his message, and Sylvia went away to receive Prue’s lecture, with outward meekness, but such an absent mind that the words of wisdom went by her like the wind.

“Now come and take our twilight stroll, while Max keeps Mr. Moor in the studio and Prue prepares another exhortation,” said Sylvia, as her father woke; and, taking his arm, they paced along the wide piazza that encircled the whole house.

“Will father do me a little favor?”

“That is all he lives for, dear.”

“Then his life is a very successful one.” And the girl folded her other hand over that already on his arm. Mr.Yule shook his head with a regretful sigh, but asked benignly,—

“What shall I do for my little daughter?”

“Forbid Max to execute a plot with which he threatens me. He says he will bring every gentleman he knows (and that is a great many) to the house, and make it so agreeable that they will keep coming; for he insists that I need amusement, and nothing will be so entertaining as a lover or two. Please tell him not to, for I don’t want any lovers yet.”

“Why not?” asked her father, much amused at her twilight confidences.

“I’m afraid. Love is so cruel to some people, I feel as if it would be to me, for I am always in extremes, and continually going wrong while trying to go right. Love bewilders the wisest, and it would make me quite blind or mad, I know; therefore I’d rather have nothing to do with it for a long, long while.”

“Then Max shall be forbidden to bring a single specimen. I very much prefer to keep you as you are. And yet you may be happier to do as others do; try it, if you like, my dear.”

“But I can’t do as others do; I’ve tried and failed. Last winter, when Prue made me go about, though people probably thought me a stupid little thing, moping in corners, I was enjoying myself in my own way, and making discoveries that have been very useful ever since. I know I’m whimsical, and hard to please, and have no doubt the fault was in myself, but I was disappointed in nearly every one I met, though I went into what Prue calls ‘our best society.’ The girls seemed all made on the same pattern; they all said, did, thought, and wore about the same things, and knowing one was as good as knowing a dozen. Jessie Hope was the only one I cared much for, and she is so pretty, she seems made to be looked at and loved.”

“How did you find the young gentlemen, Sylvia?”

“Still worse; for, though lively enough among themselves, they never found it worth their while to offer us any conversation but such as was very like the champagne and ice-cream they brought us,—sparkling, sweet, and unsubstantial. Almost all of them wore the superior air they put on before women, an air that says as plainly as words, ‘I may ask you and I may not.’ Now that is very exasperating to those who care no more for them than so many grasshoppers, and I often longed to take the conceit out of them by telling some of the criticisms passed upon them by the amiable young ladies who looked as if waiting to say meekly, ‘Yes, thank you.’ ”

“Don’t excite yourself, my dear; it is all very lamentable and laughable, but we must submit till the world learns better. There are often excellent young persons among the ‘grasshoppers,’ and if you cared to look you might find a pleasant friend here and there,” said Mr.Yule, leaning a little toward his son’s view of the matter.

“No, I cannot even do that without being laughed at; for no sooner do I mention the word friendship than people nod wisely and look as if they said, ‘Oh, yes, every one knows what that sort of thing amounts to.’ I should like a friend, father; some one beyond home, because he would he newer; a man (old or young, I don’t care which), because men go where they like, see things with their own eyes, and have more to tell if they choose. I want a person simple, wise, and entertaining; and I think I should make a very grateful friend if such an one was kind enough to like me.”

“I think you would, and perhaps if you try to be more like others you will find friends as they do, and so be happy, Sylvia.”

“I cannot be like others, and their friendships would not satisfy me. I don’t try to be odd; I long to be quiet and satisfied, but I cannot; and when I do what Prue calls wild things, it is not because I am thoughtless or idle, but because I am trying to be good and happy. The old ways fail, so I attempt new ones, hoping they will succeed; but they don’t, and I still go looking and longing for happiness, yet always failing to find it, till sometimes I think I am a born disappointment.”

“Perhaps love would bring the happiness, my dear?”

“I’m afraid not; but, however that may be, I shall never go running about for a lover as half my mates do. When the true one comes I shall know him, love him at once, and cling to him forever, no matter what may happen. Till then I want a friend, and I will find one if I can. Don’t you believe there may be real and simple friendships between men and women without falling into this everlasting sea of love?”

Mr.Yule was laughing quietly under cover of the darkness, but composed himself to answer gravely,—

“Yes, for some of the most beautiful and famous friendships have been such, and I see no reason why there may not be again. Look about, Sylvia, make yourself happy; and, whether you find friend or lover, remember there is always the old Papa, glad to do his best for you in both capacities.”

Sylvia’s hand crept to her father’s shoulder, and her voice was full of daughterly affection, as she said,—

“I’ll have no lover but ‘the old Papa’ for a long while yet. But I will look about, and if I am fortunate enough to find and good enough to keep the person I want, I shall be very happy; for, father, I really think I need a friend.”

Here Max called his sister in to sing to them, a demand that would have been refused but for a promise to Prue to behave her best as an atonement for past pranks. Stepping in, she sat down and gave Moor another surprise, as from her slender throat there came a voice whose power and pathos made a tragedy of the simple ballad she was singing.

“Why did you choose that plaintive thing, all about love, despair, and death? It quite breaks one’s heart to hear it,” said Prue, pausing in a mental estimate of her morning’s shopping.

“It came into my head, and so I sung it. Now I’ll try another, for I am bound to please you—if I can.” And she broke out again with an airy melody as jubilant as if a lark had mistaken moonlight for the dawn and soared skyward, singing as it went. So blithe and beautiful were both voice and song, they caused a sigh of pleasure, a sensation of keen delight in the listener, and seemed to gift the singer with an unsuspected charm. As she ended Sylvia turned about, and, seeing the satisfaction of their guest in his face, prevented him from expressing it in words by saying, in her frank way,—

“Never mind the compliments. I know my voice is good, for that you may thank nature; that it is well trained, for that praise Herr Pedalsturm ; and that you have heard it at all, you owe to my desire to atone for certain trespasses of yesterday and to-day, because I seldom sing before strangers.”

“Allow me to offer my hearty thanks to Nature, Pedalsturm, and Penitence, and also to hope that in time I may be regarded, not as a stranger, but a neighbor and a friend.”

Something in the gentle emphasis of the last word struck pleasantly on the girl’s ear, and seemed to answer an unspoken longing. She looked up at him with a searching glance, appeared to find some ‘assurance given by looks,’ and as a smile broke over her face, she offered her hand, as if obeying a sudden impulse, and said, half to him, half to herself,—

“I think I have found the friend already.”

CHAPTER II

Moor

Moor was pacing to and fro along the avenue of overarching elms that led to the old Manse. The May sunshine flickered on his uncovered head, a soft wind sighed among the leaves, and earth and sky were full of the vernal loveliness of spring. But he was very lonely, and this home-coming full of pain, for he had left a grave behind him, and the old house was peopled only with tender memories of parents and sister, whose loss left him a solitary man. The pleasant rooms were so silent, the dear pictured faces so eloquent, the former duties and delights so irksome with none to share them, that he was often drawn to seek forgetfulness in the sympathy and society without which his heart was hungry and life barren.

Nature always comforted him, and to her he turned, sure of welcome, strength, and solace. He was enjoying this wordless, yet grateful communion as he walked along the grass-grown path where he had played as a boy, dreamed as a youth, and now trod as a man, wondering who would come to share and love it with him, since he was free now to live for himself.

For an hour he had lingered there, letting thought, memory, and fancy weave themselves into a little song called “Waiting,” and was about to go in and put it upon paper, when, as he paused on the wide door-stone for a last look down the green vista, a figure appeared coming from the sunshine into the shadows that made the leafy arches cool and calm as a cathedral aisle.

He knew it at once, and went to meet it so gladly that his face gave a welcome before he spoke. It was Sylvia with a book in her hand, the end of her mantle full of fresh green things, and her eyes both shy and merry as she said when they met,—

“Prue stopped at the Lodge to see Mrs. Dodd, and I ran on to beg pardon for stealing this, as she bade me; also to ask if I could have the other volumes, which I am longing to read.”

“With pleasure, and anything else in my library. What made you choose this?” asked Moor, turning the pages of “Wilhelm Meister” with an inquiring smile as they went on together.

“I heard some people talking about ‘Mignon,’ and I wanted to know who she was; but when I asked for the book Papa said,‘Tut, child, you are too young for that yet.’ It always vexes me to be called young, because I feel very old; I was seventeen in April, though no one will believe it.”

Sylvia pushed back her hat as she spoke, and lifted her head with a disdainful little air at the stupidity of her elders, looking very young indeed with her lap full of the pretty weeds and mosses children love.

“I was just wishing for a playfellow, for Tilly is rather too young. If your mature age does not prevent your enjoying what I can offer, we may amuse ourselves till Miss Prue arrives. Will you go in and rummage the library, or shall we roam about and enjoy the fine weather?” asked Moor, finding his guest much to his liking, she was in such harmony with time and place.

“Let us go into the garden; I used to walk there very often, and like it very much, it is so old-fashioned and well kept,” answered Sylvia, leading the way to a gate in the hawthorn hedge, beginning to redden in the late May sunshine.

Just beyond lay trim beds of herbs; in a warm corner stood a row of beehives, and before them, watching to see the busy people go in and out, sat a little child, humming in pretty mimicry of the bees, who seemed to take her for a flower, so harmlessly did they buzz about her.

Hearing steps, she turned, and at sight of Sylvia uttered a cry of joy, scrambled up, and came running with outstretched arms, for “Silver” was her dearest playmate.

The girl caught her up to kiss the red cheeks, fondle the curly head, and let the chubby hands pat her face and pull her ribbons.

“Tilly has missed you. Do not let her wait so long again, but feel that the garden is as much yours now as ever,” said Moor, enjoying the pretty picture they made together.

“I thought I should be in the way, but I did long to come. I hate calls generally, and Prue was charmed when I proposed to make this one. How nice it looks here now!” And Sylvia glanced about her as if glad to be again in the quiet place which still seemed haunted by the presence of the happy family who had lived and loved there.

“This is the old herb-garden put to rights. My father planted it, my mother kept her bees here, and both used to sit upon this rustic seat, he reading Evelyn, Cowley, or Tusser, while she watched her boy and girl playing here and there. A very dear old place to me, though so solitary now.”

The voice was cheerful still, but something in the look that wandered to and fro as if searching for familiar forms touched Sylvia, and with the quick instinct of a sympathetic nature she tried to comfort him by showing interest in the spot he loved.

“Let me sit here and play with Tilly while you tell me something about herbs, if you will. I’ve read of herb-gardens, but never saw one before, and find it quaint and pleasant.”

She had evidently proposed a congenial pastime, for Moor looked gratified, and while she settled Tilly in her lap with a watch and chatelaine to absorb her little wits and fingers, he went to and fro, gathering a leaf here, a twig there, till he had a small but odorous nosegay to offer her. Then he came and sat beside her, glad to tell her something of the origin, fine associations, and grateful properties which should give these comfortable plants a place in every garden.

“Here is basil, an old-fashioned herb no longer cultivated in this country,” he began. “I see you have read Keats’s poem; that gives it a romantic interest, but it has a useful side also. Zelty tells us that ‘the smell thereof is good for the head and heart; its seed cureth infirmities of the brain, taketh away melancholy, and maketh one merrie and glad. Its leaves yield a savory smell, and it is said the touch of a fair lady causeth it to thrive.’ The farmers in Elizabeth’s time used to keep it to offer their guests, as I do mine.” And Moor laughingly laid the green sprig in Sylvia’s hand.

She liked the fancy, and stroked the leaves with as sincere wish that they might thrive as any ancient lady who had a firmer faith in the power of her touch. Seeing her interest, Moor selected another specimen and went on with his herbaceous entertainment.

“Here is fennel. The physicians in Pliny’s time discovered that, having wounded a fennel stalk, serpents bathed their eyes in the juice; thus they learned that this herb had a beneficial effect upon the sight. This perhaps is the reason why old ladies take it to church, that neither sleep nor dimness of vision may prevent their criticising each other’s Sunday best.”

Sylvia laughed now, and asked, touching another sprig,—

“Is this lavender?”

“Yes. It takes its name ‘à lavendo’ from bathing, being much used in baths for its fragrance in old times. In England I saw great fields of it, and when in blossom it was very lovely. It was said that the precious balm called nard was drawn from shrubs which grew only in two places in Judæa, and these spots were kept sacred to the kings.”

“I can give you a feminine bit of information in return for your wise one. The blossom gives its name to a pretty color, which with a dash of pink makes violet,—my favorite tint, it is so delicate and expressive.”

Moor glanced at her hair for the snood he liked to see her wear; but it was gone, and Tilly’s great blue eyes were the only reminder of what Sylvia’s should have been to make her face as harmonious as it was attractive. With an imperceptible shake of the head he hastened to finish his list, studying his listener meantime as carefully as she did the herbs which he laid one by one upon her knee.

“Here are several sorts of mint, and rosemary once used at weddings and funerals; sweet marjoram and sage, so full of virtues that the ancients had a saying, ‘Why need a man die while sage grows in his garden?’ ‘There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays.’ And this is thyme.”

“I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,” hummed Sylvia, as if his lines reminded her of one of her favorite songs.

Tilly looked up and began to hum also; then, being tired of the trinkets, ran away to catch a white miller that flew by. “Do the bees never sting her?” asked Sylvia, as she thanked her host and put the little posy in her belt.

“No; she has been taught not to touch them, and they never hurt her. I suspect they understand one another, for there is a sort of free-masonry among children, birds, bees, and butterflies, you know. Some grown people possess it. I have a friend who can charm the wildest creatures, and attract the shyest people, though he is rather an imposing personage himself.You have the same gift, I think, if I may judge by the pets I saw about you once.”

“Perhaps I have, for I can always get on with dumb animals, they are so honest and simple. People tire me, so I fly to the woods when books give out,” answered the girl, with a sigh, remembering how many hours these friends had brightened when Prue scolded and Max tormented her.

Thinking she was weary of the herb-garden, Moor was about to propose going on, when Prue’s voice was heard, and they went to meet her. Leading them in, their host entertained one sister in the drawing-room, leaving the other to enjoy herself at her own sweet will in the library.

It was a pleasant place, lofty, cool, and quiet. Pines sighed before two deep windows, green draperies and a mossy carpet of the same hue softened the sunshine that came in at a third window, before which stood the writing-table. The ancient furniture seemed at home there, the book-lined walls invited one to sit and read, and a few fine pictures refreshed the eye as it wandered from Correggio’s Fates, above the old-fashioned fireplace, to portraits of poets, or the busts of philosophers sitting up aloft, serenely presiding over the wit and wisdom of ages stored on the shelves below.

Sylvia enjoyed herself immensely as she roved to and fro, full of girlish curiosity and more than girlish interest in this studious place. She peeped into the portfolios, tried the ancient chairs, pondered over the faces on the walls, and scrutinized the table where a little vase of early wild-flowers stood among wise books in unknown tongues, and many papers suggested brainwork of some sort. Coming at last to a certain cabinet where favorite authors seemed to be enshrined, she possessed herself of the much-desired volumes, and sat down in a great velvet chair to read on. But the murmur of voices disturbed her, and she fell to musing with her eyes on the weird Sisters hanging just above her.

She was wondering how it would have fared with her if this quiet homelike place had been her home, that sweet-faced woman her mother, the benign old man her father, and she the sister to whom Geoffrey had devoted so many years. Would she have been better, happier than now, if she had grown up in the atmosphere of domestic peace, affection, and refinement that still seemed to pervade the place and make its indefinable but potent charm? Her own home was not harmonious, and she felt the need of cherishing as much as a motherless bird in a chilly nest. She had neither the skill nor power to change anything, she could only suffer and submit, wondering as she did so why fate was not kinder.

The old place had always been wonderfully attractive to her, and now, as she sat in the heart of it, she felt a curious sort of content, and wished to stay, sure that it would be long before she tired of this restful and congenial spot. The soft arms of the old chair embraced her as if she sat in a grandmother’s capacious lap; the pines whispered a soothing lullaby, the perfume of herbs recalled that pleasant half-hour in the garden; and the little picture of happy parents and children rose before her again, making the silence and solitude doubly pathetic.

Moor found her sitting so, and thought the musing little figure far more agreeable than prim Prue in her rustling plum-colored silk and best bonnet.

“Your sister has kindly gone to give my housekeeper some directions for my comfort. What can I do for you meantime, Miss Sylvia?” he said, with such a friendly air that she felt no hesitation in freely asking anything caprice suggested.

“I was wondering if there was any way of making those old women spin our threads as we want them. They look very stern and pitiless,” she said, pointing to the picture.

“If I believed in fate, I should say No; but as I do not, I think we can twist our own threads very much as we will, if we only have the patience and courage to try.”

“Don’t you think there are some persons born to be dissatisfied, defeated in all ways, and dreadfully unhappy?”

“Many people are born with troubles of mind or body that try them very much, but they can be outlived, subdued, or submitted to so sweetly that the affliction is a blessing in disguise. ‘Man is his own star,’ you know, and a belief in God is far better than any superstition about fate.”

Remembering what his own life had been, Sylvia felt that he practised what he preached, and was ashamed to say more about the moods that tormented her and made a blind belief in fate so easy to her. She was strongly tempted to speak, for confidence seemed natural with Moor, and the few times they had met had already made them friends. She wished she was little Sylvia again, to sit upon his knee and tell her perplexities as she once told her childish troubles, sure of help and sympathy. But young as she was in years, the girl was fast changing to the woman, and learning to hide what lay nearest her heart. So now she smiled and turned to another picture, saying with a cheerier ring in her voice, as if caught from his,—

“I’ll try for the patience and the courage then, and let the old sisters spin as they will. Please tell me who that is? It looks like Jove, but has no eagle nor thunderbolts.”

Moor laughed as he pushed away the curtain that she might see the fine engraving better as it hung in the recess above the cabinet.

“That is a modern Jove, the writer of the book you like so well, Goethe.”

“What a splendid head! I wish he lived now, I would so love to see and know him. I always envied Bettina and longed to be in her place. People nowadays are so unheroic and disappointing, even the famous ones.”

“I can show you a man who resembles this magnificent old fellow very much. He is not so great a genius, but sufficiently ‘many-sided’ to astonish and perplex his friends as much as young Wolfgang did his during the ‘storm and stress period.’ I hope to see him here before long, and I am sure you will not find him unheroic, though he may be disappointing.”

“If he looks like that, and is honest and wise, I don’t care how odd he may be. I like original people who speak their minds out and don’t worry about trifles,” said Sylvia, looking upon the picture with great favor.

“Then he will suit you. I will say no more, but leave you to find him out alone; that always adds to the interest of a new acquaintance.” And Moor smiled to himself at the prospect of a meeting between his tempestuous friend and this precocious little girl whom he had already named Ariel in his fancy.

“May I dare to ask about this picture too? It is so beautiful I feel as if I ought to pay my respects to the sweet lady of the house.”

Sylvia stood up as she spoke, and made a little gesture of salutation, with her eyes on the face of the portrait in the place of honor above the writing-table.

The color came into Moor’s cheek, and he thanked her with a look she long remembered; for this mother had been very dear to him and made him what he was. Gladly he told her many things that made the hour sweet and memorable to both listener and narrator; for the son was eloquent, and Sylvia found the woman he described her ideal of that dearest, loveliest of human creatures, a good mother. Tears were in both their eyes when he paused, but the girl begged him to go on, and he told the pathetic little story of his patient sister, making Sylvia ashamed of her visionary trials, and deepening her newly awakened interest in this man to admiration and respect, though he said nothing of himself.

Prue came bustling in as he ended, and there was no chance for poetry or pathos where she was. Their host went with them to the great gate, and they left him standing bareheaded in the rosy sunset that wrapped Sylvia in a soft haze as she went musing home, while Moor lingered back along the path that was no longer solitary, for a slender figure seemed to walk beside him, with tender, innocent eyes looking into his.

CHAPTER III

Dull, But Necessary

Whoever cares only for incident and action in a book had better skip this chapter and read on; but those who take an interest in the delineation of character will find the key to Sylvia’s here.

John Yule might have been a poet, painter, or philanthropist, for Heaven had endowed him with fine gifts; he was a prosperous merchant, with no ambition but to leave a fortune to his children and live down the memory of a bitter past. On the threshold of his life he stumbled and fell; for as he paused there, Providence tested and found him wanting. On one side Poverty offered the aspiring youth her meagre hand; but he was not wise enough to see the virtues hidden under her hard aspect, nor brave enough to learn the stern yet salutary lessons which labor, necessity, and patience teach, giving to those who serve and suffer the true success. On the other hand Opulence allured him with her many baits, and, silencing the voice of conscience, he yielded to temptation and wrecked his nobler self.

A loveless marriage was the price he paid for his ambition; not a costly one, he thought, till time taught him that whosoever mars the integrity of his own soul by transgressing the great laws of life, even by so much as a hair’s breadth, entails upon himself and heirs the inevitable retribution which proves their worth and keeps them sacred. The tie that bound and burdened the unhappy twain, worn thin by constant friction, snapped at last, and in the solemn pause death made in his busy life, there rose before him those two ghosts who sooner or later haunt us all, saying with reproachful voices, “This I might have been” and “This I am.” Then he saw the failure of his life. At fifty he found himself poorer than when he made his momentous choice; for the years that had given him wealth, position, children, had also taken from him youth, self-respect, and many a gift whose worth was magnified by loss. He endeavored to repair the fault so tardily acknowledged, but found it impossible to cancel it when remorse, imbittered effort, and age left him powerless to redeem the rich inheritance squandered in his prime.

If ever man received punishment for a self-inflicted wrong, it was John Yule,—a punishment as subtle as the sin; for in the children growing up about him every relinquished hope, neglected gift, lost aspiration, seemed to live again; yet on each and all was set the direful stamp of imperfection, which made them visible illustrations of the great law broken in his youth.

In Prudence, as she grew to womanhood, he saw his own practical tact and talent, nothing more. She seemed the living representative of the years spent in strife for profit, power, and place; the petty cares that fret the soul, the mercenary schemes that waste a life, the worldly formalities, frivolities, and fears, that so belittle character. All these he saw in this daughter’s shape; and with pathetic patience bore the daily trial of an over-active, over-anxious, affectionate, but most prosaic child.

In Max he saw his ardor for the beautiful, his love of the poetic, his reverence for genius, virtue, heroism. But here too the subtle blight had fallen. This son, though strong in purpose, was feeble in performance; for some hidden spring of power was wanting, and the shadow of that earlier defeat chilled in his nature the energy which is the first attribute of all success. Max loved art, and gave himself to it; but, though studying all forms of beauty, he never reached its soul, and every effort tantalized him with fresh glimpses of the fair ideal which he could not reach. He loved the true, but high thoughts seldom blossomed into noble deeds; for when the hour came the man was never ready, and disappointment was his daily portion. A sad fate for the son, a far sadder one for the father who had bequeathed it to him from the irrecoverable past.

In Sylvia he saw, mysteriously blended, the two natures that had given her life, although she was born when the gulf between regretful husband and sad wife was widest. As if indignant Nature rebelled against the outrage done her holiest ties, adverse temperaments gifted the child with the good and ill of each. From her father she received pride, intellect, and will; from her mother passion, imagination, and the fateful melancholy of a woman defrauded of her dearest hope.These conflicting temperaments, with all their aspirations, attributes, and inconsistencies, were woven into a nature fair and faulty; ambitious, yet not self-reliant; sensitive, yet not keen-sighted. These two masters ruled soul and body, warring against each other, making Sylvia an enigma to herself and her life a train of moods.

A wise and tender mother would have divined her nameless needs, answered her vague desires, and through the medium of the most omnipotent affection given to humanity, have made her what she might have been. But Sylvia had never known mother-love, for her life came through death; and the only legacy bequeathed her was a ceaseless craving for affection, and the shadow of a tragedy that wrung from the pale lips, that grew cold against her baby cheek, the cry, “Free at last, thank God!”

Prudence could not fill the empty place, though the good-hearted housewife did her best. Neither sister understood the other, and each tormented the other through her very love. Prue unconsciously exasperated Sylvia, Sylvia unconsciously shocked Prue, and they hitched along together, each trying to do well, and each taking diametrically opposite measures to effect her purpose. Max briefly but truly described them when he said, “Sylvia trims the house with flowers, Prudence dogs her with a dust-pan.”

Mr.Yule was now a busy, silent man, who, having said one fatal “No” to himself, made it the satisfaction of his life to say a never varying “Yes” to his children. But though he left no wish of theirs ungratified, he seemed to have forfeited his power to draw and hold them to himself. He was more like an unobtrusive guest than a master in his house. His children loved, but never clung to him, because unseen, yet impassable, rose the barrier of an instinctive protest against the wrong done their dead mother, unconscious on their part but terribly significant to him.

Max had been years away, studying abroad; and though the brother and sister were tenderly attached, sex, tastes, and pursuits kept them too far apart, and Sylvia was solitary even in this social-seeming home. Dissatisfied with herself, she endeavored to make her life what it should be with the energy of an ardent, aspiring nature; and through all experiences, sweet or bitter, all varying moods, successes, and defeats, a sincere desire for happiness the best and highest was the little rushlight of her soul that never wavered or went out.

She had never known friendship in its truest sense, for next to love it is the most abused of words. She had called many “friend,” but was still ignorant of that sentiment, cooler than passion, warmer than respect, more just and generous than either, which recognizes a kindred spirit in another, and, claiming its right, keeps it sacred by the wise reserve that is to friendship what the purple bloom is to the grape, a charm which once destroyed can never be restored. Love she dreaded, feeling that when it came its power would possess her wholly, and she had no wish to lose her freedom yet.Therefore she rejoiced over a more tranquil pleasure, and believed that she had found a friend in the neighbor who after long absence had returned to his old place.

Nature had done much for Geoffrey Moor, but the wise mother also gave him those teachers to whose hard lessons she often leaves her dearest children. Five years spent in the service of a sister, who through the sharp discipline of pain was fitting her meek soul for heaven, had given him an experience such as few young men receive. This fraternal devotion proved a blessing in disguise; it preserved him from any profanation of his youth, and the companionship of the helpless creature whom he loved had proved an ever present stimulant to all that was best and sweetest in the man. A single duty, faithfully performed, had set the seal of integrity upon his character, and given him grace to see at thirty the rich compensation he had received for the ambitions silently sacrificed at twenty-five. When his long vigil was over, he looked into the world to find his place again. But the old desires were dead, the old allurements had lost their charm, and while he waited for time to show him what good work he should espouse, no longing was so strong as that for a home, where he might bless and be blessed in writing that immortal poem, a virtuous and happy life.

Sylvia soon felt the power and beauty of this nature, and, remembering how well he had ministered to a physical affliction, often looked into the face whose serenity was a perpetual rebuke, longing to ask him to help and heal the mental ills that perplexed and burdened her. Moor soon divined the real isolation of the girl, read the language of her wistful eyes, felt that he could serve her, and invited confidence by the cordial alacrity with which he met her least advance.

But while he served, he learned to love her; for Sylvia, humble in her own conceit, and guarded by the innocence of an unspoiled youth, freely showed the regard she felt, with no thought of misapprehension, no fear of consequences,—unconscious that such impulsive demonstration made her only more attractive, that every manifestation of her frank esteem was cherished in her friend’s heart of hearts, and that through her he was enjoying the blossom time of life. So, peacefully and pleasantly, the spring ripened into summer, and Sylvia’s interest into an enduring friendship, full of satisfaction till a stronger influence came to waken and disturb her.

CHAPTER IV

Warwick

A wild storm had raged all night, and now, though the rain had ceased, the wind still blew furiously and the sea thundered on the coast. It had been a dull day for Sylvia, and she had wandered about the house like an unquiet spirit in captivity. She had sewed a little while with Prue, stood an hour to Max as Clytemnestra with a dagger in her hand, read till her eyes ached, played till her fingers were weary, and at last fallen asleep in the sofa corner when even day-dreams failed to lighten her ennui.

She was wakened by a watery gleam of sunshine, and, welcoming the good omen, she sprung up, eager as a caged bird for air and liberty.

“The sea will be magnificent after this gale, and I must see it. Prue will say no if I ask her, so I will run away, and beg pardon when I come back,” thought Sylvia, as she clasped her blue cloak and caught up the hat she never wore when she could help it.

Off she went, through byways, over walls, under dripping trees, and among tall grass bowed by the rain, straight toward the sea, whose distant music sounded like a voice calling her to come and share its tempestuous mood. The keen wind buffeted her as she ran, but its breath kissed fresh roses into her pale cheeks, filled her lungs with new life, and seemed to sweep her along like a creature born to love and live in such wild hours as this.The lonely cliffs looked like old friends to her, though wearing their grimmest aspect, with torn seaweed clinging to them below and foam flying high up their rough fronts. The tide was coming in, but a strip of sand still lay bare, and, climbing down, sure-footed as a goat, Sylvia reached the rock which usually rose tall and dry from the waves that rolled in and out of the little bay. It was wet now, and the path that led to it rapidly narrowing as the tide rose higher with each billow that hurried to dash and break upon the shore.

“Ah, this is glorious!” sighed the girl, with a long breath of the sweet cold air that came winging its way across the wide Atlantic to refresh her. “Now I shall be happy, and can sing my heart out without disturbing any one.”

Wrapping her cloak about her, she leaned in the recess that made her favorite seat, and let her voice rise and ring above the turmoil of the waves, as if she too felt the need of pouring out the restless spirit pent up in that young breast of hers. Sweet and shrill sounded the mingled music, and the wind caught it up to carry it with flecks of foam, sea scents, and flying leaves to the cliffs above, where a solitary figure stood to watch the storm.

A strange medley, for the girl set her songs to the fitful music of wind and wave, finding a sort of ecstasy in the mood that now possessed her, born of the hour and the place. Ariel’s dirge mingled with the Lorelei’s song, and the moaning of the Harbor Bar died away into a wail for Mary on the sands of Dee.

The narrow strip of beach was dwindling to a thread, and on that thread a life depended; but Sylvia did not see it, and the treacherous tide crept on.

The first exultation over, she let her thoughts voyage away as if carried by the ships whose white wings shone against the dark horizon like sea-birds flying to distant homes. She longed to follow with the vague desire that tempts young hearts to sigh for the unknown, unconscious that the sweetest mysteries of life lie folded up in their own bosoms. She pictured in the fairest colors the new world that lay beyond the dim line where sky and ocean met and melted.What friends should she find, what happiness, what answer to the questions that no one could solve here? Would she ever sail away across this wide sea to reach and rest in that fair country, peopled with all the beautiful, heroic shapes her hungry heart and eager fancy conjured up? She hoped so, and, dreaming of the future, utterly forgot the peril of the present.

An ominous sound was in the air, and each billow broke higher on the rock where she lay wrapped in her own thoughts; but Sylvia never heeded, and the treacherous tide crept on.

From wondering and longing for the unknown of this world she passed to marvelling what the change would be when she landed on the shore of that other world, where every wave that breaks carries a human soul. She longed to know, and felt a strange yearning to find again the mother whose very name was but a memory. The tender tie broken so soon still seemed to thrill with a warmth death could not chill, and the girl often felt irresistibly drawn to seek some clearer knowledge, some nearer hold of this lost love, without which life was lonely and the world never could be home to her.

Tears dropped fast, and, hiding her head, she sobbed like a broken-hearted child grieving for its mother. She never let Prue know the want she felt, never told her father how powerless his indulgent affection was to feed this natural craving, nor found elsewhere the fostering care she pined for. Only in hours like these the longing vented itself in bitter tears, that left the eyes dim, the heart heavy for days afterward.

A voice called her from the cliff above, a step sounded on the rocky path behind, but Sylvia did not hear them, nor see a figure hurrying through the deepening water toward her, till a great wave rolled up and broke over her feet, startling her with its chill.

Then she sprung up and looked about her with a sudden thrill of fear, for the green billows tumbled everywhere, the path was gone, and the treacherous tide was in.

A moment she stood dismayed, then flung away her cloak, and was about to plunge into the sea when a commanding voice called, “Stop, I am coming!” And before she could turn a strong arm caught her up, flung the cloak round her, and she felt herself carried high above the hungry waves that leaped up as if disappointed of their prey.

On the first dry slope of the path she was set down, unmuffled by a quick hand, and found herself face to face with a strange man, who said with a smile that made her forget fear in shame,—

“Next time you play Undine have a boat near, for there may be no Kuhlborn at hand to save you.”

“I never was caught before, and could easily have saved myself by swimming. Nevertheless I thank you, sir, though I am hardly worth a wetting.”

Sylvia began petulantly, being nettled by the satiric glimmer in the keen eyes fixed upon her; but she ended courteously, though her own eyes were still wet with sadder tears than any from the sea.

“Shall I drop you back again? Nothing easier, if you prefer to weep your life away down there to making it useful and pleasant up here,” said the man, still smiling, but with a sudden softening of the face as he read sorrow, not sentimentality, in the young countenance before him.

It touched Sylvia with its quick sympathy, and simply as a child she said, lifting those lovely eyes of hers full of gratitude and grief,—

“I was crying for my mother, and I think if you had not come I should have been glad to go to her.”

“Make her glad and proud to welcome you, and never think yourself ready for death till you have learned to live. Shall we go up higher?”

As he spoke the man led the way, and the girl followed, feeling rebuked and comforted at the same time. Half-way up he paused on a little green plateau that nestled in a sunny crevice of the cliff. A hardy flower or two grew there, a slender birch and a young pine stood side by side, and birds were chirping in the branches as they brooded on their nests. It was a pretty place midway between sea and sky, sheltered and safe yet not solitary, for the ocean sang below, the sun shone warmly above, and every air that blew brought some hint of land or sea.

“Rest a moment here; the path above is a steep one and you are breathless,” said the man, looking down at Sylvia much as the tall cliffs looked at the little pimpernel close shut in its pink curtains among the stones at their feet.

“It is the wind that takes my breath away. I like to climb, and can show you an easier path than that,” said the girl, gathering up the hair that blew about her face in a golden cloud.

“I always take the shortest way, no matter how rough it is. Never fear, I’ll pull you up if you will trust me.”

“I will, because I know you now.” And Sylvia smiled as she looked at the vigorous frame and fine face before her.

“Who am I?” asked the stranger, amused at her answer.

“Adam Warwick.”

“Right. How did you guess?”

“Mr. Moor said you were like a picture in his study, and you are. I thought it was meant for Jupiter, but it was Goethe.”

Sylvia got no further, for,Warwick laughed out so heartily she could not resist joining him, as she leaned against the little birch-tree, glad to get rid of her sadness and embarrassment so easily.

“He glorifies his friends like a woman, and I thank him for saying a good word in behalf of such a vagabond as I.You are Max Yule’s sister? I was sure of it when I saw you singing like a mermaid down there. He used to tell of your pranks. I see he did not exaggerate.”

Sylvia was annoyed at the idea of her brother’s tales, and wished Moor had told her something of this person, that she might know what manner of man he was and treat him accordingly. She was not afraid of him, though he looked very tall and powerful, standing straight and strong against the cliff, with the dark shadow of the pine upon him. A masterful man, she thought, but a kindly one, and original in speech and manner at least, for the first was very blunt and the latter decided, yet genial at moments.

“Shall we go on?” said the girl, anxious to escape all discussion of herself.

“Yes; it is getting late and we are wet. Now then!” And, taking her hand, Warwick literally did pull her up the face of the cliff in a half a dozen vigorous strides and swings, planting her on the top and still holding her, for the wind blew a gale above there.

She liked it, however, and stood a moment laughing and panting, while the blue cloak flapped and the long hair fluttered in spite of her efforts to confine it under her hat. Something fresh and strong seemed to have taken possession of her, and a pleasant excitement made her eyes shine, her cheeks glow, her lips smile, and life look happy in spite of the trials that she had just been bemoaning.

Agreeable as it was to watch that buoyant little figure, and listen to its frank conversation, Warwick, more mindful of her damp feet than his own dripping ones, said presently,—

“This is a fine sight, but we must leave it. I shall come again, and hope to find you here rather than down below.”

“I shall not try that again, nor this either,” answered Sylvia. “It is sad and dangerous in that cave of mine, it is too rough and high and gusty up here for me, but in Mr. Moor’s little nook half-way between it is safe and sunny, and there one gets the best of both sea and sky, with green grass and birds and flowers.”

Warwick looked at her keenly as she spoke, reading in her face, her tone, her gesture, a double significance to her simple words.

“You are right; keep to the happy, wholesome places in life, and leave the melancholy sea, the wandering winds, and craggy peaks to those who are made for them.”

Sylvia glanced up as if surprised at being so well understood, but before she could speak Warwick moved on, saying in a different tone,—

“Will you come to the Manse and be made comfortable? I arrived unexpectedly and Geoffrey is away, but I shall be glad to play host in his absence.”

“Thanks, I will run home at once. No one knows where I am, and Prue will begin to worry if I don’t appear. Come and let my father thank you better than I can.”

“I will. Good-night.” And with a nod and a smile they parted, Warwick to tramp down the avenue without looking back, and Sylvia to hasten home, feeling that if she went out seeking for adventures, she certainly had been gratified.

She said nothing to Prue, and when, later in the evening, Moor brought his friend to see Max and inquire for the half-drowned damsel, she emerged from behind the curtains looking as brilliant and serene as if salt water and gales of wind agreed with her admirably.

As Warwick was formally presented to the sisters, Sylvia put her finger on her lips and with a look besought silence regarding her last prank. Warwick answered with a quick glance, a courteous greeting, and turned away as if they had never met before. Moor smiled, but said nothing, and soon the gentlemen were deep in conversation, while Prue dozed behind a fire-screen and Sylvia sat in the sofa corner studying the faces before her.

Presently her brother caught her eye, and as art was not the topic under discussion just at that moment, he strolled over to ask the cause of her unusual condescension, for she generally vanished when strangers came.

“What are you doing here all by yourself, young person?”

“I am watching your two friends, and thinking what a fine study they make with the red firelight on their faces.”

They did make a fine study, for both were goodly men, yet utterly unlike; one being of the heroic, the other of the poetic type.Warwick was a head taller than his tall friend, broad-shouldered, strong-limbed, and bronzed by wind and weather. A massive head, covered with waves of ruddy brown hair, gray eyes that seemed to pierce through all disguises, an eminent nose, and a beard like one of Max’s stout saints. Power, intellect, and courage were stamped on face and figure, making him the manliest man Sylvia had ever seen. He sat in an easy-chair, yet nothing could have been less reposeful than his attitude, for the native energy of the man asserted itself in spite of the soothing influences of time and place; while his conversation was so vigorous that Mr.Yule looked both startled and fascinated by its unusual charm.

Moor was much slighter, and betrayed in every gesture the unconscious grace and ease of the gentleman born. A most attractive face, with its broad brow, serene eyes, and the cordial smile about the mouth. A sweet, strong nature, one would say, which, having used life well, had learned the secret of content. Inward tranquillity seemed his, and as he listened to his friend, it was plain to see that no touch of light or color in the pleasant room, no word or look or laugh, was without its charm and its significance for him.

“Tell me about Mr. Warwick, Max. I have heard you speak of him since you came home, but, supposing he was some blowzy artist, I never cared to ask, and Mr. Moor would not say much. Now I have seen him, I want to know more,” said Sylvia, as her brother sat down beside her with an approving glance at the group opposite.

“I met him in Germany when I first went over, and since then we have often met in our wanderings. He never writes, but goes and comes intent upon his own affairs; yet one never can forget him, and is always glad to feel the grip of his hand again, it seems to put such life and courage into one.”

“So it does,” said Sylvia, remembering the grasp that swept her out of danger and led her up the cliff. “Is he good?” she added, woman-like, beginning with the morals.

“Violently virtuous. He is a masterful soul, bent on living out his aspirations and beliefs at any cost; much given to denunciation of wrong-doing everywhere, and eager to execute justice upon all offenders high or low. Yet he possesses great nobility of character, great audacity of mind, and leads a life of the sternest integrity.”

“Is he rich?”

“In his own eyes, because he makes his wants so few.”

“Is he married?”

“No; he has no family and not many friends, for he says what he means in the bluntest English, and few stand the test his sincerity applies.”

“What does he do in the world?”

“Studies it, as we do books; dives into everything, analyzes character, and builds up his own with materials which will last. If that’s not genius, it is something better.”

“Then he will do much good and be famous, won’t he?”

“Great good to many, but never will be famous, I fear. He is too fierce an iconoclast to suit the old party, too individual a reformer to join the new; so he must bide his time, and do what he can.”

“Is he learned?”

“Very, in uncommon sorts of wisdom. He left college after a year of it, because it could not give him what he wanted, and, taking the world for his book, life for his tutor, says he shall not graduate till his term ends with his days.”

“I like that, and I think I shall like him very much.”

“I hope so. He is a grand man in the rough, and an excellent tonic for those who have the courage to try him. He did me much good, and I admire him heartily.”

Sylvia was silent, thinking over what she had just heard, and finding much to interest her in it, because to her imaginative and enthusiastic nature there was something irresistibly attractive in the strong, free, self-reliant man.

Max watched her for a moment, then asked with lazy curiosity,—

“How do you like this other friend of mine whom you know better?”

“He went away when I was such a child that since he came back I have had to begin again, but so far he is all you said, and I feel that I should like to make him my friend too, he is so gentle, wise, and patient with me.”

Max laughed at the innocent frankness of his sister’s speech, and answered warningly, “Better leave Platonics alone till you are forty. Though Moor is years older than you, he is a young man still, and you are getting to be a very captivating little woman.”

Sylvia looked both scornful and indignant.

“You need have no fears. There is such a thing as honest friendship between men and women, and if I can find no one of my own sex to suit me, why may I not look for help and happiness elsewhere, and accept them in whatever shape they come?”

“You may, my dear, and I’ll lend a hand with all my heart, only you must be ready to take the consequences in whatever shape they come,” said Max, well pleased with the prospect his fancy conjured up, stimulated by certain signs which he saw more clearly than his sister did.

“I will,” replied Sylvia loftily, and fate took her at her word.

Here several neighbors came in, and when the little stir was over the girl found Warwick on the sofa, to which she had retired again as the guests were absorbed by other members of the family. She thought he would allude to their first meeting, but he sat silently scrutinizing the faces before him as if quite unconscious of his little neighbor.

“I must say something,” thought Sylvia, when the pause had lasted several minutes, and, turning toward him, she asked rather timidly,—

“Don’t you care for conversation, Mr.Warwick?”

“I seldom get any.”

“Why, what is that going on all about us?”

“Listen a moment and you will hear.”

She obeyed, and began to laugh, for her ear received a medley of sounds and subjects so oddly blended and so flippantly discussed that the effect was very ludicrous. On one side she heard, “Mr. Moor, it was the divinest polka I ever danced;” on the other Prue was declaring,“My dear, nothing is so good for an inflamed eye as a delicate alum curd;” behind her Max was tenderly explaining, “You see, Miss Jessie, it is the effect of this shadow which gives the picture its depth and juiciness of tone;” and above all rose Mr.Yule’s decided opinion that “We must protect our own interests, sir, or the country is in danger.”

“Do you like pictures?” asked Sylvia, changing the subject, as her first venture proved a failure.

“That sort very much,” answered Warwick, with a glance at the various faces he had been studying so intently.

“So do I!” cried the girl, feeling that they should get on now, for she loved to study character in that way, and was quick to read it. “I fancy faces are the illustrations to the books which people are. Some titlepages are very plain to read, some very difficult, a few most attractive; but as a general thing I don’t care to go farther. Do you?”

“Yes; I find them all interesting and instructive, and am never tired of turning the pages and reading between the lines. Let us see how skilful you are. What do you call Max?” asked Warwick, looking as if he found the small volume just opened to him rather attractive.

“He is a portfolio of good, bad, and indifferent pictures. I hope he will fall to work and finish one at least; the portrait of a happy man and a successful artist.” And Sylvia’s eyes were full of wistful affection as they rested on her handsome, indolent brother, who never gave her an opportunity to be proud of him.

“I think he will if he does not waste his time studying fashion-plates,” said Warwick, regarding the young lady whom Max was evidently wooing, very much as a lion might regard a butterfly.

“There is a heart under the ruffles, and we are all fond of Jessie. Don’t you think her pretty, sir?”

“No.”

“That’s frank,” thought the girl, adding aloud, “Why not?”

“Because she has no more character in her face than the white rose in her hair.”

“But the rose has a very sweet odor, and no thorns for those who handle it gently, as flowers should be handled,” said Sylvia, with a reproachful look from her brother’s happy face to the rather grim one beside her.

“I am apt to forget that, so I get pricked, and deserve it. Will Max’s sister forgive Max’s friend, who sincerely wishes him well?”

“With all my heart, and thank you for the wish,” cried the girl readily, adding in a moment with womanly tact, “But I did not finish my catalogue. Do you want to hear the rest and tell me if I am right?”

“Yes; who comes next?”

“Prue is a receipt book, Mr. Moor a volume of fine poems, and Papa a ledger with dead flowers and old love-letters hidden away in its dull-looking leaves.”

“Very good; and what am I? Come, you have made up your mind, I think, and I shall like to see how correct you are.”

Sylvia hesitated an instant, but something in the commanding voice and the challenge of the eye gave her courage to answer with a smile and a blush,—

“You remind me of Sartor Resartus, which I once heard called a fine mixture of truth, satire, wisdom, and oddity.”

Warwick looked as if he had got another prick, but laughed his deep laugh, exclaiming in surprise,—

“Bless the child! how came she to read that book?”

“Oh, I found it and liked it, for, though I could not understand all of it, I felt stirred and strengthened by the strong words and large thoughts. Don’t you like it?” asked Sylvia, taking a girlish pleasure in his astonishment.

“It is one of my favorite books, and the man who wrote it one of my most honored masters.”

“Did you ever see him?” asked the girl eagerly.

He had, and went on to tell her in brief, expressive phrases much that delighted and comforted her, for she was a hero-worshipper and loved to find new gods to look up to and love.

It was a delicious half-hour to Sylvia, for the talk wandered far and wide, led by intelligent questions, eloquent answers, and mutual enthusiasm; though almost a monologue, she felt that this was conversation in the true sense of the word. Moor stole up behind them and listened silently, enjoying both speaker and listener, who welcomed him with a look and felt the charm of his genial presence.

The end came all too soon, and Sylvia was forced to leave the fine society of poets and philosophers and bid her neighbors good-night. She felt as if she had fallen from the clouds, and with a vague hope of continuing the pleasant talk she said to Warwick, as they stood together while Moor made his adieux with the old-fashioned courtesy Mr. Yule liked,—

“Tell me what sort of book I am; and tell me truly as I did you.”

“ ‘The Story without an End.’ Did you ever read it?” he asked with the look of benignity that sometimes made his face beautiful.

“Yes; I wish I might be as lovely, innocent, and true as that is.Thank you very much.” And Sylvia put her small hand into the large one as confidingly as the child in the pretty allegory might have done, feeling better for the cordial grasp that accompanied his good-night.

“How do you like Adam, sir?” asked Max of his father when the family were alone.

“A fine man, but he needs polishing,” answered Mr. Yule, who had found his guest interesting, but far too radical for his taste.

“What is your opinion, Prue?”

“He rather affects me like a gale of wind, refreshing, but one never knows where one may be carried; and when he looks about with those searching eyes of his, I am painfully conscious of every speck of lint on the carpet, for nothing seems to escape him,” answered Prue, setting the disordered furniture to rights, lest the thought of it should keep her from sleeping.

“Well, Sylvia, is he odd enough to suit your taste?”

“I like him very, very much, only I feel unusually young and small and silly beside him, and he makes me dreadfully tired, much as I enjoy him.”

She looked so, as she pressed her hands against her flushed cheeks, for her eyes were bright and eager, her whole air unquiet yet weary, and she wore the look of inward excitement which henceforth was to mark her intercourse with Adam Warwick.

CHAPTER V

Afloat

A week later Sylvia sat sewing in the sunshine one lovely morning, longing to roam away as she used to do, but restrained by a hope stronger than obedience to Prue’s commands. She had been left much to herself of late, for Max had been away with Moor and Warwick, enjoying themselves in their own fashion, and the girl had only had brief glimpses of the three friends. Max brought home such tantalizing accounts of their sayings and doings that she felt an ever increasing desire to share the good things which were more to her taste than girlish trifles or the solitary revels she used to like.

“I don’t see why I must sit here and hem night-cap strings when the world is full of pleasant places and delightful people, if I could only be allowed to go and find them. Prue is much too particular, and thinks all men alike. I know they would like to have me over there if Max would only take me. I’ve stood hours for him and he forgets it. Brothers are all selfish, I’m afraid. I wish I were a boy, or could be contented with what other girls like.”

Here voices roused her from her reverie, and looking up she saw Max and his friends approaching. Her first impulse was to throw down her work and run to meet them, her second to remember her dignity and sit still, awaiting them with well-bred composure, quite unconscious that the white figure among the vines added a picturesque finish to the scene.

They came up warm and merry from a brisk row across the bay, and Sylvia greeted them with a face that gave a heartier welcome than her words, as she began to gather up her work when they seated themselves in the bamboo chairs scattered along the wide piazza.

“You need not disturb yourself,” said Max; “we are only making this a way station en route for the studio. Can you tell me where my knapsack is to be found? After one of Prue’s stowages, nothing short of a divining rod will find it, I’m afraid.”

“I know where it is. Are you going away again so soon, Max?”

“Only a two or three days’ trip up the river with these mates of mine. No, Sylvia, it can’t be done.”

“I did not say anything.”

“Not in words, but you looked a whole volley of ‘Can’t I goes?’ and I answered it. No girl but you would dream of such a thing; you hate picnics, and as this will be a long and rough one, don’t you see how absurd it would be for you to try it?”

“I don’t quite see it, Max, for this would not be an ordinary picnic; it would be like a little romance to me, and I had rather have it than any present you could give me. We used to have such happy times together before we were grown up, I don’t like to be so separated now. But if it is not best, I’m sorry that I even looked a wish.”

Sylvia tried to keep both disappointment and desire out of her voice as she spoke, though a most intense longing had taken possession of her when she heard of a projected pleasure so entirely after her own heart. But there was an unconscious reproach in her last words, a mute appeal in the wistful eyes that looked across the glittering bay to the green hills beyond. Now Max was both fond and proud of the young sister, who, while he was studying art abroad, had studied nature at home, till the wayward but winning child had bloomed into a most attractive girl. He remembered her devotion to him, his late neglect of her, and longed to make atonement.With elevated eyebrows and inquiring glances he turned from one friend to another.

“Why not?” asked Moor, with a smile of pleasure.

“By all means,” said Warwick, with a decided nod.

Being satisfied on that point, though still very doubtful of the propriety of the step, Max relented, saying suddenly,—

“You can go, Sylvia.”

“What!” cried his sister, starting up with a characteristic impetuosity that sent her basket tumbling down the steps, and crowned her dozing cat with Prue’s nightcap frills. “Do you mean it, Max? Wouldn’t it spoil your pleasure, Mr. Moor? Shouldn’t I be a trouble, Mr. Warwick? Tell me frankly, for if I can go I shall be happier than I can express.”

The gentlemen smiled at her eagerness, but as they saw the altered face she turned toward them, each felt already repaid for any loss of freedom they might experience hereafter, and gave unanimous consent. Upon receipt of which Sylvia felt inclined to dance about the three and bless them audibly, but restrained herself, and beamed upon them in a state of wordless gratitude pleasant to behold. Having given a rash consent, Max now thought best to offer a few obstacles to enhance its value and try his sister’s mettle.

“Don’t ascend into the air like a young balloon, child, but hear the conditions upon which you go, for if you fail to work three miracles it is all over with you. Firstly, the consent of the higher powers, for father will dread all sorts of dangers, you are such a freakish creature, and Prue will be scandalized because trips like this are not the fashion for young ladies.”

“I beg your pardon, but they are. I went with a party of young people last year and camped out for a week. All were brothers and sisters or cousins, and we had a lovely time. Papa likes me to be happy, and Prue won’t mind, as you are all so much older than I am, and two of you like brothers to me. Consider that point settled, and go on to the next,” said Sylvia, who, having ruled the house ever since she was born, had no fears of success with either father or sister.

“Secondly, you must do yourself up in as compact a parcel as possible, for though you little women are very ornamental on land you are not very convenient for transportation by water. Cambric gowns and French slippers are highly appropriate and agreeable at the present moment, but must be sacrificed to the stern necessities of the case. You must make a dowdy of yourself in some usefully short, scant, dingy costume, which will try the nerves of all beholders, and triumphantly prove that women were never meant for such excursions.”

“Wait five minutes and I’ll triumphantly prove to the contrary,” answered Sylvia, as she ran into the house.

Her five minutes were sufficiently elastic to cover fifteen, for she was ravaging her wardrobe to effect her purpose and convince her brother, whose artistic tastes she consulted with a skill that did her good service in the end. Rapidly assuming a gray gown, with a jaunty jacket of the same, she kilted the skirt over one of green, the pedestrian length of which displayed boots of uncompromising thickness. Over her shoulder, by a broad ribbon, she slung a prettily wrought pouch, and ornamented her hat pilgrimwise with a cockle shell. Then, taking her brother’s alpenstock, she crept down, and, standing in the doorway, presented a little figure all in gray and green, like the earth she was going to wander over, and a face that blushed and smiled and shone as she asked demurely,—

“Please, Max, am I picturesque and convenient enough to go?”

He wheeled about and stared approvingly, forgetting cause in effect till Warwick began to laugh like a merry bass-viol, and Moor joined him, saying,—

“Come, Max, own that you are conquered, and let us turn our commonplace voyage into a pleasure pilgrimage, with a lively lady to keep us knights and gentlemen wherever we are.”

“I say no more; only remember, Sylvia, if you get burnt, drowned, or blown away, I’m not responsible for the damage, and shall have the satisfaction of saying, ‘There, I told you so.’ ”

“That satisfaction may be mine when I come home quite safe and well,” replied Sylvia serenely. “Now for the last condition.”

Warwick looked with interest from the sister to the brother; for, being a solitary man, domestic scenes and relations possessed the charm of novelty to him.

“Thirdly, you are not to carry a boat-load of luggage, cloaks, pillows, silver forks, or a dozen napkins, but are to fare as we fare, sleeping in hammocks, barns, or on the bare ground, without shrieking at bats or bewailing the want of mosquito netting; eating when, where, and what is most convenient, and facing all kinds of weather, regardless of complexion, dishevelment, and fatigue. If you can promise all this, be here loaded and ready to go off at six o’clock to-morrow morning.”

After which cheerful picture of the joys to come, Max marched away to his studio, taking his friends with him.

Sylvia worked the three miracles, and at half-past five A. M. was discovered sitting on the piazza, with her hammock rolled into a twine sausage at her feet, her hat firmly tied on, her scrip packed, and her staff in her hand. “Waiting till called for,” she said, as her brother passed her, late and yawning as usual. As the clock struck six the carriage drove round, and Moor and Warwick came up the avenue in nautical array. Then arose a delightful clamor of voices, slamming of doors, hurrying of feet, and frequent peals of laughter; for every one was in holiday spirits, and the morning seemed made for pleasuring.

Mr.Yule regarded the voyagers with an aspect as benign as the summer sky overhead; Prue ran to and fro pouring forth a stream of counsels, warnings, and predictions; men and maids gathered on the lawn or hung out of upper windows; and even old Hecate, the cat, was seen chasing imaginary rats and mice in the grass till her yellow eyes glared with excitement. “All in,” was announced at last, and as the carriage rolled away its occupants looked at one another with faces of blithe satisfaction that their pilgrimage was so auspiciously begun.

A mile or more up the river the large, newly painted boat awaited them. The embarkation was a speedy one, for the cargo was soon stowed in lockers and under seats; Sylvia forwarded to her place in the bow; Max, as commander of the craft, took the helm; Moor and Warwick, as crew, sat waiting orders; and Hugh, the coachman, stood ready to push off at the word of command. Presently it came, a strong hand sent them rustling through the flags, down dropped the uplifted oars, and with a farewell cheer from a group upon the shore the Kelpie glided out into the stream.

Sylvia, too full of genuine content to talk, sat listening to the musical dip of well-pulled oars, watching the green banks on either side, dabbling her hands in the eddies as they rippled by, and singing to the wind, as cheerful and serene as the river that gave her back a smiling image of herself. What her companions talked of she neither heard nor cared to know, for she was looking at the great picture-book that always lies ready for the turning of the youngest or the oldest hands, was receiving the welcome of the playmates she best loved, and was silently yielding herself to the power which works all wonders with its benignant magic. Hour after hour she journeyed along that fluent road. Under bridges where early fishers lifted up their lines to let them through; past gardens tilled by un-skilful townsmen, who harvested an hour of strength to pay the daily tax the city levied on them; past honeymoon cottages where young wives walked with young husbands in the dew, or great houses shut against the morning. Lovers came floating down the stream with masterless rudder and trailing oars. College race-boats shot by with modern Greek choruses in full blast and the frankest criticisms from their scientific crews. Fathers went rowing to and fro with argosies of pretty children, who gave them gay good-morrows. Sometimes they met fanciful nutshells manned by merry girls, who made for shore at sight of them with most erratic movements and novel commands included in their Art of Navigation. Now and then some poet or philosopher went musing by, fishing for facts or fictions where other men catch pickerel or perch.

All manner of sights and sounds greeted Sylvia, and she felt as if she were watching a panorama painted in water-colors by an artist who had breathed into his work the breath of life and given each figure power to play its part. Never had human faces looked so lovely to her eye, for morning beautified the plainest with its ruddy kiss; never had human voices sounded so musical to her ear, for daily cares had not yet brought discord to the instruments tuned by sleep and touched by sunshine into pleasant sound; never had the whole race seemed so near and dear to her, for she was unconsciously pledging all she met in that genuine Elixir Vitæ which sets the coldest blood aglow and makes the whole world kin; never had she felt so truly her happiest self, for, of all the costlier pleasures she had known, not one had been so congenial as this, as she rippled farther and farther up the stream and seemed to float into a world whose airs brought only health and peace. Her comrades wisely left her to her thoughts, a smiling Silence for their figure-head, and none among them but found the day fairer and felt himself fitter to enjoy it for the innocent companionship of maidenhood and a happy heart.

At noon they dropped anchor under a group of wide-spreading hemlocks that stood on the river’s edge, a green tent for wanderers like themselves; there they ate their first meal spread among white clovers, with a pair of squirrels staring at them as curiously as human spectators ever watched royalty at dinner, while several meek cows courteously left their guests the shade and went away to dine at a side-table spread in the sun. They spent an hour or two talking or drowsing luxuriously on the grass; then the springing up of a fresh breeze roused them all, and weighing anchor they set sail for another port.

Now Sylvia saw new pictures, for, leaving all traces of the city behind them, they went swiftly countryward. Sometimes by hayfields, each an idyl in itself, with white-sleeved mowers all arow; the pleasant sound of whetted scythes; great loads rumbling up lanes, with brown-faced children shouting atop; rosy girls raising fragrant windrows or bringing water for thirsty sweethearts leaning on their rakes. Often they saw ancient farm-houses with mossy roofs, and long well-sweeps suggestive of fresh draughts and the drip of brimming pitchers; orchards and cornfields rustling on either hand, and grandmotherly caps at the narrow windows, or stout matrons tending babies in the doorway as they watched smaller selves playing keep house under the “laylocks” by the wall. Villages, like white flocks, slept on the hillsides; martinbox schoolhouses appeared here and there, astir with busy voices, alive with wistful eyes; and more than once they came upon little mermen bathing, who dived with sudden splashes, like a squad of turtles tumbling off a sunny rock.

Then they went floating under vernal arches, where a murmurous rustle seemed to whisper,“Stay!” along shadowless sweeps, where the blue turned to gold and dazzled with its unsteady shimmer; passed islands so full of birds they seemed green cages floating in the sun, or doubled capes that opened long vistas of light and shade, through which they sailed into the pleasant land where summer reigned supreme. To Sylvia it seemed as if the inhabitants of these solitudes had flocked down to the shore to greet her as she came. Fleets of lilies unfurled their sails on either hand, and early cardinal flowers waved their scarlet flags among the green. The pontederia lifted its blue spears from arrowy leaves; wild roses smiled at her with blooming faces; meadow lilies rang their flame-colored bells; and clematis and ivy hung garlands everywhere, as if hers were a floral progress, and each came to do her honor.

Her neighbors kept up a flow of conversation as steady as the river’s, and Sylvia listened now. Insensibly the changeful scenes before them recalled others, and in the friendly atmosphere that surrounded them these reminiscences found free expression. Each of the three had been fortunate in seeing much of foreign life; each had seen a different phase of it, and all were young enough to be still enthusiastic, accomplished enough to serve up their recollections with taste and skill, and give Sylvia glimpses of the world through spectacles sufficiently rose-colored to lend it the warmth which even Truth allows to her sister Romance.

The wind served them till sunset; then the sail was lowered, and the rowers took to their oars. Sylvia demanded her turn, and wrestled with one big oar while Warwick sat behind and did the work. Having blistered her hands and given herself as fine a color as any on her brother’s palette, she professed herself satisfied, and went back to her seat to watch the evening red transfigure earth and sky, making the river and its banks a more royal pageant than splendor-loving Elizabeth ever saw along the Thames.

Anxious to reach a certain point, they rowed on into the twilight, growing stiller and stiller as the deepening hush seemed to hint that Nature was at her prayers. Slowly the Kelpie floated along the shadowy way, and as the shores grew dim, the river dark with leaning hemlocks or an overhanging cliff, Sylvia felt as if she were making the last voyage across that fathomless stream where a pale boatman plies and many go lamenting.

The long silence was broken first by Moor’s voice, saying,—

“Adam, sing.”

If the influences of the hour had calmed Max, touched Sylvia, and made Moor long for music, they had also softened Warwick. Leaning on his oar, he lent the music of a mellow voice to the words of a German Volkslied, and launched a fleet of echoes such as any tuneful vintager might have sent floating down the Rhine. Sylvia was no weeper, but, as she listened, all the day’s happiness which had been pent up in her heart found vent in sudden tears, that streamed down noiseless and refreshing as a warm south rain. Why they came she could not tell, for neither song nor singer possessed the power to win so rare a tribute, and at another time she would have restrained all visible expression of this indefinable, yet sweet emotion. Max and Moor had joined in the burden of the song, and when that was done, took up another; but Sylvia only sat, and let her tears flow while they would, singing at heart, though her eyes were full and her cheeks wet faster than the wind could kiss them dry.

After frequent peerings and tackings here and there, Max at last discovered the haven he desired, and with much rattling of oars, clanking of chains, and splashing of impetuous boots, a landing was effected, and Sylvia found herself standing on a green bank with her hammock in her arms and much wonderment in her mind whether the nocturnal experiences in store for her would prove as agreeable as the daylight ones had been. Max and Moor unloaded the boat and prospected for an eligible sleeping-place. Warwick, being an old campaigner, set about building a fire, and the girl began her sylvan housekeeping. The scene rapidly brightened into light and color as the blaze sprang up, showing the little kettle slung gypsy-wise on forked sticks, and the supper prettily set forth in a leafy table-service on a smooth, flat stone. Soon four pairs of wet feet surrounded the fire; an agreeable oblivion of meum and tuum concerning plates, knives, and cups did away with etiquette; and every one was in a comfortable state of weariness, which rendered the thought of bed so pleasant that they deferred their enjoyment of the reality, as children keep the best bite till the last.

Stories were told, comic, weird, and stirring, and when it came to Sylvia’s turn Max said,—

“We have worked and you have played; now while we rest amuse us with some of your dramatic pictures and pieces, as you do me when you are tired of posing. Make that rock your dressing-room and come out into the firelight when you are ready. She really has a very pretty talent for that sort of thing, and I’ve taught her to drape and pose well.”

Excited by the day’s pleasure and emboldened by the shadows, Sylvia needed little urging, for she was very grateful and ardently desired to make herself agreeable in return for the willing service of her “knights and gentlemen.” She vanished, taking with her a red rug, a white shawl, and her blue cloak as wardrobe.The friends sat talking of the great actors they had known, and forgot her for the moment. A sudden start from Moor, who faced the rock, made the others turn to see Ophelia standing on the smooth plat of grass that lay between the fire and the sombre pines that made a most effective background for the white figure with its crown of ferns, wild weeds, and falling hair. One hand held the folds of the shawl that draped her, the other slowly drew from it the flowers Sylvia had gathered that day, to offer them now to imaginary spectators with vacant smiles, wandering eyes, and broken snatches of song the more pathetic for their gayety.

Even Max was surprised by the grace and skill with which she played her part; the others looked in silence too charmed to break the spell, and when the poor girl dropped her last garland on the mimic grave with plaintive music, and then went smiling and courtesying away to her sad end, they sat a moment silent with sympathy, before their applause assured the young actress that her effort was successful.

Quicker than they thought possible she was there again, still wrapped in the same shawl, a white scarf about the head, and a pine cone in her hand to represent a candle, for this was Lady Macbeth walking in her haunted sleep. The sightless eyes were fixed, the brow knit with remorseful pain, the hands wrung together as the light fell, and the lips apart to vent the heavy breathing of a sleeper. She spoke the words in a muffled tone that gave an awful meaning to her ominous confessions, and when she vanished, beckoning her accomplice away, the watchers seemed to see the guilty pair going to their doom.

“That is wonderful! The child has more than talent, Max, or has been trained by a better master than yourself,” said Moor, looking charmed yet troubled by this display of unsuspected power.

“She has it in her, and needs no master. It is a perilous gift, but has its uses, for the pent-up emotions can find a safer vent in this way than in melancholy dreams or daring action,” answered Warwick, remembering the tragic face he had caught a glimpse of when he saved Sylvia from the sea.

“She is a wonderful little thing in many ways, and I often puzzle my head thinking what will become of her, for I am convinced she will never settle down like other girls without some sort of tribulation or adventure,” said Max, much flattered by the commendation of his friends.

“It will be interesting to watch the unfolding of this modern Mignon ; I hope I shall be here to see it,” answered Moor, little dreaming how hard a part he was to play in the drama of Love’s Labor Lost.

“Let her alone, give her plenty of liberty, and I think time and experience will make a noble woman of her,” added Warwick, feeling a strong sympathy for this ardent girl, who with all the luxury about her still hungered for a food she could not find.

A blithe laugh recalled them, and Rosalind sauntered from behind the rock wrapped in the cloak, with a little cap improvised from a blue silk handkerchief upon her tucked-up curls, and a switch in her hand, saying aside as she feigned to meet Orlando,—

“I’ll speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him. I pray you, what is’t o’clock?”

Then with quick changes of voice and manner from the half-indifferent man to the audacious maid, she gave the scene between the two with a spirit and grace which kept her listeners laughing till she disappeared looking over her shoulder with a face full of merry malice as she led the invisible Orlando away.

“Capital! Bravo! Encore!” cried the audience, eager for more; and inspired by their hearty pleasure, Sylvia gave them the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet leaning over the rock with all her bright hair unbound, white arms bare, and shawl and scarf disposed as effectively as circumstances would permit against the scarlet rug.

This was the best of all, and a revelation even to her brother; for the excitement of former efforts, the desire to do her best, and the indescribable charm the part always had for her, made her act the impassioned Juliet to the life. Place and hour aided her, for the moon had risen and shone into the little glade, lending to the romantic figure an enchantment no stage moon ever gave it. Max also helped her, for he had played the part, and, burning to distinguish himself, sprang forward to make a comely Romeo, in spite of the high boots, blue flannel shirt, and waterproof mantle. He put Jessie Hope in Sylvia’s place, and wooed her so ardently that she was able to act with all her heart, rendering the tender speeches with looks and gestures full of an innocent abandon both delightful and dangerous to the beholders.

“What a lover she will make when the time comes,” thought Moor, with a thrill, as she leaned to Romeo full of a love and longing which made the girlish face wonderfully eloquent.

“What power and passion the little creature has! and a voice to lure a man’s heart out of his breast,” said Warwick, as Juliet cried, with her arms about her lover’s neck,—

“Sweet, so would I;
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good-night! good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good-night till it be to-morrow!”

Then, as if abashed at her forgetfulness of self, Sylvia slipped behind the rock, leaving her Romeo to resume his place, exclaiming complacently, —

“That was not bad, I fancy. Shakespeare forgive me for the liberties I took with him! I haven’t acted since I played this part with Fräulein Hoffmann in Munich last year. She had no more idea of the part than that cow looking over the wall at us, but Sylvia really did very well.”

“Too well for one of her age, I am afraid.Yet it was very lovely,” said Moor, looking as if he still saw the white arms outstretched, and heard the tender words.

“Sentiment is perilous stuff; better let her get rid of her romance in mimic love scenes than in real ones, or leave it fermenting in that precocious head and heart of hers.”

Yet Warwick had enjoyed it most of all, and was the first to rise and thank her when she came demurely back to her seat, with no sign of the actress about her but a deeper color in the usually pale cheeks, and eyes that seemed to have lost their shadows and grown young.

She took their praises modestly, rejoicing inwardly over the new sense of power that came to her as she saw not only admiration but wonder and respect in the faces of those she most desired to please. Generally she cared nothing for the regard of men, but these two were different from any she had known, and she felt that whatever they gave her was worth the having.

They sat late, for sleep had been banished by pleasure, and they lingered talking over the immortal characters which will always be full of intense interest to those who love to study human nature as painted by the Master who seemed to have found the key to all the passions, and set them to a music of which we never tire.

A distant clock struck eleven; Max suggested bed, and the proposition was unanimously accepted.

“Where are you going to hang me?” asked Sylvia, as she laid hold of her hammock and looked about her with nearly as much interest as if her suspension was to be of the perpendicular order.

“You are not to be swung up in a tree to-night, but laid like a ghost, and requested not to walk till morning.There is an unused barn close by, so we shall have a roof over us for one night longer,” answered Max, playing chamberlain while the others remained to quench the fire and secure the larder.

The moon lighted Sylvia to bed, and when shown her half the barn—which, as she was a Marine, was very properly the bay, Max explained—she scouted the idea of being nervous or timid in such rude quarters, made herself a cosey nest, and bade her brother a merry good-night.

More weary than she would confess, Sylvia fell asleep at once, despite the novelty of her situation and the noises that fill a summer night with fitful rustlings and tones. How long she slept she did not know, but woke suddenly and sat erect with that curious thrill which sometimes startles one out of deepest slumber, and is often the forerunner of some dread or danger. She felt this hot tingle through blood and nerves, and stared about her, thinking of fire. But everything was dark and still, and after waiting a few moments she decided that her nest had been too warm, for her temples throbbed and her cheeks were feverish with the close air of the barn half filled with new-made hay.

Creeping up a fragrant slope, she spread her cloak again and lay down where a cool breath flowed through wide chinks in the wall. Sleep was slowly returning when the rustle of footsteps scared it quite away and set her heart beating fast, for they came toward the new couch she had chosen. Holding her breath, she listened.The quiet tread drew nearer and nearer till it paused within a yard of her, then some one seemed to throw himself down, sigh heavily a few times, and grow still as if falling asleep.

“It is Max,” thought Sylvia, and whispered his name; but no one answered, and from the far corner of the barn she heard her brother muttering in his sleep.Who was it, then? Max had said there were no cattle near. She was sure neither of her comrades had left their bivouac, for there was her brother talking as usual in his dreams; some one seemed restless and turned often with decided motion; that was Warwick, she thought; while the quietest sleeper of the three betrayed his presence by laughing once with the low-toned merriment she recognized as Moor’s.These discoveries left her a prey to visions of grimy strollers, maudlin farm-servants, and infectious emigrants in dismal array. A strong desire to cry out possessed her for a moment, but was checked; for with all her sensitiveness Sylvia had much common sense, and that spirit which hates to be conquered even by a natural fear. She remembered her scornful repudiation of the charge of timidity, and the endless jokes she would have to undergo if her mysterious neighbor should prove some harmless wanderer or an imaginary terror of her own, so she held her peace, thinking valiantly as the drops gathered on her forehead, and every sense grew painfully alert,—

“I’ll not call if my hair turns gray with fright, and I find myself an idiot to-morrow. I told them to try me, and I won’t be found wanting at the first alarm. I’ll be still, if the thing does not touch me, till dawn, when I shall know how to act at once, and so save myself from ridicule at the cost of a wakeful night.”

Holding fast to this resolve, Sylvia lay motionless, listening to the cricket’s chirp without, and taking uncomfortable notes of the state of things within, for the new-comer stirred heavily, sighed long and deeply, and seemed to wake often, like one too sad or weary to rest. It would have been wiser to scream her scream and have the rout over, for she tormented herself with the ingenuity of a lively fancy, and suffered more from her own terrors than at the discovery of a dozen vampires. Every tale of diablerie she had ever heard came most inopportunely to haunt her now, and though she felt their folly, she could not free herself from their dominion. She wondered till she could wonder no longer what the morning would show her. She tried to calculate in how many springs she could reach and fly over the low partition which separated her from her sleeping body-guard. She wished with all her heart that she had stayed in her nest which was nearer the door, and watched for dawn with eyes that ached to see the light.

In the midst of these distressful sensations the far-off crow of some vigilant chanticleer assured her that the short summer night was wearing away and relief was at hand. This comfortable conviction had so good an effect that she lapsed into what seemed a moment’s oblivion, but was in fact an hour’s restless sleep, for when her eyes unclosed again the first red streaks were visible in the east, and a dim light found its way into the barn through the great door which had been left ajar for air. An instant Sylvia lay collecting herself, then rose on her arm, looked resolutely behind her, stared with round eyes a moment, and dropped down again, laughing with a merriment which, coming on the heels of her long alarm, was rather hysterical. All she saw was a little soft-eyed Alderney calf, which lifted its stag-like head, and regarded her with a confiding aspect that won her pardon for its innocent offence.

Through the relief of both mind and body which she experienced in no small degree, the first thought that came was a thankful “What a mercy I didn’t call Max, for I should never have heard the last of this!” And, having fought her fears alone, she enjoyed her success alone, and, girl-like, resolved to say nothing of her first night’s adventures. Gathering herself up, she crept nearer, and caressed her late terror, which stretched its neck toward her with a comfortable sound, and munched her shawl like a cosset lamb. But before this new friendship was many minutes old, Sylvia’s heavy lids fell together, her head dropped lower and lower, her hand lay still on the dappled neck, and with a long sigh of weariness she dropped back upon the hay, leaving little Alderney to watch over her much more tranquilly than she had watched over it.

CHAPTER VI

Through Flood and Field and Fire

Very early were they afloat again, and as they glided up the stream Sylvia watched the earth’s awakening, seeing in it, what her own should be. The sun was not yet visible above the hills, but the sky was ready for his coming, with the soft flush of color dawn gives only to her royal lover. Birds were chanting matins as if all the jubilance of their short lives must be poured out at once. Flowers stirred and brightened like children after sleep. A balmy wind came whispering from the wood, bringing the aroma of pines, the cool breath of damp nooks, the healthful kiss that leaves a glow behind. Light mists floated down the river like departing visions that had haunted it by night, and every ripple breaking on the shore seemed to sing a musical good-morrow.

Sylvia could not conceal the weariness her long vigil left behind; and after betraying herself by a drowsy lurch that nearly took her overboard, she made herself comfortable, and slept till the grating of the keel on a pebbly shore woke her to find a new harbor reached under the lee of a cliff, whose deep shadow was very grateful after the glare of noon upon the water.

“How do you intend to dispose of yourself this afternoon, Adam?” asked Max, when dinner was over and his sister busy feeding the birds.

“In this way,” answered Warwick, producing a book and settling himself in a commodious cranny of the rock.

“Moor and I want to climb the cliff and sketch the view; but it is too rough a road for Sylvia.Would you mind mounting guard for an hour or two? Read away, and leave her to amuse herself; only don’t let her get into mischief by way of enjoying her liberty, for she fears nothing and is fond of experiments.”

“I’ll do my best,” replied Warwick, with an air of resignation.

Having slung the hammock and seen Sylvia safely into it, the climbers departed, leaving her to enjoy the luxury of motion. For half an hour she swung idly, looking up into the green pavilion overhead, where many insect families were busy with their small joys and cares, or out over the still landscape basking in the warmth of a cloudless afternoon. Then she opened a book Max had brought for his own amusement, and began to read as intently as her companion, who leaned against the bowlder slowly turning his pages, with leafy shadows flickering over his uncovered head and touching it with alternate sun and shade. The book proved interesting, and Sylvia was rapidly skimming into the heart of the story, when an unguarded motion caused her swing to slope perilously to one side, and in saving herself she lost her book.This produced a predicament, for being helped into a hammock and getting out alone are two very different things. She eyed the distance from her nest to the ground, and fancied it had been made unusually great to keep her stationary. She held fast with one hand and stretched downward with the other, but the book insolently flirted its leaves just out of reach. She took a survey of Warwick; he had not perceived her plight, and she felt an unwonted reluctance to call for help, because he did not look like one used to come and go at a woman’s bidding. After several fruitless essays she decided to hazard an ungraceful descent; and, gathering herself up, was about to launch boldly out, when Warwick cried, “Stop!” in a tone that nearly produced the catastrophe he wished to avert. Sylvia subsided, and coming up he lifted the book, glanced at the title, then keenly at the reader.

“Do you like this?”

“So far very much.”

“Are you allowed to read what you choose?”

“Yes, sir.That is Max’s choice, however; I brought no book.”

“I advise you to skim it into the river; it is not a book for you.”

Sylvia caught a glimpse of the one he had been reading himself, and, impelled by a sudden impulse to see what would come of it, she answered with a look as keen as his own,—

“You disapprove of my book; would you recommend yours?”

“In this case yes; for in one you will find much falsehood in purple and fine linen, in the other some truth in fig-leaves.Take your choice.”

He offered both; but Sylvia took refuge in civility.

“Thank you, I’ll have neither; but if you will please steady the hammock, I will try to find some more harmless amusement for myself.”

He obeyed with one of the humorous expressions which often passed over his face. Sylvia descended as gracefully as circumstances permitted, and went roving up and down the cliffs.Warwick resumed his seat and the “barbaric yawp,” but seemed to find Truth in demi-toilet less interesting than Youth in a gray gown and round hat, for which his taste is to be commended. The girl had small scope for amusement, and when she had gathered moss for pillows, laid out a white fungus to dry for a future pin-cushion, harvested pennyroyal in little sheaves tied with grass-blades, watched a battle between black ants and red, and learned the landscape by heart, she was at the end of her resources, and leaning on a stone surveyed earth and sky with a somewhat despondent air.

“You would like something to do, I think.”

“Yes, sir; for, being rather new to this sort of life, I have not yet learned how to dispose of my time.”

“I see that, and, having deprived you of one employment, will try to replace it by another.”

Warwick rose, and, going to the single birch that glimmered among the pines like a delicate spirit of the wood, he presently returned with strips of silvery bark.

“You were wishing for baskets to hold your spoils, yesterday; shall we make some now?” he asked.

“How stupid in me not to think of that! Yes, thank you, I should like it very much.” And, producing her house-wife, Sylvia fell to work with a brightening face.

Warwick sat a little below her on the rock, shaping his basket in perfect silence.This did not suit Sylvia; for, feeling lively and loquacious, she wanted conversation to occupy her thoughts as pleasantly as the birch rolls were occupying her hands, and there sat a person who could do it perfectly if he chose. She reconnoitred with covert glances, made sundry overtures, and sent out envoys in the shape of scissors, needles, and thread. But no answering glance met hers; her remarks received the briefest replies, and her offers of assistance were declined with an absent “No, thank you.” Then she grew indignant at this seeming neglect, and thought, as she sat frowning over her work, behind his back,—

“He treats me like a child,—very well then, I’ll behave like one, and beset him with questions till he is driven to speak; for he can talk, he ought to talk, he shall talk.”

“Mr. Warwick, do you like children?” she began, with a determined aspect.

“Better than men or women.”

“Do you enjoy amusing them?”

“Exceedingly, when in the humor.”

“Are you in the humor now?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then why don’t you amuse me?”

“Because you are not a child.”

“I fancied you thought me one.”

“If I had, I probably should have put you on my knee, and told you fairy tales, or cut dolls for you out of this bark, instead of sitting respectfully silent and making a basket for your stores.”

There was a curious smile about Warwick’s mouth as he spoke, and Sylvia was rather abashed by her first exploit. But there was a pleasure in the daring, and choosing another topic she tried again.

“Max was telling me last night about the great college you had chosen; I thought it must be a very original and interesting way to educate one’s self, and wanted very much to know what you had been studying lately. May I ask you now?”

“Men and women,” was the brief answer.

“Have you got your lesson, sir?”

“Not yet.”

“May I ask which part you are studying now?”

“The latter.”

“Do you find it interesting?”

“Very.”

Sylvia paused to wonder what sort of woman he would care to study, and sat silent till she had completed a canoe-shaped basket, the useful size of which produced a sudden desire to fill it. Her eye had already spied a knoll across the river covered with vines, and so suggestive of berries that she now found it impossible to resist the desire for an exploring trip in that direction. The boat was too large for her to manage alone, but an enterprising spirit had taken possession of her, and, having made one voyage of discovery with small success, she resolved to try again, hoping a second in another direction might prove more fruitful.

“Is your basket done?” she asked.

“Yes; will you have it?”

“Why, you have made it as an Indian would, using grass instead of thread. It is much more complete than mine, for the green stitches ornament the white bark, but the black ones disfigure it. I should know a man made your basket and a woman mine.”

“Because one is ugly and strong, the other graceful but unable to stand alone?” asked Warwick, rising, with a gesture that sent the silvery shreds flying away on the wind.

“One holds as much as the other, however; and I fancy the woman would fill hers soonest if she had the wherewithal to do it. Do you know there are berries on that hillside opposite?”

“I see vines, but consider fruit doubtful, for boys and birds are thicker than blackberries.”

“I’ve a firm conviction that they have left some for us; and as Max says you like frankness, I think I shall venture to ask you to row me over and help me fill the baskets on the other side.”

Sylvia looked up at him with a merry mixture of doubt and daring in her face, and offered him his hat.

“Very good, I will,” said Warwick, leading the way to the boat with an alacrity which proved how much pleasanter to him was action than repose.

There was no dry landing-place just opposite, and as he rowed higher, Adam fixed his eyes on Sylvia with a look peculiar to himself, a gaze more keen than soft, which seemed to search one through and through with its rapid discernment. He was studying her, and finding his book grow more and more interesting every hour; for Sylvia, unvexed by home restraints and happy in congenial society, was now her best and sweetest self.

She could not be offended by the grave penetration of this glance, though an uncomfortable consciousness that she was being analyzed and tested made her meet it with a look intended to be dignified, but which was also somewhat defiant, and more than one smile passed over Warwick’s countenance as he watched her.The moment the boat glided with a soft swish among the rushes that fringed the shore, she sprung up the bank, and, leaving a basket behind her by way of hint, hurried to the sandy knoll, where, to her great satisfaction, she found the vines heavy with berries. As Warwick joined her she held up a shining cluster, saying with a touch of exultation in her voice,—

“My faith is rewarded; taste and believe.”

He accepted them with a nod, and said pleasantly,—

“As my prophecy has failed, let us see if yours will be fulfilled.”

“I accept the challenge.” And down upon her knees went Sylvia among the vines, regardless of stains, rents, or wounded hands.

Warwick strolled away to leave her “claim” free, and silence fell between them; for one was too busy with thorns, the other with thoughts, to break the summer stillness. Sylvia worked with as much energy as if a silver cup was to be the reward of success. The sun shone fervently and the wind was cut off by the hill, drops gathered on her forehead, and her cheeks glowed; but she only pushed off her hat, thrust back her hair, and moved on to a richer spot.Vines caught at her by sleeve and skirt as if to dishearten the determined plunderer, but on she went with a wrench and a rip, an impatient “Ah!” and a hasty glance at damaged fabrics and fingers. Lively crickets flew up in swarms about her, surly wasps disputed her right to the fruit, and drunken bees blundered against her as they met, zigzagging homeward much the worse for blackberry wine. She never heeded any of them, though at another time she would gladly have made friends with all, but found compensation for her discomforts in the busy twitter of sand-swallows perched on the mullein-tops, the soft flight of yellow butterflies, and the rapidity with which the little canoe received its freight of “Ethiop sweets.” As the last handful went in she sprung up, crying “Done!” with a suddenness that broke up the Long Parliament and sent its members skimming away as if a second “Noll” had appeared among them.“Done!” came back Warwick’s answer like a deep echo from below, and hurrying down to meet him she displayed her success, saying archly,—

“I am glad we both won, though to be perfectly candid I think mine is decidedly the fullest.” But as she swung up her birch pannier the handle broke, and down went basket, berries and all, into the long grass rustling at her feet.

Warwick could not restrain a laugh at the blank dismay that fell upon the exultation of Sylvia’s face, and for a moment she was both piqued and petulant. Hot, tired, disappointed, and, hardest of all, laughed at, it was one of those times that try girls’ souls. But she was too old to cry, too proud to complain, too well-bred to resent, so the little gust passed over unseen, she thought, and joining in the merriment she said, as she knelt down beside the wreck,—

“This is a practical illustration of the old proverb, and I deserve it for my boasting. Next time I’ll try to combine strength and beauty in my work.”

To wise people character is betrayed by trifles. Warwick stopped laughing, and something about the girlish figure in the grass, regathering with wounded hands the little harvest lately lost, seemed to touch him. His face softened suddenly as he collected several broad leaves, spread them on the grass, and, sitting down by Sylvia, looked under her hatbrim with a glance of mingled penitence and friendliness.

“Now, young philosopher, pile up your berries in that green platter while I repair the basket. Bear this in mind when you work in bark: make your handle the way of the grain, and choose a strip both smooth and broad.”

Then drawing out his knife he fell to work, and while he tied green withes, as if the task were father to the thought, he told her something of a sojourn among the Indians, of whom he had learned much concerning their woodcraft, arts, and superstitions; lengthening the legend till the little canoe was ready for another launch. With her fancy full of war-trails and wampum, Sylvia followed to the river-side, and as they floated back dabbled her stained fingers in the water, comforting their smart with its cool flow till they swept by the landing-place, when she asked wonderingly,—

“Where are we going now? Have I been so troublesome that I must be taken home?”

“We are going to get a third course to follow the berries, unless you are afraid to trust yourself to me.”

“Indeed, I’m not; take me where you like, sir.”

Something in her frank tone, her confiding glance, seemed to please Warwick; he sat a moment looking into the brown depths of the water, and let the boat drift, with no sound but the musical drip of drops from the oars.

“We are going upon a rock.”

“Not if I can help it.” And a swift stroke averted the shock, to send them flying down the river till they reached the shore of a floating lily island. Here Warwick shipped his oars, saying,—

“You were asleep when we passed this morning; but I know you like lilies, so let us go a fishing.”

“That I do!” cried Sylvia, capturing a great white flower with a clutch that nearly took her overboard. Warwick drew her back and did the gathering himself.

“Enough, quite enough! Here are plenty to trim our table and ourselves with; leave the rest for other voyagers who may come this way.”

As Warwick offered her the dripping nosegay he looked at the white hand scored with scarlet lines.

“Poor hand! let the lilies comfort it. You are a true woman, Miss Sylvia, for though your palm is purple there’s not a stain upon your lips, and you have neither worked nor suffered for yourself, it seems.”

“I don’t deserve that compliment, because I was only intent on outdoing you if possible; so you are mistaken again, you see.”

“Not entirely, I think. Some faces are so true an index of character that one cannot be mistaken. If you doubt this, look down into the river, and such an one will inevitably smile back at you.”

Pleased, yet somewhat abashed, Sylvia busied herself in knotting up the long brown stems and tingeing her nose with yellow pollen as she inhaled the bitter-sweet breath of the lilies. But when Warwick turned to resume the oars, she said,—

“Let us float out as we floated in. It is so still and lovely here I like to stay and enjoy it, for we may never see just such a scene again.”

He obeyed, and both sat silent, watching the meadows that lay green and low along the shore, feeding their eyes with the beauty of the landscape, till its peaceful spirit seemed to pass into their own, and lend a subtle charm to that hour, which henceforth was to stand apart, serene and happy, in their memories forever. A still August day, with a shimmer in the air that veiled the distant hills with the mellow haze no artist ever truly caught. Midsummer warmth and ripeness brooded in the verdure of field and forest.Wafts of fragrance went wandering by from new-mown meadows and gardens full of bloom. All the sky wore its serenest blue, and up the river came frolic winds, ruffling the lily leaves until they showed their purple linings, sweeping shadowy ripples through the long grass, and lifting the locks from Sylvia’s forehead with a grateful touch, as she sat softly swaying with the swaying of the boat. Slowly they drifted out into the current, slowly Warwick cleft the water with reluctant stroke, and slowly Sylvia’s mind woke from its trance of dreamy delight, as with a gesture of assent she said,—

“Yes, I am ready now.That was a happy little moment, and I am glad to have lived it, for such times return to refresh me when many a more stirring one is quite forgotten.” A moment after she added, eagerly, as a new object of interest appeared: “Mr.Warwick, I see smoke. I know there is a wood on fire; I want to see it; please land again.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the black cloud trailing away before the wind, saw Sylvia’s desire in her face, and silently complied; for being a keen student of character, he was willing to prolong an interview that gave him glimpses of a nature in which the woman and the child were curiously blended.

“I love fire, and that must be a grand one, if we could only see it well. This bank is not high enough; let us go nearer and enjoy it,” said Sylvia, finding that an orchard and a knoll or two intercepted the view of the burning wood.

“It is too far.”

“Not at all. I am no helpless, fine lady. I can walk, run, and climb like any boy; so you need have no fears for me. I may never see such a sight again, and you know you’d go if you were alone. Please come, Mr. Warwick.”

“I promised Max to take care of you, and for the very reason that you love fire, I’d rather not take you into that furnace, lest you never come out again. Let us go back immediately.”

The decision of his tone ruffled Sylvia, and she turned wilful at once, saying in a tone as decided as his own,—

“No; I wish to see it. I am always allowed to do what I wish, so I shall go;” with which mutinous remark she walked straight away towards the burning wood.

Warwick looked after her, indulging a momentary desire to carry her back to the boat, like a naughty child. But the resolute aspect of the figure going on before him convinced him that the attempt would be a failure, and with an amused expression he leisurely followed her.

Sylvia had not walked five minutes before she was satisfied that it was too far; but, having rebelled, she would not own herself in the wrong, and, being perverse, insisted upon carrying her point, though she walked all night. On she went over walls, under rails, across brooks, along the furrows of more than one ploughed field and in among the rustling corn, that turned its broad leaves to the sun, always in advance of her companion, who followed with exemplary submission, but also with a satirical smile, that spurred her on as no other demonstration could have done. Six o’clock sounded from the church behind the hill; still the wood seemed to recede as she pursued, still close behind her came the steady footfalls, with no sound of weariness in them, and still Sylvia kept on, till, breathless, but successful, she reached the object of her search.

Keeping to the windward of the smoke, she gained a rocky spot still warm and blackened by the late passage of the flames, and, pausing there, forgot her own pranks in watching those which the fire played before her eyes. Many acres were burning, the air was full of the rush and roar of the victorious element, the crash of trees that fell before it, and the shouts of men who fought it unavailingly.

“Ah, this is grand! I wish Max and Mr. Moor were here. Aren’t you glad you came?”

Sylvia glanced up at her companion, as he stood regarding the scene with the intent, alert expression one often sees in a hound when he scents danger in the air. But Warwick did not answer, for as she spoke a long, sharp cry of human suffering rose above the tumult, terribly distinct and full of ominous suggestion.

“Some one was killed when that tree fell! Stay here till I come back.” And Adam strode away into the wood as if his place were where the peril lay.

For ten minutes Sylvia waited, pale and anxious; then her patience gave out, and, saying to herself, “I can go where he does, and women are always more helpful than men at such times,” she followed in the direction whence came the fitful sound of voices.The ground was hot underneath her feet, red eyes winked at her from the blackened sod, and fiery tongues darted up here and there, as if the flames were lurking still, ready for another outbreak. Intent upon her charitable errand, and excited by the novel scene, she pushed recklessly on, leaping charred logs, skirting still burning stumps, and peering eagerly into the dun veil that wavered to and fro.The appearance of an impassable ditch obliged her to halt, and, pausing to take breath, she became aware that she had lost her way. The echo of voices had ceased, a red glare was deepening in front, and clouds of smoke enveloped her in a stifling atmosphere. A sense of bewilderment crept over her; she knew not where she was; and after a rapid flight in what she believed a safe direction had been cut short by the fall of a blazing tree before her, she stood still, taking counsel with herself. Darkness and danger seemed to encompass her, fire flickered on every side, and suffocating vapors shrouded earth and sky. A bare rock suggested one hope of safety, and, muffling her head in her skirt, she lay down faint and blind, with a dull pain in her temples, and a fear at her heart fast deepening into terror as her breath grew painful and her head began to swim.

“This is the last of the pleasant voyage! Oh, why does no one think of me?”

As the regret rose, a cry of suffering and entreaty broke from her. She had not called for help till now, thinking herself too remote, her voice too feeble to overpower the din about her. But some one had thought of her, for as the cry left her lips, steps came crashing through the wood, a pair of strong arms caught her up, and before she could collect her scattered senses she was set down beyond all danger on the green bank of a little pool.

“Well, salamander, have you had fire enough?” asked Warwick, as he dashed a handful of water in her face with such energetic good-will that it took her breath away.

“Yes, oh yes,—and of water, too! Please stop, and let me get my breath!” gasped Sylvia, warding off a second baptism and staring dizzily about her.

“Why did you quit the place where I left you?” was the next question, somewhat sternly put.

“I wanted to know what had happened.”

“So you walked into a bonfire to satisfy your curiosity, though you had been told to keep out of it? You’d never make a Casabianca.”

“I hope not, for of all silly children that boy was the silliest, and he deserved to be blown up for his want of common sense,” cried the girl petulantly.

“Obedience is an old-fashioned virtue, which you would do well to cultivate along with your common sense, young lady.”

Sylvia changed the subject, for Warwick stood regarding her with an irate expression that was somewhat alarming. Fanning herself with the wet hat, she asked abruptly,—

“Was the man hurt, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Very much?”

“Yes.”

“Can I not do something for him? He is very far from any house, and I have some experience in wounds.”

“He is past all help now.”

“Dead, Mr.Warwick?”

“Quite dead.”

Sylvia sat down as suddenly as she had risen, and covered her face, with a shiver, remembering that her own wilfulness had tempted a like fate, and she too might now have been “past help.” Warwick went down to the pool to batbe his hot face and blackened hands; as he returned, Sylvia met him with a submissive—

“I will go back now if you are ready, sir.”

If the way had seemed long in coming, it was doubly so in returning, for neither pride nor perversity sustained her now, and every step cost an effort. “I can rest in the boat,” was her sustaining thought; great therefore was her dismay when, on reaching the river, no boat was to be seen.

“Why, Mr.Warwick, where is it?”

“A long way down the river by this time, probably. Believing that we landed only for a moment, I did not fasten it, and the tide has carried it away.”

“But what shall we do?”

“One of two things,—spend the night here, or go round by the bridge.”

“Is it far?”

“Some three or four miles, I think.”

“Is there no shorter way? no boat or carriage to be had?”

“If you care to wait, I can look for our runaway, or get a wagon from the town.”

“It is growing late, and you would be gone a long time, I suppose?”

“Probably.”

“Which had we better do?”

“I should not venture to advise. Suit yourself, I will obey orders.”

“If you were alone, what would you do?”

“Swim across.”

Sylvia looked disturbed, Warwick impenetrable, the river wide, the road long, and the cliffs the most inaccessible of places. An impressive pause ensued, then she said frankly,—

“It is my own fault, and I’ll take the consequences. I choose the bridge, and leave you the river. If I don’t appear till dawn, tell Max I sent him a good night.” And girding up her energies she walked bravely off, with much external composure and internal chagrin.

As before, Warwick followed in silence. For a time she kept in advance, then allowed him to gain upon her, and presently fell behind, plodding doggedly on through thick and thin, vainly trying to conceal the hunger and fatigue that were fast robbing her of both strength and spirits. Adam watched her with a masculine sense of the justice of the retribution which his wilful comrade had brought upon herself. But as he saw the elasticity leave her steps, the color fade from her cheeks, the resolute mouth relax, and the wistful eyes dim once or twice with tears of weariness and vexation, pity got the better of pique, and he relented. His steady tramp came to a halt, and, stopping by a wayside spring, he pointed to a mossy stone, saying, with no hint of superior powers,—

“We are tired, let us rest.”

Sylvia dropped down at once, and for a few minutes neither spoke, for the air was full of sounds more pertinent to the summer night than human voices. From the copse behind them came the coo of wood-pigeons, from the grass at their feet the plaintive chirp of crickets; a busy breeze whispered through the willow, the little spring dripped musically from the rock, and across the meadows came the sweet chime of a bell. Twilight was creeping over forest, hill, and stream, and seemed to drop refreshment and repose upon all weariness of soul and body, more grateful to Sylvia than the welcome seat and leafy cup of water Warwick brought her from the spring.

The appearance of a thirsty sparrow gave her thoughts a pleasant turn, for, sitting motionless, she watched the little creature trip down to the pool, drink and bathe, then, flying to a willow spray, dress its feathers, dry its wings, and sit chirping softly as if it sang its evening hymn. Warwick saw her interest, and searching in his pocket, found the relics of a biscuit, strewed a few bits upon the ground before him, and began a low, sweet whistle, which rose gradually to a varied strain, alluring, spirited, and clear as any bird-voice of the wood. Little sparrow ceased his twitter, listened with outstretched neck and eager eye, hopping restlessly from twig to twig, until he hung just over the musician’s head, agitated with a small flutter of surprise, delight, and doubt. Gathering a crumb or two into his hand, Warwick held it toward the bird, while softer, sweeter, and more urgent rose the invitation, and nearer and nearer drew the winged guest, fascinated by the spell.

Suddenly a belated blackbird lit upon the wall, surveyed the group, and burst into a jubilant song, that for a moment drowned his rival’s notes. Then, as if claiming the reward, he fluttered to the grass, ate his fill, took a sip from the mossy basin by the way, and flew singing over the river, leaving a trail of music behind him. There was a dash and daring about this which fired little sparrow with emulation. His last fear seemed conquered, and he flew confidingly to Warwick’s palm, pecking the crumbs with grateful chirps and friendly glances from its quick, bright eye. It was a pretty picture for the girl to see; the man an image of power, in his hand the feathered atom, that, with unerring instinct, divined and trusted the superior nature which had not yet lost its passport to the world of innocent delights that Nature gives to those who love her best. Involuntarily Sylvia clapped her hands, and, startled by the sudden sound, little sparrow skimmed away.

“Thank you for the pleasantest sight I’ve seen for many a day. How did you learn this gentle art, Mr.Warwick?”

“I was a solitary boy, and found my only playmates in the woods and fields. I learned their worth, they saw my need, and when I asked their friendship, gave it freely. Now we should go; you are very tired, let me help you.”

He held his hand to her, and she put her own into it with a confidence as instinctive as the bird’s. Then, hand in hand, they crossed the bridge and struck into the wilderness again; climbing slopes still warm and odorous, passing through dells full of chilly damps, along meadows spangled with fireflies and haunted by sonorous frogs, over rocks crisp with pale mosses, and between dark firs, where shadows brooded and melancholy breezes rocked themselves to sleep; speaking seldom, yet feeling no consciousness of silence, no sense of restraint, for they no longer seemed like strangers to each other, and this spontaneous friendliness lent an indefinable charm to the dusky walk. Warwick found satisfaction in the knowledge of her innocent faith in him, the touch of the little hand he held, the sight of the quiet figure at his side. Sylvia felt that it was pleasant to be the object of his care, fancied that they would learn to know each other better in three days of this free life than in as many months at home, and rejoiced over the discovery of unsuspected traits in him, like the soft lining of the chestnut burr, to which she had compared him more than once that afternoon. So, mutually and unconsciously yielding to the influence of the hour and the mood it brought them, they walked through the twilight in that eloquent silence which often proves more persuasive than the most fluent speech.

The welcome blaze of their own fire gladdened them at length, and when the last step was taken, Sylvia sat down with an inward conviction she never could get up again. Warwick told their mishap in the fewest possible words, while Max, in a spasm of brotherly solicitude, goaded the fire to a roar that his sister’s feet might be dried, administered a cordial as a preventive against cold, and prescribed her hammock the instant supper was done. She went away with him, but a moment after she came to Warwick with a box of Prue’s ointment and a soft handkerchief stripped into bandages.

“What now?” he asked.

“I wish to dress your burns, sir.”

“They will do well enough with a little water; go you and rest.”

“Mr. Warwick, you know you ate your supper with your left hand, and put both behind you when you saw me looking at them. Please let me make them easier; they were burnt for me, and I shall get no sleep till I have had my way.”

There was a curious mixture of command and entreaty in her manner, and before their owner had time to refuse or comply, the scorched hands were taken possession of, the red blisters covered with a cool bandage, and the frown of pain smoothed out of Warwick’s forehead by the prospect of relief. As she tied the last knot, Sylvia glanced up with a look that mutely asked pardon for past waywardness, and expressed gratitude for past help; then, as if her heart were set at rest, she was gone before her patient could return his thanks.

She did not reappear, Max went to send a lad after the lost boat, and the two friends were left alone; Warwick watching the blaze, Moor watching him, till, with a nod toward a pair of diminutive boots that stood turning out their toes before the fire, Adam said,—

“The wearer of those defiant-looking articles is the most capricious piece of humanity it was every my fortune to see.You have no idea of the life she has led me since you left.”

“I can imagine it.”

“She is as freakish and wears as many shapes as Puck,—a will-o-the wisp, a Sister of Charity, an imperious woman, a meek-faced child,—and one does not know in which part she pleases most. Hard the task of him who wins and tries to hold her.”

“Hard, yet happy; for a word will tame the high spirit, a look touch the tender heart, a kind act be repaid with one still kinder. She is a creature to be tenderly taught, and cherished with the wisest love.”

Moor spoke low, and on his face the firelight seemed to shed a ruddier glow than it had a moment before. Warwick eyed him an instant, then said, with his usual abruptness,—

“Geoffrey, you should marry.”

“I hope to in good time.Will you follow my example?”

“When some woman is dearer to me than my liberty. It will be hard to find a mate, and I am in no haste. God bless your wooing, Geoffrey.”

“And yours, Adam.”

Then with a hearty hand-shake more expressive of affection than many a tenderer demonstration the friends parted, Warwick to watch the stars for hours, and Moor to muse beside the fire till the little boots were dry.

CHAPTER VII

A Golden Wedding

Hitherto they had been a most decorous crew, but the next morning something in the air seemed to cause a general overflow of spirits, and they went up the river like a party of children on a merry-making. Sylvia decorated herself with vines and flowers till she looked like a wood-nymph; Max, as skipper, issued his orders with the true nautical twang; Moor kept up a fire of fun-provoking raillery; Warwick sang like a jovial giant; the Kelpie danced over the water as if inspired by the universal gayety, and the very ripples seemed to laugh as they hurried by.

“This is just the day for adventures; I hope we shall have some,” said Sylvia, waving her bulrush wand as if to conjure up fresh delights of some sort.

“I should think you had enough yesterday to satisfy even your adventurous soul,” answered Max, remembering her forlorn plight the night before.

“I never have enough! Life was made to enjoy, and each day ought to be different from the last; then one wouldn’t get so tired of everything. See how easy it is. Just leave the old behind and find so much that is new and lovely within a few miles of home. I believe in adventures, and mean to go and seek them if they don’t come to me,” cried Sylvia, looking about her as if her new kingdom had inspired her with new ambitions.

“I think an adventure is about to arrive, and a very stirring one, if I may believe those black clouds piling up yonder.” And Warwick pointed to the sky where the frolicsome west-wind seemed to have prepared a surprise for them in the shape of a thunder-shower.

“I shall like that. I’m fond of storms, and have no fear of lightning, though it always dances round me as if it had designs upon me. Let it come; the heavier the storm the better. We can sit in a barn and watch it rave itself quiet,” said Sylvia, looking up with such an air of satisfaction the young men felt reassured, and rowed on, hoping to find shelter before the rain.

It was after lunch, and, refreshed by the cooler wind, the deepening shadows, the rowers pulled lustily, sending the boat through the water with the smooth speed given by strength and skill. Sylvia steered, but often forgot her work to watch the faces rising and falling before her, full of increasing resolution and vigor, for soon the race between the storm and the men grew exciting. No hospitable house or barn appeared, and Max, who knew the river best, thought that this was one of its wildest parts, for marshes lay on one hand, and craggy banks on the other, with here and there a stretch of hemlocks leaning to their fall as the current slowly washed away the soil that held their roots. A curtain of black cloud edged with sullen red swept rapidly across the sky, giving an unearthly look to both land and water. Utter silence reigned as birds flew to covert, and cattle herded together in the fields. Only now and then a long, low sigh went through the air like the pant of the rising storm, or a flash of lightning without thunder seemed like the glare of angry eyes.

“We are in for a drenching, if that suits you,” said Max, turning from the bow where he sat, ready to leap out and pull the boat ashore the instant shelter of any sort appeared.

“I shall just wrap my old cloak about me and not mind it. Don’t think of me, and if anything does happen, Mr. Warwick is used to saving me, you know.”

Sylvia laughed and colored as she spoke, but her eyes shone and a daring spirit looked out at them as if it loved danger as well as his own.

“Hold fast then, for here it comes,” answered Adam, dropping his oar to throw the rug about her feet, his own hat into the bottom of the boat, and then to look beyond her at the lurid sky with the air of one who welcomed the approaching strife of elements.

“Lie down and let me cover you with the sail!” cried Moor anxiously, as the first puff of the rising gale swept by.

“No, no; I want to see it all. Row on, or land, I don’t care which. It is splendid, and I must have my share of it,” answered Sylvia, sending her hat after Warwick’s, and sitting erect, eager to prove her courage.

“We are safer here than in those woods, or soaking in that muddy marsh, so pull away, mates, and we shall reach a house before long, I am sure.This girl has had the romance of roughing it, now let us see how the reality suits her.” And Max folded his arms to enjoy his sister’s dismay, for just then, as if the heavens were suddenly opened, down came a rush of rain that soon drenched them to the skin.

Sylvia laughed, and shook her wet hair out of her eyes, drank the great drops as they fell, and still declared that she liked it. Moor looked anxious, Warwick interested, and Max predicted further ills like a bird of evil omen.

They came, whirlwind and rain; thunder that deafened, lightning that dazzled, and a general turmoil that for a time might have daunted a braver heart than the girl’s. It is one thing to watch a storm, safely housed, with feather-beds, non-conductors, and friends to cling to; but quite another thing to be out in the tempest, exposed to all its perils, tossing in a boat on an angry river, far from shelter, with novelty, discomfort, and real danger to contend with.

But Sylvia stood the test well, seeming to find courage from the face nearest her; for that never blenched when the sharpest bolt fell, the most vivid flash blinded, or the gale drove them through hissing water, and air too full of rain to show what rock or quicksand might lie before them. She did enjoy it in spite of her pale cheeks, dilated eyes, and clutching hands; and sat in her place silent and steady, with the pale glimmer of electricity about her head, while the thunder crashed and tongues of fire tore the black clouds, swept to and fro by blasts that bowed her like a reed.

One bolt struck a tree, but it fell behind them, and just as Moor was saying, “We must land; it is no longer safe here,” Max cried out,—

“A house! a house! Pull for your lives, and we will be under cover in ten minutes.”

Sylvia never forgot that brief dash round the bend, for the men bent to their oars with a will, and the Kelpie flew like a bird, while with streaming hair and smiling lips the girl held fast, enjoying the rapture of swift motion; for the friends had rowed in many waters and were masters of their craft.

Landing in hot haste, they bade Sylvia run on, while they paused to tie the boat and throw the sail over their load, lest it should be blown away as well as drenched.

When they turned to follow, they saw the girl running down the long slope of meadow as if excitement gave her wings. Max raced after her, but the others tramped on together, enjoying the spectacle; for few girls know how to run or dare to try; so this new Atalanta was the more charming for the spirit and speed with which she skimmed along, dropping her cloak and looking back as she ran, bent on outstripping her brother.

“A pretty piece of energy. I didn’t know the creature had so much life in her,” said Warwick, laughing as Sylvia leaped a brook at a bound and pressed up the slope beyond, like a hunted doe.

“Plenty of it; that is why she likes this wild frolic so heartily. She should have more of such wholesome excitement and less fashionable dissipation. I spoke to her father about it, and persuaded Prue to let her come,” answered Moor, eagerly watching the race.

“I thought you had been at work, or that excellent piece of propriety never would have consented.You can persuade the hardest-hearted, Geoffrey. I wish I had your talent.”

“That remains to be seen,” began Moor; then both forgot what they were saying to give a cheer as Sylvia reached the road and stood leaning on a gate-post panting, flushed, and proud, for Max had pressed her hard in spite of the advantage she had at the start.

They found themselves, a moist and mirthful company, before a red farm-house standing under venerable elms, with a patriarchal air which promised hospitable treatment and good cheer,—a promise speedily fulfilled by the lively old woman, who appeared with an energetic “Shoo!” for the speckled hens congregated in the porch, and a hearty welcome for the weather-beaten strangers.

“Sakes alive!” she exclaimed; “you be in a mess, ain’t you? Come right in and make yourselves to home. Abel, take the men-folks up chamber, and fit ’em out with anything dry you kin lay hands on. Phebe, see to this poor little creeter, and bring her down lookin’ less like a drownded kitten. Nat, clear up your wittlin’s, so ’s ’t they kin toast their feet when they come down; and, Cinthy, don’t dish up dinner jest yet.”

These directions were given with such vigorous illustration, and the old face shone with such friendly zeal, that the four submitted at once, sure that the kind soul was pleasing herself in serving them, and finding something very attractive in the place, the people, and their own position. Abel, a staid farmer of forty, obeyed his mother’s order regarding the “men-folks;” and Phebe, a buxom girl of sixteen, led Sylvia to her own room, eagerly offering her best.

As she dried and redressed herself, Sylvia made sundry discoveries, which added to the romance and the enjoyment of the adventure. A smart gown lay on the bed in the low chamber, also various decorations upon chair and table, suggesting that some festival was afoot; and a few questions elicited the facts. Grandpa had seven sons and three daughters, all living, all married, and all blessed with flocks of children. Grandpa’s birthday was always celebrated by a family gathering; but to-day, being the fiftieth anniversary of his wedding, the various households had resolved to keep it with unusual pomp; and all were coming for a supper, a dance, and a “sing” at the end. Upon receipt of which intelligence Sylvia proposed an immediate departure; but the grandmother and daughter cried out at this, pointed to the still falling rain, the lowering sky, the wet heap on the floor, and insisted on the strangers all remaining to enjoy the festival, and give an added interest by their presence.

Half promising what she wholly desired, Sylvia put on Phebe’s best blue gingham gown, for the preservation of which she added a white apron, and, completing the whole with a pair of capacious shoes, went down to find her party, and reveal the state of affairs.They were bestowed in the prim best parlor, and greeted her with a peal of laughter, for all were en costume. Abel was a stout man, and his garments hung upon Moor with a melancholy air; Max had disdained them, and with an eye to effect, laid hands on an old uniform, in which he looked like a volunteer of 1812; while Warwick’s superior height placed Abel’s wardrobe out of the question; and grandpa, taller than any of his seven goodly sons, supplied him with a sober suit,—roomy, square-flapped and venerable,—which became him, and with his beard, produced the curious effect of a youthful patriarch. To Sylvia’s relief, it was unanimously decided to remain, trusting to their own penetration to discover the most agreeable method of returning the favor; and, regarding the adventure as a welcome change, after two days’ solitude, all went out to dinner prepared to enact their parts with spirit.

The meal being despatched, Max and Warwick went to help Abel with some out-door arrangements; and, begging grandma to consider him one of her own boys, Moor tied on an apron and fell to work with Sylvia, laying the long table which was to receive the coming stores.True breeding is often as soon felt by the uncultivated as by the cultivated; and the zeal with which the strangers threw themselves into the business of the hour won the family, and placed them all in friendly relations at once. The old lady let them do what they would, admiring everything, and declaring over and over again that her new assistants “beat her boys and girls to nothin’ with their tastiness and smartness.” Sylvia trimmed the table with common flowers till it was an inviting sight before a viand appeared upon it, and hung green boughs about the room, with candles here and there to lend a festal light. Moor trundled a great cheese in from the dairy, brought milk-pans without mishap, disposed dishes, and caused Nat to cleave to him by the administration of surreptitious titbits and jocular suggestions; while Phebe tumbled about in every one’s way, quite wild with excitement; and grandma stood in her pantry like a culinary general, swaying a big knife for a bâton, as she issued orders and marshalled her forces, the busiest and merriest of them all.

When the last touch was given, Moor discarded his apron and went to join Max. Sylvia presided over Phebe’s toilet, and then sat herself down to support Nat through the trying half-hour before the party arrived.The twelve years’ boy was a cripple, one of those household blessings which, in the guise of an affliction, keep many hearts tenderly united by a common love and pity. A cheerful creature, always chirping like a cricket on the hearth, as he sat carving or turning bits of wood into useful or ornamental shapes for such as cared to buy them of him, and hoarding up the proceeds like a little miser for one more helpless than himself.

“What are these, Nat?” asked Sylvia, with the interest that always won small people, because their quick instincts felt that it was sincere.

“Them are spoons—’postle spoons, they call ’em.You see I’ve got a cousin what reads a sight, and one day he says to me, ‘Nat, in a book I see somethin’ about a set of spoons with a ’postle’s head on each of ’em; you make some and they’ll sell, I bet.’ So I got gramper’s Bible, found the picters of the ’postles, and worked and worked till I got the faces good; and now it’s fun, for they do sell, and I’m savin’ up a lot. It ain’t for me, you know, but mother, ’cause she’s wuss’n I be.”

“Is she sick, Nat?”

“Oh, ain’t she! Why she hasn’t stood up this nine year. We was smashed in a wagon that tipped over when I was three years old. It done somethin’ to my legs, but it broke her back, and made her no use, only jest to pet me, and keep us all kind of stiddy, you know. Ain’t you seen her? Don’t you want to?”

“Would she like it?”

“She admires to see folks, and asked about you at dinner; so I guess you’d better go see her. Look ahere, you like them spoons, and I’m agoin’ to give you one; I’d give you all on ’em if they wasn’t promised. I can make one more in time, so you jest take your pick, ’cause I like you, and want you not to forgit me.”

Sylvia chose Saint John, because it resembled Moor, she thought; bespoke and paid for a whole set, and privately resolved to send tools and rare woods to the little artist that he might serve his mother in his own pretty way.Then Nat took up his crutches and hopped nimbly before her to the room, where a plain, serene-faced woman lay knitting, with her best cap on, her clean handkerchief and large green fan laid out upon the coverlet. This was evidently the best room of the house; and as Sylvia sat talking to the invalid her eye discovered many traces of that refinement which comes through the affections. Nothing seemed too good for “daughter Patience;” birds, books, flowers, and pictures were plentiful here though visible nowhere else.Two easy-chairs beside the bed showed where the old folks oftenest sat; Abel’s home corner was there by the antique desk covered with farmers’ literature and samples of seeds; Phebe’s work-basket stood in the window; Nat’s lathe in the sunniest corner; and from the speckless carpet to the canary’s clear water-glass all was exquisitely neat, for love and labor were the handmaids who served the helpless woman and asked no wages but her comfort.

Sylvia amused her new friends mightily; for, finding that neither mother nor son had any complaints to make, any sympathy to ask, she exerted herself to give them what both needed, and kept them laughing by a lively recital of her voyage and its mishaps.

“Ain’t she prime, mother?” was Nat’s candid commentary when the story ended, and he emerged red and shiny from the pillows where he had burrowed with boyish explosions of delight.

“She’s very kind, dear, to amuse two stay-at-home folks like you and me, who seldom see what’s going on outside four walls.You have a merry heart, miss, and I hope will keep it all your days, for it’s a blessed thing to own.”

“I think you have something better, a contented one,” said Sylvia, as the woman regarded her with no sign of envy or regret.

“I ought to have; nine years on a body’s back can teach a sight of things that are wuth knowin’. I’ve learnt patience pretty well, I guess, and contentedness ain’t fur away; for though it sometimes seems ruther long to look forward to, perhaps nine more years layin’ here, I jest remember it might have been wuss, and if I don’t do much now there’s all eternity to come.”

Something in the woman’s manner struck Sylvia as she watched her softly beating some tune on the sheet with her quiet eyes turned toward the light. Many sermons had been less eloquent to the girl than the look, the tone, the cheerful resignation of that plain face. She stooped and kissed it, saying gently,—

“I shall remember this.”

“Hooray! there they be; I hear Ben!”

And away clattered Nat to be immediately absorbed into the embraces of a swarm of relatives who now began to arrive in a steady stream. Old and young, large and small, rich and poor, with overflowing hands or trifles humbly given, all were received alike, all hugged by grandpa, kissed by grandma, shaken half breathless by Uncle Abel, welcomed by Aunt Patience, and danced round by Phebe and Nat till the house seemed a great hive of hilarious and affectionate bees. At first the strangers stood apart, but Phebe spread their story with such complimentary additions of her own that the family circle opened wide and took them in at once.

Sylvia was enraptured with the wilderness of babies, and, leaving the others to their own devices, followed the matrons to “Patience’s room,” and gave herself up to the pleasant tyranny of the small potentates, who swarmed over her as she sat on the floor, tugging at her hair, exploring her eyes, covering her with moist kisses, and keeping up a babble of little voices more delightful to her than the discourse of the flattered mammas who benignly surveyed her admiration and their offspring’s prowess.

The young people went to romp in the barn; the men, armed with umbrellas, turned out en masse to inspect the farm and stock, and compare notes over pig-pens and garden gates. But Sylvia lingered where she was, enjoying a scene which filled her with a tender pain and pleasure; for each baby was laid on grandma’s knee, its small virtues, vices, ailments, and accomplishments rehearsed, its beauties examined, its strength tested, and the verdict of the family oracle pronounced upon it as it was cradled, kissed, and blessed on the kind old heart which had room for every care and joy of those who called her mother. It was a sight the girl never forgot, because just then she was ready to receive it. Her best lessons did not come from books, and she learned one then as she saw the fairest success of a woman’s life while watching this happy grandmother with fresh faces framing her withered one, daughterly voices chorusing good wishes, and the harvest of half a century of wedded life beautifully garnered in her arms.

The fragrance of coffee and recollections of Cynthia’s joyful aberrations at such periods caused a breaking up of the maternal conclave. The babies were borne away to simmer between blankets until called for.The women unpacked baskets, brooded over teapots, and kept up an harmonious clack as the table was spread with pyramids of cake, regiments of pies, quagmires of jelly, snow-banks of bread, and gold mines of butter; every possible article of food, from baked beans to wedding cake, finding a place on that sacrificial altar.

Fearing to be in the way, Sylvia departed to the barn, where she found her party in a chaotic Babel; for the offshoots had been as fruitful as the parent tree, and some four dozen young immortals were in full riot. The bashful roosting with the hens on remote lofts and beams; the bold flirting or playing in the full light of day; the boys whooping, the girls screaming, all effervescing as if their spirits had reached the explosive point and must find vent in noise. Max was in his element, introducing all manner of new games, the liveliest of the old, and keeping the revel at its height; for rosy, bright-eyed girls were plenty, and the ancient uniform universally approved. Warwick had a flock of lads about him absorbed in the marvels he was producing with knife, stick, and string; and Moor, a rival flock of little lasses breathless with interest in the tales he told. One on each knee, two at each side, four in a row on the hay at his feet, and the boldest of all with an arm about his neck and a curly head upon his shoulder, for Uncle Abel’s clothes seemed to invest the wearer with a passport to their confidence at once. Sylvia joined this group, and partook of a quiet entertainment with as childlike a relish as any of them, while the merry tumult went on about her.

The toot of the horn sent the whole barnful streaming into the house like a flock of hungry chickens, where, by some process known only to the mothers of large families, every one was wedged close about the table, and the feast began. This was none of your stand-up, wafery, bread-and-butter teas, but a thorough-going, sit-down supper, and all settled themselves with a smiling satisfaction, prophetic of great powers and an equal willingness to employ them. A detachment of half-grown girls was drawn up behind grandma, as waiters; Sylvia insisted on being one of them, and proved herself a neat-handed Phillis, though for a time slightly bewildered by the gastronomic performances she beheld. Babies ate pickles, small boys sequestered pie with a velocity that made her wink, women swam in the tea, and the men, metaphorically speaking, swept over the table like a swarm of locusts, while the host and hostess beamed upon one another and their robust descendants with an honest pride, which was beautiful to see.

“That Mr. Wackett ain’t eat scursely nothin’, he jest sets lookin’ round kinder ’mazed like. Do go and make him fall to on somethin’, or I sha’n’t take a mite of comfort in my vittles,” said grandma, as the girl came with an empty cup.

“He is enjoying it with all his heart and eyes, ma’am, for we don’t see such fine spectacles every day. I’ll take him something that he likes and make him eat it.”

“Sakes alive! be you to be Mis’ Wackett? I’d no idee of it, you look so young.”

“Nor I; we are only friends, ma’am.”

“Oh!” and the monosyllable was immensely expressive, as the old lady confided a knowing nod to the teapot, into whose depths she was just then peering. Sylvia walked away wondering why persons were always thinking and saying such things.

As she paused behind Warwick’s chair with a glass of new milk and a round of brown bread, he looked up at her with his blandest expression, though a touch of something like regret was in his voice.

“This is a sight worth living eighty hard years to see, and I envy that old couple as I never envied any one before.To rear ten virtuous children, put ten useful men and women into the world, and give them health and courage to work out their own salvation as these honest souls will do, is a better job done for the Lord, than winning a battle or ruling a State. Here is all honor to them. Drink it with me.”

He put the glass to her lips, drank what she left, and, rising, placed her in his seat with the decisive air which few resisted.

“You take no thought for yourself and are doing too much; sit here a little, and let me take a few steps where you have taken many.”

He served her, and, standing at her back, bent now and then to speak, still with that softened look upon the face so seldom stirred by the gentler emotions that lay far down in that deep heart of his.

All things must have an end, even a family feast, and by the time the last boy’s buttons peremptorily announced, “Thus far shalt thou go and no farther,” all professed themselves satisfied, and a general uprising took place.The surplus population were herded in parlor and chambers, while a few energetic hands cleared away, and with much clattering of dishes and wafting of towels, left grandma’s clean premises as immaculate as ever. It was dark when all was done, so the kitchen was cleared, the candles lighted, Patience’s door set open, and little Nat established in an impromptu orchestra, composed of a table and a chair, whence the first squeak of his fiddle proclaimed that the ball had begun.

Everybody danced; the babies, stacked on Patience’s bed or penned behind chairs, sprawled and pranced in unsteady mimicry of their elders. Ungainly farmers, stiff with labor, recalled their early days, and tramped briskly as they swung their wives about with a kindly pressure of the hard hands that had worked so long together. Little pairs toddled gravely through the figures, or frisked promiscuously in a grand conglomeration of arms and legs. Gallant cousins kissed pretty cousins at exciting periods, and were not rebuked. Max wrought several of these incipient lovers to a pitch of despair, by his devotion to the comeliest damsels, and the skill with which he executed unheard-of evolutions before their admiring eyes. Moor led out the poorest and the plainest with a respect that caused their homely faces to shine, and their scant skirts to be forgotten. Warwick skimmed his five years’ partner through the air in a way that rendered her speechless with delight; and Sylvia danced as she never danced before.With sticky-fingered boys, sleepy with repletion, but bound to last it out; with rough-faced men who paid her paternal compliments; with smart youths who turned sheepish with that white lady’s hand in their big brown ones, and one ambitious lad who confided to her his burning desire to work a sawmill, and marry a girl with black eyes and yellow hair. While, perched aloft, Nat bowed away till his pale face glowed, till all hearts warmed, all feet beat responsive to the good old tunes which have put so much health into human bodies, and so much happiness into human souls.

At the stroke of nine the last dance came. All down the long kitchen stretched two breathless rows; grandpa and grandma at the top, the youngest pair of grandchildren at the bottom, and all between fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, and cousins, while such of the babies as were still extant bobbed with unabated vigor, as Nat struck up the Virginia Reel, and the sturdy old couple led off as gallantly as the young one who came tearing up to meet them. Away they went, grandpa’s white hair flying in the wind, grandma’s impressive cap awry with excitement, as they ambled down the middle, and finished with a kiss when their tuneful journey was done, amid immense applause from those who regarded this as the crowning event of the day.

When all had had their turn, and twirled till they were dizzy, a short lull took place, with refreshments for such as still possessed the power of enjoying them. Then Phebe appeared with an armful of books, and all settled themselves for the family “sing.”

Sylvia had heard much fine music, but never any that touched her like this, for, though often discordant, it was hearty, with that undercurrent of feeling which adds sweetness to the rudest lay, and is often more attractive than the most florid ornament or faultless execution. Every one sang as every one had danced, with all their might; shrill children, soft-voiced girls, lullaby-singing mothers, gruff boys, and strong-lunged men; the old pair quavered, and still a few indefatigable babies crowed behind their little coops. Songs, ballads, comic airs, popular melodies, and hymns came in rapid succession. And when they ended with that song which should be classed with sacred music for association’s sake, and, standing hand in hand about the room with the golden bride and bride-groom in their midst, sang “Home,” Sylvia leaned against her brother with dim eyes and a heart too full to sing.

Still standing thus when the last note had soared up and died, the old man folded his hands and began to pray. It was an old-fashioned prayer, such as the girl had never heard from the Bishop’s lips; ungrammatical, inelegant, and long. A quiet talk with God, manly in its straightforward confession of short-comings, childlike in its appeal for guidance, fervent in its gratitude for all good gifts, and the crowning one of loving children. As if close intercourse had made the two familiar, this human father turned to the Divine, as these sons and daughters turned to him, as free to ask, as confident of a reply, as all afflictions, blessings, cares, and crosses were laid down before him, and the work of eighty years submitted to his hand.There were no sounds in the room but the one voice often tremulous with emotion and with age, the coo of some dreaming baby, or the low sob of some mother whose arms were empty, as the old man stood there, rugged and white atop as the granite hills, with the old wife at his side, a circle of sons and daughters girdling them round, and in all hearts the thought that as the former wedding had been made for time, this golden one at eighty must be for eternity.

While Sylvia looked and listened, a sense of genuine devotion stole over her; the beauty and the worth of prayer grew clear to her through the earnest speech of that unlettered man, and for the first time she fully felt the nearness and the dearness of the Universal Father, whom she had been taught to fear, yet longed to love.

“Now, my children, you must go before the little folks are tuckered out,” said Grandpa heartily. “Mother and me can’t say enough to thank you for the presents you have fetched us, the dutiful wishes you have give us, the pride and comfort you have alers ben toe us. I ain’t no hand at speeches, so I sha’n’t make none, but jest say ef any ’fliction falls on any on you, remember mother’s here toe help you bear it; ef any worldly loss comes toe you, remember father’s house is yourn while it stans, and so the Lord bless and keep us all.”

“Three cheers for gramper and grammer!” roared a six-foot scion as a safety-valve for sundry unmasculine emotions, and three rousing hurras made the rafters ring, struck terror to the heart of the oldest inhabitant of the rat-haunted garret, and summarily woke all the babies.

Then the good-byes began; the flurry of wrong baskets, pails and bundles in wrong places; the sorting out of small folk too sleepy to know or care what became of them; the maternal cluckings and paternal shouts for Kitty, Cy, Ben, Bill, or Mary Ann; the piling into vehicles with much ramping of indignant horses unused to such late hours; the last farewells, the roll of wheels, as one by one the happy loads departed, and peace fell upon the household for another year.

“I declare for’t, I never had sech an out an’ out good time sense I was born into the world. A’bram, you are fit to drop, and so be I; now let’s set and talk it over along of Patience ’fore we go to bed.”

The old couple got into their chairs, and as they sat there side by side, remembering that she had given no gift, Sylvia crept behind them, and, lending the magic of her voice to the simple air, sang the fittest song for time and place,—“John Anderson, my Jo.” It was too much for grandma, the old heart overflowed, and reckless of the cherished cap she laid her head on her “John’s” shoulder, exclaiming through her tears,—

“That’s the cap sheaf of the hull, and I can’t bear no more to-night. A’bram, lend me your hankchif, for I dunno where mine is, and my face is all of a drip.”

Before the red bandanna in grandpa’s hand had gently performed its work, Sylvia slipped away to share Phebe’s bed in the old garret; lying long awake, full of new and happy thoughts, and lulled to sleep at last by the pleasant patter of the rain upon the roof.

CHAPTER VIII

Sermons

The summer shower was over long before dawn, and the sun rose, giving promise of a sultry day. It was difficult to get away, for the good people found their humdrum life much enlivened by these pleasant guests. The old lady consoled herself by putting up a sumptuous lunch from the relics of the feast; the grateful wanderers left their more solid thanks in Nat’s pocket, and departed with friendliest farewells.

It was Sunday, and the chime of distant church bells tolled them sweetly down the river, till the heat drove them to the refreshing shade of three great oaks in a meadow where a spring bubbled up among the gnarled roots of one tree to overflow its mossy basin, and steal into the brook babbling through the grass.

Here they lunched, and rested, the young men going off to bathe, and Sylvia falling asleep among the ferns that fringed the old oak like elves dancing round a giant. A delicious hour for her, so still, so green, so grateful was all about her, so peaceful her own spirit, so dreamless her tranquil slumber. Nature seemed to have taken her restless little child to her beneficent bosom, and blessed her with the sleep which comforts mind and body.

So Warwick thought, coming upon her unaware as he paused to drink, and a soft gust parted the tall ferns that waved above her. She looked so young, so peaceful, and so happy on her green couch, with the light shadows flickering on her face, her head pillowed on her arms, ease, grace, and the loveliness of youth in every limb and outline, that Warwick could not resist the desire to linger for a moment.

Max would have seen a pretty picture; Moor, the creature whom he loved; Adam seemed to see not only what she was, but what she might be. Some faces are blank masks when asleep, some betray the lower nature painfully, others seem to grow almost transparent and let the soul shine through. This comes oftenest when suffering has refined the flesh, or death touched it with the brief beauty that writes the story of a lifetime on perishable clay before it crumbles into dust. In certain high and happy moods unconsciousness brings out harmonious lines, soft tints, and ennobles a familiar face till we feel that we see the true self, and recognize the soul we love.

It seemed so then; and as he leaned against the oak, listening to the music of the brook and looking down at the winsome figure at his feet, Warwick found himself shaping the life and character of the woman still folded up in the girl, and shaping it to fit an ideal he had made and cherished, yet never met. An heroic creature, strong and sweet, aspiring as a flame, and true as steel. Not an impossible woman, but a rare one; and the charm Sylvia had for him was a suggestion of this possibility when time had taught and discipline tamed the wildness that was akin to his own.

He let his daring fancy paint her as she would be ten years hence, himself her lover, and the life they might lead together, as free as his was now, but happier for the inspiration of such sweet and helpful comradeship.

He had forgotten Sylvia, and was just entering a new world with the noble mate he had evoked from his own ardent and powerful imagination, when Moor’s distant voice startled him, and, as if unready to be seen in that soft mood, he swung himself up into the tree, rapidly disappearing in the green wilderness above.

The same sound roused Sylvia, and made her hasten to bathe her face with cool drops caught in her hands, to rebraid her long hair, and re-trim her dress with knots of wild-flowers at throat and belt; then, her rustic toilet made, she stepped out of her nest, rosy, fresh, and sunny as a little child just waking from its nap.

Fancying a green band for her head, she strolled away to the river-side where the rushes grew, and took her little Bible with her, remembering the commands pious Prue laid upon her “not to be quite a heathen while she was gone.”

She lingered for half an hour, feeling unusually devout in that tranquil spot, with no best clothes to disturb her thoughts, no over-fussy sister to vex her spirit, no neglected duties or broken resolutions to make church-going a penitential period of remorse. When she returned to the oaks she found the three friends discussing religion as young men seldom fail to do in these days of speculation and spiritual discontent. She modestly hovered at a distance till a pause came, then approached, asking meekly,—

“Please, could I come to church if I sit very still?”

“Come on,” said Max, from the grass where he was lying.

Moor sprang up to offer her the rug with an air of welcome which she could not doubt, and Warwick nodded with a somewhat belligerent expression, as if suddenly checked in some verbal tournament.

“Prue said if we stayed over Sunday I must go to church, and I have done my best,” said Sylvia, glancing at the little book in her hand. “Now, if Mr. Moor or Mr. Warwick would give us a sermon, Max and I can say we obeyed her.”

“Come, Geoffrey, your memory is full of good and pious poetry; give us something new and true.We need n’t sing it, but it may suggest a sermon, and that is more in Adam’s line than yours,” added Max, ready to while away another hour till the afternoon grew cooler.

Moor thought a moment, and then, as if their conversation suggested it, repeated one of Herbert’s quaint old hymns.

“Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us: then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,

 

“Pulpits and Sundayes, sorrow dogging sinne,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in;
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises;

 

“Blessings beforehand, tyes of gratefulnesse;
The sound of glorie ringing in our eares;
Without, our shame; within, our consciences;
Angels and grace, eternall hopes and feares.

 

“Yet all these fences and their whole array,
One cunning bosome-sin blows quite away.”

“There is your text, Adam, take it and hold forth; you were born for a field preacher and have missed your vocation. I wish you would turn minister and beat the dust out of some of the old pulpit cushions, for we need a livelier theology than most of us get nowadays,” said Max, as Moor paused and Sylvia looked as if the hymn pleased her much.

“If I did stray into a pulpit you would get the gospel undiluted, and sins of all sorts would fare hardly, for I would cry aloud and spare not.”

“Try it now; it will be immensely amusing to be raked fore and aft while lounging here as if we were getting to heaven ‘on flowery beds of ease.’ Begin with me. I’m fair game, and furnish material for a dozen sermons on a dozen sins,” laughed Max, hoping to draw his friend out and astonish his sister.

“Good! I will.” And Warwick looked as if belaboring frail humanity was a task he relished.

“Your bosom sin is indolence of soul and body, heart and mind. Fortune has been your bane, liberty ill used, life your plaything, not your lesson; for you have not learned how to use either fortune, liberty, or life. Pride is your only energy; patience simple endurance of whatever you have not courage to overcome; ambition a vacillating desire for success which every failure lessens, and the aim of existence is to be carried painlessly through a world waiting for every man to help on its salvation by making his own life a victory, not a defeat. Shall I go on?”

“Fire away; every shot tells. It is rather sharp rifle-practice while it lasts, but the target is the better for it, I dare say.”

Max spoke gayly and still lounged on the grass; but Sylvia knew, by the gesture that half averted his face, and the interest with which he punched holes in the turf, that it was rather hard upon one more used to praise than blame.Warwick knew it also, and there was a perceptible softening of the ruthless voice as he went on.

“You need a purpose, Max, an object beyond your own satisfaction or success. This would show you what good gifts you now neglect, teach you their uses, and prove to you that the best culture lies in perfecting these tools for the education of yourself and others. Adversity may spur you into action, love may supply a noble motive, or experience make you what you should be,—a man with a work and a will to do it.You owe this to your father, and I believe the debt will be honestly paid.”

“It shall be!” And Max sat up with a sudden energy pleasant to behold. Resolution, regret, and affection made his usually listless face manly and serious as well as tender, for that allusion to his father touched him, and the thought of Jessie lightened a task he knew would be a very hard one.

Always quick to spare others embarrassment or pain, Moor said pleasantly, “Now take the next member of your flock, and do not spare him, Adam.”

Warwick looked as if he would rather let this sheep go, but, loving justice as well as truth, he hardened his heart and spoke out.

“You are enamored of self-sacrifice, Geoffrey, and if you lived in monkish times would wear a spiked girdle or haircloth shirt, lest you should be too comfortable. Unlike Max, you polish your tools carefully and are skilful in handling them, but you use them entirely for others, forgetting that we owe a good deal to ourselves.You have made a small circle your world, and lived in the affections too much.You need a larger life and more brain-work to keep you from growing narrow or weak. One sacrifice beautifully and faithfully made must have its reward. For years you have lived for others, now learn to live a little for yourself, heartily and happily, else the feminine in you will get the uppermost.”

“Thank you, I will as soon as possible.” And Moor gave Warwick a look which was both grateful and glad, since the friendly advice confirmed a cherished purpose of his own.

“Lost lamb, come into the fold and be shorn!” called Max, enjoying Sylvia’s face, which wore an expression of mingled interest, amusement, and trepidation. With a start she gathered herself up, and went to sit on a little stone before the censor, folding her hands and meekly asking,—

“What must I do?”

“Forget yourself.”

Sylvia colored to her brow, but answered bravely,—

“Show me how.”

“My panacea for most troubles is work. Try it, and I think you will find that it will promote that healthfulness of spirit which is the life of life. Don’t let fogs hide your sunshine; don’t worry your young wits with metaphysics, or let romantic dreams take the charm from the wholesome, homely realities, without which we cannot live sanely and safely. Get out of yourself awhile, and when you go back you will find, I hope, a happy soul in a healthy body, and be what God intended you to be, a brave and noble woman.”

Warwick saw the girl’s color rise, her eyes fall, and in her face a full acknowledgment of the veracity of both censure and commendation. That satisfied him, and before she could speak he turned on Max, saying with a sudden change from gentle gravity to the satirical tone more habitual to him,—

“Now you will say, ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ and ask for my chief sin. I’ll give you a sample of it.”

Then, looking very much like a war-horse when trumpets blow, he launched into a half-earnest, half-humorous philippic against falsehood everywhere, giving to his vigorous speech the aids of satire, sense, and an unusually varied experience for one of his age. Max sat up and applauded, Moor listened with delight, and Sylvia felt as if the end of all things was at hand. Such an audacious onslaught upon established customs, creeds, and constitutions, she had never heard before; for, as Warwick charged, down went the stern religion that preaches heaven for the saint and hell for the sinner, the base legislation which decrees liberty to the white and slavery to the black, the false public opinion that grants all suffrages to man and none to woman yet judges both alike,—all knavery in high places, all gilded shams, all dead beliefs,—and up went the white banner of infinite justice, truth, and love. It was a fight well fought but not wholly won; for in spite of sagacity, eloquence, and zeal, Warwick’s besetting sin was indomitable, and those who listened, while they owned the sincerity, felt the power, admired the enthusiasm, saw that this valiant St. George rode without a Una, and in executing justice forgot mercy, like many another young crusader who, in his ardor to set up the New Jerusalem, breaks the commandments of the Divine Reformer who immortalized the old.

When at last he reined himself in, looking ready for another breakage of idols at the slightest provocation, Max said with a waggish glance at his sister,—

“You seem to be holding on to that stone as if you thought the foundations of the earth were giving way. How do you like your sermon, Sylvia?”

“Very much, what I understand of it; but I do feel as if there had been an earthquake, and it will take me some time to get settled again. It is a little startling to have all the props one has been taught to lean upon knocked away at once, and be left to walk alone without quite knowing where the road ends.”

Max laughed; Moor looked as if she had exactly expressed the feeling most persons felt after one of Adam’s “upheavals,” as his friend called them; but Warwick said, with his decided nod, as if well pleased,—

“That is just as it should be. I’m a pioneer, and love to plough in any soil, no matter how sandy or rough it may be.The sower comes after me, and if the harvest is a good one, I am satisfied to do the hard work without wages.”

He certainly received them this time, for Sylvia looked up at him as he rose, evidently tired of longer repose, and said, with the sweetest confidence and gratitude in her face,—

“Let me thank you for this and many other lessons which will set me thinking, and help me to be what you so kindly hope. I shall not forget them, and trust they have not fallen on a barren soil.”

It was not a child’s face that Warwick saw then, but a woman’s, earnest, humble, and lovely with the awakening of an innocent, aspiring soul. Involuntarily he took his hat off, with a look both reverent and soft.

“A virgin soil is always the richest, and I have no fear that the harvest will fail. Heaven send you sun and rain, and a wise husbandman to help you gather it in.”

Then he went away to get the boat ready for the evening sail. Max went off to a farm-house for milk, and Moor and Sylvia were left alone.

Touched to the heart by the blessing that came with redoubled power from lips so lately full of denunciation, the girl still sat upon her little stone, seemingly wrapped in thoughts that both excited and troubled her, for presently she sighed.

Moor, who lay reading in the grass, stealing a glance at his companion now and then, was glad of an opportunity to speak, and, sitting up, asked in his friendly voice,—

“Has all this talk tired you?”

“No, it has stirred me up and made me feel as if I must lay hold of something at once, or drift away I don’t know where. Mr. Warwick has pulled my world to pieces, but has given me no other, and I don’t know where to look. His philosophy is too large for me, I get lost in it, and though I admire I cannot manage it yet, and so feel bewildered.” Sylvia spoke out as if the thoughts in her mind must find a vent at any cost, and to no one could she so freely utter them as to this friend who was always kind and patient with her moods.

“You must not let Adam’s thunder and lightning disturb you. We have seen the world through his glass, which, though a powerful one, is not always well regulated, so we get a magnified view of things. He is a self-reliant genius, intent on his own aims, which, fortunately, are high ones, for he would go vigorously wrong if it were not for the native integrity which keeps him vigorously right. He has his work to do, and will do it manfully when he gets through the ‘storm and stress period’ of which I told you.”

“I like it because I think I am in a little period of my own. If I dared, I should like to ask you how best to get out of it.”

“You may ask anything of me!”

Sylvia spoke hesitatingly, but Moor’s eager answer made it easy to go on, it was so clear that these confidences were acceptable; she little knew how much so.

“Do you believe in sudden conversions?” she asked presently.

“Yes; for often what seems sudden is only the flowering of some secret growth, unsuspected till the heat of pain or passion calls it out. We feel the need of help that nothing human can give us, instinctively ask it of a higher power, and, receiving it in marvelous ways, gratefully and devoutly say, ‘I believe.’ ”

“That time has not come to me.” Then, as if a wave of feeling too strong to be repressed rolled up and broke into words, Sylvia rapidly went on:“I know that I need something to lean upon, believe in, and love; for I am not steadfast, and every wind blows me about. I try to find the help I want. I look into people’s faces, watch their lives, and endeavor to imitate all that I admire and respect. I read the best and wisest books I can find, and tire my weak wits trying to understand them. I pray prayers, sing hymns, and go to church, hoping to find the piety which makes life good and happy. I ask all whom I dare to help me, yet I am not helped. My father says, ‘Keep happy, dear, and no fear but you will get to heaven.’ Prue says, ‘Read your Bible and talk to the Bishop.’ Max laughs, and tells me to fall in love if I desire beatitude. Every one assures me that religion is a blessed thing and salvation impossible without it, yet no one gives me a simple sustaining faith to love, to lean on, and live by. So I stumble to and fro, longing, hoping, looking for the way to go, yet never finding it, for I have no mother to take me in her arms and show me God.”

With the last words Sylvia’s voice broke, and she spread her hands before her face; not weeping, but overcome by an emotion too deep for tears.

Moor had seen many forms of sorrow, but never one that touched him more than this motherless girl hiding a spiritual sorrow on the bosom of a rock. Sylvia had ceased to seem a child, and this was no childish grief to be comforted with a kind word. She was a woman to him, dearer and deeper-hearted than she knew, yet he would not take advantage of this tender moment and offer her a human love when she asked for the divine. His own religion was that simplest, perhaps truest type, which is lived, not spoken; an inborn love of godliness, a natural faith, unquestioning, unshakable by the trials and temptations of life. But this piety, though all pervading and all sustaining as the air, was as hard to grasp and give to another. It was no easy task for one humble in his own conceit, a young man and a lover, to answer such an appeal, the harder for the unspoken confidence in him which it confessed. A wise book lay upon his knee, a good book had slipped to Sylvia’s feet, and, glancing about him for inspiration in that eloquent pause, he found it there. Never had his voice sounded so sweet and comfortable as now.

“Dear Sylvia, I understand your trouble and long to cure it as wisely and tenderly as I ought. I can only tell you where I have found a cure for doubt, despondency, and grief. God and Nature are the true helper and comforter for all of us. Do not tire yourself with books, creeds, and speculations; let them wait, and believe that simply wishing and trying to be good is piety, for faith and endeavor are the wings that carry souls to heaven.Take Nature for your friend and teacher.You love and feel near to her already; you will find her always just and genial, patient and wise. Watch the harmonious laws that rule her, imitate her industry, her sweet sanity; and soon I think you will find that this benignant mother will take you in her arms and show you God.”

Without another word Moor rose, laid his hand an instant on the girl’s bent head in the first caress he had ever dared to give her, and went away leaving her to the soothing ministrations of the comforter he had suggested.

When they all met at supper Sylvia’s face was as serene and lovely as the sky “clear shining after rain,” though she said little and seemed shy of her older comrades; both of whom were unusually thoughtful of her, as if they felt some fear that in handling this young soul they might have harmed it, as even the most careful touch destroys the delicate down on the wing of the butterfly, that is its symbol.

They embarked at sunset, as the tide against which they had pulled in coming up would soon sweep them rapidly along and make it easy to retrace in a few hours the way they had loitered over for days.

All night Sylvia lay under the canopy of boughs Moor made to shield her from the dew, listening to the soft sounds about her; the twitter of a restless bird, the bleat of some belated lamb, the ripple of a brook babbling like a baby in its sleep, the fitful murmur of voices mingling with the plash of water as sail or oar drove them on. All night she watched the changing shores, silvery green or dark with slumberous shadow, and followed the moon in its tranquil journey through the sky. When it set, she drew her cloak about her, and, pillowing her head upon the sweet fern Warwick piled for her, exchanged the waking for a sleeping dream as beautiful and happy.

A thick mist encompassed her when she awoke. Above the sun shone dimly, below rose and fell the unquiet tide, before her sounded the city’s hum, and far behind lay the green wilderness where she had lived and learned so much. Slowly the fog lifted, the sun came dazzling down upon the sea, and out into the open bay they sailed with the blue pennon streaming in the morning wind. But still with backward gaze the girl watched the misty wall that lay between her and that charmed river, and still with wondering heart confessed how sweet that brief experience had been; for, though she had not yet discovered it, like the fairy Lady of Shalott,

“She had left the web and left the loom,
Had seen the water-lilies bloom,
Had seen the helmet and the plume,
And had looked down to Camelot.”

CHAPTER IX

Why Sylvia Was Happy

“I never did understand you, Sylvia; and this last mouth you have been a perfect enigma to me.”

With rocking-chair in full action, suspended needle, and thoughtful expression, Miss Yule had watched her sister for ten minutes as she sat with her work at her feet, her hands folded on her lap, and her eyes dreamily fixed on vacancy.

“I always was to myself, Prue, and am more so than ever now,” answered Sylvia, waking out of her reverie with a smile that proved it had been a pleasant one.

“There must be some reason for this great change in you. Come, tell me, dear.”

With a motherly gesture Miss Yule drew the girl to her knee, brushed back the bright hair, and looked into the face so freely turned to hers. Through all the years they had been together, the elder sister had never seen before the expression which the younger’s face now wore. A vague expectancy sat in her eyes, some nameless content sweetened her smile, a beautiful repose replaced the varying enthusiasm, listlessness, and melancholy that used to haunt her countenance and make it such a study. Miss Yule could not read the secret of the change, yet felt its novel charm; Sylvia could not explain it, though penetrated by its power: and for a moment the sisters looked into each other’s faces, wondering why each seemed altered. Then Prue, who never wasted much time in speculations of any kind, shook her head, and repeated,—

“I don’t understand it, but it must be right, because you are so improved in every way. Ever since that wild trip up the river you have been growing quiet, lovable, and cheerful, and I really begin to hope that you will become like other people.”

“I only know that I am happy, Prue. Why it is so I cannot tell; but now I seldom have the old dissatisfied and restless feeling. Everything looks pleasant to me, every one seems kind, and life begins to be both sweet and earnest. It is only one of my moods, I suppose; but I am grateful for it, and pray that it may last.”

So earnestly she spoke, so cheerfully she smiled, that Miss Yule blessed the mood and echoed Sylvia’s wish, exclaiming in the next breath, with a sudden inspiration,—

“My dear, I’ve got it! You are growing up.”

“I think I am. You tried to make a woman of me at sixteen, but it was impossible until the right time came. That wild trip up the river, as you call it, did more for me than I can ever tell, and when I seemed most like a child I was learning to be a woman.”

“Well, my dear, go on as you’ve begun, and I shall be more than satisfied. What merry-making is on foot to-night? Max and these friends of his keep you in constant motion with their riding, rowing, and rambling excursions, and if it did not agree with you so excellently, I really should like a little quiet after a month of bustle.”

“They are only coming up as usual, and that reminds me that I must go and dress.”

“There is another new change, Sylvia.You never used to care what you wore or how you looked, no matter how much time and trouble I expended on you and your wardrobe. Now you do care, and it does my heart good to see you always charmingly dressed, and looking your prettiest,” said Miss Yule, with the satisfaction of a woman who heartily believed in costume as well as all the other elegances and proprieties of fashionable life.

“Am I ever that, Prue?” asked Sylvia, pausing on the threshold with a shy yet wistful glance.

“Ever what, dear?”

“Pretty?”

“Always so to me; and now I think every one finds you very attractive because you try to please, and seem to succeed delightfully.”

Sylvia had never asked that question before, had never seemed to know or care, and could not have chosen a more auspicious moment for her frank inquiry than the present.The answer seemed to satisfy her, and, smiling at some blithe anticipation of her own, she went away to make a lampless toilet in the dusk, which proved how slight a hold the feminine passion for making one’s self pretty had yet taken upon her.

The September moon was up and shining clearly over garden, lawn, and sea, when the sound of voices called her down. At the stair-foot she paused with a disappointed air, for only one hat lay on the hall table, and a glance showed her only one guest with Max and Prue. She strolled irresolutely through the breezy hall, looked out at either open door, sung a little to herself, but broke off in the middle of a line, and, as if following a sudden impulse, went out into the mellow moonlight, forgetful of uncovered head or dewy damage to the white hem of her gown. Halfway down the avenue she paused before a shady nook, and looked in. The evergreens that enclosed it made the seat doubly dark to eyes inured to the outer light, and, seeing a familiar seeming figure sitting with its head upon its hand, Sylvia leaned in, saying, with a daughterly caress,—

“Why, what is my romantic father doing here?”

The sense of touch was quicker than that of sight, and with an exclamation of surprise she had drawn back before Warwick replied,—

“It is not the old man, but the young one, who is romancing here.”

“I beg your pardon! We have been waiting for you; what were you thinking of that you forgot us all?”

Sylvia was a little startled, else she would scarcely have asked so plain a question. But Warwick often asked much blunter ones, always told the naked truth without prevarication or delay, and straightway answered,—

“The sweetest woman I ever met,” then checked himself and said more quietly, as if to turn the conversation, “This moonlight recalls our voyage up the river and our various adventures.”

“Ah, that happy voyage! I wish it had been longer,” answered Sylvia in a tone of such intense regret it was plain she had forgotten nothing.“It is too lovely to go in just yet; come and walk, and talk a little of that pleasant time.”

She beckoned as she spoke, and he came out of the shadow wearing a look she had never seen before. His face was flushed, his eye unquiet, his manner eager yet restrained. She had seen him intellectually excited, but never emotionally till now. Something wayward yet warm in this new mood attracted her because so like her own. But with a tact as native as her sympathy, she showed no sign of observing this change, and, fancying some memory or care oppressed him, tried to cheer him by speaking of the holiday he had recalled.

“What did you enjoy most in those four days?” she asked, as they paced slowly up the avenue side by side.

He longed to answer “Our walk together,” for that little journey hand in hand seemed very precious to him now, and it was with difficulty he refrained from telling her how beautiful it would be to have that slender figure always walking with him on the longer pilgrimage which of late looked lonely and uninviting. But he folded his arms, averted his eyes, and said briefly,—

“All was pleasant; perhaps the Golden Wedding most so.”

“Yes, that did me so much good. I never shall forget it. I think that voyage was the happiest time I ever knew. I seemed to learn more in those few days than in years at home, and all my lessons were helpful ones, for which I shall be better and happier, I am sure.”

She spoke earnestly, still looking up, and the moonlight showed how grateful, how perilously sweet and candid, the young face was. Warwick saw it with a quick glance, and said within himself, “I too learned a lesson; better I may be, but not happier.” Then aloud, and with a laugh that did not ring quite true,—

“I see my sermon was laid to heart, harsh as it seemed when preached. Some of the melancholy moods were left behind, I think, and brighter ones brought home, if we may judge from the metamorphosis of the dripping Undine I first met to the happy girl who now makes sunshine for us all.”

“Yes; I feel as if I found my soul there in the woods, and learned how to keep it in better order than when I half longed to have the sea rid me of the care of such a restless, troublesome guest.”

“You found a soul, and I lost a heart,” thought Warwick, still carrying on that double conversation; for even love could not subdue the sense of humor which made much sentiment impossible. Aloud he added, more genially,—

“I often make these excursions into the wilderness when civilization tires or troubles me, and always find medicine for my impatient spirit in the quiet, freedom, and good company waiting for me there. Try it again when other things fail, and so keep serene and happy as now.”

“I will. Mr. Moor told me the same, and I like the prescription, for the desire of my life is to be as sunshiny, wise, and excellent as he is.”

“You could not have a better model or set your life to finer music than he does. Have you ever read his poetry?”

Warwick spoke heartily now, and seemed glad to slip away from a subject too interesting to be quite safe for him.

“No. Max said he wrote, and I hope I shall see it some time when he thinks I am worthy of the honor. Do you make poems also?” asked Sylvia, as if any feat were possible to this new friend of hers.

“Never! An essay now and then, but pen work is not in my line. First live, then write. I have not time to let fancy play, when hard facts keep me busy.”

“When you do write, I think it will be very interesting to read what you have lived. Max says you have been visiting prisons all over the world, and trying to make them better.That is a brave, good thing to do. I wish I were old and wise enough to help,” said Sylvia, with such respect and admiration in face and voice that Warwick found it impossible to restrain a fervent—

“I wish you were!” adding more calmly, “I love liberty so much myself, that my sympathy naturally turns to those deprived of it.Yet the saddest prisoners I find are not in cells, and they are the hardest to help.”

“You mean those bound by sins and sorrows, temperaments and temptations?”

“Yes, and another class tied by prejudices, creeds, and customs. Even duties and principles make slaves of us sometimes, and we find the captivity very hard to bear.”

“I cannot imagine you bound by anything. I often envy you your splendid freedom.”

“I am bound this moment by honor, and I long to break loose!”

The words broke from Adam against his will, and startled Sylvia by their passionate energy.

“Can I help you? The mouse helped the lion, you remember?”

She spoke without fear, for with Warwick she always felt the sort of freedom one feels with those who are entirely sincere and natural, sure of being understood, and one’s sympathy received as frankly as it is offered.

“Dear mouse, you cannot! This net is too strong, and the lion must stay bound till time or a happy fortune sets him free. Let us go in.”

The sudden change from the almost tender gratitude of the first words to the stern brevity of the last ones perplexed Sylvia more than any of the varying moods she had seen that night, and with a sudden sense of some dangerous electricity in the mental atmosphere, she hastened up the steps before which Warwick had abruptly halted.

Pausing on the upper stair to gather a day-lily from the urn that stood there, she looked back an instant before she vanished, and he seemed to see again the Juliet he so well remembered leaning to her lover bathed in the magic moonlight of the wood.

“That did the mischief; till then I thought her a child. The romance of that scene took me unawares, and all that followed helped the sweet poison work. A midsummer night’s dream which I shall not soon forget.”

With a long breath of the cool air, an impatient sigh at his own weakness, and a half-angry tug at his brown beard, Warwick went to the drawing-room looking very like the captive lion Sylvia had spoken of.

She was not there, and he fell upon the first trifling task he found, as if “in work was salvation, in idleness alone perpetual despair.”

Sylvia soon appeared with the basket of Berlin wools she had promised to wind for her sister.

“What have you been doing to give yourself such an uplifted expression?” said Max, as she came in.

“Feasting my eyes on lovely colors. Does not that look like a folded rainbow?” she answered, laying her brilliant burden on the table where Warwick sat examining a broken reel, and Prue was absorbed in getting a carriage blanket under way.

“Come, Sylvia, I shall soon be ready for the first shade,” she said, clashing her formidable needles. “Is that past mending, Mr. Warwick?”

“Yes, without better tools than a knife, two pins, and a bodkin.”

“Then you must put the skeins on a chair, Sylvia. Try not to tangle them, and spread your handkerchief in your lap, for that maroon shade will stain sadly. Now don’t speak to me, for I must count my stitches.”

Sylvia began to wind the wools with a swift dexterity as natural to her hands as certain little graces of gesture which made their motions pleasant to watch. Warwick never rummaged work-baskets, gossiped, or paid compliments for want of something to do. If no little task appeared for them, he kept his hands out of mischief, and if nothing occurred to make words agreeable or necessary, he proved that he understood the art of silence, and sat with those vigilant eyes of his fixed upon whatever object attracted them. Just then the object was a bright band slipping round the chair-back, with a rapidity that soon produced a snarl, but no help till patient fingers had smoothed and wound it up. Then, with the look of one who says to himself, “I will!” he turned, planted himself squarely before Sylvia, and held out his hands.

“Here is a reel that will neither tangle nor break your skeins; will you use it?”

“Yes, thank you, and in return I’ll wind your color first.”

“Which is my color?”

“This fine scarlet, strong, enduring, and martial, like yourself.”

“You are right.”

“I thought so; Mr. Moor prefers blue, and I violet.”

“Blue and red make violet,” called Max from his corner, catching the word “color,” though busy with a sketch for Jessie Hope.

Moor was with Mr.Yule in his study, Prue mentally wrapped in her blanket, and when Sylvia was drawn into an artistic controversy with her brother,Warwick fell into deep thought.

He had learned many lessons in his adventurous life, and learned them well, but never the one that now had in truth taken him unaware, roused a passion stronger than his own strong will, and in a month taught him the mystery and the might of love.

He tried to disbelieve and silence it; attacked it with reason, starved it with neglect, and chilled it with contempt. But when he fancied it was dead, the longing rose again, and, with a clamorous cry, undid his work. For the first time this free spirit felt the master’s hand, confessed a need its own power could not supply, and saw that no man can live alone, on even the highest aspirations, without suffering for the vital warmth of the affections. A month ago he would have disdained the sentiment that now was so dear to him. But imperceptibly the influences of domestic life had tamed and won him. Solitude looked barren, vagrancy had lost its charm; his life seemed cold and bare, for, though devoted to noble aims, it was wanting in the social sacrifices, cares, and joys that foster charity and sweeten character. An impetuous desire to enjoy the rich experience which did so much for others came over him to-night as it had often done while sharing the delights of this home, where he had made so long a pause. But with the desire came a memory that restrained him better than his promise. He saw what others had not yet discovered, and, obeying the code of honor which governs the true gentleman, loved his friend better than himself, and held his peace.

The last skein came, and as she wound it, Sylvia’s glance involuntarily rose from the strong hands to the face above them, and lingered there, for the penetrating gaze was averted, and an unwonted mildness inspired confidence as its usual expression of power commanded respect. His silence troubled her, and with curious yet respectful scrutiny, she studied his face as she had never done before. She found it full of a noble gravity and kindliness; candor and courage spoke in the lines of the mouth, benevolence and intellect in the broad arch of the forehead, ardor and energy in the fire of the eye, and on every lineament the stamp of that genuine manhood which no art can counterfeit. Intent upon discovering the secret of the mastery he exerted over all who approached him, Sylvia had quite forgotten herself, when suddenly Warwick’s eyes were fixed full upon her own. What spell lay in them she could not tell, for human eye had never shed such sudden summer over her. Admiration was not in it, for it did not agitate; nor audacity, for it did not abash; but something that thrilled warm through blood and nerves, that filled her with a glad submission to some power, absolute yet tender, and caused her to turn her innocent face freely to his gaze, letting him read therein a sentiment for which she had not yet found a name.