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“Go on.”
“I don’t think it is—exactly—oh, I don’t know what I think about it.”
“But I do,” replied Alice, quickly, turning and facing her friend.
“And what do you know that I think, that I do not know myself?”
said Mary, putting her hands on Alice’s shoulders, drawing her close,
and smiling affectionately into her eyes.
“Don’t you remember my laughing, once, at school, over the story
about Alcibiades’ refusing to learn to play on the flute, because he
deemed the necessary puckering of the mouth undignified, and that
you thought he was right? Heroes, my dear, according to your
romantic notions, must always be heroic.”
“Heroes!” exclaimed Mary, with wide-eyed innocence. “Who, pray,
mentioned heroes!” But a heightened color tinged her cheeks.
Alice, without making reply, placed her hand over Mary’s heart, and
stood as though counting its beats. “’Tis a dear little heart,” mused
she, “but—”
“But what?”
“But very susceptible, I fear.” And lifting her right hand, she shook
her forefinger at her friend. “Take care!” said she, with a voice and
look half serious, half jocular.
“Oh, don’t be uneasy about me!” And with a bright smile on her
flushed face Mary frisked away to join some of the other girls who
were descending to the breakfast-room.
Falling in love is like getting drunk,—we blush when we betray
symptoms of the malady, yet rejoice in its progress!
 CHAPTER XXXVII.

We now return to our friends assembled in the Hall.

Especially among the ladies who had not heard the Don’s first
performance, expectation was on tiptoe. The excellent Herr is
bustling about, rubbing his hands, and smiling through his
spectacles the vast Teutonic smile. Charley places the case
containing the Guarnerius upon the table. The Don opens it with an
almost nervous eagerness. She is to hear him, and he will outdo
himself.
But where is she? Presently he espies her partly concealed behind
the stalwart form of Jones. She is gazing at the western sky,—she
alone of all the company unconscious that he is about to play.
The thought is a sudden shock. And then he remembers that she
alone of the ladies had made no allusion, during the day, to the
performance of the evening before,—had expressed no regret at not
having been present.
The artist nature is caprice itself,—changeful as an April sky; and the
Don with sudden impulse released the neck of the violin, which sank
back upon its luxurious cushion of blue satin. He would excuse
himself,—he could not play. But the strings, vibrating beneath an
accidental touch, gave forth a chord, and instantly reversed the
current of his feelings. Yes, he would play; and taking up the
instrument, he sauntered over, with as careless an air as he could
command, to the window by which Mary stood, touching the strings
lightly as he went, as though to see whether they were in tune.
Mary felt his approach; and partly turning her face and raising her
eyes to his, as he reached her side, she said, with what was meant
for a smile, “Now we shall have some merry music.” And she
dropped her eyes.
“Why merry?”
Mary, startled as well by the abruptness of the question as by a
certain hardness in his voice, gave a quick glance at his face.
“Why, is not the violin—” began she, but could get no farther,—held,
as was the Wedding Guest by the glittering eye of the Ancient
Mariner.
“Is this, then, a merry world?”
The smile faded from Mary’s face. These words had thrilled her; for
it was not by nature a blithesome heart that beat in that young
bosom, and its strings gave forth readiest response to minor chords.
A slight tremor ran through her frame as she met the gaze of his
darkly gleaming eyes, and a vague sense of having in some way
wounded his feelings oppressed her mind.
Perhaps he read her thoughts; for in an instant a reassuring smile—
sad, almost pathetic—came into his eyes, followed by a look,—one
momentary, indescribable glance; and her untutored heart began to
throb so that she thought he must hear it.
“I, at least,” he added, slowly, “have not found it such, so far; and
see,” said he, pointing with his bow to the faint streaks of red that
tinged the western horizon,—“still another Christmas Day—and the
only happy one that I have known since I was a child—one more
Christmas Day—is dying!” And his voice trembled as he averted his
face.
Mary felt a choking sensation in her throat; for a kindred thought
had been weighing upon her naturally melancholy spirit, as she
stood there gazing upon the western sky; and the Don, in giving
voice to her inmost thoughts, had touched a chord that thrilled with
overmastering power. As he moved away to take his place by the
piano, she sank into a chair trembling from head to foot. They had
stood together by the window hardly one minute, and had not
exchanged above a dozen words; yet as she followed his retiring
form with her eyes, he was no longer the same person to her that
he had been a moment before. She was stricken to the heart, and
she knew it.
The Don spoke to Charley in a low voice. “Yes,” replied he, “we have
it;” and hurrying into the adjoining room he soon returned, bearing
in his hand some sheet music. “Thanks,” said the Don, placing the
piano-part before the Herr, and laying the violin score upon the
piano. “Never mind about the stand; I know it by heart. Can you
read yours, Mein Herr, by the light of the fire?”
“Oh, I tink so.” And adjusting his spectacles, he looked at the title of
the piece. “De Elegie von Ernst! Ah, das ist vat you call very sat, very
vat you call melancholish,”—and he struck a chord. “So!”—and
poising his hands, he glanced upwards to signify his readiness to
begin.
A sudden stillness came over us at the sight of the sombre face of
the Don. Obviously, we all felt there was to be a change of
programme. There were to be no musical fireworks on this occasion.
Had the Don been a consummate actor, posing for effect, he could
not have brought his audience into more instant, more complete
harmony with the spirit of the piece he was about to render. Tall,
broad-shouldered, gaunt, he seemed in the ruddy glare of the great
bank of coals to tower above us, while his eyes, fixed for a moment
with a far-away look upon the fire, seemed doubly dark in contrast
with the red light upon his brow.
He placed the violin beneath his dark, flowing beard, and poised the
bow above the strings.
I fear that but few of my readers will follow me in this scene. To
have heard pathetic music only in theatres and concert-halls, amid a
sea of careless faces distracted by bright toilets, and under the glare
of gaslight, is to have heard it, indeed, but not to have felt it. The
“Miserere” chanted in the dim religious light of St. Peter’s rends the
heart of the listener. It has been found to be meaningless elsewhere.
For the power of music, as of eloquence, lies in the heart of the
hearer,—a heart prepared beforehand by the surroundings.
On the present occasion everything was in the artist’s favor,—the
dying day, the spectral glare and shadow wrought by the glowing
coals, the reaction after a week of frolic gladness.
The bow descended upon the G string, softly as a snow-flake, but
clinging as a mother’s arm.
Ernst has obeyed Horace’s maxim, and plunged at once into the
middle of his story. With the very first tone of the violin there seems
to break from the overwrought heart a low moan, which, rising and
swelling, leaps, in the second note, into a cry of rebellious anguish,
—anguish too bitter to be borne; despair were more endurable; and
in the fourth bar the voice of the crushed spirit sinks into a weird,
muttered whisper of resignation unresigned. The whole story is
there,—there in those four bars, but the poet begins anew and sings
his sorrow in detail; pouring forth a lament so passionate in its
frenzy that it almost passes, at times, the bounds of true music (for
can you not hear the sobs, see the wringing of the hands?), and
rising, at last, to a climax that is almost insupportable, the voice of
wailing then sinks—for all is over—into a low plaint, and dies into
silence.
The Marcia Funebre of the Eroica symphony is the lament of a
nation of Titans; in Ernst’s Elegie one poor human heart is breaking
—breaking all alone. I have heard the piece since in crowded halls
and beneath the blaze of chandeliers, and performed by artists more
finished, no doubt, than was the Don; but the effect he wrought I
have never seen approached. All eyes were riveted upon him while
he played, and when he ceased—when the last despairing sigh died
upon the air—no one moved, not a note of applause was given, and
the only sound heard was that of long-drawn breaths of relief.
It was an intense moment. My grandfather was the first to break the
spell. Approaching the Don with a tender look in his eyes, he tried, I
think, to speak a few words, but could only press his hand. Then
there arose a subdued murmur of whispered enthusiasm, each one
to his neighbor. At last—
“Billy,” said the middle-aged-fat-gentleman, “I give it up,—he can
beat you.” And a ripple of laughter relieved the tension.
And Mary?
She and the Don happened to be among the last to leave the hall,
and he offered her his arm. Neither spoke for a few moments.
“How silly you must have thought me!”
“I assure you—”
“Oh, but you must. But I had never heard anything but fiddling
before. Do you know,” she added gravely, “I doubt if any of the
company understood all that you meant, save myself?”
“And are you quite sure that you understood all that I felt?”
Mary looked up and their eyes met. Releasing his arm as she passed
into the house, she colored deeply.
 CHAPTER XXXVIII.

“Is not this Thursday?” suddenly asked my grandfather, at breakfast,

a week or so after the events just described. “It is? Then this is the
day for the Poythress’s return. Ah, now we shall have music.”
A man talking with another may look him in the face for an hour
without knowing one of his thoughts; a woman will flash a careless
glance across your face,—across it—no more,—and read you to the
heart.
Alice and Mary beamed upon each other and ejaculated, “Lucy!” But
Mary’s eyes had had time to sweep the features of the Don. “Won’t
it be charming to have Lucy with us!” said she; but she hardly knew
what she said. Her face, turned towards Alice, wore a mechanical
smile; but she saw only the Don and the startled, almost dazed look
that came over his face on hearing Mr. Whacker’s words. How brave
a little woman can be! She turned to the Don and said,—a seraphic
smile upon her face,—“You have never heard Lucy play. You have a
great treat in store.”
“No,” replied he, dropping his napkin. “No,” repeated he, his eye
fixed upon vacancy. He had heard with his ears and answered with
his lips. That was all. Suddenly recollecting himself, he turned to her
with a bow and a courteous smile: “Yes, it will be a great treat,—
very great;” but his thoughts, mightier than his will, swept the smile
from his features and left them pale and rigid as before.
How many thoughts crowded upon Mary’s heart in that instant!
“What a silly school-girl I have been! A word here and a word there,
during these last ten days, have made me forget the intense interest
he obviously took in Lucy at first sight. After all, what has he said to
me? Nothing, absolutely nothing! And yet I was so weak as to
imagine—and now he has learned of a new bond of sympathy—
music—between Lucy and himself. Why did I learn nothing but
waltzes and variations and such trash? If only—too late! And he has
seen so little of her! That dream, too,—that strange, terrible dream,
—should have warned me. And now Lucy is coming. Lucy! is she,
then, so superior to me? She is as good as an angel, I know; but I
thought that I—wretched vanity again”—and she stamped her foot
—“yet Alice has thought so too—else why—surely, he cannot have
been trifling with me? Never! Of that, at least, he is incapable! Such
a noble countenance as his could not—” And for a second she lifted
her eyes to his—
“Yes, Zip, I’ll take one.”
“Girls,” said Alice, “just look at Mary; an untasted waffle on her plate
and taking another!”
Mary gave one of those ringing laughs that so infest the pages of
female novelists.
“Is there to be a famine?” asked one.
“Or is the child falling in love?” chimed in Alice; but without raising
her eyes from her empty coffee-cup, in the bottom of which she was
writing and re-writing her initials with the spoon.
To all the rest of the company these words seemed as light and
careless as the wind. Not so to Mary. Her heart leaped; but, by some
subtle process known only to women, she forbade the blood to
mount into her cheek.
“I warn you to beware,” said Mr. Whacker. “Full many a heart has
been lost in this house!”
“All hearts, I must believe,” rejoined Mary, with a bow and half-
coquettish smile.
My grandfather placed his hand upon his heart and bent low over
the table, amid the approving plaudits of the company. Charley did
the same. “There are two of us,” he explained; “Uncle T-T-Tom and
myself.”
“He is laughing now; how he seems to admire Mr. Frobisher! But
why did he turn pale, just now, at the mention of Lucy’s name? I
have never read anywhere of love’s producing that effect, certainly.
Perhaps—perhaps, after all, he did not change color. My imagination,
doubtless. No, I am not mistaken! Why, his brow is actually beaded
with perspiration! incomprehensible enigma! would to heaven I had
never met him! and yet—”
If any of my young readers shall be so indiscreet as to fall in love
with enigmas, let them not lay the folly to my charge. I most
solemnly warn them against it.
Poor little Mary watched the Don all that day with that scrutiny so
piercing, and yet so unobtrusive, of which a woman’s eye alone is
capable,—hopefully fearing to discover the truth of what she
fearfully hoped was not true; but it was not before the sun had sunk
low in the west, and she had begun to convince herself of the
illusory character of her observations at the breakfast-table, that she
got such reward as that of the woman who, after twenty years’
searching, at last found a burglar under her bed.
As the time approached at which the Poythress family should arrive
(at their home across the river), my grandfather would go out upon
the piazza every few minutes, and after looking across the broad
river return and report that there were no signs of the carriage.
“It is not yet time by half an hour,” said Charley, looking at his
watch.
“At any rate I’ll get the telescope and have it ready,” replied he, as
he passed into the dining-room; returning, bearing in his hand one
of those long marine glasses so much used at that time. “This is a
remarkably fine glass,” said he to the Don.
The Don was seated behind Alice’s chair, helping her to play her
hand at whist, if that name be applicable to a rattling combination of
cards, conversation, and bursts of laughter.
“Last summer,” continued Mr. Whacker, “I counted with it a hen and
seven small chickens on the Poythress’s lawn—”
“Mr. Frobisher!” cried Alice. “There you are trumping my ace!”
“Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker, with reproachful surprise.
“And, Uncle Tom, would you believe it,—he has made three revokes
already? What ought to be done to such a partner?”
Jones, who ought to have been back at the University long since,
was, on the contrary, seated at a neighboring card-table. He
remembered the scrape that Charley had gotten him into on
Christmas Eve.
“I don’t think,” said he, soliloquizing, as he slowly dealt out the
cards, “that I could love a partner who revoked.”
A smile ran around the tables. Charley bit his lip.
“What, Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker. “The ace of trumps second
in hand, and you had another!”
“I wanted to take that particular trick,” said Charley, doggedly.
Charley and Jones were sitting back to back, their chairs almost
touching. Jones turned around, and, with his lips within an inch of
the back of Charley’s head, spoke in measured tones, “He—is—after
—a—particular—trick, Uncle Tom; hence his peculiar play.”
Every one laughed, even Charley. Alice’s cheeks rivalled the tints of
the conch-shell; and Mary, charmed to see her for once on the
defensive, clapped her hands till half her cards were on the floor.
I should not have said that everybody laughed, for my grandfather
did not even smile. No suspicion of the state of things to which
Jones had maliciously alluded had ever crossed his mind. He was
totally absorbed in contemplation of the enormity of playing out
one’s ace of trumps second in hand. And that Charley—Charley,
whom he had trained from a boy to the rigor of the game according
to Hoyle—that he should seem to defend such—so—so horrible a
solecism! It was too much. He was a picture to look at, as he stood
erect, the nostrils of his patrician nose dilated with a noble
indignation, his snowy hair contrasting with his dark and glowing
eyes, that swept from group to group of mirthful faces, and back
again, sternly wondering at their untimely merriment.
“But, Uncle Tom,” put in Jones—
“No, no!” interrupted Mr. Whacker, with an impatient wave of his
hand. “Nothing can justify such play.”
“But, Uncle Tom, suppose—”
“Very well,” replied Mr. Whacker, in a gentler tone, mollified by the
anticipation of easy and certain victory, “very well; make your
supposition.” And he assumed a judicial brow.
“Now, suppose that there is a particular hand—”
Billy paused.
“Well, go on.”
“A very particular hand.”
My grandfather’s eyes began to flash. The vast host of those who
believe in playing “according to their hands” rose before his mind.
“Go on,” added he, controlling himself with an effort.
“Suppose there is a certain hand that a fellow—a hand that a certain
fellow—for example—wants—wants—to get possession of.”
Charley winced, and Alice’s color rose in spite of her utmost efforts
to look unconcerned.
“A hand that he wants to get possession of!” cried Mr. Whacker, with
unspeakable amazement. “What gibberish is this? I was supposing
all along that he had the hand!”
“No; but he wants it aw-ful-ly,” said Jones, with sepulchral solemnity.
Peal after peal of laughter arose, while Charley shuffled his cards
with the vigor of desperation. Poor fellow, he had never been in love
before, and—keen humorist that he was—he knew full well that no
man could be in love without being at the same time ridiculous. My
grandfather looked on, mystified but smiling. “This is one of your
jokes,” said he, taking Billy by both ears.
“On the contrary, it is a case—ouch!—of the very deadest earnest
that I have ever—smi-ling-ly beheld. But, honestly, Uncle Tom,
suppose there was a suit—a suit, mind you—”
“C-c-c-cut the cards,” yelled Charley.
“A suit,” continued the implacable Billy, “that you were prosecuting
—”
“Wished to establish, you mean.”
“Yes, a suit—”
“Uncle Tom,” cried Charley, almost upsetting the table, “I give it up.
’Twas an idiotic play I made.”
Billy threw back his head so that it rested on Charley’s shoulder.
“When,” asked he, under cover of the general laughter,—“when are
you going to cut your finger again?”
Just then Mr. Whacker appeared at the window and gave three brisk
raps, and the girls went scampering out on the piazza, followed by
the gentlemen, the Don bringing up the rear. There was a general
waving of handkerchiefs, and the telescope passed from hand to
hand.
“There they all are,” cried Alice, cheerily, peering through the glass
with one eye and smiling brightly with the other: “Lucy and Mrs.
Poythress on the back seat, her young brother and Mr. Poythress in
front. They see us now,—there go the handkerchiefs! Ah, just look at
little Laura, sitting in Lucy’s lap and waving for dear life! Here, Mary,
take a look. How distinctly you see them!”
“Yes,” said Mary; but with the eye which seemed to be gazing
through the telescope she saw nothing, while with the other she
took in every motion of the Don. He was striding with irregular steps
up and down the piazza, now mechanically waving his handkerchief,
now thrusting it back into his pocket; at one time, as he stopped, his
eyes fixed upon the floor; at another rolling with a kind of glare as
he started suddenly forward. He strode past her, and his arm grazed
her shoulder. She shivered. Had her companions observed it? She
gave a quick glance, and was reassured. They were all waving in
frantic, girlish glee, in response to the vigorous demonstrations
across the River. The rainbow knew not of the neighboring thunder-
cloud.
“What a terrible love,” she mused. “But, oh, to have inspired it!” He
had not yet had the glass in his hand; she would offer it to him.
Woman alone is capable of such self-sacrifice. She turned towards
him as he was passing again, and, though a glance at his dark face
almost unnerved her, she stood in his path and offered him the
glass. A surprise was in store for her. Brought to himself, he looked
startled at first, as though suddenly realizing who stood before him;
and then, sudden as a flash of light, there came into his eyes a look
so gentle and tender as to set her heart violently beating. Such a
look, she felt, would have been a declaration of love in any other
man,—but in an enigma?
“Take a look through the telescope,” said she, in a voice scarcely
audible.
He raised the glass to his eye.
“Lucy is on this side,” said she, “with Laura in her lap.”
Her eyes were riveted upon his face now. What a change had come
over it!
“Her mother sits next her; can’t you make out her white hair?”
The strong man’s lips quivered.
“She is dressed in black; can’t you see?”
His grasp tightened on the glass.
“She dresses always in black.”
The telescope began to tremble.
Just then Charley brushed quickly past her and stood beside the
Don.
“That’s not the way to use one of these long Toms,” interposed he,
with quiet decision. “They need a rest. Here, take this pillar.”
With a bow of acknowledgment the Don obeyed.
Mary’s eyes followed Charley with a searching look, as he carelessly
sauntered off to the other end of the piazza, muttering half a dozen
notes of a popular song; but his serene face gave no sign.
 CHAPTER XXXIX.

Friday came, and the Poythresses, having missed the Leicester

Christmas festivities, were to dine with us that day. In the evening
there was to be (no wonder my grandfather was out on the porch a
dozen times, looking for the first oar-splash on the other side)—in
the evening there was to be a quintet; and Mr. Whacker, who was as
proud of Lucy as though she were his own daughter, wag eager to
exhibit her prowess to the stranger. It must not be supposed, from
my silence on this point, that we had had no music since Mr.
Whacker’s discovery what a treasure he had in the Don. During this
period we had had quartets, duets, solos innumerable. Christmas
times, in fact, as understood at Elmington, had irresistible charms for
Herr Waldteufel; and he had hardly left us for an hour.
And now the company at Elmington stood on the piazza watching
the boat that, with measured stroke, approached the foot of the
lawn.
“How charming to sail forth in a boat to dine!” said Alice.
“And then the moonlight row home,” added Mary; “it suggests
Venice.”
As the boat neared the landing, there was a general movement from
the piazza to meet the coming guests, my grandfather leading the
way. He had not made many steps before he looked about him, and
seeing the Don bringing up the rear, he slackened his pace. The Don
came up biting his nails vigorously, with his eyes fixed upon the
ground, but from time to time glancing nervously in the direction of
the boat.
“We have invited the whole family, old and young,” began Mr.
Whacker.
Mary, just in front, was drinking in with upturned face the soft
nothings of some young man; but she chanced to turn her head
sufficiently to catch the start with which the Don aroused himself
from his revery at these words of his host.
“I thought you would like to see little Laura, too.”
“Ah, yes, little Laura; it was very thoughtful of you.”
“Have you ever heard the little thing sing? Upon my word, she
promises to rival Lucy’s talent for music. They get it from their
mother. But here they are.” And the old gentleman advanced with all
the briskness of hospitality, if not of youth. Charley leaned forward,
lifted Laura from the boat, and, kissing her, placed her upon the
ground.
“Where is he?” cried she; “I don’t see him.” And she looked from
face to face with shining eagerness.
“Yonder he is,” and away she skipped. “Here he is,” she shouted,
twining her arms around his knees; “here is Don Miff, sister Lucy.”
There was a general smile, and he stooped and kissed her several
times.
“And here is Mr. Fat-Whacker, sister Lucy,” cried she, running up and
taking my hand.
“Sister Lucy,” her right hand held by one gentleman, her left by
another, stood at this moment one foot on a seat, the other on the
gunwale of the boat, balancing herself for a spring. It is certain that
the color rose in her cheeks; but that may have been due to the
rocking of the boat. Sister Lucy steadied herself for the leap.
“Mr. Fat-Whacker,” began our merry tattler, addressing herself to the
Don, “is the one—”
Lucy, remembering Richmond and Laura’s side-walk confidences to
the Don, on the occasion of her first interview with him, gave Mr.
Fat-Whacker, as she sprang from the boat, a quick, appalled glance.
He was equal to the occasion. “Yes,” cried he, seizing the
explanatory cherub and tossing her high in the air, “here’s Mr. Fat-
Whacker; and here,” he added, with another toss, “is Mr. Uncle
Whacker; and here,” he continued, raising her at arm’s length above
his head and holding her there while he made at her some of those
faces that were her delight, “here is everybody!”
Lucy gave Mr. F.-W. a glance, as she hurried past him to shake hands
with the Don, that he thought was grateful; and he was stooping
slightly to pat his little benefactress on the head, when he was sent
whirling by a blow against the shoulder like that of a battering-ram.
It appears that Mrs. Poythress, during the merry confusion wrought
by her little daughter, whether in her eagerness to shake hands with
the man who, as she felt, had saved Lucy’s life, or else thinking that
she needed no assistance, had attempted to alight from the boat
unaided; but tripping, in some way, she was falling at full length
upon the frozen ground. The Don saw her danger. He was almost six
feet away from the boat, my shoulder was in the way, and Lucy’s fair
hand was extended,—had touched his in fact,—when he sprang
forward. ’Twas the spring of a leopard,—as swift and as unerring.
Crouching, he alighted beneath her before she reached the ground,
caught her as though she had been a ball, and springing to one side
lightly as a cat, placed her feet, without a jar, upon the ground.
“Are you much hurt?” asked he, with a singular mixture of respectful
deference and eager interest.
Women, whether old or young, generally form their opinion of a man
during the first five minutes of their acquaintance. Mrs. Poythress, at
least, was won by those few words, that one look of the stranger,
and believed in him from that hour.
“Our introduction has been informal,” said she, extending her hand
with a smile; “but you made my Lucy’s acquaintance in a manner
equally unconventional. I have long desired to greet you and thank
you.” And she raised her eyes to his. “I—” Mrs. Poythress paused.
The Don stood holding her hand, bending over it, listening, but with
eyes averted and cast upon the ground, reverence in every curve of
his stalwart frame.
“You owe me no thanks,” said he, in a low murmur, and without
raising his eyes. “Far from it.”
A mysterious feeling crept over Mrs. Poythress. Was it his eyes? Was
it his voice? Or his manner? Was it something? Was it nothing? “I do
feel rather weak. Perhaps I was a little jarred,” said she; “may I lean
on your strong arm?” Bending low, he offered her his arm as a
courtier would to a queen, but without the courtier’s smile; and they
moved slowly towards the house.
“He is a gentleman of the old school,” thought Mr. Whacker.
“One would think,” mused Mary, “that he was already an accepted
son-in-law.”
“A case of nubbin,” chirped Alice (a phrase I leave as a kind of
sample bone of contention to the philologists of your day, my boy).
She was leaning on Charley’s arm, and raised her eyes inquiringly.
“Somehow, though,” added she, interpreting his silence as dissent,
“somehow, I don’t altogether believe so.”
No reply.
She looked up again, and detected a faintly rippling smile struggling
with the lines of his well-schooled features. He had heard her, then,
—and half amused, half indignant, she gave his arm so sudden and
vigorous a pull as visibly to disturb his balance.
“Why don’t you answer people?” said she, a little testily.
“You would not have a man hasty? Is it not best to treat people’s
remarks as a hunter does wild ducks? Save your ammunition. Don’t
fire at the first that comes; wait till you can bring down three or four
at a shot. Besides, it is rude.”
“Rude?”
“Yes, to interrupt the current of people’s observations.”
“Well, you must interrupt the current of mine when I speak to you.”
“The tr-tr-tr-ouble is I’d rather hear you talk than talk myself.”
Three persons, walking behind this couple, had overheard these
words,—to wit, Jones, Jones’s girl, and myself. By Jones’s girl I
would be understood as referring to one of our Christmas party,
through whose influence Jones had been led to infer that the
lectures at the University immediately after Christmas were of
comparatively minor importance. We were all struck by the absence
of banter in Charley’s last remark. Jones looked at me, and opening
wide his eyes, and dropping his chin, formed his mouth into a
perfect circle.
“The old fox is caught,” whispered he; and taking another look, “sure
pop!” he added,—an inelegant expression which I record with regret,
and only in the interests of historic accuracy. Jones’s girl, while we
smiled at Charley, had her woman’s eyes on Alice, and with raised
brows and a nod directed our attention to her. Alice had obviously
noticed the peculiar tone of Charley’s voice, and coyly dropped her
eyes. “Mr. Frobisher,” she began, “I must beg your pardon.”
“For what, pray?”
“For my rudeness in pulling your arm, just now!”
“Oh, don’t speak of it,” and then a merry twinkle coming into his
eyes, “it didn’t hurt a bit. I rather liked it. D-d-d-d-o it again.”
Just then Jones turned quickly, and, with the delighted look of a
discoverer, snapped his head, first at his girl and then at me.
“You saw it?”
His girl nodded assent. Jones looked at me inquiringly.
“What was it?” I whispered.
“He squeezed her hand with his arm,—most positively—didn’t he?”
Jones’s girl looked assent.
“Hard?”
She nodded again,—laughter-tears bedimming her young eyes.
“The villain!” breathed Billy; and throwing back his head, he showed
two rows of magnificent teeth, while his mouth, though emitting no
sound, went through all the movements of Homeric laughter.
“Will,” said she, turning towards him,—“Will,” said she, softly, as she
raised her eyes admiringly to his frank and manly face, “you are the
greatest goose in the world.”
“And you the dearest duck on earth.”
So, at least, they seemed to me to say; but perhaps—for I admit
that they spoke in whispers—perhaps I say this less as a hearer than
as a Seer.
 CHAPTER XL.

“Where is Mr. Smith?” asked Mrs. Carter, as she helped the company
to soup.
“Yes, where is he?” repeated Mr. Whacker, looking up in surprise.
“Perhaps he does not know that we are at dinner.”
“After conducting me to the parlor,” explained Mrs. Poythress, “he
excused himself and went to his room. I fancied he was not very
well.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Whacker. “Zip, you go—”
Charley made a motion to Moses,—Zip for short,—and rising from
the table and bowing his excuses, he left the room.
“I am a little afraid,” continued Mrs. Poythress, turning to me, who
chanced to be her nearest neighbor at table, “that your friend over-
strained himself in that tremendous leap he made to save me from
falling. I am sure I felt his arm tremble as we walked towards the
house. Then he was so very silent. Is he always so?”
“Generally; though I do not think it is altogether natural to him. He
seems to constrain himself to silence from some motive or other; but
every now and then he loses control of himself, it would seem, and
breaks forth into a real torrent of brilliant talk,—no, brilliant is not
the word—though torrent is. When he bursts forth in this
impassioned way, he carries everything before him. By the way, his
leaping is of the same character. Do you know I had to change my
shoes? For when he sprang to catch you, he actually knocked me
into the water.”
“What eyes he has! Such a concentrated look! And no one,” she
added after a pause, “has any idea who he is?”
“Not the slightest.”
“Is it possible? What a number of strange people your dear old
grandfather has contrived to bring to Elmington from time to time!
Where he has found them all, or how they have found him, has
always been a mystery to me.”
“Yes, but the Don is not one of grandfather’s captures. Charley must
have the credit of bringing him in.”
“Then he is a good man,” replied she, with decision. “Charley never
makes any mistakes. But here comes Master Charles.”
Every one looked up on Charley’s entrance. As for that young man,
he looked neither to the right nor to the left. “Mr. Smith will be down
presently,” said he to Mrs. Carter. As he strode around the room to
take his chair, his firm-set lips wore a rather dogged expression, as
though he would warn us all that, so far as he was concerned, the
conversation was ended; and, hastily taking his seat, he began a
vigorous attack on his soup, as if to overtake the rest of the
company. Somehow every one was silent, and the isolated and
rather rapid click of Charley’s spoon was distinctly audible. Alice
smiled, and conversation beginning to spring up around the table, “I
fear your soup is cold,” she began.
“The soup was cold?” asked he, looking up. “I am very sorry.”
“I didn’t say that,” replied she, quickly. “I remarked that I was afraid
yours was cold.”
“Mine?” asked he, looking puzzled. “Why?”
“You were detained so long up-stairs.”
“Oh!” said he, renewing the assault upon the soup. “You are right,”
he added; “it is ratherish cool.”
Alice was foiled. “I believe Mrs. Poythress called you.”
Charley leaned forward.
“Nothing serious, I hope?” asked Mrs. Poythress.
All eyes were fixed on Charley, every ear intent to hear his answer to
this question, which Mrs. Poythress alone had ventured to ask. For a
moment this master of fence and parry stood confounded; but only
for a moment. “Nothing to speak of,” replied he, with careless
simplicity, and, leaning back in his chair, he glanced at Uncle Dick.
Richard, briskly, though with averted face, came to remove the
soup-plate, and then hurried out of the room to have a quiet
chuckle.
“Tain’t no use, Polly; dey jess as well let Marse Charles alone. He is a
keener, he is, umgh—umgh! Dey ain’t gwine to git nothin’ out o’ him,
ef you b’lieve Dick, dey ain’t, mun.” And the old worthy’s sides shook
with laughter. “Dey has been tetchin’ her up pretty lively dis mornin’,
dat’s a fac’, and dey wet Dick’s whistle for him, dey did, ef you
b’lieve me, and more’n once, too. Well,
‘Christmas comes but once a year,
Den every nigger git his shear.’
“Hurry up, gal! hurry up!”
“Don’t come round me, boy, wid your ‘hurry up, hurry up.’ Don’t you
see I’se hurryin’ up all I kin hurry up already? I b’lieve you is drunk,
anyhow!”
“Pretty close to it, thank de Lord.
‘Christmas comes but once a year,
Every nigger—’”
“I tell you git out o’ dis kitchen, and mind you don’t fall and break
dat dish, wid your ‘Christmas comes but once a year.’ Go ’long, boy.
Dat ham’s seven years old, and you jess let it fall!”
“Hi!” thought Uncle Dick, as he entered the dining-room. “What’s he
doin’ at de table?”
Richard was surprised.
For, as I am pained to have to say, the Virginians had in those days
the very irrational habit of drinking before dinner; and it was to this
fact that Uncle Dick alluded in the somewhat figurative language
recorded above. If the truth must be told, our venerable serving-
man never doubted but that the Don stayed up-stairs simply
because he was too drunk to come down. The facts were far
otherwise.
“Charley,” said I that night, as we were smoking our last pipe, “what
was the matter with the Don to-day? Why was he not with us when
we sat down to dinner?”
“Because,” said Charley, lazily lolling back in his rocking-chair, and
sighting with one eye through a ring of smoke that he had just
projected from his mouth,—“because he was in his room.”
“Another word, and Solomon’s fame perishes.”
“It is a well-known physical law” (Charley used to avenge himself on
me in private for his silence in general company),—“it is a well-
known physical law,” said he, inserting his forefinger with great
precision into the centre of the whirling ring, “that a body cannot
occupy two—”
“To be continued in our next. But why was he not punctual, as
usual?”
“Nothing simpler,—because he was behind time.”
“Solon, Solon!”
“Yes, Sir William Hamilton has well observed that it is positively
unthinkable that the temporal limitations of two events occurring at
different times should be identical. Let’s have another pipe.”
Charley had forced me to change the subject; but I contrived to
make the change not very satisfactory to him. “By the way,” I began,
“what were you and the charming Alice saying to one another on
your way from the landing to-day?”
Charley laid his halt-filled pipe on the table and gave a frightful
yawn. “Let’s go to bed,” said he, and immediately began to doff his
clothes with surprising swiftness.
“Two bodies,” said I, striking a match, “cannot”—Charley kicked off
one boot—“occupy the same space”—off flew the other; “but, as Sir
William hath well put it,—or was it some other fellow?”—and leaning
against the end of the mantel-piece, and poising myself on my
elbow, I assumed a thoughtful attitude,—“two bodies are sometimes
fond of being very close together. Why this sudden and
uncontrollable somnolency? Were we not to have another pipe?” But
not another word could I get out of Charley; and nearly four years
passed by before he gave me the account (which I will now lay
before the reader) of what he saw that day.
The Don, as we know, had escorted Mrs. Poythress from the landing
at the foot of the lawn to the house, and had gone immediately to
his room. As she leaned upon his arm, he had seemed to her to be
tremulous; and a certain disorder in his features as he left the parlor
had led her to fear that he was not well; having, as she surmised,
given himself an undue wrench in his efforts to arrest her fall. Then,
when the Don had failed to put in an appearance at dinner, Charley
had gone in person to his room. To a gentle tap there was no reply,
and successively louder knocks eliciting no response, a vague sense
of dread crept over him, and his hand shook as he turned the knob
and entered the room. “Great God!” cried Charley, stopping short, as
he saw the Don stretched diagonally across the bed, his face buried
in a pillow. There he lay, still as death. Was he dead? Charley hurried
to the bedside with agitated strides, and leaning over the prostrate
figure, with lips apart, intently watched and listened for signs of life.
“Thank God!” breathed Charley. For reply the Don, with a sudden
movement, threw back his right arm obliquely across his motionless
body, and held out his open hand. The released pillow fell. It was
wetted with tears. Charley clasped the offered hand with a
sympathetic pressure that seemed quite to unnerve the Don; for the
iron grasp of his moist hand was tempered by a grateful tenderness,
and convulsive undulations again and again shook his stalwart
frame. For a while neither spoke.
“You will be down to dinner presently, I hope?”
The Don nodded, and Charley crossed the room and poured out
some water and moved some towels in an aimless sort of way.
“I’ll go down now; come as soon as you can.”
Another nod.
Charley moved, half on tiptoe, to the door, and placing his hand on
the knob, turned and looked at the Don. A sudden impulse seized
him as he saw the strong man lying there on his face, his arm still
extended along his back; and hurrying to the bedside, he bent over
him, and taking the open hand in both his, with one fervent squeeze
released it and hastened out of the room. But he had not reached
the door before there broke upon his ear a sound that made him
shiver.
It was a sob.
One!—No more! It was a sound such as we do not often hear and
can never forget,—the sob of a strong man, bursting, hoarse,
guttural, discordant, from an over-wrought heart,—a stern, proud
heart that would stifle the cry of its bitterness, but may not. A look,
—a word,—the touch of a friendly hand,—has sufficed to unprison
the floods.
So, once, the dimpled finger of childhood pressed the electric key;
and the primeval rocks of Hell-Gate bounded into the air.
 CHAPTER XLI.

Charley hurried along the upper hall, and arriving at the head of the
stairs, blew his nose three times with a certain fierce defiance. This
strictly commonplace operation he repeated in a subdued form as he
neared the dining-room door, and stopping again, with one hand
upon the knob, he passed the other again and again across his
forehead and eyes, as though he had been an antiquated belle who
would smooth out the wrinkles before entering a ball-room. Then,
with that severe look of determined reticence of which I have
spoken above, he entered the dining-room; exciting in all breasts,
male and female alike, a keen but hopeless curiosity. This feeling,
however, soon subsided; for the Don had entered shortly after
Charley, and, begging Mrs. Carter to excuse his tardiness, had taken
his seat and passed out of our minds. For besides that the dinner
was good and the wine generous, most of us had our own little
interests to look after. Jones, for example, and Jones’s girl were too
happy to care whether any one in the world were late or early for
dinner. My grandfather, Mrs. Carter, and myself were sufficiently
occupied as hosts,—and Charley, too, though he devoted his time
principally to one guest. As a matter of fact, therefore, during the
early part of the dinner the Don sat unobserved by the greater part
of the company; and but for one faithful pair of eyes, I should have
had nothing to record.
In the spirit of mischief, Alice had so manœuvred that the seat left
vacant for the Don was between Lucy and little Laura. “Won’t it be
sweet, mother, to see all three of them in a row,—Lucy—Mr. Don Miff
—Laura? Quite a little family party!”
“Very well,” replied Lucy, laughing, “arrange it as you will; I am sure
I should like very well to sit by ‘the Don.’ Do you still call him by that
name?”
“Of course. It has a grand sound, and grand sounds, you know, are
precious to the female heart.”
The Don’s looks when he entered were downcast, his manner
hesitating, and his voice, when he made his apologies to Mrs. Carter,
scarcely audible. Charley, the moment the Don entered, had begun
stammering away at Alice with a surprising volubility, and in a voice
loud for him. He never stammered worse; and such a pother did he
make with his m’s and his p’s that he drew upon himself the smiling
attention of all the company; so that even Jones and his girl ceased
murmuring, for a moment, their fatuous nothings. It was under
cover of this rattling volley that the Don had taken his seat and
begun intently to examine the monogram on his fork.
“Will you have some soup?” asked Charley, in a frank, off-hand way.
The commonplace nature of this question was an obvious relief to
the Don, and he raised his eyes and looked about him. “Thanks, no
soup. What!” said he, for the first time espying little Laura seated by
his side, “you here by me!” And taking her sunny head between his
hands, he bent over and kissed her on the forehead.
A mother’s smile trembled in Mrs. Poythress’s eyes. “She is a very
little diner-out,” said she.
At the sound of Mrs. Poythress’s voice a shade passed over the Don’s
face. “He’s the one, mumma, that built me the block-houses.” And
the smile came back.
Mary watched the play of the Don’s features during the triangular
conversation that followed between himself, Mrs. Poythress, and
Laura, and was much puzzled. Light and shadow, shadow and light,
chased each other over his changeful countenance like patches of
cloud across a sunny landscape. Presently, chancing to turn his
head, his eyes fell upon Lucy, seated on his right, and Mary’s interest
grew deeper.
“You on my right and Laura on my left! I feel that I am indeed
among friends.”
“You may be sure of that,” said Lucy, in her low and sweet, but
earnest voice.
The Don’s pleasure at finding that Lucy was his neighbor at table
was very obvious, and we must not blame Mary if it gave her a pang
to see it. She could not but recall the stranger’s manifest interest in
Lucy when he first met her, at breakfast, in Richmond. Then she had
not cared. Now it was different. For the next half-hour, while
contributing her share to the conversation at her end of the table,
she had managed to see everything that took place between the
Don and Lucy. She saw everything, and yet she seemed to herself to
see nothing. The meaning of it all—that she could not unravel. All
she knew was that she was miserable; and her wretchedness made
her unjust. She was vexed at Lucy,—vexed for the strangest of
reasons; but the human heart—if the plagiarism may be pardoned—
is full of inconsistencies. Had Lucy made eyes at the Don, coquetted
with him, Mary would doubtless have thought it unkind on her part;
though that would have been unjust, as Lucy had no cause to
suspect that her friend felt any special interest in the mysterious
stranger. It was the entire absence of everything of this kind in
Lucy’s manner that nettled Mary. In her eyes the Don was a hero of
the first water. Why didn’t Lucy try to weave fascinations around
such an one as he? What kind of a man was she looking for? Did she
expect the whole world to fall at her feet, whence to choose?—or did
she, perhaps,—and the thought shot through her heart with a keen
pang,—did Lucy feel that the quarry was hers without an effort on
her part to grasp it?
The Don’s deportment, too, if incomprehensible, was at least
irritating. “His lordship,” thought she, bitterly, “has hardly vouchsafed
me a glance since he took his seat. Yet, before the Poythresses
came—there he sits now, patting Laura’s head in an absent way, and
studying Lucy’s features, as she talks, as though he were a portrait-
painter. One would think he had quietly adopted the entire Poythress
family. Upon my word, Mr. Sphinx is a marvel of coolness! How little
he talks, too!—and yet he has contrived to bring Lucy out
wonderfully. She is rattling away like a child, telling him about
herself and all the family. How interested he seems! Heavens, what
a look!”
“Yes,” she had heard Lucy say, “Laura is a regular Poythress, with
her high color and golden hair; mine is just like mother’s. I don’t
mean now,” said she, with a little laugh and glancing at Mrs.
Poythress’s snow-white hair; “but mother’s was coal-black once. It
turned white—years ago—suddenly;” and she sighed softly, with
downcast, pensive eyes, so that she did not observe the look of pain
that her words had wrought and that had startled Mary. Looking up
and seeing his face averted, Lucy thought he was admiring her little
sister’s curls. “What beautiful hair Laura has!”
“Lovely,” replied he, tossing a mass of ringlets on the tips of his
fingers.
“Won’t you make me a boat, after dinner, with rudder and sails and
everything?” And Laura looked up into his troubled face with a
confiding, sunny smile.