rose up and made "every common bush afire with God," Joanna dropped upon her knees, and hid her face in her hands. Her plaint did not shape itself in words, hardly even in definite thought; but these dumb orisons of the heart express our needs better than words, sometimes; and presently, when a mocking-bird in a neighboring thicket burst into rapturous song, she rose from her kneeling posture, calmed, if not consoled, and began to awake to the beauty of the summer night.

The rushing of the little brook through the ravine beyond the fence sounded loud in the still moonlight; the breeze rose and fell dreamily, laden with the heavy odors of jasmines and honeysuckles, while ever and anon the mocking-bird uttered its passionate strain of rain-like melody, giving to the garden a weird, unreal aspect. Joanna hardly knew her own familiar haunts in this soft moonlight, for Miss Basil, with a wholesome dread of night-air, had always strictly forbidden her to remain out after the dew fell.

And Miss Basil, with the protection of a ragged old nubia over her head, was coming now in search of her. She had expected to find her in the neighborhood of the mimosatree; but Joanna stood leaning on the brickwork vase, over which the verbena had now grown rank, and hung tangled wildly.

"O Joanna, Joanna!" said Miss Basil, querulously, "I've been looking for you everywhere" (which was not strictly true). "How imprudent you are; out in the nightair with nothing on your head! Don't you know I've warned you, over and over again, about miasma? And quinine three dollars and a half the ounce!"

"Well, 'Mela," said Joanna, the old habit of antagonism asserting itself as usual, you don't need to give me an ounce for a dose, ever."

"And this polonaise; you reckless child!" exclaimed Miss Basil, running her long, thin fingers over the limp muslin with the scrambling rapidity of a father-long-legs. "Brand new, and perfectly stringy with the dew!" "Only pomps and vanities," said Joanna, bursting into tears. "O'Mela!"

The cry was sharp with anguish.

"There, child, there," said Miss Basil, relenting. "I'm not scolding you; I'm past that. I suppose you must always have some one to look after you. Tie this handkerchief over your head and go to your room. I'll see what can be done to remedy it."

66

Nothing but p-pomps and vanities," sobbed Joanna; "and this world is all a fleeting show, as you told me, 'Mela; but I wouldn't care if only you were true to me."

66 Mercy guide us, child!" exclaimed Miss Basil, impatiently; "what nonsense are you talking? I am glad to see that you've come to a reasonable sense of the world's ways; but you mustn't abuse good clothes, for that is sinful extravagance."

Joanna did not say another word. She tied the handkerchief over her head with meek obedience, and went up to her room so quietly that Miss Basil was thoroughly appeased. "She has had enough, I see, of this thing they call society," the much-mistaken

woman thought. "I shall hear no more of demitrains."

But Joanna, quietly as she got herself to bed, could not compose herself to sleep; the shadow that had arisen between Pamela and herself haunted her so persistently; if Pamela only would come and put it aside forever! After what to her seemed interminable hours, she called, softly:

"Pamela! Pamela !"

Miss Basil's room was across a little entry, and the doors between were open. Now, to Miss Basil, any call in the night-season meant illness, and she was always quick to respond.

"Did you call, Joanna?" she questioned, anxiously; and the next moment she came pattering across the bare floors in her list slippers. "What is the matter?"

Joanna was sitting up in bed.

"Pamela," said she, tremulously, "I cannot, cannot sleep. No; my head does not ache "-putting away Miss Basil's hands -"the trouble is, you are not yourself any longer; you are somebody else."

"You've got the nightmare, child," said Miss Basil, giving her a little shake. "I charged you not to eat that salmon salad; it was entirely too rich for you."

"I didn't eat it; I ate no dinner at all," said Joanna; "and it's not the nightmare."

"Then it's an empty stomach," said Miss Basil, with decision. "Joanna, when you know how thoroughly I disapprove of going to bed on an empty stomach, I wonder you did not ask for something to eat before this."

"But I am not hungry, 'Mela. You talk to me about an empty stomach when my heart is breaking."

"Joanna! Joanna ! what foolishness have you been listening to to-day?" cried Miss Basil, shaking her now in good earnest. "It is all pure fancifulness, and I shall just give you a good dose of valerian."

'No, no, 'Mela; no valerian for me; but stay and tell me if it is foolishness, this that I have heard to-day!" cried Joanna, throwing her arms around Miss Basil, who was about to go in search of her medicine-chest. "What do they mean, this stranger that I never heard of before, and all these Middleborough people, when they talk of your-your story? O'Mela, that you should be a woman with a story, and-and another life out West, when I believed in you so! When I thought you had always belonged to only me and Basilwood!"

Miss Basil was powerless to interrupt this outburst. She understood clearly enough that Joanna must have heard something that half revealed the sorrowful story she had thought must die with her; but how? Through Basil Redmond's inadvertence, she could not doubt; and she had relied so upon his discretion! She was utterly unconscious of the fact that Joanna had been present on the day of his first visit, when he had startled her so by the announcement that he had learned her story. He had begged to hear it in detail from her own lips; and she was glad, now, to remember that, though she had told him the truth, she had not told him the whole truth. How much of her past history Joanna knew she could not guess, and would

"What stranger do you mean, Joanna ?" And then, with the instinct of precaution, she added, "But you are talking wildly."

"But I am not talking wildly, 'Mela, you know, for you tremble. I mean this stranger who comes here and thrusts himself between you and me, with his story about your past, that these people have taken up-this Easil Redmond that I never heard of before."

Miss Basil gasped and paused. Then her sense of duty came to her rescue and gave her words. This untoward inquisitiveness must be checked peremptorily, she decided.

"Joanna, I will not have any more of this-I will not!" she said. "Have I not explained to you that Basil Redmond is no stranger; that he lived here under this very roof as a boy; that his grandfather was your grandfather's second cousin? Could any

thing be plainer? Don't speak of him in that way; he's my best friend, and yours. And whatever you may happen to overhear, don't snatch at words here and there to build fanciful notions upon about a body's past life. It is unbecoming. But I'll fix you with a dose of valerian, and I hope you'll wake up in your senses! You should endeavor to curb curiosity; it leads to mischief, it is idle and sinful."

"O 'Mela, it is not idle curiosity - idle curiosity never yet gave any one the heartache. If you would only stay and hear me patiently!"

But Miss Basil was gone, glimmering like a ghost in search of the valerian; and presently she returned, bearing a bottle, a spoon, a glass, and a spluttering candle.

"He's not my best friend," said Joanna; "he comes between you and me as no one else ever did. You can put on your best dress to see him; yes, and you can find timo to talk by the hour with him, to walk with him about the garden in the busiest time of day, and not call it idleness." Now that the floodgates of her distress were opened, every petty grievance clamored for redress.

"Nonsense!" said Miss Basil, pausing in counting the drops. "Don't interrupt me,

Joanna."

"Mela, I don't need that stuff!" Joanna remonstrated, piteously, as Miss Basil calmly put the glass to her lips, saying, inexorably:

"I am the best judge; you do need it; it will make you sleep, and you will forget your foolish vagaries."

"Shall I?" said Joanna, with an hysterical sob, as she swallowed the contents of the glass. "Shall I, indeed, awake to-morrow and find it all a dream? O 'Meia! I do feel so old since that day he came." She clasped Miss Basil in her arms as she spoke; but Miss Basil, with a movement of alarm, thrust her patient back upon the pillow, saying, excitedly:

"Joanna! Joanna! I knew that your fool

ish head would be turned. You are talking nonsense. You need not pin your faith to Arthur Hendall because he carves your name on a tree."

"He is not the one that makes me feel old!" said Joanna, impatiently; "it's that Mr. Redmond, with his influence over you."

But Miss Basil's suspicions were not to be parried by this thrust.

"I tell you," said she, thumping the pillows excitedly, "I don't believe in him. When I was a girl-"

"Yes, 'Mela," said Joanna, starting up with eager interest, as Miss Basil paused, abruptly. "Tell me! It would comfort me so to know about when you were a girl!"

"Nonsense!" answered Miss Basil, turning away. "It is but idle curiosity, child. Go to sleep, or I shall have to be giving you another dose."

Poor Joanna sighed deeply, but said no more; and Miss Basil, picking up her candle, vial, glass, and spoon, hastened to her own room; but sleep did not soon visit her pillow. "What did all these rumors and whispers portend?" she questioned with herself, as she turned restlessly from side to side. Basil's hoped - for return had not brought her the peace she counted upon. "I see," sighed Miss Basil, wearily, "I must caution the boy; he is young, and youth is indiscreet. must learn silence."

He

And Joanna, gathering up in her mind Miss Basil's disjointed utterances, was saying to herself, "If he is indeed my truest friend, I will make him speak; I have a right to know."

CHAPTER XVII.

ASK ME NO MORE.

JOANNA awoke the next morning with a start. It was very late; the burning summer sun shone hot upon the garden, and at the gate, which could be plainly seen from her window, stood a little open buggy, with a valise strapped behind. At the first sight of the vehicle she rubbed her eyes, believing herself in a dream; but when she looked again, there it was still, with a hungry-looking horse in the shafts; and old Thurston seemed to be mending some part of the harness with a piece of twine. The temptation to inquire into this was too strong for Joanna; she dressed as quickly as she could and ran down into the garden.

"That's the Griswolds' buggy, Thurston, I know, and their horse, too. What is it doing here, with that valise strapped behind?"

"It's a-waitin'," answered old Thurston, with aggravating slowness of speech. "Hey! you, I say!"-this to the horse, an inoffensive brute, "of his port as meke as is a mayde" -"mind what you 'bout!" Old Thurston, conscious of possessing interesting information, was bent upon enhancing his importance by a dignified reserve in regard to the buggy.

"Never mind the poor old horse," said Joanna. "He is quiet enough. What is that buggy here for? Have they sent for my cousin? What is the matter this time?"

"Not to my understanding; no, Miss J'anna, they've not sont for Miss Pamela," answered old Thurston, with Afric dignity. "The Griswolds are 'bout as usual, nothing more than general want of thrift. But Black Hawk, he's dead lame with constant riding of the madam to visit her relations, and that's the way we are beholden to the Griswolds." The Griswolds evidently did not command old Thurston's deepest respect.

"Beholden to the Griswolds for what? I wish you would say, Thurston-if you know?" Thurston looked at her, with mild reproach in his dim old eyes.

"In course I know, Miss J'anna," said he, in a deeply-injured tone. "Wasn't the telegraph delivered into my hands primarily ? The ominous word possessed no terror for Joanna, who had no one out in the world to be anxious about.

"Telegram, you mean," said she. "What telegram?"

"It was to call Mr. Hendall away," answered old Thurston, indifferently.

Joanna received the information dumbly. Over the sun there seemed to come a sudden cloud, a mist that overshadowed not the garden only, but the whole future. Was life, after all, to be nothing but the same dull old story it had always been? In the shadow of the cloud Joanna had caught a glimpse of her own foolish heart, and she shivered.

"For what is he going?" she asked, presently.

"He'll be going to seek his fortune, it's likely," said old Thurston, briskly. For him the sun was shining just as usual; rather more brightly, perhaps, in anticipation of the fee from Arthur's liberal hand.

And Arthur was coming down the sloping walk at this very moment. He had said good-by to his aunt on the porch, which was hidden from the gate, as though he was eager to be off; yet when he saw Joanna he began to find it hard to leave Basilwood, with the still midsummer shadows, the faint, midsummer murmurs from the parched grass, and that life of "dreamful ease."

"So you are here to see me off, JoannaMiss Joanna, I should say, now that you have made your début?"

"No," answered Joanna, avoiding his eyes; "I did not know, until this moment, that you are going."

"At least you are not glad to have me go o?" said Arthur, holding out his hand.

"You know I am not glad! How could I be glad?" answered the artless Joanna, turning away her telltale face.

"The sun is mounting, sir," said old Thurston, respectfully, " and your conveyance is all in order."

Influenced by the wish to stimulate Arthur's memory in regard to the reward he coveted for his services, the old negro had been bustling ostentatiously around the rickety buggy, like a wasp that cannot determine upon which side of a peach to settle, until finding that Arthur's attention was not to be attracted by such lively manifestations

of concern about the gear and the springs, he resorted to speech.

"All right, Thurston," said Arthur. "Are you to drive me?"

"No, sir; that honor's not for me, sir," said old Thurston, bowing low with exaggerated politeness. "This buggy doesn't b'long to our establishment, as you may see, sir; and they've sent a boy to drive you.Hi, you! wake up, wake up there!" This, with an utter change of voice and gesture, was addressed to a small negro that, with the somnolent facility of his race, was fast asleep in the glare of the sun. "You black rascal! To forgit your manners and go to sleep in the 'tendance of a gentleman!"

From which reproach it will be readily seen that Thurston belonged to the old school that believed in manners.

"What time does the train leave?" asked Arthur, looking at his watch-"the Westport train ?"

"Now pretty soon, sir," said old Thurston, with eagerness." The sun is scorching your skin, Miss J'anna."

As long as she stood there, old Thurston thought, Mr. Hendall never would remember his justly-earned recompense.

But Joanna did not care for the sun; she was as brown as a berry already.

"Why must you go?" she asked, timidly. "Is not Basilwood your own?"

'No," answered Arthur, hastily, and coloring. "Basilwood is my aunt's, you know, 'the grandmamma's,' as you call her" (putting the ownership in this way did not seem so much like robbing Joanna), “and a man must go out and battle with the world," he continued, grandiloquently. "It is business that takes me away."

"For how long?" asked the artless Joanna, with more interest than any woman of the world would have dared to show-unless she had been absolutely indifferent.

"That I cannot tell," answered Arthur, lowering his voice, so that old Thurston, who was vigorously berating the little drowsy driver, might not hear. "But don't forget me, Joanna," holding out his hand. "Don't let that Mr. Basil Redmond make you forget me."

"I-I don't understand you," she stammered, shyly, giving her hand, but quickly withdrawing it. The next moment she had turned away, leaving old Thurston making his abject reverence for "value received."

Arthur had spoken jestingly, Joanna knew, and his words had given pain. But, as she went to the house, she passed by the mimosa-tree, and her thoughts and feelings underwent an instantaneous change. She had been so busy with her flounce and her demi-train that she had seen nothing of young Hendall for nearly a week, and she now remembered with keen self-reproach that she had lost the opportunity of expressing to him her appreciation of his graceful compliment in carving her name. Joanna had many little notions of her own on the subject of propriety and good-breeding; and she had meant to say something very wellworded and proper on the first occasion that should offer; but it had all gone out of her head at the thought of his departure. How,

she asked herself, impatiently-how was she to prosper in life if she was always so unready? (For Joanna, you see, was practical as well as romantic.) And what must he think of her? It was not for him to mention the name he had carved, she knew very well. And then this foolish little Joanna stood still in the shadow, and dreamed a foolish dream; from which, however, she was soon rudely awakened by Miss Basil's shrill voice, calling wildly:

"Joanna! O Jo-an-na!"

Alas! how many a lovely vision has been dispelled by that clarion-cry! Joanna, with a frown and a sigh, came back to earth, and, loath to be found in the immediate neighborhood of the tree that bore her name, advanced hurriedly up the broad walk that led to the house.

But Miss Basil, whom she met half-way, saw at once whence she came, and was seized with quick alarm. Joanna had had no breakfast, she knew; and she feared that the case must be nearly past hope when a girl gave herself up to romance before appeasing the demands of hunger.

"Joanna!" she exclaimed, vehemently, 'you are the despair of my life! Have you forgotten that you have had no breakfast? Do you expect to live on air?"

"No, certainly, 'Mela," answered Joanna, briskly. She had a good, healthy appetite, and just now she was very hungry. "I could not eat my dinner yesterday, I was so -excited by company, I suppose; and I feel half starved."

"Yes," answered Miss Basil, in a much calmer tone; "I remember that you ate no dinner." Though no great eater herself, she was always sorry for hungry people, and anxious to feed them. Joanna's matter-offact admission of her famished condition quieted her apprehensions somewhat, and appealed to her sympathies strongly. "I've kept something hot for you, child; but you should have eaten it long ago. I don't approve of long fasts at this season."

Happily for her peace of mind, it did not occur to her that Joanna could have been bidding farewell to young Hendall at the gate; and her clouded visage cleared apace when she saw with what good appetite the breakfast was assailed. Surely, now that young Hendall was fairly out of the wayand Miss Basil devoutly prayed that he might remain away forever-she need not despair utterly of Joanna. Nevertheless, she felt that she must now make it her study to counteract the pernicious influence of the ill-judged honor Mrs. Basil had conferred upon the child, in having her at the dining. "Joanna," said she, mildly, "I do not wish to hurry you; rapid eating is ruinous to the digestion: take time, and eat leisurely, but when you have finished, there are the apples to be peeled and cut for drying; and, really, I need help." No fruit was allowed to rot on the ground at Basilwood; day by day, every windfallen apple, or so much of it as was available, was dried for market.

"Very well, 'Mela," said Joanna, cheerfully; "I'll help you all that I can." Though often idle, she was not lazy; and the burden of life does not seem so weary, after one

has eaten a hearty breakfast with good appetite. "Just have every thing ready, 'Mela. I've finished my breakfast."

"Here is the basket of apples, child; and here is the basket for the cores and the peelings; and here are the knife and the tray," answered Miss Basil, categorically. "Tie on this apron, to save your dress; and be very careful to cut the peelings as thin as possible; let there be no waste, Joanna."

"Aren't you going to help-to assist, I mean?" asked Joanna, mindful still of expressing herself with elegant propriety. "Because I should like to talk to you." Joanna was hoping to hear the untold story of Miss Basil's girlhood: no wonder she was so willing to work at the apples.

"Why, no-not exactly; that is-I be lieve I must superintend Myra just now," stammered Miss Basil, uneasily.

"Pamela!" said Joanna, tragically, rising and stretching out her arms, "there is a great wall growing up between us and you are building it."

Miss Basil turned white, and then red. At last, "You are talking nonsense!" said she, angrily; and walked out of the room.

But Joanna saw that Miss Basil understood her; she saw, too, that Miss Basil could not be at ease in her presence; why else should she make Myra an excuse, Myra who was so thoroughly trustworthy? And Joanna, embittered by suspicion and distrust, began to exercise a ruthless espionage over the uneasy woman, who, before that day was over, became keenly alive to the fact that she was watched. For Miss Basil was by no means in so great need of assistance as she would have had Joanna believe. The absence, so far, of visitors had rendered the summer a far easier one than had been known at Basilwood for several years past, and Miss Basil had, just now, rather more leisure than was good for her, under the circumstances. If she had been really so very busy, she might have escaped the uncomfortable consciousness of Joanna's great eyes that followed her everywhere. Even when she went up-stairs, late in the afternoon, to dress, Joanna was at her side, restless, miserable, indignant, and tyrannical.

"There!" she cried, reproachfully, when the black silk was taken down from its peg in the closet, "now I know that Mr. Redmond is coming again! A clean calico is good enough for most days."

face bent over the open bureau-drawer, in which her hands were wildly tossing about the orderly array of collars, and cuffs, and handkerchiefs, and Joanna kuew that it was not "nonsense."

Poor woman! She thought this child, that she had so striven to train up in the way she should go, utterly unreasonable; but she had never attempted to reason with Joanna, she did not know how. When Joanna became "unreasonable," she could only use authority; so, when she had recovered somewhat from her confusion, she said, sharply:

"Joanna, this idle way of hanging about annoys me so that I cannot find what I want. Haven't you some knitting, or some crochet, that you can fill up the day with?"

"May I take it into the garden?" asked Joanna, resignedly.

"Yes, surely, child," Miss Basil replied; for now, that Arthur Hendall was gone, why should she not have the freedom of the garden? Any thing to keep her out of the way just now.

But Joanna was going into the garden with the express purpose of waylaying Basil Redmond, whom she felt sure of meeting alone, as, by the time he took his departure, Pamela, she knew, would be under the necessity of skimming the cream.

She hid herself, therefore, within the friendly shadow of a ragged, overgrown euonymous, and waited; but she waited long. Basil Redmond was much later than she had thought he would be, and when at last he came he was not alone. Joanna, within the shadow, distinctly heard Mrs. Basil's subdued but clear tones in earnest discussion.

"... But I found her here, as you know, when I married, and I asked the judge no questions," Mrs. Basil was saying.

They had evidently arrested their steps at this point, and were standing now quite near Joanna's retreat.

"I am utterly free from idle curiosity," continued Mrs. Basil. "I have not the faintest desire to pry into her affairs; but you must agree with me that it is extremely embarrassing to find that she has become a subject of gossip. One really does not know what to say when one is assailed with the statement that a quiet, inoffensive, retired woman like Miss Basil is the centre of some great mystery. Pamela is so-so reticent that I hesitate to say any thing to her."

"Thank you; you are very considerate," said Redmond, quickly.

"But, indeed, this sort of gossip should be stopped; and I appeal to you, Mr. Redmond, to say how it can best be done."

"The best way to stop it, I should think," replied he, after a pause, "would be simply

not to heed it."

"But consider: this story, or rather this hint of a story, for there is nothing tangible about it, so far as I can learn, comes through Lydia Crane, a sister of Lebrun the milliner, who has a cousin living out West, in the very neighborhood from which Miss Basil came—” "It is many years ago," interrupted Redmond, briefly.

"And this cousin of Lebrun's," continued Mrs. Basil, "writes to her relatives here, declaring that there is some mighty mystery

about Miss Basil; and that only very receutly some one has been out there instituting very strict inquiries about her. One can hardly refuse to listen to statements like this, though I blush to relate such tattle; yet it strikes me that you are the proper person to refute it."

A pause followed, during which Joanna, whose conscience did not reproach her in the least for listening, feared that the loud beating of her heart must betray her.

At last Redmond spoke:

"All this seems to me too vague to be worth refuting; but it is due to you, perhaps, to say that-Miss Basil has a story—”

"Ah!" cried Mrs. Basil, sharply.

"A sad and painful story. It was known to the judge, who counseled silence; and silence certainly seemed best under then-existing circumstances. The time, however, is coming, I think, when silence shall no longer be advisable; but, until this time does come, I cannot feel at liberty to reveal what I know of her story; and, meanwhile, I rely upon your known discretion and-sympathy."

In grappling with the world at so early an age, Basil Redmond had certainly learned some adroitness.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Basil. "But, I must express a hope, Mr. Redmond, that this -mystery of Miss Basil's, into which, it is needless to say, I will no further inquire, will reflect no discredit upon the Basil family. I bear the name myself."

"It will reflect no discredit upon the Basil family," Redmond replied, rather coldly.

"It is getting late," said Mrs. Basil. Then, with a long, shivering sigh: "I will no longer detain you. Good-night."

“Good-night,” responded Redmond, standing for a moment wrapped in thought where Mrs. Basil had left him. Only for a moment, however; hardly had she disappeared when Joanna sprang out of her retreat and startled his thoughts away.

"I've heard what you said," panted she. "I listened on purpose; right or wrong, I must know. I waited here to ask you. Pamela is all I have in the world; why must you come between us with your secrets and your mysteries?"

Poor little Joanna! she had been all day conning a well-worded, deliberate, effective speech; and this was all that she could say, half choking with the utterance, as it was. "Joanna!" exclaimed Redmond. "Poor child!" And Joanna, who had persuaded herself that she hated him, burst into tears at his sympathizing tones. "Joanna! Joanna!" he said, distressed, "be quiet, try to be quiet, and I will make you understand it." Joanna, then, by a great effort, having subdued her sobs, he continued, gravely: "If you have heard what I said to Mrs. Basil, there is no need for me to repeat it; for I can tell you no more than I told her. But hear me one moment, little Joanna-can you not see that your 'Mela, as you call her, has a right to withhold her confidence from you? If you love her, you will trust her without exacting confidence; you will bear in mind what you have heard me say, that her story is a sad and painful one, and you will shrink from all allusion to it for very pity."

"You can be a comfort and consolation to her without a doubt," said Redmond, smiling to himself at her artlessness. "Joanna, you and I should never forget that she has been to each of us a mother indeed. What should we be without her? For my. self, I tremble to think."

He paused, and was silent a long time. "I don't understand you," said Joanna,, timidly. She was awed by his manner.

"You cannot get over the impression that I am a stranger," said he, with a kindly smile. "Sit here on this bench, and let me tell you about the time when you were my playmate in this very garden; let me, if possible, recall myself to your remembrance."

"And yet," said Joanna, yielding a reluctant consent, "you don't live here; you've been away for years, and when you come back you stay over in the town as if you were a stranger, really."

His face darkened.

"I can never make Basilwood my home," said he; "but I do not wish to talk about that, Joanna; I would rather make you remember me, if I can ;" and then he began to tell her about his boyhood at his Basilwood.

Miss Basil, in her dry, brief fashion, had recounted it all before; but there was so wide a difference between her manner and his, that the story had all the charm of novelty, and, though it was not possible to recall more than a very faint image of that time to her remembrance, her prejudice against him, as a stranger, began slowly to fade away.

Her interest deepened when he came to speak of his life" out in the world." It had been a struggle full of adventure.

"I must have succumbed to temptation and been lost forever," said he, with feeling, as if to sum up all that remained to be said about his debt to Miss Basil, "but for that constant soul. She never lost sight of me, she never lost faith in me. I was the hope of her life, she said, and she made it impossible that I should disappoint her."

"H'm!" said Joanna; "and I am the despair of her life; she tells me so from day to day."

"Oh, no," Basil Redmond answered; "you must not be that. Did you not say just now that you would be her comfort and consolation?"

Then he bade her "Good-night," and was gone.

never known Mrs. Blandford at all well, though he and she had once or twice found themselves fellow-guests at some of his cousin's fashionable dinner-parties, this cousin being a certain Mrs. Churchill Abernethey, a lady of great wealth, and a prominent social leader.

Philip, whom Fortune had favored with a neat inherited income, was frequently the recipient of summer invitations to countryhouses; but he remembered Mrs. Blandford much too accurately for the commission of any such blunder as to infer that she was playing the manoeuvring mamma; yet the manoeuvring sister or bosom-friend was a wholly different matter. Who was the prettiest woman in America? Philip examined the dainty, violet - scented note again, and made himself quite sure that his would-be hostess had not answered this vital question. Then he assumed a plaintively bored look, and told himself that there was little doubt of the prettiest woman in America being unwedded and perhaps poor. Spare him the charge of egotism because of these reflections. He had been made so often to feel like a peripatetic money-bag in the presence of diligent feminine self-interest, that a certain sort of skepticism (which, as we know, comes from the Greek of "to observe") had necessarily singed, if not blighted, the freshness more natural to his twentyeight years of manhood.

On the whole, Philip had no reason for refusing Mrs. Blandford's invitation. None, that is, except one. Her husband, John Blandford, whom he saw now and then at the club, and was occasionally thrown with, he disliked to a considerable degree. Blandford, Philip had some time ago made up his mind, was a purse-proud, social bully.

As it turned out, however, he went up to Blandford's place on a Hudson River steamboat, not many days later, in the society of that gentleman himself. Philip scarcely knew why he subjected his nervous system to this last trial, except that perhaps there lurked within him a deep curiosity to see the prettiest woman in America; and, besides, it was insupportably hot, and a steamboat, even with Blandford, preferable in this weather to a railway-car without him.

During the voyage he learned the name of the Badoura, to whom he had perhaps been asked to play Camaralzaman. It was Mrs. Eustace Averill, the widow of a wellknown Philadelphia lawyer. Blandford, who was a large man, with a beardless face and a great, arching nose, was enthusiastic about her. Being by nature a bully, as before bas been said, he strove, with hand-wavings, and with grimaces, and with occasional pattings of his companion's shoulder, to bully Philip into believing that there had never existed so great a beauty as this same Mrs. Averill.

Not long afterward Philip had an opportunity of assuring himself that Mrs. Averill was a sort of animated wax-figure, after the pattern which we see in barbers' windows. It was a face of the utmost pink-and-white regularity; but it was worn as the mask of a complete mental vacuity, and somehow suggestions of this stole out- - principally through its mouth, no doubt, though Philip

fancied he saw them even in the soft eyes, and in the classic forehead line of Mrs. Averill's irreproachable profile.

All that evening he talked to Mrs. Blandford, and let his host bully this nonpareil of beauties on whatever subjects might conversationally present themselves. He had sat next to Mrs. Averill at dinner, a certain Italian gentleman named Bernotti, and a certain elderly lady, with gray temple-curls and a sweet smile, whom Mr. Blandford addressed as "mother," occupying the other side of the small dinner-table.

The conversation had not been so general but that Philip could make up his mind pretty clearly as regarded Mrs. Averill's capacities for boring him. There was something exquisitely and surprisingly refreshing in the interview that followed between his hostess and himself. The Blandfords' house had a great, commodious piazza, nearly surrounding it. They found themselves walking this, while a large, vivid-yellow moon, ascendant in the limpid east, came to them by many sweet golden glimpses through crevices in the dusky tapestries of woodbine and clematis.

Meeting Mrs. Blandford at a fashionable New York dinner-party, and meeting her here in the country, were two very different matters, as Philip soon discovered. She was not at all a beautiful woman; indeed, she paled to nothing before the unblemished correctness of Mrs. Averill. She was slim of figure, very graceful in every movement, and possessed a pair of darkly-humid hazel eyes; this was all that her most vehement admirer would have dared to say about her physical charms.

"You don't seem to have conceived any great fondness for Mrs. Averill," she told Philip, a day or two later.

"Oh, your husband monopolizes her," he answered, "and your Italian friend Signor Bernotti. By-the-way," he added, "I was asked up, was I not, because of this lovely lady?"

Mrs. Blandford looked candid.

"You read my note. She and the strawberries were put forward as inducements."

an

"Both powerful ones, of course," swered Philip, with a little laugh; "but pardon my telling you that I have found the strawberries-" And then he broke off abruptly with: "Since I was only asked up because of her, I suppose I shall be expected to vanish when she does."

But he did nothing of the sort. He staid two weeks after Mrs. Averill took her departure, under the protection of Mr. Blandford, the latter having conceived a sudden fancy for town again.

Up to the time of Mr. Blandford's going, Philip had grown pretty clearly to understand the terms on which husband and wife stood. Ambition, or some such motive, had made this woman marry John Blandford, and the presence of the man was now in itself a weariness to her. As for Blandford, he omitted no opportunity of bullying his wife on the most trifling subjects, and before their two guests as well; it was only the lady's practised tact that often saved her from the most irritating and unsolicited

assaults while Philip and the Italian were present. Old Mrs. Blandford, however (the lady with the gray curls and the sweet smile), more than once exerted over her social scape-goat of a son the gentlest and yet the most accentuated influence.

There is no doubt that Philip Amyott had begun to feel, at the commencement of bis subsequent two-weeks' stay, that some emotional disquiet, wholly foreign to his previous experience, had somehow entered his life; and the following fortnight developed this disquiet, so to speak, into a full-grown, undeniable passion.

Philip had what, in its broadest and best sense, deserves to be called a moral temperament. The thought of his feelings toward Mrs. Blandford was not alone a sorrow to him, it was a source of chilling self-disgust as well. "I feel like a man in a French novel," he told himself, on a certain evening, just before the quiet-spoken, commonplace little interview which informed his hostess that he was going back to town on the mor

row.

No personal ambition had brought about Mrs. Blandford's marriage. She was "literally puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue." Her parents were poor, and it was out of the question that a great match like John Blandford should fall in love with Sybil Emlyn's hazel eyes and not make conquest of their owner. She remembered well enough how she inwardly shuddered when she got her betrothal kiss.

Perhaps her husband discovered soon enough her utter indifference, and so grew vehemently to reciprocate it after his own characteristic fashion. However this may have been, their married life had turned out a sad farce. From the first moment that she had met Philip Amyott, Sybil Blandford had liked him; but she foresaw no vaguest prophetic sign of what was to come when she asked that he would eat her strawberries and admire her handsome guest.

Slight marvel, indeed, that the interview in which Philip told of his purposed departure should have been both placid and prosaic. Mrs. Blandford was an inflexible casuist on certain points, and, if Philip felt at all like the hero of a French novel, be sure that she did not contribute by least word or look to the effectiveness of his situation.

"You can go down with Mr. Bernotti," she told him, "if you choose to take the eleven-ten train. He always takes that."

It must not be supposed that the Italian gentleman, Signor Bernotti, had been staying all this time at Mrs. Blandford's countryhouse. Indeed, he had made two short visits there since Philip's arrival, not remaining more than a day each time, and the present visit was now his third. Mrs. Blandford seemed fond of his society, as indeed she cordially was. He received from her a certain humorously-patronizing treatment, sometimes, that appeared both given and accepted in complete good-nature. Bernotti was a handsome fellow, with his vivid dusk eyes and his clear-cut, colorless face, and lithe, erect figure. The Blandfords had picked him up somewhere abroad, people said, and he was of quite distinguishad birth and consid

erable means.

He usually passed in society

for being rather more John Blandford's friend than his wife's. Anyhow, he had gained and certainly deserved the name of a household intimate.

After his return to New York, Philip Amyott went through a great deal of severe mental pain. He had never loved any woman before, and this woman had now seemed to him the sweet epitome of all lovable graces. He was miserable, as a man hopelessly in love must of necessity find himself. But he struggled hard with his own passion all that summer, and toward autumn he had reached a state of either real or fancied peace.

During October chance directed that he should fall in with Blandford, one afternoon, at the club. Blandford, it happened, was in one of his most bullying moods. He was to start for his country-place on the following day, and, having always liked Philip, it struck him that he would bully that gentleman into making himself and wife another visit. Philip received the proposal, felt a quiver of temptation pass through him, and politely refused it. Blandford insisted Though himself perfectly indifferent to Nature in all her moods, he spoke with enthusiasm regarding the beautiful autumnal tints this year, and promised Philip (a subject on which he was much more at home) some capital woodcock-shooting.

How little he knew, this persistent dealer in hospitalities, that an infinitely stronger inducement than any thus far mentioned was pulling at poor Philip's heart-strings! It is no wonder that passion, to this slight extent at least, slowly gained the upper hand of principle. Philip began to waver. "I had a half engagement to go and visit my cousin, Mrs. Churchill Abernethey, to-morrow," he audibly meditated, "but-" And he went up with Blandford on the following day.

Bernotti accompanied them. He was a sort of social salvation to Philip on board the steamboat, for his suave, high-bred manner made Blandford's flimsy, self-assertive commonplaces much less to be minded. Philip inquired of Bernotti whether this was the first visit he had paid to their prospective host and hostess since they themselves had both come down together in early July.

"Oh, no," Bernotti answered, with what struck his listener as a kind of frank sadness. "I have been many times since thenat least three times each month, I should say. But short visits, you know-short visits."

"I believe the man has some hopeless love-affair," thought Philip, stealing a glance through their mutual cigarette-smoke, while they sat side by side on deck, at the duskily. pale face of the Italian and his dark, drooped, meditative eyes. "And I believe, too, that he goes to Mrs. Blandford for friendly consolation."

Philip was doubtless a bombshell to his hostess. But she met him magnificently. Her "How have you passed the summer, Mr. Amyott?" was the supreme of nice acting. As for Philip, he found that he had much over-measured his powers. The hand which gave her greeting was cold, almost clammy. His face had paled as they met, but while she spoke it began to flush feverishly.