University of Virginia Library

TWO BUCKETS IN A WELL.

“Five hundred dollars a year!” echoed Fanny Bellairs, as
the first silver grey of the twilight spread over her picture.

“And my art,” modestly added the painter, prying into his
bright copy of the lips pronouncing upon his destiny.

“And how much may that be, at the present rate of patronage
—one picture a year, painted for love!”

“Fanny, how can you be so calculating!”

“By the bumps over my eyebrows, I suppose. Why, my
dear coz, we have another state of existence to look forward to—
old man-age and old woman-age! What am I to do with five
hundred dollars a year, when my old frame wants gilding—(to
use one of your own similes)—I shan't always be pretty Fanny
Bellairs!”

“But, good Heavens! we shall grow old together!” exclaimed
the painter, sitting down at her feet, “and what will you care
for other admiration, if your husband see you still beautiful, with
the eyes of memory and habit.”

“Even if I were sure he would so look upon me!” answered
Miss Bellairs, more seriously, “I can not but dread an old age
without great means of embellishment. Old people, except in

poetry and in very primitive society, are dishonored by wants
and cares. And, indeed, before we are old—when neither young
nor old—we want horses and ottomans, kalydor and conservatories,
books, pictures, and silk curtains—all quite out of the
range of your little allowance, don't you see!”

“You do not love me, Fanny!”

“I do—and will marry you, Philip—as I, long ago, with my
whole heart, promised. But I wish to be happy with you—as
happy, quite as happy, as is at all possible, with our best efforts,
and coolest, discreetest management. I laugh the matter over
sometimes, but I may tell you, since you are determined to be in
earnest, that I have treated it, in my solitary thought, as the one
important event of my life—(so indeed it is!)—and, as such,
worthy of all fore-thought, patience, self-denial, and calculation.
To inevitable ills I can make up my mind like other people. If
your art were your only hope of subsistence—why—I don't
know—(should I look well as a page?)—I don't know that I
couldn't run your errands and grind your paints in hose and
doublet. But there is another door open for you—a counting-house
door, to be sure—leading to opulence and all the appliances
of dignity and happiness, and through this door, my dear Philip,
the art you would live by comes to pay tribute and beg for
patronage. Now, out of your hundred and twenty reasons, give
me the two stoutest and best, why you should refuse your brother's
golden offer of partnership—my share, in your alternative of
poverty, left for the moment out of the question.”

Rather overborne by the confident decision of his beautiful
cousin, and having probably made up his mind that he must
ultimately yield to her, Philip replied in a lower and more
dejected tone:—

“If you were not to be a sharer in my renown, should I be so
fortunate as to acquire it, I should feel as if it were selfish to
dwell so much on my passion for distinction, and my devotion to
my pencil as the means of winning it. My heart is full of you—
but it is full of ambition, too, paradox though it be. I cannot
live ignoble. I should not have felt worthy to press my love upon
you—worthy to possess you—except with the prospect of celebrity
in my art. You make the world dark to me, Fanny! You
close down the sky, when you shut out this hope! Yet it shall
be so.”

Philip paused a moment, and the silence was uninterrupted.

“There was another feeling I had, upon which I have not
insisted,” he continued. By my brother's project, I am to reside
almost wholly abroad. Even the little stipend I have to offer you
now is absorbed of course by the investment of my property in his
trading capital, and marriage, till I have partly enriched myself,
would be even more hopeless than at present. Say the interval
were five years—and five years of separation!”

“With happiness in prospect, it would soon pass, my dear
Philip!”

“But is there nothing wasted in this time? My life is yours
—the gift of love. Are not these coming five years the very
flower of it!—a mutual loss, too, for are they not, even more
emphatically, the very flower of yours? Eighteen and twenty-five
are ages at which to marry, not ages to defer. During this
time the entire flow of my existence is at its crowning fullness—
passion, thought, joy, tenderness, susceptibility to beauty and
sweetness—all I have that can be diminished or tarnished, or
made dull by advancing age and contact with the world, is thrown
away—for its spring and summer. Will the autumn of life repay

us for this? Will it—even if we are rich and blest with health,
and as capable of an unblemished union as now? Think of this
a moment, dear Fanny!”

“I do—it is full of force and meaning, and, could we marry
now, with a tolerable prospect of competency, it would be
irresistible. But poverty in wedlock, Philip—”

“What do you call poverty! If we can suffice for each other,
and have the necessaries of life, we are not poor! My art will
bring us consideration enough—which is the main end of wealth,
after all—and, of society, speaking for myself only, I want
nothing. Luxuries for yourself, Fanny—means for your dear
comfort and pleasure—you should not want if the world held them,
and surely the unbounded devotion of one man to the support of
the one woman he loves, ought to suffice for the task! I am
strong—I am capable of labor—I have limbs to toil, if my genius
and my present means fail me, and, oh, Heaven! you could not
want!”

“No, no, no! I thought not of want!” murmured Miss
Bellairs, “I thought only—”

But she was not permitted to finish the sentence.

“Then my bright picture for the future may be realized!” exclaimed
Philip, knitting his hands together in a transport of hope.
“I may build up a reputation, with you for the constant partner
of its triumphs and excitements! I may go through the world,
and have some care in life besides subsistence, how I shall sleep,
and eat, and accumulate gold; some companion, who, from the
threshold of manhood, shared every thought—and knew every
feeling—some pure and present angel who walked with me and
purified my motives and ennobled my ambitions, and received
from my lips and eyes, and from the beating of my heart against

her own, all the love I had to give in a lifetime. Tell me,
Fanny! tell me, my sweet cousin! is not this a picture of bliss,
which, combined with success in my noble art, might make a
Paradise on earth for you and me?”

The hand of Fanny Bellairs rested on the upturned forehead of
her lover as he sat at her feet in the deepening twilight, and she
answered him with such sweet words as are linked together by
spells known only to woman—but his palette and pencils were,
nevertheless, burned in solemn holocaust that very night, and the
lady carried her point, as ladies must. And, to the importation of
silks from Lyons, was devoted, thenceforth, the genius of a Raphael
—perhaps! Who knows?

The reader will naturally have gathered from this dialogue
that Miss Fanny Bellairs had black eyes, and was rather below
the middle stature. She was a belle, and it is only belle-metal of
this particular description which is not fusible by “burning
words.” She had mind enough to appreciate fully the romance
and enthusiasm of her cousin, Philip Ballister, and knew precisely
the phenomena which a tall blonde (this complexion of woman
being soluble in love and tears), would have exhibited under a
similar experiment. While the fire of her love glowed, therefore,
she opposed little resistance, and seemed softened and yielding,
but her purpose remained unaltered, and she rang out “no!”
the next morning, with a tone as little changed as a convent-bell
from matins to vespers, though it has passed meantime through
the furnace of an Italian noon.

Fanny was not a designing girl, either. She might have found
a wealthier customer for her heart than her cousin Philip. And
she loved this cousin as truly and well as her nature would admit,

or as need be, indeed. But two things had conspired to give her
the unmalleable quality just described—a natural disposition to
confide, first and foremost, on all occasions, in her own sagacity,
and a vivid impression made upon her mind by a childhood of
poverty. At the age of twelve she had been transferred from the
distressed fireside of her mother, Mrs. Bellairs, to the luxurious
roof of her aunt, Mrs. Ballister, and, her mother dying soon after,
the orphan girl was adopted, and treated as a child; but the
memory of the troubled hearth at which she had first learned to
observe and reason, colored all the purposes and affections,
thoughts, impulses, and wishes of the ripening girl, and to think
of happiness in any proximity to privation seemed to her impossible,
even though it were in the bosom of love. Seeing no
reason to give her cousin credit for any knowledge of the world
beyond his own experience, she decided to think for him as well
as love him, and, not being so much pressed as the enthusiastic
painter by the “besoin d'aimer et de se faire aimer,” she very
composedly prefixed, to the possession of her hand, the trifling
achievement of getting rich—quite sure that if he knew as much
as she, he would willingly run that race without the incumbrance
of matrimony.

The death of Mr. Ballister, senior, had left the widow and her
two boys more slenderly provided for than was anticipated—Phil's
portion, after leaving college, producing the moderate income
before mentioned. The elder brother had embarked in his father's
business, and it was thought best on all hands for the younger
Ballister to follow his example. But Philip, whose college leisure
had been devoted to poetry and painting, and whose genius for
the latter, certainly, was very decided, brought down his habits
by a resolute economy to the limits of his income, and took up

the pencil for a profession. With passionate enthusiasm, great
purity of character, distaste for all society not in harmony with
his favorite pursuit, and an industry very much concentrated and
rendered effective by abstemious habits, Philip Ballister was very
likely to develop what genius might lie between his head and
hand, and his progress in the first year had been allowed, by
eminent artists, to give very unusual promise. The Ballisters
were still together, under the maternal roof, and the painter's
studies were the portraits of the family, and Fanny's picture, of
course, much the most difficult to finish. It would be very hard
if a painter's portrait of his liege mistress, the lady of his heart,
were not a good picture, and Fanny Bellairs on canvas was divine
accordingly. If the copy had more softness of expression than
the original (as it was thought to have), it only proves that wise
men have for some time suspected, that love is more dumb than
blind, and the faults of our faultless idols are noted, however
unconsciously. Neither thumb-screws nor hot coals—nothing
probably but repentance after matrimony—would have drawn
from Philip Ballister, in words, the same correction of his
mistress's foible that had oozed out through his treacherous
pencil!

Cupid is often drawn as a stranger pleading to be “taken in,”
but it is a miracle that he is not invariably drawn as a portrait-painter.
A bird tied to the muzzle of a gun—an enemy who has
written a book—an Indian prince under the protection of
Giovanni Bulletto (Tuscan for John Bull),—is not more close
upon demolition, one would think, than the heart of a lady
delivered over to a painter's eyes, posed, draped and lighted with
the one object of studying her beauty. If there be any magnetism
in isolated attention, any in steadfast gazing, any in passes

of the hand hither and thither—if there be any magie in ce doux
demi-jour so loved in France, in stuff for flattery ready pointed
and feathered, in freedom of admiration, “and all in the way of
business”—then is a loveable sitter to a love-like painter in
“parlous” vicinity (as the new school would phrase it), to sweetheart-land!
Pleasure in a vocation has no offset in political
economy as honor has (“the more honor the less profit,”) or
portrait-painters would be poorer than poets.

And, malgré his consciousness of the quality which required
softening in his cousin's beauty, and malgré his rare advantages
for obtaining over her a lover's proper ascendency, Mr. Philip
Ballister bowed to the stronger will of Miss Fanny Bellairs, and
sailed for France on his apprenticeship to Mammon.

The reader will please to advance five years. Before proceeding
thence with our story, however, let us take a Parthian glance
at the overstepped interval.

Philip Ballister had left New York with the triple vow that he
would enslave every faculty of his mind and body to business,
that he would not return till he had made a fortune, and that
such interstices as might occur in the building up of this chateau
for felicity should be filled with sweet reveries about Fanny
Bellairs. The forsworn painter had genius, as we have before
hinted, and genius is (as much as it is any one thing), the power
of concentration. He entered upon his duties accordingly, with a
force, and patience of application, which soon made him master
of what are called business habits, and, once in possession of the
details, his natural cleverness gave him a speedy insight to all the
scope and tacties of his particular field of trade. Under his
guidance, the affairs of the house were soon in a much more

prosperous train, and, after a year's residence at Lyons, Philip
saw his way very clear to manage them with a long arm and take
up his quarters in Paris.

“Les fats sont les seuls hommes qui aient soin d'eux némes,”
says a French novelist, but there is a period, early or late, in the
lives of the cleverest men, when they become suddenly curious as
to their capacity for the graces. Paris, to a stranger who does
not visit in the Faubourg St. Germain, is a republic of personal
exterior, where the degree of privilege depends, with Utopian
impartiality, on the style of the outer man; and Paris, therefore,
if he is not already a Bachelor of Arts (qu?—beau's Arts),
usually serves the traveller as an Alma Mater of the pomps and
vanities.

Phil. Ballister, up to the time of his matriculation in Chaussée
D'Antin, was a romantic-looking sloven. From this to a very
dashing coxcomb is but half a step, and, to be rid of the coxcombry
and retain a look of fashion, is still within the easy limits of imitation.
But—to obtain superiority of presence, with no apparent
aid from dress and no describable manner, and to display, at the
same time, every natural advantage in effective relief, and, withal,
to adapt this subtle philtre, not only to the approbation of the
critical and censorious, but to the taste of fair women gifted with
judgment as God pleases—this is a finish not born with any man
(though unsuccessful if it do not seem to be), and never reached
in the apprenticeship of life, and never reached at all by men not
much above their fellows. He who has it, has “bought his doublet
in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany,
and his behavior everywhere,” for he must know, as a chart of
quicksands, the pronounced models of other nations; but to be a
“picked man of countries,” and to have been a coxcomb and a

man of fashion, are, as a painter would say, but the setting of the
palette toward the making of the chef-d'œuvre.

Business prospered, and the facilities of leisure increased, while
Ballister passed through these transitions of taste, and he found
intervals to travel, and time to read, and opportunity to indulge,
as far as he could with the eye only, his passion for knowledge in
the arts. To all that appertained to the refinement of himself,
he applied the fine feelers of a delicate and passionate construction,
physical and mental, and, as the reader will already have
included, wasted on culture comparatively unprofitable, faculties
that would have been better employed but for the meddling of
Miss Fanny Bellairs.

Ballister's return from France was heralded by the arrival of
statuary and pictures, books, furniture, and numberless articles of
tasteful and costly luxury. The reception of these by the family
at home threw rather a new light on the probable changes in the
long-absent brother, for, from the signal success of the business
he had managed, they had very naturally supposed that it was
the result only of unremitted and plodding care. Vague rumors
of changes in his personal appearance had reached them, such as
might be expected from conformity to foreign fashions, but those
who had seen Philip Ballister in France, and called subsequently
on the family in New York, were not people qualified to judge of
the man, either from their own powers of observation or from any
confidence he was likely to put forward while in their society.
His letters had been delightful, but they were confined to third-person
topics, descriptions of things likely to interest them, &c.,
and Fanny had few addressed personally to herself, having thought
it worth while, for the experiment sake, or for some other reason,

to see whether love would subsist without its usual pabulum of
tender correspondence, and a veto on love-letters having served
her for a parting injunction at Phil's embarkation for Havre.
However varied by their different fancies, the transformation
looked for by the whole family was substantially the same—the
romantic artist sobered down to a practical, plain man of business.
And Fanny herself had an occasional misgiving as to her relish
for his counting-house virtues and manners; though, on the detection
of the feeling, she immediately closed her eyes upon it, and
drummed up her delinquent constancy for “parade and inspection.”

All bustles are very much alike (we use the word as defined in
Johnson), and the reader will appreciate our delicacy, besides, in
not intruding on the first re-union of relatives and lovers long
separated.

The morning after Philip Ballister's arrival, the family sat long
at breakfast. The mother's gaze fastened untiringly on the features
of her son—still her boy—prying into them with a vain
effort to reconcile the face of the man with the cherished picture
of the child with sunny locks, and noting little else than the work
of inward change upon the countenance and expression. The
brother, with the predominant feeling of respect for the intelligence
and industry of one who had made the fortunes of the
house, read only subdued sagacity in the perfect simplicity of his
whole exterior. And Fanny—Fanny was puzzled. The bourgeoisie
and ledger-bred hardness of manner which she had looked
for were not there, nor any variety of the “foreign slip-slop”
common to travelled youth, nor any superciliousness, nor (faith!)
any wear and tear of youth and good looks—nothing that she
expected—nothing! Not even a French guard-chain!

What there was in her cousin's manners and exterior, however,
was much more difficult to define by Miss Bellairs than what
there was not. She began the renewal of their intercourse with
very high spirits, herself—the simple nature and unpretendingness
of his address awakening only an unembarrassed pleasure at
seeing him again—but she soon began to suspect there was an
exquisite refinement in this very simplicity, and to wonder at
“the trick of it;” and, after the first day passed in his society,
her heart beat when he spoke to her, as it did not use to beat
when she was sitting to him for her picture, and listening to his
passionate love-making. And, with all her faculties, she studied
him. What was the charm of his presence? He was himself,
and himself only. He seemed perfect, but he seemed to have
arrived at perfection like a statue, not like a picture—by what
had been taken away, not by what had been laid on. He was as
natural as a bird, and as graceful and unembarrassed. He neither
forced conversation, nor pressed the little attentions of the drawing-room,
and his attitudes were full of repose; yet she was completely
absorbed in what he said, and she had been impressed
imperceptibly with his high-bred politeness, and the singular
elegance of his person. Fanny felt there was a change in her
relative position to her cousin. In what it consisted, or which
had the advantage, she was perplexed to discover—but she bit
her lips as she caught herself thinking that if she were not engaged
to marry Philip Ballister, she should suspect that she had just
fallen irrecoverably in love with him.

It would have been a novelty in the history of Miss Bellairs
that any event to which she had once consented, should admit of
reconsideration; and the Ballister family, used to her strong will,
were confirmed fatalists as to the coming about of her ends and

aims. Her marriage with Philip, therefore, was discussed, cœur
ouvert, from his first arrival, and, indeed, in her usual fashion of
saving others the trouble of making up their minds, “herself had
named the day.” This, it is true, was before his landing, and
was, then, an effort of considerable magnanimity, as the expectant
Penelope was not yet advised of her lover's state of preservation
or damages by cares and keeping. If Philip had not found his
wedding-day fixed on his arrival, however, he probably would
have had a voice in the naming of it, for, with Fanny's new inspirations
as to his character, there had grown up a new flower in
her garden of beauties—timidity! What bird of the air had sown
the seed in such a soil was a problem to herself—but true it was!—
the confidant belle had grown a blushing trembler! She would
as soon have thought of bespeaking her wings for the sky, as to
have ventured on naming the day in a short week after.

The day was named, however, and the preparations went on—
nem. con.—the person most interested (after herself) accepting
every congratulation and allusion, touching the event, with the
most impenetrable suavity. The marbles and pictures, upholstery
and services, were delivered over to the order of Miss Bellairs,
and Philip, disposed, apparently, to be very much a recluse in
his rooms, or, at other times, engrossed by troops of welcoming
friends, saw much less of his bride elect than suited her wishes,
and saw her seldom alone. By particular request, also, he took
no part in the 'plenishing and embellishing of the new abode—not
permitted even to inquire where it was situated; and, under this
cover, besides the pleasure of having her own way, Fanny concealed
a little secret, which, when disclosed, she now felt, would
figure forth to Philip's comprehension, her whole scheme of future
happiness. She had taken the elder brother into her counsels a

fortnight after Philip's return, and, with his aid and consent, had
abandoned the original idea of a house in town, purchased a beautifully-secluded
estate and cottage ornée, on the East river, and
transferred thither all the objects of art, furniture, &c One
room only of the maternal mansion was permitted to contribute
its quota to the completion of the bridal dwelling—the wing,
never since inhabited, in which Philip had made his essay as a
painter—and, without variation of a cobweb, and, with whimsical
care and effort on the part of Miss Fanny, this apartment was
reproduced at Revedere—her own picture on the easel, as it
stood on the night of his abandonment of his art, and palette,
pencils and colors in tempting readiness on the table. Even the
fire-grate of the old studio had been re-set in the new, and the
cottage throughout had been refitted with a view to occupation
in the winter. And to sundry hints on the part of the elder
brother, that some thought should be given to a city residence—
for the Christmas holydays at least—Fanny replied, through a
blush, that she would never wish to see the town—with Philip at
Revedcre!

Five years had ripened and mellowed the beauty of Fanny
Bellairs, and the same summer-time of youth had turned into
fruit the feeling left by Philip in bud and flower. She was ready
now for love. She had felt the variable temper of society, and
there was a presentiment in the heart, of receding flatteries, and
the winter of life. It was with mournful self-reproach that she
thought of the years wasted in separation, of her own choosing,
from the man she loved; and, with the power to recall time, she
would have thanked God with tears of joy for the privilege of
retracing the chain of life to that link of parting. Not worth a

day of those lost years, she bitterly confessed to herself, was the
wealth they had purchased.

It lacked as little as one week of “the happy day,” when the
workmen were withdrawn from Revedere, and the preparations
for a family breakfast, to be succeeded by the agreeable surprise
to Philip of informing him he was at home, were finally completed.
One or two very intimate friends were added to the
party, and the invitations (from the elder Ballister) proposed
simply a déjeuner sur l'herbe in the grounds of an unoccupied
villa, the property of an acquaintance.

With the subsiding of the excitement of return, the early associations
which had temporarily confused and colored the feelings
of Philip Ballister, settled gradually away, leaving uppermost
once more the fastidious refinement of the Parisian. Through
this medium, thin and cold, the bubbles from the breathing of
the heart of youth, rose rarely and reluctantly. The Ballisters
held a good station in society, without caring for much beyond
the easy conveniences of life, and Fanny, though capable of any
degree of elegance, had not seen the expediency of raising the
tone of her manners above that of her immediate friends. Without
being positively distasteful to Philip, the family circle, Fanny
included, left him much to desire in the way of society, and,
unwilling to abate the warmth of his attentions while with them,
he had latterly pleaded occupation more frequently, and passed his
time in the more congenial company of his library of art. This
was the less noticed that it gave Miss Bellairs the opportunity to
make frequent visits to the workmen at Revedere, and, in the
polished devotion of her betrothed, when with her, Fanny saw
nothing reflected but her own daily increasing tenderness and
admiration.

The morning of the féte came in like the air an overture—a
harmony of all the instruments of summer. The party were at
the gate of Revedere by ten, and the drive through the avenue to
the lawn drew a burst of delighted admiration from all. The
place was exquisite, and seen in its glory, and Fanny's heart was
brimming with gratified pride and exultation. She assumed at
once the dispensation of the honors, and beautiful she looked with
her snowy dress and raven ringlets flitting across the lawn, and
queening it like Perdita among the flowers. Having narrowly
escaped bursting into tears of joy when Philip pronounced the
place prettier than anything he had seen in his travels, she was,
for the rest of the day, calmly happy; and, with the grateful
shade, the delicious breakfast in the grove, the rambling and
boating on the river, the hours passed off like dreams, and no
one even hinted a regret that the house itself was under lock and
bar. And so the sun set, and the twilight came on, and the
guests were permitted to order round their carriages and depart,
the Ballisters accompanying them to the gate. And, on the
return of the family through the avenue, excuses were made for
idling hither and thither, till lights began to show through the
trees, and, by the time of their arrival at the lawn, the low windows
of the cottage poured forth streams of light, and the open
doors, and servants busy within, completed a scene more like
magic than reality. Philip was led in by the excited girl who
was the fairy of the spell, and his astonishment at the discovery
of his statuary and pictures, books and furniture, arranged in
complete order within, was fed upon with the passionate delight
of love in authority.

When an hour had been spent in examining and admiring the
different apartments, an inner room was thrown open, in which

supper was prepared, and this fourth act in the day's drama was
lingered over in untiring happiness by the family.

Mrs. Ballister, the mother, rose and retired, and Philip pleaded
indisposition, and begged to be shown to the room allotted to him.
This was ringing-up the curtain for the last act sooner than had
been planned by Fanny, but she announced herself as his chamberlain,
and, with her hands affectionately crossed on his arm, led
him to a suite of rooms in a wing still unvisited, and, with a good-night
kiss, left him at the open door of the revived studio, furnished
for the night with a bachelor's bed. Turning upon the
threshold, he closed the door with a parting wish of sweet
dreams, and Fanny, after listening a moment with a vain hope of
overhearing some expression of pleasure, and lingering again on
her way back, to be overtaken by her surprised lover, sought her
own bed without rejoining the circle, and passed a sleepless and
happy night of tears and joy.

Breakfast was served the next morning on a terrace overlooking
the river, and it was voted by acclamation, that Fanny never
before looked so lovely. As none but the family were to be present,
she had stolen a march on her marriage wardrobe, and added
to her demi-toilet a morning cap of exquisite becomingness.
Altogether, she looked deliciously wife-like, and did the honors
of the breakfast-table with a grace and sweetness that warmed
out love and compliments even from the sober soil of household
intimacy. Philip had not yet made his appearance, and they
lingered long at table, till at last a suggestion, that he might be ill,
started Fanny to her feet, and she ran to his door before a servant
could be summoned.

The rooms were open, and the bed had not been occupied.
The candle was burned to the socket, and on the easel, resting

against the picture, was a letter addressed—“Miss Fanny Bellairs.”