University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE WIDOW ROWENS GIVES A TEA-PARTY.

There was a good deal of interest felt, as
has been said, in the lonely condition of Dudley
Venner in that fine mansion-house of his, and
with that strange daughter, who would never be
married, as many people thought, in spite of all
the stories. The feelings expressed by the good
folks who dated from the time when they “buried
aour little Anny Marí',” and others of that homespun
stripe, were founded in reason, after all.
And so it was natural enough that they should
be shared by various ladies, who, having conjugated
the verb to live as far as the preterpluperfect
tense, were ready to change one of its vowels
and begin with it in the present indicative. Unfortunately,
there was very little chance of showing
sympathy in its active form for a gentleman
who kept himself so much out of the way as the
master of the Dudley Mansion.

Various attempts had been made, from time to
time, of late years, to get him out of his study,
which had, for the most part, proved failures. It
was a surprise, therefore, when he was seen at

the Great Party at the Colonel's. But it was an
encouragement to try him again, and the consequence
had been that he had received a number
of notes inviting him to various smaller entertainments,
which, as neither he nor Elsie had any
fancy for them, he had politely declined.

Such was the state of things when he received
an invitation to take tea sociably, with a few
friends, at Hyacinth Cottage, the residence of
the Widow Rowens, relict of the late Beeri
Rowens, Esquire, better known as Major Rowens.
Major Rowens was at the time of his
decease a promising officer in the militia, in
the direct line of promotion, as his waistband
was getting tighter every year; and, as all the
world knows, the militia-officer who splits off
most buttons and fills the largest sword-belt
stands the best chance of rising, or, perhaps we
might say, spreading, to be General.

Major Rowens united in his person certain
other traits which help a man to eminence in
the branch of public service referred to. He ran
to high colors, to wide whiskers, to open pores;
he had the saddle-leather skin common in Englishmen,
rarer in Americans, — never found in
the Brahmin caste, oftener in the military and
the commodores: observing people know what
is meant; blow the seed-arrows from the white-kid-looking
button which holds them on a dandelion-stalk,
and the pricked-pincushion surface
shows you what to look for. He had the loud,

gruff voice which implies the right to command.
He had the thick hand, stubbed fingers,
with bristled pads between their joints,
square, broad thumb-nails, and sturdy limbs,
which mark a constitution made to use in
rough out-door work. He had the never-failing
predilection for showy switch-tailed horses that
step high, and sidle about, and act as if they
were going to do something fearful the next minute,
in the face of awed and admiring multitudes
gathered at mighty musters or imposing
cattle-shows. He had no objection, either, to
holding the reins in a wagon behind another
kind of horse, — a slouching, listless beast, with
a strong slant to his shoulder and a notable
depth to his quarter and an emphatic angle at
the hock, who commonly walked or lounged
along in a lazy trot of five or six miles an hour;
but, if a lively colt happened to come rattling
up alongside, or a brandy-faced old horse-jockey
took the road to show off a fast nag, and threw
his dust into the Major's face, would pick his
legs up all at once, and straighten his body out,
and swing off into a three-minute gait, in a way
that “Old Blue” himself need not have been
ashamed of.

For some reason which must be left to the
next generation of professors to find out, the men
who are knowing in horse-flesh have an eye also
for, — let a long dash separate the brute creation
from the angelic being now to be named, —

for lovely woman. Of this fact there can be
no possible doubt; and therefore you shall notice,
that, if a fast horse trots before two, one
of the twain is apt to be a pretty bit of muliebrity,
with shapes to her, and eyes flying about
in all directions.

Major Rowens, at that time Lieutenant of
the Rockland Fusileers, had driven and “traded”
horses not a few before he turned his acquired
skill as a judge of physical advantages in another
direction. He knew a neat, snug hoof, a delicate
pastern, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a
close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man
in the town. He was not to be taken in by
your thick-jointed, heavy-headed cattle, without
any go to them, that suit a country-parson, nor
yet by the “gaänted-up,” long-legged animals,
with all their constitutions bred out of them,
such as rich greenhorns buy and cover up with
their plated trappings.

Whether his equine experience was of any use
to him in the selection of the mate with whom
he was to go in double harness so long as they
both should live, we need not stop to question.
At any rate, nobody could find fault with the
points of Miss Marilla Van Deusen, to whom he
offered the privilege of becoming Mrs. Rowens.
The Van must have been crossed out of her
blood, for she was an out-and-out brunette,
with hair and eyes black enough for a Mohawk's
daughter. A fine style of woman, with

very striking tints and outlines, — an excellent
match for the Lieutenant, except for one thing.
She was marked by Nature for a widow. She
was evidently got up for mourning, and never
looked so well as in deep black, with jet ornaments.

The man who should dare to marry her would
doom himself; for how could she become the
widow she was bound to be, unless he would retire
and give her a chance? The Lieutenant
lived, however, as we have seen, to become Captain
and then Major, with prospects of further
advancement. But Mrs. Rowens often said she
should never look well in colors. At last her destiny
fulfilled itself, and the justice of Nature was
vindicated. Major Rowens got overheated galloping
about the field on the day of the Great Muster,
and had a rush of blood to the head, according
to the common report, — at any rate, something
which stopped him short in his career of expansion
and promotion, and established Mrs. Rowens
in her normal condition of widowhood.

The Widow Rowens was now in the full
bloom of ornamental sorrow. A very shallow
crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the
parted raven hair to show its glossy smoothness.
A jet pin heaved upon her bosom with
every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown
origin. Jet bracelets shone with every movement
of her slender hands, cased in close-fitting black
gloves. Her sable dress was ridged with manifold

flounces, from beneath which a small foot
showed itself from time to time, clad in the same
hue of mourning. Everything about her was
dark, except the whites of her eyes and the
enamel of her teeth. The effect was complete.
Gray's Elegy was not a more perfect composition.

Much as the Widow was pleased with the costume
belonging to her condition, she did not
disguise from herself that under certain circumstances
she might be willing to change her name
again. Thus, for instance, if a gentleman not
too far gone in maturity, of dignified exterior,
with an ample fortune, and of unexceptionable
character, should happen to set his heart upon
her, and the only way to make him happy was to
give up her weeds and go into those unbecoming
colors again for his sake, — why, she felt that it
was in her nature to make the sacrifice. By a
singular coincidence it happened that a gentleman
was now living in Rockland who united in
himself all these advantages. Who he was, the
sagacious reader may very probably have divined.
Just to see how it looked, one day, having bolted
her door, and drawn the curtains close, and
glanced under the sofa, and listened at the key-hole
to be sure there was nobody in the entry, —
just to see how it looked, she had taken out an
envelope and written on the back of it Mrs. Marilla
Venner. It made her head swim and her
knees tremble. What if she should faint, or

die, or have a stroke of palsy, and they should
break into the room and find that name written?
How she caught it up and tore it into little
shreds, and then could not be easy until she had
burned the small heap of pieces! But these are
things which every honorable reader will consider
imparted in strict confidence.

The Widow Rowens, though not of the mansion-house
set, was among the most genteel of
the two-story circle, and was in the habit of visiting
some of the great people. In one of these
visits she met a dashing young fellow with an
olive complexion at the house of a professional
gentleman who had married one of the white
necks and pairs of fat arms from a distinguished
family before referred to. The professional gentleman
himself was out, but the lady introduced
the olive-complexioned young man as Mr. Richard
Venner.

The Widow was particularly pleased with this
accidental meeting. Had heard Mr. Venner's
name frequently mentioned. Hoped his uncle
was well, and his charming cousin, — was she as
original as ever? Had often admired that charming
creature he rode: we had had some fine
horses. Had never got over her taste for riding,
but could find nobody that liked a good long gallop
since — well — she couldn't help wishing
she was alongside of him, the other day, when
she saw him dashing by, just at twilight.

The Widow paused; lifted a flimsy handkerchief

with a very deep black border so as to play
the jet bracelet; pushed the tip of her slender foot
beyond the lowest of her black flounces; looked
up; looked down; looked at Mr. Richard, the
very picture of artless simplicity, — as represented
in well-played genteel comedy.

“A good bit of stuff,” Dick said to himself, —
“and something of it left yet; caramba!” The
Major had not studied points for nothing, and the
Widow was one of the right sort. The young
man had been a little restless of late, and was
willing to vary his routine by picking up an acquaintance
here and there. So he took the Widow's
hint. He should like to have a scamper of
half a dozen miles with her some fine morning.

The Widow was infinitely obliged; was not
sure that she could find any horse in the village
to suit her; but it was so kind in him! Would
he not call at Hyacinth Cottage, and let her
thank him again there?

Thus began an acquaintance which the Widow
made the most of, and on the strength of
which she determined to give a tea-party and
invite a number of persons of whom we know
something already. She took a half-sheet of
note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a
country “merchant's” “clerk” adds up two and
threepence (New-England nomenclature) and
twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and
fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they
will make half a dollar, without cheating somebody.

After much consideration the list reduced
itself to the following names: Mr. Richard Venner
and Mrs. Blanche Creamer, the lady at whose
house she had met him, — mansion-house breed,
— but will come, — soft on Dick; Dudley Venner,
— take care of him herself; Elsie, — Dick
will see to her, — won't it fidget the Creamer
woman to see him round her? the old Doctor, —
he's always handy; and there's that young master
there, up at the school, — know him well
enough to ask him, — oh, yes, he'll come. One,
two, three, four, five, six, — seven; not room
enough, without the leaf in the table; one place
empty, if the leaf's in. Let's see, — Helen Darley,
— she'll do well enough to fill it up, — why,
yes, just the thing, — light brown hair, blue eyes,
— won't my pattern show off well against her?
Put her down, — she's worth her tea and toast
ten times over, — nobody knows what a “thunder-and-lightning
woman,” as poor Major used to
have it, is, till she gets alongside of one of those
old-maidish girls, with hair the color of brown
sugar, and eyes like the blue of a teacup.

The Widow smiled with a feeling of triumph
at having overcome her difficulties and arranged
her party, — arose and stood before her glass,
three-quarters front, one-quarter profile, so as to
show the whites of the eyes and the down of the
upper lip. “Splendid!” said the Widow, — and
to tell the truth, she was not far out of the way,
and with Helen Darley as a foil anybody would

know she must be foudroyant and pyramidal, —
if these French adjectives may be naturalized for
this one particular exigency.

So the Widow sent out her notes. The black
grief which had filled her heart and overflowed in
surges of crape around her person had left a deposit
half an inch wide at the margin of her
note-paper. Her seal was a small youth with an
inverted torch, the same on which Mrs. Blanche
Creamer made her spiteful remark, that she expected
to see that boy of the Widow's standing
on his head yet; meaning, as Dick supposed, that
she would get the torch right-side up as soon as
she had a chance. That was after Dick had
made the Widow's acquaintance, and Mrs.
Creamer had got it into her foolish head that she
would marry that young fellow, if she could catch
him. How could he ever come to fancy such a
quadroon-looking thing as that, she should like to
know?

It is easy enough to ask seven people to a
party; but whether they will come or not is an
open question, as it was in the case of the “vasty
spirits.” If the note issues from a three-story
mansion-house, and goes to two-story acquaintances,
they will all be in an excellent state of
health, and have much pleasure in accepting this
very polite invitation. If the note is from the
lady of a two-story family to three-story ones,
the former highly respectable person will very
probably find that an endemic complaint is prevalent,

not represented in the weekly bills of mortality,
which occasions numerous regrets in the
bosoms of eminently desirable parties that they
cannot have the pleasure of and-so-forthing.

In this case there was room for doubt, —
mainly as to whether Elsie would take a fancy
to come or not. If she should come, her father
would certainly be with her. Dick had promised,
and thought he could bring Elsie. Of course
the young schoolmaster will come, and that poor
tired-out looking Helen, — if only to get out of
sight of those horrid Peckham wretches. They
don't get such invitations every day. The others
she felt sure of, — all but the old Doctor, — he
might have some horrid patient or other to visit;
tell him Elsie Venner's going to be there, — he
always likes to have an eye on her, they say, —
oh, he'd come fast enough, without any more
coaxing.

She wanted the Doctor, particularly. It was
odd, but she was afraid of Elsie. She felt as if
she should be safe enough, if the old Doctor
were there to see to the girl; and then she
should have leisure to devote herself more freely
to the young lady's father, for whom all her
sympathies were in a state of lively excitement.

It was a long time since the Widow had seen
so many persons round her table as she had now
invited. Better have the plates set and see how
they will fill it up with the leaf in. — A little too
scattering with only eight plates set; if she could

find two more people, now, that would bring
the chairs a little closer, — snug, you know, —
which makes the company sociable. The Widow
thought over her acquaintances. Why! how
stupid! there was her good minister, the same
who had married her, and might — might — bury
her for aught she knew, and his granddaughter
staying with him, — nice little girl, pretty, and not
old enough to be dangerous; — for the Widow
had no notion of making a tea-party and asking
people to it that would be like to stand between
her and any little project she might happen
to have on anybody's heart, — not she! It
was all right now; — Blanche was married and
so forth; Letty was a child; Elsie was his daughter;
Helen Darley was a nice, worthy drudge, —
poor thing! — faded, faded, — colors wouldn't
wash, — just what she wanted to show off
against. Now, if the Dudley mansion-house
people would only come, — that was the great
point.

“Here's a note for us, Elsie,” said her father,
as they sat round the breakfast-table. “Mrs.
Rowens wants us all to come to tea.”

It was one of “Elsie's days,” as Old Sophy
called them. The light in her eyes was still, but
very bright. She looked up so full of perverse
and wilful impulses, that Dick knew he could
make her go with him and her father. He had
his own motives for bringing her to this determination,
— and his own way of setting about it.

“I don't want to go,” he said. “What do
you say, Uncle?”

“To tell the truth, Richard, I don't much
fancy the Major's widow. I don't like to see
her weeds flowering out quite so strong. I suppose
you don't care about going, Elsie?”

Elsie looked up in her father's face with an
expression which he knew but too well. She
was just in the state which the plain sort of
people call “contrary,” when they have to deal
with it in animals. She would insist on going
to that tea-party; he knew it just as well before
she spoke as after she had spoken. If Dick
had said he wanted to go and her father had
seconded his wishes, she would have insisted on
staying at home. It was no great matter, her
father said to himself, after all; very likely it
would amuse her; the Widow was a lively
woman enough, — perhaps a little comme il ne
faut pas socially, compared with the Thorntons
and some other families; but what did he care
for these petty village distinctions?

Elsie spoke.

“I mean to go. You must go with me, Dudley.
You may do as you like, Dick.”

That settled the Dudley-mansion business, of
course. They all three accepted, as fortunately
did all the others who had been invited.

Hyacinth Cottage was a pretty place enough,
a little too much choked round with bushes, and

too much overrun with climbing-roses, which, in
the season of slugs and rose-bugs, were apt to
show so brown about the leaves and so coleopterous
about the flowers, that it might be questioned
whether their buds and blossoms made
up for these unpleasant animal combinations, —
especially as the smell of whale-oil soap was very
commonly in the ascendant over that of the roses.
It had its patch of grass called “the lawn,” and
its glazed closet known as “the conservatory,”
according to that system of harmless fictions
characteristic of the rural imagination and shown
in the names applied to many familiar objects.
The interior of the cottage was more tasteful and
ambitious than that of the ordinary two-story
dwellings. In place of the prevailing hair-cloth
covered furniture, the visitor had the satisfaction
of seating himself upon a chair covered with
some of the Widow's embroidery, or a sofa luxurious
with soft caressing plush. The sporting
tastes of the late Major showed in various prints
on the wall: Herring's “Plenipotentiary,” the
“red bullock” of the '34 Derby; “Cadland” and
“The Colonel”; “Crucifix”; “West-Australian,”
fastest of modern racers; and among native
celebrities, ugly, game old “Boston,” with his
straight neck and ragged hips; and gray “Lady
Suffolk,” queen, in her day, not of the turf but
of the track, “extending” herself till she measured
a rod, more or less, skimming along within
a yard of the ground, her legs opening and shutting
under her with a snap, like the four blades
of a compound jack-knife.

These pictures were much more refreshing than
those dreary fancy death-bed scenes, common in
two-story country-houses, in which Washington
and other distinguished personages are represented
as obligingly devoting their last moments to
taking a prominent part in a tableau, in which
weeping relatives, attached servants, professional
assistants, and celebrated personages who might
by a stretch of imagination be supposed present,
are grouped in the most approved style of
arrangement about the chief actor's pillow.

A single glazed bookcase held the family library,
which was hidden from vulgar eyes by
green silk curtains behind the glass. It would
have been instructive to get a look at it, as it
always is to peep into one's neighbor's book-shelves.
From other sources and opportunities
a partial idea of it has been obtained. The
Widow had inherited some books from her
mother, who was something of a reader: Young's
“Night-Thoughts”; “The Preceptor”; “The
Task, a Poem,” by William Cowper; Hervey's
“Meditations”; “Alonzo and Melissa”; “Buccaneers
of America”; “The Triumphs of Temper”;
“La Belle Assemblée”; Thomson's “Seasons”;
and a few others. The Major had brought
in “Tom Jones” and “Peregrine Pickle”; various
works by Mr. Pierce Egan; “Boxiana”;
“The Racing Calendar”; and a “Book of Lively

Songs and Jests.” The Widow had added the
Poems of Lord Byron and T. Moore; “Eugene
Aram”; “The Tower of London,” by Harrison
Ainsworth; some of Scott's Novels; “The Pickwick
Papers”; a volume of Plays, by W. Shakspeare;
“Proverbial Philosophy”; “Pilgrim's Progress”;
“The Whole Duty of Man” (a present
when she was married); with two celebrated religious
works, one by William Law and the other
by Philip Doddridge, which were sent her after
her husband's death, and which she had tried to
read, but found that they did not agree with her.
Of course the bookcase held a few school manuals
and compendiums, and one of Mr. Webster's
Dictionaries. But the gilt-edged Bible
always lay on the centre-table, next to the magazine
with the fashion-plates and the scrap-book
with pictures from old annuals and illustrated
papers.

The reader need not apprehend the recital, at
full length, of such formidable preparations for
the Widow's tea-party as were required in the
case of Colonel Sprowle's Social Entertainment.
A tea-party, even in the country, is a comparatively
simple and economical piece of business.
As soon as the Widow found that all her company
were coming, she set to work, with the aid
of her “smart” maid-servant and a daughter of
her own, who was beginning to stretch and spread
at a fearful rate, but whom she treated as a small
child, to make the necessary preparations. The

silver had to be rubbed; also the grand plated
urn, — her mother's before hers, — style of the
Empire, — looking as if it might have been made
to hold the Major's ashes. Then came the making
and baking of cake and gingerbread, the
smell whereof reached even as far as the sidewalk
in front of the cottage, so that small boys returning
from school snuffed it in the breeze, and discoursed
with each other on its suggestions; so
that the Widow Leech, who happened to pass,
remembered she hadn't called on Marilly Raowens
for a consid'ble spell, and turned in at the gate
and rang three times with long intervals, — but
all in vain, the inside Widow having “spotted”
the outside one through the blinds, and whispered
to her aides-de-camp to let the old thing ring away
till she pulled the bell out by the roots, but not to
stir to open the door.

Widow Rowens was what they called a real
smart, capable woman, not very great on books,
perhaps, but knew what was what and who was
who as well as another, — knew how to make the
little cottage look pretty, how to set out a tea-table,
and, what a good many women never can
find out, knew her own style and “got herself up
tip-top,” as our young friend Master Geordie,
Colonel Sprowle's heir-apparent, remarked to his
friend from one of the fresh-water colleges.
Flowers were abundant now, and she had
dressed her rooms tastefully with them. The
centre-table had two or three gilt-edged books

lying carelessly about on it, and some prints,
and a stereoscope with stereographs to match,
chiefly groups of picnics, weddings, etc., in which
the same somewhat fatigued-looking ladies of
fashion and brides received the attentions of the
same unpleasant-looking young men, easily identified
under their different disguises, consisting of
fashionable raiment such as gentlemen are supposed
to wear habitually. With these, however,
were some pretty English scenes, — pretty except
for the old fellow with the hanging under-lip who
infests every one of that interesting series; and a
statue or two, especially that famous one commonly
called the Lahcóon, so as to rhyme with
moon and spoon, and representing an old man
with his two sons in the embraces of two monstrous
serpents.

There is no denying that it was a very dashing
achievement of the Widow's to bring together so
considerable a number of desirable guests. She
felt proud of her feat; but as to the triumph of
getting Dudley Venner to come out for a visit to
Hyacinth Cottage, she was surprised and almost
frightened at her own success. So much might
depend on the impressions of that evening!

The next thing was to be sure that everybody
should be in the right place at the tea-table, and
this the Widow thought she could manage by a
few words to the older guests and a little shuffling
about and shifting when they got to the table.
To settle everything the Widow made out a diagram,

which the reader should have a chance of
inspecting in an authentic copy, if these pages
were allowed under any circumstances to be the
vehicle of illustrations. If, however, he or she
really wishes to see the way the pieces stood as
they were placed at the beginning of the game,
(the Widow's gambit,) he or she had better at
once take a sheet of paper, draw an oval, and
arrange the characters according to the following
schedule.

At the head of the table, the Hostess, Widow
Marilla Rowens. Opposite her, at the other end,
Rev. Dr. Honeywood. At the right of the Hostess,
Dudley Venner, next him Helen Darley, next
her Dr. Kittredge, next him Mrs. Blanche Creamer,
then the Reverend Doctor. At the left of
the Hostess, Bernard Langdon, next him Letty
Forrester, next Letty Mr. Richard Venner, next
him Elsie, and so to the Reverend Doctor again.

The company came together a little before the
early hour at which it was customary to take tea
in Rockland. The Widow knew everybody, of
course: who was there in Rockland she did not
know? But some of them had to be introduced:
Mr. Richard Venner to Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard
to Miss Letty, Dudley Venner to Miss Helen
Darley, and so on. The two young men looked
each other straight in the eyes, — both full of
youthful life, but one of frank and fearless aspect,
the other with a dangerous feline beauty alien to
the New England half of his blood.

The guests talked, turned over the prints, looked
at the flowers, opened the “Proverbial Philosophy”
with gilt edges, and the volume of Plays by
W. Shakspeare, examined the horse-pictures on
the walls, and so passed away the time until tea
was announced, when they paired off for the room
where it was in readiness. The Widow had
managed it well; everything was just as she
wanted it. Dudley Venner was between herself
and the poor tired-looking school-mistress with her
faded colors. Blanche Creamer, a lax, tumble-to-pieces,
Greuze-ish looking blonde, whom the
Widow hated because the men took to her, was
purgatoried between the two old Doctors, and
could see all the looks that passed between Dick
Venner and his cousin. The young school-master
could talk to Miss Letty: it was his business to
know how to talk to school-girls. Dick would
amuse himself with his cousin Elsie. The old
Doctors only wanted to be well fed and they
would do well enough.

It would be very pleasant to describe the tea-table;
but in reality, it did not pretend to offer
a plethoric banquet to the guests. The Widow
had not visited at the mansion-houses for nothing,
and she had learned there that an overloaded tea-table
may do well enough for farm-hands when
they come in at evening from their work and sit
down unwashed in their shirt-sleeves, but that for
decently bred people such an insult to the memory
of a dinner not yet half-assimilated is wholly

inadmissible. Everything was delicate, and almost
everything of fair complexion: white bread
and biscuits, frosted and sponge cake, cream,
honey, straw-colored butter; only a shadow here
and there, where the fire had crisped and browned
the surfaces of a stack of dry toast, or where a
preserve had brought away some of the red sunshine
of the last year's summer. The Widow
shall have the credit of her well-ordered tea-table,
also of her bountiful cream-pitchers; for it is well
known that city-people find cream a very scarce
luxury in a good many country-houses of more
pretensions than Hyacinth Cottage. There are
no better maxims for ladies who give tea-parties
than these: —

Cream is thicker than water.

Large heart never loved little cream-pot.

There is a common feeling in genteel families
that the third meal of the day is not so essential
a part of the daily bread as to require any especial
acknowledgment to the Providence which bestows
it. Very devout people, who would never sit down
to a breakfast or a dinner without the grace before
meat which honors the Giver of it, feel as if they
thanked Heaven enough for their tea and toast
by partaking of them cheerfully without audible
petition or ascription. But the Widow was not
exactly mansion-house-bred, and so thought it
necessary to give the Reverend Doctor a peculiar
look which he understood at once as inviting his
professional services. He, therefore, uttered a few

simple words of gratitude, very quietly, — much
to the satisfaction of some of the guests, who had
expected one of those elaborate effusions, with
rolling up of the eyes and rhetorical accents, so
frequent with eloquent divines when they address
their Maker in genteel company.

Everybody began talking with the person sitting
next at hand. Mr. Bernard naturally enough
turned his attention first to the Widow; but
somehow or other the right side of the Widow
seemed to be more wide awake than the left side,
next him, and he resigned her to the courtesies
of Mr. Dudley Venner, directing himself, not very
unwillingly, to the young girl next him on the
other side. Miss Letty Forrester, the granddaughter
of the Reverend Doctor, was city-bred,
as anybody might see, and city-dressed, as any
woman would know at sight; a man might only
feel the general effect of clear, well-matched colors,
of harmonious proportions, of the cut which
makes everything cling like a bather's sleeve
where a natural outline is to be kept, and ruffle
itself up like the hackle of a pitted fighting-cock
where art has a right to luxuriate in silken exuberance.
How this city-bred and city-dressed
girl came to be in Rockland Mr. Bernard did not
know, but he knew at any rate that she was his
next neighbor and entitled to his courtesies. She
was handsome, too, when he came to look, very
handsome when he came to look again, — endowed
with that city beauty which is like the

beauty of wall-fruit, something finer in certain
respects than can be reared off the pavement.

The miserable routinists who keep repeating
invidiously Cowper's

as if the town were a place to kill out the race
in, do not know what they are talking about.
Where could they raise such Saint-Michael pears,
such Saint-Germains, such Brown Beurrés, as
we had until within a few years growing within
the walls of our old city-gardens? Is the dark
and damp cavern where a ragged beggar hides
himself better than a town-mansion which fronts
the sunshine and backs on its own cool shadow,
with gas and water and all appliances to suit all
needs? God made the cavern and man made
the house! What then?

There is no doubt that the pavement keeps a
deal of mischief from coming up out of the earth,
and, with a dash off of it in summer, just to cool
the soles of the feet when it gets too hot, is the
best place for many constitutions, as some few
practical people have already discovered. And
just so these beauties that grow and ripen against
the city-walls, these young fellows with cheeks
like peaches and young girls with cheeks like
nectarines, show that the most perfect forms of
artificial life can do as much for the human product
as garden-culture for strawberries and black-berries.

If Mr. Bernard had philosophized or prosed in
this way, with so pretty, nay, so lovely a neighbor
as Miss Letty Forrester waiting for him to
speak to her, he would have to be dropped from
this narrative as a person unworthy of his good-fortune,
and not deserving the kind reader's further
notice. On the contrary, he no sooner set
his eyes fairly on her than he said to himself that
she was charming, and that he wished she were
one of his scholars at the Institute. So he began
talking with her in an easy way; for he knew
something of young girls by this time, and, of
course, could adapt himself to a young lady who
looked as if she might be not more than fifteen or
sixteen years old, and therefore could hardly be
a match in intellectual resources for the seventeen
and eighteen year-old first-class scholars of the
Apollinean Institute. But city-wall-fruit ripens
early, and he soon found that this girl's training
had so sharpened her wits and stored her memory,
that he need not be at the trouble to stoop
painfully in order to come down to her level.

The beauty of good-breeding is that it adjusts
itself to all relations without effort, true to itself
always, however the manners of those around
it may change. Self-respect and respect for
others, — the sensitive consciousness poises itself
in these as the compass in the ship's binnacle
balances itself and maintains its true level within
the two concentric rings which suspend it on
their pivots. This thorough-bred school-girl quite

enchanted Mr. Bernard. He could not understand
where she got her style, her way of dress,
her enunciation, her easy manners. The minister
was a most worthy gentleman, but this was
not the Rockland native-born manner; some new
element had come in between the good, plain,
worthy man and this young girl, fit to be a Crown
Prince's partner where there were a thousand to
choose from.

He looked across to Helen Darley, for he knew
she would understand the glance of admiration
with which he called her attention to the young
beauty at his side; and Helen knew what a young
girl could be, as compared with what too many a
one is, as well as anybody.

This poor, dear Helen of ours! How admirable
the contrast between her and the Widow on
the other side of Dudley Venner! But, what was
very odd, that gentleman apparently thought the
contrast was to the advantage of this poor, dear
Helen. At any rate, instead of devoting himself
solely to the Widow, he happened to be just at
that moment talking in a very interested and,
apparently, not uninteresting way to his right-hand
neighbor, who, on her part, never looked
more charmingly, — as Mr. Bernard could not
help saying to himself, — but, to be sure, he had
just been looking at the young girl next him, so
that his eyes were brimful of beauty, and may
have spilled some of it on the first comer: for you
know M. Becquerel has been showing us lately

how everything is phosphorescent; that it soaks
itself with light in an instant's exposure, so that
it is wet with liquid sunbeams, or, if you will,
tremulous with luminous vibrations, when first
plunged into the negative bath of darkness, and
betrays itself by the light which escapes from its
surface.

Whatever were the reason, this poor, dear
Helen never looked so sweetly. Her plainly
parted brown hair, her meek, blue eyes, her cheek
just a little tinged with color, the almost sad
simplicity of her dress, and that look he knew so
well, — so full of cheerful patience, so sincere,
that he had trusted her from the first moment as
the believers of the larger half of Christendom
trust the Blessed Virgin, — Mr. Bernard took this
all in at a glance, and felt as pleased as if it had
been his own sister Dorothea Elizabeth that he
was looking at. As for Dudley Venner, Mr.
Bernard could not help being struck by the animated
expression of his countenance. It certainly
showed great kindness, on his part, to pay
so much attention to this quiet girl, when he had
the thunder-and-lightning Widow on the other
side of him.

Mrs. Marilla Rowens did not know what to
make of it. She had made her tea-party expressly
for Mr. Dudley Venner. She had placed him just
as she wanted, between herself and a meek, delicate
woman who dressed in gray, wore a plain
breastpin with hair in it, who taught a pack of

girls up there at the school, and looked as if she
were born for a teacher, — the very best foil that
she could have chosen; and here was this man,
polite enough to herself, to be sure, but turning
round to that very undistinguished young person,
as if he rather preferred her conversation of the
two!

The truth was that Dudley Venner and Helen
Darley met as two travellers might meet in the
desert, wearied, both of them, with their long
journey, one having food, but no water, the other
water, but no food. Each saw that the other had
been in long conflict with some trial; for their
voices were low and tender, as patiently borne
sorrow and humbly uttered prayers make every
human voice. Through these tones, more than
by what they said, they came into natural sympathetic
relations with each other. Nothing could
be more unstudied. As for Dudley Venner, no
beauty in all the world could have so soothed
and magnetized him as the very repose and subdued
gentleness which the Widow had thought
would make the best possible background for her
own more salient and effective attractions. No
doubt, Helen, on her side, was almost too readily
pleased with the confidence this new acquaintance
she was making seemed to show her from
the very first. She knew so few men of any condition!
Mr. Silas Peckham: he was her employer,
and she ought to think of him as well as she
could; but every time she thought of him it was

with a shiver of disgust. Mr. Bernard Langdon:
a noble young man, a true friend, like a brother
to her, — God bless him, and send him some
young heart as fresh as his own! But this gentleman
produced a new impression upon her,
quite different from any to which she was accustomed.
His rich, low tones had the strangest
significance to her; she felt sure he must have
lived through long experiences, sorrowful like her
own. Elsie's father! She looked into his dark
eyes, as she listened to him, to see if they had
any glimmer of that peculiar light, diamond-bright,
but cold and still, which she knew so well
in Elsie's. Anything but that! Never was there
more tenderness, it seemed to her, than in the
whole look and expression of Elsie's father. She
must have been a great trial to him; yet his face
was that of one who had been saddened, not
soured, by his discipline. Knowing what Elsie
must be to him, how hard she must make any
parent's life, Helen could not but be struck with
the interest Mr. Dudley Venner showed in her as
his daughter's instructress. He was too kind to
her; again and again she meekly turned from
him, so as to leave him free to talk to the showy
lady at his other side, who was looking all the
while
but still Mr. Dudley Venner, after a few courteous
words, came back to the blue eyes and brown
hair; still he kept his look fixed upon her, and
his tones grew sweeter and lower as he became
more interested in talk, until this poor, dear
Helen, what with surprise, and the bashfulness
natural to one who had seen little of the gay
world, and the stirring of deep, confused sympathies
with this suffering father, whose heart
seemed so full of kindness, felt her cheeks glowing
with unwonted flame, and betrayed the pleasing
trouble of her situation by looking so sweetly
as to arrest Mr. Bernard's eye for a moment,
when he looked away from the young beauty
sitting next him.

Elsie meantime had been silent, with that
singular, still, watchful look which those who
knew her well had learned to fear. Her head
just a little inclined on one side, perfectly motionless
for whole minutes, her eyes seeming to
grow small and bright, as always when she was
under her evil influence, she was looking obliquely
at the young girl on the other side of her
cousin Dick and next to Bernard Langdon. As
for Dick himself, she seemed to be paying very
little attention to him. Sometimes her eyes
would wander off to Mr. Bernard, and their expression,
as old Dr. Kittredge, who watched her
for a while pretty keenly, noticed, would change
perceptibly. One would have said that she
looked with a kind of dull hatred at the girl,
but with a half-relenting reproachful anger at
Mr. Bernard.

Miss Letty Forrester, at whom Elsie had been
looking from time to time in this fixed way,
was conscious meanwhile of some unusual influence.
First it was a feeling of constraint, —
then, as it were, a diminished power over the
muscles, as if an invisible elastic cobweb were
spinning round her, — then a tendency to turn
away from Mr. Bernard, who was making himself
very agreeable, and look straight into those
eyes which would not leave her, and which
seemed to be drawing her towards them, while
at the same time they chilled the blood in all
her veins.

Mr. Bernard saw this influence coming over
her. All at once he noticed that she sighed,
and that some little points of moisture began to
glisten on her forehead. But she did not grow
pale perceptibly; she had no involuntary or hysteric
movements; she still listened to him and
smiled naturally enough. Perhaps she was only
nervous at being stared at. At any rate, she was
coming under some unpleasant influence or other,
and Mr. Bernard had seen enough of the strange
impression Elsie sometimes produced to wish
this young girl to be relieved from it, whatever
it was. He turned toward Elsie and looked at
her in such a way as to draw her eyes upon him.
Then he looked steadily and calmly into them.
It was a great effort, for some perfectly inexplicable
reason. At one instant he thought he
could not sit where he was; he must go and

speak to Elsie. Then he wanted to take his
eyes away from hers; there was something intolerable
in the light that came from them. But
he was determined to look her down, and he believed
he could do it, for he had seen her countenance
change more than once when he had
caught her gaze steadily fixed on him. All this
took not minutes, but seconds. Presently she
changed color slightly, — lifted her head, which
was inclined a little to one side, — shut and
opened her eyes two or three times, as if they
had been pained or wearied, — and turned away
baffled, and shamed, as it would seem, and shorn
for the time of her singular and formidable or at
least evil-natured power of swaying the impulses
of those around her.

It takes too long to describe these scenes
where a good deal of life is concentrated into
a few silent seconds. Mr. Richard Venner had
sat quietly through it all, although this short
pantomime had taken place literally before his
face. He saw what was going on well enough,
and understood it all perfectly well. Of course
the school-master had been trying to make Elsie
jealous, and had succeeded. The little school-girl
was a decoy-duck, — that was all. Estates
like the Dudley property were not to be had
every day, and no doubt the Yankee usher was
willing to take some pains to make sure of Elsie.
Doesn't Elsie look savage? Dick involuntarily
moved his chair a little away from her, and

thought he felt a pricking in the small white
scars on his wrist. A dare-devil fellow, but
somehow or other this girl had taken strange
hold of his imagination, and he often swore to
himself, that, when he married her, he would
carry a loaded revolver with him to his bridal
chamber.

Mrs. Blanche Creamer raged inwardly at first to
find herself between the two old gentlemen of the
party. It very soon gave her great comfort, however,
to see that Marilla Rowens had just missed
it in her calculations, and she chuckled immensely
to find Dudley Venner devoting himself
chiefly to Helen Darley. If the Rowens
woman should hook Dudley, she felt as if she
should gnaw all her nails off for spite. To think
of seeing her barouching about Rockland behind
a pair of long-tailed bays and a coachman
with a band on his hat, while she, Blanche Creamer,
was driving herself about in a one-horse
“carriage”! Recovering her spirits by degrees,
she began playing her surfaces off at the two
old Doctors, just by way of practice. First she
heaved up a glaring white shoulder, the right
one, so that the Reverend Doctor should be
stunned by it, if such a thing might be. The
Reverend Doctor was human, as the Apostle
was not ashamed to confess himself. Half-devoutly
and half-mischievously he repeated inwardly,
“Resist the Devil and he will flee from
you.” As the Reverend Doctor did not show

any lively susceptibility, she thought she would
try the left shoulder on old Dr. Kittredge. That
worthy and experienced student of science was
not at all displeased with the manœuvre, and
lifted his head so as to command the exhibition
through his glasses. “Blanche is good for half
a dozen years or so, if she is careful,” the Doctor
said to himself, “and then she must take to her
prayer-book.” After this spasmodic failure of
Mrs. Blanche Creamer's to stir up the old Doctors,
she returned again to the pleasing task of
watching the Widow in her evident discomfiture.
But dark as the Widow looked in her half-concealed
pet, she was but as a pale shadow, compared
to Elsie in her silent concentration of
shame and anger.

“Well, there is one good thing,” said Mrs.
Blanche Creamer; “Dick doesn't get much out
of that cousin of his this evening! Doesn't he
look handsome, though?”

So Mrs. Blanche, being now a good deal taken
up with her observations of those friends of hers
and ours, began to be rather careless of her two
old Doctors, who naturally enough fell into conversation
with each other across the white surfaces
of that lady, — perhaps not very politely,
but, under the circumstances, almost as a matter
of necessity.

When a minister and a doctor get talking
together, they always have a great deal to say;
and so it happened that the company left the

table just as the two Doctors were beginning to
get at each other's ideas about various interesting
matters. If we follow them into the other
parlor, we can, perhaps, pick up something of
their conversation.