University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
I MEET AN OLD FRIEND WHO BECOMES MY RIVAL.

When I woke, on the following morning, it was with a start
and a pang. It was like the shrinking shiver one feels in passing
from a room full of warmth and the perfume of flowers and
the appliances of comfort into one that is bare and chill; or,
it was like rising from a bed, sweet with invitations to dreams
and languid luxury, to an icy bath and a frosty toilet. The
pang, however, did not last long. With the consciousness that
I was relinquishing the hopes and plans of a life, there was
mingled a sense of power over other lives that was very stimulating
and pleasant. It was a great thing to be able to crown
my benefactress with the highest earthly blessing she could
wish for. It was a great thing to be able to make my faithful
friend and fellow rich, and to restore to him his rights. It was
a great thing to have the power to solve the problems of three
lives by making them one.

Mr. Bradford and his advisers were exceedingly wise in leaving
everything to me, and placing all the responsibility upon
me. The appeal to my sense of justice—to my manliness—
was simply irresistible. If Henry had been other than what he
was—if he had been a young man inheriting the nature of his
father—I should doubtless have had difficulty enough with him,
but they would have stood by me. He would have made my
place hot with hate and persecution, and they would have supported
me and turned against him; but they knew that he was
not only the natural heir to all that had been promised to me,
but that he would use it all worthily, in carrying out the purposes
of a manhood worthily won.

It was strange how my purposes with regard to the inmates

of The Mansion glorified them all in my sight. Mrs. Sanderson
shone like a saint in the breakfast-room that morning. Mrs.
Belden was as fresh and beautiful as a maiden. I sat with
Henry for an hour, and talked, not lightly, but cheerfully.
The greatness of my sacrifice, prospective though it was, had
already enlarged me, and I loved my friend as I had never
loved him before. My heart reached forward into the future,
and took hold of the new relations which my sacrifice would
establish between us; and I drank of his new love, even before
it had welled from his heart.

Thus all that morning I bore about my secret; and, so long
as I remained in the presence of those whom I had the power
and the purpose to make happy, I was content and strong; but
when, at length, I went out into the street, and met the courteous
bows and warm greetings that came to me from every side as
the heir of Mrs. Sanderson, and appreciated the difference between
that position and the one to which I should fall as soon
as my duty should be done to my benefactress and my friend,
I groaned with pain, and, lifting my eyes, exclaimed: “God
help me! God help me!”

Without a very definite purpose in my walk, I bent my steps
toward my father's house, and on my way was obliged to pass
the house of Mr. Bradford. The moment I came in sight of
it, I recognized the figure of Millie at work among her flowers
in the garden. I saw a quick motion of her head, as she
caught the sound of my steps approaching upon the opposite
side of the way, and then she rose without looking at me and
walked into the house. I had already begun to cross the street
toward her; but I returned and passed the house with many
bitter thoughts.

It had come to this! As the heir of a large property, I was
one whose acquaintance was worth the keeping. As a penniless
young man, with his fortune to make, I was quite another
person. I wondered if Millie Bradford, the young woman, flattered
herself with the supposition that Millie Bradford, the little
girl, was still in existence!

The helpless position in which I found myself with relation
to this girl worried me and discouraged me. Loyal to her
father in every thought and affection, I knew she would not
and could not approve my course, unless I followed out his
conviction concerning my duty. Yet, if I should do this, what
had I to offer her but poverty and a social position beneath
her own? I could never make her my wife without her father's
approval, and when I had secured that, by the sacrifice of all
my expectations, what had I left to offer but a partnership in a
struggle against odds for the means and ministries of the kind
of life to which she had been bred? To surrender all that I
had expected would be my own, and Millie Bradford too, was
more than I had bargained for, in my negotiation with myself.

I had not yet learned that a duty undone is always in the
way—that it stands so near and high before the feet that it becomes
a stumbling-block over which thousands are constantly
plunging into disaster. Since those days, in which I was taking
my first lessons in life, I have learned that to do one's next
duty is to take a step towards all that is worth possessing—that
it is the one step which may always be taken without regard to
consequences, and that there is no successful life which is not
made up of steps thus consecutively taken.

I reached home, not expecting to find my father there, but I
was informed by my mother, with many sighs and with the expression
of many confidential fears, that he was breaking down
and had taken to his bed. Something, she said, had been
preying on his mind which she was unable to induce him to reveal.
She was glad I had come, and hoped I would ascertain
what the trouble was. She had been looking forward to something
of this kind for years, and had frequently warned my
father of it. Mr. Bird had been there, and had accompanied
my father to Mr. Bradford's, whence he had returned with a terrible
headache. She always had believed there was something
wrong about Mr. Bird, and she always should believe thus.
As for Mr. Bradford, she had nothing to say about him; but

she had noticed that men with strange notions about religion
were not to be trusted.

I listened to the long and doleful story, conscious all the
time that my father's illness was one into which he had been
thrown by his sympathy for me. He had been trying to do his
duty by me, and it had made him ill. In a moment, Millie
Bradford went out of my mind, and I only delayed going into
his room long enough to prepare myself to comfort him. I
presume that he had heard my voice, for, when I entered the
dear old man's chamber, his face was turned to the wall, and
he was feigning unconsciousness of my presence in the house.

“Well, father, what's the matter?” I said cheerfully.

“Is that you?” he responded feebly, without turning his head.

“Yes.”

“How are you?”

“I was never better in my life,” I responded.

“Have you seen Mr. Bradford?”

“Yes.”

“And had a talk with him?”

“Yes.”

“Has he told you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“Yes.”

I was laughing,—I could not help it,—when I was sobered
at once by seeing that he was convulsed with emotion. The
bed shook with his passion, and he could not say a word, but
lay with his face covered by his hands. I did not know what
to say, and concluded to say nothing, and to let his feeling
take its natural course. For many long minutes he lay silently
trying to recover the mastery of himself. At last he seized the
wet handkerchief with which he had been trying to assuage the
pain and fever of his head, and threw it into a corner of the
room, and then turned toward me, laughing and crying together,
and stretched his arms toward me. I bowed to his
embrace, and so the long years of the past were blotted out in
our mutual tears, and we were boys once more.

I brought him his clothes, and he put them on. Then I
turned the key in the door, and, sitting down side by side upon
the bed, we talked the matter all over. I confessed to him my
idleness, my meanness, my shameless sacrifice of golden opportunities,
my weakness and my hesitations, and promised
that when the right time should come I would do what I could
to give Henry and his mother the home that belonged to them,
and to bestow upon my benefactress the boon which she would
prize a thousand times more than all the money she had ever
expended upon me.

“And you are not going to be unhappy and blame me?”
he said.

“Never.”

“And are you coming home?”

“Yes, to look after and serve you all, so long as you may
live.”

We looked in one another's faces, and the same thought
thrilled us. We knelt at the bed, and my father poured out
his gratitude for the answer that had come with such sweet and
beautiful fulfillment to his prayers. There was but little of
petition in his utterances, for his heart was too full of thankfulness
to give a place to his own wants or to mine. When he
rose, there was the peace of heaven on his features, and the
light of a new life in his faded blue eyes.

“Does my mother know of this,” I inquired.

“No,” he replied; “and this is the one great trouble that
lies before me now.”

“Let me break it to her, then, while you go out of the
house,” I said.

In the state of mind in which my father found himself at the
close of our interview, it would have been cruel to subject him
to the questions and cavils and forebodings of my mother. So,
taking his way out of the house by a side door, he left me at
liberty to seek her, and to reconcile her to the new determinations
of my life.

I do not suppose it would be interesting to recount the long

and painful conversation I had with her. She had foreseen
that something of this kind would occur. She had never believed
that that great fortune would come to me, but she had
never dreamed that I should be the one to give it up. She was
disappointed in Henry, and, as for Mrs. Belden, she had always
regarded her as a schemer. She presumed, too, that as soon as
Henry found himself the possessor of a fortune he would forsake
Claire—a step which she was sure would kill her. It all came of
mingling with people who have money. Mr. Bradford was
very officious, and she was glad that I had found out Mr. Bird
at last. Her life had been a life of trial, and she had not been
deceived into supposing that it would be anything else.

During all the time I had been in the house, Claire and the
boys had been out. My task with my mother was interrupted
at last by the sound of Claire's voice at the door. She was
trolling in her own happy way the refrain of a familiar song.
I had only time to impress upon my mother the necessity of
keeping all knowledge of the new phase of my affairs from her
and the rest of the family, and to secure her promise in accordance
with it, before Claire entered the room. I knew it would
be best that my sister should learn everything from the lips of
Henry. She would have been distressed beyond measure at
the change in my prospects as well as the change in her own.
I knew she had learned to look forward upon life as a struggle
with poverty, by the side of a brave man, equipped for victory.
She had dreamed of helping him, solacing him, blessing him with
faith and love, and rising with him to the eminence which she felt
sure he had the power to achieve. No wildest dream of her
young imagination had ever enthroned her in The Mansion, or
made her more than a welcome visitor there after its present
mistress should have passed away.

I exchanged a few pleasant words with her, assuring her that
I had cured my father by a few talismanic touches, and sent
him out to get some fresh air, and was trying my cure upon my
mother when she interrupted me. Then we talked about
Henry, and his rapid progress toward recovery. I knew that

she did not expect or wish to see him, because the visit that
such a step would render necessary would be regarded as the
advertisement of an engagement which had not yet been openly
confessed. But she was glad to hear all about him, and I
gratified her by the rehearsal of all the details that I could
remember. I could not help thinking, as I talked with her,
that I had in hand still another destiny. It was astonishing
how fruitful a good determination was, when it took the path of
Providence and of natural law. I had already four for one,
and felt that I could not foresee how many more would be
added to the gain already made.

When, at last, I bade my mother and Claire a “good morning,”
the only question left upon my mind concerned the time
and manner of the announcement to Mrs. Sanderson of the
relations of Mrs. Belden and Henry to her. Henry, I knew,
was still too weak to be subjected to strong excitement without
danger, and this fact made it absolutely necessary to defer
the proposed revelation and the changes that were sure to
follow.

I went out upon the street with a buoyant feeling, and with
that sense of strength that one always feels when his will is
consciously in harmony with the Supreme will, and his determinations
proceed from his better nature. But my trials had
not all been seen and surmounted.

Making a detour among the busier streets, that my passage
to The Mansion might be longer and more varied, I saw, walking
before me, an elegant young man, in the jauntiest of morning
costumes. I could not see his face, but I knew at once
that he was a stranger in the city, and was impressed with the
conviction that I was familiar with his gait and figure. If I
had seen him where I had previously known him, his identity
would have been detected at once; but he was the young man
furthest from my thoughts, and the one old companion whom
I had learned to count out of my life. I quickened my steps,
and, as I approached him, some sudden and characteristic
movement of his head revealed my old college friend Livingston.

“Well, well, well! Man in the Moon! When did you drop,
and where did you strike?” I shouted, running up behind him.

He wheeled and grasped both my hands in his cordial way,
pouring out his greetings and compliments so freely that passengers
involuntarily stopped upon the walk to witness the
meeting.

“I was wondering where you were, and was about to inquire,”
he said.

“Were you? How long have you been in town?”

“Two or three days,” he replied.

“You must have been very desirous to find me,” I responded.
“I have a good mind to leave you, and send you
my address. Permit me to bid you good-morning. This
meeting in the street is very irregular.”

“None of your nonsense, my boy,” said he. “I came here
on business, and pleasure comes after that, you know.”

“Oho! Business! We are becoming useful are we? Can I
assist you? I assure you I have nothing else to do.”

“Bonnicastle,” said he, “you are hungry. You evidently
want something to stop your mouth. Let's go into the hotel
and get a lunch.”

Saying this, he grasped my arm, and we walked together
back to his hotel, and were soon seated at a table in his parlor,
doing the duty of two hearty young men to a chop and a
salad.

We talked of old times, then of his employments since he
left me at college two years before, and then I told him of myself,
of the encounter at The Mansion which had resulted in
Henry's confinement there with a broken limb, and of the way
in which I had been passing my time.

“What are you going to do next?” he inquired.

“That's a secret,” I said, with a blush, all the frolic going
out of me in a moment.

“I know what you are going to do.”

“What?”

“You are going to Europe and the East with me. We are

to be gone two years, and to see everything. We'll sing Yankee
Doodle on the Pyramids, have a fish-fry on the shores of
Galilee, light our cigars at Vesuvius, call on the Pope, see all
the pictures, and dance with all the pretty girls from Vienna
and Paris to St. Petersburg, and call it study. On very rainy
days, we'll write dutiful letters to our friends, conveying assurances
of our high consideration, and asking for remittances.”

Little did the merry fellow imagine, as he rattled off his programme,
what a temptation he was placing before me. It presented
the most agreeable path out of my difficulty. I believed
Mrs. Sanderson would deny me nothing, even should I renounce
all my expectations, and surrender my home to him to
whom it naturally belonged. The act of surrender would
place her under such obligations to me that any request that
might come with it would, I supposed, be sure to be granted.
Then it would let me down easily, and save me the necessity
of facing my townsmen under my new circumstances. It
would furnish me with a knowledge of the world which would
be useful to me in the future task of providing for myself. It
would complete my education, and give me the finest possible
start in life. Livingston's connections would carry me into the
best society, and bring me advantages such as I could not
secure by means within my own command.

“Are you in earnest?” I inquired, hesitatingly.

“I never was more so in my life.”

“You tempt me.”

“Well, you know just how much my rattle means,” said he,
sobered by the tone of my inquiry. “You know I take care
of myself, and others too—when they let me. We can have a
good time and one that will do us good.”

While I felt pretty sure that I should not go with him, unless
Mrs. Sanderson should voluntarily offer me the means for the
journey, and my friends should urge me to accept them, I told
him I would think of it.

“That's right,” he said, “and you'll conclude to go.”

“When?”

“Next month.”

Was this Providence too? Was my road out of my difficulty
to be strewn with flowers? How could I tell? Unexpectedly,
at the exact moment when it would meet with a greedy
welcome, came this proposition. To accept it would be to
take me away from every unpleasant association, and all the
apprehended trials attending the execution of my great purpose,
and give me pleasure that I coveted and culture that I
needed. To reject it was to adopt a career of hardship
at once, to take up my life beneath my father's humble roof,
to expose myself to the triumphant sneers of the coarse men
who had envied me, and to forsake forever those associations
which had become so precious to me. I could do justice to
Henry and my benefactress, and secure this great pleasure to
myself also. Had Providence directed all this?

Many things have been accepted first and last, among men,
as providential, under the mistaken supposition that the devil
does not understand the value of times and opportunities.
Evil has its providences as well as Good; and a tempted man
is often too much befogged to distinguish the one from the
other. Interpreting providences by wishes is the favorite trick
of fools.

After a long and discursive talk on the subject of foreign
travel generally, and of the project before us particularly, I was
bold enough to ask Livingston what business it could be that
had brought him to Bradford. He fought shy of the question
and seemed to be embarrassed by it. Licensed by the familiarly
friendly terms of our previous intercourse, I good-naturedly
pressed my question. He gave all kinds of evasive
and unsatisfactory replies; and then I pushed the matter further
by asking him what friends he had in the place, and endeavoring
to ascertain what new acquaintances he had made. I
could not learn that he knew anybody in Bradford but Henry
and myself, and I became satisfied at last that he had not
been frank with me. It is true that he was not accountable to
me, and that I had no right to pry into his affairs; but he had

volunteered to say that his errand was a business errand;
and I felt that in a place where I was at home, and he was
not, I could serve him if he would permit me to do so.

As soon as he could divert me from my purpose, he put me
the question whether I had remained heart and fancy free;
“for you know,” he said, “that it will never do for rovers to
leave pining maidens behind them.”

I assured him (with those mental reservations with which
uncommitted lovers so ingeniously sophisticate the truth) that
there was not a woman in the world, with the exception of certain
female relatives, who had any claim upon my affection.

“By the way,” said Livingston with sudden interest, as if the
thought had struck him for the first time, “what has become
of that little Bradford girl, whom we met on that memorable
New Year's at the Spencers'; you remember that old house
in the suburbs? or were you too foggy for that?”

If Livingston had realized how painful such an allusion
would be to me, he would not have made it; but his standard
of morality, so far as it related to excesses in drink, was so
different from mine, that it was impossible for him to appreciate
the shame which my fall had caused me, and the shrinking sorrow
with which I still looked back upon it.

I told him frankly that I remembered the meeting imperfectly,
and that I heartily wished I had no memory of it whatever.
“I made an ass of myself,” I said, “and worse; and I
doubt whether it has ever been forgotten, or ever will be.”

There was a quiet lighting of his eye as he heard this; and
then he went on to say that her New York friends told very
extravagant stories about her beauty and attractiveness, and
that he should really like to fall in with her again. Then he
went on to moralize, after the wise manner of young men, on
the heartlessness of city life, and particularly of city girls, and
said that he had often told his mother that no hot-house rose
should ever adorn his button-hole, provided he could pluck a
satisfactory wayside daisy.

A jealous lover has no rival in the instantaneous construction

of a hypothesis. I saw at once the whole trick. Tiring of
his New York life, having nothing whatever to do, remembering
the beautiful face and hearty manner of Millie Bradford,
and moved by some recent conversations about her with her
friends, he had started off from home with the determination to
meet her in some way. Endeavoring first to assure himself that
I had no claim upon her, he undoubtedly intended to engage
my services to bring about a renewal of his acquaintance with her.

I had met my rival; for I could not but feel that if he had
been impressed by her when she was little more than a child,
her charms of womanhood—her beautiful person, and her
bright, pure nature—would impress him still more. It was a
bitter draught for me to drink, without the privilege of making
a wry face or uttering a protest. He was maturer than I, and
possessed of every personal attraction. He carried with him,
and had behind him, the highest social consideration and
influence. He was rich, he was not base, he was the best of
his set, he was the master of himself and of all the arts of
society; he was one of those young men whose way with
women is easy. What was I by the side of a man like him?
The only occasion on which Millie Bradford had ever seen him
was one associated with my disgrace. She could never meet
him again without recalling my fall, and his own honorable
freedom from all responsibility for it. The necessity of getting
him out of the country by a period of foreign travel seemed
laid upon me. To have him within an easy distance, after I
had voluntarily forsaken my fortune, and before I had had an
opportunity to prove my power to achieve a fortune for
myself, was to live a life of constant misery, with the chances
of having the one grand prize of existence torn from my hands
and borne hopelessly beyond my reach.

“Oh, it's a daisy business, it is?” I said, with a pale face
and such carelessness of tone as I could assume. “There are
lots of them round here. They're a bit dusty, perhaps, in dry
weather, but are fresh after a shower. You would never be
contented with one: what do you say to a dozen?”

Livingston laughed, and laughed in such a way that I knew
he had no business in Bradford. But why had he kept away from
me? Why had he been three days in the town without apprising
me of his presence?

He held up his hand and looked at it with a curious smile.
“Bonnicastle,” said he, “do you see anything peculiar on the
back of that hand?”

“Nothing,” I replied, “except that it seems to be clean.”

“Does it seem to you that there is one spot on it that is
cleaner than all the rest?” he inquired.

I confessed that I was unable to detect any such locality.

“Well, my boy, there is a spot there which I could define to
you, if I should try, that I have kept clean for two years, and
which has a life and sacredness of its own. It once had a sensation—the
sweetest and most thrilling that you can imagine.
It was pressed by a pair of innocent lips, and wet by as sweet
a dew-drop as ever nestled in the heart of a rose. You never
thought me romantic, but that little touch and baptism have
set that hand apart—for the present, any way.”

“If you wish to give me to understand that Milly Bradford
ever kissed your hand and dropped a tear upon it, you have
brought your chaff to the wrong market,” I said, the anger rising
in my heart and the color mounting to my face.

“Don't be hasty, old fellow,” said he, reaching over and
patting me on my shoulder. “I've said nothing about Millie
Bradford. I've lived among roses and daisies all my life.”

Whether Livingston saw that I had a little personal feeling
about the matter, or felt that he had been foolishly confidential,
or were afraid that I should push him to an explanation, which
would compel him to reveal the circumstances under which
Millie had begged his forgiveness with a kiss, for charging him
with my intoxication—a fact of which I was too stupid at the
time to be conscious—I do not know; but he assured me that
he had been talking nonsense, and that I was to lay up and
remember nothing that he had said.

We had already pushed back from the table, and he had

rung for a waiter to have it cleared. In response to the bell,
a man came with his tray in one hand and a card in the other.
Handing the latter to Livingston, the young man took it with a
strange, embarrassed flush on his face. Turning it over, and
looking at it the second time, he exclaimed: “I wonder how
he knew me to be here. It's your friend Mr. Bradford.” Then
turning to the waiter, he added: “Take these dishes away and
ask him up.”

I rose at once to go; and he did not detain me, or suggest
a future meeting. I shook his hand and bade him “good-morning,”
but was arrested at the door by finding Mr. Bradford waiting
outside. Seeing Livingston within, he came forward, and,
while he took my arm and led me back, said: “I am somewhat
in haste this morning, and so have followed my card at
once. I am not going to separate two fellows like you; so,
Arthur, sit down.”

I did not believe my presence welcome to Livingston during
this interview; but as I was curious to witness it, and had a
sufficient apology for doing so, I sat down, and remained.

“I have just taken from the office,” Mr. Bradford went on,
“a letter from my friends the Spencers, who tell me that you
are to be here for a few days; and as the letter has evidently
been detained on the way, I have called at once to apologize
for not having called before.”

Livingston was profuse in his protestations that it was not of
the slightest consequence, and that while he should have been
glad to meet Mr. Bradford, he had passed his time quite pleasantly.
I saw at once what had occupied him during those
three days, in which he had not announced his presence to me.
He had been awaiting the arrival of this letter. He had chosen
to be introduced in this way, rather than bear the letter himself.
It was a cunningly-contrived, but a very transparent,
proceeding.

Livingston was invited to the Bradfords to dine the next day,
of course, and quite of course, as I was present when the invitation
was given, I was invited to meet him. This was satisfactory

to me, though I doubt whether Livingston was pleased
with the arrangement, for he had evidently intended to see
Millie Bradford before he announced himself to me.

Inviting my friend to call at The Mansion during the afternoon
and make my aunt's acquaintance, and renew his acquaintance
with Henry, I took my leave of him and passed out
with Mr. Bradford. I was not a little surprised to learn how
pleasantly the latter remembered my college acquaintance, and
how high an estimate he placed upon him. If Livingston
could have heard his hearty words of praise, he would have
learned how smoothly the way was paved to the accomplishment
of his hopes and his possible purposes. In my jealousy,
every word he uttered was full of discouragement, for I was sure
that I knew the motive which had drawn Livingston to the
town, while Mr. Bradford was as innocent as a child of any
suspicions of such a motive.

As we came near his house, I said: “You are in haste this
morning, but I wish to see you soon—before to-morrow, if you
can spare me the time.”

“Come in to-night, then,” he responded.

At night, accordingly, I went, and he received me alone, as
he did on the previous day. I told him of my interview with
my father and mother, and of the determination at which I had
arrived with relation to Mrs. Sanderson and Henry. He listened
to me with warm approval, which was evident, though he
said but little; but when I told him of Livingston's proposition
to travel, and my wishes in regard to it, he dropped his head
as if he were disappointed. I urged the matter, and frankly
gave him the reasons for my desire to absent myself for a
while after the change in my circumstances.

He made me no immediate reply, but rose and walked the
room, as if perplexed and uncertain concerning the response
which he ought to make to the project. At length he paused
before me, and said: “Arthur, you are young, and I am afraid
that I expect too much of you. I see very plainly, however,
that if you go away for a protracted absence, to live still longer

on Mrs. Sanderson's benefactions, you will return more disqualified
than you are at this moment to take up an independent
life. I do not approve of your plan, but I will not lift a
finger to thwart it. After you have surrendered your place in
Mrs. Sanderson's family, you will be in a better position to
judge whether your plan be either desirable or practicable.”

Then he laid his hand upon my shoulder, in an affectionate
way, and added: “I confess I should be sorry to lose sight of
you for the next two years. Your father needs you, and will
need you more and more. Besides, the next two years are to
confirm you more than you can see in the style of character
and manhood which you are to carry through life. I am very
anxious that these two years should be made the most of.”

The interview was a brief one, and I left the presence and
house of my friend under the impression that he not only did
not approve my plan, but that he thought it very doubtful
whether I should have the opportunity to realize it. He said
but little, yet I saw that his faith in Mrs. Sanderson's generosity,
where her own selfish ends were not involved, was not
very hearty.

On the following day I met Livingston at Mr. Bradford's
table. The family were all at home, and Millie, most becomingly
dressed, never had seemed so beautiful to me. Livingston
was evidently very much impressed by her charms, and
showed by the attention he bestowed upon her his desire to
appear at his best in her presence. I was distressed by my
own youth, and the easy superiority which he manifested in all
his manners and conversation.

It was strange, too, to see how the girl's quick nature had
shot beyond mine into maturity, and how, in her womanliness,
she matched my friend better than myself. I was full of embarrassment
and jealousy. The words that were addressed to
me by the other members of the family were half unheard and
but clumsily replied to, absorbed as I was in watching Livingston
and Millie, and seeing how happily they carried on their
conversation. I was enraged with myself—I who had always

been quick and careless—for I knew that I did not appear well,
and felt that the girl, whose senior I was by several years, regarded
me as a youth in whom the flavor and power of maturity
were lacking. Livingston was a man, she was a woman, and I
was a boy. I saw it all and felt it all, with pangs that none may
know save those who have experienced them.

The evening did not pass away, however, without giving me
an opportunity for a quiet talk with Millie. There was one
woman whose sharp vision did not fail to detect the real state
of affairs. Aunt Flick was on the alert. She had watched the
play from the first, with eyes that comprehended the situation,
and in her own perverse way she was my friend. She managed
to call Livingston away from Millie, and then I took a seat at
her side. I tried to lead her into conversation on the subject
most interesting to me, but she declined to say a word, though
I knew that she was aware of all that was occurring in relation
to my life.

The moments were precious, and I said impulsively, out of
the burden of my heart, “Miss Bradford, I am passing through
a great trial.”

“I know it,” she replied, looking away from me.

“Are you sorry?”

“No,”—still looking away.

“Are you my friend?”

“That depends.”

“I get very little sympathy,” I responded bitterly. “No one
but my dear old father seems to understand how hard this is,
and how hard all have helped to make it for me. The revolution
of one's life is not a pleasant process. A dozen words,
spoken to me by the right lips, would make many things easy
and anything possible.”

She turned to me in a startled way, as if I had given her sudden
pain, and she had been moved to ask me why I had done
it. I was thrilled by the look, and thoroughly ashamed of the
words that had inspired it. What right had I to come to her
with my troubles? What right had I to seek for her sympathy?

Was it manly for me to seek help from her to be a man? If
she had not pitied me and seen further than I did, she would
have spurned me.

This conversation was nothing but a brief episode in the
evening's experiences, but it made a healthy impression upon
me.

Livingston and I left the Bradfords together, and, as we
were to take opposite directions to our lodgings, we parted at
the door. Not a word was said about Millie; and all that he
said about the Bradfords was in the guarded words: “These
friends of yours seem to be very nice people.” I knew that he
would be there again, as soon as it would be practicable, and
that he would be there without me. I was quite reconciled to
this, for I saw that he monopolized attention, and that I could
be nothing but a boy by his side, when he chose that I should
be.

He remained in the town for a week, calling upon the Bradford
family nearly every day, and on one occasion taking a drive
with them in the family carriage. In the meantime Henry
made rapid strides toward recovery, and the dreaded hour
approached when it would be necessary for me to take the step
which would abruptly change the current of my life.

When I parted with Livingston, he still entertained the project
of travel, and said that he should return in a fortnight to
ascertain my conclusions.