University of Virginia Library

15. XV.
MRS. CLIFFORD'S GREAT PARTY.

The next two weeks passed wearily to our timid
Grace. It is true Juno was caressingly affectionate
as ever, and Warren was still kind and tender whenever
they were alone, but somehow she seemed to see
very little of him. There was a constant round of
driving, and calling, and in the evening, theatres, and
operas, and concerts, which absorbed all the time;
though Juno made it a point to refuse all invitations
for herself, until Miss Atherton had been properly introduced
by the great party, which, in one way and
another, was a prominent idea with every one in the
household. Warren was absent several evenings in
close attendance upon Miss Sommers, who had taken
it in her head to be present at one or two fashionable
reunions. Their adventurous morning walk had
never been repeated; and daily her heart grew heavier
with doubt, whether even his love remained to her,
and ached more and more wearily, to hear one of the
old, accustomed words of tenderness. She still persevered

in what Mrs. Clifford had called her country
habit of early rising, but her mornings were spent
until breakfast in her own room. One morning, as
she lay watching her good-humored Irish handmaiden
in her task of kindling the fire, she observed her
quietly raise her checked apron to her face. “Mary,”
she said. The girl turned suddenly, and her eyes
were full of tears. “Mary, the fire will burn now;
come and sit down here, I want to know what has
been troubling you so these few days back.” Half
timidly the girl obeyed her, and she reached forward
and took that hard hand tenderly in her own delicate
fingers. “What is it, Mary?”

A gush of tears answered her, and it was several
moments before she could speak. “It's all along of
poor Pathrick, miss. He's been in the hospital this
many weeks. He was in a decline, but they thought
he would get better, and now he's sinking. They say
it's not many days he can live.”

“Is he your brother?” asked Miss Atherton,
kindly.

A deep blush kindled Mary's face. “We are
promised,” she said, in a low tone. “He staid behind
me in Ireland till he buried his owld father and
mother, and he's been in America for a year, come
next Easter. It's seven years we've been waiting.”

“And you so young?”

“I was fifteen when we took the vow, miss; and

shure it's true we've been all the time. Och hone! but
he was a purty boy, though he's white and thin now.”
Tenderly, as if she had been one whom the world called
her equal, Grace led her on to unfold all her sorrow;
and drawing near to the sobbing girl, wept more quietly,
but it may be more bitterly, thankful to make
the excuse to her own heart, that she was weeping for
the woes of another.

And so two hearts ached wearily in that stately
mansion, while the preparations for the party went on.
A distinguished upholsterer superintended the arrangement
of the rooms, the supper table was confided to
an artiste of the first rank, and the crowning charm
was given by the poetic touches of the quadroon.
Wherever she went, she seemed absolutely to shower
beauty. The broad staircases, the halls, and the passages
were lined with the costliest flowers; but there
was a genuine poem in every bouquet of her arranging,
which would have distinguished it to the most careless
observer. Dreamily, half sadly, Grace Atherton
watched the preparations. She had none to make.
She was to wear the white tarleton dress, and Warren
had petitioned for white rosebuds in her hair. It did
not seem to her that she had any part in the matter,
but yet the costly and brilliant preparations fascinated
her attention.

There was one plan, however, which had not
reached her ears. The morning before the party, our

lady Juno took Miss Sommers into her confidence.
Closing the door of her own private room upon the
confidante she had sumoned, she said, with an abruptness
unusual to her—“Miss Sommers, you want
to be Warren Clifford's wife!”

The young lady addressed made an ineffectual
attempt at blushing, and half stifled in her perfumed
mouchoir a little scream. Juno's lip curled as if in
involuntary contempt of her own self, and the part she
was acting. Very dryly she remarked, “This is
quite unnecessary with me, Miss Sommers. Spare the
blushes, I entreat, until the young gentleman himself
is at your feet. Was my question too presuming to
claim an answer?”

“You have penetrated the veil, Mrs. Clifford, with
which I strove to conceal my feelings. I do indeed
love your son.”

Juno's lip curled still more, but her tone was very
quiet—“Well, you have noticed his fancy for Miss
Atherton.”

“Is it only a fancy, madam?”

“That depends. If you have noticed it, you
must feel that until her influence over him is lost, you
can have no hope of success. Now you can bring this
about; you have it in your own hands.”

“Me! How, Mrs. Clifford?”

“Listen. You know already that Warren is not
our son, but you do not know that he is come from

one of the noblest families in all England. Pride of
birth is the strongest sentiment in his nature. Miss
Atherton's father has been a blacksmith. She told
me so with her own lips. Warren does not know it,
and with difficulty I persuaded her to conceal it from
him until after to-night. Do you see how this will
serve you?”

“Warren will give her up when he finds it out,
I suppose, but I don't see what I have to do with it.”

“Warren will not give her up, if she tells him
herself. He will give her up, if he thinks she has deceived
him. Do you see now what you have to do?
My guests to-night will be of the most aristocratic
order. You know most of them. You can easily
contrive to make your neglect of Miss Atherton
sufficiently marked to attract attention. Then you
must privately give her obscure parentage as a reason.
The whisper will circulate through the room, and the
result we desire will follow. Warren will be mortified
by the coolness with which his lady love is received,
and when he learns the reason, he will think she has
deceived and imposed upon him, and despise her.
You must be very careful to conceal your own share
in the affair. Just start the whisper, but tell them
they must not couple your name with it, and above all
things, in no instance give me as your authority.”

“Oh! Mrs. Clifford,” sighed the fair Margaretta,
“you have indeed proved yourself my friend. My

heart thrills with gratitude, and I forget to blush that
you have discovered my secret.” She sank on her
knees, and pressed the lady's fingers to her lips.
Juno shook her off, almost roughly. “You needn't
thank me,” she said, with a bitter smile, “I don't want
him to marry this Miss Atherton, myself, and he
shall not, he shall not. There, go to your room and
think it all over.” She watched the retreating figure
of the sentimental young lady, with the same bitter
smile, and when the door closed, she laughed a scornful
laugh. “We'll see, dainty little wild flower;
sweet little cottage girl, we'll see who'll be mistress
of Clifford House!”

Then she leaned back her head against the chair
and abandoned herself to thought. Sometimes her
brow was compressed, and her teeth closely set; then a
smile would flood her face with its rare sunshine, and
her foot would tap upon the carpet, as if beating time
to strains of cheerful music. The luncheon bell rang,
but she did not go down. Warren was away on business,
and John Clifford came and went without entering
her apartment. It was nearly sunset in the short
winter afternoon, when there was a light tap upon her
door. “Come in,” she said, dreamingly, but she gave
a little start of surprise when Irish Mary answered
her summons, and stood blushing and silent before
her. “What do you want?” she asked, after a moment.
Still more terrified, the poor girl burst into

tears. “You had better go away until you can tell
me quietly what you came for,” said Juno, coldly.

The girl drew nearer. “Oh, ma'am,” she murmured
huskily, “he is worse, he will die. He has
sent for me. Can I go to him? Poor Pathrick, he
is there by himsel', and he greets for me so.”

Juno drew herself up with an air of haughty, frigid
indifference. “You have annoyed me about this man
in the hospital, till I can't bear it much longer; I don't
want you here, if I'm to have you running off every
day or two, to see a man die, somewhere or other.
How do I know there is any such man? You can't
go to-day, it's out of the question. If you do, you
need never come back again. Every one about the
house is needed until the last guest has left. You
may go as early as you please in the morning, if you'll
get some one to light the fires, but if you go to-night
you can stay when you get there.”

The girl bowed her head and went out, trying to
choke back the sobs that convulsed her whole frame
with their violence. She had borne meekly with many
whims and caprices, for the sick one's sake, and she
would strive to bear with this one also. If she went
away without a character, another place was a very uncertain
hope; and if she were left homeless and destitute,
whence would come the little luxuries that
Patrick Regan said were better than all the Doctor's
stuff, when Mary brought them. She would try to

wait till morning, and God wouldn't let him die till
she had seen him, and kissed him just once more.

“Stupid, disagreeable creature,” muttered Juno
as the door closed behind her. “She'll be asking, the
next thing, to have us send her over to the hospital in
the carriage. I wish I had staid South. I would, if it
weren't for those absurd, vulgar notions about abolition,
John Clifford picked up somewhere, along with the rest
of his low breeding. I'd like to own my servants, body
and soul, and we'd see if they'd get troublesome.”

Oh, but that lofty house on Mount Vernon street
was all aglow with light and beauty that December
midnight. It was the evening before Christmas. At
one end of the long hall stood the Christmas tree, glittering
with bonbons, and heavy with the costly gifts
which were not to be taken down until the next
morning. Through the magnificent drawing-rooms
moved ladies, lustrous with silks, and gleaming with
jewels. The trees, and the tall flowering shrubs in
the conservatory, were hung with lights, and among
them wandered in pairs the young and happy, uttering
words, perchance, whose echo was to float through
all time, and be borne outward on the air of Eternity.
The refreshment tables glittered with massive plate,
the staircases were fragrant with the breath of southern
flowers, and

The beautiful hostess wore a robe of rich purple
velvet, heavily wrought with gold. Her neck and
arms gleamed like unsoiled snow, through the misty
folds of the point lace scarf, floating like a cloud
around her. Diamonds lit up the midnight of her
hair, encircled her wrists, and rose and fell upon her
bosom. But brighter than the gems were the large,
oriental eyes, flashing from under her drooped lashes;
softer than the folds of the velvet, the peach-like
bloom of her rounded cheek. Near her stood Miss
Sommers, radiant in a superb white silk, brocaded with
silver. There was an evil look in her light-blue eyes,
albeit her manners were characterized by the same air
of languishing softness. At a little distance was Miss
Atherton. She had purposely withdrawn herself from
observation. Standing amid the gay throng, she felt that
she was not of them, and yet no one, whose eye once
rested on her, could fail to look again, and yet again.
There was a singular purity, a look almost of heaven,
about that young face. The white tarleton was the
simplest costume in all those crowded rooms, and the
sweet face of its wearer might well have been likened
to the angels. The mirth was at its height. In another
room, merry feet were keeping time to the joyous
music. The lights poured down their floods of
radiance; jests and repartees sparkled on crimson
threaded lips, and there was no pause for thanksgiving,
when the Christmas morning broke.

There was yet another watcher in the moonlight
and the midnight of December. A patient nurse sat
beside a low bed in the hospital. Its occupant seemed
already, in the expressive New England phraseology,
struck with death. His brow, fair and white as a
woman's, was already moist with the death-sweat.
He raised his thin fingers, and pushed off the damp
brown curls. His large, mournful eyes were lifted for
a moment to heaven, then he said, in a low, entreating
tone—“Can't you send for Mary?”

“We did send this afternoon, don't you remember?
She cannot be here now till morning.”

He was silent. All the weary hours of that
mournful night, he had tossed upon his pillow, calling
restlessly for Mary. More than once the kind eyes of
the nurse had filled with tears, accustomed as she had
been to stand beside the death-beds of the friendless.
“Is it most daybreak?” he said again, after a moment.
He had taken no heed of the midnight chimes.

“Not quite,” said the nurse, gently.

“Oh, she will come when it is morning. Her blue
eyes will shine on me. I shall die looking at them.
Mary! Mary! A sad heart she'll be bearing, all the
years of her life. Oh, I would fain take her with me,
but I must go alone. Oh, the hard pain has come
again, I shall die before she can get here. Come a
little nearer. Tell Mary, when I am gone, how I
loved her. Tell her she was the very pulse of my

heart. It will comfort her to think that we loved
each other always, that there was never the hard word
between us. Tell her she is my wife, and I called
her so in dying. Oh the weary, painful nights I have
said her name over and over, and she does not come
to me. It is hard. It is hard. Must I die here alone
in the strange, far off counthry? What, is it daylight?
The morning breaks very bright. The sun shines.
Mary! Mary!”—The nurse bowed her head amid her
tears—the low voice ceased—the eyelids drooped
downward—the brow grew ever colder and colder—
the clock struck one, and the Christmas morning
broke over the face of the dead!

There was a momentary pause when Miss Atherton
followed Juno Clifford into the dancing room. A
gentleman who had been presented to her, earlier in
the evening, came forward, and solicited her hand for
a quadrille that was just forming. At nearly the
same moment one of the perfumed scions of Uppertendom
approached Miss Sommers. “Come, lady
fair,” he said, gayly, taking her hand, “I believe I
had the promise of this dance.”

Grace had already taken her place, and Miss Margaretta
drew back, for a moment, haughtily surveying
the group before her—“Excuse me, but I cannot
dance with Miss Atherton for a vis-a-vis.”

“Will you explain?”

“Yes, I may be too exclusive, but I think Margaretta
Sommers could hardly be expected to dance
opposite the daughter of a village blacksmith.”

“Lou, Lou Ethrington, look here,” exclaimed the
exquisite to his fashionable sister. Miss Sommers
placed her hand upon his arm, and said in a low whisper,
“Do not give me as authority, I insist upon it.
It would be so embarrassing while I'm staying in the
same house. Mrs. Clifford did not know the fact
when she invited her, and she will pack her off as
soon as possible, but we must keep quiet until she is
gone. Be careful.”

“As wise as a serpent,” was the laughing reply;
then turning to his sister, who had now reached his
side—“Well, my aristocratic Miss Louise Ethrington,
that young lady in white I saw you making such
friends with, an hour ago, is the hopeful heiress of a
village blacksmith.”

“Not his daughter?”

“Yes, his daughter.”

“And Mrs. John Clifford insulted us by inviting
us to meet her? I shall cut her acquaintance.”

The young man laughed. “Don't be terrible, sis.
You know well enough you will do no such thing, for
Mrs. Clifford is too much the fashion. Her entertainments
are the most brilliant in the city. To do
the lady justice, though, I believe she did not know
her guest's station when she invited her, and she is too

much of a Southerner to fail in the rites of hospitality,
now she has made the discovery.”

“A blacksmith's daughter, and young Vernon is
dancing with her; I must tell his sister.” She glided
gracefully across the room, full of the important secret,
and thus the ball was set in motion. When the
dance was over, young Vernon led his tired partner
to a seat, and went himself for an ice. On the way he
met his sister, and learned the astounding fact that he,
the son of a millionnaire, the grandson of a—huckster
woman, had been dancing with a blacksmith's daughter.
He was a good-hearted fellow, naturally, and the
young girl's unaffected simplicity had really interested
him; but the fear of ridicule was stronger even than
the instinct of gentlemanly courtesy; he did not return.
Gradually the whisper spread and the circle
around Grace widened, until she was quite alone, her
slight figure and bowed head a mark for all the curious
eyes in the room. Warren, standing at a distance,
had seen the whole affair in pantomime, but he
had heard nothing. Crossing the room hurriedly he
laid his hand upon his mother's arm. “Mother,” he
said, in a husky whisper, “what does this mean?
You see how Grace is treated.”

Juno raised her glass and surveyed the room.
There was a quick gleam of satisfaction in her eyes,
which he failed to notice, for their expression was very
tender, almost sorrowful, when she turned to him.

“I see it,” she said, “but I could not help it. They
have discovered that she is a blacksmith's daughter,
and they will not dance with her, or talk to her.”

“A blacksmith! Mr. Atherton is no more a
blacksmith than I am.”

“He was, my son.”

“Are you certain?”

“Positive!”

“And you concealed it from me?”

“How could I refuse? I thought if you never
knew it, it could not harm you, and I had no idea of
any such mortifying discovery as this of to-night.”

He turned away, and deliberately approached
Grace. There was a look upon his face which she
had never seen there before. He bent over her and
offered her his arm. “You are tired,” he said; “this
is very late for you; had you not better retire?”
Mechanically she obeyed him. He led her from the
room, and supported her trembling footsteps to the
very door of her own apartment. Then, bowing coldly,
he was about to turn away. Not a word had passed
between them since they left the dancing-room. The
silence drove her to desperation. She threw her
arms about his neck and sobbed out, “Oh, Warren,
don't leave me so. It will kill me. Don't you love
me, your own little Grace?” His heart was fairly
wild with sorrow for the grief he was causing her, and
yet deeper anguish at the thought that she whom he so

loved and trusted had deceived him; but he resolutely
controlled his emotion, and said calmly, “Miss
Atherton is best aware how true she has been to me—
how much reason I have to treat her lovingly. I believe
I must go. My absence will be remarked by the
guests.”

Her outstretched arms sank powerless by her side.
She permitted him to go away without another word,
and then walked quietly into her room and shut the
door. Twice he stole back again to listen, and note if
there were sob or sound to betoken that she suffered
from his words. He heard none. He knew not
that there were seasons of agony, when even in
woman's heart the tears that cannot rise to the
dry, stony eyes, fall inward, seething, choking; bitterer
than any gentle rain which moistens the cambric
handkerchief, or makes dew-drops among a lover's
hair. He turned away and joined the gay throng below,
with a smile upon his lips; and she sat motionless,
with her clasped hands, her wide opened eyes, and her
throbbing heart. After a time she rose, still calmly,
tearlessly, and took off her festal garb. It was the
first time his tone had ever fallen harshly or coldly
upon her ears. She could not guess the reason. Absorbed
in her own thoughts, she had hardly noticed,
and quite failed to comprehend the attempt which had
been made to mortify her. She thought he must be
jealous; jealous, perhaps, because she had danced with

another, and yet he had danced half the evening, and
not once with her. She could not comprehend it.
She knelt down by her bedside and offered a childlike
yet fervent prayer to Heaven, and then the blessed
tears came to her relief. She threw herself upon the
bed, and sobbed herself into a troubled sleep. It was
ten o'clock when she awoke.

The sun was pouring brightly through the windows.
There was a heavy weight upon her heart,
but she could not at first remember its cause. She
raised herself upon her elbow, and glanced around the
room. The fire was not yet lighted, but there, before
the grate, was Mary crouched upon the floor, and
swaying herself restlessly to and fro. Her face was
covered by her hands and her coarse apron. Very
gently Grace called her name. The hands dropped
upon her lap, and the face she lifted struck a thrill,
almost of terror, to Miss Atherton's heart. The lips
were white and bloodless, the hair hung in elf-locks
over the ghastly face, and the blue eyes, usually so
mild and quiet, glittered like live coals of fire. “I
curse her, I curse her!” burst from the compressed
lips.

“Oh, Mary, that is wrong. Come here and tell me
what it is that has grieved you so.”

There is always a kind of irresistible authority in
a firm yet gentle tone, and the girl struggled with her
tears and threw herself on her knees before the bedside.

She spoke in a low yet passionate voice. “Oh,
Miss Grace, Miss Grace, it's jist me heart that's
breaking. I can feel it ache. They sint for me yesterday
to come to my poor Pathrick. They towld me
he was worse, and I went to the misthress. She
refused intirely, and I knew if I was afther goin',
I could never come back here again, and, may-be, I
wouldn't find another place till he'd be gone, and then
where would be all the jellies, and oranges, and the
nice dhrinks I'd buy for him? So I jist staid, with a
sad heart in my bosom. This morning, soon as the
last carriage drove away, I went to him. Oh how
shall I tell it!—he was dead, dead, and cowld, and
stiff! He had died an hour after midnight, all the
time calling for me, and saying I was his wife. Far
away in the strange counthry, with not a frind to the
fore. Nobody to stand beside his bed, to give him a
sup of dhrink but the stranger.”

“Didn't they send for the priest?”

“Is it the praste? My poor Pathrick was a protestant.
We both believed in the good Saviour and
forsook the false doctrines intirely.”

“And yet you could curse Mrs. Clifford. Wouldn't
he say this was very wrong?”

“Oh, may the blessed Jesus forgive me, but I was
wild with the hard pain. I'll not curse her again, but
I'll never eat bread in her house. And where can I
go, with no character and no friends?”

Grace reflected for a moment. She could not
think it wrong to encourage the poor girl in leaving,
and yet it might bring trouble on her own head.
Glenthorne Katy was going to be married, and surely
it could be no sin to take this suffering, homeless
girl in her stead. “Could you go to Glenthorne
alone, Mary, and find Mr. Russel Atherton?”

“Is it where yees came from? I could do it
aisy.”

“Well, our girl will leave us soon, and if you
would like to live with me, I will send a note to my
father, and you shall stay as long as you like. Will
you go to-day?”

“May the dear God bless you, for shure it's Himself
has found a home for me, when I'm bowed down
with the bitter trouble. I will go to-morrow. To-day
my poor Pathrick is to be put in his grave, and I
must stay by till it is over.”

“Well, come to me early to-morrow morning, and
I will give you the letter, and let no one here know
where you are going, not even Mr. Warren.”

The girl rose, and turned toward the grate. It
seemed as if her sorrow had in some sort passed from
her mind, as she listened to Miss Atherton's plan
for her future, and now it came over her again with
an increased intensity. She turned toward the bed a
frightful, ghastly face—she fairly shrieked, “He is
dead!” and fell down on the floor in another paroxysm

of grief. I suppose Juno Clifford and all her aristocratic
friends would have been still more shocked
with the plebeian blacksmith's daughter, could they
have seen her spring from her couch, and throwing a
shawl around her shoulders fold her arms about that
weeping girl, and whisper over, and over, and over
again, the soothing, blessed promises our Father has
given for the encouragement of His suffering children.
There were eyes which witnessed the scene, holy eyes
of saints and angels—there was a voice which said,
“Well done, good and faithful servant. Inasmuch as
thou hast done it unto the least of these, thou hast
done it unto me!”

It was a long time ere she could win to those
wailing lips aught but the prolonged, sorrowful cry,
“He is dead!” but at last there came a Heaven-sent
calm; and when the low, sweet voice uttered our Saviour's
words of promise—“Thy dead shall rise again,”
the stricken one lifted her bowed head, and said, fervently,
“Amen, God be praised!” And then she
rose calmly, as you and I have seen Heaven's pensioners,
the poor, arise from many another strife with sorrow,
and went about her daily tasks. Oh, how often
to such the practical language of the rich and great has
been—“What need of pause—let the dead bury their
dead.”

Absorbed in her sympathy with this great sorrow,
Grace entered the breakfast room, half oblivious of

her own grief. Mr. Clifford's good morning was
cordial as ever, Juno addressed her in the old, treacherous,
caressing tones; the half-sneer on Miss Sommers'
face was unchanged; but Warren rose, with the
same cold, ceremonious politeness which had characterized
their parting of the evening before, and handing
her a small casket remarked, “A Christmas present
for you, I presume. A boy brought it to the
door, and said he was directed to leave it for Miss
Atherton.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she courageously
prevented them from falling, and opened the box.
A tiny gold chain lay before her, of exquisite workmanship,
and attached to it, instead of the customary
cross, were a miniature hammer and anvil. In her
confusion she let both the casket and the ornament
fall upon the floor. Warren raised them with mock
civility. “A most appropriate gift,” he remarked,
with a half-suppressed sneer, “it surely came from
some one better informed as to your circumstances
than myself; very probably from your admirer of last
evening, Mr. Vernon.”

These words brought a stray gleam of hope to
the girl's heart. He surely was jealous; then he
must love her. She said with a forced yet dignified
calmness, “Follow me to the drawing-room for a
moment, I wish to speak to you.”

He was too much of a gentleman, even in his anger,

to refuse compliance with her request. He passed
on after her into the drawing-room, and shutting the
door, stood with his back against it.

“Warren,” she said, in the same calm, low tone,
“I must have an explanation of your changed manner.
You are paining me very much.”

“Yes,” he said, bitterly, “and I suppose you have
quite forgotten that I was at all pained and mortified
last night?”

“Do you mean with Mr. Vernon? Were you jealous
of him, Warren?”

“Jealous of him! Jealous of a man who had not
respect enough for you to return and bring you an ice,
after he found you were a blacksmith's daughter? Oh
yes, I was very jealous of Mr. Vernon! But I'll give
you the explanation you want; I was mortified to see
my betrothed wife a mark for scorn, and contempt, and
ridicule to all the room, and far worse than this, was
the pain of feeling that the one I most fondly loved
and trusted had deceived me.”

“Then you did love me?”—The words came
tremblingly from her lips, and at last her self-control
gave way, and she burst into tears.

“Faugh!” he cried, angrily, “stop that, please—
you disgust me. As long as you were true, every tear
you shed was sacred. You might have wept all night
upon my breast, but now—you have been false in other
things, and most likely these very tears are a piece of

beautiful acting.” But she did not seem to hear, or
heed, his cruel words; with her face buried in her
hands, she wept on. Then his mood changed. He
went up to her, and resolutely removing her hands
from her face, said firmly, but not unkindly, “Look
up, and tell me, Grace, why did you deceive me?”

The blue eyes fearlessly met his own, a look of
earnest truth shining through their tears—“I never
did, Warren.”

“Then why did you not tell me, long ago, that
your father had been a blacksmith?”

“You had lived so long in Glenthorne, I supposed
you knew it, and I never thought of its making any
difference. I should have spoken of it long ago, had
I dreamed it could make you love me less.”

“How, then, did my mother know it?”

“I told her. I spoke of it as naturally and freely
as I would of any other thing, and then she said you
did not know it. I was going to tell you, but she said
you would love me less, and—” she paused, for at that
moment she recollected that it would be a betrayal of
Mrs. Clifford's confidence, to speak of the promise she
had made.

Warren lifted her soothingly in his arms, and whispered,
“And so you feared to lose my love, my poor
Grace. With such a motive, I were less than human
not to forgive you. But the affair has mortified me
horribly; and then, this insulting present is worst of

all. Who could have sent it? If I knew, man or
woman, they should pay for it dearly.”

Grace could not help feeling it a little hard to be
forgiven when she was not guilty; but she thought
Mrs. Clifford had loved her, and acted for her good,
and come what would, she was too honorable to betray
her. Little did she dream that Juno herself was the
donor of the mysterious present, and had caused it to
be made with an eye to this very denouement. She was
glad to regain, at any cost, the dear love she deemed
her life's best blessing, and she sat there in his arms,
looking gratefully into his eyes. He held her very
tenderly, and bent, every now and then, to press his
lips to her cheek or brow; but she could see from the
glitter in his eye, that the inward tempest was not yet
over. “If I could have dreamed of this,” he said,
after a moment, “you should never have appeared at
that party, never. I would not have had you or myself
so mortified. How could those people have heard
of it?”

“I do not know. Is it then so terrible, so disgraceful?”

“Not in my eyes, Grace, whatever my mother may
have thought I should feel about it; but it's a pretty
effectual sentence of banishment from Up-Town society.”

At that moment Juno Clifford lifted her stately
head from the keyhole of the drawing-room door,

and walked leisurely to her boudoir. There was
surely no disgrace in listening, for no one knew it.
She forgot God and the angels, but she seldom
thought of them; and now her heart was swelling
with triumph, that the young girl she had injured
had not betrayed her.

Notwithstanding her reconciliation with her lover,
Grace was haunted by a painful consciousness that she
had somehow fallen in his esteem. He was evidently
bitterly mortified, both at the scene of the previous
evening, and the sarcastic present. She could see that
these memories would be a long time in passing from
his mind. Indeed, how could she hope he would ever
forget them, should she become his wife? Had he not
said they would for ever exclude her from the circle in
which he was accustomed to move, and so, shut out
from his old friends for her sake, would he not remember
them bitterly? Her heart ached, and she longed
to go home, and rest her head upon her mother's breast,
and seek the advice and sympathy which had never yet
failed her. And so, to the letter of which the sorrowing
Irish girl was to be the bearer, she added this
postscript:—

“Send for me to come home, dear mother. My
heart is like to break, and I cannot come until I hear
from you. They would think me angry or ungrateful.
I do not want to stay here. This beautiful
house seems like a great prison—the perfumed air

stifles me—the very sunshine mocks me, and I am
wretched. What am I saying? I do not mean that.
Every one is kind to me, and I've nothing of which
to complain, but all this splendor wearies me. It is
as if you should send the lowly thrust to dwell in the
eyrie of the eagle. Mayn't I come home?”

When she opened her eyes the next morning, Irish
Mary stood beside her bed, with her shawl on, and her
bonnet in her hand.

“I built your fire one more mornin', Miss Grace,
darlin'. I'm goin' now. Would I take the letter?”

“Is it car-time?”

“No, miss, but I'm jist goin' to walk. I spent
my last money for poor Pathrick's burial.”

“Have you told Mrs. Clifford you are going?”

“Shure I did that same last evening. She said
she was glad to get rid of me, but if I was goin' off
in this ondacent manner, she should give me no character,
and I wouldn't get my last month's wages.”

“Not get your wages?”

“No, miss, you see I did not give her warning.”

For an instant Grace said nothing. Could it be that
Juno Clifford, so rich, so beautiful, so seemingly gentle,
so lavish in every expenditure, would make use of
such a pitiful pretext to gratify a petty revenge, and
send the poor Irish girl out into the world penniless?
She would have been still more shocked, had she
known that the prime cause was the girl's apparent

devotion to herself. She rose, and took her purse
from the bureau by her bedside. She had had several
little purchases to make, and it was not very well
filled; but she drew forth a five-dollar bill, and said,
gently, “There, Mary; you need not hesitate to take
it. You are going to my father's, and I shall not have
you walking in this bitter cold. Here is the letter.”

The poor girl sank on her knees before her, in
speechless gratitude, and Grace fairly started as her
eyes fell on that upturned face. It had changed so,
in one short twenty-four hours—it wore such an expression
of hopeless misery. “Have you been crying,
Mary?” she asked, bending over her.

“No, miss. The heart was too sore for that. My
eyes wouldn't shut up the night. I kept seein' him,
there in the coffin, with the dirt fallin' on him. Oh,
it's a bitter grief, and a long one, and I could not see
him die. If I had only been there, and kissed him,
and answered him when he called me his wife, and
towld him I'd never be that same to another. But
no, I couldn't go to him. The grand folks must have
their great party, and now he's dead!”

It was in vain to try to console her, or hush that
endless wail which came momently up from her heart.
Grace could only soothe her with a few gentle words
about the home and friends she was going to, and then
she went out, in the cold gray morning, with her tearless,
stony eyes, and the sore pain which mocked at
all human words of consolation.