University of Virginia Library

1. I.
JOHN CLIFFORD'S WIFE.

Juno Clifford stood before the mirror of her richly
furnished breakfast parlor. The cloth had been
spread for a half-hour—the silver coffee service was
prettily arranged, and the delicate cups of Sèvres
porcelain were scattered around the urn. But the
mistress of the mansion had only just arisen. It
was ten o'clock. Men, whose business hours had
commenced, were hurrying to and fro in the street—
the city was teeming with life and turbulent with
noise, but the hum only stole through the heavily-curtained
windows of that lofty house on Mount
Vernon street, with a subdued cadence that was very
pleasant. It was a lounging, indolent attitude, in
which the lady stood. In her whole style of manner

there was a kind of tropical languor, and it was easy
to see that she was seldom roused from her habitual
calmness. And yet there was something in the
curving of her dainty lips, the full sweep of her
arching brows, nay, in every motion of her hand,
which told of a slumbering power; an energy,
resistless in its intensity; a will that might have
subjugated an empire. The indolence was habitual
—the energy, native.

She was not yet twenty-five, and very beautiful.
Her eyes were large, black, and melting; her complexion
so clear in its cool olive, that you could see
the blue veins beneath it, and over her neck and
shoulders fell, like a cloud, the heavy waves of her
black hair. Her figure was very full, but exquisite
in its proportions, with the falling shoulders, the dimpled
arms, and the Grecian curve of the graceful
neck. She was nobly born, and yet poor; and this
was why she was John Clifford's wife. He was
nearly twenty years older than herself, and he loved
his beautiful flower of the South, with a passionate
tenderness, but poorly requited by the cold and formal
bestowal of her hand. Somehow there was an
empty place in his heart—a nook where her voice had
never entered — a temple where sometimes he retreated,
stealing away from the fashionable, bustling
life she led him, and bowed in secret before a divinity
of his own—the ideal semblance of a true woman,

whose world was home, whose heart was her husband's.
This ideal woman was very simply clad;
Juno Clifford would have protested against having
such a common-looking person in the house, and perhaps
this was why John always worshipped her in
secret, and never even mentioned her to his wife, or
any of her fashionable friends.

There was, for a broker of forty-five, and a hardworking
man of business, a good deal of romance
stored away somewhere, low down in John Clifford's
heart. There were deep founts of tenderness there,
too, but no one cared to sound their depths, and so
John lived on very quietly. His name was excellent
on State street; his word as strong as any other
man's bond, and by his compeers in business, he was
held in high esteem. At home, his favorite cook
paid due regard to his tastes, his meals were well
served, his wife well-dressed, and his friends well
entertained. It was certainly very foolish of John,
ever to wish, as he sometimes did, that he wasn't
quite so wealthy; that he had a cosy room somewhere,
with a carpet that easy-chairs wouldn't hurt,
a round table, and a wife that would come at odd
times, when he was very tired, and brush his hair
back, or drop a gentle kiss upon his brow, and then
sit down by his side, for a quiet talk!

Certainly this vision of an imaginary wife was
very singular. Juno Clifford never thought of such

a thing, and, least of all, this clear December morning,
when she stood before her mirror, waiting for
her husband, and her breakfast, and deliberating in
her own mind, the very grave question, whether a
garnet-colored velvet, trimmed with ermine, or a sky-blue
satin, spangled with silver stars, would best
adorn her regal beauty, at Mrs. Ashburton's bal
costumé. At length she decided upon the satin, and
winding her hair around her head, like a turban, she
drew her crimson dressing-gown about her, and walked
thoughtfully to the fire. It was an odd fancy of
John Clifford's, the lady mused, that he wouldn't
have his house heated with furnaces, like a Christian,
but must needs use grates, to the utter disregard, as
she persuaded herself, of time and labor, and most
certainly of fashion. She couldn't understand the
strange way he had of sitting, by the half-hour, with
his eyes fixed on the glowing embers, making pictures,
as he called it. She was leaning her elbow on
the mantel, absorbed in a profound meditation on
this important subject, when suddenly the door opened,
and she was face to face with her husband.

“John Clifford! My goodness, John! What
have you brought home now?” and she curled her
haughty lip, and stared in wonder, at a tattered,
miserable-looking little fellow, who stood shivering,
just within the door.—“Why don't you speak, John?
Who is he?”

“I don't know that myself, sweet wife. I found
him hawking papers, and there was something in his
deep eyes, and the clear, melancholy tones of his
voice, that drew me to him in spite of myself. I
wish to keep him awhile. Have you any objections?
He needn't be in your way, and I'm sure he'll make
himself useful.”

The lady made no reply for a moment. She
glanced at the boy with an earnestness rather unusual
to her manner. He was a frightful-looking
object, very small for his age, with a thin, slight figure,
and the tiniest of little, half-starved looking
hands. There seemed to be something in his aspect
which touched even Juno Clifford's worldly heart.
“I don't know,” she said at length, “I'm sure I don't
know what is to be done with him. One couldn't
fancy such a miserable looking child round one, but
then if you want such pets, I have no special objection.
Ring the bell, please, I begin to have a fancy
for my breakfast.”

“Jane,” she continued, in a tone of absolute authority,
to the waiting maid who answered the summons,
“tell Scipio to bring up breakfast, and do you
take out this child, and have him dressed decently.
There are some of Maxwell Clifford's clothes in the
red-room bureau. When he is made decent, you can
give him his breakfast.”

The servant to whom these commands were addressed,

was her own especial maid, the child of her
foster-mother. Mrs. Everett Stanley was distinguished
in the annals of the Stanley family for
nothing in the world but being the mother of our
lady Juno. She was a blue-eyed mite of womanhood,
with a very pitiful face, that always looked as
if she had been crying, and just finished washing the
tears off. She died some five or six days after Juno
first opened her great black eyes. I always believed
she breathed out life from sheer astonishment that a
child of hers should have such eyes. And then, besides,
Juno was one of those babies who are fully
determined on being heard, as well as seen, and the
effect of her full, clear soprano tones, must have been
disastrous on such weak nerves as Mrs. Stanley's.
Col. Stanley was a planter, in southern Louisiana,
the descendant of a noble race. Nothing remained
to the family, however, of the grand fortune of their
ancestors, but their name, the hereditary mansion,
and a few slaves. To the care of one of these, the
infant Juno was confided. Her quadroon maid was,
as I have said, the child of this same nurse. Col.
Stanley had died before his daughter's marriage, and
from the wreck of his involved estate, this favorite
servant was her sole inheritance. She was scarcely
less beautiful than her mistress, and Juno liked to
have beautiful things about her. Gifted by nature
with the peculiar talents and graces of her mixed
race, the quadroon possessed not only unrivalled
skill and taste in matters of the toilet, but she could
play the guitar like a daughter of Spain, and dance
till you would have deemed her a visible incarnation
of the poetry of motion. The tie between a mistress
and the servant who has been cradled on the
same breast, is one which a Northerner can scarcely
comprehend, but it existed between Juno and her
favorite attendant, to its fullest extent. The girl
loved her mistress with a passionate devotion. From
earliest infancy she had been accustomed to the
most absolute submission to every caprice of Juno's
wayward, imperious nature. When Juno Stanley
became Juno Clifford, she refused to accept the freedom
that might have been hers, and residing in the
very capital of a free state, she was as much a slave as
ever. Her hand draped the damask curtains of the
young wife's boudoir, her low, sweetly modulated
voice read aloud the volumes with which Mrs. Clifford's
habitual indolence would otherwise have prevented
her from becoming acquainted. Juno Clifford
had a tropical taste, and an exquisitely keen and fastidious
sense of the beautiful, and she quite prided
herself on the rare grace of her personal attendant.
Secure in her own consciousness of superior charms,
her eyes lingered approvingly on the dusky, shadow-like
face of the quadroon. It was a perfect picture
to see the mistress and her maid within the boudoir.
The chief characteristic of Juno's beauty was its
majesty—on the other hand, the quadroon's was distinguished
for softness. Juno sat for hours, in her
high-backed crimson chair, her feet half buried in
cushions of eider down, absorbed in fits of interminable
musing. At such times, the quadroon would
lie upon her cushions at the other end of the apartment,
and watch her steadily with her great mournful
brown eyes. Juno would seldom permit her to
employ herself, save about her own person, so she
would lie there idly, with her guitar by her side, and
her large languishing eyes upturned. There was a
dreamy grace about her, quite indescribable, aided
perhaps by the soft fabrics and glowing hues of her
favorite costumes, so that she adorned the apartment,
and pleased the eye of its mistress, like a beautiful
picture.

Juno Clifford ate her breakfast, that morning,
with an air a shade or two more thoughtful and subdued
than usual. Her husband looked at her across
the table, with a glance whose language was almost
worship, and when he arose, the tone in which he
said—“Good-bye, my wife Juno,” was really humble
in its earnest tenderness. There was something of
reverence, too, in the silent, half-timid kiss he pressed
upon her brow. She touched the bell, as he went
out, and then, contrary to her usual habit, sat down
to watch the clearing away of the breakfast things.

As she sat there, the quadroon entered, and passing
behind her chair, commenced looping up the
heavy waves of her hair. At length a surly “you're
in the way,” from Scipio, attracted Mrs. Clifford's
attention toward the boy, who had entered the room
unperceived, and was quietly standing there, looking
around with his anxious eyes, as if in search of occupation.

“You gave him some breakfast, Jane?” the lady
said, inquiringly.

“I tried to, madam, but I could not make him
eat any thing. He only swallowed a few mouthfuls,
and then burst into tears, saying he couldn't eat,
when they were all starving at home.”

Mrs. Clifford looked at him more attentively.
He was twelve years old, but, as I said, very small of
his age. His features were regular, the blue eyes large
and clear, with a curve of gentle determination about
the pleasant mouth. Guido would have copied his face,
if he had seen it, for a child-head of the beloved disciple.
There was an innate nobility in his expression, albeit it
was slightly tinctured by that eager, half-famished
look which poverty never fails to leave as her terrible
signet, on the face of childhood. The quadroon had
attired him with singular taste. She had selected a
costume from a collection of fancy dresses, the property
of John Clifford's nephew, Master Maxwell
Clifford, who had been staying in the house. His

complexion looked dazzlingly pure and fair, in contrast
with the slashed doublet of purple velvet, and
the picturesqueness of his whole aspect charmed
Juno Clifford's artistic eye, at the first glance. She
called him to her side, and he drew near, and stood
at her knee, looking up into her face with a kind of
wonder, as one might look at an angel, if a summer
cloud should chance to open, and give to mortals a
momentary glance into the blue beyond.

The lady bent over him for a moment, and brushing
back the faded, sun-burnt curls of his bronze
hair, looked into his clear eyes. “What is your
name?” she said at length.

“Warren Hereford,” was the reply, in a low and
musical tone.

“Well, Warren, would you like to stay here with
me always?”

The boy stood in silence for a time, with a look
of intense thought on his delicate features. At
length he lifted his eyes to her face. There was a
singular expression in them, partly of eager delight,
partly of doubt, and partly of the old hopeless sorrow.
“I don't know,” he said—“I should like it if
I only could. Oh, if I could stay with you always,
I should feel just like heaven, you are so beautiful,
but they are all so poor at home, mother, and Dick,
and Emmie, and little Mabel—I must stay there and
help them.”

“Where do you live?” she asked very softly, for
there was a wordless appeal in his glance, his tone,
his up-raised face, that her heart could not resist, and
beside that, her vanity was pleased and flattered, by
his homage to her beauty. The fervent admiration
of the boy was so fresh, so unworldly, so different
from the hackneyed compliments of her fashionable
friends. It opened in that moment a glimpse of a
new and keen pleasure for her epicurean taste, and
with her usual impulsive waywardness, she formed a
sudden resolution that he should be hers, her child;
that this new delight should continue with her, and
she would deepen his homage into love. He still
stood there, in a kind of dreamy silence, and she repeated
her question—“Where do you live?”

“There!” he answered, slowly, almost painfully.
“I couldn't make you understand where, if you've
never been out of this,” and his glance seemed to
take in the handsome room, with all its elegant appointments.
“It's a long way from here, where I
don't think you ever went. I don't like it, and mother
don't like it, but we have to stay there because
we are poor. Did you ever know any one that was
poor, lady?”

Mrs. Clifford did not answer. She seemed revolving
some plan in her mind, and at length she
asked, with evident interest, “Warren, if you could
do something to get your mother and sisters a pleasant

home, and make them comfortable, would you
be willing to go where you would never see them, to
forget them altogether?”

“I couldn't make myself forget, if it didn't come
of itself, but I would go any where, or do any thing
that ever I could, just to make mother well again,
and see them all happy.”

“Very well, I will try you. Your mother will
wonder where you are, and we will go to see her together
this afternoon.”