University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

Virginia had better have carried a sprig of rosemary
to Temple House, than the jonquil, when she
made her last visit, which was not repeated for
weeks. The rosemary is vigorous; its stiff branching
stalks covered with minute, pale blossoms, would
have survived Sebastian's crushing hand. Mrs.
Brande fell into a strange condition, which increased
her cunning selfishness, and deprived her of reason.
Mr. Brande ordained that she should appear at home
and abroad, and be treated as usual. It was terrible,
however, to see the espial of Virginia and her father
over the forlorn woman. The misery in Virginia's
eyes; the sense they expressed of her double sacrifice
to her parents; the fixed alertness in Mr.
Brande's countenance, his confidence in being able
to steer his wife through his sphere, according to the
laws of God and man, as he understood them,—must
have shaken the tactics of those beings who are said
to watch over us, and are named our guardian
angels. Summer was in her bower. The happy,
idle, full-fed days gathered round her knees, and laid
upon her breast; if stirred, it was by the scent of
flowers, the taste of fruit, the silver sound of the
creeping seas, the trickling cadence of the brooks,

the tree tops wafting through the air, the sight of
clouds, purple and white, rolling along the shining
horizon, the orange “sunset waning slow,” beneath the
islands of the sky. Virginia, too, should have felt
the summer-heart; but her days were tedious, her
nights hateful. There was nothing sweet, sensuous,
lovely, about her; there was nothing pure, peaceful,
holy, in the atmosphere which surrounded her. Duty
with her was a constitutional idea, to be performed
because it was placed in her hands; and once there,
she was incited to its most honest and able performance.
The subjugating contest which most women
undergo when they perceive the necessity of martyrdom,—that
crucifixion of personality, that mysterious
hypocrisy which dictates the habit of self-denial,—was
not possible to her; the powers of
happiness and pleasure were in readiness for their
natural spring when the compression forced upon
them should be removed. Yet she believed that
every event was ordered as a preparation for the
Eternity she was approaching, but in which she did
not yet exist; her senses must first become valueless.
In her opinion, all the mystery of life lay outside
of it, in the doctrines her father taught her.
How could it be otherwise? It is a common notion
that substance is no medium for anything but sin.

“The summer is nearly over, mother,” she said
one day; “you will feel better when autumn
comes.”

“Ta, ta, Virginia! Why open the door for
strange people? Shut it, or I'll yell. Keep out

that long streamer of wind that's trying to come in
tail foremost. I won't smell the grapevines; you
mean to have me Miss Pride and Prim. Get the
scissors, and some yellow paper, and cut me out a
row of gentlemen and ladies who don't have to wind
their watches, and wear clothes. Hush, I don't
want them now; Cyrus is coming. My dear, did
you tell me it was a grape year? Mr. Brande, how
easy grapes slip down the throat! Pray, Cyrus; I
always liked your prayers of a summer evening when
the moths would light on your nose. It is because
you never would take Hu-ber's Bal-sam. Pray,
Cyrus. Do I please you?”

“We have had morning prayers, Mrs. Brande. I
must go to the office. We are casting anchors
to-day.”

“I am casting anchors, too. Our good daughter
is my anchor. Virginia, take away this mess of
yellow paper.”

“I don't see any paper,” said Mr. Brande, making
for the door.

“Cyrus, she hides it. Cyrus, won't you send
Chloe away? Cyrus-Rhoda, Virginia-Cyrus, let us
send Chloe away, and the bar she drove through
my head the night you made that beautiful exhortation
in the conference meeting, will drop out. Come
here, husband.”

He was compelled to obey her.

“Put your ear down, Cyrus. Virginia mustn't
hear everything, you know.”

Unwillingly bending towards her, he waited for

her to speak. She was fumbling for something
about the bed-clothes.

“There!” she screamed, “take that for not sending
Chloe away, and casting your anchors.” And she
drove the scissors through his cheek. For a moment,
with the pain and the surprise, he lost his temper,
and caught hold of a straggling tress of her hair,
and wrenched it with fury.

“I like it, Cyrus,” she cried; “it does my head
good.”

Virginia turned so dizzy and sick, that for an
instant she was paralyzed; then she sprang forward,
and shook off his violent hand.

“Oh,” he groaned, staggering backwards; “there is
no deliverance for the manner of man I am. Virginia,
what are we to do?”

“Go, father, I will amuse her. Mamma,
deary mamma, I found something for you just
now.”

“Give it to me this very minute.”

“I am going for it. Will you stay still one little
instant? it is in the garden.”

“Yes, yes,” replied Mrs. Brande, composing
herself.

Shortly afterwards, Mr. Brande sent a note to
Virginia, requesting her to talk with Chloe on the
subject of taking service in another family. The
scene, he wrote, they had witnessed that morning
must have been occasioned by an antipathy to her;
and it was possible that a great amendment might
follow, if she were sent away. Virginia made a

resolution to combat him in this matter, but could
not resist asking Chloe immediately how she would
feel if she were obliged to leave. Chloe promptly
replied that wild horses couldn't tear her away from
the place whose crosses she had carried so long. No
new place, new miseries, shames and disgraces, for her,
if she knew her Indian self. Did Missey think that
Chloe would leave her own girl in the present nasty
lurch? The thought made her sick at the stomach!

The thought also made her cry. She ran away by
herself, bound up her head in a red handkerchief,
put on a clean starched apron, and sat down, clasping
her slender, coppery fingers, to indulge in the
tears of civilization. Virginia, discovering her, was
dismayed at her strange expression of grief: not a
feature moved, not a sigh escaped, but globe-like
tears chased each other down her cheeks, and
dropped on her hands. Virginia kissed her, and
said, “I love you dearly, Chloe—”

“I know I am going,” said Chloe, solemnly.

“I guess not.”

“You were three years old, Missey, when I came
here, twenty years ago. My baby had just died.”

“I never knew you were married!”

“Never was married; what was the good of one
of the Masapee tribe's marrying? My mother was a
Masapee, you know. Now, if I should have a good
offer, of course, I'd marry. I repented as soon as I
came to live with Mr. Brande.”

A shriek from Mrs. Brande startled them. They
flew to her room, and found her gleeful over the act

which she wished them to observe. Mr. Brande's
pulling her hair had suggested the plan of pulling it
herself; she held a handful of her silky, pretty hair
in each hand. A demoniacal intelligence flashed into
her eyes when they came in.

“You have been telling secrets to each other,” she
cried. “I'll tell Mr. Brande. Chloe, what did you
promise me?”

“Missis, I've performed more than I promised,
always I will stay by you, if you want me to
promise that, till the last drop of laudleum is
gone.”

“Chloe!” said Virginia, reprovingly.

“What does the copper convert mean,” asked
Mrs. Brande, “with her laudleums?”

“She means the best, mother.”

“I am quite ready to permit the woman's stay,”
Mrs. Brande continued, in a dignified voice; “but
why will she walk round and round me every night
of my life, with something called an infant sprawling
round her neck?”

“There, Missis, you've spoke it yourself!” exclaimed
Chloe.

“Hush, Virginia will hear you, Chloe. Now sit
down, and we will select our evening text.”

When Mr. Brande came home in the evening, he
found Virginia asleep on the floor, beside her
mother's bed. Her exhausted attitude struck him
painfully; he bent down to raise her head, and Mrs.
Brande gave a shrill laugh, which shook his nerves,
and made Virginia open her eyes to see that the

skirt of her dress was ingeniously sewed to the
carpet. As she tried to rise, Mrs. Brande threw herself
upon Virginia, screaming that her life depended
upon remaining there. Before the affair was settled,
every soul in the house was in the room in Virginia's
behalf, and Mrs. Brande was at last quieted. Virginia,
more dead than alive, seated herself at the
supper table, and poured tea for her father. Neither
of them ate a mouthful. Mr. Brande's eyes, however,
devoured his plate; the sweat dripped from
his forehead, and his ostentatious handkerchief came
in play.

“Father,” said Virginia, at last, in a low, steady
voice, “do you not wish mother dead? I do. Death
makes life sacred and beautiful, and her life at
present is horrible.”

For the second time that day, Mr. Brande lost his
self-command. Decorum refused to support him.
He struck the table with his clenched hand, rose,
leaned over it, and stared into her eyes, still radiant,
but swimming in tears.

“When people talk so,” he said, “they have a
narrow escape if the character of assassin is not
given them. You belie my teaching, and my example.”

“I hope so,” she answered, stung into irreverence.
“If I followed your example, what thoughts could
I indulge in, what dreams could inspire me, from
what source would my wishes rise?”

He turned so pale, closing his eyes, too, that she
thought that he would fall face downwards on the

table, and stepped towards him, but he raised his
head quickly, and ordered her back to her seat.

“What of Chloe?” he asked.

“I cannot give my consent to her going from me,
—me, father. I need her.”

“She is useful, I grant. Well, we will see. Should
Mrs. Brande's feelings change towards her, she shall
stay. I inform you, Virginia, that I too have my
charge concerning your mother; for a month past
she has passed half the night in crying out against
Chloe. I do not pretend to know her reason for so
doing; but do you not agree with me in thinking it
best to do all that may possibly tend to the restoration
of a health important to our well-being?
Ahem.”

“Yes, yes, she must leave us.”

“Now go to bed, my daughter. You are exhausted;
the circles round your eyes proclaim it.
Must not fade, my child. Ta, ta, good-night.”
And Mr. Brande was able to flourish her out of the
room with his old air.

She was gone, and he stood as if petrified, his
hand still extended; but his eyes moved over everything
within reach, and they were full of the mocking
hatred he dared express to no animate thing.
Being his daughter, and having spoken of dreams
and wishes, what could it mean? Was Virginia,
whose apparent character was all loveliness, accursed
with his secret bane? If it were so, could
she know herself, as he knew himself? And now
to contemplate her eternally with this suspicion!

Suppose two suspicions should sometime meet, and
in their lurid lightnings father and daughter stand
revealed to each other! Then he laughed, because
he saw that he could not fail to respect her for self-command.
He pushed his black coat from his
shoulders, thrust his hands in his pockets, and paced
the room, looking into his Janus faces, an able,
proud, acute, resolute, miserable man, counting one
more immolation to his creed,—Virginia,—a creed
powerful enough to shape his actions, but not mighty
enough to control a single sensation. Chloe, impatient
at the long delay over the tea-table, came in.
The silence oppressed her. The candle flames were
not stirred by any air; the moths pushed their feathery
wings through the blaze, and dropped round it
like bits of wool. The shrubbery in the window
frames had fallen asleep in the dew, and the moon
was gliding by wrapped in mist.

“How do you find yourself, this oppressive evening,
Chloe?”

“I am a cinder myself, what with this and that,
sir. There's so many candles burning. You do
like so much 'lumination, sir.”

“A room with crimson paper swallows much
lamplight. It is different in a room papered as
Miss Virginia's is,—dove-color and silver. Is she in
her room?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah, to-morrow is her birthday.”

“I know you remember it, Mr. Brande.”

He drew from his vest pocket a beautiful little

enamelled watch, with V. B. in diamonds and a
circle of diamonds round it.

“Glory!” exclaimed Chloe, “it beats her other
watch out and out.”

“Pretty little toy,” he said, making the diamonds
flash; “but of no more important than these moths.
Brush them out, Chloe, they are annoying.”

Replacing the watch in his pocket, and gently
withdrawing, he crept softly to his wife's door, and
listened there for a long time. It was as still within
as without, and he hoped that her composure would
last till morning, at least. But the demon who accompanied
her that day was not yet satisfied. Before
midnight Mr. Brande called Virginia up, for
Mrs. Brande had disappeared. After looking
through every room in the house, they found her
rolled up like a ball under Chloe's bed. Her excuse
for being there was, that she was determined to forestall
Chloe for once, and beat her on her own
ground.

In the morning Mr. Brande gave Virginia the
watch, and expressed a hope that on her next birthday
she would be able to recount as many good
hours, as, he was sure, she could for the past year.
She thanked him gracefully, held the watch in her
hand without looking at it, and asked him to grant
her one more favor. With a ray of impatience in
his eyes, he asked what its nature was. “Could she
take Chloe to Roxalana Gates that evening?”

He reflected a moment, and gave her permission
to do so, and added that he would send a carriage

into Kent, as soon as he came home. She begged
him to allow her to walk there by the path, and to
be sent for late in the evening. He again gave way,
but called it a foolish and unbecoming whim. From
the moment Virginia told her mother that Chloe was
going, a lamb-like behavior ensued. She asked for
her knitting, and kept Virginia near her all the
morning to pick up the stitches which she constantly
dropped; this employment was varied with the ringing
of a hand-bell for Chloe, and asking her if she
was gone. Chloe answered the bell, but she would
not reply; her mood was an ugly one. She stopped
praying and crying. A stern comprehension of
Virginia's future suffering filled her thoughts; as she
said afterwards, nothing would have tempted her to
believe in the Lord, or the Brandes, that day.

“Attend the meetings, Chloe,” said Mr. Brande,
when he saw them ready to go. “My interest in
you will not cease. As for money,—when you want
it, it is yours.”

Chloe made a dignified bow, and moved away in
silence.

“Why, Missey,” she said, as they struck down
the path, “'twas March when we last walked from
Temple House. I never see anything pass like the
time! How is Mrs. Gates, and little Mrs. Drake?
And what are you going to take me there for? Who
wants me? And I won't do a thing when I get
there.”

“Don't torment me, Chloe, please.”

“No, Missey; but why hasn't Marm Roxalana

offered us help in this distracting time? Why hasn't
Tempe run in and out, in her old fashion? Couldn't
have Capen Argus himself been polite in our affliction?”

“I asked Tempe to keep away, and affliction requires
no politeness.”

Nothing more passed. Virginia entered the house
noiselessly, and opened the green room door. There
was no person in the room with Argus and Roxalana;
Argus was reading a newspaper at the table,
and Roxalana was employed in resting. Virginia,
followed by Chloe, reached the centre of the room
before they perceived her.

“I think it is Virginia,” Roxalana uttered, without
stirring.

“Ah, yes,” said Argus, dropping his newspaper,
and advancing towards her; but he stopped when he
saw her expression.

“Roxalana,” said Virginia, “I have brought you
Chloe; will you keep her for me? She will assist
you. There is no place for her at our house.”

Roxalana's head became thick at once with the
idea; she could make no reply, but stared at Virginia
with a deep gravity.

“I'm kinder turned away from Mr. Brande's
house,” added Chloe. “My salt don't suit his bread
just now. I can't say as I see anything about me
this minute that would make my services 'ceptable.
I don't know as my services are worth anything. At
the same time I think they are, 'specially with dust
webs,” and she pointed to one hanging from the ceiling.
Roxalana's eyes mechanically lifted to it, and
remained there.

“Keep Chloe?” said Argus, “certainly; thank
you for bringing her. Roxalana will come to herself
in a moment; her tender nerves can bear no
surprise, you know.”

Roxalana shook with one of her sudden laughs,
and pleasantly observing Chloe, said:

“Sit down, then, and make yourself easy”

“Roxalana,” said Virginia, kneeling by her, and
speaking in the sweetest tones; “I have seen no
friend for weeks; have you thought of me? I
suffer, Roxalana; the bleeding at my heart has
stopped the flow of tears—till now.”

She hid her face in Roxalana's bosom to stifle the
sobs that strangled and convulsed her.

“Only love may save me,” she murmured,—
“dear, deep, human love; not God's now,—so far
away.”

“My poor girl—” said Argus, bending over her.

She raised her face and listened, as one hearing
music that floats through the air of a serene night,—
distant, broken, yet advancing.

“She has a heavenly face,” said Roxalana, as if
speaking of a remote object. “Argus, do you see?”

“I see,” he answered sharply,—the fool, the red
devil; and shall see a rainbow, I hope, presently.”

“It is sometime since you astonished me, Argus,”
Roxalana remarked; “but don't begin now”

“Do you enjoy that emotion, now?”

“He wishes to check me,” said Virginia; “but I
must deny him the rainbow Where is Tempe?”

“She is languid from the heat,” Roxalana replied,
“and I am sure has gone to bed.”

“And your new friend?”

“Sebastian goes on a journey to-morrow,” Argus
answered.

“But he will return,—not to leave us again,”
added Roxalana.

“Will he live here?” asked Virginia, in surprise.

“Why not?” said Argus.

“I cannot say why not,” she answered, smiling;
“I hardly know why I asked you. It is not strange
to me that anybody should choose to live here.”

“His being here makes your loan or gift of Chloe
very welcome. We must have our little domestic
asperities smoothed in his behalf. I fancy he is a
luxurious dog,—all the West Indians are.”

“Marsy,” exclaimed Chloe, “you havn't got an
Indian in this family, Capen Gates? It's as bad as
having Missis—”

She stopped abruptly. Argus replied to her
hastily that the Indian he spoke of was a tropical
bird.

While they were speaking the thickness left Roxalana's
head, and a sudden inspiration entered her
mind. She recognized that Virginia loved Argus,
and that Argus did not love Virginia. Here was a
situation to chain her to her chair for a year! She
said to herself, her features resisting all expression,
her eyes impervious,—“I love them as one. My
affection goes between the two,—from one to the
other, and lies between them.”

“Your father will send a carriage for you, Virginia?”
she asked.

“By and by, I begged him to let us walk by
the path.”

“Mat Sutcliffe saw you, I'll be bound,” said
Argus; “he constitutes himself the Guardian of the
Path. Is that not like one of Tempe's novels?
Tempe must come in. Can Chloe go for her? Try
your first errand, Chloe.”

Sebastian opened the door and came in as she
passed him, with letters in his hand. Seeing Virginia,
he adroitly stuffed them in his pocket,
approached her with a deep bow, and stood as if he
were waiting for her to speak to him.

“Where is my jonquil?” she asked, with a bright
look.

“Pardon me; it is so long since. Did you present
one to me?”

“Man's memory is like his love, I am afraid,—`a
thing apart.'”

“Hush, Virginia, he knows nothing of that rake;
it surprises me to hear you parody him,” exclaimed
Argus.

“She is not the Queen of Heaven,” thought Sebastian,
“but a noble looking creature of the earth.
And she is moved.”

She carelessly seated herself in the recess of a
window upon a high bench. A cloud of brilliant
white muslin rose about her; her beautiful foot,
sandalled with black ribbon, tossed under it; her
slender white hand, on which diamonds shone, was
half hid in its folds; a lovely flush had come into
her usually pale face; little silky bands of black hair

parted on her forehead, and strayed down her cheek;
her full lips were apart, as if she could not breathe
otherwise; and the blue knot of ribbon on her
breast beat rapidly. Sebastian as carelessly seated
himself on the bench beside her.

“And so you are to return?” she said, in a low
voice. “If I were you, I should not go away.”

“I am sent for. But why would you stay?”

“I love them all,—their lives enchant me. Won't
you solve the enigma for me? I have no doubt of
your being a wizard.”

“I do not love them all. I love Argus.”

Their faces were turned now to the window, which
was open; Virginia pulled off a twig from a bush
beneath it, and made no reply.

“I tell you,” he repeated, “that I love Argus.”

“I am glad you do. I know no person requiring
love more. But, is this the way with men of the
world?” He frowned slightly; she thought she
never saw eyes with so strange a lustre, nor eyebrows
so intimidating.

“Don't make me convict myself of sentiment,” he
begged. “How is it an enigma with you, since you
too say `I love them.'”

Tempe burst into the room, crying, “What has
brought Brande's Chloe here? I saw her prowling
about, and ran. Oh, Virginia, have you come at
last? Let me sit beside her, Sebastian.”

She pulled him by the sleeve, and crept into
his place, and nestled close to Virginia.

“You look mighty cool and gauzy, Virginia,” she

said. “This black muslin of mine makes me sick,—
mean, smutty stuff! If you haven't got a new
watch! Let me see it.”

“It is my birthday gift,” said Virginia, slipping it
from her belt.

The glittering diamonds caught Sebastian's eyes.

“When have I seen diamonds?” he murmured
absently. “I detest them. I thought they were
drowned.”

“So I should suppose,” said Tempe. “They
grow in the ground where you lived; with us they
are like stars.”

She held the watch against her cheek, which
looked a little sunken, and fixed a sideways glance
on him, with immense, haggard eyes, that nearly
covered her face. He smiled.

“How old are you, Virginia?” asked Roxalana.

“Twenty-three.”

Argus sauntered up to her from the opposite side
of the dimly lighted room.

“Take care,” he said to her. “I see lines in
your forehead. Are you hurrying to overtake the
wrinkles in mine?”

“Uncle Argus,—don't be foolish,” said Tempe.
“You are a dreadfully old man, while Virginia is a
fresh beauty. I am glad to see it.”

“The old men are immortal,” said Sebastian,
“when Aurora loves them.”

“I hear wheels,” cried Virginia, “and now I
must leave you. When,—when shall I see you
again?”

“Let us trust soon,” answered Argus gravely.
“It is impossible for us to offer you any service,—
that we know. Come, I'll walk down to the gate
with you. Chloe will be there, and I will shut off
her hysterics.”

“Stop,” said Tempe; “I am going home with
you.”

“No,” said her mother, “I do not wish you to
go; neither does Virginia wish it.”

“I shall go, mother.”

“Nonsense!” called out Argus from the door.
“Stay where you are, you have seen the new
watch.”

Tempe's eyes filled with rage.

“What can prevent my going?”

“Let her go, Roxalana,” said Sebastian. “It is
best.”

“To-morrow, mother, you will see me.” And
Tempe ran down the lawn, past Argus and Virginia,
and sprang into the carriage.

“The brat is going, after all,” said Argus; “but
you will take care of her.”

“She shall go,” replied Virginia; “but you know
that I cannot take care of her.”

“It takes all your powers to preserve the fine
balance we admire in you.”

“Oh, Argus,—the courtly Sebastian makes you
false.”

“I am verging on my second childhood,—that is
all.”

“It does not please me to see you soften so; it
threatens one.”

“Seriously, I find that I am weaker. I thought
my fibres as tough as those of your father, my ancient
ally. He is a consistent man. Admire him,
Virginia.”

“Now are you ready?” called Tempe. “Ask
Moses to drive along Bank street. Good night, my
lovely uncle.”

“Good night, little one in weeds.”

“Why do you wish to go by Bank street?” asked
Virginia.

“At the end of Bank street” answered Tempe
sharply, but shuddering at the same time,—“do we
not come upon Burying Hill? Shant we see every
white stone on its summit shining in the moonlight?
I wish to take a look at them. You may view
the bay on the other side of the street. Water and
moonshine represent that which pleases you;
the vague and the mysterious. The high, solid
mound of earth, filled with lesser mounds, numbered
with blocks of marble, represents that which I am
in search of. Here we are already, at the end of
the street.”

“A desert opens.”

Tempe leaned out of the carriage, and was silent.
Virginia, struck with the symptom of imagination in
in her, and with the scene, was silent also. Moses,
as if in sympathy with the occasion, checked his
horses, and they walked at a funeral pace down the
street along which ran the wide base of the graveyard

hill. The wheels grazed the edge of the bank
on the opposite side, and below it stretched the bay.
No sound came from the grassy beds of the dead;
the air passed over them without a sigh. The bay
was almost as quiet; along the sandy shore its volume
gravely, gently pressed, and rolled in illumination;
its surface, as far as the horizon suddenly
rounded the bay,—a dim dark coil,—was one mass
of swaying moon-rays,—the bed of “silvery gods.”
Virginia's senses fluttered as they came in contact
with the spirit of the night; her thoughts brought
Argus there. When he walked beside her just now,
under the drooping elms, in a sacred darkness, and
she felt the leaves softly brushing against them,—
why was she not permitted the inspiration given her
this moment? The air of night, filled with bright,
piercing sweetness, touched her lips with a fire which
should be kindled on his lips also. Icy, stern, unyielding
as they looked, they could but melt and weld
with hers in that first, and alas, only kiss born of
virgin passion,—which expires when it is born, and
whose beautiful ghost haunts men's minds forever,
tempting them to chase it through every path which
diverges from every faculty.

Her hands reached up into the air imploringly;
they fell back on Tempe—Tempe contemplating the
grave!

“Yes, yes,” she cried, “in a moment, Virginia.
Tell him to drive fast now; we shall soon be out of
sight of it.”

The carriage wound round the hill, and struck on

the lonely road leading to the Forge. Turning to
Virginia, Tempe said:

“That was for good. I found the sermon whose
text has been running in my mind lately. I know
now, that I never loved him. I don't care that,”
(snapping her fingers) “for his memory; the sight of
his monument did not move me one whit. I don't
believe I have been wicked. What are we to do, if
a positive feeling keeps contradicting a conscience
bought and paid for?”

“Hush, Tempe; how wild you are!”

“You can feel my pulse. I am as cool as yourself;
and am about to put myself under your
training.”

To prove the truth of her remarks, she broke into
violent weeping, and Virginia, obliged to forego her
mood,—all her entrancing speculations,—soothed
her, instead of telling her how cruel and unmindful
she was. Tempe held her hands, and laid on her
shoulder, till, irritated beyond endurance, Virginia
began humming between her teeth, and Tempe, remembering
that sign of impatience, grew gentle and
wheedling.

“Let out your voice,” she coaxed. “Come, are
you not sentimental? I know so. Sentimental
folks sing, and make verses,—especially late at
night.”

“If I sing for you, will you let me take you
home?”

“No: Sebastian must be gone first. In the morning

I shall go back, and find myself minus any
number of bows from his grandeeship.”

Tempe was suddenly quenched by Virginia's
voice, which smote the air with the passion of a
nightingale: