University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
A GUEST AT THE COTTAGE.

Nothing is more striking, in the light and
shadow of the human drama, than to compare the
inner life and thoughts of elevated and silent natures
with the thoughts and plans which those by
whom they are surrounded have of and for them.
Little thought Mary of any of the speculations
that busied the friendly head of Miss Prissy, or
that lay in the provident forecastings of her prudent
mother. When a life into which all our
life-nerves have run is cut suddenly away, there
follows, after the first long bleeding is stanched, an
internal paralysis of certain portions of our nature.
It was so with Mary: the thousand fibres that
bind youth and womanhood to earthly love and
life were all in her as still as the grave, and only
the spiritual and divine part of her being was
active. Her hopes, desires, and aspirations were
all such as she could have had in greater perfection
as a disembodied spirit than as a mortal
woman. The small stake for self which she had
invested in life was gone, — and henceforward all
personal matters were to her so indifferent that she

scarce was conscious of a wish in relation to her
own individual happiness. Through the sudden
crush of a great affliction, she was in that state
of self-abnegation to which the mystics brought
themselves by fastings and self-imposed penances,
— a state not purely healthy, nor realizing the
divine ideal of a perfect human being made to
exist in the relations of human life, — but one of
those exceptional conditions, which, like the hours
that often precede dissolution, seem to impart to
the subject of them a peculiar aptitude for delicate
and refined spiritual impressions. We could
not afford to have it always night, — and we must
think that the broad, gay morning-light, when meadow-lark
and robin and bobolink are singing in
chorus with a thousand insects and the waving
of a thousand breezes, is on the whole the most
in accordance with the average wants of those
who have a material life to live and material
work to do. But then we reverence that clear-obscure
of midnight, when everything is still and
dewy; — then sing the nightingales, which cannot
be heard by day; then shine the mysterious stars.
So when all earthly voices are hushed in the soul,
all earthly lights darkened, music and color float
in from a higher sphere.

No veiled nun, with her shrouded forehead and
downcast eyes, ever moved about a convent with
a spirit more utterly divided from the world than

Mary moved about her daily employments. Her
care about the details of life seemed more than
ever minute; she was always anticipating her
mother in every direction, and striving by a thousand
gentle preveniences to save her from fatigue
and care; there was even a tenderness about her
ministrations, as if the daughter had changed feelings
and places with the mother.

The Doctor, too, felt a change in her manner
towards him, which, always considerate and kind,
was now invested with a tender thoughtfulness
and anxious solicitude to serve which often brought
tears to his eyes. All the neighbors who had been
in the habit of visiting at the house received from
her, almost daily, in one little form or another,
some proof of her thoughtful remembrance.

She seemed in particular to attach herself to
Mrs. Marvyn, — throwing her care around that
fragile and wounded nature, as a generous vine
will sometimes embrace with tender leaves and
flowers a dying tree.

But her heart seemed to have yearnings beyond
even the circle of home and friends. She longed
for the sorrowful and the afflicted, — she would go
down to the forgotten and the oppressed, — and
made herself the companion of the Doctor's secret
walks and explorings among the poor victims of
the slave-ships, and entered with zeal as teacher
among his African catechumens

Nothing but the limits of bodily strength could
confine her zeal to do and suffer for others; a
river of love had suddenly been checked in her
heart, and it needed all these channels to drain
off the waters that must otherwise have drowned
her in the suffocating agonies of repression.

Sometimes, indeed, there would be a returning
thrill of the old wound, — one of those overpowering
moments when some turn in life brings
back anew a great anguish. She would find unexpectedly
in a book a mark that he had placed
there, — or a turn in conversation would bring
back a tone of his voice, — or she would see on
some thoughtless young head curls just like those
which were swaying to and fro down among the
wavering seaweeds, — and then her heart gave one
great throb of pain, and turned for relief to some
immediate act of love to some living being. They
who saw her in one of these moments felt a surging
of her heart towards them, a moisture of the
eye, a sense of some inexpressible yearning, and
knew not from what pain that love was wrung,
nor how that poor heart was seeking to still its
own throbbings in blessing them.

By what name shall we call this beautiful twilight,
this night of the soul, so starry with heavenly
mysteries? Not happiness, — but blessedness.
They who have it walk among men “as sorrowful,
yet alway rejoicing, — as poor, yet making

many rich, — as having nothing, and yet possessing
all things.”

The Doctor, as we have seen, had always that
reverential spirit towards women which accompanies
a healthy and great nature; but in the constant
converse which he now held with a beautiful
being, from whom every particle of selfish
feeling or mortal weakness seemed sublimed, he
appeared to yield his soul up to her leading with
a wonderful humility, as to some fair, miraculous
messenger of Heaven. All questions of internal
experience, all delicate shadings of the spiritual
history with which his pastoral communings in
his flock made him conversant, he brought to her
to be resolved with the purest simplicity of trust.

“She is one of the Lord's rarities,” he said, one
day to Mrs. Scudder, “and I find it difficult to
maintain the bounds of Christian faithfulness in
talking with her. It is a charm of the Lord's hidden
ones that they know not their own beauty,
and God forbid that I should tempt a creature
made so perfect by divine grace to self-exaltation,
or lay my hand unadvisedly, as Uzzah did, upon
the ark of God, by my inconsiderate praises!”

“Well, Doctor,” said Miss Prissy, who sat in
the corner, sewing on the dove-colored silk, “I do
wish you could come into one of our meetings
and hear those blessed prayers. I don't think you
nor anybody else ever heard anything like 'em.”

“I would, indeed, that I might with propriety
enjoy the privilege,” said the Doctor.

“Well, I'll tell you what,” said Miss Prissy,
“next week they're going to meet here; and I'll
leave the door just ajar, and you can hear every
word, just by standing in the entry.”

“Thank you, Madam,” said the Doctor; “it
would certainly be a blessed privilege, but I cannot
persuade myself that such an act would be
consistent with Christian propriety.”

“Ah, now do hear that good man!” said Miss
Prissy, after he had left the room; “if he ha'n't
got the making of a real gentleman in him, as
well as a real Christian! — though I always did
say, for my part, that a real Christian will be a
gentleman. But I don't believe all the temptations
in the world could stir that blessed man one
jot or grain to do the least thing that he thinks
is wrong or out of the way. Well, I must say,
I never saw such a good man; he is the only
man I ever saw good enough for our Mary.”

Another spring came round, and brought its
roses, and the apple-trees blossomed for the third
time since the commencement of our story; and
the robins had rebuilt their nest, and began to
lay their blue eggs in it; and Mary still walked
her calm course, as a sanctified priestess of the
great worship of sorrow. Many were the hearts
now dependent on her, the spiritual histories, the

threads of which were held in her loving hand, —
many the souls burdened with sins, or oppressed
with sorrow, who found in her bosom at once
confessional and sanctuary. So many sought her
prayers, that her hours of intercession were full,
and often needed to be lengthened to embrace
all for whom she would plead. United to the
good Doctor by a constant friendship and fellowship,
she had gradually grown accustomed to
the more and more intimate manner in which
he regarded her, — which had risen from a simple
“dear child,” and “dear Mary,” to “dear friend,”
and at last “dearest of all friends,” which he frequently
called her, encouraged by the calm, confiding
sweetness of those still, blue eyes, and that
gentle smile, which came without one varying
flutter of the pulse or the rising of the slightest
flush on the marble cheek.

One day a letter was brought in, post-marked
“Philadelphia.” It was from Madame de
Frontignac; it was in French, and ran as follows:
—

One beautiful afternoon, not long after, a car
riage stopped at the cottage, and Madame de
Frontignac alighted. Mary was spinning in her
garret-boudoir, and Mrs. Scudder was at that moment
at a little distance from the house, sprinkling
some linen, which was laid out to bleach on the
green turf of the clothes-yard.

Madame de Frontignac sent away the carriage,
and ran up the stairway, pursuing the sound of
Mary's spinning-wheel, mingled with her song; and
in a moment, throwing aside the curtain, she seized
Mary in her arms, and kissed her on either cheek,
laughing and crying both at once.

“I knew where I should find you, ma blanche! I
heard the wheel of my poor little princess! It's
a good while since we spun together, mimi! Ah,
Mary, darling, little do we know what we spin!
life is hard and bitter, is'n't it? Ah, how white
your cheeks are, poor child!”

Madame de Frontignac spoke with tears in her
own eyes, passing her hand caressingly over the
fair cheeks.

“And you have grown pale, too, dear Madame,”
said Mary, looking up, and struck with the change
in the once brilliant face.

“Have I, petite? I don't know why not. We
women have secret places where our life runs out.
At home I wear rouge; that makes all right; —
but I don't put it on for you, Mary; you see me
just as I am.”

Mary could not but notice the want of that
brilliant color and roundness in the cheek, which
once made so glowing a picture; the eyes seemed
larger and tremulous with a pathetic depth, and
around them those bluish circles that speak of languor
and pain. Still, changed as she was, Madame
de Frontignac seemed only more strikingly interesting
and fascinating than ever. Still she had those
thousand pretty movements, those nameless graces
of manner, those wavering shades of expression,
that irresistibly enchained the eye and the imagination,
— true Frenchwoman as she was, always
in one rainbow shimmer of fancy and feeling, like
one of those cloud-spotted April days which give
you flowers and rain, sun and shadow, and snatches
of bird-singing, all at once.

“I have sent away my carriage, Mary, and come
to stay with you. You want me, — n'est ce pas?”
she said, coaxingly, with her arms round Mary's
neck; “if you don't, tant pis! for I am the bad
penny you English speak of, — you cannot get me
off.”

“I am sure, dear friend,” said Mary, earnestly,
“we don't want to put you off.”

“I know it; you are true; you mean what you
say; you are all good real gold, down to your
hearts; that is why I love you. But you, my poor
Mary, your cheeks are very white; poor little heart
you suffer!”

“No,” said Mary; “I do not suffer now. Christ
has given me the victory over sorrow.”

There was something sadly sublime in the manner
in which this was said, — and something so
sacred in the expression of Mary's face that Madame
de Frontignac crossed herself, as she had
been wont before a shrine; and then said, “Sweet
Mary, pray for me; I am not at peace; I cannot
get the victory over sorrow.”

“What sorrow can you have?” said Mary, —
“you, so beautiful, so rich, so admired, whom everybody
must love?

“That is what I came to tell you; I came to
confess to you. But you must sit down there,”
she said, placing Mary on a low seat in the garret-window;
“and Virginie will sit here,” she said,
drawing a bundle of uncarded wool towards her,
and sitting down at Mary's feet.

“Dear Madame,” said Mary, “let me get you a
better seat.”

“No, no, mignonne, this is best; I want to lay
my head in your lap”; — and she took off her
riding-hat with its streaming plume, and tossed it
carelessly from her, and laid her head down on
Mary's lap. “Now don't call me Madame any
more. Do you know,” she said, raising her head
with a sudden brightening of cheek and eye, “do
you know that there are two mes to this person? —
one is Virginie, and the other is Madame de Frontignac.

Everybody in Philadelphia knows Madame
de Frontignac; — she is very gay, very careless,
very happy; she never has any serious hours, or
any sad thoughts; she wears powder and diamonds,
and dances all night, and never prays; — that is
Madame. But Virginie is quite another thing.
She is tired of all this, — tired of the balls, and
the dancing, and the diamonds, and the beaux;
and she likes true people, and would like to live
very quiet with somebody that she loved. She is
very unhappy; and she prays, too, sometimes, in
a poor little way, — like the birds in your nest out
there, who don't know much, but chipper and cry
because they are hungry. This is your Virginie.
Madame never comes here, — never call me Madame.”

“Dear Virginie,” said Mary, “how I love
you!”

“Do you Mary, — bien sûr? You are my good
angel! I felt a good impulse from you when I
first saw you, and have always been stronger to
do right when I got one of your pretty little letters.
Oh, Mary, darling, I have been very foolish
and very miserable, and sometimes tempted to be
very, very bad! Oh, sometimes I thought I would
not care for God or anything else! — it was very
bad of me, — but I was like a foolish little fly
caught in a spider's net before he knows it.”

Mary's eyes questioned her companion with an

expression of eager sympathy, somewhat blended
with curiosity.

“I can't make you understand me quite,” said
Madame de Frontignac, “unless I go back a good
many years. You see, dear Mary, my dear angel
mamma died when I was very little, and I was
sent to be educated at the Sacré Cœur in Paris
I was very happy and very good in those days;
the sisters loved me, and I loved them; and I
used to be so pious, and loved God dearly. When
I took my first communion, Sister Agatha prepared
me. She was a true saint, and is in heaven
now; and I remember, when I came to her,
all dressed like a bride, with my white crown and
white veil, that she looked at me so sadly, and
said she hoped I would never love anybody better
than God, and then I should be happy. I didn't
think much of those words then; but, oh, I have
since, many times! They used to tell me always
that I had a husband who was away in the army,
and who would come to marry me when I was
seventeen, and that he would give me all sorts of
beautiful things, and show me everything I wanted
to see in the world, and that I must love and
honor him.

“Well, I was married at last; and Monsieur
de Frontignac is a good brave man, although he
seemed to me very old and sober; but he was always
kind to me, and gave me nobody knows

how many sets of jewelry, and let me do everything
I wanted to, and so I liked him very much;
but I thought there was no danger I should love
him, or anybody else, better than God. I didn't
love anybody in those days; I only liked people,
and some people more than others. All the men
I saw professed to be lovers, and I liked to lead
them about and see what foolish things I could
make them do, because it pleased my vanity; but
I laughed at the very idea of love.

“Well, Mary, when we came to Philadelphia,
I heard everybody speaking of Colonel Burr, and
what a fascinating man he was; and I thought it
would be a pretty thing to have him in my train,
— and so I did all I could to charm him. I tried
all my little arts, — and if it is a sin for us women
to do such things, I am sure I have been punished
for it. Mary, he was stronger than I was.
These men, they are not satisfied with having the
whole earth under their feet, and having all the
strength and all the glory, but they must even
take away our poor little reign; — it's too bad!

“I can't tell you how it was; I didn't know
myself; but it seemed to me that he took my
very life away from me; and it was all done
before I knew it. He called himself my friend,
my brother; he offered to teach me English; he
read with me; and by-and-by he controlled my
whole life. I, that used to be so haughty, so

proud, — I, that used to laugh to think how independent
I was of everybody, — I was entirely
under his control, though I tried not to show it.
I didn't well know where I was; for he talked
friendship, and I talked friendship; he talked about
sympathetic natures that are made for each other,
and I thought how beautiful it all was; it was
living in a new world. Monsieur de Frontignac
was as much charmed with him as I was; he
often told me that he was his best friend, — that
he was his hero, his model man; and I thought, —
oh, Mary, you would wonder to hear me say what
I thought! I thought he was a Bayard, a Sully,
a Montmorenci, — everything grand and noble and
good. I loved him with a religion; I would have
died for him; I sometimes thought how I might
lay down my life to save his, like women I read
of in history. I did not know myself; I was astonished
I could feel so; and I did not dream that
this could be wrong. How could I, when it made
me feel more religious than anything in my whole
life? Everything in the world seemed to grow sacred.
I thought, if men could be so good and
admirable, life was a holy thing, and not to be
trifled with.

“But our good Abbé is a faithful shepherd,
and when I told him these things in confession,
he told me I was in great danger, — danger of
falling into mortal sin. Oh, Mary, it was as if

the earth had opened under me! He told me,
too, that this noble man, this man so dear, was a
heretic, and that, if he died, he would go to dreadful
pains. Oh, Mary, I dare not tell you half what
he told me, — dreadful things that make me shiver
when I think of them! And then he said that I
must offer myself a sacrifice for him; that, if I
would put down all this love and overcome it,
God would perhaps accept it as a satisfaction, and
bring him into the True Church at last.

“Then I began to try. Oh, Mary, we never
know how we love till we try to unlove! It
seemed like taking my heart out of my breast,
and separating life from life. How can one do it?
I wish any one would tell me. The Abbé said I
must do it by prayer; but it seemed to me prayer
only made me think the more of him.

“But at last I had a great shock; everything
broke up like a great, grand, noble dream, — and
I waked out of it just as weak and wretched as
one feels when one has overslept. Oh, Mary, I
found I was mistaken in him, — all, all, wholly!”

Madame de Frontignac laid her forehead on
Mary's knee, and her long chestnut hair drooped
down over her face.

“He was going somewhere with my husband to
explore, out in the regions of the Ohio, where he
had some splendid schemes of founding a state;
and I was all interest. And one day, as they

were preparing, Monsieur de Frontignac gave me
a quantity of papers to read and arrange, and
among them was a part of a letter; — I never
could imagine how it got there; it was from Burr
to one of his confidential friends. I read it, at
first, wondering what it meant, till I came to two
or three sentences about me.”

Madame de Frontignac paused a moment, and
then said, rising with sudden energy, —

“Mary, that man never loved me; he cannot
love; he does not know what love is. What I
felt he cannot know; he cannot even dream of it,
because he never felt anything like it. Such men
never know us women; we are as high as heaven
above them. It is true enough that my heart was
wholly in his power, — but why? Because I
adored him as something divine, incapable of dishonor,
incapable of selfishness, incapable of even
a thought that was not perfectly noble and heroic.
If he had been all that, I should have been proud
to be even a poor little flower that should exhale
away to give him an hour's pleasure; I would
have offered my whole life to God as a sacrifice
for such a glorious soul; — and all this time what
was he thinking of me?

“He was using my feelings to carry his plans;
he was admiring me like a picture; he was considering
what he should do with me; and but for
his interests with my husband, he would have

tried his power to make me sacrifice this world
and the next to his pleasure. But he does not
know me. My mother was a Montmorenci, and
I have the blood of her house in my veins; we
are princesses; — we can give all; but he must be
a god that we give it for.”

Mary's enchanted eye followed the beautiful narrator,
as she enacted before her this poetry and
tragedy of real life, so much beyond what dramatic
art can ever furnish. Her eyes grew splendid
in their depth and brilliancy; sometimes they
were full of tears, and sometimes they flashed out
like lightnings; her whole form seemed to be a
plastic vehicle which translated every emotion of
her soul; and Mary sat and looked at her with
the intense absorption that one gives to the highest
and deepest in Art or Nature.

“Enfin, — que faire!” she said at last, suddenly
stopping, and drooping in every limb. “Mary, I
have lived on this dream so long! — never thought
of anything else! — now all is gone, and what shall
I do?

“I think, Mary,” she added, pointing to the
nest in the tree, “I see my life in many things.
My heart was once still and quiet, like the round
little eggs that were in your nest; — now it has
broken out of its shell, and cries with cold and
hunger. I want my dream again, — I wish it all
back, — or that my heart could go back into its

shell. If I only could drop this year out of my
life, and care for nothing, as I used to! I have
tried to do that; I can't; I cannot get back where
I was before.”

“Would you do it, dear Virginie?” said Mary;
“would you, if you could?”

“It was very noble and sweet, all that,” said
Virginie; “it gave me higher thoughts than ever
I had before; I think my feelings were beautiful;
— but now they are like little birds that have no
mother; they kill me with their crying.”

“Dear Virginie, there is a real Friend in heaven,
who is all you can ask or think, — nobler, better
purer, — who cannot change, and cannot die, and
who loved you and gave himself for you.”

“You mean Jesus,” said Virginie. “Ah, I know
it; and I say the offices to him daily, but my
heart is very wild and starts away from my words.
I say, `My God, I give myself to you!' — and
after all, I don't give myself, and I don't feel comforted.
Dear Mary, you must have suffered, too,
— for you loved really, — I saw it; — when we feel
a thing ourselves, we can see very quick the same
in others; — and it was a dreadful blow to come
so all at once.”

“Yes, it was,” said Mary; “I thought I must
die; but Christ has given me peace.”

These words were spoken with that long-breathed
sigh with which we always speak of peace, — a

sigh that told of storms and sorrows past, — the
sighing of the wave that falls spent and broken on
the shores of eternal rest.

There was a little pause in the conversation
and then Virginie raised her head and spoke in a
sprightlier tone.

“Well, my little fairy cat, my white doe, I have
come to you. Poor Virginie wants something to
hold to her heart; let me have you,” she said,
throwing her arms round Mary.

“Dear, dear Virginie, indeed you shall!” said
Mary. “I will love you dearly, and pray for you.
I always have prayed for you, ever since the first
day I knew you.”

“I knew it, — I felt your prayers in my heart.
Mary, I have many thoughts that I dare not tell
to any one, lately, — but I cannot help feeling that
some are real Christians who are not in the True
Church. You are as true a saint as Saint Catharine;
indeed, I always think of you when I think
of our dear Lady; and yet they say there is no
salvation out of the Church.”

This was a new view of the subject to Mary,
who had grown up with the familiar idea that the
Romish Church was Babylon and Antichrist, and
who, during the conversation, had been revolving
the same surmises with regard to her friend. She
turned her grave, blue eyes on Madame de Frontignac
with a somewhat surprised look, which

melted into a half-smile. But the latter still went
on with a puzzled air, as if trying to talk herself
out of some mental perplexity.

“Now, Burr is a heretic, — and more than that,
he is an infidel; he has no religion in his heart,
— I saw that often, — it made me tremble for him,
— it ought to have put me on my guard. But
you, dear Mary, you love Jesus as your life. I
think you love him just as much as Sister Agatha,
who was a saint. The Abbé says that there is
nothing so dangerous as to begin to use our reason
in religion, — that, if we once begin, we never
know where it may carry us; but I can't help
using mine a very little. I must think there are
some saints that are not in the True Church.”

“All are one who love Christ,” said Mary; “we
are one in Him.”

“I should not dare to tell the Abbé,” said
Madame de Frontignac; and Mary queried in her
heart, whether Dr. Hopkins would feel satisfied that
she could bring this wanderer to the fold of Christ
without undertaking to batter down the walls of
her creed; and yet, there they were, the Catholic
and the Puritan, each strong in her respective faith,
yet melting together in that embrace of love and
sorrow, joined in the great communion of suffering.
Mary took up her Testament, and read the
fourteenth chapter of John: —

“Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in

God, believe also in me. In my Father's house
are many mansions; if it were not so, I would
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you;
and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am, there ye may be also.”

Mary read on through the chapter, — through
the next wonderful prayer; her face grew solemnly
transparent, as of an angel; for her soul was lifted
from earth by the words, and walked with Christ
far above all things, over that starry pavement
where each footstep is on a world.

The greatest moral effects are like those of music,
— not wrought out by sharp-sided intellectual
propositions, but melted in by a divine fusion, by
words that have mysterious, indefinite fulness of
meaning, made living by sweet voices, which seem
to be the out-throbbings of angelic hearts. So one
verse in the Bible read by a mother in some hour
of tender prayer has a significance deeper and
higher than the most elaborate of sermons, the
most acute of arguments.

Virginie Frontignac sat as one divinely enchanted,
while that sweet voice read on; and
when the silence fell between them, she gave a
long sigh, as we do when sweet music stops.
They heard between them the soft stir of summer
leaves, the distant songs of birds, the breezy hum
when the afternoon wind shivered through many

branches, and the silver sea chimed in. Virginie
rose at last, and kissed Mary on the forehead.

“That is a beautiful book,” she said, “and to
read it all by one's self must be lovely. I cannot
understand why it should be dangerous; it has not
injured you.

“Sweet saint,” she added, “let me stay with
you; you shall read to me every day. Do you
know I came here to get you to take me? I
want you to show me how to find peace where
you do; will you let me be your sister?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mary, with a cheek brighter
than it had been for many a day; her heart feeling
a throb of more real human pleasure than for
long months.

“Will you get your mamma to let me stay?”
said Virginie, with the bashfulness of a child;
“haven't you a little place like yours, with white
curtains and sanded floor, to give to poor little
Virginie to learn to be good in?”

“Why, do you really want to stay here with
us,” said Mary, “in this little house?”

“Do I really?” said Virginie, mimicking her
voice with a start of her old playfulness; — “don't
I really? Come now, mimi, coax the good mamma
for me, — tell her I shall try to be very good. I
shall help you with the spinning, — you know I
spin beautifully, — and I shall make butter, and

milk the cow, and set the table. Oh, I will be so
useful, you can't spare me!”

“I should love to have you dearly,” said Mary,
warmly; “but you would soon be dull for want
of society here.”

“Quelle idée! ma petite drôle!” said the lady,
— who, with the mobility of her nation, had already
recovered some of the saucy mocking grace
that was habitual to her, as she began teasing
Mary with a thousand little childish motions.
“Indeed, mimi, you must keep me hid up here, or
may be the wolf will find me and eat me up; who
knows?”

Mary looked at her with inquiring eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Mary, — I mean, that, when he comes
back to Philadelphia, he thinks he shall find me
there; he thought I should stay while my husband
was gone; and when he finds I am gone, he may
come to Newport; and I never want to see him
again without you; — you must let me stay with
you.”

“Have you told him,” said Mary, “what you
think?”

“I wrote to him, Mary, — but, oh, I can't trust
my heart! I want so much to believe him, it
kills me so to think evil of him, that it will never
do for me to see him. If he looks at me with
those eyes of his, I am all gone; I shall believe

anything he tells me; he will draw me to him as
a great magnet draws a poor little grain of steel.”

“But now you know his unworthiness, his baseness,”
said Mary, “I should think it would break
all his power.”

“Should you think so? Ah, Mary, we cannot
unlove in a minute; love is a great while dying.
I do not worship him now as I did. I know
what he is. I know he is bad, and I am sorry
for it. I should like to cover it from all the
world, — even from you, Mary, since I see it
makes you dislike him; it hurts me to hear any
one else blame him. But sometimes I do so long
to think I am mistaken, that I know, if I should
see him, I should catch at anything he might tell
me, as a drowning man at straws; I should shut
my eyes, and think, after all, that it was all my
fault, and ask a thousand pardons for all the evil
he has done. No, — Mary, you must keep your
blue eyes upon me, or I shall be gone.”

At this moment Mrs. Scudder's voice was heard,
calling Mary below.

“Go down now, darling, and tell mamma; make
a good little talk to her, ma reine! Ah, you are
queen here! all do as you say, — even the good
priest there; you have a little hand, but it leads
all; so go, petite.”

Mrs. Scudder was somewhat flurried and discomposed
at the proposition; — there were the pros

and the cons in her nature, such as we all have.
In the first place, Madame de Frontignac belonged
to high society, — and that was pro; for
Mrs. Scudder prayed daily against worldly vanities,
because she felt a little traitor in her heart
that was ready to open its door to them, if not
constantly talked down. In the second place, Madame
de Frontignac was French, — there was a
con; for Mrs. Scudder had enough of her father
John Bull in her heart to have a very wary look-out
on anything French. But then, in the third
place, she was out of health and unhappy, — and
there was a pro again; for Mrs. Scudder was as
kind and motherly a soul as ever breathed. But
then she was a Catholic, — con. But the Doctor
and Mary might convert her, — pro. And then
Mary wanted her, — pro. And she was a pretty,
bewitching, lovable creature, — pro. — The pros had
it; and it was agreed that Madame de Frontignac
should be installed as proprietress of the
spare chamber, and she sat down to the tea-table
that evening in the great kitchen.