SUP MISS STUYVESANT. that she regretted it, and was disposed to regard her in her proper light as a lady, and one whom she no longer considered beneath her son's UPPER was ready. The windows of the litchoice, it was certainly due to one who had suf- tle dining-room were open, the wind sweepfered under this prejudice to be personally ad- ing through, fresh and cool, the fringe of the dressed and conferred with about the matter. white curtains tossing idly. The table was set Very gently, but very decidedly, she acquainted in the draught; the day had done credit to even her lover with this state of her mind. He was a July day in a bare Vermont Valley; now, wise enough not to try any more words of his since five o'clock, a faint wind was rising, like own, for he thoroughly understood how she felt, the breath of a sleepy monster, rousing from a but he understood his mother also. He proved dream. Mrs. McKay had picked up the threads his wisdom by the course he took. And that from the carpet, tucked her work neatly away was by confiding the whole matter to her the out of sight in the machine-one did not want first thing the next morning. always to be reminded that one had to eat in a "Bless my soul! does the girl want me to sewing-room-skimmed the stone-china pitchergo down on my knees to her?" the old lady ex-ful of yellow cream, gone out in her sun-bonclaimed, with her wonted grim humor. But in a moment she resumed, nodding her head emphatically: "I don't blame her, I don't blame her. She's a right to her pride; and she's all the better for it, for it's the right stuff. There, George, hand me my desk, and I'll ask her to come up and have a little talk with me. I can use my hands well enough, thank Heaven, if I can't my feet." net to pick that dish of raspberries, crimson and glowing among their leaves, baked the flaky biscuit, and pumped from the lowest deep of an old, dark well water clear as crystal, cold as snow. Who was to know that she seldom afforded ice? When money left her in the gap, nature had a kindly way with Mrs. McKay of making up the deficit. And if nature happened to fail, Mrs. McKay's own invention was discovered to be about the same thing. She had laid the plates, and put her silverwhat there was of it-in the sunbeams that flecked the table; it looked so bright there fairly seemed to be twice as much; moreover, the George gave her the desk, and she wrote the note-as cordial and courteous a note as even Emily Ingersoll's pride could demand. But when Emily stood by that bedside and saw the stricken woman, whom she had met so little while since hale and active; and when she list-children liked to fancy it was gold, and the more ened to that "talk," so kind, and hearty, and honest, she was thoroughly overcome, and felt that this last point of her pride might have been a little overstrained. "No, no, my dear, not a bit of it;" answered Mother Chatam, cheerily, as this doubt found expression. "It's the right sort, for it comes from self-respect." And then a spasm of pain crossed her face as she thought of "that foolish child Louisa," and her lack of this quality. And when "that foolish child Louisa" came again to Meriden Hill, just the same foolish child as ever, and expressed her flippant surprise at George's choice, and Mother Chatam's pleasure in it, the old lady answered, in a significant tone: "I do not think I shall ever have cause to be ashamed of her, Louisa. She has a better pride than any of us, and you may depend she'll never cast a slur upon it." And when Mrs. Ingersoll and her two daughters, Kate and Julia, were apprised of Emily's prospects, they were, of course, greatly relieved; but they expressed themselves as characteristic ally as Mrs. Louisa, for they all agreed it was the most wonderful piece of luck for Em, after the mistake she had made; but they didn't suppose she'd appreciate it, for Em never had any proper pride! It was scarcely supposable that Kate or Julia would understand Emily's real appreciation in this matter, for in marrying men like little Tommy Vars and Mr. Sizar they could not certainly have followed the dictates of taste or affection. merry dreams they could have over their bread and milk the better. This was a specimen of a whole system of such tiny household craft, in which Mrs. McKay was a perfect Machiavelli. Her husband used to wonder where she learned it. Out of the Bible, she said. She had placed the chairs, the baby's next to his father, who would always have it so, the guests facing the open door with a glimpse of mountains through it. If people had tastes, Mrs. McKay reasoned, it would be such a pity not to suit them. Such a trifle where one sits at supper? Oh, she didn't know, it was no trouble to her to stop and think about it, and how could you enjoy your supper if you knew somebody would rather be somewhere else all the time? The white table-cloth had been smoothed from its spotless wrinkles a dozen times, the last tender touches given to the pat of golden butter, stamped with a clover, the merry tea-bell rung, the children scattered right and left with a laugh, to wash their hands, and the baby tied into the high-chair. She had run out to meet her husband coming up the lane, weary and warm from his mowing, and then run on ahead to meet him at the door with a glass of sparkling water, and a look in her wide, cool eyes that he caught thirstily, though it was always on him, and though they had been married ten years. Every thing was ready now, and she had gone to the door to look for her niece. "Mary, Ma-ry! I don't see where she is. Did you see her any where, Frank? Ohthere!" Miss Stuyvesant, coming up the lane, nodded to use it all for the butter, 'n then she goes 'n and smiled. sells the butter, 'n I'd rather live in a big house, and have a pony and a candy-shop-so!" "Just look at her, Frank! Did you ever see a head held like that? She treads those dusty clovers like a queen at court, and there she is in my old broad-brimmed hat, with a purple lawn and thick boots! I'm a little afraid Mary won't have a very smooth time in the world, somehow. These royal people never do. They don't know how to manage themselves." "How can she help it, with such an aunt, my dear ?" "Frank, I'm really ashamed of you! Well, Mary, what now? Butter-cup roots for your conservatory?" "Only a little missionary enterprise," said Miss Stuyvesant, crossing the piazza in her stately way, her apron thrown over one arm, her head erect, her cheeks bright under the shadow of the old hat. In spite of the hat, malgré the lavender lawn and muddy boots, this young woman was well worth looking at. It is quite possible that she was aware of the fact, and, in her usual logical fashion, scorned herself for the knowledge. Miss Stuyvesant, considered in an objective point of view by Miss Stuyvesant, was a curious specimen of humanity. "Dear me, sassafras!" cried Mrs. McKay, as the apronful of dusty roots fell tumbling into a chair; "very thoughtful in you not to spill them on the floor, I'm sure, and you with your bring ing up, what could you be supposed to know about floors? But sassafras!" "For you," said her niece, giving her apron a little shake. "I have the impression that I overheard you sighing for some in your chirping little way yesterday." "For Frank-yes, poor fellow! with his rheumatism; and it hurts him so to mow. Sassafras makes such a capital liniment-and so good in you to think of it, my dear! But how on earth you happened to know sassafras from dog-berry ?" "By a process of induction." Mrs. McKay knit her sunny forehead, and said “Oh!” and looked as learned as possible. "I tasted it." The wrinkles smoothed out of Mrs. McKay's forehead, and she repeated her "Oh!" with animation. "If it had been ivy-root you'd have eaten it all the same, my dear!" "Probably," said Miss Stuyvesant, half-way up stairs. "How delightful it is!" said the young lady at supper-what with the perfume of the wind, the golden butter, the glowing fruit, the cozy chatter, and that glimpse of mountains touched in beyond the door, finding herself in an idle trance of physical content. "What is ?" "To be poor." Mrs. McKay laughed merrily. "We don't have cream on berries 'cept when there's company," put in one of the children with a pugilistic scowl. "Mother she just has VOL. XXXIII.-No. 195.-Z "Oh, Frankie!" Frankie was hushed up in a flutter. Miss Stuyvesant looked at the mountains and heard nothing. To see her dreaming away with her great eyes there all supper-time, as if the rye-bread were ambrosia and that diningroom the seventh heaven! Mrs. McKay's eyes twinkled over at her husband as nobody's eyes but Mrs. McKay's ever did twinkle. To practical people who had lived through the washing and ironing days of ten years together, it was as good as Punch. But Miss Stuyvesant having left the city, and her parties and admirers and diamonds and dividends and account-books, and accepted in the stead thereof rye-bread and a room without any carpet in the corners, for the especial purpose of doing as she pleased, they let her alone, and she dreamed away the meal in her imperturbable silence, heard every word that was said and saw every look. Doctor Enoch James, coming up to the gate just after supper, saw her sitting there upon the piazza, behind the vine-leaves, where the westering sunlight shifted, her profile just turned from him. There was a little of the Marie Stuart cut about it at times-in certain moods, and always when she was alone. Doctor James stopped short, having no fancy to go in, anathematizing his errand with Mrs. McKay. He had hoped to accomplish it quiet ly and come away. He and this young lady clashed instinctively. She raised her eyelids slowly as he passed her. His grave, nonchalant bow would have piqued some women. It simply puzzled Miss Stuyvesant. It was something she was not used to. Mrs. McKay bustled out on the piazza presently with Doctor James. "Go home?" He shouldn't think of it, with a sunset like that! He should sit straight down and look at it. He sat down and looked at it. The sight was one Doctor James could not turn his back upon, even if Miss Stuyvesant's company must be its price. Ranks of purple phantoms serried round a tiny, golden grave; its head-stone a slab of crimson veined with fire; in the pallid blue above it the quivering of unseen wings. Doctor James was startled from his silence by a curious, quick-drawn breath. "Now for a convulsion of well-bred enthusiasm!" he thought, in his bitter way. Leaning forward to pick up his hat he saw Miss Stuyvesant's eyes. "Hum!-used to the theatre, probably." "I'm so sorry Frank lost it," said Mrs. McKay, softly. "The coffers of the night thrown down, her treasures scattered golden on her silent floors," quoted the Doctor, under his breath. Miss Stuyvesant's lip curled. "Isn't a sight like that free from contamination ?" "Contamination ?" "You can ask? Are the very skies to be likened to dollars and cents?" Doctor James smiled. There was something peculiar about Doctor James's smile. "To beggar and to prince alike! the matchless cry goes echoing and re-echoing through her ancient halls-let him that thirsteth come!' I see you were not familiar with the quotation, as is very natural; it is a prose work, somewhat rare a great favorite of mine." "For its financial allusions?" Dr. James bit his lip. He felt that Miss Stuyvesant ought to have understood him. Apparently Miss Stuyvesant agreed with him; she turned suddenly, her cheeks faintly flushed. "Dr. James, I believe I was rude." Dr. James was standing with his hat in his hand, his tall height towering above her against the sky. He bowed, and begged leave to differ. That a poor country doctor could, in the nature of things, be otherwise than avaricious Miss Stuyvesant certainly was not justified in assuming. He would wish her good-evening. "Dear me, dear me !" exclaimed little Mrs. McKay, in a flutter. "You two are always in a pitched battle! You never talk like charitable members in good and regular standing five minutes at a time-beg your pardon, Dr. James, I forgot, you are not a professor. What! not going so soon?" The Doctor really must be going so soon, and Mrs. McKay tripped away down the walk with him, anxious to make the peace. In her goodnatured little way Mrs. McKay was a bit of a gossip. Living there so long among the Vermont wildernesses, with a heart open like a lake to the merriest sunbeams of interest in every body and every thing, and with no more intense excitement stirring in town that the bi-monthly arrival of the peddler's cart (which bore the remarkable advertisement, "Two Fletchers," and of which, to this day, no citizen of Dunkirk hath the audacity to inquire the significance), is it much of a wonder? In her cozy, confidential way Mrs. McKay began: "Really, Doctor, you don't understand my niece." "I never aspired to that honor, Mrs. McKay." No; but really-of course I know it's just as bad on her part-but you don't. She's not a bit more of an aristocrat than I am-it's only a way she has. She's as foolish and morbid because she has money as you are because you haven't." Dr. James winced a little; but there was no resenting Mrs. McKay. "You're both of you living in a strained, suspicious, unnatural mood, and you fly to different poles at sight of each other; and between you both you keep a poor little woman on pins and needles. I do so hate not to see people have a good time! Now, there isn't a truer girl in the country than Mary. She's as true as a Mayflower through and through; and so much as she does for Frank and me, under pretense of giving presents to the children, and so silly about her money too! I believe she'd will it all away to-morrow if she thought it right. Why, Doctor, have you any idea how much that girl is worth?" "I prefer not to know, if you please." Mrs. McKay opened her eyes wide. Miss Stuyvesant was sitting very still when she came up the walk, her head resting on her hand. There was a certain contraction of her forehead which was a match for Dr. James's low whistle as he walked rapidly up the road, switching the thistles with his cane in his nervous way. She sat down at Mrs. McKay's feet, her head thrown back, her soft dress falling around her like Raphael's draperies. Miss Stuyvesant's dresses always hung like a picture; which is a circumstance quite worth mentioning. Let a woman be "Juno when she walks, Minerva when she talks, and Venus when she smiles," if her dress is an inch too short, too long, too scant, her breadths uneven, the silk flimsy, her muslin limp, she is good for nothing in an artistic point of view. "Auntie, I want to be talked to." "Very well, my dear. Shall I tell you a story of the depraved little girl who quarreled with country doctors, and what a sad end she came to in consequence ?" แ "No," ," said Miss Stuyvesant, with decision. "Dear me, Mary, how you made me jump! My dear, my style of conversation isn't adapted to eyes like that." Miss Stuyvesant's manner suddenly changed. She threw up her arms a little in brushing her hair from her forehead. "Auntie, auntie, I'm tired, and foolish, and troubled. Talk about yourself—tell me all about you and uncle, and the children, and the hard times, and just how happy you are—exactly; don't make up a bit. I want to hear something that is real and true. I get so puzzled sometimes." "Why, my child, I've nothing to say. There's only the old story-Frank, and the doctor's bills, and the children's jackets, and a little dread that would be a worry if we would let it, for fear the two ends won't meet. But then they always do meet, my dear." "But weren't you ever unhappy, auntie, in all that's happened, when all the Mondays and Tuesdays kept going on with their washing and sweeping and cooking and sewing, and no end to it all, and no way out of it-never a bit ? Oh, I so hope you weren't!” "Once, Mary, I was a little blue-just once. It was just after Frank's health broke down, and he had to give up his parish and take to this farm. It was so hard for him, poor fellow! and for six months we hardly knew where next week's bread was to come from, and the children growing so fast. I used to go up into my room sometimes, and just get down on my knees and throw up my hands over my head and cry and cry. Some days that was all the prayer I could say any way, if you'll believe it-I was so wicked, Mary. But then Frank never knew. It's easy enough to laugh if you try. There wasn't but one day I couldn't joke and carry on at dinner. That day Molly was just down with the scarlet-fever, and none of the children had had it, and we in this damp house with the fresh plaster and paint, and no doctor in town then to be trusted, and no money to get one from Burlington. I did try to speak up bright, and-I was just pouring the tea-and I broke down all at once, and cried out, Oh, Frank, Frank!' just as if I were a baby in a spasm, and expected him to give me paregoric, or something, you see, Mary, and so silly! I've never forgiven myself for that, and I never shall to my dying day. He grew so white about his mouth, and his eyes looked so. 'Delia,' said he, 'come here;' and he took me right up in his arms and let me cry as hard as ever I could-right there before the children, too. Mary, where did I drop my handkerchief?" Miss Stuyvesant looked very hard at the sky where the early moon was setting. "There was only one other time when I thought something was coming that I could not bear." "I know." "The fever lasted so long the Doctor gave him up. We'd said good-by and talked it all over, what was to be done with the children and all, and I'd kissed him and-well, he got well after all. What a goose I am! Where did I leave my handkerchief? Any way, those are the only two times I haven't been as happy as the day is long." "And you were all the prouder of him because he was a poor man? And you never repented it one minute?" said Miss Stuyvesant, triumphantly. "Repented it! Oh, Mary!" Miss Stuyvesant's eager smile softened and quivered; her triumphant tones grew low. "Auntie, you are so sure people love you. When they say you are dearer to me than any thing on earth you know they don't mean your United States bonds and petroleum shares. I would throw every dollar I own into the sea if I could, and begin life as a shop-girl-to dare to believe in people, to dare to take manliness, honesty, friendship for what they seem. I can say this to you-and it is a fact that you are the only person I know in all this world who would not answer me with a superior smile and -oh, that's because you've never been poor. Money is quite worth having, Miss Stuyvesant; and what's the use of friendship without it? Poor people always quarrel, etc., etc. The very air is full of it, Aunt Delia. You breathe it in at every breath. It is the keystone to every novel. Magazine stories are flooded with itavarice, avarice, avarice, told over and over, as if a woman could marry, could desire to marry, could harbor the shadow of a thought of marrying for any reason upon earth but a love so solitary, a love so mighty, that if she and it were alone in the universe she would say, I am content' As if a high-minded woman could talk about money, ease, position, home, as temptation to marriage-as if she could be capable of it!" Miss Stuyvesant drooped suddenly, that curl on her lips, which would have fitted Zenobia, sharpening. "And I-I have nothing., I can believe in neither man nor woman. You are all I have, auntie, all I shall ever have." Mrs. McKay caught her outstretched hand with a quick movement, kissing it in her soft, petting way. "Mary Stuyvesant, you are just as morbid as you can be." "What! you don't understand me—you?" "Understand you? Better than you understand yourself, my dear. But I don't understand that you can't have just as many friends as any body else. You can make your money just as much of a blessing to you as it is a curse to some other people. And every poor man, my dear, doesn't want to marry you for your money, nor every woman court your acquaintance for the sake of your parties. Hark! what's that?" It was nothing but a little low cry from somewhere up stairs, but Mrs. McKay hurried away as she always hurried to such little cries. "That's one of the uses you might put me to," said Miss Stuyvesant, impatient at the interruption. "If you'd only have the grace not to be as proud as Lucifer, and let me hunt you up a good stout Irishwoman! You see if I don't smuggle one into the house some day!" Miss Stuyvesant paced the piazza many times that night there in the dark, her hands locked behind her. She paced her room a while too, in the same restless way, a set bitterness in her smooth, womanly face that ought not to have been there. She was morbid, of course. But a little story lay beneath the morbidness that the happy woman with the wide, cool eyes, singing away in the next room to her babies had never translated. Mary Stuyvesant had not loved. No. Otherwise, her history were ended; she was not a woman given to fancies; what was once was always. But somewhere in her life a bit of a dream had come to her, and faded, rudely. A circumstance worth mentioning happened the next morning: the slight circumstances are the great ones in nine cases out of ten. Dr. James, coming up from the office, saw Miss Stuyvesant out in the garden in a calico dress and Mrs. McKay's old hat. She looked up as he stopped, her lap full of weeds, both hands in the mud. "Miss Stuyvesant weeding!" "She appears to be. Mrs. McKay has several other little things to do." "Mrs. McKay asked me to bring her letters. You monopolized the box," said the Doctor, gravely, holding a letter over the fence. Miss Stuyvesant broke into a merry laugh, and raised her muddy hands. Dr. James's professional eyes noticed the blue veins on them; his democratic and critical eyes observed that she wore no rings. 340 "Dr. James, will you be good enough to open a distance, owing to the fact that she wore a the letter and tell me who it's from ?" He hesitated from simple astonishment. "I will not trouble you," said Miss Stuyvesant, haughtily. He opened it. And he knew "Ah, my man of business! I came here to be rid of him. Will you do me the favor to read it aloud, and save me the trouble?" He read it. It notified her of the loss, by fire, of one of her stores, a new building, but partially insured. The young lady laughed a low, bubbling laugh, and tossed the letter away. See the clover leaves I've "Thank you. pulled out of this pansy-bed, Dr. James-this one bed." dress of some light blue stuff which shaded into "I had not gone far when I saw a lady's veil at her. "You care so little!" She flushed to her temples, and rose in her queenly way. "I am surprised that a gentleman of your perception should ask. Do you not see that I am heart-broken? What higher aspirations are there in this world than those bounded by four walls of granite and accompanying rents?" Dr. James bowed and left her without a word. She dropped her weeds, opened her great eyes, That these two and watched him walk away. should misunderstand each other seemed inevitable. They gravitated away from each other by a law. "Aunt Delia, I feel at this moment precisely as if I should like to hire myself out as your Irish girl. One could believe in one's rosary and the ghosts of one's first cousins, I suppose," said Miss Stuyvesant, going up to the house. That next fortnight there fell a judgment The why and the wherefore, upon Dunkirk. the whence and the whither, no man knew; but the judgment came and was gone and left a great hush in its place. Dr. James's journal will be, perhaps, for our purposes its best record: it.' Thank you. "I presume not. If it had been a five-hunThese heiresses are exdred-dollar watch it would, without doubt, have been quite the same. travagant from their cradles, always. In handing her the flimsy thing it caught upon my sleeve-stud and tore slightly. I made as much of an apology for my carelessness as I thought the occasion required. She interrupted me with a gesture of impatience: "N'importe, n'importe! c'est assez !' Her face was worth seeing when the words "July 15.-The heat is intense. Thermome- haughty eyelids, however, dropped in their sur- "I don't like the looks of things in the east We "Passed that young lady from New York this morning, on my way to dinner; noticed her at "And that was literally every word that was said till our roads parted, and I left her. "I incline to the theory that this young lady has been decidedly bored by something or other at some time in her life. I begin to have a faint suspicion of the basis on which she rests her opinion of me, if she does me the honor to have any, which is more than doubtful. "The above is respectfully submitted to Enoch James, M.D., as bearing on the question, 'How shall a country doctor, with eight hundred a year, no rival, an epidemic coming, and a whole night's study before him, spend his precious time?' "July 16.-Brandon's wife is down. The eldest daughter doesn't look right. I begin to understand matters. |