your kindness?" She hurried away without suffering him to urge the matter.

The prospect of hearing Sontag gave her exquisite pleasure, and she dressed with trembling eagerness, while Harriet leaned on the bureau and wondered what would happen next. Except to attend church and visit Clara and Mrs. Williams, Beulah had never gone out before; and the very seclusion in which she lived, rendered this occasion one of interest and importance. As she took her cloak and ran down-stairs, the young heart throbbed violently. Would her fastidious guardian be satisfied with her appearance? She felt the blood gush over her face as she entered the room; but he did not look at her, continued to read the newspaper he held, and said, from behind the extended sheet:

"I will join you directly."

She poured out the tea with an unsteady hand. Dr. Hartwell took his silently; and as both rose from the table, handed her a paper, saying:

"The carriage is not quite ready, yet. There is a programme." As she glanced over it, he scanned her closely, and an expression of satisfaction settled on his features. She wore a dark blue silk (one he had given her some weeks before), which exquisitely fitted her slender, graceful figure, and was relieved by a lace collar, fastened with a handsome cameo pin, also his gift. The glossy black hair was brushed straight back from the face, in accordance with the prevailing style, and wound into a knot at the back of the head. On either side of this knot, she wore a superb white camellia, which contrasted well with the raven hair. Her face was pale, but the expression was one of eager expectation. As the carriage rattled up to the door, he put his hand on her shoulder, and said:

"You look very well to-night, my child. Those white japonicas become you." She breathed freely once more.

At the door of the concert hall he gave her his arm, and while the pressure of the crowd detained them a moment at the entrance, she clung to him with a feeling of dependence utterly new to her. The din of voices, the dazzling glare of the gas-lights bewildered her, and she walked on mechanically, till the doctor entered his seat, and placed her beside him. The brilliant chandeliers shone down on elegant dresses, glittering diamonds, and beautiful women, and, looking forward, Beulah was reminded of the glowing descriptions in the "Arabian Nights." She observed that many curious eyes were bent upon her, and ere she had been seated five minutes, more than one lorgnette was levelled at her. Everybody knew Dr. Hartwell, and she saw him constantly returning the bows of recognition which assailed him from the ladies in their vicinity. Presently, he leaned his head on his hand, and she could not forbear smiling at the ineffectual attempts made to arrest his attention. The hall was crowded, and as the seats filled to their utmost

capacity, she was pressed against her guardian. He looked down at her, and whispered:

Very democratic. Eh, Beulah ?"

She smiled, and was about to reply, when her attention was attracted by a party which just then took their places immediately in front of her. It consisted of an elderly gentleman and two ladies, one of whom Beulah instantly recognized as Cornelia Graham. She was now a noble-looking, rather than beautiful woman; and the incipient pride, so apparent in girlhood, had matured into almost repulsive hauteur. She was very richly dressed, and her brilliant black eyes wandered indifferently over the room, as though such assemblages had lost their novelty and interest for her. Chancing to look back, she perceived Dr. Hartwell, bowed, and said with a smile:

Pray, do not think me obstinate; I had no wish to come, but father insisted."

"I am glad you feel well enough to be here," was his careless reply.

Cornelia's eyes fell upon the quiet figure at his side, and as Beulah met her steady gaze, she felt something of her old dislike warming in her eyes. They had never met since the morning of Cornelia's contemptuous treatment, at Madam St. Cymon's; and now, to Beulah's utter astonishment, she deliberately turned round, put out her white-gloved hand, over the back of the seat, and said, energetically:

"How are you, Beulah? You have altered so materially that I scarcely knew you."

Beulah's nature was generous; she was glad to forget old injuries, and as their hands met in a friendly clasp, she answered: "You have changed but little."

"And that for the worse, as people have a pleasant way of telling me. Beulah, I want to know honestly, if my rudeness caused you to leave madam's school ?"

"That was not my only reason," replied Beulah, very candidly. At this moment the burst of applause greeted the appearance of the cantatrice, and all conversation was suspended. Beulah listened to the warbling of the queen of song with a thrill of delight. Passionately fond of music, she appreciated the brilliant execution, and entrancing melody, as probably very few in that crowded house could have done. With some of the pieces selected she was familiar, and others she had long desired to hear. She was unconscious of the steady look with which her guardian watched her, as with parted lips, she leaned eagerly forward to catch every note. When Sontag left the stage, and the hum of conversation was heard once more, Beulah looked up, with a long sigh of delight, and murmured:

66

'Oh, sir! isn't she' a glorious woman ?"

"Miss Graham is speaking to you," said he, coolly.

She raised her head, and saw the young lady's eyes riveted on her countenance.

"Beulah, when did you hear from Eugene ?"

"About three weeks since, I believe."

"We leave, for Europe, day-after-to-morrow; shall, perhaps, go directly to Heidelberg. Have you any commissions? any messages?" Under the mask of seeming indifference, she watched Beulah intently, as, shrinking from the cold, searching eyes the latter replied:

"Thank you, I have neither to trouble you with."

Again the prima-donna appeared on the stage, and again Beulah forgot everything but the witching strains. In the midst of one of the songs, she felt her guardian start violently; and the hand which rested on his knee, was clinched spasmodically. She looked at him; the wonted pale face was flushed to the edge of his hair; the blue veins stood out hard and corded on his brow; and the eyes, like burning stars, were fixed on some object not very remote, while he gnawed his lip, as if unconscious of what he did. Following the direction of his gaze, she saw that it was fastened on a gentleman, who sat at some little distance from them. The position he occupied rendered his countenance visible, and a glance sufficed to show her that the features were handsome, the expression sinister, malignant and cunning. His entire appearance was foreign, and conveyed the idea of reckless dissipation. Evidently, he came there, not for the music, but to scan the crowd, and his fierce eyes roamed over the audience with a daring impudence, which disgusted her. Suddenly they rested on her own face, wandered to Dr. Hartwell's, and lingering there a full moment, with a look of defiant hatred, returned to her, causing her to shudder at the intensity and freedom of his gaze. She drew herself up proudly, and, with an air of haughty contempt, fixed her attention on the stage. But the spell of enchantment was broken; she could hear the deep, irregular breathing of her guardian, and knew, from the way in which he stared down on the floor, that he could with difficulty remain quietly in his place. She was glad when the concert ended, and the mass of heads began to move toward the door. With a species of curiosity that she could not repress, she glanced at the stranger; their eyes met, as before, and his smile of triumphant scorn made her cling closer to her guardian's arm, and take care not to look in that direction again. She felt inexpressibly relieved when, hurried on by the crowd in the rear, they emerged from the heated room into a long, dim passage leading to the street. They were surrounded on all sides by chattering groups, and while the light was too faint to distinguish faces, these words fell on her ear with painful distinctness: "I suppose that was Dr. Hartwell's protégée he had with him. He is a great curiosity. Think of a man of his age and appearance settling down as if he were sixty years old, and adopting

a beggarly orphan. She is not at all pretty. possessed him?”

What can have

"No, not pretty, exactly; but there is something odd in her appearance. Her brow is magnificent, and I should judge she was intellectual. She is as colourless as a ghost. No accounting for Hartwell; ten to one he will marry her. I have heard it surmised that he was educating her for a wife"- Here the party who

were in advance vanished, and as he approached the carriage, Dr. Hartwell said, coolly:

"Another specimen of democracy."

Beulah felt as if a lava tide surged madly in her veins, and as the carriage rolled homeward, she covered her face with her hands. Wounded pride, indignation, and contempt, struggled violently in her heart. For some moments there was silence; then her guardian drew her hands from her face, held them firmly in his, and leaning forward, said gravely:

"Beulah, malice and envy love lofty marks. Learn, as I have done, to look down with scorn from the summit of indifference upon the feeble darts aimed from the pits beneath you. My child, don't suffer the senseless gossip of the shallow crowd to wound you."

She endeavored to withdraw her hands, but his unyielding grasp prevented her.

"Beulah, you must conquer your morbid sensitiveness, if you would have your life other than a dreary burden."

'Oh, sir! you are not invulnerable to these wounds; how, then can I, an orphan girl, receive them with indifference ?" She spoke passionately, and dropped her burning face till it touched his arm.

"Ah! you observed my agitation to-night. But for a vow made to my dying mother, that villian's blood had long since removed all ground of emotion. Six years ago, he fled from me, and his unexpected reappearance to-night excited me more than I had fancied it was possible for anything to do." His voice was as low, calm and musical as though he were reading aloud to her some poetic tale of injuries; and in the same even, quiet tone, he added:

"It is well. All have a Nemesis." "Not on earth, sir."

"Wait till you have lived as long as I, and you will think with me. Beulah, be careful how you write to Eugene of Cornelia Graham; better not mention her name at all. If she lives to come home again, you will understand me."

"Is not her health good ?" asked Beulah, in surprise.

"Far from it. She has a disease of the heart, which may end her existence any moment. I doubt whether she ever returns to America. Mind, I do not wish you to speak of this to any one. Good night. If you are up in time in the morning, I wish you

would be so good as to cut some of the choicest flowers in the greenhouse, and arrange a handsome bouquet, before breakfast, I want to take it to one of my patients, an old friend of my mother."

They were at home, and only pausing at the door of Mrs. Watson's room to tell the good woman the "music was charming," Beulah hastened to her own apartment. Throwing herself into a chair, she recalled the incident of the evening, and her cheeks burned painfully, as her position in the eyes of the world was forced upon her recollection. Tears of mortification rolled over her hot face, and her heart throbbed almost to suffocation. She sank upon her knees, and tried to pray, but sobs choked her utterance; and leaning her head against the bed, she wept bitterly.

Ah! is there not pain, and sorrow, and evil enough, in this fallen world of ours, that meddling gossips must needs poison the few pure springs of enjoyment and peace? Not the hatred of the Theban brothers could more thoroughly accomplish this fiendish design, than the whisper of detraction, the sneer of malice, or the fatal inuendo of envious, low-bred tattlers. Human life is shielded by the bulwark of legal provisions, and most earthly possessions are similarly protected; but there are assassins whom the judicial arm cannot reach, who infest society in countless hordes, and while their work of ruin and misery goes ever on, there is for the unhappy victims no redress. Thy holy precepts, O, Christ! alone can antidote this universal evil.

Beulah calmed the storm that raged in her heart, and as she took the flowers from her hair, said resolutely:

"Before long I shall occupy a position where there will be nothing to envy, and then, possibly, I may escape the gossiping rack. Eugene may think me a fool, if he likes; but support myself I will, if it costs me my life. What difference should it make to him, so long as I prefer it? One more year of study, and I shall be qualified for any situation; then I can breathe freely. May God shield me from all harm!"

CHAPTER XVI.

BEULAH GRADUATES-HER ADDRESS-LETTER FROM EUGENE
-THE DOCTOR ASKS HER TO RELINQUISH TEACHING-
HE LEAVES FOR NEW YORK.

HAT year of study rolled swiftly away; another winter came and passed; another spring hung its verdant drapery over earth, and now ardent summer reigns once more. It was near the noon of a starry July night that Beulah sat in her own room beside her writing-desk. A manuscript lay before her, yet damp with ink, and as she traced the concluding words, and