THE HOUSE OF YORKE.
CHAPTER III.
DIEU DISPOSE.
The early morning of Mr. Rowan's burial had been heavy and dark; but as they left the island a shower of golden light broke through the clouds, the water sparkled on all sides, and the sighing air became a frolic breeze. Dick and the captain brightened, and exchanged a few words in seamen's phrase complimenting the weather. Mrs. Rowan also roused herself, brushed the sand from her clothes, arranged the folds of her veil, and even smoothed her hair. The poor creature's vanity was dead, but at the prospect of meeting strangers it gave a slight post-mortem flicker. Out it went, though, the next instant, on the breath of a sigh. What did it matter how she looked? But she glanced anxiously at Edith.
The child had put on her mother's red cape and drawn it up over her head, and she still held it there, one slim hand pulling the folds close together under her chin. That she might appear outlandish did not trouble Edith. Indeed, she claimed the right to be so on account of her foreign blood. But when she noticed Mrs. Rowan's attention to her own toilet, and met her glance, she pushed the cape off her head, and, putting her arms up, began to smooth her hair and plait it into a long braid. It was rich, long hair, not given to wilful ringlets, but would curl when in the mood. Now the wind blew little curls out about her face, and the risen sun steeped the tresses in a pale flame.
The braid finished, she tossed it back, and caught it lightly into a loop, the motion revealing a pair of round white arms, to which the hands and wrists looked like colored gauntlets. Then she unfolded her precious Indian relic of tarnished red and gold, and bound it straightly about her head, half-covering the forehead, so that the long, fringed ends hung behind, and a loose fold fell over each ear.
Beholding her in that guise, Captain Cary thought that she looked fitter for some oriental scene than for this crude corner of a crude land. "She might be a stolen child stained with gypsy-wort," he said to himself.
But she was Gypsy only in color. No wild fires burned in her face; her cool eyes looked out calm and observant; her mouth was gently closed. The very shape of her features expressed tranquillity.
The sailor found himself much interested in this little girl. Besides that her appearance pleased him, his good-will had been bespoken; for on one of those days when their ship had lain becalmed in southern waters, Dick had told him all her story. Listening to it, half-asleep, as to something that might be fact and might be fancy, all the scene about him had entwined itself with the history and with the heroine's character. The solid golden day, shut down over a sea whose soft pulses told of perfect repose; the wide-eyed, radiant night, which seemed every moment on the point of breaking into music far and near, a fine, clear music of countless sweet bells with almost human tongues—they formed the background on which her image floated. Seeing her did not dispel but rather strengthened the illusion. Something golden in her hair, something tranquil in her face, something expectant in her eyes—all were like.
The rough giant of a sailor mused tenderly over this as he sent their boat forward with powerful strokes, and watched Edith Yorke bind on her Egyptian coiffure.
They did not row to the wharf, where the steamer had already arrived, but to a place a few rods above, where the sea had taken a good semicircular bite out of the land. Here a straggling bit of dilapidated woods had been allowed to remain by the vandals who had turned all the rest to grass and pasture, and a mossy ledge broke the teeth of the soft, gnawing waves.
Edith stepped lightly on shore. She was young, healthy, brave, and ignorant, and pain, though it called forth her tears, was stimulating to her. That pang had not yet come which could cut her heart in twain and let all the courage out.
"You are spry," Captain Cary said, smiling down upon her.
She smiled faintly in return, but said nothing.
Mrs. Rowan needed assistance at either hand. She had been broken by pain.
They stood awhile in the grove, Dick and the captain making some business arrangements. The Halcyon was to remain four weeks at Seaton, and it was agreed that Dick should have that time to get his mother settled. Then the ship would touch at New York, where he would embark for the East again.
While they lingered, a large yellow coach, loaded with passengers, rattled past amid clouds of dust.
"There is no hurry," Dick said. "It will take an hour to get the freight off and on. But you needn't wait, captain. They'll be looking for you at the village."
The others drew near to Captain Cary at that, holding his hands and trying to utter their thanks.
"Oh! it's nothing," he said, much abashed. "I haven't done anything to be thanked for. Good-by! Keep up your courage, and you will come out first-rate. There's nothing like grit."
A subsiding ripple tossed his boat against the shore. At that hint he stepped in, dallied with the rope, then said, with a perfectly transparent affectation of having only just thought of it: "Oh! I've got a ring here that Edith is welcome to, if she will wear it. I brought it home for my niece; but the child is dead. It won't fit anybody else I know."
Mrs. Rowan immediately thanked him, and Edith smiled with childish pleasure. "You are very kind, Captain Cary," she said. "I always thought I would like to have a ring."
Dick alone darkened; but no one noticed it. He had meant to do everything for her; and here was a wish which she had never expressed to him, and he had not known enough to anticipate.
The captain drew a tiny box from his pocket, and displayed a small circlet in which was set a single spark of diamond. Edith extended her left hand, and the sailor, leaning over the boatside, slipped the ring on to her forefinger.
"Good-by, again!" he said then hastily, and gave each of them a grasp of the hand. Dick could take care of himself; but the other two, putting out their tender hands impulsively, grew red in the face with pain at the grip of his iron fingers. The next instant his boat shot out into the bay. They looked after him till he glanced back and saluted them with a nod, and two arches of spray tossed from his oars; then turned and climbed the shore, Dick assisting his mother, Edith following.
"Good-by, trees!" said the child, glancing up. "Good-by, moss!" stooping to gather a silken green flake and a cluster of red-topped gray. The prettiest cup had a spider in it, and she would not disturb it. "Good-by, spider!" she whispered, "I'm never coming back again."
She had friends to take leave of, after all—not human friends, but God's little creatures, who had never hurt her save in self-defence.
When they reached the wharf, there was no one in sight but the men who trundled the freight off and on. At the upper end of the wharf there was a small building used as office and waiting-room. The passage to the boat being obstructed, Dick sent his mother and Edith there, while he went on board to get tickets. They went to the door of the waiting-room, hesitated a moment on seeing it occupied, then went in, and seated themselves in a retired corner.
The party who were already in possession glanced at the new-comers, and immediately became oblivious of them. This party were evidently the members of one family. Some indefinable resemblance, as well as their air of intimacy, showed that. An elderly gentleman walked up and down the floor, his hands clasped behind his back, and a lady not much over forty sat near, surrounded by her three daughters. At a window, to which the mother's back was turned, looking up toward the village, stood a young man whose age could not be over twenty-three. The ages of the daughters might vary from sixteen to twenty. They formed rather a remarkable group, and were attractive, though the faces of all expressed more or less dissatisfaction. That of the young man indicated profound disgust. The elder lady had a sweet and melancholy expression, and appeared like an invalid. The youngest daughter, who sat beside her, was as like her mother as the waxing moon is like the waning. She was pretty, had clinging, caressing ways, a faint dimple in her left cheek, splendid auburn hair, and gray eyes. They called her Hester. On the other hand sat the eldest daughter, a rather stately, self-satisfied young woman, whose attentions to her mother had an air of patronage. This was Melicent. She was rather fair, neutral in color, and excessively near-sighted. The second daughter stood behind her mother, and was very attentive to her, but in an absent way, often doing more harm than good by her assistance. "My dear Clara, you are bundling the shawl all about my neck! My love, you pull my bonnet off in arranging my veil! Why, Clara, what are you doing to my scarf?" Such remarks as these were constantly being addressed to her. Clara was a dark brunette, with small features, a superb but not tall figure, and large gray eyes that looked black. Her coal-black hair grew rather low on the forehead, straight black brows overshadowed her eyes and nearly met over the nose, and an exquisitely delicate mouth gave softness to this face which would otherwise have been severe. She seemed to be a girl of immense but undisciplined energy, and full of enthusiasm.
The gentleman who paced the floor was slightly under-sized and thin in figure, thin in face, too, dark, and sallow. The very look of him suggested bile and sarcasm. But let him speak for himself, since he is just now on this subject. "Bile, my dear," he said to his wife—"bile came into the world with original sin. I am not sure that bile is not sin. It is Marah in a pleasant land. It is a fountain of gall in the garden of paradise. It poisons life. Doctors know nothing whatever about bile, and liver-medicines are a superstition. He who shall discover a way to eradicate bile from the system will be a great moral reformer. Every sin I ever committed in my life took its rise in my liver. I believe the liver to be an interpolation in the original man. We should be better without it."
The gentleman who spoke had a wide, thin mouth, very much drawn down at the corners and nowise hidden, the gray moustache he spared in shaving being curled up at the ends. His manner was that of a person who would scarcely brook contradiction. His speech was clear and emphatic, and he pronounced his words as if he knew how they were spelt. A long, delicate aquiline nose had a good deal to do with his profile, as had also a pair of overhanging eyebrows. From beneath these brows looked forth a pair of keen gray eyes, with countless complex wrinkles about them. The chin was handsome, well-rounded, and, fortunately, not projecting. A projecting chin with an aquiline nose is one of the greatest of facial misfortunes. Caricature can do no more. The forehead was intellectual, and weighty enough to make it no wonder if the slight frame grew nervous and irritable in carrying out the behests of the brain hidden there. The head was crowned by a not inartistic confusion of gray hair which seemed to have been stirred by electricity.
"I am sorry, madam, that I cannot compliment the climate of your native state," he remarked after a pause. "The spring is a month or six weeks behind that of Massachusetts, and the fall as much earlier. The travelling here is simply intolerable. It is either clouds of dust, bogs of mud, or drifts of snow. I quite agree with the person who said that Maine is a good state to come from."
"We all know, Charles, that the climate of Massachusetts, and particularly of Boston, surpasses that of any other part of the world," the lady replied with great composure.
The gentleman winced very slightly. He was one of those who constantly make sarcastic observations to others, but are peculiarly sensitive when such are addressed to themselves. In his society, one was frequently reminded of the little boy's complaint: "Mother, make Tommy be still. He keeps crying every time I strike him on the head with the hammer."
"Here will be a chance to practise your famous English walks, Melicent," the father said. "I presume the old chaise is dissolved. I remember it twenty years ago nodding along the road in the most polite manner. By the way, Amy, did you ever observe that in genuine country places people leave their defunct vehicles to decay by the roadside? I am not sure that there is no poetry in the custom. The weary wheels crumble to dust in view of the track over which they have rolled in life, and are a memento mori to living carriages. It is not unlike the monument of Themistocles 'on the watery strand.'"
"Papa," exclaimed Hester, "why didn't you say tired wheels? You started to."
"Because I detest a pun."
Melicent, who had been waiting for a chance, now spoke. "You don't mean to say, papa, that we shall have no carriage?"
A shrug of the shoulders was the only reply.
The young woman's face wore a look of dismay. "But, papa!" she exclaimed.
"Wait till the pumpkins grow," he said with a mocking smile. "I will give you the largest one, and your mother will furnish the mice. I don't doubt there are mice, and to spare."
"You don't mean that we must walk everywhere?" his daughter cried.
"Dear me, Melicent, how persistent you are!" interrupted Clara impatiently. "One would think there was no need of borrowing trouble."
The elder sister gazed with an air of superiority at the younger. "I was speaking to papa," she remarked with dignity.
The father frowned, the mother raised a deprecating hand, and the imminent retort was hushed. Clara went to her brother, and, leaning on his arm, whispered that, if Mel were not her own sister, she should really get to dislike her.
"How silent you are, Owen," said Hester, looking around at him. "All you have done to entertain us so far has been to make faces when you were sick. To be sure, that made us laugh."
"A sea-sick person may be the cause of wit in others, but is seldom himself witty," was the laconic reply.
The speaker was a slim, elegant youth, with golden tints in his light hair, with rather drooping and very bright blue eyes, and a beautiful, sensuous mouth.
Edith Yorke watched this party with interest, and the longer she looked at the elder gentleman the better she liked him. His manner of addressing the ladies suited her inborn sense of what a gentleman's manner should be. There was no contemptuous waiting before answering them, no flinging the reply over his shoulder, nor growling it out like a bear. Besides, she half-believed—only half, for her eyes were heavy with weeping and loss of sleep—that he had looked kindly at her. Once she was sure that he spoke of her to his wife, but she did not know what he said. It was this: "My dear, do you observe that child? She has an uncommon face."
The lady glanced across the room and nodded. She was too much preoccupied to think of anything but their own affairs. But her husband, on whom these affairs had the contrary effect of driving him to seek distraction, approached Edith.
"Little girl," he said, "you remind me so much of some one I have seen that I would like to know your name, if you please to tell it."
"My name is Edith Eugénie Yorke," she replied, with perfect self-possession.
He had bent slightly toward her in speaking, but at sound of the name he stood suddenly upright, his sallow face turned very red, and he looked at her with a gaze so piercing that she shrank from it. "Who were your father and mother?" he demanded.
"My mother was Eugénie Lubormirski, a Polish exile, and my father was Mr. Robert Yorke, of Boston," said Edith. Her eyes were fixed intently on the gentleman's face, and her heart began to beat quickly.
He turned away from her and resumed his walk, but, after a minute, came back again. "Your father and mother are both dead?" he asked in a gentler tone.
"Yes, sir."
"You have no brothers nor sisters?"
"No, sir."
"Who takes care of you?"
"Mrs. Jane Rowan," Edith replied, laying her hand on the widow's lap.
He bowed, taking this for an introduction, a cold but courteous bow.
"May I ask, madam," he inquired, "what claim you have on this child?"
Mrs. Rowan had shown some agitation while this conversation was going on, and when Edith put out her hand, she grasped it as if meaning to hold on to the child. Her reply was made in a somewhat defiant tone. "When Mrs. Robert Yorke died, she asked me to have pity on her daughter, and keep her out of the poor-house. I have taken care of her ever since. The Yorkes had turned them off."
The gentleman drew himself up, and put out his under lip. "Thank you for the information," he said bitterly. Then to Edith, "Come, child," and took her hand.
She allowed him to lead her across the room to his wife.
"Mrs. Yorke," he said, "this is my brother Robert's orphan child!"
There was a slight sensation and a momentary pause; but the lady recovered immediately. "I am glad to see you, dear," she said in a kind voice. "Who is that person?" she added to her husband, glancing at Mrs. Rowan.
The widow was staring at them angrily, and seemed on the point of coming to take Edith away by force.
"One who has taken care of the child since her mother's death, Amy," he answered. "She has no claim on my niece, and will, of course, give her up to us. The little girl is named for my mother. Robert was always fond of mother."
There was a pause of embarrassed silence.
"You must perceive that there is no other way," Mr. Yorke continued with some state. "Aside from natural affection and pity for the child's friendless condition, an Edith Yorke must not be allowed to go about the country like a Gypsy with a shawl over her head."
"It is just as papa says," Melicent interposed, and immediately took Edith by the hand and kissed her cheek. "You are my little cousin, and you will go home and live with us," she said sweetly.
Miss Yorke's manner was very conciliating; but her suavity proceeded less from real sweetness than from self-complacency. She prided herself on knowing and always doing what was comme il faut, and took great pleasure in being the mould of form.
"I shall go with Dick! I am going to live with Dick!" Edith cried, snatching her hand away. A blush of alarm overspread her face, and she looked round in search of her protector. At that moment he appeared in the door, paused in surprise at seeing where Edith was, then went to his mother.
"The Yorkes have got her," Mrs. Rowan said to him, breathless with excitement. "That is Mr. Charles Yorke. I knew him the moment I set eyes on him."
Dick wheeled about and faced them. Edith, too proud to run away, looked at him imploringly.
Then Miss Melicent Yorke arose, like the goddess of peace, adjusted her most impregnable smile, and sailed across the room. "I am Miss Yorke," she said brightly, as though such an announcement would be sure to delight them. "Of course, the dear little Edith is my cousin. Is it not the strangest thing in the world that we should have met in such a way? I am sure we shall all feel deeply indebted to you for having protected the child while we knew nothing of her necessities. Of course, we should have sent for her directly if we had known. But, as it is, we have the pleasure of meeting you."
Pausing, Miss Yorke looked at the two as if they were the dearest friends she had on earth and it gave her heartfelt joy to behold their countenances.
Dick choked with the words he would have uttered. He felt keenly the insolence of her perfectly confident and smiling address, yet knew not how to defend himself. If a man had been in her place, he could have met his airy assumption with a sufficiently blunt rebuff; but the young sailor was chivalric, and could not look a woman in the face and utter rude words. His mother's emotion did not prevent her replying, and, fortunately, to the point.
"Do you mean to say," Mrs. Rowan exclaimed, "that you are going to take Edith away from us without leave or license, after we have supported her four years without your troubling yourselves whether she starved in the street or not?"
For a moment, Miss Yorke's social poniard wavered before this broad thrust, but only for a moment. "Every family has its own private affairs, which no one else has either the power or the right to decide upon," she said smilingly. "All I need say of ours is that, if Mr. Yorke, my father, had known that his brother left a child unprovided for, he would have adopted her without delay. He did not know it till this minute, and his first thought is that there is only one proper course for him. His niece must be under his care, as her natural protector, and must have the advantages of education and society to which she is entitled. I am sure you would both be friendly enough to her to wish her to occupy her rightful position. As for any expense you may have gone to on her account, papa—"
"Stop there, madam!" Dick interrupted haughtily. "We will say no more about that, if you please. As to Edith's going with you, she shall choose for herself. I don't deny that it seems to be the proper thing; but allow me to say that it was my intention to give her a good home and a good education, such as no girl need be ashamed of. I will speak to Edith, and see what she thinks about it."
He turned unceremoniously away from Miss Yorke's protestations, and went to the door, beckoning Edith to follow him. As he looked back, waiting for her, he saw that the whole family had gone over in a body to talk to his mother.
Edith clasped the hand he held out to her, and looked up into his face with large tears flashing in her eyes.
"I wouldn't leave you if they would give me all the world!" she exclaimed.
He smiled involuntarily, but would not take advantage of her affectionate impulse. He saw clearly that her true place was with her relatives. They could do for her at once what he could do only after years of weary labor. Perhaps they could do at once what he could never do. But it was hard to give her up. Down in the bottom of his heart was a thought which he had never fully acknowledged the presence of, but of which he was always conscious: he had meant to bring the child up to be his wife some day, if she should be willing; to load her with benefits; to be the one to whom she should owe everything. But with the pang it cost him to put this hope in peril came the glimpse of a possibility how far more triumphant! Following his own plan, he should be hedging her in; giving her up now would be making her free choice, if it should fall on him, an infinitely greater boon. Besides, and above all, it was right that she should go.
Dick leaned back against the wall of the building, and folded his arms while he talked to her. At first Edith broke into reproaches when she learned that he meant to give her up, but immediately an instinct of feminine pride and delicacy checked the words upon her lips. It was impossible for her to press her society on one who voluntarily relinquished it. She listened to her sentence in silence.
"So you see, Edith," he concluded, "we must make up our minds to part."
She perceived no such necessity, but did not tell him so. "Then I shall never see you any more!" she said in a whisper, without looking up.
Dick's eyes sparkled with resolution through the tears that filled them. "Yes, you will!" he exclaimed. "I mean to do the best I can for mother and myself, and you shall not be ashamed of us. And however high they may set you, Edith, I'll climb! I'll climb! I won't be so far off but I can reach you!"
The coach had taken its first load of passengers to the village, and now came down to bring those who were to take the steamer and carry the Yorkes back. It was time to go on board. Dick stepped to the door of the waiting-room. "Come, mother!" he said. "Edith and I will see you to your state-room, and then I will bring her back. She is to go with her uncle."
He was not surprised to see that his mother had been completely talked over by Edith's relations, and that, though tearful, no opposition was to be expected from her. They seemed to be the best of friends; and when the widow rose to take leave of them, Mr. Yorke himself escorted her to the boat. In fact, it was all very comfortably settled, as Miss Yorke observed to her mother when they had taken their seats in the coach.
When Edith and Dick appeared again, hand in hand, Mr. Yorke stood at the coach-door, waiting to assist his niece to her place.
"How picturesque!" Clara Yorke exclaimed, as the two stepped over the planks and came toward them. "It is like something out of the Arabian Nights. He is Sindbad, and she is one of those princesses who were always getting into such ridiculous situations and difficulties. The child is absurd, of course, but she is lovely; and the young man is really very fine—of his kind."
Sindbad and his princess were both very pale. "Sir," the sailor said, presenting the child to her uncle, "I hope she will be as happy with you as I and my mother would have tried to make her."
As he released her hand, Edith's face suddenly whitened. All her little world was slipping away from beneath her feet.
Mr. Yorke was touched and impressed. He liked the young man's dignity. "I must compliment you, sir, on your honorable conduct in this affair," he said. "Let us hear from you; and come to see us whenever you are in our neighborhood."
Dick Rowan, in his turn, would have been touched by this unexpected cordiality, had not a slight raising of Miss Melicent Yorke's eyebrows neutralized its effect. The young woman thought that her father was really condescending unnecessarily. That faint, supercilious surprise checked the young man's gratitude, and he was turning away with a cold word of thanks, when Mrs. Yorke called him back. She was leaning from the carriage, and held out her hand to him.
"Good-by, Mr. Rowan!" she said aloud. "You need not fear that we shall not cherish this orphan whom you have kindly protected so far, and you need not fear that we shall try to make her forget you. Ingratitude is the vice of slaves. I am sure she will never be ungrateful to you."
"Thank you!" Dick said fervently, melted by the kind smile and tremulous sweetness of tone. It was none of Miss Melicent's exasperating affability.
"And I have a favor to ask," she added, leaning still further out, and lowering her voice so that only he could hear. "I take for granted that you will write to my niece. Will you allow her to let me read your letters?"
Dick blushed deeply as he stammered out another "Thank you!" It was a delicately given warning and kindly given permission. It showed him, moreover, that the lady's soft eyes had looked to the bottom of his heart. At that moment he was glad that the ring on Edith's finger was Captain Cary's gift, not his.
"I would like to see the steamboat just as long as it is in sight," Edith said faintly.
Her uncle immediately gave orders to the driver to take them round to a place from which they could look down to the entrance of the bay.
The boat steamed out over the water, glided like a swan down the bay, and soon disappeared around a curve that led to the Narrows. Edith gazed immovably after it, unconscious that they were all watching her. When it was no longer visible, she closed her eyes, and sank back into Mrs. Yorke's arms.
CHAPTER IV.
THE OLD HOME.
Mrs. Charles Yorke was a native of Seaton; her maiden name, Arnold. Her mother had died while Amy was quite young, and in a few years the father married again. This marriage was an unfortunate one for the family; and not only the daughter but many of Mr. Arnold's friends had tried to dissuade him from it. Their chief argument was not that the person whom he proposed to marry was a vulgar woman whom his lost wife would not have received as an acquaintance, but that she was in every way unworthy of him, and would be a discreditable connection. They met the fate which usually awaits such interference. Truth itself never appears so true as varnished falsehood does. Mr. Arnold was flattered and duped; and the end of the affair was that Amy had the misery of seeing his deceiver walk triumphantly into her mother's sacred place. Nor was this all. In a moment of weakness, the father betrayed to his new wife the efforts that had been made to separate them, and she half-guessed, half-drew from him every name. From that moment her instinctive jealous dislike of her step-daughter was turned to hatred.
Had the young girl been wise, she would have known that her only proper course was to withdraw from the field; but she was inexperienced and passionate, and had no better adviser than her own heart. Had she been a Catholic, she could have found in the confessional the confidant and counsel she needed; but she was not. In Seaton there were no Catholics above the class of servants and day-laborers. She was left, therefore, completely to herself, and in the power of an unscrupulous and subtle tormentor. Miserable, indignant, and desperate, the young girl descended to the contest, and at every step she was defeated. She called on her father for protection; but he saw nothing of her trials, or was made to believe that she had herself provoked them. It was the old story of adroit deceit arrayed against impolitic sincerity. But, happily, the contest was not of long duration.
Amy was not a person to remain in a position so false and degrading. There came a time when, quite as much to her own surprise as to theirs, she had nothing more to say. But their surprise was that she contended no longer, hers that she had contended so long. The way was clear before her, and her plans were soon made. Her father had an unmarried cousin living in Boston, and this lady consented to receive her. Only on the day preceding her departure did she announce her intentions. The sufferings she had undergone were a sufficient excuse for her abruptness. She had become too much weakened and excited to bear any controversy upon the subject. Besides, the parting from her father, if prolonged, would have been unbearable. She must tear herself away.
He sat a moment with downcast eyes after she had communicated to him her design. His face expressed emotion. He seemed both pained and embarrassed, and quite at a loss what to say. In fact, his wife had proposed this very plan, and was anxious that Amy should go, and he had entertained the project. Therefore he could not express surprise. For the first time, perhaps, a feeling of shame overcame him. He was obliged to deceive! His pride, revolting at that shame, made him impatient. Unwilling to acknowledge himself in the wrong, he wished to appear injured.
"If you mean to deprive me of my only child, and would rather live with strangers than with your own father, I will not oppose you," he said. "But I think you might have shown some confidence in me, and told me your wishes before."
Amy's impulse had been, at the first sight of his emotion, to throw herself into his arms, and forgive him everything, or take upon herself all the blame. But at these words she recoiled. Her silence was better than any answer could have been.
"I don't blame you, child," her father resumed, blushing for the evasion he had practised. "It would be cruel of me to wish you to stay in a home where you cannot live in peace. I am grieved, Amy, but I can do nothing. What can a man do between women who disagree?"
"Find out which is wrong!" was the answer that rose to her lips, but she suppressed it. She had already exhausted words to him. She had poured out her pain, her love, her entreaties, and they had been to him as the idle wind. She had been wronged and insulted, and he would not see it. She turned away with a feeling of despair.
"At least, let us part as a father and daughter should," he said in a trembling voice.
She held out one hand to him, and with the other covered her face, unable to utter a word; then broke away, and shut herself into her chamber. There are times when entire reparation only is tolerable, and we demand full justice, or none.
So they parted, and never met again, though they corresponded regularly, and wrote kind if not confidential letters. The only sign the daughter ever had of any change of opinion in her father regarding the cause of their separation was when he requested her to send her letters to his office and not to the house. After that they both wrote more freely.
In her new home, Amy did not find all sunshine. Miss Clinton was old and notional, and had too great a fondness for thinking for others as well as herself. Consequently, when the young lady favored the addresses of a poor artist who had been employed to paint her portrait, there was an explosion. With her father's consent, Amy married Carl Owen, and her cousin discarded her. There was one year of happiness; then the young husband died, and left his wife with an infant son.
In her trouble, Mrs. Owen made the acquaintance of Mrs. Edith Yorke, who became to her a helpful friend; and in little more than a year she married that lady's eldest son, Charles. From that moment her happiness was assured. She found herself surrounded by thoroughly congenial society, and blest with the companionship of one who was to her father, husband, and brother, all she had ever lost or longed for. Mr. Yorke adopted her son as his own, and, so far from showing any jealousy of his predecessor, was the one to propose that the boy should retain his own father's name in addition to the one he adopted.
As daughters grew up around them, he appeared to forget that Carl was not his own son, at least so far as pride in him went. Probably he showed more fondness for his girls.
Mr. Arnold died shortly after his daughter's second marriage, and his wife followed him in a few years. By their death Mrs. Yorke became the owner of her old home. But she had no desire to revisit the scene of so much misery, and for years the house was left untenanted in the care of a keeper. Nor would they ever have gone there, probably, but for pecuniary losses which made them glad of any refuge.
Mr. Charles Yorke appreciated the value of money, and knew admirably well how to spend it; but the acuteness which can foresee and make bargains, and the unscrupulousness which is so often necessary to insure their success, he had not. Consequently, when in an evil hour he embarked his inherited wealth in speculation, it was nearly all swept away.
Creditors, knowing his probity, offered to wait.
"Why should I wait?" he asked. "Will my debts contract as the cold weather comes on? I prefer an immediate settlement."
Not displeased at his refusal to profit by their generosity, they hinted at a willingness to take a percentage on their claims.
"A percentage!" cried the debtor. "Am I a swindler? Am I a beggar? I shall pay a hundred per cent., and I recommend you in your future dealings with me to bear in mind that I am a gentleman and not an adventurer."
A very old-fashioned man was Mr. Charles Yorke, and a very hard man to pity.
Behold him, then, and his family en route for their new home.
We have said that the two principal streets of the town of Seaton crossed each other at right angles, one running north and south along the river, the other running east and west across the river. These roads carried themselves very straightly before folks, but once out of town, forgot their company manners, and meandered as they chose, splintered into side-tracks, and wandered off in vagabond ways. But the south road, that passed by the Rowans', was the only one that came to nothing. The other three persisted till they each found a village or a city, twenty-five miles or so away. Half a mile from the village centre, on North Street, a very respectable-looking road started off eastward, ran across a field, and plunged into the forest that swept down over a long smooth rise from far-away regions of wildness. Following this road half a mile, one saw at the left a tumble-down stone wall across an opening, with two gates, painted black in imitation of iron, about fifteen rods apart. A little further on, it became visible that an avenue went from gate to gate, enclosing a deep half-circle of lawn, on which grew several fair enough elms and a really fine maple. After such preliminaries you expect a house; and there it is at the head of the avenue, a widespread building, with a cupola in the centre, a portico in front, and a wing at either side. It is elevated on a deep terrace, and has a background of woods, and woods at either hand, only a little removed.
To be consistent, this house should be of stone, or, at least, of brick; but it is neither. Still, it would not be right to call it a "shingle palace;" for its frame is a massive network of solid oaken beams, and it is strong enough to bear unmoved a shock that would set nine out of every ten modern city structures rattling down into their cellars. When Mrs. Yorke's grandfather built this house, in the year 1800, English ideas and feelings still prevailed in that region; and in building a house, a gentleman thought of his grandchildren, who might live in it. Now nobody builds with any reference to his descendants.
But Mr. Arnold's plans had proved larger than his purse. The park he meant to have had still remained three hundred acres of wild, unfenced land, the gardens never got beyond a few flowers, now choked with weeds, and the kitchen-garden, kept alive by Patrick Chester, Mrs. Yorke's keeper. As for the orchard, it never saw the light. Mrs. Yorke's father had done the place one good turn, for he had planted vines everywhere. Their graceful banners, in summer-time, draped the portico, the corners of the house, the dead oak-tree by the western wing, and swept here and there over rock, fence, or stump.
Back of the house, toward the right, was a huge barn and a granary; the eaves of both under-hung with a solid row of swallows' nests. On this bright April morning, the whole air was full of the twirl and twitter of these birds, and with the blue glancing of their wings some invisible crystalline ring seemed to have been let down from the heavens over and around the house, and they followed its outline in their flight. But the homely, bread-and-butter robins had no such mystical ways. They flew or hopped straight where they wanted to go, and what they wanted to get was plainly something to eat. One of them alighted on the threshold of the open front-door and looked curiously in. He saw a long hall, with a staircase on one side, and open doors to right and left and at the furthest end. All the wood-work, walls, and ceilings in sight were dingy, and rats and mice had assisted time in gnawing away; but the furniture was bright, and three fires visible through the three open doors were brighter still. Redbreast seemed to be much interested in these fires. Probably he was a bird from the city, and had never seen such large ones. Those in the front rooms were large enough, but that in the kitchen was something immense, and yet left room at one side of the fireplace for a person to sit and look up chimney, if so disposed.
"Bon!" says the bird, with a nod, hopping in, "the kitchen is the place to go to. As to those flowers and cherries on the floor, I am not to be cheated by them. They are not good to eat, but only to walk on. I am a bird of culture and society. I know how people live. I am not like that stupid chicken."
For a little yellow chicken, without a sign of tail, had followed the robin in, and was eagerly pecking at the spots in the carpet.
The bird of culture hopped along to the door at the back of the hail, and paused again to reconnoitre. Here a long, narrow corridor ran across, with doors opening into the front rooms, and one into the kitchen, and a second stairway at one end. Three more hops brought the bird to the threshold of the kitchen-door, where a third pause occurred, this one not without trepidation; for here in the great kitchen a woman stood at a table with a pan of potatoes before her. She had washed them, and was now engaged in partially paring them and cutting out any suspicious spots that might be visible on the surfaces. "It takes me to make new potatoes out of old ones!" she said to herself with an air of satisfaction, tossing the potato in in her hand into a pan of cold water.
This woman was large-framed and tall, and over forty years of age. She had a homely, sensible, pleasant, quick-tempered face, and the base of her nose was an hypothenuse. Her dark hair was drawn back and made into a smooth French twist, with a shell comb stuck in the top a little askew. It is hard to fasten one of those twists with the comb quite even, if it has much top to it. This comb had much top. The woman's face shone with washing; she wore a straightly-fitting calico gown and a white linen collar. The gown was newly done up and a little too stiff, and to keep it from soil she had doubled the skirt up in front and pinned it behind, and tied on a large apron. For further safeguard, the sleeves were turned up and pinned to the shoulder by the waistbands. At every movement she made these stiff clothes rattled.
This woman was Miss Betsey Bates. She had lived at Mr. Arnold's when Miss Amy was a young girl, had left when she left, and was now come back to live with her again.
"Just let your water bile," Betsey began, addressing an imaginary audience—"let your water bile, and throw in a handful of salt; then wash your potatoes clean; peel 'em all but a strip or two to hold together; cut out the spots, and let 'em lay awhile in cold water; when it's time to cook 'em, throw 'em into your biling water, and clap on your lid; then—"
Betsey stopped suddenly and looked over her shoulder to listen, but, hearing no carriage-wheels nor human steps, resumed her occupation. She did not perceive the two little bipeds on the threshold of the door, where they were listening to her soliloquy with great interest, though it was the chicken's steps that had attracted her attention. That silly creature, dissatisfied with his worsted banquet, had hopped along to the robin's side, where he now stood with a hungry crop, round eyes, and two or three colored threads sticking to his bill.
Betsey's thoughts took a new turn. "I must go and see to the fires, and put a good beach chunk on each one. There's a little chill in the air, and everybody wants a fire after a journey. It looks cheerful. I've got six fires going in this house. What do you think of that? To my idea, an open fire in a strange house is equal to a first cousin, sometimes better."
Here a step sounded outside the open window behind the table, and Pat Chester appeared, a stout, fine-looking, red-faced man, with mischievous eyes and an honest mouth. Curiously enough, the base of his nose also was an hypothenuse. Otherwise there was no resemblance between the two. Betsey used to say to him, "Pat, the ends of our noses were sawed off the wrong way."
"Who are you talking to?" asked Pat, stopping to look in and laugh.
"Your betters," was the retort.
"I don't envy 'em," said Pat, and went on about his business.
"And I must see to them clocks again," pursued Betsey. "The idea of having a clock in every room in the house! It takes me half of my time to set 'em forward and back. As to touching the pendulums of such clocks as them, you don't catch me. But I do abominate to see one mantelpiece a quarter past and another quarter of at the same time."
Here a little peck on the floor arrested Betsey's attention, and, stretching her neck, she saw the chicken, and instantly flew at it with a loud "shoo!" With its two bits of wings extended and its head advanced as far as possible, the little wretch fled through the hall, peeping with terror. But the robin flew up and escaped over Betsey's head. "Laud sakes!" she cried, holding on to her comb and her eyes, "who ever saw a chicken fly up like that?"
Wondering over this phenomenon, Betsey went up-stairs and replenished the fires in three chambers, and set some of the clocks forward and others back, then hurried down to perform the same duties below stairs. Just as she set the last hour-hand carefully at nine o'clock, Pat put his head in at the dining-room window. "It's time for 'em to be here," he said, "and I'm going down to the gate to watch. I'll give a whistle the minute they come in sight."
Immersed in her own thoughts, Betsey had jumped violently at sound of his voice. "I do believe you're possessed to go round poking your head in at windows, and scaring people out of their wits!" she cried, with a frightened laugh. "Here I came within an ace of upsetting this clock or going into the fire."
Pat laughed back—he and Betsey were always scolding and always laughing at each other—muttered something about skittish women, and walked off down the avenue to watch for the family.
"I believe everything is ready," Betsey said, looking round. She took off her apron, took down her skirt and sleeves, and gave herself a general crackling smoothing over. Then suddenly she assumed an amiable smile, looked straight before her, dropped a short courtesy, and said, "How do you do, Mrs. Yorke? I hope I see you well. How do you do, sir? How do you do, miss? I wonder if I had better go out to the door when they come, or stand in the entry, or stay in the kitchen. I declare to man I don't know what to do! How do you do, ma'am?" beginning her practising again, this time before the glass. "I hope I see you well. To think of my not being married at all, and her having grown-up children!" she said, staring through the window. "The last time I saw her, she was a pretty creature, as pale as a snow-drop. Poor thing! she had a hard time of it with that Jezebel. She never said anything to me, nor I to her; but many a time she has come to me when that woman has been up to her tricks, and held on to me, and gasped for breath. 'O my heart! my heart!' she'd say. 'Don't speak to me, Betsey, but hold me a minute!' It was awful to see her white face, and to feel her heart jump as if it would tear itself out. That was the way trouble always took hold of her."
She mused a moment longer, then broke off suddenly, and began anew her practice. "How do you do, ma'am? I hope I see you well."
Presently a loud, shrill whistle interrupted her. Betsey rushed excitedly into the kitchen, dashed her potatoes into the kettle, tied on a clean apron that stood out like cast-iron with starch, and hovered in the rear of the hall, to be ready for advance or retreat, as occasion might demand.
The old yellow coach came through the gate, up the muddy avenue, and drew up at the steps. The two gentlemen got out first, then the young ladies, and all stood around while Mrs. Yorke slowly alighted. She was very pale, but smiled kindly on them, then took her son's arm, and went up the steps. Mr. Yorke stopped to offer his hand to a little girl who still remained in the coach. "My sakes!" muttered Betsey. "If it isn't that Rowan young one!"
"Mother dear," said the son, "it is possible to make a very beautiful place of this."
She looked at him with a brightening smile. "You think so, Carl?" She had been anxiously watching what impression the sight of her old home would make on her family, and exaggerating its defects in her own imagination, as she fancied they were doing in theirs. Their silence so far had given her a pang, since she interpreted it to mean disappointment, when in truth it had meant solicitude for her. They thought that she would be agitated on coming again to her childhood's home after so long an absence. So she was; but her own peculiar memories gave precedence to that which concerned those dearest to her.
"Besides, mother," Owen continued, "this spot has a charm for me which no other could have, however beautiful: it is yours."
That word conveyed the first intimation Mrs. Yorke had ever received that her son felt his dependence on a stepfather. But the pain the knowledge caused her was instantly banished by the recollection that the cause of his uneasiness was now removed.
"My great-grandfather had ideas, though he did not carry them out," remarked Melicent. "If he had built his house of stone, it would have done very well. It is astonishing that he did not. But the earlier settlers in this country seemed to revel in wood, probably because it had been to them in the Old World a luxury. With heaps of stones at hand, they would persist in building their houses of logs."
At this point Betsey rushed out to welcome Mrs. Yorke. The sight of that pale face which seemed to be looking for her, and the slight, clinging form that used to cling to her, quite overcame her shyness.
"You dear creature, how glad I am to see you once more!" she cried out. And, seizing the lady by the shoulders, gave her a resounding kiss on the cheek.
"Please do not touch Mrs. Yorke's left arm. It gives her palpitation," said the son rather stiffly.
Young Mr. Owen had an invincible repugnance to personal familiarities, especially from inferiors.
"Dear Betsey, this is my son," the mother said proudly, looking at her manly young escort, as if to see him anew with a stranger's admiring eyes. "Carl has heard me speak of you many a time, my old friend!"
Betsey immediately dropped a solemn courtesy. "I hope I see you well, sir!" she said, remembering her manners.
"This must be Betsey Bates!" cried Miss Melicent, coming forward with great cordiality. "Mamma has spoken of you so often I knew you at once."
Miss Yorke did not say that she recognized Betsey by her nose, though that was the fact. The impression left on the woman's mind was of something highly complimentary, that some air expressive of honesty, faithfulness, and affection, or some subtile personal grace not universally acknowledged, had led to the recognition.
On the threshold of the door, Mrs. Yorke turned to receive her husband. She could not utter a word; but her face expressed what she would have said. In her look could be read that she placed in his hands all that was hers, regretting only that the gift was so small.
One saw then, too, that Mr. Yorke's sarcastic face was capable of great tenderness. As he met that mute welcome, a look of indulgent kindness softened his keen eyes, gave his scornful mouth a new shape, and lighted up his whole countenance. But he knew better than allow his wife to yield to any excitement of feeling.
"Yes, Amy!" he said cheerfully, "I think we shall make a very pleasant home here. Now come in and rest."
They went into the sitting-room at the left of the hall, and Mrs. Yorke was seated in an arm-chair there between the fire and the sunshine, and they all waited on her. Hester, kneeling by her mother, removed her gloves and overshoes, Clara took off her bonnet and shawl, and Melicent, after whispering a word to Betsey, went out with that factotum, and presently returned bearing a tin cup of coffee on which a froth of cream still floated.
"I've taken a cup, mamma," she said, "and I can recommend it. And breakfast will be ready in two minutes."
Owen Yorke, missing one of the company, went out, and found Edith standing forlorn in the portico, biting her quivering lips, and struggling to restrain the tears that threatened to overflow her eyes. For the first time in her life the child felt timid and disconcerted. She was among her own people, and they had forgotten her. At that moment she longed passionately for Dick Rowan, and would have flown to him had it been possible.
"Come, little Gypsy!" he said. "You're not going to run away, I hope? Did you think we had forgotten you? See! I have not."
Owen Yorke's face was very winning when he chose, and his voice could express a good deal of kindness. Edith looked at him steadily a moment, then took the hand he offered, and went into the house with him. As they entered, Mrs. Yorke rose to give the child an affectionate welcome to her new home, and the daughters gathered about her with those bright, profuse words which are so pleasant even when they mean so little.
A folding-door opened from the sitting-room into the dining-room, which occupied the front half of the west wing, and here a breakfast was set out that dismayed the eyes of those who were expected to partake of it. There was a fricassee which had cost the lives of three hens of family, and occasioned a serious squabble between Pat and Betsey; there was a vast platter of ham and eggs, and a pyramid of potatoes piled so high that the first time it was touched one rolled off on to the cloth. Poor Betsey had no conception of the Yorke ideal of a proper breakfast.
"The good creature has such a generous heart!" Mrs. Yorke said, checking with a glance the titter which her two younger daughters had not tried to restrain. "And I am sure that everything is delicious."
Taking a seat at the table, Edith recollected that a trial awaited her. It was Friday; and abstinence from meat on that day was the one point in her mother's religion which she knew and practised. Otherwise she was as ignorant of it as possible.
Owen Yorke, sitting opposite, watched her curiously, perceiving that something was the matter. He noticed the slight bracing of the muscles of her face and neck, and that she drew her breath in like one who is preparing for a plunge, and kept her eyes steadily fixed on Mr. Yorke. Edith's way was to look at what she feared.
"Some of the chicken, little niece?" her uncle asked pleasantly.
"No, sir, I do not eat meat on Friday. I am a Roman Catholic," the child answered with precision. And, having made the announcement thus fully, shut her mouth, and sat pale, with her eyes fixed on Mr. Yorke's face.
A smile flashed into Owen Yorke's eyes at this reply. "Little Spartan!" he thought.
Edith did not miss the slight contraction of the brows and the downward twitch of the corners of the mouth in the face she watched; but the signs of displeasure passed as quickly as they came. "Then I am afraid you will make a poor breakfast," Mr. Yorke said gently. "But I will do the best I can for you."
There was a momentary silence; then the talk went on as before. But the family were deeply annoyed. It seemed enough that they should have to take this little waif, with they knew not what low habits and associates, or what unruly fires of temper inherited from her mother, without having an alien religion brought into their midst. Catholicism as they had seen it abroad appealed to their æsthetic sense. It floated there in a higher atmosphere, adorned with all that wealth and culture could do. But at home they preferred to keep it where, as a rule, they found it—in the kitchen and the stable.
After they had returned to the sitting-room, Mr. Yorke called Edith to him. She went trembling; for, in spite of himself, her uncle's face wore a judicial look. The girls, who were just going up-stairs, lingered to hear what would be said, and Owen took his stand behind Mr. Yorke's chair, and looked at the child with an encouraging smile.
"Were the family you lived with Catholics, my dear?" the judge began.
"No, sir. Only Mr. Rowan was when he was a little boy."
"And Mr. Rowan wished to make a Catholic of you?" Mr. Yorke said, his lip beginning to curl.
The child lifted her head. "Mr. Rowan had nothing to say about me," she replied. "It was my mother."
A slight smile went round the circle. They quite approved of her reply.
"But you cannot recollect your mother?" Mr. Yorke continued.
"Oh! yes," Edith said with animation. "I remember how she looked, and what she said. She made me hold up my hands, and promise that I would be a Roman Catholic if I had to die for it. And that was the last word she ever said."
Mr. Yorke gave a short nod. To his mind the matter was settled. "N'est ce pas?" he said to his wife.
She bowed gravely. "There is no other way. It is impossible to ask her to break a promise so given. When she is older, she can choose for herself."
"Well, you hear, girls?" Mr. Yorke said, looking at his daughters. "Now take her, and make her feel at home."
Miss Yorke was dignified and inscrutable, Hester unmistakably cold, but Clara took her cousin's hand with the utmost cordiality, and was leading her from the room, when Edith stopped short, her eyes attracted by a cabinet portrait in oils that stood on a shelf near the door. This portrait represented a young man, with one of those ugly, beautiful faces which fascinate us, we know not why. Careless, profuse locks of golden brown clustered around his head, steady, agate-colored eyes followed the beholder wherever he went, and seemed at once defying him to escape and entreating him not to go, and the sunshine of a hidden smile softened the curves of the mouth and chin.
Edith's eyes sparkled, her face grew crimson, and she clasped her hands tightly on her breast.
"That is your father's portrait, my dear," Mrs. Yorke said, going to her. "Do you recognize it?"
The child restrained herself one moment, then she ran to the picture, clasped her arms around it, and kissed it over and over, weeping passionately. "It is mine! It is mine!" she cried out, when her aunt tried to soothe her.
"You are right, dear!" Mrs. Yorke said, much affected. "I am sure no one will object to your having the portrait. You may take it to your own chamber, if you wish."
Edith controlled herself, wiped her eyes, and put the picture down. "Dear Aunt Amy," she said, "you know I want it; but I won't take it unless you and Uncle Charles are quite willing."
It was touching, her first acknowledgment of kinship, and expression of trust and submission. They cordially assured her of their willingness, kissed her again in token of a closer adoption, and smiled after her as she went off with her father's portrait clasped to her heart.
Melicent and Hester still lingered. Melicent remembered faintly her Uncle Robert's marriage, and the disagreeable feeling in the family at that time. It had left on her mind a prejudice against "that Polish girl," and a shade of disfavor toward her daughter. But she said nothing.
"It will be so disagreeable having a Catholic in the family!" Hester complained.
"Hester, listen to me!" her father said severely. "I want no bigotry nor petty persecutions in my family. Your Cousin Edith has as good a right to her religion as you have to yours; and if either should find herself disagreeably situated, it is she, for she is alone. Don't forget this; and don't let there be anything offensive said, or hinted, or looked. I mean to be consistent, and allow others the same freedom which I claim myself. Now, let me hear no more of this."
Hester took refuge in tears. It was her sole argument. She was one of those soft creatures who require to be petted, and have a talent for being abused. Possibly, too, she was a little jealous of this new member of the family.
"Melicent, will you lead away this weeping nymph, and dry her tears?" the father said impatiently. "Common sense is too robust for her constitution."
The sisters went up-stairs, and Owen followed them presently, and climbed to the cupola. Leaning on the window-sill there, he looked off over the country. The horizon was a ring of low blue hills, with a grand amethyst glittering to tell where the sea lay. Through the centre of this vast circle glimmered the river, silver, and gold, and steel-blue, and the white houses of the town lay like a heap of lilies scattered on its banks. Everywhere else was forest.
Shadows of varying thought swept over the young man's face as he looked off, and drew freer breath from the distance. "Henceforth my shield must bear a martlet," he muttered. "But whither shall I fly?"
That was the problem he was studying. He had come to this place only to see his family settled, and collect his own thoughts after their sudden fall from prosperity; then he would go out into the world, and work his own way. It was not pleasant, the change from that life of noble leisure and lofty work which he had planned, to one where compulsory labor for mere bread must occupy the greater part of his time; but it was inevitable. And as he looked abroad now, and breathed the fresh air that came frolicking out of the northwest, and remembered how wide the world is and how many veins in it are unwrought, his young courage rose, and the plans he had been building up for that year crumbled and ceased to excite his regret.
Only a few months before their change of circumstances, his mother had been won to consent that he might visit Asia. He had meant to go north, south, east, and west, in that shabby, glorious old land, make himself for the nonce Tartar, Chinese, Indian, Persian, what not, and get a look at creation through the eyes of each. This young man's sympathies were by no means narrow. He had never been able to believe that God smiles with peculiar fondness on any particular continent, island, peninsula, or part of either, and is but a stepfather to the rest of the world. He was born with a hatred of barriers. He sympathized with Swift, who "hated all nations, professions, and communities, and gave all his love to individuals." Or, better than Swift, he had at least a theoretical love for mankind unfenced. He did not have to learn to love, that came naturally to him; he had to learn to hate. But he was a good hater. Take him all in all, Carl Owen Yorke was at twenty-one a noble, generous youth, of good mind and unstained reputation; and it was no proof of excessive vanity in him that he believed himself capable of taking any position he might strive for.
"My dear Minerva tells me that I have in me some of the elements of failure," he said. "I wonder what they are?"
This "dear Minerva" was Miss Alice Mills, Mr. Robert Yorke's deserted fiancée. She and Owen were very close friends. It was one of those friendships which sometimes grow up between a woman whose youth is past and a youth whose manhood has scarcely arrived. Such a friendship may effect incalculable good or incalculable harm, as the woman shall choose.
"Well," he concluded, not caring to puzzle over the riddle, "she will explain, I suppose, when she writes. And if anybody can get at the cube-root of the difficulty, she can."
Meantime, while the son was musing, and the daughters were selecting their chambers, and making up a toilet for Edith, Mr. Yorke had sent for Patrick Chester in the sitting-room, and was questioning him concerning Catholic affairs in Seaton. They did not seem to be in a flourishing condition.
There was no priest settled there, Patrick said; but one came over from B—— once in two months, and said Mass for them. They had no church yet, but a little chapel, what there was left of it.
"What do you mean by that?" his master asked.
"Why, sir, some of the Seaton rowdies got into the chapel, one night, not long ago, and smashed the windows, and broke up the tabernacle, and destroyed the pictures entirely. And they twisted off the crucifix, though it was of iron, two inches wide and half an inch thick. The devil must have helped the man that did it, savin' your presence, ma'am."
"Are they vandals here?" demanded Mr. Yorke.
"There are some fine folks in Seaton," said Pat, who did not know what vandals are. "But the rowdies have everything pretty much their own way."
"And is there no law in the town?" asked Mr. Yorke wrathfully.
"There's a good many lawyers," said Pat, scratching his head.
"You mean to say that there was no effort made to discover and punish the perpetrators of such an outrage?" exclaimed his master.
"Indeed there was not, sir!" Pat answered. "People knew pretty well who did the mischief, and that the fellow that broke off the crucifix was taken bleeding at the lungs just after; but nobody molested 'em. It wouldn't be well for the one who would lift his voice against the Seaton rowdies. Why, some of 'em belong to as wealthy families as there are in town. They began with a cast-iron band years ago, and everybody laughed at 'em. All the harm they did was to wake people out of sleep. Then they broke up a lecture. It was a Mr. Fowle from Boston, who was preaching about education. And then they did a little mischief here and there to people they didn't like, and now they are too strong to put down. And, indeed, sir, when it's against the Catholics they are, nobody wants to put 'em down."
Mr. Yorke glanced at his wife. She did not look up nor deny Patrick's charges. She was a little ashamed of the character of her native town in this respect; for at that time Seaton was notorious for its lawlessness, and was even proud of its reputation. No great harm had been done, they said. It was only the boys' fun. They were sorry, it is true, that a respectable lecturer should have been insulted; but that a Catholic chapel should be desecrated, that was nothing. They did not give it a second thought.
"Well, Patrick," Mr. Yorke resumed, "my niece, Miss Edith Yorke, is a Catholic, and I wish her to have proper instruction, and to attend to the services of her church when there is opportunity. Let me know the next time your priest comes here, and I will call to see him. Now you may go."