"Yours most cordially,
"Anne Courtly."
This letter affected Grace Ballinger deeply. It was placed in her hand, with a packet of others, as she stepped on board the Majestic, on her homeward passage, and she read it as they steamed down the bay. Lawrence found her looking very sorrowful, her eyes fixed on the same shores she remembered watching with Saul, in the fog, as they stood on deck together that January morning less than five months ago.
"Something has troubled you, dear," he said, in a low voice, as he put his hand upon hers. "What is it?"
"It is Life," she answered, presently. "Life, and his brother, Death. Read that." She gave him the letter. "I have told you about him. I have told you about both those men. I knew them both but such a short time, yet each interested me deeply; and over each—I cannot understand how or why—I exercised some strange influence. And now it is all over. The book is closed. Poor Saul Barham, with his brilliant gifts and high aspirations, is dead. Quintin Ferrars I am never likely to see again. Perhaps it is better I should not. But of all the memories of America I bear away with me, the most pathetic is that of the minister's small household in New England, as I knew it, with this only son, their idol, now lying in the dust. Can religion like Mr. Barham's bring consolation? I hope so. But that poor mother! I think I will return to America some day, if it be only to see her!"
Nearly a year has passed since then. Between Clare Planter and her English admirer things remain, to all outward seeming, very much as they were. Newport did not produce the results so confidently looked for by her father, nor has New York done so during the past winter. A constant battledore and shuttlecock of letters—the punctuality of the interchange being broken only once or twice, when Mordaunt Ballinger had forgotten to post his letter in time to catch the American mail, never by the young lady's own negligence—has led Mrs. Ivor Lawrence to assure her aunt that she must make up her mind to the inevitable result of the Planters' approaching arrival in England. She pretends that the American girl's liking for her brother, having clearly resisted the effect of separation and the onslaughts of other admirers, has developed into a far stronger affection than existed a year ago. She even declares that she perceives in some of the letters Mordaunt has shown her a covert dread on Clare's part of his constancy being put to too severe a test. But who can tell? This view of the case may be only that of a devoted sister, and Mordaunt's hopes may be dissipated, on the arrival of the Planters in London, "like the baseless fabric of a vision."
THE END
[1] By the Americans it is considered more formal, by the English more familiar, to begin with "My." I am surprised to find my friend, Mr. Marion Crawford, asserting precisely the reverse in his "American Politician." I can only refer this divergence of opinion to the experience of the general reader.
[2] Economy of labor has almost abolished the use of steel knives throughout the United States.