"She is the most beautiful woman I ever met."
"How did Mr. Hammond receive her?"
"Her visit evidently annoys him, but he gave me no explanation of the matter, which I confess puzzles me. I should suppose her society would cheer and interest him."
"Oh, pooh! Talk of what you understand. She surely has not come here to live?"
"I think he fears she has. She is very poor."
Mrs. Murray set her teeth together and muttered something which her companion did not understand.
"Edna, is she handsomer than Estelle?"
"Infinitely handsomer, I think. Indeed, they are so totally unlike it would be impossible to compare them. Your niece is very fine- looking, very commanding; Mrs. Powell is beautiful."
"But she is no longer young. She has a grown daughter."
"True; but in looking at her you do not realize it. Did you never see her?"
"No; and I trust I never may! I am astonished that Mr. Hammond can endure the sight of her. You say he has told you nothing about her?"
"Nothing which explains the chagrin her presence seems to cause."
"He is very wise. But, Edna, avoid her society as much as possible.
She is doubtless very fascinating; but I do not like what I have heard of her, and prefer that you should have little conversation or intercourse with her. On the whole, you might as well stay at home now; it is very warm, and you can study without Mr. Hammond"s a.s.sistance."
"You do not mean that my visits must cease altogether?"
"Oh! no; go occasionally--once or twice a week--but certainly not every day, as formerly. And, Edna, be careful not to mention that woman"s name again; I dislike her exceedingly."
The orphan longed to ask for an explanation, but was too proud to solicit confidence so studiously withheld.
Mrs. Murray leaned back in her large rocking-chair and fell into a reverie. Edna waited patiently for some time, and finally rose.
"Mrs. Murray, have you anything more to say to me tonight? You look very much fatigued!"
"Nothing, I believe. Good-night, child. Send Hagar to me."
Edna went back to her desk and resolutely turned to her work; for it was one of the peculiar traits of her character that she could at will fasten her thoughts upon whatever subject she desired to master. All irrelevant ideas were sternly banished until such season as she chose to give them audience; and to-night she tore her mind from the events of the day, and diligently toiled among the fragments of Scandinavian lore for the missing links in her mythologic chain.
Now and then peals of laughter from the billiard-room startled her; and more than once Mr. Murray"s clear, cold voice rose above the subdued chatter of Estelle and Clinton.
After a while the game ended, good-nights were exchanged, the party dispersed, doors were closed, and all grew silent.
While Edna wrote on, an unexpected sound arrested her pen. She listened, and heard the slow walk of a horse beneath her window. As it pa.s.sed she rose and looked out. The moon was up, and Mr. Murray was riding down the avenue.
The girl returned to her MS., and worked on without intermission for another hour; then the last paragraph was carefully punctuated, the long and difficult chapter was finished. She laid aside her pen, and locked her desk.
Shaking down the ma.s.s of hair that had been tightly coiled at the back of her head, she extinguished the light, and drawing a chair to the window, seated herself.
Silence and peace brooded over the world; not a sound broke the solemn repose of nature.
The summer breeze had rocked itself to rest in the elm boughs, and only the waning moon seemed alive and toiling as it climbed slowly up a cloudless sky, pa.s.sing starry sentinels whose mighty challenge was lost in vast vortices of blue, as they paced their ceaseless round in the mighty camp of constellations.
With her eyes fixed on the gloomy, groined archway of elms, where an occasional slip of moonshine silvered the ground, Edna watched and waited. The blood beat heavily in her temples and throbbed sullenly at her heart; but she sat mute and motionless as the summer night, reviewing all that had occurred during the day.
Presently the distant sound of hoofs on the rocky road leading to town fell upon her strained ear; the hard, quick gallop ceased at the gate, and very slowly Mr. Murray walked his horse up the dusky avenue, and on toward the stable.
From the shadow of her muslin curtain, Edna looked down on the walk beneath, and after a few moments saw him coming to the house.
He paused on the terrace, took off his hat, swept back the thick hair from his forehead, and stood looking out over the quiet lawn.
Then a heavy, heavy sigh, almost a moan, seemed to burst from the depths of his heart, and he turned and went into the house.
The night was far spent, and the moon had cradled herself on the tree-tops, when Edna raised her face all blistered with tears.
Stretching out her arms she fell on her knees, while a pa.s.sionate, sobbing prayer struggled brokenly across her trembling lips:
"O my G.o.d! have mercy upon him! save his wretched soul from eternal death! Help me so to live and govern myself that I bring no shame on the cause of Christ. And if it be thy will, O my G.o.d! grant that I may be instrumental in winning this precious but wandering, sinful soul back to the faith as it is in Jesus!"
Ah! verily--
... "More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of.
Wherefore let thy voice Rise like a fountain for him night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats, That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing G.o.d, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves, and those who call them friend?"
CHAPTER XIX.
"Where are you going, St. Elmo? I know it is one of your amiable decrees that your movements are not to be questioned, but I dare to brave your ire."
"I am going to that blessed retreat familiarly known as "Murray"s den," where, secure from feminine intrusion, as if in the cool cloisters of Coutloumoussi, I surrender my happy soul to science and cigars, and revel in complete forgetfulness of that awful curse which Jove hurled against all mankind, because of Prometheus"s robbery."
"There are asylums for lunatics and inebriates, and I wonder it has never occurred to some benevolent millionaire to found one for such abominable cynics as you, my most angelic cousin! where the snarling brutes can only snap at and worry one another."
"An admirable idea, Estelle, which I fondly imagined I had successfully carried out when I built those rooms of mine."
"You are as hateful as Momus, MINUS his wit! He was kicked out of heaven for grumbling, and you richly deserve his fate."
"I have a vague recollection that the G.o.ddess Discord shared the fate of the celestial growler. I certainly plead guilty to an earnest sympathy with Momus"s dissatisfaction with the house that Minerva built, and only wish that mine was movable, as he recommended, in order to escape bad neighborhoods and tiresome companions."
"Hospitable, upon my word! You spin some spiteful idea out of every sentence I utter and are not even ent.i.tled to the compliment which Chesterfield paid to old Samuel Johnson, "The utmost I can do for him is to consider him a respectable Hottentot." If I did not know that instead of proving a punishment it would gratify you beyond measure, I would take a vow not to speak to you again for a month; but the consciousness of the happiness I should thereby bestow upon you, vetoes the resolution. Do you know that even a Comanche chief, or a Bechuana of the desert, shames your inhospitality? I a.s.sure you I am the victim of hopeless ennui, am driven to the verge of desperation; for Mr. Allston will probably not return until to- morrow, and it is raining so hard that I can not wander out of doors. Here I am shut up in this dreary house, which reminds me of the descriptions of that doleful retreat for sinners in Normandy, where the inmates pray eleven hours a day, dig their own graves every evening, and if they chance to meet one another, salute each other with "Memento mori!" Ugh! if there remains one latent spark of chivalry in your soul, I beseech you be merciful! Do not go off to your den, but stay here and entertain me. It is said that you read bewitchingly, and with unrivalled effect; pray favor me this morning. I will promise to lay my hand on my lips; it is not white enough for a flag of truce? I will be meek, amiable, docile, absolutely silent."
Estelle swept aside a ma.s.s of papers from the corner of the sofa, and, taking Mr. Murray"s hand, drew him to a seat beside her.
"Your "amiable silence," my fair cousin, is but a cunningly fashioned wooden horse. Timco Danaos et dona ferentes! I am to understand that you actually offer me your hand as a flag of truce?
It is wonderfully white and pretty; but excuse me, C"est une main de fer, gantee de velours! Your countenance, so serenely radiant, reminds me of what Madame n.o.blet said of M. de Vitri, "His face looked just like a stratagem!" Reading aloud is a practice in which I never indulge, simply because I cordially detest it, and knowing this fact, it is a truly feminine refinement of cruelty on your part to select this mode of penance. Nevertheless, your appeal to my chivalry, which always springs up, armed cap-a-pie "to do or die"; and since read I must, I only stipulate that I may be allowed to select my book. Just now I am profoundly interested in a French work on infusoria, by Dujardin; and as you have probably not studied it, I will select those portions which treat of the animalcula that inhabit grains of sugar and salt and drops of water; so that by the time lunch is ready, your appet.i.te will be whetted by a knowledge of the nature of your repast. According to Leeuwenhoek, Muller, Gleichen, and others, the campaigns of Zenzis-Khan, Alexander, Attila, were not half so murderous as a single fashionable dinner; and the battle of Marengo was a farce in comparison with the swallowing of a cup of tea, which contains--"