be

Fre

dre

1

"It's nothing, dear."

Then he heard a low, startled wail as Mamie sank upon her knees at Nelly's chair: " 'Nora, dear Nora, what is it?" Esmond stopped for an instant. Then he strode along again, half bewildered, but with his head in the clouds. The same voice, the same words, the same name, that he had heard appealing from the sea.

VII.

THE miniature stock-exchange was still at its busy height as he passed into the lobby. He sent a hall-boy with a glass of water to the two young ladies on the front-piazza, rightly deeming that it was best to relieve them of his presence for at least a moment. He met one of his stock-broking friends near the clerk's desk-one whom he had found a consummate bore two days before, with his eternal Erie, Northern Kamtchatka, Central Eutopia, and other shuttlecocks of the mart. But now an unaccountable elation animated Esmond, and he glowed with an effusive feeling of affection and kindliness toward all mankind. And in that spirit of brotherly tenderness his eye brightened with delight even at seeing the bore.

"Well, Sharpless," he said, "you are having a lively session here."

"Yes. What are your private advices tonight?"

"Mine? Haven't any! Haven't got a single stock on the list."

"The devil you haven't!" replied young Sharpless. Then suddenly he assumed the jocose, confidential air, and, running his cane into Esmond's button-hole, half whisfpered, "Should think the old man might a' put you up to a thing or two!"

"The old man!" said Esmond, blankly. "Ye-es! Your governor, you know. Damme, he knows the market for two weeks to come."

"Oh! my governor. Yes. I understand."

"He got on to old Darcy hard, eh? buying them thirty-odd thousand of N. A. from him at 98%, when everybody thought they were going to the devil in the general smash. Hefty, that, don't you think so?"

"I wouldn't have to wear my travelingduster for an overcoat next winter if I'd had my nip at that little game, you can bet! But come, now," he said, suddenly, putting his mouth close to Esmond's ear, "what points have you got? Capsheaf and your dad are hand-and-glove in the corner, and you must have heard how N. A. is going to-morrow."

"No, sir," said Esmond, quite coolly. "I have not heard, and have no points."

He quietly shook himself free of the grasp of Sharpless, and walked away. Behind the office-desk stood his inert friend of the afternoon, who was listlessly looking at the busy crowd, while two young men were pouring into his seemingly-inattentive ears some marvelous story of stocks. He never changed his position as Drury advanced. A slight glance, cast somewhat contemptuously upon the rebellious guest of a few hours before, was the only sign of recognition which Drury caught.

"Has my trunk arrived?" asked Esmond.

The figure turned an abstracted gaze upon the questioner.

"Has my trunk arrived?"
"Name?"

"Drury."

The figure seemed suddenly endowed with remarkable animation. It looked up quickly at the tall form of the young man, and then glanced sharply at the two others who had been entertaining him.

"Your trunk," he said, quite briskly. "Let me see― e-wherefrom?"

"From Sandy Hook. I sent it there inadvertently this afternoon."

"Yes, yes! I remember. See in a moment." He touched a hand-bell near him. "Rather lively in the stock-market to-day, Mr. Drury," he said, during the interval before the hall-boy's arrival.

Esmond silently bowed.

"Ask the porter if Mr. Drury's trunk has arrived from Sandy Hook."

The hall-boy was off. "North Atlantic went up pretty rapidly to-day, Mr. Drury."

Esmond arched his eyebrows, and said

Sharpless opened his eyes.

"Why, don't you know? It's an everyday matter with your old man, I presume?" "Positively I haven't cared for business much since I came here, and-"

"Well, they run up two and a half this afternoon, and kept a-running long after closing-hours. Old Capsheaf-the president, you know-they say he mortgaged every cent he's got and put it into the road, and sent word that he'd bust before N. A. should, and up it went. And that's the way your dad cleans Darcy out. What I call getting on his head

with both feet, don't you

?

"'Twas rather a lucky stroke of business," said Esmond.

"Lucky! Yes, devilish lucky, that was! I'd like to ha' been in the corner that worked that piece of luck; that's all er think so?"

don't you

"I'm told," said the inert clerk, leaning far over the desk, and gently feeling the texture of Esmond's coat-"I'm told that Darcy has lost heavily on N. A."

The porter arrived as the remark ended. "Mr. Drury's trunk come?" inquired the clerk, with a show of despair at being interrupted.

"No, sir."

"NEW YORK, December 25, 187-. "MY DEAR BOY: I observe that your travels are greatly improving you. Habits of correctly observing human nature are plainly developing in your temperament, and I am excessively glad that it is so. Books are as nothing to the science of man. You cannot make yourself a just man nor a learned one until you have tried and studied your fellowmen. You know how anxious I am that you should be trained in the right path. I want you to have experience. I am willing that you should pay for it in the only way that experience can be bought-by personal inconveniences, if necessary-and I am doubly willing to pay the money prices that usually accompany the personal inconveniences. Today is Christmas, and the exhortations to justice, integrity, upright dealings, and charity, which I might urge upon you here, will, I believe, be strongly suggested by the associa tions of the day. I hope and pray, my boy, that you will be known as the honest, upright gentleman, the true Christian, and the kindly brother in a brotherhood of man.

"As to your choice of business, I do not propose to bind you at all, as you well know. I would like you to follow my own avocation, and confess that I hope to perpetuate the house of Drury in my son and yours. If you find your inclinations running in a business vain, try your hand. If you lose, that is the experience which is not too dearly purchased. If you gain, I shall be glad mainly over an evidence of your business capacity. I feel sure, however, that your mind runs rather to the æsthetical than the practical. You are more of a poet and a dreamer than a 'speculator' or an operator,' and I am content. But I must confess that I should very dearly like to hear in your travels that you had transacted some purely business affair-something that might stamp you at once as a practical worker in the world's harvest-some master-stroke of business!

velopments had suggested a new philosophy | concerning it. "This is the upright man of business," thought he, "who has just driven Mr. Darcy to such desperate straits by his railroad corner. He who writes thus has bought a heavy load of stocks, at a price which he alone has reason to know is almost robbery, from a friend, and even while he exhorts me to integrity, and just dealing, and especially to charity, he urges me with all the force that so good a father's simple request should always have, to try and prove a practical worker in the world's harvest such as he reaps, and accomplish a master-stroke of business-such as a corner, I suppose, in North Atlantic!"

Esmond's cigar was out. He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. Occasionally, on the veranda below, he could hear the murmurings of the busy sea of speculation. He put on his hat, turned down his gas-light, and opened his door. His ear caught the sound of voices in low and earnest conversation in the corridor. He heard his name mentioned, and stepped back.

"You may swear young Drury is posted here to watch the market," said one," and the stock, I can swear, will go down to-morrow."

voice seemingly intended for Darcy's ear alone, but which reached the shrewd ears of Sharpless and his co-conspirator as they lingered near:

"I heard you offering 95 for N. A. just now."

"Yes," replied Darcy.

"Would you still give it?"

Sharpless and his confederate were following them up closely. Mr. Darcy became suddenly suspicious. The stocks must have already fallen, he thought, or why should Drury's son be making such a proposition as this?

"Still give it?" he echoed, with a view to save time.

"Yes," said Drury, as Sharpless and his friend almost stumbled over him. "I'd like to let you have 5,000 at that rate." Darcy hesitated.

"Or," said Drury, as Sharpless and his friend began a disinterested conversation on the last opera, near them, "between me and you, I would be willing to let them go at 94%."

Sharpless and his friend disappeared hurriedly in the crowd, leaving the last opera undissected.

"I think the stock is going down to

"But if he's got the point that it's going night,” said Darcy. down, why didn't he sell to Darcy?"

"He couldn't do it openly. His father holds the stocks heavily, and the first sale be makes will set all the operators on the jump. And, you understand, we must jump first."

"He was devilish innocent when I talked with him a while ago. Sort o' bridled up when I called his dad governor."

"Then you may swear to what I tell you," said the other, fiercely. "That's one of his deep moves. He's here to sell out, and the instant he makes a move we've got to unload in a hurry."

"He won't talk-"

"Hang it!" responded the other, savagely. "You know him. Go to him at once and sound him. Get him drunk if you must, but get his points."

Then the two walked away. Esmond could see their backs as they traversed the long corridor. He knew that one of them was Sharpless.

"This is a conspiracy," said Esmond to himself. "I wonder if I could not charitably transact a master-stroke of business with these knavish friends of mine?"

He descended the stairs to the hall. The miniature stock - exchange was still raging. Two men watched anxiously at the clerk's desk, one of whom was Sharpless. They saw him, and came briskly toward him.

Mr.

"It's not going any lower than I've offered," responded Drury, quietly.

"You have advices?"

Drury smiled meaningly, and Darcy's suspicions were aroused in the other direction. Young Drury might have had instructions to "bear" the stock now in order to "bull" it hereafter. If he only knew just how much this young man was in the confidence of his father!

"I guess I'll take your 5,000 at %," said he, slowly.

Drury bowed, and the two entered the transaction on their note-books.

Then Drury bade the other good-night, and went to his room. From the window overlooking the veranda he heard, before midnight, many whispered negotiations by which "N. A." was disposed of at 94%, and he recognized Darcy's tones in more than one of them. If that eminent stockholder had not covered his losses during the night, it was not because of lack of charity on Esmond's part in his first "master-stroke of business."

The early birds of business had flown to the great dove-cote long before Esmond reached the breakfast-table. The morning papers contained full reports of the terrible crisis in the stock-market, and it behooved gentlemen interested in that species of commodity to be early at their posts. It was a rather enigmatical proceeding to the inert clerk, who kept flashing his eyes and his diamonds momently on Esmond, that the son of the banker was not away with the rest. But Esmond had thrust the whole business from his shoulders with the following letter, which left to the firm of Henry J. Drury the closEsmond thought it had been quite chilly, ing of his transaction with Mr. Manton Darcy. but he said, quietly, "Yes."

• Darcy stood alone in the wide doorway, looking wildly about for a speculator who would give him the chance to recover the losses of the day. Esmond avoided Sharpless and his friend, and accosted Mr. Darcy. The latter grasped him warmly by the hand.

"It's been a warm night," said the elder, spasmodically.

THE long morning passed wearily as mornings at a great sea-shore resort, where all the men run away to the city every day,. usually do, Esmond taking little delight in any thing but his own thoughts. As the afternoon began to wear away, however, he studied with unusual interest the telegraph stock-indicator. All was still excitement and turmoil in North Atlantic, and for a moment a flurry downward seemed to have seized on the stock. Then it recuperated again and reached 98.

"Hardly enough for Darcy to make his. losses good," muttered Esmond. "It would be rather disastrous if my master-stroke of business had ruined the firm of Drury, and Darcy, too."

He walked away with a somewhat nerVous sensation toward the beach. He tried to shake off his nervousness by a persistent thinking of Miss Nelly Darcy, and of the remarkable revelation of another Nora, unlike his original, who had undergone the same experience as his own heroine on the same day.. As his thoughts were thus engaged, he found himself upon the beach near the summer-house in which he had first viewed the trim figures that took their way so deftly to the bath, which had nearly proved fatal to them. Seated therein, and gazing listlessly toward the sea, were the Misses Darcy. They were somewhat startled at his approach, but smiled upon him and made room for him between them.

"I did not mean to disturb you, ladies," said he, easily. "I only meant to inquireafter Miss Darcy's health."

"You must have thought me very weak," replied Nelly, "but I was very unhappy last night."

"Let me act the prophet," said he, "and assure you that you will be much happier tonight."

"So I have been assured by Mamie, but I fear neither of you are so infallible as the prophets of old."

"At any rate, keep courage," he said. "I will be able to prove my infallibility before the afternoon is over. But, by-the-way, do you know that it was in this very summerhouse that I first saw you young ladies yesterday?"

"Here?"

"Yes, and I believe I came very near discovering that you had done something which you should not have done."

The young ladies looked inquiringly at one another, and then laughed.

"Why, what do you mean?" said they. "As you came up the wooden steps from the beach, and passed by me, I was ruminat ing on general affairs, when these words, or words of similar effect, reached my ears: 'What would papa think?' said one, and 'We must not tell him,' said the other so you see how near you were to detection." "And what else?"

"One of you said, 'O Eleanor, it's too

terrible!' and then I thought that it was a very serious matter, and closed my ears.'

'Well, it was very considerate in you, Mr. Drury," said Nelly.

"And we really ought to make confession to him for his kindness," said Mamie.

"First," said Nelly, "I think we ought to catechise him on a very important matter."

"I will submit to any catechising," said Esmond, "for such a reward."

"Then please to inform us how you discovered that Miss Nora whom you saved from drowning is petite and dark?"

"

Well, I saw her walking to and from the water"

"In her bathing-suit?"
"Yes."

"Do you think she would have looked taller in a long dress?"

"Since I think of it," said Esmond, still laughing, "she undoubtedly would.”

"There, that point is settled," responded Nelly. "Now, you say she was dark and had dark hair?"

"Yes, it seemed so. I only saw it in the water."

"Do you think that it might have proved lighter if it had been entirely dry?" "That seems true enough, but "

"One moment.

Do you remember what you said to Nora when you reached her?" "I think I said, 'Courage, bear up,' etc.the usual thing."

แ 'You said these words, Mr. Drury," said Nelly, with a slight show of emotion, "and I think I will never forget them, 'Courage,' you said, 'the sea is buoyant. Only your own fear drags you down. Keep your arms down, and let me lead you to safety!""

"Can it be?" said Esmond, suddenly starting from his seat. "Nelly-Eleanorthe name is so different."

"It can be, Mr. Drury," said Mamie," and it is. The terrible thing that we dared not tell papa was, that we had been in dreadful danger of drowning, and this is the Nora whom you rescued !"

"The Nora," said Esmond, half bewil dered, "my Nora ? ”

"I call her Nora-when I'm very serious-short for Eleanor," curtly replied Mamie.

"Sorry for the disappointment, Mr. Drury," said Nelly, smiling. "Your heroine of romance is not what your fancy painted her, but I cannot forego the right of expressing my gratitude, merely through a regard for a poetic fancy of yours."

"Fancy painted well, but reality has outdone her," said Esmond, rapturously. "I am entranced, bewildered, overjoyed. Why, there was a dim notion of this in my sluggish brain last night, when I heard Mamie's cry of distress, Nora, dear Nora!' as I had heard it before."

As they walked together to the hotel, a colored boy saluted them, and gave Esmond telegram, which he read aside.

"Now, I claim the infallibility of the

prophet of old," he said. "Your father bought back his losses last night. Read that." It read as follows:

"ESMOND DRURY,

"West-End Hotel, Long Branch. "Your master-stroke was a failure. N. A. has gone to 99%, and rising. Try again. "H. J. DRURY."

The miniature stock - exchange on the veranda of the hotel held another lively session that evening, and Sharpless and his fellow-conspirator were the nervous and excited bidders. But they were too late. The greater part of the stock had already been coined into the capacious pockets of the corner clique, and they failed to repair their losses.

Mr. Darcy, however, was ruddy with delight. He had covered all his losses in "N. A.," and had made a handsome margin on the rise. In his exuberance, he insisted on having Esmond dine with himself and his daughters at their especial table in the great dining-hall, and at this time his elation of spirits expended itself almost rudely upon Esmond.

"What do you think your father said when I went to settle with him on your sales?" said he, lying back in his chair to laugh.

"He said, I presume, that I had rather visionary notions of business."

Esmond caught a glimpse of Nelly's face opposite as he raised his eyes to answer. She was looking at him with a half-wondering air, as if some dimly-defined thought were strug gling for full recognition in her mind. As Esmond caught her eyes, they assumed the plain, unmistakable expression of questioning. They thrust the question plainly before him, and plainly demanded an answer.

"Why did you sell at those figures?" That was also Nelly Darcy's question.

"I suspect I was rather absent-minded," replied Esmond, quietly, "and did have poetry on my mind. I had been thinking all evening of my bathing adventure, and I thought I heard a cry of distress come up to me again, as it had come up from the sea before."

"FOR

over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land!"

By these immemorial and infallible signs had Spring declared her sovereignty in our valley; and, before the sun was well above the wooded hills beyond the river, Miss Basil was in the garden, attired for work in an old, well worn drab merino, a pair of leather gauntlets that had seen service, and the huge, traditional sun-bonnet of the South, formed by stretching a piece of calico over a sheet of pasteboard. It was a point of conscience with this indefatigable woman to be in the garden betimes; for there was always much to be done, and the laborers were few-consisting, in fact, with the exception of a little occasional extra help, of none but herself and old Thurston, the gray-haired negro manof-all-work, who, with a peculiar fidelity compounded of laziness and rheumatism, still clung to the impoverished remnant of his "ole marster's family."

The magical radiance of the April morning, scattering the mists that hung about the river and the valley, revealed many a fair upland green with springing corn, and a rusty little town half veiled in vines; but nowhere, in all that beautiful, hill - circled valley, through which our narrow and impetuous river pursues its tortuous course, did that April morning linger with so tender, so revivifying grace as about the picturesque old country-place of the Basils, a mile beyond the deep and tangled glen that marks the northern limit of our town of Middleborough.

A large, old-fashioned house, with wings and galleries, sadly in want of paint, surrounded by extensive but long - neglected grounds, here proclaimed in the face of rejuvenated Nature-“Nature, au front serein, comme vous oubliez !"-the sad legend, TROY WAS! and the April sunbeams, playing at hide-and-seek amid the tangled shrubbery, or tracing quaint arabesques on the weatherstained walls and moss-grown roof, seemed now to be in quest of the vanished past, and now to be doing their utmost to adorn what they could not restore; while from the grove beyond the boundary-fence, where a Cherokee rose lavished its star-like blooms, the murmurous voice of wood-pigeons lent its rustic charm to the scene, and mingled harmoniously with the gurgling cadences of the brook rushing through the ravine.

But the pale, care-worn woman, whose huge sun-bonnet sbut out the sight of every thing but the weeds she was industriously

* ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by D. APPLETON & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

pulling from among the strawberry - viues, cared for none of these things. It was business and not pleasure that brought her into the garden so early, and in her grim idolatry of duty she would have thought it an extravagance to yield a moment to idle enjoyment of the charms that spring had thrown around the scene of her labors. She gave herself to her allotted task, not with sullenness, indeed-for Miss Basil expected to make money by that strawberry-bed-but with that joyless briskness characteristic of one who, in old Thurston's forcible parlance, "was set on to a bigger day's work than twenty-four hours could be made to compass without transgressing the night!"

A sore trial to him was Miss Basil's unflagging energy, and, but for the convenience of rheumatism, he must have found the place too hard on his dilatory, ease-loving nature. But though, like all energetic people, Miss Basil had an uncompromising abhorrence of laziness, she believed in the old man's rheumatism firmly and feelingly, having herself a slight personal acquaintance with the complaint; and old Thurston was not slow to take advantage of her credulity and her sympathy.

"Look at her, to be sho'!" he grumbled, as he came up the broad walk with a laborious hobble, assumed for the nonce the moment he espied the figure in the strawberrybed; "down on her knees in the dew an' the grit, an' 'zaustin' the quality of her raisin' with constant harryin' the ground. Sich distraction after work is ill-convenient to a born lady. That poo' white trash, now, waitin' at the gate on his skeer-crow horse, think she's good as she is."

Thurston, who had not yet taken hoe in hand, was coming from the mournful contemplation of the nettles among the raspberrybushes, in answer to a call of "Hello! hello! hello!" repeated at short intervals in a monotonous, hopeless voice, which proceeded, apparently without any volition on his part, from a small, sallow, ill-clad lad of twelve or fourteen years, perhaps, who, seated astride a starveling horse, was waiting at the gate that opened on the grove.

This lad, Aleck Griswold, who lived about half a mile beyond, always brought the mail over from town for the ladies of Basilwood. That is to say, he brought the mail whenever there was any thing to bring; but, generally speaking, he came emptyhanded, and then, merely waiting for old Thurston to appear, he would shake his head, dig his heels into his poor beast's hollow sides, and make off, leaving his victim grumbling at "them deceivin' ways of poo' white trash." This morning, however, the ladies of Basilwood were favored; the boy held three letters in the freckled hand extended over the gate.

"There'll be one apiece," said old Thurston, receiving the letters with an air of importance.

"There won't be one apiece, nuther, as you'll see when you make out to read the backing on 'em," said Aleck Griswold, derisively. "There'll be two for one, and one for t'other. Little Miss Joanna don't never count in the way of letters."

"Two white ones and a yaller one," mused old Thurston. Now, old Thurston could not read a line out of the time-honored, blue-backed spelling-book; but he knew that Miss Basil, who for years had been housekeeper and manager-general of the domestic affairs of Basilwood, often received these yellow envelopes from a certain provision-merchant in the town, to whom she, on her own responsibility, consigned whatever surplus supplies the small territory under her ccmmand could be made to yield; for, while Mrs. Basil, true to the tradition of her fathers, was planting cotton (by proxy, so to speak, in the person of Mr. Josiah Griswold, who rented her land on shares), and hardly making more than enough to pay taxes, Miss Basil, who had early learned to honor the day of little things, was quietly adding to the small revenue of Basilwood by turning a penny here and a penny there, in every way that industry and ingenuity could devise. "The yaller one is certain for Miss Pamela ?" said old Thurston, inquiringly.

air of lofty calm which was her peculiar characteristic; for Mrs. Basil had been much admired in her day, and knew her good points and how to enhance them. She was not above medium height, but so erect was she,. and so much did that conspicuous staff add to the dignity of her presence, that people naturally thought her tall. The world, we know, was not correctly informed in regard to the stature of the Grand Monarque until long years after his death; and so, until the inevitable measure was taken, Mrs. Basil's world entertained an exaggerated estimate of her inches.

There had been a time within the memory of Middleborough when Mrs. Basil, who be came old Judge Basil's second wife at a somewhat mature age, lived in splendor; and something of the tarnisbed glory of that luxurious era still seemed to cling to her in the many habits of a luxurious life that she still retained. She submitted with dignity, indeed, to many privations that could not be avoided; she willingly denied herself in the article of dress; she did not murmur when the one poor horse that drew the unpretending (not to say shabby) little rockaway she had been forced to substitute for her handsome carriage was harnessed to the plough; and she resigned herself very composedly to the necessity of having one man-servant fulfill the duties of gardener, coachman, and general factotum; but two things there were in which the old judge's thrifty cousin could never prevail against the old judge's impoverished widow-Mrs. Basil would never refuse to entertain her relations, and she would never consent to take her meals at those uncivilized hours which Miss Basil, for health and economy's sake, rigidly adhered to.

"If you don't mind and hurry back to yo' hoe, the grass'll be on to yo' tracks," muttered old Thurston, looking after him; then, in a highly self-satisfied condition, he went on to the house to deliver Mrs. Basil her letters. It was only proper that Mrs. Basil should be served first; and the strawberry-bed was rather out of his way; why should be, "all disjoiuted" as he was, take any unnecessary steps? He could carry the yellow envelope to Miss Basil as he went back to contend with the nettles. So he "You have letters for me, Thurston?" came, bareheaded, and bowing with a supple--extending her small white hand, and speakness that belied what he called "the array of his j'ints," into Mrs. Basil's presence. One of the old school was Thurston, and proud of the manners which he boasted of having learned from old Judge Basil himself.

He found Mrs. Basil in the large, rather sombre apartment that during the judge's lifetime had been used as a library, but which was now converted into a sitting-room. Here, when there were no visitors in the house, Mrs. Basil, who could never conform to Miss Basil's extremely early hours, took her meals alone. A small, round table, with a service of old-fashioned silver and china, stood near the open window, through which this April morning poured a flood of sunshine, and in a large, well-worn arm-chair at the side of this table sat Mrs. Basil, waiting for her solitary breakfast.

A white-haired, near-sighted, bandsome woman of fifty-two was this stately, fainéante widow of good, easy, old Judge Basil. Her black dress was not new, but it was of fine material. She wore no ornaments; but her left hand rested lightly upon an ivory-headed staff of curious workmanship, itself no mean ornament, and without which she was never seen. It was not on account of any infirmity that she always carried that handsome staff, but because it was an heirloom in her family, and because, perhaps, it added to that

|

ing in the soft, indolent voice of a person of infinite leisure. "Ob, I hope Miss Basil sees that little Aleck Griswold receives some trifle for his trouble?" This she invariably said whenever the arrival of letters reminded her of the boy, but she just as invariably forgot him the next moment.

"Yes, ma'am," said old Thurston, bowing low-not that he knew, for Miss Basil rarely let her right hand know what her left hand did.

Mrs. Basil did not hear him; she was already absorbed in her letter, which she had opened eagerly the instant she saw the wellknown writing, without staying even to glance at the other which she held in her hand.

Any orders, ma'am, for Miss Pamela?" said old Thurston. It behooved him, he thought, to discover whether these letters foreboded visitors, as letters at this season generally did; for Mrs. Basil's kinsfolk from the coast still found Basilwood, even in its decadence, a pleasant retreat in warm weather the rooms were spacious, fruit was plentiful, and Mrs. Basil, in spite of straitened means, was a gracious hostess.

"Oh, I'll see Miss Basil myself," she said, without looking up. "You may go."

"There'll be visitors certain, and Miss Pamela she'll take it hard about providin'," said old Thurston to himself, as he made his

way toward the strawberry-bed, so full of speculation that he quite forgot to limp, although Miss Basil, who had risen from her stooping posture, stood watching every step.

But Miss Basil was not thinking of old Thurston's steps.

"Any letters for me, Thurston?" she asked, anxiously.

She had pushed back the deep sun-bonnet which, indeed, she did not wear through any regard for her complexion, but as a safeguard to health, and the pale, delicate face, with the restless, sad gray eyes, and the dark hair streaked with silver, was exposed to the full blaze of the sun. Tall, and slight, and angular, was she, and utterly without grace of pose or motion, yet she had all the dignity of a thorough lady, and old Thurston bowed as low before her as he did before Mrs. Basil herself.

"One of these yaller letters," said he. "Is that all?" said she, in a disappointed tone, and a look of dismay crept into her eyes.

"And two white ones for the madame." "How do you know they are for her?" said Miss Basil, impatiently, crushing the letter Thurston had already given her, unread, into her pocket. 'Let me see them," she demanded, peremptorily stretching out her hand.

"

"Aleck Griswold, he told me so," said old Thurston, apologetically; "and I carried them straight to the house. It's all right, Miss Pamela; I give 'em into the madame's own hands."

Thurston always spoke of Mrs. Basil as the "madame."

A flush of vexation swept over Miss Basil's pallid face.

“In future, Thurston," said she, evidently struggling to speak calmly, "always bring the mail first to me. Mrs. Basil is not up every day at this hour."

Old Thurston, with rather a crestfallen look, went off to "study" about taking up the hoe against the nettles, and Miss Basil began again to pull up the weeds. How long she had worked she did not know-for her thoughts were afar-when a voice at her side said:

" Pamela, here is a letter for you; it was given me by mistake."

Miss Basil almost thought she had dreamed the words, they were so true to her hope, so foreign to her expectation; but when she #turned suddenly and saw Mrs. Basil standing before her, she started up in alarm; it was 80 very unusual for Mrs. Basil to come out before the dew was off.

Poor Miss Basil! who had lived for years b on a trembling hope of which Mrs. Basil had no suspicion, was forever haunted by the shadow of a fear. She knit her shaking fingers together as if to steady herself, and tammered, wildly:

She did not look at Mrs. Basil, and her face was hidden by the big sun-bonnet, so that the two slow tears rolling over her faded cheeks fell unseen. One glance she gave the letter before she consigned it to her pocket, and then, to Mrs. Basil's surprise and annoyance, she dropped on her knees among the strawberry-vines again without another word.

"Pamela is such a drudge," Mrs. Basil thought, with impatient contempt. "She hasn't a thought above work. She makes nothing of my coming out in this morning dew for her accommodation."

How, indeed, was she to understand that Miss Basil, who was unconscious now of the sort of frantic industry with which she was pulling up the weeds, had dropped so suddenly upon her knees with no other thought than quietly to offer up a devout thanksgiving? Mrs. Basil contemplated her a moment in half-scornful silence before she said: Pamela, I have something to say to you after a while. I cannot stand here now; I have not yet breakfasted."

"Very well," said Miss Basil, from the depths of her sun-bonnet. "Shall I come to you in half an hour? It is not prudent to walk out in the morning on an empty stomach, I know."

Mrs. Basil turned away impatiently. "She tries to evade me, as if she thought I would pry into her correspondence!" she said to herself, indignantly.

She would have resented the imputation of low curiosity, yet she was conscious, as she walked back to the house, of a feeling of disappointment. She had tried in vain to decipher the blurred, illegible post-mark, and thought she might have sent the letter by the servant that brought in her breakfast, but she had preferred to deliver it herself. It seemed a little hard that after she had taken all that trouble Miss Basil had not appreciated it sufficiently to offer a word in explanation of a correspondence for which Mrs. Basil found it difficult to account.

"It is not possible that she can have a lover," she mused, as she sipped her coffee. "She's not ten years younger than I. It must be from old Miss Hawkesby, I fancy; but I don't see why she should be so reticent about a letter from that old woman. ever, it is no affair of mine."

How

And thus Mrs. Basil thought she had dismissed the subject from her mind.

CHAPTER II.

WHO COMES NOW?

MISS BASIL's position at Basilwood was neither easy nor altogether pleasant, but habit and circumstance had combined to fix and keep her there. She had come to Middleborough a stranger, and though more than twenty years had now passed, a stranger she still remained, and something of a mystery, which is always the case when a person seems sedulously to shun society. Yet no one had ever hesitated about receiving her, for had

cousin she was, graciously accorded her a home beneath his roof? She was homeless and friendless when she came to him, but in time she had requited his kindness a thousand-fold by an unselfish devotion to his domestic interests. For, though the judge's first wife was then living, she was a confirmed invalid, and but for Miss Basil the household affairs must have been sadly neglected, and the little orphan grandchild, Joanna, who, some years after Miss Basil came, was born and left motherless at Basilwood, must have suffered for proper care.

The second Mrs. Basil, who succeeded the first after a very short interval, was never known to assume any burden that she could avoid, and finding so excellent a house-keeper and manager in charge when she became mistress of Basilwood, was too well content in the ease and comfort afforded by such an arrangement to disturb it; and thus it had continued, and seemed to promise still to continue, for Miss Basil having far less enterprise than energy, shrank more and more from the turmoil of the outer world. She was not fond of the judge's widow, but she had a strong attachment for the old homestead, where she had led, for so many years, the peaceful life of a recluse, and she was still pleased to remain, although she knew that she was spending her energies with no prospect of an adequate return. Mrs. Basil herself had only a life interest in Basilwood, which after her death would pass into the possession of her nephew, Arthur Hendall. For this reason Miss Basil entertained no favorable regard toward young Hendall, whom she had never met, and did not wish ever to meet.

It must not be supposed that Judge Basil did not appreciate all that Miss Basil did in his home. He was the last man in the world to accept so lavish a requital of his kindness and hospitality as a matter of course; but, good, easy gentleman of the old school that he was, while he knew and feelingly acknowledged that his friendless cousin's services were inestimable, he would have deemed it an insult to offer her a house-keeper's salary. She was a lady, he said, with pride, and she should live in his house forever as a lady. Her services, therefore, were rendered of her own free choice, and not at his instance. It was always his intention, however, to make some provision for her in his will; but death overtook him suddenly, he had lived extravagantly, and his estate was found to be insolvent. Basilwood, once a highly-improved place, was mortgaged for more than its value, to old Mr. Hendall, Mrs. Basil's father, who settled it, together with two or three hundred acres adjacent, upon his daughter during her life, and, after her death, upon his grandson, Arthur. It was not to be expected that old Mr. Hendall, in settling his affairs for the next world, should take thought for Miss Basil, who was supposed to be able to take care of herself, nor yet for the judge's destitute granddaughter, whose own relations-the few that remained -ignored her; was it not enough that she too, by the grace of Mrs. Basil, continued still to find shelter at Basilwood?