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"There is a moment's silence, for all of these present know that this is Michael Winter's wife."

"As he comes up the Stair."

APPLETONS' JOURNAL.

AS HE COMES UP THE
UP THE STAIR.

BY HELEN B. MATHERS,

AUTHOR OF "COMIN' THRO' THE RYE," ETC.
IN TWO PARTS.-PART I.

CHAPTER I.

NINON.

"Two years," broke in Rose, abruptly, "and we have not enough to be married as yet; while that Ninon girl, who only came here six months ago and

"Ball!" said Roscotted-mad; the winds would real silk gown-to-morrow!"

AH!" said Rose Nichol, shrugging her shoul- has had more lovers than one, is to be married in a

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pause to hearken better than he. And all," she added, bitterly, "for a foolish, patter-brained, waxen white doll!"

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'Nevertheless, it is a fine thing to be made of wax," said Martha, "if it gives you the handsomest man, the best cottage, and the longest purse in the village!"

Rose did not reply. She was thinking that not the best house, the largest heap of silver, aroused her envy, but the man who owned them, and who would have been beautiful in her eyes though he were a friendless, houseless beggar.

"That going away of his spoilt him," said Martha, wisely; "he went away a fisherman, just one of ourselves, and he came back grave and with his head full of learning and thoughts-though they did not prevent his going down before Ninon, like a foolish lad of twenty."

"Ye see," said Enoch, taking a pipe out of his mouth and speaking for the first time, "he'd niver been in love before, an' so-"

He did not finish the sentence, but resumed his regard of the sea stretched out before them, that seemed in the peace of the still June evening to be but a reflection of the faint blue-green sky overhead. A boat was putting off from the shore, a lugger was coming leisurely in; a snatch of children's laughter floated up from the beach below, from the fields that lay away to the right came wafted the clear, subtile fragrance of new-mown hay; over all was the nameless peace and repose of the evening hours when work is accomplished and laid aside, and the interval that lies between the cessation of one labor or duty and the resumption of another—and that may alone be termed rest, not idleness, and be reckoned worth the taking begins.

“'Twill be a fine day for the weddin' to-morrow," he said, as Martha disappeared into the cottage, and looking up at the sky, not at Rose, or he must have seen the angry light that his remark about Michael had brought into her eyes. "Eh! but 'tis you an' I that should be climbin' the steps to the church-door, for we've been courtin', my dear, a matter o'—”

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"Tut!" he said, laying his hand on her shoulder, our turn will come in good time, an' 'tisn't always the married sweethearts as is the happiest after all, my dear!"

The girl's frowning face softened; although this man's love could not content her, it was nevertheless sweet, and his unfailing, trustful tenderness always came to her like a solace, hiding for a little while from her own eyes the restless, passionate, bitterhearted self that she knew so well, and bringing forward the one, not beautiful, perhaps, or in any way noble, but honest and attractive, that Enoch knew and wooed.

"Thou wast never giddy, dear heart," he said, drawing her nearer to him. "I shall never have cause to fear for thee as Michael may for yon pretty heedless Ninon, an' when I go away from thee I shall know right well that thou wilt niver shame me in my absence, an' I shall come home with a sure heart of findin' thee gay and luvin' in the old house-place at home."

The girl looked down for a moment ashamed; then suddenly exclaimed, and as though the words escaped her lips unconsciously:

"And will not Michael have that same faith in Ninon? Do you think so badly of her as that, Enoch?"

"I don't think ill of the lass," he said, slowly; "maybe her faults are more of ways than heart. You mind, dear, she is not one o' us, an' she lived most o' her life in a heathenish place-p'r'aps they weren't so particular over things there."

"But the strangest part of it all is," said Rose, who spoke very differently from her companion-for, though a fisherman's daughter, she had received with her sister a good education at the town-school up yonder" that Michael, so strict and stern as he always was, so keen to find fault with a woman for even a word or a look, should be so blind about her, seeming to see not a fault in her, and thinking her (I do believe) too good to be moving to and fro among us!"

"P'r'aps he understands her better'n we do," said

Enoch, simply; "he loves her, ye see, and love gives a wonderfu' knowledge of the heart. Maybe she was but a bit foolish after all, an' I don't think Michael 'u'd have gone on luvin' her if he hadn't found a wurld o' good in her."

"He is not a man to doubt without good reason," said Rose, looking down, “and she has given him no reason-all the other was before he came. You forget he was with the young master abroad when she was carrying on with Martin Strange, and when he came back and fell straight in love with her not one of the lads dared to warn himthey all knew what Michael is if any man crosses him."

"Peter tried to speak,” said Enoch, slowly, “but before he'd got ten words out o' his mouth Michael bade him look to't that he niver tried such a thing again, an' nobody ever did—they was all afear'd."

“Ah!” said Rose, drawing a deep breath, "if Martin only chose to open his mouth-do you think he will choose?" she added, abruptly.

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'And she!" said Rose, "don't you see how ill and anxious she looks? As if she expected something bad to rush out upon her at any moment; and when she meets Martin-listen, Enoch-she trembles and turns aside. Yester-even I was comin' along the sands with father, and we met Ninon alone. While we were greeting her Martin passed. For once she did not move aside, but looked full in his face-oh! such a look, as though she were begging hard for something he would not give-I don't know which went the palest. And then we parted and all passed different ways."

"Was it growing dark?" asked Enoch; and something in his voice arrested the girl's attention. "Was you anywhere near the old chapel-stairs, Rose?"

"Yes," she answered, quickly; "at least he went toward them. Father and I turned homeward-"

"Then 'twas Ninon!" exclaimed Enoch, in a half-startled, wholly perturbed tone.

"You saw them together? She followed him?" cried Rose, swift as lightning. "They met, Ninon and Martin, all alone up there?"

said a familiar voice; and, turning, Rose saw old Peter, the most inveterate gossip and scandal-monger in Lynaway, standing behind them.

"Good-even," she said, frowning and wishing him at the bottom of the sea yonder, for in another minute would she not have coaxed the secret from Enoch had not this meddling old busybody arrived?

"Twill be a gran' day for the weddin' to-morrow," he said, almost in Enoch's words. But was not the coming marriage and the state of the weather on the tip of every tongue, as it was in every heart, this evening?

"Bah!" said Rose, shortly, "I am sick of the very name of it—one would think no one was ever married in Lynaway before! What is there so very uncommon about it, I should like to know?" Peter, turning his head a little to one side, deliberately winked; at nothing more particular than the sea, apparently-presumably, therefore, for the relief of his own private feelings. No one knew better than he the state of Rose's mind toward Michael Winter, and, in his feeble, inconsequential way, he thought Enoch a fool for not having found the matter out-which opinion hurt nobody, least of all Enoch; for, can it be said in truth of any man, though wisest living, that he has not, at some period or other of his existence, been dubbed fool? It is a safe, pleasant, but opprobrious epithet that recommends itself favorably to human nature, that loves, above all things, to assert its own good sense while announcing the folly of its neighbors, and, while delighting in calling names, prefers the use of such ones as will not recoil dangerously on its own head.

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Folks don't get married every day in Lynaway," said Peter, aloud; "an' Michael an' the girl bein' so handsome an' all makes it a bit uncommon-not but what," he added, in a discontented tone, "but 'twill be all show, an' no joy for the lad, or I'm wrongin' that Ninon sadly."

What could there have been in this poor Ninon to set even the men, those sworn friends to beauty in distress, against her? Was it that here, as in many other places advanced by civilization to a position infinitely beyond this primitive fishing - place, men must either condemn utterly the mere suspicion of lightness in one of their women, or, by accepting it, and making excuses for it, place her and themselves on a lower moral platform altogether? To the honor of these Lynaway men be it said that they were free of one of the worst vices of our great cities, and that consists in the ignoble pleasure taken by men in amusing themselves at the expense of women, in drawing out their frivolity, their lightness, their vanity, beckoning them onward step by step to the abyss that, once overleaped, no woman ever recrosses. And this, too, when a few words of warning, an attitude of steady scorn and reprobation, might warn the poor, heedless butterfly from the path along which she flutters. . . . They know nothing, these homely, simple fellows, of the zest beGood-evening to you, Rose Nichol and Enoch," | stowed by a look or a word, because it had delighted

"I don't know," he said, quietly; "maybe I wrong the lass; so I won't say anythin' about it, not even to you, my dear."

He was a

It was all in vain that Rose besought and cajoled and scolded; Enoch would say no more. man-and rare indeed is it to meet with such a one in these days who might be prevailed on to divulge a secret that concerned himself, possibly to his own disadvantage, but who was silent as the grave when a secret in which another had a share was consulted.

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another man yesterday and might delight another to-morrow; they could no more have condoned the levity of one of their women for the sake of what the future might possess for either than they could have set themselves to slay a comrade in cold blood. Out yonder, in the great town of Marmot, many a gay young blood would have taken up the cudgels gladly enough for beautiful Ninon; here, where hearts were true and minds had not been obscured and defaced by the world's casuistry, there were found but two men who had any belief in her.

"He is content," said Rose; "what would you have more? He will open his eyes wide some day, though, and then-"

She paused abruptly.

Two people were coming along the path that lay between the shingle and the irregular line of cottages and houses that formed the village of Lynaway-a girl and a man.

"Ninon," said Rose, below her breath, lifting her hand to ward off the rays of the setting sun, and marking, with jealous, unwilling admiration, the peach-blossom face of Michael's sweetheart, the gracious curves of the youthful, lovely figure, the very poise of the pretty, slender feet, and the love, sincere and warm, that lit the blue eyes turned full upon the dark ones of her lover.

"It is no wonder," said Rose, half-aloud, and hating her own dark face passionately, almost as swarthy, every whit as handsome in its way, as Michael's.

"There is Rose," exclaimed Ninon, stopping short, her hand still thrust through her lover's arm, his left hand keeping it there as though it were a bird that he feared to see flutter away out of his reach.

The two girls had been no ill friends in the early days of Ninon's coming among the fisher-folk, and before the man Rose vainly loved had grown to covet the sunny-haired, half- French, half- English girl. They were friends after a fashion still, if a friendly feeling on one side and none on the other can constitute friendship.

Enoch removed his pipe, Peter made his greeting, Martha came out and joined the party, Ninon | crossed over to Rose with some woman's question about needle-work. . . . It was a pretty enough group, since all the women were young and handsome, and Peter alone, of the men, was old and withered.

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All at once Michael, grown impatient, caught Ninon's hand under his arm, and, with a gay "Goodnight" to them all, hurried her away. Good-by," she said, looking back; then, moved by some unaccountable impulse, escaped from his side and fled back to the group that looked after them.

"Won't you wish me a good-luck?" she said, her broken English sounding quaint and charming with its French accent; "you will see me never any more as Ninon Levesgne, for to-morrow I will be Ninon Winter!" and that young and winsome face, so imploring, so sweet, so tender, touched every heart there save one, and they wished her all "good-by

and God-speed "-all save Rose, whose lips moved with the rest, though there issued from them not one syllable.

CHAPTER II.

MICHAEL.

"WHY did you do that, Ninon?" said Michael, as the girl came back to his side. "Why should it matter to you whether Rose, or Enoch, or Peter, wish you good-luck? You need care for no one's words or wishes now but mine."

The jealousy of his voice-nay, the very impatience of it- announced him emphatically to be under the delirious influence of that folly yclept love. Probably no healthily-constituted man ever dreams of love, or speculates as to its probable effect upon him, until he is brought under the direct influence of woman, and thereby is made to experience emotion, strong in proportion to the power of the attraction she holds for him; and of Michael it might truly be said that upon the subject of love he had never bestowed a thought, much less a dream, until Destiny brought him face to face with Ninon. When one who is always more or less troubled by ill-health takes a fever, or any other violent and dangerous disease, he oftener than not recovers; but when one who has never had an illness in his life, and does not know what pain means, being strong and sound throughout, is attacked, it is more than probable that he will die. The disease but takes the firmer hold upon him from the very strength of the resistance it meets, and the old fable of the oak and the ash recurs to the memory, where the comparatively worthless and weakly tree saves itself by bending and swaying to the mischievous blast, while the sturdy oak, refusing to yield, is uprooted and hurled broken to the earth.

"I know that it is not for me to care," said Ninon; "and yet I will not help it; they have all been so good to me, and Rose-I did always like Rose."

Michael took her hand—such a fragile, fair little hand, so unlike his brown, weather-beaten one-and kissed it. That was as it should be, for had she not gentle blood in her veins, while he had none? It was twenty years ago that Ninon's mother had stolen away one winter's morning with the fair-spoken, gentle-faced Frenchman, whose greatest injury to her had consisted in marrying and leaving her in a distant land without one sou to support either mother or child.

The sea and sky were melting into each other in that indescribable gray tint that in Devonshire heralds the advent of twilight when Michael and Ninon paused before a cottage that had little beauty save the honeysuckle that covered it as with a luscious golden mantle, and the great bushes of roses, white and red, that stood one on either side of the lintel. Like all common things, they were prodigal in their abundance, and in the failing light the snowy clusters seemed countless. . . . It recurred to Michael

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many times in the days that came after how the whiterose bush had been on her side as she entered, the red one on his; and that it had passed through his mind how like, in her purity, she was to one of those blossoms. Would he ever again compare her to anything unsullied and stainless through all the years of his life?

No faith or love, however great, can ever be the same after the shadow of doubt has once fallen upon it. As she stepped over the threshold on this her first visit to his home, he gave her sweetest welcome with word and lip, and, all unwedded though she was, this, I think, was her real home-coming, at this moment and no other; and she entered into her kingdom, and to-night, and not to-morrow, she felt the vague joys and delights of her maiden days falling away from her, and a new and exquisite promise of secure and wifely happiness stirring at her heart. They went hand-in-hand, like two happy children, into the sitting-room, cool and orderly, and gay with the favorite flowers that Michael's darling loved; trod on tiptoe as they passed the high-backed chair on which his old mother sat, fast asleep and bolt upright, spectacles on nose, and her knitting-needles pointed toward each other, ready to take up (when she should awake) the stitch where it had been dropped ... peeped into every room, even the kitchen, that was beautiful in their eyes, since it was to belong to them together, and sat down at last to rest in the arbor that Michael had built at the end of the queer little old garden behind the house. And, as the dusk crept closer and closer till they could scarcely see each other's face, the man took his sweetheart in those strong and faithful arms that had never wearied for the burden of any other woman, and bade her tell him from her heart if she were content-if she would have aught undone or refashioned-if she had one doubt of the new future, alone with him, that she would begin on the morrow-if there trembled in her soul one fear of his devotion, one pang of regret for the happy, innocent days of her maidenhood, that she was so soon to cast behind her forever-and she put those soft, tender white arms, that were ever as great a matter of wonder to him as of love, about his neck, and kissed him of her own will, and bade him love her always-always . . . cried to him, as one in fear, to tell her that it was all real and no dream, whether she could be his wife-safely his wife-by the morrow at that hour . . . whispered to him that he must never leave off loving her, because she was his foolish, unworthy little wife, not his sweetheart, whose faults he could never see

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and there came

not even the night-cry of a wandering, homeless bird to break those soft, passionate love-words; and they two, hovering, as they believed, on the brink of a new and more perfect existence than either had ever yet experienced, knew not that the promise had, in its sweetness, outsped the fulfillment, the dream outstripped the reality-that never again, in spring or summer, autumn or winter, should come back to them the unalloyed, unbroken trust and happiness of this one hour out of the silent, dusky, passionate midsummer night.

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THE bride came stepping through the dark and frowning door of the old village-church, and at her side came the bridegroom, while a dozen rosy lasses, dressed in whatsoever seemed most good in their own eyes, followed after, each with a sweetheart as blooming and rosy as herself. Until the moment of Ninon's appearance at the door, it had been a matter of doubt whether the assembled crowd would give forth the ringing cheer that so fine a fellow as the bridegroom, so lovely a maiden as the bride, assuredly deserved on this their wedding-day; but no sooner was that dainty little apparition in white visible than a hearty and simultaneous shout burst from the throat of every man present, bringing a blush to the bride's cheek, and a smile to the lips of the bridegroom. Such a beautiful little bride as she made, with such shiny, twinkling little feet, and such a happy light on the blushing, delicate little face, as could not surely fail to warm all hearts toward her, whether they would or not! And yet in two breasts lay stones, not heartsbut a little way apart, too, in the eager, excited crowd; and two faces alone were pale, and cold, and set- -the faces of Rose Nichol and Martin Strange. His looks might surely have drawn those of Michael's wife, his eyes might surely have compelled some answering glance to his intense and steady gaze; but, as though some talisman in her heart turned aside the evil that had until now been potent to molest her, she did not once look toward him, did not even notice that her gown, nay, her very hand, on which the plain gold ring shone, brushed against his garments as she passed him slowly by. They took their way down the hill and along the familiar path above the shingle, and the homely procession followed after, man and matron, youth and maid, coming anon to Ninon's late home, where dwelt the cold, proud, faded mother, whose youth had passed so quickly into middle age, and who found nothing, not even her daughter's marriage, a matter of interest or rejoicing.

Of how the wedding-feast was spread and held in the open air, abundant, simple, and hearty-of how all Lynaway was there, save one man and one woman-of the number of times the bride's and bridegroom's healths were drunk, while all forgot their suspicions of the former, now that she was an honest man's wedded wife, with an honest wedding-ring on her finger, I need not pause to tell; only relate how the poor little wife, who had grown paler and paler through the hot hours of the interminable afternoon and evening, slipped away with her mother, and, being despoiled of all her fine and bridal garments, set out with her husband on the homeward walk. They met not a soul by the way. The very house was empty when they reached it, for the maid was up yonder with the rest, and the mother had gone to a dwelling of her own; and so they entered once again their home, and on the threshold Michael

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