nocence, as the Lady in Comus, trembled lest she had forgotten | frills and flounces, the ruffles and furbelows, employed by the her allegiance to her dead husband. young ladies of his day, as necessary adjuncts to the work of captivation. Time only, the great revealer, stood her friend, clearing away the last doubts of her truth, un vailing her simple integrity, her faithful love, her steadfast devotion. And this was how Tom's widow won his mother's heart. It was an unseasonably hot day in June, and old Mrs. Ashworth, who would not move out of town lest her flight should be taken as a confession of weakness by the besieger, wandered over the house in vain, seeking for a cool place in which to take her usual afternoon nap. Callers had ceased, and she found the parlors empty and deserted, also most refreshingly cool. In the little boudoir beyond, was a tempting sofa-soft, easy, inviting, it wooed her to seek repose then and there, and the invitation was promptly accepted. He lingered on the threshold to no purpose, and seeing her about to pass in, made the request which the elder lady heard in her retreat. "I have something to say to you, Mrs. Ashworth," he added. "I shall be happy to hear it," returned Alice, politely. Her indifferent manner chilled him, but he persevered, leading the way to the boudoir, to the horror of its occupant. Alice, however, had paused, expectant, but unsuspicious of his communication, and, seating herself under the gaslight, waited for his words. The dress of dead black silk, the simple collar of white crape, with a spray of purple heliotrope on her bosom, that her child's She sat still, her dreamy eyes turned away from him, not so much expectant as patient, a picture of perfect beauty in the sight of the man who loved her. Troubled thoughts and fears, connected with her daughter-in-hand had placed there, made a soft setting for her lovely face. law and her admirer, had kept her waking much of the night before, and when she slept it was so soundly that she only awoke as the pale young moon was looking in at the window, and the gas lighted and blazing brightly in the front rooms. He began like a tyro, stammering and hesitating as the risk He him. "I hope you have seen-you must have conjectured the meaning of my long devotion, Mrs. Ashworth," he said. "Your beauty has surely brought you too many admirers to allow you to misunderstand my attentions, and you have anticipated the confession I am about to make." (A clumsy speech framed mechanically by his lips and utterly foreign to their intentions.) "I have not," returned Alice. "I beg you will not speak. Mr. Pemberton, you are our friend, you pity our desolation, forever deprived of what once made our lives so sweet, you have been very kind to the lonely women whose brother, son, and husband can never be restored to them. Let me thank you and leave you." Two people were coming into the parlor, and Mrs. Ashworth | and the importance of the appeal became impressed upon reflected with horror that she had left her best cap up-stairs, and with it, of necessity, her false front. Should they persevere onward to the boudoir, from which there was no way of escape but the door by which they entered, what would be her position! but one of the voices reassured her-it was Alice's, and Alice surely had more discretion. The other-oh, horror! --was that of Mr. Pemberton, asking permission to enter. had seen the young widow-not many of whose movements escaped him-leave the house on some short expedition, and contrived to waylay her. Delighted at the opportunity so rarely afforded him of being her escort through the shadowy twilight streets, he made good use of his time; but her manner was so cold and dreamy-what wonder, since it was the anniversary of Tom's death, but that he could not know-that he was half discouraged. She looked more beautiful, he thought, than he had ever seen her, in her modest dress of black silk, with its simple sign of mourning, so different from the fanatic "Not yet," he cried, eagerly, "till I have besought you to listen to the pleadings of a love you have never felt, or you could not so coldly dismiss it. You must have been too young when you married to understand this divine passion; let me more. teach you from a heart overflowing-never, greatly as my years their love and that of her darling-she asks and cares for no surpass yours-never touched before. You who are so much younger, only on the threshold of existence, indeed, would you resign all life's bright and delicious possibilities, put aside a draught whose sweetness you cannot know, and devote yourself to the memory of a pale shadow of the past, to monastic celibacy and seclusion, like that of a vowed nun?" "Mr. Pemberton," said Alice, with fervor, her voice slightly trembling, "you do not know of what you speak. To one who has really loved, and whose love has been consecrated by marriage, followed by death, the future has nothing more to offer, and the world is past. I have not counted many years, it is true, but those years were far longer than the gay seasons you were spending in the far different life you have lived. Mine dragged onward slowly. in repression, tyranny, neglect; yours danced away unnoticed, in a vortex of pleasure. To me, in my loneliness and coldness, came the warm, bright presence of him I learned to loye as my husband; he took me from darkness, and poverty, and pain, to happiness and peace, from unkindness, and stinting, and ignorance, to the bounty of his love, the glory of his goodness. He gave me all I have, he made me all I am. I am the creature of his benefits, the monument of his kindness; absent or present, living or dying, I belong to him. Because he is dead, and can no longer claim it, shall I forget or renounce my allegiance? Wherever he is, he loves me stil, as I love him. He is mine, and I am his forever, in this world and in that beyond to which he has preceded me. Could I satisfy my heart with any poorer passion?-could I turn the whole current of existence into a newer channel, and spend it in trying to forget what it is my delight to remember?" "But a second affection," hinted Pemberton, "that can be entertained without any prejudice to the first." "Can a flower bloom twice?" asked Alice. Every year," returned Pemberton, dogmatically. "Yet not love," said she. "It would be but a poor heart, Mr. Pemberton, that you won, to forget gratitude and love, so soon as would mine. If my husband were living, honor would not permit you to.strive to alienate what he has bound to him forever by ties that cannot be broken. To me, he is living still! I that have been his wife can be no other, without perjury and treachery that I could not endure. My heart and my lips must be pure when I meet him in the Resurrection. But you can be generous to the friend dead as to the friend living. Respect the wife he chose, be gentle to the child he left, and love his memory too well to wish to supplant or erase it!" She rose to dismiss him; her beautiful face beaming through its mist of tears like a distant star-fair, unmoved, inaccessible. Pemberton could not leave her; he took the hand she extended in farewell only to caress and cling to it; he argued. he entreated, he pleaded-he who had only stooped to accept before -and got no answer but her increasing pallor, and the firm denia! of her eyes. Forgetful, really, of his gentlemanhood, he lingered beyond all hope and courtesy, and did not depart until the sound of an approaching footstep warned him how little fit he was to be seen in his present state of agitation. As he retired, Alice sank into a chair weeping, and totally unnerved by the painful associations called up by this interview. Her face was covered by her hands, and she was oblivious of any presence but her own, till the touch of a kind hand upon her bowed head startled her, and she lifted it to find her dreaded mother-in-law in a dishabille of singular frankness-bald, capless, disheveled-a grisly phantom of elderly respectability, but in a state of tearful emotion that quite ignored these delusions of long standing, as she clasped her daughter-now really loved as such-to her breast, with a warmth of genuine feeling that left the younger woman nothing to wish for in obtaining this crowning blessing of her peaceful life. So Tom's widow lives contentedly with the lonely women who loved her husband best, and who have transferred that love to her, his living representative-most proud and happy in her right to the name. Her beautiful face is the light of the quiet household, her rich young life, with all its brilliant possibilities, is devoted to her child, and to the comfort of those declining ones, who form with it her dearest care. Her heart is full with As for Pemberton, he does not despair. "I will have her yet," he vowed, as he hurried down the steps from the scene of his discomfiture, more determined than ever to gain the paradise to which he had been denied admission. And if worldly titles would avail anything here, he might well hope for ultimate success. But there are some women to whom words are more than breath, whose nay means nay, and whose yes is yes, and of these is the one whom he has sworn to marry, and who has said that she could never love him. AN OLD WOUND. I SIT by the open window, But while, with eyes like sunbeams, An old wound in my breast! But, oh, every tone and gesture Of the merry, thoughtless band Recalls some trait of the mother, Pass'd to the better land. While the sweet singer, Agnes, Is singing loud and clear, 'Tis not the child's blithe carol'Tis the mother's voice I hear! THE FATAL LETTER. A ROMANCE. BY MRS. HENRY WOOD. CHAPTER XI. (CONTINUED.) S THEY came out of the vestry, Ellen found herself face to face with Jelly. The clerk, and the two women pewopeners, and the sexton, considering themselves privileged people, pressed up where they chose: Jelly, who of course-living with Mrs. Cumberland -could not be at all confounded with the common spectators, chose to press with them. Her face was as long as one and a half, as she caught hold of Miss Adair. "How could you, Miss Ellen?" she whispered. "Don't you know that nothing is more unlucky than for a bride to be married with anybody else's wedding-ring?" "But it was not a wedding-ring, Jelly. Only a plain gold one." Anyway it was unlucky for you. We have a superstition in these parts, Miss Ellen, that if a maid takes off a ring from her own finger to serve at a pinch for a bride, she'll never be a wife herself I'd not have risked it, miss." Ellen laughed gayly, Jelly's dismay was so real and her face so long. But there was no time for more. Richard held out his arm to her; and Oliver Rane was already taking out his bride. Close up against the door stood Mr. North's carriage, into which stepped the bride and bridegroom. "My shawl! Where's the shawl?" asked Bessy, looking round. She had sat down upon it; and laughed gayly when Oliver | bridegroom. As Ellen drew back in her corner after bowing, drew it out. This shawl-a thin cashmere of quiet colors-was her foot touched something on the carpet at the bottom of the intended to be thrown on ere they reached the station. Her carriage. silk dress covered with that, and a black lace vail substituted for the white one on her bonnet, the most susceptible maid or matron who might happen to be traveling, would never take her for a bride. Arthur Bohun deliberately flung an old white satin slipper after the carriage-it struck the old coachman's head, and the crowding spectators shouted cheerily. Richard was going to the works. He placed Ellen in the carriage that had brought her. "Will you pardon me, that I depute Captain Dohun to see you safely home instead of myself, Miss Adair? It is a very busy day at the works, and I must go there. Arthur, will you take care of this young lady?" What Ellen answered, she scarely knew. Captain Bohun got into the carriage. The situation was wholly unexpected and if their hearts beat a little faster in the tumult of the moment's happiness, Richard at least was unconscious of it. "It is the first wedding I ever was at," began Ellen, gayly, feeling that she must talk to cover the embarrassment of the position. Both were feeling it, and got as far apart from each other as if they had quarreled; she in one corner, he in the further one opposite. "Of course it had been arranged that I should go home with Mrs. Cumberland." "Is she ill?" "Doctor Rane thinks it is only nervousness: he said so as we came along. I had to come with him alone. I am sure the people we passed on the road, who had not heard about Bessy, thought it was I who was going to be married to him, they stared into the carriage so." Ellen laughed as she said it. Arthur Bohun, drinking in draughts of her wondrous beauty, glanced at her meaningly, his blue eyes involuntarily betraying his earnest love. "It may be your turn next, Ellen." She blushed vividly, and looked from the window as though she saw something passing. He felt tempted there and then to speak of his love. But he had a large sense of the fitness of the time and place; and she had been placed for these few minutes under his protection: it seemed like putting him on his honor, as schoolboys say. Besides, he had fully made up his mind not to speak until he saw his way clear to marry. Ellen Adair brought her beaming face round again. "Jelly is in a terrible way about the ring, foretelling all kinds of ill-luck to everybody concerned, and thankful it did not happen to her. Will Bessy keep my ring always, do you think? Perhaps she'd not be legally married if she gave it me back and took her own-when it is found?" Arthur Bohun's eyes danced a little. "Why! what is this?" They both stooped at once. It was the wedding-ring enclosed in its bit of tissue paper. Captain Bohun unfolded the paper. "Doctor Rane must have lost it out of his pocket as we went along," cried Ellen. "He said, you know, that he felt so sure he had put it in. What is to be done with it?" "Wear it instead of your own until they come back," said Arthur. Bessy can then take her choice of the two." 66 Accepting the suggestion without thought of dissent, Ellen took off her right glove, and held out the other hand for the ring. He did not give it. Bending forward, he took her right hand and put it on for her. "It fits as well as my own did." Their eyes met. He had her hand still, as if trying the fit. Her sweet face was like a damask rose. "I trust I may put one on to better purpose some day, Ellen," came the murmuring, whispered, tremulous words. "Meanwhile-if Bessy does not claim this, remember that I have placed it on your finger." Not another syllable, not another look from either. Captain Bohun sat down in his corner; Ellen in hers, her hot face bent over the glove she was putting on, and fully believing that the carriage had changed into Paradise. CHAPTER XII.-PUTTING DOWN THE CARPET. HE days went on, and Doctor Rane's house was being made ready for the reception of the bride. No time could be lost, as the wedding-tour was intended to be a short one. As Jelly said, they'd be at home before folks could look round. Mrs. Cumberland presented the new carpet to the drawing-room; the furniture, that had been the first Mrs. North's, arrived from Dallory Hall. Molly Green arrived with it, equally to take up her abode in the house of Doctor Rane. The arranging of these things, with the rest of the preparations, was carried on with a considerable deal of bustle and gossip, Jelly being in at the doctor's house continually, and constituting herself chief mistress of the ceremonies. Phillis and Molly Green, with native humility, deferred to her in all things. It was said in a previous chapter that Jelly was one of those "Perhaps not," he replied, in the gravest of tones. "I can- who retained an interest in the anonymous letter. She had a not tell what they would have done without it, Ellen?'' "I did not tell Bessy one thing, when she asked me about it in the vestry. I will never tell her if I can help it-that Maria Warne is dead. How was it Mr. North did not come?'' "Nervousness too, in my opinion. He said he was ill." "Why should he be nervous?"' "Lest it should come to his wife's ears-that he had so far countenanced the marriage as to be present at it." special cause for it. Jelly, in her propensity to look into her neighbors' affairs, was given to take up any mysterious cause and make it hers. Her love of the marvelous was great, her curiosity insatiable. But Jelly's interest in this matter really was a personal one, and concerned herself. It was connected with Timothy Wilks. Amidst Jelly's other qualities and endowments might be ranked one that took almost the pre-eminence-love of admir "Can you tell me why Mrs. North should set her face against ation. Jelly could not remember to have been without an "acit?" quaintance" for above a month at a time since the days when she left off pinafores. No sooner did she quarrel with one young man and dismiss him, than she took on another. Dallory wondered that of all her numerous acquaintances she had not got married; but, as Jelly coolly said, to have a suitor at your beck and call was one thing, and to be tied to a husband "I hope they will be happy. I think there is no doubt of it. quite another. So Jelly was Jelly still; and perhaps it might Bessy is very sweet-tempered and gentle." "He is good-tempered too." "Yes, I think so. I have seen but little of him. There's Mrs. Gass!" They were passing that lady's house. She sat at the open window; a grand amber gown on, white satin ribbons in her cap. Leaning out, she shook her handkerchief at them in violent greeting, just as though they had been the bride and be conceded that the fault was her own. She liked her independence. The reigning "acquaintance" at this present period happened to be Timothy Wilks. Jelly patronized him; he was devoted to her. There was a trifling difference in their ages--some ten years, probably, and all on Jelly's side-but that disparity had often happened before. Jelly had distinguished Tim by the honor of taking him to be her young man; and when the dam 1 aging whisper fell upon him, that he had probably written the anonymous letter resulting in the death of Edmund North, Jelly resented the aspersion far more than Timothy did. "I'll find out who did do it, if it costs me a year's wages and six months' patience," avowed Jelly to herself, in the first burst of indignation. But Jelly found she could not arrive at that satisfactory result any quicker than other people. It's true she possessed a slight clue that they did not, in the few memorable words she had overheard pass that moonlight night between her mistress and Doctor Rane; but they did not serve her. The copy of the letter was said to have dropped out of Doctor Raue's pocketbook on somebody's carpet, and he denied that it had so dropped. Neither more nor less could Jelly make of the matter than this; and she labored under the disadvantage of not being able to speak of the overheard words, unless she confessed that she had been a listener. Considering who had been the speakers, Jelly did not choose to do that. From that time until this, a good two months, had the matter rankled in Jelly's mind; she had kept her ears wide open, and put cautious questions wherever she thought they might avail; and all to no purpose. But in this, the first week of July, Jelly got a slight light thrown on the clue from Molly Green. The very day that damsel arrived at Doctor Rane's as helpmate to Phillis, and Jelly had gone in with her orderings, the conversation happened to turn on plum-pudding-Phillis having made a currant-dumpling for dinner, and let the water get into itand Molly Green dropped a few words which Jelly's pricking ears caught up; they were only to the effect that Mrs. Gass had asked her whether she did not let fall on her carpet a receipt for making plum-pudding the night of Edmund North's attack; which receipt, Mrs. Gass had said, might have belonged to madame, and been brought from the Hall by Molly Green's petticoats. Jelly put a wary question or two to the girl, and then let the topic pass without comment. That same evening she betook herself to Mrs. Gass, acting craftily. Where's that paper that was found on your carpet the night Edmund North was taken?" asked Jelly, with bold tongue. Upon which Mrs. Gass was seized with astonishment so entire that in the moment's confusion she made one or two inconvenient admissions, just stopping short of the half-suspicion she had entertained of Doctor Rane. In the days gone by, when Mrs. Gass was a servant herself, Jelly's relatives--really respectable people-had patronized her. Mrs. Gass got promoted to be what she was; but she assumed no fine airs in consequence, as the reader has heard, and she and Jelly had remained very good friends. Vexed with herself for having incautiously admitted that the paper found was the copy of the anonymous letter, Mrs. Gass turned round on Jelly and gave her a good sharp reprimand for taking her unawares, and for trying to pry into what did not concern her. Jelly came away not very much wiser than she went, but with a spirit of unrest that altogether refused to be soothed. She dared not pursue the inquiry openly, out of respect to her mistress and Doctor Rane, but she resolved to pump Molly Green. This same Molly was niece to the people with whom Timothy Wilks lodged, and rather more friendly with the latter gentleman than Jelly liked. On the following morning, when Jelly had swallowed her breakfast, she went into the next house with her usual lack of ceremony. Phillis and Molly Green were on their knees laying down the new carpet in the drawing-room, tugging and hammering to the best of their ability, their gowns pinned round their waists, their sleeves stripped to the elbows-Phillis, little and old and weak-looking; Molly, a comely girl of twenty, with red cheeks. Well, you must be two fools!" was Jelly's greeting, after taking in appearances. "As if you could expect to put down a heavy Brussels yourselves. Why didn't you get Turtle's men here? They served the carpet, and they ought to come to put it down" "They promised to be here at seven o'clock this morning, and now it's nine," mildly responded Phillis, her nice dark eyes raised to Jelly's. "We thought we'd try and do it ourselves, so as to be able to get the tables and chairs in, and the room finished. Perhaps Turtles have forgot it." "I'd forget them, I know, if it was me, when I wanted to buy another carpet," said Jelly, tartly. But, even as she spoke, a vehicle was heard to stop at the gate. Inquisitive Jelly looked from the window, and recognized it for Turtle's. It seemed to contain one or two pieces of new furniture. Phillis did not know that any had been coming, and went out. Molly Green rose from her knees, and stood regarding the carpet. This was Jelly's opportunity. "Now, then," she sharply cried, confronting the girl with imperious gesture, "did you drop that, or did you not, Molly Green?" Molly Green seemed all abroad at the address-as well she might be. 66 66 66 'Drop what?" she asked. "That plum-pudding receipt on Mrs. Gass's parlor carpet." Well, I never!" returned Molly, after a pause of surprise. What is it to you, Jelly, if I did?" Now, the girl only so spoke by way of retort; in a sort of banter. Jelly, hardly believing her ears, took it to be an ad mission that she did drop it; and so the two went floundering on, quite at cross-purposes. "Don't stare at me like that, Molly Green. I want a straightfor'ard answer. Did it drop from your skirts?'' "It didn't drop from my hands. As to staring, it's you that's doing that, Jelly, not me." "Where had you picked up the receipt from ?-Out of Mr. Edmund North's room?'' "Out of Mr. Edmund North's room!" echoed Molly, in won- der. "And if it was! I didn't go a-nigh him." A frightful thought now came over Jelly, turning her quite faint. What if the girl had gone to her Aunt Green's that night and picked the paper up there? In that case it could not fail to be traced home to Timothy Wilks. "Did you call at your aunt's that same evening, Molly Green?" "Suppose I did?" retorted Molly. "And how dare you call in there, and bring-bring receipts away with you surreptitious?'' shrieked Jelly, in her temper. Molly Green stooped to pick up the hammer, lying at her feet, speaking quietly as she did so. Some noise was beginning to be heard outside, caused by Turtle's men getting a piano into the house, and Phillis talking to them. "I can't think what you are a-driving at, Jelly. As to calling in at aunt's, I have a right to do it when I'm out, if time allows. Which it had not that night, at any rate, for I never went nowhere but to the druggist's, and Mrs. Gass's. I scuttered all the way to Dallory, and scuttered back again; and I don't think I stopped to speak to a single soul, but Timothy Wilks." Jelly's spirits, which had been rising, fell again to wrath at the name. "You'd better say you got it from him, Molly Green. Don't spare him, poor fellow; whiten yourself." Molly was beginning to feel just a little wrathful in her turn. Though Jelly was a lady's-maid and superior to herself with her red arms and rough hands, that could not be a reason for attacking her in this way. "And what if I did get it from him, pray? Come! A plumpudding perscription's no crime." "But a copy of an anonymous letter is," retorted Jelly, the moment's anger causing her to lose sight of caution. "Don't you try to brazen it out to me, girl." "WHAT!" cried Molly, staring with all her eyes. But in the intervening moment Jelly's senses had come back to her. She set herself coolly to remedy the mischief. "To think that my mind should have run off from the pudding receipt to that letter of poor Mr. Edmund's! It's your fault, Molly Green-bothering my wits out of me! Where did you pick up the paper? There. Answer that; and let's end it."* Molly thought it might be as well to end it; she was getting tired of the play; besides, here were Turtle's men coming into self to Bessy. Turtle's men, leaving the piano in the hall, the room to finish the carpet. "I never had the receipt at all, Jelly, and it's not possible it could have dropped from me; that's the blessed truth. After talking to me, just as you've done, and turning me inside out, as one may say, Mrs. Gass as good as confessed that it might have fell out of her own bundle of receipts that she keeps in the sideboard drawer." Slowly Jelly arrived at a conviction that Molly Green, in regard to her own non-participation in dropping the paper, must be telling the truth. It did not tend to lessen her wrath. "Then why on earth have you been keeping up this farce with me? I'll teach you manners with your betters, girl." went into the room to finish the carpet, and Jelly came out of it. She found her arm touched by Mr. Richard North. He motioned her into the dining-parlor; followed, and closed the door. "Will you tell me the meaning of what you have just been saying to Molly Green?" The sudden question-as Jelly acknowledged to herself afterward-made her creep all over. For once in her life she was dumb. "I heard all you said, Jelly, happening to be standing accidentally at the door. What was it that was dropped on Mrs. Gass's carpet the night of my brother's illness?'' 66 THE YOUNG NURSE. "Well, why did you set upon me?" was the good-humored answer. 'There's no such great treason in dropping a plumpudding paper, even if I had done it-which I didn't. "Tain't a love-letter. I don't like to be brow-beat for nothing; and it's not your place to do it, Jelly." Jelly said no more. Little did she suspect that Mr. Richard North, leaning against the door-post of the half-open drawingroom door, while he watched the movements of the men, had heard every syllable of the colloquy. Coming round to see what progress was being made in the house, before he went to the works for the day, it chanced that he arrived at the same time as Turtle's cart. The new piano was a present from him -PAGE 423. "It-was-a receipt for making plum-pudding, sir," stammered Jelly, turning a little white. "I think not, Jelly," replied Richard North, gazing into her eyes with quiet firmness. "You spoke of a copy of an anonymous letter; and I am sure, by your tope, you were then speaking the truth. As I have overheard this much, you must give me an explanation." "I'd have spent a pound out of my pocket, rather than this should have happened," cried Jelly, with much ardor. |