Catherine A. Warfield

“ Gerald, at the good news of my return, could shake his resolution.
"Miriam shall leave me no more while life is mine," he said, "be it long or short. When she marries, I will surrender every thing I possess, save a stipend, into her hands, and Evelyn and Mabel and I to some extent will be her pensioners thereafter. Until that time, matters will stand as they do now."
"Folly, folly, Colonel Monfort! You talk like a dotard of eighty; you, a superb-looking man yet, younger than I am, no doubt; young enough to marry again, if the fancy took you, and head a second family." ”

“ The people are phantoms, the realities are shadows, and I a wretched humbug, duller than all! Two men have lived and breathed for me on the face of this earth—two only. One was my much-offending and deeply-suffering father. The other—O, Miriam, to think of him is crime; but in his life, and that alone, I live. I send you Praed's last beautiful little song—'Tell him I love him yet.' It will tell you every thing. An answer I have scribbled to it as if written by a man. Keep both, and when I am dead, should you survive me, dear, lay them if you can in my coffin, close, close to my heart! ”

“ I thought not once of Christian Garth. I had ceased to strain my eyes for a distant sail, to seek to compromise with my fate or make conditions with my Creator. Dunmore was forgotten. I was composed to die—not resigned. These things are different; a bitter patience possessed me that I felt would sustain me to the end, but I was not satisfied that my doom was just or opportune.
"Farewell, sweet, young, vigorous life!" I moaned aloud. "Farewell, Miriam! It will not be thou, but a phantom, that shall arise from dead ashes! Farewell, dear hand, that hast served me long and well!" ”

“ What does He make them so sweet for if He does not expect us to love them dearly—His little angels on earth? Whenever a baby passes here with its nurse, I run after it and stop it and play with it as long as I can; and oh, I wish so often we had one of our own here at home!" embracing myself again with enthusiasm.
"Evelyn is right; you are a very absurd child, Miriam," she said, smiling, in spite of her efforts to keep grave; "very silly, even."
"And you are a very foolish, dear old nurse, and you will love our baby, too, won't you now?" clasping her also, zealously. ”

“ Be calm, dear Evelyn! Learn to bear with dignity our fate. We must sustain each other now—be all in all to one another, as we have never been before. Thank God! let us both thank God, Evelyn, from our inmost hearts, that we still have this shelter—and—yes—I have reason to believe, much more."
And, kneeling beside her bed, I told her impulsively of our concealed treasure behind the mirror (though I had once determined never to reveal this to her or any one) —treasure guarded so long by me with bolt by night and vigilance by day! ”

“ I interrupted, derisively. "Truly you surprise me."
"O Miriam! how can you treat me with such heartless levity?" and he wrung his hands bitterly. "I am pushed to desperation already. I never knew, until I lost you, what you were to me; how superior to all other women, how pure, how unworldly, how strong, how rich in all mental and womanly endowments! Hear me, Miriam," and he attempted to take my hand, an error of which he was soon made conscious.
"Claude Bainrothe," I said, sternly, "I can tolerate you on one condition alone—that you respect me. ”

“ I would say; "something is wrong with you. Is it about my father? If not of him, what is it, Evelyn, that makes your face like a stone mask of late—once all life and joy?" "Miriam, I am not quite well," she would reply evasively, or say, "I am meditating a step that will cost me dear. My uncle, the Earl of Pomfret, the head of our house since my grandfather's death, you know, writes me to visit him. It is this fatal necessity—for such for some reasons I feel it—that oppresses me so heavily."
"Why a necessity, dear Evelyn, why go at all? ”

“ Well might the dear old chimes ring out their Sabbath welcome to one who had obeyed their summons from her childhood up to womanhood! Well might the summer air bear on its wings greeting of familiar odors, lost and found!
This was no idle dream, no mirage of a vagrant brain like that sea-picture, or that wild vision at Beauseincourt, but sober, and sad, and strange reality. I understood my position from that moment, geographically as well as physically. I was a prisoner in the house of Basil Bainrothe (while he, perchance, reigned lordly in my own) ”

“ He has a manufacturer's heart, with all his genius. He loves machinery—the sound of the mill, the anvil, the spinning-jenny, the sight of the ship upon the high-seas, or steamboat on the river, the roar of commerce, far more than the work of the husbandman. We are an agricultural people, we of the South and West—and especially we Southerners, with our poverty of invention, our one staple, our otherwise helpless habits, incident to the institution which, however it may be our curse, is still our wealth, and to which, for the present time, we are bound, Ixion-like, by every law of necessity. ”

“ You can still wear black, you know; I shall be Morning, and Mabel, Hesper. Now, won't it be a lovely idea? Hesper, you know, is both morning and evening star, and can hover between us, bearing a torch, and dressed à la Grecque. Is not that appropriate—our little link of sisterhood? It cannot fail to make an impression. I consider it, myself, a capital idea. You can wear your mother's diamonds at last, which Mr. Bainrothe means to hand over to you to-morrow as your birthday gift—not that, exactly, either," seeing my rising scorn, "but as a token of respect suitable for the occasion. ”

“ You surpass Evelyn as rubies do garnets, or diamonds aqua marine, or sapphires the opaque turquoise. You do, indeed, my dear," and he attempted to take my hand in the old fashion. I murmured something indicative of my disapprobation.
"It is an exquisite hand!" he remarked, as I coldly drew it away; "I have an artist's eye, and can admire beauty in the abstract, even though I am an old man, you know."
"Admire it also at a distance, I beg, hereafter," I said, bowing coldly, smiling very bitterly, I fear, with lips white with anger and disgust.
"Those scars, Miriam!" ”

“ Evelyn preferred a public school, and was sent, at her own request, to a fashionable establishment in the city attended by the élite alone, as the enormous prices charged for tuition indicated, as a day-boarder. There she became proficient in mere mechanical music—her ear being a poor one naturally—and learned to speak two languages, dance to perfection, and conduct herself like a high-bred woman of fashion on all occasions and in all emergencies—each and all necessities for a belle, which, it may be remembered, she had aspired to be, and announced her intention of becoming. ”

“ It was a great delight to me, in spite of the shadow Evelyn's grief threw over our threshold, to stand once more as mistress in my father's house, even in the wreck of fortune, and control the education and destiny of my young sister. Little Ernie, too, had his place in the household as son by adoption, and grew daily stronger and more vigorous in our sight, the thoughtful, loving, and reticent child, heralding the man of power, affection, and principle, that he has become. ”

“ I thought that the noble dog Ossian came to me again and laid the double-footed key upon my lap, as he had done at Beauseincourt—staining my white dress with blood, not mud, this time, and that Colonel La Vigne struck it furiously to the floor, and handed me instead the wooden one I had carved, with the words of the proverb:
"The opportunity lost is like the arrow sped: it comes no more. Your wooden key will fail you next time, as it has failed you this, and you will be baffled—baffled—as you tried to baffle me! Miriam, unseen I pursue you!" ”