Winter Evening Tales

"I knew some catastrophe was impending, Eleanor; I have felt it all day. Poor Eleanor!"

"Now, Alice, be reasonable. What do you think of him—honestly, you know?"

"The man has excellent qualities; for instance, a perfect taste in cravats and an irreproachable propriety. Nobody ever saw him in any position out of the proper centre of gravity. Now, there is Carrol, always sitting round on tables or easels, or if on a chair, on the back or arms, or any way but as other Christians sit. Then Mr. Smith is handsome; very much so."

"Oh, you do admit that?"

"Yes; but I don't myself like men of the hairdresser style of beauty."

"Alice, what makes you dislike him so much?"

"Indeed, I don't, Eleanor. I think he is very 'nice,' and very respectable. Every one will say, 'What a suitable match!' and I dare say you will be very happy. He will do everything you tell him to do, Eleanor; and—oh dear me!—how I should hate a husband of that kind!"

"You little hypocrite!—with your talk of woman's 'rights' and woman's supremacy.'"

"No, Eleanor love, don't call it hypocrisy, please; say many-sidedness—it is a more womanly definition. But if it is really to be so, then I wish you joy, cousin. And what are you going to wear?"

This subject proved sufficiently attractive to keep Alice awake a couple of hours. She even crimped her hair in honor of the bridal shopping; and before matters had been satisfactorily arranged she was so full of anticipated pleasures that she felt really grateful to the author of them, and permitted herself to speak with enthusiasm of the bridegroom.

"He'll be a sight to see, Eleanor, on his marriage day. There won't be a handsomer man, nor a better dressed man, in America, and his clothes will all come from Paris, I dare say."

"I think we will go to Paris first." Then Eleanor went into a graphic description of the glories and pleasures of Paris, as she had experienced them during her first bridal tour. "It is the most fascinating city in the world, Alice."

"I dare say, but it is a ridiculous shame having it in such an out-of-the-way place. What is the use of having a Paris, when one has to sail three thousand miles to get at it? Eleanor, I feel that I shall have to go."

"So you shall, dear; I won't go without you."

"Oh, no, darling; not with Mr. Smith: I really could not. I shall have to try and manage matters with Mr. Carrol. We shall quarrel all the way across, of course, but then—"

"Why don't you adopt his opinions, Alice?"

"I intend to—for a little while; but it is impossible to go on with the same set of opinions forever. Just think how dull conversation would become!"

"Well, dear, you may go to sleep now, for mind, I shall want you down to breakfast before eleven. I have given 'Somebody' permission to call at five o'clock to-morrow—or rather to-day—and we shall have a tete-à-tete tea."

Alice determined that it should be strictly tete-à-tete. She went to spend the afternoon with Carrol's sisters, and stayed until she thought the lovers had had ample time to make their vows and arrange their wedding.

There was a little pout on her lips as she left Carrol outside the door, and slowly bent her steps to Eleanor's private parlor. She was trying to make up her mind to be civil to her cousin's new husband-elect, and the temptation to be anything else was very strong.

"I shall be dreadfully in the way—his way, I mean—and he will want to send me out of the room, and I shall not go—no, not if I fall asleep on a chair looking at him."

With this decision, the most amiable she could reach, Alice entered the parlor. Eleanor was alone, and there was a pale, angry look on her face Alice could not understand.

"Shut the door, dear."

"Alone?"

"I have been so all evening."

"Have you quarreled with Mr. Smith?"

"Mr. Smith did not call."

"Not come!"

"Nor yet sent any apology."

The two women sat looking into each other's faces a few moments, both white and silent.

"What will you do, Eleanor?"

"Nothing."

"But he may be sick, or he may not have got your letter. Such queer mistakes do happen."

"Parker took it to his hotel; the clerk said he was still in his room; it was sent to him in Parker's sight and hearing. There is not any doubt but that he received it."

"Well, suppose he did not. Still, if he really cares for you, he is hardly likely to take your supposed silence for an absolute refusal. I have said 'No' to Carrol a dozen times, and he won't stay 'noed.' Mr. Smith will be sure to ask for a personal interview."

Eleanor answered drearily: "I suppose he will pay me that respect;" but through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white feather of mistrust. She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr. Smith. If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when she had—however innocently—given him the keenest personal slight?

Still she wished to accept Alice's cheerful view of the affair, and what is heartily wished is half accomplished. Ere she fell asleep she had quite decided that her lover would call the following day, and her thoughts were busy with the pleasant amends she would make him for any anxiety he might have suffered.

But Mr. Smith did not call the following day, nor on many following ones, and a casual lady visitor destroyed Eleanor's last hope that he would ever call again, for, after a little desultory gossip, she said, "You will miss Mr. Smith very much at your receptions, and brother Sam says he is to be away two years."

"So long?" asked Eleanor, with perfect calmness.

"I believe so. I thought the move very sudden, but Sam says he has been talking about the trip for six months."

"Really!—Alice, dear, won't you bring that piece of Burslam pottery for Mrs. Hollis to look at?"

So the wonderful cup and saucer were brought, and they caused a diversion so complete that Mr. Smith and his eccentric move were not named again during the visit. Nor, indeed, much after it. "What is the use of discussing a hopelessly disagreeable subject?" said Eleanor to Alice's first offer of sympathy. To tell the truth, the mere mention of the subject made her cross, for young women of the finest fortunes do not necessarily possess the finest tempers.

Carrol's next visit was looked for with a good deal of interest. Naturally it was thought that he would know all about his friend's singular conduct. But he professed to be as much puzzled as Alice. "He supposed it was something about Mrs. Bethune; he had always told Smith not to take a pretty, rich woman like her into his calculations. For his part, if he had been desirous of marrying an heiress, and felt that he had a gift that way, he should have looked out a rich German girl; they had less nonsense about them," etc.

That was how the affair ended as far as Eleanor was concerned. Of course she suffered, but she was not of that generation of women who parade their suffering. Beautiful and self-respecting, she was, above all, endowed with physical self-control. Even Alice was spared the hysterical sobbings and faintings and other signs of pathological distress common to weak women.

Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor Bethune's heartache for love never led her to the smallest social impropriety. Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise and cummin due to her position.

Eleanor's reticence, however, had this good effect—it compelled Alice to talk Smith's singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all, it was Alice's and not Eleanor's bridal shopping that was to do. And there is something very assuaging to grief in this occupation. Before it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny temper.

"Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!" said Alice, thankfully, to herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.

At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol's influence was paramount. "We have got a better idea, Eleanor—quite a novel one," she said, one morning. "We are going to make our bridal trip in Carrol's yacht!"

"Whose idea is that?"

"Carrol's and mine too, of course. Carrol says it is the jolliest life. You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you. You issue your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy conscience"

"But I thought you were bent on a European trip?"

"The yacht will be ever so much nicer. Think of the nuisance of ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome letters waiting for you at your banker's, and disagreeable paragraphs in the newspapers. I think Carrol's idea is splendid."

So the marriage took place at the end of the season, and Alice and Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown. Eleanor was at a loss what to do with herself. She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them together. It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was out of the question.

While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid—a beautiful girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid. "I am going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune," she said. "Papa has heard wonderful stories about it. Come with our party. We shall have a special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty."

"And I love the mountains, Celeste. I will join you with pleasure. I was dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be delightful."

Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver. It was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver. Suddenly the look of intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and annoyance. It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never thought of shirking it.

So she immediately inquired her way to the telegraph office, and even quickened her steps into as fast a walk as she ever permitted herself. The message she had to send was a peculiar and not a pleasant one. At first she thought it would hardly be possible for her to frame it in such words as she would care to dictate to strangers; but she firmly settled on the following form:

"Messrs. Locke & Lord:

"Tell brother Edward that Bloom is in Denver. No delay. The matter is of the greatest importance."

When she had dictated the message, the clerk said, "Two dollars, madam." But greatly to Eleanor's annoyance her purse was not in her pocket, and she could not remember whether she had put it there or not. The man stood looking at her in an expectant way; she felt that any delay about the message might be fatal to its worth; perplexity and uncertainty ruled her absolutely. She was about to explain her dilemma, and return to her hotel for money, when a gentleman, who had heard and watched the whole proceeding, said:

"Madam, I perceive that time is of great importance to you, and that you have lost your purse; allow me to pay for the message. You can return the money if you wish. My name is William Smith. I am staying at the 'American.'"

"Thank you, sir. The message is of the gravest importance to my brother. I gratefully accept your offer."

Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor's party; so that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands. It was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which, even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger's offer of money for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted. She had seen in the door of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother's, and his speedy arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.

This Mr. William Smith was a totally different man to Eleanor's last lover—a bright, energetic, alert business man, decidedly handsome and gentlemanly. Though his name was greatly against him in Eleanor's prejudices, she found herself quite unable to resist the cheery, pleasant influence he carried with him. And it was evident from the very first day of their acquaintance that Mr. William Smith had but one thought—the winning of Eleanor Bethune.

When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.

But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to her that no change could make her happier.

But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he whispered this opinion to her.

"It is only four months since we met, dear."

"Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four months before that. Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you. On the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to look after the Silver Cliff Mine. My carriage was ordered, and I was waiting at my hotel for it. A servant brought me a letter—the dearest, sweetest little letter—see, here it is!" and this William Smith absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first William Smith's offer.

Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.

"What did you think, dear?"

"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was not going to seek up any other W. Smith."

"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it was intended for me. I can imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W. Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was coming back to New York to look for you."

"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."

"Only think of that! Why, love, when that blessed telegraph clerk said, 'Who sends this message?' and you said, 'Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,' I wanted to fling my hat to the sky. I did not lose my head as badly when they found that new lead in the Silver Cliff."

"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was written to the wrong Smith."

"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith. Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what you like with the letter."

Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.

THE STORY OF MARY NEIL

Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty—where with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being prepared for the heavenly temple.

This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.

Nay, but children walk where strong men fall down, and young maidens enter the kingdom while yet their parents are stumbling where no light from the Golden City and "the Land very far off" reaches them. Last winter I became very much interested in such a case. I was going to write "Poor Mary Neil!" but that would have been the strangest misnomer. Happy Mary Neil! rises impetuously from my heart to contradict my pen.

And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was "poor" in every bitter sense of the word.

A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears," what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.

Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she needed—a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.

Souls ripen quickly in the atmosphere of the Border Land, and very soon Mary had learned how to walk without fearing any evil. Certain passages of Scripture burned with a supernatural glory, and made the darkness light; and there were also a few hymns which struck the finest chords in her heart, and

"'Mid days of keenest anguishAnd nights devoid of ease,Filled all her soul with musicOf wondrous melodies."

As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been here that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then solemnly repeated:

"Saviour, what means this breadth of death,This space before me lying;These deeps where life so lingereth,This difficulty of dying?So many turns abrupt and rude,Such ever-shifting grounds,Such strangely peopled solitudes,Such strangely silent sounds?'"

Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines from the same grand hymn:

"Deeper! dark, dark, but yet I follow:Tighten, dear Lord, thy clasp."

Ah! there was something touching and noble beyond all words, in this complete reliance and perfect trust; and it never again wavered.

"Is it very dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the last for her on earth.

"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold my hand."

After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive, while that greatest of all struggles was going on—the struggle of the Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn and anxious:

"Who are we trying to avoid?From whom, Lord, must we hide?Oh! can the dying be decoyed,With the Saviour by his side?"

"Loose sands and all things sinking!" "Are we near eternity?" "Can I fall from Thee even now?" and ejaculations of similar kind, showed that the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding, and you would have said that she was dead but for a vague look of expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer on her lips:

"Both hands, dear Lord, both hands.'"

Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the dark river almost dry shod.

"Rests she not well whose pilgrim staff and shoonLie in her tent—for on the golden streetShe walks and stumbles not on roads star strewnWith her unsandalled feet."

THE HEIRESS OF KURSTON CHACE

Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and excitement had come—the master was returning with a young bride, whom report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty. It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor and extravagant.

For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers, had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds, was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.

It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind to all her faults; deaf to all his friends—in the glamour of her enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.

Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over, nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the reward of her seductive attentions came.

"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."

She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made herself marvelous.

"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."

In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."

"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."

"Impossible, Tina! No modiste in the world could get the things that are absolutely necessary ready in that time."

"Everything is possible in New York—if you have money—and Uncle Gray will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering dinners and running up bills, the better."

"Poor Philip Lee!"

"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor lawyer—especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr. Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations he is sure to indulge in."

In this supposition Clementina was mistaken. Philip Lee took the news of her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish for her happiness. He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.