CHAPTER XIV.

"What! old, and rich, and childless, too, And yet believe my friends are true? Truth might, perhaps, to those belong, To those who loved me poor and young; But, trust me, for the new I have, They'll love me dearly--in my grave."

Dr. Hugh was suavity and amiability itself; his host was courteous and attentive; I only, of the party, was abstracted and silent, and could not enter, with any interest, into the discussions, political, social, and educational, to which the medical guest led the way. He frequently appealed to me, but I answered mechanically and at random, and was soon involved in my own thoughts again, while the two gentlemen carried on the conversation learnedly enough between themselves. Though Dr. Hugh showed equal readiness in argument, and had, moreover, the advantage of choosing his topics in all cases, I could not help contrasting the brusque inelegance of his tone with the well-bred ease and quiet of Mr. Rutledge's. One was trying to please and to _appear_, the other was simply _being_ what was innate and habitual.

Altogether the doctor was, on this occasion, the most animated and chatty of the trio at the tea-table, and though Mr. Rutledge did a proper share of the talking, still his manner was not unreserved, either to his guest or to me. Whether this was the effect of the change in his feelings toward me, or only the presence of a third party, I could not tell; but it was very tormenting, and made the doctor's stay unbearably tedious, and the termination of it an unspeakable relief. When the hall door closed behind him, however, I could have wished him back, for it was even worse to find myself alone with Mr. Rutledge, for the first time since the strange night of which I had so many strange recollections. Since then, was he alienated or altered, or had he forgotten his interest in me during the days of absence that had intervened? His voice brought the perplexing reverie to an end, and dispelled the doubts forever "Now that that tiresome doctor has taken himself off," he said, in a tone so changed and so divested of its reserve, that it almost startled me, "perhaps you'll have the grace to come to me, and tell me how glad you are to be home again." He held out his hand, and I was by his side in a moment. "'Home is not home without thee,'" he said. "What, I should like to be informed, am I to do when you're gone 'for good,' as this Yankee gentleman would say?"

Surprise and pleasure brightened my face, and I had some saucy words on my lips, when the door softly opened, and _the doctor_ stood hesitatingly on the threshold, apologizing for his abrupt return and entrance, on the ground of having forgotten to impress upon the young lady the importance of continuing the powders she had been taking. He had not thought of this neglect of his till he had actually got into his buggy at the door, and then remembered it "on a sudden," and was so much alarmed at thinking what the consequences might be, that he had sprung out, and hurried in to give a parting charge on the subject. Every three hours, he reiterated, and then apologized again to Mr. Rutledge for the interruption.

Mr. Rutledge received his apologies rather stiffly, and begged him to be easy on the matter of the powders; he had no doubt the young lady would follow his advice implicitly, and he trusted the result would be as gratifying as Dr. Hugh himself could wish. And the gentlemen both bowed, and Mr. Rutledge accompanied his guest to the door with undiminished politeness, but with a slight contraction of the brow, that augured ill for the doctor's cause.

There was much expression in the doctor's parting salutation to me; his glance had been rapid, but he had not omitted, in his observation, the total change of attitude, expression and voice, that had ensued upon his withdrawing from the two people who had been so _distraits_ and undemonstrative all the evening; it was a significant fact, and he had not been slow to seize upon it. And I liked him less than ever after he left us for the second time that evening.

"Mr. Rutledge," I said, when he had returned from convoying the doctor to the door, "did you notice what a disagreeable impression Dr. Hugh seemed to make upon Tigre? He keeps at a little distance from him, and barks in the short, snappish way that he always does when the tortoise-shell cat prowls into the barn."

Mr. Rutledge smiled at the analogy I seemed to trace.

"I don't altogether fancy the man myself, but one must not be too readily influenced by fancies; no doubt he's very good in his way, and seems to be much more of a physician than old Sartain. It's a bad way to expect too much of people, and I hope you'll never get as much in the habit of it as I have always been."

With that he dismissed the subject, and presently pointing to the seat beside him, told me I need not think of saying good night yet, as he had a great deal to say to me. Without much reluctance, I sat down, and listened submissively.

"In the first place, you have not asked what your aunt says to this new delay."

"Well, what does she say?" I asked, a little uneasily.

"She says, that unless you arrive very shortly at New York, she shall feel herself obliged to leave all her pressing household cares, sick children, undisciplined servants, and come on for you in person."

"It's a new thing for her to be so anxious about me," I exclaimed, impatiently. "I was sick a month last summer at school, and she never suggested the idea of coming on to see me."

"Be that as it may, her anxiety at present knows no bounds, and I have in vain rendered the most elaborate accounts of your state, and in all ways endeavored to weaken her fears. This very afternoon I received another letter, more decided than the last in its request, that if you were able to be moved, you might be brought on immediately; if not, she would at once start for this place, and my answer was to be instantly communicated to her by telegraph."

"You have sent it?"

"Yes, three hours ago," he answered, looking at me attentively.

"Well, what did you tell her?"

"That we should start to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock."

I struggled hard to keep up, under the unexpected blow, and answered, as I bit my lip and choked down the tears:

"Very well, sir, I will try to be ready in time."

"The doctor says it will be perfectly safe," continued Mr. Rutledge, quietly.

"And there is no appeal from his opinion," I interrupted, tartly.

"I am so much better myself," he went on, as if he had not heard me, "that there is no imprudence in my attempting it; and I can see no objection to complying with your aunt's request immediately. Indeed, I feel that I could not do otherwise."

His indifferent way of speaking of what to me was such a vital matter, roused my pride less than it wounded my sensitiveness, and I had much ado to master myself enough to say:

"If you had had the goodness to tell me before, I need not have wasted this evening, but could have spent it in packing."

"You cannot have much to do, I am sure. Kitty can pack everything in the morning, and I thought it was best not to worry you by telling you of it before."

"I must go up immediately, however," I said, rising.

"I cannot let you go yet," he said, detaining me. "Do you remember this is the last evening you are to spend at Rutledge?"

"And what of that?"

"You ought to be sorry."

I shrugged my shoulders, and said, it was a pity I could not gratify his taste for the pathetic.

"Ah, nonsense, child!" he said, with a sudden change of manner, "we have so little time left, it's foolish to waste any of it in idle pretences. You may as well cry; I know you are sorry enough, I know you can hardly keep back your tears."

That broke down all my self-control; burying my face in my hands, I burst into a passion of tears. There was no use in attempting to command myself, and indeed I never thought of it. Mr. Rutledge took my hand, and attempted to draw it away from my face, then suddenly relinquishing it, walked rapidly once or twice across the room, returned, and sat down by me.

"You will make it harder than ever for me to let you go, if you cry so bitterly," he said, after a pause. "You will soon forget your grief, and be as happy in your new home as you have been here, while I shall, for a long while, miss you, and be lonely without you. Do you not see I have the most to regret?"

I shook my head, while the sobs came more chokingly than ever.

"Foolish child!" he said, "this is but a transitory feeling with you; it will vanish in the sunshine of to-morrow. In a week, you will have forgotten all about Rutledge."

Now my anger mastered my tears, and looking up, I exclaimed:

"You are always telling me I am a child! You are always treating me as if I were a senseless plaything! I am tired of it; I could almost hate you for it!"

He looked at my flashing eyes with a strange intentness, as if he would read me through and through. "But you are a child; it would be folly for me to treat you otherwise; how can I know that your affections and sensibilities are other than those of any ardent, impetuous child?"

With an impatient gesture, I interrupted him; and turning away, hid my face on the sofa again.

"That is the way!" he exclaimed. "No child could be more changeable; one moment, I have half a mind to think you are a woman, and the next, you turn away, and pout, and cry."

"You shan't have that to say of me again!" I exclaimed, conquering my tears with a huge effort, and raising my head. "I will be cold enough, if that's what you want. I won't trouble you with my tears again, even if you try to make me cry, as you did a little while ago. I can be as indifferent and unkind as you are yourself, if that will be any proof of my maturity and wisdom."

"Indifferent? Ah, there you show your childishness and ignorance more plainly than you think! Culpably indifferent and unkind!" he said, with a short laugh. "But," with a softening of his voice, "whatever there may have been of neglect or unkindness in my manner, remember, when you think of it hereafter, that there was nothing that answered to it, in my heart; remember that I shall never cease to feel the strongest interest in you, the kindest affection for you; remember, whenever you need a friend, you have promised to appeal to me. And remember, too," he continued, in a lighter tone, "all the rest of the engagements that you entered into, of which that bracelet is to be the souvenir. I have the greatest faith in it; I shall never feel very far separated from you, with this little key so near my heart," he said, touching the trinket on his chain.

"As for me," I exclaimed, bitterly, "I shall have to wear this bracelet as I've promised to; but I shall try my best to forget the giver and all about him! As for the promises, I don't care _that_ for them!" And in emphatic contempt I snapped my fingers.

Mr. Rutledge smiled, as if he knew enough about my indignation to bear up under it, and said, coaxingly and low:

"Ah, surely you're not going to desert me already; my little friend is the one thing in the world I care for, just now; what would be the result, if she were to turn faithless?"

I averted my head. "You should have been prepared for that when you took a child into your friendship."

"Ah! that rankles still, I see. Well, now, turn your face toward me, and look up, while I assure you, solemnly you know, and most sincerely, that I do not think you are childish in most things, that I do believe you are honest and true, and altogether, excepting a few pardonable caprices, as good a friend as one need desire. Doesn't that satisfy you? What could I say more flattering?"

"Oh! as to saying, you are unrivalled at that; it's the doing that you are deficient in. It's all very fine for you to call me your friend, and say how lonely you shall be without me, and all that style of thing; and then, in the next breath, tell me to get ready to go away to-morrow, and remark that you cannot see the least objection to my aunt's plan--and look and laugh just as usual. That doesn't seem much like meaning what you say, surely!"

"But what," he said, "would you have me do? If it made me perfectly miserable to part with you, it is still my duty to do it. Tell me any way of getting out of it."

"Let me stay at Rutledge," I exclaimed, turning toward him with pleading eyes; "just let me stay here. I hate New York, I hate society, I don't even know my aunt; and here I am so happy, and I have just got used to it all, and am beginning to feel at home, and it is cruel to take me to another strange place! I will be so good and useful; I will study and improve myself, and help Mrs. Arnold with the school-children and the poor people, and keep Mrs. Roberts' accounts, and read to you, and write your letters, and be just as good and obedient as possible; not in the least self-willed, not a bit unlady-like. Just try," I went on, coaxingly; "you will not know me, I shall be so amiable!"

"But," he said, with a strange mixture of fondness and irony in his tone, "what would _Madame votre tante_ say to such an arrangement?"

"She would say, of course, that if I wanted to, I was very welcome to stay; she has daughters enough already, and not having seen me, she can't be expected to know whether she wants me or not."

"Very well; supposing for a moment, that your aunt had given her consent, and that there was no obstacle in the way of your remaining here, how many weeks do you suppose it would be before you would begin to think regretfully of the gay life you had given up, and the pleasures you had put out of your power, before you would begin to sigh for companions of your own age, and excitements greater than your life here could offer? Believe me, it would not be long before you would be thoroughly 'aweary' of the quiet routine of Rutledge, and thoroughly tired of your bargain."

I protested against this injustice, and exhausted every argument to prove my superiority to such fickleness, but Mr. Rutledge remained unconvinced.

"I do not say you are more fickle than are all other untamed young things of seventeen; it isn't your fault that you are not older and wiser; it is my misfortune. In the nature of things, you cannot stay forever ignorant and innocent, and indifferent to the world--

"'Let the wild falcon soar her swing, She'll stoop when she has tired her wing.'"

"It's very strange," I said, "that you should tell me I must put myself in the way of the very temptations that you were so earnest in cautioning me against not long ago. Why must I go into society, when I don't want it? Why must I try the snares of the world, when, in reality, I am best content away from it?"

"You must first know what it is you renounce, my pretty child; you must first see what other places are like, before you can judge whether Rutledge will content you, and what other friends are like, before you can tell how worthy of your affection this first one is. Wait till you are a little older; wait a year or two, and then if you still turn to Rutledge, it is your home forever."

Wait a year or two! If he had said, "Wait till the early part of the twentieth century," it could hardly have seemed a more insupportable term of banishment.

"Ah!" he said, with a sigh, "a year or two seems an age to you now; when you have passed through as many as I have, you'll begin to realize how short they are, how very small a part of a life they form, and how very quickly they pass."

I shook my head. "They would go soon enough if there was anything pleasant to mark them; but if they are to be passed in longing for their end, they will be ages indeed."

"No fear that the next two or three years of your life will be passed in that way, my friend. It would be a heavy blow, indeed, that would take the elasticity out of your spirit, and daunt the courage that I know will make your life a worthy one. Be true to yourself; keep your heart pure, and the world will not hurt you; you will only see how far it is from satisfying you."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, "if I might never have to go in it! If I could _only_ stay here. You can't understand how miserable it makes me to go among strangers again. And I am so fond of this place! You need not be afraid that I shall get tired of it; I don't get tired of people and places when once I like them. Do you suppose I ever was tired of my own dear home, or ever would have been, if I had not been taken away from it?"

And at that recollection the tears came blindingly into my eyes.

"You have never told me about your home. Were you happy there?" he asked, kindly. "Tell me about it."

It seemed strange when I remembered it, but it did not seem so at the time, that I should tell him what I had never told to the dearest of my confidants, had never before put into words; but there was a sympathy in his tone that was irresistible; for the time, my grief seemed his; I did not wonder why his interest was so strong in my recollections; I did not think it strange that tears shone in his eyes when they filled mine, nor that his voice trembled as he told me of his sympathy; he was my friend; he was kinder and better than any one else in the world; that was enough.

"Poor little homesick child, you must have been miserable enough, among so many strange faces, with such an aching heart. It was a cruel thing to send you off so far, without a single familiar face to comfort you, and so soon after such a shock."

"Aunt Edith thought it was best for me, I suppose. Perhaps it was; that is, if it is best for anything living to be wholly miserable, it was very good for me. And now," I went on, turning to him, beseechingly, "how can you know whether it's best for me to be sent away from here? I shall be dreadfully homesick there, I know; I shall be so strange and forlorn among all those gay people; I know you will be sorry if you don't let me stay. I know you will say, when it is too late, 'she was right after all; I should not have made her go.' You will miss me, I know you will. Think how dreary the long evenings will be, and how lonely!"

"Ah! Don't appeal to my selfishness; let that slumber if it can; don't make my duty any harder than it is already. Be a good, self-denying child, as you have always been, and go because I think it is best for you, and because it is your duty to go, and mine to send you. Will you try?"

"Yes," I said, sadly, "if there's no help, I will try to make the best of it, and think as little as possible about what might have been, and as much as possible about what I ought to do."

"That's my brave little friend again! You haven't been with Mr. Shenstone without profit. He has made you already as philosophical as himself."

"If I could be near Mr. Shenstone," I said, with a sigh, "there would be some chance of my learning to control myself and be good. One can hardly help doing right, with his teaching."

"It may seem so to you," he answered, "and I acknowledge it is a great assistance; but, alas! good counsel cannot accomplish the warfare. If it could, those who have the benefit of Mr. Shenstone's would be fortunate indeed; but we have to struggle and conquer for ourselves; no one can do it for us."

"But you do not mean to say that it isn't the greatest advantage and comfort to have the advice and guidance of such a wise and holy man? You do not mean that you do not think Mr. Shenstone the best and the most devout of men?"

Mr. Rutledge smiled at my enthusiasm.

"Do not be afraid that Mr. Shenstone will suffer at my hands. He has been my guide and counsellor ever since I was younger than you; and so, you see, I have reason to know, experimentally, the value of his counsels, and the possibility of not doing right in spite of them. He is the noblest of men, the most clear-sighted and wise of counsellors, and my nearest and truest friend, and yet, for all that, I have often gone contrary to his rules, and, no doubt, often grieved his kind heart. But, so it goes! The human heart, you are aware, my young friend, is the very perversest of all created things. Now, at this very moment, would you believe it, I am doing what that same good and wise Mr. Shenstone has warned me not to do; and, moreover, mean to continue doing it."

I looked in astonishment.

"I wonder at you, sir. You will be sorry in the end. Mr. Shenstone, I am certain, knows better than you do."

"How can you possibly know? You cannot tell anything about the right of the case."

"No, of course I don't know anything about it; but from the nature of things, Mr. Shenstone is the most likely to be right. He's older than you, he's a clergyman, and--well--you will not be angry, but I think he is much less likely to be governed by his wishes than you, much more likely to see the right, and give up everything else for it, and to look at things clear of the mists that other people see them through. You know what I mean," I continued, "even though I don't express it very well; and oh! Mr. Rutledge, I am sure you must see, if you think about it at all, that it is very unwise in you to reject Mr. Shenstone's advice. The time may come when you'll regret it."

"Nevertheless, I shall do it."

From perversity, perhaps, as much as anything else, I continued to urge what I thought right. There was quite a fascination in contradicting and opposing Mr. Rutledge; it gave me a giddy sense of elation to think I dared do it, and though I did not gain my point, it diverted me from the thoughts of to-morrow's pain, till the clock struck, and I started up in alarm.

"It's only eleven, Cinderella; there's no need for such a frightened look. There is an hour left of your last evening at Rutledge."

"No, indeed; Kitty is waiting for me, and there is so much to be done before to-morrow at ten o'clock. Good night, sir."

"Ah, I see you are in a hurry; you are tired. Why didn't you go before? Ten is your usual hour."

The clock had struck another half hour before my last evening at Rutledge was ended--before the last good night was spoken at the library door, and, with a sad enough heart, I ascended the stairs, and traversed the dreary hall, where not even ghostly terrors would have had power to startle me from the heavy grief that was lying at my heart.

My room was cheerless; the candle died flickeringly as I opened the door; the fire was dead long since; poor Kitty, tired with waiting, had fallen asleep on the rug, with one of the sofa pillows under her head. I covered her softly with some shawls, wrapped one about myself, stole to the bay window, and leaning my forehead against the pane, cried as if my heart would break.