How he gesticulated! She was comparatively calm. He is an ardent fellow, I can tell you, Joseph. Better have an eye on him."

Joseph did not know exactly what to say. He felt himself disloyal in listening; but still he was interested, and if he waited to hear more, he fancied he should be better able to defend Rose.

"The lady he had left--her with the blue veil--seemed to take her squire's sudden desertion in very bad part. She started and looked shocked at his departure, then bent forward where she sat, and looked, and listened. They were within a few yards of her, and she must have heard all that pa.s.sed. The disillusion must have been terrible. I saw her head bow lower and lower, as though all fort.i.tude were deserting her; and soon she seemed utterly crushed. She buried her head in her lap, and clasped her hands above it--a most pitiable spectacle.

"But that was not the worst. He certainly must be a man without pity or a spark of feeling. He actually had the cruelty to lead the other a little to one side, where she could have a view of the discarded rival. Was it not barbarous? This was too much for the other. It stung her into something like proper self-respect. As soon as the other turned away--and I will do the Hillyard girl the justice to say that she betrayed no sign of gratification at her rival's confusion--she jumped to her feet with a little cry, tied on her hat, and ran away up the hill, as if to hide herself among the trees. Then Miss Rose seemed suddenly to remember about you. She dismissed her admirer with the peremptory a.s.surance of an old hand, who knows exactly what she means to do, and strolled calmly across the sands to meet you coming back to her. She must have managed very well. I saw her leaning on your arm as friendly as possible--a clever girl, but a sad handful, I should imagine, for the man whose doubtful fortune it may be to get her for a wife."

"And now you have done, Susan, with your romance? Let me congratulate you on your talent for 'putting that and that together,' and producing a coherent fiction from true premisses, which might do credit to the author of the 'Arabian Nights.'"

"And pray, if the premisses are true, and nothing of my own is added, how can you venture to suppose that my inferences are astray? You are infatuated, Joseph Naylor."

"My good creature, the young lady has told me of this interview with the tall young man which you have described so graphically. It must indeed have been exciting and full of emotion, but you have entirely failed to catch its true import; and, as far as I can see, there is no reason why you should understand it, either you or any of the twenty other eavesdroppers you mention, who have been gratuitously interesting themselves in what does not concern them. Miss Hillyard is suffering from violent headache in consequence of what occurred, and has returned to the village to lie down. On second thoughts, I believe I shall follow her, and try if she will not let me drive her back to the Beach at once. That will be better than encountering the twenty pairs of curious eyes during the evening, who will want to watch her every movement, and piece a romance out of every time she looks at her watch. Goodbye, Susan. Accept thanks for kind intentions on my account; but do, pray, be more charitable in future. Good-bye, Margaret. I am going back at once, and shall be asleep when you get home. Kiss me good-night, child."

Margaret rose to pay the dutiful salute. Joseph kissed her on the cheek, and finding his lips so conveniently near her ear, he whispered--

"Walter's buggy will be the first in the line. He will be waiting. Get down before the others. Jump in; and G.o.d bless you!"

Margaret changed colour violently. Her mother, looking on, was surprised to see an embrace from an old uncle, produce signs of emotion. "It must be because of the young man sitting by," she thought sapiently, and drew happy auguries from the circ.u.mstance. Those close observers are so often astray!

When Joseph reached the inn at Blue Fish Creek, he sent up a little note to Rose, asking if she would not rather come home now in quiet, than wait through the racket of the evening, to be followed by a riotous journey after dark with the rest in their overflowing high spirits. Rose consented, and they drove home forthwith.

How different were Joseph's feelings now, from what they had been in the morning! Then, everything was bathed in sunshine and hope. The bare supposition that aught could go amiss did not once cross his mind. Now, he could not say what had befallen him, but a cloud had come down and enveloped him, and blotted out the future, and every certainty from his view, chilling his hopes and even his desires as with an untimely frost. The ring lay forgotten in his pocket. It did not occur to him to offer it again. If he had, the probability is that it would have been accepted, though perhaps without the enthusiasm which would have made the acceptance of value in his eyes.

Another phase of feeling had arisen in Rose's mind since her walk with Lettice. Her friend had betrayed a presentiment, that now Gilbert had had speech of her, he would win her back; and Rose revolted at the idea of figuring before her friends as a repentant naughty child. No; she had made her choice, and she would show that she could hold to it.

She might not be happy in the future, but at least she could be steadfast. And truly, the man beside her as she drove, so truthful and so good, deserved all the duty and devotion she could devote to him.

If she did not love as once she might have loved, at least he should never know it. She would be but the more dutiful on that account; she would even--what seemed the hardest thing of all to her headstrong nature--even obey him.

She was very near to him then, if Joseph had but known; but he did not. The old doubleness between his wife of long ago, and this heir to her place in his regard, had arisen anew within him, and it was still the older G.o.d who held the shrine. He felt regretfully tender and considerate to his companion by his side, but the enthusiasm of the morning was wanting.

They spoke little to one another as they travelled along. Rose was pale and had a splitting headache, and Joseph was consideration itself. He forbore to disturb her, a.s.sisted her to alight when they arrived at Clam Beach, and expressed a hope that she would be better in the morning, when they parted and she went up-stairs.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE LADY PRINc.i.p.aL.

The Princ.i.p.al of the Female College of Montpelier sat in her room--office, call it, or study--her seat of authority, absorbed in business. Her table was littered with papers; the waste-paper basket overflowed with them. There was ink before her, a pen in her hand. Her cap sat crooked on her head; her whitened hair was rumpled. The too active cerebration within had no doubt disturbed the external trimness of her dome of thought, as phrenologists used to tell us that it worked ridges and hollows in the bones of the skull. She was deep in thought. Her grey, intellectual features were tightened in the effort, and her eye roved vacantly in s.p.a.ce in search of those choice forms which had long made her style the model of literary expression in Montpelier.

She had spent the morning in compounding a syllabus, or a compendium--matters in the manufacture of which she was unrivalled.

Now she was considering her address on female self-culture, shortly to be delivered before the Inst.i.tute of Emanc.i.p.ated Woman, with a list of the hundred books which should form the inseparable companions of every female aspirant to Breadth of View. Her eye wandered to the terrestrial globe at her elbow--a symbol of her learned office, handed down from her predecessors in more simple-minded times; and she reviewed the distinguished literary reputations in remote places and times--the less vulgarly popular or comprehensible, the better for her purpose.

Ha! there was the Nile--Egypt--Manetho! A most respectable name Manetho, and not too much said about him. The only difficulty was, were his works extant? She was not sure, and her encyclopaedia was too old an edition to make it worth while looking up. Her eye moved eastward: India? _eureka!_ The Rig Veda,--Max Muller and the 'Asiatic Review'! She had read all about it in Littel's 'Living Age,' the pirate's treasure-house.

The Rig Veda should head her list. She had not read it, to be sure; but neither had those whom she addressed, and they would not be able to read it, if they were to try--in the original, at least, and she intended to pour scorn upon the use of translations; but it looked well at the head of a list, showed comprehensiveness in the lecturer, and ensured respect from the omniscient critic of the 'Montpelier Review.'

The 'Zend-Avesta' made a handsome second; but as she did not desire to smother her audience under the load of erudition, she considerately offered it as an alternative to the Rig Veda. "A Saga" came next--she did not specify which. Her familiarity with Scandinavian literature was not intimate enough to particularise; but as not one of her audience would know anything about it, that made little difference.

Being minded that nothing she said should savour of the too familiar, she gave Klopstock the first place in her German list rather than Goethe; and for the same reason Marlowe led off her English dramatists, with Shakespeare far down among the ruck. Then there were Hegel and Haekel, with permission to add the 'Critique of Pure Reason'

for those who relished intellectual nut-cracking. There was to have been a name or two from every tribe and tongue in Europe; but in her ignorance she could think of no Russian but Turguenief; and when she came to the Lapps, Finns, Liths, and Basques, they had no literary representative whom she had ever heard of. After that she took up a publisher's list and filled up the remaining sixty places at random.

What did it matter? People would read what they liked or understood.

If they did not understand, it could not influence them one way or other. She knew as well as you or I do, reader, that wheat is not grown on pure sand; that loams, clays, moulds, each produce a vegetation limited by their capacity; that everything will not grow everywhere, and that, if it could, it would not be worth much. But while the public laboured under the fad of comprehensiveness, she recognised that she, its servant, must be comprehensive too, or her employer would pay her off and get some one else who was up to its standard. No one person could read, or, if they could, would care to read, a tenth part of the literature upon her list; but that she considered the one useful element in what she was about. It introduced a moral influence. It would keep her audience humble--an end not always easy to achieve where that audience is feminine, and more richly endowed with aspiration than with solid learning--and show them how much there still was which they did not know, notwithstanding their acquirements.

There came a timid knock at the door, and a second, which the Princ.i.p.al heard; and laying down her pen she sat bolt-upright and said, "Come in."

It was Maida Springer who entered.

At the sight of her subordinate looking crushed and wan, the Princ.i.p.al's aspect softened. Her impatience of interruption gave place to those motherly instincts which nestled sweet and fresh about her heart, though usually sheltered and concealed from an uncongenial world under the dry husk of her superior-woman-hood.

"You--Maida?... I had almost given up hope of seeing you again. But have you been sick? You do not look much benefited by your stay at the sh.o.r.e--rather the other way."

Maida looked down. "I am well, Miss Rolph. I arrived by the night-train. I suppose that accounts for my--for my want of looks,"

and she sighed; but more for the want of looks, than for herself.

"Did my letter miscarry? It is nearly a fortnight since I wrote."

Maida coloured. "I got it, Miss Rolph, and I am come to thank you. I know I should have written at once; but--I meant to come instead.

Indeed I started, but--when----" Her voice died away. She looked down more than she had done before, and her colour deepened.

"What was it, my dear? What prevented your coming?"

Maida lifted her head, drew a long breath, and raised her eyes to Miss Rolph's face. Then the impossibility of uttering what there was to tell arose before her. She bowed her head till the hat-brim and the wisp of blue veil came down between her eyes and those of the Princ.i.p.al. She strained down her arms before her, locked the fingers of both hands together, and was speechless.

Miss Rolph was scarcely pleased that her kindly meant interest should be put aside; but she was not the woman to obtrude unwelcome sympathy.

She stiffened back to business, and observed with manifest coldness of voice--

"Your neglect may prove prejudicial to your interests, I fear; though perhaps not. It would have been great advancement for you, and quite a distinguished position, if you had been able to give the course on political economy and sociology. You would have been the first woman in this State to enter that important field. You would have made a name, and become a leader in our s.e.x's emanc.i.p.ation. On the other hand, I admit that I felt a misgiving as to whether your character was yet sufficiently formed for the post. The long ages of woman's subordination have communicated a weakness of moral fibre to the individual of today, which it requires maturity of years, experience, and study, to overcome. I have feared at times that I detected some remains of the old-fashioned missishness in your character, not yet subdued. A year or two longer in your present duties may be advantageous. I have arranged with Dr Langenwoert from Boston to lecture three times a-week next term. After that--who knows?--but it depends on yourself. The Committee believes, as you are aware, that female education should be confided to women alone. You have been appointed a professorial a.s.sistant _pro tem_. to Dr Langenwoert. Avail yourself of your opportunities. Study his methods; and who knows but you may succeed him?"

"Oh, Miss Rolph, how good you are! Forgive my seeming thanklessness,--but, indeed--oh, Miss Rolph!"

Maida came forward and took the Princ.i.p.al's hand. Her voice was too tremulous to be trusted; her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g full. She had entered that room feeling so lonely, desolate, and without a friend; and here, in her professional chief, with whom her intercourse had been limited to what related to her duties, was a woman who cared for her, bestowed consideration, and was kind. She could have kissed the hand--she would fain have kissed the lips which had spoken to her kindly; but Miss Rolph was so very superior a woman, so above and beyond female weakness!--and what was that which she had said just now about _missish?_

Miss Rolph wheeled round on her pivoted chair, and looked with her clear, cool eyes in the other's face.

"Maida Springer, you are in trouble! Tell me what it is. Am not I a woman? Confide in me. I know you have no mother. I would try to advise you as she might have done, though perhaps I am not quite old enough for that."

She might have spared the last observation, being fifty-five, while Maida was but thirty; but, good lady, though undeniably superior, she was still a woman.

Maida's eyes overflowed. This was kindness unexpected.

"Take a chair, my dear. Draw up close to me, and tell me all." And when Maida drew close, she laid a hand upon her shoulder, and one soothingly upon the fingers wringing themselves into knots in perturbed irresolution.

"I would--I would! But how? I cannot speak of it!"

"When people have done no wrong, there is nothing they need fear to tell--to a friend. Injuries and mistakes often seem lessened when we can bring ourselves to speak about them. A burden shared presses with but half the weight it did before. Confide in me, Maida, Unburden your trouble."

Maida's tears flowed freely. She made no effort to restrain them. They softened the dry crust of misery which encased her spirit. Her head inclined to her consoler. So did her heart in tender grat.i.tude. She caressed the soothing hand, but still the pent-up words refused to come. Miss Rolph waited in silence, but found at length that she must a.s.sist if the explanation was to be made.