"Oh, Aunt Debby! I think I know that Charlotty Gregory, who used to live in Leicester. She's Mrs. Reeves now, and the greatest lady in New York; rides in her carriage with colored coachman and footman in livery, wears a host of diamonds, and lives in a brownstone house up town."

"Wall, if I ever," Aunt Debby exclaimed, sitting down in her surprise on Mrs. Bartow's bonnet. "Reeves was the name, come to think. Drives a n.i.g.g.e.r, did you say? She used to be as black as one herself, but a clever, lively gal for all of that. With her first earnin's in the factory she bought her mother a calico gown, and her sister Betsey a pair of shoes."

"Betsey," repeated Jessie, turning to her grandmother, "that must be Mrs. Reeves' invalid sister, whom Charlotte calls Aunt Lizzie. Very few people ever see her."

"Wa'n't over bright," whispered Aunt Debby, continuing aloud: "How I'd like to see Miss Reeves once more. Give her my regrets, and tell her if I should ever come to the city I shall call on her; but she mustn't feel hurt if I don't. I'm getting old fast."

Jessie laughed aloud as she fancied Mrs. Reeves' amazement at receiving Aunt Debby's regrets, and as the omnibus was by that time at the door, she hastened her preparations, and soon stood at the gate, bidding her friends good-by. For an instant Walter held her hand in his, but his manner was constrained, and Jessie bit her lip to keep back the tears which finally found a lodgment on Ellen's neck. The two young girls were tenderly attached, and both wept bitterly at parting, Jessie crying for Ellen and Walter, too, and Ellen for Jessie and the man whom she, ere long, would meet.

"What shall I tell Will for you?" Jessie asked, leaning from the omnibus and looking in Ellen's face, which had never been so white and thin before.

From the maple tree above her head a withered leaf came rustling down, and fell upon Ellen's hair. Brushing it away, she answered mournfully:

"Tell him the leaves are beginning to fade."

"That's a strange message for her to send, but she speaks the truth,"

Walter thought, and after the omnibus had rolled away, and he walked slowly to the house, he felt that for him more than the leaves were fading,-that the blossoms of hope which he had nurtured in his heart were torn from their roots, and dying beneath the chilly breath of fashion and caste.

CHAPTER VII.-HUMAN NATURE.

It was the night of Charlotte Reeves' grand party, which had been talked about for weeks, and more than one pa.s.ser-by paused in the keen February air to look at the brilliantly-lighted house, where the song, the flirtation, the dance, and the gossip went on, and to which, at a late hour, Mrs. Bartow came, and with her Jessie Graham. Walter accompanied them, for Mr. Graham had asked him to be their escort, and Walter never refused a request from one who, since his residence in the city, had been to him like a father rather than a friend.

Mr. Graham had evinced much surprise when told that Walter would rather some other house should be his home, but Jessie, too, had said that it was better so, and looking into her eyes, which told more tales than she supposed, Mr. Graham saw that Walter was not indifferent to his only child, nor was he displeased that it was so, and when Walter came to the city he found to his surprise that he was not to be the clerk, but the junior partner of his friend, who treated him with a respect and thoughtful kindness which puzzled him greatly. Especially was he astonished when Mr. Graham, as he often did, asked him to go with Jessie to the places where he could not accompany her.

"He wishes to show me," he thought, "that after what I said to Mrs.

Bartow, he dare trust his daughter with me as if I were her brother,"

and Walter felt more determined than ever not to betray the trust, but to treat Jessie as a friend and nothing more.

So he called occasionally at the house, where he often found William Bellenger, and compelled himself to listen in silence to the flattering speeches his cousin made to Jessie, who, a good deal piqued at Walter's apparent coldness, received them far more complacently than she would otherwise have done, and so the gulf widened between them, while in the heart of each there was a restless pain, which neither the gay world in which Jessie lived, nor yet the busy one where Walter pa.s.sed his days, could dissipate. He had absented himself from Jessie's "come-out party,"

and for this offense the young lady had been sorely indignant.

"She wanted Charlotte Reeves and all the girls to see him, and then to be treated that way was perfectly horrid," and the beautiful belle pouted many a day over the young man's obstinacy.

But Charlotte Reeves did see him at last, and when she learned that he was Mr. Graham's partner, and much esteemed by that gentleman, she partially took him up as a card to be played whenever she wished to annoy William Bellenger, who kept an eye on her in case he should lose Jessie. The relationship between the two was not known, for Walter had no desire to speak of it, and as William vainly fancied it might reflect discredit on himself, he, too, kept silent on the subject, while Mrs.

Bartow, having received instructions both from Jessie and her father, never hinted to her bosom friend and deadliest enemy, Mrs. Reeves, that the young Marshall whom Charlotte was patronizing, and who was noticed by all for his gentlemanly bearing and handsome face, was in any way connected with the Bellenger disgrace.

After her return from Saratoga, Mrs. Reeves had been sick for several months, and at the time of the party was still an invalid, and claimed the privilege of sitting during the evening. Consequently Mrs. Bartow had not yet found a favorable opportunity for wounding her as she intended doing, and when, on the evening of the party, she entered the crowded rooms, she made her way to the sofa, and greeting the lady with her blandest words, told her how delighted she was to see her in society again, how much she had been missed, and all the other compliments which meant worse than nothing. Then taking a mental inventory of the different articles which made up her dear friend's dress and comparing them with her own, she set her costly fan in motion and watched to see which received the more attention,-Charlotte Reeves or Jessie. The latter certainly looked the best, as, arm in arm with Walter, she walked through the parlor, oblivious to all else in her delight at seeing him appear so much like himself as he did to-night.

"It's such a pity he's poor," said Mrs. Reeves, as he was pa.s.sing. "Do you know I think him by far the most distinguished looking man in the room, always excepting, of course, Mr. Bellenger," and she nodded apologetically to a little pale-faced lady sitting beside her on the sofa.

This lady she had not seen fit to introduce to her dear friend, who had scanned her a moment with her gla.s.s, and then p.r.o.nounced her "somebody."

Twice Walter and Jessie pa.s.sed, stopping the second time, while the latter received from her grandmother the whispered injunction "not to walk with him until everybody talked."

"Pshaw!" was Jessie's answer, while Mrs. Reeves slyly congratulated Mr.

Marshall on his good luck in having the belle of the evening so much to himself, and as they stood there thus the face of the little silent lady flashed with a sudden light, and touching Mrs. Reeves when they were gone, she said:

"Who was that young man? You called him Marshall, didn't you?"

"Yes, Walter Marshall, and he is Mr. Graham's partner. You know of Mr.

Graham,-people call him a millionaire, but my son says he don't believe it."

This last was lost upon the little lady, who cared nothing for Mr.

Graham, and who continued:

"Where did he come from?"

"Really, I don't know. Perhaps Mrs. Bartow can enlighten you," and Mrs.

Reeves went through with a form of introduction, speaking the stranger's name so low, that in the surrounding hum it was entirely lost on Mrs.

Bartow, who bowed, and briefly stated that Walter was from Deerwood, Ma.s.s.

The lady's hands worked nervously together, and when Walter again drew near, the white, thin face looked wistfully after him, while the lips moved as if they would call him back. He was disengaged at last. Jessie had another gallant in the person of William Bellenger, Mrs. Bartow's fan moved faster than before, and Mrs. Reeves was about to make some remark to her companion, when the latter rose, and crossing over to where Walter stood, said to him in a low, pleasant voice:

"Excuse me, Mr. Marshall, but would you object to walking with me,-an old lady?"

Walter started, and looking earnestly into the dark eyes, which were full of tears, offered her his arm, and the two were soon lost amid the gay throng.

"Who is she? I didn't understand the name," Mrs. Bartow asked, her lip dropping suddenly, as Mrs. Reeves replied:

"Why, that's the honorable Mrs. Bellenger, returned from a ten years'

residence abroad."

"Mrs. Bellenger," Mrs. Bartow repeated. "Is it possible? I have always had a great desire to make her acquaintance. How plain, and yet how elegantly she dresses."

"She is not the woman she used to be," returned Mrs. Reeves. "She is very much changed, and they say that during the last year of her sojourn in London she spent her time in distributing tracts among the poor, and all that sort of thing. I wonder what she wants of Mr. Marshall. Wasn't it queer the way she introduced herself to him?"

"Very," Mrs. Bartow said; but she thought, "not strange at all," and she was half tempted to tell her friend the relationship existing between the two.

This she would perhaps have done had not Mrs. Reeves at that moment directed her attention to William and Jessie, saying of the former that he seemed very unhappy.

"The fact is," she whispered, confidentially, "he never appears at ease unless he is somewhere near Charlotte. I think he monopolizes her altogether too much. I tell her so too. But she only laughs, and says he don't go with her any more than with Jessie Graham, though everybody knows he does. He likes Jessie, of course, but Charlotte is his first choice," and the old lady glanced complacently toward the spot where her sprightly granddaughter stood surrounded by a knot of admirers, each of whom had an eye to her father's coffers as well as to herself.

"The wretch!" thought Mrs. Bartow. "Just as though William preferred that great, long-necked thing to Jessie; but I'll be even with her yet.

I'll be revenged when Mrs. Bellenger comes back," and the fan moved rapidly as Mrs. Bartow thought how crest-fallen her dear friend would be when she said what she meant to say to her.

Meantime Mrs. Bellenger had led Walter to a little ante-room where they would be comparatively free from observation, and sitting down upon an ottoman, she bade him, too, be seated. He complied with her request, and then waited for her to speak, wondering much who she was, and why she had sought this interview with him. As Mrs. Reeves had said, Mrs.

Bellenger had for the last ten years resided in different parts of Europe. She had gone there with her husband and only surviving daughter, both of whom she had buried, one among the Grampian Hills, and the other upon the banks of the blue Rhine. Her youngest son, who was still unmarried, had joined her there, but he had become dissipated, and eighteen months before her return to America she had lain him in a drunkard's grave. With a breaking heart she returned to her lonely home in London, dating from that hour the commencement of another and better life, and now there was not in the whole world an humbler or more consistent Christian than the once haughty Mrs. Bellenger. Many and many a time, when away over the sea, had her thoughts gone back to her youngest born, the gentle brown-eyed Ellen, whom she had disowned because the man she chose was poor, and in bitterness of heart she had cried:

"Oh, that I had her with me now!"

Then, as she remembered the helpless infant which she had once held for a brief moment upon her lap, her heart yearned toward him with all a mother's love, and she said to herself:

"I will find the boy, and it may be he will comfort my old age."

On her return to Boston she went to the house of William's father, but everything there was cold and ostentatious. They greeted her warmly, it is true, and paid her marked attention, but she suspected they did it for the money she had in her possession, for the family was extravagant and deeply involved in debt. Once she asked if they knew anything of Ellen's child, and her son replied that he believed he was a clerk of some kind in New York, but none of the family had ever seen him save Will, who had met him once or twice, and who spoke of him as having a little of the Bellenger look and bearing.