"Yes, my uncle commanded me to dismiss him, and I obeyed."

The work dropped from my hands, in my heartfelt disappointment. "Ah! then he knows of your engagement to Mr. Clavering?"

"Yes; he had not been in the house five minutes before Eleanore told him."

"Then she knew?"

"Yes," with a half sigh. "She could hardly help it. I was foolish enough to give her the cue in my first moment of joy and weakness. I did not think of the consequences; but I might have known. She is so conscientious."

"I do not call it conscientiousness to tell another's secrets," I returned.

"That is because you are not Eleanore."

Not having a reply for this, I said, "And so your uncle did not regard your engagement with favor?"

"Favor! Did I not tell you he would never allow me to marry an Englishman? He said he would sooner see me buried."

"And you yielded? Made no struggle? Let the hard, cruel man have his way?"

She was walking off to look again at that picture which had attracted her attention the time before, but at this word gave me one little sidelong look that was inexpressibly suggestive.

"I obeyed him when he commanded, if that is what you mean."

"And dismissed Mr. Clavering after having given him your word of honor to be his wife?"

"Why not, when I found I could not keep my word."

"Then you have decided not to marry him?"

She did not reply at once, but lifted her face mechanically to the picture.

"My uncle would tell you that I had decided to be governed wholly by his wishes!" she responded at last with what I felt was self-scornful bitterness.

Greatly disappointed, I burst into tears. "Oh, Mary!" I cried, "Oh, Mary!" and instantly blushed, startled that I had called her by her first name.

But she did not appear to notice.

"Have you any complaint to make?" she asked. "Is it not my manifest duty to be governed by my uncle's wishes? Has he not brought me up from childhood? lavished every luxury upon me? made me all I am, even to the love of riches which he has instilled into my soul with every gift he has thrown into my lap, every word he has dropped into my ear, since I was old enough to know what riches meant? Is it for me now to turn my back upon fostering care so wise, beneficent, and free, just because a man whom I have known some two weeks chances to offer me in exchange what he pleases to call his love?"

"But," I feebly essayed, convinced perhaps by the tone of sarcasm in which this was uttered that she was not far from my way of thinking after all, "if in two weeks you have learned to love this man more than everything else, even the riches which make your uncle's favor a thing of such moment-"

"Well," said she, "what then?"

"Why, then I would say, secure your happiness with the man of your choice, if you have to marry him in secret, trusting to your influence over your uncle to win the forgiveness he never can persistently deny."

You should have seen the arch expression which stole across her face at that. "Would it not be better," she asked, creeping to my arms, and laying her head on my shoulder, "would it not be better for me to make sure of that uncle's favor first, before undertaking the hazardous experiment of running away with a too ardent lover?"

Struck by her manner, I lifted her face and looked at it. It was one amused smile.

"Oh, my darling," said I, "you have not, then dismissed Mr. Clavering?"

"I have sent him away," she whispered demurely.

"But not without hope?"

She burst into a ringing laugh.

"Oh, you dear old Mamma Hubbard; what a matchmaker you are, to be sure! You appear as much interested as if you were the lover yourself."

"But tell me," I urged.

In a moment her serious mood returned. "He will wait for me," said she.

The next day I submitted to her the plan I had formed for her clandestine intercourse with Mr. Clavering. It was for them both to a.s.sume names, she taking mine, as one less liable to provoke conjecture than a strange name, and he that of LeRoy Robbins. The plan pleased her, and with the slight modification of a secret sign being used on the envelope, to distinguish her letters from mine, was at once adopted.

And so it was I took the fatal step that has involved me in all this trouble. With the gift of my name to this young girl to use as she would and sign what she would, I seemed to part with what was left me of judgment and discretion. Henceforth, I was only her scheming, planning, devoted slave; now copying the letters which she brought me, and enclosing them to the false name we had agreed upon, and now busying myself in devising ways to forward to her those which I received from him, without risk of discovery. Hannah was the medium we employed, as Mary felt it would not be wise for her to come too often to my house. To this girl's charge, then, I gave such notes as I could not forward in any other way, secure in the reticence of her nature, as well as in her inability to read, that these letters addressed to Mrs. Amy Belden would arrive at their proper destination without mishap. And I believe they always did. At all events, no difficulty that I ever heard of arose out of the use of this girl as a go-between.

But a change was at hand. Mr. Clavering, who had left an invalid mother in England, was suddenly summoned home. He prepared to go, but, flushed with love, distracted by doubts, smitten with the fear that, once withdrawn from the neighborhood of a woman so universally courted as Mary, he would stand small chance of retaining his position in her regard, he wrote to her, telling his fears and asking her to marry him before he went.

"Make me your husband, and I will follow your wishes in all things," he wrote. "The certainty that you are mine will make parting possible; without it, I cannot go; no, not if my mother should die without the comfort of saying good-bye to her only child."

By some chance she was in my house when I brought this letter from the post-office, and I shall never forget how she started when she read it. But, from looking as if she had received an insult, she speedily settled down into a calm consideration of the subject, writing and delivering into my charge for copying a few lines in which she promised to accede to his request, if he would agree to leave the public declaration of the marriage to her discretion, and consent to bid her farewell at the door of the church or wherever the ceremony of marriage should take place, never to come into her presence again till such declaration had been made. Of course this brought in a couple of days the sure response: "Anything, so you will be mine."

And Amy Belden's wits and powers of planning were all summoned into requisition for the second time, to devise how this matter could be arranged without subjecting the parties to the chance of detection. I found the thing very difficult. In the first place, it was essential that the marriage should come off within three days, Mr. Clavering having, upon the receipt of her letter, secured his pa.s.sage upon a steamer that sailed on the following Sat.u.r.day; and, next, both he and Miss Leavenworth were too conspicuous in their personal appearance to make it at all possible for them to be secretly married anywhere within gossiping distance of this place. And yet it was desirable that the scene of the ceremony should not be too far away, or the time occupied in effecting the journey to and from the place would necessitate an absence from the hotel on the part of Miss Leavenworth long enough to arouse the suspicions of Eleanore; something which Mary felt it wiser to avoid. Her uncle, I have forgotten to say, was not here-having gone away again shortly after the apparent dismissal of Mr. Clavering. F--, then, was the only town I could think of which combined the two advantages of distance and accessibility. Although upon the railroad, it was an insignificant place, and had, what was better yet, a very obscure man for its clergyman, living, which was best of all, not ten rods from the depot. If they could meet there? Making inquiries, I found that it could be done, and, all alive to the romance of the occasion, proceeded to plan the details.

And now I am coming to what might have caused the overthrow of the whole scheme: I allude to the detection on the part of Eleanore of the correspondence between Mary and Mr. Clavering. It happened thus. Hannah, who, in her frequent visits to my house, had grown very fond of my society, had come in to sit with me for a while one evening. She had not been in the house, however, more than ten minutes, before there came a knock at the front door; and going to it I saw Mary, as I supposed, from the long cloak she wore, standing before me. Thinking she had come with a letter for Mr. Clavering, I grasped her arm and drew her into the hall, saying, "Have you got it? I must post it to-night, or he will not receive it in time."

There I paused, for, the panting creature I had by the arm turning upon me, I saw myself confronted by a stranger.

"You have made a mistake," she cried. "I am Eleanore Leavenworth, and I have come for my girl Hannah. Is she here?"

I could only raise my hand in apprehension, and point to the girl sitting in the corner of the room before her. Miss Leavenworth immediately turned back.

"Hannah, I want you," said she, and would have left the house without another word, but I caught her by the arm.

"Oh, miss-" I began, but she gave me such a look, I dropped her arm.

"I have nothing to say to you!" she cried in a low, thrilling voice. "Do not detain me." And, with a glance to see if Hannah were following her, she went out.

For an hour I sat crouched on the stair just where she had left me. Then I went to bed, but I did not sleep a wink that night. You can imagine, then, my wonder when, with the first glow of the early morning light, Mary, looking more beautiful than ever, came running up the steps and into the room where I was, with the letter for Mr. Clavering trembling in her hand.

"Oh!" I cried in my joy and relief, "didn't she understand me, then?"

The gay look on Mary's face turned to one of reckless scorn. "If you mean Eleanore, yes. She is duly initiated, Mamma Hubbard. Knows that I love Mr. Clavering and write to him. I couldn't keep it secret after the mistake you made last evening; so I did the next best thing, told her the truth."

"Not that you were about to be married?"

"Certainly not. I don't believe in unnecessary communications."