Miss Plumer's head was also bent; she was waiting to hear the end of that sentence. She thought society opened beautifully. Such a handsome fellow in such a romantic spot, beginning his compliments in such a low, rich voice, with his hair almost brushing hers. But he did not finish. Abel Newt was perfectly silent. He glided away with Grace Plumer into grateful gloom, and her ears, exquisitely apprehensive, caught from his lips not a word further.

Lawrence Newt rose as Hope requested, and they moved away. She found her aunt, and stood by her side. The young men were brought up and presented, and submitted their observations upon the weather, asked her how she liked New York--were delighted to hear that she would pass the next winter in the city--would show her then that New York had some claim to attention even from a Bostonian--were charmed, really, with Mr. Bowdoin Beacon and--and--Mr. Alfred Dinks; at mention of which name they looked in her face in the most gentlemanly manner to see the red result, as if the remark had been a blister, but they saw only an unconscious abstraction in her own thoughts, mingled with an air of attention to what they were saying.

"Miss Hope," said Lawrence Newt, who approached her with a young woman by his side, "I want you to know my friend Amy Waring."

The two girls looked at each other and bowed. Then they shook hands with a curious cordiality.

Amy Waring had dark eyes--not round and hard and black--not ebony eyes, but soft, sympathetic eyes, in which you expect to see images as lovely as the Eastern traveler sees when he remembers home and looks in the drop held in the palm of the hand of the magician's boy. They had the fresh, unworn, moist light of flowers early in June mornings, when they are full of sun and dew. And there was the same transparent, rich, pure darkness in her complexion. It was not swarthy, nor black, nor gloomy.

It did not look half Indian, nor even olive. It was an illuminated shadow.

The two girls--they were women, rather--went together to a sofa and sat down. Hope Wayne's impulse was to lay her head upon her new friend's shoulder and cry; for Hope was prostrated by the unexpected vision of Abel, as a strong man is unnerved by sudden physical pain. She felt the overwhelming grief of a child, and longed to give way to it utterly.

"I am glad to know you, Miss Wayne!" said Amy Waring, in a cordial, cheerful voice, with a pleasant smile.

Hope bowed, and thanked her.

"I find that Mr. Newt's friends always prove to be mine," continued Amy.

"I am glad of it; but I don't know why I am his friend," said Hope. "I never saw him until to-day. He must have lived in Delafield. Do you know how that is?"

She found conversation a great relief, and longed to give way to a kind of proud, indignant volubility.

"No; but he seems to have lived every where, to have seen every thing, and to have known every body. A very useful acquaintance, I assure you!"

said Amy, smiling.

"Is he married?" asked Hope.

There was the least little blush upon Amy's cheek as she heard this question; but so slight, that if any body had thought he observed it, he would have looked again and said, "No, I was mistaken," Perhaps, too, there was the least little fluttering of a heart otherwise unconscious.

But words are like breezes that blow hither and thither, and the leaves upon the most secluded trees in the very inmost covert of the wood may sometimes feel a breath, and stir with responsive music before they are aware.

Amy Waring replied, pleasantly, that he was not married. Hope Wayne said, "What a pity!" Amy smiled, and asked,

"Why a pity?"

"Because such a man would be so happy if he were married, and would make others so happy! He has been in love, you may be sure."

"Yes," replied Amy; "I have no doubt of that. We don't see men of forty, or so, who have not been touched--"

"By what?" asked Lawrence Newt, who had come up silently, and now stood beside her.

"Yes, by what?" interposed Miss Fanny, who had been very busy during the whole evening, trying to get into her hands the threads of the various interests that she saw flying and streaming all around her. She had seen Mr. Alfred Dinks devoted to Miss Wayne, and was therefore confirmed in her belief that they were engaged. She had seen Abel flirting with Grace, and was therefore satisfied that he cared nothing about her. She had done the best she could with Alfred Dinks, but was extremely dissatisfied with her best; and, seeing Hope and Amy together, she had been hovering about them for a long time, anxious to overhear or to join in.

"Really," said Amy, looking up with a smile, "I was making a very innocent remark."

"Perfectly innocent, I'm sure!" replied Fanny, in her sweetest manner.

It was such a different sweetness from Amy Waring's, that Hope turned and looked very curiously at Miss Fanny.

"There are few men of forty who have not been in love," said Amy, calmly.

"That is what I was saying."

As there was only one man of forty, or near that age, in the little group, the appeal was evidently to him. Lawrence Newt looked at the three girls, with the swimming light in his eyes, half crushing them and smiling, so that every one of them felt, each in her own way, that they were as completely blinded by that smile as by a glare of sunlight--which also, like that smile, is warm, and not treacherous.

They could not see beyond the words, nor hope to.

"Miss Amy is right, as usual," said he.

"Why, Uncle Lawrence, tell us all about it!" said Fanny, with a hard, black smile in her eyes.

Uncle Lawrence was not in the slightest degree abashed.

"Fanny," said he, "I will speak to you in a parable. Remember, to _you_.

There was a farmer whose neighbor built a curious tower upon his land.

It was upon a hill, in a grove. The structure rose slowly, but public curiosity rose with fearful rapidity. The gossips gossiped about it in the public houses. Rumors of it stole up to the city, and down came reporters and special correspondents to describe it with an unctuous eloquence and picturesque splendor of style known only to them. The builder held his tongue, dear Fanny. The workmen speculated upon the subject, but their speculations were no more valuable than those of other people. They received private bribes to tell; and all the great newspapers announced that, at an enormous expense, they had secured the exclusive intelligence, and the exclusive intelligence was always wrong.

The country was in commotion, dear Fanny, about a simple tower that a man was building upon his land. But the wonder of wonders, and the exasperation of exasperations, was, that the farmer whose estate adjoined never so much as spoke of the tower--was never known to have asked about it--and, indeed, it was not clear that he knew of the building of any tower within a hundred miles of him. Of course, my dearest Fanny, a self-respecting Public Sentiment could not stand that. It was insulting to the public, which manifested so profound an interest in the tower, that the immediate neighbor should preserve so strict a silence, and such a perfectly tranquil mind. There are but two theories possible in regard to that man, said the self-respecting Public Sentiment: he is either a fool or a knave--probably a little of each. In any case he must be dealt with. So Public Sentiment accosted the farmer, and asked him if he were not aware that a mysterious tower was going up close to him, and that the public curiosity was sadly exercised about it? He replied that he was blessed with tolerable eyesight, and had seen the tower from the very first stone upward. Tell us, then, all about it! shrieked Public Sentiment. Ask the builder, if you want to know, said the farmer. But he won't tell us, and we want you to tell us, because we know that you must have asked him. Now what, in the name of pity!--what is that tower for?

I have never asked, replies the farmer. Never asked? shrieked Public Sentiment. Never, retorted Rusticus. And why, in the name of Heaven, have you never asked? cried the crowd. Because, said the farmer--"

Lawrence Newt looked at his auditors. "Are you listening, dear Fanny?"

"Yes, Uncle Lawrence."

"--because it's none of my business."

Lawrence Newt smiled; so did all the rest, including Fanny, who remarked that he might have told her in fewer words that she was impertinent.

"Yes, Fanny; but sometimes words help us to remember things. It is a great point gained when we have learned to hoe the potatoes in our own fields, and not vex our souls about our neighbor's towers."

Hope Wayne was not in the least abstracted. She was nervously alive to every thing that was said and done; and listened with a smile to Lawrence Newt's parable, liking him more and more.

The general restless distraction that precedes the breaking up of a party had now set in. People were moving, and rustling, and breaking off the ends of conversation. They began to go. A few said good-evening, and had had such a charming time! The rest gradually followed, until there was a universal departure. Grace Plumer was leaning upon Sligo Moultrie's arm. But where was Abel?

Hope Wayne's eyes looked every where. But her only glimpse of him during the evening had been that glimmering, dreadful moment in the conservatory. There he had remained ever since. There he still stood gazing through the door into the drawing-room, seeing but not seen--his mind a wild whirl of thoughts.

"What a fool I am!" thought Abel, bitterly. He was steadily asking himself, "Have--I--lost--Hope Wayne--before--I--had--won--her?"

CHAPTER XIX.

DOG-DAYS.

The great city roared, and steamed, and smoked. Along the hot, glaring streets by the river a few panting people hurried, clinging to the house wall for a thin strip of shade, too narrow even to cover their feet. All the windows of the stores were open, and within the offices, with a little thinking, a little turn of the pen, and a little tracing in ink, men were magically warding off impending disaster, or adding thousands to the thousands accumulated already--men, too, were writing without thinking, mechanically copying or posting, scribbling letters of form, with heads clear or heads aching, with hearts burning or cold; full of ambition and hope, or vaguely remembering country hill-sides and summer rambles--a day's fishing--a night's frolic--Sunday-school--singing-school, and the girl with the chip hat garlanded with sweet-brier; hearts longing and loving, regretting, hoping, and remembering, and all the while the faces above them calm and smooth, and the hands below them busily doing their part of the great work of the world.

In Wall Street there was restless running about. Men in white clothes and straw-hats darted in at doors, darted out of doors--carrying little books, and boxes, and bundles in their hands, nodding to each other as they passed, but all infected with the same fever; with brows half-wrinkled or tied up in hopeless seams of perplexity; with muttering pale lips, or lips round and red, and clearly the lips of clerks who had no great stakes at issue--a general rushing and hurrying as if every body were haunted by the fear of arriving too late every where, and losing all possible chances in every direction.

Within doors there were cool bank parlors and insurance offices, with long rows of comely clerks writing in those Russia red books which Thomas Tray loved--or wetting their fingers on little sponges in little glass dishes and counting whole fortunes in bank-notes--or perched high on office-stools eating apples--while Presidents and Directors, with shiny bald pates and bewigged heads, some heroically with permanent spectacles and others coyly and weakly with eye-glasses held in the hand, sat perusing the papers, telling the news, and gossiping about engagements, and marriages, and family rumors, and secrets with the air of practical men of the world, with no nonsense, no fanaticism, no fol-de-rol of any kind about them, but who profoundly believed the Burt theory that wives and daughters were a more sacred kind of property than sheep pastures, or even than the most satisfactory bond and mortgage.