Kate Beaumont

CHAPTER XII.

WE shall know in due time what success Kate had in pleading with Vincent to withdraw his challenge.

While the girl, aided by her grandfather, was resisting the demon of duels in the Beaumont house, Mr. Frank McAlister was maintaining an equally dubious contest with the same monster under his paternal roof-tree.

We must hurry over the scene of his arrival at home. There had been a pleasant family drama ; there had been warm welcome for the returned wanderer. The deliberate and solemn Judge was not the kind of man to fly into a spasm of emotion, like his excitable enemy, Peyt Beaumont ; but he had a calm sufficiency of the true parental stuff in him, and he was proud of his gigantic, handsome son, full of all the wisdom of the East; he gave him a vigorous hand - shaking, and looked for an instant like kissing him. Mrs. McAlister, a tall, pale, gray, mild, loving woman, took the Titan to her arms as if he were still an infant. Mary worshipped him, as girls are apt to worship older brothers, at least when they are big and handsome. Bruce, the eldest son, was all that a South Carolina gentleman should be on such an occasion. Wallace at once gloried in Frank’s grandeur and beauty, and wilted wofully under a sense of his own inferiority.

The story of the shipwreck was told to affectionately breathless listeners ; and then came, almost by necessity, the saving of Miss Beaumont from a watery grave.

“ I have some hope,” added Frank, with the blush of a man who feels far more than he says, “ that the incident may pave the way to a reconciliation of the families.”

“ Heaven grant it! ” murmured Mrs. McAlister, her face illuminated with hope of peace and perhaps with foresight of love and marriage.

Amen ! ” responded the Judge in a perfunctory, head-of-the-family, not to say beadle-like, manner. One of those model men who set an example, you know ; one of those saints who keep up appearances, even at home.

“ By George, it ought to,” muttered Wally, conscience-stricken about his duel. “It ought to bring about a reconciliation. But, by George, there’s no telling.”

Then, at a proper moment, when only the three brothers were together, came the story of the quarrel with Vincent. It must be understood that among the McAlisters duels were not such common property, such subjects of genial family conversation, as among the Beaumonts. The McAlisters fought as promptly as their rivals ; but, Scotchlike and Puritan-like, they treated fighting as a matter not to be bragged of and gossiped about ; they drew a decorous veil over their occasional excesses in the way of homicide. When a McAlister boy got into an unpleasantness, he never mentioned it to father, mother, or sister, not even after the shots had been exchanged. The Judge believed that duelling was sometimes necessary ; but he did not want to have the air of encouraging it: first, because he was a father and cared for his sons’ lives; second, because he had a certain character to maintain in the district. Mrs. McAlister, a religious and tender-hearted woman, looked upon the code of honor with steady horror. Mary tormented her brothers by crying over their perils, even when those perils had passed and were become glories.

We can imagine Frank’s disgust and grief when he learned that there was to be another Beaumont and McAlister duel. He pleaded against it; he inveighed against it; lie sermonized against it.

“ Frank, you make me think of converted cannibals coining home to preach to their tribe,” said Wallace, smiling amiably, but unmoved and unconvinced.

“ Who is your second ? ” asked Frank, hoping to find more wisdom in that assistant than in the principal.

“ Bruce,” replied Wallace with a queer grimace, somewhat in the way of an apology.

“ Bruce ! Your own brother ? ” exclaimed the confounded Frank. “ Why, that is horrible. And is n’t it something unheard of? It strikes me as an awful scandal.”

“It is unusual,” admitted Wallace. “ But Vincent Beaumont makes no objection to it, and, moreover, he has chosen his own connection, Bent Armitage. Besides,” he added, looking at his elder brother with an almost touching confidence, “ Bruce will fight me better than any other man could.”

Bruce McAlister was a man of about six feet, too slender and too lean to be handsome in a gladiatorial sense, but singularly graceful. Although not much above thirty, his face was haggard and marked by an air of lassitude. Me was a consumptive. Perhaps the disease had increased the charm of his expression. Mis large hazel eyes, sunk as they were in sombre hollows, had a melancholy tenderness which was almost more than human. His face was so gentle, so refined, so gracious, that it charmed at first sight. There was no resisting the sweet smile, the flattering bow and petting address of this man. He put strangers at ease in an instant ; he made them feel with a look that they were his valued friends ; he so impressed them in a minute that they never forgot him in all their lives. It would not be easy to find another man who had such an appearance of thinking altogether of others and not at all of himself.

“ It is an unusual step, Frank,” said Bruce, in a mellow, deep, and yet weak voice. “ It was of course not ventured upon without the full consent of the other party. I accepted the position solely with the hope of diminishing Wallace’s danger.”

“ Well ! ” assented Frank with a groan. “ And now, Bruce, tell me the whole thing. What is the exact value of the provocation ? ”

In a quiet tone and without a sign of indignation Bruce related the story of the difficulty.

“ Beaumont’s manner and words were irritatingly sarcastic,” he concluded. “ Wallace naturally resented it.”

“ Still, all that he said was — was parliamentary,” urged Frank. “ Wallace, I don’t want to judge you ; but it does seem to me that you might have spared your reply ; it was terribly severe. Could n’t you apologize? If I were in your place, I would. I would, indeed.”

Wallace stared, rubbed his head meditatively, and then shook it decidedly.

“ And for this you mean to fight ? ” pursued Frank. “Actually mean to draw a pistol on your fellow-man ? The whole thing— I mean the code duello — is a barbarity. I was brought up to reverence it. From this time I abjure it.”

“ Fight? Well, yes,” returned Wallace, again rubbing his prematurely bald crown ; not quite bald, either ; simply downy. “ Of course I will fight. Not that I admire fighting. It’s the reasoning of beasts, sir. And as for the duello, weil, I look on it as you do ; I consider it out of date, barbarous. But society — our society, I mean — demands it. If society says a gentleman must —noblesse oblige — why, that settles it. If it says a gentleman should wear a beaver,” lifting his hat and gesturing with it, “ why, he must get one. Disagreeable thing, ugly and uncomfortable ; just look at it. Look at my head, too. Bald at twenty-eight! That’s the work of a black, hot beaver. But since it’s the distinguishing topknot of a gentleman, I submit to it. Just so with the duello. I think it’s blasted nonsense, and yet I can’t ignore it. As for the Beaumonts, I don’t want to be shooting at Beaumonts. Just as willing to let them alone as to let anybody else alone. But when a Beaumont ruffles me, and society says, ‘Let’s see how he takes it,’ why I take it with pistols. Very sorry to do it, but don’t see how I can help it. I suppose my position is a weak one. Logic don’t support it, and God won’t approve it. Know all that. Not going to fool myself with trying to prove that I don’t know it. And, by George, I wish I could make my reason and practice agree. Wish I could, and know I can’t.”

“ Would you mind leaving this matter to our elders?” asked Frank, the idea of a family council occurring to him as it had occurred to Colonel Kershaw.

“ O Lord ! don’t ! ” begged Wallace. “ You could n’t beat me out of it, but you’d bother me awfully. You’d have mother on your side, sure, and she’s an army. Yes, by George, she ’s one of those armies that are marshalled by the Lord of hosts,” declared Wallace, stopping to meditate upon the perfections of his mother. “ She is a peacemaker,” he resumed. “ I ’ve heard her say that she almost regretted having a boy ; if her children were only all girls, this feud might have died out. By George, I would n’t mind being one of the girls. I might have been handsomer. I might have kept my hair, too ; not being obliged to wear a beaver.” Here he rubbed the “ fuzzy ” summit of his head with rueful humor. “ By heavens ! bald at twenty-eight ! It’s an ugly defect.”

He was so cheerful and resolute, notwithstanding the shadow of death which lay across his to-morrow, that Frank was in despair.

At this hopeless stage of the conversation a negro brought in word that “ Mars Bent Armitage wanted to see Mars Bruce.”

Bruce went to another room, received Armitage with an almost affectionate courtesy, talked with him tor a few moments in a low tone, and waited on him to his horse as tenderly as if he were a lady. When he returned to his two brothers there was in his usually melancholy eyes something like a smile of pleasure.

“ I am the bearer of remarkable news,” he said calmly. “ The duel can now be honorably avoided.”

“ How ? ” demanded the eager Frank.

“ What ! ” exclaimed the astonished Wallace.

“Hear this,” continued Bruce, opening a letter. “ ‘ On behalf of my principal, Mr. Vincent Beaumont, I withdraw the challenge sent to Mr. Wallace McAlister. The sole motive of this withdrawal is the sense of obligation on the part of Mr. Beaumont and his family toward Mr. Frank McAlister for saving the life of Miss Catherine Beaumont.’ Signed, Bentley Armitage.”

“ By George ! ” exclaimed Wallace, and continued to say By George for a considerable time. “ I owe him an apology,” he presently broke out. “ If I don’t owe him one, I’ll give him one. Bruce, write me an apology, won’t you ? By heavens, I never thought a Beaumont could be so human. Anything, Bruce ; I ’ll sign anything. This is new times, something like the millennium. What would our ancestors say? Frank, by George, this is your work, and it ’s a big job. In saving the girl’s life you have saved mine, perhaps, and Vincent’s. Three lives at one haul ! How like the Devil— I mean how like an angel — you do come down on us ! By George, old fellow, I’m amazingly obliged to you. I am, indeed. Is that tiling ready, Bruce ? Let’s have it. There ! Now, Bruce, if you ’ll be kind enough to transmit that in your very best manner— By the way, old fellow, I’m very much obliged to you for standing by me. I’m devilish lucky in brothers.”

“ I do hope that this is the beginning of the ending of the family feud,” was the next thing heard from Frank.

“ Well, I don’t mind,” agreed Wallace.

“ You ought to say more than that,” urged Frank. “ One friendly step deserves another. You have been fairly beaten so far in the race of humanity by this Beaumont.”

“Yes, he has got the lead,” conceded Wallace. “ For once I knock under to a Beaumont. The fact confounds me ; it fairly takes the breath out of me. But will he last ? Can the blasted catamounts become friendly ? ”

“ Try them,” said Frank. “ I propose a call on them.”

“ Wallace has apologized,” observed Bruce. “ The next advance should come from the Beaumont side.”

“We ought to give more than we receive,” sermonized Frank. “It is the part of true gentlemen, as the word is understood in our times, or should be understood.”

“ It is worth considering,” admitted Bruce ; “ it is worth while to suggest the idea to our father.”

“ And mother,” was Frank’s energetic amendment, to which Bruce did not think it best to reply. The honor of the family was very dear to him, and he did not believe that women were qualified to judge its demands, much as he respected the special good sense of his mother.

Back to the Beaumonts one must now hasten, to learn how they received the apology. Vincent glanced through Wallace’s letter without changing expression, nodded as a man nods over a compromise which is only half satisfactory, read it aloud to his father and brothers (with a sister listening in the next room), and then filed it away among his valuable papers, all without a word of comment. Beaumont senior was gratified, and then suddenly enraged, and then gratified again, and so on.

“ Why, Kershaw, the fellow has some streaks of gentility in him,” he admitted, with a smile of wonder and satisfaction, walking up and down with the pacific, manageable air of a kindly, led horse. But presently he gave a start and a glare, like a tiger who hears hunters, and broke out in a snarl : “ Why the deuce did n’t he say all this at first? He ought to have apologized at once. The scoundrel!! ”

After some further thought, he added in a mellow growl : “ Well, it might have been worse. After all, the blockhead has made it clear that he does n’t mean to take advantage of Vincent’s magnanimity. Yes, magnanimity ! ” he trumpeted, looking about for somebody to dispute it. “By heavens, Vincent, you have been as magnanimous as a duke, by heavens ! ”

Here the magician who had wrought thus much of peace into the woof of hate came smiling and glowing into the room, slipped her arm through that of her eldest brother, and whispered : “ So it has ended well, Vincent. I am so much obliged to you ! I am so happy ! ”

Next she glided over to her father and possessed herself of his hairy hand, saying, “ Come, your man-business has gone all right; come and show me where to put my flower-beds.”

She was bent, — the audacious young thing, it seemed incredible when you looked at her sweet, girlish face, — but she was bent upon taming these fine, fighting panthers ; and she was bringing to bear upon the work a beautiful combination of tenderness, of patient management and gentle imperiousness ; she was inspired to attempt a labor far beyond her years. The trying circumstances which surrounded her had matured her with miraculous rapidity, and brought into bloom at once all her nobler moral and stronger mental qualities. She was like those youthful generals who have performed prodigies because they were called upon to perform prodigies, and did not yet know that prodigies were humanly impossible. No doubt it was well for the girl that Heaven had given her so much beauty and such an imposingly sweet expression of dignity and purity. A plainer daughter and sister, no matter how good and wise and resolute, might not have accomplished such wonders.

We will not follow her and her father into the garden ; we will simply say that her flower-beds bore great fruit, and that shortly.

For on the following day two horsemen left the mansion of the Beaumonts and rode towards the mansion of the McAlisters. They rode mainly at a walk, the reason being that one of them was over eighty years old, while the other, although not above fifty-five, was shaky with pains and diseases. Several times during the transit of four miles the younger suddenly checked his horse and turned his nose homeward, saying, “ By heavens, I can’t do it, Kershaw. No, by heavens ! ”

“ Come on, my dear Beaumont,” mildly begged the venerable Colonel. “You will never regret it. It is the noblest chance you ever had to be magnanimous.”

“ Do you think so, Kershaw ? Well, magnanimity is a gentlemanly thing. By heavens, that was a devilish fine thing that Vincent did. It put a feather in his cap as high as the plume of the Prince of Wales. Moral courage and dignity ! By heavens, I am proud of the boy.”

“ So am I,” said Kershaw.

“ Are you ! ” grinned the delighted Beaumont. “ By heavens, I ’m delighted to hear you say so. I was afraid you did n’t appreciate Vincent. But I ought to have known better ; every gentleman would appreciate him. The man who now does n’t appreciate Vincent, he’s — he’s an ass and a scoundrel,” declared Beaumont, beginning to tremble with rage at the thought of encountering and chastising such a miscreant. “ Well, Kershaw,” he added, “let us go on.”

After a little he added in a tone of apology, “ Some people might say that this errand is the business of a younger man. But my sons are not related to Kate as you and I are. The girl springs directly from your veins and mine ; and consequently we are the proper persons to thank the man who saved her life. Don’t you think so, Kershaw ? ”

“ Certainly,” replied the patient Colonel, who had already advocated that view with all his eloquence.

Presently they discovered the McAlister house, and here Beaumont came to another halt. This time his resistance was more obstinate than before; it was like the struggle of an ox when he smells the blood of the slaughterblock.

“ Kershaw, I can’t go to that house,” he said, his face and air full of tragic dignity. “ That house is the abode of the enemies of my race. There is a man in that house who has my brother’s blood on his hands. I can’t go there ; no, Kershaw, by God ! ”

His voice trembled ; it was full of anguish and anger ; it was a groan and a menace.

The Colonel made no remonstrance and no spoken reply. He took off his hat and bared his long white hair to the sun, as if in respect to Beaumont’s emotion. In this attitude he waited silently for the storm of feeling to rage itself out.

“ My father never would have entered that house,” continued Beaumont. “ No McAlister ever crossed my threshold. There has been nothing but hate and blood between us. It has always been so, and it must always be so. I am too old to learn new ways.”

Still the Colonel sat silent and uncovered, with his long silver hair shining under the hot sun. The sight of this humility and patience seemed to trouble Beaumont.

“ You can’t feel as I do, Kershaw,” he said. “ Of course you can’t.”

“ Let us try to make the future unlike the past,” returned the Colonel, in a tone which was like that of prayer.

Beaumont shook his head more in sadness than in anger.

“This young man, Frank McAlister, has already begun the work,” continued the Colonel. “ Shall Kate’s father and grandfather foil him ? ”

Beaumont began to tremble in every limb ; he was weak with his diseases, and this struggle of emotions was too much for him ; he held on to his saddle-bow to keep himself from growing dizzy.

“ I don’t feel that I can do it, Kershaw,”he said, in a voice which had one or two embryo sobs in it. Plow, indeed, weakened as he was by maladies, could he choose between all the family feelings of his past and the totally new duty now before him, without being shaken ?

“ Beaumont,” was the closing appeal of the Colonel, “ you will, I hope, allow me to go on alone and return thanks for the life of my granddaughter.”

“No, by heavens!” exclaimed the father, turning his back at once on all his bygone life, its emotions, its beliefs, its acts, and traditions. “ No. If you must go, I go with you.”

“ God bless you, my dear Beaumont ! ” said Kershaw, his voice, too, perhaps a little unsteady.

After some further riding Beaumont added : “ But we will see the boy alone. Not the Judge. I won’t see the Judge. If I meet that old fox, I shall quarrel with him. I can’t stand a fox when he’s as big as an elephant and as savage as a hyena.”

A little later he asked: “You’re sure Lawson thinks well of this step ? ”

“ He approves of it thoroughly,” declared the Colonel. “ He considers it the only thing we can do, since the apology has been made.”

“ Well, Lawson ought to know what’s gentlemanly,” said Beaumont. “ Lawson has always been a habitue of our society. By heavens ! if Lawson does n’t know what’s gentlemanly, he’s an ass.”

And so at last they were at the door of the McAlister mansion.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE McAlister mansion was a very similar affair to the Beaumont mansion.

Speaking with severe truthfulness, and without regard to the proud illusions of Hartland District, it had no claim to be styled a mansion, except on account of its size alone. It was a plain, widespreading mass of woodwork, in two stories, with plenty of veranda and more than enough square pillars, the white paint of the building itself rather rusty, and the green blinds not altogether free from fractures and palsy.

Negro children, a ragged, sleek, and jolly tribe of chattels, ran grinning to hold the horses of Colonel Kershaw and the Honorable Mr. Beaumont. Matthew, the Judge’s special and confidential servant, waited on them with dignified obsequiousness into the long, soberly furnished parlor, and received with jesuitical calmness (covering inward immense astonishment and suspicion) their request to see Mr. Frank McAlister. After delivering this message to his young master, he added in a whisper, “ Better see your shootin’irons is all right, sah. Them Beaumonts, you know, sah.”

“ I never carry the cursed, barbarous traps,” replied the young man, in noble wrath, and hurried off to welcome his visitors. He was tranquil, however, when he entered the parlor; he had a wise, delicate perception that it would not do to rush upon Beaumonts with an effusion of friendships ; he must in the first place try to divine from the demeanor of these potent seniors how they wished to be treated. Moreover, it was his nature, as it is that of most giants, to be tranquil in manner. When the three met, it was Colonel Kershaw, outranking the others by reason of age, who spoke first.

“ My name is Kershaw,” he said with simple dignity. “ This is my sonin-law, Mr. Peyton Beaumont. We have called to thank you for saving the life of our dear child, Catherine Beaumont.”

“ Yes ! ! ” unexpectedly added Beaumont. He had forgotten where he was ; for the moment he had no emotion but gratitude ; his fervent “Yes” sounded like an amen !

There was so much feeling and such undisguised feeling in what these men said, that Frank at once lost his Titanic serenity.

“ Gentlemen, you overwhelm me,” he burst out, wringing first one hand and then another. “ You overwhelm me with your kindness. I can’t express my obligations to you.”

So catching was the young fellow’s agitation, that Beaumont’s combustible heart took fire, and he shook hands again, and astonished the listening angels by saying, “ God bless you, my dear sir ! God bless you ! ”

“ I would have lost my life willingly' to save her,” pursued Frank, hailing these friendly hearts with difficulty out of his storm of feeling. “ I never saw another human being who seemed to me so pure and noble.”

Kate’s father was dazed with gratified paternal affection and pride; he had not a thought for the fact that it was a McAlister who uttered these compliments ; nor did it even occur to him that the young man might be simply in love with the girl.

“ By heavens, I thank you,” he went on, while the hand-shaking, that mute, eloquent gratitude, also went on. “ By heavens, sir, I am glad I came to see you.”

Meantime he was dimly aware of, and unconsciously delighted with, the height, size, brilliant color, and noble expression of the youngster.

After a little further talk, all of this passionate, interjectional, truly meridional nature, Frank exploded a proposition which for the moment stunned Beaumont like the bursting of a shell.

“ But, gentlemen, I am doing you injustice,” he said. “The head of the family alone can properly respond to this compliment. Will you allow me to call my father to receive you ? He would be gratified beyond measure.”

Meet that enchanted wiggery, that elephantine fox, that diplomatic foe till death, that murderer of a brother, judge McAlister! All Peyton Beaumont’s breeding, all his consciousness that he was one of the representatives of South Carolina gentility and courtesy, could not restrain him from starting backward a little, with a leonine quivering of mustaches and bristling of eyebrows. He wanted to refuse ; he looked at Kershaw to utter the refusal for him ; and, like Hector seeking a spear of Pallas, he looked in vain. The old peacemaker had a sudden illumination to the effect that now was the time to bring about a reconciliation between the families.

“Mr. McAlister, you will do us a great favor,” he said in his venerable, tremulous bass voice.

Beaumont broke out in a cold perspiration, made a slight bow, and awaited his fate in silence.

The Judge, sitting at that moment in his library, already knew of these visitors, and had decided how he would receive them, should he be called to that business. “ Feud may as well fall to the ground, if it will,” he had briefly reasoned. “ No nonsensical sentiment about it on my side. It we were once friends with those tinderheads of Beaumonts, we might contrive to manage them, and so always carry the district, instead of carrying it only now and then. Moreover, this girl being the probable sole heir of Kershaw, there is a fine match there for Frank. Finally, my excellent wile would be immensely gratified by peace, and her gratification is one of the many things that I am bound to live for.” Such is a brief, unadorned, and therefore unjust summary of the retiections of the Judge.

But when he was actually summoned to meet his visitors, his politic thought changed to emotions. He remembered that duel of bygone days ; remembered how he (then a young man) threw down his fatal pistol and burst into tears ; remembered how he had mounted his horse and fled from his lifeless victim as he would not have fled from any living being. He trembled at the thought of meeting in kindness the brother of the Beaumont whose blood was upon his soul. For a few seconds he walked the library with such a rush of emotions in his heart that it seemed to him as if the seconds were years. Then he checked himself; he rearranged his wig ; he rearranged his countenance. He was once more the calm, dignified, gracious, smiling Donald McAlister, such as Hartland District had known him for twenty years past.

And so, presently, the chiefs of the Montagues and Capulets of South Carolina were face to face and inclining their venerable craniums towards each other with a stiff, dignified courtesy, which made one think of kings bowing with their crowns on. There was a hesitation about going further ; the McAlister hand advanced slightly and the Beaumont hand did not stir; it seemed as if unavenged ghosts would not let them exchange the grasp of friendship. But after a moment the instinct of hand-shaking was too much for them ; they met as Southern gentlemen are accustomed to meet; the once hostile hands were together.

To Frank the anxious lover, and to Kershaw the philanthropic peacemaker, it was a wondrous spectacle. A looker-on, unacquainted with preliminary tragedies, would, however, have seen and heard nothing remarkable. There were two grave, dignified gentlemen shaking hands with bowed heads and eyes dropped to the floor. Each said, “ I hope I see you well, sir,” and each replied, “ I thank you, sir.” No regrets over the savage past ; neither reproach nor apology, not even by the most circuitous hint; not the faintest allusion, in short, to the family feudThe Judge was simply all that a gracious host in commonplace circumstances should be. He got out his blandest smile ; with his own large plump hands he wheeled up arm-chairs for his visitors ; he rang the bell and ordered refreshments. His mind settled by these little offices, he said as he seated himself, “ Gentlemen, I am immensely indebted to you for this visit. It is one of the highest honors of my life.”

“ The old, palavering fox ! ” thought Beaumont; and replied aloud, “Judge, it is an honor to us. It is a matter of duty also,” he added. “ You are aware, doubtless, of our great obligations to your magnificent son here.”

“ I am most grateful that my son could be of service to your superb daughter,” replied the Judge. “From what I hear of her I should say that no man would hesitate to risk his life on her account.”

All of a sudden they were drifting towards each other at a most unexpected rate. This praising of each other’s children was a sure method of touching each other’s hard hearts. Insincerity? Not a bit of it; not on this subject. Who would n’t admire Kate ? Who would n’t admire Frank ? Beaumont, whose judgment was the weathercock of his feelings, ceased saying to himself at every breath that McAlister was a humbugging scoundrel, and innocently marvelled at finding in him so much of sense and goodness arid truth. The Judge, though less easily cajoled than his visitor, was nevertheless so gratified with this call from his haughty old foeman, with the glimpse of that fine possible match for Frank, and with the vistas of desirable political combinations, that he was well lubricated with satisfaction. The usually earnest and rather grim eyes of the two men were presently beaming in quite a human manner. The conversation gradually lost its tone of ceremony and became social. The serving of madeira and brandy introduced the subjects, so well known to antique South Carolina gentlemen, of vintages, cellaring, and bottling. In short, the Colonel and Frank aiding zealously, there was a comfortable unimportant talk of some twenty minutes.

This is the entire substance of that famous call of the Hon. Peyton Beaumont on Judge Donald McAlister, commonly believed to be the first friendly passage between them in their whole lives. We shall see in due time whether it came to so much in the millennial and matrimonial way as was doubtless hoped for by our gentle giant, Frank.

It was an astonishing event of the time. Beaumont rode home in a state of wonder over it, and filled his household with equal amazement when he told his adventure. Vincent, usually a prudently silent young man, stared at his father with much such an expression as he would have worn had the old gentleman confessed that he had been standing on his head. Tom wandered out of the house in a partially unsettled condition of mind, querying, perhaps, what was the further use for Beaumonts in this world, since they were no longer to fight McAlisters. Poinsett smiled and said to himself, “ So my father has ventured among the enchanted wiggeries, and been somewhat deluded and humanized by them. Well, I ought to praise him for it.” Which he did in his roundabout. jocose, adroit fashion.

“ Yes, certainly, Poinsett,” replied the reassured and gratified Beaumont. “ The only thing to be done, under the circumstances. As for going any further, as for continuing to wave olive-branches, well, we ’ll see how these fellows behave themselves. By heavens, we ’ll wait and see.”

But the great reward which the father received for his embassy of gratitude came from the charming little queen who had sent him on it. It was a host of kisses; it was a clinging of fondling arms; it was a rubbing of a satin forehead against his bull neck.

“Well, am I as good as grandpapa, now?” asked Beaumont, always a little jealous of the adored Kershaw.

“ Yes,” laughed Kate. “ You have done ever so much more to please me than he could do. I comprehend perfectly, papa, what a sacrifice you have made for my sake. Jumped on your pride, have n’t you ? The old Beaumont pride ! And the old Beaumont pugnacity, too ! O, I comprehend it all, you dear, good papa. I am not a simpleton.”

“ Not a bit of it,” said Beaumont. And thought to himself: “What an amazingly intelligent girl ! I never saw a grown woman with half her intelligence ; by heavens, I never did.”

“And now, what else?” he asked aloud, growling a little bit, for she might demand too much.

“ Papa, I think that if the McAlisters want to make friends on this, we ought to let them.”

“Well, yes,” assented magnanimous papa. “ That is just what I was saying to Poinsett.”

He felt as if a new career of greatness were being opened to him ; as if it were well worthy of his character and position to let people make friends with him, if they wanted to ; as if that kind of thing might be a fitting close to the life even of a chivalrous Beaumont.

In a day or two, delightful to relate, there came a call from “ those fellows,” meaning the Judge and Frank and Wallace. They were received in due state and with proper setting forth of refreshments by Beaumont senior, Vincent, and Poinsett; but the beneficent Kershaw being absent, somewhat of the shadow of the old feud seemed to fall upon the interview, notwith standing Frank’s best efforts at sunshine ; and when the visitors departed it cannot be said that the hosts had any fervent desire to see them again.

Fortunately for the chances of the millennium, there were women of a truly womanly nature in both these bellicose families. Pious and maternal Mrs. McAlister and brother-worshipping Mary McAlister, longed for the holiness and salvation of lasting peace. Kate Beaumont, the sweet first cause of all pleasantness thus far, had likewise her admirable reasons for wishing to see the feud buried forever. Mrs. Chester also desired harmony, for she wanted with all her coquettish old heart to resume communications with her handsome Titan, and she was the woman to go after what she wanted with the eager scramble of a terrier after a rat. By the way, we can hardly insist too much upon the fancy of this well-preserved lady for flirting with young men. It was a passion with her ; some people said it was a monomania ; some went so far as to say flatly that she was insane on this point. What with her reckless imagination, her ancient habits of coquetry, and her excessive vanity, she had become thoroughly infatuated with the idea of getting Frank McAlister to dangle about her.

Accordingly, the following rose-colored sequence of events took place. Mrs. Chester, in her wild, impulsive way (such a mere child, as one kindly remembers), dropped in alone upon the McAlister ladies and prattled gleefully for two hours, denouncing the feud with the gayest of smiles and praying in the sprightliest manner that there might be no more bloodshed between the families. Hereupon Mrs. McAlister and her daughter made an immediate call at the Beaumont house, and were received with absolute festivity and pettings by the two females who there presided. The interview was all honest good-nature and gladness, unmixed with suspicion or ceremoniousness. The four ladies were in a new, spring-like state of emotion, fit to intermingle their hearts’ tendrils and bloom into quick flowers of friendship. Mrs. McAlister and Mary on one side, and Kate on the other, fell in love at first sight. Mrs. Chester remained tender towards her Titan alone, but that of course involved amicable results, at least for the present. And the visit being thus delightful, it was quickly returned and was followed by others.

Thus at last we have, not only peace, but frequent and fond communings between the Montagues and Capulets of Hartland District. An amazing olivetree surely, and more wonderful to the beholders than any supposable amount of bloody laurels. The orange-tree of the Indian juggler, springing from the seed and producing fruit inside of twenty minutes, would not have been half so much of a marvel to Messrs. Wilkins, Duffy, and their fellow-citizens. They were a little wild in those days; they felt as though the compass no longer pointed north ; as though the Gulf Stream had changed its course. Moreover, where did Hartland stand now, with its famous family feud gone to Heaven, or otherwheres ? The place had lost its monument ; it had begun to resemble other middlesized villages ; there was an awful likelihood that it would become dull.

Our own sole but sharp regret with regard to this reconciliation is that we have not been able to sketch it fully in all its stages, giving, for instance, a little of the thankful, saintly conversation of Mrs. McAlister, and a little more of the impish graciosities of Mrs. Chester. But time presses ; the reconciliation had its sequences ; we must quit the eddies and head down stream.

One result of the new order of things was that Frank McAlister, in one of his visits to the Beaumont house, had a tête-à-tête with Mrs. Chester, which the lady contrived to make very pleasant to herself. Another result was that on a second and happier occasion he met Kate Beaumont alone, some favoring fairy having sent the aunt off on a drive with Bent Armitage, and inveigled the brothers into a hunting expedition and put the father to bed with the gout. It was the first time that the two young people had met without witnesses since the shipwreck. Naturally they talked of their great triumph, the reconciliation of the families.

“ So we have won a victory,” said Frank. “ Or rather, you have. What wonders you have accomplished ! ”

“ Don’t overestimate me ! ” Kate blushed, remembering how much she had longed for this victory and how hard she had struggled for it. “ Everybody has helped. I am so grateful to your father and brother and mother and sister for making the path of peace so easy to us. But my father and brothers have been amazingly good, too. You must praise them to me a little.”

“ I do,” replied Frank, fervently. “ I wish they knew how kindly I think of them. And your grandfather, — what a wonderful old man ! what a god among men ! ”

“Isn’t he?” said Kate, her eyes sparkling.

“He has the charm of a beautiful woman,” declared Frank, enthusiastic about the Colonel on his own account and enthusiastic about him because he was the grandfather of Kate. “ You have only to see him to worship him.”

The girl was too innocent to suspect a compliment to herself, or to see an insidious advance towards love-making in this talk about beautiful women.

“ Mr. McAlister, I am glad you have found him out,” she said simply. “I wish you would call on him. He would be delighted to see you. He has only Major Lawson with him.”

“ What an excellent hearted man the Major is ! ” replied Frank.

“ Isn’t he ? ” said Kate, in her honest way, really liking the friendly, amiable Major.

There was not much sense of humor in these two young people. They were straightforward, earnest souls, mainly capable of seeing the interior goodness of other people, and not to be diverted from such insight by any external oddities. What they could discern in Lawson was, not his extravagant flatteries, his sentimentalities, and his flutings, but his quickness of sympathy, his warmth of friendship, and his gentle humanity.

Well, there was a long conversation, and it led to a promenade on the veranda, Kate’s fingers resting lightly on Frank’s arm. While they were thus pleasantly engaged, and presenting the prettiest prophecy possible of a walk together through life, there was a sound of horses’ feet, and Mrs. Chester and Bent Armitage pulled up before them. It is not possible to paint in words the glare of suspicion, jealousy, and spite which shot from the aunt’s eyes as she caught sight of her niece arm in arm with Frank McAlister. The next instant she regained her self-possession and put on a smile which might have melted platinum. In a minute more she was leading in the conversation, seerfiingly the gayest and happiest old hoyden that ever wore tight bootees, In another minute she had separated the two — shall we venture thus early to call them lovers ?

Adroit creature, Mrs. Chester. Wonderfully clever ways of bringing about her foolish ends. She did not bluntly call Frank to herself, as a duller intriguer might have done. She beckoned Kate aside to listen to some trifling household matter; then she summoned Armitage to express his opinion upon the girl’s decision ; then, leaving these two together, she skipped over to Frank, apologized for deserting him, and trotted him away. The result, of course, was that the young man soon found that he had finished Ins call and must hasten home.

Now it was that Mrs. Chester turned upon Kate and scolded her for receiving Mr. McAlister alone.

“ Where was your father ? Gout ? He ought to have got up, if he had forty gouts. He had no business to allow of such an interview. We are not on sufficiently familiar terms with that family. It is only yesterday that we spoke to them.”

Kate looked so shocked under this attack that she immediately secured the sympathy of Bent Armitage, although he too had felt a twinge at seeing her alone with McAlister. He gave her one of his queer smiles, curling it up quizzically into his cheek, and rolled his eyes at Mrs. Chester in a way which said, “Never mind her.” That lady did not see the smile, but she perceived that Kate had received encouragement from some one, and she turned sharply upon Armitage.

“What is your opinion?” she demanded angrily. “ You seem to have one.”

“ My opinion is n’t yours,” answered Bent, in his odd, frank way.

“ Oh ! ” gasped Mrs. Chester. She was in a rage, but she said nothing further, for at that moment a new idea struck her. This Armitage, she decided with the keenness of an old flirt, had defended Kate because he liked her. It was well ; he should have the chit; he should take her out of the way. From that minute Mrs. Chester elected her niece to be the wife of Bentley Armitage.

CHAPTER XIV.

“ I BEGIN to be afraid that Kate is a wild sort of girl.” said Mrs. Chester to Bent Armitage, as soon as she was alone with him again.

“ It ’s astonishing you never discovered it before,” replied Bent, ironically smiling on the side of his mouth which was farthest from Mrs. Chester and hidden from her vision.

Kate Beaumont wild ? Bent knew better, and Mrs. Chester ought to know better, and he believed that she did know better. But the lady was quite in earnest, for she had been scared by the fact of her niece receiving Frank McAlister alone, and her alarm had given rise to a sudden suspicion, almost amounting to a belief that the girl was a daring coquette.

“ I have an idea that you like wild girls,” continued Mrs. Chester.

“Well, I hang about you a good deal,” answered Bent, one side of his face all seriousness, and the other full of satire.

“ O, pshaw ! ” returned the lady, not however ungrateful. “ I alluded to your fancy for that dreadful coquette, your cousin jenny.”

“Jenny is so happy in being my cousin, that she does n’t want to be anything nearer,” said Bent. “ And I am equally contented.”

“ Then you are pretty sure to fall in love with this other wild piece,” pursued cunning Mrs. Chester. “Well, you might do worse. Kate has her good qualities.”

Armitage turned grave ; the lady had plainly broached a subject which to him was serious ; and joker as he was, he had no jest ready for the occasion.

“Your brother married her half-sister,” said Mrs. Chester, guessing that her batteries were beginning to tell. So they were ; the young man was no longer laughing at her ; he was listening to her eagerly and even anxiously ; he was ready at the moment to look to her as a friend and counsellor.

“ It would be so natural !” she went on. “ I don’t think any one would be astonished. She would not go out of the family.”

Armitage was too profoundly moved, and we might even say disturbed, to be able to answer. The one thing that he had in his mind, or for the moment could have there, was this fact, that Mrs. Chester approved of his wooing her niece. He dropped away from her presently ; in fact, he was encouraged to take his leave ; and before long he was doing just what Mrs. Chester wanted him to do ; that is, he was sauntering about the house to look for Kate. Not that he meant to propose to her ; O no, he knew that things were not by any means far enough advanced for that ; but he wanted to be near her and to try to begin a courtship.

It must be understood that social matters were unusually lively in these days at the Beaumont place. Colonel Kershaw rode over often to take dinner or to pass the night; not a talkative man, for his good old heart was apt to utter itself mainly through his air of venerable benignity ; his remarks being at once infrequent and admirable, like the rare opening ot bottles of precious wine. With him always came Major Lawson, his puckered face and twinkling eyes beaming sympathy upon all, and his attuned voice fluting universal praises. (The ironical Vincent pretended to marvel that the Major did not have a slave stand behind him with a pitch pipe, like Tiberius Gracchus ; and asserted that he was capable of paying extravagant compliments to the internal fires, apropos of earthquakes and other destructive convulsions.) Furthermore, the McAlisters, especially the women, and Frank, made their calls now and then, laboring to keep up the entente cordiale. Of other visitors, whom we have not time to know familiarly, a large proportion were dashing young fellows on horseback, attracted by the fame of a girl who was already reputed the belle of the district.

But no one was on hand so often or stayed so long as Bent Armitage. As we ought perhaps to have stated before, he was sojourning with his aunt, Mrs. Devine, the mother of Jenny, whose plantation was only two miles away. He dropped in diurnally upon the Beaumonts, sometimes with, but oftener without, his coquettish cousin, talking his copious, light-minded slang serenely to all visitors, telling countless queer stories which were the delight of the master of the house, and paying more or less sidelong, cautious courtship to Kate. Mrs. Chester helped him ; she arranged traps which ended in tête-à-têtes between the two ; she did her best to get the girl’s head full of this admirer. In these days Mr. Frank McAlister was sometimes gloomily jealous of Mr. Bentley Armitage.

By similar managements and enchantments Mrs. Chester obtained various interviews with the handsome giant, about whom she had gone bewitched. If there is a human figure more pitiably ludicrous than an old beau crazy after fresh girls, who sack him and avoid him and giggle at him, it is surely an old belle angling for the attentions of young men who bear with her wrinkled oglings simply because she is a woman. But laughable as such a creature is, she may be very inconvenient. The honest, courteous, kind-hearted Frank was as much incommoded by his alert admirer as a horse by a gadfly. He could not shake her off; for in the first place he had not the unfeeling levity which helps some men to do such things ; and in the second place he was instinctively eager to stand well with all Kate’s relatives. But his patience under the load of Mrs. Chester did some damage by leading her to believe that he liked to hold her. So she gave him much of her company and of her gratitude, and one might perhaps say, speaking loosely, of her love.

We are absolutely driven to risk being tedious concerning this eccentric, this almost irrational woman. Amid the many callers, and especially the many young men who now frequented the Beaumont house, she disported herself as one who is in her element, darting and dodging and chattering like a swallow. All hospitality, she rang for refreshments at every new arrival, and seriously bothered several youthful heads with the Beaumont madeira and cognac. Her voice could be heard rising above all others, except when her brother struck in with his clangorous trumpet. Loud laughter, shippings with her fan, smart pattings on the floor with the toe of her bootee, and bridlings which imitated sweet sixteen, testified to her relish of the wit of the gentlemen. She was a woman who got intoxicated with conversation, especially when there was a flavoring of flirtation in it. She was capable of dignity ; but that was generally when she was miserable or angry ; in her good humors she was excited, mercurial, noisy. All day she was as busy as a bee ; for when there was no company she prepared for it ; shutting herself in her room to remodel and adorn old dresses ; attending to the job personally in her own characteristic fashion ; dashing breadths together awry, and then flinging them at Miriam to be set right, — being very proud of the rapidity with which she did things very badly. And out of all this hurly-burly she drew the only happiness that she knew.

Of course, specks of gloom would sail in among the sunshine. Once, when Mrs. Chester was perhaps a little unwell, Miriam found her shedding tears over the recollection of the trunks full of fine clothes which had gone clown in the Mersey. At times she fell into great rages because certain wilful young gentlemen had showed plainly that they preferred to talk to Kate rather than to her. When sorrows like these crushed her she pouted in her room, snapped at Miriam, sniffed at her niece, and would not speak at table. Philosophically speaking, it was amazing that the same woman could be at one time such a sunburst of hilarity and at another such a cloud of sulking and snarling. Vincent once lost his temper so far as to tell her that when she was not a cataract she was a dismal swamp. But seesawing was her nature; she was nothing if not mercurial. Had some power suddenly blessed her with equanimity, she would have ceased to be Mrs. Chester.

This curious woman and her incommodious flirtation had been a subject of study with Major Lawson. The sly, good-hearted old beau had had experience enough in flirtation to comprehend the sly, selfish old belle. He perceived that she was smitten with Frank McAlister, and he guessed that her ancient, made-over coquetries must be very embarrassing to the youngster, although the latter bore himself under them with the serenity and sweetness of a martyr. Moreover, the somewhat sentimental Major wanted to see his Romeo and Juliet drama played out happily ; he wanted the Montagues and Capulets of Hartland District united in lasting peace by a marriage between Frank and Kate. By Jove, what a delightful story it would be to , recount to his lady friends in Charleston ! And by Jove, too, sir, it would be a good thing, an eminently beneficent event, a result that any gentleman might desire and labor for.

“ My de-ar fellow, allow me,” he at last said to Frank, drawing him mysteriously to one side and patting him tenderly on the sleeve. “You are injudicious — you really are — excuse me. Why, you should n’t come here alone. A wise general does not advance all his forces in one column. He sends up a faint attack to draw the enemy’s fire. He occupies the hostile attention by side movements while he delivers the real assault on the vital point. My de-ar fellow, you certainly will excuse me, you must try to excuse me. I am giving advice. It is an assumption. It is an offence. Promise me that you won’t be annoyed. Well, confiding in your good-nature, I venture to go on. When you call, bring an ally. Bring your brother Wallace, for instance. Let him ask for Mrs. Chester and talk to Mrs, Chester, while you ask for some one else and talk to some one else.”

The young man had begun by blushing to his forehead, but he ended by bursting into a roar of laughter. He laughed with the wonder and amusement of an unsophisticated countryman to whom some one explains the mystery of the pea under the thimble.

But the hint was not lost upon him. The next time he set out for the Beaumont house he was preceded by a feinting column in the person of the goodnatured. self-sacrificing Wallace, fully instructed as to the stratagem which he was to execute, and grinning to himself over the same. On arriving, Wallace asked for Mrs. Chester, and immediately took that lady off on a drive. Twenty minutes later Frank made his appearance, and of course saw Miss Kate, “ with no one nigh to hinder.” This trick was played repeatedly ; the brothers seeking to allay suspicion by coining sometimes separately and sometimes together; but the elder one always possessing himself of the aunt, while the other was assiduous about the niece.

“ I say, Frank, this is rather heavy on me,” Wallace at last remonstrated. “ Sometimes the old girl is devilish sulky, and sometimes she is too loving. I don’t know, by George, but what I shall have the misfortune to cut you out yet in her affections. I occasionally fear she’ll make a grab at me, in spite of my bald head. (Bald at twenty - eight, by George!) I wish you’d hurry up your little matter. I don’t feel as if I could stand above four or five more races with Mamma Chester in the saddle. She’s a remarkably worrying jockey to go under, by George.”

“ O, hold on, Wally ! ” begged Frank, who was not making so much progress as he desired in his “little matter.” Miss Kate, we have sentimental reason to fear, was in some respects an old head on young shoulders. She no doubt liked Frank better than any other young men ; but she did not yet like him enough to risk all other means of happiness for his sakeSuppose she should become engaged to him, and perhaps go so far as to marry him ; and suppose that then there should be another outbreak of that old, mighty feud, so full of angering memories ? Where would she be with reference to her father and brothers and grandpapa ? Separated from them ? Their enemy ? Not to be thought of! Impossible !

Meantime Mrs. Chester, not quite a fool in a general way, and in love matters not easily imposed upon except by herself, made out to see through the cutthroat game of which she was the victim. For one whole night and the following forenoon she brooded over the discovery with alternate ragings and tears. In the afternoon, when Wallace McAlister called and sent up his compliments to know if she would ride, she had a spasm of desire to rush down stairs and pull out what hair was left him, and she with difficulty so far controlled herself as to send back regrets that she could see no one on account of a headache.

“ Hurrah ! ” thought Wallace, and cantered away to call on Jenny Devine, totally forgetting to warn the coming Frank that Mrs. Chester would be at home. That infuriated lady watched him out of sight, and then watched for the appearing of his brother.

“ Miriam ! ” she suddenly called. “ There comes Frank McAlister to court my niece. I won’t have this thing going on. Those McAlisters ! Low, mean, nasty ‘crackers’! I won’t have it. It’s my duty to prevent it. Hurry down and tell him Miss Kate is out. Do you hear me ? Hurry 1 '’

Now Miriam knew two things : she knew, in the first place, that Miss Kate was at home ; in the second place she knew her mistress’s silly weakness for juvenile beaux.

“ I don’ go for to do it,” she said to herself as she walked away. “ I don’ tell no lies, an’ I don’ help out no foolishness. If Miss Marian is gwine to court young men an’ gwine to hender true lovers, she may jess work at it alone. I ’se a square woman, I is. I has a conscience, bless de Lord ! ”

As she passed Kate’s room she opened the door softly, beckoned the girl to approach, put her finger to her lips, and whispered, “ Come, Miss Katy. Come down to the front do’, quick. I ’se got suthi n’ to show ye.”

Kate was of course curious ; she glided down to the front door ; the negress opened it ; there was Frank !

“ Can’t tell him now she ain’t to home,” thought the conscientious Miriam ; and walked back to her mistress with the truthful report, “ Miss Kate was at the do’ herself.”

“Waiting for him ! ” almost shrieked Mrs. Chester.

“ Did n' know he was thar,” dedared Miriam. “ The dear chile was puffec’ly s’prised.”

“ I won’t have this,” asseverated Mrs. Chester. “ I must interfere. I am going down.”

“ Laws, honey, you ’se got a headache,” said Miriam. “ You jess better lie down.”

In reply Mrs. Chester flew at her chattel, boxed her ears and drove her out of the room. Then, sobbing with rage, she threw herself on a sofa; got up presently, bathed her face and looked at it in the glass ; went back to the sofa in despair and remained there.

On the evening of that day, having dragged her brother out into the moonlit garden, she began upon him with, “ Well, Peyton Beaumont! You are managing things finely, I should say.”

“Hullo! What’s the row now?” demanded Peyton, scenting battle at once and charging with all his eyebrows.

“ I ’ll tell you what’s the row,” continued the sister. “ Here is this Kershaw estate going straight out of the family.”

“ What the devil is the Colonel going to do with his estate ?” asked the alarmed Beaumont. “ Not going to cut Kate off.”

“ Kate will be the heir of it, won’t she ? Well, Kate is being courted, and Kate will get married.”

“ I suppose she will, some day,” sighed the father. “ I suppose she will. Girls do. But how can I keep the Kershaw estate in the family ! My boys can’t marry their own sister.”

“ There is Bentley Armitage, the brother of your son-in-law. That would be in the family.”

Beaumont uttered a sound between a groan and a grunt. As near as he could make out from what he heard, the brother of Bentley Armitage was not a model of husbands, and did not render his daughter Nellie very happy. Bent was a jolly fellow ; he told hosts of capital stories ; he was very amusing ; he helped the gout. But for all that, Beaumont did not find that he hankered after any more Armitages for sons-in-law.

“ But you don’t want a McAlister ? ” furiously remonstrated the lady.

“ How a McAlister ? ” inquired Beaumont, with something like a shaking of the mane at the sound of the so long detested name. “ What McAlister"”

“ Frank'' gasped Mrs. Chester, her naughty, sensitive old heart giving one great throb of tenderness over the monosyllable, mighty as was her jealousy and spite.

“ Frank ! ” echoed the father,— “ Frank ! ”

He broke away, walked a few steps in silence, turned back suddenly, and repeated in a gentle voice, “ Frank ?”

“ Yes,” trembled Mrs. Chester.

“ Why, good God, Marian, he saved her life ! Why, good God, what could I say to him ? ”

“ O, it has n’t gone so far as that,” laughed the lady, a bit hysterically. “ There is time yet to stop it from going so far as that. I don’t think she cares for him yet. You can stop her from learning to care for him. You can send her off visiting.”

Beaumont made no answer ; he did not want to send her off visiting ; he could not spare the sight of her.

“ Would you make her miserable for life ? ” argued the anxious aunt. “ Suppose she should marry this man, and then the old feud should break out again ? ”

“ Good God, I might lose my daughter forever,”returned Beaumont, aghast.

Good God, I must send her away. Well, she must go to Randolph Armitage’s. She must go to her sister.”

“We can send her up under the care of Bentley Armitage,” slyly added Mrs. Chester.

F. W. DeForest.