Newport

I.

“ FORTY-LOVE.”

AT the beginning of the Newport season there is a gentle novelty about the surroundings, even to those who are most familiar with them : indeed, for the moment, it closely resembles the surprise of a discovery.

“ Don’t you think so ? ” Mrs. Deering asked her cousin Oliphant. They were walking together through the Casino grounds, and had just taken some chairs on the inner lawn. “I've always found it so. How is it, Eugene, with you?”

Her vivacious, rosy face, as she put the question, made more impression on him than her remark.

“ I have no experience,” he said ; “ it is so long, you know, since I was here last, and everything was different then.” Perhaps it occurred to Mrs. Deering that, under the term “everything,” he included many circumstances of deeper moment than mere outward changes; but he went on as if these had no place in his thoughts : “ This establishment is so recent that it can’t be a very old story even to you. I certainly feel the novelty you speak of; but will it go on ? That ’s what I want to know. If it will, I shall be very grateful to Newport.”

“ Ah, now you are asking too much,” said his cousin, bestowing upon him so much of reproof as the sparkling contentment in her young eyes would consent to. “ I hope you 're not going to begin sighing, after my advising you to come here. Please observe that it is n’t flattering to me.”

“True,” said Oliphant, smiling ; .“ you might construe it so. Well, you sha’n’t hear a murmur. Not a drum shall be heard, nor a funeral note escape me.”

“ I should trust they would n’t,” Mrs. Deering exclaimed. “ You really have no cause to complain, Eugene. You are well off; you are still young ; ” and she was considering whether to add “ you are handsome,” when he cut short the enumeration.

“ Not so very youthful,” he said. “ There is a great difference between being ‘ still young,’ and young without any adverb. When you put that in, you clap on about ten years at one stroke.”

“Well,” replied Mrs. Deering, taking advantage of the chance, “ even ten years can’t make it so very bad. How old are you, really ?”

Oliphant affected to ponder. “ That,” he said, “ is one of the great mysteries of the period. I may be able to tell you, though, some day or other.”

She knew, however, that he had probably entered his fortieth year ; and in fact there were little glintings of silver white here and there in the comely chestnut hue of the thick, short, curling hair beneath his hat-brim. The tolerant sun disclosing these was not more indifferent to their presence than Oliphant: as for Mary Deering, she thought they added distinction to his fine bearing and strong, quiet face. So did other people. It may be said here that, although Oliphant had been for three years a widower, women of undoubted attractiveness had several times, without his being aware of it, made him the object of sentimental reveries. At this very moment, his cousin, who from her point of view as a married woman was quite disinterested, busied herself with a silent inquiry as to whether he had positively decided never to wed again ; being convinced that if he persisted in such a decision it would be a great pity.

From where they sat they caught, through the curious lattice-work of the dark Horseshoe Gallery, a glimpse of the clock - tower, with its gilded dial, above the verdant, fountained quadrangle ; on the other side they had in near view the brown galleries and brick front of the theatre and racket-court, near which, in an additional inclosure, were a number of lawn-tennis players ; limber young men and picturesque, —some in white flannel, others with long scarlet stockings, colored belts or dark sashes, and white hats bent down towards their ears, like the petasus of Mercury shorn of its wings. The two listened to the low twang of the rackets in the hands of these players, alternating with strains of the lightest possible music from one corner of the balcony ; waltzes and French opera, inspired by a witticism and beaten up, if that were conceivable, with white of egg. A brilliant sunlight streamed over everything, touching the shingle roofs with bright grays, making vivid the summer trees that stood goldengreen side by side with heavy conifers ; and from that portion of the building devoted to the Casino Club a dormer appeared to be winking, with a combination of mediæval and of Yankee humor. There was a mixture in the architecture ; at all events, a hint of something old English, something Nüremberg-like, and something Japanese.

“ This is a fascinating piece of work,” Oliphant remarked, looking around ; “ a delightful mimicry of I don’t exactly know what. There’s an affectation, perhaps, in staining the wood to make it look old, but the whole thing seems to be unique ; and it’s like Newport. For Newport has its own atmosphere, and yet you feel that it is always imitating something else.”

“ I m not sure you do justice either to the building or to Newport,” answered his cousin, dissentingly. “ They ’re both delightful; so what is the use of trying to pick some flaw ? That’s the way we ’re always spoiling our enjoyment of things, nowadays ; or, if we don't, some critic does it for us under the pretense that he was born for the purpose. Are you going to assume that rôle ? ”

“ Fate has played the critic with me, and taught me how,” was Oliphant’s reply. “ When circumstances have always forced me to see the flaws in life, how can you expect that I should n’t form the habit of looking for them a little in everything ? ”

“Oh, you are a dreadful, horrible cynic,” said his cousin, concentrating the quick, soft lines of her small face upon him, in an amusing glance mingled of horror and beaming approval. “ This is just the way you talk about everything.”

Eugene merely laughed. “ Shall I keep silent, then ? ” he asked.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Deering, with despotic promptness.

They remained a while without speaking. As water flowing against a rock wears wave-lines into it, so a person who has been much alone has the marks of solitude worn into his being. Traces of that slow erosion were discernible in Oliphant’s face when in repose, showing with what force silent experiences had wrought upon it. His light-hearted cousin was not much inclined to analyze what she saw there ; probably she could not have done so if she had tried ; but as she scrutinized him sidewise at this moment, something made her think of his past. She remembered how he had gone very early into a business life, and had had to toil desperately until within a short time; but that was nothing: had not Roger, her husband, done the same ? and he was still toiling, while Eugene, after becoming a bankrupt, had recovered, and by a lucky hit leaped into independence. She remembered, further, how she had always supposed him to be unhappy with his wife ; he had been mis-mated. But there, again, how fortunate! Was he not free, with many advantages should he wish to make a happier match, and well provided for living by himself if he preferred what she thought so regrettable a state ? Life is so simple — when we don’t have to live it ourselves.

Grievances are noisy : griefs are little heard from. Luckily we cannot trundle our sorrows about in plain sight, when we go walking; hence Mary Deering was not made uncomfortable by knowing just what was in Oliphant’s mind ; and the people who kept assembling more and more in the Casino, while these two sat there, were able to display themselves one to another with an unconcern as suave as if they had borrowed their minds, no less than their trim attire, from the latest fashionplates. Pretty sight it was : how placid they looked ! Eugene fondly believed them all much happier than himself: he was young enough for that, you see. But Mrs. Deering was the first to resume conversation, which she did by commenting on an individual here and there.

Eugene, having grown absent-minded, only half heard her. He was humming under his breath an old ballad, the words of which that came to him, though he did not utter them, ran thus : —

What glimmer of recollection, what sunken hope, brought this tune into his mind ? He was roused by bis cousin’s sharper accent.

“ Look, Eugene! I want you to notice these people.”

“ Which ? Coming along the path here ? ”

“ Yes ; the lady in front is Mrs. Farley Blazer.” He beheld a large, stout woman with a smoky white face, and quietly but not well dressed, who moved with slow grandeur, as if in her youth she had been swan-like, and had not quite forgotten the fact. “ And the gentleman is old Dana Sweetser. Does n’t look old, does he ? Those two younger women, behind, are her nieces.” The two girls referred to, though not beyond question pretty, evidently made great claim to style ; and, swimming in the wake of their majestic aunt, were trying in their limited way to be swan-like also.

Mrs. Deering exchanged a smile and a bow with the group ; but as they passed away again, she said to Oliphant, “ That woman is what I call a social usurper. She came here years ago and tried to impose herself on the world by a coup d'étât. There was a bitter resistance, but slowly and surely she has borne it down, and seems to be settled on her throne.”

“ And Sweetser ? ” asked Oliphant, mildly amused. “ What about him ? ” Oh, he’s good style; good family, and all that; but principally he’s a sentimental old beau. He divides his time between organizing societies for Promoting the Importance of Members, and falling in love. He will pass through half a dozen rhapsodical affairs, this summer. Poor Dana!”

She had barely finished speaking when they observed a slender young man, with a single eye-glass and a long coat, who stiffly carried a thin stick, approaching them from the racket-court. Just as he came opposite them, a white ball bounding from the tennis-ground flew towards him, at an angle threatening mischief to his tall hat. He dodged it, and it struck the sward near enough to bounce again in the direction of Mary Deering. The slender young man darted vainly forward, to arrest this perplexing missile before it should reach her; but though he bent down with commendable promptness, it escaped him and grazed her chair. At the same instant he found himself landing on one knee, to avoid a fall, and gazing anxiously towards her. He took off his hat.

“Attitude of devotion ! ” he exclaimed in a subdued voice, with what was meant to pass for well-regulated humor. Even in these few words, however, he contrived to let his perfected English accent manifest itself. “ Good morning, Mrs. Deering,” he added, more formally, straightening himself up again.

“ Good morning, Mr. Atlee.” She made the two men acquainted, briefly. “ You could n’t have done that better if you’d been on the stage,” she said.

“ It hardly counts in the game, I suppose,” said Oliphant, picking up the grass-stained ball, which he threw to the players.

Atlee looked at him through his glass, as if he hardly knew how this remark was designed; then he turned the polished disc inquiringly on Mrs. Deering, who smiled with mysterious satisfaction. “ Well, no,” he said haltingly. “I suppose, Mrs. Deering,” he recommenced, “you are coming to the Casino dance, to-night. On se donne le mot, you know. Monday is to be the night, regularly.”

“ That will be bad for the ladies who ride, when the meets begin,” said she. “ But, of course, I shall come to-night.”

Oliphant had given up dancing, and looked upon the artificial fox-hunt with contempt; so he began to feel out of place, and to wish that Atlee would go away. But as the young man did not vanish, our friend adopted the simple expedient of considering him an inferior individual, and withdrew from the conversation, fixing his attention entirely on the tennis. He became oblivious to everything but the cries of the players : “ Net!" — “ Fault.” — “ Thirty, love.”

— “ Deuce.” At length these annoyed him, too. “ Do you understand the game, Mr. Atlee ? ” he asked.

“ Oh, a trifle, " said the young man. “ Must do what all the other fools do, you know.”

“Naturally,”returned Oliphant, with zest.

“ Is that the reason you asked him ? ”

Mrs. Deering inquired of her cousin, darting mischief at Atlee. “ How clever, when you have n’t known him !”

“ That’s hard,” feebly protested her admirer. “ Well, you see,” he continued, addressing Oliphant with the comprehensiveness of an amateur lecturer, “ there are four courts, and one man serves, and ” —

“ Oh, I don’t want a regular exposition,” Oliphant interrupted, having reached an advanced stage of unreason. “ But it would be a relief if you would tell me what their sentimental phrase ‘ love ’ means.”

“ That’s very easy,” Atlee said. “ It’s only a gentle way of saying that one side has n’t won anything whatever.”

“ Then, according to this computation, love is nothing.”

“ Exactly.”

“ How appropriate ! I think better of the game : there must be some sense in it.”

“ Eugene ! ” cried Mrs. Deering, in reproof. “ I thought I had got you nicely chained up. What do you mean by breaking loose again, and barking like that ? Mr. Atlee, my cousin is a cynic.”

Thus admonished, Atlee examined him cautiously with his defensive eyeglass.

“ None of the other people are sitting down,” said Oliphant. “ Don’t you think we’d better be getting away from here ? ”

“Game ; forty — love,” muttered Atlee, who had again diverted his superb attention to the nearest pair of batters. “ That’s total defeat, you know,” he volunteered for Oliphant’s benefit.

Eugene could not help applying this phraseology of the game to his own case. His cousin had, that morning, expatiated to him on the happiness of some friends of hers who had married in middle life; and within a few moments she had questioned him as to his own age. But love and forty made a bad combination in tennis, as they might also in a human career ; a combination involving absolute failure on one side.

“ We may as well go up on to the balcony, if you want to move,” Mrs. Deering said, obligingly ; and they all three started in that direction.

The latticed promenade, when they reached it, was crowded, and echoed to a light buzz of rapid talk, salutation, and correct laughter, as if it had been a drawing-room. They paced up and down its length for a few minutes ; Oliphant noticing that the space nearer the music was tacitly left to those who were not of the governing social league ; persons of unfashionable appearance, many of them passing visitors, who gazed over at the others from a chilly borderland of solitude, as it were, and appeared to be taking the spectacle with a good deal of seriousness, an air of mute and mournful inquiry. Atlee slipped away to speak to a young lady at one side of the gallery : “ Vivian Ware,” Mrs. Deering specified to her companion. “ A charming girl, from Boston. I want you to know her, too.”

Beyond doubt, Miss Ware was a most engaging creature, even on a casual glance. She stood by one of the turned posts that upheld the gallery-ceiling, leaning slightly against it and surrounded by several young men,—“That is the Count Fitz-Stuart nearest to her,” Oliphant heard his feminine mentor saying, — so that she might have been figured as at bay, making a final stand against her pursuers. But the situation evidently did not disturb her. Slight without suggesting fragility, she showed decided calm and self-possession, but was radiant with expression, and was talking first to one and then to another. Oliphant not being devoid of imagination, it occurred to him that, in her pure white dress wrought with a perfection of skill that made it resemble a natural growth, she might well be compared to a fresh honeysuckle blossom.

“ I should like to know her,” he said ; “but not now. For a while I will just look.”

“ There ’ll be plenty of time,” his pretty cousin agreed. “ Yon ’re like a man who has been starving, and I must be careful with you ; too much at once might be your death.”

The next instant she was accosted by Mr. Dana Sweetser, who, of a shapely figure, had a light but aged mustache that lay like a withered leaf above his lips and brushed his cheeks, the pink of which was forcing itself out of season. He wore a light salmon-tinted sirocco neck-scarf, and apparently was brimming over with compliments.

“A most lovely morning, Mrs. Deering,” he exclaimed, poising himself artfully on his thin legs, that terminated in narrow shoes adorned with buff gaiters. “ And I assure you one sees it better when it is reflected in a lovely face.”

“ That ’s a new sort of barometer,” said she, “ but not hard to find, here; ” and she glanced around.

“ Happy to make your acquaintance,” Sweetser proceeded as elastically as before, on being presented to Oliphant. “ And you have lately arrived ? Ah, Newport is the gem of all our wateringplaces. You will find yourself unable to leave it, Mr. Oliphant. Are you not already charmed ? ”

“ I’m trying to be,” replied Oliphant; “ and I dare say, if I 'm not it won’t be the fault of the place.”

“ You have only to look about you, sir. The most delightful society — people of leisure and cultivation, assembled from the different cities that separate them in winter : Newport claims them all, you see, by natural right. I was about to tell you something, Mrs. Deering,” he pursued, turning to her; and Oliphant seized the occasion to move apart.

He had not gone many steps, before he was arrested by the sight of a face that he fancied was familiar to him. It offered a surface epitome of character not distinguished for refinement, but rather forcible than coarse, in spite of a rough-grained complexion and the aggressive bushiness of brown whiskers and a biforked beard. The man was dressed in a blue flannel yachting suit, as if he disdained making much concession to the custom of elaborate toilets. Nevertheless, it was clear that he stood well in the estimation of those around him. He bore signs of mental power, and possessed a cool, ample eye that took in everything with undisturbed comprehensiveness. We might say it was a peculiarly noiseless eye. Indeed, Oliphant was persuaded that it had encompassed him, as it were, and had fully identified him, an instant or two before any light of recognition was allowed to flash out. But when that preliminary was over, the face became energetic with geniality, and the individual to whom it belonged stepped forward with hand outstretched.

“My dear fellow!” said he, in a hearty, melodious voice that carried conviction with it. “ How do you do ; and where did you drop from ? ”

“ I thought it was you, Porter,” Oliphant responded, oddly feeling that his own heartiness, though he knew it to be genuine, was a mere make-believe or shadow beside the other man’s ; “ but it’s such a length of time. ... I was rather hesitating.”

“ As the Irishman said,” Porter at once rejoined, “ when they asked him whether, as a punishment for his crime, lh would prefer to go to the gallows or Australia. He told ’em, you know, he would ‘rather hesitate.’ Well, where have you been ? Tell me all about it? What’s the news ? ”

They began to walk the gallery at the least crowded end, with occasional inroads upon the more fashionable one. It was not a place for clapping a man upon the back; and, for all his force, Porter’s manner was perfectly in keeping with the genius of the spot. But Oliphant felt that practically he had been clapped upon the back, and rather liked it: he began to be more at home. He noticed, also, as they passed and repassed, that those who had previously been talking with Porter were now examining himself with an access of interest merging into respect, as they saw the friendly terms on which he stood with the wearer of the blue suit. This roused in Oliphant an internal laughter ; but it was agreeable to find that, while still unknown, he could thus enjoy an indirect homage. “ I have my foot on the stair,” he said to himself.

Meanwhile, two gentlemen who sat together in the shadow, not far from the musicians, fixed their attention on the pair as they receded in their walk.

“ Quisbrough,” said one of these individuals, — grave, elderly, clad throughout in black and wearing the long-skirted broadcloth of a departing generation, — “ is n’t that man Porter ? Horatio Porter, I mean ; commonly known as Raish.”

The speaker had a pale, smooth-shaven face, seamed with fine wrinkles arranged on a system which implied in equal measure a great store of legal acumen and much experience of dyspepsia.

“ Yes; that’s Raish,” replied Quisbrough. “ But I thought you knew him, Judge : thought everybody knew him, and that you knew everybody.”

“ Well, you ’ve hit it pretty close,” the Judge answered, with a grim smile, restrained by habit. “ Of course I know of him. A case in which he had an interest came before me, in fact. But he did n’t appear but once, and I have n’t seen him since. I’m not a brilliant financier, and I’m not a yachtsman, and I ’m not a half society man, either; so our lines hardly cross. He certainly is going ahead remarkably, is Raish. What do you think of him ? ” In saying this, he turned his eyes warily towards Quisbrough.

“I’ve hardly formed an opinion,” said the latter, poking one finger meditatively into the side of his thick, black beard. “ He’s a friend of old Thorburn’s, you know.”

“ I see ; I see,” murmured the old gentleman. “ Friend of young Thorburn’s, too ? ” he asked.

“Yes,” said Quisbrough, still prodding his beard. And they began talking of something else.

“ Oh yes, I know the old fellow,” Porter was saying at the same moment, in answer to a question from Oliphant. “ It ’s Judge Malachi Hixon, of New York ; one of the old school. I admire him as one of the few incorruptible men on the bench ; but we have no personal acquaintance. The little man at his side is a queer fish ; he used to be tutor to Perry Thorburn, but has burst the chrysalis, I believe, and become private secretary to Thorburn senior.” Here Porter nodded informally to Judge Hixon’s neighbor, whose glance just then met his. “ Name’s Quisbrough,” he continued as they turned their backs and walked away once more, “ and he’s as odd as his name. You probably think he looks dull, — so he does, — always has that fagged, sleepy air. But bless you, that’s no more than the blur you make on good steel, by breathing. I tell you he’s sharp ; sharp as a razor.”

“ I begin to feel interested in these people,” said Oliphant. “Somehow it is different here from other places in America : in the others, everybody is in such a hurry, that you need an instantaneous photograph to show you what they are like. They run about so.”

“Exactly,” threw in Porter. “You have heard of the darkey, have n’t you, who found it so hard to make out how many hens he had. He got along very well with counting them all—except one; and that one ran round so, he could n’t count it. That’s the way with American society.”

Oliphant laughed heartily. “ Very likely,” he said. “ But here in Newport they have more repose : perhaps it’s due to the drowsy, peaceful atmosphere.”

“ Isle of Peace, you know,” rejoined his friend : “ that’s what the Indian name, Aquidneck, means. The ’ile of peace is very emollient; you try it, and see. This all leads back to what I was saying — that you’d better come and bunk with me at my cottage, and settle down for a good season of it. Yes, sir, you ’ll find the genuine leisure class here. Talk about our having none ! — Do you remember what one of our bright girls said to the Englishman who complained that there were no people of leisure in this country —people who don’t do anything ? “Oh yes,’ she said,

‘ we have those people, but here we call them tramps.’ I assure you, the kind of tramps you meet in this place are worth knowing.”

“ I ’ve a great mind,” said Oliphant with slow frankness, “ to accept your invitation. Nothing could be better, if we can both keep our independence.”

“ My dear fellow, I shall insist upon keeping mine; and that leaves you to take care of yourself.”

“ That’s fair, at any rate,” the widower agreed. “ But, oh ! ” he added, slightly blushing — “ it seems funny to ask — you haven’t, in the interval, gone and got married, have you ? ”

“ Not I,” answered Porter with decision. “ Marriage has its good side ; but you make me think of a man I heard of, who got alarmed about an earthquake that was to visit his city ; so he sent off his two sons to a country clergyman, to keep them safe, any way. Well, after two or three days, the parson, finding the boys lively, wrote to him : ‘ Please take back your boys, and send on the earthquake.’ None of that in mine, thank you! Now tell me when yoU ’ll come over to the house.”

“ To-morrow, if that suits you. I must go and look after Mrs. Deering, now.”

“ All right; but can’t you join me, later ? There are some men here you ought to know, and they ’re going to lunch with me at one. Will you take a plate with us ? ”

“ Thanks : if I can.”

Hereupon they separated; and Eugene, finding that Mrs. Deering was ready to go, extricated her from a knot of acquaintances, and escorted her to the spacious arched passage that gives entrance to the grounds. As they drew near the point of emergence on Bellevue Avenue, a high, polished gig stopped at the curb, and the young man who had been driving dismounted with alacrity.

“ Perry Thorburn ! ” Mrs. Deering whispered, impressively.

As the youth over whom she cast the glamour of that opulent name stood for a moment on the sidewalk, giving some direction to his groom, Oliphant beheld him framed in the archway, with the glare of the outer light upon him. He was a tall, sinewy young fellow, clad in a combination of gray cut with supreme stylishness, that set off his red-tanned face, his long neck and amber-colored hair, in remarkable contrast. His figure, from the great length of the arms and legs, would have been ungainly but for the commanding pose habitual with him. He was not handsome, but neither was he bad-looking ; and here again the only half-successful contour of his features was made respectable by the haughty vigor that informed them. Thus much Oliphant was able to observe while young Thorburn stood on the pavement, and as he passed them on his way in, with long strides.

“ So that’s the heir of his father, is it? ” said Eugene. “ He looks as if he could spend the money, and if his energies happened to strike in, he might make it, too. You don’t know him, I see, personally.”

“ Dear me, no,” said Mrs. Deering. “ Confidentially, you understand, he is way beyond us ; though I fancy his father buys and sells in Roger’s office a good deal. Perhaps I ought to say he is not ‘ of our set.’ I draw the line at the Thorburns, chiefly because I can’t draw them inside of it.”

Then, begging her cousin to come and dine with her that evening, she nodded, got into her village-cart, and drove away.

It was with unusual exhilaration that he returned to the cheerful precinct he had just left. The meeting with Porter had enlivened him; a new zest was making its way into his veins. People were now beginning to leave the spot, and strayed by twos and threes past the rich grass-plots, the beds of diversified coleas, and the heavy stone base of the Clock-Tower ; and Oliphant gazed with satisfaction at the fresh, happy faces of the young women amongst them. On gaining the balcony, which was still dotted with scraps of vivid color in the bright morning dresses, and the parasols of “ crushed raspberry ” that lingered, he at once caught sight of Perry Thorburn, who was just then passing Quisbrough. Perry gave the latter no sort of recognition ; a fact which the tutorsecretary took without coucern ; and, going on farther, was speedily absorbed in conversation with a lady of very striking appearance, in black and yellow, who was obviously much older than he.

I doubt whether Oliphant could have told why, but the sight of the arrogant, attractive young millionaire, leaning over and talking with unconcealed earnestness to this handsome woman whom our friend himself did not know, roused in him a blind protest; and forthwith the whole scene before him underwent a change. A moment earlier, it had been agreeably sparkling and satisfactory ; now, on the contrary, it became shallow, insincere,and hollow. “They’re all on exhibition,” he murmured to himself. “ It’s like the opening scene of a comedy. Bell rings; curtain is up — beginning of the season. In they come, actors and audience; and every one seems to say, ‘ I’m still on the surface, you see, and I’m as fine as you are. What next ? ’ Bah ! ”

Taking out his watch, he discovered that it was a quarter after one; and while he was closing it he heard Porter saying : “Ah, there you are, Oliphant ! We are just going to lunch.”

As they passed up-stairs, Oliphant seemed to hear a voice repeating, “ Forty — love ; forty — love! ”

II.

THE LIFE OF A LETTER.

The lunch was a pleasant affair, and Porter exhibited himself in a light which brought out his versatile capacity.

Besides himself and his prospective visitor, there were present Atlee and Perry Thorburn ; Stillman Ware of Boston (brother of the young lady Oliphant had seen on the balcony) ; one Admiral Glines of the navy; a retired major in the regular army named Bottick, who seemed to consist chiefly of big, red, bald cranium and iron-gray mustache ; and finally a college professor of great scientific repute, who hid his celebrity under a reddish beard, an excellent double-breasted coat, and (on entering the room) a tall white hat, which made him look like a rather solid butterfly of fashion.

With these personages Porter conversed in a way which showed that he was master of their various interests ; or could at least convince them that he was. To Glines he talked about torpedoes and the decline of the navy ; to Major Bottick, of the war in Egypt, varied by ancient club-gossip redolent of stale tobacco smoke. Thorburn he engaged chiefly on matters connected with polo and yachting ; the length of water-line in different boats ; their owners, cost, and vicissitudes in sundry races. With Ware, again, he deftly assumed the cultivated tone, mingling society and house-decoration with data about rare editions of books.

As they took their places, “ You know,” he said, quoting from some dead-and-gone society verse, “ 'Vitellius’s feasts cost a million ; ’ but I’m not Vitellius, and I intend giving you today only the last two or three figures of that amount.”

Nevertheless, so far as it went the repast was delicious, and every one was pleased. Even young Thorburn was mollified into laying aside his unnecessary hauteur, under the influence of a particular claret called Lagrange, which Porter recommended, and of a cigar rather better than those which the young man usually bought for himself. To inhale his entertainer’s lavishness in this way was an enjoyment heightened by the sense of his own superior prudence. Oliphant being placed next to them, they naturally fell into talk; and when the party was breaking up, they again found themselves side by side at one of the windows giving on the Avenue.

“ There is n’t much driving yet, I suppose,” half inquired Eugene.

“Oh, it’s beginning,” answered the other, carelessly. “ I believe there won’t be so much as there used to be. At any rate, the people who used to drive don’t do it so much now, I’m told.”

“ The set changes, then,” said Eugene.

“ A new dynasty — is that it ? ”

Thorburn laughed : he was pleased with the phrase. “ If you like to call it so,” he said. “ I’m one of ’em, whatever it is. I drive. Later in the afternoon ’s the hour, you know.”

“ This is n’t your first season here, is it?” Eugene asked.

“ Well, yes, really it is,” the young man conceded. He betrayed some hesitation, however, as if to admit the fact reminded him uncomfortably of his youth and newness. “ Father only built his house here last fall, you know.”

Oliphant liked him the better for showing so easily what he felt; and began to think that this young fellow’s lofty mode of carrying himself did him injustice. Then suddenly came back the recollection of that scene on the balcony, where the sight of Thorburn and the lady in black and yellow had affected him so curiously ; and he was taken with a desire to ask who she was. But this of course could not be done, and he had besides, as he thought, asked questions enough.

Just at this moment they heard a peculiar sharp jingling in the street, which attracted their attention. Perry looked out rather eagerly, Oliphant thought, as if he had been waiting for the sound, or at least recognized it; and as Oliphant’s own eyes turned in the same direction, there passed swiftly by a light barouche, properly manned with a liveried driver and groom, and drawn by small, strong horses, bearing at the front of their harness a close-linked steel chain, that churned forth with rapid motion the metallic signal which the two men had heard. In the carriage was seated the identical lady who had just been occupying Oliphant’s thoughts. She was of small but not diminutive figure ; in a certain way beautiful, or perhaps I ought to say fine, without having much color in her cheeks or any splendor of physical endowment that at once overpowered the eye ; above all, she gave an impression of delicate energy, of a something unusual without being obtrusive, and of compact completeness. This it was which made her appearance striking, as I have said it was, when Oliphant had first seen her. She still wore her dress of black, sparingly touched with yellow in one or two places, and a small black bonnet in which a single narrow golden band likewise appeared. Whether she saw the two gentlemen who were looking at her, I cannot say. She was out of sight again, in a flash ; gone like some wonderful kind of bird that had been startled out of her covert and had taken a quick flight into other shelter. That was the effect on Oliphant: the carriage and pair dissolved, as it were, and he could think of nothing, for an instant, except the sable form and the dash of gold that had swept by him.

“ Who is that lady ? ” he now asked, easily enough. “ I’ve noticed her before.” As he spoke, the jangling of the horses’ chain was still heard faintly, and chimed in with an emphasis bizarre and semi-barbaric.

“ A Mrs. Gifford,” said Thorburn. “ Very much of a favorite here, and deserves it, too. She’s a bright woman.”

“ Ah, she’s married,” Oliphant rejoined, reflectively. “ I had an idea she was in mourning.”

“Mourning? I should smile! Not exactly. Did n’t you see the yellow in her dress ? ”

“ Yes, yes ; so there was. I noticed it especially, too.” And Oliphant was surprised to find that the black garb, and perhaps something in the general appearance of the wearer, had neutralized the meaning of that vivid color.

“ She ’s a widow, though,” added Thorburn, as if he had enjoyed holding the fact in reserve.

“ Oh,” said Eugene, a little coolly, beginning to move away. He was not quite pleased with himself, on finding that this information revived his interest. “ From New York ? ” he inquired.

“ No ; Baltimore. She spends part of the winter in Washington, and comes here in the summer.”

Oliphant now went back to Porter; they all took their hats for departure; and he was soon on his way to his hotel, alone. The rest of the afternoon was occupied with sundry idle employments, during which he gave little thought to the various persons who had come into his field of experience since the morning ; but he was destined to hear more of Mrs. Gifford, and to make a discovery which should give her a fixed and unique place in his reflections.

Putting on his evening dress, he proceeded to his cousin’s, and there met Atlee, who was to dine with them. For some cause, the presence of this young man was by no means pleasant to Oliphant : he wondered whether Roger Deering were aware how it looked, that his wife should be accepting Atlee’s devotion. True, it was the devotion of an image, a stuffed doll. But possibly, if Roger had to choose, he would prefer to have the appearance of a fashionable flirtation sustained by something of more dignity than a doll. Atlee was in the small parlor with Mrs. Deering and her two children, — a boy of eleven, and a little daughter scarcely three; they made a very domestic group.

“ And how do you like Newport, Clarence ? ” Eugene asked the boy, assuming a cousinly air.

“ First rate,” said Clarence, with his hands in his pockets. “ I want to go to the Casino hop to-night.”

“What, you?” inquired his mature friend, in astonishment. “You’re too young.”

“ No I ain’t, either,” declared the boy. “ Everybody goes ; but the best people take the lead. I ’ve heard ’em say that. Ain’t we the best? ”

“ Clarence,” said his mother, “ you must n’t talk in that way.”

“ Well, I don’t care,” he remarked. “ I know what they want is young people, to dance. I know how to dance : have n’t I been to dancing-school ? If papa was here, he’d let me go. Now Mr. Oliphant, you tell mamma to let me. Mr. Atlee ain’t any good that way, for all he comes here so much.”

“ Clarence,” his mother repeated,

“ I’m ashamed of you ! If you go on so, I shan’t let you come in to dessert.”

Atlee, who was some six feet distant from the object of disturbance, affixed his eye-glass, and regarded Clarence painfully; while the boy, in spite of his valiant attitude, gave symptoms of crying.

“ Come here,” said Eugene, engagingly. “ I’ve got something to show you.” He had, in fact, provided himself with a little present. It was an ivory puzzlebox, of such dimensions that it could be carried on the watch-chain which he had noticed that his young cousin wore. Clarence was at first much interested, but Oliphant soon perceived that he had miscalculated the precocious child’s capacity. “ Watch-chains ain’t in fashion now, you know,” Clarence confided to him in undertone. “ They wear fobs. Hullo,” he continued, examining Oliphant’s waistcoat, “you have n’t got any fob! Why, Steve Richards has got one, and he ain’t any bigger than I am ; and he’s got lots of other things, too. He’s got a toy engine, and a real rifle, and a bicycle, and — I don’t see why it is ! We ’re just as good as the others, but some fellow always has more things than I do.”

Oliphant was amused, and slightly disgusted; but just at that juncture, dinner was announced, and the children were dismissed. Yet even in the brief moment of their leave-taking Mrs. Deering’s preference for her little daughter Effie was plainly revealed : she detached herself from the clinging baby arms and the gold-haired face, with a tender, pathetic reluctance.

At the table, some allusion was made to young Thorburn, and Oliphant was prompted to say, “ By the way, he seems to be a good deal interested in that Mrs. Gifford whom I saw at the Casino this morning. Do you know her ? ”

“ Oh, yes,” said Mary Deering, “ I know her. But I don’t think young Mr. Thorburn’s interest lies especially in that direction.”

“ Is that because you know that it takes some other direction ? ” he asked.

“ I can’t say positively,” his cousin answered. “ But it’s generally supposed that, if he has any inclination of that sort, it is towards Miss Hobart, of New York, you know; Josephine Hobart. You haven’t seen her, have you? Well, she’s quite the accepted belle, at home; though, for particular reasons, she does n’t flourish so much here at Newport. Don’t you think I’m right about Perry Thorburn and Josephine, Mr. Atlee ? ”

The young man appealed to gave an exceedingly slow and eminently Britannic assent.

Eugene, however, was hardly convinced. “ There is something familiar,” he resumed, “ about that name of Gifford. It’s not uncommon, of course ; but it’s really a New England name. How does it happen that she hails from Baltimore ? ”

“ I believe,” said Mrs. Deering, “ that her husband was a New Englander, and came from your region, Eugene,—not far from Springfield ; though when you come to talk about families, it’s quite absurd to ask me. I have enough to do to look after my own, as I guess you saw just before dinner. Still, I can tell you this much, that he afterwards moved to Baltimore, and that his first name was Helvetius. I can always remember that.”

“ I should think you might! ” exclaimed Atlee, laying down his fork and allowing a subdued hilarity to distend his mustache. “ Helvetius! ” he repeated, with condescension. “ Most extrawd’n’ry name. I should think you might! ” His own name was Gustavus, but he had gradually modified it to “ Augustus,” and kept even that in the background except on occasions when he thought it would be effective.

“ Well,” said Oliphant, “ I’m not much better off than before. I can’t 'place ’ the name, as they say in the country. And yet ” —

In a fit of abstraction, he ceased to speak. “ I don’t think your association with the name amounts to anything,” Mrs. Deering asserted, with such a determined closing of her lively lips that controversy seemed hopeless. “ But you may be sure, Eugene, of one thing: Octavia Gifford is a woman perfectly contented as she is. She will never marry again.”

“ But if that’s so,” said Atlee, “why is it that she doesn’t wear mourning?”

“ She does n’t, exactly, it’s true,” said their hostess. “If you notice, though, you will see that she always dresses in black or white, with just a little of one color scattered in. And then,” she continued, turning to Oliphant, “ I understand she has a theory that it is not quite truthful to wear black entirely. The way she looks at it is this :

' I’m happy, and I still enjoy a great deal in life, so why should I pretend that I don’t, and shut myself up in a dark shroud ? ’ But, really, the reason she holds that opinion is that she was so thoroughly happy in her married life.”

“ You ’re sure of that, are you ? ” inquired her cousin.

“ Perfectly. The woman is n’t living who looks more on the bright side, so far as that goes, than Octavia Gifford. Her existence has been so satisfactory to her that, in spite of her great loss, there is a kind of radiance over everything, in her eyes.”

“ Fortunate person,” murmured Eugene ; and then other topics came up, which absorbed them until an unexpected noise at the front door, just as salad was being served, interrupted the conversation.

“ There’s Roger, I declare ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Deering, at the sound,and she excused herself, to run out and meet him. She came back, beaming more than ever ; and Roger himself followed,— active and semi - preoccupied as usual, with a face that appeared habitually red, either because of haste and heat, or good living, and with hair cut excessively short for summer comfort, from the nape of his neck to the edge of baldness rather far back from his forehead. He did not seem at all disturbed by Atlee’s presence.

“ How do ? ” he said cordially to both the visitors, giving his hand to each in succession. “ Found I could get away all at once, as I was just explaining to Mary. Things rather dull on the street and likely to stay so the next few days, so I thought I’d run on. Let’s have some champagne, Mary.”

The wine was sent for, and Clarence burst prematurely into the room. “Oh papa !” he exclaimed; and, after a hearty greeting between them : “ May I go to the hop ? ”

“ Hop ? No. On general principles, no. All hops excluded — except hop into bed. What party is it ? ” Mrs. Deering explained. “ Oh, go ahead, if you want to,” said the father easily. “ Let him go and look on, Mary. That’s all you could do, you know, Clarence: you ’re too young to dance there. And you don’t catch me going. If you want to see me, you ’ve got to stay at home.”

So the matter was compromised, finally, by the boy’s receiving a glass of champagne and water, and remaining with Deering. “ I ’ll look after him,” said the latter, good-humoredly, to his wife, “ if Atlee and Eugene will look after you.”

Oliphant’s vague uneasiness about Atlee had been partially allayed by Roger’s sudden arrival; now he was again made uncomfortable by the prospect of taking Mrs. Deering away for an evening of superfluous diversion, just at the instant of her husband’s return. But as they chatted and smoked over their coffee, while Mrs. Deering made some preparation for the dance, he consoled himself with the reflection that it was foolish to apply his own secluded standard of conduct, which had never brought about much happiness in his case, to the affairs of the sophisticated circle in which he now stood.

Meanwhile the Casino theatre had been lighted up, and people were slowly assembling in the garnished interior, where the white and gold of the walls and the pale-blue silver-starred panels of the ceiling cast a reflected brilliancy upon the polished floor. The first-comers were of a staid and sober sort, chiefly in dark-hued habiliments ; and they collected in the gallery, or seated themselves in the remotest chairs near the lower entrances, with a solemn and expectant hush, very much as if they had arrived at church a long time before service. They were simply spectators, and those who were to furnish the spectacle did not straggle in until after nine. Among these were Mrs. Farley Blazer, Miss Ware and her brother, and young Lord Hawkstane, whom it was supposed that Mrs. Blazer intended to marry to one of her nieces, after he should have had time enough to think he had made up his own mind about it. It was of Lord Hawkstane that the Weekly Eavesdropper had said: “His gentlemanly manner has won him troops of friends;” and in the next paragraph it praised the gentlemanly head-waiter at the Ocean House. Besides these, a member of the cabinet, with his wife and daughters, made his appearance; and a foreign minister as well as a couple of attachés of legation at Washington were pointed out to the solemn people in the galleries, by the more knowing of their associates. Some looked anxiously for Count Fitz-Stuart, of whom they had heard as “ the last of the Stuarts; ” but he was not seen that evening, reserving himself under some mysterious sense of fitness, with which the half-dollar admission may have had something to do. Mrs. Thorburn came, bringing a judiciously small selection of diamonds. There were other men and women who brought their family names — names of a certain antiquity in Boston or New York,— that gave them a distinction, an imperceptible halo, which the unfortunate onlookers who did not know them entirely missed seeing. It was on the whole an agreeable, informal company, differing little from the average of cultivated persons elsewhere; notwithstanding which a local paper, the next day, lifting the trump of vulgar fame, declared that “ the élite was in force, America’s best society people being represented by its fairest ladies and wealthiest citizens.”

When Oliphant came in, he met Dana Sweetser hovering about with a ravished expression of countenance.

“ It is simply delightful,” said Mr. Sweetser. “ You see so many charming friends, with no encumbering obligation. And the beauty ! Where can you find at hazard so many attractive women as you see around this room ? ” As Atlee had assumed the duty of finding Mrs. Deering a chair, the gay old bachelor began pointing out to Eugene the persons whom he ought to observe. “ But our quota is not yet full,” he wound up. “ Before the season is over we expect to draw an Italian Count, a Russian Prince, and ” —

“ No crowned heads this year ? ” Oliphant put in.

Sweetser turned upon him a faded reproach, which made him regret his jest. “ However, that’s not so impossible in the future,” resumed the ancient Dana, agile in the recovery of goodhumor. “ The throne business is so uncertain, nowadays. There’s something better than a crowned head to be seen to-night, though. Josephine Hobart is here.”

“ Indeed ?”

“Yes; she has got away from her dreadful old father and is visiting friends in town. Enviable friends ! ”

“ I'm sorry to say I’ve never seen her,” Oliphant remarked.

Mr. Sweetser looked woe - begone. “My dear sir, you don’t know what you’ve missed ! Let me present you.”

This offer Eugene contrived to evade, preferring some other approach. Before long he discovered his cousin sitting next to Mrs. Gifford, and was thus precipitated into a speaking acquaintance with the widow.

“ Have you ever been in Springfield ? ” he asked, after a few preliminary nothings.

“ No,” she said. “ But how odd that you should happen to ask! Is that your home ? ”

“ Yes. At least, it was ; but I have wandered so much, I can hardly call it that any more. I have been abroad, the last three years.”

“Mr. Gifford lived there,” said the widow, in the most composed and cheerful way. “ But he had entirely moved his interests to Baltimore, before our marriage, and so I never chanced to go to Springfield. Is it a pretty place? ”

“ 'Prettily placed ’ would describe it better,” Oliphant said. But he was thinking that, serene though she was, a certain change had passed over her — like the shadow of a sunny cloud, when she mentioned her husband. There was a finer light in her eye, just for an instant : she looked as if she had been thrilled through with a proud memory, yet one that brought with it a pang.

“ And you were of Baltimore yourself,” he went on. “ I know some people there.” So they began to make note of their acquaintances, as persons must who have little knowledge of each other.

What they said came fitfully ; slender trains of words breaking off suddenly, between which the soft notes of the orchestra swept upon them in delicate waves. Then Mrs. Deering would help them on with a laughing remark; and Oliphant began again. To complete his discouragement, Perry Thorburn strode up, even more overtopping in his dresscoat than he had been that morning, and asked for a dance with Mrs. Gifford, which she granted. At the same moment Mrs. Deering began to waltz with Atlee, and Eugene was left alone. He watched the swift but gentle whirl of the dancers. For a moment everything before him melted into a tremulous, insubstantial glow ; a confusion of gold and white and gaslight and rhythmic motion. It was strange to be in such a spot, with such companionship, while his thoughts were straying off to guess at the happiness so confidently asserted of Mrs. Gifford’s past, and to ask whether she had given any more for it than he had devoted without getting a like return. What was the secret of these fates? It reminded him of little Clarence’s problem in the distribution of toys ; but the question went on recurring like the throb of an endless trouble, a refrain to the lively music now ringing in his ears. At last Mrs. Gifford was beside him again, swept to her place by the breeze of the waltz, which died away the next instant; and the room at once became a solid, bright interior full of polished people ; no refrain of destiny audible anywhere in it.

Perry Thorburn went on talking to the widow. Suddenly, “ I don’t see Miss Hobart,” he said.

“ That reminds me,” Oliphant interposed, addressing her. “ Do you know Miss Hobart? I have been so anxious to see her.” He had begun to catch the accent of the place.

Mrs. Gifford showed a new interest in him. “ Know her ? Why, she’s staying with me ! ”

“ As an invisible spirit ? ” he asked, glancing around.

“ Luckily, no,” was her answer, given with due sparkle of appreciation for his little effort. I don’t see her either, Perry,” she continued, to Thorburn.

“ I’ve lost her in the waltz. And you know,” to Oliphant again, “ when Josephine is lost, there are so many to find her — it’s quite hopeless for me.”

“ Much more so, then, for me,” Oliphant said.

The other two looked in various directions, and finally descried Josephine at the end of the room where she had stopped, with the music, and was detained by a little group of admirers, among them Lord Hawkstane.

“ I will go over there,” said Thorburn abruptly, after a parenthetical glare at Oliphant.

Eugene wondered if the young man claimed a monoply of both these ladies.

“ It will be like Clever Alice,” said Mrs. Gifford. “Everybody who goes to find her will stay.”

“ I venture to predict that that won’t happen in this case,” he returned, scattering over his remark a light powder of gallantry which softened the contradiction.

“ We shall see,” the widow smiled.

Miss Hobart did in fact come back almost immediately, on Thorburn’s arm ; and as Oliphant stood there he was introduced to her.

“ I’m a very poor talker,” he declared to her, becoming still more local. “ I hardly belong here, for I really have nothing to say.”

“ That is exactly what will give you a perfect claim,” said Miss Hobart. “You will be like the rest, then.”

This beginning gave them a half-humorous understanding, from which they went on smoothly. Josephine had spoken quietly, softly ; neither in the tone of satire nor in that of earnest. From her manner, she might have been imparting a gentle confidence of some sort. Evidently her power lay in her repose; Oliphant was struck by this. She had large, meditative, dark-gray eyes that moved slowly with a hidden glance sidewise ; she appeared to be low-browed, but only because of the breadth of her forehead : altogether she was an embodiment of revery. Oliphant even fancied a guarded sadness in her face; and all this seemed to him very strange in a young woman who drew so much admiration. More and more the thought presented itself that she was the centre of calm in the midst of the whirlpool.

If this were true, the similitude was borne out by the fact that swiftly, surely the idle young men in the neighborhood were drawn closer and closer, and soon were held in a semicircle around her. Eugene felt that he was no match for them, and hastily abandoned the conversation. For a while he stayed near the other two ladies, half-silent and uneasy, disturbed by a restlessness which he was at a loss to account for. Then, finding that Mrs. Deering would not remain much longer and expected to drive home in her carriage, he retreated to a door by the veranda ; and, after watching the group until he was thoroughly puzzled to decide whether Thorburn was more interested in the widow or Miss Hobart, he departed.

He had to repack some of his things before removing to Porter’s, and it occurred to him to do this to-night ; but when he had put on his dressing-gown, an impulse led him into quite a different employment. In a smaller trunk that stood near his bed was a quantity of papers, many of them old letters, which had belonged to his wife. He had brought them hither inconsistently enough, since it was on Mary Deering’s advice to sever himself wholly from his past that he had come to Newport. But when he had first looked over his wife’s belongings, he had been too much affected and too weary to complete the task; and he fancied that the present summer would be a good time to review what remained, and destroy them. The associations of the day and his musings at the dance inclined him now to take a look at these shriveled relics. He began humming again : —

Here he unlocked the box, and threw back the lid. A lingering musty perfume stole up from the mass of old writings. . . . Somewhere down there, he knew, were the early love-letters. There, too, — he shuddered as he thought of it, — was the equally impassioned but stern and bitter correspondence growing out of a long absence of hers, when she had threatened separation. He hesitated to touch any of these : indeed, he wondered why he had kept them at all. But there was a great tenacity in his temperament, and he had always wished to review his experience as a whole, some day, and solve its unsatisfactoriness ; so he had held on to these documents with little care what hands they might fall into, were he to die before disposing of them. The same recklessness on that head had once induced him to set down, partly for relief, partly for analysis, memoranda of the mental anguish through which he was passing, due to the luckless struggle into which his married life had fallen. Upon the little book in which he had entered these records his hand rested first, when he began to examine the contents of the trunk, and he turned a few pages to see what was there. Strange, indefensible, even ghastly seemed the bitter things he found; and for the most part they had lost their meaning ; yet he remembered how dreadfully real their meaning had once been — how it had scorched his heart. One paragraph, however, struck him, and renewed the old turmoil. It was this : —

“ Do we love each other — Alice and I — or detest ? I can't decide. But when we are both hating hardest, we cling to each other most, if only for a better chance to stab. Yes ; as some have said, love and hate are the same and merely change their effect — as strong essences may either poison to death, or else poison us out of disease into healthy life.”

Oliphant put down the book. “ And in spite of everything,” he murmured, “ I suppose I loved her! Poor child, when she was laid in her grave . . . O God,” he went on, looking upward, as if in communion, “ if forgiveness is love, you know whether I loved ; but I do not. I know there was too much weakness and resentment and longing for present happiness in me, to make me deserving in the sight of the Highest.” For some time after this he remained inert and silent, unaware of any thought except as it might take the form of penitence and prayer. Then he lifted mechanically one of the packets of folded papers, untied it, and began to read. They proved to be letters written to his wife by various friends, some time before he had even known her ; and there was not much in them to interest him. Still, he continued to examine them in a cursory way. Suddenly he gave a start; then he raised his eyebrows and looked closer at the written sheet which he was holding. After this he turned at once to the end, on the other page, for the signature. The ink was timeworn, fatigued by its long waiting, but scarcely dimmed. The name stood out clearly : “ Helvetius Gifford,” Oli-

phant was sure he had never seen this paper before ; but there, pressed upon it with mute emphasis, was the name which he had heard but a few hours since as that of Mrs. Gifford’s husband!

Going back, he read the whole from the beginning; and now his eyes were lifted quietly from its lamp-lit surface to the glassy squares of his window. He at length became aware that the dying moon had cast a strange ashen light over the sky. But why had he never heard of this letter before ? Why had his wife never told him of the matter? It had been addressed to her, these long years ago, by Helvetius Gifford, and contained an offer of marriage from him, couched in terms of adoration the sincerity of which was unmistakable ; words that looked cold and rigid now, in their parallel inky lines — but only as lava looks black when it is cooled, showing none the less where once the fire of its life flowed burning away, into the unseen.

George Parsons Lathrop.