When Roy returned his cousin was with him.

Mrs. Wyllys launched herself into the hall at sound of their voices, her bright azure train 'wide dispread;' her arms extended like the yards of a ship.

"My darling!" casting her entire weight against his chest, a hand upon each shoulder, and putting up a tight knot of a mouth for the kiss marital. "What an eternity you have been absent! I have been ever so uneasy about you!"

She re-entered the sitting-room, hanging by her clasped hands upon his arm, and warbling in her thin falsetto,—

"Now you have come, all my fears are removed,
Let me forget that so long you have roved!"

It was not in human nature, even such a gentlemanly nature as Roy's, to remain unmoved by the spectacle. His risible muscles were still rebellious when he invited Orrin to seat himself near the fire, and observed in tones that would waver, despite politeness and pity, that "the night was very cold."

An awkward little pause ensued. Orrin's chair was at Jessie's right hand, and he turned slightly in that direction while stooping to warm his hands at the blazing hearth, as if expecting some hospitable demonstration from her. She folded her work as neatly as if handling satin instead of flannel, laid it within her basket and set it back, and, with a word of apology, left the room to order refreshments for the guests. On her return, she entered from the parlors that she might more easily reach a divan on the opposite side of the hearth from Orrin. Hester was whispering to her husband, and Roy, whose seat was next that Jessie had taken, glanced down at her with a smile of cheerful greeting, as she made the exchange. She met it with eyes that well-nigh destroyed his composure. Mournful to wretchedness; appealing to supplication, they seemed to lay her soul open to his regards; to ask of him—was it succor or forgiveness? it could not be affection!

She, at least, ought to have known Wyllys too well to imagine—if she thought of him at all—that the silent by-play would pass unnoticed and uncomprehended by him. In his bachelorhood, the expression of aversion to his proximity, and the mute resort to her husband's protection, would have amused and incited him to the exercise of more potent fascinations. But Jessie's demeanor, of late, had irked him unreasonably. He could have supported an overt show of vindictiveness better than the dignified indifference that baffled his attempts to re-establish their confidential relations. Manoeuvre as he might, and as he did, he could never see her for one instant alone, and this, he was sure, was not accidental. Upon one pretext or another, he called at the cottage at all hours—most frequently when he knew Roy was engaged in his professional duties. "Mrs. Fordham begged to be excused," occasionally; oftener kept him waiting below until the, to him, inopportune burst of Mrs. Baxter into the parlor, or Fanny Provost's entrance through the side-porch next her home, prevented a tête-à-tête .

He could not believe that she had taken her, whom he swore at inwardly as a "chattering cockatoo," into her confidence in a matter so delicate as her unextinguished passion for himself, but it was plain that the coincidences which damaged his plans were somebody's work. For a while he derived some compensation for his disappointment from the additional evidence thus furnished him by the short-sighted novice in scheming, that her shyness was the fruit of cowardice; that lively coals of love for him still lurked beneath the ashes with which she would fain keep them smothered. But his best powers of finesse had not elicited a flash from these. Adroit references to scenes and words which she could not recall without emotion, if the wonted fires were still there, had produced as little visible effect as did his ardent protestations of cousinly attachment. She treated him as she did a dozen other gentlemen—neither worse nor better. Mortification and amazement at his non-success were but human. Displeasure and the inclination to retaliate upon the instrument of his discomfiture were unprofessional, and the display of them impolitic to the last degree. That he admitted these feelings, was to be accounted for plausibly only upon the hypothesis that contact with the sour whey of his wife's temper had not improved his own. In times past, he had been too rational, as well as too firmly entrenched in his self-appreciation, to descend to serious meditation upon the practice of a quality so vulgar, and usually so unremunerative as revenge. Two whole months had gone by since he laid his plans of advance upon the fortification of matronly propriety and womanly pride, and he had not gained an inch that he could discover.

It was fortunate for Jessie's self-respect that in her harshest judgment of his motives and character, she never surmised what was his present purpose. With her natural propensity to blame herself for the sins others committed against her, she would have leaped to the inference that he had seen warrant in her former indiscretion and inconstancy, for the belief that neither moral nor religious principle would serve her successfully in resisting his declaration of undiminished attachment; that she who had played false to the lover, would be unfaithful to the husband, if a similar magnet were presented to her vacillating heart. She saw, indeed, that he courted her notice and friendship; believed that she read in his conduct lingering fears that she might yet betray his perfidy to Roy, if she were not propitiated by such sugarplums of attention as other women liked. The conviction of his cowardice had dealt the heaviest blow at the idol that crumbled into common dust on that September day. All vestige of godhood had departed beneath the shock. A brave man might sin; a good man might, under extreme provocation, be cruel. The caitiff who slunk away, whining, at sight of the lifted scourge which should punish him for the crime he could not deny, must forfeit love with esteem.

Wyllys' mood, at sight of the rapid signal or query that passed from husband to wife, was the exact reverse of amiable, and he was not pacified by Hester's conduct. Hitching her chair close to her lord's, she stroked his hair and beard, smiling affectedly, in amorous languishment, at her lately purchased vassal, and purring like a cat. So soon as he could decently seek deliverance from the absurd situation, Orrin slipped from under the crawling fingers, and began to examine the books upon the centre-table.

"Isn't he looking well?" said his tormentor to Roy, showing all her prominent teeth in the affectionate leer she sent after him.

"Very well. His health has always been excellent, I believe," rejoined Roy. "Although his active habits have hindered the gain of so much as a pound of superfluous flesh."

It hurt him to see his gay and gallant clansman in the humiliating position of a led bear, at the mercy of a marmoset, but he could not be anything but civil in his own house.

"Oh! Oh! don't hint at the possibility of his ever getting fat ! I think lean people are just too sweet! I wouldn't have him altered by the change of a single hair in his mustache. Women ought to think their husbands perfect, oughtn't they, Cousin Jessie?"

"If they are perfect!" was the reply.

Mrs. Wyllys accomplished a compound toss of her head; her ear-rings fairly jingling, and the flowers in her sandy braids and frizettes quivering like aspens in an east wind.

"That is rank heresy! Love that isn't blind is no love at all. I wouldn't give a fig for the constancy of a wife who could detect the slightest flaw in the man she has promised to love, honor, and obey. Would you now, Mr. Fordham?"

"If you would have my candid opinion, I should prefer intelligent and discriminating esteem to blind adoration," was the courteous rejoinder, at which the lady bridled.

"I might have expected some such answer in this staid, matter-of-fact household! Now, Orrin and I—"

"You are true to your penchant for Mrs. Norton, I perceive!" Orrin interrupted her unceremoniously, looking across at Jessie. "This is a handsome English edition of her poems."

"Yes! I have had it for several years."

"Is that an implication that you would not procure it now, if you did not possess it?"

"I imply nothing, except that she is popular with most young girls."

"Woman, then, in her maturity of mind and affection, grows out of the taste for the 'female Byron'—for that is Mrs. Norton's sobriquet in the literary world?" he said, interrogatively, and in suave deference to her judgment. "What some contend poetry should be,—the lyrical, expression of passion,—sounds extravagant to one who has studied life for herself. Must this be so? Are there no recesses far down in the heart where the dew will lie all day? Because we have learned to think in sober and weighty prose, must we blush to remember that our souls once melted through our eyes as we sang, 'Thy Name was Once the Magic Spell,' or read, 'The Tryst,' and 'I Cannot Love Thee?'"

"I have a song, called—'I do not Love Thee,'" interposed Mrs. Wyllys. "It is just the sweetest thing you ever heard. Let me see! How does the air go?" humming. "I do not love thee! No! I do not love thee!"

"I am tempted to doubt the decline of your admiration for our poetess," pursued Wyllys to Jessie, with royal disregard of his beloved's vocalization. "The book opens of itself at the last-named poem."

" Do read it aloud, lovey!" begged Hester, eagerly. "I should so like to hear it! And he does read poetry so exquisitely!" to the Fordhams. "It is just perfectly delightful to listen to him! I tell him that was the way he captivated me, with his reading and his singing. They are too sweet!"

"Let us have it, Orrin!" said Roy, good-humoredly, desirous to relieve him from the saccharine shower. "I never read it, I think. But I was always 'matter-of-fact,' as Mrs. Wyllys has already discovered. Perhaps the 'lyrical expression of passion' had less hold upon my adolescent imagination than it generally has upon impressible youth."

He resigned himself patiently to the hearing of an ultra-pathetic love-song.

Jessie knew every line of the poem already. She had said it over to herself, scores of times, last Summer, tossing wakefully upon her pillow at midnight, until the pine boughs seemed to have caught the rhythm; or pacing the garden walks with hurrying feet; or hanging over the railing of the rustic foot-bridge. But she could not help listening, as the cunning modulations of the reader drew out the simple fervor of each line.

A steely-blue ray shot from beneath his eyelashes in her direction, as he turned a leaf. She did not see it. Perfectly still, yet attentive, she had leaned her head against the high back of her husband's chair, and was looking straight before her.

found no expression in attitude and feature.

The reader's voice mellowed; the emphasis of suppressed emotion was more artistic and effective.

"Was'nt it too funny that she didn't give in to such a splendid fellow?" queried Hester, sniffing away the emotion she had tried to sop up with her laced handkerchief. "I never can hear dear Orrin read without crying, no matter what the subject is. I couldn't have helped falling in love with him, I know. It was queer, now!" fretfully, as she saw Jessie's countenance. "I don't see what there is amusing about it!"

Jessie held her head erect—a movement full of spirit and gladness—and laughed. It was no mirthless sound, but a ripple of real joyousness.

"Very queer!" she answered, merrily. "Mr. Wyllys! we must call upon you to explain the phenomenon. You evidently understand it. You read the poem con amore ."

She sprang up to serve her guests from the waiter Phoebe had placed upon the table. Roy followed her.

"They tell me you make a delicious article of domestic wine, Mrs. Fordham—of elderberries, or grapes, or currants—or something," said Mrs. Wyllys, bent upon patronage at every turn. "I hope you are going to treat us to some of it now."

"'They' are mistaken!" returned Jessie, the merry ring yet in her voice. "I never attempted anything of the kind. The best substitute I can offer you for the beverage you had promised yourself, is Rhenish or Marsala which Mr. Fordham procured abroad."

"I can answer for her, I believe, Mrs. Wyllys, that her efforts in that line have been confined to the brewing of flax-seed lemonade, and sage tea!" chimed in Roy.

Whereat Jessie laughed again, as she had not done at Orrin's adventure with the gargle.

Wyllys arose to receive a glass of wine from her hand, and, in taking it, looked steadily, reproachfully, passionately, into her eyes. They sustained the scrutiny without quailing, a glint of roguish defiance playing within them, and her lips curling at the corners, as she turned away. He had a misgiving then that his power over her was at an end. This was not acting, but the flashing of a stream where the sunshine reached to its bed; was filtrated through pure, sweet waters. If she were disenchanted, he knew whom he had to thank for it. He could have hated his Hester for the over-fondness that had made him ridiculous to optics which erst surveyed him with timid and worshipful reverence, as Semelé may have regarded high Jove.

He was not sorry he had wedded as he did. He had too just an appreciation of the inconveniences of living beyond one's means; the difficulties that environ a man of expensive tastes and a moderate income, and the thousand goods of wealth, to regret the investment, which had assuredly yielded more than cent. per cent., whether he estimated either the affection or the money he had put into the speculation. He was wise in his generation. Hester was the richest spoil that had ever been laid in his way, and he had not hesitated as to the line of duty. But he did wish she had not wheedled him into this visit, that she might have another opportunity to play the fool herself, and force a like part upon him. Jessie's laughter had stung him unreasonably, and in his avarice of the praise of his kind, he grudged the loss of a moiety of Roy's affectionate admiration.

Fordham did not return to the sitting-room when he had escorted his guests to the outer door. He bade his wife "Good-night," in the hall.

"Must you work to-night?" she asked, imploringly. "I meant—I hoped—that is, I thought we would have a pleasant chat over my fire."

Her manner was agitated, her eye restless; but he scarcely noted this, or that she stammered strangely in preferring the petition.

"Don't tempt me!"

He would have made his answer playful. It was a sickly show, and repulsed Jessie more effectually than sternness would have done.

With a burning blush, she dropped the hand she had laid lightly on his sleeve; murmured an apology, and hurried upstairs, forgetting that she had intended to sit for a while longer in the lower room. In her own chamber, she walked the floor in an agony of shame and despair.

"He would never have my love now, if it were offered him!" she said, wringing her hands. "He knows me too well! The glamour of that happy love-summer has gone! gone! To-night, I feel further off from him than ever. He despises me as I deserve! But righteous punishment is as hard to bear as unjust condemnation. And I have suffered so much, and so long! I could have been wholly frank with him, if he had but gone and sat with me ten minutes—if he had been himself , instead of shrinking from my touch—rejecting my companionship."

"The book opened of itself at that place!" Roy was thinking at that moment. He had been to the sitting-room for the volume, carried it into the library, and re-read the poem again and yet again, detecting what he imagined was a tear blister on the second page. "What can I do? What course is left to me save that which I am pursuing? Am I still odious to her?"

The girl at the spring smiled down upon him from the wall; seemed to hold out the green leaf-cup for his acceptance. He could see the glisten of the water upon it; fancy that he heard in the stillness the tinkle of the bright beads as they fell into the basin. The eyes that gave back her look were very patient, but just now it was a patience that had in it much of the weariness of hope deferred.

"I have put a cup of bitterness to your lips, my bird of beauty!" was his unselfish lament.

Mr. Wyllys "had builded better than he knew," that evening.

---

"I wouldn't be as cold-blooded as that woman, for all the gold of Golconda!" exclaimed Hester, before the steps of the Fordham cottage were cold from the touch of her Parisian gaiters.

"Maybe you mean diamonds," said her husband curtly. "It is a safe plan not to use terms unless you are certain they are correct."

"Gold or diamonds, it makes no difference! I don't pick my words when I am out of patience. It's precious little she has of either commodity, I guess!" laughing spitefully.

"Take care of that rough place in the crossing," cautioned Wyllys, in a less acrimonious tone, thus reminded what store his spouse possessed of the valuables specified, and, by inevitable association of ideas, of his profitable investment.

"She frets me always!" continued the sweet creature, hanging, according to custom, basket-wise upon his arm. "This evening she was positively rude. How provokingly she laughed at that sweet piece you read so divinely that I was in tears all the way through. You meant it for her, I could see well enough, you smart, sly creature! And it served her just right! I as good as told her she did not care a snap for her husband, before you came in. And she took it as coolly as if I had paid her a compliment. It is awful what scared consciences some people have. I take to myself the credit of having seen through her from the beginning, when that horrid old matchmaker, Mrs. Baxter, who always puts me in mind of a grinning hyena, was trying to put her off on you. As if you would have married a girl who was next door to a beggar! What is it, petty?"

"I trod on a pebble!"

He had almost flung her arms from their hold. For he remembered the story he had told Jessie in the conservatory, of the woman who was married for her money, and gloried in it.

"What a pity!" gabbled his owner. "I am morally certain that she married Mr. Fordham, poor fellow! to get a home. If that isn't disgustingly immoral—a perfect sale of one's self in the shambles, as you may say, I don't know what is. To be sure, your cousin is one of the very quiet, non-exacting kind, and I hope doesn't suffer as you would, darling love, if she were your wife!" pinching his arm with her claw-like fingers. "For you and I are such turtles, dearie!"

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