IT

T being too late to take the boat for Natchez, Vance proceeded to the St. Charles. The gong for the five o'clock ordinary had sounded. Entering the dining-hall, he was about taking a seat, when he saw Miss Tremaine motioning to him to occupy one vacant by her side.

"Truly an enterprising young lady!" But what could he do?

"I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Vance! I've not forgotten my promise. I called to-day on Mrs. Gentry, the depths. Miss Murray has disappeared, nobody knows where!"

found her in absconded, —

"Indeed! After what you've said of her singing, I'm very anxious to hear her. Do try to find her."

"I'll do what I can, Mr. Vance. There's a mystery. that much I'm persuaded from Mrs. Gentry's manner.” "You mustn't mind Darling's notions on slavery."

Of

"O no, Mr. Vance, I shall turn her over to you for conversion."

"Should you succeed in entrapping her, detain her till I come back from Natchez, which will be before Sunday." "Be sure I'll hold on to her."

Mr. Tremaine came in, and began to talk politics. Vance was sorry he had an engagement. The big clock of the hall pointed to seven o'clock. He rose, bowed, and left. "Why," sighed Laura, "can't other gentlemen be as agreeable as this Mr. Vance? He knows all about the latest fashions; all about modes of fixing the hair; all about music and

dancing; all about the opera and the theatre; in short, what is there the man does n't know?"

Papa was too absorbed in his terrapin soup to answer.

Let us follow Vance to the little house, scene of his brief, fugitive days of delight. He stood under the old magnolia in the tender moonlight. The gas was down in Clara's room. She was at the piano, extemporizing some low and plaintive variations on a melody by Moore, "When twilight dews are falling soft." Suddenly she stopped, and put up the gas. There was a knock at her door. She opened it, and saw Vance. They shook hands as if they were old friends. "Where are the Bernards?"

"They are out promenading. I told them I was not afraid." "How have you passed your time, Miss Perḍita?"

"O, I've not been idle. Such choice books as you have here! And then what a variety of music!"

"Have you studied any of the pieces?"

"Not many.

That from Schubert."

"Please play it for me."

Tacitly accepting him as her teacher, she played it without embarrassment. Vance checked her here and there, and suggested a change. He uttered no other word of praise than to say: "If you 'll practise six years longer four hours a day, you'll be a player."

"I shall do it!" said Clara.

"Have you heard that famous Hallelujah Chorus, which the Northern soldiers sing?"

"No, Mr. Vance.”

"No? Why, 't is in honor of John Brown (any relation of Perdita?) You shall hear it."

And he played the well-known air, now appropriated by the hand-organs. Clara asked for a repetition, that she might remember it.

"Sing me something," he said.

Clara placed on the reading-frame the song of "Pestal." "Not that, Perdita! What possessed you to study, that?" "It suited my mood. Will you not hear it?

"No! . . . . Yes, Perdita. Pardon my abruptness. But that song was the first I ever heard from lips, O so fair and dear to me!"

Clara put aside the music, and walked away toward the window. Vance went up to her. He could see that she was with difficulty curbing her tears.

O, if this man whose very presence inspired such confidence and hope, if it was sweeter to him to remember another than to listen to her, — where in the wide world should she find, in her desperate strait, a friend?

There was that in her attitude which reminded Vance of Estelle. Some lemon-blossoms in her hair intensified the association by their odors. For a moment it was as if he had thrown off the burden of twenty years, and was living over, in Clara's presence, that ambrosial hour of first love on the very spot of its birth. "For O, she stood beside him like his youth, transformed for him the real to a dream, clothing the palpable and the familiar with golden exhalations of the dawn!" Be wary, Vance! One look, one tone amiss, and there'll be danger!

"Let us talk over your affairs,” he said. "To-morrow I must leave for Natchez. Will you remain here till I come back?"

Clara leaned out of the window a moment, as if to enjoy the balmy evening, and then, calmly taking a seat, replied: "I think 't will be best for me to lay my case before Miss Tremaine. True, we parted in a pet, but she may not be implacable. Yes, I will call on her. To you, a stranger, what return for your kindness can I make?"

"This return, Perdita: let me be your friend. As soon as 't is discovered you've no money, your position may become a painful one. Let me supply you with funds. I'm rich; and my only heir is my country."

"No, Mr. Vance! I've no claim upon you, none whatever. What I want for the moment is a shelter; and Laura will give me that, I'm confident."

Vance reflected a moment, and then, as if a plan had occurred to him by which he could provide for her without her knowing it, he replied: "We shall probably meet at the St. Charles. You can easily send for me, should you require my help. Be generous, and say you'll notify me, should there be an hour of need?"

"I'll not fail to remember you in that event, Mr. Vance." "Honor bright?"

"Honor bright, Mr. Vance!"

"Consider, Perdita, you can always find a home in this house. I shall give such directions to Mrs. Bernard as will make your presence welcome."

"Then I shall not feel utterly homeless. Thank you, Mr. Vance!"

"And by the way, Perdita, do not let Miss Tremaine know that we are acquainted."

"I'll heed your caution, Mr. Vance."

"We shall meet again, my dear young lady. Of that I feel assured."

“I hope so, Mr. Vance.”

"And now farewell! I'll tell Bernard to order a carriage and attend to your baggage. Good by, Perdita!"

"Good by, Mr. Vance."

Again they shook hands, and parted. Vance gave his directions to the Bernards, and then strolled home to his hotel. As he traversed the corridor leading to his room, he encountered Kenrick. Their apartments were nearly opposite.

"I was not aware we were such near neighbors, Mr. Kenrick."

"To me also 't is a surprise, and a pleasant one. Will you walk in, Mr. Vance?”

"Yes, if 't is not past your hour for visitors."

They went in, and Kenrick put up the gas. "I can't offer you either cigars or whiskey; but you can ring for what you want."

"Is it possible you eschew alcohol and tobacco?"

"Yes," replied Kenrick; "I once indulged in cigars. But I found the use so offensive in others that I myself abandoned it in disgust. One sits down to converse with a person disguised as a gentleman, and suddenly a fume, as if from the essence of old tobacco-pipes, mixed with odors from stale brandy-bottles, poisons the innocent air, and almost knocks one down. It's a mystery that ladies endure the nuisance of such breaths. My sensitive nose has made me an anti-rum, antitobacco man."

"But I fear me you're a come-outer, Mr. Kenrick! Is it conservative to abuse tobacco and whiskey? No wonder you are unsound on the slavery question!"

"Come up to the confessional, Mr. Vance! Admit that you 're as much of an antislavery man as I am.”

66

More, Mr. Kenrick! If I were not, I might be quite as imprudent as you. And then I should put a stop to my usefulness."

"You puzzle me, Mr. Vance."

"Not as much as you've puzzled me, my young friend. Come here, and look in the mirror with me."

Vance took him by the hand and led him to a full-length looking-glass. There they stood looking at their reflections. "What do you see?" asked Vance.

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"Two rather personable fellows,” replied Kenrick, laughing; one of them ten or twelve years older than the other; height of the two, about the same; figures very much alike, inclining to slimness, but compact, erect, well-knit; hands and feet small; heads, I have no fault to find with the shape or size of either; hair similar in color; eyes, - as near as I can see, the two pairs resemble each other, and the crow's-feet at the corners are the same in each; features, nose, brows —I see why you've brought me here, Mr. Vance! We are enough alike to be brothers."

can't.

"Can you explain the mystery?" asked Vance, "for I Can there be any family relationship? I had an aunt, now deceased, who was married to a Louisianian. But his name was not Kenrick."

"What was it?"

"Arthur Maclain."

"My father! Cousin, your hand! In order to inherit property, my father, after his marriage, procured a change of name. I can't tell you how pleasant to me it is to meet one of my mother's relations."

They had come together still more akin in spirit than in blood. The night was all too short for the confidences they now poured out to each other. Vance told his whole story, pausing occasionally to calm down the excitement which the narrative caused in his hearer.