"I thank you for all the hospitality I have received at your hands. Enclosed you will find my hotel bill receipted, also five dollars for the use of such dresses as I have worn. With best wishes for your mother's restoration to health and for your own welfare, I bid you good by. P. B." The three women now passed through a side entrance to the street where the carriage was in waiting; and before half an hour had elapsed, Clara was established in the blue room of the house in Lafayette Square, the invalid lady had seen her and approved, and Esha, like a faithful hound, was following her steps, keeping watch, as Ratcliff had directed, though for other reasons than he had imagined. Hardly had Clara left the hotel, before Vance called. He had come, fully resolved to wring from her, if possible, the secret of her trouble. Much to his disappointment, he learned she had gone and would not return. He called a second time, and saw Miss Tremaine. That young lady, warned and threatened by her father, now displayed such a ready and facile gift for lying, as would have highly distinguished her in diplomacy. "Only think of it, Mr. Vance," said the intrepid Laura, "it turns out that Miss Brown has been having a love affair with one of her father's clerks, a low-born Yankee. He followed her to New Orleans, — managed to send a letter to her at Mrs. Gentry's, - Clara went forth to find him, but, failing in her search, came to claim hospitality of me. This morning her father a very decent man he seems to be arrived from Mobile and took her, fortunately before she had been able to meet her lover." It The story was plausible. Vance, however, looked the narrator sharply and searchingly in the face. She met his glance with an expression beaming with innocence and candor. was irresistible. The strong man surrendered all suspicion, and gave in "beat." CHAPTER XXXII. A DOUBLE VICTORY. "Whence it is manifest that the soul, speaking in a natural sense, loseth nothing by Death, but is a very considerable gainer thereby. For she does not only possess as much body as before, with as full and solid dimensions, but has that accession cast in, of having this body more invigorated with life and motion than it was formerly."- Henry More, A. D. 1659. "No, sure, 't is ever youth there! Time and Death Beaumont and Fletcher. 66 “I SHALL be jealous of this little lady if you go on at this rate," said Madame Volney to Mrs. Ratcliff, a week after Clara had been established in the house. "Never fear that I shall love you less, my dear Josephine," replied the invalid. Then, pointing to her heart, she added: "I've a place here big enough for both of you. I only wish 't were in better repair." "Have you had those sharp throbbings to-day? "Not badly. You warn me against excitement. I sometimes think I'm better under it. Certainly I've improved since Esha and Darling have been here. What should I do now without Darling to play and read to me? What a touch she has! And what a voice! And then her selection of music and of books is so good. By the way, she promised to translate a story for me from the German. I wonder if she has it finished. Go ask her." The answer was brought by Clara herself, and Josephine left the two together. Yes, Clara had written out the story. It was called Zu Spat, or "Too Late," and was by an anonymous author. Clara read aloud from it. She had read about ten minutes, when the following passage occurred: "Selfish and superstitious, the Baroness put out of her mind the irksome thought of making her will; but now, struck speechless by disease, and paralyzed in her hands, she was T "On the contrary, I'm interested." "What do you think of spiritualism, Miss Brown?" "I've witnessed none of the phenomena, but I don't see why the testimony of these times, in regard to them, should n't be taken as readily as that of centuries back." "My father is a believer," said Onslow; "and I have certainly seen some unaccountable things, - tables lifted into the air, - instruments of music floated about, and played on without visible touch, human hands, palpable and warm, coming out from impalpable air: all very queer and very inexplicable! But what do they prove? Cui bono? What of it all?" "Nothing in it!' as Sir Charles Coldstream says of the Vatican," interposed Laura. "You demand the use of it all, the cui bono, do you?" retorted Kenrick. "Did it ever occur to you to make your own existence the subject of that terrible inquiry, cui bono?" "Certainly," replied Onslow, laughing; "my cui bono is to fight for the independence of the new Confederacy." "And for the propagation of slavery, eh?" returned Kenrick. "I don't see the cui bono. On the contrary, to my fallible vision, the world would be better off without than with you. But let us take a more extreme case. These youths - Tom, Dick, and Harry — who give their days and nights, not to the works of Addison, but to gambling, julep-drinking, and cigar-smoking, who hate and shun all useful work,and are no comfort to anybody, only a shame and affliction to somebody,- — can you explain to me the cui bono of their corrupt and unprofitable lives?" "But how undignified in a spirit to push tables about and play on accordions! " "Well, what authority have you for the supposition that there are no undignified spirits? We know there are weak and wicked spirits in the flesh; why not out of the flesh? A spirit, or an intelligence claiming to be one, writes an ungrammatical sentence or a pompous commonplace, and signs Bacon to it; and you forthwith exclaim, Pooh! this can't come from a spirit.' How do you know that? May n't lies be told in other - worlds than this? Will the ignoramus at once be made a scholar, the dullard a philosopher, the blackguard a gentleman, the sinner a saint, the liar truthful, by the simple process of elimination from this husk of flesh? Make me at once altogether other than what I am, and you annihilate me, and there is no immortality of the soul." 999 "But what has the ghost contributed to our knowledge during these fourteen years, since he appeared at Rochester? Of all he has brought us, we may say, with Shakespeare, 'There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us that.' "I'll tell you what the ghost has contributed, not at Rochester merely, but everywhere, through the ages. He has contributed himself. You say, cui bono? And I might say of ten thousand mysteries about us, cui bono? The lightning strikes the church-steeple, cui bono? An idiot is born into the world, cui bono? It is absurd to demand as a condition of rational faith, that we should prove a cui bono. A good or a use may exist, and we be unable to see it. And yet grave men are continually thrusting into the faces of the investigators of these phenomena this preposterous cui bono?" 66 Enough, my dear Mr. Kenrick!" exclaimed Laura. But he was not to be stopped. He rose and paced the room, and continued: "The cui bono of phenomena must of course be found in the mind that regards them. 'I can't find you both arguments and brains,' said Dr. Johnson to a noodle who thought Milton trashy. One man sees an apple fall, and straightway thinks of the price of cider. Newton sees it, and its suggests gravitation. One man sees a table rise in the air, and cries: It can't be a spirit; 't is too undignified for a spirit!' Mountford sees it, and the immortality of the soul is thenceforth to him a fact as positive as any fact of science." "Your story, dear Mr. Kenrick, your story!" urged Laura. 'My story is ended. The ghost has come and vanished." "Is that all?" whined Laura. "Aren't we, then, to have a story?" 66 "In mercy give us some music, Miss Brown," said Onslow. "Play Yankee Doodle, with variations," interposed Kenrick. "Not unless you'd have the windows smashed in," pleaded Onslow; and, giving his arm, he waited on Clara to the piano. "She dashed into a medley of brilliant airs from operas, uniting them by extemporized links of melody to break the abruptness of the transitions. The young men were both connoisseurs; and they interchanged looks of gratified astonishment. "And now for a song!" exclaimed Laura. Clara paused a moment, and sat looking with clasped hands at the keys. Then, after a delicate prelude, she gave that song of Pestal, already quoted.* She gave it with her whole soul, as if a personal wrong were adding intensity to the defiance of her tones. Kenrick, wrought to a state of sympathy which he could not disguise, had taken a seat where he could watch her features while she sang. When she had finished, she covered her face with her hands, then, finding her emotion uncontrollable, rose and passed out of the room. "What do you think of that, Charles?" asked Onslow. 66 "It was terrible," said Kenrick. "I wanted to kill a slaveholder while she sang." "But she has the powers of a prima donna," said Onslow, turning to Laura. "Yes, one would think she had practised for the stage." Clara now returned with a countenance placid and smiling. "How long do you stay in New Orleans, Miss Brown?" inquired Onslow. "How long, Laura?" asked Clara. "A week or two." “We shall have another opportunity, I hope, of hearing you sing." "I hope so." “I have an appointment now at the armory. Charles, are you ready to walk?" 66 'No, thank you. I prefer to remain.” Onslow left, and, immediately afterwards, Laura's mother being seized with a timely hemorrhage, Laura was called off to attend to her. Kenrick was alone with Clara. Charming opportunity! He drew from her still another and another song. He conversed with her on her studies, on the books *See Chapter XII. page 112. |