Kate Beaumont

CHAPTER XXVII.

NELLIE and Kate passed their twenty-four hours of detention in Brownville without disturbance from Randolph Armitage.

That high-flung gentleman had been stranded by his debauch on the outer reefs of that horrible country which is haunted by the afreets and rocs and serpents and apes of delirium tremens, remaining for several days so bruised and shaken with his shipwreck that he was content to lie in bed and submit to the nursing of Quash and Bentley. But the women, not knowing his wretched state, had no anxiety for him and much for themselves, expecting to see his inflamed visage from minute to minute. Consequently they sought a refuge from him, passing the day in the house of a venerable friend of the Beaumont race, and returning in the evening by back streets to the hotel.

“ You shall not come with us,” said Mrs. Armitage to her host, fearing yet lest her irrational husband might find her, and not willing to lead her old friend into an unpleasantness. “We shall do much the best without you. Only let us have your Cato.”

As Cato marched behind at a decorous distance, the two women had a chance to commune together, and, being women, did commune. Nor is it any wonder either that their talk, after fluttering unsatisfied from subject to subject, should alight upon Frank McAlister. Kate did not mean to speak of him ; indeed, she had made a resolve that she would never utter his name again ; but there seemed to be a magical power about the man, and he would get himself mentioned. On the present occasion he made his entrance upon the scene by dint of that sorcery which is commonly called “ an impression.”

“ I have such a strange feeling,” said the girl, when her sister charged her with absent-mindedness and inattention. “ It seems to me that we are about to meet—one of the McAlisters.”

“ Which one ? ” demanded Mrs. Armitage, crisply.

Kate hesitated ; she did not like to expose her weakness ; moreover, she found “ Frank ” a great word to utter.

“ I know which one,” added Nellie. “Ah, Kate, do you think a woman does n’t understand such things ? I have had just such impressions. O dear, how well I remember them yet ! You make me sad ; you make me think how happy I was once ; it is dreadful to look back upon lost happiness, O yes, I can’t help understanding you.”

“ I don’t wish you to impute too much to me,” said the girl, gently.

“ Kate, let us be frank,” returned Nellie. “ If we are women, we are Beaumonts. Let us speak the whole truth as our race does.”

“ I have never failed to do that but two or three times in my life,” murmured Kate, remembering with a flush of shame how she had once glided by the direct fact in prattling with Jenny Devine about Frank McAlister. “But is there any need of talking about this ? ”

“ Perhaps there is,” said Nellie, pensively. “It is hard to decide whether silence or talk is best. Don’t you want to talk about it ? ”

Kate made no answ'er.

She needs sympathy, thought Nellie ; she shall have a chance to demand it.

“ I know that you like him,” she went on aloud. “ I know that it must pain you to find yourself separated from him for life. I don’t blame you.”

Still Kate spoke not. Denial and confession were both beyond her power ; she walked on silently, with tears in her eyes.

“ Ah well, Kate ! ” sighed Mrs. Armitage, fully comprehending this dumb suffering. “ There is nothing left now but to bear bravely what is and must be. But if ever you want a heart to lean upon, here is mine for you, the whole of it.”

Kate caught her sister’s arm, bowed her head upon her shoulder, and walked thus for a few steps, still without speaking.

“ O my poor darling ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Armitage, stopping and embracing the girl passionately. “ It’s lucky that life is n’t very long. It’s the best thing about it.”

After some further walking she resumed: “ He is better than most men, in spite of his treatment of Tom. But it is useless to talk of him. There is the feud. I suppose you must marry some one else when the time comes.”

“ I won’t be married at all,” whispered Kate, her mind suddenly reverting to that horror of a husband, Randolph Armitage. She was in a state of feeling to believe that all men were like him, except the one man from whom she was divided forever.

On reaching the hotel they went at once to their rooms to prepare for the early start of the morrow. But presently Kate missed her travelling-bag, guessed that she might have left it in the parlor, and went down in search of it. The room was deserted and darkling, for sojourners in that season were few, and watchful thrift had turned down the gas-jets. The girl found her bag, but there was something in the spacious gloom and lonesomeness which suited her feelings, and she lingered. There were two sets of windows ; the front ones looked upon the street, and the rear ones upon a veranda and garden ; outside, everything was illuminated and idealized by the abundant moonlight. Kate walked slowly to and fro, glancing first at one of the little landscapes and then at the other, and wondering that the world could seem so much more like an abode of happiness than she found it. She remained thus for ten or fifteen minutes, unconscious that she was watched.

In the rear veranda a man lurked, trembling with agitation. The night was cool, but he did not notice it; if it had been freezing, he would not have noticed it. When Kate approached him he slipped shamefacedly away, and when she receded he placed himself once more at one or other of the windows, there to gaze after her with an air of anxiety which was like the greediness of hunger. Occasionally he started, as if under some violent impulse, and moved towards a door which opened into the parlor ; then as suddenly he checked himself, fell into a meditation and shook his head sadly ; then hastened back to his spying-place. It was evident that he wished to speak to the girl inside, and that for some weighty reason he did not dare.

This man was Frank McAlister. We must explain how he came here. South Carolina had at last summoned him to prove his science ; he had been commissioned to report upon an ironmine in Saxonburg. Half sick and weakly dispirited, his first impulse had been to decline the job and continue to coddle his sorrows at home under the pitying eyes of his mother and within prompt reach of the sympathy of Jenny Devine. But he made out to remember that he was a metallurgist and that it was high time to magnify his calling. He bade a grateful goodby to Jenny (under the eyes of Major Lawson, as one happens to recollect), and left her without suspecting that he had won her fervent admiration, not to say a little, be it more or less, of her affection. Then he journeyed to his mine and collected specimens of the ore for analysis ; and now here he was, waiting like the two ladies for the morning train eastward. The presence of Kate in the hotel parlor he had discovered while taking a sentimental walk in the moonlit veranda.

The one great question which at once occupied his mind was, should he speak to her. Of course he answered it as a gentleman and a man of sense, saying over and over that it would be useless, that it could only do harm, that he ought not and would not. But on the other hand an impulse which cared for not reason or reproof insisted that he must. Only one word, pleaded this passionate impulse ; what that word should be it did not suggest ; simply that he must find and utter it. Rationality and sense of propriety fought their battle in vain against emotion. After advancing repeatedly to the door, and retreating from it as often, he opened it and was before her.

It will be remembered that she had had an impression that he was at hand. That impression, absurd as she believed it to be, had so prepared her for the meeting, that she was not surprised by his appearance, and recognized him at once in the obscurity. She did not, however, speak, further than to murmur, “ Mr. McAlister.”

“ I beg your pardon,” he said humbly. “I could not help entering.”

It seemed for a moment as if these words must end the conversation, and he would have to retire ignominiously without uttering a syllable to any purpose. Kate did not answer him ; she knew not what to say. She believed that he ought not to be there, and that she ought not to allow him to remain. At the same time it was quite impossible for her to bid him retire. Thus she stood looking at him, her face flushed with excitement, her lips parted as if to speak, but silent.

“ I wish to ask your forgiveness, — yes, and that of your whole family,” recommenced Frank, luckily remembering his difficulty with Tom, and so finding something to say. “ I was a brute to tie your brother and a madman to go out with him. There must be some natural want of delicacy in me. I did not see it then, but I see it now. I see it just in time to repent of it uselessly.”

“ Mr. McAlister, I do not want to talk of this,” replied Kate, pained at his humbling himself so.

“ No. Of course not. I had no right to speak of it to you.”

He would go on bowing in the dust; would prostrate himself unnecessarily.

“ Don’t ! ” she imposed with the simplicity and brevity of earnest feeling. “ I am not angry at you. If I was angry, it is over.”

“ Is it possible ? ” he asked, so grateful for what he esteemed unmerited pardon, that he wanted to fall on his knees, as if to a forgiving deity. “ This is more than I ever hoped to hear from you. I have hated myself for my folly, and believed that you hated me for it. I thought also that you must share the natural feelings of your family towards me. I have been in despair over it.”

“ Mr. McAlister, you don’t know how you pain me,” Kate could not help saying in reply to this supposition that she could hate him.

“ O yes, I have done you injustice,” he went on. “ I suppose my thoughts have sprung from my fears. Well, I am greatly relieved ; I am just a little satisfied. You at least forgive me.”

“ If I blamed you, it was for the duel.”

“ But I did not challenge, and I did not fire at him,” he insisted, still bent on excusing himself. “ I wanted to be shot.”

“ O, how could you ! ” shuddered Kate.

“ I was in despair. You did not answer my letters.”

“ Perhaps I was wrong. I did not know what to do. There was this miserable quarrel, and all intercourse forbidden. I did not like to write, not even to say good by, unless my father knew it.”

“ I ought to have had more patience,” confessed Frank, perpetually ready to condemn himself.

“ It does seem to me that you ought, Mr. McAlister. I expected a great deal of patience and calmness from you.”

“ And it is you who have shown all the patience and all the good sense,” declared the young man, in a passion of humility. “ And I have played the part of a madman and an idiot. I am so much your inferior ! ”

“ O no ! ” Kate could not help saying it, and could not help advancing a little towards him, she so wanted to console him under his burden of selfreproach.

Before she knew what he was about he had taken her hand and kissed it.

Meantime Mrs. Armitage, wishing to give some direction concerning the start in the morning, had gone to her sister’s room in search of her, and thence descended to the parlor. She appeared just in time to see the hand raised and the kiss impressed upon it.

“ Mr. McAlister, is this proper conduct ? ” she demanded, flaming at once into anger. “ Is this keeping your promise to me ? ”

Frank’s soul was in a confused whirl; but he tried to look down the maelstrom and discover the truth at the bottom of it; and he thought he saw that he had not broken his word in regard to paying court to Miss Beaumont without her sister’s consent.

“ I was asking her pardon,” he said. “ I asked her pardon for ill-treating her brother and for going out with him. She granted it, and I thanked her.”

He spoke with such a manly selfrespect and such a sincerity of tone, that Mrs. Armitage could not help believing him. Moreover, his voice and manner moved her; they -were eloquent with uprightness of character and fervor of emotion ; they made a music which she had heard and been well pleased with heretofore. Her confidence in him and her liking for him returned upon her with such force that she could not at once go on with her scolding.

“ I ask your pardon also for those wrongs, Mrs. Armitage,” he added presently.

“ O, let them pass,” she replied impatiently, vexed with herself for losing her anger at him. “That has all been cancelled in the proper way, I suppose. But what right have you here ? Why did you come here ?”

He told her how he happened to be in Brownville, and added that he had discovered her sister by accident.

“ Then you go down in the train with us to-morrow ? ” she inquired.

“ If you object, I will wait over.’’

“ I don’t see that I have any right to object,” mused Mrs. Armitage. “ As things stand between our families, I have not the least authority over you.”

“ I concede the right and the authority,” bowed the young man.

“ I don’t object. It would be asking a favor of you, — placing ourselves under an obligation.”

“ I assure you that I would not so consider it.”

“ I tell you that I do not object,” repeated Nellie, a little annoyed by this bandying of courtesies with a man to whom she ought not to speak at all, as she believed. “ But — ” she added, and then checked herself.

Frank waited respectfully.

“ I may as well say it,” she went on, her vexation rising as she found the interview more and more embarrassing, “ you should not have spoken to my sister. I am not blaming her; she could not well help listening; I am blaming you for speaking. You should not have done it.”

“ You are quite right,” admitted Frank. “ I should not have done it.”

“ No, and you certainly should not have done more,” persisted the impulsive Nellie, unable to let well alone.

“ I know it,” the repelled lover burst forth. “ But, Mrs. Armitage, are you no woman at all ? ” he continued in a whisper, — a whisper tremulous with passion, — a whisper which Kate overheard. “ Can’t you concede any latitude to misery ? Just look at me,” he added, turning his thin face to the light. “ Am I the same man that I was ? You at least ought to guess what this change in me means. I have borne wretchedness enough in the last month to make me lose my reason. Indeed, I have lost it; I have behaved like a madman ; I have behaved so, I suppose, this evening. I never meant to speak to your sister until I saw her; and then I could not help it. I was driven to ask her forgiveness, and driven to humble myself before her all the more because she forgave me. Why, don’t you know, can’t you understand, what has happened to me ? Separated from her! separated for life ! Can't you imagine what that all means to me ? It means a broken heart, if there can be such a thing.”

“ O, stop ! ” begged Mrs. Armitage, as Kate fled to the other end of the room, threw herself on a sofa and covered her face. “ O, these men ! there is no doing anything with them. Don’t you see what mischief you are making ? You should n’t have come here. Do go away.”

“No, I shouldn’t have come here,” said Frank, recovering a little of his self-possession. “ It has only made bad worse.”

“Yes,” sighed Nellie. “And here I am pitying you. How could you charge me with not being a woman ? ”

“ O, if I said that, I did you great wrong. I did not know that I said it. I beg your pardon.”

“It does n’t matter. I am not angry with you. No, I am not angry with you about anything, though I suppose I ought to be. If you are really so wretched, how can I be angry with you ? But come; all this talk is useless, worse than useless. As long as the quarrel between our families lasts you cannot be near to Kate, nor even to me. If it should ever end, then — perhaps — ”

“ So you will still be friendly to me, or at least not hostile ? ” he asked, his face so lighting up that it fascinated her.

“ I must not say too much,” she answered ; but she could not help giving him her hand. He pressed it in both his, and barely stopped short of kissing it. Then turning a last long look upon the silent girl on the sofa, he left the parlor and went straight to his room, a lighter-hearted man than he had been for a month,

“ Ah, Kate ! ” said Mrs. Armitage, taking her sister’s arm and leading her away. “ What with a crazy man and an idiotic woman, you have had a wretched time. O, these lovers! I may as well say the word. He has told you all about it,— with my help. There is no stopping them. No woman really and heartily wants to stop them. I was fool enough to let him go on and provoke him to go on. I ought to suffer for it, and I do. For it was so useless ! oh, it was so useless! Come, let us go to our rooms and go to sleep. I wish I could sleep all the while. I wish you could, my poor darling. The insensible hours are the happiest hours of one’s life. Even nightmares are not so bad as realities. Here is one of the unhappiest women in the world talking nonsense to the next unhappiest. That is what waking life is. Let us get to sleep as quickly as possible. If we could sleep half the time, we should just balance accounts between wretchedness and pleasure. It is a poor consolation.”

They were by this time at the door of Kate’s room. Mrs. Armitage kissed her sister, lingered a moment on the threshold, and then entered.

“ I can’t leave you yet,” she said. “It is only ten o’clock, although it seems late enough to be morning, to be the next world. You will sleep the quicker if we talk awhile. What a comfort talk is to women. How did our poor ancestresses get along before they learned how to do it, if there ever was such a time ? ”

“ How are we to treat him to-morrow ? ” asked Kate, not even hearing her sister’s prattle, though meant to divert her.

“Ah!” returned Mrs. Armitage. “ That is true. Circumstances have changed since I allowed him to go in the train. Perhaps, when he told his story, I ought to have forbidden his coming.”

“Are you going to forbid it?” inquired Kate so anxiously that Nellie could not reply, Yes.

“ It does not seem to matter much,” she said, after a moment of hesitation. “ It surely cannot matter so very, very much, I shall leave him at liberty in the question. I shall trust to his judgment.”

Did it not occur to her that trusting to the judgment of a man in love, especially after what had happened during the evening, was leaning on a reed ? The truth is that Nellie remembered her own time of loving ; she guessed that these two must long beyond expression to look at each other, only to look ; and in her sympathetic woman’s heart she could not find the hardness to forbid it.

But half an hour later, as she went to her own room, she said to herself earnestly, “ I do hope he will stay behind. Will he?”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

WARM hearts, as you already know, had the Beaumonts ; hearts quick to spring and demanding incessant activity ; not, however, in the manner of lambs, kids, and other playful creatures ; rather like blood horses, puissant for either good or evil.

Mrs. Armitage was like the rest of her kind ; when she was not hating she was loving. By nature she was a woman of the marrying sort, disposed to rush into matrimony herself and to help others do the like. Even now, despite her sad experience in wedded life, she believed in making love and taking the consequences. It was impossible for her to conceive how a person of her own sex could have a heart and not use it. That a girl, under any circumstances, should become an old maid as a matter of preference, was a thing outside of her belief. Not to love and not to marry was in her eyes to be either a wilful monstrosity or a victim of horribly adverse circumstance. She was born to think thus, and could not for twenty-four hours together think otherwise, not even under the pressure of her hardest wifely troubles, not even when flying from her husband. It is no -wonder that a woman of such an affectionate and sympathetic character should remember Kate’s declaration that she would never marry, and should revolt against it.

“ See here,” she began upon the girl early in the morning. “I don’t like your saying that you will never take anybody at all. You mustn’t get into that state of mind. It is unnatural in a woman. It can’t lead to happiness. I don’t believe there is any such thing as single-blessedness, — at least not for our sex. The phrase is ironical; it really means single misery. There are no contented and cheerful old maids ; you never saw one, and you never will. An old maid is a complete failure. She is like a man who does not succeed in man’s careers. Rather than be one, you had better marry a scoundrel, even if you get a divorce from him. You would at least have some short use of your affections ; and you would, besides, occupy your mind and your time. Now that is the deliberate, serious opinion of a wife who has failed almost as completely as a wife can. I want you to lay it to heart.”

“ O, tell me about it some other time,” sighed Kate, wearied of the subject of marriage, or fancying that she was so.

They reached the station without seeing Frank McAlister or learning whether he would be with them on the train. When the cars started he had not yet appeared, and they supposed that he had remained behind. Kate was disappointed; she had hoped to have him near her, though she might not even look at him ; she had expected to draw just a little consolation from that unsocial propinquity. But, strange to say, Mrs. Armitage was also disappointed, in spite of her feeling that his absence was a relief, and that it was for the best.

“ I did not expect such discretion,” she said to herself; “ he is not so mannish a man as I took him to be ; he is almost too gentlemanly a gentleman.”

Turning presently to throw a shawl over her seat, she saw him standing on the rear platform of the car, and glancing sidelong through the window. She was so amused, and, in spite of her uneasiness, so gratified, that she could scarce forbear laughing outright. “ I might have known it,” she thought; “ he has got there to look at Kate undisturbed ; just to look at the back of her bonnet.”

She absolutely longed to beckon him in and offer him her own place, A few minutes later she discovered that he had slyly entered and was sitting on the rearmost seat, with his face settled straight to the front. “ O dear ! ” she reflected, “ how is this going to end ? I am afraid I shall be wickedly weak about it. I have n’t half hard-heartedness enough for a duenna.”

She was so interested in this love imbroglio, that during most of the journey she forgot her own troubles. She was so bewildered by it that she could not remember her prejudices as a Beaumont, her sage deliberations as a woman who had seen life, and her anxieties as an elder sister. The near presence of strong love intoxicated a nature given to affection and full of sympathy for it. That man behind her, sending all his soul through his eyes at Kate’s hat-ribbons, she could not help thinking of him continually, could not help wishing him success. “ If it only could be ! ” she repeatedly said to herself; and presently she began to inquire, “ Whyshould it not be ? ”

Her former fancy for the youngster came back upon her in full force ; and from liking him the next step was to consider him unexceptionable as a match. After an hour or so of sympathizing with the longings of this faithful and fascinating lover, it seemed clear to her that Kate could not find another man who would make her so good a husband. As for the intervening family feud, could it not be got rid of by defying it? It had blocked the engagement ; but if the engagement should be brought about by main force, that might block the feud ; the initiative, the aggressive, counted for so much in these matters. She remembered two scolding negresses whom she had once seen, one of whom was pouring forth a stream of abuse, while the other listened with

an air of patient menace, merely muttering, “Ef you coughs, you’s gone up.” She smiled at the recollection and said to herself, “ If the quarrel coughs, it is done.” In spite of her conscientiousness, her manly sense of honor, and her strong family feeling, Nellie was soon dallying with the idea of a runaway match. Her principles were as high and solid as mountains, but her sympathies were as strong as the volcanic fires which devour mountains. Vigorous in every point of her character, she was all the more a changeable creature, a woman of the women.

At last — O, how impatiently Nellie had waited for it ! — the younger sister rose, arranged her travelling-rug, looked about her and discovered Frank McAlister. He ventured to remove his hat as he caught her glance, and she just drooped her long lashes in acknowledgment of the salute. When she sat down again her cheeks were rose-beds of blushes, and her hazel eyes were full of flashes which blinded her.

“ Ah, you saw,” whispered Nellie, trembling with an excitement which was almost glee. “ I knew an hour ago that he was there.”

“ O Nellie, what shall I do? ” asked Kate, reeling between terror and an irresistible gladness.

“Jump out of the window,” advised Nellie, fairly giggling. We must surely pardon her slightly hysterical frame, when we remember how little she had slept of late.

“Nellie, you are laughing at me,” said Kate, piteously. “ It is shabby and cruel of you.”

“So it is. But I can’t help laughing. He is actually browsing on your bonnet trimmings.”

“ Be still, Nellie,” begged the girl, raising both hands to her cheeks, as if to push back the crowding blushes. “ You shall not make us so ridiculous. O, I wish he had stayed away ! Why did n’t he ? ”

“It is too absurd,” declared Mrs. Armitage, with a nervous start. “ I can’t have him there making an image of himself and making everybody wonder what we are. I must bring him up here where he will have to behave himself.”

“ O, no ! ” pleaded Kate. “It will lead to misunderstanding and trouble of all sorts.”

But, impelled by her nerves, Mrs. Armitage sprang to her feet, faced toward the young man, and beckoned him to approach. He obeyed her in great anxiety, expecting to be requested to leave the car, and fully prepared to make the rest of the journey with the baggage-master, or even to jump off the train if so ordered. This last feat, by the way, would not have been an eminently dangerous one, inasmuch as the railroad velocity of that region rarely surpassed ten miles an hour. It must be understood also that the train had only one passenger-car, and that one by no means full. Negroes travelled not at all, except as nurses, etc.; the low-down population travelled very little; high-toned people were scarce.

“ I suppose that you have no provisions,” said Mrs. Armitage to the youngster. “ Since you are here, you must share in our basket. Would you mind turning over the seat in front and riding backward ? ”

“ I am very grateful to you,” replied Frank, who would have ridden on a rail to be near Miss Beaumont.

Then followed a conversation of several hours, — a conversation managed with good taste and discretion ; not a word as to the family quarrel or the love affair; all about travelling, Europe,and other unimpassioned subjects. Sensible, full of information, and for the time in good spirits, the young man was fairly luminous, and more than ever dazzled Mrs. Armitage. By the time the party separated she had arrived at a solid resolve to break up the family feud if possible, and to bring about a match between these two, whether it were possible or not. Of course the male Beaumonts would not fancy her projects, and perhaps would oppose them domineeringly and angrily. But she determined to fight them ; her long contest with the brutalities of her husband had made her somewhat of a rebel against men; and besides, the law of the “ survival of the fittest ” had blessed her, as it had blessed all her breed, with abundant pugnacity.

“ I am his sworn ally,” she said to her sister as they drove homeward. “ If he proposes, do you accept him. Then I will go to papa with the whole story, and if he is naughty, I will appeal to your grandpapa.”

“ I will neither do nor permit anything of the sort,” replied the almost over-tempted Kate, with tears in her eyes.

“We will see,” prophesied Nellie. “ O, you good little cry-baby! Kiss me.”

As there had been no time for advisatory letters, the two ladies were their own heralds at the plantation. But while the father and brothers were surprised by their advent, they were all the more delighted. The family sympathy was so strong in this race, that in the matter of welcoming kinspeople the Beaumont men were more like women than like the generality of their own sex. Moreover, in the dull routine of plantation life, every event is a gratification, and especially every visit.

“Why, my babies ! ” trumpeted Peyton. “This is the blessedest sight I have had in a month. So, Kate, you could n’t stay away any longer from your old father ? God bless you, my darling. And Nellie, — why, I hadn’t a hope of this, — this is too good. So you brought her down, did you ? Nellie, you were always a wonderful girl; always doing some nice thing unexpectedly. And the little fellows, too ! My God, what boys they are ! what boys ! ”

When the brothers came in there was an incomprehensible clatter of talk. These eight Beaumonts, old and young, babbled in a way which would have done honor to their remotest and purest French ancestors. Despite the sad secrets lurking in some of these hearts, it was a scene of unmixed enjoyment and abandon. In the gladness of meeting their relatives, even the women forgot their troubles.

Not till the next morning, not till Peyton Beaumont had had time to settle upon the fact that his daughters were paler and thinner than when they went away, were any unpleasant subjects broached. Drawing Nellie into his favorite solitude and sanctum, the garden (the old duelist loved flowers), he demanded, “ What the — what is the matter with you two ? Here I sent Kate up country to get rosy and hearty, and she has come back as pale as a lily. And you, too ; why, I never saw you so broken down ; why, I thought you had a constitution : what is the matter ? ”

“ See here, papa,” began Mrs. Armitage, and then for a breath was silent. “ Well, it has come time to act, and of course it is time to talk,” she resumed. “ I have had to leave my husband, and I am excusable for telling why.”

“ Had to leave your husband ! ” echoed the father, his bushy eyebrows bristling and his saffron eyes turning bloodshot. “ The infamous scoundrel ! ! ”

He was so much of a Beaumont that he never doubted for a moment that his own flesh and blood was in the right. He asked for no more than the fact that his daughter had felt herself compelled to leave her husband. On that he judged the case at once and forever.

Then came the wretched story; at least a part of it, enough of it.

“ The infamous scoundrel! ” repeated Beaumont, breathing hard, like a tiger scenting prey. “ Be tranquil. Be perfectly easy. He won’t live the month out.”

“ Have a care what you do,” replied Nellie. “ I don’t want the whole world to know what I have suffered.”

“Who is going to know it?” interrupted the old fire-eater. “ By heavens, I ’ll shoot the man who dares to know it. If any man dares to look as though he knew it, I ’ll shoot him.”

“You can’t shoot the women,” said Nellie.

“ We can call out their men,” was the reply of a gentleman who knew the customs of good society.

“And every stone thrown into the puddle will rile it the more,” sighed Nellie. “ Besides, I don’t want blood spilt.”

“ But, good heavens, you don’t mean that I shall hear this abuse of you in patience, — hear it as though I were a Yankee pedler or a Dunker preacher ! It can’t be borne.”

“Father, here is what I want of you,” declared Nellie, as emphatic as her parent. “ Bear it as I do. You are surely the least sufferer of the two. All I want is to be allowed to live apart from my husband. Help me in that; protect me in that. I not only do not ask anything more, but I forbid anything more. In this matter I have a right to command. I want you to promise me that there shall be no challenging on my account. If you won’t promise that, I will go back to him.”

After a long argument, and after a good deal of bloodthirsty glaring and snuffing the air, Beaumont grumbled an ungracious and only partial assent.

“ Let him keep away, then,” he said, shaking his iron-gray mane. “If he wants to go on breathing, let him keep out of my sight.”

“You won’t tell the boys anything of this ? ” begged Nellie, remembering that her influence over her brothers was slighter than that over her father.

“Why not?” demanded Beaumont, who had half meant to tell the boys, knowing well their pugnacity.’

“Father, you comprehend why of course. Do grant me this favor ; do promise me. I want this whole matter in my own hands. Leave it to my judgment. Promise me not to tell them.”

And so, unable to resist a child, and above all a daughter, Beaumont sulkily promised.

“ But of course you will go on staying here,” he insisted.

“ I don’t know where else to stay,” groaned Nellie, suddenly wounded by a sense of dependence.

“ My God, my child ! ” he exclaimed, throwing an arm around her waist and drawing her close to his side. “ Where else should you stay ? ”

“And my children, too,” added the mother, hardly able to keep from sobbing.

“I would like to see anybody get them away from here,” returned Beaumont, squaring his broad chest as if to face a combatant, and thrusting his hands into his pockets with an air of drawing derringers.

Left to himself, he muttered a great deal about Armitage, shaking a clenched fist as if he had the brute before him, elevating his bushy eyebrows as a wild boar raises his bristles, halting abruptly to stare fiercely at vacancy, etc.

“ After all, I fancy .that her way of managing the scoundrel is the best,” he finally decided. “What a woman she is, that daughter of mine! What fortitude and sense! In her place I should have made fifty scoundrels long ago. By heavens, these women amaze me, they do indeed. In their own business — that is to say, in matters that belong to —well in short, their own business, they are wonderful.”

When he thus praised women he of course meant such as were born ladies, and more particularly such as were born Beaumonts, though he could hardly have been thinking of Mrs. Chester.

Nellie’s next notable conversation with her father began with a reference to the controversy with the McAlisters.

“ When does the election take place ? ” she asked.

“ In about three weeks,” calmly responded the veteran politician.

“ And the misunderstanding with the Judge still continues.”

“Humph,” grunted papa. It occurred to him that in discussing his affairs of state she was getting beyond woman’s business.

“ It would be well to devise some plan to make him give up his opposition,” continued Nellie.

“ Humph,” repeated Beaumont. He was determined not to talk with her on this subject; he preferred to be left to his own will and judgment in masculine matters.

“ Could n’t he be got to withdraw his candidature ? ” persisted the daughter.

“ I don’t want him to withdraw,” snorted Beaumont, starting like an angered horse, and forgetting his purpose of reticence. “ I prefer to have him run. I want to beat him.”

“ O,” said Nellie, somewhat disappointed. “ I had an idea that beating him was not so certain. Poinsett tells me that it is likely to be a very close contest.”

“ Did Poinsett say that ? ” asked the father, clearly a little alarmed. “ Well, I must admit that the Judge is working very hard. There is a great deal of money being spent, — I don’t know where it comes from,—but it does come. By heavens, if I get a hold on them ! ”

“It would be a capital thing, then, to induce him to withdraw,” inferred Nellie.

“ But how the deuce is it to be done?” answered Beaumont in a pet. “ Do you know what you are talking about ? I don’t think you do.”

“ Perhaps not,” assented Nellie, sagaciously ; she was leading the way to a change of subject ; she was devising a new approach.

“ Then let us drop the matter,” said the bothered candidate.

“ I have something to say to you about Kate,” resumed Nellie, opening her second parallel. “ Did you ever know Bent Armitage is very fond of her ? ”

“ Bent Armitage ! ” exclaimed the father in great wrath. “ I ’ll have no more Armitages in my family. I won’t have one in my house. It’s a bad race. They run to drunkenness and brutality. One of them is enough and a thousand times too much. Bent Armitage may go to the Old Harry. He can’t have my daughter. He sha’ n’t speak to her. He sha’ n’t come here.”

“I thought you liked Bent pretty well.”

“ So I did, in a fashion. I liked his gabble and his stories well enough. I ’ve no objection to hearing him talk now and then. But when it comes to his paying attention to Kate, that is quite another thing. Besides, I didn’t fully know until now what a beast an Armitage can be. I didn’t thoroughly understand the nature of the breed. Now that I do know all that, I don’t want to see him at all. I don’t want any of the crop on my place.”

“ Bent is better than some men,” softly said Nellie, remembering his kindness to herself.

“ I tell you I don’t want to hear about him,” insisted Beaumont. “ The moment you talk of the possibility of his courting Kate, I hate him. No more Armitages.”

“ McAlisters would be better,” suggested Nellie.

“ Yes, even McAlisters,” assented the father. Although his words were ungracious, his manner did not show much bitterness, for at the moment he thought of Frank, and how he had once felt kindly towards him.

“ A good deal better,” added Nellie.

Beaumont stared and bristled. “ What are you talking about now ? I can’t always keep track of you.”

“Frank McAlister is altogether the best of the family,” said Nellie, picking a flower or two with a deceptive air of absent-mindedness.

The father stared in a puzzled way ; but at last he gave a humph of assent.

“That’s no great matter,” he presently growled. “It does n’t take much of a man to be the best of the McAlisters.”

“ I don’t see how the Judge could have such a noble fellow for a son,” observed Nellie.

“Nor I either,” declared Beaumont, thrown off his guard. “ By heavens, he is a fine fellow, considering his surroundings. He is a perfect contrast to that sly old fox, his father. It’s just as though a Roman should be the son of a Carthaginian. He has the making of a gentleman in him. To be sure, he did treat Tom— But never mind about that, he did his best to make amends for it: he did very well. I must say, Nellie, that I was grieved to break with that young fellow. I had begun to like him.”

“ Ah, you liked him because he liked Kate,” replied Nellie, insinuating the love affair into conversation with admirable dexterity.

“ Nonsense ! ” denied Beaumont. “Well, of course I did,” he immediately confessed, for he abhorred lying, even to white lies. “ Naturally I like to have my children appreciated, and think well of people who do appreciate them. I admit, too, that I admire a man for exhibiting a proper perception of character, and especially of such a noble character as Kate undoubtedly has. But if you mean to say that I meant— ”

“No, I don’t mean to say that you meant anything,” interrupted Nellie. “ I will just say what I mean myself. I wish that match had come off.”

“ No, no,” protested Beaumont. “ I should have lost my daughter. We never can have a year’s peace with that family. I can’t have Kate married among people who would drag her away from me and set her up to fight me. I did think of it; I admit it. I was taken with that fellow, Frank, and I did think of letting him try his chance. But what has happened since then puts an end to the idea forever. No marriage with McAlisters. I can’t allow it; I can’t consider it. And if you mean to suggest that I ought to favor the match for the sake of getting rid of my political rival and assuring my seat in Congress, you are not the child that I have taken you for. Before I would sell one of my daughters in that way, I would let myself be shelved forever and I would step into my grave.”

“ Don’t do me injustice,” said Nellie. “ If I hinted at that idea, I laid very little stress upon it, even in my own mind. But there is one thing that I want you to consider seriously. It is Kate’s happiness. You must understand fully that she likes this young man, and, as I believe, likes him very much. You must understand, too, that he is one of the best men that she can ever hope to have. She may never receive so good an offer again. He has n’t a vice, not even of temper. You don’t want her to marry an Armitage.” (A growl from Beaumont.) “Well, there are plenty of Armitages who don’t bear the name. To be sure, there are other young fellows as good perhaps as this one; there is Poindexter and Dr. Mattieson and our clergyman and so on ; all nice fellows. But Kate does not care for them. And for him she does care.”

“ O Nellie ! ” groaned Beaumont. “ Stop. I can’t talk about this now. Some other time, when we get out of this fight, if ever we do. But I can’t discuss it now. Do let me alone. Do you want to break my heart ? ”

“ No, nor Kate’s either,” said Nellie.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THERE is a propensity in the human being when overtaken by trouble to want to know the worst.

If it were not for the awful mystery and the irrevocable decisiveness of the act of death, the man who is sweeping down rapids towards a cataract would undoubtedly long to reach the plunge. It may even be that to those who have gone over Niagara the moment of catastrophe has been a moment of relief.

Like most worried people, Peyton Beaumont proceeded to seek out the culmination of his worries ; he stumbled on from his trying talk with Nellie abou' Kate to a still more trying talk with Kate about herself; he did it against his intention and desire, but he could not help doing it. It so tormented him to suspect that his pet daughter was sorrowing, that he could not rest until he had laid his finger on the pulse of her sorrow and made certain of its feverish throbbing.

First he watched her ; he noted the unwonted paleness and the sad though sweet seriousness of her face ; he observed that, no matter how cheeringly he might prattle to her, he could not make her gay. The smiles that came on her lips, and the sparkles that rose from the lucid depths of her eyes, were transitory. Her demeanor was similar to an overshadowed day, during which the sun steals forth again and again, but only by moments.

“ My child, I can’t bear this,” he at last broke out; “ you are unwell or unhappy, and you don’t say why. You make me anxious and — and miserable.”

Kate glanced at him with a surprised and frightened expression. Her feelings were of such a delicate nature, that to have them handled by a man, even by a father whom she loved and who worshipped her, was terrible. The Creator has seldom fashioned a being more sensitive, more maidenly modest, than was this girl. Excepting with those eyes of a scared fawn, she made no reply.

“What is it, my darling?” insisted Beaumont, taking her hands and drawing her against his shoulder. “ Is it something unbearable ? ”

His manner was as tender as if he were a mother instead of a father. In view of the seeming paradox contained in the fact, we cannot too strenuously repeat that this warlike old chieftain, scarred with duels and stained with the heart’s blood of more than one of his fellow-men, was a singularly affectionate parent. His children were a part of himself; indeed, he held them as the finest and most precious part; he would have risked fortune and life to right the wrong of any one of them. His parental feeling was all the stronger because of the spirit of family which possessed him, as it possessed all his race. His progeny were Beaumonts ; he was the sheik, the patriarch of the Beaumont tribe ; he was responsible for the welfare of every member of it. This family instinct, one of the most natural and beneficent of emotions, the germ from which human society first took its development, was a passion with him. A noble passion, we must pause to declare ; noble, not only on account of its manly, unselfish direction and beautiful results, but also on account of its fervor; for, as we have already said, and as far wiser men have said before us, the grandeur of a sentiment is measured not more by its purpose than by its force.

“ Is it more than a Beaumont can endure ? ” he repeated gently, though with an appeal to the family pride.

“ No, it is not more,” answered Kate, quivering with her struggle to bear, as an overladen man quivers under his load.

The father was not satisfied ; for he did not want his daughter to suffer at all, and she had tacitly confessed to suffering. His strongest impulse, however, was to justify himself.

“ I did not seek this new quarrel,” he said. “ I can declare truly, that Judge McAlister forced it upon me. I could live with the man decently, if he would let me.”

“ O father, I have nothing to say about those matters. Why do you explain them to me ? ”

“ Because I don’t want you to blame me. I can’t bear it. I say I could live with these people. As for the young man, — I mean Mr. Frank McAlister, — I respect him and like him.”

Kate, in spite of her virginal modesty, gave him a glance of gratitude which stung him. He started, and then resigned himself; the girl did love that man ; well, he must bear it.

“ The deuce knows how it has all come about,” he mumbled. “ One thing has happened after another. We are all in a muddle of quarrelling. I wish we were out of it.”

She made no answer, but he knew by the way she leaned against him that she echoed his wish with many times his earnestness.

“ I must speak out,” he declared. “ It is my duty as a father. I know that this young man likes you and wishes to marry you. If your happiness is concerned, I must know that. Then I will see what I can do.”

Kate could endure no longer; she was fairly driven into a burst of tears and sobbing ; she clutched her father and buried her face in his neck, all the while kissing him. It was the same as to say, “ I am very miserable, but do not be unhappy about it and do not be vexed with me.”

“ O my poor child ! ” he repeated several times, patting her shoulder in a helpless way, the most discomforted of comforters.

At last she recovered her self-possession a little, gradually lifting her head until her lips touched his ear.

“ Papa, I will tell you everything,” she whispered. “I did love him, and O, I do! If you had let him propose to me, I should have taken him. But now it is different. Since I have seen how it must always be between our families, I have decided that I never will marry him, not even if you consent. I will not risk being put in hostility to my own family. And now let me go, quick. Let me run.”

The instant he loosened his embrace she rustled out of the room and away to her own chamber, shutting the door upon herself with a noise of hurry which he could plainly hear.

Peyton Beaumont remained alone in a state of profound depression. After a while he exploded in a torrent of profane invective against Judge McAlister, making him alone responsible for breaking the peace between the two houses by his attempt to sneak into Congress, — the sly, perfidious, rascally old fox, the humbugging possum, the greedy raccoon! Finally, making a strong effort at self-control, an effort to crush his proudest aspirations, he exclaimed, “ Hang the House of Representatives ! I won’t run for a seat. Let him have it. For once.”

But the Honorable Beaumont had other business in the world besides that of being a vehicle for domestic and sentimental emotions. When he came to suggest to his sons and to his political confederates that he thought of throwing up his candidature, he found that they did not look upon him merely in the light of his duty as a father, but expected of him knightly service as a champion of State Rights and Southern principles.

“ Going to drop us, Beaumont! ” exclaimed shining old General Johnson, his eloquent jaw falling so that he looked like the mummy of an idiot. “ Why, good God, Beaumont, if our Alexander is to turn his back in the very moment of crossing the Granicus, what is to become of us ? ”

“ General, I object to that expression, ‘turning the back,’” responded the Honorable, his eyebrows ruffling until they made one think of two “fretful porcupines.” “ I must be allowed to say that I do not consider it a phrase which can be properly applied to any act of mine. General, I dislike the phrase.”

“ Metaphor, my dear Beaumont,” bowed the General, restraining himself (pugnacious old tiger) for political reasons. “ No offence intended, I do assure you. Mere poetical metaphor. Moreover, I withdraw it. Let us say prosaically and plainly, resigning your candidature. And now, the matter being thus posed, will you allow me to argue upon it?”

“ Certainly, General, I shall be most happy to consider every suggestion you may have to offer.”

“ By God, I believe I’d fight him, if he did n’t,” thought Johnson. Then, speaking with unusual sententiousness by reason of the pressure of the crisis, he proceeded as follows : “ Changing leaders in the moment of the shock of battle is equivalent to defeat. If we attempt to run any other candidate than yourself, particularly at this vital moment, we shall be beaten. A traitor to South Carolina will misrepresent South Carolina in the Federal Congress from this heretofore most truly and nobly represented district. The Southern phalanx will be broken in its very centre ; and into the gap will rush the centralizing legions of the North. The sublime flag which our great Calhoun unfolded will be borne to the ground. It will be defeat all along the line. States Rights will be trampled under foot. Southern principles will be scattered forever. Beaumont, my dear and revered Beaumont, you are standing on a tripod of the most fearful responsibility. Upon you rests the prediction of our future. Your action will be its prophecy and its creation.”

In his “ flight of eloquence ” the minute old General trembled like a humming-bird.

“ Pardon the emotion of a veteran who sees his flag in danger,” he resumed, mastering his alcoholized nerves. “ Excuse the earnestness of a legionary who has grown gray in the service of his State, and who now sees the fair fame and even the sovereign existence of that State imperilled. Hear me in patience and with solemn consideration, while I implore you not to leave our noble cause to its own unassisted strength in this hour of supreme trial. By those who conquered at Fort Moultrie, and by those who fell at Eutaw Springs and — ahem — at various other places, and by those who dropped from bloody saddles beside Marion and Sumter, I conjure you to hold fast the banner of South Carolina and lead her as heretofore onward to victory. Duncan McAlister to represent this district at Washington ? What a downfall for us all ! Duncan McAlister to stand in your place ? What a downfall for you ! Ah, my dear Beaumont, consider, before it is quite too late ; con—sid—er ! ”

We must observe that Beaumont’s speechifying was very unlike the Johnsonian ; it was mere talk, plain and straightforward talk, somewhat disconnected and jerky, but earnest and often forcible ; it consisted in saying outright what he thought and especially what he felt. But although he thus differed from the General in style, and although he knew in his secret mind that the eloquence of the latter was mainly flummery, he on the present occasion could not help being moved by it. Those magic names, Hartland District, South Carolina, Fort Moultrie, Eutaw Springs, etc., always stirred him, no matter by whom pronounced or in what connection. He was a true son of the sacred soil of his State, and his veins thrilled at an allusion to his world-famous parentage. When “the old man eloquent ” left the house, he shook hands with him cordially and thanked him for his friendly remonstrances.

“ General, I will consider the matter further,” he said. “ If private affairs to which I cannot allude will permit, I will go on with my candidature. I will decide within two days, and let you know my decision at once. Meantime, not a word, I beg of you.”

“ Beaumont, I am the grave,” solemnly responded the General, rising on the toes of his shabby boots ; “ I am a sarcophagus sealed in the centre of a pyramid. This secret is cemented in my breast; all I ask is, may it rot there ; may it rot unexhumed and unsuspected. By those who fell at Fort Moultrie and Eutaw Springs,” he was indistinctly heard to perorate as he descended the steps.

When Beaumont discussed his proposed demission with his sons, he encountered further earnest, though respectful opposition.

“ It seems to me, sir, that our family honor is concerned in this matter,” observed Vincent, more of a Beaumont even than a South-Carolinian.

“Our family honor!” repeated the father, reddening at the suggestion that he could be indifferent to that lofty consideration.

“ I beg your pardon, sir, if I am offensive. It is out of respect for you and regard for your reputation that I speak so plainly. Here is the way in which I look at the affair. You have said, Follow me ; all our friends have rallied to your call; now you propose to turn back.”

“ Vincent, this is monstrous severe,” said Beaumont, half scowling and half cringing.

“ I beg your pardon, sir, but I can’t see it differently. If Poindexter, for instance, had offered himself as candidate, and had gone on at it until within ten days or so of the election, and then withdrawn without assigning cause, what should we have said of him ? I won’t suggest the answer.”

Beaumont quailed before his son ; but the next instant he thought of his suffering daughter ; so he turned for help to the fat, lazy, indifferent Poinsett.

“ Why not assign cause ? ” suggested this young gentleman.

“ It is unassignable,” and Beaumont shook his head.

Poinsett knew or guessed somewhat of the affair between Kate and Frank, and was not entirely devoid of sympathy with it, being slothfully goodhearted, like many fat people.

“ Could you not say that you prefer peace with a neighbor above a seat in Congress ? ” he asked. “ Men have done that sort of thing, and still been widely respected on earth, and found favor at last with St. Peter.”

“ I beg pardon; it is too late,” broke in Vincent. “It should have been thought of before, or never. We can’t afford to buy the friendship of the McAlisters at such a price as must be paid now. Why, this very motive for resigning the candidature is condemnatory. Are we afraid of those people ? Do we want to get a favor out of them ? Suppose, after all, we should not get it ? What would be said of our purpose ? What would be said of our disappointment ? ”

In compactness and in power of rapid allusion, it seems to me that the young man’s speech was somewhat Demosthenian, and gave promise that he might grow into that creature so much admired by the Southerners, an able orator. It was evident, moreover, that he guessed at the gentle motive which influenced his father, and that he did not sympathize with it. There was a hard and pitiless substratum to Vincent’s character, — a substratum which frequently came to view in the form of irony or a sneering smile ; not unlike volcanic trap or granite breaking through the softer materials of earth’s surface.

Meantime Tom Beaumont, not very quick-witted, and understanding the discussion only in part, prowled about the group of talkers with a sort of showing of the teeth, like a bulldog who awaits a signal to fight.

“ On reflection, I take courage to bow to Vincent’s opinion,” said Poinsett, waving away the smoke of his cigar as if it were so much demoralizing sentiment, “on reflection, I beg leave to concede that a withdrawal just now would be an error. I beg leave to add that it would be more than an error of conduct; it would be, if I may use the expression, an error of character ; it would mark a man’s reputation and future.”

Beaumont was driven to the wall, and knew not how to defend himself. He could not say to his sons, your sister loves Frank McAlister. The declaration was too tender and too awful for Kate’s father to utter even to Kate’s brothers.

“ Poinsett, you are harder than Vincent,” he muttered, more in sorrow than in anger.

“ I beg pardon, I was philosophizing,” said Poinsett. “ I have a habit of considering a thing from a general point of view. It is a result, I perhaps mistakenly suppose, of my Germanic education. It leads, I believe,to truth. I meant no offence, my very dear father. If I have annoyed you, please lay it to a system of thought, and not to my intention.”

“ All the same, none of you agree with me,” grumbled Beaumont, feeling himself quite alone among men, and consequently much depressed. Notwithstanding his passionate nature, and, indeed, precisely because of it, he lived and moved by the breath of human beings, and especially by that of his own kin.

A weak man, the cold-blooded may say ; but they would not be more than half right. Just because he was sympathetic, he easily got people to rally round him, and made a pretty good local leader for a party, and had the name of being a man of action. More-

over, it was only among those who had a strong hold upon his affections that he showed himself gentle and pliable. The generality of men chiefly knew him as headstrong and pugnacious ; the Yankee congressmen at Washington considered him one of the frightfullest of Southern bugbears ; and against him the “ Tribune ” felt bound to hurl some of its weightiest Free-Soil thunder. Really, it is amazing how little a great man may be in his own house. One dares to wonder sometimes whether George Washington was august in the eyes of Mrs. George Washington.

Well, within twenty-four hours, revolving in the same time with the earth, Peyton Beaumont swung completely round on his axis. As he had decided for the sake of Kate to give up his candidature, so he decided for the sake of his sons, his honor, his party, and his State, to stick to it. He let go, as it were, to get a better hold. He resolved that he would fight his very best ; that he would beat and smash the McAlister utterly ; that he would bring down his confidence and pride forever. When General Johnson called again on his political flag-bearer, he found him breathing forth brandy and battle.

“ I was all wrong, my old friend,” confessed Beaumont. “ I had a strange moment of weakness, and I came near committing an error. An error of character,” he repeated, quoting from Poinsett, whose subtle distinction he had much admired. “ I came near forfeiting my own respect, and I fear yours and all men’s. Bless my soul and body, what a muddle it would have been ! Well, henceforth the motto is, Forward.”

“ Forward to victory, my dear young friend,” cackled the General, who, being twenty years the senior of the two, and yet not feeling himself to be very old, naturally looked upon Beaumont as a man in the springtime of life.

Such was the issue at the Beaumont place of the struggle between “ common doin’s ” and “chicken fixin’s,” or, in other words, between the masculine and feminine views of life.

Meantime the same contest was being carried on in the abode of the rival family. Mrs. McAlister and Mary had discovered that Jenny Devine could not fill the aching void in Frank’s heart, and had sorrowfully permitted that young lady to return to her own home. Then they had hoped that his job in mining analysis would divert him, that he would plunge into those mysteries of metallurgy and chemistry which they could not see the sense of, and pasture his hungry soul on a knowledge which to them was but dry husks. But this hope was a poor consolation to them ; for what woman can approve of a life without love ?

Furthermore, Frank returned from Saxonburg in a moody state ; working assiduously, indeed, over his blowpipe, crucibles, and other infernal machines ; but abstracted, and, as his two adorers thought, more gloomy than ever. This last supposition, by the way, was a mistaken one, for the youngster had been much cheered by his meeting with Kate. But as jolly, sympathizing Jenny Devine was no longer at hand to make him laugh over whist and keep him prattling about the subject nearest his heart, he did appear unusually sombre.

Thus the McAlister ladies concluded that nothing would fill his needs but Kate Beaumont, and that without her he must perish from off the face of the earth, or lead only a blighted existence. Of course they were frantic to get bold of the damsel and thrust her into his bosom. But how to do it ? Such getting hold was impossible as long as the family quarrel lasted ; and the quarrel would endure while the Judge tried to oust Beaumont from Congress, To bring about their sweet purpose, they must controvert the awful will ot their lord and master, and trip up his revered political heels. But this sacrilege was horrible to think of, and, what was worse, hard to execute.

“ Oppose your father ! ” said Mrs. McAlister with a spiritual shudder.

“ Not precisely that,” replied Mary, courageous with the courage of an only daughter. “ But you might represent the whole case to him. Perhaps he does not know anything about Frank. After all, Frank is his son.”

“ O, if it was only a family matter, I should deem it my duty not to quail,” observed the wife. “ But there are the Judge’s political plans to be considered,” she added with profound respect. “ There is this great contest, — the interests of the country.”

“ It seems to me that the country might get along without us. The country is always in a crisis. It is ridiculous. I almost hate it.”

“ Mary, you must n't say such things. Your father would be shocked at you.”

“ But perhaps he has only looked at the political side of this matter. Why would n’t it be well to show him both sides? Why isn’t it your duty?” added Mary, using a word which was very potent with her mother.

And so at last Mrs. McAlister saw her duty, and, seeing it, went with a trembling heart and did it.

To her exposition of Frank’s awful state, and of the only device which could pluck him out of it, the Judge listened with his usual bland patience, looking down upon her with the sagacious, benevolent air of an elephant.

“ My dear, I am glad you have spoken to me of this matter,” he said, precisely as if he had known nothing about it. “ Frank’s happiness and Frank’s prospects,” he added, thinking of the Kershaw estate, “ certainly deserve my earnest consideration.”

Then he meditated quite at his leisure, while his wife quivered with anxiety. He had already satisfied himself that he could not carry the election ; he had carefully counted noses on both sides, and come to that disagreeable conclusion. Such being the case, he had coolly and intelligently said to himself, “ Can I not sell out my supposed chances to advantage ? Beaumont would pay handsomely to have me quit the course ; suppose I strike a bargain with him and get something for nothing. I can trust him ; he is a straightforward honest brute ; much as I dislike him, I can trust him.”

Finally, that very morning in fact, he had decided that he would be contented, at least for the present, with a certain vacant judgeship of the United States District Court, looking forward, of course, to quitting it whenever there should be a good chance to strike for something higher. This honor he believed the other party would puissantly recommend him for, on condition of his relinquishing his congressional candidature, As for his bargain with that Northern wirepuller, Mr.— Mr.— the Judge really could not remember his name at the moment, and as for the money of the Democratic National Committee, which had been received and spent, he did not care for such trifles a whiffet. The five thousand dollars had strengthened him in the district ; it was seed sown for a future harvest ; very good.

The only thing which troubled him was the difficulty of proposing his dicker to Beaumont, without sacrificing his personal dignity. Here, now, was an opportunity ; here were the women and the young people ready to aid him ; here were the domestic cares and the god of love at his service. He smiled very kindly upon his wife as he pronounced his decision.

“ My dear, I will surprise you,” he said. “ In consideration of what you tell me, I am willing to give up my candidature and take the risk of its doing the good you hope.”

Mrs. McAlister advanced to her husband, placed her thin arms about his ponderous shoulders, and gave him an embrace of honester gratitude than he deserved.

“ Thank you, my dear,” observed the Judge, always a model gentleman, always sensible to a politeness. “ We understand one another,” he added, as if in irony, but really quite serious. “And now please send Frank to me. Or Bruce. No, let it be Frank. I presume he is most likely to have influence with Beaumont. I will despatch him over there with my message.”

An hour later Frank was on his way to the Beaumont house, bearing a letter which Peyton Beaumont was to read, reseal, and return by his hand, the said letter containing of course the Judge’s offer, couched in the language of pure patriotism.

A little later still, after Frank had got beyond recall, Mrs. McAlister reappeared before her husband with an anxious face, asking, “ My dear, do you think it is safe for him ? He is going among our bitter enemies. How could I let him ? ”

J. W. DeForest.