196 
HAEPEE’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
The point was too fine and too tersely put 
for Grayson to see it; hut he bowed, rubbed 
his hands, and smiled appreciatively, as he had 
learned to do. 
Hattie Gordon now changed the subject, re¬ 
membering that this talking to strangers about 
her intimate affairs was one of her habitual 
faults, and one of the things for which her hus¬ 
band most frequently reproved her. Undoubt¬ 
edly he was partly to blame for it: he had not 
sufficient sympathy for her, and did not call 
out her confidences; moreover, he had allowed 
his mother to step in between her and himself. 
But notwithstanding these excuses, she felt that 
she was wrong in laying open family matters 
to even so old a gentleman as Mr. Grayson, 
and she turned the conversation upon other 
topics. 
For Sydney Grayson was not a young gen¬ 
tleman. Even by moonlight you could see 
that he had been obliging enough to live for 
fifty years on earth, and that, while performing 
this good oflSce toward his fellow-creatures, he 
had not been incessantly respected by the fin¬ 
gers of time. His long, waving hair, originally 
jet black, was streaked with silver. A small 
semicircle of white on, either cheek stained the 
unity of his otherwise ebony whiskers and beard. 
His high, narrow forehead seemed still narrower 
in consequence of the hollowness of his bare and 
veined temples; and the loAver part of his face, 
puckered with wrinkles which had once been 
smiles and dimples, was also narrow, even to 
weakness. His aquiline nose would have been 
handsome had it not been ground too fine on 
the grindstone of years. His mouth was thin¬ 
lipped and feeble, and his chin was at once too 
small and too pointed. His form was that of a 
tall and slender skeleton, slightly deformed by 
a stoop in the narrow shoulders, yet not deficient 
in grace of port and movement. A coffee-col¬ 
ored complexion, which complained of dyspep¬ 
sia, and still more of malaria, hinted that he 
was a Southerner; and his elaborate polisli of 
manner and courtliness of voice and affluence 
of compliment confirmed the flattering suspi¬ 
cion. 
The promenade continued. Syd Grayson re¬ 
hearsed aneAV that inane, pointless courtship 
which he had already inflicted upon more than 
one. Mrs. Gordon slyly and smilingly chaffed 
him, as he had been chaffed unnumbered times 
before. He talked, flattered, simpered, and 
bowed merely to gratify his antiquated vanity. 
She, even while she laughed at him, was not 
interested by him; she was thinking of the re¬ 
serve of her husband and the unfriendliness of 
his mother. They two made her life thorny— 
the man not meaning it, the woman intention¬ 
ally. 
At every turn in her walk slie glanced un¬ 
easily and anxiously at the couple. Why did 
they sit there, always silent or whispering, like 
conspirators? Why did they not join her in 
her promenade, or beckon her to join them in 
their conference ? She Avould have been glad 
to drop the old beau; it would aiinost have 
pleased her to see him tumble overboard; she 
half hated him because he helped to keep her 
apart from her husband. At the same time 
she would not go to George until he would sig- 
nifv in some way his desire to have her near 
him. Long enough had she shivered under in¬ 
difference ; at last it was time to show that she 
could endure to be left alone. So Hattie Goi- 
don stubbornly remained in that solitude which 
was implied in a tete-a-tete with grinning, lisj)- 
ing, shallow Syd Grayson. 
Let us now glance at the husband and the 
mother-in-law. They are side by side, upon two 
camp-stools, leaning against the after-bulwark; 
they are engaged in monotoned, gestureless, but 
earnest conversation; the mother’s hand rests 
upon the son’s arm. You can see in their faces 
that life with them has been, and always will 
be, a painfully serious matter. Neither ever 
jokes; neither is capable of joking, scarcely of 
laughing. Not the slightest gleam of humor 
ever radiates from their souls to lighten the so¬ 
lemnity of events and surroundings. They are 
the sort of people who can not perceive the fun 
of an accident or the ludicrousness of a bore. 
Not that they are melancholic; not that they 
are shrouded by religious asceticism ; but they 
are gravely and even grimly in earnest. They 
were born to be Puritans, and they would cer¬ 
tainly have fruited into full Puritanism had 
they'been New Englanders instead of Virgin¬ 
ians. 
“ I think I have cause now to hope that my 
life will not be wholly in vain,” George Gordoir 
was saving. “I can not but think that within 
tAvo years’ time I shall be Avell grounded in both 
the ancient and modern Greek. I shall set 
hard to work as soon as Ave reach Athens. 
You mustn’t expect me to run about the Orient 
Avith you. Smyrna Ave shall see on the Avay. 
Then* if you Avant to visit Constantinople you 
can run up there Avith Hattie under the care 
of some of our traveling countrymen. You 
and Hattie Avon’t mind being left alone a good 
deal, I hope. I must study Avith all my might.” 
“I shall not mind it, for your sake,” replied 
the mother. “As for Hattie, she must learn 
to bear it. If I can, she can.” 
There Avas a slightly unpleasant tone of in¬ 
sinuation in the closing phrase. Satirical it 
Avas not; satire Avas too much like a joke for 
this AA^oman to bo capable ot it; her meaning 
Avas rather in the nature of a direct scoff. It 
seemed as if she A\dshed to say, T our Avife is 
not Avrapped up in you as I am, and she Avill 
easily learn to dispense Avith your society. 
Without noticing the ugly hint, or without 
caring to remark upon it, George continued to 
talk of his future. 
“ I shall be Avell fitted for my professorship. 
I shall be the first Professor of the University 
of Virginia to possess a speaking knoAvledge 
of Greek. If I am not unreasonably confident, 
I shall be valuable to my Alma Mater. That 
Avill be the acme of my ambition. If I can 
