tie tries' Moral iKdlWt ^Pictorial Some iKamjmnion. 
4 65 
kt Then dost thou cnme of gentle blood. 
Disgrace not thy good company : 
If lowly born, so hear thyself 
That gentle blood may come of thee. 1 
“ Father Dooley will ride over from Clovernook to¬ 
day,” said Mrs.' Braithwaite, in her low-spirited 
accents, insinuating the unpalatable announcement 
into the middle of one of old Nanua’s long-winded 
sentences. She had painfully descended to the great 
comfortable kitchen, and was sitting in a lumpish, 
lifeless way in Nanna’s splint-bottomed rocker. Her 
voice had the apologetic accent it always assumed 
when she entered into explanations with her old nurse. 
“ He will give me absolution and spiritual council, of 
which I am sorely in need,” she added. “ What is 
there for dinner, Nanna ?” 
Nanna, with her calico sleeves rolled up above her 
broad black arms, was engaged over the fire in the 
odorous process of trying out what she called “ de 
drippin’s.” The judge particularly objected to having 
anything in the form of grease wasted: but now the 
fat was in the fire : the sunshine which usually irradi¬ 
ated the old woman’s ebony features, was suddenly 
quenched. She objected to feeding the priest, as she 
would have objected to giving dainties to a boa-con¬ 
strictor. 
“ Dar’s jess uoffun ’tall for dinner, Miss Susan. De 
butcher done gone coined along day before yisterday. 
He wont he here till to-inorrer, no how. ’Pears dar’s 
jess uoffun at all, unless 1 make some kind of witch 
soup out oh Steenie’s mud-turtle. ’ 
Steenie was standing at the sink quietly enough 
peeling potatoes, with his mouth puckered for a low 
whistle. Now he gave a long crescendo, a note of won¬ 
der and surprise. Nanna. wheeled abruptly round and 
administered a sounding slap on the boy’s ear. “ Dar, 
take dat, and mine your manners, and stop tootin’ j 
when de missus comes down to de kitchen.” It was 
necessary for Nanua’s discomposure to find vent, and 
the slap was a kind of safety valve. 
Steenie gave one hound to the door. “ Peel your 
own taters, o 1 o ’ooman, and rub dem knives, and ban' 
rouir dem plates. I’m goln’fishin’ and shan’t be hack 
till nex day after neither.” 
“ Nanna, you mismanage Steenie,” said Mrs. 
Braifflwaite, her melancholy gutteral intensified in 
order to administer reproof; “you will drive that, boy 
tn ruin if you are not careful.” 
Nanna let the fat. sputter over the fire, and placiug 
her hands on her hips took her stand on a high moral 
pinnacle. 
“ Dat boy is my own fiesh an’ blood, an’ hones an’ 
vitals, Miss Susan. De Lord give him to me dat I 
might set. him into de way he should go, an’ if he gets 
a cuff too much now an’ den, it. don’t count no how. 
Dat dar hoy needs c’rectiou more’n he needs wittles, 
an’ if I does wrong with him I knows whar to go an’ 
’fess—riii'ht down at the footstool of my Lord an’ my 
Saviour. I nebber leans on no poor mortal man dat’s 
in de gall oh bitterness an’ do bonds oh oblignity his- 
'self'. as if lie could take away my sin, an’ make me 
eb’/y whit whole.” 
Nanna’s excitement almost, choked her, and Mrs. 
Brathwaite's heavy face turned a dull purple. 
“You forget yourself, Nanna,” said she with some 
dignity, “and that you are speaking to a Halcourt. 
You forget what your mother was in this house before 
your time.” 
“I minds it all, Miss Susan,” returned the old 
woman, shaking her head profoundly. “ De Halcourts 
nh dem days nebber brung priests oh Satan into dis 
house. 1’se as ’spectful to Halcourts as 1 knows how 
tn he, hut 1 can’t he ’spectful no how to de chillern oh 
sedition.” 
" 1 shall not talk with you about, things you don’t 
understand. Nanna. You must get a, chicken of Fin- 
ster, a small one will answer. And don’t put the dish 
near Mr. Edgar. He is a very absent-minded young 
man at the table.” 
Nanna. was now clattering some plates in a pan of 
water, which saved the necessity of replying, and her 
mistress took her slow way hack to her own room, 
with her accustomed air of having been browbeaten 
and put down. When she reached the wide upper 
hall, a slight girlish figure with golden hair, and in a 
light morning dress, came gliding toward her. She 
paused shyly as if anxious to speak, and yet. half 
afraid. 
“Good morning, Virgiuie,” said Mrs. Braith waite, 
seeing that she could not. avoid the encounter, and then 
after a moment’s interval, she added, “ were not your 
parents French ?” 
“ My father, dear madam, was French Swiss. My 
mother was an English governess, whom he met at 
one of tlie German baths, where she was serving in a 
gentleman’s family.” 
“It seems strange that your father, being French, 
did not belong to the true church.” 
“My father belonged to protest-ant Switzerland, 
dear madam. He was passionately attached to the 
reformed faith. My mother being of the church of 
England, there was perfect sympathy between 
them.” 
“If you had been of my religion,” said Mrs. Braith- 
waite, in a dull, querulous tone, “ 1 might have found 
some comfort and consolation in your presence here in 
this house.” 
“But, dear madam, is not the spirit the same, what¬ 
ever the form or the name may he ?” 
The fair, girlish face rosed all over. She had shaken 
off her shyness, and taken an impulsive step forward, 
and now she held out her small, white hands, and 
seized the heavy, mottled hands of the woman who 
stood opposite. 
“Oh, let me love you, madam,” she said, pleading 
in a low, sweet voice; “let me help and comfort you if 
I can. I have no mother; I am all alone in the world. 
I would devote myself to your happiness if you would 
hut let me.” 
Mrs. Braithwaite shook off the small, clinging 
hands. The surprise of Virginie’s appeal gave un¬ 
wonted energy to her movements. “You cannot help 
me,” said she, with suppressed excitement in her 
countenance and voice ; “ we do not understand each 
other; we have nothing in common.” 
She turned abruptly and shut lierself into her cham¬ 
ber, hut her large frame was tingling all through and 
through with the consciousness of this girl’s pity. It. 
was more galling than the judge’s sarcasms, or Win¬ 
nie’s indifference; hut the glimpse it gave her into 
Virginie’s nature only served to harden her heart 
against this young stranger. 
The little, wizened old man was seated in his arm¬ 
chair, with his feet on a footstool, and wrapped in his 
shabby morning-gown, with an almost diabolical look 
of intelligence and acuteness in his crafty, gray face, 
that seemed whetted to the sharpness of a knife-blade. 
There were law volumes strewn on the table and 
chairs, and over the floor. He was dictating to his 
secretary. 
Mr. Edgar sat with his back half turned, intent 
upon his writing. His slender hand moved rapidly 
over the paper, and a ray of sunlight came in at the 
window, and, through the general duskiness of the 
room, sought Iris head where the light, fine hair was 
thin about the temples. His forehead was ample, and 
stamped with culture and thought, and beneath it 
shone the ray of mild, blue eyes. Tt was the lower 
part of the face that was wanting in power. His 
smiles lost, themselves in a network of fine wrinkles 
about the corners of the thin lips, and the small chin 
was indented with a sensitive dimple. 
“ Susan !” piped the old judge, as he heard the 
heavy foot of his wife entering her apartment. Mrs. 
Braithwaite appeared in the doorway between the two 
rooms, and he began in his blandest, tones: “So, my 
dear, you are to have the priest here to-day. The 
presence of your spiritual guide is a consolation you 
, cannot deny yourself. You will, I trust, unburden 
your conscience, and confess to him the money you 
have stolen from me, and the various fibs you have 
told me about family expenses.” 
The inert mass of Mrs. Braithwaite’s frame quivered 
as if it had been galvanized, and her dull, pallid face 
turned a kind of livid green. Edgar colored involun¬ 
tarily, and his hand half paused in its movement over 
1 the paper. The foxy old eyes of the judge, that saw 
everything without looking, noted this display of sen- 
| sibility, on tho part of the poor secretary, with posi¬ 
tive pleasure. 
“ Go on with your work, Swayne,” said he; “ my 
wife and I must have our little conjugal pleasantries. 
She is naturally of a sportive disposition.” 
Mrs. Braithwaite turned, with the air of a hound 
that has been too severely punished, to re-enter her 
room. 
“Don’t go yet,” called out the dreadful old man, 
rubbing his bloodless hands, and chuckling softly; “1 
want to say t.o you that it will he quite needless for 
you to engage masses for the repose of my soul after I 
am dead. 1 shall outlive you, my dear. My family 
is one most tenacious of life. I shall have the sadness 
| of burying you, so do not. indulge in any premature 
I grief at the thought of my taking off.” 
There was a breezy rush of footsteps up the stair, 
J and a rich young voice in playful tones of tenderness 
was calling, “Virginie, Birdie, Mousie, where have 
you hidden yourself?” 
Edgar, at that moment with his back half turned 
toward the old man, bent forward, and made an awk¬ 
ward blot on the page before him. The judge’s cruel 
old eyes happened to he fixed upon him, and they lit 
up with almost sardonic joy. 
“ How unsteady your hand is, Edgar. I have no¬ 
ticed of late that you were growing painfully nervous. 
It may he an affection of the heart, and if it is, I am 
afraid you will find it. quite hopeless.” 
The secretary shifted in his seat, hut made no 
answer, while his hand pursued its course over the 
paper. 
Winnie hurst open Virginie’s bedroom door, and 
found her friend sitting on a low chair with her hands 
clasped round her knee, looking mournfully out of the 
window, at the distant hills and shifting cloud shadows. 
“Why do you sit moping here,” she asked, “like 
an owl in an ivy bush ?” 
“Oh, my sister,” said Yirginie, with gathering tears, 
looking up at the strong, bright, vivid face that bent 
over her, “ you must know I have an exile’s heart, 
and thoughts of the old home and the dear parent who 
are asleep in the shadow of the great., solemn moun¬ 
tains, fill me with yearning and sadness. Madam does 
not. trust me, and 1 sometimes feel cle trop here. 1 
fear the day may come when you too will regret I ever 
entered this house.” 
“It is very unkind of you to say so,” returned 
Winnie, with tender petulance. “You are like a part 
1 of myself, Virgiuie. I think I never loved any woman 
until you came, for I bad no sister, and my brother 
died when a lad. It was better so, for we should have 
quarrelled. Papa, who had fastened his hopes and his 
pride on him, grew harder after he died, and made 
, avarice more and more his god, hut I am sure if Her¬ 
bert had lived he would have been a spendthrift, a 
wild, reckless, passionate youth. But I shall never 
he reckless, Virgiuie. When I am an heiress, and 
come into the. property, I shall have good, prudent, 
practical ideas, and a bead for business. 1 feel it all in 
me now; hut I am daring and audacious because there 
is so much life and energy heating in rny veins, and in 
this dull existence I have no way of working it off 
without convulsions. Oh, Virginie, 1 ought to have 
been a man, and then I could have married you, my 
dove with the shining head.” 
She had fallen on her knees to caress the young 
i girl who looked up with a sad smile. 
“But the great love will come,” said she, “and 
then I shall he forgotten.” 
Winnie gave a little, scornful toss to her head. 
“Do you think I am so simple as to believe in the 
grand passion, Virginie ? I might feel it. for you were 
I a man, but for no other, and I am too much a woman 
of the world already to cherish romantic notions. I 
I seek the means of doing as I please, and papa has 
j taught me a few sage maxims. One is, that if we 
would possess power, we must subdue all weaker 
i passions. I have always despised Anthony, because 
he gave up a kingdom to dally with Cleopatra. 
What a child you seem beside me, Virginie, and yet 
we are of the same age, just turned nineteen.” 
“ You do not know,” said Virginie, looking up 
with her great, blue, innocent eyes into the other’s dark 
face, “ wliat a capacity for loving there is in you.” 
