STRAY LEAVES 
 
 FRM 
 
 NEWPORT
 
 2 
 

 
 STRAY LEAVES FROM 
 NEWPORT
 
 STRAY LEAVES FROM 
 NEWPORT 
 
 BY 
 
 ESTHER GRACIE WHEELER 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 CUPPLES AND KURD 
 
 94 BOYLSTON STREET 
 
 1888
 
 Copyright, 1888, 
 BT CUPPLES AND HCRD 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The Riverside Prttt, Cambridge : 
 Elwtrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Honghton & Co.
 
 If among these Stray Leaves a few flowers chance to bloom, 
 they owe their existence to the sunshine of sympathetic compan- 
 ionship and unabated affection, to the memory of which they are 
 tenderly dedicated.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 THE NEWPORT CLIFF. ROSEBANK OCHRE POINT . 1 
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED 3 
 
 MY WIFE WHERE is SHE? A STOBY OF NEWPORT 
 
 MIDDY-EVIL LIFE 156 
 
 OTB BOY. A SKETCH OF NEWPORT DOMESTIC LIFE . 179 
 FATA MORGANA : ON NEWPORT'S BAY. DEDICATED TO 
 
 Miss M. M 190 
 
 GENERAL ALBERT GALLATIN LAWRENCE: HERO OF 
 
 FORT FISHER 192 
 
 WARREN'S NEWPORT HOMB . . 194
 
 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 THE NEWPORT CLIFF. 
 
 ROSEBANK OCHRE POINT. 
 
 OF the two friendly beacons History, Law, 
 Which once on the Cliff lit up nature's face, 
 One has gone out ; but the storm-beaten shore 
 Still holds the other in loving embrace. 
 
 Flora decks Clio with June's fairest roses ; 
 They linger through summer to greet autumn's store. 
 The deeds of the patriot the historian discloses, 
 Refreshed by the breezes that blow round his door. 
 
 And the Carnival of Nature doth yearly renew 
 Our National Colors for Bancroft's birthday, 
 In the red of the flower, the ocean's deep blue, 
 Whence the white-crested waves leap their tribute 
 to pay. 
 
 Where once fragrant hawthorn led up from the gate 
 To the home of the jurist of undying fame, 
 
 1711385
 
 2 THE NEWPORT CLIFF. 
 
 Now gridiron fence, by sarcasm of fate, 
 Keeps in memory the martyr l who bore the same 
 name. 
 
 The Cliff's ragged beard has been shaven and shorn, 
 The hand of improvement has trimmed nature's face ; 
 Of that thread of life-histories, the Cliff path well 
 
 worn 
 By annual tread, there remains not a trace. 
 
 Gone, too, the old gully, which picturesque ran 
 To the cave where the Pirate Kidd buried his gold. 
 Cave and pirate alike are now buried from man. 
 A caveat might stop the intruder too bold, 
 Or perchance Cave canem, in fierce accents rolled, 
 Should he seek the slate rock where his romance 
 began. 
 
 Shy Romance may no more upon the Cliff stand, 
 The gay waves of Fashion have washed her away ; 
 And ochre turned gold in the great rise of land 
 Is the wonderful alchemy worked out to-day. 
 
 1 St. Lawrence was broiled on a gridiron.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE Opera House at Newport was crowded to 
 excess, one January evening, for it had been an- 
 nounced that a certain well-known orator was to 
 give his most eloquent lecture. Whatever were 
 his idiosyncrasies, his power to arrest and hold 
 the attention of an audience was undeniable. 
 Thus the reputation of the speaker drew many 
 to hear him, while many others went merely be- 
 cause their neighbors did. 
 
 For although Newport, like a child tired of 
 play, is apt to drop into a sound sleep when the 
 summer frolic is over, it can also, like a child, 
 be roused by an unwonted excitement. A star 
 at the Opera House will draw winter Newport- 
 ers from their firesides to an extent calculated to 
 surprise the visitor who may have wondered at 
 its deserted streets during the daytime. 
 
 This evening there was not even standing 
 room in the house, when the searching glance of 
 the speaker wandered around it, as if to take 
 note of his audience before plunging into his
 
 4 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 subject. His roving eyes suddenly settled upon 
 one face in the human sea before him, as though 
 he there found an illustration of his theme. It 
 was a pale face, striking rather than handsome, 
 lighted up by wonderfully fine gray eyes, which 
 gleamed with intelligence. If dress be an indi- 
 cation of character, the simple, well-fitting cos- 
 tume of gray camel' s-hair, with trimmings of the 
 same color, its only relief a knot of scarlet rib- 
 bon at the throat, matching the feather tip in 
 the " Derby " hat, was as expressive in its tone 
 as was the gay attire of velvet and chinchilla, 
 the gilded hair, and the gorgeous diamonds glit- 
 tering in the shell-like ears of her companion, 
 the latter, a pretty young woman, who was per- 
 petually turning around and keeping up a run- 
 ning fire of whispering with an attendant youth, 
 most annoying to those about her, who wished 
 to listen to the lecture. The girl in gray tried 
 by repeated nudges of the elbow, and with sotto 
 voce " hushes," to stop this dribbling interrup- 
 tion. At last, becoming so much interested in 
 the discourse that even this chattering ceased 
 to disturb her, she gave herself up to the full 
 enjoyment of the speaker's words. As she lis- 
 tened she felt as though she herself were being 
 personally addressed, strange electric current 
 of sympathy between two hitherto unacquainted 
 minds thus suddenly brought into contact.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 5 
 
 This wonderful psychologist seemed to read 
 her case and to prescribe for it. He answered 
 the question she had so often put to herself with- 
 out arriving at any satisfactory result, the 
 question which must occupy the mind of every 
 thoughtful man or woman, some time in life. 
 " My time, what shall I do with it ; how best 
 turn to account the talents which God has given 
 me?" 
 
 The domestic atmosphere in which this girl 
 had grown up was not calculated to strengthen 
 and develop her higher nature, or to help her 
 to a solution of its requirements and possibilities. 
 JTet, as we sometimes see a lovely flower bloom- 
 ing in apparently most unfertile soil, unchoked 
 by the stones and weeds which lie about it, and 
 drawing its vigor and beauty from the passing 
 sunbeam and the pure air of heaven, so this 
 " Picciola " lived uncrushed by the hard sur- 
 roundings of worldliness and lack of sympathy 
 in which her lot had been cast, drawing her en- 
 joyment from the rich stores of her own inner 
 self, her keen appreciation of the good and beau- 
 tiful in nature and art quietly helping on heart 
 and mind culture. 
 
 With those who do not look beyond the sur- 
 face, her shy, reticent manner made her seem 
 cold ; little did even her mother or sister guess 
 the reserve force of feeling lying dormant within
 
 6 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 her nature, ready to spring into a warm glow at 
 the touch of a kindred spirit. Some sparks of 
 this latent fire would, it is true, occasionally flash 
 forth and astonish her family. 
 
 But the managing mother, intent on pulling 
 together the refractory ends of a narrow income, 
 priding herself upon her ability to " make one 
 dollar go farther than some persons can five," 
 a process which takes much of the poetry out 
 of life ; the elder sister, gladly availing herself 
 of the artistic taste and fairy fingers of her 
 junior, to help her equip herself for the con- 
 quest of the husband who should " endow her 
 with all his worldly goods," these daily com- 
 panions of the undemonstrative little being had 
 never guessed the aspirations of her soul ; the 
 anti-conservative opinions which were strength- 
 ened in her mind by reading, and the strength- 
 ening of buttons. 
 
 A needle is to a woman what a cigar is to a 
 man, an aid to meditation. As she apparently 
 calmly plied her needle, the little seamstress was 
 thinking not of the conquest of a husband, but 
 of a means of independence, doing good to oth- 
 ers ; believing that man and woman were in- 
 tended by God to find " the holy estate of mat- 
 rimony " a source of mutual elevation and hap- 
 piness, not the degradation it too often proves 
 to both : resolving that if, in the " wise dispen-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 7 
 
 sation of Providence," marriage should be her 
 lot, it should come to her as the joy and fulfill- 
 ment of her life, but that she would never seek 
 it as a necessity, a medium of bread and butter 
 and clothes. As the young girl worked, she 
 mentally said to herself, " Aimlessly, uselessly 
 drifting through life, why should I wait to be 
 somebody's wife ? Why not be somebody my- 
 self. I will, so help me Heaven." 
 
 Her father had been a man of a bright, witty 
 mind, who had made a joke of life, and of every- 
 body in it, including himself. His handsome 
 person, easy, pleasant manners, and amusing con- 
 versational powers had readily won him friends 
 wherever he went, and he had as quickly turned 
 them into enemies, for he never lost the oppor- 
 tunity of saying a good thing, no matter at 
 whose expense. With fair talents he had no 
 continuity of purpose, his facile disposition al- 
 lowing him to be led by others into one thing 
 after another. 
 
 His father had persuaded him to study medi- 
 cine, for which he had no taste ; a friend in- 
 duced him to renounce prospective patients for 
 the law, assuring him that powers of oratory so 
 rare as his ought to be utilized. His first case 
 was his last. He tried business, and found to 
 his cost, or rather his father's, for the latter had 
 advanced the capital, that business was not
 
 8 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 his forte. A pretty face with " great expecta- 
 tions " led him into matrimony, and soon after 
 their marriage, his wife convincing him that as 
 he could neither make nor keep money, the resi- 
 due of his patrimony was better in her hands, 
 he settled it all in that direction. 
 
 Thus relieved from all responsibility, and glad 
 to escape from the recrimination of " that supe- 
 rior woman," as he invariably styled his " better 
 half," he gave himself up to the natural vis in- 
 ertia of his character, and to amusements away 
 from home. 
 
 One day his blood mare Wisteria so called 
 because in a lucky coup he had won her at whist 
 threw him, and he retired from the battle of 
 life, in which he had never taken a very active 
 part. 
 
 The mother, left to bring up and educate her 
 two daughters alone, did her duty by them, ac- 
 cording to her light. Had any one told this 
 " Martha " that, in the bringing up of her girls, 
 she had neglected the one thing needful, she 
 would have been as astonished as indignant. 
 Had she not nursed them devotedly through the 
 successive maladies of infancy and childhood, 
 sent them for several years to school on week 
 days, and taken them to church once a day on 
 Sundays? Had she not organized for their 
 benefit dancing classes, which only the children
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 9 
 
 of the most fashionable and wealthy parents were 
 allowed to join ? Had she not visited and en- 
 tertained, to keep up desirable acquaintances for 
 them ; contrived, planned, in fact slaved, that 
 they might always appear as well-dressed as their 
 associates ? What mother could do more than 
 she had done, and ought she not to be rewarded 
 for all her pains by seeing her daughters in due 
 time led to the hymeneal altar by men with 
 money in their pockets ? 
 
 Her eldest daughter had entered freely into 
 the matrimonial views. If any ideas of senti- 
 ment had ever visited that butterfly brain, they 
 had been quickly dissipated by her share of the 
 tiresome daily stitching necessary to accomplish 
 the keeping up of appearances that house- 
 hold maxim. She longed for genuine Worth 
 dresses, instead of the base imitations gotten up 
 from memory. She hated the circumscribed ex- 
 penditure to which she was condemned by fate, 
 determined upon a speedy marriage and a rich 
 one, and set herself to work, with all her powers, 
 natural and acquired, to accomplish this one end 
 and object of woman's existence ; and, angling 
 with dexterity, she soon succeeded in landing 
 her golden fish. " A little common, a little vul- 
 gar, but so rich," the bride-elect remarked con- 
 fidentially to a dear friend, as she exhibited the 
 gorgeous engagement ring. " Sam adores me ; 
 he will let me do exactly as I please."
 
 10 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 The proud mother assisted at the ball of the 
 season in her daughter's handsome establish- 
 ment in New York, and afterwards returned to 
 Newport well-pleased that one dear child was so 
 successfully married off. 
 
 But Sam unfortunately did not prove fast 
 colors in the matrimonial wear and tear ; he did 
 far more as he pleased than his wife approved 
 of, nor was he as liberal with his money as the 
 scion of an old family had a right to expect, 
 considering the honor she had done him in mar- 
 rying him. 
 
 When she would aggravating!}' dwell upon 
 this honor, and contrast him with " men she 
 might have married," he would retort with coarse 
 insinuations of " certain man - traps set for 
 unlucky fellows to stumble into." A sauce 
 piquante of invective, mutual recrimination and 
 family history would be poured out by these two 
 with their soup and continued through the sev- 
 eral courses, to be eagerly imbibed and subse- 
 quently reported by the attendant human tele- 
 phone, of whose presence they, like most of us, 
 would be singularly oblivious in the heat of a 
 discussion. And yet we wonder how our most 
 private affairs get abroad, and how it is that our 
 neighbors are as well acquainted with them as 
 we are ourselves ! 
 
 It was through such mysterious channels as
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 11 
 
 these that it had become generally known, and 
 had reached Newport, that there was little har- 
 mony in the scarcely year-old household. 
 
 When, therefore, the daughter, becoming 
 more and more affectionate, would come fre- 
 quently alone to see dear mamma, Sam quite 
 too busy to leave New York, uncharitable New- 
 port, mindful of the several matrimonial " odd 
 fellows " in her midst, would smile knowingly, 
 and there would be whispers in the air of di- 
 vorce or amicable separation pending. 
 
 But the astute mother, knowing how people 
 will talk, and not at all anxious to have her 
 daughter back as a permanency, glad as she 
 might be to receive an occasional embrace from 
 her with the last fashions, would listen to the 
 list of domestic grievances poured into her ma- 
 ternal bosom, and then calmly assure her dear 
 child that her husband was neither better nor 
 worse than most men, all of them as a rule being 
 selfish and requiring female management. But 
 this diplomatic mother would add, " You must 
 be careful not to let them see you are managing 
 them ; " and the excellent manager who had re- 
 ceipts for everything appertaining to a household 
 would proceed to give the best rules for manag- 
 ing a husband. 
 
 After a few days spent under perhaps a 
 Quaker-colored sky, in dull Newport, the un-
 
 12 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 happy wife, finding little sympathy in the ma- 
 ternal bosom, would come to the conclusion that 
 it might be as well to return to New York and 
 her domestic tyrant, and she would proceed to 
 look for an escort with whom to perform the 
 perilous journey. 
 
 On the evening when this story commences, 
 the escort having been found and immediately 
 engaged, he had entered upon his duties, by re- 
 questing the pleasure of the company of his spe- 
 cial charge and her sister that evening at the lec- 
 ture. " Well, yes, it 's something to do, though 
 I hate lectures ; don't you, Mr. Littlejohn ? " 
 Mr. Littlejohn, as in duty bound, did hate them, 
 but was willing to sacrifice himself on this occa- 
 sion, and quite equal to taking charge of both 
 ladies, as he blushingly assured the particular 
 object of his care. 
 
 " Keep him all to yourself, my dear. It would 
 be like * making two bites of a cherry ' to di- 
 vide such a little beau ; " and the younger sister 
 suspended the " getting on of her things " and 
 threw herself into a chair, laughing merrily as 
 she thought of this beardless freshman, return- 
 ing to his Alma Mater, solemnly invested with 
 the protection of a woman nearly ten years his 
 senior, and many pounds more than his weight. 
 
 " What 's the joke ? " returned her sister, turn- 
 ing from the adjusting of herself before the
 
 Y77J/r.Yr AXD SEAWEED. 13 
 
 glass, a vague idea striking her that there might 
 be something ridiculous in the situation unap- 
 preciated by herself, but apparent to the quick 
 wit of her companion. " Nothing,'" was the re- 
 ply of the young girl. who. having given vent to 
 this little explosion of fun, had resumed her 
 gravity, and also taken her position at another 
 looking-glass. " Nothing ; that is, only an amus- 
 ing thought which came into my head. You 
 know mamma of ton says 1 have inherited papa's 
 unfortunate quick sense of the ridiculous." 
 
 * It is unfortunate, especially for a girl who 
 has no money : it makes people afraid of her, 
 keeps the men away," rejoined the young ma- 
 tron, as well as the pins in her mouth allowed 
 her to speak. 
 
 " As I keep my thoughts to myself and only 
 allow a privileged few to know them, I cannot 
 be an object of terror to the public in general ; 
 and as to the men, there are so few in Newport, 
 in winter at least, that your second objection is 
 not of much account. You don't know," con- 
 tinued the young girl in a burst of expansiveness 
 quite unusual to her, " what good times I can 
 have without flesh and blood men, when they are 
 not to be had, and I give myself a mental party 
 in front of my fire. I don't know any living ones 
 half so agreeable as dead people, like Dickens 
 and Shakespeare ; they talk, I listen. It 's jol-
 
 14 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 Her than most party-going or giving, except when 
 there is dancing. There is no anxiety in my 
 private parties about attention ; they are cheaper, 
 too ; no expense for dress, hack hire, or supper." 
 
 " What a queer girl you are ! " replied her 
 sister, looking at her junior with a puzzled ex- 
 pression. " How do you ever expect to marry, 
 if you have only the society of your own or dead 
 people's thoughts ? " 
 
 " I never do expect to marry," replied the other, 
 with mock solemnity ; " please don't tell mamma, 
 but I expect to be that social failure, as I sup- 
 pose you would call it, an old maid. I shall 
 try to meet my fate bravely, and not present to 
 the world the amusing, if it were not sad, spec- 
 tacle, of juvenility of dress and manners carried 
 beyond the natural term of years. It makes me 
 blush for my sex, when I see really intelligent 
 females grasp in a last convulsive effort at a 
 matrimonial straw. While my own youth lasts 
 I intend to dance as much as I can, and with the 
 best partners for the German, if they are not 
 quite eligible for life. So many girls lose the 
 short time there is for enjoyment and dancing, 
 by always having an eye to business." 
 
 " You might get married as well as other girls, 
 if you were not so difficult to suit ; plenty have 
 no more money, and are not half as good-looking 
 as you are," rejoined her sister peevishly. " You 
 are very young."
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 15 
 
 " And may improve, you think. Do not hope 
 it," replied the young girl laughing. "My dead 
 friend Will Shakespeare warns me, ' Younger 
 than thou have happy mothers been.' No, I 
 really think I am a hopeless case." 
 
 The latter part of this conversation was held 
 on the staircase ; the arrival of the sisters at the 
 drawing-room door put a stop to further talk be- 
 tween them. 
 
 As the trio proceeded to the Opera House the 
 details of a flirtation quite engrossed two of the 
 party, and the silent third walking beside them 
 communed with her own thoughts. 
 
 In the front row of the gallery at the Opera 
 House a handsome youth, whose refined features 
 contrasted with the common suit he wore, bent 
 eagerly forward to listen to the words of the 
 lecturer. Once the girl in gray, diverting her 
 attention from the speaker, gave a rapid glance 
 around the theatre, and, chancing to look toward 
 the gallery, the eyes of these two met, and a 
 smile of recognition and sympathy passed be- 
 tween them. 
 
 " I say, was n't that a jolly lecture, eh ? " 
 He had wriggled his way to her side, as only 
 boys can, at the confluence of the main gallery 
 and side stream of people. " He says it is n't 
 common to be a mechanic ; I mean to be one." 
 The last words emphatically spoken.
 
 16 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " The present Crown Prince of Prussia is a 
 first-class carpenter ; he made all the furniture 
 in the private rooms of his summer palace," re- 
 plied the young girl, as side by side the two 
 emerged into the clear air, behind the young 
 matron and her escort. 
 
 " No, you don't say so ? I declare, I '11 tell 
 that to sister the very next time she says I have 
 no family pride, because I want to earn an hon- 
 est living. What a nuisance family is, when 
 there is n't any money to keep it up ! You can't 
 go to market with your family, now can you ? " 
 
 " Hardly," laughed the girl, " unless you were 
 a cannibal, and I should avoid you in that case. 
 But tell me, what does your sister want you to 
 do?" 
 
 *' Oh ! to go into the navy, of course, like 
 papa. But I can't do that. I had the appoint- 
 ment ; my brother-in-law, who is a big gun in 
 Congress, got it for me," here he stammered, 
 -"but it did n't work." 
 
 " You mean that you would not work for it. 
 Oh, Charlie, what a pity ! " and she glanced 
 regretfully at the tall, manly form, which in a 
 middy's jacket would have looked so well. 
 
 " There is no use crying over spilt milk," he 
 retorted, turning half angrily away, for he felt 
 the reproach conveyed in the tone, still more 
 than the words, of his companion.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 17 
 
 " Unfortunately it is always spilt milk with 
 you, Charlie," she replied. 
 
 " It is not going to be, I can tell you. I 
 made up my mind when I heard that lecture 
 that I would do something useful," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 " What can you do that is practical, beside 
 fishing?" 
 
 " That is useful," he replied, with a bright, 
 sunny smile ; " I sold my fish last summer. I 
 can carve wood, and I can paint ; I wish," he 
 added laughing, "you could have seen sister's 
 face, when she looked up one day and saw me 
 on a ladder, brush in hand, doing a day's job 
 for White, the painter. I wanted some pocket 
 money I have n't a rich husband as sister has 
 to give it to me. Did n't I get a lecture though 
 when I got home," and he whistled expres- 
 sively. 
 
 " You see sister thinks," he continued, " be- 
 cause she gives mamma all we have to live upon 
 you know papa did not leave a red cent 
 that she has a right to boss me. Sister does 
 n't like to come to Newport in all her style, 
 and see her brother working. I don't like be- 
 ing hard-up or dependent on her, so I mean to 
 work." 
 
 " You should go to school now, Charlie ; a 
 wise man once said, ' Knowledge is power.' '
 
 18 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " Much better might he have said, * Money is 
 power.' How much knowledge have half these 
 rich people who come to Newport?" he replied 
 bitterly. 
 
 " They have far more than you think, many 
 of them ; it required knowledge of some sort 
 to acquire the money, and all did not inherit 
 it. If, instead of wasting their time railing at 
 rich people, poor people were to spend some of 
 that time trying to make money themselves, it 
 would be far better for their pockets and their 
 tempers. I have no patience with repiners. You 
 have the best kind of wealth yourself." 
 
 " I ? " exclaimed the boy, staring at her. 
 
 *' Yes, you," she repeated. 
 
 ' ' Brains and health 
 Are nature's wealth.' 
 
 You have both, you should use them profitably 
 for yourself and other people." 
 
 " I declare, you talk as well as a regular lec- 
 turer. You might make considerable giving 
 lectures, if you needed money ; " and Charlie 
 looked up admiringly at his young companion. 
 
 " Fancy mamma's horror if I were to mount 
 the rostrum," answered the girl, half laughing ; 
 then, with a tinge of sadness in her tone, she 
 added, " Mamma, like your sister, thinks it be- 
 neath one to do anything to support one's self, 
 but, like you, I want to earn money, and I in-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 19 
 
 tend to try. That lecture may have inspired 
 both of us to be something more than cumberers 
 of the earth." 
 
 By this time they had reached the doorstep of 
 the young girl's home. The boy nodded a good- 
 by, his white teeth, as he smiled, vying in bril- 
 liancy with the massive brass knocker, which 
 adorned the door of the family mansion of this 
 youthful advocate of labor. 
 
 She stood for a few moments watching him, 
 as with hands in pockets, whistling an air from 
 " Pinafore," he half ran, half slid over the icy 
 pavement. Then with an expression of resolve 
 and a sigh, she too turned and entered the 
 house. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THERE are few persons who were intimately 
 acquainted with the best phase of Newport soci- 
 ety, some years since, who will not recall with 
 pleasure a certain cottage, where the evening 
 cup of tea was additionally sweetened by the 
 cordial smile and welcome of the graceful, charm- 
 ing hostess, whose conversational powers and 
 well-stored mind, improved by the experience of 
 travel and a life full of interest, rendered her 
 society attractive to persons of different tastes, 
 sex, and ages.
 
 20 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 Married at an early age to a man of literary 
 pursuits and a distinguished diplomatist, Mrs. 
 Rose had seen society in many phases, both at 
 home and abroad. 
 
 She had known adversity as well as prosper- 
 ity. Two of her sons had fallen in the War of 
 the Rebellion, and other children had died in in- 
 fancy. 
 
 Saddened but not embittered by her many 
 griefs, she sought comfort in contributing to the 
 happiness of those around her, spending her am- 
 ple means in gratifying her tastes, and in mak- 
 ing life agreeable to her less -favored fellow- 
 beings. 
 
 Circumstances had attracted Mrs. Rose's at- 
 tention to the surroundings of the young girl of 
 this story. She had perceived the worldly home 
 atmosphere, and appreciated the uncongeniality 
 of the other members of her family. She had 
 studied the girl's character, and under her shy 
 exterior had seen glimpses of rare powers of 
 mind. Interested in her new acquaintance she 
 had sought her confidence and gradually helped 
 her to develop her mental resources and over- 
 come her diffidence of her own powers. What 
 wonder that this hitherto lonely young girl be- 
 gan to feel for the accomplished woman who had 
 poured a flood of sunshine into her life, that ar- 
 dent, admiring affection, which in strong natures,
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 21 
 
 troubled with a desire for some one to love, is 
 a sort of avant courier of the tender passion, 
 sometimes as deep, it may be more lasting. 
 
 Their friendship had been of only a few 
 months' duration, and already, under the care of 
 this skillful gardener, the flower had expanded 
 marvelously in grace and beauty. 
 
 " How well your pretty name suits you, Hope," 
 said Mrs. Rose, as the bright, eager glance met 
 her own. They were sitting together this even- 
 ing in April, one of those sudden relapses into 
 winter with which the Newport climate will dis- 
 appoint the resident whom it had perhaps de- 
 luded the previous day with a fallacious hope of 
 spring. 
 
 Without, it was cold and windy. Within, it 
 was the picture of comfort. Hope, a very dif- 
 ferent looking girl from the one we have hith- 
 erto seen, sat on a bench in front of the fire, 
 while Mrs. Rose reclined in a comfortable chair 
 near her. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Rose," said Hope, after a mo- 
 ment's silence, "it was not entirely for the 
 pleasure of your society, or of reading that 
 excellent legal argument which that woman's 
 rights man, Shakespeare, puts into the mouth 
 of my favorite Portia, that I breasted the wintry 
 blast this evening." 
 
 " No ? " replied her hostess, smiling. " I had
 
 22 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 flattered myself that you came to see me as well 
 as to read Shakespeare." 
 
 " Do you remember," asked the girl somewhat 
 irrelevantly, as it seemed, " my telling you how 
 impressed Charlie Williams and I were by a lec- 
 ture we heard last winter before I knew you 
 very well ? " 
 
 " Perfectly," replied her hostess. " I was glad 
 anything had impressed Charlie." 
 
 "Do you know," exclaimed Hope warmly, 
 " Charlie has genius ; he showed me a bird most 
 lifelike which he carved for the top of a clock, 
 and that suggested an idea for both of us. I do 
 so want to make money," she continued, looking 
 up into her hostess' face, and clasping her knees 
 with her hands in a way peculiar to herself, 
 when in an earnest mood. " I think if I had 
 a bank account of my own, it would give me 
 backbone to resist family pressure ia a matri- 
 monial question." 
 
 " I think you have naturally plenty of ' back- 
 bone ; ' but is there such a question at present ? " 
 and Mrs. Rose looked with interest at the girl, 
 thinking, Can the worldly mother really wish to 
 sacrifice this sweet child ? " You would surely 
 not be made to marry any one against your 
 will," she added. 
 
 " Of course no one could make me do that, 
 but there is a tiresome man, whom the family
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 23 
 
 encourage, and whom I detest. He is like pota- 
 toes, at sister's every day at dinner whenever I 
 am in New York with her. But let us talk of 
 something more interesting," she continued, in a 
 different tone ; " let us talk about making money. 
 I do so wish I could find some way to earn an 
 income, to have money all my own, to feel as if 
 I had an object in life. Oh, if I could only 
 be an actress, or a singer, something distin- 
 guished, how glorious that would be ! " 
 
 " Without being glorious, which few can be- 
 come," replied her hostess, laughing at the girl's 
 tragic tone and manner, " you might easily make 
 some money by your painting and embroidery. 
 That Kensington work of yours would bring a 
 good price, and so would dinner cards, like those 
 you painted for your sister last Christmas. 
 Send your work to the Decorative Art Rooms 
 in one of the cities, under an assumed name, if 
 you do not wish your own to be known. It is 
 often done. But what did you mean about 
 Charlie's bird suggesting an idea ? " 
 
 " Please come and see ; " and throwing an arm 
 around Mrs. Rose, Hope caressingly raised her 
 from the chair, and led the way across the hall 
 to the brilliantly lighted drawing-room. 
 
 " What is this ? " asked Mrs. Rose. " A sur- 
 prise party ? " 
 
 " Forgive my making a show-room of your
 
 24 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 drawing-room. I took the liberty to borrow 
 your gas to throw light on my illustration of 
 Nora Perry's ' Romance of a Rose,' said Hope, 
 as she held up a fold of white satin, on which 
 was exquisitely painted a fair young face looking 
 out of an open window at French officers in 
 glittering uniforms going by, one of whom looks 
 back at the window, and kisses the rose he holds 
 in his hand. 
 
 *' How exquisite ! " exclaimed Mrs. Rose ; 
 " what a lovely face, half hidden in that silk 
 hood ; and the French officers, what fine look- 
 ing fellows ! Do you mean to say, child, that 
 you did this ? " 
 
 "I am so glad you like it," replied Hope. 
 " You remember the lines, do you not ? " and 
 throwing the painting over the broad back of a 
 capacious velvet chair, she stepped back a few 
 steps, and in a clear, rich voice recited this ex- 
 tract from the poem : 
 
 " ' And women out of the windows leant 
 And out of the windows smiled and sent 
 Many a coy admiring glance, 
 To the fine young officers of France. 
 And the story goes that the belle of the town 
 Kissed a rose and flung it down 
 Straight at the feet of I)e Rochambeau, 
 And the gallant marshal, bending low, 
 Lifted it np with a Frenchman's grace 
 And kissed it back with a glance at the face
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 25 
 
 Of the daring maiden where she stood 
 Blushing under her silken hood ! ' ' 
 
 There was a silence of a few moments after 
 Hope ceased speaking, and she fixed her eyes 
 on Mrs. Rose's face. The latter was carefully 
 examining the painted satin. " Yes," she said 
 at last, " the picture is wonderfully good in com- 
 position and execution; the details are excel- 
 lent : a heavenly sky, the old quaint Newport 
 houses, the sweet young face, under the old- 
 fashioned hood, the crowd in the street, it is 
 all in character, all centennial, even to the satin 
 on which it is painted." 
 
 " I painted it on a bit of old satin I found in 
 a trunk of family relics," answered Hope. 
 
 " Poor girl ! " she continued, gazing at the 
 young face looking out of the window, "hers 
 was a hard fate, to be kept a close prisoner by 
 a cruel father and not allowed to go to the ball 
 where the Count de Rochambeau looked in vain 
 for her sweet face, and then to be lost at sea, 
 within sight of the land to which she was exiled, 
 and all for dropping a rose at a Frenchman's 
 feet ! Nowadays a De Rochambeau would be 
 thought a good match, and angled for by de- 
 signing American parents." And Hope drew a 
 long sigh, as if in regret at the inconsistencies 
 of life. 
 
 "If your heroine had married her French-
 
 26 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 man, who perhaps had a wife at home all the 
 time, the poem would not have been written," 
 said Mrs. Rose, "and you, Hope, would have 
 lost a charming subject for your brush, one 
 to which you have done more than justice." 
 
 " I am so glad you like it," and the young 
 artist looked up with flushed cheeks and beam- 
 ing eyes into her hostess' face. " Your praise, 
 dear Mrs. Rose, is praise indeed, worth having. 
 But you must see Charlie's work," she continued, 
 as the boy entered shyly with one hand behind 
 his back. " Have you brought the cupids, 
 Charlie?" 
 
 " And what are you two mysterious beings 
 going to show me now ? " asked their hostess, 
 shaking hands with the new arrival. 
 
 It was a delicate piece of carving which 
 Charlie put into her hand : a pair of cupids 
 wreathed in roses, the whole gilded to suit the 
 subdued tone of the French clock of the Empire 
 period, which stood on the mantel of the Rosery 
 drawing-room. 
 
 "This," exclaimed Hope, "is the ornament 
 which is to go over the top of the 'antique' 
 frame Charlie is making for my Romance of a 
 Rose. The sides of the frame are to be columns 
 like those," and she glanced towards the French 
 console in one corner of the room. 
 
 " Do you think," continued Hope, " that we
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 27 
 
 might send this screen, when it is finished, to 
 one of the Decorative Art places you spoke of ? 
 Do you think it would sell?" she asked anx- 
 iously. 
 
 " The screen must be mine ; I will buy it at 
 your own price," answered Mrs. Rose. " There, 
 Hope, is your bank account started. But what 
 a revelation all this is to me," she added. " For 
 your picture, Hope, I was in a measure prepared, 
 I have seen so many of your sketches ; though 
 this is decidedly beyond anything you have 
 hitherto done. But Charlie, I confess, amazes 
 me; I had no idea that he possessed such 
 talent." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," replied the boy quietly ; 
 " most persons think me good for nothing." 
 
 " I must show you our united idea for a man- 
 tel," said Hope. " It 's ambitious, but will be 
 pretty, if we can carry it out. I am to paint the 
 tiles, buds, and blossoms for each side, and over 
 the top. The hearth is to be a group of chil- 
 dren dancing, interlaced by a scroll with your 
 favorite motto from the Italian poet : ' Oh ! 
 youth, springtime of life. Oh! spring, youth 
 of the year ! ' Charlie will carve the leaves and 
 birds in some pretty wood. How does it strike 
 
 you?" 
 
 " Charming and original," was the reply ; " just 
 the thing for one of Mrs. Harmony's pretty cot-
 
 28 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 tages on the Bay. I will get her to give you an 
 order. What is to be the name of the firm ? " 
 
 "All orders may be sent to Rose, Bush & 
 Co.," said Hope, " for we must work sub rosa. 
 Mamma and sister would disown me if they 
 knew me a work-woman." 
 
 " Hurrah for the firm, especially the Co.," 
 cried Charlie. 
 
 " Remember my screen is to be finished before 
 you take any more orders," said Mrs. Rose. 
 " When it comes home I will introduce it into 
 society with a strawberry party and a dance, 
 and the band from Fort Adams. The new 
 class of Torpedo officers at the Torpedo Station 
 will arrive in time to fill the ranks of beaux for 
 the numerous Newport belles, and I will bring 
 out my choice French china for the occasion. 
 How glad I am, my children, that you have such 
 talents. There is no telling to what these flow- 
 ers and birds may lead. Sir Francis Chantrey, 
 England's famous sculptor, took his first step in 
 fame with the dough-hen, which, when he was 
 but a farmer's boy, he placed on his mother's 
 pasty. You, Hope, have been inspired by Nora 
 Perry ; her romance may lead to a reality in 
 your plan of making money, beside the pleasure 
 art will bring you." 
 
 " And I have been inspired by Hope," said 
 Charlie, laughing.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 29 
 
 " An excellent inspiration ; it has led to great 
 things in life," rejoined Mrs. Rose. 
 
 " I wish it might lead me to Rome," said 
 Hope ; " but," she added, with a sigh, " I fear I 
 shall never get to Europe." 
 
 " Make up your mind to go and you will do 
 so," said Charlie, in an emphatic tone. " I bet 
 on Hope, if she once says she '11 do a thing." 
 
 How often in moments of discouragement did 
 these words come back to the girl's mind, helping 
 her in the daily conflicts of life's hopes and dis- 
 appointments, raising her drooping spirits, and 
 enabling her to bear up against the trials of her 
 lot. There is nothing so strengthening to the 
 tired heart and brain as the cheerily spoken 
 words, " Try ; if you will, you can." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A FEW miles from Newport, its front looking 
 over broad acres, its rear facing the ocean, an 
 ancient orchard on one side, and undulating 
 meadows and cornfields on the other, stands, or 
 stood, at the time of this story, an old-fashioned, 
 square, white house, with piazza all around. 
 
 The handsome clapboarding of the colonial 
 days was in excellent order, the whole a monu- 
 ment of the substantial building of its time.
 
 30 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 The stout old mansion, had it been so in- 
 clined, might have celebrated at this period its 
 centennial birthday, decked in the antiquated 
 charms of immense oaks and elms and gorgeous 
 beeches, the copper leaves of which contrasted 
 well with the hawthorn hedge, tall as a man, 
 which stood at the gate, and in the " leafy month 
 of June " was rich with white blossoms, the air 
 sweet with the perfume thereof. 
 
 There, too, bloomed flowers seldom seen to- 
 day in fashionable Newport, where nature is 
 made to imitate art, and quotations from the 
 poets are worked out in plants, to satisfy the 
 cravings of wealth for the novel and the odd. 
 
 The sweetest of old - fashioned roses, pinks, 
 larkspur, ribbon-grass, filled the flower beds at 
 White Cliff ; and around them, like sentinels, 
 tall box stood guard, giving out to the passing 
 breeze the delicate odor which generations of 
 nostrils had loved to smell. 
 
 White Cliff was so called by Richard Ashton, 
 who came to Newport during the early colonial 
 days, and fancied the spot well enough to buy it 
 on account of the ledge of slate rock beneath the 
 Cliff, which, gleaming like silver in the bright 
 rays of the sun, recalled to his mind the " white 
 cliffs of Dover," his native town. White Cliff 
 had been the birthplace of Hope's father, and of 
 three generations of Ashtons.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 31 
 
 Hope's earliest years had been passed in the 
 old place ; but when she and her sister had 
 reached the respective ages of six and eight, 
 their grandfather's death, breaking up the family 
 circle, had caused the sale of the property, and 
 it had passed into the hands of strangers. 
 
 Young as Hope was at the time, the child 
 well remembered the way in which the old judge 
 had laid his thin hand upon her little head, how 
 he had drawn her towards him, and in husky 
 tones had begged her " to think sometimes of 
 her old grandfather after he was gone." His 
 last wistful glance was for his little pet. It was 
 therefore a source of surprise to many that he 
 had not made a special provision in his will for 
 this his favorite grandchild. 
 
 " Her grandfather always seemed to care for 
 the child, yet all he left her was that ugly old 
 chair," her mother would remark, when convers- 
 ing upon that prolific subject of conversation, 
 the injustice of Judge Ashton's will, which, like 
 many testamentary documents, had not been 
 productive of much harmony between the heirs. 
 
 This chair, which Hope inherited from her 
 grandfather, would have enchanted a virtuoso, 
 its tall back a marvel of carving, representing 
 two crusaders in coats of mail, holding up the 
 family crest and motto, " I seek, I find ; " its 
 superb lions' feet, its huge brass nails around
 
 32 STRA Y LEA VES FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 the seat, and the branching brass candlesticks 
 attached to the curious quaint writing - desk, 
 which could be drawn in front of the occupant 
 of this great chair, all were most decidedly 
 antique. Gladly would Mrs. Ashton have rele- 
 gated this chair to the garret, for she had little 
 sympathy with the present taste for old furni- 
 ture, and much preferred modern, comfortable 
 chairs and sofas. But the big old chair had a 
 fascination for its little owner, who begged so 
 hard for its presence in her room that it was al- 
 lowed to remain in the midst of very youthful 
 surroundings. The chair reminded Hope of the 
 giver ; and often, as she grew from childhood to 
 womanhood, she wondered if her grandfather 
 had meant to teach her a lesson of self-reliance 
 from the family motto in the quaint old carving. 
 
 Perhaps insensibly the words so constantly 
 before her eyes may have shaped themselves 
 into her thoughts ; and if the grim oaken war- 
 riors could tell her nothing of the past, and of 
 that special crusader whose prowess in the Holy 
 Land had given him the right to hand down to 
 his descendants the bold motto which to many 
 of his name had been but a dead letter, the 
 carved old faces and words acted like a spur to 
 the energetic nature of the young inheritor of 
 this bit of furniture, and of the Ashton name. 
 
 " I seek, I find," Hope often repeated to her-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 33 
 
 self, as she wandered through the grounds of 
 White Cliff, to which she was always gladly 
 welcomed by the farmer and his wife, who hired 
 the farm and sold in Newport all they could get 
 off from it. 
 
 From her earliest infancy Hope's health had 
 been delicate ; and it was in deference to the 
 doctor's prescription of plenty of country air 
 and exercise that her mother had been induced 
 to overcome her dread of sunburn, freckles, 
 wear and tear of clothes, to say nothing of wild 
 ways likely to be acquired in romping with the 
 farmer's children. 
 
 But the claims of Hope's constitution pre- 
 vailed over every objection. Farmer Truman, 
 who had lived boy and man upon the place, and 
 had a deep-seated reverence for any " of them 
 as ought to be there," was a proud and happy 
 man when he lifted the child into his wagon 
 and drove off with her to White Cliff, where 
 she was made much of by the whole Truman 
 family. 
 
 Hope was always delighted to obtain permis- 
 sion to go to the farm in her plainest attire, to 
 feel that she had nothing on to spoil, but could 
 enjoy herself unrestrainedly. It was much nicer 
 than to be dressed up in her best to spend the 
 day in Newport with other little girls in fine 
 frocks.
 
 34 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 At the farm Hope learned to make butter in 
 the dairy, or she sat in the ox-cart behind the 
 patient beasts of burden, while they deliberately 
 pursued their way down the rough gully-road to 
 the beach below, in quest of seaweed or gravel. 
 
 She loved to ramble along the shore, to gather 
 shells, or make ochre and slate pies with her 
 young companions. She loved to sit in the 
 apple orchard, with her doll in her arms, where, 
 enthroned on an old branch, she seemed to the 
 farmer's children an uncrowned princess, as she 
 repeated to them the marvelous fairy tales she 
 had read, and sometimes her own compositions ; 
 wonderful stories, to which they listened with the 
 most rapt attention. 
 
 Another of Hope's delights was to mount the 
 old farm mare, when that devoted animal had 
 performed its legitimate duties and was fairly 
 entitled to a rest, which the children were never 
 willing to give it. 
 
 Thus studying nature in its own school-room, 
 Hope learned far more of its beauties and secrets 
 than she could have acquired from books, and 
 mind and body were exercised together. 
 
 As the child grew stronger and older, these 
 visits to the farm were restricted to Saturdays, 
 when there were no music or dancing lessons. 
 
 When her hours with nature grew fewer and 
 farther between, Hope appreciated them all the
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 35 
 
 more. Emerging from childhood into woman- 
 hood the beloved spot became her dreamland, 
 where she built her airy castles of hope ; where 
 she thought of the future, and wondered what it 
 might have in store for her. 
 
 As Warren Hastings, a boy dreaming and 
 fishing in the stream which ran past Daylesford, 
 was filled with the idea that in some way at 
 some future day the broad acres which had 
 passed out of the possession of his family would 
 by his own exertions be his again, so this girl, 
 as she sat on the rocks at White Cliff, watching 
 the ebb and flow of the tide, which seemed to 
 her to typify the changing fortunes of her race, 
 had as strong a conviction as had the future 
 Governor General of India, that she, too, by 
 her own efforts, might one day win back from 
 the hands of strangers the home of her an- 
 cestors. 
 
 This idea was the lodestar of her daily life, 
 the dream of her solitary hours. 
 
 It was of White Cliff she had thought while 
 listening to the lecture at the Opera House, 
 which gave her practical ideas, and showed her 
 the possible in actual life. 
 
 Fortunately for Hope her temperament, though 
 sanguine, did not lead her into the visionary to 
 the exclusion of the practical. She measured 
 her resources with a view to their utility. Much
 
 36 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 as she enjoyed castle - building, she endeavored 
 to give a basis of reality to this fragile archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 She surprised her partner with her own am- 
 bition, and she also urged upon him patient 
 perseverance and industry. Her precept and 
 example induced him to endeavor to shake off 
 his natural indolence, and to make the best of 
 his talents. Alternately scolding and encourag- 
 ing him, his young mentor kept Charlie up to 
 his work. She succeeded in making him take 
 an interest in his studies ; and to the great sat- 
 isfaction of his mother, to whom the boy had 
 been a constant source of anxiety, Charlie Wil- 
 liams graduated from the Newport High School 
 with credit, and passed his examination for en- 
 tering Harvard. 
 
 All this materially interfered with the pursuit 
 of art and the Rose, Bush & Co. business. 
 
 But all his spare hours Charlie spent in the 
 studio at the Rosery, which Mrs. Rose had fitted 
 up for her young artists. The mantel-piece had 
 proved a great success ; and a Boston house had 
 given several orders to the firm, Charlie acting 
 as business manager. 
 
 As the miscalled spring months of Newport 
 brought to its residents the recollection that 
 preparations for the summer must be made, 
 Hope found her spare time for art grow more
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 37 
 
 and more limited. Anxious to fulfill the orders 
 which came to the firm, the young artist rose 
 early every morning and painted several hours 
 before breakfast ; and often when the rest of the 
 household had been long asleep, she was work- 
 ing diligently. 
 
 But the hours stolen from slumber did not 
 revenge themselves on her health, as might have 
 been the ease had her enterprising nature not 
 been kept up by the hope of success and interest 
 in her congenial occupation. 
 
 Youth and life seemed to promise so much, 
 and art was so attractive to her, encouraged as 
 she felt by the consciousness of her own powers, 
 that her eyelids scarcely missed the sleep her 
 busy fingers and active brain denied them. 
 
 Mrs. Ashton saw with pleasure her daughter's 
 intimacy with one of Newport's most hospitable 
 residents, at whose house Hope was brought in 
 contact with many desirable acquaintances dur- 
 ing " the season," and where, if she played her 
 cards well, she might, thought the mother, "find 
 an eligible parti." Mrs. Ashton was quite aware 
 that Hope possessed the trump cards of youth, 
 beauty, and intelligence ; the only difficulty lay 
 in her playing them well. " The child is so ro- 
 mantic," she often said to herself, " that she is 
 quite capable of losing her heart to some penni- 
 less genius."
 
 88 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 The mother, however, prudently said this to 
 herself, kept an eye upon, and gave a discrim- 
 inating welcome to, the different admirers whom 
 Hope's attractions brought to the house. 
 
 Mrs. Ashton's own health not permitting her 
 to indulge in late hours, to the ever-ready chap- 
 eron was most cheerfully delegated the task of 
 taking Hope to balls ; and as Mrs. Rose enjoyed 
 society and never objected to sitting- out a Ger- 
 man, she was a most delightful matron for the 
 young girl, who fully enjoyed dancing. 
 
 Everything seemed to combine to make life 
 agreeable to the young optimist, who had the 
 happy faculty of seeing the sunshine even though 
 sometimes obscured by a passing cloud. 
 
 Summer had come and gone so rapidly that 
 almost before she was aware of it, the golden Oc- 
 tober was making Newport bright with its rich 
 tints, and fashion was decking humanity in col- 
 ors to harmonize with the flowers and sea and 
 sky. 
 
 The gay season was over, but lunches and 
 dinners, with occasional dances and the inevita- 
 ble picnic, kept Newport quite alive ; and Hope 
 continued to bear away from hospitable boards 
 pretty cards, with her own name in her hostess' 
 caligraphy ; and she sometimes smiled to recog- 
 nize her own design in the souvenir of the feast. 
 The Rose Bush cards had found a ready sale,
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 39 
 
 and the proceeds had made very perceptible 
 additions to the receipts of the firm, the identity 
 of the members quite unsuspected by their fash- 
 ionable patrons. 
 
 " What is the matter, child ? " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Rose one morning, when Hope with flushed face 
 and excited manner appeared in the studio, and 
 after a brief and silent kiss upon her hostess' 
 cheek, threw herself into a chair and impatiently 
 beat the ground with one foot. 
 
 " Some busybody I know it 's a woman 
 has been putting the idiotic idea into mamma's 
 head that Charlie and I are in love with one 
 another. We have often been seen talking ear- 
 nestly. As if one could not talk earnestly about 
 anything but love ; " and Hope's contemptuous 
 tone with regard to the tender passion was most 
 expressive. " If we were two boys," she con- 
 tinued, in the same impetuous strain, " we might 
 talk together all day and no one would care; 
 but just because he is a boy and I a girl, we 
 must be in love. It is too stupid, too tiresome, 
 this wretched gossip ; we cannot move in New- 
 port without being talked about." 
 
 " I can hardly fancy your mother considering 
 Charlie in the light of a good match," said Mrs. 
 Rose, laughing, " but I must say I never thought 
 of him as a dangerous companion." 
 
 "I should think not," interrupted Hope.
 
 40 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 "Charlie might as well be in love with his 
 grandmother." 
 
 "Even the rubric provides against such an 
 eventuality as that," replied Mrs. Rose, with 
 much gravity ; " it says, you know, a man may 
 not marry his grandmother." 
 
 " Now you are laughing at me," said Hope, 
 laughing too in spite of her annoyance. But you 
 know, dear Mrs. Rose, that Charlie seems such a 
 boy to me ; just my age, but he is years younger 
 in his ways, and I have known him all my life, 
 and it is ridiculous," she added emphatically. 
 
 " His youthful grandmother has been of great 
 service to Charlie," said Mrs. Rose, looking scru- 
 tinizingly at her young companion. 
 
 "The child is still fancy free," she said to 
 herself, "and if Charlie's heart be touched, a 
 pure affection at his age will do him no harm ; 
 it may keep him out of mischief." Then she 
 resumed aloud, " I had not believed Charlie ca- 
 pable of the industry and perseverance he has 
 shown." 
 
 " I hope he will do well at college," answered 
 Hope eagerly. 
 
 But Charlie Williams was not destined to go 
 to college, or to continue to be a source of anx- 
 iety to Mrs. Ashton's maternal breast ; his rich 
 and influential brother-in-law was so much struck 
 with the talent displayed in a clay group of the
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 41 
 
 young man's modeling that he offered to send 
 the nascent Cellini to Rome to study with a dis- 
 tinguished artist, with whom he had long been 
 on intimate terms. 
 
 " It is a grand opportunity," said Mrs. Rose, 
 as Charlie talked over the proposed plan with 
 his friends at the Rosery. 
 
 One evening he came into the study in a state 
 of excitement. "My brother-in-law goes to New 
 York to-night, and I must go with him, and sail 
 almost immediately, if I accept the offer," he 
 said, glancing towards Hope. 
 
 " If you accept ! " repeated Hope. " You 
 surely do not think of refusing such a generous 
 offer." 
 
 "How inconsistent you women are," he re- 
 plied impatiently. " A short time ago you in- 
 sisted upon my going to college ; now you would 
 have me give that up and turn Bohemian." 
 
 " That is just what Hope would not have you 
 do. She would have you buckle down to art as 
 she urged your doing to Greek. Is it not so, 
 Hope ? " said Mrs. Rose, turning to the former, 
 who was looking somewhat serious at the thought 
 of parting with the companion of her art studies. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," replied Hope eagerly. " I do 
 hope you will work hard, Charlie, and be a 
 credit to your friends, and to my scolding," she 
 added, laughing. Then in a different tone she
 
 42 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 said, " I shall miss you terribly, and I shall envy 
 your being in Rome. I wish I had a good fairy 
 to send me there." 
 
 '* I wish so, too," echoed Charlie, so fervently 
 that Mrs. Rose, who caught the expression of 
 the young man's face as he spoke, thought to 
 herself that it was quite time for the handsome 
 ineligible to be taking himself off. 
 
 " It is far better for you to go to Rome than 
 to college," continued Hope, as if in reply to his 
 former remark. " You know you never did care 
 for books, and you do care for art." 
 
 " I know what I care for a great deal more 
 than art," muttered Charlie. 
 
 If Hope caught his words she only answered 
 them by turning from the table drawer, in which 
 she had for the past few moments been busily 
 searching for the photograph which she now 
 handed him. 
 
 " Here, Charlie," said she, in a tone she tried 
 to render gay, but which betrayed the regret she 
 felt at the parting, " here is your school-marm's 
 picture, to keep you in mind of her advice. Do 
 write often." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, Charlie, write very often ; re- 
 member, Hope and I expect regular bulletins of 
 your doings," said Mrs. Rose. " We expect 
 great things of you." 
 
 " If I ever do amount to anything, it will be
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 43 
 
 all owing to you, Hope," said the young sculptor, 
 as he crushed his late partner's rings against her 
 fingers in such a vigorous farewell grasp that he 
 brought the tears to her eyes. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MEANWHILE a taste for high art and the aes- 
 thetic had penetrated the farmhouse at White 
 Cliff. The farmer's daughters, who had grown 
 into comely young women, played and sang sen- 
 timental music on week evenings, and psalms 
 and hymns on Sundays, with the neighboring 
 young farmers, their admirers, and found time 
 from more practical work to adorn their best 
 parlor with artistic bead-work and fancy tidies. 
 
 One of the sons who had a mechanical genius, 
 invented a novel kind of incubator, which proved 
 most successful in hatching chickens, turkeys, 
 and ducks at all seasons of the year, and enabled 
 him to have a constant supply of poultry for the 
 Newport market. 
 
 His brother, who had attended school dili- 
 gently when there was not much to do at the 
 farm, made a practical use of the chemistry he 
 had learned, and introduced science into the cul- 
 tivation of the soil. He contributed likewise to 
 an agricultural magazine, under a classical pseu-
 
 44 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 donym, and interlarded his articles with quota- 
 tions from the Georgics of Virgil, whom he de- 
 clared to have been as good a farmer as he was 
 a poet. 
 
 If the old-fashioned farmer tried to enter his 
 protest against the introduction of so many new- 
 fangled notions and labor-saving machines, he 
 was told that he was " old fogy, not progressive, 
 or not up to the times." If he insisted that 
 the crops nowadays were no better than they 
 used to be, one son would point triumphantly 
 to the gnarled old apple-trees, which had quite 
 given up yielding the famous "golden pippins," 
 until science, taking the orchard in hand, had 
 caused its rejuvenescence, and given it a respec- 
 table harvest of apples in its green old age. 
 And the other son would show remunerating 
 results of his invention, and the good farmer was 
 silenced, if not convinced. 
 
 Hope took great interest in the improvements 
 at White Cliff. She had more control of her 
 own movements and was enabled to visit her 
 favorite spot of tener, having that season received 
 from her brother-in-law the present of a village 
 cart, and pony, in return for a capital picture 
 she had painted for him of his favorite racer, 
 which had won the cup at the Jerome Park 
 spring races. 
 
 IIo]>e's visits to the farm were always hailed
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 45 
 
 with pleasure ; the younger members of the fam- 
 ily felt sure that they would find in her an ad- 
 vocate of their progressive ideas, and the old 
 folks, however conservative they might be, ex- 
 hibited with parental pride the prizes awarded 
 to " Ben " at the State Fair, for the great 
 squashes raised by his " a-doctorin' of the land," 
 and delighted in showing " Bill's grand orphan 
 asylum, goin' agin natur a-hatchin' chickens 
 without no mothers." 
 
 " What do you do with such a vast amount 
 of seaweed ? " said Hope, as she sat on a large 
 stone on the shore, one day, watching Ben load 
 a cart with a fresh supply of the weed, thrown 
 up on the beach by the late gale. 
 
 " Put it on the land," answered the young 
 man. " Seaweed 's first-rate manure." 
 
 " Yes, I know," answered Hope, " the land 
 everywhere about Newport is strewn with it ; 
 but there is a great pile over yonder which has 
 been bleaching in the sun for months. Why 
 not convert some of that into kelp ? " 
 
 The young farmer suspended the action of 
 his pitchfork to reply that as seaweed brought 
 eight dollars a load, it paid very well to cart as 
 much as possible in its native state, and sell 
 what he did not use on the farm. 
 
 " Still you might make some into kelp, and 
 that would make the land richer," insisted Hope.
 
 46 STRA Y LEA VES FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 " Kelp makes good top-dressing, does it not ? 
 Your potatoes, Ben, need improving ; they are 
 far different from those I used to gather in my 
 apron when I was a child and came out to spend 
 the day here. How I enjoyed the potatoes we 
 roasted by the fire we kindled on the beach ! 
 None ever tasted half so good." And Hope 
 gave a sigh to the memory of her short-frock, 
 potato-roasting days. 
 
 " I have thought some of making kelp out of 
 that ere pile," said Ben, reflectively, chewing a 
 bit of seaweed and looking in the direction of 
 the mass indicated by his companion. 
 
 " I would, if I were you," responded Hope ea- 
 gerly. " You might have a Rhode Island clam- 
 bake at the same time," she added laughing. 
 " Get up a kelp company of your neighbors and 
 build by subscription a mammoth kiln. That 
 fireplace in the ground at Rocky Point, where 
 clams are roasted covered up in seaweed, would 
 be a capital pattern for one down on that poor 
 piece of land. This seaweed," she continued, 
 taking up a bit, " would make excellent kelp ; 
 it is exactly like that of Scotland and Wales, 
 where large fortunes are realized from kelp by 
 land-owners on the sea -coast. Making kelp 
 gives employment to a large number of persons 
 in those countries. There is an interesting ac- 
 count of it in a book we have in our library.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 47 
 
 It does seem a pity," added Hope, " not to util- 
 ize the sources of wealth, nature gives so liber- 
 ally. No end of things might be made out of 
 that mass of seaweed lying idle, soap, glass, 
 dye, iodine Why should you not make iodine, 
 Ben ? " exclaimed Hope suddenly, as if inspired 
 by the idea. " A great deal of the drug is used 
 in medicine, and it is mostly imported." 
 
 " Iodine is made in this country," said Ben. 
 " To a certain extent," said Hope. " I asked a 
 doctor all about it once. He came to our house 
 to paint my brother-in-law's swollen nose. I 
 accidentally knocked over the bottle of iodine 
 and spilled it on the carpet, which was not im- 
 proved by the application. The doctor told me 
 it was very expensive, imported stuff. Now, 
 why should we not make in America as good 
 iodine as is made in Europe, if we have the 
 materials; just as we are making as beautiful 
 and even better cut glass, and silk, and lots of 
 things ? " 
 
 " Is that so ? " asked the young farmer, half 
 convinced by the confident tone of his companion. 
 " Yes, indeed," exclaimed Hope, warming with 
 her subject. " I believe in native enterprise. 
 It is an easy step from kelp to iodine. You 
 only want a simple apparatus ; and to you who 
 have studied chemistry, the process of convert- 
 ing kelp into iodine is very clear."
 
 48 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " As clear as mud," replied the young man 
 laughing, " but " 
 
 " But me no buts," said Hope oratorically ; 
 " buts are the clogs to progress. Suppose that 
 the enterprising Newporter who made a fortune 
 out of cod liver oil, by rendering it so pure and 
 agreeable as a medicine that ' children cry for 
 it,' had stopped for ' buts,' where would be the 
 fine house he built from the proceeds of the oil ? 
 Where so many unbuilt houses are, in the 
 imagination, that very extensive property of the 
 unpractical or unsuccessful. You, Ben, might 
 become an iodine Caswell, if you gave your mind 
 to it." 
 
 " I think it requires something besides mind, 
 and that is money," replied Ben. 
 
 "If I agree to furnish the capital to buy the 
 seaweed from your father, pay for putting iip a 
 wooden shed in which you could have the retort 
 to distill the iodine from kelp, and give you 
 something for your labor, will you agree to try 
 the experiment of manufacturing iodine for the 
 trade ? " 
 
 " You, Miss Hope ? " exclaimed the astonished 
 young farmer. 
 
 " Yes, I," replied Hope, calmly ; " I have 
 money of my own with which I can do abso- 
 lutely as I please, and I have a fancy to invest 
 it in making iodine. If it should pay, you and
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 49 
 
 I will share the profits ; if not, I shall only have 
 lost my money, and no one but ourselves will 
 be the wiser." 
 
 Hardly had Hope finished speaking when she 
 felt the plaid upon which she was sitting tugged 
 from under her, and herself violently thrown 
 from her seat. Before Ben's exclamation of 
 astonishment was fairly out of his mouth, and 
 he had had time to run to the assistance of the 
 young lady, a stern voice called off a huge dog, 
 and the next moment a tall, powerfully - built 
 man had taken the plaid from the animal's 
 teeth. When Hope, having recovered her feet, 
 looked about her for the cause of all this con- 
 fusion, the stranger was replacing the shawl in 
 its former position. 
 
 " I hope you will excuse my dog's rudeness," 
 he said, lifting his hat with the ease of a man 
 of the world. " The fact is," he added, smiling 
 and displaying a double row of ivory, which 
 quite redeemed the sombre cast of the rest of 
 his face, "your plaid is so exactly like one I 
 once owned that Duke thought he was only 
 claiming his master's property." 
 
 The dog, at the sound of the familiar voice, 
 looked up anxiously into his master's face ; then 
 seeing the smile which showed he was restored 
 to favor, calmly stretched his length of limb 
 upon the beach at the feet of the two.
 
 50 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " What a splendid animal ! " exclaimed Hope, 
 patting the dog's huge head. 
 
 " I never see such a dog in Newport before," 
 remarked Ben. " What breed is he, sir ? " 
 
 " A St. Bernard, is he not ? " asked Hope, 
 looking for the first time into the stranger's face, 
 and thinking he was as peculiar looking as his 
 dog. 
 
 "Yes, a pure St. Bernard," was the reply. 
 " Large as he is, Duke is but a nine months' old 
 pup ; a lady brought him from Europe in a muff 
 box, when he was but a few weeks old. Look- 
 ing at him now you can hardly imagine him so 
 small, even as a pup." 
 
 " In a muff box ! Is it possible ! " exclaimed 
 Hope, and Ben whistled an expressive note. 
 
 " And now," said the stranger, " having apolo- 
 gized for our intrusion, Duke and I will take 
 ourselves off before any more mischief is done," 
 and the dog-owner's deep-set eyes, under their 
 cliff of brow, over which hung a mass of bluish- 
 black hair, glanced at the quite uninjured shawl, 
 and then rested for an instant with earnest 
 scrutiny upon the blushing face of the young 
 girl. 
 
 The next moment, calling his dog, raising his 
 hat to Hope, and nodding to Ben, the proprietor 
 of the St. Bernard sprang quickly up the gully 
 to the cliff above, along which he was soon
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 51 
 
 rapidly pursuing his way, followed by the huge 
 dog. 
 
 " Do you suppose that gentleman heard what 
 we were talking about, Ben ? " said Hope, when 
 she had watched for some moments the retreat- 
 ing figures of man and beast. 
 
 " Could n't have heard one word," answered 
 Ben ; "he was too far off." 
 
 " Oh, Ben, we don't know how near he was ; 
 he spoke immediately to the dog, and I was 
 talking at the very time I was upset ; " and Hope 
 laughed at the recollection of the scene, and 
 blushing at the same time, she continued, "I 
 hope he did not hear, it would have sounded so 
 silly to one not interested" 
 
 " In iodine," said Ben, completing the sen- 
 tence. " I wish, Miss Hope," he added, " you 
 would let me have a look at that book you read 
 about the seaweed in ; it must be real interest- 
 ing." 
 
 " I will show it to you the next time you come 
 to the house," said Hope, " and then you can 
 tell me what you think about my idea." 
 
 "I do hope he did not hear our conversation," 
 thought Hope, as she drove home, and the form 
 of the stranger flitted before her mind's eye. 
 " Perhaps he did not ; and if he did catch a few 
 words he might not have understood their 
 sense."
 
 52 STRA Y LEA VES FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 Thus alternately tormenting and comforting 
 herself, Hope passed the rest of the day and 
 evening. 
 
 There were some guests at dinner that day, 
 and Hope forced herself to take part in the con- 
 versation, and to assist in entertaining her com- 
 pany, but she found it difficult not to relapse 
 into fits of abstraction, and was glad when the 
 time arrived for her to be at liberty to escape to 
 her own apartment. Her mother, accustomed 
 to her daughter's quiet mood, would have 
 thought nothing of her silence, had she not been 
 for some time cherishing the " wish which was 
 akin to the thought," that the attentions of 
 Hope's constant lawn tennis partner might be 
 making an impression upon the girl's heart. 
 
 Such lovely bouquets from such a very good- 
 looking and quite desirable young man could 
 not fail of producing their effect. No doubt 
 Hope was thinking of the words which were 
 already being told in the language of flowers. 
 " The dear child is longing to dream out ' love's 
 young dream ' uninterruptedly," thought the ju- 
 dicious parent, as she bestowed a more than usu- 
 ally fond kiss upon her daughter's cheek, and 
 telling her she looked tired, bade her go to bed 
 as quickly as possible. 
 
 No vision of the champion tennis player and 
 excellent dancer, with whom Hope most decid-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 53 
 
 eclly enjoyed playing and dancing, crossed the 
 young girl's dreams that night. 
 
 They were most unpleasantly disturbed by the 
 thoughts of the scrutinizing glance of a pair of 
 deep-set, mysterious eyes ; and she heard in her 
 dreams the rich, full tones which suited the 
 stranger's bold proportions. She wondered what 
 possible connection Mrs. Rose's shawl, borrowed 
 by her a few days before, could have with this 
 man. Often she started in her sleep ; and once 
 in her uneasy slumber she fancied she was being 
 stifled, that she felt something lying across her 
 breast ; she put out her hand, and it met a warm 
 pulsation under her touch. She opened her 
 eyes, half expecting to see the great St. Ber- 
 nard's huge form, but, instead, she recognized 
 her own Black Prince, her devoted Newfound- 
 land, Charlie's parting gift, which every night 
 lay outside her door. He had doubtless heard 
 her groan in her sleep, had pushed open her 
 door, crept into the room, and jumped upon the 
 bed ready to protect her should she need him. 
 
 Finding no cause for alarm, the devoted dog 
 had quietly nestled up to his sleeping mistress, 
 and lay watching her. 
 
 A succession of hopelessly rainy days, joined 
 to her mother's violent attack of neuralgia, to 
 which Mrs. Ashton was a martyr, kept Hope 
 indoors, and occupied her time and attention to 
 the exclusion of other thoughts.
 
 54 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 One day, about a week after her last visit to 
 White Cliff, Hope was told that Ben Truman 
 was in the kitchen and would like to see her. 
 " Ask him to walk up," said Hope, who was 
 busy with some housekeeping accounts in the 
 library. 
 
 Accordingly the young farmer appeared ; and 
 after he had answered satisfactorily all questions 
 concerning the health of the Truman family, 
 and had handed the young housekeeper her but- 
 ter book with the amount of pounds he had 
 brought that morning duly set down, he hesi- 
 tated, twirled his hat in his hands, and then 
 said, rather diffidently, " Would you mind, Miss 
 Hope, letting me see that seaweed book you was 
 talking about ? " 
 
 Hope took a large volume from the shelf, and 
 opening it read aloud : " ' Iodine is a non-metallic 
 element, discovered in 1812, by Courtois, a soda 
 manufacturer of Paris. It exists in certain 
 marine vegetables, particularly the fuci or com- 
 mon seaweeds, which have long been its most 
 abundant natural source. Although most largely 
 produced in South America, iodine is still ob- 
 tained from kelp, and in Great Britain is manu- 
 factured chiefly in Glasgow.' 
 
 " Here again is a paragraph which is to the 
 point," continued Hope, turning over a page and 
 then reading the following : " ' Kelp is procured
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 55 
 
 by the incineration of various kinds of sea- 
 weeds, principally the algSB and fuel which 
 grow on the rocky coasts of many countries. 
 The plants are fermented in heaps, then dried 
 and afterwards burnt to ashes in ovens roughly 
 made of brick or stone and built in the ground.' 
 There ! you see," said the reader, closing the 
 book, " that large mass of seaweed which has 
 been drying so long in the sun at White Cliff is 
 quite ready for use. Now let us turn to another 
 page with the illustrations of the fuci. Here, 
 for instance, is the laminaria buccinalis, found 
 to contain more iodine than any other algae. 
 Now," Hope added, " I will read what is said 
 about the manufacture of kelp in Great Brit- 
 ain : ' The employment being new to the in- 
 habitants, the country people opposed it with 
 the utmost vehemence. Their forefathers had 
 never thought of making kelp, and it would ap- 
 pear that they themselves had no wish to render 
 their posterity wiser in the matter.' " 
 
 " Is n't that just like Newport ! " interrupted 
 Ben ; " there always is opposition to everything 
 new ; it took years to get the railroad to Boston 
 built ; and I am sure the Newport and Middle- 
 town people fought hard against the city having 
 water introduced. But I beg pardon, Miss Hope, 
 for interrupting you ; please go on." 
 
 " ' So violent was the resistance,' " continued
 
 66 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 Hope, reading, " * that officers of justice were 
 found necessary to protect the individuals em- 
 ployed in the work, and several trials were the 
 result of these outrages. It was gravely pleaded 
 in a court of law on the part of the defendants 
 that the suffocating smoke that issued from the 
 kelp kilns would sicken or kill every species of 
 fish on the coast, blast the corn and grass on 
 the farms, and introduce diseases of various 
 kinds. The influential individuals who had com- 
 menced the manufacture succeeded at last in es- 
 tablishing it, and the benefits which accrued to 
 the community soon wrought a change in public 
 feeling.' " 
 
 "Do you suppose, Miss Hope, I could find 
 that book in the People's Library ? There 's 
 a mighty good collection of books there," said 
 Ben, as the reader closed the volume from which 
 she had been reading. " I 'd like to show this 
 seaweed article to a young fellow who keeps 
 company with my sister. He 's clerking it for 
 a wholesale and retail drug-store in Providence. 
 I was talking with him the last time he was 
 here, and he thought very favorably of the plan. 
 Of course I pretended it was my own idea. I 
 knew you woidd n't want any one to know you 
 was thinking of going into business." 
 
 "Quite right, Ben," said Hope. "If you 
 will take great care of this book, you may take
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED- 57 
 
 it home with you and study out the question with 
 your friend. I will wrap it in yesterday's ' New- 
 port News,' " she added, taking up the book and 
 carefully enveloping it in the local daily news- 
 paper. 
 
 When, some days later, Ben returned the 
 book, he told Hope that having talked the 
 matter over with the young apothecary, the 
 latter had said that if Ben would undertake to 
 manufacture iodine, he thought he could get his 
 boss to enter into a satisfactory arrangement for 
 the disposal of the drug. 
 
 " Well, Ben, if you are willing to risk it, I 
 am," said Hope. 
 
 Accordingly, a short time after this conversa- 
 tion, Ben, accompanied by his father, to whom 
 with the fair capitalist's permission he had con- 
 fided their joint scheme, met, at a Iaw3 r er's office, 
 Hope and her friend Mrs. Rose, who had been 
 also admitted to the confidence of the specula- 
 tors, and who had at first discouraged the bold 
 enterprise, but finally was brought round to 
 it by the earnest hopefulness of the would-be 
 money-maker. A contract was drawn up by 
 Judge Baker, whom Hope had selected for this 
 important business, as he had a reputation for 
 reticence, no less than for legal knowledge. 
 
 The paper was duly signed and witnessed and 
 everything made most clear and comprehensive.
 
 58 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 By the contract Hope agreed to furnish all 
 funds necessary for the manufacture of kelp and 
 iodine, and Ben to assume the responsibility of 
 the business and hand over her share of the pro- 
 ceeds to the real head of the concern. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE Maverys had a house at Newport for the 
 season. " I took it entirely to please my wife," 
 Sam Mavery would remark to his acquaintance. 
 " I don't like Newport myself ; it 's quite too high- 
 toned for me; but as long as Mrs. Mavery is 
 pleased, it 's all right. Somehow I never can 
 please her," poor Sam would say ruefully to his 
 sister-in-law, for whom he had a great admira- 
 tion, and with whom he felt more at ease than 
 with most of her sex. Hope never snubbed him 
 as his wife did, but listened patiently to his 
 rather uninteresting talk, and answered him 
 kindly. Good-hearted, horsey, shy of society, 
 Sam Mavery, rendered wretched by his wife's 
 utter indifference to him in spite of the money 
 he lavished upon her, jealous of her preference 
 for other men's society, took refuge in the only 
 consolation he could find, and was rapidly min- 
 ing his health and pocket with whiskey and 
 cards.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 59 
 
 He was rarely sober after dinner ; and when 
 lie sat down to a game he became an easy prey 
 to cooler and more skillful players. He nightly 
 lost large sums, while scarcely aware of it. 
 Persons shook their heads when Sam Mavery's 
 name was mentioned, and said, " At the rate he 
 is going, he can't last long." 
 
 Mrs. Mavery's idol was self ; her chief object 
 in life being to get as much admiration, amuse- 
 ment, and luxury, with as little annoyance to the 
 beloved object, as possible. 
 
 She disliked scenes, and especially domestic 
 ones, as enemies to good digestion, and produc- 
 tive of wrinkles. If there was one thing Mrs. 
 Mavery dreaded more than another, it was the 
 intrusion of crow's feet under her beautiful 
 eyes ; and she used every precaution she could 
 think of to prevent the appearance of these 
 impertinent steps of time. Husband and wife 
 rarely met save at the dinner table, when there 
 was generally some guest present. 
 
 " When Sam is not himself, which I am sorry 
 to say is most of the time, I avoid his company. 
 When we were first married we used to quarrel, 
 but we manage better now." 
 
 " But if you were to talk to him kindly, and 
 tell him he is killing himself," interrupted Mrs. 
 Ashton, in reply to the above remark of her 
 daughter, with wlioju she had been lunching,
 
 60 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 for she had been shocked to meet her son-in-law 
 on the stairs decidedly " not himself." 
 
 " Talk to him ! " repeated Sam's wife, with 
 an expressive shrug of her pretty shoulders. "As 
 if I had not talked myself hoarse ; indeed, horse 
 talk is the only kind Sam Mavery appreciates," 
 and Mrs. Mavery laughed heartily at her own 
 wit. 
 
 " And this is matrimony," Hope said to her- 
 self when dining at the Maverys' ; a social pen- 
 ance to which she often submitted from a sense 
 of duty, far more than from inclination. 
 
 Sam Mavery, who seldom appeared at his 
 wife's receptions or dances, continually brought 
 home " fellows " to dinner, to " keep the peace," 
 as he said. He invited Hope whenever he met 
 her, and promised her " a beau." He liked to 
 see the attractive face of his young sister-in-law 
 at his dinner table ; and frequently, struck by 
 the freshness of her cheeks, he would, with the 
 total absence of tact which belonged to his can- 
 did nature, descant upon the same, to the great 
 annoyance of the object of his compliments, as 
 well as to the displeasure of his wife. The lat- 
 ter saw in his observations a covert allusion to 
 her more artificial attractions, and did not enjoy 
 having the attention of her guests called to the 
 fresher charms of her younger sister and danger- 
 ous rival as a belle.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 61 
 
 " We must have you in New York next win- 
 ter, and give you a chance to get married, 
 Hope," her brother-in-law would often say to 
 her. 
 
 As Hope thanked him with a smile for his 
 kind interest in her future, she privately won- 
 dered what power could possibly induce her to 
 accept the husband of Sam Mavery's selection, 
 and she thought how difficult it would be to love, 
 honor, or cherish, still less obey, any of the men 
 she met at his hospitable board. Adolphus 
 Doolittle, for instance, who talked little, and 
 when he did make a remark, generally rode 
 rough-shod over mood and tense, but who was 
 a capital partner at lawn tennis, and sent her 
 lovely flowers, which he spelled " flours," 
 not wired, but with good long stems. 
 
 " Don't abuse Dolly," said Hope, as she took 
 one morning from her sister's hand the unfor- 
 tunate card which had dropped from a bunch 
 of lilies of the valley and Jacqueminot roses. 
 " He is no scholar, but he dances beautifully ; 
 and he has asked me for ' the German ' this 
 evening, so my mind is relieved on the score of 
 a partner." 
 
 "Much may be forgiven in a man worth 
 twenty thousand a year ; you can correct his 
 grammar when you marry him." 
 
 " No, indeed," was the laughing reply, " if I
 
 62 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 am ever guilty of the rashness of taking Adol- 
 phus for better for worse, I shall leave his speech 
 unpruned ; it sounds more original ; and * Dolly's ' 
 remarks are not so profound as to be worth 
 translating into purer English than he uses." 
 
 " By the bye, Hope," said Mrs. Mavery, ab- 
 ruptly changing the conversation, "have you 
 seen your friend Mrs. Rose lately? I suppose 
 not ; I hear she has a very devoted admirer. 
 You are not as intimate with her as you were, 
 are you ? " 
 
 " You remind me of a certain Quaker," replied 
 Hope, nettled by her sister's tone and manner. 
 " I might reply with the Quaker, ' Friend, first 
 thee tellest a lie, and then thee askest a ques- 
 tion.' " 
 
 " Hope ! " exclaimed her mother, " how can 
 you be so rude to your sister ; she only asked 
 you a question." 
 
 " Did she ? " said Hope. " Well, I was only 
 quoting. I did not mean to be rude, Bella, but 
 I wish you would not always sneer at Mrs. Rose 
 as you do ; she is my friend, and " 
 
 " Bella has said nothing against Mrs. Rose, 
 Hope," interposed Mrs. Ashton. " Who is this 
 admirer ? " she continued, turning to her other 
 daughter, with all the zest of a lover of gossip. 
 
 " Is it possible that Hope does not know Dr. 
 Cashel ? " was the reply. " All Newport is talk-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 63 
 
 ing of his devotion to M rs. Rose. He 's such a 
 woman-hater that, rich as he is, no one has ever 
 thought of him as being in the market. But he 
 comes to Newport, it seems, expressly to see 
 Mrs. Rose, and, I hear, is there all the time." 
 
 " When have you been to the Rosery, Hope ? " 
 asked her mother. " As Bella says, it is strange 
 Mrs. Rose should not have introduced this Dr. 
 Cashel to you." 
 
 "She probably knows better," said Bella, 
 now quite restored to good humor by the fact 
 of having some news to tell. " Mrs. Rose is 
 too shrewd to spoil her own chances by having 
 a young girl about, when she has an affair on 
 hand. It is rather absurd in a woman of her 
 age flirting with a man so much younger than 
 herself. I hear Dr. Cashel is thirty-six and 
 Mrs. Rose must be How old is she, Hope ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know. I never asked her," 
 answered the girl impatiently. " I only know 
 that Mrs. Rose is the most charming woman, old 
 or young, of my acquaintance." 
 
 " Why do you not go more with girls ? " asked 
 her sister. 
 
 " Because I do not find any of them half so 
 agreeable as Mrs. Rose," was the reply. "I 
 think it a great advantage for a girl like me to 
 have the intimate society of a married woman 
 who has seen the world, and has something to
 
 64 STRA Y LEA VES FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 talk about. As to this Dr. Cashel being de- 
 voted to Mrs. Rose, that is just Newport gossip. 
 I should have met him there as I have other 
 gentlemen, if he were there all the time, as you 
 say. To be sure I have not been to the Rosery 
 for a week. Mamma's sickness has kept me at 
 home. I think I shall go there to-day, after 
 Blanche has had her sitting. There she is, dear 
 little thing," and Hope ran to the door to seize 
 in her arms and embrace a pretty child of five 
 or six years of age, who, accompanied by a 
 French bonne in regulation cap, was coming up 
 the steps as fast as her much plush-enveloped 
 little form would allow. 
 
 " Hope will let no one see the picture," said 
 her mother, in a rather querulous tone, after the 
 child had been embraced all around, and, di- 
 vested of her wraps, was being led from the 
 room by the artist. 
 
 " Sam saw it yesterday," answered Mrs. Ma- 
 very. 
 
 " I forgot to lock the door," said Hope, catch- 
 ing her sister's words, and turning back with 
 the child, who pulled her impatiently away. 
 
 " Sam was delighted with the likeness," said 
 his wife, " but he would be sure to be delighted 
 with anything Hope does. I am not jealous, 
 Hope," she hastened to add. " I wish you would 
 take him off my hands a little oftener than you
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 65 
 
 do." Then turning to the French maid, who 
 stood at the door waiting for orders, Mrs. Ma- 
 very gave her some directions respecting the 
 child ; this done, she carelessly touched her 
 mother's forehead with her lips, and, humming 
 a tune from some light opera, airily departed. 
 The next moment she was standing at the door 
 of her carriage talking with a well-known soci- 
 ety man, one of her constant attendants, and 
 the special object of Sam Mavery's jealous dis- 
 like. The mother, from her seat at the win- 
 dow, saw her flirtatious daughter handed into 
 the brougham by this admirer, who proceeded 
 to take his seat beside her ; after which the car- 
 riage door was shut by the diminutive tiger in 
 top-boots, the equipage rapidly disappeared, 
 and Mrs. Ashton gave a deep sigh over Belle's 
 thoughtless folly in thus braving public opinion 
 and her husband's anger. 
 
 Meanwhile Hope had taken her small sitter to 
 the room where, upon her easel, was the nearly 
 completed picture of little Blanche Mavery in 
 the Kate Greenaway, quaint attire, in which the 
 child had appeared at a recent children's ball. 
 
 Sam Mavery had begged his sister-in-law to 
 paint Blanche's portrait for him, promising, 
 should it be a success, to pay her the price asked 
 for a portrait of a child, by the celebrated artist 
 in Boston to whom Mrs. Mavery had sat for her
 
 66 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 picture. The glimpse the fond father had acci- 
 dentally caught of his little daughter's portrait, 
 when, as Hope had told her sister, she had neg- 
 lected to lock the door, had so delighted him 
 that, upon his return home, he told his wife that 
 he should send Hope double the sum he had 
 intended, as the picture was fully worth the 
 money. 
 
 It had been a great pleasure to Hope to paint 
 the singularly attractive child ; and Blanche, 
 deeply interested in seeing herself reproduced 
 on canvas, generally sat very still, watching the 
 movements of the artist's fingers. Hope never 
 tired her with long sittings, but gave frequent 
 intermissions for the child to rest, to be em- 
 braced, and amused with picture-books. 
 
 This day little Blanche often looked up won- 
 deringly into her aunt's unusually thoughtful 
 face, and, feeling herself neglected, became rest- 
 less and cross. The sitting was a decided fail- 
 ure ; and Hope, finding she could not concentrate 
 her thoughts upon Blanche or her portrait, or 
 upon the stoiy with which she generally be- 
 guiled the child, gave both up in despair, and 
 endeavored to provide amusement by making a 
 horse for the child of her amiable Newfound- 
 land, Black Prince. 
 
 In spite of a determination not to be annoyed 
 by them, Belle Mavery's words had left an un-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 67 
 
 pleasant impression upon her sister's mind. She 
 could not but confess to herself that it was 
 strange that Mrs. Rose had never spoken to her 
 of this Dr. Cashel, who, according to " all New- 
 port," was devoted to the charming mistress of 
 the Rosery. How strange she should never have 
 met him there ; and if Belle's words were true, 
 what a barrier his frequent visits would be to 
 the hitherto unrestrained conversations between 
 herself and her kind friend. It was all very 
 tiresome, a threatened break in the pleasant 
 every -day life, of which Mrs. Rose's compan- 
 ionship had been the sunshine. 
 
 Hope was not sorry when Blanche's departure 
 left her free to draw her chair before the wood 
 fire, and, as she played with the logs, to wonder 
 over the idea suggested by Belle Mavery's re- 
 marks that morning. 
 
 But Hope was not long left to her firelight- 
 pictures and reveries ; for the striking of the 
 French clock upon the mantel marked the hour 
 of her engagement to visit one of the smallest, 
 but one of the most interesting, of Newport 
 houses, a casket full of objects of art and of 
 historic interest. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. James, though they cared little 
 for general society, were much sought after by 
 the artistic and cultivated residents and visitors 
 of Newport ; and Hope had carte blanche to come
 
 68 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 and go as she liked among the works of art and 
 vertu. 
 
 "This is my fourteenth-century man," Hope 
 had said at an afternoon tea, where she chanced 
 to meet Mr. James, who, struck with the statu- 
 esque form and beautiful face of the haughty 
 high-bred heiress, Hilda Hauterive, had requested 
 an introduction. 
 
 "Miss Hauterive wants some information 
 about some missals she found somewhere in Eu- 
 rope," said Hope. " Mr. James is an embodied 
 Bodleian Library ; he can tell you, Hilda, what 
 you want to know," added Hope, as the intellec- 
 tual beauty welcomed the virtuoso with a smile 
 of more than usual graciousness. 
 
 The result of the introduction had been an 
 invitation to Hope and Miss Hauterive to spend 
 an hour or two at the James Cottage, over some 
 fine illustrations of Froissart, which Mr. James 
 had executed, and which he promised to show 
 his fair visitors. 
 
 " What beautiful horses ! " exclaimed Hope, 
 as she stood on the walk admiring Hilda's styl- 
 ish turn-out, the reins of which the young lady 
 handled with much grace and skill. 
 
 " They are handsome," was the careless reply. 
 " Papa wanted to buy me strawberry roans, but 
 I preferred these blacks ; they look well with 
 that harness, do they not ? "
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 69 
 
 " But what a cruel bit ! " exclaimed Hope. 
 " And you have their heads so checked up that 
 they can scarcely move them. That check must 
 be torture to horses." 
 
 " So Captain Neigh ton says," replied the 
 beauty indifferently. "He made war upon it 
 yesterday, in the name of that meddlesome soci- 
 ety of which he is President." 
 
 " Why do you not change it then ? " asked 
 Hope, as she took her seat in the carriage. The 
 fair driver gathered up the long white reins in a 
 vigorous grasp, and the thoroughbreds started 
 off at a rapid pace. 
 
 "Because I like to see their heads checked 
 up," was the reply. " I am quite willing to pay 
 any fine the Society for the Protection of Ani- 
 mals may exact, but I shall not uncheck my 
 horses all the same. They are spirited animals 
 and require discipline." 
 
 " I believe kindness is far better than force, 
 with both man and beast," remarked Hope. 
 
 " Do you ? " said the beauty. " My experi- 
 ence teaches me the contrary." 
 
 " Is that the principle you go on, Hilda, when 
 you snub men so unmercifully as you did Gordon 
 Maxwell last evening? You refused to dance 
 with him, because you were tired ; yet, later, I 
 saw you waltzing with Mr. De Veau." 
 
 "I refused to dance with Gordon Maxwell on
 
 70 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 account of his presumptuous manner," was the 
 reply. " He did not even ask me to dance, but 
 jerked out his arm, as I observe he always does. 
 / will not put up with such manners, or want of 
 them, if others do. The fact is, the men are 
 spoilt by the flattery of married women. I like 
 to take down the vanity of a dude like Gordon 
 Maxwell. The snubbing did him good, for he 
 asked me quite humbly to keep a waltz for him 
 this evening, and I consented to give him one." 
 
 " You should have lived in the days of chiv- 
 alry, Hilda ; you are quite too grand in your 
 style for these prosaic times," said Hope. 
 " How I should like to see you desperately in 
 love ! " And yet what man is worthy of such 
 rare loveliness ? she thought, as her eye wan- 
 dered in artistic delight over the details of per- 
 fect symmetry of feature and beauty of coloring 
 in this masterpiece of nature. 
 
 " That you will never see," said Hilda, her 
 beautiful lips parting and disclosing a double 
 row of pearls, in her proud smile which ac- 
 knowledged the homage to her beauty implied 
 by the expression of her companion's face. " I 
 fall in love ! " she exclaimed with a merry laugh, 
 as if the idea were too absurd to be entertained 
 for a moment. " No, no ; I am too wise for 
 that, even if it were possible for me to feel the 
 tender passion. Heart-whole I can conquer
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 71 
 
 hearts ; but if I were to lose my own, supposing 
 I have a heart, which I sometimes doubt, I 
 should be conquered, and that I will never be ; " 
 and the deep blue eyes flashed under their dark 
 fringes, the delicate nostrils dilated, and the firm 
 lips closed with their most haughty expression. 
 
 " Shaugraun, Shaugraun," exclaimed Hilda, 
 suddenly breaking off the conversation, as she 
 missed her Irish setter which had followed the 
 carriage. " Where is the dog ? Some one will 
 steal him, if he get away from us. Thomas," 
 turning to the groom, " have you seen Shau- 
 graun? Ah! there he is, lazily lying on the 
 ground. Shaugraun," she repeated, stopping the 
 carriage. 
 
 The dog looked up in her face defiantly and 
 never stirred. Hilda threw the reins to Hope ; 
 and as the groom got out of his seat in the 
 rumble and stood at the horses' heads, the mis- 
 tress of the setter seized the whip and walked 
 to the spot where the dog lay. 
 
 " Hilda, Hilda," cried Hope entreatingly, as 
 the angry girl, paying no heed to the words, re- 
 peatedly lashed the dog unmercifully. 
 
 " Take care, that is dangerous," cried a voice 
 near by, and Hope, who had been anxiously 
 watching the combat between the girl and the 
 dog, turned her head and recognized the stranger 
 whom she had seen on the Cliff. Hilda vouch-
 
 72 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 safed no notice, but again struck the animal, as 
 with an angry growl it sprang towards her ; 
 again she raised her arm, but Hope caught it 
 ere the blow fell, and the stranger at the same 
 moment seized the dog and held it back by the 
 collar. Hilda stepped back a few steps, pale 
 as marble, with the whip trailing on the ground ; 
 but she looked fixedly at the dog, which, firmly 
 held in the stranger's grasp, continued to glare 
 at her and growl. 
 
 " The dog is hurt : " and the stranger care- 
 fully lifted one of the legs of the setter. The 
 gentle touch and the soothing words which ac- 
 companied it caused the dog to cease growling 
 and to look up gratefully into the face of one in 
 whom he seemed to recognize a sympathetic 
 friend. 
 
 " He is lazy and obstinate," said Hilda, and at 
 the sound of her voice the dog again began 
 barking, and struggled to free himself from the 
 hand which held him. 
 
 " Is his leg broken ? " asked Hope, who was 
 standing by the dog, looking at its paw lying in 
 the stranger's hand. 
 
 " No," he answered, " it has been cut," and 
 he proceeded to wipe away the blood from the 
 wound, and then wrapped his handkerchief 
 around the leg. " A valuable animal," he said, 
 opening the setter's mouth ; " he has the marks
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEA WEED. 73 
 
 of race. But," turning to Hilda, " the dog needs 
 care, he has hurt his leg quite badly ; " and tak- 
 ing the setter in his arms he carefully laid it on 
 the rug which Hope had doubled and spread in 
 the bottom of the carriage ; the dog's mistress 
 looking on haughtily, as if she half resented this 
 interference on the part of an entire stranger, 
 although it were in behalf of her property. 
 
 She thanked him in ceremonious tones for all 
 the trouble he had taken ; while he assured her, 
 in equally measured words, that " he was most 
 happy to have been of service to her as well as 
 to the dog," with a slight emphasis on the dog, 
 which caused the color to deepen on Hilda's 
 cheek. Then, raising his hat to both ladies, 
 the stranger walked off rapidly in a contrary 
 direction from that taken by the two girls. 
 
 " Suppose we walk to the James Cottage? 
 it is but a step, and let Thomas take the dog 
 home," said Hope, after the short silence which 
 had succeeded the departure of Shaugraun's 
 friend. 
 
 " You can go home, Thomas ; I shall not 
 want the carriage any more this afternoon ; and, 
 Thomas," as the man, touching his hat, was 
 about to drive off, "take that dog out of my 
 sight ; never let me see him again. I give him 
 to you. But if he comes near the stable again 
 it will be far worse for him than it was this 
 afternoon."
 
 74 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " Beg pardon, I don't understand you, Miss," 
 said the astonished groom. " Did you mean me 
 to keep Shaugraun ? " 
 
 " I do mean it. I give the dog to you to sell 
 or to keep," she answered impatiently, in a tone 
 of suppressed passion ; " only never let him 
 come near me again ; " and without listening to 
 the profuse thanks of the overjoyed Thomas, 
 Hilda pursued her way. 
 
 "Are you crazy, Hilda?" exclaimed Hope, 
 as soon as she could recover from surprise at 
 her companion's conduct, sufficiently to speak. 
 " Shaugraun must be worth one hundred dol- 
 lars, at least." 
 
 " Nearer two hundred and fifty," was the in- 
 different reply. " Colonel Tellifer sent to Ire- 
 land for him, expressly for me, just before we left 
 England last spring, and one of his brother offi- 
 cers said he had offered him fifty guineas for it." 
 
 " But what folly to give such a valuable dog 
 to a groom. Why not make a present of it to 
 one of your friends, if you are tired of it ? 
 Shaugraun is a royal dog." 
 
 " He displeased me, and I wished to degrade 
 him by giving him my servant for a master. I 
 hate the dog, as I hate any creature that defies 
 and humiliates me," continued Hilda ; and the 
 opening of the door of the James Cottage pre- 
 cluded farther conversation.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEA WEED. 75 
 
 It was a chilly October day, and the bright 
 fire burning ia the old fashioned Franklin 
 looked very pleasant to the two girls, as they 
 were ushered into a drawing - room which was 
 like a museum, so filled was it with curious and 
 rare objects. Hope turned to the wall to exam- 
 ine a picture, a recent acquisition of her host; 
 and Hilda walked to the fire, when the servant 
 left them to announce their arrival. 
 
 Suddenly Hope was startled by a low moan, 
 and looking around she beheld her companion 
 holding a red hot poker against one finger of 
 her left hand. 
 
 " O Hilda, did the dog bite you ? Let me 
 see," and Hope looked anxiously from the pale 
 face and brow contracted with pain to the deli- 
 cate flesh seared by the hot iron. 
 
 " He flew at my hand as I held my skirt out of 
 the mud," said Hilda, putting down the poker 
 and biting her lip, while her beautiful eyes, suf- 
 fused with tears, showed how she was suffering. 
 " I did not choose to have that man see that I 
 was bitten," she continued, " and I held my hand 
 behind me. See ! he tore the skin with his teeth 
 through my glove. The dog may go mad, and 
 it is as well to take this precaution," she added ; 
 then, hearing a step, she hastily wrapped her 
 handkerchief around her hand, and with a 
 " Hush ! say nothing about it," forced a smil^ 
 to greet her host.
 
 76 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " I shall say something about it," said Hope, 
 as Mr. James entered the room. " Mr. James, 
 Miss Hauterive is faint ; please get her some 
 wine, or brandy, and," she added, as he hastened 
 to the adjoining dining-room, "bring a little 
 flour, she has burnt her hand." 
 
 When Mr. James returned with the wine- 
 glass of brandy he brought the salad oil cruet. 
 " Oil is much better than flour," he said, " to 
 relieve a burn." Hilda received him with her 
 sweetest smile, gave her own hurried explana- 
 tion of the accident which had happened to her 
 hand, warning Hope by a look not to correct it, 
 and was so fascinating that her host, as he ap- 
 plied the soothing oil and bound up the wounded 
 finger, was lost in admiration both of the charm- 
 ing manners and of the beauty of his visitor. 
 
 As Hope watched the lovely face bending with 
 interest over the very finely illuminated sheets, 
 which the artist had taken from a drawer and 
 placed before his appreciative guest ; as she lis- 
 tened to the sweet, rich tones of the voice, and 
 noted the winning smile with which the deep 
 blue eyes were raised to her host's face, while 
 he explained a passage in the gold and blue let- 
 tering, or drew attention to a quaint design, it 
 seemed to her almost incredible that this could 
 be the same girl who, but a short time before, 
 had given full vent to her passionate mood, and
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 77 
 
 then borne with unflinching stoicism the penalty 
 of her anger. 
 
 Hilda Hauterive, as she sat in the calm maj- 
 esty of her great beauty, seemed to Hope like 
 the personification of the sudden placidity of the 
 ocean, after it has spent itself in a violent, 
 stormy outbreak. 
 
 " And your hand, Miss Hauterive, I hope it 
 does not pain you very much ? " asked Mr. 
 James, as his fair visitor, rising to depart, 
 thanked him for " one of the pleasantest hours 
 she had enjoyed in Newport." 
 
 " You have proved such an excellent doctor," 
 she replied, in her sweetest tone, "that your 
 treatment, joined to seeing your beautiful Frois- 
 sart, had almost made me forget the pain." 
 
 " You are a wonderfully plucky girl, Hilda," 
 said Hope, as she was parting from the haughty 
 beauty at her door. " Most girls would have 
 fainted after having been bitten by a dog ; few 
 would have had the courage to cauterize the 
 wound with the other hand, and then sit and 
 turn over missals for an hour, and say pretty 
 things to the owner." 
 
 " Did I say pretty things ? I am glad if I 
 did," she answered laughing. " I like Mr. James 
 so much. He is so clever and interesting : such 
 a contrast to most of the men one meets. Do 
 we meet at the ball to-night, Hope ? "
 
 78 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " You surely will not think of going to-night, 
 after all you have been through this afternoon ? " 
 exclaimed Hope. 
 
 " Of course I shall go. I would not miss it 
 for anything," was the reply. "To-night will 
 be my last appearance this season in Newport, 
 for we are going to New York in a few days." 
 
 When Hope, chaperoned by her sister, en- 
 tered the ball-room that evening, the first face 
 she recognized was Hilda Hauterive's. The 
 beautiful Southerner was looking radiant in a 
 dress of pale sea-green, which suited admirably 
 her fair complexion. She wore a shamrock on 
 her breast ; and in her chestnut hair, with its 
 golden shimmer through it, shone a gold this- 
 tle. She was talking with animation to a rising 
 young lawyer, son of a distinguished Western 
 Senator. 
 
 She paused abruptly in her warm expressions 
 of sympathy with Parnell and Ireland to give 
 her hand and respond with a bewitching smile 
 to a graceful compliment from the venerable 
 historian of the United States, who was passing. 
 
 " I ought to sympathize with Ireland," Hope 
 heard her say, " for I am Irish on my mother's 
 side, of the same blood as Ireland's martyrs, 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Emmet;" and the 
 hand which had chastised the Irish setter played 
 with the shamrock at her breast.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 79 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "Miss ASHTON, Dr. Cashel," and the tall, 
 broad-shouldered owner of the great St. Bernard 
 dog, which was lying at his feet, rose from the 
 sofa as the mistress of the Rosery presented him. 
 
 Hope colored, for she recognized the stranger 
 who had been passing when she was "talking 
 iodine " with Ben on the cliffs. 
 
 She hurriedly returned his bow; and then 
 plunged into a rapid and confused series of rea- 
 sons why she had not been at the Rosery for 
 more than a week, which her hostess reminded 
 her was the fact. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dr. Cashel, having bent a very 
 searching glance from his mysterious, deep-set 
 eyes upon the young girl's blushing face, silently 
 resumed his seat, and commenced playfully strok- 
 ing the dog's nose with his glove. 
 
 Suddenly turning to Hope, he asked: "Did 
 that dog go mad ? " 
 
 "What dog ? " asked Mrs. Rose. 
 
 " A fine Irish setter which Miss Ashton and 
 I tried to defend against the cruelty of a beauti- 
 ful woman," he answered. " By Jove, that was 
 plucky," said Dr. Cashel, as Hope told of Hilda's 
 preventive against the dog's bite. 
 
 "And you say she was at the party last 
 night? " asked Mrs. Rose of Hope.
 
 80 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " Yes ; but she left before the German, and I 
 do not think she danced at all during the even- 
 ing. I saw her sitting down, wonderful for 
 such a belle. I called there to-day on my way 
 here, and was told Miss Hauterive was out 
 driving." 
 
 " She is brave and strong, as she is cruelly 
 beautiful," said Dr. CasheL 
 
 " Do you know Hilda Hauterive, Harvey 
 Cashel? You have never spoken of her before," 
 said Mrs. Rose. " What a mysterious being 
 you are," she added laughing. 
 
 " I do not know Miss Hauterive personally," 
 he answered. "I saw her frequently in Paris 
 last winter, where she was the belle of the 
 American Colony." 
 
 " If you do not know her, why do you call 
 her cruel ? " asked Hope, the color rising to her 
 cheeks as she spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Rose smiled at the indignant tone, and 
 remarked, " Hope is a warm advocate of an 
 absent friend." 
 
 "Hilda is scarcely my friend," answered 
 Hope ; " rather an acquaintance. I have seen a 
 great deal of her this summer, because mamma 
 knew Hilda's father when he was a young man 
 and stayed at White Cliff. Mamma spent part 
 of a winter on the Hauterive plantation, when 
 she was a young girl. Mr. Hauterive brought
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 81 
 
 Hilda to see us when he came to Newport this 
 summer from Europe, where he had been for 
 more than twenty years. It amuses me to hear 
 Hilda's impressions of America. I like to hear 
 her talk, and I think her wonderfully beauti- 
 ful," continued Hope, avoiding the gaze which 
 she felt was bent upon her as she talked. " She 
 is imperious, self-willed, it is true ; but she is an 
 only child, she has no mother to guide her, and 
 her father spoils her." 
 
 " Yes, she is very beautiful," said Mrs. Rose, 
 " but I confess too cold and haughty for my taste." 
 
 Dr. Cashel, who had taken no part in the con- 
 versation, rose slowly, walked across the room 
 to the piano, before which he sat down. 
 
 He struck a few notes in an absent manner. 
 Suddenly there pealed forth a wild, weird mel- 
 ody, a " song without words," depicting the emo- 
 tions of a deeply passionate nature ; gradually 
 it deepened into a pathetic soul-stirring appeal, 
 and then again broke forth into a convulsive 
 sob like the bursting of a long struggling heart. 
 As suddenly as it had commenced, the music 
 ceased ; and the musician, upon whom Hope's 
 glance was riveted as by a strange fascination, 
 rose. He shook his head as Mrs. Rose begged 
 him to go on playing, and Hope added ear- 
 nestly, " Please do ; " her eyes speaking no less 
 eloquently than her lips.
 
 82 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 "No," said he, "I cannot. My thoughts 
 sometimes express themselves in music in spite 
 of me. You must excuse this rhapsody. Miss 
 Ashton's question of why I called the beautiful 
 Hilda cruel carried me back in imagination to 
 the death-bed of a foolish boy, who thought him- 
 self Pygmalion to evoke a heart in this Galatea 
 of his dreams. He was very young," added Dr. 
 Cashel deprecatingly, " only twenty ; and the 
 romance and fervor of his artistic nature had 
 been increased to the pitch of madness by a 
 beautiful woman's smile and his own premature 
 success in his profession. His picture of Hilda 
 Hauterive was one of the best in the salon last 
 year. The beauty's vanity was gratified, and 
 she encouraged, flattered, and petted the boy 
 artist, until he gave up everything for love. 
 Soon this devotion bored her; he was in the 
 way of other and more ambitious conquests, and 
 she sneered at his protestations of love, lashed 
 him with her scorn, treated him as she did her 
 dog the other day. The dog," he continued, 
 " turned and bit the hand that struck him ; the 
 lover simply died by his own hand." 
 
 "Horrible! dreadful!" exclaimed his listen- 
 ers. 
 
 " You may well say so," he rejoined. " I shall 
 never forget the day I broke the news to his poor 
 mother."
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 83 
 
 " How could you ? " interrupted Hope, with 
 more sympathy in her tone than she had yet felt 
 for the narrator. 
 
 " Simply because there was no one else to do 
 it, and I had promised Albert Grey on his death- 
 bed," he replied. 
 
 Then, rising, Dr. Cashel held out his hand to 
 his hostess and bowed formally to Hope, as he 
 called his dog and turned to leave the room. 
 
 " You surely are not going ? Stay and dine 
 with us," said Mrs. Rose. 
 
 " Impossible," was the reply. " I leave for 
 Boston by the next train." 
 
 " What a strange man ! " exclaimed Hope, 
 when the door had closed upon Dr. Cashel and 
 his St. Bernard. " How magnificently he plays ! 
 One would never think when looking at him, or 
 hearing the sarcastic tone in which he so often 
 speaks, that he had so much feeling as he showed 
 when he spoke of his friend." 
 
 " Harvey Cashel has a great deal more feeling 
 than many give him credit for," answered Mrs. 
 Rose warmly. " I have known him well for 
 years, and I know what a noble life his is, doing 
 more good than half the ministers of the gos- 
 pel, although he makes no pretense to being a 
 religious man, and rarely goes to church. His 
 is practical religion, the broadest kind of char- 
 ity, for he helps every one who comes to him, or 
 of whom he hears as being in want."
 
 84 STRAY LEAVES PROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " Does he practice his profession ? " asked 
 Hope. 
 
 " Only among the poor. He has a little bijou 
 of a house in New York, which, when he is in 
 this country, he makes very attractive to his 
 friends. His sister, who is unmarried, lives with 
 him. She is a very remarkable woman. Strong- 
 minded the world calls her, but, unlike many 
 strong-minded women, she has sweet, feminine 
 manners, and dresses very handsomely, a little 
 individually, but always becomingly. Like her 
 brother, she is an artist, and paints as well as he 
 plays. Out of the way as their house is, they 
 have as much society as they like, literary, artis- 
 tic, and fashionable people who have brains. For 
 merely rich people they do not care ; every per- 
 son whom they ask to the most delicious little 
 suppers, dinners, or breakfasts, which Harvey 
 Cashel and his sister give, must contribute some- 
 thing to the intellectual menu. They are both 
 rich, have each about a million, so they can 
 afford to live as they please, and carry out their 
 individualities as they like." 
 
 " How very interesting ! " exclaimed Hope. 
 " I don't think, however, I should ever feel quite 
 at ease with Dr. Cashel. His great eyes frighten 
 me, he looks so steadily at me when he talks." 
 
 u You won't mind that after a while," an- 
 swered Mrs. Kose. " But he is such an erratic
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 85 
 
 individual that you may not see him again for a 
 long while. It would not surprise me to receive 
 a letter from him written in China, after about 
 a year's silence." 
 
 " And yet Newport says " 
 
 Hope stopped short and colored, as she met 
 the gray-blue eye of her hostess. 
 
 " Newport says that Harvey Cashel, my old 
 friend, is paying his attentions to me," said Mrs. 
 Rose, quietly finishing Hope's broken sentence. 
 " So I heard the other day, not to my surprise, 
 for nothing I hear in Newport ever surprises 
 me ; and a man who is not brother, husband, or 
 father cannot call twice at the house of a widow 
 or a spinster, without exciting the remark of idle 
 men and women. Harvey Cashel comes to see 
 me without any such motive ; and I hope he 
 will continue to come as often as he likes. He 
 is not the man to be deterred from visiting an 
 old friend by gossip ; and he knows that I have 
 no intention of ever marrying anybody. And 
 now, having disposed of that subject," continued 
 Mrs. Rose, " let us proceed to read my letter 
 from Rome ; " and she took from the table be- 
 side her a long letter from Charlie Williams, in 
 which she and her young visitor soon became 
 deeply interested. 
 
 The young fellow wrote bright, amusing let- 
 ters, full of graphic accounts of people he had
 
 86 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 met in his tour through Italy with the sculptor 
 with whom he was studying. 
 
 Charlie inclosed some sketches he had made 
 of the inhabitants of the different towns and 
 villages, and promised to turn this tour to great 
 account in future works during the winter, when 
 he should settle down to study. 
 
 Charlie's letters came regularly and were 
 much enjoyed by his two friends. They often 
 spoke of him to Dr. Cashel, who, contrary to 
 Mrs. Rose's prediction, became a constant visitor 
 at the Rosery, causing Newport to remark more 
 than ever upon his assiduity. 
 
 Hope gradually grew accustomed to the doc- 
 tor's searching gaze, though she could never feel 
 entirely at her ease with him. After spend- 
 ing the greater part of the winter at Newport 
 he suddenly disappeared ; and Mrs. Ashton, who 
 had secretly determined in her own mind that 
 Hope, and not Mrs. Rose, was the attraction the 
 dark-eyed millionaire found in Newport, was 
 greatly discomposed in her plans for her daugh- 
 ter's settling in life.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED, 87 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MEANWHILE the iodine enterprise progressed 
 rapidly ; and after a few months the active part- 
 ner, Ben, reported to the capitalist most satis- 
 factory results. Shortly after Ben's long con- 
 versation with the young drug clerk who was 
 "keeping company with his sister," there had 
 come a proposition from a leading firm in Mas- 
 sachusetts to take a certain amount of iodine, 
 which was duly furnished ; and by dint of keep- 
 ing an eye open, as the young man expressed it, 
 arrangements were made with certain parties 
 to take a portion of the kelp off his hands. At 
 first the neighbors had sneered at the notion 
 of Ben Truman making money out of kelp ; 
 thought he had " much better keep to sellin' sea- 
 weed at eight dollars a load," and wondered his 
 father " had n't more sense than to lend himself 
 to such nonsense." 
 
 Gradually the farmers around, who had 
 watched with smiles of half interest and half 
 contempt the erection of " that ere woodshed," 
 got to look upon it with the indifference that 
 comes with habit ; and when it was discovered 
 that a success was likely to be made out of the 
 iodine, the tide of public opinion changed, and 
 the young chemist was pronounced a long-headed 
 fellow and likely to get on in the world.
 
 88 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 Meanwhile the parties concerned kept their 
 affairs to themselves ; and none but they knew 
 that the tall, graceful girl who drove frequently 
 to White Cliff, and took such deep interest in 
 watching the beautiful violet vapor rising from 
 the iodine manufactory there, was the real plan- 
 ner and promoter of this successful industry. 
 
 "You might make a good figure in Wall 
 Street, Hope, with your financial abilities," re- 
 marked Mrs. Rose one day, when the young girl, 
 having figured up what her venture had cost her, 
 announced to her astonished listener the hand- 
 some result. 
 
 " I should be afraid of the Bulls and Bears," 
 replied the iodine speculator laughing. " No, I 
 shall stick to seaweed ; it is safer." 
 
 One evening the doorbell of the Rosery was 
 pulled so violently that Mrs. Rose, deep in the 
 daily paper, threw it down, not knowing what to 
 expect, and the next moment, Hope, with flushed 
 cheeks and eyes red with weeping, rushed into 
 the room, and threw herself into her friend's 
 arras. 
 
 " Hope, my child, what has happened ? " ex- 
 claimed her hostess in alarm. 
 
 " White Cliff is to be sold," sobbed the girl. 
 
 " Sold, to whom ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know. Some horrid turfmen 
 have been looking at it, and Ben Truman says
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 89 
 
 it may be turned into a race-course, and the old 
 house moved away or cut up," added Hope, as 
 coherently as she could speak through her sobs 
 and tears. 
 
 " This is too bad," said Mrs. Rose. 
 
 " Bad ! it is dreadful," cried Hope ; " iodine, 
 kelp, all broken up, and I had hoped so much in 
 time to buy the place." 
 
 " How much does the owner want for it ? " 
 
 " Ben thinks it might be bought for twenty 
 thousand dollars ; but where am I to get twenty 
 thousand " Suddenly a thought struck the 
 girl. " I have ten thousand dollars left me by 
 Aunt Jane, which was invested for me in gov- 
 ernment bonds. I am of age : it is mine. I could 
 sell out and put it with the two thousand I have 
 in the bank, iodine and embroidery money. 
 But " She stopped and looked wistfully at 
 her companion. 
 
 " Suppose I advance the rest on your per- 
 sonal security," said Mrs. Rose smiling; "or, 
 better still, go into partnership with you, lend 
 you the money to complete the purchase of White 
 Cliff, and you give me an interest in the iodine 
 business. We might with our united powers 
 make a ' corner in seaweed.' Who knows ? " 
 
 " Will you really ? Are you in earnest, dear, 
 dear Mrs. Rose?" cried Hope joyfully. "Oh, 
 that would be too delightful," and she nearly 
 smothered her friend with kisses.
 
 90 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 When Hope poured out to her mother the 
 story of her struggles and success in amassing 
 her bank account, and of the way in which she 
 had invested the money, and finally announced 
 her intention of becoming the purchaser of White 
 Cliff with Mrs. Rose's assistance, Mrs. Ashton 
 sat for some moments dumb with amazement ; 
 and when she actually recovered her powers of 
 speech, she was so torn with the conflicting feel- 
 ings produced by the recital that she did not 
 know what to say. 
 
 Mrs. Ashton thought it a pity to disturb the 
 excellent investment which had been made of 
 Aunt Jane's legacy, and yet she was shrewd 
 enough to know that Newport property was sure 
 to rise, and would always be valuable. 
 
 It also gratified her pride that White Cliff 
 should be once more in the family. " It is bad 
 to hold mortgaged property," she said, " and un- 
 wise to have any business dealings with friends. 
 If you had consulted your mother, Hope, instead 
 of a stranger," continued Mrs. Ashton, in a tone 
 of offended dignity, " I might have advised you ; 
 but you always were a willful, strange girl." 
 
 " If I had consulted you, mamma," answered 
 Hope quietly, " White Cliff would never have 
 been ours. I never would have married for it, 
 and that is the only way which you would have 
 advised ; " she added bitterly. " I would far
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 91 
 
 rather struggle for a livelihood than marry for 
 one. However," she added, in a brighter tone, 
 " we will not discuss that question now ; beside," 
 she continued laughing, " as the possessor of 
 White Cliff I am more likely to be sought in 
 marriage, than if I were a poor girl. As to the 
 mortgage, Mrs. Rose is surely not a stranger ; 
 and I am sure she will not foreclose if we are 
 not punctual with the interest. And now," she 
 added, " I must go and brighten up the brass on 
 my old armchair. That will be a valuable piece 
 of furniture for the library at White Cliff. We 
 can furnish the whole house from the furniture 
 that we have, and let this house unfurnished for 
 one of the government bureaus, Geological, 
 Topographical, or something else. I hear that 
 Newport is to be inundated with any amount of 
 public offices ; it will be a good chance for us to 
 turn an honest penny and let this unfurnished 
 house to Uncle Sam. Is not that a practical 
 idea, mamma?" And Hope threw her arms 
 around her mother's neck and kissed her affec- 
 tionately, then danced out of the room whistling 
 a gay tune. 
 
 A little later her mother was startled from 
 the reverie into which the recent conversation 
 had thrown her. Something had fallen in the 
 adjoining room, which was Hope's, and this was 
 followed by a loud exclamation from the latter.
 
 92 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 Hurrying to the spot to see what had happened, 
 Mrs. Ashton found the old armchair had fallen 
 over, and a drawer lay upon the floor, while 
 Hope sat beside it with a bundle of papers in 
 her lap. 
 
 " See what I found in that drawer, a secret 
 drawer which I pulled out of the desk when I 
 was rubbing up the old brass around it," and 
 Hope held up the papers. " They were all in 
 this envelope. ' For my granddaughter, Hope,' " 
 she continued, reading the address on the en- 
 velope. " In grandpapa's own hand, is it not ? " 
 
 " Yes, and these are the very government 
 bonds your Uncle searched for everywhere," said 
 her mother. 
 
 " How delightful ! " exclaimed Hope. " Forty 
 thousand dollars worth of government bonds. 
 We can buy White Cliff out and out. No mort- 
 gage upon it now." 
 
 A week later Hope rushed into the Rosery 
 drawing-room, holding in her hand the deed 
 made out to her as the possessor of White Cliff. 
 
 " Is it not just like a novel ? " she said, after 
 she had poured out to her hostess the story of 
 the discovery of the government bonds. 
 
 "I hope you searched that old chair well," 
 said Mrs. Rose. " There may be another will 
 contained in it somewhere." 
 
 " No, indeed," replied Hope, "we diligently
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 93 
 
 examined every nail which might be a button, 
 and every corner which might contain a drawer." 
 
 Hope had been so engrossed with her story 
 that she had not noticed, in the dim twilight of 
 the room, another occupant of it beside Mrs. 
 Rose, and she blushed violently and stammered 
 a confused answer to the hearty congratulations 
 of Dr. Cashel upon her being a Newport real 
 estate owner. " I hope," he said, " that you will 
 not be inoculated with the prevailing mania for 
 improvements." 
 
 "Mamma and I will have all we can do to 
 keep White Cliff in order ; we could not afford 
 to improve it if we would, and we would not if 
 we could," answered Hope. 
 
 " Will you allow me to contribute something 
 towards the art gallery of your house ? " said 
 Dr. Cashel, addressing himself to Hope. " You 
 remember the Venetian picture I spoke of as 
 being so like Miss Hauterive ? Well," he con- 
 tinued, as Hope bowed assent, " I have it among 
 my other pictures in New York, and the next 
 time I come to Newport I will bring it with me. 
 Indeed, I assure you I do not care in the least 
 for it," he continued, in deprecation of Hope's 
 thanks and desire not to deprive him of the 
 painting. " I found this picture in the old Lore- 
 dano palace, now a hotel, and bought it for a 
 mere song. The owner did not know the value
 
 94 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 of it. I am sure it is a genuine Veronese, for 
 upon close inspection I discovered the name of 
 Carlo Caliari, the family name of Paul Veronese, 
 upon the back of the canvas. It is an unpleas- 
 ant picture to me, as it recalls the sad episode 
 of Albert Grey's infatuation. To you, who are 
 Miss Hauterive's friend, it will have no such 
 association, and it will make a variety to your 
 Copleys and Stuarts. I hope you will do me 
 the favor to accept it," he said, with the bright 
 smile which often lit up his face. 
 
 A short time after this, Dr. Cashel presented 
 himself at Mrs. Ashton's with the picture, and 
 was most graciously received by that lady, who, 
 although she cared little for art, expressed great 
 admiration for the painting. The picture repre- 
 sented a very beautiful woman, dressed in Vene- 
 tian costume, looking into a mirror in which 
 was seen the same face, but very much altered 
 by age. Time, with his hour-glass, also reflected 
 in the mirror, leered at the contrast, and Cupid 
 turned his back upon the older face. 
 
 " What a curious subject ! " said Hope, after 
 she had gazed for a few moments at the pic- 
 ture. 
 
 " You do not like it ? " he asked, unheeding 
 Mrs. Ashton's polite remarks. 
 
 " Yes ; no," answered the girl. " I like the 
 beautiful face, of course ; that is very like
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 95 
 
 Hilda's; but the other, the reflection, seems 
 cruel." 
 
 " It might be a shock to Miss Hauterive, I 
 fancy, if she were to have such a moral before 
 her as the artist has painted," he answered. 
 
 " I think," said Hope, " that the artist, after 
 portraying such a beautiful face, might better 
 have painted Love defeating the inroads of 
 Time." 
 
 " Not such a cruelly beautiful one as that," 
 he answered. " I can imagine the triumph of 
 Love over Time connected with far different 
 features." 
 
 " How strangely you treated Dr. Cashel, 
 Hope," said her mother, after their visitor had 
 left. " You were almost rude to him ; you 
 scarcely thanked him for his beautiful picture." 
 
 " Was I rude, mamma ? " answered Hope ab- 
 sently. She was thinking : Why did he bring it 
 to me ? What did he mean by those last words 
 of other features being required to make Love 
 defeat the inroads of Time ? Why did he look 
 so curiously at me as he said that ? Why do I 
 feel so uncomfortable when he fixes those deep 
 eyes upon me? She thought, with a smile of 
 derision at herself, how she had turned her chair 
 the evening before, that she might not look at 
 him while he played so exquisitely that every 
 note of his music vibrated through her being.
 
 96 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 Why could she not laugh and talk with him, 
 and be at her best, as she was with others ? 
 How very absurd to be afraid of him! How 
 very annoying ! 
 
 While these thoughts were chasing each other 
 through her brain, Hope sat with her eyes fixed 
 upon her mother's face, while the latter expatiated 
 upon the attractions and excellent qualities of 
 Dr. Cashel, and, finding herself uninterrupted and 
 apparently listened to, said to herself, " Hope, 
 like a sensible girl, is being convinced of the ad- 
 visability of securing such a good match." But 
 not a word of her mother's expressions of ap- 
 proval regarding their late visitor had the girl 
 heard, until she suddenly caught the conclud- 
 ing sentence of her practical parent's speech. 
 " A man of forty he must be fully that is 
 not too old for a girl of twenty ; and you, Hope, 
 are so much more mature in character than 
 most girls ; you always were very old for your 
 age." 
 
 "Mamma," interrupted Hope, passionately, 
 " I will not be thrown at any man's head. If 
 you say much more in praise of Dr. Cashel I 
 shall hate him." Then in a calmer tone she 
 said : " He has no more thought of me than I of 
 him. If he cares for any one in Newport it is 
 Mrs. Rose ; he comes to see her." 
 
 Mrs. Ashton merely raised her eyebrows, as
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 97 
 
 was her wont when she did not agree with a 
 proposition ; she wisely forebore further argu- 
 ment. 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 THE long, dreary, Newport spring was nearly 
 over ; the buds of the lilac, wistaria, and other 
 early shrubs, and the trees, which had for some 
 weeks previous been struggling against the 
 piercing winds and unfriendly atmosphere of 
 May in Newport, had conquered, as youth and 
 beauty must when backed by energy of purpose, 
 and had burst forth in all their vigor ; the 
 bright colors and delicious odors of these flowers 
 of the " youth of the year " welcoming back the 
 birds and early summer visitors of Newport, the 
 hanging blossoms and branches draping the 
 houses and brightening in the fair sunshine the 
 " Garden of Rhode Island." " 'Lection Day, 
 the day of all days " to the genuine Newporter, 
 had come and gone ; the native poet-governor, 
 inaugurated for the second time as chief mag- 
 istrate of the State, had made his happiest re- 
 sponse to the felicitations of his friends and 
 constituents, under the bluest of skies, and amid 
 the brightest array of uniforms, pretty faces, 
 and 'lection jubilee. But the day following, the
 
 98 STRA Y LEA VES FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 aspect of Newport changed, as its unreasonable 
 climate will, without due notice. The sun, as 
 if regretting its effulgent welcome to the gov- 
 ernor, the crowd of visitors, and Newport resi- 
 dents, and fearing to make its smiles too cheap, 
 now veiled its face. The sky was dull and 
 dreary, the atmosphere chilly. The Isle of 
 Peace Hotel, in its spring dress of fresh white 
 paint, looked cold and cheerless ; and the fringe 
 of official broadcloth and stovepipe hats on the 
 piazza, dignitaries who had come to " tend 
 'lection," and now, standing about in groups, 
 discussing the questions most dear to their sev- 
 eral political hearts, made as sombre a trim- 
 ming to the front of the hospitable inn, as if the 
 funeral which just then chanced to be passing 
 along the street had been the occasion of their 
 assembling. 
 
 It was not a day to raise depressed spirits. 
 " I don't wonder so many English commit sui- 
 cide, under the influence of their fogs ; and 
 Newport is terribly English in climate to-day," 
 thought I lope, as she wandered with listless step 
 and face along the streets she had found so 
 crowded the day before, when she had taken 
 little Blanche, who was on a visit to " Grand- 
 mamma and Aunt Hope," to see all the interest- 
 ing sights of " 'Lection Day," and, in the gay 
 spirit of the hour, had caught some of the child's
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 99 
 
 enthusiasm and quite enjoyed looking at the 
 " soldiers." 
 
 This day the girl's tired limbs and mind were 
 feeling the reaction after their recent activity in 
 the service of a bright, healthy child. A long 
 chain of petty domestic trials had fretted her 
 brave spirit and almost wholly discouraged it. 
 Her mother, suffering from a very severe attack 
 of neuralgia, the result of imprudence the day 
 before, had been excusably, but none the less 
 tryingly, irritable, worrying over household ex- 
 penses, distrusting Hope's management of affairs, 
 bewailing the rash purchase of White Cliff, and 
 drawing terrible pictures of the financial ruin it 
 would inevitably entail upon them. 
 
 Hope, whose heart had " gone down to her 
 boots," as she expressed it to herself and her 
 faithful dog Black Prince, a safe confidant, to 
 whom she often unburdened herself, sighed over 
 the long catalogue of necessary outlays at White 
 Cliff, and wished she could comfortably talk 
 them over with her mother, who, had she been 
 able to discuss matters sympathetically and 
 thoughtfully, might have taken some of the bur- 
 den of anxiety off the overtaxed brain and 
 heart of her daughter. But no, it would never 
 do to attempt to share these anxieties with her 
 parent; she must think out all plans alone. 
 She must spur on the lax workmen, who had
 
 100 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 stopped papering and painting at White Cliff 
 for a week before 'lection, in their own prepara- 
 tions for that great event. She must get furni- 
 ture moved, repaired, and taken from the house 
 they now occupied, in order to give it up to the 
 tenants they had secured at a " low price," as 
 they had thought, for the large house, but " very 
 fortunately at any price," said the real estate 
 agents, who had all been brisk in the effort to 
 rent Mrs. Ashton's house. " The house," they 
 said to the owner, "was in an unfashionable 
 locality, without modern improvements, and un- 
 furnished," since the furniture would all be 
 needed at White Cliff. 
 
 So Hope persuaded her mother to accept the 
 offer made, and bent all her energies to vacate 
 in a fortnight. 
 
 Hope had finished her various errands and 
 was now passing the beautiful, mottled marble 
 Unitarian church, when her ear caught the soft 
 notes of the organ pealing through the door. It 
 was unusual for the church to be open on a 
 week day. Why do Protestants not imitate the 
 example of Roman Catholics, and leave God's 
 house freely open to his children at all times 
 and seasons ? 
 
 When Hope looked into the church it was 
 empty, save for the organist, whose form was 
 shrouded from her view by the screen in front
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 101 
 
 of the organ. The girl wandered along the 
 lower end of the church and stood in front of 
 the large window which illustrates the text, 
 " Though I walk through the valley of the 
 shadow of death." While she was thus enjoy- 
 ing the music, it ceased, and Hope, turning her 
 eyes around, saw the musician coming towards 
 her. In a moment she had recognized him. 
 
 " How doubly wretched those other windows 
 look in contrast to La Farge's splendid colors," 
 he said, joining her. " It would be desirable in 
 the interest of art," he continued, with a smile, 
 " that some Newport gamin's ball might acci- 
 dentally break the other glass. I don't think 
 Christian forbearance would allow such an artful 
 culprit to be prosecuted, do you ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh Dr. Cashel, was it you playing ? How 
 deliciously soothing it was," said Hope, looking 
 up into his face and forgetting everything in her 
 delight at his music. 
 
 " Did you like it ? " he answered quietly. " It 
 was a composition of mine I was trying. That 
 is a grand organ. It is a pleasure to play on it. 
 I wish I had time to play longer for you," he 
 said, taking out his watch, " but I am late al- 
 ready. How would you like," he continued, after 
 a pause, " to go with me to visit a small patient 
 of mine, whose nose was injured by another little 
 rascal in a fight? No, not at all an unpleasant
 
 102 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 sight," he replied, in response to the wry face of 
 his companion. " You said the other evening, 
 if I recollect rightly, that you had a taste for 
 surgery. I pride myself on the nose I have 
 remodeled, and should very much like to show 
 it to you." 
 
 " If it is a classical one I should very much 
 like to see it," she answered laughing. " Char- 
 lie Williams writes eloquently of the beautiful 
 noses of the statues in the Vatican gallery ; but 
 deplores the build of some belonging to the sit- 
 ters who come to the studio to 'be busted,' as 
 he styles it. He says it is hard to idealize 
 them, and they always want to be made hand- 
 some." 
 
 Thus chatting gayly they walked out of the 
 church, and proceeded towards Johnnie Ma- 
 honey's home. 
 
 " Tell me about the child's accident," said 
 Hope. 
 
 " I was passing the public school the other 
 day," ho answered, " when I saw a crowd gath- 
 ered and heard some one call for a doctor ; so 1 
 stepped up and took a look at the combatants. 
 The smaller of the two was covered with blood. 
 The little fellow was full of pluck, and had 
 stood up manfully against the big bully, who 
 had pounded him terribly. But I found upon 
 examination that the nose, though badly injured,
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 103 
 
 could be mended to look as well if not better 
 than ever. The child has a fine constitution, 
 which has not been tampered with as if he had 
 been born in the lap of luxury. Nature will do 
 more for him than I can." 
 
 The wounded hero lay on a shabby sofa in a 
 very poor, but scrupulously clean, room. Hope 
 easily guessed from whom the pretty book, which 
 he was reading when they entered, had come, as 
 well as some of the comforts around the sick 
 boy, which were quite incongruous with the be- 
 longings of Johnnie's home. 
 
 The child smiled as he caught a glimpse of 
 "his doctor." His eyes brightened as Hope, 
 speaking kindly to him, presented a toy with 
 which she had provided herself on the way. 
 
 Too shy to speak, Johnnie looked his pleasure, 
 as he examined his boat. If Johnnie was shy, 
 his mother was not. She poured forth a per- 
 fect stream of Milesian-American talk. " Bless- 
 ings on the purty lady that brought yees the 
 nice boat. (Thank her, Johnnie, boy : where 's 
 yer manners! " as the child shyly looked at 
 Hope without speaking.) "Blessings on the 
 doctor who had been so kind and made Johnnie 
 sich a beautiful nose. Sure when the Coort sees 
 it they won't belave the child was hurted at all, 
 at all, and Mike won't git sint up after all. What 
 d'ye think, doctor? " and she peered into his face 
 anxiouslv.
 
 104 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 "I think if you don't stop talking and at- 
 tend to what I tell you, that I shall leave you 
 and Johnnie, and go home," he replied curtly. 
 Whereupon the woman became all attention to 
 the directions the doctor proceeded to give her ; 
 and while they were thus occupied, Hope turned 
 to Johnnie and asked him about his accident. 
 " It must have hurt you terribly, my poor child," 
 she said. 
 
 " You bet it did," he answered. Then gaining 
 courage and speech with the remembrance of 
 his wrongs, he added, in a vindictive tone, 
 " Won't I lick Mike, though, when I git well, if 
 he is bigger nor me." 
 
 Dr. Cashel, who had caught the words, ex- 
 changed a smile with Hope, as he said to the 
 boy : " Take care, Johnnie ; I don't promise to 
 mend your nose, if you break it again." 
 
 " I don't care," began the child doggedly ; " if 
 Mike hits me " 
 
 Here the doctor averted the impending ava- 
 lanche of words from the mother, about to take 
 up the cudgels for Johnnie, by requesting her to 
 step to the nearest livery stable and order a 
 horse and wagon to be sent to him. 
 
 " I shall be finished with Johnnie by the time 
 it comes, and I must visit another patient. I 
 shall drive you home, Miss Ashton," he said, 
 turning to Hope, " you are quite too tired to 
 walk."
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 105 
 
 " Am I ? " said Hope laughing. " Yes, I 
 believe I am." 
 
 Then, the good woman having departed on 
 her errand, and Johnnie being quite absorbed 
 in the contemplation of the new ship Hope had 
 given him, she added shyly, " I wish I were 
 going to see another of your successful surgi- 
 cal operations; I find it so interesting. How 
 delightful it must be to possess such skill, to be 
 able to do so much good in the world ; " and as 
 she spoke she cast a glance of admiration at the 
 successfully patched nose, which tribute to his 
 surgical prowess the doctor acknowledged with 
 a smile. 
 
 " I meant to make the proposition later," he 
 said, with a peculiar look which sent the blood 
 again to her cheeks. 
 
 " What is the matter with this patient ? " 
 asked Hope, when she was seated beside Dr. 
 Cashel in the buggy, behind one of Hayward's 
 fastest horses. 
 
 " She has cardiac, heart trouble," he replied. 
 
 " Is she young ? " 
 
 " Your age." 
 
 " And pretty ? " Hope's interest in the young 
 girl was increasing. 
 
 " The prettiest and most interesting girl I 
 ever met," he answered emphatically. 
 
 "Ah!"
 
 106 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 There was a silence of a few seconds, and then 
 Hope said, " Poor girl ! how very sad. Heart 
 disease is fatal, is it not ? " 
 
 " If it be an organic affection, it is sure 
 sooner or later to prove fatal," he replied ; " but 
 if I have diagnosed this case correctly, it is one 
 of sympathetic affection, and will yield, I think, 
 to proper treatment." As he said the last words, 
 he drew down the corners of his mouth in a 
 smile of extreme amusement. Here the conver- 
 sation was interrupted by the horse suddenly 
 starting off at a most rapid pace. " He hears 
 a horse behind him and will not be beaten ; 
 a good horse, a very good horse," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 The weather had cleared off during their visit 
 to Johnnie, the air had become warmer, the sky 
 brighter than it had been a few hours before. 
 Hope's spirits rose with the mercury. She 
 found herself enjoying the drive immensely, 
 chatting with Dr. Cashel as if she had known 
 him all her life, and not in the least minding 
 the searching gaze of his eyes. 
 
 " That is the Prescott house," she said, direct- 
 ing her companion's glance towards a tall house 
 standing back from the road. 
 
 "The Prescott house ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it was there that during the Revolu- 
 tionary War the English General Prescott was
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 107 
 
 surprised by our soldiers ; taken from his bed 
 in the middle of the night. What a shame it 
 was to paint that old house up in gaudy yellow 
 with those bright chimneys. It should be kept 
 for a relic." 
 
 "The owner is apparently not conservative, 
 and prefers new paint to the time-honored ab- 
 sence of it. What a very excellent Newport 
 Bradshaw you would make, Miss Ashton ; and 
 how I should like to ' do ' the old town under 
 your guidance. There must be a great deal to 
 see. I have already been shown three head- 
 quarters of the Father of his Country. In one, 
 I am told, the garret was at one time full of 
 old letters of historic interest, so little prized by 
 the present family that they were used to light 
 the fire ; most extravagant kindling, for they 
 would no doubt have brought good prices as 
 autographs." 
 
 " What barbarians ! " exclaimed Hope. " Yes, 
 there are more things in Newport than are 
 dreamed of in the philosophy of many of its 
 visitors." 
 
 " I do not doubt it," he answered, smiling at 
 the perverted quotation. 
 
 "lean show you," continued Hope, "in the 
 wall of our drawing-room, behind the old-fash- 
 ioned mantel, two places which were burned by 
 the candles of the Hessians, whom the English
 
 108 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 hired to fight us in the Revolutionary War. 
 Persons often ask what those indentations mean." 
 
 *' How very interesting," he replied. " What 
 a singular looking house that is," he continued, 
 as they were passing a large farmhouse directly 
 on the road. " It has but one door, but looks 
 like two houses, for it is of two colors." 
 
 " Two maiden sisters live there," said Hope, 
 " and as their tastes are totally dissimilar, they 
 keep house separately." 
 
 " A contradiction of Scripture," said the doc- 
 tor, " for this house divided against itself appears 
 to have stood a long time. What a dreary life 
 of it these two old women must have, playing 
 solitaire in different parts of this lonely house. 
 I fancy they have few visitors. If they lived to- 
 gether they might play backgammon or check- 
 ers. What do you suppose they do with them- 
 selves all the long days and evenings ? " 
 
 " Housekeeping, pickling, preserving, knitting, 
 and crochet work, make up the daily routine of 
 most country people's lives," said Hope, "with 
 going to church on Sundays. I do not know 
 if these old women are piously inclined ; but 
 probably if one is, the other is not. I have 
 never seen any signs of life about the place, ex- 
 cept a poor little stray chicken or two." 
 
 " Perhaps they take opium as a means of ex- 
 citement," said the doctor.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 109 
 
 "Take opium?" 
 
 " You would be astonished if you knew how 
 many persons resort to that means of procuring 
 an artificial excitement, and of killing time, 
 while they do not know that they are killing 
 mind and body." 
 
 Here Hope laid her hand upon the reins. 
 " You are taking the wrong road, Dr. Cashel," 
 she said. 
 
 " We have plenty of time to see the sun set 
 from your rocks," he said. "I want you to 
 show me your property." 
 
 " But your patient : you forget her ? " 
 
 " No, far from it," he replied ; " I shall find 
 her there." 
 
 "Find a girl with disease of the heart at 
 White Cliff," repeated Hope, in a tone of amaze- 
 ment. " Dr. Cashel, what do you mean ? The 
 Trumans are perfectly healthy, and there is no 
 other girl there." 
 
 He smiled but said nothing as the horse turned 
 into an open gateway and then trotted along 
 the gravel road which led to the old house. Dr. 
 Cashel assisted his companion out of the wagon, 
 hitched the horse to the post in front of the 
 door, then, as Hope was stepping on the piazza, 
 said, " Another time you shall show me your 
 house ; let us walk down to the rocks where I 
 first saw you, when my dog made such an un-
 
 110 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 warrantable attack upon the plaid which I once 
 owned, but had given to Mrs. Rose. How very 
 long ago that seems now, does it not ? " he 
 continued, as they started down the Cliff path 
 to the shore below. " Yet it is not a year since 
 you were sitting just here, planning your iodine 
 venture, which has turned out such a success." 
 
 " O Dr. Cashel, then you heard us talking ! I 
 was afraid you did." 
 
 " Afraid, and why ? " he asked, seating him- 
 self upon the stones he had piled together near 
 the large bowlder upon which Hope had placed 
 herself. 
 
 " It must have sounded so foolish to a 
 stranger." 
 
 " On the contrary, it sounded very sensible," 
 he replied. " It surprised me, I confess, to hear 
 such practical ideas from one so young. The 
 bits of conversation I caught gave me great re- 
 spect for your business talents. I had no inten- 
 tion of playing the eavesdropper," he continued, 
 " but you and your companion were so interested 
 in your subject that you spoke louder than you 
 supposed, and the Newport air is so clear that I 
 heard enough to make me wish to know more. 
 I believed in your iodine and in you from the 
 first ; and I have been a frequent visitor to the 
 manufactory ever since it has been in opera- 
 tion." He did not tell her that to his influence
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. Ill 
 
 and recommendation Ben Truman owed many 
 of the large orders he had received through his 
 friend, the drug clerk. 
 
 "You have an excellent head and hand in 
 Ben," added Dr. Cashel ; " he knows what he is 
 about. I have carefully studied the subject, 
 and I see no reason why making iodine in this 
 country should not be a remunerative business. 
 We have the same material as they have in 
 Europe, and certainly we have as intelligent 
 workmen. Will you take me into partnership, 
 Miss Hope ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Iodine is rising in the market ; every one 
 wants an interest in the business, first Mrs. Rose 
 and now you," said Hope, laughing awkwardly 
 as she turned away her head to avoid the earnest 
 look he bent upon her. 
 
 " I want a different interest, a different part- 
 nership," he said, as he rose to his feet and by 
 so doing overturned and demolished the struc- 
 ture he had made for a seat. 
 
 " You have forgotten all about your patient, 
 the girl with disease of the heart; where is she?" 
 said Hope, also rising and walking rapidly up 
 the path to the Cliff. 
 
 " No, indeed, I have not forgotten her. I did 
 not say that she has disease of the heart. I 
 surely could not have used such an ugly word," 
 he said laughingly, as a few rapid strides brought
 
 112 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 him to the side of the young girl. In another 
 moment he had seized her hand, and held it so 
 firmly in his grasp that all her efforts to with- 
 draw it were in vain. " I said," he continued, 
 looking at her with his brightest smile, " that I 
 hoped to find my patient with a sympathetic af- 
 fection of the heart, which would yield to proper 
 treatment." 
 
 " Dr. Cashel, what do you mean ? " exclaimed 
 Hope indignantly, as with a violent wrench she 
 released her hand, and stood facing him with 
 cheeks flushing hotly. " I am not your patient. 
 My heart is entirely free from any sympathetic 
 feeling for any one." 
 
 He thinks I care for him ; he shall not know 
 that he is right, she said to herself, as her heart 
 beat fast and she walked on as rapidly as her 
 feet would carry her. 
 
 " Forgive me," he said pleadingly, easily keep- 
 ing pace with her. "I interpreted your feel- 
 ings by my own. I thought, I hoped " He 
 stopped suddenly. His voice thrilled through 
 her whole being as the intensity of the tones 
 told of the feeling which inspired them. She 
 longed to turn, and with a look speak the an- 
 swer for which he waited. 
 
 But pride kept that answer back and whis- 
 pered, " He is rich ; he naturally thinks any girl 
 would be glad to marry him. He shall not think
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 113 
 
 that I have tried to make him care for me." 
 Steeling her heart with these thoughts, she spoke 
 the cold, heartless words she was far from feel- 
 ing; words which had no sooner left her lips 
 than she would have given worlds to recall them. 
 
 " You are right, I was mistaken," and the 
 tone in which he spoke was so strange that she 
 stole a quick glance at him. Every particle of 
 color had left his face, and the rigid look of his 
 set features made him seem years older. 
 
 They had by this time reached the house, and 
 Dr. Cashel, busying himself in unfastening his 
 horse, said coldly : " It is growing late ; are you 
 ready ? " 
 
 As he held out his hand to assist her in get- 
 ting into the wagon the cheery voice of farmer 
 Truman was heard, "Why! yer ain't a goin' 
 without seein' the old woman ? " and the next 
 moment the farmer came up with the rapid 
 trot which was his gait when in a hurry. " My 
 old woman '11 feel reel bad ef yer go without 
 eatin' a bit of her Johnnie cake," he said, af- 
 ter he had acknowledged with a duck of his 
 head the presence of Dr. Cashel. " She seen 
 yer goin' by, an' wants ter see yer, Miss Hope ; 
 she 's got lots to tell yer 'bout them there work- 
 men up at the big house ; they 're comin' fust 
 thing in the mornin', an' she don't know what 
 ter tell 'em 'bout the paintin' of them back 
 rooms."
 
 114 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " Should you mind, Dr. Cashel, if I stayed 
 out here to-night?" asked Hope, looking in- 
 tently at the ground. " Mrs. Truman can put 
 me in the little room she calls mine, and I can 
 go in with the milk in the morning, can I not, 
 Mr. Truman ? " and she turned with a smile to 
 the farmer, who warmly assured her that the lit- 
 tle room was quite ready for her, and that " he 
 guessed he could fix up somethin' better than the 
 milk wagon to take her into Newport any time 
 she wanted to go." 
 
 " I ought to see the workmen before they be- 
 gin work," said Hope, half apologetically to her 
 late escort. 
 
 " You are quite right to stay," he answered 
 indifferently. "I will call at your house and 
 leave word that you will be in with the milk in 
 the morning." 
 
 He took no notice of her brief " thanks," but 
 jumping into the wagon, gathered up the reins, 
 and with a cordial " Good evening " to the 
 farmer, and ceremoniously lifting his hat to 
 Hope without looking at her, drove rapidly off. 
 
 The occupant of the neat, white -curtained 
 guest-chamber of the farmhouse passed a rest- 
 less, sleepless night. As she reviewed the scene 
 between Dr. Cashel and herself she felt how 
 foolishly, how heartlessly, she had acted. Bit- 
 terly she repented of her folly in spurning the
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 115 
 
 love for which she secretly yearned. Her heart 
 thrilled with the recollection of the passionate 
 eloquence he had poured out with all the depth 
 of his strong nature. And she had rejected 
 this love, which might have made life so bright 
 with the sunshine of mutual tastes and sympa- 
 thy. She had deliberately turned from the fair 
 prospect spread out before her, to tread the 
 lonely, dreary path to which her wretched pride 
 had condemned her. For of course he would 
 never seek her again ; he would never forget or 
 forgive the repulse with which she had met his 
 fond words. What a coquette he must think 
 her ; had she not accepted his attentions, which 
 had seemed trifling at the time, but which she 
 now felt were so many links of the chain which 
 had bound their hearts together, and had she 
 not suddenly snapped the chain and scattered 
 the links beyond recall? 
 
 " I guess Miss Hope 's had a quarrel with her 
 beau, she seemed to feel so bad last night, poor 
 dear," remarked the farmer's wife, as she busied 
 herself preparing a tempting breakfast-tray for 
 her guest. 
 
 " Should n't wonder," was the sententious reply 
 of the farmer, who was getting into a pair of 
 heavy boots in preparation for a rough job he 
 had laid out for this morning's work. 
 
 " 'Tain't no use for the child to fret herself
 
 116 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 sick for any man," said the good dame. " He '11 
 be glad to come round," she added, thinking of 
 the many lovers' quarrels she had noticed and 
 seen adjusted between her own girls and their 
 beaux. 
 
 " He did n't seem like one of the coming 
 round kind," observed the farmer. " It 's my 
 opinion Miss Hope 's lost her chance of gittin' a 
 good husband." 
 
 " How you talk, Abe Truman ! " retorted his 
 wife. " Miss Hope 's young and pooty ; she don't 
 need to jump at the fust offer. He's too old 
 for her, anyhow. Why, he must be a good forty, 
 an' she nuthin' but a gurl." 
 
 " Offers don't grow on trees to be picked any 
 time that 's convenient," remarked the farmer ; 
 with which sage observation he left the house 
 and the last word to his wife. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " FANCY your former partner domesticated 
 in Pliny's Villa overlooking Lake Como. Yes, 
 here I am, playing lawn tennis every day on 
 the grounds which once belonged to the great 
 naturalist. If you would picture to yourself the 
 old villa, you will find a caricatured sugges- 
 tion of it in the ' Nesso on Como,' painted on
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 117 
 
 the drop-curtain of the Newport Opera House. 
 True, this is ' Coino on Como ' and not ' Nesso 
 on Como/ but this villa, like the one shown 
 on the curtain, is a tall house, with a long 
 flight of steps leading to the lake below. Here 
 I am, recovering from Roman malaria and 
 studying nature, much more perfect than art, 
 in the beauties of a modern pocket Venus far 
 more attractive than all the antiques. My Venus 
 is just the height of the Venus de Medici, but 
 much more graceful and natural. She has 
 chestnut curls just 'kissed by the sun,' as the 
 poets say ; eyes glancing so merrily that it is 
 difficult to catch their varying hue, I think, 
 though, they are deep blue ; a fascinating little 
 mouth which is forever twisting into mischiev- 
 ous smiles quite peculiar to itself, and which is 
 full of teeth just like real pearls. Her name is 
 Pearl, and it suits her admirably. 
 
 " As I said before, I had malaria, and the doc- 
 tor ordered me away from Rome. By a happy 
 concatenation of circumstances, the Hartleys, 
 my charmer's people, were just then leaving the 
 Eternal City, where they had been all winter, 
 for Milan, and as they wanted an agreeable com- 
 pagnon de voyage they asked me to join their 
 party. From Milan we naturally came to Como. 
 Pearl was so fascinated with the queer old town 
 that she persuaded her parents to hire this villa,
 
 118 STRA Y LEA VRS FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 which happened to be vacant, and here we have 
 been for a fortnight. The Hartleys are so kind 
 they will not hear of my leaving, so on I stay 
 from week to week, enjoying amazingly this very 
 dolcefar niente" 
 
 "Quite too dolce for him to leave it in a 
 hurry," remarked Hope, turning from the letter 
 she had been reading aloud in the Rosery stu- 
 dio, where she sat with the owner of the pretty 
 cottage. 
 
 " Fancy playing lawn tennis at Pliny's Villa," 
 she added contemptuously ; " he could have done 
 that if he had stayed in Newport." 
 
 " And not have had malaria," continued her 
 hostess, laughing. " But you forget, Hope, that 
 tennis is a very old game ; perhaps even the 
 scientific Pliny and his learned nephew may 
 have found a distraction in it from graver pur- 
 suits. It is strange," she added, " that Charlie 
 Williams should be living in that historic villa. 
 I remember we once visited it, my husband and 
 I, years ago. Yes, Como is a very interesting 
 old town ; there are souvenirs of the Plinys, 
 uncle and nephew, everywhere about the place ; 
 they sit large as life on the facade of the cathe- 
 dral ; they are to be seen in statuettes in the 
 quaint old shops in the covered streets." 
 
 " I fancy Charlie and his pocket Venus do 
 not trouble themselves much about souvenirs of
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 119 
 
 the Pliny family," said Hope, laughing. " He 
 says,'' she continued, referring to the letter, 
 " that he is getting strong, and hopes to be an 
 Hercules next winter, and accomplish something 
 great. Bah ! Charlie will never amount to 
 much as an artist. He will probably marry his 
 Pearl, as she and all the family seem to have 
 taken such a fancy to him, and his life will 
 degenerate into a comfortable existence. He will 
 be a dabbler in art, perhaps, but not an artist ; 
 he needs the stimulus of necessity to make him 
 use his talents." 
 
 " Can she be jealous ? " thought Mrs. Rose, 
 marking the emphasis of Hope's tone. Then 
 she said aloud, "This may be a mere passing 
 fancy on Charlie's part, distracting him from the 
 winter's work." 
 
 "But out of the fullness of the heart the 
 mouth speaketh," replied the girl, meeting her 
 companion's gaze with a perfectly frank one, 
 which dissipated the latter's secret suspicion. 
 
 " Charlie's mind can never hold more than 
 one idea at a time ; just now it seems quite en- 
 grossed by this Pearl Hartley. I wonder what 
 sort of a girl she is. Charlie is so easily in- 
 fluenced. If she be clever, she may make some- 
 thing of him." 
 
 Here Mrs. Rose was called out of the room 
 by some domestic arrangements, and Hope, left to
 
 120 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 herself, turned again to her letter, and the follow- 
 ing paragraph immediately arrested her attention : 
 " There are some Americans, friends of yours, 
 in Como," Charlie wrote, " Mr. Hauteri ve and 
 his very beautiful daughter. She is too much 
 of the Venus de Milo, or the Juno, for my taste, 
 but most persons rave over her beauty. The 
 old gentleman became ill at a wretched little 
 place near here, where fortunately for him an 
 American doctor had arrived a few days pre- 
 vious. The doctor brought Mr. Hauterive on to 
 Como as soon as it was practicable, and the old 
 gentleman is slowly improving under the com- 
 bined care of ' il Dottore Americano ' and the 
 beautiful Hilda. Mrs. Hartley and Pearl are 
 convinced that this sick-room propinquity will 
 certainly result in a marriage between the doctor 
 who is said to be very rich and the daugh- 
 ter of his patient. But for my part I don't 
 believe this dark, mysterious-looking, unimpres- 
 sionable mcdicus could possibly care for any 
 woman, no matter how beautiful." 
 
 "Tall, dark, mysterious, an American, and a 
 doctor," mused Hope ; "yes, it is, it must be he. 
 And he i.s in Como with everything around him 
 to lead to love for the beautiful, the fascinating 
 creature whom he sees daily, hourly. He must 
 love her, he cannot help it. lie will see her at 
 her best ; she adores her father. They will have
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 121 
 
 that mutual interest to draw them to each other. 
 They have so much in common, in intellectual 
 tastes," and Hope pictured to herself the man 
 reading in his full, deep tones, the verses of 
 some Italian poet, and the listener's beautiful 
 eyes fixed upon his face ; or she fancied the 
 musician drawing from the instrument the soul- 
 stirring strains to which she had listened in the 
 very room in which she then sat, and which 
 memory brought back to her aching heart. 
 
 Steps and gay voices in the hall recalled her 
 from torturing fancy to the actual present. She 
 thrust the letter hastily into her pocket, forced 
 back the tide of thought, and composed face and 
 voice to society smile and tone, to greet the 
 entrance of Mrs. Rose's guests. 
 
 " How I wish I could take you with me to 
 Bar Harbor ; you need a change, my child, your 
 cares have been too much for you all summer," 
 said Mrs. Rose, a few days later, as she looked 
 about the room to see that nothing was left that 
 should be taken on the journey. 
 
 " Plow I wish I could go ! " heartily responded 
 the girl. " If wishes were horses beggars might 
 ride. I think," she added, in a pessimistic 
 tone quite unusual to her, " that the pleasures of 
 anticipation far exceed those of reality. I once 
 thought that if I could live at White Cliff, to 
 say nothing of succeeding in making some
 
 122 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 money for myself, I should be the happiest of 
 mortals. Yet, now that both these dreams are 
 realized" 
 
 " You are not quite happy," interrupted her 
 companion, kissing the girl's pale cheek. " Cheer 
 up, my child, brighter days will come." 
 
 The Newport season, so gay to many of her 
 young friends, had proved a very sad one to the 
 young girl. Her mother's health, never very 
 strong, was this summer more than usually va- 
 riable ; and Hope, upon whom the principal 
 responsibility rested, felt very anxious as she 
 watched the result of the severe spells of sick- 
 ness with which Mrs. Ashton was continually 
 attacked. 
 
 Toward the close of the summer Sam Mavery 
 suddenly ended his existence in a fit of delirium 
 tremens. It was found, when his affairs were 
 looked into, that fast living and lavish expendi- 
 ture had very much diminished his fortune ; and 
 his widow found it convenient to accept an invi- 
 tation to come with her children and visit her 
 family, until, as she wrote her mother, she could 
 look a little about her. 
 
 Is there anything more wearing to the mind 
 and body of an habitually busy person than the 
 constant interruption and call upon the attention 
 by an habitually idle being, who wishes to be 
 perpetually amused, finds everything a bore, and
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 123 
 
 is constantly boring others with repining and 
 discontent ? 
 
 Belle Mavery detested the country, and was 
 never contented without excitement and society. 
 Obliged by the proprieties to renounce the lat- 
 ter for a season, and forced into the former by 
 circumstances, she was anything but an agree- 
 able daily companion. 
 
 Even her indulgent mother felt the depress- 
 ing effect of her perpetual complaints. To 
 Hope it was almost intolerable ; but for the 
 children, of whom she was exceedingly fond, and 
 with whom she was glad to wander about the 
 grounds of White Cliff, to explain to them the 
 different mysteries of nature, and enjoy the 
 freshness of feeling and the bright ideas of 
 their young minds, but for this relief Hope 
 could scarcely have borne as patiently as she 
 did the intrusion upon her time, the distrac- 
 tion to her occupations, and the solitude of her 
 thoughts. It was irritating to the girl's nerves 
 to see her sister aimlessly wandering about the 
 rooms, criticising the arrangement of the furni- 
 ture, wondering what in the world there was to 
 do, bemoaning the fate which had deprived her 
 of her own luxurious home, and sometimes, to the 
 great trial of Hope's patience, for although 
 she had not been blind to her brother-in-law's 
 defects she had appreciated his good qualities,
 
 124 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 and knew how his life had been embittered, his 
 habits perhaps confirmed, by his unhappy life at 
 home, sometimes she was called upon to listen, 
 in astonished silence, to the widow's exaggerated 
 expressions of regret for his loss, and to the 
 vivid pictures of the happiness the bereaved one 
 had enjoyed with " poor, dear Sam." 
 
 " What a convenient memory and what a 
 lively imagination Belle has," thought Hope, 
 after one of these word pictures. 
 
 These moods of the widow were less jarring 
 to the refined instincts and delicate organization 
 of her sister than when poor Sam and his delin- 
 quencies were the theme of his " relict's " dis- 
 course. Quite forgetting the grief which she 
 had on other occasions expressed, Mrs. Mavery 
 would often bitterly reproach the departed with 
 his gambling and extravagance, as the cause of 
 her present wretched condition. 
 
 The long winter dragged its slow length with 
 the various disjointed elements of the White 
 Cliff household. Belle's foreign servants caused 
 constant disquietude to her mother's regular old- 
 fashioned ones, and Hope was obliged to exert 
 all her tact to keep things straight. The young 
 widow managed to get through the day with a 
 late breakfast, novel reading, and drives to 
 Newport in the pretty coupe" with its gray horse, 
 which she had saved from the wreck of her for-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 125 
 
 tune, aiid which she was wont to say, with her 
 sweet, subdued smile, " Dear maintna is so kind 
 as to keep for ine." She filled up some vacant 
 hours by taking an interest in the bachelor 
 chaplain of a United States naval training-ship 
 which lay that winter in Newport harbor. 
 
 The Rev. Richard Richards sometimes 
 preached for the rector of one of the churches 
 in Newport. He hired a room in the town, his 
 duties on board ship being light, and giving him 
 considerable time at his own disposal ; and as 
 he had iron-claded his heart with a vow of celi- 
 bacy, he did not scruple to accept the frequent 
 invitations to tea extended him by the widows 
 and maidens of the aforesaid congregation, many 
 of whom came to prefer the ten-minutes'-dura- 
 tion discourses of the single divine with a head 
 of abundant black hair, inch of whisker on each 
 cheek, and very High Church views, to the more 
 lengthy sermons of the regular minister of the 
 parish, who was a very much married man, with 
 grown-up sons and daughters. Some innovations 
 bordering too much on Rome, which the chap- 
 lain tried to introduce into the services, did not 
 suit the orthodox views of the rector or of the 
 older and more conservative members of the 
 congregation, and gradually one of those divi- 
 sions so common in churches grew up in this 
 one. Whereupon the celibate parson confided
 
 126 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 to his adherents his intention soon to resign 
 from the navy and, with the assistance of his 
 friends, to build a church of his own ; a float- 
 ing chapel, not only for the benefit of sailors 
 who found themselves on shore, but to accom- 
 modate any wanderers his ministrations might 
 attract ; the services of which chapel should be 
 conducted by the Rev. Richard Richards him- 
 self, according to his own ideas. 
 
 Among those who entered into this plan, and 
 who promised her hearty cooperation in pro- 
 curing funds for the proposed church, was the 
 fair widow at White Cliff, who made it a point 
 to attend " old Trinity," whenever the chaplain 
 preached there. What wonder that this flatter- 
 ing interest in him and his affairs should cause 
 the single parson to annihilate time and space 
 between Newport and White Cliff, with the aid 
 of a horse and buggy, which his pay as chaplain 
 permitted him to keep, and that the Rev. Mira- 
 bile Dictu, as Hope called him, should frequently 
 take pity upon the solitude of the fair widow. 
 " I go nowhere, except to church," the latter 
 would remark, with her most bewitching smile, 
 and those lingering soft accents which seemed 
 to belong to her light nature, " and I am always 
 glad to see my minister." 
 
 " What does your mother think of your sis- 
 ter's 'pious flirtation,' as you call it?" asked 
 Mrs. Rose one day of Hope.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 127 
 
 " Mamma is confined to her room most of the 
 time with neuralgia, and she has so little va- 
 riety in her life that she doubly enjoys having 
 Belle and the children at White Cliff, and is 
 very glad of any distraction which will keep 
 Belle contented," was the reply. " Beside, she 
 knows very well that my sister will drop the 
 parson in the summer, and in the gay season 
 she will be sure to find an admirer to suit." 
 
 " And what do you think of the Rev. Mr. 
 Richards, Hope? Has he enrolled you in the 
 sisterhood he is organizing for his new church ? " 
 
 " I ? Oh, I don't think about him at all, ex- 
 cept to see that we have ' Angel cake,' when he 
 conies to tea," answered Hope laughing. " Sister 
 wanted me to join the society of 'The Busy 
 Bees,' which she says is so pleasant. It meets 
 at the houses of the different members, and 
 Mirabile Dictu reads aloud, while the sisters sew 
 for the poor. I am busy bee enough at home, 
 and prefer improving my ' shining hours ' by 
 reading to myself rather than by being read to 
 by any one ; so I declined the membership. But 
 I am very glad that sister finds the chaplain's 
 conversation and elocution interesting. It was 
 dull for her at White Cliff until she took to the 
 parson. There is nothing so difficult as trying 
 to amuse persons who will not, or cannot, amuse
 
 128 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 themselves. I pity those who have no resources. 
 Belle was a dead weight upon my hands until 
 Mr. Richards relieved me and left me free to at- 
 tend to mamma, who is in such wretched health 
 that she requires constant care. Then I have 
 my housekeeping and my accounts to take up 
 my time. You know I make butter ? I have be- 
 come a famous butter-maker," she added gayly. 
 " You must come and see my beautiful Alder- 
 neys. I call one /o, because I bought her with 
 an unexpected rise in iodine." 
 
 " O Hope, you are incorrigible. So you make 
 butter and iodine, and find time for the fine 
 arts beside," said Mrs. Rose, glancing towards 
 a marine water-colored sketch which Hope had 
 brought for her friend's criticism. " Really, 
 child, you take my breath away with the mere 
 enumeration of your occupations." 
 
 " I make butter, but not iodine," answered 
 Hope. " Ben Truman attends to that ; I am 
 only a silent partner. We are doing famously 
 in the business," she added enthusiastically. 
 " The seaweed is now burnt upon a piece of 
 waste land which we leased, and which is so far 
 from the house that neither mamma nor sister 
 can any longer complain of the 'horrid smell.' 
 We have a demand from one firm in New York 
 for as much of the drug as we can supply. I 
 am putting aside all my iodine money to build
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 129 
 
 a greenhouse leading out of the dining-room. 
 I hope to surprise mamma with it in about six 
 mouths." 
 
 "And all this planning for the comfort of 
 others is making you pale and thin," said Mrs. 
 Rose, looking affectionately at her companion. 
 " You need a change. Hope, I wish you coidd 
 go with me to Florida." 
 
 " To Florida ! " echoed Hope. " O Mrs. Eose, 
 what shall I do without you ! " 
 
 " Come with me, I shall only be gone two or 
 three months." 
 
 " How I wish I could ! " answered Hope, " but 
 it is impossible, I could not leave mamma. 
 Surely you are not ill. Why do you go South ? " 
 
 " To take charge of Nina, my niece ; she has 
 grown too rapidly, and the doctor says she must 
 be taken away from school in Philadelphia, 
 where she has been for the past three years, 
 and have a warmer climate. There is no one 
 else to take her, so I must. I wish I knew 
 where to find Harvey Cashel. I should like to 
 get his opinion about Nina, and I should like 
 him to go with us. But no one knows where he 
 is. He has not been heard from for months." 
 
 There was a silence of a few minutes, after 
 which Hope said, in a tone which she tried to 
 make indifferent, but which sounded strange 
 and unnatural to herself : " Dr. Cashel is in 
 Europe ; he is traveling with the Hauterives."
 
 130 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " Traveling with the Hauterives ! " repeated 
 Mrs. Rose, with a voice and look of amazement. 
 " How did you hear that ? " 
 
 Then Hope told how Charlie Williams had 
 written of having met the Hauterives at Como, 
 and had spoken of the devotion and skillful 
 attendance upon Mr. Hauterive of an American 
 doctor, who, from the description, was evidently 
 Dr. Cashel. 
 
 " But there is no certainty that it is he," said 
 Mrs. Rose. " However," she added, " it is not 
 at all unlikely ; Harvey Cashel is just the man 
 to change all his plans and sacrifice his own 
 comfort to benefit any one in need. He is the 
 most unselfish of men. I know you, Hope, 
 never liked him." 
 
 A bitter smile curved the young girl's lips, 
 but she kept silent, glad that her secret was 
 safe. 
 
 " Of course," continued Mrs. Rose, " he must 
 have gone to Europe, or he would have put in 
 an appearance before this. He thinks nothing 
 of * running across,' as he calls it. How strange," 
 she said, suddenly turning to her companion, 
 " that you never spoke of this before." 
 
 " As you said, it is only a surmise that it is 
 Dr. Cashel," replied the young girl calmly, glad 
 that her tell-tale face was screened from view. 
 " Perhaps he will marry Hilda Hauterive," she
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 131 
 
 added, speaking from an impulse, the result of 
 a train of thought she had been pursuing while 
 her companion talked and she herself watched 
 the flame from the huge blazing log across the 
 tall brass andirons gradually curl around the 
 small bits of wood which lay beneath it. 
 
 " Marry Hilda Hauterive ? Never ! Harvey 
 Cashel will never marry anybody ; he is wedded 
 to his profession. I do not believe the woman 
 lives who 'could make a serious impression upon 
 him. He would make an admirable husband, 
 but he will never find the woman to suit him, 
 least of all would he marry Hilda Hauterive." 
 
 " And yet she is so beautiful, and can be so 
 fascinating, and he will see her at her best, in 
 that most dangerous of all intimacies, daily life, 
 with one common interest, her father's health. 
 Hilda idolizes her father, and will be grateful 
 for all Dr. Cashel's care," continued Hope, as 
 though talking to herself. 
 
 " I grant you that propinquity is the greatest 
 of all matchmakers," replied Mrs. Rose ; " but 
 as I said before, I do not believe Harvey Cashel 
 will ever ask any woman to marry him." 
 
 Again Hope smiled sadly to herself as she 
 thought how little her dear friend knew those 
 whom she thought she knew best; and a thrill 
 ran through the girl as she recalled the scene 
 at White Cliff, and heard again the passionate
 
 132 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 words in which he had offered her his heart. 
 Even if he should marry another she had the 
 conviction that she had had his first love. 
 
 " After all," said Mrs. Rose, " it may be but 
 surmise on our part that Dr. Cashel is in 
 Europe. We may hear of his being in Africa. 
 I think that quarter of the globe still remains 
 for him to explore." 
 
 The following week Mrs. Rose and her charge 
 left Newport for their southern journey. As 
 Hope bade farewell to her friend on the steamer 
 Eolus, she put a letter into Mrs. Rose's hand. 
 " I received this letter from Paris yesterday," 
 she said, " you will see by it that our surmises 
 were quite correct." And this was what Mrs. 
 Rose read as she sat in the cabin of the boat 
 going to Wickford en route for New York : 
 
 PARIS, January 
 
 DEAR HOPE, I presume the faire part of 
 my marriage has already apprised you of that 
 event. We had intended to have a gay wed- 
 ding, but a few days before the day fixed for it 
 papa was taken so ill that all the arrangements 
 were changed. Papa would not hear of a post- 
 ponement of the marriage as I proposed, and 
 Dr. Cashel said it would never do to oppose his 
 wishes, so we were married very quietly with 
 only the indispensable witnesses present Of
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 133 
 
 course I could not think of leaving papa in his 
 precarious state of health, even for a day, so we 
 did not take any wedding journey. We are all 
 going to Cannes for a couple of months, and in 
 the spring Dr. Cashel thinks, if papa does not 
 have a relapse, we may venture to take him 
 back to America, and pass the summer at New- 
 port. 
 
 I cannot tell you how grateful I feel to our 
 doctor for all his skill and devotion. I am quite 
 too tired and sleepy to write another word, 
 than Yours sincerely, 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " Wonders will never cease," said Mrs. Rose 
 mentally, as she folded up the letter and put it 
 in her pocket. " To think that Harvey Cashel 
 should have been caught by a beautiful coquette. 
 He whom I thought the last man to marry at 
 all. I shall cease to pride myself upon my pene- 
 tration." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOPE was spoiling her eyes one afternoon, 
 trying to catch the last rays of sunset in a sketch 
 she was making from her window, when her 
 sister rushed into the room with the impetuosity
 
 134 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 which betokened extreme satisfaction with life, 
 or the reverse. This time there was no doubt 
 of her contentment, for she embraced the young 
 artist most effusively, to the great inconvenience 
 of the latter, who was utterly unprepared for this 
 sudden burst of affection. 
 
 " What has happened, or what is going to 
 happen ? " exclaimed Hope, warding off another 
 impending gush, and protecting her picture with 
 her other hand. " How well you look to-day," 
 she cried, struck with admiration of the bright 
 light in the lovely eyes and the flush on the 
 peachlike cheek, all of which her sister's sober 
 garb brought out admirably. " I must take a 
 pastel of you in that dress ; it is wonderfully 
 becoming." 
 
 " Do you like it ? " asked Belle, touching re- 
 spectfully the rich folds. " It cost a mint of 
 money, it ought to be handsome. Clothes are 
 so expensive," said the fair speaker with a sigh, 
 as she placed herself before a mirror and pro- 
 ceeded to rearrange the golden locks which had 
 been displaced by her bonnet. 
 
 " Do take off that old rag and dress yourself, 
 Hope ; it is almost dinner time. Come," she 
 added, turning gayly to her sister, " make your- 
 self belle . You don't know who is coming." 
 
 " You are the belle, sister mine, de facto as 
 well as nominally, replied Hope. " I do the
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 135 
 
 useful in the establishment and you the orna- 
 mental. This dress is not an ' old rag,' but a 
 very nice camel's hair, quite good enough to dine 
 in with the parson, if he is coming." 
 
 " Some one else is coming, in whom you do 
 take an interest, strong-minded as you are, 
 Hope. Your old beau is in Newport and is 
 coming here to dinner to-day." 
 
 The color fled from Hope's cheeks. She 
 looked up into Belle's face with an eager, inquir- 
 ing gaze. 
 
 " You need not blush so much about it, Hope. 
 I used to think there might be tendresse on 
 Charlie Williams' part for you, but " 
 
 " Charlie ! " interrupted Hope. " Is Charlie 
 really back in Newport ? When did he come ? 
 How does he look ? " 
 
 " Whom did you think I meant ? " asked Mrs. 
 Mavery, surprised at the change in her sister's 
 manner. "Yes, Charlie Williams is back in 
 Newport. He looks very handsome. He is im- 
 proved in every way. He came here in a steam 
 yacht belonging to a friend of his, whom he 
 asked permission to present to us when the friend 
 comes from New York, where Charlie left him. 
 It seems he is a rich Bostonian, who travels 
 about for his own pleasure. Charlie says the 
 Sprite is a beautiful yacht, that he means to get 
 Mr. Fisher to ask us to breakfast on board."
 
 136 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " But your mourning, Belle ; how can you go 
 to entertainments on board of yachts ? " 
 
 " Of course I should not go to a party ; but 
 Charlie says he will try to arrange a quiet little 
 breakfast, to which it will be quite proper for 
 me to go ; " and without waiting for a reply to 
 this satisfactory conciliation of propriety with 
 amusement, the pretty, graceful woman whisked 
 out of the room to tighten herself into a still 
 more hour-glass waist for the edification of 
 Charlie Williams, whose importance had vastly 
 increased in her eyes since his return upon a 
 rich man's steam yacht. Hope smiled as she 
 thought, " if Charlie is not the rose, he sails 
 with it." 
 
 The dinner was a very merry one. Charlie's 
 bright, handsome face, he looks, more like 
 the bust of the Young Augustus than ever, 
 thought Hope, his amusing accounts of the 
 people and places he had seen, made him a most 
 agreeable guest. Even Mrs. Ashton quite for- 
 got that she had once dreaded this detrimental's 
 attention to her daughter, and laughed as heart- 
 ily as the rest at the stories he told of his coun- 
 trymen abroad ; and Belle, seeing, through the 
 medium of Charlie Williams, a future desperate 
 flirtation with the owner of the yacht Sprite, 
 was most gracious in her demeanor towards the 
 friend of the yachtsman, and quite ignored the
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 137 
 
 mild remarks the chaplain essayed from time to 
 time. 
 
 " Poor Mirabile Dictu has a forlorn time of it 
 to-day," thought Hope, casting a glance of com- 
 passion at the melancholy parson, who was prob- 
 ably cherishing very unchristianlike feelings for 
 the man who had taken all the wind out of his 
 sails. 
 
 " How very handsome this old house is ! " 
 said Charlie, as under Hope's guidance he made 
 the tour of the White Cliff mansion. " There 
 is nothing finer in architecture than these square 
 rooms and broad hall ; " and the young sculptor 
 examined critically the pattern of the high old- 
 fashioned wainscoting which ran around the hall 
 and staircase. 
 
 "That staircase," said Hope, "is much ad- 
 mired by architects. It is in the same style as 
 the pulpit stairs of the old church which was 
 bought by the Newport Historical Society. 
 Porter, the artist, has introduced that staircase 
 into a charming picture he made of a New York 
 belle. But look at my ancestors, before you 
 leave this hall," and she pointed to the picture 
 of an imposing individual in bag-wig and gown, 
 and to a stately dame in rich brocade, stiff stom- 
 acher and powdered hair with flowers, feathers, 
 and diamonds, who hung beside him. "Those
 
 138 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 are considered very fine Copleys. The brocade 
 painted there is the one with which I covered 
 two armchairs. It came in very well when I 
 was fitting up White Cliff." 
 
 " And what relation was the stern-looking old 
 fellow to you ? " asked Charlie. 
 
 " The stern-looking old fellow, as you disre- 
 spectfully call him, was an eminent Lord Chan- 
 cellor of England, and my great-great-grand- 
 father. That lady was his third wife." 
 
 " I think you have inherited your Mormon 
 ancestor's mouth and chin with his decided dis- 
 position," said Charlie. " You often looked quite 
 as severe, when you scolded me in the dear old 
 days of our Rose Bush partnership." 
 
 " I am afraid my scolding did not produce 
 much effect," answered Hope. "You threw 
 away your time very recklessly when you were 
 out of my sight ; at least I judge so by the little 
 you have accomplished. By the way, Charlie, 
 what has become of the adorable Pearl of whom 
 you wrote so much?" 
 
 He looked confused and answered, " Oh, that 
 was only a flirtation pour passer le temps, when 
 I was recovering from malaria. Pearl Hartley 
 is a pretty girl, but she does not know anything. 
 Luckily I found out that she was engaged to a 
 cad of a cousin, who came out to Rome, before I 
 committed myself."
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 139 
 
 " And the charming brunette with whom you 
 led so many Germans ? " 
 
 " A fellow must have some amusement even 
 in the pursuit of art," he answered. "The 
 smile of a living fair woman is far more en- 
 trancing, and does more to spur one on, than the 
 most beautiful marble face Greece or Rome can 
 show. You don't know how often I longed for 
 a smile or even a frown from you, Hope. The 
 poet is right, ' Hope springs eternal in the hu- 
 man breast.' " 
 
 " Don't be sentimental, Charlie, it does not 
 suit your style," said Hope, laughing at the ex- 
 pression of the young man's face. " Come and 
 see Aunt Dorothy, my great-great-aunt, whom I 
 am said to resemble." 
 
 She led the way to the drawing-room, paneled 
 in white and gold, the ceiling of which repre- 
 sented a blue sky, with cherub faces looking 
 through fleecy clouds ; the whole painted by a 
 master hand. 
 
 " What gorgeous mirrors ! How well they 
 reflect us together," said Charlie, pausing to ad- 
 mire himself, as he stood by Hope before a sheet 
 of glass which entirely covered one space of the 
 wall, and in which were also reflected the glass 
 pendants which hung in prismatic brilliancy 
 from the great chandelier and from the candela-
 
 140 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 bras in front of another huge mirror over the 
 mantel. 
 
 " Fortunately for us these mirrors do not suit 
 modern rooms," said Hope, " and mamma was 
 able to bid them in very cheap when they were 
 sold at auction with all grandpapa's furniture, 
 after his death. This ceiling is considered very 
 beautiful," continued Hope. " It was painted 
 by a celebrated French painter brought out by 
 the Ashton who built White Cliff, a millionaire 
 who lived here en prince, tradition says." 
 
 " You should paint little historic scenes in the 
 panels of the doors, pictures commemorative of 
 Newport's days of romance, in the style of the 
 screen, with the Romance of a Rose, which 
 started our partnership," said Charlie. " There 
 is in Verona," he continued, " an inn which was 
 formerly an old palace of the La Scala family, 
 and the doors are painted in such panel pictures. 
 By the way, Hope," he said abruptly, " I knocked 
 off a piece of Juliet's tomb for you when I was 
 in Verona, but I lost the bit of old horse trough, 
 for it looks like one. I will get you another 
 piece if I go back to Italy." 
 
 " If you go back ! " exclaimed Hope, in a 
 tone of alarm. " Of course you must go back 
 to Italy, and study hard, and do something 
 worthy of yourself."
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 141 
 
 " I don't know," he answered, in a despondent 
 tone. " I don't believe I shall ever make much 
 of a sculptor. If I had your perseverance, or 
 if I had your encouragement, I might do some- 
 thing; but art is such slow work. I have a 
 great mind to give it up, come back to Newport, 
 and go into the real estate business, though 
 that 's pretty well run into the ground already." 
 
 "You shall do nothing of the kind," inter- 
 rupted Hope. "You shall go back to Rome 
 and distinguish yourself. You have plenty of 
 talent, Charlie, and you must utilize it. You 
 say art is slow work ; so is everything worth 
 doing. The ladder of fame is hard to climb, 
 but think of the glorious prospect of success," 
 and Hope's eyes glowed with enthusiasm as she 
 spoke. 
 
 "But suppose one's feet give out in climb- 
 ing," said Charlie ; " suppose" 
 
 " You must not suppose. You must work," 
 she interrupted. " Take ' Excelsior ' for your 
 motto. The very effort one makes to do or be 
 something gives a charm and interest to life. 
 In the words of a native poet : 
 
 " 'What 'a worth having 's worth pursuing; 
 
 Indeed, pursuit is half the fun. 
 We waste much precious time in rueing 
 That we have wanted what we 've won. ' " 
 
 "Bravo for the native poet who practices
 
 142 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT, 
 
 what she preaches," cried Charlie. " You beat 
 Tupper altogether. I am an expert in Tupper. 
 I was brought up on his ' Proverbial Philosophy,' 
 used to learn it at a penny a verse for my pious 
 grandmother, who told me it was 'good to get 
 plenty of Tupper by heart,' that he would ' come 
 to one, sleepless nights.' He came to me in 
 broad daylight in the shape of marbles, when I 
 was a boy, for I took many a quarter out of 
 Tupper 's Philosophy when I was hard up. 
 Yours, Hope, I learned by heart much easier, 
 and you have come to me in many a sleepless 
 night when far away from your sweet face." 
 
 " How absurd you are, Charlie," said Hope, 
 laughing heartily. " But here is great-great- 
 aunt Dorothy. Do you think I look like her 
 picture? " 
 
 "The features are very like," he answered, 
 gazing earnestly at the young girl's face, " but 
 your expression is far better." 
 
 " Nonsense ! this Dorothy was a celebrated 
 beauty. But some day I will put on her pink 
 brocade which is in the garret, and powder my 
 hair, and receive you in state in this room un- 
 der the picture, and you shall see how much like 
 my ancestress I can be." 
 
 " Do ! " he answered. " Why do you bang 
 your hair, Hope? it is not classic." 
 
 " My features are not classic."
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 143 
 
 " Indeed they are," he replied eagerly. " It 
 is rare to see such a beautiful nose as you have. 
 Most faces weaken on noses. ' Old Chisel,' who 
 bosses me, used to swear terribly over the pugs 
 and snubs he was often obliged to put into mar- 
 ble for sitters. He would have fairly rejoiced 
 in your nose." 
 
 " Thank you," she answered, with an air of 
 mock dignity ; " one would imagine, to hear you 
 talk, that I had as capacious a nose as that of 
 the bronze Carlo Borrorneo, which statue, if I 
 remember correctly, you wrote me that you had 
 enjoyed exploring with Miss Pearl Hartley, then 
 the object of your inconstant affections." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " he said, " what a dreadful mem- 
 ory you have." Then turning the conversation 
 abruptly he asked, " What picture is this ? " 
 
 It was the Veronese Dr. Cashel had given 
 Hope. " This face," said Charlie, " is like that 
 of that beautiful girl at Como who made such a 
 dead-set at Dr. Cashel. She might as well have 
 tried to make an impression upon the stone 
 Pliny in front of the cathedral there. Dr. 
 Cashel will never marry anybody." 
 
 " But he has married Hilda Hauterive," re- 
 plied Hope. 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed Charlie, with a sudden 
 spring which nearly dislocated the Empire chair
 
 144 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 into which he had thrown himself while speak- 
 ing. " I can't believe it." 
 
 " Hilda wrote to me herself that she and Dr. 
 Cashel were married quietly in Paris two months 
 ago," said Hope, speaking slowly and fixing her 
 eyes on the picture as she spoke. 
 
 " It beats the Dutch ! " cried Charlie, walking 
 excitedly up and down the room. " To think of 
 that girl getting him after all," said the young 
 man after a couple of strides. " All I can say 
 is this, I 'm deuced sorry that Dr. Cashel should 
 have thrown himself away upon a woman who 
 has no more heart than a stone," the trite 
 simile, apparently the only one at hand. " Of 
 course she married him for his money ; he has 
 lots, but besides being rich he is a capital phy- 
 sician, and a splendid scholar, and it is a pity 
 he should not have a wife to appreciate him." 
 
 " Hilda may be in love with her husband," 
 said Hope, " she is clever enough to appreciate 
 a clever man. Her father is rich, so that she 
 need not marry for money." 
 
 " Mr. Hauterive lost a great deal of his for- 
 tune during the late war," said Charlie. " I have 
 heard him say he lives in Europe for economy ; 
 that it costs him far less there than it would to 
 keep up a suitable establishment in America. 
 As Mrs. Cashel, the beautiful Hilda can dress 
 and entertain to her heart's content, and that is
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 145 
 
 all she cares for. But I am surprised that she 
 caught Dr. Cashel, handsome as she is. Do you 
 know, Hope," said Charlie, interrupting him- 
 self, " it seems to me that you are just the kind 
 of woman to attract such a man. He was im- 
 mensely taken with your picture." 
 
 " When did he see it ? " asked Hope, busy- 
 ing herself with the folds of a curtain which re- 
 quired all her attention and hid her face. 
 
 " I showed him a little group in clay which I 
 had roughly modeled. A boy and girl planting 
 a flower together. The girl's face is yours, 
 Hope, taken from memory, and your photograph ; 
 the boy's I took from my own phiz. I called 
 the group * Hope's Inspiration.' Dr. Cashel said 
 such a face as Hope's might inspire a man to do 
 almost anything. He said if I would put the 
 group in marble he would give me anything I 
 might ask for it." 
 
 " And yet," thought Hope, " he married 
 Hilda." But her cheek flushed as she listened 
 to the words he had said of her face. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE quiet little breakfast on board of the 
 yacht proved so pleasant to all concerned that 
 it was soon followed by a dinner thereon, limited
 
 146 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 to the four persons prescribed by the pretty 
 widow's bereaved condition. 
 
 Fred Fisher was an adept in the art of enter- 
 taining; and the well-appointed table to which 
 he led his guests in the cabin, furnished with all 
 the luxury and comfort which characterized 
 the Sprite, the capital cuisine, and lively con- 
 versation interluded with music, the charming 
 row from the yacht back to Newport, all con- 
 spired to send the fair guests home in the best 
 of spirits, and in perfect contentment with them- 
 selves and all mankind. 
 
 " Fred Fisher is the best fellow in the world," 
 said Charlie, as he sat with Hope a few days 
 after the dinner, discussing it and their host. 
 " But he 's the most blase man I ever saw. It 
 really makes me sorry to see a man who has 
 everything in his favor enjoy life so little. 
 Wearied of everything and barely thirty ! " 
 
 *' I suppose he has had too much too soon," 
 answered Hope. " He certainly is a contrast to 
 you, Charlie. You seem to take as much pride 
 in the yacht as if it belonged to you. You show 
 far more interest in it than the owner does." 
 
 41 1 ought to take an interest in her, since she 
 came to America solely on my account," said 
 Charlie. " Fisher was thinking of selling the 
 Sprite to an Englishman who had taken a 
 great fancy to her. He made Fred an offer for
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 147 
 
 the yacht one day in Rome, when we were all 
 dining together. Just after dinner, while Fisher 
 was ruminating and smoking over the proposi- 
 tion, I happened to say how much I wanted to 
 take a look at old Newport. ' By Jove ! and so 
 you shall,' exclaimed Fisher; 'it is really re- 
 freshing to meet a man who wants to see any- 
 body, anywhere ; for I know, Fresh ' (he often 
 calls me that from my enjoyable nature, you 
 see) ' means a Newport girl when he talks about 
 seeing Newport ; ' and then he said it would 
 afford him a new sensation if I would run across 
 in the yacht with him before he sold her. Of 
 course I was quite too amiable to refuse." 
 
 " Why does not Mr. Fisher marry ? " said 
 Hope. " It might give him a new interest in 
 life. He surely could find some one to like him 
 for himself ; he is very agreeable, and though 
 he is not exactly handsome, he has a nice face, 
 and he seems very good - hearted. He would 
 make a good husband, I am sure, if he got the 
 right sort of a woman for a wife." 
 
 " I don't believe he will ever have any wife," 
 replied Charlie, " though after Dr. Cashel's mar- 
 riage even Fred's would not seem impossible. 
 He has a repugnance to doing anything he can- 
 not get out of. He will hesitate a long time 
 before putting his neck into a noose from which 
 only death or divorce could emancipate him."
 
 148 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 " You are flattering to matrimony," said Hope 
 laughing. 
 
 " That is the way in which Fisher looks upon 
 it. The fact is," said Charlie, " Fred has been 
 so run after by women for his money, that, as 
 he is the least conceited man I ever saw, he 
 never attributes his success with the sex to his 
 own personal merit. Did you notice the in- 
 different smile with which he received your 
 sister's remarks upon the number of feminine 
 contributions to the fitting up of the Sprite? 
 He is too much of a gentleman to allude to his 
 conquests, but he has had any number of flirta- 
 tions. He flirts as he plays poker or pool, to 
 find excitement ; but as he always plays a win- 
 ning game, rich fellows who can afford to lose 
 always win, he soon tires of both. Flowers 
 mean nothing serious with Fisher; he scatters 
 them profusely ; " and Charlie glanced as he 
 spoke towards a huge basket of lilies - of - the 
 valley from a Newport greenhouse renowned 
 all over the United States for this flower, from 
 the sale of which the florist realizes a handsome 
 income. 
 
 " They mean quite as much with Belle as they 
 do with Mr. Fisher," retorted Hope. 
 
 "You need not bristle up so with sisterly 
 loyalty," said Charlie. " I quite appreciate la 
 belle Slavery's flirtatious powers ; I have ad-
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 149 
 
 mired the manner in which she keeps two affairs 
 going at the same time. But I doubt if even 
 her fascinations could produce a serious effect 
 upon Fisher. You see," continued Charlie, 
 " Fred has basked in the light of so many eyes 
 that he does not find their language such inter- 
 esting reading as if it were newer." 
 
 " It is more attractive literature to his friend," 
 said Hope laughing. " I wish," she said, turn- 
 ing to the piano and running her fingers over 
 the keys, " I wish I could play the accompani- 
 ment to some German lines Mrs. Rose asked me 
 to translate for her. The air is so pretty, I 
 wish I could recall it. But I cannot," and after 
 successive efforts her fingers dropped from the 
 piano. 
 
 " What are the words ? " asked Charlie ; " sing 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, the words are nothing without the ac- 
 companiment. They must be sung together to 
 be effective. I will repeat them to you." And 
 turning the music stool so that she faced her 
 companion, Hope fixed her eyes full on his face 
 as she repeated in her clear voice : 
 
 " ' Dost thou ask me if I love thee ? 
 
 Read the answer in these eyes, ^ 
 
 Clear as shine the stars above me ; 
 Read the truth without disguise.' " 
 
 " Any one might know the White Cliff poet
 
 150 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 had written those lines," said Charlie, " they are 
 so deucedly non-committal. How is the reader 
 to know if the truth be favorable to him or 
 otherwise? And you don't throw any feeling 
 into your eyes." 
 
 " I did not write the lines, Charlie ; I only 
 translated them. If they do not please you, you 
 must get another version from some more ac- 
 complished poet. As to my eyes, they have had 
 so much of the serious business of life to look 
 after that they have forgotten how to look sen- 
 timental, if they ever knew how. Perhaps the 
 last line may suit you better : 
 
 " ' To thy heart, my heart replies.' " 
 
 Suddenly the mock expression of feeling dis- 
 appeared from Hope's face, and she rose from 
 her seat in confusion, for the bright flame which 
 flashed from the fire through the twilight re- 
 vealed the figure of a man standing in the door- 
 way. 
 
 " Dr. Cashel ! " exclaimed Charlie, springing 
 forward as the new-comer advanced to meet 
 Hope's confused welcome. " Where did you 
 come from ? \Ve did not hear you open the 
 door, did we, Hope?" 
 
 "You were too agreeably occupied," he an- 
 swered with a smile, forestalling his hostess' 
 reply, as he seated himself in response to the 
 motion she made. "I rang twice and no one
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 151 
 
 came, so I opened the door and walked in. I 
 must leave in the nine o'clock boat for New 
 York," he added, as if in apology for his want 
 of ceremony. "I came to ask you for Mrs. 
 Rose's address." 
 
 " She is in Florida," answered Hope, who had 
 in a measure recovered her composure. 
 
 " So my sister wrote me, but Florida is an in- 
 definite direction by which to find any one." 
 " Shall you go to Florida ? " asked Hope. 
 " Yes ; I am alarmed about Nina. As her 
 guardian I am bound to look after her health as 
 well as her property." 
 
 Here Charlie, who had been moving about the 
 room in his usual restless manner, broke in with, 
 " We have not yet congratulated you, doctor. 
 Did you bring your wife with you ? " 
 " My wife ! I have no wife." 
 " There, I knew it ! " ejaculated Charlie, turn- 
 ing to Hope, upon whose lips the half-formed 
 sentence died away as she looked at the doc- 
 tor. " I knew it must be a mistake," continued 
 Charlie. 
 
 " It certainly is a mistake," was the emphatic 
 response. " I never asked but one woman to 
 marry me and she refused. I shall never ask 
 another." 
 
 Charlie's quick ears caught the low tone in 
 which the last words were said, and his bright
 
 152 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 eyes noted the conscious blush which they 
 brought to Hope's face, and with a significant 
 smile he asked, " Hope, don't you think Dr. 
 Cashel could play the accompaniment to your 
 lines, and then you might sing them with ex- 
 pression ? " 
 
 She took no notice of the young man's remark 
 except to color still more deeply, as she said, 
 " But Hilda wrote " 
 
 " That she had married me ? " interrupted 
 Dr. Cashel. " I was at her wedding, but I was 
 not the bridegroom ; surely she told you his 
 name ? " 
 
 " I did not get the faire party which Hilda 
 wrote me she had mailed," answered Hope; 
 " and in her last letter she only wrote * we were 
 married quietly.' " 
 
 " And you thought I was part of the we," 
 said Dr. Cashel laughing. " I think the bride- 
 groom was entitled to his full name. It is a 
 handsome one, Francis Middleton Ravenal. But 
 how like her to consider the groom the least im- 
 portant part of the affair! She could replace 
 him, but not the superb lace flounce she wore 
 at her wedding. A present from a Monsignore 
 in Rome, where she was converted to the Roman 
 Catholic faith." 
 
 " Indeed ! I had not known it. Is her hus- 
 band also a Roman Catholic ? " asked Hope.
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 153 
 
 " I think his religion consists of his worship 
 of his beautiful bride. I never saw greater in- 
 fatuation. And she treats him, well, very 
 much as she does her dogs, when they obey her. 
 Ra venal seems quite happy in his thralldom, and 
 he suits his wife, so she is kind to him in her 
 way." 
 
 " Is he rich? " asked Charlie. 
 
 " What a thoroughly American question ! 
 You," he said, turning to Hope, " will ask if he 
 is handsome ; that is a woman's question." 
 
 "Is he?" 
 
 " Ravenal is a gentleman in manners and ap- 
 pearance, but not, to my mind, handsome. He 
 is exceedingly amiable, not brilliant, but with 
 fair abilities and a moderate fortune." 
 
 " Why did she marry him, I wonder ? Hilda 
 was always so ambitious, and she has refused 
 such brilliant offers," said Hope, half to herself. 
 
 " Why do women every day marry men one 
 would never suppose they would ? Woman is a 
 riddle hard to read. She is often a contradic- 
 tion to herself." 
 
 "That's a fact!" exclaimed Charlie. "I 
 think I am decidedly de trop, Hope," he said 
 meaningly, " you and Dr. Cashel must have so 
 much to talk over. I will take myself off, and 
 give another fellow a chance. I will see you 
 later, doctor. By the way, in case you should
 
 154 STRAY LEAVES FROM. NEWPORT. 
 
 miss the nine o'clock boat we can accommodate 
 you on board the Sprite. Good -by, Hope." 
 As he said the last words he held her hand for 
 a few moments, then dropping it and giving the 
 young girl an expressive glance he opened the 
 window and jumped out of it to the piazza. 
 Closing the sash, Charlie stood an instant on the 
 outside, contemplating the pair within, who were 
 apparently quite oblivious of his neighborhood. 
 Dr. Cashel had taken his place at the piano, and 
 Hope stood by him. Soon the notes of a rich 
 voice rang out with the accompaniment played 
 by a skillful hand. " They are no riddle to each 
 other," thought Charlie, as he stood in the road 
 listening. " Hope has found the feeling the 
 song requires." 
 
 " ' To thy heart, my heart replies,' " 
 
 sang Hope. Soon the accompaniment on the 
 piano ceased, and the musician's arm found its 
 way around the singer's waist. 
 
 " Is your heart's action what it should be ? " 
 he asked. She looked up archly into the doc- 
 tor's face. 
 
 " It is all right now," he continued gravely, 
 feeling her pulse. " My diagnosis was quite 
 correct, we were both suffering from the same 
 trouble, sympathetic affection of the heart. It 
 has yielded to proper treatment, similia simi- 
 libus curantur."
 
 SENTIMENT AND SEAWEED. 155 
 
 The nine o'clock boat for New York left the 
 wharf that evening without one of its intended 
 passengers, who was sitting in the flickering fire- 
 light of the drawing-room at White Cliff, beside 
 the " only woman he had ever asked to marry 
 him." For those two had began the new life 
 which Dante describes so exquisitely in his 
 Divina Commedia. But happier far than the 
 Italian poet and his Beatrice, the lovers at 
 White Cliff were destined to live together in 
 that marriage of the heart of which many dream, 
 but which so few realize ; that marriage of 
 mutual trust and sympathies which time only 
 makes more enduring. " Those whom God hath 
 joined, no man can put asunder." Even Death 
 is powerless to dissolve the tie, for true love, like 
 the spirit of mortal, is immortal.
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 
 
 A STORY OF NEWPORT MIDDY-EVIL LIFE. 
 
 IT was the closing month of the academic 
 year of the Naval Academy, then stationed at 
 Newport, but soon, alas for fair Rhody, to be 
 removed to another soil. Yes ! the fiat had gone 
 forth that the buttons, cannon, and bayonets, 
 glistening in the sun, around the " Old Stone 
 Mill," the drills and the music, which had so 
 fascinated young Newport, and even attracted 
 the admiration of the maturer residents of the 
 old historic town, and kept it as wide awake in 
 the winter and autumn as did the summer 
 butterflies in the fashionable season, should all 
 be returned to Annapolis, from whence four years 
 previous they had come in full force to rouse 
 quiet, lethargic Newport from its wintry sleep. 
 Frequent and bitter were the anathemas launched 
 at the " powers that were," by pretty pouting 
 lips, and echoed by the mediaeval beaux, who 
 hated to go, quite as much as their charming 
 partners at hops and along the regulation bit of 
 pavement hated to lose them. On the evening
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 157 
 
 when this story commences, a farewell " tea " 
 was being given in an old-fashioned family man- 
 sion which held two of the objects of midship- 
 men's devotion sisters, and rival beauties. 
 On this evening was to be decided a point which 
 had for some time divided the opinion of the 
 graduating class and of those to whom they had 
 submitted the question : namely, to which one 
 of Newport's beautiful daughters should the 
 prize of grace and beauty be accorded? No 
 Paris sufficiently unbiased by personal feeling 
 could be found to decide the point ; therefore it 
 was resolved to put it to the vote, after the 
 sumptuous provision of a genuine Newport 
 "tea" had been duly discussed and justice done 
 to its buttered waffles. Meanwhile the prize, 
 a lovely bouquet of rosebuds, placed in a hand- 
 some vase, occupied the post of honor in the 
 centre of the tea table, in the midst of a wealth 
 of Mayflower china and antique silver, which 
 graced this hospitable board. 
 
 What a running fire of jest and flirtation 
 passed round with the cakes may easily be im- 
 agined, when six beautiful girls, and an equal 
 number of young fellows full of sentiment and 
 fun, and kindly provided for by " Uncle Sam," 
 kept the ball a-rolling. 
 
 Amid laughter succeeded by sudden silence, 
 and rapt attention, in which the elders of the
 
 158 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 party shared, as the votes were counted, the 
 momentous question was decided. The defeated 
 fair ones took their defeat according to their 
 several tempers, and stage-whispering and shrug- 
 ging of shoulders on the one side, with congrat- 
 ulations and expressions of satisfaction on the 
 other, marked the party feeling of respective 
 adherents and admirers. The successful beauty 
 smilingly, quietly, with the easy grace of one 
 whose motto of nil admirari was carried out in 
 all her actions, received her bouquet, and bowed 
 her acknowledgments to the over-head-and-ears- 
 in-love midshipman who hastened to present her 
 with the tribute to her superior charms. 
 
 After this came a scattering into nooks and 
 corners of the young people; the arrival of 
 other guests ; the gradual filling up of the broad 
 window-seats, conveniently large enough for two, 
 and of the claw-footed arm-chairs, whose respec- 
 tably old brocade backs and seats were speedily 
 hidden beneath the gay, youthful attire of the 
 present fashion. From the piazza, the sound of 
 laughter, bits of song, banjo playing, mixed with 
 the low murmur of suppressed voices, was blown 
 in through the open windows by the balmy, 
 gentle breath of this lovely June evening. In 
 a recess of the parlor, oblivious to the rest of the 
 room, a couple looking into each other's eyes 
 are ruthlessly brought back from dreamland by
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE 1 159 
 
 the energetic, lively voice and action of a pro- 
 moter of that bane to real society jeux inno- 
 cents. " Come ! you two have sat here long 
 enough ; you must make yourselves useful and 
 act a charade." 
 
 The acknowledged " swell " of the graduating 
 class mentally sends charades and their getters- 
 up to perdition, and is about civilly to decline 
 leaving his present position, when his fair part- 
 ner, in a spirit of levity and coquetry quite un- 
 pardonable after all that has just been said and 
 looked, springs from her seat, declares herself 
 ready to be made of use, accepts gracefully the 
 arm of a middy whom she generally snubs, and 
 goes off with him to become a mysterious sylla- 
 ble, to be guessed at by the audience, at that 
 moment being arranged in the adjoining room. 
 
 " Now, you must be introduced to a very nice 
 girl, a stranger, who is here with her papa. She 
 is very shy ; you must talk to her and amuse 
 her ; " dribbled on the amiable, tactless hostess, 
 who would have " had fits " given her by her own 
 daughters had they seen her breaking a flirtation 
 in full sail. Disgusted with his hostess, with his 
 late partner for leaving him, and with himself, 
 Crichton sullenly allows himself to be led up to 
 a pale, dark girl "a guy," as his fastidious 
 taste pronounced her. " Where the deuce did 
 she ever get such clothes ? " he said to himself,
 
 160 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 as he marked with mental disapproval the ill- 
 fitting costume of just the last color and make 
 to suit the complexion and form of the wearer. 
 " Miss Castine ! " he again soliloquized ; " what 
 a name for a girl ! She might as well be called 
 Boston or New York." Our hero was not strong 
 in the history of the early settlement of Maine, 
 had probably never heard of Baron de Castine, 
 knew nothing of the pride with which this name 
 had been preserved, with other relics in the 
 family of this, to him, exceedingly uninteresting 
 party. They sat in silence for a few minutes 
 after their hostess had left them " to make a 
 nuisance of herself elsewhere," thought Crich- 
 ton, as he found himself with this strange girl, 
 named from a town in Maine, stranded on the 
 barren shore of enforced companionship, with 
 no topics or interests in common. He looked 
 about hopelessly for a stray fellow to whom he 
 might pass this unlucky card, which, as if he 
 were playing the game of " Old Maid," had 
 slipped into his hand. But there was no one 
 in sight. With too much savoir faire to sit 
 long in stupid silence, cross as he might feel, 
 he started a platitude, met with a monosyllabic 
 reply, then tried another, with the same success. 
 It was up-hill work, with one side doing all the 
 talking. Crichton had no mind to be " stuck " 
 with this silent companion for the rest of the
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE1 161 
 
 evening. He proposed a stroll through the 
 rooms not on the piazza ; oh, no ! then he 
 would be sure to be stuck. They would watch 
 the charade ; there was hope of some one or 
 something turning up afterward. They took 
 their places, looked at the acting, and made 
 guesses at the word. Yes, the shy girl had 
 found her tongue at last, and yielding, as all 
 women did, to the fascination of Crichton's look 
 and tone, she surprised even herself with the 
 ease and pleasure she took in talking with him. 
 Half the intense expression he threw into his 
 glance, half the amount of feeling his voice as- 
 sumed, half the flattering interest of his man- 
 ner would have quite " done " for this poor little 
 shy, Maine girl, who had never before conversed 
 with a handsome midshipman, and thought it 
 quite heavenly to be just where she was. 
 Crichton could never resist trying his fascina- 
 tions on every woman with whom he happened 
 to be thrown ; it was second nature to him, and 
 the sight of his late partner flirting desperately 
 on the stage with another fellow spurred him on 
 to show her his indifference he sat directly in 
 front of her. Men, and especially young men, 
 are apt to overact this part, and Crichton was 
 no exception to the rule. He flirted unmerci- 
 fully with his poor little victim, as regardless of 
 the effect upon her as if he were a small boy
 
 162 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 experimenting on a poor little frog. Again the 
 eye of the busy beater-up-of-recruits for the cha- 
 rade fell upon Crichton. She leaned over a 
 couple next to him, and said in a stage whisper : 
 "Come and help me with the last syllable." 
 " Will you come ? " said, rather than asked 
 Crichton. Before the blushing, happy girl could 
 answer he had assisted her to rise, and to the 
 envy and astonishment of the girls around, who 
 knew his fastidious taste for beauty and style, he 
 was seen almost tenderly offering his arm to the 
 plain, badly-dressed stranger. 
 
 "You two are to be married that is, pre- 
 tend to be," said Crichton's beauty of the recess, 
 as the stage manager threw an antique lace veil 
 over the head of the Maine young woman, and 
 hastily arranged the rest of the bridal costume. 
 
 " Why not ? " he replied, quietly, in answer 
 more to the mocking expression of the speaker 
 than to her words. As Miss Castine drew back 
 in alarm when she understood the part she was 
 to play, and the improvised clergyman, a naval 
 officer, and Crichton took their places, he said 
 in pleading tones : " Won't you have me, Miss 
 Castine, in fun only in fun unfortunately ? " 
 The last word was said in a voice sufficiently low 
 to drop just where he meant it should, the 
 wicked flirt, and it sent a color to her cheek and 
 a light to her eye which quite transformed the
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 163 
 
 " Maine girl," as she looked up into his face 
 with all the trustfulness of a young, unworldly 
 nature. Did he feel no pang of conscience as 
 he saw the mischief he was doing? Alas! he 
 only thought, with the satisfaction of a modern 
 Pygmalion endowing his statue with life: "By 
 Jove ! she is almost pretty, after all, this Maine 
 girl ; she has fine eyes, and with a little train- 
 ing " The rest of his mental sentence was 
 lost in the necessity of their taking part in the 
 mock ceremony the charade wedding. As he 
 took her hand he pressed it, and sent another 
 delicious thrill to her heart. Then came con- 
 gratulations upon the success of the charade, 
 and then the music struck up a waltz. The 
 room was cleared for dancing. 
 
 " May I have the pleasure ? " asked Crichton, 
 with that dangerously deferential manner which 
 was one of his greatest charms with women. 
 
 " I don't dance round dances." It was said 
 sadly, slowly, for she felt that her new-found 
 happiness was escaping her. Of course he 
 would leave her to find a partner. 
 
 " Excuse me, I will see you later." 
 
 He turned, caught the smile of the fair one 
 with the golden locks, and the next moment they 
 were floating off in the poetry of motion, and 
 for the remainder of the evening.
 
 164 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 n. 
 
 IT was very charming on the Bruhl Terrace 
 in Dresden, one warm evening late in Septem- 
 ber, the year preceding the breaking out of the 
 Franco-German War. The " Garde Reiters," in 
 their becoming sky blue and silver, stood or sat 
 about, mingled with officers in the less striking 
 uniforms of other corps, all chatting, smoking, 
 drinking beer or coffee, or paying their court to 
 the Teutonic, English, or American Frauleins, 
 who, with their pater or mater familias, were 
 gathered at little tables, the music of the band 
 serving as an accompaniment to conversation, at 
 least no hindrance, and sometimes a convenient 
 cover, to the " old, old story," told in so many 
 tongues, the tale which allows no copyright, 
 international or otherwise, and is understood by 
 the youth of all nations. 
 
 Lounging against the iron railing, paying 
 little attention to the company, or to the music, 
 are two young men, en civile, and consequently 
 not Germans, since all of that nation at their 
 age are obliged in that military country to live 
 in uniform. 
 
 " So you have left the Navy, Clay ? Tell me 
 something of yourself since we parted. I went 
 to China, you know, immediately after I grad-
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 165 
 
 uated, and quite lost sight of you and the others 
 of our set. I came out in the Wabash, which is 
 at anchor off Spezzia, in the Mediterranean. 
 I got a fortnight's leave to run on here to the 
 wedding of Nina Clavering you remember the 
 Claverings at Newport? one of the pleasantest 
 houses for the midshipmen. It seems two of 
 them married into the Army, and the third, 
 Nina, is to marry Jack Edwards next week. I 
 am to be best man. Have you called on the 
 Claverings?" 
 
 " No, I am here for study, and not for society. 
 I left the Navy three years ago I never could 
 stand the sea ; life was a burden to me on board 
 ship. To be an Admiral, I would not go 
 through the miseries of seasickness. Since I 
 resigned, I have buckled down to German and 
 art. I paint, read, and talk with the natives, 
 avoid my own countrymen and women as much 
 as possible, and live a Bohemian life. The only 
 exception I have made was the salon of a Rus- 
 sian lady, whose husband is in the diplomatic 
 corps. I first met the family at Teplitz last 
 year, where they were taking the cure. I went 
 there to sketch : the views are charming. One 
 day I encountered the Tourchikoff boys and 
 their governess at Prince Clary's model farm, 
 which is thrown open to visitors. My sketches 
 attracted the children's attention, we scraped
 
 166 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 acquaintance, the rest followed, and I was soon 
 admitted to the Tourchikoff circle as a friend of 
 the family. They are charming people, Crich- 
 ton, simple, unaffected, well-bred, and clever. It 
 was delightful to have such a house to drop into, 
 for, say what you like, Europe is very interest- 
 ing ; but one does get lonely sometimes, and long 
 for a cup of tea from a friendly hand, at least 
 I did before I knew the Tourchikoffs, and " 
 with a sigh, " I miss them terribly now they are 
 gone." 
 
 " So they are gone away from Dresden, are 
 they?" 
 
 " Yes, they left for Russia a week ago, all but 
 the governess, and she, there is a strange ro- 
 mance there, Crichton." 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! " replied the other smilingly. 
 " I thought there might be an idyl connected 
 with Teplitz rambles and sketches." 
 
 " Indeed, you are quite mistaken. The poor 
 girl is persecuted by a wretched fellow, whom 
 it seems in an ill-advised moment she married. 
 She was early left an orphan. Her father, 
 shortly before his death, fell, it appears, into 
 the toils of a designing female. He was one 
 of your clever scientists, who knew everything 
 except human nature ; so this woman got hold 
 of him, married him, and contrived to get a will 
 made in her favor, all the time pretending great
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 167 
 
 affection for the ' sweet girl, his daughter.' 
 Once in possession of the fortune, she made life 
 wretched to the poor child, who was soon per- 
 suaded, goaded rather, by taunts and the sense 
 of dependence, into marrying as an alternative 
 to suicide. The fellow worked upon her feel- 
 ings of patriotism. It seems he had been 
 wounded in the war, on the Union side. He per- 
 suaded her that her life, which was very miser- 
 able to her, could be of use to him. You know 
 there are such sacrificing natures. I fancy she 
 must have had some sort of romance herself 
 before, to make her heart callous to sentiment. 
 Well, at any rate, two years ago she married 
 him in Paris ; she was there with her step-mother. 
 They were married at the American Legation, 
 both being Americans. Perhaps our great au- 
 thority on international law might find some 
 flaw in the marriage ; he declares that very 
 many marriages contracted in Europe are not 
 legal. It would be a mercy to this poor woman 
 if he could dissolve hers." 
 
 " In which case I think I know a young man 
 who would stand ready to induce the lady to 
 contract another, with all the formalities," said 
 Crichton, laughing. 
 
 " No, you are quite wrong," replied his com- 
 panion. "My share in the matter, for I have 
 had something to do with it, is purely disinter-
 
 168 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 ested. I have not even the satisfaction of being 
 in love with a woman for whom I came near 
 getting my head broken." 
 
 " How so ? This is becoming very interesting. 
 A quiet, studious fellow like you, Clay, doing 
 the Don Quixote, you who contrived to get 
 through the Naval Academy without any serious 
 damage to heart or limb." 
 
 " Or doing any serious damage to other 
 hearts, as you did, Crichton," resumed Clay, 
 looking admiringly at his friend's Apollo-like 
 form and figure. "The Admirable Crichton 
 carried all before him, and does still, I fancy." 
 
 The other only smiled, and Clay continued : 
 " It appears that the marriage turned out a per- 
 fect hell, the husband a brute ; the worst kind 
 of one, for he was terribly that is the only 
 word for it in love ; jealous if she looked at 
 a man or even a woman. He drank, he swore ; 
 he was in fact so unbearable that his wife took 
 the law in her own hands and left him. A 
 friend procured her the place of governess with 
 Madame de Tourchikoff, who, like the Czar 
 Nicholas, wished 'the American language as 
 spoken purely and correctly, to be taught her 
 children.' As Miss Arthur, this heroine of ro- 
 mance had lived quietly, almost happily, for 
 some time. She adored Madame de Tourchikoff, 
 who sought in every way to make her forget the
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 169 
 
 past and enjoy the present. She was devoted 
 to the children, and they to her. Your humble 
 servant don't smile with your sentimental 
 eyes, Crichton was platonically glad to sing 
 duets with her, and in a word, everything was 
 most harmonious in our little circle, when one 
 day, about a month ago, the wretch appeared in 
 Teplitz, where we all were. He rushed like a 
 maniac into the Tourchikoff apartment and de- 
 manded ' my wife.' Miss Arthur, at the sound 
 of his voice in altercation with the servant in 
 the hall, had fled from the room. General Tour- 
 chikoff was absent in Russia, Madame was quite 
 alone ; but she showed herself equal to the oc- 
 casion. She speaks English fluently, and she 
 plainly assured the soi-disant husband that the 
 lady he sought was under her protection and 
 should remain there ; that whatever claim he 
 might have upon her governess, he had no right 
 in her apartment. At this juncture I appeared 
 and the man turned upon me. Fortunately I 
 was prepared for him, and with the assistance of 
 Gottlieb, the servant, quietly ejected him. In 
 Germany you may shake, or spit upon a man, 
 but if you strike him, you are liable to an action. 
 We marched him down stairs without injury. 
 
 " Madame de Tourchikoff, Miss Arthur, and 
 I sat long into the small hours, in earnest con- 
 clave, and many were the plans we devised for
 
 170 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 getting Miss Arthur I hate to call her by the 
 wretch's name out of the reach of persecu- 
 tion while a divorce was being arranged, for 
 brutal treatment is ample cause for one. 
 
 " The next day I bought a pistol and carried 
 it. The man was patrolling the street in front 
 of the Tourchikoff house. There I found all 
 dismay, Miss Arthur had gone, no one knew 
 whither. She had left a note telling Madame 
 de Tourchikoff that when her own plans were 
 settled, she would write, but that she begged her 
 to make no inquiries; that she could not bear 
 to bring trouble and anxiety to one who had 
 been so kind to her, etc. Madame de Tour- 
 chikoff and the children left the next day for 
 Russia, leaving secretly, that the husband in 
 search of a wife might not follow them. That 
 was a fortnight ago, perhaps he is still watch- 
 ing the house." 
 
 " A singular story, truly," said Crichton ; 
 "and you have never heard what became of 
 your heroine ? " 
 
 " Never ; and since the Tourchikoffa left I 
 have lost all trace. They kindly invited me to 
 visit them in Russia. Perhaps I may do so, I 
 am getting tired of Dresden." 
 
 " Depend upon it your heroine will turn up 
 yet, Clay. I feel sure that she is your fate ; 
 something will happen to the husband, and you
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 171 
 
 will come on board a United States man-of-war 
 and be married. That will be quite legal. By 
 Jove," he exclaimed, " I wonder if I am mar- 
 ried ! Do you remember, Clay, the evening we 
 voted for the prize of beauty at Newport, I was 
 married in a charade, to a girl from Maine? 
 Captain Lovelace married us. An officer in the 
 United States service has a right to perform the 
 ceremony. It would be rather awkward if that 
 should turn out a bond fide marriage after all. 
 My wife where is she ? I wonder." 
 
 " I don't believe you will do the Enoch 
 Arden, Crichton, and disturb her if she has 
 found a husband during your absence." 
 
 " No," he answered ; " she has, no doubt, 
 married some Maine lawyer. Perhaps he may 
 turn up in the Senate, or on a foreign mission, 
 who knows. I may meet my wife yet. I won- 
 der if we should recognize each other Miss 
 Castine it 's dangerous all the same, marrying 
 in fun : many a jest is earnest." Then taking 
 out his watch, he said, " Come, let 's go to the 
 theatre, we are in time for an act, at least, of 
 'Lohengrin.' What absurdly early hours the 
 Germans keep ? Fancy going into the theatre 
 in broad daylight. It 's not eight yet, how- 
 ever." 
 
 As the young men entered the theatre, Clay 
 pushed Crichton, and whispered : " There he
 
 172 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 is ! " Crichton turned and saw a large, power- 
 ful-looking man glaring full at Clay. 
 
 " An ugly customer to meet ; you have your 
 revolver, I hope." 
 
 " No, but I fancy there will be no trouble 
 here ; the police is rather too strict for that." 
 
 They were just in time to hear the gem of the 
 opera, Mein lieber Schwan ; then the steel and 
 silver knight pushed off in his swan-shaped boat, 
 and Elizabeth of Brabant poured forth her la- 
 ment for her lost love. 
 
 "Heavens! what a voice," whispered Crich- 
 ton, the depths of whose nature had been stirred 
 by the song, passionately devoted to music as he 
 was. 
 
 Clay said nothing, but he, too, was deeply 
 moved. He bent eagerly forward to catch every 
 note of the exquisite voice which pealed forth 
 the soul-wrung emotions of the singer. It was 
 no acting ; that slight form trembled with deep 
 feeling, the voice vibrated with intensity ; and 
 when the last accents died upon the ears of the 
 enraptured audience, the bowed head and con- 
 vulsed frame showed that the reaction had set 
 in, that nature had reasserted herself, and that 
 the actress was quite overcome by the power of 
 her own voice and acting. For a moment there 
 was perfect silence then a rain of applause 
 shook the house. Slowly, almost painfully, the
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHEt 173 
 
 actress rose, bowed, and bowed again and again 
 to her delighted audience. 
 
 " It seems cruel to make her sing it again," 
 whispered Crichton. " See, she can hardly 
 stand, much less sing. Yet I confess I would 
 give a great deal to hear that voice again. 
 Strange she should be so affected by her own 
 music ; yet she can be no novice with such 
 powers and such training." 
 
 All around were murmurs of admiration, for 
 the German spirit of enthusiasm was fairly 
 roused. Never had " Lohengrin " been given as 
 on this evening, as they all declared. 
 
 " Do you hear ? " exclaimed Clay, in a hoarse 
 whisper ; " they say she is a stranger. I knew 
 it. Yes," he continued, raising his glass and 
 eagerly scanning the features of the singer, who 
 had, in response to repeated encores, moved for- 
 ward, and was at first tremblingly, then by 
 degrees gaining self-command pouring forth 
 her delicious notes. " It is she, Crichton," he 
 repeated, seizing his companion's arm. " I tell 
 you it is she." 
 
 " Are you mad ? " whispered. Crichton. " Do 
 be quiet, and let me listen ; you are disturbing 
 every one." 
 
 Clay still kept his glass riveted to the stage ; 
 then when the singer, pausing abruptly, as if she 
 feared to tert her own self-command, bowed and
 
 174 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 hastily retired amid a storin of acclamations, he, 
 too, suddenly left his seat, without a word to his 
 companion, and rapidly made his way out of the 
 theatre. 
 
 For a few minutes Crichton sat spell-bound, 
 still under the influence of the most perfect 
 voice he had ever heard. He had not noticed 
 Clay's departure, so wrapt was he in his own 
 feelings. When he rose and took his way to the 
 door, he found a crowd had gathered. An acci- 
 dent had evidently taken place. He heard some 
 one say that a man had been shot. He pushed 
 forward with an undefined dread in his mind, 
 and was just in time to see the police collaring 
 the ugly looking fellow Clay had pointed out to 
 him, and two or three around a prostrate, insen- 
 sible form, which he recognized as that of his 
 friend. 
 
 " Hush ! you are not to talk, old fellow. We 
 are under the doctor's orders, and must obey; 
 he 's captain of this ship. Mighty slow, these 
 German doctors are. I wish we had you on 
 board our ship ; we would get you on your feet 
 in a jiffy." The speaker was Crichton, who was 
 sitting by Clay's bed, where, indeed, he had 
 been a devoted watcher since the night when his 
 friend had been shot at the theatre door, some 
 three weeks before.
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SUE? 175 
 
 " You want to know all that has happened, do 
 you?" 
 
 Clay's eyes spoke assent. 
 
 " Well, keep calm and I '11 tell you. The shot 
 that fellow fired came near doing for you. But 
 you 've pulled through, thank Heaven." 
 
 " And thanks to your care," said Clay, in a 
 husky tone, laying his thin white hand on Crich- 
 ton's affectionately. 
 
 " Pshaw ! I did no more than you would 
 have done for me," said the other, busying him- 
 self about Clay's pillows. Then taking a phial 
 from a little table he poured a few drops in a 
 spoon, and held it towards his friend. " Here, 
 take this stuff, and then you '11 be strong enough 
 to hear some news. Can you bear to be as- 
 tonished?" 
 
 Clay nodded as he swallowed the mixture. 
 
 " Well, you were right, it was she. The 
 divine singer in ' Lohengrin ' was Miss Arthur, 
 and my wife Alice Castine. Don't faint, I 
 have been too sudden," and Crichton anxiously 
 flew to the restorative, as he saw Clay close his 
 eyes. He opened them immediately, smiled, 
 motioned away the bottle, and looked inquiringly 
 into his friend's face. " When you are well," 
 continued Crichton, " you shall hear all the 
 details, how we met and recognized each other. 
 She had known me at the theatre, it seems, and
 
 176 STRAY LEASES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 that accounted for her emotion, a something 
 told me those splendid eyes were not quite 
 strange to me. Poor Alice ! she has suffered 
 much. She was devotedly attached to her orni- 
 thologist of a father ; his death nearly killed 
 her: he had brought her up, she had had no 
 mother, no female care ; as, by the way, she 
 showed by her clothes when we first met. Heav- 
 ens, what a difference between my wife now and 
 then ! How abominably I flirted with my poor 
 little unsophisticated Maine flower that evening ! 
 She took it seriously, as she has since confessed. 
 That charade was to her the romance of her life ; 
 and when years passed and the wicked flirt of a 
 midshipman (I shall guard my daughters from 
 such quicksands) never came back, she was left 
 to drag out her days in sad reflection. Do you 
 know, Clay, I believe a good deal more of that 
 sort of thing goes on in the world than we are 
 aware of. Well, miserable at home, anxious for 
 a change, the poor child, with her high-strung 
 self-sacrificing nature, was persuaded that it was 
 her mission in life to reform a drunken patriot. 
 She began by giving him advice, and he replied 
 by insisting that her life was necessary to his. 
 She made a sad mess of her second marriage. I 
 insist that it was her second one ; she was all 
 the time my wife, though neither of us knew it. 
 AVe were married years ago in fun ; we will be
 
 MY WIFE WHERE IS SHE? 177 
 
 married again in earnest. Yes, the miserable 
 fellow is dead went off in a fit a few days 
 after he shot you. It is as well, for though I 
 had a prior claim there might have been un- 
 pleasant complications if he had lived. Now 
 what you have to do, Clay, is to get well as fast 
 as possible and go back to America in the 
 Wabash with me, and next summer we '11 have 
 a jolly wedding in Newport, where I first saw 
 and married my wife." 
 
 A bitter smile wreathed the pale lips of 
 Harry Clay, as he saw the sudden demolition of 
 the " card house " he had been unconsciously 
 building up for weeks. He understood it all 
 now, his pity for, and interest in this woman 
 with the attractive face, exquisite voice, and 
 strange story, with whom his own happiness had 
 become suddenly interwoven. But he gave no 
 sign ; and the favored child of fortune, the " Ad- 
 mirable Crichton," with whom everything in life 
 succeeded, blinded by the sunshine of his own 
 bright hopes, and happy in the present, little 
 guessed the conflict which was going on in the 
 heart of the friend by whoso bedside he had 
 watched so devotedly for weeks, the man 
 who had been shot by the jealous husband of 
 his, Crichton's, wife, and whom Crichton's own 
 words had just now unwittingly wounded still 
 more deeply, a wound, the marks of which Clay's
 
 178 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 deep nature would bear for the rest of his life. 
 So it goes we are often utterly unconscious of 
 the secret feelings of those whom we think we 
 know most intimately. 
 
 " The bard hath said : God never formed a soul 
 Without its own peculiar mate, 
 
 To meet its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole. 
 But thousand things there are, which hate 
 To look on happiness ; these hurt, impede, 
 And leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate, 
 Keep wandering heart from heart, 
 To pine, and pant, and bleed." 
 
 The trouble is that in the confusion of " wan- 
 dering halves " through the world, so few find 
 their " own peculiar mates," but are perpetually 
 stumbling upon those of others, and very many 
 get no " halves" at alL A man's whole married 
 life may be colored for good or for evil by the 
 manner in which his fate answers the question 
 which, at some time in his existence, every man 
 puts to himself ; the momentous question : " My 
 wife where is she ? "
 
 OUE BOY. 
 
 A SKETCH OF NEWPORT DOMESTIC LIFE. 
 
 As my sister Fan and I are spinsters of re- 
 spectable years and income, and of unblemished 
 characters, in spite of my being called " Gin," 
 short for Virginia, the above title may sound 
 somewhat startling. I hasten to say that the 
 possessive pronoun affixed to the noun boy in- 
 dicates no tenderer tie than the specious one of 
 so much a month and finding. The latter term 
 is more applicable to the boy's garments than 
 to the boy. I know that we have often been 
 appraised and speculated upon by needy bach- 
 elors and their chums. I know also that we 
 are considered richer than we really are, be- 
 cause we entertain well and often (I pride my- 
 self upon the cuisine and appointments of our 
 dinner-table, as I am housekeeper), and because 
 there is no mortgage upon our house. It is all 
 done by good management. Some people make 
 a dollar go farther than others can. We believe 
 in a small, complete establishment, rather than a 
 large, incomplete one. Pretty chintz, taste, and
 
 180 STRA Y LEA VES FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 a little ready money have made of this once old 
 shed, which we bought in that condition, a charm- 
 ing vine-clad cottage by the sea, in which we 
 keep Old Maid's Hall, and in which, in spite of 
 the manifold attractions of the other sex, or the 
 predictions of our own, we don't intend to give 
 any man a right to hang up a hat as master. 
 Marriage of the pocket does not tempt us ; mar- 
 riage of the heart and soul might ; but as that 
 is an ideal seldom realized, we have pretty much 
 made up our minds to live and die old maids 
 jolly ones, however, who like society and es- 
 pecially little dinners. Man being the sauce 
 piquante of the social menu, we brave the 
 thought of the covert smiles, and meaning, half- 
 envious glances which we know are levied at the 
 fortunate recipient of an invitation to dinner 
 from us, when he strolls into the club enfrac, 
 with suggestive rosebud in button-hole, to be 
 quizzed upon his devotion in a certain quarter. 
 We care as little if he himself construes a " re- 
 quest the pleasure " into a promissory note of 
 hand. Provided the men who eat our dinners 
 pay for them in agreeable conversation, they are 
 welcome to think what they please. If they fail 
 to do their part toward the entertainment, they 
 are not invited again. We are a practical pair 
 of spinsters, and require quid pro quo. Fan is 
 the piano to my forte. She says little, but speaks
 
 OUR BOY. 181 
 
 to the point ; she quietly advances her opinions 
 and as quietly retains them, a privilege she 
 allows others ; she never argues ; as she -tersely 
 remarks, arguments seldom convince. Most rest- 
 ful society is Fan after that of more combative 
 people. Fan has a quick sense of the ridicu- 
 lous and a vein of satire ; her expressive si- 
 lence is often a more eloquent protest than 
 words. People who do not know her well call 
 her shy, cold. She is neither. She is indifferent 
 to most people, but once interested she shows 
 that she is warm-hearted and sympathetic. She 
 is extremely reticent, and the soul of honor ; to 
 tell a secret to Fan would be like dropping it 
 into a well. Fan and I generally like the same 
 things ; though she often tries in her lazy, sar- 
 castic way to tone me down, when I become, as 
 she says, " too enthusiastic or too loud." When 
 we set up our equipage, after we had arranged 
 our house, I wanted to have a pair of ponies 
 and a phaeton, yellow or red-wheeled. Fan 
 preferred a brougham with iron - gray horses. 
 We compromised on an English dark-blue phae- 
 ton, with one tall bay horse. Then came the 
 question of page in buttons or groom in top- 
 boots. Two neat - looking maids in caps and 
 frilled aprons sufficed for the requirements of 
 the house up-stairs and down ; a combination 
 of gardener, coachman, and choreman in one
 
 182 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 did the rest of the work of the establishment, 
 save and excepting waiting at table and filling 
 the seat in the rumble. A man would be quite 
 too heavy for that ; a boy would be more nimble 
 for both table and rumble. A boy, too, like a 
 twig, could be morally bent. Fan smiled sa- 
 tirically at this. Finally bell buttons carried the 
 day ; it only remained to find a boy. 
 
 " Boys will be boys," I musingly remarked 
 after we had decided to have a boy ; " girls at- 
 tend much better to their business ; that one in 
 the post-office is worth all the boys there." 
 
 "Do you propose to start the fashion of 
 Bloomer livery ? " inquired Fan. " If you do, I 
 don't intend to drive with you." 
 
 " Nonsense," I replied ; " of course we must 
 have a boy, only " 
 
 " You want a model boy ; you would then lose 
 the pleasure of forming him," observed my sister. 
 
 " Reforming him, perhaps. Mrs. Stubbs, the 
 washerwoman, tried to work on my feelings for 
 her needy state, and offered me her boy, just 
 out of the Reform School." 
 
 " Might it not be safer to take one whom we 
 knew had been there, than one who perhaps, for 
 all we know, may be on his way?" suggested 
 Fan. " I have n't much opinion of boys as a 
 class, but you seemed so bent on one that I gave 
 way."
 
 OUR BOY. 183 
 
 " A man might drink," I observed ; " a boy is 
 certainly the lesser evil of the two." 
 
 A boy was found for us by a lady who, being 
 in the habit of dropping in upon the unprotected 
 poor and advising them as to their domestic 
 affairs, knew all their boys of all sizes and ca- 
 pacities. This boy, she assured us, was born for 
 the position, and for us ; and indeed he seemed 
 so. He took to the reins, visiting cards, and 
 dinner plates, as if he had always handled them. 
 His innocent little face and trim boyish figure 
 were set off by his livery suit of gray, with black 
 collar and cuffs, and bell buttons, and his special 
 pride, a tall beaver. For a week we were a 
 happy trio ; Fan taking her ease as she reclined 
 back in her phaeton, I driving, and Tommy 
 with folded arms behind, a gem of a tiger. We 
 congratulated ourselves upon having such a 
 treasure a boy who needed so little moulding 
 into the position of page, who, in fact, had 
 moulded himself, as it were. 
 
 One day having occasion to do some shopping, 
 I drew up before Lawton's well-known store, in 
 crowded Thames Street, and with recommenda- 
 tions to Tommy not to let any wheels run into 
 ours, left him in charge of horse and phae- 
 ton. I had a long list of required articles, and 
 soon became immersed in the business of se- 
 lecting them. With ladies to right of me, ladies
 
 184 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 to left of me, and shop boys and girls in front 
 of me, with conversation all around, to get what 
 I wanted was a work of time. When at last 
 I had concluded my shopping and reached the 
 shop door, no phaeton was to be seen ; but prone 
 on the pavement, locked in the arms of another 
 very ragged boy, hatless, and so covered with 
 dirt as to be almost unrecognizable, and pouring 
 out most disgraceful language, rolled my inno- 
 cent-faced tiger. With tiger-like grasp he held 
 on to the other ; it was with difficulty they were 
 separated by some of the by-standers, and at last, 
 with blood-stained faces and torn garments, 
 placed upon their feet. " He jawed me in my 
 new beaver," was the disjointed sentence gulped 
 out interrupted by sobs and struggles to get 
 free and at it again by my tiger, alas, so 
 fallen from his high estate. The beaver, cause 
 of the battle, had been placed out of harm's way 
 on the top of a packing -box near the shop, 
 where, covered with a much soiled handkerchief 
 from Tommy's pocket, it still remained, the only 
 thing intact of the whole turnout ; for the horse 
 left to his own devices had, unheeded by Tommy, 
 in the greater interest of "pitching into the 
 feller who jawed him," run against a carriage, 
 broken that and the phaeton lamps, the springs 
 and wheels, and after causing considerable dam- 
 age and more fright, been stopped by two men,
 
 OUR BOY. 185 
 
 one of whom was badly kicked. It took a fort- 
 night or more to repair our vehicle and Tom- 
 my ; to whom, in consideration of his mother's 
 widowed and impecunious state and his own 
 tender though bumptious years, we paid up a 
 full month's wages. This, with the doctor's bill 
 for attendance upon him as well as upon the 
 poor man who had stopped the horse, with the 
 charges of the veterinary surgeon, and repairs 
 of our own vehicle, came to no small amount. 
 All this, with visits of thanks to the lady who 
 brought me home from the scene of strife, 
 visits of apology to the lady whose carriage 
 mine had run into, and visits of condolence to 
 the injured man, unable to work for wife and 
 children dependent upon him, to say nothing of 
 my individual mortification at the behavior of 
 my boy, disinclined me to more trials of the 
 species. 
 
 " Suppose we try an older and plainer boy," 
 said Fan, " not such a child as Tommy. You 
 were caught, Gin, by a pretty face." 
 
 A line inserted in the several daily and 
 weekly papers brought a perfect shower of boys, 
 black and white, large and small. A colored 
 youth, whose good-natured honest face was a 
 strong recommendation in itself, and who was 
 recommended as knowing horses thoroughly, 
 and being capable and willing to wait at table,
 
 186 STRA Y LEA VES FROM NE WPORT. 
 
 seemed very promising, and was engaged for a 
 week on trial ; we enumerated the several du- 
 ties of his dual position, to all of which he 
 cheerfully agreed. 
 
 " Moses is too large for a jacket," I said, 
 ** even if Tommy had not put that suit hors de 
 combat^ when, as George (our punster cousin) 
 would say, he gave the other boy collar and 
 cuffs to match." 
 
 " Would it not be advisable to wait a week, 
 before we go to any expense on Moses' ac- 
 count ? " observed my sister. 
 
 Moses was duly installed, and quite delighted 
 us by the way he kept the silver and knives, and 
 attended to the other duties of his inside posi- 
 tion. For three days of his trial week it rained 
 incessantly, so that the phaeton was not in req- 
 uisition. At last the sun came out in all the 
 more glory from its long absence. A friend 
 called for Fan to drive ; and I, left to my own 
 society, was glad to be interrupted by the arrival 
 of General Wiley, an old acquaintance, to whom 
 I proposed a drive to the Fort. Moses in his 
 best garments rather a seedy suit of black, 
 the beaver Tommy had cherished so fondly, a 
 trifle small for him, looked not unlike a Hamp- 
 ton student, or a youthful member of the colored 
 church convention ; but as there was nothing 
 very remarkable about him, I could not account
 
 OUR BOY. 187 
 
 for the attention our turnout attracted on the 
 avenue, the smiles and glances even from those 
 we did not know. 
 
 *' Is there anything queer about us or the 
 horse ? " I asked, interrupting my companion 
 in the midst of a descriptive trip to the Holy 
 Land. 
 
 I turned off the avenue as I spoke, and the 
 General turned his head. " Look at your tiger," 
 he said. 
 
 My tiger ! Good heavens, what a parody ! 
 His coat flapping open, his arms dangling, his 
 head, on the back of which he had pushed the 
 uncomfortable beaver, swaying from side to side 
 with every motion of the vehicle. 
 
 " Put your hat on your head, sit up straight, 
 and fold your arms," I said, in the sternest ac- 
 cents I could command, while the General shook 
 with suppressed laughter. 
 
 " You did n't tell me I was to fold my arms ; 
 I can't do it," he answered, firmly but respect- 
 fully. 
 
 " Can't fold your arms ? What do you mean ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " I would n't fold my arms like them white 
 monkeys, no, not if my own mother told me to," 
 he replied hotly. 
 
 At this General Wiley took no pains to con- 
 ceal his merriment, and I with difficulty kept
 
 188 STRAY LEAVES FROM NEWPORT. 
 
 up my own dignity long enough to conclude the 
 colloquy, during which Moses retained his awk- 
 ward attitude. 
 
 "I won't keep any one who won't fold his 
 arms ; I will pay you your week's wages and 
 you can go back to your mother. You may get 
 out and walk home." 
 
 I got through the sentence successfully, 
 dropped the independent Moses, and, whipping 
 up the horse, joined my companion in a hearty 
 laugh at what he declared was one of the most 
 amusing scenes he had ever witnessed. The 
 General is a good raconteur, and many a din- 
 ner-table has he amused with the story of " Miss 
 Virginia's tiger, the missing link who would not 
 be a monkey." 
 
 Our next boy, for we actually tried another, 
 was a success, though we hesitated about saying 
 so even to ourselves, until we were quite sure of 
 it. Would that we had kept the secret within 
 our own breasts. He had been in buttons be- 
 fore, felt at home in them, was quite callous 
 when jeered at by other boys, and he folded his 
 arms as if he preferred that mode of carrying 
 them to all others. 
 
 One day, half an hour before dinner, to which 
 we expected some friends, I opened the door of 
 the dining - room. In preparation for the re- 
 past, I rang for Joseph. lie was non est. The
 
 OUR BOY. 189 
 
 last the maids had seen of him he was being in- 
 terviewed at the back gate by our most frequent 
 visitor a man who had eaten our salt and 
 broken bread with us, handed him by Joseph. 
 It was the first day of the month, and the boy 
 had received his wages an hour or two before 
 he took French leave of us. To do him justice, 
 he did not take anything else. We found the 
 spoons all right. It was rather cheeky for the 
 man who had changed Joseph's coat to bow to 
 us with his sweetest smile, upon the avenue, 
 from his dog-cart, on the back seat of which 
 the treasure he had robbed us of, with well-bred 
 tiger's blank expression, studied his new mas- 
 ter's back. 
 
 We are at present boyless. If ever the back 
 seat of our phaeton be filled by boy or man, we 
 do not intend to give him credit for any good 
 qualities. Should we again succeed in finding a 
 treasure, we will not trust our nearest and dear- 
 est friend, in the season at Newport, with the 
 secret, but on principle steadily abuse to all vis- 
 itors our boy the only way to keep one.
 
 FATA MORGANA: ON NEWPORT'S BAY. 
 
 DEDICATED TO MISS MAUD MOBGAN. 
 
 CLOSE to Calabria's classic shore 
 
 Messina's waters calmly lie, 
 Reflecting wondrous rays which pour 
 
 In splendor over earth and sky. 
 There, it is said, in the magic light, 
 
 Are mirrored visions passing fair, 
 Castles peopled by beings bright, 
 
 Youth and maiden of beauty rare. 
 
 Rhode Island's Garden, washed by her bay, 
 
 Is a fair vision of Nature and Art. 
 Seen in the light of a summer day, 
 
 It attracts the eye, enchants the heart. 
 Old Sol sheds around it, in lingering embrace, 
 
 Richest jewels of changing light ; 
 Ere he turns aside liis genial face, 
 
 He "dips his colors" in gallant good-night. 
 
 And Sappho has left the Isles of Greece, 
 And Psyche with beauty of soul in face 
 
 Has found her way to the " Isle of Peace," 
 Robed in garments of classic grace ;
 
 FATA MORGANA. 191 
 
 Fillets of gold in her rich brown hair, 
 
 The "sacred fire" within her breast, 
 The flush of youth on her cheek so fair, 
 
 And eyes through which the heart is guessed. 
 Now, floating clear on zephyr's wings, 
 
 Come strains of music, soft and low, 
 A skilled hand playing the golden strings 
 
 Of the heart, and the harp, in the evening glow.
 
 GEN. ALBERT GALLATIN LAWRENCE 
 
 HEBO OF FORT FISHER. 
 Family motto, Quero, Invenio ; Arms, Bagged Cross. 
 
 How many men from year to year 
 Waste on the world's great stage 
 
 Their fleeting hour, then disappear ; 
 No trace on history's page ! 
 
 But Nature sometime dormant lies, 
 
 And from the clay inert, 
 The master spirit will arise, 
 
 A claim to race assert. 
 
 Thus when " To arms " the country's call 
 
 The nation's courage fired, 
 The motto borne on Acre's wall 
 
 Crusader's blood inspired 
 
 To " seek and find," the flag to save, 
 
 Though, at his own great loss ; 
 The hero of Fort Fisher gave 
 
 His " arm," but kept his " cross,"
 
 GENERAL A. G.' LAWRENCE. 193 
 
 The " ragged cross " which holy knight 
 
 Discerned in war's dark sky, 
 And swore by its pure, golden light 
 
 To conquer, or to die : 
 
 He won the " cross " for which he fought. 
 
 One of his race and name 
 In Fisher's laurels, dearly bought, 
 
 That "cross" could doubly claim. 
 
 When " Death for him unbarred Truth's gate," 
 And solved the problem " Where ? " 
 
 Freed from Life's " cross," a happier fate 
 God grant 't was his to share. 
 
 As face to face each year are brought 
 
 The living and the dead, 
 With Comrades' sweet memorial thought, 
 
 The Roll of Honor read, 
 
 One absent grave, which should be here, 
 
 From Lawton Post receives, 
 With thoughts of those who hold it dear, 
 
 Its wreath of Newport Leaves.
 
 WARREN'S NEWPORT HOME. 
 
 STANDING back with the past and back from the 
 
 street, 
 
 With soul-stirring memories the old house replete, 
 Tall trees shading grass -plat, round which broad 
 
 paths wind, 
 
 Its old-fashioned garden straggling behind, 
 It tells to the breeze its youth's tale of romance, 
 When fair Newport flirted with chivalrous France. 
 Of the then famous beauties the names it retains 
 Where diamond-point scrawled them on old window- 
 panes. 
 
 More precious than stories of brocade and lace, 
 More recent the vision of hero's sad face ; 
 Of midnight lamp burning, of eagle eye scanning 
 The pages of science, his active brain planning 
 Campaigns in the fields which to scholars afford 
 Occasions to prove the " pen mighty as sword." 
 Now through the wide rooms, though vacant, the air 
 Seems peopled with ghosts of thoughts buried there ; 
 Again there breathe words, sweet as violets pressed, 
 With which faithful love the crushed heart ca- 
 ressed.
 
 WARREN'S NEWPORT HOME. 195 
 
 Man, eager for progress, the old landmark removes, 
 
 Conservative woman such change disapproves. 
 
 The women of Boston refused to release 
 
 To relic-destroyer their Warren's mouthpiece ; 
 
 The " Old South Church " window still echoes the 
 
 sound 
 
 Of Bunker Hill's thunder o'er historic ground : 
 Let the women of Newport, with patriot's pride, 
 Keep the house where the hero of Gettysburg died ; 
 Let the spot where his final life-battle was fought 
 A Grand Army Mecca for Newport be bought ; 
 Over the portal the flag he loved wave, 
 And the shade of brave Warren shall welcome the 
 
 brave.
 
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 8 Publications of Cupples & Hurd. 
 
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