CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 2116.L2 1919 
 
 , A landscape painter / 
 
 3 1924 022 055 564 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924022055564 
 
A LANDSCAPE PAINTER 
 
A LANDSCAPE 
 PAINTER 
 
 By 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 V 
 
 New Yoek 
 
 SCOTT AND SELTZER 
 
 1919 
 
Copyright, 1919, 
 By Scott and Seltzer, Inc. 
 
 First printing, December, 1919. 
 Second printing, January, 1920, 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 A Landscape Painter 7 
 
 Poor Richard 71 
 
 A Day of Days 177 
 
 A Most Extraordinary Case 219 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The four tales comprising this volume are printed 
 now for the first time in America in book form. All 
 of them were written by Henry James before he had 
 attained his twenty-fifth year. They are remarkable 
 for their maturity of thought and clarity of style. 
 
 It has been the general opinion that James, like 
 George Eliot, achieved his literary development 
 rather slowly, since it was known that he was thirty- 
 two years of age when "The Passionate Pilgrim," 
 his first collection of tales, and "Rodrick Hudson," 
 his first long novel, were published. As a matter of 
 fact, however, James had been writing for the lead- 
 ing magazines since he was twenty-two. The first 
 story in this volume, "A Landscape Painter," ap- 
 peared in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1866, 
 and was the second story James had published up to 
 that time. 
 
 The tales in this volume are among the most 
 precious in our literature, and James himself thought 
 
 1 
 
2 Preface 
 
 highly of them, since he collected them in an English 
 edition, published in 1885, in three volumes with the 
 title, "Short Stories Revived." This collection 
 never appeared in America. It is strange that James 
 should have chosen to appeal to English readers 
 rather than to his own countrymen. Why he did so 
 is a question that remains unanswered. But the pres- 
 ent volume will serve as a corrective of this anomaly. 
 The tales are reprinted, not from the English edition, 
 but from the American periodicals in which they 
 were first published. 
 
 It has been claimed for William Dean Howells 
 that it was he who discovered James, when, as assist- 
 ant editor to Fields on the Atlantic Monthly, he 
 strongly recommended the acceptance of James' 
 story, "Poor Richard." The claim, however, is not 
 altogether well founded, since James had published 
 two stories before that time. These were "A Land- 
 scape Painter" and "A Day of Days," the latter ap- 
 pearing in the Galaxy for June 15, 1866. All three 
 stories are reprinted in this volume. 
 
 Unusual interest, however, attaches to the tale of 
 "Poor Richard," because of Howell's connection 
 with it. Its reading led to the beginning of a friend- 
 ship between James and Howells which may be con- 
 sidered as one of the great literary friendships in 
 the annals of literature. Howells told the story in 
 the Century for November, 1882. 
 
Preface 3 
 
 When the manuscript was received at the office of 
 the Atlantic, Fields submitted it to Howells for his 
 opinion. Howells read it, and when asked whether 
 he would accept it, he replied, "Yes, and all the 
 stories you can get from that writer." "One is 
 much securer of one's judgment," writes Howells, 
 "at twenty-nine than, say, at forty-five ; but if there 
 was a mistake, I am not yet old enough to regret it. 
 The story was called 'Poor Richard' and it dealt 
 with the conscience of a man very much in love with 
 a woman who loved his rival. He told the rival a 
 lie, which sent him away to his death on the field, 
 but poor Richard's lie did not win his love. It 
 seems to me that the situation was strongly and 
 finely felt. One's pity went, as it should, with the 
 liar; but the whole story has a pathos which lingers 
 in my mind equally with a sense of the new literary 
 qualities which gave me much delight in it." 
 
 The final story of this volume, "A Most Extraor- 
 dinary Case," was first published in the Atlantic 
 Monthly for April, 1868, when Howells was still on 
 the editorial staff. 
 
 I am sure these first efforts of James' pen will be 
 welcomed by his American admirers. They are in 
 every way worthy of James at his best, and so 
 worthy of being preserved. The only regret the 
 reader may feel is that the author should in his 
 later works have seen fit to adopt an elaborate, com- 
 
4 Preface 
 
 plex and often obscure style, instead of clinging to 
 simple, natural language, of which these stories show 
 him to be such a master. 
 
 Albert Mordell. 
 Philadelphia, July lo, 1919. 
 
A LANDSCAPE PAINTER 
 
A LANDSCAPE 
 PAINTER 
 
 Do you remember how, a dozen years ago, 
 a number of our friends were startled by 
 the report of the rupture of young Locks- 
 ley's engagement with Miss Leary? This event 
 made some noise in its day. Both parties possessed 
 certain claims to distinction : Locksley in his wealth, 
 which was believed to be enormous, and the young 
 lady in her beauty, which was in truth very great. 
 I used to hear that her lover was fond of compar- 
 ing her to the Venus of Milo; and, indeed, if you 
 can imagine the mutilated goddess with her full 
 complement of limbs, dressed out by Madame de 
 Crinoline, and engaged in small talk beneath the 
 drawing-room chandelier, you may obtain a vague 
 notion of Miss Josephine Leary. Locksley, you re- 
 member, was rather a short man, dark, and not 
 particularly good-looking; and when he walked 
 about with his betrothed, it was half a matter of 
 
 7 
 
8 A Landscape Painter 
 
 surprise that he should have ventured to propose to 
 a young lady of such heroic proportions. Miss 
 Leary had the gray eyes and auburn hair which I 
 have always assigned to the famous statue. The 
 one defect in her face, in spite of an expression of 
 great candor and sweetness, was a certain lack of 
 animation. What it was besides her beauty that 
 attracted Locksley I never discovered: perhaps, 
 since his attachment was so short-lived, it was her 
 beauty alone. I say that his attachment was of 
 brief duration, because the rupture was understood 
 to have come from him. Both he and Miss Leary 
 very wisely held their tongues on the matter; but 
 among their friends and enemies it of course re- 
 ceived a hundred explanations. That most popular 
 with Locksle}r's well-wishers was that he had backed 
 out (these events are discussed, you know, in fash- 
 ionable circles very much as an expected prize- 
 fight which has miscarried is canvassed in reunions 
 of another kind) only on flagrant evidence of the 
 lad/s — what, faithlessness ? — on overwhelming 
 proof of the most mercenary spirit on the part of 
 Miss Leary. You see, our friend was held capable 
 of doing battle for an "idea." It must be owned 
 that this was a novel charge; but, for myself, hav- 
 ing long known Mrs. Leary, the mother, who was a 
 
A Landscape Painter 9 
 
 widow with four daughters, to be an inveterate old 
 screw, I took the Hberty of accrediting the existence 
 of a similar propensity in her eldest bom. I sup- 
 pose that the young lady's family had, on their 
 own side, a very plausible version of their disap- 
 pointment. It was, however, soon made up to them 
 by Josephine's marriage with a gentleman of ex- 
 pectations very nearly as brilliant as those of her old 
 suitor. And what was his compensation? That is 
 precisely my story. 
 
 Locksley disappeared, as you will remember, from 
 public view. The. events above alluded to happened 
 in March. On calling at his lodgings in April, I 
 was told he had gone to the "country." But towards 
 the last of May I met him. He told me that he was 
 on the look-out for a quiet, unfrequented place on 
 the seashore, where he might rusticate and sketch. 
 He was looking very poorly. I suggested Newport, 
 and I remember he hardly had the energy to smile 
 at the simple joke. We parted without my having 
 been able to satisfy him, and for a very long time 
 I quite lost sight of him. He died seven years ago, 
 at the age of thirty-five. For five years, accord- 
 ingly, he managed to shield his life from the eyes 
 of men. Through circumstances which I need not 
 detail, a large portion of his personal property has 
 
10 A Landscape Painter 
 
 come into my hands. You will remember that he 
 was a man of what are called elegant tastes: that 
 is, he was seriously interested in arts and letters. 
 He wrote some very bad poetry, but he produced 
 a number of remarkable paintings. He left a mass 
 of papers on all subjects, few of which are adapted 
 to be generally interesting. A portion of them, how- 
 ever, I highly prize, — ^that which constitutes his 
 private diary. It extends from his twenty-fifth to 
 his thirtieth year, at which period it breaks off 
 suddenly. If you will come to my house, I will 
 show you such of his pictures and sketches as I 
 possess, and, I trust, convert you to my opinion that 
 he had in him the stuff of a great painter. Mean- 
 while I will place before you the last hundred pages 
 of his diary, as an answer to your inquiry regard- 
 ing the ultimate view taken by the great Nemesis 
 of his treatment of Miss Leary, — ^his scorn of the 
 magnificent Venus Victrix. The recent decease of 
 the one person who had a voice paramount to mine 
 in the disposal of Locksle/s effects enables me to 
 act without reserve. 
 
 Cragthrope, June gth. — I have been sitting some 
 minutes, pen in hand, pondering whether on this 
 new earth, beneath this new sky, I had better resume 
 these occasional records of my idleness. I think 
 
A Landscape Painter 11 
 
 I will at all events make the experiment. If we fail, 
 as Lady Macbeth remarks, we fail. I find my en- 
 tries have been longest when my life has been dull- 
 est. I doubt not, therefore, that, once launched 
 into the monotony of village life, I shall sit scrib- 
 bling from morning till night. If nothing hap- 
 pens But my prophetic soul tells me that 
 
 something will happen. I am determined that some- 
 thing shall, — if it be nothing else than that I paint 
 a picture. 
 
 When I came up to bed half an hour ago, I was 
 deadly sleepy. Now, after looking out of the win- 
 dow a little while, my brain is strong and clear, and 
 I feel as if I could write till morning. But, unfor- 
 tunately, I have nothing to write about. And then, 
 if I expect to rise early, I must turn in betimes. The 
 whole village is asleep, godless metropolitan that I 
 am ! The lamps on the square without flicker in the 
 wind ; there is nothing abroad but the blue darkness 
 and the smell of the rising tide. I have spent the 
 whole day on my legs, trudging from one side of 
 the peninsula to the other. What a trump is old 
 
 Mrs. M , to have thought of this place ! I must 
 
 write her a letter of passionate thanks. Never be- 
 fore, it seems to me, have I known pure coast-scen- 
 ery. Never before have I relished the beauties of 
 wave, rock, and cloud. I am filled with a sensuous 
 ecstasy at the unparalleled Ufe, light, and trans- 
 
12 A JLandscape Painter 
 
 parency of the air. I am stricken mute with rever- 
 ent admiration at the stupendous resources pos- 
 sessed by the ocean in the way of color and sound ; 
 and as yet, I suppose, I have not seen half of them. 
 I came in to supper hungry, weary, footsore, sun- 
 burnt, dirty, — ^happier, in short, than I have been 
 for a twelvemonth. And now for the victories of 
 the brush! 
 
 June nth. — ^Another day afoot and also afloat. 
 I resolved this morning to leave this abominable 
 little tavern. I can't stand my feather-bed another 
 night. I determined to find some other prospect 
 than the town-pump and the "drug-store." I ques- 
 tioned my host, after breakfast, as to the possibility 
 of getting lodgings in any of the outlying farms and 
 cottages. But my host either did not or would not 
 know anything about the matter. So I resolved to 
 wander forth and seek my fortune, — ^to roam inquis- 
 itive through the neighborhood, and appeal to the 
 indigenous sentiment of hospitality. But never did 
 I see a folk so devoid of this amiable quality. By 
 dinner-time I had given up in despair. After din- 
 ner I strolled down to the harbor, which is close at 
 hand. The brightness and breeziness of the water 
 tempted me to hire a boat and resume my explora- 
 tions. I procured an old tub, with a short stump of 
 a mast, which, being planted quite in the centre. 
 
A Landscape Painter 18 
 
 gave the craft much the appearance of an inverted 
 mushroom. I made for what I took to be, and what 
 is, an island, lying long and low, some three or 
 four miles, over against the town. I sailed for half 
 an hour directly before the wind, and at last found 
 myself aground on the shelving beach of a quiet 
 little cove. Such a little cove! So bright, so still, 
 so warm, so remote from the town, which lay off in 
 the distance, white and semicircular! I leaped 
 ashore, and dropped my anchor. Before me rose a 
 steep cliff, crowned with an old ruined fort or tower. 
 I made my way up, and about to the landward en- 
 trance. The fort is a hollow old shell. Looking 
 upward from the beach, you see the harmless blue 
 sky through the gaping loopholes. Its interior is 
 choked with rocks and brambles, and masses of 
 fallen masonry. I scrambled up to the parapet, and 
 obtained a noble sea-view. Beyond the broad bay 
 I saw miniature town and country mapped out be- 
 fore me; and on the other hand, I saw the infinite 
 Atlantic, — over which, by the by, all the pretty 
 things are brought from Paris. I spent the whole 
 afternoon in wandering hither and thither over the 
 hills that encircle the little cove in which I had 
 landed, heedless of the minutes and my steps, watch- 
 ing the sailing clouds and the cloudy sails on the 
 horizon, listening to the musical attrition of the 
 tidal pebbles, killing innocuous suckers. The only 
 
14 A Landscape Painter 
 
 particular sensation I remember was that of being 
 ten years old again, together with a general impres- 
 sion of Saturday afternoon, of the liberty to go in 
 wading or even swimming, and of the prospect of 
 limping home in the dusk with a wondrous story of 
 having almost caught a turtle. When I returned, I 
 found — but I know very well what I found, and I 
 need hardly repeat it here for my mortification. 
 Heaven knows I never was a practical character. 
 What thought I about the tide? There lay the old 
 tub, high and dry, with the rusty anchor protruding 
 from the flat green stones and the shallow puddles 
 left by the receding wave. Moving the boat an inch, 
 much more a dozen yards, was quite beyond my 
 strength. I slowly reascended the cliff, to see if 
 from its summit any help was discernible. None 
 was within sight; and I was about to go down again 
 in profound dejection, when I saw a trim little sail- 
 boat shoot out from behind a neighboring bluff, 
 and advance along the shore. I quickened pace. 
 On reaching the beach, I found the newcomer 
 standing out about a hundred yards. The man at 
 the helm appeared to regard me with some interest. 
 With a mute prayer that his feeling might be akin 
 to compassion, I invited him by voice and gesture 
 to make for a little point of rocks a short distance 
 above us, where I proceeded to join him. I told 
 him my story, and he readily took me aboard. He 
 
A Landscape Painter 15 
 
 was a civil old gentleman, of the seafaring sort, who 
 appeared to be cruising about in the evening breeze 
 for his pleasure. On landing, I visited the proprie- 
 tor of my old tub, related my misadventure, and 
 offered to pay damages, if the boat should turn out 
 in the morning to have sustained any. Meanwhile, 
 I suppose, it is held secure against the next tidal rev- 
 olution, however insidious. — But for my old gentle- 
 man. I have decidedly picked up an acquaintance, 
 if not made a friend. I gave him a very good cigar ; 
 and before we reached home, we had become thor- 
 oughly intimate. In exchange for my cigar, he gave 
 me his name ; and there was that in his tone which 
 seemed to imply that I had by no means the worst 
 of the bargain. His name is Richard Blunt, 
 "though most people," he added, "call me Captain, 
 for short." He then proceeded to inquire my own 
 titles and pretensions. I told him no lies, but I told 
 him only half the truth; and if he chooses to in- 
 dulge mentally in any romantic understatements, 
 why, he is welcome, and bless his simple heart ! The 
 fact is, that I have broken with the past. I have 
 decided, coolly and calmly, as I believe, that it is 
 necessary to my success, or, at any rate, to my hap- 
 piness, to abjure for a while my conventional self, 
 and to assume a simple, natural character. How 
 can a man be simple and natural who is known to 
 have a hundred thousand a year? That is the su- 
 
16 A Landscape Painter 
 
 preme curse. It's bad enough to have it: to be 
 known to have it, to be known only because you have 
 it, is most damnable. I suppose I am too proud to 
 be successfully rich. Let me see how poverty will 
 serve my turn. I have taken a fresh start. I have 
 determined to stand upon my own merits. If they 
 fail me, I shall fall back upon my millions ; but with 
 God's help I will test them, and see what kind of 
 stuff I am made of. To be young, to be strong, to 
 be poor, — such, in this blessed nineteenth century, 
 is the great basis of solid success. I have resolved 
 to take at least one brief draught from the pure 
 founts of inspiration of my time. I replied to the 
 Captain with such reservations as a brief survey of 
 these principles dictated. What a luxury to pass 
 in a poor man's mind for his brother! I begin to 
 respect myself. Thus much the Captain knows: 
 that I am an educated man, with a taste for paint- 
 ing ; that I have come hither for the purpose of cul- 
 tivating this taste by the study of coast scenery, and 
 for my health. I have reason to believe, moreover, 
 that he suspects me of limited means and of being 
 a good deal of an economist. Amen! Vogue la 
 gaUre! But the point of my story is in his very 
 hospitable offer of lodgings. I had been telling him 
 of my ill success of the morning in the pursuit of 
 the same. He is an odd union of the gentleman of 
 the old school and the old-fashioned, hot-headed 
 
A Landscape Painter 17 
 
 merchant-captain. I suppose that certain traits in 
 these characters are readily convertible. 
 
 "Young man," said he, after taking several medi- 
 tative pufifs of his cigar, "I don't see the point of 
 your living in a tavern, when there are folks about 
 you with more house-room than they know what to 
 do with. A tavern is only half a house, just as one 
 of these new-fashioned screw-propellers is only half 
 a ship. Suppose you walk round and take a look 
 at my place. I own quite a respectable house over 
 yonder to the left of the town. Do you see that old 
 wharf with the tumble-down warehouses, and the 
 long row of elms behind it? I live right in the 
 midst of the elms. We have the dearest little gar- 
 den in the world, stretching down to the. water's 
 edge. It's all as quiet as anything can be, short of 
 a graveyard. The back windows, you know, over- 
 look the harbor; and you can see twenty miles up 
 the bay, and fifty miles out to sea. You can paint 
 to yourself there the livelong day, with no more 
 fear of intrusion than if you were out yonder at the 
 light-ship. There's no one but myself and my 
 daughter, who's a perfect lady. Sir. She teaches 
 music in a young ladies' school. You see, money's 
 an object, as they say. We have never taken board- 
 ers yet, because none came in our track ; but I guess 
 we can learn the ways. I suppose you've boarded 
 before ; you can put us up to a thing or two." 
 
18 A Landscape Painter 
 
 There was something so kindly and honest in the 
 old man's weather-beaten face, something so friendly 
 in his address, that I forthwith struck a bargain 
 with him, subject to his daughter's approval. I am 
 to have her answer to-morrow. This same daugh- 
 ter strikes me as rather a dark spot in the picture. 
 Teacher in a young ladies' school, — ^probably the 
 
 establishment of which Mrs. M spoke to me. I 
 
 suppose she's over thirty. I think I know the 
 species. 
 
 June 1 2th, A.M. — I have really nothing to do but 
 to scribble. "Barkis is willing." Captain Blunt 
 brought me word this morning that his daughter 
 smiles propitious. I am to report this evening; but 
 I shall send my slender baggage in an hour or 
 two. 
 
 p. M. — Here I am, housed. The house is less 
 than a mile from the inn, and reached by a very 
 pleasant road, skirting the harbor. At about six 
 o'clock I presented myself. Captain Blunt had de- 
 scribed the place. A very civil old negress admitted 
 me, and ushered me into the garden, where I found 
 my friends watering their flowers. The old man 
 was in his house-coat and slippers. He gave me a 
 cordial welcome. There is something delightfully 
 easy in his manners, — and in Miss Blunt's, too, for 
 that matter. She received me very nicely. The 
 late Mrs. Blunt was probably a well-bred woman. 
 
A Liondscape Painter 19 
 
 As for Miss Blunt's being thirty, she is about 
 twenty-four. She wore a fresh white dress, with a 
 violet ribbon at her neck, and a rosebud in her but- 
 ton-hole, — or whatever corresponds thereto on the 
 feminine bosom. I thought I discerned in this cos- 
 tume a vague intention of courtesy, of deference, of 
 celebrating my arrival. I don't believe Miss Blunt 
 wears white muslin every day. She shook hands 
 with me, and made me a very frank little speech 
 about her hospitality. "We have never had any in- 
 mates before," said she ; "and we are, consequently, 
 new to the business. I don't know what you expect. 
 I hope you don't expect a great deal. You must ask 
 for anything you want. If we can give it, we shall 
 be very glad to do so ; if we can't, I give you warn- 
 ing that we shall refuse outright." Bravo, Miss 
 Blunt ! The best of it is, that she is decidedly beau- 
 tiful, — and in the grand manner: tall, and rather 
 plump. What is the orthodox description of a 
 pretty girl? — ^white and red? Miss Blunt is not a 
 pretty girl, she is a handsome woman. She leaves 
 an impression of black and red ; that is, she is a florid 
 brunette. She has a great deal of wavy black hair, 
 which encircles her head like a dusky glory, a smoky 
 halo. Her eyebrows, too, are black, but her eyes 
 themselves are of a rich blue gray, the color of 
 those slate-clififs which I saw yesterday, weltering 
 under the tide. Her mouth, however, is her strong 
 
20 A Landscape Painter 
 
 point. It is very large, and contains the finest row 
 of teeth in all this weary world. Her smile is emi- 
 nently intelligent. Her chin is full, and somewhat 
 heavy. All this is a tolerable catalogue, but no 
 picture. I have been tormeriting my brain to dis- 
 cover whether it was her coloring or her form that 
 impressed me most. Fruitless speculation! Seri- 
 ously, I think it was neither; it was her movement. 
 She walks a queen. It was the conscious poise of 
 her head, the unconscious "hang" of her arms, the 
 careless grace and dignity with which she lingered 
 along the garden-path, smelling a red red rose ! She 
 has very little to say, apparently; but when she 
 speaks, it is to the point, and if the point suggests 
 it, with a very sweet smile. Indeed, if she is not 
 talkative, it is not from timidity. Is it from indif- 
 ference? Time will elucidate this, as well as other 
 matters. I cling to the hypothesis that she is amia- 
 ble. She is, moreover, intelligent; she is probably 
 quite reserved ; and she is possibly very proud. She 
 is, in short, a woman of character. There you are. 
 Miss Blunt, at full length, — emphatically the por- 
 trait of a lady. After tea, she gave us some music 
 in the parlor. I confess that I was more taken with 
 the picture of the dusky little room, lighted by the 
 single candle on the piano, and by the effect of Miss 
 Blunt's performance, than with its meaning. She 
 appears to possess a very brilliant touch. 
 
A Landscape Painter 21 
 
 June i8th. — I have now been here almost a week. 
 I occupy two very pleasant rooms. My painting- 
 room is a vast and rather bare apartment, with a 
 very good southern light. I have decked it out 
 with a few old prints and sketches, and have already 
 grown very fond of it. When I had disposed my 
 artistic odds and ends in as picturesque a fashion 
 as possible, I called in my hosts. The Captain 
 looked about silently for some moments, and then 
 inquired hopefully if I had ever tried my hand at a 
 ship. On learning that I had not yet got to ships, 
 he relapsed into a deferential silence. His daughter 
 smiled and questioned very graciously, and called 
 ever3^hing beautiful and delightful; which rather 
 disappointed me, as I had taken her to be a woman 
 of some originality. She is rather a puzzle; — or 
 is she, indeed, a very commonplace person, and the 
 fault in me, who am forever taking women to mean 
 a great deal more than their Maker intended? Re- 
 garding Miss Blunt I have collected a few facts. 
 She is not twenty-four, but twenty-seven years old. 
 She has taught music ever since she was twenty, in 
 a large boarding-school just out of the town, where 
 she originally got her education. Her salary in this 
 establishment, which is, I believe, a tolerably flour- 
 ishing one, and the proceeds of a few additional 
 lessons, constitute the chief revenues of the house- 
 hold. But Blunt fortunately owns his house, and 
 
22 A Landscape Painter 
 
 his needs and habits are of the simplest kind. What 
 does he or his daughter know of the great worldly 
 theory of necessities, ♦^he great worldly scale of 
 pleasures? Miss Blunt's only luxuries are a sub- 
 scription to the circulating library, and an occa- 
 sional walk on the beach, which, like one of Miss 
 Bronte's heroines, she paces in company with an 
 old Newfoundland dog. I am afraid she is sadly 
 ignorant. She reads nothing but novels. I am 
 bound to believe, however, that she has derived from 
 the perusal of these works a certain practical science 
 of her own. "I read all the novels I can get," she 
 said yesterday; "but I only like the good ones. I 
 do so like Zanoni, which I have just finished." I 
 must set her to work at some of the masters. I 
 should like some of those fretful New- York heir- 
 esses to see how this woman lives. I wish, too, that 
 half a dozen of ces messieurs of the clubs might 
 take a peep at the present way of life of their hum- 
 ble servant. We breakfast at eight o'clock. Im- 
 mediately afterwards. Miss Blunt, in a shabby old 
 bonnet and shawl, starts off to school. If the 
 weather is fine, the Captain goes out a-fishing, and 
 I am left to my own devices. Twice I have accom- 
 panied the old man. The second time I was lucky 
 enough to catch a big bluefish, which we had for 
 dinner. The Captain is an excellent specimen of 
 the sturdy navigator, with his loose blue clothes, his 
 
A Landscape Painter 28 
 
 ultra-divergent legs, his crisp white hair, and his 
 jolly thick-skinned visage. He comes of a sea-far- 
 ing English race. There is more or less of the 
 ship's cabin in the general aspect of this antiquated 
 house. I have heard the winds whistle about its 
 walls, on two or three occasions, in true mid-ocean 
 style. And then the illusion is heightened, some- 
 how or other, by the extraordinary intensity of the 
 light. My painting-room is a grand observatory of 
 the clouds. I sit by the half -hour, watching them 
 sail past my high, uncurtained windows. At the 
 back part of the room, something tells you that they 
 belong to an ocean sky ; and there, in truth, as you 
 draw nearer, you behold the vast, gray complement 
 of sea. This quarter of the town is perfectly quiet. 
 Human activity seems to have passed over it, never 
 again to return, and to have left a kind of deposit 
 of melancholy resignation. The streets are clean, 
 bright, and airy ; but this fact seems only to add to 
 the intense sobriety. It implies that the unob- 
 structed heavens are in the secret of their decline. 
 There is something ghostly in the perpetual still- 
 ness. We frequently hear the rattling of the yards 
 and the issuing of orders on the barks and schooners 
 anchored out in the harbor. 
 
 June 28th. — My experiment works far better 
 than I had hoped. I am thoroughly at my ease ; my 
 
24 A Landscape Painter 
 
 peace of mind quite passeth understanding. I work 
 diligently; I have none but pleasant thoughts. The 
 past has almost lost its terrors. For a week now I 
 have been out sketching daily. The Captain carries 
 me to a certain point on the shore of the harbor, I 
 disembark and strike across the fields to a spot 
 where I have established a kind of rendezvous with 
 a particular effect of rock and shadow, which has 
 been tolerably faithful to its appointment. Here I 
 set up my easel, and paint till sunset. Then I re- 
 trace my steps and meet the boat. I am in every 
 way much encouraged. The horizon of my work 
 grows perceptibly wider. And then I am inexpres- 
 sibly happy in the conviction that I am not wholly 
 unfit for a life of (moderate) labor and (compara- 
 tive) privation. I am quite in love with my pov- 
 erty, if I may call it so. As why should I not? At 
 this rate I don't spend eight hundred a year. 
 
 July I2th. — ^We have been having a week of bad 
 weather : constant rain, night and day. This is cer- 
 tainly at once the brightest and the blackest spot in 
 New England. The skies can smile, assuredly; but 
 how they can frown! I have been painting rather 
 languidly, and at a great disadvantage, at my win- 
 dow. . . . Through all this pouring and pattering, 
 Miss Blunt sallies forth to her pupils. She envelops 
 her beautiful he»l in a great woollen hood, her beau- 
 
A Landscape Painter 25 
 
 tiful figure in a kind of feminine mackintosh; her 
 feet she puts into heavy clogs, and over the whole 
 she balances a cotton umbrella. When she comes 
 home, with the rain-drops glistening on her red 
 cheeks and her dark lashes, her cloak bespattered 
 with mud, and her hands red with the cool damp, 
 she is a profoundly wholesome spectacle. I never 
 fail to make her a very low bow, for which she 
 repays me with an extraordinary smile. This work- 
 ing-day side of her character is what especially 
 pleases me in Miss Blunt. This holy working-dress 
 of loveliness and dignity sits upon her with the sim- 
 plicity of an antique drapery. Little use has she 
 for whalebones and furbelows. What a poetry 
 there is, after all, in red hands ! I kiss yours, Made- 
 moiselle. I do so because you are self-helpful ; be- 
 cause you earn your liA^ng; because you are honest, 
 simple, and ignorant (for a sensible woman, that 
 is) ; because you speak and act to the point; because, 
 in short, you are so unlike — certain of your sisters. 
 
 July i6th. — On Monday it cleared up generously. 
 When I went to my window, on rising, I found sky 
 and sea looking, for their brightness and freshness, 
 like a clever English water-color. The ocean is of 
 a deep purple blue; above it, the pure, bright sky 
 looks pale, though it bends with an infinite depth 
 over the inland horizon. Here and there on the 
 
26 A Landscape Painter 
 
 dark breezy water gleams the white cap of a wave, 
 or flaps the white cloak of a fishing-boat. I have 
 been sketching sedulously; I have discovered, within 
 a couple of miles' walk, a large, lonely pond, set in 
 quite a grand landscape of barren rocks and grassy 
 slopes. At one extremity is a broad outlook on the 
 open sea ; at the other, deep buried in the foliage of 
 an apple-orchard, stands an old haunted-looking 
 farmhouse. To the west of the pond is a wide ex- 
 panse of rock and grass, of beach and marsh. The 
 sheep browse over it as upon a Highland moor. 
 Except a few stunted firs and cedars, there is not 
 a tree in sight. When I want shade, I seek it in the 
 shelter of one of the great mossy boulders which up- 
 heave their scintillating shoulders to the sun, or of 
 the long shallow dells where a tangle of blackberry- 
 bushes hedges about a sky-reflecting pool. I have 
 encamped over against a plain, brown hillside, 
 which, with laborious patience, I am transferring 
 to canvas ; and as we have now had the same clear 
 sky for several days, I have almost finished quite 
 a satisfactory little study. I go forth immediately 
 after breakfast. Miss Blunt furnishes me with a 
 napkin full of bread and cold meat, which at the 
 noonday hour, in my sunny solitude, within sight 
 of the slumbering ocean, I voraciously convey to 
 my lips with my discolored fingers. At seven o'clock 
 I return to tea, at which repast we each tell the story 
 
A JLandscape Painter 27 
 
 of our day's work. For poor Miss Blunt, it is day- 
 after day the same story: a wearisome round of 
 visits to the school, and to the houses of the mayor, 
 the parson, the butcher, the baker, whose young la- 
 dies, of course, all receive instruction on the piano. 
 But she doesn't complain, nor, indeed, does she look 
 very weary. When she has put on a fresh calico 
 dress for tea, and arranged her hair anew, and with 
 these improvements flits about with that quiet 
 hither and thither of her gentle footsteps, preparing 
 our evening meal, peeping into the teapot, cutting 
 the solid loaf, — or when, sitting down on the low 
 door-step, she reads out select scraps from the even- 
 ing paper, — or else, when, tea being over, she folds 
 her arms, (an attitude which becomes her mightily,) 
 and, still sitting on the door-step, gossips away the 
 evening in comfortable idleness, while her father 
 and I indulge in the fragrant pipe, and watch the 
 lights shining out, one by one, in different quarters 
 of the darkling bay: at these moments she is as 
 pretty, as cheerful, as careless as it becomes a sen- 
 sible woman to be. What a pride the Captain takes 
 in his daughter! And she, in return, how perfect 
 is her devotion to the old man ! He is proud of her 
 grace, of her tact, of her good sense, of her wit, 
 such as it is. He thinks her to be the most accom- 
 plished of women. He waits upon her as if, instead 
 of his old familiar Esther, she were a newly in- 
 
28 A Landscape Painter 
 
 ducted daughter-in-law. And indeed, if I were his 
 own son, he could not be kinder to me. They are 
 certainly — nay, why should I not say it? — we are 
 certainly a very happy little household. Will it last 
 forever? I say Tife, because both father and daugh- 
 ter have given me a hundred assurances — ^he direct, 
 and she, if I don't flatter myself, after the manner 
 of her sex, indirect — ^that I am already a valued 
 friend. It is natural enough that I should have 
 gained their good-will. They have received at my 
 hands inveterate courtesy. The way to the old 
 man's heart is through a studied consideration of 
 his daughter. He knows, I imagine, that I admire 
 Miss Blunt. But if I should at any time fall below 
 the mark of ceremony, I should have an account to 
 settle with him. All this is as it should be. When 
 people have to economize with the dollars and cents, 
 they have a right to be splendid in their feelings. 
 I have prided myself not a little on my good man- 
 ners towards my hostess. That my bearing has been 
 without reproach is, however, a fact which I do not, 
 in any degree, set down here to my credit; for I 
 would defy the most impertinent of men (whoever 
 he is) to forget himself with this young lady, with- 
 out leave unmistakably given. Those deep, dark 
 eyes have a strong prohibitory force. I record the 
 circumstance simply because in future years, when 
 my charming friend shall have become a distant 
 
A Landscape Painter 29 
 
 shadow, it will be pleasant, in turning over these 
 pages, to find written testimony to a number of 
 points which I shall be apt to charge solely upon my 
 imagination. I wonder whether Miss Blunt, in days 
 to come, referring to the tables of her memory for 
 some trivial matter-of-fact, some prosaic date or 
 half -buried landmark, will also encounter this little 
 secret of ours, as I may call it, — ^will decipher an 
 old faint note to this eflfect, overlaid with the mem- 
 oranda of intervening years. Of course she will. 
 Sentiment aside, she is a woman of an excellent 
 memory. Whether she forgives or not I know not ; 
 but she certainly doesn't forget. Doubtless, virtue 
 is its own reward ; but there is a double satisfaction 
 in being polite to a person on whom it tells. An- 
 other reason for my pleasant relations with the Cap- 
 tain is, that I afford him a chance to rub up his 
 rusty old cosmopolitanism, and trot out his little 
 scraps of old-fashioned reading, some of which are 
 very curious. It is a great treat for him to spin his 
 threadbare yams over again to a sympathetic lis- 
 tener. These warm July evenings, in the sweet- 
 smelling garden, are just the proper setting for his 
 amiable garrulities. An odd enough relation sub- 
 sists between us on this point. Like many gentle- 
 men of his calling, the Captain is harassed by an 
 irresistible desire to romance, even on the least 
 promising themes; and it is vastly amusing to ob- 
 
30 A Landscape Painter 
 
 serve how he will auscultate, as it were, his audi- 
 tor's inmost mood, to ascertain whether it is pre- 
 pared for the absorption of his insidious fibs. 
 Sometimes they perish utterly in the transition: 
 they are very pretty, I conceive, in the deep and 
 briny well of the Captain's fancy; but they won't 
 bear being transplanted into the shallow inland lakes 
 of my land-bred apprehension. At other times, the 
 auditor being in a dreamy, sentimental, and alto- 
 gether unprincipled mood, he will drink the old 
 man's salt-water by the bucketful and feel none the 
 worse for it. Which is the worse, wilfully to tell, or 
 wilfully to believe, a pretty little falsehood which 
 will not hurt any one? I suppose you can't believe 
 wilfully; you only pretend to believe. My part of 
 the game, therefore, is certainly as bad as the Cap- 
 tain's. Perhaps I take kindly to his beautiful per- 
 versions of fact, because I am myself engaged in 
 one, because I am sailing under false colors of the 
 deepest dye. I wonder whether my friends have 
 any suspicion of the real state of the case. How 
 should they? I fancy, that, on the whole, I play my 
 part pretty well. I am delighted to find it come so 
 easy. I do not mean that I experience little diffi- 
 culty in foregoing my hundred petty elegancies and 
 luxuries, — for to these, thank Heaven, I was not so 
 indissolubly wedded that one wholesome shock could 
 not loosen my bonds, — but that I manage more 
 
A JLandscape Painter 81 
 
 cleverly than I expected to stifle those innumerable 
 tacit illusions which might serve effectually to belie 
 my character. 
 
 Sunday, July 20tU. — ^This has been a very pleasant 
 day for me; although in it, of course, I have done 
 no manner of work. I had this morning a delight- 
 ful tete-d-tete with my hostess. She had sprained 
 her ankle, coming downstairs; and so, instead of 
 going forth to Sunday school and to meeting, she 
 was obliged to remain at home on the sofa. The 
 Captain, who is of a very punctilious piety, went off 
 alone. When I came into the parlor, as the church- 
 bells were ringing. Miss Blunt asked me if I never 
 went to meeting. "Never when there is anything 
 better to do at home," said I. 
 
 "What is better than going to church?" she 
 asked, with charming simplicity. 
 
 She was reclining on the sofa, with her foot on a 
 pillow, and her Bible in her lap. She looked by no 
 means afflicted at having to be absent from divine 
 service; and, instead of answering her question, I 
 took the liberty of telling her so. 
 
 "I am sorry to be absent," said she. "You know 
 it's my only festival in the week." 
 
 "So you look upon it as a festival," said I. 
 
 "Isn't it a pleasure to meet one's acquaintance? 
 I confess I am never deeply interested in the ser- 
 
32 A Landscape Painter 
 
 mon, and I very much dislike teaching the children ; 
 but I like wearing my best bonnet, and singing in 
 the choir, and walking part of the way home 
 with " 
 
 "With whom?" 
 
 "With any one who offers to walk with me." 
 
 "With Mr. Johnson, for instance," said I. 
 
 Mr. Johnson is a young lawyer in the village, 
 who calls here once a week, and whose attentions to 
 Miss Blunt have been remarked. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "Mr. Johnson will do as an 
 instance." 
 
 "How he will miss you!" 
 
 "I suppose he will. We sing off the same book. 
 What are you laughing at ? He kindly permits me 
 to hold the book, while he stands with his hands in 
 his pockets. Last Sunday I quite lost patience. 
 'Mr. Johnson,' said I, 'do hold the book! Where 
 are your manners?' He burst out laughing in the 
 midst of the reading. He will certainly have to 
 hold the book to-day." 
 
 "What a 'masterful soul' he is ! I suppose he will 
 call after meeting." 
 
 "Perhaps he will. I hope so." 
 
 "I hope he won't," said I, roundly. "I am going 
 to sit down here and talk to you, and I wish our 
 tete-a-tete not to be interrupted." 
 
 "Have you anything particular to say?" 
 
A Landscape Painter 33 
 
 "Nothing so particular as Mr. Johnson, per- 
 haps." 
 
 Miss Blunt has a very pretty affectation of being 
 more matter-of-fact than she really is. 
 
 "His rights, then," said she, "are paramount to 
 yours." 
 
 "Ah, you admit that he has rights?" 
 
 "Not at all. I simply assert that you have none." 
 
 "I beg your pardon. I have claims which I mean 
 to enforce. I have a claim upon your undivided at- 
 tention, when I pay you a morning call." 
 
 "Your claim is certainly answered. Have I been 
 uncivil, pray?" 
 
 "Not uncivil, perhaps, but inconsiderate. You 
 have been sighing for the company of a third per- 
 son, which you can't expect me to relish." 
 
 "Why not, pray? If I, a lady, can put up with 
 Mr. Johnson's society, why shouldn't you, one of 
 his own sex?" 
 
 "Because he is so outrageously conceited. You, 
 as a lady, or at any rate as a woman, like conceited 
 men." 
 
 "Ah, yes; I have no doubt that I, as a woman, 
 have all kinds of improper tastes. That's an old 
 story." 
 
 "Admit, at any rate, that our friend is conceited." 
 
 "Admit it? Why, I have said so a hundred 
 times. I have told him so." 
 
34 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "Indeed! It has come to that, then?" 
 
 "To what, pray?" 
 
 "To that critical point in the friendship of a lady 
 and gentleman, when they bring against each other 
 all kinds of delightful charges of moral obliquity. 
 Take care, Miss Blunt! A couple of intelligent 
 New-Englanders, of opposite sex, young, unmar- 
 ried, are pretty far gone, when they begin morally 
 to reprobate each other. So you told Mr. Johnson 
 that he is conceited ? And I suppose you added, that 
 he was also dreadfully satirical and skeptical? 
 What was his rejoinder? Let me see. Did he ever 
 tell you that you were a little bit affected?" 
 
 "No : he left that for you to say, in this very in- 
 genious manner. Thank you, sir." 
 
 "He left it for me to deny, which is a great deal 
 prettier. Do you think the manner ingenious?" 
 
 "I think the matter, considering the day and hour, 
 very profane, Mr. Locksley. Suppose you go away 
 and let me read my Bible." 
 
 "Meanwhile," I asked, "what shall I do?" 
 
 "Go and read yours, if you have one." 
 
 "I haven't." 
 
 I was, nevertheless, compelled to retire, with the 
 promise of a second audience in half an hour. Poor 
 Miss Blunt owes it to her conscience to read a cer- 
 tain number of chapters. What a pure and upright 
 soul she is ! And what an edifying spectacle is much 
 
A Landscape Painter 35 
 
 of our feminine piety! Women find a place for 
 everything in their commodious Httle minds, just as 
 they do in their wonderfully subdivided trunks, 
 when they go on a journey. I have no doubt that 
 this young lady stows away her religion in a cor- 
 ner, just as she does her Sunday bonnet, — and, when 
 the proper moment comes, draws it forth, and re- 
 flects while she assumes it before the glass, and 
 blows away the strictly imaginary dust: for what 
 worldly impurity can penetrate through half a dozen 
 layers of cambric and tissue-paper? Dear me, what 
 a comfort it is to have a nice, fresh, holiday faith ! — 
 When I returned to the parlor. Miss Blunt was still 
 sitting with her Bible in her lap. Somehow or 
 other, I no longer felt in the mood for jesting. So 
 I asked her soberly what she had been reading. 
 Soberly she answered me. She inquired how I had 
 spent my half-hour. 
 
 "In thinking good Sabbath thoughts," I said. "I 
 have been walking in the garden." And then I 
 spoke my mind. "I have been thanking Heaven 
 that it has led me, a poor, friendless wanderer, into 
 so peaceful an anchorage." 
 
 "Are you, then, so poor and friendless?" asked 
 Miss Blunt, quite abruptly. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of an art-student under thirty 
 who wasn't poor?" I answered. "Upon my word, I 
 have yet to sell my first picture. Then, as for being 
 
36 A Landscape Painter 
 
 friendless, there are not five people in the world who 
 really care for me." 
 
 "Really care? I am afraid you look too close. 
 And then I think five good friends is a very large 
 number, I think myself very well off with a couple. 
 But if you are friendless, it's probably your own 
 fault." 
 
 "Perhaps it is," said I, sitting down in the rock- 
 ing-chair; "and yet, perhaps, it isn't. Have you 
 found me so very repulsive? Haven't you, on the 
 contrary, found me rather sociable?" 
 
 She folded her arms, and quietly looked at me 
 for a moment, before answering. I shouldn't won- 
 der if I blushed a little. 
 
 "You want a compliment, Mr. Locksley; that's 
 the long and short of it. I have not paid you a 
 compliment since you have been here. How you 
 must have suffered! But it's a pity you couldn't 
 have waited awhile longer, instead of beginning to 
 angle with that very clumsy bait. For an artist, 
 you are very inartistic. Men never know how to 
 wait. 'Have I found you repulsive? haven't I found 
 you sociable?' Perhaps, after all, considering what 
 I have in my mind, it is as well that you asked for 
 your compliment. I have found you charming. I 
 say it freely; and yet I say, with equal sincerity, 
 that I fancy very few others would find you so. I 
 can say decidedly that you are not sociable. You 
 
A Landscape Painter 37 
 
 are entirely too particular. You are considerate of 
 me, because you know that I know that you are so. 
 There's the rub, you see : I know that you know that 
 I know it. Don't interrupt me; I am going to be 
 eloquent. I want you to understand why I don't 
 consider you sociable. You call Mr. Johnson con- 
 ceited; but, really, I don't believe he's nearly as 
 conceited as yourself. You are too conceited to be 
 sociable; he is not. I am an obscure, weak-minded 
 woman, — weak-minded, you know, compared with 
 men. I can be patronized, — ^yes, that's the word. 
 Would you be equally amiable with a person as 
 strong, as clear-sighted as yourself, with a person 
 equally averse with yourself to being under an ob- 
 ligation? I think not. Of course it's delightful to 
 charm people. Who wouldn't? There is no harm 
 in it, as long as the charmer does not set up for a 
 public benefactor. If I were a man, a clever man 
 like yourself, who had seen the world, who was not 
 to be charmed and encouraged, but to be convinced 
 and refuted, would you be equally amiable? It will 
 perhaps seem absurd to you, and it will certainly 
 seem egotistical, but I consider myself sociable, for 
 all that I have only a couple of friends, — ^my father 
 and the principal of the school. That is, I mingle 
 with women without any second thought. Not that 
 I wish you to do so : on the contrary, if the contrary 
 is natural to you. But I don't believe you mingle 
 
88 A 'Landscape Pcdnter 
 
 in the same way with men. You may ask me what 
 I know about it. Of course I know nothing : I sim- 
 ply guess. When I have done, indeed, I mean to 
 beg your pardon for all I have said ; but until then, 
 give me a chance. You are incapable of listening 
 deferentially to stupid, bigoted persons. I am not, 
 I do it every day. Ah, you have no idea what 
 nice manners I have in the exercise of my profes- 
 sion! Every day I have occasion to pocket my 
 pride and to stifle my precious sense of the ridicu- 
 lous, — of which, of course, you think I haven't a 
 bit. It is, for instance, a constant vexation to me 
 to be poor. It makes me frequently hate rich wo- 
 men ; it makes me despise poor ones. I don't know 
 whether you suffer acutely from the narrowness 
 of your own means; but if you do, I dare say you 
 shun rich men. I don't. I like to go into rich peo- 
 ple's houses, and to be very polite to the ladies of 
 the house, especially if they are very well-dressed 
 and ignorant and vulgar. All women are like me in 
 this respect ; and all men more or less like you. That 
 is, after all, the text of my sermon. Compared with 
 us, it has always seemed to me that you are arrant 
 cowards, — that we alone are brave. To be sociable, 
 you must have a great deal of pluck. You are too 
 fine a gentleman. Go and teach school, or open a 
 corner grocery, or sit in a law-office all day, waiting 
 for clients: then you will be sociable. As yet, you 
 
A Landscape Painter 39 
 
 are only agreeable. It is your own fault, if people 
 don't care for you. You don't care for them. That 
 you should be indifferent to their applause is all 
 very well; but you don't care for their indifference. 
 You are amiable, you are very kind, and you are 
 also very lazy. You consider that you are work- 
 ing now, don't you? Many persons would not call 
 it work." 
 
 It was now certainly my turn to fold my arms. 
 
 "And now," added my companion, as I did so, 
 "I beg your pardon." 
 
 "This was certainly worth waiting for," said I. 
 "I don't know what answer to make. My head 
 swims. I don't know whether you have been attack- 
 ing me or praising me. So you advise me to open 
 a comer grocery, do you ?" 
 
 "I advise you to do something that will make you 
 a little less satirical. You had better marry, for 
 instance." 
 
 "Je ne demande pas mieiix. Will you have me? 
 I can't afford it." 
 
 "Marry a rich woman." 
 * I shook my head. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Miss Blunt. "Because people 
 would accuse you of being mercenary? What of 
 that? I mean -to marry the first rich man who of- 
 fers. Do you know that I am tired of living alone 
 in this weary old way, teaching little girls their 
 
40 A Landscape Painter 
 
 gamut, and turning and patching my dresses? I 
 mean to marry the first man who offers." 
 
 "Even if he is poor?" 
 
 "Even if he is poor, ugly, and stupid." 
 
 "I am your man, then. Would you take me, if 
 I were to offer?" 
 
 "Try and see." 
 
 "Must I get upon my knees?" 
 
 "No, you need not even do that. Am I not on 
 mine? It would be too fine an irony. Remain as 
 you are, lounging back in your chair, with your 
 thumbs in your waistcoat." 
 
 If I were writing a romance now, instead of 
 transcribing facts, I would say that I knew not what 
 might have happened at this juncture, had not the 
 door opened and admitted the Captain and Mr. 
 Johnson. The latter was in the highest spirits. 
 
 "How are you. Miss Esther? So you have been 
 breaking your leg, eh? How are you, Mr. Locks- 
 ley? I wish I were a doctor now. Which is it, 
 right or left?" 
 
 In this simple fashion he made himself agreeable 
 to Miss Blunt. He stopped to dinner and talked 
 without ceasing. Whether our hostess had talked 
 herself out in her very animated address to myself 
 an hour before, or whether she preferred to oppose 
 no obstacle to Mr. Johnson's fluency, or whether she 
 was indifferent to him, I know not ; but she held her 
 
A Landscape Painter 41 
 
 tongue with that easy grace, that charming tacit 
 intimation of "We could, and we would," of which 
 she is so perfect a mistress. This very interesting 
 woman has a number of pretty traits in common 
 with her town-bred sisters; only, whereas in these 
 they are laboriously acquired, in her they are se- 
 verely natural. I am sure, that, if I were to plant 
 her in Madison Square to-morrow, she would, after 
 one quick, all-compassing glance, assume the nil 
 admirari in a manner to drive the greatest lady of 
 them all to despair. Johnson is a man of excellent 
 intentions, but no taste. Two or three times I 
 looked at Miss Blunt to see what impression his 
 sallies were making upon her. They seemed to 
 produce none whatever. But I know better, moi. 
 Not one of them escaped her. But I suppose she 
 said to herself that her impressions on this point 
 were no business of mine. Perhaps she was right. 
 It is a disagreeable word to use of a woman you 
 admire ; but I can't help fancying that she has been 
 a little soured. By what? Who shall say? By 
 some old love affair, perhaps. 
 
 July 24tU. — ^This evening the Captain and I took 
 a half-hour's turn about the harbor. I asked him 
 frankly, as a friend, whether Johnson wants to 
 marry his daughter. 
 
 "I guess he does," said the old man ; "and yet I 
 
42 A Landscape Painter 
 
 hope he don't. You know what he is: he's smart, 
 promising, and already sufficiently well off. But 
 somehow he isn't for a man what my Esther is for 
 a woman." 
 
 "That he isn't!" said I; "and honestly, Captain 
 Blunt, I don't know who is " 
 
 "Unless it's yourself," said the Captain. 
 
 "Thank you. I know a great many ways in which 
 Mr, Johnson is more worthy of her than I." 
 
 "And I know one in which you are more worthy 
 of her than he, — ^that is, in being what we used to 
 call a gentleman." 
 
 "Miss Esther made him sufficiently welcome in 
 her quiet way, on Sunday," I rejoined. 
 
 "Oh, she respects him," said Blunt. "As she's 
 situated, she might marry him on that. You see, 
 she's weary of hearing little girls drum on the piano. 
 With her ear for music," added the Captain, "I 
 wonder she has borne it so long." 
 
 "She is certainly meant for better things," said I. 
 
 "Well," answered the Captain, who has an hon- 
 est habit of deprecating your agreement, when it 
 occurs to him that he has obtained it for sentiments 
 which fall somewhat short of the stoical, — "well," 
 said he, with a very dry expression of mouth, "she's 
 born to do her duty. We are all of us bom for 
 that." 
 
 "Sometimes our duty is rather dreary," said I. 
 
A Landscape Painter 
 
 "So it be; but what's the help for it? I don't 
 want to die without seeing my daughter provided 
 for. What she makes by teaching is a pretty slim 
 subsistence. There was a time when I thought she 
 was going to be fixed for Hfe, but it all blew over. 
 There was a young fellow here from down Boston 
 way, who came about as near to it as you can come, 
 when you actually don't. He and Esther were ex- 
 cellent friends. One day Esther came up to me, and 
 looked me in the face, and told me she was en- 
 gaged. 
 
 " 'Who to?' says I, though, of course, I knew, 
 and Esther told me as much. 'When do you expect 
 to marry?' I asked. 
 
 " 'When John grows rich enough,' says she. 
 
 "'When will that be?' 
 
 " 'It may not be for years,' said poor Esther. 
 
 "A whole year passed, and, as far as I could see, 
 the young man came no nearer to his fortune. He 
 was forever running to and fro between this place 
 and Boston. I asked no questions, because I knew 
 that my poor girl wished it so. But at last, one day, 
 I began to think it was time to take an observation, 
 and see whereabouts we stood. 
 
 " 'Has John made his fortune yet?' I asked. 
 
 " 'I don't know, father,' said Esther. 
 
 " 'When are you to be married ?' 
 
 " 'Never!' said my poor little girl, and burst into 
 
44 A Landscape Painter 
 
 tears. 'Please ask me no questions,' said she. 'Our 
 engagement is over. Ask me no questions.' 
 
 " 'Tell me one thing,' said I : 'where is that d — d 
 scoundrel who has broken my daughter's heart?' 
 
 "You should have seen the look she gave me, 
 
 " 'Broken my heart, sir? You are very much 
 mistaken. I don't know who you mean.' 
 
 " 'I mean John Banister,' said I. That was his 
 name. 
 
 " 'I believe Mr. Banister is in China,' says Esther, 
 as grand as the Queen of Sheba. And there was 
 an end of it. I never learnt the ins and outs of it. 
 I have been told that Banister is accumulating money 
 very fast in the China trade." 
 
 August ph. — I have made no entry for more than 
 a fortnight. They tell me I have been very ill ; and 
 I find no difficulty in believing them. I suppose I 
 took cold, sitting out so late, sketching. At all 
 events, I have had a mild intermittent fever. I 
 have slept so much, however, that the time has 
 seemed rather short. I have been tenderly nursed 
 by this kind old gentleman, his daughter, and his 
 maid-servant. God bless them, one and all! I say 
 his daughter, because old Dorothy informs me that 
 for half an hour one morning, at dawn, after a 
 night during which I had been very feeble. Miss 
 Blunt relieved guard at my bedside, while I lay 
 
A Landscape Painter 45 
 
 wrapt in brutal slumber. It is very jolly to see sky 
 and ocean once again. I have got myself into my 
 easy-chair by the open window, with my shutters 
 closed and the lattice open ; and here I sit with my 
 book on my knee, scratching away feebly enough. 
 Now and then I peep from my cool, dark sick-cham- 
 ber out into the world of light. High noon at mid- 
 summer! What a spectacle! There are no clouds 
 in the sky, no waves on the ocean. The sun has it 
 all to himself. To look long at the garden makes 
 the eyes water. And we — "Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes, 
 and Nokes" — ^propose to paint that kingdom of light. 
 Allans, done! 
 
 The loveliest of women has just tapped, and 
 come in with a plate of early peaches. The peaches 
 are of a gorgeous color and plumpness; but Miss 
 Blunt looks pale and thin. The hot weather doesn't 
 agree with her. She is overworked. Confound it! 
 Of course I thanked her warmly for her attentions 
 during my illness. She disclaims all gratitude, and 
 refers me to her father and Mrs. Dorothy. 
 
 "I allude more especially," said I, "to that little 
 hour at the end of a weary night, when you stole in 
 like a kind of moral Aurora, and drove away the 
 shadows from my brain. That morning, you know, 
 I began to get better." 
 
 "It was, indeed, a very little hour," said Miss 
 Blunt. "It was about ten minutes." And then she 
 
A Landscape Painter 
 
 began to scold me for presuming to touch a pen 
 during my convalescence. She laughs at me, in- 
 deed, for keeping a diary at all. "Of all things," 
 cried she, "a sentimental man is the most despic- 
 able." 
 
 I confess I was somewhat nettled. The thrust 
 seemed gratuitous. 
 
 "Of all things," I answered, "a woman without 
 sentiment is the most unlovely." 
 
 "Sentiment and loveliness are all very well, when 
 you have time for them," said Miss Blunt. "I 
 haven't. I'm not rich enough. Good morning." 
 
 Speaking of another woman, I Would say that she 
 flounced out of the room. But such was the gait of 
 Juno, when she moved stiffly over the grass from 
 where Paris stood with Venus holding the apple, 
 gathering up her divine vestment, and leaving the 
 others to guess at her face 
 
 Juno has just come back to say that she forgot 
 what she came for half an hour ago. What will I 
 be pleased to like for dinner? 
 
 "I have just been writing in my diary that you 
 flounced out of the room," said I. 
 
 "Have you, indeed? Now you can write that I 
 have bounced in. There's a nice cold chicken down- 
 stairs," etc., etc. 
 
 August 14th. — ^This afternoon I sent for a light 
 
A Landscape Painter 47 
 
 wagon, and treated Miss Blunt to a drive. We went 
 successively over the three beaches. What a time 
 we had, coming home! I shall never forget that 
 hard trot over Weston's Beach. The tide was very 
 low; and we had the whole glittering, weltering 
 strand to ourselves. There was a heavy blow yes- 
 terday, which had not yet subsided; and the waves 
 had been lashed into a magnificent fury. Trot, 
 trot, trot, trot, we trundled over the hard sand. The 
 sound of the horse's hoofs rang out sharp against 
 the monotone of the thunderous surf, as we drew 
 nearer and nearer to the long line of the cliffs. At 
 our left, almost from the lofty zenith of the pale 
 evening sky to the high western horizon of the tu- 
 multuous dark-green sea, was suspended, so to 
 speak, one of those gorgeous vertical sunsets that 
 Turner loved so well. It was a splendid confusion 
 of purple and green and gold, — ^the clouds flying and 
 flowing in the wind like the folds of a mighty ban- 
 ner borne by some triumphal fleet whose prows 
 were not visible above the long chain of mountain- 
 ous waves. As we reached the point where the cliffs 
 plunge down upon the beach, I pulled up, and we 
 remained for some moments looking out along the 
 low, brown, obstinate barrier at whose feet the im- 
 petuous waters were rolling themselves into powder. 
 
 Augttst 17th. — ^This evening, as I lighted my bed- 
 
48 A Landscape Painter 
 
 room candle, I saw that the Captain had something 
 to say to me. So I waited below until the old man 
 and his daughter had performed their usual pictur- 
 esque embrace, and the latter had given me that 
 hand-shake and that smile which I never failed to 
 exact. 
 
 "Johnson has got his discharge," said the old 
 man, when he had heard his daughter's door close 
 upstairs. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 He pointed with his thumb to the room above, 
 where we heard, through the thin partition, the 
 movement of Miss Blunt's light step. 
 
 "You mean that he has proposed to Miss Es- 
 ther?" 
 
 The Captain nodded. 
 
 "And has been refused?" 
 
 "Flat." 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said I, very honestly. "Did he 
 tell you himself?" 
 
 "Yes, with tears in his eyes. He wanted me to 
 speak for him. I told him it was no use. Then he 
 began to say hard things of my poor girl." 
 
 "What kind of things?" 
 
 "A pack of falsehoods. He says she has no heart. 
 She has promised always to regard him as a friend : 
 it's more than I will, hang him!" 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said I; and now, as I write, I 
 
A Landscape Pcdnier 49 
 
 can only repeat, considering what a hope was here 
 broken, Poor fellow ! 
 
 August 2^d. — I have been lounging about all day, 
 thinking of it, dreaming of it, spooning over it, as 
 they say. This is a decided waste of time. I think, 
 accordingly, the best thing for me to do is, to sit 
 down and lay the ghost by writing out my story. 
 
 On Thursday evening Miss Blunt happened to 
 intimate that she had a holiday on the morrow, it 
 being the birthday of the lady in whose establish- 
 ment she teaches. 
 
 "There is to be a tea-party at four o'clock in the 
 afternoon for the resident pupils and teachers," said 
 Miss Esther. "Tea at four ! what do you think of 
 that? And then there is to be a speech-making by 
 the smartest young lady. As my services are not 
 required, I propose to be absent. Suppose, father, 
 you take us out in your boat. Will you come, Mr. 
 Locksley? We shall have a nice little picnic. Let 
 us go over to old Fort Pudding, across the bay. We 
 will take our dinner with us, and send Dorothy to 
 spend the day with her sister, and put the house-key 
 in our pocket, and not come home till we please." 
 
 I warmly espoused the project, and it was accord- 
 ingly carried into execution the next morning, when, 
 at about ten o'clock, we pushed off from our little 
 wharf at the garden-foot. It was a perfect sum- 
 
50 A Landscape Painter 
 
 mar's day: I can say no more for it. We made a 
 quiet run over to the point of our destination. I 
 shall never forget the wondrous stillness which 
 brooded over earth and water, as we weighed an- 
 chor in the lee of my old friend, — or old enemy, — 
 the ruined fort. The deep, translucent water re- 
 posed at the base of the warm sunlit clifiF like a 
 great basin of glass, which I half expected to hear 
 shiver and crack as our keel ploughed through it. 
 And how color and sound stood out in the trans- 
 parent air! How audibly the little ripples on the 
 beach whispered to the open sky! How our irrev- 
 erent voices seemed to jar upon the privacy of the 
 little cove! The mossy rocks doubled themselves 
 without a flaw in the clear, dark water. The gleam- 
 ing white beach lay fringed with its deep deposits 
 of odorous sea-weed, gleaming black. The steep, 
 straggling sides of the cliffs raised aloft their rug- 
 ged angles against the burning blue of the sky. I 
 remember, when Miss Blunt stepped ashore and 
 stood upon the beach, relieved against the heavy 
 shadow of a recess in the cliff, while her father and 
 I busied ourselves with gathering up our baskets and 
 fastening the anchor — I remember, I say, what a 
 figure she made. There is a certain purity in this 
 Cragthorpe air which I have never seen approached, 
 — a lightness, a brilliancy, a crudity, which allows 
 perfect liberty of self-assertion to each individual 
 
A Landscape Painter 51 
 
 object in the landscape. The prospect is ever more 
 or less like a picture which lacks its final process, its 
 reduction to unity. Miss Blunt's figure, as she stood 
 there on the beach, was almost criarde; but how 
 lovely it was ! Her light muslin dress, gathered up 
 over her short white skirt, her little black mantilla, 
 the blue veil which she had knotted about her neck, 
 the crimson shawl which she had thrown over her 
 arm, the little silken dome which she poised over her 
 head in one gloved hand, while the other retained her 
 crisp draperies, and which cast down upon her face 
 a sharp circle of shade, out of which her cheerful 
 eyes shone darkly and her happy mouth smiled 
 whitely, — these are some of the hastily noted points 
 of the picture. 
 
 "Young woman," I cried out, over the water, "I 
 do wish you might know how pretty you look !" 
 
 "How do you know I don't?" she answered. "I 
 should think I might. You don't look so badly, 
 yourself. But it's not I ; it's the accessories." 
 
 "Hang it! I am going to become profane," I 
 called out again. 
 
 "Swear ahead," said the Captain, 
 "I am going to say you are devilish pretty." 
 "Dear me ! is that all ?" cried Miss Blunt, with a 
 little light laugh, which must have made the tutelar 
 sirens of the cove ready to die with jealousy down 
 in their submarine bowers. 
 
52 A Landscape Painter 
 
 By the time the Captain and I had landed our 
 effects, our companion had tripped lightly up the 
 forehead of the cliff — in one place it is very retreat- 
 ing — ^and disappeared over its crown. She soon 
 reappeared with an intensely white handkerchief 
 added to her other provocations, which she waved 
 to us, as we trudged upward, carrying our baskets. 
 When we stopped to take breath on the summit, and 
 wipe our foreheads, we, of course, rebuked her who 
 was roaming about idly with her parasol and gloves. 
 
 "Do you think I am going to take any trouble or 
 do any work?" cried Miss Esther, in the greatest 
 good-humor. "Is not this my holiday? I am not 
 going to raise a finger, nor soil these beautiful 
 gloves, for which I paid a dollar at Mr. Dawson's 
 in Cragthorpe. After you have found a shady place 
 for your provisions, I would like you to look for a 
 spring. I am very thirsty." 
 
 "Find the spring yourself, Miss," said her father. 
 "Mr. Locksley and I have a spring in this basket. 
 Take a pull, sir." 
 
 And the Captain drew forth a stout black bottle. 
 
 "Give me a cup, and I will look for some water," 
 said Miss Blunt. "Only I'm so afraid of the snakes ! 
 If you hear a scream, you may know it's a snake." 
 
 "Screaming snakes!" said I; "that's a new spe- 
 cies." 
 
 What nonsense it all sounds like now! As we 
 
A Landscape Painter 53 
 
 looked about us, shade seemed scarce, as it generally 
 is, in this region. But Miss Blunt, like the very 
 adroit and practical young person she is, for all that 
 she would have me believe the contrary, soon dis- 
 covered a capital cool spring in the shelter of a 
 pleasant little dell, beneath a clump of firs. Hither, 
 as one of the young gentlemen who imitate Tenny- 
 son would say, we brought our basket. Blunt and I ; 
 while Esther dipped the cup, and held it dripping 
 to our thirsty lips, and laid the cloth, and on the 
 grass disposed the platters round. I should have 
 to be a poet, indeed, to describe half the happiness 
 and the silly poetry and purity and beauty of this 
 bright long summer's day. We ate, drank, and 
 talked; we ate occasionally with our fingers, we 
 drank out of the necks of our bottles, and we talked 
 with our mouths full, as befits (and excuses) those 
 who talk wild nonsense. We told stories without 
 the least point. Blunt and I made atrocious puns. 
 I believe, indeed, that Miss Blunt herself made one 
 little punkin, as I called it. If there had been any 
 superfluous representative of humanity present, to 
 register the fact, I should say that we made fools 
 of ourselves. But as there was no fool on hand, I 
 need say nothing about it. I am conscious myself 
 of having said several witty things, which Miss 
 Blunt understood: in vino Veritas. The dear old 
 Captain twanged the long bow indefatigably. The 
 
54 A Landscape Painter 
 
 bright high sun lingered above us the livelong day, 
 and drowned the prospect with light and warmth. 
 One of these days I mean to paint a picture which in 
 future ages, when my dear native land shall boast 
 a national school of art, will hang in the Salon Carre 
 of the great central museum, (located, let us say, 
 in Chicago,) and remind folks — or rather make 
 them forget — Giorgione, Bordone, and Veronese: 
 A Rural Festival ; three persons feasting under some 
 trees; scene, nowhere in particular; time and hour, 
 problematical. Female figure, a big brune; young 
 man reclining on his elbow ; old man drinking. An 
 empty sky, with no end of expression. The whole 
 stupendous in color, drawing, feeling. Artist un- 
 certain; supposed to be Robinson, 1900. That's 
 about the programme. 
 
 After dinner the Captain began to look out across 
 the bay, and, noticing the uprising of a little breeze, 
 expressed a wish to cruise about for an hour or 
 two. He proposed to us to walk along the shore to 
 a point a couple of miles northward, and there meet 
 the boat. His daughter having agreed to this propo- 
 sition, he set off with the lightened pannier, and in 
 less than half an hour we saw him standing out 
 from shore. Miss Blunt and I did not begin our 
 walk for a long, long time. We sat and talked be- 
 neath the trees. At our feet, a wide cleft in the 
 hills — almost a glen — stretched down to the silent 
 
A Landscape Painter 55 
 
 beach. Beyond lay the familiar ocean-line. But, as 
 many philosophers have observed, there is an end to 
 all things. At last we got up. Miss Blunt said, 
 that, as the air was freshening, she believed she 
 would put on her shawl. I helped her to fold it into 
 the proper shape, and then I placed it on her shoul- 
 ders, her crimson shawl over her black silk sack. 
 And then she tied her veil once more about her neck, 
 and gave me her hat to hold, while she effected a 
 partial redistribution of her hair-pins. By way of 
 being humorous, I placed her hat on my own head ; 
 at which she was kind enough to smile, as with 
 downcast face and uplifted elbows she fumbled 
 among her braids. And then she shook out the 
 creases of her dress, and drew on her gloves; and 
 finally she said, "Well !" — that inevitable tribute to 
 time and morality which follows upon even the mild- 
 est form of dissipation. Very slowly it was that 
 we wandered down the little glen. Slowly, too, we 
 followed the course of the narrow and sinuous 
 beach, as it keeps to the foot of the low cliffs. We 
 encountered no sign of human interest. Our con- 
 versation I need hardly repeat. I think I may trust 
 it to the keeping of my memory; I think I shall be 
 likely to remember it. It was all very sober and 
 sensible, — such talk as it is both easy and pleasant 
 to remember; it was even prosaic, — or, at least, if 
 there was a vein of poetry in it, I should have defied 
 
56 A Landscape Painter 
 
 a listener to put his finger on it. There was no ex- 
 altation of feeling or utterance on either side; on 
 one side, indeed, there was very little utterance. Am 
 I wrong in conjecturing, however, that there was 
 considerable feeling of a certain quiet kind? Miss 
 Blunt maintained a rich, golden silence. I, on the 
 other hand, was very voluble. What a sweet, wom- 
 anly listener she is! 
 
 September ist. — I have been working steadily for 
 a week. This is the first day of autumn. Read 
 aloud to Miss Blunt a little Wordsworth. 
 
 September loth. Midnight. — ^Worked without 
 interruption, — until yesterday, inclusive, that is. 
 But with the day now closing — or opening — ^begins 
 a new era. My poor vapid old diary, at last you 
 shall hold a fact. 
 
 For three days past we have been having damp, 
 chilly weather. Dusk has fallen early. This even- 
 ing, after tea, the Captain went into town, — on busi- 
 ness, as he said: I believe, to attend some Poor- 
 house or Hospital Board. Esther and I went into 
 the parlor. The room seemed cold. She brought 
 in the lamp from the dining-room, and proposed we 
 should have a little fire. I went into the kitchen, 
 procured an armful of wood, and while she drew 
 the curtains and wheeled up the table, I kindled a 
 
A Landscape Painter 57 
 
 lively, crackling blaze. A fortnight ago she would 
 not have allowed me to do this without a protest. 
 She would not have offered to do it herself, — ^not 
 she! — ^but she would have said that I was not here 
 to serve, but to be served, and would have pretended 
 to call Dorothy. Of course I should have had my 
 own way. But we have changed all that. Esther 
 went to her piano, and I sat down to a book. I 
 read not a word. I sat looking at my mistress, and 
 thinking with a very uneasy heart. For the first 
 time in our friendship, she had put on a dark, warm 
 dress: I think it was of the material called alpaca. 
 The first time I saw her she wore a white dress with 
 a purple neck-ribbon; now she wore a black dress 
 with the same ribbon. That is, I remember 
 wondering, as I sat there eyeing her, whether it 
 was the same ribbon, or merely another like it. My 
 heart was in my throat; and yet I thought of 
 a number of trivialities of the same kind. At last I 
 spoke. 
 
 "Miss Blunt," I said, "do you remember the first 
 evening I passed beneath your roof, last June?" 
 
 "Perfectly," she replied, without stopping. 
 
 "You played this same piece." 
 
 "Yes; I played it very badly, too. I only half 
 knew it. But it is a showy piece, and I wished to 
 produce an effect. I didn't know then how indiffer- 
 ent you are to music." 
 
58 A "Landscape Painter 
 
 "I paid no particular attention to the piece. I 
 was intent upon the performer." 
 
 "So the performer supposed." 
 
 "What reason had you to suppose so?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know. Did you ever know a 
 woman to be able to give a reason, when she has 
 guessed aright ?" 
 
 "I think they generally contrive to make up a 
 reason, afterwards. Come, what was yours?" 
 
 "Well, you stared so hard." 
 
 "Fie! I don't believe it. That's unkind." 
 
 "You said you wished me to invent a reason. If 
 I really had one, I don't remember it." 
 
 "You told me you remembered the occasion in 
 question perfectly." 
 
 "I meant the circumstances. I remember what 
 we had for tea ; I remember what dress I wore. But 
 I don't remember my feelings. They were naturally 
 not very memorable." 
 
 "What did you say, when your father proposed 
 my coming?" 
 
 "I asked how much you would be willing to pay." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "And then, if you looked 'respectable'." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "That was all. I told father that he could do 
 as he pleased." 
 
 She continued to play. Leaning back in my chair, 
 
A Landscape Painter 59 
 
 I continued to look at her. There was a consider- 
 able pause. 
 
 "Miss Esther," said I, at last. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Excuse me for interrupting you so often. But," 
 — and I got up and went to the piano, — "but I 
 thank Heaven that it has brought you and me 
 together." 
 
 She looked up at me and bowed her head with a 
 little smile, as her hands still wandered over the 
 keys. 
 
 "Heaven has certainly been very good to us," 
 said she. 
 
 "How much longer are you going to play?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know. As long as you like." 
 
 "K you want to do as I like, you will stop 
 immediately." 
 
 She let her hands rest on the keys a moment, 
 and gave me a rapid, questioning look. Whether 
 she found a sufficient answer in my face I know 
 not; but she slowly rose, and, with a very pretty 
 affectation of obedience, began to close the instru- 
 ment. I helped her to do so. 
 
 "Perhaps you would like to be quite alone," she 
 said. "I suppose your own room is too cold." 
 
 "Yes," I answered, "you've hit it exactly. I 
 wish to be alone. I wish to monopolize this cheer- 
 
60 A Landscape Painter 
 
 ful blaze. Hadn't you better go into the kitchen 
 and sit with the cook? It takes you women to 
 make such cruel speeches." 
 
 "When we women are cruel, Mr. Locksley, it is 
 without knowing it. We are not wilfully so. When 
 we learn that we have been unkind, we very humbly 
 ask pardon, without even knowing what our crime 
 has been." And she made me a very low curtsy. 
 
 "I will tell you what your crime has been," said 
 I. "Come and sit by the fire. It's rather a long 
 story." 
 
 "A long story? Then let me get my work." 
 
 "Confound your work! Excuse me, but I mean 
 it. I want you to listen to me. Believe me, you 
 will need all your thoughts." 
 
 She looked at me steadily a moment, and I re- 
 turned her glance. During that moment I was re- 
 flecting whether I might silently emphasize my 
 request by laying a lover's hand upon her shoulder. 
 I decided that I might not. She walked over and 
 quietly seated herself in a low chair by the fire. 
 Here she patiently folded her arms. I sat down 
 before her. 
 
 "With you. Miss Blunt," said I, "one must be 
 very explicit. You are not in the habit of taking 
 things for granted. You have a great deal of 
 imagination, but you rarely exercise it on the be- 
 half of other people." I stopped a moment. 
 
A Landscape Painter 61 
 
 "Is that my crime?" asked my companion. 
 
 "It's not so much a crime as a vice," said I; 
 "and perhaps not so much a vice as a virtue. Your 
 crime is, that you are so stone-cold to a poor devil 
 who loves you." 
 
 She burst into a rather shrill laugh. I wonder 
 whether she thought I meant Johnson. 
 
 "Who are you speaking for, Mr. Locksley?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Are there so many? For myself," 
 
 "Honestly?" 
 
 "Honestly doesn't begin to express it." 
 
 "What is that French phrase that you are for- 
 ever using? I think I may say, 'Allans, done!'" 
 
 "Let us speak plain English, Miss Blunt." 
 
 " 'Stone-cold' is certainly very plain English. I 
 don't see the relative importance of the two branches 
 of your proposition. Which is the principal, and 
 which the subordinate clause, — that I am stone- 
 cold, as you call it, or that you love me, as you 
 call it?" 
 
 "As I call it? What would you have me call 
 it? For God's sake. Miss Blunt, be serious, or I 
 shall call it something else. Yes, I love you. Don't 
 you believe it?" 
 
 "I am open to conviction." 
 
 "Thank God!" said I. 
 
 And I attempted to take her hand. 
 
62 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "No, no, Mr. Locksley," said she, — "not just yet,- 
 if you please." 
 
 "Action speaks louder than words," said I. 
 
 "There is no need of speaking loud. I hear you 
 perfectly." 
 
 "I certainly sha'n't whisper," said I; "although 
 it is the custom, I believe, for lovers to do so. Will 
 you be my wife?" 
 
 "I sha'n't whisper, either, Mr. Locksley. Yes, 
 I will." 
 
 And now she put out her hand. — ^That's my 
 fact. 
 
 September 12th. — ^We are to be married within, 
 three weeks. 
 
 September igth. — I have been in New York a 
 week, transacting business. I got back yesterday. 
 I find every one here talking about our engage- 
 ment. Esther tells me that it was talked about a 
 month ago, and that there is a very general feeling 
 of disappointment that I am not rich. 
 
 "Really, if you don't mirid it," said I, "I don't 
 see why others should." 
 
 "I don't know whether you are rich or not," says 
 Esther; "but I know that I am." 
 
 "Indeed ! I was not aware that you had a private 
 fortune," etc., etc. 
 
A Landscape Painter 63 
 
 This little farce is repeated in some shape every 
 day. I am very idle. I smoke a great deal, and 
 lounge about all day, with my hands in my pockets. 
 I am free from that ineffable weariness of ceaseless 
 giving which I experienced six months ago. I was 
 shorn of my hereditary trinkets at that period ; and I 
 have resolved that this engagement, at all events, 
 shall have no connection with the shops. I was 
 balked of my poetry once; I sha'n't be a second 
 time. I don't think there is much danger of this. 
 Esther deals it out with full hands. She takes a 
 very pretty interest in her simple outfit, — showing 
 me triumphantly certain of her purchases, and mak- 
 ing a great mystery about others, which she is 
 pleased to denominate table-cloths and napkins. 
 Last evening I found her sewing buttons on a table- 
 cloth. I had heard a great deal of a certain gray 
 silk dress; and this morning, accordingly, she 
 marched up to me, arrayed in this garment. It is 
 trimmed with velvet, and hath flounces, a train, 
 and all the modern improvements generally. 
 
 "There is only one objection to it," said Esther, 
 parading before the glass in my painting-room: 
 "I am afraid it is above our station." 
 
 "By Jove ! I'll paint your portrait in it," said I, 
 "and make our fortune. All the other men who 
 have handsome wives will bring them to be 
 painted." 
 
64 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "You mean all the women who have handsome 
 dresses," said Esther, with great humility. 
 
 Our wedding is fixed for next Thursday. I 
 tell Esther that it will be as little of a wedding, 
 and as much of a marriage, as possible. Her father 
 and her good friend the schoolmistress alone are to 
 be present. — My secret oppresses me considerably; 
 but I have resolved to keep it for the honeymoon, 
 when it may take care of itself. I am harassed with 
 a dismal apprehension, that, if Esther were to dis- 
 cover it now, the whole thing would be d, refaire. 
 I have taken rooms at a romantic little watering- 
 place called Clifton, ten miles off. The hotel is 
 already quite free of city-people, and we shall be 
 almost alone. 
 
 September 28th. — We have been here two days. 
 The little transaction in the church went off 
 smoothly. I am truly sorry for the Captain. We 
 drove directly over here, and reached the place at 
 dusk. It was a raw, black day. We have a couple 
 of good rooms, close to the savage sea. I am 
 nevertheless afraid I have made a mistake. It 
 would perhaps have been wiser to go inland. These 
 things are not immaterial: we make our own 
 heaven, but we scarcely make our own earth. I am 
 writing at a little table by the window, looking out 
 on the rocks, the gathering dusk, and the rising 
 
A Landscape Painter 65 
 
 fog. My wife has wandered down to the rocky 
 platform in front of the house. I can see her from 
 here, bareheaded, in that old crimson shawl, talking 
 to one of the landlord's little boys. She has just 
 given the little fellow a kiss, bless her heart! I 
 remember her telling me once that she was very 
 fond of little boys; and, indeed, I have noticed 
 that they are seldom too dirty for her to take on 
 her knee. I have been reading over these pages for 
 the first time in — I don't know when. They are 
 filled with her, — even more in thought than in word. 
 I believe I will show them to her, when she comes 
 in. I will give her the book to read, and sit by her, 
 watching her face, — ^watching the great secret dawn 
 upon her. 
 
 Later. — Somehow or other, I can write this 
 quietly enough ; but I hardly think I shall ever write 
 any more. When Esther came in, I handed her this 
 book. 
 
 "I want you to read it," said I. 
 
 She turned very pale, and laid it on the table, 
 shaking her head. 
 
 "I know it," she said. 
 
 "What do you know?" 
 
 "That you have a hundred thousand a year. But, 
 believe me, Mr. Locksley, I am none the worse for 
 the knowledge. You intimated in one place in your 
 
66 A Landscape Painter 
 
 book that I am born for wealth and splendor. I 
 believe I am. You pretend to hate your money; 
 but you would not have had me without it. If 
 you really love me, — and I think you do, — you will 
 not let this make any difference. I am not such a 
 fool as to attempt to talk here about my sensations. 
 But I remember what I said." 
 
 "What do you expect me to do ?" I asked. "Shall 
 I call you some horrible name and cast you off?" 
 
 "I expect you to show the same courage that I 
 am showing. I never said I loved you. I never 
 deceived you in that. I said I would be your wife. 
 So I will, faithfully. I haven't so much heart as 
 you think; and yet, too, I have a great deal more. 
 I am incapable of more than one deception. — 
 Mercy! didn't you see it? didn't you know it? see 
 that I saw it? know that I knew it? It was diamond 
 cut diamond. You deceived me; I deceived you. 
 Now that your deception ceases, mine ceases. Now 
 we are free, with our hundred thousand a year! 
 Excuse me, but it sometimes comes across me! 
 Now we can be good and honest and true. It was 
 all a make-believe virtue before." 
 
 "So you read tha:t thing?" I asked: actually — 
 strange as it may seem — for something to say. 
 
 "Yes, while you were ill. It was lying with your 
 pen in it, on the table. I read it because I suspected. 
 Otherwise I shouldn't have done so." 
 
A Landscape Painter 67 
 
 "It was the act of a false woman," said I. 
 
 "A false woman? No, — simply of a woman. ] 
 am a woman, sir." And she began to smile 
 "Come, you be a man!" 
 
II 
 
 POOR RICHARD 
 A Story in Three Parts 
 
PART I 
 
 Miss Whittaker's garden covered a couple of 
 acres, behind and beside her house, and at its farther 
 extremity was bounded by a narrow meadow, which 
 in turn was bordered by the old, disused towing- 
 path beside the river, at this point a slow and shallow 
 stream. Its low, flat banks were unadorned with 
 rocks or trees, and a towing-path is not in itself a 
 romantic promenade. Nevertheless, here sauntered 
 bareheaded, on a certain spring evening, the mistress 
 of the acres just mentioned and many more beside, 
 in sentimental converse with an impassioned and 
 beautiful youth. 
 
 She herself had been positively plain, but for the 
 frequent recurrence of a magnificent broad smile, — 
 which imparted loveliness to her somewhat plebeian 
 features, — and (in another degree) for the elegance 
 of her dress, which expressed one of the later stages 
 of mourning, and was of that voluminous abundance 
 
 71 
 
72 A Landscape Painter 
 
 proper to women who are massive in person, and 
 rich besides. Her companion's good looks, for very 
 good they were, in spite of several defects, were set 
 off by a shabby suit, as carelessly worn as it was in- 
 artistically cut. His manner, as he walked and 
 talked, was that of a nervous, passionate man, 
 wrought almost to desperation; while her own was 
 that of a person self-composed to generous atten- 
 tion. A brief silence, however, had at last fallen 
 upon them. Miss Whittaker strolled along quietly, 
 looking at the slow-mounting moon, and the young 
 man gazed on the ground, swinging his stick. Fi- 
 nally, with a heavy blow, he brought it to earth. 
 "O Gertrude !" he cried, "I despise myself." 
 "That's very foolish," said Gertrude. 
 "And, Gertrude, I adore you." 
 "That's more foolish still," said Gertrude, with 
 her eyes still on the moon. And then, suddenly and 
 somewhat impatiently transferring them to her com- 
 panion's face, "Richard," she asked, "what do you 
 mean when you say you adore me ?" 
 "Mean? I mean that I love you." 
 "Then, why don't you say what you mean?" 
 The young man looked at her a moment. "Will 
 you give me leave," he asked, "to say all that I 
 mean ?" 
 
 "Of course." Then, as he remained silent, "I 
 listen," added Gertrude. 
 
Poor Richard 73 
 
 Yet he still said nothing, but went striking ve- 
 hemently at the weeds by the water's edge, like one 
 who may easily burst into tears of rage. 
 
 "Gertrude!" he suddenly exclaimed, "what more 
 do you want than the assurance that I love you?" 
 
 "I want nothing more. That assurance is by it- 
 self delightful enough. You yourself seemed to 
 wish to add something more." 
 
 "Either you won't understand me," cried Rich- 
 ard, "or" — ^flagrantly vicious for twenty seconds — 
 "you can't!" 
 
 Miss Whittaker stopped and looked thoughtfully 
 into his face. "In our position," she said, "if it 
 becomes you to sacrifice reflection to feeling, it be- 
 comes me to do the reverse. Listen to me, Richard. 
 I do understand you, and better, I fancy, than you 
 understand yourself." 
 
 "O, of course!" 
 
 But she continued, heedless of his interruption. 
 "I thought that, by leaving you to yourself awhile, 
 your feelings might become clearer to you. But 
 they seem to be growing only more confused. I 
 have been so fortunate, or so unfortunate, I hardly 
 know which," — and she smiled faintly, — "as to 
 please you. That's all very well, but you must not 
 make too much of it. Nothing can make me hap- 
 pier than to please you, or to please any one. But 
 here it must stop with you, as it stops with others." 
 
74 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "It does not stop here with others," 
 
 "I beg your pardon. You have no right to say 
 that. It is partly out of justice to others that I 
 speak to you as I am doing. I shall always be one 
 of your best friends, but I shall never be more. It 
 is best I should tell you this at once. I might trifle 
 with you awhile and make you happy (since upon 
 such a thing you are tempted to set your happiness) 
 by allowing you to suppose that I had given you my 
 heart ; but the end would soon come, and then where 
 should we be? You may in your disappointment 
 call me heartless now, — I freely give you leave to 
 call me anything that may ease your mind, — but 
 what would you call me then ? Friendship, Richard, 
 is a heavenly cure for love. Here is mine," and she 
 held out her hand. 
 
 "No, I thank you," said Richard, gloomily fold- 
 ing his arms. "I know my own feelings," and he 
 raised his voice. "Haven't I lived with them night 
 and day for weeks and weeks ? Great Heaven, Ger- 
 trude, this is no fancy. I'm not of that sort. My 
 whole life has gone into my love. God has let me 
 idle it away hitherto, only that I might begin it with 
 you. Dear Gertrude, hear me. I have the heart of 
 a man. I know I'm not respectable, but I devoutly 
 believe I'm lovable. It's true that I've neither 
 worked, nor thought, nor studied, nor turned a 
 penny. But, on the other hand, I've never cared for 
 
Poor Richard 75 
 
 a woman before. I've waited for you. And now — 
 now, after all, I'm to sit down and be pleased! The 
 Devil! Please other men, madam ! Me you delight, 
 you intoxicate." 
 
 An honest flush rose to Gertrude's cheek. "So 
 much the worse for you!" she cried with a bitter 
 laugh. "So much the worse for both of us! But 
 what is your point? Do you wish to marry me?" 
 
 Richard flinched a moment under this tacit propo- 
 sition suddenly grown vocal ; but not from want of 
 heart. "Of course I do," he said. 
 
 "Well, then, I only pity you the more for your 
 consistency. I can only entreat you again to rest 
 contented with my friendship. It's not such a bad 
 substitute, Richard, as I understand it. What my 
 love might be I don't know, — I couldn't answer for 
 that ; but of my friendship I'm sure. We both have 
 our duties in this matter, and I have resolved to take 
 a liberal view of mine. T might lose patience with 
 you, you know, and dismiss you, — leave you alone 
 with your dreams, and let you break your heart. 
 But it's rather by seeing more of me than by seeing 
 less, that your feelings will change." 
 
 "Indeed! And yours?" 
 
 "I have no doubt they will change, too; not in 
 kind, but in degree. The better I know you,- 1 am 
 sure, the better I shall like you. The better, too, 
 you will like me. Don't turn your back upon me. 
 
76 A Landscape Painter 
 
 I speak the truth. You will get to entertain a seri- 
 ous opinion of me, — ^which I'm sure you haven't 
 now, or you wouldn't talk of my intoxicating you. 
 But you must be patient. It's a singular fact that 
 it takes longer to like a woman than to love her. A 
 sense of intoxication is a very poor feeling to marry 
 upon. You wish, of course, to break with your idle- 
 ness, and your bad habits, — you see I am so thor- 
 oughly your friend that I'm not afraid of touching 
 upon disagreeable facts, as I should be if I were your 
 mistress. But you are so indolent, so irresolute, so 
 undisciplined, so uneducated," — Gertrude spoke de- 
 liberately, and watched the effect of her words, — 
 "that you find a change of life very difficult. I pro- 
 pose, with your consent, to appoint myself your 
 counsellor. Henceforth my house will be open to 
 you as to my dearest friend. Come as often and 
 stay as long as you please. Not in a few weeks, per- 
 haps, nor even in a few months, but in God's good 
 time, you will be a noble young man in working 
 order, — which I don't consider you now, and which 
 I know you don't consider yourself. But I have a 
 great opinion of your talents," (this was very 
 » shrewd of Gertrude,) "and of your heart. If I 
 turn out to have done you a service, you'll not want 
 to marry me then." 
 
 Richard had silently listened, with a deepening 
 frown. "That's all very pretty," he said ; "but" — 
 
7'oor Richard 77 
 
 and the reader will see that, in his earnestness, he 
 was inclined to dispense with courtesy — "it's rotten, 
 — rotten from beginning to end. What's the mean- 
 ing of all that rigmarole about the inconsistency of 
 friendship and love? Such talk is enough to drive 
 one mad. Refuse me outright, and send me to the 
 Devil if you must; but don't bemuddle your own 
 brains at the same time. But one little word knocks 
 it all to pieces : I want you for my wife. You make 
 an awful mistake in treating me as a boy, — an awful 
 mistake. I am in working order. I have begun life 
 in loving you. I have broken with drinking as ef- 
 fectually as if I hadn't touched a drop of liquor for 
 twenty years. I hate it, I loathe it. I've drunk 
 my last. No, Gertrude, I'm no longer a boy, — 
 you've cured me of that. Hang it, that's why I love 
 you! Don't you see? Ah, Gertrude!" — and his 
 voice fell, — "you're a great enchantress ! You have 
 no arts, you have no beauty even, (can't a lover 
 deal with facts now?), but you are an enchantress 
 without them. It's your nature. You are so di- 
 vinely, damnably honest ! That excellent speech just 
 now was meant to smother my passion; but it has 
 only inflamed it. You will say it was nothing but 
 common sense. Very likely; but that is the very 
 point. Your common sense captivates me. It's for 
 that that I love you." 
 
 He spoke with so relentless a calmness that Ger- 
 
78 A Landscape Painter 
 
 trude was sickened. Here she found herself weaker 
 than he, while the happiness of both of them de- 
 manded that she should be stronger. 
 
 "Richard Clare," she said, "you are unkind!" 
 There was a tremor in her voice as she spoke; and 
 as she ceased speaking, she burst into tears. A self- 
 ish sense of victory invaded the young man's breast. 
 He threw his arm about her; but she shook it off. 
 "You are a coward, sir!" she cried. 
 
 "Oho !" said Richard, flushing angrily. 
 
 "You go too far; you persist beyond decency." 
 
 "You hate me now, I suppose," said Richard, 
 brutally, like one at bay. 
 
 Gertrude brushed away her tears. "No, indeed," 
 she answered, sending him a dry, clear glance. "To 
 hate you, I should have to have loved you. I pity 
 you still." 
 
 Richard looked at her a moment. "I don't feel 
 tempted to return the feeling, Gertrude," said he. 
 "A woman with so much head as you needs no 
 pity." 
 
 "I have not head enough to read your sarcasm, 
 sir; but I have heart enough to excuse it, and I 
 mean to keep a good heart to the end. I mean to 
 keep my temper, I mean to be just, I mean to be 
 conclusive, and not to have to return to this matter. 
 It's not for my pleasure, I would have you know; 
 that I am so explicit. I have nerves as well as you. 
 
Poor Richard 79 
 
 Listen, then. If I don't love you, Richard, in your 
 way, I don't ; and if I can't, I can't. We can't love 
 by will. But with friendship, when it is once estab- 
 lished, I believe the will and the reason may have 
 a great deal to do. I will, therefore, put the whole 
 of my mind into my friendship for you, and in that 
 way we shall perhaps be even. Such a feeling — as 
 I shall naturally show it — ^will, after all, not be very 
 different from that other feeling you ask — as I 
 should naturally show it. Bravely to reconcile him- 
 self to such difference as there is, is no more than 
 a man of honor ought to do. Do you understand 
 me."^ 
 
 "You have an admirable way of putting things. 
 'After all,' and 'such difference as there is'! The 
 difference is the difference of marriage and no-mar- 
 riage. I suppose you don't mean that you are will- 
 ing to live with me without that ceremony?" 
 
 "You suppose correctly." 
 
 "Then why do you falsify matters ? A woman is 
 either a man's wife, or she isn't." 
 
 "Yes; and a woman is either a man's friend, or 
 she isn't." 
 
 "And you are mine, and I'm an ungrateful brute 
 not to rest satisfied! That's what you mean. 
 Heaven knows you're right," — and he paused a mo- 
 ment, with his eyes on the ground. "Don't despise 
 me, Gertrude," he resumed. "I'm not so ungrate- 
 
80 A Landscape Painter 
 
 ful as I seem. I'm very much obliged to you for 
 the pains you have taken. Of course, I understand 
 your not loving me. You'd be a grand fool if you 
 did; and you're no fool, Gertrude." 
 
 "No, I'm no fool, Richard. It's a great respon- 
 sibility, — it's dreadfully vulgar; but, on the whole, 
 I'm rather glad." 
 
 "So am I. I could hate you for it ; but there is no 
 doubt it's why I love you. If you were a fool, you 
 might love me; but I shouldn't love you, and if I 
 must choose, I prefer that." 
 
 "Heaven has chosen for us. Ah, Richard," pur- 
 sued Gertrude, with admirable simplicity, "let us be 
 good and obey Heaven, and we shall be sure to be 
 happy," — and she held out her hand once more. 
 
 Richard took it and raised it to his lips. She felt 
 their pressure and withdrew it. 
 
 "Now you must leave me," she said. "Did you 
 ride?" 
 
 "My horse is at the village." 
 
 "You can go by the river, then. Good night." 
 
 "Good night." 
 
 The young man moved away in the gathering 
 dusk, and Miss Whittaker stood for a moment look- 
 ing after him. 
 
 To appreciate the importance of this conversation, 
 the reader must know that Miss Gertrude Whitta- 
 ker was a young woman of four-and-twenty, whose 
 
Poor Richard 81 
 
 father, recently deceased, had left her alone in the 
 world, with a great fortune, accumulated by various 
 enterprises in that part of the State. He had ap- 
 pointed a distant and elderly kinswoman, by name 
 Miss Pendexter, as his daughter's household com- 
 panion; and an old friend of his own, known to 
 combine shrewdness with integrity, as her financial 
 adviser. Motherless, country-bred, and homely- 
 featured, Gertrude, on arriving at maturity, had 
 neither the tastes nor the manners of a fine lady. 
 Of a robust and active make, with a warm heart, a 
 cool head, and a very pretty talent for affairs, she 
 was, in virtue both of her wealth and of her tact, 
 one of the chief figures of the neighborhood. These 
 facts had forced her into a prominence which she 
 made no attempt to elude, and in which she now felt 
 thoroughly at home. She knew herself to be a 
 power in the land; she knew that, present and ab- 
 sent, she was continually talked about as the rich 
 Miss Whittaker; and although as modest as a wo- 
 man need be, she was neither so timid nor so nervous 
 as to wish to compromise with her inevitable distinc- 
 tions. Her feelings were, indeed, throughout, 
 strong, rather than delicate ; and yet there was in her 
 whole nature, as the world had learned to look at it, 
 a moderation, a temperance, a benevolence, an or- 
 derly freedom, which bespoke universal respect. 
 She was impulsive, and yet discreet; economical. 
 
82 A Landscape Painter 
 
 and yet generous ; humorous, and yet serious ; keenly 
 discerning of human distinctions, and yet almost in- 
 discriminately hospitable ; with a prodigious fund of 
 common sense beneath all; and yet beyond this, — 
 like the priest behind the king, — and despite her 
 broadly prosaic, and as it were secular tone, a cer- 
 tain latent suggestion of heroic possibilities, which 
 he who had once become sensible of it (supposing 
 him to be young and enthusiastic) would linger 
 about her hoping to detect, as you might stand 
 watchful of a florid and vigorous dahlia, which for 
 an instant, in your passage, should have proved de- 
 liciously fragrant. It is upon the actual existence, 
 in more minds than one, of a mystifying sense of 
 this sweet and remote perfume, that our story is 
 based. 
 
 Richard Clare and Miss Whittaker were old 
 friends. They had in the first place gone democrat- 
 ically to the town school together as children ; and 
 then their divergent growth, as boy and girl, had 
 acknowledged an elastic bond in a continued inti- 
 macy between Gertrude and Fanny Clare, Richard's 
 sister, who, however, in the fulness of time had 
 married, and had followed her husband to Cali- 
 fornia. With her departure the old relations of 
 habit between her brother and her friend had slack- 
 ened, and gradually ceased. Richard had grown up 
 a rebellious and troublesome boy, with a disposition 
 
Poor Richard 83 
 
 combining stolid apathy and hot-headed impatience 
 in equal proportions. Losing both of his parents be- 
 fore he was well out of his boyhood, he had found 
 himself at the age of sixteen in possession actual, 
 and as he supposed uncontested, of the paternal 
 farm. It was not long, however, before those 
 turned up who were disposed to question his im- 
 mediate ability to manage it; the result of which 
 was, that the farm was leased for five years, and 
 that Richard was almost forcibly abducted by a ma- 
 ternal uncle, living on a farm of his own some three 
 hundred miles away. Here our young man spent 
 the remainder of his minority, ostensibly learning 
 agriculture with his cousins, but actually learning 
 nothing. He had very soon established, and had 
 subsequently enjoyed without a day's interval, the 
 reputation of an ill-natured fool. He was dull, dis- 
 obliging, brooding, lowering. Reading and shoot- 
 ing he liked a little, because they were solitary pas- 
 times ; but to common duties and pleasures he proved 
 himself as incompetent as he was averse. It was 
 possible to live with him only because he was at 
 once too selfish and too simple for mischief. As 
 soon as he came of age he resumed possession of 
 the acres on which his boyhood had been passed, 
 and toward which he gravitated under an instinct 
 of mere local affection, rather than from any intelli- 
 gent purpose. He avoided his neighbors, his father's 
 
84 A Landscape Painter 
 
 former associates ; he rejected, nay, he violated, their 
 counsel ; he informed them that he wanted no help 
 but what he paid for, and that he expected to work 
 his farm for himself and by himself. In short, he 
 proved himself to their satisfaction egregiously un- 
 grateful, conceited, and arrogant. They were not 
 slow to discover that his incapacity was as great as 
 his conceit. In two years he had more than undone 
 the work of the late lessee, which had been an im- 
 provement on that of the original owner. In the 
 third year, it seemed to those who observed him that 
 there was something so wanton in his errors as 
 almost to impugn his sanity. He appeared to have 
 accepted them himself, and to have given up all 
 pretence of work. He went about silent and sullen, 
 like a man who feels that he has a quarrel with fate. 
 About this time it became generally known that he 
 was often the worse for liquor; and he hereupon 
 acquired the deplorable reputation of a man worse 
 than unsociable, — a man who drinks alone, — 
 although it was still doubtful whether this practice 
 was the cause or the effect of his poor crops. About 
 this time, too, he resumed acquaintance with Ger- 
 trude Whittaker. For many months after his return 
 he had been held at his distance, together with most 
 of his rural compeers, by the knowledge of her 
 father's bitter hostility to all possible suitors and 
 fortune-hunters; and then, subsequently, by the ill- 
 
Poor Richard 85 
 
 ness preceding the old man's death ; but when at last, 
 on the expiration of her term of mourning, Miss 
 Whittaker had opened to society her long blockaded 
 ports, Richard had, to all the world's amazement, 
 been among the first to profit by this extension of 
 the general privilege, and to cast anchor in the wide 
 and peaceful waters of her friendship. He found 
 himself at this moment, considerably to his surprise, 
 in his twenty-fourth year, that is, a few months 
 Gertrude's junior. 
 
 It was impossible that she should not have gath- 
 ered from mere juxtaposition a vague impression of 
 his evil repute and of his peculiar relation to his 
 neighbors, and to his own affairs. Thanks to this 
 impression, Richard found a very warm welcome, — 
 the welcome of compassion. Gertrude gave him a 
 heavy arrear of news from his sister Fanny, with 
 whom he had dropped correspondence, and, impelled 
 by Fanny's complaints of his long silence, ventured 
 upon a friendly admonition that he should go 
 straight home and write a letter to California. Rich- 
 ard sat before her, gazing at her out of his dark eyes, 
 and not only attempting no defence of his conduct, 
 but rejoicing dumbly in the utter absence of any pos- 
 sible defence, as of an interruption to his compan- 
 ion's virtue. He wished that he might incontinently 
 lay bare all his shortcomings to her delicious reproof. 
 He carried away an extraordinary sense of general 
 
A Landscape Painter 
 
 alleviation; and forthwith began a series of visits, 
 which in the space of some ten weeks culminated in 
 the interview with which our narrative opens. Pain- 
 fully diffident in the company of most women, Rich- 
 ard had not from the first known what it was to be 
 shy with Gertrude. As a man of the world finds it 
 useful to refresh his social energies by an occasional 
 tete-a-tete of an hour with himself, so Richard, with 
 whom solitude was the rule, derived a certain austere 
 satisfaction from an hour's contact with Miss Whit- 
 taker's consoling good sense, her abundance, her 
 decent duties and comforts. Gradually, however, 
 from a salutary process, this became almost an 
 sesthetic one. It was now pleasant to go to Gertrude, 
 because he enjoyed the contagion of her own repose, 
 — ^because he witnessed her happiness without a 
 sensation of envy, — because he forgot his own entan- 
 glements and errors, — ^because, finally, his soul slept 
 away its troubles beneath her varying glance, very 
 much as his body had often slept away its weariness 
 in the shade of a changing willow. But the soul, 
 like the body, will not sleep long without dreaming ; 
 and it will not dream often without wishing at last 
 to tell its dreams. Richard had one day ventured 
 to impart his visions to Gertrude, and the revelation 
 had apparently given her serious pain. The fact 
 that Richard Clare (of all men in the world!) had 
 somehow worked himself into an intimacy with Miss 
 
Poor Richard 87 
 
 Whittaker very soon became public property among 
 their neighbors; and in the hands of these good 
 people, naturally enough, received an important 
 addition in the inference that he was going to marry 
 her. He was, of course, esteemed a very lucky 
 fellow, and the prevalence of this impression was 
 doubtless not without its effect on the forbearance 
 of certain long-suffering creditors. And even if she 
 was not to marry him, it was further argued, she 
 yet might lend him money; for it was assumed 
 without question that the necessity of raising money 
 was the mainspring of Richard's suit. It is needless 
 to inform the reader that this assumption was — ^to 
 use a homely metaphor — without a leg to stand 
 upon. Our hero had faults enough, but to be mer- 
 cenary was not one of them ; nor was an excessive 
 concern on the subject of his debts one of his virtues. 
 As for Gertrude, wherever else her perception of 
 her friend's feelings may have been at fault, it was 
 not at fault on this point. That he loved her as 
 desperately as he declared, she indeed doubted; but 
 it never occurred to her to question the purity of his 
 affection. And so, on the other hand, it was strictly 
 out of her heart's indifference that she rejected him, 
 and not for the disparity of their fortunes. In 
 accepting his very simple and natural overtures to 
 friendship, in calling him "Richard" in remembrance 
 of old days, and in submitting generally to the terms 
 
88 A Landscape Painter 
 
 of their old relations, she had foreseen no senti- 
 mental catastrophe. She had viewed her friend 
 from the first as an object of lively material concern. 
 She had espoused his interests (like all good women, 
 Gertrude was ever more or less of a partisan) be- 
 cause she loved his sister, and because she pitied him- 
 self. She would stand to him in loco sororis. The 
 reader has seen that she had given herself a long 
 day's work. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that Richard's sober 
 retreat at the close of the walk by the river implied 
 any instinct of resignation to the prospects which 
 Gertrude had opened to him. It is explained rather 
 by an intensity of purpose so deep as to fancy that 
 it can dispense with bravado. This was not the 
 end of his suit, but the beginning. He would not 
 give in until he was positively beaten. It was all 
 very well, he reflected, that Gertrude should reject 
 him. Such a woman as she ought properly to be 
 striven for, and there was something ridiculous in 
 the idea that she should be easily won, whether by 
 himself or by another. Richard was a slow thinker, 
 but he thought more wisely than he talked ; and he 
 now took back all his angry boasts of accomplished 
 self-mastery, and humbly surveyed the facts of the 
 case. He was on the way to recovery, but he was 
 by no means cured, and yet his very humility assured 
 him that he was curable. He was no hero, but he 
 
Poor Richard 89 
 
 was better than his hfe; he was no scholar, but in 
 his own view at least he was no fool. He was good 
 enough to be better ; he was good enough not to sit 
 by the hour soaking his slender brains in whiskey. 
 And at the very least, if he was not worthy to 
 possess Gertrude, he was yet worthy to strive to 
 obtain her, and to live forevermore upon the glory 
 of having been formally refused by the great Miss 
 Whittaker. He would raise himself then to that 
 level from which he could address her as an equal, 
 from which he could borrow that authority of which 
 he was now so shamefully bare. How he would do 
 this, he was at a loss to determine. He was con- 
 scious of an immense fund of brute volition, but he 
 cursed his barbarous ignorance, as he searched in 
 vain for those high opposing forces the defeat of 
 which might lend dignity to his struggle. He longed 
 vaguely for some continuous muscular effort, at the 
 end of which he should find himself face to face with 
 his mistress. But as, instead of being a Pagan hero, 
 with an enticing task-list of impossibilities, he was 
 a plain New England farmer, with a bad conscience, 
 and nature with him and not against him, — as, after 
 slaying his dragon, after breaking with liquor, his 
 work was a simple operation in common sense, — in 
 view of these facts he found but little inspiration in 
 his prospect. Nevertheless he fronted it bravely. 
 He was not to obtain Gertrude by making a for- 
 
90 A Landscape Painter 
 
 tune, but by making himself a man, by learning to 
 think. But as to learn to think is to learn to 
 work, he would find some use for his muscle. He 
 would keep sober and clear-headed; he would re- 
 trieve his land and pay his debts. Then let her 
 refuse him if she could, — or if she dared, he was 
 wont occasionally to add. 
 
 Meanwhile Gertrude on her side sat quietly at 
 home, revolving in her own fashion a dozen ideal 
 schemes for her friend's redemption and for the 
 diversion of his enthusiasm. Not but what she meant 
 rigorously to fulfil her part of the engagement to 
 which she had invited him in that painful scene by 
 the river. Yet whatever of that firmness, patience, 
 and courtesy of which she possessed so large a stock 
 she might still oppose to his importunities, she could 
 not feel secure against repeated intrusion (for it 
 was by this term that she was disposed to qualify 
 all unsanctioned transgression of those final and 
 immovable limits which she had set to her immense 
 hospitality) without the knowledge of a partial 
 change at least in Richard's own attitude. Such a 
 change could only be effected through some prepara- 
 tory change in his life ; and a change in his life could 
 be brought about only by the introduction of some 
 new influence. This influence, however, was very 
 hard to find. However positively Gertrude had 
 dwelt upon the practical virtue of her own friend- 
 
Poor Richard 91 
 
 ship, she was now on further reflection led sadly to 
 distrust the exclusive use of this instrument. He 
 was welcome enough to that, but he needed some- 
 thing more. It suddenly occurred to her, one morn- 
 ing after Richard's image had been crossing and 
 recrossing her mental vision for a couple of hours 
 with wearisome pertinacity, that a world of good 
 might accrue to him through the friendship of a 
 person so unexceptionable as Captain Severn. There 
 was no one, she declared within herself, who would 
 not be better for knowing such a man. She would 
 recommend Richard to his kindness, and him she 
 would recommend to Richard's — what? Here was 
 the rub ! Where was there common ground between 
 Richard and such a one as he? To request him to 
 like Richard was easy; to ask Richard to like him 
 was ridiculous. If Richard could only know him, 
 the work were done; he couldn't choose but love 
 him as a brother. But to bespeak Richard's respect 
 for an object was to fill him straightway with 
 aversion for it. Her young friend was so pitiable 
 a creature himself, that it had never occurred to 
 her to appeal to his sentiments of compassion. All 
 the world seemed above him, and he was conse- 
 quently at odds with all the world. If some worthy 
 being could be found, even less favored of nature 
 and of fortune than himself, to such a one he might 
 become attached by a useful sjmipathy. There was 
 
92 A Landscape Painter 
 
 indeed nothing particularly enviable in Captain 
 Severn's lot, and herein Richard might properly ex- 
 perience a fellow-feeling for him; but nevertheless 
 he was apparently quite contented with it, and thus 
 he was raised several degrees above Richard, who 
 would be certain to find something aggressive in his 
 equanimity. Still, for all this, Gertrude would bring 
 them together. She had a high estimate of the Cap- 
 tain's generosity, and if Richard should wantonly 
 fail to conform to the situation, the loss would be 
 his own. It may be thought that in this enterprise 
 Captain Severn was somewhat inconsiderately han- 
 dled. But a generous woman will freely make a 
 missionary of the man she loves. These words sug- 
 gest the propriety of a short description of the per- 
 son to whom they refer. 
 
 Edmund Severn was a man of eight-and-twenty, 
 who, having for some time combated fortune and 
 his own inclinations as a mathematical tutor in a 
 second-rate country college, had, on the opening of 
 the war, transferred his valor to a more heroic field. 
 His regiment of volunteers, now at work before 
 Richmond, had been raised in Miss Whittaker's dis- 
 trict, and beneath her substantial encouragement. 
 His soldiership, like his scholarship, was solid rather 
 than brilliant. He was not destined to be heard of 
 at home, nor to leave his regiment ; but on many an 
 important occasion in Virginia he had proved him- 
 
Poor Richard 93 
 
 self in a modest way an excellently useful man. 
 Coming up early in the war with a severe wound, 
 to be nursed by a married sister domiciled in Ger- 
 trude's neighborhood, he was, like all his fellow- 
 suflferers within a wide circuit, very soon honored 
 with a visit of anxious inquiry from Miss Whittaker, 
 who was as yet known to him only by report, and 
 who transmitted to him the warmest assurances of 
 sympathy and interest, together with the liveliest 
 offers of assistance; and, incidentally as it were to 
 these, a copious selection from the products of her 
 hot-house and store-room. Severn had taken the 
 air for the first time in Gertrude's own great cush- 
 ioned barouche, which she had sent to his door at 
 an early stage of his convalescence, and which of 
 course he had immediately made use of to pay his 
 respects to his benefactress. He was confounded by 
 the real humility with which, on this occasion, be- 
 twixt smiles and tears, she assured him that to be ai 
 service to such as him was for her a sacred privilege. 
 Never, thought the Captain as he drove away, had 
 he seen so much rustic breadth combined with so 
 much womanly grace. Half a dozen visits during 
 the ensuing month more than sufficed to convert him 
 into what is called an admirer; but, as the weeks 
 passed by, he felt that there were great obstacles to 
 his ever ripening into a lover. Captain Severn was 
 a serious man ; he was conscientious, discreet, delib- 
 
94 A Landscape Painter 
 
 erate, unused to act without a definite purpose. 
 Whatever might be the intermediate steps, it was 
 necessary that the goal of an enterprise should have 
 become an old story to him before he took the first 
 steps. And, moreover, if the goal seemed a profit- 
 able or an honorable station, he was proof against 
 the perils or the discomforts of the journey; while 
 if, on the other hand, it offered no permanent repose, 
 he generally found but little difficulty in resisting the 
 incidental allurements. In pursuance of this habit, 
 or rather in obedience to this principle, of carefully 
 fixing his programme, he had asked himself whether 
 he was prepared to face the logical results of a series 
 of personal attentions to our heroine. Since he had 
 determined a twelvemonth before not to marry until, 
 by some means or another, he should have evoked a 
 sufficient income, no great change had taken place 
 in his fortunes. He was still a poor man and an 
 unsettled one ; he was still awaiting his real vocation. 
 Moreover, while subject to the chances of war, he 
 doubted his right to engage a woman's affections: 
 he shrank in horror from the thought of making a 
 widow. Miss Whittaker was one in five thousand. 
 Before the luminous fact of her existence, his dim 
 ideal of the desirable wife had faded into vapor. 
 But should he allow this fact to invalidate all the 
 stem precepts of his reason? He could no more 
 afford to marry a rich woman than a poor one. 
 
Poor Richard 95 
 
 When he should have earned a subsistence for two, 
 then he would be free to marry whomsoever he 
 might fancy, — z. beggar or an heiress. The truth is, 
 that the Captain was a great deal too proud. It was 
 his fault that he could not bring himself to forget 
 the difference between his poverty and Gertrude's 
 wealth. He would of course have resented the 
 insinuation that the superior fortune of the woman 
 he loved should really have force to prevent him 
 from declaring his love ; but there is no doubt that 
 in the case before us this fact arrested his passion 
 in its origin. Severn had a most stoical aversion to 
 being in debt. It is certain that, after all, he would 
 have made a very graceful debtor to his mistress 
 or his wife ; but while a woman was as yet neither 
 his mistress nor his wife, the idea of being beholden 
 to her was essentially distasteful to him. It would 
 have been a question with one who knew him, 
 whether at this juncture this frigid instinct was des- 
 tined to resist the warmth of Gertrude's charms, or 
 whether it was destined gradually to melt away. 
 There would have been no question, however, but 
 that it could maintain itself only at the cost of great 
 suffering to its possessor. At this moment, then, 
 Severn had made up his mind that Gertrude was not 
 for him, and that it behooved him to be sternly 
 vigilant both of his impulses and his impressions. 
 That Miss Whittaker, with a hundred rational cares. 
 
96 A Landscape Painter 
 
 was anything less than supremely oblivious of him, 
 individually, it never occurred to him to suspect. 
 The truth is, that Gertrude's private and personal 
 emotions were entertained in a chamber of her heart 
 so remote from the portals of speech that no sound 
 of their revelry found its way into the world. She 
 constantly thought of her modest, soldierly, scholarly 
 friend as of one whom a wise woman might find it 
 very natural to love. But what was she to him ? A 
 local roadside figure, — at the very most a sort of 
 millionaire Maud Muller, — with whom it was pleas- 
 ant for a lonely wayfarer to exchange a friendly 
 "good-morning." Her duty was to fold her arms 
 resignedly, to sit quietly on the sofa, and watch a 
 great happiness sink below the horizon. With this 
 impression on Gertrude's part it is not surprising 
 that Severn was not wrenched out of himself. The 
 prodigy was apparently to be wrought — if wrought 
 at all — by her common, unbought sweetness. It is 
 true that this was of a potency sufficient almost to 
 work prodigies ; but as yet its effect upon Severn had 
 been none other than its effect upon all the world. 
 It kept him in his kindliest humor. It kept him even 
 in the humor of talking sentiment ; but although, in 
 the broad sunshine of her listening, his talk bloomed 
 thick with field-flowers, he never invited her to pluck 
 the least little daisy. It was with perfect honesty, 
 therefore, that she had rebutted Richard's insinua- 
 
Poor Richard 97 
 
 tion that the Captain enjoyed any especial favor. He 
 was as yet but another of the pensioners of her good- 
 nature. 
 
 The result of Gertrude's meditations was, that she 
 despatched a note to each of her two friends, re- 
 questing them to take tea with her on the following 
 day. A couple of hours before tea-time she received 
 a visit from one Major Luttrel, who was recruiting 
 for a United States regiment at a large town, some 
 ten miles away, and who had ridden over in the 
 afternoon, in accordance with a general invitation 
 conveyed to him through an old lady who had 
 bespoken Miss Whittaker's courtesy for him as a 
 man of delightful manners and wonderful talents. 
 Gertrude, on her venerable friend's representations, 
 had replied, with her wonted alacrity, that she would 
 be very glad to see Major Luttrel, should he ever 
 come that way, and then had thought no more about 
 him until his card was brought to her as she was 
 dressing for the evening. He found so much to say 
 to her, that the interval passed very rapidly for both 
 of them before the simultaneous entrance of Miss 
 Pendexter and of Gertrude's guests. The two offi- 
 cers were already slightly known to each other, and 
 Richard was accordingly presented to each of them. 
 They eyed the distracted-looking young farmer with 
 some curiosity. Richard's was at all times a figure 
 to attract attention; but now he was almost pic- 
 
98 A Landscape Painter 
 
 turesque (so Severn thought at least) with his care- 
 less garments, his pale face, his dark mistrustful 
 eyes, and his nervous movements. Major Luttrel, 
 who struck Gertrude as at once very agreeable and 
 the least bit in the world disagreeable, was, of course, 
 invited to remain, — which he straightway consented 
 to do; and it soon became evident to Miss Whitta- 
 ker that her little scheme was destined to miscarry. 
 Richard practised a certain defiant silence, which, 
 as she feared, gave him eventually a decidedly ridic- 
 ulous air. His companions displayed toward their 
 hostess that half-avowed effort to shine and to out- 
 shine natural to clever men who find themselves con- 
 curring to the entertainment of a young and agree- 
 able woman. Richard sat by, wondering, in splenetic 
 amazement, whether he was an ignorant boor, or 
 whether they were only a brace of inflated snobs. 
 He decided, correctly enough, in substance, for the 
 former hypothesis. For it seemed to him that Ger- 
 trude's consummate accommodation (for as such 
 he viewed it) of her tone and her manner to theirs 
 added prodigiously (so his lover's instinct taught 
 him) to her loveliness and dignity. How magnani- 
 mous an impulse on Richard's part was this sub- 
 mission for his sweetheart's sake to a fact damning 
 to his own vanity, could have been determined only 
 by one who knew the proportions of that vanity. He 
 writhed and chafed under the polish of tone and the 
 
Poor Richard 99 
 
 variety of allusion by which the two officers con- 
 signed him to insignificance; but he was soon lost 
 in wonder at the mettlesome grace and vivacity with 
 which Gertrude sustained her share of the conver- 
 sation. For a moment it seemed to him that her 
 tenderness for his equanimity (for should she not 
 know his mind, — she who had made it?) might 
 reasonably have caused her to forego such an exhibi- 
 tion of her social accomplishments as would but 
 remind him afresh of his own deficiencies; but the 
 next moment he asked himself, with a great revul- 
 sion of feeling, whether he, a conscious suitor, should 
 fear to know his mistress in her integrity. As he 
 gulped down the sickening fact of his comparative, 
 nay, his absolute ignorance of the great world rep- 
 resented by his rivals, he felt like anticipating its 
 consequences by a desperate sally into the very field 
 of their conversation. To some such movement 
 Gertrude was continually inviting him by her glances, 
 her smiles, her questions, and her appealing silence. 
 But poor Richard knew that, if he should attempt 
 to talk, he would choke; and this assurance he im- 
 parted to his friend in a look piteously eloquent. 
 He was conscious of a sensation of rage under which 
 his heart was fast turning into a fiery furnace, 
 destined to consume all his good resolutions. He 
 could not answer for the future now. Suddenly, as 
 tea was drawing to a close, he became aware that 
 
100 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Captain Severn had lapsed into a silence very nearly 
 as profound as his own, and that he was covertly 
 watching the progress of a lively dialogue between 
 Miss Whittaker and Major Luttrel. He had the 
 singular experience of seeing his own feelings re- 
 flected in the Captain's face; that is, he discerned 
 there an incipient jealousy. Severn too was in love ! 
 On rising from table, Gertrude proposed an ad- 
 journment to the garden, where she was very fond 
 of entertaining her friends at this hour. The sun 
 had sunk behind a long line of hills, far beyond the 
 opposite bank of the river, a portion of which was 
 discernible through a gap in the intervening wood. 
 The high-piled roof and chimney-stacks, the pic- 
 turesquely crowded surface, of the old patched and 
 renovated farm-house which served Gertrude as a 
 villa, were ruddy with the declining rays. Our 
 friends' long shadows were thrown over the short 
 grass. Gertrude, having graciously anticipated the 
 gentlemen's longing for their cigars, suggested a 
 stroll toward the river. Before she knew it, she had 
 accepted Major Luttrel's arm; and as Miss Pen- 
 dexter preferred remaining at home, Severn and 
 Richard found themselves lounging side by side at a 
 short distance behind their hostess. Gertrude, who 
 had marked the reserve which had suddenly fallen 
 upon Captain Severn, and in her simplicity had re- 
 ferred it to some unwitting failure of attention on 
 
Poor Richard 101 
 
 her own part, had hoped to repair her neglect by 
 having him at her own side. She was in some degree 
 consoled, however, by the sight of his happy jux- 
 taposition with Richard. As for Richard, now that 
 he was on his feet and in the open air, he found it 
 easier to speak. 
 
 "Who is that man?" he asked, nodding toward the 
 Major. 
 
 "Major Luttrel, of the — th Artillery." 
 
 "I don't like his- face much," said Richard. 
 
 "Don't you?" rejoined Severn, amused at his 
 companion's bluntness. "He's not handsome, but 
 he looks like a soldier." 
 
 "He looks like a rascal, I think," said Richard. 
 
 Severn laughed outright, so that Gertrude glanced 
 back at him. "Dear me ! I think you put it rather 
 strongly. I should call it a very intelligent face." 
 
 Richard was sorely perplexed. He had expected 
 to find acceptance for his bitterest animadversions, 
 and lo! here was the Captain fighting for his enemy. 
 Such a man as that was no rival. So poor a hater 
 could be but a poor lover. Nevertheless, a certain 
 new-bom mistrust of his old fashion of measuring 
 human motives prevented him from adopting this 
 conclusion as final. He would try another ques- 
 tion. 
 
 "Do you know Miss Whittaker well?" he asked. 
 
 "Tolerably well. She was very kind to me when 
 
102 A Landscape Painter 
 
 I was ill. Since then I've seen her some dozen 
 times." 
 
 "That's a way she has, being kind," said Richard, 
 with what he deemed considerable shrewdness. But 
 as the Captain merely puffed his cigar responsively, 
 he pursued, "What do you think of her face?" 
 
 "I like it very much," said the Captain. 
 
 "She isn't beautiful," said Richard, cunningly. 
 
 Severn was silent a moment, and then, just as 
 Richard was about to dismiss him from his thoughts, 
 as neither formidable nor satisfactory, he replied, 
 with some emphasis, "You mean she isn't pretty. 
 She is beautiful, I think, in spite of the irregularity 
 of her face. It's a face not to be forgotten. She 
 has no features, no color, no lilies or roses, no 
 attitudes; but she has looks, expression. Her face 
 has character; and so has her figure. It has no 
 'style,' as they call it ; but that only belongs properly 
 to a work of art, which Miss Whittaker's figure 
 isn't, thank Heaven ! She's as unconscious of it as 
 Nature herself." 
 
 Severn spoke Richard's mind as well as his own. 
 That "She isn't beautiful" had been an extempore 
 version of the young man's most sacred dogma, 
 namely. She is beautiful. The reader will remember 
 that he had so translated it on a former occasion. 
 Now, all that he felt was a sense of gratitude to 
 the Captain for having put it so much more finely 
 
Poor Richard 103 
 
 thati he, the above being his choicest public expres- 
 sion of it. But the Captain's eyes, somewhat bright- 
 ened by his short but fervid speech, were following 
 Gertrude's slow steps. Richard saw that he could 
 leam more from them than from any further oral 
 declaration; for something in the mouth beneath 
 them seemed to indicate that it had judged itself to 
 have said enough, and it was obviously not the mouth 
 of a simpleton. As he thus deferred with an un- 
 wonted courtesy to the Captain's silence, and trans- 
 ferred his gaze sympathetically to Gertrude's 
 shapely shoulders and to her listening ear, he gave 
 utterance to a telltale sigh, — a sigh which there was 
 no mistaking. Severn looked about ; it was now his 
 turn to scrutinize. "Good Heavens !" he exclaimed, 
 "that boy is in love with her !" 
 
 After the first shock of surprise, he accepted this 
 fact with rational calmness. Why shouldn't he be 
 in love with her ? "Je le suis Men" said the Captain ; 
 "or, rather, I'm not." Could it be, Severn pursued, 
 that he was a favorite ? He was a mannerless young 
 farmer; but it was plain that he had a soul of his 
 own. He almost wished, indeed, that Richard might 
 prove to be in Gertrude's good graces. "But if he 
 is," he reflected, "why should he sigh? It is true 
 that there is no arguing for lovers. I, who am out 
 in the cold, take my comfort in whistling most im- 
 pertinently. It may be that my friend here groans 
 
104 A Landscape Painter 
 
 for very bliss. I confess, however, that he scarcely 
 looks like a favored swain." 
 
 And forthwith this faint-hearted gentleman felt a 
 twinge of pity for Richard's obvious infelicity; and 
 as he compared it with the elaborately defensive 
 condition of his own affections, he felt a further 
 pang of self-contempt. But it was easier to restore 
 the equilibrium of his self-respect by an immediate 
 cession of the field, than by contesting it against this 
 wofully wounded knight. "Whether he wins her or 
 not, he'll fight for her," the Captain declared; and 
 as he glanced at Major Luttrel, he felt that this was 
 a sweet assurance. He had conceived a singular 
 distrust of the Major. 
 
 They had now reached the water's edge, where 
 Gertrude, having arrested her companion, had turned 
 about, expectant of her other guests. As they came 
 up, Severn saw, or thought that he saw (which is 
 a very different thing), that her first look was at 
 Richard. The "admirer" in his breast rose fratri- 
 cidal for a moment against the quiet observer; but 
 the next, it was pinioned again. "Amen," said the 
 Captain; "it's none of my business." 
 
 At this moment, Richard was soaring most hero- 
 ically. The end of his anguish had been a sudden 
 intoxication. He surveyed the scene before him 
 with a kindling fancy. Why should he stand tongue- 
 tied in sullen mistrust of fortune, when all nature 
 
Poor Richard 105 
 
 beckoned him into the field? There was the river- 
 path where, a fortnight before, he had found an 
 eloquence attested by Gertrude's tears. There was 
 sweet Gertrude herself, whose hand he had kissed 
 and whose waist he had clasped. Surely, he was 
 master here! Before he knew it, he had begun to 
 talk, — rapidly, nervously, and almost defiantly. 
 Major Luttrel, having made an observation about 
 the prettiness of the river, Richard entered upon a 
 description of its general course and its superior 
 beauty upon his own place, together with an enumer- 
 ation of the fish which were to be found in it, and 
 a story about a great overflow ten years before. He 
 spoke in fair, coherent terms, but with singular 
 intensity and vehemence, and with his head thrown 
 back and his eyes on the opposite bank. At last he 
 stopped, feeling that he had given proof of his man- 
 hood, and looked towards Gertrude, whose eyes he 
 had been afraid to meet until he had seen his adven- 
 ture to a close. But she was looking at Captain 
 Severn, under the impression that Richard had 
 secured his auditor. Severn was looking at Luttrel, 
 and Luttrel at Miss Whittaker; and all were ap- 
 parently so deep in observation that they had marked 
 neither his speech nor his silence. "Truly," thought 
 the young man, "I'm well out of the circle!" But 
 he was resolved to be patient still, which was as- 
 suredly, all things considered, a very brave resolve. 
 
106 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Yet there was always something spasmodic and un- 
 natural in Richard's magnanimity. A touch in the 
 wrong place would cause it to collapse. It was 
 Gertrude's evil fortune to administer this touch at 
 present. As the party turned about toward the 
 house, Richard stepped to her side and offered her 
 his arm, hoping in his heart — so implicitly did he 
 count upon her s)mipathy, so almost boyishly, filially, 
 did he depend upon it — for some covert token that 
 his heroism, such as it was, had not been lost upon 
 her. 
 
 But Gertrude, intensely preoccupied by the desire 
 to repair her fancied injustice to the Captain, shook 
 her head at him without even meeting his eye. 
 "Thank you," she said; "I want Captain Severn," 
 who forthwith approached. 
 
 Poor Richard felt his feet touch the ground again. 
 He felt that he could have flung the Captain into 
 the stream. Major Luttrel placed himself at Ger- 
 trude's other elbow, and Richard stood behind them, 
 almost livid with spite, and half resolved to turn 
 upon his heel and make his way home by the river. 
 But it occurred to him that a more elaborate ven- 
 geance would be to follow the trio before him back 
 to the lawn, and there make it a silent and scathing 
 bow. Accordingly, when they reached the house, he 
 stood aloof and bade Gertrude a grim good-night. 
 He trembled with eagerness to see whether she 
 
Poor Richard 107 
 
 would make an attempt to detain him. But Miss 
 Whittaker, reading in his voice — it had grown too 
 dark to see his face at the distance at which he stood 
 — ^the story of some fancied affront, and uncon- 
 sciously contrasting it, perhaps, with Severn's clear 
 and unwarped accents, obeyed what she deemed a 
 prompting of self-respect, and gave him, without 
 her hand, a farewell as cold as his own. It is but 
 fair to add, that, a couple of hours later, as she 
 reviewed the incidents of the evening, she repented 
 most generously of this little act of justice. 
 
PART II 
 
 Richard got through the following week he 
 hardly knew how. He found occupation, to a much 
 greater extent than he was actually aware of, in a 
 sordid and yet heroic struggle with himself. For 
 several months now, he had been leading, under 
 Gertrude's inspiration, a strictly decent and sober 
 life. So long as he was at comparative peace with 
 Gertrude and with himself, such a life was more 
 than easy; it was delightful. It produced a moral 
 buoyancy infinitely more delicate and more constant 
 than the gross exhilaration of his old habits. There 
 was a kind of fascination in adding hour to hour, 
 and day to day, in this record of his new-born 
 austerity. Having abjured excesses, he practised 
 temperance after the fashion of a novice : he raised 
 it (or reduced it) to abstinence. He was like an 
 unclean man who, having washed himself clean, 
 remains in the water for the love of it. He wished 
 
 io8 
 
Poor Richard 109 
 
 to be religiously, superstitiously pure. This was 
 easy, as we have said, so long as his goddess smiled, 
 even though it were as a goddess indeed, — ^as a 
 creature unattainable. But when she frowned, and 
 the heavens grew dark, Richard's sole dependence 
 was in his own will, — ^as flimsy a trust for an up- 
 ward scramble, one would have premised, as a tuft 
 of grass on the face of a perpendicular cliff. Flimsy 
 as it looked, however, it served him. It started and 
 crumbled, but it held, if only by a single fibre. When 
 Richard had cantered fifty yards away from Ger- 
 trude's gate in a fit of stupid rage, he suddenly 
 pulled up his horse and gulped down his passion, 
 and swore an oath, that, suffer what torments of 
 feeling he might, he would not at least break the 
 continuity of his gross physical soberness. It was 
 enough to be drunk in mind ; he would not be drunk 
 in body. A singular, almost ridiculous feeling of 
 antagonism to Gertrude lent force to this resolution. 
 "No, madam," he cried within himself, "I shall not 
 fall back. Do your best! I shall keep straight." 
 We often outweather great offences and afflictions 
 through a certain healthy instinct of egotism. Rich- 
 ard went to bed that night as grim and sober as a 
 Trappist monk; and his foremost impulse the next 
 day was to plunge headlong into some physical labor 
 which should not allow him a moment's interval of 
 idleness. He found no labor to his taste; but he 
 
110 A Landscape Painter 
 
 spent the day so actively, in the mechanical anni- 
 hilation of the successive hours, that Gertrude's 
 image found no chance squarely to face him. He 
 was engaged in the work of self-preservation, — ^the 
 most serious and absorbing work possible to man. 
 Compared to the results here at stake, his passion 
 for Gertrude seemed but a fiction. It is perhaps 
 difficult to give a more lively impression of the 
 vigor of this passion, of its maturity and its strength, 
 than by simply stating that it discreetly held itself 
 in abeyance until Richard had set at rest his doubts 
 of that which lies nearer than all else to the heart 
 of man, — ^his doubts of the strength of his will. He 
 answered these doubts by subjecting his resolution 
 to a course of such cruel temptations as were likely 
 either to shiver it to a myriad of pieces, or to season 
 it perfectly to all the possible requirements of life. 
 He took long rides over the country, passing within 
 a stone's throw of as many of the scattered wayside 
 taverns as could be combined in a single circuit. 
 As he drew near them he sometimes slackened his 
 pace, as if he were about to dismount, pulled up his 
 horse, gazed a moment, then, thrusting in his spurs, 
 galloped away again like one pursued. At other 
 times, in the late evening, when the window-panes 
 were aglow with the ruddy light within, he would 
 walk slowly by, looking at the stars, and, after 
 maintaining this stoical pace for a couple of miles, 
 
Poor Richard 111 
 
 would hurry home to his own lonely and black- 
 windowed dwelling. Having successfully performed 
 this feat a certain number of times, he found his 
 love coming back to him, bereft in the interval of its 
 attendant jealousy. In obedience to it, he one morn- 
 ing leaped upon his horse and repaired to Gertrude's 
 abode, with no definite notion of the terms in which 
 he should introduce himself. 
 
 He had made himself comparatively sure of his 
 will ; but he was yet to acquire the mastery of his 
 impulses. As he gave up his horse, according to his 
 wont, to one of the men at the stable, he saw another 
 steed stalled there which he recognized as Captain 
 Severn's. "Steady, my boy," he murmured to him- 
 self, as he would have done to a frightened horse. 
 On his way across the broad court-yard toward the 
 house, he encountered the Captain, who had just 
 taken his leave. Richard gave him a generous 
 salute (he could not trust himself to more), and 
 Severn answered with what was at least a strictly 
 just one. Richard observed, however, that he was 
 very pale, and that he was pulling a rosebud to pieces 
 as he walked ; whereupon our young man quickened 
 his step. Finding the parlor empty, he instinctively 
 crossed over to a small room adjoining it, which 
 Gertrude had converted into a modest conservatory; 
 and as he did so, hardly knowing it, he lightened his 
 heavy-shod tread. The glass door was open and 
 
112 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Richard looked in. There stood Gertrude with her 
 back to him, bending apart with her hands a couple 
 of tall flowering plants, and looking through the 
 glazed partition behind them. Advancing a step, and 
 glancing over the young girl's shoulder, Richard had 
 just time to see Severn mounting his horse at the 
 stable door, before Gertrude, startled by his ap- 
 proach, turned hastily round. Her face was flushed 
 hot, and her eyes brimming with tears. 
 
 "You!" she exclaimed, sharply. 
 
 Richard's head swam. That single word was so 
 charged with cordial impatience that it seemed the 
 death-knell of his hope. He stepped inside the room 
 and closed the door, keeping his hand on the 
 knob. 
 
 "Gertrude," he said, "you love that man !" 
 
 "Well, sir?" 
 
 "Do you confess it ?" cried Richard. 
 
 "Confess it? Richard Clare, how dare, you use 
 such language? I'm in no humor for a scene. Let 
 me pass." 
 
 Gertrude was angry; but as for Richard, it may 
 almost be said that he was mad. "One scene a day 
 is enough, I suppose," he cried. "What are these 
 tears about ? Wouldn't he have you ? Did he refuse 
 you, as you refused me ? Poor Gertrude !" 
 
 Gertrude looked at him a moment with concen- 
 trated scorn. "You fool !" she said, for all answer. 
 
Poor Richard 113 
 
 She pushed his hand from the latch, flung open the 
 door, and moved rapidly away. 
 
 Left alone, Richard sank down on a sofa and 
 covered his face with his hands. It burned them, 
 but he sat motionless, repeating to himself, me- 
 chanically, as if to avert thought, "You fool! you 
 fool !" At last he got up and made his way out. 
 
 It seemed to Gertrude, for several hours after this 
 scene, that she had at this juncture a strong case 
 against Fortune. It is not our purpose to repeat the 
 words which she had exchanged with Captain 
 Severn. They had come within a single step of an 
 eclaircissement, and when but another movement 
 would have flooded their souls with light, some 
 malignant influence had seized them by the throats. 
 Had they too much pride? — ^too little imagination? 
 We must content ourselves with this hypothesis. 
 Severn, then, had walked mechanically across the 
 yard, saying to himself, "She belongs to another" ; 
 and adding, as he saw Richard, "and such another." 
 Gertrude had stood at her window, repeating, under 
 her breath, "He belongs to himself, himself alone." 
 And as if this was not enough, when misconceived, 
 slighted, wounded, she had faced about to her old, 
 passionless, dutiful past, there on the path of retreat 
 to this asylum Richard Clare had arisen to forewarn 
 her that she should find no peace even at home. 
 There was something in the violent impertinence of 
 
114 A Landscape Painter 
 
 his appearance at this moment which gave her a 
 dreadful feeling that fate was against her. More 
 than this. There entered into her emotions a certain 
 minute particle of awe of the man whose passion was 
 so uncompromising. She felt that it was out of 
 place any longer to pity him. He was the slave of 
 his passion; but his passion was strong. In her 
 reaction against the splendid civility of Severn's 
 silence, (the real antithesis of which would have 
 been simply the perfect courtesy of explicit devo- 
 tion,) she found herself touching with pleasure on 
 the fact of Richard's brutality. He at least had 
 ventured to insult her. He had loved her enough to 
 forget himself. He had dared to make himself 
 odious in her eyes, because he had cast away his 
 sanity. What cared he for the impression he made ? 
 He cared only for the impression he received. The 
 violence of this reaction, however, was the measure 
 of its duration. It was impossible that she should 
 walk backward so fast without stumbling. Brought 
 to her senses by this accident, she became aware that 
 her judgment was missing. She smiled to herself as 
 she reflected that it had been taking holiday for a 
 whole afternoon. "Richard was right," she said 
 to herself. "I am no fool. I can't be a fool if I 
 try. I'm too thoroughly my father's daughter for 
 that. I love that man, but I love myself better. Of 
 course, then, I don't deserve to have him. If I loved 
 
Poor Richard 115 
 
 him in a way to merit his love, I would sit down this 
 moment and write him a note telling him that if 
 he does not come back to me, I shall die. But I 
 shall neither write the note nor die. I shall live and 
 grow stout, and look after my chickens and my 
 flowers and my colts, and thank the Lord in my old 
 age that I have never done anything unwomanly. 
 Well ! I'm as He made me. Whether I can deceive 
 others, I know not; but I certainly can't deceive 
 myself. I'm quite as sharp as Gertrude Whittaker; 
 and this it is that has kept me from making a fool 
 of myself and writing to poor Richard the note that 
 I wouldn't write to Captain Severn. I needed to 
 fancy myself wronged. I suffer so little ! I needed 
 a sensation ! So, shrewd Yankee that I am, I thought 
 I would get one cheaply by taking up that unhappy 
 boy! Heaven preserve me from the heroics, espe- 
 cially the economical heroics ! The one heroic course 
 possible, I decline. What, then, have I to complain 
 of? Must I tear my hair because a man of taste 
 "has resisted my unspeakable charms ? To be charm- 
 ing, you must be charmed yourself, or at least you 
 must be able to be charmed; and that apparently 
 I'm not. I didn't love him, or he would have known 
 it. Love gets love, and no-love gets none." 
 
 But at this point of her meditations Gertrude 
 almost broke down. She felt that she was assigning 
 herself but a dreary future. Never to be loved but 
 
116 A Landscape Painter 
 
 by such, a one as Richard Clare was a cheerless 
 prospect; for it was identical with an eternal spin- 
 sterhood. "Am I, then," she exclaimed, quite as 
 passionately as a woman need do, — "am I, then, cut 
 off from a woman's dearest joys? What blas- 
 phemous nonsense ! One thing is plain : I am made 
 to be a mother; the wife may take care of herself. 
 I am made to be a wife ; the mistress may take care 
 of herseM. I am in the Lord's hands," added the 
 poor girl, who, whether or no she could forget her- 
 self in an earthly love, had at all events this mark 
 of a spontaneous nature, that she could forget her- 
 self in a heavenly one. But in the midst of her 
 pious emotion, she was unable to subdue her con- 
 science. It smote her heavily for her meditated 
 falsity to Richard, for her miserable readiness to 
 succumb to the strong temptation to seek a momen- 
 tary resting-place in his gaping heart. She recoiled 
 from this thought as from an act cruel and immoral. 
 Was Richard's heart the place for her now, any 
 more than it had been a month before? Was she 
 to apply for comfort where she would not apply for 
 counsel ? Was she to drown her decent sorrows and 
 regrets in a base, a dishonest, an extemporized pas- 
 sion ? Having done the young man so bitter a wrong 
 in intention, nothing would appease her magnani- 
 mous remorse (as time went on) but to repair it in 
 fact. She went so far as keenly to regret the harsh 
 
Poor Richard 117 
 
 words she had cast upon him in the conservatory. 
 He had been insolent and unmannerly; but he had 
 an excuse. Much should be forgiven him, for he 
 loved much. Even now that Gertrude had imposed 
 upon her feelings a sterner regimen than ever, she 
 could not defend herself from a sweet and senti- 
 mental thrill — 3. thrill in which, as we have inti- 
 mated, there was something of a tremor — at the 
 recollection of his strident accents and his angry 
 eyes. It was yet far from her heart to desire a 
 renewal, however brief, of this exhibition. She 
 wished simply to efface from the young man's mor- 
 bid soul the impression of a real contempt ; for she 
 knew — or she thought that she knew — ^that against 
 such an impression he was capable of taking the 
 most fatal and inconsiderate comfort. 
 
 Before many mornings had passed, accordingly, 
 she had a horse saddled, and, dispensing with attend- 
 ance, she rode rapidly over to his farm. The house 
 door and half the windows stood open; but no an- 
 swer came to her repeated summons. She made her 
 way to the rear of the house, to the barn-yard, thinly 
 tenanted by a few common fowl, and across the yard 
 to a road which skirted its lower extremity and 
 was accessible by an open gate. No human figure 
 was in sight ; nothing was visible in the hot stillness 
 but the scattered and ripening crops, over which, in 
 spite of her nervous solicitude, Miss Whittaker cast 
 
118 A Landscape Painter 
 
 the glance of a connoisseur. A great uneasiness 
 filled her mind as she measured the rich domain 
 apparently deserted of its young master, and re- 
 flected that she perhaps was the cause of its aban- 
 donment. Ah, where was Richard ? As she looked 
 and listened in vain, her heart rose to her throat, 
 and she felt herself on the point of calling all too 
 wistfully upon his name. But her voice was stayed 
 by the sound of a heavy rumble, as of cart-wheels, 
 beyond a turn in the road. She touched up her horse 
 and cantered along until she reached the turn. A 
 great four-wheeled cart, laden with masses of newly 
 broken stone, and drawn by four oxen, was slowly 
 advancing towards her. Beside it, patiently cracking 
 his whip and shouting monotonously, walked a 
 young man in a slouched hat and a red shirt, with 
 his trousers thrust into his dusty boots. It was Rich- 
 ard. As he saw Gertrude, he halted a moment, 
 amazed, and then advanced, flicking the air with his 
 whip. Gertrude's heart went out towards him in a 
 silent Thank God ! Her next reflection was that he 
 had never looked so well. The truth is, that, in this 
 rough adjustment, the native barbarian was duly 
 represented. His face and neck were browned by a 
 week in the fields, his eye was clear, his step seemed 
 to have learned a certain manly dignity from its 
 attendance on the heavy bestial tramp. Gertrude, 
 as he reached her side, pulled up her horse and held 
 
Poor Richard 119 
 
 out her gloved fingers to his brown dusty hand. He 
 took them, looked for a moment into her face, and 
 for the second time raised them to his lips. 
 "Excuse my glove," she said, with a little smile. 
 "Excuse mine," he answered, exhibiting his sun- 
 burnt, work-stained hand. 
 
 "Richard," said Gertrude, "you never had less 
 need of excuse in your life. You never looked half 
 so well." 
 
 He fixed his eyes upon her a moment. "Why, 
 you have forgiven me!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes," said Gertrude, "I have forgiven you, — 
 both you and myself. We both of us behaved very 
 absurdly, but we both of us had reason. I wish you 
 had come back." 
 
 Richard looked about him, apparently at loss for 
 a rejoinder. "I have been very busy," he said, at 
 last, with a simplicity of tone slightly studied. An 
 odd sense of dramatic effect prompted him to say 
 neither more nor less. 
 
 An equally delicate instinct forbade Gertrude to 
 express all the joy which this assurance gave her. 
 Excessive joy would have implied undue surprise; 
 and it was a part of her plan frankly to expect the 
 best things of her companion. "If you have been 
 busy," she said, "I congratulate you. What have 
 you been doing?" 
 
 "O, a hundred things; I have been quarrying, 
 
120 A Landscape Painter 
 
 and draining, and clearing, and I don't know what 
 all. I thought the best thing was just to put my 
 own hands to it. I am going to make a stone fence 
 along the great lot on the hill there. Wallace is for- 
 ever grumbling about his boundaries. I'll fix them 
 once for all. What are you laughing at ?" 
 
 "I am laughing at certain foolish apprehensions 
 that I have been indulging in for a week past. 
 You are wiser than I, Richard, I have no imagina- 
 tion." 
 
 "Do you mean that / have? I haven't enough 
 to guess what you do mean." 
 
 "Why, do you suppose, have I come over this 
 morning ?" 
 
 "Because you thought I was sulking on account 
 of your having called me a fool." 
 
 "Sulking, or worse. What do I deserve for the 
 wrong I have done you?" 
 
 "You have done me no wrong. You reasoned 
 fairly enough. You are not obliged to know me 
 better than I know myself. It's just like you to be 
 ready to take back that bad word, and try to make 
 yourself believe that it was unjust. But it was 
 perfectly just, and therefore I have managed to bear 
 it. I was a fool at that moment, — a stupid, impu- 
 dent fool. I don't know whether that man had been 
 making to love to you or not. But you had, I think, 
 been feeling love for him, — you looked it ; I should 
 
Poor Richard 121 
 
 have been less than a man, I should be unworthy of 
 your — ^your aflfection, if I had failed to see it. I 
 did see it, — I saw it as clearly as I see those oxen 
 now; and yet I bounced in with my own ill-timed 
 claims. To do so was to be a fool. To have been 
 other than a. fool would have been to have waited, 
 to have backed out, to have bitten my tongue off 
 before I spoke, to have done an3i;hing but what I 
 did. I have no right to claim you, Gertrude, until I 
 can woo you better than that. It was the most 
 fortunate thing in the world that you spoke as you 
 did; it was even kind. It saved me all the misery 
 of groping about for a starting-point. Not to have 
 spoken as you did would have been to fail of justice; 
 and then, probably, I should have sulked, or, as you 
 very considerately say, done worse. I had made a 
 false move in the game, and the only thing to do was 
 to repair it. But you were not obliged to know that 
 I would so readily admit my move to have been 
 false. Whenever I have made a fool of myself 
 before, I have been for sticking it out, and trying 
 to turn all mankind — ^that is, you — into a fool too, 
 so that I shouldn't be an exception. But this time, 
 I think, I had a kind of inspiration. I felt that my 
 case was desperate. I felt that if I adopted my folly 
 now I adopted it forever. The other day I met a 
 man who had just come home from Europe, and 
 who spent last summer in Switzerland. He was 
 
122 A Landscape Painter 
 
 telling me about the mountain-climbing over there, 
 — ^how they get over the glaciers, and all that. He 
 said that you sometimes came upon great slippery, 
 steep, snow-covered slopes that end short off in a 
 precipice, and that if you stumble or lose your foot- 
 ing as you cross them horizontally, why you go 
 shooting down, and you're gone ; that is, but for one 
 little dodge. You have a long walking-pole with a 
 sharp end, you know, and as you feel yourself slid- 
 ing, — it's as likely as not to be in a sitting posture, 
 — you just take this and ram it into the snow before 
 you, and there you are, stopped. The thing is, of 
 course, to drive it in far enough, so that it won't 
 yield or break; and in any case it hurts infernally 
 to come whizzing down upon this upright pole. But 
 the interruption gives you time to pick yourself up. 
 Well, so it was with me the other day. I stumbled 
 and fell; I slipped, and was whizzing downward; 
 but I just drove in my pole and pulled up short. 
 It nearly tore me in two; but it saved my life." 
 Richard made this speech with one hand leaning on 
 the neck of Gertrude's horse, and the other on his 
 own side, and with his head slightly thrown back 
 and his eyes on hers. She had sat quietly in her 
 saddle, returning his gaze. He had spoken slowly 
 and deliberately ; but without hesitation and without 
 heat. "This is not romance," thought Gertrude, 
 "it's reality." And this feeling it was that dictated 
 
Poor Richard 123 
 
 her reply, divesting it of romance so effectually as 
 almost to make it sound trivial. 
 
 "It was fortunate you had a walking-pole," she 
 said. 
 
 "I shall never travel without one again." 
 
 "Never, at least," smiled Gertrude, "with a com- 
 panion who has the bad habit of pushing you off 
 the path." 
 
 "Oh, you may push all you like," said Richard. "I 
 give you leave. But isn't this enough about my- 
 self?" 
 
 "That's as you think." 
 
 "Well, it's all I have to say for the present, except 
 that I am prodigiously glad to see you, and that of 
 course you will stay awhile." 
 
 "But you have your work to do." 
 
 "Dear me, never you mind my work. I've earned 
 my dinner this morning, if you have no objection : 
 and I propose to share it with you. So we will go 
 back to the house." He turned her horse's head 
 about, started up his oxen with his voice, and walked 
 along beside her on the grassy roadside, with one 
 hand in the horse's mane, and the other swinging 
 his whip. 
 
 Before they reached the yard-gate, Gertrude had 
 revolved his speech. "Enough about, himself," she 
 said, silently echoing his words. "Yes, Heaven be 
 praised, it is about himself. I am but a means in 
 
124 A Landscape Painter 
 
 this matter, — ^he himself, his own character, his own 
 happiness, is the end." Under this conviction it 
 seemed to her that her part was appreciably simpli- 
 fied. Richard was learning wisdom and self-con- 
 trol, and to exercise his reason. Such was the suit 
 that he was destined to gain. Her duty was as 
 far as possible to remain passive, and not to 
 interfere with the working of the gods who had 
 selected her as the instrument of their prodigy. 
 As they reached the gate, Richard made a trum- 
 pet of his hands, and sent a ringing summons 
 into the fields; whereupon a farm-boy approached, 
 and, with an undisguised stare of amazement at 
 Gertrude, took charge of his master's team. Ger- 
 trude rode up to the door-step, where her host 
 assisted her to dismount, and bade her go in and 
 make herself at home, while he busied himself with 
 the bestowal of her horse. She found that, in her 
 absence, the old woman who administered her 
 friend's household had reappeared, and had laid out 
 the preparations for his mid-day meal. By the time 
 he returned, with his face and head shining from a 
 fresh ablution, and his shirt-sleeves decently con- 
 cealed by a coat, Gertrude had apparently won the 
 complete confidence of the good wife. 
 
 Gertrude doffed her hat, and tucked up her riding- 
 skirt, and sat down to a tete-a-tete over Richard's 
 crumpled table-cloth. The young man played the 
 
Poor Richard 125 
 
 host very soberly and naturally; and Gertrude hardly 
 knew whether to augur from his perfect self-posses- 
 sion that her star was already on the wane, or that it 
 had waxed into a steadfast and eternal sun. The 
 solution of her doubts was not far to seek ; Richard 
 was absolutely at his ease in her presence. He had 
 told her, indeed, that she intoxicated him ; and truly, 
 in those moments when she was compelled to oppose 
 her dewy eloquence to his fervid importunities, her 
 whole presence seemed to him to exhale a singularly 
 potent sweetness. He had told her that she was an 
 enchantress, and this assertion, too, had its measure 
 of truth. But her spell was a steady one ; it sprang 
 not from her beauty, her wit, her figure, — it sprang 
 from her character. When she found herself 
 aroused to appeal or to resistance, Richard's pulses 
 were quickened to what he had called intoxication, 
 not by her smiles, her gestures, her glances, or any 
 accession of that material beauty which she did not 
 possess, but by a generous sense of her virtues in 
 action. In other words, Gertrude exercised the mag- 
 nificent power of making her lover forget her face. 
 Agreeably to this fact, his habitual feeling in her 
 presence was one of deep repose, — a sensation not 
 unlike that which in the early afternoon, as he 
 lounged in his orchard with a pipe, he derived from 
 the sight of the hot and vaporous hills. He was in- 
 nocent, then, of that delicious trouble which Ger- 
 
126 A Landscape Painter 
 
 trude's thoughts had touched upon as a not un- 
 natural result of her visit, and which another 
 woman's fancy would perhaps have dwelt upon as 
 an indispensable proof of its success. "Porphyro 
 grew faint," the poet assures us, as he stood in 
 Madeline's chamber on Saint Agnes' eve. But Rich- 
 ard did not in the least grow faint now that his 
 mistress was actually filling his musty old room with 
 her voice, her touch, her looks ; that she was sitting 
 in his unfrequented chairs, trailing her skirt over 
 his faded carpet, casting her perverted image upon 
 his mirror, and breaking his daily bread. He was 
 not fluttered when he sat at her well-served table, 
 and trod her muffled floors. Why, then, should he 
 be fluttered now ? Gertrude was herself in all places, 
 and (once granted that she was at peace) to be at 
 her side was to drink peace as fully in one place as 
 in another. 
 
 Richard accordingly ate a great working-day din- 
 ner in Gertrude's despite, and she ate a small one for 
 his sake. She asked questions moreover, and offered 
 counsel with most sisterly freedom. She deplored 
 the rents in his table-cloth, and the dismemberments 
 of his furniture; and, although by no means ab- 
 surdly fastidious in the matter of household ele- 
 gance, she could not but think that Richard would 
 be a happier and a better man if he were a little 
 more comfortable. She forbore, however, to criti- 
 
Poor Richard 127 
 
 cise the poverty of his entourage, for she felt that 
 the obvious answer was, that such a state of things 
 was the penalty of his living alone; and it was de- 
 sirable, under the circumstances, that this idea 
 should remain implied. 
 
 When at last Gertrude began to bethink herself 
 of going, Richard broke a long silence by the fol- 
 lowing question : "Gertrude, do you love that man?" 
 
 "Richard," she answered, "I refused to tell you 
 before, because you asked the question as a right. 
 Of course you do so no longer. No. I do not love 
 him. I have been near it, — ^but I have missed it. 
 And now good-by." 
 
 For a week after her visit, Richard worked as 
 bravely and steadily as he had done before it. But 
 one morning he woke up lifeless, morally speaking. 
 His strength had suddenly left him. He had been 
 straining his faith in himself to a prodigious tension, 
 and the chord had suddenly snapped. In the hope 
 that Gertrude's tender fingers might repair it, he 
 rode over to her towards evening. On his way 
 through the village, he found people gathered in 
 knots, reading fresh copies of the Boston newspa- 
 pers over each other's shoulders, and learned that 
 tidings had just come of a great battle in Virginia, 
 which was also a great defeat. He procured a copy 
 of the paper from a man who had read it out, and 
 made haste to Gertrude's dwelling. 
 
128 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Gertrude received his story with those passionate 
 imprecations and regrets which were then in fash- 
 ion. Before long, Major Luttrel presented himself, 
 and for half an hour there was no talk but about the 
 battle. The talk, however, was chiefly between Ger- 
 trude and the Major, who found considerable 
 ground for difference, she being a great radical and 
 he a decided conservative. Richard sat by, listening 
 apparently, but with the appearance of one to whom 
 the matter of the discourse was of much less inter- 
 est than the manner of those engaged in it. At last, 
 when tea was announced, Gertrude told her friends, 
 very frankly, that she would not invite them to re- 
 main, — that her heart was too heavy with her coun- 
 try's woes, and with the thought of so great a butch- 
 ery, to allow her to play the hostess, — and that, in 
 short, she was in the humor to be alone. Of course 
 there was nothing for the gentlemen but to obey ; but 
 Richard went out cursing the law, under which, in 
 the hour of his mistress' sorrow, his company was 
 a burden and not a relief. He watched in vain, as 
 he bade her farewell, for some little sign that she 
 would fain have him stay, but that as she wished to 
 get rid of his companion civility demanded that she 
 should dismiss them both. No such sign was forth- 
 coming, for the simple reason that Gertrude was 
 sensible of no conflict between her desires. The 
 men mounted their horses in silence, and rode slowly 
 
Poor Richard 129 
 
 along the lane which led from Miss Whittaker's 
 stables to the high-road. As they approached the 
 top of the lane, they perceived in the twilight a 
 mounted figure coming towards them. Richard's 
 heart began to beat with an angry foreboding, which 
 was confirmed as the rider drew near and disclosed 
 Captain Severn's features. Major Luttrel and he, 
 being bound in courtesy to a brief greeting, pulled 
 up their horses ; and as an attempt to pass them in 
 narrow quarters would have been a greater incivility 
 than even Richard was prepared to commit, he like- 
 wise halted. 
 
 "This is ugly news, isn't it?" said Severn. "It 
 has determined me to go back to-morrow." 
 
 "Go back where?" asked Richard. 
 
 "To my regiment." 
 
 "Are you well enough?" asked Major Luttrel. 
 "How is that wound ?" 
 
 "It's so much better that I believe it can finish get- 
 ting well down there as easily as here. Good-by, 
 Major. I hope we shall meet again." And he shook 
 hands with Major Luttrel. "Good by, Mr. Clare." 
 And, somewhat to Richard's surprise, he stretched 
 over and held out his hand to him. 
 
 Richard felt that it was tremulous, and, looking 
 hard into his face, he thought it wore a certain un- 
 wonted look of excitement. And then his fancy 
 coursed back to Gertrude, sitting where he had left 
 
130 A Landscape Painter 
 
 her, in the sentimental twilight, alone with her heavy 
 heart. With a word, he reflected, a single little 
 word, a look, a motion, this happy man whose hand 
 I hold can heal her sorrows. "Oh \" cried Richard, 
 "that by this hand I might hold him fast for- 
 ever !" 
 
 It seemed to the Captain that Richard's grasp was 
 needlessly protracted and severe. "What a grip the 
 poor fellow has!" he thought. "Good-by," he re- 
 peated aloud, disengaging himself. 
 
 "Good-by," said Richard. And then he added, 
 he hardly knew why, "Are you going to bid good-by 
 to Miss Whittaker?" 
 
 "Yes. Isn't she at home?" 
 
 Whether Richard really paused or not before he 
 answered, he never knew. There suddenly arose 
 such a tumult in his bosom that it seemed to him 
 several moments before he became conscious of his 
 reply. But it is probable that to Severn it came 
 only too soon. 
 
 "No," said Richard; "she's not at home. We 
 have just been calling." As he spoke, he shot a 
 glance at his companion, armed with defiance of his 
 impending denial. But the Major just met his 
 glance and then dropped his eyes. This slight mo- 
 tion was a horrible revelation. He had served the 
 Major, too. 
 
 "Ah? I'm sorry," said Severn, slacking his rein, 
 
Poor Richard 131 
 
 — "I'm sorry." And from his saddle he looked 
 down toward the house more longingly and regret- 
 fully than he knew. 
 
 Richard felt himself turning from pale to con- 
 suming crimson. There was a simple sincerity in 
 Severn's words which was almost irresistible. For 
 a moment he felt like shouting out a loud denial of 
 his falsehood : "She is there ! she's alone and in tears, 
 awaiting you. Go to her — and be damned!" But 
 before he could gather his words into his throat, they 
 were arrested by Major Luttrel's cool, clear voice, 
 which, in its calmness, seemed to cast scorn upon 
 his weakness. 
 
 "Captain," said the Major, "I shall be very happy 
 to take charge of your farewell." 
 
 "Thank you. Major. Pray do. Say how ex- 
 tremely sorry I was. Good by again." And Cap- 
 tain Severn hastily turned his horse about, gave him 
 his spurs, and galloped away, leaving his friends 
 standing alone in the middle of the road. As the 
 sound of his retreat expired, Richard, in spite of 
 himself, drew a long breath. He sat motionless in 
 the saddle, hanging his head. 
 
 "Mr. Clare," said the Major, at last, "that was 
 very cleverly done." 
 
 Richard looked up. "I never told a lie before,' 
 said he. 
 
 "Upon my soul, then, you did it uncommonly well 
 
 f> 
 
132 A Landscape Painter 
 
 You did it so well I almost believed you. No won- 
 der that Severn did." 
 
 Richard was silent. Then suddenly he broke out, 
 "In God's name, sir, why don't you call me a black- 
 guard? I've done a beastly act!" 
 
 "O, come," said the Major, "you needn't mind 
 that, with me. We'll consider that said. I feel 
 bound to let you know that I'm very, very much 
 obliged to you. If you hadn't spoken, how do you 
 know but that I might?" 
 
 "If you had, I would have given you the lie, 
 square in your teeth." 
 
 "Would you, indeed? It's very fortunate, then, 
 I held my tongue. If you will have it so, I won't 
 deny that your little improvisation sounded very 
 ugly. I'm devilish glad I didn't make it." 
 
 Richard felt his wit sharpened by a most unholy 
 scorn, — a scorn far greater for his companion than 
 for himself. "I am glad to hear that it did sound 
 ugly," he said. "To me, it seemed beautiful, holy, 
 and just. For the space of a moment, it seemed 
 absolutely right that I should say what I did. But 
 you saw the lie in its horrid nakedness, and yet you 
 let it pass. You have no excuse." 
 
 "I beg your pardon. You are immensely inge- 
 nious, but you are immensely wrong. Are you going 
 to make out that I am the guilty party? Upon my 
 word, you're a cool hand. I have an excuse. I have 
 
Poor Richard 133 
 
 the excuse of being interested in Miss Whittaker's 
 remaining unengaged." 
 
 "So I suppose. But you don't love her. Other- 
 wise " 
 
 Major Luttrel laid his hand on Richard's bridle. 
 "Mr. Clare," said he, "I have no wish to talk meta- 
 physics over this matter. You had better say no 
 more. I know that your feelings are not of an en- 
 viable kind, and I am therefore prepared to be good- 
 natured with you. But you must be civil yourself. 
 You have done a shabby deed ; you are ashamed of 
 it, and you wish to shift the responsibility upon me, 
 which is more shabby still. My advice is, that you 
 behave like a man of spirit, and swallow your ap- 
 prehensions. I trust that you are not going to make 
 a fool of yourself by any apology or retraction in 
 any quarter. As for its having seemed holy and 
 just to do what you did, that is mere bosh. A lie is 
 a lie, and as such is often excusable. As anything 
 else, — as a thing beautiful, holy, or just, — ^it's quite 
 inexcusable. Yours was a lie to you, and a lie to 
 me. It serves me, and I accept it. I suppose you 
 understand me. I adopt it. You don't suppose it 
 was because I was frightened by those big black 
 eyes of yours that I held my tongue. As for my 
 loving or not loving Miss Whittaker, I have no 
 report to make to you about it. I will simply say 
 that I intend, if possible to marry her." 
 
134 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "She'll not have you. She'll never marry a cold- 
 blooded rascal." 
 
 "I think she'll prefer him to a hot-blooded one. 
 Do you want to pick a quarrel with me? Do you 
 want to make me lose my temper? I shall refuse 
 you that satisfaction. You have been a coward, and 
 you want to frighten some one before you go to bed 
 to make up for it. Strike me, and I'll strike you in 
 self-defence, but I'm not going to mind your talk. 
 Have you anything to say? No? Well, then, good 
 evening." And Major Luttrel started away. 
 
 It was with rage that Richard was dumb. Had 
 he been but a cat's-paw after all ? Heaven forbid ! 
 He sat irresolute for an instant, and then turned 
 suddenly and cantered back to Gertrude's gate. 
 Here he stopped again; but after a short pause he 
 went in over the gravel with a fast-beating heart. 
 O, if Luttrel were but there to see him! For a 
 moment he fancied he heard the sound of the Ma- 
 jor's returning steps. If he would only come and 
 find him at confession ! It would be so easy to con- 
 fess before him ! He went along beside the house 
 to the front, and stopped beneath the open draw- 
 ing-room window. 
 
 "Gertrude !" he cried softly, from his saddle. 
 
 Gertrude immediately appeared. "You, Rich- 
 ard !" she exclaimed. 
 
 Her voice was neither harsh nor sweet; but her 
 
Poor Richard las' 
 
 words and her intonation recalled vividly to Rich- 
 ard's mind the scene in the conservatory. He fan- 
 cied them keenly expressive of disappointment. He 
 was invaded by a mischievous conviction that she 
 had been expecting Captain Severn, or that at the 
 least she had mistaken his voice for the Captain's. 
 The truth is that she had half fancied it might be, — 
 Richard's call having been little more than a loud 
 whisper. The young man sat looking up at her, 
 silent. 
 
 "What do you want?" she asked. "Can I do any- 
 thing for you ?" 
 
 Richard was not destined to do his duty that even- 
 ing. A certain infinitesimal dryness of tone on Ger- 
 trude's part was the inevitable result of her finding 
 that that whispered summons came only from Rich- 
 ard. She was preoccupied. Captain Severn had 
 told her a fortnight before, that, in case of news of 
 a defeat, he should not await the expiration of his 
 leave of absence to return. Such news had now 
 come, and her inference was that her friend would 
 immediately take his departure. She could not but 
 suppose that he would come and bid her farewell, 
 and what might not be the incidents, the results, of 
 such a visit? To tell the whole truth, it was under 
 the pressure of these reflections that, twenty min- 
 utes before, Gertrude had dismissed our two gentle- 
 men. That this long story should be told in the 
 
136 A Landscape Painter 
 
 dozen words with which she greeted Richard, will 
 seem unnatural to the disinterested reader. But in 
 those words, poor Richard, with a lover's clairvoy- 
 ance, read it at a single glance. The same resentful 
 impulse, the same sickening of the heart, that he had 
 felt in the conservatory, took possession of him once 
 more. To be witness of Severn's passion for Ger- 
 trude, — that he could endure. To be witness of 
 Gertrude's passion for Severn, — against that obli- 
 gation his reason rebelled. 
 
 "What is it you wish, Richard?" Gertrude re- 
 peated. "Have you forgotten anything?" 
 
 "Nothing ! nothing !" cried the young man. "It's 
 no matter !" 
 
 He gave a great pull at his bridle, and almost 
 brought his horse back on his haunches, and then, 
 wheeling him about on himself, he thrust in his spurs 
 and galloped out of the gate. 
 
 On the highway he came upon Major Luttrel, 
 who stood looking down the lane. 
 
 "I'm going to the Devil, sir!" cried Richard. 
 "Give me your hand on it." 
 
 Luttrel held out his hand. "My poor young 
 man," said he, "you're out of your head. I'm sorry 
 for you. You haven't been making a fool of your- 
 self?" 
 
 "Yes, a damnable fool of myself !" 
 
 Luttrel breathed freely. "You'd better go home 
 
Poor Richard 137 
 
 and go to bed," he said. "You'll make yourself ill 
 by going on at this rate." 
 
 "I — I'm afraid to go home," said Richard, in a 
 broken voice. "For God's sake, come with me !" — 
 and the wretched fellow burst into tears. "I'm too 
 bad for any company but yours," he cried, in his 
 sobs. 
 
 The Major winced, but he took pity. "Come, 
 come," said he, "we'll pull through. I'll go home 
 with you." 
 
 They rode off together. That night Richard went 
 to bed miserably drunk ; although Major Luttrel had 
 left him at ten o'clock, adjuring him to drink no 
 more. He awoke the next morning in a violent 
 fever; and before evening the doctor, whom one of 
 his hired men had brought to his bedside, had come 
 and looked grave and pronounced him very ill. 
 
PART III 
 
 In country districts, where life is quiet, incidents 
 do duty as events ; and accordingly Captain Severn's 
 sudden departure for his regiment became very rap- 
 idly known among Gertrude's neighbors. She her- 
 self heard it from her coachman, who had heard it 
 in the village, where the Captain had been seen to 
 take the early train. She received the news calmly 
 enough to outward appearance, but a great tumult 
 rose and died in her breast. He had gone without 
 a word of farewell ! Perhaps he had not had time 
 to call upon her. But. bare civility would have dic- 
 tated his dropping her a line of writing, — ^he who 
 must have read in her eyes the feeling which her 
 lips refused to utter, and who had been the object of 
 her tenderest courtesy. It was not often that Ger- 
 trude threw back into her friends' teeth their ac- 
 ceptance of the hospitality which it had been placed 
 in her power to ofifer them; but if she now mutely 
 reproached Captain Severn with ingratitude, it was 
 
 138 
 
Poor Richard 139 
 
 because he had done more than slight her material 
 gifts : he had slighted that constant moral force with 
 which these gifts were accompanied, and of which 
 they were but the rude and vulgar token. It is but 
 natural to expect that our dearest friends will ac- 
 credit us with our deepest feelings; and Gertrude 
 had constituted Edmund Severn her dearest friend. 
 She had not, indeed, asked his assent to this ar- 
 rangement, but she had borne it out by a subtile de- 
 votion which she felt that she had a right to exact of 
 him that he should repay, — repay by letting her 
 know that, whether it was lost on his heart or not, 
 it was at least not lost to his senses, — ^that, if he 
 could not return it, he could at least remember it. 
 She had given him the flower of her womanly ten- 
 derness, and when his moment came, he had turned 
 from her without a look. Gertrude shed no tears. 
 It seemed to her that she had given her friend tears 
 enough, and that to expend her soul in weeping 
 would be to wrong herself. She would think no 
 more of Edmund Severn. He should be as little to 
 her for the future as she was to him. 
 
 It was very easy to make this resolution : to keep 
 it, Gertrude found another matter. She could not 
 think of the war, she could not talk with her neigh- 
 bors of current events, she could not take up a news- 
 paper, without reverting to her absent friend. She 
 found herself constantly harassed with the appre- 
 
140 A Landscape Painter 
 
 hension that he had not allowed himself time really 
 to recover, and that a fortnight's exposure would 
 send him back to the hospital. At last it occurred 
 to her that civility required that she should make a 
 call upon Mrs. Martin, the Captain's sister ; and a 
 vague impression that this lady might be the deposi- 
 tary of some farewell message — perhaps of a let- 
 ter — which she was awaiting her convenience to 
 present, led her at once to undertake this social 
 duty. 
 
 The carriage which had been ordered for her pro- 
 jected visit was at the door, when, within a week 
 after Severn's departure. Major Luttrel was an- 
 nounced. Gertrude received him in her bonnet. 
 His first care was to present Captain Severn's 
 adieus, together with his regrets that he had not had 
 time to discharge them in person. As Luttrel made 
 his speech, he watched his companion narrowly, and 
 was considerably reassured by the unflinching com- 
 posure with which she listened to it. The turn he 
 had given to Severn's message had been the fruit 
 of much mischievous cogitation. It had seemed to 
 him that, for his purposes, the assumption of a hasty, 
 and as it were mechanical, allusion to Miss Whit- 
 taker, was more serviceable than the assumption of 
 no allusion at all, which would have left a boundless 
 void for the exercise of Gertrude's fancy. And he 
 had reasoned well; for although he was tempted to 
 
Poor Richard 141 
 
 infer from her calmness that his shot had fallen 
 short of the mark, yet, in spite of her silent and al- 
 most smiling assent to his words, it had made but 
 one bound to her heart. Before many minutes, she 
 felt that those words had done her a world of good. 
 "He had not had time !" Indeed, as she took to her- 
 self their full expression of perfect indifference, she 
 felt that her hard, forced smile was broadening into 
 the sign of a lively gratitude to the Major. 
 
 Major Luttrel had still another task to perform. 
 He had spent half an hour on the preceding day at 
 Richard's bedside, having ridden over to the farm, 
 in ignorance of his illness, to see how matters stood 
 with him. The reader will already have surmised 
 that the Major was not pre-eminently a man of con- 
 science : he will, therefore, be the less surprised and 
 shocked to hear that the sight of the poor young 
 man, prostrate, fevered, and delirious, and to all ap- 
 pearance rapidly growing worse, filled him with an 
 emotion the reverse of creditable. In plain terms, 
 he was very glad to find Richard a prisoner in bed. 
 He had been racking his brains for a scheme to keep 
 his young friend out of the way, and now, to his 
 exceeding satisfaction. Nature had relieved him of 
 this troublesome care. If Richard was condemned 
 to typhoid fever, which his symptoms seemed to 
 indicate, he would not, granting his recovery, be 
 able to leave his room within a month. In a month, 
 
142 A Landscape Painter 
 
 much might be done ; nay, with energy, all might be 
 done. The reader has been all but directly informed 
 that the Major's present purpose was to secure Miss 
 Whittaker's hand. He was poor, and he was am- 
 bitious, and he was, moreover, so well advanced in 
 life — ^being thirty-six years of age — that he had no 
 heart to think of building up his fortune by slow de- 
 grees. A man of good breeding, too, he had become 
 sensible, as he approached middle age of the many 
 advantages of a luxurious home. He had accord- 
 ingly decided that a wealthy marriage would most 
 easily unlock the gate to prosperity. A girl of a 
 somewhat lighter calibre than Gertrude would have 
 been the woman — we cannot say of his heart; but, 
 as he very generously argued, beggars can't be 
 choosers. Gertrude was a woman with a mind of 
 her own; but, on the whole, he was not afraid of 
 her. He was abundantly prepared to do his duty. He 
 had, of course, as became a man of sense, duly 
 weighed his obstacles against his advantages; but 
 an impartial scrutiny had found the latter heavier 
 in the balance. The only serious difficulty in his 
 path was the possibility that, on hearing of Rich- 
 ard's illness, Gertrude, with her confounded benevo- 
 lence, would take a fancy to nurse him in person, 
 and that, in the course of her ministrations, his de- 
 lirious ramblings would force upon her mind the 
 damning story of the deception practised upon Cap- 
 
Poor Richard 143 
 
 tain Severn. There was nothing for it but bravely 
 to face this risk. As for that other fact, which many- 
 men of a feebler spirit would have deemed an in- 
 vincible obstacle, Luttrel's masterly understanding 
 had immediately converted it into the prime agent 
 of success, — ^the fact, namely, that Gertrude's heart 
 was preoccupied. Such knowledge as he possessed 
 of the relations between Miss Whittaker and his 
 brother officer he had gained by his unaided observa- 
 tions and his silgnt deductions. These had been 
 logical ; for, on the whole, his knowledge was accu- 
 rate. It was at least what he might have termed a 
 good working knowledge. He had calculated on a 
 passionate reactionary impulse on Gertrude's part, 
 consequent on Severn's simulated offence. He knew 
 that, in a generous woman, such an impulse, if left 
 to itself, would not go very far. But on this point 
 it was that his policy bore. He would not leave it 
 to itself: fie would take it gently into his hands, 
 attenuate it, prolong it, economize it, and mould it 
 into the clew to his own good-fortune. He thus 
 counted much upon his skill and his tact; but he 
 likewise placed a becoming degree of reliance upon 
 his solid personal qualities, — qualities too sober and 
 too solid, perhaps, to be called charms, but thor- 
 oughly adapted to inspire confidence. The Major 
 was not handsome in feature ; he left that to younger 
 men and to lighter women; but his ugliness was 
 
144 A Landscape Painter 
 
 of a masculine, aristocratic, intelligent stamp. His 
 figure, moreover, was good enough to compensate 
 for the absence of a straight nose and a fine mouth ; 
 and his general bearing offered a most pleasing com- 
 bination of the gravity of the man of affairs and the 
 versatility of the man of society. 
 
 In her sudden anxiety on Richard's behalf, Ger- 
 trude soon forgot her own immaterial woes. The 
 carriage which was to have conveyed her to Mrs. 
 Martin's was used for a more disinterested purpose. 
 The Major, prompted by a strong faith in the salu- 
 tary force of his own presence, having obtained her 
 permission to accompany her, they set out for the 
 farm, and soon found themselves in Richard's 
 chamber. The young man was wrapped in a heavy 
 sleep, from which it was judged imprudent to arouse 
 him. Gertrude, sighing as she compared his thinly 
 furnished room with her own elaborate apartments, 
 drew up a mental list of essential luxuries which 
 she would immediately send him. Not but that he 
 had received, however, a sufficiency of homely care. 
 The doctor was assiduous, and the old woman who 
 nursed him was full of rough good-sense. 
 
 "He asks very often after you. Miss," she said, 
 addressing Gertrude, but with a sly glance at the 
 Major. "But I think you'd' better not come too 
 often. I'm afraid you'd excite him more than you'd 
 quiet him." 
 
Poor Richard 145 
 
 "I'm afraid you would, Miss Whittaker," said the 
 Major, who could have hugged the goodwife. 
 
 "Why should I excite him?" asked Gertrude, 
 "I'm used to sick-rooms. I nursed my father for a 
 year and a half." 
 
 "O, it's very well for an old woman like me, but 
 it's no place for a fine young lady like you," said the 
 nurse, looking at Gertrude's muslins and laces. 
 
 "I'm not so fine as to desert a friend in distress," 
 said Gertrude. "I shall come again, and if it makes 
 the poor fellow worse to see me, I shall stay away. 
 I am ready to do anything that will help him to get 
 well." 
 
 It had already occurred to her that, in his un- 
 natural state, Richard might find her presence a 
 source of irritation, and she was prepared to remain 
 in the background. As she returned to her carriage, 
 she caught herself reflecting with so much pleasure 
 upon Major Luttrel's kindness in expending a 
 couple of hours of his valuable time on so unprofit- 
 able an object as poor Richard, that, by way of in- 
 timating her satisfaction, she invited him to come 
 home and dine with her. 
 
 After a short interval she paid Richard a second 
 visit, in company with Miss Pendexter. He was a 
 great deal worse; he lay emaciated, exhausted, and 
 stupid. The issue was doubtful. Gertrude imme- 
 diately pushed forward to M , a larger town 
 
146 A Landscape Painter 
 
 than her own, sought out a professional nurse, and 
 arranged with him to relieve the old woman from 
 the farm, who was worn out with her vigilance. 
 For a fortnight, moreover, • she received constant 
 tidings from the young man's physician. During 
 this fortnight, Major Luttrel was assiduous, and 
 proportionately successful. 
 
 It may be said, to his credit, that he had by no 
 means conducted his suit upon that narrow pro- 
 gramme which he had drawn up at the outset. He 
 very soon discovered that Gertrude's resentment — 
 if resentment there was — was a substance utterly 
 impalpable even to his most delicate tact, and he 
 had accordingly set to work to woo her like an hon- 
 est man, from day to day, from hour to hour, trust- 
 ing so devoutly for success to momentary inspira- 
 tion, that he felt his suit dignified by a certain flat- 
 tering faux air of genuine passion. He occasion- 
 ally reminded himself, however, that he might really 
 be owing more to the subtle force of accidental con- 
 trast than Gertrude's life-long reserve — for it was 
 certain she would not depart from it — would ever 
 allow him to measure. 
 
 It was as an honest man, then, a man of impulse 
 and of action, that Gertrude had begun to like him. 
 She was not slow to perceive whither his operations 
 tended ; and she was almost tempted at times to tell 
 him frankly that she would spare him the interme- 
 
Poor Richard 147 
 
 diate steps, and meet him at the goal without further 
 delay. It was not that she was prepared to love him, 
 but she would make him an obedient wife. An im- 
 mense weariness had somehow come upon her, and 
 a sudden sense of loneliness. A vague suspicion 
 that her money had done her an incurable wrong 
 inspired her with a profound distaste for the care of 
 it. She felt cruelly hedged out from human sym- 
 pathy by her bristling possessions. "If I had had 
 five hundred dollars a year," she said in a frequent 
 parenthesis, "I might have pleased him." Hating 
 her wealth, accordingly, and chilled by her isolation, 
 the temptation was strong upon her to give herself 
 up to that wise, brave gentleman who seemed to have 
 adopted such a happy medium betwixt loving her 
 for her money and fearing her for it. Would she 
 not always stand between men who would represent 
 the two extremes ? She would anticipate security by 
 an alliance with Major Luttrel. 
 
 One evening, on presenting himself, Luttrel read 
 these thoughts so clearly in her eyes, that he made 
 up his mind to speak. But his mind was burdened 
 with a couple of facts, of which it was necessary 
 that he should discharge it before it could enjoy the 
 freedom of action which the occasion required. In 
 the first place, then, he had been to see Richard 
 Clare, and had found him suddenly and decidedly 
 better. It was unbecoming, however, — it was im- 
 
148 A Landscape Painter 
 
 possible, — that he should allow Gertrude to linger 
 over this pleasant announcement. 
 
 "I tell the good news first," he said, gravely. "I 
 have some very bad news, too, Miss Whittaker." 
 
 Gertrude sent him a rapid glance. "Some one has 
 been killed," she said. 
 
 "Captain Severn has been shot," said the Major, 
 — "shot by a guerilla." 
 
 Gertrude was silent. No answer seemed possible 
 to that uncompromising fact. She sat with her head 
 on her hand, and her elbow on the table beside her, 
 looking at the figures on the carpet. She uttered no 
 words of commonplace regret; but she felt as little 
 like giving way to serious grief. She had lost noth- 
 ing, and, to the best of her knowledge, he had lost 
 nothing. She had an old loss to mourn, — a loss a 
 month old, which she had mourned as she might. 
 To give way to passion would have been but to im- 
 pugn the solemnity of her past regrets. When she 
 looked up at her companion, she was pale, but she 
 was calm, yet with a calmness upon which a single 
 glance of her eye directed him not inconsiderately 
 to presume. She was aware that this glance be- 
 trayed her secret ; but in view both of Severn's death 
 and of the Major's attitude, such betrayal mattered 
 less. Luttrel had prepared to act upon her hint, and 
 to avert himself gently from the topic, when Ger- 
 trude, who had dropped her eyes again, raised them 
 
Poor Richard 149 
 
 with a slight shudder. "Vm cold," she said. "Will 
 you shut that window beside you, Major? Or stay, 
 suppose you give me my shawl from the sofa." 
 
 Luttrel brought the shawl, placed it on her shoul- 
 ders, and sat down beside her. "These are cruel 
 times," he said, with studied simplicity. "I'm sure 
 I hardly know what's to come of it all." 
 
 "Yes, they are cruel times," said Gertrude. "They 
 make one feel cruel. They make one doubt of all he 
 has learnt from his pastors and masters." 
 
 "Yes, but they teach us something new also." 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know," said Gertrude, whose 
 heart was so full of bitterness that she felt almost 
 malignant. "They teach us how mean we are. War 
 is an infamy. Major, though it is your trade. It's 
 very well for you, who look at it professionally, and 
 for those who go and fight ; but it's a miserable busi- 
 ness for those who stay at home, and do the thinking 
 and the sentimentalizing. It's a miserable business 
 for women; it makes us more spiteful than ever." 
 
 "Well, a little spite isn't a bad thing, in practice," 
 said the Major. "War is certainly an abomination, 
 both at home and in the field. But as wars go. Miss 
 Whittakef, our own is a very satisfactory one. It 
 involves something. It won't leave us as it found 
 us. We're in the midst of a revolution, and what's 
 a revolution but a turning upside down ? It makes 
 sad work with our habits and theories and our tradi- 
 
150 A Landscape Painter 
 
 tions and convictions. But, on the other hand," 
 Luttrel pursued, warming to his task, "it leaves 
 something untouched, which is better than these, — 
 I mean our feelings. Miss Whittaker." And the 
 Major paused until he had caught Gertrude's eyes, 
 when, having engaged them with his own, he pro- 
 ceeded. "I think they are the stronger for the down- 
 fall of so much else, and, upon my soul, I think it's 
 in them we ought to take refuge. Don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 "Yes, if I understand you." 
 
 "I niean our serious feelings, you know, — not our 
 tastes nor our passions. I don't advocate fiddling 
 while Rome is burning. In fact it's only poor, un- 
 satisfied devils that are tempted to fiddle. There is 
 one feeling which is respectable and honorable, and 
 even sacred, at all times and in all places, whatever 
 they may be. It doesn't depend upon circumstances, 
 but they upon it ; and with its help, I think, we are a 
 match for any circumstances. I don't mean religion. 
 Miss Whittaker," added the Major, with a sober 
 smile. 
 
 "If you don't mean religion," said Gertrude, "I 
 suppose you mean love. That's a very different 
 thing." 
 
 "Yes, a very different thing; so I've always 
 thought, and so I'm glad to hear you say. Some 
 people, you know, mix them up in the most extraor- 
 
Poor Richard 151 
 
 dinary fashion. I don't fancy myself an especially 
 religious man; in fact, I believe I'm rather other- 
 wise. It's my nature. Half mankind are born so, 
 or I suppose the affairs of this world wouldn't 
 move. But I believe I'm a good lover. Miss Whit- 
 taker." 
 
 "I hope for your own sake you are, Major Lut- 
 trel." 
 
 "Thank you. Do you think now you could enter- 
 tain the idea for the sake of any one else ?" 
 
 Gertrude neither dropped her eyes, nor shrugged 
 her shoulders, nor blushed. If anything, indeed, 
 she turned somewhat paler than before, as she sus- 
 tained her companion's gaze, and prepared to an- 
 swer him as directly as she might. 
 
 "If I loved you. Major Luttrel," she said, "I 
 should value the idea for my own sake." 
 
 The Major, too, blanched a little. "I put my 
 question conditionally," he answered, "and I have 
 got, as I deserved, a conditional reply. I will speak 
 plainly, then. Miss Whittaker. Do you value the 
 fact for your own sake? It would be plainer still 
 to say. Do you love me? but I confess I'm not brave 
 enough for that. I will say. Can you? or I will 
 even content myself with putting it in the condi- 
 tional again, and asking you if you could ; although, 
 after all, I hardly know what the if understood can 
 reasonably refer to. I'm not such a fool as to ask 
 
152 A Landscape Painter 
 
 of any woman — least of all of you — ^to love me con- 
 tingently. You can only answer for the present, and 
 say yes or no. I shouldn't trouble you to say either, 
 if I didn't conceive that I had given you time to 
 make up your mind. It doesn't take forever to 
 know James Luttrel. I'm not one of the great un- 
 fathomable ones. We've seen each other more or 
 less intimately for a good many weeks; and as I'm 
 conscious, Miss Whittaker, of having shown you 
 my best, I take it for granted that if you don't fancy 
 me now, you won't a month hence, when you shall 
 have seen my faults. Yes, Miss Whittaker, I can 
 solemnly say," continued the Major, with genuine 
 feeling, "I have shown you my best, as every man 
 is in honor bound to do who approaches a woman 
 with those predispositions with which I have ap- 
 proached you. I have striven hard to please you," 
 — and he paused. "I can only say, I hope I have 
 succeeded." 
 
 "I should be very insensible," said Gertrude, "if 
 all your kindness and your courtesy had been lost 
 upon me." 
 
 "In Heaven's name, don't talk about courtesy," 
 cried the Major. 
 
 "I am deeply conscious of your devotion, and I 
 am very much obliged to you for urging your claims 
 so respectfully and considerately. I spc?k seriously. 
 Major Luttrel," pursued Gertrude. "'l-tre is a 
 
Poor Richard 153 
 
 happy medium of expression, and you have taken 
 it. Now it seems to me that there is a happy me- 
 dium of affection, with which you might be con- 
 tent. Strictly, I don't love you. I question my 
 heart, and it gives me that answer. The feehng 
 that I have is not a feeling to work prodigies." 
 
 "May it at least work the prodigy of allowing 
 you to be my wife?" 
 
 "I don't think I shall over-estimate its strength, 
 if I say that it may. If you can respect a woman 
 who gives you her hand in cold blood, you are wel- 
 come to mine." 
 
 Luttrel moved his chair and took her hand. "Beg- 
 gars can't be choosers," said he, raising it to his 
 mustache. 
 
 "O Major Luttrel, don't say that," she answered. 
 "I give you a great deal ; but I keep a little, — a lit- 
 tle," said Gertrude, hesitating, "which I suppose I 
 shall give to God." 
 
 "Well, I shall not be jealous," said Luttrel. 
 
 "The rest I give to you, and in return I ask a 
 great deal." 
 
 "I shall give you all. You know I told you I'm 
 not religious." 
 
 "No, I don't want more than I give," said Ger- 
 trude. 
 
 "But, pray," asked Luttrel, with a delicate smile, 
 "what am I to do with the difference?" 
 
154 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "You had better keep it for yourself. What I 
 want is your protection, sir, and your advice, and 
 your care. I want you to take me away from this 
 place, even if you have to take me down to the 
 army. I want to see the world under the shelter of 
 your name. I shall give you a great deal of trouble. 
 I'm a mere mass of possessions : what I am, is noth- 
 ing to what I have. But ever since I began to grow 
 up, what I am has been the slave of what I have. 
 I am weary of my chains, and you must help me to 
 carry them," — and Gertrude rose to her feet as if 
 to inform the Major that his audience was at an 
 end. 
 
 He still held her right hand; she gave him the 
 other. He stood looking down at her, an image of 
 manly humility, while from his silent breast went 
 out a brief thanksgiving to favoring fortune. 
 
 At the pressure of his hands, Gertrude felt her 
 bosom heave. She burst into tears. "O, you must 
 be very kind to me!" she cried, as he put his arm 
 about her, and she dropped her head upon his shoul- 
 der. 
 
 When once Richard's health had taken a turn for 
 the better, it began very rapidly to improve. "Until 
 he is quite well," Gertrude said, one day, to her ac- 
 cepted suitor, "I had rather he heard nothing of 
 our engagement. He was once in love with me him- 
 
Poor Richard 155 
 
 self," she added, very frankly. "Did you ever sus- 
 pect it? But I hope he will have got better of that 
 sad malady, too. Nevertheless, I shall expect noth- 
 ing of his good judgment until he is quite strong; 
 and as he may hear of my new intentions from other 
 people, I propose that, for the present, we confide 
 them to no one." 
 
 "But if he asks me point-blank," said the Major, 
 "what shall I answer?" 
 
 "It's not likely he'll ask you. How should he 
 suspect anything?" 
 
 "O," said Luttrel, "Clare is one that suspects 
 ever)^hing." 
 
 "Tell him we're not engaged, then. A woman in 
 my position may say what she pleases." 
 
 It was agreed, however, that certain preparations 
 for the marriage should meanwhile go forward in 
 secret ; and that the marriage itself should take place 
 in August, as Luttrel expected to be ordered back 
 into service in the autumn. At about this moment 
 Gertrude was surprised to receive a short note from 
 Richard, so feebly scrawled in pencil as to be barely 
 legible. "Dear Gertrude, it ran, "don't come to see 
 me just yet. I'm not fit. You would hurt me, and 
 vice versa. God bless you! R. Clare." Miss 
 Whittaker explained his request, by the supposition 
 that a report had come to him of Major Luttrel's 
 late assiduities (which it was impossible should go 
 
156 A Landscape Painter 
 
 unobserved) ; that, leaping at the worst, he had 
 taken her engagement for granted ; and that, under 
 this impression, he could not trust himself to see 
 her. She despatched him an answer, telling him 
 that she would await his pleasure, and that, if the 
 doctor would consent to his having letters, she would 
 meanwhile occasionally write to him. "She will 
 give me good advice," thought Richard impatiently ; 
 and on this point, accordingly, she received no ac- 
 count of his wishes. Expecting to leave her house 
 and close it on her marriage, she spent many hours 
 in wandering sadly over the meadow-paths and 
 through the woodlands which she had known from 
 her childhood. She had thrown aside the last en- 
 signs of filial regret, and now walked sad and splen- 
 did in the uncompromising colors of an affianced 
 bride. It would have seemed to a stranger that, for 
 a woman who had freely chosen a companion for 
 life, she was amazingly spiritless and sombre. As 
 she looked at her pale cheeks and heavy eyes in the 
 mirror, she felt ashamed that she had no fairer 
 countenance to offer to her destined lord. She had 
 lost her single beauty, her smile ; and she would make 
 but a ghastly figure at the altar. "I ought to wear 
 a calico dress and an apron," she said to herself, 
 "and not this glaring finery." But she continued 
 to wear her finery, and to lay out her money, and to 
 perform all her old duties to the letter. After the 
 
Poor Richard 157 
 
 lapse of what she deemed a sufficient interval, she 
 went to see Mrs. Martin, and to listen dumbly to 
 her narration of her brother's death, and to her sim- 
 ple eulogies. 
 
 Major Luttrel performed his part quite as 
 bravely, and much more successfully. He observed 
 neither too many things nor too few; he neither 
 presumed upon his success, nor mistrusted it. Hav- 
 ing on his side received no prohibition from Rich- 
 ard, he resumed his visits at the farm, trusting that, 
 with the return of reason, his young friend might 
 feel disposed to renew that anomalous alliance in 
 which, on the hapless evening of Captain Severn's 
 farewell, he had taken refuge against his despair. 
 In the long, languid hours of his early convalescence, 
 Richard had found time to survey his position, to 
 summon back piece by piece the immediate past, and 
 to frame a general scheme for the future. But more 
 vividly than anything else, there had finally disen- 
 gaged itself from his meditations a profound aver- 
 sion to James Luttrel. 
 
 It was in this humor that the Major found him; 
 and as he looked at the young man's gaunt shoul- 
 ders, supported by pillows, at his face, so livid and 
 aquiline, at his great dark eyes, luminous with tri- 
 umphant life, it seemed to him that an invincible 
 spirit had been sent from a better world to breathe 
 confusion upon his hopes. If Richard hated the 
 
158 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Major, the reader may guess whether the Major 
 loved Richard. Luttrel was amazed at his first re- 
 mark. 
 
 "I suppose you're engaged by this time," Richard 
 said, calmly enough. 
 
 "Not quite," answered the Major. "There's a 
 chance for you yet." 
 
 To this Richard made no rejoinder. Then, sud- 
 denly, "Have you had any news of Captain Severn?'* 
 he asked. 
 
 For a moment the Major was perplexed at his 
 question. He had assumed that the news of Sev- 
 ern's death had come to Richard's ears, and he had 
 been half curious, half apprehensive as to its effect. 
 But an instant's reflection now assured him that the 
 young man's estrangement from his neighbors had 
 kept him hitherto and might still keep him in igno- 
 rance of the truth. Hastily, therefore, and incon- 
 siderately, the Major determined to confirm this 
 ignorance. "No," said he; "I've had no news. 
 Severn and I are not on such terms as to corres- 
 pond." 
 
 The next time Luttrel came to the farm, he found 
 the master sitting up in a great, cushioned, chintz- 
 covered arm-chair which Gertrude had sent him the 
 day before out of her own dressing-room. 
 
 "Are you engaged yet?" asked Richard. 
 
 There was a strain as if of defiance in his tone. 
 
Poor Richard 159 
 
 The Major was irritated. "Yes," said he, "we are 
 engaged now." 
 
 The young man's face betrayed no emotion. 
 
 "Are you reconciled to it?" asked Luttrel. 
 
 "Yes, practically I am." 
 
 "What do you mean by practically? Explain 
 yourself." 
 
 "A man in my state can't explain himself. I 
 mean that, however I feel about it, I shall accept 
 Gertrude's marriage." 
 
 "You're a wise man, my boy," said the Major, 
 kindly. 
 
 "I'm growing wise. I feel like Solomon on his 
 throne in this chair. But I confess, sir, I don't see 
 how she could have you." 
 
 "Well, there's no accounting for tastes," said the 
 Major, good-humoredly. 
 
 "Ah, if it's been a matter of taste with her," said 
 Richard, "I have nothing to say." 
 
 They came to no more express understanding than 
 this with regard to the future. Richard continued 
 to grow stronger daily, and to defer the renewal of 
 his intercourse with Gertrude. A month before, he 
 would have resented as a bitter insult the intimation 
 that he would ever be so resigned to lose her as he 
 now found himself. He would not see her for two 
 reasons : first, because he felt that it would be — or 
 that at least in reason it ought to be — a painful 
 
160 A Landscape Painter 
 
 experience to look upon his old mistress with a coldly 
 critical eye ; and secondly, because, justify to himself 
 as he would his new-born indifference, he could not 
 entirely cast away the suspicion that it was a last 
 remnant of disease, and that, when he stood on his 
 legs again in the presence of those exuberant land- 
 scapes with which he had long since established a 
 sort of sensuous communion, he would feel, as with 
 a great tumultuous rush, the return of his impetuous 
 manhood and of his old capacity. When he had 
 smoked a pipe in the outer sunshine, when he had 
 settled himself once more to the long elastic bound 
 of his mare, then he would see Gertrude. The 
 reason of the change which had come upon him 
 was that she had disappointed him, — she, whose 
 magnanimity it had once seemed that his fancy was 
 impotent to measure. She had accepted Major Lut- 
 trel, a man whom he despised; she had so muti- 
 lated her magnificent heart as to match it with his. 
 The validity of his dislike to the Major, Richard did 
 not trouble himself to examine. He accepted it as 
 an unerring instinct; and, indeed, he might have 
 asked himself, had he not sufficient proof? More- 
 over he labored under the sense of a gratuitous 
 wrong. He had suffered an immense torment of 
 remorse to drive him into brutishness, and thence to 
 the very gate of death, for an offence which he had 
 deemed mortal, and which was after all but a phan- 
 
Poor Richard 161 
 
 tasm of his impassioned conscience. What a fool 
 he had been! a fool for his nervous fears, and a 
 fool for his penitence. Marriage with Major Lut- 
 trel, — such was the end of Gertrude's fancied 
 anguish. Such, too, we hardly need add, was the 
 end of that idea of reparation which had been so 
 formidable to Luttrel. Richard had been generous ; 
 he would now be just. 
 
 Far from impeding his recovery, these reflections 
 hastened it. One morning in the beginning of 
 August, Gertrude received notice of Richard's pres- 
 ence. It was a still, sultry day, and Miss Whittaker, 
 her habitual pallor deepened by the oppressive heat, 
 was sitting alone in a white morning-dress, languidly 
 fanning aside at once the droning flies and her 
 equally importunate thoughts. She found Richard 
 standing in the middle of the drawing-room, booted 
 and spurred. 
 
 "Well, Richard," she exclaimed, with some feel- 
 ing, "you're at last willing to see me !" 
 
 As his eyes fell upon her, he started and stood 
 almost paralyzed, heeding neither her words nor 
 her extended hand. It was not Gertrude he saw, 
 but her ghost. 
 
 "In Heaven's name what has happened to you?" 
 he cried. "Have you been ill?" 
 
 Gertrude tried to smile in feigned surprise at his 
 surprise ; but her muscles relaxed. Richard's words 
 
162 A Landscape Painter 
 
 and looks reflected more vividly than any mirror 
 the dejection of her person ; and this, the misery of 
 her soul. She felt herself growing faint. She stag- 
 gered back to a sofa and sank down. 
 
 Then Richard felt as if the room were revolving 
 about him, and as if his throat were choked with 
 imprecations, — as if his old erratic passion had again 
 taken possession of him, like a mingled legion of 
 devils and angels. It was through pity that his love 
 returned. He went forward and dropped on his 
 knees at Gertrude's feet. "Speak to me !" he cried, 
 seizing her hands. "Are you unhappy? Is your 
 heart broken? O Gertrude! what have you come 
 to?" 
 
 Gertrude drew her hands from his grasp and rose 
 to her feet. "Get up, Richard," she said. "Don't 
 talk so wildly. I'm not well. I'm very glad to see 
 you. You look well." 
 
 "I've got my strength again, — and meanwhile 
 you've been failing. You're unhappy, you're 
 wretched! Don't say you're not, Gertrude: it's as 
 plain as day. You're breaking your heart." 
 
 "The same old Richard!" said Gertrude, trying 
 to smile again. 
 
 "Would that you were the same old Gertrude! 
 Don't try to smile ; you can't !" 
 
 "I shall!" said Gertrude, desperately. "I'm going 
 to be married, you know." 
 
Poor Richard 163 
 
 "Yes, I know. I don't congratulate you." 
 
 "I have not counted upon that honor, Richard. 
 I shall have to do without it." 
 
 "You'll have to do without a great many things !" 
 cried Richard, horrified by what seemed to him her 
 blind self-immolation. 
 
 "I have all I ask," said Gertrude. 
 
 "You haven't all / ask then! You haven't all 
 your friends ask." 
 
 "My friends are very kind, but I marry to suit 
 myself." 
 
 "You've not suited yourself !" retorted the young 
 man. "You've suited — God knows what! — ^your 
 pride, your despair, your resentment." As he 
 looked at her, the secret history of her weakness 
 seemed to become plain to him, and he felt a mighty 
 rage against the man who had taken a base advan- 
 tage of it. "Gertrude !" he cried, "I entreat you to 
 go back« It's not for my sake, — I'll give you up, — 
 I'll go a thousand miles away, and never look at 
 you again. It's for your own. In the name of 
 your happiness, break with that man! Don't fling 
 yourself away. Buy him off, if you consider your- 
 self bound. Give him your money. That's all he 
 wants." 
 
 As Gertrude listened, the blood came back to her 
 face, and two flames into her eyes. She looked at 
 Richard from head to foot. "You are not weak," 
 
164 A Landscape Painter 
 
 she said, "you are in your senses, you are well and 
 strong; you shall tell me what you mean. You 
 insult the best friend I have. Explain yourself ! you 
 insinuate foul things, — speak them out !" Her eyes 
 glanced toward the door, and Richard's followed 
 them. Major Luttrel stood on the threshold. 
 
 "Come in, sir !" cried Richard. "Gertrude swears 
 she'll believe no harm of you. Come and tell her 
 that she's wrong! How can you keep on harassing 
 a woman whom you've brought to this state ? Think 
 of what she was three months ago, and look at 
 her now !" 
 
 Luttrel received this broadside without flinching. 
 He had overheard Richard's voice from the entry, 
 and he had steeled his heart for the encounter. He 
 assumed the air of having been so amazed by the 
 young man's first words as only to have heard his 
 last; and he glanced at Gertrude mechanically as if 
 to comply with them. "What's the matter?" he 
 asked, going over to her, and taking her hand ; "are 
 you ill ?" Gertrude let him have her hand, but she 
 forbore to meet his eyes. 
 
 "111! of course she's ill!" cried Richard, passion- 
 ately. "She's dying, — she's consuming herself! I 
 know I seem to be playing an odious part here, 
 Gertrude, but, upon my soul, I can't help it. I look 
 like a betrayer, an informer, a sneak, but I don't 
 feel like one! Still, I'll leave you, if you say so." 
 
Poor Richard 165 
 
 "Shall he go, Gertrude?" asked Luttrel, without 
 looking at Richard. 
 
 "No. Let him stay and explain himself. He has 
 accused you, — let him prove his case." 
 
 "I know what he is going to say," said Luttrel. 
 "It will place me in a bad light. Do you still wish 
 to hear it?" 
 
 Gertrude drew her hand hastily out of Luttrel's. 
 "Speak, Richard!" she cried, with a passionate 
 gesture. 
 
 "I will speak," said Richard. "I've done you a 
 dreadful wrong, Gertrude. How great a wrong, I 
 never knew until I saw you to-day so miserably al- 
 tered. When I heard that you were to be married, I 
 fancied that it was no wrong, and that my remorse 
 had been wasted. But I understand it now ; and he 
 understands it, too. You once told me that you had 
 ceased to love Captain Severn. It wasn't true. 
 You never ceased to love him. You love him at this 
 moment. If he were to get another wound in the 
 next battle, how would you feel? How would you 
 bear it?" And Richard paused for an instant with 
 the force of his interrogation. 
 
 "For God's sake," cried Gertrude, "respect the 
 dead!" 
 
 "The dead! Is he dead?" 
 
 Gertrude covered her face with her hands^ 
 
 "You beast !" cried Luttrel. 
 
166 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Richard turned upon him savagely. "Shut your 
 infernal mouth !" he roared. "You told me he was 
 alive and well !" 
 
 Gertrude made a movement of speechless dis- 
 tress. 
 
 "You would have it, my dear," said Luttrel, with 
 a little bow. 
 
 Richard had turned pale, and began to tremble. 
 "Excuse me, Gertrude," he said hoarsely, "I've been 
 deceived. Poor, unhappy woman! Gertrude," he 
 continued, going nearer to her, and speaking in a 
 whisper, "/ killed him." 
 
 Gertrude fell back from him, as he approached 
 her, with a look of unutterable horror. "I and he," 
 said Richard, pointing at Luttrel. 
 
 Gertrude's eyes followed the direction of his ges- 
 ture, and transferred their scorching disgust to her 
 suitor. This was too much for Luttrel's courage. 
 "You idiot!" she shouted at Richard, "speak out!" 
 
 "He loved you, though you believed he didn't," 
 said Richard. "I saw it the first time I looked at 
 him. To every one but you it was as plain as day. 
 Luttrel saw it, too. But he was too modest, and he 
 never fancied you cared for him. The night be- 
 fore he went back to the army, he came to bid you 
 good-by. If he had seen you, it would have been 
 better for every one. You remember that evening, 
 of course. We met him, Luttrel and I. He was all 
 
Poor Richard 167 
 
 on fire, — he meant to speak. I knew it ; you knew it, 
 Luttrel : it was in his fingers' ends. ' I intercepted 
 him. I turned him off, — I lied to him and told him 
 you were away. I was a coward, and I did neither 
 more nor less than that. I knew you were waiting 
 for him. It was stronger than my will, — I believe 
 I should do it again. Fate was against him, and 
 he went off. I came back to tell you, but my dam- 
 nable jealousy strangled me. I went home and drank 
 myself into a fever. I've done you a wrong that I 
 can never repair. I'd go hang myself if I thought it 
 would help" you." Richard spoke slowly, softly, and 
 explicitly, as if irresistible Justice in person had 
 her hand upon his neck, and were forcing him down 
 upon his knees. In the presence of Gertrude's dis- 
 may nothing seemed possible but perfect self-convic- 
 tion. In Luttrel's attitude, as he stood with his head 
 erect, his arms folded, and his cold, gray eyes fixed 
 upon the distance, it struck him that there was some- 
 thing atrociously insolent; not insolent to him, — 
 for that he cared little enough, — ^but insolent to Ger- 
 trude and to the dreadful solemnity of the hour. 
 Richard sent the Major a look of the most aggres- 
 sive contempt. "As for Major Luttrel," he said, 
 "he was but a passive spectator. No, Gertrude, by 
 Heaven!" he burst out, "he was worse than I! I 
 loved you, and he didn't!" 
 
 "Our friend is correct in his facts, Gertrude," 
 
168 A Landscape Painter 
 
 said Luttrel, quietly. "He is incorrect in his opin- 
 ions. I was a passive spectator of his deception. 
 He appeared to enjoy a certain authority with re- 
 gard to your wishes, — the source of which I re- 
 spected both of you sufficiently never to question, 
 — and I accepted the act which he has described as 
 an exercise of it. You will remember that you had 
 sent us away on the ground that you were in no 
 humor for company. To deny you, therefore, to 
 another visitor, seemed to me rather officious, but 
 still pardonable. You will consider that I was 
 wholly ignorant of your relations to that visitor; 
 that whatever you may have done for others, Ger- 
 trude, to me you never vouchsafed a word of in- 
 formation on the subject, and that Mr. Clare's 
 words are a revelation to me. But I am bound to 
 believe nothing that he says. I am bound to be- 
 lieve that I have injured you only when I hear it 
 from your own lips." 
 
 Richard made a movement as if to break out 
 upon the Major; but Gertrude, who had been stand- 
 ing motionless with her eyes upon the ground, 
 quickly raised them, and gave him a look of im- 
 perious prohibition. She had listened, and she had 
 chosen. She turned to Luttrel. "Major Luttrel," 
 she said, "you have been an accessory in what has 
 been for me a serious grief. It is my duty to tell 
 you so. I mean, of course, a profoundly unwilling 
 
Poor Richard 169 
 
 accessory. I pity you more than I can tell you. I 
 think your position more pitiable than mine. It is 
 true that I never made a confidant of you. I never 
 made one of Richard. I had a secret, and he sur- 
 prised it. You were less fortunate." It might have 
 seemed to a thoroughly dispassionate observer that 
 in these last four words there was an infinitesimal 
 touch of tragic irony. Gertrude paused a moment 
 while Luttrel eyed her intently, and Richard, from 
 a somewhat tardy instinct of delicacy, walked over 
 to the bow-window. "This is the most painful mo- 
 ment of my life," she resumed. "I hardly know 
 where my duty lies. The only thing that is plain 
 to me is, that I must ask you to release me from my 
 engagement. I ask it most humbly, Major Luttrel," 
 Gertrude continued, with warmth in her words, and 
 a chilling coldness in her voice, — a coldness which 
 it sickened her to feel there, but which she was un- 
 able to dispel. "I can't expect that you should give 
 me up easily; I know that it's a great deal to ask, 
 and" — she forced the chosen words out of her 
 mouth — "I should thank you more than I can say 
 if you would put some condition upon my release. 
 You have done honorably by me, and I repay you 
 with ingratitude. But I can't marry you." Her 
 voice began to melt. "I have been false from the 
 beginning. I have no heart to give you. I should 
 make you a despicable wife." 
 
170 A Landscape Painter 
 
 The Major, too, had listened and chosen, and in 
 this trying conjecture he set the seal to his charac- 
 ter as an accomplished man. He saw that Ger- 
 trude's movement was final, and he determined to 
 respect the inscrutable mystery of her heart. He 
 read in the glance of her eye and the tone of her 
 voice that the perfect dignity had fallen from his 
 character, — that his integrity had lost its bloom; 
 but he also read her firm resolve never to admit this 
 fact to her own mind, nor to declare it to the world, 
 and he honored her forbearance. His hopes, his 
 ambitions, his visions, lay before him like a colossal 
 heap of broken glass; but he would be as graceful 
 as she was. She had divined him; but she had 
 spared him. The Major was inspired. 
 
 "You have at least spoken to the point," he said. 
 "You leave no room for doubt or for hope. With 
 the little light I have, I can't say I understand your 
 feelings, but I yield to them religiously. I believe 
 so thoroughly that you suffer from the thought of 
 what you ask of me, that I will not increase your 
 suffering by assuring you of my own. I care for 
 nothing but your happiness. You have lost it, and 
 I give you mine to replace it. And although it's a 
 simple thing to say," he added, "I must say simply 
 that I thank you for your implicit faith in my in- 
 tegrity," — and he held out his hand. As she gave 
 him hers, Gertrude felt utterly in the wrong; and she 
 
Poor Richard 171 
 
 looked into his eyes with an expression so humble, 
 so appealing, so grateful, that, after all, his exit 
 may be called triumphant. 
 
 When he had gone, Richard turned from the 
 window with an enormous sense of relief. He had 
 heard Gertrude's speech, and he knew that perfect 
 justice had not been done ; but still there was enough 
 to be thankful for. Yet now that his duty was ac- 
 complished, he was conscious of a sudden lassitude. 
 Mechanically he looked at Gertrude, and almost me- 
 chanically he came towards her. She, on her side, 
 looking at him as he walked slowly down the long 
 room, his face indistinct against the deadened light 
 of the white-draped windows behind him, marked 
 the expression of his figure with another pang. "He 
 has rescued me," she said to herself; "but his pas- 
 sion has perished in the tumult. Richard," she said 
 aloud, uttering the first words of vague kindness 
 that came into her mind, "I forgive you." 
 
 Richard stopped. The idea had lost its charm. 
 "You're very kind," he said, wearily. "You're far 
 too kind. How do you know you forgive me? 
 Wait and see." 
 
 Gertrude looked at him as she had never looked 
 before; but he saw nothing of it. He saw a sad, 
 plain girl in a white dress, nervously handling her 
 fan. He was thinking of himself. If he had been 
 thinking of her, he would have read in her lingering. 
 
172 A Landscape Painter 
 
 upward gaze, that he had won her ; and if, so read- 
 ing, he had opened his arms, Gertrude would have 
 come to them. We trust the reader is not shocked. 
 She neither hated him nor despised him, as she 
 ought doubtless in consistency to have done. She 
 felt that he was abundantly a man, and she loved 
 him. Richard, on his side, felt humbly the same 
 truth, and he began to respect himself. The past 
 had closed abruptly behind him, and tardy Gertrude 
 had been shut in. The future was dimly shaping 
 itself without her image. So he did not open his 
 arms. 
 
 "Good-by," he said, holding out his hand. "I 
 may not see you again for a long time." 
 
 Gertrude felt as if the world were deserting her. 
 "Are you going away?" she asked, tremulously. 
 
 "I mean to sell out and pay my debts, and go to 
 the war." 
 
 She gave him her hand, and he silently shook it. 
 There was no contending with the war, and she 
 gave him up. 
 
 With their separation our story properly ends, 
 and to say more would be to begin a new story. It 
 is, perhaps, our duty, however, expressly to add, 
 that Major Luttrel, in obedience to a logic of his 
 own, abstained from revenge; and that, if time has 
 not avenged him, it has at least rewarded him. Gen- 
 eral Luttrel, who lost an arm before the war was 
 
Poor Richard 173 
 
 over, recently married Miss Van Winkel of Phila- 
 delphia, and seventy thousand a year. Richard en- 
 gaged in the defence of his country, on a captain's 
 commission, obtained with some difficulty. He saw 
 a great deal of fighting, but he has no scars to 
 show. The return of peace found him in his native 
 place, without a home, and without resources. One 
 of his first acts was to call dutifully and respectfully 
 upon Miss Whittaker, whose circle of acquaintance 
 had apparently become very much enlarged, and 
 now included a vast number of gentlemen. Ger- 
 trude's manner was kindness itself, but a more 
 studied kindness than before. She had lost much 
 of her youth and her simplicity. Richard wondered 
 whether she had pledged herself to spinsterhood, 
 but, of course, he didn't ask her. She inquired very 
 particularly into his material prospects and inten- 
 tions, and ofifered most urgently to lend him money, 
 which he declined to borrow. When he left her, 
 he took a long walk through her place and beside 
 the river, and, wandering back to the days when 
 he had yearned for her love, assured himself that 
 no woman would ever again be to him what she had 
 been. During his stay in this neighborhood he 
 found himself impelled to a species of submission 
 to one of the old agricultural magnates whom he 
 had insulted in his unregenerate days, and through 
 whom he was glad to obtain some momentary em- 
 
174 A Landscape Painter 
 
 ployment. But his present position is very distaste- 
 ful to him, and he is eager to try his fortunes in the 
 West. As yet, however, he has lacked even the 
 means to get as far as St. Louis. He drinks no 
 more than is good for him. To speak of Gertrude's 
 impressions of Richard would lead us quite too far. 
 Shortly after his return she broke up her house- 
 hold, and came to the bold resolution (bold, that is, 
 for a woman young, unmarried, and ignorant of 
 manners in her own country) to spend some time in 
 Europe. At our last accounts she was living in the 
 ancient city of Florence. Her great wealth, of 
 which she was wont to complain that it excluded her 
 from human sympathy, now affords her a most effi- 
 cient protection. She passes among her fellow- 
 countrymen abroad for a very independent, but a 
 very happy woman ; although, as she is by this time 
 twenty-seven years of age, a little romance is oc- 
 casionally invoked to account for her continued celi- 
 bacy. 
 
Ill 
 
 A DAY OF DAYS 
 
A DAY OF DAYS 
 
 Mr. Herbert Moore, a gentleman of some notef 
 in the scientific world, and a childless widower, find- 
 ing himself at last unable to reconcile his sedentary 
 habits with the management of a household, had 1 
 invited his only sister to come and superintend his 
 domestic affairs. Miss Adela Moore had assented 
 the more willingly to his proposal, as by her moth- 
 er's death she had recently been left without a for- 
 mal protector. She was twenty-five years of age, 
 and was a very active member of what she and her 
 friends called society. She was almost equally at 
 home in the very best company of three great cities, 
 and she had encountered most of the adventures 
 which await a young girl on the threshold of life. 
 She had become rather hastily and imprudently en- 
 gaged, but she had eventually succeeded in disen- 
 gaging herself. She had spent a summer in 
 Europe, and she had made a voyage to Cuba with 
 
 177 
 
178 A Landscape Painter 
 
 a dear friend in the last stage of consumption, who 
 had died at the hotel in Havana. Although by no 
 means beautiful in person, she was yet thoroughly 
 pleasing, rejoicing in what young ladies are fond 
 of calling an air. That is, she was tall and slender, 
 with a long neck, a low forehead and a handsome 
 j nose. Even after six years of "society," too, she 
 I still had excellent manners. She was, moreover, 
 , mistress of a very pretty little fortune, and was ac- 
 ' counted clever without detriment to her amiability, 
 and amiable without detriment to her wit. These 
 facts, as the reader will allow, might have ensured 
 her the very best prospects ; but he has seen that she 
 had found herself willing to forfeit her prospects 
 and bury herself in the country. It seemed to her 
 that she had seen enough of the world and of human 
 nature, and that a couple of years of seclusion might 
 not be unprofitable. She had begun to suspect that 
 for a girl of her age she was unduly old and wise — 
 and, what is more, to suspect that others suspected 
 as much. A great observer of life and manners, so 
 far as her opportunities went, she conceived that it 
 behooved her to organize the results of her obser- 
 vation into principles of conduct and of belief. She 
 was becoming — so she argued — ^too impersonal, too 
 critical, too intelligent, too contemplative, too just. 
 A woman had no business to be so just. The so- 
 ciety of nature, of the great expansive skies and the 
 
A Day of Days 179 
 
 primeval woods, would prove severely unpropitious 
 to her excessive intellectual growth. She would 
 spend her time in the fields and live in her feelings, 
 her simple sense, and the perusal of profitable books 
 from Herbert's library. 
 
 She found her brother very prettily housed at 
 about a mile's distance from the nearest town, and 
 at about six miles' distance from another town, the 
 seat of a small college, before which he delivered 
 a weekly lecture. She had seen so little of him of 
 late years that his acquaintance was almost to make ; 
 but it was very soon made. Herbert Moore was 
 one of the simplest and least aggressive of men, and 
 one of the most patient and delicate of students. 
 He had a vague notion that Adela was a young 
 woman of extravagant pleasures, and that, some- 
 how, on her arrival, his house would be overrun 
 with the train of her attendant revellers. It was 
 not until after they had been six months together 
 that he discovered that his sister was a model of 
 diligence and temperance. By the time six months 
 more had passed, Adela had bought back a delight- 
 ful sense of youth and nmvete. She learned, under 
 her brother's tuition, to walk — nay, to climb, for 
 there were great hills in the neighborhood — to ride 
 and to botanize. At the end of a year, in the month 
 of August, she received a visit from an old friend, 
 a girl of her own age, who had been spending July 
 
180 A Landscape Pmnter 
 
 at a watering-place, and who was about to be mar- 
 ried. Adela had begun to fear that she had lapsed 
 into an almost irreclaimable rusticity, and had suf- 
 fered a permanent diminution of the social facility 
 for which she had formerly been distinguished ; but 
 a week spent in tete-a-tete with her friend convinced 
 her not only that she had not forgotten much that 
 she had feared, but also that she had not forgotten 
 much that she had hoped. For this, and other rea- 
 sons, her friend's departure left her slightly de- 
 pressed. She felt lonely and even a little elderly. 
 She had lost another illusion. Laura B., for whom 
 a year ago she had entertained a serious regard, now 
 impressed her as a very flimsy little person, who 
 talked about her lover with almost indecent flip- 
 pancy. 
 
 Meanwhile, September was slowly running its 
 course. One morning Mr. Moore took a hasty 
 breakfast and started to catch the train for S., 
 whither a scientific conference called him, which 
 might, he said, release him that afternoon in time 
 for dinner at home, and might, on the other hand, 
 detain him until the evening. It was almost the first 
 time during Adela's rustication that she had been 
 left alone for several hours. Her brother's quiet 
 presence was inappreciable enough ; yet now that he 
 was at a distance she nevertheless felt a singular 
 sense of freedom ; a sort of return of those days of 
 
A Day of Days 181 
 
 early childhood, when, through some domestic ca- 
 tastrophe, she had for an infinite morning been left 
 to her own devices. What should she do ? she asked 
 herself, half laughing. It was a fair day for work : 
 but it was a still better one for play. Should she 
 drive into town and pay a long-standing debt of 
 morning calls ? Should she go into the kitchen and 
 try her hand at a pudding for dinner? She felt a 
 delicious longing to do something illicit, to play 
 with fire, to discover some Bluebeard's closet. But 
 poor Herbert was no Bluebeard. If she were to 
 burn down his house he would exact no amends. 
 Adela went out to the veranda, and, sitting down 
 on the steps, gazed across the country. It was ap- 
 parently the last day of Summer. The sky was 
 faintly blue; the woody hills were putting on the 
 morbid colors of Autumn ; the great pine grove be- 
 hind the house seemed to have caught and impris- 
 oned the protesting breezes. Looking down the road 
 toward the village, it occurred to Adela that she 
 might have a visit, and so kindly was her mood that 
 she felt herself competent to a chat with one of her 
 rustic neighbors. As the sun rose higher, she went 
 in and established herself with a piece of embroid- 
 ery in a deep, bow window in the second story, 
 which, betwixt its muslin curtains and its external 
 frame-work of vines, commanded most insidiously 
 the principal approach to the house. While she 
 
182 A Landscape Painter 
 
 drew her threads, she surveyed the road with a 
 deepening conviction that she was destined to have 
 a caller. The air was warm, yet not hot; the dust 
 had been laid during the night by a gentle rain. It 
 had been from the first a source of complaint among 
 Adela's new friends that her courtesies were so 
 thoroughly indiscriminating. Not only had she lent 
 herself to no friendships, but she had committed 
 herself to no preferences. Nevertheless, it was 
 with a by no means impartial fancy that she sat 
 thus expectant at her casement. She had very soon 
 made up her mind that, to answer the exactions of 
 the hour, her visitor should perforce be of the other 
 sex, and as, thanks to the somewhat uncompromis- 
 ing indifference which, during her residence, she had 
 exhibited to the jeunesse doree of the county, her 
 roll-call, in this her hour of need, was limited to a 
 single name, so her thoughts were now centered 
 upon the bearer of that name, Mr. Madison Perkins, 
 the Unitarian minister. If, instead of being Miss 
 Moore's story, this were Mr. Perkins's, it might eas- 
 ily be condensed into the one pregnant fact that he 
 was very far gone in love for our heroine. Al- 
 though of a different faith from his, she had been 
 so well pleased with one of his sermons, to "which 
 she had allowed herself to lend a tolerant ear, that, 
 meeting him some time afterward, she had received 
 him with what she considered a rather knotty doc- 
 
A Day of Days 183 
 
 trinal question; whereupon, gracefully waiving the 
 question, he had asked permission to call upon her 
 and talk over her "difficulties." This short inter- 
 view had enshrined her in the young minister's 
 heart ; and the half-dozen occasions on which he had 
 subsequently contrived to see her had each con- 
 tributed an additional taper to her shrine. It is but 
 fair to add, however, that, although a captive, Mr. 
 Perkins was as yet no captor. He was simply an 
 honorable young man, who happened at this mo- 
 ment to be the most sympathetic companion within 
 reach. Adela, at twenty-five years of age, had both 
 a past and a future. Mr. Perkins reechoed the one, 
 and foreshadowed the other. 
 
 So, at last, when, as the morning waned toward 
 noon, Adela descried in the distance a man's figure 
 treading the grassy margin of the road, and swing- 
 ing his stick a she came, she smiled to herself with 
 some complacency. But even while she smiled she be- 
 came conscious of a most foolish acceleration of the 
 process of her heart. She rose, and resenting her 
 gratuitous emotion, stood for a moment half re- 
 solved to have herself denied. As she did so, she 
 glanced along the road again. Her friend had 
 drawn nearer, and, as the distance lessened, lo! it 
 seemed to her that he was not her friend. Before 
 many moments her doubts were removed. The gen- 
 tleman was a stranger. In front of the house three 
 
184 A Landscape Painter 
 
 roads diverged from a great spreading elm. The 
 stranger came along the opposite side of the high- 
 way, and when he reached the elm stopped and 
 looked about him as if to verify a direction. Then 
 he deliberately crossed over. Adela had time to see, 
 unseen, that he was a shapely young man, with a 
 bearded chin and a straw hat. After the due inter- 
 val, Becky, the maid, came up with a card some- 
 what rudely superscribed in pencil: 
 
 Thomas Ludlow, 
 New York. 
 
 Turning it over in her fingers, Adela saw that 
 the reverse of a card had been used, abstracted from 
 the basket on her own drawing-room table. The 
 printed name on the other side was dashed out; it 
 ran: Mr. Madison Perkins. 
 
 "He asked me to give you this, ma'am," said 
 Becky. "He helped himself to it out of the tray." 
 
 "Did he ask for me by name ?" 
 
 "No, ma'am, he asked for Mr. Moore. When I 
 told him Mr. Moore was away, he asked for some 
 of the family. I told him you were all the family, 
 ma am. 
 
 "Very well," said Adela, "I will go down." But, 
 begging her pardon, we will precede her by a few 
 steps. 
 
 Tom Ludlow, as his friends called him, was a 
 
A Day of Days 185 
 
 young man of twenty-eight, concerning whom you 
 might have heard the most various opinions ; for, as 
 far as he was known (which, indeed, was not very 
 far), he was at once one of the best hked and one 
 of the best hated of men. Born in one of the lower 
 strata of New York society, he was still slightly in- 
 crusted, if we may so express it, with his native soil. 
 A certain crudity of manners and of aspect proved 
 him to be one of the great majority of the ungloved. 
 On this basis, however, he was a sufficiently good- 
 looking fellow : a middle-sized, agile figure ; a head 
 so well shaped as to be handsome ; a pair of inquisi- 
 tive, responsive eyes, and a large, manly mouth, con- 
 stituting his heritage of beauty. Turned upon the 
 world at an early age, he had, in the pursuit of a 
 subsistence, tried his head at everything in succes- 
 sion, and had generally found it to be quite as hard 
 as the opposing substance ; and his figure may have 
 been thought to reflect this sweet assurance in a look 
 of somewhat aggressive satisfaction with things in 
 general, himself included. He was a man of strong 
 faculties and a strong will, but it is doubtful whether 
 his feelings were stronger than he. He was liked 
 for his directness, his good humor, his general 
 soundness and serviceableness ; he was disliked for 
 the same qualities under different names; that is, 
 for his impudence, his offensive optimisms, and his 
 inhuman avidity for facts. When his friends in- 
 
186 A Landscape Painter 
 
 sisted upon his noble disinterestedness, his enemies 
 were wont to reply it was all very well to ignore, 
 to nullify oneself in the pursuit of science, but that 
 to suppress the rest of mankind coincidentally be- 
 trayed an excess of zeal. Fortunately for Ludlow, 
 on the whole, he was no great listener; and even if 
 he had been, a certain plebeian thick-skinnedness 
 would have been the guaranty of his equanimity; 
 although it must be added that, if, like a genuine 
 democrat, he was very insensitive, like a genuine 
 democrat, too, he was amazingly proud. His tastes, 
 which had always been for the natural sciences, had 
 recently led him to paleontology, that branch of 
 them cultivated by Herbert Moore ; and it was upon 
 business connected with this pursuit that, after a 
 short correspondence, he had now come to see him. 
 
 As Adela went in to him, he came out with a bow 
 from the window, whence he had been contemplat- 
 ing the lawn. She acknowledged his greeting. 
 
 "Miss Moore, I believe," said Ludlow. 
 
 "Miss Moore," said Adela. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, for this intrusion, but as I 
 had come from a distance to see Mr. Moore on busi- 
 ness, I thought I might venture either to ask at head- 
 quarters how he may most easily be reached', or even 
 to charge you with a message." These words were 
 accompanied with a smile before which it was 
 Adela's destiny to succumb — if this is not too ford- 
 
A Day of Days 187 
 
 ble a term for the movement of feeling with which 
 she answered them. 
 
 "Pray make no apologies," she said. "We hardly 
 recognize such a thing as intrusion in the country. 
 Won't you sit down ? My brother went away only 
 this morning, and I expect him back this after- 
 noon." 
 
 "This afternoon? indeed. In that case I believe 
 I'll wait. It was very stupied of me not to have 
 dropped a word beforehand. But I have been in 
 the city all Summer long, and I shall not be sorry 
 to screw a little vacation out of this business. I'm 
 prodigiously fond of the country, and I very sel- 
 dom get a glimpse of it." 
 
 "It's possible," said Adela, "that my brother may 
 not come home until the evening. He was uncer- 
 tain. You might go to him at S." 
 
 Ludlow reflected a moment, with his eyes on his 
 hostess. "If he does return in the afternoon, at 
 what hour will he arrive?" 
 
 "At three." 
 
 "And my ov/n train leaves at four. Allow him 
 a quarter of an hour to come from town and my- 
 self a quarter of an hour to get there (if he would 
 give me his vehicle, back), I should have half an 
 hour to see him. We couldn't do much talk, but I 
 could ask him the essential questions. I wish chiefly 
 to ask him for some letters. It seems a pity to take 
 
188 A Landscape Painter 
 
 two superfluous — ^that is, possibly superfluous — ^rail- 
 way journeys of an hour apiece, for I should prob- 
 ably come back with him. Don't you think so?" he 
 asked, very frankly. 
 
 "You know best," said Adela. "I'm not partic- 
 ularly fond of the journey to S., even when it's ab- 
 solutely necessary." 
 
 "Yes; and then this is such a lovely day for a 
 good long ramble in the fields. That's a thing I 
 haven't done since I don't know when. I'll stay." 
 And he placed his hat on the floor beside him. 
 
 "I'm afraid, now that I think of it," said Adela, 
 "that there is no train until so late an hour that you 
 would have very little time left on your arrival to 
 talk with my brother before the hour at which he 
 himself might have determined to start for home. 
 It's true that you might induce him to remain till 
 the evening." 
 
 "Dear me ! I shouldn't like to do that. It might 
 be very inconvenient for him. Besides I shouldn't 
 have time. And then I always like to see a man in 
 his own home — or in my own home; a man, that 
 is, whom Fhave any regard for — and I have a very 
 great regard for your brother, Miss Moore. When 
 men meet at a half-way house, neither feels at his 
 ease. And then this is such an uncommonly pretty 
 place of yours," pursued Ludlow, looking about 
 him. 
 
A Bay of Bays 189 
 
 "Yes, it's a very pretty place," said Adela. 
 
 Ludlow got up and walked to the window. "I 
 want to look at your view," said he. "A lovely 
 view it is. You're a happy woman, Miss Moore, to 
 live before such a prospect." 
 
 "Yes, if pretty scenery can make one happy, I 
 ought to be happy." And Adela was glad to regain 
 her feet and stand on the other side of the table, 
 before the window. 
 
 "Don't you think it can?" asked Ludlow turning 
 around. "I don't know, though, perhaps it can't. 
 Ugly sights can't make you unhappy, necessarily. 
 I've been working for a year in one of the narrow- 
 est, darkest, dirtiest, and busiest streets in New 
 York, with rusty bricks and muddy gutters for 
 scenery. But I think I can hardly set up to be 
 miserable. I wish I could. It might be a claim on 
 your favor." As he said these words, he stood 
 leaning against the window shutter, without the 
 curtain, with folded arms. The morning light cov- 
 ered his face, and, mingled with that of his broad 
 laugh, showed Adela that it was a very pleasant 
 face. 
 
 "Whatever else he may be," she said to herself 
 as she stood within the shade of the other curtain, 
 playing with the paper-knife which she had plucked 
 from the table. "I think he is honest. I am afraid 
 he isn't a gentleman — ^but he is not a simpleton." 
 
190 A Landscape Painter 
 
 She met his eye frankly for a moment. "What do 
 you want of my favor?" she asked, with an abrupt- 
 ness of which she was acutely conscious. "Does he 
 wish to make friends," she pursued, "or does he 
 merely wish to pay me a vulgar compliment ? There 
 is bad taste, perhaps, in either case, but especially 
 in the latter." Meanwhile her visitor had already 
 answered her. 
 
 "What do I want of your favor? Why, I want to 
 make the most of it." And Ludlow blushed at his 
 own audacity. 
 
 Adela, however, kept her color. "I'm afraid it 
 will need all your pulling and stretching," she said, 
 with a little laugh. 
 
 "All right. I'm great at pulling and stretching," 
 said Ludlow, with a deepening of his great mas- 
 culine blush, and a broad laugh to match it. 
 
 Adela glanced toward the clock on the mantle. 
 She was curious to measure the duration of her ac- 
 quaintance with this breezy invader of her privacy, 
 with whom she so suddenly found herself bandying 
 florid personalities. She had known him some eight 
 minutes. 
 
 Ludlow observed her movement. "I'm interrupt- 
 ing you and detaining you from your own affairs," 
 he said ; and he moved toward his hat. "I suppose 
 I must bid you good-morning." And he picked 
 it up. 
 
A Day of Days 191 
 
 Adela stcxxi at the table and watched him cross 
 the room. To express a very deUcate feeling in 
 terms comparatively broad, she was loth to have 
 him go. She divined, too, that he was loth to go. 
 The knowledge of this feeling on his part, however, 
 affected her composure but slightly. The truth is — 
 we say it with all respect — ^Adela was an old hand. 
 She was modest, honest and wise ; but, as we have 
 said, she had a past — a past of which importunate 
 swains in the guise of morning-callers had been no 
 inconsiderable part; and a great dexterity in what 
 may be called outflanking these gentlemen, was one 
 of her registered accomplishements. Her liveliest 
 emotion at present, therefore, was less one of annoy- 
 ance at her companion than of surprise at her own 
 gracious impulses, which were yet undeniable. "Am 
 I dreaming?" she asked herself. She looked out of 
 the window, and then back at Ludlow, who stood 
 grasping his hat and stick, contemplating her face. 
 Should she bid him remain? "He is honest," 
 she repeated; "why should not I be honest for 
 once?" "I'm sorry you are in a hurry," she said 
 aloud. 
 
 "I am in no hurry," he answered. 
 
 Adela turned her face to the window again, and 
 toward the opposite hills. There was a moment's 
 pause. 
 
 "I thought you were in a hurry," said Ludlow. 
 
192 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Adela gave him her eyes. "My brother would be 
 very glad to have you remain as long as you like. 
 He would expect me to offer you what little hospi- 
 tality is in my power." 
 
 "Pray, offer it then." 
 
 "That's easily done. This is the parlor, and there, 
 beyond the hall, is my brother's study. Perhaps you 
 would like to look at his books and his collections. 
 I know nothing about them, and I should be a very 
 poor guide. But you are welcome to go in and use 
 your discretion in examining what may interest 
 you." 
 
 "This, I take it, would be but another way of bid- 
 ding you good-morning." 
 
 "For the present, yes." 
 
 "But I hesitate to take such liberties with your 
 brother's treasures as you prescribe." 
 
 "Prescribe, sir? I prescribe nothing." 
 
 "But if I decline to penetrate into Mr. Moore's 
 sanctum, what alternative remains?" 
 
 "Really — you must make your own alternative." 
 
 "I think you mentioned the parlor. Suppose I 
 choose that." 
 
 "Just as you please. Here are some books, and, 
 if you like, I will bring you some magazines. Can 
 I serve you in any other way? Are you tired by 
 your walk? Would you like a glass of wine?" 
 
 "Tired by my walk ? — not exactly. You are very 
 
A Day of Days 193 
 
 kind, but I feel no immediate desire for a glass of 
 wine. I think you needn't trouble yourself about 
 the magazines, either. I am in no mood to read. 
 And Ludlow pulled out his watch and compared 
 it with the clock. "I'm afraid your clock is 
 fast." 
 
 "Yes;" said Adela, "very likely." 
 
 "Some ten minutes. Well, I suppose I had better 
 be walking ;" and, coming toward Adela, he extend- 
 ed his hand. 
 
 She gave him hers. "It's a day of days for a 
 long, slow ramble," she said. 
 
 Ludlow's only rejoinder was his hand-shake. He 
 moved slowly toward the door, half accompanied 
 by Adela. "Poor fellow !" she said to herself. The 
 lattice summer-door admitted into the entry a cool, 
 dusky light, in which Adela looked pale. Ludlow 
 divided its wings with his stick, and disclosed a 
 landscape, long, deep and bright, framed by the pil- 
 lars of the veranda. He stopped on the threshhold, 
 swinging his stick. "I hope I shan't lose my way," 
 he said. 
 
 "I hope not. My brother will not forgive me if 
 you do." 
 
 Ludlow's brows were slightly contracted by a 
 frown, but he contrived to smile with his lips. 
 "When shall I come back?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 Adela found but a low tone — ^almost a whisper— 
 
194 A Landscape Painter 
 
 at her command, to answer. "Whenever you 
 please," she said. 
 
 The young man turned about, with his back to 
 the bright doorway, and looked into Adela's face, 
 which was now covered with light. "Miss Moore," 
 said he, "it's very much against my will that I leave 
 you at all." 
 
 Adela stood debating within herself. What if 
 her companion should stay? It would, under the 
 circumstances, be an adventure ; but was an advent- 
 ure necessarily unadvisable ? It lay wholly with her- 
 self to decide. She was her own mistress, and she 
 had hitherto been a just mistress. Might she not 
 for once be a generous one? The reader will ob- 
 serve in Adela's meditation the recurrence of this 
 saving clause "for once." It rests upon the simple 
 fact that she had begun the day in a romantic mood. 
 She was prepared to be interested ; and now that an 
 interesting phenomenon had presented itself, that it 
 stood before her in vivid human — nay, manly — 
 shape, instinct with reciprocity, was she to close 
 her hand to the liberality of fate ? To do so would 
 be to court mischance ; for it would involve, more- 
 over, a petty insult to human nature. Was not the 
 man before her fairly redolent of honesty, and was 
 that not enough ? He was not what Adela had been 
 used to call a gentleman. To this conviction she 
 had made a swallow's flight ; but from this assurance 
 
A Day of Days 195 
 
 she would start. "I have seen" (she thus conclud- 
 ed) "all the gentlemen can show me ; let us try some- 
 thing new." 
 
 "I see no reason why you should run away so 
 fast, Mr. Ludlow," she said, aloud. 
 
 "I think," cried Ludlow, "it would be the greatest 
 piece of folly I ever committed." 
 
 "I think it would be a pity," said Adela, with a 
 smile. 
 
 "And you invite me into your parlor again? I 
 come as your visitor, you know. I was your 
 brother's before. It's a simple enough matter. We 
 are old friends. We have a broad, common ground 
 in your brother. Isn't that about it?" 
 
 "You may adopt whatever theory you please. 
 To my mind, it is, indeed, a very simple matter." 
 
 "Oh, but I wouldn't have it too simple," said Lud- 
 low, with a mighty smile. 
 
 "Have it as you please." 
 
 Ludlow leaned back against the doorway. "Your 
 kindness is too much for me, Miss Moore," said he. 
 "I am passive ; I am in your hands ; do with me what 
 you please. I can't help contrasting my fate with 
 what it might have been but for you. A quarter of 
 an hour ago I was ignorant of your existence ; you 
 weren't in my programme. I had no idea your 
 brother had a sister. When your servant spoke of 
 'Miss Moore,' upon my word I expected something 
 
196 A Landscape Painter 
 
 rather elderly — something venerable — some rigid 
 old lady, who would say, 'exactly,' and 'very well, 
 sir,' and leave me to spend the rest of the morning 
 tilting back in a chair on the hotel piazza. It shows 
 what fools we are to attempt to forecast the future. 
 
 "We must not let our imagination run away with 
 us in any direction," said Adela. 
 
 "Imagination? I don't believe I have any. No, 
 madam," and Ludlow straightened himself up, "I 
 live in the present. I write my programme from 
 hour to hour — or, at any rate, I will in the future." 
 
 "I think you are very wise," said Adela. 
 "Suppose you write a programme for the present 
 hour. What shall we do? It seems to me a pity 
 to spend so lovely a morning in-doors. I fancy 
 this is the last day of Summer. We ought to cele- 
 brate it. How would you like a walk ?" Adela had 
 decided that, to reconcile her favors with the proper 
 maintenance of her dignity, her only course was to 
 play the perfect hostess. This decision made, very 
 naturally and gracefully she played her part. It was 
 the one possible part. And yet it did not preclude 
 those delicate sensations with which her novel epi- 
 sode seemed charged: it simply legitimated them. 
 A romantic adventure on so classical a basis would 
 assuredly hurt no one. 
 
 "I should like a walk very much," said Ludlow ; 
 "a walk with a halt at the end of it." 
 
A Day of Days 197 
 
 "Well, if you will consent to a short halt at the 
 beginning of it," said Adela, "I will be with you in 
 a very few minutes." When she returned in her 
 little hat and shawl, she found her friend seated on 
 the veranda steps. He arose and gave her a card. 
 
 "I have been requested, in your absence, to hand 
 you this," he said. 
 
 Adela read with some compunction the name of 
 Mr. Madison Perkins. 
 
 "Has he been here?" she asked. "Why didn't 
 he come in?" 
 
 "I told him you were not at home. If it wasn't 
 true then, it was going to be true so soon that the 
 interval was hardly worth taking account of. He 
 addressed himself to me, as I seemed from my po- 
 sition to be quite at home here; but I confess he 
 looked at me as if he doubted my word. He hesi- 
 tated as to whether he should confide his name to 
 me, or whether he should confide it in that shape to 
 the entry table. I think he wished to show me that 
 he suspected my veracity, for he was making rather 
 grimly for the table when I, fearing that once in- 
 side the house he might encounter the living truth, 
 informed him in the most good-humored tone pos- 
 ible that I would take charge of his little tribute. 
 
 "I think, Mr. Ludlow, that you are a strangely 
 unscrupulous man. How did you know that Mr. 
 Perkins's business was not urgent ?" 
 
198 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "I didn't know it. But I knew it could be no 
 more urgent than mine. Depend upon it, Miss 
 Moore, you have no case against me. I only pretend 
 to be a man ; to have admitted that charming young 
 gentleman would have been heroic." 
 
 Adela was familiar with a sequestered spot, in 
 the very heart of the fields, as it seemed to her, to 
 which she now proposed to conduct her friend. The 
 point was to select a goal neither too distant nor too 
 near, and to adopt a pace neither too rapid nor too 
 slow. But although Adela's happy valley was a 
 good two miles away, and they had measured the 
 interval with the very minimum of speed, yet most 
 sudden seemed their arrival at the stile over which 
 Adela was used to strike into the meadows. Once 
 on the road, she felt a precipitate conviction that 
 there could be no evil in an adventure so essentially 
 wholesome as that to which she had lent herself, 
 and that there could be no guile in a spirit so deep- 
 ly sensitive to the sacred influences of Nature, and 
 to the melancholy aspect of incipient Autumn as that 
 of her companion. A man with an unafifected relish 
 for small children is a man to inspire young women 
 with a generouse confidence; and so, in a lesser de- 
 gree, a man with a genuine feeling for the simple 
 beauties of a common New England landscape may 
 not unreasonably be accepted by the daughters of 
 the scene as a person worthy of their esteem. Adela 
 
A Day of Days 199 
 
 was a great observer of the clouds, the trees and the 
 streams, the sounds and colors, the echoes and re- 
 flections native to her adopted home; and she ex- 
 perienced an honest joy at the sight of Ludlow's 
 keen appreciation of these modest facts. His en- 
 joyment of them, deep as it v/as, however, had to 
 struggle against that sensuous depression natural 
 to a man who has spent the Summer in a close and 
 fetid laboratory in the heart of a great city, and 
 against a sensation of a less material color — the 
 feeling that Adela was a delightful girl. Still, nat- 
 urally a great talker, he celebrated his impressions 
 in a generous flow of good-humored eloquence. 
 Adela resolved within herself that he was decidedly 
 a companion for the open air. He was a man to 
 make use, even to abuse, of the wide horizon and 
 the high ceiling of Nature. The freedom of his 
 gestures, the sonority of his voice, the keenness of 
 his vision, the general vivacity of his manners, 
 seemed to necessitate and to justify a universal ab- 
 sence of barriers. They crossed the stile, and waded 
 through the long grass of several successive mead- 
 ows, until the ground began to rise, the stony sur- 
 faces to crop through the turf, when, after a short 
 ascent, they reached a broad plateau, covered with 
 boulders and shrubs, which lost itself on one, side in 
 a short, steep cliff, whence fields and marshes 
 stretched down to the opposite river; and on the 
 
200 A Landscape Painter 
 
 other, in scattered clumps of pine and maple, which 
 gradually thickened and multiplied, until the hori- 
 zon in that quarter was blue with a long line of 
 woods. Here was both sun and shade — the unob- 
 structed sky, or the whispering dome of a circle of 
 pines. Adela led the way to a sunny seat among 
 the rocks, which commanded the course of the river, 
 and where a cluster of trees would lend an admoni- 
 tory undertone to their conversation. 
 
 Before long, however, its muffled eloquence be- 
 came rather importunate, and Adela remarked upon 
 the essential melancholy of the phenomenon. 
 
 "It has always seemed to me," rejoined Ludlow, 
 "that the wind in the pines expresses tolerably well 
 man's sense of a coming change, simply as a 
 change." 
 
 "Perhaps it does," said Adela. "The pines are 
 forever rustling, and men are forever changing." 
 
 "Yes, but they can only be said to express it when 
 there is some one there to hear them ; and more es- 
 pecially some one in whose life a change is, to his 
 own knowledge, going to take place. Then they 
 are quite prophetic. Don't you know Longfellow 
 says so?" 
 
 "Yes, I know Longfellow says so. But you seem 
 to speak from your own feeling." 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Is there a change pending in your life?" 
 
A Day of Days 201 
 
 "Yes, rather an important one." 
 
 "I believe that's what men say when they are 
 going to be married," said Adela. 
 
 "I'm going to be divorced, rather. I'm going to 
 Europe." 
 
 "Indeed! soon?" 
 
 "To-morrow," said Ludlow, after an instant's 
 pause. 
 
 "Oh!" said Adela. "How I envy you!" 
 
 Ludlow, who sat looking over the cliff and toss- 
 ing stones down into the plain, observed a certain 
 inequality in the tone of his companion's two ex- 
 clamations. The first was nature, the second art. 
 He turned his eyes upon her, but she had turned hers 
 away upon the distance. Then, for a moment, he 
 retreated within himself and thought. He rapidly 
 surveyed his position. Here was he, Tom Ludlow, 
 a hard-headed son of toil, without fortune, without 
 credit, without antecedents, whose lot was cast ex- 
 clusively with vulgar males, and who had never had 
 a mother, a sister nor a well-bred sweetheart to pitch 
 his voice for the feminine tympanum; who had 
 seldom come nearer an indubitable young lady than, 
 in a favoring crowd, to receive a mechanical "thank 
 you" (as if he were a policeman), for some in- 
 geniously provoked service; here he found him- 
 self up to his neck in a sudden pastoral with the 
 most ladyish young woman in the land. That it 
 
202 A Landscape Painter 
 
 was in him to enjoy the society of such a woman 
 (provided, of course, she were not a fool), 
 he very well knew; but he had not yet sus- 
 pected that it was possible for him (in the midst 
 of more serious cares) to obtain it. Was he now to 
 infer that this final gift was his — ^the gift of pleasing 
 women who were worth the pleasing? The inference 
 was at least logical. He had made a good impres- 
 sion. Why else should a modest and discerning 
 girl have so speedily granted him her favor? It 
 was with a little thrill of satisfaction that Ludlow 
 reflected upon the directness of his course. "It all 
 comes back," he said to himself, "to my old theory, 
 that a process can't be too simple. I used no arts. 
 In such an enterprise I shouldn't have known where 
 to begin. It was my ignorance of the regulation 
 method that served me. Women like a gentleman, 
 of course; but they like a man better." It was the 
 little touch of nature he had discerned in Adela's 
 tone that had set him thinking ; but as compared with 
 the frankness of his own attitude it betrayed after 
 all no undue emotion. Ludlow had accepted the 
 fact of his adaptability to the idle mood of a culti- 
 vated woman in a thoroughly rational spirit, and he 
 was not now tempted to exaggerate its bearings. 
 He was not the man to be intoxicated by success — 
 this or any other. "If Miss Moore," he pursued, 
 "is so wise — or so foolish — as to like me half an 
 
A Day of Days 203 
 
 hour for what I am, she is welcome. Assuredly," 
 he added, as he gazed at her intelligent profile, "she 
 will not hke me for what I am not." It needs a 
 woman, however, far more intelligent than (thank 
 heaven!) most women are — ^more intelligent, cer- 
 tainly, than Adela was — to guard her happiness 
 against a strong man's consistent assumption of her 
 intelligence; and doubtless it was from a sense of 
 this general truth, as Ludlow still gazed, he felt an 
 emotion of manly tenderness. "I wouldn't offend 
 her for the world," he thought. Just then, Adela, 
 conscious of his gaze, looked about; and before he 
 knew it, Ludlow had repeated aloud, "Miss Moore, 
 I wouldn't offend you for the world." 
 
 Adela glanced at him for a moment with a little 
 flush that subsided into a smile. "To what dreadful 
 injury is that the prelude?" she asked. 
 
 "It's the prelude to nothing. It refers to the past 
 — ^to any possible displeasure I may have caused 
 you." 
 
 "Your scruples are unnecessary, Mr. Ludlow. If 
 you had given me offence, I should not have left you 
 to apologize for it. I should not have left the mat- 
 ter to occur to you as you sat dreaming charitably 
 in the sun." 
 
 "What would you have done?" 
 
 "Done ? nothing. You don't imagine I would 
 have rebuked you — or snubbed you — or answered 
 
204 A Landscape Painter 
 
 you back, I take it. I would have left undone — 
 what, I can't tell you. Ask yourself what I have 
 done. I'm sure I hardly know myself," said Adela, 
 with some intensity. "At all events, here I am 
 sitting with you in the fields, as if you were a friend 
 of years. Why do you speak of offence?" And 
 Adela (an uncommon accident with her) lost com- 
 mand of her voice, which trembled ever so slightly. 
 "What an odd thought! why should you offend 
 me? Do I invite it?" Her color had deepened 
 again, and her eyes brightened. She had forgotten 
 herself, and before speaking had not, as was her 
 wont, sought counsel of that staunch conservative, 
 her taste. She had spoken from a full heart — a 
 heart which had been filling rapidly since the outset 
 of their walk with a feeling almost passionate in its 
 quality, and which that little blast of prose which 
 had brought her Ludlow's announcement of his de- 
 parture, had caused to overflow. The reader may 
 i give this feeling such a name as he pleases. We will 
 i content ourselves with saying that Adela had play- 
 led with fire so effectually that she had been scorched. 
 The slight vehemence of the speech just quoted had 
 covered her sensation of pain. 
 
 "You pull one up rather short, Miss Moore," 
 said Ludlow. "A man says the best he can." 
 
 Adela made no reply. For a moment she hung 
 her head. Was she to cry out because she was hurt? 
 
A Day of Days 205 
 
 Was she to introduce her injured soul as an imperti- 
 nent third into the company? No! Here our re- 
 served and contemplative heroine is herself again. 
 Her part was still to be the perfect young lady. For 
 our own part, we can imagine no figure more be- 
 witching than that of the perfect young lady under 
 these circumstances ; and if Adela had been the most 
 accomplished coquette in the world she could not 
 have assumed a more becoming expression than the 
 air of languid equanimity which now covered her 
 features. But having paid this generous homage to 
 propriety, she felt free to suffer. Raising her eyes 
 from the ground, she abruptly addressed her com- 
 panion with this injunction: 
 
 "Mr. Ludlow," said she, "tell me something about 
 yourself." 
 
 Ludlow burst into a laugh. "What shall I tell 
 you?" 
 
 "Everything." 
 
 "Everything? Excuse me, I'm not such a fool. 
 But do you know that's a delicious request you 
 make? I suppose I ought to blush and hesitate; 
 but I never yet blushed or hesitated in the right 
 place." 
 
 "Very good. There is one fact. Continue. Be- 
 gin at the beginning." 
 
 "Well, let me see. My name you know. I'm 
 twenty-eight years old." 
 
206 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "That's the end," said Adela. 
 
 "But you don't want the history of my babyhood, 
 I take it. I imagine that I was a very big, noisy and 
 ugly baby: what's called a 'splendid infant.' My 
 parents were poor, and, of course, honest. They be- 
 longed to a very different set — or 'sphere', I suppose 
 you call it — from any you probably know. They 
 were working people. My father was a chemist in 
 a small way, and I fancy my mother was rot above 
 using her hands to turn a penny. But although I 
 don't remember her, I am sure she was a good, sound 
 woman ; I feel her occasionally in my own sinews. I 
 myself have been at work all my life, and a very 
 good worker I am, let me tell you. I'm not patient, 
 as I imagine your brother to be — although I have 
 more patience than you might suppose — ^but I'm 
 plucky. If you think I'm over-egotistical, remember 
 'twas you began it. I don't know whether I'm 
 clever, and I don't much care; that word is used 
 only by unpractical people. But I'm clear-headed, 
 and inquisitive, and enthusiastic. That's as far as I 
 can describe myself. I don't know anything about 
 my character. I simply suspect I'm a pretty good 
 fellow. I don't know whether I'm grave or gay, 
 lively or severe. I don't know whether I'm high- 
 tempered or low-tempered. I don't believe I'm 
 'high-toned.' I fancy I'm good-natured enough, 
 inasmuch as I'm not nervous. I should not be at all 
 
A Day of Days 207 
 
 surprised to discover I was prodigiously conceited; 
 but I'm afraid the discovery wouldn't cut me down, 
 much. I'm desperately hard to snub, I know. Oh, 
 you would think me a great brute if you knew me. 
 I should hesitate to say whether I am of a loving 
 turn. I know I'm desperately tired of a number of 
 persons who are very fond of me; I'm afraid I'm 
 ungrateful. Of course as a man speaking to a 
 woman, there's nothing for it but to say I'm selfish ; 
 but I hate to talk about such windy abstractions. 
 In the way of positive facts : I'm not educated. I 
 know no Greek and very little Latin. But I can 
 honestly say that first and last I have read a great 
 many books — and, thank God, I have a memory! 
 And I have some tastes, too. I'm very fond of 
 music. I have a good old voice of my own: that 
 I can't help knowing ; and I'm not one to be bullied 
 about pictures. Is that enough ? I'm conscious of an 
 utter inability to say an)rthing to the point. To put 
 myself in a nutshell, I suppose I'm simply a working 
 man ; I have his virtues and I have his defects. I'm 
 a very common fellow." 
 
 "Do you call yourself a very common fellow be- 
 cause you really believe yourself to be one, or be- 
 cause you are weakly tempted to disfigure your 
 rather flattering catalogue with a great final 
 blot?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know. You show more subtlety 
 
208 A Landscape Painter 
 
 in that one question than I have shown in my whole 
 string of affirmations. You women are strong on 
 asking witty questions. Seriously, I believe I am a 
 common fellow. I wouldn't make the admission to 
 every one though. But to you, Miss Moore, who 
 sit there under your parasol as impartial as the 
 Muse of History, to you I own the truth. I'm no 
 man of genius. There is something I miss; some 
 final distinction I lack; you may call it what you 
 please. Perhaps it's humility. Perhaps you can find 
 it in Ruskin, somewhere. Perhaps it's patience — 
 perhaps it's imagination. I'm vulgar. Miss Moore. 
 I'm the vulgar son of vulgar people. I use the word, 
 of course, in its strictest sense. So much I grant 
 you at the outset, and then I walk ahead." 
 
 "Have you any sisters ?" 
 
 "Not a sister; and no brothers, nor cousins, nor 
 uncles, nor aunts." 
 
 "And you sail for Europe to-morrow ?" 
 
 "To-morrow, at ten o'clock." 
 
 "To be away how long?" 
 
 "As long as I possibly can. Five years if pos- 
 sible." 
 
 "What do you expect to do in those five years?" 
 
 "Study." 
 
 "Nothing but study?" 
 
 "It will all come back to that, I fancy. I hope to 
 enjoy myself reasonably, and to look at the world 
 
A Day of Days 209 
 
 as I go. But I must not waste time; I'm growing 
 old." 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "To Berlin. I wanted to get letters from your 
 brother." 
 
 "Have you money? Are you well off?" 
 "Well off? Not I, no. I'm poor. I travel on a 
 little money that has just come to me from an un- 
 expected quarter : an old debt owing my father. It 
 will take me to Germany and keep me for six 
 months. After that I shall work my way." 
 "Are you happy ? Are you contented ?" 
 "Just now I'm pretty comfortable, thank you." 
 "But will you be so when you get to Berlin ?" 
 "I don't promise to be contented; but I'm pretty 
 sure to be happy." 
 
 "Well!" said Adela, "I sincerely hope you may 
 be." 
 
 "Amen !" said Ludlow. 
 
 Of what more was said at this moment, no record 
 may be given. The reader has been put into pos- 
 session of the key of our friends' conversation; 
 it is only needful to say that substantially upon this 
 key, it was prolonged for half an hour more. As 
 the minutes elapsed, Adela found herself drifting 
 further and further away from her anchorage. 
 When at last she compelled herself to consult her 
 watch, and remind her companion that there re- 
 
210 A Landscape Painter 
 
 mained but just time enough for them to reach 
 home, in anticipation of her brother's arrival, she 
 knew that she was rapidly floating seaward. As she 
 descended the hill at her companion's side, she felt 
 herself suddenly thrilled by an acute temptation. 
 Her first instinct was to close her eyes upon it, in 
 the trust that when she opened them again it would 
 have vanished; but she found that it was not to be 
 so uncompromisingly dismissed. It importuned her 
 so effectually, that before she had walked a mile 
 homeward, she had succumbed to it, or had at least 
 given it the pledge of that quickening of the heart 
 which accompanies a bold resolution. This little 
 sacrifice allowed her no breath for idle words, and 
 she accordingly advanced with a bent and listening 
 head. Ludlow marched along, with no apparent 
 diminution of his habitual buoyancy of mien, talking 
 as fast and as loud as at the outset. He adventured 
 a prophecy that Mr. Moore would not have re- 
 turned, and charged Adela with a humorous message 
 of regrets. Adela had begun by wondering whether 
 the approach of their separation had wrought within 
 him any sentimental depression at all commensurate 
 with her own, with that which sealed her lips and 
 weighed upon her heart ; and now she was debating 
 as to whether his express declaration that he felt 
 "awfully blue" ought necessarily to remove her 
 doubts. Ludlow followed up this declaration with a 
 
A Day of Days 211 
 
 very pretty review of the morning, and a sober 
 valedictory which, whether intensely felt or not, 
 struck Adela as at least nobly bare of flimsy com- 
 pliments. He might be a common fellow — ^but he 
 was certainly a very uncommon one. When they 
 reached the garden gate, it was with a fluttering 
 heart that Adela scanned the premises for some 
 accidental sign of her brother's presence. She felt 
 that there would be an especial fitness in his not 
 having returned. She led the way in. The hall table 
 was bare of his hat and overcoat. The only object 
 it displayed was Mr. Perkins's card, which Adela 
 had deposited there on her exit. All that was rep- 
 resented by that little white ticket seemed a thousand 
 miles away. Finally, Mr. Moore's absence from his 
 study was conclusive against his return. 
 
 As Adela went back thence into the drawing- 
 room, she simply shook her head at Ludlow, who 
 was standing before the fire-place; and as she did 
 so, she caught her reflection in the mantel-glass. 
 "Verily," she said to herself, "I have travelled far." 
 She had pretty well unlearned the repose of the 
 Veres of Vere. But she was to break with it still 
 more completely. It was with a singular hardihood 
 that she prepared to redeem the little pledge which 
 had been extorted from her on her way home. She 
 felt that there was no trial to which her generosity 
 might now be called which she would not hail with 
 
212 A Landscape Painter 
 
 enthusiasm. Unfortunately, her generosity was not 
 Hkely to be challenged; although she nevertheless 
 had the satisfaction of assuring herself at this mo- 
 ment that, like the mercy of the Lord, it was infinite. 
 Should she satisfy herself of her friend's? or should 
 she leave it delightfully uncertain ? These had been 
 the terms of what has been called her temptation, 
 at the foot of the hill. But inasmuch as Adela was 
 by no means strictly engaged in the pursuit of pleas- 
 ure, and as the notion of a grain of suffering was 
 by no means repugnant to her, she had resolved to 
 obtain possession of the one essential fact of her 
 case, even though she should be at heavy costs to 
 maintain it. 
 
 "Well, I have very little time," said Ludlow; 
 "I must get my dinner and pay my bill and drive 
 to the train." And he put out his hand. 
 
 Adela gave him her own, and looked him full in 
 the eyes. "You are in a great hurry," said she. 
 
 "It's not I who am in a hurry. It's my con- 
 founded destiny. It's the train and the steamer." 
 
 "If you really wished to stay you wouldn't be 
 bullied by the train and the steamer." 
 
 "Very true— very true. But do I really wish to 
 stay?" 
 
 "That's the question. That's what I want to 
 know." 
 
 "You ask difficult questions, Miss Moore." 
 
A Day of Days 213 
 
 "I mean they shall be difficult." 
 
 "Then, of course, you are prepared to answer 
 difficult ones." 
 
 "I don't know that that's of course, but I am." 
 
 "Well, then, do you wish me to stay? AH I have 
 to do is to throw down my hat, sit down and fold 
 my arms for twenty minutes. I lose my train and 
 my ship. I stay in America, instead of going to 
 Europe." 
 
 "I have thought of all that." 
 
 "I don't mean to say it's a great deal. There are 
 pleasures and pleasures." 
 
 "Yes, and especially the former. It is a great 
 deal." 
 
 "And you invite me to accept it?" 
 
 "No; I ought not to say that. What I ask of 
 you is whether, if I should so invite you, you would 
 say 'y^s.' " 
 
 "That makes the matter very easy for you, Miss 
 Moore. What attractions do you hold out?" 
 
 "I hold out nothing whatever, sir." 
 
 "I suppose that means a great deal." 
 
 "It means what it seems to mean." 
 
 "Well, you are certainly a most interesting 
 woman. Miss Moore — a charming woman." 
 
 "Why don't you call me 'fascinating' at once, and 
 bid me good morning?" 
 
 "I don't know but that I shall have to come to 
 
214 A Landscape Painter 
 
 that. But I will give you no answer that leaves you 
 at an advantage. Ask me to stay — command me to 
 stay, if that suits you better — and I will see how 
 it sounds. Come, you must not trifle with a man." 
 He still held Adela's hand, and they had been looking 
 frankly into each other's eyes. He paused, waiting 
 for an answer. 
 
 "Good-by, Mr. Ludlow," said Adela, "God bless 
 you!" And she was about to withdraw her hand; 
 but he held it. 
 
 "Are we friends?" said he. 
 
 Adela gave a little shrug of her shoulders. 
 "Friends of three hours." 
 
 Ludlow looked at her with some sternness. "Our 
 parting could at best hardly have been sweet," said 
 he; "but why should you make it bitter, Miss 
 Moore?" 
 
 "If it's bitter, why should you try to change it?" 
 
 "Because I don't like bitter things." 
 
 Ludlow had caught a glimpse of the truth — ^that 
 truth of which the reader has had a glimpse — and 
 he stood there at once thrilled and annoyed. He had 
 both a heart and a conscience. "It's not my fault," 
 he cried to the latter; but he was unable to add, in 
 all consistency, that it was his misfortune. It would 
 be very heroic, very poetic, very chivalric, to lose his 
 steamer, and he felt that he could do so for sufficient 
 cause — at the suggestion of a fact. But the motive 
 
A Day of Days 215 
 
 here was less than a fact — an idea ; less than an idea 
 — a fancy. "It's a very pretty little romance as it 
 is," he said to himself. "Why spoil it? She is an 
 admirable girl: to have learned that is enough for 
 me." He raised her hand to his lips, pressed them 
 to it, dropped it, reached the door and bounded out 
 of the garden gate. 
 The day was ended. 
 
IV 
 A MOST EXTRAORDINARY CASE 
 
A MOST EXTRAORDINARY CASE 
 
 Late in the spring of the year 1865, just as the 
 war had come to a close, a young invahd officer lay 
 in bed in one of the uppermost chambers of one 
 of the great New York hotels. His meditations 
 were interrupted by the entrance of a waiter, who 
 handed him a card superscribed Mrs. Samuel Mason, 
 and bearing on its reverse the following words in 
 pencil : "Dear Colonel Mason, I have only just heard 
 of your being here, ill and alone. It's too dreadful. 
 Do you remember me? Will you see me? If you 
 do, I think you will remember me. I insist on com- 
 ing up. M. M." 
 
 Mason was undressed, unshaven, weak, and 
 feverish. His ugly little hotel chamber was in a 
 state of confusion which had not even the merit of 
 being picturesque. Mrs. Mason's card was at once 
 a puzzle and a heavenly intimation of comfort. But 
 all that it represented was so dim to the young man's 
 
 219 
 
220 A Landscape Painter 
 
 enfeebled perception that it took him some moments 
 to collect his thoughts. 
 
 "It's a lady, sir," said the waiter, by way of assist- 
 ing him. 
 
 "Is she young or old ?" asked Mason. 
 
 "Well, sir, she's a little of both." 
 
 "I can't ask a lady to come up here," groaned 
 the invalid. 
 
 "Upon my word, sir, you look beautiful," said 
 the waiter. "They like a sick man. And I see 
 she's of your own name," continued Michael, in 
 whom constant service had bred great frankness of 
 speech; "the more shame to her for not coming 
 before." 
 
 Colonel Mason concluded that, as the visit had 
 been of Mrs. Mason's own seeking, he would re- 
 ceive her without more ado. "If she doesn't mind 
 it, I'm sure I needn't," said the poor fellow, who 
 hadn't the strength to be over-punctilious. So in a 
 very few moments his visitor was ushered up to his 
 bedside. He saw before him a handsome, middle- 
 aged blonde woman, stout of figure, and dressed 
 in the height of the fashion, who displayed no other 
 embarrassment than such as was easily explained 
 by the loss of breath consequent on the ascent of 
 six flights of stairs. 
 
 "Do you remember me?" she asked, taking the 
 young man's hand. 
 
A Most Ecctraordinary Case 221 
 
 He lay back on his pillow, and looked at her. 
 "You used to be my aunt, — ^my aunt Maria," he 
 said. 
 
 "I'm your aunt Maria still," she answered. "It's 
 very good of you not to have forgotten me." 
 
 "It's very good of you not to have forgotten me" 
 said Mason, in a tone which betrayed a deeper feel- 
 ing than the wish to return a civil speech. 
 
 "Dear me, you've had the war and a hundred 
 dreadful things. I've been living in Europe, you 
 know. Since my return I've been living in the 
 country, in your uncle's old house on the river, of 
 which the lease had just expired when I came home. 
 I came to town yesterday on business, and acci- 
 dentally heard of your condition and your where- 
 abouts. I knew you'd gone into the army, and I 
 had been wondering a dozen times what had become 
 of you, and whether you wouldn't turn up now that 
 the war's at last over. Of course I didn't lose a 
 moment in coming to you. I'm so sorry for you." 
 Mrs. Mason looked about her for a seat. The 
 chairs were encumbered with odds and ends be- 
 longing to her nephew's wardrobe and to his equip- 
 ment, and with the remnants of his last repast. 
 The good lady surveyed the scene with the beau- 
 tiful mute irony of compassion. 
 
 The young man lay watching her comely face in 
 delicious submission to whatever form of utterance 
 
222 A Landscape Painter 
 
 this feeling might take. "You're the first woman — 
 to call a woman — I've seen in I don't know how 
 many months," he said, contrasting her appearance 
 with that of his room, and reading her thoughts. 
 
 "I should suppose so. I mean to be as good as a 
 dozen. She disembarrassed one of the chairs, and 
 brought it to the bed. Then, seating herself, she 
 ungloved one of her hands, and laid it softly on 
 the young man's wrist. "What a great full-grown 
 young fellow you've become !" she pursued. "Now, 
 tell me, are you very ill?" 
 
 "You must ask the doctor," said Mason. "I 
 actually don't know. I'm extremely uncomfortable, 
 but I suppose it's partly my circumstances." 
 
 "I've no doubt it's more than half your circum- 
 stances. I've seen the doctor. Mrs. Van Zandt is 
 an old friend of mine ; and when I come to town, I 
 always go to see her. It was from her I learned 
 this morning that you were here in this state. We 
 had begun by rejoicing over the new prospects of 
 peace; and from that, of course, we had got to 
 lamenting the numbers of young men who are to 
 enter upon it with lost limbs and shattered health. 
 It happened that Mrs. Van Zandt mentioned several 
 of her husband's patients as examples, and yourself 
 among the number. You were an excellent young 
 man, miserably sick, without family or friends, and 
 with no asylum but a suffocating little closet in a 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 228 
 
 noisy hotel. You may imagine that I pricked up 
 my ears, and asked your baptismal name. Dr, Van 
 Zandt came in, and told me. Your name is luckily 
 an uncommon one ; it's absurd to suppose that there 
 could be two Ferdinand Masons. In short, I felt 
 that you were my husband's brother's child, and that 
 at last I too might have my little turn at hero-nurs- 
 ing. The little that the Doctor knew of your history 
 agreed with the little that I knew, though I confess 
 I was sorry to hear that you had never spoken of 
 our relationship. But why should you? At all 
 events you've got to acknowledge it now. I regret 
 your not having said something about it before, 
 only because the Doctor might have brought us to- 
 gether a month ago, and you would now have been 
 well." 
 
 "It will take me more than a month to get well," 
 said Mason, feeling that, if Mrs. Mason was mean- 
 ing to exert herself on his behalf, she should know 
 the real state of the case. "I never spoke of you, 
 because I had quite lost sight of you. I fancied 
 you were still in Europe; and indeed," he added, 
 after a moment's hesitation, "I heard that you had 
 married again." 
 
 "Of course you did," said Mrs. Mason, placidly. 
 "I used to hear it once a month myself. But I 
 had a much better right to fancy you married. 
 Thank Heaven, however, there's nothing of that 
 
224 A Landscape Painter 
 
 sort between us. We can each do as we please. I 
 promise to cure you in a month, in spite of yourself." 
 
 "What's your remedy?" asked the young man, 
 with a smile very courteous, considering how scep- 
 tical it was. 
 
 "My first remedy is to take you out of this hor-^ 
 rible hole. I talked it all over with Dr. Van Zandt. 
 He says you must get into the country. Why, my 
 dear boy, this is enough to kill you outright, — one 
 Broadway outside of your window and another out- 
 side of your door! Listen to me. My house is 
 directly on the river, and only two hours' journey 
 by rail. You know I've no children. My only 
 companion is my niece, Caroline Hofmann. You 
 shall come and stay with us until you are as strong 
 as you need be, — if it takes a dozen years. You 
 shall have sweet, cool air, and proper food, and 
 decent attendance, and the devotion of a sensible 
 woman. I shall not listen to a word of objection. 
 You shall do as you please, get up when you please, 
 dine when you please, go to bed when you please, 
 and say what you please. I shall ask nothing of you 
 but to let yourself be very dearly cared for. Do 
 you remember how, when you were a boy at school, 
 after your father's death, you were taken with 
 measles, and your uncle had you brought to our 
 own house? I helped to nurse you myself, and I 
 remember what nice manners you had in the very 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 225 
 
 midst of your measles. Your uncle was very fond 
 of you ; and if he had had any considerable property 
 of his own, I know he would have remembered you 
 in his will. But, of course, he couldn't leave away 
 his wife's money. What I wish to do for you is a 
 very small part of what he would have done, if he 
 had only lived, and heard of your gallantry and 
 your sufferings. So it's settled. I shall go home 
 this afternoon. To-morrow morning I shall despatch 
 my man-servant to you with instructions. He's an 
 Englishman. He thoroughly knows his business, 
 and he will put up your things, and save you every 
 particle of trouble. You've only to let yourself be 
 dressed, and driven to the train. I shall, of course, 
 meet you at your journey's end. Now don't tell me 
 you're not strong enough." 
 
 "I feel stronger at this moment than I've felt in 
 a dozen weeks," said Mason. "It's useless for me 
 to attempt to thank you." 
 
 "Quite useless. I shouldn't listen to you. And 
 I suppose," added Mrs. Mason, looking over the 
 bare walls and scanty furniture of the room, "you 
 pay a fabulous price for this bower of bliss. Do you 
 need money?" 
 
 The young man shook his head. 
 
 "Very well then," resumed Mrs. Mason, con- 
 clusively, "from this moment you're in my 
 hands." 
 
226 A Landscape Painter _^ 
 
 The young man lay speechless from the very 
 fulness of his heart; but he strove by the pressure 
 of, his fingers to give her some assurance of his 
 gratitude. His companion nose, and lingered beside 
 him, drawing on her glove, and smiling quietly with 
 the look of a long-baffled philanthropist who has at 
 last discovered a subject of infinite capacity. Poor 
 Ferdinand's weary visage reflected her smile. 
 Finally, after the lapse of years, he too was being 
 cared for. He let his head sink into the pillow, and 
 silently inhaled the perfume of her sober elegance 
 and her cordial good-nature. He felt like taking 
 her dress in his hand, and asking her not to leave 
 him, — ^now that solitude would be bitter. His eyes, 
 I suppose, betrayed this touching apprehension, — 
 doubly touching in a war-wasted young officer. As 
 she prepared to bid him farewell, Mrs. Mason 
 stooped, and kissed his forehead. He listened to 
 the rustle of her dress across the carpet, to the gentle 
 closing of the door, and to her retreating footsteps. 
 And then, giving way to his weakness, he put his 
 hands to his face, and cried like a homesick school- 
 boy. He had been reminded of the exquisite side 
 of life. 
 
 Matters went forward as Mrs. Mason had ar- 
 ranged them. At six o'clock on the following eve- 
 ning Ferdinand found himself deposited at one of 
 the way stations of the Hudson River Railroad, ex- 
 
A Most Eootraordinary Case 227 
 
 hausted by his journey, and yet excited at the pros- 
 pect of its drawing to a close. Mrs. Mason was in 
 waiting in a low basket-phaeton, with a magazine 
 of cushions and wrappings. Ferdinand transferred 
 himself to her side, and they drove rapidly home- 
 ward. Mrs. Mason's house was a cottage of liberal 
 make, with a circular lawn, a sinuous avenue, and 
 a well-grown plantation of shrubbery. As the phae- 
 ton drew up before the porch, a young lady appeared 
 in the doorway. Mason will be forgiven if he con- 
 sidered himself presented ex officio, as I may say, 
 to this young lady. Before he really knew it, and 
 in the absence of the servant, who, under Mrs. 
 Mason's directions, was busy in the background with 
 his trunk, he had availed himself of her proffered 
 arm, and had allowed her to assist him through the 
 porch, across the hall, and into the parlor, where 
 she graciously consigned him to a sofa which, for 
 his especial use, she had caused to be wheeled up 
 before a fire kindled for his especial comfort. He 
 was unable, however, to take advantage of her good 
 offices. Prudence dictated that without further 
 delay he sbould betake himself to his room. 
 
 On the morning after his arrival he got up early, 
 and made an attempt to be present at breakfast; 
 but his strength failed him, and he was obliged to 
 dress at his leisure, and content himself with a 
 simple transition from his bed to his arm-chair. 
 
228 A Landscape Painter 
 
 The chamber assigned him was designedly on the 
 ground-floor, so that he was spared the trouble of 
 measuring his strength with the staircase, — a charm- 
 ing room, brightly carpeted and upholstered, and 
 marked by a certain fastidious freshness which be- 
 trayed the uncontested dominion of women. It had 
 a broad high window, draped in chintz and crisp 
 muslin and opening upon the greensward of the 
 lawn. At this window, wrapped in his dressing- 
 gown, and lost in the embrace of the most unresist- 
 ing of arm-chairs, he slowly discussed his simple 
 repast. Before long his hostess made her appear- 
 ance on the lawn outside the window. As this 
 quarter of the house was covered with warm sun- 
 shine. Mason ventured to open the window and talk 
 to her, while she stood out on the grass beneath her 
 parasol. 
 
 "It's time to think of your physician," she said. 
 "You shall choose for yourself. The great physician 
 here is Dr. Gregory, a gentleman of the old school. 
 We have had him but once, for my niece and I 
 have the health of a couple of dairy-maids. On 
 that one occasion he — well, he made a fool of him- 
 self. His practice is among the 'old families,' and 
 he only knows how to treat certain old-fashioned, 
 obsolete complaints. Anything brought about by 
 the war would be quite out of his range. And then 
 he vacillates, and talks about his own maladies d, lui. 
 
A Most Extrajordinary Case 229 
 
 And, to tell the truth, we had a little repartee which 
 makes our relations somewhat ambiguous." 
 
 "I see he would never do," said Mason, laughing. 
 "But he's not your only physician?" 
 
 "No: there is a young man, a newcomer, a Dr. 
 Knight, whom I don't know, but of whom I've heard 
 very good things. I confess that I have a 
 prejudice in favor of the young men. Dr. Knight 
 has a position to establish, and I suppose he's 
 likely to be especially attentive and careful. I 
 believe, moreover, that he's been an army sur- 
 geon." 
 
 "I knew a man of his name," said Mason. "I 
 wonder if this is he. His name was Horace Knight, 
 — a. light-haired, near-sighted man." 
 
 "I don't know," said Mrs. Mason; "perhaps 
 Caroline knows." She retreated a few steps, and 
 called to an upper window: "Caroline, what's Dr. 
 BCnight's first name?" 
 
 Mason listened to Miss Hofmann's answer, — 
 "I haven't the least idea." 
 
 "Is it Horace?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Is he light or dark?" 
 
 "I've never seen him." 
 
 "Is he near-sighted?" 
 
 "How in the world should I know?" 
 
 "I fancy he's as good as any one," said Ferdinand. 
 
230 A Ijandscape Painter 
 
 "With you, my dear aunt, what does the doctor 
 matter?" 
 
 Mrs. Mason accordingly sent for Dr. Knight, 
 who, on arrival, turned out to be her nephew's old 
 acquaintance. Although the young men had been 
 united by no greater intimacy than the superficial 
 comradeship resulting from a winter in neighboring 
 quarters, they were very well pleased to come to- 
 gether again. Horace Knight was a young man 
 of good birth, good looks, good faculties, and good 
 intentions, who, after a three years' practice of sur- 
 gery in the army, had undertaken to push his for- 
 tune in Mrs. Mason's neighborhood. His mother, a 
 widow with a small income, had recently removed to 
 the country for economy, and her son had been 
 unwilling to leave her to live alone. The adjacent 
 country, moreover, offered a promising field for a 
 man of energy, — a field well stocked with large 
 families of easy income and of those conservative 
 habits which lead people to make much of the cares 
 of a physician. The local practitioner had survived 
 the glory of his prime, and was not, perhaps, entirely 
 guiltless of Mrs. Mason's charge, that he had not 
 kept up with the progress of the "new diseases." 
 The world, in fact, was getting too new for him, 
 as well as for his old patients. He had had money 
 invested in the South, — precious sources of revenue, 
 which the war had swallowed up at a gulp; he had 
 
A Most Eartraordinary Case 231 
 
 grown frightened and nervous and querulous; he 
 had lost his presence of mind and his spectacles in 
 several important conjunctures; he had been re- 
 peatedly and distinctly fallible ; a vague dissatisfac- 
 tion pervaded the breasts of his patrons; he was 
 without competitors: in short, fortune was propi- 
 tious to Dr. Knight. Mason remembered the young 
 physician only as a good-humored, intelligent com- 
 panion; but he soon had reason to believe that his 
 medical skill would leave nothing to be desired. He 
 arrived rapidly at a clear understanding of Ferdi- 
 nand's case ; he asked intelligent questions, and gave 
 simple and definite instructions. The disorder was 
 deeply seated and virulent, but there was no appar- 
 ent reason why unflinching care and prudence should 
 not subdue it. 
 
 "Your strength is very much reduced," he said, 
 as he took his hat and gloves to go; "but I should 
 say you had an excellent constitution. It seems to 
 me, however, — if you will pardon me for saying so, 
 — to be partly your own fault that you have fallen 
 so low. You have opposed no resistance; you 
 haven't cared to get well." 
 
 "I confess that I haven't, — ^particularly. But I 
 don't see how you should know it." 
 
 "Why it's obvious." 
 
 "Well, it was natural enough. Until Mrs. Mason 
 discovered me, I hadn't a friend in the world. I 
 
232 A Landscape Painter 
 
 had become demoralized by solitude. I had almost 
 forgotten the difference between sickness and health. 
 I had nothing before my eyes to remind me in tan- 
 gible form of that great mass of common human 
 interests for the sake of which — ^under whatever 
 name he may disguise the impulse — a man continues 
 in health and recovers from disease. I had for- 
 gotten that I ever cared for books or ideas, or 
 anything but the preservation of my miserable car- 
 cass. My carcass had become quite too miserable 
 to be an object worth living for. I was losing 
 time and money at an appalling rate ; I was getting 
 worse rather than better; and I therefore gave up 
 resistance. It seemed better to die easy than to 
 die hard. I put it all in the past tense, because 
 within these three days I've become quite another 
 man." 
 
 "I wish to Heaven I could have heard of you," 
 said Knight. "I would have made you come home 
 with me, if I could have done nothing else. It was 
 certainly not a rose-colored prospect; but what do 
 you say now?" he continued, looking around the 
 room. "I should say that at the present moment 
 rose-color was the prevailing hue." 
 
 Mason assented with an eloquent smile. 
 
 "I congratulate you from my heart. Mrs. Mason 
 — if you don't mind my speaking of her — is so thor- 
 oughly (and, I should suppose, incorrigibly) good- 
 
A Most Ewtraordinary Case 233 
 
 natured, that it's quite a surprise to find her ex- 
 tremely sensible." 
 
 "Yes; and so resolute and sensible in her better 
 moments," said Ferdinand, "that it's quite a surprise 
 to find her good-natured. She's a fine woman." 
 
 "But I should say that your especial blessing was 
 your servant. He looks as if he had come out ot 
 an English novel." 
 
 "My especial blessing! You haven't seen Miss 
 Hofmann, then?" 
 
 "Yes : I met her in the hall. She looks as if she 
 had come out of an American novel. I don't know 
 that that's great praise; but, at all events, I make 
 her come out of it." 
 
 "You're bound in honor, then," said Mason, 
 laughing, "to put her into another." 
 
 Mason's conviction of his newly made happiness 
 needed no enforcement at the Doctor's hands. He 
 felt that it would be his own fault if these were 
 not among the most delightful days of his life. He 
 resolved to give himself up without stint to his im- 
 pressions, — ^utterly to vegetate. His illness alone 
 would have been a sufficient excuse for a long term 
 of intellectual laxity; but Mason had other good 
 reasons besides. For the past three years he had 
 been stretched without intermission on the rack of 
 duty. Although constantly exposed to hard service, 
 it had been his fortune never to receive a serious 
 
284 A Itandscape Painter 
 
 wound; and, until his health broke down, he had 
 taken fewer holidays than any officer I ever heard 
 of. With an abundance of a certain kind of equa- 
 nimity and self-control, — a faculty of ready self- 
 adaptation to the accomplished fact, in any direc- 
 tion, — he was yet in his innermost soul a singularly 
 nervous, over-scrupulous person. On the few occa- 
 sions when he had been absent from the scene of his 
 military duties, although duly authorized and war- 
 ranted in the act, he had suffered so acutely from 
 the apprehension that something was happening, or 
 was about to happen, which not to have witnessed 
 or to have had a hand in would be matter of eternal 
 mortification, that he can be barely said to have 
 enjoyed his recreation. The sense of lost time was, 
 moreover, his perpetual bugbear, — the feeling that 
 precious hours were now fleeting uncounted, which 
 in more congenial labors would suffice almost for the 
 building of a monument more lasting than brass. 
 This feeling he strove to propitiate as much as pos- 
 sible by assiduous reading and study in the interval 
 of his actual occupations. I cite the fact merely 
 as an evidence of the uninterrupted austerity of his 
 life for a long time before he fell sick. I might 
 triple this period, indeed, by a glance at his college 
 years, and at certain busy months which intervened 
 between this close of his youth and the opening of 
 the war. Mason had always worked. He was fond 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 235 
 
 of work to begin with; and, in addition, the com- 
 plete absence of family ties had allowed him to fol- 
 low his tastes without obstruction or diversion. 
 This circumstance had been at once a great gain to 
 him and a serious loss. He reached his twenty- 
 seventh year a very accomplished scholar, as scholars 
 go, but a great dunce in certain social matters. He 
 was quite ignorant of all those lighter, more evanes- 
 cent forms of conviviality attached to being some- 
 body's son, brother, or cousin. At last, however, as 
 he reminded himself, he was to discover what it was 
 to be the nephew of somebody's hustTand. Mrs. 
 Mason was to teach him the meaning of the adjective 
 domestic. It would have been hard to learn it in a 
 pleasanter way. Mason felt that he was to learn 
 something from his very idleness, and that he would 
 leave the house a wiser as well as a better man. It 
 became probable, thanks to that quickening of the 
 faculties which accompanies the dawning of a sin- 
 cere and rational attachment, that in this last respect 
 he would not be disappointed. Very few days suf- 
 ficed to reveal to him the many excellent qualities of 
 his hostess, — ^her warm capacious heart, her fair- 
 ness of mind, her good temper, her good taste, her 
 vast fund of experience and of reminiscence, and, 
 indeed, more than all, a certain passionate devoted- 
 ness, to which fortune, in leaving her a childless 
 widow, had done but scant justice. The two accord- 
 
236 A Landscape Painter 
 
 ingly established a friendship, — a friendship that 
 promised as well for the happiness of each as any 
 that ever undertook to meddle with happiness. If 
 I were telling my story from Mrs. Mason's point of 
 view, I take it that I might make a very good thing 
 of the statement that this lady had deliberately and 
 solemnly conferred her affection upon my hero; but 
 I am compelled to let it stand in this simple shape. 
 Excellent, charming person that she was, she had 
 every right to the rich satisfaction which belonged 
 to a liberal — yet not too liberal — estimate of her 
 guest. She had divined him, — so much the better 
 for her. That it was very much the better for him 
 is obviously one of the elementary facts of my 
 narrative ; a fact of which Mason became so rapidly 
 and profoundly sensible, that he was soon able to 
 dismiss it from his thoughts to his life, — its proper 
 sphere. 
 
 In the space of ten days, then, most of the nebu- 
 lous impressions evoked by change of scene had 
 gathered into substantial form. Others, however, 
 were still in the nebulous state, — diffusing a gentle 
 light upon Ferdinand's path. Chief among these 
 was the mild radiance of which Miss Hofmann was 
 the centre. For three days after his arrival Mason 
 had been confined to his room by the aggravation of 
 his condition consequent upon his journey. It was 
 not till the fourth day, therefore, that he was able 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 237 
 
 to renew the acquaintance so auspiciously com- 
 menced. When at last, at dinner-time, he reappeared 
 in the drawing-room, Miss Hofmann greeted him 
 almost as an old friend. Mason had already dis- 
 covered that she was young and gracious; he now 
 rapidly advanced to the conclusion that she was un- 
 commonly pretty. Before dinner was over, he had 
 made up his mind that she was neither more nor 
 less than beautiful. Mrs. Mason had found time to 
 give him a full account of her life. She had lost 
 her mother in infancy, and had been adopted by her 
 aunt in the early years of this lady's widowhood. 
 Her father was a man of evil habits, — a drunkard, 
 a gambler, and a rake, outlawed from decent society. 
 His only dealings with his daughter were to write 
 her every month or two a begging letter, she being 
 in possession of her mother's property. Mrs. Mason 
 had taken her niece to Europe, and given her every 
 advantage. She had had an expensive education; 
 she had travelled; she had gone into the world; 
 she had been presented, like a good republican, to 
 no less than three European sovereigns ; she had been 
 admired; she had had half a dozen offers of mar- 
 riage to her aunt's knowledge, and others, perhaps, 
 of which she was ignorant, and had refused them all. 
 She was now twenty-six years of age, beautiful, 
 accomplished, and au mieux with her bankers. She 
 was an excellent girl, with a will of her own. "I'm 
 
238 A Landscape Painter 
 
 very fond of her," Mrs. Mason declared, with her 
 habitual frankness; "and I suppose she's equally 
 fond of me; but we long ago gave up all idea of 
 playing at mother and daughter. We have never 
 had a disagreement since she was fifteen years old ; 
 but we have never had an agreement either. Caro- 
 line is no sentimentalist. She's honest, good-tem- 
 pered, and perfectly discerning. She foresaw that 
 we were still to spend a number of years together, 
 and she wisely declined at the outset to affect a 
 range of feelings that wouldn't stand the wear and 
 tear of time. She knew that she would make a 
 poor daughter, and she contented herself with being 
 a good niece. A capital niece she is. In fact we're 
 almost sisters. There are moments when I feel as 
 if she were ten years older than I, and as if it were 
 absurd in me to attempt to interfere with her life. 
 I never do. She has it quite in her own hands. My 
 attitude is little more than a state of affectionate 
 curiosity as to what she will do with it. Of course 
 she'll marry, sooner or later; but I'm curious to see 
 the man of her choice. In Europe, you know, girls 
 have no acquaintances but such as they share with 
 their parents and guardians ; and in that way I know 
 most of the gentlemen who have tried to make them- 
 selves acceptable to my niece. There were some 
 excellent young men in the number; but there was 
 not one — or, rather, there was but one — for whom 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 239 
 
 Caroline cared a straw. That one she loved, I be- 
 lieve; but they had a quarrel, and she lost him. 
 She's very discreet and conciliating. I'm sure no 
 girl ever before got rid of half a dozen suitors with 
 so little offence. Ah, she's a dear, good girl !" Mrs. 
 Mason pursued. "She's saved me a world of trouble 
 in my day. And when I think what she might have 
 been, with her beauty, and what not ! She has kept 
 all her suitors as friends. There are two of them 
 who write to her still. She doesn't answer their 
 letters; but once in a while she meets them, and 
 thanks them for writing, and that contents them. 
 The others are married, and Caroline remains single. 
 I take for granted it won't last forever. Still, 
 although she's not a. sentimentalist, she'll not marry 
 a man she doesn't care for, merely because she's 
 growing old. Indeed, it's only the sentimental girls, 
 to my belief, that do that. They covet a man for 
 his money or his looks, and then give the feeling 
 some fine name. But there's one thing, Mr. Ferdi- 
 nand," added Mrs. Mason, at the close of these 
 remarks, "you will be so good as not to fall in love 
 with my niece. I can assure you that she'll not fall 
 in love with you, and a hopeless passion will not 
 hasten your recovery. Caroline is a charming girl. 
 You can live with her very well without that. She's 
 good for common daylight, and you'll have no need 
 of wax-candles and ecstasies." 
 
240 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "Be reassured," said Ferdinand, laughing. "I'm 
 quite too attentive to myself at present to think of 
 any one else. Miss Hofmann might be dying for a 
 glance of my eye, and I shouldn't hesitate to sacrifice 
 her. It takes more than half a man to fall in love." 
 
 At the end of ten days summer had fairly set in ; 
 and Mason found it possible, and indeed profitable, 
 to spend a large portion of his time in the open air. 
 He was unable either to ride or to walk; and the 
 only form of exercise which he found practicable 
 was an occasional drive in Mrs. Mason's phaeton. 
 On these occasions Mrs. Mason was his habitual 
 companion. The neighborhood offered an intermin- 
 able succession of beautiful drives ; and poor Ferdi- 
 nand took a truly exquisite pleasure in reclining idly 
 upon a pile of cushions, warmly clad, empty-handed, 
 silent, with only his eyes in motion, and rolling rap- 
 idly between fragrant hedges and springing crops, 
 and beside the outskirts of woods, and along the 
 heights which overlooked the river. Detested war 
 was over, and all nature had ratified the peace. 
 Mason used to gaze up into the cloudless sky until 
 his eyes began to water, and you would have actually 
 supposed he was shedding sentimental tears. Be- 
 sides these comfortable drives with his hostess. 
 Mason had adopted another method of inhaling the 
 sunshine. He used frequently to spend several hours 
 at a time on a veranda beside the house, sheltered 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 241 
 
 from the observation of visitors. Here, with an 
 arm-chair and a footstool, a cigar and half a dozen 
 volumes of novels, to say nothing of the society of 
 either of the ladies, and sometimes of both, he suf- 
 fered the mornings to pass unmeasured and un- 
 counted. The chief incident of these mornings was 
 the Doctor's visit, in which, of course, there was a 
 strong element of prose, — and very good prose, as 
 I may add, for the Doctor was turning out an ex- 
 cellent fellow. But, for the rest, time unrolled itself 
 like a gentle strain of music. Mason knew so little, 
 from direct observation, of the vie intime of elegant, 
 intelligent women, that their habits, their manners, 
 their household motions, their principles, possessed 
 in his view all the charm of a spectacle, — a spectacle 
 which he contemplated with the indolence of an 
 invalid, the sympathy of a man of taste, and a little 
 of the awkwardness which women gladly allow, and 
 indeed provoke, in a soldier, for the pleasure of for- 
 giving it. It was a very simple matter to Miss 
 Hofmann that she should be dressed in fresh crisp 
 muslin, that her hands should be white and her atti- 
 tudes felicitous ; she had long since made her peace 
 with these things. But to Mason, who was familiar 
 only with books and men, they were objects of con- 
 stant, half-dreamy contemplation. He would sit for 
 half an hour at once, with a book on his knees and 
 the pages unturned, scrutinizing with ingenious in- 
 
242 A Landscape Painter 
 
 directness the simple mass of colors and contours 
 which made up the physical personality of Miss 
 Hofmann. There was no question as to her beauty, 
 or as to its being a warm, sympathetic beauty, and 
 not the cold perfection of poetry. She was the least 
 bit taller than most women, and neither stout nor 
 the reverse. Her hair was of a dark and lustrous 
 brown, turning almost to black, and lending itself 
 readily to those multitudinous ringlets which were 
 then in fashion. Her forehead was broad, open, 
 and serene ; and her eyes of that deep and clear sea- 
 green that you may observe of a summer's after- 
 noon, when the declining sun shines through the 
 rising of a wave. Her complexion was the color ot 
 perfect health. These, with her full, mild lips, her 
 generous and flexible figure, her magnificent hands, 
 were charms enough to occupy Mason's attention, 
 and it was but seldom that he allowed it to be di- 
 verted. Mrs. Mason was frequently called away 
 by her household cares, but Miss Hofmann's time 
 was apparently quite her own. Nevertheless, it 
 came into Ferdinand's head one day, that she gave 
 him her company only from a sense of duty, and 
 when; according to his wont, he had allowed this 
 impression to ripen in his mind, he ventured to as- 
 sure her that, much as he valued her society, he 
 should be sorry to believe that her gracious bestowal 
 of it interfered with more profitable occupations. 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 243 
 
 "I'm no companion," he said. "I don't pretend to 
 be one. I sit here deaf and dumb, and blind and 
 halt, patiently waiting to be healed, — waiting till 
 this vagabond Nature of ours strolls my way, and 
 brushes me with the hem of her garment." 
 
 "I find you very good company," Miss Hofmann 
 replied on this occasion. "What do you take me 
 for? The hero of a hundred fights, a young man 
 who has been reduced to a shadow in the service of 
 his country, — I should be very fastidious if I asked 
 for anything better." 
 
 "O, if it's on theory !" said Mason. And, in spite 
 of Miss Hofmann's protest, he continued to' assume 
 that it was on theory that he was not intolerable. 
 But she remained true to her post, and with a sort 
 of placid inveteracy which seemed to the young man 
 to betray either a great deal of indifference or a 
 great deal of self-command. "She thinks I'm 
 stupid," he said to himself. "Of course she thinks 
 I'm stupid. How should she think otherwise ? She 
 and her aunt have talked me over. Mrs. Mason 
 has enumerated my virtues, and Miss Hofmann has 
 added them up: total, a well-meaning bore. She 
 has armed herself with patience. I must say it be- 
 comes her very well.'' Nothing was more natural, 
 however, than that Mason should exaggerate the 
 effect of his social incapacity. His remarks were 
 desultory, but not infrequent; often trivial, but al- 
 
244 A Landscape Painter 
 
 ways good-humored and informal. The intervals 
 of silence, indeed, which enlivened his conversation 
 with Miss Hofmann, might easily have been taken 
 for the confident pauses in the talk of old friends. 
 Once in a while Miss Hofmann would sit down 
 at the piano and play to him. The veranda com- 
 municated with the little sitting-room by means of 
 a long window, one side of which stood open. 
 Mason would move his chair to this aperture, sp 
 that he might see the music as well as hear it. 
 Seated at the instrument, at the farther end of the 
 half-darkened room, with her figure in half-profile, 
 and her features, her movements, the color of her 
 dress, but half defined in the cool obscurity. Miss 
 Hofmann would discourse infinite melody. Ma- 
 son's eyes rested awhile on the vague white folds of 
 her dress, on the heavy convolutions of her hair, and 
 the gentle movement of her head in sympathy with 
 the music. Then a single glance in the other direc- 
 tion revealed another picture, — the dazzling midday 
 sky, the close-cropped lawn, lying almost black in its 
 light, and the patient, round-backed gardener, in 
 white shirt-sleeves, clipping the hedge or rolling the 
 gravel. One morning, what with the music, the 
 light, the heat, and the fragrance of the flowers, — 
 from the perfect equilibrium of his senses, as it 
 were, — Mason manfully went to sleep. On waking 
 he found that he had slept an hour, and that the sun 
 
A Most EootraordiTiary Case 245 
 
 had invaded the veranda. The music had ceased; 
 but on looking into the parlor he saw Miss Hof- 
 mann still at the piano. A gentleman was leaning 
 on the instrument with his back toward the win- 
 dow, intercepting her face. Mason sat for some 
 moments, hardly sensible, at first, of his transition 
 to consciousness, languidly guessing at her compan- 
 ion's identity. In a short time his observation was 
 quickened by the fact that the picture before him 
 was animated by no sound of voices. The silence 
 was unnatural, or, at the least, disagreeable. Mason 
 moved his chair, and the gentleman looked round. 
 The gentleman was Horace Knight. The Doctor 
 called out, "Good morning!" from his place, and 
 finished his conversation with Miss Hofmann be- 
 fore coming out to his patient. When he moved 
 away from the piano, Mason saw the reason of his 
 friends' silence. Miss Hofmann had been trying to 
 decipher a difificult piece of music, the Doctor had 
 been trying to assist her, and they had both been 
 brought to a stop. 
 
 "What a clever fellow he is!" thought Mason. 
 "There he stands, rattling off musical terms as if 
 he had never thought of anything else. And yet, 
 when he talks medicine, it's impossible to talk more 
 to the point." Mason continued to be very well sat- 
 isfied with Knight's intelligence of his case, and 
 with his treatment of it. He had been in the coun- 
 
246 A Landscape Painter 
 
 try now for three weeks, and he would hesitate, in- 
 deed, to affirm that he felt materially better; but 
 he felt more comfortable. There were moments 
 when he feared to push the inquiry as to his real 
 improvement, because he had a sickening appre- 
 hension that he would discover that in one or two 
 important particulars he was worse. In the course 
 of time he imparted these fears to his physician. 
 "But I may be mistaken," he added, "and for this 
 reason. During the last fortnight I have become 
 much more sensible of my condition than while I 
 was in town. I then accepted each additional symp- 
 tom as a matter of course. The more the better, I 
 thought. But now I expect them to give an ac- 
 count of themselves. Now I have a positive wish 
 to recover." 
 
 Dr. Knight looked at his patient for a moment 
 curiously. "You are right," he said; "a little im- 
 patience is a very good thing." 
 
 "O, I'm not impatient. I'm patient to a most 
 ridiculous extent. I allow myself a good six 
 months, at the very least." 
 
 "That is certainly not unreasonable," said Knight. 
 "And will you allow me a question? Do you in- 
 tend to spend those six months in this place?" 
 
 "I'm unable to answer you. I suppose I shall 
 finish the summer here, unless the summer finishes 
 me. Mrs. Mason will hear of nothing else. In Sep- 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 247 
 
 tember I hope to be well enough to go back to town, 
 even if I'm not well enough to think of work. 
 What do you advise?" 
 
 "I advise you to put away all thoughts of work. 
 That is imperative. Haven't you been at work all 
 your life long? Can't you spare a pitiful little 
 twelve-month to health and idleness and pleasure?" 
 
 "Ah, pleasure, pleasure!" said Mason, ironically. 
 
 "Yes, pleasure," said the Doctor. "What has 
 she done to you that you "hould speak of her in 
 that manner?" 
 
 "O, she bothers me," said Mason. 
 
 "You are very fastidious. It's better to be both- 
 ered by pleasure than by pain." 
 
 "I don't deny it. But there is a way of being in- 
 different to pain. I don't mean to say that I have 
 found it out, but in the course of my illness I have 
 caught a glimpse of it. But it's beyond my strength 
 to be indifferent to pleasure. In two words, I'm 
 afraid of dying of kindness." 
 
 "O, nonsense!" 
 
 "Yes, it's nonsense; and yet it's not. There 
 would be nothing miraculous in my not getting 
 well." 
 
 "It will be your fault if you don't. It will prove 
 that you're fonder of sickness than health, and that 
 you're not fit company for sensible mortals. Shall 
 I tell you ?" continued the Doctor, after a moment's 
 
248 A Landscape Painter 
 
 hesitation. "When I knew you in the army, I al- 
 ways found you a step beyond my comprehension. 
 You took things too hard. You had scruples and 
 doubts about everything. And on top of it all you 
 were devoured with the mania of appearing to take 
 things easily and to be perfectly indifferent. You 
 played your part very well, but you must do me the 
 justice to confess that it was a part." 
 
 "I hardly know whether that's a compliment or 
 an impertinence. I hope, at least, that you don't 
 mean to accuse me of playing a part at the present 
 moment." 
 
 "On the contrary. I'm your physician; you're 
 frank." 
 
 "It's not because you're my physician that I'm 
 frank," said Mason. "I shouldn't think of burden- 
 ing you in that capacity with my miserable caprices 
 and fancies;" and Ferdinand paused a moment. 
 "You're a man!" he pursued, laying his hand on 
 his companion's arm. "There's nothing here but 
 women, Heaven reward them ! I'm saturated with 
 whispers and perfumes and smiles, and the rustling 
 of dresses. It takes a man to understand a man." 
 
 "It takes more than a man to understand you, 
 my dear Mason," said Knight, with a kindly smile. 
 "But I listen." 
 
 Mason remained silent, leaning back in his chair, 
 with his eyes wandering slowly over the wide patch 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 249 
 
 of sky disclosed by the window, and his hands lan- 
 guidly folded on his knees. The Doctor examined 
 him with a look half amused, half perplexed. But 
 at last his face grew quite sober, and he contracted 
 his brow. He placed his hand on Mason's arm and 
 shook it gently, while Ferdinand met his gaze. The 
 Doctor frowned, and, as he did so, his companion's 
 mouth expanded into a placid smile. "If you don't 
 
 get well," said Knight, — "if you don't get well " 
 
 and he paused. 
 
 "What will be the consequences?" asked Ferdi- 
 nand, still smiling. 
 
 "I shall hate you," said Knight, half smiling, too. 
 
 Mason broke into a laugh. "What shall I care 
 for that?" 
 
 "I shall tell people that you were a poor, spirit- 
 less fellow, — ^that you are no loss." 
 
 "I give you leave," said Ferdinand. 
 
 The Doctor got up. "I don't like obstinate pa- 
 tients," he said. 
 
 Ferdinand burst into a long, loud laugh, which 
 ended in a fit of coughing. 
 
 "I'm getting too amusing," said Knight ; "I must 
 go. 
 
 "Nay, laugh and grow fat," cried Ferdinand. "I 
 promise to get well." But that evening, at least, he 
 was no better, as it turned out, for his momentary 
 exhilaration. Before turning in for the night, he 
 
250 A Landscape Painter 
 
 went into the drawing-room to spend half an hour 
 with the ladies. The room was empty, but the lamp 
 was lighted, and he sat down by the table and read 
 a chapter in a novel. He felt excited, light-headed, 
 light-hearted, half-intoxicated, as if he had been 
 drinking strong coffee. He put down his book, and 
 went over to the mantelpiece, above which hung a 
 mirror, and looked at the reflection of his face. For 
 almost the first time in his life he examined his 
 features, and wondered if he were good-looking. 
 He was able to conclude only that he looked very 
 thin and pale, and utterly unfit for the business of 
 life. At last he heard an opening of doors overhead, 
 and a rustling of voluminous skirts on the stairs. 
 Mrs. Mason came in, fresh from the hands of her 
 maid, and dressed for a party. 
 
 "And is Miss Hofmann going?" asked Mason. 
 He felt that his heart was beating, and that he hoped 
 Mrs. Mason would say no. His momentary sense 
 of strength, the mellow lamp-light, the open piano, 
 and the absence, of the excellent woman before him, 
 struck him as so many reasons for her remaining at 
 home. But the sound of the young lady's descent 
 upon the stairs was an affirmative to his question. 
 She forthwith appeared upon the threshold, dressed 
 in crape of a kind of violent blue, with desultory 
 clusters of white roses. For some ten minutes 
 Mason had the pleasure of being witness of that 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 251 
 
 series of pretty movements and preparations with 
 which women in full dress beguile the interval be- 
 fore their carriage is announced; their glances at 
 the mirror, their slow assumption of their gloves, 
 their mutual revisions and felicitations. 
 
 "Isn't she lovely?" said Miss Hofmann to the 
 young man, nodding at her aunt, who looked every 
 inch the handsome woman that she was. 
 
 "Lovely, lovely, lovely!" said Ferdinand, so em- 
 phatically, that Miss Hofmann transferred her 
 glance to him; while Mrs. Mason good-humoredly 
 turned her back, and Caroline saw that Mason was 
 engaged in a survey of her own person. 
 
 Miss Hofmann smiled discreetly. "I wish very 
 much you might come," she said. 
 
 "I shall go to bed," answered Ferdinand, simply. 
 
 "Well, that's much better. We shall go to bed at 
 two o'clock. Meanwhile I shall caper about the 
 rooms to the sound of a piano and fiddle, and Aunt 
 Maria will sit against the wall with her toes tucked 
 under a chair. Such is life !" 
 
 "You'll dance then," said Mason. 
 
 "I shall dance. Dr. Knight has invited me." 
 
 "Does he dance well, Caroline?" asked Mrs, 
 Mason. 
 
 "That remains to be seen. I have a strong im- 
 pression that he does not." 
 
 "Why?" asked Ferdinand. 
 
252 A Landscape Painter 
 
 "He does so many other things well." 
 
 "That's no reason," said Mrs. Mason. "Do you 
 dance, Ferdinand?" 
 
 Ferdinand shook his head. 
 
 "I like a man to dance," said Caroline, "and yet 
 I like him not to dance." 
 
 "That's a very womanish speech, my dear," said 
 Mrs. Mason. 
 
 "I suppose it is. It's inspired by my white gloves 
 and my low dress, and my roses. When once a 
 woman gets on such things. Colonel Mason, expect 
 nothing but nonsense. — Aunt Maria," the young 
 lady continued, "will you button my glove?" 
 
 "Let me do it," said Ferdinand. "Your aunt has 
 her gloves on." 
 
 "Thank you." And Miss Hofmann extended a 
 long, white arm, and drew back with her other hand 
 the bracelet from her wrist. Her glove had three 
 buttons, and Mason performed the operation with 
 great deliberation and neatness. 
 
 "And now," said he, gravely, "I hear the car- 
 riage. You want me to put on your shawl." 
 
 "If you please," — Miss Hofmann passed her full 
 white drapery into his hands, and then turned about 
 her fair shoulders. Mason solemnly covered them, 
 while the waiting-maid, who had come in, per- 
 formed the same service for the elder lady. 
 
 "Good by," said the latter, giving him her hand. 
 
A Most Ecctraordinary Case 253 
 
 "You're not to come out into the air." And Mrs. 
 Mason, attended by her maid, transferred herself 
 to the carriage. Miss Hofmann gathered up her 
 loveHness, and prepared to follow. Ferdinand stood 
 leaning against the parlor door, watching her; and 
 as she rustled past him she nodded farewell with a 
 silent smile. A characteristic smile, Mason thought 
 it, — a smile in which there was no expectation of 
 triumph and no affectation of reluctance, but just 
 the faintest suggestion of perfectly good-humored 
 resignation. Mason went to the window and saw 
 the carriage roll away with its lighted lamps, and 
 then stood looking out into the darkness. The sky 
 was cloudy. As he turned away the maid-servant 
 came in, and took from the table a pair of rejected 
 gloves. "I hope you're feeling better, sir," she said, 
 politely. 
 
 "Thank you, I think I am." 
 
 "It's a pity you couldn't have gone with the la- 
 dies." 
 
 "I'm not well enough yet to think of such things," 
 said Mason, trying to smile. But as he walked 
 across the floor he felt himself attacked by a sudden 
 sensation, which cannot be better described than as 
 a general collapse. He felt dizzy, faint, and sick. 
 His head swam and his knees trembled. "I'm ill," 
 he said, sitting down on the sofa; "you must call 
 William." 
 
254 A Landscape Painter 
 
 William speedily arrived, and conducted the 
 young man to his room. "What on earth had you 
 been doing, sir?" asked this most irreproachable of 
 serving-men, as he helped him to undress. 
 
 Ferdinand was silent a moment. "I had been 
 putting on Miss Hofmann's shawl," he said. 
 
 "Is that all, sir?" 
 
 "And I had been buttoning her glove." 
 
 "Well, sir, you must be very prudent." 
 
 "So it appears," said Ferdinand. 
 
 He slept soundly, however, and the next morning 
 was the better for it. "I'm certainly better," he said 
 to himself, as he slowly proceeded to his toilet. "A 
 month ago such an attack as that of last evening 
 would have effectually banished sleep. Courage, 
 then. The Devil isn't dead, but he's dying." 
 
 In the afternoon he received a visit from Horace 
 Knight. "So you danced last evening at Mrs. 
 Bradshaw's," he said to his friend. 
 
 "Yes, I danced. It's a great piece of frivolity for 
 a man in my position ; but I thought there would be 
 no harm in doing it just once, to show them I know 
 how. My abstinence in future will tell the better. 
 Your ladies were there. I danced with Miss Hof- 
 mann. She was dressed in blue, and she was the 
 most beautiful woman in the room. Every one was 
 talking about it." 
 
 "I saw her," said Mason, "before she went off." 
 
A Most Eaatraordinary Case 255 
 
 "You should have seen her there," said Knight. 
 "The music, the excitement, the spectators, and all 
 that, bring out a woman's beauty." 
 
 "So I suppose," said Ferdinand. 
 
 "What strikes me," pursued the Doctor, "is her 
 — what shall I call it ? — her vitality, her quiet buoy- 
 ancy. Of course, you didn't see her when she came 
 home? If you had, you would have noticed, unless 
 I'm very much mistaken, that she was as fresh and 
 elastic at two o'clock as she had been at ten. While 
 all the other women looked tired and jaded and 
 used up, she alone showed no signs of exhaustion. 
 She was neither pale nor flushed, but still light- 
 footed, rosy, and erect. She's solid. You see I 
 can't help looking at such things as a physician. 
 She has a magnificent organization. Among all 
 those other poor girls she seemed to have something 
 of the inviolable strength of a goddess ;" and Knight 
 smiled frankly as he entered the region of eloquence. 
 "She wears her artificial roses and dew-drops as if 
 she had gathered them on the mountain-tops, instead 
 of buying them in Broadway. She moves with long 
 steps, her dress rustles, and to a man of fancy it's 
 the sound of Diana on the forest-leaves." 
 
 Ferdinand nodded assent. "So you're a man of 
 fancy," he said. 
 
 "Of course I am," said the Doctor. 
 
 Ferdinand was not inclined to question his 
 
256 A Landscape Painter 
 
 friend's estimate of Miss Hofmann, nor to weigh 
 his words. They only served to confirm an impres- 
 sion which was already strong in his own mind. 
 Day by day he had felt the growth of this impres- 
 sion. "He must be a strong man who would ap- 
 proach her," he said to himself. "He must be as 
 vigorous and elastic as she herself, or in the prog- 
 ress of courtship she will leave him far behind. He 
 must be able to forget his lungs and his liver and 
 his digestion. To have broken down in his coun- 
 try's defence, even, will avail him nothing. What 
 is that to her? She needs a man who has defended 
 his country without breaking down, — a being com- 
 plete, intact, well seasoned, invulnerable. Then, — 
 then," thought Ferdinand, "perhaps she will con- 
 sider him. Perhaps it will be to refuse him. Per- 
 haps, like Diana, to whom Knight compares her, she 
 is meant to live alone. It's certain, at least, that she 
 is able to wait. She will be young at forty-five. 
 Women who are young at forty-five are perhaps not 
 the most interesting women. They are likely to 
 have felt for nobody and for nothing. But it's 
 often less their own fault than that of the men and 
 women about them. This one at least can feel ; the 
 thing is to move her. Her soul is an instrument of 
 a hundred strings, only it takes a strong hand to 
 draw sound. Once really touched, they will rever- 
 berate for ever and ever." 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 257 
 
 In iine, Mason was in love. It will be seen that 
 his passion was not arrogant nor uncompromising; 
 but, on the contrary, patient, discreet, and modest, 
 — ^almost timid. For ten long days, the most mem- 
 orable days of his life, — days which, if he had kept 
 a journal, would have been left blank, — ^he held his 
 tongue. He would have suffered anything rather 
 than reveal his emotions, or allow them to come ac- 
 cidentally to Miss Hofmann's knowledge. He 
 would cherish them in silence imtil he should feel 
 in all his sinews that he was himself again, and 
 then he would open his heart. Meanwhile he would 
 be patient ; he would be the most irreproachable, the 
 most austere, the most insignificant of convales- 
 cents. He was as yet unfit to touch her, to look at 
 her, to speak to her. A man was not to go a wooing 
 in his dressing-gown and slippers. 
 
 There came a day, however, when, in spite of his 
 high resolves, Ferdinand came near losing his bal- 
 ance. Mrs. Mason had arranged with him to drive 
 in the phaeton after dinner. But it befell that, an 
 hour before the appointed time, she was sent for by 
 by a neighbor who had been taken ill. 
 
 "But it's out of the question that you should lose 
 your drive," said Miss Hofmann, who brought him 
 her aunt's apologies. "If you are still disposed to 
 go, I shall be happy to take the reins. I shall not 
 be as good company as Aunt Maria, but perhaps I 
 
258 A Landscape Painter 
 
 shall be as good company as Thomas." It was set- 
 tled, accordingly, that Miss Hofmann should act 
 as her aunt's substitute, and at five o'clock the phae- 
 ton left the door. The first half of their drive was 
 passed in silence; and almost the first words they 
 exchanged were as they finally drew near to a space 
 of enclosed ground, beyond which, through the trees 
 at its farther extremity, they caught a glimpse of a 
 turn in the river. Miss Hofmann involuntarily 
 pulled up. The sun had sunk low, and the cloudless 
 western sky glowed with rosy yellow. The trees 
 which concealed the view flung over the grass a 
 great screen of shadow, which reached out into the 
 road. Between their scattered stems gleamed the 
 broad, white current of the Hudson. Our friends 
 both knew the spot. Mason had seen it from a boat, 
 when one morning a gentleman in the neighbor- 
 hood, thinking to do him a kindness, had invited 
 him to take a short sail ; and with Miss Hofmann 
 it had long been a frequent resort. 
 
 "How beautiful!" she said, as the phaeton 
 stopped. 
 
 "Yes, if it wasn't for those trees," said 
 Ferdinand. "They conceal the best part of the 
 view." 
 
 "I should rather say they indicate it," answered 
 his companion. "From here they conceal it; but 
 they suggest to you to make your way in, and lose 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 259 
 
 yourself behind them, and enjoy the prospect in pri- 
 vacy." 
 
 "But you can't take a vehicle in." 
 
 "No: there is only a footpath, although I have 
 ridden in. One of these days, when you're stronger, 
 you must drive to this point, and get out, and walk 
 over to the bank." 
 
 Mason was silent a moment, — a moment during 
 which he felt in his limbs the tremor of a bold reso- 
 lution. "I noticed the place the day I went out on 
 the water with Mr. McCarthy. I immediately 
 marked it as my own. The bank is quite high, and 
 the trees make a little amphitheatre on its summit. 
 I think there's a bench." 
 
 "Yes, there are two benches," said Caroline. 
 
 "Suppose, then, we try it now," said Mason, with 
 an effort. 
 
 "But you can never walk over that meadow. You 
 see it's broken ground. And, at all events, I can't 
 consent to your going alone." 
 
 "That, madam," said Ferdinand, rising to his feet 
 in the phaeton, "is a piece of folly I should never 
 think of proposing. Yonder is a house, and in it 
 there are people. Can't we drive thither, and place 
 the horse in their custody?" 
 
 "Nothing is more easy, if you insist upon it. The 
 house is occupied by a German family with a couple 
 of children, who are old friends of mine. When I 
 
260 A Landscape Pmnier 
 
 come here on horseback they always clamor for 
 'coppers.' From their little garden the walk is 
 shorter." 
 
 So Miss Hofmann turned the horse toward the 
 cottage, which stood at the head of a lane, a few 
 yards from the road. A little boy and girl, with 
 bare heads and bare feet, — the former members 
 very white and the latter very black, — came out to 
 meet her. Caroline greeted them good-humoredly 
 in German. The girl, who was the elder, consented 
 to watch the horse, while the boy volunteered to 
 show the visitors the shortest way to the river. 
 Mason reached the point in question without great 
 fatigue, and found a prospect which would have 
 repaid even greater trouble. To the right and to 
 the left, a hundred feet below them, stretched the 
 broad channel of the seaward-shifting waters. In 
 the distance rose the gentle masses of the Catskills 
 with all the intervening region vague and neutral in 
 the gathering twilight. A faint odor of coolness 
 came up to their faces from the stream below. 
 
 "You can sit down," said the little boy, doing the 
 honors. 
 
 "Yes, Colonel, sit down," said Caroline. "You've 
 already been on your feet too much." 
 
 Ferdinand obediently seated himself, unable to 
 deny that he was glad to do so. Miss Hofmann re- 
 leased from her grasp the skirts which she had gath- 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 261 
 
 ered up in her passage from the phaeton, and strolled 
 to the edge of the cliff, where she stood for some 
 moments talking with her little guide. Mason could 
 only hear that she was speaking German. After 
 the lapse of a few moments Miss Hofmann turned 
 back, still talking — or rather listening — ^to the 
 child. 
 
 "He's very pretty," she said in French, as she 
 stopped before Ferdinand. 
 
 Mason broke into a laugh. "To think," said he, 
 "that that little youngster should forbid us the use 
 of two languages! Do you speak French, my 
 child?" 
 
 "No," said the boy, sturdily, "I speak German." 
 
 "Ah, there I can't follow you !" 
 
 The child stared a moment, and then replied, with 
 pardonable irrelevancy, "I'll show you the way down 
 to the water." 
 
 "There I can't follow you either. I hope you'll 
 not go. Miss Hofmann," added the young man, ob- 
 serving a movement on Caroline's part. 
 
 "Is it hard ?" she asked of the child. 
 
 "No, it's easy." 
 
 "Will I tear my dress?" 
 
 The child shook his head ; and Caroline descended 
 the bank under his guidance. 
 
 As some moments elapsed before she reappeared, 
 Ferdinand ventured to the edge of the cliff, and look- 
 
262 A Landscape Painter 
 
 ed down. She was sitting on a rock on the narrow 
 margin of sand, with her hat in her lap, twisting the 
 feather in her fingers. In a few moments it seemed 
 to Ferdinand that he caught the tones of her voice, 
 wafted upward as if she were gently singing. He 
 listened intently, and at last succeeded in distin- 
 guishing several words ; they were German. "Con- 
 found her German !" thought the young man. Sud- 
 denly Miss Hofmann rose from her seat, and, after 
 a short interval, reappeared on the platform. 
 "What did you find down there ?" asked Ferdinand, 
 almost savagely. 
 
 "Nothing, — a little strip of a beach and a pile of 
 stones." 
 
 "You have torn your dress," said Mason. 
 
 Miss Hofmann surveyed her drapery. "Where, 
 if you please?" 
 
 "There, in front." And Mason extended his 
 walking-stick, and inserted it into the injured fold 
 of muslin. There was a certain graceless brusquerie 
 in the movement which attracted Miss Hofmann's 
 attention. She looked at her companion, and, see- 
 ing that his face was discomposed, fancied that he 
 was annoyed at having been compelled to wait. 
 
 "Thank you," she said ; "it's easily mended. And 
 now suppose we go back." 
 
 "No, not yet," said Ferdinand. "We have plenty 
 of time." 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 263 
 
 "Plenty of time to catch cold," said Miss Hof- 
 mann, kindly. 
 
 Mason had planted his stick where he had let it 
 fall on withdrawing it from contact with his com- 
 panion's skirts, and stood leaning against it, with his 
 eyes on the young girl's face. "What if I do catch 
 cold?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 "Come, don't talk nonsense," said Miss Hof- 
 mann. 
 
 "I never was more serious in my life." And, 
 pausing a moment, he drew a couple of steps nearer. 
 She had gathered her shawl closely about her, and 
 stood with her arms lost in it, holding her elbows. 
 "I don't mean that quite literally," Mason contin- 
 ued. "I wish to get well, on the whole. But there 
 are moments when this perpetual self-coddling 
 seems beneath the dignity of man, and I'm tempted 
 to purchase one short hour of enjo)mient, of happi- 
 ness, at the cost — ^well, at the cost of my life if 
 necessary !" 
 
 This was a franker speech than Ferdinand had 
 yet made ; the reader may estimate his habitual re- 
 serve. Miss Hofmann must have been somewhat 
 surprised, and even slightly puzzled. But it was 
 plain that he expected a rejoinder. 
 
 "I don't know what temptation you may have 
 had," she answered, smiling; "but I confess that I 
 can think of none in your present circumstances 
 
264 A Landscape Painter 
 
 likely to involve the great sacrifice you speak of. 
 What you say, Colonel Mason, is half " 
 
 "Half what?" 
 
 "Half ungrateful. Aunt Maria flatters herself 
 that she has made existence as easy and as peaceful 
 for you — as stupid, if you like — ^as it can possibly 
 be for a — a clever man. And now, after all, to ac- 
 cuse her of introducing temptations." 
 
 "Your aunt Maria is the best of women. Miss 
 Hofmann," said Mason. "But I'm not a clever 
 man. I'm deplorably weak-minded. Very little 
 things excite me. Very small pleasures are gigantic 
 temptations. I would give a great deal, for in- 
 stance, to stay here with you for half an hour." 
 
 It is a delicate question whether Miss Hofmann 
 now ceased to be perplexed; whether she discerned 
 in the young man's accents — it was his tone, his at- 
 titude, his eyes that were fully significant, rather 
 than his words — an intimation of that sublime and 
 simple truth in the presence of which a wise woman 
 puts off coquetry and prudery, and stands invested 
 with perfect charity. But charity is nothing if not 
 discreet; and Miss Hofmann may very well have 
 effected the little transaction I speak of, and yet 
 have remained, as she did remain, gracefully 
 wrapped in her shawl, with the same serious smile 
 on her face. Ferdinand's heart was thumping under 
 his waistcoat ; the words in which he might tell her 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 265 
 
 that he loved her were fluttering there like fright- 
 ened birds in a storm-shaken cage. Whether his 
 lips would form them or not depended on the next 
 words she uttered. On the faintest sign of defiance 
 or of impatience he would really give her something 
 to coquet withal. I repeat that I do not undertake 
 to follow Miss Hofmann's feelings; I only know 
 that her words were those of a woman of great in- 
 stincts. "My dear Colonel Mason," she said, "I 
 wish we might remain here the whole evening. The 
 moments are quite too pleasant to be wantonly sac- 
 rificed. I simply put you on your conscience. If 
 you believe that you can safely do so, — that you'll 
 not have some dreadful chill in consequence, — ^let 
 us by all means stay awhile. If you do not so be- 
 lieve, let us go back to the carriage. There is no 
 good reason, that I see, for our behaving like chil- 
 dren." 
 
 If Miss Hofmann apprehended a scene, — I do not 
 assert that she did, — ^she was saved. Mason ex- 
 tracted from her words a delicate assurance that 
 he could afford to wait. "You're an angel. Miss 
 Hofmann," he said, as a sign that this kindly assur- 
 ance had been taken. "I think we had better go 
 back." 
 
 Miss Hofmann accordingly led the way along 
 the path, and Ferdinand slowly followed. A man 
 who has submitted to a woman's wisdom generally 
 
266 A Landscape Painter 
 
 feels bound to persuade himself that he has sur- 
 rendered at discretion. I suppose it was in this 
 spirit that Mason said to himself as he walked along, 
 "Well, I got what I wanted." 
 
 The next morning he was again an invalid. He 
 woke up with symptoms which as yet he had scarcely 
 felt at all; and he was obliged to acknowledge the 
 bitter truth that, small as it was, his adventure had 
 exceeded his strength. The walk, the evening air, 
 the dampness of the spot, had combined to produce 
 a violent attack of fever. As soon as it became 
 plain that, in vulgar terms, he was "in for it," he 
 took his heart in his hands and succumbed. As his 
 condition grew worse, he was fortunately relieved 
 from the custody of this valuable organ, with all it 
 contained of hopes delayed and broken projects, by 
 several intervals of prolonged unconsciousness. 
 
 For three weeks he was a very sick man. For a 
 couple of days his recovery was doubted of. Mrs. 
 Mason attended him with inexhaustible patience and 
 with the solicitude of real affection. She was re- 
 solved that greedy Death should not possess him- 
 self, through any fault of hers, of a career so full 
 of bright possibilities and of that active gratitude 
 which a good-natured elderly woman would relish, 
 as she felt that of her protege to be. Her vigils 
 were finally rewarded. One fine morning poor, 
 long-silent Ferdinand found words to tell her that 
 
A Most Eivtraordinary Case 267 
 
 he was better. His recovery was very slow, how- 
 ever, and it ceased several degrees below the level 
 from which he had originally fallen. He was thus 
 twice a convalescent, — a. sufficiently miserable fel- 
 low. He professed to be very much surprised to 
 find himself still among the living. He remained 
 silent and grave, with a newly contracted fold in 
 his forehead, like a man honestly perplexed at the 
 vagaries of destiny. "It must be," he said to Mrs. 
 Mason, — "it must be that I am reserved for great 
 things." 
 
 In order to insure absolute quiet in the house, 
 Ferdinand learned Miss Hofmann had removed her- 
 self to the house of a friend, at a distance of some 
 five miles. On the first day that the young man was 
 well enough to sit in his arm-chair Mrs. Mason 
 spoke of her niece's return, which was fixed for the 
 morrow. "She will want very much to see you," 
 she said. "When she comes, may I bring her into 
 your room?" 
 
 "Good heavens, no!" said Ferdinand, to whom 
 the idea was very disagreeable. He met her ac- 
 cordingly at dinner, three days later. He left his 
 room at the dinner hour, in company with Dr. 
 Knight, who was taking his departure. In the hall 
 they encountered Mrs. Mason, who invited the Doc- 
 tor to remain, in honor of his patient's reappearance 
 in society. The Doctor hesitated a moment, and, 
 
268 A Landscape Painter 
 
 as he did so, Ferdinand heard Miss Hofmann's step 
 descending the stair. He turned towards her just 
 in time to catch on her face the vanishing of a 
 glance of intelligence. As Mrs. Mason's back was 
 against the staircase, her glance was evidently meant 
 for Knight. He excused himself on the plea of an 
 engagement, to Mason's regret, while the latter 
 greeted the younger lady. Mrs. Mason proposed 
 another day, — the following Sunday; the Doctor 
 assented, and it was not till some time later that 
 Ferdinand found himself wondering why Miss Hof- 
 mann should have forbidden him to remain. He 
 rapidly perceived that during the period of their 
 separation this young lady had lost none of her 
 charms ; on the contrary, they were more irresistible 
 than ever. It seemed to Mason, moreover, that they 
 were bound together by a certain pensive gentle- 
 ness, a tender, submissive look, which he had hith- 
 erto failed to observe. Mrs. Mason's own remarks 
 assured him that he was not the victim of an il- 
 lusion. 
 
 "I wonder what is the matter with Caroline," 
 she said. "If it were not that she tells me that she 
 never was better, I should believe she is feeling un- 
 well. I've never seen her so simple and gentle. She 
 looks like a person who has a great fright, — a fright 
 not altogether unpleasant." 
 
 "She has been staying in a house full of people," 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 269 
 
 said Mason. "She has been excited, and amused, 
 and preoccupied ; she returns to you and me (excuse 
 the juxtaposition, — it exists) — a kind of reaction 
 asserts itself." Ferdinand's explanation was in- 
 genious rather than plausible. 
 
 Mrs. Mason had a better one. "I have an im- 
 pression," she said, "George Stapleton, the second 
 of the sons, is an old admirer of Caroline's. It's 
 hard to believe that he could have been in the house 
 with her for a fortnight without renewing his 'suit, 
 in some form or other." 
 
 Ferdinand was not made uneasy, for he had seen 
 and talked with Mr. George Stapleton, — a young 
 man, very good-looking, very good-natured, very 
 clever, very rich, and very unworthy, as he con- 
 ceived, of Miss Hofmann. "You don't mean to 
 say that your niece has listened to him," he an- 
 swered, calmly enough. 
 
 "Listened, yes. He has made himself agreeable, 
 and he has succeeded in making an impression, — a 
 temporary impression," added Mrs. Mason with a 
 business-like air. 
 
 "I can't believe it," said Ferdinand. 
 
 "Why not ? He's a very nice fellow." 
 
 "Yes, — yes," said Mason, "very nice, indeed. 
 He's very rich, too." And here the talk was inter- 
 rupted by Caroline's entrance. 
 
 On Sunday the two ladies went to church. It 
 
270 A Landscape Painter 
 
 was not till after they had gone that Ferdinand left 
 his room. He came into the little parlor, took up 
 a book, and felt something of the stir of his old in- 
 tellectual life. Would he ever again know what it 
 was to work? In the course of an hour the ladies 
 came in, radiant with devotional millinery. Mrs. 
 Mason soon went out again, leaving the others to- 
 gether. Miss Hofmann asked Ferdinand what h'e 
 had been reading; and he was thus led to declare 
 that he really believed he should, after all, get the 
 use of his head again. She listened with all the re- 
 spect which an intelligent woman who leads an idle 
 life necessarily feels for a clever man when he con- 
 sents to make her in some degree the confidant of 
 his intellectual purposes. Quickened by her delicious 
 S)Tnpathy, her grave attention, and her intelligent 
 questions, he was led to unbosom himself of several 
 of his dearest convictions and projects. It was easy 
 that from this point the conversation should ad- 
 vance to matters of belief and hope in general. Be- 
 fore he knew it, it had done so; and he had thus 
 the great satisfaction of discussing with the woman 
 on whom of all others his selfish and personal hap- 
 piness was most dependent those great themes in 
 whose expansive magnitude persons and pleasures 
 and passions are absorbed and extinguished, and in 
 whose austere effulgence the brightest divinities of 
 earth remit their shining. Serious passions are a 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 271 
 
 good preparation for the highest kinds of specu- 
 lation. Although Ferdinand was urging no suit 
 whatever upon his companion, and consciously, at 
 least, making use in no degree of the emotion which 
 accompanied her presence, it is certain that, as they 
 formed themselves, his conceptions were the clearer 
 for being the conceptions of a man in love. And, 
 as for Miss Hofmann, her attention could not, to 
 all appearances, have been more lively, nor her per- 
 ception more delicate, if the atmosphere of her own 
 intellect had been purified by the sacred fires of a 
 responsive passion. 
 
 Knight duly made his appearance at dinner, and 
 proved himself once more the entertaining gentle- 
 man whom our friends had long since learned to 
 appreciate. But Mason, fresh from his contest with 
 morals and metaphysics, was forcibly struck with 
 the fact that he was one of those men from whom 
 these sturdy beggars receive more kicks than half- 
 pence. He was nevertheless obliged to admit, that, 
 if he was not a man of principles, he was thoroughly 
 a man of honor. After dinner the company ad- 
 journed to the piazza, where, in the course of half 
 an hour, the Doctor proposed to Miss Hofmann to 
 take a turn in the grounds. All around the lawn 
 there wound a narrow footpath, concealed from view 
 in spots by clusters of shrubbery. Ferdinand and 
 his hostess sat watching their retreating figures as 
 
272 A Liandscape Painter 
 
 they slowly measured the sinuous strip of gravel; 
 Miss Hofmann's light dress and the Doctor's white 
 waistcoat gleaming at intervals through the dark 
 verdure. At the end of twenty minutes they re- 
 turned to the house. The doctor came back only 
 to make his bow and to take his departure; and, 
 when he had gone, Miss Hofmann retired to her 
 own robm. The next morning she mounted her 
 horse, and rode over to see the friend with whom 
 she had stayed during Mason's fever. Ferdinand 
 saw her pass his window, erect in the saddle, with 
 her horse scattering the gravel with his nervous 
 steps. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Mason came into 
 the room, sat down by the young man, made her 
 habitual inquiries as to his condition, and then 
 paused in such a way as that he instantly felt that 
 she had something to tell him. "You've something 
 to tell me," he said; "what is it?" 
 
 Mrs. Mason blushed a little, and laughed. "I 
 was first made to promise to keep it a secret," she 
 said. "If I'm so transparent now that I have leave 
 to tell it, what should I be if I hadn't? Guess." 
 
 Ferdinand shook his head peremptorily. "I give 
 it up." 
 
 "Caroline is engaged." 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 "Not to Mr. Stapleton,— to Dr. Knight." 
 
 Ferdinand was silent a moment; but he neither 
 
A Most Ecctraordinary Case 273 
 
 changed color nor dropped his eyes. Then, at last, 
 "Did she wish you not to tell me?" he asked. 
 
 "She wished me to tell no one. But I prevailed 
 upon her to let me tell you." 
 
 "Thank you," said Ferdinand with a little bow — 
 and an immense irony. 
 
 "It's a great surprise," continued Mrs. Mason. 
 "I never suspected it. And there I was talking 
 about Mr. Stapleton! I don't see how they have 
 managed it. Well, I suppose it's for the best. But 
 it seems odd that Caroline should have refused so 
 many superior oflfers, to put up at last with Dr. 
 Knight." 
 
 Ferdinand had felt for an instant as if the power 
 of speech was deserting him; but volition nailed it 
 down with a great muffled hammer-blow. 
 
 "She might do worse," he said mechanically. 
 
 Mrs. Mason glanced at him as if struck by the 
 sound of his voice. "You're not surprised, 
 then?" 
 
 "I hardly know. I never fancied there was any- 
 thing between them, and yet, now that I look back, 
 there has been nothing against it. They have talked 
 of each other neither too much nor too little. Upon 
 my soul, they're an accomplished couple!" Glan- 
 cing back at his friend's constant reserve and self- 
 possession, Ferdinand — strange as it may seem — 
 could not repress a certain impulse of sympathetic 
 
274 A Landscape Painter 
 
 admiration. He had had no vulgar rival. "Yes," 
 he repeated gravely, "she might do worse." 
 
 "I suppose she might. He's poor, but he's clever; 
 and I'm sure I hope to Heaven he loves her !" 
 
 Ferdinand said nothing. 
 
 "May I ask," he resumed at length, "whether 
 they became engaged yesterday, on that walk around 
 the lawn?" 
 
 "No ; it would be fine if they had, under our very 
 noses! It was all done while Caroline was at the 
 Stapletons'. It was agreed between them yesterday 
 that she should tell me at once." 
 
 "And when are they to be married ?" 
 
 "In September, if possible. Caroline told me 
 to tell you that she counts upon your staying for 
 the wedding." 
 
 "Staying where ?" asked Mason, with a little ner- 
 vous laugh. 
 
 "Staying here, of course, — in the house." 
 
 Ferdinand looked his hostess full in the eyes, tak- 
 ing her hand as he did so. " 'The funeral baked 
 meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.' " 
 
 "Ah, hold your tongue !" cried Mrs. Mason, press- 
 ing his hand. "How can you be so horrible ? When 
 Caroline leaves me, Ferdinand, I shall be quite 
 alone. The tie which binds us together will be very 
 much slackened by her marriage. I can't help 
 thinking that it was never very close, when I con- 
 
A Most Ecctraordinary Case 275 
 
 sider that I've had no part in the most important 
 step of her life. I don't complain. I suppose it's 
 natural enough. Perhaps it's the fashion, — come in 
 with striped petticoats and pea-jackets. Only it 
 maltes me feel like an old woman. It removes me 
 twenty years at a bound from my own engagement, 
 and the day I burst out crying on my mother's neck 
 because your uncle had told a young girl I knew, 
 that he thought I had beautiful eyes. Now-a-days 
 I suppose they tell the young ladies themselves, and 
 have them cry on their own necks. It's a great sav- 
 ing of time. But I shall miss Caroline all the same ; 
 and then, Ferdinand, I shall make a great deal o£ 
 you." 
 
 "The more the better," said Ferdinand, with the 
 same laugh; and at this moment Mrs. Mason was 
 called away. 
 
 Ferdinand had not Been a soldier for nothing. 
 He had received a heavy blow, and he resolved to 
 bear it like a man. He refused to allow himself a 
 single moment of self -compassion. On the con- 
 trary, he spared himself none of the hard names of- 
 fered by his passionate vocabulary. For not guess- 
 ing Caroline's secret, he was perhaps excusable. 
 Women were all inscrutable, and this one especially 
 so. But Knight was a man like himself, — a man 
 whom he esteemed, but whom he was loath to credit 
 with a deeper and more noiseless current of feeling 
 
276 A Landscape Painter 
 
 than his own, for his own was no babbling brook, 
 betraying its course through green leaves. Knight 
 had loved modestly and decently, but frankly and 
 heartily, like a man who was not ashamed of what 
 he was doing, and if he had not found it out it was 
 his own fault. What else had he to do? He had 
 been a besotted day-dreamer, while his friend had 
 simply been a genuine lover. He deserved his in- 
 jury, and he would bear it in silence. He had been 
 unable to get well on an illusion ; he would now try 
 getting well on a truth. This was stern treatment, 
 the reader will admit, likely to kill if it didn't 
 cure. 
 
 Miss Hofmann was absent for several hours. At 
 dinner-time she had not returned, and Mrs. Mason 
 and the young man accordingly sat down without 
 her. After dinner Ferdinand went into the little 
 parlor, quite indiflferent as to how soon he met her. 
 Seeing or not seeing her, time hung equally heavy. 
 Shortly after her companions had risen from table, 
 she rode up to the door, dismounted, tired and hun- 
 gry, passed directly into the dining-room, and sat 
 down to eat in her habit. In half an hour she came 
 out, and, crossing the hall on her way upstairs, saw 
 Mason in the parlor. She turned round, and, gath- 
 ering up her long skirts with one hand, while she 
 held a little sweet-cake to her lips with the other, 
 stopped at the door to bid him good day. He left 
 
A Most EMraordinary Case 277 
 
 his chair, and went towards her. Her face wore a 
 somewhat weary smile. 
 
 "So you're going to be married," he began 
 abruptly. 
 
 Miss Hofmann assented with a slight movement 
 of her head. 
 
 "I congratulate you. Excuse me if I don't do 
 it with the best grace. I feel all I dare to feel." 
 
 "Don't be afraid," said Caroline, smiling, and 
 taking a bite from her cake. 
 
 "I'm not sure that it's not more unexpected than 
 even such things have a right to be. There's no 
 doubt about it." 
 
 "None whatever." 
 
 "Well, Knight's a very good fellow. I haven't 
 seen him yet," he pursued, as Caroline was silent. 
 "I don't know that I'm in any hurry to see him. 
 But I mean to talk to him. I mean to tell him that 
 if he doesn't do his duty by you, I shall " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "I shall remind him of it." 
 
 "O, I shall do that," said Miss Hofmann. 
 
 Ferdinand looked at her gravely. "By Heaven! 
 you know," he cried with intensity, "it must be 
 either one thing or the other." 
 
 "I don't understand you." 
 
 "O, I understand myself. You're not a woman 
 to be thrown away. Miss Hofmann," 
 
278 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Caroline made a gesture of impatience. "I don't 
 understand you," she repeated. "You must excuse 
 me. I'm very tired." • And she went rapidly up- 
 stairs. 
 
 On the following day Ferdinand had an oppor- 
 tunity to make his compliments to the Doctor. "I 
 don't congratulate you on doing it," he said, "so 
 much as on the way you've done it." 
 
 "What do you know about the way?" asked 
 Knight. 
 
 "Nothing whatever. That's just it. You took 
 good care of that. And you're to be married in 
 the autumn?" 
 
 "I hope so. Very quietly, I suppose. The Par- 
 son to do it, and Mrs. Mason and my mother and 
 you to see it's done properly." And the Doctor put 
 his hand on Ferdinand's shoulder. 
 
 "O, I'm the last person to choose," said Mason. 
 "If he were to omit anything, I should take good 
 care not to cry out." It is often said, that, next to 
 great joy, no state of mind is so frolicsome as great 
 distress. It was in virtue of this truth, I suppose, 
 that Ferdinand was able to be facetious. He kept 
 his spirits. He talked and smiled and lounged about 
 with the same deferential languor as before. Dur- 
 ing the interval before the time appointed for the 
 wedding it was agreed between the parties inter- 
 ested that Miss Hofmann should go over and spend 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 279 
 
 a few days with her future mother-in-law, where 
 she might partake more freely and privately than 
 at home of the pleasure of her lover's company. 
 She was absent a week; a week during which Fer- 
 dinand was thrown entirely upon his hostess for 
 entertainment and diversion, — ^things he had a very 
 keen sense of needing. There were moments when 
 it seemed to him that he was living by mere force 
 of will, and that, if he loosened the screws for a 
 single instant, he would sink back upon his bed 
 again, and never leave it. He had forbidden him- 
 self to think of Caroline, and had prescribed a 
 course of meditation upon that other mistress, his 
 first love, with whom he had long since exchanged 
 pledges, — she of a hundred names, — ^work, letters, 
 philosophy, fame. But, after Caroline had gone, it 
 was supremely difficult not to think of her. Even 
 in absence she was supremely conspicuous. The 
 niost that Ferdinand could do was- to take refuge 
 in books, — an immense number of which he now 
 read, fiercely, passionately, voraciously, — in conver- 
 sation with Mrs. Mason, and in such society as he 
 found in his path. Mrs. Mason was a great gossip, 
 — a gossip on a scale so magnificent as to transform 
 the foible into a virtue. A gossip, moreover, of 
 imagination, dealing with the future as well as the 
 present and the past, — ^with a host of delightful 
 half-possibilities, as well as with stale hyper-verities. 
 
280 A Landscape Painter 
 
 With her, then, Ferdinand talked of his own future, 
 into which she entered with the most outspoken and 
 intelHgent sympathy. "A man," he declared, 
 "couldn't do better; and a man certainly would do 
 worse." Mrs. Mason arranged a European tour and 
 residence for her nephew, in the manner of one who 
 knew her ground. Caroline once married, she her- 
 self would go abroad, and fix herself in one of the 
 several capitals in which an American widow with 
 an easy income may contrive to support existence. 
 She would make her dwelling a base of supplies — 
 a pied a terre — for Ferdinand, who should take 
 his time to it, and visit every accessible spot in Eu- 
 rope and the East. She would leave him free to go 
 and come as he pleased, and to live as he listed ; and 
 I may say that, thanks to Mrs. Mason's observation 
 of Continental manners, this broad allowance cov- 
 ered in her view quite as much as it did in poor Fer- 
 dinand's, who had never been out of his own coun- 
 try. All that she would ask of him would be to 
 show himself say twice a year in her drawing-room, 
 and to tell her stories of what he had seen; that 
 drawing-room which she already saw in her mind's 
 eye, — a compact little entresol with tapestry hang- 
 ings in the doorways and a coach-house in the court 
 attached. Mrs. Mason was not a severe moralist; 
 but she was quite too sensible a woman to wish to 
 demoralize her nephew, and to persuade him to 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 281 
 
 trifle with his future, — that future of which the war 
 had already made Ught, in its own grim fashion. 
 Nay, she loved him ; she thought him the cleverest, 
 the most promising, of young men. She looked to 
 the day when his name would be on men's lips, and 
 it would be a great piece of good fortune to have 
 very innocently married his uncle. Herself a great 
 observer of men and manners, she wished to give 
 him advantages which had been sterile in her own 
 case. 
 
 In the way of society, Ferdinand made calls with 
 his hostess, went out twice to dine, and caused Mrs. 
 Mason herself to entertain company at dinner. He 
 presided on these occasions with distinguished good 
 grace. It happened, moreover, that invitations had 
 been out some days for a party at the Stapletons', 
 — Miss Hofmann's friends, — and that, as there was 
 to be no dancing, Ferdinand boldly announced his 
 intention of going thither. "Who knows?" he said; 
 "it may do me more good than harm. We can go 
 late, and come away early." Mrs. Mason doubted 
 of the wisdom of the act; but she finally assented, 
 and prepared herself. It was late when they left 
 home, and when they arrived the rooms — rooms of 
 exceptional vastness — were at their fullest. Mason 
 received on this his first appearance in society a most 
 flattering welcome, and in a very few moments 
 found himself in exclusive possession of Miss Edith 
 
282 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Stapleton, Caroline's particular friend. This young 
 lady has had no part in our story, because our story 
 is perforce short, and condemned to pick and choose 
 its constituent elements. With the least bit wider 
 compass we might long since have whispered to the 
 reader, that Miss Stapleton — who was a charming 
 girl — had conceived a decided preference for our 
 Ferdinand over all other men whomsoever. That 
 Ferdinand was utterly ignorant of the circumstance 
 is our ex;cuse for passing it by ; and we linger upon 
 it, therefore, only long enough to suggest that the 
 young girl must have been very happy at this par- 
 •ticular moment. 
 
 "Is Miss Hofmann here?" Mason asked as he 
 accompanied her into an adjoining room. 
 
 "Do you call that being here?" said Miss Staple- 
 ton, looking across the apartment. Mason, too, 
 looked across. 
 
 There he beheld Miss Hofmann, full-robed in 
 white, standing fronted by a semicircle of no less 
 than five gentlemen, — all good-looking and splen- 
 did. Her head and shoulders rose serene from the 
 bouillonnement of her beautiful dress, and she 
 looked and listened with that half -abstracted air 
 which is pardonable in a woman beset by half a 
 dozen admirers. When Caroline's eyes fell upon 
 her friend, she stared a moment, surprised, and 
 then made him the most gracious bow in the world, 
 
A Most Eadraordinary Case 283 
 
 — a bow so gracious that her little circle half di- 
 vided itself to let it pass, and looked around to see 
 where the deuce it was going. Taking advantage 
 of this circumstance, Miss Hofmann advanced sev- 
 eral steps. Ferdinand went towards her, and there, 
 in sight of a hundred men and as many women, 
 she gave him her hand, and smiled upon him with 
 extraordinary sweetness. They went back together 
 to Miss Stapleton, and Caroline made him sit down, 
 she and her friend placing themselves on either side. 
 For half an hour Ferdinand had the honor of en- 
 grossing the attention of the two most charming 
 girls present, — and, thanks to this distinction, in- 
 deed the attention of the whole company. After 
 which the two young ladies had him introduced suc- 
 cessively to every maiden and matron in the as- 
 sembly in the least remarkable for loveliness or wit. 
 Ferdinand rose to the level of the occasion, and con- 
 ducted himself with unprecedented gallantry. Upon 
 others he made, of course, the best impression, but 
 to himself he was an object almost of awe. I am 
 compelled to add, however, that he was obliged to 
 fortify himself with repeated draughts of wine ; and 
 that even with the aid of this artificial stimulant he 
 was unable to conceal from Mrs. Mason and his 
 physician that he was looking far too much like 
 an invalid to be properly where he was. 
 
 "Was there ever anything like the avidity of 
 
284 A Landscape Painter 
 
 these dreadful girls ?" said Mrs. Mason to the Doc- 
 tor. "They'll let a man swoon at their feet sooner 
 than abridge a tete-a-tete that amuses them. Then 
 they'll have up another. Look at little Miss Mc- 
 Carthy, yonder, with Ferdinand and George Staple- 
 ton before her. She's got them contradicting each 
 other, and she looks like a Roman fast lady at the 
 circus. What does she care so long as she makes 
 her evening? They like a man to look as if he were 
 going to die, — it's interesting." 
 
 Knight went over to his friend, and told him 
 sternly that it was high time he should be at home 
 and in bed. "You're looking horribly," he added 
 shrewdly, as Ferdinand resisted. 
 
 "You're not looking horribly, Colonel Mason," 
 said Miss McCarthy, a very audacious little per- 
 son, overhearing this speech. 
 
 "It isn't a matter of taste, madam," said the Doc- 
 tor, angrily; "it's a fact." And he led away his 
 patient. 
 
 Ferdinand insisted that he had not hurt himself, 
 that, on the contrary, he was feeling uncommonly 
 well; bijt his face contradicted him. He continued 
 for two or three days more to play at "feeling well," 
 with a courage worthy of a better cause. Then at 
 last he let disease have its way. He settled himself 
 on his pillows, and fingered his watch, and began 
 to wonder how many revolutions he would still 
 
A Most Eootraordinary Case 285 
 
 witness of those exquisite little needles. The Doc- 
 tor came, and gave him a sound rating for what he 
 called his imprudence. Ferdinand heard him out 
 patiently; and then assured him that prudence or 
 imprudence had nothing to do with it; that death 
 had taken fast hold of him, and that now his only 
 concern was to make easy terms with his captor. 
 In the course of the same day he sent for a lawyer 
 and altered his will. He had no known relatives, 
 and his modest patrimony stood bequeathed to a 
 gentleman of his acquaintance who had no real 
 need of it. He now divided it into two unequal 
 portions, the smaller of which he devised to William 
 Bowles, Mrs. Mason's man-servant and his personal 
 attendant ; and the larger — which represented a con- 
 siderable sum — ^to Horace Knight. He informed 
 Mrs. Mason of these arrangements, and was pleased 
 to have her approval. 
 
 From this moment his strength began rapidly to 
 ebb, and the shattered fragments of his long-re- 
 sisting will floated down its shallow current into 
 dissolution. It was useless to attempt to talk, to 
 beguile the interval, to watch the signs, or to count 
 the hours. A constant attendant was established 
 at his side, and Mrs. Mason appeared only at in- 
 frequent moments. The poor woman felt that her 
 heart was broken, and spent a great deal of time 
 in weeping. Miss Hofmann remained, naturally, at 
 
286 A Landscape Painter 
 
 Mrs. Knight's. "As far as I can judge," Horace 
 had said, "it will be a matter of a week. But it's 
 the most extraordinary case I ever heard of. The 
 man was steadily getting well." On the fifth day 
 he had driven Miss Hofmann home, at her sug- 
 gestion that it was no more than decent that she 
 should give the young man some little sign of sym- 
 pathy. Horace went up to Ferdinand's bedside, and 
 found the poor fellow in the languid middle con- 
 dition between sleeping and waking in which he had 
 passed the last forty-eight hours. "Colonel," he 
 asked gently, "do you think you could see Caro- 
 line?" 
 
 For all answer, Ferdinand opened his eyes. Hor- 
 ace went out, and led his companion back into the 
 darkened room. She came softly up to the bedside, 
 stood looking down for a moment at the sick man, 
 and then stooped over him. 
 
 "I thought I'd come and make you a little visit," 
 she said. "Does it disturb you?" 
 
 "Not in the least," said Mason, looking her stead- 
 ily in the eyes. "Not half as much as it would have 
 done a week ago. Sit down." 
 
 "Thank you. Horace won't let me, I'll come 
 again." 
 
 "You'll not have another chance," said Ferdi- 
 nand. "I'm not good for more than two days yet. 
 Tell them to go out. I wish to see you alone. I 
 
A Most Extraordinary Case 287 
 
 wouldn't have sent for you, but, now that you're 
 here, I might as well take advantage of it." 
 
 "Have you an)rthing particular to say?" asked 
 Knight, kindly. 
 
 "O, come," said Mason, with a smile which he 
 meant to be good-natured, but which was only 
 ghastly; "you're not going to be jealous of me at 
 this time of day." 
 
 Knight looked at Miss Hofmann for permission, 
 and then left the room with the nurse. But a min- 
 ute had hardly elapsed before Miss Hofmann hur- 
 ried into the adjoining apartment, with her face pale 
 and discomposed. 
 
 "Go to him!" she exclaimed. "He's dying!" 
 
 When they reached him he was dead. 
 
 In the course of a few days his will was opened, 
 and Knight came to the knowledge of his legacy. 
 "He was a good, generous fellow," he said to Mrs. 
 Mason and Miss Hofmann, "and I shall never be 
 satisfied that he mightn't have recovered. It was 
 a most extraordinary case." He was considerate 
 enough of his audience to abstain from adding that 
 he would give a great deal to have been able to make 
 an autopsy. Miss Hofmann's wedding was, of 
 course, not deferred. She was married in Septem- 
 ber, "very quietly." It seemed to her lover, in the 
 interval, that she was very silent and thoughtful. 
 But this was natural under the circumstances. 
 
f!^