"You will remain to tea, Mr. Hall," said Mr. Read, as the good clergyman arose.
"I thank you, sir; but our journey has been fatiguing owing to the extreme heat. I find myself in need of rest—and my charge here requires it more than I do."
"You will call before you leave the city. May we not hope for the pleasure of your company to dinner to-morrow?"
The invitation was accepted; and after a silent pressure of the hand from Ida, and a courtly bow from father and daughter, Mr. Hall took his leave.
"Miss Ross would perhaps like to make some alteration in her dress, Josephine," Mr. Read said; his manner testifying how necessary he esteemed the proposed measure. Miss Read rang for a light, and signified to Ida that she was ready to show her up stairs. Any change from the bleak formality of their presence was a relief; and she longed to be alone, if but for half an hour, that she might give way to the emotions which had been rising and beating, through the livelong day, choking and blinding her. But Miss Read summoned a servant, whom she ordered to wait upon Miss Ross, now and in future; and seated herself in a rocking-chair to watch the progress of the toilette. Mechanically Ida went through the torture of dressing. There are times when it is such;—when the manifold details, heretofore so engaging, are to the preoccupied and suffering mind, like the thorn of the prickly-pear, too small to be observed, but pricking burningly in every fibre and pore. It was a woman—a sister—a girl as young as herself—perhaps as tender-hearted, who sat there. Why not, with the unrepressed sorrowfulness of a child, bury her face in her lap, and sob, "I have lost my mother!" to be fondled and comforted into composure? It would be sacrilege to ruffle the elegant propriety of her figure; and the glassy eyes said, by their tearless stare—"Between you and me there is a great gulf fixed!" One weakness Ida could not overcome; the repugnance to beholding herself in her mourning garments. They as yet reminded her too vividly of the bier and the pall. She averted her eyes, as she stood before the mirror, to put the finishing stroke to her apparel. "I beg your pardon," said the calm voice of Josephine. "Your collar is all awry. Permit me"—Ida submitted in silence, while her volunteer assistant unpinned, and re-arranged the crape folds, but as she gathered them under the mourning brooch, a tear, large and pellucid, dropped upon her hand. It was but a drop of salt water to Miss Read, and she wiped it off, as she asked her guest "to walk down to tea." To the new-comer, the palatable food was as the apples of Sodom—bitter ashes. She could not swallow or speak. Her companions ate and chatted with great gusto. The ill-humour of an hour since had passed away. This exemplary daughter was her father's idol, when contrasted with other, and less favored girls. She was formed in his image, and when the plastic mind was wax to receive, and adamant to retain impressions, he moulded it after a pattern of his own. He taught her deceit, under the name of self-control; heartlessness, he called prudence; veiled distrust and misanthropy under clear-sightedness and knowledge of human nature. All those holy and beautiful feelings which evidence to man his kindred to his Divine model and Creator, he tossed aside, with the sweeping condemnation—"romance and nonsense!" The crying sin was to be "womanish;"—"woman" and "fool" were synonymes, used indiscriminately to express the superlative of ire-exciting folly. He delighted in showing things as they were. Men were machines, moved by secret springs of policy and knavery; the world a stage, viewed by others in the deceptive glare of artificial lights, and so made attractive. He had penetrated into the mysteries behind the curtain, and examined, in the unflattering day, the clumsy contrivances, gaudy daubing and disgustful hollowness of the whole. Fancy and the pleasures of imagination were empty, bombastic names; he would have seen in Niagara only a sizeable fall, and "calculated," amidst the rushing shout of its mighty waters, as to the number of cotton-mills it would turn, and the thousands it would net him, could he transport it, patent right secured, to Virginia. He tore the cloud-covering from the storm-god's brow, and beheld a roaring, vaporing giant, whose insane attacks might be warded off by philosophical precautions, and discretion in the disposition of lightning rods.
The party returned to the parlor. "You play, I presume, Miss Ross?" said her guardian. Inexpressibly hurt by this new proof of insensibility to her situation, Ida faltered an excuse of fatigue and want of practice; and with a very perceptible shrug, he addressed his daughter. "What apology have you, Josephine?" She replied by going to the instrument, but had just taken her seat, when the door opened to admit three visitors—two school-fellows of Miss Read's, and their brother. "The Misses and Mr. Talbot" were presented in due form to the stranger, who had risen to leave the room. Josephine saw the movement, and arrested it by the introduction. No attention was paid to her; and in the midst of the lively conversation, she seized an opportunity to speak aside to Josephine. "I wish to retire, if you please." Josephine started. If not so measured, the tone was as haughty as hers, at its proudest pitch. With a word of apology to her guests, she led the way into the hall, and lighted a lamp. Ida took it from her. "I will go up without you. Good night." She walked up the staircase with a steady step, for she was followed by a gaze of wonderment and anger; but when her chamber was gained, she sprang through the door—locked and double locked it, and dashed herself upon the floor. A hurricane raged within her—grief, outraged feeling and desperation. The grave had gorged her past, black walls of ice bounded the future. Meanwhile the sound of jocund voices came up through the flooring; bursts of laughter; and then music; brilliant waltzes and triumphant marches, to where the orphan lay sobbing, not weeping, with hysterical violence; her hands clenched upon her temples, through which each convulsion sent a pang that forced from her a moan of anguish.
"She is a weak, foolish baby! it will take an immensity of schooling to make her endurable;" said Mr. Read, when the guests had gone.
"She has temper enough, in all conscience!" rejoined Josephine, and she related the scene preceding her withdrawal.
"Bad! bad!" ejaculated the senior, with a solemn shake of the head. "I admire spirit in a girl; but a woman should have no temper!"
CHAPTER III.
In a crowded school-room, on a glorious October morning, a student was penning, with slow and heavy fingers, an Italian exercise. A physiognomist's eye would have wandered with comparative carelessness over the faces—so various in feature and character—by which she was surrounded, and found in hers, subject for curious speculation; wondering at the contradictory evidence her countenance and form gave of her age; the one, sombre in its thoughtfulness, its dark eyes piercing through his, into his soul, said twenty—perhaps thirty—the lithe figure and rounded limbs, sixteen; but most, he would have marvelled at the listlessness of her attitude; the lack of interest in her occupation and external objects, when every line, in brow, eyes and mouth, bespoke energy; a spirit strong to do or dare; and which, when in arms, would achieve its purpose, or perish in the attempt. The hand moved more and more sluggishly, and the page was marred by blots and erasures. Thought had the crayon, and dark were the shades that fell upon the canvass. "Seventeen to-day! Who remembers that it is my birth-day? There are none here to know or care. If I were to die to-morrow, there is not a creature who would shed a tear above my corpse. I wish I could die! They say such thoughts are sinful, but annihilation is preferable to an aimless, loveless existence. Oh! this intolerable aching, yearning for affection—it is eating into my soul! gnawing, insatiable longing! can I not quiet you for an instant? I have intellect—genius—so says the world. I have sacrificed to knowledge, reason and poesy;—praying, first, for happiness, then comfort, then forgetfulness—to cast myself down, the same heart-sick, famished creature! Our examination was an imposing affair. The élite of intelligence and fashion honored us with their presence. The prizes for which others had expended sleepless nights and toilsome days, were for me, who had scarcely put forth an effort; and as the music swelled out to celebrate my victory—blent with the applause of my critics, my heart beat! I had not felt it before for a long, long time—and as in a lightning flash, I saw what I might—what