A GARDEN PARTY.

Now, a garden party is a charming thing, when everything is favorable. All the neighborhood was delighted at the prospect, for invitations to garden parties were not rife in Yellowcoats, and the Varians' place was unusually nice for such a thing.

The weather had been close and warm for several days, and the deep shade of the trees upon the lawn and the cooling ripple of the water beyond had entered into the picture everyone had drawn of the projected garden party. But on the morning of that day, a cold east wind set in, and dashes of rain fell about noon—then the sky grew leaden from having been gusty and mottled, and though no more rain fell, the wind was as raw as November, and the chill was something that ate to one's very marrow. A garden party! the very idea became grotesque. A warming-pan party, a chimney-corner party, a range, a furnace-party, would all have been more to the purpose.

But people came, and shivered and looked blue. They huddled together in the house, where fires were lighted, and gazed out of windows at the cold water and the dreary lawn. A few daring spirits braved the blast, and went out to play lawn-tennis and a little feeble archery. But their courage did not keep them long at it in gauze de Chambery and India mull. One by one they dropped away and came shaking back into the house.

Mrs. Smatter was quite above being affected by the weather. She expected to hold high carnival with the painters and the architect, who were of course presented to her at once. The composer, a grim, dark man, looking like a Mexican cut-throat, held off. He preferred young women, and did not care to talk about Wagner out of office hours. The architect was a mild young person, not at all used to society, and he very soon broke down. Mrs. Smatter was a little agitated by this, and did not discriminate between her painters; she talked about the surface muscles to the landscape man, and about cloud effects to the figure painter. This confused everybody, and they severally bowed themselves away as soon as they could, and Mrs. Smatter ever after spoke with great contempt of the culture of Yellowcoats. She was obliged to content herself with the doctor and the rector, who did not dare to go away while she was asking them questions and giving them information, which she never ceased doing till the entertainment ended.

As to Missy, the whole thing was such a vexation and disappointment she scarcely knew how to bear it. The bright fires and the flowers, and the well-ordered entertainment redeemed it somewhat, but it remained a burlesque upon a garden party, and would never be what it was meant to be. The people from next door had come—Miss Flora in a new gown, and the mother all beaming in a bonnet crowned with buttercups; Mr. Andrews very silent and a trifle awkward. There were too many people to make it necessary to say many words to them when they came in, and they were presently scattered among the crowd.

An hour later, Missy, with her cheeks flushed from the talking and the warm rooms, went out of the summer parlor and across the lawn to a pair of young people who had been silly enough to stay there till there was danger of their being made ill by the cold. She had promised an anxious mamma by the fire to see that her daughter had a shawl or came in, and had just delivered the message and the shawl and turned away from the obdurate little idiot, who would not give up her flirtation even to escape pneumonia, when she saw that Mr. Andrews had followed her.

"It is a very unlucky day for my garden party," she said, as he joined her. "The sky and the water like ink, and a wind that actually howls."

"I wanted to speak to you a moment," he said, as if he had not noticed what she was saying. "Will you take cold here for a moment?"

"No," she answered, feeling her cheeks burn.

"This has been an unlucky summer in some ways, Miss Rothermel, but now it's over; and before we part, I want to say a few words to you."

"Certainly," said Missy, distantly. "I hope you're not going away soon?"

"I've taken passage for the 6th, that is a week from to-day, and I don't know when we shall return—very possibly not for several years."

There was a pause, while Missy got her voice steady and staggered up from under the blow.

"I've been unlucky this summer, as I said, and seem to have managed to give you offense by everything I did."

Now, no woman likes to be told she's not sweet-tempered, even if she knows she is a spitfire, and this nettled Missy sharply, and steadied her voice considerably.

"I am sorry," she said, "that you think me so unamiable, but I don't exactly know why you should think it well to tell me of it."

"I haven't told you that you were unamiable; I have told you that I hadn't been able to do the thing that pleased you, though Heaven knows I've tried hard enough."

"It's a pity that I'm such a dragon. Poor little Jay, even, is afraid of me by this time, isn't he?"

"I don't know about Jay. I'm rather stupid about things, I'm afraid. Women perplex me very much."

Missy drew the scarf that she had picked up in the hall as she came out, about her shoulders, and beat her foot upon the gravel as if she were cold and a trifle tired of Mr. Andrews' sources of perplexity.

"What I wanted to say," he went on, "is, that I thank you always for what you've been to the children."

"Ah, please," she cried, with a gesture of impatience.

"And that I shall always regret the misstep that I took in bringing my cousins here. I did it in the hope that it would make it possible for you to come familiarly to my house and remove all the annoyances from which you had suffered. I made a mistake, it has all gone wrong. As I said before, I don't understand your sex, and it is best, I suppose, that I should give up trying to. Only there are some things that I should think you might express to a woman as you would to a man. I desire to say I am sorry to have given pain and annoyance to you all the time, as I and mine seem to have been the means of doing. I have great cause to feel grateful to you, and nothing can ever change the high esteem in which I hold you."

"Thank you very much," said Missy; "not even the opinion of the ladies of your household?"

Mr. Andrews turned his head away, with a stolid look towards the lead-colored bay.

"I don't suppose anything will be gained by discussing them," he said.

"No, Mr. Andrews, for I don't like them, and you know when women don't like each other they are apt to be unreasonable."

Mr. Andrews was silent, and his silence roused a fire of jealousy in his companion's mind. Why did he not say to her that he despised them, that he saw through them, that he did not think her prejudice against them in the least unreasonable?

"We shall get cold if we stay here any longer I'm afraid," she said, moving slowly forward up the path.

Mr. Andrews walked beside her for a moment without speaking, then he said very deliberately:

"You have given me much pain, at various times, Miss Rothermel, and a heavy disappointment, but nothing can ever alter my regard for you. A man, I suppose, has no right to blame a woman for disliking him; he can only blame her for misleading him—"

The path from the beach-gate to the house was too short—too short, ah, by how much! they were already at the steps. Missy glanced up and saw more than one eager and curious pair of eyes gazing down upon the tÊte-À-tÊte. It was over, it was ended, and Missy, as in a dream, walked up the steps and into the chattering groups that stood about the summer parlor. She knew all now—what she had thrown away, what her folly of jealousy had cost her. The mists of suspicion and passion rolled away, and she saw all. Many a woman, younger and older, has seen the same, the miserable, inevitable sight—jealousy dead, and hope along with it.

The cold wind had not taken the flush out of her cheeks; she walked about the parlors and talked to the guests, and, to her own surprise, knew their names and what they said to her. Since she had gone out upon the lawn to take the shawl to the foolish virgin there, the world had undergone a revolution that made her stagger. Such a strong tide had borne her chance of happiness away from her, already almost out of sight, she wondered that she could stand firm and watch it go. What a babble of voices! How wiry and shrill and imbecile the clanging of tongues! It was all like a dream. The woman whom she had dreaded, unmasked and harmless walked before her, a trifler among triflers, a poor rival indeed. The man whom she had lost stood there silent in a group of flippant talkers, more worthy and more manly now that he was beyond her reach. What was the use of regretting? No use. What was the use of anything? No use.

Miss Rothermel looked uncommonly well, they said to each other driving home, almost pretty, really, and so young. What could that tÊte-À-tÊte have signified between her and Mr. Andrews? He was evidently out of spirits. What an odd thing it would be after all if he had really liked her. There was something queer about it all. Going abroad with his cousins, however, didn't much look like it. It was a puzzle, and they gave it up.