Miss Barrington, with Josephine at one side and Polly Dill on the other, sat at work in her little room that opened on the garden. Each was engaged in some peculiar task, and each seemed bent upon her labor in that preoccupied way which would imply that the cares of needlework make no mean call upon human faculties. A close observer would, however, have remarked that though Miss Barrington stitched vigorously away at the background for a fierce tiger with measly spots over him, Polly seemed oftener to contemplate than continue her handiwork; while Josephine's looks strayed constantly from the delicate tracery she was following, to the garden, where the roses blended with the jasmine, and the drooping honeysuckles hung listlessly over the boughs of the apple-tree.

“If your work wearies you, Fifine,” said Miss Dinah, “you had better read for us.”

“Oh no, not at all, aunt; I like it immensely. I was only wondering why one should devise such impossible foliage, when we have the real thing before us, in all its grace and beauty.”

“Humph!” said the old lady; “the sight of a real tiger would not put me out of countenance with my own.”

“It certainly ought not, ma'am,” said Polly; while she added, in a faint whisper, “for there is assuredly no rivalry in the case.”

“Perhaps Miss Dill is not too absorbed in her study of nature, as applied to needlework, to read out the newspaper.”

“I will do it with pleasure, ma'am. Where shall I begin?”

“Deaths and marriages first, of course, child. Then fashion and varieties; take the accidents afterwards, and close with anything remarkable in politics, or any disastrous occurrence in high life.”

Polly obeyed to the letter; once only straying into an animated account of a run with the Springfield fox-hounds, where three riders out of a large field came in at the death; when Miss Dinah stopped her abruptly, saying, “I don't care for the obituary of a fox, young lady. Go on with something else.”

“Will you have the recent tragedy at Ring's End, ma'am?”

“I know it by heart Is there nothing new in the fashions,—how are bonnets worn? What's the latest sleeve? What's the color in vogue?”

“A delicate blue, ma'am; a little off the sky, and on the hyacinth.”

“Very becoming to fair people,” said Miss Dinah, with a shake of her blond ringlets.

“'The Prince's Hussars!' Would you like to hear about them, ma'am?”

“By all means.”

“It's a very short paragraph. 'The internal troubles of this unhappy regiment would seem to be never ending. We last week informed our readers that a young subaltern of the corps, the son of one of our most distinguished generals, had thrown up his commission and repaired to the Continent, to enable him to demand a personal satisfaction from his commanding officer, and we now learn that the Major in question is precluded from accepting the gage of battle by something stronger than military etiquette.'”

“Read it again, child; that vile newspaper slang always puzzles me.”

Polly recited the passage in a clear and distinct voice.

“What do you understand by it, Polly?”

“I take it to mean nothing, madam. One of those stirring pieces of intelligence which excites curiosity, and are no more expected to be explained than a bad riddle.”

“It cannot surely be that he shelters himself under his position towards us? That I conclude is hardly possible!”

Though Miss Barrington said this as a reflection, she addressed herself almost directly to Josephine.

“As far as I am concerned, aunt,” answered Josephine, promptly, “the Major may fight the monster of the Drachenfels to-morrow, if he wishes it.”

“Oh, here is another mystery apparently on the same subject. 'The Lascar, Lal-Adeen, whom our readers will remember as having figured in a police-court a few days back, and was remanded till the condition of his wound—a severe sabre-cut on the scalp—should permit his further examination, and on the same night made his escape from the hospital, has once again, and very unexpectedly, turned up at Boulogne-sur-Mer. His arrival in this country—some say voluntarily, others under a warrant issued for his apprehension—will probably take place to-day or to-morrow, and, if report speak truly, be followed by some of the most singular confessions which the public has heard for a long time back.' 'The Post' contradicts the statement, and declares 'no such person has ever been examined before the magistrate, if he even have any existence at all.'”

“And what interest has all this for us?” asked Miss Dinah, sharply.

“You do not forget, ma'am, that this is the same man Major Stapylton was said to have wounded; and whose escape scandal hinted he had connived at, and who now 'does not exist.'”

“I declare Miss Dill, I remember no such thing; but it appears to me that Major Stapylton occupies a very considerable space in your own thoughts.”

“I fancy Polly likes him, aunt,” said Josephine, with a slight smile.

“Well, I will own he interests me; there is about him a mysterious something that says, 'I have more in my head and on my heart than you think of, and more, perhaps, than you could carry if the burden were yours.'”

“A galley-slave might say the same, Miss Dill.”

“No doubt of it, ma'am; and if there be men who mix in the great world, and dine at grand houses, with something of the galley-slave on their conscience, they assuredly impress us with an amount of fear that is half a homage. One dreads them as he does a tiger, but the terror is mingled with admiration.”

“This is nonsense, young lady, and baneful nonsense, too, begotten of French novels and a sickly sentimentality. I hope Fifine despises it as heartily as I do.” The passionate wrath which she displayed extended to the materials of her work-basket, and while rolls of worsted were upset here, needles were thrown there; and at last, pushing her embroidery-frame rudely away, she arose and left the room.

“Dearest Polly, how could you be so indiscreet! You know, far better than I do, how little patience she has with a paradox.”

“My sweet Fifine,” said the other, in a low whisper, “I was dying to get rid of her, and I knew there was only one way of effecting it. You may remark that whenever she gets into a rage, she rushes out into the flower-garden, and walks round and round till she's ready to drop. There she is already; you may gauge her anger by the number of her revolutions in a minute.”

“But why did you wish her away, Polly?”

“I'll tell you why; that is, there is a charming French word for what I mean, the verb 'agacer,' all untranslatable as it is. Now there are moments when a person working in the same room—reading, writing, looking out of the window—becomes an insupportable infliction. You reason, and say, 'How absurd, how childish, how ungenerous,' and so forth. It won't do; for as you look round he is there still, and by his mere presence keeps up the ferment in your thoughts. You fancy, at last, that he stands between you and your inner self, a witness that won't let your own conscience whisper to you, and you come in the end to hate him. Your dear aunt was on the high-road to this goal, when I bethought me of my expedient! And now we are all alone, dearest, make me a confession.”

“What is it?”

“You do not like Major Stapylton?”

“No.”

“And you do like somebody else?”

“Perhaps,” said she, slowly, and dividing the syllables as she spoke them.

“That being the case, and seeing, as you do, that your aunt is entirely of your own mind, at least as to the man you do not care for, why don't you declare as much frankly to your grandfather, and break off the negotiation at once?”

“Just because that dear old grandpapa asked me not to be precipitate, not to be rash. He did not tell me that I must love Major Stapylton, or must marry him; but he said, 'If you only knew, Fifine, what a change in our fortune would come of a change in your feelings; if you could but imagine, child, how the whole journey of life might be rendered easier, all because you took the right-hand road instead of the left; if you could guess these things, and what might follow them—'” She stopped.

“Well, go on.”

“No. I have said all that he said; he kissed my cheek as he got thus far, and hurried away from the room.”

“And you, like a sweet, obedient child, hastened away to yours; wrote a farewell, a heart-broken farewell, to Fred Conyers; and solemnly swore to your own conscience you 'd marry a man you disliked. These are the sort of sacrifices the world has a high admiration for; but do you know, Fifine, the world limps a little in its morality sometimes, and is not one-half the fine creature it thinks itself. For instance, in the midst of all its enthusiasm for you, it has forgotten that in accepting for your husband a man you do not love, you are doing a dishonesty; and that, besides this, you really love another. It is what the French call the aggravating circumstance.”

“I mean to do nothing of the kind!” broke in Fifine, boldly. “Your lecture does not address itself to me.”

“Do not be angry, Fifine,” said the other, calmly.

“It is rather too hard to be rebuked for the faults one might have, but has not committed. It's like saying how wet you 'd have been had you fallen into that pool!”

“Well, it also means, don't fall into the pool!”

“Do you know, Polly,” said Josephine, archly, “I have a sort of suspicion that you don't dislike this Major yourself! Am I right?”

“I'm not say you were altogether wrong; that is, he interests me, or, rather, he puzzles me, and it piques my ingenuity to read him, just as it would to make out a cipher to which I had only one-half the key.”

“Such a feeling as that would never inspire a tender interest, at least, with me.”

“Nor did I say it was, Fifine. I have read in some book of my father's how certain physicians inoculated themselves with plague, the better to note the phenomena, and trace the course; and I own I can understand their zeal, and I 'd risk something to decipher this man.”

“This may be very nice in medicine, Polly, but very bad in morals! At all events, don't catch the plague for the sake of saving me?”

“Oh! I assure you any step I take shall be done in the interests of science solely; not but that I have a small debt to acquit towards the gallant Major.”

“You have! What can it possibly be?”

“Well, it was this wise,” said she, with a half-sigh. “We met at a country-house here, and he paid me certain attentions, made me compliments on my riding, which I knew to be good, and my singing, which was just tolerable; said the usual things which mean nothing, and a few of those more serious ones which are supposed to be more significant; and then he asked my father's leave to come and visit him, and actually fixed a day and an hour. And we, poor people, all delighted with the flattery of such high notice, and thinking of the effect upon our neighbors so splendid a visitor would produce, made the most magnificent preparations to receive him,—papa in a black satin waistcoat, mamma in her lilac ribbons. I myself,—having put the roof on a pigeon-pie, and given the last finishing touch to a pagoda of ruby jelly,—I, in a charming figured muslin and a blush rose in my hair, awaited the hour of attack! And, after all, he never came. No, Fifine, never came! He forgot us, or he changed his mind, or something else turned up that he liked better; or—which is just as likely as any of the three—he thought it would be a charming piece of impertinence to pass off on such small folk, who presumed to fancy themselves company for him. At all events, Fifine, we saw him no more. He went his way somewhere, and we were left lamenting.”

“And you really liked him, Polly?”

“No, of the two, I disliked him; but I wished very much that he might like me! I saw him very overbearing and very insolent to those who were certainly his equals, assuming a most offensive superiority everywhere and to any one, and I thought what an awful humiliation it would be if so great a personage were to be snubbed by the doctor's daughter. I wanted to give a lesson which could only be severe if it came from one humble as myself; but he defeated me, Fifine, and I am still his debtor! If I did not like him before, you may believe that I hate him now; and I came off here this morning, in hot haste, for no other purpose than to set you against him, and induce you to regard him as I do.”

“There was little need,” said Fifine, calmly; “but here comes my aunt back again. Make your submission quickly, Polly, or it will be too late to expect mercy.”

“I 'll do better,” said Polly, rising. “I 'll let my trial go on in my absence;” and with this she stepped out of the window as Miss Barrington entered by the door.