out, could not forego her prerogative of dis- | previous, she had gone to bed complaining cussing painful matters with the wrong of indisposition, and declaring that she bepersons, once let fall to Mr. Urmson some- lieved she had caught the fever at last, and thing about keepers and asylums, thereby only wondered she had not done so long beoccasioning him a momentary awful sinking fore. Elinor, after some examination, was of the soul. Anon summoning his strength pretty well satisfied that the matter was not from some hidden source (there was no sign quite so serious as the elder lady supposed, of any in his meagre bowed figure), he made and the sequel justified her diagnosis. Nev shift to answer with a sober cheerfulness ertheless, Mrs. Tenterden contrived to pass of tone that must have cost him dear. But a tolerably bad night, and by morning it was again that night, after Mrs. Tenterden had a settled thing that she must keep her bed returned home, he relapsed to an inward during the day. Although no one recognized agony, and, for the first time in his life, this necessity more clearly than the good amen stuck in his throat. Toward morning | lady herself, she was no less firmly persuaded he prayed that if there were any thing in that her absence would be the death-knell the world which might save his son, it to the hopes of Urmhurst. Garth's sole should be made manifest at once; if not, chance of escaping death or hopeless insanmight the worst declare itself without de-ity depended on her presence and efficiency; lay! With this petition on his lips, he stood with folded arms by the bedside of the gaunt invalid, and gazed yearningly upon him. "Garth, dear old curmudgeon, what a good-for-nothing father I must seem to you! It's hard I can not help you now."

A bird, the latest lingering of the southward-departing tribe, alit for a moment on the bare bough of a tree by the window to warble a golden bar of farewell melody. It seemed to reach Garth's ears. He partly turned his head toward the window, and moved his hand; the haggard harshness of his face softened somewhat. "If I could cage that bird, its song might help him," went through Cuthbert's mind. But the next instant the bird flew off, and soon was miles away, sailing southward over the frost-nipped valley, and aiming onward toward Wabeno and far beyond. It was like the flight of a last hope. Cuthbert turned round, pressing his hand on his breast, and uttering a low sigh of pain. Nikomis was standing in the doorway, looking like a grotesque heathen idol carved out of mahogany.

"Cuthbert, you come go to bed," she said, gruffly. "You die too soon enough anyway. Garth all right; he better soon; me take care. Come!"

"I suppose I ought to outlive him, for decency's sake, being his head nurse," answered Cuthbert, with a nervous twitching of the corners of his mouth. "And I believe I'm in for a bad hour or so, sure enough. If I shouldn't be better by ten o'clock this morning, you must look out for Mrs. Tenterden with the new medicine. She expected to be up from the village by that time. And be sure you understand the directions she will give you. However, I shall have to be up, anyway, for no one but me can follow out the directions even when they are known. So call me when she comes, Nikomis."

But it so happened that Mrs. Tenterden did not arrive at the expected hour. On reaching the Danvers' cottage the night VOL LIV.-No. 319.-8

and these conditions being impracticable, Garth would forthwith die a raving maniac. The syllogism was perfect; and Mrs. Teuterden, in the midst of her genuine distress and anxiety, may have found some consolation in her inexpugnable logic.

"If any body could take my place!" complained she. "But that's the worst of it. Poor Mr. Urmson's as sick as can be himself, but he and I together might manage; but he can do nothing alone. There's Golightley gone over to Brunswick to see that Professor Grindle; but he'd be no good, any. way. It's no use, the poor young man must die, and that's all about it. I declare, Nellie, I shouldn't be surprised if I died myself. You've no idea how sick I am!"

Elinor had not enjoyed any intimate communion with Mrs. Tenterden since their misunderstanding three weeks previous; but the presence of disease and worry seemed to influence the kind old lady to forgive and forget, and Elinor was not indisposed to meet the hand of reconciliation half-way. She had never felt so utterly alone and forlorn as during these latter days-not even at that sad time when her father and mother lay dying in Charleston, and she knew not where she could find a home beyond their grave. It is not reverent nor necessary to inquire too closely what thoughts and impulses, what resolves and fears, had visited her in the cheerless period of her solitude. At such epochs people-especially if they be young-discover in themselves things which make them shudder, but which, as not properly belonging to their every-day nature, ought not to be recorded against them. The only outward effect upon Elinor of her interior visitations was to render her unusually gentle and forbearing, as one might be who had secretly determined on making a long journey, and wished to leave tender recollections in the hearts of those she left behind.

"Couldn't you at least send some one to the house with the medicines, mother?" she asked. “Would not Mrs. Danver—or ought not Madge to go? If he were to die for

want of some help that Madge might have given him, what would become of her? I think we have no right to prevent her from having a free choice about it, one way or the other. Shall I tell her ?"

ment's hesitation Elinor went softly out of the room, and, running down stairs, entered the kitchen.

"Mother won't be able to go up to the house to-day, Mrs. Danver," she said, standing pale and embarrassed before that blameless housekeeper. "There is some medicine which should be taken there immediately. Will Madge go with it ?"

"Well, Miss Golightley, I suppose likely the child would take it, and gladly," Mrs. Danver replied, speaking with hesitation, however, and avoiding Elinor's eyes. "To be sure, it has seemed as though folks was working to keep 'em apart, and those who hadn't so much call was taking her place. It's not for me to speak, and Garth he's near to me as my own son, goodness knows, though I do think he might have been a little more spry, and not have kept my poor girl waiting while he was painting his pictures and living in Europe, and not making much out of the business either, if one might

"Seems like it would look rather hard to have him just dying up there, and she knowing nothing about it,” groaned Mrs. Tenterden. "She can't do any thing, though, and it would be just tempting Providence to go into that house with the contagion. I know that to my cost. And it's more apt a great deal to catch young people than old ones. Besides, it was I prevented Madge from going when she wanted to at first, and there's really no more reason for it now. Poor young man! I wish he was in better hands. Of course Mr. Urmson is very kind and careful, but he really doesn't seem to care much about him; I'm sure he smiles and makes jokes like he expected him to be well to-morrow. I told him yesterday that I thought he ought to hire some keepers, and have the poor young man taken to the asy-say so." lum, or at least the hospital; for I declare I, for my part, think it's dangerous to have him loose there; why, times he's so violent he might actually do some one a mischief! And he's got something twisted round his neck. Nikomis says he's had it there ever since the first morning: anyway, it's twisted so tight that I wouldn't be surprised to hear he'd strangled himself with it at any time."

"Why isn't it taken off ?"

"Yes, you don't know, my dear. It would be as much as any body's life was worth to take it off. Of course it can't be untied, and if you were to use a pair of scissors or a knife, it would be the death of one or both of you. I tell you he's as jealous of it as if it were some great treasure. I thought," added Mrs. Tenterden, chuckling faintly, in spite of her general misery, "maybe it was something of Madge's she'd given him, and he remembered was hers all through his delirium, poor boy."

"She won't go, then?"

"Really, well, I don't see any call to be so sudden, Miss Golightley," said Mrs. Danver, panting. "I'm sure there's a good long time gone by, and nobody thought of asking her whether she'd go or not. Not but the child would go, and gladly, if it hadn't seemed like folks was keeping her away. But now I think of it, miss, I don't know where Maggie is just at the present. She went out about an hour since without dropping a syllable, and when she'll be back is more than I can say. Likely she's run up to the house without waiting for an asking. I couldn't say."

"And you yourself could not leave the house, I suppose ?"

"Well, really, miss, you come so sudden. I'm sure I'd go, and gladly, and have gone any time the last three weeks, but Mrs. Tenterden seemed to think it belonged to her, being a relation, I presume, and it wasn't for me to speak. But I'm such an invalid, "What was it? —a handkerchief, or a and my hip come on so badly these last scarf-"

"Mercy, child, I don't know," said Mrs. Tenterden, rolling over on the pillow. "I didn't get near enough to see distinctly. It looked gray and silky. Maybe it was a scarf, or an old veil, or something. But you mark my words if he don't strangle himself if it isn't taken away from him."

Elinor heard these words with a quick indrawing of her breath; then, thinking them over, she felt her heart beating and her hands growing cold. She walked to the window and looked out, trying to quiet herself. But she could not be quiet. One idea forced itself on her mind and impelled her to action. She walked back to the bedside. Mrs. Tenterden, with her back turned, seemed to have fallen into a doze. After a mo

cold days. Though if Mr. Stacy could lend his wagon, perhaps I might. I'm sure I care for Garth dearly as my own son, though it seemed hard of him to keep Maggie waiting so long."

"Don't you think it would be better for me to find some one to take up the medicine, without need of your troubling yourself about Mr. Stacy's wagon?" suggested Elinor, involuntarily putting her hand over her heart. "No doubt one of the village boys would be glad to run up with it. You might be within call of Mrs. Tenterden, if she were to need any thing while I'm away. Will that do?"

Mrs. Danver seemed to think there were no insurmountable objections, and Elinor returned up stairs, trembling, but glad in a

subdued, exalted way. She hastily put on | phoid fever, though popularly believed to her hat and warm winter jacket, scarlet, be contagious, is not so in reality. Probawith lining of soft gray fur, and then noise-bly not a few country doctors, a quarter of lessly re-entered Mrs. Tenterden's chamber. a century ago, were more or less partakers The packet of medicine was lying on the of the current delusion, and it is not to table, and she put it in her pocket. She stepped up to the bed, and, bending over the sleeping woman, lightly kissed her on the cheek. Mrs. Tenterden replied with a gentle snore. Elinor left the room as noiselessly as she had entered it, and started down the stairs. Ere she reached the landing, however, she returned in obedience to a sudden impulse, and going to her violin case, took out her instrument and bow, and slipping them underneath her jacket, finally left the house.

be wondered at if unprofessional persons, though of acknowledged culture and refinement, should have firmly believed in it. As for Elinor, she never entertained a doubt upon the subject; indeed, her persuasion as to this point had not a little to do with the strangely gladsome sense of exaltation and relief wherewith she had embarked on her present enterprise. It is not enough to say that she fancied she was about to imperil her life; it must be added that she faced the supposed danger rather as courting than braving it. During her dark hours we may imagine her to have thought, on some girlish insufficient ground or other, that life was not so desirable a thing as it was generally credited with being. When such a notion had once gained possession of her, she would not be long without happening upon an occasion for humoring it. Some array of circumstances would be sure to arise-romantic, pathetic, peculiar-fatally enticing her to take her fate in her own hands, and seeming to justify her in the deed. To welcome death, when it lies in the path of love, of despair, or of womanly self-devotion, is not the infirmity of ignoble minds; the subtle selfishness and irrever

person most concerned, though they be revealed to the cool, impartial scrutiny of the disinterested critic. And Providence, being perhaps as wise and just as most of us, may sometimes take such wanderers under its especial protection, and either forgive their error or gently prevent their attainment of the end at which they so crudely aimed.

Without wasting any time in making inquiries after errand-boys, she struck off from the village, and took her way swiftly toward Urmhurst. She walked with her eyes on the ground, wholly preoccupied, but there was a freedom and good-will in her motion which showed that she was going whither her deepest inclination led her. And now that the Rubicon of her purpose was safely overpassed, and there were no more obstacles or hesitations in her way, her heart moved at ease, her fingers were warm, her breathing quiet, and her cheeks slightly tinged with pink. A man in her place would have been grave and stern, or astir with nervous anxiety; but Elinor was sweetly conscious of an inward lightness and sat-ence which underlie it escape the eye of the isfaction, contrasting with the cold gloom and cheerlessness of the past weeks as a summer day with a winter night. An older woman, or one who tasted the sweet and bitter flavors of life with less intense an appreciation, might have lent an ear to the demurs of conscience, questioning her right to put health and life in jeopardy by interference in matters which concerned other persons, from the social point of view at least, more nearly than herself. But it must be confessed that Elinor made little account of conscience when conscience came in collision with emotion; or, in other words, conscientious action, where her feelings were involved, was never an intellectual process. She trusted her intuitions, being unable to believe that what they seemed to justify could be other than right; and a young woman's intuitions are simply the voice of her heart. Elinor's heart would doubtless never suffer her to do any thing unwomanly or base, however far it might occasionally lead her from the path of orthodox morality; but her example is none the less unsafe and indefensible, until all young women shall have hearts as pure and upright as hers, and a great deal calmer and wiser.

It was scarcely ten o'clock when Elinor set her slim foot upon the threshold stone of Urmhurst and knocked at the great green door. Upon twice repeating the summons and obtaining no response from within, she turned the latch and stepped into the broad dark hall. The kitchen door was ajar, and peeping through, she saw a fire burning in the fire-place, and for a moment fancied she heard a step in the passageway at the further extremity of the great room; but after listening a while in vain for any repetition of the sound, or for any other signs of a human being, she decided to go up stairs without further ceremony. It was not until she had reached the upper floor that she met Nikomis, coming out of Cuthbert's chamber.

The old Indian's face was as inscrutable as usual, but she stopped short on seeing Had this history been written at the time Elinor, and uttered a grunt of interrogation. when the events of which it treats took She had evidently expected to meet some place, it might have been necessary to re- one else, and waited for the young lady to mind the reader that the disease called ty-explain herself. Elinor, who had never felt

so serenely uplifted in spirit as now, or so to creep through her body from head to foot, instinct with all the tender potency of wom- and she felt, with a fluttering of the heart, anhood, spoke briefly of Mrs. Tenterden's in- that the form which she looked upon would disposition and of her own purpose to take not respond were she to touch or speak to that lady's place for the time being. "Is it. She stifled her own breathing in order Mr. Urmson with his son ?" she added. "I to see whether the body breathed; but it should like to see him first." lay awfully still. She now became aware Nikomis fixed her small black eyes upon that Nikomis was standing just behind her the girl, as if to find out what sort of stuff shoulder, and with a shock the thought enshe was made of; and Elinor met her glance tered her mind that perhaps this grim, inwith an inspiration of curiosity on her own scrutable old savage had dealt foully with part. These two women, though they had the lives committed to her charge. She recoften before been in each other's company, ollected hearing certain things from time to had never till now happened to think of time about Nikomis, which hitherto she had taking each other's measure. But at a mo-disregarded or taken in jest, but which at ment like this some such mutual inspection present went far to authorize her suspicions. was natural and inevitable. Are you like It seemed more than probable that Nikomis me, or different from me? Have you good had had motives to crime, and had waited for my good, or evil for my evil? These are so many years only for lack of fit opportuthe unspoken questions which eye asks of nity: and what opportunity could have been eye. Persons of the same race and general more fitting than this? The horror of the condition may read the answers with com- situation so wrought upon Elinor as to lift paratively little difficulty; but when the her above the region of selfish fear. She new comes in contact with the old, the in- did not think of herself at all, save as a vader with the aborigine, civilization with voice and instrument of retribution. She savagery, then does the inquiry become com- looked round upon Nikomis, who stood dark plicated. The most alien types of human- and portentous at the foot of the bed, and ity may own a common elemental plane of at the same time grasped with one hand tho sympathy, but there needs skillful survey- sleeve of the prostrate figure's garment, as ing and deep digging through superincum- though at once protecting and seeking probent strata to get down to it. tection from the dead.

Elinor and Nikomis were outwardly different enough to render excusable a doubt as to whether there existed between them an internal likeness. The Indian might perceive at the first glance that Elinor was of a refined and straightforward nature; but she would probably wish to probe the fairfaced young aristocrat more deeply than this before admitting her to favor and confidence. Elinor, whose intuitions of character, though possibly correct enough originally, were too easily led astray, had in Nikomis a problem that might have posed any body. The dusky old witch looked capable of committing any kind of savage and gloomy iniquity that had been heard of since the deluge; and were it not that Elinor's aggressive sense of justice often led her to esponse the least plausible side, the Indian must have put up with a hostile interpretation from the outset.

"Cuthbert very bad," said Nikomis, in answer to Elinor's inquiry. "You can see him 'f you like in there." She motioned with her head toward the chamber.

"Have you done this?" she asked.

The Indian's eyes glittered, and she threw up one arm above her head: there was in the gesture a revelation of savage and untamed power. The wild, lawless strain usually concealed beneath her stoical exterior seemed now on the verge of breaking forth. The furrows about her mouth and forehead and the harsh, stern features bore witness to the cruel and inhuman deeds told of her race.

"What you do here?" she demanded, in an imperious, guttural voice. "This all mineNikomis belong here. Nikomis kill, burn, drive all away. Garth, Cuthbert, Urmhurst all mine. You better go away."

"They are not yours. They are mine-I love them," Elinor exclaimed, her slender figure seeming for the moment to expand and heighten. She stopped, gazing at Nikomis with an expression terrible to see on the face of a girl. Suddenly she came forward and stood so close to the Indian as almost to touch her. The latter's eyes blinked under so near and passionate a scrutiny. Some time passed-it might have been half a minute-before Elinor spoke, in a new tone, from which the unnatural huskiness had vanished. "You were not so wickedyou have not done it," she said.

"Nikomis belong here," re-affirmed the old woman, surlily. "This my business. They kill my people. What for me come here?"

But Elinor, with a brightening hope in

At this juncture she became conscious of a profound change which had taken place within herself during the last few minutes. She had set out for Urmhurst believing that she was about to imperil her life, and mean

her face, returned to Cuthbert, and bending | She drew nearer, and stood between the over him, laid her delicate cheek beside his. sick man and the light; but he muttered It was not so warm as her own, but it was on as before, and did not seem to notice not cold; and presently a barely perceptible her. movement of breath whispered past her ear. She rose, smiling and tremulous from the recoil of passion. "Oh, Nikomis, he isn't dead," said she. "What is it?-you have given him an opiate to make him sleep. I am always distrusting and wronging peo-ing to make that peril as inevitable as she ple." She spoke with her eyes full of tears. might. But the searching though rapid Nikomis grunted discontentedly and turn- experience she had passed through since ed away. It looked as if the strange old her arrival had put her in a new mood, and creature really half regretted not having she now recognized the unworthiness of her been so criminally revengeful as Elinor had former one. She had pictured herself minfancied her. And truly, if she had come to istering to Garth, and winning him back to Urmhurst with the intention of paying off life at the same moment that she herself on its occupants the ancient grudge of her declined from it. Whether he lived or died, tribe, she had good grounds for feeling dis-life would be equally a blank to her; but satisfied with herself. As an Indian, the she could imagine a happiness in dying with inheritor of a traditional policy of retribu- the thought that but for her he might have tion, she had not acted up to what was ex-died also. She had seen herself loosening pected of her; and she was not to be con- the veil from his neck, and drawing it, poisoled by imputations of gentle charity and soned as it was, across her face, pressing it to forgiveness. Elinor's first suspicion had her lips, and at night folding it in her boprobably suggested to her the idea of mas-som. In the morning she would awake to querading for a while in the guise of a wick- a dreamy languor, which again should lapse edness not actually her own, and thus stealing credit for that which she had lacked gall to make a reality. But considering the proneness of red people to be stirred up to grisly heights of uncontrollable excitement, it is conceivable that Nikomis's imagination might so far have got the better of her as to issue in reality after all. Elinor's trenchant severity may have checked and detected her only just in time.

into the fever that by sure and fatal degrees must bring her toward her death. And at the edge of the grave she would pause a moment to bid a quiet and forgiving farewell to the world she was leaving. Each friend who had cared for her should have a word-a token of remembrance. Garth Urmson would not be among those friends; but Golightley should have something-her violin, perhaps, which might utter to his ear in harmonious chords all that its mistress would fain have felt for him, but could not. But Garth would expect nothing from her; he did not care for her, nor she for him: it was with a quaint, grave pleasure that Elinor told herself this. He was nothing to her, save in so far as he had made all other men and women in the world less than nothing. By no earthly possibility could they ever have become any thing to each other. Nevertheless, she had learn

The girl took up her violin and bow, which she had put down on the bed. "How long will he sleep?" she asked. Nikomis grunted and shook her head. "Then let me see Garth now," continued the other. The Indian silently hobbled off toward the door, and pointed the further way, and Elinor entered the chamber quietly and alone. There lay he with whom her thoughts had dwelt much of late. Mrs. Tenterden's account of his maniacal frenzies had not prepared her for such a spectacle of helplessness and de-ed from him one thing-that God had not cay. A feeling of sharp distress made her seen fit to make the man with whom she month quiver, and contracted the lower lids could have been happy. For had such a of her eyes. But, again, he was alive, and man existed, he would have looked like evidently had received every care of which Garth, and spoken as he did, and shown the case admitted. The bed and the room like traits of temper and disposition; and were spotlessly neat and fresh. Garth was still there would have been a great, indelying with his haggard face turned side- finable difference. But since it was evident ways on the pillow, his eyes dull and part-that no man who was thus at once Garth ly closed, an intermittent, unintelligible and not Garth could exist, the unavoidable muttering moving his unshaven lips. The inference was that she, Elinor, was out of fingers of one hand were fumbling strength-place in this world. They were nothing to lessly at a gray twist of silky material which each other; yet through him she had actightly encircled his neck. Elinor knew her quired a commodity which, but for him, veil at once; and though there was nothing could never have been hers-the concepshe had more confidently expected to see, tion, namely, of an ideal man. For that the verification of her prophetic thought she thanked him; and, on her side, was gave her a pulsation of painful delight. content to acknowledge the obligation by