sense of helplessness and forlornness which all working - women have at times, came upon Edna, and made her think with a strange momentary envy of the women who did not work, who had brothers and fathers to work for them, or at least to help them with the help that a man, and only a man, can give. And so, without disguise of purpose, and rather glorying in the folly, if folly it be, I confess this to be a mere love-tale, nothing more. No grand "purpose" in it; no dramatic effects scarcely even a story;" but a few pages out of the book of daily life, the outside of which looks often so common and plain; and the inside-but One only reads that. 66 Under Mrs. Williams's commonplace uncon The like continually happens; in fact And then looking up, for the first time for many minutes, Edna became aware of two eyes watching her, resting on her with such an ex-scious roof were gathered these four young peopression of kindliness and pity, the sort of half-ple, strangers to one another, and ignorant of amused pity that a man would show to a trou- their mutual and individual destinies, afterward bled and perplexed child, that this poor child to become so inextricably mingled, tangled, and --she was strangely young still in many ways-crossed. looked fearlessly back into them, almost with a sort of appeal, as if the observer had been an authorized friend, who could have helped her did he choose. But the moment after she drew back, exceedingly annoyed; and the gazer also drew back, made a slight apologetic half-bow, then blushed violently all over his face, as if conscious that he had been doing a most unwarrantable and ungentlemanly thing, rose from his bench by the window, and walked hastily away. As he turned, by the broad stooping shoulders and well-worn coat rather than by the face, which she had not seen until now, being so attracted by the face of the invalid brother, Edna recognized the doctor, Dr. Stedman. CHAPTER II. THIS will be a thorough "love" story. I do not pretend to make it any thing else. There are other things in life besides love; but every body who has lived at all knows that love is the very heart of life, the pivot upon which its whole machinery turns; without which no human existence can be complete, and with which, however broken and worn in part, it can still go on working somehow, and working to a comparative useful and cheerful end. An author once wrote a book of which the heroine was supposed to be painted from a real living woman, whose relations were rather pleased than not at the accidental resemblance. "Only," said they, with dignified decorum, "in one point the likeness fails; our Anastasia was never in love with any body." "Then," replied the amused author, "I certainly can not have painted her, for she would have been of no use to me; such an abnormal specimen of humapity is not a woman at all." No. A life without love in it must of necessity be an imperfect, an unnatural life. The love may be happy or unhappy, noble or ignoble, requited or unrequited; but it must.be, or have been, there. Love absolute. Not merely the tie of blood, the bond of friendship, the many close affections which make existence sweet; but the one, closest of all, the love between man and woman-which is the root of the family life, and the family life is the key to half the mysteries of the universe. it must, in most cases, necessarily happen. The first chance-meeting, or what appears chance; the first indifferent word or hap-hazard incident-from these things do almost all love-stories date. For in all true marriages now, as in Eden, the man and woman do not deliberately seek, but are brought to one another; happy those who afterward can recognize that the hand which led his Eve to Adam was that of an invisible God! For But this only comes afterward. No sentimental premonitions weighed on the hearts of any of these, the two young men and two young women, who had, each and all, their own lives to live, their own separate cares and joys. even if blessed with the closest bonds of fraternity, every soul is more or less alone, or feels so, till the magic other soul appears, which, if fate allows, shall remove solitude forever. There may or may not be a truth in the doctrine of love at first sight, but it is, like the doctrine of instantaneous conversion, too rarely experienced to be much believed in. Ordinary men and women walk blindfold to the very verge of their fate, nor recognize it as fate till it is long past. Which fact ought to be, to both young folks and their guardians, at once a consolation and a warning. Edna, when, immediately after the doctor's disappearance, the entrance of candles wakened Letty, told her sister frankly, and with considerable amusement, of the steadfast stare which for the moment had annoyed her. "At least I should have been annoyed had it been you, Letty. But with me of course it meant nothing; merely a little harmless curiosity. Certainly, as Mrs. Williams says, he has thorough 'doctor's eyes.' They seem able to see every thing. As a doctor ought to see, you know." "And what color were they, and what sort of a face was it altogether?" "I really can not tell. A nice, kindly sort of face, and that is all I know." "But, Edna, if I am to marry him you ought to know. So look hard next time, and tell me exactly what he is like.” "Very well," said Edna, laughing; thankful for any little joke that lightened the heavy depression which was the hardest thing to contend with in Letty's present state. And then she took to her work and forgot all about it. Not until, after putting her sister to bed, she¡ nate. His was the temperament which we so came down again for one quiet hour, to do ardently admire in youth, so deeply pity in some needful sewing, and institute a last and maturer years-the poetic temperament-half finally successful search among the odd cor- masculine, half feminine-capable of both a ners of her tired brain for the missing half-man's passion and a woman's suffering. Such crown, did Edna remember the doctor or his men are, as circumstances make them, the aninquisitive stare. gels, the demons, or the martyrs of this world. "I wonder if he noticed what I was doing, and whether he thought me silly, or was sorry for me. Perhaps he is good at arithmetic. Well, if there could be any advantage in having a man belonging to one, it would be to help in adding up one's weekly accounts. I shall advise Letty to make that proviso in her marriage settlement." He lay restless, but trying hard to be patient-till the light failed and his brother ceased the reading, which was not specially interesting, being done in a slightly formal and monotonous voice, like that of a person unaccustomed to, and not particularly enjoying the occupation. "That will do, Will. It's really very good of you to stay indoors with me all this evening; but I don't like it. I wish you would go out. Off with you to the beach. Is there a good beach here?" You shall see it by-and 66 by." A very fine one. "Nay, my Bath chair could never get down these steep cliffs." 66 While the sisters thus summarily dismissed the question of their new neighbors, their neighbors scarcely thought of them at all. Dr. Stedman sat by his brother's bedside, trying by every means he could think of to make the weary evening slip by, without forestalling the burden of the still heavier night. He talked ; he read a little out of an old Times--first the solid leaders, and then a criticism on the pic- "Do you think I mean you to spend all your tures forthcoming in the Royal Academy Ex-days in a Bath chair, Julius, lad ?" hibition, till, seeing the latter excited his patient too much, he ingeniously shortened it, and went back to the heavy debates and other masculine portions of the newspaper. But in all he did, and earnestly as he tried to do it, there was something a little clumsy, like a man-and one who is altogether a man-not accustomed to women's society and influence. There was nothing rough or untender about him; nay, there was exceeding gentleness in his eyes and voice; he tried to do his very best; but he did it with a certain awkwardness that no invalid could help feeling in some degree, especially such a nervous invalid as this. Ah, Will, shall I ever do without it? Tell me, do you really, candidly, in your honest heart-you're almost too honest for a doctor, old boy-believe that I shall ever walk again ?" The doctor turned and gave him a pat on the shoulder-his young brother, five or six years younger than himself, which fact had made such a vital difference once, and the fatherly habits of it remained still. There was a curious twitching of his mouth, which, though large and firm, had much lurking softness of expression. He paused a minute before speaking, and then said, earnestly: "Yes, I do, Julius. Not that I know it for . certain; but I believe it. You may never be quite as strong as you have been; rheumatic fever always leaves behind great delicacy in many ways; but I have known cases worse than yours which ended in complete recovery." "I wish mine may be, if only for your sake. What a trouble I must have been to you! to say nothing of expense. And you just starting for yourself too.' The two brothers were very unlike-as unlike as the two sisters who sat below stairs. And yet there was a curious " family" expression; the kindred blood peeping out, pleadingly, amidst all dissimilarities of character and temperament. The younger was dark; the elder fair. The features were not unlike, but in one face delicate and regular; in the other, large and rugged. The younger had apparently lived altogether the student's life; while the "Well, lad, it didn't matter-it was only for elder had been knocked about the world, re-myself. If I'd had a wife, now, or half a dozen ceiving many a hard hit, and learning, in selfBut I had nobody-not a single 'represervation, to give a hard hit back again if sponsibility'-except you." necessary. Besides, an occasional contraction of the brow, and a slight projection of the under lip, showed that the doctor had what is called " a temper of his own;" while his brother's expression was altogether sweet, gentle, and sensitive to the last degree. As he lay back on his pillow-for he had been put to bed immediately-you might have taken him for a boy of seventeen, until, looking closer into the thin face, you read there the deeper lines which rarely come under the quarter-century which marks the first epoch in a man's life. No; though boyish, he was not a boy; and though delicate-looking, not effemi brats. "And what a heavy responsibility I have been! Ever since you were fifteen I must have given you trouble without end." "Pleasure, too, and a deal of fun-the fun of laughing at you and your vagaries, though I couldn't laugh you out of them. Come, don't be taking a melancholy view of things. Let's be jolly." But the mirth came ponderously out of the big fellow, whose natural expression was evidently grave-an enemy might have called it saturnine. And Dr. William Stedman looked like a man who was not likely to go through the world without making some enemies, if only from the very honesty which his brother spoke of, and a slight want of pliability-not of sympathy, but of the power of showing it-which made him a strong contrast to his brother, besides occasionally jarring with him, as brothers do jar against brothers, sisters against sisters, friends against friends-not meaning it, but inevitably doing it. "I can't be jolly, Will," said Julius, turning away. "You couldn't, if you had my pains. Ah me! they're beginning again--they always do at night. I think Dante would have invented a new torment for his Inferno if he had ever had rheumatic fever. How mad I was to sit that week painting in the snow!" "Let by-gones be by-gones, Julius. Never recall the past, except to mend the future. That's my maxim, and I stick to it, though I am a stupid fellow-you're the bright one of us two. "And what good has my brightness done me? Here I am, tied by the leg, my profession stopped --so far as it ever was a profession, for you know nobody ever bought my pictures. If it had not been for you, Will, what would have become of me? And what will become of me now? Well, I don't care." "Don't care' was hanged," said the elder brother, sententiously; "and you'll be hung, and well hung, I hope, in the Royal Academy next year." The threadbare joke, so solemnly put forward and laughed at with childish enjoyment, effected its purpose in turning the morbid current of the sick man's thoughts. His mercurial and easily-caught fancy, which even illness could not destroy, took another direction, and he began planning what he should do when he got well-the next picture he should paint, and where he should paint it. His hopes were much lower than his ambitions, for his bias had been toward high art, only his finances made it impossible to follow it. And, perhaps, his talent-it scarcely reached genius-was more of the appreciative than the creative kind. Yet he loved his art as well as he loved any thing, and in talking about it he almost forgot his pains. "If I could only get well," he said, "or even a little better, I might find in this pretty country some nice usable bits, and make sketches for my next year's work. Perhaps I might do a sea-piece: some small thing, with figures in it a fisherman or a child. One could study from the life here without ruination to one's pocket, as it used to be in London. . And, bythe-by, I saw to-day a splendid head, real Greek, nearly as fine as the Clytie." "Where?" "Here at the parlor-window." The elder brother smiled. "You are always discovering goddesses at parlor-windows, and finding them very common mortals after all." "Oh, I have done with that nonsense," said Julius, with a vexed air; adding, rather senti 66 'Probably, though I only saw the head. Are there any lodgers here besides ourselves?" "Two ladies-possibly young ladies; but I really did not think of asking. I never was a ladies' man, you know. Shall I make inquiries on your account, young Lothario ?" "Well, you might, for I should like a chance of seeing that head again. It would paint admirably. I only wish I had the luck of doing it-when. I get well." "When I get well"-the sad, pathetic sertence often uttered, often listened to, though both speaker and listener know by instinctive foreboding that the "when" means "never.” Dr. Stedman might have shared this feeling in spite of his firm "I believe it" of ten minutes before, for in the twilight his grave face looked graver still. Nevertheless, he carefully maintained the cheerful, even jocular tone of his conversation with his brother. ness. "You might ask the favor of taking her likeI am sure the young lady could not refuse. No young ladies ever do. Female vanity and your own attractions seem to fill your port-folio wherever you go. But to-morrow I'll try to get a look myself at this new angel of yours." "No, there is nothing angelic about her face; not much, even, that is spiritual. It is thorough mortal beauty; not unlike the Clytie, as I said. It would paint well-as an Ariadne or a Dido; only there is not enough depth of sadness in it.' "Perhaps she is not a sad-minded young woman." What non "I really don't know, or care. sense it is our talking about women! We can't afford to fall in love or mårry—at least I can't." "Nor I neither," said the doctor, gravely. "And I did not mean to talk any nonsense about these two young women-if young they arefor the landlady told me they had just come out of great trouble-being schoolmistresses, with their school broken up, and one sister nearly dying through scarlet-fever." "That isn't so bad as rheumatic fever. I remember rather enjoying it, because I was allowed to read novels all the time. Which sister had it? the Clytie one? of beauty runs in families. has a good head too." "I don't think she has." 66 66 That rare type Perhaps the other 'Because I suspect I saw her just before I came up stairs to you-a little, pale, anxiouslooking thing-not at all a beauty-sitting adding up her accounts. Very small accounts they were, seemingly; yet she seemed terribly troubled over them. She must be very poor or very stupid-women always are stupid over arithmetic. And yet she did not look quite a fool, either." "How closely you must have watched her!" | ly, and yet lightly; the sleep of a sailor or a "I am afraid I did, for at first I thought her mastiff dog. only a little girl, she was so small; and I wondered what the creature could be so busy about. But I soon found she was a woman, and an anxious-faced little woman too. Most likely these two schoolmistresses are as poor as we are; and, if so, I am sorry for them, being only women." "Ah, yes," said Julius, absently; but he seemed to weary of the conversation, and soon became absorbed in his own suffering. Over him had evidently grown the involuntary selfishness of sickness, which Letty Kenderdine had referred to; probably because she herself understood it only too well. But her sufferings were nothing to those of this poor young fellow, racked in every joint, and with a physical organization the very worst to bear pain. Nervous, sensitive, excitable; adding to present torment by both the recollection of the past and the dread of the future; exquisitely susceptible to both his own pains and the grief and anxiety they caused to others, yet unable to control himself so as in any way to lessen the burden of them; terrified at imaginary sufferings, a little exaggerating the real ones-which were sharp enough-the invalid was a pitiable sight, and most difficult to deal with by any nurse. But the one he had was very patient-marvelously so for a man. For hours, until long after midnight-for Edna told her sister afterward she had heard his step overhead at about two in the morning - did the stout, healthy brother, who evidently possessed in the strongest degree the mens sana in corpore sano, devote himself to the younger one, trying every possible means to alleviate his sufferings; and when all failed, sitting down by his bedside, almost like a woman and a mother, saying nothing, simply enduring; or, at most, holding the poor fellow's hand with a firm clasp, which, in its mingled strength and tenderness, might have imparted courage to go through any amount of physical pain-nay, have led even to the entrance of that valley of the shadow of death which we must all one day pass through, and alone. Help, as far as mortal help could go, William Stedman was the one to give; not in words, but in a certain atmosphere of quiet strength, or rather, in that highest expression of strength which we call fortitude. It seems easy to bear with fortitude another person's sufferings; but that is, to some natures, the very sharpest pang of all. And with something of the same expression on his face as, once (Julius reminded him of the anecdote about one in the morning) in their first school, he had gone up to the master and begged to be flogged instead of Julius-did William Stedman sit by his brother's bedside till the paroxysms of pain abated. was not till nearly daylight that, the sufferer being at length quietly asleep, the doctor threw himself, dressed as he was, on the hearth-rug before the fire, and slept also-suddenly, sound It Morning broke smilingly over the sea-an April morning, breezy and bright; and Edna, who had not slept well-not nearly so well as Letty-being disturbed first by the noises overhead, and then kept wakeful by her own anxious thoughts, which, compulsorily repressed in daytime, always took their revenge at nightEdna Kenderdine welcomed it gladly. Weary of sleeplessness, she rose early, and looking out of her window, she saw a man's figure pacing up and down the green cliff between her and the sea-line. Not a very stylish figure—still in the old coat and older wide-awake hat; but it was tall, broad, and manly. He walked, his hands folded somewhat ungracefully behind him, with a strong and resolute step, looking about him sometimes, but oftener with his head bent, thinking. Undoubtedly it was the doctor. Edna watched him with some curiosity. He must have been up all night she knew; and as she had herself lain awake, listening to the accidental footfall, the poking of the fire, and all those sick-room noises which in the dead silence sound so ominous and melancholy in a house, even to one who has no personal stake in the matter, she had felt much sympathy for him. She was reminded keenly of her own sad vigils over poor Letty, and wondered how a man contrived to get through the same sort of thing. To a woman and a sister nursing came natural; but with a man it must be quite different. She speculated vaguely upon what sort of men the brothers were, and whether they were as much attached to one another as she and Letty. And she watched with a vague, involuntary interest the big man who kept striding up and down, refreshing himself after his weary night-watch; and when at last he came in and disappeared, probably to his solitary breakfast, she thought in her practical, feminine soul, what a dreary breakfast it must be; no one to make the tea, or see that the eggs were boiled properly, or do any of those tender duties which help to make the day begin cheerily, and in which this little woman took an especial pleasure. As she busied herself in doing them for Letty, who was always the last down stairs, Edna could not forbear asking Mrs. Williams how the sick lodger was this morning. "Rather bad, Miss. Better now; but was very bad all night, his brother says; and he has just started off to Ryde to get him some new physic." "To Ryde-that is nine miles off!" "Yes; but there was no help for it, he said. He inquired the short way across country, and meant to walk it, and be back as soon as he could. I asked him about dinner; but he left that all to me. Oh, miss, how helpless these men-folk be! He only begged me to look after his brother." "Is the brother keeping his room?" "No; he dressed him and carried him down stairs, just like a baby, before he went out. Poor gentleman, it's a heavy handful for him; and him with no wife or mother or sister to help him; for I asked, and he said no, they had none; no relations in the world but their two selves." "No more have we; but then women are so much more used to sickness than men are, and more helpful," said Edna. Yet, as she recalled her own sense of helplessness and entire desolation when she and Letty were landed in this very room, wet and weary, one chill, rainy afternoon, and the fire smoked, and Letty cried, and finally went into hysterics, she felt a sensation of pity for her neighbors—those "helpless men-folk," as Mrs. Williams called them, who, under similar circumstances, were even worse off than women. "How is the poor fellow now ?" she asked. “Have you been in again to look at him? should not be left long alone." He "But, miss, where am I to get the time? And, besides, he don't like it. Whenever I go in and ask if I can do any thing for him he just shakes his head and turns his face back again into the pillow. And I don't think any thing will do him much good; he isn't long for this world. I wish I hadn't taken 'em; and if I can get 'em out at the week's end-not meaning to inconvenience—and hoping they will get as good lodgings elsewhere, which no doubt they will—” "You wouldn't do it, Mrs. Williams," said Edna, smiling, and turning upon her those good, sweet eyes, which, Miss Kenderdine's pupils declared, "frightened" all the naughtiness out of them. seems so heartless to a fellow-cfeature to let And when they came back from their morning stroll she lingered compassionately in front of the closed window and drawn-down blind behind which the sick man lay, ignorant of, or indifferent to, all the glad sights and sounds abroad-the breezy sea, the pleasant country, rejoicing in this blessed spring morning. "Do come in," sharply said Letty, who had in some things a keener sense of the outward proprieties than Edna. "Don't be nonsensical and sentimental. It would never do for us to encourage, even in the smallest degree, these two young men, who are certainly poor, and, for all we know, may be scarcely respectable. I won't allow it, sister." And she passed hastily the opposite door, which Edna was shocked to see was not quite closed, and walked into their own, with Letty's own dignified step and air of queenly grace, which, wherever she went, slew men, young and old, in indiscriminate massacre. She was certainly a rare woman, Letitia Kenderdine-one that, met any where or any how, would make one feel that there might have been some truth in the old stories about Helen of Troy, Cleopatra of Egypt, and such like-ancient queens of history and fable, who rode rampant over the necks of men, and whose deadly beauty proved a fire-brand wherever it was thrown. "Yes," replied Edna, as she took off her sister's hat and shawl, and noticed what a delicate The landlady smiled too. "Well, miss, may-rose-color was growing on the sea-freshened be I wouldn't; for I feels sorry for the poor cheek, and how the old brightness was returngentleman; and I once had a boy of my own ing to the lustrous eyes. "You are quite right, that would have been about as old as him. I'll Letty, dear. It would never do for us to take do what I can, though he is grumpy and won't any notice of our neighbors, unless, indeed, speak; and that ain't pleasant, is it, miss ?" they were at the very last extremity, which is "No." not likely to happen." This little conversation, like all the small trivialities of their life, Edna retailed for Letty's edification, and both sisters talked the matter over threadbare, as people in sea-side lodgings and out on a holiday have a trick of doing; for holiday-making to busy people is sometimes very hard work. They even, with a mixture of curiosity and real compassion, left their parlor-door open, in order to listen for and communicate to Mrs. Williams the slightest movement in the parlor opposite, where the sick man lay so helpless, so forlorn, that the kindly hearts of those two young women-certainly of one of them-forgot that he was a man, and a young man, and wished they could do him any good. But, of course, under the circumstances, it would, as Letty declared, be the height of indecorum; they, unmarried ladies, and schoolmistresses, with their credit and dignity at stake, how could they take the slightest notice of a young man be he ever so ill? "L'HOMME propose, et Dieu dispose," is a saying so trite as to be not worth saying at all were not its awful solemnity, in mercy as often as in retribution, forced upon us by every day's history; more especially in those sort of histories of which this is openly one-love-stories. How many brimming cups slip from the lip, according to the old proverb! how many more, which worldly or cruel hands have tried to dash aside, are nevertheless taken and guided by far diviner and safer hands, and made into a draught "Yet I wish we could," said Edna. "It of life all the sweeter for delay! And in lesser |