because I walked in a desolate garden, and the last autumnal leaves, wearing sunset hues for the ending of their day of life, fell at my feet. Purple or dun, golden-flecked or rimmed with bronze, or with dripping crimson stains, I heeded them not as they skurried past. I felt a deeper chill than the bleak wind, because the hopes of years had fallen as thick in the blast, because there was no hearth by whose sacred household glow I had a place; no heart that came near enough my own to keep it from the cold. I was alone in the world. No matter how. Perhaps my ship went down, snowy-sailed, treasure-freighted, in a tranced summer calm, shoaled on treacherous sands, or sucked into some swiftwhirling vortex. Perhaps with creaking mast and strained timbers it fought against the assailing billows that crested a storm-tossed sea. Yet I was still bound to life by three invisible cords: a Memory, a Hope, and-shall I so dignify it?—a Friendship-a boarding-school fervor merely. True, the fabric of such friendship is only good for summer using; the texture will not stand the wear and tear of life. Never mind; gauze is pretty if not durable. So I read the pink-tinted sweet-scented note which I held in my hand over again, and dwelt on its tender expressions gratefully, though I thought at the close, "This is not the kind of fire for a heart to warm itself withal." But no matter for that. Therein was an invitation, and that invitation I decided to accept. Of the friend who sent it and what came of it you shall hear anon. not lose till the town of Newbern dawned upon my vision. I had heard from my "affinity" of its overarching elms, its fragrant yellow jasmine, its melodious mocking-birds, its two bright rivers which clasped it lovingly in their embrace, and various other delights, upon which Ala Russell was accustomed to dilate to the great enjoyment of us Northerners. We may blush for it now, but it is certain that the uninitiated among us always looked toward the South with strange illusions, as though it were a new Arcadia. I, among others, had not been without a weakness concerning the chivalry; and it was as much to satisfy a vague desire to enter that charmed life as to clasp my friend to my bosom that I accepted her kind invitation to spend the winter with her in Newbern. The Southerners have a way of showing love of State-they have no love of country-even in naming their children. So my friend rejoiced in the euphonious title of "Alabama," after her mother's native State, shortened in the home dialect to "Ala." The family house of the Russells, I saw at the first glance, was large and old, with the air of respectability which houses acquire which have been handed down from father to son. Houses can announce as well as individuals, "We are none of your upstarts; we are not guilty of being new." And so the Russell mansion proclaimed from every old timber, somewhat in need of paint, as most of the Newbern houses were, its claim to long descent. Ala Russell stood at the door, and crushed Just at that time clouds darkened the na- me with a most demonstrative greeting. I gathtional horizon, and the mutterings of a far-offered up my energies and responded feebly, but storm seemed to shake some hearts. But I did to the best of my ability—at which she laughed not heed that lowering sky, baleful with coming merrily. disaster. I had been too busy with my own struggles too sore beset around to look away to any gathering tempest. So I started for the South with no fears of the solid mass of States being wrenched asunder by any power of earth, or air, or fiend below. "Oh, what a frosty kiss!" she exclaimed, "just like you cold, stiff Northerners. Never mind, we'll thaw you out here." It was two years since I had seen Ala Russell, but she was still the same lively "gushing thing" as of old-kittenish in her buoyancy, playful in her gambols, and I had never felt her claws. Lest the reader should find the foregoing rather mixed metaphor, I will say that she was a spark Washington was as serene as ever. No heaving in the heart of society betrayed the coming earthquake. The National flag gave its gay bunting to the breeze, with not a star dimmedling brunette, short of stature, with dark, yet or wandering from its place. All these seemed fixed and stable, though South Carolina was all aglow with secession. I was going to North Carolina, the staid, matronly, and discreet, who looked upon her neighbor's vagaries with the eye of distrust. As I went farther South the foliage grew tamer. The Tyrian dyes of the Northern forest trees vanished and were replaced by the unfading pine. At first the stunted growth of an unkindly soil; then the giant trees that suggest North Carolina staples-" pitch, tar, and turpentine." Sturdy giants they stood, scarred with many a wound, yet full of life. Then the ground grew swampy, and the trunks of the old trees bright complexion, chestnut hair, worn in heavy braids, full red lips, and languid hazel eyes. She looked well that afternoon, in a fleecy cloudlike dress of snow-white lawn, lit up with vivid scarlet velvet bows, and a little foam of lace at neck and wrist. She led me up a broad staircase to a pleasant front room, showing a bed white as a snow-drift, easy-chairs, and a view of the only available beauties-the elms and the water. The window was open, and a breeze like a breath of balm stole in. No frosty prophecy of winter was in that zephyr. She threw herself gracefully, though carelessly, upon a luxurious lounge by the window, and talked in an idle, desultory manner, looking out from time to time while I removed the dust and stain of travel, and changed my dress. "You had better let Cinder help you with that," she said, as she noticed that I was performing toilet duties unassisted. "No, I thank you, I like to wait on myself. What unfortunate has been blessed with that name?" "My maid. You saw that bright mulatto at the door, didn't you? Her name is Cinderella; but we call her Cinder as being shorter and more appropriate. There is a little glow about her sometimes too," continued Ala, musingly. "I really believe she has thoughts of her ownand-and feelings, too, about things." was sure. I saw no Mrs. Russell, so it might be sorrow for his wife. Frank, the only son, was away at college, and Ala, the only daughter, still safe in the paternal nest. The Pater smiled benignly on me. I was Ala's companion, and might keep her out of mischief, which mischief was indiscriminate flirtation, as I soon discovered. Northern girls work off any superfluous life and energy in teaching or in writing. Southern girls flirt. After tea we were left to ourselves. Mr. Russell strayed up the street to talk over our country's prospects, and we talked over our own. "I am so glad to have you with me," Ala said. "I like you better than the girls here: they are "How strange!" I replied, laughing; "I good enough, but tame and spiritless; no variehope they are not black thoughts." Ala did not answer, for just then her attention seemed fixed upon some object in the street. A quick eager spirit infused the large and liquid eyes with new life-a roseate hue suffused her olive cheek. "Who is it?" I said; "you are looking at your fate." "Nonsense," she answered, with a quick movement; "it was Hugh Carter." It was my turn now to busy myself with something to avoid her glance lest her quick eye should note a pallor or a tremor. It was my care now to make my face a blank which she could not read. ty about them. I always know beforehand what they will talk about, and I've seen all their new dresses. Now you say unexpected things." "The "And how is it with the gentlemen-do you know them by heart, too?" I asked. noblest study of mankind is man, you know." "I can't say I have studied them," said Ala, laughing; they are not worth that. I have just skimmed them over, as we do with trashy novels, and find them weak in style and lacking in finish." "You are blasé," I answered. new worlds to conquer." "Oh! for "Yes; Newbern is rather a small sphere for my capabilities. But it is better than it used to "You remember Hugh Carter?" she asked, be. Oh, if you knew how dull it was before after a pause. "Oh, a little slim fellow, with a slight squint and fiery hair," I said, with unworthy dissimulation. the railroad was built. The horrible stage ride to Goldsborough. No wonder people shunned us. It used to haunt me for days like a nightmare. Then you started in the grim gray morning, at "Horrors! Gretchen, you rave. Hugh Car- two o'clock-think of that. Fearful was the ter is a splendid fellow." My name is plain Margaret-Margaret Leeds -but Ala, with a praiseworthy desire of using her limited knowledge of German, always called me Gretchen. crowding of three on a seat, when you couldn't choose your company. Slowly the horses dragged the weight along. Most fearful was the sole meal of the day at dirty little Kinston, where the biscuits were jaundiced with saleratus, and bits of fried bacon floated around like the fragments of a wreck in an ocean of fat. Oh, Kinston!" exclaimed Ala, with mock fervor. "I ought to be happy when I think of those days and realize that they will come 'no more-no more-ah, never more to me.' 'Quoting Byron, eh ?" uttered a voice at the door. Did I recollect? Pulses of my heart that throbbed in tumultuous reply-waves of time that rolled back over golden sands, leaving me listening to melodious words that made the music of my life-silvery moonlight flooding that night with an undying splendor! did I recollect? What was my Memory and my Hope if I did not? But I answered quietly, "Oh yes, I think I of the Southerners. recall him now." "I sha'n't tell him what hard work I had to recall him to your mind, because it wouldn't be flattering, you know," said Ala, archly, as we went down stairs. Mr. Russell was a bland and portly old gentleman, with courtly manners and snowy hair lying in flossy little rings, like a child's, over his head. Yet there were lines about his mouth which had never been traced by time, I thought; deep furrows made by a sharper, harder plow, I The hall door of the Russell domicile always stood invitingly open, so that any straggler could walk in. These open doors are supposed to faintly shadow forth the open-hearted hospitality The vagrant who claimed our attention at that moment walked in with an easy, self-possessed air, as though he had been unanimously voted the freedom of the house. Tall and comely he appeared, with a careless but conscious expression. Crisp black locks crowned a smooth high forehead, where no undue prominence betrayed intellectuality; deep set, but large gray eyes; rather an obstinate looking nose; but a gentle mouth that spoke of sweet compliance; a mouth formed to utter kindly words, which per haps the heart did not fully feel. Of course I knew him at once, and of course I kept silence. Which did not Ala. "Oh, is that the way you steal in, Hugh Carter?" she said, with a petty scorn; "what might you not have heard? I only wish you had overheard a remark I made about you a little while ago." "You are dying to tell me I am sure," he answered; "and in the mean time I shall pay my respects to Miss Leeds, which is the sole purpose of my visit this evening." He walked toward me slowly, and I gathered my energies to meet him. All my heart flew to my lips to greet him as he came, but I put it down with a stern hand. The blood in my veins, at first a fiery torrent, turned to ice as I reached out a hand, which I am sure was marble cold, to meet his warm grasp. My eye sought his face a moment. I saw no token there of fierce struggles, or the solemn vigils of a great grief-no lines inscribed upon that smooth monument showed the grave of buried hopes. grief was mine alone. The The bars of conventionalism being laid down deftly between us, I took my place behind them in silence while Mr. Carter turned toward the sparkling Ala. I believe I saw more in that song than was really there. It awoke echoes in my heart more mournful than itself. I had sung it on the last evening I had spent with Hugh Carter, just before I collected strength to take the fateful scissors in my puny hand and cut the cord that bound our future lives. How that evening shaped itself in memory now! It was at a party. Airy phantasms, in " gloss of satin and glimmer of pearl," flitted around us, yet we felt alone. With passionful voice I sang that song, uttering all my love safely in its wail, yet with a heart intent on a stern purpose, with the altar laid for the sacrifice and the fire kindled. Hugh Carter thought of it too, and with some bitterness, as he had mayhap the right. could not rest even on the same ground of memory with me, but turned smilingly to Ala to take his leave. Upon which she pouted with a pretty gracefulness, and with the air of one who had the right to be offended. I wondered as I looked. "So soon," she murmured. He Hugh looked uneasy. He evidently felt my presence a restraint. No one wants a dead Past resurrected when it has been once decently interred, to sit with its hideous skeleton form at the gay banquet of the Present. "And you go back to Wilmington next week, Hugh ?" said Ala, half questioning and half as a statement. "Your servants are not on the alert for wayfarers, I can tell you," he said. "I saw Cinder in the garden looking much like a live coal, in her flaming red dress and yellow turban. She "I'm afraid so," answered the gentleman, had a dusky follower, I am sure, and I think I listlessly. "I must settle down to work now. heard something about 'Linkum's 'lection.' II have lounged this summer away in the most hope you both carry revolvers, for it might mean "Now, are you not ashamed to try and frighten Gretchen on her arrival? As for me, you can't effect any thing, you know. Don't all our newspapers say that we have perfect confidence in our negroes and never bar our doors; and when did you hear of a newspaper that didn't tell the truth? Now I know who the ebony beau is; it's just Powis, father's boy, that he hired out to Mr. Rutledge. He has run away. He always does. Every year, and often three or four times a year, Pow is sent to a new place -for there is nothing for him to do here. But he is as sure to come back as a bad penny." "That is comforting," answered Mr. Carter, with a smile. "Nevertheless we don't know what upturning, what fermentation is coming to pass." "Now don't talk politics, I am going to sing," said Ala, seating herself at the piano, and beginning, "When swallows homeward fly." She sang it well, but with little true feeling: there was execution but not inspiration about her style. Hugh Carter stood near me all the time. Once he slightly turned and said, softly, "Margaret, you sang that once?" I bowed. "Do you sing it any more?" "No more." delightful style. What a pity Miss Leeds was not with us at Beaufort! Do you remember the languid mornings and the breezy evenings; the stone crabs of delicate flavor but colicky disposition; the fascinating flounders, the bathing in the surf, and all the other delights? When will they come back?" "Next summer," said Ala. "Ah! who knows?" answered Hugh. "There are possibilities in the future which your lovely eyes can never fathom. God forbid that they should." "So you're in earnest about going back to work?" "Yes; though, to quote an elegant sentiment of a Hibernian friend of mine, I'm not over-fond o' wurruk, It's the way with all the Bradys.''' "Why go, then ?" Ala asked, with a glance which I did not understand. "Because you know the nursery rhyme about idle hands; idle minds are as bad, I think." "But you'll stay to Mrs. Gibson's party?" "Maybe, if you'll offer inducements." "I will be there," said Ala, with a regal air. "Enough. I will be there then, in spite of all," he exclaimed laughingly, as he bowed and left. For a few days he came not, and when he did call I kept out of the way. He sat with Ala a long time, and I stole out of the house for a Time passed, and still Mrs. Gibson's party was in the future. The rumored cause of delay was that the chief part of the supper lay safe in a schooner that couldn't get over a sand-shoal. At last Christmas Eve was chosen. walk. Did he wait expectant of my entrance? | firm resolve. No wonder he was bitter and I wondered; or was he happy with my friend proud: he had been educated in a different while I was shut out of all his thoughts? I was school; he saw from a different stand-point. He glad that he was going to Wilmington, where I drank the social glass in an open, manly, hosshould be no more tortured by so many vain pitable manner. That he drained it too often questionings, such weak repinings at what my was merely an excess of conviviality and good conscience had required at my hands. fellowship. I had been built in with Puritan creeds, he said, till I didn't see things in their true light. He thanked God he had larger views and more charity; he hoped I might find some Puritan saint with a stricter code of morals and a sanctimonious visage, who might sing with me the Psalm of Life in his own nasal fashion. These bitter parting words came after passionate appeal, pathetic grief, and clamorous adjuration were exhausted. I withstood all, and that was the end. He was too proud to promise reform; he would not trammel himself with resolutions; he scorned the love that could not trust, and so he went and I had seen him no more till my first evening in Newbern. These festivities were by no means rare in Newbern, but this one commenced the season. Ala was overflowing with excitement about her dress and mine. She dreamed of laces; she talked ribbons and jewels. She lived, and moved, and had her being in a restless sea of silk, with foam of tulle or crêpe. She endured agonies of doubt about a color; she tortured herself concerning the pattern of a sleeve; she almost went into a fit over a misfit. The evening came, Alabama subsided to a quiet flutter. Her dress was perfect, and she knew it. Her hair, glossy and smooth as a Spanish nut, lay coiled in silky braids around her perfect head. Her eyes were full of infinite content as she looked in the glass. Excitement gave the coloring which the picture needed, in a faint tinge on her somewhat sallow cheek and a fuller crimson to her lips. I stood beside her like a pale shadow, I thought, from whose life all the color had faded. I wore a silvery poplin of uncertain hue. It floated around me like a mist, and made me feel unreal. It shone with a cold and frosty shimmer to my eye, and seemed to close me in with chill, impalpable folds from all the fresh glow of youthful feeling or social joy. No wonder I gazed at him now when the Champagne was popping merrily on every side, and he did not taste it. Was this a whim for the moment or reform? I dared not let the blissful hope expand in my heart. Perhaps he only waited for the restraint of our presence to be removed to drain deeper draughts. He did stay a while, but when he joined us I saw no flush, no fitful, unsteady glance, no unwary word, and every doubt was stilled by Ala's gay raillery. "Now, Hugh, you don't mean to say you been with those fellows all this time and drank nothing but water?" "Yes." "But what do you do it for?" Ala laughed as if the whole thing were a good joke: "Take care you don't bend your resolutions too far. They're brittle things, you know; they break sometimes." Ala danced down the stairs merrily, when Hugh Carter's voice was heard, and I, walking more quietly, left him time to do his work of praiser. He was eloquent, and really felt part of what he said. To me he vouchsafed one look, Some one came then for Ala to dance. She and shivered with a mocking smile. was the belle of the evening, and had little time "You would do for the Frost Queen, Miss to waste on me. I was already tired. I was Leeds." The party was like all others. A great success Ala pronounced it, for the host was convivial, the hostess impartial, the ladies dressed up to the occasion, the beaux agreeable, the dancing indefatigable, and the supper from New York. At this supper I became aware that Hugh Carter had helped us to many things, but ate or drank nothing himself. I wondered silently. How often I had seen him grow flushed and voluble in speech; how often had my cheek flamed like his, to see how wine could steal his reason away! glad to slip unperceived into a little conservatory full of flowers, which opened out of the front parlor. A faint odor of tuberose weighed down the air with Oriental languor. Waxenwhite camelias held up their queenly cups, and trailing scarlet flowers ran riot here and there among leaves of glossy green. I sat down, faint and weary, feeling almost envious of those sweet flower-lives, and wishing I might so exhale existence in a breath. A pot of mignonnette at my side tempted my idle hand, and I broke one of the delicate sprays. "It is Christmas Eve-will you give that to me?" said a sudden voice at my side. I did not need to turn to know that voice. "Give it to me, Margaret," he said, in a low tone. "I need something. Not a flower has bloomed in my life for the last year." When first the knowledge that Hugh Carter drank too deeply came home to my unwilling heart, duty showed my path and conscience forced my trembling feet to walk in it. When charm by charm unwound that clothed my idol and I found it clay, I dethroned it with unsteady hand, it may be, and tearful eyes, but still with away. I yielded it, and drew my trembling hand "How cool and full of repose you look tonight, 'Oh, fair, pale Margaret ?'" he went on, rapidly. "You live in thoughts, not feelings. You have lost a little pink bloom-the shadow of a rose-leaf-since I left you; that is all." "You are wrong, Hugh Carter," I said, stung into speech by his reproachful tone, "and you know it. What are outward seemings? If I judged you by their rule I should say you are as calm as an untried serenity.' "So are volcanoes sometimes," he muttered. "Do you think, because I don't pale and tremble at your approach, because I don't carry the sign of a restless grief on my face, because the crêpe drapery is not seen, is there no mourning? Did I not love you truly in those days of old, because I eat, and drink, and live without you now?" "Yes, I think you loved me," he said, "with a sober, saintly affection; not with the irrepressible fervor that fires the Southern heart." "My love would have sacrificed all just things for you; yours would not give up a depraved appetite for me," I replied, with some bitterness. "Let God be the judge between us." "Yet you have only ashes left where once was flame," he said: "mine glows and burns yet; time or pride can not extinguish it." gift, and was delighted at the gay breast-pin of barbaric gorgeousness which I had ready for her. She was overflowing with thanks. "Sure enuff, Miss Greatshins, you dun bought it for me?" I assured her of the reality of the purchase. In the excess of her pleasure she grew confidential. "Now look yer," she said, in a low tone; "Do you reckon the Norf'll fight ?" "I'd a heap rather they would, cos we'd be free then." "And would you like it?". own, yer. Den I'd have some niggers of my and lick em like forty, two or tree about Dey needs it bad." "But you couldn't," I answered, laughing, "if they were all free." Cinder seemed to revolve this idea unwillingly in her mind. "Heap o' use o' bein free,' she muttered, "if I couldn't be like white folks, and knock some sassy nigger roun—they was onbearable nuff now ;" and she went out of the room with a new notion in her head. Just then Ala Russell's rose-colored robe filled the doorway with bloom. She gave a quick look Winter does not linger long in Newbern. of surprise at seeing my companion, yet she was Roses bloom in the gardens nearly every month too secure of empire to fear me. Hugh looked in the year. Spring comes, not with slow apunconscious; all his face was divested of pas-proaches, as in this Northern clime, but with all sion: a cynical smile played about his mouth. He held my flower in his hand. "What are you doing with that mignonnette?" exclaimed Ala; "do give it to me. You are crushing the poor thing to pieces." "And making it sweeter," he said, 66 as sorrows do with people." "They often make them sourer," laughed Ala: "for instance, your maiden aunt. How is she, to-night?" her lavish beauty at once; with no chill days, no chary bringing out, one by one, of her treasured charms, like a miser with his stored gold, but rather as a spendthrift she scatters her rich gifts on the bounteous earth, as though they were inexhaustible. In April Sumter was taken. Till that day Newbern was apparently loyal; then in a moment the great popular heart surged over into the seething, restless vortex of secession. Some "Well, she has been endurable this time, and shrank back afraid; timid souls shivered on the to-morrow is my last day." brink and feared the plunge; but many hailed "Not stay through our holiday-week?" asked it as the tide in their affairs which was to lead Ala. on to fortune. Wondrous dreams of a strong and wealthy empire fired the Southern heart. "Positively no." "But that flower-if you have squeezed it to Some faces glowed with visions of coming greatdeath I'll take it." "I'll give you something better." "No, I must have that." So he laid it in her hands, with a careless smile, and I turned away, seeing that his eyes examined me. Was he trying my heart after this fashion? Then not a ripple on the surface should betray the stormy surges that heaved below. He bade us good-by at the door that night, and did not call on Christmas-Day. the day after he went to Wilmington. ness; some trembled and blanched at phantasms of coming horror. Ala took the crisis coolly. The stab at national life did not wound her. The traitorous shot at the national flag woke no painful echo in her serene heart. The excitement was rather a stimulating draught for the languid summer day. To meet in gay parties for scraping lint, or sewing for the soldiers, was a pleasant variation to a monotonous season. The On beaux joined these festive gatherings, and gave zest to the fair workers by their smiles and jokes. I went but once. No one would have dreamed that the dread realities of war were impendingthat carnage and desolation were soon to sweep the land with the besom of destruction-to hear those fresh young girls and dainty, delicate-handed men discuss matters. Nothing more import A Holiday-week is the slaves' carnival. black torrent pours through the streets-merry, careless souls living in the present, forgetful of a hard and arid past and an unpromising future. Cinder came early to my door for a Christmas |