Mrs. Penniman, with great significance, looking at her rather grimly. "I don't know," said Catherine. "If I have, I shall keep it," Catherine Dear Catherine, you can trust me.' answered, turning away. Mrs. Penniman started for church; but before she had arrived she stopped and turned back, and before twenty minutes had elapsed she re-entered the house, looked into the empty parlors, and then went up stairs and knocked at Catherine's door. She got no answer; Catherine was not in her room, and Mrs. Penniman presently ascertained that she was not in the house. "She has gone to him! she has fled!" Lavinia cried, clasping her hands with admiration and envy. But she soon perceived that Catherine had taken nothing with her all her personal property in her room was intact and then she jumped at the hypothesis that the girl had gone forth, not in tenderness, but in resentment. "She has followed him to his own door! she has burst upon him in his own apartment!" It was in these terms that Mrs. Penniman depicted to herself her niece's errand, which, viewed in this light, gratified her sense of the picturesque only a shade less strongly than the idea of a clandestine marriage. To visit one's lover, with tears and reproaches, at his own residence, was an image so agreeable to Mrs. Penniman's mind that she felt a sort of æsthetic disappointment at its lacking, in this case, the harmonious accompaniments of darkness and storm. A quiet Sunday afternoon appeared an inadequate setting for it; and, indeed, Mrs. Penniman was quite out of humor with the conditions of the time, which passed very slowly as she sat in the front parlor, in her bonnet and her Cashmere shawl, awaiting Catherine's return. This event at last took place. She saw her-at the window-mount the steps, and she went to await her in the hall, where she pounced upon her as soon as she had entered the house, and drew her into the parlor, closing the door with solemnity. Catherine was flushed, and her eye was bright. Mrs. Penniman hardly knew what to think. "May I venture to ask where you have been?" she demanded. "I have been to take a walk," said Catherine. "I thought you had gone to church." "I did go to church; but the service was shorter than usual. And pray where did you walk?" "What am I to trust you with ?" "With your secret-your sorrow." "I have no sorrow, " said Catherine, fiercely. "My poor child," Mrs. Penniman insisted, "you can't deceive me. I know everything. I have been requested to-a -to converse with you." "I don't want to converse." "It will relieve you. Don't you know Shakspeare's line?—The grief that does not speak.' My dear girl, it is better as it is." "What is better?" Catherine asked. She was really too perverse. A certain amount of perversity was to be allowed for in a young lady whose lover had thrown her over, but not such an amount as would prove inconvenient to his apologists. "That you should be reasonable," said Mrs. Penniman, with some sternness. "That you should take counsel of worldly prudence, and submit to practical considerations. That you should agree toa-separate." Catherine had been ice up to this moment, but at this word she flamed up. 'Separate? What do you know about our separating?" 66 Mrs. Penniman shook her head with a sadness in which there was almost a sense of injury. "Your pride is my pride, and your susceptibilities are mine. I see your side perfectly, but I also❞— and she smiled with melancholy suggestiveness-"I also see the situation as a whole." This suggestiveness was lost upon Catherine, who repeated her violent inquiry. "Why do you talk about separation? What do you know about it?" "We must study resignation," said Mrs. Penniman, hesitating, but sententious at a venture. She had tried sharpness, and she had tried | her aunt's meddlesome folly had come sternness, but neither would do; she was over her during the last five minutes, and shocked at the girl's obstinacy. "Ah, she was sickened at the thought that Mrs. well," she said, "if he hasn't told you-" | Penniman had been let loose, as it were, and she turned away. upon her happiness. Catherine watched her a moment in silence; then she hurried after her, stopping her before she reached the door. "Told me what? What do you mean? What are you hinting at and threatening me with ?" "Isn't it broken off?" asked Mrs. Penniman. "My engagement? Not in the least." "I beg your pardon in that case. have spoken too soon.” I "Too soon? Soon or late, "Catherine broke out, "you speak foolishly and cruelly." "What has happened between you, then?" asked her aunt, struck by the sincerity of this cry. "For something certainly has happened." "Nothing has happened but that I love him more and more." Mrs. Penniman was silent an instant. "I suppose that's the reason you went to see him this afternoon?" Catherine flushed as if she had been struck. "Yes, I did go to see him. But that's my own business.” "Very well, then; we won't talk about it." And Mrs. Penniman moved toward the door again. But she was stopped by a sudden imploring cry from the girl. "Aunt Lavinia, where has he gone?" "Ah, you admit, then, that he has gone away! Didn't they know at his house?" 'They said he had left town. I asked no more questions; I was ashamed," said Catherine, simply enough. 66 "You needn't have taken so compromising a step if you had had a little more confidence in me,' " Mrs. Penniman observed, with a good deal of grandeur. "Is it to New Orleans?" Catherine went on, irrelevantly. It was the first time Mrs. Penniman had heard of New Orleans in this connection; but she was averse to letting Catherine know that she was in the dark. She attempted to strike an illumination from the instructions she had received from Morris. "My dear Catherine," she said, "when a separation has been agreed upon, the further he goes away, the better." 66 Agreed upon? Has he agreed upon it with you?" A consummate sense of "He certainly has sometimes advised with me," said Mrs. Penniman. "Is it you, then, that have changed him and made him so unnatural?" Catherine cried. "Is it you that have worked on him and taken him from me? He doesn't belong to you, and I don't see how you have anything to do with what is between us. Is it you that have made this plot, and told him to leave me? How could you be so wicked, so cruel? What have I ever done to you? Why can't you leave me alone? I was afraid you would spoil everything; for you do spoil everything you touch. I was afraid of you all the time we were abroad; I had no rest when I thought that you were always talking to him." Catherine went on with growing vehemence, pouring out in her bitterness and in the clairvoyance of her passion (which suddenly, jumping all processes, made her judge her aunt finally and without appeal) the uneasiness which had lain for so many months upon her heart. Mrs. Penniman was scared and bewildered; she saw no prospect of introducing her little account of the purity of Morris's motives. "You are a most ungrateful girl," she cried. "Do you scold me for talking with him? I'm sure we never talked of anything but you." "Yes, and that was the way you worried him; you made him tired of my very name. I wish you had never spoken of me to him; I never asked your help." "I am sure if it hadn't been for me he would never have come to the house, and you would never have known that he thought of you," Mrs. Penniman rejoined, with a good deal of justice. "I wish he never had come to the house, and that I never had known it. That's better than this," said poor Catherine. "You are a very ungrateful girl," Aunt Lavinia repeated. Catherine's outbreak of anger and the sense of wrong gave her, while they lasted, the satisfaction that comes from all assertion of force; they hurried her along, and there is always a sort of pleasure in cleaving the air. But at bottom she hated to be violent, and she was conscious of no aptitude for organized resentment. She calmed herself with a great effort, but with great rapidity, and walked about the room a few moments, trying to say to herself that her aunt had meant everything for the best. She did not succeed in saying it with much conviction, but after a little she was able to speak quietly enough. "I am not ungrateful, but I am very unhappy. It's hard to be grateful for that," she said. "Will you please tell me where he is ?" "I haven't the least idea; I am not in secret correspondence with him." And Mrs. Penniman wished, indeed, that she were, so that she might let him know how Catherine abused her, after all she had done. "Was it a plan of his, then, to break off-" By this time Catherine had become completely quiet. Mrs. Penniman began again to have a glimpse of her chance for explaining. "He shrank-he shrank," she said. "He lacked courage, but it was the courage to injure you. He couldn't bear to bring down on you your father's curse.' Catherine listened to this with her eyes fixed upon her aunt, and continued to gaze at her for some time afterward. "Did he tell you to say that?" "He told me to say many things-all so delicate, so discriminating. And he told me to tell you he hoped you wouldn't despise him." "I don't," said Catherine. And then she added: "And will he stay away forever?" "Oh, forever is a long time. ther, perhaps, won't live forever." "Perhaps not." Your fa "I am sure you appreciate you understand-even though your heart bleeds," said Mrs. Penniman. "You doubtless think him too scrupulous. So do I, but I respect his scruples. What he asks of you is that you should do the same." Catherine was still gazing at her aunt, but she spoke, at last, as if she had not heard or not understood her. "It has been a regular plan, then. He has broken it off deliberately; he has given me up." "For the present, dear Catherine. has put it off only." He XXXI. Though she had forced herself to be calm, she preferred practicing this virtue in private, and she forbore to show herself at tea-a repast which, on Sundays, at six o'clock, took the place of dinner. Doctor Sloper and his sister sat face to face, but Mrs. Penniman never met her brother's eye. Late in the evening she went with him, but without Catherine, to their sister Almond's, where, between the two ladies, Catherine's unhappy situation was discussed with a frankness that was conditioned by a good deal of mysterious reticence on Mrs. Penniman's part. "I am delighted he is not to marry her," said Mrs. Almond; "but he ought to be horsewhipped all the same." Mrs. Penniman, who was shocked at her sister's coarseness, replied that he had been actuated by the noblest of motives— the desire not to impoverish Catherine. "I am very happy that Catherine is not to be impoverished, but I hope he may never have a penny too much. And what does the poor girl say to you ?" Mrs. Almond asked. "She says I have a genius for consolation," said Mrs. Penniman. This was the account of the matter that she gave to her sister, and it was, perhaps, with the consciousness of genius that, on her return that evening to Washington Square, she again presented herself for admittance at Catherine's door. Catherine came and opened it; she was apparently very quiet. "I only want to give you a little word of advice," she said. "If your father asks you, say that everything is going on." Catherine stood there, with her hand on the knob, looking at her aunt, but not asking her to come in. "Do you think he will ask me ?" "I am sure he will. He asked me just now, on our way home from your aunt Elizabeth's. I explained the whole thing to your aunt Elizabeth. I said to your father I know nothing about it.” "Do you think he will ask me, when he sees-when he sees-" But here Catherine stopped. "The more he sees, the more disagree "He has left me alone," Catherine able he will be," said her aunt. went on. "He shall see as little as possible," "Haven't you me ?" asked Mrs. Pen- Catherine declared. niman, with some solemnity. Catherine shook her head slowly. "I don't believe it," and she left the room. "Tell him you are to be married." "So I am," said Catherine, softly; and she closed the door upon her aunt. at Liverpool, before we sailed-the request that you would notify me in advance before leaving my house." "I have not left your house," said 66 'But you intend to leave it, and by what you gave me to understand, your departure must be impending. In fact, though you are still here in body, you are already absent in spirit. Your mind has taken up its residence with your prospective husband, and you might quite as well be lodged under the conjugal roof, for all the benefit we get from your society." "I will try and be more cheerful," said Catherine. She could not have said this two days later for instance, on Tuesday, when she at last received a letter from Morris Townsend. It was an epistle of considerable length, measuring five large square | Catherine. pages, and written at Philadelphia. It was an explanatory document, and it explained a great many things, chief among which were the considerations that had led the writer to take advantage of an urgent "professional" absence to try and banish from his mind the image of one whose path he had crossed only to scatter it with ruins. He ventured to expect but partial success in this attempt, but he could promise her that, whatever his failure, he would never again interpose be- "You certainly ought to be cheerfultween her generous heart and her brill-you ask a great deal if you are not. To iant prospects and filial duties. He closed with an intimation that his professional pursuits might compel him to travel for some months, and with the hope that when they should have accommodated Catherine got up; she was suffocating. themselves to what was sternly involved But she folded her work, deliberately and in their respective positions-even should correctly, bending her burning face upon this result not be reached for years-it. Her father stood where he had plantthey should meet as friends, as fellow-ed himself; she hoped he would go, but sufferers, as innocent but philosophic vic- he smoothed and buttoned his gloves, and tims of a great social law. That her life then he rested his hands upon his hips. should be peaceful and happy was the dearest wish of him who ventured still to subscribe himself her most obedient serv ant. The letter was beautifully written, and Catherine, who kept it for many years after this, was able, when her sense of the bitterness of its meaning and the hollowness of its tone had grown less acute, to admire its grace of expression. At present, for a long time after she received it, all she had to help her was the determination, daily more rigid, to make no appeal to the compassion of her father. He suffered a week to elapse, and then one day, in the morning, at an hour at which she rarely saw him, he strolled into the back parlor. He had watched his time, and he found her alone. She was sitting with some work, and he came and stood in front of her. He was going out; he had on his hat, and was drawing on his gloves. "It doesn't seem to me that you are treating me just now with all the consideration I deserve," he said, in a moment. "I don't know what I have done," Catherine answered, with her eyes on her work. "You have apparently quite banished from your mind the request I made you the pleasure of marrying a charming young man, you add that of having your own way; you strike me as a very lucky young lady." "It would be a convenience to me to know when I may expect to have an empty house," he went on. "When you go, your aunt marches." She looked at him, at last, with a long, silent gaze, which, in spite of her pride and her resolution, uttered part of the appeal she had tried not to make. Her father's cold gray eye sounded her own, and he insisted on his point. "Is it to-morrow? Is it next week, or the week after ?" "I shall not go away," said Catherine. The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Has he backed out?" 66 I have broken off my engagement." "Broken it off?" "I have asked him to leave New York, and he has gone away for a long time." The Doctor was both puzzled and disappointed, but he solved his perplexity by saying to himself that his daughter simply misrepresented-justifiably, if one would, but, nevertheless, misrepresented--the facts; and he eased off his disappointment, which was that of a man losing a chance for a little triumph that he had rather counted on, by a few words that she uttered aloud. 'How does he take his dismissal?" The Doctor had his revenge, after all. XXXII. ine had been cruelly jilted-she knew nothing from Mrs. Penniman, for Mrs. Penniman had not ventured to lay the famous explanation of Morris's motives before Mrs. Almond, though she had thought it good enough for Catherineand she pronounced her brother too consistently indifferent to what the poor creature must have suffered and must still be suffering. Doctor Sloper had his theory, and he rarely altered his theories. The marriage would have been an abominable one, and the girl had had a blessed escape. She was not to be pitied for that, and to pretend to condole with her would have been to make concessions to the idea that she had ever had a right to think of Morris. "I don't know!" said Catherine, less | though the girl was very grateful to her ingeniously than she had hitherto spoken. for her kindness, she revealed no secrets, "You mean you don't care? You are and the good lady could give the Doctor rather cruel, after encouraging him and no satisfaction. Even, however, had she playing with him for so long." been able to narrate to him the private history of his daughter's unhappy love affair, it would have given her a certain comfort to leave him in ignorance; for Our story has hitherto moved with very Mrs. Almond was at this time not altoshort steps, but as it approaches its ter-gether in sympathy with her brother. mination it must take a long stride. As She had guessed for herself that Cathertime went on, it might have appeared to the Doctor that his daughter's account of her rupture with Morris Townsend, mere bravado as he had deemed it, was in some degree justified by the sequel. Morris remained as rigidly and unremittingly absent as if he had died of a broken heart, and Catherine had apparently buried the memory of this fruitless episode as deep as if it had terminated by her own choice. We know that she had been deeply and incurably wounded, but the Doctor had no means of knowing it. He was certainly curious about it, and would have given a good deal to discover the exact truth; but it was his punishment that he never knew-his punishment, I mean, for the abuse of sarcasm in his relations with his daughter. There was a good deal of "I put my foot on this idea from the effective sarcasm in her keeping him in first, and I keep it there now," said the the dark, and the rest of the world con- Doctor. "I don't see anything cruel in spired with her, in this sense, to be sar-that: one can't keep it there too long." castic. Mrs. Penniman told him noth- To this Mrs. Almond more than once reing, partly because he never questioned plied that if Catherine had got rid of her her-he made too light of Mrs. Penniman | incongruous lover, she deserved the credfor that-and partly because she flattered herself that a tormenting reserve and a serene profession of ignorance would avenge her for his theory that she had meddled in the matter. He went two or three times to see Mrs. Montgomery, but Mrs. Montgomery had nothing to impart. She simply knew that her brother's engagement was broken off, and now that Miss Sloper was out of danger, she preferred not to bear witness in any way against Morris. She had done so before -however unwillingly-because she was sorry for Miss Sloper; but she was not sorry for Miss Sloper now-not at all sorry. Morris had told her nothing about his relations with Miss Sloper at the time, and he had told her nothing since. He was always away, and he very seldom wrote to her; she believed he had gone to California. Mrs. Almond had, in her sister's phrase, "taken up" Catherine violently since the recent catastrophe; but it of it, and that to bring herself to her father's enlightened view of the matter must have cost her an effort that he was bound to appreciate. "I am by no means sure she has got rid of him," the Doctor said. "There is not the smallest probability that, after having been as obstinate as a mule for two years, she suddenly became amena-ble to reason. It is infinitely more probable that he got rid of her." "All the more reason you should be gentle with her." "I am gentle with her. But I can't do the pathetic; I can't pump up tears, to look graceful, over the most fortunate thing that ever happened to her." "You have no sympathy," said Mrs. Almond; "that was never your strong point. You have only to look at her to see that, right or wrong, and whether the rupture came from herself or from him, her poor little heart is grievously bruised." |