eye that was resting upon her, softened indescribably. "You believe in great hopes," said he.
The little figure seemed to grow tall; and her face looked almost beautiful. "What would life be without them?" she answered.
"True," returned Mr. Sylvester; and entering into the conversation with unusual spirit, was astonished to find how young she was and yet how thoroughly bright and self-possessed.
"Lovely girls are cropping up around me in all directions," thought he; "I shall have to correct my judgment concerning our young ladies of fashion if I encounter many more as sensible and earnest-hearted as this." And for some reason his brow grew so light and his tone so cheerful that the ladies were attracted from all parts of the room to hear what the demure Miss Stuyvesant could have to say to the grave master of the house, to call forth such smiles of enjoyment upon his usually melancholy countenance.
Take it all together, the occasion though small was one of the pleasantest of the season, and so Mrs. Sylvester announced when the last carriage had driven away, and she and her husband stood in the brilliantly lighted library, surveying a new cabinet of rare and antique workmanship which had been that day installed in the place of honor beneath my lady's picture.
"I thought you seemed to enjoy it, Ona," her husband remarked.
"O, it was an occasion of triumph to me," she murmured. "It is the first time a Stuyvesant has crossed our threshold, mon cher."
"Ha," he exclaimed, turning upon her a brisk displeased look. He was proud and considered no man his superior in a social sense. "Do you acknowledge yourself a parvenue that you rejoice at the entrance of any one special person into your doors?"
"I thought," she replied somewhat mortified, "that you betrayed unusual pleasure yourself at her introduction."
"That may be; I was glad to see her here, for her father is one of the most influential directors in the bank of which I shortly expect to be made president."
The nature of this disclosure was calculated to be especially gratifying to her, and effectually blotted out any remembrance of the break by which it had been introduced. After a few hasty inquiries, followed by a scene of quite honest mutual congratulation, the gratified wife left her husband to put out the lights himself or call Samuel as he might choose, and glided up stairs to delight the curious Sarah with the broken soliloquies and inconsequent self-communings which formed another of her peculiar habits.
As for her husband, he stood a few minutes where she left him, abstractedly eying the gorgeous vista that spread out before him down to the further mirror of the elaborate drawing-room, thinking perhaps with a certain degree of pride, of the swiftness with which he had risen to opulence and the certainty with which he had conquered position in the business as well as in the social world when he could speak of such a connection with Thaddeus Stuyvesant as a project already matured. Then with a hasty movement and a quick sigh which nothing in his prospects actual or apparent would seem to warrant, he proceeded to put out the lights, my lady's picture shining with less and less importunity as the flickering jets disappeared, till all was dark save for the faint glimmer that came in from the hall, a glimmer just sufficient to show the outlines of the various articles of furniture scattered about—and could it be the tall figure of the master himself standing in the centre of the room with his palms pressed against his forehead in an attitude of sorrow or despair? Yes, or whose that wild murmur, "Is it never given to man to forget!" Yet no, or who is this that calm and dignified, steps at this moment from the threshold? It must have been a dream, a phantasy. This is the master of the house who with sedate and regular step goes up flight after flight of the spiral staircase, and neither pauses or looks back till he reaches the top of the house where he takes out a key from his pocket, and opening a certain door, goes in and locks it behind him. It is his secret study or retreat, a room which no one is allowed to enter, the mystery of the house to the servants and something more than that to its inquisitive mistress. What he does there no man knows, but to-night if any one had been curious enough to listen, they would have heard nothing more ominous than the monotonous scratch of a pen. He was writing to Miss Belinda and the burden of his letter was that on a certain day he named, he was coming to take away Paula.
XII.
MISS BELINDA MAKES CONDITIONS.
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