The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860

"I regret all that," she said,–"these days that seem years."

"An equivocal phrase," he replied, with a smile.

"But you know what I mean. I am going to strangers; I have been with you. I shall find no one so kind to me as you have been, Monsieur."

"Your strangers can be much kinder to you than I have been."

"Never! I wish they did not exist! What do I care for them? What do they care for me? They do not know me; I shall shock them. I miss you, I hate them, already. Non! Personne ne m'aime, et je n'aime personne!" she exclaimed, with low-toned vehemence.

"Rite," began Mr. Raleigh.

"Rite! No one but my mother ever called me that. How did you know it?"

"I have met your mother, and I knew you a great many years ago."

"Mr. Raleigh!" And there was the least possible shade of unconscious regret in the voice before it added,–"And what was I?"

"You were some little wood-spirit, the imp of a fallen cone, mayhap, or the embodiment of birch-tree shadows. You were a soiled and naughty little beauty, not so different from your present self, and who kissed me on the lips."

"And did you refuse to take the kiss?"

He laughed.

"You were a child then," he said. "And I was not"–

"Was not?"–

Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the shock prevented Mr. Raleigh's finishing his sentence.

"Ursule is with us, or on the other one?" she asked.

"With us."

"That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by which to prove my identity."

"As if there could be two such maidens in the world!"

Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tarbell her address, and returning, they were shortly afterward seated side by side in a coach, Capua and Ursule following in another. As they stopped at the destined door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She lingered a moment ere taking it,–not to say adieu, nor to offer him cheek or lip again.

"Que je te remercie!" she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "Que je te trouve bon!" and sprang before him up the steps.

He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined them; he reëntered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall.

The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and proceeded at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he found that affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had been instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him. Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him, if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,–

"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie,
brave Charlie!
"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine
wi' McLean!"

Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best to remain long in the city; he would be glad to know if sight of the old scenes could renew a throb. He answered his letters, replenished his wardrobe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. At noon of the second day thereafter he found Mr. McLean's coach, with that worthy gentleman in person, awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it paused at the foot of his former garden, with a strange sense of the world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error.

Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him,–a face less round and rosy than once, as the need of pink cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and bright as youth.

"The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the first greeting, putting his hands on her shoulders and smiling down at her benevolently.

"Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking her head. "I expected this stain on your skin; but, dear me! your eyes look as if you had not a friend in the world."

"How can they look so, when you give me such a welcome?"

"Dear old Roger, you are just the same," said she, bestowing a little caress upon his sleeve. "And if you remember the summer before you went away, you will not find that pleasant company so very much changed either."

"I do not expect to find them at all."

"Oh, then they will find you; because they are all here,–at least the principals; some with different names, and some, like myself, with duplicates,"–as a shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over rosy blushes.

After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. Raleigh turned again to Mrs. McLean.

"And who are there here?" he asked.

"There is Mrs. Purcell,–you remember Helen Heath? Poor Mrs. Purcell, whom you knew, died, and her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary, who is single and speechless yet; and Captain, now Colonel, Purcell makes a very good silent partner. He is hunting in the West, on furlough; she is here alone. There is Mrs. Heath,–you never have forgotten her?"

"Not I."

"There is"–

"And how came you all in the country so early in the season,–anybody with your devotion to company?"

"To be made April fools, John says."

"Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will be."

"I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter; and Mrs. Laudersdale and I agreed, that, the moment the snow was off the ground up here, we would fly away and be at rest."

"Mrs. Laudersdale? Can she come here?"

"Goodness! Why not? The last few summers we have always spent together."

"She is with you now, then?"

"Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I didn't mean to tell, but keep her as a surprise. Of course, you will be a surprise to everybody.–There, run along, children; we'll follow.–Yes, won't it be delightful, Roger? We can all play at youth again."

"Like skeletons in some Dance of Death!" he exclaimed. "We shall be hideous in each other's sight."

"McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding the late misanthropy; "Helen is a girl; the ghost of the prior Mrs. Purcell shall be rediviva; and Katy there"–

"Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin.