Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878

Helen was looking at me with a curious look in her brilliant dark eyes, and still watched me when I paused.

"Would you have accepted such freedom?" I demanded, impatient that she did not respond.

"I would have died for him!" she exclaimed abruptly, but she said no more about Georgy or her lovers.

The sun had set, and the glory of the clouds was all reflected in the sea. The air grew chilly, and we went in and watched at the front door for Mr. Floyd and my mother to return from their drive. It seemed curiously like the old times, and once or twice I started at some sound, expecting to hear a querulous voice and see old Mr. Raymond with his fur wrappings crossing the hall leaning on Frederick, who carried his tiger-skin. Helen was too quick and sympathetic not to understand my startled look.

"He will never come any more," said she sadly. "He is sleeping up on the hill beside his wife and all his children. Had it not been for papa I should have felt that I must go there too, it seemed so strange and lonely for him."

Presently through the pale gloaming came my mother from her drive, and when I lifted her from the carriage and almost bore her up the steps in my arms, I felt a happiness and peace which seemed but the beginning of a blessed time. My mother had grown perhaps a little older in the last two years, but surely she had grown more beautiful. It was enough at first merely to look into her face: then when I followed her up to her room we told each other many, many things, but I invite none to follow me over that threshold.

"I took good care of your boy, Mary," said Mr. Floyd, coming up to us when we descended; and when I met my mother's look I felt again all the proud humility that a son can feel, beloved as I was beloved.

"He was not such a bad boy," pursued Mr. Floyd, ringing the bell and ordering tea, "and his faults, such as they were, belonged to his age.—Don't open your eyes, Helen, as if you expected to hear just what he did. I shall not betray him. All the world knows that when one is abroad one may commit enormities which there may be put inside your sleeve, while here they are as big as a meeting-house."

"I don't believe Floyd did anything wicked," remarked Helen with some spirit.

"We are at home now, Floyd," pursued he with an air of resignation, "and our little diversions are over. The eyes of two women are upon us. No more cakes and ale—nothing but rectitude, cold water, naps in the evening. I forgot, though, about our charming guest. While Miss Lenox is here ginger will be hot i' the mouth, and life will have a slight flavor of wickedness still."

"But where is Miss Lenox?" I asked.

"Miss Lenox is far too brilliant a young lady to stay constantly in a dull country-house," said Mr. Floyd. "The cottage people over at the Point raffolent, as our friends abroad say, upon the charming Miss Georgina. We have, after all, very little of her society. She goes on yachting-parties, to dinners, luncheons, picnics—everywhere, in fact, where the delicate lavender ribbons of slight mourning may be allowed. She has attended a déjeuner to-day, and we are every moment expecting that our gates of pearl will unclose and admit a celestial visitant."

"Now, papa," said Helen, "you shall not make fun of Georgy. Nobody does her justice."

"Don't they?" returned Mr. Floyd dryly. "Fiat justitia, then! Ruat cælum! One would follow the other in this case, I fear.—She generally, Floyd, brings home one or two in her train. You remember Antonio Thorpe? That young man is so often here that I am beginning to regard him as one of the regular drawbacks to existence, like draughts, indigestion, bills and other annoyances outrageously opposed to all our ideas of comfort, yet inevitable and to be borne with as good grace as may be."

"What on earth is Tony doing at the Point?"

"He dresses well," returned Mr. Floyd reflectively: "his hands are soft, his nails clean. I don't think he follows any occupation which demands manual labor. I can generally tell a man's business by his hands or his coat; but on Tony's irreproachable broadcloth not one shiny seam discloses what particular grist-mill he turns."

"Of course he has no grist-mill," said Helen. "I thought he was a man of fortune."

"I was the guardian of his youth," observed Mr. Floyd, "and when he was twenty-one I paid over to him intact the sum of money left to him by his father. It had originally been less than fifteen hundred dollars, but by lying untouched for nine years at compound interest it had nearly doubled. That was several years ago, and with the utmost frugality on his part I can't see how he could have worn such decent coats on the interest of that money all this time."

"But you put him into business half a dozen times," interposed my mother: "I suppose he made money."

"No, he never made any money. The only way Tony will make money honestly is by marrying a rich girl. Not that I assume him to be dishonest or a sharper, for I do think him a gentleman, after the fashion of Sir Fopling. He probably is considerably in debt, but floats himself from all danger of sinking by speculation or the like. Five times I set him at work to make his living: five times he was returned on my hands. His character possesses all the drawbacks of great genius, without any of its resources: he is proud, discontented, misunderstood, with a talent for failure."

"Is he a suitor of Miss Lenox's?" I asked. "He was never in the habit of admiring her."

"You can make up your mind," said Mr. Floyd with a shrug, thus dismissing the subject.—"Helen, my child, looking at this young man impartially and judicially, what do you think of him?" and he put his hand on my shoulder.

We were at tea, which was always an informal meal at The Headlands. Helen sat among the tea-cups, my mother had a little table by her sofa, and Mr. Floyd and I walked about carrying cream and sugar and cakes. I was on my way for a fresh cup when this question was put, and I went up to Helen and sat down beside her.

"Impartially and judicially," said I, "what do you think of me?"

Mr. Floyd took his seat on the other side of her, put his face close to hers and began to whisper all sorts of nonsense in her ear about me. "Tell him," said he, "to begin with, that he is a prig."

"But I don't know what a prig is."

"A prig is a handsome fellow born to create disturbance among the ladies."

She looked around at me and laughed. "Isn't he a goose?" she asked in a pretended whisper. "Where was it in Europe that he lost his brains? He has brought none of them home."

"It may have been at Damascus," said Mr. Floyd. "Did I tell you that after I fell through the trapdoor in Damascus and broke my ribs, they put a railing about the place and asked a piastre for a look at the spot where the American gentleman almost came to an untimely end?"

But Helen did not laugh: she put her arm about his neck and brought his cheek to her lip, and kept it there, giving it mute caresses now and then, while she smoothed his hair about his temples with her little hand.

"I'll take some more tea, if you please," remarked Mr. Floyd after a while in a meek voice.—"I'm obliged to endure a good deal of this sort of thing, my boy: it's not so unpleasant as it may look, but nevertheless it requires some stimulant to keep up an emotion of agreeable surprise. By the bye, what do you think of my little girl, now that she is quite grown up?"

"Don't dare to tell," said Helen. "I'm dreadfully vain all at once, for papa flatters me so that the rugged courtesy of the outside world would seem hard to me. Still, papa's compliments count for very little. When Georgy comes in presently just listen to what he says to her."

And precisely at this juncture there was a little commotion in the hall, and Miss Lenox did come in with Tony Thorpe. She had spoken to my mother, kissed Helen and answered Mr. Floyd's badinage before she saw me, yet when her eyes did turn toward me she showed no surprise.

"Have you come at last?" she inquired coolly, holding out her hand. "I am glad to see you again, Mr. Randolph."

I greeted her as calmly, and said, "How are you, Thorpe?" to her companion, with another shake of the hand. And then everybody sat down, and there was fresh tea brought. I noticed that Thorpe was quite assiduous in his attentions to Helen over the cups and saucers, and seemed as much at home in the house as a tame spaniel. Meanwhile, Miss Lenox had sat down by my mother and begun telling her the events of the day. The déjeuner had been given on a yacht in the bay, and had begun in mistake and ended in disaster: the wrong people had come, while the right ones had been kept away, like the invited guests in the Gospel. The sun had been too warm, the breeze too cool, the men who talked to her garrulous and stupid, and the women abominably over-dressed.

"Dear Helen," cried Georgy with effusion, "I have wished myself at home with you all day.—Dear Mrs. Randolph, tell me what you have been doing with yourselves;" and she wasted a slight caress on my mother.

"Our doings were nothing remarkable in themselves," said my mother gently, with a little smile—one of those smiles which women keep for use among themselves, and rarely give to men.

"Papa and Mrs. Randolph and I sat under a tree until dinner-time," said Helen. "We have been very idle, but had a delightful time nevertheless."

"Praying all the time that Miss Lenox was enjoying herself at the déjeuner," drawled Mr. Floyd.

Georgy had risen and was crossing the room, and now, passing Mr. Floyd, paused and looked down into his face as he surveyed her with a slightly satirical air.

"I am glad of anybody's prayers," she returned, quite unruffled, "but I am afraid, Mr. Floyd, yours are merely a pretty figure of speech."

Mr. Floyd suddenly sprang to his feet and walked up and down the room with a restless way he had. "I have it! I have it!" he exclaimed with a triumphant air. "It is a picture of a Wili of whom you remind me, Miss Lenox. I saw it in R–'s studio at Rome.—Don't you remember it, Floyd?"

I knew it very well, and was aware, besides, that R– had got the face from Dart's sketch-book.

"What is a Wili?" inquired Georgy, looking at me. "You know I used to go to you for all my bits of knowledge when I was a little girl, Mr. Randolph."

I rose and crossed the room to her side. "A Wili," said I, "is a betrothed maiden who dies before her wedding-day. Your knowledge of your sex may tell you why it is that she is never at peace in her grave, but is impelled by some unconquerable love of life to rise every night and dance till morning."

"With whom does she dance? Her unfortunate lover?"

"Oh, where Wilis live you see them dancing together in the woods and fields by moonlight and starlight, their white arms wreathed about each other and their long hair floating. When a Wili meets a youth abroad in the night-time she beseeches him to dance with her; and the voice of the Wili is so sweet, her eyes so terribly beautiful, her clasp so horribly close, that whether he will or not he must join the fatal dance and keep pace with her eager, frenzied movements. When morning comes the Wili has gone back to her grave."

"And where is the young man?" asked Georgy.

"They find him dead on the grass," put in Thorpe, who was standing behind Helen's chair. "It is death to dance with a Wili."

"Both of you seem very experienced young men," remarked Miss Lenox calmly. "Did either of you ever meet with a Wili?"