glistening drop from the sweet, white little blossoms in his hand. She looked at him with a spark kindling in her eyes, and involuntarily drew herself up as if her heart swelled at the mention of her home. "May it be the blood of the invader!" she exclaimed, so that only he should hear her. "The blood of those who chastise insolence," he retorted, "of those who go down to break the arm of the tyrant." "And who will themselves be broken," she flashed out, scarce waiting for him to finish speaking. "Our caveliers will trample them under their horses' feet! Every woman will be a Jael for them!" "If a man were to come to your tent for rest after battle, would you slay him?" Mr. Burkmar asked, looking down at the wreath in his hand, not daring to look into that fiery, beautiful face of hers lest she should read too much softening in his eyes. "O no! Not I!" she said, mockingly. "I would feed and refresh him that he might renew his work of blood. I would strengthen him so that, having killed my brother, he might be enabled to kill my father. What! you fancy that my sickly, womanish sentimentality would make me spare such a man? If you go down there with a sword in your hand, Mr. Burkmar, don't ever after trust yourself in my tent." He tried to keep back the words, but they would come: "The weapon with which you strike me has two edges," he said. "When I bleed you will be wounded. When I am conquered you will weep." She looked at him with haughty inquiry. "You mean that the South will pay dearly for her victory ?" she said, coldly, but the color changed uneasily in her face. "She will not conquer, she will bend," he said, with a proud and confident smile that made her tremble and pale with anger. "When the South bends to the North, then I will bend to you!" she said, quickly. He looked at her earnestly. "Not till then? Not till then ?" he asked, in a soft, hurried tone. She hated herself that her eyes would droop, and her face and neck flush. What right had George Burkmar to look at her in that way? He half turned away, but lingered, and dropped at her feet the wreath he had been weaving. "Are they your laurels ?" she asked, setting her small foot upon the fragrant circlet. "When I have laurels to offer you will not trample them," he said, quietly, giving place to Vasari the artist, who had been waiting an opportunity to speak to Miss Ware, and going to talk to Helen Jameson, who had been looking at him with an amused smile while he talked with her friend. This girl was looking as fresh as a rose, and in her simply-made frock of green muslin, did not appear more than sixteen years old. The green ribbons in her hair brought out strongly its beautiful yellow flaxen tint, and heightened the bloom of her cheeks now more than usually flushed with the excitement of the occasion. Helen received the gentleman with perfect friendliness, and the two sat apart cosily chatting together. Like all reserved persons, Mr. Burkmar liked a frank and cheerful companion, one who would freely put aside the barriers which he could not help raising about himself. This girl was not in the least disconcerted by his commanding appearance, and occasional air of gravity almost amounting to sternness, and he was pleased to be approached with a confidence which was certainly friendly, often almost affectionate. "Look at Vasari!" Helen whispered, to Mr. Burkmar. This artist was one of Mrs. Granger's lious, a handsome Italian of about twenty-five, with a swarthy skin, a graceful, indolent way, and a pair of brilliant yellow, hazel eyes. Cora had spoken but a few words with him, then turned to some one else, and he was now standing before an open window, his form half obscured against the comparative darkness outside, his face illuminated by the chandelier's light. His gaze, fixed upon Cora Ware, expressed a passion of admiration. 66 "He hasn't removed his eyes from her these fifteen minutes," Helen said; and I don't wonder, for Cora is most beautiful." "He certainly seems to be of your opinion," remarked Mr. Burkmar, dryly. "Artists are privileged to stare. In any other man it would be resented as a rudeness." As he spoke, Cora left her place and sauntered toward the next window to that where Vasari stood. He immediately joined her. "It is too beautiful to stay in the house," he said. "See! the skies are purple, something not often seen in this cold climate. There Is a stairway leading from this balcony down to the garden, and I caught the scent of honeysuckle a moment ago. Are you tempted?" "Indeed I am!" she said, graciously. "Honeysuckle, and a purple sky full of stars, are not to be resisted." "Let us follow their example," said Mr. Burkmar, rising abruptly as the two disappeared. It was a warm night in July, moonless, but splendid with stars, and the grape-vines, honeysuckles and roses with which the little garden was draped on its four walls, and which hung in fragrant wealth over urns and arbor in the centre, were all wet and glistening with dew that looked bright as jewels in the light that shone from the window. As Helen and Mr. Burkmar walked slowly down a shady path, they saw the other two standing in an open space, with their faces turned toward the house, and illuminated by the windows. The space where they stood was in front of an arbor, whose red roses seemed pressing forward as though they would touch the beautiful form of the lady standing there, yearning to crown her head, and press her bosom, and girdle her waist. One arm hung by her side, the other hand rested on her bosom, and her head drooped a little aside, but the face was raised and spiritwhite in that light. She seemed to have quite forgotten where she was, and to be plunged in some trance of languid delight; intoxicated, perhaps, by the heavy warmth and sweetness of the air that was almost stifling with odors. Vasari stood mute and motionless watching her, and the other two paused where they stood, gazing also. She looked like something that might exhale with the dew. While the two looked, Vasari bent eagerly forward and spoke in an impassioned undertone, words which they could not catch; but Cora Ware, without lowering her eyes or changing her position, smiled slowly and answered with some faltering words. The artist reached his hand and broke a half-blown rose from the vines on the arbor, shaking down a shower of drops from the recoiling branch, and with another word of whispered sweetness, and a smile of tender entreaty, offered it to his companion. She smiled again, that faint, rare smile of hers, that gave her face such a look of childlike sweetness, banishing every vestige of pride, her eyes drooped slowly, and she extended her hand for the rose. "Let us go the other way," whispered Helen, pressing her companion's arm. "No, come!" was the almost rude answer. And Mr. Burkmar strode on, crushing the gravel under his heel. "You enchant me!" they heard the Italian say, in low and hurried tones. Cora Ware laughed faintly, but with an elfish grace. "Enchant!" she said, mockingly. "I dissolve the spell," flinging a few drops of dew toward him. "Spells of enchantment are always broken by the sprinkling of water." Then, hearing the approach of the other two, she glided away as noiseless as a shadow, and entering the house by the lower door that led into the dining-room, stole up stairs to the chamber looking out on the garden, and sat there at a window. She saw Vasari search for her, then go into the parlor, only to return to the garden to search again; and she saw Helen and Mr. Burkmar walk up and down the path arm in arm, apparently entirely engrossed in each other, and utterly oblivious of the artist's distress, and her disappearance. "Helen Jameson is certainly very bold on a short acquaintance," she muttered at length, as the two still walked up and down, talking confidentially. "I don't know what she can think of herself, talking so freely with a gentleman she has seen but three or four times, and spending so much time alone with him. I do believe the girl is a coquette." Still she watched, and still they walked. She leaned out and marked the stalwart form, the free, swinging stride, now cramped to suit his companion's steps, the lofty head bent attentively while Helen spoke with her smiling face uplifted, and her hand resting on his arm. But, as Helen talked, she grew more earnest, the smile quivered upon her lips, and her eyes grew heavy with tears and drooped, and it seemed that she faltered into silence; but she glanced up quickly again as George Burkmar laid his hand upon her hand that rested on his arm, and spoke some kind word, or, as the watcher in the window thought, some lover-like word." "It is really time we should go home," Cora said, abruptly, to herself, starting away from the window, and sweeping down stairs with a face that was slightly pale, but with crimson lips and flashing eyes. Vasari, wandering disconsolate, met her in the entry. Her erect head and hard eyes might have repelled him, had he not seen his rose still in her hand. "You are a witch!" he exclaimed. "You have the power of vanishing." "I am going to vanish now in earnest," she said, smiling upon Lim. "I am tired. What is my aunt doing? O, in the midst of the gayest circle, of course." Crossing the room to her aunt, Cora saw still lying on the carpet where it had been dropped, Mr. Burkmar's wreath of Madeira flowers, and went a little out of her way to set her foot fully upon it. The Grangers had been talking of going to Europe in the fall, and Mrs. Granger was now the centre of a party who were themselves going the next spring, and who were trying to persuade her to wait and accompany them. "I know that Cora will join you against me," the lady said, as her niece approached. "She has been saying that spring is a far better time to start." “I'll take your side this time, auntie,” Cora said, leaning on the back of her aunt's chair. "Autumn would be far pleasanter, if we should start early enough. We could then winter somewhere in the South, and escape the terrible northern winter, which I begin to dread. Hurry, by all means." "But I thought you felt so anxious about Albert you didn't like to go," her aunt said, in surprise. "O, we women must always be worrying about somebody," the girl laughed, “and now I am anxious about myself." Mrs. Granger nodded, and Cora immediately took leave of Mrs. Jameson, kissing her affectionately on the cheek, and whispering a word of congratulation. Cora liked this timid, little, delicate lady, who, in turn, looked upon her with admiring fondne-s not unmingled with awe. Mr. Burkmar and Helen were just coming in, and the gentleman saw that pretty tableau of the stately young form bending over the frail and time-stricken one, the friendly glance their eyes exchanged, that sweet, protecting look of Cora's as she gave the kiss, the pleased affection with which the other received it. His face, which had looked hard and pale, softened instantly, tears started to his eyes, and his cheeks flushed. He knew that it was a leave-taking, and hastened across the room. But Cora's back was turned towards him, and Vasari was at her elbow. As she turned away with a smiling nod to some others near, her foot touched something, and, looking, she saw again the wreath of Madeira vine she had twice discarded. It had clung to her filmy dress, and been dragged about with her like something that loves and clings in spite of cruelty and ingratitude. "Poor little wreath!" she exclaimed, taking it up with a caressing hand, and holding it to her bosom. "What had you done? See! I have twice to-night set my foot on this, and yet it will follow me. I scorned its freshness, but withered, I cherish it." She did not see the man who stood just behind her shoulder and heard every word she said. He would have spoken to her but for Vasari, and had he not seen that while she held the crushed wreath to her bosom, she tucked the Italian's rose into her belt. "Well, mother," Helen said, when the company were all gone and they were alone in their chamber, "do you believe it all? Does this seem really like home?" "Yes, my child," the mother said. "A home, whether a gift or a payment, which has called out so many kind wishes, must have a certain homelike charm about it. There only needs one thing more-that we thank God for the help he has given us, and consecrate our prosperity to him." Helen stood soberly silent. Her mother looked at her a moment, then said, faintly and hurriedly: "And what I most thank God for is that he has lifted the burden from your young shoulders, and given you rest, that you may not be old and broken while yet but a child in years. I haven't said anything, but I have seen-” She stopped, unable to say more. For one minute Helen tried to turn their troubles off with a laugh, as she had been 'wont; but her self-control had gone with the necessity which produced it, and, sinking down with her face in her mother's lap, the two wept together. They could afford to weep openly, when such sunshine turned their tears to rainbows. CHAPTER IV. "Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly." Or all the centres of intrigue with which Washington festered during the war, none was more virulent than that which had Mrs. Mellicent Seymore for presiding genius. Its poison was the more deadly because it was entirely unsuspected, lurking and luring as it did under beautiful forms. Who could suspect that frail little lady, whose sole ambition was to make her house a neutral place where people of all parties might meet and forget for an hour their differences, remembering only their common humanity? Of course her idea was a quixotic one, and of course, since Mrs. Seymore's sympathies were well known to be loyal, but few of the other party would care to take advantage of her toleration; still, people smiled very indulgently on the lady's amiable mistake, and those who were not too hot-headed, pronounced it a mistake in the right direction. It was fitting and beautiful that this gentle invalid, who, as she said, might at any time be called away from all earthly interests, should wish to surround herself with an atmosphere of peace, in the midst of such wide-spread and terrible strife, and, drawing so near as she seemed to that bar before which friend and foe must one day stand, she should think it possible that foes might clasp hands in her presence, though the next hour might see them facing each other in deadly fight. Besides the natural bent of her sympathies, it was understood that Mrs. Seymore had bitter reasons for, desiring that the South should be castigated. Her only brother had been killed there on account of his northern sympathies, it was said. touch of a hand light and soft as a flowerpetal. But the second thought was always reassuring. Mrs. Seymore was as discreet as she was kind, and no one need fear to trust her. Besides the lady in it, Mrs. Seymore's parkcr was of itself an attraction. It occupied nearly the whole front of one of the largest houses in Washington, and its windows looked out on an avenue. People of sense and taste found this room a relief after the gaudy parlors they saw at most other houses. Instead of giving the impression that the furniture was of paramount importance, and the people there only intended to admire and be careft:l of it, Mrs. Seymore's chairs and sofas were evidently made to support the human form, and entirely subordinated to that use; her carpet was made to walk on, her tables to lay things on, and neither challenged the first glance of the new-comer. Yet all these articles were graceful in shape, and of good material. In summer the room was laid. with straw matting, the chairs were wicker, and the curtains before the two long, arched windows of snow-white muslin, each valanced with a silken flag. In winter the wicker was replaced by rosewood, with cushions of dark purple, the muslin by voluminous purple draperies, and the matting by a soft carpet, in which a small figured pattern of dark purple ran over a ground of clouded wood color, brown and amber. The marble of the mantel-piece and tables matched this ground, and was of beautiful Sienna blocks. One or two wood-cuts, selected by an artist, works of art of their kind, a few good engravings, a single landscape in oils, two faces in oils, both faces tragical, a Madame Roland, dressed in white and with streaming dark hair, as she went to execution, and a copy of that personified pathos and despair, Beatrice Cenci; these were all the pictures. No, there was one inore. On a cabinet-shelf in a shady corner of the room, was a velvet-framed copy on Men of the highest standing in military and porcelain, of a portrait which some recogcivil, as well as in social life, liked occasionally nized as that of Charlotte Corday. A few to lay aside their dignities, and sit for an hour marble trinkets, a few vases and bronzes, and beside this charming woman. How she made two or three richly-bound books, completed them forget their cares! or, drawing from the number of the ornaments which seemed them the story of their fears and vexations, few in so large a room. But two large bookshowed them some glimmer of light where cases, one filled with old, the other with they had seen only darkness. Men were modern authors, hung on the walls, and the sometimes a little startled to remember how centre-table was piled with periodicals. much they had told her, won from discretion Scarcely a magazine or paper of any respectby the soft and earnest voice, the sympathy able name in America, England or France, in her pale and gentle face, perhaps by the but might be found in Mrs. Seymore's parlor. There were those who could have told that Mrs. Seymore's precious, martyred brother was a precious scamp, that he lived by gambling, and had been shot while trying to escape northward, after having won a fortune by a dexterous turn of the cards. But the wellinformed profited too much by this pretty, tragical sham to expose it, and Mrs. Seymore was regarded by the enthusiastic loyal as a martyr by proxy to the cause they upheld, and as worthy of all their confidence. There were portfoli s, books and rolls of charts and maps, and plans of forts-these brought from time to time by Mrs. Seymore's friends for their own convenience. It sometimes happened that gentlemen would forget, and talk of warlike matters there; and more than once there had been quiet little councils held there, by persons who could not meet so freely and uninterruptedly anywhere else, Mrs. Seymore kindly darkening her windows that no one else need enter, that being the sign that she was not at home. Besides these conveniences, there were two other very pleasant features in Mrs. Seymore's parlor; one was a bright wood-fire that burned on the hearth from September to May, the other was a perpetual cup of coffee and plate of sandwiches. Nobody ever got more, but these were always at hand, day or evening. If they wanted wine, they must get it elsewhere. Mrs. Seymore's usual seat was an armchair between the two windows, and advanced a little into the room, and the chairs and sofas were so arranged that when she had several visitors, she had them about her in a circle. It was pretty to see her forming the gem of such a ring, particularly when her visitors were all gentlemen. That small and delicate figure half reclining on the purple cushions of her chair, on whose arm rested perhaps a lily of a hand, a small and daintily-slippered foot just showing on the hassock beneath the hem of her dress. Gentle was the first epithet one thought of applying to her. The unchanging paleness of her delicate face, the mild lustre of her blue eyes, the silken fineness of her pale hair, the soft tones of her voice, her quiet movements, the modest sweetness of her manners—all suggested the word. Even the colors she wore, the whites, light blues, tender grays, almost always in unrustling woollens, muslins, or thin, silken tissues, helped to emphasize this characteristic gentleness. But, though quiet in her own dress, and prevented by her delicate health from attending assemblies, Mrs. Seymore's taste was known to be exquisite, and more than one of the belles of Washington society owed the eclat of some stylish toilet to a suggestion of hers. "Isn't it odd," a lady once said, "that such a sweet little snowdrop of a thing should occasionally have such bold and striking ideas? Colonel Thayer says that she sometimes utters thoughts of masculine vigor and decision; and her fancies in dress are often striking. When she first proposed that Leda Stanley should wear a scarlet dress to the secretary's ball, I thought that she was jesting. But fortunately Leda took the hint, and coaxed Mrs. Seymore to ride around and see her after she was dressed. She had rouged a little, and put white flowers in her hair. Mrs. Seymore wiped off the rouge at once, leaving her face its own pearly white, and snatched the flowers away, powdering Leda's gold hair with gold dust, till it looked like a little yellow cloud that has just caught the sunshine on its top. The effect was magical. The first thing Lady L when Leda entered the room was, "Why, it's a bugle-call!" And of course the gentlemen all rallied around the new belle. Everybody else in the room looked drab-colored, and the ladies who had come in pink were ready to eat Leda up. But it made a belle of her. Before that nobody had noticed her much, and she had no confidence in herself; but this evening of triumph taught her what she could do.. said It was hinted afterwards that when the president's wife wore court mourning for Prince Albert at her great ball, the step had been suggested by Mrs. Seymore. A senator called on the little invalid for an explanation. In the lady of the White House such an ambitious absurdity was quite in character; but by Mrs. Seymore such a suggestion could only have been made out of pure malice. The lady heard the accusation with such astonishment and grief, that her visitor instantly begged her pardon for having listened to the charge. "I have nothing in the world against Mrs. L-," she said. "But if I had, I should have known that to render her ridiculous in any public manner, would be to throw ridicule on our country in the eyes of strangers." Had the honorable gentleman been keener of hearing, he might have caught a faint ripple of laughter as he went down stairs. And that laugh lasted as long as the lady's dancing eyes could see him down the street. "If there is anything I delight in, it is to make them act absurdly," she said, gleefully, to herself. "I wish I could coax that woman to appear in a crown at the next levee, and make Abraham carry a sceptro." Of course awkward things happened to Mrs. Seymore as well as to others; but she, or rather her defenders, always came off with |