novel from the city, on the sunny piazza or in her dim little chamber. She was not averse to drives, in fact enjoyed them very much, but she seemed to divine that I did not really want her company, though I protested, as became a dutiful son-in-law, that I should be very glad to take her at any time. She did go with us once or twice, but the laughter and romping behavior which gave our rides their chief zest were extinguished, and we jogged along in the most proper manner, professing admiration for the outlines of the hills and the far-away stretches of scenery between the more distant mountains. We returned as quiet and demure as if we had been to a funeral. Mrs. Pinkerton saw the effect, and with her fine feeling of independence, she politely but firmly declined to go afterwards. As for walking on anything but level sidewalks or gravel-paths, she could not think of such a thing. The idea of her climbing a hill or getting herself over a fence seemed ridiculous to anybody that knew her.

So it was that we were continually forced to leave her behind, or deny ourselves the chief recreation of the country. I was sincerely disinclined to slight her in any way, and desirous of contributing to her pleasure, but what could I do? A fellow can’t get an iceberg to enjoy tropical sunshine. Our dislike to leave the old lady alone, although she insisted that she didn’t mind it at all, led us to pass a large portion of each day, sometimes all day, about the house. It was “deuced stupid,” to use Marston’s elegant phrase, but there was little to do for it. To be sure, there was Desmond, “old Dives,” Fred called him. He seldom went out of sight of the house, but he had a perfect mail-bag of newspapers and letters every morning, and spent the forenoon indoors, holding sweet communion with them and answering his correspondents. In the afternoon he sat on the piazza by the hour, contemplating the mountain-top that had such a fascination for him. He had a prodigious amount of information on all manner of subjects, and a quick and accurate judgment; but he was generally very reticent, as he tipped back in his chair and twisted his fingers in and out of that fine gold chain. My mother-in-law, from her shady nook of the piazza, would glance at him occasionally from her work or her book, as much as to say, “It is strange people can’t make some effort to be agreeable, instead of being so stiff and dignified all the afternoon”; but he seemed unconscious of her looks and her mental comments. His thoughts were probably in the marts of trade.

Fred was continually going off to distant towns, or down to the great hotels in the mountains, for livelier diversion. His wife often insisted on going with him, to his evident disgust, not because she cared to be in his company, but because she wanted to go to the same places and could not well go alone. Now, Fred wasn’t a bad fellow at heart. I had known him for years, and used to like him exceedingly. But he was left without a father at an early age, with a considerable fortune, and his mother was indulgent and not overwise. He got rather fast as he grew up, and then he contracted a thoughtless marriage with Lizzie Carleton, a handsome and stylish young lady, fond of dress and gay society, and without a notion of domestic responsibility or duty. Like most women who are not positively bad, she had in her heart a desire to be right, but she didn’t know how. She was all impulse, and gave way to whims and feelings, as if helpless in any effort to manage her own waywardness. As a natural consequence there were constant jars between the pair. Fred took to his clubs and mingled with men of the race-course and the billiard halls, and Lizzie beguiled herself as best she could with her fashionable friends.

And where was Miss Van Duzen these long and tedious days? They were never tedious to her, for she was always on the go. She would go off alone on interminable strolls, and bring back loads of flowers and strange plants, and she could tell all about them too. Her knowledge of botany was wonderful, and she could make very clever sketches; she would sit by the hour on some lonely rock, putting picturesque scenery on paper, just for the love of it; for when the pictures were done she would give them away or throw them away without the least compunction. She had a fine sense of the ludicrous and was all the time seeing funny things, which she described in a manner quite inimitable. She had grown up in New York, before her father’s death, in the most select of Knickerbocker circles, but there was not a trace of aristocracy in her ways. She was sociable with the ostler and the office-boy, and agreeable to the neighboring farmers, talking with them with a spirit that quite delighted them. And yet there was nothing free and easy in her ways that encouraged undue familiarity. It was merely natural ease and good nature. She inspired respect in everybody but my mother-in-law, who was puzzled with her conduct, so different from her own ideas of propriety, and yet so free from real vulgarity. Mrs. Pinkerton could by no means approve of her, and yet she could accuse her of no offence which the most rigid could seriously censure.

Miss Van was the life of the company when she was about, telling of her adventures, getting up impromptu amusements in the parlor, and planning excursions. She was the only person in the world, probably, who was quite familiar with Mr. Desmond, and she would sit on his knee, pull his whiskers, and call him an “awful glum old fogy,” whereat he would laugh and say she had gayety enough for them both. He admired and loved her for the very qualities that he lacked.

All this while I was trying to win the gracious favor of my mother-in-law, but it was up-hill work. She would answer me with severe politeness, and volunteer an occasional remark intended to be pleasant, but the moment I seemed to be gaining headway, a turn at billiards with Marston, for whom she had a great aversion, a thoughtless expression with a flavor of profanity in it, or my cigars, which I now indulged in without restraint, brought back her freezing air of disapproval.

“Oh, dear!” I yawned sometimes, “why can’t I go ahead and enjoy myself without minding that very respectable and severe old woman?” But I couldn’t do it. I was always feeling the influence of those eyes, and even of her thoughts. I couldn’t get away from it. Sunday came, and Mrs. Pinkerton expressed the hope that we were to attend divine service together. I hadn’t thought of it till that moment, and then it struck me as a terrible bore. There was no church within ten miles except a little white, meek edifice in the neighboring village, occupied alternately by Methodist and Baptist expounders of a very Calvinistic, and, to me, a very unattractive sort of religion. It was not altogether to my mother-in-law’s liking, but she regarded any church as far better than none.

“I presume you will go, sir,” she said, addressing me when I made no reply to the previous hint. She always used “sir,” with a peculiar emphasis, when any suggestion was intended to have the force of a command.

“Well, really, I had not thought about it,” I said, rather vexed, as I secretly made up my mind, reckless of my policy of conciliation, that I would not go at any price. A tedious, droning sermon of an hour and perhaps an hour and a half in a country church, full of dismal doctrines,—the sermon, not the church,—I couldn’t stand, I thought.

Mrs. Pinkerton’s eyes were upon me, waiting for a more definite answer. “I—well, no, I don’t think I really feel like it this morning. I thought I would