Chapter 3 THE OLD LOVERS.

Yes, there he was, the old lover! The man whom she had once believed she should marry and make happy-whom she had valued at his just worth when he cast her off as unworthy of the love he had borne her. She had not seen him since that time; he had held himself aloof from her, although he had talked of remaining still her friend, and the change in him was pitiable to witness.

It was the same handsome face, for all its pallor, and deep intensity of thought; the same intellectuality expressed therein, for all the blindness which had come there, and given that strange unearthly look to eyes still clear and bright, and which turned towards her, and startled her with their expression yet. But he was thin and wasted, and his hand, which rested on the table by his side, was an old man's hand, seared by age, and trembling as with palsy.

"What a time you have been, Mattie! Ah! you are growing tired of me at last," he said, with the querulousness characteristic of illness, but before then ever so uncharacteristic of him.

"Miss-Miss Wesden called to ask how you were," said Harriet, in a low voice.

"Indeed!" he said, after a moment's deliberation of that piece of information; "and you answered her, and let her go away, sparing me the pain of replying for myself. That's well and kind of you, Mattie. We are better by ourselves now."

"Yes."

Harriet dropped into a chair by the door, and clasped her hands together; he spoke firmly; he spoke the truth as he thought, and she accepted it for truth, and said no more.

Sidney Hinchford, oblivious of the visitor facing him, and composed in his blindness, detected no difference in the voice. Mattie's voice, we have remarked at an earlier stage of this narrative, closely resembled Harriet's, and acuteness of ear had not been acquired yet by the old lover.

"Mattie, I have been thinking of a new business for us, since you have been gone."

"For us?" gasped Harriet.

"Ah! for us, if I can persuade you to remain my housekeeper, and induce your father to extend his consent. I have no other friend-I look to you, girl-you must not desert me yet!"

"No."

"I fancy the stationery business, with you to help me, Mattie, would be best, after all. You are used to it, and I could sit in the parlour and take stock, and help you with the figures in the accounts. I was always clever at mental arithmetic, and it don't strike me that I shall be quite a dummy. And then when I am used to the place-when I can find the drawers, and know what is in them, I shall be an able custodian of the new home, capable of minding shop while you go to your friends for awhile. Upon my honour, Mattie, I'm quite high-spirited about this-say it's a bargain, girl?"

Harriet answered in the affirmative for Mattie. She had assumed her character and could not escape. She had resolved to go away, and make no sign to him of her propinquity; he cared not for her now; he dismissed her with a passing nod; it was all Mattie-Mattie in whom he believed and trusted, and on whose support in the future he built upon from that day! She knew how the story would end for him and Mattie-a peaceful and happy ending, and what both had already thought of, perhaps-let it be so, she was powerless to act, and it was not her place to interfere. Mattie had deceived her; it was natural-but she saw no longer darkly through the glass; beyond there was the successful rival, whom Sidney Hinchford would marry out of gratitude!

Sidney continued to dilate upon the prospects in life before him. Harriet had risen, and was standing with her hand upon the door, watching her opportunity to escape.

"Who would have dreamed of a man becoming resigned to an utter darkness, Mattie? Who would have thought of me in particular, cut out for a man of action, with no great love for books, or for anything that fastened me down to the domesticities?"

"You are resigned, then?"

"Well-almost."

"I am very glad."

"Why are you standing by the door, Mattie? Why don't you sit down and talk a little of this business of ours?"

"Presently."

"Now-just for a little while. Leave Ann Packet to the lower regions-I'm as talkative to-day as an old woman of sixty. Why, you will not balk me, Mattie?"

"No."

"Read this for me-I have been trying if I can write in the dark-my first attempt at a benighted penmanship."

He held a paper towards her, and Harriet left her post by the door to receive it from his hands.

The writing was large and irregular, but distinct. She shivered as she read the words. The story she had seen so plainly, was more evident than ever.

"Sidney Hinchford," she read, "saved from shipwreck by Mattie Gray!"

"And Mattie Gray here at my side accounts for my resignation," said he, laying his hand upon Harriet's. "Mattie, the old friend-after all, the best and truest!"

Harriet did not reply; she shrank more and more, cowering from him as though he saw her there, the unwelcome guest who had forced herself upon him.

"You are going out," he said, noticing the glove upon the hand he had relinquished now.

"Yes, for a little while."

"Don't be long. Where are you going that I cannot accompany you?"

"On business-I shall be back in an instant."

"Very well," he said, with a half-sigh; "but remember that you have chosen yourself to be my protector, sister, friend, and that I cannot bear you too long away from me. I wish I were more worthy of your notice-that I could return it in some way or fashion not distasteful to you. Sometimes I wish--"

"Say no more!" cried Harriet, with a vehemence that startled him; "I am going away."

The door clanged to and left him alone. She had hurried from the room, shocked at the folly, the mockery of affection which had risen to his lips. Ah! he was a fool still, he thought; he had frightened Mattie by hovering on the verge of that proposal, which he had considered himself bound to make perhaps, out of gratitude for the life of servitude Mattie had chosen for herself. He had been wrong; he had taken a mean advantage, and rendered Mattie's presence there embarrassing; his desire to be grateful had scared her from him, as well it might-he, a blind man, prating of affection! He had been a fool and coward; he would seal his lips from that day forth, and be all that was wished of him-nothing more. Harriet had made her escape into the narrow passage, had contrived to open the street-door, and was preparing to hurry away, when Mattie came towards her.

"Going away without a good-bye, Harriet!"

"I had forgotten," she said coldly.

"What have you said to him?-have you-have you--"

"I have said nothing at which you have reason to feel alarmed," said Harriet; "I have not taken your advice. He thinks and speaks only of you, and I did not break upon his thoughts by any harsh reminiscences."

"You are excited, Harriet; don't go away yet, with that look. What does it mean?"

"Nothing."

"Has he offended you?"

"No."

"Have I?"

"No," was the cold reiteration. "I am not well. I ought not to have intruded here. I see my mistake, and will not come again."

"I hope you will, many, many times. I build upon you assisting me in the good work I have begun here. You and I together, in the future, striving for the old friend, Sidney Hinchford."

"I am going away to-morrow-it is doubtful when I shall return, or what use I shall be to either you or him. You understand him better than I."

"I do not understand you this afternoon," said Mattie, surveying her more intently; "what have I done? Don't you," she added, as a new thought of hers seemed to give a clue to Harriet's, "think it right that I should be here!"

"If you think so, Mattie, it cannot matter what my opinion is."

"Yes-to me."

"You came hither with the hope of befriending him, as a sister might come? On your honour, with no other motive?"

"On my honour, with none other."

"Why deceive him, then?" was the quick rejoinder; "why tell him that your father gave his consent for your stay here, when he was so opposed to it?"

"He thought so from the first, and I did not undeceive him, lest he should send me away. Have you seen my father?"

"He called last night at our house. He is anxious and distressed about you."

"I am sorry."

"He thinks that you have no right to be here-I think you have now."

"Oh! Harriet, you do not think--"

"Hush! say nothing. You are your own mistress, and I am not angry with you. You have been too good a friend of mine, for me to envy any act of kindness towards him I loved once. I don't love him now."

"You said you did."

"A romantic fancy-I have been romantic from a child. It is all passed away now-remember that when he--"

"When he-what?"

"Asks you to be his wife, to become his natural protector; you alone can save him now from desolation-never my task-never now my wish. Good-bye."

She swept away coldly and proudly, leaving the amazed Mattie watching her departure. What did she mean?-what had Sidney said to her that she should go away like that, distrusting her and the motives which had brought her there-she, of all women in the world!

Mattie went back to Sidney's room excited and trembling. Close to his side before she startled him by her voice.

"Mr. Sidney, long ago you were proud of being straightforward in your speech-of telling the plain truth, without prevarication."

"Time has not changed me, I hope, Mattie."

"What have you said to Harriet Wesden?"

"To whom!"

The horror on his face expressed the facts of the case at once, before the next words escaped him.

"It was-Harriet Wesden then!"

"Yes."

"And she came in to see me, and assumed your character, Mattie?" he said; "why did you let her in?"

"I don't know," murmured Mattie; "she was anxious about you, and she had come hither to make inquiries without intruding upon you, until I-I advised her to come."

"For what reason?" he asked in a low tone.

"I thought that you two might become better friends again, and--"

"Ah! no more of that," he interrupted; "that was like my good sister Mattie, striving for everybody's happiness, except her own, perhaps. Mattie, you talk as if I had my sight, and were strong enough to win my way in life yet. You so quick of perception, and with such a knowledge of the world-you!" he reiterated.

"Misfortune will never turn Harriet Wesden away from any one whom she has loved-it would not stand in the way of any true woman. And oh! sir, if I may speak of her once again-just this once-"

"You may not," was his fierce outcry; "Mattie, I ask you not, in mercy to me!"

"Why?" persisted Mattie.

"I don't know-let me be in peace."

It was his old sullenness-his old gloom. Back from the past, into which Mattie's efforts had driven it, stole forth that morbid despondency which had kept him weak and hopeless. The remainder of that day the old enemy was too strong for any effort of Sidney's strange companion, and Mattie felt disheartened by her ill success.

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