T

HE world in which he lived spoke well of Roy Braddon. He was a clever, prosperous young man, with a character unsullied by vice, an agreeable personal appearance, and a manner that was very quiet, but not wanting in pleasantness. A thoughtful man, too, who was apt to contemplate all things in their gravest aspect. For the rest he was happily placed in the world, being the only son of a wealthy ship chandler, who elected to live where his forefathers had lived before him, in a big, gloomy mansion in the old residential portion of New Bedford.

Occasionally Roy Braddon impatiently wondered why his father had not built a home up town, where other men of his position lived, but happily he was not troubled with an aesthetic temperament, and as a consequence accepted his life very quietly; for, on the whole, he reasoned, life was dull, after all, especially when a fellow was grown up and had had his fling at college.

Besides, it was not a mean or sordid house, by any means. There was a gray-haired old butler, who had been custodian of the cellars and plate for the past thirty years, and a housekeeper of fabulous antiquity, who remembered the last hours of the last snuff-colored Braddon; and there were two prim, sour-visaged maid-servants, of a discreet age, selected by the housekeeper, who, change as they might as to their individuality, never underwent any variation as to those two qualities of primness and sourness. It was a ruling of the elder Braddon's: "Pretty housemaids are out of place when there's a young man in the house," he was wont to say.

Nearly ten years had passed since

Roy had taken a desk in his father's office, during the last two of which he had become practically the manager of the business, for the elder Braddon was beginning to lose his business faculty, and in all this time he had made but one real friend. This was a young man who had come into the office a few years after his own advent, as corresponding clerk. His name was Frank Ryder, and he was the son of an army officer who had run through two inherited fortunes, and then cut his throat one morning in a fit of delirium tremens, leaving a widow and two helpless children to face a life which he had done his best to render hard for them.

The attachment between these two young men did not arise in a day. Howbeit, once they came to know each other, their friendship grew to be a warm one and they became almost inseparable companions. There was not a nook along the water front that they left unexplored. And they were very happy together, Frank full of wild, reckless talk of lives that were different from their lives; lives of adventure in distant lands; lives in camp and on shipboard, tossed about by the winds and waves, and in frequent contest with savage foes. The kind of a life he longed to lead, in short, instead of the dull, monotonous life of the office and its environments, which, as he termed it, might, and probably would, go on forever, and leave him no better a man than he was then.

"But you get an increase of salary every year," suggested the more practical Roy. "It isn't such a bad billet, after all; and by and by, when I have full charge, I will take you in as junior partner.'

"Yes, I know that, old fellow,” replied Ryder. "Both you and your father are mighty good to me, far better than I deserve. But, you see, I don't think I was intended for this sort of life. There's too much of my father's blood in me. The Ryders have always been soldiers and rovers. But for my mother, I should have enlisted long ago"

A change came into Braddon's life soon after this conversation, a change which made a different man of him, and from which he afterwards dated the beginning of another existence.

On his return one evening from a walk with Frank he found his father sitting up in the library awaiting him.

"I want you to help me decide something. Roy," said the elder Braddon, as his son seated himself. “And in order that you may understand matters, it will be necessary for me to tell you of certain incidents of my youth.

"When I married your mother, it wasn't exactly a love match, though I was fond of her then, and grew to be very fond of her afterwards. But the first love of my heart had been given to a cousin of mine, an orphan, whom my parents had adopted. We had grown up together. The old people were dead against the marriage at first, for they didn't favor intermarriage; but they were very fond of her, and finding that my heart was set upon it, they gave way and at last consented. So it was settled, and I fancied myself the happiest man in New Bedford. But-well, my boy, it's an old story, and common enough. She had never loved me, I suppose. However that was, a week before we were to have been married she ran away with a Spanish fellow who had taught my sister Fannie singing. Jose Torres, an idle scapegrace, with nothing in his favor but a handsome face and a specious, taking manner. She ran away with him one morning, leaving a penitent little note for me, saying that she had become a Catholic some time before, and that they had been married at the cathedral."

"What a heartless hussy!" cried Roy. "Surely you could never forgive such treachery as that, father."

"Well, my boy, it was a hard thing for a man to forgive, wasn't it? I was furious against her at first. But little by little I began to think of her differently, remembering how young she was-just turned eighteen-and recalling looks and words of hers that had hinted at some secret trouble weighing on her mind, until I began to believe that she had struggled hard to be true to me, and had often wanted to tell me. So, you see, it ended by my forgiving her."

His son shrugged his shoulders with an involuntary expression of contempt for his father's weakness. "I could never have brought myself to do that,” he said.

"Ah, you think not. Roy," answered the old man, “you think not. But when a man has once loved a woman, her face is always rising up before him, pleading to him to think tenderly of her, let her have treated him as badly as she may. And it always ends with his forgiving her. The memory of the days when he thought she loved him counteracts all else. It always ends so."

"Never with me!" cried the young man. "Nothing on earth could induce me to forgive a woman who had jilted me."

The old man shook his head. “Youth has many ideals that age dispels," he answered sadly. "You will find it so, my boy, when you have lived my time. But to return-I received a letter from that woman to-day-the last she ever wrote. She is dead. Another hand, at the end of her letter, tells me that, her daughter's. She is dead, and has left one child, a girl, the last of a large family. Torres took her out to the West Indies, it seems, where they did well enough for many years, but had much sorrow, the climate killing their children one after another, until this girl was the only one left. Then came reverses. The man's health failed him, and ten years ago he died. After that the poor soul kept herself and the child

by teaching. She was always a sweet singer, with a voice as clear and fresh as a skylark's, and I think it was that fellow's music which tempted her away from me. And so she got on somehow, she says in the letter, until she felt death close at hand; and then, not having one friend in the world whose bounty she could entreat for her child, saving myself, and knowing that I was a good man, she says, poor soul, she turned to me, beseeching me, for charity's sake, if not for the memory of those days when I loved her, to befriend her orphan daughter. She doesn't ask me to do much for the girl, not to adopt her, or maintain her in a life of idleness; only to put her in some way of earning her living, and to keep her from falling into dangerous hands.

I am

"I received the letter this morning. The girl is in Boston. What am I to do, Roy? I leave it to you. nearing the end, my boy; and whatever I have saved is saved for you; whatever I spend is so much out of your pocket. What shall we do with Julia Torres?"

"It is hard for a woman to get her living nowadays," Roy answered thoughtfully. "A young woman, too, and a foreigner, as you might say. And surely, we shouldn't consider the expense. I shall never need half of what you will leave me. She might live here with us. Mrs. Davis would take good care of her."

"It is generous of you to say that, my boy. Just as I wished you to; just as I wished you to."

And so Julia Torres came to the old mansion on Union street.

She had a hundred little arts by which women can embellish the dullest homes, and little by little, having found herself privileged to do these things, she began to exercise them. Quaint old jars and vases and cups and teapots that had been hidden away in remote closets, came out of their hiding places, blackened with the dust of ages, and were placed about here and there, making patches of light and color in the

darksome rooms. The ponderous old furniture was polished into a kind of beauty, and by a new disposition of old material, she brought light and brightness into gloomy corners. Flowers bloomed here and there in the windows. There was a new atmosphere in the house generally, and Roy felt the change greatly.

He also found that he did not care quite so much for the society of his friend Ryder. It was midwinter, which was excuse enough for the suspension of their evening rambles; but he felt that he was not treating his friend fairly, and to make amends, invited him to dine with them once or twice a week. It may have been that he wanted to hear Julia's praises from the lips of the friend whose judgment he believed in; at any rate, he was gratified when Frank spoke enthusiastically of the beauty of her dark eyes and the charm of her singing. Often in the evening she sang for them, accompanying herself on the old piano, at which her father had taught her mother. Her voice was a clear, thrilling soprano, and her touch vibrant with tenderness and feeling. She sang all the old ballads which the elder Braddon loved, and in this way crept into the old man's affection.

Roy was no musician, but her singing had a certain soothing influence on him; a little melancholy, perhaps, awakening a dim sense of sadness in his breast, that was all. He could scarcely have distinguished one of her songs from another without the words. He felt this deficiency of his somewhat keenly when Frank Ryder was with them, for Frank was possessed of a fine baritone and considerable taste for music, and often sang duets with Julia. It seemed to bring the two closer together, and occasionally Roy felt a pang of jealousy. He was angry with himself for the feeling and made a great effort to overcome it, asking his friend to the old house oftener because of this secret weakness.

"What fear need I have of him if she loves me?" he argued with himself,

"and if not, what can it matter whom she sees?"

The young man watched her closely and fancied himself secure in her love. There was much of conceit in his nature. He felt that she must know how much he loved her, and that he had only to speak when the fitting time came. Always his dreams were of a future in which she was to be his wife. He could not think of himself a moment apart from her. The possibility that this desire of his heart might be denied him never entered his mind.

It was while he was lingering in this state of blissful contemplation that a business emergency necessitated his presence in New York. He never forgot their parting. It was a calm, still evening, early in May. Julia went with. him to the hall door to bid him good-by. For the first time he kissed her. It was a long, passionate kiss, and he fancied that it was at once the declaration and seal of his love. She could not misunderstand him after that. She uttered a little cry of mingled astonishment and reproof and ran back into the hall. He turned as he went down the steps and saw her looking out at him from the open door, with the evening sun upon her face. And that picture-the pale young face framed in the soft, brown hair, and the shadowy eyes-haunted him all through the journey and for many nights thereafter.

From New York he went on to Philadelphia, a branch office of his firm there needing his personal attention. At this point a telegram was handed him announcing the sudden illness of his father, and directing him to come. immediately home. When he reached there the old man was dead.

"He fell in a fit, sir," the old butler told him as he opened the door, "and he never spoke again.'

Roy dropped his suitcase in the hall and went up the stairs to the solemn death chamber. His father lay in a long, oak-paneled room, with four tall, narrow windows, which had been gloomy enough even when inhabited by the living. He had scarcely known

until that moment how much he had loved his father, or how bitter a blow their parting was to be. For a time even the image of Julia Torres was blotted from his mind. He stayed in that darkened room for a long time; then he arose and went slowly down the stairs in search of Julia.

She heard his footsteps and came forward to meet him. She gave him both her hands, looking at him with a grave, pitying face.

"I am so sorry for you, dear Roy," she said; "so sorry for my own sake, too. I loved him very dearly. Indeed, I had reason to love him," she added, with a little choking sob.

They went into the parlor and she told him of his father's last moments. He listened in silence, only interrupting once to ask if his father had been conscious after the first attack. It was a warm evening, and the faint hum of the declining city life came to them through the open windows with a distant, drowsy sound. The old house had that aspect of profound dullness. peculiar to a habitation in the heart of a city on a summer evening, when mankind has a natural yearning for the green leaves of the woodland.

But Roy had no such yearnings. To him the shadowy, oak-paneled room was a paradise. He forgot that he had seen his kind old father's face still in death but a few minutes before; he could think of nothing but Julia's pensive face as she sat by the open window, with the low western sunlight shining in upon her, as on the evening he had kissed her good-by. The words which he meant to speak did not come to him easily; he loved her too much to be over-bold. But in that last happy hour of his youth there was no shadow of doubt in his mind. He had never contemplated the possibility of a refusal; he had never admitted that he had a rival; he had never doubted that she loved him. In perfect faith he had accepted her grateful affection, her frank, sisterly regard, as tokens of the love to be given to him when he pleaded for it. He was rather ashamed

to be so backward in pleading, that was all.

"Julia," he said, drawing nearer to her, "I have something to say to you."

"And I to you, cousin," she answered, with a sudden bright flush. "There was something I wanted to tell you for two weeks before you went away, but I hadn't the courage. And yet I know how good you are, and that nothing in the world would make you unkind to me."

He took her hand tenderly in his. "Unkind, dear! Surely, you know I could never be that."

"Of course not. And that is why it has been so foolish of me to feel afraid of speaking frankly. I think you must know how happy my life has been in this dear old house, and how grateful I shall always be to you and your dear father for all of your goodness to me. But-but-we are both young, and it would not do for us to go on living here this way. People would talk; Mrs. Davis told me as much this afternoon. And I-I have had the offer of a new home. Don't think me ungrateful, or that I want to run away from you. Indeed, I cannot fancy a sister loving her only brother better than I love you. But I must go away-everyone says that."

She looked at him a trifle anxiously, the blush fading slowly from her face. "A new home?" he questioned. "Why should you go away, Julia? What need you care if some malicious fool should slander us. It is hardly possible for malice to go so far as that; and it can't matter to us, because-" and then, without finishing the sentence, he exclaimed, "Who offered you this new home, as you call it?"

"Mrs. Ryder-Frank's mother-has asked me to stay with her until I am married." She was blushing again, and her heavy lids dropped over her glorious dark eyes.

"Till you are married!" he gasped. "Yes, Roy, dear. I ought to have told you before, perhaps, but I couldn't. Frank has asked me to be his wife, and I love him very dearly; we

are going to be married in a month or two. We shan't be rich, of course, for Frank must care for his mother; but we can live happily on very little. And we love each other so truly-"

The ghastly change in his face stopped her suddenly in the midst of her confession.

"Cousin Roy!" she exclaimed (it was her pet name for him), “you are not angry?"

He sprang to his feet, and she saw the look of a stricken animal in his eyes.

"Angry!" he cried, in a voice she would not have recognized. "You have broken my heart! Didn't you know that I loved you? Didn't you know that every hope I had was built on the security of your love? When I kissed you that night before I went away, if you had doubted before, could you doubt then what I felt for you?"

"Indeed, Roy," she cried, "I thought it was only a brother's kiss. We have been like brother and sister. And I never dreamed that you cared for me more than you might have cared for a sister."

"Of course not!" He laughed bitterly. "That is a way with you women, I believe. And I should have known from the way your mother treated my father. History has repeated itself. And he! peated itself. And he! The traitor, the false friend I brought into this house, the sneaking scoundrel who came into our firm a beggar-to go behind my back and steal you!"

"I

"Stop Roy," she commanded. cannot hear you say those things of him. How did he know you cared for me? It is too cruel, too unjust! Roy, be reasonable! Be like yourself! Whatever sin I have committed against you has been done in ignorance. I shall never cease to be grateful to you. Be generous, Cousin Roy; tell me that you forgive me.'

"Forgive you!" he cried, in a blind fury. "To the last hour of my life-if I live a hundred years-I shall never speak to you! I pray God I may never see your face again