Ishmael; Or, In the Depths. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

abruptly.

      "Mr. Brudenell, you will excuse me for saying that I agree with you in your reproach of yourself. That trait of which you speak is a weakness which should be cured. I am but a poor country girl. But I have seen enough to know that sensitive and sympathizing natures like your own are always at the mercy of all around them. The honest and the generous take no advantage of such; but the selfish and the calculating make a prey of them! You call this weakness a propensity to please others! Mr. Brudenell, seek to please the Lord and He will give you strength to resist the spoilers," said Hannah gravely.

      "Too late, too late, at least as far as this life is concerned, for I am ruined, Hannah!"

      "Ruined! Mr. Brudenell!"

      "Ruined, Hannah!"

      "Good Heaven! I hope you have not endorsed for anyone to the whole extent of your fortune?"

      "Ha, ha, ha! You make me laugh, Hannah! laugh in the very face of ruin, to think that you should consider loss of fortune a subject of such eternal regret as I told you my life was loaded with!"

      "Oh, Mr. Brudenell, I have known you from childhood! I hope, I hope you haven't gambled or—"

      "Thank Heaven, no, Hannah! I have never gambled, nor drank, nor—in fact, done anything of the sort!"

      "You have not endorsed for anyone, nor gambled, nor drank, nor anything of that sort, and yet you are ruined!"

      "Ruined and wretched, Hannah! I do not exaggerate in saying so!"

      "And yet you looked so happy!"

      "Grasses grow and flowers bloom above burning volcanoes, Hannah."

      "Ah, Mr. Brudenell, what is the nature of this ruin then? Tell me! I am your sincere friend, and I am older than you; perhaps I could counsel you."

      "It is past counsel, Hannah."

      "What is it then?"

      "I cannot tell you except this! that the fatality of which I speak is the only reason why I do not overstep the boundary of conventional rank and marry Nora! Why I do not marry anybody! Hush! here we are at the house."

      Very stately and beautiful looked the mansion with its walls of white free-stone and its porticos of white marble, gleaming through its groves upon the top of the hill.

      When they reached it Hannah turned to go around to the servants' door, but Mr. Brudenell called to her, saying:

      "This way! this way, Hannah!" and conducted her up the marble steps to the visitors' entrance.

      He preceded her into the drawing-room, a spacious apartment now in its simple summer dress of straw matting, linen covers, and lace curtains.

      Mrs. Brudenell and the two young ladies, all in white muslin morning dresses, were gathered around a marble table in the recess of the back bay window, looking over newspapers.

      On seeing the visitor who accompanied her son, Mrs. Brudenell arose with a look of haughty surprise.

      "You wished to see Hannah Worth, I believe, mother, and here she is," said Herman.

      "My housekeeper did. Touch the bell, if you please, Herman."

      Mr. Brudenell did as requested, and the summons was answered by Jovial.

      "Take this woman to Mrs. Spicer, and say that she has come about the weaving. When she leaves show her where the servants' door is, so that she may know where to find it when she comes again," said Mrs. Brudenell haughtily. As soon as Hannah had left the room Herman said:

      "Mother, you need not have hurt that poor girl's feelings by speaking so before her."

      "She need not have exposed herself to rebuke by entering where she did."

      "Mother, she entered with me. I brought her in."

      "Then you were very wrong. These people, like all of their class, require to be kept down—repressed."

      "Mother, this is a republic!"

      "Yes; and it is ten times more necessary to keep the lower orders down, in a republic like this, where they are always trying to rise, than it is in a monarchy, where they always keep their place," said the lady arrogantly.

      "What have you there?" inquired Herman, with a view of changing the disagreeable subject.

      "The English papers. The foreign mail is in. And, by the way, here is a letter for you."

      Herman received the letter from her hand, changed color as he looked at the writing on the envelope, and walked away to the front window to read it alone.

      His mother's watchful eyes followed him.

      As he read, his face flushed and paled; his eyes flashed and smoldered; sighs and moans escaped his lips. At length, softly crumpling up the letter, he thrust it into his pocket, and was stealing from the room to conceal his agitation, when his mother, who had seen it all, spoke:

      "Any bad news, Herman?"

      "No, madam," he promptly answered.

      "What is the matter, then?"

      He hesitated, and answered:

      "Nothing."

      "Who is that letter from?"

      "A correspondent," he replied, escaping from the room.

      "Humph! I might have surmised that much," laughed the lady, with angry scorn.

      But he was out of hearing.

      "Did you notice the handwriting on the envelope of that letter, Elizabeth?" she inquired of her elder daughter.

      "Which letter, mamma?"

      "That one for your brother, of course."

      "No, mamma, I did not look at it."

      "You never look at anything but your stupid worsted work. You will be an old maid, Elizabeth. Did you notice it, Elinor?"

      "Yes, mamma. The superscription was in a very delicate feminine handwriting; and the seal was a wounded falcon, drawing the arrow from its own breast—surmounted by an earl's coronet."

      "'Tis the seal of the Countess of Hurstmonceux."

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

      THE FATAL DEED.

      I am undone; there is no living, none,

       If Bertram be away. It were all one,

       That I should love a bright particular star,

       And think to wed it, he is so above me.

       The hind that would be mated by the lion,

       Must die for love. 'Twas pretty though a plague

       To see him every hour; to sit and draw

       His arched brow, his hawking eyes, his curls

       In our heart's table; heart too capable

       Of every line and trick of his sweet favor.

       —Shakspere.

      Hannah Worth walked home, laden like a beast of burden, with an enormous bag of hanked yarn on her back. She entered her hut, dropped the burden on the floor, and stopped to take breath.

      "I think they might have sent a negro man to bring that for you, Hannah," said Nora, pausing in her spinning.

      "As if they would do that!" panted Hannah.

      Not a word was said upon the subject of Herman Brudenell's morning visit. Hannah forebore to allude to it from pity; Nora from modesty.

      Hannah