“Who says that I am ever weary?  And did you ever know me to disquiet myself in vain?” with the low, musical ripple of laughter that belonged to her sunniest mood.  “Had I been born in the classic age, I should have been a devout disciple of Epicurus.  Don’t imagine that my success has not, thus far, amply repaid me for my toil and ingenuity.  Having lived upon excitement all my days, I should starve without it.  Pleasure, like safety, is the dearer for being plucked from that evergreen nettle, Danger!”

CHAPTER XV.

The good Samaritan.

The snows of ten winters had powdered the nameless stranger’s grave in the servant’s burial-ground of the Ridgeley plantation.  For nine years the wallet taken from his person had lain unopened in a hidden drawer of Mabel Dorrance’s escritoire, and the half-guessed secret been hidden in her breast.  Mammy Phillis had followed her mistress to the tomb, six months after her removal from her beloved cottage to the despised “quarters.”  She never held up her head from the day of her degradation, died from a broken heart, murmured those who best knew her—­of a “fit of spleen,” said Mrs. Aylett, in cool reprehension of her unmannerly vassal.

Mabel had guarded the mystery well.  Her husband examined her—­covertly, as he thought; awkwardly, according to her ideas—­with regard to the vagaries of her delirium, and was foiled by the grave simplicity of her manner and replies.

“All she knows or remembers is substantially this,” Herbert jotted down in his notes for his sister’s perusal:  “she has associated in some way—­she cannot tell exactly how or why—­the name with the tramp who died in the garret.  She is not sure that it was his designation.  Thinks it was not, or that, if used by him, it was an alias.  Has an impression that it was marked upon his clothing, or upon a paper found in his pocket.  Showed no agitation and little interest in the subject, except when she inquired if I saw the stranger at all—­living or dead.  Was glad I could reply truly, ‘No.’  Answer seemed to gratify her, which you may consider a disagreeable augury.  Am convinced that her illness resulted from natural and unavoidable causes—­that neither F—–­C—–­nor J——­L—–­had any connection with it.  It will be months before mind and body recover their tone.”

“Lawyerly! ergo, absurd and unsatisfactory!” pronounced the reader, to whom the foregoing leaf had been committed on the morning of her brother’s departure with his slowly-convalescing wife for their Albany home.  “But until the nettle pricks more nearly, I shall continue to enjoy my roses.”