XI.

ON THE MOUNTAIN TOPS.

CLAUDIA retouched her sketch on Monday. After dinner a restless mood overtook her, and she went out to walk. Whither? Of late she had neglected Crofton Rock; and, obeying her first impulse, she turned in that direction. It was the loneliest road anywhere about Crofton, and but little used. On the eastern hill Mr. William Brown's new house began to rear its bulky skeleton. It seemed odd to, hear the sound of hammers and the shouts of workmen in their vicinity. Some day the old home would be demolished. Well, she would not be there to experience any pang. She must hold it to the very latest hour for love's sake, and then it would hardly matter what befell it.

Rambling around in an aimless fashion, she reached the spot at last. A soft wind rustled the leaves in musical murmurs, and she heard the slow ripple of the little brook gurgling over the stones. She parted a cluster of bayberries, and came suddenly upon John Brevoort, occupying the nook where she had first fashioned her vague dreams!

There was a stern and bitter look in his face that she had never seen before. His hand was clinched upon his knee, the veins swelled to ridges, ready to fight to the death, if necessary; but when a man wars with himself he cannot have the consolation of material blows. The eyes were fiercely fixed on some distant foe, apparent to their own vision alone.

She retreated softly, but the faint stir roused him. He sprang to his feet, and almost unconsciously Claudia turned. "Miss Varian! I might have known that no one else would haunt these shades. Come back to your bower."

"You were thinking, and I interrupted you;" as if half in

apology for her intrusion.

"Yes, I was thinking;" in a deep, resolute tone.

"It is

well for a man to take an occasional inventory of his life, and find how much of the glitter is dross."

He had always looked at himself with such complacency before, that these words, and the manner in which they were uttered, startled Claudia. It was not a mood of humility either.

"I suppose one cannot keep out all the dross." Her tone was slow, with more of musing than questioning in it.

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"Sit down here, Miss Varian," and he motioned her to a seat beside him. Months ago we made a compact of friendship in this very spot. Did you think me a loutish, stupid boor?"

His eyes questioned her eagerly. They were full of liquid, trembling light, and the lines in his face were singularly tense. He locked his fingers over his knee, and awaited her answer with illy-disguised impatience.

"No," she answered, in astonishment.

“But you had seen so few men. I question if one meets a man once in a hundred times. God has put a stamp on them somewhere, but they overlay it with their paltry shams, their rank vanities, or worse than all, their hideous vices. I wonder that you didn't refuse me then."

"God did not make me the judge." She said this reverently. "And I think I needed assistance

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'Miss Varian,”.

and he clasped his hand over hers with a gesture that would have been hard, had the man been less moved by some unseen emotion, "have I ever been of any service to you? Is your path any clearer, are you any stronger for anything I may have said or done?"

"Yes." She uttered it in a clear, ringing tone. "And if we should never see each other's faces again, I shall always be glad that I met you. I suppose I had all the forces when you came, but they wanted concentration, I have learned how men

govern themselves, how they grasp truths, how they face work. I am thankful to know this. It will stand me in good stead in the years to come."

"It is nothing to what I might have done, what I should have done. Months ago I had some miserable vanity, some narrow views, many, many selfish aims. If I have taught you to fight hard and close, I have taught you a lie that God knows I shall be sorry for to the latest day of my life."

"Not that." She seemed to indicate with her hand, he thought, that no mean motives could ever be ingrafted upon her soul.

"No," he said, "you are too pure, too lofty for that. I'm glad that you have never been shadowed with my mean and sordid views. I've had a hard life, Miss Varian. First as boy, then as man. I never knew any high, devoted love, any passion that sacrificed self first. I had a dreary and unloved youth. I began to hate poverty and toil, and narrowed my creed to one article of belief- faith in gold. Not that I meant to lie or steal for its sake. I went to New York. I worked in stores, and spent my leisure moments in study, for I was ambitious even then. I applied to an uncle for a little assistance, and he wrote me a very good letter. I remember one sentence in it—that a boy who couldn't help himself wasn't worth helping. After that I depended entirely upon myself. When a man has builded a Babylon, he generally views it with a good deal of pride. I confess that I have glorified my structure with much complacency. But it's a poor triumph. If a man had no higher aim than to make money, and presently lead an easy, luxurious life, he would not be fit to cumber the earth." "Your ambitions are higher than that!" and the pride she had for him glowed in her clear eyes.

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They are now, and I owe it to you. I seem to have just awakened from a miserable torpor of soul. There is something grander in life than paltry personal aims. There's an immensity even in this world; an influence of soul over soul; a

power of truth, generosity, and purity, that can lift a man to heights where gold looks mean and poor. It has come to me like a revelation! I believe now that the heavens can be opened. And this is what you have done for me, my friend," lingering over the words as if they were sweet to utter.

"You rate it too highly;" and yet every nerve quivered with a consciousness of recognition inexpressibly dear. It was what she had longed to do for him, when she first saw what manner of soul he possessed.

"No," he said; "the influence that is to sway a man's whole life can never be held in too high esteem. My selfish, stubborn pride rebelled at it in the beginning. It was a worse than heathen blindness. Good heavens! if I could have seen then! But I had never met a woman like you.

I've had a confused notion that strength in a woman must be joined to a sort of vulgar radicalism. I know now how pure and noble a thing it can be made. There might have been a fine, deep harmony between our souls, and to miss this

He brought his clinched hand down upon his knee as suddenly as he had raised it to his forehead, as if some acute pain had pierced his brain. He pushed aside the clustering locks, and gave a great gasp, as if the fiery breath was strangling him. She noticed that the drops of perspiration stood out in great beads.

"There are deeds and words in a man's life that can never be blotted out. There are moments of weakness that it is bitter to remember, bitter! The past cannot be recalled, Varian."

Her pure life had known no worse sins to be repented of than hours spent in vague dreams. In a dim way she seemed to feel that it might be different with a man. Occasionally he had touched upon some reminiscence of city life, in which she had seen the possible danger. Was it an old memory that tortured him now?

"No," she answered slowly, "the past is gone forever.

From it we learn our lessons for the future.

It is weak to

lament when there is so much work to do. If one has made mistakes, and suffered from them, I think he is just the person to help others; to show that any error can be atoned for."

In her narrow experience she generalized.

"You think it can ?" with a furtive outlook of the eyes past her to a clump of young beeches. "That one mistake ought not to mar a man's whole life?" His labored breathing was audible in the silence that fell about them. She felt that he must be deeply, strangely

moved.

"No man has a right to mar his life. It belongs to others as well as himself. God meant that he should use it for the best and wisest purposes."

"And when he longs for something higher than himself—you may know how I have changed when I say this," and a grim smile relaxed his features; 66 you think he doesn't entirely belong to the influences that would still keep him vapid and trivial?"

He should cast them behind. When he seeks something above the material elements of his own nature, he is aspiring God-ward. Who shall dare to thrust him back?

He walked across the narrow ledge in an abstracted mood. He did not feel the spicy, aromatic breath of summer; he did not see the sky of dreamy blue above. He was wondering if it were possible for him to reach the high ideal of manhood that floated through his brain. If he attempted it, he must find some path out of the world of glamour that seemed to cling to him with a thousand arms.

"Some time I am coming to you for judgment. In a year, perhaps; it may be longer. In the mean while, I shall remember that you have been my friend. Talk to me now. I am tired of this endless tangle of thought. It is the last time I shall be here."