ENTREATIES AND PERSUASIONS.

A few days after the visit of Church to his old friend Hudson, young Sterling and Constance were seated in the room where that midnight supper had taken place.

Both were at work with their gravers, and both seemed completely occupied by the art they were practising; but a close observer might have seen that some excitement had gone before, for Constance had a flush of hot scarlet on either cheek, and the young man, pale, as if passion had exhausted itself to ashes with him.

At last he flung down his graver, and came to the chair in which Constance sat. She was working at random, and he could see that her hand quivered as he bent over her.

"That is not right—you are working wildly," he said, attempting to guide her hand; but she flung him off, and attempted to resume her aimless task.

"Constance, why is this? What evil demon has possessed you of late? Is it that you think me harsh in denying you what is a pain for me to grant?"

"You have no right to grant or deny it. I persist in that, and will. If my education has been neglected; if I have never had opportunities like other people, it was because my father could not afford it. Now that he has got money, outside of the little he can earn, and is willing to spend it on me, you start up and talk about impropriety. Let me ask you, sir, is it worse for me to learn to dance than other people."

"But your position, Constance. If it were private lessons, I would not so much object."

"I don't want private lessons. It is the room, and the company, and the chance of seeing how others do, that I want. You keep telling me that I am forward and unladylike."

"No, no! I never did that!"

"I say you did; or, father said it when you were by, and submitted to it. What is worse, the whole thing is true. How am I to be like a lady, when I hardly ever saw a genuine one in my life, except at the theatre, or in Fifth Avenue, where they sweep by me, and look me down, as if I had no business to be in the same street with them?"

"Well, why do you go there, Constance?"

"Why do I go there? What takes a boy to the wall against which peaches are ripening? He knows they are out of reach, and that they are growing crimson for some one else; but the very thing fascinates him."

"Yes, child; but all time lost in vain longing is worse than sacrificed. Still, genius has its privileges, dear, and, when thoroughly developed, has a right to high place. Industry may, in the end, lift us both to positions more exalted than any held by the people you seem to envy; but this cannot be done in a day."

"Do hush! I don't want that sort of position which only comes with gray hairs! Who is interested in one then?"

"I shall always care for you, Constance."

There was something so tender and pathetic in his voice, that Constance looked up and half smiled.

"I know you would, dear old fellow, hateful as you are; but then how much more certain that would be if you would just let me have my own way, I'm sure I had trouble enough to get father willing, but he gave in at last that I should go to this dancing-school, and be at the receptions."

"But who will go with you? Remember, you are older than scholars usually are, and—and more remarkable."

"Father will go with me himself. Besides, William, I do know just a little about it; that dear old fellow, with the violin, once thought of getting me on the stage, when father was at his worst, you know; and he gave me lessons on the sly, so that I shan't seem so very awkward; besides, I'm small, and look younger than I am. With a short dress, and all that, it need not seem strange to anybody."

"But it seems very strange to me, Constance. What can have put this idea into your head so soon after——"

"Hush! not another word. Remember, you promised me faithfully. Father has got enough to bear without knowing that."

"But if you insist upon doing things I don't like."

"You will like them—it's all nonsense, William. You must like what I want; and, of all things in the world, I want to dance at one ball, dressed like other girls."

"Like other girls?"

"Well, like other ladies, then."

"But, Constance, I will not permit this. Why should you ask what you know to be unseemly and every way improper?"

"Because my father told me I might—and I will—there!"

"Not if I can prevent it."

"But you can't, without doing what no honorable man dare do."

"Will you, then, deliberately disobey me?"

"Will I? Yes——"

She looked up and checked herself seeing how deadly white he was; and the hot color slowly left the half-frightened, half insolent beauty of her face.

With this she fell to crying, and muttered, "That she didn't mean quite so much as that—only he was so cruel and unreasonable. It was enough to make any woman say wrong things, and do them, too; but she didn't want to be obstinate, only to persuade him just that once."

The young man looked down into those beautiful eyes full of tears, and, with all his stern resolve, was a little softened. She saw it, and pursued her advantage.

"Father will always go with me, that is settled; and you can come after me—so it will be a double protection," she pleaded.

The young man was not convinced; still he loved that beautiful, selfish creature, and yielded, but so sternly, that his very consent frightened her.

"Constance," he said, taking her two hands in his, and wringing them hard, "if I give way in this, it is with a conviction that the thing is, in itself, wrong, and will lead to evil for us both. But I will not forget how little of pleasure you have seen, and how keen is your relish for it. Go to this place; but understand me thoroughly, if through that, or any other means, you are led to forget what you are, and what I am, for a single moment, I will have no forbearance, no mercy."

"Oh William, don't say that, you frighten me," cried the girl with wild energy; but her hands were still clasped with force, and the young man went on.

"I may have done a wrong thing in marrying you, as I have done a foolish thing in keeping it secret; but as I have sowed, so must I reap. God help us both if the harvest should prove such as I fear, for no two human beings will ever have had such need of help."

Constance clasped her hands when the young man dropped them from his grasp, and began to cry; but a flush of pleasure came slowly to her face, and she looked at him, from time to time, with timid smiles, after he had returned to his work. By-and-by he felt a pair of soft white arms stealing around him, and a cheek like moist roses pressed to his.

"William," whispered a soft, rich voice, for there was real feeling in it, "William, I thank you so much. Indeed, indeed, I do. Can't you understand that I want to make myself a lady only for your sake? Father has got a little money now, and that gives me a hope to learn such things as I have never had a chance to know. Don't you see there is a piano in the room, and I am to have music lessons as well?"

The young man looked around, and observed the piano for the first time—a flimsy, second-hand affair, but still an instrument of music. There did seem to be some systematic effort to complete Constance's imperfect education. This relieved the anxiety that had been oppressing him all day, and he began to look upon the affair in a different light. If old Mr. Hudson had, in fact, come in possession of means sufficient to complete, in some degree, his daughter's education—what cause of complaint was there? The poor girl had so little pleasure in her youth, that it seemed a cruelty to deprive her of any this new idea might afford. So, with a generous feeling of sacrifice, the man yielded his will against his judgment, as many a stronger mind has done before, under the persuasions of a loved object.

Now all was sunshine with Constance. She was not generous enough to consider the sacrifice this man had made to her; nor did the pain, still manifest in his countenance, detract in the least from the pleasure of her triumph. So she beamed smiles, and lavished caresses upon him, with an abandon which rather annoyed him; and thus, unconsciously, the two began to take separate paths, and have separate thoughts, which diverged more and more each day.

So Constance had her way. She went to the dancing-school, in a private and advanced class, for the young artist insisted on that, very foolishly, in fact; for there she met something above mere children. In this class she was thrown with young gentlemen and ladies of apposition she had never mingled with before, richly dressed, full of pride, and well calculated to excite all the vanity and wild ambition of a young creature so utterly unregulated as she had been. This young girl was so sickened with poverty, that she had learned to look upon it as the only great evil of life, from which she was determined to escape on any terms.

Constance had not thought in this way so deeply until after the visit of Mr. Church, whose eloquence had impressed her wonderfully. Up to that time, the possibility of wealth, or of an equality with the people she was now associating with, had never presented itself, except as a wild dream. Indeed, she had looked upon the young artist as so far superior to her, or her belongings, that all the ambition of her nature was gratified in his commendation, and in the love which had led him to the rash step of an unsanctioned marriage.