berry,
silenced for once, sank into the chair he had vacated. Before he
disappeared within the house, he paused.

"If Mr. Vanrevel has met my daughter," he said, in a thick voice,
stretching out both hands in a strange, menacing gesture toward the town
that lay darkling in the growing dusk, "if he has addressed one word
to her, or so much as allowed his eyes to rest on her overlong, let him
take care of himself!"

"Oh, Robert, Robert," Mrs. Tanberry cried, in a frightened whisper to
herself, "all the fun and brightness went out of the world when you came
home!"

For, in truth, the gayety and light-heartedness which, during the great
lady's too brief reign, had seemed a vital adjunct of the house to make
the place resound with music and laughter, were now departed. No more
did Mrs. Tanberry extemporize Dan Tuckers, mazourkas, or quadrilles
in the ball-room, nor Blind-Man's Buff in the library; no more did
serenaders nightly seek the garden with instrumental plunkings and vocal
gifts of harmony. Even the green bronze boy of the fountain seemed to
share the timidity of the other youths of the town where Mr. Carewe was
concerned, for the goblet he held aloft no longer sent a lively stream
leaping into the sunshine in translucent gambols, but dribbled and
dripped upon him like a morbid autumn rain. The depression of the place
was like a drape of mourning purple; but not that house alone lay glum,
and there were other reasons than the return of Robert Carewe why Rouen
had lost the joy and mirth that belonged to it. Nay, the merry town
had changed beyond all credence; it was hushed like a sick-room, and
dolefully murmurous with forebodings of farewell and sorrow.

For all the very flower of Rouen's youth had promised to follow Tom
Vanrevel on the long and arduous journey to Mexico, to march burning
miles under the tropical sun, to face strange fevers and the guns of
Santa Anna.

Few were the houses of the more pretentious sort that did not mourn, in
prospect, the going of son, or brother, or close friend; mothers already
wept not in secret, fathers talked with husky bravado; and everyone was
very kind to those who were to go, speaking to them gently and bringing
them little foolish presents. Nor could the hearts of girls now
longer mask as blocks of ice to the prospective conquistadores;
Eugene Madrillon's young brother, Jean, after a two years'
Beatrice-and-Benedict wooing of Trixie Chenoweth (that notable spitfire)
an