e
died, forsaken by fortune and by friends. Such were the crown of
thorns and the crucifixion of Margaret Blennerhassett, who aspired to
wear the coronet of a duchess in the court of Aaron the Emperor.

The sons, Dominick and Harman, were reserved to fates not less
abortive and wretched. The first entered the navy as surgeon-mate, but
was discharged for drunkenness. He died in penury, an outcast. Harman
became a portrait painter in New York, but he lost his strength of
body and mind, and finally perished in an almshouse on Blackwell's
Island. His body lies buried beside that of his mother, in the family
vault of Emmet, the Irish patriot, in the "Marble Cemetery," New York.

Well was it that the Book of Fate, in which was written the story of
the House of Blennerhassett, was not opened to Evaleen, for had she
read therein, the revelation would have turned the day's pensive
melancholy into poignant grief.

Moved by a common impulse of commiseration, and by reverential regard
akin to such as one feels when standing beside the tomb of a dear
friend, the married couples and the lank bachelor bent their steps
from the lawn to the rubble-strown site of the burnt mansion-house.
The foundation stones indicated the size and location of the several
rooms formerly occupying the ground floor. Danvers and his wife sat
down upon the sandstone steps leading, in bygone days, to the wide
hall door. The three little girls were at play in the paths of the
ruined shrubbery; Evaleen's baby boy lay asleep on the lap of
Lucrece.

Arlington and Evaleen stepped across the crumbling foundation wall,
and a few short paces brought them to the middle of the square area
once covered by the floor of the reception room. A bunch of wild
violets, in bloom, grew in the charred leaf mould at their feet. The
wife plucked one of the flowers, and gave it into the hand of her
constant lover.

"Here is just where you stood when we met for the first time, love; do
you remember? And look, Chester," she pointed upward to the empty
space once enclosed in the walls of Lady Blennerhassett's bower,
"right up there is the window through which we watched you go away in
the moonlight."

"Yes, darling; there you stood, caring very little whether or not we
should ever meet again. It is exactly ten years since the day
you--didn't kiss me. Do it now."

"Hold on for about three shakes of a sheep's tail. Then fire away when
I'm gone. I want to tell you, Chester, here