BRISEE. — "THE WHITE CROSS WAS THERE, GLEAMING AMID THE GREEN GLOOM, AND ON THE SWARD BENEATH LAY THE BROKEN LILY, AS COLD AND WHITE."

"Brisée."

      MY darling had just said "Yes."

      It is a little word, and lies there, without much dignity or significance, on the paper, but sometimes it means a great deal. If the world had brought diadems to crown me, "crusted with loose gems of powers and pleasures," it could not have dowered me with the happiness conferred by that little word just then, for I had asked Lily to be my wife.

      Then she began pulling a flower to pieces in a nervous way, and stopped my rapture by saying, with a far-off look in the eyes, which were turned away from mine:

      "I cannot tell, after all, Gerald, whether I love you as I could love. Perhaps I am doing you wrong."

      And I, blind fool that I was, clasped the little hand, and cried:

      "Oh, to be wronged thus, is sweeter than any right I know."

      Just then we were interrupted by an influx of visitors. Lily and I came out of the dear gloom of the recessed window where we had been standing. The gas was lighted, and the rooms looked bright and gay. Lily's married sister, Mrs. Carleton, and her husband, Miss Worth, a sparkling brunette, and a Mr. Home, made up the party. I watched my darling with a new delight as she joined them. She was mine now, my own treasure. So I noted the faint flush on her cheek and the golden glitter of her hair, the soft folds of her blue dress, the pale opaque shine of the pearl ornaments she wore. But how fragile she was! and she never seemed to enter heartily in the conversation, but sat with that far-off look in her eyes, as if something we could not see was more real to her than any of the visible things by which she was surrounded.

      "I have heard of such things," said Mrs. Carleton, in answer to something; "of pianos executing a minuet, and tables tripping about on the light fantastic toe; but seeing is believing. I have never seen it."

      "Oh, Professor Farraday dissipated all that nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Carleton, a burly, robust man, troubled by no fantasies.

      Mr. Home took something out of his pocket.

      "Have you ever seen Planchette?" he asked.

      No. We crowded around to see her, a black imp, whose bodily substance consisted of black walnut, in the shape of a heart, with two pentagraph wheels and a lead-pencil for legs. Every one knows now what they are like, but then it was a new thing, a dark and inscrutable mystery. Mr. Home had brought the dark demon from England with him. He assured us it was a Sphinx which solved knotty questions, an oracle which gave potent advice. "A pocket-guide, philosopher, and friend," said Mr. Carleton, laughing, but regarding the three-legged as if he expected it to bite him. "For how much can one procure such an invaluable companion for life?"

      "I gave ten shillings for it in England," said Mr. Home, gravely. "Do not sneer till you see it work."

      He looked around on the skeptical company with an examining glance. I offered eagerly — too eagerly, perhaps — and was rejected. I was surprised to see Lily come forward. She looked pure and bright enough to have visible communications from angels, I was sure.

      Mr. Home approved her at once. A sheet of fair white paper was spread beneath the little familiar. Mr. Home and Lily laid their hands lightly upon the top of her — as she had a feminine name, I suppose we must designate her by the feminine pronoun. A silence, a long lull, all eyes directed to the little board.

      Then it began racing wildly about the sheet.

      "Steady, old fellow!" said Mr. Home, and the words seemed to fetch it up short, with an odd flourish.

      "Why, the guide, philosopher, and friend has been on a spree, evidently," said Mr. Carleton; "a Grecian bend."

      But it was writing — a drunken hand, Mr. Carleton said; a large, straggling scrawl, which we all crowded around to decipher.

      "What is it?" all cried at once.

      There it was, "Fool," in immense letters, like an advertisement.

      "Why, I begin to believe in it," said Mr. Carleton.

      "You see, ladies and gentleman," said Mr. Home, "that Miss Lily and myself would never be guilty of such impertinence."

      "Oh, go on," cried Mrs. Carleton.

      And Mr. Home went on.

      "Who is a fool?"

      "He is."

      "But which do you mean by he? Speak plain, my good fellow."

      "Porker."

      Now, Mr. Carleton was a pork merchant, and there was no difficulty about understanding Planchette. He rather subsided, and watched quietly.

      "Why is he a fool?"

      "Because he only believes in things he sees."

      There was silence for a moment, and the thing began to caper madly.

      "What's the matter?"

      "There's a fellow here wants to talk."

      "Well, let him."

      "A spirit."

      "Fire away," said Mr. Carleton, in language more forcible than elegant.

      I saw a strange, rapt expression on Lily's face, and I interfered.

      "Keep to the present world," I said. "Don't dip into unrealities."

      The lead-pencil leg scratched an answer for me: "Humbug — carry him out!"

      Mr. Home explained: "There are mischievous spirits, who seize an opportunity to speak now and then."

      "Who would have thought that spirits talked slang?" said Mrs. Carleton. "Do go on. Let's have that amiable spirit on the carpet, by all means. Who does it wish to speak to?"

      Mr. Home put the question. A new handwriting appeared, quite firm and distinct: "Lily!"

      "Very familiar, I think," I said.

      "Well, spirits are familiar, you know," laughed Miss Worth.

      Lily seemed waking up from a sort of dream. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes dilated.

      "What's your name?" she inquired, with a sort of eagerness that surprised me.

      "Robert Dunbar!"

      "Oh, indeed, I have not the honor of his acquaintance, but if he'd like a good article in the way of hams, I'm at his service," said Mr. Carleton.

      "Killed by a cannon-ball at Antietam!"

      A sort of chill seemed to pass over the company, as if we had seen the fatal shot, or heard the ball whiz through the air.

      "What does he wish to tell me?" said Lily, recovering first.

      The pencil dashed wildly about; then ran round in a circle; then stopped, as if, upon reflection, it had something to say. Mr. Home read it, and held it out silently to Lily.

      I leaned over her as she read. She gave a faint scream, and sank back in the chair.

      "What is it?" said Mrs. Carleton, coming round. "Oh, 'I love you — I wait for you.' Well, it's a rather uncomfortable thing to be loved by a ghost, but don't take it to heart — you've only to refuse him, you know."

      "She'll refuse him by raps, I suppose," growled Mr. Carleton. "One rap would do for any fellow living, I should think, let alone a dead one. He don't stand the ghost of a chance."

      So they laughed and jested, but I could not laugh. I saw a strange, new look on Lily's face, which I could not interpret; an eager interest — half fear, half desire. She looked at the same time so ethereal, that I wondered whether she were not, indeed, nearer to the spirit-world — whether she had not fathomed depths of being which we could never attain, and looked with spiritual vision into the unseen, till it was more real to her than any materialism could be, and Robert Dunbar more akin to her than myself.

      The next moment I laughed: "Was I jealous of a phantom — the shadow of a shade?"

      Planchette was waiting again. Robert Dunbar was evidently not satisfied with his brief declaration.

      "Come to me, my angel!" he wrote again. "I am ever with you, and shall be to the end!"

      Mr. Home read these words in a strangely serious voice, and Lily gave a quick cry, and turned pale.

      "The end!" she said, wildly. "What does that mean?"

      "Why, he's no end of spoons on Lily," said Mr. Carleton, "as they say in England."

      "It means that we will have an end of this at once," I said, as I laid my hand on the dark little demon. Lily smiled at my fervor, but she looked strangely. A pallor had succeeded the flush, and I saw that she was shivering from head to foot. I stopped further spiritual manifestations at once, and made her drink a glass of wine.

      When she was somewhat restored, she said:

      "I suppose you will all laugh at me; but just as Mr. Home said those words — those last words," as if she hesitated about repeating them — "I felt a cold, clammy hand touch mine, so I screamed, and lost consciousness for a moment, I do believe."

      Mr. Home looked unutterable things.

      "Miss Lily is more keenly alive to spiritual influences than any one I ever met," he said, in a half-satisfied way.

      "I always knew she was a nervous little puss," said Mrs. Carleton, in confidence, to me; "but I had no idea of this. Our spiritual medium shall never come here again, if I can help it. I won't have the child tried in this way, and I shall send her to bed now."

      So my darling, still shivering a little, and with a frightened, startled look in her soft brown eyes, went away, and I did not stay long after her.

      The next day I called to see whether she had recovered from the excitement of the night. She came into the room quite gayly.

      "Well, I have slept off the nonsense," she said, laughing. "What a silly little goose I was. Robert Dunbar, indeed! I know I just imagined that hand. Things did look uncanny, though — didn't they?"

      "My darling, any second-rate wizard can do more wonderful things," I replied. "Let us talk of more interesting subjects."

      So we did — at least I was interested, but Lily looked absent. Sometimes a thought came over me like a cold shower-bath that Lily did not love me. She had said she was not sure. She was cold and fair as a snow-flake.

      The next night was marked by Mrs. Fields's great party. My Lily came down in white silk, with soft clouds of tulle and malachite ornaments.

      "Just the colors for a lily — pure white and green," I said, as she came into the room.

      As she drew nearer I saw that a subtle change had passed over my darling's face — the brown eyes wore a startled expression — a deep carnation burned on cheek and lip.

      "Do you care very much for this party, Gerald?" she said.

      "No, my Lily; only because you are going."

      "But I do not wish to go — I — only I do not want — I must go — they would laugh at me — at least May would."

      May was Mrs. Carleton.

      "But I will tell you, Gerald — you are my true friend, and I cannot keep this from you — I have heard from him again!"

      "Him!" I exclaimed, in astonishment, "whom do you mean?"

      Lily seemed to grow whiter in the half-light; her white dress gave her a wraith-like appearance; she looked like an Undine ready to float away on the blue waves. Her voice sank to a whisper, and she glanced about in an apprehensive way, as if the name would call up a spirit, as she whispered, "Robert Dunbar." I was a little hard and impracticable then, I fear. I tried to laugh, but the sound died away into a moan. Was the child possessed by an evil spirit? Had the old days of witchcraft returned? Did not the dead indeed "rest from their labors," as the Bible says, or were they allowed to roam about in restless wandering, to disturb weak and timorous mortals? But I must treat it as a joke.

      "How did you hear from him, my darling? Did he send a telegram on a moonbeam, or a letter in invisible ink? I shall have to look after my rival, I see; and it's so difficult to deal with a ghost! I can't shoot him, for he's been shot already!"

      "Oh, Gerald!" said Lily, with a shudder, "don't jest about this: I tell you, it becomes an awful reality to me! Last night when I went to bed, the moon was shining like day — wasn't it odd? — I picked up an old paper to see if it was light enough to read, and my eye fell on a name ——"

      "Well!" I said, with some impatience.

      "The paper had the list of killed and wounded at Antietam; and the name was Robert Dunbar!"

      "My darling, I can see it all; the name recalled morbid fancies, and you dreamed the rest."

      "Is this a dream?" she said, holding out a sheet of paper to me.

      I took it with some surprise. As I looked at it I seemed to recognize something familiar in the handwriting. It was a sort of passionate love-epistle, full of the most ardent expressions of attachment, and longing for the hour to come when she would be summoned to join the spiritual host to which he already belonged. It was signed, "From your spirit-lover, Robert Dunbar!" It was the same handwriting as Planchette's. I met Lily's beseeching eyes as I looked up, and I could not laugh.

      "Who wrote this?" I asked, gently.

      "I did, Gerald; but I did not know what I was going to write. Some invisible force seemed to move my hand. I had gone to bed, but could not get to sleep, when I seemed to hear my name softly breathed, 'Lily, get up!' I determined to disregard such a fancy, and turned over with a firm resolve not to be the sport of imaginary voices. Then, Gerald — but you will laugh."

      "No, my darling, I will not laugh."

      "I felt again that cold, clammy hand taking hold of mine, and raising me up. I could not resist; I was forced, softly compelled to take my seat at the writing-desk, and my hand was guided to write this. The thoughts are not mine; the writing is not mine — you can see that readily. Oh, Gerald, save me from this terrible influence — this spirit-tyrant that will destroy my life!"

      I feared for the poor child's reason. I said to myself, "This must be a form of dilirium."

      "I have never heard of such a thing before," I said. "When the spirits confined themselves to rappings or answerings when spoken to, it was bad enough, but really when they are so intrusive and unreasonable as this Robert Dunbar ——"

      Lily shivered again as if the cold hand touched her.

      "Come."I said, "we will go to the party — society; and gayety will be the better for you; perhaps you will be no more troubled; I wish you were mine now. I think I could guard you from all spirits — white, black, or gray."

      So we went, and Lily seemed as gay as the rest.

      She danced and sang, but I had never seen such a hectic fire on cheek and lip, or such a radiance burning in her eyes. I could not help hearing in sad refrain the lines ringing through my brain:

"I know my face is bright," she said; "Such brightness dying suns diffuse; I bear upon my forehead shed The sign of what I lose. The ending of my day," she said.

      After this party, Lily seemed to be left for awhile without any annoyance from her spirit-lover. I hoped everything — especially when she allowed me to burn the mystic writing, and I saw the material flames lick up all those ardent protestations of a spiritual flame which had so disquieted my heart, and so disturbed my darling's peace.

      The full glory of the summer was burning itself out in the fires of autumn, and on every hill and neath the forest — leaves, gorgeous as colored banners, waved in the wind. The first frost — "as cold intense will burn you" — had kindled them to flame, but they had not yet fallen, to be trodden into the mire and clay.

      I met Lily beneath their bright foliage one day, and said:

      "They are lovelier in their death than in their life."

      She did not speak, and I examined her face closely. I read there the secret she did not care to speak.

      "Lily, it has come again."

      "Yes."

      "Did he write?"

      "Yes."

      It seemed as if speech were frozen with this question, and only one word at a time could drop from those pallid lips.

      "Let me see it, darling!" I said, with a great and tender compassion; and the poor child took another epistle, closely written, from her pocket, and handed it to me.

      It was something in the same style as the last — as fond, as full of hope for a speedy meeting — but it contained more than mere passionate declarations.

      There was the drawing of the face of a young man — a handsome, spirited face, with piercing eyes and a brave, fearless expression — the face of Robert Dunbar, as he looked in life.

      There was a sketch of a bit of beautiful landscape — a gentle slope of a hill — a glimpse of the curve of a river — a mound beneath a clump of cypress trees — a marble cross, with "Robert Dunbar" black-lettered upon it.

      I gazed in a sort of trance on these tokens of the spirit-lover.

      Lily drew nearer, gazing at them, also.

      "And I cannot draw," she murmured, as if answering any skepticism of mine in regard to them.

      The drawings were nicely executed; a finished hand had touched the shadows, and given the bold outline. But could it not be that Lily was a somnambulist? I had read wonderful accounts of the powers and acts of persons in that state. Might she not have executed the drawings, and written the impassioned declarations, under the memory of Planchette's revelation, which seemed to have taken a strange hold on her imagination? Could gifts and graces meet us in dream-land and possess us, of which our waking hours are bereft?

      "Have you shown these to your sister?" I asked.

      "To May? Oh, no — she would laugh: and do you know, Gerald, I would rather one should strike me than laugh at me? After all, why should we not be able to hold commune with spirits? many great minds have believed in it. I fear it I dread it beyond expression; I shudder at the strange influence that seems to have taken hold of my life with a deathly hand; and, yet, it has a strange fascination for me — it is 'the desire of the moth for the star, of the day for the morrow.' I suppose it is a morbid fancy, engendered by an unhealthy brain."

      I said: "That way madness lies. You want change, and pleasant thoughts to drive away the shadows. I shall talk to your sister to-night. I have a plan to propose."

      I saw May and Mr. Carleton alone that evening — I would not pain my Lily by allowing her to hear their well-meant ridicule — and I talked them into seriousness at last.

      "We must travel," I said. "I have planned a pleasant little tour, which will raise our drooping flower, I am sure."

      "But — eh!" interrupted Mr. Carleton, with a hesitation. "Ghosts may be able to travel, too. Who can compute their power of locomotion?"

      "Hush!" said Mrs. Carleton. "We must jest no more; we must act. I am ready to give up everything for dear Lily's good. This projected trip will bring her back safe and bright for the winter. You, my love, must attend to business; but Gerald will attend to us. We'll start at once. I won't" — and this was evidence of great self- denial on the part of Mrs. Carleton — "even stop for a new traveling-dress."

      So it was arranged. Lily seemed to acquiesce with a quiet gladness. The shifting panorama of landscape pleased her fancy. She noted all the tints of the dying year — the rosy flush of dawn, when the sun went furrowing all the Orient with gold — the full splendor of the autumnal sunshine — the brief pale twilights that soon came on with cold eclipse. No gold-rimmed cloud melted into the cooler tints — no crimson stain of sunset ever warmed the dull gray unmarked.

      "You are better, darling!" I said, one day. "You see, all that troubled you was a morbid fancy, and we have traveled away from it."

      We had stopped for a few days in a quiet Southern town, that looked old and moss-grown. Far from the scene of the war, it had a quiet and serene, but rather ruinous air about it that rather pleased us. We were strolling about it now for pastime, and Lily's gay laugh had more than once rung out with the old gladness, telling me that she was cured of whatever dream or hallucination had disturbed her peace. I could not help giving voice to my thoughts, but repented the next moment, when I saw her grave look.

      "Oh, Gerald, I wish I could forget; something within tells me that it will come again — that strange compelling power. Gerald, if that voice called me to follow 'through the dark or dearth, through fire or frost,' I must go. Do you know the lines in Sir Galahad:

''Till stricken by an angel's hand, This mortal armor that I wear; This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touched and turned to finest air.'

That describes my sensations; this clog of the body seems to drop away, and I believe I do experience a strange, ecstatic, spiritual joy — a buoyant, exultant feeling while it lasts; but, like Icarus, my waxen wings melt in the sun, and I sink back to earth and meaner joys again. Oh, Gerald, forgive me!"

      She had been looking away while she talked, over the brown upland to a river that gleamed in the distance, and seemed to forget who was listening to her strange words. Suddenly recalled, she said, with a forced smile:

      "Let us walk to that river, and see if there are any white sails on it."

      I said no more on the dangerous topic. We settled, instead, that we would go to Florida for a month, and talked over various arrangements, and lamented that we had not seen a plantation of oranges in full bearing, with the fragrant golden spheres glancing in the sunshine.

      We came nearer the river. We turned the slope of a hill. I felt a convulsive hand clutch my arm. I heard a gasping, choking voice utter:

      "Oh, Gerald, look there!"

      I saw the gentle slope of the hill — a gleam of the river curving about it — a marble cross — a mound beneath a clump of cypress trees!

      "He is there, Gerald! You see, I cannot escape my fate. I must go to him; he is waiting for me. You see, a spirit has more power than any earthly lover. We thought we were traveling away from him, and he has brought me here!"

      I put my arm about the shuddering girl, and drew her hastily away. I felt her presentiments so strongly, that I would not allow her to go forward and read the name upon the marble cross. I decided to leave the spot early in the morning, and then my darling would be safe.

      Poor white lily! I carried her, half fainting, into the house, like a flower that had been beaten by an adverse storm — poor broken lily!

      I could not sleep that night. Sometimes I felt drawn out into the white moonlight to the spot where I knew the marble cross glimmered out, ghost-like, amid the dark cypresses. Over and over again I read the name in letters of gloom — in letters of fire, that branded themselves on my brain — "Robert Dunbar."

      I had told Mrs. Carleton all, and we were up early, to prepare for the journey. We would not disturb Lily till all was ready. Then, Mrs. Carleton went up.

      She came down again with a ghastly face.

      "She is gone!"

      "Gone!" I echoed, stunned — almost paralyzed by the word.

      "Yes; the room is empty, but she may be near. Do not be frightened yet. It's such a bright morning; it has tempted her out."

      Ah, no! her doom seemed written before my eyes; the solid earth seemed taken from beneath my feet. I was swept on the billows of a resistless sea — on through field and fen, I know not how, to the fearful spot. Sparkling in the morning sun shone the river as it went rejoicing on its, way — dewdrops glittered every where — birds filled the air with a rippling tide of music. The white cross was there, gleaming amid the green gloom, and on the sward beneath lay the broken lily, as cold and white.

      Dead!

"The light upon her yellow hair, and not within her eyes; The light still there upon her hair, and death within her eyes."

So lovely still — my blighted flower! — that her dead loveliness seemed fairer than any blooming beauty, so saintly and so pure, though her clothes were drenched by the night-dews, and the clay clung to her tender feet. How had she found the place again? How had the midnight cry led her out?

      "My God!" cried Mrs. Carleton, pressing forward to the place, "the name is 'Robert Dunbar!'"