I had been in New York a month. One day I was out with my future
sister, on a shopping raid; with our hands full of little paper
parcels, we stopped to look into Goupil's window. There was always a
rim of crowd there, so I paid no attention to the jostles we received.
We were looking at an engraving of Ary Scheffer's Francoise de Rimini.
"Not the worst hell," muttered a voice behind me, which I knew. I
started, and pulled Leonora's arm; she turned round, and the fringe of
her cloak-sleeve caught a button on the overcoat of one of the
gentlemen standing together. It was Redmond; the other was his
"ancient," Harry Lothrop. Leonora was arrested; I stood still, of
course. Redmond had not seen my face, for I turned it from him; and his
head was bent down to the task of disengaging his button.
"'Each only as God wills
Can work; God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first,'"
I thought, and turned my head. He instinctively took off his hat, and
then planted it back on his head firmly, and looked over to Harry
Lothrop, to whom I gave my hand. He knew me before I saw him, I am
convinced; but his dramatic sense kept him silent,--perhaps a deeper
feeling. There was an expression of pain in his face, which impelled me
to take his arm.
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