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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11392-0.txt b/11392-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..642dc78 --- /dev/null +++ b/11392-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9548 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11392 *** + +[Illustration: "My uncle followed his words with a brightening face, +and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It +is a great gift! a great gift!'" + +The Victims of Dreams. Page 34.] + + + + +NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES. + +By + +John Hay, Clara F. Guernsey, Margaret Hosmer, Harriet Prescott +Spofford, Lucy Hamilton Hooper, Etc. + +Illustrated. + + +1872. + + + + +Contents. + + + +Not Pretty, but Precious, _Margret Field_. +The Victims of Dreams, _Margaret Hosmer_. +The Cold Hand, _Clara F. Guernsey_. +The Blood Seedling, _John Hay_. +The Marquis, _Chauncey Hickox_. +Under False Colors, _Lucy Hamilton Hooper_. +The Hungry Heart, _J.W. De Forrest_. +"How Mother Did It," _J.R. Hadermann_. +The Red Fox, _Clara F. Guernsey_. +Louie, _Harriet Prescott Spofford_. +Old Sadler'S Resurrection, _R.D. Minor_. + + + + +Not Pretty, But Precious. + + + +_Mille modi veneris!_ + + +Part I. + + +Mr. Norval: It is now four weeks since your accident. I have made inquiry +of your physician whether news or business communications, however +important, brought to your attention, would be detrimental to you, cause +an accession of feverish symptoms or otherwise harm you. He assures me, On +the contrary, he is sure you have not been for years so free from disease +of any sort, with the sole exception of the broken bones, as now. This +being so, I venture to approach you upon a subject which I doubt not you +are quite as willing to have definitely arranged, and at once, as myself. +I can say what I mean, and as I mean it, so much better on paper than in +conversation--as I have so little self-possession, and am so readily put +out in the matter of argument--that I have determined to write to you, +thinking thus to be better able to make you understand and appreciate my +reasons and motives, since you can read them when and how you choose. + +I have been your wife three weeks. The horrible strangeness of these words +is quite beyond me to compass; nevertheless, realize it or not, it is a +fact. I am your wife--you, my husband. Why I am your wife I wish simply to +rehearse here. Not that we do not both know why, but that we may know it +in the same way. You, a handsome, cultivated man, whose dictum is +considered law in the world of fashion in which you move and reign, with +an assured social position, a handsome fortune, and a popularity that +would have obtained for you the hand of any beautiful or wealthy woman +whom you sought, have deliberately chosen to make me, a poor, plain, +brown-faced little school-teacher, your wife. Not because you wanted _me_, +not because you thought or cared about _me_, one way or the other, but +simply because, in a time of urgent necessity, I was literally the only +available woman near you. It chanced, from many points of view and by a +chain of circumstances, that I was particularly available. So you married +me. The reasons for such a sacrifice of yourself were--you had behaved +badly, very badly, to a lady, compromising her name and causing a +separation between herself and her husband. Within a few months, her +husband having died, both herself and her father had determined to force +you to make her reparation by marriage. Going to work very warily, they +had taken an opportunity, after a very luxuriant and fast opera-supper, +when you were excited by your surroundings and flushed by the wine you had +been drinking, your head very light, your judgment very heavy, to draw +from you a promise of marriage at the expiration of the year of mourning +for her husband. As soon as you became aware of what you had done, you +ignominiously fled, and after a Western tour were about to sail for Europe +when this unfortunate accident overtook you. Your narrow escape from +death, upon having been thrown from the carriage of a distinguished +gentleman while driving with him behind a pair of celebrated racers, gave +such publicity to your adventure that your _amorata_ was at once aware of +your whereabouts. The fear of this had taken possession of you as soon as +you were able to think of anything, and the dread that she would follow +and marry you while you lay helpless was made a certainty by this telegram +from an intimate friend in New York, received the sixth day of your +illness: + +"It's all up with you, old fellow. The R. has heard you're fast with a +broken leg, and she starts on Monday for Boston. Have the clergy ready, +for it's marriage." + +Then in your bitter need you remembered having talked with me in this +hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of +your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing +me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying +helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you recalled +the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing you, the +delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such as finding +a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although some elegant +and fashionable girls were waiting with ill-suppressed eagerness for your +escort. Remembering all this, knowing as you did that I was poor, wearing +out my life in teaching, in your sore need you suddenly thought, "I wonder +if the girl wouldn't marry me? She'd make a good nurse, could look after +my traps, and, though she is as ugly as sin and a nobody, wouldn't be the +deuced disgrace to a fellow this Rollins woman will be. At all events, +she'll save me from that fate if she takes up with my offer. It's a choice +of evils, and this would be the least; and I'll try it." This, in plain, +unadorned speech, was what you thought. Then you sent for me, began very +pathetically to talk of your desolate state, your family all dead, and so +on; that it had been sadly brought home to you how alone you were while +lying sick, hour after hour, in this great hotel, with only your valet to +attend to you and take an interest in your well-being; and that, day after +day, as you lay thinking of your fate, my face had come before you, +recalling tender memories of your lost and dearly-loved sister. Then you +had remembered that as girl and boy we had been lovers, and really cared +very much for each other. As you got this far toward your _grande +dénouement_, something in my face, I suppose, made you realize that if you +were to compass your ends with me it must be by honesty only. Then you +blurted it all out--in, as I could not help thinking as I listened, as +school-boyish and abashed a way as if you had--well, as if you had not +been a consummate man of the world, rather noted for your _aplomb_. + +It came across me (as I heard you in dumb amazement, with crimson face and +trembling frame) that even the best polish of years' laying on will crack +somewhere under very hard pressure. Well, you were honest and told me all, +never pretending, as you had at first essayed to do, that it was out of +any lingering regard for myself as your sister's friend that you sought me +now, but simply on account of my availability. Had there been some bright +young beauty with wealth and station at hand, no thought of me would ever +have entered your mind: all this I understood at once from your half +confessions--all this, I was glad to find, you had at least enough honor +to let me know, although you risked what to you in your actual situation +was very perilous--a refusal. + +I asked until the next day to consider the matter--whether it would be +better to take service with you, exchange for my boarding, clothing and +incidental expenses the daily care of your comfort and pleasure, or earn +my bread in the old wearing way. And the second day after that we were +married. That is all. I believe that to be a simple statement of the facts +in your case: I am right, am I not? + +The day after our marriage your lady-love and her paternal ancestor came. +At my own suggestion and with your eager consent I received them, and the +result you know. + +Now for my own reasons for this strange marriage. You are aware that my +father was a professor of mathematics in various schools and colleges of +the city where he lived, teaching in the school, among others, in which +your sister and myself were pupils. I believe you know that when a young +man he had eloped with and married one of his scholars, the daughter of a +rich and proud family, who discarded her. For years she was a stranger to +them, until her husband had won a name and handsome fortune for himself: +then she was taken into favor again, her husband's distinction in the +scientific world being supposed to add lustre to the family name. Alas for +us! it was a favor that has cost us dear. I was their only child. When my +sweet, pretty mother lay dying she left to me, her sixteen-year-old child, +my dreamy, unworldly father as a legacy. "Take care of him: he knows no +guile, and your uncles will wrong him if they can," she said. And they +did, or one of them. Ere the bitter agony of my mother's death had enabled +him to return to his duties, it was discovered that one of her brothers +had forged his name and literally stripped him of everything. + +Of course, then he went to work again to earn our daily bread--not with +his old love or ability, but in an inert, feeble way that was pitiful to +see. I think from the day my mother was buried he was dying. Some people, +you know, die hard--some part with life lightly, as if it was a faded robe +they shook off to don a brighter one. Others--my father was one, and I am +like him--see one by one their trusts, their hopes, their loves die: then +with a deathly throe sunder themselves from life. But pardon my +digression. + +When I was twenty my father died. Since then, spite of expressions of +disapproval and offers of support from my mother's family, I have +maintained myself by teaching in the schools where my father had been +known, preferring to do without assistance so long as I had health. One of +my uncles desired to take me into his family, and thus wipe out the wrong +done my father by his brother, and my aunts proffered me an income out of +their private means. I mention this to do them every justice, but I think +even a man of fashion like yourself will acknowledge the impossibility of +my accepting, while I could avoid it, a life of dependence. I could not +accept favors from those who had treated my dear parents unkindly; so I +have e'en gone my own way for these last ten years, and led a not unhappy +life, if a busy and rather wearing one. + +My gay cousins, all of whom you know well--the Wilber girls, Leta and +Jennie, pretty little Lou Barton, and another set of Wilbers whom I think +you do not know so well, who are married now--my gay cousins, then, most +of them beauties, all of them rich and fashionable, are somewhat ashamed +of me, and have let me feel it in every petty way that we women know so +well how to find. I am ugly and poor, my earning my own living is a spot +upon their gentility, and I have unfortunately, and quite against my will, +more than once given them cause for serious annoyance and apprehension. +Then, one of our uncles, who is a bachelor and very rich, has insisted +that I am never to be slighted--always to be invited to everything in the +shape of a party given by the family. If it lay with me, of course I would +never accept these invitations, but I have had it explained to me over and +over again that my not doing so is visited upon the party-givers in one +way or another by our masterful uncle Rufus. So, occasionally, very much +against my inclination, I leave my little third-story room, with its cozy +fire and humble adornments, and sit in the corner of their great rooms, a +"looker-on in Vienna" in every sense. + +I have many kind friends: it would be strange if in all these years I had +not found some who did not care for outward advantages. I have dreamed my +sweet love-dream, and it is over, and the roses have grown above my buried +hopes. + +Since then I have let one idea fill my life to the exclusion of everything +else, putting away from me all desires and thoughts of other needs; and +that too has left me. I call it an "idea" for lack of a better name. I had +put away all thought of marriage with my bright youth, but took into my +heart instead what I deemed would serve as well--a friendship for another +woman. For ten years we knew no separate life--I thought no separate +hopes. She had loved, been on the eve of marriage, her lover had died: +that was her heart's history, and henceforth the idea of love had fallen +out of both our lives--not the idea only, but the possibility of love. I +thought so--she _said_ so. + +I trusted her and loved her with a perfect love. I wound my hopes about +her: I gave up all my life to her as if she had been my lover. I never +cared to form other friendships. I deprived myself of all possibilities of +making other ties of any sort, and with the first opportunity she whistled +me down the wind, and cared no more for me than if she had never professed +to love me. She had been my one bright thing--she was sweet and +winsome--the one golden gleam in my sombre life. My future was bound up in +her so completely that when she severed the fine, close cords (brittle, +yet so strong) which had bound us together for years, she cut into my +heart--nay more, wrested from me all my sweet trusts and faiths. If she is +false, who else in all God's earth is true? I pity myself very much. You, +of course, will not see why her marrying should make a difference if we +loved, and will call me selfish. Not so, not so! She might have married as +soon as it pleased her, and I should have been glad. It would have made a +difference, of course: she must in some sort have been parted from me, but +that I could have borne if it made her happy. But from her acceptance of +her lover--about whom we will say nothing, save that he was the sort of +man she had always held in abhorrence--she has coolly ignored my right to +any part or lot in her fate. She had told me (or I, poor fool! thought so) +every hope and fear of her life: now she told me what she chose, and was +astonished that I expected more--hurt that I seemed changed and did not +find my friendship flourish on crumbs after being nourished for years from +full loaves--was quite unhappy that I cared so little for the minor +concerns of her life, when, good lack! I did not know what I might or +might not ask and not be snubbed; for once she told me there were things +due to the man one is going to marry (at that time she had not got to the +extent of saying whom one loves) that could not be spoken of to me. Of +course she had only to mention the fact to me to make it perfectly plain, +and henceforth he and his doings, his belongings and himself, all of them +of the tamest sort at best, were a sealed book to me. And again she +quenched a feeble effort of mine to get back to my old place, by telling +me such topics she could discuss only with her sister, "her shadow sister" +she prettily called her. So I am desolate! + +Knowing this, you may understand in some degree what could induce a little +waif like me to accept such an offer as yours. I think no one in all God's +earth is more desolate than I. In my heart I bear always that unforgotten +love in my life. I have only a barren waste to show. It is as if I had +started from a lovely, radiant garden in the fair morning of my life, in +which I had left the bright, sweet rose of my love, and walking along a +narrow, dark path, had clasped hands with, and drawn my light and warmth +from, a figure walking close beside me; and though from all sides as I +walked forms had come to me, offering me fair fruits and sweet flowers, I +declined them all without ever a word of thanks, being so content with my +one companion. And suddenly, when all my youth, all my prospects of other +things, had gone, this idealized one had withdrawn its hand-clasp, and +turning on me a face I did not know, faded into darkness, leaving me +nothing but my broken hopes, a wreath of withered flowers, + + "Tangled down in chains about my feet." + +You do not of course realize how the old French _émigré_ blood in my +veins, inherited from my father, makes this a very vital matter to me. We +cling to our hopes very tenaciously while they abide--then we are +distraught. We loved, my father and I, very few, but those with a clinging +oneness that is wellnigh pain: he loved my mother and myself--that was +all. Likewise I had my two: they having failed me, my life is a blank. I +have heard of empty-hearted people: I know now what the phrase means. I am +empty-hearted: I have not one hope, one particle of faith, one real, +honest desire, except to "drie my weir," as the Scotch say, doing my duty +as best I may, as it comes to me. But I have a woman's hatred of pity: my +cousins have long accorded me a contemptuous pity for being an old maid. I +laughed their pity to scorn while I had Esther Hooper. What more did I +need? We could enact over again the sweet old life of the Ladies of +Llangollen. + +We had planned our lives a thousand times. Poor we both were, yet we would +put something away every year for our old age, and work cheerily on until +we could work no more, then creep to our nest like a couple of old +kittens, and cuddle down by our warm, pleasant fire--together, and +therefore content. Well, you see it was not to be: she had grown +affrighted, I suppose, at the thought of all that weary life with only me, +and has married a man who outrages all her delicate instincts and +traditions of an accordant husband. But why speak of him? He supports her, +and she has escaped the obloquy of old-maidism. She has married a +maintenance. She says she loves him, so of course she does. + +For myself, my health, which has always been very rugged, has failed me +utterly this last year; but as my bread depends upon my ability to endure +daily and constant fatigue, I have forced myself to endeavor to get up the +amount of strength required for my winter's work by the present +expedition, planned for me by a friend. Bah! what do I talk of friendship +for? An old lady who was once a teacher in the school from which my father +had married my mother, and who, I think, had cared with more than +friendship for him, has in these last few years fallen heir to a small +property--not a very great deal, but enough to enable her to live in +comfort, and exercise her kindly heart in deeds of charity occasionally. +She has chosen for years to occupy rooms beneath my own, and has always +been a sort of mother to me. Most of the pretty things that have fallen +into my life, and most of its pleasures, have come to me through her. She +has many troublesome faults, as we all have, but she is old, and I have +always had Esther to talk them over and laugh them off with, so have borne +them easily. This year, because she saw I was dying, she took me with her +to the mountains of Vermont, and I have got a new lease of life, and new +capacities for suffering as well. + +On our way back she was suddenly attacked with the illness which detained +us at this Boston hotel. Here your accident laid you up, and the rest came +as I have told. + +You have married me to rid yourself of a union with a woman you detest, +being utterly indifferent to me. I have married you because I cannot bring +myself to go back to that old teaching-life, now so cold and gray. I think +I can earn my board in taking care of your belongings, and the having +saved you from a dreadful fate must compensate to you for the little of my +presence you will for the future be compelled to endure. It need not be +much or long continued if we start with a fair comprehension of each +other. + +This brings me to the reason of all this long history. I have always +looked upon marriage without love as nothing more or less than legalized +vice. I think you, who are so intrinsically a man of the world, will have +imbibed the (so-called) sensible and popular views upon such subjects, and +will at once coincide with me that in such a union as ours--a literal +_mariage de convenance_ on both sides--my ideas are not unwise. Since upon +you will henceforth depend my maintenance (as I of course understand that +a wife who worked for her own support would be a disgrace to you: indeed, +I doubt whether the having married a girl who has already done so is not a +cause of shame), I ask that now, when Mrs. Keller is about to leave me, +and my arrangements as your wife must be finally made--when, in fact, her +giving up her room necessitates my coming to yours, her leaving compelling +me either to go with her, or come, as of course I must, to you--we may +have a definite understanding as to our future relations. + +You have been kind enough to approve of the little I have been able to do +for you since our marriage--to say to Mrs. Keller you did not know what it +was to be taken care of in sickness; and to myself you have more than once +laughingly spoken of a wife as a good institution, adding, that had you +known how comfortable it was to have some one about you to think of and +care for you, you would have invested in the article before; and so on. I +am glad of this: I am pleased that my society has not proved repugnant to +you; for since it has been no annoyance in its first trial, I think we can +manage that it shall not be so in the future. I would ask, as an especial +piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors +at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister. +It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the +Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring +most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your +service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is +due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or +pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have no +expectation of winning your love: it has been an understood thing from the +first--that is something neither expects from the other--therefore any +show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping +with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain +that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during +these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to +pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this +cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our private +relations? + +For the rest, claiming nothing from you, giving you nothing but the +services for which you render me a full equivalent, I grant you, as far as +I have a right to do so, the largest liberty of action. We are only +jealous of those we love: therefore all women will be as free to you as +they have hitherto been or their will accords, save that you have debarred +yourself for a time from offering any one of them marriage. I hope to be +so little trouble to you, and so serviceable to you in many ways, that you +shall realize to the full that if an unloving union could be so much more +comfortable than a bachelor's life, a life passed with a loving and +beloved wife would be bliss indeed, and so when my life has ended you will +not be sorry that I stopped in your path a few years. For I shall not +trouble you very long. I am a poor little perfumeless flower, having no +sweetness or beauty with which to charm the eye or senses, only fit to +grow among the kitchen herbs--rue and thyme, and such old-fashioned +things. But I need a great deal of sunshine, spite of my plainness, to +keep life in me. And now that all the heat and passion of love, all the +sunny hopes and glow of friendship, have left me, I shall just fade and +fade until some day you will find the poor little weed has dropped to +earth for ever. + +I am but two years younger than yourself, and women, especially women with +a great sorrow, age cruelly fast. I look and feel older than I am--you +wear your years like a crown, and appear younger than you are. I have made +my little venture on life's ocean--made and failed: my barque, freighted +with a few cherished hopes, has been wrecked, and though I have reached a +rock to which I can cling for a time, yet I am terribly hurt, the waves +have buffeted me cruelly, and in a little while I shall let go my hold and +float out--out into the ocean of eternity. Ah! there is comfort after all: +life _is_ hard, but afterward there is peace and rest! + +I am nearly through this long tirade. Pardon its length: it is my first, +and shall be my last, heart-outpouring to you; and if it make you +comprehend me, I shall not have written or you have read in vain. + +Your income will not support the establishment your position in society +would require if we went to housekeeping; besides, you would feel as if +you must then be more stationary, more in your own home, than is at +present your custom, therefore in a degree in bondage. And a hotel-life is +very expensive and very cheerless. You have kindly said you intended +dividing your income with me, giving me half. At first I was indignant at +the idea, but now I think I see that it will be in every way the best. One +of my cousins has been occupying a very elegantly-appointed suite of rooms +on Twenty-fourth street. Harry writes me he is going very suddenly to +Europe. His rooms will of course be vacant: he talks of renting them +furnished. I have thought, if you would not object to it, we might take +them off his hands. I have calculated that the part of your means you +intend for me will meet all our expenses of every sort if you permit me to +have the arranging, of our daily affairs. I will pay the rent and meet all +the expenses of our living out of this sum, leaving you your reserved +funds to meet your ordinary requirements and pleasures. By this +arrangement, you see, I shall get my living free, and I am sure shall have +a surplus over and above our expenses, as I am a good manager and used to +making the most of everything. + +There is one sacrifice which, do we enter into this arrangement, I must +ask of you--that when we return to New York you give up your valet. For +more than one reason: I cannot have a spy upon the mode of life we are to +lead. I am foolishly sensitive of the position of a neglected wife, and I +feel assured your gentlemanly instincts will prevent your ever offering +any observable slight to the woman who bears your name. Besides, in the +apartments I propose our taking there will be no room for a man-servant, +and one of the maids connected with the house will be all the assistant I +shall require. When you are away on your frequent excursions to all parts +of the world it will be very easy to provide yourself a servant. Will you +try for a few weeks how well I can supply, or have the place supplied, of +this man, whom you intend in any case to dismiss? This is all. Next week, +the doctor thinks, you may be moved to a lounge, and perhaps the week +after be able to travel, or at farthest the week following. + +I acknowledge to the womanish feeling of being exultant at the idea of the +envy I shall awaken in the breasts of your adoring circle of lady +friends--my lady cousins among them--in having, spite of my +unattractiveness, secured the husband they have long striven by every wile +to win. Ah! they little know, and I trust never may, why I, without +seeking, have ensnared their _rara avis_ to be my legal bondsman. Rather a +contradiction in terms! + +The pretty fiction of our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old +love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet +has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my +girlish dreams. So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have +written to my uncles and stated verbally to Mrs. Keller, stand; also, that +the undue haste was caused by your pressing need of me during your +accident. I think, indeed, from my cousin Harry's letter yesterday, and +one from Shelton last week, they have taken the idea that we have been +spending the summer together, and that you were following me home when you +were stayed in your mad career by a broken leg. + +I am done; are you not thankful? There have been some things in this +letter very hard to say, which, if I were braver or knew you better, I +should have liked to be more outspoken about. But enough has, I think, +been said to make you appreciate my earnest desires and my reasons for +them. I am most truly, + +PERCY. + +And he, prone upon his back this warm September day, read this long +epistle from his new wife, then laid it down and closing his eyes murmured +softly, "What a strange little puss it is!" Lying in the dim light her +hand had created for him, he thought of his own troubles and hers, just as +she had stated them. The blood would flush up to his brow as her cool +ignoring of his surpassing attractions, to which all other women accorded +their full meed of praise, rose up before him. He of whom it had been said +if he beckoned with his finger women left their duties, gave up their very +life to do his pleasure!--he to have the girl he had honored by making his +wife, a little brown woman, plain and almost _passé_ (he was man enough +not to care for her poverty), show she cared no more for his love than he +did for hers I--was as indifferent to him as he to her! Indifference from +a woman was a new experience to him, and annoyed him. + +Yet her quaint, frank letter touched him. What did she mean by dying soon +and letting him be free again? Poor little midge! was she dying of a +broken heart because a treacherous woman had fooled her out of a part of +her life? Poor little robin! she was his wife now, and he could heal the +worst heartache in any woman's breast. He had tried that thing before, and +succeeded, even if he broke the heart afterward. Die, indeed! Not if he +knew it: even Death should not have a little woman he meant to be good to. + +And as he remembered all her faithfulness to him during these weary weeks +of pain, he thought, "By Jove! beauty's not all, for no woman, had her +face been like that of Phryne of Thebes, or her charms as entrancing as +the bewitching Dudu's, could have been more lovely in her kindness to me. +How brave and strong she has been! What a faithful little soul it is! +Always ready, day and night, to do just what I want done and in the way I +want it, never knocking things about or fidgeting round, but just +ready-handed, neat and bright. God knows, a handsome woman wouldn't have +risked the spoiling her beauty by all these weary, sleepless nights, +especially for a man she did not love." And then to think she was actually +willing to work and slave for him, and support him out of her share of the +booty, and let him fool away his own on other women! "Wonder what the +little dame means to buy her own fine things with, for even robins must +get clothing? I'll ask her that. Bless the little woman's soul! she makes +me think of her so much that I believe I'm half in love with her. Um!" and +he stopped: "I'm getting sentimental and poetic, I swear! But if it were +in me to love anything that was not beautiful, I believe I could love this +little girl, who has come into my life so strangely. She owns up to having +loved, and is done with all the stale farce. Some fools," and he felt very +indignant, "slighted her because she had no beauty, though, upon my soul, +now I think of it, I'm not so certain about that. There's a something in +her face takes a man's breath--something that one would rather die than +lose if he once loved it, and which once loved would be better than any +beauty. What's that Spenser says?-- + + 'A sweet, attractive kind of grace,... + The lineaments of gospel books,' + +That's just it: it's a look that makes one think about one's prayers, if +one only knew them. But whether the man slighted her or not, he missed +it--confound him!--in losing such a love. I'll make her tell me his name. +And as for being my sister, that's all nonsense, of course, as she's my +wife." Then more thoughtfully, "Well, maybe not: a household where there +is no love is cruel--I knew that in my early home--and children are a +beastly trouble, and as expensive as a man's wines. She's a brick, this +wife of mine, and as sensible as steel. I'll put myself in her hands for +better or for worse, I vow I will! + +"The jolly way she manged that Rollins affair was proof poz of her +ability. Her cool assumption of wifely dignity--her actually bringing them +up to see me without announcing their coming to me, and never letting them +have one bout at me, was beyond anything! It's like a dip in the sea to +recall it all. Her breezy voice coming in before them was all the warning +I had: 'Oh certainly, you can come up and look at him, but not talk to +him: he's nervous and feverish, and I cannot permit even such old friends +as you doubtless are to say anything to him. You know, of course, the +doctor thought he needed constant attention, and caused us to hurry our +marriage in a most Gretna-Green style; but I could not nurse him unless we +were married. And it did not matter so much, after all, since we had +loved'--and she hesitated with the prettiest affectation of having said +something she ought not--'we had cared for each other since we were quite +children. Ross's sister Bell was my school-friend.' Then she brought them +straight to the bed, and stooping down gave me the only kiss with which +she has honored me--her show kiss, I call it--saying, 'My darling' (how +soft she said it, too, with a little trilling cadence upon the sweet old +word!)--'My darling, you are not to speak, or even look, save this once: +now I must cover up my dearie's eyes;' and she laid her cool hand over my +eyes and held it there while they stayed. 'These are some kind New York +friends, Mr. Rollins and his good wife'--and a faint pressure on my face +emphasized the joke--'who are come to see you. I cannot understand all +they mean, except that you have been behaving badly, making these good +people's daughter believe you meant to marry her, when of course you were +only going to marry your little, ugly Percy. Oh, my bad boy, what shall I +ever do with you? Oh the hearts you have broken while you have been +waiting for me! Ah! dear, bad boy!'--and, as if overcome with tenderness, +she laid her cheek down on mine. I clasped my arms about her--the first +and last time I've had a chance, by George!--but she sprang away with a +laugh: 'No, you shall not be petted for being bad. Why, Ross, these dear +people came to take you and marry you to their beautiful daughter, for I +know she's a beauty, since her mother is still so handsome.' + +"Oh, it was gorgeous, to see the Rollins standing there in all her +Cleopatra-like splendor, utterly upset and put down by my little brown +berry! And the impossibility of correcting such a mistake without putting +herself in an absurd position actually stopped the Rollins speech, +and--Lord help me!--I thought that mouth could only be closed by bon-bons +and a man's kisses--any man's, _par exemple_. And her poor old catspaw of +a _pater_ stood helpless before my little hurricane--a very reed shaken by +the wind. Then my sea-breeze spoke again: 'But the doctor will shed vials +of wrath upon me for letting you see strangers.' (It must have cut the +Rollins sore to be called a stranger to me!) 'But these kind friends could +not realize your being ill, so I was fain to let them see my Apollo in his +box; but we will go now if you please;' and she positively ushered them +out in wordless dismay, bidding them good-bye at once, and seeing them no +more. I thought she would have rushed back to laugh the scene over with +me, but that shows how little I know her. When, in the course of an hour, +she did come, it was with such an utter ignoring of having done a smart +thing, waving aside my admiration of her _finesse_, that I was taken +aback. She said sadly, 'I am unused to falsehood, and _finesse_ of any +sort is distasteful to me. I quenched this woman this time, but, in spite +of her bad, hard face, I pity her very much. You, and such men as you, +have, I suppose, made her what she is, God help her!' So by this good +little girl's management I am rid of my troubles. I declare I'll do just +what she wishes, and be thankful my follies have worked me no more harm." + +Then he began to wish she'd come in, and to feel aggrieved and neglected +because she did not come--to feel an eager desire to see her and talk the +matter of the letter over with her. But he had read it through again twice +ere she appeared, and then, to his dismay, equipped for a journey, and +saying, in the most matter-of-fact, nonchalant manner possible, "Ross, +Mrs. Keller has come to say good-bye. I am going with her to Newport, +where she makes the only perilous part of the trip--the, to her, dreadful +change from cars to boat. So I shall be away all night, of course." + +Then Mrs. Keller came forward with--"I hope you don't mind my taking her +off, Mr. Norval?" + +"But I do mind it deucedly, madam," he said. "Why, Percy, I don't like +your traveling alone this way at all. Why can't James go with Mrs. +Keller?" + +"Not for the world, Ross, thank you. I'm used to taking care of myself, +and of Mrs. Keller too, for that matter. I'm not much of a traveler, +because I have not had much of a chance--none, indeed, except what she's +given me--but somehow I always manage to come out right. You are very kind +to offer to spare James, but he's your necessity. I have told him about +the medicines, and how to loosen the bandages at night. So I expect to +find you better than usual when I get back. He knows your ways so much +better than I, and I sha'n't be here to interfere;" and she went about +arranging little matters as she spoke, and not looking at him. + +But Mrs. Keller saw the look of annoyance upon his face, and said, "But, +Percy, Mr. Norval dislikes your going, and you're bound to stay." + +"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Keller! Of course he don't care particularly, as I am +going to be away but one night, and he's got to spend all my life with +me;" and her face saddened, he thought. "I'm sure to come back to-morrow: +my cousin Shelton says, 'Percy always manages to be at hand when she's +wanted.' Am I to write to Harry that we will take the rooms? I must do it +at once, or he may let some one have them;" and she came and stood beside +him. + +He answered, sullenly, "Do just as you like about it: it's no concern of +mine." + +"Of course I shall do nothing of the kind. If you had liked the idea, been +very much pleased with it, it would have been different. I only threw out +the suggestion as a mere suggestion. But we will think of it no more." All +this in her quick, bright way, without a shade of annoyance visible, and +she began talking of something else as if the matter was settled: "The +hotel-keeper will put a sofa-bed into your dressing-room for me to-morrow, +so I shall be quite out of the way when your callers are here. I have told +them about bringing my trunk in there from Mrs. Keller's room: James will +attend to it all for me. So, as long as you are a 'prisoner of hope' in +here, I'll reign supreme in the dressing-room. Now say 'Good-bye,' Mrs. +Keller: James will put you in the coach while I finish my adieux." + +"But, Percy, you mistake," he said, quite humbly, when her old friend was +gone: "you do talk a fellow down so confoundedly," with a laugh. "I like +your idea about the rooms most heartily: indeed, I like all your ideas, +all your letter, except where you are so deucedly severe upon me; but even +that is true, and I like it when you tell me of it. I think your +management the best in everything, and I expect to be as happy as a king, +or rather a good subject, with my little queen to rule over me and keep me +in order in our new domain." + +She clasped her hands in a quick, passionate sort of way at his words, as +if they gave her a pang. He saw that, but her calm face and voice made him +half doubt if it meant anything. "Are you quite sure, or are you only +saying it because you think I have a wish to go there? I thought you did +not seem to like it just now, and indeed I do not care: I shall be quite +content with whatever you arrange when you are well." + +"No, Percy: write and say we will take the rooms from the time he leaves +them. I"--with a half-abashed laugh--"I was only cross because you are +going away. I shall miss you sorely, dear, and I'm sorry you're going and +are so glad to go--that's all." + +Her face turned crimson to the very temples, and she said, "I'm sorry I +made my arrangements without consulting you: I will not do so in future. I +did not think you would care one way or the other." + +"You've been so good to me, little one, and I'm so unused to being cared +for except as a society ornament, that I think I shall never be able to +get along without you again." + +Her eyes filled with tears which she would not let fall, and she said, +"You are very kind to say so: I will be more careful in future. But I must +go now." He waited in quite an eager expectancy to see if she would kiss +him. "Take good care of yourself, and be sure I shall come by the first +train;" and she started to leave the bedside. + +He caught her dress and drew her toward him, holding her hands: "Is that +all, Percy? Is there nothing else?" + +"I think not, Ross," she said, doubtingly, but coloring painfully. + +"Kiss me good-bye, Percy." She held down her face instantly, and when he +had kissed her, drew herself away without a word; but he clasped his arm +about her: "You have not kissed me after all, my darling." + +"My kisses are nothing worth now, Ross: their sweetness died out years +ago. Yours are good enough for both;" and she laughed and left him. + +He was bitterly chagrined: it seemed a little thing to make him feel so +mortified. That she should leave him willingly, that doing so she should +refuse to grant him so small a favor, when almost all other women--her own +pretty cousins among them--had denied nothing he chose to ask, it was +incomprehensible! + +"By Jove! I never cared so much for a little thing in my life as her +leaving me and not caring to kiss me. I swear, I'm a perfect baby about +her! Little, truthful, honest soul! I believe she could make another +creature of me if she cared enough for me to try. There is something +restful in truth and honest purity, after all: one feels safe, and +grounded on a sure place. It's good to have a little fairy lying close in +one's bosom; and I vow I'll have my little brownie there yet, though I +have to go as suitor on a regular courting expedition to my own wife +before I win her heart. Curse this old lover of hers, who bars her heart +against me! And curse my own past follies, which make a good woman fear to +trust me! Marriage is a sell generally, even when a vast amount of +so-called love is brought to the sacrificial altar; so perhaps I shall not +make a bad thing of it if I win my wife's heart after she knows me _au +fond_, instead of in the glamour of gas-light flirtations. Poor little +heart! What a pitiful story it is! How quaintly she writes her pathetic, +desolate history! What a ready pen the little woman holds!" and he took +out her letter again. "I declare, the child has better attractions than +beauty--a lovely, faithful soul." + +But though he was tender of her in his thoughts, he was a hard master that +night: everything went wrong, nothing pleased or contented him, and the +sullen, much-tried servant at last announced that with the morning he +would leave his master to his own devices. + +"Go, and be damned to you!" was the savage reply; and the man took him at +his word, decamping, after making a few necessary arrangements, as soon +after breakfast as he could. + +"And I have been as good to that fellow the year he has lived with me as I +could," thought Ross Norval as hour after hour he lay alone wanting +everything--water, the papers, a handkerchief. There was nothing he did +not want, and he could reach nothing but those nauseous medicines. +"Service cannot be bought: in very truth, love and patience must be a free +gift. However, now even love and patience seem to have fled from me. I +want my wife--I want her awfully." + +Percy, with her sad little heart lying as heavy as a plummet in her +breast, was just as bright and useful and entertaining to her cranky old +friend as if life was a boon instead of a bane to her. You know from her +letter how bitter life was to her; and I think if you have ever known +sorrow and a great disappointment, you will comprehend how it was possible +for her, with the fear of God before her, and a desire to be His faithful +child, to make this match for herself. Anything was better than the dull +stagnation into which she had fallen: she had felt this year, unless some +great change came to her to take her out of this weary groove in which she +was set, she must go melancholy mad. She had laid out a hundred schemes, +all of them, she knew, impracticable; and now, in a strange, providential +way, this chance to change every thought and action of her whole life had +come to her. Do you wonder much she accepted it? I think it was not +strange. + +That night after his offer (the night she had asked for in which to +decide, although she said to herself, with a bitter little shrug as she +made the request, "A woman who hesitates is lost"), as she lay awake +pondering the whole matter, she thought: "It can't be worse than it is, +and it won't be very long either way, I think. I can be faithful to him, +make and mend, dig and delve, if needs be, for his benefit, in return for +the honor he does me in giving me his name and protection. I shall expect +nothing, literally nothing, from him that wives usually demand. I, who +have borne for years with the caprice of school-girls, can surely bear the +humors of one man, especially when his name shields me from other sorts of +ills. I have rather plumed myself these last few months upon having +learned the depth of meaning and force of truth there is in that +expression from _Sartor Resartus_ I used to think so wicked: 'Say to +happiness, I can do without you--in self-renunciation life begins,' I can +try it now. I need not be a spaniel or fawn upon my lord, and yet I can +obey and honor, if he will let me, this man to whom I shall vow myself for +life. For life! Can I endure it all the years I may have to live an +unloved wife--so near and yet so far from him to whom I am bound? Will it +not be a death in life? Will it be better than this dead, cold monotony I +now bear? Better or worse? Ah, there's the rub! I can never hope to win +his faithful, abiding love. Even did use make me acceptable to him, I +could not trust its continuance. And yet who knows whether, if I try to +keep a pure life and an honest purpose to walk before him worthily every +day, I may not win from him at last a sort of respect and friendship that +will be next to love? I will some time let him know of the friends my +literary efforts have brought me. I know he will be proud of the judgment +that scholarly men, whose opinions he honors, have placed upon the +heirloom of intellectual ability that has been my sole dower from my dear +father and his learned ancestors. And when I am Ross Norval's wife I will +reveal myself to these letter-friends of my inner life, and, meeting them +no longer in the spirit only, let them see eye to eye their hidden sister, +their 'nebulous child,' as they have half playfully, half angrily, called +me. A husband's hand shall rive the rock in which their crystal has been +for years embedded. + +"Oh, Ross, I shall be glad to come to my inheritance through you; to +gather my band of chosen ones into my actual, as I have long held them in +my inner, life; to know those at last whom my unprotected woman's state +has hitherto forbidden me to know. And if I take him, if I give myself to +him, I shall at last have the desire of my life. Ah, Ross! you will never +know that your boyish flattering, which meant nothing to you, and should +have meant nothing to me, did really mean so much that it simply broke my +heart, leaving me at sixteen so utterly incapable of loving any man but +yourself that since then no hand has ever touched the seal which closed +the fountain of love and passion in my heart for ever. Ah! I wonder what +penalty there is for those who carelessly destroy our hopes and blot out +all possibilities of love from us? What would you say, Ross Norval, if you +knew that the last kiss I ever gave to any man was given you that cold, +dark day they buried my father? You came with a note from Bell--she was +dying, she said; after to-day no one but her family would be admitted to +her: would I come and say good-bye to her, even from my father's grave? I +went with you, and stayed an hour with her. Then you brought me, more dead +than alive, back to my desolate home, and taking me in your arms carried +me from the carriage to my bed. As you laid me down you said, 'My sister's +little friend, I am glad to have seen you once again. Bell tells me all +these years I have been absent you have been pleasant friends to each +other. You are dear and sweet because she loved you. I shall never see you +again perhaps, for when she dies I shall have no ties here and shall go +elsewhere. Kiss me good-bye,' and I did. + +"For a year after that I was alone: then Esther Hooper came, and I was not +wretched. I have had my share of lovers and friends--what girl has +not?--have had rare treats of music, of books and paintings, and shared +their pleasant harmonies with an appreciative soul; and I have been very +contented. + +"But now I am desolate again, and out of the darkness you have come and +beckoned me to follow you and stand near you all the rest of my life. It +will be happiness enough, as much as is good for me, to live with you, +even if I am nothing to you, for, oh, I love you very faithfully!" + +And so, you know, they were married, with only the doctor and Mrs. Keller +to witness the ceremony; and at once, with her little decided way, the +sort of certainty that years of self-dependence give, she became his +nurse, attending to him as persistently and indefatigably as if the sole +purpose for which she had been born was that. From the first service she +rendered him--bathing his head and face through an intense August day with +iced water delicately perfumed, arranging the curtains so that the air, +when there was a breeze, blew freely to him, though the glare of the sun +was gone, and his room in dim, soothing shadow--she seemed a blessing to +him. Some hours after she came with her bright, quick ways, arranging his +disordered room, bringing order out of chaos on his dressing-table, never +peeping into things, and yet getting them into beautiful order, and, +wonderful to relate, keeping them so: the air seemed to grow cooler, his +medicine less bitter, the time shorter, and his broken leg and weary back +to ache less acutely. + +One day she said in a shy way, "Mr. Norval, if you will let James lay out +your things, I will see what mending they need, and will sit here and do +them, so you sha'n't spend so many hours alone. Mrs. Keller has made some +friends in the house, and they kindly sit with her so much that she does +not need me." + +"But, Percy, what's the use of James having a hand in it? Here are my +keys," with a laugh as he handed them to her: "you know they are a part of +the worldly goods with which I did thee endow; and the keys always belong +to the female department by right, don't they?" + +She took them with a vivid blush. "Shall I look over your trunks and +bureau, then?" she asked. + +"Certainly, while I go to sleep and dream what a jolly thing it is to have +you here." Then, pretending to sleep, he watched her with careful hands +examine his belongings, with a contemptuous little smile at this piece of +bungling mending or an anxious frown over that frayed place. Then how +neatly she folded and laid back all the good, and seated herself with a +pile before her and began to sew! When he opened his eyes she handed him +the keys. + +"No, Percy, keep them: I make all right and title to them over to you," he +said. + +From that day he seemed to feel delight in her companionship, reading to +her hour after hour while she sewed, always choosing some poetical or +light bit of reading--"To suit my capacity," she thought. + +So they had gone on week after week--with the single exception of the +Rollins episode--without any change. He was a rare favorite in society, +and every day received a host of calls from gentlemen, baskets of fruits +and flowers from ladies. Always, when a card was sent up, she would gather +all her womanish "traps" together and go to Mrs. Keller--this, too, in +spite of his earnest invitation to her to remain. + +"No: you can have a pleasanter call with no ladies present, and Mrs. +Keller needs me. I'll be back in time for your medicine." + +Once or twice some one, more intimate or free than usual, would run up +unannounced and catch her there. Her acceptation of the situation was, he +thought, perfect. Without a shadow of embarrassment she acknowledged the +introduction, "My wife," did the honors of the occasion, said a few words +regarding his state, and with some such words as "I will be back in an +hour or so, Ross," would leave the room. + +Thus he was utterly unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was +capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he +could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most +society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular +woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant +conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an +intelligent thinker for a woman, he did not dream. + +Nevertheless, the mere having her about him day after day, with her dainty +little ways, grew to be a pleasure to him: the making her grave little +face, with its haunting look of sorrow, break into smiles, the light come +into her soft gray eyes, became a real delight to him. Then the color +flushed over her cheek at his lightest word, and he found a real interest +in watching it glow and fade from her pale face. + +"She's the sort of _brune_ that colors well," he thought. "Old Sir John's +fancy of-- + + 'Her cheek was like a Cathrine pear, + The side that's next the sun'-- + +suits her exactly. And her hair, with the glint of gold in the chestnut +hue, would be a glory in a beautiful woman. Every motion of her heart +shows in her face. She'd never make a woman of the world: she cannot hide +her feelings, but lets one read them like an open book." Which was all he +knew about it, since, spite of her treacherous color, those years of hard +duty had trained her into the most perfect self-control on all needful and +great occasions and matters. + +How he missed her light step! how he had wanted her all these two days! +for, though it was scarcely past noon, and she had gone late the day +before, he was sure it was that--"And seems like six, by George!" But, as +he lay feverish and famished for a drink, a very ill-used man, she opened +the door, and the air seemed lightened of its troubles at once. + + + +Part II. + + +"Shall we go to Niagara for our wedding-trip?" Mr. Norval asked when the +doctor had taken his last fee, pronouncing his patient cured. + +"Unless you care particularly about it, I would rather go straight to New +York. I have canceled all my school-engagements by letter, having taken a +new service"--and she bowed to him--"and Mrs. Keller promised to see to my +little rooms and their belongings; but I should like to see Harry before +he sails." + +"Want to make him promise to be a good boy while he's away?" said he with +a smile. + +"Something like it," she answered, laughingly. "But Harry's not a bad +fellow, at all." + +"Well, then, let's start for home to-morrow;" and they made their +arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an +unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel +to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in +Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a +large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther +Hooper. He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and +the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not +being her heart's choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea +gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all. + +As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put +his arm around her, saying, "I've been very happy, little wife, here with +you. Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw +you?" + +"I have had no cause to regret it," she said quietly. + +"But you are not glad," he said, taking his arm away. + +"As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything--more glad than I am for most +things." + +He looked at her with a sigh. "My father--and I am like him--loved only +once." Her words came constantly into his mind. "I came too late," he +thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and +pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other +earthly thing he had ever known. He had left her side, and was standing +looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to +breakfast. After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head +against his arm. He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice +of the action. She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her +hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, "Dear Ross, I _am_ glad: I am +happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be. I would not undo the +deed we have done so long as you are content. I like being with you +dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your +wife--your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good." + +"My Preciosa"--and he drew her into his arms--"so long as we both shall +live, you mean. I want no life without you now." Then turning her, face +up, he scanned it hastily: "You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale! Are +you ill, my Percy?" + +"No, no," she said quickly. "I think I need my breakfast: I have been up a +couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night." + +"My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of +ours, perhaps you'll get some rest. But you talk in this strange way of +dying: just now you did, and once before in your letter. What makes you do +it? Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?" + +"Nothing--only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled +and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death +as a boon which God would send me soon." + +"But you do not now?--you don't want to die and leave me desolate?" + +"No, dear! indeed, no! though I don't think you'd care really." He clasped +her in a closer embrace and kissed her reproachfully. "Well, yes, just at +first, perhaps. Yet so long as you want me, I want to stay and be your +willing, working wife. I've got a new reason and aim now: I have you, dear +old Ross." + +"Oh, Percy, I _do_ care. God knows even the thought of it gives me a +bitter agony, I know you cannot trust me yet, because I married you so +carelessly, and because you think I can't be true to one woman with my +battered old heart. But that's because you judge me by what my long, +unloved life has made me. No good woman ever made me love her before. I +never knew how beautiful a pure life was, my darling, until I knew it +through watching yours. When I think of all you have saved me from, which +would have caused my undying gratitude had I learned to hate you--as if I +ever could!" and he paused to kiss her--"when I think of all the new and +better hopes you have awakened in my heart, I feel--God knows I do--as if +He had sent my angel, and let her drag me out of a hell into which I was +plunged, and year after year sinking deeper. Stay with me, dear: I will be +true. I never cared for any woman in the way--in the deep, absorbing +way--I do for you. I wish you would believe me." + +"I do, Ross--you are so good to me, so good! Oh, Ross, Ross!" and she held +up her face to his, "you are so good to me!" She clung to him one moment, +then suddenly, as soon as she could trust her voice, said gayly, "But it's +breakfast-time, and your wife is so unromantically hungry;" and with a +sigh that nothing more ever came of their talks he took her down. + +When they reached New York the next afternoon, they drove at once to the +rooms they had engaged. Percy's cousin, Harry Barton, was there to welcome +them, having come round from his hotel for the purpose. + +"Why, Norval," said he--they were old acquaintances--"you've won our bone +of contention, after all. I wonder what we shall do, now that Percy's +safely landed out of our reach? You're a brave man to dare our rage." + +"Don't, Harry!" said Percy, putting her hand on his arm. + +"I won't, dear, if you say not;" and he covered her hand with his own. "I +always did do your lightest bidding, little girl, didn't I?" + +"Yes, you're a dear old cousin. Ross knows how much I appreciate your +kindness to me always. Why, I gave up what he calls my 'bridal tour,' +partly because I wanted to come back and say 'good-bye' to you." + +His face flushed crimson at her words, and, all his careless, fashionable +manner gone, he said, "Did you, Percy? You always were good." + +"That, and because--because I shall be so sorry if you join this African +expedition." + +"Don't ask me not to, Percy--don't ask me to stay now you have broken my +hope for ever. I shall go to the dogs, dear, if I stay here now." + +"I don't want you to, Harry. Only your mother is so delicate and getting +old, and she loves you beyond all the rest of the world, though you think +she don't because she has been cruel to me. It will break her heart if you +join this dangerous enterprise. Stay in Europe, go to Heidelberg and +finish the course you so foolishly broke up. They'll blame me, Harry, for +all the evil that comes to you." + +"Well, I'll think about it, dear." Then to Ross; "Does she kiss you, +Norval?" + +"Well, I can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a +surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess +she did not. + +"Nor let you kiss her, either?" + +"Well, yes," with a laugh. "She can't very well help that, you know." + +"Don't you believe it: if she didn't want you to, you'd never kiss her, I +know. Why, we three cousins, Sheldon, Mac and I, have tried every way to +get her to kiss us for years, and never succeeded. You're a lucky dog!" + +"He's my husband, Harry;" and she laid her head down on Ross's arm. + +"Don't, Percy!" said her cousin with a quick motion of his hand: "I'll be +gone soon;" then hurriedly and gayly: "Let me do the honors of your new +domains. And, Norval, I have a great favor to ask of you. My little +cousin's _amour propre_ won't be touched, or herself involved now she's a +married woman, by taking an honest gift from me, and all brides take +bridal gifts, you know. I want you to let me give her all the traps I've +left in the rooms. It isn't much grace to ask, old fellow, seeing you're +to have her always and I not at all." + +"Why, certainly, Barton, I have no objections if she has none." + +"Percy, you've never let me give you anything all these years, you proud +little soul, nor any of the rest of us: you've come scot-free from all our +endeavors to snare you through all your hard-working life. You won't go +quite empty-handed to your husband's arms, just to plague me, will you?" + +"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them +once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they +began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole +suite!" + +"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you +Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines +among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?" + +As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had +regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little +reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about +him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying, +"May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered +her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!" + +As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old +Hal--promise me this!" + +"Anything, everything, Percy," he said. + +"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg." + +"I will, I will, since you wish it." + +She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet +kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!" + +He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace, +then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of +the house without a word. + +Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for +him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?" + +"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?" + +"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his +life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave +him reason." + +"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and +handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it, +child." + +"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed +her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think, +and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an +instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one +half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should +have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking +laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of +opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light manner gone, she +added: "You are very, very good to me, Ross. He would never have been so +patient of my old griefs and lost loves. I told you my masculine cousins +were always crying for the grapes that hung out of their reach, you know." +Then suddenly growing grave: "Oh, Ross, it was not my fault: I could not +help it. I think the boys got to pitying me because they thought my life +was hard, and because their sisters treated me very cruelly sometimes. +Then my uncles very foolishly ordained that I should teach their sons +their Latin and help them with their studies. So out of school-hours my +time was mostly spent with one or the other, or all of them. Sheldon +Wilber and I are of the same age, and having been my father's constant +companion, I was better up in all his studies than he was himself; so I +used to do his college lessons with him, until he got to thinking, as he +used to say, I was his very breath. Then afterward I gave the other two +the benefit of what we had studied, got them out of scrapes, and indeed, +being with them so much, kept them out. Don't let's talk about them any +more, Ross: I have 'fessed' all now." + +"Not all, my sweet: you have not told me who it is that has shut your +heart from us all." + +"Don't, Ross!" and she shrank away from him as if he had struck her a +blow. + +"Ah, well, my wife, keep your secret: I'll not touch your sacred past. +I'll try to learn to be content with my little sister, thankful I have so +much." + +"Oh, Ross, my good, kind Ross!" and she clasped her arms around his neck +in passionate, longing regret, "if I might tell you all--if I might!" + +"Tell me nothing, dear, you would rather keep. I am infinitely content to +even have you thus, and know you love me somewhat. Yes, I know, sweet," he +said with a sad smile as she kissed his hand in passionate regret--"the +very best you can, with all the heart you have. I know, I know!" + +Quite late in the evening, Sheldon Wilber came. After sitting an hour or +so, talking gayly, he rose to go. When they were standing he said, "Percy, +I had just left the Flemmings before I came in here." + +"Had you? I hope they are all well, especially Miss Lizzie, who is so +pretty." + +"They're all well enough. She--Miss Lizzie the pretty--is going to be +married." + +"To be married!--to whom?" she asked. + +"To my honorable self: don't you congratulate her?"--with a bitter laugh. +"I asked her to-night if she'd have me, and she said 'Yes.'" + +"I am so glad, Sheldon--so very glad!" and she held out her hand. + +"Are you? It's more than anyone else is but my mother. Well, no--I suppose +the Flemmings are, to get another daughter off their hands, and she to +have a safe man to pay her bills. And of course all our cousins and +sisters will be glad to have another house to dance the German in; so it +is rather a jubilee occasion, taking it all in all." + +"Oh, Sheldon, how hard and bitter you are! She loves you, I know, and the +rest think you will be happier with a good wife to care for." + +"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but _vive +la bagatelle!_ I want to know when I am to tie this knot?" + +"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered. + +"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when _I_ choose." + +Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife, +and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her." + +He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by +letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know +you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of +us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old +fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will +make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the +little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with +you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe +will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll +never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow +took himself away. + +"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was +conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so." + +"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman +would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women. +And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one +choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a +second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you." + +She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate +from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said +hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly. +If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's +early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere, +because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first. +It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way." + +"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to +go anywhere where you are not." + +"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go +to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I +feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm +unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home +with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this +talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and +her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep +from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed +emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs, +while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross! +please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove +by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at +length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had +appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as +a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist +his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them. + +The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an +agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many +hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as +a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines, +and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found +Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table +exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling +in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and +the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly +air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery. + +"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps +house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are +nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss +as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of +linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous +manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old +place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know, +Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's +housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old +mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and +visit me." + +Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair +which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire," +she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the +look upon his face and came to his side. "What were you thinking of, +Ross?" she asked, anxiously. + +"What a little tornado you were, for the first thing, and how I liked +seeing you busy among our household gods; also and moreover, that you had +not given me a chance to say a word; and worst of all, that you had never +given me my kiss of welcome, my rightful perquisite." Instantly she held +up her face. "Ah, pet, you are always submissive; but never aggressive: +still, this is sweet. And I was wondering what had become of the weeping +willow I left." + +"Wasn't I a silly goose, Ross?" she said, a little breathlessly. + +"Well, no, dear: you were very nervous and worn-out." + +"I hate nervous, fidgety women so: they're detestable with their whims." + +"I did not find you so, but I'm glad you're over it, all the same." + +"And so am I. You could not make me cry like that again, Ross, if you were +to pinch me." + +"But I did not make you cry." + +"Yes you did, though. In truth, I was unstrung, and you were so kind and +unlike what any one had ever been to me before, so different from what I +had expected when we were married "--and her lips quivered--"that it +touched me to the quick." + +"Why, darling, did you think I was going to be a brute to you?" + +"I thought you would be nothing to me, one way or the other--simply forget +me, and be utterly indifferent so long as I kept your clothes made and +mended, and did not bother you about my wants or tastes or opinions." + +A flush came over his face at the truth of her words. It would have been +just so had he found her what he expected her to be; but he said, "I don't +think any one could treat you like that, little girl." Then, while they +ate their dinner, he told her of his day's doings and of his determination +for the future: "I have a good opening--no man better. I mean to attend to +my practice hereafter, make a name and fortune for my sweetheart, and in a +few years we'll go to Europe and see the sights. Ah, Percy, such a vista, +such a new life, such a bright future, as I see opening before me! But, +first of all, I am going shopping with you, young lady, to-morrow. I have +ordered a carriage at eleven, and we'll buy all those pretty fixings you +women doat on. Do you know, little bride, I think all my vanity is going +to take the form of having you more prettily dressed than your cousins, +mine ancient flames when I was a bad boy?" + +"Oh, Ross," with a little laugh, "you can't do it: you can't make a rival +specimen out of your bad bargain. Nothing will make me a beauty." + +"Don't, Percy! I do like beauty. I have run after and made a fool of +myself for years over pretty women, but I like your face, just as it is, +better than any other woman's face I ever knew. If I could change you any +way, I would not do it. Your face is beautiful to me, though I know it is +not a pretty one: you are like sunlight to me." His voice shook, and he +strained her slight form to him with a clasp that was positive pain. "I +said I would not change you, but I would if I might put that old love out +of your heart for ever. Why, in those far-off years when we were childish +friends, did I not know my truest life lay in winning you? It is strange! +I have never failed to gain the love I wanted until now, when I want the +only one that would complete my life. Dear Percy, love me all you can. If +there are things in me--and I know there are many--which turn you from me, +tell me of them and I will change them if I can." + +"Oh, Ross, don't, don't! I am not worthy of such words." + +"Oh, little Preciosa, I am glad to have even a little of your heart: the +half of your love has come to be more to me than the love of all the world +besides." + +Do you think it was not agony for her to hear such words as these and make +no response to them, fearing lest with assurance should come satiety? And +yet the knowledge of his growing love was very sweet to her, and worth the +agony. + +They settled down in their new home, and were purposely "out" to all +callers during the next month--then returned the cards that had been left +for them. As they grew accustomed to their new life, she thought to see +his pleasure and interest in it wane as the novelty wore away, but it was +not so. That love of home which is, after all, the truest test of a really +manly nature, seemed to grow upon him. It was always so bright and cheery +by their cozy fire, the glare of public rooms, the noise and glitter of +theatres and concert-rooms, struck him with a feeling akin to disgust, +after the soft, subdued light of his home, and his wife's merry, breezy +voice. He sang and played for her, never giving a thought to her having +any musical ability, since she never touched the instrument. He read to +her hour after hour, having at last discovered her taste and ability to +understand the kind of books he relished, perfectly content if she would +favor him by sitting near enough to him to let him pull down that wealth +of "tresses brown," a glossy cloud about her. + +Of course this Arcadian life could not continue in the very heart of +Sodom. Society was not going to lose Ross Norval if he _had_ made a fool +of himself and married a little nobody. So callers flowed in upon them, +and Ross, having in boyish glee arrayed himself in purple and fine linen, +took her in state to see his friends. + +Of course her cousins and their friends hated her: she had won their +_bonne louche_, and the crimson of her plainness and poverty, of the +having to "have Percy always around to please Uncle Rufus," was pink to +the enormity of her being Ross Norval's wife. And "why he married her," +and "of course he's dead tired of her by this time," were their politest +surmises. + +One morning they paid a cousinly visit--a triple call. "And, by Jove!" +thought Ross as he watched her haughty little face and _nonchalant_ +manner, "she's no milk-and-water nature, though she's always so +sweet-tempered with me. She's got all the temper a true nature ought to +have." + +"To think of your ever getting married, Percy, and to Mr. Norval, of all +men!" said Miss Leta Wilber. "Why, we thought him engaged to the beauty +and belle of last winter, Miss Agnes Lorton." + +"Well, yes, Leta, old girls like you and I are rather off the cards: we +don't expect to catch the prizes generally--we leave that for these +younger ones, like Jennie and Lucille," said Percy, coolly. + +"A Roland for your Oliver, Leta!" laughed Jennie Wayne. "I never venture +to break a lance with Percy: she always has an arrow in reserve to pierce +you with. I suppose you've found that out, Mr. Norval?" + +"Found what out? I fear I don't follow you, Miss Jennie," said he. + +"That she's very able to take her own part, this little cousin of ours," +said she, her beautiful face scarlet at his manner. + +"Is she, though? Well, I like that amazingly, do you know?" + +"Like ill-tempered people?" said Miss Leta, snappishly. "Is it possible?" + +"Ill-tempered people?" with a wellbred stare. (Is there such a thing?) +"No, indeed! Why, birdie"--and he leaned over, and, taking her hand, +raised it to his lips--"to think of any one calling you ill-tempered!" + +"You silly boy!" laughed she. "I'll take my hand if you please, and don't +you believe but what you've married a termagant." + +The girls said afterward, in recounting the scene, it was simply +disgusting. Leta vowed, "The little baggage must be a witch and throw +spells over people. Look what fools she's made of our boys for years, and +Ross Norval, with all his splendid endowments, is just as bad." + +"And he did use to admire your form, Leta," said Jennie, maliciously. +"I've seen him waltz you until it was hard to tell which face that long +blonde moustache belonged to." + +"Ditto, cousin, and worse, if gossips speak the truth. But don't let's say +ugly things to each other. We both hoped to win him once, and we have both +lost him. The little wretch will watch him like a hawk, and never let him +come near a body." + +"Oh dear!" said her sister Laura, "if I only knew I was to do a German +with him to-night, I'd be happy: he holds one better than any man I know; +and if Percy will let him dance with a body occasionally, I'd as leave she +should have him as the rest of you." + +"Unless he'd chosen yourself, Laura, I suppose?" + +"Well, yes, that would have made a difference, even to my laziness, +especially if she'd have made dear old Harry stay at home by marrying +him." + +That's the way they talked, yet in a couple of weeks after each house had +sent her an invitation to a large party--"for you and Mr. Norval, dear +Percy"--and the invitation-cards stated the fact. + +"It's my Viking they want," laughed she: "they take his mouse in for the +sake of securing him. He's such a credit to the family!" + +"Well, it's your Viking they won't get," said he. + +"Now, Ross, don't be a bother, dear, and complicate matters. They will +say--and be glad of the chance--that it's my fault. You've such a passion +for dancing, they will say I prevented your coming. And besides, as I +dance so little, you'll ask them as much as ever?" + +"How do you know I am so fond of it, Percy?" + +"I've watched you too many years not to know that. You forget that, though +a flower unnoticed and unseen--a very wall-flower in fact--I have been a +looker-on in Vienna. I might have made a point of that, Ross, if I'd +thought in time, and 'hung i' the walls of Venice, a sightly flower.' You +were the bright particular star, or sun, in whose light all the fairest +flowers disported themselves. Why, I could tell you every woman--that is, +of your own set--you've been what Jennie calls 'bad about,' for years." He +held up his hand deprecatingly: she laughed gayly. "Never fear. I don't +intend to name them: I have not time to go over such a thing of shreds and +patches. Ah! the hopes I've watched you raise to heaven and then dash to +earth!" + +"Oh, Percy, I don't wonder that you are afraid to trust me now: I am +paying the penalty of my years of folly." + +"That's nonsense, Ross. I don't believe in fashionable women's hearts. You +were too good for them, and they led you on always," she said, almost +passionately. + +"That's my good darling trying to excuse her sinner. But how was it you +never danced at any of those parties? Harry and Mac are both good dancers, +and Sheldon's the best waltzer I ever saw. How is it you never danced with +them?" + +"With them, indeed! Why, that would have been an aggravation past enduring +to my rich relations. Sheldon had actually the insolence to tell his +sister Leta that I was the best waltzer in society. Think of the prize +you've got, young man!" + +"I do always, sweetheart," he said, answering her gay tone with a grave +one. "Did you waltz much with Sheldon and the others?" + +"I never waltzed with any of them in my life. Why, Ross, I never let them +speak to me at parties, except by turns to take me out to supper and +home." + +"But how have you managed to keep up your waltzing then?" + +"Oh, Mr. Vanity, men are not all. Esther and I waltzed constantly: then I +used to help Lucille, who is my favorite cousin, 'along in her paces;' and +the children at our school-parties doat on me as a partner. Would you like +to know who was the last man, and indeed almost the only one, I ever went +round a room with?" and her face turned crimson, though she laughed. + +"Indeed I should--curse him!" he said under his breath. + +"Your honorable self, at Madame's school-party;" and she sprang away from +his outstretched hands with a mocking laugh. + +The day of the party she wrote a few little violet-perfumed notes, and +sent them off. This is a specimen: + + "DEAR DOCTOR: You have so often wanted to know your 'nebulous child,' + and been indignant that she hid her face from you behind her veil of + clouds, you will be pleased to know that the sunshine has dispelled the + clouds, and made her at last able to meet the starry train of which you + are the sun. Will you greet Ross Norval's bride at the Wilber party + to-night as the child you have trained and been so good to in the past, + and who, ever honoring you, is still your loving child for the future? + If you'll ask me prettily to-night, I'll sing the foolish words I made + for the sweet, tripping Languedoc air you sent me last year. I am, now + and ever, + + "MIRA CANAM." + +In consequence of these notes, when Ross led his wife into the room, +arrayed in a crimson cloud of his choosing, which made even her brown face +a picture, all her bronze hair, her husband's glory, floating round her +far below her waist, confined lightly here and there by diamond clusters, +which sparkled like stars amidst its creped luxuriance--"Daring to dress +in the very height of the fashion," said Leta, "and all those diamonds on +her--his mother's, of course;" and of course they were--the consequence, I +say, was, that first one distinguished man and then another met her with a +warm greeting--"deucedly warm," thought the jealous fellow, who was so +uncertain of her yet, and wanted all of her--and were introduced to "my +husband." Taking for granted that "my husband" was glad to get her off his +hands, they took possession of her, to his infinite disgust. + +These were the men with whom she could talk, whose minds struck diamond +flashes from her own, whose thoughts she had followed for years, and who +looked upon her as their peer, and deferred to her opinion on many things. +And she, knowing Ross was her amazed listener, was stirred to do her best +before him--glad her triumph over her relatives should be in his presence +and brought to her through his means. It may not have been a lovely thing +in her to desire or enjoy a victory, but ah! it is so natural, and my +little heroine had had hard lines meted out to her for years. Besides, no +woman is free, you know, from vanity: only men are that. + +She stood near the door of the dancing-room. Ross came to her after every +dance, but it was always, "Not me yet, Ross--Leta, or Jennie," or whoever +stood nearest her. Even the girl to whom report had given him (with +reason) the year before was, at her open entreaty, which he could not +evade, his partner; but half the time he stood beside her, forgetful of +the dance in listening to the conversation in which she bore so large a +part. + +A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing +hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last +waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor, +who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss +Jennie Barton and her cousin Laura gave a sweet duo, in rather a tearing +style, Jennie being a fast young lady everyhow; another lady sang a +Scottish ballad as if it had been manipulated by Verdi; then one of the +gentlemen said, "Mr. Norval, I hope you will lay your commands on your +wife to sing for us." + +"_I_ hope that will not be needed," he said, bowing (thinking with a pang, +"They all know her better than I do"). "I am sure she will do equally well +if we all beg the favor of her." + +"She has promised me to sing," said Dr. B----, "my pretty Languedoc air, +which she has--" + +"Now that's enough, you foolish old doctor!" and she went to the piano. +"Foolish old doctor!" He was the great gun of the scientific world: the +people about looked aghast at such impertinence, but the "great gun" only +laughed and said, "I am mute if you command." + +How her hands trembled as she began! This was her last and greatest card: +by it she had always felt she must hold him to her for ever, or lose her +husband's love in time. She had never touched the piano before him or sung +a note, but much of her leisure since their return to New York had been +taken up, when he was out, in keeping herself in practice against the time +when she should have a chance to play for him and sing to him. She played +the sweet air, with its Mozart-like, mournful cadences, entirely through +ere she felt nerved enough to begin. Then she sang in such a voice as made +the most indifferent pause--a voice that was like purple velvet for +richness, as sweet as the breath of an heliotrope to which the sun had +just said adieu, as clear as the notes of an English skylark--this little +song: + + "See, love! the rosy radiance gleams + Athwart the sunset sky: + List, love! and hear the bird's sweet notes + In lingering cadence die. + Clasp, love, thy clinging hands in mine, + And, holding fast by me, + Trust, love! I will be true, my dove, + Be ever true to thee-- + So true, sweetheart, I'll be, + Sweetheart, to thee! + + "Come, love! I waiting pine so long, + And weary watch for thee: + Dear love! amidst my darkest night + Thy star-like face I see. + Heart's love! ah, come thou close to me: + I'll shelter thee from harms, + From every foe or secret woe, + Close clasped within my arms: + Lie safe from all alarms, + Sweetheart, with me." + +While they listened to her, those careless men and women, they thought +they began to understand why this little, plain girl had won Ross Norval. +While everybody praised her, he stood utterly silent, too moved for words +she saw, and refusing to sing again, she went up to him as the band began +to play. "My waltz, Ross," she said. He put his arm around her with a +loving gesture that made those about them smile, and whirled her off. + +"He's the hardest hit man I've seen for years," said one. + +"And that such a thing should come to pass, as Ross Norval in love with +his own wife, is beyond belief--after making love to everybody else's!" + +"That's it! He was always the darling of fortune: the choicest fruit +always dropped his side the wall." + +But Ross, as he held her in that "tight hold" which was so much admired by +his partners, said only, "Percy! Percy! I do not know you at all. How +cruel you are to me! Everybody knows you and your gifts but me." + +When the German had commenced he came to her and whispered, "Do you care +for it?" + +"The German, Ross? Indeed no: I am tired too, and was just coming to ask +you if I might let old Mr. L---- take me home: he says it will be no +trouble." + +"And you would not have asked me to take you?" he said, reproachfully. + +"Take you away from the German, Ross! Such an unheard-of thing as that! +You must think me very selfish. Indeed; I am not where your pleasure is +concerned: I only want you to enjoy yourself." + +"Then, for Charity's sake, let's go home," he said. + +"With all my heart if you really wish it!" and she started; then pausing: +"Are you going because you think I want to go? I do not indeed: I will +stay gladly." + +"I am going because I want to--because I am dead tired, and long, with a +perfect passion, for our cozy room, the dim firelight, and my darling +toasting her pretty slippers." + +"You dear, foolish Ross!" and she was gone like the wind. On their way +out, Sheldon Wilber met them in the hall, and, handing her something, +said, "To-night, little girl: if you have ever doubted, doubt no more. And +remember, a trusting heart is a priceless one;" and he was gone. + +When they were home and comfortable, Ross said, "My wife, it was cruel to +let me learn your wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me +cruelly." + +"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had +hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and +now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I +could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think +I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped +it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet +to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and +steadfastly into his eyes. + +"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song +you sang." + +She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is _your_ love-song, dear--your very +own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you _all_ about myself now, +Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you +pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing +protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason +those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his +embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I +translated from the German, others from the old Provençal tongue, with +which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did +this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they +had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade +them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by +his name, feared nothing any more." + +"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all +hope of winning you when I learn these things of you." + +"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike +literary women." + +But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your +endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all +else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it. +Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out +of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!" + +She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss +on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her, +"Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you +to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face +upon his breast and tremblingly waited while he read it. It ran thus: + + "Sheldon, my cousin, it can never be: give up all hope for ever. I kill + it now, because it is best you should know the truth. I almost give up + my life, my cousin, when I make my heritage of woe known to you. You + will pity me, Sheldon, when you realize what agony the confession you + thus wring from me gives my heart. But if it cures your passion it is + not borne in vain. I love with an undying love, a faith that knows no + change, an endurance that years of neglect have not weakened, that years + of cruelty could never change, a man who would laugh to scorn my very + name. I love--and have loved since I was sixteen years old, until + now--Ross Norval. Keep my secret. + + "PERCY HASTINGS." + +It was dated four years back. + +"Ross, Ross! you know it now! Oh, my love! my love!" + + * * * * * + +I will attempt no painting of the effect that confession had upon him. But +after a long, long time she whispered, "I will sing the last verse of your +song, dear, which only you shall ever hear." And lying on his breast, she +sang-- + + "Dear love I thy face above me gleaming + A sunset radiance gives: + Ah, love! thy tones' sweet cadence dying + Sings in my heart and lives. + Clasped, love, close to thy heart, thy birdling + Foldeth her wings in peace-- + Trusts, love! feeling nor cold nor shadow, + Finding at last her ease, + From fear a safe release, + Heart's love, with thee." + +MARGRET FIELD. + + + + +The Victims of Dreams. + + + +My friend Bessie Haines had no mother, but her father was such a very +large man that I remember thinking, when I was quite a child, that a kind +Providence had intended to make up her loss in that way. She and I did not +live in the same city, but managed to keep up a lively friendship through +the medium of correspondence and half-yearly visits. + +I was a complete orphan, and my uncle, with whom I lived, was her father's +attached friend. She had a very happy home, and I was glad to enjoy it +with her, particularly when my uncle accompanied me, for then her father +and he became absorbed in each other, and left us to our own devices--not +very evil ones, but too childish and trifling to claim the sympathy of +such very grave men as they were. + +We had both become tall, womanly girls, but Uncle Pennyman and Mr. Haines +called us children, and treated us as such; and Bessie was just writing to +me about her father's telling her she must begin to think of serious +things, when my uncle remarked to me that the time was approaching when I +should prepare myself to assume the duties and responsibilities of a +rational female. Just as if we had waited to be told this, when in fact +Bessie and I had been consulting about our bonnets and dresses in the most +grave and mature manner for years past, and arranging our future on plans +that for variety and agreeability could not have been surpassed had we +been brought up on the _Arabian Nights_ and Moore's _Poems_, instead of +Baxter's _Saint's Rest_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_. + +"There are several questions of vital importance that have been growing +daily stronger in my mind," said my uncle Pennyman. "My friend Thomas +Haines has a gift in clearing points and expounding meanings; so that I +feel it to be for my mind's edifying and my soul's profit to go to him for +counsel." + +I was delighted to hear this. I wanted to see Bessie, and I blessed the +bond that united these good brothers in Israel and drew us together so +often. Mr. Haines was good at texts, and my uncle was wonderfully expert +at dreams. Mr. Haines was a great dreamer, and my uncle constantly +stumbled over passages needing elucidation. So we lived in harmonious +intercourse, and Bessie and I talked of all our plans and delights while +they got themselves entangled in obscurities with a commentary under each +arm. + +It would have appeared, from Mr. Haines' dreams, that Bessie's mother had +been a most fussy and bothering lady, though I was told by the +housekeeper, who knew her well, that she was the mildest and most timid of +little wives while living. + +According to these visions, she was constantly troubled in her spiritual +state on the greatest variety of small subjects; and my expert uncle, in +expounding her communications, was always able to draw from them strong +religious lessons, and to administer much strengthening comfort to his +friend the dreamer. + +"I was hoping papa would soon have a vision," said Bessie when we were +settled together all comfortably, and she had told me how glad she was to +see me again. "Mrs. Tanner said last week that she was sure he was going +to have another, because the spire which he felt he was directed in his +last dream to put on the little chapel was all complete, and the +missionary outfit which he had believed himself called upon to provide was +ready and gone to the South Seas, and he naturally looked for more work. +When he said last week, 'Bessie, I have sent for Brother Pennyman +concerning a visitation in the night,' I was so glad, for, Winnie +dear--would you believe it?--I have been dreaming too, and I want you to +tell me if I have read my dream aright." + +Now, this was the most wonderful thing that Bessie Haines could have told +me--the most startling and least to be expected altogether; for if ever +there was a wide-awake girl, it was she. + +I suppose my perfectly frank stare said as much, for she blushed a little, +and continued with a very suspicious flutter, which I had learnt, in the +case of young engaged persons I knew, to look on as a bad symptom: + +"I do not mean dreaming with my eyes shut, you know, but having deep, +serious thoughts, unlike the gay fancies that have held me captive all my +life." + +"Dress trimmings and poetry?" I suggested. + +"Yes, yes--all the useless, perishable fancies of thoughtless youth," she +replied. + +This sounded more like an Essay on Vanity than Bessie Haines, and I really +was astonished, and had nothing to say for a little while, during which +she, being full of her subject, went on: + +"I can scarcely trace the beginning of the--the awakening, shall I call +it?" + +"You called it a dream before." + +"Yes, dear Winnie, but it is so hard to know how to classify new emotions, +and this is such a peculiar one that it seems nameless. You know papa +feels bound, ever since that water-dream he had, to go down to the +Mariners' Chapel on Sunday afternoon, and I used to read solemn poetry +when it was too warm or too cold to go with him. Well, about two months +ago it was fearfully warm, and papa had come home a fortnight earlier from +the shore, on account of a suspicion he had that he had dreamed something +and had forgotten it as soon as he awoke. This indistinct warning made him +think we had better go home at all events, and home we came the first week +in September, to the roasting, dusty city. But I did not then know that I +was perhaps drawn back for a purpose; and oh, dear Winnie, there may be +something in papa's visions, after all." + +"He has had a good many of them," I said. + +"So he has," assented Bessie; "and I was inclined to be impatient at this +one, since it brought me home in the heat, and the house seemed so lonely, +because Mrs. Tanner was still in the country with her married daughter." + +"She having received no spectral warning," I hinted. + +"Oh dear! no. Mrs. Tanner never dreams: she's opposed to it. Well, the +first Sunday was so warm that I took up _Solemn Thoughts in Verse_ instead +of the Mariners'; and after I had read eight pages, it really seemed as if +I had better have tried the heat out of doors, it was getting so gloomy +within. So I got up and dressed, meaning to walk out and meet papa, and +return with him. I don't know whether it was the _Solemn Thoughts_ that +confused me, or whether I was not paying attention, but I actually lost my +way by turning at the wrong corner, and so came down Barton street toward +a little chapel that I had often noticed before. Two dreadfully red-faced +and short-haired little boys were at the entrance by the small iron gate. +They had disagreed about something, I suppose, just as I came up, and they +instantly began to fight, with the wickedest determination visible in +their freckled little faces. At first, they kicked at each other, and +growled out some awful words without the least sense, but with a great +deal of profanity in them, and then they laid down their little books and +tracts, and apparently tried to pull each other's head off. Of course it +made me quite wretched to see them hurt each other in that shocking way, +and so I interfered and tried to reconcile them, but the naughty little +souls must have had a certain amount of kicking and scratching on hand to +dispose of, for they united in bestowing it all on me the moment I came +between them. + +"I was just trying to save my dress and lace sacque from their boots and +claws, when a reverend gentleman appeared at the door, and the bad boys +became sneaking cowards at sight of him. I picked up their little tracts, +while he tried to apologize for them; and it was so sad, Winnie, to think +that those dear children had not profited by their lessons: one was called +'Love One Another,' and the other, 'Be Meek and Lowly.' + +"While we were talking a lady joined us, and I went into the school at +their invitation. + +"Winnie, do you know anything practical about Sunday-school?" + +"I went to one, and was for years in the class of an elderly maiden lady +who urged us all to learn Scripture and hymns. I was so expert and high in +favor that I could repeat forty verses at a time as glibly as a parrot." + +"But I don't quite mean that sort of thing," said Bessie. "I mean a real, +earnest teaching-place, where children are gathered in and told all about +Christ's love and mercy--where they are softened and won to better +thoughts and kinder actions, and their poor little minds filled with +shining truth, instead of street dirt and abuse." + +"I never thought about it before, but such an institution could not help +being a popular one, and a very useful one too," I confessed. + +"Oh, I am so glad, so very glad, that you approve, dear, for I am engaged +in that work; and I did not want to write it to you, for somehow it seemed +so strange for such a thoughtless, silly girl as I have been to attempt +such a serious thing." + +"As teaching in a Sunday-school?" + +"Yes, in a sort of mission school for little scholars of the lower +classes. Miss Mary Pepper and I have at this time nearly two hundred boys +and girls of all ages, and some of them are very interesting and lovable, +while others are--" + +"Like the two gladiators who introduced you to the scene?" + +"Yes. I am afraid there are quite a number of that kind; but, Winnie, you +must like Miss Mary Pepper. Oh, she is one of the most excellent women I +ever knew, so truly, so nobly, so devotedly good. You cannot imagine what +a comfort it is to me to be with her--to feel that I am under her +influence, and may learn from her to be a little like her." + +"Miss Mary Pepper?" I repeated: "then she is a young lady?" + +"No--not young: indeed, she is rather elderly." + +"An old maid," I remarked, coldly. "She is pretty and sweet, though faded, +I suppose." + +"Why, no--not to look at: her nature is beautiful, but her manner and +figure are rather--rather unprepossessing at first." + +"A stiff, hard, straight-laced old maid," I said, contemptuously. "Well, +really, I cannot see the fascination--" + +Bessie's face flushed painfully: "I confess that dear Miss Pepper's person +is not so beautiful as her nature, but, Winnie, it is the cause of doing +good and trying to be good that draws us together so closely; and of +course I do not love her as I love you, my dear, precious first friend." + +These last words were full of balm, for of course it was the sting of +jealousy that had made my heart resent the venerable Pepper's powerful +influence over my dear Bessie. Being once assured that it was a +second-rate power, and that I still held my supremacy, I entered into the +Sunday-school question like a second Raikes, and volunteered to help, and +try to learn the way to the young hearts that beat under the pugilistic +exterior of the juveniles of Canon lane, where the mission chapel was. + +Then, having become one on this serious subject, we began to wonder what +Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the +verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made his +latest stumble. + +"Mrs. Tanner thinks it was something about a journey, and she is quite out +of sorts on the subject: for, as she says, the house can't be shut up +without worriment, and as to staying in it alone she really has not got +the nerve." + +"I do not think that Uncle Pennyman will interpret it that way, because he +cannot go too, as he is at present very deep in the minor prophets, and +has fallen out of humor with all the commentaries." + +"I am so glad!" said Bessie, placidly--"so glad, I mean, that we need not +go: I think every one must find his life-work at home." + +I stared a little at this, because I knew that only a few months before +Bessie Haines had wanted very much to find style and fashion abroad; but I +remembered the Sunday-school, and tried to be as serious and convinced as +I could; and to that end I talked a good deal of church interests, and the +prophecies, and _Light in Obscurity_, a new work which had utterly +confused me at the first chapter, but which I had read through to Uncle +Pennyman one warm July day when he stayed at home to keep Tom's birth-day. + +That reminds me: I have not mentioned Tom, but as he was away at college, +and Bessie never seemed to like to talk of him--I'm sure I can't see +why--it is quite natural that he slipped out of my memory. + +He was a ward of Uncle Pennyman, who called him his son, and indeed had +adopted him formally. + +How two such opposite people ever came to love each other as they did, I +never can explain. It was not a natural, commonplace affection: it was a +strong, deep, earnest love, as firm in the hearts of both as the life that +caused their throbbings. + +Tom was wild and full of frolic: if there is a graver word than gravity, +it should be used to describe Uncle Pennyman's demeanor. Tom was quick and +restless by nature, but his good sense and determination to make a niche +for himself in life, and fill it respectably, had toned down his exuberant +spirits into active energy; while Uncle Penny man's naturally slow +tendencies had become aggravated by the ponderous character of his +pursuits and tastes: all hurry was obnoxious to him, and he firmly +believed that haste was another name for sin. Yet the solemn, slow old man +loved the busy, merry young one, and neither saw any fault or failing in +the other. + +There was no earthly relationship between Thomas Gray Pennyman and me, and +yet I was always spoken of as his sister by my dear, worrying old uncle. +Tom did not seem to like it, and I knew I did not. + +People often said to me, "What a splendid brother you have, Miss Pennyman +but what a pity that all these handsome brothers have to be given up to +stronger ties!" + +How utterly silly! I never had any patience with such nonsense. + +There was not much comfort in talking to Bessie about him. I'm sure I do +not know why, but I suppose she saw that I avoided the subject; so I was +really quite surprised when she said to me, laughing and looking a little +mischievous-- + +"Mr. Tom is to join us by and by, your uncle says. I hope we may be able +to make it pleasant for him. I believe he likes Mrs. Tanner: he used to +like her buns when he was a boy, and I hope he has not forgotten the +fancy." + +Tom coming to visit the Haines! Such a thing had never happened before, +and must mean something now. I began to feel quite uneasy, though I really +could not have explained why. + +We never had much of my uncle's or Mr. Haines' society except in the +evening: they spent the day going about together and worrying texts of +Scripture with other good old men, before whom Mr. Haines liked to show +off uncle's Bible knowledge. They took some pious excursions in company, +and had a solemnly festive time, I have no doubt, for they always came in +looking perfectly satisfied with the result of their day. + +It generally took some time to hear the dream and find its proper +interpretation. While it was pending the expounder generally gave out his +puzzling verses, and then both pondered a good while before they arrived +at their conclusions and made them known. + +Both the dream and the text must have been of an unusually difficult +nature this time, for a whole week went by without either transpiring; and +although Bessie and I watched for some allusions to them in our morning +and evening family worship, at which the two good men officiated +alternately, yet not a hint could we gain until one night at the end of +the week it seemed from Uncle Pennyman's prayer that the matter in some +wise referred to Bessie, since Divine guidance was sought under many +rhetorical forms for the welfare, future and temporal, of "the young +handmaiden, the daughter of thy servant, who would fain know thy will +concerning her." + +"Bessie," said I that night, when we got up stairs, "I think I have found +out what your father's last dream was: I solemnly believe that he means to +send you out as a missionary." + +Now I thought I had said something calculated to make Bessie turn pale and +gasp, but I could scarcely believe it when I looked up, expecting to find +her almost fainting, and saw her pensively, but by no means alarmedly, +shaking her head. + +"I am not devoted enough, Winnie, love," she remarked. "I have not the +grand self-abnegating spirit necessary for such a work. No; mine is a home +field." + +If I had not known about the young warriors of Canon lane, I should have +thought her demented: as it was, I could scarcely wait for the next day, +which was Sunday, to be introduced to the scene which had already produced +such a marked change in her character and tastes. + +It transpired during breakfast that Uncle Pennyman's peace had been +disturbed by a verse in the book of Nahum, that talked about the lions and +lionesses, and their whelps and prey, in what appeared to him a mysterious +manner. Mr. Haines, who was a dear, good man, elaborated it so that we all +felt as if we had made a visit to the Zoological Gardens, and afterward +been carried into Babylonish captivity. My uncle followed his words with a +brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed and +long-syllabled, he would exclaim softly, + +"It is a great gift! a great gift!" and seem really overcome with the +magnitude of his friend's powers. + +I never saw any harm in Uncle Pennyman's texts: they never worried any one +but himself; though I must confess that verse about Ephraim being a cake +not turned affected us a little. But that was because he had the ague, and +Mr. Haines was attending some kind of convention; and what with the +chills, and that unexplained cake of Ephraim's, we were kept a little +uncomfortable for a time. + +But Mr. Haines' visions were perplexing: no one could tell where their +signification might point; and this sending for Tom (of course he would +never have thought of coming if he had not been sent for) made me quite +uneasy. + +I began to fear that this would be the first time I had ever gone to see +Bessie without enjoying the visit; and as we walked along to Canon Lane +Chapel together, her manner was so absent and fluttered that I really did +not know what to do. + +"It is a delightful and meritorious thing to be pious, no doubt," I said +to myself, "but it has not improved the manner of my dear Bessie: on the +contrary, I should say it has entirely shaken her nerves, and given her +palpitation of the heart." + +When we reached the chapel we found quite a number and variety of youths +already collected around the door, and when we went into a large and airy +room, well lighted and filled with seats, a goodly selection awaited us +there. + +A lady stood on a small platform with a bell in her hand: she had a large, +bony figure, and a long, bony face, and turned her eyes toward us without +changing their expression into any beam of recognition, as she used her +voice without any softening tone or tender cadence whatever: + +"Miss Haines, good-afternoon. Mary Bryan, where's your brother? John Mott, +you have dropped your tract. Miss Pennyman, glad to see you. Sarah Harper, +give your sister a seat." + +Bessie had pushed me on her attention between the monotonous sentences she +jerked out at her scholars, and she gave me five words just like the rest, +and dropped me off again. + +Bessie seemed to become calmer after she had looked around the room once +in a hasty, fluttered way, and placing a chair for me, she threw herself +energetically into her philanthropic work. + +I never knew before what a serious thing it was to be a Sunday-school +teacher, or how varied the requirements for such duty were. Thirst seemed +to be a prevailing agony among the scholars, and it seized its victims as +an epidemic does--without warning. They would just reach their seats and +drop into them listlessly, or gain them by energetic contest with some +previous intruder, and after an empty stare around them would be taken +with a sudden pang, expressed in writhing, shaking the right hand wildly +and gasping, "Teacher, I want a drink! I want a drink!" + +Then they were subject to a terrible vacillation on the subject of their +hats: they would almost consign them to the care of a monitor appointed to +hang them on the pegs made and provided, when a sense of their +preciousness would suddenly present itself to their minds, and they would +rescue them wildly, and throw themselves on the defensive while they sat +upon or otherwise protected the contested article of dress. + +There were six windows with broad sills in the room, and every child +seemed beset with a passionate desire to leave its seat and lodge itself +in a surreptitious manner on one of these perches, as if they had been +posts of honor. + +Whether bits of bright tin, glass bottle-stoppers, ends of twine, broken +sticks and marbles were accessions to biblical instruction, or were only +so considered by the pupils themselves, did not transpire, but poor Bessie +seemed to find them stumbling-blocks in her path, and Miss Pepper had no +sooner confiscated one lot than another appeared in circulation and broke +the story of Joseph's coat into a parenthetical narrative: + +"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental +regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he +prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John +Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The +bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and, +Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and +bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in +Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will +leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the +bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little +conscious (Dicky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and +prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another +drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!" + +Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do +good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with +children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was +a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious +firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the +minds of little ones. + +I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I +saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice, +interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved +boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to +thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin, +wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set, +hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss +Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with +words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and +inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a +moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her +words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the +thin and the square face. + +"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the +injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed-- + +"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at +me." + +Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of +Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced +to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly +grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a +new feature was added to the scene. + +I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear +girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and +made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and +good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his +appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He +gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt +anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown +away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh +dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's +self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry +purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper +like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every +single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which +individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul +addressed. + +He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a +little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the +machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there +with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be +helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little +at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite +self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and +more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he +planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with +personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have +better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have +liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a +strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the +attraction irresistible. + +I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he +closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I +saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was +being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as +pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted +hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted +to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom +Bessie had the good sense to appreciate. + +The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my +prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was +the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, +she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and +taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school +to his church duties in a different quarter. + +"Bessie, does your father know--?" I began as we went homeward together. + +She interrupted me: "About Miss Pepper? Oh yes, indeed! She called to ask +his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice +since. + +"You know I don't mean her at all," I said, laughing. "I mean her nephew, +Bessie Haines." + +But Bessie faltered: she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was +evident they had not spoken so to each other yet. She knew she loved and +was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it +was yet unavowed between them. + +"All I am afraid of, Bess," said I, determined to make her practical, for +she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all +their days--"all I am afraid of is, that your father's vision may threaten +your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why +should uncle keep praying for you as a 'young damsel,' and 'handmaiden,' +and 'female pilgrim,' and all that?" + +Bessie seemed troubled, but she could not be brought to confidence until +the minister had opened his heart to her. I saw that, and though I had +never had a warning dream in my life, I felt it was my mission to help +her. + +The Rev. Charles and I had had a little, a very little, talk, but I saw +that Bessie had named me to him--that pleased me; that he was very +desirous of gaining my good-will--that pleased me too. So I had happened +to say that I admired church architecture, particularly Gothic: some one +had said that his church belonged to that style, and he immediately, +offered to take us to examine it. I asked him to call for us next day, and +he delightedly promised that he would. + +I told Bessie, and the ungrateful creature was alarmed and nervous, and +gave way to all sorts of nonsense; but I consoled her and admired him in a +way that seemed to give her satisfaction. The next morning I made a +startling discovery. I went into the little bookroom that opened out of +the great old-fashioned back parlor, where uncle and Mr. Haines sat every +morning with Scott and Clarke and Cruden open before them: I went in very +quietly, and didn't make much noise when there. Mr. Haines was talking in +a slow, set way, and I could hear the scratching of a pen over stiff +paper. + +"Would you mention my reasons for recording this, my dear Daniel?" he said +to Uncle Pennyman. + +"I have set them down at the commencement," said my uncle, who was acting +as scribe. "I have said that, your mind being clear and your feelings at +ease, you retired to your couch on the night of the 28th of October; that +the form of your dear wife seemed waiting for you, since you became +conscious of her presence immediately after your sinking asleep; and so +on." + +"Yes," said Mr. Haines, witty a deep sigh: "it is a great thing, no doubt, +to be so guided in the visions of the night, and I have many times +considered myself greatly favored by the knowledge of the ministry of my +dear wife's blessed spirit; but, friend Daniel, if she had been a little +more explicit in this instance it would have been a great comfort to me. +Follow me now, friend Daniel. You have got it down to where she spoke. +Well, she raised her hand and seemed to point to the couch of Dorcas +Elizabeth" (that was what Bess had been baptized, and was called by her +father on solemn occasions)--"my thoughts had been dwelling on the child, +and her increasing age and future duties--and she said, 'Marry her wisely +to Thomas,' and repeated the words three times." + +I heard the scratching pen and Mr. Haines' depressed, uncertain sigh, and +my own heart sank heavily. There was no Thomas to marry her to but our +Tom, and such a thing was simply preposterous and wicked. I could not, I +would not, bear even to think of it. + +Oh, good Mrs. Haines, departed so long ago! why should you come back +troubling us about such, things? and, above all, why could you not as well +have said Charles as Thomas? + +"I have that set down," said Uncle Pennyman. Mr. Haines sighed again in +that anxious, uncertain way of his: + +"During the first day after the visitation, Daniel, I could not recall +whether my wife's appearance said, 'To Thomas, marry her wisely,' or as we +now put it down; but since you have set it clearly before me, and your son +will so soon be here, I feel that I am justified in having it stated in +that way, and that Providence is guiding me." + +Oh how my heart rose against Uncle Pennyman as I listened! He was the one +to blame for such a shameful, foolish notion stealing into Mr. Haines' +head! Left to himself, any name would have suited him equally well, and +here was Tom's thrust in without any earthly reason. It was really +dreadful! I could scarcely stand on my feet when I remembered how Tom +loved his adopted father, and with what unselfish devotion he always spoke +of him. "If he's told that it will be a family blessing, he never will +have the heart to deny them and grieve Uncle Pennyman. Poor Tom! he is so +shockingly unselfish himself that he would rather enjoy a sacrifice than +otherwise, I suppose." So ran my thoughts, and I grew desperate. +Desperation awakens courage. Tom would be there in the evening, and if +anything could be done it had to be done at once. + +I slipped out silently as I came: no one heard me. I did not mean that +they should do so, for, to confess the truth, I was listening on purpose. +I dressed to go out with Mr. Pepper; so did Bessie, though I must say she +was very nervous and uncertain about it. "You know papa does not know him +in--in the character of a friend of mine," she said, hesitatingly. "Miss +Pepper introduced him, and that is all." + +"But that is no reason why it should be all," I said to myself, and paid +no attention to her little bashful fussiness. + +When he arrived, I saw in his eyes that he meant to take advantage of the +opportunity I was making for him, and so I boldly carried out my plan. We +started, and had gone a block or two when I discovered that they were +becoming unaware of my existence and completely absorbed in each other. +"Poor dears!" I thought, "let them have a still better chance." So I +stopped in the most natural way possible at a window where trimmings were +displayed, and began to stare at some ribbon. "The very shade!" I said: "I +would not miss it for anything. Pray go on slowly, and I'll join you +presently. Keep on till you reach the church--I know the way. And be sure +you stay till I come. No, you shall not come in: I insist that you go +right on, and do not bother. I have a sort of pride in making bargains, +and they never can be made in company, you know." I laughed and wouldn't +listen to their waiting, and managed it so well that they went away as +unsuspecting and tender as two lambs. I waited till they were out of +sight, and then I started straight for home. + +I was in high glee till Mrs. Tanner came up stairs. + +"There are great preparations making for Mr. Tom," said she with a +portentous face. "Mr. Haines has given more orders about his reception +than I ever knew him to issue before; and, what seems strange, he actually +insists on my calling him Mr. Thomas, when I never can get my tongue round +anything but Mr. Tom, in the world." + +Both seemed threatening--the preparations and the name; and when Mrs. +Tanner asked where Miss Bessie was, and heard that she had gone out, she +shook her head and said that she was afraid her pa wouldn't like it. This +convinced me that she too had guessed the nature of the vision, and made +me more than ever anxious to save poor Bessie and Tom from mutual +unhappiness. The first effort was made, and I must consider the next step. +I felt nearly sure that by this time the two dear Sunday-school workers +had become personal in their conversation, and taking up my position on +the broad sofa in the quiet, shady back parlor, I set myself to thinking +out the plan. It was a great, solidly-furnished old room, staid and +handsome like the rest of the house, and meant for comfort in every +particular. Over the mantelpiece, and directly opposite to me, was a +life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of +expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a +baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her +daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so +dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the +family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while +there was a living opportunity. + +I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman +without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the +circumstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to +have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time +to question the feeling until I was sound asleep. + +A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate, +for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my +presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed +shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly +under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and, +although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his +heart. + +"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie +too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is +selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid." + +He told her I was too good, too lovable to quarrel with their bliss, and +held her to his heart while he looked up to the flaxed-haired, baby-faced +mother for a blessing with quite a glow of feeling on his face and real +tears in his eyes. + +There was something in mine I suppose, for when I looked too I could +scarcely believe them: the portrait seemed to show a different face +entirely. The blue eyes bent down on those upturned to meet them with a +look I had never beheld in them before, and the delicate little pink mouth +seemed to tremble with a blessing. + +"Am I dreaming?" I almost asked it aloud, and the question and the sound +of Uncle Pennyman's voice in the book-room gave me a new idea. Softly I +slipped from my place and out at the open door, leaving the absorbed ones +to themselves, and joined my uncle and Mr. Haines where they were +preparing for another conflict with the commentators. + +"I have had a dream," I said solemnly. + +"A dream!" repeated they. + +"Yes, and it was so lifelike that I must tell it to you, for I am +convinced it is no common warning, but one full of meaning and truth." + +They gazed at me blankly, and I went on, fearing to stop an instant lest I +should lose my courage: + +"I was lying on the sofa opposite Mrs. Haines' portrait--" + +"The very place where I lay when last I dreamed," murmured her husband. + +"And I saw Bessie and a gentleman hand in hand beneath it, looking up into +the sweet face for a blessing; and oh such a heavenly smile lighted it +while the beautiful lips seemed to murmur, 'She will marry wisely, dear +Thomas!'" + +Mr. Haines was so shaken by my words that my heart misgave me. He covered +his face with his hands. "She used to call me dear Thomas," he said, and +the tears ran through his fingers. + +"Then the name was _yours_" said Uncle Pennyman with weighty +consideration. "You remember I said it was capable of a double +application: those things are wonderful, and interpret each other. Winnie, +my dear girl, could you distinguish this person's face?" + +Before I could answer, Mrs. Tanner at the door said, "Here's Mr. Tom, +bless his heart! I never can learn to call him anything else." + +Tom was _so_ glad to see me! Yes, I may as well tell it, for it told +itself: dear Tom never seemed so glad before. + +"Was it his face, Winnie?" whispered Mr. Haines. + +If ever _No_ was said with energy and decision, it was in my reply. The +parlor door opened just as we were about to go in all together, shaking +hands and making kind speeches over Tom, and Bessie and the Rev. Charles +appeared in the act of taking leave of each other. + +"That's the face!" I cried dramatically; and then I really and truly did +faint--stone dead, as Mrs. Tanner said afterward--for I was not used to +telling lies, and even white ones were exciting things to tell, and +scarcely justified themselves to my conscience by the magnitude of the +good they were to do. + +When I came to myself, Bessie was hanging over me with all the love she +had left from Mr. Charles, I suppose; and I heard Mr. Haines and Uncle +Pennyman talking with Tom, and trying to explain to him the remarkable +nature of the vision that had overcome me. I sat up, and tried to laugh +and declare that it was nothing at all, though my heart kept throbbing. + +"You have all had dreams," said Tom: "you have yet to hear mine. Uncle, I +dreamed that Winnie and I loved each other, and that I asked you for her +and you said yes." + +"No, Thomas," said Uncle Pennyman gravely, but with a kind of breaking +about his mouth: "your eyes were open when you had that vision, and you +must not jest with serious subjects. But it is well you mentioned it, dear +boy, and it is well our child Winnie received such a remarkable direction, +since it throws light on friend Haines' visitation, and apparently the +happiness of that excellent young minister and our dear Bessie here." + +"The young man has just expressed himself in corroboration of the vision," +said Mr. Haines, much affected. + +Bessie threw her arms round her father, then round me, and then she ran +away. Mr. Haines and Uncle Pennyman went out to their commentaries, Mrs. +Tanner to see to her buns: Tom and I were alone. + +"What is this about, Winnie darling?" he said. + +"Tom," said I, "we are all the victims of dreams." + +MARGARET HOSMER. + + + + +The Cold Hand. + + + +There is a rocky hill in what was till recently the town of Dorchester, +looking out over Boston Bay. It takes its name from the stiff black savins +with which it is covered, and which contrive to find nourishment and +support in the rock to which they cling. Some of these trees show their +great age by their gnarled and knotted trunks and boughs. Black and +impassive they stand, alike in the brightest summer or the grayest winter, +sighing restlessly in the breeze, but wailing piteously when the sea-winds +sweep over the hill. Partway up the little rocky eminence stands an old +house, now fast falling to pieces. It is a low building, with a gambrel +roof and a huge chimney. It has stood there many years, for it was built +not long after the Revolution, and it might have stood many years more had +it not been suffered to go to decay with a carelessness which seemed to +belie the general thrift of the town. + +Wandering over the hill one bright winter day, with no companion but a +large dog, I stopped to look in at the window of the old house. The glass +was gone from the sash, and the sash itself was broken in many places; but +the obscurity was so deep within that I obtained only a partial glimpse of +an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I +felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its +forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where +the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of +everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect +it offers to few of the natives. The front door was locked, but I obtained +an entrance without difficulty at the back, and made my way through a +little shed, which was evidently of more modern construction than the main +part of the building. I came first into the kitchen, where was a large +fireplace blackened with the smoke of long-dead fires, and a narrow, high +mantelpiece. A little cupboard was let into the side of the great chimney, +which projected far across the floor. The room was long and narrow, +running the whole length of the house, with a window at each end. The +blackened plaster was dropping from the walls and ceiling, exposing in +some places the heavy beams, and the floor was dark and discolored with +age and dust, although quite firm to the tread. By a low door I passed +into a small room lighted by two windows--one in front, the other at the +end of the house, and presenting the same appearance of desolate decay. +There were four doors in this room--the one through which I had just +entered, another leading to the rooms above, a third, secured by a bolt, +which I did not then open, and a fourth leading into a narrow passage, in +which was the locked front door. I crossed this passage, and found myself +in a room of the same size as the one I had just left. It was that into +which I had attempted to look from the outside. Here I missed the dog, who +had hitherto followed me, though with seeming reluctance, and no +persuasion could induce him to cross the threshold. This room was in +rather better repair than were the other two. There was the same high +mantelpiece, rather less narrow, and the same little cupboard let into the +massive chimney. The floor was less discolored, but there was a deep burnt +spot on it near the fireplace, as if some one had dropped a shovelful of +hot coals, or rather as if some corrosive fluid had been spilled. I +remained here a few moments, idly wondering what might have been the +history of the former tenants, and what could have induced any one to +build a house in a spot so bleak and exposed, where scarcely a pretence of +soil offered itself for a garden. As I stood there, a singular impression +came upon me that I was not alone. For a moment, and a moment only, I +became conscious of another presence in the room. The impression passed as +suddenly as it had come, but, transient as it was, it awoke me from my +reverie. Smiling at myself for the fancy, I recrossed the passage and +ascended the steep, narrow winding stairs to the chambers above. There +were four small rooms, opening one into the other, with a closet +partitioned off in each, and so low that in the highest part a tall man +could but just have stood upright. Here the ruin was farther advanced. The +floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the +ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining +portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through +the roof. The place had a lonesome, forlorn look, even more than usually +belongs to a deserted house, though such might not have been its aspect to +other than my unaccustomed Western eyes. + +Turning, I made my way down the short staircase, and was about to leave +the house when the third door, as yet unopened, caught my eye. I drew with +some difficulty the rusted bolt, and found myself at the head of a steep +flight of stairs, seemingly longer than that which I had just descended. +It led to the cellar, and though the afternoon was getting on, I thought I +would finish my exploration, and therefore went down, though repelled by +the close and peculiarly damp air. The cellar was blasted and hewn in the +solid rock to a depth which, considering the extreme hardness of the +stone, seemed remarkable in a house so unpretending. A dim light made its +way through a narrow window at each end and fell upon the stone floor. I +walked forward, looking up at the windows, but I had not taken ten steps +before I recoiled with a start. At my feet lay a pit, seemingly of +considerable depth, and filled with water to within four feet of the top. +The cellar did not lie under the kitchen, but only under the two front +rooms and the passage, and this pit occupied the whole length and fully +half the breadth of the space of the rooms above, and, what was more +peculiar, seemed to extend even farther forward than the house itself. +Another step, and I should have fallen into it. Curious to try its depth, +I picked up a little fragment of stone and dropped it in. As the stone +touched the water, and the circles on the sullen surface began to widen, a +current of air rushed down the stairs, and the door above shut violently. +At that moment the impression which I had experienced in the room above +came back upon me with tenfold distinctness, and was accompanied with a +feeling of exceeding horror. It seemed as if there was closing around me +some evil influence, from which I could only escape by instant flight. For +one moment I resisted the unreasonable terror, and made an attempt to +explain, or at least analyze, a sensation so unwonted: the next, the +loathing dread grew too strong. I turned and hurried across the damp +floor, up the narrow stairs, and, opening the door, made my way as quickly +as possible into the outside air. The dog was waiting for me in the little +shed, and seemed delighted at seeing me again. I closed the door, ashamed +of my senseless fright, but nevertheless I was thankful that I had found +no trouble in getting out. I am not quite prepared to say, however, that +these sudden and apparently unreasonable starts are independent of +external causes. The Vermont-bred horse will be thrown into an agony of +fright when the closed cage of a lion passes by, though he has never +learned by experience that lions will kill horses, and though the lion +himself is unseen. + +I walked briskly home. I had some distance to go, and had quite lost the +impression of my ghostly terror when I reached the house where I was +staying, a modern shingle Gothic erection, which in vain endeavored to +disguise its barny appearance with sundry wooden adornments modeled after +crochet-work. + +"Freda," said I to my friend after tea, when she and I were sitting +comfortably by the fire in the library, "do you know anything about the +old yellow-gray house up on the hill?" + +"Why, what of it?" + +"Nothing, only I went into it to-day. What is its history?" + +"Nothing particular. It was built for a Doctor Haywood. Have you read +Alp's last essay on the Semi-occasional?" + +"Yes, and great stuff it is." + +Freda looked inexpressibly shocked. I had better have condemned law and +gospel together than made light of Alp; but she put up with it, probably +considering it excusable as the utterance of a savage from the wilds of +New York. + +"Never mind him now. He shall proclaim his figs in the name of the Prophet +for all time if you will tell me about the old house. I know it has a +story." + +She rose and took from the drawer an old manuscript volume, which she +placed in my hands. It was a little note-book, in which the entries were +made not from day to day, but at irregular intervals, in a singularly +clear, precise hand: + +"_Nov._ 3, 1784. This day my neighbor Ball's cow, getting out of the +pasture and running on the highway, was put in the pound. Took her out, +and cautioned my neighbor to have more care of the creature. _Mem.:_ To +bespeak a pair of shoes for her eldest girl. + +"_Jan._ 1, 1785. This day the wind very high. + +"_Jan._ 10. Neighbor Ball's cow, getting among my wife's rosebushes, did +do some damage, whereat she was much vexed. Caught the said cow, and +begged my neighbor to keep her at home, which she promised to do, but in +an hour back again. However, she is a widow. + +"_Jan._ 13. Doctor Haywood, newly come to this place from the old country, +has taken lodging with Neighbor Ball. Said to be a learned man--has much +baggage, and they say some curious machines. Is curious about plants and +the like. Neighbor Ball did hint to my wife that he knew about matters +better let alone, whereat my wife did tell her that she wished he would +give her a charm to keep her cow out of our yard. + +"_Jan._ 15. Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the hill, and is to build upon +it. Has spoken to me about it. Have drawn the plan, and shall make the +estimate. + +"_Feb._ 1. Doctor Haywood hurries on the work--says he is in haste to get +into his own house. Saw Indian Will to-day, quite drunk. With much trouble +got him to our house, where my wife did let him lie in the kitchen all +night. Had she not done so, the poor man might have frozen to death before +morning, for it was a very cold night. Argued with him in the morning, +whereat he promised amendment. + +"_Feb._ 10. My daughter Faithful this day, with my consent, promised +herself to John Clark, skipper of the Federalist schooner. + +"_Feb._ 18. Blasting out the cellar for Haywood's house. He wants it more +than common deep--says it makes the house warm. + +"_Feb._ 21. Came this day upon a great hollow in the rock filled with +water, which ran in as soon as pumped but. The doctor much displeased at +first--talked of beginning over again, but finally contented himself. + +"_June_ 3. Doctor Haywood moved into his house this day. Has much curious +stuff. The minister says he is a chemist. + +"_June_ 8. Went up to the doctor's house to settle with him. He came to +the door and said he was too busy then, but would drop round soon. They +say he lets no one inside the place since he moved. Has taken a pew in the +meeting-house, and comes once of a Sabbath. + +"_July_ 22. Doctor Haywood and me did settle accounts. He beat everything +down to the last penny--offered to pay part in attendance on my family if +sick. Did not care to settle that way, knowing his charges. Charged James +Sumner five dollars for one visit to his child, which child, nevertheless, +he did greatly help. + +"_August_ 18. News came this day that the Federalist went down in the gale +of the tenth, off Marblehead, with all on board. A sore affliction to my +daughter Faithful. The Lord's will be done! + +"_August_ 26. Neighbor Ball's eldest girl gets lower. Doctor Cray does no +good. She would call in Doctor Haywood if she dared, but his charges are +so high. James Sumner and me did consult together and agree to take the +charges between us. I have heard say that he has helped several poor +people free: did especially help Indian Will when he lay like to die of +pleurisy at Neponset Village. + +"_Sept._ 1. Neighbor Ball, going up the hill last night to call Doctor +Haywood to her daughter Hepsey, did tell my wife that she had a look into +the south room as he opened the door, and that there were queer things +there, such as a brick furnace, all red with fire; and she did say, too, +that she saw things like snakes, only thin like mist, twisting about in +the air by the firelight, which I do hold to be her own invention or mere +foolish notions. + +"_Sept._ 2. Doctor Haywood has helped Hepsey Ball some considerable, +though he says he cannot cure her, for she has consumption. + +"_Sept._ 16. Doctor Haywood told James Sumner and me that he would ask +nothing for attending Hepsey Ball, but would keep on to ease her what he +could as long as she lived. He told my wife she might last a year. + +"_Nov._ 3. Jonathan Phelps told me that Doctor Haywood had borrowed one +hundred dollars of him, giving security on the house and lot. + +"_Nov._ 8. James Sumner this day, his wife being dead a year, did ask my +daughter Sophonisba to marry him, the which she did refuse, and snapped +him off too short. Then he spoke to Faithful, and she burst out crying and +ran up stairs, and could by no means be got to listen. Recommended James +to Hannah Gardner. + +"_Nov._ 16. Doctor Hay wood this day borrowed fifty dollars of me. If he +had not been so considerate to Widow Ball should not have felt like +letting it go. + +"_Dec._ 16. Coming home from Boston last night, overtook Indian Will. He +showed me a big iron tobacco-box nearly full of money--silver, with two +gold-pieces, one a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. He got +it for a lot of deer-skins in Boston. Begged him not to drink it all up, +which he said he would not do, but would give it to his squaw. Did ask him +to come home with me, which he refused, as he meant to go on to Neponset +Village. + +"_Dec._ 17. The wind blowing these two days to the land made it very high +water, coming nearly up to Governor Stoughton's elm, and covering the +road. + +"_Dec._ 18. A great gale last night--much damage at sea, doubtless. The +water very high. + +"_Dec._ 19. Two men out in a boat found an old hat and blanket floating by +the Point, said to belong to Indian Will: no one has seen him since the +16th. Likely he went to the tavern and got drunk, so missed his way and +was drowned by the tide. + +"_Dec._ 20, Last night Indian Will's body came ashore, much beaten by the +rocks, but known to be his by those who knew him. The verdict was, +'Drowned by the tide.' + +"_Feb._ 11, 1786. Doctor Haywood spent the evening at our house. He has +been more social of late, going a good deal among people, especially poor +people, to help them. Has never paid me the fifty dollars, but makes +promises. I was led on to speak of Indian Will. The doctor said the night +of the 16th he thought he heard some one cry out, but thought it some +drunken person, and besides was busy with his studies, and so did not +mind. My wife asked him what he studied. He said a good many different +matters, but that he had given it all up now, and meant to practice. +Shortly after jumped up and went away very sudden." + +Here the journal came to an abrupt end. The rest of the book was filled +with accounts relating to the business of a milliner and dressmaker. +Slipped in between its leaves were two letters, written in a cramped, +scratchy hand and rather irregular in spelling. They were directed to +Sophonisba T----, Salem, Massachusetts, and seemed to be from a mother to +her daughter: + + "DORCHESTER, May 1, 1786. + + "My Dear Child: I take my pen in hand to let you knew that we are all in + good health, and hope you are enjoying the same blessing. James Sumner + is married to Hannah Gardner. Most people think she will have her hands + full with his children. Parson H---- married them. She wore a blue silk + at two dollars the yard. Hepsey Ball is dead. She departed this life on + the 29th of April, at half-past eight in the evening, being quite + resigned and in good hope of her election to grace. She had not much + pain at the last. Doctor Haywood called to see her in the morning, and + she being then, as we thought, asleep, did start up and cry out that + there was a black shadow, not his own, always following after him, which + made me think her light-headed; but her mother says the doctor turned as + pale as a sheet, and made as if to go off again. Your sister Faithful is + at Mr. Trueman's, helping to make up Lorenda's wedding-clothes. I would + not have had her go, but she seemed willing to undertake it. Your loving + mother, ANNA T----." + +The second was also addressed to Sophonisba, who on the 3d of June was yet +visiting friends in Salem. After a few details of domestic news, it went +on: + + "Doctor Haywood is missing: no one knows where he is gone. He has been + looked for in Boston, but they have found no news of him; only that a + little black boy says he saw a man like him go on board a ship bound for + the East Indies. Now he is gone, they find he owes money to a great many + besides your father. He owes to people in Boston for drugs and + medicines--some, it is said, very costly, and sent for express to the + old country. Mr. Sewell, the bookseller there, says he tried to dispose + of his books to him; and when he did not buy them, thinks he sent them + to the old country. He owes every one he could get to trust him. It is + odd what he did with all the money. It is thought Jonathan Phelps will + get the house. They went up to it and found the door unlocked. They + found nothing in the house but the furniture, and that very common and + cheap. There were none of all those things they said he had; only in the + south room a lot of bottles and jars, and a brick place built up with a + vent outside, which Parson H---- says is a furnace such as folks use + that study chemistry. There was a great heap of ashes in the fireplace, + as if he had burned papers or books there, and a great burned spot on + the floor right before it." + +"Who was the writer of these?" I asked as I refolded the little old +letter, "and what became of Doctor Haywood? Was nothing more heard?" + +In answer to these questions my friend gave the following narration. + +The writer of the journal was my great uncle, Silas T----. Sophonisba and +Faithful were my mother's cousins. Both were much older than she, but I +have often seen Faithful when I was a girl, and I had all the story there +is from herself. The little house on the hill fell into the hands of the +chief creditor, who took down the furnace in the south room and offered +the place to rent, but no tenant ever remained there long, either because +of the bleak situation or the want of a garden. There were rumors that the +place was not quite canny. One woman, indeed, went so far as to declare +that she had seen the doctor's figure, dim and unsubstantial, standing +before the fireplace in the twilight, and that once, as she came up the +cellar stairs, something followed her and laid a cold hand on her +shoulder; but as she was a nervous, hysterical person, and moreover was +known to be somewhat given to exaggeration, no one paid much attention to +her tale. + +It was certain, however, that there was a great deal of sickness in the +house. One family who rented the place lost three children by fever in one +summer, and it was remarkable that all three seemed to fall under the same +delusion, and insisted that something or some one, coming behind them, +laid upon their shoulders a cold hand. One of them, toward the last, said +that a shadow kept moving to and fro in the room, and kept the sunshine +all away. The woman who had seen the vision of the old doctor became a +widow the next month, and so much sickness and death took place in the +house that at last no one would live there, and it was shut up by its +owner. + +In due course of time the father and mother of Sophonisba and Faithful +were laid in Dorchester burial-ground. Mr. T---- had never been a rich man +by any means, and when he died there was little left for the two girls, +even after the sale of the homestead. They did not, however, consider +themselves poor, but with their fifteen hundred dollars in the bank and +their trade of milliner and dressmaker thought themselves very well to do +in the world. Sophonisba, the elder, was at that time a little under +fifty--an energetic, hard-working woman, with a constitution of wrought +iron and bend leather, and no more under the influence of what are called +"nerves" than if they had been left out of her system entirely. If ever a +woman was born into this world an old maid, it was Sophonisba T----. Her +fine name was the only romantic thing about her. She had had more than one +offer of marriage in her day, but she had no talent for matrimony, and had +turned such a very cold shoulder on her admirers that the swains became +dispirited, and betook themselves to the courtship of more impressible +damsels. There was no hidden romance or tale of unreturned affection in +Miss Sophonisba's experience. The simple fact was, she had never wished to +be married. Miss Faithful was five years her sister's junior. She had +never found room in her heart for a second love since John Clark went down +in the Federalist. She had been a young and pretty girl then, and now she +was a thin, silent, rather nervous little body, depending entirely upon +her sister with a helpless kind of affection that was returned on Miss +Sophonisba's part by a devotion which might almost be called passionate. + +"I tell you what it is, Faithful," said Miss Sophonisba one evening, as +they sat over their tea, "if they raise the rent on us here, I won't +stay." + +The sisters had lived in the house ever since the death of their mother, +five years before. Their business had prospered, and they were +conveniently situated, but, for all that, Miss Sophonisba had no mind to +pay additional rent. + +"No?" said Faithful, inquiringly. + +"That I won't! We pay all it's worth now, and more too. It ain't the extra +four shillings," said Miss Sophonisba, rubbing her spectacles in +irritation, "but I do hate to be imposed upon." + +"It will be some trouble to find a new place," suggested Miss Faithful +meekly, "and we can afford it, I suppose." + +"I don't care if we can afford it a dozen times over," said her sister, +with increased decision. "I won't be imposed upon. If I've got either to +drive or be driven, I'd rather drive." + +"Of course," said Miss Faithful, who had never driven any living creature +in the whole course of her life. + +"I saw Peter Phelps to-day," said Miss Sophonisba, "and he says he'll let +us have the old house up on the hill for anything we like to give." + +Miss Faithful gave a little start: "Would you like to live there, +Sophonisba?" + +"Why, it's a good convenient situation, and plenty big enough for you and +me and the cat." + +"But you know," said Miss Faithful, timidly, "they have told such queer +stories about it." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "You don't +believe them, I hope?" + +"No," hesitated her sister, "but then one remembers them, you know. Widow +Eldridge always said she saw old Doctor Haywood there." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba again. "You know perfectly well +you couldn't trust a word she said about anything." + +"Oh, Sophonisba, she's dead!" said Miss Faithful, shocked. + +"I can't help that, child. It don't hinder her having told fibs all her +lifetime." + +"Her husband died the next month." + +"Well, so he might anywhere. My wonder is he lived as long as he did, +considering." + +"And Mrs. Jones's three children died there." + +"Well, and didn't Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and +I never heard their place was haunted; and didn't two die out of the +Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town? It was a dreadful +sickly summer." + +"And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever." + +"Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything. Doctor Brown told me +himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and +there ain't anything so bad as that." + +The last vestige of a ghost was demolished: Miss Faithful had nothing more +to say. + +"It's nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off," said Miss +Sophonisba. "It ain't very probable he's alive now; and if he is, he won't +be very apt to come back: and if he is dead, he certainly won't. If he +did, I'd like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars. I +saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he'll fix the place all up for us if +we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd +spoken to you." + +"Just as you please, Sophonisba," said Miss Faithful. + +"He says he'll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and +let his man dig it up for us. I went up and looked at the house. It ain't +so much out of repair as you'd think." + +"Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?" asked Miss Faithful with some +interest. + +"Yes, I saw it--a great blackened place. Most likely he spilled some of +his chemical stuff on it." + +Miss Sophonisba was not, as she expressed herself, one to let the grass +grow under her feet. She concluded the bargain for the house next day, and +informed their landlord--who, by the by, was a son of their old neighbor, +Widow Ball--of their intention to move. That gentleman was not at all +pleased at the idea of losing his tenants. In vain he offered to recede +from the obnoxious demand of four shillings more. Miss Sophonisba told him +that she had made up her mind, and that _she_ wasn't in the habit of going +back from her bargains when she had given her word, whatever other people +might be. + +"Well, Miss T----," said Mr. Ball, "I hope you won't repent. They've said +queer things about that house ever since the old doctor went off so +mysterious. Some folks said he drowned himself in that place in the +cellar." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "The old doctor never hurt any +one when he was alive, except by borrowing money of them, and it ain't +likely he'll want to do that now that he's dead; and if he did, I +shouldn't let him have it." + +"Well, my mother was in the house when Miss Eldridge came running up the +stairs as pale as a sheet, and said he came behind her and caught hold of +her shoulder." + +"Joanna Eldridge was always a poor, miserable, shiftless, narvy thing," +said Miss Sophonisba, "and half the time you couldn't believe a word she +said." + +"Well she was a connexion of our'n, Miss T----, and I always thought there +was something in it. Narves won't account for everything." + +"Well, I never trusted her a bit more for that," said Miss Sophonisba. "I +know one time she told mother a long story about how you sent in a bill +for shoes to Widow Sumner that James had paid you before he died, and she +said you'd have made her a deal of trouble if she hadn't ha' found the +receipt. A good many folks talked about it, but I always said it was just +one of Joanna's stories." + +Mr. Ball was put down, and took his leave. + +As soon as the necessary repairs were finished the sisters moved into the +house, and during that summer found reason to congratulate themselves on +their change of abode. The high, airy situation was very pleasant in warm +weather, and the view over the waters of the bay across to Boston and far +out to sea, with the coming and departing ships, afforded much pleasure +and a subject of conversation to the sisters. Their little garden on the +flat throve well, and was a source of never-ending interest. They had been +troubled by no ghostly visitations. Miss Sophonisba had indeed once heard +a mysterious noise in the cellar, but on going down stairs she found that +the cat had jumped on the hanging shelf and was helping herself out of the +milk-pan. + +The sisters were sitting one day toward the end of November--I think it +was the twenty-fifth--in the north room, which they had made their +work-room. The south room, according to the custom of our ancestors, still +religiously preserved among us, was shut up "for company." The kitchen +served them also for dining-room, and the largest room up stairs was their +bed-chamber. Miss Sophonisba was trimming a bonnet, a task for which she +had an especial gift. Ladies came to her even from Boston, saying that her +work had an air and style quite its own, while her charges were not nearly +so high as those of the more fashionable milliners in the city. Faithful +was altering a dress of her own. Both were much engaged with their work, +and neither had spoken for some time. Suddenly, Faithful started slightly, +and the needle dropped from her hand. + +"What's the matter?" asked her sister. + +"Nothing," said Faithful, rather confused. + +"Yes, there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "People don't jump that way for +nothing. What is it?" + +"Oh, I don't know," hesitated Miss Faithful. "I guess I pricked my +finger." + +"Umph!" said Miss Sophonisba in a very incredulous way, but she pushed her +inquiries no farther. + +As soon as her sister was silent, Miss Faithful's conscience began to +chide her for her little evasion. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and +as often checked herself, but the third time the words were uttered: "If I +tell you, Sophonisba, you will laugh at me." + +"Well, that wouldn't kill you, child." + +"No; but--well--it was only that I thought all of a sudden some one was +standing behind my chair." + +"How could you think so when there was no one there?" + +"I don't know, but it felt as if there was." + +"Nonsense, Faithful! If you didn't see any one, how did you know there was +any one? Have you got eyes in the back of your head?" + +"I didn't see it--I sort of felt so." + +"'Sort of felt so!'" said Miss Sophonisba, with good-natured contempt. "If +I was you, I'd take some catnip tea when I went to bed: you're kind of +narvy." + +Miss Faithful assented, and went on quietly with her sewing, but she +changed the seat which she had occupied, with her back to the cellar door, +for one close to her sister. + +No further disturbance occurred till the middle of December. It had been a +very windy day. The bay was tossing in long gray-green lines of waves +crested with flying foam. The black savins sighed and wailed as they bent +to the cutting blast. The wind was east, and it took a good deal of fire +to keep the old house warm, but wood was cheap in those days, and Miss +Sophonisba, though prudent and economical, was not given to what New +England expressively calls "skrimping." + +Miss Faithful, not feeling very well, had gone up stairs to bed soon after +tea. A windy day always made her uncomfortable, recalling, too vividly +perhaps, the gale in which the Federalist had gone down. Miss Sophonisba, +having some work on hand which she was anxious to finish, was sitting up +rather beyond her usual hour. Pausing for a moment in her sewing, she +heard some one walking about in the room above her to and fro, with a +regular though light step, as of bare or thinly-shod feet, on the boards. + +"Why, what can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about +barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put +down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly +lecture. To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other +living creature was in the room. It could not have been the cat this time, +for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs. Miss +Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a +repetition of the sound. + +Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly. Miss Faithful started +from her sleep with a cry of terror. "Oh, I have had such a dream!" said +she, clinging to her sister. + +"What was it?" said Miss Sophonisba, soothing and quieting her like a +child. + +"I thought I was lying in bed just as I was, when all of a sudden I knew +that Something had come in, and was going up and down, up and down the +room." + +"What was it like?" asked her sister, rather impressed in spite of +herself. + +"I couldn't see: it was all shifty and mist-like--like the shadow of smoke +on the ground--and I couldn't tell if it was like a human being or not; +but it seemed to me as if I ought to know it and what it was, and as if it +was trying to make me understand something, and couldn't, just as it is +when the cat sits and looks at you. You know the creature wants something, +if she could tell what it was." + +"She wants something out of the cupboard most generally," said Miss +Sophonisba; "but go on." + +"And finally," said Miss Faithful with a nervous shudder, "after it had +gone back and forth two or three times--and I could hear it on the floor +too, just like some one walking in their stocking-feet--it came close up +to me and seemed to bend over me, or to be all around me in the air some +way--I can't tell you how--and I was dreadfully scared, and woke up." + +"It made a noise, did it?" said Miss Sophonisba. + +"Yes; and somehow the noise made me feel as if I ought to know what it +wanted and what it was." + +"It was the wind," said Miss Sophonisba. "It got mixed up in your dreams, +I expect. How it does blow!--fit to take the roof off. There! the cellar +door has started open. That latch doesn't catch: I must go down and bolt +it." + +At that moment the cat rushed up the short staircase from the lower room, +and springing on the bed, stood with bristling tail and glaring eyes, +intently watching the door. + +"Has she got a fit?" exclaimed Miss Sophonisba; and she put out her hand +to push the cat off, but it turned to Miss Faithful, who was sitting up in +bed, and crawling under the bed-clothes, lay there trembling and mewing in +a very curious fashion. + +"Some one has got in down stairs," said Miss Faithful, turning white. "Oh, +Sophonisba, we shall all be murdered!" + +"Nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba, quite restored to herself at the thought +of actual danger. She caught up a great pair of tongs and started down +stairs, the candlestick in one hand, the tongs in the other, Miss +Faithful, who dared not stay behind, threw a shawl over her night-dress +and followed close at her sister's heels, while the cat crawled still +farther under the clothes, and refused to answer to Miss Sophonisba's +call. There was nothing unusual down stairs. The two outside doors were +locked, the fire was burning brightly, and Miss Sophonisba's work lay on +the table just as she had left it. The cellar door indeed, which latched +imperfectly, stood open. + +"Some one has come in and locked the door after them, and gone down +cellar," was Miss Faithful's whispered suggestion. + +"How could they?" said Miss Sophonisba. "We didn't hear any one; and +besides, they would have left their tracks on the floor this wet night; +but I'll go down and look. You stay here by the fire." + +But Miss Faithful preferred to follow her sister. They found nothing out +of place in the cellar, into which, if you remember, there is no outside +door. Every tub and barrel and milk-pan was in its place, and the surface +of the pit of water, which served the family as a cistern, was +undisturbed. + +"It must have been the door flying open that scared the cat," said Miss +Sophonisba, "Faithful, you're as white as a sheet. I shall just heat up +some elderberry wine and make you drink it;" which she did then and there, +and, no further disturbance taking place, the sisters went to bed. The +cat, however, whose usual place was by the kitchen fire, would not go down +stairs, and when at last turned out, she mewed so piteously and scratched +so persistently at the bed-room door that Miss Sophonisba gave way to her +and let her in to sleep all night at the foot of the bed. + +No further annoyance took place, nor was Miss Faithful troubled with a +repetition of her curious dream. The next week, however, as Miss +Sophonisba was in the kitchen making preparations for tea, she was +startled by a scream from her sister in the next room, succeeded by the +sound of a heavy fall. She hurried into the work-room. Miss Faithful lay +on the floor quite insensible. It was some time before her sister's +anxious exertions were rewarded by signs of returning animation. When at +last she opened her eyes, she burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing and +crying. + +"For gracious sake, sister!" said Miss Sophonisba, really alarmed, "what +is the matter?" + +"Oh dear! oh dear!" sobbed Miss Faithful. "It was John! I know it was +John, and I could not speak to him!" + +"What?" said Miss Sophonisba, alarmed for her sister's wits. "What was +John?" + +"It--that--the thing that came behind me: I know it was!" + +"When?" asked her sister. + +"As I was sitting there in my chair something came behind me and put a +hand on my shoulder. It was John--I know it was. His hand was all cold and +wet: he came out of the sea to call me." + +"Now just look here, Faithful!" said Miss Sophonisba. "John was one of the +most careful, considerate fellows I ever knew, and he was always +particular careful of you. Do you think it's likely he wouldn't have no +more sense, now that he's a saint in heaven, than to come scaring you out +of your wits in that way? Is it like him, now?" + +"But oh, sister, if you had felt it as I did, clear into the bone!" + +"Then it's over twenty-five years since the Federalist was lost. Do you +suppose he's been going round the other world all this while without +getting a chance to be dry? Did you see him?" + +"No, but I felt it." + +"Well, now if there'd been anything real there, anything material, you'd +have seen it; and if it wasn't material, how could it be wet?" + +Faithful was not prepared to answer, but it was evident that she had +received a great shock. In vain did her sister argue, reason and coax. She +could not explain, but that something had come behind her, and that this +Something had touched her, she was convinced; and she added: "I do believe +it was John I saw the other night. I thought then I was awake all the +time, and now I know I was." + +This last assertion quite overset Miss Sophonisba's patience, "If ever any +one was asleep," she said, "you were when I came up stairs. I thought I +heard you walking about with your bare feet, and I came up to see." + +"Then you: heard it too?" said Miss Faithful, eagerly. + +It was an unlucky admission, but Miss Sophonisba would not allow that she +had made it. + +"I heard the wind make the boards creak, I suppose; and do you think John +wouldn't have more sense than to be walking about our room at half-past +ten at night? What nonsense!" + +"You may call it nonsense as much as you like, Sophonisba," said Miss +Faithful, beginning to cry afresh, "but I know what I know, and I can't +help it." + +"Well, well, dear, we won't think of it any more. You're nervous and +worried, and you'd just best put on your wrapper and lie down and try to +go to sleep." + +"I don't like to stay alone just now," said Miss Faithful, timidly. + +"I don't want you to: I'll bring my work up stairs and stay with you." + +Miss Sophonisba helped her sister up stairs, and began to assist her to +undress. As she took into her hand the cape of Miss Faithful's woolen +dress she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise, but checked herself +in time. On the left shoulder was a wet spot, and the dress directly +beneath was quite damp. Miss Sophonisba said nothing, of this matter to +her sister, but she made an excuse to leave the room for a moment, and +going down stairs looked to see if any water had been spilled on the +floor. There was none, and Miss Sophonisba was puzzled. She remembered +that when her sister was startled before she had occupied the same seat, +with her back to the cellar door. She noticed that the door was slightly +ajar, and it occurred to her that the cold air blowing through the crack +might account for her sister's feeling of sudden chill, if not for the +dampness. She went down the cellar stairs, carrying with her a lighted +candle. Bold as she was, a singular sensation came over her when she saw +upon each stair a print, as if some one with wet feet had ascended or +descended, and that very recently. The track was not such as would be left +by a person heavily shod: it was rather like that of one wearing a +stocking or thin slipper. + +"What under the sun--" was her perplexed exclamation as she went down, +following the marks of the unknown feet until they were lost on the stone +floor. It was certain that there was no one in the cellar, but as she went +up again, and paused for a moment at the top of the staircase, she heard, +or thought she heard, close to her ear, a long, weary sigh, as of one in +pain, and a sudden breath of cold air swept past her down the stairs. She +turned, and crossing the little passage went into the south room. The +burned spot on the floor was covered by the neat rag carpet, but there +were still some slight marks on the wall of the old doctor's brick +furnace. Miss Sophonisba glanced round the room, but her eyes fell upon +nothing but the familiar and well-preserved furniture; yet there came over +her a strange sense that she was not alone. She saw nothing, but in spite +of herself a feeling of a Presence not her own gathered about her. It was +but for a moment, and then her habitual firmness and common sense +reasserted themselves. + +"Stuff and nonsense!" she said. "I am getting as bad as Faithful;" and +leaving the room, she went back to her sister. Miss Faithful had sought +comfort in her devotions, and was more composed than could have been +expected. Neither felt inclined to comment on the recent disturbance. Miss +Faithful's health seemed to have received no permanent harm from the +sudden shock she had undergone, but she had a nervous dread of being +alone, which was a source of some inconvenience to her sister. + +The month of December passed, and the uncomfortable impression left by +Faithful's attack was beginning to fade away from the minds of both, when +it happened that the disturbance was renewed in a singular manner. + +Miss Sophonisba was alone, her sister having gone to a household in the +village to take the measure for some mourning garments to be made up +immediately. Miss Sophonisba was busy with a black bonnet intended for a +member of the same family, and was thinking of nothing but the folds of +the material directly under her fingers. Gradually there came over her a +feeling that she was not alone. She struggled against it, and resolutely +bent her mind on her work; but the impression grew upon her, and with it a +sensation of horror such as she had never before experienced. The idea +that something stood behind her became so strong that she raised her eyes +from her work and looked around. Was there anything actually there, or was +the shapeless darkness anything more than an accidental shadow? Another +instant, and something touched her cheek--something like soft, cold, moist +fingers. The touch, if such it was, was very gentle, such as a child might +give to attract attention. Miss Sophonisba would not give way. She took up +her work and went quietly on with it, though her fingers trembled. The +same long sigh fell upon her ear, the same chill breath of air swept past +her, and the Presence, if such it was, was gone, and with it the shadow. + +"Well," said Miss Sophonisba to herself, "some things _are_ kind of +curious, after all!" + +There had certainly been no living creature in the house but herself, for +their cat had disappeared some days before, and the loss of their favorite +had been a great vexation to both sisters. The shadow behind her chair, if +indeed it had been anything but fancy, had been too indistinct to allow +her to say that she had really seen it before it had vanished, but what +had given her the touch, the recollection of which yet caused a shiver? +She put up her hand to her cheek. The place was wet--an actual drop of +water adhered to her finger. + +"Dear me!" said she, "I wish I did know what to think." + +To one of her temperament the uncertainty was very annoying. She could not +bear to think that her experience was not directly owing to natural--by +which she meant, common--causes. "I am very glad Faithful was not here," +she thought as she turned to her work again. She would not indulge herself +by changing her seat, but kept her place with her back to the cellar door, +though she could not help now and then casting a glance over her shoulder. +Neither shadow nor substance, however, made itself manifest. + +That same night Miss Sophonisba woke from her sleep with the feeling that +some one had called her. She found herself mistaken, however, and lay +quietly awake, thinking over the events of the afternoon. The more she +thought the more puzzled, and even provoked, did she become. She was one +of those people who cannot bear to feel themselves incapable of accounting +for anything that is brought under their notice. A mystery, as such, is an +exasperation to them, and they will sometimes adopt an explanation more +perplexing than the phenomenon itself, rather than say, "I don't know." As +she lay there thinking over the matter, and trying to make herself believe +that the afternoon's experience was the effect of the wind or her own +fancy, she was startled by a step on the floor of the lower room--the same +light step. It crossed the floor, and she heard it on the stairs. Miss +Sophonisba raised her head from her pillow and looked around. There could +be no doubt that she was awake. She could see everything in the room: her +sister slept quietly at her side, and the moonlight shone in brightly at +the window. The slow step came up the stairs and in at the open door. She +heard it on the boards: her eyes beheld the shadow of her sister's vision, +so wavering and indistinct that she could not say with certainty that it +wore the semblance of a human form. The blood at her heart seemed to stand +still, but yet she neither screamed nor fainted, nor tried to wake her +sister. She watched the Thing as it moved to and fro in the chamber. +Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as +Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her +with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence +obscured the moonbeams. Miss Sophonisba bent all her will to the effort, +and with an heroic exertion she put out her hand to try by the sense of +touch if indeed she was in her waking senses. Her fingers were met by +others, soft, cold and damp. For a second, which seemed an hour, they +grasped her extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way +seemed half familiar. For one instant the shapeless gloom appeared to take +definite form--a tall human figure, a man in poor and ragged clothes; for +one instant a pair of wistful, eager eyes looked into her own; the next, +the cock without crowed loud and shrill. Her hand was released, and with +the same long, weary sigh the ghostly Presence passed away. Miss +Sophonisba sank back on her pillow nearly insensible. She did not know how +long she lay there, but when she at last gathered her senses she saw and +felt, with an involuntary shudder, that her hand was wet and cold, and +that across the floor, plain in the moonlight, leading to the half-open +door, were the marks of wet feet. She did not waken her sister, who still +slept quietly at her side, but it was with unspeakable relief that she saw +the morning dawn at last. + +In spite of herself, Miss Sophonisba was forced to the conclusion that, +except on the supposition that some inhabitant of another world had been +permitted to approach her, her experience was wholly inexplicable. "If it +comes again," said she to herself, "I'll certainly speak to it. Goodness +me!" she added, somewhat irritated in spite of her terror, "if it's got +anything to say, why don't it speak and be done with it?" + +She said nothing of the matter to her sister, and she so far controlled +herself as to preserve her usual manner. + +The sisters were busily engaged all day over the mourning dresses, when +toward night Miss Faithful's thread gave out and her work came to a +stand-still. + +"How provoking!" said she. "Three yards more would finish, and now I shall +have to go down to the village and buy a whole skein, just for that." + +"No," said Miss Sophonisba, who would not have acknowledged to herself her +dread of being alone in the house, "I think there's some like that in the +chimney cupboard in the south room: I'll get it." + +She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room. +Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began +searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters. Some +slight noise startled her. She turned, and saw standing before the +fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar, +though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it. It did +not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood +for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak. The +eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse. She had not seen +the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side. It, was too +much, even for her. She turned and sprang through the open door into the +passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face +bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor. The Thing did not follow +her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more +timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room. +Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown, +the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced +the past night: it was all this, together with a sense of an evil +influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul +and in body. However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she +could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence. The +candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning +all her strength, with an inward prayer she recrossed the threshold. The +light still burned brightly, the thread she had come to seek lay on the +floor where she had dropped it, but the figure was gone. She looked about +the room: there was no trace of living presence save her own. She had even +the courage to stoop down and examine the place on the carpet where the +Shape had stood, and which covered the burned spot on the floor; but this +time the mysterious footsteps had failed to leave their mark. + +"Whatever shall I do?" said Miss Sophonisba to herself. "If Faithful was +to see what I have, she'd nigh go crazy; and what excuse can we make for +leaving the house?" + +If no one but herself had been concerned, I think she would have stood a +siege from the hosts of the unknown world rather than confess that she +left the house because it was haunted. She caught herself up as the word +was formed in her thoughts. "Haunted, indeed!" she said. "I'll think I'm +losing my wits first. Stuff and nonsense!" But she paused, for through the +middle of the room, close by her side, making an angry gesture as it +passed, swept the same Shape, visible for one moment, vanishing the next. +She went back into the other room, and giving her sister the thread, sat +down so as to hide her face, busying herself with her work until she could +in some measure regain her wonted steady composure. + +Miss Faithful was much engaged with her sewing just at that moment, and +her sister's unusual agitation escaped her notice. Presently she said, +"Sophonisba, isn't there a bit of old black ribbon in that cupboard? I +want something of the kind, just to put round inside the neck of the +dress, and then it will be done." + +"Yes--I don't know--I think not," said her sister, with a hesitation so +unlike her usual promptness that Miss Faithful looked up surprised. "I +mean, I think there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "If you'd like to look, +I'll hold the candle for you." + +"Oh, you needn't put down your work for that," said Miss Faithful, but +Miss Sophonisba dropped the ribbon she was plaiting and followed her +sister with the candle. She threw a half-frightened glance around the room +as she entered, but the Vision did not reappear. It was some time before +the ribbon was found. It had been pushed into the farther corner of the +lower shelf, which was a wide and very thick pine board, slipping easily +on the cleats by which it was upheld. One end of the roll had caught +behind this shelf, and Miss Faithful pulled the board a little forward. As +she did so a little roll of paper fell into the bottom of the cupboard. +Miss Sophonisba picked it up. It consisted of several stained and +discolored sheets of paper, seemingly torn from an account-book or +journal, and covered all over with very fine and closely-written though +perfectly legible characters, in a very precise hand. + +"What is that?" said Miss Faithful. + +"It's nothing of ours, I'm pretty sure," said her sister, looking at it. +"But come, if you've got what you want: let's go into the other room--it's +cold here." + +As they crossed the threshold, Miss Faithful started. + +"What's the matter?" said her sister, though she well knew the reason. She +too had heard the same long sigh felt the same breath of chill air. + +"Why, it seemed as if something breathed close to my ear," said Miss +Faithful, turning white; "and what's more," she continued, as they crossed +the passage and entered the work-room, "I believe you heard it too, and +that you've seen things in this house you haven't told me of." + +"Well, child," said Miss Sophonisba in a subdued tone, "there _are_ some +queer things in this world, that's a fact--queerer than ever I thought +till lately." + +Miss Faithful did not press for an explanation: she went quietly on with +her dressmaking, and her sister, hurried though she was about her work, +set herself to examine the papers. + +I remember seeing the original manuscript when I was a little girl, but it +was unfortunately destroyed by an accident. My father, however, had copied +part of it, and this copy is yet in my possession. Miss Sophonisba could +make very little of the record, which related to scientific matters of +which she was quite ignorant; and as the most important words were +indicated by signs and figures, she was completely puzzled. The writer +seemed to have been seeking in vain some particular result. She looked on +through the dates of the year 1785, and saw here and there familiar names, +and at last commenced reading at these words: + +"_June_ 3. This day took possession of my house. Busied in making +arrangements. Shall build my own furnace. Am sure now that I am in the +right way. Am determined no one shall come into the house." + +Much followed which Miss Sophonisba could not understand, until, under the +date of July 1, she found recorded: + +"Being over at Neponset, looking for the plant witch-hazel, bethought +myself to ask of the fellow they call Indian Will. Going to the little +hovel he lives in, found him lying very ill with pleurisy. By the grace of +God was able to help him. His wife told me where to find what I sought. To +my surprise, discovered she knew much of its virtues. It may be these +people have a knowledge of simples worth investigating. + +"_Sept._ 3. No nearer my great end. My means fast growing less. Have +borrowed from Jonathan Phelps, but the sum is but a drop for such a +purpose. Most like some of these people, who complain of my price for the +exercise of my skill, would give me threefold did they know what I work +for, if they might share in its result. Yet I know I am in the right way. +Should I die before I come to its end--Is Death the gate of knowledge?" + +"_Oct._ 7. I advance just so far and no farther. Why is it that I see my +path so plain just to the one point, and there it stops? How small our +understanding of the endless mysteries around us! yet should something +differing from every day's experience befall us, how quickly we speak of +the _supernatural_! + +"_Oct._ 29. No nearer, no nearer, and my money all but done. Took some of +my books into Boston and offered them to sell. Refused, of course. How +should they know their value? Have sent them to London. It was hard, but +patience! patience!" + +"_Oct._ 30. This day Indian Will brought the plants I wanted. Have bade +him never to tell any one that he comes here. He only has ever entered. So +far as I know, he has obeyed. He thinks me like one of his own powahs. + +"_Dec._ 15. At last! I have passed the crisis, and without accident. How +simple it seems, now that I know! It was my last bit of the essential +metal: like from like. Each element has its seed in itself. The poor +people say I have been good to them. Should success be final, I can indeed +help mankind. + +"_Dec._ 16. Last night, lifting the crucible from the furnace, spilled the +liquor on the floor. Had I one particle more of the essential element! All +was utterly lost: no one will lend to me. + +"_Dec._ 18. What have I done that I should feel guilt? What was worth the +life of such a useless creature to the interests of mankind? Why did he +not trust my word and give me what I needed when I asked him? If he had +not waked from his half-drunken sleep when I made the attempt, I would +have given him threefold. I gave him his life once: why will not that +atone? No one will know ever. I will devote my life to relieve distress. +What is such as his, weighed in the balance with my purpose? It is strange +that since then I have forgot the very essential thing in the process. I +cannot read my own cipher in which I wrote it down; but it will come, it +will come. + +"_Dec._ 19. Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain. Have lost +the key, have forgotten the chief link. Until I can recall it the metal is +useless. What if it should never come to me? This night went down to the +Point. Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pass. +The tide will soon wash them away. + +"_Dec._ 20. Surely it is not meant this thing should be known. To-day a +body came on shore, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by +those who should have known best. Now, no one will ever search this house. +Twice to-day I have been to look at the place: nothing can be seen. +Providence means I should live to finish my work--to complete that which I +alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken +off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would +the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck +at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not +human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us. + +"_Dec._ 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to +go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days? + +"_Dec._ 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no +guest but one I dare not name-- + + 'Tumulum circumvolat umbra.' + +"_Dec._ 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I +will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help +those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?" + +Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786: + +"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I +see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest +the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press +me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it +was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty +dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before, +thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it +will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I +will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will +rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of +all men, have seen unveiled the mystery. I will leave This behind. When I +am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if +that is what it seeks. Then it will cease to persecute me with its step +close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch." + +Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a +strange expression that her sister was startled. "Put on your bonnet, +Faithful," said she: "I'm going down to see the minister." + +"What do you mean?" said Miss Faithful: "it's nearly nine o'clock." + +"I don't care if it's midnight. I'm going to show these to him, and tell +him what's happened here, and he may make what he can of it." + +"Then you have seen something?" said Miss Faithful, turning pale. + +Miss Sophonisba made a sign of assent; "I'll tell you all about it when we +get there, but do come along now. You're work's done, and I'll take the +bonnet with me and finish it there." + +They lived at some distance from the parsonage, and the roads were in even +worse condition than they are now. It was a tiresome walk, and Miss +Faithful, clinging to her sister's side, was almost inclined to wish they +had braved the terrors at home rather than ventured out into the dark. The +clergyman was a middle-aged bachelor, a grandson of the Parson H---- +mentioned by Mrs. T----. He heard Miss Sophonisba's story in silence, but +without any sign of dissent. Faithful, in spite of her terror, could not +but feel a mild degree of triumph in her sister's evident conviction that +what she had seen was, to say the least, unaccountable. + +Mr. H---- looked over the papers which had been found in the cupboard, and +which Miss Sophonisba had brought with her. "This is undoubtedly Doctor +Haywood's writing," he said at last. "I have a book purchased of him by my +grandfather, and which has marginal notes in the same hand." + +"What shall we do, sir?" asked Miss Sophonisba. + +"If I were you I should leave the house as soon as possible. If there is +anything in the air which induces such--" Mr. H---- hesitated for a +word--"sensations as these, it would be better to go." + +"Sensations!" said Miss Sophonisba, almost indignant. "I tell you I saw it +myself; and what made the wet spot on Faithful's cape, and the rest?" + +"I can't undertake to say, Miss T----; but if you like I will just come up +to-morrow, and we will look into the matter a little. My cousin, +Lieutenant V----, is here from his ship, and he will assist me. And +meantime you had best stay here to-night: my sister will be very glad to +see you." + +Miss H---- was a particular friend of the sisters, but she could not but +feel a little curious to know the object of their visit. Miss Sophonisba +would have kept the matter to herself, but Miss Faithful, in her +excitement, could not but tell the story of their experiences. Miss H----, +however, was a discreet woman, and kept the tale to herself. + +The next evening the clergyman, his cousin the lieutenant and Miss +Sophonisba went quietly about dusk to the old house. They went down into +the cellar, and the drag which the sailor had constructed brought up some +bleached bones, and at the second cast a skeleton hand and a skull. As the +latter was disengaged from the drag something fell glittering from it upon +the cellar floor: two coins rolled to different corners. Mr. H----, picked +them up. One was a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. + +"Miss T----," said the clergyman in a low tone, "I will see that these +poor relics are laid in the burial-ground; and then--really I think you +had better leave the house." + +Miss Sophonisba made no opposition. + +The three ascended the cellar stairs, but as they entered the room they +paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it passed, a wild +gesture of despair, swept the Shape, living yet dead. + +"What was that?" said the clergyman, who was the first to recover himself, +"_It_," said Miss Sophonisba in a whisper. + +"I have seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy passage +round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the +waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to +board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a +corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I +could not bear it and hid my face. One of the sailors, however, took from +the dead hand a paper covered with characters in cipher, which no one +could read. This paper afterward fell into my possession, and I submitted +it in vain to several experts, all of whom failed to read it. By an +accident it was destroyed, and the secret, whatever it was, is hidden for +ever; but the face of that corpse was the face I have just seen in this +room." + +CLARA F. GUERNSEY. + + + + +The Blood Seedling. + + + +In a bit of green pasture that rose, gradually narrowing, to the tableland +that ended in prairie, and widened out descending to the wet and willowy +sands that border the Great River, a broad-shouldered young man was +planting an apple tree one sunny spring morning when Tyler was President. +The little valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills, +patched with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering +columbines. In front was the Mississippi, reposing from its plunge over +the rapids, and idling down among the golden sandbars and the low, moist +islands, which were looking their loveliest in their new spring dresses of +delicate green. + +The young man was digging with a certain vicious energy, forcing the spade +into the black crumbling loam with a movement full of vigor and malice. +His straight black brows were knitted till they formed one dark line over +his deep-set eyes. His beard was not yet old enough to hide the massive +outline of his firm, square jaw. In the set teeth, in the clouded face, in +the half-articulate exclamations that shot from time to time from the +compressed lips, it was easy to see that the thoughts of the young +horticulturist were far from his work. + +A bright young girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that +skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail +of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a +thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually +expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their +love as so airy and delicate in structure that the flowers they tread on +are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation. But not +being a poet or in love, we must admit that there was no resurrection for +the larkspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie +Barringer landed. Yet she was not of the coarse peasant type, though her +cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday +mornings, and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from +shoulders to waist. She was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl, +with a slightly freckled face, and rippled brown hair, and astonished blue +eyes, but perfectly self-possessed, and graceful as a young quail. + +A young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress. The +flight of this plump bird in its fluttering blue plumage over the +rail-fence caused our young man to look up from his spading: the scowl was +routed from his brow by a sudden incursion of blushes, and his mouth was +attacked by an awkward smile. + +The young lady nodded, and was hurrying past. The scowl came back in +force, and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss: +"Miss Tudie, are you in a hurry?" + +The lady thus addressed turned and said, in a voice that was half pert and +half coaxing, "No particular hurry. Al, I've told you a dozen times not to +call me that redicklis name." + +"Why, Tudie, I hain't never called you nothing else sence you was a little +one so high. You ort to know yer own name, and you give yerself that name +when you was a yearling. Howsom-ever, ef you don't like it now, sence +you've been to Jacksonville, I reckon I can call you Miss Susie--when I +don't disremember." + +The frank amende seemed to satisfy Miss Susie, for she at once interrupted +in the kindest manner: "Never mind, Al Golyer: you can call me what you +are a-mind to." Then, as if conscious of the feminine inconsistency, she +changed the subject by asking, "What are you going to do with that great +hole?--big enough to bury a fellow." + +"I'm going to plant this here seedlin', that growed up in Colonel Blood's +pastur', nobody knows how: belike somebody was eatin' an apple and throwed +the core down-like. I'm going to plant a little orchard here next spring, +but the colonel and me, we reckoned this one 'ud be too old by that time +for moving, so I thought I'd stick it in now, and see what come out'n it. +It's a powerful thrifty chunk of a saplin'." + +"Yes. I speak for the first peck of apples off'n it. Don't forget. +Good-morning." + +"Hold on a minute, Miss Susan, twell I git my coat. I'll walk down a piece +with you. I have got something to say to you." + +Miss Susie turned a little red and a little pale. These occasions were not +entirely unknown in her short experience of life. When young men in the +country in that primitive period had something to say, it was something +very serious and earnest. Allen Golyer was a good-looking, stalwart young +farmer, well-to-do, honest, able to provide for a family. There was +nothing presumptuous in his aspiring to the hand of the prettiest girl on +Chaney Creek. In childhood he had trotted her to Banbury Cross and back a +hundred times, beguiling the tedium of the journey with kisses and the +music of bells. When the little girl was old enough to go to school, the +big boy carried her books and gave her the rosiest apple out of his +dinner-basket. He fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions; +which latter, by the way, never gained her any great credit. When she was +fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week +during one happy winter to singing-school. This was the bloom of +life--nothing before or after could compare with it. The blacking of shoes +and brushing of stiff, electric, bristling hair, all on end with frost and +hope, the struggling into the plate-armor of his starched shirt, the tying +of the portentous and uncontrollable cravat before the glass, which was +hopelessly dimmed every moment by his eager breath,--these trivial and +vulgar details were made beautiful and unreal by the magic of youth and +love. Then came the walk through the crisp, dry snow to the Widow +Barringer's, the sheepish talk with the old lady while Susie "got on her +things," and the long, enchanting tramp to the "deestrick school-house." + +There is not a country-bred man or woman now living but will tell you that +life can offer nothing comparable with the innocent zest of that old style +of courting that was done at singing-school in the starlight and +candlelight of the first half of our century. There are few hearts so +withered and old but they beat quicker sometimes when they hear, in +old-fashioned churches, the wailing, sobbing or exulting strains of +"Bradstreet" or "China" or "Coronation;" and the mind floats down on the +current of these old melodies to that fresh young day of hopes and +illusions--of voices that were sweet, no matter how false they sang--of +nights that were rosy with dreams, no matter what Fahrenheit said--of +girls that blushed without cause, and of lovers who talked for hours about +everything but love. + +I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when +I say that there was nothing that our superior civilization would call +love making in those long walks through the winter nights. The heart of +Allen Golyer swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and +devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with his pretty enslaver. +But he talked of apples and pigs and the heathen and the teacher's wig, +and sometimes ventured an illusion to other people's flirtations in a +jocose and distant way; but as to the state of his own heart, his lips +were sealed. It would move a blasé smile on the downy lips of juvenile +Lovelaces, who count their conquests by their cotillons, and think nothing +of making a declaration in an avant-deux, to be told of young people +spending several evenings of each week in the year together, and speaking +no word of love until they were ready to name their wedding-day. Yet such +was the sober habit of the place and time. + +So there was no troth plighted between Allen and Susie, though the youth +loved the maiden with all the energy of his fresh, unused nature, and she +knew it very well. He never dreamed of marrying any other woman than Susie +Barringer, and she sometimes tried a new pen by writing and carefully +erasing the initials S.M.G., which, as she was christened Susan Minerva, +may be taken as showing the direction of her thoughts. + +If Allen Golyer had been less bashful or more enterprising, this history +would never have been written; for Susie would probably have said Yes for +want of anything better to say, and when she went to visit her aunt +Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone _engaged_, her finger bound +with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises. But she went, +as it was, fancy free, and there is no tinder so inflammable as the +imagination of a pretty country girl of sixteen. + +One day she went out with her easy-going aunt Abigail to buy ribbons, the +Chancy Creek invoices not supplying the requirements of Jacksonville +society. As they traversed the court-house square on their way to Deacon +Pettybones' place, Miss Susie's vagrant glances rested on an iris of +ribbons displayed in an opposition window. "Let's go in here," she said +with the impetuous decision of her age and sex. + +"We will go where you like, dear," said easy-going Aunt Abigail. "It makes +no difference." + +Aunt Abigail was wrong. It made the greatest difference to several persons +whether Susie Barringer bought her ribbons at Simmons' or Pettybones' that +day. If she had but known! + +But, all unconscious of the Fate that beckoned invisibly on the threshold, +Miss Susie tripped into "Simmons' Emporium" and asked for ribbons. Two +young men stood at the long counter. One was Mr. Simmons, proprietor of +the emporium, who advanced with his most conscientious smile: "Ribbons, +ma'am? Yes, ma'am--all sorts, ma'am. Cherry, ma'am? Certingly, ma'am. Jest +got a splendid lot from St. Louis this morning, ma'am. This way, ma'am." + +The ladies were soon lost in the delight of the eyes. The voice of Mr. +Simmons accompanied the feast of color, insinuating but unheeded. + +The other young man approached: "Here is what you want, miss--rich and +elegant. Just suits your style. Sets off your hair and eyes beautiful." + +The ladies looked up. A more decided voice than Mr. Simmons'; whiter hands +than Mr. Simmons' handled the silken bands; bolder eyes than the weak, +pink-bordered orbs of Mr. Simmons looked unabashed admiration into the +pretty face of Susie Barringer. + +"Look here, Simmons, old boy, introduce a fellow." + +Mr. Simmons meekly obeyed: "Mrs. Barringer, let me interduce you to Mr. +Leon of St. Louis, of the house of Draper & Mercer." + +"Bertie Leon, at your service," said the brisk young fellow, seizing Miss +Susie's hand with energy. His hand was so much softer and whiter than hers +that she felt quite hot and angry about it. + +When they had made their purchases, Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with +them, and was very witty and agreeable all the way. He had all the wit of +the newspapers, of the concert-rooms, of the steamboat bars at his +fingers' ends. In his wandering life he had met all kinds of people: he +had sold ribbons through a dozen States. He never had a moment's doubt of +himself. He never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would +not interfere with business. He had one ambition in life--to marry Miss +Mercer and get a share in the house. Miss Mercer was as ugly as a +millionaire's tombstone. Mr. Bertie Leon--who, when his moustache was not +dyed nor his hair greased, was really quite a handsome fellow--considered +that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interests of trade must be +made good to him in some way. So, "by way of getting even," he made +violent love to all the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels--"to +have something to think about after he should have found favor in the +strabismic optics of Miss Mercer," he observed, disrespectfully. + +Simple Susie, who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and +blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the +free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was +something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a +faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt +Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate +in the most recent Planters'-House style, she cordially invited him to +call--"to drop in any time: he must be lonesome so far from home." + +He said he wouldn't neglect such a chance, with another Planters'-House +bow. + +"What a nice young man!" said Aunt Abigail. + +"Awful conceited and not overly polite," said Susie as she took off her +bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings. + +The oftener Albert Leon came to Mrs. Barringer's bowery cottage, the more +the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticised +him, until it was plain to be seen that Aunt Abigail was growing tired of +him and pretty Susan dangerously interested. But just at this point his +inexorable carpet-bag dragged him off to a neighboring town, and Susie +soon afterward went back to Chaney Creek. + +Her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could +have done--the belle of the neighborhood. Non cuivis contingit adire +Lutetiam, but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county-town +is a shrine of fashion. Allen Golyer felt a vague sense of distrust +chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons' ribbons decking the pretty head +in the village choir the Sunday after her return, and, spurred on by a +nascent jealousy of the unknown, resolved to learn his fate without loss +of time. But the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned +friendliness, talked so much and so fast about her visit, that the honest +fellow was quite bewildered, and had to go home to think the matter over, +and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever, +or had drifted altogether out of his reach. + +Allen Golyer was, after all, a man of nerve and decision. He wasted only a +day or two in doubts and fears, and one Sunday afternoon, with a beating +but resolute heart, he left his Sunday-school class to walk down to +Crystal Glen and solve his questions and learn his doom. When he came in +sight of the widow's modest house, he saw a buggy hitched by the gate. + +"Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel, by jing! What is Dow after out here?" + +It is natural, if not logical, that young men should regard the visits of +all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious +impropriety. + +But it was not his friend and crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came +out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling +Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the +period--light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black +moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers +that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished +boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod +men in the world. + +Golyer's heart sank within him as this splendid being shone upon him. But +with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the +gate, and said, "Tudie, I come to see you. Shall I go in and talk to your +mother twell you come back?" + +"No, that won't pay," promptly replied the brisk stranger. "We will be +gone the heft of the afternoon, I reckon. This hoss is awful slow," he +added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie. + +"Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr. +Leon." + +Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the +West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again." He lifted Miss +Susie into the buggy, sprang lightly in, and went off with laughter and +the cracking of his whip after Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel. + +The young farmer walked home desolate, comparing in his simple mind his +own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilet, his awkward address +with the other's easy audacity, till his heart was full to the brim with +that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy, from +which pray Heaven to guard you. + +It was the next morning that Miss Susie vaulted over the fence where Allen +Golyer was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree. + +"Something middlin' particular," continued Golyer, resolutely. + +"There is no use leaving your work," said Miss Barringer pluckily. "I will +stay and listen." + +Poor Allen began as badly as possible: "Who was that feller with you +yesterday?" + +"Thank you, Mr. Golyer--my friends ain't fellers! What's that to you, who +he was?" + +"Susie Barringer, we have been keeping company now a matter of a year. I +have loved you well and true: I would have give my life to save you any +little care or trouble. I never dreamed of nobody but you--not that I was +half good enough for you, but because I did not know any better man around +here. Ef it ain't too late, Susie, I ask you to be my wife. I will love +you and care for you, good and true." + +Before this solemn little speech was finished, Susie was crying and biting +her bonnet-strings in a most undignified manner. "Hush, Al Golyer!" she +burst out. "You mustn't talk so. You are too good for me. I am kind of +promised to that fellow. I 'most wish I had never seen him." + +Allen sprang to her and took her in his strong arms: she struggled free +from him. In a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had +produced in her passed away. She dried her eyes and said firmly enough, +"It's no use, Al: we wouldn't be happy together. Good-bye! I shouldn't +wonder if I went away from Chaney Creek before long." + +She walked rapidly down to the river-road. Allen stood fixed and +motionless, gazing at the light, graceful form until the blue dress +vanished behind the hill, and leaned long on his spade, unconscious of the +lapse of time. + +When Susan reached her home she found Leon at the gate. + +"Ah, my little rosebud! I came near missing you. I am going to Keokuk this +morning, to be gone a few days. I stopped here a minute to give you +something to keep for me till I come back." + +"What is it?" + +He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe +lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed. + +She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched +him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It +would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him. +I'd like to hear it." + +An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a +shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the +piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse +passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face. +He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of +weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung +clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued +with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would +have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who, +though working against hope, was still not without resolute will. + +Dame Barringer, who had seen him coming up the walk, bustled in: +"Good-morning, Allen. How beat out you do look! Now, I like a stiddy young +man, but don't you think you run this thing of workin' into the ground?" + +"Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile--"leastways I've been +a-running this spade into the ground all the morning, and--" + +"_You_ want buttermilk--that's your idee: ain't it, now?" + +"Well, Mizzes Barringer, I reckon you know my failin's." + +The good woman trotted off to the dairy, and Susie sewed demurely, waiting +with some trepidation for what was to come next. + +"Susie Barringer," said a low, husky voice which she could scarcely +recognize as Golyer's, "I've come to ask pardon--not for nothing I've +done, for I never did and never could do you wrong--but for what I thought +for a while arter you left me this morning. It's all over now, but I tell +_you_ the Bad Man had his claws into my heart for a spell. Now it's all +over, and I wish you well. I wish your husband well. If ever you git into +any trouble where I can help, send for me: it's my right. It's the last +favor I ask of you." + +Susceptible Susie cried a little again. Allen, watching her with his +ambushed eyes, said, "Don't take it to heart, Tudie. Perhaps there is +better days in store for me yet." + +This did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least. She was +greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man's heart: she +was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not. If any +explanation of this paradox is required, I would observe, quoting a phrase +much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age, that Miss Susie +Barringer was "a very female woman." + +So pretty Susan's rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time +her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and +plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent +delight of a Lady Bountiful. + +"There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance +in all things." + +"Very well, then, you work less and play more. We never get a sight of you +lately. Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie." + +It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter +married and settled with "a stiddy young man that you knowed all about, +and his folks before him." She had observed with great disquietude the +brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter +in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil +of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is +a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet +would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a +Cocodès.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't +be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller." + +Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame +Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on +his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making +Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol. + +Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's +dismay, Mr. Leon did not come. + +"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away +from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet +and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The +artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so +she added, "I was expecting a letter from my aunt." + +"No letters here from your aunt, nor your uncle, nor none of the tribe," +said old Whaler, who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place, and so +had no further use for good manners. + +"I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch," said Susie that +evening, "and I won't go near his old post-office again." But Susie forgot +her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family +affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie _must_ have +written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly, +"Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres--that's what's the +matter." + +Poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried +from that dreadful post-office, scarcely hearing the terrible words that +the old gin-pig hurled after her: "_And he's forgot you!--that's what's +the matter._" + +Susie Barringer walked home along the river-road, revolving many things in +her mind. She went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen-knife +over the latch, and sat down to have a good cry. Her faculties being thus +cleared for action, she thought seriously for an hour. If you can remember +when you were a school-girl, you know a great deal of solid thinking can +be done in an hour. But we can tell you in a moment what it footed up. You +can walk through the Louvre in a minute, but you cannot see it in a week. + +_Susan Barringer (sola, loquitur)_: "Three weeks yesterday. Yes, I s'pose +it's so. What a little fool I was! He goes everywheres--says the same +things to everybody, like he was selling ribbons. Mean little scamp! +Mother seen through him in a minute. I'm mighty glad I didn't tell her +nothing about it." [Fie, Susie! your principles are worse than your +grammar.] "He'll marry some rich girl--I don't envy her, but I hate +her--and I am as good as she is. Maybe he will come back--no, and I hope +he won't;--and I wish I was dead!" (_Pocket handkerchief._) + +Yet in the midst of her grief there was one comforting thought--nobody +knew of it. She had no confidante--she had not even opened her heart to +her mother: these Western maidens have a fine gift of reticence. A few of +her countryside friends and rivals had seen with envy and admiration the +pretty couple on the day of Leon's arrival. But all their poisonous little +compliments and questions had never elicited from the prudent Susie more +than the safe statement that the handsome stranger was a friend of Aunt +Abbie's, whom she had met at Jacksonville. They could not laugh at her: +they could not sneer at gay deceivers and lovelorn damsels when she went +to the sewing-circle. The bitterness of her tears was greatly sweetened by +the consideration that in any case no one could pity her. She took such +consolation from this thought that she faced her mother unflinchingly at +tea, and baffled the maternal inquest on her "redness of eyes" by the +school-girl's invaluable and ever-ready headache. + +It was positively not until a week later, when she met Allen Golyer at +choir-meeting, that she remembered that this man knew the secret of her +baffled hopes. She blushed scarlet as he approached her: "Have you got +company home, Miss Susie?" + +"Yes--that is, Sally Withers and me came together, and--" + +"No, that's hardly fair to Tom Fleming: three ain't the pleasantest +company. I will go home with you." + +Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her, and leaned upon it +with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home through +the balmy night under the clear, starry heaven of the early spring. The +air was full of the quickening breath of May. + +Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Allen +Golyer. He talked more than usual, but in a grave, quiet, protecting +style, very different from his former manner of worshiping bashfulness. +His tone had in it an air of fatherly caressing which was inexpressibly +soothing to his pretty companion, tired and lonely with her silent +struggle of the past month. When they came to her gate and he said +good-night, she held his hand a moment with a tremulous grasp, and spoke +impulsively: "Al, I once told you something I never told anybody else. +I'll tell you something else now, because I believe I can trust you." + +"Be sure of that, Susie Barringer." + +"Well, Al, my engagement is broken off." + +"I am sorry for you, Susie, if you set much store by him." + +Miss Susie answered with great and unnecessary impetuosity, "I don't, and +I am glad of it!" and then ran into the house and to bed, her cheeks all +aflame at the thought of her indiscretion, and yet with a certain comfort +in having a friend from whom she had no secrets. + +I protest there was no thought of coquetry in the declaration which Susan +Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of +the May heaven. But Allen Golyer would have been a dull boy not to have +taken heart and hope from it. He became, as of old, a frequent and welcome +visitor at Crystal Glen. Before long the game of chequers with Susie +became so enthralling a passion that it was only adjourned from one +evening to another. Allen's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with +fatigue-duty, and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much +soap. Susie's affectionate heart, which had been swayed a moment from its +orbit by the irresistible attraction of Bertie Leon's diamond breastpin +and city swagger, swung back to its ancient course under the mild +influence of time and the weather and opportunity. So that Dame Barringer +was not in the least surprised, on entering her little parlor one soft +afternoon in that very May, to see the two young people economically +occupying one chair, and Susie shouting the useless appeal, "Mother, make +him behave!" + +"I never interfere in young folks' matters, especially when they're going +all right," said the motherly old soul, kissing "her son Allen" and +trotting away to dry her happy tears. + +I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married--so soon that when +Miss Susan went with her mother to Keokuk to buy a wedding-garment, she +half expected to find, in every shop she entered, the elegant figure of +Mr. Leon leaning over the counter. But the dress was bought and made, and +worn at wedding and _in-fair_ and in a round of family visits among the +Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the +pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on +Allen's prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs. +Golyer to trouble her joy. In her calm and busy life the very name faded +from her tranquil mind. These wholesome country hearts do not bleed long. +In that wide-awake country eyes are too useful to be wasted in weeping. My +dear Lothario Urban us, those peaches are very sound and delicious, but +they will not keep for ever. If you do not secure them to-day, they will +go to some one else, and in no case, as the Autocrat hath said with +authority, can you stand there "mellering 'em with your thumb." + +There was no happier home in the county, and few finer farms. The good +sense and industry of Golyer and the practical helpfulness of his wife +found their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing +orchards. The Warsaw merchants fought for his wheat, and his apples were +known in St. Louis. Mrs. Golyer, with that spice of romance which is +hidden away in every woman's heart, had taken a special fancy to the +seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted. +Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a +child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he +reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling. He spaded and +mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits +and in summer from terebrant grubs. It was not ungrateful. It grew a noble +tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, +and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell. The first peck of +apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first +bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud in his +admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on: "Great Scott, Golyer! +I'd rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than +be Senator." + +"You've got your wish, then, colonel," said Golyer. "Me and my wife have +called that tree The Blood Seedling sence the day it was transplanted from +your pastur'." + +It was the pride and envy of the neighborhood. Several neighbors asked for +scions and grafts, but could do nothing with them. + +"Fact is," said old Silas Withers, "those folks that expects to raise good +fruit by begging graffs, and then layin' abed and readin' newspapers, will +have a good time waitin'. Elbow-grease is the secret of the Blood +Seedlin', ain't it, Al?" + +"Well, I reckon, Squire Withers, a man never gits anything wuth havin' +without a tussle for it; and as to secrets, I don't believe in them, +nohow." + +A square-browed, resolute, silent, middle-aged man, who loved his home +better than any amusement, regular at church, at the polls, something +richer every Christmas than he had been on the New Year's preceding--a man +whom everybody liked and few loved much--such had Allen Golyer grown to +be. + + * * * * * + +If I have lingered too long over this colorless and commonplace picture of +rural Western life, it is because I have felt an instinctive reluctance to +recount the startling and most improbable incident which fell one night +upon this quiet neighborhood, like a thunderbolt out of blue sky. The +story I must tell will be flatly denied and easily refuted. It is absurd +and fantastic, but, unless human evidence is to go for nothing when it +testifies of things unusual, the story is true. + +At the head of the rocky hollow through which Chaney Creek ran to the +river, lived the family who gave the brook its name. They were among the +early pioneers of the county. In the squatty yellow stone house the +present Chaney occupied his grandfather had stood a siege from Black Hawk +all one summer day and night, until relieved by the garrison of Fort +Edward. The family had not grown with the growth of the land. Like many +others of the pioneers, they had shown no talent for keeping abreast of +the civilization whose guides and skirmishers they had been. In the +progress of a half century they had sold, bit by bit, their section of +land, which kept intact would have proved a fortune. They lived very +quietly, working enough to secure their own pork and hominy, and regarding +with a sort of impatient scorn every scheme of public or private +enterprise that passed under their eyes. + +The elder Chaney had married, some years before, at the Mormon town of +Nauvoo, the fair-haired daughter of a Swedish mystic, who had come across +the sea beguiled by dreams of a perfect theocracy, and who on arriving at +the city of the Latter-Day Saints had died, broken-hearted from his lost +illusions. + +The only dowry that Seraphita Neilsen brought her husband, besides her +delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes, was a full set of Swedenborg's +later writings in English. These became the daily food of the solitary +household. Saul Chaney would read the exalted rhapsodies of the Northern +seer for hours together, without the first glimmer of their meaning +crossing his brain. But there was something in the majesty of their +language and the solemn roll of their poetical development that +irresistibly impressed and attracted him. Little Gershom, his only child, +sitting at his feet, would listen in childish wonder to the strange things +his silent, morose and gloomy father found in the well-worn volumes, until +his tired eyelids would fall at last over his pale, bulging eyes. + +As he grew up his eyes bulged more and more: his head seemed too large for +his rickety body. He pored over the marvelous volumes until he knew long +passages by heart, and understood less of them than his father--which was +unnecessary. He looked a little like his mother, but while she in her +youth had something of the faint and flickering beauty of the Boreal +Lights, poor Gershom never could have suggested anything more heavenly +than a foggy moonlight. When he was fifteen he went to the neighboring +town of Warsaw to school. He had rather heavy weather among the well-knit, +grubby-knuckled urchins of the town, and would have been thoroughly +disheartened but for one happy chance. At the house where he boarded an +amusement called the "Sperrit Rappin's" was much in vogue. A group of +young folks, surcharged with all sorts of animal magnetism, with some +capacity for belief and much more for fun, used to gather about a light +pine table every evening, and put it through a complicated course of +mystical gymnastics. It was a very good-tempered table: it would dance, +hop or slam at the word of command, or, if the exercises took a more +intellectual turn, it would answer any questions addressed to it in a +manner not much below the average capacity of its tormentors. + +Gershom Chaney took all this in solemn earnest. He was from the first +moment deeply impressed. He lay awake whole nights, with his eyes fast +closed, in the wildest dreams. His school-hours were passed in trancelike +contemplation. He cared no more for punishment than the fakeer for his +self-inflicted tortures. He longed for the coming of the day when he could +commune in solitude with the unfleshed and immortal. This was the full +flowering of those seeds of fantasy that had fallen into his infant mind +as he lay baking his brains by the wide fire in the old stone house at the +head of the hollow, while his father read, haltingly, of the wonders of +the invisible world. + +But, to his great mortification, he saw nothing, heard nothing, +experienced nothing but in the company of others. He must brave the +ridicule of the profane to taste the raptures which his soul loved. His +simple, trusting faith made him inevitably the butt of the mischievous +circle. They were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to +external influences. One muscular, black-haired, heavy-browed youth took +especial delight in practicing upon him. The table, under Gershom's +tremulous hands, would skip like a lamb at the command of this Thomas Fay. + +One evening, Tom Fay had a great triumph. They had been trying to get the +"medium"--for Gershom had reached that dignity--to answer sealed +questions, and had met with indifferent success. Fay suddenly approached +the table, scribbled a phrase, folded it and tossed it, doubled up, before +Gershom; then leaned over the table, staring at his pale, unwholesome face +with all the might of his black eyes. + +Chaney seized the pencil convulsively and wrote, "Balaam!" + +Fay burst into a loud laugh and said, "Read the question?" + +It was, "Who rode on your grandfather's back?" + +This is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor +Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended, +but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen +counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and +incorrigible indolence. He accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom, +and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents. + +Here, with less criticism and more perfect faith, he renewed the exercise +of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and +want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to +make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings +and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as +evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an +oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they +expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time +to the circle, and their reports heightened the half-uncanny interest with +which the Chaney house was regarded. + +It was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that Allen Golyer, standing +by his gate, saw Saul Chaney slouching along in the twilight, and hailed +him: "What news from the sperrits, Saul?" + +"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world +takes care of the like o' you." + +Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors +abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think +for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up +and ask Gershom what's come of it." + +"Come along, if you like. It's been a long while sence you've crossed my +sill. But I'm gitting to be quite the style. Young Lawyer Marshall is +a-coming up this evening to see my Gershom." + +Before Mr. Golyer started he filled a basket, "to make himself welcome and +pay for the show," with the reddest and finest fruit of his favorite apple +tree. His wife followed him to the gate and kissed him--a rather unusual +attention among Western farmer-people. Her face, still rosy and comely, +was flushed and smiling: "Al, do you know what day o' the year it is?" + +"Nineteenth of Aprile?" + +"Yes; and twenty years ago to-day you planted the Blood Seedlin' and I +give you the mitten!" She turned and went into the house, laughing +comfortably. + +Allen walked slowly up the hollow to the Chaney house, and gave the apples +to Seraphita and told her their story. A little company was assembled--two +or three Chaney Creek people, small market-gardeners, with eyes the color +of their gooseberries and hands the color of their currants; Mr. Marshall, +a briefless young barrister from Warsaw, with a tawny friend, who spoke +like a Spaniard. + +"Take seats, friends, and form a circle o' harmony," said Saul Chaney. +"The me'jum is in fine condition: he had two fits this arternoon." + +Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak. He reclined in a great hickory +arm-chair, with his eyes half open, his lips moving noiselessly. All the +persons present formed a circle and joined hands. + +The moment the circle was completed by Saul and Seraphita, who were on +either side of their son, touching his hands, an expression of pain and +perplexity passed over his pale face, and he began to writhe and mutter. + +"He's seein' visions," said Saul. + +"Yes, too many of 'em," said Gershom, querulously. "A boy in a boat, a man +on a shelf, and a man with a spade--all at once: too many. Get me a +pencil. One at a time, I tell you--one at a time!" + +The circle broke up, and a table was brought, with writing materials. +Gershom grasped a pencil, and said, with imperious and feverish +impatience, "Come on, now, and don't waste the time of the shining ones." + +An old woman took his right hand. He wrote with his left very rapidly an +instant, and threw her the paper, always with his eyes shut close. + +Old Mrs. Scritcher read with difficulty, "A boy in a boat--over he goes;" +and burst out in a piteous wail, "Oh, my poor little Ephraim! I always +knowed it." + +"Silence, woman!" said the relentless medium. + +"Mr. Marshall," said Saul, "would you like a test?" + +"No, thank you," said the young gentleman. "I brought my friend, Mr. +Baldassano, who, as a traveler, is interested in these things." + +"Will you take the medium's hand, Mr. What's-your-name?" + +The young foreigner took the lean and feverish hand of Gershom, and again +the pencil flew rapidly over the paper. He pushed the manuscript from him +and snatched his hand away from Baldassano. As the latter looked at what +was written, his tawny cheek grew deadly pale. "Dios mio!" he exclaimed to +Marshall. "This is written in Castilian!" + +The two young men retired to the other end of the room and read by the +tallow candle the notes scrawled on the paper. Baldassano translated: "A +man on a shelf--table covered with bottles beside him: man's face yellow +as gold: bottles tumble over without being touched." + +"What nonsense is that?" said Marshall. + +"My brother died of yellow fever at sea last year." + +Both the young men became suddenly very thoughtful, and observed with +great interest the result of Golyer's "test." He sat by Gershom, holding +his hand tightly, but gazing absently into the dying blaze of the wide +chimney. He seemed to have forgotten where he was: a train of serious +thought appeared to hold him completely under its control. His brows were +knit with an expression of severe almost fierce determination. At one +moment his breathing was hard and thick--a moment after hurried and +broken. + +All this while the fingers of Gershom were flying rapidly over the paper, +independently of his eyes, which were sometimes closed, and sometimes +rolling as if in trouble. + +A wind which had been gathering all the evening now came moaning up the +hollow, rattling the window-blinds, and twisting into dull complaint the +boughs of the leafless trees. Its voice came chill and cheerless into the +dusky room, where the fire was now glimmering near its death, and the only +sounds were those of Gershom's rushing pencil, the whispering of Marshall +and his friend, and old Mother Scritcher feebly whimpering in her corner. +The scene was sinister. Suddenly, a rushing gust blew the door wide open. + +Golyer started to his feet, trembling in every limb, and looking furtively +over his shoulder out into the night. Quickly recovering himself, he +turned to resume his place. But the moment he dropped Gershom's hand, the +medium had dropped his pencil, and had sunk back in his chair in a deep +and deathlike slumber. Golyer seized the sheet of paper, and with the +first line that he read a strange and horrible transformation was wrought +in the man. His eyes protruded, his teeth chattered, he passed his hand +over his head mechanically, and his hair stood up like the bristles on the +back of a swine in rage. His face was blotched white and purple. He looked +piteously about him for a moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand, +cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's +no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: +ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of lying? I +done it." + +He paused, as if struck by a sudden recollection, then burst into tears +and shook like a tree in a high wind. In a moment he dropped on his knees, +and in that posture crawled over to Marshall: "Here, Mr. Marshall--here's +the whole story. For God's sake, spare my wife and children all you can. +Fix my little property all right for 'em, and God bless you for it!" Even +while he was speaking, with a quick revulsion of feeling he rose to his +feet, with a certain return of his natural dignity, and said, "But they +sha'n't take me! None of my kin ever died that way: I've got too much sand +in my gizzard to be took that way. Good-bye, friends all!" + +He walked deliberately out into the wild, windy night. + +Marshall glanced hurriedly at the fatal paper in his hand. It was full of +that capricious detail with which in reverie we review scenes that are +past. But a line here and there clearly enough told the story--how he went +out to plant the apple tree; how Susie came by and rejected him; how he +passed into the power of the devil for the time; how Bertie Leon came by +and spoke to him, and patted him on the shoulder, and talked about city +life; how he hated him and his pretty face and his good clothes; how they +came to words and blows, and he struck him with his spade, and he fell +into the trench, and he buried him there at the roots of the tree. + +Marshall, following his first impulse, thrust the paper into the dull red +coals. It flamed for an instant, and flew with a sound like a sob up the +chimney. + +They hunted for Golyer all night, but in the morning found him lying as if +asleep, with the peace of expiation on his pale face, his pruning-knife in +his, heart, and the red current of his life tinging the turf with crimson +around the roots of the Blood Seedling. + +JOHN HAY. + + + + +The Marquis. + + + +Mrs. Ruggles lived near Crawfish Creek. Crawfish Creek ran near Thompson +City. Thompson City was in a Western State, but now is in a Middle one. It +was always in the midst of a great country--accepting local testimony and +a rank growth of corn and politicians as the tests of greatness. The earth +there was monotonously parched in summer, and monotonously muddy at all +other times. The forests were gigantic, the air carbonic, and when the +citizens wished to give Thompson City the highest commendation, they did +so by saying that "fevernagur" was worse in some other places. + +In the parlor of Mrs. Ruggles, which was also her kitchen and dining-hall, +hung a frame containing a seven-by-nine mirror, which was the frame's +excuse for being, although a compartment above and one below held squares +of glass covered with paint instead of mercury. The lower one was colored +like the contents of a wash-tub after a liberal use of indigo; and in the +centre was a horizontal stroke of red, surmounted by a perpendicular dash +of white, intersected by an oblique line of black--all of which +represented a red boat, with a white sail and black spar, making an +endless voyage across the lake of indigo. The black crosses in the sky +were birds. The black lines on the left were bulrushes. And among these +bulrushes a certain gloomy little object was either a Hebrew prophet or a +muskrat. + +Above the mirror was painted a long-tailed coat, from behind which +extended a hand holding a bell-crowned hat, to whose scarlet lining the +holder seemed inviting the spectator's particular attention. There were +also a pair of legs and boots, a heavy shock of hair, a labyrinth of +neckcloth and a florid human face. Under the boots were the words, + +MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE. + +And the beholder was ever in doubt whether the marquis was trying to stand +exclusively upon this title or was unconsciously trampling it into the +ground. + +Mrs. Ruggles admired this picture. Her knowledge of French was not great, +but her ear was delicate; and thinking the words "sounded handsome," she +had deliberately conferred them in full on her first-born. When in +good-humor she was content with calling him "Marquis-dee." In fact, it was +only when chasing him into the street with a lilac bush in her hand that +she insisted on addressing him by his full name. At such times, between +each flourish of the lilac bush and each yell of the young nobleman, she +pronounced with significant fullness, with fearful exactness, the +handsome-sounding name of Marquis de la Fayette Ruggles. His playmates, +however, had not the delicate ear of the mother, and as the son had brown +specks on his face, he was popularly known as "Frecky Rug." + +Mrs. Ruggles and her late husband were pioneers in the Crawfish Valley. +Subsequent settlers knew little, and apparently cared less, about her. +They knew, however, that she had been a Peables, and that Peables blood +was still doing its duty in her veins. And from her independence and +reserve they argued that the Peableses must have been "high up"--at least +in the estimation of Mrs. Ruggles. After Mr. Ruggles had been overcome by +malaria in clearing the creek bottoms the pride of the Peables blood had +sustained her in a long, brave fight with circumstances. + +It was while he lay one night upon his deathbed, mistaking a watching +neighbor for his wife, that he started up, saying, "Becky, if I could +prove it to you afore I died!" + +"Out of his head," was the quiet remark of Mrs. Ruggles to the watching +neighbor by the bedside. There was no further sign of delirium. That +exclamation of the dying Mr. Ruggles was a mystery to the women of +Crawfish Creek, and remains so to this day. + +It may be that the pride of Mrs. Ruggles was in excess of her wisdom. It +may be if that pride had been a little more respected by the irreverent +Crawfish settlers, they would not have had occasion to wonder, as they did +wonder, how a heart so true, an honesty so stoical, a discrimination so +acute could exist with an independence so absurd, a mind so uncultured, a +sense of dignity so ridiculous as were found united in her character. It +may be that the Peables blood was worthy of receiving honor as great as +the ridicule it did receive. It may be if the world had known the +Peableses it would have been as proud of them as she was. + +She was a person of scrupulous neatness, careful never to be seen by +strangers except in a tidy dress, and with her hair in a Grecian knot, +gracefully secured by a leather string and a wooden peg. "Weak creepings" +were her main reliance in the way of disease. She was also troubled, at +times, with a "fullness of the head." In addition, there were other times +when her right side "felt separate." But she seldom complained of anything +belonging to herself. Even her maladies, she took pleasure in knowing, +were very different from those enjoyed by certain other women. Unwilling +to be too familiar with any one baser than a Ruggles, she usually dined, +as she lived, alone with her noble son. + +On a certain summer evening she stirred her tea a long time in silence. +She stirred it vigorously, creating a maelstrom inside her cup, where, +very like a whale in the story-books, a little crust of bread disappeared +and reappeared, and sailed round and round as if very much perplexed. Then +she unconsciously reversed the current of the maelstrom, sending the baked +and buttered whale to the bottom. + +[Illustration: "She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the +young naturalist's feelings."] + +"I never see that air Miller, no odds how well I be," she remarked +mechanically to the tea-pot, "but what I feel weak creepin's come over me. +He puts dye-stuff on his baird. An' when a man's whiskers is gray an' his +head keeps black, it's a sign he uses his jaw more'n he does his brains. +An' that yaller-headed doll-baby o' his'n--the peert thing:--I'll lay +fifty cents she never washed a dish. To think o' her sayin' a thing like +that about Markis-dee!--an' there's more o' the Peables in him to-day--But +I s'pose she don't know no better." And Mrs. Ruggles rose from the table, +while the corner of her apron made a sudden journey to the corner of her +eye. It was evident her moral nature had received a wound that rankled. + +A year before this time the marquis and his playmates had watched several +vigorous fellows plant a theodolite on the bank of Crawfish Creek, very +much as the natives must have watched the Spaniards plant their first +cross on San Salvador. The contract for grading the new railway bed was in +the hands of a stranger named Miller, who was said to have known better +days, and in the time of his prosperity had been thought a proper person +to be called Colonel. He was a bluff man of forty years, who appeared to +have known both the ups and downs of life, and whose determination to wear +a black beard was equaled only by its determination to be gray. Rumor said +that he had been a railroad president, that he made and spent vast sums of +money, and that his home was somewhere in the East. + +His only child, Alice, ten or twelve years old, bright, fair, full of +animal spirits, who was indulged to the last degree by the roughly +generous colonel, sometimes accompanied him about the half-developed +country, searching for strange birds and blossoms in the woods or watching +demurely the laborers ply their picks and shovels while he inspected their +work. + +The two rode almost daily between Thompson City and the line of +excavation, passing the house of Mrs. Ruggles and a cool spring by the +roadside near it, whence that lady had obtained the water which made the +tea which was stirred into the maelstrom which has been described. While +obtaining it, clad in her working garb, the patter of hoofs and a clear +girlish laugh--sweet as the carol of a meadow lark--came ringing along the +road. As the colonel and Alice halted to let her high-mettled pony and his +heavier Morgan drink, Mrs. Ruggles, who could not otherwise escape +observation, with becoming pride and modesty stepped behind the thick +willows, leaving the marquis with a pail of water between his legs and a +bunch of mottled feathers in his hand. + +He stood dumb before the lovely girl, with her face sparkling from +exercise and enjoyment, and her golden hair escaping from its prison of +blue ribbons. While the horses drank she espied a cluster of cool violets +brightening the damp grass near the spring. The marquis had presence of +mind enough left to step forward and pluck them. Her "Thank you!" added +greatly to his embarrassment, which he expressed by vigorously twisting +the mottled feathers. + +"What bird are those from?" asked Alice. + +The question so increased his embarrassment that now the marquis could +express it only by chewing his cap, and she smilingly waited a moment for +the composure of the young naturalist's feelings. + +"She was a low, chunky hen," said he, at length--"she was a low, chunky +hen, an' she laid a hundred an' seven eggs, an' then she had spazzums an' +whirled roun' till she died." + +A burst of irrepressible laughter escaped Alice, with the exclamation, +"Did anybody ever see such a boy?" as she and her father rode away. And +those were the exceptionable words concerning her son which so rankled +that evening in the heart of Mrs. Ruggles. + +The marquis gazed with hungry eyes after the airy little figure as it +dashed down the unlovely, worm-fenced road. The golden hair, overflowing +its boundaries of blue ribbon, was more glorious to him than the golden +sunshine overflowing the blue sky. They met no more at the spring, but +several times a week, from a respectful distance, he watched her riding +by. From Thompson City to the little log bridge over Crawfish Creek the +road lay for four miles through heavy woods. Then came cleared fields, and +soon the house of Mrs. Ruggles. + +So the summer days went by. The season was waning, the grading was almost +done, and soon the contractor would be elsewhere. Then came one +particularly warm and sultry day. The screams of locusts everywhere +suggested that they were frying. The colonel, riding once more slowly out +toward the workmen with his daughter, was near the middle of the forest. +The trees on either hand were tall, and the road was so straight and +narrow that the sunlight scarcely touched it. The marquis, in the top of a +tall chestnut that overhung the road near the edge of the wood, was +overhauling a nest of flying squirrels--perhaps in the hope of finding +mottled feathers on their wings. From his elevation he could see for a +great distance down the level, dusty road between the trees, and far +across the surrounding country. + +The sun did not shine bright, yet no cloud was in the sky. The atmosphere, +thick, oppressive, opaque, veiled the horizon with strange gloom. Not a +leaf could stir in the vast forest. Not a dimple nor the semblance of a +current broke the surface of the sluggish creek. Not a sound, save the +interminable frying of the locusts. + +The colonel slackened his pace, surprised that his horse should so soon +begin to drip and pant--Alice, familiar with the road, in the mean time +riding a mile ahead. The marquis clung to the topmost branches, looking at +the still sky far above him, the still stream far below him, the still +tree-tops far around him, till he caught a glimpse of the only interesting +object to be seen--a black pony bearing its usual burden, if Alice Miller +could be called a burden, and pacing leisurely up the road beneath him. He +gazed as far as the palisade of trees permitted, but her father was not +yet in sight. + +Suddenly, in the west, a single vein of lightning darted down the sky. A +few trees shuddered as if to shake the gathering shadows from their +bosoms. Then tenfold stillness. A bird flew past with a scream of terror, +the marquis looking in vain to see a hawk pursuing it. The distant moan of +a cow came from the fields. Not another sound, it seemed, was in the +world. + +In an instant the south-west was black. A strange, remote murmur smote the +colonel's ear. Overhead he could see but a strip of hot, hazy sky. Had he +seen the whole heavens, he could have done nothing but go on. Quickly the +murmur became an awful muttering, then a deafening roar. The clatter, the +rush, the crash of a tornado were behind him. The groans of the very earth +were about him. The darkness of twilight was upon him. Alice and Death +were before him. A cloudy demon, towering high as the heavens, in whose +path nothing could live, was striding near and nearer. + +Farm-houses were overthrown. Trees were twisted off from their roots and +torn to pieces. Wild animals and birds were dashed to death. Streams were +emptied of their waters. Human beings and horses and cattle were lifted +into the air, hurled hither and thither and thrown dead upon the earth. + +The whirlwind was following the line of the road! Colonel Miller had no +opportunity to see this, nor could he ride aside from that line if he +chose. He could but cry aloud, "My darling! O God! Alice!" and lash his +horse forward. The high, close forest would keep the wind from lifting his +horse from the ground or himself from the saddle. But the great trees +crashed like thunder behind him. Their fragments whirled above him. Their +branches fell before him. The limb of a huge oak grazed his face, crushed +his horse, and both rolled to the ground, blinded with dust, imprisoned +within a barricade of splintered trunks and shattered tree-tops. + +The marquis, from his high lookout, saw, before any one else, the +approaching tornado, and, descending like a flash, he yet noted its +direction. As Alice reached the foot of his tree he was on the ground, had +seized the pony's mane, was half seated and half clinging in front of her, +had snatched the reins from her hand, and was urging the frightened animal +to its utmost speed. Overcome with terror and confusion, Alice clung +instinctively to the saddle and to him, without hearing his hurried advice +to "stick like a old burdock." + +They shot like an arrow up the road. The noise of the tempest was audible. +Closer it was coming, crushing, rending, annihilating all before it. The +way grew darker. The terrified pony scarce touched the ground. His only +will was to go forward, and he still obeyed a firm use of the bit. But who +could hope to outrun a hurricane? Twelve miles an hour against eighty! The +marquis heeded nothing. Not far behind, the road was but a slash of +fallen, writhing tree-tops. The sweat dropped from his face. He dared not +look behind. + +They reached it--the lane, by the log bridge, running at right angles to +the road--and in a moment, behind them, that lane was choked with whirling +debris. + +But in that moment they had cleared the track of the whirlwind. For the +first time Alice comprehended the conduct of the marquis. For the first +time he turned to see. A quarter of a mile each side the road the +hurricane had carried complete desolation. But after passing the heavy +timber it had veered several degrees, and was sparing the house of Mrs. +Ruggles. + +With a white face she met them at the gate. A word of explanation from the +marquis--an ejaculation of mental anguish from the girl. Two fugitive +tie-choppers from the woods turned back to find the colonel's body. Mrs. +Ruggles, carrying Alice in her arms to the door--the yaller-headed +doll-baby that never washed a dish--did what she could to soothe her, but +did it as silently as possible. + +Mrs. Ruggles intercepted the returning tie-choppers in the lane. A look of +eager joy was in their faces. The bruised colonel, assisted to the +threshold, sank into the big arm-chair, and Alice was in his arms. Mrs. +Ruggles did not see their meeting, not at all. No, her back was toward +them, but the corner of her apron made another journey to the corner of +her eye as the father folded his lost child once more to his heart. + +His desire to express his gratitude to Mrs. Ruggles and her boy was +equaled only by her fears that he would do so. As a last resort he called +the marquis to him, and, while a tear stood on his rough cheek, drew a +handful of money from his pocket. But a bony hand appeared majestically +between them, and a voice said, "Not by no means. We're not them kind o' +persons. Markis-dee, put away the camfire." + +Then a rickety gig rattled up to the gate: "Contusion--severe--no +danger--there!--be lame a while--so!--the other bandage--bridge +gone--creek half dry--bend your leg--so!--current turned up-stream--now +the shoulder--not strange Crawfish Creek should run backward--he! he!" And +the rickety gig rattled merrily off in search of broken bones. + +Alice, meeting the marquis outside the door, approached him in a way that +made him tremble. What was said will never be known, but she placed her +white little hand upon his shoulder, the golden head bowed for a moment +and her sweet lips touched his sunburnt face. + +By remaining quiet that night the colonel would be able to get back to +Thompson City in the morning. Before nine o'clock he was at rest in the +bed-room. A couch for Alice had been prepared in the same room. In the +other--kitchen, parlor and dining-hall--a blanket was thrown down for the +marquis, and two chairs fixed for the bed of Mrs. Ruggles. Before +retiring, however, she sat down at her lonely table, where, +notwithstanding the tea she drank to keep them off, an unusual number of +weak creepings came over her. + +"I couldn't help it," was all she said to the tea-pot. Whether she +referred to the tornado, or her kindness to the sufferers, or to the +manner of rendering the kindness, no one knows. That was all she said to +the tea-pot, but to her son, who sat for a while beside her, she spoke in +a low tone: "Markis-dee, you could never c'verse with her. You're better'n +she is. Put her out o' yer head. She laughed at ye." + +"But she kissed me wi' tears in 'er eyes afterward," was his answer as he +turned toward his bed on the floor. + +An hour later the tea was exhausted, but Mrs. Ruggles yet sat at her +lonely table, as still as the sleepers around her. The clock struck ten: +she nervously drew a soiled paper from her bosom. Eleven: she rose with +hesitation and set the tallow candle behind the door. Then she softly +entered the bed-room and stood before the window where Alice lay. The sky +was clear again. The moon shone on the face and form of the sleeping girl, +making softer their graceful lines, richer the shadows in the golden hair, +tenderer the tint of cheek and lip. + +She stepped again into the shade and stole to the colonel's bedside. His +disturbed mind had turned backward over the path of life from the sudden +death escaped, and, sleeping or waking, his memory had been busy with the +people and events of other days. + +"John Miller!" she said, in a suppressed tone. He started. "John Miller, I +know ye. Common name--I wa'n't sure afore to-day. When you pulled that +money out o' yer pocket I see that in yer face that satisfied me. It's fer +the good name o' the dead I've come. Elseways I never'd ha' troubled ye." +The astonished colonel shifted his position painfully, prepared to speak +or to listen. "There yer girl lies in the light o' heaven. Nex' room my +boy lies in the shadder an' dark. He don't know, an' he never will. John +Miller, I married as honest an' as good a man as ever you see. Folks has +come to me in sickness an' trouble, an' gone behin' my back to talk. Some +said I done right to take him--'twas Christian in me. Some said I must ha' +been a fool. Some said we wa'n't married a-tall. Wasn't I a Peables? +Didn't I know 'twould be flung up to my face? Wasn't I prouder'n any on +'em?" + +A moment's confusion and doubting of senses: then, as the suppressed voice +went on, the colonel remembered. A dozen years ago; before he had meddled +with railroads; back in the old town; soon after taking his father's shop; +he was plaintiff; Ruggles worked in the first room; Porter's testimony; +Becky Peables the sweetheart of both; burglary; loss trifling; George +Ruggles, for one year; came back and married when released; went West. The +old case had scarce crossed his mind for years. + +"Yes, you sent him, an' I waited fer him. The day he come out I married +him. We had to dig hard. I'd do it ag'in. Now his boy's saved yer girl's +life to pay ye fer puttin' his father'n State's pris'n. Two year ago +didn't Bill Porter--sick an' a-dyin'--hunt till he foun' me here? Didn't +he go an' swear? Done fer spite. Didn't he sen' me the affydavy?--an' I've +got it safe. Got it swore to by him, with the justice o' the peace's name +signed, an' two witnissis, an' the judge's red seal on top o' that. Could +I go back an' show that paper'n tell how 'twas? Too late! George was dead. +I couldn't go. My folks a'most disowned me when I took him. I said then I +never'd step my foot into their doors. Them that gives me the col' +shoulder once don't do it no more. Come to me?--well an' good. Go to +them?--never." + +The bewildered colonel, promising every possible reparation, would have +thrown himself at her feet, could he have done so, for the part he had +taken in the prosecution. But she permitted no interruption, and +continued: "He lay by the winder where yer girl lies. The moon come in on +his bed as it does on her'n. In the night, when I see the light o' the sky +shine there where he died, I feel his sperit in the room. I moved the bed +to this corner, where it's darker. I wa'n't good enough to lie there. But +'twas on his mind. He said, 'Becky, if I could prove it to you afore I +died!' An' I say, George's sperit sent Bill Porter here, an' sent you +here, an' sent me into this room to-night. Now, fer the sake o'him an' +Markis-dee, go back an' tell the truth!" + +Speaking the word "truth," she vanished across the light to her dark place +of rest. + +Next morning the colonel examined and copied the confession while a buggy +waited for him at the door. Respecting the evident wishes of Mrs. Ruggles, +he went away with no attempt to express the feelings that were uppermost +in his heart. + +She sleeps beside her husband in the orchard. Her old log-house has been +replaced by a large white box, of which her son the marquis is proprietor. +Each year adds to his acres or his stock. An able-bodied wife, whose +industry and English are equal to his own, sits near him at the door on a +summer evening, while he smokes his pipe, takes an oakum-headed child upon +his knee, and gazes quietly in the direction of the spring and across the +grain-fields where once he saw--or rather heard, without waiting to see--a +forest swept down in a moment. He smokes and gazes as he sees again a +dazzling creature ride down the dreary road, and wonders where on earth +that face can be, and how much it has changed, and whether, through so +many years, any memory of him can linger in her heart. He says nothing. +But he hugs closer the oakum-headed child as he remembers the one romance +in his hard, humdrum life. + +CHAUNCEY HICKOX. + + + + + +Under False Colors. + + + + +Chapter I. + +Hoisting The Flag. + + + +A dreary, murky November day brooded over Southampton, and an impenetrable +fog hung over sea and shore alike, penetrating the clothing, chilling the +blood and depressing the spirits of every unlucky person who was so +unfortunate as to come within the range of its influence. The passengers +on the steamship America, from Bremen for New York via Southampton, found +the brief period of their stay at the latter port almost unendurable; and +while some paced the wet decks impatiently, others grumbled both loudly +and deeply in the cabins, or shut themselves up in their state-rooms in +sulky discomfort. Those who remained on deck had at least the amusement of +watching for the steamboat which was to bring the Southampton +passengers--a pastime which, however, being indefinitely prolonged, began +to grow wearisome. It came at last--a wretched little vessel, rather +smaller than the smallest of the noisy tugs that puff and paddle on our +American rivers--and the wet, sick, unsheltered passengers were gradually +transferred to the deck of the ship. + +Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking +of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl, +apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible. She +would have fallen had not one of her fellow-travelers, a lady evidently +not much her senior, thrown her arm around her; thus aided, she managed to +reach the steamer's deck and to totter down the staircase leading to the +ladies' cabin. The active, busy steward at once bustled up to the two +young girls: + +"Your names, ladies, if you please. I will point out your state-rooms in a +moment. Miss Marion Nugent--Miss Rhoda Steele? Miss Nugent, berth No. 20, +state-room G--" + +"Cannot I occupy the same state-room with this young lady?" interrupted +the taller girl, who was still lending the support of her arm to sustain +her half-fainting companion. + +"Do not leave me, please," murmured the sufferer. + +The steward threw a compassionate glance upon the pair, went away, and +after a short consultation with the unseen powers, returned and said that +the arrangement had been effected, and that they could take possession at +once of their state-room, into which he proceeded to usher them. It was +more spacious than such apartments usually are, and abounded with all +those little contrivances for comfort and convenience for which the +steamers of the North German Lloyds are justly famed. The invalid sank +down on the soft-cushioned little sofa and gasped painfully for breath. + +"For Heaven's sake, get me some wine or some brandy!" exclaimed her +companion. "This poor thing seems very ill; and do tell the doctor to come +here at once." + +With a quick, energetic movement, as she spoke she unclasped the heavy +waterproof cloak of the sufferer and threw it back, thus revealing a fair, +pallid face, framed in loosened curls of silky golden hair. It was a face +that must have looked singularly lovely when tinted with the rosy hues of +health, so delicate were the features and so large and blue the +half-closed eyes, but it was ghastly pale, and a livid, bluish tinge had +settled around the small mouth, whose ruby hues had fled to give place to +a sickly purple. The steward speedily returned with some brandy, the +bull's-eye was thrown open, and the cold sea air and potent spirit soon +asserted their restorative powers. She sat up, a more natural color +over-spreading her countenance, and she murmured inarticulately a few +words of thanks, while the kind-hearted steward hastened away again in +search of the doctor. + +"I am subject to these attacks," she said, faintly; to her companion when +they were again left alone. "Only feel how my heart is beating." + +The ship's surgeon soon made his appearance. He was a young, light-haired, +solemn-looking German, who shook his head and looked very grave as he +listened to the labored breathing and felt the bounding, irregular pulse +of the sufferer. + +"It is a pity that the ship has started," he said in very good English, +"for I hardly think you are fitted to bear the fatigues of a sea-voyage at +this season of the year; and had we been still at anchor, I should have +counseled you to return to shore. But it is too late now, and you must try +to keep as quiet as possible. I would advise you to retire to your berth +at once: it will probably be a stormy night, and you had better settle +yourself comfortably before the motion begins to be unpleasant. I will see +you again in the morning, and if you feel worse meanwhile, let me know at +once." + +The doctor and the steward then quitted the state-room, and its two +occupants, being left alone, surveyed each other curiously. + +The active and energetic girl who had acted as spokeswoman and directress +throughout the brief scene we have just described had let fall her +waterproof cloak and stood arrayed in a black velvet jacket and dark silk +skirt, both much the worse for wear, and contrasting sadly with the neat +but simple traveling costume of her companion. But about her slender, +finely-proportioned figure there was an air of style and grace which lent +an elegance even to her shabby and faded finery, and which was wanting in +the owner of the fresher and more appropriate attire. Her face was +beautiful, with a singular and weird beauty which owed nothing of its +fascinations to the ordinary charms of delicate outlines and dainty +coloring. Her features were small and attenuated, and her complexion was +of a sallow paleness, whose lack of freshness seemed caused by dissipation +and late hours or by the ravages of illness. Heavy masses of soft silken +hair, black as midnight, with bluish reflections on its lustrous waves +_(bleu à force d'être noir_, as Alexandre Dumas describes such tresses), +untortured by crimping-pins or curling-tongs, were rolled back in plain +folds above her low, broad brow. Her eyes would have lent beauty to a +plainer face. Large almost to a fault, of that dark, clear blue which is +too perfect and too transparent ever to look black even under the shadow +of such long, thick eyelashes as shaded them in the present instance, they +were perfectly magnificent; and their lustrous azure and ever-varying +expression lent to the mobile countenance of their possessor its most +potent and peculiar charm. + +She was the first to speak. "Do you not think you had better retire to +your berth?" she asked. "The rocking of the ship is increasing, and we had +better, early as it is, settle ourselves for the night, before it becomes +so violent as to prevent us from moving." + +At this moment two porters made their appearance laden with packages. Two +small new trunks--one marked R.S., the other M.N.--were deposited on the +floor and identified by their possessors. The sick girl then attempted, +with trembling hands, to disembarrass herself of her apparel, but it was +not without much assistance from her companion that she was enabled to +remove her traveling costume and make her preparations for retiring. At +last, however, she was ready, and was about to make an attempt to reach +the upper berth, which was the one allotted to her by number, when a +quick, imperative gesture from her companion stopped her. + +"No, no," she said: "you must take the lower berth. I can reach the upper +one without any trouble, and you are not strong enough for so much +exertion." + +"You are very, very kind," said the invalid, gratefully. She sank back on +the pillow and watched the other for some minutes in silence, as she +quietly and quickly gathered up and put in order the scattered articles +with which the state-room was strewn. + +"Will you not give me that little black bag?" she said at last. "Thanks! +that is it. I wished to be certain that I had put my letter of +introduction in it. Ah! here it is, quite safe. It would never do for me +to lose that letter, for the lady with whom I am going to live as +governess has never seen me, and she might take me for an impostor were I +to come without it. An English lady who was her most intimate friend +engaged me for her. I wonder what New York is like?--very rough, and wild, +no doubt, and I am afraid I shall be much annoyed by the rattlesnakes. You +are going to New York too, are you not?" + +"I am." + +"Have you friends there?" + +"None." + +"I wish I had some acquaintances among our fellow-passengers, but I do not +know a single one. Do you?" + +"No." + +"You have not told me your name yet. Mine is Marion Nugent; and yours--" + +"Is not so pretty a one--Rhoda Steele." + +There was something in the tone of these replies that quelled the +invalid's disposition to talk, and she remained silent while her companion +finished her arrangements and prepared to take possession of her berth. It +was time that she did so. The threatened gale was by this time blowing in +earnest, and the ship was commencing to roll fearfully; so, after securing +all the boxes and bags as well as possible, and hanging up all the +scattered garments, she made a hasty retreat to her couch, and lay there +only half undressed, but utterly prostrate, and as unable to touch the tea +and biscuits brought by the attentive stewardess as was her more delicate +and suffering room-mate. + +Time passed on: the daylight faded from the sky, a feeble glimmering lamp +shed its faint rays into the state-room, and the great steamship went +steadily on, though rocked and tossed like a plaything by the whistling +winds and angry sea. Then midnight came: the lights in the state-rooms +were extinguished and a profound silence reigned throughout the cabins, +broken only by the ceaseless throb of the mighty engines and the noisy +clanking of the screw. + +The state-room was wrapped in profound darkness when Rhoda Steele awoke +with a start as from some troubled dream. Was she still dreaming, or did +she indeed hear a strange choking sound proceeding from the lower berth? +She sprang to the floor at once, heeding neither the darkness nor the +violent motion, and clinging to the side of the berth she called aloud. +There was no answer: even the gurgling, choking sound she had at first +heard had ceased. She put out her hand, and it encountered her companion's +face. It was deathly cold, and the features quivered as if convulsed under +her touch. Again she called aloud--still no answer; and then, thoroughly +frightened, she caught up a cloak from the sofa, threw it around her, and +opening the state-room door, she rushed into the cabin. It was almost +deserted. The lamps swung heavily overhead, swayed by the unceasing +rolling of the ship; a drowsy waiter slumbered at one of the tables, his +head resting on his folded arms; and one or two sleepy passengers tried to +maintain a recumbent posture on the broad sofas that lined the sides. The +cries of the terrified girl soon brought several of the waiters to her +assistance, and Captain Wessels himself, who had not retired to rest, +owing to the stormy weather, came to ascertain the cause of the unusual +disturbance. Her story was quickly told: lights were brought, and the +captain accompanied her back to the state-room. + +It was a pitiful sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless +in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed, +and her small hands clenched as if in agony. + +"The doctor!--run for the doctor!" was the instant and universal +exclamation. The doctor came. One look at the pallid face, one touch on +the slender wrist, and he turned with a grave face to the bystanders. + +"There is nothing to be done," he said. "She is dead. I feared some such +catastrophe when I saw her last evening. She was in the last stages of +heart disease." + +"And who was she?--what was her name?" asked kind-hearted Captain Wessels, +looking down with pitying eyes at the fair pale face. + +The steward brought his lists. + +"Berth No. 22," he read--"Miss Rhoda Steele." + +"And this young lady?" continued the captain, turning to the other +occupant of the state-room, who had sunk back as if exhausted on the sofa, +still enveloped in the shrouding folds of her large waterproof cloak. + +She raised her head. The answer came after a moment's hesitation--came +with a strange, defiant ring in its tone: + +"My name is Marion Nugent." + + + +Chapter II. + +Under Full Sail. + + +More than a year has passed away since the events narrated in our first +chapter took place, and the curtain now rises on a far different scene--a +dinner-party in one of the most splendid of the gorgeous mansions on +Madison avenue, New York. + +Mrs. Walton Rutherford, the giver of the entertainment in question, was a +member of a class unhappily now fast dying out of New York society--one of +those ladies of high social position and ancient lineage who adorn the +station which they occupy as much by their virtues as by their social +talents. A high-minded, pure-souled matron, a devoted wife and mother, as +well as a queen of society, inheriting the noble qualities of her +Revolutionary forefathers as well as their great estates--such was the +lady who presided over the brilliant festivity we are about to describe. +She had been left for many years a widow, and her surviving children--two +sons, Clement and Horace--were both of mature age; Horace, the younger, +being just thirty years old, and Clement, the elder, some seven years his +senior. Mrs. Rutherford herself was a few years over sixty. A year or two +before the period at which our story opens a terrible misfortune had +befallen her. Amaurosis--that most insidious and unmanageable of diseases +of the eye--had attacked her vision, and in a few months after it declared +itself she was totally, hopelessly blind. But, although debarred by her +infirmity from going into society, she still received her friends in her +own home; and her evening receptions and elegant dinners were always cited +as being among the most agreeable and successful entertainments of the +season. + +Another sorrow had recently come to trouble the calm of her honored and +tranquil existence--the marriage of her eldest son. Clement Rutherford, +unlike any other member of the family, was a cold, reserved man, +unpleasant in temper and disagreeable in manner. When he was still quite a +boy, his mother's only sister, Miss Myra Van Vleyden, had died, and had +bequeathed to him the large fortune which she had inherited conjointly +with Mrs. Rutherford from her father, the two sisters being the only +children of Schuyler Van Vleyden. She was a soured, morose old maid, and +probably saw some congeniality of disposition in her eldest nephew which +caused her to single him out as her heir. After he attained to years of +manhood, he always manifested a decided antipathy to ladies' society, and +was generally looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor; so that when he +announced to his mother the fact of his engagement to Mrs. Archer's pretty +governess, Miss Nugent, her distress of mind was fully equaled by her +astonishment. The match met with her strongest disapproval, as was to have +been expected; for it was hardly probable that she, the oldest surviving +representative of the old Knickerbocker family the Van Vleydens, an +acknowledged leader of society by the triple right of wealth, birth and +intellect, should be inclined to welcome very warmly as a daughter-in-law +the penniless beauty who had been occupied for some months past in +teaching Mrs. Archer's little daughters the rudiments of French and music. +Moreover, the investigations and inquiries respecting the young lady's +origin which she had at once caused to be instituted on hearing of her +son's engagement, had revealed a state of affairs which had placed Miss +Nugent in a very unenviable light. Her parents were well born, though +poor. She was the daughter of a curate in the North of England, who had +lost his young wife by heart disease when Marion was but a few months old, +and two years later Mr. Nugent died of consumption, leaving his little +daughter to the care of his unmarried and elderly brother, the Reverend +Walter Nugent, who, though the living he held was but a small one, +contrived to rear and educate his niece as his own child. He had only +allowed her to leave him and become a governess on the assurance of the +village physician that her health was seriously impaired, and that a sea +voyage and complete change of scene would prove the best and surest of +restoratives. But the pained though manly tone of the letter in which he +replied to Mrs. Rutherford's inquiries had prepossessed that warm-hearted, +high-minded lady most strongly against her future daughter-in-law. "I +loved Marion always as though she were my own child," wrote Mr. Nugent, +"and I cannot but look upon her total neglect of me since her arrival in +America as being wholly inexcusable. She has never even written me one +line since her departure, and I learned of her safe arrival only by the +newspapers. I can but infer from her obstinate and persistent silence that +she wishes to sever all ties between herself and me, and I have resigned +myself to the prospect of a lonely and cheerless old age. I trust that she +may be happy in the brilliant marriage which, you say, she is about to +make, and I can assure her that her old uncle will never disturb her in +her new prosperity." + +Mrs. Rutherford had one long, stormy interview with her eldest son, and +learning therein that his determination to marry Miss Nugent was fixed and +unalterable, she had with commendable wisdom accepted the situation, and +resolved to so order the conduct of herself and her relatives as to give +the scandalous world no room for that contemptuous pity and abundant +gossip which an open rupture between herself and her son would doubtless +have occasioned. + +The manner of the wooing had been in this wise: John Archer, a sober, +staid gentleman of great wealth, was Clement Rutherford's most intimate +friend, and naturally, when the Archers moved into their new and splendid +villa at Newport, Clement was invited to spend a few weeks with them--an +invitation which he readily accepted. A few days after his arrival, Mrs. +Archer, who was a pretty, lively little coquette, not in the least sobered +by some thirteen years of married life, offered to drive him out in her +little phaeton. "John has just given me a new pair of ponies," she +said--"such perfect beauties and so gentle that I long to drive them." So +the pretty, stylish equipage, with its fair driver and faultless +appointments, made its first appearance on the avenue that afternoon, and +also, I am sorry to say, its last; for the "gentle beauties" afore-said, +excited to emulation by the number of spirited steeds around them, became +ambitious of distinction, and sought for and decidedly obtained it by +running away, thereby overturning the phaeton, breaking the harness, +bruising Mrs. Archer severely and dislocating Mr. Rutherford's ankle. + +Mrs. Archer was as well as ever in a few days, but the injuries received +by her guest proved sufficiently serious to compel him to maintain a +recumbent position for a long time, and prevented him from walking for +several weeks. She made every arrangement possible for his comfort, and +she had a charming little reception-room on the ground floor, adjoining +the library, fitted up as a bed-chamber, and installed him there; so that +as soon as he was able to quit his bed for a sofa, he could be wheeled +into the latter apartment, and there enjoy the distractions of literature +and society. For a few days after he made his first appearance there his +lovely hostess was all attention and devotion; but, finding that he was +anything but an agreeable or impressionable companion, she soon wearied of +his society. Mr. Archer, shortly after the accident had taken place, had +been summoned from home by important business connected with some mining +property which he possessed, and which necessitated his presence in the +interior of Pennsylvania; so Mrs. Archer, thus left with the entertainment +of her most uncongenial guest exclusively confided to her care, came +speedily to the conclusion that he was a nuisance, and began to look about +for a substitute to relieve her from her unwelcome duties. She decided +that her pretty governess, who spoke French so well, and sang little +French _chansonettes_ so sweetly, and got herself up in such a charming +manner, giving so much "chic" and style even to the simplest of toilettes, +was just the person to take upon herself the task of amusing the +uninteresting invalid. + +"_Do_ look after Mr. Rutherford a little, there's a dear, good creature," +whispered Mrs. Archer confidentially to Miss Nugent. "He is dreadfully +tiresome, to be sure, but John thinks the world of him, you know, and it +would not exactly do to leave him alone all the time. I wish him to +receive every attention while he is in the house, of course; but as for +sitting for hours at a time with him in that stuffy little library--just +in the height of the season, too--why, I cannot think of doing it. If you +will just go and sit with him sometimes, and read to him a little, it will +be an absolute charity to me. I'll see that Alice and Emily do not get +into any mischief." + +Which, considering that the young ladies in question were, one twelve, the +other ten years of age, and both much addicted to flirtation and dancing +the "German," was rather a rash promise and inconsiderately made. + +So Miss Nugent was definitely installed as reader and _garde malade_ in +general, and Clement Rutherford soon learned to await her coming with +impatience and to welcome her with delight. All his life long will he +remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the +far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and +when the blue splendors of her lustrous eyes lent a new meaning to the +poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a +day when the book was laid aside, and the impassioned utterances of poetry +gave place to the more prosaic but not less fervent accents of a +newly-awakened passion. Cold, silent and morose as Clement Rutherford had +always been, it had so happened that but few women had ever attempted to +attract him, notwithstanding his wealth and social position; and the +interested motives of those few had been so apparent that he had been +repelled and disgusted, instead of being fascinated, by their wiles; so +that Miss Nugent's grace and beauty and syren charms proved all too potent +for his unoccupied though icy heart to resist; and thus it chanced that +the day before Mr. Rutherford left Newport he astonished his hostess by +requesting a private interview with her, and therein announcing his +engagement to her governess. + +"You could have knocked me down with a feather," Mrs. Archer said +afterward to an intimate friend. "I never should have suspected that such +a quiet, stupid man as he was would fall in love in that ridiculous kind +of a way. Good gracious! how indignant old Mrs. Rutherford will be! and I +shall be blamed for the whole affair, no doubt. I wish John had never +brought the man here--I never _did_ like him; and then, too, it is so +provoking to lose Miss Nugent just now, while we are at Newport. Of course +I can find no one to replace her till we return to New York. Well, I +always _was_ an unlucky little woman." + +The marriage took place in the latter part of September, only a few weeks +after the engagement had been first announced. Mrs. Rutherford, true to +her resolution of making the best of the affair, was careful that none of +the usual courtesies and observances should be neglected. The bridal gifts +from the Rutherford family, if less splendid, were as numerous as they +would have been had Mr. Rutherford married a member of his mother's +decorous, high-bred "set," and all his immediate relatives called most +punctiliously on the bride when the newly-wedded pair arrived in New York +after their six weeks' trip to Philadelphia and Washington. + +Mr. Rutherford decided to take rooms at the Brevoort House till he could +purchase a suitable residence. His mother's splendid home was not thrown +open to receive him and his unwelcome bride, as it would have been had he +made a choice more consonant with her wishes. + +But we have wandered far from the dinner given by Mrs. Rutherford in honor +of her new daughter-in-law, and with which our chapter commences. + +It was a superb entertainment, as the Rutherford dinners usually were. The +service of gold plate purchased by Schuyler Van Vleyden when he was +minister to Austria adorned the table, which was also decorated with three +splendid pyramids of choicest flowers. An exquisite bouquet bloomed in +front of each lady's plate, and the painted blossoms on the peerless +dinner-service of rare old Sèvres vied in every respect save fragrance +with their living counterparts. An unseen orchestra, stationed in the +conservatory, sent forth strains of music, now grave, now gay, as Gounod +or Offenbach ruled the tuneful spirit of the hour. Twelve guests only were +present, including Mrs. John Archer, to whom Mrs. Rutherford had in this +fashion testified her forgiveness, and who had accepted the proffered +olive-branch with delight, wearing, in order to do honor to the occasion, +an exquisite dress, fresh from one of the most renowned _ateliers_ of +Parisian fashion. Mrs. Rutherford, as usual, notwithstanding her +infirmity, presided with unfailing grace and dignity; and in her splendid +dress of black satin, brocaded with bouquets of flowers in their natural +hues, her cap and collar of priceless old point lace, and her antiquely +set but magnificent ornaments of sapphires and diamonds, she still looked +a queen of society. A well-trained servant was stationed behind her chair, +who from time to time placed before her suitably-prepared portions of the +various delicacies of the entertainment, of which she slightly partook, in +order to obviate the restraint which her presence at the festivity without +participating in it would have occasioned. On her left hand sat her +younger son, Horace, whose watchful eyes followed her every movement, and +whose loving care anticipated her every wish. He was a tall, +stalwart-looking young man, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like his elder +brother, but his frank, joyous expression and winning manners bore no +resemblance to the sullen countenance and surly demeanor of Clement. + +The bride was, of course, the, cynosure of all eyes. Attired in rich, +creamy-white satin, the corsage shaded with folds of delicate lace, with +coral ornaments on her neck and arms, and with the heavy masses of her +dark hair interwoven with coral beads, she looked extremely beautiful, and +was pronounced by the ladies present to be "handsome and stylish-looking, +but decidedly dull." This latter accusation was more truthful than such +charges usually are. Mrs. Clement Rutherford did feel unusually stupid. +She was _ennuyé_ by the long, formal, stately dinner; she knew but few of +the persons present; and her point-lace fan was frequently called into +requisition to conceal her yawns. The game had been served before her next +neighbor, a sprightly young New Yorker, who had been rather fascinated by +her beauty, contrived to arouse her into something like animation. He +succeeded at last, however, and it was not long before an unusually +brilliant sally drew a merry laugh from her lips. Her laugh was +peculiar--a low, musical, trilling sound, mirthful and melodious as the +chime of a silver bell. + +As its joyous music rang on the air, Mrs. Rutherford turned ghastly pale. +She gasped convulsively, half rose from her seat and fell back in a +deathlike swoon. + +Of course all was instantly confusion and dismay. The guests sprang up, +the waiters hurried forward--Horace was instantly at his mother's side. + +"She has only fainted," he said in his clear, decided tones. "She will be +better in a few moments. Let me beg of you, my friends, to resume your +seats. Clement, will you oblige me by taking our mother's post?" + +With the help of Mrs. Rutherford's special attendant, Horace supported the +already reviving sufferer from the room. They conveyed her to her sleeping +apartment, where restoratives and cold water were freely used, and she +soon regained perfect consciousness. But returning animation seemed to +bring with it a strange and overwhelming sorrow. When the servant had +retired, leaving her alone with her son, she refused to answer any of his +queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and +irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, +by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased +to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for +some time perfectly quiet and silent. At length she spoke: + +"Horace!" + +"What is it, mother?" + +"Describe to me the personal appearance of your brother's wife--minutely, +as though a picture were to be painted from your words." + +It was no unusual request. Horace was in the habit of thus minutely +describing persons and places for his mother's benefit. + +"She is rather below the middle height, and her form, though slender, is +finely moulded and of perfect proportions. Her hands and feet are +faultless, and her walk is extremely graceful, resembling more the gait of +a French-woman than that of an English girl. Her complexion is pale and +rather sallow, and her countenance is full of expression, which varies +constantly when she talks. The lower part of her face is somewhat too thin +for perfect beauty, and the chin is inclined to be pointed, and the cheeks +are rather hollow, but the upper part is superb. Her brow is low and +broad, and she folds back from it the heavy waves of her black hair in the +plainest possible style. Her eyes are her chief beauty, and would +transfigure any face into loveliness. They are very large, and of a dark, +transparent blue, of so lustrous and so perfect an azure that not even in +shadow do they look black. Stay--I can give you a better idea of her +appearance than by multiplying words. Did you, when you were in Munich, +visit the Gallery of Beauties in the Royal Palace?" + +"I did." + +"Do you remember the portrait of Lola Montez?" + +"Certainly--as though I had seen it yesterday." + +"Marion resembles that portrait very strikingly, particularly in the shape +and carriage of her head." + +"I am not mistaken--it is she. Would that I had never lived to see this +day!" And Mrs. Rutherford wrung her hands in an agony of helpless, +hopeless distress. + +"It is she?" repeated Horace, in perplexity. "Whom do you mean, mother? +Who was Marion Nugent?" + +"She is not Marion Nugent--this impostor who has thrust herself into our +midst, bringing scandal and dishonor as her dower." + +"And who, then, is she?" + +Mrs. Rutherford turned toward him and fixed on his face her tear-bathed +eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read +his thoughts in his countenance. + +"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the +shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy? +Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will +believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly +denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable +anguish. + +Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own. + +"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all. +If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be +freed from the matrimonial chain." + +"Could that be possible?" + +"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if +you will but confide in me." + +"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I _will_ +tell you all." + +Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest, +numbering among her passengers Horace Rutherford. + + + +Chapter III. + +Striking the Flag. + + +The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and +it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace +Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly +as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he +vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief +European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged +to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the +affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's _mesalliance_, his +mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent +seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all +afforded food for the insatiable appetite of the scandal-mongers. Then +Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of +Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had +been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at +her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the +elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street, +with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for +much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten" +would honor with its august presence the ball which Mrs. Clement +Rutherford proposed giving on Shrove Tuesday, which in that year came +about the middle of March. But as to that, it was generally conceded that +they would. Youth, beauty, wealth and the shadow of an old family name +could cover a multitude of such sins as rapid manners, desperate +flirtations and a questionable origin; and notwithstanding her fastness, +and, worse still, her _ci-devant_ governess-ship, Mrs. Clement Rutherford +was a decided social success. + +On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his +appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, +and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual +manner. + +"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been +exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me +something about your travels." + +"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message +for your wife: can I see her?" + +A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother. + +"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke. +"Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is +probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her _boudoir_, as she +calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see +her." + +He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his +hand. + +"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married +life?" + +"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "_they_ +are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss." + +"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy," +muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a +harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight +before, me." + +The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, +was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and +on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of +taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fresco +by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after +them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a +delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the +Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few +chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the +tiny apartment. Étagères of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, +and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing +nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian +glass, Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and +Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the +one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited +for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been +selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring +and _riante_ style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by +Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun +flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the +foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a +barren and precipitous shore. + +Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened +and his sister-in-law entered. He turned to greet her, and her beauty, +enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an +involuntary glance of admiration. Her dress was an exemplification of how +much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it +absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate. She wore a robe of +turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing +sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only +Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise. A band of the +same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and +showed to advantage the perfection of her figure. A brooch and long +ear-pendants of lustreless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with +gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and +gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking +woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer. + +"Welcome home, Horace!" she said in that low sweet voice which was one of +her most potent charms. "How kind it is of you to pay me a visit so soon +after your return!" + +She placed herself on the couch and motioned to him to take a seat near +her. He drew up his chair, and a short, embarrassed pause succeeded. + +Mrs. Rutherford toyed with her fan and stole glances from under her long +black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and +wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task +before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature. + +Wearied of silence, the lady spoke at last. + +"Have you nothing of interest respecting your travels to tell me?" she +asked. + +Her voice seemed to break the spell which paralyzed him. He turned toward +her with the look of one who nerves himself up to take a desperate +resolution: + +"Yes: I have a story to relate to you, and one of more than common +interest." + +"Really!" She yawned behind her fan. "Excuse me, but I was at Mrs. +Houdon's ball last evening, and the 'German' was kept up till five o'clock +this morning. I am wretchedly tired. Now do go on with your story: I have +no doubt but that I shall find it amusing, but do not be much surprised if +I fall asleep." + +"I think you will find it interesting, and I have no fear of its putting +you to sleep. But you must make me one promise. I am but a poor narrator, +and you must engage not to interrupt me." + +"I have no hesitation in promising to remain perfectly quiet, no matter +how startling your incidents or how vivid your descriptions may be." + +She leaned back among the cushions with another stifled yawn and shaded +her eyes with her fan. Without heeding the veiled impertinence of her +manner, Horace commenced his narrative: + +"Some twenty-five years ago a friendless, penniless Englishwoman died at +one of the cheap boarding-schools in Dieppe, where she had officiated for +some time as English teacher and general drudge. She left behind her a +little girl about five years of age--a pretty, engaging child, whose +beauty and infantile fascinations so won the heart of Madame Tellier, the +proprietress of the establishment, that she decided to take charge of the +little creature and educate her, her project being to fit her for the post +of English teacher in her school. But the pretty child grew up to be a +beautiful but unprincipled girl, with an inborn passion for indolence and +luxury. At the age of seventeen she eloped from the school with a young +Parisian gentleman, who had been spending the summer months at one of the +seaside hotels in Dieppe, and her benefactress saw her and heard of her no +more. + +"We will pass over the events of the next few years. It would hardly +interest you to follow, as I did, each step by which the heroine of my +history progressed ever downward on the path of vice. We find her at last +traveling in Italy under the protection of the Count von Erlenstein, an +Austrian noble of great wealth and dissolute character. She has cast aside +the name she once bore, and, anticipating the jewel-borrowed cognomens of +Cora Pearl and La Reine Topaze, she adopts a title from the profusion of +pink coral jewelry which she habitually wears, and Rose Sherbrooke is +known as Rose Coral." + +Horace paused. A short, sharp sound broke the momentary silence: it was +caused by the snapping of one of the gilded fan-sticks under the pressure +of the white, rigid fingers that clasped it. But the listener kept her +face hidden, and but for that convulsive motion the speaker might have +fancied that she slept, so silent and motionless did she remain. After a +short pause Horace continued: + +"The attachment of Count von Erlenstein proved to be a lasting one, and we +find Rose Coral at a later period installed in a luxurious establishment +in Vienna, and one of the reigning queens of that realm of many +sovereigns, the _demi-monde_ of the gay capital of Austria. But the count +falls ill; his sickness speedily assumes a dangerous form; his death +deprives Rose Coral of her splendor; and the sunny streets of Vienna know +her fair face no more. I will not retrace for you, as I could do, each +step in her rapid descent from luxury to poverty, from splendor to vice, +from celebrity to ruin. But one day she makes her appearance, under the +name of Rhoda Steele, on board the steamship America, bound for New York. +The state-room which she occupies is shared by a young girl named Marion +Nugent, whose future career is to be that of a governess in the United +States. On the first night out one of the occupants of the state-room is +taken suddenly ill and dies, the corpse is committed to the deep, and it +is reported throughout the ship that the name of the deceased is Rhoda +Steele. The tale was false: it was Marion Nugent who died--it was Rose +Sherbrooke, _alias_ Rose Coral, _alias_ Rhoda Steele, who lived to rob the +dead girl of her effects and to assume her name!" + +The broken fan was flung violently to the floor, and Mrs. Rutherford +sprang to her feet, her face livid with passion and her blue eyes blazing +with a steel-like light. + +"How dare you come here to assert such falsehoods?" she cried. "You have +always hated me--you and all the rest of your haughty family--because it +pleased Clement Rutherford to marry me--me, a penniless governess. But I +am your sister-in-law, and I _demand _ that you treat me with proper +respect. You came here to-day simply to insult me. Well, sir, I will +summon my husband, and he shall protect me from your insolence." + +She turned toward the door as she spoke, but he motioned her back with an +imperative and scornful gesture. + +"Softly, Rose Coral," he said, with a sneer: "the manners of the Quartier +Brèda are not much to my taste, nor do they suit the character you have +been pleased to assume. Do you think me so void of common sense as to +return home without full proof of your identity? I have in my possession a +large colored photograph of you, taken some years ago by Hildebrandt of +Vienna, and endorsed by him on the back with a certificate stating that it +is an accurate likeness of the celebrated Rose Coral. Secondly, I have +brought home with me two witnesses--one is Jane Sheldon, late housekeeper +for the Rev. Walter Nugent, and formerly nurse to the deceased Marion +Nugent; and the other is a French hairdresser who lived many years in +Vienna, and who, for several months, daily arranged the profuse tresses of +Rose Coral. One will prove who you are _not_, and the other will as +certainly prove who you _are_." + +"Who I _was_" she said, defiantly. "I will deny it no longer: I am Rose +Sherbrooke, once known as Rose Coral, and, what is more to the purpose, I +am the wife of Clement Rutherford. Have a care, my brother Horace, lest +you reveal to the world that your immaculate relatives have been touching +pitch of the blackest hue and greatest tenacity. Prove me to be the vilest +of my sex, I remain none the less a wedded wife--your brother's wife--and +I defy you. The game is played out, and I have won it." + +She threw herself back in her chair and cast on him a glance of insolent +disdain. Horace Rutherford looked at her with a scornful smile. + +"The game is _not_ played out," he said, calmly. "One card remains in my +hand, and I produce it. It is the Ace of Diamonds, and its title is The +Rose of the Morning." + +A livid paleness overspread Mrs. Rutherford's features, and a stifled cry +escaped from her lips. She half rose from her seat, but, seeming to +recollect herself, she sank back and covered her face with her hands. +Horace continued, after a momentary pause: + +"My investigations into the history of the Count Wilhelm von Erlenstein +during the last years of his life revealed the fact that he had lost the +most valuable of the jewels of his family. It had been stolen. It was a +pink diamond of great size and beauty, known to gem-connoisseurs by the +name of The Rose of the Morning--one of those remarkable stones which have +a history and a pedigree, and which are as well known by reputation to +diamond-fanciers as are Raphael's Transfiguration and the Apollo Belvidere +to the lovers of art. This gem was worn by Count Wilhelm as a clasp to the +plume in his toque at a fancy ball given by one of the Metternich family, +at which he appeared in the costume of Henri III. of France. He afterward, +with culpable carelessness, placed it, amongst his studs, pins, +watch-chains and other similar bijouterie, in a small steel cabinet which +stood in his bed-chamber. His illness and the dismissal of Rose Coral +occurred soon after the fancy ball in question, and it was not till his +heir, the present count, had been for some time in possession of the +estates that it was discovered that the great diamond was missing. It was +not to be found, and suspicion immediately fell upon the late count's +valet, a Frenchman named Antoine Lasalle; who was found to have been +mysteriously possessed of a large sum of money after the count's death. He +was arrested, and it was conclusively proved that he had stolen a number +of valuable trinkets from his dying master, but still no trace of The Rose +of the Morning could be discovered, and Lasalle strenuously denied all +knowledge respecting it. The family offered large rewards for its +recovery, and the detectives of all the large cities of Europe have been +for some time on the alert to discover it, but in vain. As soon as I heard +this story, I thought that I could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to the +whereabouts of the missing jewel; and I caused investigations to be set on +foot in New York by a trusty agent, which resulted in the discovery that +The Rose of the Morning had been sold some six months before to a jeweler +in Maiden lane for about one-twenty-fifth of its value, the peculiar tint +of the stone, and the purchaser's ignorance of the estimation in which it +is held by the gem-fanciers of Europe, having militated against the +magnitude of the valuation set upon it. It was secured for me at a +comparatively trifling price. The person who sold it to the jeweler some +six months ago, in spite of a partial disguise and an assumed name, was +easy to recognize, from the description given, as that lady of many names, +Mrs. John Archer's governess. Now, Rose Coral, what say you? You may be +Mrs. Clement Rutherford, my brother's lawful wife, but you are not the +less a thief and a criminal, for whom the laws have terrible punishment +and bitter degradation." + +"This is but a poor invention: where are your proofs?" she cried, looking +up as she spoke, but her faltering voice and quivering lips contradicted +her words. + +"Here is my chief witness." He drew off his left-hand glove as he spoke, +and extended his hand toward her. On the third finger blazed the beautiful +gem of which he had spoken, its great size and purity fully displayed in +the pale afternoon sunlight that flashed back in rosy radiance from its +bright-tinted depths. + +"It is almost too large to wear as a ring," he said with great coolness, +looking at the jewel, "but I wish it to run no further risks till I can +transfer it to its lawful owner, which will be as soon as it has played +its talismanic part by freeing my brother from his impostor-wife." + +The lady rose from her seat, pale, calm and resolved. + +"Further insults are useless, sir," she said. "The game is ended now, and +you have won it. What is it that you wish me to do?" + +"You must sail for Europe in one of next week's steamers, leaving behind +you such a confession of guilt as will enable my brother to procure a +divorce without revealing the shameful fact that he was the innocent means +of introducing an impostor--a _ci-devant_ lorette--to his family and +friends as his wife. Better this scandal of an elopement than the horror +of having such a story made public. An income amply sufficient for your +wants will be settled upon you, on condition that you never return to the +United States, and never, in any way, proclaim the fact that Mrs. Clement +Rutherford and Rose Coral were one and the same person." + +"I accept your conditions," she said, wearily. "I will go, never to +return. Now leave me. But stay: will you not answer me one question?" + +"I will, certainly." + +"Who was it that discovered my secret?" + +"My mother--my blind mother. Some years ago, before she lost her sight, I +accompanied her on a short European tour, in which we visited England, +France, Switzerland, and finally Italy. While we were at Rome I fell ill +with the fever of the country, and my physicians gave orders that as soon +as I was well enough to travel I should leave Italy for a more bracing +climate. We had not visited Naples, and I was anxious that my mother +should not return home without seeing the wonders of that city; so as soon +as I became convalescent I prevailed upon her to leave me in the care of +some friends and to join a party who were going thither. During her stay +she went frequently to the opera. One evening she was greatly disturbed by +the loud talking and laughing of some persons in the box next to the one +she occupied, and she was much struck with the beauty, the brilliant +toilette and the boisterous conduct of one of the female members of the +party. She inquired the name of the person she had thus remarked. It was +yourself, and she learned not only your name, but your whole history. When +at her own dinner-table she heard the sweet and singular laugh that had so +struck her on that occasion, the sensitiveness of hearing peculiar to the +blind caused her to recognize the sound at once; and the description which +I afterward gave her of your personal appearance only changed torturing +doubt into agonizing certainty." + +"Thanks for your courtesy: I will detain you no longer." + +Horace bowed and approached the door. Suddenly, as if moved by a sudden +impulse, he turned back. + +"Believe me, this task has been a hard one," he said, earnestly. "And +remember, if hereafter you may need pecuniary aid, do not hesitate to +apply to me. For Heaven's sake, do not return to the life you once led. +There was one redeeming feature in the imposture which you practiced: it +showed that some yearning for a pure name and an innocent life was yet +possible to you." + +"I want no sermons," she answered, abruptly. "Only leave me at peace. Go: +I am sick of the sight of you." + +As he closed the door he cast one parting glance on the room and its +occupant. She stood leaning against the back of a large arm-chair, her +clasped hands resting on the top, and her white, rigid face set in the +fixed calmness of total despair. + +Thus left alone, she remained standing for some time as motionless as +though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she +seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a +bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. Her maid +quickly appeared. + +"I have a wretched headache, Christine," she said. "I shall not come down +to dinner, and do not disturb me till nine o'clock: that will give me time +enough to dress for Mrs. Winchester's ball. I will wear the pale-blue +satin and my point-lace tunic. Be sure you change the white roses that +loop it for pink ones, and lay out my parure of pearls and diamonds, and +my point-lace fan and handkerchief. Now bring me the two phials that stand +on the third shelf of the closet in my bed-chamber." + +Christine departed on her errand and soon returned, bringing with her two +bottles, the smallest of which was labeled "Solution of Morphia--POISON. +Dose for an adult, ten drops;" while the largest Was simply inscribed +"Sulphuric Ether." These she placed on the chimney-piece, and then +proceeded to arrange the cushions of the lounge and to draw the curtains. +"I will now leave madame to her repose," she said. "Does madame need +anything more?" + +"No, I shall want nothing more," was the reply. The door closed upon the +maid's retreating form, and Mrs. Rutherford instantly shot the bolt. + +She cast a sad and wistful glance around the dainty room and on its +glittering contents. "_J'etais si bien ici_," she said regretfully. "I had +found here the existence which suited me, and now the end has come. It is +not in my nature to remain satisfied with a life of poverty and +respectability, and I will not return to one of degradation and vice. But, +after all, what does it matter? My fate would have found me sooner or +later, and this soft couch is better than a hospital bed or the slabs of +La Morgue: this draught is more soothing than the cold waters of the +Thames or the Seine. Life is no longer a game that is worth the candle: +let us extinguish the lights and put the cards away." + +She took up the phial of morphia, drew the little sofa nearer to the +fireplace and extended herself upon it. The daylight faded from the sky +and night came, and with the night came sleep--a sleep whose dream was of +Eternity, and whose wakening light would be the dawn of the resurrection +morning. + +"Accidental death" was the verdict of the coroner and the newspapers, and, +in fact, of the world in general--a conclusion much assisted by the +evidence of Christine, who testified that her mistress was in the habit of +using narcotics and anaesthetics in large quantities to relieve the pain +of the neuralgic headaches from which she was a constant sufferer. Society +said, "How sad! Dreadful, is it not?" and went on its way--not exactly +rejoicing, for the death of Mrs. Rutherford deprived its members of her +long-promised, long-talked-of Shrove-Tuesday ball, and consequently the +gay world mourned her loss very sincerely for a short time; in fact, till +a well-known leader of fashion announced her intention of giving a +fancy-dress party on the night thus left vacant, whereupon Society was +consoled, and Mrs. Rutherford's sad fate was forgotten. + +Only two persons--Horace Rutherford and his mother--suspected that her +death was not an accidental one; but they guarded their secret carefully, +and Clement Rutherford will never learn that his dead wife was other than +the innocent English girl she represented herself to be. Walter Nugent +wrote a pathetic letter to Mrs. Rutherford, begging that a lock of his +lost and now forgiven darling's hair might be sent to him; and it cost +Horace a sharp pang of regret when he substituted for the black, wavy +tress furnished by Clement a golden ringlet purchased from one of the +leading hairdressers of New York. + +"Heaven forgive me!" he said to himself, remorsefully, as he sealed the +little packet; "but I really think that this is one of the cases wherein +one cannot be blamed for not revealing the truth." + +A few months later, Horace Rutherford stood in Greenwood Cemetery +contemplating with curiosity and interest the inscription on a +recently-erected monument of pure white marble. + +"Sacred to the memory of Marion Nugent, beloved wife of Clement +Rutherford," he read. "Well, this is consistent at least. She wears the +disguise of a virtuous woman in her very tomb. Marion Nugent rests beneath +the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and here Rose Sherbrooke sleeps in an +honored grave beneath the shelter of the dead girl's stainless name. But +the deception has power to harm no longer, so let us leave her in peace. +It is well for our family that, even as a sunken wreck, we still find this +pirate bark Under False Colors," + +LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER. + + + + +The Hungry Heart. + + + +A village on the coast of Maine; in this village a boarding-house; in this +boarding-house a parlor. + +This parlor is, strictly speaking, a chamber: it is in the second story, +and until lately it contained a bed, washstand, etc.; but a visitor from +New York has taken a fancy to change it to a reception-room. In the rear, +communicating with it, is a sleeping-closet. + +The room is what you might expect to find in a village boarding-house: the +floor of liliuptian extent; the ceiling low, uneven, cracked and yellow; +the originally coarse and ugly wall-paper now blotched with age; the +carpet thin, threadbare, patched and stained; the furniture of various +woods and colors, and in various stages of decrepitude. + +But a tiny bracket or two, three or four handsome engravings, two fresh +wreaths of evergreens, two vases of garden flowers, a number of Swiss and +French knickknacks, and a few prettily-bound books, give the little nest +an air of refinement which is almost elegance. + +You judge at once that the occupant must be a woman--a woman moreover of +sensibility and taste; a woman of good society. Of all this you become +positive when you look at her, take note of her gracious manner and listen +to her cultured voice. + +Her expression is singularly frank and almost childlike: it exhibits a +rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions: it is both vivacious and +refined, both eager and sweet. It would seem as if here were the +impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and +artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness and +feeling. + +In a large easy-chair reclines her rather small, slender and willowy form, +starting slightly forward when she speaks, and sinking back when she +listens. Her sparkling eyes are fixed on the eyes of her one visitor with +an intentness and animation of interest which should be very fascinating. + +He, a young man, not five years older than herself, very gentle in manner +and with a remarkably sweet expression of face, evidently is fascinated, +and even strongly moved, if one may judge by the feverish color in his +cheeks, the eager inquiry of his gaze and the tremor of his lips. + +The first words of hers which we shall record are a strange utterance to +come from a woman: + +"Let me tell you something which I have read lately. It sounds like a +satire, and yet there is too much truth in it: 'Every woman in these days +needs two husbands--one to fill her purse, and one to fill her heart; one +to dress her, and one to love her. It is not easy to be the two in one.' +That is what I have read, and it is only too true. Remember it, and don't +marry." + +A spasm of intense spiritual pain crossed the young man's fine and kindly +face. + +"Don't say such things, I beg of you!" he implored. "I am sure that in +what you have quoted there is a slander upon most women. I know that it +slanders you." + +Her lips parted as if for a contradiction, but it was evidently very +pleasant to her to hear such words from him, and with a little childlike +smile of gratification she let him proceed. + +"I have perfect confidence in you," he murmured. "I am willing to put all +my chances of happiness in your hands. My only fear is that I am not half +worthy of you--not a thousandth part worthy of you. Will you not listen to +me seriously? Will you not be so kind?" + +A tremor of emotion slightly lifted her hands, and it seemed for a moment +as if she would extend them to him. Then there was a sudden revulsion: +with a more violent shudder, evidently of a painful nature, she threw +herself backward, her face turned pale, and she closed her eyes as if to +shut him from her sight. + +"I ought to ask your pardon," she whispered. "I never thought that it +would come to this. I never meant that it should. Oh, I ask your pardon." +Recovering herself with singular quickness, a bright smile dancing along +the constantly changing curves of her lips, like sunbeams leaping from +wavelet to wavelet, she once more leaned cordially toward him, and said in +a gay yet pleading tone, "Let us talk of something else. Come, tell me +about yourself--all about yourself, nothing about me." + +"I cannot speak of anything else," he replied, after looking at her long +in silence. "My whole being is full of you: I cannot think of anything +else." + +A smile of gratitude sweetly mastered her mouth: then it suddenly turned +to a smile of pity; then it died in a quiver of remorse. + +"Oh, we cannot marry," she sighed. "We must not marry, if we could. Let me +tell you something dreadful. People hate each other after they are +married. I know: I have seen it. I knew a girl of seventeen who married a +man ten years older--a man who was Reason itself. Her friends told her, +and she herself believed it, that she was sure of happiness. But after +three years she found that she did not love, that she was not loved, and +that she was miserable. He was too rational: he used to judge her as he +would a column of figures--he had no comprehension for her feelings." + +There was a momentary pause, during which she folded her hands and looked +at him, but with an air of not seeing him. In the recollection of this +heart-tragedy of the past and of another she had apparently forgotten the +one which was now pressing upon herself. + +"It was incredible how cold and unsympathizing and dull he could be," she +went on. "Once, after she had worked a week in secret to surprise him with +a dressing-gown made by her own hands--labored a week, waited and hoped a +week for one word of praise--he only said, 'It is too short.' Don't you +think it was cruel? It was. I suppose he soon forgot it, but she never +could. A woman cannot forget such slights: they do not seem little blows +to her; they make her very soul bleed." + +"Don't reproach _me_ for it," whispered the young man with a pleading +smile. "You seem to be reproving me, and I can't bear it. I am not +guilty." + +"Oh, not you," she answered quickly. "I am not scolding you. I could not." + +She did not mean it, but she gave him a smile of indescribable sweetness: +she had had no intention of putting out her hands toward him, but she did +it. He seized the delicate fingers and slowly drew her against his heart. +Her face crimson with feeling, her whole form trembling to the tiniest +vein, she rose to her feet, turning away her head as if to fly, and yet +did not escape, and could not wish to escape. Holding her in his arm, he +poured into her ear a murmur which was not words, it was so much more than +words. + +"Oh, _could_ you truly love me?" she at last sobbed. "Could you _keep_ +loving me?" + +After a while some painful recollection seemed to awaken her from this +dream of happiness, and, drawing herself out of his embrace, she looked +him sadly in the eyes, saying, "I must not be so weak. I must save myself +and you from misery. Oh, I must. Go now--leave me for a while: do go. I +must have time to think before I say another word to you." + +"Good-bye, my love--soon to be my wife," he answered, stifling with a kiss +the "No, no," which she tried to utter. + +Although he meant to go, and although she was wretchedly anxious that he +should go, he was far from gone. All across the room, at every square of +the threadbare carpet, they halted to renew their talk. Minutes passed, an +hour had flown, and still he was there. And when he at last softly opened +the door, she herself closed it, saying, "Oh no! not yet." + +So greedy is a loving woman for love, so much does she hate to lose the +breath of it from her soul: to let it be withdrawn is like consenting to +die when life is sweetest. + +Thus it was through her, who had bidden him to go, and who had meant that +he should go, that he remained for minutes longer, dropping into her ear +whispers of love which at last drew out her confession of love. And when +the parting moment came--that moment of woman's life in which she least +belongs to herself--there was not in this woman a single reservation of +feeling or purpose. + +These people, who were so madly in love with each other, were almost +strangers. The man was Charles Leighton, a native of Northport, who had +never gone farther from his home than to Boston, and there only to +graduate in the Harvard College and Medical School. + +The lady was Alice Duvernois: her name was all that was known of her in +the village--it was all that she had told of herself. Only a month +previous to the scene above described she had arrived in Northport to +obtain, as she said, a summer of quiet and sea-bathing. She had come +alone, engaged her own rooms, and for a time seemed to want nothing but +solitude. + +Even after she had made herself somewhat familiar with the other inmates +of the boarding-house, nothing positive was learned of her history. That +she had been married was probable: an indefinable something in her face +and carriage seemed to reveal thus much: moreover, her trunks were marked +"James Duvernois." + +And yet, so young did she sometimes look, so childlike was her smile and +so simple her manner, that there were curious ones who scouted the +supposition of wifehood. People addressed her both as "Miss" and "Mrs."; +at last it was discovered that her letters bore the latter title: then she +became popularly known as "the beautiful widow." + +It would be a waste of time to sketch the opening and ripening of the +intimacy between Doctor Leighton and this fascinating stranger. On his +part it was as nearly a case of love at first sight as perhaps can occur +among people of the Anglo-Saxon race. From the beginning he had no doubts +about giving her his whole heart: he was mastered at once by an emotion +which would not let him hesitate: he longed with all his soul for her +soul, and he strove to win it. + +Well, we will not go over the story: we know that he had triumphed. Yes, +in spite of her terror of the future, in spite of some withholding mystery +in the past, she had granted him--or rather she had not been able to +prevent him from seizing--her passionate affection. She had uttered a +promise which, a month before, she would not have dreamed herself capable +of making. + +In so doing she had acquired an almost unendurable happiness. It was one +of those mighty and terrible joys which are like the effect of opium--one +of those joys which condense life and abbreviate it, which excite and yet +stupefy, which intoxicate and kill. With this in her heart she lived ten +of her old days in one, but also she drew for those ten days upon her +future. + +After one of her interviews with Leighton, after an hour of throbbing, of +trembling, of vivid but confused emotions, her face would be as pale as +death, and her weakness such that she could hardly speak. The hands which, +while they clung to his, had been soft and moist, became dry and hot as +with fever, and then cold as ice. At night she could scarcely sleep: for +hours her brain throbbed with the thought of him, and of what stood +between him and her. In the morning she was heavy with headache, dizzy, +faint, hysterical; yet the moment she saw him again she was all life, all +freshness. + +From the point of confession there was no more resistance. She would be +his wife; she would be married whenever he wished; she seemed mad to +reward him for his love; she wanted somehow to sacrifice herself for his +sake. Yet, although she hesitated no longer, she sometimes gazed at him +with eyes full of anxiety, and uttered words which presaged evil. + +"If any trouble springs from this, you must pardon me," she more than once +whispered. "I cannot help it. I have never, never, never been loved +before; and oh, I have been so hungry, so famished for it, I had begun to +despair of it. Yes, when I first met you, I had quite despaired of there +being any love in the world for me. I could not help listening to you: I +could not help taking all your words and looks into my craving heart; and +now I am yours--forgive me!" + +Stranger as she was in Northport, everybody trusted the frank sweetness in +her face, and sought no other cause for admiring her and wishing her +happiness. The whole village came to the church to witness her marriage +and to doat upon a bridal beauty which lay far more in expression than in +form or feature. A few words of description--inadequate notes to represent +the precious gold of reality--must be given to one who could change the +stare of curiosity to a beaming glance of sympathy. + +Small, slender, fragile; neither blonde nor brunette; a clear skin, with a +hectic flush; light chestnut hair, glossy and curling; eyes of violet +blue, large, humid and lustrous, which at the first glance seemed black +because of the darkness, length and closeness of the lashes, and capable +of expressing an earnestness and sweetness which no writer or artist might +hope to depict; a manner which in solitude might be languid, but which the +slightest touch of interest kindled into animation; in fine, white teeth +that sparkled with gayety, and glances that flashed happiness. + +She was married without bridal costume, and there was no wedding journey. +Leighton was poor, and must attend to his business; and his wife wanted +nothing from him which he could not spare--nothing but his love. +Impossible to paint her pathetic gratitude for this affection; the +spiritual--it was not passionate--fondness which she bore him; the +softness of her eyes as she gazed for minutes together into his; the +sudden, tremulous outreachings of her hands toward him, as she just +touches him with her finger and draws back, then leans forward and lies in +his arms, uttering a little cry of happiness. Here was a heart that must +long have hungered for affection--a heart unspeakably thankful and joyous +at obtaining it. + +"I have been smiling all day," she sometimes said to him. "People have +asked me why I looked so gay, and what I had heard that was funny. It is +just because I am entirely happy, and because the feeling is still a +surprise. Shall I ever get over it? Am I silly? No!" + +Her gladness of heart seemed to make her angelic. She rejoiced in every +joy around her, and grieved for every sorrow. She visited the poor of her +husband's patients, watched with them when there was need, made little +collections for their relief, chatted away their forebodings, half cured +them with her smile. There was something catching, comforting, uplifting +in the spectacle of that overbrimming content. + +The well were as susceptible to its influence as the sick. Once, half a +dozen men and twice as many boys were seen engaged in recovering her veil +out of a pond into which the wind had blown it; and when it was handed to +her by a shy youth on the end of a twenty-foot pole, all felt repaid for +their labors by the childlike burst of laughter with which she received +it. Now and then, however, shadows fell across this sunshine. In those +dark moments she frequently reverted to the unhappy couple of whom she had +told Leighton when he first spoke to her of marriage. She was possessed to +describe the man--his dull, filmy, unsympathetic black eyes, his +methodical life and hard rationality, his want of sentiment and +tenderness. + +"Why do you talk of that person so much?" Leighton implored. "You seem to +be charging me with his cruelty. I am not like him." + +The tears filled her eyes as she started toward him, saying, "No, you are +_not_ like him. Even if you should become like him, I couldn't reproach +you. I should merely die." + +"But you know him so well?" he added, inquiringly. "You seem to fear him. +Has he any power over you?" + +For a moment she was so sombre that he half feared lest her mind was +unstrung on this one subject. + +"No," she at last said. "His power is gone--nearly gone. Oh, if I could +only forget!" + +After another pause, during which she seemed to be nerving herself to a +confession, she threw herself into her husband's arms and whispered, "He +is my--uncle." + +He was puzzled by the contrast between the violence of her emotion and the +unimportance of this avowal; but as he at least saw that the subject was +painful to her, and as he was all confidence and gentleness, he put no +more inquiries. + +"Forget it all," he murmured, caressing her; and with a deep sigh, the +sigh of tired childhood, she answered, "Yes." + +The long summer days, laden with happiness for these two, sailed onward to +their sunset havens. After a time, as August drew near its perfumed death, +Alice began to speak of a journey which she should soon be obliged to make +to New York. She _must_ go, she said to Leighton--it was a matter of +property, of business: she would tell him all about it some day. But she +would return soon; that is, she would return as soon as possible: she +would let him know how soon by letter. + +When he proposed to accompany her she would not hear of it. To merely go +on with her, she represented, would be a useless expense, and to stay as +long as she might need to stay would injure his practice. In these days +her gayety seemed forced, and more than once he found her weeping; yet so +innocent was he, so simple in his views of life, so candid in soul, that +he suspected no hidden evil: he attributed her agitation entirely to grief +at the prospect of separation. + +His own annoyance in view of the journey centred in the fact that his wife +would be absent from him, and that he could not incessantly surround her +with his care. Whether she would be happy, whether she would be treated +with consideration, whether she would be safe from accidents and alarms, +whether her delicate health would not suffer, were the questions which +troubled him. He had the masculine instinct of protection: he was as +virile as he was gentle and affectionate. + +The parting was more painful to him than he had expected, because to her +it was such an undisguised and terrible agony. + +"You will not forget me?" she pleaded. "You will never, never hate me? You +will always love me? You are the only person who has ever made the world +pleasant to me; and you have made it so pleasant! so different from what +it was! a new earth to me! a star! I will come back as soon as this +business will let me. Some day I will come back, never to go away. Oh, +will not that be delightful?" + +Her extreme distress, her terror lest she might not return, her +forebodings lest he should some day cease to love her, impressed him for a +moment--only for a truant moment--with doubts as to a mystery. As he left +the railway station, full of gratitude for the last glance of her loving +eyes, he asked himself once or twice, "What is it?" + +What was it? + +We will follow her. She is ominously sad during the lonely journey: she is +almost stern by the time she arrives in New York. In place of the summer's +sweetness and gayety, there is a wintry and almost icy expression in her +face, as if she were about to encounter trials to which she had been long +accustomed, and which she had learned to bear with hardness if not with +resentment. + +No one meets her at the railway station, no one at the door of the sombre +house where her carriage stops--no one until she has passed up stairs into +a darkling parlor. + +There she is received by the man whom she has so often described to +Deighton--a man of thin, erect form, a high and narrow forehead, regular +and imperturbable features, fixed and filmy black eyes, a mechanical +carriage, an icy demeanor. + +At sight of her he slightly bowed--then he advanced slowly to her and took +her hand: he seemed to be hesitating whether he should give her any +further welcome. + +"You need not kiss me," she said, her eyes fixed on the floor. "You do not +wish to do it." + +He sighed, as if he too were unhappy, or at least weary; but he drew his +hand away and resumed his walk up and down the room. + +"So you chose to pass your summer in a village?" he presently said, in the +tone of a man who has ceased to rule, but not ceased to criticise. "I hope +you liked it." + +"I told you in my letters that I liked it," she replied in an +expressionless monotone. + +"And I told you in my letters that I did not like it. It would have been +more decent in you to stay in Portland, among the people whom I had +requested to take care of you. However, you are accustomed to have your +own way. I can only observe that when a woman will have her own way, she +ought to pay her own way." + +A flush, perhaps of shame, perhaps of irritation, crossed her hitherto +pale face, but she made no response to the scoff, and continued to look at +the floor. + +After a few seconds, during which neither of them broke the silence, she +seemed to understand that the reproof was over, and she quietly quitted +the room. + +The man pushed the door to violently with his foot, and said in an accent +of angry scorn, "That is what is now called a wife." + +Well, we have reached the mystery: we have found that it was a crime. + +In the working of social laws there occur countless cases of individual +hardship. The institution of marriage is as beneficent as the element of +fire; yet, like that, it sometimes tortures when it should only have +comforted. + +The sufferer, if a woman, usually bears her smart tamely--with more or +less domestic fretting and private weeping indeed, but without violent +effort to escape from her bed of embers. Divorce is public, ugly and +brutal: her sensibility revolts from it. Moreover, mere unhappiness, mere +disappointment of the affections, does not establish a claim for legal +separation. Finally, there is woman's difficulty of self-maintenance--the +fact that her labor will not in general give her both comfort and +position. + +What then? Unloved, unable to love, yet with an intense desire for +affection, and an immense capacity for granting it, her heart is tempted +to wander beyond the circle of her duty. A flattering shape approaches her +dungeon-walls; a voice calls to her to come forth and be glad, if only for +a moment; there seems to be a chance of winning the adoration which has +been her whole life's desire; there is an opportunity of using the +emotions which are burning within her. Shall she burst open the gate on +which is written LEGALITY? + +Evidently the temptation is mighty. Laden with a forsaken, wounded and +perhaps angry heart, she is so easily led into the belief that her +exceptional suffering gives her a right to exceptional action! She feels +herself justified in setting aside law, when law, falsifying its purpose, +violating its solemn pledge, brings her misery instead of happiness. She +will not, or cannot, reflect that special hardships must occur under all +law; that it is the duty of the individual to bear such chance griefs +without insurrection against the public conscience; that entire freedom of +private judgment would dissolve society. + +Too often--though far less often than man does the like--she makes of her +sorrow an armor of excuse, and enters into a contest for unwarrantable +chances of felicity. Only, in general, she is so far conscious of guilt, +or at least so far fearful of punishment, as to carry on her struggle in +the darkness. Few, however maddened by suffering, openly defy the serried +phalanx of the world. Still fewer venture the additional risk of defying +it under the forms of a legality which they have ventured to violate. + +Why is it that so few women, even of a low and reckless class, have been +bigamists? It is because the feminine soul has a profound respect, a +little less than religious veneration, for the institution of marriage; +because it instinctively recoils from trampling upon the form which +consecrates love; because in very truth it regards the nuptial bond as a +sacrament. I believe that the average woman would turn away from bigamy +with a deeper shudder than from any other stain of conjugal infidelity. + +But there are exceptions to all modes of feeling and of reasoning. + +Here is Alice Duvernois: she is a woman of good position, of intellectual +quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out +this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To +her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, +grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has +seemed that the sanctity of a second marriage will somehow cover the +violation of a first. + +This aberration we can only explain on the ground that she was one of +those natures--mature in some respects, but strangely childlike in +others--whom most of us love to stigmatize as unpractical, and who in fact +never become quite accustomed to this world and its rules. + +On the very evening of her arrival home she put to her husband a question +of infantile and almost incredible simplicity. It was one of the many +observations which made him tell her from time to time that she was a +fool. + +"What do they do," she asked, "to women who marry two husbands?" + +"They put them in jail," was his cool reply. + +"I think it is brutal," she broke out indignantly, as if the iron gates +were already closing upon her, and she were contesting the justice of the +punishment. + +"You are a pretty simpleton, to set up your opinion against that of all +civilized society!" was the response of incarnate Reason. + +From that moment she trembled at her danger, and quivered under the +remorse which terror brings. At times she thought of flying, of abandoning +the husband who did not love her for the one who did; but she was afraid +of being pursued, afraid of discovery. The knowledge that society had +already passed judgment upon her made her see herself in the new light of +a criminal, friendless, hunted and doomed. The penalty of her illegal +grasp after happiness was already tracking her like a bloodhound. + +Yet when she further learned that her second marriage was not binding +because of the first, her heart rose in mutiny. Faithful to the only love +that there had been for her in the world, she repeated to herself, a +hundred times a day, "It _is_ binding--it _is_!" + +She was in dark insurrection against her kind; at times she was on the +point of bursting out into open defiance. She stared at Duvernois, crazy +to tell him, "I am wedded to another." + +He noticed the wild expression, the longing, wide-open eyes, the parted +and eager lips, the trembling chin. At last he said, with a brutality +which had become customary with him, "What are you putting on those airs +for? I suppose you are imagining yourself the heroine of a romance." + +With a glare of pain and scorn she walked away from him in silence. + +It is shocking indeed to be fastened speechless upon a rack, and to be +charged by uncomprehending souls with counterfeiting emotion. She was so +constituted that she could not help laying up this speech of her husband's +against him as one of many stolid misdoings which justified both contempt +and aversion. In fact, his inability or unwillingness to comprehend her +had always been, in her searching and sensitive eyes, his chief crime. To +be understood, to be accepted at her full worth, was one of the most +urgent demands of her nature. + +The life of this young woman, not only within but without, was strange +indeed. She fulfilled that problem of Hawthorne's--an individual bearing +one character, living one life in one place, and a totally different one +in another place--upon one spot of earth angelic, and upon another vile. + +Stranger still, her harsher qualities appeared where her manner of life +was lawful, and her finer ones where it was condemnable. At Northport she +had been like sunlight to her intimates and like a ministering seraph to +the poor. In New York she avoided society: she had no tenderness for +misery. + +The explanation seems to be that love was her only motive of feeling and +action. Not a creature of reason, not a creature of conscience--she was +only a creature of emotion, an exaggerated woman. + +Unfortunately, her husband, methodical in life, judicial in mind, +contemptuous of sentiment, was an exaggerated man. Here was a beating +heart united to a skeleton. The result of this unfortunate combination had +been a wreck of happiness and defiance of law. + +Duvernois had not a friend intelligent enough to say to him, "You _must _ +love your wife; if you cannot love her, you must with merciful deception +make her believe that you do. You must show her when you return from +business that you have thought of her; you must buy a bouquet, a toy, a +trifle, to carry home to her. If you do these things, you will be +rewarded; if not, you will be punished." + +But had there been such a friend, Duvernois would not have comprehended +him. Ho would have replied, or at least he would have thought, "My wife is +a fool. She is not worth the money that I now spend upon her, much less +the reflection and time that you call upon me to spend." + +Two such as Alice and Duvernois could not live together in peace. +Notwithstanding her old dread of him, and notwithstanding the new alarm +with which she was filled by the discovery that she was a felon, she could +not dissemble her feelings when she looked him in the face. Sometimes she +was silently contemptuous--sometimes (when her nerves were shaken) openly +hostile. Rational, impassive, vigorous as he was, she made him unhappy. + +The letters of Leighton were at once a joy and a sorrow. She awaited them +impatiently; she went every day to the delivery post-office whither she +had directed them to be sent; she took them from the hands of the +indifferent clerk with a suffocating beating of the heart. Alone, she +devoured them, kissed them passionately a hundred times, sat down in +loving haste to answer them. But then came the necessity of excusing her +long absence, of inventing some lie for the man she worshiped, of +deterring him from coming to see her. + +During that woeful winter of terror, of aversion, of vain longing, her +health failed rapidly. A relentless cough pursued her, the beautiful flame +in her cheek burned freely, and a burst of blood from the lungs warned her +that her future was not to be counted by years. + +She cared little: her sole desire was to last until summer. She merely +asked to end her hopeless life in loving arms--to end it before those arms +should recoil from her in horror. + +No discovery. Her husband was too indifferent toward her to watch her +closely, or even to suspect her. As early in June as might be she obtained +permission to go to the seaside, and with an eagerness which would have +found the hurricane slow she flew to Northport. + +Leighton received her with a joy which at first blinded him to her +enfeebled health. + +"Oh, how could you stay so long away from me?" were his first words. "Oh, +my love, my darling wife! thank you for coming back to me." + +But after a few moments, when the first flush and, sparkle of excitement +had died out of her cheeks and eyes, he asked eagerly, "What is the matter +with you? Have you been sick?" + +"I am all well again, now that I see you," she answered, putting out her +arms to him with that little start of love and joy which had so often +charmed him. + +It absolutely seemed that in the presence of the object of her affection +this erring woman became innocent. Her smile was as simple and pure as +that of childhood: her violet eyes reminded one of a heaven without a +cloud. It must have been that, away from punishment and from terror, she +did not feel herself to be guilty. + +But the day of reckoning was approaching. She had scarcely begun to regain +an appearance of health under the stimulus of country air and renewed +happiness, when a disquieting letter arrived from Duvernois. In a tone +which was more than usually authoritative, he directed her to meet him at +Portland, to go to Nahant and Newport. Did he suspect something? + +She would have given years of life to be able to show the letter to +Leighton and ask his counsel. But here her punishment began to double upon +her: the being whom she most loved was precisely the one to whom she must +not expose this trouble--the one from whom she was most anxious to conceal +it. + +In secret, and with unconfided tears, she wrote a reply, alleging (what +was true) that her feeble health demanded quiet, and praying that she +might be spared the proposed journey. For three days she feverishly +expected an answer, knowing the while that she ought to go to Portland to +meet Duvernois, should he chance to come, yet unable to tear herself away +from Leighton, even for twenty-four hours. + +In the afternoon of the third day she made one of her frequent visits of +charity. At the house of a poor and bed-ridden widow she met, as she had +hoped to meet, her husband. When they left the place he took her into his +gig and carried her home. + +It was a delicious day of mid June: the sun was setting in clouds of +crimson and gold; the earth was in its freshest summer glory. In the +beauty of the scene, and in the companionship of the heart which was all +hers, she forgot, or seemed to forget, her troubles. One hand rested on +Leighton's arm; her face was lifted steadily to his, like a flower to the +light; her violet eyes were dewy and sparkling with happiness. There were +little clutches of her fingers on his wrist whenever he turned to look at +her. There were spasms of joy in her slender and somewhat wasted frame as +she leaned from time to time against his shoulder. + +Arrived at the house, she was loth to have him leave her for even the time +required to take his horse to the stable. + +"Come soon," she said--"come as quick as you can. I shall be at the +window. Look up when you reach the gate. Look at the window all the way +from the gate to the door." + +In an instant, not even taking off her bonnet, she was sitting by the +window waiting for him to appear. + +A man approached, walking behind the hedge of lilacs which bordered the +yard, and halted at the gate with an air of hesitation. She turned ghastly +white: retribution was upon her. It was Duvernois. + +With that swift instinct of escape which sensitive and timorous creatures +possess, she glided out of the room, through the upper hall, down a back +stairway, into the garden behind the house, and so on to an orchard +already obscure in the twilight. Here she paused in her breathless flight, +and burst into one of her frequent coughs, which she vainly attempted to +smother. + +"I was already dying," she groaned. "Ah, why could he not have given me +time to finish?" + +From the orchard she could faintly see the road, and she now discovered +Leighton returning briskly toward the house. Her first thought was, "He +will look up at the window, and he will not see me!" Her next was, "They +will meet, and all will be known!" + +Under the sting of this last reflection she again ran onward until her +breath failed. She had no idea where she should go: her only purpose was +to fly from immediate exposure and scorn--to fly both from the man she +detested and the man she loved. Her speed was quickened to the extent of +her strength by the consideration that she was already missed, and would +soon be pursued. + +"Oh, don't let them come!--don't let them find me!" she prayed to some +invisible power, she could not have said what. + +Mainly intent as she was upon mere present escape from reproachful eyes, +she at times thought of lurking in the woods or in some neighboring +village until Duvernois should disappear and leave her free to return to +Leighton. But always the reflection came up, "Now he knows that I have +deceived him; now he will despise me and hate me, and refuse to see me; +now I can never go back." + +In such stresses of extreme panic and anguish an adult is simply a child, +with the same overweight of emotions and the same imperfections of reason. +During the moments when she was certain that Leighton would not forgive +her, Alice made wild clutches at the hope that Duvernois might. There were +glimpses of the earlier days of her married life; cheering phantoms of the +days when she believed that she loved and that she was beloved--phantoms +which swore by altars and bridal veils to secure her pardon. + +She imagined Duvernois overtaking her with the words, "Alice, I forgive +your madness: do you also forgive the coldness which drove you to it?" + +She imagined herself springing to him, reaching out her hands for +reconciliation, putting up her mouth for a kiss, and sobbing, "Ah, why +were you not always so?" + +Then of a sudden she scorned this fancy, trampled it under her weary, +aching feet, and abhorred herself for being faithless to Leighton. + +At last she reached a sandy, lonely coast-road, a mile from the village, +with a leaden, pulseless, corpselike sea on the left, and on the right a +long stretch of black, funereal marshes. Seating herself on a ruinous +little bridge of unpainted and wormeaten timbers, she looked down into a +narrow, sluggish rivulet, of the color of ink, which oozed noiselessly +from the morass into the ocean. Her strength was gone: for the present +farther flight was impossible, unless she fled from earth--fled into the +unknown. + +This thought had indeed followed her from the house: at first it had been +vague, almost unnoticed, like the whisper of some one far behind; then it +had become clearer, as if the persuading fiend went faster than she +through the darkness, and were overtaking her. Now it was urgent, and +would not be hushed, and demanded consideration. + +"If you should die," it muttered, "then you will escape: moreover, those +who now abhor you and scorn you, will pity you; and pity for the dead is +almost respect, almost love." + +"Oh, how can a ruined woman defend herself but by dying?" She wept as she +gazed with a shudder into the black rivulet. + +Then she thought that the water seemed foul; that her body would become +tangled in slimy reeds and floating things; that when they found her she +would be horrible to look upon. But even in this there was penance, a +meriting of forgiveness, a claim for pity. + +Slowly, inch by inch, like one who proposes a step which cannot be +retraced, she crept under the railing of the bridge, seated herself on the +edge of the shaky planking and continued to gaze into the inky waters. + +A quarter of an hour later, when the clergyman of Northport passed by that +spot, returning from a visit to a dying saint of his flock, no one was +there. + +We must revert to the two husbands. Duvernois had long wondered what could +keep his wife in a sequestered hamlet, and immediately on her refusal to +join him in a summer tour he had resolved to look into her manner of life. + +At the village hotel he had learned that a lady named Duvernois had +arrived in the place during the previous summer, and that she had been +publicly married to a Doctor Leighton. He did not divulge his name--he did +not so much as divulge his emotions: he listened to this story calmly, his +eyes fixed on vacancy. + +At the door of the boarding-house he asked for Mrs. Duvernois, and then +corrected himself, saying, "I mean Mrs. Leighton." + +He must have had singular emotions at the moment, yet the servant-girl +noticed nothing singular in his demeanor. + +Mrs. Leighton could not be found. None of the family had seen her enter or +go out: it was not known that she had been in the house for an hour. + +"But there comes Doctor Leighton," remarked the girl as the visitor turned +to leave. + +Even in this frightful conjuncture the characteristic coolness of +Duvernois did not forsake him: after a moment's hesitation and a quick +glance at his rival, he said, "I do not know him: I will call again." + +On the graveled walk which led from the yard gate to the doorstep the two +men met and passed without a word--the face of the one as inexpressive of +the strangeness and horror of the encounter as the mind of the other was +unconscious of them. + +Leighton immediately missed Alice. In a quarter of an hour he became +anxious: in an hour he was in furious search of her. + +Somewhat later, when Duvernois came once more to the house, accompanied by +a fashionably-dressed youth, who, as it subsequently appeared, was his +younger brother, he found the family and the neighborhood in wild alarm +over the disappearance of Mrs. Leighton. The two at once returned to the +hotel, procured saddle-horses and joined in the general chase. + +It was ten o'clock at night, and the moon was shining with a vaporous, +spectral light, when the maddest of chances brought the two husbands +together over a body which the tide, with its multitudinous cold fingers, +had gently laid upon the beach. + +Leighton leaped from his horse, lifted the corpse with a loud cry, and +covered the white wet face with kisses. + +Duvernois leaned forward in his saddle, and gazed at both without a word +or a movement. + +"Oh, what could have led her to this?" groaned the physician, already too +sure that life had departed. + +"Insanity," was the monotoned response of the statue on horseback. + +The funeral took place two days later: the coffin-plate bore the +inscription, "Alice Leighton, aged 23." Duvernois read it, and said not a +word. + +"If you don't claim her as your wife," whispered the brother, "you may +find it difficult to marry again." + +"Do you think I shall want to marry again?" responded the widower with an +icy stare. + +He was aware that he had lost a shame and a torment, and not aware that +she might have been an honor and a joy, if only he had been able to love. + +J. W. DE FOREST. + + + + +"How Mother Did It." + + + +The year 1839--that is, the year in which I was born--is of no manner of +importance to myself or anybody else. The year 1859--that is, the year in +which I began to _live_ (Charlie and I got married that year)--is of +considerable importance to myself and to somebody else. The two decades +forming the interim between those years constitute my Dark Age, in which I +teethed and measled and whooping-coughed, and went to school, and wore my +hair in two long pig-tails, and loved molasses candy, and regarded a +school-room as purgatory, a ball-room as heaven--when I sang and danced +and grew as the birds and grasshoppers and flowers sing and dance and +grow, because they having nothing else to do. + +Then came my Golden Age. That means, then came Charlie into my life, when +I felt for the first time that there was music in the birds' voices and +perfume in the flowers--that there was light in the heavens above and on +the earth beneath, for God was in heaven and Charlie was on earth--when I, +who had all along been hardly more than a human grasshopper, became the +happiest of happy women--so much happier, I thought, than I deserved. For +who was I, and what great thing had I ever done, that I should be crowned +with such a crown of glory as--Charlie? why should I, insignificant I, be +so blest among women as to be taken to wife by Charlie? + +I was insanely sentimental enough to rather resent the fact that Charlie +was prosaically well off: his circumstances were distressingly easy. It +would have been so much nicer, so deliciously romantic, if there had been +an opportunity afforded me to show how ready, nay, eager, I was to +sacrifice friends, home and country for his dear sake. But Charlie didn't +want me to sacrifice my friends; nor did it require any great amount of +heroism to exchange my modestly comfortable home for his decidedly +luxurious one; and as for country, nothing on earth could have induced +Charlie to leave his own country, much less his own parish, much less his +own plantation. So we were married without any talk of sacrifice on either +side, and moved quietly enough from father's small plantation to Charlie's +large one. + +There was but one drawback to the perfectness of my happiness: there was +so little hope of my ever having an opportunity to air those magnanimous +traits of character upon the possession of which I so plumed myself. I +felt sure that I could meet the most adverse circumstances with the most +smiling patience, but circumstances obstinately refused to be adverse. I +was inwardly conscious that the most trying emergency could not shake my +heroic but purely feminine fortitude; but, alas! my fortitude was likely +to rust while waiting for the emergency. Injury and wrong should be met +with sublime dignity, but the most wildly speculative imagination could +not look upon Charlie's placidly handsome face and convert him into a +possible tyrant. + +To tell how the longed-for opportunity to exercise my powers of endurance, +and my dignity, and all the rest of it, did finally come about, and to +tell how I bore the test, is the object of this paper. + +For the first six months of our married life, Charlie and I were simply +ridiculously happy--selfishly happy too. We resented a neighbor's visit as +an act of barbarous invasion, and the necessity of returning such visits +was acknowledged with a sublimity of resignation worthy of pictorial +representation in that exquisite parlor manual, Fox's _Book of Martyrs_. +If Charlie left the house for an hour or two, I looked upon his enforced +absence as a cruel dispensation of Providence, which I did _not_ bear with +"fortitude and sublime dignity," but pouted over like the ridiculous baby +I was. Bare conjugal civility required that on leaving the house Charlie +should kiss me three times, and on returning six times: anything short of +that I should have considered a pre-monitory symptom of approaching +separation. If Charlie had ever been so savage as to call me plain +"Lulie," I should have felt certain he was sick and tired of me, and was +repenting of having married me instead of that spectacled bas-bleu, Miss +Minerva Henshaw, who read Buckle and talked dictionary. I believe I was +intoxicated with my own happiness, and was a little nonsensical because I +was so happy. + +Fortunately for the comfort of both Charlie and myself, his domestic +cabinet consisted of a marvelously well-trained set of servants, who were +simply perfect--as perfect in their way as Charlie was in his. They had +been trained by Charlie's mother, who had been the head of affairs in his +house up to the hour of her death--an event which had occurred some dozen +years before my first meeting with Charlie. Everybody said she had been a +celebrated housekeeper, and Charlie's devotion to her had been the talk of +the country-side. There were people malicious enough to say that if +Charlie's mother had never died, he would never have married, but I take +the liberty of resenting such an assertion as a personal insult; for, +although I don't doubt the dear old lady was a perfect jewel in her way, +yet, looking at the portrait of her which hangs over our parlor +mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold +gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither +high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, +in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls +peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with +a huge ruffled border radiating in a circumference of several feet, while +its two black-and-white gauze ribbon strings lie in rigid exactness over +her two rigidly exact shoulders. Looking on this portrait, I do not thank +anybody for saying that it was only because death chose that shining mark +that I had found favor in Charlie's eyes. + +We had been married, I suppose, about six months, when, sitting one +evening over a cozy wood-fire in our cozy little parlor, just under the +work of art I have described at such length, Charlie committed his first +matrimonial solecism. He yawned, actually gaped--an open-mouthed, audible, +undeniable yawn! + +Glancing up at him from my work (which consisted of the inevitable worked +slippers without which no woman considers her wifehood absolutely +asserted), I caught him in the act. "Are you tired, Charlie?" I asked in +accents of wifely anxiety. + +Tired! Poor fellow! he ought to have been, for he had ridden all over the +plantation that day, had written two business letters, and smoked there's +no telling how many cigars, and had only taken one little cat-nap after +dinner. + +He was leaning back in his arm-chair, with his eyes fixed in mournful +meditation upon his mother's portrait (at least I thought so), when I +asked him if he was tired, and I fancied he was thinking sad thoughts of +the mother who had not been dead so very long as never to trouble the +thoughts of the living; so, laying down my slippers, I crossed the rug and +perched myself on Charlie's knee. + +"Talk to me about her, Charlie dear." + +"About whom, little one?" asked Charlie, turning his eyes toward me with a +little lazy look of inquiry. + +"About your mother, Charlie: weren't you thinking about her just now?" + +"I don't know--maybe I was. Dear mother! you don't find many women like +her now-a-days." + +Reader, that was my first glimpse of Charlie's hobby. And from the +luck-less moment when I so innocently invited him to mount it, up to the +time when I forcibly compelled him to dismount from it, I had ample +opportunity to exercise my "smiling patience, sublime dignity and heroic +fortitude." Whether or not I improved my opportunities properly, I will +leave you to judge for yourself. But for two whole years "how mother did +it" seemed to be the watchword of Charlie's existence, and was the _bête +noir_ of mine. + +So long as Charlie and I were in Paradise the house kept itself, and very +nicely it did it too, but by the time we were ready to come back to earth +the perfect servants, who had been taking such good care of themselves, +and our two daft selves into the bargain, were found to be sadly +demoralized. The discovery came upon us gradually. I think my husband +noticed the decadence as soon as I did, but I wasn't going to invite his +attention to the fact; and he, I suppose, thought that I thought that +everything was just as it should be. + +One of Charlie's inherited manias was for early rising--a habit which +would have been highly commendable and undeniably invaluable in a laboring +man, but which struck me, who had an equally strong mania for not rising +early, as extremely inconvenient and the least little bit absurd. Charlie +got up early simply because "mother did it" before him; and after he had +risen at earliest dawn and dressed himself, he had nothing better to do +than walk out on the front gallery, locate himself in a big wicker chair, +tilt his chair back and elevate his feet to the top of the banisters, and +stare out over the cottonfields. This position he would maintain, +probably, about twenty minutes. Then the pangs of hunger would render him +restless, and he would draw out his watch to note the time of day. The +next step in the formula would bring him back to my room door while I was +still sleepily trying to reconnect the broken links of a dream, from which +vain effort he would startle me into wide-awake reality by a stentorian +"Lulie, Lulie! Come, wife--it's breakfast-time." + +Upon which, instead of "heroic fortitude," I would treat him to a little +cross "Please yell at the cook, Charlie, and not at me. I'm sure if people +_will_ get up at such unearthly hours, they should expect to be kept +waiting for their breakfast." + +Then the spirit of unrest would impel Charlie toward the back door, where +I would hear him commanding, exhorting, entreating. + +Mentally registering a vow to give my husband a dose of Mrs. Winslow's +Soothing Syrup on the coming night, I would relinquish all hope of another +nap, get up and dress myself, and join my roaring lion on the front +gallery, where we would both sit meekly waiting for the allied forces of +kitchen and dining-room to decide upon the question of revictualing us. + +"Lulie," said Charlie to me one morning at the breakfast-table, "things +are getting all out of gear about this house, somehow or other." + +I put down the coffee-pot with a resigned thump and asked my lord, with an +injured air, to please explain himself. + +"Well, when mother was alive I never knew what it was to sit down to my +breakfast later than six o'clock in summer or seven in winter." + +"How did she manage it, Charlie?" I asked, very meekly. + +"Why, by getting up early herself. No servant on the face of the globe is +going to get up at daybreak and go to work in earnest when she knows her +mistress is sound asleep in bed. I will tell you how mother did: she had a +pretty good-sized bell, that she kept on a table by her bedside, and every +morning, as soon as her eyes were open, she would give such a peal with +that old bell that all the servants on the premises knew that 'Mistress +was awake and up,' and bestirred themselves accordingly. There was no +discount on mother: that was the way she made father a rich man, too." + +"But, Charlie, you're already a rich man, and why on earth should we get +out of bed at daybreak just because your mother and father did so before +us?" + +"Of course, Lulie," said Charlie, the least little bit coldly, "I have no +desire in the world to force you to conform to my views: I only told you +how mother did it." + +Reader, you know how I loved Charlie, and after that I out-larked the lark +in early rising; and although Charlie and I did little more than gape in +each other's faces for an hour or two, and wish breakfast would come, and +wonder what made them take so long, he was perfectly satisfied that we +were both on the road that was to make us healthier, wealthier and wiser. + +Among other points on which my husband and I were mutually agreed was a +liking for good strong coffee, and we also held in common one decided +opinion, and that was, that our coffee was gradually becoming anything but +good and strong. + +Charlie broached the subject first. "Lulie, our coffee is getting to be +perfectly undrinkable," said he one morning, putting his cup down with a +face of disgust. + +"It is indeed, Charlie: it's perfectly villainous. Milly ought to be +ashamed of herself: I shall speak to her again after breakfast." + +"Maybe you don't give out enough coffee?" suggested Charlie. + +"I don't know how much Milly takes," I replied, innocently. + +"Takes! Do you mean to say that you don't know how much coffee goes out of +your pantry, Lulie? I don't wonder we never have any fit to drink!" + +If I had been of an argumentative turn, I would have asked Charlie to +explain how giving the cook carte blanche in the matter of quantity should +have had such a disastrous effect in the matter of quality. But I was not +of an argumentative turn, so I took no notice of his queer logic. + +"Why should I bother about every spoonful of coffee, Charlie? You assured +me, when I first came here, that every servant you had was as honest as +you or I, and I'm sure Milly knows better than I do how much coffee she +_ought_ to take." + +"Well," said Charlie with a sigh of mock resignation, "that may be the way +they do things now-a-days, but I remember exactly how mother managed to +have good coffee." Here the hobby broke into a brisk canter: "I recollect +she had a little oval wooden box, that held, I suppose, about a quart--or +two, maybe--of roasted coffee, and that box stood on the mantelpiece in +her room; and every morning, as soon as her bell rang, Milly would come +with a cup and spoon, and mother would measure out two table-spoonfuls of +coffee with her own hands and give it to the cook, and the cook knew +better than not to have good coffee, I can tell you." + +"Are you sure it was only two spoonfuls, Charlie?" + +"I am sure," responded Charlie, solemnly. + +As good-luck would have it, while rummaging in the store-room a day or two +after that coffee talk, I came upon a little old oval wooden box, the lid +of which I detached with some difficulty, and as the scent of the roses +hung round it still, I had no difficulty in identifying my treasure-trove +with the wooden box that had played such a distinguished part in the good +old times when cooks "knew better than not to have good coffee, I can tell +you." + +Hoping that some relic of my dead predecessor might prove more +awe-inspiring to contumacious Milly than my own despised monitions, I +exhumed the wooden box, had it thoroughly cleansed, filled with roasted +coffee and placed upon my mantelpiece, giving Milly orders to come to _me_ +hereafter, every morning, for the coffee. + +Charlie gave me a grateful little kiss when he saw the old box in the old +place, either as a reward for my amiable endeavor to do things as mother +did, or because he took the old wooden box for an outward and visible sign +of the inward and spiritual grace that was to move Milly to make good +coffee. + +But somehow or other, in spite of the unsightly old wooden box on my +mantelshelf, the coffee didn't improve in the least. Maybe the charm +failed to work because Charlie had forgotten which end of the mantelpiece +his mother used to keep it on, or I used the wrong spoon. I'm inclined to +lay it on the spoon myself, but there's no telling. + +The first cotton-picking season that came round after my marriage seemed +to afford Charlie no end of opportunities for riding his hobby at a fast +and furious pace. It seemed as if there was no end to the things that +mother used to do at that important season. I suppose she really was a +wonderful woman, and I humbly hope that by the time I have lived as long +as she did, and get to looking as she does in her portrait, and can wear a +wonderful-looking cap with the wonderful composure she wore it with, and +have little iron-gray curls hanging round my iron-gray visage, I may be +only half as wonderful. + +"Would I see to the making of the cotton sacks? That was one thing mother +always did." Thus Charlie. + +Of course I would: why should I object to doing anything that would +forward my husband's interests? Besides, I was actually pining for some +healthful occupation: I was tired of playing at living. I resolved on a +brilliant plan. I would out-mother mother, for she only _saw_ to the +making of the sacks: I would make them myself, every one of them, on my +sewing-machine. If I couldn't make cotton-sacks on it, what was the use of +having it? + +Charlie had informed me that he would send me down seven or eight women +from the quarters to make the sacks. I informed him with a flourish that I +should need but one: I should want her to cut the sacks out. Charlie +thanked me, and Martha and I and "Wheeler & Wilson" made the sacks. + +Was I to blame that the wretched things burst in twenty places at once the +first time they were used? Was I to blame that two women were kept busy +mending my sacks until they ceased to be sacks? Charlie might think so, +but I did not. + +He reported the failure of my cotton-sack experiment with very unbecoming +levity, as it struck me, accompanying his report with a somewhat unjust +comment upon new-fangled notions, such as sewing-machines, etc., etc., +winding up with--"Now, when mother was alive" (I fairly winced), "the +house was not considered too good for the darkies to sit on the back +gallery with their work and make the sacks right under mother's +eye--sewing them with good strong thread, too, that was spun for the +purpose. I can remember the old spinning-wheel: it used to sit right at +that end of the gallery." + +Like Captain Cuttle, I "made a note of it" for future use. + +I often had occasion to wonder, during the early years of my married life, +how it happened that the son of such an exceptionally perfect woman as I +was compelled to presume my respected mother-in-law to have been, should +have grown up with such shockingly disorderly habits as had my Charlie. +The wretched creature would stalk into my bed-room--which I was +particularly dainty about--fresh from shooting or fishing, with pounds of +mud clinging to his boots, bristling all over with cockleburs, his hands +grimed with gunpowder; and helping himself to water from my ewer, he would +begin dabbling in my china basin until he had reduced its originally pure +contents into a compound of mud and ink, and would wind up by making a +finish of my fresh damask towel, and throwing it on the bed or a chair +instead of returning it to the rack, as he should have done. + +"Charlie," said I one day, saucily inviting a dose of "what mother did," +"what did mother used to do when you came into her room and turned it into +a pig-stye, and then left it for her to clean up again?" + +"She never let me do it," said Charlie with a laugh. "I'll tell you how +she did. She had a tin basin on a shelf on the back gallery, and one of +those great big rolling towels that lasted about a week; and after her +washstand was fixed up in the morning, we knew better than to upset it, I +can tell you." + +"Very well, sir: I intend you shall know better than to upset mine, I'll +show you." + +In fact, things had come to that pass that I had mentally resolved to +"show" Charlie a great many things. I firmly believed that the secret of +the power that Charlie's mother had exercised over her household, and +still exercised over him in memory, lay in the fact that she made them all +afraid of her: so I firmly resolved that they should all be afraid of me, +poor little me! It is true, I was but twenty, and she was fifty; I was but +a pocket edition of a woman, and she was a _Webster Unabridged_; I had +little meek blue eyes, that dropped to the ground in the most shamefaced +manner if a body did but look at me, and she had hard, cold gray eyes, +that not only looked straight at you, but right through you. Still, I +hoped, notwithstanding these trifling drawbacks, to make myself very +awe-inspiring by dint of a grand assumption of spirit. + +To put it into very plain language, I resolved to bully Charlie off his +hobby. He had thrown his mother at my head (figuratively speaking, of +course) until, if she had been present in _propria persona_, I should have +been tempted to try Hiawatha's remarkable feat with his grandmother, and +throw her up against the moon. But as I could not revenge myself upon her +personally, I began to lay deep and subtle plans for inducing Charlie to +leave her to her repose. + +As the veritable bell which, in the days when "mother did it," had acted +as a sort of Gabriel's trump, was still extant, minus clapper and handle, +I was enabled to provide myself with its fac-simile. Armed with this +instrument of retribution, I laid me down to sleep by Charlie's side, +gloating in anticipation over my ripening scheme of vengeance. + +It was a rare thing for me to wake up before Charlie, but I did manage to +do so on the morning in question, by dint, I think, of a powerful mental +resolution to that effect made the night before. I raised myself very +softly, so as not to disturb my husband's gentle slumbers, and, possessing +myself of my big bell, I laid on with a will, raising such a clatter in +the quiet morning air that Charlie fairly bounded into the middle of the +room before he in the least comprehended where it came from. + +"In the name of God, Lulie, what is the meaning of that?" he exclaimed, +looking at me as if he half doubted my sanity. + +"That's the way mother did it, Charlie," I replied placidly enough, and, +replacing my big bell on the table, I settled myself on my pillow once +more, ostensibly to go to sleep again--in reality to have my laugh out in +a quiet fashion, for it was enough to have made the very bed-posts laugh +to see Charlie's funny look of astonishment and indignation. But of course +he couldn't say a word, you know. + +For two more mornings I clattered my bell about his precious old head, and +then he paid me to quit, and after that began riding his hobby at a little +slower gait. + +The next direct intimation he gave that his faith in inherited ideas was +growing shaky was a plaintive little request that I would not stick so +close to the old wooden box, but give out enough coffee to ensure him +something to drink for his breakfast. + +Now, I had no wish that my husband should drink bad coffee just because +Providence had seen fit to remove his mother from this sublunary sphere: I +merely wanted to cure him of telling me how mother did it; so as soon as +he thus tacitly acknowledged that his suggestion had not been a success, I +took matters into my own hands, and proved to him that coffee could be +made as well by young wives as by old mothers. + +In the due revolution of the seasons King Cotton donned his royal robes of +ermine once more, and sacks again became the one thing needful. It was the +very rainiest, wettest, muddiest picking-season that had ever been seen. +In pursuance of my plan, I had seven or eight women down from the +quarters, and a spinning-wheel also, which was set to humming right under +our bed-room window. + +The rainy weather had kept Charlie in the house, and he was lounging on a +couch in my room, enjoying a pleasant semi-doze, when the monotonous +whirr-r-r of the spinning-wheel first attracted his attention. "Lulie," he +asked, rising into a sitting posture, "what is that infernal noise on the +back gallery?" + +"The spinning-wheel, Charlie. They are spinning thread to make the sacks +with," I answered, without looking up from my work. + +"Oh!" and Charlie subsided for a while. "Ahem! Lulie, my dear, how long is +that devilish spinning to be kept up?" + +"Devilish! Why, Charlie, that's the way mother did it." + +"Well," said Charlie, scratching his head and looking foolish, "I know she +did, Lulie, but I'll be confounded if I can stand it much longer." + +"Why, Charlie, you used to stand it when mother did it," I answered +maliciously. + +"I was hardly ever about the house in those days, Lulie: I suppose that +was why I didn't mind it." + +"Why weren't you about the house much in those days, Charlie?" + +"Because you weren't in it, you witch, I suppose." + +This was such a decided triumph over the old lady of the portrait that I +could afford to be amiable; so, giving him a spasmodic little hug and an +energetic little kiss, I went out and stopped the spinning nuisance +immediately. + +After that the hobby went slower and slower, feebler and feebler. One more +energetic display of my bogus spirit and "the enemy was mine." + +Winter came on in its duly-appointed time, bringing with it the usual +quantity of wild ducks and more than the usual degree of severe cold. +Charlie was an inveterate duck-shooter, and with the return of the season +came the return of mud and dirt in my bowls. + +I determined to do as mother did. A tin basin made its appearance on the +back gallery, four yards of crash sewed together at the end were made to +revolve over the roller, and by way of forcing the experiment to a +successful issue orders were given that my own pitchers should be filled +only after nightfall. + +I was sitting in my bed-room sewing away, in placid unconsciousness of +outside cold and discomfort, when Charlie got home from his first hunt of +the season. + +"No water, Lulie?" and the monster took hold of my nice pitcher with a +pair of muddy, half-frozen hands. + +"On the gallery, dear, just where mother used to keep it;" and I smiled up +at him angelically. + +With a muttered something or other, poor Charlie bounded out to the back +gallery. He came back in a minute, his hands as muddy and cold as ever. + +"Look here, Lulie: the water's all frozen in that confounded tin basin out +there." + +"I'll have it thawed out for you," I said sweetly, rising as I spoke. + +"I say, wifey"--and the great, handsome fellow came close up to me with +his mud and his burs--"do you think it's exactly fair, when a fellow's +been out all the morning shooting ducks for your dinner, to make him stand +out on the gallery such a day as this and scrub the mud off his frozen +hands?" + +"That's the way mother did," was all my answer. + +"Look here, Lulie, I cry quits. If you'll only let a body off this once, +you may keep house on your own plan, little lady, and I'll never tell you +how mother did it again so long as I live." + +"Well, then, don't, that's a dear," I replied, "for you'll only make me +dislike her memory, without doing any good. Just be patient with me, +Charlie, and maybe after a while I'll be as good a housekeeper as your +mother was before me. The mistake you and all other men make is, in +comparing your wives at the end of their first year of housekeeping with +your mothers, whose housekeeping you knew nothing about until it was of +ever so many years' duration. I'm young yet, but I'm improving in that +matter every day, Charlie." + +With which little moral lecture I gave Charlie a kiss, and some water to +wash the mud from his poor red hands. + +_Moral._--My dear girls, don't you ever marry a man that cannot take his +affidavit he never had a mother, unless it is expressly stipulated in the +marriage contract that he is never to tell you how his mother did it. + +J.R. HADERMANN. + + + + +The Red Fox: A Tale of New Year's Eve. + + + +It was New Year's Eve, 184-. I and my two little boys, children of five +and seven, were alone in the house. My husband had been unexpectedly +called away on business, and the servant had gone to her friends to spend +the coming holiday. + +It was drawing toward night. The cold shadows of the winter twilight were +already falling. A dull red glow in the west told where the sun was going +down. Over the rest of the sky hung heavy gray clouds. A few drops of rain +fell from time to time, and the wind was rising, coming round the corner +of the house with a long, mournful howl like that of a lost hound. + +I am not a very nervous person, but I did not like the idea of spending by +myself the long evening that would come after the children's bed-time. + +We were living then in a very new place in Michigan, which I shall call +Maysville. My husband, an ex-army officer, had resigned the sword for the +saw-mill. Our house was the oldest in the village, which does not speak +much for its antiquity, as five years before Maysville had been unbroken +forest. The house stood outside the cluster of houses that formed the +little settlement: it was a quarter of a mile to our nearest neighbor. + +Now, Maysville calls itself a city, has an academy and a college, and a +great quantity of church in proportion to its population. Then, we "went +to meeting" in a little white-painted, pine box of a thing, like a barn +that had risen in life. The stumps stood about the street: the cows +wandered at will and pastured in the "public square," an irregular +clearing running out into indefinite space. Here also the Indians would +encamp when they came to town from their reservation about five miles +away, and here also, I regret to say, they would sometimes get drunk, and +add what Martha Penney calls "a revolving animosity to the scenery." The +squaws, however, would generally secure the knives and guns before the +quarrelsome stage was reached. Not unfrequently the ladies would bring the +weapons to Mrs. Moore or myself to hide away till their lords and masters +should be sober. Then, feeling secure that no great harm could happen, +they would look on with the utmost placidity at the antics of their better +halves until they dropped down to sleep off their liquor. + +There were no Indians in town that night, however, and if there had been, +I was not at all afraid of them, for we were on excellent terms with the +whole reservation. My feeling about staying alone was merely one of those +unreasonable sensations that sometimes overtake people of ill-regulated +minds. + +I went to the door and looked out at the gray, angry sky. It was not cold, +but chill. The wind howled and shivered among the leafless branches: +everything promised a storm. + +I was not at all sorry to see Mr. and Mrs. Moore drive up in their light +buggy, with their two high-stepping, little brown horses. Mrs. Moore had +in her arms a bundle in a long blue embroidered cloak--a baby, in short. +She and her husband firmly believed this infant to be the most beautiful, +most intelligent and altogether most charming creature which the world had +ever seen. They had been married three years, and little Carry was their +first child. + +Mr. and Mrs. Moore were by no means ordinary people. Mrs. Moore--born +Minny or Hermione Adams--was a very small woman, exceedingly pretty, with +light brown curly hair, dark blue eyes and a complexion like an apple +blossom. + +Mr. Moore was the son of a Seneca mother and Cherokee father, with not a +drop of white blood in his veins. So he thought, at least, but I never +could quite believe it, because he could and did work, and never so much +as touched even a glass of wine. His parents had died when he was very +young, and he had been brought up and educated by a missionary, a gentle, +scholarly old Presbyterian minister, whose memory his adopted son held in +loving reverence. + +The story of our acquaintance with Richard Moore is too long to be told +here. Four years before he had come with us from the Pawnee country. He +had married Minny Adams with the full consent of her parents and the +opposition of all her other friends. Contrary to all prophecies, and with +that inartistic disregard of the probable which events often show, they +had been very happy together. + +Mr. Moore--otherwise Wyanota--was a civil engineer, and stood high in his +profession. + +"Look here, mamma," he said as he drove up. "Will you take in the wife and +the small child for to-night? I must go away." + +"Certainly," said I, overjoyed. "But where are you going, to be caught in +a storm?" + +"Oh, they have got into a fuss with the hands over on the railroad, and +have sent for me. I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when I left +him?" + +"Why not?" + +"English!" said Wyn, most expressively. "No one can stand the airs he puts +on." + +Now, such airs as Mr. Moore possessed--and they were neither few nor far +between--were not put on, but were perfectly natural to him. + +"Can't you come in and get your tea?" I asked as he handed me the baby and +helped his wife down. + +"No: I must go over directly and compose matters. Good-bye, little woman: +by-bye, baby! Do you know, we think she's beginning to say 'papa?'" said +Wyn, proudly; and then he kissed his wife and child and drove away. + +I carried the infant phenomenon into the house and took off its wrappings. +She was my namesake, and I loved the little creature, but I can't say she +was a pretty baby. She was a soft, brown thing, with her father's +beautiful southern eyes and her mother's mouth, but otherwise she +certainly was not handsome. She was ten months old, but she had a look of +experience and wisdom in her wee face that would have made her seem old at +twenty years. She sat on my lap and watched me in a meditative way, as +though she were reviewing her former estimate of my character, and +considering whether her opinions on that subject were well founded. There +was something quite weird and awful in her dignity and gravity. + +"Isn't she a wise-looking little thing?" said Minny. "She makes me think +sometimes of the fairy changeling that was a hundred and fifty years old, +and never saw soap made in an egg-shell." + +"This baby never would have made such a confession of ignorance, you may +depend. She would not have acknowledged that anything lay out of the range +of her experience. Take your chicken till I get tea, for I am my own girl +to-night." + +We had a very merry time over the tea-table and in washing up the dishes. +Until the boys went to bed we were in something of a frolic with them and +the baby, and it was not till the little one was asleep in her crib and Ed +and Charley were quiet in bed that we noticed how wild the weather was +getting. + +The rain, which had at first fallen in pattering drops, was now driving in +sheets before a mighty wind, which roared through the woods back of the +house with a noise like thunder. The branches of the huge oaks in the +front yard creaked and groaned as only oak boughs can. The house shook, +the rain lashed the roof, and the wind clawed and rattled the blinds like +some wild creature trying to get in. + +"I hope Wyn is safe under shelter,'' said Mrs. Moore. + +"He will have reached the end of his journey long before this. I hope he +will have no trouble with the men, but he is not apt to. I pity poor Mr. +Robinson. When Wyn chooses, his extreme politeness is something quite +awful." + +"I will say for my husband," observed Mrs. Moore, "that when he sets +himself to work to be disagreeable, he can, without doing one uncourteous +thing, be more aggravating than any one I ever saw in my life." + +"It is perfectly evident that he never tries his airs on you, or you would +not speak so. Hear the wind blow!" + +"It is no use listening to the weather. The house will stand, I suppose. +Have you got your work? Then let me read to you. It will seem like old +times, before I was married." + +Minny Moore was in some respects a very remarkable woman. Though little +Carry was her first baby, she _could_ talk on other subjects. She did not +expect you to listen with rapture to the tenth account of how baby had +said "Da-da," or thrill with agony over the tale of an attack of wind. She +had been her husband's friend and companion before the baby was born: she +did not entirely throw him over now that it had come. She had always been +fond of reading, and she continued to keep up her interest in the world +outside of her nursery. She thought that as her daughter grew up her +mother would be as valuable as a guide and friend if she did not wholly +sink the educated woman in the nurse-maid and seamstress. These habits may +have been "unfeminine," but they certainly made Mrs. Moore much more +agreeable as a companion than if she had been able to talk of nothing but +the baby's clothes, teeth and ailments. + +I took out my work, and Minny began to read _Locksley Hall_, which was +then a new poem on this side the water. I had never heard it before, and I +must confess I was much affected--more than I should be now. Mrs. Moore, +however, chose to say that she thought Amy had made a most fortunate +escape, that she had no doubt but the hero would have been a most +intolerable person to live with, and that their marriage, had it come to +pass, would have ended in Amy's taking in sewing to support both herself +and her husband. As for the Squire, why we had no word for his character +but his disappointed rival's, and his drinking might be all a slander. As +to his snoring, why poets might snore as well as other people. If he loved +his wife "somewhat better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse," +"Why what more," said Mrs. Moore, "could any woman ask of a man given to +horses and hunting? If Calvin Bruce ever cares more for a woman than he +does for his brown pointer and his fast trotter, she may think herself +happy indeed." + +At that instant a sudden and furious blast rushed out of the woods, and +tore and shook at the four corners of the house as if to wrench it from +its foundations. + +"It's quite awful to hear the wind scream like that," said Minny. "It is +like the banshee. Hark! is not that some one knocking at the back door?" + +I listened, and amid the rattling and shaking of blinds and timbers I +heard what sounded like a hurried, impatient knock at the side door. "Who +can it be on such a wild night?" I said, and took the candle and went to +open the door. I set the light in the hall, for I knew the wind would blow +it out. In spite of this precaution, however, the flame was extinguished, +for as I drew back the bolt and lifted the latch the blast threw the door +violently back on its hinges, and rushed into the hall as though exulting +in having finally made an entrance. + +"Pretty bad weather, mamma," said some one in the softest, sweetest voice, +like a courteous flute, and there entered my old friend the Black Panther. + +This gentleman measured seven feet in his moccasins, and as he stood in +our little entry he looked gigantic indeed. He closed the door with some +difficulty, and I relit the candle. + +"You are quite wet through," I said, for the water dripped from his +blanket and woolen hunting-frock. He carried his rifle in his hand, and I +thought the old man looked very tired and sad, and even anxious. + +"You all well?" he asked, earnestly. + +"Certainly. The captain has gone away, and Minny and the baby are here for +the night. My dear friend, where have you been in this weather? There is a +good fire in the kitchen. Come and get dry there, and let me make you a +cup of hot coffee and get you something to eat." + +Here Minny came out into the hall and held up her hands in sunrise. + +"Oh, uncle," she said, calling him by the name she had used toward him +since her childhood, "how could you come out in all this rain, and bring +on your rheumatism? How do you think any one is ever going to find dry +clothes for such a big creature as you?" + +The Panther gave a little grunt and a smile. He was used to Minny's +lectures, and he followed us both into the kitchen, where she made him sit +down by the fire and took off his wet blanket, waiting on him like a +daughter, and scolding him gently meanwhile. The old gentleman had of late +years been subject to rheumatism, and it was too likely that this exposure +would bring on another attack. The Panther patted her two little hands +between his own. Like most of his race, he had beautiful hands, soft and +rounded even in his old age, with long taper fingers that had, I dare say, +taken more than one scalp in their time. + +"Pooh!" said he, lightly. "You think old Ingin melt like maple sugar? You +well?" he asked, anxiously. + +"Quite so." + +"And little one?" + +"As well as a little pig, fast asleep in the other room." + +"Where your husband?" + +"Gone over to the railroad on business." + +"And yours?" he asked, turning to me. + +"Gone to Carysville. Do you know anything about him? is anything the +matter?" I asked, a little alarmed at his persistent questioning and an +indefinite something in the old man's tone and manner. + +"Oh no," said he, earnestly. "I come right over from our place." + +"Walked from the reservation in this storm!" said I. "What could have made +you do such a thing?" + +"Nothing--just to see you. Not very strange come see two nice women," said +the old gentleman, with a little complimentary bow. + +The Panther was somewhat vain of his knowledge of what he called "white +manners," but I never saw a white man who could be so gently dignified, so +courteous, so altogether charming in manner, as the old chief when he +chose. He hardly knew one letter from another, but he had had sixty-five +years of experience in war and council. Many a man "got up regardless of +expense" in college and society might have taken lessons in deportment +from this old Pottawatomie. He had known Minny from her childhood. Her +father's farm had been the first clearing in all that part of the country. +Deacon Adams had always been on excellent terms with the Indians, and his +little daughter had found her earliest playmates among their children. The +Panther had carried Minny in his arms when she was a baby; and as his own +family of boys and girls died one after another, he clung closer to the +child who had been their pet as well as his own. + +The Panther was one of those big, soft, easy men who seem made to be ruled +by one woman or another. He was greatly respected in his tribe, and had +much influence. When they had been a nation he had been one of their most +distinguished warriors, and his word had been law. He had always +maintained toward the "young men" a somewhat imperious manner. He had +conducted himself with dignity and decision in all his visits to +Washington, where he had been a great lion, and in all his dealings with +the United States he had shown much wisdom and ability. But report said +that when once within the domestic circle and before his squaw, the +diplomatist and warrior was exceedingly meek. He bore his wife's death +with resignation, but he had never married again. He loved Minny Adams +better than anything on earth, and the girl had great influence over him. +She, in her turn, was very fond of him. From her earliest years he had +been her friend, confidant and admirer. He looked so fierce and dangerous, +and was so kind and simple, that the alliance between the girl and himself +was very much like that between a little child and a big mastiff--the +child protected and leader, the dog protector and led. + +Minny made flannel shirts for him, and he wore them: she trimmed his +moccasins, and the dainty cambric ruffles which he wore when in grand +costume were got up by her hands. The Panther, however, did not often +appear in full dress. She tried to teach him to read, and she did get him +through the alphabet, but he greatly preferred hearing stories read to +learning to do it for himself, and was especially fond of the _Arabian +Nights_, which he quite believed. She even coaxed him to go to church with +her, and might have made a convert of him but for the interference of an +exceedingly silly young clergyman. The Panther rather liked to hear the +Bible, but I fear he was more attracted by the sound than the sense: his +favorite chapter was the story of David and Goliah. He used to say that +"Ingin religion was good for Ingin, and white religion was good for white +man." However, he never offered the least opposition to the missionary who +had settled among his people: indeed, he rather patronized that gentleman. + +He and Wyanota were excellent friends. It was good to see the deference +and respect with which the younger man treated the elder. I always said +that it was the Panther who made the match between Minny and Mr. Moore. +Their house was one of his homes, and he was a frequent guest at our own. +He petted and spoiled my two children: he was very soft and kind to me, +whom he called "Mamma," after Wyn's example, and he considered that my +husband "understood good manners"--a compliment which he did not pay to +every one. + +A dear little daughter whom we had lost had been very fond of him: the +child had died in his arms. I was alone at the time, and the old man's +sympathy was such a comfort to me in my trouble that for his own sake, as +well as for our little girl's, he had become very dear to us. + +For an Indian, the Panther might be called almost a sober character. He +was seldom drunk more than four or five times a year, and when he was, he +always was very careful to keep out of the way of his white friends until +he was sober, when he would lecture the young men on the evils of +intemperance in most impressive fashion. He was a good deal of an orator, +possessing a voice of great sweetness and power; and though he was such an +immense creature, all his movements were light and graceful as those of a +kitten. He could speak perfectly good, even elegant, English when he +chose, but he did not always choose, and generally omitted the pronouns; +but his voice, manner and gestures in speaking were perfectly charming +when he was in a good temper. When he was not, he was somewhat awful, but +it was only under great provocation that he became savage. In general, he +was an amiable, kind, lazy creature, whom it was very easy to love. + +I could not but wonder that night, as I set out the table and made the +coffee, what had brought the Panther so far in such wild weather. He did +not seem like himself. He was usually very conversable, and would chat +away by the hour together, in a fashion half shrewd, half simple, often +very interesting; but now he was silent and _distrait_. + +"Carry," said Mrs. Moore, "are there not some of Wyn's things here yet in +that old trunk in your lumber-room?" + +"Yes. Perhaps you can find something the chief can put on, and bring down +a pair of the captain's socks and slippers." + +"Oh, never mind, never mind," said the damp giant. + +"But I will mind," said the little woman; and she went out and soon +returned with the things, which she insisted he should go and put on. + +"Well, always one woman or another," said the Panther in a tone of +resignation: "always squaw git her own way. You see that little girl, +mamma? Could squeeze her up just like a rabbit. Always she order me round +since she so high, and I just big fool enough let her;" and he went into +the next room, and presently came out arrayed in dry garments, as to his +upper man at least. I set the table with the best I had in the house, and +Minny and I sat down to get a cup of coffee with our guest. + +At any other time the old gentleman would have purred and talked over this +little feast like an amiable old cat, but now he was rather silent; and I +noticed that in the pauses of the wind he would stop as though listening +for some expected sound. I began to think he was concealing from me some +misfortune or danger, and the same thought was evidently in Minny's mind, +for she watched him anxiously. + +When we went back into the parlor the Panther walked to the baby's crib, +and stood for a moment looking at the sleeping child with a tenderness +which softened his whole aspect. Then he asked for the little boys. + +"They are fast asleep in the next room," I said. "Go and look at them, and +you will be sure." + +The Panther smiled, but he went into my room, which opened from the +parlor, and bending down softly kissed the two little faces resting on the +same pillow. + +I drew a large chair to the fire for him, and Minny filled his pipe, for I +had "followed the drum" too long to object to smoking. The giant stretched +his length of limb before the fire, but he did not seem quite at ease, +even under the influence of the tobacco. He looked a little troubled and +anxious, and lifted his head once or twice with a sudden motion, like a +dog who has misgivings that something is wrong out-doors. + +The baby stirred in her sleep, and the chief began gently to rock the +cradle. "'Spose she order me about too, by and by," he said, "like her +mother." + +"Oh, you like to make that out," said Minny, "because you are such a great +big, strong man. If you were a little bit of a creature, you would always +be standing on your dignity to make yourself look tall. The last time Wyn +and I were at Detroit we went to church, and I heard the very smallest man +I ever saw preach a tremendous sermon about the man being the head of the +woman, insisting mightily on the respect we all owe to the other sex. When +we came out I asked Wyn what he thought, and he said he thought it was +exactly such a sermon as such a very tiny man might be expected to +preach." + +"Ah! and he heard you both, my dear," said I; "and he says Mr. Moore has +no element of reverence in his character!" + +Here the Panther dropped his pipe, and starting from his chair looked like +his namesake just ready for a spring, as the sharp, quick bark of a little +dog was heard from the nearest house. + +"Only dog," he said in a tone of relief, and resumed his smoking. + +"Uncle," said Minny, "I do wish you would tell me what the matter is, or +what you are listening for. You make me think there is something wrong." + +I looked up and seconded Minny's request. + +"'Spose I tell you, you think it all Ingin nonsense," he said, looking a +little embarrassed. + +"Even if I did, sir, I should feel more comfortable," I said. + +"Yes, do tell us, please," said Minny, earnestly. + +"Well, then," said the old man, speaking with an effort, "last night went +out after a coon--up in the woods right back of here--" + +"Yes: well?" + +"And went up on that little hill over your pasture, and then," said the +old man lowering his voice and speaking with great earnestness, "hear _red +fox bark_--one, two, three times out loud, and then again farther off. +There, now!" + +I was greatly relieved at finding that I was threatened by nothing worse +than the oracle of the red fox. I knew the Indian superstition that if +this animal is heard to bark anywhere near a dwelling, he foretells death +within twenty-four hours to some one beneath its roof. + +"But," said I, "the red fox is only a sign for Indians. He does not bark +for white people, and you were not under a roof at the time, so it cannot +apply to you." + +"Don't know!" said the Panther, shaking his head. "Never know that sign +fail. Then here this little woman and this baby--all the same as Ingin +now." + +Minny looked a little troubled. In spite of his reading, his college +education and mathematics, Wyanota had sundry queer notions and +superstitions, about which he very seldom spoke, but which nevertheless +had some weight with him, and it is possible that he had in some degree +communicated his ideas to his wife. + +"I don't believe in signs," said Minny, but nevertheless she looked +annoyed. + +"So I thought," said the chief with a little smile. "Know mamma here think +it all nonsense, or else come over this morning to tell her. Then think +she not believe it and not mind, and so keep quiet. Then storm come up and +wind blow, and couldn't stand it; so set out and walk over here to take +care of her; and she--maybe she laugh at me?" + +"No indeed, sir," said I, greatly touched by the anxious affection which +had brought the old man so far in such weather. "How good you are to me! +You mean to stay here to-night of course, and in the morning you will see +that the red fox was simply barking for his own amusement; but I am sorry +he drove you to take such a toilsome walk, though we are glad to have you +here." + +"My business take care of you when your men gone. Got no one my own +blood," he said, rather sadly: "boys dead, girl dead, squaw dead--no one +but you two care much for old man." + +Minny went and kissed him softly. "You know I belong to you," she said, +"and baby has no grandfather but you." + +"Ah! your father!" said the Panther, rocking the cradle. "He and I always +good friends. 'Member when you come, your mother she got no milk for you, +poor little starved thing! My squaw she lose her baby--nice little boy +too," said the old man, with a sigh--"she tell your mother she nurse you; +so she did. You git fat and rosy right off. You all the same one of us +after that. No spoil your pretty white skin, though," said the Panther, +patting Minny's cheek with his brown fingers. "Seem just like that happen +yesterday: now you got baby yourself. Ah! your father--mighty well pleased +he be 'spose he see that little one." + +"How often I wish he could!" said "Minny with a sigh, for both her father +and mother were dead. + +"You 'pend upon it, he comfortable somewhere," said the chief, +consolingly. "Deacon Adams, he real good man. Look here, mamma! Like to +ask you question. You say when we die white man go to one place, Indian go +to another--" + +"I don't say so, sir. I don't pretend to know all this world by heart, +much less the other." + +"Well, that what Indian say, any way. Now 'spose that so, what come of +half-breed, eh?" + +"What do you think?" I asked, for neither Minny nor I could venture an +opinion on this abstruse point. + +"Don't know," said the old man. "Saw young Cherokee in Washington: he +marry pretty little schoolmistress go down there to teach, and their +little boy die. Then that young man feel bad, and he fret good deal 'bout +where that baby gone to, and he ask me, and I no able tell him. Guess me +find out when get there: no use to trouble till then, You make these?" he +asked, changing the subject, and looking with admiration at the captain's +embroidered slippers which I had lent him. + +"Yes. They were pretty when they were new. I'll make you a pair just like +them, if you wish. Shall I?" + +The old gentleman looked greatly delighted, for he was as fond of finery +as any girl, and took no small pride in adorning his still handsome +person. + +I brought out all my embroidery-patterns, and the giant took as much +pleasure as a child in the pretty painted pictures and gay-colored wools +and silks. I made all the conversation I could over the slippers, willing +to divert him from the melancholy which seemed to have taken possession of +his mind. Over my work-basket he brightened a little, and chatted away +quite like himself, and listened with pleasure to Minny's singing. We did +not rise to go to bed till eleven o'clock, which was a very late hour for +Maysville. When the Panther spent the night at our house, as was +frequently the case, he never would go regularly to bed, but would take +his blanket and lie down before the kitchen fire. With great politeness he +insisted on getting the wood ready for morning, a thing he never would +have dreamed of doing for a woman of his own race. + +As he came back into the kitchen from the shed he took up his rifle, which +he had set down by the door. As he did so an angry look came over his +face. "Look here," he said: "somebody been spoil my rifle!" + +I looked at the piece in surprise, for the lock was broken. "It cannot +have been done since you came," I said. "There is no one in the house but +ourselves." + +"Of course not, of course not!" said the Panther, eager to show that he +had no suspicion of his friends. + +"Did you stop anywhere on your way?" + +"Yes," said he with some slight embarrassment. "Stop at Ryan's," +mentioning a low tavern on the borders of the reservation, which was a +terrible thorn in the side of all the missionary's efforts. "Stop a minute +light my pipe, but no drink one drop," he added with great earnestness; +"but they ask me good deal." + +"Did you put your gun down?" + +"Guess so," he said after a moment's reflection. "Yes, know did put it +down a minute or two." + +"Then that was when the mischief was done, you may be sure. This lock was +never broken by accident. It must have been a mere piece of spite because +you would not stay. I wonder you did not notice it when you came out." + +"In a hurry, and kept the buckskin over it, not to git it wet. Wish knew +who did that," said he, with a look not good to see. "Guess not do it +again." + +"I am very sorry, but it can easily be mended." + +I spread out on the floor for him the comfortable and blankets I had +brought for his use, and hung up his woolen hunting-frock, now quite dry. + +As I took it into my hand, I felt something very heavy in the pocket. + +"I hope you have nothing here that will be spoiled with wet?" I said. + +"Oh, nothing but money," said the chief, carelessly. "Mean to tell Minny +to take some of it and buy clothes for me." + +He took out as he spoke a handful of loose change--copper, silver and two +or three gold-pieces--and a roll of bills a good deal damp, and put it all +into my apron. I counted the money and found there were seventy-five +dollars. Strong indeed must have been the attraction which had brought the +old man away from the tavern-fire in his sober senses with such a sum of +money in his pocket. + +"Just got that," he said. "Part from Washington, part sell deer-skins." + +There was no need to tell me that it had not been long in his possession. +Money in the Panther's hands was like water in a sieve. + +"You give me five dollars, give the rest to Minny," he said; and as this +was by much the wisest arrangement for him, I did as he wished. + +"You got captain's gun?" he asked me. "Never like to go to sleep without +something to catch up: hit somebody 'spose somebody come." + +"I am sorry to say the captain has his rifle with him, and I lent the +shotgun to Jim Brewster this afternoon." + +He looked annoyed, but he went out into the woodshed and returned with the +axe, which was new and sharp. "Have something, anyway," he said, doggedly. + +"Why, what do you think can possibly happen?" + +"Don't know. Always like to have something to catch up. Good-night, mamma. +You go to sleep." + +I went to bed and fell asleep almost on the minute, but I could not have +slept long when I was wakened by the noise of the wind against the +shutters. The rain had ceased, but the blast was still roaring without. +Minny and her child were in a room which opened out of the parlor opposite +my own. The lamp which was burning there threw a dim light into my +chamber, and showed me each familiar object and my little boys asleep +beside me. + +Some one says that between the hours of one and four in the morning the +human mind is not itself. I fully believe it. In those hours you do not +"fix your mind" on melancholy subjects--they fix themselves upon you. If +you turn back into the past, there comes up before you every occasion on +which you made a fool of yourself, every lost opportunity, every slight +injury you ever experienced. If you look at the future, you see nothing +but coming failure and disappointment. The present moment connects itself +with every tale you ever heard or read of ghosts, murder, vampires or +robbers. + +That night, either because of the wind or because I had taken too strong +coffee, I fell into "the fidgets," as this state of mind is sometimes +called, and selected for immediate cause of discomfort the Panther's +presentiment about the red fox. Who could explain the mysterious way in +which animals are warned of approaching danger? Perhaps the old science of +divination was not so entirely a delusion; and then I remembered all the +old stories in Roman history of people who had come to grief by neglecting +the oracles. The old idea that whatever incident is considered as an omen +will be such in reality, seemed to me at that hour of the night not wholly +an unreasonable theory. + +I had known, to be sure, some fifty presentiments which came to nothing, +but then I had known as many as three which had been verified: perhaps the +present case might be one of the exceptions to the rule. Then I remembered +all the stories in Scott's _Demonology_, which I had lately read, and +quite forgot all the arguments intended to disprove them. + +[Illustration: The Attack on the "Panther."] + +I thought of the broken gun-lock: I thought it not improbable that the +Panther had, when at Ryan's, mentioned that he was coming to our house, +and that it was very likely he had let it appear that he carried his money +with him. Ryan's was one of the worst places in all the State. I +remembered that the money was in the house, and I began to wish, like the +Panther, that I had something to "catch up." Then there were so many +noises about! I heard footsteps, which you will always hear if you listen +for them on a windy night. When our petted old cat jumped from his place +on the parlor sofa to lie down before the fire, I started up in bed in a +sudden fright. + +I must have been in this uncomfortable state of mind and body for the best +part of an hour before I remembered that in a drawer in the front parlor +lay two little old-fashioned pistols, unloaded but in good order. + +I had grown so excited and uneasy that I felt as if I could not rest +unless I got up, found those pistols and loaded them, though nobody had +ever heard of a burglary in Maysville, and half the time the doors were +left unlocked at night. Rather despising myself for my nervousness, but +yielding to it nevertheless, I rose, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, +lit my candle and went to find the two little pistols. I stepped very +softly, not to disturb Minny, for I should have been quite ashamed then to +have her know my cowardice. I looked in at the door as I passed. She was +sound asleep, with her baby on her arm. The baby, however, was broad +awake, but lying perfectly still, with her little finger in her mouth. Her +eyes shone in the lamplight as she turned them on me--not startled like +another child, but simply questioning. The little creature looked so +unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild +tale Wyanota had once told me about a remote ancestress of his who had +married some sort of a wood-demon. The legend ran that Wyanota's family +was descended from the offspring of this marriage, and I think Wyn more +than half believed the story. + +I passed on, and going into the next room found the pistols, carried them +back to my own chamber, and loaded them carefully. I was quite accustomed +to the use of firearms. There had been times in my life when I never sat +down to my work or went to rest without having rifle or pistol within easy +reach of my hand. When I had loaded the weapons, I put them on the table +by my bed and lay down again. My excitement seemed to have subsided, and I +was just falling asleep when I heard a door in the kitchen violently burst +open. I thought the wind had done it, and waited a moment to hear if the +Panther would rise and shut it. + +The next instant there was a shot, a wild cry as of mingled pain and fury, +the sound of a heavy fall and a struggle. Before I had well realized that +the noise was in the house, I found myself at the kitchen door with my +pistols in my hand. I was greatly startled, but my one idea was to help my +old friend. The miserable door resisted me for a moment. Seconds passed +that seemed hours. When at last I tore it open, I saw a man in his shirt +sleeves lying dead on the floor, his head shattered apparently by a blow +from the axe: another, a large, powerful Irishman, was kneeling on the +Panther's breast, with his hands at the old man's throat. + +I sprang forward, but something swifter than I darted past me with a +savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself +full at the ruffian's face and naked throat. It was our big old brindle +cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire. The unexpected fierceness +of Tom's assault took the man quite by surprise. Before he could tear the +creature away I had the pistol at his head. + +"If you move," I said, "I'll kill you;" for, as I saw that my old friend +was hurt, wrath took the place of fear. + +He gave in directly. Indeed the cat, a large, powerful animal, had almost +scratched his eyes out. In the most abject tones the fellow implored me to +let him go. + +"Don't you do it, mamma," said the Panther, faintly. + +"I don't mean to," I said. + +Under the kitchen stairs was a dark closet with a strong outside bolt. I +ordered the man into this place. He obeyed, and I drew the bolt upon him. +His face and throat were streaming with blood from Tom's teeth and claws. + +All this passed in much less time than it takes to tell it. Roused by the +noise, the children, and Minny with the baby in her arms, were already in +the kitchen. + +"Oh, my dear, my poor darling!" said Minny, kneeling by the old man's +side, "you are hurt!" + +"Yes," he said, quietly, "pretty considerable bad. Charley, you fasten +that door;" for the door into the shed, which had been secured only by a +button, was wide open. "You get the hammer and two, three big nails, and +drive 'em in," he continued. "Maybe more them darn scamps round." + +Charley obeyed directions in a way which did him credit. Little Ned, with +wide, surprised eyes, clung to me in silence; little Carry, seeing her +mother in tears, put up a piteous lip and sobbed in her unbaby-like, +sorrowful fashion; the old cat, in great excitement, went purring and +talking from one to another. + +"Tell me where you are hurt," I said, holding the chief's hand. + +He had been shot through the stomach with a great, old-fashioned +smooth-bore musket, which lay on the floor--a gun not carrying less than +twenty-five to the pound. I had seen gunshot wounds before, and I knew +that this was serious. It did not bleed much externally, but the edges of +the wound were torn and discolored. + +"That fellow dead?" asked the Panther. + +"Yes indeed!" for the man's head was split like a walnut. + +The old warrior looked gratified. "Mamma," he said, touching his +hunting-knife, "you take that fellow's scalp." + +"Don't think of such a thing," I said, not so much shocked as I might have +been had I not lived on the Indian frontier. "Do you know who they are?" + +"See them to Ryan's. Guess they some folks that mizzable railroad bring +into this country. 'Spect they follow me. Mamma," said the Panther, +looking up into my face, "tell you, red fox not bark for nothing. Better +be old man than you." + +"Oh, my dear old friend, if you had only not come to us to-night! It was +all your love for us that has done this, but I pray God you may get well. +Charley, do you think you can go for Doctor Beach?" + +"Yes, mamma," said the boy, though he turned pale. + +"No, no," said the Panther. "You no send that little fellow out in the +dark. Besides, no good. You go wrap yourselves up. You two, you git bad +cold." + +At that moment we heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet. + +"Go, Charley," said Minny. "Stop whoever it is, and tell them what has +happened." + +Charley ran out, and soon returned with Dr. Beach, who, happily for us, +had been out on one of those errands which are always rousing doctors from +their beds. + +Dr. Beach was a burly, rough-mannered sort of man, but he could be very +kind and tender in the exercise of his profession. He wasted no time in +questions, but looked grave when he saw how the old man was hurt. + +"Needn't tell me," said the Panther, quietly. "Know it's the end. Kill one +of 'em, anyhow!" he concluded in a tone of calm satisfaction. + +"And I wish with all my heart you had killed the other," said the doctor, +bitterly. "He got off, I suppose." + +The Panther showed his white teeth in a laugh. "No," he said, pointing to +me: "she got him--she and the cat. Pretty well for one little squaw and +pussy-cat. Mamma, you keep that kitty always." + +"Where is the scoundrel?" asked the doctor. + +"Shut up in that closet." + +Here the man within cried out that he was "kilt" already, and should be +hung if we did not let him go. + +"I hope you will, with all my heart," said the doctor. + +With some difficulty we helped the Panther into the parlor and laid him on +the sofa. + +He told us the story in a few words. He had been asleep when the door was +burst open. The man whom he had killed had fired the shot. He had kept his +feet to strike one blow with the axe, and the other man had sprung upon +him as he fell. + +The doctor did what little he could to ease his patient, and then went +away, but soon returned with some men from the village, who were quite +ready to lynch the criminal when they heard what he had done. They took +the man away, however, and I am happy to say he afterward received the +heaviest sentence the law would allow. He confessed that, knowing the +chief had a large sum in his possession, himself and his companion had +broken the lock of the rifle, intending to waylay the old man and shoot +him in the woods. They had not, however, been able to overtake him till he +reached the clearing, and then, fearing to encounter him, they had +followed him at a distance and watched him enter our house. Knowing that +the captain was gone, they had waited until all was quiet, and then made +their entrance as described. + +The Panther asked that some one might go to the reservation and send over +three of his friends, whom he named. He was very anxious to see Wyanota, +and Calvin Bruce, who had come with the doctor, instantly volunteered to +take his trotting mare and do both errands. The chestnut did her work +gallantly, though unhappily in vain, for the old man did not live to see +his friends. + +"Don't you fret, you two," he said, softly, as Minny and I watched over +him. "Great deal the best way for old Ingin. Die like a man now: not cough +myself to death, like an old dog. Minny, little girl, you tell your +husband be good to our people, well as he can. Not much of our nation left +now--not good for much, either," he added; "but you tell him and the +captain stand their friends, won't you?" + +"Indeed, indeed they will," said Minny in tears. + +A Methodist clergyman of some kind, who preached in Maysville at that +time, hearing what had happened, came in to offer his services and to pray +with the dying man. The Panther thanked him courteously, but he clung to +the simple creed of his fathers and his belief that "Ingin religion was +good for Ingin;" and Mr. Lawrence had the sense and feeling not to disturb +him by argument. + +"Want your Charley to have my rifle," he said to me. "Nobody left of our +people but my cousin's son, and he most a mizzable Ingin. You 'member +that, please," he said to Mr. Lawrence, who sat quietly at the head of the +sofa. "Do you think," he asked wistfully of the clergyman, "that I ever +see these two again where I go?" The minister--Heaven bless him!--answered +stoutly that he had not a doubt of it. "All right, then," said the +Panther, quietly. "Now, mamma, you see red fox know, after all." + +Minny brought her baby for him to kiss. Little Carry's dark eyes were full +of tears, for, like most babies, she felt the influence of sorrow she +could not understand. She did not scream, as another child would, but hid +her face on her mother's bosom and sobbed quietly, like a grown-up woman. +My two little boys, understanding all at once that their old friend was +going away, burst out crying. + +"Hush! hush!" he said, gently. "You be good boys to your mother. Say +'good-bye.'" + +We kissed him, keeping back the lamentations which we knew would trouble +him. + +"Good-bye," he said, softly, and then he spoke some few words in his own +tongue, as Minny told me afterward, about going to his lost children. Then +a smile came over his face, a look of sweet relief and comfort softened +the stern features, the hand that had held mine so close slowly relaxed; +and with a sigh he was gone. + +The old minister gently closed his eyes. "My dear," said Mr. Lawrence to +Minny, who was in an agony of grief, "God knows, but it was His Son who +said, 'Greater love hath no man than this--that a man lay down his life +for his friends!'" + +When we buried the old chief we wrote those words on the stone we placed +over his grave. + +Since then the New Year's Eve brings back to me very vividly the memory of +the augury that so strangely accomplished its own fulfillment. + +CLARA F. GUERNSEY. + + + + +Louie. + + + +The great river was flowing peacefully down to the sea, opening its blue +tides at the silver fretting of the bar into a shallow expanse some miles +in width, a part of which on either side overlay stretches where the +submerged eel-grass lent a tint of chrysoprase to the sheathing flow, and +into which one gazed, half expecting to see so ideal a depth peopled by +something other than the long ribbons of the weed streaming out on the +slow current--the only cool sight, albeit, beneath the withering heat of +the day across all that shining extent. Far down the shores, on the right, +a line of low sand-hills rose, protecting the placid harbor from sea and +storm with the bulwark of their dunes, whose yellow drifts were ranged by +the winds in all fantastic shapes, and bound together by ropes of the wild +poison-ivy and long tangles of beach-grass and the blossoming purple pea, +and which to-day cast back the rays of the sun as though they were of +beaten brass. Above these hills the white lighthouse loomed, the heated +air trembling around it, and giving it so vague and misty a guise that, +being by itself a thing of night and storm and darkness, it looked now as +unreal as a ghost by daylight. On the other side of the harbor lay the +marshes, threaded by steaming creeks, up which here and there the pointed +sails of the hidden hay-barges crept, the sunshine turning them to white +flames: farther off stood a screen of woods, and from brim to brim between +swelled the broad, smooth sheet of the river, coming from the great +mountains that gave it birth, washing clean a score of towns on its way, +and loitering just here by the pleasant old fishing-town, whose wharves, +once doing a mighty business with the Antilles and the farther Indies, +now, in the absence of their half dozen foreign-going craft, lay at the +mercy of any sand-droger that chose to fling her cable round their +capstans. A few idle masts swayed there, belonging to small fishers and +fruiters, a solid dew of pitch oozing from their sides in the sun, but not +a sail set: a lonely watchman went the rounds among them, a ragged urchin +bobbed for flounders in the dock, but otherwise wharves and craft were +alike forsaken, and the sun glared down on them as though his rays had +made them a desert. The harbor-water lay like glass: now and then the tide +stirred it, and all the brown and golden reflections of masts and spars +with it, into the likeness of a rippled agate. Not one of the boats that +were ordinarily to be seen darting hither and yon, like so many +water-bugs, were in motion now; none of the white sails of the gay +sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the +usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that +deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed; +the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if +they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks, +had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will +disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing +here. In all the scene there was hardly any other sign of life than the +fervent sunbeams shedding their cruel lustre overhead: the river flowed +silent and lonely from shore to shore; the whole hot summer sky stretched +just as silent and lonely from horizon to horizon; only the old ferryman, +edging along the bank till he was far up stream, crossed the narrower tide +and drifted down effortless on the other side; only an old black brig lay +at anchor, with furled sail and silent deck, in the middle channel down +below the piers, and from her festering and blistering hull it was that +all the heat and loneliness and silence of the scene seemed to exude--for +it was the fever-ship. + +It was a different picture on the bright river when that brig entered the +harbor on the return of her last voyage, to receive how different a +welcome! But pestilence raged abroad in the country now, and the people of +the port, who had so far escaped the evil, were loth to let it enter among +them at last, and had not yet recovered from the recoil of their first +shock and shiver at thought of it in their waters--waters than which none +could have fostered it more kindly, full as they were in their shallow +breadth of rotting weeds and the slime of sewers. Perhaps the owner of +some pale face looked through the pane and thought of brother or father, +or, it may be, of lover, and grew paler with pity, and longed to do kind +offices for those who suffered; but the greater part of all the people +hived upon the shores would have scouted the thought of going out with aid +to those hot pillows rocking there upon the tide, and of bringing back +infection to the town, as much as though the act had been piracy on the +high seas. And they stayed at home, and watched their vanes and longed for +an east wind--an east wind whose wings would shake out healing, whose +breath would lay the destroying fever low; but the east wind refused to +seek their shores, and chose rather to keep up its wild salt play far out +on the bosom of its mid-sea billows. + +Yes, on that return of the last voyage of the brig the stream had swarmed +with boats, flags had fluttered from housetops and staffs, piers and quays +had been lined with cheering people, all flocking forth to see the broken, +battered little craft; for the brig had been spoken by a tug, and word had +been brought to the wharves, and had spread like wild-fire through the +town, that, wrecked in a tempest and deserted by the panic-stricken crew, +the steadfast master and a boy who stood by him had remained with her, had +refitted her as best they might when the storm abated, and had brought her +into port at last through fortunate days of fair weather and slow sailing. +The town was ringing with the exploit, with praise of the noble +faithfulness of master and boy; and now the river rang again, and no +conquering galley of naval hero ever moved through a gladder, gayer +welcome than that through which the little black brig lumbered on her +clumsy way to her moorings. + +But though all the rest of the populace of the seaport had turned out with +their greetings that day, there was one little body there who, so far from +hurrying down to shore or sea-wall with a waving handkerchief, ran crying +into a corner; and it was there that Andrew Traverse, the person of only +secondary importance in the river scene, rated as a boy on the brig's +books, but grown into a man since the long voyage began,--it was there he +found her when the crowd had let him alone and left him free to follow his +own devices. + +"It's the best part of all the welcome, I declare it is!" said he, +standing in the doorway and enjoying the sight before him a moment. + +"Oh, Andrew," cried the little body with a sob, but crouching farther away +into the corner, "it was so splendid of you!" + +"What was so splendid of me?" said he, still in the doorway, tall and +erect in the sunshine that lay around him, and that glanced along his red +shirt and his bronzed cheek to light a flame in the black eyes that +surveyed her. + +"Standing by him so," she sobbed--"standing by the captain when the others +left--bringing home the ship!" + +"It's not a ship--it's a brig," said Andrew, possibly too conscious of his +merit to listen to the praise of it. "Well, is this all? Ain't you going +to shake hands with me? Ain't you glad to see me?" + +"Oh, Andrew! So glad!" and she turned and let him see the blushing, rosy +face one moment, the large, dark, liquid eyes, the tangled, tawny curls; +and then overcome once more, as a sudden shower overcomes the landscape, +the lips quivered again, the long-lashed eyelids fell, and the face was +hidden in another storm of tears. And then, perhaps because he was a +sailor, and perhaps because he was a man, his arms were round her and he +was kissing off those tears, and the little happy body was clinging to him +and trembling with excitement and with joy like a leaf in the wind. + +Certainly no two happier, prouder beings walked along the sea-wall that +night, greeted with hearty hands at every step, followed by all eyes till +the shelter of deepening dusk obscured them, and with impish urchins, +awe-struck for once, crying mysteriously under their breath to each other, +"That's him! That's the feller saved the Sabrina! That's him and her!" How +proud the little body was! how her heart beat with pleasure at thought of +the way in which all men were ready to do him honor! how timidly she +turned her eyes upon him and saw the tint deepen on his cheek, the shadow +flash into light in his eye, the smile kindle on his lips, as he looked +down on her--glad with her pride and pleasure, strong, confident, content +himself--till step by step they had left the town behind, wandering down +the sandy island road, through the wayside hedge of blossoming wild roses +and rustling young birches, till they leaned upon the parapet of the old +island bridge and heard the water lap and saw the stars come out, and only +felt each other and their love in all the wide, sweet summer universe. + +Poor Louie! She had always been as shy and wary as any little brown bird +of the woods. It was Andrew's sudden and glorious coming that had +surprised her into such expression of a feeling that had grown up with her +until it was a part of every thought and memory. And as for +Andrew--certainly he had not known that he cared for her so much until she +turned that tearful, rosy face upon him in welcome; but now it seemed to +him that she had been his and he hers since time began: he could neither +imagine nor remember any other state than this: he said to himself, and +then repeated it to her, that he had loved her always, that it was thought +of her that had kept him firm and faithful to his duty, that she had been +the lodestar toward which he steered on that slow homeward way; and he +thanked Heaven, no doubt devoutly enough, that had saved him from such +distress and brought him back to such bliss. And Louie listened and clung +closer, more joyful and more blest with every pulse of her bounding heart. + +After all, sudden as the slipping into so divine a dream had been, it had +need to be full as intense and deep, for it was only for a little while it +lasted. A week's rapt walking in these mid-heavens, where earth and care +and each to-morrow was forgotten, and there broke in upon them the voice +of the Sabrina's owner seeking for Andrew Traverse. + +Of course such conduct as that of one who preferred to do his utmost to +save a sinking ship rather than seek safety with her flying crew, was +something too unusual to go unrewarded: it must be signalized into such a +shining light that all other mariners must needs follow it. And if the sky +had fallen, Andrew declared, he could have been no more surprised than he +was when he found himself invited with great ceremony to a stately +tea-drinking at the house of the owner of the Sabrina. "Now we shall catch +larks," said he; and dressed in a new suit, whose gray tint set off the +smoothness of his tanned cheek with the color sometimes mantling through +the brown, he entered the house with all the composure of a gentleman used +to nothing but high days and holidays. Not that either the state or +ceremony at Mr. Maurice's required great effort to encounter with +composure--trivial enough at its best, wonderful though it was to the +townsfolk, unused to anything beyond. But Andrew had seen the world in +foreign parts, and neither Mr. Maurice's mansion-house and gardens, nor +his gay upholstery, nor his silver tea-service, nor his condescending +manners, struck the least spark of' surprise from Andrew's eyes, or gave +them the least shadow of awe. + +"This is some mistake," said the owner graciously, after preliminary +compliment had been duly observed. "How is it that you are rated on the +books as a boy--you as much a man as you will ever be?" + +"A long voyage, sir, slow sailing and delays over so many disasters as +befell us, three years out in the stead of a year and a half--all that +brings one to man's estate before his reckoning." + +"But the last part of the time you must have done able seaman's service?" + +"The captain and I together," said Andrew with his bright laugh. "We were +officers and crew and passengers, cox'n and cook, as they say." + +"A hard experience," said Mr. Maurice. + +"Oh, not at all, but worth its weight in gold--to me, at least. Why, sir, +it taught me how to handle a ship as six years before the mast couldn't +have done." + +"Good! We shall see to what purpose one of these days. And you have had +your share of schooling, they tell me?" + +"All that the academy had to give, sir." + +"And that's enough for any one who has the world to tussel with. How +should you like to have gone through such hard lines, Frarnie?" turning to +his daughter, a pale, moon-faced girl, her father's darling. + +"Were you never afraid?" she asked in her pretty simpering way. + +"Not to say afraid," answered Andrew, deferentially. "We knew our +danger--two men alone in the leaky, broken brig--but then we could be no +worse off than we were before; and as for the others--" + +"They got their deserts," said Mr. Maurice. + +"The poor fellows left us in such a hurry that they took hardly any water +or biscuit; and at the worst our fate could not be so bad as theirs, under +the hot sun in those salt seas." + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Maurice, who loved his own ease too much to like to +hear of others' dis-ease. And to turn the conversation from the possible +horrors into which it might lapse, he invited his guest out into his +gardens, among his grapehouses, his poultry and his dogs. It was a long +hour's ramble that they took there, well improved on both sides, for +Andrew of course knew it to be for his interest to please the brig's +owner; and Mr. Maurice, who prided himself on having a singularly keen +insight into character, studied the young man's every word and gesture, +for it was not often that he came across such material as this out of +which to make his captains; and to what farther effect in this instance be +pursued his studies might have been told, by any one keener than himself, +through the tone of satisfaction with which, on re-entering the parlor, he +bade his daughter take Andrew down the rooms and tell him the histories of +the surprising pictures there. For Mr. Maurice, one of the great fortunes +of the seaport, being possessed by a mania of belief that every youth who +cast tender eyes upon his daughter cast them not on her, but on her future +havings and holdings, had long since determined to select a husband for +her himself--one who evinced no servile reverence for wealth, one whom he +could trust to make her happy. "And here," he said, "I am not sure but +that I have him." + +When Andrew went in to see Louie a moment on his way home that night, he +was in great spirits over the success of his visit, and, dark as it was, +made her blush the color of the rose over the low doorway where they stood +when he asked how she would like to go captain's wife next voyage. And +then he told her of Mr. Maurice's scrutiny and questioning, and the half +hint of a ship of his own to sail some day, and of the pale-faced Miss +Frarnie's interest, and of the long stroll down the parlors among the +pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the +Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled +through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music +and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off +of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the +way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed, +how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he had had a +trifle more personal vanity, and had seen how this pale young +girl--forbidden by a suspicious father much companionship with +gallants--had forgotten all difference of station and purse, and had +looked upon him, nobly made, handsome, gay, knowing far more than she did, +much as upon a young god just alighted by her side a moment,--if Andrew +had been aware of this, and had found any words in which to repeat it, +then Louie might have had something to startle her out of her blessedness, +and pain might have come to her all the sooner. But since the pain would +have been as sharp then as at any future time, it was a pitying, pleasant +Fate that let her have her happiness as long as might be. For Louie's love +was a different thing from the selfish passion that any clown may feel: +she had been happy enough in her little round of commonplace satisfactions +and tasks before Andrew came and shed over her this great cloud of +delight--happy then just in the enjoyment of that secret love of hers that +went out and sought him every night sailing over foreign sunlit waters, +and hovered like a blessing round his head; and now that he had come and +folded her about and about with such warm devotion, it was not for the new +happiness he gave her that she loved him, but in order to make his own +happiness a perfect thing; and if her heart's blood had been needed for +that, it would have been poured out like water. The pale-faced Frarnie--if +question could be of her--might never know such love as that: love with +her could be a sentiment, a lover one who added to her pleasure, but a +sacrifice on her part for that lover would have been something to tell and +sing for ever, if indeed it were possible that such a thing should be made +at all. + +So day by day the spell deepened with Louie, and for another week there +was delightful loneliness with this lover of hers--strolls down through +the swampy woods hunting for moss to frame the prints he had brought home +uninjured, and which were to be part of the furnishing of their future +home; others across the salt meadows for the little red samphire stems to +pickle; sails in the float down river and in the creeks, where the tall +thatch parted by the prow rustled almost overhead, and the gulls came +flying and piping around them: here and there, they two alone, pouring out +thought and soul to each other, and every now and then glancing shyly at +those days, that did not seem so very far away, when they should be +sailing together through foreign parts; for Louie's father, the old +fisherman, was all her household, and a maiden aunt, who earned her +livelihood in nursing the sick and attending the dead, would be glad to +come any day and take Louie's place in the cottage. + +At the end of the week, Mr. Maurice sent for Andrew to his counting-room; +and after that, on one device or another, he had him there the greater +part of every day, employing him in a score of pleasant ways--asking his +advice as to the repairs of the Sabrina, taking him with him in his chaise +jogging through the shipyard, where a new barque was getting ready for her +launching, examining him the while carefully from time to time after his +wont; at last taking him casually home to dinner with him one day, keeping +him to tea the next, and finally, fully satisfied with the result of his +studies in that edition of human nature, giving him the freedom of the +family as much as if he had been the son of the house. + +"I've some plans ahead for you, my boy," said he one day with a knowing +shake of the head; and Andrew's innocent brain began to swim straightway +between the new barque and the Sabrina. + +"Look at him!" said Mr. Maurice to his wife one evening as Andrew walked +in the garden with Miss Frarnie. "My mind's made up about him. He's the +stuff for a sea-captain, afraid neither of wind nor weather nor the face +of clay--can sail a ship and choose her cargo. He's none of your coxcombs +that go courting across the way: he's a man into the core of his heart, +and as well bred as any gentleman that walks; though Goodness knows how he +came by it." + +"These sea-coast people," said his wife, reflectively (she was inland-born +herself), "see the world and learn." + +"Well, what do you say to it? I don't find the flaw in him. If Heaven had +given me a son, I'd have had him be like this one; and since it didn't, +why here's my way to circumvent Heaven." + +"Oh, my dear," said the wife, "I can't hear you talk so. And besides--" + +"Well? Besides what?" + +"I think it is always best to let such things take their own course. We +did." + +"Of course we did," laughed Mr. Maurice. "But how about our fathers and +mothers?" + +"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice, "not to force things." + +"And who intends to force them? It's plain enough the young fellow took a +fancy to our Frarnie the first time he laid eyes on her, isn't it?" + +"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice again, "that if Frarnie should have the same +fancy for him, I don't know that there'd be any objection. He is quite +uncommon--quite uncommon when you consider all things--but I don't know +why you want to lead her to like any one in particular, when she has such +a nice home and is all we have." + +"Girls will marry, Mrs. Maurice. If it isn't one, it will be another. So I +had rather it should, be one, and that one of my own choosing--one who, +will use her well, and not make ducks and drakes of her money as soon as +we are gone where there's no returning, and without a 'thank you' for your +pains. Look at them now! Should you imagine they thought there was any one +else on earth but each other at this moment? They're fond of each other, +that's plain. They'd be a remarkable-looking couple. What do you think of +it?" + +"Frarnie might have that India shawl that I never undid, to appear out +in," said Mrs. Maurice, pensively, continuing her own reflections rather +than directly replying. "And I suppose we needn't lose her really, for she +could make her home with us." + +And so the conspiracy advanced, its simple victims undreaming of its +approach--Louie sighing faintly to think she saw so little of Andrew now, +but content, since she was sure it was for his best interest to make the +friendship of the Sabrina's owner; Andrew fretting to see how all this +necessary submission to superiors kept him from Louie, but more than half +compensated with the dazzling visions that danced before his eyes of the +Sabrina in her new rig--of the barque coming down for her masts and sails +from her launching. + +The Sabrina had been so badly injured by her disasters that it took much +more time to repair her than had at first been thought. "I'm going to +stand by the old brig," said Andrew to some one--by accident it was in Mr. +Maurice's hearing. "But if I'd known it was going to take so long to have +her whole again, I should have made a penny in taking a run down the bay, +for I had an offer to go second mate on the Tartar." + +"I'll go one better than that," said Mr. Maurice then. "Here's the +Frarnie, nearly ready to clear for New Orleans and Liverpool, with your +old captain. You shall go mate of her. That'll show if you can handle a +ship. The Sabrina won't be at the wharf till the round voyage is over and +the Frarnie coming up the stream again. What say you?" + +Of course what Andrew said was modest thanks--what he felt was a rhapsody +of delight; and when he told Louie that night, what she said was a sob, +and what she felt was a blank of fright and foreboding. Oh what should she +do? cried the selfish little thing--what should she do in the long, long, +weary days with Andrew gone? But then in a moment she remembered that this +was the first step toward going master of that craft in which her bridal +voyage was to be taken. "And what a long step it is, Andrew!" she cried. +"Was the like of it ever known before? What a long, long step it would be +but for that bitter apprenticeship when you and the captain brought the +wreck home!" + +"Ay," said Andrew, proudly: "I served my time before the mast then, if +ever any did." + +"And I suppose with the next step you will be master of the Sabrina? Oh, I +should so like it!" + +"I don't know," said Andrew, more doubtfully than he had used to speak. +"I'm afraid the owners will think this is enough. This is a great lift. +I'll do my best to satisfy them, though; for I'd rather sail master of the +Sabrina than of the biggest man-of-war afloat." + +"We used to play round her when we were children," said Louie, +encouragingly. "Don't you remember leading me down once to admire the lady +on her stern?--like a water-witch just gilded in the rays of some sunrise +she had come up to see, you said." + +"Yes; and we used to climb her shrouds, we boys, and get through the +lubber-hole, before we could spell her name out. She's made of heart of +oak: she'll float still when the Frarnie is nothing but sawdust. We used +to watch for her in the newspapers--we used to know just as much about her +goings and comings as the owner did. Somehow--I don't know why--I've +always felt as if my fate and fortune hung upon her. It used to be the top +of my ambition to go master of her. It is now. I couldn't make up my mind +to leave her when the others did that cruel morning after the wreck; and +when the captain said he should stay by her, my heart sprang up as if she +had been a living thing, and I stayed too. And I'd rather sail her than a +European steamer to-day--that I would, by George!" + +"Oh, of course you will," said the sympathizing voice beside him. + +"I don't know," said Andrew again, more slowly and reflectively. "I've the +idea--and I can't say how I got it--that there's some condition or other +attached to my promotion--that there's something Mr. Maurice means that I +shall do, and if I don't do it I don't get my lift. It can't be anything +about wages: I don't know what it is!" + +"Perhaps," said Louie, innocently, and without a glimpse of the train her +thoughtless words fired--"perhaps he means for you to marry Frarnie!" +laughing a little laugh at the absurd impossibility. + +And Andrew started as if a bee had stung him, and saw it all. But in a +moment he only drew Louie closer, and kissed her more passionately, and +sat there caressing her the more tenderly while they listened to a thrush +that had built in the garden thicket, mistaking it for the wood, so near +the town's edge was it, and so still and sunny was the garden all day long +with its odors of southernwood and mint and balm; and he delayed there +longer, holding her as if now at least she was his own, whatever she might +be thereafter. + +As he walked home that night, and went and sat upon the wharf and watched +the starlit tide come in, he saw it all again, but with thoughts like a +procession of phantoms, as if they had no part even in the possible things +of life, and were indeed nothing to him. How could they have any meaning +to him--to him, Louie's lover? What would the whole world be to him, what +the sailing of the Sabrina, without Louie? And then a shiver ran across +him: what would Louie be to him without the sailing of the Sabrina! for +that, indeed, as he had said, was the top of his ambition, and that being +his ambition, perhaps ambition, was as strong with him as love. + +But with this new discovery on Andrew's part of Mr. Maurice's desires, +Andrew could only recall circumstances, words, looks, hints: he could not +shape to himself any line of duty or its consequences: enough to see that +Mr. Maurice fancied his simple and thoughtless attentions to Frarnie to be +lover-like, and, approving him, looked kindly on them and made his plans +accordingly; enough to see that if he should reject this tacit proffer of +the daughter's hand, then the Sabrina was scarcely likely to be his; and +that in spite of such probability, the first and requisite thing in honor +for him to do was to tell Mr. Maurice of his marriage engagement with +Louie, and then, if the man had neither gratitude nor sense enough to +reward him for his assistance in saving the brig, to trust to fortune and +to time, that at last makes all things even. As he sat there listening to +the lapping of the water and idly watching the reflected stars peer up and +shatter in a hundred splinters with every wash of the dark tide, he could +not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession +or not. "What business is it of Maurice's?" he said to himself. "Does he +think every one that looks at his scarecrow of a daughter--" But there he +had need to acknowledge to himself his injustice to Miss Frarnie, a modest +maiden who had more cause to complain of him than he of her, since he had +done his best to please her, and her only fault lay in being pleased so +easily. She was pleased with him: he understood that now, though his +endeavors to enlist her had been for a very different manifestation of +interest. Perhaps it flattered him a little: he paused long enough to +consider what sort of a lot it would be if he really had been plighted to +Frarnie instead of Louie. Love and all that nonsense, he had heard say, +changed presently into a quiet sort of contentment; and if that were so, +it would be all the same at the end of a few years which one he took. He +felt that Frarnie was not very sympathetic, that her large white face +seldom sparkled with much intelligence, that she would make but a dull +companion; but, for all that, she would be, he knew, an excellent +housewife: she would bring a house with her too; and when a man is +married, and has half a dozen children tumbling round him, there is +entertainment enough for him, and it is another bond between him and the +wife he did not love too well at first; and if she were his, his would be +the Sabrina also, and when the Sabrina's days were over perhaps a great +East Indiaman, and with that the respect and deference of all his +townsmen: court would be paid to him, his words would be words of weight, +he would have a voice in the selection of town-officers, he would roll up +money in the bank, and some day he should be master of the great Maurice +mansion and the gardens and grapehouses. It was a brilliant picture to +him, doubtless, but in some way the recollection of two barelegged little +children digging clams down on the flats when the tide was out, with the +great white lighthouse watching them across the deserted stretches of the +long bent eel-grass, rose suddenly and wiped the other picture out, and he +saw the wind blowing in Louie's brown and silken hair and kissing the +color on her cheeks; he saw the shy sparkle of her downcast eyes, lovely +and brown then as they were now; and as he stood erect at last, snapping +his fingers defiantly, he felt that he had bidden Mr. Maurice's ships and +stocks and houses and daughter go hang, and had made his choice rather to +walk with Louie on his arm than as master of the Sabrina. + +It was a good resolution; and if he had but sealed it by speaking next day +to Mr. Maurice of his engagement, there would not have been a word to say. +But, though he valiantly meant to do it, it was not so easy, after all, as +he had thought, and so he put it off for a more convenient season, and the +season did not come, and the day of sailing did. And the outfit that went +on board the Frarnie was made and packed by the hands of Mrs. Maurice and +her daughter--such an outfit as he had never dreamed of; such warm woolens +for the storms, such soft linens for the heats, such finery for port, such +dainties and delicacies as only the first mate of the Frarnie could think +to have. And as for Louie, it was no outfit, no costly gift of gold or +trouble either, that she could give him: she had nothing for him but a +long, fine chain woven of her own hair, and she hung it round his neck +with tears and embraces and words that could not be uttered and sighs that +changed to sobs, and then came lingering delay upon delay, and passionate +parting at the last. But when the crew had weighed anchor and the sails +were swelling and the waves beyond the bar crying out for them, Miss +Frarnie and her mother could still be seen waving their handkerchiefs from +an upper window; and half blind with the sorrow and the pain he choked +away from sight, and mad with shame to think he had found no way but to +accept their favors, Andrew felt that their signal must be answered, and +sullenly waved his own in reply; and then the pilot was leaving the +barque, and presently the shore and all its complications, and Louie +crying herself sick, were forgotten in the excitement of the moment and +its new duties. + +"Didn't say a word of love to Frarnie, eh?" remarked Mr. Maurice in answer +to his wife's communications that evening. "A noble lad, then! I like him +all the better for it. He shall have her all the sooner. He won't abuse +our confidence: that's it. He'll wait till he's bridged over the gap +between them. The first mate of a successful voyage is a better match for +my daughter than the boy who stayed by the Sabrina, brave as he was. He's +fond of her? Don't you think so? There's no doubt about that? None at all! +All in good time--all in good time. I'll speak to him myself. They're +going to write to each other? I thought so." + +Short as the trip was that the Frarnie made in that favorable season, it +seemed to Louie an interminable period; but from the cheerful, hopeful +smile upon her lips no one would ever have known how her heart was longing +for her lover as she went about her work; for the little housekeeper had +quite too much to do in keeping the cottage clean, the garden weedless, +the nets mended, to be able to neglect one duty for any love-sick fancies +it might be pleasant to indulge. From morning till night her days were +full in bringing happiness to others: there was her father to make +comfortable; there were the sick old women, of whom her aunt brought word, +to concoct some delicacy for--a cup of custard, to wit, a dish of the +water-jelly she had learned how to make from the sea-moss she gathered on +the beach, a broiled and buttered mushroom from the garden; there were the +canaries and the cat to be cared for, and the dog that Andrew left with +her to feed and shower caresses on; and there was the parrot's toilet to +be made and her lesson to be taught, and the single jars of preserves and +pickles and ketchups to be put up for winter, and the herbs to be dried: +there were not, you may see, many minutes to be wasted out of that busy +little life in castle-building or in crying. One day there came a letter +with Victoria's head and the Liverpool stamp upon it: she knew it by heart +presently, and wore it next her heart by night and day; and even if she +had known that Miss Frarnie Maurice received one in the same handwriting +by the same mail, it would hardly have made much difference to her; and +one day the Sabrina, all freshly coppered and painted and repaired, with +new masts and sails, and so much else that it was not easy to say what +part of her now represented the old brig, came round to her old wharf and +began to take in cargo. Louie ran down one evening with her father, and +went all over her from stem to stern, only one old sailor being aboard; +and she could have told you then every rope from clew to ear-ring; and, as +if it were all the realization of a dream, a thousand happy, daring +thoughts of herself and Andrew then filled her fancy like birds in a nest; +and so swiftly after that did one day flow into another for Louie that the +Frarnie lay in the mid-stream once more before she had more than begun to +count the days to that on which her Liverpool letter had promised that she +should see its writer come walking into her father's cottage again. + +But she never did see him come walking into her father's cottage again. +That promised day passed and the night, and another--a long, long day that +seemed as if it would never quench its flame in sunset, and a night that +seemed as if it would never know the dawning; but the threshold of the +fisherman's cottage Andrew Traverse crossed no more. + +For Mr. Maurice, on his notable errand of circumventing Heaven, had been +ahead of Fate, and had gone down on the pilot-boat to meet the +Frarnie--with no settled designs of course, but in his own impatient +pleasure; and, delighted with the shipmaster's report and with the +financial promise of the voyage, the cargo, the freights, and ventures and +all, had greeted Andrew with a large-hearted warmth and after a manner +that no churl could withstand; and unwilling to listen to any refusal, had +taken Andrew up to the mansion-house with him the moment the ship had +touched the wharf. + +"You don't ask after her?" said Mr. Maurice when they were alone in the +chaise together. And knowing well enough what he meant, Andrew blushed +through all his bronze--knowing well enough, for had he not gone below in +a mighty hurry and tricked himself out in his best toggery so soon as he +understood there was no escape from the visit? Louie would have been glad +enough to see him in his red shirt and tarpaulin! + +"Oh, you scamp!" said Mr. Maurice, quickly then detecting the blush. +"Don't say a word! I've been there myself: I know how you're longing to +see her; and she's been at the window looking through the glass every half +hour, the puss!" + +"Mr. Maurice," began Andrew, half trembling, but wholly resolved, he +thought--although it must be confessed that with time, and distance, and +Frarnie's effusive letters and flattering prospects on the other hand, +Louie's image was not so bright at that moment as it had been at others, +and for that very reason Andrew was taking great credit to himself for his +upright intentions--credit enough to tide him over a good deal of baseness +if need were,--"Mr. Maurice--" he began; and there he paused to frame his +sentence more suitably, for it was no easy thing to tell a man that he was +throwing his child at one who did not care for her, and that man the +disposer of his fortunes. + +But Mr. Maurice saved him any such trouble. "I know all you're going to +say," he exclaimed. "I understand your hesitation, and I honor you for it. +But I'm no fool, and there's no need to have you tell me that you want my +Frarnie, for I've known that long ago." + +"Mr. Maurice!" + +"Yes, I have," answered the impulsive gentleman. "Mrs. Maurice and I +talked it over as soon as we saw which way the wind lay; but of course we +decided to say nothing till we were sure, quite sure, that it was Frarnie +and not her prospects--" + +"Oh, sir, you--" + +"Tush, tush! I know all about it now. But it becomes a father to be wary," +continued the other, taking the words from Andrew's lips in spite of +himself, and quite wary enough not to mention that in Frarnie's +easily-excited favor a young scapegrace was very likely to supplant Mr. +Andrew if things were not brought to a point at once. "It was my duty to +look at all sides," he said, without stopping for breath. "Now I know you, +and I see you'd rather give the girl the go-by for ever than have her +think you wanted her because she was her father's daughter, and not some +poor fisherman's." + +"Indeed, indeed--" began Andrew again, leaning forward, his cheeks +crimson, his very hands shaking. + +"Of course, my boy," interrupted his companion as before--"of course. +Don't say a word: you're welcome to her at last. I never thought I'd +surrender her to any one so freely; but if I were choosing from all the +world, Andrew, I don't know any one I'd choose sooner for my son. She's a +sensible girl, my Frarnie is, at bottom. We know her heart: it's a good +heart--only the froth of all young girls' fancies to be blown off. And the +Sabrina always was a pet of mine, and, though I've said nothing of it, +I've meant her for Frarnie's husband this many a day." And before Andrew, +in his flurry and embarrassment and bewilderment, could enunciate any +distinct denial of anything or avowal of anything else, the chaise was at +the door, and Mrs. Maurice was waiting for him with extended hands, and +Frarnie was standing and smiling behind, half turned to run away. And Mr. +Maurice cried out: "Captain Traverse of the Sabrina, my dear! Here, +Frarnie, Frarnie! none of your airs and graces! Come and give your +sweetheart an honest kiss!" And Andrew, doubting if the minister were not +behind the door and he should not find himself married out of hand, +irresolute, cowardly, too weak to give up the Sabrina and that sweet new +title just ringing in his ears, was pushed along by Mr. Maurice's foolish, +hearty hand till he found himself bending over Frarnie with his arm around +her waist, his lips upon her cheek, and without, as it seemed to him, +either choice or volition on his part. But as he looked up and saw the +portraits of the girl's grandfathers, where they appeared to be looking +down at him stern and questioning, a guilty shame over the wrong he was +doing their child smote him sorely: he saw that he had allowed the one +instant of choice to slip away; the sense came over him that he had sealed +his own doom, while a vision of Louie's face, full of desolation and +horror, was scorching in upon his soul; and there, in the moment of +betrothal, his punishment began. He stole down to the Sabrina's wharf that +evening, after the moon had set, and looking round to see that it was +quite forsaken at that hour, he took from his neck a long, slender +hair-chain to drop over into the deep water there; but as he held the +thing it seemed suddenly to coil round his hand with a caress, as if it +were still a part of Louie's self. He stamped his foot and ground his heel +into the earth there with a cry and an oath, and put the chain back again +whence he had taken it, and swore he would wear it till they laid his +bones under ground. And he looked up at the dark lines of the brig looming +like the black skeleton of an evil thing against the darkness of the +night, and he cursed himself for a traitor to both women--for a hypocrite, +a craven, a man sold to the highest bidder. Well, well, Captain Traverse, +there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of +the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and +longed and waited, but Captain Traverse went back to the Maurices' +mansion. + + * * * * * + +It is one of the enigmas of this existence how women forgive the wrong of +such hours as came to Louie now--hours of suspense and suffering--hours of +a misery worse than the worm's misery in blindness and pain before it +finds its wings. + +At first she expected her lover, and speculated as to his delay, and +fretted to think anything might detain him from her; and now she was +amazed, and now vexed, and now she was forgiving the neglect, accusing +herself and making countless excuses for him; and now imagining a thousand +dire mishaps. But as the third day came and he was still away--he who had +been always wont to seek her as soon as the craft was made fast to +wharf--then she felt her worst forebodings taking bodily shape: he was +ill, he had fallen overboard, he had left the vessel at Liverpool and +shipped upon another, and a letter would come directly to say so; or else +he had been waylaid and robbed and made away with: not once did she dream +that he was false to her--to her, a portion of his own life! + +How it was with him there were numberless ways in which she might have +discovered, for every soul of her acquaintance knew Andrew, and must be +aware of the fact if he were missing or ailing, or if any other ill chance +had befallen him. But as often as she tried to address one or another +passing by the window, her voice failed her and her heart, and she asked +no questions, and only waited on. A life of suspense, exclaims some one, a +life of a spider! And when we are in suspense, says another, all our aids +are in suspense with us. Day after day she stayed continually in the +house, looking for him to come, never stirring out even into the garden, +lest coming she might miss him. Night after night she sat alone at her +window till the distant town-clocks struck midnight--now picturing to +herself the glad minute of his coming, the quick explaining words, the +bursting tears of relief, the joy of that warm embrace, the touch of those +strong arms--now convinced that he would never come, and her heart sinking +into a bitter loneliness of despair. + +It grew worse with her when she knew that he was really in the town, alive +and well; for, from the scuttle in the roof, by the aid of her father's +glass, she could see the Sabrina, and one day she was sure that a form +whose familiar outlines made her pulses leap was Andrew himself giving +orders on the deck there; and after that she tortured herself with +conjectures till her brain was wild--chained hand and foot, unable to +write him or to seek him in any maidenly modesty, heart and soul in a +ferment. Still she waited in that shuddering suspense, with every nerve so +tightly strung, that voice or footfall vibrated on them into pain. If +Andrew, in the midst of the gayeties by which he found himself accepted of +the Maurices' friends, was never haunted by any thought of all this, his +heart had grown stouter in one year's time than twenty years had found and +left it previously. + +But Louie's suspense was of no long duration, as time goes, though to her +it was a lifetime. A week covered it--a week full of stings and fevered +restlessness--when her father came in one day and said bitterly, thinking +it best to make an end of all at once: "So I hear that a friend of ours +has been paid off at last. Captain Andrew Traverse of the Sabrina is going +to marry his owner's daughter Frarnie. Luck will take passage on that +brig!" And when Louie rose from the bed on which she lay down that night, +the Sabrina had been a fortnight gone on her long voyage--a voyage where +the captain had sailed alone, postponing the evil day perhaps, and at any +rate pleading too much inexperience, for all his dazzling promotion, to be +trusted with so precious thing as a wife on board during the first trip. +He had not felt that hesitation once when portraying the possibilities of +the voyage to another. + +It was not a long illness, Louie's, though it had been severe enough to +destroy for her consciousness both of pain and pleasure. Her aunt had left +other work and had nursed her through it; but when, strong and well once +more, she went about her old duties, it seemed to her that that +consciousness had never returned: she took up life with utter listlessness +and indifference, and she fancied that her love for Andrew was as dead as +all the rest. The poor little thing, laying this flattering unction to +heart, did not call much reason to her aid, or she would have known that +there was some meaning in it when she cried all day on coming across an +old daguerreotype of Andrew. "It isn't for love of him," she sobbed. "It's +for the loss of all that love out of my life that was heaven to me. Oh no, +no! I love him no longer: I can't, I can't love him: he is all the same as +another woman's husband." But, despite this stout assertion, she could not +bring herself to part with that picture: he was not in reality quite the +husband of another woman, and till he was indeed she meant to keep it. "He +is only promised to her yet, and he was promised first to me," she said +for salve to conscience; and meanwhile the picture grew so blurred with +conscious tears, and perhaps with unconscious kisses, that it might have +been his or another's: Miss Frarnie herself, had she seen it, could not +have told whose it was. + +Notwithstanding all the elasticity of youth, life became an inexpressibly +dull thing to Louie as the year wore into the next--dull, with neither aim +nor object, the past a pain to remember, the future a blank to consider. +She could live only from day to day, one day like another, till they grew +so wearisome she wondered her hair was not gray--the pretty hair that, +shorn from her head in her illness, had grown again in a short fleece of +silky curls--for it seemed to her that she had lived a hundred years. And +because troubles never come alone, and one perhaps makes the other seem +lighter and better to be borne, in the thick of a long winter's storm they +brought home her father, the old fisherman, drowned and dead. + +Captain Traverse knew of the old fisherman's death through the newspapers +that found him in his foreign ports--not through Miss Frarnie's letters, +for she knew almost nothing of the existence or non-existence of such low +people; and therefore, conjecture as he needs must concerning Louie's +means of livelihood now, there was no intelligence to relieve any anxiety +he might have felt, or to inform him of the sale of the cottage to pay the +debt of the mortgage under which it was bought, or of the support that +Louie earned in helping her aunt watch with the sick and lay out the dead: +he could only be pricked with knowledge of the fact that he had no right +to his anxiety, or to the mention of her name even in his prayers--if he +said them. + +Poor little Louie! A sad end to such a joyous youth as hers had been, you +would have said; but, in truth, her new work was soothing to her: her +heart was simply in harmony with suffering, with death and desolation, and +by degrees she found that comfort from her double sorrows in doing her +best to bring comfort to others which it may be she could never have found +had she been the pampered darling of some wealthy house. Often, when she +forgot what she was doing, Louie made surmises concerning Frarnie Maurice, +wondering if she were the noble thing that Andrew needed to ennoble +him--if she were really so strong and beautiful that the mere sight of her +had killed all thought or memory of an older love; trying to believe her +all that his guardian angel might wish his wife to be, and to acknowledge +that she herself was so low and small and ignorant that she could only +have injured him--to be convinced that it was neither weakness, nor +covetousness, nor perjury in Andrew, having met the sun, to forget the +shadows; wondering then if Frarnie cared for him as she herself had done, +and crying out aloud that that could never be, until the sound of her own +sobs woke her from her forbidden dream. But at other times a calm came to +Louie that was more pathetic than her wildest grief: it was the +acquiescence in what Providence had chosen for Andrew, cost herself what +it might--it was the submission of the atom beneath the wheels of the +great engine. + +It is true that as, late in the night, when all the town was asleep and +only silence and she abroad, she walked home by herself from some deathbed +whose occupant she had composed decently for the last sleep, she used to +wish it were herself lying there on that moveless pillow, and soon to be +sheltered from the cruel light by the bosom of the kindly earth. For now, +as she passed the birches softly rustling in the night wind, and hurried +by, she remembered other times when she had passed them, and had stopped +to listen, cared for, protected, with Andrew's arm about her; and now, as +the clocks, one after another, remotely chimed the hour, the sound smote +her with a familiar sweetness full of pain; and now, as she came along the +sea-wall and saw the dark river glimmering widely and ever the same, while +its mysterious tide flowed to meet the far-off spark of the lighthouse +lantern, she recalled a hundred happy hours when she and Andrew in the +boat together had rocked there in soft summer nights, with sunset melting +in the stream and wrapping them about with rosy twilight; or those when +whispers of the September gales swelled the sail, and the boat flew like a +gull from crest to crest of the bar; or those when misty sea-turns crept +up stream and folded them, and drowned the sparkle of the lighthouse and +the emerald and ruby ray of the channel lights, and left them shut away +from the world, alone with each other on the great gray current silently +sweeping to the sea--times when she knew no fear, trusting in the strong +arm and stout heart beside her, before the river had brought death to her +door; when the whole of life seemed radiant and rich--times that made this +solitary night walk trodden now seem colder and drearier and darker than +the grave--that made her wish it ended in a grave. + +And so at length the year slipped by, and spring had come again, and the +sap had leaped up the bough and burst into blossom there, and the blood +had bubbled freshly in the veins of youth, and hope had once more +gladdened all the world but Louie. With her only a dull patience stayed +that tried to call itself content, until she heard it rumored among the +harbor-people that the Sabrina was nearly due again, and with that her +heart beat so turbulently that she had to crush it down again with the +thought that, though Andrew every day drew nearer, came up the happy +climates of southern latitudes and spread his sails on favoring gales for +home, he only hastened to his wedding-day. And one day, at last, she rose +to see a craft anchored in the middle channel down below the piers, +unpainted and uncleaned by any crew eager to show their best to shore--a +black and blistered brig, with furled sails and silent deck; and some men +called it the fever-ship, and some men called it the Sabrina. + +As the news of the brig's return and of her terrible companion spread +through the town, a panic followed it, and the feeling with which she was +regarded all along the shore during that day and the next would hardly be +believed by any but those who have once been in the neighborhood of a +pestilence themselves. Exaggerated accounts of a swift, strange illness, +by many believed to be the ancient plague revived again and cast loose +through the land from Asiatic ships had reached the old port; and aware +that they were peculiarly exposed by reason of their trade, small as it +was, the people there had already died a thousand deaths through +expectation of the present coming of the fever already raging in other +parts. Hitherto, the health-officers, boarding everything that appeared, +had found no occasion to give anything but clean papers, and the town had +breathed again. But now, when at last it spread from lip to lip that the +fever lay at anchor in mid-channel, knees shook and cheeks grew white, and +health-officer and port-physician, in spite of the almost instantaneous +brevity of their visit to the infected vessel, were avoided as though they +were the pestilence themselves, and not a soul in all the town was found +to carry a cup of cold water to the gasping, burning men cared for only by +those in less desperate strait than themselves, and who, having buried +two-thirds of their number in deep-sea soundings, were likely to be denied +as much as a grave on shore themselves; while to Mr. Maurice, half wild +with perplexity and foreboding and amazement at Miss Frarnie's yet wilder +terror,--to him the red lantern hung out by the brig at nightfall +magnified itself in the mist into a crimson cloud where with wide wings +lurked the very demon of Fever himself. + +Not a soul to carry the cup of cold water, did I say? Yes, one timid +little soul there was, waiting in a fever of longing herself--waiting that +those who had a right to go might do so if they would--waiting till +assured that neither Frarnie Maurice nor her parents had the first +intention of going, though affianced husband and chosen son lay dying +there--waiting in agony of impatience, since every delay might possibly +mean death,--one little brave and timid soul there was who ventured forth +on her errand of mercy alone. The fisherman's old boat still lay rocking +in the cove, and the oars stood in the shed: Louie knew how to use them +well, and making her preparations by daylight, and leaving the rest till +nightfall, lest she should be hindered by the authorities, she found means +to impress the little cow-boy into her service; and after dark a keg of +sweet water was trundled down and stored amidships of the boat, with an +enormous block of ice rolled in an old blanket; a basket of lemons and +oranges was added, a roll of fresh bed-linen, a little box of such +medicines as her last year's practice had taught her might be of use; and +extorting a promise from the boy that he would leave another block of ice +on the bank every night after dark for her to come and fetch, Louie +quickly stepped into the boat, lifted the oars, and slipt away into the +darkness of the great and quiet river. + +When, three days afterward, Captain Traverse unclosed his eyes from a +dream of Gehenna and the place the smoke of whose torment goes up for +ever, a strange confusion crept like a haze across his mind, tired out and +tortured with delirium, and he dropped the aching lids and fell away into +slumber again; for he had thought himself vexed with the creak of cordage +and noise of feet, stived in his dark and narrow cabin, on a filthy bed in +a foul air, if any air at all were in that noisome place, reeking with +heat and the ferment of bilge-water and fever-smell; and here, unless a +new delirium chained him, a mattress lay upon the deck with the awning of +an old sail stretched above it and making soft shadow out of searching +sun, a gentle wind was blowing over him, a land-breeze full of sweet +scents from the gardens on the shore, from the meadows and the marshes. +Silence broken only by a soft wash of water surrounded him; a flake of ice +lay between his lips, that had lately been parched and withering, and +delicious coolness swathed his head, that had seemed to be a ball of +burning fire. The last that he remembered had been a hot, dry, aching +agony, and this was bliss: the sleep into which he fell when waking from +the stupor that had benumbed his power of suffering--a power that had +rioted till no more could be suffered--lasted during all the spell of that +fervid noon sun that hung above the harbor and the town like the unbroken +seal of the expected pestilence. A strange still town, fear and heat +keeping its streets deserted, its people longing for an east wind that +should kill the fever, yet dreading lest it should blow the fever in on +them; a strange still harbor, its great peaceful river darkened only by +that blot where the sun-soaked craft swung at her anchor; a strange still +craft, where nothing stirred but one slender form, one little being that +went about laying wet cloths upon this rude sailor's head, broken ice +between the lips of that one, moistening dry palms, measuring out cooling +draughts, and only resting now and then to watch one sleeper sleep, to +hang and hear if in that deep dream there were any breathing and it were +not the last sleep of all. And in Louie's heart there was something just +as strange and still as in all other things throughout that wearing, +blinding day; but with her the calm was not of fear, only of unspeakable +joy; for if Andrew lived it was she that had saved him, and though he +died, his delirium had told her that his heart was hers. "If he dies, he +is mine!" she cried triumphantly, forgetting all the long struggle of +scruple and doubt, "and if he lives, he shall never be hers!" she cried +softly and with that inner voice that no one hears. + +And so the heat slipped down with the sun to other horizons, coolness +crept in upon the running river's breast with the dusk, dew gathered and +lay darkly glittering on rail and spar and shroud as star by star stole +out to sparkle in it; and Andrew raised his eyes at length, and they +rested long and unwaveringly on the little figure sitting not far away +with hands crossed about the knees and eyes looking out into the last +light--the tranquil, happy face from which a white handkerchief kept back +the flying hair while giving it the likeness of a nun's. Was it a dream? +Was it Louie? Or was it only some one of the tormenting phantoms that for +so many burning days had haunted him? He tried in vain to ask: his tongue +clove to the roof of his mouth; he seemed to be in the power of one of +those fierce nightmares where life depends on a word and the word is not +to be spoken. Only a vision, then: he closed his lids thinking it would be +gone when he lifted them, but he did not want it to be gone, and looked +again to find it as before. And by and by it seemed to him that long +since, in a far-off dream, he had gathered strength and uttered the one +thought of his fever, "Louie, what do you do now?" and she had answered +him, as though she thought aloud, "I stroke the dead;" and he had cried +out, "Then presently me too, me too! And let the shroud be shotted heavily +to bury me out of your sight!" And he was crying it out again, but while +he spoke a mouth was laid on his--a warm, sweet mouth that seemed to +breathe fresh spirit through his frame--his head was lifted and pillowed +on a breast where he could hear the heart beneath flutter like a happy +bird, and he was wrapped once more in slumber, but this time slumber sweet +as it was deep. + +Morning was dawning over the vessel's side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting +through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and +lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which +the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting +fountains,--morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant +airs stealing from warm low fields, when Andrew once more lifted his eyes +only to find that tranquil face above him still, that happy heart still +beating beneath his pillowed head. "Oh, Louie," he sighed, "speak to +me--say--have I died?--am I forgiven?--is this heaven?" + +"To me, dear--oh to me!" answered she with the old radiant smile that used +to make his pulse quicken, and that, ill as he yet was, reassured him as +to his earthly latitude and longitude. + +"And it was all a dream, then?" he murmured. "And I have not lost you?" He +raised his wasted hand and drew from his breast the little hair chain that +he had hidden there so long ago. "It was a fetter I could not break," he +whispered. "I wrote her all about it long ago. I wrote her father that he +should have his vessel back again--and I would take my freedom--and not a +dollar's wages for the voyage would I ever draw of him. But I should never +have dared see you--for--oh, Louie--how can you ever--" + +"Hush, hush, dear!" she breathed. "What odds is all that now? We have our +life before us." + +"Only just help me live it, Louie." + +"God will help us," she answered. And as she spoke a sudden rainbow leaped +into the western heaven as if to seal her promise, and as it slowly faded +there came a wild salt smell, an air that tingled like a tonic through the +veins: the east wind was singing in from sea, bringing the music of +breaker and shore, and the fever was blasted by its breath throughout the +little Sabrina. + +HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. + + + + +Old Sadler's Resurrection: + +A Yarn of the Mexican Gulf. + + + +"Talking about ghosts," said the captain, "listen while I spin you a bit +of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit +of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on +board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India +squadron, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jesse Wilkinson. + +"It would hardly interest you to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and +ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two +steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the +taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us. He wore +gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat +eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the +quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we +planked up and down the lee side, tired enough, and waiting for eight +bells to strike to rush below and call our relief. He was an austere man, +and, unlike the brave old commodore, made no allowance for our pranks and +skylarking. + +"Among our crew, made up of some really splendid fellows, but with an odd +mixture of 'Mahonese,' 'Dagos,' 'Rock-Scorpions,' and other countrymen, +there was an old man-of-war's man named Sadler--a little, dried-up old +chap of some sixty years, who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, so he +said, and had been up and down, all around and criss-cross the world so +often that he had actually forgotten where he had been, and so had all his +geography lessons, learned by cruising experience, sadly mixed up in his +head; which, although small, with a little old, weazened frontispiece, was +full of odds and ends of yarns, with which he used to delight us young +aspirants for naval honors, as he would spin them to us on the booms on +moonlight nights, after the hammocks had been piped down. How well do I +remember the old fellow's appearance!--his neat white frock and trowsers, +his low-quarter purser's shoes, with a bit of a ribbon for a bow; no +socks, save the natural, flesh-tinted ones, a blue star, done in India +ink, gleaming on his instep; his broad blue collar, decorated with stars +and two rows of white tape, falling gracefully from a neck which, as we +youngsters asserted, had received its odd-looking twist from hanging too +long by a grape vine, with which the Isle of Pines' pirates had strung him +up when he was chasing them under old Commodore Kearney's command. Anyhow, +old, sharp-faced, wrinkled and tanned to the color of a sole-leather +trunk, the whole cut of his jib told you at once that he was a regular +man-of-war's man--one of a class whose faults I can hardly recall while +remembering their sense of duty, their utter disregard of danger, and the +reliance with which you can lead them on to attack anything, from a +hornet's nest to an iron-clad. + +"Well, it so happened, one hot day, while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, +that the news came to us that old Sadler was dead; and sure enough it was +so, for the old fellow had quietly slipped his moorings, and, as we all +hoped, had at last gone to where the sweet little cherub sits up aloft who +looks out for the soul of poor Jack. Then, after the doctors had had a shy +at him, to see why he had cleared out so suddenly, his remains were taken +in charge by his messmates, who rigged the old man out in his muster +clothes, sewed him up in his clean white hammock, with an eighteen pound +shot at his feet, and reported to the officer of the deck that the body +was ready for burial. So, about six bells in the afternoon watch, the +weather being very hot, and not a breath of air to ripple the glassy +surface of the water, the lieutenant of the watch directed one of the +young gentlemen to tell the boatswain to call 'All hands to bury the +dead;' and soon fore and aft the shrill whistles were heard, followed by +that saddest of all calls to a sailor at sea--'All hands bury the dead!' + +"Our good old boatswain, Wilmuth, seemed to linger on the words with a +feeling akin to grief at parting with an old shipmate, and as the last man +reached the deck, he touched his hat and in a sad sort of way reported, +'All up, sir,' to the first lieutenant, who in his turn reported, +'Officers and men all on deck, sir,' to the commodore, who thereupon gave +an order to the chaplain to go on with the services. + +"The courses were hauled up, main-topsail to the mast, band on the +quarter-deck, colors half-mast, and all hands, officers and men, stood +uncovered, looking silently and sadly upon the body as it lay upon the +gang-boards in its white hammock, ready for the last rites. Solemnly and +most impressively were the services read, and at the words, 'We commit his +body to the deep,' a heavy splash was heard, and poor old Sadler had gone +to his long home for ever. Some of us youngsters ran up in the lee main +rigging to see him go down, and as we watched him go glimmering and +glimmering down to a mere speck, we wondered where he was bound, and how +long it would take him to fetch Davy Jones' locker on that tack. + +"'Pipe down, sir,' says the commodore to Mr. Bispham; 'Pipe down, sir,' +says Mr. Bispham to Mr. Alphabetical Gray, who was officer of the deck; +'Pipe down, sir,' says Mr. Gray to the gentleman of the watch; 'Pipe down, +sir,' says this youngster to the boatswain; and then _such_ a twitter of +pipes followed this order, and all hands were piped down, while poor old +Sadler was still off soundings, and going down as fast as the +eighteen-pound shot would take him. + +"Now, you know that people coming from a funeral on shore always have a +gay sort of air, suppressed it may be, but still cropping out; and just so +is it with sailors at sea; for, Sadler's body committed to the deep, all +hands felt better: the fore and main tacks were hauled aboard, the main +yard was filled away, and the jib sheet hauled aft, and we all settled +down into every-day life, which, after all, is not half so monotonous on +board a man-of-war as you might suppose. + +"Well, as I have said, the weather was very hot, the surface of the water +was as smooth as a mill-pond, the wind was all up and down the mast, and +so the old ship was boxing the compass all to herself, and not making a +foot of headway. + +"At one bell in the first dog watch, Boyle, the ship's cook, reported the +tea-water ready, and after this came the inevitable evening-quarters--and +some old man-of-war's men would think the country was going to 'Jemmy +Square-toes' stern first if they didn't have quarters--then down hammocks +for the night at six bells, and after that just as much of fun, frolic, +dance, song and yarn spinning as all hands wanted until eight bells, when +the watch was called. + +"John Moffitt, the sailing master, the best fellow in the ward-room mess, +and a great favorite with the youngsters, was officer of the deck from six +to eight o'clock; and my messmate, Perry Buckner, of Scott county, +Kentucky, the most dare-devil midshipman of us all, was master's mate of +the forecastle; Hammond, Marshall, Smith and I were the gentlemen of the +Watch; Rodney Barlow was quartermaster at the 'con;' the lookouts had just +been stationed; the men were singing, dancing, spinning yarns and +otherwise amusing themselves about the decks, while the old ship was +turning lazily around in the splendid moonlight as if admiring herself. + +"Discipline, you know, is the very life of a man-of-war, and this must +account for what now took place. Tom Edwards, a young foretopman, had the +lee lookout, and as seven bells struck he sang out, 'Lee cat-head;' but +the last syllable died away on his lips as his eyes rested upon an +object--a white object--standing bolt upright in the water before him, +about a hundred yards distant and broad off on the lee bow. Suppressing a +strong desire to shriek, and recovering himself, he touched his hat and +said, 'Mr. Buckner, will you step up here, sir, if you please?' + +"'What is she, Edwards?' said Buckner, as he quickly mounted the +hammock-rail. + +"One look, a dip down, a shiver, and, O Lord! what did he see but _old +Sadler standing straight as a ramrod, and heading right for the ship!_ + +"It took Buck a full minute to recover himself, and then, with one eye on +the lee bow and the other on the quarter-deck, he walked aft and +deliberately touching his cap, reported to Moffitt, 'Old Sadler broad off +on the lee bow, sir.' + +"'The d---- he is!' exclaimed Moffitt; but, checking himself, he said, +'Mr. Hammond, report Sadler's arrival to the commodore; and you, Mr. +M----, report it to the first lieutenant, sir.' + +"My eyes were as big as saucers as I rushed down the steerage ladder and +into the ward-room, where I found the first lieutenant quietly seated +reading over the black list; and when, with my heart in my throat, I said, +'Mr. Bispham, old Sadler is on the lee bow, sir,' he serenely replied, +'Very well, Mr. M---- I'll be on deck directly.' + +"'O Lord!' said I to myself--'to take a ghost as easily as all that!' +Bolting up the ladder on my way back to the deck, and trembling lest I +should see the ghost popping his head in through one of the gun-deck +ports, I ran into Hammond, who dodged me like a shot. + +"When I got on deck the news was all out, for Tom Edwards couldn't stand +it any longer, but had just yelled out, 'Ghost ho! ghost ho! Look out! +stand from under! here he comes!' and bolted aft, scared out of his wits. + +"In ten seconds all hands were on deck--ship's cook, yeoman, 'Jemmy Legs,' +'Jemmy Ducks,' 'Bungs,' Loblolly boy,' captain of the hold, and, by this +time, all the officers too, with the midshipmen scuttling up the ladders +as fast as their legs and hands could carry them. + +"Moffitt had hauled up the courses and squared the main yard, as much to +make a diversion as anything else, although the men thought it was to keep +old Sadler from boarding us; and as they rushed up on deck they filled the +booms; lee rigging, hammock--netting and every available spot from which a +sight of the old fellow could be had. + +"Very soon they saw that he was not approaching the ship: the old sinner +was just turning and turning around in the water, like a fishing-cork, +dancing away all to himself, while the moonlight, first on one side, and +then on the other, in light and shadow, gave a queer sort of look to his +features, sometimes sad and sometimes funny. + +"After watching him for a few minutes, Bill Ellis, the second captain of +the foretop, hailed him thus: 'Sadler, ahoy! What do you want?' + +"No answer being received, one of the mizzentop boys suggested that the +old man had come back for his bag and hammock, and that they ought to be +thrown overboard to him; but all this was cut short by the appearance of +the commodore on the quarter-deck, and upon him all eyes were turned as he +stepped upon the port horseblock, where a good view could be had. + +"Now, old Jess was as brave an old fellow as ever sailed a ship, but he +did not fancy ghosts, and the knowledge that all hands were looking at him +to see how he took it made him feel a little nervous; but with a firm +voice he called for his night-glass, and when the quartermaster, with a +touch of his hat, handed it to him, he quietly arranged the focus, and, as +we all supposed, was about to point it at Sadler, who was still dancing +away for dear life all to himself. But old Jess was too smart for that: he +quietly directed his glass to another quarter, to gain a little time, and, +gradually sweeping the horizon, brought it at last, with a tremor of +mortal dread, to bear dead upon the ghost. Bless my soul! how the old +gentleman shook! But recovering himself, with a big gulp in his throat he +turned to the chaplain and said, 'Did you read the _full_ service over him +to-day, Mr. T----?' + +"'I did, sir, as well as I can remember,' replied Mr. T. + +"'Then, sir,' said the commodore, turning to Mr. Bispham and speaking in +an authoritative tone, 'we must send a boat and bring him on board.' + +"'O Lord! O Lord!--bring a ghost on board!' groaned the men. + +"'Silence, fore and aft!' said Mr. Bispham, 'and call away the second +cutter.' + +"'Away there, you second cutters, away!' sung out the boatswain's mate. +But they didn't 'away' one step, and we youngsters could hear the men +growling out, 'What does the commodore want with old Sadler? This isn't +his place: let the old man rip: he is dead and buried all right. We didn't +ship to go cruising after ghosts: we shipped to reef topsails and work the +big guns; and if old Jess wants old Sadler on board, he had better go +after him himself.' Some said he had come back after his bag and hammock, +and the best way was to let him have them, and then he would top his boom +and clear out. Others said the purser had not squared off his account; and +one of the afterguard was seen to tickle the mainmast and whistle for a +breeze, to give the old fellow a wide berth. But it wouldn't do: +discipline is discipline; and after a free use of the colt and a good deal +of hazing, the boat's crew came aft, the cutter was lowered, and the men, +with their oars up and eyes upon the ghost, were waiting the order to +shove off, the bow oarsman having provided himself with a boarding-pike to +'fend off,' as he said, if the old man should fight. + +"We youngsters knew that _somebody_ else was needed in that boat, and that +_somebody_ was a midshipman with his side-arms; but not a boy of us said a +word about it, and we were afraid even to catch the first lieutenant's +eye, lest he should be reminded that no young officer had, as usual, been +ordered to go; but the order came at last. When Moffitt asked the first +lieutenant, 'What officer, sir, shall I send in that boat?' we scattered +like a flock of birds, but all too late; for Mr. Bispham referred the +matter to the commodore, who, with a twinkle in his eye, said, 'Who +discovered the ghost, sir?' + +"'Midshipman Buckner reported him, sir,' was the reply. + +"'Then,' said the commodore, 'by priority of discovery he belongs to Mr. +Buckner, who will take charge of the cutter and bring him on board.' + +"I heard all this from my place behind the mizzen mast, and you may guess +how glad I was not to have been selected; but a groan, a chattering of the +teeth, a trembling and shaking of bones close by my side, caused me to +look around, and there was poor Buck, with his priority honors thick upon +him. + +"'Get your side-arms, sir,' said Moffitt: 'take charge of the cutter and +carry out the commodore's order.' + +"'Ay, ay, sir!' said Buck, but oh with what a change in his voice! As he +buckled on his sword I could see what a struggle he was making to feel +brave. As he went over the gangway to get into the boat I caught his eye, +and if you could have seen that forlorn look you would have pitied him; +for there was old Sadler turning and turning in the water, looking first +this way, and then the other, and, as Buck thought, just ready to hook on +to him and carry him down among the dead men. + +"It is no light matter to go up to a ghost, front face, full face, and +look him in the eye; but what must it be when you have to go up to him +_backward_, as that cutter's crew had to do while pulling their oars, +leaving only Buck and the cox-swain to face him? They just couldn't do it, +and at every stroke they would suddenly slew around on their thwarts and +look at the old fellow, who seemed to them as big as an elephant, and just +ready to clap on to them, boat and all, as soon as they turned to give +another stroke. Poor fellows! they made but little headway, and what with +catching crabs, fouling their oars, blasting old Sadler's eyes, and +denouncing him generally (one fellow fairly yelled outright when the bow +oarsman accidentally touched him), they had a hard pull of it; but still +they made some progress, and when Buck sang out, 'Way enough,' every oar +flew inboard, every man faced suddenly around, and with this the cutter +keeled over, and, her bow touching old Sadler on his shoulder, ducked him +out of sight for a second, at which all hands shouted, thinking that he +had gone for ever; but in a moment more up he popped, fresh as a lark, +higher than ever before, and this time right abreast of the stern-sheets, +where he bobbed and bowed to Buck, at which, with a yell of terror, all +hands went overboard, and, floundering in the water, begged for mercy. The +cutter had some little headway, and this of course brought Sadler astern +on the other quarter, and then there was a wild rush to get back into the +boat, for fear the old fellow was doubling on them to make a grab. + +"The commodore, hearing the row and fearing disaster, ordered another boat +to the rescue, but ere it reached the spot, Buck had, in some manner, +quieted his men, who, seeing the ghost still standing bolt upright in the +water and dancing away as if nothing had happened to scare _him_, manned +their oars again and pulled cautiously toward him; while he, with that +changeable moonlight grin on his face, was bobbing up and down to the +boat's crew, as if Buck were the commodore himself coming to pay him a +visit. + +"'Stand by, there in the bow, to hook on to him,' sang out Buck. + +"'Ay, ay, sir! I'll fix him;' and with that, and a heavy expletive in +regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike +right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel +touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape of steam, was heard, +and without a word old Sadler vanished from sight for ever." + +"But, captain, tell us what really brought the old gentleman back," said +one of the auditors. + +"Well, just think of that tight white hammock, the light weight of the +shot, and the very hot weather--think, too, how easily a fishing-cork is +balanced in the water by a very small sinker, and lastly how confined air +will buoy up anything--and you have the whole secret of his coming back. +Let that air suddenly escape, and you have the secret of his +disappearance. + +"Buck used to say that 'priority of discovery' was a good thing in the +days of Columbus, but if it was to be continued in force in the United +States navy, hang him if he should ever report another ghost, even if he +should see him walking the quarter-deck with the speaking-trumpet under +his arm." + +R. D. MINOR. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Not Pretty, But Precious, by John Hay, et al. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11392 *** diff --git a/11392-h/11392-h.htm b/11392-h/11392-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8105b10 --- /dev/null +++ b/11392-h/11392-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9622 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html> + +<head> +<title>Not Pretty, but Precious, by Various</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + + body { + margin .5em; + font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; + } + + h1, h2, h3, h4 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + font-variant: small-caps + } + + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + + a { text-decoration: none; } + a:hover { background-color: #ffffcc } + + div.chapter { + margin-top: 4em; + } + + hr { + height: 1px; + width: 80%; + } + + div.note { + border-style: dashed; + border-width: 1px; + border-color: #000000; + background-color: #ccffcc; + width: 80%; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + font-size: .8em; + } + + div.story div.note { +margin: 10px; + width: 40%; + float: right; + } + + div.note p { + margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px; + } + + div.story p.author { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-size: 1em; + text-align: right; + } + +div.image { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + width: 50%; +} + +--> +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11392 ***</div> + +<div class="image" id="frontispiece"><p><img src="images/image01.png" alt=""My uncle followed his words with a brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It is a great gift! a great gift!'"" /><br /> +"My uncle followed his words with a brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It is a great gift! a great gift!'"</p> + +<p><a href="#st02">The Victims of Dreams</a>.</p></div> + + + +<div id="tp"> +<h1 class="title">Not Pretty, but Precious,<br /> and Other Short Stories.</h1> + +<p class="smallcaps" align="center">By</p> + +<h2 class="author">John Hay,<br /> Clara F. Guernsey,<br /> Margaret Hosmer,<br /> Harriet Prescott +Spofford,<br /> Lucy Hamilton Hooper,<br /> Etc.</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated.</h3> + + +<h4>1872.</h4> +</div> + + +<div id="toc"> +<h2>Contents.</h2> + + +<ul style="list-style-type: none"> +<li><a href="#st01">Not Pretty, but Precious</a>, <i>Margret Field</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st02">The Victims of Dreams</a>, <i>Margaret Hosmer</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st03">The Cold Hand</a>, <i>Clara F. Guernsey</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st04">The Blood Seedling</a>, <i>John Hay</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st05">The Marquis</a>, <i>Chauncey Hickox</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st06">Under False Colors</a>, <i>Lucy Hamilton Hooper</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st07">The Hungry Heart</a>, <i>J.W. De Forrest</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st08">"How Mother Did It</a>," <i>J.R. Hadermann</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st09">The Red Fox</a>, <i>Clara F. Guernsey</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st10">Louie</a>, <i>Harriet Prescott Spofford</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st11">Old Sadler'S Resurrection</a>, <i>R.D. Minor</i>.</li> +</ul> +</div> + +<div class="story" id="st01"> +<h2>Not Pretty, But Precious.</h2> + + + +<blockquote class="epi"><p><i>Mille modi veneris!</i></p></blockquote> + +<div class="chapter" id="st01-ch01"> +<h3>Part I.</h3> + + +<p>Mr. Norval: It is now four weeks since your accident. I have made inquiry +of your physician whether news or business communications, however +important, brought to your attention, would be detrimental to you, cause +an accession of feverish symptoms or otherwise harm you. He assures me, On +the contrary, he is sure you have not been for years so free from disease +of any sort, with the sole exception of the broken bones, as now. This +being so, I venture to approach you upon a subject which I doubt not you +are quite as willing to have definitely arranged, and at once, as myself. +I can say what I mean, and as I mean it, so much better on paper than in +conversation--as I have so little self-possession, and am so readily put +out in the matter of argument--that I have determined to write to you, +thinking thus to be better able to make you understand and appreciate my +reasons and motives, since you can read them when and how you choose.</p> + +<p>I have been your wife three weeks. The horrible strangeness of these words +is quite beyond me to compass; nevertheless, realize it or not, it is a +fact. I am your wife--you, my husband. Why I am your wife I wish simply to +rehearse here. Not that we do not both know why, but that we may know it +in the same way. You, a handsome, cultivated man, whose dictum is +considered law in the world of fashion in which you move and reign, with +an assured social position, a handsome fortune, and a popularity that +would have obtained for you the hand of any beautiful or wealthy woman +whom you sought, have deliberately chosen to make me, a poor, plain, +brown-faced little school-teacher, your wife. Not because you wanted <i>me</i>, +not because you thought or cared about <i>me</i>, one way or the other, but +simply because, in a time of urgent necessity, I was literally the only +available woman near you. It chanced, from many points of view and by a +chain of circumstances, that I was particularly available. So you married +me. The reasons for such a sacrifice of yourself were--you had behaved +badly, very badly, to a lady, compromising her name and causing a +separation between herself and her husband. Within a few months, her +husband having died, both herself and her father had determined to force +you to make her reparation by marriage. Going to work very warily, they +had taken an opportunity, after a very luxuriant and fast opera-supper, +when you were excited by your surroundings and flushed by the wine you had +been drinking, your head very light, your judgment very heavy, to draw +from you a promise of marriage at the expiration of the year of mourning +for her husband. As soon as you became aware of what you had done, you +ignominiously fled, and after a Western tour were about to sail for Europe +when this unfortunate accident overtook you. Your narrow escape from +death, upon having been thrown from the carriage of a distinguished +gentleman while driving with him behind a pair of celebrated racers, gave +such publicity to your adventure that your <i>amorata</i> was at once aware of +your whereabouts. The fear of this had taken possession of you as soon as +you were able to think of anything, and the dread that she would follow +and marry you while you lay helpless was made a certainty by this telegram +from an intimate friend in New York, received the sixth day of your +illness:</p> + +<p>"It's all up with you, old fellow. The R. has heard you're fast with a +broken leg, and she starts on Monday for Boston. Have the clergy ready, +for it's marriage."</p> + +<p>Then in your bitter need you remembered having talked with me in this +hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of +your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing +me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying +helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you recalled +the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing you, the +delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such as finding +a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although some elegant +and fashionable girls were waiting with ill-suppressed eagerness for your +escort. Remembering all this, knowing as you did that I was poor, wearing +out my life in teaching, in your sore need you suddenly thought, "I wonder +if the girl wouldn't marry me? She'd make a good nurse, could look after +my traps, and, though she is as ugly as sin and a nobody, wouldn't be the +deuced disgrace to a fellow this Rollins woman will be. At all events, +she'll save me from that fate if she takes up with my offer. It's a choice +of evils, and this would be the least; and I'll try it." This, in plain, +unadorned speech, was what you thought. Then you sent for me, began very +pathetically to talk of your desolate state, your family all dead, and so +on; that it had been sadly brought home to you how alone you were while +lying sick, hour after hour, in this great hotel, with only your valet to +attend to you and take an interest in your well-being; and that, day after +day, as you lay thinking of your fate, my face had come before you, +recalling tender memories of your lost and dearly-loved sister. Then you +had remembered that as girl and boy we had been lovers, and really cared +very much for each other. As you got this far toward your <i>grande +dénouement</i>, something in my face, I suppose, made you realize that if you +were to compass your ends with me it must be by honesty only. Then you +blurted it all out--in, as I could not help thinking as I listened, as +school-boyish and abashed a way as if you had--well, as if you had not +been a consummate man of the world, rather noted for your <i>aplomb</i>.</p> + +<p>It came across me (as I heard you in dumb amazement, with crimson face and +trembling frame) that even the best polish of years' laying on will crack +somewhere under very hard pressure. Well, you were honest and told me all, +never pretending, as you had at first essayed to do, that it was out of +any lingering regard for myself as your sister's friend that you sought me +now, but simply on account of my availability. Had there been some bright +young beauty with wealth and station at hand, no thought of me would ever +have entered your mind: all this I understood at once from your half +confessions--all this, I was glad to find, you had at least enough honor +to let me know, although you risked what to you in your actual situation +was very perilous--a refusal.</p> + +<p>I asked until the next day to consider the matter--whether it would be +better to take service with you, exchange for my boarding, clothing and +incidental expenses the daily care of your comfort and pleasure, or earn +my bread in the old wearing way. And the second day after that we were +married. That is all. I believe that to be a simple statement of the facts +in your case: I am right, am I not?</p> + +<p>The day after our marriage your lady-love and her paternal ancestor came. +At my own suggestion and with your eager consent I received them, and the +result you know.</p> + +<p>Now for my own reasons for this strange marriage. You are aware that my +father was a professor of mathematics in various schools and colleges of +the city where he lived, teaching in the school, among others, in which +your sister and myself were pupils. I believe you know that when a young +man he had eloped with and married one of his scholars, the daughter of a +rich and proud family, who discarded her. For years she was a stranger to +them, until her husband had won a name and handsome fortune for himself: +then she was taken into favor again, her husband's distinction in the +scientific world being supposed to add lustre to the family name. Alas for +us! it was a favor that has cost us dear. I was their only child. When my +sweet, pretty mother lay dying she left to me, her sixteen-year-old child, +my dreamy, unworldly father as a legacy. "Take care of him: he knows no +guile, and your uncles will wrong him if they can," she said. And they +did, or one of them. Ere the bitter agony of my mother's death had enabled +him to return to his duties, it was discovered that one of her brothers +had forged his name and literally stripped him of everything.</p> + +<p>Of course, then he went to work again to earn our daily bread--not with +his old love or ability, but in an inert, feeble way that was pitiful to +see. I think from the day my mother was buried he was dying. Some people, +you know, die hard--some part with life lightly, as if it was a faded robe +they shook off to don a brighter one. Others--my father was one, and I am +like him--see one by one their trusts, their hopes, their loves die: then +with a deathly throe sunder themselves from life. But pardon my +digression.</p> + +<p>When I was twenty my father died. Since then, spite of expressions of +disapproval and offers of support from my mother's family, I have +maintained myself by teaching in the schools where my father had been +known, preferring to do without assistance so long as I had health. One of +my uncles desired to take me into his family, and thus wipe out the wrong +done my father by his brother, and my aunts proffered me an income out of +their private means. I mention this to do them every justice, but I think +even a man of fashion like yourself will acknowledge the impossibility of +my accepting, while I could avoid it, a life of dependence. I could not +accept favors from those who had treated my dear parents unkindly; so I +have e'en gone my own way for these last ten years, and led a not unhappy +life, if a busy and rather wearing one.</p> + +<p>My gay cousins, all of whom you know well--the Wilber girls, Leta and +Jennie, pretty little Lou Barton, and another set of Wilbers whom I think +you do not know so well, who are married now--my gay cousins, then, most +of them beauties, all of them rich and fashionable, are somewhat ashamed +of me, and have let me feel it in every petty way that we women know so +well how to find. I am ugly and poor, my earning my own living is a spot +upon their gentility, and I have unfortunately, and quite against my will, +more than once given them cause for serious annoyance and apprehension. +Then, one of our uncles, who is a bachelor and very rich, has insisted +that I am never to be slighted--always to be invited to everything in the +shape of a party given by the family. If it lay with me, of course I would +never accept these invitations, but I have had it explained to me over and +over again that my not doing so is visited upon the party-givers in one +way or another by our masterful uncle Rufus. So, occasionally, very much +against my inclination, I leave my little third-story room, with its cozy +fire and humble adornments, and sit in the corner of their great rooms, a +"looker-on in Vienna" in every sense.</p> + +<p>I have many kind friends: it would be strange if in all these years I had +not found some who did not care for outward advantages. I have dreamed my +sweet love-dream, and it is over, and the roses have grown above my buried +hopes.</p> + +<p>Since then I have let one idea fill my life to the exclusion of everything +else, putting away from me all desires and thoughts of other needs; and +that too has left me. I call it an "idea" for lack of a better name. I had +put away all thought of marriage with my bright youth, but took into my +heart instead what I deemed would serve as well--a friendship for another +woman. For ten years we knew no separate life--I thought no separate +hopes. She had loved, been on the eve of marriage, her lover had died: +that was her heart's history, and henceforth the idea of love had fallen +out of both our lives--not the idea only, but the possibility of love. I +thought so--she <i>said</i> so.</p> + +<p>I trusted her and loved her with a perfect love. I wound my hopes about +her: I gave up all my life to her as if she had been my lover. I never +cared to form other friendships. I deprived myself of all possibilities of +making other ties of any sort, and with the first opportunity she whistled +me down the wind, and cared no more for me than if she had never professed +to love me. She had been my one bright thing--she was sweet and +winsome--the one golden gleam in my sombre life. My future was bound up in +her so completely that when she severed the fine, close cords (brittle, +yet so strong) which had bound us together for years, she cut into my +heart--nay more, wrested from me all my sweet trusts and faiths. If she is +false, who else in all God's earth is true? I pity myself very much. You, +of course, will not see why her marrying should make a difference if we +loved, and will call me selfish. Not so, not so! She might have married as +soon as it pleased her, and I should have been glad. It would have made a +difference, of course: she must in some sort have been parted from me, but +that I could have borne if it made her happy. But from her acceptance of +her lover--about whom we will say nothing, save that he was the sort of +man she had always held in abhorrence--she has coolly ignored my right to +any part or lot in her fate. She had told me (or I, poor fool! thought so) +every hope and fear of her life: now she told me what she chose, and was +astonished that I expected more--hurt that I seemed changed and did not +find my friendship flourish on crumbs after being nourished for years from +full loaves--was quite unhappy that I cared so little for the minor +concerns of her life, when, good lack! I did not know what I might or +might not ask and not be snubbed; for once she told me there were things +due to the man one is going to marry (at that time she had not got to the +extent of saying whom one loves) that could not be spoken of to me. Of +course she had only to mention the fact to me to make it perfectly plain, +and henceforth he and his doings, his belongings and himself, all of them +of the tamest sort at best, were a sealed book to me. And again she +quenched a feeble effort of mine to get back to my old place, by telling +me such topics she could discuss only with her sister, "her shadow sister" +she prettily called her. So I am desolate!</p> + +<p>Knowing this, you may understand in some degree what could induce a little +waif like me to accept such an offer as yours. I think no one in all God's +earth is more desolate than I. In my heart I bear always that unforgotten +love in my life. I have only a barren waste to show. It is as if I had +started from a lovely, radiant garden in the fair morning of my life, in +which I had left the bright, sweet rose of my love, and walking along a +narrow, dark path, had clasped hands with, and drawn my light and warmth +from, a figure walking close beside me; and though from all sides as I +walked forms had come to me, offering me fair fruits and sweet flowers, I +declined them all without ever a word of thanks, being so content with my +one companion. And suddenly, when all my youth, all my prospects of other +things, had gone, this idealized one had withdrawn its hand-clasp, and +turning on me a face I did not know, faded into darkness, leaving me +nothing but my broken hopes, a wreath of withered flowers,</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Tangled down in chains about my feet."</p></blockquote> + +<p>You do not of course realize how the old French <i>émigré</i> blood in my +veins, inherited from my father, makes this a very vital matter to me. We +cling to our hopes very tenaciously while they abide--then we are +distraught. We loved, my father and I, very few, but those with a clinging +oneness that is wellnigh pain: he loved my mother and myself--that was +all. Likewise I had my two: they having failed me, my life is a blank. I +have heard of empty-hearted people: I know now what the phrase means. I am +empty-hearted: I have not one hope, one particle of faith, one real, +honest desire, except to "drie my weir," as the Scotch say, doing my duty +as best I may, as it comes to me. But I have a woman's hatred of pity: my +cousins have long accorded me a contemptuous pity for being an old maid. I +laughed their pity to scorn while I had Esther Hooper. What more did I +need? We could enact over again the sweet old life of the Ladies of +Llangollen.</p> + +<p>We had planned our lives a thousand times. Poor we both were, yet we would +put something away every year for our old age, and work cheerily on until +we could work no more, then creep to our nest like a couple of old +kittens, and cuddle down by our warm, pleasant fire--together, and +therefore content. Well, you see it was not to be: she had grown +affrighted, I suppose, at the thought of all that weary life with only me, +and has married a man who outrages all her delicate instincts and +traditions of an accordant husband. But why speak of him? He supports her, +and she has escaped the obloquy of old-maidism. She has married a +maintenance. She says she loves him, so of course she does.</p> + +<p>For myself, my health, which has always been very rugged, has failed me +utterly this last year; but as my bread depends upon my ability to endure +daily and constant fatigue, I have forced myself to endeavor to get up the +amount of strength required for my winter's work by the present +expedition, planned for me by a friend. Bah! what do I talk of friendship +for? An old lady who was once a teacher in the school from which my father +had married my mother, and who, I think, had cared with more than +friendship for him, has in these last few years fallen heir to a small +property--not a very great deal, but enough to enable her to live in +comfort, and exercise her kindly heart in deeds of charity occasionally. +She has chosen for years to occupy rooms beneath my own, and has always +been a sort of mother to me. Most of the pretty things that have fallen +into my life, and most of its pleasures, have come to me through her. She +has many troublesome faults, as we all have, but she is old, and I have +always had Esther to talk them over and laugh them off with, so have borne +them easily. This year, because she saw I was dying, she took me with her +to the mountains of Vermont, and I have got a new lease of life, and new +capacities for suffering as well.</p> + +<p>On our way back she was suddenly attacked with the illness which detained +us at this Boston hotel. Here your accident laid you up, and the rest came +as I have told.</p> + +<p>You have married me to rid yourself of a union with a woman you detest, +being utterly indifferent to me. I have married you because I cannot bring +myself to go back to that old teaching-life, now so cold and gray. I think +I can earn my board in taking care of your belongings, and the having +saved you from a dreadful fate must compensate to you for the little of my +presence you will for the future be compelled to endure. It need not be +much or long continued if we start with a fair comprehension of each +other.</p> + +<p>This brings me to the reason of all this long history. I have always +looked upon marriage without love as nothing more or less than legalized +vice. I think you, who are so intrinsically a man of the world, will have +imbibed the (so-called) sensible and popular views upon such subjects, and +will at once coincide with me that in such a union as ours--a literal +<i>mariage de convenance</i> on both sides--my ideas are not unwise. Since upon +you will henceforth depend my maintenance (as I of course understand that +a wife who worked for her own support would be a disgrace to you: indeed, +I doubt whether the having married a girl who has already done so is not a +cause of shame), I ask that now, when Mrs. Keller is about to leave me, +and my arrangements as your wife must be finally made--when, in fact, her +giving up her room necessitates my coming to yours, her leaving compelling +me either to go with her, or come, as of course I must, to you--we may +have a definite understanding as to our future relations.</p> + +<p>You have been kind enough to approve of the little I have been able to do +for you since our marriage--to say to Mrs. Keller you did not know what it +was to be taken care of in sickness; and to myself you have more than once +laughingly spoken of a wife as a good institution, adding, that had you +known how comfortable it was to have some one about you to think of and +care for you, you would have invested in the article before; and so on. I +am glad of this: I am pleased that my society has not proved repugnant to +you; for since it has been no annoyance in its first trial, I think we can +manage that it shall not be so in the future. I would ask, as an especial +piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors +at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister. +It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the +Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring +most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your +service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is +due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or +pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have no +expectation of winning your love: it has been an understood thing from the +first--that is something neither expects from the other--therefore any +show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping +with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain +that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during +these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to +pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this +cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our private +relations?</p> + +<p>For the rest, claiming nothing from you, giving you nothing but the +services for which you render me a full equivalent, I grant you, as far as +I have a right to do so, the largest liberty of action. We are only +jealous of those we love: therefore all women will be as free to you as +they have hitherto been or their will accords, save that you have debarred +yourself for a time from offering any one of them marriage. I hope to be +so little trouble to you, and so serviceable to you in many ways, that you +shall realize to the full that if an unloving union could be so much more +comfortable than a bachelor's life, a life passed with a loving and +beloved wife would be bliss indeed, and so when my life has ended you will +not be sorry that I stopped in your path a few years. For I shall not +trouble you very long. I am a poor little perfumeless flower, having no +sweetness or beauty with which to charm the eye or senses, only fit to +grow among the kitchen herbs--rue and thyme, and such old-fashioned +things. But I need a great deal of sunshine, spite of my plainness, to +keep life in me. And now that all the heat and passion of love, all the +sunny hopes and glow of friendship, have left me, I shall just fade and +fade until some day you will find the poor little weed has dropped to +earth for ever.</p> + +<p>I am but two years younger than yourself, and women, especially women with +a great sorrow, age cruelly fast. I look and feel older than I am--you +wear your years like a crown, and appear younger than you are. I have made +my little venture on life's ocean--made and failed: my barque, freighted +with a few cherished hopes, has been wrecked, and though I have reached a +rock to which I can cling for a time, yet I am terribly hurt, the waves +have buffeted me cruelly, and in a little while I shall let go my hold and +float out--out into the ocean of eternity. Ah! there is comfort after all: +life <i>is</i> hard, but afterward there is peace and rest!</p> + +<p>I am nearly through this long tirade. Pardon its length: it is my first, +and shall be my last, heart-outpouring to you; and if it make you +comprehend me, I shall not have written or you have read in vain.</p> + +<p>Your income will not support the establishment your position in society +would require if we went to housekeeping; besides, you would feel as if +you must then be more stationary, more in your own home, than is at +present your custom, therefore in a degree in bondage. And a hotel-life is +very expensive and very cheerless. You have kindly said you intended +dividing your income with me, giving me half. At first I was indignant at +the idea, but now I think I see that it will be in every way the best. One +of my cousins has been occupying a very elegantly-appointed suite of rooms +on Twenty-fourth street. Harry writes me he is going very suddenly to +Europe. His rooms will of course be vacant: he talks of renting them +furnished. I have thought, if you would not object to it, we might take +them off his hands. I have calculated that the part of your means you +intend for me will meet all our expenses of every sort if you permit me to +have the arranging, of our daily affairs. I will pay the rent and meet all +the expenses of our living out of this sum, leaving you your reserved +funds to meet your ordinary requirements and pleasures. By this +arrangement, you see, I shall get my living free, and I am sure shall have +a surplus over and above our expenses, as I am a good manager and used to +making the most of everything.</p> + +<p>There is one sacrifice which, do we enter into this arrangement, I must +ask of you--that when we return to New York you give up your valet. For +more than one reason: I cannot have a spy upon the mode of life we are to +lead. I am foolishly sensitive of the position of a neglected wife, and I +feel assured your gentlemanly instincts will prevent your ever offering +any observable slight to the woman who bears your name. Besides, in the +apartments I propose our taking there will be no room for a man-servant, +and one of the maids connected with the house will be all the assistant I +shall require. When you are away on your frequent excursions to all parts +of the world it will be very easy to provide yourself a servant. Will you +try for a few weeks how well I can supply, or have the place supplied, of +this man, whom you intend in any case to dismiss? This is all. Next week, +the doctor thinks, you may be moved to a lounge, and perhaps the week +after be able to travel, or at farthest the week following.</p> + +<p>I acknowledge to the womanish feeling of being exultant at the idea of the +envy I shall awaken in the breasts of your adoring circle of lady +friends--my lady cousins among them--in having, spite of my +unattractiveness, secured the husband they have long striven by every wile +to win. Ah! they little know, and I trust never may, why I, without +seeking, have ensnared their <i>rara avis</i> to be my legal bondsman. Rather a +contradiction in terms!</p> + +<p>The pretty fiction of our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old +love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet +has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my +girlish dreams. So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have +written to my uncles and stated verbally to Mrs. Keller, stand; also, that +the undue haste was caused by your pressing need of me during your +accident. I think, indeed, from my cousin Harry's letter yesterday, and +one from Shelton last week, they have taken the idea that we have been +spending the summer together, and that you were following me home when you +were stayed in your mad career by a broken leg.</p> + +<p>I am done; are you not thankful? There have been some things in this +letter very hard to say, which, if I were braver or knew you better, I +should have liked to be more outspoken about. But enough has, I think, +been said to make you appreciate my earnest desires and my reasons for +them. I am most truly,</p> + +<p>PERCY.</p> + +<p>And he, prone upon his back this warm September day, read this long +epistle from his new wife, then laid it down and closing his eyes murmured +softly, "What a strange little puss it is!" Lying in the dim light her +hand had created for him, he thought of his own troubles and hers, just as +she had stated them. The blood would flush up to his brow as her cool +ignoring of his surpassing attractions, to which all other women accorded +their full meed of praise, rose up before him. He of whom it had been said +if he beckoned with his finger women left their duties, gave up their very +life to do his pleasure!--he to have the girl he had honored by making his +wife, a little brown woman, plain and almost <i>passé</i> (he was man enough +not to care for her poverty), show she cared no more for his love than he +did for hers I--was as indifferent to him as he to her! Indifference from +a woman was a new experience to him, and annoyed him.</p> + +<p>Yet her quaint, frank letter touched him. What did she mean by dying soon +and letting him be free again? Poor little midge! was she dying of a +broken heart because a treacherous woman had fooled her out of a part of +her life? Poor little robin! she was his wife now, and he could heal the +worst heartache in any woman's breast. He had tried that thing before, and +succeeded, even if he broke the heart afterward. Die, indeed! Not if he +knew it: even Death should not have a little woman he meant to be good to.</p> + +<p>And as he remembered all her faithfulness to him during these weary weeks +of pain, he thought, "By Jove! beauty's not all, for no woman, had her +face been like that of Phryne of Thebes, or her charms as entrancing as +the bewitching Dudu's, could have been more lovely in her kindness to me. +How brave and strong she has been! What a faithful little soul it is! +Always ready, day and night, to do just what I want done and in the way I +want it, never knocking things about or fidgeting round, but just +ready-handed, neat and bright. God knows, a handsome woman wouldn't have +risked the spoiling her beauty by all these weary, sleepless nights, +especially for a man she did not love." And then to think she was actually +willing to work and slave for him, and support him out of her share of the +booty, and let him fool away his own on other women! "Wonder what the +little dame means to buy her own fine things with, for even robins must +get clothing? I'll ask her that. Bless the little woman's soul! she makes +me think of her so much that I believe I'm half in love with her. Um!" and +he stopped: "I'm getting sentimental and poetic, I swear! But if it were +in me to love anything that was not beautiful, I believe I could love this +little girl, who has come into my life so strangely. She owns up to having +loved, and is done with all the stale farce. Some fools," and he felt very +indignant, "slighted her because she had no beauty, though, upon my soul, +now I think of it, I'm not so certain about that. There's a something in +her face takes a man's breath--something that one would rather die than +lose if he once loved it, and which once loved would be better than any +beauty. What's that Spenser says?--</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"><p> 'A sweet, attractive kind of grace,...<br /> + The lineaments of gospel books,'</p></blockquote> + +<p>That's just it: it's a look that makes one think about one's prayers, if +one only knew them. But whether the man slighted her or not, he missed +it--confound him!--in losing such a love. I'll make her tell me his name. +And as for being my sister, that's all nonsense, of course, as she's my +wife." Then more thoughtfully, "Well, maybe not: a household where there +is no love is cruel--I knew that in my early home--and children are a +beastly trouble, and as expensive as a man's wines. She's a brick, this +wife of mine, and as sensible as steel. I'll put myself in her hands for +better or for worse, I vow I will!</p> + +<p>"The jolly way she manged that Rollins affair was proof poz of her +ability. Her cool assumption of wifely dignity--her actually bringing them +up to see me without announcing their coming to me, and never letting them +have one bout at me, was beyond anything! It's like a dip in the sea to +recall it all. Her breezy voice coming in before them was all the warning +I had: 'Oh certainly, you can come up and look at him, but not talk to +him: he's nervous and feverish, and I cannot permit even such old friends +as you doubtless are to say anything to him. You know, of course, the +doctor thought he needed constant attention, and caused us to hurry our +marriage in a most Gretna-Green style; but I could not nurse him unless we +were married. And it did not matter so much, after all, since we had +loved'--and she hesitated with the prettiest affectation of having said +something she ought not--'we had cared for each other since we were quite +children. Ross's sister Bell was my school-friend.' Then she brought them +straight to the bed, and stooping down gave me the only kiss with which +she has honored me--her show kiss, I call it--saying, 'My darling' (how +soft she said it, too, with a little trilling cadence upon the sweet old +word!)--'My darling, you are not to speak, or even look, save this once: +now I must cover up my dearie's eyes;' and she laid her cool hand over my +eyes and held it there while they stayed. 'These are some kind New York +friends, Mr. Rollins and his good wife'--and a faint pressure on my face +emphasized the joke--'who are come to see you. I cannot understand all +they mean, except that you have been behaving badly, making these good +people's daughter believe you meant to marry her, when of course you were +only going to marry your little, ugly Percy. Oh, my bad boy, what shall I +ever do with you? Oh the hearts you have broken while you have been +waiting for me! Ah! dear, bad boy!'--and, as if overcome with tenderness, +she laid her cheek down on mine. I clasped my arms about her--the first +and last time I've had a chance, by George!--but she sprang away with a +laugh: 'No, you shall not be petted for being bad. Why, Ross, these dear +people came to take you and marry you to their beautiful daughter, for I +know she's a beauty, since her mother is still so handsome.'</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was gorgeous, to see the Rollins standing there in all her +Cleopatra-like splendor, utterly upset and put down by my little brown +berry! And the impossibility of correcting such a mistake without putting +herself in an absurd position actually stopped the Rollins speech, +and--Lord help me!--I thought that mouth could only be closed by bon-bons +and a man's kisses--any man's, <i>par exemple</i>. And her poor old catspaw of +a <i>pater</i> stood helpless before my little hurricane--a very reed shaken by +the wind. Then my sea-breeze spoke again: 'But the doctor will shed vials +of wrath upon me for letting you see strangers.' (It must have cut the +Rollins sore to be called a stranger to me!) 'But these kind friends could +not realize your being ill, so I was fain to let them see my Apollo in his +box; but we will go now if you please;' and she positively ushered them +out in wordless dismay, bidding them good-bye at once, and seeing them no +more. I thought she would have rushed back to laugh the scene over with +me, but that shows how little I know her. When, in the course of an hour, +she did come, it was with such an utter ignoring of having done a smart +thing, waving aside my admiration of her <i>finesse</i>, that I was taken +aback. She said sadly, 'I am unused to falsehood, and <i>finesse</i> of any +sort is distasteful to me. I quenched this woman this time, but, in spite +of her bad, hard face, I pity her very much. You, and such men as you, +have, I suppose, made her what she is, God help her!' So by this good +little girl's management I am rid of my troubles. I declare I'll do just +what she wishes, and be thankful my follies have worked me no more harm."</p> + +<p>Then he began to wish she'd come in, and to feel aggrieved and neglected +because she did not come--to feel an eager desire to see her and talk the +matter of the letter over with her. But he had read it through again twice +ere she appeared, and then, to his dismay, equipped for a journey, and +saying, in the most matter-of-fact, nonchalant manner possible, "Ross, +Mrs. Keller has come to say good-bye. I am going with her to Newport, +where she makes the only perilous part of the trip--the, to her, dreadful +change from cars to boat. So I shall be away all night, of course."</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Keller came forward with--"I hope you don't mind my taking her +off, Mr. Norval?"</p> + +<p>"But I do mind it deucedly, madam," he said. "Why, Percy, I don't like +your traveling alone this way at all. Why can't James go with Mrs. +Keller?"</p> + +<p>"Not for the world, Ross, thank you. I'm used to taking care of myself, +and of Mrs. Keller too, for that matter. I'm not much of a traveler, +because I have not had much of a chance--none, indeed, except what she's +given me--but somehow I always manage to come out right. You are very kind +to offer to spare James, but he's your necessity. I have told him about +the medicines, and how to loosen the bandages at night. So I expect to +find you better than usual when I get back. He knows your ways so much +better than I, and I sha'n't be here to interfere;" and she went about +arranging little matters as she spoke, and not looking at him.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Keller saw the look of annoyance upon his face, and said, "But, +Percy, Mr. Norval dislikes your going, and you're bound to stay."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Keller! Of course he don't care particularly, as I am +going to be away but one night, and he's got to spend all my life with +me;" and her face saddened, he thought. "I'm sure to come back to-morrow: +my cousin Shelton says, 'Percy always manages to be at hand when she's +wanted.' Am I to write to Harry that we will take the rooms? I must do it +at once, or he may let some one have them;" and she came and stood beside +him.</p> + +<p>He answered, sullenly, "Do just as you like about it: it's no concern of +mine."</p> + +<p>"Of course I shall do nothing of the kind. If you had liked the idea, been +very much pleased with it, it would have been different. I only threw out +the suggestion as a mere suggestion. But we will think of it no more." All +this in her quick, bright way, without a shade of annoyance visible, and +she began talking of something else as if the matter was settled: "The +hotel-keeper will put a sofa-bed into your dressing-room for me to-morrow, +so I shall be quite out of the way when your callers are here. I have told +them about bringing my trunk in there from Mrs. Keller's room: James will +attend to it all for me. So, as long as you are a 'prisoner of hope' in +here, I'll reign supreme in the dressing-room. Now say 'Good-bye,' Mrs. +Keller: James will put you in the coach while I finish my adieux."</p> + +<p>"But, Percy, you mistake," he said, quite humbly, when her old friend was +gone: "you do talk a fellow down so confoundedly," with a laugh. "I like +your idea about the rooms most heartily: indeed, I like all your ideas, +all your letter, except where you are so deucedly severe upon me; but even +that is true, and I like it when you tell me of it. I think your +management the best in everything, and I expect to be as happy as a king, +or rather a good subject, with my little queen to rule over me and keep me +in order in our new domain."</p> + +<p>She clasped her hands in a quick, passionate sort of way at his words, as +if they gave her a pang. He saw that, but her calm face and voice made him +half doubt if it meant anything. "Are you quite sure, or are you only +saying it because you think I have a wish to go there? I thought you did +not seem to like it just now, and indeed I do not care: I shall be quite +content with whatever you arrange when you are well."</p> + +<p>"No, Percy: write and say we will take the rooms from the time he leaves +them. I"--with a half-abashed laugh--"I was only cross because you are +going away. I shall miss you sorely, dear, and I'm sorry you're going and +are so glad to go--that's all."</p> + +<p>Her face turned crimson to the very temples, and she said, "I'm sorry I +made my arrangements without consulting you: I will not do so in future. I +did not think you would care one way or the other."</p> + +<p>"You've been so good to me, little one, and I'm so unused to being cared +for except as a society ornament, that I think I shall never be able to +get along without you again."</p> + +<p>Her eyes filled with tears which she would not let fall, and she said, +"You are very kind to say so: I will be more careful in future. But I must +go now." He waited in quite an eager expectancy to see if she would kiss +him. "Take good care of yourself, and be sure I shall come by the first +train;" and she started to leave the bedside.</p> + +<p>He caught her dress and drew her toward him, holding her hands: "Is that +all, Percy? Is there nothing else?"</p> + +<p>"I think not, Ross," she said, doubtingly, but coloring painfully.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me good-bye, Percy." She held down her face instantly, and when he +had kissed her, drew herself away without a word; but he clasped his arm +about her: "You have not kissed me after all, my darling."</p> + +<p>"My kisses are nothing worth now, Ross: their sweetness died out years +ago. Yours are good enough for both;" and she laughed and left him.</p> + +<p>He was bitterly chagrined: it seemed a little thing to make him feel so +mortified. That she should leave him willingly, that doing so she should +refuse to grant him so small a favor, when almost all other women--her own +pretty cousins among them--had denied nothing he chose to ask, it was +incomprehensible!</p> + +<p>"By Jove! I never cared so much for a little thing in my life as her +leaving me and not caring to kiss me. I swear, I'm a perfect baby about +her! Little, truthful, honest soul! I believe she could make another +creature of me if she cared enough for me to try. There is something +restful in truth and honest purity, after all: one feels safe, and +grounded on a sure place. It's good to have a little fairy lying close in +one's bosom; and I vow I'll have my little brownie there yet, though I +have to go as suitor on a regular courting expedition to my own wife +before I win her heart. Curse this old lover of hers, who bars her heart +against me! And curse my own past follies, which make a good woman fear to +trust me! Marriage is a sell generally, even when a vast amount of +so-called love is brought to the sacrificial altar; so perhaps I shall not +make a bad thing of it if I win my wife's heart after she knows me <i>au +fond</i>, instead of in the glamour of gas-light flirtations. Poor little +heart! What a pitiful story it is! How quaintly she writes her pathetic, +desolate history! What a ready pen the little woman holds!" and he took +out her letter again. "I declare, the child has better attractions than +beauty--a lovely, faithful soul."</p> + +<p>But though he was tender of her in his thoughts, he was a hard master that +night: everything went wrong, nothing pleased or contented him, and the +sullen, much-tried servant at last announced that with the morning he +would leave his master to his own devices.</p> + +<p>"Go, and be damned to you!" was the savage reply; and the man took him at +his word, decamping, after making a few necessary arrangements, as soon +after breakfast as he could.</p> + +<p>"And I have been as good to that fellow the year he has lived with me as I +could," thought Ross Norval as hour after hour he lay alone wanting +everything--water, the papers, a handkerchief. There was nothing he did +not want, and he could reach nothing but those nauseous medicines. +"Service cannot be bought: in very truth, love and patience must be a free +gift. However, now even love and patience seem to have fled from me. I +want my wife--I want her awfully."</p> + +<p>Percy, with her sad little heart lying as heavy as a plummet in her +breast, was just as bright and useful and entertaining to her cranky old +friend as if life was a boon instead of a bane to her. You know from her +letter how bitter life was to her; and I think if you have ever known +sorrow and a great disappointment, you will comprehend how it was possible +for her, with the fear of God before her, and a desire to be His faithful +child, to make this match for herself. Anything was better than the dull +stagnation into which she had fallen: she had felt this year, unless some +great change came to her to take her out of this weary groove in which she +was set, she must go melancholy mad. She had laid out a hundred schemes, +all of them, she knew, impracticable; and now, in a strange, providential +way, this chance to change every thought and action of her whole life had +come to her. Do you wonder much she accepted it? I think it was not +strange.</p> + +<p>That night after his offer (the night she had asked for in which to +decide, although she said to herself, with a bitter little shrug as she +made the request, "A woman who hesitates is lost"), as she lay awake +pondering the whole matter, she thought: "It can't be worse than it is, +and it won't be very long either way, I think. I can be faithful to him, +make and mend, dig and delve, if needs be, for his benefit, in return for +the honor he does me in giving me his name and protection. I shall expect +nothing, literally nothing, from him that wives usually demand. I, who +have borne for years with the caprice of school-girls, can surely bear the +humors of one man, especially when his name shields me from other sorts of +ills. I have rather plumed myself these last few months upon having +learned the depth of meaning and force of truth there is in that +expression from <i>Sartor Resartus</i> I used to think so wicked: 'Say to +happiness, I can do without you--in self-renunciation life begins,' I can +try it now. I need not be a spaniel or fawn upon my lord, and yet I can +obey and honor, if he will let me, this man to whom I shall vow myself for +life. For life! Can I endure it all the years I may have to live an +unloved wife--so near and yet so far from him to whom I am bound? Will it +not be a death in life? Will it be better than this dead, cold monotony I +now bear? Better or worse? Ah, there's the rub! I can never hope to win +his faithful, abiding love. Even did use make me acceptable to him, I +could not trust its continuance. And yet who knows whether, if I try to +keep a pure life and an honest purpose to walk before him worthily every +day, I may not win from him at last a sort of respect and friendship that +will be next to love? I will some time let him know of the friends my +literary efforts have brought me. I know he will be proud of the judgment +that scholarly men, whose opinions he honors, have placed upon the +heirloom of intellectual ability that has been my sole dower from my dear +father and his learned ancestors. And when I am Ross Norval's wife I will +reveal myself to these letter-friends of my inner life, and, meeting them +no longer in the spirit only, let them see eye to eye their hidden sister, +their 'nebulous child,' as they have half playfully, half angrily, called +me. A husband's hand shall rive the rock in which their crystal has been +for years embedded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, I shall be glad to come to my inheritance through you; to +gather my band of chosen ones into my actual, as I have long held them in +my inner, life; to know those at last whom my unprotected woman's state +has hitherto forbidden me to know. And if I take him, if I give myself to +him, I shall at last have the desire of my life. Ah, Ross! you will never +know that your boyish flattering, which meant nothing to you, and should +have meant nothing to me, did really mean so much that it simply broke my +heart, leaving me at sixteen so utterly incapable of loving any man but +yourself that since then no hand has ever touched the seal which closed +the fountain of love and passion in my heart for ever. Ah! I wonder what +penalty there is for those who carelessly destroy our hopes and blot out +all possibilities of love from us? What would you say, Ross Norval, if you +knew that the last kiss I ever gave to any man was given you that cold, +dark day they buried my father? You came with a note from Bell--she was +dying, she said; after to-day no one but her family would be admitted to +her: would I come and say good-bye to her, even from my father's grave? I +went with you, and stayed an hour with her. Then you brought me, more dead +than alive, back to my desolate home, and taking me in your arms carried +me from the carriage to my bed. As you laid me down you said, 'My sister's +little friend, I am glad to have seen you once again. Bell tells me all +these years I have been absent you have been pleasant friends to each +other. You are dear and sweet because she loved you. I shall never see you +again perhaps, for when she dies I shall have no ties here and shall go +elsewhere. Kiss me good-bye,' and I did.</p> + +<p>"For a year after that I was alone: then Esther Hooper came, and I was not +wretched. I have had my share of lovers and friends--what girl has +not?--have had rare treats of music, of books and paintings, and shared +their pleasant harmonies with an appreciative soul; and I have been very +contented.</p> + +<p>"But now I am desolate again, and out of the darkness you have come and +beckoned me to follow you and stand near you all the rest of my life. It +will be happiness enough, as much as is good for me, to live with you, +even if I am nothing to you, for, oh, I love you very faithfully!"</p> + +<p>And so, you know, they were married, with only the doctor and Mrs. Keller +to witness the ceremony; and at once, with her little decided way, the +sort of certainty that years of self-dependence give, she became his +nurse, attending to him as persistently and indefatigably as if the sole +purpose for which she had been born was that. From the first service she +rendered him--bathing his head and face through an intense August day with +iced water delicately perfumed, arranging the curtains so that the air, +when there was a breeze, blew freely to him, though the glare of the sun +was gone, and his room in dim, soothing shadow--she seemed a blessing to +him. Some hours after she came with her bright, quick ways, arranging his +disordered room, bringing order out of chaos on his dressing-table, never +peeping into things, and yet getting them into beautiful order, and, +wonderful to relate, keeping them so: the air seemed to grow cooler, his +medicine less bitter, the time shorter, and his broken leg and weary back +to ache less acutely.</p> + +<p>One day she said in a shy way, "Mr. Norval, if you will let James lay out +your things, I will see what mending they need, and will sit here and do +them, so you sha'n't spend so many hours alone. Mrs. Keller has made some +friends in the house, and they kindly sit with her so much that she does +not need me."</p> + +<p>"But, Percy, what's the use of James having a hand in it? Here are my +keys," with a laugh as he handed them to her: "you know they are a part of +the worldly goods with which I did thee endow; and the keys always belong +to the female department by right, don't they?"</p> + +<p>She took them with a vivid blush. "Shall I look over your trunks and +bureau, then?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, while I go to sleep and dream what a jolly thing it is to have +you here." Then, pretending to sleep, he watched her with careful hands +examine his belongings, with a contemptuous little smile at this piece of +bungling mending or an anxious frown over that frayed place. Then how +neatly she folded and laid back all the good, and seated herself with a +pile before her and began to sew! When he opened his eyes she handed him +the keys.</p> + +<p>"No, Percy, keep them: I make all right and title to them over to you," he +said.</p> + +<p>From that day he seemed to feel delight in her companionship, reading to +her hour after hour while she sewed, always choosing some poetical or +light bit of reading--"To suit my capacity," she thought.</p> + +<p>So they had gone on week after week--with the single exception of the +Rollins episode--without any change. He was a rare favorite in society, +and every day received a host of calls from gentlemen, baskets of fruits +and flowers from ladies. Always, when a card was sent up, she would gather +all her womanish "traps" together and go to Mrs. Keller--this, too, in +spite of his earnest invitation to her to remain.</p> + +<p>"No: you can have a pleasanter call with no ladies present, and Mrs. +Keller needs me. I'll be back in time for your medicine."</p> + +<p>Once or twice some one, more intimate or free than usual, would run up +unannounced and catch her there. Her acceptation of the situation was, he +thought, perfect. Without a shadow of embarrassment she acknowledged the +introduction, "My wife," did the honors of the occasion, said a few words +regarding his state, and with some such words as "I will be back in an +hour or so, Ross," would leave the room.</p> + +<p>Thus he was utterly unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was +capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he +could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most +society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular +woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant +conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an +intelligent thinker for a woman, he did not dream.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the mere having her about him day after day, with her dainty +little ways, grew to be a pleasure to him: the making her grave little +face, with its haunting look of sorrow, break into smiles, the light come +into her soft gray eyes, became a real delight to him. Then the color +flushed over her cheek at his lightest word, and he found a real interest +in watching it glow and fade from her pale face.</p> + +<p>"She's the sort of <i>brune</i> that colors well," he thought. "Old Sir John's +fancy of--</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"><p> 'Her cheek was like a Cathrine pear,<br /> + The side that's next the sun'--</p></blockquote> + +<p>suits her exactly. And her hair, with the glint of gold in the chestnut +hue, would be a glory in a beautiful woman. Every motion of her heart +shows in her face. She'd never make a woman of the world: she cannot hide +her feelings, but lets one read them like an open book." Which was all he +knew about it, since, spite of her treacherous color, those years of hard +duty had trained her into the most perfect self-control on all needful and +great occasions and matters.</p> + +<p>How he missed her light step! how he had wanted her all these two days! +for, though it was scarcely past noon, and she had gone late the day +before, he was sure it was that--"And seems like six, by George!" But, as +he lay feverish and famished for a drink, a very ill-used man, she opened +the door, and the air seemed lightened of its troubles at once.</p> +</div> + +<div class="chapter" id="st01-ch02"> +<h3>Part II.</h3> + + +<p>"Shall we go to Niagara for our wedding-trip?" Mr. Norval asked when the +doctor had taken his last fee, pronouncing his patient cured.</p> + +<p>"Unless you care particularly about it, I would rather go straight to New +York. I have canceled all my school-engagements by letter, having taken a +new service"--and she bowed to him--"and Mrs. Keller promised to see to my +little rooms and their belongings; but I should like to see Harry before +he sails."</p> + +<p>"Want to make him promise to be a good boy while he's away?" said he with +a smile.</p> + +<p>"Something like it," she answered, laughingly. "But Harry's not a bad +fellow, at all."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, let's start for home to-morrow;" and they made their +arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an +unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel +to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in +Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a +large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther +Hooper. He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and +the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not +being her heart's choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea +gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all.</p> + +<p>As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put +his arm around her, saying, "I've been very happy, little wife, here with +you. Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw +you?"</p> + +<p>"I have had no cause to regret it," she said quietly.</p> + +<p>"But you are not glad," he said, taking his arm away.</p> + +<p>"As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything--more glad than I am for most +things."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with a sigh. "My father--and I am like him--loved only +once." Her words came constantly into his mind. "I came too late," he +thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and +pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other +earthly thing he had ever known. He had left her side, and was standing +looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to +breakfast. After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head +against his arm. He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice +of the action. She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her +hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, "Dear Ross, I <i>am</i> glad: I am +happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be. I would not undo the +deed we have done so long as you are content. I like being with you +dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your +wife--your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good."</p> + +<p>"My Preciosa"--and he drew her into his arms--"so long as we both shall +live, you mean. I want no life without you now." Then turning her, face +up, he scanned it hastily: "You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale! Are +you ill, my Percy?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said quickly. "I think I need my breakfast: I have been up a +couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night."</p> + +<p>"My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of +ours, perhaps you'll get some rest. But you talk in this strange way of +dying: just now you did, and once before in your letter. What makes you do +it? Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing--only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled +and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death +as a boon which God would send me soon."</p> + +<p>"But you do not now?--you don't want to die and leave me desolate?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear! indeed, no! though I don't think you'd care really." He clasped +her in a closer embrace and kissed her reproachfully. "Well, yes, just at +first, perhaps. Yet so long as you want me, I want to stay and be your +willing, working wife. I've got a new reason and aim now: I have you, dear +old Ross."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Percy, I <i>do</i> care. God knows even the thought of it gives me a +bitter agony, I know you cannot trust me yet, because I married you so +carelessly, and because you think I can't be true to one woman with my +battered old heart. But that's because you judge me by what my long, +unloved life has made me. No good woman ever made me love her before. I +never knew how beautiful a pure life was, my darling, until I knew it +through watching yours. When I think of all you have saved me from, which +would have caused my undying gratitude had I learned to hate you--as if I +ever could!" and he paused to kiss her--"when I think of all the new and +better hopes you have awakened in my heart, I feel--God knows I do--as if +He had sent my angel, and let her drag me out of a hell into which I was +plunged, and year after year sinking deeper. Stay with me, dear: I will be +true. I never cared for any woman in the way--in the deep, absorbing +way--I do for you. I wish you would believe me."</p> + +<p>"I do, Ross--you are so good to me, so good! Oh, Ross, Ross!" and she held +up her face to his, "you are so good to me!" She clung to him one moment, +then suddenly, as soon as she could trust her voice, said gayly, "But it's +breakfast-time, and your wife is so unromantically hungry;" and with a +sigh that nothing more ever came of their talks he took her down.</p> + +<p>When they reached New York the next afternoon, they drove at once to the +rooms they had engaged. Percy's cousin, Harry Barton, was there to welcome +them, having come round from his hotel for the purpose.</p> + +<p>"Why, Norval," said he--they were old acquaintances--"you've won our bone +of contention, after all. I wonder what we shall do, now that Percy's +safely landed out of our reach? You're a brave man to dare our rage."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Harry!" said Percy, putting her hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"I won't, dear, if you say not;" and he covered her hand with his own. "I +always did do your lightest bidding, little girl, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you're a dear old cousin. Ross knows how much I appreciate your +kindness to me always. Why, I gave up what he calls my 'bridal tour,' +partly because I wanted to come back and say 'good-bye' to you."</p> + +<p>His face flushed crimson at her words, and, all his careless, fashionable +manner gone, he said, "Did you, Percy? You always were good."</p> + +<p>"That, and because--because I shall be so sorry if you join this African +expedition."</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me not to, Percy--don't ask me to stay now you have broken my +hope for ever. I shall go to the dogs, dear, if I stay here now."</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to, Harry. Only your mother is so delicate and getting +old, and she loves you beyond all the rest of the world, though you think +she don't because she has been cruel to me. It will break her heart if you +join this dangerous enterprise. Stay in Europe, go to Heidelberg and +finish the course you so foolishly broke up. They'll blame me, Harry, for +all the evil that comes to you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll think about it, dear." Then to Ross; "Does she kiss you, +Norval?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a +surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess +she did not.</p> + +<p>"Nor let you kiss her, either?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," with a laugh. "She can't very well help that, you know."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe it: if she didn't want you to, you'd never kiss her, I +know. Why, we three cousins, Sheldon, Mac and I, have tried every way to +get her to kiss us for years, and never succeeded. You're a lucky dog!"</p> + +<p>"He's my husband, Harry;" and she laid her head down on Ross's arm.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Percy!" said her cousin with a quick motion of his hand: "I'll be +gone soon;" then hurriedly and gayly: "Let me do the honors of your new +domains. And, Norval, I have a great favor to ask of you. My little +cousin's <i>amour propre</i> won't be touched, or herself involved now she's a +married woman, by taking an honest gift from me, and all brides take +bridal gifts, you know. I want you to let me give her all the traps I've +left in the rooms. It isn't much grace to ask, old fellow, seeing you're +to have her always and I not at all."</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly, Barton, I have no objections if she has none."</p> + +<p>"Percy, you've never let me give you anything all these years, you proud +little soul, nor any of the rest of us: you've come scot-free from all our +endeavors to snare you through all your hard-working life. You won't go +quite empty-handed to your husband's arms, just to plague me, will you?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them +once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they +began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole +suite!"</p> + +<p>"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you +Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines +among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?"</p> + +<p>As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had +regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little +reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about +him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying, +"May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered +her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!"</p> + +<p>As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old +Hal--promise me this!"</p> + +<p>"Anything, everything, Percy," he said.</p> + +<p>"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg."</p> + +<p>"I will, I will, since you wish it."</p> + +<p>She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet +kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!"</p> + +<p>He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace, +then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of +the house without a word.</p> + +<p>Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for +him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?"</p> + +<p>"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his +life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave +him reason."</p> + +<p>"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and +handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it, +child."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed +her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think, +and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an +instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one +half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should +have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking +laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of +opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light manner gone, she +added: "You are very, very good to me, Ross. He would never have been so +patient of my old griefs and lost loves. I told you my masculine cousins +were always crying for the grapes that hung out of their reach, you know." +Then suddenly growing grave: "Oh, Ross, it was not my fault: I could not +help it. I think the boys got to pitying me because they thought my life +was hard, and because their sisters treated me very cruelly sometimes. +Then my uncles very foolishly ordained that I should teach their sons +their Latin and help them with their studies. So out of school-hours my +time was mostly spent with one or the other, or all of them. Sheldon +Wilber and I are of the same age, and having been my father's constant +companion, I was better up in all his studies than he was himself; so I +used to do his college lessons with him, until he got to thinking, as he +used to say, I was his very breath. Then afterward I gave the other two +the benefit of what we had studied, got them out of scrapes, and indeed, +being with them so much, kept them out. Don't let's talk about them any +more, Ross: I have 'fessed' all now."</p> + +<p>"Not all, my sweet: you have not told me who it is that has shut your +heart from us all."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Ross!" and she shrank away from him as if he had struck her a +blow.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, my wife, keep your secret: I'll not touch your sacred past. +I'll try to learn to be content with my little sister, thankful I have so +much."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, my good, kind Ross!" and she clasped her arms around his neck +in passionate, longing regret, "if I might tell you all--if I might!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me nothing, dear, you would rather keep. I am infinitely content to +even have you thus, and know you love me somewhat. Yes, I know, sweet," he +said with a sad smile as she kissed his hand in passionate regret--"the +very best you can, with all the heart you have. I know, I know!"</p> + +<p>Quite late in the evening, Sheldon Wilber came. After sitting an hour or +so, talking gayly, he rose to go. When they were standing he said, "Percy, +I had just left the Flemmings before I came in here."</p> + +<p>"Had you? I hope they are all well, especially Miss Lizzie, who is so +pretty."</p> + +<p>"They're all well enough. She--Miss Lizzie the pretty--is going to be +married."</p> + +<p>"To be married!--to whom?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"To my honorable self: don't you congratulate her?"--with a bitter laugh. +"I asked her to-night if she'd have me, and she said 'Yes.'"</p> + +<p>"I am so glad, Sheldon--so very glad!" and she held out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Are you? It's more than anyone else is but my mother. Well, no--I suppose +the Flemmings are, to get another daughter off their hands, and she to +have a safe man to pay her bills. And of course all our cousins and +sisters will be glad to have another house to dance the German in; so it +is rather a jubilee occasion, taking it all in all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sheldon, how hard and bitter you are! She loves you, I know, and the +rest think you will be happier with a good wife to care for."</p> + +<p>"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but <i>vive +la bagatelle!</i> I want to know when I am to tie this knot?"</p> + +<p>"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered.</p> + +<p>"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when <i>I</i> choose."</p> + +<p>Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife, +and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her."</p> + +<p>He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by +letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know +you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of +us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old +fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will +make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the +little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with +you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe +will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll +never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow +took himself away.</p> + +<p>"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was +conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman +would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women. +And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one +choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a +second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you."</p> + +<p>She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate +from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said +hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly. +If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's +early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere, +because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first. +It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to +go anywhere where you are not."</p> + +<p>"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go +to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I +feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm +unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home +with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this +talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and +her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep +from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed +emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs, +while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross! +please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove +by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at +length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had +appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as +a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist +his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them.</p> + +<p>The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an +agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many +hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as +a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines, +and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found +Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table +exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling +in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and +the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly +air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery.</p> + +<p>"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps +house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are +nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss +as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of +linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous +manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old +place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know, +Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's +housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old +mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and +visit me."</p> + +<p>Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair +which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire," +she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the +look upon his face and came to his side. "What were you thinking of, +Ross?" she asked, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"What a little tornado you were, for the first thing, and how I liked +seeing you busy among our household gods; also and moreover, that you had +not given me a chance to say a word; and worst of all, that you had never +given me my kiss of welcome, my rightful perquisite." Instantly she held +up her face. "Ah, pet, you are always submissive; but never aggressive: +still, this is sweet. And I was wondering what had become of the weeping +willow I left."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't I a silly goose, Ross?" she said, a little breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Well, no, dear: you were very nervous and worn-out."</p> + +<p>"I hate nervous, fidgety women so: they're detestable with their whims."</p> + +<p>"I did not find you so, but I'm glad you're over it, all the same."</p> + +<p>"And so am I. You could not make me cry like that again, Ross, if you were +to pinch me."</p> + +<p>"But I did not make you cry."</p> + +<p>"Yes you did, though. In truth, I was unstrung, and you were so kind and +unlike what any one had ever been to me before, so different from what I +had expected when we were married "--and her lips quivered--"that it +touched me to the quick."</p> + +<p>"Why, darling, did you think I was going to be a brute to you?"</p> + +<p>"I thought you would be nothing to me, one way or the other--simply forget +me, and be utterly indifferent so long as I kept your clothes made and +mended, and did not bother you about my wants or tastes or opinions."</p> + +<p>A flush came over his face at the truth of her words. It would have been +just so had he found her what he expected her to be; but he said, "I don't +think any one could treat you like that, little girl." Then, while they +ate their dinner, he told her of his day's doings and of his determination +for the future: "I have a good opening--no man better. I mean to attend to +my practice hereafter, make a name and fortune for my sweetheart, and in a +few years we'll go to Europe and see the sights. Ah, Percy, such a vista, +such a new life, such a bright future, as I see opening before me! But, +first of all, I am going shopping with you, young lady, to-morrow. I have +ordered a carriage at eleven, and we'll buy all those pretty fixings you +women doat on. Do you know, little bride, I think all my vanity is going +to take the form of having you more prettily dressed than your cousins, +mine ancient flames when I was a bad boy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross," with a little laugh, "you can't do it: you can't make a rival +specimen out of your bad bargain. Nothing will make me a beauty."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Percy! I do like beauty. I have run after and made a fool of +myself for years over pretty women, but I like your face, just as it is, +better than any other woman's face I ever knew. If I could change you any +way, I would not do it. Your face is beautiful to me, though I know it is +not a pretty one: you are like sunlight to me." His voice shook, and he +strained her slight form to him with a clasp that was positive pain. "I +said I would not change you, but I would if I might put that old love out +of your heart for ever. Why, in those far-off years when we were childish +friends, did I not know my truest life lay in winning you? It is strange! +I have never failed to gain the love I wanted until now, when I want the +only one that would complete my life. Dear Percy, love me all you can. If +there are things in me--and I know there are many--which turn you from me, +tell me of them and I will change them if I can."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, don't, don't! I am not worthy of such words."</p> + +<p>"Oh, little Preciosa, I am glad to have even a little of your heart: the +half of your love has come to be more to me than the love of all the world +besides."</p> + +<p>Do you think it was not agony for her to hear such words as these and make +no response to them, fearing lest with assurance should come satiety? And +yet the knowledge of his growing love was very sweet to her, and worth the +agony.</p> + +<p>They settled down in their new home, and were purposely "out" to all +callers during the next month--then returned the cards that had been left +for them. As they grew accustomed to their new life, she thought to see +his pleasure and interest in it wane as the novelty wore away, but it was +not so. That love of home which is, after all, the truest test of a really +manly nature, seemed to grow upon him. It was always so bright and cheery +by their cozy fire, the glare of public rooms, the noise and glitter of +theatres and concert-rooms, struck him with a feeling akin to disgust, +after the soft, subdued light of his home, and his wife's merry, breezy +voice. He sang and played for her, never giving a thought to her having +any musical ability, since she never touched the instrument. He read to +her hour after hour, having at last discovered her taste and ability to +understand the kind of books he relished, perfectly content if she would +favor him by sitting near enough to him to let him pull down that wealth +of "tresses brown," a glossy cloud about her.</p> + +<p>Of course this Arcadian life could not continue in the very heart of +Sodom. Society was not going to lose Ross Norval if he <i>had</i> made a fool +of himself and married a little nobody. So callers flowed in upon them, +and Ross, having in boyish glee arrayed himself in purple and fine linen, +took her in state to see his friends.</p> + +<p>Of course her cousins and their friends hated her: she had won their +<i>bonne louche</i>, and the crimson of her plainness and poverty, of the +having to "have Percy always around to please Uncle Rufus," was pink to +the enormity of her being Ross Norval's wife. And "why he married her," +and "of course he's dead tired of her by this time," were their politest +surmises.</p> + +<p>One morning they paid a cousinly visit--a triple call. "And, by Jove!" +thought Ross as he watched her haughty little face and <i>nonchalant</i> +manner, "she's no milk-and-water nature, though she's always so +sweet-tempered with me. She's got all the temper a true nature ought to +have."</p> + +<p>"To think of your ever getting married, Percy, and to Mr. Norval, of all +men!" said Miss Leta Wilber. "Why, we thought him engaged to the beauty +and belle of last winter, Miss Agnes Lorton."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, Leta, old girls like you and I are rather off the cards: we +don't expect to catch the prizes generally--we leave that for these +younger ones, like Jennie and Lucille," said Percy, coolly.</p> + +<p>"A Roland for your Oliver, Leta!" laughed Jennie Wayne. "I never venture +to break a lance with Percy: she always has an arrow in reserve to pierce +you with. I suppose you've found that out, Mr. Norval?"</p> + +<p>"Found what out? I fear I don't follow you, Miss Jennie," said he.</p> + +<p>"That she's very able to take her own part, this little cousin of ours," +said she, her beautiful face scarlet at his manner.</p> + +<p>"Is she, though? Well, I like that amazingly, do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Like ill-tempered people?" said Miss Leta, snappishly. "Is it possible?"</p> + +<p>"Ill-tempered people?" with a wellbred stare. (Is there such a thing?) +"No, indeed! Why, birdie"--and he leaned over, and, taking her hand, +raised it to his lips--"to think of any one calling you ill-tempered!"</p> + +<p>"You silly boy!" laughed she. "I'll take my hand if you please, and don't +you believe but what you've married a termagant."</p> + +<p>The girls said afterward, in recounting the scene, it was simply +disgusting. Leta vowed, "The little baggage must be a witch and throw +spells over people. Look what fools she's made of our boys for years, and +Ross Norval, with all his splendid endowments, is just as bad."</p> + +<p>"And he did use to admire your form, Leta," said Jennie, maliciously. +"I've seen him waltz you until it was hard to tell which face that long +blonde moustache belonged to."</p> + +<p>"Ditto, cousin, and worse, if gossips speak the truth. But don't let's say +ugly things to each other. We both hoped to win him once, and we have both +lost him. The little wretch will watch him like a hawk, and never let him +come near a body."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" said her sister Laura, "if I only knew I was to do a German +with him to-night, I'd be happy: he holds one better than any man I know; +and if Percy will let him dance with a body occasionally, I'd as leave she +should have him as the rest of you."</p> + +<p>"Unless he'd chosen yourself, Laura, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, that would have made a difference, even to my laziness, +especially if she'd have made dear old Harry stay at home by marrying +him."</p> + +<p>That's the way they talked, yet in a couple of weeks after each house had +sent her an invitation to a large party--"for you and Mr. Norval, dear +Percy"--and the invitation-cards stated the fact.</p> + +<p>"It's my Viking they want," laughed she: "they take his mouse in for the +sake of securing him. He's such a credit to the family!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's your Viking they won't get," said he.</p> + +<p>"Now, Ross, don't be a bother, dear, and complicate matters. They will +say--and be glad of the chance--that it's my fault. You've such a passion +for dancing, they will say I prevented your coming. And besides, as I +dance so little, you'll ask them as much as ever?"</p> + +<p>"How do you know I am so fond of it, Percy?"</p> + +<p>"I've watched you too many years not to know that. You forget that, though +a flower unnoticed and unseen--a very wall-flower in fact--I have been a +looker-on in Vienna. I might have made a point of that, Ross, if I'd +thought in time, and 'hung i' the walls of Venice, a sightly flower.' You +were the bright particular star, or sun, in whose light all the fairest +flowers disported themselves. Why, I could tell you every woman--that is, +of your own set--you've been what Jennie calls 'bad about,' for years." He +held up his hand deprecatingly: she laughed gayly. "Never fear. I don't +intend to name them: I have not time to go over such a thing of shreds and +patches. Ah! the hopes I've watched you raise to heaven and then dash to +earth!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Percy, I don't wonder that you are afraid to trust me now: I am +paying the penalty of my years of folly."</p> + +<p>"That's nonsense, Ross. I don't believe in fashionable women's hearts. You +were too good for them, and they led you on always," she said, almost +passionately.</p> + +<p>"That's my good darling trying to excuse her sinner. But how was it you +never danced at any of those parties? Harry and Mac are both good dancers, +and Sheldon's the best waltzer I ever saw. How is it you never danced with +them?"</p> + +<p>"With them, indeed! Why, that would have been an aggravation past enduring +to my rich relations. Sheldon had actually the insolence to tell his +sister Leta that I was the best waltzer in society. Think of the prize +you've got, young man!"</p> + +<p>"I do always, sweetheart," he said, answering her gay tone with a grave +one. "Did you waltz much with Sheldon and the others?"</p> + +<p>"I never waltzed with any of them in my life. Why, Ross, I never let them +speak to me at parties, except by turns to take me out to supper and +home."</p> + +<p>"But how have you managed to keep up your waltzing then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Vanity, men are not all. Esther and I waltzed constantly: then I +used to help Lucille, who is my favorite cousin, 'along in her paces;' and +the children at our school-parties doat on me as a partner. Would you like +to know who was the last man, and indeed almost the only one, I ever went +round a room with?" and her face turned crimson, though she laughed.</p> + +<p>"Indeed I should--curse him!" he said under his breath.</p> + +<p>"Your honorable self, at Madame's school-party;" and she sprang away from +his outstretched hands with a mocking laugh.</p> + +<p>The day of the party she wrote a few little violet-perfumed notes, and +sent them off. This is a specimen:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "DEAR DOCTOR: You have so often wanted to know your 'nebulous child,' + and been indignant that she hid her face from you behind her veil of + clouds, you will be pleased to know that the sunshine has dispelled the + clouds, and made her at last able to meet the starry train of which you + are the sun. Will you greet Ross Norval's bride at the Wilber party + to-night as the child you have trained and been so good to in the past, + and who, ever honoring you, is still your loving child for the future? + If you'll ask me prettily to-night, I'll sing the foolish words I made + for the sweet, tripping Languedoc air you sent me last year. I am, now + and ever,</p> + +<p> "MIRA CANAM."</p></blockquote> + +<p>In consequence of these notes, when Ross led his wife into the room, +arrayed in a crimson cloud of his choosing, which made even her brown face +a picture, all her bronze hair, her husband's glory, floating round her +far below her waist, confined lightly here and there by diamond clusters, +which sparkled like stars amidst its creped luxuriance--"Daring to dress +in the very height of the fashion," said Leta, "and all those diamonds on +her--his mother's, of course;" and of course they were--the consequence, I +say, was, that first one distinguished man and then another met her with a +warm greeting--"deucedly warm," thought the jealous fellow, who was so +uncertain of her yet, and wanted all of her--and were introduced to "my +husband." Taking for granted that "my husband" was glad to get her off his +hands, they took possession of her, to his infinite disgust.</p> + +<p>These were the men with whom she could talk, whose minds struck diamond +flashes from her own, whose thoughts she had followed for years, and who +looked upon her as their peer, and deferred to her opinion on many things. +And she, knowing Ross was her amazed listener, was stirred to do her best +before him--glad her triumph over her relatives should be in his presence +and brought to her through his means. It may not have been a lovely thing +in her to desire or enjoy a victory, but ah! it is so natural, and my +little heroine had had hard lines meted out to her for years. Besides, no +woman is free, you know, from vanity: only men are that.</p> + +<p>She stood near the door of the dancing-room. Ross came to her after every +dance, but it was always, "Not me yet, Ross--Leta, or Jennie," or whoever +stood nearest her. Even the girl to whom report had given him (with +reason) the year before was, at her open entreaty, which he could not +evade, his partner; but half the time he stood beside her, forgetful of +the dance in listening to the conversation in which she bore so large a +part.</p> + +<p>A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing +hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last +waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor, +who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss +Jennie Barton and her cousin Laura gave a sweet duo, in rather a tearing +style, Jennie being a fast young lady everyhow; another lady sang a +Scottish ballad as if it had been manipulated by Verdi; then one of the +gentlemen said, "Mr. Norval, I hope you will lay your commands on your +wife to sing for us."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> hope that will not be needed," he said, bowing (thinking with a pang, +"They all know her better than I do"). "I am sure she will do equally well +if we all beg the favor of her."</p> + +<p>"She has promised me to sing," said Dr. B----, "my pretty Languedoc air, +which she has--"</p> + +<p>"Now that's enough, you foolish old doctor!" and she went to the piano. +"Foolish old doctor!" He was the great gun of the scientific world: the +people about looked aghast at such impertinence, but the "great gun" only +laughed and said, "I am mute if you command."</p> + +<p>How her hands trembled as she began! This was her last and greatest card: +by it she had always felt she must hold him to her for ever, or lose her +husband's love in time. She had never touched the piano before him or sung +a note, but much of her leisure since their return to New York had been +taken up, when he was out, in keeping herself in practice against the time +when she should have a chance to play for him and sing to him. She played +the sweet air, with its Mozart-like, mournful cadences, entirely through +ere she felt nerved enough to begin. Then she sang in such a voice as made +the most indifferent pause--a voice that was like purple velvet for +richness, as sweet as the breath of an heliotrope to which the sun had +just said adieu, as clear as the notes of an English skylark--this little +song:</p> + +<blockquote><p> "See, love! the rosy radiance gleams<br /> +Athwart the sunset sky:<br /> +List, love! and hear the bird's sweet notes<br /> +In lingering cadence die.<br /> +Clasp, love, thy clinging hands in mine,<br /> +And, holding fast by me,<br /> +Trust, love! I will be true, my dove,<br /> +Be ever true to thee--<br /> +So true, sweetheart, I'll be,<br /> +Sweetheart, to thee!</p> + +<p>"Come, love! I waiting pine so long,<br /> +And weary watch for thee:<br /> +Dear love! amidst my darkest night<br /> +Thy star-like face I see.<br /> +Heart's love! ah, come thou close to me:<br /> +I'll shelter thee from harms,<br /> +From every foe or secret woe,<br /> +Close clasped within my arms:<br /> +Lie safe from all alarms,<br /> +Sweetheart, with me."</p></blockquote> + +<p>While they listened to her, those careless men and women, they thought +they began to understand why this little, plain girl had won Ross Norval. +While everybody praised her, he stood utterly silent, too moved for words +she saw, and refusing to sing again, she went up to him as the band began +to play. "My waltz, Ross," she said. He put his arm around her with a +loving gesture that made those about them smile, and whirled her off.</p> + +<p>"He's the hardest hit man I've seen for years," said one.</p> + +<p>"And that such a thing should come to pass, as Ross Norval in love with +his own wife, is beyond belief--after making love to everybody else's!"</p> + +<p>"That's it! He was always the darling of fortune: the choicest fruit +always dropped his side the wall."</p> + +<p>But Ross, as he held her in that "tight hold" which was so much admired by +his partners, said only, "Percy! Percy! I do not know you at all. How +cruel you are to me! Everybody knows you and your gifts but me."</p> + +<p>When the German had commenced he came to her and whispered, "Do you care +for it?"</p> + +<p>"The German, Ross? Indeed no: I am tired too, and was just coming to ask +you if I might let old Mr. L---- take me home: he says it will be no +trouble."</p> + +<p>"And you would not have asked me to take you?" he said, reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"Take you away from the German, Ross! Such an unheard-of thing as that! +You must think me very selfish. Indeed; I am not where your pleasure is +concerned: I only want you to enjoy yourself."</p> + +<p>"Then, for Charity's sake, let's go home," he said.</p> + +<p>"With all my heart if you really wish it!" and she started; then pausing: +"Are you going because you think I want to go? I do not indeed: I will +stay gladly."</p> + +<p>"I am going because I want to--because I am dead tired, and long, with a +perfect passion, for our cozy room, the dim firelight, and my darling +toasting her pretty slippers."</p> + +<p>"You dear, foolish Ross!" and she was gone like the wind. On their way +out, Sheldon Wilber met them in the hall, and, handing her something, +said, "To-night, little girl: if you have ever doubted, doubt no more. And +remember, a trusting heart is a priceless one;" and he was gone.</p> + +<p>When they were home and comfortable, Ross said, "My wife, it was cruel to +let me learn your wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me +cruelly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had +hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and +now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I +could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think +I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped +it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet +to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and +steadfastly into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song +you sang."</p> + +<p>She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is <i>your</i> love-song, dear--your very +own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you <i>all</i> about myself now, +Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you +pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing +protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason +those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his +embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I +translated from the German, others from the old Provençal tongue, with +which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did +this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they +had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade +them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by +his name, feared nothing any more."</p> + +<p>"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all +hope of winning you when I learn these things of you."</p> + +<p>"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike +literary women."</p> + +<p>But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your +endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all +else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it. +Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out +of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!"</p> + +<p>She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss +on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her, +"Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you +to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face +upon his breast and tremblingly waited while he read it. It ran thus:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "Sheldon, my cousin, it can never be: give up all hope for ever. I kill + it now, because it is best you should know the truth. I almost give up + my life, my cousin, when I make my heritage of woe known to you. You + will pity me, Sheldon, when you realize what agony the confession you + thus wring from me gives my heart. But if it cures your passion it is + not borne in vain. I love with an undying love, a faith that knows no + change, an endurance that years of neglect have not weakened, that years + of cruelty could never change, a man who would laugh to scorn my very + name. I love--and have loved since I was sixteen years old, until + now--Ross Norval. Keep my secret.</p> + +<p> "PERCY HASTINGS."</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was dated four years back.</p> + +<p>"Ross, Ross! you know it now! Oh, my love! my love!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>I will attempt no painting of the effect that confession had upon him. But +after a long, long time she whispered, "I will sing the last verse of your +song, dear, which only you shall ever hear." And lying on his breast, she +sang--</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"><p> "Dear love I thy face above me gleaming<br /> + A sunset radiance gives:<br /> +Ah, love! thy tones' sweet cadence dying<br /> + Sings in my heart and lives.<br /> +Clasped, love, close to thy heart, thy birdling<br /> + Foldeth her wings in peace--<br /> +Trusts, love! feeling nor cold nor shadow,<br /> + Finding at last her ease,<br /> + From fear a safe release,<br /> + Heart's love, with thee."</p></blockquote> +</div> +<p class="author">Margret Field.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st02"> +<h2>The Victims of Dreams.</h2> + + + +<p>My friend Bessie Haines had no mother, but her father was such a very +large man that I remember thinking, when I was quite a child, that a kind +Providence had intended to make up her loss in that way. She and I did not +live in the same city, but managed to keep up a lively friendship through +the medium of correspondence and half-yearly visits.</p> + +<p>I was a complete orphan, and my uncle, with whom I lived, was her father's +attached friend. She had a very happy home, and I was glad to enjoy it +with her, particularly when my uncle accompanied me, for then her father +and he became absorbed in each other, and left us to our own devices--not +very evil ones, but too childish and trifling to claim the sympathy of +such very grave men as they were.</p> + +<p>We had both become tall, womanly girls, but Uncle Pennyman and Mr. Haines +called us children, and treated us as such; and Bessie was just writing to +me about her father's telling her she must begin to think of serious +things, when my uncle remarked to me that the time was approaching when I +should prepare myself to assume the duties and responsibilities of a +rational female. Just as if we had waited to be told this, when in fact +Bessie and I had been consulting about our bonnets and dresses in the most +grave and mature manner for years past, and arranging our future on plans +that for variety and agreeability could not have been surpassed had we +been brought up on the <i>Arabian Nights</i> and Moore's <i>Poems</i>, instead of +Baxter's <i>Saint's Rest</i> and Pollok's <i>Course of Time</i>.</p> + +<p>"There are several questions of vital importance that have been growing +daily stronger in my mind," said my uncle Pennyman. "My friend Thomas +Haines has a gift in clearing points and expounding meanings; so that I +feel it to be for my mind's edifying and my soul's profit to go to him for +counsel."</p> + +<p>I was delighted to hear this. I wanted to see Bessie, and I blessed the +bond that united these good brothers in Israel and drew us together so +often. Mr. Haines was good at texts, and my uncle was wonderfully expert +at dreams. Mr. Haines was a great dreamer, and my uncle constantly +stumbled over passages needing elucidation. So we lived in harmonious +intercourse, and Bessie and I talked of all our plans and delights while +they got themselves entangled in obscurities with a commentary under each +arm.</p> + +<p>It would have appeared, from Mr. Haines' dreams, that Bessie's mother had +been a most fussy and bothering lady, though I was told by the +housekeeper, who knew her well, that she was the mildest and most timid of +little wives while living.</p> + +<p>According to these visions, she was constantly troubled in her spiritual +state on the greatest variety of small subjects; and my expert uncle, in +expounding her communications, was always able to draw from them strong +religious lessons, and to administer much strengthening comfort to his +friend the dreamer.</p> + +<p>"I was hoping papa would soon have a vision," said Bessie when we were +settled together all comfortably, and she had told me how glad she was to +see me again. "Mrs. Tanner said last week that she was sure he was going +to have another, because the spire which he felt he was directed in his +last dream to put on the little chapel was all complete, and the +missionary outfit which he had believed himself called upon to provide was +ready and gone to the South Seas, and he naturally looked for more work. +When he said last week, 'Bessie, I have sent for Brother Pennyman +concerning a visitation in the night,' I was so glad, for, Winnie +dear--would you believe it?--I have been dreaming too, and I want you to +tell me if I have read my dream aright."</p> + +<p>Now, this was the most wonderful thing that Bessie Haines could have told +me--the most startling and least to be expected altogether; for if ever +there was a wide-awake girl, it was she.</p> + +<p>I suppose my perfectly frank stare said as much, for she blushed a little, +and continued with a very suspicious flutter, which I had learnt, in the +case of young engaged persons I knew, to look on as a bad symptom:</p> + +<p>"I do not mean dreaming with my eyes shut, you know, but having deep, +serious thoughts, unlike the gay fancies that have held me captive all my +life."</p> + +<p>"Dress trimmings and poetry?" I suggested.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes--all the useless, perishable fancies of thoughtless youth," she +replied.</p> + +<p>This sounded more like an Essay on Vanity than Bessie Haines, and I really +was astonished, and had nothing to say for a little while, during which +she, being full of her subject, went on:</p> + +<p>"I can scarcely trace the beginning of the--the awakening, shall I call +it?"</p> + +<p>"You called it a dream before."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear Winnie, but it is so hard to know how to classify new emotions, +and this is such a peculiar one that it seems nameless. You know papa +feels bound, ever since that water-dream he had, to go down to the +Mariners' Chapel on Sunday afternoon, and I used to read solemn poetry +when it was too warm or too cold to go with him. Well, about two months +ago it was fearfully warm, and papa had come home a fortnight earlier from +the shore, on account of a suspicion he had that he had dreamed something +and had forgotten it as soon as he awoke. This indistinct warning made him +think we had better go home at all events, and home we came the first week +in September, to the roasting, dusty city. But I did not then know that I +was perhaps drawn back for a purpose; and oh, dear Winnie, there may be +something in papa's visions, after all."</p> + +<p>"He has had a good many of them," I said.</p> + +<p>"So he has," assented Bessie; "and I was inclined to be impatient at this +one, since it brought me home in the heat, and the house seemed so lonely, +because Mrs. Tanner was still in the country with her married daughter."</p> + +<p>"She having received no spectral warning," I hinted.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! no. Mrs. Tanner never dreams: she's opposed to it. Well, the +first Sunday was so warm that I took up <i>Solemn Thoughts in Verse</i> instead +of the Mariners'; and after I had read eight pages, it really seemed as if +I had better have tried the heat out of doors, it was getting so gloomy +within. So I got up and dressed, meaning to walk out and meet papa, and +return with him. I don't know whether it was the <i>Solemn Thoughts</i> that +confused me, or whether I was not paying attention, but I actually lost my +way by turning at the wrong corner, and so came down Barton street toward +a little chapel that I had often noticed before. Two dreadfully red-faced +and short-haired little boys were at the entrance by the small iron gate. +They had disagreed about something, I suppose, just as I came up, and they +instantly began to fight, with the wickedest determination visible in +their freckled little faces. At first, they kicked at each other, and +growled out some awful words without the least sense, but with a great +deal of profanity in them, and then they laid down their little books and +tracts, and apparently tried to pull each other's head off. Of course it +made me quite wretched to see them hurt each other in that shocking way, +and so I interfered and tried to reconcile them, but the naughty little +souls must have had a certain amount of kicking and scratching on hand to +dispose of, for they united in bestowing it all on me the moment I came +between them.</p> + +<p>"I was just trying to save my dress and lace sacque from their boots and +claws, when a reverend gentleman appeared at the door, and the bad boys +became sneaking cowards at sight of him. I picked up their little tracts, +while he tried to apologize for them; and it was so sad, Winnie, to think +that those dear children had not profited by their lessons: one was called +'Love One Another,' and the other, 'Be Meek and Lowly.'</p> + +<p>"While we were talking a lady joined us, and I went into the school at +their invitation.</p> + +<p>"Winnie, do you know anything practical about Sunday-school?"</p> + +<p>"I went to one, and was for years in the class of an elderly maiden lady +who urged us all to learn Scripture and hymns. I was so expert and high in +favor that I could repeat forty verses at a time as glibly as a parrot."</p> + +<p>"But I don't quite mean that sort of thing," said Bessie. "I mean a real, +earnest teaching-place, where children are gathered in and told all about +Christ's love and mercy--where they are softened and won to better +thoughts and kinder actions, and their poor little minds filled with +shining truth, instead of street dirt and abuse."</p> + +<p>"I never thought about it before, but such an institution could not help +being a popular one, and a very useful one too," I confessed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am so glad, so very glad, that you approve, dear, for I am engaged +in that work; and I did not want to write it to you, for somehow it seemed +so strange for such a thoughtless, silly girl as I have been to attempt +such a serious thing."</p> + +<p>"As teaching in a Sunday-school?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, in a sort of mission school for little scholars of the lower +classes. Miss Mary Pepper and I have at this time nearly two hundred boys +and girls of all ages, and some of them are very interesting and lovable, +while others are--"</p> + +<p>"Like the two gladiators who introduced you to the scene?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I am afraid there are quite a number of that kind; but, Winnie, you +must like Miss Mary Pepper. Oh, she is one of the most excellent women I +ever knew, so truly, so nobly, so devotedly good. You cannot imagine what +a comfort it is to me to be with her--to feel that I am under her +influence, and may learn from her to be a little like her."</p> + +<p>"Miss Mary Pepper?" I repeated: "then she is a young lady?"</p> + +<p>"No--not young: indeed, she is rather elderly."</p> + +<p>"An old maid," I remarked, coldly. "She is pretty and sweet, though faded, +I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Why, no--not to look at: her nature is beautiful, but her manner and +figure are rather--rather unprepossessing at first."</p> + +<p>"A stiff, hard, straight-laced old maid," I said, contemptuously. "Well, +really, I cannot see the fascination--"</p> + +<p>Bessie's face flushed painfully: "I confess that dear Miss Pepper's person +is not so beautiful as her nature, but, Winnie, it is the cause of doing +good and trying to be good that draws us together so closely; and of +course I do not love her as I love you, my dear, precious first friend."</p> + +<p>These last words were full of balm, for of course it was the sting of +jealousy that had made my heart resent the venerable Pepper's powerful +influence over my dear Bessie. Being once assured that it was a +second-rate power, and that I still held my supremacy, I entered into the +Sunday-school question like a second Raikes, and volunteered to help, and +try to learn the way to the young hearts that beat under the pugilistic +exterior of the juveniles of Canon lane, where the mission chapel was.</p> + +<p>Then, having become one on this serious subject, we began to wonder what +Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the +verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made his +latest stumble.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tanner thinks it was something about a journey, and she is quite out +of sorts on the subject: for, as she says, the house can't be shut up +without worriment, and as to staying in it alone she really has not got +the nerve."</p> + +<p>"I do not think that Uncle Pennyman will interpret it that way, because he +cannot go too, as he is at present very deep in the minor prophets, and +has fallen out of humor with all the commentaries."</p> + +<p>"I am so glad!" said Bessie, placidly--"so glad, I mean, that we need not +go: I think every one must find his life-work at home."</p> + +<p>I stared a little at this, because I knew that only a few months before +Bessie Haines had wanted very much to find style and fashion abroad; but I +remembered the Sunday-school, and tried to be as serious and convinced as +I could; and to that end I talked a good deal of church interests, and the +prophecies, and <i>Light in Obscurity</i>, a new work which had utterly +confused me at the first chapter, but which I had read through to Uncle +Pennyman one warm July day when he stayed at home to keep Tom's birth-day.</p> + +<p>That reminds me: I have not mentioned Tom, but as he was away at college, +and Bessie never seemed to like to talk of him--I'm sure I can't see +why--it is quite natural that he slipped out of my memory.</p> + +<p>He was a ward of Uncle Pennyman, who called him his son, and indeed had +adopted him formally.</p> + +<p>How two such opposite people ever came to love each other as they did, I +never can explain. It was not a natural, commonplace affection: it was a +strong, deep, earnest love, as firm in the hearts of both as the life that +caused their throbbings.</p> + +<p>Tom was wild and full of frolic: if there is a graver word than gravity, +it should be used to describe Uncle Pennyman's demeanor. Tom was quick and +restless by nature, but his good sense and determination to make a niche +for himself in life, and fill it respectably, had toned down his exuberant +spirits into active energy; while Uncle Penny man's naturally slow +tendencies had become aggravated by the ponderous character of his +pursuits and tastes: all hurry was obnoxious to him, and he firmly +believed that haste was another name for sin. Yet the solemn, slow old man +loved the busy, merry young one, and neither saw any fault or failing in +the other.</p> + +<p>There was no earthly relationship between Thomas Gray Pennyman and me, and +yet I was always spoken of as his sister by my dear, worrying old uncle. +Tom did not seem to like it, and I knew I did not.</p> + +<p>People often said to me, "What a splendid brother you have, Miss Pennyman +but what a pity that all these handsome brothers have to be given up to +stronger ties!"</p> + +<p>How utterly silly! I never had any patience with such nonsense.</p> + +<p>There was not much comfort in talking to Bessie about him. I'm sure I do +not know why, but I suppose she saw that I avoided the subject; so I was +really quite surprised when she said to me, laughing and looking a little +mischievous--</p> + +<p>"Mr. Tom is to join us by and by, your uncle says. I hope we may be able +to make it pleasant for him. I believe he likes Mrs. Tanner: he used to +like her buns when he was a boy, and I hope he has not forgotten the +fancy."</p> + +<p>Tom coming to visit the Haines! Such a thing had never happened before, +and must mean something now. I began to feel quite uneasy, though I really +could not have explained why.</p> + +<p>We never had much of my uncle's or Mr. Haines' society except in the +evening: they spent the day going about together and worrying texts of +Scripture with other good old men, before whom Mr. Haines liked to show +off uncle's Bible knowledge. They took some pious excursions in company, +and had a solemnly festive time, I have no doubt, for they always came in +looking perfectly satisfied with the result of their day.</p> + +<p>It generally took some time to hear the dream and find its proper +interpretation. While it was pending the expounder generally gave out his +puzzling verses, and then both pondered a good while before they arrived +at their conclusions and made them known.</p> + +<p>Both the dream and the text must have been of an unusually difficult +nature this time, for a whole week went by without either transpiring; and +although Bessie and I watched for some allusions to them in our morning +and evening family worship, at which the two good men officiated +alternately, yet not a hint could we gain until one night at the end of +the week it seemed from Uncle Pennyman's prayer that the matter in some +wise referred to Bessie, since Divine guidance was sought under many +rhetorical forms for the welfare, future and temporal, of "the young +handmaiden, the daughter of thy servant, who would fain know thy will +concerning her."</p> + +<p>"Bessie," said I that night, when we got up stairs, "I think I have found +out what your father's last dream was: I solemnly believe that he means to +send you out as a missionary."</p> + +<p>Now I thought I had said something calculated to make Bessie turn pale and +gasp, but I could scarcely believe it when I looked up, expecting to find +her almost fainting, and saw her pensively, but by no means alarmedly, +shaking her head.</p> + +<p>"I am not devoted enough, Winnie, love," she remarked. "I have not the +grand self-abnegating spirit necessary for such a work. No; mine is a home +field."</p> + +<p>If I had not known about the young warriors of Canon lane, I should have +thought her demented: as it was, I could scarcely wait for the next day, +which was Sunday, to be introduced to the scene which had already produced +such a marked change in her character and tastes.</p> + +<p>It transpired during breakfast that Uncle Pennyman's peace had been +disturbed by a verse in the book of Nahum, that talked about the lions and +lionesses, and their whelps and prey, in what appeared to him a mysterious +manner. Mr. Haines, who was a dear, good man, elaborated it so that we all +felt as if we had made a visit to the Zoological Gardens, and afterward +been carried into Babylonish captivity. My uncle followed his words with a +brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed and +long-syllabled, he would exclaim softly,</p> + +<p>"It is a great gift! a great gift!" and seem really overcome with the +magnitude of his friend's powers.</p> + +<p>I never saw any harm in Uncle Pennyman's texts: they never worried any one +but himself; though I must confess that verse about Ephraim being a cake +not turned affected us a little. But that was because he had the ague, and +Mr. Haines was attending some kind of convention; and what with the +chills, and that unexplained cake of Ephraim's, we were kept a little +uncomfortable for a time.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Haines' visions were perplexing: no one could tell where their +signification might point; and this sending for Tom (of course he would +never have thought of coming if he had not been sent for) made me quite +uneasy.</p> + +<p>I began to fear that this would be the first time I had ever gone to see +Bessie without enjoying the visit; and as we walked along to Canon Lane +Chapel together, her manner was so absent and fluttered that I really did +not know what to do.</p> + +<p>"It is a delightful and meritorious thing to be pious, no doubt," I said +to myself, "but it has not improved the manner of my dear Bessie: on the +contrary, I should say it has entirely shaken her nerves, and given her +palpitation of the heart."</p> + +<p>When we reached the chapel we found quite a number and variety of youths +already collected around the door, and when we went into a large and airy +room, well lighted and filled with seats, a goodly selection awaited us +there.</p> + +<p>A lady stood on a small platform with a bell in her hand: she had a large, +bony figure, and a long, bony face, and turned her eyes toward us without +changing their expression into any beam of recognition, as she used her +voice without any softening tone or tender cadence whatever:</p> + +<p>"Miss Haines, good-afternoon. Mary Bryan, where's your brother? John Mott, +you have dropped your tract. Miss Pennyman, glad to see you. Sarah Harper, +give your sister a seat."</p> + +<p>Bessie had pushed me on her attention between the monotonous sentences she +jerked out at her scholars, and she gave me five words just like the rest, +and dropped me off again.</p> + +<p>Bessie seemed to become calmer after she had looked around the room once +in a hasty, fluttered way, and placing a chair for me, she threw herself +energetically into her philanthropic work.</p> + +<p>I never knew before what a serious thing it was to be a Sunday-school +teacher, or how varied the requirements for such duty were. Thirst seemed +to be a prevailing agony among the scholars, and it seized its victims as +an epidemic does--without warning. They would just reach their seats and +drop into them listlessly, or gain them by energetic contest with some +previous intruder, and after an empty stare around them would be taken +with a sudden pang, expressed in writhing, shaking the right hand wildly +and gasping, "Teacher, I want a drink! I want a drink!"</p> + +<p>Then they were subject to a terrible vacillation on the subject of their +hats: they would almost consign them to the care of a monitor appointed to +hang them on the pegs made and provided, when a sense of their +preciousness would suddenly present itself to their minds, and they would +rescue them wildly, and throw themselves on the defensive while they sat +upon or otherwise protected the contested article of dress.</p> + +<p>There were six windows with broad sills in the room, and every child +seemed beset with a passionate desire to leave its seat and lodge itself +in a surreptitious manner on one of these perches, as if they had been +posts of honor.</p> + +<p>Whether bits of bright tin, glass bottle-stoppers, ends of twine, broken +sticks and marbles were accessions to biblical instruction, or were only +so considered by the pupils themselves, did not transpire, but poor Bessie +seemed to find them stumbling-blocks in her path, and Miss Pepper had no +sooner confiscated one lot than another appeared in circulation and broke +the story of Joseph's coat into a parenthetical narrative:</p> + +<p>"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental +regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he +prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John +Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The +bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and, +Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and +bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in +Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will +leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the +bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little +conscious (Dicky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and +prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another +drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!"</p> + +<p>Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do +good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with +children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was +a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious +firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the +minds of little ones.</p> + +<p>I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I +saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice, +interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved +boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to +thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin, +wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set, +hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss +Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with +words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and +inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a +moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her +words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the +thin and the square face.</p> + +<p>"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the +injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed--</p> + +<p>"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at +me."</p> + +<p>Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of +Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced +to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly +grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a +new feature was added to the scene.</p> + +<p>I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear +girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and +made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and +good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his +appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He +gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt +anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown +away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh +dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's +self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry +purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper +like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every +single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which +individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul +addressed.</p> + +<p>He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a +little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the +machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there +with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be +helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little +at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite +self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and +more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he +planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with +personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have +better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have +liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a +strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the +attraction irresistible.</p> + +<p>I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he +closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I +saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was +being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as +pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted +hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted +to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom +Bessie had the good sense to appreciate.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my +prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was +the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, +she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and +taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school +to his church duties in a different quarter.</p> + +<p>"Bessie, does your father know--?" I began as we went homeward together.</p> + +<p>She interrupted me: "About Miss Pepper? Oh yes, indeed! She called to ask +his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice +since.</p> + +<p>"You know I don't mean her at all," I said, laughing. "I mean her nephew, +Bessie Haines."</p> + +<p>But Bessie faltered: she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was +evident they had not spoken so to each other yet. She knew she loved and +was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it +was yet unavowed between them.</p> + +<p>"All I am afraid of, Bess," said I, determined to make her practical, for +she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all +their days--"all I am afraid of is, that your father's vision may threaten +your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why +should uncle keep praying for you as a 'young damsel,' and 'handmaiden,' +and 'female pilgrim,' and all that?"</p> + +<p>Bessie seemed troubled, but she could not be brought to confidence until +the minister had opened his heart to her. I saw that, and though I had +never had a warning dream in my life, I felt it was my mission to help +her.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Charles and I had had a little, a very little, talk, but I saw +that Bessie had named me to him--that pleased me; that he was very +desirous of gaining my good-will--that pleased me too. So I had happened +to say that I admired church architecture, particularly Gothic: some one +had said that his church belonged to that style, and he immediately, +offered to take us to examine it. I asked him to call for us next day, and +he delightedly promised that he would.</p> + +<p>I told Bessie, and the ungrateful creature was alarmed and nervous, and +gave way to all sorts of nonsense; but I consoled her and admired him in a +way that seemed to give her satisfaction. The next morning I made a +startling discovery. I went into the little bookroom that opened out of +the great old-fashioned back parlor, where uncle and Mr. Haines sat every +morning with Scott and Clarke and Cruden open before them: I went in very +quietly, and didn't make much noise when there. Mr. Haines was talking in +a slow, set way, and I could hear the scratching of a pen over stiff +paper.</p> + +<p>"Would you mention my reasons for recording this, my dear Daniel?" he said +to Uncle Pennyman.</p> + +<p>"I have set them down at the commencement," said my uncle, who was acting +as scribe. "I have said that, your mind being clear and your feelings at +ease, you retired to your couch on the night of the 28th of October; that +the form of your dear wife seemed waiting for you, since you became +conscious of her presence immediately after your sinking asleep; and so +on."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Haines, witty a deep sigh: "it is a great thing, no doubt, +to be so guided in the visions of the night, and I have many times +considered myself greatly favored by the knowledge of the ministry of my +dear wife's blessed spirit; but, friend Daniel, if she had been a little +more explicit in this instance it would have been a great comfort to me. +Follow me now, friend Daniel. You have got it down to where she spoke. +Well, she raised her hand and seemed to point to the couch of Dorcas +Elizabeth" (that was what Bess had been baptized, and was called by her +father on solemn occasions)--"my thoughts had been dwelling on the child, +and her increasing age and future duties--and she said, 'Marry her wisely +to Thomas,' and repeated the words three times."</p> + +<p>I heard the scratching pen and Mr. Haines' depressed, uncertain sigh, and +my own heart sank heavily. There was no Thomas to marry her to but our +Tom, and such a thing was simply preposterous and wicked. I could not, I +would not, bear even to think of it.</p> + +<p>Oh, good Mrs. Haines, departed so long ago! why should you come back +troubling us about such, things? and, above all, why could you not as well +have said Charles as Thomas?</p> + +<p>"I have that set down," said Uncle Pennyman. Mr. Haines sighed again in +that anxious, uncertain way of his:</p> + +<p>"During the first day after the visitation, Daniel, I could not recall +whether my wife's appearance said, 'To Thomas, marry her wisely,' or as we +now put it down; but since you have set it clearly before me, and your son +will so soon be here, I feel that I am justified in having it stated in +that way, and that Providence is guiding me."</p> + +<p>Oh how my heart rose against Uncle Pennyman as I listened! He was the one +to blame for such a shameful, foolish notion stealing into Mr. Haines' +head! Left to himself, any name would have suited him equally well, and +here was Tom's thrust in without any earthly reason. It was really +dreadful! I could scarcely stand on my feet when I remembered how Tom +loved his adopted father, and with what unselfish devotion he always spoke +of him. "If he's told that it will be a family blessing, he never will +have the heart to deny them and grieve Uncle Pennyman. Poor Tom! he is so +shockingly unselfish himself that he would rather enjoy a sacrifice than +otherwise, I suppose." So ran my thoughts, and I grew desperate. +Desperation awakens courage. Tom would be there in the evening, and if +anything could be done it had to be done at once.</p> + +<p>I slipped out silently as I came: no one heard me. I did not mean that +they should do so, for, to confess the truth, I was listening on purpose. +I dressed to go out with Mr. Pepper; so did Bessie, though I must say she +was very nervous and uncertain about it. "You know papa does not know him +in--in the character of a friend of mine," she said, hesitatingly. "Miss +Pepper introduced him, and that is all."</p> + +<p>"But that is no reason why it should be all," I said to myself, and paid +no attention to her little bashful fussiness.</p> + +<p>When he arrived, I saw in his eyes that he meant to take advantage of the +opportunity I was making for him, and so I boldly carried out my plan. We +started, and had gone a block or two when I discovered that they were +becoming unaware of my existence and completely absorbed in each other. +"Poor dears!" I thought, "let them have a still better chance." So I +stopped in the most natural way possible at a window where trimmings were +displayed, and began to stare at some ribbon. "The very shade!" I said: "I +would not miss it for anything. Pray go on slowly, and I'll join you +presently. Keep on till you reach the church--I know the way. And be sure +you stay till I come. No, you shall not come in: I insist that you go +right on, and do not bother. I have a sort of pride in making bargains, +and they never can be made in company, you know." I laughed and wouldn't +listen to their waiting, and managed it so well that they went away as +unsuspecting and tender as two lambs. I waited till they were out of +sight, and then I started straight for home.</p> + +<p>I was in high glee till Mrs. Tanner came up stairs.</p> + +<p>"There are great preparations making for Mr. Tom," said she with a +portentous face. "Mr. Haines has given more orders about his reception +than I ever knew him to issue before; and, what seems strange, he actually +insists on my calling him Mr. Thomas, when I never can get my tongue round +anything but Mr. Tom, in the world."</p> + +<p>Both seemed threatening--the preparations and the name; and when Mrs. +Tanner asked where Miss Bessie was, and heard that she had gone out, she +shook her head and said that she was afraid her pa wouldn't like it. This +convinced me that she too had guessed the nature of the vision, and made +me more than ever anxious to save poor Bessie and Tom from mutual +unhappiness. The first effort was made, and I must consider the next step. +I felt nearly sure that by this time the two dear Sunday-school workers +had become personal in their conversation, and taking up my position on +the broad sofa in the quiet, shady back parlor, I set myself to thinking +out the plan. It was a great, solidly-furnished old room, staid and +handsome like the rest of the house, and meant for comfort in every +particular. Over the mantelpiece, and directly opposite to me, was a +life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of +expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a +baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her +daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so +dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the +family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while +there was a living opportunity.</p> + +<p>I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman +without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the +circumstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to +have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time +to question the feeling until I was sound asleep.</p> + +<p>A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate, +for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my +presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed +shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly +under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and, +although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his +heart.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie +too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is +selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid."</p> + +<p>He told her I was too good, too lovable to quarrel with their bliss, and +held her to his heart while he looked up to the flaxed-haired, baby-faced +mother for a blessing with quite a glow of feeling on his face and real +tears in his eyes.</p> + +<p>There was something in mine I suppose, for when I looked too I could +scarcely believe them: the portrait seemed to show a different face +entirely. The blue eyes bent down on those upturned to meet them with a +look I had never beheld in them before, and the delicate little pink mouth +seemed to tremble with a blessing.</p> + +<p>"Am I dreaming?" I almost asked it aloud, and the question and the sound +of Uncle Pennyman's voice in the book-room gave me a new idea. Softly I +slipped from my place and out at the open door, leaving the absorbed ones +to themselves, and joined my uncle and Mr. Haines where they were +preparing for another conflict with the commentators.</p> + +<p>"I have had a dream," I said solemnly.</p> + +<p>"A dream!" repeated they.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and it was so lifelike that I must tell it to you, for I am +convinced it is no common warning, but one full of meaning and truth."</p> + +<p>They gazed at me blankly, and I went on, fearing to stop an instant lest I +should lose my courage:</p> + +<p>"I was lying on the sofa opposite Mrs. Haines' portrait--"</p> + +<p>"The very place where I lay when last I dreamed," murmured her husband.</p> + +<p>"And I saw Bessie and a gentleman hand in hand beneath it, looking up into +the sweet face for a blessing; and oh such a heavenly smile lighted it +while the beautiful lips seemed to murmur, 'She will marry wisely, dear +Thomas!'"</p> + +<p>Mr. Haines was so shaken by my words that my heart misgave me. He covered +his face with his hands. "She used to call me dear Thomas," he said, and +the tears ran through his fingers.</p> + +<p>"Then the name was <i>yours</i>" said Uncle Pennyman with weighty +consideration. "You remember I said it was capable of a double +application: those things are wonderful, and interpret each other. Winnie, +my dear girl, could you distinguish this person's face?"</p> + +<p>Before I could answer, Mrs. Tanner at the door said, "Here's Mr. Tom, +bless his heart! I never can learn to call him anything else."</p> + +<p>Tom was <i>so</i> glad to see me! Yes, I may as well tell it, for it told +itself: dear Tom never seemed so glad before.</p> + +<p>"Was it his face, Winnie?" whispered Mr. Haines.</p> + +<p>If ever <i>No</i> was said with energy and decision, it was in my reply. The +parlor door opened just as we were about to go in all together, shaking +hands and making kind speeches over Tom, and Bessie and the Rev. Charles +appeared in the act of taking leave of each other.</p> + +<p>"That's the face!" I cried dramatically; and then I really and truly did +faint--stone dead, as Mrs. Tanner said afterward--for I was not used to +telling lies, and even white ones were exciting things to tell, and +scarcely justified themselves to my conscience by the magnitude of the +good they were to do.</p> + +<p>When I came to myself, Bessie was hanging over me with all the love she +had left from Mr. Charles, I suppose; and I heard Mr. Haines and Uncle +Pennyman talking with Tom, and trying to explain to him the remarkable +nature of the vision that had overcome me. I sat up, and tried to laugh +and declare that it was nothing at all, though my heart kept throbbing.</p> + +<p>"You have all had dreams," said Tom: "you have yet to hear mine. Uncle, I +dreamed that Winnie and I loved each other, and that I asked you for her +and you said yes."</p> + +<p>"No, Thomas," said Uncle Pennyman gravely, but with a kind of breaking +about his mouth: "your eyes were open when you had that vision, and you +must not jest with serious subjects. But it is well you mentioned it, dear +boy, and it is well our child Winnie received such a remarkable direction, +since it throws light on friend Haines' visitation, and apparently the +happiness of that excellent young minister and our dear Bessie here."</p> + +<p>"The young man has just expressed himself in corroboration of the vision," +said Mr. Haines, much affected.</p> + +<p>Bessie threw her arms round her father, then round me, and then she ran +away. Mr. Haines and Uncle Pennyman went out to their commentaries, Mrs. +Tanner to see to her buns: Tom and I were alone.</p> + +<p>"What is this about, Winnie darling?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Tom," said I, "we are all the victims of dreams."</p> + +<p class="author">Margaret Hosmer.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st03"> +<h2>The Cold Hand.</h2> + + + +<p>There is a rocky hill in what was till recently the town of Dorchester, +looking out over Boston Bay. It takes its name from the stiff black savins +with which it is covered, and which contrive to find nourishment and +support in the rock to which they cling. Some of these trees show their +great age by their gnarled and knotted trunks and boughs. Black and +impassive they stand, alike in the brightest summer or the grayest winter, +sighing restlessly in the breeze, but wailing piteously when the sea-winds +sweep over the hill. Partway up the little rocky eminence stands an old +house, now fast falling to pieces. It is a low building, with a gambrel +roof and a huge chimney. It has stood there many years, for it was built +not long after the Revolution, and it might have stood many years more had +it not been suffered to go to decay with a carelessness which seemed to +belie the general thrift of the town.</p> + +<p>Wandering over the hill one bright winter day, with no companion but a +large dog, I stopped to look in at the window of the old house. The glass +was gone from the sash, and the sash itself was broken in many places; but +the obscurity was so deep within that I obtained only a partial glimpse of +an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I +felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its +forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where +the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of +everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect +it offers to few of the natives. The front door was locked, but I obtained +an entrance without difficulty at the back, and made my way through a +little shed, which was evidently of more modern construction than the main +part of the building. I came first into the kitchen, where was a large +fireplace blackened with the smoke of long-dead fires, and a narrow, high +mantelpiece. A little cupboard was let into the side of the great chimney, +which projected far across the floor. The room was long and narrow, +running the whole length of the house, with a window at each end. The +blackened plaster was dropping from the walls and ceiling, exposing in +some places the heavy beams, and the floor was dark and discolored with +age and dust, although quite firm to the tread. By a low door I passed +into a small room lighted by two windows--one in front, the other at the +end of the house, and presenting the same appearance of desolate decay. +There were four doors in this room--the one through which I had just +entered, another leading to the rooms above, a third, secured by a bolt, +which I did not then open, and a fourth leading into a narrow passage, in +which was the locked front door. I crossed this passage, and found myself +in a room of the same size as the one I had just left. It was that into +which I had attempted to look from the outside. Here I missed the dog, who +had hitherto followed me, though with seeming reluctance, and no +persuasion could induce him to cross the threshold. This room was in +rather better repair than were the other two. There was the same high +mantelpiece, rather less narrow, and the same little cupboard let into the +massive chimney. The floor was less discolored, but there was a deep burnt +spot on it near the fireplace, as if some one had dropped a shovelful of +hot coals, or rather as if some corrosive fluid had been spilled. I +remained here a few moments, idly wondering what might have been the +history of the former tenants, and what could have induced any one to +build a house in a spot so bleak and exposed, where scarcely a pretence of +soil offered itself for a garden. As I stood there, a singular impression +came upon me that I was not alone. For a moment, and a moment only, I +became conscious of another presence in the room. The impression passed as +suddenly as it had come, but, transient as it was, it awoke me from my +reverie. Smiling at myself for the fancy, I recrossed the passage and +ascended the steep, narrow winding stairs to the chambers above. There +were four small rooms, opening one into the other, with a closet +partitioned off in each, and so low that in the highest part a tall man +could but just have stood upright. Here the ruin was farther advanced. The +floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the +ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining +portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through +the roof. The place had a lonesome, forlorn look, even more than usually +belongs to a deserted house, though such might not have been its aspect to +other than my unaccustomed Western eyes.</p> + +<p>Turning, I made my way down the short staircase, and was about to leave +the house when the third door, as yet unopened, caught my eye. I drew with +some difficulty the rusted bolt, and found myself at the head of a steep +flight of stairs, seemingly longer than that which I had just descended. +It led to the cellar, and though the afternoon was getting on, I thought I +would finish my exploration, and therefore went down, though repelled by +the close and peculiarly damp air. The cellar was blasted and hewn in the +solid rock to a depth which, considering the extreme hardness of the +stone, seemed remarkable in a house so unpretending. A dim light made its +way through a narrow window at each end and fell upon the stone floor. I +walked forward, looking up at the windows, but I had not taken ten steps +before I recoiled with a start. At my feet lay a pit, seemingly of +considerable depth, and filled with water to within four feet of the top. +The cellar did not lie under the kitchen, but only under the two front +rooms and the passage, and this pit occupied the whole length and fully +half the breadth of the space of the rooms above, and, what was more +peculiar, seemed to extend even farther forward than the house itself. +Another step, and I should have fallen into it. Curious to try its depth, +I picked up a little fragment of stone and dropped it in. As the stone +touched the water, and the circles on the sullen surface began to widen, a +current of air rushed down the stairs, and the door above shut violently. +At that moment the impression which I had experienced in the room above +came back upon me with tenfold distinctness, and was accompanied with a +feeling of exceeding horror. It seemed as if there was closing around me +some evil influence, from which I could only escape by instant flight. For +one moment I resisted the unreasonable terror, and made an attempt to +explain, or at least analyze, a sensation so unwonted: the next, the +loathing dread grew too strong. I turned and hurried across the damp +floor, up the narrow stairs, and, opening the door, made my way as quickly +as possible into the outside air. The dog was waiting for me in the little +shed, and seemed delighted at seeing me again. I closed the door, ashamed +of my senseless fright, but nevertheless I was thankful that I had found +no trouble in getting out. I am not quite prepared to say, however, that +these sudden and apparently unreasonable starts are independent of +external causes. The Vermont-bred horse will be thrown into an agony of +fright when the closed cage of a lion passes by, though he has never +learned by experience that lions will kill horses, and though the lion +himself is unseen.</p> + +<p>I walked briskly home. I had some distance to go, and had quite lost the +impression of my ghostly terror when I reached the house where I was +staying, a modern shingle Gothic erection, which in vain endeavored to +disguise its barny appearance with sundry wooden adornments modeled after +crochet-work.</p> + +<p>"Freda," said I to my friend after tea, when she and I were sitting +comfortably by the fire in the library, "do you know anything about the +old yellow-gray house up on the hill?"</p> + +<p>"Why, what of it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, only I went into it to-day. What is its history?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing particular. It was built for a Doctor Haywood. Have you read +Alp's last essay on the Semi-occasional?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and great stuff it is."</p> + +<p>Freda looked inexpressibly shocked. I had better have condemned law and +gospel together than made light of Alp; but she put up with it, probably +considering it excusable as the utterance of a savage from the wilds of +New York.</p> + +<p>"Never mind him now. He shall proclaim his figs in the name of the Prophet +for all time if you will tell me about the old house. I know it has a +story."</p> + +<p>She rose and took from the drawer an old manuscript volume, which she +placed in my hands. It was a little note-book, in which the entries were +made not from day to day, but at irregular intervals, in a singularly +clear, precise hand:</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 3, 1784. This day my neighbor Ball's cow, getting out of the +pasture and running on the highway, was put in the pound. Took her out, +and cautioned my neighbor to have more care of the creature. <i>Mem.:</i> To +bespeak a pair of shoes for her eldest girl.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 1, 1785. This day the wind very high.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 10. Neighbor Ball's cow, getting among my wife's rosebushes, did +do some damage, whereat she was much vexed. Caught the said cow, and +begged my neighbor to keep her at home, which she promised to do, but in +an hour back again. However, she is a widow.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 13. Doctor Haywood, newly come to this place from the old country, +has taken lodging with Neighbor Ball. Said to be a learned man--has much +baggage, and they say some curious machines. Is curious about plants and +the like. Neighbor Ball did hint to my wife that he knew about matters +better let alone, whereat my wife did tell her that she wished he would +give her a charm to keep her cow out of our yard.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 15. Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the hill, and is to build upon +it. Has spoken to me about it. Have drawn the plan, and shall make the +estimate.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 1. Doctor Haywood hurries on the work--says he is in haste to get +into his own house. Saw Indian Will to-day, quite drunk. With much trouble +got him to our house, where my wife did let him lie in the kitchen all +night. Had she not done so, the poor man might have frozen to death before +morning, for it was a very cold night. Argued with him in the morning, +whereat he promised amendment.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 10. My daughter Faithful this day, with my consent, promised +herself to John Clark, skipper of the Federalist schooner.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 18. Blasting out the cellar for Haywood's house. He wants it more +than common deep--says it makes the house warm.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 21. Came this day upon a great hollow in the rock filled with +water, which ran in as soon as pumped but. The doctor much displeased at +first--talked of beginning over again, but finally contented himself.</p> + +<p>"<i>June</i> 3. Doctor Haywood moved into his house this day. Has much curious +stuff. The minister says he is a chemist.</p> + +<p>"<i>June</i> 8. Went up to the doctor's house to settle with him. He came to +the door and said he was too busy then, but would drop round soon. They +say he lets no one inside the place since he moved. Has taken a pew in the +meeting-house, and comes once of a Sabbath. + +"<i>July</i> 22. Doctor Haywood and me did settle accounts. He beat everything +down to the last penny--offered to pay part in attendance on my family if +sick. Did not care to settle that way, knowing his charges. Charged James +Sumner five dollars for one visit to his child, which child, nevertheless, +he did greatly help.</p> + +<p>"<i>August</i> 18. News came this day that the Federalist went down in the gale +of the tenth, off Marblehead, with all on board. A sore affliction to my +daughter Faithful. The Lord's will be done!</p> + +<p>"<i>August</i> 26. Neighbor Ball's eldest girl gets lower. Doctor Cray does no +good. She would call in Doctor Haywood if she dared, but his charges are +so high. James Sumner and me did consult together and agree to take the +charges between us. I have heard say that he has helped several poor +people free: did especially help Indian Will when he lay like to die of +pleurisy at Neponset Village.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 1. Neighbor Ball, going up the hill last night to call Doctor +Haywood to her daughter Hepsey, did tell my wife that she had a look into +the south room as he opened the door, and that there were queer things +there, such as a brick furnace, all red with fire; and she did say, too, +that she saw things like snakes, only thin like mist, twisting about in +the air by the firelight, which I do hold to be her own invention or mere +foolish notions.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 2. Doctor Haywood has helped Hepsey Ball some considerable, +though he says he cannot cure her, for she has consumption.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 16. Doctor Haywood told James Sumner and me that he would ask +nothing for attending Hepsey Ball, but would keep on to ease her what he +could as long as she lived. He told my wife she might last a year.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 3. Jonathan Phelps told me that Doctor Haywood had borrowed one +hundred dollars of him, giving security on the house and lot.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 8. James Sumner this day, his wife being dead a year, did ask my +daughter Sophonisba to marry him, the which she did refuse, and snapped +him off too short. Then he spoke to Faithful, and she burst out crying and +ran up stairs, and could by no means be got to listen. Recommended James +to Hannah Gardner.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 16. Doctor Hay wood this day borrowed fifty dollars of me. If he +had not been so considerate to Widow Ball should not have felt like +letting it go.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 16. Coming home from Boston last night, overtook Indian Will. He +showed me a big iron tobacco-box nearly full of money--silver, with two +gold-pieces, one a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. He got +it for a lot of deer-skins in Boston. Begged him not to drink it all up, +which he said he would not do, but would give it to his squaw. Did ask him +to come home with me, which he refused, as he meant to go on to Neponset +Village.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 17. The wind blowing these two days to the land made it very high +water, coming nearly up to Governor Stoughton's elm, and covering the +road.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 18. A great gale last night--much damage at sea, doubtless. The +water very high.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 19. Two men out in a boat found an old hat and blanket floating by +the Point, said to belong to Indian Will: no one has seen him since the +16th. Likely he went to the tavern and got drunk, so missed his way and +was drowned by the tide.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 20, Last night Indian Will's body came ashore, much beaten by the +rocks, but known to be his by those who knew him. The verdict was, +'Drowned by the tide.'</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 11, 1786. Doctor Haywood spent the evening at our house. He has +been more social of late, going a good deal among people, especially poor +people, to help them. Has never paid me the fifty dollars, but makes +promises. I was led on to speak of Indian Will. The doctor said the night +of the 16th he thought he heard some one cry out, but thought it some +drunken person, and besides was busy with his studies, and so did not +mind. My wife asked him what he studied. He said a good many different +matters, but that he had given it all up now, and meant to practice. +Shortly after jumped up and went away very sudden."</p> + +<p>Here the journal came to an abrupt end. The rest of the book was filled +with accounts relating to the business of a milliner and dressmaker. +Slipped in between its leaves were two letters, written in a cramped, +scratchy hand and rather irregular in spelling. They were directed to +Sophonisba T----, Salem, Massachusetts, and seemed to be from a mother to +her daughter:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "DORCHESTER, May 1, 1786.</p> + +<p> "My Dear Child: I take my pen in hand to let you knew that we are all in + good health, and hope you are enjoying the same blessing. James Sumner + is married to Hannah Gardner. Most people think she will have her hands + full with his children. Parson H---- married them. She wore a blue silk + at two dollars the yard. Hepsey Ball is dead. She departed this life on + the 29th of April, at half-past eight in the evening, being quite + resigned and in good hope of her election to grace. She had not much + pain at the last. Doctor Haywood called to see her in the morning, and + she being then, as we thought, asleep, did start up and cry out that + there was a black shadow, not his own, always following after him, which + made me think her light-headed; but her mother says the doctor turned as + pale as a sheet, and made as if to go off again. Your sister Faithful is + at Mr. Trueman's, helping to make up Lorenda's wedding-clothes. I would + not have had her go, but she seemed willing to undertake it. Your loving + mother, ANNA T----."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The second was also addressed to Sophonisba, who on the 3d of June was yet +visiting friends in Salem. After a few details of domestic news, it went +on:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "Doctor Haywood is missing: no one knows where he is gone. He has been + looked for in Boston, but they have found no news of him; only that a + little black boy says he saw a man like him go on board a ship bound for + the East Indies. Now he is gone, they find he owes money to a great many + besides your father. He owes to people in Boston for drugs and + medicines--some, it is said, very costly, and sent for express to the + old country. Mr. Sewell, the bookseller there, says he tried to dispose + of his books to him; and when he did not buy them, thinks he sent them + to the old country. He owes every one he could get to trust him. It is + odd what he did with all the money. It is thought Jonathan Phelps will + get the house. They went up to it and found the door unlocked. They + found nothing in the house but the furniture, and that very common and + cheap. There were none of all those things they said he had; only in the + south room a lot of bottles and jars, and a brick place built up with a + vent outside, which Parson H---- says is a furnace such as folks use + that study chemistry. There was a great heap of ashes in the fireplace, + as if he had burned papers or books there, and a great burned spot on + the floor right before it."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Who was the writer of these?" I asked as I refolded the little old +letter, "and what became of Doctor Haywood? Was nothing more heard?"</p> + +<p>In answer to these questions my friend gave the following narration.</p> + +<p>The writer of the journal was my great uncle, Silas T----. Sophonisba and +Faithful were my mother's cousins. Both were much older than she, but I +have often seen Faithful when I was a girl, and I had all the story there +is from herself. The little house on the hill fell into the hands of the +chief creditor, who took down the furnace in the south room and offered +the place to rent, but no tenant ever remained there long, either because +of the bleak situation or the want of a garden. There were rumors that the +place was not quite canny. One woman, indeed, went so far as to declare +that she had seen the doctor's figure, dim and unsubstantial, standing +before the fireplace in the twilight, and that once, as she came up the +cellar stairs, something followed her and laid a cold hand on her +shoulder; but as she was a nervous, hysterical person, and moreover was +known to be somewhat given to exaggeration, no one paid much attention to +her tale.</p> + +<p>It was certain, however, that there was a great deal of sickness in the +house. One family who rented the place lost three children by fever in one +summer, and it was remarkable that all three seemed to fall under the same +delusion, and insisted that something or some one, coming behind them, +laid upon their shoulders a cold hand. One of them, toward the last, said +that a shadow kept moving to and fro in the room, and kept the sunshine +all away. The woman who had seen the vision of the old doctor became a +widow the next month, and so much sickness and death took place in the +house that at last no one would live there, and it was shut up by its +owner.</p> + +<p>In due course of time the father and mother of Sophonisba and Faithful +were laid in Dorchester burial-ground. Mr. T---- had never been a rich man +by any means, and when he died there was little left for the two girls, +even after the sale of the homestead. They did not, however, consider +themselves poor, but with their fifteen hundred dollars in the bank and +their trade of milliner and dressmaker thought themselves very well to do +in the world. Sophonisba, the elder, was at that time a little under +fifty--an energetic, hard-working woman, with a constitution of wrought +iron and bend leather, and no more under the influence of what are called +"nerves" than if they had been left out of her system entirely. If ever a +woman was born into this world an old maid, it was Sophonisba T----. Her +fine name was the only romantic thing about her. She had had more than one +offer of marriage in her day, but she had no talent for matrimony, and had +turned such a very cold shoulder on her admirers that the swains became +dispirited, and betook themselves to the courtship of more impressible +damsels. There was no hidden romance or tale of unreturned affection in +Miss Sophonisba's experience. The simple fact was, she had never wished to +be married. Miss Faithful was five years her sister's junior. She had +never found room in her heart for a second love since John Clark went down +in the Federalist. She had been a young and pretty girl then, and now she +was a thin, silent, rather nervous little body, depending entirely upon +her sister with a helpless kind of affection that was returned on Miss +Sophonisba's part by a devotion which might almost be called passionate.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what it is, Faithful," said Miss Sophonisba one evening, as +they sat over their tea, "if they raise the rent on us here, I won't +stay."</p> + +<p>The sisters had lived in the house ever since the death of their mother, +five years before. Their business had prospered, and they were +conveniently situated, but, for all that, Miss Sophonisba had no mind to +pay additional rent.</p> + +<p>"No?" said Faithful, inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"That I won't! We pay all it's worth now, and more too. It ain't the extra +four shillings," said Miss Sophonisba, rubbing her spectacles in +irritation, "but I do hate to be imposed upon."</p> + +<p>"It will be some trouble to find a new place," suggested Miss Faithful +meekly, "and we can afford it, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"I don't care if we can afford it a dozen times over," said her sister, +with increased decision. "I won't be imposed upon. If I've got either to +drive or be driven, I'd rather drive."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Miss Faithful, who had never driven any living creature +in the whole course of her life.</p> + +<p>"I saw Peter Phelps to-day," said Miss Sophonisba, "and he says he'll let +us have the old house up on the hill for anything we like to give."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful gave a little start: "Would you like to live there, +Sophonisba?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's a good convenient situation, and plenty big enough for you and +me and the cat."</p> + +<p>"But you know," said Miss Faithful, timidly, "they have told such queer +stories about it." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "You don't +believe them, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"No," hesitated her sister, "but then one remembers them, you know. Widow +Eldridge always said she saw old Doctor Haywood there."</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba again. "You know perfectly well +you couldn't trust a word she said about anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sophonisba, she's dead!" said Miss Faithful, shocked.</p> + +<p>"I can't help that, child. It don't hinder her having told fibs all her +lifetime."</p> + +<p>"Her husband died the next month."</p> + +<p>"Well, so he might anywhere. My wonder is he lived as long as he did, +considering."</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Jones's three children died there."</p> + +<p>"Well, and didn't Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and +I never heard their place was haunted; and didn't two die out of the +Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town? It was a dreadful +sickly summer."</p> + +<p>"And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever."</p> + +<p>"Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything. Doctor Brown told me +himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and +there ain't anything so bad as that."</p> + +<p>The last vestige of a ghost was demolished: Miss Faithful had nothing more +to say.</p> + +<p>"It's nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off," said Miss +Sophonisba. "It ain't very probable he's alive now; and if he is, he won't +be very apt to come back: and if he is dead, he certainly won't. If he +did, I'd like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars. I +saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he'll fix the place all up for us if +we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd +spoken to you."</p> + +<p>"Just as you please, Sophonisba," said Miss Faithful.</p> + +<p>"He says he'll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and +let his man dig it up for us. I went up and looked at the house. It ain't +so much out of repair as you'd think."</p> + +<p>"Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?" asked Miss Faithful with some +interest.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw it--a great blackened place. Most likely he spilled some of +his chemical stuff on it."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba was not, as she expressed herself, one to let the grass +grow under her feet. She concluded the bargain for the house next day, and +informed their landlord--who, by the by, was a son of their old neighbor, +Widow Ball--of their intention to move. That gentleman was not at all +pleased at the idea of losing his tenants. In vain he offered to recede +from the obnoxious demand of four shillings more. Miss Sophonisba told him +that she had made up her mind, and that <i>she</i> wasn't in the habit of going +back from her bargains when she had given her word, whatever other people +might be.</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss T----," said Mr. Ball, "I hope you won't repent. They've said +queer things about that house ever since the old doctor went off so +mysterious. Some folks said he drowned himself in that place in the +cellar."</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "The old doctor never hurt any +one when he was alive, except by borrowing money of them, and it ain't +likely he'll want to do that now that he's dead; and if he did, I +shouldn't let him have it."</p> + +<p>"Well, my mother was in the house when Miss Eldridge came running up the +stairs as pale as a sheet, and said he came behind her and caught hold of +her shoulder."</p> + +<p>"Joanna Eldridge was always a poor, miserable, shiftless, narvy thing," +said Miss Sophonisba, "and half the time you couldn't believe a word she +said."</p> + +<p>"Well she was a connexion of our'n, Miss T----, and I always thought there +was something in it. Narves won't account for everything."</p> + +<p>"Well, I never trusted her a bit more for that," said Miss Sophonisba. "I +know one time she told mother a long story about how you sent in a bill +for shoes to Widow Sumner that James had paid you before he died, and she +said you'd have made her a deal of trouble if she hadn't ha' found the +receipt. A good many folks talked about it, but I always said it was just +one of Joanna's stories."</p> + +<p>Mr. Ball was put down, and took his leave.</p> + +<p>As soon as the necessary repairs were finished the sisters moved into the +house, and during that summer found reason to congratulate themselves on +their change of abode. The high, airy situation was very pleasant in warm +weather, and the view over the waters of the bay across to Boston and far +out to sea, with the coming and departing ships, afforded much pleasure +and a subject of conversation to the sisters. Their little garden on the +flat throve well, and was a source of never-ending interest. They had been +troubled by no ghostly visitations. Miss Sophonisba had indeed once heard +a mysterious noise in the cellar, but on going down stairs she found that +the cat had jumped on the hanging shelf and was helping herself out of the +milk-pan.</p> + +<p>The sisters were sitting one day toward the end of November--I think it +was the twenty-fifth--in the north room, which they had made their +work-room. The south room, according to the custom of our ancestors, still +religiously preserved among us, was shut up "for company." The kitchen +served them also for dining-room, and the largest room up stairs was their +bed-chamber. Miss Sophonisba was trimming a bonnet, a task for which she +had an especial gift. Ladies came to her even from Boston, saying that her +work had an air and style quite its own, while her charges were not nearly +so high as those of the more fashionable milliners in the city. Faithful +was altering a dress of her own. Both were much engaged with their work, +and neither had spoken for some time. Suddenly, Faithful started slightly, +and the needle dropped from her hand.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" asked her sister.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Faithful, rather confused.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "People don't jump that way for +nothing. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," hesitated Miss Faithful. "I guess I pricked my +finger."</p> + +<p>"Umph!" said Miss Sophonisba in a very incredulous way, but she pushed her +inquiries no farther.</p> + +<p>As soon as her sister was silent, Miss Faithful's conscience began to +chide her for her little evasion. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and +as often checked herself, but the third time the words were uttered: "If I +tell you, Sophonisba, you will laugh at me."</p> + +<p>"Well, that wouldn't kill you, child."</p> + +<p>"No; but--well--it was only that I thought all of a sudden some one was +standing behind my chair."</p> + +<p>"How could you think so when there was no one there?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but it felt as if there was."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Faithful! If you didn't see any one, how did you know there was +any one? Have you got eyes in the back of your head?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see it--I sort of felt so."</p> + +<p>"'Sort of felt so!'" said Miss Sophonisba, with good-natured contempt. "If +I was you, I'd take some catnip tea when I went to bed: you're kind of +narvy."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful assented, and went on quietly with her sewing, but she +changed the seat which she had occupied, with her back to the cellar door, +for one close to her sister.</p> + +<p>No further disturbance occurred till the middle of December. It had been a +very windy day. The bay was tossing in long gray-green lines of waves +crested with flying foam. The black savins sighed and wailed as they bent +to the cutting blast. The wind was east, and it took a good deal of fire +to keep the old house warm, but wood was cheap in those days, and Miss +Sophonisba, though prudent and economical, was not given to what New +England expressively calls "skrimping."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful, not feeling very well, had gone up stairs to bed soon after +tea. A windy day always made her uncomfortable, recalling, too vividly +perhaps, the gale in which the Federalist had gone down. Miss Sophonisba, +having some work on hand which she was anxious to finish, was sitting up +rather beyond her usual hour. Pausing for a moment in her sewing, she +heard some one walking about in the room above her to and fro, with a +regular though light step, as of bare or thinly-shod feet, on the boards.</p> + +<p>"Why, what can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about +barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put +down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly +lecture. To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other +living creature was in the room. It could not have been the cat this time, +for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs. Miss +Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a +repetition of the sound.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly. Miss Faithful started +from her sleep with a cry of terror. "Oh, I have had such a dream!" said +she, clinging to her sister.</p> + +<p>"What was it?" said Miss Sophonisba, soothing and quieting her like a +child.</p> + +<p>"I thought I was lying in bed just as I was, when all of a sudden I knew +that Something had come in, and was going up and down, up and down the +room."</p> + +<p>"What was it like?" asked her sister, rather impressed in spite of +herself.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't see: it was all shifty and mist-like--like the shadow of smoke +on the ground--and I couldn't tell if it was like a human being or not; +but it seemed to me as if I ought to know it and what it was, and as if it +was trying to make me understand something, and couldn't, just as it is +when the cat sits and looks at you. You know the creature wants something, +if she could tell what it was."</p> + +<p>"She wants something out of the cupboard most generally," said Miss +Sophonisba; "but go on."</p> + +<p>"And finally," said Miss Faithful with a nervous shudder, "after it had +gone back and forth two or three times--and I could hear it on the floor +too, just like some one walking in their stocking-feet--it came close up +to me and seemed to bend over me, or to be all around me in the air some +way--I can't tell you how--and I was dreadfully scared, and woke up."</p> + +<p>"It made a noise, did it?" said Miss Sophonisba.</p> + +<p>"Yes; and somehow the noise made me feel as if I ought to know what it +wanted and what it was."</p> + +<p>"It was the wind," said Miss Sophonisba. "It got mixed up in your dreams, +I expect. How it does blow!--fit to take the roof off. There! the cellar +door has started open. That latch doesn't catch: I must go down and bolt +it."</p> + +<p>At that moment the cat rushed up the short staircase from the lower room, +and springing on the bed, stood with bristling tail and glaring eyes, +intently watching the door.</p> + +<p>"Has she got a fit?" exclaimed Miss Sophonisba; and she put out her hand +to push the cat off, but it turned to Miss Faithful, who was sitting up in +bed, and crawling under the bed-clothes, lay there trembling and mewing in +a very curious fashion.</p> + +<p>"Some one has got in down stairs," said Miss Faithful, turning white. "Oh, +Sophonisba, we shall all be murdered!"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba, quite restored to herself at the thought +of actual danger. She caught up a great pair of tongs and started down +stairs, the candlestick in one hand, the tongs in the other, Miss +Faithful, who dared not stay behind, threw a shawl over her night-dress +and followed close at her sister's heels, while the cat crawled still +farther under the clothes, and refused to answer to Miss Sophonisba's +call. There was nothing unusual down stairs. The two outside doors were +locked, the fire was burning brightly, and Miss Sophonisba's work lay on +the table just as she had left it. The cellar door indeed, which latched +imperfectly, stood open.</p> + +<p>"Some one has come in and locked the door after them, and gone down +cellar," was Miss Faithful's whispered suggestion.</p> + +<p>"How could they?" said Miss Sophonisba. "We didn't hear any one; and +besides, they would have left their tracks on the floor this wet night; +but I'll go down and look. You stay here by the fire."</p> + +<p>But Miss Faithful preferred to follow her sister. They found nothing out +of place in the cellar, into which, if you remember, there is no outside +door. Every tub and barrel and milk-pan was in its place, and the surface +of the pit of water, which served the family as a cistern, was +undisturbed.</p> + +<p>"It must have been the door flying open that scared the cat," said Miss +Sophonisba, "Faithful, you're as white as a sheet. I shall just heat up +some elderberry wine and make you drink it;" which she did then and there, +and, no further disturbance taking place, the sisters went to bed. The +cat, however, whose usual place was by the kitchen fire, would not go down +stairs, and when at last turned out, she mewed so piteously and scratched +so persistently at the bed-room door that Miss Sophonisba gave way to her +and let her in to sleep all night at the foot of the bed.</p> + +<p>No further annoyance took place, nor was Miss Faithful troubled with a +repetition of her curious dream. The next week, however, as Miss +Sophonisba was in the kitchen making preparations for tea, she was +startled by a scream from her sister in the next room, succeeded by the +sound of a heavy fall. She hurried into the work-room. Miss Faithful lay +on the floor quite insensible. It was some time before her sister's +anxious exertions were rewarded by signs of returning animation. When at +last she opened her eyes, she burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing and +crying.</p> + +<p>"For gracious sake, sister!" said Miss Sophonisba, really alarmed, "what +is the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! oh dear!" sobbed Miss Faithful. "It was John! I know it was +John, and I could not speak to him!"</p> + +<p>"What?" said Miss Sophonisba, alarmed for her sister's wits. "What was +John?"</p> + +<p>"It--that--the thing that came behind me: I know it was!"</p> + +<p>"When?" asked her sister.</p> + +<p>"As I was sitting there in my chair something came behind me and put a +hand on my shoulder. It was John--I know it was. His hand was all cold and +wet: he came out of the sea to call me."</p> + +<p>"Now just look here, Faithful!" said Miss Sophonisba. "John was one of the +most careful, considerate fellows I ever knew, and he was always +particular careful of you. Do you think it's likely he wouldn't have no +more sense, now that he's a saint in heaven, than to come scaring you out +of your wits in that way? Is it like him, now?"</p> + +<p>"But oh, sister, if you had felt it as I did, clear into the bone!"</p> + +<p>"Then it's over twenty-five years since the Federalist was lost. Do you +suppose he's been going round the other world all this while without +getting a chance to be dry? Did you see him?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I felt it."</p> + +<p>"Well, now if there'd been anything real there, anything material, you'd +have seen it; and if it wasn't material, how could it be wet?"</p> + +<p>Faithful was not prepared to answer, but it was evident that she had +received a great shock. In vain did her sister argue, reason and coax. She +could not explain, but that something had come behind her, and that this +Something had touched her, she was convinced; and she added: "I do believe +it was John I saw the other night. I thought then I was awake all the +time, and now I know I was."</p> + +<p>This last assertion quite overset Miss Sophonisba's patience, "If ever any +one was asleep," she said, "you were when I came up stairs. I thought I +heard you walking about with your bare feet, and I came up to see."</p> + +<p>"Then you: heard it too?" said Miss Faithful, eagerly.</p> + +<p>It was an unlucky admission, but Miss Sophonisba would not allow that she +had made it.</p> + +<p>"I heard the wind make the boards creak, I suppose; and do you think John +wouldn't have more sense than to be walking about our room at half-past +ten at night? What nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"You may call it nonsense as much as you like, Sophonisba," said Miss +Faithful, beginning to cry afresh, "but I know what I know, and I can't +help it."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, dear, we won't think of it any more. You're nervous and +worried, and you'd just best put on your wrapper and lie down and try to +go to sleep."</p> + +<p>"I don't like to stay alone just now," said Miss Faithful, timidly.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to: I'll bring my work up stairs and stay with you."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba helped her sister up stairs, and began to assist her to +undress. As she took into her hand the cape of Miss Faithful's woolen +dress she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise, but checked herself +in time. On the left shoulder was a wet spot, and the dress directly +beneath was quite damp. Miss Sophonisba said nothing, of this matter to +her sister, but she made an excuse to leave the room for a moment, and +going down stairs looked to see if any water had been spilled on the +floor. There was none, and Miss Sophonisba was puzzled. She remembered +that when her sister was startled before she had occupied the same seat, +with her back to the cellar door. She noticed that the door was slightly +ajar, and it occurred to her that the cold air blowing through the crack +might account for her sister's feeling of sudden chill, if not for the +dampness. She went down the cellar stairs, carrying with her a lighted +candle. Bold as she was, a singular sensation came over her when she saw +upon each stair a print, as if some one with wet feet had ascended or +descended, and that very recently. The track was not such as would be left +by a person heavily shod: it was rather like that of one wearing a +stocking or thin slipper.</p> + +<p>"What under the sun--" was her perplexed exclamation as she went down, +following the marks of the unknown feet until they were lost on the stone +floor. It was certain that there was no one in the cellar, but as she went +up again, and paused for a moment at the top of the staircase, she heard, +or thought she heard, close to her ear, a long, weary sigh, as of one in +pain, and a sudden breath of cold air swept past her down the stairs. She +turned, and crossing the little passage went into the south room. The +burned spot on the floor was covered by the neat rag carpet, but there +were still some slight marks on the wall of the old doctor's brick +furnace. Miss Sophonisba glanced round the room, but her eyes fell upon +nothing but the familiar and well-preserved furniture; yet there came over +her a strange sense that she was not alone. She saw nothing, but in spite +of herself a feeling of a Presence not her own gathered about her. It was +but for a moment, and then her habitual firmness and common sense +reasserted themselves.</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" she said. "I am getting as bad as Faithful;" and +leaving the room, she went back to her sister. Miss Faithful had sought +comfort in her devotions, and was more composed than could have been +expected. Neither felt inclined to comment on the recent disturbance. Miss +Faithful's health seemed to have received no permanent harm from the +sudden shock she had undergone, but she had a nervous dread of being +alone, which was a source of some inconvenience to her sister.</p> + +<p>The month of December passed, and the uncomfortable impression left by +Faithful's attack was beginning to fade away from the minds of both, when +it happened that the disturbance was renewed in a singular manner.</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba was alone, her sister having gone to a household in the +village to take the measure for some mourning garments to be made up +immediately. Miss Sophonisba was busy with a black bonnet intended for a +member of the same family, and was thinking of nothing but the folds of +the material directly under her fingers. Gradually there came over her a +feeling that she was not alone. She struggled against it, and resolutely +bent her mind on her work; but the impression grew upon her, and with it a +sensation of horror such as she had never before experienced. The idea +that something stood behind her became so strong that she raised her eyes +from her work and looked around. Was there anything actually there, or was +the shapeless darkness anything more than an accidental shadow? Another +instant, and something touched her cheek--something like soft, cold, moist +fingers. The touch, if such it was, was very gentle, such as a child might +give to attract attention. Miss Sophonisba would not give way. She took up +her work and went quietly on with it, though her fingers trembled. The +same long sigh fell upon her ear, the same chill breath of air swept past +her, and the Presence, if such it was, was gone, and with it the shadow.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Sophonisba to herself, "some things <i>are</i> kind of +curious, after all!"</p> + +<p>There had certainly been no living creature in the house but herself, for +their cat had disappeared some days before, and the loss of their favorite +had been a great vexation to both sisters. The shadow behind her chair, if +indeed it had been anything but fancy, had been too indistinct to allow +her to say that she had really seen it before it had vanished, but what +had given her the touch, the recollection of which yet caused a shiver? +She put up her hand to her cheek. The place was wet--an actual drop of +water adhered to her finger.</p> + +<p>"Dear me!" said she, "I wish I did know what to think."</p> + +<p>To one of her temperament the uncertainty was very annoying. She could not +bear to think that her experience was not directly owing to natural--by +which she meant, common--causes. "I am very glad Faithful was not here," +she thought as she turned to her work again. She would not indulge herself +by changing her seat, but kept her place with her back to the cellar door, +though she could not help now and then casting a glance over her shoulder. +Neither shadow nor substance, however, made itself manifest.</p> + +<p>That same night Miss Sophonisba woke from her sleep with the feeling that +some one had called her. She found herself mistaken, however, and lay +quietly awake, thinking over the events of the afternoon. The more she +thought the more puzzled, and even provoked, did she become. She was one +of those people who cannot bear to feel themselves incapable of accounting +for anything that is brought under their notice. A mystery, as such, is an +exasperation to them, and they will sometimes adopt an explanation more +perplexing than the phenomenon itself, rather than say, "I don't know." As +she lay there thinking over the matter, and trying to make herself believe +that the afternoon's experience was the effect of the wind or her own +fancy, she was startled by a step on the floor of the lower room--the same +light step. It crossed the floor, and she heard it on the stairs. Miss +Sophonisba raised her head from her pillow and looked around. There could +be no doubt that she was awake. She could see everything in the room: her +sister slept quietly at her side, and the moonlight shone in brightly at +the window. The slow step came up the stairs and in at the open door. She +heard it on the boards: her eyes beheld the shadow of her sister's vision, +so wavering and indistinct that she could not say with certainty that it +wore the semblance of a human form. The blood at her heart seemed to stand +still, but yet she neither screamed nor fainted, nor tried to wake her +sister. She watched the Thing as it moved to and fro in the chamber. +Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as +Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her +with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence +obscured the moonbeams. Miss Sophonisba bent all her will to the effort, +and with an heroic exertion she put out her hand to try by the sense of +touch if indeed she was in her waking senses. Her fingers were met by +others, soft, cold and damp. For a second, which seemed an hour, they +grasped her extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way +seemed half familiar. For one instant the shapeless gloom appeared to take +definite form--a tall human figure, a man in poor and ragged clothes; for +one instant a pair of wistful, eager eyes looked into her own; the next, +the cock without crowed loud and shrill. Her hand was released, and with +the same long, weary sigh the ghostly Presence passed away. Miss +Sophonisba sank back on her pillow nearly insensible. She did not know how +long she lay there, but when she at last gathered her senses she saw and +felt, with an involuntary shudder, that her hand was wet and cold, and +that across the floor, plain in the moonlight, leading to the half-open +door, were the marks of wet feet. She did not waken her sister, who still +slept quietly at her side, but it was with unspeakable relief that she saw +the morning dawn at last.</p> + +<p>In spite of herself, Miss Sophonisba was forced to the conclusion that, +except on the supposition that some inhabitant of another world had been +permitted to approach her, her experience was wholly inexplicable. "If it +comes again," said she to herself, "I'll certainly speak to it. Goodness +me!" she added, somewhat irritated in spite of her terror, "if it's got +anything to say, why don't it speak and be done with it?"</p> + +<p>She said nothing of the matter to her sister, and she so far controlled +herself as to preserve her usual manner.</p> + +<p>The sisters were busily engaged all day over the mourning dresses, when +toward night Miss Faithful's thread gave out and her work came to a +stand-still.</p> + +<p>"How provoking!" said she. "Three yards more would finish, and now I shall +have to go down to the village and buy a whole skein, just for that."</p> + +<p>"No," said Miss Sophonisba, who would not have acknowledged to herself her +dread of being alone in the house, "I think there's some like that in the +chimney cupboard in the south room: I'll get it."</p> + +<p>She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room. +Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began +searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters. Some +slight noise startled her. She turned, and saw standing before the +fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar, +though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it. It did +not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood +for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak. The +eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse. She had not seen +the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side. It, was too +much, even for her. She turned and sprang through the open door into the +passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face +bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor. The Thing did not follow +her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more +timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room. +Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown, +the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced +the past night: it was all this, together with a sense of an evil +influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul +and in body. However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she +could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence. The +candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning +all her strength, with an inward prayer she recrossed the threshold. The +light still burned brightly, the thread she had come to seek lay on the +floor where she had dropped it, but the figure was gone. She looked about +the room: there was no trace of living presence save her own. She had even +the courage to stoop down and examine the place on the carpet where the +Shape had stood, and which covered the burned spot on the floor; but this +time the mysterious footsteps had failed to leave their mark.</p> + +<p>"Whatever shall I do?" said Miss Sophonisba to herself. "If Faithful was +to see what I have, she'd nigh go crazy; and what excuse can we make for +leaving the house?"</p> + +<p>If no one but herself had been concerned, I think she would have stood a +siege from the hosts of the unknown world rather than confess that she +left the house because it was haunted. She caught herself up as the word +was formed in her thoughts. "Haunted, indeed!" she said. "I'll think I'm +losing my wits first. Stuff and nonsense!" But she paused, for through the +middle of the room, close by her side, making an angry gesture as it +passed, swept the same Shape, visible for one moment, vanishing the next. +She went back into the other room, and giving her sister the thread, sat +down so as to hide her face, busying herself with her work until she could +in some measure regain her wonted steady composure.</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful was much engaged with her sewing just at that moment, and +her sister's unusual agitation escaped her notice. Presently she said, +"Sophonisba, isn't there a bit of old black ribbon in that cupboard? I +want something of the kind, just to put round inside the neck of the +dress, and then it will be done."</p> + +<p>"Yes--I don't know--I think not," said her sister, with a hesitation so +unlike her usual promptness that Miss Faithful looked up surprised. "I +mean, I think there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "If you'd like to look, +I'll hold the candle for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you needn't put down your work for that," said Miss Faithful, but +Miss Sophonisba dropped the ribbon she was plaiting and followed her +sister with the candle. She threw a half-frightened glance around the room +as she entered, but the Vision did not reappear. It was some time before +the ribbon was found. It had been pushed into the farther corner of the +lower shelf, which was a wide and very thick pine board, slipping easily +on the cleats by which it was upheld. One end of the roll had caught +behind this shelf, and Miss Faithful pulled the board a little forward. As +she did so a little roll of paper fell into the bottom of the cupboard. +Miss Sophonisba picked it up. It consisted of several stained and +discolored sheets of paper, seemingly torn from an account-book or +journal, and covered all over with very fine and closely-written though +perfectly legible characters, in a very precise hand.</p> + +<p>"What is that?" said Miss Faithful.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing of ours, I'm pretty sure," said her sister, looking at it. +"But come, if you've got what you want: let's go into the other room--it's +cold here."</p> + +<p>As they crossed the threshold, Miss Faithful started.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" said her sister, though she well knew the reason. She +too had heard the same long sigh felt the same breath of chill air.</p> + +<p>"Why, it seemed as if something breathed close to my ear," said Miss +Faithful, turning white; "and what's more," she continued, as they crossed +the passage and entered the work-room, "I believe you heard it too, and +that you've seen things in this house you haven't told me of."</p> + +<p>"Well, child," said Miss Sophonisba in a subdued tone, "there <i>are</i> some +queer things in this world, that's a fact--queerer than ever I thought +till lately."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful did not press for an explanation: she went quietly on with +her dressmaking, and her sister, hurried though she was about her work, +set herself to examine the papers.</p> + +<p>I remember seeing the original manuscript when I was a little girl, but it +was unfortunately destroyed by an accident. My father, however, had copied +part of it, and this copy is yet in my possession. Miss Sophonisba could +make very little of the record, which related to scientific matters of +which she was quite ignorant; and as the most important words were +indicated by signs and figures, she was completely puzzled. The writer +seemed to have been seeking in vain some particular result. She looked on +through the dates of the year 1785, and saw here and there familiar names, +and at last commenced reading at these words:</p> + +<p>"<i>June</i> 3. This day took possession of my house. Busied in making +arrangements. Shall build my own furnace. Am sure now that I am in the +right way. Am determined no one shall come into the house."</p> + +<p>Much followed which Miss Sophonisba could not understand, until, under the +date of July 1, she found recorded:</p> + +<p>"Being over at Neponset, looking for the plant witch-hazel, bethought +myself to ask of the fellow they call Indian Will. Going to the little +hovel he lives in, found him lying very ill with pleurisy. By the grace of +God was able to help him. His wife told me where to find what I sought. To +my surprise, discovered she knew much of its virtues. It may be these +people have a knowledge of simples worth investigating.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 3. No nearer my great end. My means fast growing less. Have +borrowed from Jonathan Phelps, but the sum is but a drop for such a +purpose. Most like some of these people, who complain of my price for the +exercise of my skill, would give me threefold did they know what I work +for, if they might share in its result. Yet I know I am in the right way. +Should I die before I come to its end--Is Death the gate of knowledge?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oct.</i> 7. I advance just so far and no farther. Why is it that I see my +path so plain just to the one point, and there it stops? How small our +understanding of the endless mysteries around us! yet should something +differing from every day's experience befall us, how quickly we speak of +the <i>supernatural</i>!</p> + +<p>"<i>Oct.</i> 29. No nearer, no nearer, and my money all but done. Took some of +my books into Boston and offered them to sell. Refused, of course. How +should they know their value? Have sent them to London. It was hard, but +patience! patience!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oct.</i> 30. This day Indian Will brought the plants I wanted. Have bade +him never to tell any one that he comes here. He only has ever entered. So +far as I know, he has obeyed. He thinks me like one of his own powahs.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 15. At last! I have passed the crisis, and without accident. How +simple it seems, now that I know! It was my last bit of the essential +metal: like from like. Each element has its seed in itself. The poor +people say I have been good to them. Should success be final, I can indeed +help mankind.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 16. Last night, lifting the crucible from the furnace, spilled the +liquor on the floor. Had I one particle more of the essential element! All +was utterly lost: no one will lend to me.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 18. What have I done that I should feel guilt? What was worth the +life of such a useless creature to the interests of mankind? Why did he +not trust my word and give me what I needed when I asked him? If he had +not waked from his half-drunken sleep when I made the attempt, I would +have given him threefold. I gave him his life once: why will not that +atone? No one will know ever. I will devote my life to relieve distress. +What is such as his, weighed in the balance with my purpose? It is strange +that since then I have forgot the very essential thing in the process. I +cannot read my own cipher in which I wrote it down; but it will come, it +will come.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 19. Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain. Have lost +the key, have forgotten the chief link. Until I can recall it the metal is +useless. What if it should never come to me? This night went down to the +Point. Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pass. +The tide will soon wash them away.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 20. Surely it is not meant this thing should be known. To-day a +body came on shore, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by +those who should have known best. Now, no one will ever search this house. +Twice to-day I have been to look at the place: nothing can be seen. +Providence means I should live to finish my work--to complete that which I +alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken +off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would +the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck +at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not +human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to +go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days?</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no +guest but one I dare not name--</p> + +<p> 'Tumulum circumvolat umbra.'</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I +will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help +those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?"</p> + +<p>Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786:</p> + +<p>"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I +see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest +the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press +me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it +was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty +dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before, +thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it +will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I +will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will +rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of +all men, have seen unveiled the mystery. I will leave This behind. When I +am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if +that is what it seeks. Then it will cease to persecute me with its step +close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a +strange expression that her sister was startled. "Put on your bonnet, +Faithful," said she: "I'm going down to see the minister."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" said Miss Faithful: "it's nearly nine o'clock."</p> + +<p>"I don't care if it's midnight. I'm going to show these to him, and tell +him what's happened here, and he may make what he can of it."</p> + +<p>"Then you have seen something?" said Miss Faithful, turning pale.</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba made a sign of assent; "I'll tell you all about it when we +get there, but do come along now. You're work's done, and I'll take the +bonnet with me and finish it there."</p> + +<p>They lived at some distance from the parsonage, and the roads were in even +worse condition than they are now. It was a tiresome walk, and Miss +Faithful, clinging to her sister's side, was almost inclined to wish they +had braved the terrors at home rather than ventured out into the dark. The +clergyman was a middle-aged bachelor, a grandson of the Parson H---- +mentioned by Mrs. T----. He heard Miss Sophonisba's story in silence, but +without any sign of dissent. Faithful, in spite of her terror, could not +but feel a mild degree of triumph in her sister's evident conviction that +what she had seen was, to say the least, unaccountable.</p> + +<p>Mr. H---- looked over the papers which had been found in the cupboard, and +which Miss Sophonisba had brought with her. "This is undoubtedly Doctor +Haywood's writing," he said at last. "I have a book purchased of him by my +grandfather, and which has marginal notes in the same hand."</p> + +<p>"What shall we do, sir?" asked Miss Sophonisba.</p> + +<p>"If I were you I should leave the house as soon as possible. If there is +anything in the air which induces such--" Mr. H---- hesitated for a +word--"sensations as these, it would be better to go."</p> + +<p>"Sensations!" said Miss Sophonisba, almost indignant. "I tell you I saw it +myself; and what made the wet spot on Faithful's cape, and the rest?"</p> + +<p>"I can't undertake to say, Miss T----; but if you like I will just come up +to-morrow, and we will look into the matter a little. My cousin, +Lieutenant V----, is here from his ship, and he will assist me. And +meantime you had best stay here to-night: my sister will be very glad to +see you."</p> + +<p>Miss H---- was a particular friend of the sisters, but she could not but +feel a little curious to know the object of their visit. Miss Sophonisba +would have kept the matter to herself, but Miss Faithful, in her +excitement, could not but tell the story of their experiences. Miss H----, +however, was a discreet woman, and kept the tale to herself.</p> + +<p>The next evening the clergyman, his cousin the lieutenant and Miss +Sophonisba went quietly about dusk to the old house. They went down into +the cellar, and the drag which the sailor had constructed brought up some +bleached bones, and at the second cast a skeleton hand and a skull. As the +latter was disengaged from the drag something fell glittering from it upon +the cellar floor: two coins rolled to different corners. Mr. H----, picked +them up. One was a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea.</p> + +<p>"Miss T----," said the clergyman in a low tone, "I will see that these +poor relics are laid in the burial-ground; and then--really I think you +had better leave the house."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba made no opposition.</p> + +<p>The three ascended the cellar stairs, but as they entered the room they +paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it passed, a wild +gesture of despair, swept the Shape, living yet dead.</p> + +<p>"What was that?" said the clergyman, who was the first to recover himself, +"<i>It</i>," said Miss Sophonisba in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"I have seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy passage +round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the +waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to +board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a +corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I +could not bear it and hid my face. One of the sailors, however, took from +the dead hand a paper covered with characters in cipher, which no one +could read. This paper afterward fell into my possession, and I submitted +it in vain to several experts, all of whom failed to read it. By an +accident it was destroyed, and the secret, whatever it was, is hidden for +ever; but the face of that corpse was the face I have just seen in this +room."</p> + +<p class="author">Clara F. Guernsey.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id='st04'> +<h2>The Blood Seedling.</h2> + + + +<p>In a bit of green pasture that rose, gradually narrowing, to the tableland +that ended in prairie, and widened out descending to the wet and willowy +sands that border the Great River, a broad-shouldered young man was +planting an apple tree one sunny spring morning when Tyler was President. +The little valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills, +patched with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering +columbines. In front was the Mississippi, reposing from its plunge over +the rapids, and idling down among the golden sandbars and the low, moist +islands, which were looking their loveliest in their new spring dresses of +delicate green.</p> + +<p>The young man was digging with a certain vicious energy, forcing the spade +into the black crumbling loam with a movement full of vigor and malice. +His straight black brows were knitted till they formed one dark line over +his deep-set eyes. His beard was not yet old enough to hide the massive +outline of his firm, square jaw. In the set teeth, in the clouded face, in +the half-articulate exclamations that shot from time to time from the +compressed lips, it was easy to see that the thoughts of the young +horticulturist were far from his work.</p> + +<p>A bright young girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that +skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail +of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a +thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually +expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their +love as so airy and delicate in structure that the flowers they tread on +are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation. But not +being a poet or in love, we must admit that there was no resurrection for +the larkspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie +Barringer landed. Yet she was not of the coarse peasant type, though her +cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday +mornings, and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from +shoulders to waist. She was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl, +with a slightly freckled face, and rippled brown hair, and astonished blue +eyes, but perfectly self-possessed, and graceful as a young quail.</p> + +<p>A young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress. The +flight of this plump bird in its fluttering blue plumage over the +rail-fence caused our young man to look up from his spading: the scowl was +routed from his brow by a sudden incursion of blushes, and his mouth was +attacked by an awkward smile.</p> + +<p>The young lady nodded, and was hurrying past. The scowl came back in +force, and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss: +"Miss Tudie, are you in a hurry?"</p> + +<p>The lady thus addressed turned and said, in a voice that was half pert and +half coaxing, "No particular hurry. Al, I've told you a dozen times not to +call me that redicklis name."</p> + +<p>"Why, Tudie, I hain't never called you nothing else sence you was a little +one so high. You ort to know yer own name, and you give yerself that name +when you was a yearling. Howsom-ever, ef you don't like it now, sence +you've been to Jacksonville, I reckon I can call you Miss Susie--when I +don't disremember."</p> + +<p>The frank amende seemed to satisfy Miss Susie, for she at once interrupted +in the kindest manner: "Never mind, Al Golyer: you can call me what you +are a-mind to." Then, as if conscious of the feminine inconsistency, she +changed the subject by asking, "What are you going to do with that great +hole?--big enough to bury a fellow."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to plant this here seedlin', that growed up in Colonel Blood's +pastur', nobody knows how: belike somebody was eatin' an apple and throwed +the core down-like. I'm going to plant a little orchard here next spring, +but the colonel and me, we reckoned this one 'ud be too old by that time +for moving, so I thought I'd stick it in now, and see what come out'n it. +It's a powerful thrifty chunk of a saplin'."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I speak for the first peck of apples off'n it. Don't forget. +Good-morning."</p> + +<p>"Hold on a minute, Miss Susan, twell I git my coat. I'll walk down a piece +with you. I have got something to say to you."</p> + +<p>Miss Susie turned a little red and a little pale. These occasions were not +entirely unknown in her short experience of life. When young men in the +country in that primitive period had something to say, it was something +very serious and earnest. Allen Golyer was a good-looking, stalwart young +farmer, well-to-do, honest, able to provide for a family. There was +nothing presumptuous in his aspiring to the hand of the prettiest girl on +Chaney Creek. In childhood he had trotted her to Banbury Cross and back a +hundred times, beguiling the tedium of the journey with kisses and the +music of bells. When the little girl was old enough to go to school, the +big boy carried her books and gave her the rosiest apple out of his +dinner-basket. He fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions; +which latter, by the way, never gained her any great credit. When she was +fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week +during one happy winter to singing-school. This was the bloom of +life--nothing before or after could compare with it. The blacking of shoes +and brushing of stiff, electric, bristling hair, all on end with frost and +hope, the struggling into the plate-armor of his starched shirt, the tying +of the portentous and uncontrollable cravat before the glass, which was +hopelessly dimmed every moment by his eager breath,--these trivial and +vulgar details were made beautiful and unreal by the magic of youth and +love. Then came the walk through the crisp, dry snow to the Widow +Barringer's, the sheepish talk with the old lady while Susie "got on her +things," and the long, enchanting tramp to the "deestrick school-house."</p> + +<p>There is not a country-bred man or woman now living but will tell you that +life can offer nothing comparable with the innocent zest of that old style +of courting that was done at singing-school in the starlight and +candlelight of the first half of our century. There are few hearts so +withered and old but they beat quicker sometimes when they hear, in +old-fashioned churches, the wailing, sobbing or exulting strains of +"Bradstreet" or "China" or "Coronation;" and the mind floats down on the +current of these old melodies to that fresh young day of hopes and +illusions--of voices that were sweet, no matter how false they sang--of +nights that were rosy with dreams, no matter what Fahrenheit said--of +girls that blushed without cause, and of lovers who talked for hours about +everything but love.</p> + +<p>I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when +I say that there was nothing that our superior civilization would call +love making in those long walks through the winter nights. The heart of +Allen Golyer swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and +devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with his pretty enslaver. +But he talked of apples and pigs and the heathen and the teacher's wig, +and sometimes ventured an illusion to other people's flirtations in a +jocose and distant way; but as to the state of his own heart, his lips +were sealed. It would move a blasé smile on the downy lips of juvenile +Lovelaces, who count their conquests by their cotillons, and think nothing +of making a declaration in an avant-deux, to be told of young people +spending several evenings of each week in the year together, and speaking +no word of love until they were ready to name their wedding-day. Yet such +was the sober habit of the place and time.</p> + +<p>So there was no troth plighted between Allen and Susie, though the youth +loved the maiden with all the energy of his fresh, unused nature, and she +knew it very well. He never dreamed of marrying any other woman than Susie +Barringer, and she sometimes tried a new pen by writing and carefully +erasing the initials S.M.G., which, as she was christened Susan Minerva, +may be taken as showing the direction of her thoughts.</p> + +<p>If Allen Golyer had been less bashful or more enterprising, this history +would never have been written; for Susie would probably have said Yes for +want of anything better to say, and when she went to visit her aunt +Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone <i>engaged</i>, her finger bound +with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises. But she went, +as it was, fancy free, and there is no tinder so inflammable as the +imagination of a pretty country girl of sixteen.</p> + +<p>One day she went out with her easy-going aunt Abigail to buy ribbons, the +Chancy Creek invoices not supplying the requirements of Jacksonville +society. As they traversed the court-house square on their way to Deacon +Pettybones' place, Miss Susie's vagrant glances rested on an iris of +ribbons displayed in an opposition window. "Let's go in here," she said +with the impetuous decision of her age and sex.</p> + +<p>"We will go where you like, dear," said easy-going Aunt Abigail. "It makes +no difference."</p> + +<p>Aunt Abigail was wrong. It made the greatest difference to several persons +whether Susie Barringer bought her ribbons at Simmons' or Pettybones' that +day. If she had but known!</p> + +<p>But, all unconscious of the Fate that beckoned invisibly on the threshold, +Miss Susie tripped into "Simmons' Emporium" and asked for ribbons. Two +young men stood at the long counter. One was Mr. Simmons, proprietor of +the emporium, who advanced with his most conscientious smile: "Ribbons, +ma'am? Yes, ma'am--all sorts, ma'am. Cherry, ma'am? Certingly, ma'am. Jest +got a splendid lot from St. Louis this morning, ma'am. This way, ma'am."</p> + +<p>The ladies were soon lost in the delight of the eyes. The voice of Mr. +Simmons accompanied the feast of color, insinuating but unheeded.</p> + +<p>The other young man approached: "Here is what you want, miss--rich and +elegant. Just suits your style. Sets off your hair and eyes beautiful."</p> + +<p>The ladies looked up. A more decided voice than Mr. Simmons'; whiter hands +than Mr. Simmons' handled the silken bands; bolder eyes than the weak, +pink-bordered orbs of Mr. Simmons looked unabashed admiration into the +pretty face of Susie Barringer.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Simmons, old boy, introduce a fellow."</p> + +<p>Mr. Simmons meekly obeyed: "Mrs. Barringer, let me interduce you to Mr. +Leon of St. Louis, of the house of Draper & Mercer."</p> + +<p>"Bertie Leon, at your service," said the brisk young fellow, seizing Miss +Susie's hand with energy. His hand was so much softer and whiter than hers +that she felt quite hot and angry about it.</p> + +<p>When they had made their purchases, Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with +them, and was very witty and agreeable all the way. He had all the wit of +the newspapers, of the concert-rooms, of the steamboat bars at his +fingers' ends. In his wandering life he had met all kinds of people: he +had sold ribbons through a dozen States. He never had a moment's doubt of +himself. He never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would +not interfere with business. He had one ambition in life--to marry Miss +Mercer and get a share in the house. Miss Mercer was as ugly as a +millionaire's tombstone. Mr. Bertie Leon--who, when his moustache was not +dyed nor his hair greased, was really quite a handsome fellow--considered +that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interests of trade must be +made good to him in some way. So, "by way of getting even," he made +violent love to all the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels--"to +have something to think about after he should have found favor in the +strabismic optics of Miss Mercer," he observed, disrespectfully.</p> + +<p>Simple Susie, who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and +blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the +free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was +something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a +faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt +Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate +in the most recent Planters'-House style, she cordially invited him to +call--"to drop in any time: he must be lonesome so far from home."</p> + +<p>He said he wouldn't neglect such a chance, with another Planters'-House +bow.</p> + +<p>"What a nice young man!" said Aunt Abigail.</p> + +<p>"Awful conceited and not overly polite," said Susie as she took off her +bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings.</p> + +<p>The oftener Albert Leon came to Mrs. Barringer's bowery cottage, the more +the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticised +him, until it was plain to be seen that Aunt Abigail was growing tired of +him and pretty Susan dangerously interested. But just at this point his +inexorable carpet-bag dragged him off to a neighboring town, and Susie +soon afterward went back to Chaney Creek.</p> + +<p>Her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could +have done--the belle of the neighborhood. Non cuivis contingit adire +Lutetiam, but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county-town +is a shrine of fashion. Allen Golyer felt a vague sense of distrust +chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons' ribbons decking the pretty head +in the village choir the Sunday after her return, and, spurred on by a +nascent jealousy of the unknown, resolved to learn his fate without loss +of time. But the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned +friendliness, talked so much and so fast about her visit, that the honest +fellow was quite bewildered, and had to go home to think the matter over, +and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever, +or had drifted altogether out of his reach.</p> + +<p>Allen Golyer was, after all, a man of nerve and decision. He wasted only a +day or two in doubts and fears, and one Sunday afternoon, with a beating +but resolute heart, he left his Sunday-school class to walk down to +Crystal Glen and solve his questions and learn his doom. When he came in +sight of the widow's modest house, he saw a buggy hitched by the gate.</p> + +<p>"Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel, by jing! What is Dow after out here?"</p> + +<p>It is natural, if not logical, that young men should regard the visits of +all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious +impropriety.</p> + +<p>But it was not his friend and crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came +out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling +Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the +period--light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black +moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers +that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished +boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod +men in the world.</p> + +<p>Golyer's heart sank within him as this splendid being shone upon him. But +with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the +gate, and said, "Tudie, I come to see you. Shall I go in and talk to your +mother twell you come back?"</p> + +<p>"No, that won't pay," promptly replied the brisk stranger. "We will be +gone the heft of the afternoon, I reckon. This hoss is awful slow," he +added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr. +Leon."</p> + +<p>Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the +West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again." He lifted Miss +Susie into the buggy, sprang lightly in, and went off with laughter and +the cracking of his whip after Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel.</p> + +<p>The young farmer walked home desolate, comparing in his simple mind his +own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilet, his awkward address +with the other's easy audacity, till his heart was full to the brim with +that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy, from +which pray Heaven to guard you.</p> + +<p>It was the next morning that Miss Susie vaulted over the fence where Allen +Golyer was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree.</p> + +<p>"Something middlin' particular," continued Golyer, resolutely.</p> + +<p>"There is no use leaving your work," said Miss Barringer pluckily. "I will +stay and listen."</p> + +<p>Poor Allen began as badly as possible: "Who was that feller with you +yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Golyer--my friends ain't fellers! What's that to you, who +he was?"</p> + +<p>"Susie Barringer, we have been keeping company now a matter of a year. I +have loved you well and true: I would have give my life to save you any +little care or trouble. I never dreamed of nobody but you--not that I was +half good enough for you, but because I did not know any better man around +here. Ef it ain't too late, Susie, I ask you to be my wife. I will love +you and care for you, good and true."</p> + +<p>Before this solemn little speech was finished, Susie was crying and biting +her bonnet-strings in a most undignified manner. "Hush, Al Golyer!" she +burst out. "You mustn't talk so. You are too good for me. I am kind of +promised to that fellow. I 'most wish I had never seen him."</p> + +<p>Allen sprang to her and took her in his strong arms: she struggled free +from him. In a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had +produced in her passed away. She dried her eyes and said firmly enough, +"It's no use, Al: we wouldn't be happy together. Good-bye! I shouldn't +wonder if I went away from Chaney Creek before long."</p> + +<p>She walked rapidly down to the river-road. Allen stood fixed and +motionless, gazing at the light, graceful form until the blue dress +vanished behind the hill, and leaned long on his spade, unconscious of the +lapse of time.</p> + +<p>When Susan reached her home she found Leon at the gate.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my little rosebud! I came near missing you. I am going to Keokuk this +morning, to be gone a few days. I stopped here a minute to give you +something to keep for me till I come back."</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe +lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed.</p> + +<p>She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched +him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It +would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him. +I'd like to hear it."</p> + +<p>An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a +shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the +piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse +passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face. +He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of +weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung +clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued +with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would +have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who, +though working against hope, was still not without resolute will.</p> + +<p>Dame Barringer, who had seen him coming up the walk, bustled in: +"Good-morning, Allen. How beat out you do look! Now, I like a stiddy young +man, but don't you think you run this thing of workin' into the ground?"</p> + +<p>"Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile--"leastways I've been +a-running this spade into the ground all the morning, and--"</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> want buttermilk--that's your idee: ain't it, now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Mizzes Barringer, I reckon you know my failin's."</p> + +<p>The good woman trotted off to the dairy, and Susie sewed demurely, waiting +with some trepidation for what was to come next.</p> + +<p>"Susie Barringer," said a low, husky voice which she could scarcely +recognize as Golyer's, "I've come to ask pardon--not for nothing I've +done, for I never did and never could do you wrong--but for what I thought +for a while arter you left me this morning. It's all over now, but I tell +<i>you</i> the Bad Man had his claws into my heart for a spell. Now it's all +over, and I wish you well. I wish your husband well. If ever you git into +any trouble where I can help, send for me: it's my right. It's the last +favor I ask of you."</p> + +<p>Susceptible Susie cried a little again. Allen, watching her with his +ambushed eyes, said, "Don't take it to heart, Tudie. Perhaps there is +better days in store for me yet."</p> + +<p>This did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least. She was +greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man's heart: she +was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not. If any +explanation of this paradox is required, I would observe, quoting a phrase +much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age, that Miss Susie +Barringer was "a very female woman."</p> + +<p>So pretty Susan's rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time +her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and +plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent +delight of a Lady Bountiful.</p> + +<p>"There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance +in all things."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, you work less and play more. We never get a sight of you +lately. Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie."</p> + +<p>It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter +married and settled with "a stiddy young man that you knowed all about, +and his folks before him." She had observed with great disquietude the +brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter +in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil +of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is +a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet +would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a +Cocodès.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't +be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller."</p> + +<p>Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame +Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on +his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making +Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol.</p> + +<p>Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's +dismay, Mr. Leon did not come.</p> + +<p>"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away +from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet +and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The +artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so +she added, "I was expecting a letter from my aunt."</p> + +<p>"No letters here from your aunt, nor your uncle, nor none of the tribe," +said old Whaler, who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place, and so +had no further use for good manners.</p> + +<p>"I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch," said Susie that +evening, "and I won't go near his old post-office again." But Susie forgot +her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family +affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie <i>must</i> have +written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly, +"Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres--that's what's the +matter."</p> + +<p>Poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried +from that dreadful post-office, scarcely hearing the terrible words that +the old gin-pig hurled after her: "<i>And he's forgot you!--that's what's +the matter.</i>"</p> + +<p>Susie Barringer walked home along the river-road, revolving many things in +her mind. She went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen-knife +over the latch, and sat down to have a good cry. Her faculties being thus +cleared for action, she thought seriously for an hour. If you can remember +when you were a school-girl, you know a great deal of solid thinking can +be done in an hour. But we can tell you in a moment what it footed up. You +can walk through the Louvre in a minute, but you cannot see it in a week.</p> + +<p><i>Susan Barringer (sola, loquitur)</i>: "Three weeks yesterday. Yes, I s'pose +it's so. What a little fool I was! He goes everywheres--says the same +things to everybody, like he was selling ribbons. Mean little scamp! +Mother seen through him in a minute. I'm mighty glad I didn't tell her +nothing about it." [Fie, Susie! your principles are worse than your +grammar.] "He'll marry some rich girl--I don't envy her, but I hate +her--and I am as good as she is. Maybe he will come back--no, and I hope +he won't;--and I wish I was dead!" (<i>Pocket handkerchief.</i>)</p> + +<p>Yet in the midst of her grief there was one comforting thought--nobody +knew of it. She had no confidante--she had not even opened her heart to +her mother: these Western maidens have a fine gift of reticence. A few of +her countryside friends and rivals had seen with envy and admiration the +pretty couple on the day of Leon's arrival. But all their poisonous little +compliments and questions had never elicited from the prudent Susie more +than the safe statement that the handsome stranger was a friend of Aunt +Abbie's, whom she had met at Jacksonville. They could not laugh at her: +they could not sneer at gay deceivers and lovelorn damsels when she went +to the sewing-circle. The bitterness of her tears was greatly sweetened by +the consideration that in any case no one could pity her. She took such +consolation from this thought that she faced her mother unflinchingly at +tea, and baffled the maternal inquest on her "redness of eyes" by the +school-girl's invaluable and ever-ready headache.</p> + +<p>It was positively not until a week later, when she met Allen Golyer at +choir-meeting, that she remembered that this man knew the secret of her +baffled hopes. She blushed scarlet as he approached her: "Have you got +company home, Miss Susie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes--that is, Sally Withers and me came together, and--"</p> + +<p>"No, that's hardly fair to Tom Fleming: three ain't the pleasantest +company. I will go home with you."</p> + +<p>Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her, and leaned upon it +with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home through +the balmy night under the clear, starry heaven of the early spring. The +air was full of the quickening breath of May.</p> + +<p>Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Allen +Golyer. He talked more than usual, but in a grave, quiet, protecting +style, very different from his former manner of worshiping bashfulness. +His tone had in it an air of fatherly caressing which was inexpressibly +soothing to his pretty companion, tired and lonely with her silent +struggle of the past month. When they came to her gate and he said +good-night, she held his hand a moment with a tremulous grasp, and spoke +impulsively: "Al, I once told you something I never told anybody else. +I'll tell you something else now, because I believe I can trust you."</p> + +<p>"Be sure of that, Susie Barringer."</p> + +<p>"Well, Al, my engagement is broken off."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for you, Susie, if you set much store by him."</p> + +<p>Miss Susie answered with great and unnecessary impetuosity, "I don't, and +I am glad of it!" and then ran into the house and to bed, her cheeks all +aflame at the thought of her indiscretion, and yet with a certain comfort +in having a friend from whom she had no secrets.</p> + +<p>I protest there was no thought of coquetry in the declaration which Susan +Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of +the May heaven. But Allen Golyer would have been a dull boy not to have +taken heart and hope from it. He became, as of old, a frequent and welcome +visitor at Crystal Glen. Before long the game of chequers with Susie +became so enthralling a passion that it was only adjourned from one +evening to another. Allen's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with +fatigue-duty, and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much +soap. Susie's affectionate heart, which had been swayed a moment from its +orbit by the irresistible attraction of Bertie Leon's diamond breastpin +and city swagger, swung back to its ancient course under the mild +influence of time and the weather and opportunity. So that Dame Barringer +was not in the least surprised, on entering her little parlor one soft +afternoon in that very May, to see the two young people economically +occupying one chair, and Susie shouting the useless appeal, "Mother, make +him behave!"</p> + +<p>"I never interfere in young folks' matters, especially when they're going +all right," said the motherly old soul, kissing "her son Allen" and +trotting away to dry her happy tears.</p> + +<p>I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married--so soon that when +Miss Susan went with her mother to Keokuk to buy a wedding-garment, she +half expected to find, in every shop she entered, the elegant figure of +Mr. Leon leaning over the counter. But the dress was bought and made, and +worn at wedding and <i>in-fair</i> and in a round of family visits among the +Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the +pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on +Allen's prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs. +Golyer to trouble her joy. In her calm and busy life the very name faded +from her tranquil mind. These wholesome country hearts do not bleed long. +In that wide-awake country eyes are too useful to be wasted in weeping. My +dear Lothario Urban us, those peaches are very sound and delicious, but +they will not keep for ever. If you do not secure them to-day, they will +go to some one else, and in no case, as the Autocrat hath said with +authority, can you stand there "mellering 'em with your thumb."</p> + +<p>There was no happier home in the county, and few finer farms. The good +sense and industry of Golyer and the practical helpfulness of his wife +found their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing +orchards. The Warsaw merchants fought for his wheat, and his apples were +known in St. Louis. Mrs. Golyer, with that spice of romance which is +hidden away in every woman's heart, had taken a special fancy to the +seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted. +Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a +child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he +reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling. He spaded and +mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits +and in summer from terebrant grubs. It was not ungrateful. It grew a noble +tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, +and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell. The first peck of +apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first +bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud in his +admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on: "Great Scott, Golyer! +I'd rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than +be Senator."</p> + +<p>"You've got your wish, then, colonel," said Golyer. "Me and my wife have +called that tree The Blood Seedling sence the day it was transplanted from +your pastur'."</p> + +<p>It was the pride and envy of the neighborhood. Several neighbors asked for +scions and grafts, but could do nothing with them.</p> + +<p>"Fact is," said old Silas Withers, "those folks that expects to raise good +fruit by begging graffs, and then layin' abed and readin' newspapers, will +have a good time waitin'. Elbow-grease is the secret of the Blood +Seedlin', ain't it, Al?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I reckon, Squire Withers, a man never gits anything wuth havin' +without a tussle for it; and as to secrets, I don't believe in them, +nohow."</p> + +<p>A square-browed, resolute, silent, middle-aged man, who loved his home +better than any amusement, regular at church, at the polls, something +richer every Christmas than he had been on the New Year's preceding--a man +whom everybody liked and few loved much--such had Allen Golyer grown to +be.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>If I have lingered too long over this colorless and commonplace picture of +rural Western life, it is because I have felt an instinctive reluctance to +recount the startling and most improbable incident which fell one night +upon this quiet neighborhood, like a thunderbolt out of blue sky. The +story I must tell will be flatly denied and easily refuted. It is absurd +and fantastic, but, unless human evidence is to go for nothing when it +testifies of things unusual, the story is true.</p> + +<p>At the head of the rocky hollow through which Chaney Creek ran to the +river, lived the family who gave the brook its name. They were among the +early pioneers of the county. In the squatty yellow stone house the +present Chaney occupied his grandfather had stood a siege from Black Hawk +all one summer day and night, until relieved by the garrison of Fort +Edward. The family had not grown with the growth of the land. Like many +others of the pioneers, they had shown no talent for keeping abreast of +the civilization whose guides and skirmishers they had been. In the +progress of a half century they had sold, bit by bit, their section of +land, which kept intact would have proved a fortune. They lived very +quietly, working enough to secure their own pork and hominy, and regarding +with a sort of impatient scorn every scheme of public or private +enterprise that passed under their eyes.</p> + +<p>The elder Chaney had married, some years before, at the Mormon town of +Nauvoo, the fair-haired daughter of a Swedish mystic, who had come across +the sea beguiled by dreams of a perfect theocracy, and who on arriving at +the city of the Latter-Day Saints had died, broken-hearted from his lost +illusions.</p> + +<p>The only dowry that Seraphita Neilsen brought her husband, besides her +delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes, was a full set of Swedenborg's +later writings in English. These became the daily food of the solitary +household. Saul Chaney would read the exalted rhapsodies of the Northern +seer for hours together, without the first glimmer of their meaning +crossing his brain. But there was something in the majesty of their +language and the solemn roll of their poetical development that +irresistibly impressed and attracted him. Little Gershom, his only child, +sitting at his feet, would listen in childish wonder to the strange things +his silent, morose and gloomy father found in the well-worn volumes, until +his tired eyelids would fall at last over his pale, bulging eyes.</p> + +<p>As he grew up his eyes bulged more and more: his head seemed too large for +his rickety body. He pored over the marvelous volumes until he knew long +passages by heart, and understood less of them than his father--which was +unnecessary. He looked a little like his mother, but while she in her +youth had something of the faint and flickering beauty of the Boreal +Lights, poor Gershom never could have suggested anything more heavenly +than a foggy moonlight. When he was fifteen he went to the neighboring +town of Warsaw to school. He had rather heavy weather among the well-knit, +grubby-knuckled urchins of the town, and would have been thoroughly +disheartened but for one happy chance. At the house where he boarded an +amusement called the "Sperrit Rappin's" was much in vogue. A group of +young folks, surcharged with all sorts of animal magnetism, with some +capacity for belief and much more for fun, used to gather about a light +pine table every evening, and put it through a complicated course of +mystical gymnastics. It was a very good-tempered table: it would dance, +hop or slam at the word of command, or, if the exercises took a more +intellectual turn, it would answer any questions addressed to it in a +manner not much below the average capacity of its tormentors.</p> + +<p>Gershom Chaney took all this in solemn earnest. He was from the first +moment deeply impressed. He lay awake whole nights, with his eyes fast +closed, in the wildest dreams. His school-hours were passed in trancelike +contemplation. He cared no more for punishment than the fakeer for his +self-inflicted tortures. He longed for the coming of the day when he could +commune in solitude with the unfleshed and immortal. This was the full +flowering of those seeds of fantasy that had fallen into his infant mind +as he lay baking his brains by the wide fire in the old stone house at the +head of the hollow, while his father read, haltingly, of the wonders of +the invisible world.</p> + +<p>But, to his great mortification, he saw nothing, heard nothing, +experienced nothing but in the company of others. He must brave the +ridicule of the profane to taste the raptures which his soul loved. His +simple, trusting faith made him inevitably the butt of the mischievous +circle. They were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to +external influences. One muscular, black-haired, heavy-browed youth took +especial delight in practicing upon him. The table, under Gershom's +tremulous hands, would skip like a lamb at the command of this Thomas Fay.</p> + +<p>One evening, Tom Fay had a great triumph. They had been trying to get the +"medium"--for Gershom had reached that dignity--to answer sealed +questions, and had met with indifferent success. Fay suddenly approached +the table, scribbled a phrase, folded it and tossed it, doubled up, before +Gershom; then leaned over the table, staring at his pale, unwholesome face +with all the might of his black eyes.</p> + +<p>Chaney seized the pencil convulsively and wrote, "Balaam!"</p> + +<p>Fay burst into a loud laugh and said, "Read the question?"</p> + +<p>It was, "Who rode on your grandfather's back?"</p> + +<p>This is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor +Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended, +but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen +counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and +incorrigible indolence. He accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom, +and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents.</p> + +<p>Here, with less criticism and more perfect faith, he renewed the exercise +of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and +want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to +make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings +and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as +evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an +oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they +expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time +to the circle, and their reports heightened the half-uncanny interest with +which the Chaney house was regarded.</p> + +<p>It was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that Allen Golyer, standing +by his gate, saw Saul Chaney slouching along in the twilight, and hailed +him: "What news from the sperrits, Saul?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world +takes care of the like o' you."</p> + +<p>Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors +abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think +for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up +and ask Gershom what's come of it."</p> + +<p>"Come along, if you like. It's been a long while sence you've crossed my +sill. But I'm gitting to be quite the style. Young Lawyer Marshall is +a-coming up this evening to see my Gershom."</p> + +<p>Before Mr. Golyer started he filled a basket, "to make himself welcome and +pay for the show," with the reddest and finest fruit of his favorite apple +tree. His wife followed him to the gate and kissed him--a rather unusual +attention among Western farmer-people. Her face, still rosy and comely, +was flushed and smiling: "Al, do you know what day o' the year it is?"</p> + +<p>"Nineteenth of Aprile?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and twenty years ago to-day you planted the Blood Seedlin' and I +give you the mitten!" She turned and went into the house, laughing +comfortably.</p> + +<p>Allen walked slowly up the hollow to the Chaney house, and gave the apples +to Seraphita and told her their story. A little company was assembled--two +or three Chaney Creek people, small market-gardeners, with eyes the color +of their gooseberries and hands the color of their currants; Mr. Marshall, +a briefless young barrister from Warsaw, with a tawny friend, who spoke +like a Spaniard.</p> + +<p>"Take seats, friends, and form a circle o' harmony," said Saul Chaney. +"The me'jum is in fine condition: he had two fits this arternoon."</p> + +<p>Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak. He reclined in a great hickory +arm-chair, with his eyes half open, his lips moving noiselessly. All the +persons present formed a circle and joined hands.</p> + +<p>The moment the circle was completed by Saul and Seraphita, who were on +either side of their son, touching his hands, an expression of pain and +perplexity passed over his pale face, and he began to writhe and mutter.</p> + +<p>"He's seein' visions," said Saul.</p> + +<p>"Yes, too many of 'em," said Gershom, querulously. "A boy in a boat, a man +on a shelf, and a man with a spade--all at once: too many. Get me a +pencil. One at a time, I tell you--one at a time!"</p> + +<p>The circle broke up, and a table was brought, with writing materials. +Gershom grasped a pencil, and said, with imperious and feverish +impatience, "Come on, now, and don't waste the time of the shining ones."</p> + +<p>An old woman took his right hand. He wrote with his left very rapidly an +instant, and threw her the paper, always with his eyes shut close.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Scritcher read with difficulty, "A boy in a boat--over he goes;" +and burst out in a piteous wail, "Oh, my poor little Ephraim! I always +knowed it."</p> + +<p>"Silence, woman!" said the relentless medium.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marshall," said Saul, "would you like a test?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said the young gentleman. "I brought my friend, Mr. +Baldassano, who, as a traveler, is interested in these things."</p> + +<p>"Will you take the medium's hand, Mr. What's-your-name?"</p> + +<p>The young foreigner took the lean and feverish hand of Gershom, and again +the pencil flew rapidly over the paper. He pushed the manuscript from him +and snatched his hand away from Baldassano. As the latter looked at what +was written, his tawny cheek grew deadly pale. "Dios mio!" he exclaimed to +Marshall. "This is written in Castilian!"</p> + +<p>The two young men retired to the other end of the room and read by the +tallow candle the notes scrawled on the paper. Baldassano translated: "A +man on a shelf--table covered with bottles beside him: man's face yellow +as gold: bottles tumble over without being touched."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense is that?" said Marshall.</p> + +<p>"My brother died of yellow fever at sea last year."</p> + +<p>Both the young men became suddenly very thoughtful, and observed with +great interest the result of Golyer's "test." He sat by Gershom, holding +his hand tightly, but gazing absently into the dying blaze of the wide +chimney. He seemed to have forgotten where he was: a train of serious +thought appeared to hold him completely under its control. His brows were +knit with an expression of severe almost fierce determination. At one +moment his breathing was hard and thick--a moment after hurried and +broken.</p> + +<p>All this while the fingers of Gershom were flying rapidly over the paper, +independently of his eyes, which were sometimes closed, and sometimes +rolling as if in trouble.</p> + +<p>A wind which had been gathering all the evening now came moaning up the +hollow, rattling the window-blinds, and twisting into dull complaint the +boughs of the leafless trees. Its voice came chill and cheerless into the +dusky room, where the fire was now glimmering near its death, and the only +sounds were those of Gershom's rushing pencil, the whispering of Marshall +and his friend, and old Mother Scritcher feebly whimpering in her corner. +The scene was sinister. Suddenly, a rushing gust blew the door wide open.</p> + +<p>Golyer started to his feet, trembling in every limb, and looking furtively +over his shoulder out into the night. Quickly recovering himself, he +turned to resume his place. But the moment he dropped Gershom's hand, the +medium had dropped his pencil, and had sunk back in his chair in a deep +and deathlike slumber. Golyer seized the sheet of paper, and with the +first line that he read a strange and horrible transformation was wrought +in the man. His eyes protruded, his teeth chattered, he passed his hand +over his head mechanically, and his hair stood up like the bristles on the +back of a swine in rage. His face was blotched white and purple. He looked +piteously about him for a moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand, +cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's +no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: +ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of lying? I +done it."</p> + +<p>He paused, as if struck by a sudden recollection, then burst into tears +and shook like a tree in a high wind. In a moment he dropped on his knees, +and in that posture crawled over to Marshall: "Here, Mr. Marshall--here's +the whole story. For God's sake, spare my wife and children all you can. +Fix my little property all right for 'em, and God bless you for it!" Even +while he was speaking, with a quick revulsion of feeling he rose to his +feet, with a certain return of his natural dignity, and said, "But they +sha'n't take me! None of my kin ever died that way: I've got too much sand +in my gizzard to be took that way. Good-bye, friends all!"</p> + +<p>He walked deliberately out into the wild, windy night.</p> + +<p>Marshall glanced hurriedly at the fatal paper in his hand. It was full of +that capricious detail with which in reverie we review scenes that are +past. But a line here and there clearly enough told the story--how he went +out to plant the apple tree; how Susie came by and rejected him; how he +passed into the power of the devil for the time; how Bertie Leon came by +and spoke to him, and patted him on the shoulder, and talked about city +life; how he hated him and his pretty face and his good clothes; how they +came to words and blows, and he struck him with his spade, and he fell +into the trench, and he buried him there at the roots of the tree.</p> + +<p>Marshall, following his first impulse, thrust the paper into the dull red +coals. It flamed for an instant, and flew with a sound like a sob up the +chimney.</p> + +<p>They hunted for Golyer all night, but in the morning found him lying as if +asleep, with the peace of expiation on his pale face, his pruning-knife in +his, heart, and the red current of his life tinging the turf with crimson +around the roots of the Blood Seedling.</p> + +<p class="author">John Hay.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st05"> +<h2>The Marquis.</h2> + + + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles lived near Crawfish Creek. Crawfish Creek ran near Thompson +City. Thompson City was in a Western State, but now is in a Middle one. It +was always in the midst of a great country--accepting local testimony and +a rank growth of corn and politicians as the tests of greatness. The earth +there was monotonously parched in summer, and monotonously muddy at all +other times. The forests were gigantic, the air carbonic, and when the +citizens wished to give Thompson City the highest commendation, they did +so by saying that "fevernagur" was worse in some other places.</p> + +<p>In the parlor of Mrs. Ruggles, which was also her kitchen and dining-hall, +hung a frame containing a seven-by-nine mirror, which was the frame's +excuse for being, although a compartment above and one below held squares +of glass covered with paint instead of mercury. The lower one was colored +like the contents of a wash-tub after a liberal use of indigo; and in the +centre was a horizontal stroke of red, surmounted by a perpendicular dash +of white, intersected by an oblique line of black--all of which +represented a red boat, with a white sail and black spar, making an +endless voyage across the lake of indigo. The black crosses in the sky +were birds. The black lines on the left were bulrushes. And among these +bulrushes a certain gloomy little object was either a Hebrew prophet or a +muskrat.</p> + +<p>Above the mirror was painted a long-tailed coat, from behind which +extended a hand holding a bell-crowned hat, to whose scarlet lining the +holder seemed inviting the spectator's particular attention. There were +also a pair of legs and boots, a heavy shock of hair, a labyrinth of +neckcloth and a florid human face. Under the boots were the words,</p> + +<p>MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.</p> + +<p>And the beholder was ever in doubt whether the marquis was trying to stand +exclusively upon this title or was unconsciously trampling it into the +ground.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles admired this picture. Her knowledge of French was not great, +but her ear was delicate; and thinking the words "sounded handsome," she +had deliberately conferred them in full on her first-born. When in +good-humor she was content with calling him "Marquis-dee." In fact, it was +only when chasing him into the street with a lilac bush in her hand that +she insisted on addressing him by his full name. At such times, between +each flourish of the lilac bush and each yell of the young nobleman, she +pronounced with significant fullness, with fearful exactness, the +handsome-sounding name of Marquis de la Fayette Ruggles. His playmates, +however, had not the delicate ear of the mother, and as the son had brown +specks on his face, he was popularly known as "Frecky Rug."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles and her late husband were pioneers in the Crawfish Valley. +Subsequent settlers knew little, and apparently cared less, about her. +They knew, however, that she had been a Peables, and that Peables blood +was still doing its duty in her veins. And from her independence and +reserve they argued that the Peableses must have been "high up"--at least +in the estimation of Mrs. Ruggles. After Mr. Ruggles had been overcome by +malaria in clearing the creek bottoms the pride of the Peables blood had +sustained her in a long, brave fight with circumstances.</p> + +<p>It was while he lay one night upon his deathbed, mistaking a watching +neighbor for his wife, that he started up, saying, "Becky, if I could +prove it to you afore I died!"</p> + +<p>"Out of his head," was the quiet remark of Mrs. Ruggles to the watching +neighbor by the bedside. There was no further sign of delirium. That +exclamation of the dying Mr. Ruggles was a mystery to the women of +Crawfish Creek, and remains so to this day.</p> + +<p>It may be that the pride of Mrs. Ruggles was in excess of her wisdom. It +may be if that pride had been a little more respected by the irreverent +Crawfish settlers, they would not have had occasion to wonder, as they did +wonder, how a heart so true, an honesty so stoical, a discrimination so +acute could exist with an independence so absurd, a mind so uncultured, a +sense of dignity so ridiculous as were found united in her character. It +may be that the Peables blood was worthy of receiving honor as great as +the ridicule it did receive. It may be if the world had known the +Peableses it would have been as proud of them as she was.</p> + +<p>She was a person of scrupulous neatness, careful never to be seen by +strangers except in a tidy dress, and with her hair in a Grecian knot, +gracefully secured by a leather string and a wooden peg. "Weak creepings" +were her main reliance in the way of disease. She was also troubled, at +times, with a "fullness of the head." In addition, there were other times +when her right side "felt separate." But she seldom complained of anything +belonging to herself. Even her maladies, she took pleasure in knowing, +were very different from those enjoyed by certain other women. Unwilling +to be too familiar with any one baser than a Ruggles, she usually dined, +as she lived, alone with her noble son.</p> + +<p>On a certain summer evening she stirred her tea a long time in silence. +She stirred it vigorously, creating a maelstrom inside her cup, where, +very like a whale in the story-books, a little crust of bread disappeared +and reappeared, and sailed round and round as if very much perplexed. Then +she unconsciously reversed the current of the maelstrom, sending the baked +and buttered whale to the bottom.</p> + +<div class="image"><p><img src="images/image02.png" alt=""She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the +young naturalist's feelings."" /><br /> +"She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the +young naturalist's feelings."</p></div> + +<p>"I never see that air Miller, no odds how well I be," she remarked +mechanically to the tea-pot, "but what I feel weak creepin's come over me. +He puts dye-stuff on his baird. An' when a man's whiskers is gray an' his +head keeps black, it's a sign he uses his jaw more'n he does his brains. +An' that yaller-headed doll-baby o' his'n--the peert thing:--I'll lay +fifty cents she never washed a dish. To think o' her sayin' a thing like +that about Markis-dee!--an' there's more o' the Peables in him to-day--But +I s'pose she don't know no better." And Mrs. Ruggles rose from the table, +while the corner of her apron made a sudden journey to the corner of her +eye. It was evident her moral nature had received a wound that rankled.</p> + +<p>A year before this time the marquis and his playmates had watched several +vigorous fellows plant a theodolite on the bank of Crawfish Creek, very +much as the natives must have watched the Spaniards plant their first +cross on San Salvador. The contract for grading the new railway bed was in +the hands of a stranger named Miller, who was said to have known better +days, and in the time of his prosperity had been thought a proper person +to be called Colonel. He was a bluff man of forty years, who appeared to +have known both the ups and downs of life, and whose determination to wear +a black beard was equaled only by its determination to be gray. Rumor said +that he had been a railroad president, that he made and spent vast sums of +money, and that his home was somewhere in the East.</p> + +<p>His only child, Alice, ten or twelve years old, bright, fair, full of +animal spirits, who was indulged to the last degree by the roughly +generous colonel, sometimes accompanied him about the half-developed +country, searching for strange birds and blossoms in the woods or watching +demurely the laborers ply their picks and shovels while he inspected their +work.</p> + +<p>The two rode almost daily between Thompson City and the line of +excavation, passing the house of Mrs. Ruggles and a cool spring by the +roadside near it, whence that lady had obtained the water which made the +tea which was stirred into the maelstrom which has been described. While +obtaining it, clad in her working garb, the patter of hoofs and a clear +girlish laugh--sweet as the carol of a meadow lark--came ringing along the +road. As the colonel and Alice halted to let her high-mettled pony and his +heavier Morgan drink, Mrs. Ruggles, who could not otherwise escape +observation, with becoming pride and modesty stepped behind the thick +willows, leaving the marquis with a pail of water between his legs and a +bunch of mottled feathers in his hand.</p> + +<p>He stood dumb before the lovely girl, with her face sparkling from +exercise and enjoyment, and her golden hair escaping from its prison of +blue ribbons. While the horses drank she espied a cluster of cool violets +brightening the damp grass near the spring. The marquis had presence of +mind enough left to step forward and pluck them. Her "Thank you!" added +greatly to his embarrassment, which he expressed by vigorously twisting +the mottled feathers.</p> + +<p>"What bird are those from?" asked Alice.</p> + +<p>The question so increased his embarrassment that now the marquis could +express it only by chewing his cap, and she smilingly waited a moment for +the composure of the young naturalist's feelings.</p> + +<p>"She was a low, chunky hen," said he, at length--"she was a low, chunky +hen, an' she laid a hundred an' seven eggs, an' then she had spazzums an' +whirled roun' till she died."</p> + +<p>A burst of irrepressible laughter escaped Alice, with the exclamation, +"Did anybody ever see such a boy?" as she and her father rode away. And +those were the exceptionable words concerning her son which so rankled +that evening in the heart of Mrs. Ruggles.</p> + +<p>The marquis gazed with hungry eyes after the airy little figure as it +dashed down the unlovely, worm-fenced road. The golden hair, overflowing +its boundaries of blue ribbon, was more glorious to him than the golden +sunshine overflowing the blue sky. They met no more at the spring, but +several times a week, from a respectful distance, he watched her riding +by. From Thompson City to the little log bridge over Crawfish Creek the +road lay for four miles through heavy woods. Then came cleared fields, and +soon the house of Mrs. Ruggles.</p> + +<p>So the summer days went by. The season was waning, the grading was almost +done, and soon the contractor would be elsewhere. Then came one +particularly warm and sultry day. The screams of locusts everywhere +suggested that they were frying. The colonel, riding once more slowly out +toward the workmen with his daughter, was near the middle of the forest. +The trees on either hand were tall, and the road was so straight and +narrow that the sunlight scarcely touched it. The marquis, in the top of a +tall chestnut that overhung the road near the edge of the wood, was +overhauling a nest of flying squirrels--perhaps in the hope of finding +mottled feathers on their wings. From his elevation he could see for a +great distance down the level, dusty road between the trees, and far +across the surrounding country.</p> + +<p>The sun did not shine bright, yet no cloud was in the sky. The atmosphere, +thick, oppressive, opaque, veiled the horizon with strange gloom. Not a +leaf could stir in the vast forest. Not a dimple nor the semblance of a +current broke the surface of the sluggish creek. Not a sound, save the +interminable frying of the locusts.</p> + +<p>The colonel slackened his pace, surprised that his horse should so soon +begin to drip and pant--Alice, familiar with the road, in the mean time +riding a mile ahead. The marquis clung to the topmost branches, looking at +the still sky far above him, the still stream far below him, the still +tree-tops far around him, till he caught a glimpse of the only interesting +object to be seen--a black pony bearing its usual burden, if Alice Miller +could be called a burden, and pacing leisurely up the road beneath him. He +gazed as far as the palisade of trees permitted, but her father was not +yet in sight.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, in the west, a single vein of lightning darted down the sky. A +few trees shuddered as if to shake the gathering shadows from their +bosoms. Then tenfold stillness. A bird flew past with a scream of terror, +the marquis looking in vain to see a hawk pursuing it. The distant moan of +a cow came from the fields. Not another sound, it seemed, was in the +world.</p> + +<p>In an instant the south-west was black. A strange, remote murmur smote the +colonel's ear. Overhead he could see but a strip of hot, hazy sky. Had he +seen the whole heavens, he could have done nothing but go on. Quickly the +murmur became an awful muttering, then a deafening roar. The clatter, the +rush, the crash of a tornado were behind him. The groans of the very earth +were about him. The darkness of twilight was upon him. Alice and Death +were before him. A cloudy demon, towering high as the heavens, in whose +path nothing could live, was striding near and nearer.</p> + +<p>Farm-houses were overthrown. Trees were twisted off from their roots and +torn to pieces. Wild animals and birds were dashed to death. Streams were +emptied of their waters. Human beings and horses and cattle were lifted +into the air, hurled hither and thither and thrown dead upon the earth.</p> + +<p>The whirlwind was following the line of the road! Colonel Miller had no +opportunity to see this, nor could he ride aside from that line if he +chose. He could but cry aloud, "My darling! O God! Alice!" and lash his +horse forward. The high, close forest would keep the wind from lifting his +horse from the ground or himself from the saddle. But the great trees +crashed like thunder behind him. Their fragments whirled above him. Their +branches fell before him. The limb of a huge oak grazed his face, crushed +his horse, and both rolled to the ground, blinded with dust, imprisoned +within a barricade of splintered trunks and shattered tree-tops.</p> + +<p>The marquis, from his high lookout, saw, before any one else, the +approaching tornado, and, descending like a flash, he yet noted its +direction. As Alice reached the foot of his tree he was on the ground, had +seized the pony's mane, was half seated and half clinging in front of her, +had snatched the reins from her hand, and was urging the frightened animal +to its utmost speed. Overcome with terror and confusion, Alice clung +instinctively to the saddle and to him, without hearing his hurried advice +to "stick like a old burdock."</p> + +<p>They shot like an arrow up the road. The noise of the tempest was audible. +Closer it was coming, crushing, rending, annihilating all before it. The +way grew darker. The terrified pony scarce touched the ground. His only +will was to go forward, and he still obeyed a firm use of the bit. But who +could hope to outrun a hurricane? Twelve miles an hour against eighty! The +marquis heeded nothing. Not far behind, the road was but a slash of +fallen, writhing tree-tops. The sweat dropped from his face. He dared not +look behind.</p> + +<p>They reached it--the lane, by the log bridge, running at right angles to +the road--and in a moment, behind them, that lane was choked with whirling +debris.</p> + +<p>But in that moment they had cleared the track of the whirlwind. For the +first time Alice comprehended the conduct of the marquis. For the first +time he turned to see. A quarter of a mile each side the road the +hurricane had carried complete desolation. But after passing the heavy +timber it had veered several degrees, and was sparing the house of Mrs. +Ruggles.</p> + +<p>With a white face she met them at the gate. A word of explanation from the +marquis--an ejaculation of mental anguish from the girl. Two fugitive +tie-choppers from the woods turned back to find the colonel's body. Mrs. +Ruggles, carrying Alice in her arms to the door--the yaller-headed +doll-baby that never washed a dish--did what she could to soothe her, but +did it as silently as possible.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles intercepted the returning tie-choppers in the lane. A look of +eager joy was in their faces. The bruised colonel, assisted to the +threshold, sank into the big arm-chair, and Alice was in his arms. Mrs. +Ruggles did not see their meeting, not at all. No, her back was toward +them, but the corner of her apron made another journey to the corner of +her eye as the father folded his lost child once more to his heart.</p> + +<p>His desire to express his gratitude to Mrs. Ruggles and her boy was +equaled only by her fears that he would do so. As a last resort he called +the marquis to him, and, while a tear stood on his rough cheek, drew a +handful of money from his pocket. But a bony hand appeared majestically +between them, and a voice said, "Not by no means. We're not them kind o' +persons. Markis-dee, put away the camfire."</p> + +<p>Then a rickety gig rattled up to the gate: "Contusion--severe--no +danger--there!--be lame a while--so!--the other bandage--bridge +gone--creek half dry--bend your leg--so!--current turned up-stream--now +the shoulder--not strange Crawfish Creek should run backward--he! he!" And +the rickety gig rattled merrily off in search of broken bones.</p> + +<p>Alice, meeting the marquis outside the door, approached him in a way that +made him tremble. What was said will never be known, but she placed her +white little hand upon his shoulder, the golden head bowed for a moment +and her sweet lips touched his sunburnt face.</p> + +<p>By remaining quiet that night the colonel would be able to get back to +Thompson City in the morning. Before nine o'clock he was at rest in the +bed-room. A couch for Alice had been prepared in the same room. In the +other--kitchen, parlor and dining-hall--a blanket was thrown down for the +marquis, and two chairs fixed for the bed of Mrs. Ruggles. Before +retiring, however, she sat down at her lonely table, where, +notwithstanding the tea she drank to keep them off, an unusual number of +weak creepings came over her.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it," was all she said to the tea-pot. Whether she +referred to the tornado, or her kindness to the sufferers, or to the +manner of rendering the kindness, no one knows. That was all she said to +the tea-pot, but to her son, who sat for a while beside her, she spoke in +a low tone: "Markis-dee, you could never c'verse with her. You're better'n +she is. Put her out o' yer head. She laughed at ye."</p> + +<p>"But she kissed me wi' tears in 'er eyes afterward," was his answer as he +turned toward his bed on the floor.</p> + +<p>An hour later the tea was exhausted, but Mrs. Ruggles yet sat at her +lonely table, as still as the sleepers around her. The clock struck ten: +she nervously drew a soiled paper from her bosom. Eleven: she rose with +hesitation and set the tallow candle behind the door. Then she softly +entered the bed-room and stood before the window where Alice lay. The sky +was clear again. The moon shone on the face and form of the sleeping girl, +making softer their graceful lines, richer the shadows in the golden hair, +tenderer the tint of cheek and lip.</p> + +<p>She stepped again into the shade and stole to the colonel's bedside. His +disturbed mind had turned backward over the path of life from the sudden +death escaped, and, sleeping or waking, his memory had been busy with the +people and events of other days.</p> + +<p>"John Miller!" she said, in a suppressed tone. He started. "John Miller, I +know ye. Common name--I wa'n't sure afore to-day. When you pulled that +money out o' yer pocket I see that in yer face that satisfied me. It's fer +the good name o' the dead I've come. Elseways I never'd ha' troubled ye." +The astonished colonel shifted his position painfully, prepared to speak +or to listen. "There yer girl lies in the light o' heaven. Nex' room my +boy lies in the shadder an' dark. He don't know, an' he never will. John +Miller, I married as honest an' as good a man as ever you see. Folks has +come to me in sickness an' trouble, an' gone behin' my back to talk. Some +said I done right to take him--'twas Christian in me. Some said I must ha' +been a fool. Some said we wa'n't married a-tall. Wasn't I a Peables? +Didn't I know 'twould be flung up to my face? Wasn't I prouder'n any on +'em?"</p> + +<p>A moment's confusion and doubting of senses: then, as the suppressed voice +went on, the colonel remembered. A dozen years ago; before he had meddled +with railroads; back in the old town; soon after taking his father's shop; +he was plaintiff; Ruggles worked in the first room; Porter's testimony; +Becky Peables the sweetheart of both; burglary; loss trifling; George +Ruggles, for one year; came back and married when released; went West. The +old case had scarce crossed his mind for years.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you sent him, an' I waited fer him. The day he come out I married +him. We had to dig hard. I'd do it ag'in. Now his boy's saved yer girl's +life to pay ye fer puttin' his father'n State's pris'n. Two year ago +didn't Bill Porter--sick an' a-dyin'--hunt till he foun' me here? Didn't +he go an' swear? Done fer spite. Didn't he sen' me the affydavy?--an' I've +got it safe. Got it swore to by him, with the justice o' the peace's name +signed, an' two witnissis, an' the judge's red seal on top o' that. Could +I go back an' show that paper'n tell how 'twas? Too late! George was dead. +I couldn't go. My folks a'most disowned me when I took him. I said then I +never'd step my foot into their doors. Them that gives me the col' +shoulder once don't do it no more. Come to me?--well an' good. Go to +them?--never."</p> + +<p>The bewildered colonel, promising every possible reparation, would have +thrown himself at her feet, could he have done so, for the part he had +taken in the prosecution. But she permitted no interruption, and +continued: "He lay by the winder where yer girl lies. The moon come in on +his bed as it does on her'n. In the night, when I see the light o' the sky +shine there where he died, I feel his sperit in the room. I moved the bed +to this corner, where it's darker. I wa'n't good enough to lie there. But +'twas on his mind. He said, 'Becky, if I could prove it to you afore I +died!' An' I say, George's sperit sent Bill Porter here, an' sent you +here, an' sent me into this room to-night. Now, fer the sake o'him an' +Markis-dee, go back an' tell the truth!"</p> + +<p>Speaking the word "truth," she vanished across the light to her dark place +of rest.</p> + +<p>Next morning the colonel examined and copied the confession while a buggy +waited for him at the door. Respecting the evident wishes of Mrs. Ruggles, +he went away with no attempt to express the feelings that were uppermost +in his heart.</p> + +<p>She sleeps beside her husband in the orchard. Her old log-house has been +replaced by a large white box, of which her son the marquis is proprietor. +Each year adds to his acres or his stock. An able-bodied wife, whose +industry and English are equal to his own, sits near him at the door on a +summer evening, while he smokes his pipe, takes an oakum-headed child upon +his knee, and gazes quietly in the direction of the spring and across the +grain-fields where once he saw--or rather heard, without waiting to see--a +forest swept down in a moment. He smokes and gazes as he sees again a +dazzling creature ride down the dreary road, and wonders where on earth +that face can be, and how much it has changed, and whether, through so +many years, any memory of him can linger in her heart. He says nothing. +But he hugs closer the oakum-headed child as he remembers the one romance +in his hard, humdrum life.</p> + +<p class="author">Chauncey Hickox.</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="story" id="st06"> +<h2>Under False Colors.</h2> + + + +<div class="chapter" id="st06-ch01"> +<h3>Chapter I.</h3> + +<h4>Hoisting The Flag.</h4> + + + +<p>A dreary, murky November day brooded over Southampton, and an impenetrable +fog hung over sea and shore alike, penetrating the clothing, chilling the +blood and depressing the spirits of every unlucky person who was so +unfortunate as to come within the range of its influence. The passengers +on the steamship America, from Bremen for New York via Southampton, found +the brief period of their stay at the latter port almost unendurable; and +while some paced the wet decks impatiently, others grumbled both loudly +and deeply in the cabins, or shut themselves up in their state-rooms in +sulky discomfort. Those who remained on deck had at least the amusement of +watching for the steamboat which was to bring the Southampton +passengers--a pastime which, however, being indefinitely prolonged, began +to grow wearisome. It came at last--a wretched little vessel, rather +smaller than the smallest of the noisy tugs that puff and paddle on our +American rivers--and the wet, sick, unsheltered passengers were gradually +transferred to the deck of the ship.</p> + +<p>Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking +of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl, +apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible. She +would have fallen had not one of her fellow-travelers, a lady evidently +not much her senior, thrown her arm around her; thus aided, she managed to +reach the steamer's deck and to totter down the staircase leading to the +ladies' cabin. The active, busy steward at once bustled up to the two +young girls:</p> + +<p>"Your names, ladies, if you please. I will point out your state-rooms in a +moment. Miss Marion Nugent--Miss Rhoda Steele? Miss Nugent, berth No. 20, +state-room G--"</p> + +<p>"Cannot I occupy the same state-room with this young lady?" interrupted +the taller girl, who was still lending the support of her arm to sustain +her half-fainting companion.</p> + +<p>"Do not leave me, please," murmured the sufferer.</p> + +<p>The steward threw a compassionate glance upon the pair, went away, and +after a short consultation with the unseen powers, returned and said that +the arrangement had been effected, and that they could take possession at +once of their state-room, into which he proceeded to usher them. It was +more spacious than such apartments usually are, and abounded with all +those little contrivances for comfort and convenience for which the +steamers of the North German Lloyds are justly famed. The invalid sank +down on the soft-cushioned little sofa and gasped painfully for breath.</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake, get me some wine or some brandy!" exclaimed her +companion. "This poor thing seems very ill; and do tell the doctor to come +here at once."</p> + +<p>With a quick, energetic movement, as she spoke she unclasped the heavy +waterproof cloak of the sufferer and threw it back, thus revealing a fair, +pallid face, framed in loosened curls of silky golden hair. It was a face +that must have looked singularly lovely when tinted with the rosy hues of +health, so delicate were the features and so large and blue the +half-closed eyes, but it was ghastly pale, and a livid, bluish tinge had +settled around the small mouth, whose ruby hues had fled to give place to +a sickly purple. The steward speedily returned with some brandy, the +bull's-eye was thrown open, and the cold sea air and potent spirit soon +asserted their restorative powers. She sat up, a more natural color +over-spreading her countenance, and she murmured inarticulately a few +words of thanks, while the kind-hearted steward hastened away again in +search of the doctor.</p> + +<p>"I am subject to these attacks," she said, faintly; to her companion when +they were again left alone. "Only feel how my heart is beating."</p> + +<p>The ship's surgeon soon made his appearance. He was a young, light-haired, +solemn-looking German, who shook his head and looked very grave as he +listened to the labored breathing and felt the bounding, irregular pulse +of the sufferer.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity that the ship has started," he said in very good English, +"for I hardly think you are fitted to bear the fatigues of a sea-voyage at +this season of the year; and had we been still at anchor, I should have +counseled you to return to shore. But it is too late now, and you must try +to keep as quiet as possible. I would advise you to retire to your berth +at once: it will probably be a stormy night, and you had better settle +yourself comfortably before the motion begins to be unpleasant. I will see +you again in the morning, and if you feel worse meanwhile, let me know at +once."</p> + +<p>The doctor and the steward then quitted the state-room, and its two +occupants, being left alone, surveyed each other curiously.</p> + +<p>The active and energetic girl who had acted as spokeswoman and directress +throughout the brief scene we have just described had let fall her +waterproof cloak and stood arrayed in a black velvet jacket and dark silk +skirt, both much the worse for wear, and contrasting sadly with the neat +but simple traveling costume of her companion. But about her slender, +finely-proportioned figure there was an air of style and grace which lent +an elegance even to her shabby and faded finery, and which was wanting in +the owner of the fresher and more appropriate attire. Her face was +beautiful, with a singular and weird beauty which owed nothing of its +fascinations to the ordinary charms of delicate outlines and dainty +coloring. Her features were small and attenuated, and her complexion was +of a sallow paleness, whose lack of freshness seemed caused by dissipation +and late hours or by the ravages of illness. Heavy masses of soft silken +hair, black as midnight, with bluish reflections on its lustrous waves +<i>(bleu à force d'être noir</i>, as Alexandre Dumas describes such tresses), +untortured by crimping-pins or curling-tongs, were rolled back in plain +folds above her low, broad brow. Her eyes would have lent beauty to a +plainer face. Large almost to a fault, of that dark, clear blue which is +too perfect and too transparent ever to look black even under the shadow +of such long, thick eyelashes as shaded them in the present instance, they +were perfectly magnificent; and their lustrous azure and ever-varying +expression lent to the mobile countenance of their possessor its most +potent and peculiar charm.</p> + +<p>She was the first to speak. "Do you not think you had better retire to +your berth?" she asked. "The rocking of the ship is increasing, and we had +better, early as it is, settle ourselves for the night, before it becomes +so violent as to prevent us from moving."</p> + +<p>At this moment two porters made their appearance laden with packages. Two +small new trunks--one marked R.S., the other M.N.--were deposited on the +floor and identified by their possessors. The sick girl then attempted, +with trembling hands, to disembarrass herself of her apparel, but it was +not without much assistance from her companion that she was enabled to +remove her traveling costume and make her preparations for retiring. At +last, however, she was ready, and was about to make an attempt to reach +the upper berth, which was the one allotted to her by number, when a +quick, imperative gesture from her companion stopped her.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said: "you must take the lower berth. I can reach the upper +one without any trouble, and you are not strong enough for so much +exertion."</p> + +<p>"You are very, very kind," said the invalid, gratefully. She sank back on +the pillow and watched the other for some minutes in silence, as she +quietly and quickly gathered up and put in order the scattered articles +with which the state-room was strewn.</p> + +<p>"Will you not give me that little black bag?" she said at last. "Thanks! +that is it. I wished to be certain that I had put my letter of +introduction in it. Ah! here it is, quite safe. It would never do for me +to lose that letter, for the lady with whom I am going to live as +governess has never seen me, and she might take me for an impostor were I +to come without it. An English lady who was her most intimate friend +engaged me for her. I wonder what New York is like?--very rough, and wild, +no doubt, and I am afraid I shall be much annoyed by the rattlesnakes. You +are going to New York too, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"I am."</p> + +<p>"Have you friends there?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had some acquaintances among our fellow-passengers, but I do not +know a single one. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You have not told me your name yet. Mine is Marion Nugent; and yours--"</p> + +<p>"Is not so pretty a one--Rhoda Steele."</p> + +<p>There was something in the tone of these replies that quelled the +invalid's disposition to talk, and she remained silent while her companion +finished her arrangements and prepared to take possession of her berth. It +was time that she did so. The threatened gale was by this time blowing in +earnest, and the ship was commencing to roll fearfully; so, after securing +all the boxes and bags as well as possible, and hanging up all the +scattered garments, she made a hasty retreat to her couch, and lay there +only half undressed, but utterly prostrate, and as unable to touch the tea +and biscuits brought by the attentive stewardess as was her more delicate +and suffering room-mate.</p> + +<p>Time passed on: the daylight faded from the sky, a feeble glimmering lamp +shed its faint rays into the state-room, and the great steamship went +steadily on, though rocked and tossed like a plaything by the whistling +winds and angry sea. Then midnight came: the lights in the state-rooms +were extinguished and a profound silence reigned throughout the cabins, +broken only by the ceaseless throb of the mighty engines and the noisy +clanking of the screw.</p> + +<p>The state-room was wrapped in profound darkness when Rhoda Steele awoke +with a start as from some troubled dream. Was she still dreaming, or did +she indeed hear a strange choking sound proceeding from the lower berth? +She sprang to the floor at once, heeding neither the darkness nor the +violent motion, and clinging to the side of the berth she called aloud. +There was no answer: even the gurgling, choking sound she had at first +heard had ceased. She put out her hand, and it encountered her companion's +face. It was deathly cold, and the features quivered as if convulsed under +her touch. Again she called aloud--still no answer; and then, thoroughly +frightened, she caught up a cloak from the sofa, threw it around her, and +opening the state-room door, she rushed into the cabin. It was almost +deserted. The lamps swung heavily overhead, swayed by the unceasing +rolling of the ship; a drowsy waiter slumbered at one of the tables, his +head resting on his folded arms; and one or two sleepy passengers tried to +maintain a recumbent posture on the broad sofas that lined the sides. The +cries of the terrified girl soon brought several of the waiters to her +assistance, and Captain Wessels himself, who had not retired to rest, +owing to the stormy weather, came to ascertain the cause of the unusual +disturbance. Her story was quickly told: lights were brought, and the +captain accompanied her back to the state-room.</p> + +<p>It was a pitiful sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless +in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed, +and her small hands clenched as if in agony.</p> + +<p>"The doctor!--run for the doctor!" was the instant and universal +exclamation. The doctor came. One look at the pallid face, one touch on +the slender wrist, and he turned with a grave face to the bystanders.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing to be done," he said. "She is dead. I feared some such +catastrophe when I saw her last evening. She was in the last stages of +heart disease."</p> + +<p>"And who was she?--what was her name?" asked kind-hearted Captain Wessels, +looking down with pitying eyes at the fair pale face.</p> + +<p>The steward brought his lists.</p> + +<p>"Berth No. 22," he read--"Miss Rhoda Steele."</p> + +<p>"And this young lady?" continued the captain, turning to the other +occupant of the state-room, who had sunk back as if exhausted on the sofa, +still enveloped in the shrouding folds of her large waterproof cloak.</p> + +<p>She raised her head. The answer came after a moment's hesitation--came +with a strange, defiant ring in its tone:</p> + +<p>"My name is Marion Nugent."</p> +</div> + +<div class="chapter" id="st06-ch02"> +<h3>Chapter II.</h3> + +<h4>Under Full Sail.</h4> + + +<p>More than a year has passed away since the events narrated in our first +chapter took place, and the curtain now rises on a far different scene--a +dinner-party in one of the most splendid of the gorgeous mansions on +Madison avenue, New York.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Walton Rutherford, the giver of the entertainment in question, was a +member of a class unhappily now fast dying out of New York society--one of +those ladies of high social position and ancient lineage who adorn the +station which they occupy as much by their virtues as by their social +talents. A high-minded, pure-souled matron, a devoted wife and mother, as +well as a queen of society, inheriting the noble qualities of her +Revolutionary forefathers as well as their great estates--such was the +lady who presided over the brilliant festivity we are about to describe. +She had been left for many years a widow, and her surviving children--two +sons, Clement and Horace--were both of mature age; Horace, the younger, +being just thirty years old, and Clement, the elder, some seven years his +senior. Mrs. Rutherford herself was a few years over sixty. A year or two +before the period at which our story opens a terrible misfortune had +befallen her. Amaurosis--that most insidious and unmanageable of diseases +of the eye--had attacked her vision, and in a few months after it declared +itself she was totally, hopelessly blind. But, although debarred by her +infirmity from going into society, she still received her friends in her +own home; and her evening receptions and elegant dinners were always cited +as being among the most agreeable and successful entertainments of the +season.</p> + +<p>Another sorrow had recently come to trouble the calm of her honored and +tranquil existence--the marriage of her eldest son. Clement Rutherford, +unlike any other member of the family, was a cold, reserved man, +unpleasant in temper and disagreeable in manner. When he was still quite a +boy, his mother's only sister, Miss Myra Van Vleyden, had died, and had +bequeathed to him the large fortune which she had inherited conjointly +with Mrs. Rutherford from her father, the two sisters being the only +children of Schuyler Van Vleyden. She was a soured, morose old maid, and +probably saw some congeniality of disposition in her eldest nephew which +caused her to single him out as her heir. After he attained to years of +manhood, he always manifested a decided antipathy to ladies' society, and +was generally looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor; so that when he +announced to his mother the fact of his engagement to Mrs. Archer's pretty +governess, Miss Nugent, her distress of mind was fully equaled by her +astonishment. The match met with her strongest disapproval, as was to have +been expected; for it was hardly probable that she, the oldest surviving +representative of the old Knickerbocker family the Van Vleydens, an +acknowledged leader of society by the triple right of wealth, birth and +intellect, should be inclined to welcome very warmly as a daughter-in-law +the penniless beauty who had been occupied for some months past in +teaching Mrs. Archer's little daughters the rudiments of French and music. +Moreover, the investigations and inquiries respecting the young lady's +origin which she had at once caused to be instituted on hearing of her +son's engagement, had revealed a state of affairs which had placed Miss +Nugent in a very unenviable light. Her parents were well born, though +poor. She was the daughter of a curate in the North of England, who had +lost his young wife by heart disease when Marion was but a few months old, +and two years later Mr. Nugent died of consumption, leaving his little +daughter to the care of his unmarried and elderly brother, the Reverend +Walter Nugent, who, though the living he held was but a small one, +contrived to rear and educate his niece as his own child. He had only +allowed her to leave him and become a governess on the assurance of the +village physician that her health was seriously impaired, and that a sea +voyage and complete change of scene would prove the best and surest of +restoratives. But the pained though manly tone of the letter in which he +replied to Mrs. Rutherford's inquiries had prepossessed that warm-hearted, +high-minded lady most strongly against her future daughter-in-law. "I +loved Marion always as though she were my own child," wrote Mr. Nugent, +"and I cannot but look upon her total neglect of me since her arrival in +America as being wholly inexcusable. She has never even written me one +line since her departure, and I learned of her safe arrival only by the +newspapers. I can but infer from her obstinate and persistent silence that +she wishes to sever all ties between herself and me, and I have resigned +myself to the prospect of a lonely and cheerless old age. I trust that she +may be happy in the brilliant marriage which, you say, she is about to +make, and I can assure her that her old uncle will never disturb her in +her new prosperity."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rutherford had one long, stormy interview with her eldest son, and +learning therein that his determination to marry Miss Nugent was fixed and +unalterable, she had with commendable wisdom accepted the situation, and +resolved to so order the conduct of herself and her relatives as to give +the scandalous world no room for that contemptuous pity and abundant +gossip which an open rupture between herself and her son would doubtless +have occasioned.</p> + +<p>The manner of the wooing had been in this wise: John Archer, a sober, +staid gentleman of great wealth, was Clement Rutherford's most intimate +friend, and naturally, when the Archers moved into their new and splendid +villa at Newport, Clement was invited to spend a few weeks with them--an +invitation which he readily accepted. A few days after his arrival, Mrs. +Archer, who was a pretty, lively little coquette, not in the least sobered +by some thirteen years of married life, offered to drive him out in her +little phaeton. "John has just given me a new pair of ponies," she +said--"such perfect beauties and so gentle that I long to drive them." So +the pretty, stylish equipage, with its fair driver and faultless +appointments, made its first appearance on the avenue that afternoon, and +also, I am sorry to say, its last; for the "gentle beauties" afore-said, +excited to emulation by the number of spirited steeds around them, became +ambitious of distinction, and sought for and decidedly obtained it by +running away, thereby overturning the phaeton, breaking the harness, +bruising Mrs. Archer severely and dislocating Mr. Rutherford's ankle.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Archer was as well as ever in a few days, but the injuries received +by her guest proved sufficiently serious to compel him to maintain a +recumbent position for a long time, and prevented him from walking for +several weeks. She made every arrangement possible for his comfort, and +she had a charming little reception-room on the ground floor, adjoining +the library, fitted up as a bed-chamber, and installed him there; so that +as soon as he was able to quit his bed for a sofa, he could be wheeled +into the latter apartment, and there enjoy the distractions of literature +and society. For a few days after he made his first appearance there his +lovely hostess was all attention and devotion; but, finding that he was +anything but an agreeable or impressionable companion, she soon wearied of +his society. Mr. Archer, shortly after the accident had taken place, had +been summoned from home by important business connected with some mining +property which he possessed, and which necessitated his presence in the +interior of Pennsylvania; so Mrs. Archer, thus left with the entertainment +of her most uncongenial guest exclusively confided to her care, came +speedily to the conclusion that he was a nuisance, and began to look about +for a substitute to relieve her from her unwelcome duties. She decided +that her pretty governess, who spoke French so well, and sang little +French <i>chansonettes</i> so sweetly, and got herself up in such a charming +manner, giving so much "chic" and style even to the simplest of toilettes, +was just the person to take upon herself the task of amusing the +uninteresting invalid.</p> + +<p>"<i>Do</i> look after Mr. Rutherford a little, there's a dear, good creature," +whispered Mrs. Archer confidentially to Miss Nugent. "He is dreadfully +tiresome, to be sure, but John thinks the world of him, you know, and it +would not exactly do to leave him alone all the time. I wish him to +receive every attention while he is in the house, of course; but as for +sitting for hours at a time with him in that stuffy little library--just +in the height of the season, too--why, I cannot think of doing it. If you +will just go and sit with him sometimes, and read to him a little, it will +be an absolute charity to me. I'll see that Alice and Emily do not get +into any mischief."</p> + +<p>Which, considering that the young ladies in question were, one twelve, the +other ten years of age, and both much addicted to flirtation and dancing +the "German," was rather a rash promise and inconsiderately made.</p> + +<p>So Miss Nugent was definitely installed as reader and <i>garde malade</i> in +general, and Clement Rutherford soon learned to await her coming with +impatience and to welcome her with delight. All his life long will he +remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the +far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and +when the blue splendors of her lustrous eyes lent a new meaning to the +poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a +day when the book was laid aside, and the impassioned utterances of poetry +gave place to the more prosaic but not less fervent accents of a +newly-awakened passion. Cold, silent and morose as Clement Rutherford had +always been, it had so happened that but few women had ever attempted to +attract him, notwithstanding his wealth and social position; and the +interested motives of those few had been so apparent that he had been +repelled and disgusted, instead of being fascinated, by their wiles; so +that Miss Nugent's grace and beauty and syren charms proved all too potent +for his unoccupied though icy heart to resist; and thus it chanced that +the day before Mr. Rutherford left Newport he astonished his hostess by +requesting a private interview with her, and therein announcing his +engagement to her governess.</p> + +<p>"You could have knocked me down with a feather," Mrs. Archer said +afterward to an intimate friend. "I never should have suspected that such +a quiet, stupid man as he was would fall in love in that ridiculous kind +of a way. Good gracious! how indignant old Mrs. Rutherford will be! and I +shall be blamed for the whole affair, no doubt. I wish John had never +brought the man here--I never <i>did</i> like him; and then, too, it is so +provoking to lose Miss Nugent just now, while we are at Newport. Of course +I can find no one to replace her till we return to New York. Well, I +always <i>was</i> an unlucky little woman."</p> + +<p>The marriage took place in the latter part of September, only a few weeks +after the engagement had been first announced. Mrs. Rutherford, true to +her resolution of making the best of the affair, was careful that none of +the usual courtesies and observances should be neglected. The bridal gifts +from the Rutherford family, if less splendid, were as numerous as they +would have been had Mr. Rutherford married a member of his mother's +decorous, high-bred "set," and all his immediate relatives called most +punctiliously on the bride when the newly-wedded pair arrived in New York +after their six weeks' trip to Philadelphia and Washington.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rutherford decided to take rooms at the Brevoort House till he could +purchase a suitable residence. His mother's splendid home was not thrown +open to receive him and his unwelcome bride, as it would have been had he +made a choice more consonant with her wishes.</p> + +<p>But we have wandered far from the dinner given by Mrs. Rutherford in honor +of her new daughter-in-law, and with which our chapter commences.</p> + +<p>It was a superb entertainment, as the Rutherford dinners usually were. The +service of gold plate purchased by Schuyler Van Vleyden when he was +minister to Austria adorned the table, which was also decorated with three +splendid pyramids of choicest flowers. An exquisite bouquet bloomed in +front of each lady's plate, and the painted blossoms on the peerless +dinner-service of rare old Sèvres vied in every respect save fragrance +with their living counterparts. An unseen orchestra, stationed in the +conservatory, sent forth strains of music, now grave, now gay, as Gounod +or Offenbach ruled the tuneful spirit of the hour. Twelve guests only were +present, including Mrs. John Archer, to whom Mrs. Rutherford had in this +fashion testified her forgiveness, and who had accepted the proffered +olive-branch with delight, wearing, in order to do honor to the occasion, +an exquisite dress, fresh from one of the most renowned <i>ateliers</i> of +Parisian fashion. Mrs. Rutherford, as usual, notwithstanding her +infirmity, presided with unfailing grace and dignity; and in her splendid +dress of black satin, brocaded with bouquets of flowers in their natural +hues, her cap and collar of priceless old point lace, and her antiquely +set but magnificent ornaments of sapphires and diamonds, she still looked +a queen of society. A well-trained servant was stationed behind her chair, +who from time to time placed before her suitably-prepared portions of the +various delicacies of the entertainment, of which she slightly partook, in +order to obviate the restraint which her presence at the festivity without +participating in it would have occasioned. On her left hand sat her +younger son, Horace, whose watchful eyes followed her every movement, and +whose loving care anticipated her every wish. He was a tall, +stalwart-looking young man, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like his elder +brother, but his frank, joyous expression and winning manners bore no +resemblance to the sullen countenance and surly demeanor of Clement.</p> + +<p>The bride was, of course, the, cynosure of all eyes. Attired in rich, +creamy-white satin, the corsage shaded with folds of delicate lace, with +coral ornaments on her neck and arms, and with the heavy masses of her +dark hair interwoven with coral beads, she looked extremely beautiful, and +was pronounced by the ladies present to be "handsome and stylish-looking, +but decidedly dull." This latter accusation was more truthful than such +charges usually are. Mrs. Clement Rutherford did feel unusually stupid. +She was <i>ennuyé</i> by the long, formal, stately dinner; she knew but few of +the persons present; and her point-lace fan was frequently called into +requisition to conceal her yawns. The game had been served before her next +neighbor, a sprightly young New Yorker, who had been rather fascinated by +her beauty, contrived to arouse her into something like animation. He +succeeded at last, however, and it was not long before an unusually +brilliant sally drew a merry laugh from her lips. Her laugh was +peculiar--a low, musical, trilling sound, mirthful and melodious as the +chime of a silver bell.</p> + +<p>As its joyous music rang on the air, Mrs. Rutherford turned ghastly pale. +She gasped convulsively, half rose from her seat and fell back in a +deathlike swoon.</p> + +<p>Of course all was instantly confusion and dismay. The guests sprang up, +the waiters hurried forward--Horace was instantly at his mother's side.</p> + +<p>"She has only fainted," he said in his clear, decided tones. "She will be +better in a few moments. Let me beg of you, my friends, to resume your +seats. Clement, will you oblige me by taking our mother's post?"</p> + +<p>With the help of Mrs. Rutherford's special attendant, Horace supported the +already reviving sufferer from the room. They conveyed her to her sleeping +apartment, where restoratives and cold water were freely used, and she +soon regained perfect consciousness. But returning animation seemed to +bring with it a strange and overwhelming sorrow. When the servant had +retired, leaving her alone with her son, she refused to answer any of his +queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and +irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, +by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased +to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for +some time perfectly quiet and silent. At length she spoke:</p> + +<p>"Horace!"</p> + +<p>"What is it, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Describe to me the personal appearance of your brother's wife--minutely, +as though a picture were to be painted from your words."</p> + +<p>It was no unusual request. Horace was in the habit of thus minutely +describing persons and places for his mother's benefit.</p> + +<p>"She is rather below the middle height, and her form, though slender, is +finely moulded and of perfect proportions. Her hands and feet are +faultless, and her walk is extremely graceful, resembling more the gait of +a French-woman than that of an English girl. Her complexion is pale and +rather sallow, and her countenance is full of expression, which varies +constantly when she talks. The lower part of her face is somewhat too thin +for perfect beauty, and the chin is inclined to be pointed, and the cheeks +are rather hollow, but the upper part is superb. Her brow is low and +broad, and she folds back from it the heavy waves of her black hair in the +plainest possible style. Her eyes are her chief beauty, and would +transfigure any face into loveliness. They are very large, and of a dark, +transparent blue, of so lustrous and so perfect an azure that not even in +shadow do they look black. Stay--I can give you a better idea of her +appearance than by multiplying words. Did you, when you were in Munich, +visit the Gallery of Beauties in the Royal Palace?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember the portrait of Lola Montez?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly--as though I had seen it yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Marion resembles that portrait very strikingly, particularly in the shape +and carriage of her head."</p> + +<p>"I am not mistaken--it is she. Would that I had never lived to see this +day!" And Mrs. Rutherford wrung her hands in an agony of helpless, +hopeless distress.</p> + +<p>"It is she?" repeated Horace, in perplexity. "Whom do you mean, mother? +Who was Marion Nugent?"</p> + +<p>"She is not Marion Nugent--this impostor who has thrust herself into our +midst, bringing scandal and dishonor as her dower."</p> + +<p>"And who, then, is she?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rutherford turned toward him and fixed on his face her tear-bathed +eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read +his thoughts in his countenance.</p> + +<p>"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the +shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy? +Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will +believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly +denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable +anguish.</p> + +<p>Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own.</p> + +<p>"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all. +If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be +freed from the matrimonial chain."</p> + +<p>"Could that be possible?"</p> + +<p>"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if +you will but confide in me."</p> + +<p>"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I <i>will</i> +tell you all."</p> + +<p>Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest, +numbering among her passengers Horace Rutherford.</p> +</div> + +<div class="chapter" id="st06-id03"> +<h3>Chapter III.</h3> + +<h4>Striking the Flag.</h4> + + +<p>The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and +it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace +Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly +as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he +vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief +European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged +to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the +affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's <i>mesalliance</i>, his +mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent +seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all +afforded food for the insatiable appetite of the scandal-mongers. Then +Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of +Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had +been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at +her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the +elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street, +with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for +much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten" +would honor with its august presence the ball which Mrs. Clement +Rutherford proposed giving on Shrove Tuesday, which in that year came +about the middle of March. But as to that, it was generally conceded that +they would. Youth, beauty, wealth and the shadow of an old family name +could cover a multitude of such sins as rapid manners, desperate +flirtations and a questionable origin; and notwithstanding her fastness, +and, worse still, her <i>ci-devant</i> governess-ship, Mrs. Clement Rutherford +was a decided social success.</p> + +<p>On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his +appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, +and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual +manner.</p> + +<p>"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been +exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me +something about your travels."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message +for your wife: can I see her?"</p> + +<p>A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke. +"Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is +probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her <i>boudoir</i>, as she +calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see +her."</p> + +<p>He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his +hand.</p> + +<p>"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married +life?"</p> + +<p>"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "<i>they</i> +are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss."</p> + +<p>"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy," +muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a +harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight +before, me."</p> + +<p>The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, +was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and +on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of +taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fresco +by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after +them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a +delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the +Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few +chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the +tiny apartment. Étagères of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, +and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing +nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian +glass, Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and +Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the +one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited +for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been +selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring +and <i>riante</i> style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by +Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun +flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the +foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a +barren and precipitous shore.</p> + +<p>Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened +and his sister-in-law entered. He turned to greet her, and her beauty, +enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an +involuntary glance of admiration. Her dress was an exemplification of how +much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it +absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate. She wore a robe of +turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing +sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only +Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise. A band of the +same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and +showed to advantage the perfection of her figure. A brooch and long +ear-pendants of lustreless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with +gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and +gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking +woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer.</p> + +<p>"Welcome home, Horace!" she said in that low sweet voice which was one of +her most potent charms. "How kind it is of you to pay me a visit so soon +after your return!"</p> + +<p>She placed herself on the couch and motioned to him to take a seat near +her. He drew up his chair, and a short, embarrassed pause succeeded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rutherford toyed with her fan and stole glances from under her long +black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and +wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task +before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature.</p> + +<p>Wearied of silence, the lady spoke at last.</p> + +<p>"Have you nothing of interest respecting your travels to tell me?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>Her voice seemed to break the spell which paralyzed him. He turned toward +her with the look of one who nerves himself up to take a desperate +resolution:</p> + +<p>"Yes: I have a story to relate to you, and one of more than common +interest."</p> + +<p>"Really!" She yawned behind her fan. "Excuse me, but I was at Mrs. +Houdon's ball last evening, and the 'German' was kept up till five o'clock +this morning. I am wretchedly tired. Now do go on with your story: I have +no doubt but that I shall find it amusing, but do not be much surprised if +I fall asleep."</p> + +<p>"I think you will find it interesting, and I have no fear of its putting +you to sleep. But you must make me one promise. I am but a poor narrator, +and you must engage not to interrupt me."</p> + +<p>"I have no hesitation in promising to remain perfectly quiet, no matter +how startling your incidents or how vivid your descriptions may be."</p> + +<p>She leaned back among the cushions with another stifled yawn and shaded +her eyes with her fan. Without heeding the veiled impertinence of her +manner, Horace commenced his narrative:</p> + +<p>"Some twenty-five years ago a friendless, penniless Englishwoman died at +one of the cheap boarding-schools in Dieppe, where she had officiated for +some time as English teacher and general drudge. She left behind her a +little girl about five years of age--a pretty, engaging child, whose +beauty and infantile fascinations so won the heart of Madame Tellier, the +proprietress of the establishment, that she decided to take charge of the +little creature and educate her, her project being to fit her for the post +of English teacher in her school. But the pretty child grew up to be a +beautiful but unprincipled girl, with an inborn passion for indolence and +luxury. At the age of seventeen she eloped from the school with a young +Parisian gentleman, who had been spending the summer months at one of the +seaside hotels in Dieppe, and her benefactress saw her and heard of her no +more.</p> + +<p>"We will pass over the events of the next few years. It would hardly +interest you to follow, as I did, each step by which the heroine of my +history progressed ever downward on the path of vice. We find her at last +traveling in Italy under the protection of the Count von Erlenstein, an +Austrian noble of great wealth and dissolute character. She has cast aside +the name she once bore, and, anticipating the jewel-borrowed cognomens of +Cora Pearl and La Reine Topaze, she adopts a title from the profusion of +pink coral jewelry which she habitually wears, and Rose Sherbrooke is +known as Rose Coral."</p> + +<p>Horace paused. A short, sharp sound broke the momentary silence: it was +caused by the snapping of one of the gilded fan-sticks under the pressure +of the white, rigid fingers that clasped it. But the listener kept her +face hidden, and but for that convulsive motion the speaker might have +fancied that she slept, so silent and motionless did she remain. After a +short pause Horace continued:</p> + +<p>"The attachment of Count von Erlenstein proved to be a lasting one, and we +find Rose Coral at a later period installed in a luxurious establishment +in Vienna, and one of the reigning queens of that realm of many +sovereigns, the <i>demi-monde</i> of the gay capital of Austria. But the count +falls ill; his sickness speedily assumes a dangerous form; his death +deprives Rose Coral of her splendor; and the sunny streets of Vienna know +her fair face no more. I will not retrace for you, as I could do, each +step in her rapid descent from luxury to poverty, from splendor to vice, +from celebrity to ruin. But one day she makes her appearance, under the +name of Rhoda Steele, on board the steamship America, bound for New York. +The state-room which she occupies is shared by a young girl named Marion +Nugent, whose future career is to be that of a governess in the United +States. On the first night out one of the occupants of the state-room is +taken suddenly ill and dies, the corpse is committed to the deep, and it +is reported throughout the ship that the name of the deceased is Rhoda +Steele. The tale was false: it was Marion Nugent who died--it was Rose +Sherbrooke, <i>alias</i> Rose Coral, <i>alias</i> Rhoda Steele, who lived to rob the +dead girl of her effects and to assume her name!"</p> + +<p>The broken fan was flung violently to the floor, and Mrs. Rutherford +sprang to her feet, her face livid with passion and her blue eyes blazing +with a steel-like light.</p> + +<p>"How dare you come here to assert such falsehoods?" she cried. "You have +always hated me--you and all the rest of your haughty family--because it +pleased Clement Rutherford to marry me--me, a penniless governess. But I +am your sister-in-law, and I <i>demand </i> that you treat me with proper +respect. You came here to-day simply to insult me. Well, sir, I will +summon my husband, and he shall protect me from your insolence."</p> + +<p>She turned toward the door as she spoke, but he motioned her back with an +imperative and scornful gesture.</p> + +<p>"Softly, Rose Coral," he said, with a sneer: "the manners of the Quartier +Brèda are not much to my taste, nor do they suit the character you have +been pleased to assume. Do you think me so void of common sense as to +return home without full proof of your identity? I have in my possession a +large colored photograph of you, taken some years ago by Hildebrandt of +Vienna, and endorsed by him on the back with a certificate stating that it +is an accurate likeness of the celebrated Rose Coral. Secondly, I have +brought home with me two witnesses--one is Jane Sheldon, late housekeeper +for the Rev. Walter Nugent, and formerly nurse to the deceased Marion +Nugent; and the other is a French hairdresser who lived many years in +Vienna, and who, for several months, daily arranged the profuse tresses of +Rose Coral. One will prove who you are <i>not</i>, and the other will as +certainly prove who you <i>are</i>."</p> + +<p>"Who I <i>was</i>" she said, defiantly. "I will deny it no longer: I am Rose +Sherbrooke, once known as Rose Coral, and, what is more to the purpose, I +am the wife of Clement Rutherford. Have a care, my brother Horace, lest +you reveal to the world that your immaculate relatives have been touching +pitch of the blackest hue and greatest tenacity. Prove me to be the vilest +of my sex, I remain none the less a wedded wife--your brother's wife--and +I defy you. The game is played out, and I have won it."</p> + +<p>She threw herself back in her chair and cast on him a glance of insolent +disdain. Horace Rutherford looked at her with a scornful smile.</p> + +<p>"The game is <i>not</i> played out," he said, calmly. "One card remains in my +hand, and I produce it. It is the Ace of Diamonds, and its title is The +Rose of the Morning."</p> + +<p>A livid paleness overspread Mrs. Rutherford's features, and a stifled cry +escaped from her lips. She half rose from her seat, but, seeming to +recollect herself, she sank back and covered her face with her hands. +Horace continued, after a momentary pause:</p> + +<p>"My investigations into the history of the Count Wilhelm von Erlenstein +during the last years of his life revealed the fact that he had lost the +most valuable of the jewels of his family. It had been stolen. It was a +pink diamond of great size and beauty, known to gem-connoisseurs by the +name of The Rose of the Morning--one of those remarkable stones which have +a history and a pedigree, and which are as well known by reputation to +diamond-fanciers as are Raphael's Transfiguration and the Apollo Belvidere +to the lovers of art. This gem was worn by Count Wilhelm as a clasp to the +plume in his toque at a fancy ball given by one of the Metternich family, +at which he appeared in the costume of Henri III. of France. He afterward, +with culpable carelessness, placed it, amongst his studs, pins, +watch-chains and other similar bijouterie, in a small steel cabinet which +stood in his bed-chamber. His illness and the dismissal of Rose Coral +occurred soon after the fancy ball in question, and it was not till his +heir, the present count, had been for some time in possession of the +estates that it was discovered that the great diamond was missing. It was +not to be found, and suspicion immediately fell upon the late count's +valet, a Frenchman named Antoine Lasalle; who was found to have been +mysteriously possessed of a large sum of money after the count's death. He +was arrested, and it was conclusively proved that he had stolen a number +of valuable trinkets from his dying master, but still no trace of The Rose +of the Morning could be discovered, and Lasalle strenuously denied all +knowledge respecting it. The family offered large rewards for its +recovery, and the detectives of all the large cities of Europe have been +for some time on the alert to discover it, but in vain. As soon as I heard +this story, I thought that I could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to the +whereabouts of the missing jewel; and I caused investigations to be set on +foot in New York by a trusty agent, which resulted in the discovery that +The Rose of the Morning had been sold some six months before to a jeweler +in Maiden lane for about one-twenty-fifth of its value, the peculiar tint +of the stone, and the purchaser's ignorance of the estimation in which it +is held by the gem-fanciers of Europe, having militated against the +magnitude of the valuation set upon it. It was secured for me at a +comparatively trifling price. The person who sold it to the jeweler some +six months ago, in spite of a partial disguise and an assumed name, was +easy to recognize, from the description given, as that lady of many names, +Mrs. John Archer's governess. Now, Rose Coral, what say you? You may be +Mrs. Clement Rutherford, my brother's lawful wife, but you are not the +less a thief and a criminal, for whom the laws have terrible punishment +and bitter degradation."</p> + +<p>"This is but a poor invention: where are your proofs?" she cried, looking +up as she spoke, but her faltering voice and quivering lips contradicted +her words.</p> + +<p>"Here is my chief witness." He drew off his left-hand glove as he spoke, +and extended his hand toward her. On the third finger blazed the beautiful +gem of which he had spoken, its great size and purity fully displayed in +the pale afternoon sunlight that flashed back in rosy radiance from its +bright-tinted depths.</p> + +<p>"It is almost too large to wear as a ring," he said with great coolness, +looking at the jewel, "but I wish it to run no further risks till I can +transfer it to its lawful owner, which will be as soon as it has played +its talismanic part by freeing my brother from his impostor-wife."</p> + +<p>The lady rose from her seat, pale, calm and resolved.</p> + +<p>"Further insults are useless, sir," she said. "The game is ended now, and +you have won it. What is it that you wish me to do?"</p> + +<p>"You must sail for Europe in one of next week's steamers, leaving behind +you such a confession of guilt as will enable my brother to procure a +divorce without revealing the shameful fact that he was the innocent means +of introducing an impostor--a <i>ci-devant</i> lorette--to his family and +friends as his wife. Better this scandal of an elopement than the horror +of having such a story made public. An income amply sufficient for your +wants will be settled upon you, on condition that you never return to the +United States, and never, in any way, proclaim the fact that Mrs. Clement +Rutherford and Rose Coral were one and the same person."</p> + +<p>"I accept your conditions," she said, wearily. "I will go, never to +return. Now leave me. But stay: will you not answer me one question?"</p> + +<p>"I will, certainly."</p> + +<p>"Who was it that discovered my secret?"</p> + +<p>"My mother--my blind mother. Some years ago, before she lost her sight, I +accompanied her on a short European tour, in which we visited England, +France, Switzerland, and finally Italy. While we were at Rome I fell ill +with the fever of the country, and my physicians gave orders that as soon +as I was well enough to travel I should leave Italy for a more bracing +climate. We had not visited Naples, and I was anxious that my mother +should not return home without seeing the wonders of that city; so as soon +as I became convalescent I prevailed upon her to leave me in the care of +some friends and to join a party who were going thither. During her stay +she went frequently to the opera. One evening she was greatly disturbed by +the loud talking and laughing of some persons in the box next to the one +she occupied, and she was much struck with the beauty, the brilliant +toilette and the boisterous conduct of one of the female members of the +party. She inquired the name of the person she had thus remarked. It was +yourself, and she learned not only your name, but your whole history. When +at her own dinner-table she heard the sweet and singular laugh that had so +struck her on that occasion, the sensitiveness of hearing peculiar to the +blind caused her to recognize the sound at once; and the description which +I afterward gave her of your personal appearance only changed torturing +doubt into agonizing certainty."</p> + +<p>"Thanks for your courtesy: I will detain you no longer."</p> + +<p>Horace bowed and approached the door. Suddenly, as if moved by a sudden +impulse, he turned back.</p> + +<p>"Believe me, this task has been a hard one," he said, earnestly. "And +remember, if hereafter you may need pecuniary aid, do not hesitate to +apply to me. For Heaven's sake, do not return to the life you once led. +There was one redeeming feature in the imposture which you practiced: it +showed that some yearning for a pure name and an innocent life was yet +possible to you."</p> + +<p>"I want no sermons," she answered, abruptly. "Only leave me at peace. Go: +I am sick of the sight of you."</p> + +<p>As he closed the door he cast one parting glance on the room and its +occupant. She stood leaning against the back of a large arm-chair, her +clasped hands resting on the top, and her white, rigid face set in the +fixed calmness of total despair.</p> + +<p>Thus left alone, she remained standing for some time as motionless as +though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she +seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a +bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. Her maid +quickly appeared.</p> + +<p>"I have a wretched headache, Christine," she said. "I shall not come down +to dinner, and do not disturb me till nine o'clock: that will give me time +enough to dress for Mrs. Winchester's ball. I will wear the pale-blue +satin and my point-lace tunic. Be sure you change the white roses that +loop it for pink ones, and lay out my parure of pearls and diamonds, and +my point-lace fan and handkerchief. Now bring me the two phials that stand +on the third shelf of the closet in my bed-chamber."</p> + +<p>Christine departed on her errand and soon returned, bringing with her two +bottles, the smallest of which was labeled "Solution of Morphia--POISON. +Dose for an adult, ten drops;" while the largest Was simply inscribed +"Sulphuric Ether." These she placed on the chimney-piece, and then +proceeded to arrange the cushions of the lounge and to draw the curtains. +"I will now leave madame to her repose," she said. "Does madame need +anything more?"</p> + +<p>"No, I shall want nothing more," was the reply. The door closed upon the +maid's retreating form, and Mrs. Rutherford instantly shot the bolt.</p> + +<p>She cast a sad and wistful glance around the dainty room and on its +glittering contents. "<i>J'etais si bien ici</i>," she said regretfully. "I had +found here the existence which suited me, and now the end has come. It is +not in my nature to remain satisfied with a life of poverty and +respectability, and I will not return to one of degradation and vice. But, +after all, what does it matter? My fate would have found me sooner or +later, and this soft couch is better than a hospital bed or the slabs of +La Morgue: this draught is more soothing than the cold waters of the +Thames or the Seine. Life is no longer a game that is worth the candle: +let us extinguish the lights and put the cards away."</p> + +<p>She took up the phial of morphia, drew the little sofa nearer to the +fireplace and extended herself upon it. The daylight faded from the sky +and night came, and with the night came sleep--a sleep whose dream was of +Eternity, and whose wakening light would be the dawn of the resurrection +morning.</p> + +<p>"Accidental death" was the verdict of the coroner and the newspapers, and, +in fact, of the world in general--a conclusion much assisted by the +evidence of Christine, who testified that her mistress was in the habit of +using narcotics and anaesthetics in large quantities to relieve the pain +of the neuralgic headaches from which she was a constant sufferer. Society +said, "How sad! Dreadful, is it not?" and went on its way--not exactly +rejoicing, for the death of Mrs. Rutherford deprived its members of her +long-promised, long-talked-of Shrove-Tuesday ball, and consequently the +gay world mourned her loss very sincerely for a short time; in fact, till +a well-known leader of fashion announced her intention of giving a +fancy-dress party on the night thus left vacant, whereupon Society was +consoled, and Mrs. Rutherford's sad fate was forgotten.</p> + +<p>Only two persons--Horace Rutherford and his mother--suspected that her +death was not an accidental one; but they guarded their secret carefully, +and Clement Rutherford will never learn that his dead wife was other than +the innocent English girl she represented herself to be. Walter Nugent +wrote a pathetic letter to Mrs. Rutherford, begging that a lock of his +lost and now forgiven darling's hair might be sent to him; and it cost +Horace a sharp pang of regret when he substituted for the black, wavy +tress furnished by Clement a golden ringlet purchased from one of the +leading hairdressers of New York.</p> + +<p>"Heaven forgive me!" he said to himself, remorsefully, as he sealed the +little packet; "but I really think that this is one of the cases wherein +one cannot be blamed for not revealing the truth."</p> + +<p>A few months later, Horace Rutherford stood in Greenwood Cemetery +contemplating with curiosity and interest the inscription on a +recently-erected monument of pure white marble.</p> + +<p>"Sacred to the memory of Marion Nugent, beloved wife of Clement +Rutherford," he read. "Well, this is consistent at least. She wears the +disguise of a virtuous woman in her very tomb. Marion Nugent rests beneath +the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and here Rose Sherbrooke sleeps in an +honored grave beneath the shelter of the dead girl's stainless name. But +the deception has power to harm no longer, so let us leave her in peace. +It is well for our family that, even as a sunken wreck, we still find this +pirate bark Under False Colors,"</p> +</div> +<p class="author">Lucy Hamilton Hooper.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st07"> +<h2>The Hungry Heart.</h2> + + + +<p>A village on the coast of Maine; in this village a boarding-house; in this +boarding-house a parlor.</p> + +<p>This parlor is, strictly speaking, a chamber: it is in the second story, +and until lately it contained a bed, washstand, etc.; but a visitor from +New York has taken a fancy to change it to a reception-room. In the rear, +communicating with it, is a sleeping-closet.</p> + +<p>The room is what you might expect to find in a village boarding-house: the +floor of liliuptian extent; the ceiling low, uneven, cracked and yellow; +the originally coarse and ugly wall-paper now blotched with age; the +carpet thin, threadbare, patched and stained; the furniture of various +woods and colors, and in various stages of decrepitude.</p> + +<p>But a tiny bracket or two, three or four handsome engravings, two fresh +wreaths of evergreens, two vases of garden flowers, a number of Swiss and +French knickknacks, and a few prettily-bound books, give the little nest +an air of refinement which is almost elegance.</p> + +<p>You judge at once that the occupant must be a woman--a woman moreover of +sensibility and taste; a woman of good society. Of all this you become +positive when you look at her, take note of her gracious manner and listen +to her cultured voice.</p> + +<p>Her expression is singularly frank and almost childlike: it exhibits a +rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions: it is both vivacious and +refined, both eager and sweet. It would seem as if here were the +impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and +artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness and +feeling.</p> + +<p>In a large easy-chair reclines her rather small, slender and willowy form, +starting slightly forward when she speaks, and sinking back when she +listens. Her sparkling eyes are fixed on the eyes of her one visitor with +an intentness and animation of interest which should be very fascinating.</p> + +<p>He, a young man, not five years older than herself, very gentle in manner +and with a remarkably sweet expression of face, evidently is fascinated, +and even strongly moved, if one may judge by the feverish color in his +cheeks, the eager inquiry of his gaze and the tremor of his lips.</p> + +<p>The first words of hers which we shall record are a strange utterance to +come from a woman:</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you something which I have read lately. It sounds like a +satire, and yet there is too much truth in it: 'Every woman in these days +needs two husbands--one to fill her purse, and one to fill her heart; one +to dress her, and one to love her. It is not easy to be the two in one.' +That is what I have read, and it is only too true. Remember it, and don't +marry."</p> + +<p>A spasm of intense spiritual pain crossed the young man's fine and kindly +face.</p> + +<p>"Don't say such things, I beg of you!" he implored. "I am sure that in +what you have quoted there is a slander upon most women. I know that it +slanders you."</p> + +<p>Her lips parted as if for a contradiction, but it was evidently very +pleasant to her to hear such words from him, and with a little childlike +smile of gratification she let him proceed.</p> + +<p>"I have perfect confidence in you," he murmured. "I am willing to put all +my chances of happiness in your hands. My only fear is that I am not half +worthy of you--not a thousandth part worthy of you. Will you not listen to +me seriously? Will you not be so kind?"</p> + +<p>A tremor of emotion slightly lifted her hands, and it seemed for a moment +as if she would extend them to him. Then there was a sudden revulsion: +with a more violent shudder, evidently of a painful nature, she threw +herself backward, her face turned pale, and she closed her eyes as if to +shut him from her sight.</p> + +<p>"I ought to ask your pardon," she whispered. "I never thought that it +would come to this. I never meant that it should. Oh, I ask your pardon." +Recovering herself with singular quickness, a bright smile dancing along +the constantly changing curves of her lips, like sunbeams leaping from +wavelet to wavelet, she once more leaned cordially toward him, and said in +a gay yet pleading tone, "Let us talk of something else. Come, tell me +about yourself--all about yourself, nothing about me."</p> + +<p>"I cannot speak of anything else," he replied, after looking at her long +in silence. "My whole being is full of you: I cannot think of anything +else."</p> + +<p>A smile of gratitude sweetly mastered her mouth: then it suddenly turned +to a smile of pity; then it died in a quiver of remorse.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we cannot marry," she sighed. "We must not marry, if we could. Let me +tell you something dreadful. People hate each other after they are +married. I know: I have seen it. I knew a girl of seventeen who married a +man ten years older--a man who was Reason itself. Her friends told her, +and she herself believed it, that she was sure of happiness. But after +three years she found that she did not love, that she was not loved, and +that she was miserable. He was too rational: he used to judge her as he +would a column of figures--he had no comprehension for her feelings."</p> + +<p>There was a momentary pause, during which she folded her hands and looked +at him, but with an air of not seeing him. In the recollection of this +heart-tragedy of the past and of another she had apparently forgotten the +one which was now pressing upon herself.</p> + +<p>"It was incredible how cold and unsympathizing and dull he could be," she +went on. "Once, after she had worked a week in secret to surprise him with +a dressing-gown made by her own hands--labored a week, waited and hoped a +week for one word of praise--he only said, 'It is too short.' Don't you +think it was cruel? It was. I suppose he soon forgot it, but she never +could. A woman cannot forget such slights: they do not seem little blows +to her; they make her very soul bleed."</p> + +<p>"Don't reproach <i>me</i> for it," whispered the young man with a pleading +smile. "You seem to be reproving me, and I can't bear it. I am not +guilty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not you," she answered quickly. "I am not scolding you. I could not."</p> + +<p>She did not mean it, but she gave him a smile of indescribable sweetness: +she had had no intention of putting out her hands toward him, but she did +it. He seized the delicate fingers and slowly drew her against his heart. +Her face crimson with feeling, her whole form trembling to the tiniest +vein, she rose to her feet, turning away her head as if to fly, and yet +did not escape, and could not wish to escape. Holding her in his arm, he +poured into her ear a murmur which was not words, it was so much more than +words.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>could</i> you truly love me?" she at last sobbed. "Could you <i>keep</i> +loving me?"</p> + +<p>After a while some painful recollection seemed to awaken her from this +dream of happiness, and, drawing herself out of his embrace, she looked +him sadly in the eyes, saying, "I must not be so weak. I must save myself +and you from misery. Oh, I must. Go now--leave me for a while: do go. I +must have time to think before I say another word to you."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, my love--soon to be my wife," he answered, stifling with a kiss +the "No, no," which she tried to utter.</p> + +<p>Although he meant to go, and although she was wretchedly anxious that he +should go, he was far from gone. All across the room, at every square of +the threadbare carpet, they halted to renew their talk. Minutes passed, an +hour had flown, and still he was there. And when he at last softly opened +the door, she herself closed it, saying, "Oh no! not yet."</p> + +<p>So greedy is a loving woman for love, so much does she hate to lose the +breath of it from her soul: to let it be withdrawn is like consenting to +die when life is sweetest.</p> + +<p>Thus it was through her, who had bidden him to go, and who had meant that +he should go, that he remained for minutes longer, dropping into her ear +whispers of love which at last drew out her confession of love. And when +the parting moment came--that moment of woman's life in which she least +belongs to herself--there was not in this woman a single reservation of +feeling or purpose.</p> + +<p>These people, who were so madly in love with each other, were almost +strangers. The man was Charles Leighton, a native of Northport, who had +never gone farther from his home than to Boston, and there only to +graduate in the Harvard College and Medical School.</p> + +<p>The lady was Alice Duvernois: her name was all that was known of her in +the village--it was all that she had told of herself. Only a month +previous to the scene above described she had arrived in Northport to +obtain, as she said, a summer of quiet and sea-bathing. She had come +alone, engaged her own rooms, and for a time seemed to want nothing but +solitude.</p> + +<p>Even after she had made herself somewhat familiar with the other inmates +of the boarding-house, nothing positive was learned of her history. That +she had been married was probable: an indefinable something in her face +and carriage seemed to reveal thus much: moreover, her trunks were marked +"James Duvernois."</p> + +<p>And yet, so young did she sometimes look, so childlike was her smile and +so simple her manner, that there were curious ones who scouted the +supposition of wifehood. People addressed her both as "Miss" and "Mrs."; +at last it was discovered that her letters bore the latter title: then she +became popularly known as "the beautiful widow."</p> + +<p>It would be a waste of time to sketch the opening and ripening of the +intimacy between Doctor Leighton and this fascinating stranger. On his +part it was as nearly a case of love at first sight as perhaps can occur +among people of the Anglo-Saxon race. From the beginning he had no doubts +about giving her his whole heart: he was mastered at once by an emotion +which would not let him hesitate: he longed with all his soul for her +soul, and he strove to win it.</p> + +<p>Well, we will not go over the story: we know that he had triumphed. Yes, +in spite of her terror of the future, in spite of some withholding mystery +in the past, she had granted him--or rather she had not been able to +prevent him from seizing--her passionate affection. She had uttered a +promise which, a month before, she would not have dreamed herself capable +of making.</p> + +<p>In so doing she had acquired an almost unendurable happiness. It was one +of those mighty and terrible joys which are like the effect of opium--one +of those joys which condense life and abbreviate it, which excite and yet +stupefy, which intoxicate and kill. With this in her heart she lived ten +of her old days in one, but also she drew for those ten days upon her +future.</p> + +<p>After one of her interviews with Leighton, after an hour of throbbing, of +trembling, of vivid but confused emotions, her face would be as pale as +death, and her weakness such that she could hardly speak. The hands which, +while they clung to his, had been soft and moist, became dry and hot as +with fever, and then cold as ice. At night she could scarcely sleep: for +hours her brain throbbed with the thought of him, and of what stood +between him and her. In the morning she was heavy with headache, dizzy, +faint, hysterical; yet the moment she saw him again she was all life, all +freshness.</p> + +<p>From the point of confession there was no more resistance. She would be +his wife; she would be married whenever he wished; she seemed mad to +reward him for his love; she wanted somehow to sacrifice herself for his +sake. Yet, although she hesitated no longer, she sometimes gazed at him +with eyes full of anxiety, and uttered words which presaged evil.</p> + +<p>"If any trouble springs from this, you must pardon me," she more than once +whispered. "I cannot help it. I have never, never, never been loved +before; and oh, I have been so hungry, so famished for it, I had begun to +despair of it. Yes, when I first met you, I had quite despaired of there +being any love in the world for me. I could not help listening to you: I +could not help taking all your words and looks into my craving heart; and +now I am yours--forgive me!"</p> + +<p>Stranger as she was in Northport, everybody trusted the frank sweetness in +her face, and sought no other cause for admiring her and wishing her +happiness. The whole village came to the church to witness her marriage +and to doat upon a bridal beauty which lay far more in expression than in +form or feature. A few words of description--inadequate notes to represent +the precious gold of reality--must be given to one who could change the +stare of curiosity to a beaming glance of sympathy.</p> + +<p>Small, slender, fragile; neither blonde nor brunette; a clear skin, with a +hectic flush; light chestnut hair, glossy and curling; eyes of violet +blue, large, humid and lustrous, which at the first glance seemed black +because of the darkness, length and closeness of the lashes, and capable +of expressing an earnestness and sweetness which no writer or artist might +hope to depict; a manner which in solitude might be languid, but which the +slightest touch of interest kindled into animation; in fine, white teeth +that sparkled with gayety, and glances that flashed happiness.</p> + +<p>She was married without bridal costume, and there was no wedding journey. +Leighton was poor, and must attend to his business; and his wife wanted +nothing from him which he could not spare--nothing but his love. +Impossible to paint her pathetic gratitude for this affection; the +spiritual--it was not passionate--fondness which she bore him; the +softness of her eyes as she gazed for minutes together into his; the +sudden, tremulous outreachings of her hands toward him, as she just +touches him with her finger and draws back, then leans forward and lies in +his arms, uttering a little cry of happiness. Here was a heart that must +long have hungered for affection--a heart unspeakably thankful and joyous +at obtaining it.</p> + +<p>"I have been smiling all day," she sometimes said to him. "People have +asked me why I looked so gay, and what I had heard that was funny. It is +just because I am entirely happy, and because the feeling is still a +surprise. Shall I ever get over it? Am I silly? No!"</p> + +<p>Her gladness of heart seemed to make her angelic. She rejoiced in every +joy around her, and grieved for every sorrow. She visited the poor of her +husband's patients, watched with them when there was need, made little +collections for their relief, chatted away their forebodings, half cured +them with her smile. There was something catching, comforting, uplifting +in the spectacle of that overbrimming content.</p> + +<p>The well were as susceptible to its influence as the sick. Once, half a +dozen men and twice as many boys were seen engaged in recovering her veil +out of a pond into which the wind had blown it; and when it was handed to +her by a shy youth on the end of a twenty-foot pole, all felt repaid for +their labors by the childlike burst of laughter with which she received +it. Now and then, however, shadows fell across this sunshine. In those +dark moments she frequently reverted to the unhappy couple of whom she had +told Leighton when he first spoke to her of marriage. She was possessed to +describe the man--his dull, filmy, unsympathetic black eyes, his +methodical life and hard rationality, his want of sentiment and +tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Why do you talk of that person so much?" Leighton implored. "You seem to +be charging me with his cruelty. I am not like him."</p> + +<p>The tears filled her eyes as she started toward him, saying, "No, you are +<i>not</i> like him. Even if you should become like him, I couldn't reproach +you. I should merely die."</p> + +<p>"But you know him so well?" he added, inquiringly. "You seem to fear him. +Has he any power over you?"</p> + +<p>For a moment she was so sombre that he half feared lest her mind was +unstrung on this one subject.</p> + +<p>"No," she at last said. "His power is gone--nearly gone. Oh, if I could +only forget!"</p> + +<p>After another pause, during which she seemed to be nerving herself to a +confession, she threw herself into her husband's arms and whispered, "He +is my--uncle."</p> + +<p>He was puzzled by the contrast between the violence of her emotion and the +unimportance of this avowal; but as he at least saw that the subject was +painful to her, and as he was all confidence and gentleness, he put no +more inquiries.</p> + +<p>"Forget it all," he murmured, caressing her; and with a deep sigh, the +sigh of tired childhood, she answered, "Yes."</p> + +<p>The long summer days, laden with happiness for these two, sailed onward to +their sunset havens. After a time, as August drew near its perfumed death, +Alice began to speak of a journey which she should soon be obliged to make +to New York. She <i>must</i> go, she said to Leighton--it was a matter of +property, of business: she would tell him all about it some day. But she +would return soon; that is, she would return as soon as possible: she +would let him know how soon by letter.</p> + +<p>When he proposed to accompany her she would not hear of it. To merely go +on with her, she represented, would be a useless expense, and to stay as +long as she might need to stay would injure his practice. In these days +her gayety seemed forced, and more than once he found her weeping; yet so +innocent was he, so simple in his views of life, so candid in soul, that +he suspected no hidden evil: he attributed her agitation entirely to grief +at the prospect of separation.</p> + +<p>His own annoyance in view of the journey centred in the fact that his wife +would be absent from him, and that he could not incessantly surround her +with his care. Whether she would be happy, whether she would be treated +with consideration, whether she would be safe from accidents and alarms, +whether her delicate health would not suffer, were the questions which +troubled him. He had the masculine instinct of protection: he was as +virile as he was gentle and affectionate.</p> + +<p>The parting was more painful to him than he had expected, because to her +it was such an undisguised and terrible agony.</p> + +<p>"You will not forget me?" she pleaded. "You will never, never hate me? You +will always love me? You are the only person who has ever made the world +pleasant to me; and you have made it so pleasant! so different from what +it was! a new earth to me! a star! I will come back as soon as this +business will let me. Some day I will come back, never to go away. Oh, +will not that be delightful?"</p> + +<p>Her extreme distress, her terror lest she might not return, her +forebodings lest he should some day cease to love her, impressed him for a +moment--only for a truant moment--with doubts as to a mystery. As he left +the railway station, full of gratitude for the last glance of her loving +eyes, he asked himself once or twice, "What is it?"</p> + +<p>What was it?</p> + +<p>We will follow her. She is ominously sad during the lonely journey: she is +almost stern by the time she arrives in New York. In place of the summer's +sweetness and gayety, there is a wintry and almost icy expression in her +face, as if she were about to encounter trials to which she had been long +accustomed, and which she had learned to bear with hardness if not with +resentment.</p> + +<p>No one meets her at the railway station, no one at the door of the sombre +house where her carriage stops--no one until she has passed up stairs into +a darkling parlor.</p> + +<p>There she is received by the man whom she has so often described to +Deighton--a man of thin, erect form, a high and narrow forehead, regular +and imperturbable features, fixed and filmy black eyes, a mechanical +carriage, an icy demeanor.</p> + +<p>At sight of her he slightly bowed--then he advanced slowly to her and took +her hand: he seemed to be hesitating whether he should give her any +further welcome.</p> + +<p>"You need not kiss me," she said, her eyes fixed on the floor. "You do not +wish to do it."</p> + +<p>He sighed, as if he too were unhappy, or at least weary; but he drew his +hand away and resumed his walk up and down the room.</p> + +<p>"So you chose to pass your summer in a village?" he presently said, in the +tone of a man who has ceased to rule, but not ceased to criticise. "I hope +you liked it."</p> + +<p>"I told you in my letters that I liked it," she replied in an +expressionless monotone.</p> + +<p>"And I told you in my letters that I did not like it. It would have been +more decent in you to stay in Portland, among the people whom I had +requested to take care of you. However, you are accustomed to have your +own way. I can only observe that when a woman will have her own way, she +ought to pay her own way."</p> + +<p>A flush, perhaps of shame, perhaps of irritation, crossed her hitherto +pale face, but she made no response to the scoff, and continued to look at +the floor.</p> + +<p>After a few seconds, during which neither of them broke the silence, she +seemed to understand that the reproof was over, and she quietly quitted +the room.</p> + +<p>The man pushed the door to violently with his foot, and said in an accent +of angry scorn, "That is what is now called a wife."</p> + +<p>Well, we have reached the mystery: we have found that it was a crime.</p> + +<p>In the working of social laws there occur countless cases of individual +hardship. The institution of marriage is as beneficent as the element of +fire; yet, like that, it sometimes tortures when it should only have +comforted.</p> + +<p>The sufferer, if a woman, usually bears her smart tamely--with more or +less domestic fretting and private weeping indeed, but without violent +effort to escape from her bed of embers. Divorce is public, ugly and +brutal: her sensibility revolts from it. Moreover, mere unhappiness, mere +disappointment of the affections, does not establish a claim for legal +separation. Finally, there is woman's difficulty of self-maintenance--the +fact that her labor will not in general give her both comfort and +position.</p> + +<p>What then? Unloved, unable to love, yet with an intense desire for +affection, and an immense capacity for granting it, her heart is tempted +to wander beyond the circle of her duty. A flattering shape approaches her +dungeon-walls; a voice calls to her to come forth and be glad, if only for +a moment; there seems to be a chance of winning the adoration which has +been her whole life's desire; there is an opportunity of using the +emotions which are burning within her. Shall she burst open the gate on +which is written LEGALITY?</p> + +<p>Evidently the temptation is mighty. Laden with a forsaken, wounded and +perhaps angry heart, she is so easily led into the belief that her +exceptional suffering gives her a right to exceptional action! She feels +herself justified in setting aside law, when law, falsifying its purpose, +violating its solemn pledge, brings her misery instead of happiness. She +will not, or cannot, reflect that special hardships must occur under all +law; that it is the duty of the individual to bear such chance griefs +without insurrection against the public conscience; that entire freedom of +private judgment would dissolve society.</p> + +<p>Too often--though far less often than man does the like--she makes of her +sorrow an armor of excuse, and enters into a contest for unwarrantable +chances of felicity. Only, in general, she is so far conscious of guilt, +or at least so far fearful of punishment, as to carry on her struggle in +the darkness. Few, however maddened by suffering, openly defy the serried +phalanx of the world. Still fewer venture the additional risk of defying +it under the forms of a legality which they have ventured to violate.</p> + +<p>Why is it that so few women, even of a low and reckless class, have been +bigamists? It is because the feminine soul has a profound respect, a +little less than religious veneration, for the institution of marriage; +because it instinctively recoils from trampling upon the form which +consecrates love; because in very truth it regards the nuptial bond as a +sacrament. I believe that the average woman would turn away from bigamy +with a deeper shudder than from any other stain of conjugal infidelity.</p> + +<p>But there are exceptions to all modes of feeling and of reasoning.</p> + +<p>Here is Alice Duvernois: she is a woman of good position, of intellectual +quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out +this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To +her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, +grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has +seemed that the sanctity of a second marriage will somehow cover the +violation of a first.</p> + +<p>This aberration we can only explain on the ground that she was one of +those natures--mature in some respects, but strangely childlike in +others--whom most of us love to stigmatize as unpractical, and who in fact +never become quite accustomed to this world and its rules.</p> + +<p>On the very evening of her arrival home she put to her husband a question +of infantile and almost incredible simplicity. It was one of the many +observations which made him tell her from time to time that she was a +fool.</p> + +<p>"What do they do," she asked, "to women who marry two husbands?"</p> + +<p>"They put them in jail," was his cool reply.</p> + +<p>"I think it is brutal," she broke out indignantly, as if the iron gates +were already closing upon her, and she were contesting the justice of the +punishment.</p> + +<p>"You are a pretty simpleton, to set up your opinion against that of all +civilized society!" was the response of incarnate Reason.</p> + +<p>From that moment she trembled at her danger, and quivered under the +remorse which terror brings. At times she thought of flying, of abandoning +the husband who did not love her for the one who did; but she was afraid +of being pursued, afraid of discovery. The knowledge that society had +already passed judgment upon her made her see herself in the new light of +a criminal, friendless, hunted and doomed. The penalty of her illegal +grasp after happiness was already tracking her like a bloodhound.</p> + +<p>Yet when she further learned that her second marriage was not binding +because of the first, her heart rose in mutiny. Faithful to the only love +that there had been for her in the world, she repeated to herself, a +hundred times a day, "It <i>is</i> binding--it <i>is</i>!"</p> + +<p>She was in dark insurrection against her kind; at times she was on the +point of bursting out into open defiance. She stared at Duvernois, crazy +to tell him, "I am wedded to another."</p> + +<p>He noticed the wild expression, the longing, wide-open eyes, the parted +and eager lips, the trembling chin. At last he said, with a brutality +which had become customary with him, "What are you putting on those airs +for? I suppose you are imagining yourself the heroine of a romance."</p> + +<p>With a glare of pain and scorn she walked away from him in silence.</p> + +<p>It is shocking indeed to be fastened speechless upon a rack, and to be +charged by uncomprehending souls with counterfeiting emotion. She was so +constituted that she could not help laying up this speech of her husband's +against him as one of many stolid misdoings which justified both contempt +and aversion. In fact, his inability or unwillingness to comprehend her +had always been, in her searching and sensitive eyes, his chief crime. To +be understood, to be accepted at her full worth, was one of the most +urgent demands of her nature.</p> + +<p>The life of this young woman, not only within but without, was strange +indeed. She fulfilled that problem of Hawthorne's--an individual bearing +one character, living one life in one place, and a totally different one +in another place--upon one spot of earth angelic, and upon another vile.</p> + +<p>Stranger still, her harsher qualities appeared where her manner of life +was lawful, and her finer ones where it was condemnable. At Northport she +had been like sunlight to her intimates and like a ministering seraph to +the poor. In New York she avoided society: she had no tenderness for +misery.</p> + +<p>The explanation seems to be that love was her only motive of feeling and +action. Not a creature of reason, not a creature of conscience--she was +only a creature of emotion, an exaggerated woman.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, her husband, methodical in life, judicial in mind, +contemptuous of sentiment, was an exaggerated man. Here was a beating +heart united to a skeleton. The result of this unfortunate combination had +been a wreck of happiness and defiance of law.</p> + +<p>Duvernois had not a friend intelligent enough to say to him, "You <i>must </i> +love your wife; if you cannot love her, you must with merciful deception +make her believe that you do. You must show her when you return from +business that you have thought of her; you must buy a bouquet, a toy, a +trifle, to carry home to her. If you do these things, you will be +rewarded; if not, you will be punished."</p> + +<p>But had there been such a friend, Duvernois would not have comprehended +him. Ho would have replied, or at least he would have thought, "My wife is +a fool. She is not worth the money that I now spend upon her, much less +the reflection and time that you call upon me to spend."</p> + +<p>Two such as Alice and Duvernois could not live together in peace. +Notwithstanding her old dread of him, and notwithstanding the new alarm +with which she was filled by the discovery that she was a felon, she could +not dissemble her feelings when she looked him in the face. Sometimes she +was silently contemptuous--sometimes (when her nerves were shaken) openly +hostile. Rational, impassive, vigorous as he was, she made him unhappy.</p> + +<p>The letters of Leighton were at once a joy and a sorrow. She awaited them +impatiently; she went every day to the delivery post-office whither she +had directed them to be sent; she took them from the hands of the +indifferent clerk with a suffocating beating of the heart. Alone, she +devoured them, kissed them passionately a hundred times, sat down in +loving haste to answer them. But then came the necessity of excusing her +long absence, of inventing some lie for the man she worshiped, of +deterring him from coming to see her.</p> + +<p>During that woeful winter of terror, of aversion, of vain longing, her +health failed rapidly. A relentless cough pursued her, the beautiful flame +in her cheek burned freely, and a burst of blood from the lungs warned her +that her future was not to be counted by years.</p> + +<p>She cared little: her sole desire was to last until summer. She merely +asked to end her hopeless life in loving arms--to end it before those arms +should recoil from her in horror.</p> + +<p>No discovery. Her husband was too indifferent toward her to watch her +closely, or even to suspect her. As early in June as might be she obtained +permission to go to the seaside, and with an eagerness which would have +found the hurricane slow she flew to Northport.</p> + +<p>Leighton received her with a joy which at first blinded him to her +enfeebled health.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how could you stay so long away from me?" were his first words. "Oh, +my love, my darling wife! thank you for coming back to me."</p> + +<p>But after a few moments, when the first flush and, sparkle of excitement +had died out of her cheeks and eyes, he asked eagerly, "What is the matter +with you? Have you been sick?"</p> + +<p>"I am all well again, now that I see you," she answered, putting out her +arms to him with that little start of love and joy which had so often +charmed him.</p> + +<p>It absolutely seemed that in the presence of the object of her affection +this erring woman became innocent. Her smile was as simple and pure as +that of childhood: her violet eyes reminded one of a heaven without a +cloud. It must have been that, away from punishment and from terror, she +did not feel herself to be guilty.</p> + +<p>But the day of reckoning was approaching. She had scarcely begun to regain +an appearance of health under the stimulus of country air and renewed +happiness, when a disquieting letter arrived from Duvernois. In a tone +which was more than usually authoritative, he directed her to meet him at +Portland, to go to Nahant and Newport. Did he suspect something?</p> + +<p>She would have given years of life to be able to show the letter to +Leighton and ask his counsel. But here her punishment began to double upon +her: the being whom she most loved was precisely the one to whom she must +not expose this trouble--the one from whom she was most anxious to conceal +it.</p> + +<p>In secret, and with unconfided tears, she wrote a reply, alleging (what +was true) that her feeble health demanded quiet, and praying that she +might be spared the proposed journey. For three days she feverishly +expected an answer, knowing the while that she ought to go to Portland to +meet Duvernois, should he chance to come, yet unable to tear herself away +from Leighton, even for twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon of the third day she made one of her frequent visits of +charity. At the house of a poor and bed-ridden widow she met, as she had +hoped to meet, her husband. When they left the place he took her into his +gig and carried her home.</p> + +<p>It was a delicious day of mid June: the sun was setting in clouds of +crimson and gold; the earth was in its freshest summer glory. In the +beauty of the scene, and in the companionship of the heart which was all +hers, she forgot, or seemed to forget, her troubles. One hand rested on +Leighton's arm; her face was lifted steadily to his, like a flower to the +light; her violet eyes were dewy and sparkling with happiness. There were +little clutches of her fingers on his wrist whenever he turned to look at +her. There were spasms of joy in her slender and somewhat wasted frame as +she leaned from time to time against his shoulder. + +Arrived at the house, she was loth to have him leave her for even the time +required to take his horse to the stable.</p> + +<p>"Come soon," she said--"come as quick as you can. I shall be at the +window. Look up when you reach the gate. Look at the window all the way +from the gate to the door."</p> + +<p>In an instant, not even taking off her bonnet, she was sitting by the +window waiting for him to appear.</p> + +<p>A man approached, walking behind the hedge of lilacs which bordered the +yard, and halted at the gate with an air of hesitation. She turned ghastly +white: retribution was upon her. It was Duvernois.</p> + +<p>With that swift instinct of escape which sensitive and timorous creatures +possess, she glided out of the room, through the upper hall, down a back +stairway, into the garden behind the house, and so on to an orchard +already obscure in the twilight. Here she paused in her breathless flight, +and burst into one of her frequent coughs, which she vainly attempted to +smother.</p> + +<p>"I was already dying," she groaned. "Ah, why could he not have given me +time to finish?"</p> + +<p>From the orchard she could faintly see the road, and she now discovered +Leighton returning briskly toward the house. Her first thought was, "He +will look up at the window, and he will not see me!" Her next was, "They +will meet, and all will be known!"</p> + +<p>Under the sting of this last reflection she again ran onward until her +breath failed. She had no idea where she should go: her only purpose was +to fly from immediate exposure and scorn--to fly both from the man she +detested and the man she loved. Her speed was quickened to the extent of +her strength by the consideration that she was already missed, and would +soon be pursued.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't let them come!--don't let them find me!" she prayed to some +invisible power, she could not have said what.</p> + +<p>Mainly intent as she was upon mere present escape from reproachful eyes, +she at times thought of lurking in the woods or in some neighboring +village until Duvernois should disappear and leave her free to return to +Leighton. But always the reflection came up, "Now he knows that I have +deceived him; now he will despise me and hate me, and refuse to see me; +now I can never go back."</p> + +<p>In such stresses of extreme panic and anguish an adult is simply a child, +with the same overweight of emotions and the same imperfections of reason. +During the moments when she was certain that Leighton would not forgive +her, Alice made wild clutches at the hope that Duvernois might. There were +glimpses of the earlier days of her married life; cheering phantoms of the +days when she believed that she loved and that she was beloved--phantoms +which swore by altars and bridal veils to secure her pardon.</p> + +<p>She imagined Duvernois overtaking her with the words, "Alice, I forgive +your madness: do you also forgive the coldness which drove you to it?"</p> + +<p>She imagined herself springing to him, reaching out her hands for +reconciliation, putting up her mouth for a kiss, and sobbing, "Ah, why +were you not always so?"</p> + +<p>Then of a sudden she scorned this fancy, trampled it under her weary, +aching feet, and abhorred herself for being faithless to Leighton.</p> + +<p>At last she reached a sandy, lonely coast-road, a mile from the village, +with a leaden, pulseless, corpselike sea on the left, and on the right a +long stretch of black, funereal marshes. Seating herself on a ruinous +little bridge of unpainted and wormeaten timbers, she looked down into a +narrow, sluggish rivulet, of the color of ink, which oozed noiselessly +from the morass into the ocean. Her strength was gone: for the present +farther flight was impossible, unless she fled from earth--fled into the +unknown.</p> + +<p>This thought had indeed followed her from the house: at first it had been +vague, almost unnoticed, like the whisper of some one far behind; then it +had become clearer, as if the persuading fiend went faster than she +through the darkness, and were overtaking her. Now it was urgent, and +would not be hushed, and demanded consideration.</p> + +<p>"If you should die," it muttered, "then you will escape: moreover, those +who now abhor you and scorn you, will pity you; and pity for the dead is +almost respect, almost love."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how can a ruined woman defend herself but by dying?" She wept as she +gazed with a shudder into the black rivulet.</p> + +<p>Then she thought that the water seemed foul; that her body would become +tangled in slimy reeds and floating things; that when they found her she +would be horrible to look upon. But even in this there was penance, a +meriting of forgiveness, a claim for pity.</p> + +<p>Slowly, inch by inch, like one who proposes a step which cannot be +retraced, she crept under the railing of the bridge, seated herself on the +edge of the shaky planking and continued to gaze into the inky waters.</p> + +<p>A quarter of an hour later, when the clergyman of Northport passed by that +spot, returning from a visit to a dying saint of his flock, no one was +there.</p> + +<p>We must revert to the two husbands. Duvernois had long wondered what could +keep his wife in a sequestered hamlet, and immediately on her refusal to +join him in a summer tour he had resolved to look into her manner of life.</p> + +<p>At the village hotel he had learned that a lady named Duvernois had +arrived in the place during the previous summer, and that she had been +publicly married to a Doctor Leighton. He did not divulge his name--he did +not so much as divulge his emotions: he listened to this story calmly, his +eyes fixed on vacancy.</p> + +<p>At the door of the boarding-house he asked for Mrs. Duvernois, and then +corrected himself, saying, "I mean Mrs. Leighton."</p> + +<p>He must have had singular emotions at the moment, yet the servant-girl +noticed nothing singular in his demeanor.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Leighton could not be found. None of the family had seen her enter or +go out: it was not known that she had been in the house for an hour.</p> + +<p>"But there comes Doctor Leighton," remarked the girl as the visitor turned +to leave.</p> + +<p>Even in this frightful conjuncture the characteristic coolness of +Duvernois did not forsake him: after a moment's hesitation and a quick +glance at his rival, he said, "I do not know him: I will call again."</p> + +<p>On the graveled walk which led from the yard gate to the doorstep the two +men met and passed without a word--the face of the one as inexpressive of +the strangeness and horror of the encounter as the mind of the other was +unconscious of them.</p> + +<p>Leighton immediately missed Alice. In a quarter of an hour he became +anxious: in an hour he was in furious search of her.</p> + +<p>Somewhat later, when Duvernois came once more to the house, accompanied by +a fashionably-dressed youth, who, as it subsequently appeared, was his +younger brother, he found the family and the neighborhood in wild alarm +over the disappearance of Mrs. Leighton. The two at once returned to the +hotel, procured saddle-horses and joined in the general chase.</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock at night, and the moon was shining with a vaporous, +spectral light, when the maddest of chances brought the two husbands +together over a body which the tide, with its multitudinous cold fingers, +had gently laid upon the beach.</p> + +<p>Leighton leaped from his horse, lifted the corpse with a loud cry, and +covered the white wet face with kisses.</p> + +<p>Duvernois leaned forward in his saddle, and gazed at both without a word +or a movement.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what could have led her to this?" groaned the physician, already too +sure that life had departed.</p> + +<p>"Insanity," was the monotoned response of the statue on horseback.</p> + +<p>The funeral took place two days later: the coffin-plate bore the +inscription, "Alice Leighton, aged 23." Duvernois read it, and said not a +word.</p> + +<p>"If you don't claim her as your wife," whispered the brother, "you may +find it difficult to marry again."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I shall want to marry again?" responded the widower with an +icy stare.</p> + +<p>He was aware that he had lost a shame and a torment, and not aware that +she might have been an honor and a joy, if only he had been able to love.</p> + +<p class="author">J. W. de Forest.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st08"> +<h2>"How Mother Did It."</h2> + + + +<p>The year 1839--that is, the year in which I was born--is of no manner of +importance to myself or anybody else. The year 1859--that is, the year in +which I began to <i>live</i> (Charlie and I got married that year)--is of +considerable importance to myself and to somebody else. The two decades +forming the interim between those years constitute my Dark Age, in which I +teethed and measled and whooping-coughed, and went to school, and wore my +hair in two long pig-tails, and loved molasses candy, and regarded a +school-room as purgatory, a ball-room as heaven--when I sang and danced +and grew as the birds and grasshoppers and flowers sing and dance and +grow, because they having nothing else to do.</p> + +<p>Then came my Golden Age. That means, then came Charlie into my life, when +I felt for the first time that there was music in the birds' voices and +perfume in the flowers--that there was light in the heavens above and on +the earth beneath, for God was in heaven and Charlie was on earth--when I, +who had all along been hardly more than a human grasshopper, became the +happiest of happy women--so much happier, I thought, than I deserved. For +who was I, and what great thing had I ever done, that I should be crowned +with such a crown of glory as--Charlie? why should I, insignificant I, be +so blest among women as to be taken to wife by Charlie?</p> + +<p>I was insanely sentimental enough to rather resent the fact that Charlie +was prosaically well off: his circumstances were distressingly easy. It +would have been so much nicer, so deliciously romantic, if there had been +an opportunity afforded me to show how ready, nay, eager, I was to +sacrifice friends, home and country for his dear sake. But Charlie didn't +want me to sacrifice my friends; nor did it require any great amount of +heroism to exchange my modestly comfortable home for his decidedly +luxurious one; and as for country, nothing on earth could have induced +Charlie to leave his own country, much less his own parish, much less his +own plantation. So we were married without any talk of sacrifice on either +side, and moved quietly enough from father's small plantation to Charlie's +large one.</p> + +<p>There was but one drawback to the perfectness of my happiness: there was +so little hope of my ever having an opportunity to air those magnanimous +traits of character upon the possession of which I so plumed myself. I +felt sure that I could meet the most adverse circumstances with the most +smiling patience, but circumstances obstinately refused to be adverse. I +was inwardly conscious that the most trying emergency could not shake my +heroic but purely feminine fortitude; but, alas! my fortitude was likely +to rust while waiting for the emergency. Injury and wrong should be met +with sublime dignity, but the most wildly speculative imagination could +not look upon Charlie's placidly handsome face and convert him into a +possible tyrant.</p> + +<p>To tell how the longed-for opportunity to exercise my powers of endurance, +and my dignity, and all the rest of it, did finally come about, and to +tell how I bore the test, is the object of this paper.</p> + +<p>For the first six months of our married life, Charlie and I were simply +ridiculously happy--selfishly happy too. We resented a neighbor's visit as +an act of barbarous invasion, and the necessity of returning such visits +was acknowledged with a sublimity of resignation worthy of pictorial +representation in that exquisite parlor manual, Fox's <i>Book of Martyrs</i>. +If Charlie left the house for an hour or two, I looked upon his enforced +absence as a cruel dispensation of Providence, which I did <i>not</i> bear with +"fortitude and sublime dignity," but pouted over like the ridiculous baby +I was. Bare conjugal civility required that on leaving the house Charlie +should kiss me three times, and on returning six times: anything short of +that I should have considered a pre-monitory symptom of approaching +separation. If Charlie had ever been so savage as to call me plain +"Lulie," I should have felt certain he was sick and tired of me, and was +repenting of having married me instead of that spectacled bas-bleu, Miss +Minerva Henshaw, who read Buckle and talked dictionary. I believe I was +intoxicated with my own happiness, and was a little nonsensical because I +was so happy.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for the comfort of both Charlie and myself, his domestic +cabinet consisted of a marvelously well-trained set of servants, who were +simply perfect--as perfect in their way as Charlie was in his. They had +been trained by Charlie's mother, who had been the head of affairs in his +house up to the hour of her death--an event which had occurred some dozen +years before my first meeting with Charlie. Everybody said she had been a +celebrated housekeeper, and Charlie's devotion to her had been the talk of +the country-side. There were people malicious enough to say that if +Charlie's mother had never died, he would never have married, but I take +the liberty of resenting such an assertion as a personal insult; for, +although I don't doubt the dear old lady was a perfect jewel in her way, +yet, looking at the portrait of her which hangs over our parlor +mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold +gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither +high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, +in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls +peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with +a huge ruffled border radiating in a circumference of several feet, while +its two black-and-white gauze ribbon strings lie in rigid exactness over +her two rigidly exact shoulders. Looking on this portrait, I do not thank +anybody for saying that it was only because death chose that shining mark +that I had found favor in Charlie's eyes.</p> + +<p>We had been married, I suppose, about six months, when, sitting one +evening over a cozy wood-fire in our cozy little parlor, just under the +work of art I have described at such length, Charlie committed his first +matrimonial solecism. He yawned, actually gaped--an open-mouthed, audible, +undeniable yawn!</p> + +<p>Glancing up at him from my work (which consisted of the inevitable worked +slippers without which no woman considers her wifehood absolutely +asserted), I caught him in the act. "Are you tired, Charlie?" I asked in +accents of wifely anxiety.</p> + +<p>Tired! Poor fellow! he ought to have been, for he had ridden all over the +plantation that day, had written two business letters, and smoked there's +no telling how many cigars, and had only taken one little cat-nap after +dinner.</p> + +<p>He was leaning back in his arm-chair, with his eyes fixed in mournful +meditation upon his mother's portrait (at least I thought so), when I +asked him if he was tired, and I fancied he was thinking sad thoughts of +the mother who had not been dead so very long as never to trouble the +thoughts of the living; so, laying down my slippers, I crossed the rug and +perched myself on Charlie's knee.</p> + +<p>"Talk to me about her, Charlie dear."</p> + +<p>"About whom, little one?" asked Charlie, turning his eyes toward me with a +little lazy look of inquiry.</p> + +<p>"About your mother, Charlie: weren't you thinking about her just now?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know--maybe I was. Dear mother! you don't find many women like +her now-a-days."</p> + +<p>Reader, that was my first glimpse of Charlie's hobby. And from the +luck-less moment when I so innocently invited him to mount it, up to the +time when I forcibly compelled him to dismount from it, I had ample +opportunity to exercise my "smiling patience, sublime dignity and heroic +fortitude." Whether or not I improved my opportunities properly, I will +leave you to judge for yourself. But for two whole years "how mother did +it" seemed to be the watchword of Charlie's existence, and was the <i>bête +noir</i> of mine.</p> + +<p>So long as Charlie and I were in Paradise the house kept itself, and very +nicely it did it too, but by the time we were ready to come back to earth +the perfect servants, who had been taking such good care of themselves, +and our two daft selves into the bargain, were found to be sadly +demoralized. The discovery came upon us gradually. I think my husband +noticed the decadence as soon as I did, but I wasn't going to invite his +attention to the fact; and he, I suppose, thought that I thought that +everything was just as it should be.</p> + +<p>One of Charlie's inherited manias was for early rising--a habit which +would have been highly commendable and undeniably invaluable in a laboring +man, but which struck me, who had an equally strong mania for not rising +early, as extremely inconvenient and the least little bit absurd. Charlie +got up early simply because "mother did it" before him; and after he had +risen at earliest dawn and dressed himself, he had nothing better to do +than walk out on the front gallery, locate himself in a big wicker chair, +tilt his chair back and elevate his feet to the top of the banisters, and +stare out over the cottonfields. This position he would maintain, +probably, about twenty minutes. Then the pangs of hunger would render him +restless, and he would draw out his watch to note the time of day. The +next step in the formula would bring him back to my room door while I was +still sleepily trying to reconnect the broken links of a dream, from which +vain effort he would startle me into wide-awake reality by a stentorian +"Lulie, Lulie! Come, wife--it's breakfast-time."</p> + +<p>Upon which, instead of "heroic fortitude," I would treat him to a little +cross "Please yell at the cook, Charlie, and not at me. I'm sure if people +<i>will</i> get up at such unearthly hours, they should expect to be kept +waiting for their breakfast."</p> + +<p>Then the spirit of unrest would impel Charlie toward the back door, where +I would hear him commanding, exhorting, entreating.</p> + +<p>Mentally registering a vow to give my husband a dose of Mrs. Winslow's +Soothing Syrup on the coming night, I would relinquish all hope of another +nap, get up and dress myself, and join my roaring lion on the front +gallery, where we would both sit meekly waiting for the allied forces of +kitchen and dining-room to decide upon the question of revictualing us.</p> + +<p>"Lulie," said Charlie to me one morning at the breakfast-table, "things +are getting all out of gear about this house, somehow or other."</p> + +<p>I put down the coffee-pot with a resigned thump and asked my lord, with an +injured air, to please explain himself.</p> + +<p>"Well, when mother was alive I never knew what it was to sit down to my +breakfast later than six o'clock in summer or seven in winter."</p> + +<p>"How did she manage it, Charlie?" I asked, very meekly.</p> + +<p>"Why, by getting up early herself. No servant on the face of the globe is +going to get up at daybreak and go to work in earnest when she knows her +mistress is sound asleep in bed. I will tell you how mother did: she had a +pretty good-sized bell, that she kept on a table by her bedside, and every +morning, as soon as her eyes were open, she would give such a peal with +that old bell that all the servants on the premises knew that 'Mistress +was awake and up,' and bestirred themselves accordingly. There was no +discount on mother: that was the way she made father a rich man, too."</p> + +<p>"But, Charlie, you're already a rich man, and why on earth should we get +out of bed at daybreak just because your mother and father did so before +us?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, Lulie," said Charlie, the least little bit coldly, "I have no +desire in the world to force you to conform to my views: I only told you +how mother did it."</p> + +<p>Reader, you know how I loved Charlie, and after that I out-larked the lark +in early rising; and although Charlie and I did little more than gape in +each other's faces for an hour or two, and wish breakfast would come, and +wonder what made them take so long, he was perfectly satisfied that we +were both on the road that was to make us healthier, wealthier and wiser.</p> + +<p>Among other points on which my husband and I were mutually agreed was a +liking for good strong coffee, and we also held in common one decided +opinion, and that was, that our coffee was gradually becoming anything but +good and strong.</p> + +<p>Charlie broached the subject first. "Lulie, our coffee is getting to be +perfectly undrinkable," said he one morning, putting his cup down with a +face of disgust.</p> + +<p>"It is indeed, Charlie: it's perfectly villainous. Milly ought to be +ashamed of herself: I shall speak to her again after breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you don't give out enough coffee?" suggested Charlie.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how much Milly takes," I replied, innocently.</p> + +<p>"Takes! Do you mean to say that you don't know how much coffee goes out of +your pantry, Lulie? I don't wonder we never have any fit to drink!"</p> + +<p>If I had been of an argumentative turn, I would have asked Charlie to +explain how giving the cook carte blanche in the matter of quantity should +have had such a disastrous effect in the matter of quality. But I was not +of an argumentative turn, so I took no notice of his queer logic.</p> + +<p>"Why should I bother about every spoonful of coffee, Charlie? You assured +me, when I first came here, that every servant you had was as honest as +you or I, and I'm sure Milly knows better than I do how much coffee she +<i>ought</i> to take."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Charlie with a sigh of mock resignation, "that may be the way +they do things now-a-days, but I remember exactly how mother managed to +have good coffee." Here the hobby broke into a brisk canter: "I recollect +she had a little oval wooden box, that held, I suppose, about a quart--or +two, maybe--of roasted coffee, and that box stood on the mantelpiece in +her room; and every morning, as soon as her bell rang, Milly would come +with a cup and spoon, and mother would measure out two table-spoonfuls of +coffee with her own hands and give it to the cook, and the cook knew +better than not to have good coffee, I can tell you."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure it was only two spoonfuls, Charlie?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure," responded Charlie, solemnly.</p> + +<p>As good-luck would have it, while rummaging in the store-room a day or two +after that coffee talk, I came upon a little old oval wooden box, the lid +of which I detached with some difficulty, and as the scent of the roses +hung round it still, I had no difficulty in identifying my treasure-trove +with the wooden box that had played such a distinguished part in the good +old times when cooks "knew better than not to have good coffee, I can tell +you."</p> + +<p>Hoping that some relic of my dead predecessor might prove more +awe-inspiring to contumacious Milly than my own despised monitions, I +exhumed the wooden box, had it thoroughly cleansed, filled with roasted +coffee and placed upon my mantelpiece, giving Milly orders to come to <i>me</i> +hereafter, every morning, for the coffee.</p> + +<p>Charlie gave me a grateful little kiss when he saw the old box in the old +place, either as a reward for my amiable endeavor to do things as mother +did, or because he took the old wooden box for an outward and visible sign +of the inward and spiritual grace that was to move Milly to make good +coffee.</p> + +<p>But somehow or other, in spite of the unsightly old wooden box on my +mantelshelf, the coffee didn't improve in the least. Maybe the charm +failed to work because Charlie had forgotten which end of the mantelpiece +his mother used to keep it on, or I used the wrong spoon. I'm inclined to +lay it on the spoon myself, but there's no telling.</p> + +<p>The first cotton-picking season that came round after my marriage seemed +to afford Charlie no end of opportunities for riding his hobby at a fast +and furious pace. It seemed as if there was no end to the things that +mother used to do at that important season. I suppose she really was a +wonderful woman, and I humbly hope that by the time I have lived as long +as she did, and get to looking as she does in her portrait, and can wear a +wonderful-looking cap with the wonderful composure she wore it with, and +have little iron-gray curls hanging round my iron-gray visage, I may be +only half as wonderful.</p> + +<p>"Would I see to the making of the cotton sacks? That was one thing mother +always did." Thus Charlie.</p> + +<p>Of course I would: why should I object to doing anything that would +forward my husband's interests? Besides, I was actually pining for some +healthful occupation: I was tired of playing at living. I resolved on a +brilliant plan. I would out-mother mother, for she only <i>saw</i> to the +making of the sacks: I would make them myself, every one of them, on my +sewing-machine. If I couldn't make cotton-sacks on it, what was the use of +having it?</p> + +<p>Charlie had informed me that he would send me down seven or eight women +from the quarters to make the sacks. I informed him with a flourish that I +should need but one: I should want her to cut the sacks out. Charlie +thanked me, and Martha and I and "Wheeler & Wilson" made the sacks.</p> + +<p>Was I to blame that the wretched things burst in twenty places at once the +first time they were used? Was I to blame that two women were kept busy +mending my sacks until they ceased to be sacks? Charlie might think so, +but I did not.</p> + +<p>He reported the failure of my cotton-sack experiment with very unbecoming +levity, as it struck me, accompanying his report with a somewhat unjust +comment upon new-fangled notions, such as sewing-machines, etc., etc., +winding up with--"Now, when mother was alive" (I fairly winced), "the +house was not considered too good for the darkies to sit on the back +gallery with their work and make the sacks right under mother's +eye--sewing them with good strong thread, too, that was spun for the +purpose. I can remember the old spinning-wheel: it used to sit right at +that end of the gallery."</p> + +<p>Like Captain Cuttle, I "made a note of it" for future use.</p> + +<p>I often had occasion to wonder, during the early years of my married life, +how it happened that the son of such an exceptionally perfect woman as I +was compelled to presume my respected mother-in-law to have been, should +have grown up with such shockingly disorderly habits as had my Charlie. +The wretched creature would stalk into my bed-room--which I was +particularly dainty about--fresh from shooting or fishing, with pounds of +mud clinging to his boots, bristling all over with cockleburs, his hands +grimed with gunpowder; and helping himself to water from my ewer, he would +begin dabbling in my china basin until he had reduced its originally pure +contents into a compound of mud and ink, and would wind up by making a +finish of my fresh damask towel, and throwing it on the bed or a chair +instead of returning it to the rack, as he should have done.</p> + +<p>"Charlie," said I one day, saucily inviting a dose of "what mother did," +"what did mother used to do when you came into her room and turned it into +a pig-stye, and then left it for her to clean up again?"</p> + +<p>"She never let me do it," said Charlie with a laugh. "I'll tell you how +she did. She had a tin basin on a shelf on the back gallery, and one of +those great big rolling towels that lasted about a week; and after her +washstand was fixed up in the morning, we knew better than to upset it, I +can tell you."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir: I intend you shall know better than to upset mine, I'll +show you."</p> + +<p>In fact, things had come to that pass that I had mentally resolved to +"show" Charlie a great many things. I firmly believed that the secret of +the power that Charlie's mother had exercised over her household, and +still exercised over him in memory, lay in the fact that she made them all +afraid of her: so I firmly resolved that they should all be afraid of me, +poor little me! It is true, I was but twenty, and she was fifty; I was but +a pocket edition of a woman, and she was a <i>Webster Unabridged</i>; I had +little meek blue eyes, that dropped to the ground in the most shamefaced +manner if a body did but look at me, and she had hard, cold gray eyes, +that not only looked straight at you, but right through you. Still, I +hoped, notwithstanding these trifling drawbacks, to make myself very +awe-inspiring by dint of a grand assumption of spirit.</p> + +<p>To put it into very plain language, I resolved to bully Charlie off his +hobby. He had thrown his mother at my head (figuratively speaking, of +course) until, if she had been present in <i>propria persona</i>, I should have +been tempted to try Hiawatha's remarkable feat with his grandmother, and +throw her up against the moon. But as I could not revenge myself upon her +personally, I began to lay deep and subtle plans for inducing Charlie to +leave her to her repose.</p> + +<p>As the veritable bell which, in the days when "mother did it," had acted +as a sort of Gabriel's trump, was still extant, minus clapper and handle, +I was enabled to provide myself with its fac-simile. Armed with this +instrument of retribution, I laid me down to sleep by Charlie's side, +gloating in anticipation over my ripening scheme of vengeance.</p> + +<p>It was a rare thing for me to wake up before Charlie, but I did manage to +do so on the morning in question, by dint, I think, of a powerful mental +resolution to that effect made the night before. I raised myself very +softly, so as not to disturb my husband's gentle slumbers, and, possessing +myself of my big bell, I laid on with a will, raising such a clatter in +the quiet morning air that Charlie fairly bounded into the middle of the +room before he in the least comprehended where it came from.</p> + +<p>"In the name of God, Lulie, what is the meaning of that?" he exclaimed, +looking at me as if he half doubted my sanity.</p> + +<p>"That's the way mother did it, Charlie," I replied placidly enough, and, +replacing my big bell on the table, I settled myself on my pillow once +more, ostensibly to go to sleep again--in reality to have my laugh out in +a quiet fashion, for it was enough to have made the very bed-posts laugh +to see Charlie's funny look of astonishment and indignation. But of course +he couldn't say a word, you know.</p> + +<p>For two more mornings I clattered my bell about his precious old head, and +then he paid me to quit, and after that began riding his hobby at a little +slower gait.</p> + +<p>The next direct intimation he gave that his faith in inherited ideas was +growing shaky was a plaintive little request that I would not stick so +close to the old wooden box, but give out enough coffee to ensure him +something to drink for his breakfast.</p> + +<p>Now, I had no wish that my husband should drink bad coffee just because +Providence had seen fit to remove his mother from this sublunary sphere: I +merely wanted to cure him of telling me how mother did it; so as soon as +he thus tacitly acknowledged that his suggestion had not been a success, I +took matters into my own hands, and proved to him that coffee could be +made as well by young wives as by old mothers.</p> + +<p>In the due revolution of the seasons King Cotton donned his royal robes of +ermine once more, and sacks again became the one thing needful. It was the +very rainiest, wettest, muddiest picking-season that had ever been seen. +In pursuance of my plan, I had seven or eight women down from the +quarters, and a spinning-wheel also, which was set to humming right under +our bed-room window.</p> + +<p>The rainy weather had kept Charlie in the house, and he was lounging on a +couch in my room, enjoying a pleasant semi-doze, when the monotonous +whirr-r-r of the spinning-wheel first attracted his attention. "Lulie," he +asked, rising into a sitting posture, "what is that infernal noise on the +back gallery?"</p> + +<p>"The spinning-wheel, Charlie. They are spinning thread to make the sacks +with," I answered, without looking up from my work.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" and Charlie subsided for a while. "Ahem! Lulie, my dear, how long is +that devilish spinning to be kept up?"</p> + +<p>"Devilish! Why, Charlie, that's the way mother did it."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Charlie, scratching his head and looking foolish, "I know she +did, Lulie, but I'll be confounded if I can stand it much longer."</p> + +<p>"Why, Charlie, you used to stand it when mother did it," I answered +maliciously.</p> + +<p>"I was hardly ever about the house in those days, Lulie: I suppose that +was why I didn't mind it."</p> + +<p>"Why weren't you about the house much in those days, Charlie?"</p> + +<p>"Because you weren't in it, you witch, I suppose."</p> + +<p>This was such a decided triumph over the old lady of the portrait that I +could afford to be amiable; so, giving him a spasmodic little hug and an +energetic little kiss, I went out and stopped the spinning nuisance +immediately.</p> + +<p>After that the hobby went slower and slower, feebler and feebler. One more +energetic display of my bogus spirit and "the enemy was mine."</p> + +<p>Winter came on in its duly-appointed time, bringing with it the usual +quantity of wild ducks and more than the usual degree of severe cold. +Charlie was an inveterate duck-shooter, and with the return of the season +came the return of mud and dirt in my bowls.</p> + +<p>I determined to do as mother did. A tin basin made its appearance on the +back gallery, four yards of crash sewed together at the end were made to +revolve over the roller, and by way of forcing the experiment to a +successful issue orders were given that my own pitchers should be filled +only after nightfall.</p> + +<p>I was sitting in my bed-room sewing away, in placid unconsciousness of +outside cold and discomfort, when Charlie got home from his first hunt of +the season.</p> + +<p>"No water, Lulie?" and the monster took hold of my nice pitcher with a +pair of muddy, half-frozen hands.</p> + +<p>"On the gallery, dear, just where mother used to keep it;" and I smiled up +at him angelically.</p> + +<p>With a muttered something or other, poor Charlie bounded out to the back +gallery. He came back in a minute, his hands as muddy and cold as ever.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Lulie: the water's all frozen in that confounded tin basin out +there."</p> + +<p>"I'll have it thawed out for you," I said sweetly, rising as I spoke.</p> + +<p>"I say, wifey"--and the great, handsome fellow came close up to me with +his mud and his burs--"do you think it's exactly fair, when a fellow's +been out all the morning shooting ducks for your dinner, to make him stand +out on the gallery such a day as this and scrub the mud off his frozen +hands?"</p> + +<p>"That's the way mother did," was all my answer.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Lulie, I cry quits. If you'll only let a body off this once, +you may keep house on your own plan, little lady, and I'll never tell you +how mother did it again so long as I live."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, don't, that's a dear," I replied, "for you'll only make me +dislike her memory, without doing any good. Just be patient with me, +Charlie, and maybe after a while I'll be as good a housekeeper as your +mother was before me. The mistake you and all other men make is, in +comparing your wives at the end of their first year of housekeeping with +your mothers, whose housekeeping you knew nothing about until it was of +ever so many years' duration. I'm young yet, but I'm improving in that +matter every day, Charlie."</p> + +<p>With which little moral lecture I gave Charlie a kiss, and some water to +wash the mud from his poor red hands.</p> + +<p><i>Moral.</i>--My dear girls, don't you ever marry a man that cannot take his +affidavit he never had a mother, unless it is expressly stipulated in the +marriage contract that he is never to tell you how his mother did it.</p> + +<p class="author">J. R. Hadermann.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st09"> +<h2>The Red Fox:</h2> <h3>A Tale of New Year's Eve.</h3> + + + +<p>It was New Year's Eve, 184-. I and my two little boys, children of five +and seven, were alone in the house. My husband had been unexpectedly +called away on business, and the servant had gone to her friends to spend +the coming holiday.</p> + +<p>It was drawing toward night. The cold shadows of the winter twilight were +already falling. A dull red glow in the west told where the sun was going +down. Over the rest of the sky hung heavy gray clouds. A few drops of rain +fell from time to time, and the wind was rising, coming round the corner +of the house with a long, mournful howl like that of a lost hound.</p> + +<p>I am not a very nervous person, but I did not like the idea of spending by +myself the long evening that would come after the children's bed-time.</p> + +<p>We were living then in a very new place in Michigan, which I shall call +Maysville. My husband, an ex-army officer, had resigned the sword for the +saw-mill. Our house was the oldest in the village, which does not speak +much for its antiquity, as five years before Maysville had been unbroken +forest. The house stood outside the cluster of houses that formed the +little settlement: it was a quarter of a mile to our nearest neighbor.</p> + +<p>Now, Maysville calls itself a city, has an academy and a college, and a +great quantity of church in proportion to its population. Then, we "went +to meeting" in a little white-painted, pine box of a thing, like a barn +that had risen in life. The stumps stood about the street: the cows +wandered at will and pastured in the "public square," an irregular +clearing running out into indefinite space. Here also the Indians would +encamp when they came to town from their reservation about five miles +away, and here also, I regret to say, they would sometimes get drunk, and +add what Martha Penney calls "a revolving animosity to the scenery." The +squaws, however, would generally secure the knives and guns before the +quarrelsome stage was reached. Not unfrequently the ladies would bring the +weapons to Mrs. Moore or myself to hide away till their lords and masters +should be sober. Then, feeling secure that no great harm could happen, +they would look on with the utmost placidity at the antics of their better +halves until they dropped down to sleep off their liquor.</p> + +<p>There were no Indians in town that night, however, and if there had been, +I was not at all afraid of them, for we were on excellent terms with the +whole reservation. My feeling about staying alone was merely one of those +unreasonable sensations that sometimes overtake people of ill-regulated +minds.</p> + +<p>I went to the door and looked out at the gray, angry sky. It was not cold, +but chill. The wind howled and shivered among the leafless branches: +everything promised a storm.</p> + +<p>I was not at all sorry to see Mr. and Mrs. Moore drive up in their light +buggy, with their two high-stepping, little brown horses. Mrs. Moore had +in her arms a bundle in a long blue embroidered cloak--a baby, in short. +She and her husband firmly believed this infant to be the most beautiful, +most intelligent and altogether most charming creature which the world had +ever seen. They had been married three years, and little Carry was their +first child.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Moore were by no means ordinary people. Mrs. Moore--born +Minny or Hermione Adams--was a very small woman, exceedingly pretty, with +light brown curly hair, dark blue eyes and a complexion like an apple +blossom.</p> + +<p>Mr. Moore was the son of a Seneca mother and Cherokee father, with not a +drop of white blood in his veins. So he thought, at least, but I never +could quite believe it, because he could and did work, and never so much +as touched even a glass of wine. His parents had died when he was very +young, and he had been brought up and educated by a missionary, a gentle, +scholarly old Presbyterian minister, whose memory his adopted son held in +loving reverence.</p> + +<p>The story of our acquaintance with Richard Moore is too long to be told +here. Four years before he had come with us from the Pawnee country. He +had married Minny Adams with the full consent of her parents and the +opposition of all her other friends. Contrary to all prophecies, and with +that inartistic disregard of the probable which events often show, they +had been very happy together.</p> + +<p>Mr. Moore--otherwise Wyanota--was a civil engineer, and stood high in his +profession.</p> + +<p>"Look here, mamma," he said as he drove up. "Will you take in the wife and +the small child for to-night? I must go away."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said I, overjoyed. "But where are you going, to be caught in +a storm?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they have got into a fuss with the hands over on the railroad, and +have sent for me. I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when I left +him?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"English!" said Wyn, most expressively. "No one can stand the airs he puts +on."</p> + +<p>Now, such airs as Mr. Moore possessed--and they were neither few nor far +between--were not put on, but were perfectly natural to him.</p> + +<p>"Can't you come in and get your tea?" I asked as he handed me the baby and +helped his wife down.</p> + +<p>"No: I must go over directly and compose matters. Good-bye, little woman: +by-bye, baby! Do you know, we think she's beginning to say 'papa?'" said +Wyn, proudly; and then he kissed his wife and child and drove away.</p> + +<p>I carried the infant phenomenon into the house and took off its wrappings. +She was my namesake, and I loved the little creature, but I can't say she +was a pretty baby. She was a soft, brown thing, with her father's +beautiful southern eyes and her mother's mouth, but otherwise she +certainly was not handsome. She was ten months old, but she had a look of +experience and wisdom in her wee face that would have made her seem old at +twenty years. She sat on my lap and watched me in a meditative way, as +though she were reviewing her former estimate of my character, and +considering whether her opinions on that subject were well founded. There +was something quite weird and awful in her dignity and gravity.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she a wise-looking little thing?" said Minny. "She makes me think +sometimes of the fairy changeling that was a hundred and fifty years old, +and never saw soap made in an egg-shell."</p> + +<p>"This baby never would have made such a confession of ignorance, you may +depend. She would not have acknowledged that anything lay out of the range +of her experience. Take your chicken till I get tea, for I am my own girl +to-night."</p> + +<p>We had a very merry time over the tea-table and in washing up the dishes. +Until the boys went to bed we were in something of a frolic with them and +the baby, and it was not till the little one was asleep in her crib and Ed +and Charley were quiet in bed that we noticed how wild the weather was +getting.</p> + +<p>The rain, which had at first fallen in pattering drops, was now driving in +sheets before a mighty wind, which roared through the woods back of the +house with a noise like thunder. The branches of the huge oaks in the +front yard creaked and groaned as only oak boughs can. The house shook, +the rain lashed the roof, and the wind clawed and rattled the blinds like +some wild creature trying to get in.</p> + +<p>"I hope Wyn is safe under shelter,'' said Mrs. Moore.</p> + +<p>"He will have reached the end of his journey long before this. I hope he +will have no trouble with the men, but he is not apt to. I pity poor Mr. +Robinson. When Wyn chooses, his extreme politeness is something quite +awful."</p> + +<p>"I will say for my husband," observed Mrs. Moore, "that when he sets +himself to work to be disagreeable, he can, without doing one uncourteous +thing, be more aggravating than any one I ever saw in my life."</p> + +<p>"It is perfectly evident that he never tries his airs on you, or you would +not speak so. Hear the wind blow!"</p> + +<p>"It is no use listening to the weather. The house will stand, I suppose. +Have you got your work? Then let me read to you. It will seem like old +times, before I was married."</p> + +<p>Minny Moore was in some respects a very remarkable woman. Though little +Carry was her first baby, she <i>could</i> talk on other subjects. She did not +expect you to listen with rapture to the tenth account of how baby had +said "Da-da," or thrill with agony over the tale of an attack of wind. She +had been her husband's friend and companion before the baby was born: she +did not entirely throw him over now that it had come. She had always been +fond of reading, and she continued to keep up her interest in the world +outside of her nursery. She thought that as her daughter grew up her +mother would be as valuable as a guide and friend if she did not wholly +sink the educated woman in the nurse-maid and seamstress. These habits may +have been "unfeminine," but they certainly made Mrs. Moore much more +agreeable as a companion than if she had been able to talk of nothing but +the baby's clothes, teeth and ailments.</p> + +<p>I took out my work, and Minny began to read <i>Locksley Hall</i>, which was +then a new poem on this side the water. I had never heard it before, and I +must confess I was much affected--more than I should be now. Mrs. Moore, +however, chose to say that she thought Amy had made a most fortunate +escape, that she had no doubt but the hero would have been a most +intolerable person to live with, and that their marriage, had it come to +pass, would have ended in Amy's taking in sewing to support both herself +and her husband. As for the Squire, why we had no word for his character +but his disappointed rival's, and his drinking might be all a slander. As +to his snoring, why poets might snore as well as other people. If he loved +his wife "somewhat better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse," +"Why what more," said Mrs. Moore, "could any woman ask of a man given to +horses and hunting? If Calvin Bruce ever cares more for a woman than he +does for his brown pointer and his fast trotter, she may think herself +happy indeed."</p> + +<p>At that instant a sudden and furious blast rushed out of the woods, and +tore and shook at the four corners of the house as if to wrench it from +its foundations.</p> + +<p>"It's quite awful to hear the wind scream like that," said Minny. "It is +like the banshee. Hark! is not that some one knocking at the back door?"</p> + +<p>I listened, and amid the rattling and shaking of blinds and timbers I +heard what sounded like a hurried, impatient knock at the side door. "Who +can it be on such a wild night?" I said, and took the candle and went to +open the door. I set the light in the hall, for I knew the wind would blow +it out. In spite of this precaution, however, the flame was extinguished, +for as I drew back the bolt and lifted the latch the blast threw the door +violently back on its hinges, and rushed into the hall as though exulting +in having finally made an entrance.</p> + +<p>"Pretty bad weather, mamma," said some one in the softest, sweetest voice, +like a courteous flute, and there entered my old friend the Black Panther.</p> + +<p>This gentleman measured seven feet in his moccasins, and as he stood in +our little entry he looked gigantic indeed. He closed the door with some +difficulty, and I relit the candle.</p> + +<p>"You are quite wet through," I said, for the water dripped from his +blanket and woolen hunting-frock. He carried his rifle in his hand, and I +thought the old man looked very tired and sad, and even anxious.</p> + +<p>"You all well?" he asked, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. The captain has gone away, and Minny and the baby are here for +the night. My dear friend, where have you been in this weather? There is a +good fire in the kitchen. Come and get dry there, and let me make you a +cup of hot coffee and get you something to eat."</p> + +<p>Here Minny came out into the hall and held up her hands in sunrise.</p> + +<p>"Oh, uncle," she said, calling him by the name she had used toward him +since her childhood, "how could you come out in all this rain, and bring +on your rheumatism? How do you think any one is ever going to find dry +clothes for such a big creature as you?"</p> + +<p>The Panther gave a little grunt and a smile. He was used to Minny's +lectures, and he followed us both into the kitchen, where she made him sit +down by the fire and took off his wet blanket, waiting on him like a +daughter, and scolding him gently meanwhile. The old gentleman had of late +years been subject to rheumatism, and it was too likely that this exposure +would bring on another attack. The Panther patted her two little hands +between his own. Like most of his race, he had beautiful hands, soft and +rounded even in his old age, with long taper fingers that had, I dare say, +taken more than one scalp in their time.</p> + +<p>"Pooh!" said he, lightly. "You think old Ingin melt like maple sugar? You +well?" he asked, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Quite so."</p> + +<p>"And little one?"</p> + +<p>"As well as a little pig, fast asleep in the other room."</p> + +<p>"Where your husband?"</p> + +<p>"Gone over to the railroad on business."</p> + +<p>"And yours?" he asked, turning to me.</p> + +<p>"Gone to Carysville. Do you know anything about him? is anything the +matter?" I asked, a little alarmed at his persistent questioning and an +indefinite something in the old man's tone and manner.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said he, earnestly. "I come right over from our place."</p> + +<p>"Walked from the reservation in this storm!" said I. "What could have made +you do such a thing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing--just to see you. Not very strange come see two nice women," said +the old gentleman, with a little complimentary bow.</p> + +<p>The Panther was somewhat vain of his knowledge of what he called "white +manners," but I never saw a white man who could be so gently dignified, so +courteous, so altogether charming in manner, as the old chief when he +chose. He hardly knew one letter from another, but he had had sixty-five +years of experience in war and council. Many a man "got up regardless of +expense" in college and society might have taken lessons in deportment +from this old Pottawatomie. He had known Minny from her childhood. Her +father's farm had been the first clearing in all that part of the country. +Deacon Adams had always been on excellent terms with the Indians, and his +little daughter had found her earliest playmates among their children. The +Panther had carried Minny in his arms when she was a baby; and as his own +family of boys and girls died one after another, he clung closer to the +child who had been their pet as well as his own.</p> + +<p>The Panther was one of those big, soft, easy men who seem made to be ruled +by one woman or another. He was greatly respected in his tribe, and had +much influence. When they had been a nation he had been one of their most +distinguished warriors, and his word had been law. He had always +maintained toward the "young men" a somewhat imperious manner. He had +conducted himself with dignity and decision in all his visits to +Washington, where he had been a great lion, and in all his dealings with +the United States he had shown much wisdom and ability. But report said +that when once within the domestic circle and before his squaw, the +diplomatist and warrior was exceedingly meek. He bore his wife's death +with resignation, but he had never married again. He loved Minny Adams +better than anything on earth, and the girl had great influence over him. +She, in her turn, was very fond of him. From her earliest years he had +been her friend, confidant and admirer. He looked so fierce and dangerous, +and was so kind and simple, that the alliance between the girl and himself +was very much like that between a little child and a big mastiff--the +child protected and leader, the dog protector and led.</p> + +<p>Minny made flannel shirts for him, and he wore them: she trimmed his +moccasins, and the dainty cambric ruffles which he wore when in grand +costume were got up by her hands. The Panther, however, did not often +appear in full dress. She tried to teach him to read, and she did get him +through the alphabet, but he greatly preferred hearing stories read to +learning to do it for himself, and was especially fond of the <i>Arabian +Nights</i>, which he quite believed. She even coaxed him to go to church with +her, and might have made a convert of him but for the interference of an +exceedingly silly young clergyman. The Panther rather liked to hear the +Bible, but I fear he was more attracted by the sound than the sense: his +favorite chapter was the story of David and Goliah. He used to say that +"Ingin religion was good for Ingin, and white religion was good for white +man." However, he never offered the least opposition to the missionary who +had settled among his people: indeed, he rather patronized that gentleman.</p> + +<p>He and Wyanota were excellent friends. It was good to see the deference +and respect with which the younger man treated the elder. I always said +that it was the Panther who made the match between Minny and Mr. Moore. +Their house was one of his homes, and he was a frequent guest at our own. +He petted and spoiled my two children: he was very soft and kind to me, +whom he called "Mamma," after Wyn's example, and he considered that my +husband "understood good manners"--a compliment which he did not pay to +every one.</p> + +<p>A dear little daughter whom we had lost had been very fond of him: the +child had died in his arms. I was alone at the time, and the old man's +sympathy was such a comfort to me in my trouble that for his own sake, as +well as for our little girl's, he had become very dear to us.</p> + +<p>For an Indian, the Panther might be called almost a sober character. He +was seldom drunk more than four or five times a year, and when he was, he +always was very careful to keep out of the way of his white friends until +he was sober, when he would lecture the young men on the evils of +intemperance in most impressive fashion. He was a good deal of an orator, +possessing a voice of great sweetness and power; and though he was such an +immense creature, all his movements were light and graceful as those of a +kitten. He could speak perfectly good, even elegant, English when he +chose, but he did not always choose, and generally omitted the pronouns; +but his voice, manner and gestures in speaking were perfectly charming +when he was in a good temper. When he was not, he was somewhat awful, but +it was only under great provocation that he became savage. In general, he +was an amiable, kind, lazy creature, whom it was very easy to love.</p> + +<p>I could not but wonder that night, as I set out the table and made the +coffee, what had brought the Panther so far in such wild weather. He did +not seem like himself. He was usually very conversable, and would chat +away by the hour together, in a fashion half shrewd, half simple, often +very interesting; but now he was silent and <i>distrait</i>.</p> + +<p>"Carry," said Mrs. Moore, "are there not some of Wyn's things here yet in +that old trunk in your lumber-room?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Perhaps you can find something the chief can put on, and bring down +a pair of the captain's socks and slippers."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind, never mind," said the damp giant.</p> + +<p>"But I will mind," said the little woman; and she went out and soon +returned with the things, which she insisted he should go and put on.</p> + +<p>"Well, always one woman or another," said the Panther in a tone of +resignation: "always squaw git her own way. You see that little girl, +mamma? Could squeeze her up just like a rabbit. Always she order me round +since she so high, and I just big fool enough let her;" and he went into +the next room, and presently came out arrayed in dry garments, as to his +upper man at least. I set the table with the best I had in the house, and +Minny and I sat down to get a cup of coffee with our guest.</p> + +<p>At any other time the old gentleman would have purred and talked over this +little feast like an amiable old cat, but now he was rather silent; and I +noticed that in the pauses of the wind he would stop as though listening +for some expected sound. I began to think he was concealing from me some +misfortune or danger, and the same thought was evidently in Minny's mind, +for she watched him anxiously.</p> + +<p>When we went back into the parlor the Panther walked to the baby's crib, +and stood for a moment looking at the sleeping child with a tenderness +which softened his whole aspect. Then he asked for the little boys.</p> + +<p>"They are fast asleep in the next room," I said. "Go and look at them, and +you will be sure."</p> + +<p>The Panther smiled, but he went into my room, which opened from the +parlor, and bending down softly kissed the two little faces resting on the +same pillow.</p> + +<p>I drew a large chair to the fire for him, and Minny filled his pipe, for I +had "followed the drum" too long to object to smoking. The giant stretched +his length of limb before the fire, but he did not seem quite at ease, +even under the influence of the tobacco. He looked a little troubled and +anxious, and lifted his head once or twice with a sudden motion, like a +dog who has misgivings that something is wrong out-doors.</p> + +<p>The baby stirred in her sleep, and the chief began gently to rock the +cradle. "'Spose she order me about too, by and by," he said, "like her +mother."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you like to make that out," said Minny, "because you are such a great +big, strong man. If you were a little bit of a creature, you would always +be standing on your dignity to make yourself look tall. The last time Wyn +and I were at Detroit we went to church, and I heard the very smallest man +I ever saw preach a tremendous sermon about the man being the head of the +woman, insisting mightily on the respect we all owe to the other sex. When +we came out I asked Wyn what he thought, and he said he thought it was +exactly such a sermon as such a very tiny man might be expected to +preach."</p> + +<p>"Ah! and he heard you both, my dear," said I; "and he says Mr. Moore has +no element of reverence in his character!"</p> + +<p>Here the Panther dropped his pipe, and starting from his chair looked like +his namesake just ready for a spring, as the sharp, quick bark of a little +dog was heard from the nearest house.</p> + +<p>"Only dog," he said in a tone of relief, and resumed his smoking.</p> + +<p>"Uncle," said Minny, "I do wish you would tell me what the matter is, or +what you are listening for. You make me think there is something wrong."</p> + +<p>I looked up and seconded Minny's request.</p> + +<p>"'Spose I tell you, you think it all Ingin nonsense," he said, looking a +little embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Even if I did, sir, I should feel more comfortable," I said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, do tell us, please," said Minny, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said the old man, speaking with an effort, "last night went +out after a coon--up in the woods right back of here--"</p> + +<p>"Yes: well?"</p> + +<p>"And went up on that little hill over your pasture, and then," said the +old man lowering his voice and speaking with great earnestness, "hear <i>red +fox bark</i>--one, two, three times out loud, and then again farther off. +There, now!"</p> + +<p>I was greatly relieved at finding that I was threatened by nothing worse +than the oracle of the red fox. I knew the Indian superstition that if +this animal is heard to bark anywhere near a dwelling, he foretells death +within twenty-four hours to some one beneath its roof.</p> + +<p>"But," said I, "the red fox is only a sign for Indians. He does not bark +for white people, and you were not under a roof at the time, so it cannot +apply to you."</p> + +<p>"Don't know!" said the Panther, shaking his head. "Never know that sign +fail. Then here this little woman and this baby--all the same as Ingin +now."</p> + +<p>Minny looked a little troubled. In spite of his reading, his college +education and mathematics, Wyanota had sundry queer notions and +superstitions, about which he very seldom spoke, but which nevertheless +had some weight with him, and it is possible that he had in some degree +communicated his ideas to his wife.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe in signs," said Minny, but nevertheless she looked +annoyed.</p> + +<p>"So I thought," said the chief with a little smile. "Know mamma here think +it all nonsense, or else come over this morning to tell her. Then think +she not believe it and not mind, and so keep quiet. Then storm come up and +wind blow, and couldn't stand it; so set out and walk over here to take +care of her; and she--maybe she laugh at me?"</p> + +<p>"No indeed, sir," said I, greatly touched by the anxious affection which +had brought the old man so far in such weather. "How good you are to me! +You mean to stay here to-night of course, and in the morning you will see +that the red fox was simply barking for his own amusement; but I am sorry +he drove you to take such a toilsome walk, though we are glad to have you +here."</p> + +<p>"My business take care of you when your men gone. Got no one my own +blood," he said, rather sadly: "boys dead, girl dead, squaw dead--no one +but you two care much for old man."</p> + +<p>Minny went and kissed him softly. "You know I belong to you," she said, +"and baby has no grandfather but you."</p> + +<p>"Ah! your father!" said the Panther, rocking the cradle. "He and I always +good friends. 'Member when you come, your mother she got no milk for you, +poor little starved thing! My squaw she lose her baby--nice little boy +too," said the old man, with a sigh--"she tell your mother she nurse you; +so she did. You git fat and rosy right off. You all the same one of us +after that. No spoil your pretty white skin, though," said the Panther, +patting Minny's cheek with his brown fingers. "Seem just like that happen +yesterday: now you got baby yourself. Ah! your father--mighty well pleased +he be 'spose he see that little one."</p> + +<p>"How often I wish he could!" said "Minny with a sigh, for both her father +and mother were dead.</p> + +<p>"You 'pend upon it, he comfortable somewhere," said the chief, +consolingly. "Deacon Adams, he real good man. Look here, mamma! Like to +ask you question. You say when we die white man go to one place, Indian go +to another--"</p> + +<p>"I don't say so, sir. I don't pretend to know all this world by heart, +much less the other."</p> + +<p>"Well, that what Indian say, any way. Now 'spose that so, what come of +half-breed, eh?"</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" I asked, for neither Minny nor I could venture an +opinion on this abstruse point.</p> + +<p>"Don't know," said the old man. "Saw young Cherokee in Washington: he +marry pretty little schoolmistress go down there to teach, and their +little boy die. Then that young man feel bad, and he fret good deal 'bout +where that baby gone to, and he ask me, and I no able tell him. Guess me +find out when get there: no use to trouble till then, You make these?" he +asked, changing the subject, and looking with admiration at the captain's +embroidered slippers which I had lent him.</p> + +<p>"Yes. They were pretty when they were new. I'll make you a pair just like +them, if you wish. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>The old gentleman looked greatly delighted, for he was as fond of finery +as any girl, and took no small pride in adorning his still handsome +person.</p> + +<p>I brought out all my embroidery-patterns, and the giant took as much +pleasure as a child in the pretty painted pictures and gay-colored wools +and silks. I made all the conversation I could over the slippers, willing +to divert him from the melancholy which seemed to have taken possession of +his mind. Over my work-basket he brightened a little, and chatted away +quite like himself, and listened with pleasure to Minny's singing. We did +not rise to go to bed till eleven o'clock, which was a very late hour for +Maysville. When the Panther spent the night at our house, as was +frequently the case, he never would go regularly to bed, but would take +his blanket and lie down before the kitchen fire. With great politeness he +insisted on getting the wood ready for morning, a thing he never would +have dreamed of doing for a woman of his own race.</p> + +<p>As he came back into the kitchen from the shed he took up his rifle, which +he had set down by the door. As he did so an angry look came over his +face. "Look here," he said: "somebody been spoil my rifle!"</p> + +<p>I looked at the piece in surprise, for the lock was broken. "It cannot +have been done since you came," I said. "There is no one in the house but +ourselves."</p> + +<p>"Of course not, of course not!" said the Panther, eager to show that he +had no suspicion of his friends.</p> + +<p>"Did you stop anywhere on your way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said he with some slight embarrassment. "Stop at Ryan's," +mentioning a low tavern on the borders of the reservation, which was a +terrible thorn in the side of all the missionary's efforts. "Stop a minute +light my pipe, but no drink one drop," he added with great earnestness; +"but they ask me good deal."</p> + +<p>"Did you put your gun down?"</p> + +<p>"Guess so," he said after a moment's reflection. "Yes, know did put it +down a minute or two."</p> + +<p>"Then that was when the mischief was done, you may be sure. This lock was +never broken by accident. It must have been a mere piece of spite because +you would not stay. I wonder you did not notice it when you came out."</p> + +<p>"In a hurry, and kept the buckskin over it, not to git it wet. Wish knew +who did that," said he, with a look not good to see. "Guess not do it +again."</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry, but it can easily be mended."</p> + +<p>I spread out on the floor for him the comfortable and blankets I had +brought for his use, and hung up his woolen hunting-frock, now quite dry.</p> + +<p>As I took it into my hand, I felt something very heavy in the pocket.</p> + +<p>"I hope you have nothing here that will be spoiled with wet?" I said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing but money," said the chief, carelessly. "Mean to tell Minny +to take some of it and buy clothes for me."</p> + +<p>He took out as he spoke a handful of loose change--copper, silver and two +or three gold-pieces--and a roll of bills a good deal damp, and put it all +into my apron. I counted the money and found there were seventy-five +dollars. Strong indeed must have been the attraction which had brought the +old man away from the tavern-fire in his sober senses with such a sum of +money in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Just got that," he said. "Part from Washington, part sell deer-skins."</p> + +<p>There was no need to tell me that it had not been long in his possession. +Money in the Panther's hands was like water in a sieve.</p> + +<p>"You give me five dollars, give the rest to Minny," he said; and as this +was by much the wisest arrangement for him, I did as he wished.</p> + +<p>"You got captain's gun?" he asked me. "Never like to go to sleep without +something to catch up: hit somebody 'spose somebody come."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to say the captain has his rifle with him, and I lent the +shotgun to Jim Brewster this afternoon."</p> + +<p>He looked annoyed, but he went out into the woodshed and returned with the +axe, which was new and sharp. "Have something, anyway," he said, doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you think can possibly happen?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know. Always like to have something to catch up. Good-night, mamma. +You go to sleep."</p> + +<p>I went to bed and fell asleep almost on the minute, but I could not have +slept long when I was wakened by the noise of the wind against the +shutters. The rain had ceased, but the blast was still roaring without. +Minny and her child were in a room which opened out of the parlor opposite +my own. The lamp which was burning there threw a dim light into my +chamber, and showed me each familiar object and my little boys asleep +beside me.</p> + +<p>Some one says that between the hours of one and four in the morning the +human mind is not itself. I fully believe it. In those hours you do not +"fix your mind" on melancholy subjects--they fix themselves upon you. If +you turn back into the past, there comes up before you every occasion on +which you made a fool of yourself, every lost opportunity, every slight +injury you ever experienced. If you look at the future, you see nothing +but coming failure and disappointment. The present moment connects itself +with every tale you ever heard or read of ghosts, murder, vampires or +robbers.</p> + +<p>That night, either because of the wind or because I had taken too strong +coffee, I fell into "the fidgets," as this state of mind is sometimes +called, and selected for immediate cause of discomfort the Panther's +presentiment about the red fox. Who could explain the mysterious way in +which animals are warned of approaching danger? Perhaps the old science of +divination was not so entirely a delusion; and then I remembered all the +old stories in Roman history of people who had come to grief by neglecting +the oracles. The old idea that whatever incident is considered as an omen +will be such in reality, seemed to me at that hour of the night not wholly +an unreasonable theory.</p> + +<p>I had known, to be sure, some fifty presentiments which came to nothing, +but then I had known as many as three which had been verified: perhaps the +present case might be one of the exceptions to the rule. Then I remembered +all the stories in Scott's <i>Demonology</i>, which I had lately read, and +quite forgot all the arguments intended to disprove them.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: The Attack on the "Panther."]</p> + +<p>I thought of the broken gun-lock: I thought it not improbable that the +Panther had, when at Ryan's, mentioned that he was coming to our house, +and that it was very likely he had let it appear that he carried his money +with him. Ryan's was one of the worst places in all the State. I +remembered that the money was in the house, and I began to wish, like the +Panther, that I had something to "catch up." Then there were so many +noises about! I heard footsteps, which you will always hear if you listen +for them on a windy night. When our petted old cat jumped from his place +on the parlor sofa to lie down before the fire, I started up in bed in a +sudden fright.</p> + +<p>I must have been in this uncomfortable state of mind and body for the best +part of an hour before I remembered that in a drawer in the front parlor +lay two little old-fashioned pistols, unloaded but in good order.</p> + +<p>I had grown so excited and uneasy that I felt as if I could not rest +unless I got up, found those pistols and loaded them, though nobody had +ever heard of a burglary in Maysville, and half the time the doors were +left unlocked at night. Rather despising myself for my nervousness, but +yielding to it nevertheless, I rose, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, +lit my candle and went to find the two little pistols. I stepped very +softly, not to disturb Minny, for I should have been quite ashamed then to +have her know my cowardice. I looked in at the door as I passed. She was +sound asleep, with her baby on her arm. The baby, however, was broad +awake, but lying perfectly still, with her little finger in her mouth. Her +eyes shone in the lamplight as she turned them on me--not startled like +another child, but simply questioning. The little creature looked so +unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild +tale Wyanota had once told me about a remote ancestress of his who had +married some sort of a wood-demon. The legend ran that Wyanota's family +was descended from the offspring of this marriage, and I think Wyn more +than half believed the story.</p> + +<p>I passed on, and going into the next room found the pistols, carried them +back to my own chamber, and loaded them carefully. I was quite accustomed +to the use of firearms. There had been times in my life when I never sat +down to my work or went to rest without having rifle or pistol within easy +reach of my hand. When I had loaded the weapons, I put them on the table +by my bed and lay down again. My excitement seemed to have subsided, and I +was just falling asleep when I heard a door in the kitchen violently burst +open. I thought the wind had done it, and waited a moment to hear if the +Panther would rise and shut it.</p> + +<p>The next instant there was a shot, a wild cry as of mingled pain and fury, +the sound of a heavy fall and a struggle. Before I had well realized that +the noise was in the house, I found myself at the kitchen door with my +pistols in my hand. I was greatly startled, but my one idea was to help my +old friend. The miserable door resisted me for a moment. Seconds passed +that seemed hours. When at last I tore it open, I saw a man in his shirt +sleeves lying dead on the floor, his head shattered apparently by a blow +from the axe: another, a large, powerful Irishman, was kneeling on the +Panther's breast, with his hands at the old man's throat.</p> + +<p>I sprang forward, but something swifter than I darted past me with a +savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself +full at the ruffian's face and naked throat. It was our big old brindle +cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire. The unexpected fierceness +of Tom's assault took the man quite by surprise. Before he could tear the +creature away I had the pistol at his head.</p> + +<p>"If you move," I said, "I'll kill you;" for, as I saw that my old friend +was hurt, wrath took the place of fear.</p> + +<p>He gave in directly. Indeed the cat, a large, powerful animal, had almost +scratched his eyes out. In the most abject tones the fellow implored me to +let him go.</p> + +<p>"Don't you do it, mamma," said the Panther, faintly.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to," I said.</p> + +<p>Under the kitchen stairs was a dark closet with a strong outside bolt. I +ordered the man into this place. He obeyed, and I drew the bolt upon him. +His face and throat were streaming with blood from Tom's teeth and claws.</p> + +<p>All this passed in much less time than it takes to tell it. Roused by the +noise, the children, and Minny with the baby in her arms, were already in +the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, my poor darling!" said Minny, kneeling by the old man's +side, "you are hurt!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, quietly, "pretty considerable bad. Charley, you fasten +that door;" for the door into the shed, which had been secured only by a +button, was wide open. "You get the hammer and two, three big nails, and +drive 'em in," he continued. "Maybe more them darn scamps round."</p> + +<p>Charley obeyed directions in a way which did him credit. Little Ned, with +wide, surprised eyes, clung to me in silence; little Carry, seeing her +mother in tears, put up a piteous lip and sobbed in her unbaby-like, +sorrowful fashion; the old cat, in great excitement, went purring and +talking from one to another.</p> + +<p>"Tell me where you are hurt," I said, holding the chief's hand.</p> + +<p>He had been shot through the stomach with a great, old-fashioned +smooth-bore musket, which lay on the floor--a gun not carrying less than +twenty-five to the pound. I had seen gunshot wounds before, and I knew +that this was serious. It did not bleed much externally, but the edges of +the wound were torn and discolored.</p> + +<p>"That fellow dead?" asked the Panther.</p> + +<p>"Yes indeed!" for the man's head was split like a walnut.</p> + +<p>The old warrior looked gratified. "Mamma," he said, touching his +hunting-knife, "you take that fellow's scalp."</p> + +<p>"Don't think of such a thing," I said, not so much shocked as I might have +been had I not lived on the Indian frontier. "Do you know who they are?"</p> + +<p>"See them to Ryan's. Guess they some folks that mizzable railroad bring +into this country. 'Spect they follow me. Mamma," said the Panther, +looking up into my face, "tell you, red fox not bark for nothing. Better +be old man than you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear old friend, if you had only not come to us to-night! It was +all your love for us that has done this, but I pray God you may get well. +Charley, do you think you can go for Doctor Beach?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mamma," said the boy, though he turned pale.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said the Panther. "You no send that little fellow out in the +dark. Besides, no good. You go wrap yourselves up. You two, you git bad +cold."</p> + +<p>At that moment we heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet.</p> + +<p>"Go, Charley," said Minny. "Stop whoever it is, and tell them what has +happened."</p> + +<p>Charley ran out, and soon returned with Dr. Beach, who, happily for us, +had been out on one of those errands which are always rousing doctors from +their beds.</p> + +<p>Dr. Beach was a burly, rough-mannered sort of man, but he could be very +kind and tender in the exercise of his profession. He wasted no time in +questions, but looked grave when he saw how the old man was hurt.</p> + +<p>"Needn't tell me," said the Panther, quietly. "Know it's the end. Kill one +of 'em, anyhow!" he concluded in a tone of calm satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"And I wish with all my heart you had killed the other," said the doctor, +bitterly. "He got off, I suppose."</p> + +<p>The Panther showed his white teeth in a laugh. "No," he said, pointing to +me: "she got him--she and the cat. Pretty well for one little squaw and +pussy-cat. Mamma, you keep that kitty always."</p> + +<p>"Where is the scoundrel?" asked the doctor.</p> + +<p>"Shut up in that closet."</p> + +<p>Here the man within cried out that he was "kilt" already, and should be +hung if we did not let him go.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will, with all my heart," said the doctor.</p> + +<p>With some difficulty we helped the Panther into the parlor and laid him on +the sofa.</p> + +<p>He told us the story in a few words. He had been asleep when the door was +burst open. The man whom he had killed had fired the shot. He had kept his +feet to strike one blow with the axe, and the other man had sprung upon +him as he fell.</p> + +<p>The doctor did what little he could to ease his patient, and then went +away, but soon returned with some men from the village, who were quite +ready to lynch the criminal when they heard what he had done. They took +the man away, however, and I am happy to say he afterward received the +heaviest sentence the law would allow. He confessed that, knowing the +chief had a large sum in his possession, himself and his companion had +broken the lock of the rifle, intending to waylay the old man and shoot +him in the woods. They had not, however, been able to overtake him till he +reached the clearing, and then, fearing to encounter him, they had +followed him at a distance and watched him enter our house. Knowing that +the captain was gone, they had waited until all was quiet, and then made +their entrance as described.</p> + +<p>The Panther asked that some one might go to the reservation and send over +three of his friends, whom he named. He was very anxious to see Wyanota, +and Calvin Bruce, who had come with the doctor, instantly volunteered to +take his trotting mare and do both errands. The chestnut did her work +gallantly, though unhappily in vain, for the old man did not live to see +his friends.</p> + +<p>"Don't you fret, you two," he said, softly, as Minny and I watched over +him. "Great deal the best way for old Ingin. Die like a man now: not cough +myself to death, like an old dog. Minny, little girl, you tell your +husband be good to our people, well as he can. Not much of our nation left +now--not good for much, either," he added; "but you tell him and the +captain stand their friends, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed they will," said Minny in tears.</p> + +<p>A Methodist clergyman of some kind, who preached in Maysville at that +time, hearing what had happened, came in to offer his services and to pray +with the dying man. The Panther thanked him courteously, but he clung to +the simple creed of his fathers and his belief that "Ingin religion was +good for Ingin;" and Mr. Lawrence had the sense and feeling not to disturb +him by argument.</p> + +<p>"Want your Charley to have my rifle," he said to me. "Nobody left of our +people but my cousin's son, and he most a mizzable Ingin. You 'member +that, please," he said to Mr. Lawrence, who sat quietly at the head of the +sofa. "Do you think," he asked wistfully of the clergyman, "that I ever +see these two again where I go?" The minister--Heaven bless him!--answered +stoutly that he had not a doubt of it. "All right, then," said the +Panther, quietly. "Now, mamma, you see red fox know, after all."</p> + +<p>Minny brought her baby for him to kiss. Little Carry's dark eyes were full +of tears, for, like most babies, she felt the influence of sorrow she +could not understand. She did not scream, as another child would, but hid +her face on her mother's bosom and sobbed quietly, like a grown-up woman. +My two little boys, understanding all at once that their old friend was +going away, burst out crying.</p> + +<p>"Hush! hush!" he said, gently. "You be good boys to your mother. Say +'good-bye.'"</p> + +<p>We kissed him, keeping back the lamentations which we knew would trouble +him.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said, softly, and then he spoke some few words in his own +tongue, as Minny told me afterward, about going to his lost children. Then +a smile came over his face, a look of sweet relief and comfort softened +the stern features, the hand that had held mine so close slowly relaxed; +and with a sigh he was gone.</p> + +<p>The old minister gently closed his eyes. "My dear," said Mr. Lawrence to +Minny, who was in an agony of grief, "God knows, but it was His Son who +said, 'Greater love hath no man than this--that a man lay down his life +for his friends!'"</p> + +<p>When we buried the old chief we wrote those words on the stone we placed +over his grave.</p> + +<p>Since then the New Year's Eve brings back to me very vividly the memory of +the augury that so strangely accomplished its own fulfillment.</p> + +<p class="author">Clara F. Guernsey.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st10"> +<h2>Louie.</h2> + + + +<p>The great river was flowing peacefully down to the sea, opening its blue +tides at the silver fretting of the bar into a shallow expanse some miles +in width, a part of which on either side overlay stretches where the +submerged eel-grass lent a tint of chrysoprase to the sheathing flow, and +into which one gazed, half expecting to see so ideal a depth peopled by +something other than the long ribbons of the weed streaming out on the +slow current--the only cool sight, albeit, beneath the withering heat of +the day across all that shining extent. Far down the shores, on the right, +a line of low sand-hills rose, protecting the placid harbor from sea and +storm with the bulwark of their dunes, whose yellow drifts were ranged by +the winds in all fantastic shapes, and bound together by ropes of the wild +poison-ivy and long tangles of beach-grass and the blossoming purple pea, +and which to-day cast back the rays of the sun as though they were of +beaten brass. Above these hills the white lighthouse loomed, the heated +air trembling around it, and giving it so vague and misty a guise that, +being by itself a thing of night and storm and darkness, it looked now as +unreal as a ghost by daylight. On the other side of the harbor lay the +marshes, threaded by steaming creeks, up which here and there the pointed +sails of the hidden hay-barges crept, the sunshine turning them to white +flames: farther off stood a screen of woods, and from brim to brim between +swelled the broad, smooth sheet of the river, coming from the great +mountains that gave it birth, washing clean a score of towns on its way, +and loitering just here by the pleasant old fishing-town, whose wharves, +once doing a mighty business with the Antilles and the farther Indies, +now, in the absence of their half dozen foreign-going craft, lay at the +mercy of any sand-droger that chose to fling her cable round their +capstans. A few idle masts swayed there, belonging to small fishers and +fruiters, a solid dew of pitch oozing from their sides in the sun, but not +a sail set: a lonely watchman went the rounds among them, a ragged urchin +bobbed for flounders in the dock, but otherwise wharves and craft were +alike forsaken, and the sun glared down on them as though his rays had +made them a desert. The harbor-water lay like glass: now and then the tide +stirred it, and all the brown and golden reflections of masts and spars +with it, into the likeness of a rippled agate. Not one of the boats that +were ordinarily to be seen darting hither and yon, like so many +water-bugs, were in motion now; none of the white sails of the gay +sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the +usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that +deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed; +the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if +they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks, +had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will +disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing +here. In all the scene there was hardly any other sign of life than the +fervent sunbeams shedding their cruel lustre overhead: the river flowed +silent and lonely from shore to shore; the whole hot summer sky stretched +just as silent and lonely from horizon to horizon; only the old ferryman, +edging along the bank till he was far up stream, crossed the narrower tide +and drifted down effortless on the other side; only an old black brig lay +at anchor, with furled sail and silent deck, in the middle channel down +below the piers, and from her festering and blistering hull it was that +all the heat and loneliness and silence of the scene seemed to exude--for +it was the fever-ship.</p> + +<p>It was a different picture on the bright river when that brig entered the +harbor on the return of her last voyage, to receive how different a +welcome! But pestilence raged abroad in the country now, and the people of +the port, who had so far escaped the evil, were loth to let it enter among +them at last, and had not yet recovered from the recoil of their first +shock and shiver at thought of it in their waters--waters than which none +could have fostered it more kindly, full as they were in their shallow +breadth of rotting weeds and the slime of sewers. Perhaps the owner of +some pale face looked through the pane and thought of brother or father, +or, it may be, of lover, and grew paler with pity, and longed to do kind +offices for those who suffered; but the greater part of all the people +hived upon the shores would have scouted the thought of going out with aid +to those hot pillows rocking there upon the tide, and of bringing back +infection to the town, as much as though the act had been piracy on the +high seas. And they stayed at home, and watched their vanes and longed for +an east wind--an east wind whose wings would shake out healing, whose +breath would lay the destroying fever low; but the east wind refused to +seek their shores, and chose rather to keep up its wild salt play far out +on the bosom of its mid-sea billows.</p> + +<p>Yes, on that return of the last voyage of the brig the stream had swarmed +with boats, flags had fluttered from housetops and staffs, piers and quays +had been lined with cheering people, all flocking forth to see the broken, +battered little craft; for the brig had been spoken by a tug, and word had +been brought to the wharves, and had spread like wild-fire through the +town, that, wrecked in a tempest and deserted by the panic-stricken crew, +the steadfast master and a boy who stood by him had remained with her, had +refitted her as best they might when the storm abated, and had brought her +into port at last through fortunate days of fair weather and slow sailing. +The town was ringing with the exploit, with praise of the noble +faithfulness of master and boy; and now the river rang again, and no +conquering galley of naval hero ever moved through a gladder, gayer +welcome than that through which the little black brig lumbered on her +clumsy way to her moorings.</p> + +<p>But though all the rest of the populace of the seaport had turned out with +their greetings that day, there was one little body there who, so far from +hurrying down to shore or sea-wall with a waving handkerchief, ran crying +into a corner; and it was there that Andrew Traverse, the person of only +secondary importance in the river scene, rated as a boy on the brig's +books, but grown into a man since the long voyage began,--it was there he +found her when the crowd had let him alone and left him free to follow his +own devices.</p> + +<p>"It's the best part of all the welcome, I declare it is!" said he, +standing in the doorway and enjoying the sight before him a moment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Andrew," cried the little body with a sob, but crouching farther away +into the corner, "it was so splendid of you!"</p> + +<p>"What was so splendid of me?" said he, still in the doorway, tall and +erect in the sunshine that lay around him, and that glanced along his red +shirt and his bronzed cheek to light a flame in the black eyes that +surveyed her.</p> + +<p>"Standing by him so," she sobbed--"standing by the captain when the others +left--bringing home the ship!"</p> + +<p>"It's not a ship--it's a brig," said Andrew, possibly too conscious of his +merit to listen to the praise of it. "Well, is this all? Ain't you going +to shake hands with me? Ain't you glad to see me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Andrew! So glad!" and she turned and let him see the blushing, rosy +face one moment, the large, dark, liquid eyes, the tangled, tawny curls; +and then overcome once more, as a sudden shower overcomes the landscape, +the lips quivered again, the long-lashed eyelids fell, and the face was +hidden in another storm of tears. And then, perhaps because he was a +sailor, and perhaps because he was a man, his arms were round her and he +was kissing off those tears, and the little happy body was clinging to him +and trembling with excitement and with joy like a leaf in the wind.</p> + +<p>Certainly no two happier, prouder beings walked along the sea-wall that +night, greeted with hearty hands at every step, followed by all eyes till +the shelter of deepening dusk obscured them, and with impish urchins, +awe-struck for once, crying mysteriously under their breath to each other, +"That's him! That's the feller saved the Sabrina! That's him and her!" How +proud the little body was! how her heart beat with pleasure at thought of +the way in which all men were ready to do him honor! how timidly she +turned her eyes upon him and saw the tint deepen on his cheek, the shadow +flash into light in his eye, the smile kindle on his lips, as he looked +down on her--glad with her pride and pleasure, strong, confident, content +himself--till step by step they had left the town behind, wandering down +the sandy island road, through the wayside hedge of blossoming wild roses +and rustling young birches, till they leaned upon the parapet of the old +island bridge and heard the water lap and saw the stars come out, and only +felt each other and their love in all the wide, sweet summer universe.</p> + +<p>Poor Louie! She had always been as shy and wary as any little brown bird +of the woods. It was Andrew's sudden and glorious coming that had +surprised her into such expression of a feeling that had grown up with her +until it was a part of every thought and memory. And as for +Andrew--certainly he had not known that he cared for her so much until she +turned that tearful, rosy face upon him in welcome; but now it seemed to +him that she had been his and he hers since time began: he could neither +imagine nor remember any other state than this: he said to himself, and +then repeated it to her, that he had loved her always, that it was thought +of her that had kept him firm and faithful to his duty, that she had been +the lodestar toward which he steered on that slow homeward way; and he +thanked Heaven, no doubt devoutly enough, that had saved him from such +distress and brought him back to such bliss. And Louie listened and clung +closer, more joyful and more blest with every pulse of her bounding heart.</p> + +<p>After all, sudden as the slipping into so divine a dream had been, it had +need to be full as intense and deep, for it was only for a little while it +lasted. A week's rapt walking in these mid-heavens, where earth and care +and each to-morrow was forgotten, and there broke in upon them the voice +of the Sabrina's owner seeking for Andrew Traverse.</p> + +<p>Of course such conduct as that of one who preferred to do his utmost to +save a sinking ship rather than seek safety with her flying crew, was +something too unusual to go unrewarded: it must be signalized into such a +shining light that all other mariners must needs follow it. And if the sky +had fallen, Andrew declared, he could have been no more surprised than he +was when he found himself invited with great ceremony to a stately +tea-drinking at the house of the owner of the Sabrina. "Now we shall catch +larks," said he; and dressed in a new suit, whose gray tint set off the +smoothness of his tanned cheek with the color sometimes mantling through +the brown, he entered the house with all the composure of a gentleman used +to nothing but high days and holidays. Not that either the state or +ceremony at Mr. Maurice's required great effort to encounter with +composure--trivial enough at its best, wonderful though it was to the +townsfolk, unused to anything beyond. But Andrew had seen the world in +foreign parts, and neither Mr. Maurice's mansion-house and gardens, nor +his gay upholstery, nor his silver tea-service, nor his condescending +manners, struck the least spark of' surprise from Andrew's eyes, or gave +them the least shadow of awe.</p> + +<p>"This is some mistake," said the owner graciously, after preliminary +compliment had been duly observed. "How is it that you are rated on the +books as a boy--you as much a man as you will ever be?"</p> + +<p>"A long voyage, sir, slow sailing and delays over so many disasters as +befell us, three years out in the stead of a year and a half--all that +brings one to man's estate before his reckoning."</p> + +<p>"But the last part of the time you must have done able seaman's service?"</p> + +<p>"The captain and I together," said Andrew with his bright laugh. "We were +officers and crew and passengers, cox'n and cook, as they say."</p> + +<p>"A hard experience," said Mr. Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all, but worth its weight in gold--to me, at least. Why, sir, +it taught me how to handle a ship as six years before the mast couldn't +have done."</p> + +<p>"Good! We shall see to what purpose one of these days. And you have had +your share of schooling, they tell me?"</p> + +<p>"All that the academy had to give, sir."</p> + +<p>"And that's enough for any one who has the world to tussel with. How +should you like to have gone through such hard lines, Frarnie?" turning to +his daughter, a pale, moon-faced girl, her father's darling.</p> + +<p>"Were you never afraid?" she asked in her pretty simpering way.</p> + +<p>"Not to say afraid," answered Andrew, deferentially. "We knew our +danger--two men alone in the leaky, broken brig--but then we could be no +worse off than we were before; and as for the others--"</p> + +<p>"They got their deserts," said Mr. Maurice.</p> + +<p>"The poor fellows left us in such a hurry that they took hardly any water +or biscuit; and at the worst our fate could not be so bad as theirs, under +the hot sun in those salt seas."</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" said Mr. Maurice, who loved his own ease too much to like to +hear of others' dis-ease. And to turn the conversation from the possible +horrors into which it might lapse, he invited his guest out into his +gardens, among his grapehouses, his poultry and his dogs. It was a long +hour's ramble that they took there, well improved on both sides, for +Andrew of course knew it to be for his interest to please the brig's +owner; and Mr. Maurice, who prided himself on having a singularly keen +insight into character, studied the young man's every word and gesture, +for it was not often that he came across such material as this out of +which to make his captains; and to what farther effect in this instance be +pursued his studies might have been told, by any one keener than himself, +through the tone of satisfaction with which, on re-entering the parlor, he +bade his daughter take Andrew down the rooms and tell him the histories of +the surprising pictures there. For Mr. Maurice, one of the great fortunes +of the seaport, being possessed by a mania of belief that every youth who +cast tender eyes upon his daughter cast them not on her, but on her future +havings and holdings, had long since determined to select a husband for +her himself--one who evinced no servile reverence for wealth, one whom he +could trust to make her happy. "And here," he said, "I am not sure but +that I have him."</p> + +<p>When Andrew went in to see Louie a moment on his way home that night, he +was in great spirits over the success of his visit, and, dark as it was, +made her blush the color of the rose over the low doorway where they stood +when he asked how she would like to go captain's wife next voyage. And +then he told her of Mr. Maurice's scrutiny and questioning, and the half +hint of a ship of his own to sail some day, and of the pale-faced Miss +Frarnie's interest, and of the long stroll down the parlors among the +pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the +Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled +through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music +and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off +of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the +way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed, +how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he had had a +trifle more personal vanity, and had seen how this pale young +girl--forbidden by a suspicious father much companionship with +gallants--had forgotten all difference of station and purse, and had +looked upon him, nobly made, handsome, gay, knowing far more than she did, +much as upon a young god just alighted by her side a moment,--if Andrew +had been aware of this, and had found any words in which to repeat it, +then Louie might have had something to startle her out of her blessedness, +and pain might have come to her all the sooner. But since the pain would +have been as sharp then as at any future time, it was a pitying, pleasant +Fate that let her have her happiness as long as might be. For Louie's love +was a different thing from the selfish passion that any clown may feel: +she had been happy enough in her little round of commonplace satisfactions +and tasks before Andrew came and shed over her this great cloud of +delight--happy then just in the enjoyment of that secret love of hers that +went out and sought him every night sailing over foreign sunlit waters, +and hovered like a blessing round his head; and now that he had come and +folded her about and about with such warm devotion, it was not for the new +happiness he gave her that she loved him, but in order to make his own +happiness a perfect thing; and if her heart's blood had been needed for +that, it would have been poured out like water. The pale-faced Frarnie--if +question could be of her--might never know such love as that: love with +her could be a sentiment, a lover one who added to her pleasure, but a +sacrifice on her part for that lover would have been something to tell and +sing for ever, if indeed it were possible that such a thing should be made +at all.</p> + +<p>So day by day the spell deepened with Louie, and for another week there +was delightful loneliness with this lover of hers--strolls down through +the swampy woods hunting for moss to frame the prints he had brought home +uninjured, and which were to be part of the furnishing of their future +home; others across the salt meadows for the little red samphire stems to +pickle; sails in the float down river and in the creeks, where the tall +thatch parted by the prow rustled almost overhead, and the gulls came +flying and piping around them: here and there, they two alone, pouring out +thought and soul to each other, and every now and then glancing shyly at +those days, that did not seem so very far away, when they should be +sailing together through foreign parts; for Louie's father, the old +fisherman, was all her household, and a maiden aunt, who earned her +livelihood in nursing the sick and attending the dead, would be glad to +come any day and take Louie's place in the cottage.</p> + +<p>At the end of the week, Mr. Maurice sent for Andrew to his counting-room; +and after that, on one device or another, he had him there the greater +part of every day, employing him in a score of pleasant ways--asking his +advice as to the repairs of the Sabrina, taking him with him in his chaise +jogging through the shipyard, where a new barque was getting ready for her +launching, examining him the while carefully from time to time after his +wont; at last taking him casually home to dinner with him one day, keeping +him to tea the next, and finally, fully satisfied with the result of his +studies in that edition of human nature, giving him the freedom of the +family as much as if he had been the son of the house.</p> + +<p>"I've some plans ahead for you, my boy," said he one day with a knowing +shake of the head; and Andrew's innocent brain began to swim straightway +between the new barque and the Sabrina.</p> + +<p>"Look at him!" said Mr. Maurice to his wife one evening as Andrew walked +in the garden with Miss Frarnie. "My mind's made up about him. He's the +stuff for a sea-captain, afraid neither of wind nor weather nor the face +of clay--can sail a ship and choose her cargo. He's none of your coxcombs +that go courting across the way: he's a man into the core of his heart, +and as well bred as any gentleman that walks; though Goodness knows how he +came by it."</p> + +<p>"These sea-coast people," said his wife, reflectively (she was inland-born +herself), "see the world and learn."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you say to it? I don't find the flaw in him. If Heaven had +given me a son, I'd have had him be like this one; and since it didn't, +why here's my way to circumvent Heaven."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," said the wife, "I can't hear you talk so. And besides--"</p> + +<p>"Well? Besides what?"</p> + +<p>"I think it is always best to let such things take their own course. We +did."</p> + +<p>"Of course we did," laughed Mr. Maurice. "But how about our fathers and +mothers?"</p> + +<p>"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice, "not to force things."</p> + +<p>"And who intends to force them? It's plain enough the young fellow took a +fancy to our Frarnie the first time he laid eyes on her, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice again, "that if Frarnie should have the same +fancy for him, I don't know that there'd be any objection. He is quite +uncommon--quite uncommon when you consider all things--but I don't know +why you want to lead her to like any one in particular, when she has such +a nice home and is all we have."</p> + +<p>"Girls will marry, Mrs. Maurice. If it isn't one, it will be another. So I +had rather it should, be one, and that one of my own choosing--one who, +will use her well, and not make ducks and drakes of her money as soon as +we are gone where there's no returning, and without a 'thank you' for your +pains. Look at them now! Should you imagine they thought there was any one +else on earth but each other at this moment? They're fond of each other, +that's plain. They'd be a remarkable-looking couple. What do you think of +it?"</p> + +<p>"Frarnie might have that India shawl that I never undid, to appear out +in," said Mrs. Maurice, pensively, continuing her own reflections rather +than directly replying. "And I suppose we needn't lose her really, for she +could make her home with us."</p> + +<p>And so the conspiracy advanced, its simple victims undreaming of its +approach--Louie sighing faintly to think she saw so little of Andrew now, +but content, since she was sure it was for his best interest to make the +friendship of the Sabrina's owner; Andrew fretting to see how all this +necessary submission to superiors kept him from Louie, but more than half +compensated with the dazzling visions that danced before his eyes of the +Sabrina in her new rig--of the barque coming down for her masts and sails +from her launching.</p> + +<p>The Sabrina had been so badly injured by her disasters that it took much +more time to repair her than had at first been thought. "I'm going to +stand by the old brig," said Andrew to some one--by accident it was in Mr. +Maurice's hearing. "But if I'd known it was going to take so long to have +her whole again, I should have made a penny in taking a run down the bay, +for I had an offer to go second mate on the Tartar."</p> + +<p>"I'll go one better than that," said Mr. Maurice then. "Here's the +Frarnie, nearly ready to clear for New Orleans and Liverpool, with your +old captain. You shall go mate of her. That'll show if you can handle a +ship. The Sabrina won't be at the wharf till the round voyage is over and +the Frarnie coming up the stream again. What say you?"</p> + +<p>Of course what Andrew said was modest thanks--what he felt was a rhapsody +of delight; and when he told Louie that night, what she said was a sob, +and what she felt was a blank of fright and foreboding. Oh what should she +do? cried the selfish little thing--what should she do in the long, long, +weary days with Andrew gone? But then in a moment she remembered that this +was the first step toward going master of that craft in which her bridal +voyage was to be taken. "And what a long step it is, Andrew!" she cried. +"Was the like of it ever known before? What a long, long step it would be +but for that bitter apprenticeship when you and the captain brought the +wreck home!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Andrew, proudly: "I served my time before the mast then, if +ever any did."</p> + +<p>"And I suppose with the next step you will be master of the Sabrina? Oh, I +should so like it!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Andrew, more doubtfully than he had used to speak. +"I'm afraid the owners will think this is enough. This is a great lift. +I'll do my best to satisfy them, though; for I'd rather sail master of the +Sabrina than of the biggest man-of-war afloat."</p> + +<p>"We used to play round her when we were children," said Louie, +encouragingly. "Don't you remember leading me down once to admire the lady +on her stern?--like a water-witch just gilded in the rays of some sunrise +she had come up to see, you said."</p> + +<p>"Yes; and we used to climb her shrouds, we boys, and get through the +lubber-hole, before we could spell her name out. She's made of heart of +oak: she'll float still when the Frarnie is nothing but sawdust. We used +to watch for her in the newspapers--we used to know just as much about her +goings and comings as the owner did. Somehow--I don't know why--I've +always felt as if my fate and fortune hung upon her. It used to be the top +of my ambition to go master of her. It is now. I couldn't make up my mind +to leave her when the others did that cruel morning after the wreck; and +when the captain said he should stay by her, my heart sprang up as if she +had been a living thing, and I stayed too. And I'd rather sail her than a +European steamer to-day--that I would, by George!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course you will," said the sympathizing voice beside him.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Andrew again, more slowly and reflectively. "I've the +idea--and I can't say how I got it--that there's some condition or other +attached to my promotion--that there's something Mr. Maurice means that I +shall do, and if I don't do it I don't get my lift. It can't be anything +about wages: I don't know what it is!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said Louie, innocently, and without a glimpse of the train her +thoughtless words fired--"perhaps he means for you to marry Frarnie!" +laughing a little laugh at the absurd impossibility.</p> + +<p>And Andrew started as if a bee had stung him, and saw it all. But in a +moment he only drew Louie closer, and kissed her more passionately, and +sat there caressing her the more tenderly while they listened to a thrush +that had built in the garden thicket, mistaking it for the wood, so near +the town's edge was it, and so still and sunny was the garden all day long +with its odors of southernwood and mint and balm; and he delayed there +longer, holding her as if now at least she was his own, whatever she might +be thereafter.</p> + +<p>As he walked home that night, and went and sat upon the wharf and watched +the starlit tide come in, he saw it all again, but with thoughts like a +procession of phantoms, as if they had no part even in the possible things +of life, and were indeed nothing to him. How could they have any meaning +to him--to him, Louie's lover? What would the whole world be to him, what +the sailing of the Sabrina, without Louie? And then a shiver ran across +him: what would Louie be to him without the sailing of the Sabrina! for +that, indeed, as he had said, was the top of his ambition, and that being +his ambition, perhaps ambition, was as strong with him as love.</p> + +<p>But with this new discovery on Andrew's part of Mr. Maurice's desires, +Andrew could only recall circumstances, words, looks, hints: he could not +shape to himself any line of duty or its consequences: enough to see that +Mr. Maurice fancied his simple and thoughtless attentions to Frarnie to be +lover-like, and, approving him, looked kindly on them and made his plans +accordingly; enough to see that if he should reject this tacit proffer of +the daughter's hand, then the Sabrina was scarcely likely to be his; and +that in spite of such probability, the first and requisite thing in honor +for him to do was to tell Mr. Maurice of his marriage engagement with +Louie, and then, if the man had neither gratitude nor sense enough to +reward him for his assistance in saving the brig, to trust to fortune and +to time, that at last makes all things even. As he sat there listening to +the lapping of the water and idly watching the reflected stars peer up and +shatter in a hundred splinters with every wash of the dark tide, he could +not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession +or not. "What business is it of Maurice's?" he said to himself. "Does he +think every one that looks at his scarecrow of a daughter--" But there he +had need to acknowledge to himself his injustice to Miss Frarnie, a modest +maiden who had more cause to complain of him than he of her, since he had +done his best to please her, and her only fault lay in being pleased so +easily. She was pleased with him: he understood that now, though his +endeavors to enlist her had been for a very different manifestation of +interest. Perhaps it flattered him a little: he paused long enough to +consider what sort of a lot it would be if he really had been plighted to +Frarnie instead of Louie. Love and all that nonsense, he had heard say, +changed presently into a quiet sort of contentment; and if that were so, +it would be all the same at the end of a few years which one he took. He +felt that Frarnie was not very sympathetic, that her large white face +seldom sparkled with much intelligence, that she would make but a dull +companion; but, for all that, she would be, he knew, an excellent +housewife: she would bring a house with her too; and when a man is +married, and has half a dozen children tumbling round him, there is +entertainment enough for him, and it is another bond between him and the +wife he did not love too well at first; and if she were his, his would be +the Sabrina also, and when the Sabrina's days were over perhaps a great +East Indiaman, and with that the respect and deference of all his +townsmen: court would be paid to him, his words would be words of weight, +he would have a voice in the selection of town-officers, he would roll up +money in the bank, and some day he should be master of the great Maurice +mansion and the gardens and grapehouses. It was a brilliant picture to +him, doubtless, but in some way the recollection of two barelegged little +children digging clams down on the flats when the tide was out, with the +great white lighthouse watching them across the deserted stretches of the +long bent eel-grass, rose suddenly and wiped the other picture out, and he +saw the wind blowing in Louie's brown and silken hair and kissing the +color on her cheeks; he saw the shy sparkle of her downcast eyes, lovely +and brown then as they were now; and as he stood erect at last, snapping +his fingers defiantly, he felt that he had bidden Mr. Maurice's ships and +stocks and houses and daughter go hang, and had made his choice rather to +walk with Louie on his arm than as master of the Sabrina.</p> + +<p>It was a good resolution; and if he had but sealed it by speaking next day +to Mr. Maurice of his engagement, there would not have been a word to say. +But, though he valiantly meant to do it, it was not so easy, after all, as +he had thought, and so he put it off for a more convenient season, and the +season did not come, and the day of sailing did. And the outfit that went +on board the Frarnie was made and packed by the hands of Mrs. Maurice and +her daughter--such an outfit as he had never dreamed of; such warm woolens +for the storms, such soft linens for the heats, such finery for port, such +dainties and delicacies as only the first mate of the Frarnie could think +to have. And as for Louie, it was no outfit, no costly gift of gold or +trouble either, that she could give him: she had nothing for him but a +long, fine chain woven of her own hair, and she hung it round his neck +with tears and embraces and words that could not be uttered and sighs that +changed to sobs, and then came lingering delay upon delay, and passionate +parting at the last. But when the crew had weighed anchor and the sails +were swelling and the waves beyond the bar crying out for them, Miss +Frarnie and her mother could still be seen waving their handkerchiefs from +an upper window; and half blind with the sorrow and the pain he choked +away from sight, and mad with shame to think he had found no way but to +accept their favors, Andrew felt that their signal must be answered, and +sullenly waved his own in reply; and then the pilot was leaving the +barque, and presently the shore and all its complications, and Louie +crying herself sick, were forgotten in the excitement of the moment and +its new duties.</p> + +<p>"Didn't say a word of love to Frarnie, eh?" remarked Mr. Maurice in answer +to his wife's communications that evening. "A noble lad, then! I like him +all the better for it. He shall have her all the sooner. He won't abuse +our confidence: that's it. He'll wait till he's bridged over the gap +between them. The first mate of a successful voyage is a better match for +my daughter than the boy who stayed by the Sabrina, brave as he was. He's +fond of her? Don't you think so? There's no doubt about that? None at all! +All in good time--all in good time. I'll speak to him myself. They're +going to write to each other? I thought so."</p> + +<p>Short as the trip was that the Frarnie made in that favorable season, it +seemed to Louie an interminable period; but from the cheerful, hopeful +smile upon her lips no one would ever have known how her heart was longing +for her lover as she went about her work; for the little housekeeper had +quite too much to do in keeping the cottage clean, the garden weedless, +the nets mended, to be able to neglect one duty for any love-sick fancies +it might be pleasant to indulge. From morning till night her days were +full in bringing happiness to others: there was her father to make +comfortable; there were the sick old women, of whom her aunt brought word, +to concoct some delicacy for--a cup of custard, to wit, a dish of the +water-jelly she had learned how to make from the sea-moss she gathered on +the beach, a broiled and buttered mushroom from the garden; there were the +canaries and the cat to be cared for, and the dog that Andrew left with +her to feed and shower caresses on; and there was the parrot's toilet to +be made and her lesson to be taught, and the single jars of preserves and +pickles and ketchups to be put up for winter, and the herbs to be dried: +there were not, you may see, many minutes to be wasted out of that busy +little life in castle-building or in crying. One day there came a letter +with Victoria's head and the Liverpool stamp upon it: she knew it by heart +presently, and wore it next her heart by night and day; and even if she +had known that Miss Frarnie Maurice received one in the same handwriting +by the same mail, it would hardly have made much difference to her; and +one day the Sabrina, all freshly coppered and painted and repaired, with +new masts and sails, and so much else that it was not easy to say what +part of her now represented the old brig, came round to her old wharf and +began to take in cargo. Louie ran down one evening with her father, and +went all over her from stem to stern, only one old sailor being aboard; +and she could have told you then every rope from clew to ear-ring; and, as +if it were all the realization of a dream, a thousand happy, daring +thoughts of herself and Andrew then filled her fancy like birds in a nest; +and so swiftly after that did one day flow into another for Louie that the +Frarnie lay in the mid-stream once more before she had more than begun to +count the days to that on which her Liverpool letter had promised that she +should see its writer come walking into her father's cottage again.</p> + +<p>But she never did see him come walking into her father's cottage again. +That promised day passed and the night, and another--a long, long day that +seemed as if it would never quench its flame in sunset, and a night that +seemed as if it would never know the dawning; but the threshold of the +fisherman's cottage Andrew Traverse crossed no more.</p> + +<p>For Mr. Maurice, on his notable errand of circumventing Heaven, had been +ahead of Fate, and had gone down on the pilot-boat to meet the +Frarnie--with no settled designs of course, but in his own impatient +pleasure; and, delighted with the shipmaster's report and with the +financial promise of the voyage, the cargo, the freights, and ventures and +all, had greeted Andrew with a large-hearted warmth and after a manner +that no churl could withstand; and unwilling to listen to any refusal, had +taken Andrew up to the mansion-house with him the moment the ship had +touched the wharf.</p> + +<p>"You don't ask after her?" said Mr. Maurice when they were alone in the +chaise together. And knowing well enough what he meant, Andrew blushed +through all his bronze--knowing well enough, for had he not gone below in +a mighty hurry and tricked himself out in his best toggery so soon as he +understood there was no escape from the visit? Louie would have been glad +enough to see him in his red shirt and tarpaulin!</p> + +<p>"Oh, you scamp!" said Mr. Maurice, quickly then detecting the blush. +"Don't say a word! I've been there myself: I know how you're longing to +see her; and she's been at the window looking through the glass every half +hour, the puss!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maurice," began Andrew, half trembling, but wholly resolved, he +thought--although it must be confessed that with time, and distance, and +Frarnie's effusive letters and flattering prospects on the other hand, +Louie's image was not so bright at that moment as it had been at others, +and for that very reason Andrew was taking great credit to himself for his +upright intentions--credit enough to tide him over a good deal of baseness +if need were,--"Mr. Maurice--" he began; and there he paused to frame his +sentence more suitably, for it was no easy thing to tell a man that he was +throwing his child at one who did not care for her, and that man the +disposer of his fortunes.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Maurice saved him any such trouble. "I know all you're going to +say," he exclaimed. "I understand your hesitation, and I honor you for it. +But I'm no fool, and there's no need to have you tell me that you want my +Frarnie, for I've known that long ago."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maurice!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have," answered the impulsive gentleman. "Mrs. Maurice and I +talked it over as soon as we saw which way the wind lay; but of course we +decided to say nothing till we were sure, quite sure, that it was Frarnie +and not her prospects--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, you--"</p> + +<p>"Tush, tush! I know all about it now. But it becomes a father to be wary," +continued the other, taking the words from Andrew's lips in spite of +himself, and quite wary enough not to mention that in Frarnie's +easily-excited favor a young scapegrace was very likely to supplant Mr. +Andrew if things were not brought to a point at once. "It was my duty to +look at all sides," he said, without stopping for breath. "Now I know you, +and I see you'd rather give the girl the go-by for ever than have her +think you wanted her because she was her father's daughter, and not some +poor fisherman's."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed--" began Andrew again, leaning forward, his cheeks +crimson, his very hands shaking.</p> + +<p>"Of course, my boy," interrupted his companion as before--"of course. +Don't say a word: you're welcome to her at last. I never thought I'd +surrender her to any one so freely; but if I were choosing from all the +world, Andrew, I don't know any one I'd choose sooner for my son. She's a +sensible girl, my Frarnie is, at bottom. We know her heart: it's a good +heart--only the froth of all young girls' fancies to be blown off. And the +Sabrina always was a pet of mine, and, though I've said nothing of it, +I've meant her for Frarnie's husband this many a day." And before Andrew, +in his flurry and embarrassment and bewilderment, could enunciate any +distinct denial of anything or avowal of anything else, the chaise was at +the door, and Mrs. Maurice was waiting for him with extended hands, and +Frarnie was standing and smiling behind, half turned to run away. And Mr. +Maurice cried out: "Captain Traverse of the Sabrina, my dear! Here, +Frarnie, Frarnie! none of your airs and graces! Come and give your +sweetheart an honest kiss!" And Andrew, doubting if the minister were not +behind the door and he should not find himself married out of hand, +irresolute, cowardly, too weak to give up the Sabrina and that sweet new +title just ringing in his ears, was pushed along by Mr. Maurice's foolish, +hearty hand till he found himself bending over Frarnie with his arm around +her waist, his lips upon her cheek, and without, as it seemed to him, +either choice or volition on his part. But as he looked up and saw the +portraits of the girl's grandfathers, where they appeared to be looking +down at him stern and questioning, a guilty shame over the wrong he was +doing their child smote him sorely: he saw that he had allowed the one +instant of choice to slip away; the sense came over him that he had sealed +his own doom, while a vision of Louie's face, full of desolation and +horror, was scorching in upon his soul; and there, in the moment of +betrothal, his punishment began. He stole down to the Sabrina's wharf that +evening, after the moon had set, and looking round to see that it was +quite forsaken at that hour, he took from his neck a long, slender +hair-chain to drop over into the deep water there; but as he held the +thing it seemed suddenly to coil round his hand with a caress, as if it +were still a part of Louie's self. He stamped his foot and ground his heel +into the earth there with a cry and an oath, and put the chain back again +whence he had taken it, and swore he would wear it till they laid his +bones under ground. And he looked up at the dark lines of the brig looming +like the black skeleton of an evil thing against the darkness of the +night, and he cursed himself for a traitor to both women--for a hypocrite, +a craven, a man sold to the highest bidder. Well, well, Captain Traverse, +there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of +the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and +longed and waited, but Captain Traverse went back to the Maurices' +mansion.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>It is one of the enigmas of this existence how women forgive the wrong of +such hours as came to Louie now--hours of suspense and suffering--hours of +a misery worse than the worm's misery in blindness and pain before it +finds its wings.</p> + +<p>At first she expected her lover, and speculated as to his delay, and +fretted to think anything might detain him from her; and now she was +amazed, and now vexed, and now she was forgiving the neglect, accusing +herself and making countless excuses for him; and now imagining a thousand +dire mishaps. But as the third day came and he was still away--he who had +been always wont to seek her as soon as the craft was made fast to +wharf--then she felt her worst forebodings taking bodily shape: he was +ill, he had fallen overboard, he had left the vessel at Liverpool and +shipped upon another, and a letter would come directly to say so; or else +he had been waylaid and robbed and made away with: not once did she dream +that he was false to her--to her, a portion of his own life!</p> + +<p>How it was with him there were numberless ways in which she might have +discovered, for every soul of her acquaintance knew Andrew, and must be +aware of the fact if he were missing or ailing, or if any other ill chance +had befallen him. But as often as she tried to address one or another +passing by the window, her voice failed her and her heart, and she asked +no questions, and only waited on. A life of suspense, exclaims some one, a +life of a spider! And when we are in suspense, says another, all our aids +are in suspense with us. Day after day she stayed continually in the +house, looking for him to come, never stirring out even into the garden, +lest coming she might miss him. Night after night she sat alone at her +window till the distant town-clocks struck midnight--now picturing to +herself the glad minute of his coming, the quick explaining words, the +bursting tears of relief, the joy of that warm embrace, the touch of those +strong arms--now convinced that he would never come, and her heart sinking +into a bitter loneliness of despair.</p> + +<p>It grew worse with her when she knew that he was really in the town, alive +and well; for, from the scuttle in the roof, by the aid of her father's +glass, she could see the Sabrina, and one day she was sure that a form +whose familiar outlines made her pulses leap was Andrew himself giving +orders on the deck there; and after that she tortured herself with +conjectures till her brain was wild--chained hand and foot, unable to +write him or to seek him in any maidenly modesty, heart and soul in a +ferment. Still she waited in that shuddering suspense, with every nerve so +tightly strung, that voice or footfall vibrated on them into pain. If +Andrew, in the midst of the gayeties by which he found himself accepted of +the Maurices' friends, was never haunted by any thought of all this, his +heart had grown stouter in one year's time than twenty years had found and +left it previously.</p> + +<p>But Louie's suspense was of no long duration, as time goes, though to her +it was a lifetime. A week covered it--a week full of stings and fevered +restlessness--when her father came in one day and said bitterly, thinking +it best to make an end of all at once: "So I hear that a friend of ours +has been paid off at last. Captain Andrew Traverse of the Sabrina is going +to marry his owner's daughter Frarnie. Luck will take passage on that +brig!" And when Louie rose from the bed on which she lay down that night, +the Sabrina had been a fortnight gone on her long voyage--a voyage where +the captain had sailed alone, postponing the evil day perhaps, and at any +rate pleading too much inexperience, for all his dazzling promotion, to be +trusted with so precious thing as a wife on board during the first trip. +He had not felt that hesitation once when portraying the possibilities of +the voyage to another.</p> + +<p>It was not a long illness, Louie's, though it had been severe enough to +destroy for her consciousness both of pain and pleasure. Her aunt had left +other work and had nursed her through it; but when, strong and well once +more, she went about her old duties, it seemed to her that that +consciousness had never returned: she took up life with utter listlessness +and indifference, and she fancied that her love for Andrew was as dead as +all the rest. The poor little thing, laying this flattering unction to +heart, did not call much reason to her aid, or she would have known that +there was some meaning in it when she cried all day on coming across an +old daguerreotype of Andrew. "It isn't for love of him," she sobbed. "It's +for the loss of all that love out of my life that was heaven to me. Oh no, +no! I love him no longer: I can't, I can't love him: he is all the same as +another woman's husband." But, despite this stout assertion, she could not +bring herself to part with that picture: he was not in reality quite the +husband of another woman, and till he was indeed she meant to keep it. "He +is only promised to her yet, and he was promised first to me," she said +for salve to conscience; and meanwhile the picture grew so blurred with +conscious tears, and perhaps with unconscious kisses, that it might have +been his or another's: Miss Frarnie herself, had she seen it, could not +have told whose it was.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding all the elasticity of youth, life became an inexpressibly +dull thing to Louie as the year wore into the next--dull, with neither aim +nor object, the past a pain to remember, the future a blank to consider. +She could live only from day to day, one day like another, till they grew +so wearisome she wondered her hair was not gray--the pretty hair that, +shorn from her head in her illness, had grown again in a short fleece of +silky curls--for it seemed to her that she had lived a hundred years. And +because troubles never come alone, and one perhaps makes the other seem +lighter and better to be borne, in the thick of a long winter's storm they +brought home her father, the old fisherman, drowned and dead.</p> + +<p>Captain Traverse knew of the old fisherman's death through the newspapers +that found him in his foreign ports--not through Miss Frarnie's letters, +for she knew almost nothing of the existence or non-existence of such low +people; and therefore, conjecture as he needs must concerning Louie's +means of livelihood now, there was no intelligence to relieve any anxiety +he might have felt, or to inform him of the sale of the cottage to pay the +debt of the mortgage under which it was bought, or of the support that +Louie earned in helping her aunt watch with the sick and lay out the dead: +he could only be pricked with knowledge of the fact that he had no right +to his anxiety, or to the mention of her name even in his prayers--if he +said them.</p> + +<p>Poor little Louie! A sad end to such a joyous youth as hers had been, you +would have said; but, in truth, her new work was soothing to her: her +heart was simply in harmony with suffering, with death and desolation, and +by degrees she found that comfort from her double sorrows in doing her +best to bring comfort to others which it may be she could never have found +had she been the pampered darling of some wealthy house. Often, when she +forgot what she was doing, Louie made surmises concerning Frarnie Maurice, +wondering if she were the noble thing that Andrew needed to ennoble +him--if she were really so strong and beautiful that the mere sight of her +had killed all thought or memory of an older love; trying to believe her +all that his guardian angel might wish his wife to be, and to acknowledge +that she herself was so low and small and ignorant that she could only +have injured him--to be convinced that it was neither weakness, nor +covetousness, nor perjury in Andrew, having met the sun, to forget the +shadows; wondering then if Frarnie cared for him as she herself had done, +and crying out aloud that that could never be, until the sound of her own +sobs woke her from her forbidden dream. But at other times a calm came to +Louie that was more pathetic than her wildest grief: it was the +acquiescence in what Providence had chosen for Andrew, cost herself what +it might--it was the submission of the atom beneath the wheels of the +great engine.</p> + +<p>It is true that as, late in the night, when all the town was asleep and +only silence and she abroad, she walked home by herself from some deathbed +whose occupant she had composed decently for the last sleep, she used to +wish it were herself lying there on that moveless pillow, and soon to be +sheltered from the cruel light by the bosom of the kindly earth. For now, +as she passed the birches softly rustling in the night wind, and hurried +by, she remembered other times when she had passed them, and had stopped +to listen, cared for, protected, with Andrew's arm about her; and now, as +the clocks, one after another, remotely chimed the hour, the sound smote +her with a familiar sweetness full of pain; and now, as she came along the +sea-wall and saw the dark river glimmering widely and ever the same, while +its mysterious tide flowed to meet the far-off spark of the lighthouse +lantern, she recalled a hundred happy hours when she and Andrew in the +boat together had rocked there in soft summer nights, with sunset melting +in the stream and wrapping them about with rosy twilight; or those when +whispers of the September gales swelled the sail, and the boat flew like a +gull from crest to crest of the bar; or those when misty sea-turns crept +up stream and folded them, and drowned the sparkle of the lighthouse and +the emerald and ruby ray of the channel lights, and left them shut away +from the world, alone with each other on the great gray current silently +sweeping to the sea--times when she knew no fear, trusting in the strong +arm and stout heart beside her, before the river had brought death to her +door; when the whole of life seemed radiant and rich--times that made this +solitary night walk trodden now seem colder and drearier and darker than +the grave--that made her wish it ended in a grave.</p> + +<p>And so at length the year slipped by, and spring had come again, and the +sap had leaped up the bough and burst into blossom there, and the blood +had bubbled freshly in the veins of youth, and hope had once more +gladdened all the world but Louie. With her only a dull patience stayed +that tried to call itself content, until she heard it rumored among the +harbor-people that the Sabrina was nearly due again, and with that her +heart beat so turbulently that she had to crush it down again with the +thought that, though Andrew every day drew nearer, came up the happy +climates of southern latitudes and spread his sails on favoring gales for +home, he only hastened to his wedding-day. And one day, at last, she rose +to see a craft anchored in the middle channel down below the piers, +unpainted and uncleaned by any crew eager to show their best to shore--a +black and blistered brig, with furled sails and silent deck; and some men +called it the fever-ship, and some men called it the Sabrina.</p> + +<p>As the news of the brig's return and of her terrible companion spread +through the town, a panic followed it, and the feeling with which she was +regarded all along the shore during that day and the next would hardly be +believed by any but those who have once been in the neighborhood of a +pestilence themselves. Exaggerated accounts of a swift, strange illness, +by many believed to be the ancient plague revived again and cast loose +through the land from Asiatic ships had reached the old port; and aware +that they were peculiarly exposed by reason of their trade, small as it +was, the people there had already died a thousand deaths through +expectation of the present coming of the fever already raging in other +parts. Hitherto, the health-officers, boarding everything that appeared, +had found no occasion to give anything but clean papers, and the town had +breathed again. But now, when at last it spread from lip to lip that the +fever lay at anchor in mid-channel, knees shook and cheeks grew white, and +health-officer and port-physician, in spite of the almost instantaneous +brevity of their visit to the infected vessel, were avoided as though they +were the pestilence themselves, and not a soul in all the town was found +to carry a cup of cold water to the gasping, burning men cared for only by +those in less desperate strait than themselves, and who, having buried +two-thirds of their number in deep-sea soundings, were likely to be denied +as much as a grave on shore themselves; while to Mr. Maurice, half wild +with perplexity and foreboding and amazement at Miss Frarnie's yet wilder +terror,--to him the red lantern hung out by the brig at nightfall +magnified itself in the mist into a crimson cloud where with wide wings +lurked the very demon of Fever himself.</p> + +<p>Not a soul to carry the cup of cold water, did I say? Yes, one timid +little soul there was, waiting in a fever of longing herself--waiting that +those who had a right to go might do so if they would--waiting till +assured that neither Frarnie Maurice nor her parents had the first +intention of going, though affianced husband and chosen son lay dying +there--waiting in agony of impatience, since every delay might possibly +mean death,--one little brave and timid soul there was who ventured forth +on her errand of mercy alone. The fisherman's old boat still lay rocking +in the cove, and the oars stood in the shed: Louie knew how to use them +well, and making her preparations by daylight, and leaving the rest till +nightfall, lest she should be hindered by the authorities, she found means +to impress the little cow-boy into her service; and after dark a keg of +sweet water was trundled down and stored amidships of the boat, with an +enormous block of ice rolled in an old blanket; a basket of lemons and +oranges was added, a roll of fresh bed-linen, a little box of such +medicines as her last year's practice had taught her might be of use; and +extorting a promise from the boy that he would leave another block of ice +on the bank every night after dark for her to come and fetch, Louie +quickly stepped into the boat, lifted the oars, and slipt away into the +darkness of the great and quiet river.</p> + +<p>When, three days afterward, Captain Traverse unclosed his eyes from a +dream of Gehenna and the place the smoke of whose torment goes up for +ever, a strange confusion crept like a haze across his mind, tired out and +tortured with delirium, and he dropped the aching lids and fell away into +slumber again; for he had thought himself vexed with the creak of cordage +and noise of feet, stived in his dark and narrow cabin, on a filthy bed in +a foul air, if any air at all were in that noisome place, reeking with +heat and the ferment of bilge-water and fever-smell; and here, unless a +new delirium chained him, a mattress lay upon the deck with the awning of +an old sail stretched above it and making soft shadow out of searching +sun, a gentle wind was blowing over him, a land-breeze full of sweet +scents from the gardens on the shore, from the meadows and the marshes. +Silence broken only by a soft wash of water surrounded him; a flake of ice +lay between his lips, that had lately been parched and withering, and +delicious coolness swathed his head, that had seemed to be a ball of +burning fire. The last that he remembered had been a hot, dry, aching +agony, and this was bliss: the sleep into which he fell when waking from +the stupor that had benumbed his power of suffering--a power that had +rioted till no more could be suffered--lasted during all the spell of that +fervid noon sun that hung above the harbor and the town like the unbroken +seal of the expected pestilence. A strange still town, fear and heat +keeping its streets deserted, its people longing for an east wind that +should kill the fever, yet dreading lest it should blow the fever in on +them; a strange still harbor, its great peaceful river darkened only by +that blot where the sun-soaked craft swung at her anchor; a strange still +craft, where nothing stirred but one slender form, one little being that +went about laying wet cloths upon this rude sailor's head, broken ice +between the lips of that one, moistening dry palms, measuring out cooling +draughts, and only resting now and then to watch one sleeper sleep, to +hang and hear if in that deep dream there were any breathing and it were +not the last sleep of all. And in Louie's heart there was something just +as strange and still as in all other things throughout that wearing, +blinding day; but with her the calm was not of fear, only of unspeakable +joy; for if Andrew lived it was she that had saved him, and though he +died, his delirium had told her that his heart was hers. "If he dies, he +is mine!" she cried triumphantly, forgetting all the long struggle of +scruple and doubt, "and if he lives, he shall never be hers!" she cried +softly and with that inner voice that no one hears.</p> + +<p>And so the heat slipped down with the sun to other horizons, coolness +crept in upon the running river's breast with the dusk, dew gathered and +lay darkly glittering on rail and spar and shroud as star by star stole +out to sparkle in it; and Andrew raised his eyes at length, and they +rested long and unwaveringly on the little figure sitting not far away +with hands crossed about the knees and eyes looking out into the last +light--the tranquil, happy face from which a white handkerchief kept back +the flying hair while giving it the likeness of a nun's. Was it a dream? +Was it Louie? Or was it only some one of the tormenting phantoms that for +so many burning days had haunted him? He tried in vain to ask: his tongue +clove to the roof of his mouth; he seemed to be in the power of one of +those fierce nightmares where life depends on a word and the word is not +to be spoken. Only a vision, then: he closed his lids thinking it would be +gone when he lifted them, but he did not want it to be gone, and looked +again to find it as before. And by and by it seemed to him that long +since, in a far-off dream, he had gathered strength and uttered the one +thought of his fever, "Louie, what do you do now?" and she had answered +him, as though she thought aloud, "I stroke the dead;" and he had cried +out, "Then presently me too, me too! And let the shroud be shotted heavily +to bury me out of your sight!" And he was crying it out again, but while +he spoke a mouth was laid on his--a warm, sweet mouth that seemed to +breathe fresh spirit through his frame--his head was lifted and pillowed +on a breast where he could hear the heart beneath flutter like a happy +bird, and he was wrapped once more in slumber, but this time slumber sweet +as it was deep.</p> + +<p>Morning was dawning over the vessel's side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting +through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and +lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which +the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting +fountains,--morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant +airs stealing from warm low fields, when Andrew once more lifted his eyes +only to find that tranquil face above him still, that happy heart still +beating beneath his pillowed head. "Oh, Louie," he sighed, "speak to +me--say--have I died?--am I forgiven?--is this heaven?"</p> + +<p>"To me, dear--oh to me!" answered she with the old radiant smile that used +to make his pulse quicken, and that, ill as he yet was, reassured him as +to his earthly latitude and longitude.</p> + +<p>"And it was all a dream, then?" he murmured. "And I have not lost you?" He +raised his wasted hand and drew from his breast the little hair chain that +he had hidden there so long ago. "It was a fetter I could not break," he +whispered. "I wrote her all about it long ago. I wrote her father that he +should have his vessel back again--and I would take my freedom--and not a +dollar's wages for the voyage would I ever draw of him. But I should never +have dared see you--for--oh, Louie--how can you ever--"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush, dear!" she breathed. "What odds is all that now? We have our +life before us."</p> + +<p>"Only just help me live it, Louie."</p> + +<p>"God will help us," she answered. And as she spoke a sudden rainbow leaped +into the western heaven as if to seal her promise, and as it slowly faded +there came a wild salt smell, an air that tingled like a tonic through the +veins: the east wind was singing in from sea, bringing the music of +breaker and shore, and the fever was blasted by its breath throughout the +little Sabrina.</p> + +<p class="author">Harriet Prescott Spofford.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st11"> +<h2>Old Sadler's Resurrection:</h2> + +<h3>A Yarn of the Mexican Gulf.</h3> + + + +<p>"Talking about ghosts," said the captain, "listen while I spin you a bit +of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit +of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on +board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India +squadron, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jesse Wilkinson.</p> + +<p>"It would hardly interest you to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and +ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two +steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the +taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us. He wore +gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat +eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the +quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we +planked up and down the lee side, tired enough, and waiting for eight +bells to strike to rush below and call our relief. He was an austere man, +and, unlike the brave old commodore, made no allowance for our pranks and +skylarking.</p> + +<p>"Among our crew, made up of some really splendid fellows, but with an odd +mixture of 'Mahonese,' 'Dagos,' 'Rock-Scorpions,' and other countrymen, +there was an old man-of-war's man named Sadler--a little, dried-up old +chap of some sixty years, who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, so he +said, and had been up and down, all around and criss-cross the world so +often that he had actually forgotten where he had been, and so had all his +geography lessons, learned by cruising experience, sadly mixed up in his +head; which, although small, with a little old, weazened frontispiece, was +full of odds and ends of yarns, with which he used to delight us young +aspirants for naval honors, as he would spin them to us on the booms on +moonlight nights, after the hammocks had been piped down. How well do I +remember the old fellow's appearance!--his neat white frock and trowsers, +his low-quarter purser's shoes, with a bit of a ribbon for a bow; no +socks, save the natural, flesh-tinted ones, a blue star, done in India +ink, gleaming on his instep; his broad blue collar, decorated with stars +and two rows of white tape, falling gracefully from a neck which, as we +youngsters asserted, had received its odd-looking twist from hanging too +long by a grape vine, with which the Isle of Pines' pirates had strung him +up when he was chasing them under old Commodore Kearney's command. Anyhow, +old, sharp-faced, wrinkled and tanned to the color of a sole-leather +trunk, the whole cut of his jib told you at once that he was a regular +man-of-war's man--one of a class whose faults I can hardly recall while +remembering their sense of duty, their utter disregard of danger, and the +reliance with which you can lead them on to attack anything, from a +hornet's nest to an iron-clad.</p> + +<p>"Well, it so happened, one hot day, while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, +that the news came to us that old Sadler was dead; and sure enough it was +so, for the old fellow had quietly slipped his moorings, and, as we all +hoped, had at last gone to where the sweet little cherub sits up aloft who +looks out for the soul of poor Jack. Then, after the doctors had had a shy +at him, to see why he had cleared out so suddenly, his remains were taken +in charge by his messmates, who rigged the old man out in his muster +clothes, sewed him up in his clean white hammock, with an eighteen pound +shot at his feet, and reported to the officer of the deck that the body +was ready for burial. So, about six bells in the afternoon watch, the +weather being very hot, and not a breath of air to ripple the glassy +surface of the water, the lieutenant of the watch directed one of the +young gentlemen to tell the boatswain to call 'All hands to bury the +dead;' and soon fore and aft the shrill whistles were heard, followed by +that saddest of all calls to a sailor at sea--'All hands bury the dead!'</p> + +<p>"Our good old boatswain, Wilmuth, seemed to linger on the words with a +feeling akin to grief at parting with an old shipmate, and as the last man +reached the deck, he touched his hat and in a sad sort of way reported, +'All up, sir,' to the first lieutenant, who in his turn reported, +'Officers and men all on deck, sir,' to the commodore, who thereupon gave +an order to the chaplain to go on with the services.</p> + +<p>"The courses were hauled up, main-topsail to the mast, band on the +quarter-deck, colors half-mast, and all hands, officers and men, stood +uncovered, looking silently and sadly upon the body as it lay upon the +gang-boards in its white hammock, ready for the last rites. Solemnly and +most impressively were the services read, and at the words, 'We commit his +body to the deep,' a heavy splash was heard, and poor old Sadler had gone +to his long home for ever. Some of us youngsters ran up in the lee main +rigging to see him go down, and as we watched him go glimmering and +glimmering down to a mere speck, we wondered where he was bound, and how +long it would take him to fetch Davy Jones' locker on that tack.</p> + +<p>"'Pipe down, sir,' says the commodore to Mr. Bispham; 'Pipe down, sir,' +says Mr. Bispham to Mr. Alphabetical Gray, who was officer of the deck; +'Pipe down, sir,' says Mr. Gray to the gentleman of the watch; 'Pipe down, +sir,' says this youngster to the boatswain; and then <i>such</i> a twitter of +pipes followed this order, and all hands were piped down, while poor old +Sadler was still off soundings, and going down as fast as the +eighteen-pound shot would take him.</p> + +<p>"Now, you know that people coming from a funeral on shore always have a +gay sort of air, suppressed it may be, but still cropping out; and just so +is it with sailors at sea; for, Sadler's body committed to the deep, all +hands felt better: the fore and main tacks were hauled aboard, the main +yard was filled away, and the jib sheet hauled aft, and we all settled +down into every-day life, which, after all, is not half so monotonous on +board a man-of-war as you might suppose.</p> + +<p>"Well, as I have said, the weather was very hot, the surface of the water +was as smooth as a mill-pond, the wind was all up and down the mast, and +so the old ship was boxing the compass all to herself, and not making a +foot of headway.</p> + +<p>"At one bell in the first dog watch, Boyle, the ship's cook, reported the +tea-water ready, and after this came the inevitable evening-quarters--and +some old man-of-war's men would think the country was going to 'Jemmy +Square-toes' stern first if they didn't have quarters--then down hammocks +for the night at six bells, and after that just as much of fun, frolic, +dance, song and yarn spinning as all hands wanted until eight bells, when +the watch was called.</p> + +<p>"John Moffitt, the sailing master, the best fellow in the ward-room mess, +and a great favorite with the youngsters, was officer of the deck from six +to eight o'clock; and my messmate, Perry Buckner, of Scott county, +Kentucky, the most dare-devil midshipman of us all, was master's mate of +the forecastle; Hammond, Marshall, Smith and I were the gentlemen of the +Watch; Rodney Barlow was quartermaster at the 'con;' the lookouts had just +been stationed; the men were singing, dancing, spinning yarns and +otherwise amusing themselves about the decks, while the old ship was +turning lazily around in the splendid moonlight as if admiring herself.</p> + +<p>"Discipline, you know, is the very life of a man-of-war, and this must +account for what now took place. Tom Edwards, a young foretopman, had the +lee lookout, and as seven bells struck he sang out, 'Lee cat-head;' but +the last syllable died away on his lips as his eyes rested upon an +object--a white object--standing bolt upright in the water before him, +about a hundred yards distant and broad off on the lee bow. Suppressing a +strong desire to shriek, and recovering himself, he touched his hat and +said, 'Mr. Buckner, will you step up here, sir, if you please?'</p> + +<p>"'What is she, Edwards?' said Buckner, as he quickly mounted the +hammock-rail.</p> + +<p>"One look, a dip down, a shiver, and, O Lord! what did he see but <i>old +Sadler standing straight as a ramrod, and heading right for the ship!</i></p> + +<p>"It took Buck a full minute to recover himself, and then, with one eye on +the lee bow and the other on the quarter-deck, he walked aft and +deliberately touching his cap, reported to Moffitt, 'Old Sadler broad off +on the lee bow, sir.'</p> + +<p>"'The d---- he is!' exclaimed Moffitt; but, checking himself, he said, +'Mr. Hammond, report Sadler's arrival to the commodore; and you, Mr. +M----, report it to the first lieutenant, sir.'</p> + +<p>"My eyes were as big as saucers as I rushed down the steerage ladder and +into the ward-room, where I found the first lieutenant quietly seated +reading over the black list; and when, with my heart in my throat, I said, +'Mr. Bispham, old Sadler is on the lee bow, sir,' he serenely replied, +'Very well, Mr. M---- I'll be on deck directly.'</p> + +<p>"'O Lord!' said I to myself--'to take a ghost as easily as all that!' +Bolting up the ladder on my way back to the deck, and trembling lest I +should see the ghost popping his head in through one of the gun-deck +ports, I ran into Hammond, who dodged me like a shot.</p> + +<p>"When I got on deck the news was all out, for Tom Edwards couldn't stand +it any longer, but had just yelled out, 'Ghost ho! ghost ho! Look out! +stand from under! here he comes!' and bolted aft, scared out of his wits.</p> + +<p>"In ten seconds all hands were on deck--ship's cook, yeoman, 'Jemmy Legs,' +'Jemmy Ducks,' 'Bungs,' Loblolly boy,' captain of the hold, and, by this +time, all the officers too, with the midshipmen scuttling up the ladders +as fast as their legs and hands could carry them.</p> + +<p>"Moffitt had hauled up the courses and squared the main yard, as much to +make a diversion as anything else, although the men thought it was to keep +old Sadler from boarding us; and as they rushed up on deck they filled the +booms; lee rigging, hammock--netting and every available spot from which a +sight of the old fellow could be had.</p> + +<p>"Very soon they saw that he was not approaching the ship: the old sinner +was just turning and turning around in the water, like a fishing-cork, +dancing away all to himself, while the moonlight, first on one side, and +then on the other, in light and shadow, gave a queer sort of look to his +features, sometimes sad and sometimes funny.</p> + +<p>"After watching him for a few minutes, Bill Ellis, the second captain of +the foretop, hailed him thus: 'Sadler, ahoy! What do you want?'</p> + +<p>"No answer being received, one of the mizzentop boys suggested that the +old man had come back for his bag and hammock, and that they ought to be +thrown overboard to him; but all this was cut short by the appearance of +the commodore on the quarter-deck, and upon him all eyes were turned as he +stepped upon the port horseblock, where a good view could be had.</p> + +<p>"Now, old Jess was as brave an old fellow as ever sailed a ship, but he +did not fancy ghosts, and the knowledge that all hands were looking at him +to see how he took it made him feel a little nervous; but with a firm +voice he called for his night-glass, and when the quartermaster, with a +touch of his hat, handed it to him, he quietly arranged the focus, and, as +we all supposed, was about to point it at Sadler, who was still dancing +away for dear life all to himself. But old Jess was too smart for that: he +quietly directed his glass to another quarter, to gain a little time, and, +gradually sweeping the horizon, brought it at last, with a tremor of +mortal dread, to bear dead upon the ghost. Bless my soul! how the old +gentleman shook! But recovering himself, with a big gulp in his throat he +turned to the chaplain and said, 'Did you read the <i>full</i> service over him +to-day, Mr. T----?'</p> + +<p>"'I did, sir, as well as I can remember,' replied Mr. T.</p> + +<p>"'Then, sir,' said the commodore, turning to Mr. Bispham and speaking in +an authoritative tone, 'we must send a boat and bring him on board.'</p> + +<p>"'O Lord! O Lord!--bring a ghost on board!' groaned the men.</p> + +<p>"'Silence, fore and aft!' said Mr. Bispham, 'and call away the second +cutter.'</p> + +<p>"'Away there, you second cutters, away!' sung out the boatswain's mate. +But they didn't 'away' one step, and we youngsters could hear the men +growling out, 'What does the commodore want with old Sadler? This isn't +his place: let the old man rip: he is dead and buried all right. We didn't +ship to go cruising after ghosts: we shipped to reef topsails and work the +big guns; and if old Jess wants old Sadler on board, he had better go +after him himself.' Some said he had come back after his bag and hammock, +and the best way was to let him have them, and then he would top his boom +and clear out. Others said the purser had not squared off his account; and +one of the afterguard was seen to tickle the mainmast and whistle for a +breeze, to give the old fellow a wide berth. But it wouldn't do: +discipline is discipline; and after a free use of the colt and a good deal +of hazing, the boat's crew came aft, the cutter was lowered, and the men, +with their oars up and eyes upon the ghost, were waiting the order to +shove off, the bow oarsman having provided himself with a boarding-pike to +'fend off,' as he said, if the old man should fight.</p> + +<p>"We youngsters knew that <i>somebody</i> else was needed in that boat, and that +<i>somebody</i> was a midshipman with his side-arms; but not a boy of us said a +word about it, and we were afraid even to catch the first lieutenant's +eye, lest he should be reminded that no young officer had, as usual, been +ordered to go; but the order came at last. When Moffitt asked the first +lieutenant, 'What officer, sir, shall I send in that boat?' we scattered +like a flock of birds, but all too late; for Mr. Bispham referred the +matter to the commodore, who, with a twinkle in his eye, said, 'Who +discovered the ghost, sir?'</p> + +<p>"'Midshipman Buckner reported him, sir,' was the reply.</p> + +<p>"'Then,' said the commodore, 'by priority of discovery he belongs to Mr. +Buckner, who will take charge of the cutter and bring him on board.'</p> + +<p>"I heard all this from my place behind the mizzen mast, and you may guess +how glad I was not to have been selected; but a groan, a chattering of the +teeth, a trembling and shaking of bones close by my side, caused me to +look around, and there was poor Buck, with his priority honors thick upon +him.</p> + +<p>"'Get your side-arms, sir,' said Moffitt: 'take charge of the cutter and +carry out the commodore's order.'</p> + +<p>"'Ay, ay, sir!' said Buck, but oh with what a change in his voice! As he +buckled on his sword I could see what a struggle he was making to feel +brave. As he went over the gangway to get into the boat I caught his eye, +and if you could have seen that forlorn look you would have pitied him; +for there was old Sadler turning and turning in the water, looking first +this way, and then the other, and, as Buck thought, just ready to hook on +to him and carry him down among the dead men.</p> + +<p>"It is no light matter to go up to a ghost, front face, full face, and +look him in the eye; but what must it be when you have to go up to him +<i>backward</i>, as that cutter's crew had to do while pulling their oars, +leaving only Buck and the cox-swain to face him? They just couldn't do it, +and at every stroke they would suddenly slew around on their thwarts and +look at the old fellow, who seemed to them as big as an elephant, and just +ready to clap on to them, boat and all, as soon as they turned to give +another stroke. Poor fellows! they made but little headway, and what with +catching crabs, fouling their oars, blasting old Sadler's eyes, and +denouncing him generally (one fellow fairly yelled outright when the bow +oarsman accidentally touched him), they had a hard pull of it; but still +they made some progress, and when Buck sang out, 'Way enough,' every oar +flew inboard, every man faced suddenly around, and with this the cutter +keeled over, and, her bow touching old Sadler on his shoulder, ducked him +out of sight for a second, at which all hands shouted, thinking that he +had gone for ever; but in a moment more up he popped, fresh as a lark, +higher than ever before, and this time right abreast of the stern-sheets, +where he bobbed and bowed to Buck, at which, with a yell of terror, all +hands went overboard, and, floundering in the water, begged for mercy. The +cutter had some little headway, and this of course brought Sadler astern +on the other quarter, and then there was a wild rush to get back into the +boat, for fear the old fellow was doubling on them to make a grab.</p> + +<p>"The commodore, hearing the row and fearing disaster, ordered another boat +to the rescue, but ere it reached the spot, Buck had, in some manner, +quieted his men, who, seeing the ghost still standing bolt upright in the +water and dancing away as if nothing had happened to scare <i>him</i>, manned +their oars again and pulled cautiously toward him; while he, with that +changeable moonlight grin on his face, was bobbing up and down to the +boat's crew, as if Buck were the commodore himself coming to pay him a +visit.</p> + +<p>"'Stand by, there in the bow, to hook on to him,' sang out Buck.</p> + +<p>"'Ay, ay, sir! I'll fix him;' and with that, and a heavy expletive in +regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike +right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel +touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape of steam, was heard, +and without a word old Sadler vanished from sight for ever."</p> + +<p>"But, captain, tell us what really brought the old gentleman back," said +one of the auditors.</p> + +<p>"Well, just think of that tight white hammock, the light weight of the +shot, and the very hot weather--think, too, how easily a fishing-cork is +balanced in the water by a very small sinker, and lastly how confined air +will buoy up anything--and you have the whole secret of his coming back. +Let that air suddenly escape, and you have the secret of his +disappearance.</p> + +<p>"Buck used to say that 'priority of discovery' was a good thing in the +days of Columbus, but if it was to be continued in force in the United +States navy, hang him if he should ever report another ghost, even if he +should see him walking the quarter-deck with the speaking-trumpet under +his arm."</p> + +<p class="author">R. D. Minor.</p> +</div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11392 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/11392-h/images/image01.png b/11392-h/images/image01.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..905adc3 --- /dev/null +++ b/11392-h/images/image01.png diff --git a/11392-h/images/image02.gif b/11392-h/images/image02.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..21f2a9f --- /dev/null +++ b/11392-h/images/image02.gif diff --git a/11392-h/images/image02.png b/11392-h/images/image02.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd78d9c --- /dev/null +++ b/11392-h/images/image02.png diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a86955b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11392 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11392) diff --git a/old/11392-8.txt b/old/11392-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0476e93 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11392-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9966 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Not Pretty, But Precious, by John Hay, et al. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Not Pretty, But Precious + +Author: John Hay, et al. + +Release Date: March 1, 2004 [EBook #11392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Illustration: "My uncle followed his words with a brightening face, +and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It +is a great gift! a great gift!'" + +The Victims of Dreams. Page 34.] + + + + +NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES. + +By + +John Hay, Clara F. Guernsey, Margaret Hosmer, Harriet Prescott +Spofford, Lucy Hamilton Hooper, Etc. + +Illustrated. + + +1872. + + + + +Contents. + + + +Not Pretty, but Precious, _Margret Field_. +The Victims of Dreams, _Margaret Hosmer_. +The Cold Hand, _Clara F. Guernsey_. +The Blood Seedling, _John Hay_. +The Marquis, _Chauncey Hickox_. +Under False Colors, _Lucy Hamilton Hooper_. +The Hungry Heart, _J.W. De Forrest_. +"How Mother Did It," _J.R. Hadermann_. +The Red Fox, _Clara F. Guernsey_. +Louie, _Harriet Prescott Spofford_. +Old Sadler'S Resurrection, _R.D. Minor_. + + + + +Not Pretty, But Precious. + + + +_Mille modi veneris!_ + + +Part I. + + +Mr. Norval: It is now four weeks since your accident. I have made inquiry +of your physician whether news or business communications, however +important, brought to your attention, would be detrimental to you, cause +an accession of feverish symptoms or otherwise harm you. He assures me, On +the contrary, he is sure you have not been for years so free from disease +of any sort, with the sole exception of the broken bones, as now. This +being so, I venture to approach you upon a subject which I doubt not you +are quite as willing to have definitely arranged, and at once, as myself. +I can say what I mean, and as I mean it, so much better on paper than in +conversation--as I have so little self-possession, and am so readily put +out in the matter of argument--that I have determined to write to you, +thinking thus to be better able to make you understand and appreciate my +reasons and motives, since you can read them when and how you choose. + +I have been your wife three weeks. The horrible strangeness of these words +is quite beyond me to compass; nevertheless, realize it or not, it is a +fact. I am your wife--you, my husband. Why I am your wife I wish simply to +rehearse here. Not that we do not both know why, but that we may know it +in the same way. You, a handsome, cultivated man, whose dictum is +considered law in the world of fashion in which you move and reign, with +an assured social position, a handsome fortune, and a popularity that +would have obtained for you the hand of any beautiful or wealthy woman +whom you sought, have deliberately chosen to make me, a poor, plain, +brown-faced little school-teacher, your wife. Not because you wanted _me_, +not because you thought or cared about _me_, one way or the other, but +simply because, in a time of urgent necessity, I was literally the only +available woman near you. It chanced, from many points of view and by a +chain of circumstances, that I was particularly available. So you married +me. The reasons for such a sacrifice of yourself were--you had behaved +badly, very badly, to a lady, compromising her name and causing a +separation between herself and her husband. Within a few months, her +husband having died, both herself and her father had determined to force +you to make her reparation by marriage. Going to work very warily, they +had taken an opportunity, after a very luxuriant and fast opera-supper, +when you were excited by your surroundings and flushed by the wine you had +been drinking, your head very light, your judgment very heavy, to draw +from you a promise of marriage at the expiration of the year of mourning +for her husband. As soon as you became aware of what you had done, you +ignominiously fled, and after a Western tour were about to sail for Europe +when this unfortunate accident overtook you. Your narrow escape from +death, upon having been thrown from the carriage of a distinguished +gentleman while driving with him behind a pair of celebrated racers, gave +such publicity to your adventure that your _amorata_ was at once aware of +your whereabouts. The fear of this had taken possession of you as soon as +you were able to think of anything, and the dread that she would follow +and marry you while you lay helpless was made a certainty by this telegram +from an intimate friend in New York, received the sixth day of your +illness: + +"It's all up with you, old fellow. The R. has heard you're fast with a +broken leg, and she starts on Monday for Boston. Have the clergy ready, +for it's marriage." + +Then in your bitter need you remembered having talked with me in this +hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of +your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing +me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying +helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you recalled +the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing you, the +delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such as finding +a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although some elegant +and fashionable girls were waiting with ill-suppressed eagerness for your +escort. Remembering all this, knowing as you did that I was poor, wearing +out my life in teaching, in your sore need you suddenly thought, "I wonder +if the girl wouldn't marry me? She'd make a good nurse, could look after +my traps, and, though she is as ugly as sin and a nobody, wouldn't be the +deuced disgrace to a fellow this Rollins woman will be. At all events, +she'll save me from that fate if she takes up with my offer. It's a choice +of evils, and this would be the least; and I'll try it." This, in plain, +unadorned speech, was what you thought. Then you sent for me, began very +pathetically to talk of your desolate state, your family all dead, and so +on; that it had been sadly brought home to you how alone you were while +lying sick, hour after hour, in this great hotel, with only your valet to +attend to you and take an interest in your well-being; and that, day after +day, as you lay thinking of your fate, my face had come before you, +recalling tender memories of your lost and dearly-loved sister. Then you +had remembered that as girl and boy we had been lovers, and really cared +very much for each other. As you got this far toward your _grande +dénouement_, something in my face, I suppose, made you realize that if you +were to compass your ends with me it must be by honesty only. Then you +blurted it all out--in, as I could not help thinking as I listened, as +school-boyish and abashed a way as if you had--well, as if you had not +been a consummate man of the world, rather noted for your _aplomb_. + +It came across me (as I heard you in dumb amazement, with crimson face and +trembling frame) that even the best polish of years' laying on will crack +somewhere under very hard pressure. Well, you were honest and told me all, +never pretending, as you had at first essayed to do, that it was out of +any lingering regard for myself as your sister's friend that you sought me +now, but simply on account of my availability. Had there been some bright +young beauty with wealth and station at hand, no thought of me would ever +have entered your mind: all this I understood at once from your half +confessions--all this, I was glad to find, you had at least enough honor +to let me know, although you risked what to you in your actual situation +was very perilous--a refusal. + +I asked until the next day to consider the matter--whether it would be +better to take service with you, exchange for my boarding, clothing and +incidental expenses the daily care of your comfort and pleasure, or earn +my bread in the old wearing way. And the second day after that we were +married. That is all. I believe that to be a simple statement of the facts +in your case: I am right, am I not? + +The day after our marriage your lady-love and her paternal ancestor came. +At my own suggestion and with your eager consent I received them, and the +result you know. + +Now for my own reasons for this strange marriage. You are aware that my +father was a professor of mathematics in various schools and colleges of +the city where he lived, teaching in the school, among others, in which +your sister and myself were pupils. I believe you know that when a young +man he had eloped with and married one of his scholars, the daughter of a +rich and proud family, who discarded her. For years she was a stranger to +them, until her husband had won a name and handsome fortune for himself: +then she was taken into favor again, her husband's distinction in the +scientific world being supposed to add lustre to the family name. Alas for +us! it was a favor that has cost us dear. I was their only child. When my +sweet, pretty mother lay dying she left to me, her sixteen-year-old child, +my dreamy, unworldly father as a legacy. "Take care of him: he knows no +guile, and your uncles will wrong him if they can," she said. And they +did, or one of them. Ere the bitter agony of my mother's death had enabled +him to return to his duties, it was discovered that one of her brothers +had forged his name and literally stripped him of everything. + +Of course, then he went to work again to earn our daily bread--not with +his old love or ability, but in an inert, feeble way that was pitiful to +see. I think from the day my mother was buried he was dying. Some people, +you know, die hard--some part with life lightly, as if it was a faded robe +they shook off to don a brighter one. Others--my father was one, and I am +like him--see one by one their trusts, their hopes, their loves die: then +with a deathly throe sunder themselves from life. But pardon my +digression. + +When I was twenty my father died. Since then, spite of expressions of +disapproval and offers of support from my mother's family, I have +maintained myself by teaching in the schools where my father had been +known, preferring to do without assistance so long as I had health. One of +my uncles desired to take me into his family, and thus wipe out the wrong +done my father by his brother, and my aunts proffered me an income out of +their private means. I mention this to do them every justice, but I think +even a man of fashion like yourself will acknowledge the impossibility of +my accepting, while I could avoid it, a life of dependence. I could not +accept favors from those who had treated my dear parents unkindly; so I +have e'en gone my own way for these last ten years, and led a not unhappy +life, if a busy and rather wearing one. + +My gay cousins, all of whom you know well--the Wilber girls, Leta and +Jennie, pretty little Lou Barton, and another set of Wilbers whom I think +you do not know so well, who are married now--my gay cousins, then, most +of them beauties, all of them rich and fashionable, are somewhat ashamed +of me, and have let me feel it in every petty way that we women know so +well how to find. I am ugly and poor, my earning my own living is a spot +upon their gentility, and I have unfortunately, and quite against my will, +more than once given them cause for serious annoyance and apprehension. +Then, one of our uncles, who is a bachelor and very rich, has insisted +that I am never to be slighted--always to be invited to everything in the +shape of a party given by the family. If it lay with me, of course I would +never accept these invitations, but I have had it explained to me over and +over again that my not doing so is visited upon the party-givers in one +way or another by our masterful uncle Rufus. So, occasionally, very much +against my inclination, I leave my little third-story room, with its cozy +fire and humble adornments, and sit in the corner of their great rooms, a +"looker-on in Vienna" in every sense. + +I have many kind friends: it would be strange if in all these years I had +not found some who did not care for outward advantages. I have dreamed my +sweet love-dream, and it is over, and the roses have grown above my buried +hopes. + +Since then I have let one idea fill my life to the exclusion of everything +else, putting away from me all desires and thoughts of other needs; and +that too has left me. I call it an "idea" for lack of a better name. I had +put away all thought of marriage with my bright youth, but took into my +heart instead what I deemed would serve as well--a friendship for another +woman. For ten years we knew no separate life--I thought no separate +hopes. She had loved, been on the eve of marriage, her lover had died: +that was her heart's history, and henceforth the idea of love had fallen +out of both our lives--not the idea only, but the possibility of love. I +thought so--she _said_ so. + +I trusted her and loved her with a perfect love. I wound my hopes about +her: I gave up all my life to her as if she had been my lover. I never +cared to form other friendships. I deprived myself of all possibilities of +making other ties of any sort, and with the first opportunity she whistled +me down the wind, and cared no more for me than if she had never professed +to love me. She had been my one bright thing--she was sweet and +winsome--the one golden gleam in my sombre life. My future was bound up in +her so completely that when she severed the fine, close cords (brittle, +yet so strong) which had bound us together for years, she cut into my +heart--nay more, wrested from me all my sweet trusts and faiths. If she is +false, who else in all God's earth is true? I pity myself very much. You, +of course, will not see why her marrying should make a difference if we +loved, and will call me selfish. Not so, not so! She might have married as +soon as it pleased her, and I should have been glad. It would have made a +difference, of course: she must in some sort have been parted from me, but +that I could have borne if it made her happy. But from her acceptance of +her lover--about whom we will say nothing, save that he was the sort of +man she had always held in abhorrence--she has coolly ignored my right to +any part or lot in her fate. She had told me (or I, poor fool! thought so) +every hope and fear of her life: now she told me what she chose, and was +astonished that I expected more--hurt that I seemed changed and did not +find my friendship flourish on crumbs after being nourished for years from +full loaves--was quite unhappy that I cared so little for the minor +concerns of her life, when, good lack! I did not know what I might or +might not ask and not be snubbed; for once she told me there were things +due to the man one is going to marry (at that time she had not got to the +extent of saying whom one loves) that could not be spoken of to me. Of +course she had only to mention the fact to me to make it perfectly plain, +and henceforth he and his doings, his belongings and himself, all of them +of the tamest sort at best, were a sealed book to me. And again she +quenched a feeble effort of mine to get back to my old place, by telling +me such topics she could discuss only with her sister, "her shadow sister" +she prettily called her. So I am desolate! + +Knowing this, you may understand in some degree what could induce a little +waif like me to accept such an offer as yours. I think no one in all God's +earth is more desolate than I. In my heart I bear always that unforgotten +love in my life. I have only a barren waste to show. It is as if I had +started from a lovely, radiant garden in the fair morning of my life, in +which I had left the bright, sweet rose of my love, and walking along a +narrow, dark path, had clasped hands with, and drawn my light and warmth +from, a figure walking close beside me; and though from all sides as I +walked forms had come to me, offering me fair fruits and sweet flowers, I +declined them all without ever a word of thanks, being so content with my +one companion. And suddenly, when all my youth, all my prospects of other +things, had gone, this idealized one had withdrawn its hand-clasp, and +turning on me a face I did not know, faded into darkness, leaving me +nothing but my broken hopes, a wreath of withered flowers, + + "Tangled down in chains about my feet." + +You do not of course realize how the old French _émigré_ blood in my +veins, inherited from my father, makes this a very vital matter to me. We +cling to our hopes very tenaciously while they abide--then we are +distraught. We loved, my father and I, very few, but those with a clinging +oneness that is wellnigh pain: he loved my mother and myself--that was +all. Likewise I had my two: they having failed me, my life is a blank. I +have heard of empty-hearted people: I know now what the phrase means. I am +empty-hearted: I have not one hope, one particle of faith, one real, +honest desire, except to "drie my weir," as the Scotch say, doing my duty +as best I may, as it comes to me. But I have a woman's hatred of pity: my +cousins have long accorded me a contemptuous pity for being an old maid. I +laughed their pity to scorn while I had Esther Hooper. What more did I +need? We could enact over again the sweet old life of the Ladies of +Llangollen. + +We had planned our lives a thousand times. Poor we both were, yet we would +put something away every year for our old age, and work cheerily on until +we could work no more, then creep to our nest like a couple of old +kittens, and cuddle down by our warm, pleasant fire--together, and +therefore content. Well, you see it was not to be: she had grown +affrighted, I suppose, at the thought of all that weary life with only me, +and has married a man who outrages all her delicate instincts and +traditions of an accordant husband. But why speak of him? He supports her, +and she has escaped the obloquy of old-maidism. She has married a +maintenance. She says she loves him, so of course she does. + +For myself, my health, which has always been very rugged, has failed me +utterly this last year; but as my bread depends upon my ability to endure +daily and constant fatigue, I have forced myself to endeavor to get up the +amount of strength required for my winter's work by the present +expedition, planned for me by a friend. Bah! what do I talk of friendship +for? An old lady who was once a teacher in the school from which my father +had married my mother, and who, I think, had cared with more than +friendship for him, has in these last few years fallen heir to a small +property--not a very great deal, but enough to enable her to live in +comfort, and exercise her kindly heart in deeds of charity occasionally. +She has chosen for years to occupy rooms beneath my own, and has always +been a sort of mother to me. Most of the pretty things that have fallen +into my life, and most of its pleasures, have come to me through her. She +has many troublesome faults, as we all have, but she is old, and I have +always had Esther to talk them over and laugh them off with, so have borne +them easily. This year, because she saw I was dying, she took me with her +to the mountains of Vermont, and I have got a new lease of life, and new +capacities for suffering as well. + +On our way back she was suddenly attacked with the illness which detained +us at this Boston hotel. Here your accident laid you up, and the rest came +as I have told. + +You have married me to rid yourself of a union with a woman you detest, +being utterly indifferent to me. I have married you because I cannot bring +myself to go back to that old teaching-life, now so cold and gray. I think +I can earn my board in taking care of your belongings, and the having +saved you from a dreadful fate must compensate to you for the little of my +presence you will for the future be compelled to endure. It need not be +much or long continued if we start with a fair comprehension of each +other. + +This brings me to the reason of all this long history. I have always +looked upon marriage without love as nothing more or less than legalized +vice. I think you, who are so intrinsically a man of the world, will have +imbibed the (so-called) sensible and popular views upon such subjects, and +will at once coincide with me that in such a union as ours--a literal +_mariage de convenance_ on both sides--my ideas are not unwise. Since upon +you will henceforth depend my maintenance (as I of course understand that +a wife who worked for her own support would be a disgrace to you: indeed, +I doubt whether the having married a girl who has already done so is not a +cause of shame), I ask that now, when Mrs. Keller is about to leave me, +and my arrangements as your wife must be finally made--when, in fact, her +giving up her room necessitates my coming to yours, her leaving compelling +me either to go with her, or come, as of course I must, to you--we may +have a definite understanding as to our future relations. + +You have been kind enough to approve of the little I have been able to do +for you since our marriage--to say to Mrs. Keller you did not know what it +was to be taken care of in sickness; and to myself you have more than once +laughingly spoken of a wife as a good institution, adding, that had you +known how comfortable it was to have some one about you to think of and +care for you, you would have invested in the article before; and so on. I +am glad of this: I am pleased that my society has not proved repugnant to +you; for since it has been no annoyance in its first trial, I think we can +manage that it shall not be so in the future. I would ask, as an especial +piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors +at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister. +It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the +Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring +most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your +service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is +due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or +pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have no +expectation of winning your love: it has been an understood thing from the +first--that is something neither expects from the other--therefore any +show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping +with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain +that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during +these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to +pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this +cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our private +relations? + +For the rest, claiming nothing from you, giving you nothing but the +services for which you render me a full equivalent, I grant you, as far as +I have a right to do so, the largest liberty of action. We are only +jealous of those we love: therefore all women will be as free to you as +they have hitherto been or their will accords, save that you have debarred +yourself for a time from offering any one of them marriage. I hope to be +so little trouble to you, and so serviceable to you in many ways, that you +shall realize to the full that if an unloving union could be so much more +comfortable than a bachelor's life, a life passed with a loving and +beloved wife would be bliss indeed, and so when my life has ended you will +not be sorry that I stopped in your path a few years. For I shall not +trouble you very long. I am a poor little perfumeless flower, having no +sweetness or beauty with which to charm the eye or senses, only fit to +grow among the kitchen herbs--rue and thyme, and such old-fashioned +things. But I need a great deal of sunshine, spite of my plainness, to +keep life in me. And now that all the heat and passion of love, all the +sunny hopes and glow of friendship, have left me, I shall just fade and +fade until some day you will find the poor little weed has dropped to +earth for ever. + +I am but two years younger than yourself, and women, especially women with +a great sorrow, age cruelly fast. I look and feel older than I am--you +wear your years like a crown, and appear younger than you are. I have made +my little venture on life's ocean--made and failed: my barque, freighted +with a few cherished hopes, has been wrecked, and though I have reached a +rock to which I can cling for a time, yet I am terribly hurt, the waves +have buffeted me cruelly, and in a little while I shall let go my hold and +float out--out into the ocean of eternity. Ah! there is comfort after all: +life _is_ hard, but afterward there is peace and rest! + +I am nearly through this long tirade. Pardon its length: it is my first, +and shall be my last, heart-outpouring to you; and if it make you +comprehend me, I shall not have written or you have read in vain. + +Your income will not support the establishment your position in society +would require if we went to housekeeping; besides, you would feel as if +you must then be more stationary, more in your own home, than is at +present your custom, therefore in a degree in bondage. And a hotel-life is +very expensive and very cheerless. You have kindly said you intended +dividing your income with me, giving me half. At first I was indignant at +the idea, but now I think I see that it will be in every way the best. One +of my cousins has been occupying a very elegantly-appointed suite of rooms +on Twenty-fourth street. Harry writes me he is going very suddenly to +Europe. His rooms will of course be vacant: he talks of renting them +furnished. I have thought, if you would not object to it, we might take +them off his hands. I have calculated that the part of your means you +intend for me will meet all our expenses of every sort if you permit me to +have the arranging, of our daily affairs. I will pay the rent and meet all +the expenses of our living out of this sum, leaving you your reserved +funds to meet your ordinary requirements and pleasures. By this +arrangement, you see, I shall get my living free, and I am sure shall have +a surplus over and above our expenses, as I am a good manager and used to +making the most of everything. + +There is one sacrifice which, do we enter into this arrangement, I must +ask of you--that when we return to New York you give up your valet. For +more than one reason: I cannot have a spy upon the mode of life we are to +lead. I am foolishly sensitive of the position of a neglected wife, and I +feel assured your gentlemanly instincts will prevent your ever offering +any observable slight to the woman who bears your name. Besides, in the +apartments I propose our taking there will be no room for a man-servant, +and one of the maids connected with the house will be all the assistant I +shall require. When you are away on your frequent excursions to all parts +of the world it will be very easy to provide yourself a servant. Will you +try for a few weeks how well I can supply, or have the place supplied, of +this man, whom you intend in any case to dismiss? This is all. Next week, +the doctor thinks, you may be moved to a lounge, and perhaps the week +after be able to travel, or at farthest the week following. + +I acknowledge to the womanish feeling of being exultant at the idea of the +envy I shall awaken in the breasts of your adoring circle of lady +friends--my lady cousins among them--in having, spite of my +unattractiveness, secured the husband they have long striven by every wile +to win. Ah! they little know, and I trust never may, why I, without +seeking, have ensnared their _rara avis_ to be my legal bondsman. Rather a +contradiction in terms! + +The pretty fiction of our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old +love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet +has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my +girlish dreams. So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have +written to my uncles and stated verbally to Mrs. Keller, stand; also, that +the undue haste was caused by your pressing need of me during your +accident. I think, indeed, from my cousin Harry's letter yesterday, and +one from Shelton last week, they have taken the idea that we have been +spending the summer together, and that you were following me home when you +were stayed in your mad career by a broken leg. + +I am done; are you not thankful? There have been some things in this +letter very hard to say, which, if I were braver or knew you better, I +should have liked to be more outspoken about. But enough has, I think, +been said to make you appreciate my earnest desires and my reasons for +them. I am most truly, + +PERCY. + +And he, prone upon his back this warm September day, read this long +epistle from his new wife, then laid it down and closing his eyes murmured +softly, "What a strange little puss it is!" Lying in the dim light her +hand had created for him, he thought of his own troubles and hers, just as +she had stated them. The blood would flush up to his brow as her cool +ignoring of his surpassing attractions, to which all other women accorded +their full meed of praise, rose up before him. He of whom it had been said +if he beckoned with his finger women left their duties, gave up their very +life to do his pleasure!--he to have the girl he had honored by making his +wife, a little brown woman, plain and almost _passé_ (he was man enough +not to care for her poverty), show she cared no more for his love than he +did for hers I--was as indifferent to him as he to her! Indifference from +a woman was a new experience to him, and annoyed him. + +Yet her quaint, frank letter touched him. What did she mean by dying soon +and letting him be free again? Poor little midge! was she dying of a +broken heart because a treacherous woman had fooled her out of a part of +her life? Poor little robin! she was his wife now, and he could heal the +worst heartache in any woman's breast. He had tried that thing before, and +succeeded, even if he broke the heart afterward. Die, indeed! Not if he +knew it: even Death should not have a little woman he meant to be good to. + +And as he remembered all her faithfulness to him during these weary weeks +of pain, he thought, "By Jove! beauty's not all, for no woman, had her +face been like that of Phryne of Thebes, or her charms as entrancing as +the bewitching Dudu's, could have been more lovely in her kindness to me. +How brave and strong she has been! What a faithful little soul it is! +Always ready, day and night, to do just what I want done and in the way I +want it, never knocking things about or fidgeting round, but just +ready-handed, neat and bright. God knows, a handsome woman wouldn't have +risked the spoiling her beauty by all these weary, sleepless nights, +especially for a man she did not love." And then to think she was actually +willing to work and slave for him, and support him out of her share of the +booty, and let him fool away his own on other women! "Wonder what the +little dame means to buy her own fine things with, for even robins must +get clothing? I'll ask her that. Bless the little woman's soul! she makes +me think of her so much that I believe I'm half in love with her. Um!" and +he stopped: "I'm getting sentimental and poetic, I swear! But if it were +in me to love anything that was not beautiful, I believe I could love this +little girl, who has come into my life so strangely. She owns up to having +loved, and is done with all the stale farce. Some fools," and he felt very +indignant, "slighted her because she had no beauty, though, upon my soul, +now I think of it, I'm not so certain about that. There's a something in +her face takes a man's breath--something that one would rather die than +lose if he once loved it, and which once loved would be better than any +beauty. What's that Spenser says?-- + + 'A sweet, attractive kind of grace,... + The lineaments of gospel books,' + +That's just it: it's a look that makes one think about one's prayers, if +one only knew them. But whether the man slighted her or not, he missed +it--confound him!--in losing such a love. I'll make her tell me his name. +And as for being my sister, that's all nonsense, of course, as she's my +wife." Then more thoughtfully, "Well, maybe not: a household where there +is no love is cruel--I knew that in my early home--and children are a +beastly trouble, and as expensive as a man's wines. She's a brick, this +wife of mine, and as sensible as steel. I'll put myself in her hands for +better or for worse, I vow I will! + +"The jolly way she manged that Rollins affair was proof poz of her +ability. Her cool assumption of wifely dignity--her actually bringing them +up to see me without announcing their coming to me, and never letting them +have one bout at me, was beyond anything! It's like a dip in the sea to +recall it all. Her breezy voice coming in before them was all the warning +I had: 'Oh certainly, you can come up and look at him, but not talk to +him: he's nervous and feverish, and I cannot permit even such old friends +as you doubtless are to say anything to him. You know, of course, the +doctor thought he needed constant attention, and caused us to hurry our +marriage in a most Gretna-Green style; but I could not nurse him unless we +were married. And it did not matter so much, after all, since we had +loved'--and she hesitated with the prettiest affectation of having said +something she ought not--'we had cared for each other since we were quite +children. Ross's sister Bell was my school-friend.' Then she brought them +straight to the bed, and stooping down gave me the only kiss with which +she has honored me--her show kiss, I call it--saying, 'My darling' (how +soft she said it, too, with a little trilling cadence upon the sweet old +word!)--'My darling, you are not to speak, or even look, save this once: +now I must cover up my dearie's eyes;' and she laid her cool hand over my +eyes and held it there while they stayed. 'These are some kind New York +friends, Mr. Rollins and his good wife'--and a faint pressure on my face +emphasized the joke--'who are come to see you. I cannot understand all +they mean, except that you have been behaving badly, making these good +people's daughter believe you meant to marry her, when of course you were +only going to marry your little, ugly Percy. Oh, my bad boy, what shall I +ever do with you? Oh the hearts you have broken while you have been +waiting for me! Ah! dear, bad boy!'--and, as if overcome with tenderness, +she laid her cheek down on mine. I clasped my arms about her--the first +and last time I've had a chance, by George!--but she sprang away with a +laugh: 'No, you shall not be petted for being bad. Why, Ross, these dear +people came to take you and marry you to their beautiful daughter, for I +know she's a beauty, since her mother is still so handsome.' + +"Oh, it was gorgeous, to see the Rollins standing there in all her +Cleopatra-like splendor, utterly upset and put down by my little brown +berry! And the impossibility of correcting such a mistake without putting +herself in an absurd position actually stopped the Rollins speech, +and--Lord help me!--I thought that mouth could only be closed by bon-bons +and a man's kisses--any man's, _par exemple_. And her poor old catspaw of +a _pater_ stood helpless before my little hurricane--a very reed shaken by +the wind. Then my sea-breeze spoke again: 'But the doctor will shed vials +of wrath upon me for letting you see strangers.' (It must have cut the +Rollins sore to be called a stranger to me!) 'But these kind friends could +not realize your being ill, so I was fain to let them see my Apollo in his +box; but we will go now if you please;' and she positively ushered them +out in wordless dismay, bidding them good-bye at once, and seeing them no +more. I thought she would have rushed back to laugh the scene over with +me, but that shows how little I know her. When, in the course of an hour, +she did come, it was with such an utter ignoring of having done a smart +thing, waving aside my admiration of her _finesse_, that I was taken +aback. She said sadly, 'I am unused to falsehood, and _finesse_ of any +sort is distasteful to me. I quenched this woman this time, but, in spite +of her bad, hard face, I pity her very much. You, and such men as you, +have, I suppose, made her what she is, God help her!' So by this good +little girl's management I am rid of my troubles. I declare I'll do just +what she wishes, and be thankful my follies have worked me no more harm." + +Then he began to wish she'd come in, and to feel aggrieved and neglected +because she did not come--to feel an eager desire to see her and talk the +matter of the letter over with her. But he had read it through again twice +ere she appeared, and then, to his dismay, equipped for a journey, and +saying, in the most matter-of-fact, nonchalant manner possible, "Ross, +Mrs. Keller has come to say good-bye. I am going with her to Newport, +where she makes the only perilous part of the trip--the, to her, dreadful +change from cars to boat. So I shall be away all night, of course." + +Then Mrs. Keller came forward with--"I hope you don't mind my taking her +off, Mr. Norval?" + +"But I do mind it deucedly, madam," he said. "Why, Percy, I don't like +your traveling alone this way at all. Why can't James go with Mrs. +Keller?" + +"Not for the world, Ross, thank you. I'm used to taking care of myself, +and of Mrs. Keller too, for that matter. I'm not much of a traveler, +because I have not had much of a chance--none, indeed, except what she's +given me--but somehow I always manage to come out right. You are very kind +to offer to spare James, but he's your necessity. I have told him about +the medicines, and how to loosen the bandages at night. So I expect to +find you better than usual when I get back. He knows your ways so much +better than I, and I sha'n't be here to interfere;" and she went about +arranging little matters as she spoke, and not looking at him. + +But Mrs. Keller saw the look of annoyance upon his face, and said, "But, +Percy, Mr. Norval dislikes your going, and you're bound to stay." + +"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Keller! Of course he don't care particularly, as I am +going to be away but one night, and he's got to spend all my life with +me;" and her face saddened, he thought. "I'm sure to come back to-morrow: +my cousin Shelton says, 'Percy always manages to be at hand when she's +wanted.' Am I to write to Harry that we will take the rooms? I must do it +at once, or he may let some one have them;" and she came and stood beside +him. + +He answered, sullenly, "Do just as you like about it: it's no concern of +mine." + +"Of course I shall do nothing of the kind. If you had liked the idea, been +very much pleased with it, it would have been different. I only threw out +the suggestion as a mere suggestion. But we will think of it no more." All +this in her quick, bright way, without a shade of annoyance visible, and +she began talking of something else as if the matter was settled: "The +hotel-keeper will put a sofa-bed into your dressing-room for me to-morrow, +so I shall be quite out of the way when your callers are here. I have told +them about bringing my trunk in there from Mrs. Keller's room: James will +attend to it all for me. So, as long as you are a 'prisoner of hope' in +here, I'll reign supreme in the dressing-room. Now say 'Good-bye,' Mrs. +Keller: James will put you in the coach while I finish my adieux." + +"But, Percy, you mistake," he said, quite humbly, when her old friend was +gone: "you do talk a fellow down so confoundedly," with a laugh. "I like +your idea about the rooms most heartily: indeed, I like all your ideas, +all your letter, except where you are so deucedly severe upon me; but even +that is true, and I like it when you tell me of it. I think your +management the best in everything, and I expect to be as happy as a king, +or rather a good subject, with my little queen to rule over me and keep me +in order in our new domain." + +She clasped her hands in a quick, passionate sort of way at his words, as +if they gave her a pang. He saw that, but her calm face and voice made him +half doubt if it meant anything. "Are you quite sure, or are you only +saying it because you think I have a wish to go there? I thought you did +not seem to like it just now, and indeed I do not care: I shall be quite +content with whatever you arrange when you are well." + +"No, Percy: write and say we will take the rooms from the time he leaves +them. I"--with a half-abashed laugh--"I was only cross because you are +going away. I shall miss you sorely, dear, and I'm sorry you're going and +are so glad to go--that's all." + +Her face turned crimson to the very temples, and she said, "I'm sorry I +made my arrangements without consulting you: I will not do so in future. I +did not think you would care one way or the other." + +"You've been so good to me, little one, and I'm so unused to being cared +for except as a society ornament, that I think I shall never be able to +get along without you again." + +Her eyes filled with tears which she would not let fall, and she said, +"You are very kind to say so: I will be more careful in future. But I must +go now." He waited in quite an eager expectancy to see if she would kiss +him. "Take good care of yourself, and be sure I shall come by the first +train;" and she started to leave the bedside. + +He caught her dress and drew her toward him, holding her hands: "Is that +all, Percy? Is there nothing else?" + +"I think not, Ross," she said, doubtingly, but coloring painfully. + +"Kiss me good-bye, Percy." She held down her face instantly, and when he +had kissed her, drew herself away without a word; but he clasped his arm +about her: "You have not kissed me after all, my darling." + +"My kisses are nothing worth now, Ross: their sweetness died out years +ago. Yours are good enough for both;" and she laughed and left him. + +He was bitterly chagrined: it seemed a little thing to make him feel so +mortified. That she should leave him willingly, that doing so she should +refuse to grant him so small a favor, when almost all other women--her own +pretty cousins among them--had denied nothing he chose to ask, it was +incomprehensible! + +"By Jove! I never cared so much for a little thing in my life as her +leaving me and not caring to kiss me. I swear, I'm a perfect baby about +her! Little, truthful, honest soul! I believe she could make another +creature of me if she cared enough for me to try. There is something +restful in truth and honest purity, after all: one feels safe, and +grounded on a sure place. It's good to have a little fairy lying close in +one's bosom; and I vow I'll have my little brownie there yet, though I +have to go as suitor on a regular courting expedition to my own wife +before I win her heart. Curse this old lover of hers, who bars her heart +against me! And curse my own past follies, which make a good woman fear to +trust me! Marriage is a sell generally, even when a vast amount of +so-called love is brought to the sacrificial altar; so perhaps I shall not +make a bad thing of it if I win my wife's heart after she knows me _au +fond_, instead of in the glamour of gas-light flirtations. Poor little +heart! What a pitiful story it is! How quaintly she writes her pathetic, +desolate history! What a ready pen the little woman holds!" and he took +out her letter again. "I declare, the child has better attractions than +beauty--a lovely, faithful soul." + +But though he was tender of her in his thoughts, he was a hard master that +night: everything went wrong, nothing pleased or contented him, and the +sullen, much-tried servant at last announced that with the morning he +would leave his master to his own devices. + +"Go, and be damned to you!" was the savage reply; and the man took him at +his word, decamping, after making a few necessary arrangements, as soon +after breakfast as he could. + +"And I have been as good to that fellow the year he has lived with me as I +could," thought Ross Norval as hour after hour he lay alone wanting +everything--water, the papers, a handkerchief. There was nothing he did +not want, and he could reach nothing but those nauseous medicines. +"Service cannot be bought: in very truth, love and patience must be a free +gift. However, now even love and patience seem to have fled from me. I +want my wife--I want her awfully." + +Percy, with her sad little heart lying as heavy as a plummet in her +breast, was just as bright and useful and entertaining to her cranky old +friend as if life was a boon instead of a bane to her. You know from her +letter how bitter life was to her; and I think if you have ever known +sorrow and a great disappointment, you will comprehend how it was possible +for her, with the fear of God before her, and a desire to be His faithful +child, to make this match for herself. Anything was better than the dull +stagnation into which she had fallen: she had felt this year, unless some +great change came to her to take her out of this weary groove in which she +was set, she must go melancholy mad. She had laid out a hundred schemes, +all of them, she knew, impracticable; and now, in a strange, providential +way, this chance to change every thought and action of her whole life had +come to her. Do you wonder much she accepted it? I think it was not +strange. + +That night after his offer (the night she had asked for in which to +decide, although she said to herself, with a bitter little shrug as she +made the request, "A woman who hesitates is lost"), as she lay awake +pondering the whole matter, she thought: "It can't be worse than it is, +and it won't be very long either way, I think. I can be faithful to him, +make and mend, dig and delve, if needs be, for his benefit, in return for +the honor he does me in giving me his name and protection. I shall expect +nothing, literally nothing, from him that wives usually demand. I, who +have borne for years with the caprice of school-girls, can surely bear the +humors of one man, especially when his name shields me from other sorts of +ills. I have rather plumed myself these last few months upon having +learned the depth of meaning and force of truth there is in that +expression from _Sartor Resartus_ I used to think so wicked: 'Say to +happiness, I can do without you--in self-renunciation life begins,' I can +try it now. I need not be a spaniel or fawn upon my lord, and yet I can +obey and honor, if he will let me, this man to whom I shall vow myself for +life. For life! Can I endure it all the years I may have to live an +unloved wife--so near and yet so far from him to whom I am bound? Will it +not be a death in life? Will it be better than this dead, cold monotony I +now bear? Better or worse? Ah, there's the rub! I can never hope to win +his faithful, abiding love. Even did use make me acceptable to him, I +could not trust its continuance. And yet who knows whether, if I try to +keep a pure life and an honest purpose to walk before him worthily every +day, I may not win from him at last a sort of respect and friendship that +will be next to love? I will some time let him know of the friends my +literary efforts have brought me. I know he will be proud of the judgment +that scholarly men, whose opinions he honors, have placed upon the +heirloom of intellectual ability that has been my sole dower from my dear +father and his learned ancestors. And when I am Ross Norval's wife I will +reveal myself to these letter-friends of my inner life, and, meeting them +no longer in the spirit only, let them see eye to eye their hidden sister, +their 'nebulous child,' as they have half playfully, half angrily, called +me. A husband's hand shall rive the rock in which their crystal has been +for years embedded. + +"Oh, Ross, I shall be glad to come to my inheritance through you; to +gather my band of chosen ones into my actual, as I have long held them in +my inner, life; to know those at last whom my unprotected woman's state +has hitherto forbidden me to know. And if I take him, if I give myself to +him, I shall at last have the desire of my life. Ah, Ross! you will never +know that your boyish flattering, which meant nothing to you, and should +have meant nothing to me, did really mean so much that it simply broke my +heart, leaving me at sixteen so utterly incapable of loving any man but +yourself that since then no hand has ever touched the seal which closed +the fountain of love and passion in my heart for ever. Ah! I wonder what +penalty there is for those who carelessly destroy our hopes and blot out +all possibilities of love from us? What would you say, Ross Norval, if you +knew that the last kiss I ever gave to any man was given you that cold, +dark day they buried my father? You came with a note from Bell--she was +dying, she said; after to-day no one but her family would be admitted to +her: would I come and say good-bye to her, even from my father's grave? I +went with you, and stayed an hour with her. Then you brought me, more dead +than alive, back to my desolate home, and taking me in your arms carried +me from the carriage to my bed. As you laid me down you said, 'My sister's +little friend, I am glad to have seen you once again. Bell tells me all +these years I have been absent you have been pleasant friends to each +other. You are dear and sweet because she loved you. I shall never see you +again perhaps, for when she dies I shall have no ties here and shall go +elsewhere. Kiss me good-bye,' and I did. + +"For a year after that I was alone: then Esther Hooper came, and I was not +wretched. I have had my share of lovers and friends--what girl has +not?--have had rare treats of music, of books and paintings, and shared +their pleasant harmonies with an appreciative soul; and I have been very +contented. + +"But now I am desolate again, and out of the darkness you have come and +beckoned me to follow you and stand near you all the rest of my life. It +will be happiness enough, as much as is good for me, to live with you, +even if I am nothing to you, for, oh, I love you very faithfully!" + +And so, you know, they were married, with only the doctor and Mrs. Keller +to witness the ceremony; and at once, with her little decided way, the +sort of certainty that years of self-dependence give, she became his +nurse, attending to him as persistently and indefatigably as if the sole +purpose for which she had been born was that. From the first service she +rendered him--bathing his head and face through an intense August day with +iced water delicately perfumed, arranging the curtains so that the air, +when there was a breeze, blew freely to him, though the glare of the sun +was gone, and his room in dim, soothing shadow--she seemed a blessing to +him. Some hours after she came with her bright, quick ways, arranging his +disordered room, bringing order out of chaos on his dressing-table, never +peeping into things, and yet getting them into beautiful order, and, +wonderful to relate, keeping them so: the air seemed to grow cooler, his +medicine less bitter, the time shorter, and his broken leg and weary back +to ache less acutely. + +One day she said in a shy way, "Mr. Norval, if you will let James lay out +your things, I will see what mending they need, and will sit here and do +them, so you sha'n't spend so many hours alone. Mrs. Keller has made some +friends in the house, and they kindly sit with her so much that she does +not need me." + +"But, Percy, what's the use of James having a hand in it? Here are my +keys," with a laugh as he handed them to her: "you know they are a part of +the worldly goods with which I did thee endow; and the keys always belong +to the female department by right, don't they?" + +She took them with a vivid blush. "Shall I look over your trunks and +bureau, then?" she asked. + +"Certainly, while I go to sleep and dream what a jolly thing it is to have +you here." Then, pretending to sleep, he watched her with careful hands +examine his belongings, with a contemptuous little smile at this piece of +bungling mending or an anxious frown over that frayed place. Then how +neatly she folded and laid back all the good, and seated herself with a +pile before her and began to sew! When he opened his eyes she handed him +the keys. + +"No, Percy, keep them: I make all right and title to them over to you," he +said. + +From that day he seemed to feel delight in her companionship, reading to +her hour after hour while she sewed, always choosing some poetical or +light bit of reading--"To suit my capacity," she thought. + +So they had gone on week after week--with the single exception of the +Rollins episode--without any change. He was a rare favorite in society, +and every day received a host of calls from gentlemen, baskets of fruits +and flowers from ladies. Always, when a card was sent up, she would gather +all her womanish "traps" together and go to Mrs. Keller--this, too, in +spite of his earnest invitation to her to remain. + +"No: you can have a pleasanter call with no ladies present, and Mrs. +Keller needs me. I'll be back in time for your medicine." + +Once or twice some one, more intimate or free than usual, would run up +unannounced and catch her there. Her acceptation of the situation was, he +thought, perfect. Without a shadow of embarrassment she acknowledged the +introduction, "My wife," did the honors of the occasion, said a few words +regarding his state, and with some such words as "I will be back in an +hour or so, Ross," would leave the room. + +Thus he was utterly unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was +capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he +could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most +society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular +woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant +conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an +intelligent thinker for a woman, he did not dream. + +Nevertheless, the mere having her about him day after day, with her dainty +little ways, grew to be a pleasure to him: the making her grave little +face, with its haunting look of sorrow, break into smiles, the light come +into her soft gray eyes, became a real delight to him. Then the color +flushed over her cheek at his lightest word, and he found a real interest +in watching it glow and fade from her pale face. + +"She's the sort of _brune_ that colors well," he thought. "Old Sir John's +fancy of-- + + 'Her cheek was like a Cathrine pear, + The side that's next the sun'-- + +suits her exactly. And her hair, with the glint of gold in the chestnut +hue, would be a glory in a beautiful woman. Every motion of her heart +shows in her face. She'd never make a woman of the world: she cannot hide +her feelings, but lets one read them like an open book." Which was all he +knew about it, since, spite of her treacherous color, those years of hard +duty had trained her into the most perfect self-control on all needful and +great occasions and matters. + +How he missed her light step! how he had wanted her all these two days! +for, though it was scarcely past noon, and she had gone late the day +before, he was sure it was that--"And seems like six, by George!" But, as +he lay feverish and famished for a drink, a very ill-used man, she opened +the door, and the air seemed lightened of its troubles at once. + + + +Part II. + + +"Shall we go to Niagara for our wedding-trip?" Mr. Norval asked when the +doctor had taken his last fee, pronouncing his patient cured. + +"Unless you care particularly about it, I would rather go straight to New +York. I have canceled all my school-engagements by letter, having taken a +new service"--and she bowed to him--"and Mrs. Keller promised to see to my +little rooms and their belongings; but I should like to see Harry before +he sails." + +"Want to make him promise to be a good boy while he's away?" said he with +a smile. + +"Something like it," she answered, laughingly. "But Harry's not a bad +fellow, at all." + +"Well, then, let's start for home to-morrow;" and they made their +arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an +unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel +to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in +Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a +large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther +Hooper. He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and +the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not +being her heart's choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea +gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all. + +As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put +his arm around her, saying, "I've been very happy, little wife, here with +you. Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw +you?" + +"I have had no cause to regret it," she said quietly. + +"But you are not glad," he said, taking his arm away. + +"As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything--more glad than I am for most +things." + +He looked at her with a sigh. "My father--and I am like him--loved only +once." Her words came constantly into his mind. "I came too late," he +thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and +pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other +earthly thing he had ever known. He had left her side, and was standing +looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to +breakfast. After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head +against his arm. He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice +of the action. She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her +hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, "Dear Ross, I _am_ glad: I am +happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be. I would not undo the +deed we have done so long as you are content. I like being with you +dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your +wife--your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good." + +"My Preciosa"--and he drew her into his arms--"so long as we both shall +live, you mean. I want no life without you now." Then turning her, face +up, he scanned it hastily: "You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale! Are +you ill, my Percy?" + +"No, no," she said quickly. "I think I need my breakfast: I have been up a +couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night." + +"My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of +ours, perhaps you'll get some rest. But you talk in this strange way of +dying: just now you did, and once before in your letter. What makes you do +it? Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?" + +"Nothing--only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled +and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death +as a boon which God would send me soon." + +"But you do not now?--you don't want to die and leave me desolate?" + +"No, dear! indeed, no! though I don't think you'd care really." He clasped +her in a closer embrace and kissed her reproachfully. "Well, yes, just at +first, perhaps. Yet so long as you want me, I want to stay and be your +willing, working wife. I've got a new reason and aim now: I have you, dear +old Ross." + +"Oh, Percy, I _do_ care. God knows even the thought of it gives me a +bitter agony, I know you cannot trust me yet, because I married you so +carelessly, and because you think I can't be true to one woman with my +battered old heart. But that's because you judge me by what my long, +unloved life has made me. No good woman ever made me love her before. I +never knew how beautiful a pure life was, my darling, until I knew it +through watching yours. When I think of all you have saved me from, which +would have caused my undying gratitude had I learned to hate you--as if I +ever could!" and he paused to kiss her--"when I think of all the new and +better hopes you have awakened in my heart, I feel--God knows I do--as if +He had sent my angel, and let her drag me out of a hell into which I was +plunged, and year after year sinking deeper. Stay with me, dear: I will be +true. I never cared for any woman in the way--in the deep, absorbing +way--I do for you. I wish you would believe me." + +"I do, Ross--you are so good to me, so good! Oh, Ross, Ross!" and she held +up her face to his, "you are so good to me!" She clung to him one moment, +then suddenly, as soon as she could trust her voice, said gayly, "But it's +breakfast-time, and your wife is so unromantically hungry;" and with a +sigh that nothing more ever came of their talks he took her down. + +When they reached New York the next afternoon, they drove at once to the +rooms they had engaged. Percy's cousin, Harry Barton, was there to welcome +them, having come round from his hotel for the purpose. + +"Why, Norval," said he--they were old acquaintances--"you've won our bone +of contention, after all. I wonder what we shall do, now that Percy's +safely landed out of our reach? You're a brave man to dare our rage." + +"Don't, Harry!" said Percy, putting her hand on his arm. + +"I won't, dear, if you say not;" and he covered her hand with his own. "I +always did do your lightest bidding, little girl, didn't I?" + +"Yes, you're a dear old cousin. Ross knows how much I appreciate your +kindness to me always. Why, I gave up what he calls my 'bridal tour,' +partly because I wanted to come back and say 'good-bye' to you." + +His face flushed crimson at her words, and, all his careless, fashionable +manner gone, he said, "Did you, Percy? You always were good." + +"That, and because--because I shall be so sorry if you join this African +expedition." + +"Don't ask me not to, Percy--don't ask me to stay now you have broken my +hope for ever. I shall go to the dogs, dear, if I stay here now." + +"I don't want you to, Harry. Only your mother is so delicate and getting +old, and she loves you beyond all the rest of the world, though you think +she don't because she has been cruel to me. It will break her heart if you +join this dangerous enterprise. Stay in Europe, go to Heidelberg and +finish the course you so foolishly broke up. They'll blame me, Harry, for +all the evil that comes to you." + +"Well, I'll think about it, dear." Then to Ross; "Does she kiss you, +Norval?" + +"Well, I can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a +surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess +she did not. + +"Nor let you kiss her, either?" + +"Well, yes," with a laugh. "She can't very well help that, you know." + +"Don't you believe it: if she didn't want you to, you'd never kiss her, I +know. Why, we three cousins, Sheldon, Mac and I, have tried every way to +get her to kiss us for years, and never succeeded. You're a lucky dog!" + +"He's my husband, Harry;" and she laid her head down on Ross's arm. + +"Don't, Percy!" said her cousin with a quick motion of his hand: "I'll be +gone soon;" then hurriedly and gayly: "Let me do the honors of your new +domains. And, Norval, I have a great favor to ask of you. My little +cousin's _amour propre_ won't be touched, or herself involved now she's a +married woman, by taking an honest gift from me, and all brides take +bridal gifts, you know. I want you to let me give her all the traps I've +left in the rooms. It isn't much grace to ask, old fellow, seeing you're +to have her always and I not at all." + +"Why, certainly, Barton, I have no objections if she has none." + +"Percy, you've never let me give you anything all these years, you proud +little soul, nor any of the rest of us: you've come scot-free from all our +endeavors to snare you through all your hard-working life. You won't go +quite empty-handed to your husband's arms, just to plague me, will you?" + +"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them +once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they +began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole +suite!" + +"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you +Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines +among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?" + +As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had +regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little +reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about +him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying, +"May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered +her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!" + +As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old +Hal--promise me this!" + +"Anything, everything, Percy," he said. + +"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg." + +"I will, I will, since you wish it." + +She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet +kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!" + +He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace, +then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of +the house without a word. + +Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for +him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?" + +"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?" + +"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his +life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave +him reason." + +"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and +handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it, +child." + +"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed +her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think, +and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an +instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one +half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should +have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking +laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of +opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light manner gone, she +added: "You are very, very good to me, Ross. He would never have been so +patient of my old griefs and lost loves. I told you my masculine cousins +were always crying for the grapes that hung out of their reach, you know." +Then suddenly growing grave: "Oh, Ross, it was not my fault: I could not +help it. I think the boys got to pitying me because they thought my life +was hard, and because their sisters treated me very cruelly sometimes. +Then my uncles very foolishly ordained that I should teach their sons +their Latin and help them with their studies. So out of school-hours my +time was mostly spent with one or the other, or all of them. Sheldon +Wilber and I are of the same age, and having been my father's constant +companion, I was better up in all his studies than he was himself; so I +used to do his college lessons with him, until he got to thinking, as he +used to say, I was his very breath. Then afterward I gave the other two +the benefit of what we had studied, got them out of scrapes, and indeed, +being with them so much, kept them out. Don't let's talk about them any +more, Ross: I have 'fessed' all now." + +"Not all, my sweet: you have not told me who it is that has shut your +heart from us all." + +"Don't, Ross!" and she shrank away from him as if he had struck her a +blow. + +"Ah, well, my wife, keep your secret: I'll not touch your sacred past. +I'll try to learn to be content with my little sister, thankful I have so +much." + +"Oh, Ross, my good, kind Ross!" and she clasped her arms around his neck +in passionate, longing regret, "if I might tell you all--if I might!" + +"Tell me nothing, dear, you would rather keep. I am infinitely content to +even have you thus, and know you love me somewhat. Yes, I know, sweet," he +said with a sad smile as she kissed his hand in passionate regret--"the +very best you can, with all the heart you have. I know, I know!" + +Quite late in the evening, Sheldon Wilber came. After sitting an hour or +so, talking gayly, he rose to go. When they were standing he said, "Percy, +I had just left the Flemmings before I came in here." + +"Had you? I hope they are all well, especially Miss Lizzie, who is so +pretty." + +"They're all well enough. She--Miss Lizzie the pretty--is going to be +married." + +"To be married!--to whom?" she asked. + +"To my honorable self: don't you congratulate her?"--with a bitter laugh. +"I asked her to-night if she'd have me, and she said 'Yes.'" + +"I am so glad, Sheldon--so very glad!" and she held out her hand. + +"Are you? It's more than anyone else is but my mother. Well, no--I suppose +the Flemmings are, to get another daughter off their hands, and she to +have a safe man to pay her bills. And of course all our cousins and +sisters will be glad to have another house to dance the German in; so it +is rather a jubilee occasion, taking it all in all." + +"Oh, Sheldon, how hard and bitter you are! She loves you, I know, and the +rest think you will be happier with a good wife to care for." + +"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but _vive +la bagatelle!_ I want to know when I am to tie this knot?" + +"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered. + +"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when _I_ choose." + +Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife, +and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her." + +He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by +letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know +you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of +us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old +fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will +make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the +little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with +you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe +will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll +never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow +took himself away. + +"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was +conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so." + +"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman +would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women. +And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one +choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a +second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you." + +She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate +from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said +hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly. +If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's +early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere, +because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first. +It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way." + +"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to +go anywhere where you are not." + +"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go +to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I +feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm +unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home +with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this +talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and +her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep +from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed +emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs, +while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross! +please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove +by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at +length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had +appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as +a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist +his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them. + +The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an +agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many +hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as +a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines, +and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found +Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table +exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling +in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and +the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly +air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery. + +"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps +house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are +nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss +as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of +linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous +manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old +place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know, +Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's +housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old +mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and +visit me." + +Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair +which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire," +she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the +look upon his face and came to his side. "What were you thinking of, +Ross?" she asked, anxiously. + +"What a little tornado you were, for the first thing, and how I liked +seeing you busy among our household gods; also and moreover, that you had +not given me a chance to say a word; and worst of all, that you had never +given me my kiss of welcome, my rightful perquisite." Instantly she held +up her face. "Ah, pet, you are always submissive; but never aggressive: +still, this is sweet. And I was wondering what had become of the weeping +willow I left." + +"Wasn't I a silly goose, Ross?" she said, a little breathlessly. + +"Well, no, dear: you were very nervous and worn-out." + +"I hate nervous, fidgety women so: they're detestable with their whims." + +"I did not find you so, but I'm glad you're over it, all the same." + +"And so am I. You could not make me cry like that again, Ross, if you were +to pinch me." + +"But I did not make you cry." + +"Yes you did, though. In truth, I was unstrung, and you were so kind and +unlike what any one had ever been to me before, so different from what I +had expected when we were married "--and her lips quivered--"that it +touched me to the quick." + +"Why, darling, did you think I was going to be a brute to you?" + +"I thought you would be nothing to me, one way or the other--simply forget +me, and be utterly indifferent so long as I kept your clothes made and +mended, and did not bother you about my wants or tastes or opinions." + +A flush came over his face at the truth of her words. It would have been +just so had he found her what he expected her to be; but he said, "I don't +think any one could treat you like that, little girl." Then, while they +ate their dinner, he told her of his day's doings and of his determination +for the future: "I have a good opening--no man better. I mean to attend to +my practice hereafter, make a name and fortune for my sweetheart, and in a +few years we'll go to Europe and see the sights. Ah, Percy, such a vista, +such a new life, such a bright future, as I see opening before me! But, +first of all, I am going shopping with you, young lady, to-morrow. I have +ordered a carriage at eleven, and we'll buy all those pretty fixings you +women doat on. Do you know, little bride, I think all my vanity is going +to take the form of having you more prettily dressed than your cousins, +mine ancient flames when I was a bad boy?" + +"Oh, Ross," with a little laugh, "you can't do it: you can't make a rival +specimen out of your bad bargain. Nothing will make me a beauty." + +"Don't, Percy! I do like beauty. I have run after and made a fool of +myself for years over pretty women, but I like your face, just as it is, +better than any other woman's face I ever knew. If I could change you any +way, I would not do it. Your face is beautiful to me, though I know it is +not a pretty one: you are like sunlight to me." His voice shook, and he +strained her slight form to him with a clasp that was positive pain. "I +said I would not change you, but I would if I might put that old love out +of your heart for ever. Why, in those far-off years when we were childish +friends, did I not know my truest life lay in winning you? It is strange! +I have never failed to gain the love I wanted until now, when I want the +only one that would complete my life. Dear Percy, love me all you can. If +there are things in me--and I know there are many--which turn you from me, +tell me of them and I will change them if I can." + +"Oh, Ross, don't, don't! I am not worthy of such words." + +"Oh, little Preciosa, I am glad to have even a little of your heart: the +half of your love has come to be more to me than the love of all the world +besides." + +Do you think it was not agony for her to hear such words as these and make +no response to them, fearing lest with assurance should come satiety? And +yet the knowledge of his growing love was very sweet to her, and worth the +agony. + +They settled down in their new home, and were purposely "out" to all +callers during the next month--then returned the cards that had been left +for them. As they grew accustomed to their new life, she thought to see +his pleasure and interest in it wane as the novelty wore away, but it was +not so. That love of home which is, after all, the truest test of a really +manly nature, seemed to grow upon him. It was always so bright and cheery +by their cozy fire, the glare of public rooms, the noise and glitter of +theatres and concert-rooms, struck him with a feeling akin to disgust, +after the soft, subdued light of his home, and his wife's merry, breezy +voice. He sang and played for her, never giving a thought to her having +any musical ability, since she never touched the instrument. He read to +her hour after hour, having at last discovered her taste and ability to +understand the kind of books he relished, perfectly content if she would +favor him by sitting near enough to him to let him pull down that wealth +of "tresses brown," a glossy cloud about her. + +Of course this Arcadian life could not continue in the very heart of +Sodom. Society was not going to lose Ross Norval if he _had_ made a fool +of himself and married a little nobody. So callers flowed in upon them, +and Ross, having in boyish glee arrayed himself in purple and fine linen, +took her in state to see his friends. + +Of course her cousins and their friends hated her: she had won their +_bonne louche_, and the crimson of her plainness and poverty, of the +having to "have Percy always around to please Uncle Rufus," was pink to +the enormity of her being Ross Norval's wife. And "why he married her," +and "of course he's dead tired of her by this time," were their politest +surmises. + +One morning they paid a cousinly visit--a triple call. "And, by Jove!" +thought Ross as he watched her haughty little face and _nonchalant_ +manner, "she's no milk-and-water nature, though she's always so +sweet-tempered with me. She's got all the temper a true nature ought to +have." + +"To think of your ever getting married, Percy, and to Mr. Norval, of all +men!" said Miss Leta Wilber. "Why, we thought him engaged to the beauty +and belle of last winter, Miss Agnes Lorton." + +"Well, yes, Leta, old girls like you and I are rather off the cards: we +don't expect to catch the prizes generally--we leave that for these +younger ones, like Jennie and Lucille," said Percy, coolly. + +"A Roland for your Oliver, Leta!" laughed Jennie Wayne. "I never venture +to break a lance with Percy: she always has an arrow in reserve to pierce +you with. I suppose you've found that out, Mr. Norval?" + +"Found what out? I fear I don't follow you, Miss Jennie," said he. + +"That she's very able to take her own part, this little cousin of ours," +said she, her beautiful face scarlet at his manner. + +"Is she, though? Well, I like that amazingly, do you know?" + +"Like ill-tempered people?" said Miss Leta, snappishly. "Is it possible?" + +"Ill-tempered people?" with a wellbred stare. (Is there such a thing?) +"No, indeed! Why, birdie"--and he leaned over, and, taking her hand, +raised it to his lips--"to think of any one calling you ill-tempered!" + +"You silly boy!" laughed she. "I'll take my hand if you please, and don't +you believe but what you've married a termagant." + +The girls said afterward, in recounting the scene, it was simply +disgusting. Leta vowed, "The little baggage must be a witch and throw +spells over people. Look what fools she's made of our boys for years, and +Ross Norval, with all his splendid endowments, is just as bad." + +"And he did use to admire your form, Leta," said Jennie, maliciously. +"I've seen him waltz you until it was hard to tell which face that long +blonde moustache belonged to." + +"Ditto, cousin, and worse, if gossips speak the truth. But don't let's say +ugly things to each other. We both hoped to win him once, and we have both +lost him. The little wretch will watch him like a hawk, and never let him +come near a body." + +"Oh dear!" said her sister Laura, "if I only knew I was to do a German +with him to-night, I'd be happy: he holds one better than any man I know; +and if Percy will let him dance with a body occasionally, I'd as leave she +should have him as the rest of you." + +"Unless he'd chosen yourself, Laura, I suppose?" + +"Well, yes, that would have made a difference, even to my laziness, +especially if she'd have made dear old Harry stay at home by marrying +him." + +That's the way they talked, yet in a couple of weeks after each house had +sent her an invitation to a large party--"for you and Mr. Norval, dear +Percy"--and the invitation-cards stated the fact. + +"It's my Viking they want," laughed she: "they take his mouse in for the +sake of securing him. He's such a credit to the family!" + +"Well, it's your Viking they won't get," said he. + +"Now, Ross, don't be a bother, dear, and complicate matters. They will +say--and be glad of the chance--that it's my fault. You've such a passion +for dancing, they will say I prevented your coming. And besides, as I +dance so little, you'll ask them as much as ever?" + +"How do you know I am so fond of it, Percy?" + +"I've watched you too many years not to know that. You forget that, though +a flower unnoticed and unseen--a very wall-flower in fact--I have been a +looker-on in Vienna. I might have made a point of that, Ross, if I'd +thought in time, and 'hung i' the walls of Venice, a sightly flower.' You +were the bright particular star, or sun, in whose light all the fairest +flowers disported themselves. Why, I could tell you every woman--that is, +of your own set--you've been what Jennie calls 'bad about,' for years." He +held up his hand deprecatingly: she laughed gayly. "Never fear. I don't +intend to name them: I have not time to go over such a thing of shreds and +patches. Ah! the hopes I've watched you raise to heaven and then dash to +earth!" + +"Oh, Percy, I don't wonder that you are afraid to trust me now: I am +paying the penalty of my years of folly." + +"That's nonsense, Ross. I don't believe in fashionable women's hearts. You +were too good for them, and they led you on always," she said, almost +passionately. + +"That's my good darling trying to excuse her sinner. But how was it you +never danced at any of those parties? Harry and Mac are both good dancers, +and Sheldon's the best waltzer I ever saw. How is it you never danced with +them?" + +"With them, indeed! Why, that would have been an aggravation past enduring +to my rich relations. Sheldon had actually the insolence to tell his +sister Leta that I was the best waltzer in society. Think of the prize +you've got, young man!" + +"I do always, sweetheart," he said, answering her gay tone with a grave +one. "Did you waltz much with Sheldon and the others?" + +"I never waltzed with any of them in my life. Why, Ross, I never let them +speak to me at parties, except by turns to take me out to supper and +home." + +"But how have you managed to keep up your waltzing then?" + +"Oh, Mr. Vanity, men are not all. Esther and I waltzed constantly: then I +used to help Lucille, who is my favorite cousin, 'along in her paces;' and +the children at our school-parties doat on me as a partner. Would you like +to know who was the last man, and indeed almost the only one, I ever went +round a room with?" and her face turned crimson, though she laughed. + +"Indeed I should--curse him!" he said under his breath. + +"Your honorable self, at Madame's school-party;" and she sprang away from +his outstretched hands with a mocking laugh. + +The day of the party she wrote a few little violet-perfumed notes, and +sent them off. This is a specimen: + + "DEAR DOCTOR: You have so often wanted to know your 'nebulous child,' + and been indignant that she hid her face from you behind her veil of + clouds, you will be pleased to know that the sunshine has dispelled the + clouds, and made her at last able to meet the starry train of which you + are the sun. Will you greet Ross Norval's bride at the Wilber party + to-night as the child you have trained and been so good to in the past, + and who, ever honoring you, is still your loving child for the future? + If you'll ask me prettily to-night, I'll sing the foolish words I made + for the sweet, tripping Languedoc air you sent me last year. I am, now + and ever, + + "MIRA CANAM." + +In consequence of these notes, when Ross led his wife into the room, +arrayed in a crimson cloud of his choosing, which made even her brown face +a picture, all her bronze hair, her husband's glory, floating round her +far below her waist, confined lightly here and there by diamond clusters, +which sparkled like stars amidst its creped luxuriance--"Daring to dress +in the very height of the fashion," said Leta, "and all those diamonds on +her--his mother's, of course;" and of course they were--the consequence, I +say, was, that first one distinguished man and then another met her with a +warm greeting--"deucedly warm," thought the jealous fellow, who was so +uncertain of her yet, and wanted all of her--and were introduced to "my +husband." Taking for granted that "my husband" was glad to get her off his +hands, they took possession of her, to his infinite disgust. + +These were the men with whom she could talk, whose minds struck diamond +flashes from her own, whose thoughts she had followed for years, and who +looked upon her as their peer, and deferred to her opinion on many things. +And she, knowing Ross was her amazed listener, was stirred to do her best +before him--glad her triumph over her relatives should be in his presence +and brought to her through his means. It may not have been a lovely thing +in her to desire or enjoy a victory, but ah! it is so natural, and my +little heroine had had hard lines meted out to her for years. Besides, no +woman is free, you know, from vanity: only men are that. + +She stood near the door of the dancing-room. Ross came to her after every +dance, but it was always, "Not me yet, Ross--Leta, or Jennie," or whoever +stood nearest her. Even the girl to whom report had given him (with +reason) the year before was, at her open entreaty, which he could not +evade, his partner; but half the time he stood beside her, forgetful of +the dance in listening to the conversation in which she bore so large a +part. + +A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing +hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last +waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor, +who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss +Jennie Barton and her cousin Laura gave a sweet duo, in rather a tearing +style, Jennie being a fast young lady everyhow; another lady sang a +Scottish ballad as if it had been manipulated by Verdi; then one of the +gentlemen said, "Mr. Norval, I hope you will lay your commands on your +wife to sing for us." + +"_I_ hope that will not be needed," he said, bowing (thinking with a pang, +"They all know her better than I do"). "I am sure she will do equally well +if we all beg the favor of her." + +"She has promised me to sing," said Dr. B----, "my pretty Languedoc air, +which she has--" + +"Now that's enough, you foolish old doctor!" and she went to the piano. +"Foolish old doctor!" He was the great gun of the scientific world: the +people about looked aghast at such impertinence, but the "great gun" only +laughed and said, "I am mute if you command." + +How her hands trembled as she began! This was her last and greatest card: +by it she had always felt she must hold him to her for ever, or lose her +husband's love in time. She had never touched the piano before him or sung +a note, but much of her leisure since their return to New York had been +taken up, when he was out, in keeping herself in practice against the time +when she should have a chance to play for him and sing to him. She played +the sweet air, with its Mozart-like, mournful cadences, entirely through +ere she felt nerved enough to begin. Then she sang in such a voice as made +the most indifferent pause--a voice that was like purple velvet for +richness, as sweet as the breath of an heliotrope to which the sun had +just said adieu, as clear as the notes of an English skylark--this little +song: + + "See, love! the rosy radiance gleams + Athwart the sunset sky: + List, love! and hear the bird's sweet notes + In lingering cadence die. + Clasp, love, thy clinging hands in mine, + And, holding fast by me, + Trust, love! I will be true, my dove, + Be ever true to thee-- + So true, sweetheart, I'll be, + Sweetheart, to thee! + + "Come, love! I waiting pine so long, + And weary watch for thee: + Dear love! amidst my darkest night + Thy star-like face I see. + Heart's love! ah, come thou close to me: + I'll shelter thee from harms, + From every foe or secret woe, + Close clasped within my arms: + Lie safe from all alarms, + Sweetheart, with me." + +While they listened to her, those careless men and women, they thought +they began to understand why this little, plain girl had won Ross Norval. +While everybody praised her, he stood utterly silent, too moved for words +she saw, and refusing to sing again, she went up to him as the band began +to play. "My waltz, Ross," she said. He put his arm around her with a +loving gesture that made those about them smile, and whirled her off. + +"He's the hardest hit man I've seen for years," said one. + +"And that such a thing should come to pass, as Ross Norval in love with +his own wife, is beyond belief--after making love to everybody else's!" + +"That's it! He was always the darling of fortune: the choicest fruit +always dropped his side the wall." + +But Ross, as he held her in that "tight hold" which was so much admired by +his partners, said only, "Percy! Percy! I do not know you at all. How +cruel you are to me! Everybody knows you and your gifts but me." + +When the German had commenced he came to her and whispered, "Do you care +for it?" + +"The German, Ross? Indeed no: I am tired too, and was just coming to ask +you if I might let old Mr. L---- take me home: he says it will be no +trouble." + +"And you would not have asked me to take you?" he said, reproachfully. + +"Take you away from the German, Ross! Such an unheard-of thing as that! +You must think me very selfish. Indeed; I am not where your pleasure is +concerned: I only want you to enjoy yourself." + +"Then, for Charity's sake, let's go home," he said. + +"With all my heart if you really wish it!" and she started; then pausing: +"Are you going because you think I want to go? I do not indeed: I will +stay gladly." + +"I am going because I want to--because I am dead tired, and long, with a +perfect passion, for our cozy room, the dim firelight, and my darling +toasting her pretty slippers." + +"You dear, foolish Ross!" and she was gone like the wind. On their way +out, Sheldon Wilber met them in the hall, and, handing her something, +said, "To-night, little girl: if you have ever doubted, doubt no more. And +remember, a trusting heart is a priceless one;" and he was gone. + +When they were home and comfortable, Ross said, "My wife, it was cruel to +let me learn your wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me +cruelly." + +"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had +hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and +now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I +could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think +I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped +it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet +to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and +steadfastly into his eyes. + +"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song +you sang." + +She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is _your_ love-song, dear--your very +own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you _all_ about myself now, +Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you +pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing +protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason +those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his +embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I +translated from the German, others from the old Provençal tongue, with +which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did +this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they +had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade +them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by +his name, feared nothing any more." + +"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all +hope of winning you when I learn these things of you." + +"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike +literary women." + +But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your +endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all +else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it. +Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out +of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!" + +She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss +on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her, +"Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you +to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face +upon his breast and tremblingly waited while he read it. It ran thus: + + "Sheldon, my cousin, it can never be: give up all hope for ever. I kill + it now, because it is best you should know the truth. I almost give up + my life, my cousin, when I make my heritage of woe known to you. You + will pity me, Sheldon, when you realize what agony the confession you + thus wring from me gives my heart. But if it cures your passion it is + not borne in vain. I love with an undying love, a faith that knows no + change, an endurance that years of neglect have not weakened, that years + of cruelty could never change, a man who would laugh to scorn my very + name. I love--and have loved since I was sixteen years old, until + now--Ross Norval. Keep my secret. + + "PERCY HASTINGS." + +It was dated four years back. + +"Ross, Ross! you know it now! Oh, my love! my love!" + + * * * * * + +I will attempt no painting of the effect that confession had upon him. But +after a long, long time she whispered, "I will sing the last verse of your +song, dear, which only you shall ever hear." And lying on his breast, she +sang-- + + "Dear love I thy face above me gleaming + A sunset radiance gives: + Ah, love! thy tones' sweet cadence dying + Sings in my heart and lives. + Clasped, love, close to thy heart, thy birdling + Foldeth her wings in peace-- + Trusts, love! feeling nor cold nor shadow, + Finding at last her ease, + From fear a safe release, + Heart's love, with thee." + +MARGRET FIELD. + + + + +The Victims of Dreams. + + + +My friend Bessie Haines had no mother, but her father was such a very +large man that I remember thinking, when I was quite a child, that a kind +Providence had intended to make up her loss in that way. She and I did not +live in the same city, but managed to keep up a lively friendship through +the medium of correspondence and half-yearly visits. + +I was a complete orphan, and my uncle, with whom I lived, was her father's +attached friend. She had a very happy home, and I was glad to enjoy it +with her, particularly when my uncle accompanied me, for then her father +and he became absorbed in each other, and left us to our own devices--not +very evil ones, but too childish and trifling to claim the sympathy of +such very grave men as they were. + +We had both become tall, womanly girls, but Uncle Pennyman and Mr. Haines +called us children, and treated us as such; and Bessie was just writing to +me about her father's telling her she must begin to think of serious +things, when my uncle remarked to me that the time was approaching when I +should prepare myself to assume the duties and responsibilities of a +rational female. Just as if we had waited to be told this, when in fact +Bessie and I had been consulting about our bonnets and dresses in the most +grave and mature manner for years past, and arranging our future on plans +that for variety and agreeability could not have been surpassed had we +been brought up on the _Arabian Nights_ and Moore's _Poems_, instead of +Baxter's _Saint's Rest_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_. + +"There are several questions of vital importance that have been growing +daily stronger in my mind," said my uncle Pennyman. "My friend Thomas +Haines has a gift in clearing points and expounding meanings; so that I +feel it to be for my mind's edifying and my soul's profit to go to him for +counsel." + +I was delighted to hear this. I wanted to see Bessie, and I blessed the +bond that united these good brothers in Israel and drew us together so +often. Mr. Haines was good at texts, and my uncle was wonderfully expert +at dreams. Mr. Haines was a great dreamer, and my uncle constantly +stumbled over passages needing elucidation. So we lived in harmonious +intercourse, and Bessie and I talked of all our plans and delights while +they got themselves entangled in obscurities with a commentary under each +arm. + +It would have appeared, from Mr. Haines' dreams, that Bessie's mother had +been a most fussy and bothering lady, though I was told by the +housekeeper, who knew her well, that she was the mildest and most timid of +little wives while living. + +According to these visions, she was constantly troubled in her spiritual +state on the greatest variety of small subjects; and my expert uncle, in +expounding her communications, was always able to draw from them strong +religious lessons, and to administer much strengthening comfort to his +friend the dreamer. + +"I was hoping papa would soon have a vision," said Bessie when we were +settled together all comfortably, and she had told me how glad she was to +see me again. "Mrs. Tanner said last week that she was sure he was going +to have another, because the spire which he felt he was directed in his +last dream to put on the little chapel was all complete, and the +missionary outfit which he had believed himself called upon to provide was +ready and gone to the South Seas, and he naturally looked for more work. +When he said last week, 'Bessie, I have sent for Brother Pennyman +concerning a visitation in the night,' I was so glad, for, Winnie +dear--would you believe it?--I have been dreaming too, and I want you to +tell me if I have read my dream aright." + +Now, this was the most wonderful thing that Bessie Haines could have told +me--the most startling and least to be expected altogether; for if ever +there was a wide-awake girl, it was she. + +I suppose my perfectly frank stare said as much, for she blushed a little, +and continued with a very suspicious flutter, which I had learnt, in the +case of young engaged persons I knew, to look on as a bad symptom: + +"I do not mean dreaming with my eyes shut, you know, but having deep, +serious thoughts, unlike the gay fancies that have held me captive all my +life." + +"Dress trimmings and poetry?" I suggested. + +"Yes, yes--all the useless, perishable fancies of thoughtless youth," she +replied. + +This sounded more like an Essay on Vanity than Bessie Haines, and I really +was astonished, and had nothing to say for a little while, during which +she, being full of her subject, went on: + +"I can scarcely trace the beginning of the--the awakening, shall I call +it?" + +"You called it a dream before." + +"Yes, dear Winnie, but it is so hard to know how to classify new emotions, +and this is such a peculiar one that it seems nameless. You know papa +feels bound, ever since that water-dream he had, to go down to the +Mariners' Chapel on Sunday afternoon, and I used to read solemn poetry +when it was too warm or too cold to go with him. Well, about two months +ago it was fearfully warm, and papa had come home a fortnight earlier from +the shore, on account of a suspicion he had that he had dreamed something +and had forgotten it as soon as he awoke. This indistinct warning made him +think we had better go home at all events, and home we came the first week +in September, to the roasting, dusty city. But I did not then know that I +was perhaps drawn back for a purpose; and oh, dear Winnie, there may be +something in papa's visions, after all." + +"He has had a good many of them," I said. + +"So he has," assented Bessie; "and I was inclined to be impatient at this +one, since it brought me home in the heat, and the house seemed so lonely, +because Mrs. Tanner was still in the country with her married daughter." + +"She having received no spectral warning," I hinted. + +"Oh dear! no. Mrs. Tanner never dreams: she's opposed to it. Well, the +first Sunday was so warm that I took up _Solemn Thoughts in Verse_ instead +of the Mariners'; and after I had read eight pages, it really seemed as if +I had better have tried the heat out of doors, it was getting so gloomy +within. So I got up and dressed, meaning to walk out and meet papa, and +return with him. I don't know whether it was the _Solemn Thoughts_ that +confused me, or whether I was not paying attention, but I actually lost my +way by turning at the wrong corner, and so came down Barton street toward +a little chapel that I had often noticed before. Two dreadfully red-faced +and short-haired little boys were at the entrance by the small iron gate. +They had disagreed about something, I suppose, just as I came up, and they +instantly began to fight, with the wickedest determination visible in +their freckled little faces. At first, they kicked at each other, and +growled out some awful words without the least sense, but with a great +deal of profanity in them, and then they laid down their little books and +tracts, and apparently tried to pull each other's head off. Of course it +made me quite wretched to see them hurt each other in that shocking way, +and so I interfered and tried to reconcile them, but the naughty little +souls must have had a certain amount of kicking and scratching on hand to +dispose of, for they united in bestowing it all on me the moment I came +between them. + +"I was just trying to save my dress and lace sacque from their boots and +claws, when a reverend gentleman appeared at the door, and the bad boys +became sneaking cowards at sight of him. I picked up their little tracts, +while he tried to apologize for them; and it was so sad, Winnie, to think +that those dear children had not profited by their lessons: one was called +'Love One Another,' and the other, 'Be Meek and Lowly.' + +"While we were talking a lady joined us, and I went into the school at +their invitation. + +"Winnie, do you know anything practical about Sunday-school?" + +"I went to one, and was for years in the class of an elderly maiden lady +who urged us all to learn Scripture and hymns. I was so expert and high in +favor that I could repeat forty verses at a time as glibly as a parrot." + +"But I don't quite mean that sort of thing," said Bessie. "I mean a real, +earnest teaching-place, where children are gathered in and told all about +Christ's love and mercy--where they are softened and won to better +thoughts and kinder actions, and their poor little minds filled with +shining truth, instead of street dirt and abuse." + +"I never thought about it before, but such an institution could not help +being a popular one, and a very useful one too," I confessed. + +"Oh, I am so glad, so very glad, that you approve, dear, for I am engaged +in that work; and I did not want to write it to you, for somehow it seemed +so strange for such a thoughtless, silly girl as I have been to attempt +such a serious thing." + +"As teaching in a Sunday-school?" + +"Yes, in a sort of mission school for little scholars of the lower +classes. Miss Mary Pepper and I have at this time nearly two hundred boys +and girls of all ages, and some of them are very interesting and lovable, +while others are--" + +"Like the two gladiators who introduced you to the scene?" + +"Yes. I am afraid there are quite a number of that kind; but, Winnie, you +must like Miss Mary Pepper. Oh, she is one of the most excellent women I +ever knew, so truly, so nobly, so devotedly good. You cannot imagine what +a comfort it is to me to be with her--to feel that I am under her +influence, and may learn from her to be a little like her." + +"Miss Mary Pepper?" I repeated: "then she is a young lady?" + +"No--not young: indeed, she is rather elderly." + +"An old maid," I remarked, coldly. "She is pretty and sweet, though faded, +I suppose." + +"Why, no--not to look at: her nature is beautiful, but her manner and +figure are rather--rather unprepossessing at first." + +"A stiff, hard, straight-laced old maid," I said, contemptuously. "Well, +really, I cannot see the fascination--" + +Bessie's face flushed painfully: "I confess that dear Miss Pepper's person +is not so beautiful as her nature, but, Winnie, it is the cause of doing +good and trying to be good that draws us together so closely; and of +course I do not love her as I love you, my dear, precious first friend." + +These last words were full of balm, for of course it was the sting of +jealousy that had made my heart resent the venerable Pepper's powerful +influence over my dear Bessie. Being once assured that it was a +second-rate power, and that I still held my supremacy, I entered into the +Sunday-school question like a second Raikes, and volunteered to help, and +try to learn the way to the young hearts that beat under the pugilistic +exterior of the juveniles of Canon lane, where the mission chapel was. + +Then, having become one on this serious subject, we began to wonder what +Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the +verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made his +latest stumble. + +"Mrs. Tanner thinks it was something about a journey, and she is quite out +of sorts on the subject: for, as she says, the house can't be shut up +without worriment, and as to staying in it alone she really has not got +the nerve." + +"I do not think that Uncle Pennyman will interpret it that way, because he +cannot go too, as he is at present very deep in the minor prophets, and +has fallen out of humor with all the commentaries." + +"I am so glad!" said Bessie, placidly--"so glad, I mean, that we need not +go: I think every one must find his life-work at home." + +I stared a little at this, because I knew that only a few months before +Bessie Haines had wanted very much to find style and fashion abroad; but I +remembered the Sunday-school, and tried to be as serious and convinced as +I could; and to that end I talked a good deal of church interests, and the +prophecies, and _Light in Obscurity_, a new work which had utterly +confused me at the first chapter, but which I had read through to Uncle +Pennyman one warm July day when he stayed at home to keep Tom's birth-day. + +That reminds me: I have not mentioned Tom, but as he was away at college, +and Bessie never seemed to like to talk of him--I'm sure I can't see +why--it is quite natural that he slipped out of my memory. + +He was a ward of Uncle Pennyman, who called him his son, and indeed had +adopted him formally. + +How two such opposite people ever came to love each other as they did, I +never can explain. It was not a natural, commonplace affection: it was a +strong, deep, earnest love, as firm in the hearts of both as the life that +caused their throbbings. + +Tom was wild and full of frolic: if there is a graver word than gravity, +it should be used to describe Uncle Pennyman's demeanor. Tom was quick and +restless by nature, but his good sense and determination to make a niche +for himself in life, and fill it respectably, had toned down his exuberant +spirits into active energy; while Uncle Penny man's naturally slow +tendencies had become aggravated by the ponderous character of his +pursuits and tastes: all hurry was obnoxious to him, and he firmly +believed that haste was another name for sin. Yet the solemn, slow old man +loved the busy, merry young one, and neither saw any fault or failing in +the other. + +There was no earthly relationship between Thomas Gray Pennyman and me, and +yet I was always spoken of as his sister by my dear, worrying old uncle. +Tom did not seem to like it, and I knew I did not. + +People often said to me, "What a splendid brother you have, Miss Pennyman +but what a pity that all these handsome brothers have to be given up to +stronger ties!" + +How utterly silly! I never had any patience with such nonsense. + +There was not much comfort in talking to Bessie about him. I'm sure I do +not know why, but I suppose she saw that I avoided the subject; so I was +really quite surprised when she said to me, laughing and looking a little +mischievous-- + +"Mr. Tom is to join us by and by, your uncle says. I hope we may be able +to make it pleasant for him. I believe he likes Mrs. Tanner: he used to +like her buns when he was a boy, and I hope he has not forgotten the +fancy." + +Tom coming to visit the Haines! Such a thing had never happened before, +and must mean something now. I began to feel quite uneasy, though I really +could not have explained why. + +We never had much of my uncle's or Mr. Haines' society except in the +evening: they spent the day going about together and worrying texts of +Scripture with other good old men, before whom Mr. Haines liked to show +off uncle's Bible knowledge. They took some pious excursions in company, +and had a solemnly festive time, I have no doubt, for they always came in +looking perfectly satisfied with the result of their day. + +It generally took some time to hear the dream and find its proper +interpretation. While it was pending the expounder generally gave out his +puzzling verses, and then both pondered a good while before they arrived +at their conclusions and made them known. + +Both the dream and the text must have been of an unusually difficult +nature this time, for a whole week went by without either transpiring; and +although Bessie and I watched for some allusions to them in our morning +and evening family worship, at which the two good men officiated +alternately, yet not a hint could we gain until one night at the end of +the week it seemed from Uncle Pennyman's prayer that the matter in some +wise referred to Bessie, since Divine guidance was sought under many +rhetorical forms for the welfare, future and temporal, of "the young +handmaiden, the daughter of thy servant, who would fain know thy will +concerning her." + +"Bessie," said I that night, when we got up stairs, "I think I have found +out what your father's last dream was: I solemnly believe that he means to +send you out as a missionary." + +Now I thought I had said something calculated to make Bessie turn pale and +gasp, but I could scarcely believe it when I looked up, expecting to find +her almost fainting, and saw her pensively, but by no means alarmedly, +shaking her head. + +"I am not devoted enough, Winnie, love," she remarked. "I have not the +grand self-abnegating spirit necessary for such a work. No; mine is a home +field." + +If I had not known about the young warriors of Canon lane, I should have +thought her demented: as it was, I could scarcely wait for the next day, +which was Sunday, to be introduced to the scene which had already produced +such a marked change in her character and tastes. + +It transpired during breakfast that Uncle Pennyman's peace had been +disturbed by a verse in the book of Nahum, that talked about the lions and +lionesses, and their whelps and prey, in what appeared to him a mysterious +manner. Mr. Haines, who was a dear, good man, elaborated it so that we all +felt as if we had made a visit to the Zoological Gardens, and afterward +been carried into Babylonish captivity. My uncle followed his words with a +brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed and +long-syllabled, he would exclaim softly, + +"It is a great gift! a great gift!" and seem really overcome with the +magnitude of his friend's powers. + +I never saw any harm in Uncle Pennyman's texts: they never worried any one +but himself; though I must confess that verse about Ephraim being a cake +not turned affected us a little. But that was because he had the ague, and +Mr. Haines was attending some kind of convention; and what with the +chills, and that unexplained cake of Ephraim's, we were kept a little +uncomfortable for a time. + +But Mr. Haines' visions were perplexing: no one could tell where their +signification might point; and this sending for Tom (of course he would +never have thought of coming if he had not been sent for) made me quite +uneasy. + +I began to fear that this would be the first time I had ever gone to see +Bessie without enjoying the visit; and as we walked along to Canon Lane +Chapel together, her manner was so absent and fluttered that I really did +not know what to do. + +"It is a delightful and meritorious thing to be pious, no doubt," I said +to myself, "but it has not improved the manner of my dear Bessie: on the +contrary, I should say it has entirely shaken her nerves, and given her +palpitation of the heart." + +When we reached the chapel we found quite a number and variety of youths +already collected around the door, and when we went into a large and airy +room, well lighted and filled with seats, a goodly selection awaited us +there. + +A lady stood on a small platform with a bell in her hand: she had a large, +bony figure, and a long, bony face, and turned her eyes toward us without +changing their expression into any beam of recognition, as she used her +voice without any softening tone or tender cadence whatever: + +"Miss Haines, good-afternoon. Mary Bryan, where's your brother? John Mott, +you have dropped your tract. Miss Pennyman, glad to see you. Sarah Harper, +give your sister a seat." + +Bessie had pushed me on her attention between the monotonous sentences she +jerked out at her scholars, and she gave me five words just like the rest, +and dropped me off again. + +Bessie seemed to become calmer after she had looked around the room once +in a hasty, fluttered way, and placing a chair for me, she threw herself +energetically into her philanthropic work. + +I never knew before what a serious thing it was to be a Sunday-school +teacher, or how varied the requirements for such duty were. Thirst seemed +to be a prevailing agony among the scholars, and it seized its victims as +an epidemic does--without warning. They would just reach their seats and +drop into them listlessly, or gain them by energetic contest with some +previous intruder, and after an empty stare around them would be taken +with a sudden pang, expressed in writhing, shaking the right hand wildly +and gasping, "Teacher, I want a drink! I want a drink!" + +Then they were subject to a terrible vacillation on the subject of their +hats: they would almost consign them to the care of a monitor appointed to +hang them on the pegs made and provided, when a sense of their +preciousness would suddenly present itself to their minds, and they would +rescue them wildly, and throw themselves on the defensive while they sat +upon or otherwise protected the contested article of dress. + +There were six windows with broad sills in the room, and every child +seemed beset with a passionate desire to leave its seat and lodge itself +in a surreptitious manner on one of these perches, as if they had been +posts of honor. + +Whether bits of bright tin, glass bottle-stoppers, ends of twine, broken +sticks and marbles were accessions to biblical instruction, or were only +so considered by the pupils themselves, did not transpire, but poor Bessie +seemed to find them stumbling-blocks in her path, and Miss Pepper had no +sooner confiscated one lot than another appeared in circulation and broke +the story of Joseph's coat into a parenthetical narrative: + +"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental +regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he +prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John +Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The +bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and, +Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and +bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in +Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will +leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the +bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little +conscious (Dicky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and +prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another +drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!" + +Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do +good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with +children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was +a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious +firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the +minds of little ones. + +I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I +saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice, +interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved +boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to +thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin, +wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set, +hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss +Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with +words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and +inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a +moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her +words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the +thin and the square face. + +"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the +injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed-- + +"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at +me." + +Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of +Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced +to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly +grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a +new feature was added to the scene. + +I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear +girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and +made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and +good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his +appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He +gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt +anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown +away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh +dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's +self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry +purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper +like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every +single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which +individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul +addressed. + +He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a +little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the +machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there +with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be +helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little +at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite +self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and +more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he +planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with +personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have +better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have +liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a +strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the +attraction irresistible. + +I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he +closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I +saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was +being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as +pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted +hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted +to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom +Bessie had the good sense to appreciate. + +The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my +prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was +the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, +she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and +taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school +to his church duties in a different quarter. + +"Bessie, does your father know--?" I began as we went homeward together. + +She interrupted me: "About Miss Pepper? Oh yes, indeed! She called to ask +his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice +since. + +"You know I don't mean her at all," I said, laughing. "I mean her nephew, +Bessie Haines." + +But Bessie faltered: she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was +evident they had not spoken so to each other yet. She knew she loved and +was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it +was yet unavowed between them. + +"All I am afraid of, Bess," said I, determined to make her practical, for +she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all +their days--"all I am afraid of is, that your father's vision may threaten +your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why +should uncle keep praying for you as a 'young damsel,' and 'handmaiden,' +and 'female pilgrim,' and all that?" + +Bessie seemed troubled, but she could not be brought to confidence until +the minister had opened his heart to her. I saw that, and though I had +never had a warning dream in my life, I felt it was my mission to help +her. + +The Rev. Charles and I had had a little, a very little, talk, but I saw +that Bessie had named me to him--that pleased me; that he was very +desirous of gaining my good-will--that pleased me too. So I had happened +to say that I admired church architecture, particularly Gothic: some one +had said that his church belonged to that style, and he immediately, +offered to take us to examine it. I asked him to call for us next day, and +he delightedly promised that he would. + +I told Bessie, and the ungrateful creature was alarmed and nervous, and +gave way to all sorts of nonsense; but I consoled her and admired him in a +way that seemed to give her satisfaction. The next morning I made a +startling discovery. I went into the little bookroom that opened out of +the great old-fashioned back parlor, where uncle and Mr. Haines sat every +morning with Scott and Clarke and Cruden open before them: I went in very +quietly, and didn't make much noise when there. Mr. Haines was talking in +a slow, set way, and I could hear the scratching of a pen over stiff +paper. + +"Would you mention my reasons for recording this, my dear Daniel?" he said +to Uncle Pennyman. + +"I have set them down at the commencement," said my uncle, who was acting +as scribe. "I have said that, your mind being clear and your feelings at +ease, you retired to your couch on the night of the 28th of October; that +the form of your dear wife seemed waiting for you, since you became +conscious of her presence immediately after your sinking asleep; and so +on." + +"Yes," said Mr. Haines, witty a deep sigh: "it is a great thing, no doubt, +to be so guided in the visions of the night, and I have many times +considered myself greatly favored by the knowledge of the ministry of my +dear wife's blessed spirit; but, friend Daniel, if she had been a little +more explicit in this instance it would have been a great comfort to me. +Follow me now, friend Daniel. You have got it down to where she spoke. +Well, she raised her hand and seemed to point to the couch of Dorcas +Elizabeth" (that was what Bess had been baptized, and was called by her +father on solemn occasions)--"my thoughts had been dwelling on the child, +and her increasing age and future duties--and she said, 'Marry her wisely +to Thomas,' and repeated the words three times." + +I heard the scratching pen and Mr. Haines' depressed, uncertain sigh, and +my own heart sank heavily. There was no Thomas to marry her to but our +Tom, and such a thing was simply preposterous and wicked. I could not, I +would not, bear even to think of it. + +Oh, good Mrs. Haines, departed so long ago! why should you come back +troubling us about such, things? and, above all, why could you not as well +have said Charles as Thomas? + +"I have that set down," said Uncle Pennyman. Mr. Haines sighed again in +that anxious, uncertain way of his: + +"During the first day after the visitation, Daniel, I could not recall +whether my wife's appearance said, 'To Thomas, marry her wisely,' or as we +now put it down; but since you have set it clearly before me, and your son +will so soon be here, I feel that I am justified in having it stated in +that way, and that Providence is guiding me." + +Oh how my heart rose against Uncle Pennyman as I listened! He was the one +to blame for such a shameful, foolish notion stealing into Mr. Haines' +head! Left to himself, any name would have suited him equally well, and +here was Tom's thrust in without any earthly reason. It was really +dreadful! I could scarcely stand on my feet when I remembered how Tom +loved his adopted father, and with what unselfish devotion he always spoke +of him. "If he's told that it will be a family blessing, he never will +have the heart to deny them and grieve Uncle Pennyman. Poor Tom! he is so +shockingly unselfish himself that he would rather enjoy a sacrifice than +otherwise, I suppose." So ran my thoughts, and I grew desperate. +Desperation awakens courage. Tom would be there in the evening, and if +anything could be done it had to be done at once. + +I slipped out silently as I came: no one heard me. I did not mean that +they should do so, for, to confess the truth, I was listening on purpose. +I dressed to go out with Mr. Pepper; so did Bessie, though I must say she +was very nervous and uncertain about it. "You know papa does not know him +in--in the character of a friend of mine," she said, hesitatingly. "Miss +Pepper introduced him, and that is all." + +"But that is no reason why it should be all," I said to myself, and paid +no attention to her little bashful fussiness. + +When he arrived, I saw in his eyes that he meant to take advantage of the +opportunity I was making for him, and so I boldly carried out my plan. We +started, and had gone a block or two when I discovered that they were +becoming unaware of my existence and completely absorbed in each other. +"Poor dears!" I thought, "let them have a still better chance." So I +stopped in the most natural way possible at a window where trimmings were +displayed, and began to stare at some ribbon. "The very shade!" I said: "I +would not miss it for anything. Pray go on slowly, and I'll join you +presently. Keep on till you reach the church--I know the way. And be sure +you stay till I come. No, you shall not come in: I insist that you go +right on, and do not bother. I have a sort of pride in making bargains, +and they never can be made in company, you know." I laughed and wouldn't +listen to their waiting, and managed it so well that they went away as +unsuspecting and tender as two lambs. I waited till they were out of +sight, and then I started straight for home. + +I was in high glee till Mrs. Tanner came up stairs. + +"There are great preparations making for Mr. Tom," said she with a +portentous face. "Mr. Haines has given more orders about his reception +than I ever knew him to issue before; and, what seems strange, he actually +insists on my calling him Mr. Thomas, when I never can get my tongue round +anything but Mr. Tom, in the world." + +Both seemed threatening--the preparations and the name; and when Mrs. +Tanner asked where Miss Bessie was, and heard that she had gone out, she +shook her head and said that she was afraid her pa wouldn't like it. This +convinced me that she too had guessed the nature of the vision, and made +me more than ever anxious to save poor Bessie and Tom from mutual +unhappiness. The first effort was made, and I must consider the next step. +I felt nearly sure that by this time the two dear Sunday-school workers +had become personal in their conversation, and taking up my position on +the broad sofa in the quiet, shady back parlor, I set myself to thinking +out the plan. It was a great, solidly-furnished old room, staid and +handsome like the rest of the house, and meant for comfort in every +particular. Over the mantelpiece, and directly opposite to me, was a +life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of +expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a +baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her +daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so +dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the +family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while +there was a living opportunity. + +I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman +without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the +circumstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to +have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time +to question the feeling until I was sound asleep. + +A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate, +for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my +presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed +shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly +under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and, +although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his +heart. + +"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie +too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is +selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid." + +He told her I was too good, too lovable to quarrel with their bliss, and +held her to his heart while he looked up to the flaxed-haired, baby-faced +mother for a blessing with quite a glow of feeling on his face and real +tears in his eyes. + +There was something in mine I suppose, for when I looked too I could +scarcely believe them: the portrait seemed to show a different face +entirely. The blue eyes bent down on those upturned to meet them with a +look I had never beheld in them before, and the delicate little pink mouth +seemed to tremble with a blessing. + +"Am I dreaming?" I almost asked it aloud, and the question and the sound +of Uncle Pennyman's voice in the book-room gave me a new idea. Softly I +slipped from my place and out at the open door, leaving the absorbed ones +to themselves, and joined my uncle and Mr. Haines where they were +preparing for another conflict with the commentators. + +"I have had a dream," I said solemnly. + +"A dream!" repeated they. + +"Yes, and it was so lifelike that I must tell it to you, for I am +convinced it is no common warning, but one full of meaning and truth." + +They gazed at me blankly, and I went on, fearing to stop an instant lest I +should lose my courage: + +"I was lying on the sofa opposite Mrs. Haines' portrait--" + +"The very place where I lay when last I dreamed," murmured her husband. + +"And I saw Bessie and a gentleman hand in hand beneath it, looking up into +the sweet face for a blessing; and oh such a heavenly smile lighted it +while the beautiful lips seemed to murmur, 'She will marry wisely, dear +Thomas!'" + +Mr. Haines was so shaken by my words that my heart misgave me. He covered +his face with his hands. "She used to call me dear Thomas," he said, and +the tears ran through his fingers. + +"Then the name was _yours_" said Uncle Pennyman with weighty +consideration. "You remember I said it was capable of a double +application: those things are wonderful, and interpret each other. Winnie, +my dear girl, could you distinguish this person's face?" + +Before I could answer, Mrs. Tanner at the door said, "Here's Mr. Tom, +bless his heart! I never can learn to call him anything else." + +Tom was _so_ glad to see me! Yes, I may as well tell it, for it told +itself: dear Tom never seemed so glad before. + +"Was it his face, Winnie?" whispered Mr. Haines. + +If ever _No_ was said with energy and decision, it was in my reply. The +parlor door opened just as we were about to go in all together, shaking +hands and making kind speeches over Tom, and Bessie and the Rev. Charles +appeared in the act of taking leave of each other. + +"That's the face!" I cried dramatically; and then I really and truly did +faint--stone dead, as Mrs. Tanner said afterward--for I was not used to +telling lies, and even white ones were exciting things to tell, and +scarcely justified themselves to my conscience by the magnitude of the +good they were to do. + +When I came to myself, Bessie was hanging over me with all the love she +had left from Mr. Charles, I suppose; and I heard Mr. Haines and Uncle +Pennyman talking with Tom, and trying to explain to him the remarkable +nature of the vision that had overcome me. I sat up, and tried to laugh +and declare that it was nothing at all, though my heart kept throbbing. + +"You have all had dreams," said Tom: "you have yet to hear mine. Uncle, I +dreamed that Winnie and I loved each other, and that I asked you for her +and you said yes." + +"No, Thomas," said Uncle Pennyman gravely, but with a kind of breaking +about his mouth: "your eyes were open when you had that vision, and you +must not jest with serious subjects. But it is well you mentioned it, dear +boy, and it is well our child Winnie received such a remarkable direction, +since it throws light on friend Haines' visitation, and apparently the +happiness of that excellent young minister and our dear Bessie here." + +"The young man has just expressed himself in corroboration of the vision," +said Mr. Haines, much affected. + +Bessie threw her arms round her father, then round me, and then she ran +away. Mr. Haines and Uncle Pennyman went out to their commentaries, Mrs. +Tanner to see to her buns: Tom and I were alone. + +"What is this about, Winnie darling?" he said. + +"Tom," said I, "we are all the victims of dreams." + +MARGARET HOSMER. + + + + +The Cold Hand. + + + +There is a rocky hill in what was till recently the town of Dorchester, +looking out over Boston Bay. It takes its name from the stiff black savins +with which it is covered, and which contrive to find nourishment and +support in the rock to which they cling. Some of these trees show their +great age by their gnarled and knotted trunks and boughs. Black and +impassive they stand, alike in the brightest summer or the grayest winter, +sighing restlessly in the breeze, but wailing piteously when the sea-winds +sweep over the hill. Partway up the little rocky eminence stands an old +house, now fast falling to pieces. It is a low building, with a gambrel +roof and a huge chimney. It has stood there many years, for it was built +not long after the Revolution, and it might have stood many years more had +it not been suffered to go to decay with a carelessness which seemed to +belie the general thrift of the town. + +Wandering over the hill one bright winter day, with no companion but a +large dog, I stopped to look in at the window of the old house. The glass +was gone from the sash, and the sash itself was broken in many places; but +the obscurity was so deep within that I obtained only a partial glimpse of +an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I +felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its +forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where +the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of +everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect +it offers to few of the natives. The front door was locked, but I obtained +an entrance without difficulty at the back, and made my way through a +little shed, which was evidently of more modern construction than the main +part of the building. I came first into the kitchen, where was a large +fireplace blackened with the smoke of long-dead fires, and a narrow, high +mantelpiece. A little cupboard was let into the side of the great chimney, +which projected far across the floor. The room was long and narrow, +running the whole length of the house, with a window at each end. The +blackened plaster was dropping from the walls and ceiling, exposing in +some places the heavy beams, and the floor was dark and discolored with +age and dust, although quite firm to the tread. By a low door I passed +into a small room lighted by two windows--one in front, the other at the +end of the house, and presenting the same appearance of desolate decay. +There were four doors in this room--the one through which I had just +entered, another leading to the rooms above, a third, secured by a bolt, +which I did not then open, and a fourth leading into a narrow passage, in +which was the locked front door. I crossed this passage, and found myself +in a room of the same size as the one I had just left. It was that into +which I had attempted to look from the outside. Here I missed the dog, who +had hitherto followed me, though with seeming reluctance, and no +persuasion could induce him to cross the threshold. This room was in +rather better repair than were the other two. There was the same high +mantelpiece, rather less narrow, and the same little cupboard let into the +massive chimney. The floor was less discolored, but there was a deep burnt +spot on it near the fireplace, as if some one had dropped a shovelful of +hot coals, or rather as if some corrosive fluid had been spilled. I +remained here a few moments, idly wondering what might have been the +history of the former tenants, and what could have induced any one to +build a house in a spot so bleak and exposed, where scarcely a pretence of +soil offered itself for a garden. As I stood there, a singular impression +came upon me that I was not alone. For a moment, and a moment only, I +became conscious of another presence in the room. The impression passed as +suddenly as it had come, but, transient as it was, it awoke me from my +reverie. Smiling at myself for the fancy, I recrossed the passage and +ascended the steep, narrow winding stairs to the chambers above. There +were four small rooms, opening one into the other, with a closet +partitioned off in each, and so low that in the highest part a tall man +could but just have stood upright. Here the ruin was farther advanced. The +floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the +ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining +portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through +the roof. The place had a lonesome, forlorn look, even more than usually +belongs to a deserted house, though such might not have been its aspect to +other than my unaccustomed Western eyes. + +Turning, I made my way down the short staircase, and was about to leave +the house when the third door, as yet unopened, caught my eye. I drew with +some difficulty the rusted bolt, and found myself at the head of a steep +flight of stairs, seemingly longer than that which I had just descended. +It led to the cellar, and though the afternoon was getting on, I thought I +would finish my exploration, and therefore went down, though repelled by +the close and peculiarly damp air. The cellar was blasted and hewn in the +solid rock to a depth which, considering the extreme hardness of the +stone, seemed remarkable in a house so unpretending. A dim light made its +way through a narrow window at each end and fell upon the stone floor. I +walked forward, looking up at the windows, but I had not taken ten steps +before I recoiled with a start. At my feet lay a pit, seemingly of +considerable depth, and filled with water to within four feet of the top. +The cellar did not lie under the kitchen, but only under the two front +rooms and the passage, and this pit occupied the whole length and fully +half the breadth of the space of the rooms above, and, what was more +peculiar, seemed to extend even farther forward than the house itself. +Another step, and I should have fallen into it. Curious to try its depth, +I picked up a little fragment of stone and dropped it in. As the stone +touched the water, and the circles on the sullen surface began to widen, a +current of air rushed down the stairs, and the door above shut violently. +At that moment the impression which I had experienced in the room above +came back upon me with tenfold distinctness, and was accompanied with a +feeling of exceeding horror. It seemed as if there was closing around me +some evil influence, from which I could only escape by instant flight. For +one moment I resisted the unreasonable terror, and made an attempt to +explain, or at least analyze, a sensation so unwonted: the next, the +loathing dread grew too strong. I turned and hurried across the damp +floor, up the narrow stairs, and, opening the door, made my way as quickly +as possible into the outside air. The dog was waiting for me in the little +shed, and seemed delighted at seeing me again. I closed the door, ashamed +of my senseless fright, but nevertheless I was thankful that I had found +no trouble in getting out. I am not quite prepared to say, however, that +these sudden and apparently unreasonable starts are independent of +external causes. The Vermont-bred horse will be thrown into an agony of +fright when the closed cage of a lion passes by, though he has never +learned by experience that lions will kill horses, and though the lion +himself is unseen. + +I walked briskly home. I had some distance to go, and had quite lost the +impression of my ghostly terror when I reached the house where I was +staying, a modern shingle Gothic erection, which in vain endeavored to +disguise its barny appearance with sundry wooden adornments modeled after +crochet-work. + +"Freda," said I to my friend after tea, when she and I were sitting +comfortably by the fire in the library, "do you know anything about the +old yellow-gray house up on the hill?" + +"Why, what of it?" + +"Nothing, only I went into it to-day. What is its history?" + +"Nothing particular. It was built for a Doctor Haywood. Have you read +Alp's last essay on the Semi-occasional?" + +"Yes, and great stuff it is." + +Freda looked inexpressibly shocked. I had better have condemned law and +gospel together than made light of Alp; but she put up with it, probably +considering it excusable as the utterance of a savage from the wilds of +New York. + +"Never mind him now. He shall proclaim his figs in the name of the Prophet +for all time if you will tell me about the old house. I know it has a +story." + +She rose and took from the drawer an old manuscript volume, which she +placed in my hands. It was a little note-book, in which the entries were +made not from day to day, but at irregular intervals, in a singularly +clear, precise hand: + +"_Nov._ 3, 1784. This day my neighbor Ball's cow, getting out of the +pasture and running on the highway, was put in the pound. Took her out, +and cautioned my neighbor to have more care of the creature. _Mem.:_ To +bespeak a pair of shoes for her eldest girl. + +"_Jan._ 1, 1785. This day the wind very high. + +"_Jan._ 10. Neighbor Ball's cow, getting among my wife's rosebushes, did +do some damage, whereat she was much vexed. Caught the said cow, and +begged my neighbor to keep her at home, which she promised to do, but in +an hour back again. However, she is a widow. + +"_Jan._ 13. Doctor Haywood, newly come to this place from the old country, +has taken lodging with Neighbor Ball. Said to be a learned man--has much +baggage, and they say some curious machines. Is curious about plants and +the like. Neighbor Ball did hint to my wife that he knew about matters +better let alone, whereat my wife did tell her that she wished he would +give her a charm to keep her cow out of our yard. + +"_Jan._ 15. Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the hill, and is to build upon +it. Has spoken to me about it. Have drawn the plan, and shall make the +estimate. + +"_Feb._ 1. Doctor Haywood hurries on the work--says he is in haste to get +into his own house. Saw Indian Will to-day, quite drunk. With much trouble +got him to our house, where my wife did let him lie in the kitchen all +night. Had she not done so, the poor man might have frozen to death before +morning, for it was a very cold night. Argued with him in the morning, +whereat he promised amendment. + +"_Feb._ 10. My daughter Faithful this day, with my consent, promised +herself to John Clark, skipper of the Federalist schooner. + +"_Feb._ 18. Blasting out the cellar for Haywood's house. He wants it more +than common deep--says it makes the house warm. + +"_Feb._ 21. Came this day upon a great hollow in the rock filled with +water, which ran in as soon as pumped but. The doctor much displeased at +first--talked of beginning over again, but finally contented himself. + +"_June_ 3. Doctor Haywood moved into his house this day. Has much curious +stuff. The minister says he is a chemist. + +"_June_ 8. Went up to the doctor's house to settle with him. He came to +the door and said he was too busy then, but would drop round soon. They +say he lets no one inside the place since he moved. Has taken a pew in the +meeting-house, and comes once of a Sabbath. + +"_July_ 22. Doctor Haywood and me did settle accounts. He beat everything +down to the last penny--offered to pay part in attendance on my family if +sick. Did not care to settle that way, knowing his charges. Charged James +Sumner five dollars for one visit to his child, which child, nevertheless, +he did greatly help. + +"_August_ 18. News came this day that the Federalist went down in the gale +of the tenth, off Marblehead, with all on board. A sore affliction to my +daughter Faithful. The Lord's will be done! + +"_August_ 26. Neighbor Ball's eldest girl gets lower. Doctor Cray does no +good. She would call in Doctor Haywood if she dared, but his charges are +so high. James Sumner and me did consult together and agree to take the +charges between us. I have heard say that he has helped several poor +people free: did especially help Indian Will when he lay like to die of +pleurisy at Neponset Village. + +"_Sept._ 1. Neighbor Ball, going up the hill last night to call Doctor +Haywood to her daughter Hepsey, did tell my wife that she had a look into +the south room as he opened the door, and that there were queer things +there, such as a brick furnace, all red with fire; and she did say, too, +that she saw things like snakes, only thin like mist, twisting about in +the air by the firelight, which I do hold to be her own invention or mere +foolish notions. + +"_Sept._ 2. Doctor Haywood has helped Hepsey Ball some considerable, +though he says he cannot cure her, for she has consumption. + +"_Sept._ 16. Doctor Haywood told James Sumner and me that he would ask +nothing for attending Hepsey Ball, but would keep on to ease her what he +could as long as she lived. He told my wife she might last a year. + +"_Nov._ 3. Jonathan Phelps told me that Doctor Haywood had borrowed one +hundred dollars of him, giving security on the house and lot. + +"_Nov._ 8. James Sumner this day, his wife being dead a year, did ask my +daughter Sophonisba to marry him, the which she did refuse, and snapped +him off too short. Then he spoke to Faithful, and she burst out crying and +ran up stairs, and could by no means be got to listen. Recommended James +to Hannah Gardner. + +"_Nov._ 16. Doctor Hay wood this day borrowed fifty dollars of me. If he +had not been so considerate to Widow Ball should not have felt like +letting it go. + +"_Dec._ 16. Coming home from Boston last night, overtook Indian Will. He +showed me a big iron tobacco-box nearly full of money--silver, with two +gold-pieces, one a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. He got +it for a lot of deer-skins in Boston. Begged him not to drink it all up, +which he said he would not do, but would give it to his squaw. Did ask him +to come home with me, which he refused, as he meant to go on to Neponset +Village. + +"_Dec._ 17. The wind blowing these two days to the land made it very high +water, coming nearly up to Governor Stoughton's elm, and covering the +road. + +"_Dec._ 18. A great gale last night--much damage at sea, doubtless. The +water very high. + +"_Dec._ 19. Two men out in a boat found an old hat and blanket floating by +the Point, said to belong to Indian Will: no one has seen him since the +16th. Likely he went to the tavern and got drunk, so missed his way and +was drowned by the tide. + +"_Dec._ 20, Last night Indian Will's body came ashore, much beaten by the +rocks, but known to be his by those who knew him. The verdict was, +'Drowned by the tide.' + +"_Feb._ 11, 1786. Doctor Haywood spent the evening at our house. He has +been more social of late, going a good deal among people, especially poor +people, to help them. Has never paid me the fifty dollars, but makes +promises. I was led on to speak of Indian Will. The doctor said the night +of the 16th he thought he heard some one cry out, but thought it some +drunken person, and besides was busy with his studies, and so did not +mind. My wife asked him what he studied. He said a good many different +matters, but that he had given it all up now, and meant to practice. +Shortly after jumped up and went away very sudden." + +Here the journal came to an abrupt end. The rest of the book was filled +with accounts relating to the business of a milliner and dressmaker. +Slipped in between its leaves were two letters, written in a cramped, +scratchy hand and rather irregular in spelling. They were directed to +Sophonisba T----, Salem, Massachusetts, and seemed to be from a mother to +her daughter: + + "DORCHESTER, May 1, 1786. + + "My Dear Child: I take my pen in hand to let you knew that we are all in + good health, and hope you are enjoying the same blessing. James Sumner + is married to Hannah Gardner. Most people think she will have her hands + full with his children. Parson H---- married them. She wore a blue silk + at two dollars the yard. Hepsey Ball is dead. She departed this life on + the 29th of April, at half-past eight in the evening, being quite + resigned and in good hope of her election to grace. She had not much + pain at the last. Doctor Haywood called to see her in the morning, and + she being then, as we thought, asleep, did start up and cry out that + there was a black shadow, not his own, always following after him, which + made me think her light-headed; but her mother says the doctor turned as + pale as a sheet, and made as if to go off again. Your sister Faithful is + at Mr. Trueman's, helping to make up Lorenda's wedding-clothes. I would + not have had her go, but she seemed willing to undertake it. Your loving + mother, ANNA T----." + +The second was also addressed to Sophonisba, who on the 3d of June was yet +visiting friends in Salem. After a few details of domestic news, it went +on: + + "Doctor Haywood is missing: no one knows where he is gone. He has been + looked for in Boston, but they have found no news of him; only that a + little black boy says he saw a man like him go on board a ship bound for + the East Indies. Now he is gone, they find he owes money to a great many + besides your father. He owes to people in Boston for drugs and + medicines--some, it is said, very costly, and sent for express to the + old country. Mr. Sewell, the bookseller there, says he tried to dispose + of his books to him; and when he did not buy them, thinks he sent them + to the old country. He owes every one he could get to trust him. It is + odd what he did with all the money. It is thought Jonathan Phelps will + get the house. They went up to it and found the door unlocked. They + found nothing in the house but the furniture, and that very common and + cheap. There were none of all those things they said he had; only in the + south room a lot of bottles and jars, and a brick place built up with a + vent outside, which Parson H---- says is a furnace such as folks use + that study chemistry. There was a great heap of ashes in the fireplace, + as if he had burned papers or books there, and a great burned spot on + the floor right before it." + +"Who was the writer of these?" I asked as I refolded the little old +letter, "and what became of Doctor Haywood? Was nothing more heard?" + +In answer to these questions my friend gave the following narration. + +The writer of the journal was my great uncle, Silas T----. Sophonisba and +Faithful were my mother's cousins. Both were much older than she, but I +have often seen Faithful when I was a girl, and I had all the story there +is from herself. The little house on the hill fell into the hands of the +chief creditor, who took down the furnace in the south room and offered +the place to rent, but no tenant ever remained there long, either because +of the bleak situation or the want of a garden. There were rumors that the +place was not quite canny. One woman, indeed, went so far as to declare +that she had seen the doctor's figure, dim and unsubstantial, standing +before the fireplace in the twilight, and that once, as she came up the +cellar stairs, something followed her and laid a cold hand on her +shoulder; but as she was a nervous, hysterical person, and moreover was +known to be somewhat given to exaggeration, no one paid much attention to +her tale. + +It was certain, however, that there was a great deal of sickness in the +house. One family who rented the place lost three children by fever in one +summer, and it was remarkable that all three seemed to fall under the same +delusion, and insisted that something or some one, coming behind them, +laid upon their shoulders a cold hand. One of them, toward the last, said +that a shadow kept moving to and fro in the room, and kept the sunshine +all away. The woman who had seen the vision of the old doctor became a +widow the next month, and so much sickness and death took place in the +house that at last no one would live there, and it was shut up by its +owner. + +In due course of time the father and mother of Sophonisba and Faithful +were laid in Dorchester burial-ground. Mr. T---- had never been a rich man +by any means, and when he died there was little left for the two girls, +even after the sale of the homestead. They did not, however, consider +themselves poor, but with their fifteen hundred dollars in the bank and +their trade of milliner and dressmaker thought themselves very well to do +in the world. Sophonisba, the elder, was at that time a little under +fifty--an energetic, hard-working woman, with a constitution of wrought +iron and bend leather, and no more under the influence of what are called +"nerves" than if they had been left out of her system entirely. If ever a +woman was born into this world an old maid, it was Sophonisba T----. Her +fine name was the only romantic thing about her. She had had more than one +offer of marriage in her day, but she had no talent for matrimony, and had +turned such a very cold shoulder on her admirers that the swains became +dispirited, and betook themselves to the courtship of more impressible +damsels. There was no hidden romance or tale of unreturned affection in +Miss Sophonisba's experience. The simple fact was, she had never wished to +be married. Miss Faithful was five years her sister's junior. She had +never found room in her heart for a second love since John Clark went down +in the Federalist. She had been a young and pretty girl then, and now she +was a thin, silent, rather nervous little body, depending entirely upon +her sister with a helpless kind of affection that was returned on Miss +Sophonisba's part by a devotion which might almost be called passionate. + +"I tell you what it is, Faithful," said Miss Sophonisba one evening, as +they sat over their tea, "if they raise the rent on us here, I won't +stay." + +The sisters had lived in the house ever since the death of their mother, +five years before. Their business had prospered, and they were +conveniently situated, but, for all that, Miss Sophonisba had no mind to +pay additional rent. + +"No?" said Faithful, inquiringly. + +"That I won't! We pay all it's worth now, and more too. It ain't the extra +four shillings," said Miss Sophonisba, rubbing her spectacles in +irritation, "but I do hate to be imposed upon." + +"It will be some trouble to find a new place," suggested Miss Faithful +meekly, "and we can afford it, I suppose." + +"I don't care if we can afford it a dozen times over," said her sister, +with increased decision. "I won't be imposed upon. If I've got either to +drive or be driven, I'd rather drive." + +"Of course," said Miss Faithful, who had never driven any living creature +in the whole course of her life. + +"I saw Peter Phelps to-day," said Miss Sophonisba, "and he says he'll let +us have the old house up on the hill for anything we like to give." + +Miss Faithful gave a little start: "Would you like to live there, +Sophonisba?" + +"Why, it's a good convenient situation, and plenty big enough for you and +me and the cat." + +"But you know," said Miss Faithful, timidly, "they have told such queer +stories about it." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "You don't +believe them, I hope?" + +"No," hesitated her sister, "but then one remembers them, you know. Widow +Eldridge always said she saw old Doctor Haywood there." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba again. "You know perfectly well +you couldn't trust a word she said about anything." + +"Oh, Sophonisba, she's dead!" said Miss Faithful, shocked. + +"I can't help that, child. It don't hinder her having told fibs all her +lifetime." + +"Her husband died the next month." + +"Well, so he might anywhere. My wonder is he lived as long as he did, +considering." + +"And Mrs. Jones's three children died there." + +"Well, and didn't Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and +I never heard their place was haunted; and didn't two die out of the +Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town? It was a dreadful +sickly summer." + +"And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever." + +"Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything. Doctor Brown told me +himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and +there ain't anything so bad as that." + +The last vestige of a ghost was demolished: Miss Faithful had nothing more +to say. + +"It's nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off," said Miss +Sophonisba. "It ain't very probable he's alive now; and if he is, he won't +be very apt to come back: and if he is dead, he certainly won't. If he +did, I'd like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars. I +saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he'll fix the place all up for us if +we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd +spoken to you." + +"Just as you please, Sophonisba," said Miss Faithful. + +"He says he'll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and +let his man dig it up for us. I went up and looked at the house. It ain't +so much out of repair as you'd think." + +"Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?" asked Miss Faithful with some +interest. + +"Yes, I saw it--a great blackened place. Most likely he spilled some of +his chemical stuff on it." + +Miss Sophonisba was not, as she expressed herself, one to let the grass +grow under her feet. She concluded the bargain for the house next day, and +informed their landlord--who, by the by, was a son of their old neighbor, +Widow Ball--of their intention to move. That gentleman was not at all +pleased at the idea of losing his tenants. In vain he offered to recede +from the obnoxious demand of four shillings more. Miss Sophonisba told him +that she had made up her mind, and that _she_ wasn't in the habit of going +back from her bargains when she had given her word, whatever other people +might be. + +"Well, Miss T----," said Mr. Ball, "I hope you won't repent. They've said +queer things about that house ever since the old doctor went off so +mysterious. Some folks said he drowned himself in that place in the +cellar." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "The old doctor never hurt any +one when he was alive, except by borrowing money of them, and it ain't +likely he'll want to do that now that he's dead; and if he did, I +shouldn't let him have it." + +"Well, my mother was in the house when Miss Eldridge came running up the +stairs as pale as a sheet, and said he came behind her and caught hold of +her shoulder." + +"Joanna Eldridge was always a poor, miserable, shiftless, narvy thing," +said Miss Sophonisba, "and half the time you couldn't believe a word she +said." + +"Well she was a connexion of our'n, Miss T----, and I always thought there +was something in it. Narves won't account for everything." + +"Well, I never trusted her a bit more for that," said Miss Sophonisba. "I +know one time she told mother a long story about how you sent in a bill +for shoes to Widow Sumner that James had paid you before he died, and she +said you'd have made her a deal of trouble if she hadn't ha' found the +receipt. A good many folks talked about it, but I always said it was just +one of Joanna's stories." + +Mr. Ball was put down, and took his leave. + +As soon as the necessary repairs were finished the sisters moved into the +house, and during that summer found reason to congratulate themselves on +their change of abode. The high, airy situation was very pleasant in warm +weather, and the view over the waters of the bay across to Boston and far +out to sea, with the coming and departing ships, afforded much pleasure +and a subject of conversation to the sisters. Their little garden on the +flat throve well, and was a source of never-ending interest. They had been +troubled by no ghostly visitations. Miss Sophonisba had indeed once heard +a mysterious noise in the cellar, but on going down stairs she found that +the cat had jumped on the hanging shelf and was helping herself out of the +milk-pan. + +The sisters were sitting one day toward the end of November--I think it +was the twenty-fifth--in the north room, which they had made their +work-room. The south room, according to the custom of our ancestors, still +religiously preserved among us, was shut up "for company." The kitchen +served them also for dining-room, and the largest room up stairs was their +bed-chamber. Miss Sophonisba was trimming a bonnet, a task for which she +had an especial gift. Ladies came to her even from Boston, saying that her +work had an air and style quite its own, while her charges were not nearly +so high as those of the more fashionable milliners in the city. Faithful +was altering a dress of her own. Both were much engaged with their work, +and neither had spoken for some time. Suddenly, Faithful started slightly, +and the needle dropped from her hand. + +"What's the matter?" asked her sister. + +"Nothing," said Faithful, rather confused. + +"Yes, there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "People don't jump that way for +nothing. What is it?" + +"Oh, I don't know," hesitated Miss Faithful. "I guess I pricked my +finger." + +"Umph!" said Miss Sophonisba in a very incredulous way, but she pushed her +inquiries no farther. + +As soon as her sister was silent, Miss Faithful's conscience began to +chide her for her little evasion. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and +as often checked herself, but the third time the words were uttered: "If I +tell you, Sophonisba, you will laugh at me." + +"Well, that wouldn't kill you, child." + +"No; but--well--it was only that I thought all of a sudden some one was +standing behind my chair." + +"How could you think so when there was no one there?" + +"I don't know, but it felt as if there was." + +"Nonsense, Faithful! If you didn't see any one, how did you know there was +any one? Have you got eyes in the back of your head?" + +"I didn't see it--I sort of felt so." + +"'Sort of felt so!'" said Miss Sophonisba, with good-natured contempt. "If +I was you, I'd take some catnip tea when I went to bed: you're kind of +narvy." + +Miss Faithful assented, and went on quietly with her sewing, but she +changed the seat which she had occupied, with her back to the cellar door, +for one close to her sister. + +No further disturbance occurred till the middle of December. It had been a +very windy day. The bay was tossing in long gray-green lines of waves +crested with flying foam. The black savins sighed and wailed as they bent +to the cutting blast. The wind was east, and it took a good deal of fire +to keep the old house warm, but wood was cheap in those days, and Miss +Sophonisba, though prudent and economical, was not given to what New +England expressively calls "skrimping." + +Miss Faithful, not feeling very well, had gone up stairs to bed soon after +tea. A windy day always made her uncomfortable, recalling, too vividly +perhaps, the gale in which the Federalist had gone down. Miss Sophonisba, +having some work on hand which she was anxious to finish, was sitting up +rather beyond her usual hour. Pausing for a moment in her sewing, she +heard some one walking about in the room above her to and fro, with a +regular though light step, as of bare or thinly-shod feet, on the boards. + +"Why, what can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about +barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put +down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly +lecture. To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other +living creature was in the room. It could not have been the cat this time, +for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs. Miss +Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a +repetition of the sound. + +Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly. Miss Faithful started +from her sleep with a cry of terror. "Oh, I have had such a dream!" said +she, clinging to her sister. + +"What was it?" said Miss Sophonisba, soothing and quieting her like a +child. + +"I thought I was lying in bed just as I was, when all of a sudden I knew +that Something had come in, and was going up and down, up and down the +room." + +"What was it like?" asked her sister, rather impressed in spite of +herself. + +"I couldn't see: it was all shifty and mist-like--like the shadow of smoke +on the ground--and I couldn't tell if it was like a human being or not; +but it seemed to me as if I ought to know it and what it was, and as if it +was trying to make me understand something, and couldn't, just as it is +when the cat sits and looks at you. You know the creature wants something, +if she could tell what it was." + +"She wants something out of the cupboard most generally," said Miss +Sophonisba; "but go on." + +"And finally," said Miss Faithful with a nervous shudder, "after it had +gone back and forth two or three times--and I could hear it on the floor +too, just like some one walking in their stocking-feet--it came close up +to me and seemed to bend over me, or to be all around me in the air some +way--I can't tell you how--and I was dreadfully scared, and woke up." + +"It made a noise, did it?" said Miss Sophonisba. + +"Yes; and somehow the noise made me feel as if I ought to know what it +wanted and what it was." + +"It was the wind," said Miss Sophonisba. "It got mixed up in your dreams, +I expect. How it does blow!--fit to take the roof off. There! the cellar +door has started open. That latch doesn't catch: I must go down and bolt +it." + +At that moment the cat rushed up the short staircase from the lower room, +and springing on the bed, stood with bristling tail and glaring eyes, +intently watching the door. + +"Has she got a fit?" exclaimed Miss Sophonisba; and she put out her hand +to push the cat off, but it turned to Miss Faithful, who was sitting up in +bed, and crawling under the bed-clothes, lay there trembling and mewing in +a very curious fashion. + +"Some one has got in down stairs," said Miss Faithful, turning white. "Oh, +Sophonisba, we shall all be murdered!" + +"Nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba, quite restored to herself at the thought +of actual danger. She caught up a great pair of tongs and started down +stairs, the candlestick in one hand, the tongs in the other, Miss +Faithful, who dared not stay behind, threw a shawl over her night-dress +and followed close at her sister's heels, while the cat crawled still +farther under the clothes, and refused to answer to Miss Sophonisba's +call. There was nothing unusual down stairs. The two outside doors were +locked, the fire was burning brightly, and Miss Sophonisba's work lay on +the table just as she had left it. The cellar door indeed, which latched +imperfectly, stood open. + +"Some one has come in and locked the door after them, and gone down +cellar," was Miss Faithful's whispered suggestion. + +"How could they?" said Miss Sophonisba. "We didn't hear any one; and +besides, they would have left their tracks on the floor this wet night; +but I'll go down and look. You stay here by the fire." + +But Miss Faithful preferred to follow her sister. They found nothing out +of place in the cellar, into which, if you remember, there is no outside +door. Every tub and barrel and milk-pan was in its place, and the surface +of the pit of water, which served the family as a cistern, was +undisturbed. + +"It must have been the door flying open that scared the cat," said Miss +Sophonisba, "Faithful, you're as white as a sheet. I shall just heat up +some elderberry wine and make you drink it;" which she did then and there, +and, no further disturbance taking place, the sisters went to bed. The +cat, however, whose usual place was by the kitchen fire, would not go down +stairs, and when at last turned out, she mewed so piteously and scratched +so persistently at the bed-room door that Miss Sophonisba gave way to her +and let her in to sleep all night at the foot of the bed. + +No further annoyance took place, nor was Miss Faithful troubled with a +repetition of her curious dream. The next week, however, as Miss +Sophonisba was in the kitchen making preparations for tea, she was +startled by a scream from her sister in the next room, succeeded by the +sound of a heavy fall. She hurried into the work-room. Miss Faithful lay +on the floor quite insensible. It was some time before her sister's +anxious exertions were rewarded by signs of returning animation. When at +last she opened her eyes, she burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing and +crying. + +"For gracious sake, sister!" said Miss Sophonisba, really alarmed, "what +is the matter?" + +"Oh dear! oh dear!" sobbed Miss Faithful. "It was John! I know it was +John, and I could not speak to him!" + +"What?" said Miss Sophonisba, alarmed for her sister's wits. "What was +John?" + +"It--that--the thing that came behind me: I know it was!" + +"When?" asked her sister. + +"As I was sitting there in my chair something came behind me and put a +hand on my shoulder. It was John--I know it was. His hand was all cold and +wet: he came out of the sea to call me." + +"Now just look here, Faithful!" said Miss Sophonisba. "John was one of the +most careful, considerate fellows I ever knew, and he was always +particular careful of you. Do you think it's likely he wouldn't have no +more sense, now that he's a saint in heaven, than to come scaring you out +of your wits in that way? Is it like him, now?" + +"But oh, sister, if you had felt it as I did, clear into the bone!" + +"Then it's over twenty-five years since the Federalist was lost. Do you +suppose he's been going round the other world all this while without +getting a chance to be dry? Did you see him?" + +"No, but I felt it." + +"Well, now if there'd been anything real there, anything material, you'd +have seen it; and if it wasn't material, how could it be wet?" + +Faithful was not prepared to answer, but it was evident that she had +received a great shock. In vain did her sister argue, reason and coax. She +could not explain, but that something had come behind her, and that this +Something had touched her, she was convinced; and she added: "I do believe +it was John I saw the other night. I thought then I was awake all the +time, and now I know I was." + +This last assertion quite overset Miss Sophonisba's patience, "If ever any +one was asleep," she said, "you were when I came up stairs. I thought I +heard you walking about with your bare feet, and I came up to see." + +"Then you: heard it too?" said Miss Faithful, eagerly. + +It was an unlucky admission, but Miss Sophonisba would not allow that she +had made it. + +"I heard the wind make the boards creak, I suppose; and do you think John +wouldn't have more sense than to be walking about our room at half-past +ten at night? What nonsense!" + +"You may call it nonsense as much as you like, Sophonisba," said Miss +Faithful, beginning to cry afresh, "but I know what I know, and I can't +help it." + +"Well, well, dear, we won't think of it any more. You're nervous and +worried, and you'd just best put on your wrapper and lie down and try to +go to sleep." + +"I don't like to stay alone just now," said Miss Faithful, timidly. + +"I don't want you to: I'll bring my work up stairs and stay with you." + +Miss Sophonisba helped her sister up stairs, and began to assist her to +undress. As she took into her hand the cape of Miss Faithful's woolen +dress she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise, but checked herself +in time. On the left shoulder was a wet spot, and the dress directly +beneath was quite damp. Miss Sophonisba said nothing, of this matter to +her sister, but she made an excuse to leave the room for a moment, and +going down stairs looked to see if any water had been spilled on the +floor. There was none, and Miss Sophonisba was puzzled. She remembered +that when her sister was startled before she had occupied the same seat, +with her back to the cellar door. She noticed that the door was slightly +ajar, and it occurred to her that the cold air blowing through the crack +might account for her sister's feeling of sudden chill, if not for the +dampness. She went down the cellar stairs, carrying with her a lighted +candle. Bold as she was, a singular sensation came over her when she saw +upon each stair a print, as if some one with wet feet had ascended or +descended, and that very recently. The track was not such as would be left +by a person heavily shod: it was rather like that of one wearing a +stocking or thin slipper. + +"What under the sun--" was her perplexed exclamation as she went down, +following the marks of the unknown feet until they were lost on the stone +floor. It was certain that there was no one in the cellar, but as she went +up again, and paused for a moment at the top of the staircase, she heard, +or thought she heard, close to her ear, a long, weary sigh, as of one in +pain, and a sudden breath of cold air swept past her down the stairs. She +turned, and crossing the little passage went into the south room. The +burned spot on the floor was covered by the neat rag carpet, but there +were still some slight marks on the wall of the old doctor's brick +furnace. Miss Sophonisba glanced round the room, but her eyes fell upon +nothing but the familiar and well-preserved furniture; yet there came over +her a strange sense that she was not alone. She saw nothing, but in spite +of herself a feeling of a Presence not her own gathered about her. It was +but for a moment, and then her habitual firmness and common sense +reasserted themselves. + +"Stuff and nonsense!" she said. "I am getting as bad as Faithful;" and +leaving the room, she went back to her sister. Miss Faithful had sought +comfort in her devotions, and was more composed than could have been +expected. Neither felt inclined to comment on the recent disturbance. Miss +Faithful's health seemed to have received no permanent harm from the +sudden shock she had undergone, but she had a nervous dread of being +alone, which was a source of some inconvenience to her sister. + +The month of December passed, and the uncomfortable impression left by +Faithful's attack was beginning to fade away from the minds of both, when +it happened that the disturbance was renewed in a singular manner. + +Miss Sophonisba was alone, her sister having gone to a household in the +village to take the measure for some mourning garments to be made up +immediately. Miss Sophonisba was busy with a black bonnet intended for a +member of the same family, and was thinking of nothing but the folds of +the material directly under her fingers. Gradually there came over her a +feeling that she was not alone. She struggled against it, and resolutely +bent her mind on her work; but the impression grew upon her, and with it a +sensation of horror such as she had never before experienced. The idea +that something stood behind her became so strong that she raised her eyes +from her work and looked around. Was there anything actually there, or was +the shapeless darkness anything more than an accidental shadow? Another +instant, and something touched her cheek--something like soft, cold, moist +fingers. The touch, if such it was, was very gentle, such as a child might +give to attract attention. Miss Sophonisba would not give way. She took up +her work and went quietly on with it, though her fingers trembled. The +same long sigh fell upon her ear, the same chill breath of air swept past +her, and the Presence, if such it was, was gone, and with it the shadow. + +"Well," said Miss Sophonisba to herself, "some things _are_ kind of +curious, after all!" + +There had certainly been no living creature in the house but herself, for +their cat had disappeared some days before, and the loss of their favorite +had been a great vexation to both sisters. The shadow behind her chair, if +indeed it had been anything but fancy, had been too indistinct to allow +her to say that she had really seen it before it had vanished, but what +had given her the touch, the recollection of which yet caused a shiver? +She put up her hand to her cheek. The place was wet--an actual drop of +water adhered to her finger. + +"Dear me!" said she, "I wish I did know what to think." + +To one of her temperament the uncertainty was very annoying. She could not +bear to think that her experience was not directly owing to natural--by +which she meant, common--causes. "I am very glad Faithful was not here," +she thought as she turned to her work again. She would not indulge herself +by changing her seat, but kept her place with her back to the cellar door, +though she could not help now and then casting a glance over her shoulder. +Neither shadow nor substance, however, made itself manifest. + +That same night Miss Sophonisba woke from her sleep with the feeling that +some one had called her. She found herself mistaken, however, and lay +quietly awake, thinking over the events of the afternoon. The more she +thought the more puzzled, and even provoked, did she become. She was one +of those people who cannot bear to feel themselves incapable of accounting +for anything that is brought under their notice. A mystery, as such, is an +exasperation to them, and they will sometimes adopt an explanation more +perplexing than the phenomenon itself, rather than say, "I don't know." As +she lay there thinking over the matter, and trying to make herself believe +that the afternoon's experience was the effect of the wind or her own +fancy, she was startled by a step on the floor of the lower room--the same +light step. It crossed the floor, and she heard it on the stairs. Miss +Sophonisba raised her head from her pillow and looked around. There could +be no doubt that she was awake. She could see everything in the room: her +sister slept quietly at her side, and the moonlight shone in brightly at +the window. The slow step came up the stairs and in at the open door. She +heard it on the boards: her eyes beheld the shadow of her sister's vision, +so wavering and indistinct that she could not say with certainty that it +wore the semblance of a human form. The blood at her heart seemed to stand +still, but yet she neither screamed nor fainted, nor tried to wake her +sister. She watched the Thing as it moved to and fro in the chamber. +Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as +Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her +with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence +obscured the moonbeams. Miss Sophonisba bent all her will to the effort, +and with an heroic exertion she put out her hand to try by the sense of +touch if indeed she was in her waking senses. Her fingers were met by +others, soft, cold and damp. For a second, which seemed an hour, they +grasped her extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way +seemed half familiar. For one instant the shapeless gloom appeared to take +definite form--a tall human figure, a man in poor and ragged clothes; for +one instant a pair of wistful, eager eyes looked into her own; the next, +the cock without crowed loud and shrill. Her hand was released, and with +the same long, weary sigh the ghostly Presence passed away. Miss +Sophonisba sank back on her pillow nearly insensible. She did not know how +long she lay there, but when she at last gathered her senses she saw and +felt, with an involuntary shudder, that her hand was wet and cold, and +that across the floor, plain in the moonlight, leading to the half-open +door, were the marks of wet feet. She did not waken her sister, who still +slept quietly at her side, but it was with unspeakable relief that she saw +the morning dawn at last. + +In spite of herself, Miss Sophonisba was forced to the conclusion that, +except on the supposition that some inhabitant of another world had been +permitted to approach her, her experience was wholly inexplicable. "If it +comes again," said she to herself, "I'll certainly speak to it. Goodness +me!" she added, somewhat irritated in spite of her terror, "if it's got +anything to say, why don't it speak and be done with it?" + +She said nothing of the matter to her sister, and she so far controlled +herself as to preserve her usual manner. + +The sisters were busily engaged all day over the mourning dresses, when +toward night Miss Faithful's thread gave out and her work came to a +stand-still. + +"How provoking!" said she. "Three yards more would finish, and now I shall +have to go down to the village and buy a whole skein, just for that." + +"No," said Miss Sophonisba, who would not have acknowledged to herself her +dread of being alone in the house, "I think there's some like that in the +chimney cupboard in the south room: I'll get it." + +She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room. +Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began +searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters. Some +slight noise startled her. She turned, and saw standing before the +fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar, +though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it. It did +not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood +for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak. The +eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse. She had not seen +the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side. It, was too +much, even for her. She turned and sprang through the open door into the +passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face +bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor. The Thing did not follow +her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more +timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room. +Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown, +the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced +the past night: it was all this, together with a sense of an evil +influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul +and in body. However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she +could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence. The +candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning +all her strength, with an inward prayer she recrossed the threshold. The +light still burned brightly, the thread she had come to seek lay on the +floor where she had dropped it, but the figure was gone. She looked about +the room: there was no trace of living presence save her own. She had even +the courage to stoop down and examine the place on the carpet where the +Shape had stood, and which covered the burned spot on the floor; but this +time the mysterious footsteps had failed to leave their mark. + +"Whatever shall I do?" said Miss Sophonisba to herself. "If Faithful was +to see what I have, she'd nigh go crazy; and what excuse can we make for +leaving the house?" + +If no one but herself had been concerned, I think she would have stood a +siege from the hosts of the unknown world rather than confess that she +left the house because it was haunted. She caught herself up as the word +was formed in her thoughts. "Haunted, indeed!" she said. "I'll think I'm +losing my wits first. Stuff and nonsense!" But she paused, for through the +middle of the room, close by her side, making an angry gesture as it +passed, swept the same Shape, visible for one moment, vanishing the next. +She went back into the other room, and giving her sister the thread, sat +down so as to hide her face, busying herself with her work until she could +in some measure regain her wonted steady composure. + +Miss Faithful was much engaged with her sewing just at that moment, and +her sister's unusual agitation escaped her notice. Presently she said, +"Sophonisba, isn't there a bit of old black ribbon in that cupboard? I +want something of the kind, just to put round inside the neck of the +dress, and then it will be done." + +"Yes--I don't know--I think not," said her sister, with a hesitation so +unlike her usual promptness that Miss Faithful looked up surprised. "I +mean, I think there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "If you'd like to look, +I'll hold the candle for you." + +"Oh, you needn't put down your work for that," said Miss Faithful, but +Miss Sophonisba dropped the ribbon she was plaiting and followed her +sister with the candle. She threw a half-frightened glance around the room +as she entered, but the Vision did not reappear. It was some time before +the ribbon was found. It had been pushed into the farther corner of the +lower shelf, which was a wide and very thick pine board, slipping easily +on the cleats by which it was upheld. One end of the roll had caught +behind this shelf, and Miss Faithful pulled the board a little forward. As +she did so a little roll of paper fell into the bottom of the cupboard. +Miss Sophonisba picked it up. It consisted of several stained and +discolored sheets of paper, seemingly torn from an account-book or +journal, and covered all over with very fine and closely-written though +perfectly legible characters, in a very precise hand. + +"What is that?" said Miss Faithful. + +"It's nothing of ours, I'm pretty sure," said her sister, looking at it. +"But come, if you've got what you want: let's go into the other room--it's +cold here." + +As they crossed the threshold, Miss Faithful started. + +"What's the matter?" said her sister, though she well knew the reason. She +too had heard the same long sigh felt the same breath of chill air. + +"Why, it seemed as if something breathed close to my ear," said Miss +Faithful, turning white; "and what's more," she continued, as they crossed +the passage and entered the work-room, "I believe you heard it too, and +that you've seen things in this house you haven't told me of." + +"Well, child," said Miss Sophonisba in a subdued tone, "there _are_ some +queer things in this world, that's a fact--queerer than ever I thought +till lately." + +Miss Faithful did not press for an explanation: she went quietly on with +her dressmaking, and her sister, hurried though she was about her work, +set herself to examine the papers. + +I remember seeing the original manuscript when I was a little girl, but it +was unfortunately destroyed by an accident. My father, however, had copied +part of it, and this copy is yet in my possession. Miss Sophonisba could +make very little of the record, which related to scientific matters of +which she was quite ignorant; and as the most important words were +indicated by signs and figures, she was completely puzzled. The writer +seemed to have been seeking in vain some particular result. She looked on +through the dates of the year 1785, and saw here and there familiar names, +and at last commenced reading at these words: + +"_June_ 3. This day took possession of my house. Busied in making +arrangements. Shall build my own furnace. Am sure now that I am in the +right way. Am determined no one shall come into the house." + +Much followed which Miss Sophonisba could not understand, until, under the +date of July 1, she found recorded: + +"Being over at Neponset, looking for the plant witch-hazel, bethought +myself to ask of the fellow they call Indian Will. Going to the little +hovel he lives in, found him lying very ill with pleurisy. By the grace of +God was able to help him. His wife told me where to find what I sought. To +my surprise, discovered she knew much of its virtues. It may be these +people have a knowledge of simples worth investigating. + +"_Sept._ 3. No nearer my great end. My means fast growing less. Have +borrowed from Jonathan Phelps, but the sum is but a drop for such a +purpose. Most like some of these people, who complain of my price for the +exercise of my skill, would give me threefold did they know what I work +for, if they might share in its result. Yet I know I am in the right way. +Should I die before I come to its end--Is Death the gate of knowledge?" + +"_Oct._ 7. I advance just so far and no farther. Why is it that I see my +path so plain just to the one point, and there it stops? How small our +understanding of the endless mysteries around us! yet should something +differing from every day's experience befall us, how quickly we speak of +the _supernatural_! + +"_Oct._ 29. No nearer, no nearer, and my money all but done. Took some of +my books into Boston and offered them to sell. Refused, of course. How +should they know their value? Have sent them to London. It was hard, but +patience! patience!" + +"_Oct._ 30. This day Indian Will brought the plants I wanted. Have bade +him never to tell any one that he comes here. He only has ever entered. So +far as I know, he has obeyed. He thinks me like one of his own powahs. + +"_Dec._ 15. At last! I have passed the crisis, and without accident. How +simple it seems, now that I know! It was my last bit of the essential +metal: like from like. Each element has its seed in itself. The poor +people say I have been good to them. Should success be final, I can indeed +help mankind. + +"_Dec._ 16. Last night, lifting the crucible from the furnace, spilled the +liquor on the floor. Had I one particle more of the essential element! All +was utterly lost: no one will lend to me. + +"_Dec._ 18. What have I done that I should feel guilt? What was worth the +life of such a useless creature to the interests of mankind? Why did he +not trust my word and give me what I needed when I asked him? If he had +not waked from his half-drunken sleep when I made the attempt, I would +have given him threefold. I gave him his life once: why will not that +atone? No one will know ever. I will devote my life to relieve distress. +What is such as his, weighed in the balance with my purpose? It is strange +that since then I have forgot the very essential thing in the process. I +cannot read my own cipher in which I wrote it down; but it will come, it +will come. + +"_Dec._ 19. Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain. Have lost +the key, have forgotten the chief link. Until I can recall it the metal is +useless. What if it should never come to me? This night went down to the +Point. Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pass. +The tide will soon wash them away. + +"_Dec._ 20. Surely it is not meant this thing should be known. To-day a +body came on shore, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by +those who should have known best. Now, no one will ever search this house. +Twice to-day I have been to look at the place: nothing can be seen. +Providence means I should live to finish my work--to complete that which I +alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken +off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would +the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck +at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not +human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us. + +"_Dec._ 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to +go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days? + +"_Dec._ 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no +guest but one I dare not name-- + + 'Tumulum circumvolat umbra.' + +"_Dec._ 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I +will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help +those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?" + +Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786: + +"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I +see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest +the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press +me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it +was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty +dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before, +thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it +will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I +will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will +rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of +all men, have seen unveiled the mystery. I will leave This behind. When I +am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if +that is what it seeks. Then it will cease to persecute me with its step +close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch." + +Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a +strange expression that her sister was startled. "Put on your bonnet, +Faithful," said she: "I'm going down to see the minister." + +"What do you mean?" said Miss Faithful: "it's nearly nine o'clock." + +"I don't care if it's midnight. I'm going to show these to him, and tell +him what's happened here, and he may make what he can of it." + +"Then you have seen something?" said Miss Faithful, turning pale. + +Miss Sophonisba made a sign of assent; "I'll tell you all about it when we +get there, but do come along now. You're work's done, and I'll take the +bonnet with me and finish it there." + +They lived at some distance from the parsonage, and the roads were in even +worse condition than they are now. It was a tiresome walk, and Miss +Faithful, clinging to her sister's side, was almost inclined to wish they +had braved the terrors at home rather than ventured out into the dark. The +clergyman was a middle-aged bachelor, a grandson of the Parson H---- +mentioned by Mrs. T----. He heard Miss Sophonisba's story in silence, but +without any sign of dissent. Faithful, in spite of her terror, could not +but feel a mild degree of triumph in her sister's evident conviction that +what she had seen was, to say the least, unaccountable. + +Mr. H---- looked over the papers which had been found in the cupboard, and +which Miss Sophonisba had brought with her. "This is undoubtedly Doctor +Haywood's writing," he said at last. "I have a book purchased of him by my +grandfather, and which has marginal notes in the same hand." + +"What shall we do, sir?" asked Miss Sophonisba. + +"If I were you I should leave the house as soon as possible. If there is +anything in the air which induces such--" Mr. H---- hesitated for a +word--"sensations as these, it would be better to go." + +"Sensations!" said Miss Sophonisba, almost indignant. "I tell you I saw it +myself; and what made the wet spot on Faithful's cape, and the rest?" + +"I can't undertake to say, Miss T----; but if you like I will just come up +to-morrow, and we will look into the matter a little. My cousin, +Lieutenant V----, is here from his ship, and he will assist me. And +meantime you had best stay here to-night: my sister will be very glad to +see you." + +Miss H---- was a particular friend of the sisters, but she could not but +feel a little curious to know the object of their visit. Miss Sophonisba +would have kept the matter to herself, but Miss Faithful, in her +excitement, could not but tell the story of their experiences. Miss H----, +however, was a discreet woman, and kept the tale to herself. + +The next evening the clergyman, his cousin the lieutenant and Miss +Sophonisba went quietly about dusk to the old house. They went down into +the cellar, and the drag which the sailor had constructed brought up some +bleached bones, and at the second cast a skeleton hand and a skull. As the +latter was disengaged from the drag something fell glittering from it upon +the cellar floor: two coins rolled to different corners. Mr. H----, picked +them up. One was a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. + +"Miss T----," said the clergyman in a low tone, "I will see that these +poor relics are laid in the burial-ground; and then--really I think you +had better leave the house." + +Miss Sophonisba made no opposition. + +The three ascended the cellar stairs, but as they entered the room they +paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it passed, a wild +gesture of despair, swept the Shape, living yet dead. + +"What was that?" said the clergyman, who was the first to recover himself, +"_It_," said Miss Sophonisba in a whisper. + +"I have seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy passage +round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the +waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to +board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a +corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I +could not bear it and hid my face. One of the sailors, however, took from +the dead hand a paper covered with characters in cipher, which no one +could read. This paper afterward fell into my possession, and I submitted +it in vain to several experts, all of whom failed to read it. By an +accident it was destroyed, and the secret, whatever it was, is hidden for +ever; but the face of that corpse was the face I have just seen in this +room." + +CLARA F. GUERNSEY. + + + + +The Blood Seedling. + + + +In a bit of green pasture that rose, gradually narrowing, to the tableland +that ended in prairie, and widened out descending to the wet and willowy +sands that border the Great River, a broad-shouldered young man was +planting an apple tree one sunny spring morning when Tyler was President. +The little valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills, +patched with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering +columbines. In front was the Mississippi, reposing from its plunge over +the rapids, and idling down among the golden sandbars and the low, moist +islands, which were looking their loveliest in their new spring dresses of +delicate green. + +The young man was digging with a certain vicious energy, forcing the spade +into the black crumbling loam with a movement full of vigor and malice. +His straight black brows were knitted till they formed one dark line over +his deep-set eyes. His beard was not yet old enough to hide the massive +outline of his firm, square jaw. In the set teeth, in the clouded face, in +the half-articulate exclamations that shot from time to time from the +compressed lips, it was easy to see that the thoughts of the young +horticulturist were far from his work. + +A bright young girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that +skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail +of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a +thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually +expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their +love as so airy and delicate in structure that the flowers they tread on +are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation. But not +being a poet or in love, we must admit that there was no resurrection for +the larkspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie +Barringer landed. Yet she was not of the coarse peasant type, though her +cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday +mornings, and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from +shoulders to waist. She was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl, +with a slightly freckled face, and rippled brown hair, and astonished blue +eyes, but perfectly self-possessed, and graceful as a young quail. + +A young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress. The +flight of this plump bird in its fluttering blue plumage over the +rail-fence caused our young man to look up from his spading: the scowl was +routed from his brow by a sudden incursion of blushes, and his mouth was +attacked by an awkward smile. + +The young lady nodded, and was hurrying past. The scowl came back in +force, and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss: +"Miss Tudie, are you in a hurry?" + +The lady thus addressed turned and said, in a voice that was half pert and +half coaxing, "No particular hurry. Al, I've told you a dozen times not to +call me that redicklis name." + +"Why, Tudie, I hain't never called you nothing else sence you was a little +one so high. You ort to know yer own name, and you give yerself that name +when you was a yearling. Howsom-ever, ef you don't like it now, sence +you've been to Jacksonville, I reckon I can call you Miss Susie--when I +don't disremember." + +The frank amende seemed to satisfy Miss Susie, for she at once interrupted +in the kindest manner: "Never mind, Al Golyer: you can call me what you +are a-mind to." Then, as if conscious of the feminine inconsistency, she +changed the subject by asking, "What are you going to do with that great +hole?--big enough to bury a fellow." + +"I'm going to plant this here seedlin', that growed up in Colonel Blood's +pastur', nobody knows how: belike somebody was eatin' an apple and throwed +the core down-like. I'm going to plant a little orchard here next spring, +but the colonel and me, we reckoned this one 'ud be too old by that time +for moving, so I thought I'd stick it in now, and see what come out'n it. +It's a powerful thrifty chunk of a saplin'." + +"Yes. I speak for the first peck of apples off'n it. Don't forget. +Good-morning." + +"Hold on a minute, Miss Susan, twell I git my coat. I'll walk down a piece +with you. I have got something to say to you." + +Miss Susie turned a little red and a little pale. These occasions were not +entirely unknown in her short experience of life. When young men in the +country in that primitive period had something to say, it was something +very serious and earnest. Allen Golyer was a good-looking, stalwart young +farmer, well-to-do, honest, able to provide for a family. There was +nothing presumptuous in his aspiring to the hand of the prettiest girl on +Chaney Creek. In childhood he had trotted her to Banbury Cross and back a +hundred times, beguiling the tedium of the journey with kisses and the +music of bells. When the little girl was old enough to go to school, the +big boy carried her books and gave her the rosiest apple out of his +dinner-basket. He fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions; +which latter, by the way, never gained her any great credit. When she was +fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week +during one happy winter to singing-school. This was the bloom of +life--nothing before or after could compare with it. The blacking of shoes +and brushing of stiff, electric, bristling hair, all on end with frost and +hope, the struggling into the plate-armor of his starched shirt, the tying +of the portentous and uncontrollable cravat before the glass, which was +hopelessly dimmed every moment by his eager breath,--these trivial and +vulgar details were made beautiful and unreal by the magic of youth and +love. Then came the walk through the crisp, dry snow to the Widow +Barringer's, the sheepish talk with the old lady while Susie "got on her +things," and the long, enchanting tramp to the "deestrick school-house." + +There is not a country-bred man or woman now living but will tell you that +life can offer nothing comparable with the innocent zest of that old style +of courting that was done at singing-school in the starlight and +candlelight of the first half of our century. There are few hearts so +withered and old but they beat quicker sometimes when they hear, in +old-fashioned churches, the wailing, sobbing or exulting strains of +"Bradstreet" or "China" or "Coronation;" and the mind floats down on the +current of these old melodies to that fresh young day of hopes and +illusions--of voices that were sweet, no matter how false they sang--of +nights that were rosy with dreams, no matter what Fahrenheit said--of +girls that blushed without cause, and of lovers who talked for hours about +everything but love. + +I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when +I say that there was nothing that our superior civilization would call +love making in those long walks through the winter nights. The heart of +Allen Golyer swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and +devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with his pretty enslaver. +But he talked of apples and pigs and the heathen and the teacher's wig, +and sometimes ventured an illusion to other people's flirtations in a +jocose and distant way; but as to the state of his own heart, his lips +were sealed. It would move a blasé smile on the downy lips of juvenile +Lovelaces, who count their conquests by their cotillons, and think nothing +of making a declaration in an avant-deux, to be told of young people +spending several evenings of each week in the year together, and speaking +no word of love until they were ready to name their wedding-day. Yet such +was the sober habit of the place and time. + +So there was no troth plighted between Allen and Susie, though the youth +loved the maiden with all the energy of his fresh, unused nature, and she +knew it very well. He never dreamed of marrying any other woman than Susie +Barringer, and she sometimes tried a new pen by writing and carefully +erasing the initials S.M.G., which, as she was christened Susan Minerva, +may be taken as showing the direction of her thoughts. + +If Allen Golyer had been less bashful or more enterprising, this history +would never have been written; for Susie would probably have said Yes for +want of anything better to say, and when she went to visit her aunt +Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone _engaged_, her finger bound +with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises. But she went, +as it was, fancy free, and there is no tinder so inflammable as the +imagination of a pretty country girl of sixteen. + +One day she went out with her easy-going aunt Abigail to buy ribbons, the +Chancy Creek invoices not supplying the requirements of Jacksonville +society. As they traversed the court-house square on their way to Deacon +Pettybones' place, Miss Susie's vagrant glances rested on an iris of +ribbons displayed in an opposition window. "Let's go in here," she said +with the impetuous decision of her age and sex. + +"We will go where you like, dear," said easy-going Aunt Abigail. "It makes +no difference." + +Aunt Abigail was wrong. It made the greatest difference to several persons +whether Susie Barringer bought her ribbons at Simmons' or Pettybones' that +day. If she had but known! + +But, all unconscious of the Fate that beckoned invisibly on the threshold, +Miss Susie tripped into "Simmons' Emporium" and asked for ribbons. Two +young men stood at the long counter. One was Mr. Simmons, proprietor of +the emporium, who advanced with his most conscientious smile: "Ribbons, +ma'am? Yes, ma'am--all sorts, ma'am. Cherry, ma'am? Certingly, ma'am. Jest +got a splendid lot from St. Louis this morning, ma'am. This way, ma'am." + +The ladies were soon lost in the delight of the eyes. The voice of Mr. +Simmons accompanied the feast of color, insinuating but unheeded. + +The other young man approached: "Here is what you want, miss--rich and +elegant. Just suits your style. Sets off your hair and eyes beautiful." + +The ladies looked up. A more decided voice than Mr. Simmons'; whiter hands +than Mr. Simmons' handled the silken bands; bolder eyes than the weak, +pink-bordered orbs of Mr. Simmons looked unabashed admiration into the +pretty face of Susie Barringer. + +"Look here, Simmons, old boy, introduce a fellow." + +Mr. Simmons meekly obeyed: "Mrs. Barringer, let me interduce you to Mr. +Leon of St. Louis, of the house of Draper & Mercer." + +"Bertie Leon, at your service," said the brisk young fellow, seizing Miss +Susie's hand with energy. His hand was so much softer and whiter than hers +that she felt quite hot and angry about it. + +When they had made their purchases, Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with +them, and was very witty and agreeable all the way. He had all the wit of +the newspapers, of the concert-rooms, of the steamboat bars at his +fingers' ends. In his wandering life he had met all kinds of people: he +had sold ribbons through a dozen States. He never had a moment's doubt of +himself. He never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would +not interfere with business. He had one ambition in life--to marry Miss +Mercer and get a share in the house. Miss Mercer was as ugly as a +millionaire's tombstone. Mr. Bertie Leon--who, when his moustache was not +dyed nor his hair greased, was really quite a handsome fellow--considered +that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interests of trade must be +made good to him in some way. So, "by way of getting even," he made +violent love to all the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels--"to +have something to think about after he should have found favor in the +strabismic optics of Miss Mercer," he observed, disrespectfully. + +Simple Susie, who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and +blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the +free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was +something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a +faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt +Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate +in the most recent Planters'-House style, she cordially invited him to +call--"to drop in any time: he must be lonesome so far from home." + +He said he wouldn't neglect such a chance, with another Planters'-House +bow. + +"What a nice young man!" said Aunt Abigail. + +"Awful conceited and not overly polite," said Susie as she took off her +bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings. + +The oftener Albert Leon came to Mrs. Barringer's bowery cottage, the more +the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticised +him, until it was plain to be seen that Aunt Abigail was growing tired of +him and pretty Susan dangerously interested. But just at this point his +inexorable carpet-bag dragged him off to a neighboring town, and Susie +soon afterward went back to Chaney Creek. + +Her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could +have done--the belle of the neighborhood. Non cuivis contingit adire +Lutetiam, but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county-town +is a shrine of fashion. Allen Golyer felt a vague sense of distrust +chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons' ribbons decking the pretty head +in the village choir the Sunday after her return, and, spurred on by a +nascent jealousy of the unknown, resolved to learn his fate without loss +of time. But the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned +friendliness, talked so much and so fast about her visit, that the honest +fellow was quite bewildered, and had to go home to think the matter over, +and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever, +or had drifted altogether out of his reach. + +Allen Golyer was, after all, a man of nerve and decision. He wasted only a +day or two in doubts and fears, and one Sunday afternoon, with a beating +but resolute heart, he left his Sunday-school class to walk down to +Crystal Glen and solve his questions and learn his doom. When he came in +sight of the widow's modest house, he saw a buggy hitched by the gate. + +"Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel, by jing! What is Dow after out here?" + +It is natural, if not logical, that young men should regard the visits of +all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious +impropriety. + +But it was not his friend and crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came +out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling +Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the +period--light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black +moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers +that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished +boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod +men in the world. + +Golyer's heart sank within him as this splendid being shone upon him. But +with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the +gate, and said, "Tudie, I come to see you. Shall I go in and talk to your +mother twell you come back?" + +"No, that won't pay," promptly replied the brisk stranger. "We will be +gone the heft of the afternoon, I reckon. This hoss is awful slow," he +added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie. + +"Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr. +Leon." + +Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the +West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again." He lifted Miss +Susie into the buggy, sprang lightly in, and went off with laughter and +the cracking of his whip after Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel. + +The young farmer walked home desolate, comparing in his simple mind his +own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilet, his awkward address +with the other's easy audacity, till his heart was full to the brim with +that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy, from +which pray Heaven to guard you. + +It was the next morning that Miss Susie vaulted over the fence where Allen +Golyer was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree. + +"Something middlin' particular," continued Golyer, resolutely. + +"There is no use leaving your work," said Miss Barringer pluckily. "I will +stay and listen." + +Poor Allen began as badly as possible: "Who was that feller with you +yesterday?" + +"Thank you, Mr. Golyer--my friends ain't fellers! What's that to you, who +he was?" + +"Susie Barringer, we have been keeping company now a matter of a year. I +have loved you well and true: I would have give my life to save you any +little care or trouble. I never dreamed of nobody but you--not that I was +half good enough for you, but because I did not know any better man around +here. Ef it ain't too late, Susie, I ask you to be my wife. I will love +you and care for you, good and true." + +Before this solemn little speech was finished, Susie was crying and biting +her bonnet-strings in a most undignified manner. "Hush, Al Golyer!" she +burst out. "You mustn't talk so. You are too good for me. I am kind of +promised to that fellow. I 'most wish I had never seen him." + +Allen sprang to her and took her in his strong arms: she struggled free +from him. In a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had +produced in her passed away. She dried her eyes and said firmly enough, +"It's no use, Al: we wouldn't be happy together. Good-bye! I shouldn't +wonder if I went away from Chaney Creek before long." + +She walked rapidly down to the river-road. Allen stood fixed and +motionless, gazing at the light, graceful form until the blue dress +vanished behind the hill, and leaned long on his spade, unconscious of the +lapse of time. + +When Susan reached her home she found Leon at the gate. + +"Ah, my little rosebud! I came near missing you. I am going to Keokuk this +morning, to be gone a few days. I stopped here a minute to give you +something to keep for me till I come back." + +"What is it?" + +He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe +lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed. + +She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched +him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It +would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him. +I'd like to hear it." + +An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a +shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the +piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse +passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face. +He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of +weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung +clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued +with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would +have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who, +though working against hope, was still not without resolute will. + +Dame Barringer, who had seen him coming up the walk, bustled in: +"Good-morning, Allen. How beat out you do look! Now, I like a stiddy young +man, but don't you think you run this thing of workin' into the ground?" + +"Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile--"leastways I've been +a-running this spade into the ground all the morning, and--" + +"_You_ want buttermilk--that's your idee: ain't it, now?" + +"Well, Mizzes Barringer, I reckon you know my failin's." + +The good woman trotted off to the dairy, and Susie sewed demurely, waiting +with some trepidation for what was to come next. + +"Susie Barringer," said a low, husky voice which she could scarcely +recognize as Golyer's, "I've come to ask pardon--not for nothing I've +done, for I never did and never could do you wrong--but for what I thought +for a while arter you left me this morning. It's all over now, but I tell +_you_ the Bad Man had his claws into my heart for a spell. Now it's all +over, and I wish you well. I wish your husband well. If ever you git into +any trouble where I can help, send for me: it's my right. It's the last +favor I ask of you." + +Susceptible Susie cried a little again. Allen, watching her with his +ambushed eyes, said, "Don't take it to heart, Tudie. Perhaps there is +better days in store for me yet." + +This did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least. She was +greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man's heart: she +was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not. If any +explanation of this paradox is required, I would observe, quoting a phrase +much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age, that Miss Susie +Barringer was "a very female woman." + +So pretty Susan's rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time +her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and +plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent +delight of a Lady Bountiful. + +"There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance +in all things." + +"Very well, then, you work less and play more. We never get a sight of you +lately. Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie." + +It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter +married and settled with "a stiddy young man that you knowed all about, +and his folks before him." She had observed with great disquietude the +brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter +in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil +of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is +a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet +would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a +Cocodès.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't +be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller." + +Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame +Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on +his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making +Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol. + +Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's +dismay, Mr. Leon did not come. + +"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away +from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet +and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The +artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so +she added, "I was expecting a letter from my aunt." + +"No letters here from your aunt, nor your uncle, nor none of the tribe," +said old Whaler, who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place, and so +had no further use for good manners. + +"I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch," said Susie that +evening, "and I won't go near his old post-office again." But Susie forgot +her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family +affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie _must_ have +written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly, +"Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres--that's what's the +matter." + +Poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried +from that dreadful post-office, scarcely hearing the terrible words that +the old gin-pig hurled after her: "_And he's forgot you!--that's what's +the matter._" + +Susie Barringer walked home along the river-road, revolving many things in +her mind. She went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen-knife +over the latch, and sat down to have a good cry. Her faculties being thus +cleared for action, she thought seriously for an hour. If you can remember +when you were a school-girl, you know a great deal of solid thinking can +be done in an hour. But we can tell you in a moment what it footed up. You +can walk through the Louvre in a minute, but you cannot see it in a week. + +_Susan Barringer (sola, loquitur)_: "Three weeks yesterday. Yes, I s'pose +it's so. What a little fool I was! He goes everywheres--says the same +things to everybody, like he was selling ribbons. Mean little scamp! +Mother seen through him in a minute. I'm mighty glad I didn't tell her +nothing about it." [Fie, Susie! your principles are worse than your +grammar.] "He'll marry some rich girl--I don't envy her, but I hate +her--and I am as good as she is. Maybe he will come back--no, and I hope +he won't;--and I wish I was dead!" (_Pocket handkerchief._) + +Yet in the midst of her grief there was one comforting thought--nobody +knew of it. She had no confidante--she had not even opened her heart to +her mother: these Western maidens have a fine gift of reticence. A few of +her countryside friends and rivals had seen with envy and admiration the +pretty couple on the day of Leon's arrival. But all their poisonous little +compliments and questions had never elicited from the prudent Susie more +than the safe statement that the handsome stranger was a friend of Aunt +Abbie's, whom she had met at Jacksonville. They could not laugh at her: +they could not sneer at gay deceivers and lovelorn damsels when she went +to the sewing-circle. The bitterness of her tears was greatly sweetened by +the consideration that in any case no one could pity her. She took such +consolation from this thought that she faced her mother unflinchingly at +tea, and baffled the maternal inquest on her "redness of eyes" by the +school-girl's invaluable and ever-ready headache. + +It was positively not until a week later, when she met Allen Golyer at +choir-meeting, that she remembered that this man knew the secret of her +baffled hopes. She blushed scarlet as he approached her: "Have you got +company home, Miss Susie?" + +"Yes--that is, Sally Withers and me came together, and--" + +"No, that's hardly fair to Tom Fleming: three ain't the pleasantest +company. I will go home with you." + +Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her, and leaned upon it +with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home through +the balmy night under the clear, starry heaven of the early spring. The +air was full of the quickening breath of May. + +Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Allen +Golyer. He talked more than usual, but in a grave, quiet, protecting +style, very different from his former manner of worshiping bashfulness. +His tone had in it an air of fatherly caressing which was inexpressibly +soothing to his pretty companion, tired and lonely with her silent +struggle of the past month. When they came to her gate and he said +good-night, she held his hand a moment with a tremulous grasp, and spoke +impulsively: "Al, I once told you something I never told anybody else. +I'll tell you something else now, because I believe I can trust you." + +"Be sure of that, Susie Barringer." + +"Well, Al, my engagement is broken off." + +"I am sorry for you, Susie, if you set much store by him." + +Miss Susie answered with great and unnecessary impetuosity, "I don't, and +I am glad of it!" and then ran into the house and to bed, her cheeks all +aflame at the thought of her indiscretion, and yet with a certain comfort +in having a friend from whom she had no secrets. + +I protest there was no thought of coquetry in the declaration which Susan +Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of +the May heaven. But Allen Golyer would have been a dull boy not to have +taken heart and hope from it. He became, as of old, a frequent and welcome +visitor at Crystal Glen. Before long the game of chequers with Susie +became so enthralling a passion that it was only adjourned from one +evening to another. Allen's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with +fatigue-duty, and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much +soap. Susie's affectionate heart, which had been swayed a moment from its +orbit by the irresistible attraction of Bertie Leon's diamond breastpin +and city swagger, swung back to its ancient course under the mild +influence of time and the weather and opportunity. So that Dame Barringer +was not in the least surprised, on entering her little parlor one soft +afternoon in that very May, to see the two young people economically +occupying one chair, and Susie shouting the useless appeal, "Mother, make +him behave!" + +"I never interfere in young folks' matters, especially when they're going +all right," said the motherly old soul, kissing "her son Allen" and +trotting away to dry her happy tears. + +I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married--so soon that when +Miss Susan went with her mother to Keokuk to buy a wedding-garment, she +half expected to find, in every shop she entered, the elegant figure of +Mr. Leon leaning over the counter. But the dress was bought and made, and +worn at wedding and _in-fair_ and in a round of family visits among the +Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the +pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on +Allen's prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs. +Golyer to trouble her joy. In her calm and busy life the very name faded +from her tranquil mind. These wholesome country hearts do not bleed long. +In that wide-awake country eyes are too useful to be wasted in weeping. My +dear Lothario Urban us, those peaches are very sound and delicious, but +they will not keep for ever. If you do not secure them to-day, they will +go to some one else, and in no case, as the Autocrat hath said with +authority, can you stand there "mellering 'em with your thumb." + +There was no happier home in the county, and few finer farms. The good +sense and industry of Golyer and the practical helpfulness of his wife +found their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing +orchards. The Warsaw merchants fought for his wheat, and his apples were +known in St. Louis. Mrs. Golyer, with that spice of romance which is +hidden away in every woman's heart, had taken a special fancy to the +seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted. +Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a +child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he +reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling. He spaded and +mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits +and in summer from terebrant grubs. It was not ungrateful. It grew a noble +tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, +and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell. The first peck of +apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first +bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud in his +admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on: "Great Scott, Golyer! +I'd rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than +be Senator." + +"You've got your wish, then, colonel," said Golyer. "Me and my wife have +called that tree The Blood Seedling sence the day it was transplanted from +your pastur'." + +It was the pride and envy of the neighborhood. Several neighbors asked for +scions and grafts, but could do nothing with them. + +"Fact is," said old Silas Withers, "those folks that expects to raise good +fruit by begging graffs, and then layin' abed and readin' newspapers, will +have a good time waitin'. Elbow-grease is the secret of the Blood +Seedlin', ain't it, Al?" + +"Well, I reckon, Squire Withers, a man never gits anything wuth havin' +without a tussle for it; and as to secrets, I don't believe in them, +nohow." + +A square-browed, resolute, silent, middle-aged man, who loved his home +better than any amusement, regular at church, at the polls, something +richer every Christmas than he had been on the New Year's preceding--a man +whom everybody liked and few loved much--such had Allen Golyer grown to +be. + + * * * * * + +If I have lingered too long over this colorless and commonplace picture of +rural Western life, it is because I have felt an instinctive reluctance to +recount the startling and most improbable incident which fell one night +upon this quiet neighborhood, like a thunderbolt out of blue sky. The +story I must tell will be flatly denied and easily refuted. It is absurd +and fantastic, but, unless human evidence is to go for nothing when it +testifies of things unusual, the story is true. + +At the head of the rocky hollow through which Chaney Creek ran to the +river, lived the family who gave the brook its name. They were among the +early pioneers of the county. In the squatty yellow stone house the +present Chaney occupied his grandfather had stood a siege from Black Hawk +all one summer day and night, until relieved by the garrison of Fort +Edward. The family had not grown with the growth of the land. Like many +others of the pioneers, they had shown no talent for keeping abreast of +the civilization whose guides and skirmishers they had been. In the +progress of a half century they had sold, bit by bit, their section of +land, which kept intact would have proved a fortune. They lived very +quietly, working enough to secure their own pork and hominy, and regarding +with a sort of impatient scorn every scheme of public or private +enterprise that passed under their eyes. + +The elder Chaney had married, some years before, at the Mormon town of +Nauvoo, the fair-haired daughter of a Swedish mystic, who had come across +the sea beguiled by dreams of a perfect theocracy, and who on arriving at +the city of the Latter-Day Saints had died, broken-hearted from his lost +illusions. + +The only dowry that Seraphita Neilsen brought her husband, besides her +delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes, was a full set of Swedenborg's +later writings in English. These became the daily food of the solitary +household. Saul Chaney would read the exalted rhapsodies of the Northern +seer for hours together, without the first glimmer of their meaning +crossing his brain. But there was something in the majesty of their +language and the solemn roll of their poetical development that +irresistibly impressed and attracted him. Little Gershom, his only child, +sitting at his feet, would listen in childish wonder to the strange things +his silent, morose and gloomy father found in the well-worn volumes, until +his tired eyelids would fall at last over his pale, bulging eyes. + +As he grew up his eyes bulged more and more: his head seemed too large for +his rickety body. He pored over the marvelous volumes until he knew long +passages by heart, and understood less of them than his father--which was +unnecessary. He looked a little like his mother, but while she in her +youth had something of the faint and flickering beauty of the Boreal +Lights, poor Gershom never could have suggested anything more heavenly +than a foggy moonlight. When he was fifteen he went to the neighboring +town of Warsaw to school. He had rather heavy weather among the well-knit, +grubby-knuckled urchins of the town, and would have been thoroughly +disheartened but for one happy chance. At the house where he boarded an +amusement called the "Sperrit Rappin's" was much in vogue. A group of +young folks, surcharged with all sorts of animal magnetism, with some +capacity for belief and much more for fun, used to gather about a light +pine table every evening, and put it through a complicated course of +mystical gymnastics. It was a very good-tempered table: it would dance, +hop or slam at the word of command, or, if the exercises took a more +intellectual turn, it would answer any questions addressed to it in a +manner not much below the average capacity of its tormentors. + +Gershom Chaney took all this in solemn earnest. He was from the first +moment deeply impressed. He lay awake whole nights, with his eyes fast +closed, in the wildest dreams. His school-hours were passed in trancelike +contemplation. He cared no more for punishment than the fakeer for his +self-inflicted tortures. He longed for the coming of the day when he could +commune in solitude with the unfleshed and immortal. This was the full +flowering of those seeds of fantasy that had fallen into his infant mind +as he lay baking his brains by the wide fire in the old stone house at the +head of the hollow, while his father read, haltingly, of the wonders of +the invisible world. + +But, to his great mortification, he saw nothing, heard nothing, +experienced nothing but in the company of others. He must brave the +ridicule of the profane to taste the raptures which his soul loved. His +simple, trusting faith made him inevitably the butt of the mischievous +circle. They were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to +external influences. One muscular, black-haired, heavy-browed youth took +especial delight in practicing upon him. The table, under Gershom's +tremulous hands, would skip like a lamb at the command of this Thomas Fay. + +One evening, Tom Fay had a great triumph. They had been trying to get the +"medium"--for Gershom had reached that dignity--to answer sealed +questions, and had met with indifferent success. Fay suddenly approached +the table, scribbled a phrase, folded it and tossed it, doubled up, before +Gershom; then leaned over the table, staring at his pale, unwholesome face +with all the might of his black eyes. + +Chaney seized the pencil convulsively and wrote, "Balaam!" + +Fay burst into a loud laugh and said, "Read the question?" + +It was, "Who rode on your grandfather's back?" + +This is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor +Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended, +but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen +counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and +incorrigible indolence. He accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom, +and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents. + +Here, with less criticism and more perfect faith, he renewed the exercise +of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and +want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to +make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings +and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as +evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an +oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they +expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time +to the circle, and their reports heightened the half-uncanny interest with +which the Chaney house was regarded. + +It was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that Allen Golyer, standing +by his gate, saw Saul Chaney slouching along in the twilight, and hailed +him: "What news from the sperrits, Saul?" + +"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world +takes care of the like o' you." + +Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors +abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think +for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up +and ask Gershom what's come of it." + +"Come along, if you like. It's been a long while sence you've crossed my +sill. But I'm gitting to be quite the style. Young Lawyer Marshall is +a-coming up this evening to see my Gershom." + +Before Mr. Golyer started he filled a basket, "to make himself welcome and +pay for the show," with the reddest and finest fruit of his favorite apple +tree. His wife followed him to the gate and kissed him--a rather unusual +attention among Western farmer-people. Her face, still rosy and comely, +was flushed and smiling: "Al, do you know what day o' the year it is?" + +"Nineteenth of Aprile?" + +"Yes; and twenty years ago to-day you planted the Blood Seedlin' and I +give you the mitten!" She turned and went into the house, laughing +comfortably. + +Allen walked slowly up the hollow to the Chaney house, and gave the apples +to Seraphita and told her their story. A little company was assembled--two +or three Chaney Creek people, small market-gardeners, with eyes the color +of their gooseberries and hands the color of their currants; Mr. Marshall, +a briefless young barrister from Warsaw, with a tawny friend, who spoke +like a Spaniard. + +"Take seats, friends, and form a circle o' harmony," said Saul Chaney. +"The me'jum is in fine condition: he had two fits this arternoon." + +Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak. He reclined in a great hickory +arm-chair, with his eyes half open, his lips moving noiselessly. All the +persons present formed a circle and joined hands. + +The moment the circle was completed by Saul and Seraphita, who were on +either side of their son, touching his hands, an expression of pain and +perplexity passed over his pale face, and he began to writhe and mutter. + +"He's seein' visions," said Saul. + +"Yes, too many of 'em," said Gershom, querulously. "A boy in a boat, a man +on a shelf, and a man with a spade--all at once: too many. Get me a +pencil. One at a time, I tell you--one at a time!" + +The circle broke up, and a table was brought, with writing materials. +Gershom grasped a pencil, and said, with imperious and feverish +impatience, "Come on, now, and don't waste the time of the shining ones." + +An old woman took his right hand. He wrote with his left very rapidly an +instant, and threw her the paper, always with his eyes shut close. + +Old Mrs. Scritcher read with difficulty, "A boy in a boat--over he goes;" +and burst out in a piteous wail, "Oh, my poor little Ephraim! I always +knowed it." + +"Silence, woman!" said the relentless medium. + +"Mr. Marshall," said Saul, "would you like a test?" + +"No, thank you," said the young gentleman. "I brought my friend, Mr. +Baldassano, who, as a traveler, is interested in these things." + +"Will you take the medium's hand, Mr. What's-your-name?" + +The young foreigner took the lean and feverish hand of Gershom, and again +the pencil flew rapidly over the paper. He pushed the manuscript from him +and snatched his hand away from Baldassano. As the latter looked at what +was written, his tawny cheek grew deadly pale. "Dios mio!" he exclaimed to +Marshall. "This is written in Castilian!" + +The two young men retired to the other end of the room and read by the +tallow candle the notes scrawled on the paper. Baldassano translated: "A +man on a shelf--table covered with bottles beside him: man's face yellow +as gold: bottles tumble over without being touched." + +"What nonsense is that?" said Marshall. + +"My brother died of yellow fever at sea last year." + +Both the young men became suddenly very thoughtful, and observed with +great interest the result of Golyer's "test." He sat by Gershom, holding +his hand tightly, but gazing absently into the dying blaze of the wide +chimney. He seemed to have forgotten where he was: a train of serious +thought appeared to hold him completely under its control. His brows were +knit with an expression of severe almost fierce determination. At one +moment his breathing was hard and thick--a moment after hurried and +broken. + +All this while the fingers of Gershom were flying rapidly over the paper, +independently of his eyes, which were sometimes closed, and sometimes +rolling as if in trouble. + +A wind which had been gathering all the evening now came moaning up the +hollow, rattling the window-blinds, and twisting into dull complaint the +boughs of the leafless trees. Its voice came chill and cheerless into the +dusky room, where the fire was now glimmering near its death, and the only +sounds were those of Gershom's rushing pencil, the whispering of Marshall +and his friend, and old Mother Scritcher feebly whimpering in her corner. +The scene was sinister. Suddenly, a rushing gust blew the door wide open. + +Golyer started to his feet, trembling in every limb, and looking furtively +over his shoulder out into the night. Quickly recovering himself, he +turned to resume his place. But the moment he dropped Gershom's hand, the +medium had dropped his pencil, and had sunk back in his chair in a deep +and deathlike slumber. Golyer seized the sheet of paper, and with the +first line that he read a strange and horrible transformation was wrought +in the man. His eyes protruded, his teeth chattered, he passed his hand +over his head mechanically, and his hair stood up like the bristles on the +back of a swine in rage. His face was blotched white and purple. He looked +piteously about him for a moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand, +cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's +no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: +ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of lying? I +done it." + +He paused, as if struck by a sudden recollection, then burst into tears +and shook like a tree in a high wind. In a moment he dropped on his knees, +and in that posture crawled over to Marshall: "Here, Mr. Marshall--here's +the whole story. For God's sake, spare my wife and children all you can. +Fix my little property all right for 'em, and God bless you for it!" Even +while he was speaking, with a quick revulsion of feeling he rose to his +feet, with a certain return of his natural dignity, and said, "But they +sha'n't take me! None of my kin ever died that way: I've got too much sand +in my gizzard to be took that way. Good-bye, friends all!" + +He walked deliberately out into the wild, windy night. + +Marshall glanced hurriedly at the fatal paper in his hand. It was full of +that capricious detail with which in reverie we review scenes that are +past. But a line here and there clearly enough told the story--how he went +out to plant the apple tree; how Susie came by and rejected him; how he +passed into the power of the devil for the time; how Bertie Leon came by +and spoke to him, and patted him on the shoulder, and talked about city +life; how he hated him and his pretty face and his good clothes; how they +came to words and blows, and he struck him with his spade, and he fell +into the trench, and he buried him there at the roots of the tree. + +Marshall, following his first impulse, thrust the paper into the dull red +coals. It flamed for an instant, and flew with a sound like a sob up the +chimney. + +They hunted for Golyer all night, but in the morning found him lying as if +asleep, with the peace of expiation on his pale face, his pruning-knife in +his, heart, and the red current of his life tinging the turf with crimson +around the roots of the Blood Seedling. + +JOHN HAY. + + + + +The Marquis. + + + +Mrs. Ruggles lived near Crawfish Creek. Crawfish Creek ran near Thompson +City. Thompson City was in a Western State, but now is in a Middle one. It +was always in the midst of a great country--accepting local testimony and +a rank growth of corn and politicians as the tests of greatness. The earth +there was monotonously parched in summer, and monotonously muddy at all +other times. The forests were gigantic, the air carbonic, and when the +citizens wished to give Thompson City the highest commendation, they did +so by saying that "fevernagur" was worse in some other places. + +In the parlor of Mrs. Ruggles, which was also her kitchen and dining-hall, +hung a frame containing a seven-by-nine mirror, which was the frame's +excuse for being, although a compartment above and one below held squares +of glass covered with paint instead of mercury. The lower one was colored +like the contents of a wash-tub after a liberal use of indigo; and in the +centre was a horizontal stroke of red, surmounted by a perpendicular dash +of white, intersected by an oblique line of black--all of which +represented a red boat, with a white sail and black spar, making an +endless voyage across the lake of indigo. The black crosses in the sky +were birds. The black lines on the left were bulrushes. And among these +bulrushes a certain gloomy little object was either a Hebrew prophet or a +muskrat. + +Above the mirror was painted a long-tailed coat, from behind which +extended a hand holding a bell-crowned hat, to whose scarlet lining the +holder seemed inviting the spectator's particular attention. There were +also a pair of legs and boots, a heavy shock of hair, a labyrinth of +neckcloth and a florid human face. Under the boots were the words, + +MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE. + +And the beholder was ever in doubt whether the marquis was trying to stand +exclusively upon this title or was unconsciously trampling it into the +ground. + +Mrs. Ruggles admired this picture. Her knowledge of French was not great, +but her ear was delicate; and thinking the words "sounded handsome," she +had deliberately conferred them in full on her first-born. When in +good-humor she was content with calling him "Marquis-dee." In fact, it was +only when chasing him into the street with a lilac bush in her hand that +she insisted on addressing him by his full name. At such times, between +each flourish of the lilac bush and each yell of the young nobleman, she +pronounced with significant fullness, with fearful exactness, the +handsome-sounding name of Marquis de la Fayette Ruggles. His playmates, +however, had not the delicate ear of the mother, and as the son had brown +specks on his face, he was popularly known as "Frecky Rug." + +Mrs. Ruggles and her late husband were pioneers in the Crawfish Valley. +Subsequent settlers knew little, and apparently cared less, about her. +They knew, however, that she had been a Peables, and that Peables blood +was still doing its duty in her veins. And from her independence and +reserve they argued that the Peableses must have been "high up"--at least +in the estimation of Mrs. Ruggles. After Mr. Ruggles had been overcome by +malaria in clearing the creek bottoms the pride of the Peables blood had +sustained her in a long, brave fight with circumstances. + +It was while he lay one night upon his deathbed, mistaking a watching +neighbor for his wife, that he started up, saying, "Becky, if I could +prove it to you afore I died!" + +"Out of his head," was the quiet remark of Mrs. Ruggles to the watching +neighbor by the bedside. There was no further sign of delirium. That +exclamation of the dying Mr. Ruggles was a mystery to the women of +Crawfish Creek, and remains so to this day. + +It may be that the pride of Mrs. Ruggles was in excess of her wisdom. It +may be if that pride had been a little more respected by the irreverent +Crawfish settlers, they would not have had occasion to wonder, as they did +wonder, how a heart so true, an honesty so stoical, a discrimination so +acute could exist with an independence so absurd, a mind so uncultured, a +sense of dignity so ridiculous as were found united in her character. It +may be that the Peables blood was worthy of receiving honor as great as +the ridicule it did receive. It may be if the world had known the +Peableses it would have been as proud of them as she was. + +She was a person of scrupulous neatness, careful never to be seen by +strangers except in a tidy dress, and with her hair in a Grecian knot, +gracefully secured by a leather string and a wooden peg. "Weak creepings" +were her main reliance in the way of disease. She was also troubled, at +times, with a "fullness of the head." In addition, there were other times +when her right side "felt separate." But she seldom complained of anything +belonging to herself. Even her maladies, she took pleasure in knowing, +were very different from those enjoyed by certain other women. Unwilling +to be too familiar with any one baser than a Ruggles, she usually dined, +as she lived, alone with her noble son. + +On a certain summer evening she stirred her tea a long time in silence. +She stirred it vigorously, creating a maelstrom inside her cup, where, +very like a whale in the story-books, a little crust of bread disappeared +and reappeared, and sailed round and round as if very much perplexed. Then +she unconsciously reversed the current of the maelstrom, sending the baked +and buttered whale to the bottom. + +[Illustration: "She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the +young naturalist's feelings."] + +"I never see that air Miller, no odds how well I be," she remarked +mechanically to the tea-pot, "but what I feel weak creepin's come over me. +He puts dye-stuff on his baird. An' when a man's whiskers is gray an' his +head keeps black, it's a sign he uses his jaw more'n he does his brains. +An' that yaller-headed doll-baby o' his'n--the peert thing:--I'll lay +fifty cents she never washed a dish. To think o' her sayin' a thing like +that about Markis-dee!--an' there's more o' the Peables in him to-day--But +I s'pose she don't know no better." And Mrs. Ruggles rose from the table, +while the corner of her apron made a sudden journey to the corner of her +eye. It was evident her moral nature had received a wound that rankled. + +A year before this time the marquis and his playmates had watched several +vigorous fellows plant a theodolite on the bank of Crawfish Creek, very +much as the natives must have watched the Spaniards plant their first +cross on San Salvador. The contract for grading the new railway bed was in +the hands of a stranger named Miller, who was said to have known better +days, and in the time of his prosperity had been thought a proper person +to be called Colonel. He was a bluff man of forty years, who appeared to +have known both the ups and downs of life, and whose determination to wear +a black beard was equaled only by its determination to be gray. Rumor said +that he had been a railroad president, that he made and spent vast sums of +money, and that his home was somewhere in the East. + +His only child, Alice, ten or twelve years old, bright, fair, full of +animal spirits, who was indulged to the last degree by the roughly +generous colonel, sometimes accompanied him about the half-developed +country, searching for strange birds and blossoms in the woods or watching +demurely the laborers ply their picks and shovels while he inspected their +work. + +The two rode almost daily between Thompson City and the line of +excavation, passing the house of Mrs. Ruggles and a cool spring by the +roadside near it, whence that lady had obtained the water which made the +tea which was stirred into the maelstrom which has been described. While +obtaining it, clad in her working garb, the patter of hoofs and a clear +girlish laugh--sweet as the carol of a meadow lark--came ringing along the +road. As the colonel and Alice halted to let her high-mettled pony and his +heavier Morgan drink, Mrs. Ruggles, who could not otherwise escape +observation, with becoming pride and modesty stepped behind the thick +willows, leaving the marquis with a pail of water between his legs and a +bunch of mottled feathers in his hand. + +He stood dumb before the lovely girl, with her face sparkling from +exercise and enjoyment, and her golden hair escaping from its prison of +blue ribbons. While the horses drank she espied a cluster of cool violets +brightening the damp grass near the spring. The marquis had presence of +mind enough left to step forward and pluck them. Her "Thank you!" added +greatly to his embarrassment, which he expressed by vigorously twisting +the mottled feathers. + +"What bird are those from?" asked Alice. + +The question so increased his embarrassment that now the marquis could +express it only by chewing his cap, and she smilingly waited a moment for +the composure of the young naturalist's feelings. + +"She was a low, chunky hen," said he, at length--"she was a low, chunky +hen, an' she laid a hundred an' seven eggs, an' then she had spazzums an' +whirled roun' till she died." + +A burst of irrepressible laughter escaped Alice, with the exclamation, +"Did anybody ever see such a boy?" as she and her father rode away. And +those were the exceptionable words concerning her son which so rankled +that evening in the heart of Mrs. Ruggles. + +The marquis gazed with hungry eyes after the airy little figure as it +dashed down the unlovely, worm-fenced road. The golden hair, overflowing +its boundaries of blue ribbon, was more glorious to him than the golden +sunshine overflowing the blue sky. They met no more at the spring, but +several times a week, from a respectful distance, he watched her riding +by. From Thompson City to the little log bridge over Crawfish Creek the +road lay for four miles through heavy woods. Then came cleared fields, and +soon the house of Mrs. Ruggles. + +So the summer days went by. The season was waning, the grading was almost +done, and soon the contractor would be elsewhere. Then came one +particularly warm and sultry day. The screams of locusts everywhere +suggested that they were frying. The colonel, riding once more slowly out +toward the workmen with his daughter, was near the middle of the forest. +The trees on either hand were tall, and the road was so straight and +narrow that the sunlight scarcely touched it. The marquis, in the top of a +tall chestnut that overhung the road near the edge of the wood, was +overhauling a nest of flying squirrels--perhaps in the hope of finding +mottled feathers on their wings. From his elevation he could see for a +great distance down the level, dusty road between the trees, and far +across the surrounding country. + +The sun did not shine bright, yet no cloud was in the sky. The atmosphere, +thick, oppressive, opaque, veiled the horizon with strange gloom. Not a +leaf could stir in the vast forest. Not a dimple nor the semblance of a +current broke the surface of the sluggish creek. Not a sound, save the +interminable frying of the locusts. + +The colonel slackened his pace, surprised that his horse should so soon +begin to drip and pant--Alice, familiar with the road, in the mean time +riding a mile ahead. The marquis clung to the topmost branches, looking at +the still sky far above him, the still stream far below him, the still +tree-tops far around him, till he caught a glimpse of the only interesting +object to be seen--a black pony bearing its usual burden, if Alice Miller +could be called a burden, and pacing leisurely up the road beneath him. He +gazed as far as the palisade of trees permitted, but her father was not +yet in sight. + +Suddenly, in the west, a single vein of lightning darted down the sky. A +few trees shuddered as if to shake the gathering shadows from their +bosoms. Then tenfold stillness. A bird flew past with a scream of terror, +the marquis looking in vain to see a hawk pursuing it. The distant moan of +a cow came from the fields. Not another sound, it seemed, was in the +world. + +In an instant the south-west was black. A strange, remote murmur smote the +colonel's ear. Overhead he could see but a strip of hot, hazy sky. Had he +seen the whole heavens, he could have done nothing but go on. Quickly the +murmur became an awful muttering, then a deafening roar. The clatter, the +rush, the crash of a tornado were behind him. The groans of the very earth +were about him. The darkness of twilight was upon him. Alice and Death +were before him. A cloudy demon, towering high as the heavens, in whose +path nothing could live, was striding near and nearer. + +Farm-houses were overthrown. Trees were twisted off from their roots and +torn to pieces. Wild animals and birds were dashed to death. Streams were +emptied of their waters. Human beings and horses and cattle were lifted +into the air, hurled hither and thither and thrown dead upon the earth. + +The whirlwind was following the line of the road! Colonel Miller had no +opportunity to see this, nor could he ride aside from that line if he +chose. He could but cry aloud, "My darling! O God! Alice!" and lash his +horse forward. The high, close forest would keep the wind from lifting his +horse from the ground or himself from the saddle. But the great trees +crashed like thunder behind him. Their fragments whirled above him. Their +branches fell before him. The limb of a huge oak grazed his face, crushed +his horse, and both rolled to the ground, blinded with dust, imprisoned +within a barricade of splintered trunks and shattered tree-tops. + +The marquis, from his high lookout, saw, before any one else, the +approaching tornado, and, descending like a flash, he yet noted its +direction. As Alice reached the foot of his tree he was on the ground, had +seized the pony's mane, was half seated and half clinging in front of her, +had snatched the reins from her hand, and was urging the frightened animal +to its utmost speed. Overcome with terror and confusion, Alice clung +instinctively to the saddle and to him, without hearing his hurried advice +to "stick like a old burdock." + +They shot like an arrow up the road. The noise of the tempest was audible. +Closer it was coming, crushing, rending, annihilating all before it. The +way grew darker. The terrified pony scarce touched the ground. His only +will was to go forward, and he still obeyed a firm use of the bit. But who +could hope to outrun a hurricane? Twelve miles an hour against eighty! The +marquis heeded nothing. Not far behind, the road was but a slash of +fallen, writhing tree-tops. The sweat dropped from his face. He dared not +look behind. + +They reached it--the lane, by the log bridge, running at right angles to +the road--and in a moment, behind them, that lane was choked with whirling +debris. + +But in that moment they had cleared the track of the whirlwind. For the +first time Alice comprehended the conduct of the marquis. For the first +time he turned to see. A quarter of a mile each side the road the +hurricane had carried complete desolation. But after passing the heavy +timber it had veered several degrees, and was sparing the house of Mrs. +Ruggles. + +With a white face she met them at the gate. A word of explanation from the +marquis--an ejaculation of mental anguish from the girl. Two fugitive +tie-choppers from the woods turned back to find the colonel's body. Mrs. +Ruggles, carrying Alice in her arms to the door--the yaller-headed +doll-baby that never washed a dish--did what she could to soothe her, but +did it as silently as possible. + +Mrs. Ruggles intercepted the returning tie-choppers in the lane. A look of +eager joy was in their faces. The bruised colonel, assisted to the +threshold, sank into the big arm-chair, and Alice was in his arms. Mrs. +Ruggles did not see their meeting, not at all. No, her back was toward +them, but the corner of her apron made another journey to the corner of +her eye as the father folded his lost child once more to his heart. + +His desire to express his gratitude to Mrs. Ruggles and her boy was +equaled only by her fears that he would do so. As a last resort he called +the marquis to him, and, while a tear stood on his rough cheek, drew a +handful of money from his pocket. But a bony hand appeared majestically +between them, and a voice said, "Not by no means. We're not them kind o' +persons. Markis-dee, put away the camfire." + +Then a rickety gig rattled up to the gate: "Contusion--severe--no +danger--there!--be lame a while--so!--the other bandage--bridge +gone--creek half dry--bend your leg--so!--current turned up-stream--now +the shoulder--not strange Crawfish Creek should run backward--he! he!" And +the rickety gig rattled merrily off in search of broken bones. + +Alice, meeting the marquis outside the door, approached him in a way that +made him tremble. What was said will never be known, but she placed her +white little hand upon his shoulder, the golden head bowed for a moment +and her sweet lips touched his sunburnt face. + +By remaining quiet that night the colonel would be able to get back to +Thompson City in the morning. Before nine o'clock he was at rest in the +bed-room. A couch for Alice had been prepared in the same room. In the +other--kitchen, parlor and dining-hall--a blanket was thrown down for the +marquis, and two chairs fixed for the bed of Mrs. Ruggles. Before +retiring, however, she sat down at her lonely table, where, +notwithstanding the tea she drank to keep them off, an unusual number of +weak creepings came over her. + +"I couldn't help it," was all she said to the tea-pot. Whether she +referred to the tornado, or her kindness to the sufferers, or to the +manner of rendering the kindness, no one knows. That was all she said to +the tea-pot, but to her son, who sat for a while beside her, she spoke in +a low tone: "Markis-dee, you could never c'verse with her. You're better'n +she is. Put her out o' yer head. She laughed at ye." + +"But she kissed me wi' tears in 'er eyes afterward," was his answer as he +turned toward his bed on the floor. + +An hour later the tea was exhausted, but Mrs. Ruggles yet sat at her +lonely table, as still as the sleepers around her. The clock struck ten: +she nervously drew a soiled paper from her bosom. Eleven: she rose with +hesitation and set the tallow candle behind the door. Then she softly +entered the bed-room and stood before the window where Alice lay. The sky +was clear again. The moon shone on the face and form of the sleeping girl, +making softer their graceful lines, richer the shadows in the golden hair, +tenderer the tint of cheek and lip. + +She stepped again into the shade and stole to the colonel's bedside. His +disturbed mind had turned backward over the path of life from the sudden +death escaped, and, sleeping or waking, his memory had been busy with the +people and events of other days. + +"John Miller!" she said, in a suppressed tone. He started. "John Miller, I +know ye. Common name--I wa'n't sure afore to-day. When you pulled that +money out o' yer pocket I see that in yer face that satisfied me. It's fer +the good name o' the dead I've come. Elseways I never'd ha' troubled ye." +The astonished colonel shifted his position painfully, prepared to speak +or to listen. "There yer girl lies in the light o' heaven. Nex' room my +boy lies in the shadder an' dark. He don't know, an' he never will. John +Miller, I married as honest an' as good a man as ever you see. Folks has +come to me in sickness an' trouble, an' gone behin' my back to talk. Some +said I done right to take him--'twas Christian in me. Some said I must ha' +been a fool. Some said we wa'n't married a-tall. Wasn't I a Peables? +Didn't I know 'twould be flung up to my face? Wasn't I prouder'n any on +'em?" + +A moment's confusion and doubting of senses: then, as the suppressed voice +went on, the colonel remembered. A dozen years ago; before he had meddled +with railroads; back in the old town; soon after taking his father's shop; +he was plaintiff; Ruggles worked in the first room; Porter's testimony; +Becky Peables the sweetheart of both; burglary; loss trifling; George +Ruggles, for one year; came back and married when released; went West. The +old case had scarce crossed his mind for years. + +"Yes, you sent him, an' I waited fer him. The day he come out I married +him. We had to dig hard. I'd do it ag'in. Now his boy's saved yer girl's +life to pay ye fer puttin' his father'n State's pris'n. Two year ago +didn't Bill Porter--sick an' a-dyin'--hunt till he foun' me here? Didn't +he go an' swear? Done fer spite. Didn't he sen' me the affydavy?--an' I've +got it safe. Got it swore to by him, with the justice o' the peace's name +signed, an' two witnissis, an' the judge's red seal on top o' that. Could +I go back an' show that paper'n tell how 'twas? Too late! George was dead. +I couldn't go. My folks a'most disowned me when I took him. I said then I +never'd step my foot into their doors. Them that gives me the col' +shoulder once don't do it no more. Come to me?--well an' good. Go to +them?--never." + +The bewildered colonel, promising every possible reparation, would have +thrown himself at her feet, could he have done so, for the part he had +taken in the prosecution. But she permitted no interruption, and +continued: "He lay by the winder where yer girl lies. The moon come in on +his bed as it does on her'n. In the night, when I see the light o' the sky +shine there where he died, I feel his sperit in the room. I moved the bed +to this corner, where it's darker. I wa'n't good enough to lie there. But +'twas on his mind. He said, 'Becky, if I could prove it to you afore I +died!' An' I say, George's sperit sent Bill Porter here, an' sent you +here, an' sent me into this room to-night. Now, fer the sake o'him an' +Markis-dee, go back an' tell the truth!" + +Speaking the word "truth," she vanished across the light to her dark place +of rest. + +Next morning the colonel examined and copied the confession while a buggy +waited for him at the door. Respecting the evident wishes of Mrs. Ruggles, +he went away with no attempt to express the feelings that were uppermost +in his heart. + +She sleeps beside her husband in the orchard. Her old log-house has been +replaced by a large white box, of which her son the marquis is proprietor. +Each year adds to his acres or his stock. An able-bodied wife, whose +industry and English are equal to his own, sits near him at the door on a +summer evening, while he smokes his pipe, takes an oakum-headed child upon +his knee, and gazes quietly in the direction of the spring and across the +grain-fields where once he saw--or rather heard, without waiting to see--a +forest swept down in a moment. He smokes and gazes as he sees again a +dazzling creature ride down the dreary road, and wonders where on earth +that face can be, and how much it has changed, and whether, through so +many years, any memory of him can linger in her heart. He says nothing. +But he hugs closer the oakum-headed child as he remembers the one romance +in his hard, humdrum life. + +CHAUNCEY HICKOX. + + + + + +Under False Colors. + + + + +Chapter I. + +Hoisting The Flag. + + + +A dreary, murky November day brooded over Southampton, and an impenetrable +fog hung over sea and shore alike, penetrating the clothing, chilling the +blood and depressing the spirits of every unlucky person who was so +unfortunate as to come within the range of its influence. The passengers +on the steamship America, from Bremen for New York via Southampton, found +the brief period of their stay at the latter port almost unendurable; and +while some paced the wet decks impatiently, others grumbled both loudly +and deeply in the cabins, or shut themselves up in their state-rooms in +sulky discomfort. Those who remained on deck had at least the amusement of +watching for the steamboat which was to bring the Southampton +passengers--a pastime which, however, being indefinitely prolonged, began +to grow wearisome. It came at last--a wretched little vessel, rather +smaller than the smallest of the noisy tugs that puff and paddle on our +American rivers--and the wet, sick, unsheltered passengers were gradually +transferred to the deck of the ship. + +Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking +of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl, +apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible. She +would have fallen had not one of her fellow-travelers, a lady evidently +not much her senior, thrown her arm around her; thus aided, she managed to +reach the steamer's deck and to totter down the staircase leading to the +ladies' cabin. The active, busy steward at once bustled up to the two +young girls: + +"Your names, ladies, if you please. I will point out your state-rooms in a +moment. Miss Marion Nugent--Miss Rhoda Steele? Miss Nugent, berth No. 20, +state-room G--" + +"Cannot I occupy the same state-room with this young lady?" interrupted +the taller girl, who was still lending the support of her arm to sustain +her half-fainting companion. + +"Do not leave me, please," murmured the sufferer. + +The steward threw a compassionate glance upon the pair, went away, and +after a short consultation with the unseen powers, returned and said that +the arrangement had been effected, and that they could take possession at +once of their state-room, into which he proceeded to usher them. It was +more spacious than such apartments usually are, and abounded with all +those little contrivances for comfort and convenience for which the +steamers of the North German Lloyds are justly famed. The invalid sank +down on the soft-cushioned little sofa and gasped painfully for breath. + +"For Heaven's sake, get me some wine or some brandy!" exclaimed her +companion. "This poor thing seems very ill; and do tell the doctor to come +here at once." + +With a quick, energetic movement, as she spoke she unclasped the heavy +waterproof cloak of the sufferer and threw it back, thus revealing a fair, +pallid face, framed in loosened curls of silky golden hair. It was a face +that must have looked singularly lovely when tinted with the rosy hues of +health, so delicate were the features and so large and blue the +half-closed eyes, but it was ghastly pale, and a livid, bluish tinge had +settled around the small mouth, whose ruby hues had fled to give place to +a sickly purple. The steward speedily returned with some brandy, the +bull's-eye was thrown open, and the cold sea air and potent spirit soon +asserted their restorative powers. She sat up, a more natural color +over-spreading her countenance, and she murmured inarticulately a few +words of thanks, while the kind-hearted steward hastened away again in +search of the doctor. + +"I am subject to these attacks," she said, faintly; to her companion when +they were again left alone. "Only feel how my heart is beating." + +The ship's surgeon soon made his appearance. He was a young, light-haired, +solemn-looking German, who shook his head and looked very grave as he +listened to the labored breathing and felt the bounding, irregular pulse +of the sufferer. + +"It is a pity that the ship has started," he said in very good English, +"for I hardly think you are fitted to bear the fatigues of a sea-voyage at +this season of the year; and had we been still at anchor, I should have +counseled you to return to shore. But it is too late now, and you must try +to keep as quiet as possible. I would advise you to retire to your berth +at once: it will probably be a stormy night, and you had better settle +yourself comfortably before the motion begins to be unpleasant. I will see +you again in the morning, and if you feel worse meanwhile, let me know at +once." + +The doctor and the steward then quitted the state-room, and its two +occupants, being left alone, surveyed each other curiously. + +The active and energetic girl who had acted as spokeswoman and directress +throughout the brief scene we have just described had let fall her +waterproof cloak and stood arrayed in a black velvet jacket and dark silk +skirt, both much the worse for wear, and contrasting sadly with the neat +but simple traveling costume of her companion. But about her slender, +finely-proportioned figure there was an air of style and grace which lent +an elegance even to her shabby and faded finery, and which was wanting in +the owner of the fresher and more appropriate attire. Her face was +beautiful, with a singular and weird beauty which owed nothing of its +fascinations to the ordinary charms of delicate outlines and dainty +coloring. Her features were small and attenuated, and her complexion was +of a sallow paleness, whose lack of freshness seemed caused by dissipation +and late hours or by the ravages of illness. Heavy masses of soft silken +hair, black as midnight, with bluish reflections on its lustrous waves +_(bleu à force d'être noir_, as Alexandre Dumas describes such tresses), +untortured by crimping-pins or curling-tongs, were rolled back in plain +folds above her low, broad brow. Her eyes would have lent beauty to a +plainer face. Large almost to a fault, of that dark, clear blue which is +too perfect and too transparent ever to look black even under the shadow +of such long, thick eyelashes as shaded them in the present instance, they +were perfectly magnificent; and their lustrous azure and ever-varying +expression lent to the mobile countenance of their possessor its most +potent and peculiar charm. + +She was the first to speak. "Do you not think you had better retire to +your berth?" she asked. "The rocking of the ship is increasing, and we had +better, early as it is, settle ourselves for the night, before it becomes +so violent as to prevent us from moving." + +At this moment two porters made their appearance laden with packages. Two +small new trunks--one marked R.S., the other M.N.--were deposited on the +floor and identified by their possessors. The sick girl then attempted, +with trembling hands, to disembarrass herself of her apparel, but it was +not without much assistance from her companion that she was enabled to +remove her traveling costume and make her preparations for retiring. At +last, however, she was ready, and was about to make an attempt to reach +the upper berth, which was the one allotted to her by number, when a +quick, imperative gesture from her companion stopped her. + +"No, no," she said: "you must take the lower berth. I can reach the upper +one without any trouble, and you are not strong enough for so much +exertion." + +"You are very, very kind," said the invalid, gratefully. She sank back on +the pillow and watched the other for some minutes in silence, as she +quietly and quickly gathered up and put in order the scattered articles +with which the state-room was strewn. + +"Will you not give me that little black bag?" she said at last. "Thanks! +that is it. I wished to be certain that I had put my letter of +introduction in it. Ah! here it is, quite safe. It would never do for me +to lose that letter, for the lady with whom I am going to live as +governess has never seen me, and she might take me for an impostor were I +to come without it. An English lady who was her most intimate friend +engaged me for her. I wonder what New York is like?--very rough, and wild, +no doubt, and I am afraid I shall be much annoyed by the rattlesnakes. You +are going to New York too, are you not?" + +"I am." + +"Have you friends there?" + +"None." + +"I wish I had some acquaintances among our fellow-passengers, but I do not +know a single one. Do you?" + +"No." + +"You have not told me your name yet. Mine is Marion Nugent; and yours--" + +"Is not so pretty a one--Rhoda Steele." + +There was something in the tone of these replies that quelled the +invalid's disposition to talk, and she remained silent while her companion +finished her arrangements and prepared to take possession of her berth. It +was time that she did so. The threatened gale was by this time blowing in +earnest, and the ship was commencing to roll fearfully; so, after securing +all the boxes and bags as well as possible, and hanging up all the +scattered garments, she made a hasty retreat to her couch, and lay there +only half undressed, but utterly prostrate, and as unable to touch the tea +and biscuits brought by the attentive stewardess as was her more delicate +and suffering room-mate. + +Time passed on: the daylight faded from the sky, a feeble glimmering lamp +shed its faint rays into the state-room, and the great steamship went +steadily on, though rocked and tossed like a plaything by the whistling +winds and angry sea. Then midnight came: the lights in the state-rooms +were extinguished and a profound silence reigned throughout the cabins, +broken only by the ceaseless throb of the mighty engines and the noisy +clanking of the screw. + +The state-room was wrapped in profound darkness when Rhoda Steele awoke +with a start as from some troubled dream. Was she still dreaming, or did +she indeed hear a strange choking sound proceeding from the lower berth? +She sprang to the floor at once, heeding neither the darkness nor the +violent motion, and clinging to the side of the berth she called aloud. +There was no answer: even the gurgling, choking sound she had at first +heard had ceased. She put out her hand, and it encountered her companion's +face. It was deathly cold, and the features quivered as if convulsed under +her touch. Again she called aloud--still no answer; and then, thoroughly +frightened, she caught up a cloak from the sofa, threw it around her, and +opening the state-room door, she rushed into the cabin. It was almost +deserted. The lamps swung heavily overhead, swayed by the unceasing +rolling of the ship; a drowsy waiter slumbered at one of the tables, his +head resting on his folded arms; and one or two sleepy passengers tried to +maintain a recumbent posture on the broad sofas that lined the sides. The +cries of the terrified girl soon brought several of the waiters to her +assistance, and Captain Wessels himself, who had not retired to rest, +owing to the stormy weather, came to ascertain the cause of the unusual +disturbance. Her story was quickly told: lights were brought, and the +captain accompanied her back to the state-room. + +It was a pitiful sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless +in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed, +and her small hands clenched as if in agony. + +"The doctor!--run for the doctor!" was the instant and universal +exclamation. The doctor came. One look at the pallid face, one touch on +the slender wrist, and he turned with a grave face to the bystanders. + +"There is nothing to be done," he said. "She is dead. I feared some such +catastrophe when I saw her last evening. She was in the last stages of +heart disease." + +"And who was she?--what was her name?" asked kind-hearted Captain Wessels, +looking down with pitying eyes at the fair pale face. + +The steward brought his lists. + +"Berth No. 22," he read--"Miss Rhoda Steele." + +"And this young lady?" continued the captain, turning to the other +occupant of the state-room, who had sunk back as if exhausted on the sofa, +still enveloped in the shrouding folds of her large waterproof cloak. + +She raised her head. The answer came after a moment's hesitation--came +with a strange, defiant ring in its tone: + +"My name is Marion Nugent." + + + +Chapter II. + +Under Full Sail. + + +More than a year has passed away since the events narrated in our first +chapter took place, and the curtain now rises on a far different scene--a +dinner-party in one of the most splendid of the gorgeous mansions on +Madison avenue, New York. + +Mrs. Walton Rutherford, the giver of the entertainment in question, was a +member of a class unhappily now fast dying out of New York society--one of +those ladies of high social position and ancient lineage who adorn the +station which they occupy as much by their virtues as by their social +talents. A high-minded, pure-souled matron, a devoted wife and mother, as +well as a queen of society, inheriting the noble qualities of her +Revolutionary forefathers as well as their great estates--such was the +lady who presided over the brilliant festivity we are about to describe. +She had been left for many years a widow, and her surviving children--two +sons, Clement and Horace--were both of mature age; Horace, the younger, +being just thirty years old, and Clement, the elder, some seven years his +senior. Mrs. Rutherford herself was a few years over sixty. A year or two +before the period at which our story opens a terrible misfortune had +befallen her. Amaurosis--that most insidious and unmanageable of diseases +of the eye--had attacked her vision, and in a few months after it declared +itself she was totally, hopelessly blind. But, although debarred by her +infirmity from going into society, she still received her friends in her +own home; and her evening receptions and elegant dinners were always cited +as being among the most agreeable and successful entertainments of the +season. + +Another sorrow had recently come to trouble the calm of her honored and +tranquil existence--the marriage of her eldest son. Clement Rutherford, +unlike any other member of the family, was a cold, reserved man, +unpleasant in temper and disagreeable in manner. When he was still quite a +boy, his mother's only sister, Miss Myra Van Vleyden, had died, and had +bequeathed to him the large fortune which she had inherited conjointly +with Mrs. Rutherford from her father, the two sisters being the only +children of Schuyler Van Vleyden. She was a soured, morose old maid, and +probably saw some congeniality of disposition in her eldest nephew which +caused her to single him out as her heir. After he attained to years of +manhood, he always manifested a decided antipathy to ladies' society, and +was generally looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor; so that when he +announced to his mother the fact of his engagement to Mrs. Archer's pretty +governess, Miss Nugent, her distress of mind was fully equaled by her +astonishment. The match met with her strongest disapproval, as was to have +been expected; for it was hardly probable that she, the oldest surviving +representative of the old Knickerbocker family the Van Vleydens, an +acknowledged leader of society by the triple right of wealth, birth and +intellect, should be inclined to welcome very warmly as a daughter-in-law +the penniless beauty who had been occupied for some months past in +teaching Mrs. Archer's little daughters the rudiments of French and music. +Moreover, the investigations and inquiries respecting the young lady's +origin which she had at once caused to be instituted on hearing of her +son's engagement, had revealed a state of affairs which had placed Miss +Nugent in a very unenviable light. Her parents were well born, though +poor. She was the daughter of a curate in the North of England, who had +lost his young wife by heart disease when Marion was but a few months old, +and two years later Mr. Nugent died of consumption, leaving his little +daughter to the care of his unmarried and elderly brother, the Reverend +Walter Nugent, who, though the living he held was but a small one, +contrived to rear and educate his niece as his own child. He had only +allowed her to leave him and become a governess on the assurance of the +village physician that her health was seriously impaired, and that a sea +voyage and complete change of scene would prove the best and surest of +restoratives. But the pained though manly tone of the letter in which he +replied to Mrs. Rutherford's inquiries had prepossessed that warm-hearted, +high-minded lady most strongly against her future daughter-in-law. "I +loved Marion always as though she were my own child," wrote Mr. Nugent, +"and I cannot but look upon her total neglect of me since her arrival in +America as being wholly inexcusable. She has never even written me one +line since her departure, and I learned of her safe arrival only by the +newspapers. I can but infer from her obstinate and persistent silence that +she wishes to sever all ties between herself and me, and I have resigned +myself to the prospect of a lonely and cheerless old age. I trust that she +may be happy in the brilliant marriage which, you say, she is about to +make, and I can assure her that her old uncle will never disturb her in +her new prosperity." + +Mrs. Rutherford had one long, stormy interview with her eldest son, and +learning therein that his determination to marry Miss Nugent was fixed and +unalterable, she had with commendable wisdom accepted the situation, and +resolved to so order the conduct of herself and her relatives as to give +the scandalous world no room for that contemptuous pity and abundant +gossip which an open rupture between herself and her son would doubtless +have occasioned. + +The manner of the wooing had been in this wise: John Archer, a sober, +staid gentleman of great wealth, was Clement Rutherford's most intimate +friend, and naturally, when the Archers moved into their new and splendid +villa at Newport, Clement was invited to spend a few weeks with them--an +invitation which he readily accepted. A few days after his arrival, Mrs. +Archer, who was a pretty, lively little coquette, not in the least sobered +by some thirteen years of married life, offered to drive him out in her +little phaeton. "John has just given me a new pair of ponies," she +said--"such perfect beauties and so gentle that I long to drive them." So +the pretty, stylish equipage, with its fair driver and faultless +appointments, made its first appearance on the avenue that afternoon, and +also, I am sorry to say, its last; for the "gentle beauties" afore-said, +excited to emulation by the number of spirited steeds around them, became +ambitious of distinction, and sought for and decidedly obtained it by +running away, thereby overturning the phaeton, breaking the harness, +bruising Mrs. Archer severely and dislocating Mr. Rutherford's ankle. + +Mrs. Archer was as well as ever in a few days, but the injuries received +by her guest proved sufficiently serious to compel him to maintain a +recumbent position for a long time, and prevented him from walking for +several weeks. She made every arrangement possible for his comfort, and +she had a charming little reception-room on the ground floor, adjoining +the library, fitted up as a bed-chamber, and installed him there; so that +as soon as he was able to quit his bed for a sofa, he could be wheeled +into the latter apartment, and there enjoy the distractions of literature +and society. For a few days after he made his first appearance there his +lovely hostess was all attention and devotion; but, finding that he was +anything but an agreeable or impressionable companion, she soon wearied of +his society. Mr. Archer, shortly after the accident had taken place, had +been summoned from home by important business connected with some mining +property which he possessed, and which necessitated his presence in the +interior of Pennsylvania; so Mrs. Archer, thus left with the entertainment +of her most uncongenial guest exclusively confided to her care, came +speedily to the conclusion that he was a nuisance, and began to look about +for a substitute to relieve her from her unwelcome duties. She decided +that her pretty governess, who spoke French so well, and sang little +French _chansonettes_ so sweetly, and got herself up in such a charming +manner, giving so much "chic" and style even to the simplest of toilettes, +was just the person to take upon herself the task of amusing the +uninteresting invalid. + +"_Do_ look after Mr. Rutherford a little, there's a dear, good creature," +whispered Mrs. Archer confidentially to Miss Nugent. "He is dreadfully +tiresome, to be sure, but John thinks the world of him, you know, and it +would not exactly do to leave him alone all the time. I wish him to +receive every attention while he is in the house, of course; but as for +sitting for hours at a time with him in that stuffy little library--just +in the height of the season, too--why, I cannot think of doing it. If you +will just go and sit with him sometimes, and read to him a little, it will +be an absolute charity to me. I'll see that Alice and Emily do not get +into any mischief." + +Which, considering that the young ladies in question were, one twelve, the +other ten years of age, and both much addicted to flirtation and dancing +the "German," was rather a rash promise and inconsiderately made. + +So Miss Nugent was definitely installed as reader and _garde malade_ in +general, and Clement Rutherford soon learned to await her coming with +impatience and to welcome her with delight. All his life long will he +remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the +far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and +when the blue splendors of her lustrous eyes lent a new meaning to the +poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a +day when the book was laid aside, and the impassioned utterances of poetry +gave place to the more prosaic but not less fervent accents of a +newly-awakened passion. Cold, silent and morose as Clement Rutherford had +always been, it had so happened that but few women had ever attempted to +attract him, notwithstanding his wealth and social position; and the +interested motives of those few had been so apparent that he had been +repelled and disgusted, instead of being fascinated, by their wiles; so +that Miss Nugent's grace and beauty and syren charms proved all too potent +for his unoccupied though icy heart to resist; and thus it chanced that +the day before Mr. Rutherford left Newport he astonished his hostess by +requesting a private interview with her, and therein announcing his +engagement to her governess. + +"You could have knocked me down with a feather," Mrs. Archer said +afterward to an intimate friend. "I never should have suspected that such +a quiet, stupid man as he was would fall in love in that ridiculous kind +of a way. Good gracious! how indignant old Mrs. Rutherford will be! and I +shall be blamed for the whole affair, no doubt. I wish John had never +brought the man here--I never _did_ like him; and then, too, it is so +provoking to lose Miss Nugent just now, while we are at Newport. Of course +I can find no one to replace her till we return to New York. Well, I +always _was_ an unlucky little woman." + +The marriage took place in the latter part of September, only a few weeks +after the engagement had been first announced. Mrs. Rutherford, true to +her resolution of making the best of the affair, was careful that none of +the usual courtesies and observances should be neglected. The bridal gifts +from the Rutherford family, if less splendid, were as numerous as they +would have been had Mr. Rutherford married a member of his mother's +decorous, high-bred "set," and all his immediate relatives called most +punctiliously on the bride when the newly-wedded pair arrived in New York +after their six weeks' trip to Philadelphia and Washington. + +Mr. Rutherford decided to take rooms at the Brevoort House till he could +purchase a suitable residence. His mother's splendid home was not thrown +open to receive him and his unwelcome bride, as it would have been had he +made a choice more consonant with her wishes. + +But we have wandered far from the dinner given by Mrs. Rutherford in honor +of her new daughter-in-law, and with which our chapter commences. + +It was a superb entertainment, as the Rutherford dinners usually were. The +service of gold plate purchased by Schuyler Van Vleyden when he was +minister to Austria adorned the table, which was also decorated with three +splendid pyramids of choicest flowers. An exquisite bouquet bloomed in +front of each lady's plate, and the painted blossoms on the peerless +dinner-service of rare old Sèvres vied in every respect save fragrance +with their living counterparts. An unseen orchestra, stationed in the +conservatory, sent forth strains of music, now grave, now gay, as Gounod +or Offenbach ruled the tuneful spirit of the hour. Twelve guests only were +present, including Mrs. John Archer, to whom Mrs. Rutherford had in this +fashion testified her forgiveness, and who had accepted the proffered +olive-branch with delight, wearing, in order to do honor to the occasion, +an exquisite dress, fresh from one of the most renowned _ateliers_ of +Parisian fashion. Mrs. Rutherford, as usual, notwithstanding her +infirmity, presided with unfailing grace and dignity; and in her splendid +dress of black satin, brocaded with bouquets of flowers in their natural +hues, her cap and collar of priceless old point lace, and her antiquely +set but magnificent ornaments of sapphires and diamonds, she still looked +a queen of society. A well-trained servant was stationed behind her chair, +who from time to time placed before her suitably-prepared portions of the +various delicacies of the entertainment, of which she slightly partook, in +order to obviate the restraint which her presence at the festivity without +participating in it would have occasioned. On her left hand sat her +younger son, Horace, whose watchful eyes followed her every movement, and +whose loving care anticipated her every wish. He was a tall, +stalwart-looking young man, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like his elder +brother, but his frank, joyous expression and winning manners bore no +resemblance to the sullen countenance and surly demeanor of Clement. + +The bride was, of course, the, cynosure of all eyes. Attired in rich, +creamy-white satin, the corsage shaded with folds of delicate lace, with +coral ornaments on her neck and arms, and with the heavy masses of her +dark hair interwoven with coral beads, she looked extremely beautiful, and +was pronounced by the ladies present to be "handsome and stylish-looking, +but decidedly dull." This latter accusation was more truthful than such +charges usually are. Mrs. Clement Rutherford did feel unusually stupid. +She was _ennuyé_ by the long, formal, stately dinner; she knew but few of +the persons present; and her point-lace fan was frequently called into +requisition to conceal her yawns. The game had been served before her next +neighbor, a sprightly young New Yorker, who had been rather fascinated by +her beauty, contrived to arouse her into something like animation. He +succeeded at last, however, and it was not long before an unusually +brilliant sally drew a merry laugh from her lips. Her laugh was +peculiar--a low, musical, trilling sound, mirthful and melodious as the +chime of a silver bell. + +As its joyous music rang on the air, Mrs. Rutherford turned ghastly pale. +She gasped convulsively, half rose from her seat and fell back in a +deathlike swoon. + +Of course all was instantly confusion and dismay. The guests sprang up, +the waiters hurried forward--Horace was instantly at his mother's side. + +"She has only fainted," he said in his clear, decided tones. "She will be +better in a few moments. Let me beg of you, my friends, to resume your +seats. Clement, will you oblige me by taking our mother's post?" + +With the help of Mrs. Rutherford's special attendant, Horace supported the +already reviving sufferer from the room. They conveyed her to her sleeping +apartment, where restoratives and cold water were freely used, and she +soon regained perfect consciousness. But returning animation seemed to +bring with it a strange and overwhelming sorrow. When the servant had +retired, leaving her alone with her son, she refused to answer any of his +queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and +irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, +by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased +to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for +some time perfectly quiet and silent. At length she spoke: + +"Horace!" + +"What is it, mother?" + +"Describe to me the personal appearance of your brother's wife--minutely, +as though a picture were to be painted from your words." + +It was no unusual request. Horace was in the habit of thus minutely +describing persons and places for his mother's benefit. + +"She is rather below the middle height, and her form, though slender, is +finely moulded and of perfect proportions. Her hands and feet are +faultless, and her walk is extremely graceful, resembling more the gait of +a French-woman than that of an English girl. Her complexion is pale and +rather sallow, and her countenance is full of expression, which varies +constantly when she talks. The lower part of her face is somewhat too thin +for perfect beauty, and the chin is inclined to be pointed, and the cheeks +are rather hollow, but the upper part is superb. Her brow is low and +broad, and she folds back from it the heavy waves of her black hair in the +plainest possible style. Her eyes are her chief beauty, and would +transfigure any face into loveliness. They are very large, and of a dark, +transparent blue, of so lustrous and so perfect an azure that not even in +shadow do they look black. Stay--I can give you a better idea of her +appearance than by multiplying words. Did you, when you were in Munich, +visit the Gallery of Beauties in the Royal Palace?" + +"I did." + +"Do you remember the portrait of Lola Montez?" + +"Certainly--as though I had seen it yesterday." + +"Marion resembles that portrait very strikingly, particularly in the shape +and carriage of her head." + +"I am not mistaken--it is she. Would that I had never lived to see this +day!" And Mrs. Rutherford wrung her hands in an agony of helpless, +hopeless distress. + +"It is she?" repeated Horace, in perplexity. "Whom do you mean, mother? +Who was Marion Nugent?" + +"She is not Marion Nugent--this impostor who has thrust herself into our +midst, bringing scandal and dishonor as her dower." + +"And who, then, is she?" + +Mrs. Rutherford turned toward him and fixed on his face her tear-bathed +eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read +his thoughts in his countenance. + +"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the +shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy? +Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will +believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly +denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable +anguish. + +Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own. + +"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all. +If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be +freed from the matrimonial chain." + +"Could that be possible?" + +"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if +you will but confide in me." + +"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I _will_ +tell you all." + +Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest, +numbering among her passengers Horace Rutherford. + + + +Chapter III. + +Striking the Flag. + + +The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and +it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace +Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly +as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he +vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief +European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged +to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the +affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's _mesalliance_, his +mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent +seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all +afforded food for the insatiable appetite of the scandal-mongers. Then +Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of +Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had +been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at +her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the +elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street, +with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for +much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten" +would honor with its august presence the ball which Mrs. Clement +Rutherford proposed giving on Shrove Tuesday, which in that year came +about the middle of March. But as to that, it was generally conceded that +they would. Youth, beauty, wealth and the shadow of an old family name +could cover a multitude of such sins as rapid manners, desperate +flirtations and a questionable origin; and notwithstanding her fastness, +and, worse still, her _ci-devant_ governess-ship, Mrs. Clement Rutherford +was a decided social success. + +On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his +appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, +and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual +manner. + +"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been +exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me +something about your travels." + +"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message +for your wife: can I see her?" + +A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother. + +"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke. +"Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is +probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her _boudoir_, as she +calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see +her." + +He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his +hand. + +"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married +life?" + +"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "_they_ +are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss." + +"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy," +muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a +harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight +before, me." + +The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, +was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and +on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of +taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fresco +by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after +them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a +delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the +Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few +chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the +tiny apartment. Étagères of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, +and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing +nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian +glass, Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and +Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the +one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited +for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been +selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring +and _riante_ style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by +Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun +flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the +foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a +barren and precipitous shore. + +Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened +and his sister-in-law entered. He turned to greet her, and her beauty, +enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an +involuntary glance of admiration. Her dress was an exemplification of how +much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it +absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate. She wore a robe of +turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing +sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only +Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise. A band of the +same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and +showed to advantage the perfection of her figure. A brooch and long +ear-pendants of lustreless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with +gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and +gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking +woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer. + +"Welcome home, Horace!" she said in that low sweet voice which was one of +her most potent charms. "How kind it is of you to pay me a visit so soon +after your return!" + +She placed herself on the couch and motioned to him to take a seat near +her. He drew up his chair, and a short, embarrassed pause succeeded. + +Mrs. Rutherford toyed with her fan and stole glances from under her long +black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and +wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task +before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature. + +Wearied of silence, the lady spoke at last. + +"Have you nothing of interest respecting your travels to tell me?" she +asked. + +Her voice seemed to break the spell which paralyzed him. He turned toward +her with the look of one who nerves himself up to take a desperate +resolution: + +"Yes: I have a story to relate to you, and one of more than common +interest." + +"Really!" She yawned behind her fan. "Excuse me, but I was at Mrs. +Houdon's ball last evening, and the 'German' was kept up till five o'clock +this morning. I am wretchedly tired. Now do go on with your story: I have +no doubt but that I shall find it amusing, but do not be much surprised if +I fall asleep." + +"I think you will find it interesting, and I have no fear of its putting +you to sleep. But you must make me one promise. I am but a poor narrator, +and you must engage not to interrupt me." + +"I have no hesitation in promising to remain perfectly quiet, no matter +how startling your incidents or how vivid your descriptions may be." + +She leaned back among the cushions with another stifled yawn and shaded +her eyes with her fan. Without heeding the veiled impertinence of her +manner, Horace commenced his narrative: + +"Some twenty-five years ago a friendless, penniless Englishwoman died at +one of the cheap boarding-schools in Dieppe, where she had officiated for +some time as English teacher and general drudge. She left behind her a +little girl about five years of age--a pretty, engaging child, whose +beauty and infantile fascinations so won the heart of Madame Tellier, the +proprietress of the establishment, that she decided to take charge of the +little creature and educate her, her project being to fit her for the post +of English teacher in her school. But the pretty child grew up to be a +beautiful but unprincipled girl, with an inborn passion for indolence and +luxury. At the age of seventeen she eloped from the school with a young +Parisian gentleman, who had been spending the summer months at one of the +seaside hotels in Dieppe, and her benefactress saw her and heard of her no +more. + +"We will pass over the events of the next few years. It would hardly +interest you to follow, as I did, each step by which the heroine of my +history progressed ever downward on the path of vice. We find her at last +traveling in Italy under the protection of the Count von Erlenstein, an +Austrian noble of great wealth and dissolute character. She has cast aside +the name she once bore, and, anticipating the jewel-borrowed cognomens of +Cora Pearl and La Reine Topaze, she adopts a title from the profusion of +pink coral jewelry which she habitually wears, and Rose Sherbrooke is +known as Rose Coral." + +Horace paused. A short, sharp sound broke the momentary silence: it was +caused by the snapping of one of the gilded fan-sticks under the pressure +of the white, rigid fingers that clasped it. But the listener kept her +face hidden, and but for that convulsive motion the speaker might have +fancied that she slept, so silent and motionless did she remain. After a +short pause Horace continued: + +"The attachment of Count von Erlenstein proved to be a lasting one, and we +find Rose Coral at a later period installed in a luxurious establishment +in Vienna, and one of the reigning queens of that realm of many +sovereigns, the _demi-monde_ of the gay capital of Austria. But the count +falls ill; his sickness speedily assumes a dangerous form; his death +deprives Rose Coral of her splendor; and the sunny streets of Vienna know +her fair face no more. I will not retrace for you, as I could do, each +step in her rapid descent from luxury to poverty, from splendor to vice, +from celebrity to ruin. But one day she makes her appearance, under the +name of Rhoda Steele, on board the steamship America, bound for New York. +The state-room which she occupies is shared by a young girl named Marion +Nugent, whose future career is to be that of a governess in the United +States. On the first night out one of the occupants of the state-room is +taken suddenly ill and dies, the corpse is committed to the deep, and it +is reported throughout the ship that the name of the deceased is Rhoda +Steele. The tale was false: it was Marion Nugent who died--it was Rose +Sherbrooke, _alias_ Rose Coral, _alias_ Rhoda Steele, who lived to rob the +dead girl of her effects and to assume her name!" + +The broken fan was flung violently to the floor, and Mrs. Rutherford +sprang to her feet, her face livid with passion and her blue eyes blazing +with a steel-like light. + +"How dare you come here to assert such falsehoods?" she cried. "You have +always hated me--you and all the rest of your haughty family--because it +pleased Clement Rutherford to marry me--me, a penniless governess. But I +am your sister-in-law, and I _demand _ that you treat me with proper +respect. You came here to-day simply to insult me. Well, sir, I will +summon my husband, and he shall protect me from your insolence." + +She turned toward the door as she spoke, but he motioned her back with an +imperative and scornful gesture. + +"Softly, Rose Coral," he said, with a sneer: "the manners of the Quartier +Brèda are not much to my taste, nor do they suit the character you have +been pleased to assume. Do you think me so void of common sense as to +return home without full proof of your identity? I have in my possession a +large colored photograph of you, taken some years ago by Hildebrandt of +Vienna, and endorsed by him on the back with a certificate stating that it +is an accurate likeness of the celebrated Rose Coral. Secondly, I have +brought home with me two witnesses--one is Jane Sheldon, late housekeeper +for the Rev. Walter Nugent, and formerly nurse to the deceased Marion +Nugent; and the other is a French hairdresser who lived many years in +Vienna, and who, for several months, daily arranged the profuse tresses of +Rose Coral. One will prove who you are _not_, and the other will as +certainly prove who you _are_." + +"Who I _was_" she said, defiantly. "I will deny it no longer: I am Rose +Sherbrooke, once known as Rose Coral, and, what is more to the purpose, I +am the wife of Clement Rutherford. Have a care, my brother Horace, lest +you reveal to the world that your immaculate relatives have been touching +pitch of the blackest hue and greatest tenacity. Prove me to be the vilest +of my sex, I remain none the less a wedded wife--your brother's wife--and +I defy you. The game is played out, and I have won it." + +She threw herself back in her chair and cast on him a glance of insolent +disdain. Horace Rutherford looked at her with a scornful smile. + +"The game is _not_ played out," he said, calmly. "One card remains in my +hand, and I produce it. It is the Ace of Diamonds, and its title is The +Rose of the Morning." + +A livid paleness overspread Mrs. Rutherford's features, and a stifled cry +escaped from her lips. She half rose from her seat, but, seeming to +recollect herself, she sank back and covered her face with her hands. +Horace continued, after a momentary pause: + +"My investigations into the history of the Count Wilhelm von Erlenstein +during the last years of his life revealed the fact that he had lost the +most valuable of the jewels of his family. It had been stolen. It was a +pink diamond of great size and beauty, known to gem-connoisseurs by the +name of The Rose of the Morning--one of those remarkable stones which have +a history and a pedigree, and which are as well known by reputation to +diamond-fanciers as are Raphael's Transfiguration and the Apollo Belvidere +to the lovers of art. This gem was worn by Count Wilhelm as a clasp to the +plume in his toque at a fancy ball given by one of the Metternich family, +at which he appeared in the costume of Henri III. of France. He afterward, +with culpable carelessness, placed it, amongst his studs, pins, +watch-chains and other similar bijouterie, in a small steel cabinet which +stood in his bed-chamber. His illness and the dismissal of Rose Coral +occurred soon after the fancy ball in question, and it was not till his +heir, the present count, had been for some time in possession of the +estates that it was discovered that the great diamond was missing. It was +not to be found, and suspicion immediately fell upon the late count's +valet, a Frenchman named Antoine Lasalle; who was found to have been +mysteriously possessed of a large sum of money after the count's death. He +was arrested, and it was conclusively proved that he had stolen a number +of valuable trinkets from his dying master, but still no trace of The Rose +of the Morning could be discovered, and Lasalle strenuously denied all +knowledge respecting it. The family offered large rewards for its +recovery, and the detectives of all the large cities of Europe have been +for some time on the alert to discover it, but in vain. As soon as I heard +this story, I thought that I could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to the +whereabouts of the missing jewel; and I caused investigations to be set on +foot in New York by a trusty agent, which resulted in the discovery that +The Rose of the Morning had been sold some six months before to a jeweler +in Maiden lane for about one-twenty-fifth of its value, the peculiar tint +of the stone, and the purchaser's ignorance of the estimation in which it +is held by the gem-fanciers of Europe, having militated against the +magnitude of the valuation set upon it. It was secured for me at a +comparatively trifling price. The person who sold it to the jeweler some +six months ago, in spite of a partial disguise and an assumed name, was +easy to recognize, from the description given, as that lady of many names, +Mrs. John Archer's governess. Now, Rose Coral, what say you? You may be +Mrs. Clement Rutherford, my brother's lawful wife, but you are not the +less a thief and a criminal, for whom the laws have terrible punishment +and bitter degradation." + +"This is but a poor invention: where are your proofs?" she cried, looking +up as she spoke, but her faltering voice and quivering lips contradicted +her words. + +"Here is my chief witness." He drew off his left-hand glove as he spoke, +and extended his hand toward her. On the third finger blazed the beautiful +gem of which he had spoken, its great size and purity fully displayed in +the pale afternoon sunlight that flashed back in rosy radiance from its +bright-tinted depths. + +"It is almost too large to wear as a ring," he said with great coolness, +looking at the jewel, "but I wish it to run no further risks till I can +transfer it to its lawful owner, which will be as soon as it has played +its talismanic part by freeing my brother from his impostor-wife." + +The lady rose from her seat, pale, calm and resolved. + +"Further insults are useless, sir," she said. "The game is ended now, and +you have won it. What is it that you wish me to do?" + +"You must sail for Europe in one of next week's steamers, leaving behind +you such a confession of guilt as will enable my brother to procure a +divorce without revealing the shameful fact that he was the innocent means +of introducing an impostor--a _ci-devant_ lorette--to his family and +friends as his wife. Better this scandal of an elopement than the horror +of having such a story made public. An income amply sufficient for your +wants will be settled upon you, on condition that you never return to the +United States, and never, in any way, proclaim the fact that Mrs. Clement +Rutherford and Rose Coral were one and the same person." + +"I accept your conditions," she said, wearily. "I will go, never to +return. Now leave me. But stay: will you not answer me one question?" + +"I will, certainly." + +"Who was it that discovered my secret?" + +"My mother--my blind mother. Some years ago, before she lost her sight, I +accompanied her on a short European tour, in which we visited England, +France, Switzerland, and finally Italy. While we were at Rome I fell ill +with the fever of the country, and my physicians gave orders that as soon +as I was well enough to travel I should leave Italy for a more bracing +climate. We had not visited Naples, and I was anxious that my mother +should not return home without seeing the wonders of that city; so as soon +as I became convalescent I prevailed upon her to leave me in the care of +some friends and to join a party who were going thither. During her stay +she went frequently to the opera. One evening she was greatly disturbed by +the loud talking and laughing of some persons in the box next to the one +she occupied, and she was much struck with the beauty, the brilliant +toilette and the boisterous conduct of one of the female members of the +party. She inquired the name of the person she had thus remarked. It was +yourself, and she learned not only your name, but your whole history. When +at her own dinner-table she heard the sweet and singular laugh that had so +struck her on that occasion, the sensitiveness of hearing peculiar to the +blind caused her to recognize the sound at once; and the description which +I afterward gave her of your personal appearance only changed torturing +doubt into agonizing certainty." + +"Thanks for your courtesy: I will detain you no longer." + +Horace bowed and approached the door. Suddenly, as if moved by a sudden +impulse, he turned back. + +"Believe me, this task has been a hard one," he said, earnestly. "And +remember, if hereafter you may need pecuniary aid, do not hesitate to +apply to me. For Heaven's sake, do not return to the life you once led. +There was one redeeming feature in the imposture which you practiced: it +showed that some yearning for a pure name and an innocent life was yet +possible to you." + +"I want no sermons," she answered, abruptly. "Only leave me at peace. Go: +I am sick of the sight of you." + +As he closed the door he cast one parting glance on the room and its +occupant. She stood leaning against the back of a large arm-chair, her +clasped hands resting on the top, and her white, rigid face set in the +fixed calmness of total despair. + +Thus left alone, she remained standing for some time as motionless as +though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she +seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a +bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. Her maid +quickly appeared. + +"I have a wretched headache, Christine," she said. "I shall not come down +to dinner, and do not disturb me till nine o'clock: that will give me time +enough to dress for Mrs. Winchester's ball. I will wear the pale-blue +satin and my point-lace tunic. Be sure you change the white roses that +loop it for pink ones, and lay out my parure of pearls and diamonds, and +my point-lace fan and handkerchief. Now bring me the two phials that stand +on the third shelf of the closet in my bed-chamber." + +Christine departed on her errand and soon returned, bringing with her two +bottles, the smallest of which was labeled "Solution of Morphia--POISON. +Dose for an adult, ten drops;" while the largest Was simply inscribed +"Sulphuric Ether." These she placed on the chimney-piece, and then +proceeded to arrange the cushions of the lounge and to draw the curtains. +"I will now leave madame to her repose," she said. "Does madame need +anything more?" + +"No, I shall want nothing more," was the reply. The door closed upon the +maid's retreating form, and Mrs. Rutherford instantly shot the bolt. + +She cast a sad and wistful glance around the dainty room and on its +glittering contents. "_J'etais si bien ici_," she said regretfully. "I had +found here the existence which suited me, and now the end has come. It is +not in my nature to remain satisfied with a life of poverty and +respectability, and I will not return to one of degradation and vice. But, +after all, what does it matter? My fate would have found me sooner or +later, and this soft couch is better than a hospital bed or the slabs of +La Morgue: this draught is more soothing than the cold waters of the +Thames or the Seine. Life is no longer a game that is worth the candle: +let us extinguish the lights and put the cards away." + +She took up the phial of morphia, drew the little sofa nearer to the +fireplace and extended herself upon it. The daylight faded from the sky +and night came, and with the night came sleep--a sleep whose dream was of +Eternity, and whose wakening light would be the dawn of the resurrection +morning. + +"Accidental death" was the verdict of the coroner and the newspapers, and, +in fact, of the world in general--a conclusion much assisted by the +evidence of Christine, who testified that her mistress was in the habit of +using narcotics and anaesthetics in large quantities to relieve the pain +of the neuralgic headaches from which she was a constant sufferer. Society +said, "How sad! Dreadful, is it not?" and went on its way--not exactly +rejoicing, for the death of Mrs. Rutherford deprived its members of her +long-promised, long-talked-of Shrove-Tuesday ball, and consequently the +gay world mourned her loss very sincerely for a short time; in fact, till +a well-known leader of fashion announced her intention of giving a +fancy-dress party on the night thus left vacant, whereupon Society was +consoled, and Mrs. Rutherford's sad fate was forgotten. + +Only two persons--Horace Rutherford and his mother--suspected that her +death was not an accidental one; but they guarded their secret carefully, +and Clement Rutherford will never learn that his dead wife was other than +the innocent English girl she represented herself to be. Walter Nugent +wrote a pathetic letter to Mrs. Rutherford, begging that a lock of his +lost and now forgiven darling's hair might be sent to him; and it cost +Horace a sharp pang of regret when he substituted for the black, wavy +tress furnished by Clement a golden ringlet purchased from one of the +leading hairdressers of New York. + +"Heaven forgive me!" he said to himself, remorsefully, as he sealed the +little packet; "but I really think that this is one of the cases wherein +one cannot be blamed for not revealing the truth." + +A few months later, Horace Rutherford stood in Greenwood Cemetery +contemplating with curiosity and interest the inscription on a +recently-erected monument of pure white marble. + +"Sacred to the memory of Marion Nugent, beloved wife of Clement +Rutherford," he read. "Well, this is consistent at least. She wears the +disguise of a virtuous woman in her very tomb. Marion Nugent rests beneath +the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and here Rose Sherbrooke sleeps in an +honored grave beneath the shelter of the dead girl's stainless name. But +the deception has power to harm no longer, so let us leave her in peace. +It is well for our family that, even as a sunken wreck, we still find this +pirate bark Under False Colors," + +LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER. + + + + +The Hungry Heart. + + + +A village on the coast of Maine; in this village a boarding-house; in this +boarding-house a parlor. + +This parlor is, strictly speaking, a chamber: it is in the second story, +and until lately it contained a bed, washstand, etc.; but a visitor from +New York has taken a fancy to change it to a reception-room. In the rear, +communicating with it, is a sleeping-closet. + +The room is what you might expect to find in a village boarding-house: the +floor of liliuptian extent; the ceiling low, uneven, cracked and yellow; +the originally coarse and ugly wall-paper now blotched with age; the +carpet thin, threadbare, patched and stained; the furniture of various +woods and colors, and in various stages of decrepitude. + +But a tiny bracket or two, three or four handsome engravings, two fresh +wreaths of evergreens, two vases of garden flowers, a number of Swiss and +French knickknacks, and a few prettily-bound books, give the little nest +an air of refinement which is almost elegance. + +You judge at once that the occupant must be a woman--a woman moreover of +sensibility and taste; a woman of good society. Of all this you become +positive when you look at her, take note of her gracious manner and listen +to her cultured voice. + +Her expression is singularly frank and almost childlike: it exhibits a +rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions: it is both vivacious and +refined, both eager and sweet. It would seem as if here were the +impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and +artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness and +feeling. + +In a large easy-chair reclines her rather small, slender and willowy form, +starting slightly forward when she speaks, and sinking back when she +listens. Her sparkling eyes are fixed on the eyes of her one visitor with +an intentness and animation of interest which should be very fascinating. + +He, a young man, not five years older than herself, very gentle in manner +and with a remarkably sweet expression of face, evidently is fascinated, +and even strongly moved, if one may judge by the feverish color in his +cheeks, the eager inquiry of his gaze and the tremor of his lips. + +The first words of hers which we shall record are a strange utterance to +come from a woman: + +"Let me tell you something which I have read lately. It sounds like a +satire, and yet there is too much truth in it: 'Every woman in these days +needs two husbands--one to fill her purse, and one to fill her heart; one +to dress her, and one to love her. It is not easy to be the two in one.' +That is what I have read, and it is only too true. Remember it, and don't +marry." + +A spasm of intense spiritual pain crossed the young man's fine and kindly +face. + +"Don't say such things, I beg of you!" he implored. "I am sure that in +what you have quoted there is a slander upon most women. I know that it +slanders you." + +Her lips parted as if for a contradiction, but it was evidently very +pleasant to her to hear such words from him, and with a little childlike +smile of gratification she let him proceed. + +"I have perfect confidence in you," he murmured. "I am willing to put all +my chances of happiness in your hands. My only fear is that I am not half +worthy of you--not a thousandth part worthy of you. Will you not listen to +me seriously? Will you not be so kind?" + +A tremor of emotion slightly lifted her hands, and it seemed for a moment +as if she would extend them to him. Then there was a sudden revulsion: +with a more violent shudder, evidently of a painful nature, she threw +herself backward, her face turned pale, and she closed her eyes as if to +shut him from her sight. + +"I ought to ask your pardon," she whispered. "I never thought that it +would come to this. I never meant that it should. Oh, I ask your pardon." +Recovering herself with singular quickness, a bright smile dancing along +the constantly changing curves of her lips, like sunbeams leaping from +wavelet to wavelet, she once more leaned cordially toward him, and said in +a gay yet pleading tone, "Let us talk of something else. Come, tell me +about yourself--all about yourself, nothing about me." + +"I cannot speak of anything else," he replied, after looking at her long +in silence. "My whole being is full of you: I cannot think of anything +else." + +A smile of gratitude sweetly mastered her mouth: then it suddenly turned +to a smile of pity; then it died in a quiver of remorse. + +"Oh, we cannot marry," she sighed. "We must not marry, if we could. Let me +tell you something dreadful. People hate each other after they are +married. I know: I have seen it. I knew a girl of seventeen who married a +man ten years older--a man who was Reason itself. Her friends told her, +and she herself believed it, that she was sure of happiness. But after +three years she found that she did not love, that she was not loved, and +that she was miserable. He was too rational: he used to judge her as he +would a column of figures--he had no comprehension for her feelings." + +There was a momentary pause, during which she folded her hands and looked +at him, but with an air of not seeing him. In the recollection of this +heart-tragedy of the past and of another she had apparently forgotten the +one which was now pressing upon herself. + +"It was incredible how cold and unsympathizing and dull he could be," she +went on. "Once, after she had worked a week in secret to surprise him with +a dressing-gown made by her own hands--labored a week, waited and hoped a +week for one word of praise--he only said, 'It is too short.' Don't you +think it was cruel? It was. I suppose he soon forgot it, but she never +could. A woman cannot forget such slights: they do not seem little blows +to her; they make her very soul bleed." + +"Don't reproach _me_ for it," whispered the young man with a pleading +smile. "You seem to be reproving me, and I can't bear it. I am not +guilty." + +"Oh, not you," she answered quickly. "I am not scolding you. I could not." + +She did not mean it, but she gave him a smile of indescribable sweetness: +she had had no intention of putting out her hands toward him, but she did +it. He seized the delicate fingers and slowly drew her against his heart. +Her face crimson with feeling, her whole form trembling to the tiniest +vein, she rose to her feet, turning away her head as if to fly, and yet +did not escape, and could not wish to escape. Holding her in his arm, he +poured into her ear a murmur which was not words, it was so much more than +words. + +"Oh, _could_ you truly love me?" she at last sobbed. "Could you _keep_ +loving me?" + +After a while some painful recollection seemed to awaken her from this +dream of happiness, and, drawing herself out of his embrace, she looked +him sadly in the eyes, saying, "I must not be so weak. I must save myself +and you from misery. Oh, I must. Go now--leave me for a while: do go. I +must have time to think before I say another word to you." + +"Good-bye, my love--soon to be my wife," he answered, stifling with a kiss +the "No, no," which she tried to utter. + +Although he meant to go, and although she was wretchedly anxious that he +should go, he was far from gone. All across the room, at every square of +the threadbare carpet, they halted to renew their talk. Minutes passed, an +hour had flown, and still he was there. And when he at last softly opened +the door, she herself closed it, saying, "Oh no! not yet." + +So greedy is a loving woman for love, so much does she hate to lose the +breath of it from her soul: to let it be withdrawn is like consenting to +die when life is sweetest. + +Thus it was through her, who had bidden him to go, and who had meant that +he should go, that he remained for minutes longer, dropping into her ear +whispers of love which at last drew out her confession of love. And when +the parting moment came--that moment of woman's life in which she least +belongs to herself--there was not in this woman a single reservation of +feeling or purpose. + +These people, who were so madly in love with each other, were almost +strangers. The man was Charles Leighton, a native of Northport, who had +never gone farther from his home than to Boston, and there only to +graduate in the Harvard College and Medical School. + +The lady was Alice Duvernois: her name was all that was known of her in +the village--it was all that she had told of herself. Only a month +previous to the scene above described she had arrived in Northport to +obtain, as she said, a summer of quiet and sea-bathing. She had come +alone, engaged her own rooms, and for a time seemed to want nothing but +solitude. + +Even after she had made herself somewhat familiar with the other inmates +of the boarding-house, nothing positive was learned of her history. That +she had been married was probable: an indefinable something in her face +and carriage seemed to reveal thus much: moreover, her trunks were marked +"James Duvernois." + +And yet, so young did she sometimes look, so childlike was her smile and +so simple her manner, that there were curious ones who scouted the +supposition of wifehood. People addressed her both as "Miss" and "Mrs."; +at last it was discovered that her letters bore the latter title: then she +became popularly known as "the beautiful widow." + +It would be a waste of time to sketch the opening and ripening of the +intimacy between Doctor Leighton and this fascinating stranger. On his +part it was as nearly a case of love at first sight as perhaps can occur +among people of the Anglo-Saxon race. From the beginning he had no doubts +about giving her his whole heart: he was mastered at once by an emotion +which would not let him hesitate: he longed with all his soul for her +soul, and he strove to win it. + +Well, we will not go over the story: we know that he had triumphed. Yes, +in spite of her terror of the future, in spite of some withholding mystery +in the past, she had granted him--or rather she had not been able to +prevent him from seizing--her passionate affection. She had uttered a +promise which, a month before, she would not have dreamed herself capable +of making. + +In so doing she had acquired an almost unendurable happiness. It was one +of those mighty and terrible joys which are like the effect of opium--one +of those joys which condense life and abbreviate it, which excite and yet +stupefy, which intoxicate and kill. With this in her heart she lived ten +of her old days in one, but also she drew for those ten days upon her +future. + +After one of her interviews with Leighton, after an hour of throbbing, of +trembling, of vivid but confused emotions, her face would be as pale as +death, and her weakness such that she could hardly speak. The hands which, +while they clung to his, had been soft and moist, became dry and hot as +with fever, and then cold as ice. At night she could scarcely sleep: for +hours her brain throbbed with the thought of him, and of what stood +between him and her. In the morning she was heavy with headache, dizzy, +faint, hysterical; yet the moment she saw him again she was all life, all +freshness. + +From the point of confession there was no more resistance. She would be +his wife; she would be married whenever he wished; she seemed mad to +reward him for his love; she wanted somehow to sacrifice herself for his +sake. Yet, although she hesitated no longer, she sometimes gazed at him +with eyes full of anxiety, and uttered words which presaged evil. + +"If any trouble springs from this, you must pardon me," she more than once +whispered. "I cannot help it. I have never, never, never been loved +before; and oh, I have been so hungry, so famished for it, I had begun to +despair of it. Yes, when I first met you, I had quite despaired of there +being any love in the world for me. I could not help listening to you: I +could not help taking all your words and looks into my craving heart; and +now I am yours--forgive me!" + +Stranger as she was in Northport, everybody trusted the frank sweetness in +her face, and sought no other cause for admiring her and wishing her +happiness. The whole village came to the church to witness her marriage +and to doat upon a bridal beauty which lay far more in expression than in +form or feature. A few words of description--inadequate notes to represent +the precious gold of reality--must be given to one who could change the +stare of curiosity to a beaming glance of sympathy. + +Small, slender, fragile; neither blonde nor brunette; a clear skin, with a +hectic flush; light chestnut hair, glossy and curling; eyes of violet +blue, large, humid and lustrous, which at the first glance seemed black +because of the darkness, length and closeness of the lashes, and capable +of expressing an earnestness and sweetness which no writer or artist might +hope to depict; a manner which in solitude might be languid, but which the +slightest touch of interest kindled into animation; in fine, white teeth +that sparkled with gayety, and glances that flashed happiness. + +She was married without bridal costume, and there was no wedding journey. +Leighton was poor, and must attend to his business; and his wife wanted +nothing from him which he could not spare--nothing but his love. +Impossible to paint her pathetic gratitude for this affection; the +spiritual--it was not passionate--fondness which she bore him; the +softness of her eyes as she gazed for minutes together into his; the +sudden, tremulous outreachings of her hands toward him, as she just +touches him with her finger and draws back, then leans forward and lies in +his arms, uttering a little cry of happiness. Here was a heart that must +long have hungered for affection--a heart unspeakably thankful and joyous +at obtaining it. + +"I have been smiling all day," she sometimes said to him. "People have +asked me why I looked so gay, and what I had heard that was funny. It is +just because I am entirely happy, and because the feeling is still a +surprise. Shall I ever get over it? Am I silly? No!" + +Her gladness of heart seemed to make her angelic. She rejoiced in every +joy around her, and grieved for every sorrow. She visited the poor of her +husband's patients, watched with them when there was need, made little +collections for their relief, chatted away their forebodings, half cured +them with her smile. There was something catching, comforting, uplifting +in the spectacle of that overbrimming content. + +The well were as susceptible to its influence as the sick. Once, half a +dozen men and twice as many boys were seen engaged in recovering her veil +out of a pond into which the wind had blown it; and when it was handed to +her by a shy youth on the end of a twenty-foot pole, all felt repaid for +their labors by the childlike burst of laughter with which she received +it. Now and then, however, shadows fell across this sunshine. In those +dark moments she frequently reverted to the unhappy couple of whom she had +told Leighton when he first spoke to her of marriage. She was possessed to +describe the man--his dull, filmy, unsympathetic black eyes, his +methodical life and hard rationality, his want of sentiment and +tenderness. + +"Why do you talk of that person so much?" Leighton implored. "You seem to +be charging me with his cruelty. I am not like him." + +The tears filled her eyes as she started toward him, saying, "No, you are +_not_ like him. Even if you should become like him, I couldn't reproach +you. I should merely die." + +"But you know him so well?" he added, inquiringly. "You seem to fear him. +Has he any power over you?" + +For a moment she was so sombre that he half feared lest her mind was +unstrung on this one subject. + +"No," she at last said. "His power is gone--nearly gone. Oh, if I could +only forget!" + +After another pause, during which she seemed to be nerving herself to a +confession, she threw herself into her husband's arms and whispered, "He +is my--uncle." + +He was puzzled by the contrast between the violence of her emotion and the +unimportance of this avowal; but as he at least saw that the subject was +painful to her, and as he was all confidence and gentleness, he put no +more inquiries. + +"Forget it all," he murmured, caressing her; and with a deep sigh, the +sigh of tired childhood, she answered, "Yes." + +The long summer days, laden with happiness for these two, sailed onward to +their sunset havens. After a time, as August drew near its perfumed death, +Alice began to speak of a journey which she should soon be obliged to make +to New York. She _must_ go, she said to Leighton--it was a matter of +property, of business: she would tell him all about it some day. But she +would return soon; that is, she would return as soon as possible: she +would let him know how soon by letter. + +When he proposed to accompany her she would not hear of it. To merely go +on with her, she represented, would be a useless expense, and to stay as +long as she might need to stay would injure his practice. In these days +her gayety seemed forced, and more than once he found her weeping; yet so +innocent was he, so simple in his views of life, so candid in soul, that +he suspected no hidden evil: he attributed her agitation entirely to grief +at the prospect of separation. + +His own annoyance in view of the journey centred in the fact that his wife +would be absent from him, and that he could not incessantly surround her +with his care. Whether she would be happy, whether she would be treated +with consideration, whether she would be safe from accidents and alarms, +whether her delicate health would not suffer, were the questions which +troubled him. He had the masculine instinct of protection: he was as +virile as he was gentle and affectionate. + +The parting was more painful to him than he had expected, because to her +it was such an undisguised and terrible agony. + +"You will not forget me?" she pleaded. "You will never, never hate me? You +will always love me? You are the only person who has ever made the world +pleasant to me; and you have made it so pleasant! so different from what +it was! a new earth to me! a star! I will come back as soon as this +business will let me. Some day I will come back, never to go away. Oh, +will not that be delightful?" + +Her extreme distress, her terror lest she might not return, her +forebodings lest he should some day cease to love her, impressed him for a +moment--only for a truant moment--with doubts as to a mystery. As he left +the railway station, full of gratitude for the last glance of her loving +eyes, he asked himself once or twice, "What is it?" + +What was it? + +We will follow her. She is ominously sad during the lonely journey: she is +almost stern by the time she arrives in New York. In place of the summer's +sweetness and gayety, there is a wintry and almost icy expression in her +face, as if she were about to encounter trials to which she had been long +accustomed, and which she had learned to bear with hardness if not with +resentment. + +No one meets her at the railway station, no one at the door of the sombre +house where her carriage stops--no one until she has passed up stairs into +a darkling parlor. + +There she is received by the man whom she has so often described to +Deighton--a man of thin, erect form, a high and narrow forehead, regular +and imperturbable features, fixed and filmy black eyes, a mechanical +carriage, an icy demeanor. + +At sight of her he slightly bowed--then he advanced slowly to her and took +her hand: he seemed to be hesitating whether he should give her any +further welcome. + +"You need not kiss me," she said, her eyes fixed on the floor. "You do not +wish to do it." + +He sighed, as if he too were unhappy, or at least weary; but he drew his +hand away and resumed his walk up and down the room. + +"So you chose to pass your summer in a village?" he presently said, in the +tone of a man who has ceased to rule, but not ceased to criticise. "I hope +you liked it." + +"I told you in my letters that I liked it," she replied in an +expressionless monotone. + +"And I told you in my letters that I did not like it. It would have been +more decent in you to stay in Portland, among the people whom I had +requested to take care of you. However, you are accustomed to have your +own way. I can only observe that when a woman will have her own way, she +ought to pay her own way." + +A flush, perhaps of shame, perhaps of irritation, crossed her hitherto +pale face, but she made no response to the scoff, and continued to look at +the floor. + +After a few seconds, during which neither of them broke the silence, she +seemed to understand that the reproof was over, and she quietly quitted +the room. + +The man pushed the door to violently with his foot, and said in an accent +of angry scorn, "That is what is now called a wife." + +Well, we have reached the mystery: we have found that it was a crime. + +In the working of social laws there occur countless cases of individual +hardship. The institution of marriage is as beneficent as the element of +fire; yet, like that, it sometimes tortures when it should only have +comforted. + +The sufferer, if a woman, usually bears her smart tamely--with more or +less domestic fretting and private weeping indeed, but without violent +effort to escape from her bed of embers. Divorce is public, ugly and +brutal: her sensibility revolts from it. Moreover, mere unhappiness, mere +disappointment of the affections, does not establish a claim for legal +separation. Finally, there is woman's difficulty of self-maintenance--the +fact that her labor will not in general give her both comfort and +position. + +What then? Unloved, unable to love, yet with an intense desire for +affection, and an immense capacity for granting it, her heart is tempted +to wander beyond the circle of her duty. A flattering shape approaches her +dungeon-walls; a voice calls to her to come forth and be glad, if only for +a moment; there seems to be a chance of winning the adoration which has +been her whole life's desire; there is an opportunity of using the +emotions which are burning within her. Shall she burst open the gate on +which is written LEGALITY? + +Evidently the temptation is mighty. Laden with a forsaken, wounded and +perhaps angry heart, she is so easily led into the belief that her +exceptional suffering gives her a right to exceptional action! She feels +herself justified in setting aside law, when law, falsifying its purpose, +violating its solemn pledge, brings her misery instead of happiness. She +will not, or cannot, reflect that special hardships must occur under all +law; that it is the duty of the individual to bear such chance griefs +without insurrection against the public conscience; that entire freedom of +private judgment would dissolve society. + +Too often--though far less often than man does the like--she makes of her +sorrow an armor of excuse, and enters into a contest for unwarrantable +chances of felicity. Only, in general, she is so far conscious of guilt, +or at least so far fearful of punishment, as to carry on her struggle in +the darkness. Few, however maddened by suffering, openly defy the serried +phalanx of the world. Still fewer venture the additional risk of defying +it under the forms of a legality which they have ventured to violate. + +Why is it that so few women, even of a low and reckless class, have been +bigamists? It is because the feminine soul has a profound respect, a +little less than religious veneration, for the institution of marriage; +because it instinctively recoils from trampling upon the form which +consecrates love; because in very truth it regards the nuptial bond as a +sacrament. I believe that the average woman would turn away from bigamy +with a deeper shudder than from any other stain of conjugal infidelity. + +But there are exceptions to all modes of feeling and of reasoning. + +Here is Alice Duvernois: she is a woman of good position, of intellectual +quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out +this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To +her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, +grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has +seemed that the sanctity of a second marriage will somehow cover the +violation of a first. + +This aberration we can only explain on the ground that she was one of +those natures--mature in some respects, but strangely childlike in +others--whom most of us love to stigmatize as unpractical, and who in fact +never become quite accustomed to this world and its rules. + +On the very evening of her arrival home she put to her husband a question +of infantile and almost incredible simplicity. It was one of the many +observations which made him tell her from time to time that she was a +fool. + +"What do they do," she asked, "to women who marry two husbands?" + +"They put them in jail," was his cool reply. + +"I think it is brutal," she broke out indignantly, as if the iron gates +were already closing upon her, and she were contesting the justice of the +punishment. + +"You are a pretty simpleton, to set up your opinion against that of all +civilized society!" was the response of incarnate Reason. + +From that moment she trembled at her danger, and quivered under the +remorse which terror brings. At times she thought of flying, of abandoning +the husband who did not love her for the one who did; but she was afraid +of being pursued, afraid of discovery. The knowledge that society had +already passed judgment upon her made her see herself in the new light of +a criminal, friendless, hunted and doomed. The penalty of her illegal +grasp after happiness was already tracking her like a bloodhound. + +Yet when she further learned that her second marriage was not binding +because of the first, her heart rose in mutiny. Faithful to the only love +that there had been for her in the world, she repeated to herself, a +hundred times a day, "It _is_ binding--it _is_!" + +She was in dark insurrection against her kind; at times she was on the +point of bursting out into open defiance. She stared at Duvernois, crazy +to tell him, "I am wedded to another." + +He noticed the wild expression, the longing, wide-open eyes, the parted +and eager lips, the trembling chin. At last he said, with a brutality +which had become customary with him, "What are you putting on those airs +for? I suppose you are imagining yourself the heroine of a romance." + +With a glare of pain and scorn she walked away from him in silence. + +It is shocking indeed to be fastened speechless upon a rack, and to be +charged by uncomprehending souls with counterfeiting emotion. She was so +constituted that she could not help laying up this speech of her husband's +against him as one of many stolid misdoings which justified both contempt +and aversion. In fact, his inability or unwillingness to comprehend her +had always been, in her searching and sensitive eyes, his chief crime. To +be understood, to be accepted at her full worth, was one of the most +urgent demands of her nature. + +The life of this young woman, not only within but without, was strange +indeed. She fulfilled that problem of Hawthorne's--an individual bearing +one character, living one life in one place, and a totally different one +in another place--upon one spot of earth angelic, and upon another vile. + +Stranger still, her harsher qualities appeared where her manner of life +was lawful, and her finer ones where it was condemnable. At Northport she +had been like sunlight to her intimates and like a ministering seraph to +the poor. In New York she avoided society: she had no tenderness for +misery. + +The explanation seems to be that love was her only motive of feeling and +action. Not a creature of reason, not a creature of conscience--she was +only a creature of emotion, an exaggerated woman. + +Unfortunately, her husband, methodical in life, judicial in mind, +contemptuous of sentiment, was an exaggerated man. Here was a beating +heart united to a skeleton. The result of this unfortunate combination had +been a wreck of happiness and defiance of law. + +Duvernois had not a friend intelligent enough to say to him, "You _must _ +love your wife; if you cannot love her, you must with merciful deception +make her believe that you do. You must show her when you return from +business that you have thought of her; you must buy a bouquet, a toy, a +trifle, to carry home to her. If you do these things, you will be +rewarded; if not, you will be punished." + +But had there been such a friend, Duvernois would not have comprehended +him. Ho would have replied, or at least he would have thought, "My wife is +a fool. She is not worth the money that I now spend upon her, much less +the reflection and time that you call upon me to spend." + +Two such as Alice and Duvernois could not live together in peace. +Notwithstanding her old dread of him, and notwithstanding the new alarm +with which she was filled by the discovery that she was a felon, she could +not dissemble her feelings when she looked him in the face. Sometimes she +was silently contemptuous--sometimes (when her nerves were shaken) openly +hostile. Rational, impassive, vigorous as he was, she made him unhappy. + +The letters of Leighton were at once a joy and a sorrow. She awaited them +impatiently; she went every day to the delivery post-office whither she +had directed them to be sent; she took them from the hands of the +indifferent clerk with a suffocating beating of the heart. Alone, she +devoured them, kissed them passionately a hundred times, sat down in +loving haste to answer them. But then came the necessity of excusing her +long absence, of inventing some lie for the man she worshiped, of +deterring him from coming to see her. + +During that woeful winter of terror, of aversion, of vain longing, her +health failed rapidly. A relentless cough pursued her, the beautiful flame +in her cheek burned freely, and a burst of blood from the lungs warned her +that her future was not to be counted by years. + +She cared little: her sole desire was to last until summer. She merely +asked to end her hopeless life in loving arms--to end it before those arms +should recoil from her in horror. + +No discovery. Her husband was too indifferent toward her to watch her +closely, or even to suspect her. As early in June as might be she obtained +permission to go to the seaside, and with an eagerness which would have +found the hurricane slow she flew to Northport. + +Leighton received her with a joy which at first blinded him to her +enfeebled health. + +"Oh, how could you stay so long away from me?" were his first words. "Oh, +my love, my darling wife! thank you for coming back to me." + +But after a few moments, when the first flush and, sparkle of excitement +had died out of her cheeks and eyes, he asked eagerly, "What is the matter +with you? Have you been sick?" + +"I am all well again, now that I see you," she answered, putting out her +arms to him with that little start of love and joy which had so often +charmed him. + +It absolutely seemed that in the presence of the object of her affection +this erring woman became innocent. Her smile was as simple and pure as +that of childhood: her violet eyes reminded one of a heaven without a +cloud. It must have been that, away from punishment and from terror, she +did not feel herself to be guilty. + +But the day of reckoning was approaching. She had scarcely begun to regain +an appearance of health under the stimulus of country air and renewed +happiness, when a disquieting letter arrived from Duvernois. In a tone +which was more than usually authoritative, he directed her to meet him at +Portland, to go to Nahant and Newport. Did he suspect something? + +She would have given years of life to be able to show the letter to +Leighton and ask his counsel. But here her punishment began to double upon +her: the being whom she most loved was precisely the one to whom she must +not expose this trouble--the one from whom she was most anxious to conceal +it. + +In secret, and with unconfided tears, she wrote a reply, alleging (what +was true) that her feeble health demanded quiet, and praying that she +might be spared the proposed journey. For three days she feverishly +expected an answer, knowing the while that she ought to go to Portland to +meet Duvernois, should he chance to come, yet unable to tear herself away +from Leighton, even for twenty-four hours. + +In the afternoon of the third day she made one of her frequent visits of +charity. At the house of a poor and bed-ridden widow she met, as she had +hoped to meet, her husband. When they left the place he took her into his +gig and carried her home. + +It was a delicious day of mid June: the sun was setting in clouds of +crimson and gold; the earth was in its freshest summer glory. In the +beauty of the scene, and in the companionship of the heart which was all +hers, she forgot, or seemed to forget, her troubles. One hand rested on +Leighton's arm; her face was lifted steadily to his, like a flower to the +light; her violet eyes were dewy and sparkling with happiness. There were +little clutches of her fingers on his wrist whenever he turned to look at +her. There were spasms of joy in her slender and somewhat wasted frame as +she leaned from time to time against his shoulder. + +Arrived at the house, she was loth to have him leave her for even the time +required to take his horse to the stable. + +"Come soon," she said--"come as quick as you can. I shall be at the +window. Look up when you reach the gate. Look at the window all the way +from the gate to the door." + +In an instant, not even taking off her bonnet, she was sitting by the +window waiting for him to appear. + +A man approached, walking behind the hedge of lilacs which bordered the +yard, and halted at the gate with an air of hesitation. She turned ghastly +white: retribution was upon her. It was Duvernois. + +With that swift instinct of escape which sensitive and timorous creatures +possess, she glided out of the room, through the upper hall, down a back +stairway, into the garden behind the house, and so on to an orchard +already obscure in the twilight. Here she paused in her breathless flight, +and burst into one of her frequent coughs, which she vainly attempted to +smother. + +"I was already dying," she groaned. "Ah, why could he not have given me +time to finish?" + +From the orchard she could faintly see the road, and she now discovered +Leighton returning briskly toward the house. Her first thought was, "He +will look up at the window, and he will not see me!" Her next was, "They +will meet, and all will be known!" + +Under the sting of this last reflection she again ran onward until her +breath failed. She had no idea where she should go: her only purpose was +to fly from immediate exposure and scorn--to fly both from the man she +detested and the man she loved. Her speed was quickened to the extent of +her strength by the consideration that she was already missed, and would +soon be pursued. + +"Oh, don't let them come!--don't let them find me!" she prayed to some +invisible power, she could not have said what. + +Mainly intent as she was upon mere present escape from reproachful eyes, +she at times thought of lurking in the woods or in some neighboring +village until Duvernois should disappear and leave her free to return to +Leighton. But always the reflection came up, "Now he knows that I have +deceived him; now he will despise me and hate me, and refuse to see me; +now I can never go back." + +In such stresses of extreme panic and anguish an adult is simply a child, +with the same overweight of emotions and the same imperfections of reason. +During the moments when she was certain that Leighton would not forgive +her, Alice made wild clutches at the hope that Duvernois might. There were +glimpses of the earlier days of her married life; cheering phantoms of the +days when she believed that she loved and that she was beloved--phantoms +which swore by altars and bridal veils to secure her pardon. + +She imagined Duvernois overtaking her with the words, "Alice, I forgive +your madness: do you also forgive the coldness which drove you to it?" + +She imagined herself springing to him, reaching out her hands for +reconciliation, putting up her mouth for a kiss, and sobbing, "Ah, why +were you not always so?" + +Then of a sudden she scorned this fancy, trampled it under her weary, +aching feet, and abhorred herself for being faithless to Leighton. + +At last she reached a sandy, lonely coast-road, a mile from the village, +with a leaden, pulseless, corpselike sea on the left, and on the right a +long stretch of black, funereal marshes. Seating herself on a ruinous +little bridge of unpainted and wormeaten timbers, she looked down into a +narrow, sluggish rivulet, of the color of ink, which oozed noiselessly +from the morass into the ocean. Her strength was gone: for the present +farther flight was impossible, unless she fled from earth--fled into the +unknown. + +This thought had indeed followed her from the house: at first it had been +vague, almost unnoticed, like the whisper of some one far behind; then it +had become clearer, as if the persuading fiend went faster than she +through the darkness, and were overtaking her. Now it was urgent, and +would not be hushed, and demanded consideration. + +"If you should die," it muttered, "then you will escape: moreover, those +who now abhor you and scorn you, will pity you; and pity for the dead is +almost respect, almost love." + +"Oh, how can a ruined woman defend herself but by dying?" She wept as she +gazed with a shudder into the black rivulet. + +Then she thought that the water seemed foul; that her body would become +tangled in slimy reeds and floating things; that when they found her she +would be horrible to look upon. But even in this there was penance, a +meriting of forgiveness, a claim for pity. + +Slowly, inch by inch, like one who proposes a step which cannot be +retraced, she crept under the railing of the bridge, seated herself on the +edge of the shaky planking and continued to gaze into the inky waters. + +A quarter of an hour later, when the clergyman of Northport passed by that +spot, returning from a visit to a dying saint of his flock, no one was +there. + +We must revert to the two husbands. Duvernois had long wondered what could +keep his wife in a sequestered hamlet, and immediately on her refusal to +join him in a summer tour he had resolved to look into her manner of life. + +At the village hotel he had learned that a lady named Duvernois had +arrived in the place during the previous summer, and that she had been +publicly married to a Doctor Leighton. He did not divulge his name--he did +not so much as divulge his emotions: he listened to this story calmly, his +eyes fixed on vacancy. + +At the door of the boarding-house he asked for Mrs. Duvernois, and then +corrected himself, saying, "I mean Mrs. Leighton." + +He must have had singular emotions at the moment, yet the servant-girl +noticed nothing singular in his demeanor. + +Mrs. Leighton could not be found. None of the family had seen her enter or +go out: it was not known that she had been in the house for an hour. + +"But there comes Doctor Leighton," remarked the girl as the visitor turned +to leave. + +Even in this frightful conjuncture the characteristic coolness of +Duvernois did not forsake him: after a moment's hesitation and a quick +glance at his rival, he said, "I do not know him: I will call again." + +On the graveled walk which led from the yard gate to the doorstep the two +men met and passed without a word--the face of the one as inexpressive of +the strangeness and horror of the encounter as the mind of the other was +unconscious of them. + +Leighton immediately missed Alice. In a quarter of an hour he became +anxious: in an hour he was in furious search of her. + +Somewhat later, when Duvernois came once more to the house, accompanied by +a fashionably-dressed youth, who, as it subsequently appeared, was his +younger brother, he found the family and the neighborhood in wild alarm +over the disappearance of Mrs. Leighton. The two at once returned to the +hotel, procured saddle-horses and joined in the general chase. + +It was ten o'clock at night, and the moon was shining with a vaporous, +spectral light, when the maddest of chances brought the two husbands +together over a body which the tide, with its multitudinous cold fingers, +had gently laid upon the beach. + +Leighton leaped from his horse, lifted the corpse with a loud cry, and +covered the white wet face with kisses. + +Duvernois leaned forward in his saddle, and gazed at both without a word +or a movement. + +"Oh, what could have led her to this?" groaned the physician, already too +sure that life had departed. + +"Insanity," was the monotoned response of the statue on horseback. + +The funeral took place two days later: the coffin-plate bore the +inscription, "Alice Leighton, aged 23." Duvernois read it, and said not a +word. + +"If you don't claim her as your wife," whispered the brother, "you may +find it difficult to marry again." + +"Do you think I shall want to marry again?" responded the widower with an +icy stare. + +He was aware that he had lost a shame and a torment, and not aware that +she might have been an honor and a joy, if only he had been able to love. + +J. W. DE FOREST. + + + + +"How Mother Did It." + + + +The year 1839--that is, the year in which I was born--is of no manner of +importance to myself or anybody else. The year 1859--that is, the year in +which I began to _live_ (Charlie and I got married that year)--is of +considerable importance to myself and to somebody else. The two decades +forming the interim between those years constitute my Dark Age, in which I +teethed and measled and whooping-coughed, and went to school, and wore my +hair in two long pig-tails, and loved molasses candy, and regarded a +school-room as purgatory, a ball-room as heaven--when I sang and danced +and grew as the birds and grasshoppers and flowers sing and dance and +grow, because they having nothing else to do. + +Then came my Golden Age. That means, then came Charlie into my life, when +I felt for the first time that there was music in the birds' voices and +perfume in the flowers--that there was light in the heavens above and on +the earth beneath, for God was in heaven and Charlie was on earth--when I, +who had all along been hardly more than a human grasshopper, became the +happiest of happy women--so much happier, I thought, than I deserved. For +who was I, and what great thing had I ever done, that I should be crowned +with such a crown of glory as--Charlie? why should I, insignificant I, be +so blest among women as to be taken to wife by Charlie? + +I was insanely sentimental enough to rather resent the fact that Charlie +was prosaically well off: his circumstances were distressingly easy. It +would have been so much nicer, so deliciously romantic, if there had been +an opportunity afforded me to show how ready, nay, eager, I was to +sacrifice friends, home and country for his dear sake. But Charlie didn't +want me to sacrifice my friends; nor did it require any great amount of +heroism to exchange my modestly comfortable home for his decidedly +luxurious one; and as for country, nothing on earth could have induced +Charlie to leave his own country, much less his own parish, much less his +own plantation. So we were married without any talk of sacrifice on either +side, and moved quietly enough from father's small plantation to Charlie's +large one. + +There was but one drawback to the perfectness of my happiness: there was +so little hope of my ever having an opportunity to air those magnanimous +traits of character upon the possession of which I so plumed myself. I +felt sure that I could meet the most adverse circumstances with the most +smiling patience, but circumstances obstinately refused to be adverse. I +was inwardly conscious that the most trying emergency could not shake my +heroic but purely feminine fortitude; but, alas! my fortitude was likely +to rust while waiting for the emergency. Injury and wrong should be met +with sublime dignity, but the most wildly speculative imagination could +not look upon Charlie's placidly handsome face and convert him into a +possible tyrant. + +To tell how the longed-for opportunity to exercise my powers of endurance, +and my dignity, and all the rest of it, did finally come about, and to +tell how I bore the test, is the object of this paper. + +For the first six months of our married life, Charlie and I were simply +ridiculously happy--selfishly happy too. We resented a neighbor's visit as +an act of barbarous invasion, and the necessity of returning such visits +was acknowledged with a sublimity of resignation worthy of pictorial +representation in that exquisite parlor manual, Fox's _Book of Martyrs_. +If Charlie left the house for an hour or two, I looked upon his enforced +absence as a cruel dispensation of Providence, which I did _not_ bear with +"fortitude and sublime dignity," but pouted over like the ridiculous baby +I was. Bare conjugal civility required that on leaving the house Charlie +should kiss me three times, and on returning six times: anything short of +that I should have considered a pre-monitory symptom of approaching +separation. If Charlie had ever been so savage as to call me plain +"Lulie," I should have felt certain he was sick and tired of me, and was +repenting of having married me instead of that spectacled bas-bleu, Miss +Minerva Henshaw, who read Buckle and talked dictionary. I believe I was +intoxicated with my own happiness, and was a little nonsensical because I +was so happy. + +Fortunately for the comfort of both Charlie and myself, his domestic +cabinet consisted of a marvelously well-trained set of servants, who were +simply perfect--as perfect in their way as Charlie was in his. They had +been trained by Charlie's mother, who had been the head of affairs in his +house up to the hour of her death--an event which had occurred some dozen +years before my first meeting with Charlie. Everybody said she had been a +celebrated housekeeper, and Charlie's devotion to her had been the talk of +the country-side. There were people malicious enough to say that if +Charlie's mother had never died, he would never have married, but I take +the liberty of resenting such an assertion as a personal insult; for, +although I don't doubt the dear old lady was a perfect jewel in her way, +yet, looking at the portrait of her which hangs over our parlor +mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold +gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither +high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, +in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls +peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with +a huge ruffled border radiating in a circumference of several feet, while +its two black-and-white gauze ribbon strings lie in rigid exactness over +her two rigidly exact shoulders. Looking on this portrait, I do not thank +anybody for saying that it was only because death chose that shining mark +that I had found favor in Charlie's eyes. + +We had been married, I suppose, about six months, when, sitting one +evening over a cozy wood-fire in our cozy little parlor, just under the +work of art I have described at such length, Charlie committed his first +matrimonial solecism. He yawned, actually gaped--an open-mouthed, audible, +undeniable yawn! + +Glancing up at him from my work (which consisted of the inevitable worked +slippers without which no woman considers her wifehood absolutely +asserted), I caught him in the act. "Are you tired, Charlie?" I asked in +accents of wifely anxiety. + +Tired! Poor fellow! he ought to have been, for he had ridden all over the +plantation that day, had written two business letters, and smoked there's +no telling how many cigars, and had only taken one little cat-nap after +dinner. + +He was leaning back in his arm-chair, with his eyes fixed in mournful +meditation upon his mother's portrait (at least I thought so), when I +asked him if he was tired, and I fancied he was thinking sad thoughts of +the mother who had not been dead so very long as never to trouble the +thoughts of the living; so, laying down my slippers, I crossed the rug and +perched myself on Charlie's knee. + +"Talk to me about her, Charlie dear." + +"About whom, little one?" asked Charlie, turning his eyes toward me with a +little lazy look of inquiry. + +"About your mother, Charlie: weren't you thinking about her just now?" + +"I don't know--maybe I was. Dear mother! you don't find many women like +her now-a-days." + +Reader, that was my first glimpse of Charlie's hobby. And from the +luck-less moment when I so innocently invited him to mount it, up to the +time when I forcibly compelled him to dismount from it, I had ample +opportunity to exercise my "smiling patience, sublime dignity and heroic +fortitude." Whether or not I improved my opportunities properly, I will +leave you to judge for yourself. But for two whole years "how mother did +it" seemed to be the watchword of Charlie's existence, and was the _bête +noir_ of mine. + +So long as Charlie and I were in Paradise the house kept itself, and very +nicely it did it too, but by the time we were ready to come back to earth +the perfect servants, who had been taking such good care of themselves, +and our two daft selves into the bargain, were found to be sadly +demoralized. The discovery came upon us gradually. I think my husband +noticed the decadence as soon as I did, but I wasn't going to invite his +attention to the fact; and he, I suppose, thought that I thought that +everything was just as it should be. + +One of Charlie's inherited manias was for early rising--a habit which +would have been highly commendable and undeniably invaluable in a laboring +man, but which struck me, who had an equally strong mania for not rising +early, as extremely inconvenient and the least little bit absurd. Charlie +got up early simply because "mother did it" before him; and after he had +risen at earliest dawn and dressed himself, he had nothing better to do +than walk out on the front gallery, locate himself in a big wicker chair, +tilt his chair back and elevate his feet to the top of the banisters, and +stare out over the cottonfields. This position he would maintain, +probably, about twenty minutes. Then the pangs of hunger would render him +restless, and he would draw out his watch to note the time of day. The +next step in the formula would bring him back to my room door while I was +still sleepily trying to reconnect the broken links of a dream, from which +vain effort he would startle me into wide-awake reality by a stentorian +"Lulie, Lulie! Come, wife--it's breakfast-time." + +Upon which, instead of "heroic fortitude," I would treat him to a little +cross "Please yell at the cook, Charlie, and not at me. I'm sure if people +_will_ get up at such unearthly hours, they should expect to be kept +waiting for their breakfast." + +Then the spirit of unrest would impel Charlie toward the back door, where +I would hear him commanding, exhorting, entreating. + +Mentally registering a vow to give my husband a dose of Mrs. Winslow's +Soothing Syrup on the coming night, I would relinquish all hope of another +nap, get up and dress myself, and join my roaring lion on the front +gallery, where we would both sit meekly waiting for the allied forces of +kitchen and dining-room to decide upon the question of revictualing us. + +"Lulie," said Charlie to me one morning at the breakfast-table, "things +are getting all out of gear about this house, somehow or other." + +I put down the coffee-pot with a resigned thump and asked my lord, with an +injured air, to please explain himself. + +"Well, when mother was alive I never knew what it was to sit down to my +breakfast later than six o'clock in summer or seven in winter." + +"How did she manage it, Charlie?" I asked, very meekly. + +"Why, by getting up early herself. No servant on the face of the globe is +going to get up at daybreak and go to work in earnest when she knows her +mistress is sound asleep in bed. I will tell you how mother did: she had a +pretty good-sized bell, that she kept on a table by her bedside, and every +morning, as soon as her eyes were open, she would give such a peal with +that old bell that all the servants on the premises knew that 'Mistress +was awake and up,' and bestirred themselves accordingly. There was no +discount on mother: that was the way she made father a rich man, too." + +"But, Charlie, you're already a rich man, and why on earth should we get +out of bed at daybreak just because your mother and father did so before +us?" + +"Of course, Lulie," said Charlie, the least little bit coldly, "I have no +desire in the world to force you to conform to my views: I only told you +how mother did it." + +Reader, you know how I loved Charlie, and after that I out-larked the lark +in early rising; and although Charlie and I did little more than gape in +each other's faces for an hour or two, and wish breakfast would come, and +wonder what made them take so long, he was perfectly satisfied that we +were both on the road that was to make us healthier, wealthier and wiser. + +Among other points on which my husband and I were mutually agreed was a +liking for good strong coffee, and we also held in common one decided +opinion, and that was, that our coffee was gradually becoming anything but +good and strong. + +Charlie broached the subject first. "Lulie, our coffee is getting to be +perfectly undrinkable," said he one morning, putting his cup down with a +face of disgust. + +"It is indeed, Charlie: it's perfectly villainous. Milly ought to be +ashamed of herself: I shall speak to her again after breakfast." + +"Maybe you don't give out enough coffee?" suggested Charlie. + +"I don't know how much Milly takes," I replied, innocently. + +"Takes! Do you mean to say that you don't know how much coffee goes out of +your pantry, Lulie? I don't wonder we never have any fit to drink!" + +If I had been of an argumentative turn, I would have asked Charlie to +explain how giving the cook carte blanche in the matter of quantity should +have had such a disastrous effect in the matter of quality. But I was not +of an argumentative turn, so I took no notice of his queer logic. + +"Why should I bother about every spoonful of coffee, Charlie? You assured +me, when I first came here, that every servant you had was as honest as +you or I, and I'm sure Milly knows better than I do how much coffee she +_ought_ to take." + +"Well," said Charlie with a sigh of mock resignation, "that may be the way +they do things now-a-days, but I remember exactly how mother managed to +have good coffee." Here the hobby broke into a brisk canter: "I recollect +she had a little oval wooden box, that held, I suppose, about a quart--or +two, maybe--of roasted coffee, and that box stood on the mantelpiece in +her room; and every morning, as soon as her bell rang, Milly would come +with a cup and spoon, and mother would measure out two table-spoonfuls of +coffee with her own hands and give it to the cook, and the cook knew +better than not to have good coffee, I can tell you." + +"Are you sure it was only two spoonfuls, Charlie?" + +"I am sure," responded Charlie, solemnly. + +As good-luck would have it, while rummaging in the store-room a day or two +after that coffee talk, I came upon a little old oval wooden box, the lid +of which I detached with some difficulty, and as the scent of the roses +hung round it still, I had no difficulty in identifying my treasure-trove +with the wooden box that had played such a distinguished part in the good +old times when cooks "knew better than not to have good coffee, I can tell +you." + +Hoping that some relic of my dead predecessor might prove more +awe-inspiring to contumacious Milly than my own despised monitions, I +exhumed the wooden box, had it thoroughly cleansed, filled with roasted +coffee and placed upon my mantelpiece, giving Milly orders to come to _me_ +hereafter, every morning, for the coffee. + +Charlie gave me a grateful little kiss when he saw the old box in the old +place, either as a reward for my amiable endeavor to do things as mother +did, or because he took the old wooden box for an outward and visible sign +of the inward and spiritual grace that was to move Milly to make good +coffee. + +But somehow or other, in spite of the unsightly old wooden box on my +mantelshelf, the coffee didn't improve in the least. Maybe the charm +failed to work because Charlie had forgotten which end of the mantelpiece +his mother used to keep it on, or I used the wrong spoon. I'm inclined to +lay it on the spoon myself, but there's no telling. + +The first cotton-picking season that came round after my marriage seemed +to afford Charlie no end of opportunities for riding his hobby at a fast +and furious pace. It seemed as if there was no end to the things that +mother used to do at that important season. I suppose she really was a +wonderful woman, and I humbly hope that by the time I have lived as long +as she did, and get to looking as she does in her portrait, and can wear a +wonderful-looking cap with the wonderful composure she wore it with, and +have little iron-gray curls hanging round my iron-gray visage, I may be +only half as wonderful. + +"Would I see to the making of the cotton sacks? That was one thing mother +always did." Thus Charlie. + +Of course I would: why should I object to doing anything that would +forward my husband's interests? Besides, I was actually pining for some +healthful occupation: I was tired of playing at living. I resolved on a +brilliant plan. I would out-mother mother, for she only _saw_ to the +making of the sacks: I would make them myself, every one of them, on my +sewing-machine. If I couldn't make cotton-sacks on it, what was the use of +having it? + +Charlie had informed me that he would send me down seven or eight women +from the quarters to make the sacks. I informed him with a flourish that I +should need but one: I should want her to cut the sacks out. Charlie +thanked me, and Martha and I and "Wheeler & Wilson" made the sacks. + +Was I to blame that the wretched things burst in twenty places at once the +first time they were used? Was I to blame that two women were kept busy +mending my sacks until they ceased to be sacks? Charlie might think so, +but I did not. + +He reported the failure of my cotton-sack experiment with very unbecoming +levity, as it struck me, accompanying his report with a somewhat unjust +comment upon new-fangled notions, such as sewing-machines, etc., etc., +winding up with--"Now, when mother was alive" (I fairly winced), "the +house was not considered too good for the darkies to sit on the back +gallery with their work and make the sacks right under mother's +eye--sewing them with good strong thread, too, that was spun for the +purpose. I can remember the old spinning-wheel: it used to sit right at +that end of the gallery." + +Like Captain Cuttle, I "made a note of it" for future use. + +I often had occasion to wonder, during the early years of my married life, +how it happened that the son of such an exceptionally perfect woman as I +was compelled to presume my respected mother-in-law to have been, should +have grown up with such shockingly disorderly habits as had my Charlie. +The wretched creature would stalk into my bed-room--which I was +particularly dainty about--fresh from shooting or fishing, with pounds of +mud clinging to his boots, bristling all over with cockleburs, his hands +grimed with gunpowder; and helping himself to water from my ewer, he would +begin dabbling in my china basin until he had reduced its originally pure +contents into a compound of mud and ink, and would wind up by making a +finish of my fresh damask towel, and throwing it on the bed or a chair +instead of returning it to the rack, as he should have done. + +"Charlie," said I one day, saucily inviting a dose of "what mother did," +"what did mother used to do when you came into her room and turned it into +a pig-stye, and then left it for her to clean up again?" + +"She never let me do it," said Charlie with a laugh. "I'll tell you how +she did. She had a tin basin on a shelf on the back gallery, and one of +those great big rolling towels that lasted about a week; and after her +washstand was fixed up in the morning, we knew better than to upset it, I +can tell you." + +"Very well, sir: I intend you shall know better than to upset mine, I'll +show you." + +In fact, things had come to that pass that I had mentally resolved to +"show" Charlie a great many things. I firmly believed that the secret of +the power that Charlie's mother had exercised over her household, and +still exercised over him in memory, lay in the fact that she made them all +afraid of her: so I firmly resolved that they should all be afraid of me, +poor little me! It is true, I was but twenty, and she was fifty; I was but +a pocket edition of a woman, and she was a _Webster Unabridged_; I had +little meek blue eyes, that dropped to the ground in the most shamefaced +manner if a body did but look at me, and she had hard, cold gray eyes, +that not only looked straight at you, but right through you. Still, I +hoped, notwithstanding these trifling drawbacks, to make myself very +awe-inspiring by dint of a grand assumption of spirit. + +To put it into very plain language, I resolved to bully Charlie off his +hobby. He had thrown his mother at my head (figuratively speaking, of +course) until, if she had been present in _propria persona_, I should have +been tempted to try Hiawatha's remarkable feat with his grandmother, and +throw her up against the moon. But as I could not revenge myself upon her +personally, I began to lay deep and subtle plans for inducing Charlie to +leave her to her repose. + +As the veritable bell which, in the days when "mother did it," had acted +as a sort of Gabriel's trump, was still extant, minus clapper and handle, +I was enabled to provide myself with its fac-simile. Armed with this +instrument of retribution, I laid me down to sleep by Charlie's side, +gloating in anticipation over my ripening scheme of vengeance. + +It was a rare thing for me to wake up before Charlie, but I did manage to +do so on the morning in question, by dint, I think, of a powerful mental +resolution to that effect made the night before. I raised myself very +softly, so as not to disturb my husband's gentle slumbers, and, possessing +myself of my big bell, I laid on with a will, raising such a clatter in +the quiet morning air that Charlie fairly bounded into the middle of the +room before he in the least comprehended where it came from. + +"In the name of God, Lulie, what is the meaning of that?" he exclaimed, +looking at me as if he half doubted my sanity. + +"That's the way mother did it, Charlie," I replied placidly enough, and, +replacing my big bell on the table, I settled myself on my pillow once +more, ostensibly to go to sleep again--in reality to have my laugh out in +a quiet fashion, for it was enough to have made the very bed-posts laugh +to see Charlie's funny look of astonishment and indignation. But of course +he couldn't say a word, you know. + +For two more mornings I clattered my bell about his precious old head, and +then he paid me to quit, and after that began riding his hobby at a little +slower gait. + +The next direct intimation he gave that his faith in inherited ideas was +growing shaky was a plaintive little request that I would not stick so +close to the old wooden box, but give out enough coffee to ensure him +something to drink for his breakfast. + +Now, I had no wish that my husband should drink bad coffee just because +Providence had seen fit to remove his mother from this sublunary sphere: I +merely wanted to cure him of telling me how mother did it; so as soon as +he thus tacitly acknowledged that his suggestion had not been a success, I +took matters into my own hands, and proved to him that coffee could be +made as well by young wives as by old mothers. + +In the due revolution of the seasons King Cotton donned his royal robes of +ermine once more, and sacks again became the one thing needful. It was the +very rainiest, wettest, muddiest picking-season that had ever been seen. +In pursuance of my plan, I had seven or eight women down from the +quarters, and a spinning-wheel also, which was set to humming right under +our bed-room window. + +The rainy weather had kept Charlie in the house, and he was lounging on a +couch in my room, enjoying a pleasant semi-doze, when the monotonous +whirr-r-r of the spinning-wheel first attracted his attention. "Lulie," he +asked, rising into a sitting posture, "what is that infernal noise on the +back gallery?" + +"The spinning-wheel, Charlie. They are spinning thread to make the sacks +with," I answered, without looking up from my work. + +"Oh!" and Charlie subsided for a while. "Ahem! Lulie, my dear, how long is +that devilish spinning to be kept up?" + +"Devilish! Why, Charlie, that's the way mother did it." + +"Well," said Charlie, scratching his head and looking foolish, "I know she +did, Lulie, but I'll be confounded if I can stand it much longer." + +"Why, Charlie, you used to stand it when mother did it," I answered +maliciously. + +"I was hardly ever about the house in those days, Lulie: I suppose that +was why I didn't mind it." + +"Why weren't you about the house much in those days, Charlie?" + +"Because you weren't in it, you witch, I suppose." + +This was such a decided triumph over the old lady of the portrait that I +could afford to be amiable; so, giving him a spasmodic little hug and an +energetic little kiss, I went out and stopped the spinning nuisance +immediately. + +After that the hobby went slower and slower, feebler and feebler. One more +energetic display of my bogus spirit and "the enemy was mine." + +Winter came on in its duly-appointed time, bringing with it the usual +quantity of wild ducks and more than the usual degree of severe cold. +Charlie was an inveterate duck-shooter, and with the return of the season +came the return of mud and dirt in my bowls. + +I determined to do as mother did. A tin basin made its appearance on the +back gallery, four yards of crash sewed together at the end were made to +revolve over the roller, and by way of forcing the experiment to a +successful issue orders were given that my own pitchers should be filled +only after nightfall. + +I was sitting in my bed-room sewing away, in placid unconsciousness of +outside cold and discomfort, when Charlie got home from his first hunt of +the season. + +"No water, Lulie?" and the monster took hold of my nice pitcher with a +pair of muddy, half-frozen hands. + +"On the gallery, dear, just where mother used to keep it;" and I smiled up +at him angelically. + +With a muttered something or other, poor Charlie bounded out to the back +gallery. He came back in a minute, his hands as muddy and cold as ever. + +"Look here, Lulie: the water's all frozen in that confounded tin basin out +there." + +"I'll have it thawed out for you," I said sweetly, rising as I spoke. + +"I say, wifey"--and the great, handsome fellow came close up to me with +his mud and his burs--"do you think it's exactly fair, when a fellow's +been out all the morning shooting ducks for your dinner, to make him stand +out on the gallery such a day as this and scrub the mud off his frozen +hands?" + +"That's the way mother did," was all my answer. + +"Look here, Lulie, I cry quits. If you'll only let a body off this once, +you may keep house on your own plan, little lady, and I'll never tell you +how mother did it again so long as I live." + +"Well, then, don't, that's a dear," I replied, "for you'll only make me +dislike her memory, without doing any good. Just be patient with me, +Charlie, and maybe after a while I'll be as good a housekeeper as your +mother was before me. The mistake you and all other men make is, in +comparing your wives at the end of their first year of housekeeping with +your mothers, whose housekeeping you knew nothing about until it was of +ever so many years' duration. I'm young yet, but I'm improving in that +matter every day, Charlie." + +With which little moral lecture I gave Charlie a kiss, and some water to +wash the mud from his poor red hands. + +_Moral._--My dear girls, don't you ever marry a man that cannot take his +affidavit he never had a mother, unless it is expressly stipulated in the +marriage contract that he is never to tell you how his mother did it. + +J.R. HADERMANN. + + + + +The Red Fox: A Tale of New Year's Eve. + + + +It was New Year's Eve, 184-. I and my two little boys, children of five +and seven, were alone in the house. My husband had been unexpectedly +called away on business, and the servant had gone to her friends to spend +the coming holiday. + +It was drawing toward night. The cold shadows of the winter twilight were +already falling. A dull red glow in the west told where the sun was going +down. Over the rest of the sky hung heavy gray clouds. A few drops of rain +fell from time to time, and the wind was rising, coming round the corner +of the house with a long, mournful howl like that of a lost hound. + +I am not a very nervous person, but I did not like the idea of spending by +myself the long evening that would come after the children's bed-time. + +We were living then in a very new place in Michigan, which I shall call +Maysville. My husband, an ex-army officer, had resigned the sword for the +saw-mill. Our house was the oldest in the village, which does not speak +much for its antiquity, as five years before Maysville had been unbroken +forest. The house stood outside the cluster of houses that formed the +little settlement: it was a quarter of a mile to our nearest neighbor. + +Now, Maysville calls itself a city, has an academy and a college, and a +great quantity of church in proportion to its population. Then, we "went +to meeting" in a little white-painted, pine box of a thing, like a barn +that had risen in life. The stumps stood about the street: the cows +wandered at will and pastured in the "public square," an irregular +clearing running out into indefinite space. Here also the Indians would +encamp when they came to town from their reservation about five miles +away, and here also, I regret to say, they would sometimes get drunk, and +add what Martha Penney calls "a revolving animosity to the scenery." The +squaws, however, would generally secure the knives and guns before the +quarrelsome stage was reached. Not unfrequently the ladies would bring the +weapons to Mrs. Moore or myself to hide away till their lords and masters +should be sober. Then, feeling secure that no great harm could happen, +they would look on with the utmost placidity at the antics of their better +halves until they dropped down to sleep off their liquor. + +There were no Indians in town that night, however, and if there had been, +I was not at all afraid of them, for we were on excellent terms with the +whole reservation. My feeling about staying alone was merely one of those +unreasonable sensations that sometimes overtake people of ill-regulated +minds. + +I went to the door and looked out at the gray, angry sky. It was not cold, +but chill. The wind howled and shivered among the leafless branches: +everything promised a storm. + +I was not at all sorry to see Mr. and Mrs. Moore drive up in their light +buggy, with their two high-stepping, little brown horses. Mrs. Moore had +in her arms a bundle in a long blue embroidered cloak--a baby, in short. +She and her husband firmly believed this infant to be the most beautiful, +most intelligent and altogether most charming creature which the world had +ever seen. They had been married three years, and little Carry was their +first child. + +Mr. and Mrs. Moore were by no means ordinary people. Mrs. Moore--born +Minny or Hermione Adams--was a very small woman, exceedingly pretty, with +light brown curly hair, dark blue eyes and a complexion like an apple +blossom. + +Mr. Moore was the son of a Seneca mother and Cherokee father, with not a +drop of white blood in his veins. So he thought, at least, but I never +could quite believe it, because he could and did work, and never so much +as touched even a glass of wine. His parents had died when he was very +young, and he had been brought up and educated by a missionary, a gentle, +scholarly old Presbyterian minister, whose memory his adopted son held in +loving reverence. + +The story of our acquaintance with Richard Moore is too long to be told +here. Four years before he had come with us from the Pawnee country. He +had married Minny Adams with the full consent of her parents and the +opposition of all her other friends. Contrary to all prophecies, and with +that inartistic disregard of the probable which events often show, they +had been very happy together. + +Mr. Moore--otherwise Wyanota--was a civil engineer, and stood high in his +profession. + +"Look here, mamma," he said as he drove up. "Will you take in the wife and +the small child for to-night? I must go away." + +"Certainly," said I, overjoyed. "But where are you going, to be caught in +a storm?" + +"Oh, they have got into a fuss with the hands over on the railroad, and +have sent for me. I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when I left +him?" + +"Why not?" + +"English!" said Wyn, most expressively. "No one can stand the airs he puts +on." + +Now, such airs as Mr. Moore possessed--and they were neither few nor far +between--were not put on, but were perfectly natural to him. + +"Can't you come in and get your tea?" I asked as he handed me the baby and +helped his wife down. + +"No: I must go over directly and compose matters. Good-bye, little woman: +by-bye, baby! Do you know, we think she's beginning to say 'papa?'" said +Wyn, proudly; and then he kissed his wife and child and drove away. + +I carried the infant phenomenon into the house and took off its wrappings. +She was my namesake, and I loved the little creature, but I can't say she +was a pretty baby. She was a soft, brown thing, with her father's +beautiful southern eyes and her mother's mouth, but otherwise she +certainly was not handsome. She was ten months old, but she had a look of +experience and wisdom in her wee face that would have made her seem old at +twenty years. She sat on my lap and watched me in a meditative way, as +though she were reviewing her former estimate of my character, and +considering whether her opinions on that subject were well founded. There +was something quite weird and awful in her dignity and gravity. + +"Isn't she a wise-looking little thing?" said Minny. "She makes me think +sometimes of the fairy changeling that was a hundred and fifty years old, +and never saw soap made in an egg-shell." + +"This baby never would have made such a confession of ignorance, you may +depend. She would not have acknowledged that anything lay out of the range +of her experience. Take your chicken till I get tea, for I am my own girl +to-night." + +We had a very merry time over the tea-table and in washing up the dishes. +Until the boys went to bed we were in something of a frolic with them and +the baby, and it was not till the little one was asleep in her crib and Ed +and Charley were quiet in bed that we noticed how wild the weather was +getting. + +The rain, which had at first fallen in pattering drops, was now driving in +sheets before a mighty wind, which roared through the woods back of the +house with a noise like thunder. The branches of the huge oaks in the +front yard creaked and groaned as only oak boughs can. The house shook, +the rain lashed the roof, and the wind clawed and rattled the blinds like +some wild creature trying to get in. + +"I hope Wyn is safe under shelter,'' said Mrs. Moore. + +"He will have reached the end of his journey long before this. I hope he +will have no trouble with the men, but he is not apt to. I pity poor Mr. +Robinson. When Wyn chooses, his extreme politeness is something quite +awful." + +"I will say for my husband," observed Mrs. Moore, "that when he sets +himself to work to be disagreeable, he can, without doing one uncourteous +thing, be more aggravating than any one I ever saw in my life." + +"It is perfectly evident that he never tries his airs on you, or you would +not speak so. Hear the wind blow!" + +"It is no use listening to the weather. The house will stand, I suppose. +Have you got your work? Then let me read to you. It will seem like old +times, before I was married." + +Minny Moore was in some respects a very remarkable woman. Though little +Carry was her first baby, she _could_ talk on other subjects. She did not +expect you to listen with rapture to the tenth account of how baby had +said "Da-da," or thrill with agony over the tale of an attack of wind. She +had been her husband's friend and companion before the baby was born: she +did not entirely throw him over now that it had come. She had always been +fond of reading, and she continued to keep up her interest in the world +outside of her nursery. She thought that as her daughter grew up her +mother would be as valuable as a guide and friend if she did not wholly +sink the educated woman in the nurse-maid and seamstress. These habits may +have been "unfeminine," but they certainly made Mrs. Moore much more +agreeable as a companion than if she had been able to talk of nothing but +the baby's clothes, teeth and ailments. + +I took out my work, and Minny began to read _Locksley Hall_, which was +then a new poem on this side the water. I had never heard it before, and I +must confess I was much affected--more than I should be now. Mrs. Moore, +however, chose to say that she thought Amy had made a most fortunate +escape, that she had no doubt but the hero would have been a most +intolerable person to live with, and that their marriage, had it come to +pass, would have ended in Amy's taking in sewing to support both herself +and her husband. As for the Squire, why we had no word for his character +but his disappointed rival's, and his drinking might be all a slander. As +to his snoring, why poets might snore as well as other people. If he loved +his wife "somewhat better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse," +"Why what more," said Mrs. Moore, "could any woman ask of a man given to +horses and hunting? If Calvin Bruce ever cares more for a woman than he +does for his brown pointer and his fast trotter, she may think herself +happy indeed." + +At that instant a sudden and furious blast rushed out of the woods, and +tore and shook at the four corners of the house as if to wrench it from +its foundations. + +"It's quite awful to hear the wind scream like that," said Minny. "It is +like the banshee. Hark! is not that some one knocking at the back door?" + +I listened, and amid the rattling and shaking of blinds and timbers I +heard what sounded like a hurried, impatient knock at the side door. "Who +can it be on such a wild night?" I said, and took the candle and went to +open the door. I set the light in the hall, for I knew the wind would blow +it out. In spite of this precaution, however, the flame was extinguished, +for as I drew back the bolt and lifted the latch the blast threw the door +violently back on its hinges, and rushed into the hall as though exulting +in having finally made an entrance. + +"Pretty bad weather, mamma," said some one in the softest, sweetest voice, +like a courteous flute, and there entered my old friend the Black Panther. + +This gentleman measured seven feet in his moccasins, and as he stood in +our little entry he looked gigantic indeed. He closed the door with some +difficulty, and I relit the candle. + +"You are quite wet through," I said, for the water dripped from his +blanket and woolen hunting-frock. He carried his rifle in his hand, and I +thought the old man looked very tired and sad, and even anxious. + +"You all well?" he asked, earnestly. + +"Certainly. The captain has gone away, and Minny and the baby are here for +the night. My dear friend, where have you been in this weather? There is a +good fire in the kitchen. Come and get dry there, and let me make you a +cup of hot coffee and get you something to eat." + +Here Minny came out into the hall and held up her hands in sunrise. + +"Oh, uncle," she said, calling him by the name she had used toward him +since her childhood, "how could you come out in all this rain, and bring +on your rheumatism? How do you think any one is ever going to find dry +clothes for such a big creature as you?" + +The Panther gave a little grunt and a smile. He was used to Minny's +lectures, and he followed us both into the kitchen, where she made him sit +down by the fire and took off his wet blanket, waiting on him like a +daughter, and scolding him gently meanwhile. The old gentleman had of late +years been subject to rheumatism, and it was too likely that this exposure +would bring on another attack. The Panther patted her two little hands +between his own. Like most of his race, he had beautiful hands, soft and +rounded even in his old age, with long taper fingers that had, I dare say, +taken more than one scalp in their time. + +"Pooh!" said he, lightly. "You think old Ingin melt like maple sugar? You +well?" he asked, anxiously. + +"Quite so." + +"And little one?" + +"As well as a little pig, fast asleep in the other room." + +"Where your husband?" + +"Gone over to the railroad on business." + +"And yours?" he asked, turning to me. + +"Gone to Carysville. Do you know anything about him? is anything the +matter?" I asked, a little alarmed at his persistent questioning and an +indefinite something in the old man's tone and manner. + +"Oh no," said he, earnestly. "I come right over from our place." + +"Walked from the reservation in this storm!" said I. "What could have made +you do such a thing?" + +"Nothing--just to see you. Not very strange come see two nice women," said +the old gentleman, with a little complimentary bow. + +The Panther was somewhat vain of his knowledge of what he called "white +manners," but I never saw a white man who could be so gently dignified, so +courteous, so altogether charming in manner, as the old chief when he +chose. He hardly knew one letter from another, but he had had sixty-five +years of experience in war and council. Many a man "got up regardless of +expense" in college and society might have taken lessons in deportment +from this old Pottawatomie. He had known Minny from her childhood. Her +father's farm had been the first clearing in all that part of the country. +Deacon Adams had always been on excellent terms with the Indians, and his +little daughter had found her earliest playmates among their children. The +Panther had carried Minny in his arms when she was a baby; and as his own +family of boys and girls died one after another, he clung closer to the +child who had been their pet as well as his own. + +The Panther was one of those big, soft, easy men who seem made to be ruled +by one woman or another. He was greatly respected in his tribe, and had +much influence. When they had been a nation he had been one of their most +distinguished warriors, and his word had been law. He had always +maintained toward the "young men" a somewhat imperious manner. He had +conducted himself with dignity and decision in all his visits to +Washington, where he had been a great lion, and in all his dealings with +the United States he had shown much wisdom and ability. But report said +that when once within the domestic circle and before his squaw, the +diplomatist and warrior was exceedingly meek. He bore his wife's death +with resignation, but he had never married again. He loved Minny Adams +better than anything on earth, and the girl had great influence over him. +She, in her turn, was very fond of him. From her earliest years he had +been her friend, confidant and admirer. He looked so fierce and dangerous, +and was so kind and simple, that the alliance between the girl and himself +was very much like that between a little child and a big mastiff--the +child protected and leader, the dog protector and led. + +Minny made flannel shirts for him, and he wore them: she trimmed his +moccasins, and the dainty cambric ruffles which he wore when in grand +costume were got up by her hands. The Panther, however, did not often +appear in full dress. She tried to teach him to read, and she did get him +through the alphabet, but he greatly preferred hearing stories read to +learning to do it for himself, and was especially fond of the _Arabian +Nights_, which he quite believed. She even coaxed him to go to church with +her, and might have made a convert of him but for the interference of an +exceedingly silly young clergyman. The Panther rather liked to hear the +Bible, but I fear he was more attracted by the sound than the sense: his +favorite chapter was the story of David and Goliah. He used to say that +"Ingin religion was good for Ingin, and white religion was good for white +man." However, he never offered the least opposition to the missionary who +had settled among his people: indeed, he rather patronized that gentleman. + +He and Wyanota were excellent friends. It was good to see the deference +and respect with which the younger man treated the elder. I always said +that it was the Panther who made the match between Minny and Mr. Moore. +Their house was one of his homes, and he was a frequent guest at our own. +He petted and spoiled my two children: he was very soft and kind to me, +whom he called "Mamma," after Wyn's example, and he considered that my +husband "understood good manners"--a compliment which he did not pay to +every one. + +A dear little daughter whom we had lost had been very fond of him: the +child had died in his arms. I was alone at the time, and the old man's +sympathy was such a comfort to me in my trouble that for his own sake, as +well as for our little girl's, he had become very dear to us. + +For an Indian, the Panther might be called almost a sober character. He +was seldom drunk more than four or five times a year, and when he was, he +always was very careful to keep out of the way of his white friends until +he was sober, when he would lecture the young men on the evils of +intemperance in most impressive fashion. He was a good deal of an orator, +possessing a voice of great sweetness and power; and though he was such an +immense creature, all his movements were light and graceful as those of a +kitten. He could speak perfectly good, even elegant, English when he +chose, but he did not always choose, and generally omitted the pronouns; +but his voice, manner and gestures in speaking were perfectly charming +when he was in a good temper. When he was not, he was somewhat awful, but +it was only under great provocation that he became savage. In general, he +was an amiable, kind, lazy creature, whom it was very easy to love. + +I could not but wonder that night, as I set out the table and made the +coffee, what had brought the Panther so far in such wild weather. He did +not seem like himself. He was usually very conversable, and would chat +away by the hour together, in a fashion half shrewd, half simple, often +very interesting; but now he was silent and _distrait_. + +"Carry," said Mrs. Moore, "are there not some of Wyn's things here yet in +that old trunk in your lumber-room?" + +"Yes. Perhaps you can find something the chief can put on, and bring down +a pair of the captain's socks and slippers." + +"Oh, never mind, never mind," said the damp giant. + +"But I will mind," said the little woman; and she went out and soon +returned with the things, which she insisted he should go and put on. + +"Well, always one woman or another," said the Panther in a tone of +resignation: "always squaw git her own way. You see that little girl, +mamma? Could squeeze her up just like a rabbit. Always she order me round +since she so high, and I just big fool enough let her;" and he went into +the next room, and presently came out arrayed in dry garments, as to his +upper man at least. I set the table with the best I had in the house, and +Minny and I sat down to get a cup of coffee with our guest. + +At any other time the old gentleman would have purred and talked over this +little feast like an amiable old cat, but now he was rather silent; and I +noticed that in the pauses of the wind he would stop as though listening +for some expected sound. I began to think he was concealing from me some +misfortune or danger, and the same thought was evidently in Minny's mind, +for she watched him anxiously. + +When we went back into the parlor the Panther walked to the baby's crib, +and stood for a moment looking at the sleeping child with a tenderness +which softened his whole aspect. Then he asked for the little boys. + +"They are fast asleep in the next room," I said. "Go and look at them, and +you will be sure." + +The Panther smiled, but he went into my room, which opened from the +parlor, and bending down softly kissed the two little faces resting on the +same pillow. + +I drew a large chair to the fire for him, and Minny filled his pipe, for I +had "followed the drum" too long to object to smoking. The giant stretched +his length of limb before the fire, but he did not seem quite at ease, +even under the influence of the tobacco. He looked a little troubled and +anxious, and lifted his head once or twice with a sudden motion, like a +dog who has misgivings that something is wrong out-doors. + +The baby stirred in her sleep, and the chief began gently to rock the +cradle. "'Spose she order me about too, by and by," he said, "like her +mother." + +"Oh, you like to make that out," said Minny, "because you are such a great +big, strong man. If you were a little bit of a creature, you would always +be standing on your dignity to make yourself look tall. The last time Wyn +and I were at Detroit we went to church, and I heard the very smallest man +I ever saw preach a tremendous sermon about the man being the head of the +woman, insisting mightily on the respect we all owe to the other sex. When +we came out I asked Wyn what he thought, and he said he thought it was +exactly such a sermon as such a very tiny man might be expected to +preach." + +"Ah! and he heard you both, my dear," said I; "and he says Mr. Moore has +no element of reverence in his character!" + +Here the Panther dropped his pipe, and starting from his chair looked like +his namesake just ready for a spring, as the sharp, quick bark of a little +dog was heard from the nearest house. + +"Only dog," he said in a tone of relief, and resumed his smoking. + +"Uncle," said Minny, "I do wish you would tell me what the matter is, or +what you are listening for. You make me think there is something wrong." + +I looked up and seconded Minny's request. + +"'Spose I tell you, you think it all Ingin nonsense," he said, looking a +little embarrassed. + +"Even if I did, sir, I should feel more comfortable," I said. + +"Yes, do tell us, please," said Minny, earnestly. + +"Well, then," said the old man, speaking with an effort, "last night went +out after a coon--up in the woods right back of here--" + +"Yes: well?" + +"And went up on that little hill over your pasture, and then," said the +old man lowering his voice and speaking with great earnestness, "hear _red +fox bark_--one, two, three times out loud, and then again farther off. +There, now!" + +I was greatly relieved at finding that I was threatened by nothing worse +than the oracle of the red fox. I knew the Indian superstition that if +this animal is heard to bark anywhere near a dwelling, he foretells death +within twenty-four hours to some one beneath its roof. + +"But," said I, "the red fox is only a sign for Indians. He does not bark +for white people, and you were not under a roof at the time, so it cannot +apply to you." + +"Don't know!" said the Panther, shaking his head. "Never know that sign +fail. Then here this little woman and this baby--all the same as Ingin +now." + +Minny looked a little troubled. In spite of his reading, his college +education and mathematics, Wyanota had sundry queer notions and +superstitions, about which he very seldom spoke, but which nevertheless +had some weight with him, and it is possible that he had in some degree +communicated his ideas to his wife. + +"I don't believe in signs," said Minny, but nevertheless she looked +annoyed. + +"So I thought," said the chief with a little smile. "Know mamma here think +it all nonsense, or else come over this morning to tell her. Then think +she not believe it and not mind, and so keep quiet. Then storm come up and +wind blow, and couldn't stand it; so set out and walk over here to take +care of her; and she--maybe she laugh at me?" + +"No indeed, sir," said I, greatly touched by the anxious affection which +had brought the old man so far in such weather. "How good you are to me! +You mean to stay here to-night of course, and in the morning you will see +that the red fox was simply barking for his own amusement; but I am sorry +he drove you to take such a toilsome walk, though we are glad to have you +here." + +"My business take care of you when your men gone. Got no one my own +blood," he said, rather sadly: "boys dead, girl dead, squaw dead--no one +but you two care much for old man." + +Minny went and kissed him softly. "You know I belong to you," she said, +"and baby has no grandfather but you." + +"Ah! your father!" said the Panther, rocking the cradle. "He and I always +good friends. 'Member when you come, your mother she got no milk for you, +poor little starved thing! My squaw she lose her baby--nice little boy +too," said the old man, with a sigh--"she tell your mother she nurse you; +so she did. You git fat and rosy right off. You all the same one of us +after that. No spoil your pretty white skin, though," said the Panther, +patting Minny's cheek with his brown fingers. "Seem just like that happen +yesterday: now you got baby yourself. Ah! your father--mighty well pleased +he be 'spose he see that little one." + +"How often I wish he could!" said "Minny with a sigh, for both her father +and mother were dead. + +"You 'pend upon it, he comfortable somewhere," said the chief, +consolingly. "Deacon Adams, he real good man. Look here, mamma! Like to +ask you question. You say when we die white man go to one place, Indian go +to another--" + +"I don't say so, sir. I don't pretend to know all this world by heart, +much less the other." + +"Well, that what Indian say, any way. Now 'spose that so, what come of +half-breed, eh?" + +"What do you think?" I asked, for neither Minny nor I could venture an +opinion on this abstruse point. + +"Don't know," said the old man. "Saw young Cherokee in Washington: he +marry pretty little schoolmistress go down there to teach, and their +little boy die. Then that young man feel bad, and he fret good deal 'bout +where that baby gone to, and he ask me, and I no able tell him. Guess me +find out when get there: no use to trouble till then, You make these?" he +asked, changing the subject, and looking with admiration at the captain's +embroidered slippers which I had lent him. + +"Yes. They were pretty when they were new. I'll make you a pair just like +them, if you wish. Shall I?" + +The old gentleman looked greatly delighted, for he was as fond of finery +as any girl, and took no small pride in adorning his still handsome +person. + +I brought out all my embroidery-patterns, and the giant took as much +pleasure as a child in the pretty painted pictures and gay-colored wools +and silks. I made all the conversation I could over the slippers, willing +to divert him from the melancholy which seemed to have taken possession of +his mind. Over my work-basket he brightened a little, and chatted away +quite like himself, and listened with pleasure to Minny's singing. We did +not rise to go to bed till eleven o'clock, which was a very late hour for +Maysville. When the Panther spent the night at our house, as was +frequently the case, he never would go regularly to bed, but would take +his blanket and lie down before the kitchen fire. With great politeness he +insisted on getting the wood ready for morning, a thing he never would +have dreamed of doing for a woman of his own race. + +As he came back into the kitchen from the shed he took up his rifle, which +he had set down by the door. As he did so an angry look came over his +face. "Look here," he said: "somebody been spoil my rifle!" + +I looked at the piece in surprise, for the lock was broken. "It cannot +have been done since you came," I said. "There is no one in the house but +ourselves." + +"Of course not, of course not!" said the Panther, eager to show that he +had no suspicion of his friends. + +"Did you stop anywhere on your way?" + +"Yes," said he with some slight embarrassment. "Stop at Ryan's," +mentioning a low tavern on the borders of the reservation, which was a +terrible thorn in the side of all the missionary's efforts. "Stop a minute +light my pipe, but no drink one drop," he added with great earnestness; +"but they ask me good deal." + +"Did you put your gun down?" + +"Guess so," he said after a moment's reflection. "Yes, know did put it +down a minute or two." + +"Then that was when the mischief was done, you may be sure. This lock was +never broken by accident. It must have been a mere piece of spite because +you would not stay. I wonder you did not notice it when you came out." + +"In a hurry, and kept the buckskin over it, not to git it wet. Wish knew +who did that," said he, with a look not good to see. "Guess not do it +again." + +"I am very sorry, but it can easily be mended." + +I spread out on the floor for him the comfortable and blankets I had +brought for his use, and hung up his woolen hunting-frock, now quite dry. + +As I took it into my hand, I felt something very heavy in the pocket. + +"I hope you have nothing here that will be spoiled with wet?" I said. + +"Oh, nothing but money," said the chief, carelessly. "Mean to tell Minny +to take some of it and buy clothes for me." + +He took out as he spoke a handful of loose change--copper, silver and two +or three gold-pieces--and a roll of bills a good deal damp, and put it all +into my apron. I counted the money and found there were seventy-five +dollars. Strong indeed must have been the attraction which had brought the +old man away from the tavern-fire in his sober senses with such a sum of +money in his pocket. + +"Just got that," he said. "Part from Washington, part sell deer-skins." + +There was no need to tell me that it had not been long in his possession. +Money in the Panther's hands was like water in a sieve. + +"You give me five dollars, give the rest to Minny," he said; and as this +was by much the wisest arrangement for him, I did as he wished. + +"You got captain's gun?" he asked me. "Never like to go to sleep without +something to catch up: hit somebody 'spose somebody come." + +"I am sorry to say the captain has his rifle with him, and I lent the +shotgun to Jim Brewster this afternoon." + +He looked annoyed, but he went out into the woodshed and returned with the +axe, which was new and sharp. "Have something, anyway," he said, doggedly. + +"Why, what do you think can possibly happen?" + +"Don't know. Always like to have something to catch up. Good-night, mamma. +You go to sleep." + +I went to bed and fell asleep almost on the minute, but I could not have +slept long when I was wakened by the noise of the wind against the +shutters. The rain had ceased, but the blast was still roaring without. +Minny and her child were in a room which opened out of the parlor opposite +my own. The lamp which was burning there threw a dim light into my +chamber, and showed me each familiar object and my little boys asleep +beside me. + +Some one says that between the hours of one and four in the morning the +human mind is not itself. I fully believe it. In those hours you do not +"fix your mind" on melancholy subjects--they fix themselves upon you. If +you turn back into the past, there comes up before you every occasion on +which you made a fool of yourself, every lost opportunity, every slight +injury you ever experienced. If you look at the future, you see nothing +but coming failure and disappointment. The present moment connects itself +with every tale you ever heard or read of ghosts, murder, vampires or +robbers. + +That night, either because of the wind or because I had taken too strong +coffee, I fell into "the fidgets," as this state of mind is sometimes +called, and selected for immediate cause of discomfort the Panther's +presentiment about the red fox. Who could explain the mysterious way in +which animals are warned of approaching danger? Perhaps the old science of +divination was not so entirely a delusion; and then I remembered all the +old stories in Roman history of people who had come to grief by neglecting +the oracles. The old idea that whatever incident is considered as an omen +will be such in reality, seemed to me at that hour of the night not wholly +an unreasonable theory. + +I had known, to be sure, some fifty presentiments which came to nothing, +but then I had known as many as three which had been verified: perhaps the +present case might be one of the exceptions to the rule. Then I remembered +all the stories in Scott's _Demonology_, which I had lately read, and +quite forgot all the arguments intended to disprove them. + +[Illustration: The Attack on the "Panther."] + +I thought of the broken gun-lock: I thought it not improbable that the +Panther had, when at Ryan's, mentioned that he was coming to our house, +and that it was very likely he had let it appear that he carried his money +with him. Ryan's was one of the worst places in all the State. I +remembered that the money was in the house, and I began to wish, like the +Panther, that I had something to "catch up." Then there were so many +noises about! I heard footsteps, which you will always hear if you listen +for them on a windy night. When our petted old cat jumped from his place +on the parlor sofa to lie down before the fire, I started up in bed in a +sudden fright. + +I must have been in this uncomfortable state of mind and body for the best +part of an hour before I remembered that in a drawer in the front parlor +lay two little old-fashioned pistols, unloaded but in good order. + +I had grown so excited and uneasy that I felt as if I could not rest +unless I got up, found those pistols and loaded them, though nobody had +ever heard of a burglary in Maysville, and half the time the doors were +left unlocked at night. Rather despising myself for my nervousness, but +yielding to it nevertheless, I rose, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, +lit my candle and went to find the two little pistols. I stepped very +softly, not to disturb Minny, for I should have been quite ashamed then to +have her know my cowardice. I looked in at the door as I passed. She was +sound asleep, with her baby on her arm. The baby, however, was broad +awake, but lying perfectly still, with her little finger in her mouth. Her +eyes shone in the lamplight as she turned them on me--not startled like +another child, but simply questioning. The little creature looked so +unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild +tale Wyanota had once told me about a remote ancestress of his who had +married some sort of a wood-demon. The legend ran that Wyanota's family +was descended from the offspring of this marriage, and I think Wyn more +than half believed the story. + +I passed on, and going into the next room found the pistols, carried them +back to my own chamber, and loaded them carefully. I was quite accustomed +to the use of firearms. There had been times in my life when I never sat +down to my work or went to rest without having rifle or pistol within easy +reach of my hand. When I had loaded the weapons, I put them on the table +by my bed and lay down again. My excitement seemed to have subsided, and I +was just falling asleep when I heard a door in the kitchen violently burst +open. I thought the wind had done it, and waited a moment to hear if the +Panther would rise and shut it. + +The next instant there was a shot, a wild cry as of mingled pain and fury, +the sound of a heavy fall and a struggle. Before I had well realized that +the noise was in the house, I found myself at the kitchen door with my +pistols in my hand. I was greatly startled, but my one idea was to help my +old friend. The miserable door resisted me for a moment. Seconds passed +that seemed hours. When at last I tore it open, I saw a man in his shirt +sleeves lying dead on the floor, his head shattered apparently by a blow +from the axe: another, a large, powerful Irishman, was kneeling on the +Panther's breast, with his hands at the old man's throat. + +I sprang forward, but something swifter than I darted past me with a +savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself +full at the ruffian's face and naked throat. It was our big old brindle +cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire. The unexpected fierceness +of Tom's assault took the man quite by surprise. Before he could tear the +creature away I had the pistol at his head. + +"If you move," I said, "I'll kill you;" for, as I saw that my old friend +was hurt, wrath took the place of fear. + +He gave in directly. Indeed the cat, a large, powerful animal, had almost +scratched his eyes out. In the most abject tones the fellow implored me to +let him go. + +"Don't you do it, mamma," said the Panther, faintly. + +"I don't mean to," I said. + +Under the kitchen stairs was a dark closet with a strong outside bolt. I +ordered the man into this place. He obeyed, and I drew the bolt upon him. +His face and throat were streaming with blood from Tom's teeth and claws. + +All this passed in much less time than it takes to tell it. Roused by the +noise, the children, and Minny with the baby in her arms, were already in +the kitchen. + +"Oh, my dear, my poor darling!" said Minny, kneeling by the old man's +side, "you are hurt!" + +"Yes," he said, quietly, "pretty considerable bad. Charley, you fasten +that door;" for the door into the shed, which had been secured only by a +button, was wide open. "You get the hammer and two, three big nails, and +drive 'em in," he continued. "Maybe more them darn scamps round." + +Charley obeyed directions in a way which did him credit. Little Ned, with +wide, surprised eyes, clung to me in silence; little Carry, seeing her +mother in tears, put up a piteous lip and sobbed in her unbaby-like, +sorrowful fashion; the old cat, in great excitement, went purring and +talking from one to another. + +"Tell me where you are hurt," I said, holding the chief's hand. + +He had been shot through the stomach with a great, old-fashioned +smooth-bore musket, which lay on the floor--a gun not carrying less than +twenty-five to the pound. I had seen gunshot wounds before, and I knew +that this was serious. It did not bleed much externally, but the edges of +the wound were torn and discolored. + +"That fellow dead?" asked the Panther. + +"Yes indeed!" for the man's head was split like a walnut. + +The old warrior looked gratified. "Mamma," he said, touching his +hunting-knife, "you take that fellow's scalp." + +"Don't think of such a thing," I said, not so much shocked as I might have +been had I not lived on the Indian frontier. "Do you know who they are?" + +"See them to Ryan's. Guess they some folks that mizzable railroad bring +into this country. 'Spect they follow me. Mamma," said the Panther, +looking up into my face, "tell you, red fox not bark for nothing. Better +be old man than you." + +"Oh, my dear old friend, if you had only not come to us to-night! It was +all your love for us that has done this, but I pray God you may get well. +Charley, do you think you can go for Doctor Beach?" + +"Yes, mamma," said the boy, though he turned pale. + +"No, no," said the Panther. "You no send that little fellow out in the +dark. Besides, no good. You go wrap yourselves up. You two, you git bad +cold." + +At that moment we heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet. + +"Go, Charley," said Minny. "Stop whoever it is, and tell them what has +happened." + +Charley ran out, and soon returned with Dr. Beach, who, happily for us, +had been out on one of those errands which are always rousing doctors from +their beds. + +Dr. Beach was a burly, rough-mannered sort of man, but he could be very +kind and tender in the exercise of his profession. He wasted no time in +questions, but looked grave when he saw how the old man was hurt. + +"Needn't tell me," said the Panther, quietly. "Know it's the end. Kill one +of 'em, anyhow!" he concluded in a tone of calm satisfaction. + +"And I wish with all my heart you had killed the other," said the doctor, +bitterly. "He got off, I suppose." + +The Panther showed his white teeth in a laugh. "No," he said, pointing to +me: "she got him--she and the cat. Pretty well for one little squaw and +pussy-cat. Mamma, you keep that kitty always." + +"Where is the scoundrel?" asked the doctor. + +"Shut up in that closet." + +Here the man within cried out that he was "kilt" already, and should be +hung if we did not let him go. + +"I hope you will, with all my heart," said the doctor. + +With some difficulty we helped the Panther into the parlor and laid him on +the sofa. + +He told us the story in a few words. He had been asleep when the door was +burst open. The man whom he had killed had fired the shot. He had kept his +feet to strike one blow with the axe, and the other man had sprung upon +him as he fell. + +The doctor did what little he could to ease his patient, and then went +away, but soon returned with some men from the village, who were quite +ready to lynch the criminal when they heard what he had done. They took +the man away, however, and I am happy to say he afterward received the +heaviest sentence the law would allow. He confessed that, knowing the +chief had a large sum in his possession, himself and his companion had +broken the lock of the rifle, intending to waylay the old man and shoot +him in the woods. They had not, however, been able to overtake him till he +reached the clearing, and then, fearing to encounter him, they had +followed him at a distance and watched him enter our house. Knowing that +the captain was gone, they had waited until all was quiet, and then made +their entrance as described. + +The Panther asked that some one might go to the reservation and send over +three of his friends, whom he named. He was very anxious to see Wyanota, +and Calvin Bruce, who had come with the doctor, instantly volunteered to +take his trotting mare and do both errands. The chestnut did her work +gallantly, though unhappily in vain, for the old man did not live to see +his friends. + +"Don't you fret, you two," he said, softly, as Minny and I watched over +him. "Great deal the best way for old Ingin. Die like a man now: not cough +myself to death, like an old dog. Minny, little girl, you tell your +husband be good to our people, well as he can. Not much of our nation left +now--not good for much, either," he added; "but you tell him and the +captain stand their friends, won't you?" + +"Indeed, indeed they will," said Minny in tears. + +A Methodist clergyman of some kind, who preached in Maysville at that +time, hearing what had happened, came in to offer his services and to pray +with the dying man. The Panther thanked him courteously, but he clung to +the simple creed of his fathers and his belief that "Ingin religion was +good for Ingin;" and Mr. Lawrence had the sense and feeling not to disturb +him by argument. + +"Want your Charley to have my rifle," he said to me. "Nobody left of our +people but my cousin's son, and he most a mizzable Ingin. You 'member +that, please," he said to Mr. Lawrence, who sat quietly at the head of the +sofa. "Do you think," he asked wistfully of the clergyman, "that I ever +see these two again where I go?" The minister--Heaven bless him!--answered +stoutly that he had not a doubt of it. "All right, then," said the +Panther, quietly. "Now, mamma, you see red fox know, after all." + +Minny brought her baby for him to kiss. Little Carry's dark eyes were full +of tears, for, like most babies, she felt the influence of sorrow she +could not understand. She did not scream, as another child would, but hid +her face on her mother's bosom and sobbed quietly, like a grown-up woman. +My two little boys, understanding all at once that their old friend was +going away, burst out crying. + +"Hush! hush!" he said, gently. "You be good boys to your mother. Say +'good-bye.'" + +We kissed him, keeping back the lamentations which we knew would trouble +him. + +"Good-bye," he said, softly, and then he spoke some few words in his own +tongue, as Minny told me afterward, about going to his lost children. Then +a smile came over his face, a look of sweet relief and comfort softened +the stern features, the hand that had held mine so close slowly relaxed; +and with a sigh he was gone. + +The old minister gently closed his eyes. "My dear," said Mr. Lawrence to +Minny, who was in an agony of grief, "God knows, but it was His Son who +said, 'Greater love hath no man than this--that a man lay down his life +for his friends!'" + +When we buried the old chief we wrote those words on the stone we placed +over his grave. + +Since then the New Year's Eve brings back to me very vividly the memory of +the augury that so strangely accomplished its own fulfillment. + +CLARA F. GUERNSEY. + + + + +Louie. + + + +The great river was flowing peacefully down to the sea, opening its blue +tides at the silver fretting of the bar into a shallow expanse some miles +in width, a part of which on either side overlay stretches where the +submerged eel-grass lent a tint of chrysoprase to the sheathing flow, and +into which one gazed, half expecting to see so ideal a depth peopled by +something other than the long ribbons of the weed streaming out on the +slow current--the only cool sight, albeit, beneath the withering heat of +the day across all that shining extent. Far down the shores, on the right, +a line of low sand-hills rose, protecting the placid harbor from sea and +storm with the bulwark of their dunes, whose yellow drifts were ranged by +the winds in all fantastic shapes, and bound together by ropes of the wild +poison-ivy and long tangles of beach-grass and the blossoming purple pea, +and which to-day cast back the rays of the sun as though they were of +beaten brass. Above these hills the white lighthouse loomed, the heated +air trembling around it, and giving it so vague and misty a guise that, +being by itself a thing of night and storm and darkness, it looked now as +unreal as a ghost by daylight. On the other side of the harbor lay the +marshes, threaded by steaming creeks, up which here and there the pointed +sails of the hidden hay-barges crept, the sunshine turning them to white +flames: farther off stood a screen of woods, and from brim to brim between +swelled the broad, smooth sheet of the river, coming from the great +mountains that gave it birth, washing clean a score of towns on its way, +and loitering just here by the pleasant old fishing-town, whose wharves, +once doing a mighty business with the Antilles and the farther Indies, +now, in the absence of their half dozen foreign-going craft, lay at the +mercy of any sand-droger that chose to fling her cable round their +capstans. A few idle masts swayed there, belonging to small fishers and +fruiters, a solid dew of pitch oozing from their sides in the sun, but not +a sail set: a lonely watchman went the rounds among them, a ragged urchin +bobbed for flounders in the dock, but otherwise wharves and craft were +alike forsaken, and the sun glared down on them as though his rays had +made them a desert. The harbor-water lay like glass: now and then the tide +stirred it, and all the brown and golden reflections of masts and spars +with it, into the likeness of a rippled agate. Not one of the boats that +were ordinarily to be seen darting hither and yon, like so many +water-bugs, were in motion now; none of the white sails of the gay +sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the +usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that +deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed; +the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if +they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks, +had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will +disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing +here. In all the scene there was hardly any other sign of life than the +fervent sunbeams shedding their cruel lustre overhead: the river flowed +silent and lonely from shore to shore; the whole hot summer sky stretched +just as silent and lonely from horizon to horizon; only the old ferryman, +edging along the bank till he was far up stream, crossed the narrower tide +and drifted down effortless on the other side; only an old black brig lay +at anchor, with furled sail and silent deck, in the middle channel down +below the piers, and from her festering and blistering hull it was that +all the heat and loneliness and silence of the scene seemed to exude--for +it was the fever-ship. + +It was a different picture on the bright river when that brig entered the +harbor on the return of her last voyage, to receive how different a +welcome! But pestilence raged abroad in the country now, and the people of +the port, who had so far escaped the evil, were loth to let it enter among +them at last, and had not yet recovered from the recoil of their first +shock and shiver at thought of it in their waters--waters than which none +could have fostered it more kindly, full as they were in their shallow +breadth of rotting weeds and the slime of sewers. Perhaps the owner of +some pale face looked through the pane and thought of brother or father, +or, it may be, of lover, and grew paler with pity, and longed to do kind +offices for those who suffered; but the greater part of all the people +hived upon the shores would have scouted the thought of going out with aid +to those hot pillows rocking there upon the tide, and of bringing back +infection to the town, as much as though the act had been piracy on the +high seas. And they stayed at home, and watched their vanes and longed for +an east wind--an east wind whose wings would shake out healing, whose +breath would lay the destroying fever low; but the east wind refused to +seek their shores, and chose rather to keep up its wild salt play far out +on the bosom of its mid-sea billows. + +Yes, on that return of the last voyage of the brig the stream had swarmed +with boats, flags had fluttered from housetops and staffs, piers and quays +had been lined with cheering people, all flocking forth to see the broken, +battered little craft; for the brig had been spoken by a tug, and word had +been brought to the wharves, and had spread like wild-fire through the +town, that, wrecked in a tempest and deserted by the panic-stricken crew, +the steadfast master and a boy who stood by him had remained with her, had +refitted her as best they might when the storm abated, and had brought her +into port at last through fortunate days of fair weather and slow sailing. +The town was ringing with the exploit, with praise of the noble +faithfulness of master and boy; and now the river rang again, and no +conquering galley of naval hero ever moved through a gladder, gayer +welcome than that through which the little black brig lumbered on her +clumsy way to her moorings. + +But though all the rest of the populace of the seaport had turned out with +their greetings that day, there was one little body there who, so far from +hurrying down to shore or sea-wall with a waving handkerchief, ran crying +into a corner; and it was there that Andrew Traverse, the person of only +secondary importance in the river scene, rated as a boy on the brig's +books, but grown into a man since the long voyage began,--it was there he +found her when the crowd had let him alone and left him free to follow his +own devices. + +"It's the best part of all the welcome, I declare it is!" said he, +standing in the doorway and enjoying the sight before him a moment. + +"Oh, Andrew," cried the little body with a sob, but crouching farther away +into the corner, "it was so splendid of you!" + +"What was so splendid of me?" said he, still in the doorway, tall and +erect in the sunshine that lay around him, and that glanced along his red +shirt and his bronzed cheek to light a flame in the black eyes that +surveyed her. + +"Standing by him so," she sobbed--"standing by the captain when the others +left--bringing home the ship!" + +"It's not a ship--it's a brig," said Andrew, possibly too conscious of his +merit to listen to the praise of it. "Well, is this all? Ain't you going +to shake hands with me? Ain't you glad to see me?" + +"Oh, Andrew! So glad!" and she turned and let him see the blushing, rosy +face one moment, the large, dark, liquid eyes, the tangled, tawny curls; +and then overcome once more, as a sudden shower overcomes the landscape, +the lips quivered again, the long-lashed eyelids fell, and the face was +hidden in another storm of tears. And then, perhaps because he was a +sailor, and perhaps because he was a man, his arms were round her and he +was kissing off those tears, and the little happy body was clinging to him +and trembling with excitement and with joy like a leaf in the wind. + +Certainly no two happier, prouder beings walked along the sea-wall that +night, greeted with hearty hands at every step, followed by all eyes till +the shelter of deepening dusk obscured them, and with impish urchins, +awe-struck for once, crying mysteriously under their breath to each other, +"That's him! That's the feller saved the Sabrina! That's him and her!" How +proud the little body was! how her heart beat with pleasure at thought of +the way in which all men were ready to do him honor! how timidly she +turned her eyes upon him and saw the tint deepen on his cheek, the shadow +flash into light in his eye, the smile kindle on his lips, as he looked +down on her--glad with her pride and pleasure, strong, confident, content +himself--till step by step they had left the town behind, wandering down +the sandy island road, through the wayside hedge of blossoming wild roses +and rustling young birches, till they leaned upon the parapet of the old +island bridge and heard the water lap and saw the stars come out, and only +felt each other and their love in all the wide, sweet summer universe. + +Poor Louie! She had always been as shy and wary as any little brown bird +of the woods. It was Andrew's sudden and glorious coming that had +surprised her into such expression of a feeling that had grown up with her +until it was a part of every thought and memory. And as for +Andrew--certainly he had not known that he cared for her so much until she +turned that tearful, rosy face upon him in welcome; but now it seemed to +him that she had been his and he hers since time began: he could neither +imagine nor remember any other state than this: he said to himself, and +then repeated it to her, that he had loved her always, that it was thought +of her that had kept him firm and faithful to his duty, that she had been +the lodestar toward which he steered on that slow homeward way; and he +thanked Heaven, no doubt devoutly enough, that had saved him from such +distress and brought him back to such bliss. And Louie listened and clung +closer, more joyful and more blest with every pulse of her bounding heart. + +After all, sudden as the slipping into so divine a dream had been, it had +need to be full as intense and deep, for it was only for a little while it +lasted. A week's rapt walking in these mid-heavens, where earth and care +and each to-morrow was forgotten, and there broke in upon them the voice +of the Sabrina's owner seeking for Andrew Traverse. + +Of course such conduct as that of one who preferred to do his utmost to +save a sinking ship rather than seek safety with her flying crew, was +something too unusual to go unrewarded: it must be signalized into such a +shining light that all other mariners must needs follow it. And if the sky +had fallen, Andrew declared, he could have been no more surprised than he +was when he found himself invited with great ceremony to a stately +tea-drinking at the house of the owner of the Sabrina. "Now we shall catch +larks," said he; and dressed in a new suit, whose gray tint set off the +smoothness of his tanned cheek with the color sometimes mantling through +the brown, he entered the house with all the composure of a gentleman used +to nothing but high days and holidays. Not that either the state or +ceremony at Mr. Maurice's required great effort to encounter with +composure--trivial enough at its best, wonderful though it was to the +townsfolk, unused to anything beyond. But Andrew had seen the world in +foreign parts, and neither Mr. Maurice's mansion-house and gardens, nor +his gay upholstery, nor his silver tea-service, nor his condescending +manners, struck the least spark of' surprise from Andrew's eyes, or gave +them the least shadow of awe. + +"This is some mistake," said the owner graciously, after preliminary +compliment had been duly observed. "How is it that you are rated on the +books as a boy--you as much a man as you will ever be?" + +"A long voyage, sir, slow sailing and delays over so many disasters as +befell us, three years out in the stead of a year and a half--all that +brings one to man's estate before his reckoning." + +"But the last part of the time you must have done able seaman's service?" + +"The captain and I together," said Andrew with his bright laugh. "We were +officers and crew and passengers, cox'n and cook, as they say." + +"A hard experience," said Mr. Maurice. + +"Oh, not at all, but worth its weight in gold--to me, at least. Why, sir, +it taught me how to handle a ship as six years before the mast couldn't +have done." + +"Good! We shall see to what purpose one of these days. And you have had +your share of schooling, they tell me?" + +"All that the academy had to give, sir." + +"And that's enough for any one who has the world to tussel with. How +should you like to have gone through such hard lines, Frarnie?" turning to +his daughter, a pale, moon-faced girl, her father's darling. + +"Were you never afraid?" she asked in her pretty simpering way. + +"Not to say afraid," answered Andrew, deferentially. "We knew our +danger--two men alone in the leaky, broken brig--but then we could be no +worse off than we were before; and as for the others--" + +"They got their deserts," said Mr. Maurice. + +"The poor fellows left us in such a hurry that they took hardly any water +or biscuit; and at the worst our fate could not be so bad as theirs, under +the hot sun in those salt seas." + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Maurice, who loved his own ease too much to like to +hear of others' dis-ease. And to turn the conversation from the possible +horrors into which it might lapse, he invited his guest out into his +gardens, among his grapehouses, his poultry and his dogs. It was a long +hour's ramble that they took there, well improved on both sides, for +Andrew of course knew it to be for his interest to please the brig's +owner; and Mr. Maurice, who prided himself on having a singularly keen +insight into character, studied the young man's every word and gesture, +for it was not often that he came across such material as this out of +which to make his captains; and to what farther effect in this instance be +pursued his studies might have been told, by any one keener than himself, +through the tone of satisfaction with which, on re-entering the parlor, he +bade his daughter take Andrew down the rooms and tell him the histories of +the surprising pictures there. For Mr. Maurice, one of the great fortunes +of the seaport, being possessed by a mania of belief that every youth who +cast tender eyes upon his daughter cast them not on her, but on her future +havings and holdings, had long since determined to select a husband for +her himself--one who evinced no servile reverence for wealth, one whom he +could trust to make her happy. "And here," he said, "I am not sure but +that I have him." + +When Andrew went in to see Louie a moment on his way home that night, he +was in great spirits over the success of his visit, and, dark as it was, +made her blush the color of the rose over the low doorway where they stood +when he asked how she would like to go captain's wife next voyage. And +then he told her of Mr. Maurice's scrutiny and questioning, and the half +hint of a ship of his own to sail some day, and of the pale-faced Miss +Frarnie's interest, and of the long stroll down the parlors among the +pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the +Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled +through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music +and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off +of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the +way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed, +how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he had had a +trifle more personal vanity, and had seen how this pale young +girl--forbidden by a suspicious father much companionship with +gallants--had forgotten all difference of station and purse, and had +looked upon him, nobly made, handsome, gay, knowing far more than she did, +much as upon a young god just alighted by her side a moment,--if Andrew +had been aware of this, and had found any words in which to repeat it, +then Louie might have had something to startle her out of her blessedness, +and pain might have come to her all the sooner. But since the pain would +have been as sharp then as at any future time, it was a pitying, pleasant +Fate that let her have her happiness as long as might be. For Louie's love +was a different thing from the selfish passion that any clown may feel: +she had been happy enough in her little round of commonplace satisfactions +and tasks before Andrew came and shed over her this great cloud of +delight--happy then just in the enjoyment of that secret love of hers that +went out and sought him every night sailing over foreign sunlit waters, +and hovered like a blessing round his head; and now that he had come and +folded her about and about with such warm devotion, it was not for the new +happiness he gave her that she loved him, but in order to make his own +happiness a perfect thing; and if her heart's blood had been needed for +that, it would have been poured out like water. The pale-faced Frarnie--if +question could be of her--might never know such love as that: love with +her could be a sentiment, a lover one who added to her pleasure, but a +sacrifice on her part for that lover would have been something to tell and +sing for ever, if indeed it were possible that such a thing should be made +at all. + +So day by day the spell deepened with Louie, and for another week there +was delightful loneliness with this lover of hers--strolls down through +the swampy woods hunting for moss to frame the prints he had brought home +uninjured, and which were to be part of the furnishing of their future +home; others across the salt meadows for the little red samphire stems to +pickle; sails in the float down river and in the creeks, where the tall +thatch parted by the prow rustled almost overhead, and the gulls came +flying and piping around them: here and there, they two alone, pouring out +thought and soul to each other, and every now and then glancing shyly at +those days, that did not seem so very far away, when they should be +sailing together through foreign parts; for Louie's father, the old +fisherman, was all her household, and a maiden aunt, who earned her +livelihood in nursing the sick and attending the dead, would be glad to +come any day and take Louie's place in the cottage. + +At the end of the week, Mr. Maurice sent for Andrew to his counting-room; +and after that, on one device or another, he had him there the greater +part of every day, employing him in a score of pleasant ways--asking his +advice as to the repairs of the Sabrina, taking him with him in his chaise +jogging through the shipyard, where a new barque was getting ready for her +launching, examining him the while carefully from time to time after his +wont; at last taking him casually home to dinner with him one day, keeping +him to tea the next, and finally, fully satisfied with the result of his +studies in that edition of human nature, giving him the freedom of the +family as much as if he had been the son of the house. + +"I've some plans ahead for you, my boy," said he one day with a knowing +shake of the head; and Andrew's innocent brain began to swim straightway +between the new barque and the Sabrina. + +"Look at him!" said Mr. Maurice to his wife one evening as Andrew walked +in the garden with Miss Frarnie. "My mind's made up about him. He's the +stuff for a sea-captain, afraid neither of wind nor weather nor the face +of clay--can sail a ship and choose her cargo. He's none of your coxcombs +that go courting across the way: he's a man into the core of his heart, +and as well bred as any gentleman that walks; though Goodness knows how he +came by it." + +"These sea-coast people," said his wife, reflectively (she was inland-born +herself), "see the world and learn." + +"Well, what do you say to it? I don't find the flaw in him. If Heaven had +given me a son, I'd have had him be like this one; and since it didn't, +why here's my way to circumvent Heaven." + +"Oh, my dear," said the wife, "I can't hear you talk so. And besides--" + +"Well? Besides what?" + +"I think it is always best to let such things take their own course. We +did." + +"Of course we did," laughed Mr. Maurice. "But how about our fathers and +mothers?" + +"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice, "not to force things." + +"And who intends to force them? It's plain enough the young fellow took a +fancy to our Frarnie the first time he laid eyes on her, isn't it?" + +"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice again, "that if Frarnie should have the same +fancy for him, I don't know that there'd be any objection. He is quite +uncommon--quite uncommon when you consider all things--but I don't know +why you want to lead her to like any one in particular, when she has such +a nice home and is all we have." + +"Girls will marry, Mrs. Maurice. If it isn't one, it will be another. So I +had rather it should, be one, and that one of my own choosing--one who, +will use her well, and not make ducks and drakes of her money as soon as +we are gone where there's no returning, and without a 'thank you' for your +pains. Look at them now! Should you imagine they thought there was any one +else on earth but each other at this moment? They're fond of each other, +that's plain. They'd be a remarkable-looking couple. What do you think of +it?" + +"Frarnie might have that India shawl that I never undid, to appear out +in," said Mrs. Maurice, pensively, continuing her own reflections rather +than directly replying. "And I suppose we needn't lose her really, for she +could make her home with us." + +And so the conspiracy advanced, its simple victims undreaming of its +approach--Louie sighing faintly to think she saw so little of Andrew now, +but content, since she was sure it was for his best interest to make the +friendship of the Sabrina's owner; Andrew fretting to see how all this +necessary submission to superiors kept him from Louie, but more than half +compensated with the dazzling visions that danced before his eyes of the +Sabrina in her new rig--of the barque coming down for her masts and sails +from her launching. + +The Sabrina had been so badly injured by her disasters that it took much +more time to repair her than had at first been thought. "I'm going to +stand by the old brig," said Andrew to some one--by accident it was in Mr. +Maurice's hearing. "But if I'd known it was going to take so long to have +her whole again, I should have made a penny in taking a run down the bay, +for I had an offer to go second mate on the Tartar." + +"I'll go one better than that," said Mr. Maurice then. "Here's the +Frarnie, nearly ready to clear for New Orleans and Liverpool, with your +old captain. You shall go mate of her. That'll show if you can handle a +ship. The Sabrina won't be at the wharf till the round voyage is over and +the Frarnie coming up the stream again. What say you?" + +Of course what Andrew said was modest thanks--what he felt was a rhapsody +of delight; and when he told Louie that night, what she said was a sob, +and what she felt was a blank of fright and foreboding. Oh what should she +do? cried the selfish little thing--what should she do in the long, long, +weary days with Andrew gone? But then in a moment she remembered that this +was the first step toward going master of that craft in which her bridal +voyage was to be taken. "And what a long step it is, Andrew!" she cried. +"Was the like of it ever known before? What a long, long step it would be +but for that bitter apprenticeship when you and the captain brought the +wreck home!" + +"Ay," said Andrew, proudly: "I served my time before the mast then, if +ever any did." + +"And I suppose with the next step you will be master of the Sabrina? Oh, I +should so like it!" + +"I don't know," said Andrew, more doubtfully than he had used to speak. +"I'm afraid the owners will think this is enough. This is a great lift. +I'll do my best to satisfy them, though; for I'd rather sail master of the +Sabrina than of the biggest man-of-war afloat." + +"We used to play round her when we were children," said Louie, +encouragingly. "Don't you remember leading me down once to admire the lady +on her stern?--like a water-witch just gilded in the rays of some sunrise +she had come up to see, you said." + +"Yes; and we used to climb her shrouds, we boys, and get through the +lubber-hole, before we could spell her name out. She's made of heart of +oak: she'll float still when the Frarnie is nothing but sawdust. We used +to watch for her in the newspapers--we used to know just as much about her +goings and comings as the owner did. Somehow--I don't know why--I've +always felt as if my fate and fortune hung upon her. It used to be the top +of my ambition to go master of her. It is now. I couldn't make up my mind +to leave her when the others did that cruel morning after the wreck; and +when the captain said he should stay by her, my heart sprang up as if she +had been a living thing, and I stayed too. And I'd rather sail her than a +European steamer to-day--that I would, by George!" + +"Oh, of course you will," said the sympathizing voice beside him. + +"I don't know," said Andrew again, more slowly and reflectively. "I've the +idea--and I can't say how I got it--that there's some condition or other +attached to my promotion--that there's something Mr. Maurice means that I +shall do, and if I don't do it I don't get my lift. It can't be anything +about wages: I don't know what it is!" + +"Perhaps," said Louie, innocently, and without a glimpse of the train her +thoughtless words fired--"perhaps he means for you to marry Frarnie!" +laughing a little laugh at the absurd impossibility. + +And Andrew started as if a bee had stung him, and saw it all. But in a +moment he only drew Louie closer, and kissed her more passionately, and +sat there caressing her the more tenderly while they listened to a thrush +that had built in the garden thicket, mistaking it for the wood, so near +the town's edge was it, and so still and sunny was the garden all day long +with its odors of southernwood and mint and balm; and he delayed there +longer, holding her as if now at least she was his own, whatever she might +be thereafter. + +As he walked home that night, and went and sat upon the wharf and watched +the starlit tide come in, he saw it all again, but with thoughts like a +procession of phantoms, as if they had no part even in the possible things +of life, and were indeed nothing to him. How could they have any meaning +to him--to him, Louie's lover? What would the whole world be to him, what +the sailing of the Sabrina, without Louie? And then a shiver ran across +him: what would Louie be to him without the sailing of the Sabrina! for +that, indeed, as he had said, was the top of his ambition, and that being +his ambition, perhaps ambition, was as strong with him as love. + +But with this new discovery on Andrew's part of Mr. Maurice's desires, +Andrew could only recall circumstances, words, looks, hints: he could not +shape to himself any line of duty or its consequences: enough to see that +Mr. Maurice fancied his simple and thoughtless attentions to Frarnie to be +lover-like, and, approving him, looked kindly on them and made his plans +accordingly; enough to see that if he should reject this tacit proffer of +the daughter's hand, then the Sabrina was scarcely likely to be his; and +that in spite of such probability, the first and requisite thing in honor +for him to do was to tell Mr. Maurice of his marriage engagement with +Louie, and then, if the man had neither gratitude nor sense enough to +reward him for his assistance in saving the brig, to trust to fortune and +to time, that at last makes all things even. As he sat there listening to +the lapping of the water and idly watching the reflected stars peer up and +shatter in a hundred splinters with every wash of the dark tide, he could +not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession +or not. "What business is it of Maurice's?" he said to himself. "Does he +think every one that looks at his scarecrow of a daughter--" But there he +had need to acknowledge to himself his injustice to Miss Frarnie, a modest +maiden who had more cause to complain of him than he of her, since he had +done his best to please her, and her only fault lay in being pleased so +easily. She was pleased with him: he understood that now, though his +endeavors to enlist her had been for a very different manifestation of +interest. Perhaps it flattered him a little: he paused long enough to +consider what sort of a lot it would be if he really had been plighted to +Frarnie instead of Louie. Love and all that nonsense, he had heard say, +changed presently into a quiet sort of contentment; and if that were so, +it would be all the same at the end of a few years which one he took. He +felt that Frarnie was not very sympathetic, that her large white face +seldom sparkled with much intelligence, that she would make but a dull +companion; but, for all that, she would be, he knew, an excellent +housewife: she would bring a house with her too; and when a man is +married, and has half a dozen children tumbling round him, there is +entertainment enough for him, and it is another bond between him and the +wife he did not love too well at first; and if she were his, his would be +the Sabrina also, and when the Sabrina's days were over perhaps a great +East Indiaman, and with that the respect and deference of all his +townsmen: court would be paid to him, his words would be words of weight, +he would have a voice in the selection of town-officers, he would roll up +money in the bank, and some day he should be master of the great Maurice +mansion and the gardens and grapehouses. It was a brilliant picture to +him, doubtless, but in some way the recollection of two barelegged little +children digging clams down on the flats when the tide was out, with the +great white lighthouse watching them across the deserted stretches of the +long bent eel-grass, rose suddenly and wiped the other picture out, and he +saw the wind blowing in Louie's brown and silken hair and kissing the +color on her cheeks; he saw the shy sparkle of her downcast eyes, lovely +and brown then as they were now; and as he stood erect at last, snapping +his fingers defiantly, he felt that he had bidden Mr. Maurice's ships and +stocks and houses and daughter go hang, and had made his choice rather to +walk with Louie on his arm than as master of the Sabrina. + +It was a good resolution; and if he had but sealed it by speaking next day +to Mr. Maurice of his engagement, there would not have been a word to say. +But, though he valiantly meant to do it, it was not so easy, after all, as +he had thought, and so he put it off for a more convenient season, and the +season did not come, and the day of sailing did. And the outfit that went +on board the Frarnie was made and packed by the hands of Mrs. Maurice and +her daughter--such an outfit as he had never dreamed of; such warm woolens +for the storms, such soft linens for the heats, such finery for port, such +dainties and delicacies as only the first mate of the Frarnie could think +to have. And as for Louie, it was no outfit, no costly gift of gold or +trouble either, that she could give him: she had nothing for him but a +long, fine chain woven of her own hair, and she hung it round his neck +with tears and embraces and words that could not be uttered and sighs that +changed to sobs, and then came lingering delay upon delay, and passionate +parting at the last. But when the crew had weighed anchor and the sails +were swelling and the waves beyond the bar crying out for them, Miss +Frarnie and her mother could still be seen waving their handkerchiefs from +an upper window; and half blind with the sorrow and the pain he choked +away from sight, and mad with shame to think he had found no way but to +accept their favors, Andrew felt that their signal must be answered, and +sullenly waved his own in reply; and then the pilot was leaving the +barque, and presently the shore and all its complications, and Louie +crying herself sick, were forgotten in the excitement of the moment and +its new duties. + +"Didn't say a word of love to Frarnie, eh?" remarked Mr. Maurice in answer +to his wife's communications that evening. "A noble lad, then! I like him +all the better for it. He shall have her all the sooner. He won't abuse +our confidence: that's it. He'll wait till he's bridged over the gap +between them. The first mate of a successful voyage is a better match for +my daughter than the boy who stayed by the Sabrina, brave as he was. He's +fond of her? Don't you think so? There's no doubt about that? None at all! +All in good time--all in good time. I'll speak to him myself. They're +going to write to each other? I thought so." + +Short as the trip was that the Frarnie made in that favorable season, it +seemed to Louie an interminable period; but from the cheerful, hopeful +smile upon her lips no one would ever have known how her heart was longing +for her lover as she went about her work; for the little housekeeper had +quite too much to do in keeping the cottage clean, the garden weedless, +the nets mended, to be able to neglect one duty for any love-sick fancies +it might be pleasant to indulge. From morning till night her days were +full in bringing happiness to others: there was her father to make +comfortable; there were the sick old women, of whom her aunt brought word, +to concoct some delicacy for--a cup of custard, to wit, a dish of the +water-jelly she had learned how to make from the sea-moss she gathered on +the beach, a broiled and buttered mushroom from the garden; there were the +canaries and the cat to be cared for, and the dog that Andrew left with +her to feed and shower caresses on; and there was the parrot's toilet to +be made and her lesson to be taught, and the single jars of preserves and +pickles and ketchups to be put up for winter, and the herbs to be dried: +there were not, you may see, many minutes to be wasted out of that busy +little life in castle-building or in crying. One day there came a letter +with Victoria's head and the Liverpool stamp upon it: she knew it by heart +presently, and wore it next her heart by night and day; and even if she +had known that Miss Frarnie Maurice received one in the same handwriting +by the same mail, it would hardly have made much difference to her; and +one day the Sabrina, all freshly coppered and painted and repaired, with +new masts and sails, and so much else that it was not easy to say what +part of her now represented the old brig, came round to her old wharf and +began to take in cargo. Louie ran down one evening with her father, and +went all over her from stem to stern, only one old sailor being aboard; +and she could have told you then every rope from clew to ear-ring; and, as +if it were all the realization of a dream, a thousand happy, daring +thoughts of herself and Andrew then filled her fancy like birds in a nest; +and so swiftly after that did one day flow into another for Louie that the +Frarnie lay in the mid-stream once more before she had more than begun to +count the days to that on which her Liverpool letter had promised that she +should see its writer come walking into her father's cottage again. + +But she never did see him come walking into her father's cottage again. +That promised day passed and the night, and another--a long, long day that +seemed as if it would never quench its flame in sunset, and a night that +seemed as if it would never know the dawning; but the threshold of the +fisherman's cottage Andrew Traverse crossed no more. + +For Mr. Maurice, on his notable errand of circumventing Heaven, had been +ahead of Fate, and had gone down on the pilot-boat to meet the +Frarnie--with no settled designs of course, but in his own impatient +pleasure; and, delighted with the shipmaster's report and with the +financial promise of the voyage, the cargo, the freights, and ventures and +all, had greeted Andrew with a large-hearted warmth and after a manner +that no churl could withstand; and unwilling to listen to any refusal, had +taken Andrew up to the mansion-house with him the moment the ship had +touched the wharf. + +"You don't ask after her?" said Mr. Maurice when they were alone in the +chaise together. And knowing well enough what he meant, Andrew blushed +through all his bronze--knowing well enough, for had he not gone below in +a mighty hurry and tricked himself out in his best toggery so soon as he +understood there was no escape from the visit? Louie would have been glad +enough to see him in his red shirt and tarpaulin! + +"Oh, you scamp!" said Mr. Maurice, quickly then detecting the blush. +"Don't say a word! I've been there myself: I know how you're longing to +see her; and she's been at the window looking through the glass every half +hour, the puss!" + +"Mr. Maurice," began Andrew, half trembling, but wholly resolved, he +thought--although it must be confessed that with time, and distance, and +Frarnie's effusive letters and flattering prospects on the other hand, +Louie's image was not so bright at that moment as it had been at others, +and for that very reason Andrew was taking great credit to himself for his +upright intentions--credit enough to tide him over a good deal of baseness +if need were,--"Mr. Maurice--" he began; and there he paused to frame his +sentence more suitably, for it was no easy thing to tell a man that he was +throwing his child at one who did not care for her, and that man the +disposer of his fortunes. + +But Mr. Maurice saved him any such trouble. "I know all you're going to +say," he exclaimed. "I understand your hesitation, and I honor you for it. +But I'm no fool, and there's no need to have you tell me that you want my +Frarnie, for I've known that long ago." + +"Mr. Maurice!" + +"Yes, I have," answered the impulsive gentleman. "Mrs. Maurice and I +talked it over as soon as we saw which way the wind lay; but of course we +decided to say nothing till we were sure, quite sure, that it was Frarnie +and not her prospects--" + +"Oh, sir, you--" + +"Tush, tush! I know all about it now. But it becomes a father to be wary," +continued the other, taking the words from Andrew's lips in spite of +himself, and quite wary enough not to mention that in Frarnie's +easily-excited favor a young scapegrace was very likely to supplant Mr. +Andrew if things were not brought to a point at once. "It was my duty to +look at all sides," he said, without stopping for breath. "Now I know you, +and I see you'd rather give the girl the go-by for ever than have her +think you wanted her because she was her father's daughter, and not some +poor fisherman's." + +"Indeed, indeed--" began Andrew again, leaning forward, his cheeks +crimson, his very hands shaking. + +"Of course, my boy," interrupted his companion as before--"of course. +Don't say a word: you're welcome to her at last. I never thought I'd +surrender her to any one so freely; but if I were choosing from all the +world, Andrew, I don't know any one I'd choose sooner for my son. She's a +sensible girl, my Frarnie is, at bottom. We know her heart: it's a good +heart--only the froth of all young girls' fancies to be blown off. And the +Sabrina always was a pet of mine, and, though I've said nothing of it, +I've meant her for Frarnie's husband this many a day." And before Andrew, +in his flurry and embarrassment and bewilderment, could enunciate any +distinct denial of anything or avowal of anything else, the chaise was at +the door, and Mrs. Maurice was waiting for him with extended hands, and +Frarnie was standing and smiling behind, half turned to run away. And Mr. +Maurice cried out: "Captain Traverse of the Sabrina, my dear! Here, +Frarnie, Frarnie! none of your airs and graces! Come and give your +sweetheart an honest kiss!" And Andrew, doubting if the minister were not +behind the door and he should not find himself married out of hand, +irresolute, cowardly, too weak to give up the Sabrina and that sweet new +title just ringing in his ears, was pushed along by Mr. Maurice's foolish, +hearty hand till he found himself bending over Frarnie with his arm around +her waist, his lips upon her cheek, and without, as it seemed to him, +either choice or volition on his part. But as he looked up and saw the +portraits of the girl's grandfathers, where they appeared to be looking +down at him stern and questioning, a guilty shame over the wrong he was +doing their child smote him sorely: he saw that he had allowed the one +instant of choice to slip away; the sense came over him that he had sealed +his own doom, while a vision of Louie's face, full of desolation and +horror, was scorching in upon his soul; and there, in the moment of +betrothal, his punishment began. He stole down to the Sabrina's wharf that +evening, after the moon had set, and looking round to see that it was +quite forsaken at that hour, he took from his neck a long, slender +hair-chain to drop over into the deep water there; but as he held the +thing it seemed suddenly to coil round his hand with a caress, as if it +were still a part of Louie's self. He stamped his foot and ground his heel +into the earth there with a cry and an oath, and put the chain back again +whence he had taken it, and swore he would wear it till they laid his +bones under ground. And he looked up at the dark lines of the brig looming +like the black skeleton of an evil thing against the darkness of the +night, and he cursed himself for a traitor to both women--for a hypocrite, +a craven, a man sold to the highest bidder. Well, well, Captain Traverse, +there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of +the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and +longed and waited, but Captain Traverse went back to the Maurices' +mansion. + + * * * * * + +It is one of the enigmas of this existence how women forgive the wrong of +such hours as came to Louie now--hours of suspense and suffering--hours of +a misery worse than the worm's misery in blindness and pain before it +finds its wings. + +At first she expected her lover, and speculated as to his delay, and +fretted to think anything might detain him from her; and now she was +amazed, and now vexed, and now she was forgiving the neglect, accusing +herself and making countless excuses for him; and now imagining a thousand +dire mishaps. But as the third day came and he was still away--he who had +been always wont to seek her as soon as the craft was made fast to +wharf--then she felt her worst forebodings taking bodily shape: he was +ill, he had fallen overboard, he had left the vessel at Liverpool and +shipped upon another, and a letter would come directly to say so; or else +he had been waylaid and robbed and made away with: not once did she dream +that he was false to her--to her, a portion of his own life! + +How it was with him there were numberless ways in which she might have +discovered, for every soul of her acquaintance knew Andrew, and must be +aware of the fact if he were missing or ailing, or if any other ill chance +had befallen him. But as often as she tried to address one or another +passing by the window, her voice failed her and her heart, and she asked +no questions, and only waited on. A life of suspense, exclaims some one, a +life of a spider! And when we are in suspense, says another, all our aids +are in suspense with us. Day after day she stayed continually in the +house, looking for him to come, never stirring out even into the garden, +lest coming she might miss him. Night after night she sat alone at her +window till the distant town-clocks struck midnight--now picturing to +herself the glad minute of his coming, the quick explaining words, the +bursting tears of relief, the joy of that warm embrace, the touch of those +strong arms--now convinced that he would never come, and her heart sinking +into a bitter loneliness of despair. + +It grew worse with her when she knew that he was really in the town, alive +and well; for, from the scuttle in the roof, by the aid of her father's +glass, she could see the Sabrina, and one day she was sure that a form +whose familiar outlines made her pulses leap was Andrew himself giving +orders on the deck there; and after that she tortured herself with +conjectures till her brain was wild--chained hand and foot, unable to +write him or to seek him in any maidenly modesty, heart and soul in a +ferment. Still she waited in that shuddering suspense, with every nerve so +tightly strung, that voice or footfall vibrated on them into pain. If +Andrew, in the midst of the gayeties by which he found himself accepted of +the Maurices' friends, was never haunted by any thought of all this, his +heart had grown stouter in one year's time than twenty years had found and +left it previously. + +But Louie's suspense was of no long duration, as time goes, though to her +it was a lifetime. A week covered it--a week full of stings and fevered +restlessness--when her father came in one day and said bitterly, thinking +it best to make an end of all at once: "So I hear that a friend of ours +has been paid off at last. Captain Andrew Traverse of the Sabrina is going +to marry his owner's daughter Frarnie. Luck will take passage on that +brig!" And when Louie rose from the bed on which she lay down that night, +the Sabrina had been a fortnight gone on her long voyage--a voyage where +the captain had sailed alone, postponing the evil day perhaps, and at any +rate pleading too much inexperience, for all his dazzling promotion, to be +trusted with so precious thing as a wife on board during the first trip. +He had not felt that hesitation once when portraying the possibilities of +the voyage to another. + +It was not a long illness, Louie's, though it had been severe enough to +destroy for her consciousness both of pain and pleasure. Her aunt had left +other work and had nursed her through it; but when, strong and well once +more, she went about her old duties, it seemed to her that that +consciousness had never returned: she took up life with utter listlessness +and indifference, and she fancied that her love for Andrew was as dead as +all the rest. The poor little thing, laying this flattering unction to +heart, did not call much reason to her aid, or she would have known that +there was some meaning in it when she cried all day on coming across an +old daguerreotype of Andrew. "It isn't for love of him," she sobbed. "It's +for the loss of all that love out of my life that was heaven to me. Oh no, +no! I love him no longer: I can't, I can't love him: he is all the same as +another woman's husband." But, despite this stout assertion, she could not +bring herself to part with that picture: he was not in reality quite the +husband of another woman, and till he was indeed she meant to keep it. "He +is only promised to her yet, and he was promised first to me," she said +for salve to conscience; and meanwhile the picture grew so blurred with +conscious tears, and perhaps with unconscious kisses, that it might have +been his or another's: Miss Frarnie herself, had she seen it, could not +have told whose it was. + +Notwithstanding all the elasticity of youth, life became an inexpressibly +dull thing to Louie as the year wore into the next--dull, with neither aim +nor object, the past a pain to remember, the future a blank to consider. +She could live only from day to day, one day like another, till they grew +so wearisome she wondered her hair was not gray--the pretty hair that, +shorn from her head in her illness, had grown again in a short fleece of +silky curls--for it seemed to her that she had lived a hundred years. And +because troubles never come alone, and one perhaps makes the other seem +lighter and better to be borne, in the thick of a long winter's storm they +brought home her father, the old fisherman, drowned and dead. + +Captain Traverse knew of the old fisherman's death through the newspapers +that found him in his foreign ports--not through Miss Frarnie's letters, +for she knew almost nothing of the existence or non-existence of such low +people; and therefore, conjecture as he needs must concerning Louie's +means of livelihood now, there was no intelligence to relieve any anxiety +he might have felt, or to inform him of the sale of the cottage to pay the +debt of the mortgage under which it was bought, or of the support that +Louie earned in helping her aunt watch with the sick and lay out the dead: +he could only be pricked with knowledge of the fact that he had no right +to his anxiety, or to the mention of her name even in his prayers--if he +said them. + +Poor little Louie! A sad end to such a joyous youth as hers had been, you +would have said; but, in truth, her new work was soothing to her: her +heart was simply in harmony with suffering, with death and desolation, and +by degrees she found that comfort from her double sorrows in doing her +best to bring comfort to others which it may be she could never have found +had she been the pampered darling of some wealthy house. Often, when she +forgot what she was doing, Louie made surmises concerning Frarnie Maurice, +wondering if she were the noble thing that Andrew needed to ennoble +him--if she were really so strong and beautiful that the mere sight of her +had killed all thought or memory of an older love; trying to believe her +all that his guardian angel might wish his wife to be, and to acknowledge +that she herself was so low and small and ignorant that she could only +have injured him--to be convinced that it was neither weakness, nor +covetousness, nor perjury in Andrew, having met the sun, to forget the +shadows; wondering then if Frarnie cared for him as she herself had done, +and crying out aloud that that could never be, until the sound of her own +sobs woke her from her forbidden dream. But at other times a calm came to +Louie that was more pathetic than her wildest grief: it was the +acquiescence in what Providence had chosen for Andrew, cost herself what +it might--it was the submission of the atom beneath the wheels of the +great engine. + +It is true that as, late in the night, when all the town was asleep and +only silence and she abroad, she walked home by herself from some deathbed +whose occupant she had composed decently for the last sleep, she used to +wish it were herself lying there on that moveless pillow, and soon to be +sheltered from the cruel light by the bosom of the kindly earth. For now, +as she passed the birches softly rustling in the night wind, and hurried +by, she remembered other times when she had passed them, and had stopped +to listen, cared for, protected, with Andrew's arm about her; and now, as +the clocks, one after another, remotely chimed the hour, the sound smote +her with a familiar sweetness full of pain; and now, as she came along the +sea-wall and saw the dark river glimmering widely and ever the same, while +its mysterious tide flowed to meet the far-off spark of the lighthouse +lantern, she recalled a hundred happy hours when she and Andrew in the +boat together had rocked there in soft summer nights, with sunset melting +in the stream and wrapping them about with rosy twilight; or those when +whispers of the September gales swelled the sail, and the boat flew like a +gull from crest to crest of the bar; or those when misty sea-turns crept +up stream and folded them, and drowned the sparkle of the lighthouse and +the emerald and ruby ray of the channel lights, and left them shut away +from the world, alone with each other on the great gray current silently +sweeping to the sea--times when she knew no fear, trusting in the strong +arm and stout heart beside her, before the river had brought death to her +door; when the whole of life seemed radiant and rich--times that made this +solitary night walk trodden now seem colder and drearier and darker than +the grave--that made her wish it ended in a grave. + +And so at length the year slipped by, and spring had come again, and the +sap had leaped up the bough and burst into blossom there, and the blood +had bubbled freshly in the veins of youth, and hope had once more +gladdened all the world but Louie. With her only a dull patience stayed +that tried to call itself content, until she heard it rumored among the +harbor-people that the Sabrina was nearly due again, and with that her +heart beat so turbulently that she had to crush it down again with the +thought that, though Andrew every day drew nearer, came up the happy +climates of southern latitudes and spread his sails on favoring gales for +home, he only hastened to his wedding-day. And one day, at last, she rose +to see a craft anchored in the middle channel down below the piers, +unpainted and uncleaned by any crew eager to show their best to shore--a +black and blistered brig, with furled sails and silent deck; and some men +called it the fever-ship, and some men called it the Sabrina. + +As the news of the brig's return and of her terrible companion spread +through the town, a panic followed it, and the feeling with which she was +regarded all along the shore during that day and the next would hardly be +believed by any but those who have once been in the neighborhood of a +pestilence themselves. Exaggerated accounts of a swift, strange illness, +by many believed to be the ancient plague revived again and cast loose +through the land from Asiatic ships had reached the old port; and aware +that they were peculiarly exposed by reason of their trade, small as it +was, the people there had already died a thousand deaths through +expectation of the present coming of the fever already raging in other +parts. Hitherto, the health-officers, boarding everything that appeared, +had found no occasion to give anything but clean papers, and the town had +breathed again. But now, when at last it spread from lip to lip that the +fever lay at anchor in mid-channel, knees shook and cheeks grew white, and +health-officer and port-physician, in spite of the almost instantaneous +brevity of their visit to the infected vessel, were avoided as though they +were the pestilence themselves, and not a soul in all the town was found +to carry a cup of cold water to the gasping, burning men cared for only by +those in less desperate strait than themselves, and who, having buried +two-thirds of their number in deep-sea soundings, were likely to be denied +as much as a grave on shore themselves; while to Mr. Maurice, half wild +with perplexity and foreboding and amazement at Miss Frarnie's yet wilder +terror,--to him the red lantern hung out by the brig at nightfall +magnified itself in the mist into a crimson cloud where with wide wings +lurked the very demon of Fever himself. + +Not a soul to carry the cup of cold water, did I say? Yes, one timid +little soul there was, waiting in a fever of longing herself--waiting that +those who had a right to go might do so if they would--waiting till +assured that neither Frarnie Maurice nor her parents had the first +intention of going, though affianced husband and chosen son lay dying +there--waiting in agony of impatience, since every delay might possibly +mean death,--one little brave and timid soul there was who ventured forth +on her errand of mercy alone. The fisherman's old boat still lay rocking +in the cove, and the oars stood in the shed: Louie knew how to use them +well, and making her preparations by daylight, and leaving the rest till +nightfall, lest she should be hindered by the authorities, she found means +to impress the little cow-boy into her service; and after dark a keg of +sweet water was trundled down and stored amidships of the boat, with an +enormous block of ice rolled in an old blanket; a basket of lemons and +oranges was added, a roll of fresh bed-linen, a little box of such +medicines as her last year's practice had taught her might be of use; and +extorting a promise from the boy that he would leave another block of ice +on the bank every night after dark for her to come and fetch, Louie +quickly stepped into the boat, lifted the oars, and slipt away into the +darkness of the great and quiet river. + +When, three days afterward, Captain Traverse unclosed his eyes from a +dream of Gehenna and the place the smoke of whose torment goes up for +ever, a strange confusion crept like a haze across his mind, tired out and +tortured with delirium, and he dropped the aching lids and fell away into +slumber again; for he had thought himself vexed with the creak of cordage +and noise of feet, stived in his dark and narrow cabin, on a filthy bed in +a foul air, if any air at all were in that noisome place, reeking with +heat and the ferment of bilge-water and fever-smell; and here, unless a +new delirium chained him, a mattress lay upon the deck with the awning of +an old sail stretched above it and making soft shadow out of searching +sun, a gentle wind was blowing over him, a land-breeze full of sweet +scents from the gardens on the shore, from the meadows and the marshes. +Silence broken only by a soft wash of water surrounded him; a flake of ice +lay between his lips, that had lately been parched and withering, and +delicious coolness swathed his head, that had seemed to be a ball of +burning fire. The last that he remembered had been a hot, dry, aching +agony, and this was bliss: the sleep into which he fell when waking from +the stupor that had benumbed his power of suffering--a power that had +rioted till no more could be suffered--lasted during all the spell of that +fervid noon sun that hung above the harbor and the town like the unbroken +seal of the expected pestilence. A strange still town, fear and heat +keeping its streets deserted, its people longing for an east wind that +should kill the fever, yet dreading lest it should blow the fever in on +them; a strange still harbor, its great peaceful river darkened only by +that blot where the sun-soaked craft swung at her anchor; a strange still +craft, where nothing stirred but one slender form, one little being that +went about laying wet cloths upon this rude sailor's head, broken ice +between the lips of that one, moistening dry palms, measuring out cooling +draughts, and only resting now and then to watch one sleeper sleep, to +hang and hear if in that deep dream there were any breathing and it were +not the last sleep of all. And in Louie's heart there was something just +as strange and still as in all other things throughout that wearing, +blinding day; but with her the calm was not of fear, only of unspeakable +joy; for if Andrew lived it was she that had saved him, and though he +died, his delirium had told her that his heart was hers. "If he dies, he +is mine!" she cried triumphantly, forgetting all the long struggle of +scruple and doubt, "and if he lives, he shall never be hers!" she cried +softly and with that inner voice that no one hears. + +And so the heat slipped down with the sun to other horizons, coolness +crept in upon the running river's breast with the dusk, dew gathered and +lay darkly glittering on rail and spar and shroud as star by star stole +out to sparkle in it; and Andrew raised his eyes at length, and they +rested long and unwaveringly on the little figure sitting not far away +with hands crossed about the knees and eyes looking out into the last +light--the tranquil, happy face from which a white handkerchief kept back +the flying hair while giving it the likeness of a nun's. Was it a dream? +Was it Louie? Or was it only some one of the tormenting phantoms that for +so many burning days had haunted him? He tried in vain to ask: his tongue +clove to the roof of his mouth; he seemed to be in the power of one of +those fierce nightmares where life depends on a word and the word is not +to be spoken. Only a vision, then: he closed his lids thinking it would be +gone when he lifted them, but he did not want it to be gone, and looked +again to find it as before. And by and by it seemed to him that long +since, in a far-off dream, he had gathered strength and uttered the one +thought of his fever, "Louie, what do you do now?" and she had answered +him, as though she thought aloud, "I stroke the dead;" and he had cried +out, "Then presently me too, me too! And let the shroud be shotted heavily +to bury me out of your sight!" And he was crying it out again, but while +he spoke a mouth was laid on his--a warm, sweet mouth that seemed to +breathe fresh spirit through his frame--his head was lifted and pillowed +on a breast where he could hear the heart beneath flutter like a happy +bird, and he was wrapped once more in slumber, but this time slumber sweet +as it was deep. + +Morning was dawning over the vessel's side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting +through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and +lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which +the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting +fountains,--morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant +airs stealing from warm low fields, when Andrew once more lifted his eyes +only to find that tranquil face above him still, that happy heart still +beating beneath his pillowed head. "Oh, Louie," he sighed, "speak to +me--say--have I died?--am I forgiven?--is this heaven?" + +"To me, dear--oh to me!" answered she with the old radiant smile that used +to make his pulse quicken, and that, ill as he yet was, reassured him as +to his earthly latitude and longitude. + +"And it was all a dream, then?" he murmured. "And I have not lost you?" He +raised his wasted hand and drew from his breast the little hair chain that +he had hidden there so long ago. "It was a fetter I could not break," he +whispered. "I wrote her all about it long ago. I wrote her father that he +should have his vessel back again--and I would take my freedom--and not a +dollar's wages for the voyage would I ever draw of him. But I should never +have dared see you--for--oh, Louie--how can you ever--" + +"Hush, hush, dear!" she breathed. "What odds is all that now? We have our +life before us." + +"Only just help me live it, Louie." + +"God will help us," she answered. And as she spoke a sudden rainbow leaped +into the western heaven as if to seal her promise, and as it slowly faded +there came a wild salt smell, an air that tingled like a tonic through the +veins: the east wind was singing in from sea, bringing the music of +breaker and shore, and the fever was blasted by its breath throughout the +little Sabrina. + +HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. + + + + +Old Sadler's Resurrection: + +A Yarn of the Mexican Gulf. + + + +"Talking about ghosts," said the captain, "listen while I spin you a bit +of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit +of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on +board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India +squadron, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jesse Wilkinson. + +"It would hardly interest you to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and +ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two +steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the +taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us. He wore +gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat +eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the +quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we +planked up and down the lee side, tired enough, and waiting for eight +bells to strike to rush below and call our relief. He was an austere man, +and, unlike the brave old commodore, made no allowance for our pranks and +skylarking. + +"Among our crew, made up of some really splendid fellows, but with an odd +mixture of 'Mahonese,' 'Dagos,' 'Rock-Scorpions,' and other countrymen, +there was an old man-of-war's man named Sadler--a little, dried-up old +chap of some sixty years, who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, so he +said, and had been up and down, all around and criss-cross the world so +often that he had actually forgotten where he had been, and so had all his +geography lessons, learned by cruising experience, sadly mixed up in his +head; which, although small, with a little old, weazened frontispiece, was +full of odds and ends of yarns, with which he used to delight us young +aspirants for naval honors, as he would spin them to us on the booms on +moonlight nights, after the hammocks had been piped down. How well do I +remember the old fellow's appearance!--his neat white frock and trowsers, +his low-quarter purser's shoes, with a bit of a ribbon for a bow; no +socks, save the natural, flesh-tinted ones, a blue star, done in India +ink, gleaming on his instep; his broad blue collar, decorated with stars +and two rows of white tape, falling gracefully from a neck which, as we +youngsters asserted, had received its odd-looking twist from hanging too +long by a grape vine, with which the Isle of Pines' pirates had strung him +up when he was chasing them under old Commodore Kearney's command. Anyhow, +old, sharp-faced, wrinkled and tanned to the color of a sole-leather +trunk, the whole cut of his jib told you at once that he was a regular +man-of-war's man--one of a class whose faults I can hardly recall while +remembering their sense of duty, their utter disregard of danger, and the +reliance with which you can lead them on to attack anything, from a +hornet's nest to an iron-clad. + +"Well, it so happened, one hot day, while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, +that the news came to us that old Sadler was dead; and sure enough it was +so, for the old fellow had quietly slipped his moorings, and, as we all +hoped, had at last gone to where the sweet little cherub sits up aloft who +looks out for the soul of poor Jack. Then, after the doctors had had a shy +at him, to see why he had cleared out so suddenly, his remains were taken +in charge by his messmates, who rigged the old man out in his muster +clothes, sewed him up in his clean white hammock, with an eighteen pound +shot at his feet, and reported to the officer of the deck that the body +was ready for burial. So, about six bells in the afternoon watch, the +weather being very hot, and not a breath of air to ripple the glassy +surface of the water, the lieutenant of the watch directed one of the +young gentlemen to tell the boatswain to call 'All hands to bury the +dead;' and soon fore and aft the shrill whistles were heard, followed by +that saddest of all calls to a sailor at sea--'All hands bury the dead!' + +"Our good old boatswain, Wilmuth, seemed to linger on the words with a +feeling akin to grief at parting with an old shipmate, and as the last man +reached the deck, he touched his hat and in a sad sort of way reported, +'All up, sir,' to the first lieutenant, who in his turn reported, +'Officers and men all on deck, sir,' to the commodore, who thereupon gave +an order to the chaplain to go on with the services. + +"The courses were hauled up, main-topsail to the mast, band on the +quarter-deck, colors half-mast, and all hands, officers and men, stood +uncovered, looking silently and sadly upon the body as it lay upon the +gang-boards in its white hammock, ready for the last rites. Solemnly and +most impressively were the services read, and at the words, 'We commit his +body to the deep,' a heavy splash was heard, and poor old Sadler had gone +to his long home for ever. Some of us youngsters ran up in the lee main +rigging to see him go down, and as we watched him go glimmering and +glimmering down to a mere speck, we wondered where he was bound, and how +long it would take him to fetch Davy Jones' locker on that tack. + +"'Pipe down, sir,' says the commodore to Mr. Bispham; 'Pipe down, sir,' +says Mr. Bispham to Mr. Alphabetical Gray, who was officer of the deck; +'Pipe down, sir,' says Mr. Gray to the gentleman of the watch; 'Pipe down, +sir,' says this youngster to the boatswain; and then _such_ a twitter of +pipes followed this order, and all hands were piped down, while poor old +Sadler was still off soundings, and going down as fast as the +eighteen-pound shot would take him. + +"Now, you know that people coming from a funeral on shore always have a +gay sort of air, suppressed it may be, but still cropping out; and just so +is it with sailors at sea; for, Sadler's body committed to the deep, all +hands felt better: the fore and main tacks were hauled aboard, the main +yard was filled away, and the jib sheet hauled aft, and we all settled +down into every-day life, which, after all, is not half so monotonous on +board a man-of-war as you might suppose. + +"Well, as I have said, the weather was very hot, the surface of the water +was as smooth as a mill-pond, the wind was all up and down the mast, and +so the old ship was boxing the compass all to herself, and not making a +foot of headway. + +"At one bell in the first dog watch, Boyle, the ship's cook, reported the +tea-water ready, and after this came the inevitable evening-quarters--and +some old man-of-war's men would think the country was going to 'Jemmy +Square-toes' stern first if they didn't have quarters--then down hammocks +for the night at six bells, and after that just as much of fun, frolic, +dance, song and yarn spinning as all hands wanted until eight bells, when +the watch was called. + +"John Moffitt, the sailing master, the best fellow in the ward-room mess, +and a great favorite with the youngsters, was officer of the deck from six +to eight o'clock; and my messmate, Perry Buckner, of Scott county, +Kentucky, the most dare-devil midshipman of us all, was master's mate of +the forecastle; Hammond, Marshall, Smith and I were the gentlemen of the +Watch; Rodney Barlow was quartermaster at the 'con;' the lookouts had just +been stationed; the men were singing, dancing, spinning yarns and +otherwise amusing themselves about the decks, while the old ship was +turning lazily around in the splendid moonlight as if admiring herself. + +"Discipline, you know, is the very life of a man-of-war, and this must +account for what now took place. Tom Edwards, a young foretopman, had the +lee lookout, and as seven bells struck he sang out, 'Lee cat-head;' but +the last syllable died away on his lips as his eyes rested upon an +object--a white object--standing bolt upright in the water before him, +about a hundred yards distant and broad off on the lee bow. Suppressing a +strong desire to shriek, and recovering himself, he touched his hat and +said, 'Mr. Buckner, will you step up here, sir, if you please?' + +"'What is she, Edwards?' said Buckner, as he quickly mounted the +hammock-rail. + +"One look, a dip down, a shiver, and, O Lord! what did he see but _old +Sadler standing straight as a ramrod, and heading right for the ship!_ + +"It took Buck a full minute to recover himself, and then, with one eye on +the lee bow and the other on the quarter-deck, he walked aft and +deliberately touching his cap, reported to Moffitt, 'Old Sadler broad off +on the lee bow, sir.' + +"'The d---- he is!' exclaimed Moffitt; but, checking himself, he said, +'Mr. Hammond, report Sadler's arrival to the commodore; and you, Mr. +M----, report it to the first lieutenant, sir.' + +"My eyes were as big as saucers as I rushed down the steerage ladder and +into the ward-room, where I found the first lieutenant quietly seated +reading over the black list; and when, with my heart in my throat, I said, +'Mr. Bispham, old Sadler is on the lee bow, sir,' he serenely replied, +'Very well, Mr. M---- I'll be on deck directly.' + +"'O Lord!' said I to myself--'to take a ghost as easily as all that!' +Bolting up the ladder on my way back to the deck, and trembling lest I +should see the ghost popping his head in through one of the gun-deck +ports, I ran into Hammond, who dodged me like a shot. + +"When I got on deck the news was all out, for Tom Edwards couldn't stand +it any longer, but had just yelled out, 'Ghost ho! ghost ho! Look out! +stand from under! here he comes!' and bolted aft, scared out of his wits. + +"In ten seconds all hands were on deck--ship's cook, yeoman, 'Jemmy Legs,' +'Jemmy Ducks,' 'Bungs,' Loblolly boy,' captain of the hold, and, by this +time, all the officers too, with the midshipmen scuttling up the ladders +as fast as their legs and hands could carry them. + +"Moffitt had hauled up the courses and squared the main yard, as much to +make a diversion as anything else, although the men thought it was to keep +old Sadler from boarding us; and as they rushed up on deck they filled the +booms; lee rigging, hammock--netting and every available spot from which a +sight of the old fellow could be had. + +"Very soon they saw that he was not approaching the ship: the old sinner +was just turning and turning around in the water, like a fishing-cork, +dancing away all to himself, while the moonlight, first on one side, and +then on the other, in light and shadow, gave a queer sort of look to his +features, sometimes sad and sometimes funny. + +"After watching him for a few minutes, Bill Ellis, the second captain of +the foretop, hailed him thus: 'Sadler, ahoy! What do you want?' + +"No answer being received, one of the mizzentop boys suggested that the +old man had come back for his bag and hammock, and that they ought to be +thrown overboard to him; but all this was cut short by the appearance of +the commodore on the quarter-deck, and upon him all eyes were turned as he +stepped upon the port horseblock, where a good view could be had. + +"Now, old Jess was as brave an old fellow as ever sailed a ship, but he +did not fancy ghosts, and the knowledge that all hands were looking at him +to see how he took it made him feel a little nervous; but with a firm +voice he called for his night-glass, and when the quartermaster, with a +touch of his hat, handed it to him, he quietly arranged the focus, and, as +we all supposed, was about to point it at Sadler, who was still dancing +away for dear life all to himself. But old Jess was too smart for that: he +quietly directed his glass to another quarter, to gain a little time, and, +gradually sweeping the horizon, brought it at last, with a tremor of +mortal dread, to bear dead upon the ghost. Bless my soul! how the old +gentleman shook! But recovering himself, with a big gulp in his throat he +turned to the chaplain and said, 'Did you read the _full_ service over him +to-day, Mr. T----?' + +"'I did, sir, as well as I can remember,' replied Mr. T. + +"'Then, sir,' said the commodore, turning to Mr. Bispham and speaking in +an authoritative tone, 'we must send a boat and bring him on board.' + +"'O Lord! O Lord!--bring a ghost on board!' groaned the men. + +"'Silence, fore and aft!' said Mr. Bispham, 'and call away the second +cutter.' + +"'Away there, you second cutters, away!' sung out the boatswain's mate. +But they didn't 'away' one step, and we youngsters could hear the men +growling out, 'What does the commodore want with old Sadler? This isn't +his place: let the old man rip: he is dead and buried all right. We didn't +ship to go cruising after ghosts: we shipped to reef topsails and work the +big guns; and if old Jess wants old Sadler on board, he had better go +after him himself.' Some said he had come back after his bag and hammock, +and the best way was to let him have them, and then he would top his boom +and clear out. Others said the purser had not squared off his account; and +one of the afterguard was seen to tickle the mainmast and whistle for a +breeze, to give the old fellow a wide berth. But it wouldn't do: +discipline is discipline; and after a free use of the colt and a good deal +of hazing, the boat's crew came aft, the cutter was lowered, and the men, +with their oars up and eyes upon the ghost, were waiting the order to +shove off, the bow oarsman having provided himself with a boarding-pike to +'fend off,' as he said, if the old man should fight. + +"We youngsters knew that _somebody_ else was needed in that boat, and that +_somebody_ was a midshipman with his side-arms; but not a boy of us said a +word about it, and we were afraid even to catch the first lieutenant's +eye, lest he should be reminded that no young officer had, as usual, been +ordered to go; but the order came at last. When Moffitt asked the first +lieutenant, 'What officer, sir, shall I send in that boat?' we scattered +like a flock of birds, but all too late; for Mr. Bispham referred the +matter to the commodore, who, with a twinkle in his eye, said, 'Who +discovered the ghost, sir?' + +"'Midshipman Buckner reported him, sir,' was the reply. + +"'Then,' said the commodore, 'by priority of discovery he belongs to Mr. +Buckner, who will take charge of the cutter and bring him on board.' + +"I heard all this from my place behind the mizzen mast, and you may guess +how glad I was not to have been selected; but a groan, a chattering of the +teeth, a trembling and shaking of bones close by my side, caused me to +look around, and there was poor Buck, with his priority honors thick upon +him. + +"'Get your side-arms, sir,' said Moffitt: 'take charge of the cutter and +carry out the commodore's order.' + +"'Ay, ay, sir!' said Buck, but oh with what a change in his voice! As he +buckled on his sword I could see what a struggle he was making to feel +brave. As he went over the gangway to get into the boat I caught his eye, +and if you could have seen that forlorn look you would have pitied him; +for there was old Sadler turning and turning in the water, looking first +this way, and then the other, and, as Buck thought, just ready to hook on +to him and carry him down among the dead men. + +"It is no light matter to go up to a ghost, front face, full face, and +look him in the eye; but what must it be when you have to go up to him +_backward_, as that cutter's crew had to do while pulling their oars, +leaving only Buck and the cox-swain to face him? They just couldn't do it, +and at every stroke they would suddenly slew around on their thwarts and +look at the old fellow, who seemed to them as big as an elephant, and just +ready to clap on to them, boat and all, as soon as they turned to give +another stroke. Poor fellows! they made but little headway, and what with +catching crabs, fouling their oars, blasting old Sadler's eyes, and +denouncing him generally (one fellow fairly yelled outright when the bow +oarsman accidentally touched him), they had a hard pull of it; but still +they made some progress, and when Buck sang out, 'Way enough,' every oar +flew inboard, every man faced suddenly around, and with this the cutter +keeled over, and, her bow touching old Sadler on his shoulder, ducked him +out of sight for a second, at which all hands shouted, thinking that he +had gone for ever; but in a moment more up he popped, fresh as a lark, +higher than ever before, and this time right abreast of the stern-sheets, +where he bobbed and bowed to Buck, at which, with a yell of terror, all +hands went overboard, and, floundering in the water, begged for mercy. The +cutter had some little headway, and this of course brought Sadler astern +on the other quarter, and then there was a wild rush to get back into the +boat, for fear the old fellow was doubling on them to make a grab. + +"The commodore, hearing the row and fearing disaster, ordered another boat +to the rescue, but ere it reached the spot, Buck had, in some manner, +quieted his men, who, seeing the ghost still standing bolt upright in the +water and dancing away as if nothing had happened to scare _him_, manned +their oars again and pulled cautiously toward him; while he, with that +changeable moonlight grin on his face, was bobbing up and down to the +boat's crew, as if Buck were the commodore himself coming to pay him a +visit. + +"'Stand by, there in the bow, to hook on to him,' sang out Buck. + +"'Ay, ay, sir! I'll fix him;' and with that, and a heavy expletive in +regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike +right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel +touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape of steam, was heard, +and without a word old Sadler vanished from sight for ever." + +"But, captain, tell us what really brought the old gentleman back," said +one of the auditors. + +"Well, just think of that tight white hammock, the light weight of the +shot, and the very hot weather--think, too, how easily a fishing-cork is +balanced in the water by a very small sinker, and lastly how confined air +will buoy up anything--and you have the whole secret of his coming back. +Let that air suddenly escape, and you have the secret of his +disappearance. + +"Buck used to say that 'priority of discovery' was a good thing in the +days of Columbus, but if it was to be continued in force in the United +States navy, hang him if he should ever report another ghost, even if he +should see him walking the quarter-deck with the speaking-trumpet under +his arm." + +R. D. MINOR. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Not Pretty, But Precious, by John Hay, et al. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS *** + +***** This file should be named 11392-8.txt or 11392-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/3/9/11392/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Not Pretty, But Precious + +Author: John Hay, et al. + +Release Date: March 1, 2004 [EBook #11392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="image" id="frontispiece"><p><img src="images/image01.png" alt=""My uncle followed his words with a brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It is a great gift! a great gift!'"" /><br /> +"My uncle followed his words with a brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It is a great gift! a great gift!'"</p> + +<p><a href="#st02">The Victims of Dreams</a>.</p></div> + + + +<div id="tp"> +<h1 class="title">Not Pretty, but Precious,<br /> and Other Short Stories.</h1> + +<p class="smallcaps" align="center">By</p> + +<h2 class="author">John Hay,<br /> Clara F. Guernsey,<br /> Margaret Hosmer,<br /> Harriet Prescott +Spofford,<br /> Lucy Hamilton Hooper,<br /> Etc.</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated.</h3> + + +<h4>1872.</h4> +</div> + + +<div id="toc"> +<h2>Contents.</h2> + + +<ul style="list-style-type: none"> +<li><a href="#st01">Not Pretty, but Precious</a>, <i>Margret Field</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st02">The Victims of Dreams</a>, <i>Margaret Hosmer</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st03">The Cold Hand</a>, <i>Clara F. Guernsey</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st04">The Blood Seedling</a>, <i>John Hay</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st05">The Marquis</a>, <i>Chauncey Hickox</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st06">Under False Colors</a>, <i>Lucy Hamilton Hooper</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st07">The Hungry Heart</a>, <i>J.W. De Forrest</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st08">"How Mother Did It</a>," <i>J.R. Hadermann</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st09">The Red Fox</a>, <i>Clara F. Guernsey</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st10">Louie</a>, <i>Harriet Prescott Spofford</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#st11">Old Sadler'S Resurrection</a>, <i>R.D. Minor</i>.</li> +</ul> +</div> + +<div class="story" id="st01"> +<h2>Not Pretty, But Precious.</h2> + + + +<blockquote class="epi"><p><i>Mille modi veneris!</i></p></blockquote> + +<div class="chapter" id="st01-ch01"> +<h3>Part I.</h3> + + +<p>Mr. Norval: It is now four weeks since your accident. I have made inquiry +of your physician whether news or business communications, however +important, brought to your attention, would be detrimental to you, cause +an accession of feverish symptoms or otherwise harm you. He assures me, On +the contrary, he is sure you have not been for years so free from disease +of any sort, with the sole exception of the broken bones, as now. This +being so, I venture to approach you upon a subject which I doubt not you +are quite as willing to have definitely arranged, and at once, as myself. +I can say what I mean, and as I mean it, so much better on paper than in +conversation--as I have so little self-possession, and am so readily put +out in the matter of argument--that I have determined to write to you, +thinking thus to be better able to make you understand and appreciate my +reasons and motives, since you can read them when and how you choose.</p> + +<p>I have been your wife three weeks. The horrible strangeness of these words +is quite beyond me to compass; nevertheless, realize it or not, it is a +fact. I am your wife--you, my husband. Why I am your wife I wish simply to +rehearse here. Not that we do not both know why, but that we may know it +in the same way. You, a handsome, cultivated man, whose dictum is +considered law in the world of fashion in which you move and reign, with +an assured social position, a handsome fortune, and a popularity that +would have obtained for you the hand of any beautiful or wealthy woman +whom you sought, have deliberately chosen to make me, a poor, plain, +brown-faced little school-teacher, your wife. Not because you wanted <i>me</i>, +not because you thought or cared about <i>me</i>, one way or the other, but +simply because, in a time of urgent necessity, I was literally the only +available woman near you. It chanced, from many points of view and by a +chain of circumstances, that I was particularly available. So you married +me. The reasons for such a sacrifice of yourself were--you had behaved +badly, very badly, to a lady, compromising her name and causing a +separation between herself and her husband. Within a few months, her +husband having died, both herself and her father had determined to force +you to make her reparation by marriage. Going to work very warily, they +had taken an opportunity, after a very luxuriant and fast opera-supper, +when you were excited by your surroundings and flushed by the wine you had +been drinking, your head very light, your judgment very heavy, to draw +from you a promise of marriage at the expiration of the year of mourning +for her husband. As soon as you became aware of what you had done, you +ignominiously fled, and after a Western tour were about to sail for Europe +when this unfortunate accident overtook you. Your narrow escape from +death, upon having been thrown from the carriage of a distinguished +gentleman while driving with him behind a pair of celebrated racers, gave +such publicity to your adventure that your <i>amorata</i> was at once aware of +your whereabouts. The fear of this had taken possession of you as soon as +you were able to think of anything, and the dread that she would follow +and marry you while you lay helpless was made a certainty by this telegram +from an intimate friend in New York, received the sixth day of your +illness:</p> + +<p>"It's all up with you, old fellow. The R. has heard you're fast with a +broken leg, and she starts on Monday for Boston. Have the clergy ready, +for it's marriage."</p> + +<p>Then in your bitter need you remembered having talked with me in this +hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of +your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing +me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying +helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you recalled +the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing you, the +delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such as finding +a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although some elegant +and fashionable girls were waiting with ill-suppressed eagerness for your +escort. Remembering all this, knowing as you did that I was poor, wearing +out my life in teaching, in your sore need you suddenly thought, "I wonder +if the girl wouldn't marry me? She'd make a good nurse, could look after +my traps, and, though she is as ugly as sin and a nobody, wouldn't be the +deuced disgrace to a fellow this Rollins woman will be. At all events, +she'll save me from that fate if she takes up with my offer. It's a choice +of evils, and this would be the least; and I'll try it." This, in plain, +unadorned speech, was what you thought. Then you sent for me, began very +pathetically to talk of your desolate state, your family all dead, and so +on; that it had been sadly brought home to you how alone you were while +lying sick, hour after hour, in this great hotel, with only your valet to +attend to you and take an interest in your well-being; and that, day after +day, as you lay thinking of your fate, my face had come before you, +recalling tender memories of your lost and dearly-loved sister. Then you +had remembered that as girl and boy we had been lovers, and really cared +very much for each other. As you got this far toward your <i>grande +dénouement</i>, something in my face, I suppose, made you realize that if you +were to compass your ends with me it must be by honesty only. Then you +blurted it all out--in, as I could not help thinking as I listened, as +school-boyish and abashed a way as if you had--well, as if you had not +been a consummate man of the world, rather noted for your <i>aplomb</i>.</p> + +<p>It came across me (as I heard you in dumb amazement, with crimson face and +trembling frame) that even the best polish of years' laying on will crack +somewhere under very hard pressure. Well, you were honest and told me all, +never pretending, as you had at first essayed to do, that it was out of +any lingering regard for myself as your sister's friend that you sought me +now, but simply on account of my availability. Had there been some bright +young beauty with wealth and station at hand, no thought of me would ever +have entered your mind: all this I understood at once from your half +confessions--all this, I was glad to find, you had at least enough honor +to let me know, although you risked what to you in your actual situation +was very perilous--a refusal.</p> + +<p>I asked until the next day to consider the matter--whether it would be +better to take service with you, exchange for my boarding, clothing and +incidental expenses the daily care of your comfort and pleasure, or earn +my bread in the old wearing way. And the second day after that we were +married. That is all. I believe that to be a simple statement of the facts +in your case: I am right, am I not?</p> + +<p>The day after our marriage your lady-love and her paternal ancestor came. +At my own suggestion and with your eager consent I received them, and the +result you know.</p> + +<p>Now for my own reasons for this strange marriage. You are aware that my +father was a professor of mathematics in various schools and colleges of +the city where he lived, teaching in the school, among others, in which +your sister and myself were pupils. I believe you know that when a young +man he had eloped with and married one of his scholars, the daughter of a +rich and proud family, who discarded her. For years she was a stranger to +them, until her husband had won a name and handsome fortune for himself: +then she was taken into favor again, her husband's distinction in the +scientific world being supposed to add lustre to the family name. Alas for +us! it was a favor that has cost us dear. I was their only child. When my +sweet, pretty mother lay dying she left to me, her sixteen-year-old child, +my dreamy, unworldly father as a legacy. "Take care of him: he knows no +guile, and your uncles will wrong him if they can," she said. And they +did, or one of them. Ere the bitter agony of my mother's death had enabled +him to return to his duties, it was discovered that one of her brothers +had forged his name and literally stripped him of everything.</p> + +<p>Of course, then he went to work again to earn our daily bread--not with +his old love or ability, but in an inert, feeble way that was pitiful to +see. I think from the day my mother was buried he was dying. Some people, +you know, die hard--some part with life lightly, as if it was a faded robe +they shook off to don a brighter one. Others--my father was one, and I am +like him--see one by one their trusts, their hopes, their loves die: then +with a deathly throe sunder themselves from life. But pardon my +digression.</p> + +<p>When I was twenty my father died. Since then, spite of expressions of +disapproval and offers of support from my mother's family, I have +maintained myself by teaching in the schools where my father had been +known, preferring to do without assistance so long as I had health. One of +my uncles desired to take me into his family, and thus wipe out the wrong +done my father by his brother, and my aunts proffered me an income out of +their private means. I mention this to do them every justice, but I think +even a man of fashion like yourself will acknowledge the impossibility of +my accepting, while I could avoid it, a life of dependence. I could not +accept favors from those who had treated my dear parents unkindly; so I +have e'en gone my own way for these last ten years, and led a not unhappy +life, if a busy and rather wearing one.</p> + +<p>My gay cousins, all of whom you know well--the Wilber girls, Leta and +Jennie, pretty little Lou Barton, and another set of Wilbers whom I think +you do not know so well, who are married now--my gay cousins, then, most +of them beauties, all of them rich and fashionable, are somewhat ashamed +of me, and have let me feel it in every petty way that we women know so +well how to find. I am ugly and poor, my earning my own living is a spot +upon their gentility, and I have unfortunately, and quite against my will, +more than once given them cause for serious annoyance and apprehension. +Then, one of our uncles, who is a bachelor and very rich, has insisted +that I am never to be slighted--always to be invited to everything in the +shape of a party given by the family. If it lay with me, of course I would +never accept these invitations, but I have had it explained to me over and +over again that my not doing so is visited upon the party-givers in one +way or another by our masterful uncle Rufus. So, occasionally, very much +against my inclination, I leave my little third-story room, with its cozy +fire and humble adornments, and sit in the corner of their great rooms, a +"looker-on in Vienna" in every sense.</p> + +<p>I have many kind friends: it would be strange if in all these years I had +not found some who did not care for outward advantages. I have dreamed my +sweet love-dream, and it is over, and the roses have grown above my buried +hopes.</p> + +<p>Since then I have let one idea fill my life to the exclusion of everything +else, putting away from me all desires and thoughts of other needs; and +that too has left me. I call it an "idea" for lack of a better name. I had +put away all thought of marriage with my bright youth, but took into my +heart instead what I deemed would serve as well--a friendship for another +woman. For ten years we knew no separate life--I thought no separate +hopes. She had loved, been on the eve of marriage, her lover had died: +that was her heart's history, and henceforth the idea of love had fallen +out of both our lives--not the idea only, but the possibility of love. I +thought so--she <i>said</i> so.</p> + +<p>I trusted her and loved her with a perfect love. I wound my hopes about +her: I gave up all my life to her as if she had been my lover. I never +cared to form other friendships. I deprived myself of all possibilities of +making other ties of any sort, and with the first opportunity she whistled +me down the wind, and cared no more for me than if she had never professed +to love me. She had been my one bright thing--she was sweet and +winsome--the one golden gleam in my sombre life. My future was bound up in +her so completely that when she severed the fine, close cords (brittle, +yet so strong) which had bound us together for years, she cut into my +heart--nay more, wrested from me all my sweet trusts and faiths. If she is +false, who else in all God's earth is true? I pity myself very much. You, +of course, will not see why her marrying should make a difference if we +loved, and will call me selfish. Not so, not so! She might have married as +soon as it pleased her, and I should have been glad. It would have made a +difference, of course: she must in some sort have been parted from me, but +that I could have borne if it made her happy. But from her acceptance of +her lover--about whom we will say nothing, save that he was the sort of +man she had always held in abhorrence--she has coolly ignored my right to +any part or lot in her fate. She had told me (or I, poor fool! thought so) +every hope and fear of her life: now she told me what she chose, and was +astonished that I expected more--hurt that I seemed changed and did not +find my friendship flourish on crumbs after being nourished for years from +full loaves--was quite unhappy that I cared so little for the minor +concerns of her life, when, good lack! I did not know what I might or +might not ask and not be snubbed; for once she told me there were things +due to the man one is going to marry (at that time she had not got to the +extent of saying whom one loves) that could not be spoken of to me. Of +course she had only to mention the fact to me to make it perfectly plain, +and henceforth he and his doings, his belongings and himself, all of them +of the tamest sort at best, were a sealed book to me. And again she +quenched a feeble effort of mine to get back to my old place, by telling +me such topics she could discuss only with her sister, "her shadow sister" +she prettily called her. So I am desolate!</p> + +<p>Knowing this, you may understand in some degree what could induce a little +waif like me to accept such an offer as yours. I think no one in all God's +earth is more desolate than I. In my heart I bear always that unforgotten +love in my life. I have only a barren waste to show. It is as if I had +started from a lovely, radiant garden in the fair morning of my life, in +which I had left the bright, sweet rose of my love, and walking along a +narrow, dark path, had clasped hands with, and drawn my light and warmth +from, a figure walking close beside me; and though from all sides as I +walked forms had come to me, offering me fair fruits and sweet flowers, I +declined them all without ever a word of thanks, being so content with my +one companion. And suddenly, when all my youth, all my prospects of other +things, had gone, this idealized one had withdrawn its hand-clasp, and +turning on me a face I did not know, faded into darkness, leaving me +nothing but my broken hopes, a wreath of withered flowers,</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Tangled down in chains about my feet."</p></blockquote> + +<p>You do not of course realize how the old French <i>émigré</i> blood in my +veins, inherited from my father, makes this a very vital matter to me. We +cling to our hopes very tenaciously while they abide--then we are +distraught. We loved, my father and I, very few, but those with a clinging +oneness that is wellnigh pain: he loved my mother and myself--that was +all. Likewise I had my two: they having failed me, my life is a blank. I +have heard of empty-hearted people: I know now what the phrase means. I am +empty-hearted: I have not one hope, one particle of faith, one real, +honest desire, except to "drie my weir," as the Scotch say, doing my duty +as best I may, as it comes to me. But I have a woman's hatred of pity: my +cousins have long accorded me a contemptuous pity for being an old maid. I +laughed their pity to scorn while I had Esther Hooper. What more did I +need? We could enact over again the sweet old life of the Ladies of +Llangollen.</p> + +<p>We had planned our lives a thousand times. Poor we both were, yet we would +put something away every year for our old age, and work cheerily on until +we could work no more, then creep to our nest like a couple of old +kittens, and cuddle down by our warm, pleasant fire--together, and +therefore content. Well, you see it was not to be: she had grown +affrighted, I suppose, at the thought of all that weary life with only me, +and has married a man who outrages all her delicate instincts and +traditions of an accordant husband. But why speak of him? He supports her, +and she has escaped the obloquy of old-maidism. She has married a +maintenance. She says she loves him, so of course she does.</p> + +<p>For myself, my health, which has always been very rugged, has failed me +utterly this last year; but as my bread depends upon my ability to endure +daily and constant fatigue, I have forced myself to endeavor to get up the +amount of strength required for my winter's work by the present +expedition, planned for me by a friend. Bah! what do I talk of friendship +for? An old lady who was once a teacher in the school from which my father +had married my mother, and who, I think, had cared with more than +friendship for him, has in these last few years fallen heir to a small +property--not a very great deal, but enough to enable her to live in +comfort, and exercise her kindly heart in deeds of charity occasionally. +She has chosen for years to occupy rooms beneath my own, and has always +been a sort of mother to me. Most of the pretty things that have fallen +into my life, and most of its pleasures, have come to me through her. She +has many troublesome faults, as we all have, but she is old, and I have +always had Esther to talk them over and laugh them off with, so have borne +them easily. This year, because she saw I was dying, she took me with her +to the mountains of Vermont, and I have got a new lease of life, and new +capacities for suffering as well.</p> + +<p>On our way back she was suddenly attacked with the illness which detained +us at this Boston hotel. Here your accident laid you up, and the rest came +as I have told.</p> + +<p>You have married me to rid yourself of a union with a woman you detest, +being utterly indifferent to me. I have married you because I cannot bring +myself to go back to that old teaching-life, now so cold and gray. I think +I can earn my board in taking care of your belongings, and the having +saved you from a dreadful fate must compensate to you for the little of my +presence you will for the future be compelled to endure. It need not be +much or long continued if we start with a fair comprehension of each +other.</p> + +<p>This brings me to the reason of all this long history. I have always +looked upon marriage without love as nothing more or less than legalized +vice. I think you, who are so intrinsically a man of the world, will have +imbibed the (so-called) sensible and popular views upon such subjects, and +will at once coincide with me that in such a union as ours--a literal +<i>mariage de convenance</i> on both sides--my ideas are not unwise. Since upon +you will henceforth depend my maintenance (as I of course understand that +a wife who worked for her own support would be a disgrace to you: indeed, +I doubt whether the having married a girl who has already done so is not a +cause of shame), I ask that now, when Mrs. Keller is about to leave me, +and my arrangements as your wife must be finally made--when, in fact, her +giving up her room necessitates my coming to yours, her leaving compelling +me either to go with her, or come, as of course I must, to you--we may +have a definite understanding as to our future relations.</p> + +<p>You have been kind enough to approve of the little I have been able to do +for you since our marriage--to say to Mrs. Keller you did not know what it +was to be taken care of in sickness; and to myself you have more than once +laughingly spoken of a wife as a good institution, adding, that had you +known how comfortable it was to have some one about you to think of and +care for you, you would have invested in the article before; and so on. I +am glad of this: I am pleased that my society has not proved repugnant to +you; for since it has been no annoyance in its first trial, I think we can +manage that it shall not be so in the future. I would ask, as an especial +piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors +at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister. +It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the +Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring +most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your +service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is +due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or +pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have no +expectation of winning your love: it has been an understood thing from the +first--that is something neither expects from the other--therefore any +show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping +with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain +that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during +these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to +pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this +cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our private +relations?</p> + +<p>For the rest, claiming nothing from you, giving you nothing but the +services for which you render me a full equivalent, I grant you, as far as +I have a right to do so, the largest liberty of action. We are only +jealous of those we love: therefore all women will be as free to you as +they have hitherto been or their will accords, save that you have debarred +yourself for a time from offering any one of them marriage. I hope to be +so little trouble to you, and so serviceable to you in many ways, that you +shall realize to the full that if an unloving union could be so much more +comfortable than a bachelor's life, a life passed with a loving and +beloved wife would be bliss indeed, and so when my life has ended you will +not be sorry that I stopped in your path a few years. For I shall not +trouble you very long. I am a poor little perfumeless flower, having no +sweetness or beauty with which to charm the eye or senses, only fit to +grow among the kitchen herbs--rue and thyme, and such old-fashioned +things. But I need a great deal of sunshine, spite of my plainness, to +keep life in me. And now that all the heat and passion of love, all the +sunny hopes and glow of friendship, have left me, I shall just fade and +fade until some day you will find the poor little weed has dropped to +earth for ever.</p> + +<p>I am but two years younger than yourself, and women, especially women with +a great sorrow, age cruelly fast. I look and feel older than I am--you +wear your years like a crown, and appear younger than you are. I have made +my little venture on life's ocean--made and failed: my barque, freighted +with a few cherished hopes, has been wrecked, and though I have reached a +rock to which I can cling for a time, yet I am terribly hurt, the waves +have buffeted me cruelly, and in a little while I shall let go my hold and +float out--out into the ocean of eternity. Ah! there is comfort after all: +life <i>is</i> hard, but afterward there is peace and rest!</p> + +<p>I am nearly through this long tirade. Pardon its length: it is my first, +and shall be my last, heart-outpouring to you; and if it make you +comprehend me, I shall not have written or you have read in vain.</p> + +<p>Your income will not support the establishment your position in society +would require if we went to housekeeping; besides, you would feel as if +you must then be more stationary, more in your own home, than is at +present your custom, therefore in a degree in bondage. And a hotel-life is +very expensive and very cheerless. You have kindly said you intended +dividing your income with me, giving me half. At first I was indignant at +the idea, but now I think I see that it will be in every way the best. One +of my cousins has been occupying a very elegantly-appointed suite of rooms +on Twenty-fourth street. Harry writes me he is going very suddenly to +Europe. His rooms will of course be vacant: he talks of renting them +furnished. I have thought, if you would not object to it, we might take +them off his hands. I have calculated that the part of your means you +intend for me will meet all our expenses of every sort if you permit me to +have the arranging, of our daily affairs. I will pay the rent and meet all +the expenses of our living out of this sum, leaving you your reserved +funds to meet your ordinary requirements and pleasures. By this +arrangement, you see, I shall get my living free, and I am sure shall have +a surplus over and above our expenses, as I am a good manager and used to +making the most of everything.</p> + +<p>There is one sacrifice which, do we enter into this arrangement, I must +ask of you--that when we return to New York you give up your valet. For +more than one reason: I cannot have a spy upon the mode of life we are to +lead. I am foolishly sensitive of the position of a neglected wife, and I +feel assured your gentlemanly instincts will prevent your ever offering +any observable slight to the woman who bears your name. Besides, in the +apartments I propose our taking there will be no room for a man-servant, +and one of the maids connected with the house will be all the assistant I +shall require. When you are away on your frequent excursions to all parts +of the world it will be very easy to provide yourself a servant. Will you +try for a few weeks how well I can supply, or have the place supplied, of +this man, whom you intend in any case to dismiss? This is all. Next week, +the doctor thinks, you may be moved to a lounge, and perhaps the week +after be able to travel, or at farthest the week following.</p> + +<p>I acknowledge to the womanish feeling of being exultant at the idea of the +envy I shall awaken in the breasts of your adoring circle of lady +friends--my lady cousins among them--in having, spite of my +unattractiveness, secured the husband they have long striven by every wile +to win. Ah! they little know, and I trust never may, why I, without +seeking, have ensnared their <i>rara avis</i> to be my legal bondsman. Rather a +contradiction in terms!</p> + +<p>The pretty fiction of our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old +love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet +has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my +girlish dreams. So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have +written to my uncles and stated verbally to Mrs. Keller, stand; also, that +the undue haste was caused by your pressing need of me during your +accident. I think, indeed, from my cousin Harry's letter yesterday, and +one from Shelton last week, they have taken the idea that we have been +spending the summer together, and that you were following me home when you +were stayed in your mad career by a broken leg.</p> + +<p>I am done; are you not thankful? There have been some things in this +letter very hard to say, which, if I were braver or knew you better, I +should have liked to be more outspoken about. But enough has, I think, +been said to make you appreciate my earnest desires and my reasons for +them. I am most truly,</p> + +<p>PERCY.</p> + +<p>And he, prone upon his back this warm September day, read this long +epistle from his new wife, then laid it down and closing his eyes murmured +softly, "What a strange little puss it is!" Lying in the dim light her +hand had created for him, he thought of his own troubles and hers, just as +she had stated them. The blood would flush up to his brow as her cool +ignoring of his surpassing attractions, to which all other women accorded +their full meed of praise, rose up before him. He of whom it had been said +if he beckoned with his finger women left their duties, gave up their very +life to do his pleasure!--he to have the girl he had honored by making his +wife, a little brown woman, plain and almost <i>passé</i> (he was man enough +not to care for her poverty), show she cared no more for his love than he +did for hers I--was as indifferent to him as he to her! Indifference from +a woman was a new experience to him, and annoyed him.</p> + +<p>Yet her quaint, frank letter touched him. What did she mean by dying soon +and letting him be free again? Poor little midge! was she dying of a +broken heart because a treacherous woman had fooled her out of a part of +her life? Poor little robin! she was his wife now, and he could heal the +worst heartache in any woman's breast. He had tried that thing before, and +succeeded, even if he broke the heart afterward. Die, indeed! Not if he +knew it: even Death should not have a little woman he meant to be good to.</p> + +<p>And as he remembered all her faithfulness to him during these weary weeks +of pain, he thought, "By Jove! beauty's not all, for no woman, had her +face been like that of Phryne of Thebes, or her charms as entrancing as +the bewitching Dudu's, could have been more lovely in her kindness to me. +How brave and strong she has been! What a faithful little soul it is! +Always ready, day and night, to do just what I want done and in the way I +want it, never knocking things about or fidgeting round, but just +ready-handed, neat and bright. God knows, a handsome woman wouldn't have +risked the spoiling her beauty by all these weary, sleepless nights, +especially for a man she did not love." And then to think she was actually +willing to work and slave for him, and support him out of her share of the +booty, and let him fool away his own on other women! "Wonder what the +little dame means to buy her own fine things with, for even robins must +get clothing? I'll ask her that. Bless the little woman's soul! she makes +me think of her so much that I believe I'm half in love with her. Um!" and +he stopped: "I'm getting sentimental and poetic, I swear! But if it were +in me to love anything that was not beautiful, I believe I could love this +little girl, who has come into my life so strangely. She owns up to having +loved, and is done with all the stale farce. Some fools," and he felt very +indignant, "slighted her because she had no beauty, though, upon my soul, +now I think of it, I'm not so certain about that. There's a something in +her face takes a man's breath--something that one would rather die than +lose if he once loved it, and which once loved would be better than any +beauty. What's that Spenser says?--</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"><p> 'A sweet, attractive kind of grace,...<br /> + The lineaments of gospel books,'</p></blockquote> + +<p>That's just it: it's a look that makes one think about one's prayers, if +one only knew them. But whether the man slighted her or not, he missed +it--confound him!--in losing such a love. I'll make her tell me his name. +And as for being my sister, that's all nonsense, of course, as she's my +wife." Then more thoughtfully, "Well, maybe not: a household where there +is no love is cruel--I knew that in my early home--and children are a +beastly trouble, and as expensive as a man's wines. She's a brick, this +wife of mine, and as sensible as steel. I'll put myself in her hands for +better or for worse, I vow I will!</p> + +<p>"The jolly way she manged that Rollins affair was proof poz of her +ability. Her cool assumption of wifely dignity--her actually bringing them +up to see me without announcing their coming to me, and never letting them +have one bout at me, was beyond anything! It's like a dip in the sea to +recall it all. Her breezy voice coming in before them was all the warning +I had: 'Oh certainly, you can come up and look at him, but not talk to +him: he's nervous and feverish, and I cannot permit even such old friends +as you doubtless are to say anything to him. You know, of course, the +doctor thought he needed constant attention, and caused us to hurry our +marriage in a most Gretna-Green style; but I could not nurse him unless we +were married. And it did not matter so much, after all, since we had +loved'--and she hesitated with the prettiest affectation of having said +something she ought not--'we had cared for each other since we were quite +children. Ross's sister Bell was my school-friend.' Then she brought them +straight to the bed, and stooping down gave me the only kiss with which +she has honored me--her show kiss, I call it--saying, 'My darling' (how +soft she said it, too, with a little trilling cadence upon the sweet old +word!)--'My darling, you are not to speak, or even look, save this once: +now I must cover up my dearie's eyes;' and she laid her cool hand over my +eyes and held it there while they stayed. 'These are some kind New York +friends, Mr. Rollins and his good wife'--and a faint pressure on my face +emphasized the joke--'who are come to see you. I cannot understand all +they mean, except that you have been behaving badly, making these good +people's daughter believe you meant to marry her, when of course you were +only going to marry your little, ugly Percy. Oh, my bad boy, what shall I +ever do with you? Oh the hearts you have broken while you have been +waiting for me! Ah! dear, bad boy!'--and, as if overcome with tenderness, +she laid her cheek down on mine. I clasped my arms about her--the first +and last time I've had a chance, by George!--but she sprang away with a +laugh: 'No, you shall not be petted for being bad. Why, Ross, these dear +people came to take you and marry you to their beautiful daughter, for I +know she's a beauty, since her mother is still so handsome.'</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was gorgeous, to see the Rollins standing there in all her +Cleopatra-like splendor, utterly upset and put down by my little brown +berry! And the impossibility of correcting such a mistake without putting +herself in an absurd position actually stopped the Rollins speech, +and--Lord help me!--I thought that mouth could only be closed by bon-bons +and a man's kisses--any man's, <i>par exemple</i>. And her poor old catspaw of +a <i>pater</i> stood helpless before my little hurricane--a very reed shaken by +the wind. Then my sea-breeze spoke again: 'But the doctor will shed vials +of wrath upon me for letting you see strangers.' (It must have cut the +Rollins sore to be called a stranger to me!) 'But these kind friends could +not realize your being ill, so I was fain to let them see my Apollo in his +box; but we will go now if you please;' and she positively ushered them +out in wordless dismay, bidding them good-bye at once, and seeing them no +more. I thought she would have rushed back to laugh the scene over with +me, but that shows how little I know her. When, in the course of an hour, +she did come, it was with such an utter ignoring of having done a smart +thing, waving aside my admiration of her <i>finesse</i>, that I was taken +aback. She said sadly, 'I am unused to falsehood, and <i>finesse</i> of any +sort is distasteful to me. I quenched this woman this time, but, in spite +of her bad, hard face, I pity her very much. You, and such men as you, +have, I suppose, made her what she is, God help her!' So by this good +little girl's management I am rid of my troubles. I declare I'll do just +what she wishes, and be thankful my follies have worked me no more harm."</p> + +<p>Then he began to wish she'd come in, and to feel aggrieved and neglected +because she did not come--to feel an eager desire to see her and talk the +matter of the letter over with her. But he had read it through again twice +ere she appeared, and then, to his dismay, equipped for a journey, and +saying, in the most matter-of-fact, nonchalant manner possible, "Ross, +Mrs. Keller has come to say good-bye. I am going with her to Newport, +where she makes the only perilous part of the trip--the, to her, dreadful +change from cars to boat. So I shall be away all night, of course."</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Keller came forward with--"I hope you don't mind my taking her +off, Mr. Norval?"</p> + +<p>"But I do mind it deucedly, madam," he said. "Why, Percy, I don't like +your traveling alone this way at all. Why can't James go with Mrs. +Keller?"</p> + +<p>"Not for the world, Ross, thank you. I'm used to taking care of myself, +and of Mrs. Keller too, for that matter. I'm not much of a traveler, +because I have not had much of a chance--none, indeed, except what she's +given me--but somehow I always manage to come out right. You are very kind +to offer to spare James, but he's your necessity. I have told him about +the medicines, and how to loosen the bandages at night. So I expect to +find you better than usual when I get back. He knows your ways so much +better than I, and I sha'n't be here to interfere;" and she went about +arranging little matters as she spoke, and not looking at him.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Keller saw the look of annoyance upon his face, and said, "But, +Percy, Mr. Norval dislikes your going, and you're bound to stay."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Keller! Of course he don't care particularly, as I am +going to be away but one night, and he's got to spend all my life with +me;" and her face saddened, he thought. "I'm sure to come back to-morrow: +my cousin Shelton says, 'Percy always manages to be at hand when she's +wanted.' Am I to write to Harry that we will take the rooms? I must do it +at once, or he may let some one have them;" and she came and stood beside +him.</p> + +<p>He answered, sullenly, "Do just as you like about it: it's no concern of +mine."</p> + +<p>"Of course I shall do nothing of the kind. If you had liked the idea, been +very much pleased with it, it would have been different. I only threw out +the suggestion as a mere suggestion. But we will think of it no more." All +this in her quick, bright way, without a shade of annoyance visible, and +she began talking of something else as if the matter was settled: "The +hotel-keeper will put a sofa-bed into your dressing-room for me to-morrow, +so I shall be quite out of the way when your callers are here. I have told +them about bringing my trunk in there from Mrs. Keller's room: James will +attend to it all for me. So, as long as you are a 'prisoner of hope' in +here, I'll reign supreme in the dressing-room. Now say 'Good-bye,' Mrs. +Keller: James will put you in the coach while I finish my adieux."</p> + +<p>"But, Percy, you mistake," he said, quite humbly, when her old friend was +gone: "you do talk a fellow down so confoundedly," with a laugh. "I like +your idea about the rooms most heartily: indeed, I like all your ideas, +all your letter, except where you are so deucedly severe upon me; but even +that is true, and I like it when you tell me of it. I think your +management the best in everything, and I expect to be as happy as a king, +or rather a good subject, with my little queen to rule over me and keep me +in order in our new domain."</p> + +<p>She clasped her hands in a quick, passionate sort of way at his words, as +if they gave her a pang. He saw that, but her calm face and voice made him +half doubt if it meant anything. "Are you quite sure, or are you only +saying it because you think I have a wish to go there? I thought you did +not seem to like it just now, and indeed I do not care: I shall be quite +content with whatever you arrange when you are well."</p> + +<p>"No, Percy: write and say we will take the rooms from the time he leaves +them. I"--with a half-abashed laugh--"I was only cross because you are +going away. I shall miss you sorely, dear, and I'm sorry you're going and +are so glad to go--that's all."</p> + +<p>Her face turned crimson to the very temples, and she said, "I'm sorry I +made my arrangements without consulting you: I will not do so in future. I +did not think you would care one way or the other."</p> + +<p>"You've been so good to me, little one, and I'm so unused to being cared +for except as a society ornament, that I think I shall never be able to +get along without you again."</p> + +<p>Her eyes filled with tears which she would not let fall, and she said, +"You are very kind to say so: I will be more careful in future. But I must +go now." He waited in quite an eager expectancy to see if she would kiss +him. "Take good care of yourself, and be sure I shall come by the first +train;" and she started to leave the bedside.</p> + +<p>He caught her dress and drew her toward him, holding her hands: "Is that +all, Percy? Is there nothing else?"</p> + +<p>"I think not, Ross," she said, doubtingly, but coloring painfully.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me good-bye, Percy." She held down her face instantly, and when he +had kissed her, drew herself away without a word; but he clasped his arm +about her: "You have not kissed me after all, my darling."</p> + +<p>"My kisses are nothing worth now, Ross: their sweetness died out years +ago. Yours are good enough for both;" and she laughed and left him.</p> + +<p>He was bitterly chagrined: it seemed a little thing to make him feel so +mortified. That she should leave him willingly, that doing so she should +refuse to grant him so small a favor, when almost all other women--her own +pretty cousins among them--had denied nothing he chose to ask, it was +incomprehensible!</p> + +<p>"By Jove! I never cared so much for a little thing in my life as her +leaving me and not caring to kiss me. I swear, I'm a perfect baby about +her! Little, truthful, honest soul! I believe she could make another +creature of me if she cared enough for me to try. There is something +restful in truth and honest purity, after all: one feels safe, and +grounded on a sure place. It's good to have a little fairy lying close in +one's bosom; and I vow I'll have my little brownie there yet, though I +have to go as suitor on a regular courting expedition to my own wife +before I win her heart. Curse this old lover of hers, who bars her heart +against me! And curse my own past follies, which make a good woman fear to +trust me! Marriage is a sell generally, even when a vast amount of +so-called love is brought to the sacrificial altar; so perhaps I shall not +make a bad thing of it if I win my wife's heart after she knows me <i>au +fond</i>, instead of in the glamour of gas-light flirtations. Poor little +heart! What a pitiful story it is! How quaintly she writes her pathetic, +desolate history! What a ready pen the little woman holds!" and he took +out her letter again. "I declare, the child has better attractions than +beauty--a lovely, faithful soul."</p> + +<p>But though he was tender of her in his thoughts, he was a hard master that +night: everything went wrong, nothing pleased or contented him, and the +sullen, much-tried servant at last announced that with the morning he +would leave his master to his own devices.</p> + +<p>"Go, and be damned to you!" was the savage reply; and the man took him at +his word, decamping, after making a few necessary arrangements, as soon +after breakfast as he could.</p> + +<p>"And I have been as good to that fellow the year he has lived with me as I +could," thought Ross Norval as hour after hour he lay alone wanting +everything--water, the papers, a handkerchief. There was nothing he did +not want, and he could reach nothing but those nauseous medicines. +"Service cannot be bought: in very truth, love and patience must be a free +gift. However, now even love and patience seem to have fled from me. I +want my wife--I want her awfully."</p> + +<p>Percy, with her sad little heart lying as heavy as a plummet in her +breast, was just as bright and useful and entertaining to her cranky old +friend as if life was a boon instead of a bane to her. You know from her +letter how bitter life was to her; and I think if you have ever known +sorrow and a great disappointment, you will comprehend how it was possible +for her, with the fear of God before her, and a desire to be His faithful +child, to make this match for herself. Anything was better than the dull +stagnation into which she had fallen: she had felt this year, unless some +great change came to her to take her out of this weary groove in which she +was set, she must go melancholy mad. She had laid out a hundred schemes, +all of them, she knew, impracticable; and now, in a strange, providential +way, this chance to change every thought and action of her whole life had +come to her. Do you wonder much she accepted it? I think it was not +strange.</p> + +<p>That night after his offer (the night she had asked for in which to +decide, although she said to herself, with a bitter little shrug as she +made the request, "A woman who hesitates is lost"), as she lay awake +pondering the whole matter, she thought: "It can't be worse than it is, +and it won't be very long either way, I think. I can be faithful to him, +make and mend, dig and delve, if needs be, for his benefit, in return for +the honor he does me in giving me his name and protection. I shall expect +nothing, literally nothing, from him that wives usually demand. I, who +have borne for years with the caprice of school-girls, can surely bear the +humors of one man, especially when his name shields me from other sorts of +ills. I have rather plumed myself these last few months upon having +learned the depth of meaning and force of truth there is in that +expression from <i>Sartor Resartus</i> I used to think so wicked: 'Say to +happiness, I can do without you--in self-renunciation life begins,' I can +try it now. I need not be a spaniel or fawn upon my lord, and yet I can +obey and honor, if he will let me, this man to whom I shall vow myself for +life. For life! Can I endure it all the years I may have to live an +unloved wife--so near and yet so far from him to whom I am bound? Will it +not be a death in life? Will it be better than this dead, cold monotony I +now bear? Better or worse? Ah, there's the rub! I can never hope to win +his faithful, abiding love. Even did use make me acceptable to him, I +could not trust its continuance. And yet who knows whether, if I try to +keep a pure life and an honest purpose to walk before him worthily every +day, I may not win from him at last a sort of respect and friendship that +will be next to love? I will some time let him know of the friends my +literary efforts have brought me. I know he will be proud of the judgment +that scholarly men, whose opinions he honors, have placed upon the +heirloom of intellectual ability that has been my sole dower from my dear +father and his learned ancestors. And when I am Ross Norval's wife I will +reveal myself to these letter-friends of my inner life, and, meeting them +no longer in the spirit only, let them see eye to eye their hidden sister, +their 'nebulous child,' as they have half playfully, half angrily, called +me. A husband's hand shall rive the rock in which their crystal has been +for years embedded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, I shall be glad to come to my inheritance through you; to +gather my band of chosen ones into my actual, as I have long held them in +my inner, life; to know those at last whom my unprotected woman's state +has hitherto forbidden me to know. And if I take him, if I give myself to +him, I shall at last have the desire of my life. Ah, Ross! you will never +know that your boyish flattering, which meant nothing to you, and should +have meant nothing to me, did really mean so much that it simply broke my +heart, leaving me at sixteen so utterly incapable of loving any man but +yourself that since then no hand has ever touched the seal which closed +the fountain of love and passion in my heart for ever. Ah! I wonder what +penalty there is for those who carelessly destroy our hopes and blot out +all possibilities of love from us? What would you say, Ross Norval, if you +knew that the last kiss I ever gave to any man was given you that cold, +dark day they buried my father? You came with a note from Bell--she was +dying, she said; after to-day no one but her family would be admitted to +her: would I come and say good-bye to her, even from my father's grave? I +went with you, and stayed an hour with her. Then you brought me, more dead +than alive, back to my desolate home, and taking me in your arms carried +me from the carriage to my bed. As you laid me down you said, 'My sister's +little friend, I am glad to have seen you once again. Bell tells me all +these years I have been absent you have been pleasant friends to each +other. You are dear and sweet because she loved you. I shall never see you +again perhaps, for when she dies I shall have no ties here and shall go +elsewhere. Kiss me good-bye,' and I did.</p> + +<p>"For a year after that I was alone: then Esther Hooper came, and I was not +wretched. I have had my share of lovers and friends--what girl has +not?--have had rare treats of music, of books and paintings, and shared +their pleasant harmonies with an appreciative soul; and I have been very +contented.</p> + +<p>"But now I am desolate again, and out of the darkness you have come and +beckoned me to follow you and stand near you all the rest of my life. It +will be happiness enough, as much as is good for me, to live with you, +even if I am nothing to you, for, oh, I love you very faithfully!"</p> + +<p>And so, you know, they were married, with only the doctor and Mrs. Keller +to witness the ceremony; and at once, with her little decided way, the +sort of certainty that years of self-dependence give, she became his +nurse, attending to him as persistently and indefatigably as if the sole +purpose for which she had been born was that. From the first service she +rendered him--bathing his head and face through an intense August day with +iced water delicately perfumed, arranging the curtains so that the air, +when there was a breeze, blew freely to him, though the glare of the sun +was gone, and his room in dim, soothing shadow--she seemed a blessing to +him. Some hours after she came with her bright, quick ways, arranging his +disordered room, bringing order out of chaos on his dressing-table, never +peeping into things, and yet getting them into beautiful order, and, +wonderful to relate, keeping them so: the air seemed to grow cooler, his +medicine less bitter, the time shorter, and his broken leg and weary back +to ache less acutely.</p> + +<p>One day she said in a shy way, "Mr. Norval, if you will let James lay out +your things, I will see what mending they need, and will sit here and do +them, so you sha'n't spend so many hours alone. Mrs. Keller has made some +friends in the house, and they kindly sit with her so much that she does +not need me."</p> + +<p>"But, Percy, what's the use of James having a hand in it? Here are my +keys," with a laugh as he handed them to her: "you know they are a part of +the worldly goods with which I did thee endow; and the keys always belong +to the female department by right, don't they?"</p> + +<p>She took them with a vivid blush. "Shall I look over your trunks and +bureau, then?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, while I go to sleep and dream what a jolly thing it is to have +you here." Then, pretending to sleep, he watched her with careful hands +examine his belongings, with a contemptuous little smile at this piece of +bungling mending or an anxious frown over that frayed place. Then how +neatly she folded and laid back all the good, and seated herself with a +pile before her and began to sew! When he opened his eyes she handed him +the keys.</p> + +<p>"No, Percy, keep them: I make all right and title to them over to you," he +said.</p> + +<p>From that day he seemed to feel delight in her companionship, reading to +her hour after hour while she sewed, always choosing some poetical or +light bit of reading--"To suit my capacity," she thought.</p> + +<p>So they had gone on week after week--with the single exception of the +Rollins episode--without any change. He was a rare favorite in society, +and every day received a host of calls from gentlemen, baskets of fruits +and flowers from ladies. Always, when a card was sent up, she would gather +all her womanish "traps" together and go to Mrs. Keller--this, too, in +spite of his earnest invitation to her to remain.</p> + +<p>"No: you can have a pleasanter call with no ladies present, and Mrs. +Keller needs me. I'll be back in time for your medicine."</p> + +<p>Once or twice some one, more intimate or free than usual, would run up +unannounced and catch her there. Her acceptation of the situation was, he +thought, perfect. Without a shadow of embarrassment she acknowledged the +introduction, "My wife," did the honors of the occasion, said a few words +regarding his state, and with some such words as "I will be back in an +hour or so, Ross," would leave the room.</p> + +<p>Thus he was utterly unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was +capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he +could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most +society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular +woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant +conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an +intelligent thinker for a woman, he did not dream.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the mere having her about him day after day, with her dainty +little ways, grew to be a pleasure to him: the making her grave little +face, with its haunting look of sorrow, break into smiles, the light come +into her soft gray eyes, became a real delight to him. Then the color +flushed over her cheek at his lightest word, and he found a real interest +in watching it glow and fade from her pale face.</p> + +<p>"She's the sort of <i>brune</i> that colors well," he thought. "Old Sir John's +fancy of--</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"><p> 'Her cheek was like a Cathrine pear,<br /> + The side that's next the sun'--</p></blockquote> + +<p>suits her exactly. And her hair, with the glint of gold in the chestnut +hue, would be a glory in a beautiful woman. Every motion of her heart +shows in her face. She'd never make a woman of the world: she cannot hide +her feelings, but lets one read them like an open book." Which was all he +knew about it, since, spite of her treacherous color, those years of hard +duty had trained her into the most perfect self-control on all needful and +great occasions and matters.</p> + +<p>How he missed her light step! how he had wanted her all these two days! +for, though it was scarcely past noon, and she had gone late the day +before, he was sure it was that--"And seems like six, by George!" But, as +he lay feverish and famished for a drink, a very ill-used man, she opened +the door, and the air seemed lightened of its troubles at once.</p> +</div> + +<div class="chapter" id="st01-ch02"> +<h3>Part II.</h3> + + +<p>"Shall we go to Niagara for our wedding-trip?" Mr. Norval asked when the +doctor had taken his last fee, pronouncing his patient cured.</p> + +<p>"Unless you care particularly about it, I would rather go straight to New +York. I have canceled all my school-engagements by letter, having taken a +new service"--and she bowed to him--"and Mrs. Keller promised to see to my +little rooms and their belongings; but I should like to see Harry before +he sails."</p> + +<p>"Want to make him promise to be a good boy while he's away?" said he with +a smile.</p> + +<p>"Something like it," she answered, laughingly. "But Harry's not a bad +fellow, at all."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, let's start for home to-morrow;" and they made their +arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an +unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel +to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in +Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a +large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther +Hooper. He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and +the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not +being her heart's choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea +gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all.</p> + +<p>As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put +his arm around her, saying, "I've been very happy, little wife, here with +you. Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw +you?"</p> + +<p>"I have had no cause to regret it," she said quietly.</p> + +<p>"But you are not glad," he said, taking his arm away.</p> + +<p>"As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything--more glad than I am for most +things."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with a sigh. "My father--and I am like him--loved only +once." Her words came constantly into his mind. "I came too late," he +thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and +pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other +earthly thing he had ever known. He had left her side, and was standing +looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to +breakfast. After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head +against his arm. He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice +of the action. She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her +hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, "Dear Ross, I <i>am</i> glad: I am +happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be. I would not undo the +deed we have done so long as you are content. I like being with you +dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your +wife--your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good."</p> + +<p>"My Preciosa"--and he drew her into his arms--"so long as we both shall +live, you mean. I want no life without you now." Then turning her, face +up, he scanned it hastily: "You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale! Are +you ill, my Percy?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said quickly. "I think I need my breakfast: I have been up a +couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night."</p> + +<p>"My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of +ours, perhaps you'll get some rest. But you talk in this strange way of +dying: just now you did, and once before in your letter. What makes you do +it? Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing--only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled +and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death +as a boon which God would send me soon."</p> + +<p>"But you do not now?--you don't want to die and leave me desolate?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear! indeed, no! though I don't think you'd care really." He clasped +her in a closer embrace and kissed her reproachfully. "Well, yes, just at +first, perhaps. Yet so long as you want me, I want to stay and be your +willing, working wife. I've got a new reason and aim now: I have you, dear +old Ross."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Percy, I <i>do</i> care. God knows even the thought of it gives me a +bitter agony, I know you cannot trust me yet, because I married you so +carelessly, and because you think I can't be true to one woman with my +battered old heart. But that's because you judge me by what my long, +unloved life has made me. No good woman ever made me love her before. I +never knew how beautiful a pure life was, my darling, until I knew it +through watching yours. When I think of all you have saved me from, which +would have caused my undying gratitude had I learned to hate you--as if I +ever could!" and he paused to kiss her--"when I think of all the new and +better hopes you have awakened in my heart, I feel--God knows I do--as if +He had sent my angel, and let her drag me out of a hell into which I was +plunged, and year after year sinking deeper. Stay with me, dear: I will be +true. I never cared for any woman in the way--in the deep, absorbing +way--I do for you. I wish you would believe me."</p> + +<p>"I do, Ross--you are so good to me, so good! Oh, Ross, Ross!" and she held +up her face to his, "you are so good to me!" She clung to him one moment, +then suddenly, as soon as she could trust her voice, said gayly, "But it's +breakfast-time, and your wife is so unromantically hungry;" and with a +sigh that nothing more ever came of their talks he took her down.</p> + +<p>When they reached New York the next afternoon, they drove at once to the +rooms they had engaged. Percy's cousin, Harry Barton, was there to welcome +them, having come round from his hotel for the purpose.</p> + +<p>"Why, Norval," said he--they were old acquaintances--"you've won our bone +of contention, after all. I wonder what we shall do, now that Percy's +safely landed out of our reach? You're a brave man to dare our rage."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Harry!" said Percy, putting her hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"I won't, dear, if you say not;" and he covered her hand with his own. "I +always did do your lightest bidding, little girl, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you're a dear old cousin. Ross knows how much I appreciate your +kindness to me always. Why, I gave up what he calls my 'bridal tour,' +partly because I wanted to come back and say 'good-bye' to you."</p> + +<p>His face flushed crimson at her words, and, all his careless, fashionable +manner gone, he said, "Did you, Percy? You always were good."</p> + +<p>"That, and because--because I shall be so sorry if you join this African +expedition."</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me not to, Percy--don't ask me to stay now you have broken my +hope for ever. I shall go to the dogs, dear, if I stay here now."</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to, Harry. Only your mother is so delicate and getting +old, and she loves you beyond all the rest of the world, though you think +she don't because she has been cruel to me. It will break her heart if you +join this dangerous enterprise. Stay in Europe, go to Heidelberg and +finish the course you so foolishly broke up. They'll blame me, Harry, for +all the evil that comes to you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll think about it, dear." Then to Ross; "Does she kiss you, +Norval?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a +surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess +she did not.</p> + +<p>"Nor let you kiss her, either?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," with a laugh. "She can't very well help that, you know."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe it: if she didn't want you to, you'd never kiss her, I +know. Why, we three cousins, Sheldon, Mac and I, have tried every way to +get her to kiss us for years, and never succeeded. You're a lucky dog!"</p> + +<p>"He's my husband, Harry;" and she laid her head down on Ross's arm.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Percy!" said her cousin with a quick motion of his hand: "I'll be +gone soon;" then hurriedly and gayly: "Let me do the honors of your new +domains. And, Norval, I have a great favor to ask of you. My little +cousin's <i>amour propre</i> won't be touched, or herself involved now she's a +married woman, by taking an honest gift from me, and all brides take +bridal gifts, you know. I want you to let me give her all the traps I've +left in the rooms. It isn't much grace to ask, old fellow, seeing you're +to have her always and I not at all."</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly, Barton, I have no objections if she has none."</p> + +<p>"Percy, you've never let me give you anything all these years, you proud +little soul, nor any of the rest of us: you've come scot-free from all our +endeavors to snare you through all your hard-working life. You won't go +quite empty-handed to your husband's arms, just to plague me, will you?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them +once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they +began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole +suite!"</p> + +<p>"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you +Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines +among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?"</p> + +<p>As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had +regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little +reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about +him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying, +"May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered +her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!"</p> + +<p>As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old +Hal--promise me this!"</p> + +<p>"Anything, everything, Percy," he said.</p> + +<p>"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg."</p> + +<p>"I will, I will, since you wish it."</p> + +<p>She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet +kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!"</p> + +<p>He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace, +then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of +the house without a word.</p> + +<p>Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for +him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?"</p> + +<p>"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his +life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave +him reason."</p> + +<p>"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and +handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it, +child."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed +her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think, +and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an +instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one +half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should +have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking +laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of +opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light manner gone, she +added: "You are very, very good to me, Ross. He would never have been so +patient of my old griefs and lost loves. I told you my masculine cousins +were always crying for the grapes that hung out of their reach, you know." +Then suddenly growing grave: "Oh, Ross, it was not my fault: I could not +help it. I think the boys got to pitying me because they thought my life +was hard, and because their sisters treated me very cruelly sometimes. +Then my uncles very foolishly ordained that I should teach their sons +their Latin and help them with their studies. So out of school-hours my +time was mostly spent with one or the other, or all of them. Sheldon +Wilber and I are of the same age, and having been my father's constant +companion, I was better up in all his studies than he was himself; so I +used to do his college lessons with him, until he got to thinking, as he +used to say, I was his very breath. Then afterward I gave the other two +the benefit of what we had studied, got them out of scrapes, and indeed, +being with them so much, kept them out. Don't let's talk about them any +more, Ross: I have 'fessed' all now."</p> + +<p>"Not all, my sweet: you have not told me who it is that has shut your +heart from us all."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Ross!" and she shrank away from him as if he had struck her a +blow.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, my wife, keep your secret: I'll not touch your sacred past. +I'll try to learn to be content with my little sister, thankful I have so +much."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, my good, kind Ross!" and she clasped her arms around his neck +in passionate, longing regret, "if I might tell you all--if I might!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me nothing, dear, you would rather keep. I am infinitely content to +even have you thus, and know you love me somewhat. Yes, I know, sweet," he +said with a sad smile as she kissed his hand in passionate regret--"the +very best you can, with all the heart you have. I know, I know!"</p> + +<p>Quite late in the evening, Sheldon Wilber came. After sitting an hour or +so, talking gayly, he rose to go. When they were standing he said, "Percy, +I had just left the Flemmings before I came in here."</p> + +<p>"Had you? I hope they are all well, especially Miss Lizzie, who is so +pretty."</p> + +<p>"They're all well enough. She--Miss Lizzie the pretty--is going to be +married."</p> + +<p>"To be married!--to whom?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"To my honorable self: don't you congratulate her?"--with a bitter laugh. +"I asked her to-night if she'd have me, and she said 'Yes.'"</p> + +<p>"I am so glad, Sheldon--so very glad!" and she held out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Are you? It's more than anyone else is but my mother. Well, no--I suppose +the Flemmings are, to get another daughter off their hands, and she to +have a safe man to pay her bills. And of course all our cousins and +sisters will be glad to have another house to dance the German in; so it +is rather a jubilee occasion, taking it all in all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sheldon, how hard and bitter you are! She loves you, I know, and the +rest think you will be happier with a good wife to care for."</p> + +<p>"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but <i>vive +la bagatelle!</i> I want to know when I am to tie this knot?"</p> + +<p>"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered.</p> + +<p>"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when <i>I</i> choose."</p> + +<p>Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife, +and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her."</p> + +<p>He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by +letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know +you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of +us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old +fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will +make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the +little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with +you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe +will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll +never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow +took himself away.</p> + +<p>"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was +conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman +would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women. +And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one +choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a +second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you."</p> + +<p>She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate +from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said +hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly. +If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's +early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere, +because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first. +It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to +go anywhere where you are not."</p> + +<p>"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go +to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I +feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm +unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home +with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this +talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and +her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep +from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed +emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs, +while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross! +please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove +by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at +length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had +appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as +a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist +his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them.</p> + +<p>The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an +agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many +hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as +a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines, +and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found +Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table +exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling +in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and +the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly +air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery.</p> + +<p>"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps +house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are +nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss +as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of +linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous +manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old +place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know, +Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's +housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old +mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and +visit me."</p> + +<p>Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair +which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire," +she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the +look upon his face and came to his side. "What were you thinking of, +Ross?" she asked, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"What a little tornado you were, for the first thing, and how I liked +seeing you busy among our household gods; also and moreover, that you had +not given me a chance to say a word; and worst of all, that you had never +given me my kiss of welcome, my rightful perquisite." Instantly she held +up her face. "Ah, pet, you are always submissive; but never aggressive: +still, this is sweet. And I was wondering what had become of the weeping +willow I left."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't I a silly goose, Ross?" she said, a little breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Well, no, dear: you were very nervous and worn-out."</p> + +<p>"I hate nervous, fidgety women so: they're detestable with their whims."</p> + +<p>"I did not find you so, but I'm glad you're over it, all the same."</p> + +<p>"And so am I. You could not make me cry like that again, Ross, if you were +to pinch me."</p> + +<p>"But I did not make you cry."</p> + +<p>"Yes you did, though. In truth, I was unstrung, and you were so kind and +unlike what any one had ever been to me before, so different from what I +had expected when we were married "--and her lips quivered--"that it +touched me to the quick."</p> + +<p>"Why, darling, did you think I was going to be a brute to you?"</p> + +<p>"I thought you would be nothing to me, one way or the other--simply forget +me, and be utterly indifferent so long as I kept your clothes made and +mended, and did not bother you about my wants or tastes or opinions."</p> + +<p>A flush came over his face at the truth of her words. It would have been +just so had he found her what he expected her to be; but he said, "I don't +think any one could treat you like that, little girl." Then, while they +ate their dinner, he told her of his day's doings and of his determination +for the future: "I have a good opening--no man better. I mean to attend to +my practice hereafter, make a name and fortune for my sweetheart, and in a +few years we'll go to Europe and see the sights. Ah, Percy, such a vista, +such a new life, such a bright future, as I see opening before me! But, +first of all, I am going shopping with you, young lady, to-morrow. I have +ordered a carriage at eleven, and we'll buy all those pretty fixings you +women doat on. Do you know, little bride, I think all my vanity is going +to take the form of having you more prettily dressed than your cousins, +mine ancient flames when I was a bad boy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross," with a little laugh, "you can't do it: you can't make a rival +specimen out of your bad bargain. Nothing will make me a beauty."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Percy! I do like beauty. I have run after and made a fool of +myself for years over pretty women, but I like your face, just as it is, +better than any other woman's face I ever knew. If I could change you any +way, I would not do it. Your face is beautiful to me, though I know it is +not a pretty one: you are like sunlight to me." His voice shook, and he +strained her slight form to him with a clasp that was positive pain. "I +said I would not change you, but I would if I might put that old love out +of your heart for ever. Why, in those far-off years when we were childish +friends, did I not know my truest life lay in winning you? It is strange! +I have never failed to gain the love I wanted until now, when I want the +only one that would complete my life. Dear Percy, love me all you can. If +there are things in me--and I know there are many--which turn you from me, +tell me of them and I will change them if I can."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, don't, don't! I am not worthy of such words."</p> + +<p>"Oh, little Preciosa, I am glad to have even a little of your heart: the +half of your love has come to be more to me than the love of all the world +besides."</p> + +<p>Do you think it was not agony for her to hear such words as these and make +no response to them, fearing lest with assurance should come satiety? And +yet the knowledge of his growing love was very sweet to her, and worth the +agony.</p> + +<p>They settled down in their new home, and were purposely "out" to all +callers during the next month--then returned the cards that had been left +for them. As they grew accustomed to their new life, she thought to see +his pleasure and interest in it wane as the novelty wore away, but it was +not so. That love of home which is, after all, the truest test of a really +manly nature, seemed to grow upon him. It was always so bright and cheery +by their cozy fire, the glare of public rooms, the noise and glitter of +theatres and concert-rooms, struck him with a feeling akin to disgust, +after the soft, subdued light of his home, and his wife's merry, breezy +voice. He sang and played for her, never giving a thought to her having +any musical ability, since she never touched the instrument. He read to +her hour after hour, having at last discovered her taste and ability to +understand the kind of books he relished, perfectly content if she would +favor him by sitting near enough to him to let him pull down that wealth +of "tresses brown," a glossy cloud about her.</p> + +<p>Of course this Arcadian life could not continue in the very heart of +Sodom. Society was not going to lose Ross Norval if he <i>had</i> made a fool +of himself and married a little nobody. So callers flowed in upon them, +and Ross, having in boyish glee arrayed himself in purple and fine linen, +took her in state to see his friends.</p> + +<p>Of course her cousins and their friends hated her: she had won their +<i>bonne louche</i>, and the crimson of her plainness and poverty, of the +having to "have Percy always around to please Uncle Rufus," was pink to +the enormity of her being Ross Norval's wife. And "why he married her," +and "of course he's dead tired of her by this time," were their politest +surmises.</p> + +<p>One morning they paid a cousinly visit--a triple call. "And, by Jove!" +thought Ross as he watched her haughty little face and <i>nonchalant</i> +manner, "she's no milk-and-water nature, though she's always so +sweet-tempered with me. She's got all the temper a true nature ought to +have."</p> + +<p>"To think of your ever getting married, Percy, and to Mr. Norval, of all +men!" said Miss Leta Wilber. "Why, we thought him engaged to the beauty +and belle of last winter, Miss Agnes Lorton."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, Leta, old girls like you and I are rather off the cards: we +don't expect to catch the prizes generally--we leave that for these +younger ones, like Jennie and Lucille," said Percy, coolly.</p> + +<p>"A Roland for your Oliver, Leta!" laughed Jennie Wayne. "I never venture +to break a lance with Percy: she always has an arrow in reserve to pierce +you with. I suppose you've found that out, Mr. Norval?"</p> + +<p>"Found what out? I fear I don't follow you, Miss Jennie," said he.</p> + +<p>"That she's very able to take her own part, this little cousin of ours," +said she, her beautiful face scarlet at his manner.</p> + +<p>"Is she, though? Well, I like that amazingly, do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Like ill-tempered people?" said Miss Leta, snappishly. "Is it possible?"</p> + +<p>"Ill-tempered people?" with a wellbred stare. (Is there such a thing?) +"No, indeed! Why, birdie"--and he leaned over, and, taking her hand, +raised it to his lips--"to think of any one calling you ill-tempered!"</p> + +<p>"You silly boy!" laughed she. "I'll take my hand if you please, and don't +you believe but what you've married a termagant."</p> + +<p>The girls said afterward, in recounting the scene, it was simply +disgusting. Leta vowed, "The little baggage must be a witch and throw +spells over people. Look what fools she's made of our boys for years, and +Ross Norval, with all his splendid endowments, is just as bad."</p> + +<p>"And he did use to admire your form, Leta," said Jennie, maliciously. +"I've seen him waltz you until it was hard to tell which face that long +blonde moustache belonged to."</p> + +<p>"Ditto, cousin, and worse, if gossips speak the truth. But don't let's say +ugly things to each other. We both hoped to win him once, and we have both +lost him. The little wretch will watch him like a hawk, and never let him +come near a body."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" said her sister Laura, "if I only knew I was to do a German +with him to-night, I'd be happy: he holds one better than any man I know; +and if Percy will let him dance with a body occasionally, I'd as leave she +should have him as the rest of you."</p> + +<p>"Unless he'd chosen yourself, Laura, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, that would have made a difference, even to my laziness, +especially if she'd have made dear old Harry stay at home by marrying +him."</p> + +<p>That's the way they talked, yet in a couple of weeks after each house had +sent her an invitation to a large party--"for you and Mr. Norval, dear +Percy"--and the invitation-cards stated the fact.</p> + +<p>"It's my Viking they want," laughed she: "they take his mouse in for the +sake of securing him. He's such a credit to the family!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's your Viking they won't get," said he.</p> + +<p>"Now, Ross, don't be a bother, dear, and complicate matters. They will +say--and be glad of the chance--that it's my fault. You've such a passion +for dancing, they will say I prevented your coming. And besides, as I +dance so little, you'll ask them as much as ever?"</p> + +<p>"How do you know I am so fond of it, Percy?"</p> + +<p>"I've watched you too many years not to know that. You forget that, though +a flower unnoticed and unseen--a very wall-flower in fact--I have been a +looker-on in Vienna. I might have made a point of that, Ross, if I'd +thought in time, and 'hung i' the walls of Venice, a sightly flower.' You +were the bright particular star, or sun, in whose light all the fairest +flowers disported themselves. Why, I could tell you every woman--that is, +of your own set--you've been what Jennie calls 'bad about,' for years." He +held up his hand deprecatingly: she laughed gayly. "Never fear. I don't +intend to name them: I have not time to go over such a thing of shreds and +patches. Ah! the hopes I've watched you raise to heaven and then dash to +earth!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Percy, I don't wonder that you are afraid to trust me now: I am +paying the penalty of my years of folly."</p> + +<p>"That's nonsense, Ross. I don't believe in fashionable women's hearts. You +were too good for them, and they led you on always," she said, almost +passionately.</p> + +<p>"That's my good darling trying to excuse her sinner. But how was it you +never danced at any of those parties? Harry and Mac are both good dancers, +and Sheldon's the best waltzer I ever saw. How is it you never danced with +them?"</p> + +<p>"With them, indeed! Why, that would have been an aggravation past enduring +to my rich relations. Sheldon had actually the insolence to tell his +sister Leta that I was the best waltzer in society. Think of the prize +you've got, young man!"</p> + +<p>"I do always, sweetheart," he said, answering her gay tone with a grave +one. "Did you waltz much with Sheldon and the others?"</p> + +<p>"I never waltzed with any of them in my life. Why, Ross, I never let them +speak to me at parties, except by turns to take me out to supper and +home."</p> + +<p>"But how have you managed to keep up your waltzing then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Vanity, men are not all. Esther and I waltzed constantly: then I +used to help Lucille, who is my favorite cousin, 'along in her paces;' and +the children at our school-parties doat on me as a partner. Would you like +to know who was the last man, and indeed almost the only one, I ever went +round a room with?" and her face turned crimson, though she laughed.</p> + +<p>"Indeed I should--curse him!" he said under his breath.</p> + +<p>"Your honorable self, at Madame's school-party;" and she sprang away from +his outstretched hands with a mocking laugh.</p> + +<p>The day of the party she wrote a few little violet-perfumed notes, and +sent them off. This is a specimen:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "DEAR DOCTOR: You have so often wanted to know your 'nebulous child,' + and been indignant that she hid her face from you behind her veil of + clouds, you will be pleased to know that the sunshine has dispelled the + clouds, and made her at last able to meet the starry train of which you + are the sun. Will you greet Ross Norval's bride at the Wilber party + to-night as the child you have trained and been so good to in the past, + and who, ever honoring you, is still your loving child for the future? + If you'll ask me prettily to-night, I'll sing the foolish words I made + for the sweet, tripping Languedoc air you sent me last year. I am, now + and ever,</p> + +<p> "MIRA CANAM."</p></blockquote> + +<p>In consequence of these notes, when Ross led his wife into the room, +arrayed in a crimson cloud of his choosing, which made even her brown face +a picture, all her bronze hair, her husband's glory, floating round her +far below her waist, confined lightly here and there by diamond clusters, +which sparkled like stars amidst its creped luxuriance--"Daring to dress +in the very height of the fashion," said Leta, "and all those diamonds on +her--his mother's, of course;" and of course they were--the consequence, I +say, was, that first one distinguished man and then another met her with a +warm greeting--"deucedly warm," thought the jealous fellow, who was so +uncertain of her yet, and wanted all of her--and were introduced to "my +husband." Taking for granted that "my husband" was glad to get her off his +hands, they took possession of her, to his infinite disgust.</p> + +<p>These were the men with whom she could talk, whose minds struck diamond +flashes from her own, whose thoughts she had followed for years, and who +looked upon her as their peer, and deferred to her opinion on many things. +And she, knowing Ross was her amazed listener, was stirred to do her best +before him--glad her triumph over her relatives should be in his presence +and brought to her through his means. It may not have been a lovely thing +in her to desire or enjoy a victory, but ah! it is so natural, and my +little heroine had had hard lines meted out to her for years. Besides, no +woman is free, you know, from vanity: only men are that.</p> + +<p>She stood near the door of the dancing-room. Ross came to her after every +dance, but it was always, "Not me yet, Ross--Leta, or Jennie," or whoever +stood nearest her. Even the girl to whom report had given him (with +reason) the year before was, at her open entreaty, which he could not +evade, his partner; but half the time he stood beside her, forgetful of +the dance in listening to the conversation in which she bore so large a +part.</p> + +<p>A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing +hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last +waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor, +who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss +Jennie Barton and her cousin Laura gave a sweet duo, in rather a tearing +style, Jennie being a fast young lady everyhow; another lady sang a +Scottish ballad as if it had been manipulated by Verdi; then one of the +gentlemen said, "Mr. Norval, I hope you will lay your commands on your +wife to sing for us."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> hope that will not be needed," he said, bowing (thinking with a pang, +"They all know her better than I do"). "I am sure she will do equally well +if we all beg the favor of her."</p> + +<p>"She has promised me to sing," said Dr. B----, "my pretty Languedoc air, +which she has--"</p> + +<p>"Now that's enough, you foolish old doctor!" and she went to the piano. +"Foolish old doctor!" He was the great gun of the scientific world: the +people about looked aghast at such impertinence, but the "great gun" only +laughed and said, "I am mute if you command."</p> + +<p>How her hands trembled as she began! This was her last and greatest card: +by it she had always felt she must hold him to her for ever, or lose her +husband's love in time. She had never touched the piano before him or sung +a note, but much of her leisure since their return to New York had been +taken up, when he was out, in keeping herself in practice against the time +when she should have a chance to play for him and sing to him. She played +the sweet air, with its Mozart-like, mournful cadences, entirely through +ere she felt nerved enough to begin. Then she sang in such a voice as made +the most indifferent pause--a voice that was like purple velvet for +richness, as sweet as the breath of an heliotrope to which the sun had +just said adieu, as clear as the notes of an English skylark--this little +song:</p> + +<blockquote><p> "See, love! the rosy radiance gleams<br /> +Athwart the sunset sky:<br /> +List, love! and hear the bird's sweet notes<br /> +In lingering cadence die.<br /> +Clasp, love, thy clinging hands in mine,<br /> +And, holding fast by me,<br /> +Trust, love! I will be true, my dove,<br /> +Be ever true to thee--<br /> +So true, sweetheart, I'll be,<br /> +Sweetheart, to thee!</p> + +<p>"Come, love! I waiting pine so long,<br /> +And weary watch for thee:<br /> +Dear love! amidst my darkest night<br /> +Thy star-like face I see.<br /> +Heart's love! ah, come thou close to me:<br /> +I'll shelter thee from harms,<br /> +From every foe or secret woe,<br /> +Close clasped within my arms:<br /> +Lie safe from all alarms,<br /> +Sweetheart, with me."</p></blockquote> + +<p>While they listened to her, those careless men and women, they thought +they began to understand why this little, plain girl had won Ross Norval. +While everybody praised her, he stood utterly silent, too moved for words +she saw, and refusing to sing again, she went up to him as the band began +to play. "My waltz, Ross," she said. He put his arm around her with a +loving gesture that made those about them smile, and whirled her off.</p> + +<p>"He's the hardest hit man I've seen for years," said one.</p> + +<p>"And that such a thing should come to pass, as Ross Norval in love with +his own wife, is beyond belief--after making love to everybody else's!"</p> + +<p>"That's it! He was always the darling of fortune: the choicest fruit +always dropped his side the wall."</p> + +<p>But Ross, as he held her in that "tight hold" which was so much admired by +his partners, said only, "Percy! Percy! I do not know you at all. How +cruel you are to me! Everybody knows you and your gifts but me."</p> + +<p>When the German had commenced he came to her and whispered, "Do you care +for it?"</p> + +<p>"The German, Ross? Indeed no: I am tired too, and was just coming to ask +you if I might let old Mr. L---- take me home: he says it will be no +trouble."</p> + +<p>"And you would not have asked me to take you?" he said, reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"Take you away from the German, Ross! Such an unheard-of thing as that! +You must think me very selfish. Indeed; I am not where your pleasure is +concerned: I only want you to enjoy yourself."</p> + +<p>"Then, for Charity's sake, let's go home," he said.</p> + +<p>"With all my heart if you really wish it!" and she started; then pausing: +"Are you going because you think I want to go? I do not indeed: I will +stay gladly."</p> + +<p>"I am going because I want to--because I am dead tired, and long, with a +perfect passion, for our cozy room, the dim firelight, and my darling +toasting her pretty slippers."</p> + +<p>"You dear, foolish Ross!" and she was gone like the wind. On their way +out, Sheldon Wilber met them in the hall, and, handing her something, +said, "To-night, little girl: if you have ever doubted, doubt no more. And +remember, a trusting heart is a priceless one;" and he was gone.</p> + +<p>When they were home and comfortable, Ross said, "My wife, it was cruel to +let me learn your wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me +cruelly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had +hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and +now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I +could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think +I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped +it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet +to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and +steadfastly into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song +you sang."</p> + +<p>She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is <i>your</i> love-song, dear--your very +own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you <i>all</i> about myself now, +Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you +pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing +protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason +those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his +embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I +translated from the German, others from the old Provençal tongue, with +which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did +this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they +had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade +them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by +his name, feared nothing any more."</p> + +<p>"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all +hope of winning you when I learn these things of you."</p> + +<p>"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike +literary women."</p> + +<p>But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your +endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all +else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it. +Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out +of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!"</p> + +<p>She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss +on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her, +"Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you +to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face +upon his breast and tremblingly waited while he read it. It ran thus:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "Sheldon, my cousin, it can never be: give up all hope for ever. I kill + it now, because it is best you should know the truth. I almost give up + my life, my cousin, when I make my heritage of woe known to you. You + will pity me, Sheldon, when you realize what agony the confession you + thus wring from me gives my heart. But if it cures your passion it is + not borne in vain. I love with an undying love, a faith that knows no + change, an endurance that years of neglect have not weakened, that years + of cruelty could never change, a man who would laugh to scorn my very + name. I love--and have loved since I was sixteen years old, until + now--Ross Norval. Keep my secret.</p> + +<p> "PERCY HASTINGS."</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was dated four years back.</p> + +<p>"Ross, Ross! you know it now! Oh, my love! my love!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>I will attempt no painting of the effect that confession had upon him. But +after a long, long time she whispered, "I will sing the last verse of your +song, dear, which only you shall ever hear." And lying on his breast, she +sang--</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"><p> "Dear love I thy face above me gleaming<br /> + A sunset radiance gives:<br /> +Ah, love! thy tones' sweet cadence dying<br /> + Sings in my heart and lives.<br /> +Clasped, love, close to thy heart, thy birdling<br /> + Foldeth her wings in peace--<br /> +Trusts, love! feeling nor cold nor shadow,<br /> + Finding at last her ease,<br /> + From fear a safe release,<br /> + Heart's love, with thee."</p></blockquote> +</div> +<p class="author">Margret Field.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st02"> +<h2>The Victims of Dreams.</h2> + + + +<p>My friend Bessie Haines had no mother, but her father was such a very +large man that I remember thinking, when I was quite a child, that a kind +Providence had intended to make up her loss in that way. She and I did not +live in the same city, but managed to keep up a lively friendship through +the medium of correspondence and half-yearly visits.</p> + +<p>I was a complete orphan, and my uncle, with whom I lived, was her father's +attached friend. She had a very happy home, and I was glad to enjoy it +with her, particularly when my uncle accompanied me, for then her father +and he became absorbed in each other, and left us to our own devices--not +very evil ones, but too childish and trifling to claim the sympathy of +such very grave men as they were.</p> + +<p>We had both become tall, womanly girls, but Uncle Pennyman and Mr. Haines +called us children, and treated us as such; and Bessie was just writing to +me about her father's telling her she must begin to think of serious +things, when my uncle remarked to me that the time was approaching when I +should prepare myself to assume the duties and responsibilities of a +rational female. Just as if we had waited to be told this, when in fact +Bessie and I had been consulting about our bonnets and dresses in the most +grave and mature manner for years past, and arranging our future on plans +that for variety and agreeability could not have been surpassed had we +been brought up on the <i>Arabian Nights</i> and Moore's <i>Poems</i>, instead of +Baxter's <i>Saint's Rest</i> and Pollok's <i>Course of Time</i>.</p> + +<p>"There are several questions of vital importance that have been growing +daily stronger in my mind," said my uncle Pennyman. "My friend Thomas +Haines has a gift in clearing points and expounding meanings; so that I +feel it to be for my mind's edifying and my soul's profit to go to him for +counsel."</p> + +<p>I was delighted to hear this. I wanted to see Bessie, and I blessed the +bond that united these good brothers in Israel and drew us together so +often. Mr. Haines was good at texts, and my uncle was wonderfully expert +at dreams. Mr. Haines was a great dreamer, and my uncle constantly +stumbled over passages needing elucidation. So we lived in harmonious +intercourse, and Bessie and I talked of all our plans and delights while +they got themselves entangled in obscurities with a commentary under each +arm.</p> + +<p>It would have appeared, from Mr. Haines' dreams, that Bessie's mother had +been a most fussy and bothering lady, though I was told by the +housekeeper, who knew her well, that she was the mildest and most timid of +little wives while living.</p> + +<p>According to these visions, she was constantly troubled in her spiritual +state on the greatest variety of small subjects; and my expert uncle, in +expounding her communications, was always able to draw from them strong +religious lessons, and to administer much strengthening comfort to his +friend the dreamer.</p> + +<p>"I was hoping papa would soon have a vision," said Bessie when we were +settled together all comfortably, and she had told me how glad she was to +see me again. "Mrs. Tanner said last week that she was sure he was going +to have another, because the spire which he felt he was directed in his +last dream to put on the little chapel was all complete, and the +missionary outfit which he had believed himself called upon to provide was +ready and gone to the South Seas, and he naturally looked for more work. +When he said last week, 'Bessie, I have sent for Brother Pennyman +concerning a visitation in the night,' I was so glad, for, Winnie +dear--would you believe it?--I have been dreaming too, and I want you to +tell me if I have read my dream aright."</p> + +<p>Now, this was the most wonderful thing that Bessie Haines could have told +me--the most startling and least to be expected altogether; for if ever +there was a wide-awake girl, it was she.</p> + +<p>I suppose my perfectly frank stare said as much, for she blushed a little, +and continued with a very suspicious flutter, which I had learnt, in the +case of young engaged persons I knew, to look on as a bad symptom:</p> + +<p>"I do not mean dreaming with my eyes shut, you know, but having deep, +serious thoughts, unlike the gay fancies that have held me captive all my +life."</p> + +<p>"Dress trimmings and poetry?" I suggested.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes--all the useless, perishable fancies of thoughtless youth," she +replied.</p> + +<p>This sounded more like an Essay on Vanity than Bessie Haines, and I really +was astonished, and had nothing to say for a little while, during which +she, being full of her subject, went on:</p> + +<p>"I can scarcely trace the beginning of the--the awakening, shall I call +it?"</p> + +<p>"You called it a dream before."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear Winnie, but it is so hard to know how to classify new emotions, +and this is such a peculiar one that it seems nameless. You know papa +feels bound, ever since that water-dream he had, to go down to the +Mariners' Chapel on Sunday afternoon, and I used to read solemn poetry +when it was too warm or too cold to go with him. Well, about two months +ago it was fearfully warm, and papa had come home a fortnight earlier from +the shore, on account of a suspicion he had that he had dreamed something +and had forgotten it as soon as he awoke. This indistinct warning made him +think we had better go home at all events, and home we came the first week +in September, to the roasting, dusty city. But I did not then know that I +was perhaps drawn back for a purpose; and oh, dear Winnie, there may be +something in papa's visions, after all."</p> + +<p>"He has had a good many of them," I said.</p> + +<p>"So he has," assented Bessie; "and I was inclined to be impatient at this +one, since it brought me home in the heat, and the house seemed so lonely, +because Mrs. Tanner was still in the country with her married daughter."</p> + +<p>"She having received no spectral warning," I hinted.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! no. Mrs. Tanner never dreams: she's opposed to it. Well, the +first Sunday was so warm that I took up <i>Solemn Thoughts in Verse</i> instead +of the Mariners'; and after I had read eight pages, it really seemed as if +I had better have tried the heat out of doors, it was getting so gloomy +within. So I got up and dressed, meaning to walk out and meet papa, and +return with him. I don't know whether it was the <i>Solemn Thoughts</i> that +confused me, or whether I was not paying attention, but I actually lost my +way by turning at the wrong corner, and so came down Barton street toward +a little chapel that I had often noticed before. Two dreadfully red-faced +and short-haired little boys were at the entrance by the small iron gate. +They had disagreed about something, I suppose, just as I came up, and they +instantly began to fight, with the wickedest determination visible in +their freckled little faces. At first, they kicked at each other, and +growled out some awful words without the least sense, but with a great +deal of profanity in them, and then they laid down their little books and +tracts, and apparently tried to pull each other's head off. Of course it +made me quite wretched to see them hurt each other in that shocking way, +and so I interfered and tried to reconcile them, but the naughty little +souls must have had a certain amount of kicking and scratching on hand to +dispose of, for they united in bestowing it all on me the moment I came +between them.</p> + +<p>"I was just trying to save my dress and lace sacque from their boots and +claws, when a reverend gentleman appeared at the door, and the bad boys +became sneaking cowards at sight of him. I picked up their little tracts, +while he tried to apologize for them; and it was so sad, Winnie, to think +that those dear children had not profited by their lessons: one was called +'Love One Another,' and the other, 'Be Meek and Lowly.'</p> + +<p>"While we were talking a lady joined us, and I went into the school at +their invitation.</p> + +<p>"Winnie, do you know anything practical about Sunday-school?"</p> + +<p>"I went to one, and was for years in the class of an elderly maiden lady +who urged us all to learn Scripture and hymns. I was so expert and high in +favor that I could repeat forty verses at a time as glibly as a parrot."</p> + +<p>"But I don't quite mean that sort of thing," said Bessie. "I mean a real, +earnest teaching-place, where children are gathered in and told all about +Christ's love and mercy--where they are softened and won to better +thoughts and kinder actions, and their poor little minds filled with +shining truth, instead of street dirt and abuse."</p> + +<p>"I never thought about it before, but such an institution could not help +being a popular one, and a very useful one too," I confessed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am so glad, so very glad, that you approve, dear, for I am engaged +in that work; and I did not want to write it to you, for somehow it seemed +so strange for such a thoughtless, silly girl as I have been to attempt +such a serious thing."</p> + +<p>"As teaching in a Sunday-school?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, in a sort of mission school for little scholars of the lower +classes. Miss Mary Pepper and I have at this time nearly two hundred boys +and girls of all ages, and some of them are very interesting and lovable, +while others are--"</p> + +<p>"Like the two gladiators who introduced you to the scene?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I am afraid there are quite a number of that kind; but, Winnie, you +must like Miss Mary Pepper. Oh, she is one of the most excellent women I +ever knew, so truly, so nobly, so devotedly good. You cannot imagine what +a comfort it is to me to be with her--to feel that I am under her +influence, and may learn from her to be a little like her."</p> + +<p>"Miss Mary Pepper?" I repeated: "then she is a young lady?"</p> + +<p>"No--not young: indeed, she is rather elderly."</p> + +<p>"An old maid," I remarked, coldly. "She is pretty and sweet, though faded, +I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Why, no--not to look at: her nature is beautiful, but her manner and +figure are rather--rather unprepossessing at first."</p> + +<p>"A stiff, hard, straight-laced old maid," I said, contemptuously. "Well, +really, I cannot see the fascination--"</p> + +<p>Bessie's face flushed painfully: "I confess that dear Miss Pepper's person +is not so beautiful as her nature, but, Winnie, it is the cause of doing +good and trying to be good that draws us together so closely; and of +course I do not love her as I love you, my dear, precious first friend."</p> + +<p>These last words were full of balm, for of course it was the sting of +jealousy that had made my heart resent the venerable Pepper's powerful +influence over my dear Bessie. Being once assured that it was a +second-rate power, and that I still held my supremacy, I entered into the +Sunday-school question like a second Raikes, and volunteered to help, and +try to learn the way to the young hearts that beat under the pugilistic +exterior of the juveniles of Canon lane, where the mission chapel was.</p> + +<p>Then, having become one on this serious subject, we began to wonder what +Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the +verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made his +latest stumble.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tanner thinks it was something about a journey, and she is quite out +of sorts on the subject: for, as she says, the house can't be shut up +without worriment, and as to staying in it alone she really has not got +the nerve."</p> + +<p>"I do not think that Uncle Pennyman will interpret it that way, because he +cannot go too, as he is at present very deep in the minor prophets, and +has fallen out of humor with all the commentaries."</p> + +<p>"I am so glad!" said Bessie, placidly--"so glad, I mean, that we need not +go: I think every one must find his life-work at home."</p> + +<p>I stared a little at this, because I knew that only a few months before +Bessie Haines had wanted very much to find style and fashion abroad; but I +remembered the Sunday-school, and tried to be as serious and convinced as +I could; and to that end I talked a good deal of church interests, and the +prophecies, and <i>Light in Obscurity</i>, a new work which had utterly +confused me at the first chapter, but which I had read through to Uncle +Pennyman one warm July day when he stayed at home to keep Tom's birth-day.</p> + +<p>That reminds me: I have not mentioned Tom, but as he was away at college, +and Bessie never seemed to like to talk of him--I'm sure I can't see +why--it is quite natural that he slipped out of my memory.</p> + +<p>He was a ward of Uncle Pennyman, who called him his son, and indeed had +adopted him formally.</p> + +<p>How two such opposite people ever came to love each other as they did, I +never can explain. It was not a natural, commonplace affection: it was a +strong, deep, earnest love, as firm in the hearts of both as the life that +caused their throbbings.</p> + +<p>Tom was wild and full of frolic: if there is a graver word than gravity, +it should be used to describe Uncle Pennyman's demeanor. Tom was quick and +restless by nature, but his good sense and determination to make a niche +for himself in life, and fill it respectably, had toned down his exuberant +spirits into active energy; while Uncle Penny man's naturally slow +tendencies had become aggravated by the ponderous character of his +pursuits and tastes: all hurry was obnoxious to him, and he firmly +believed that haste was another name for sin. Yet the solemn, slow old man +loved the busy, merry young one, and neither saw any fault or failing in +the other.</p> + +<p>There was no earthly relationship between Thomas Gray Pennyman and me, and +yet I was always spoken of as his sister by my dear, worrying old uncle. +Tom did not seem to like it, and I knew I did not.</p> + +<p>People often said to me, "What a splendid brother you have, Miss Pennyman +but what a pity that all these handsome brothers have to be given up to +stronger ties!"</p> + +<p>How utterly silly! I never had any patience with such nonsense.</p> + +<p>There was not much comfort in talking to Bessie about him. I'm sure I do +not know why, but I suppose she saw that I avoided the subject; so I was +really quite surprised when she said to me, laughing and looking a little +mischievous--</p> + +<p>"Mr. Tom is to join us by and by, your uncle says. I hope we may be able +to make it pleasant for him. I believe he likes Mrs. Tanner: he used to +like her buns when he was a boy, and I hope he has not forgotten the +fancy."</p> + +<p>Tom coming to visit the Haines! Such a thing had never happened before, +and must mean something now. I began to feel quite uneasy, though I really +could not have explained why.</p> + +<p>We never had much of my uncle's or Mr. Haines' society except in the +evening: they spent the day going about together and worrying texts of +Scripture with other good old men, before whom Mr. Haines liked to show +off uncle's Bible knowledge. They took some pious excursions in company, +and had a solemnly festive time, I have no doubt, for they always came in +looking perfectly satisfied with the result of their day.</p> + +<p>It generally took some time to hear the dream and find its proper +interpretation. While it was pending the expounder generally gave out his +puzzling verses, and then both pondered a good while before they arrived +at their conclusions and made them known.</p> + +<p>Both the dream and the text must have been of an unusually difficult +nature this time, for a whole week went by without either transpiring; and +although Bessie and I watched for some allusions to them in our morning +and evening family worship, at which the two good men officiated +alternately, yet not a hint could we gain until one night at the end of +the week it seemed from Uncle Pennyman's prayer that the matter in some +wise referred to Bessie, since Divine guidance was sought under many +rhetorical forms for the welfare, future and temporal, of "the young +handmaiden, the daughter of thy servant, who would fain know thy will +concerning her."</p> + +<p>"Bessie," said I that night, when we got up stairs, "I think I have found +out what your father's last dream was: I solemnly believe that he means to +send you out as a missionary."</p> + +<p>Now I thought I had said something calculated to make Bessie turn pale and +gasp, but I could scarcely believe it when I looked up, expecting to find +her almost fainting, and saw her pensively, but by no means alarmedly, +shaking her head.</p> + +<p>"I am not devoted enough, Winnie, love," she remarked. "I have not the +grand self-abnegating spirit necessary for such a work. No; mine is a home +field."</p> + +<p>If I had not known about the young warriors of Canon lane, I should have +thought her demented: as it was, I could scarcely wait for the next day, +which was Sunday, to be introduced to the scene which had already produced +such a marked change in her character and tastes.</p> + +<p>It transpired during breakfast that Uncle Pennyman's peace had been +disturbed by a verse in the book of Nahum, that talked about the lions and +lionesses, and their whelps and prey, in what appeared to him a mysterious +manner. Mr. Haines, who was a dear, good man, elaborated it so that we all +felt as if we had made a visit to the Zoological Gardens, and afterward +been carried into Babylonish captivity. My uncle followed his words with a +brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed and +long-syllabled, he would exclaim softly,</p> + +<p>"It is a great gift! a great gift!" and seem really overcome with the +magnitude of his friend's powers.</p> + +<p>I never saw any harm in Uncle Pennyman's texts: they never worried any one +but himself; though I must confess that verse about Ephraim being a cake +not turned affected us a little. But that was because he had the ague, and +Mr. Haines was attending some kind of convention; and what with the +chills, and that unexplained cake of Ephraim's, we were kept a little +uncomfortable for a time.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Haines' visions were perplexing: no one could tell where their +signification might point; and this sending for Tom (of course he would +never have thought of coming if he had not been sent for) made me quite +uneasy.</p> + +<p>I began to fear that this would be the first time I had ever gone to see +Bessie without enjoying the visit; and as we walked along to Canon Lane +Chapel together, her manner was so absent and fluttered that I really did +not know what to do.</p> + +<p>"It is a delightful and meritorious thing to be pious, no doubt," I said +to myself, "but it has not improved the manner of my dear Bessie: on the +contrary, I should say it has entirely shaken her nerves, and given her +palpitation of the heart."</p> + +<p>When we reached the chapel we found quite a number and variety of youths +already collected around the door, and when we went into a large and airy +room, well lighted and filled with seats, a goodly selection awaited us +there.</p> + +<p>A lady stood on a small platform with a bell in her hand: she had a large, +bony figure, and a long, bony face, and turned her eyes toward us without +changing their expression into any beam of recognition, as she used her +voice without any softening tone or tender cadence whatever:</p> + +<p>"Miss Haines, good-afternoon. Mary Bryan, where's your brother? John Mott, +you have dropped your tract. Miss Pennyman, glad to see you. Sarah Harper, +give your sister a seat."</p> + +<p>Bessie had pushed me on her attention between the monotonous sentences she +jerked out at her scholars, and she gave me five words just like the rest, +and dropped me off again.</p> + +<p>Bessie seemed to become calmer after she had looked around the room once +in a hasty, fluttered way, and placing a chair for me, she threw herself +energetically into her philanthropic work.</p> + +<p>I never knew before what a serious thing it was to be a Sunday-school +teacher, or how varied the requirements for such duty were. Thirst seemed +to be a prevailing agony among the scholars, and it seized its victims as +an epidemic does--without warning. They would just reach their seats and +drop into them listlessly, or gain them by energetic contest with some +previous intruder, and after an empty stare around them would be taken +with a sudden pang, expressed in writhing, shaking the right hand wildly +and gasping, "Teacher, I want a drink! I want a drink!"</p> + +<p>Then they were subject to a terrible vacillation on the subject of their +hats: they would almost consign them to the care of a monitor appointed to +hang them on the pegs made and provided, when a sense of their +preciousness would suddenly present itself to their minds, and they would +rescue them wildly, and throw themselves on the defensive while they sat +upon or otherwise protected the contested article of dress.</p> + +<p>There were six windows with broad sills in the room, and every child +seemed beset with a passionate desire to leave its seat and lodge itself +in a surreptitious manner on one of these perches, as if they had been +posts of honor.</p> + +<p>Whether bits of bright tin, glass bottle-stoppers, ends of twine, broken +sticks and marbles were accessions to biblical instruction, or were only +so considered by the pupils themselves, did not transpire, but poor Bessie +seemed to find them stumbling-blocks in her path, and Miss Pepper had no +sooner confiscated one lot than another appeared in circulation and broke +the story of Joseph's coat into a parenthetical narrative:</p> + +<p>"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental +regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he +prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John +Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The +bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and, +Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and +bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in +Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will +leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the +bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little +conscious (Dicky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and +prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another +drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!"</p> + +<p>Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do +good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with +children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was +a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious +firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the +minds of little ones.</p> + +<p>I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I +saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice, +interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved +boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to +thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin, +wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set, +hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss +Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with +words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and +inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a +moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her +words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the +thin and the square face.</p> + +<p>"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the +injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed--</p> + +<p>"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at +me."</p> + +<p>Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of +Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced +to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly +grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a +new feature was added to the scene.</p> + +<p>I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear +girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and +made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and +good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his +appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He +gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt +anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown +away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh +dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's +self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry +purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper +like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every +single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which +individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul +addressed.</p> + +<p>He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a +little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the +machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there +with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be +helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little +at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite +self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and +more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he +planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with +personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have +better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have +liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a +strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the +attraction irresistible.</p> + +<p>I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he +closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I +saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was +being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as +pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted +hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted +to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom +Bessie had the good sense to appreciate.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my +prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was +the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, +she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and +taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school +to his church duties in a different quarter.</p> + +<p>"Bessie, does your father know--?" I began as we went homeward together.</p> + +<p>She interrupted me: "About Miss Pepper? Oh yes, indeed! She called to ask +his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice +since.</p> + +<p>"You know I don't mean her at all," I said, laughing. "I mean her nephew, +Bessie Haines."</p> + +<p>But Bessie faltered: she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was +evident they had not spoken so to each other yet. She knew she loved and +was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it +was yet unavowed between them.</p> + +<p>"All I am afraid of, Bess," said I, determined to make her practical, for +she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all +their days--"all I am afraid of is, that your father's vision may threaten +your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why +should uncle keep praying for you as a 'young damsel,' and 'handmaiden,' +and 'female pilgrim,' and all that?"</p> + +<p>Bessie seemed troubled, but she could not be brought to confidence until +the minister had opened his heart to her. I saw that, and though I had +never had a warning dream in my life, I felt it was my mission to help +her.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Charles and I had had a little, a very little, talk, but I saw +that Bessie had named me to him--that pleased me; that he was very +desirous of gaining my good-will--that pleased me too. So I had happened +to say that I admired church architecture, particularly Gothic: some one +had said that his church belonged to that style, and he immediately, +offered to take us to examine it. I asked him to call for us next day, and +he delightedly promised that he would.</p> + +<p>I told Bessie, and the ungrateful creature was alarmed and nervous, and +gave way to all sorts of nonsense; but I consoled her and admired him in a +way that seemed to give her satisfaction. The next morning I made a +startling discovery. I went into the little bookroom that opened out of +the great old-fashioned back parlor, where uncle and Mr. Haines sat every +morning with Scott and Clarke and Cruden open before them: I went in very +quietly, and didn't make much noise when there. Mr. Haines was talking in +a slow, set way, and I could hear the scratching of a pen over stiff +paper.</p> + +<p>"Would you mention my reasons for recording this, my dear Daniel?" he said +to Uncle Pennyman.</p> + +<p>"I have set them down at the commencement," said my uncle, who was acting +as scribe. "I have said that, your mind being clear and your feelings at +ease, you retired to your couch on the night of the 28th of October; that +the form of your dear wife seemed waiting for you, since you became +conscious of her presence immediately after your sinking asleep; and so +on."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Haines, witty a deep sigh: "it is a great thing, no doubt, +to be so guided in the visions of the night, and I have many times +considered myself greatly favored by the knowledge of the ministry of my +dear wife's blessed spirit; but, friend Daniel, if she had been a little +more explicit in this instance it would have been a great comfort to me. +Follow me now, friend Daniel. You have got it down to where she spoke. +Well, she raised her hand and seemed to point to the couch of Dorcas +Elizabeth" (that was what Bess had been baptized, and was called by her +father on solemn occasions)--"my thoughts had been dwelling on the child, +and her increasing age and future duties--and she said, 'Marry her wisely +to Thomas,' and repeated the words three times."</p> + +<p>I heard the scratching pen and Mr. Haines' depressed, uncertain sigh, and +my own heart sank heavily. There was no Thomas to marry her to but our +Tom, and such a thing was simply preposterous and wicked. I could not, I +would not, bear even to think of it.</p> + +<p>Oh, good Mrs. Haines, departed so long ago! why should you come back +troubling us about such, things? and, above all, why could you not as well +have said Charles as Thomas?</p> + +<p>"I have that set down," said Uncle Pennyman. Mr. Haines sighed again in +that anxious, uncertain way of his:</p> + +<p>"During the first day after the visitation, Daniel, I could not recall +whether my wife's appearance said, 'To Thomas, marry her wisely,' or as we +now put it down; but since you have set it clearly before me, and your son +will so soon be here, I feel that I am justified in having it stated in +that way, and that Providence is guiding me."</p> + +<p>Oh how my heart rose against Uncle Pennyman as I listened! He was the one +to blame for such a shameful, foolish notion stealing into Mr. Haines' +head! Left to himself, any name would have suited him equally well, and +here was Tom's thrust in without any earthly reason. It was really +dreadful! I could scarcely stand on my feet when I remembered how Tom +loved his adopted father, and with what unselfish devotion he always spoke +of him. "If he's told that it will be a family blessing, he never will +have the heart to deny them and grieve Uncle Pennyman. Poor Tom! he is so +shockingly unselfish himself that he would rather enjoy a sacrifice than +otherwise, I suppose." So ran my thoughts, and I grew desperate. +Desperation awakens courage. Tom would be there in the evening, and if +anything could be done it had to be done at once.</p> + +<p>I slipped out silently as I came: no one heard me. I did not mean that +they should do so, for, to confess the truth, I was listening on purpose. +I dressed to go out with Mr. Pepper; so did Bessie, though I must say she +was very nervous and uncertain about it. "You know papa does not know him +in--in the character of a friend of mine," she said, hesitatingly. "Miss +Pepper introduced him, and that is all."</p> + +<p>"But that is no reason why it should be all," I said to myself, and paid +no attention to her little bashful fussiness.</p> + +<p>When he arrived, I saw in his eyes that he meant to take advantage of the +opportunity I was making for him, and so I boldly carried out my plan. We +started, and had gone a block or two when I discovered that they were +becoming unaware of my existence and completely absorbed in each other. +"Poor dears!" I thought, "let them have a still better chance." So I +stopped in the most natural way possible at a window where trimmings were +displayed, and began to stare at some ribbon. "The very shade!" I said: "I +would not miss it for anything. Pray go on slowly, and I'll join you +presently. Keep on till you reach the church--I know the way. And be sure +you stay till I come. No, you shall not come in: I insist that you go +right on, and do not bother. I have a sort of pride in making bargains, +and they never can be made in company, you know." I laughed and wouldn't +listen to their waiting, and managed it so well that they went away as +unsuspecting and tender as two lambs. I waited till they were out of +sight, and then I started straight for home.</p> + +<p>I was in high glee till Mrs. Tanner came up stairs.</p> + +<p>"There are great preparations making for Mr. Tom," said she with a +portentous face. "Mr. Haines has given more orders about his reception +than I ever knew him to issue before; and, what seems strange, he actually +insists on my calling him Mr. Thomas, when I never can get my tongue round +anything but Mr. Tom, in the world."</p> + +<p>Both seemed threatening--the preparations and the name; and when Mrs. +Tanner asked where Miss Bessie was, and heard that she had gone out, she +shook her head and said that she was afraid her pa wouldn't like it. This +convinced me that she too had guessed the nature of the vision, and made +me more than ever anxious to save poor Bessie and Tom from mutual +unhappiness. The first effort was made, and I must consider the next step. +I felt nearly sure that by this time the two dear Sunday-school workers +had become personal in their conversation, and taking up my position on +the broad sofa in the quiet, shady back parlor, I set myself to thinking +out the plan. It was a great, solidly-furnished old room, staid and +handsome like the rest of the house, and meant for comfort in every +particular. Over the mantelpiece, and directly opposite to me, was a +life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of +expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a +baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her +daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so +dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the +family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while +there was a living opportunity.</p> + +<p>I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman +without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the +circumstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to +have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time +to question the feeling until I was sound asleep.</p> + +<p>A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate, +for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my +presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed +shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly +under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and, +although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his +heart.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie +too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is +selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid."</p> + +<p>He told her I was too good, too lovable to quarrel with their bliss, and +held her to his heart while he looked up to the flaxed-haired, baby-faced +mother for a blessing with quite a glow of feeling on his face and real +tears in his eyes.</p> + +<p>There was something in mine I suppose, for when I looked too I could +scarcely believe them: the portrait seemed to show a different face +entirely. The blue eyes bent down on those upturned to meet them with a +look I had never beheld in them before, and the delicate little pink mouth +seemed to tremble with a blessing.</p> + +<p>"Am I dreaming?" I almost asked it aloud, and the question and the sound +of Uncle Pennyman's voice in the book-room gave me a new idea. Softly I +slipped from my place and out at the open door, leaving the absorbed ones +to themselves, and joined my uncle and Mr. Haines where they were +preparing for another conflict with the commentators.</p> + +<p>"I have had a dream," I said solemnly.</p> + +<p>"A dream!" repeated they.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and it was so lifelike that I must tell it to you, for I am +convinced it is no common warning, but one full of meaning and truth."</p> + +<p>They gazed at me blankly, and I went on, fearing to stop an instant lest I +should lose my courage:</p> + +<p>"I was lying on the sofa opposite Mrs. Haines' portrait--"</p> + +<p>"The very place where I lay when last I dreamed," murmured her husband.</p> + +<p>"And I saw Bessie and a gentleman hand in hand beneath it, looking up into +the sweet face for a blessing; and oh such a heavenly smile lighted it +while the beautiful lips seemed to murmur, 'She will marry wisely, dear +Thomas!'"</p> + +<p>Mr. Haines was so shaken by my words that my heart misgave me. He covered +his face with his hands. "She used to call me dear Thomas," he said, and +the tears ran through his fingers.</p> + +<p>"Then the name was <i>yours</i>" said Uncle Pennyman with weighty +consideration. "You remember I said it was capable of a double +application: those things are wonderful, and interpret each other. Winnie, +my dear girl, could you distinguish this person's face?"</p> + +<p>Before I could answer, Mrs. Tanner at the door said, "Here's Mr. Tom, +bless his heart! I never can learn to call him anything else."</p> + +<p>Tom was <i>so</i> glad to see me! Yes, I may as well tell it, for it told +itself: dear Tom never seemed so glad before.</p> + +<p>"Was it his face, Winnie?" whispered Mr. Haines.</p> + +<p>If ever <i>No</i> was said with energy and decision, it was in my reply. The +parlor door opened just as we were about to go in all together, shaking +hands and making kind speeches over Tom, and Bessie and the Rev. Charles +appeared in the act of taking leave of each other.</p> + +<p>"That's the face!" I cried dramatically; and then I really and truly did +faint--stone dead, as Mrs. Tanner said afterward--for I was not used to +telling lies, and even white ones were exciting things to tell, and +scarcely justified themselves to my conscience by the magnitude of the +good they were to do.</p> + +<p>When I came to myself, Bessie was hanging over me with all the love she +had left from Mr. Charles, I suppose; and I heard Mr. Haines and Uncle +Pennyman talking with Tom, and trying to explain to him the remarkable +nature of the vision that had overcome me. I sat up, and tried to laugh +and declare that it was nothing at all, though my heart kept throbbing.</p> + +<p>"You have all had dreams," said Tom: "you have yet to hear mine. Uncle, I +dreamed that Winnie and I loved each other, and that I asked you for her +and you said yes."</p> + +<p>"No, Thomas," said Uncle Pennyman gravely, but with a kind of breaking +about his mouth: "your eyes were open when you had that vision, and you +must not jest with serious subjects. But it is well you mentioned it, dear +boy, and it is well our child Winnie received such a remarkable direction, +since it throws light on friend Haines' visitation, and apparently the +happiness of that excellent young minister and our dear Bessie here."</p> + +<p>"The young man has just expressed himself in corroboration of the vision," +said Mr. Haines, much affected.</p> + +<p>Bessie threw her arms round her father, then round me, and then she ran +away. Mr. Haines and Uncle Pennyman went out to their commentaries, Mrs. +Tanner to see to her buns: Tom and I were alone.</p> + +<p>"What is this about, Winnie darling?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Tom," said I, "we are all the victims of dreams."</p> + +<p class="author">Margaret Hosmer.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st03"> +<h2>The Cold Hand.</h2> + + + +<p>There is a rocky hill in what was till recently the town of Dorchester, +looking out over Boston Bay. It takes its name from the stiff black savins +with which it is covered, and which contrive to find nourishment and +support in the rock to which they cling. Some of these trees show their +great age by their gnarled and knotted trunks and boughs. Black and +impassive they stand, alike in the brightest summer or the grayest winter, +sighing restlessly in the breeze, but wailing piteously when the sea-winds +sweep over the hill. Partway up the little rocky eminence stands an old +house, now fast falling to pieces. It is a low building, with a gambrel +roof and a huge chimney. It has stood there many years, for it was built +not long after the Revolution, and it might have stood many years more had +it not been suffered to go to decay with a carelessness which seemed to +belie the general thrift of the town.</p> + +<p>Wandering over the hill one bright winter day, with no companion but a +large dog, I stopped to look in at the window of the old house. The glass +was gone from the sash, and the sash itself was broken in many places; but +the obscurity was so deep within that I obtained only a partial glimpse of +an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I +felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its +forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where +the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of +everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect +it offers to few of the natives. The front door was locked, but I obtained +an entrance without difficulty at the back, and made my way through a +little shed, which was evidently of more modern construction than the main +part of the building. I came first into the kitchen, where was a large +fireplace blackened with the smoke of long-dead fires, and a narrow, high +mantelpiece. A little cupboard was let into the side of the great chimney, +which projected far across the floor. The room was long and narrow, +running the whole length of the house, with a window at each end. The +blackened plaster was dropping from the walls and ceiling, exposing in +some places the heavy beams, and the floor was dark and discolored with +age and dust, although quite firm to the tread. By a low door I passed +into a small room lighted by two windows--one in front, the other at the +end of the house, and presenting the same appearance of desolate decay. +There were four doors in this room--the one through which I had just +entered, another leading to the rooms above, a third, secured by a bolt, +which I did not then open, and a fourth leading into a narrow passage, in +which was the locked front door. I crossed this passage, and found myself +in a room of the same size as the one I had just left. It was that into +which I had attempted to look from the outside. Here I missed the dog, who +had hitherto followed me, though with seeming reluctance, and no +persuasion could induce him to cross the threshold. This room was in +rather better repair than were the other two. There was the same high +mantelpiece, rather less narrow, and the same little cupboard let into the +massive chimney. The floor was less discolored, but there was a deep burnt +spot on it near the fireplace, as if some one had dropped a shovelful of +hot coals, or rather as if some corrosive fluid had been spilled. I +remained here a few moments, idly wondering what might have been the +history of the former tenants, and what could have induced any one to +build a house in a spot so bleak and exposed, where scarcely a pretence of +soil offered itself for a garden. As I stood there, a singular impression +came upon me that I was not alone. For a moment, and a moment only, I +became conscious of another presence in the room. The impression passed as +suddenly as it had come, but, transient as it was, it awoke me from my +reverie. Smiling at myself for the fancy, I recrossed the passage and +ascended the steep, narrow winding stairs to the chambers above. There +were four small rooms, opening one into the other, with a closet +partitioned off in each, and so low that in the highest part a tall man +could but just have stood upright. Here the ruin was farther advanced. The +floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the +ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining +portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through +the roof. The place had a lonesome, forlorn look, even more than usually +belongs to a deserted house, though such might not have been its aspect to +other than my unaccustomed Western eyes.</p> + +<p>Turning, I made my way down the short staircase, and was about to leave +the house when the third door, as yet unopened, caught my eye. I drew with +some difficulty the rusted bolt, and found myself at the head of a steep +flight of stairs, seemingly longer than that which I had just descended. +It led to the cellar, and though the afternoon was getting on, I thought I +would finish my exploration, and therefore went down, though repelled by +the close and peculiarly damp air. The cellar was blasted and hewn in the +solid rock to a depth which, considering the extreme hardness of the +stone, seemed remarkable in a house so unpretending. A dim light made its +way through a narrow window at each end and fell upon the stone floor. I +walked forward, looking up at the windows, but I had not taken ten steps +before I recoiled with a start. At my feet lay a pit, seemingly of +considerable depth, and filled with water to within four feet of the top. +The cellar did not lie under the kitchen, but only under the two front +rooms and the passage, and this pit occupied the whole length and fully +half the breadth of the space of the rooms above, and, what was more +peculiar, seemed to extend even farther forward than the house itself. +Another step, and I should have fallen into it. Curious to try its depth, +I picked up a little fragment of stone and dropped it in. As the stone +touched the water, and the circles on the sullen surface began to widen, a +current of air rushed down the stairs, and the door above shut violently. +At that moment the impression which I had experienced in the room above +came back upon me with tenfold distinctness, and was accompanied with a +feeling of exceeding horror. It seemed as if there was closing around me +some evil influence, from which I could only escape by instant flight. For +one moment I resisted the unreasonable terror, and made an attempt to +explain, or at least analyze, a sensation so unwonted: the next, the +loathing dread grew too strong. I turned and hurried across the damp +floor, up the narrow stairs, and, opening the door, made my way as quickly +as possible into the outside air. The dog was waiting for me in the little +shed, and seemed delighted at seeing me again. I closed the door, ashamed +of my senseless fright, but nevertheless I was thankful that I had found +no trouble in getting out. I am not quite prepared to say, however, that +these sudden and apparently unreasonable starts are independent of +external causes. The Vermont-bred horse will be thrown into an agony of +fright when the closed cage of a lion passes by, though he has never +learned by experience that lions will kill horses, and though the lion +himself is unseen.</p> + +<p>I walked briskly home. I had some distance to go, and had quite lost the +impression of my ghostly terror when I reached the house where I was +staying, a modern shingle Gothic erection, which in vain endeavored to +disguise its barny appearance with sundry wooden adornments modeled after +crochet-work.</p> + +<p>"Freda," said I to my friend after tea, when she and I were sitting +comfortably by the fire in the library, "do you know anything about the +old yellow-gray house up on the hill?"</p> + +<p>"Why, what of it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, only I went into it to-day. What is its history?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing particular. It was built for a Doctor Haywood. Have you read +Alp's last essay on the Semi-occasional?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and great stuff it is."</p> + +<p>Freda looked inexpressibly shocked. I had better have condemned law and +gospel together than made light of Alp; but she put up with it, probably +considering it excusable as the utterance of a savage from the wilds of +New York.</p> + +<p>"Never mind him now. He shall proclaim his figs in the name of the Prophet +for all time if you will tell me about the old house. I know it has a +story."</p> + +<p>She rose and took from the drawer an old manuscript volume, which she +placed in my hands. It was a little note-book, in which the entries were +made not from day to day, but at irregular intervals, in a singularly +clear, precise hand:</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 3, 1784. This day my neighbor Ball's cow, getting out of the +pasture and running on the highway, was put in the pound. Took her out, +and cautioned my neighbor to have more care of the creature. <i>Mem.:</i> To +bespeak a pair of shoes for her eldest girl.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 1, 1785. This day the wind very high.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 10. Neighbor Ball's cow, getting among my wife's rosebushes, did +do some damage, whereat she was much vexed. Caught the said cow, and +begged my neighbor to keep her at home, which she promised to do, but in +an hour back again. However, she is a widow.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 13. Doctor Haywood, newly come to this place from the old country, +has taken lodging with Neighbor Ball. Said to be a learned man--has much +baggage, and they say some curious machines. Is curious about plants and +the like. Neighbor Ball did hint to my wife that he knew about matters +better let alone, whereat my wife did tell her that she wished he would +give her a charm to keep her cow out of our yard.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jan.</i> 15. Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the hill, and is to build upon +it. Has spoken to me about it. Have drawn the plan, and shall make the +estimate.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 1. Doctor Haywood hurries on the work--says he is in haste to get +into his own house. Saw Indian Will to-day, quite drunk. With much trouble +got him to our house, where my wife did let him lie in the kitchen all +night. Had she not done so, the poor man might have frozen to death before +morning, for it was a very cold night. Argued with him in the morning, +whereat he promised amendment.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 10. My daughter Faithful this day, with my consent, promised +herself to John Clark, skipper of the Federalist schooner.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 18. Blasting out the cellar for Haywood's house. He wants it more +than common deep--says it makes the house warm.</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 21. Came this day upon a great hollow in the rock filled with +water, which ran in as soon as pumped but. The doctor much displeased at +first--talked of beginning over again, but finally contented himself.</p> + +<p>"<i>June</i> 3. Doctor Haywood moved into his house this day. Has much curious +stuff. The minister says he is a chemist.</p> + +<p>"<i>June</i> 8. Went up to the doctor's house to settle with him. He came to +the door and said he was too busy then, but would drop round soon. They +say he lets no one inside the place since he moved. Has taken a pew in the +meeting-house, and comes once of a Sabbath. + +"<i>July</i> 22. Doctor Haywood and me did settle accounts. He beat everything +down to the last penny--offered to pay part in attendance on my family if +sick. Did not care to settle that way, knowing his charges. Charged James +Sumner five dollars for one visit to his child, which child, nevertheless, +he did greatly help.</p> + +<p>"<i>August</i> 18. News came this day that the Federalist went down in the gale +of the tenth, off Marblehead, with all on board. A sore affliction to my +daughter Faithful. The Lord's will be done!</p> + +<p>"<i>August</i> 26. Neighbor Ball's eldest girl gets lower. Doctor Cray does no +good. She would call in Doctor Haywood if she dared, but his charges are +so high. James Sumner and me did consult together and agree to take the +charges between us. I have heard say that he has helped several poor +people free: did especially help Indian Will when he lay like to die of +pleurisy at Neponset Village.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 1. Neighbor Ball, going up the hill last night to call Doctor +Haywood to her daughter Hepsey, did tell my wife that she had a look into +the south room as he opened the door, and that there were queer things +there, such as a brick furnace, all red with fire; and she did say, too, +that she saw things like snakes, only thin like mist, twisting about in +the air by the firelight, which I do hold to be her own invention or mere +foolish notions.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 2. Doctor Haywood has helped Hepsey Ball some considerable, +though he says he cannot cure her, for she has consumption.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 16. Doctor Haywood told James Sumner and me that he would ask +nothing for attending Hepsey Ball, but would keep on to ease her what he +could as long as she lived. He told my wife she might last a year.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 3. Jonathan Phelps told me that Doctor Haywood had borrowed one +hundred dollars of him, giving security on the house and lot.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 8. James Sumner this day, his wife being dead a year, did ask my +daughter Sophonisba to marry him, the which she did refuse, and snapped +him off too short. Then he spoke to Faithful, and she burst out crying and +ran up stairs, and could by no means be got to listen. Recommended James +to Hannah Gardner.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nov.</i> 16. Doctor Hay wood this day borrowed fifty dollars of me. If he +had not been so considerate to Widow Ball should not have felt like +letting it go.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 16. Coming home from Boston last night, overtook Indian Will. He +showed me a big iron tobacco-box nearly full of money--silver, with two +gold-pieces, one a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. He got +it for a lot of deer-skins in Boston. Begged him not to drink it all up, +which he said he would not do, but would give it to his squaw. Did ask him +to come home with me, which he refused, as he meant to go on to Neponset +Village.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 17. The wind blowing these two days to the land made it very high +water, coming nearly up to Governor Stoughton's elm, and covering the +road.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 18. A great gale last night--much damage at sea, doubtless. The +water very high.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 19. Two men out in a boat found an old hat and blanket floating by +the Point, said to belong to Indian Will: no one has seen him since the +16th. Likely he went to the tavern and got drunk, so missed his way and +was drowned by the tide.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 20, Last night Indian Will's body came ashore, much beaten by the +rocks, but known to be his by those who knew him. The verdict was, +'Drowned by the tide.'</p> + +<p>"<i>Feb.</i> 11, 1786. Doctor Haywood spent the evening at our house. He has +been more social of late, going a good deal among people, especially poor +people, to help them. Has never paid me the fifty dollars, but makes +promises. I was led on to speak of Indian Will. The doctor said the night +of the 16th he thought he heard some one cry out, but thought it some +drunken person, and besides was busy with his studies, and so did not +mind. My wife asked him what he studied. He said a good many different +matters, but that he had given it all up now, and meant to practice. +Shortly after jumped up and went away very sudden."</p> + +<p>Here the journal came to an abrupt end. The rest of the book was filled +with accounts relating to the business of a milliner and dressmaker. +Slipped in between its leaves were two letters, written in a cramped, +scratchy hand and rather irregular in spelling. They were directed to +Sophonisba T----, Salem, Massachusetts, and seemed to be from a mother to +her daughter:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "DORCHESTER, May 1, 1786.</p> + +<p> "My Dear Child: I take my pen in hand to let you knew that we are all in + good health, and hope you are enjoying the same blessing. James Sumner + is married to Hannah Gardner. Most people think she will have her hands + full with his children. Parson H---- married them. She wore a blue silk + at two dollars the yard. Hepsey Ball is dead. She departed this life on + the 29th of April, at half-past eight in the evening, being quite + resigned and in good hope of her election to grace. She had not much + pain at the last. Doctor Haywood called to see her in the morning, and + she being then, as we thought, asleep, did start up and cry out that + there was a black shadow, not his own, always following after him, which + made me think her light-headed; but her mother says the doctor turned as + pale as a sheet, and made as if to go off again. Your sister Faithful is + at Mr. Trueman's, helping to make up Lorenda's wedding-clothes. I would + not have had her go, but she seemed willing to undertake it. Your loving + mother, ANNA T----."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The second was also addressed to Sophonisba, who on the 3d of June was yet +visiting friends in Salem. After a few details of domestic news, it went +on:</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"><p> "Doctor Haywood is missing: no one knows where he is gone. He has been + looked for in Boston, but they have found no news of him; only that a + little black boy says he saw a man like him go on board a ship bound for + the East Indies. Now he is gone, they find he owes money to a great many + besides your father. He owes to people in Boston for drugs and + medicines--some, it is said, very costly, and sent for express to the + old country. Mr. Sewell, the bookseller there, says he tried to dispose + of his books to him; and when he did not buy them, thinks he sent them + to the old country. He owes every one he could get to trust him. It is + odd what he did with all the money. It is thought Jonathan Phelps will + get the house. They went up to it and found the door unlocked. They + found nothing in the house but the furniture, and that very common and + cheap. There were none of all those things they said he had; only in the + south room a lot of bottles and jars, and a brick place built up with a + vent outside, which Parson H---- says is a furnace such as folks use + that study chemistry. There was a great heap of ashes in the fireplace, + as if he had burned papers or books there, and a great burned spot on + the floor right before it."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Who was the writer of these?" I asked as I refolded the little old +letter, "and what became of Doctor Haywood? Was nothing more heard?"</p> + +<p>In answer to these questions my friend gave the following narration.</p> + +<p>The writer of the journal was my great uncle, Silas T----. Sophonisba and +Faithful were my mother's cousins. Both were much older than she, but I +have often seen Faithful when I was a girl, and I had all the story there +is from herself. The little house on the hill fell into the hands of the +chief creditor, who took down the furnace in the south room and offered +the place to rent, but no tenant ever remained there long, either because +of the bleak situation or the want of a garden. There were rumors that the +place was not quite canny. One woman, indeed, went so far as to declare +that she had seen the doctor's figure, dim and unsubstantial, standing +before the fireplace in the twilight, and that once, as she came up the +cellar stairs, something followed her and laid a cold hand on her +shoulder; but as she was a nervous, hysterical person, and moreover was +known to be somewhat given to exaggeration, no one paid much attention to +her tale.</p> + +<p>It was certain, however, that there was a great deal of sickness in the +house. One family who rented the place lost three children by fever in one +summer, and it was remarkable that all three seemed to fall under the same +delusion, and insisted that something or some one, coming behind them, +laid upon their shoulders a cold hand. One of them, toward the last, said +that a shadow kept moving to and fro in the room, and kept the sunshine +all away. The woman who had seen the vision of the old doctor became a +widow the next month, and so much sickness and death took place in the +house that at last no one would live there, and it was shut up by its +owner.</p> + +<p>In due course of time the father and mother of Sophonisba and Faithful +were laid in Dorchester burial-ground. Mr. T---- had never been a rich man +by any means, and when he died there was little left for the two girls, +even after the sale of the homestead. They did not, however, consider +themselves poor, but with their fifteen hundred dollars in the bank and +their trade of milliner and dressmaker thought themselves very well to do +in the world. Sophonisba, the elder, was at that time a little under +fifty--an energetic, hard-working woman, with a constitution of wrought +iron and bend leather, and no more under the influence of what are called +"nerves" than if they had been left out of her system entirely. If ever a +woman was born into this world an old maid, it was Sophonisba T----. Her +fine name was the only romantic thing about her. She had had more than one +offer of marriage in her day, but she had no talent for matrimony, and had +turned such a very cold shoulder on her admirers that the swains became +dispirited, and betook themselves to the courtship of more impressible +damsels. There was no hidden romance or tale of unreturned affection in +Miss Sophonisba's experience. The simple fact was, she had never wished to +be married. Miss Faithful was five years her sister's junior. She had +never found room in her heart for a second love since John Clark went down +in the Federalist. She had been a young and pretty girl then, and now she +was a thin, silent, rather nervous little body, depending entirely upon +her sister with a helpless kind of affection that was returned on Miss +Sophonisba's part by a devotion which might almost be called passionate.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what it is, Faithful," said Miss Sophonisba one evening, as +they sat over their tea, "if they raise the rent on us here, I won't +stay."</p> + +<p>The sisters had lived in the house ever since the death of their mother, +five years before. Their business had prospered, and they were +conveniently situated, but, for all that, Miss Sophonisba had no mind to +pay additional rent.</p> + +<p>"No?" said Faithful, inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"That I won't! We pay all it's worth now, and more too. It ain't the extra +four shillings," said Miss Sophonisba, rubbing her spectacles in +irritation, "but I do hate to be imposed upon."</p> + +<p>"It will be some trouble to find a new place," suggested Miss Faithful +meekly, "and we can afford it, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"I don't care if we can afford it a dozen times over," said her sister, +with increased decision. "I won't be imposed upon. If I've got either to +drive or be driven, I'd rather drive."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Miss Faithful, who had never driven any living creature +in the whole course of her life.</p> + +<p>"I saw Peter Phelps to-day," said Miss Sophonisba, "and he says he'll let +us have the old house up on the hill for anything we like to give."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful gave a little start: "Would you like to live there, +Sophonisba?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's a good convenient situation, and plenty big enough for you and +me and the cat."</p> + +<p>"But you know," said Miss Faithful, timidly, "they have told such queer +stories about it." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "You don't +believe them, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"No," hesitated her sister, "but then one remembers them, you know. Widow +Eldridge always said she saw old Doctor Haywood there."</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba again. "You know perfectly well +you couldn't trust a word she said about anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sophonisba, she's dead!" said Miss Faithful, shocked.</p> + +<p>"I can't help that, child. It don't hinder her having told fibs all her +lifetime."</p> + +<p>"Her husband died the next month."</p> + +<p>"Well, so he might anywhere. My wonder is he lived as long as he did, +considering."</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Jones's three children died there."</p> + +<p>"Well, and didn't Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and +I never heard their place was haunted; and didn't two die out of the +Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town? It was a dreadful +sickly summer."</p> + +<p>"And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever."</p> + +<p>"Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything. Doctor Brown told me +himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and +there ain't anything so bad as that."</p> + +<p>The last vestige of a ghost was demolished: Miss Faithful had nothing more +to say.</p> + +<p>"It's nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off," said Miss +Sophonisba. "It ain't very probable he's alive now; and if he is, he won't +be very apt to come back: and if he is dead, he certainly won't. If he +did, I'd like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars. I +saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he'll fix the place all up for us if +we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd +spoken to you."</p> + +<p>"Just as you please, Sophonisba," said Miss Faithful.</p> + +<p>"He says he'll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and +let his man dig it up for us. I went up and looked at the house. It ain't +so much out of repair as you'd think."</p> + +<p>"Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?" asked Miss Faithful with some +interest.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw it--a great blackened place. Most likely he spilled some of +his chemical stuff on it."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba was not, as she expressed herself, one to let the grass +grow under her feet. She concluded the bargain for the house next day, and +informed their landlord--who, by the by, was a son of their old neighbor, +Widow Ball--of their intention to move. That gentleman was not at all +pleased at the idea of losing his tenants. In vain he offered to recede +from the obnoxious demand of four shillings more. Miss Sophonisba told him +that she had made up her mind, and that <i>she</i> wasn't in the habit of going +back from her bargains when she had given her word, whatever other people +might be.</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss T----," said Mr. Ball, "I hope you won't repent. They've said +queer things about that house ever since the old doctor went off so +mysterious. Some folks said he drowned himself in that place in the +cellar."</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "The old doctor never hurt any +one when he was alive, except by borrowing money of them, and it ain't +likely he'll want to do that now that he's dead; and if he did, I +shouldn't let him have it."</p> + +<p>"Well, my mother was in the house when Miss Eldridge came running up the +stairs as pale as a sheet, and said he came behind her and caught hold of +her shoulder."</p> + +<p>"Joanna Eldridge was always a poor, miserable, shiftless, narvy thing," +said Miss Sophonisba, "and half the time you couldn't believe a word she +said."</p> + +<p>"Well she was a connexion of our'n, Miss T----, and I always thought there +was something in it. Narves won't account for everything."</p> + +<p>"Well, I never trusted her a bit more for that," said Miss Sophonisba. "I +know one time she told mother a long story about how you sent in a bill +for shoes to Widow Sumner that James had paid you before he died, and she +said you'd have made her a deal of trouble if she hadn't ha' found the +receipt. A good many folks talked about it, but I always said it was just +one of Joanna's stories."</p> + +<p>Mr. Ball was put down, and took his leave.</p> + +<p>As soon as the necessary repairs were finished the sisters moved into the +house, and during that summer found reason to congratulate themselves on +their change of abode. The high, airy situation was very pleasant in warm +weather, and the view over the waters of the bay across to Boston and far +out to sea, with the coming and departing ships, afforded much pleasure +and a subject of conversation to the sisters. Their little garden on the +flat throve well, and was a source of never-ending interest. They had been +troubled by no ghostly visitations. Miss Sophonisba had indeed once heard +a mysterious noise in the cellar, but on going down stairs she found that +the cat had jumped on the hanging shelf and was helping herself out of the +milk-pan.</p> + +<p>The sisters were sitting one day toward the end of November--I think it +was the twenty-fifth--in the north room, which they had made their +work-room. The south room, according to the custom of our ancestors, still +religiously preserved among us, was shut up "for company." The kitchen +served them also for dining-room, and the largest room up stairs was their +bed-chamber. Miss Sophonisba was trimming a bonnet, a task for which she +had an especial gift. Ladies came to her even from Boston, saying that her +work had an air and style quite its own, while her charges were not nearly +so high as those of the more fashionable milliners in the city. Faithful +was altering a dress of her own. Both were much engaged with their work, +and neither had spoken for some time. Suddenly, Faithful started slightly, +and the needle dropped from her hand.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" asked her sister.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Faithful, rather confused.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "People don't jump that way for +nothing. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," hesitated Miss Faithful. "I guess I pricked my +finger."</p> + +<p>"Umph!" said Miss Sophonisba in a very incredulous way, but she pushed her +inquiries no farther.</p> + +<p>As soon as her sister was silent, Miss Faithful's conscience began to +chide her for her little evasion. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and +as often checked herself, but the third time the words were uttered: "If I +tell you, Sophonisba, you will laugh at me."</p> + +<p>"Well, that wouldn't kill you, child."</p> + +<p>"No; but--well--it was only that I thought all of a sudden some one was +standing behind my chair."</p> + +<p>"How could you think so when there was no one there?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but it felt as if there was."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Faithful! If you didn't see any one, how did you know there was +any one? Have you got eyes in the back of your head?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see it--I sort of felt so."</p> + +<p>"'Sort of felt so!'" said Miss Sophonisba, with good-natured contempt. "If +I was you, I'd take some catnip tea when I went to bed: you're kind of +narvy."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful assented, and went on quietly with her sewing, but she +changed the seat which she had occupied, with her back to the cellar door, +for one close to her sister.</p> + +<p>No further disturbance occurred till the middle of December. It had been a +very windy day. The bay was tossing in long gray-green lines of waves +crested with flying foam. The black savins sighed and wailed as they bent +to the cutting blast. The wind was east, and it took a good deal of fire +to keep the old house warm, but wood was cheap in those days, and Miss +Sophonisba, though prudent and economical, was not given to what New +England expressively calls "skrimping."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful, not feeling very well, had gone up stairs to bed soon after +tea. A windy day always made her uncomfortable, recalling, too vividly +perhaps, the gale in which the Federalist had gone down. Miss Sophonisba, +having some work on hand which she was anxious to finish, was sitting up +rather beyond her usual hour. Pausing for a moment in her sewing, she +heard some one walking about in the room above her to and fro, with a +regular though light step, as of bare or thinly-shod feet, on the boards.</p> + +<p>"Why, what can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about +barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put +down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly +lecture. To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other +living creature was in the room. It could not have been the cat this time, +for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs. Miss +Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a +repetition of the sound.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly. Miss Faithful started +from her sleep with a cry of terror. "Oh, I have had such a dream!" said +she, clinging to her sister.</p> + +<p>"What was it?" said Miss Sophonisba, soothing and quieting her like a +child.</p> + +<p>"I thought I was lying in bed just as I was, when all of a sudden I knew +that Something had come in, and was going up and down, up and down the +room."</p> + +<p>"What was it like?" asked her sister, rather impressed in spite of +herself.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't see: it was all shifty and mist-like--like the shadow of smoke +on the ground--and I couldn't tell if it was like a human being or not; +but it seemed to me as if I ought to know it and what it was, and as if it +was trying to make me understand something, and couldn't, just as it is +when the cat sits and looks at you. You know the creature wants something, +if she could tell what it was."</p> + +<p>"She wants something out of the cupboard most generally," said Miss +Sophonisba; "but go on."</p> + +<p>"And finally," said Miss Faithful with a nervous shudder, "after it had +gone back and forth two or three times--and I could hear it on the floor +too, just like some one walking in their stocking-feet--it came close up +to me and seemed to bend over me, or to be all around me in the air some +way--I can't tell you how--and I was dreadfully scared, and woke up."</p> + +<p>"It made a noise, did it?" said Miss Sophonisba.</p> + +<p>"Yes; and somehow the noise made me feel as if I ought to know what it +wanted and what it was."</p> + +<p>"It was the wind," said Miss Sophonisba. "It got mixed up in your dreams, +I expect. How it does blow!--fit to take the roof off. There! the cellar +door has started open. That latch doesn't catch: I must go down and bolt +it."</p> + +<p>At that moment the cat rushed up the short staircase from the lower room, +and springing on the bed, stood with bristling tail and glaring eyes, +intently watching the door.</p> + +<p>"Has she got a fit?" exclaimed Miss Sophonisba; and she put out her hand +to push the cat off, but it turned to Miss Faithful, who was sitting up in +bed, and crawling under the bed-clothes, lay there trembling and mewing in +a very curious fashion.</p> + +<p>"Some one has got in down stairs," said Miss Faithful, turning white. "Oh, +Sophonisba, we shall all be murdered!"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba, quite restored to herself at the thought +of actual danger. She caught up a great pair of tongs and started down +stairs, the candlestick in one hand, the tongs in the other, Miss +Faithful, who dared not stay behind, threw a shawl over her night-dress +and followed close at her sister's heels, while the cat crawled still +farther under the clothes, and refused to answer to Miss Sophonisba's +call. There was nothing unusual down stairs. The two outside doors were +locked, the fire was burning brightly, and Miss Sophonisba's work lay on +the table just as she had left it. The cellar door indeed, which latched +imperfectly, stood open.</p> + +<p>"Some one has come in and locked the door after them, and gone down +cellar," was Miss Faithful's whispered suggestion.</p> + +<p>"How could they?" said Miss Sophonisba. "We didn't hear any one; and +besides, they would have left their tracks on the floor this wet night; +but I'll go down and look. You stay here by the fire."</p> + +<p>But Miss Faithful preferred to follow her sister. They found nothing out +of place in the cellar, into which, if you remember, there is no outside +door. Every tub and barrel and milk-pan was in its place, and the surface +of the pit of water, which served the family as a cistern, was +undisturbed.</p> + +<p>"It must have been the door flying open that scared the cat," said Miss +Sophonisba, "Faithful, you're as white as a sheet. I shall just heat up +some elderberry wine and make you drink it;" which she did then and there, +and, no further disturbance taking place, the sisters went to bed. The +cat, however, whose usual place was by the kitchen fire, would not go down +stairs, and when at last turned out, she mewed so piteously and scratched +so persistently at the bed-room door that Miss Sophonisba gave way to her +and let her in to sleep all night at the foot of the bed.</p> + +<p>No further annoyance took place, nor was Miss Faithful troubled with a +repetition of her curious dream. The next week, however, as Miss +Sophonisba was in the kitchen making preparations for tea, she was +startled by a scream from her sister in the next room, succeeded by the +sound of a heavy fall. She hurried into the work-room. Miss Faithful lay +on the floor quite insensible. It was some time before her sister's +anxious exertions were rewarded by signs of returning animation. When at +last she opened her eyes, she burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing and +crying.</p> + +<p>"For gracious sake, sister!" said Miss Sophonisba, really alarmed, "what +is the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! oh dear!" sobbed Miss Faithful. "It was John! I know it was +John, and I could not speak to him!"</p> + +<p>"What?" said Miss Sophonisba, alarmed for her sister's wits. "What was +John?"</p> + +<p>"It--that--the thing that came behind me: I know it was!"</p> + +<p>"When?" asked her sister.</p> + +<p>"As I was sitting there in my chair something came behind me and put a +hand on my shoulder. It was John--I know it was. His hand was all cold and +wet: he came out of the sea to call me."</p> + +<p>"Now just look here, Faithful!" said Miss Sophonisba. "John was one of the +most careful, considerate fellows I ever knew, and he was always +particular careful of you. Do you think it's likely he wouldn't have no +more sense, now that he's a saint in heaven, than to come scaring you out +of your wits in that way? Is it like him, now?"</p> + +<p>"But oh, sister, if you had felt it as I did, clear into the bone!"</p> + +<p>"Then it's over twenty-five years since the Federalist was lost. Do you +suppose he's been going round the other world all this while without +getting a chance to be dry? Did you see him?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I felt it."</p> + +<p>"Well, now if there'd been anything real there, anything material, you'd +have seen it; and if it wasn't material, how could it be wet?"</p> + +<p>Faithful was not prepared to answer, but it was evident that she had +received a great shock. In vain did her sister argue, reason and coax. She +could not explain, but that something had come behind her, and that this +Something had touched her, she was convinced; and she added: "I do believe +it was John I saw the other night. I thought then I was awake all the +time, and now I know I was."</p> + +<p>This last assertion quite overset Miss Sophonisba's patience, "If ever any +one was asleep," she said, "you were when I came up stairs. I thought I +heard you walking about with your bare feet, and I came up to see."</p> + +<p>"Then you: heard it too?" said Miss Faithful, eagerly.</p> + +<p>It was an unlucky admission, but Miss Sophonisba would not allow that she +had made it.</p> + +<p>"I heard the wind make the boards creak, I suppose; and do you think John +wouldn't have more sense than to be walking about our room at half-past +ten at night? What nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"You may call it nonsense as much as you like, Sophonisba," said Miss +Faithful, beginning to cry afresh, "but I know what I know, and I can't +help it."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, dear, we won't think of it any more. You're nervous and +worried, and you'd just best put on your wrapper and lie down and try to +go to sleep."</p> + +<p>"I don't like to stay alone just now," said Miss Faithful, timidly.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to: I'll bring my work up stairs and stay with you."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba helped her sister up stairs, and began to assist her to +undress. As she took into her hand the cape of Miss Faithful's woolen +dress she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise, but checked herself +in time. On the left shoulder was a wet spot, and the dress directly +beneath was quite damp. Miss Sophonisba said nothing, of this matter to +her sister, but she made an excuse to leave the room for a moment, and +going down stairs looked to see if any water had been spilled on the +floor. There was none, and Miss Sophonisba was puzzled. She remembered +that when her sister was startled before she had occupied the same seat, +with her back to the cellar door. She noticed that the door was slightly +ajar, and it occurred to her that the cold air blowing through the crack +might account for her sister's feeling of sudden chill, if not for the +dampness. She went down the cellar stairs, carrying with her a lighted +candle. Bold as she was, a singular sensation came over her when she saw +upon each stair a print, as if some one with wet feet had ascended or +descended, and that very recently. The track was not such as would be left +by a person heavily shod: it was rather like that of one wearing a +stocking or thin slipper.</p> + +<p>"What under the sun--" was her perplexed exclamation as she went down, +following the marks of the unknown feet until they were lost on the stone +floor. It was certain that there was no one in the cellar, but as she went +up again, and paused for a moment at the top of the staircase, she heard, +or thought she heard, close to her ear, a long, weary sigh, as of one in +pain, and a sudden breath of cold air swept past her down the stairs. She +turned, and crossing the little passage went into the south room. The +burned spot on the floor was covered by the neat rag carpet, but there +were still some slight marks on the wall of the old doctor's brick +furnace. Miss Sophonisba glanced round the room, but her eyes fell upon +nothing but the familiar and well-preserved furniture; yet there came over +her a strange sense that she was not alone. She saw nothing, but in spite +of herself a feeling of a Presence not her own gathered about her. It was +but for a moment, and then her habitual firmness and common sense +reasserted themselves.</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" she said. "I am getting as bad as Faithful;" and +leaving the room, she went back to her sister. Miss Faithful had sought +comfort in her devotions, and was more composed than could have been +expected. Neither felt inclined to comment on the recent disturbance. Miss +Faithful's health seemed to have received no permanent harm from the +sudden shock she had undergone, but she had a nervous dread of being +alone, which was a source of some inconvenience to her sister.</p> + +<p>The month of December passed, and the uncomfortable impression left by +Faithful's attack was beginning to fade away from the minds of both, when +it happened that the disturbance was renewed in a singular manner.</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba was alone, her sister having gone to a household in the +village to take the measure for some mourning garments to be made up +immediately. Miss Sophonisba was busy with a black bonnet intended for a +member of the same family, and was thinking of nothing but the folds of +the material directly under her fingers. Gradually there came over her a +feeling that she was not alone. She struggled against it, and resolutely +bent her mind on her work; but the impression grew upon her, and with it a +sensation of horror such as she had never before experienced. The idea +that something stood behind her became so strong that she raised her eyes +from her work and looked around. Was there anything actually there, or was +the shapeless darkness anything more than an accidental shadow? Another +instant, and something touched her cheek--something like soft, cold, moist +fingers. The touch, if such it was, was very gentle, such as a child might +give to attract attention. Miss Sophonisba would not give way. She took up +her work and went quietly on with it, though her fingers trembled. The +same long sigh fell upon her ear, the same chill breath of air swept past +her, and the Presence, if such it was, was gone, and with it the shadow.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Sophonisba to herself, "some things <i>are</i> kind of +curious, after all!"</p> + +<p>There had certainly been no living creature in the house but herself, for +their cat had disappeared some days before, and the loss of their favorite +had been a great vexation to both sisters. The shadow behind her chair, if +indeed it had been anything but fancy, had been too indistinct to allow +her to say that she had really seen it before it had vanished, but what +had given her the touch, the recollection of which yet caused a shiver? +She put up her hand to her cheek. The place was wet--an actual drop of +water adhered to her finger.</p> + +<p>"Dear me!" said she, "I wish I did know what to think."</p> + +<p>To one of her temperament the uncertainty was very annoying. She could not +bear to think that her experience was not directly owing to natural--by +which she meant, common--causes. "I am very glad Faithful was not here," +she thought as she turned to her work again. She would not indulge herself +by changing her seat, but kept her place with her back to the cellar door, +though she could not help now and then casting a glance over her shoulder. +Neither shadow nor substance, however, made itself manifest.</p> + +<p>That same night Miss Sophonisba woke from her sleep with the feeling that +some one had called her. She found herself mistaken, however, and lay +quietly awake, thinking over the events of the afternoon. The more she +thought the more puzzled, and even provoked, did she become. She was one +of those people who cannot bear to feel themselves incapable of accounting +for anything that is brought under their notice. A mystery, as such, is an +exasperation to them, and they will sometimes adopt an explanation more +perplexing than the phenomenon itself, rather than say, "I don't know." As +she lay there thinking over the matter, and trying to make herself believe +that the afternoon's experience was the effect of the wind or her own +fancy, she was startled by a step on the floor of the lower room--the same +light step. It crossed the floor, and she heard it on the stairs. Miss +Sophonisba raised her head from her pillow and looked around. There could +be no doubt that she was awake. She could see everything in the room: her +sister slept quietly at her side, and the moonlight shone in brightly at +the window. The slow step came up the stairs and in at the open door. She +heard it on the boards: her eyes beheld the shadow of her sister's vision, +so wavering and indistinct that she could not say with certainty that it +wore the semblance of a human form. The blood at her heart seemed to stand +still, but yet she neither screamed nor fainted, nor tried to wake her +sister. She watched the Thing as it moved to and fro in the chamber. +Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as +Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her +with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence +obscured the moonbeams. Miss Sophonisba bent all her will to the effort, +and with an heroic exertion she put out her hand to try by the sense of +touch if indeed she was in her waking senses. Her fingers were met by +others, soft, cold and damp. For a second, which seemed an hour, they +grasped her extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way +seemed half familiar. For one instant the shapeless gloom appeared to take +definite form--a tall human figure, a man in poor and ragged clothes; for +one instant a pair of wistful, eager eyes looked into her own; the next, +the cock without crowed loud and shrill. Her hand was released, and with +the same long, weary sigh the ghostly Presence passed away. Miss +Sophonisba sank back on her pillow nearly insensible. She did not know how +long she lay there, but when she at last gathered her senses she saw and +felt, with an involuntary shudder, that her hand was wet and cold, and +that across the floor, plain in the moonlight, leading to the half-open +door, were the marks of wet feet. She did not waken her sister, who still +slept quietly at her side, but it was with unspeakable relief that she saw +the morning dawn at last.</p> + +<p>In spite of herself, Miss Sophonisba was forced to the conclusion that, +except on the supposition that some inhabitant of another world had been +permitted to approach her, her experience was wholly inexplicable. "If it +comes again," said she to herself, "I'll certainly speak to it. Goodness +me!" she added, somewhat irritated in spite of her terror, "if it's got +anything to say, why don't it speak and be done with it?"</p> + +<p>She said nothing of the matter to her sister, and she so far controlled +herself as to preserve her usual manner.</p> + +<p>The sisters were busily engaged all day over the mourning dresses, when +toward night Miss Faithful's thread gave out and her work came to a +stand-still.</p> + +<p>"How provoking!" said she. "Three yards more would finish, and now I shall +have to go down to the village and buy a whole skein, just for that."</p> + +<p>"No," said Miss Sophonisba, who would not have acknowledged to herself her +dread of being alone in the house, "I think there's some like that in the +chimney cupboard in the south room: I'll get it."</p> + +<p>She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room. +Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began +searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters. Some +slight noise startled her. She turned, and saw standing before the +fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar, +though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it. It did +not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood +for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak. The +eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse. She had not seen +the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side. It, was too +much, even for her. She turned and sprang through the open door into the +passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face +bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor. The Thing did not follow +her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more +timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room. +Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown, +the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced +the past night: it was all this, together with a sense of an evil +influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul +and in body. However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she +could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence. The +candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning +all her strength, with an inward prayer she recrossed the threshold. The +light still burned brightly, the thread she had come to seek lay on the +floor where she had dropped it, but the figure was gone. She looked about +the room: there was no trace of living presence save her own. She had even +the courage to stoop down and examine the place on the carpet where the +Shape had stood, and which covered the burned spot on the floor; but this +time the mysterious footsteps had failed to leave their mark.</p> + +<p>"Whatever shall I do?" said Miss Sophonisba to herself. "If Faithful was +to see what I have, she'd nigh go crazy; and what excuse can we make for +leaving the house?"</p> + +<p>If no one but herself had been concerned, I think she would have stood a +siege from the hosts of the unknown world rather than confess that she +left the house because it was haunted. She caught herself up as the word +was formed in her thoughts. "Haunted, indeed!" she said. "I'll think I'm +losing my wits first. Stuff and nonsense!" But she paused, for through the +middle of the room, close by her side, making an angry gesture as it +passed, swept the same Shape, visible for one moment, vanishing the next. +She went back into the other room, and giving her sister the thread, sat +down so as to hide her face, busying herself with her work until she could +in some measure regain her wonted steady composure.</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful was much engaged with her sewing just at that moment, and +her sister's unusual agitation escaped her notice. Presently she said, +"Sophonisba, isn't there a bit of old black ribbon in that cupboard? I +want something of the kind, just to put round inside the neck of the +dress, and then it will be done."</p> + +<p>"Yes--I don't know--I think not," said her sister, with a hesitation so +unlike her usual promptness that Miss Faithful looked up surprised. "I +mean, I think there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "If you'd like to look, +I'll hold the candle for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you needn't put down your work for that," said Miss Faithful, but +Miss Sophonisba dropped the ribbon she was plaiting and followed her +sister with the candle. She threw a half-frightened glance around the room +as she entered, but the Vision did not reappear. It was some time before +the ribbon was found. It had been pushed into the farther corner of the +lower shelf, which was a wide and very thick pine board, slipping easily +on the cleats by which it was upheld. One end of the roll had caught +behind this shelf, and Miss Faithful pulled the board a little forward. As +she did so a little roll of paper fell into the bottom of the cupboard. +Miss Sophonisba picked it up. It consisted of several stained and +discolored sheets of paper, seemingly torn from an account-book or +journal, and covered all over with very fine and closely-written though +perfectly legible characters, in a very precise hand.</p> + +<p>"What is that?" said Miss Faithful.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing of ours, I'm pretty sure," said her sister, looking at it. +"But come, if you've got what you want: let's go into the other room--it's +cold here."</p> + +<p>As they crossed the threshold, Miss Faithful started.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" said her sister, though she well knew the reason. She +too had heard the same long sigh felt the same breath of chill air.</p> + +<p>"Why, it seemed as if something breathed close to my ear," said Miss +Faithful, turning white; "and what's more," she continued, as they crossed +the passage and entered the work-room, "I believe you heard it too, and +that you've seen things in this house you haven't told me of."</p> + +<p>"Well, child," said Miss Sophonisba in a subdued tone, "there <i>are</i> some +queer things in this world, that's a fact--queerer than ever I thought +till lately."</p> + +<p>Miss Faithful did not press for an explanation: she went quietly on with +her dressmaking, and her sister, hurried though she was about her work, +set herself to examine the papers.</p> + +<p>I remember seeing the original manuscript when I was a little girl, but it +was unfortunately destroyed by an accident. My father, however, had copied +part of it, and this copy is yet in my possession. Miss Sophonisba could +make very little of the record, which related to scientific matters of +which she was quite ignorant; and as the most important words were +indicated by signs and figures, she was completely puzzled. The writer +seemed to have been seeking in vain some particular result. She looked on +through the dates of the year 1785, and saw here and there familiar names, +and at last commenced reading at these words:</p> + +<p>"<i>June</i> 3. This day took possession of my house. Busied in making +arrangements. Shall build my own furnace. Am sure now that I am in the +right way. Am determined no one shall come into the house."</p> + +<p>Much followed which Miss Sophonisba could not understand, until, under the +date of July 1, she found recorded:</p> + +<p>"Being over at Neponset, looking for the plant witch-hazel, bethought +myself to ask of the fellow they call Indian Will. Going to the little +hovel he lives in, found him lying very ill with pleurisy. By the grace of +God was able to help him. His wife told me where to find what I sought. To +my surprise, discovered she knew much of its virtues. It may be these +people have a knowledge of simples worth investigating.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sept.</i> 3. No nearer my great end. My means fast growing less. Have +borrowed from Jonathan Phelps, but the sum is but a drop for such a +purpose. Most like some of these people, who complain of my price for the +exercise of my skill, would give me threefold did they know what I work +for, if they might share in its result. Yet I know I am in the right way. +Should I die before I come to its end--Is Death the gate of knowledge?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oct.</i> 7. I advance just so far and no farther. Why is it that I see my +path so plain just to the one point, and there it stops? How small our +understanding of the endless mysteries around us! yet should something +differing from every day's experience befall us, how quickly we speak of +the <i>supernatural</i>!</p> + +<p>"<i>Oct.</i> 29. No nearer, no nearer, and my money all but done. Took some of +my books into Boston and offered them to sell. Refused, of course. How +should they know their value? Have sent them to London. It was hard, but +patience! patience!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oct.</i> 30. This day Indian Will brought the plants I wanted. Have bade +him never to tell any one that he comes here. He only has ever entered. So +far as I know, he has obeyed. He thinks me like one of his own powahs.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 15. At last! I have passed the crisis, and without accident. How +simple it seems, now that I know! It was my last bit of the essential +metal: like from like. Each element has its seed in itself. The poor +people say I have been good to them. Should success be final, I can indeed +help mankind.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 16. Last night, lifting the crucible from the furnace, spilled the +liquor on the floor. Had I one particle more of the essential element! All +was utterly lost: no one will lend to me.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 18. What have I done that I should feel guilt? What was worth the +life of such a useless creature to the interests of mankind? Why did he +not trust my word and give me what I needed when I asked him? If he had +not waked from his half-drunken sleep when I made the attempt, I would +have given him threefold. I gave him his life once: why will not that +atone? No one will know ever. I will devote my life to relieve distress. +What is such as his, weighed in the balance with my purpose? It is strange +that since then I have forgot the very essential thing in the process. I +cannot read my own cipher in which I wrote it down; but it will come, it +will come.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 19. Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain. Have lost +the key, have forgotten the chief link. Until I can recall it the metal is +useless. What if it should never come to me? This night went down to the +Point. Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pass. +The tide will soon wash them away.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 20. Surely it is not meant this thing should be known. To-day a +body came on shore, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by +those who should have known best. Now, no one will ever search this house. +Twice to-day I have been to look at the place: nothing can be seen. +Providence means I should live to finish my work--to complete that which I +alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken +off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would +the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck +at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not +human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to +go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days?</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no +guest but one I dare not name--</p> + +<p> 'Tumulum circumvolat umbra.'</p> + +<p>"<i>Dec.</i> 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I +will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help +those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?"</p> + +<p>Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786:</p> + +<p>"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I +see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest +the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press +me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it +was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty +dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before, +thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it +will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I +will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will +rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of +all men, have seen unveiled the mystery. I will leave This behind. When I +am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if +that is what it seeks. Then it will cease to persecute me with its step +close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a +strange expression that her sister was startled. "Put on your bonnet, +Faithful," said she: "I'm going down to see the minister."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" said Miss Faithful: "it's nearly nine o'clock."</p> + +<p>"I don't care if it's midnight. I'm going to show these to him, and tell +him what's happened here, and he may make what he can of it."</p> + +<p>"Then you have seen something?" said Miss Faithful, turning pale.</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba made a sign of assent; "I'll tell you all about it when we +get there, but do come along now. You're work's done, and I'll take the +bonnet with me and finish it there."</p> + +<p>They lived at some distance from the parsonage, and the roads were in even +worse condition than they are now. It was a tiresome walk, and Miss +Faithful, clinging to her sister's side, was almost inclined to wish they +had braved the terrors at home rather than ventured out into the dark. The +clergyman was a middle-aged bachelor, a grandson of the Parson H---- +mentioned by Mrs. T----. He heard Miss Sophonisba's story in silence, but +without any sign of dissent. Faithful, in spite of her terror, could not +but feel a mild degree of triumph in her sister's evident conviction that +what she had seen was, to say the least, unaccountable.</p> + +<p>Mr. H---- looked over the papers which had been found in the cupboard, and +which Miss Sophonisba had brought with her. "This is undoubtedly Doctor +Haywood's writing," he said at last. "I have a book purchased of him by my +grandfather, and which has marginal notes in the same hand."</p> + +<p>"What shall we do, sir?" asked Miss Sophonisba.</p> + +<p>"If I were you I should leave the house as soon as possible. If there is +anything in the air which induces such--" Mr. H---- hesitated for a +word--"sensations as these, it would be better to go."</p> + +<p>"Sensations!" said Miss Sophonisba, almost indignant. "I tell you I saw it +myself; and what made the wet spot on Faithful's cape, and the rest?"</p> + +<p>"I can't undertake to say, Miss T----; but if you like I will just come up +to-morrow, and we will look into the matter a little. My cousin, +Lieutenant V----, is here from his ship, and he will assist me. And +meantime you had best stay here to-night: my sister will be very glad to +see you."</p> + +<p>Miss H---- was a particular friend of the sisters, but she could not but +feel a little curious to know the object of their visit. Miss Sophonisba +would have kept the matter to herself, but Miss Faithful, in her +excitement, could not but tell the story of their experiences. Miss H----, +however, was a discreet woman, and kept the tale to herself.</p> + +<p>The next evening the clergyman, his cousin the lieutenant and Miss +Sophonisba went quietly about dusk to the old house. They went down into +the cellar, and the drag which the sailor had constructed brought up some +bleached bones, and at the second cast a skeleton hand and a skull. As the +latter was disengaged from the drag something fell glittering from it upon +the cellar floor: two coins rolled to different corners. Mr. H----, picked +them up. One was a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea.</p> + +<p>"Miss T----," said the clergyman in a low tone, "I will see that these +poor relics are laid in the burial-ground; and then--really I think you +had better leave the house."</p> + +<p>Miss Sophonisba made no opposition.</p> + +<p>The three ascended the cellar stairs, but as they entered the room they +paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it passed, a wild +gesture of despair, swept the Shape, living yet dead.</p> + +<p>"What was that?" said the clergyman, who was the first to recover himself, +"<i>It</i>," said Miss Sophonisba in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"I have seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy passage +round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the +waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to +board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a +corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I +could not bear it and hid my face. One of the sailors, however, took from +the dead hand a paper covered with characters in cipher, which no one +could read. This paper afterward fell into my possession, and I submitted +it in vain to several experts, all of whom failed to read it. By an +accident it was destroyed, and the secret, whatever it was, is hidden for +ever; but the face of that corpse was the face I have just seen in this +room."</p> + +<p class="author">Clara F. Guernsey.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id='st04'> +<h2>The Blood Seedling.</h2> + + + +<p>In a bit of green pasture that rose, gradually narrowing, to the tableland +that ended in prairie, and widened out descending to the wet and willowy +sands that border the Great River, a broad-shouldered young man was +planting an apple tree one sunny spring morning when Tyler was President. +The little valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills, +patched with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering +columbines. In front was the Mississippi, reposing from its plunge over +the rapids, and idling down among the golden sandbars and the low, moist +islands, which were looking their loveliest in their new spring dresses of +delicate green.</p> + +<p>The young man was digging with a certain vicious energy, forcing the spade +into the black crumbling loam with a movement full of vigor and malice. +His straight black brows were knitted till they formed one dark line over +his deep-set eyes. His beard was not yet old enough to hide the massive +outline of his firm, square jaw. In the set teeth, in the clouded face, in +the half-articulate exclamations that shot from time to time from the +compressed lips, it was easy to see that the thoughts of the young +horticulturist were far from his work.</p> + +<p>A bright young girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that +skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail +of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a +thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually +expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their +love as so airy and delicate in structure that the flowers they tread on +are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation. But not +being a poet or in love, we must admit that there was no resurrection for +the larkspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie +Barringer landed. Yet she was not of the coarse peasant type, though her +cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday +mornings, and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from +shoulders to waist. She was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl, +with a slightly freckled face, and rippled brown hair, and astonished blue +eyes, but perfectly self-possessed, and graceful as a young quail.</p> + +<p>A young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress. The +flight of this plump bird in its fluttering blue plumage over the +rail-fence caused our young man to look up from his spading: the scowl was +routed from his brow by a sudden incursion of blushes, and his mouth was +attacked by an awkward smile.</p> + +<p>The young lady nodded, and was hurrying past. The scowl came back in +force, and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss: +"Miss Tudie, are you in a hurry?"</p> + +<p>The lady thus addressed turned and said, in a voice that was half pert and +half coaxing, "No particular hurry. Al, I've told you a dozen times not to +call me that redicklis name."</p> + +<p>"Why, Tudie, I hain't never called you nothing else sence you was a little +one so high. You ort to know yer own name, and you give yerself that name +when you was a yearling. Howsom-ever, ef you don't like it now, sence +you've been to Jacksonville, I reckon I can call you Miss Susie--when I +don't disremember."</p> + +<p>The frank amende seemed to satisfy Miss Susie, for she at once interrupted +in the kindest manner: "Never mind, Al Golyer: you can call me what you +are a-mind to." Then, as if conscious of the feminine inconsistency, she +changed the subject by asking, "What are you going to do with that great +hole?--big enough to bury a fellow."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to plant this here seedlin', that growed up in Colonel Blood's +pastur', nobody knows how: belike somebody was eatin' an apple and throwed +the core down-like. I'm going to plant a little orchard here next spring, +but the colonel and me, we reckoned this one 'ud be too old by that time +for moving, so I thought I'd stick it in now, and see what come out'n it. +It's a powerful thrifty chunk of a saplin'."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I speak for the first peck of apples off'n it. Don't forget. +Good-morning."</p> + +<p>"Hold on a minute, Miss Susan, twell I git my coat. I'll walk down a piece +with you. I have got something to say to you."</p> + +<p>Miss Susie turned a little red and a little pale. These occasions were not +entirely unknown in her short experience of life. When young men in the +country in that primitive period had something to say, it was something +very serious and earnest. Allen Golyer was a good-looking, stalwart young +farmer, well-to-do, honest, able to provide for a family. There was +nothing presumptuous in his aspiring to the hand of the prettiest girl on +Chaney Creek. In childhood he had trotted her to Banbury Cross and back a +hundred times, beguiling the tedium of the journey with kisses and the +music of bells. When the little girl was old enough to go to school, the +big boy carried her books and gave her the rosiest apple out of his +dinner-basket. He fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions; +which latter, by the way, never gained her any great credit. When she was +fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week +during one happy winter to singing-school. This was the bloom of +life--nothing before or after could compare with it. The blacking of shoes +and brushing of stiff, electric, bristling hair, all on end with frost and +hope, the struggling into the plate-armor of his starched shirt, the tying +of the portentous and uncontrollable cravat before the glass, which was +hopelessly dimmed every moment by his eager breath,--these trivial and +vulgar details were made beautiful and unreal by the magic of youth and +love. Then came the walk through the crisp, dry snow to the Widow +Barringer's, the sheepish talk with the old lady while Susie "got on her +things," and the long, enchanting tramp to the "deestrick school-house."</p> + +<p>There is not a country-bred man or woman now living but will tell you that +life can offer nothing comparable with the innocent zest of that old style +of courting that was done at singing-school in the starlight and +candlelight of the first half of our century. There are few hearts so +withered and old but they beat quicker sometimes when they hear, in +old-fashioned churches, the wailing, sobbing or exulting strains of +"Bradstreet" or "China" or "Coronation;" and the mind floats down on the +current of these old melodies to that fresh young day of hopes and +illusions--of voices that were sweet, no matter how false they sang--of +nights that were rosy with dreams, no matter what Fahrenheit said--of +girls that blushed without cause, and of lovers who talked for hours about +everything but love.</p> + +<p>I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when +I say that there was nothing that our superior civilization would call +love making in those long walks through the winter nights. The heart of +Allen Golyer swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and +devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with his pretty enslaver. +But he talked of apples and pigs and the heathen and the teacher's wig, +and sometimes ventured an illusion to other people's flirtations in a +jocose and distant way; but as to the state of his own heart, his lips +were sealed. It would move a blasé smile on the downy lips of juvenile +Lovelaces, who count their conquests by their cotillons, and think nothing +of making a declaration in an avant-deux, to be told of young people +spending several evenings of each week in the year together, and speaking +no word of love until they were ready to name their wedding-day. Yet such +was the sober habit of the place and time.</p> + +<p>So there was no troth plighted between Allen and Susie, though the youth +loved the maiden with all the energy of his fresh, unused nature, and she +knew it very well. He never dreamed of marrying any other woman than Susie +Barringer, and she sometimes tried a new pen by writing and carefully +erasing the initials S.M.G., which, as she was christened Susan Minerva, +may be taken as showing the direction of her thoughts.</p> + +<p>If Allen Golyer had been less bashful or more enterprising, this history +would never have been written; for Susie would probably have said Yes for +want of anything better to say, and when she went to visit her aunt +Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone <i>engaged</i>, her finger bound +with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises. But she went, +as it was, fancy free, and there is no tinder so inflammable as the +imagination of a pretty country girl of sixteen.</p> + +<p>One day she went out with her easy-going aunt Abigail to buy ribbons, the +Chancy Creek invoices not supplying the requirements of Jacksonville +society. As they traversed the court-house square on their way to Deacon +Pettybones' place, Miss Susie's vagrant glances rested on an iris of +ribbons displayed in an opposition window. "Let's go in here," she said +with the impetuous decision of her age and sex.</p> + +<p>"We will go where you like, dear," said easy-going Aunt Abigail. "It makes +no difference."</p> + +<p>Aunt Abigail was wrong. It made the greatest difference to several persons +whether Susie Barringer bought her ribbons at Simmons' or Pettybones' that +day. If she had but known!</p> + +<p>But, all unconscious of the Fate that beckoned invisibly on the threshold, +Miss Susie tripped into "Simmons' Emporium" and asked for ribbons. Two +young men stood at the long counter. One was Mr. Simmons, proprietor of +the emporium, who advanced with his most conscientious smile: "Ribbons, +ma'am? Yes, ma'am--all sorts, ma'am. Cherry, ma'am? Certingly, ma'am. Jest +got a splendid lot from St. Louis this morning, ma'am. This way, ma'am."</p> + +<p>The ladies were soon lost in the delight of the eyes. The voice of Mr. +Simmons accompanied the feast of color, insinuating but unheeded.</p> + +<p>The other young man approached: "Here is what you want, miss--rich and +elegant. Just suits your style. Sets off your hair and eyes beautiful."</p> + +<p>The ladies looked up. A more decided voice than Mr. Simmons'; whiter hands +than Mr. Simmons' handled the silken bands; bolder eyes than the weak, +pink-bordered orbs of Mr. Simmons looked unabashed admiration into the +pretty face of Susie Barringer.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Simmons, old boy, introduce a fellow."</p> + +<p>Mr. Simmons meekly obeyed: "Mrs. Barringer, let me interduce you to Mr. +Leon of St. Louis, of the house of Draper & Mercer."</p> + +<p>"Bertie Leon, at your service," said the brisk young fellow, seizing Miss +Susie's hand with energy. His hand was so much softer and whiter than hers +that she felt quite hot and angry about it.</p> + +<p>When they had made their purchases, Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with +them, and was very witty and agreeable all the way. He had all the wit of +the newspapers, of the concert-rooms, of the steamboat bars at his +fingers' ends. In his wandering life he had met all kinds of people: he +had sold ribbons through a dozen States. He never had a moment's doubt of +himself. He never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would +not interfere with business. He had one ambition in life--to marry Miss +Mercer and get a share in the house. Miss Mercer was as ugly as a +millionaire's tombstone. Mr. Bertie Leon--who, when his moustache was not +dyed nor his hair greased, was really quite a handsome fellow--considered +that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interests of trade must be +made good to him in some way. So, "by way of getting even," he made +violent love to all the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels--"to +have something to think about after he should have found favor in the +strabismic optics of Miss Mercer," he observed, disrespectfully.</p> + +<p>Simple Susie, who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and +blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the +free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was +something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a +faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt +Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate +in the most recent Planters'-House style, she cordially invited him to +call--"to drop in any time: he must be lonesome so far from home."</p> + +<p>He said he wouldn't neglect such a chance, with another Planters'-House +bow.</p> + +<p>"What a nice young man!" said Aunt Abigail.</p> + +<p>"Awful conceited and not overly polite," said Susie as she took off her +bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings.</p> + +<p>The oftener Albert Leon came to Mrs. Barringer's bowery cottage, the more +the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticised +him, until it was plain to be seen that Aunt Abigail was growing tired of +him and pretty Susan dangerously interested. But just at this point his +inexorable carpet-bag dragged him off to a neighboring town, and Susie +soon afterward went back to Chaney Creek.</p> + +<p>Her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could +have done--the belle of the neighborhood. Non cuivis contingit adire +Lutetiam, but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county-town +is a shrine of fashion. Allen Golyer felt a vague sense of distrust +chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons' ribbons decking the pretty head +in the village choir the Sunday after her return, and, spurred on by a +nascent jealousy of the unknown, resolved to learn his fate without loss +of time. But the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned +friendliness, talked so much and so fast about her visit, that the honest +fellow was quite bewildered, and had to go home to think the matter over, +and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever, +or had drifted altogether out of his reach.</p> + +<p>Allen Golyer was, after all, a man of nerve and decision. He wasted only a +day or two in doubts and fears, and one Sunday afternoon, with a beating +but resolute heart, he left his Sunday-school class to walk down to +Crystal Glen and solve his questions and learn his doom. When he came in +sight of the widow's modest house, he saw a buggy hitched by the gate.</p> + +<p>"Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel, by jing! What is Dow after out here?"</p> + +<p>It is natural, if not logical, that young men should regard the visits of +all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious +impropriety.</p> + +<p>But it was not his friend and crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came +out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling +Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the +period--light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black +moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers +that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished +boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod +men in the world.</p> + +<p>Golyer's heart sank within him as this splendid being shone upon him. But +with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the +gate, and said, "Tudie, I come to see you. Shall I go in and talk to your +mother twell you come back?"</p> + +<p>"No, that won't pay," promptly replied the brisk stranger. "We will be +gone the heft of the afternoon, I reckon. This hoss is awful slow," he +added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr. +Leon."</p> + +<p>Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the +West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again." He lifted Miss +Susie into the buggy, sprang lightly in, and went off with laughter and +the cracking of his whip after Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel.</p> + +<p>The young farmer walked home desolate, comparing in his simple mind his +own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilet, his awkward address +with the other's easy audacity, till his heart was full to the brim with +that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy, from +which pray Heaven to guard you.</p> + +<p>It was the next morning that Miss Susie vaulted over the fence where Allen +Golyer was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree.</p> + +<p>"Something middlin' particular," continued Golyer, resolutely.</p> + +<p>"There is no use leaving your work," said Miss Barringer pluckily. "I will +stay and listen."</p> + +<p>Poor Allen began as badly as possible: "Who was that feller with you +yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Golyer--my friends ain't fellers! What's that to you, who +he was?"</p> + +<p>"Susie Barringer, we have been keeping company now a matter of a year. I +have loved you well and true: I would have give my life to save you any +little care or trouble. I never dreamed of nobody but you--not that I was +half good enough for you, but because I did not know any better man around +here. Ef it ain't too late, Susie, I ask you to be my wife. I will love +you and care for you, good and true."</p> + +<p>Before this solemn little speech was finished, Susie was crying and biting +her bonnet-strings in a most undignified manner. "Hush, Al Golyer!" she +burst out. "You mustn't talk so. You are too good for me. I am kind of +promised to that fellow. I 'most wish I had never seen him."</p> + +<p>Allen sprang to her and took her in his strong arms: she struggled free +from him. In a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had +produced in her passed away. She dried her eyes and said firmly enough, +"It's no use, Al: we wouldn't be happy together. Good-bye! I shouldn't +wonder if I went away from Chaney Creek before long."</p> + +<p>She walked rapidly down to the river-road. Allen stood fixed and +motionless, gazing at the light, graceful form until the blue dress +vanished behind the hill, and leaned long on his spade, unconscious of the +lapse of time.</p> + +<p>When Susan reached her home she found Leon at the gate.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my little rosebud! I came near missing you. I am going to Keokuk this +morning, to be gone a few days. I stopped here a minute to give you +something to keep for me till I come back."</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe +lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed.</p> + +<p>She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched +him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It +would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him. +I'd like to hear it."</p> + +<p>An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a +shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the +piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse +passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face. +He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of +weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung +clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued +with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would +have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who, +though working against hope, was still not without resolute will.</p> + +<p>Dame Barringer, who had seen him coming up the walk, bustled in: +"Good-morning, Allen. How beat out you do look! Now, I like a stiddy young +man, but don't you think you run this thing of workin' into the ground?"</p> + +<p>"Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile--"leastways I've been +a-running this spade into the ground all the morning, and--"</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> want buttermilk--that's your idee: ain't it, now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Mizzes Barringer, I reckon you know my failin's."</p> + +<p>The good woman trotted off to the dairy, and Susie sewed demurely, waiting +with some trepidation for what was to come next.</p> + +<p>"Susie Barringer," said a low, husky voice which she could scarcely +recognize as Golyer's, "I've come to ask pardon--not for nothing I've +done, for I never did and never could do you wrong--but for what I thought +for a while arter you left me this morning. It's all over now, but I tell +<i>you</i> the Bad Man had his claws into my heart for a spell. Now it's all +over, and I wish you well. I wish your husband well. If ever you git into +any trouble where I can help, send for me: it's my right. It's the last +favor I ask of you."</p> + +<p>Susceptible Susie cried a little again. Allen, watching her with his +ambushed eyes, said, "Don't take it to heart, Tudie. Perhaps there is +better days in store for me yet."</p> + +<p>This did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least. She was +greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man's heart: she +was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not. If any +explanation of this paradox is required, I would observe, quoting a phrase +much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age, that Miss Susie +Barringer was "a very female woman."</p> + +<p>So pretty Susan's rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time +her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and +plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent +delight of a Lady Bountiful.</p> + +<p>"There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance +in all things."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, you work less and play more. We never get a sight of you +lately. Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie."</p> + +<p>It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter +married and settled with "a stiddy young man that you knowed all about, +and his folks before him." She had observed with great disquietude the +brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter +in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil +of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is +a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet +would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a +Cocodès.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't +be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller."</p> + +<p>Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame +Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on +his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making +Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol.</p> + +<p>Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's +dismay, Mr. Leon did not come.</p> + +<p>"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away +from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet +and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The +artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so +she added, "I was expecting a letter from my aunt."</p> + +<p>"No letters here from your aunt, nor your uncle, nor none of the tribe," +said old Whaler, who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place, and so +had no further use for good manners.</p> + +<p>"I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch," said Susie that +evening, "and I won't go near his old post-office again." But Susie forgot +her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family +affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie <i>must</i> have +written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly, +"Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres--that's what's the +matter."</p> + +<p>Poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried +from that dreadful post-office, scarcely hearing the terrible words that +the old gin-pig hurled after her: "<i>And he's forgot you!--that's what's +the matter.</i>"</p> + +<p>Susie Barringer walked home along the river-road, revolving many things in +her mind. She went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen-knife +over the latch, and sat down to have a good cry. Her faculties being thus +cleared for action, she thought seriously for an hour. If you can remember +when you were a school-girl, you know a great deal of solid thinking can +be done in an hour. But we can tell you in a moment what it footed up. You +can walk through the Louvre in a minute, but you cannot see it in a week.</p> + +<p><i>Susan Barringer (sola, loquitur)</i>: "Three weeks yesterday. Yes, I s'pose +it's so. What a little fool I was! He goes everywheres--says the same +things to everybody, like he was selling ribbons. Mean little scamp! +Mother seen through him in a minute. I'm mighty glad I didn't tell her +nothing about it." [Fie, Susie! your principles are worse than your +grammar.] "He'll marry some rich girl--I don't envy her, but I hate +her--and I am as good as she is. Maybe he will come back--no, and I hope +he won't;--and I wish I was dead!" (<i>Pocket handkerchief.</i>)</p> + +<p>Yet in the midst of her grief there was one comforting thought--nobody +knew of it. She had no confidante--she had not even opened her heart to +her mother: these Western maidens have a fine gift of reticence. A few of +her countryside friends and rivals had seen with envy and admiration the +pretty couple on the day of Leon's arrival. But all their poisonous little +compliments and questions had never elicited from the prudent Susie more +than the safe statement that the handsome stranger was a friend of Aunt +Abbie's, whom she had met at Jacksonville. They could not laugh at her: +they could not sneer at gay deceivers and lovelorn damsels when she went +to the sewing-circle. The bitterness of her tears was greatly sweetened by +the consideration that in any case no one could pity her. She took such +consolation from this thought that she faced her mother unflinchingly at +tea, and baffled the maternal inquest on her "redness of eyes" by the +school-girl's invaluable and ever-ready headache.</p> + +<p>It was positively not until a week later, when she met Allen Golyer at +choir-meeting, that she remembered that this man knew the secret of her +baffled hopes. She blushed scarlet as he approached her: "Have you got +company home, Miss Susie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes--that is, Sally Withers and me came together, and--"</p> + +<p>"No, that's hardly fair to Tom Fleming: three ain't the pleasantest +company. I will go home with you."</p> + +<p>Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her, and leaned upon it +with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home through +the balmy night under the clear, starry heaven of the early spring. The +air was full of the quickening breath of May.</p> + +<p>Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Allen +Golyer. He talked more than usual, but in a grave, quiet, protecting +style, very different from his former manner of worshiping bashfulness. +His tone had in it an air of fatherly caressing which was inexpressibly +soothing to his pretty companion, tired and lonely with her silent +struggle of the past month. When they came to her gate and he said +good-night, she held his hand a moment with a tremulous grasp, and spoke +impulsively: "Al, I once told you something I never told anybody else. +I'll tell you something else now, because I believe I can trust you."</p> + +<p>"Be sure of that, Susie Barringer."</p> + +<p>"Well, Al, my engagement is broken off."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for you, Susie, if you set much store by him."</p> + +<p>Miss Susie answered with great and unnecessary impetuosity, "I don't, and +I am glad of it!" and then ran into the house and to bed, her cheeks all +aflame at the thought of her indiscretion, and yet with a certain comfort +in having a friend from whom she had no secrets.</p> + +<p>I protest there was no thought of coquetry in the declaration which Susan +Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of +the May heaven. But Allen Golyer would have been a dull boy not to have +taken heart and hope from it. He became, as of old, a frequent and welcome +visitor at Crystal Glen. Before long the game of chequers with Susie +became so enthralling a passion that it was only adjourned from one +evening to another. Allen's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with +fatigue-duty, and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much +soap. Susie's affectionate heart, which had been swayed a moment from its +orbit by the irresistible attraction of Bertie Leon's diamond breastpin +and city swagger, swung back to its ancient course under the mild +influence of time and the weather and opportunity. So that Dame Barringer +was not in the least surprised, on entering her little parlor one soft +afternoon in that very May, to see the two young people economically +occupying one chair, and Susie shouting the useless appeal, "Mother, make +him behave!"</p> + +<p>"I never interfere in young folks' matters, especially when they're going +all right," said the motherly old soul, kissing "her son Allen" and +trotting away to dry her happy tears.</p> + +<p>I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married--so soon that when +Miss Susan went with her mother to Keokuk to buy a wedding-garment, she +half expected to find, in every shop she entered, the elegant figure of +Mr. Leon leaning over the counter. But the dress was bought and made, and +worn at wedding and <i>in-fair</i> and in a round of family visits among the +Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the +pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on +Allen's prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs. +Golyer to trouble her joy. In her calm and busy life the very name faded +from her tranquil mind. These wholesome country hearts do not bleed long. +In that wide-awake country eyes are too useful to be wasted in weeping. My +dear Lothario Urban us, those peaches are very sound and delicious, but +they will not keep for ever. If you do not secure them to-day, they will +go to some one else, and in no case, as the Autocrat hath said with +authority, can you stand there "mellering 'em with your thumb."</p> + +<p>There was no happier home in the county, and few finer farms. The good +sense and industry of Golyer and the practical helpfulness of his wife +found their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing +orchards. The Warsaw merchants fought for his wheat, and his apples were +known in St. Louis. Mrs. Golyer, with that spice of romance which is +hidden away in every woman's heart, had taken a special fancy to the +seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted. +Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a +child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he +reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling. He spaded and +mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits +and in summer from terebrant grubs. It was not ungrateful. It grew a noble +tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, +and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell. The first peck of +apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first +bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud in his +admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on: "Great Scott, Golyer! +I'd rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than +be Senator."</p> + +<p>"You've got your wish, then, colonel," said Golyer. "Me and my wife have +called that tree The Blood Seedling sence the day it was transplanted from +your pastur'."</p> + +<p>It was the pride and envy of the neighborhood. Several neighbors asked for +scions and grafts, but could do nothing with them.</p> + +<p>"Fact is," said old Silas Withers, "those folks that expects to raise good +fruit by begging graffs, and then layin' abed and readin' newspapers, will +have a good time waitin'. Elbow-grease is the secret of the Blood +Seedlin', ain't it, Al?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I reckon, Squire Withers, a man never gits anything wuth havin' +without a tussle for it; and as to secrets, I don't believe in them, +nohow."</p> + +<p>A square-browed, resolute, silent, middle-aged man, who loved his home +better than any amusement, regular at church, at the polls, something +richer every Christmas than he had been on the New Year's preceding--a man +whom everybody liked and few loved much--such had Allen Golyer grown to +be.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>If I have lingered too long over this colorless and commonplace picture of +rural Western life, it is because I have felt an instinctive reluctance to +recount the startling and most improbable incident which fell one night +upon this quiet neighborhood, like a thunderbolt out of blue sky. The +story I must tell will be flatly denied and easily refuted. It is absurd +and fantastic, but, unless human evidence is to go for nothing when it +testifies of things unusual, the story is true.</p> + +<p>At the head of the rocky hollow through which Chaney Creek ran to the +river, lived the family who gave the brook its name. They were among the +early pioneers of the county. In the squatty yellow stone house the +present Chaney occupied his grandfather had stood a siege from Black Hawk +all one summer day and night, until relieved by the garrison of Fort +Edward. The family had not grown with the growth of the land. Like many +others of the pioneers, they had shown no talent for keeping abreast of +the civilization whose guides and skirmishers they had been. In the +progress of a half century they had sold, bit by bit, their section of +land, which kept intact would have proved a fortune. They lived very +quietly, working enough to secure their own pork and hominy, and regarding +with a sort of impatient scorn every scheme of public or private +enterprise that passed under their eyes.</p> + +<p>The elder Chaney had married, some years before, at the Mormon town of +Nauvoo, the fair-haired daughter of a Swedish mystic, who had come across +the sea beguiled by dreams of a perfect theocracy, and who on arriving at +the city of the Latter-Day Saints had died, broken-hearted from his lost +illusions.</p> + +<p>The only dowry that Seraphita Neilsen brought her husband, besides her +delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes, was a full set of Swedenborg's +later writings in English. These became the daily food of the solitary +household. Saul Chaney would read the exalted rhapsodies of the Northern +seer for hours together, without the first glimmer of their meaning +crossing his brain. But there was something in the majesty of their +language and the solemn roll of their poetical development that +irresistibly impressed and attracted him. Little Gershom, his only child, +sitting at his feet, would listen in childish wonder to the strange things +his silent, morose and gloomy father found in the well-worn volumes, until +his tired eyelids would fall at last over his pale, bulging eyes.</p> + +<p>As he grew up his eyes bulged more and more: his head seemed too large for +his rickety body. He pored over the marvelous volumes until he knew long +passages by heart, and understood less of them than his father--which was +unnecessary. He looked a little like his mother, but while she in her +youth had something of the faint and flickering beauty of the Boreal +Lights, poor Gershom never could have suggested anything more heavenly +than a foggy moonlight. When he was fifteen he went to the neighboring +town of Warsaw to school. He had rather heavy weather among the well-knit, +grubby-knuckled urchins of the town, and would have been thoroughly +disheartened but for one happy chance. At the house where he boarded an +amusement called the "Sperrit Rappin's" was much in vogue. A group of +young folks, surcharged with all sorts of animal magnetism, with some +capacity for belief and much more for fun, used to gather about a light +pine table every evening, and put it through a complicated course of +mystical gymnastics. It was a very good-tempered table: it would dance, +hop or slam at the word of command, or, if the exercises took a more +intellectual turn, it would answer any questions addressed to it in a +manner not much below the average capacity of its tormentors.</p> + +<p>Gershom Chaney took all this in solemn earnest. He was from the first +moment deeply impressed. He lay awake whole nights, with his eyes fast +closed, in the wildest dreams. His school-hours were passed in trancelike +contemplation. He cared no more for punishment than the fakeer for his +self-inflicted tortures. He longed for the coming of the day when he could +commune in solitude with the unfleshed and immortal. This was the full +flowering of those seeds of fantasy that had fallen into his infant mind +as he lay baking his brains by the wide fire in the old stone house at the +head of the hollow, while his father read, haltingly, of the wonders of +the invisible world.</p> + +<p>But, to his great mortification, he saw nothing, heard nothing, +experienced nothing but in the company of others. He must brave the +ridicule of the profane to taste the raptures which his soul loved. His +simple, trusting faith made him inevitably the butt of the mischievous +circle. They were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to +external influences. One muscular, black-haired, heavy-browed youth took +especial delight in practicing upon him. The table, under Gershom's +tremulous hands, would skip like a lamb at the command of this Thomas Fay.</p> + +<p>One evening, Tom Fay had a great triumph. They had been trying to get the +"medium"--for Gershom had reached that dignity--to answer sealed +questions, and had met with indifferent success. Fay suddenly approached +the table, scribbled a phrase, folded it and tossed it, doubled up, before +Gershom; then leaned over the table, staring at his pale, unwholesome face +with all the might of his black eyes.</p> + +<p>Chaney seized the pencil convulsively and wrote, "Balaam!"</p> + +<p>Fay burst into a loud laugh and said, "Read the question?"</p> + +<p>It was, "Who rode on your grandfather's back?"</p> + +<p>This is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor +Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended, +but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen +counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and +incorrigible indolence. He accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom, +and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents.</p> + +<p>Here, with less criticism and more perfect faith, he renewed the exercise +of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and +want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to +make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings +and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as +evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an +oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they +expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time +to the circle, and their reports heightened the half-uncanny interest with +which the Chaney house was regarded.</p> + +<p>It was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that Allen Golyer, standing +by his gate, saw Saul Chaney slouching along in the twilight, and hailed +him: "What news from the sperrits, Saul?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world +takes care of the like o' you."</p> + +<p>Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors +abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think +for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up +and ask Gershom what's come of it."</p> + +<p>"Come along, if you like. It's been a long while sence you've crossed my +sill. But I'm gitting to be quite the style. Young Lawyer Marshall is +a-coming up this evening to see my Gershom."</p> + +<p>Before Mr. Golyer started he filled a basket, "to make himself welcome and +pay for the show," with the reddest and finest fruit of his favorite apple +tree. His wife followed him to the gate and kissed him--a rather unusual +attention among Western farmer-people. Her face, still rosy and comely, +was flushed and smiling: "Al, do you know what day o' the year it is?"</p> + +<p>"Nineteenth of Aprile?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and twenty years ago to-day you planted the Blood Seedlin' and I +give you the mitten!" She turned and went into the house, laughing +comfortably.</p> + +<p>Allen walked slowly up the hollow to the Chaney house, and gave the apples +to Seraphita and told her their story. A little company was assembled--two +or three Chaney Creek people, small market-gardeners, with eyes the color +of their gooseberries and hands the color of their currants; Mr. Marshall, +a briefless young barrister from Warsaw, with a tawny friend, who spoke +like a Spaniard.</p> + +<p>"Take seats, friends, and form a circle o' harmony," said Saul Chaney. +"The me'jum is in fine condition: he had two fits this arternoon."</p> + +<p>Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak. He reclined in a great hickory +arm-chair, with his eyes half open, his lips moving noiselessly. All the +persons present formed a circle and joined hands.</p> + +<p>The moment the circle was completed by Saul and Seraphita, who were on +either side of their son, touching his hands, an expression of pain and +perplexity passed over his pale face, and he began to writhe and mutter.</p> + +<p>"He's seein' visions," said Saul.</p> + +<p>"Yes, too many of 'em," said Gershom, querulously. "A boy in a boat, a man +on a shelf, and a man with a spade--all at once: too many. Get me a +pencil. One at a time, I tell you--one at a time!"</p> + +<p>The circle broke up, and a table was brought, with writing materials. +Gershom grasped a pencil, and said, with imperious and feverish +impatience, "Come on, now, and don't waste the time of the shining ones."</p> + +<p>An old woman took his right hand. He wrote with his left very rapidly an +instant, and threw her the paper, always with his eyes shut close.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Scritcher read with difficulty, "A boy in a boat--over he goes;" +and burst out in a piteous wail, "Oh, my poor little Ephraim! I always +knowed it."</p> + +<p>"Silence, woman!" said the relentless medium.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marshall," said Saul, "would you like a test?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said the young gentleman. "I brought my friend, Mr. +Baldassano, who, as a traveler, is interested in these things."</p> + +<p>"Will you take the medium's hand, Mr. What's-your-name?"</p> + +<p>The young foreigner took the lean and feverish hand of Gershom, and again +the pencil flew rapidly over the paper. He pushed the manuscript from him +and snatched his hand away from Baldassano. As the latter looked at what +was written, his tawny cheek grew deadly pale. "Dios mio!" he exclaimed to +Marshall. "This is written in Castilian!"</p> + +<p>The two young men retired to the other end of the room and read by the +tallow candle the notes scrawled on the paper. Baldassano translated: "A +man on a shelf--table covered with bottles beside him: man's face yellow +as gold: bottles tumble over without being touched."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense is that?" said Marshall.</p> + +<p>"My brother died of yellow fever at sea last year."</p> + +<p>Both the young men became suddenly very thoughtful, and observed with +great interest the result of Golyer's "test." He sat by Gershom, holding +his hand tightly, but gazing absently into the dying blaze of the wide +chimney. He seemed to have forgotten where he was: a train of serious +thought appeared to hold him completely under its control. His brows were +knit with an expression of severe almost fierce determination. At one +moment his breathing was hard and thick--a moment after hurried and +broken.</p> + +<p>All this while the fingers of Gershom were flying rapidly over the paper, +independently of his eyes, which were sometimes closed, and sometimes +rolling as if in trouble.</p> + +<p>A wind which had been gathering all the evening now came moaning up the +hollow, rattling the window-blinds, and twisting into dull complaint the +boughs of the leafless trees. Its voice came chill and cheerless into the +dusky room, where the fire was now glimmering near its death, and the only +sounds were those of Gershom's rushing pencil, the whispering of Marshall +and his friend, and old Mother Scritcher feebly whimpering in her corner. +The scene was sinister. Suddenly, a rushing gust blew the door wide open.</p> + +<p>Golyer started to his feet, trembling in every limb, and looking furtively +over his shoulder out into the night. Quickly recovering himself, he +turned to resume his place. But the moment he dropped Gershom's hand, the +medium had dropped his pencil, and had sunk back in his chair in a deep +and deathlike slumber. Golyer seized the sheet of paper, and with the +first line that he read a strange and horrible transformation was wrought +in the man. His eyes protruded, his teeth chattered, he passed his hand +over his head mechanically, and his hair stood up like the bristles on the +back of a swine in rage. His face was blotched white and purple. He looked +piteously about him for a moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand, +cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's +no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: +ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of lying? I +done it."</p> + +<p>He paused, as if struck by a sudden recollection, then burst into tears +and shook like a tree in a high wind. In a moment he dropped on his knees, +and in that posture crawled over to Marshall: "Here, Mr. Marshall--here's +the whole story. For God's sake, spare my wife and children all you can. +Fix my little property all right for 'em, and God bless you for it!" Even +while he was speaking, with a quick revulsion of feeling he rose to his +feet, with a certain return of his natural dignity, and said, "But they +sha'n't take me! None of my kin ever died that way: I've got too much sand +in my gizzard to be took that way. Good-bye, friends all!"</p> + +<p>He walked deliberately out into the wild, windy night.</p> + +<p>Marshall glanced hurriedly at the fatal paper in his hand. It was full of +that capricious detail with which in reverie we review scenes that are +past. But a line here and there clearly enough told the story--how he went +out to plant the apple tree; how Susie came by and rejected him; how he +passed into the power of the devil for the time; how Bertie Leon came by +and spoke to him, and patted him on the shoulder, and talked about city +life; how he hated him and his pretty face and his good clothes; how they +came to words and blows, and he struck him with his spade, and he fell +into the trench, and he buried him there at the roots of the tree.</p> + +<p>Marshall, following his first impulse, thrust the paper into the dull red +coals. It flamed for an instant, and flew with a sound like a sob up the +chimney.</p> + +<p>They hunted for Golyer all night, but in the morning found him lying as if +asleep, with the peace of expiation on his pale face, his pruning-knife in +his, heart, and the red current of his life tinging the turf with crimson +around the roots of the Blood Seedling.</p> + +<p class="author">John Hay.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st05"> +<h2>The Marquis.</h2> + + + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles lived near Crawfish Creek. Crawfish Creek ran near Thompson +City. Thompson City was in a Western State, but now is in a Middle one. It +was always in the midst of a great country--accepting local testimony and +a rank growth of corn and politicians as the tests of greatness. The earth +there was monotonously parched in summer, and monotonously muddy at all +other times. The forests were gigantic, the air carbonic, and when the +citizens wished to give Thompson City the highest commendation, they did +so by saying that "fevernagur" was worse in some other places.</p> + +<p>In the parlor of Mrs. Ruggles, which was also her kitchen and dining-hall, +hung a frame containing a seven-by-nine mirror, which was the frame's +excuse for being, although a compartment above and one below held squares +of glass covered with paint instead of mercury. The lower one was colored +like the contents of a wash-tub after a liberal use of indigo; and in the +centre was a horizontal stroke of red, surmounted by a perpendicular dash +of white, intersected by an oblique line of black--all of which +represented a red boat, with a white sail and black spar, making an +endless voyage across the lake of indigo. The black crosses in the sky +were birds. The black lines on the left were bulrushes. And among these +bulrushes a certain gloomy little object was either a Hebrew prophet or a +muskrat.</p> + +<p>Above the mirror was painted a long-tailed coat, from behind which +extended a hand holding a bell-crowned hat, to whose scarlet lining the +holder seemed inviting the spectator's particular attention. There were +also a pair of legs and boots, a heavy shock of hair, a labyrinth of +neckcloth and a florid human face. Under the boots were the words,</p> + +<p>MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.</p> + +<p>And the beholder was ever in doubt whether the marquis was trying to stand +exclusively upon this title or was unconsciously trampling it into the +ground.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles admired this picture. Her knowledge of French was not great, +but her ear was delicate; and thinking the words "sounded handsome," she +had deliberately conferred them in full on her first-born. When in +good-humor she was content with calling him "Marquis-dee." In fact, it was +only when chasing him into the street with a lilac bush in her hand that +she insisted on addressing him by his full name. At such times, between +each flourish of the lilac bush and each yell of the young nobleman, she +pronounced with significant fullness, with fearful exactness, the +handsome-sounding name of Marquis de la Fayette Ruggles. His playmates, +however, had not the delicate ear of the mother, and as the son had brown +specks on his face, he was popularly known as "Frecky Rug."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles and her late husband were pioneers in the Crawfish Valley. +Subsequent settlers knew little, and apparently cared less, about her. +They knew, however, that she had been a Peables, and that Peables blood +was still doing its duty in her veins. And from her independence and +reserve they argued that the Peableses must have been "high up"--at least +in the estimation of Mrs. Ruggles. After Mr. Ruggles had been overcome by +malaria in clearing the creek bottoms the pride of the Peables blood had +sustained her in a long, brave fight with circumstances.</p> + +<p>It was while he lay one night upon his deathbed, mistaking a watching +neighbor for his wife, that he started up, saying, "Becky, if I could +prove it to you afore I died!"</p> + +<p>"Out of his head," was the quiet remark of Mrs. Ruggles to the watching +neighbor by the bedside. There was no further sign of delirium. That +exclamation of the dying Mr. Ruggles was a mystery to the women of +Crawfish Creek, and remains so to this day.</p> + +<p>It may be that the pride of Mrs. Ruggles was in excess of her wisdom. It +may be if that pride had been a little more respected by the irreverent +Crawfish settlers, they would not have had occasion to wonder, as they did +wonder, how a heart so true, an honesty so stoical, a discrimination so +acute could exist with an independence so absurd, a mind so uncultured, a +sense of dignity so ridiculous as were found united in her character. It +may be that the Peables blood was worthy of receiving honor as great as +the ridicule it did receive. It may be if the world had known the +Peableses it would have been as proud of them as she was.</p> + +<p>She was a person of scrupulous neatness, careful never to be seen by +strangers except in a tidy dress, and with her hair in a Grecian knot, +gracefully secured by a leather string and a wooden peg. "Weak creepings" +were her main reliance in the way of disease. She was also troubled, at +times, with a "fullness of the head." In addition, there were other times +when her right side "felt separate." But she seldom complained of anything +belonging to herself. Even her maladies, she took pleasure in knowing, +were very different from those enjoyed by certain other women. Unwilling +to be too familiar with any one baser than a Ruggles, she usually dined, +as she lived, alone with her noble son.</p> + +<p>On a certain summer evening she stirred her tea a long time in silence. +She stirred it vigorously, creating a maelstrom inside her cup, where, +very like a whale in the story-books, a little crust of bread disappeared +and reappeared, and sailed round and round as if very much perplexed. Then +she unconsciously reversed the current of the maelstrom, sending the baked +and buttered whale to the bottom.</p> + +<div class="image"><p><img src="images/image02.png" alt=""She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the +young naturalist's feelings."" /><br /> +"She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the +young naturalist's feelings."</p></div> + +<p>"I never see that air Miller, no odds how well I be," she remarked +mechanically to the tea-pot, "but what I feel weak creepin's come over me. +He puts dye-stuff on his baird. An' when a man's whiskers is gray an' his +head keeps black, it's a sign he uses his jaw more'n he does his brains. +An' that yaller-headed doll-baby o' his'n--the peert thing:--I'll lay +fifty cents she never washed a dish. To think o' her sayin' a thing like +that about Markis-dee!--an' there's more o' the Peables in him to-day--But +I s'pose she don't know no better." And Mrs. Ruggles rose from the table, +while the corner of her apron made a sudden journey to the corner of her +eye. It was evident her moral nature had received a wound that rankled.</p> + +<p>A year before this time the marquis and his playmates had watched several +vigorous fellows plant a theodolite on the bank of Crawfish Creek, very +much as the natives must have watched the Spaniards plant their first +cross on San Salvador. The contract for grading the new railway bed was in +the hands of a stranger named Miller, who was said to have known better +days, and in the time of his prosperity had been thought a proper person +to be called Colonel. He was a bluff man of forty years, who appeared to +have known both the ups and downs of life, and whose determination to wear +a black beard was equaled only by its determination to be gray. Rumor said +that he had been a railroad president, that he made and spent vast sums of +money, and that his home was somewhere in the East.</p> + +<p>His only child, Alice, ten or twelve years old, bright, fair, full of +animal spirits, who was indulged to the last degree by the roughly +generous colonel, sometimes accompanied him about the half-developed +country, searching for strange birds and blossoms in the woods or watching +demurely the laborers ply their picks and shovels while he inspected their +work.</p> + +<p>The two rode almost daily between Thompson City and the line of +excavation, passing the house of Mrs. Ruggles and a cool spring by the +roadside near it, whence that lady had obtained the water which made the +tea which was stirred into the maelstrom which has been described. While +obtaining it, clad in her working garb, the patter of hoofs and a clear +girlish laugh--sweet as the carol of a meadow lark--came ringing along the +road. As the colonel and Alice halted to let her high-mettled pony and his +heavier Morgan drink, Mrs. Ruggles, who could not otherwise escape +observation, with becoming pride and modesty stepped behind the thick +willows, leaving the marquis with a pail of water between his legs and a +bunch of mottled feathers in his hand.</p> + +<p>He stood dumb before the lovely girl, with her face sparkling from +exercise and enjoyment, and her golden hair escaping from its prison of +blue ribbons. While the horses drank she espied a cluster of cool violets +brightening the damp grass near the spring. The marquis had presence of +mind enough left to step forward and pluck them. Her "Thank you!" added +greatly to his embarrassment, which he expressed by vigorously twisting +the mottled feathers.</p> + +<p>"What bird are those from?" asked Alice.</p> + +<p>The question so increased his embarrassment that now the marquis could +express it only by chewing his cap, and she smilingly waited a moment for +the composure of the young naturalist's feelings.</p> + +<p>"She was a low, chunky hen," said he, at length--"she was a low, chunky +hen, an' she laid a hundred an' seven eggs, an' then she had spazzums an' +whirled roun' till she died."</p> + +<p>A burst of irrepressible laughter escaped Alice, with the exclamation, +"Did anybody ever see such a boy?" as she and her father rode away. And +those were the exceptionable words concerning her son which so rankled +that evening in the heart of Mrs. Ruggles.</p> + +<p>The marquis gazed with hungry eyes after the airy little figure as it +dashed down the unlovely, worm-fenced road. The golden hair, overflowing +its boundaries of blue ribbon, was more glorious to him than the golden +sunshine overflowing the blue sky. They met no more at the spring, but +several times a week, from a respectful distance, he watched her riding +by. From Thompson City to the little log bridge over Crawfish Creek the +road lay for four miles through heavy woods. Then came cleared fields, and +soon the house of Mrs. Ruggles.</p> + +<p>So the summer days went by. The season was waning, the grading was almost +done, and soon the contractor would be elsewhere. Then came one +particularly warm and sultry day. The screams of locusts everywhere +suggested that they were frying. The colonel, riding once more slowly out +toward the workmen with his daughter, was near the middle of the forest. +The trees on either hand were tall, and the road was so straight and +narrow that the sunlight scarcely touched it. The marquis, in the top of a +tall chestnut that overhung the road near the edge of the wood, was +overhauling a nest of flying squirrels--perhaps in the hope of finding +mottled feathers on their wings. From his elevation he could see for a +great distance down the level, dusty road between the trees, and far +across the surrounding country.</p> + +<p>The sun did not shine bright, yet no cloud was in the sky. The atmosphere, +thick, oppressive, opaque, veiled the horizon with strange gloom. Not a +leaf could stir in the vast forest. Not a dimple nor the semblance of a +current broke the surface of the sluggish creek. Not a sound, save the +interminable frying of the locusts.</p> + +<p>The colonel slackened his pace, surprised that his horse should so soon +begin to drip and pant--Alice, familiar with the road, in the mean time +riding a mile ahead. The marquis clung to the topmost branches, looking at +the still sky far above him, the still stream far below him, the still +tree-tops far around him, till he caught a glimpse of the only interesting +object to be seen--a black pony bearing its usual burden, if Alice Miller +could be called a burden, and pacing leisurely up the road beneath him. He +gazed as far as the palisade of trees permitted, but her father was not +yet in sight.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, in the west, a single vein of lightning darted down the sky. A +few trees shuddered as if to shake the gathering shadows from their +bosoms. Then tenfold stillness. A bird flew past with a scream of terror, +the marquis looking in vain to see a hawk pursuing it. The distant moan of +a cow came from the fields. Not another sound, it seemed, was in the +world.</p> + +<p>In an instant the south-west was black. A strange, remote murmur smote the +colonel's ear. Overhead he could see but a strip of hot, hazy sky. Had he +seen the whole heavens, he could have done nothing but go on. Quickly the +murmur became an awful muttering, then a deafening roar. The clatter, the +rush, the crash of a tornado were behind him. The groans of the very earth +were about him. The darkness of twilight was upon him. Alice and Death +were before him. A cloudy demon, towering high as the heavens, in whose +path nothing could live, was striding near and nearer.</p> + +<p>Farm-houses were overthrown. Trees were twisted off from their roots and +torn to pieces. Wild animals and birds were dashed to death. Streams were +emptied of their waters. Human beings and horses and cattle were lifted +into the air, hurled hither and thither and thrown dead upon the earth.</p> + +<p>The whirlwind was following the line of the road! Colonel Miller had no +opportunity to see this, nor could he ride aside from that line if he +chose. He could but cry aloud, "My darling! O God! Alice!" and lash his +horse forward. The high, close forest would keep the wind from lifting his +horse from the ground or himself from the saddle. But the great trees +crashed like thunder behind him. Their fragments whirled above him. Their +branches fell before him. The limb of a huge oak grazed his face, crushed +his horse, and both rolled to the ground, blinded with dust, imprisoned +within a barricade of splintered trunks and shattered tree-tops.</p> + +<p>The marquis, from his high lookout, saw, before any one else, the +approaching tornado, and, descending like a flash, he yet noted its +direction. As Alice reached the foot of his tree he was on the ground, had +seized the pony's mane, was half seated and half clinging in front of her, +had snatched the reins from her hand, and was urging the frightened animal +to its utmost speed. Overcome with terror and confusion, Alice clung +instinctively to the saddle and to him, without hearing his hurried advice +to "stick like a old burdock."</p> + +<p>They shot like an arrow up the road. The noise of the tempest was audible. +Closer it was coming, crushing, rending, annihilating all before it. The +way grew darker. The terrified pony scarce touched the ground. His only +will was to go forward, and he still obeyed a firm use of the bit. But who +could hope to outrun a hurricane? Twelve miles an hour against eighty! The +marquis heeded nothing. Not far behind, the road was but a slash of +fallen, writhing tree-tops. The sweat dropped from his face. He dared not +look behind.</p> + +<p>They reached it--the lane, by the log bridge, running at right angles to +the road--and in a moment, behind them, that lane was choked with whirling +debris.</p> + +<p>But in that moment they had cleared the track of the whirlwind. For the +first time Alice comprehended the conduct of the marquis. For the first +time he turned to see. A quarter of a mile each side the road the +hurricane had carried complete desolation. But after passing the heavy +timber it had veered several degrees, and was sparing the house of Mrs. +Ruggles.</p> + +<p>With a white face she met them at the gate. A word of explanation from the +marquis--an ejaculation of mental anguish from the girl. Two fugitive +tie-choppers from the woods turned back to find the colonel's body. Mrs. +Ruggles, carrying Alice in her arms to the door--the yaller-headed +doll-baby that never washed a dish--did what she could to soothe her, but +did it as silently as possible.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ruggles intercepted the returning tie-choppers in the lane. A look of +eager joy was in their faces. The bruised colonel, assisted to the +threshold, sank into the big arm-chair, and Alice was in his arms. Mrs. +Ruggles did not see their meeting, not at all. No, her back was toward +them, but the corner of her apron made another journey to the corner of +her eye as the father folded his lost child once more to his heart.</p> + +<p>His desire to express his gratitude to Mrs. Ruggles and her boy was +equaled only by her fears that he would do so. As a last resort he called +the marquis to him, and, while a tear stood on his rough cheek, drew a +handful of money from his pocket. But a bony hand appeared majestically +between them, and a voice said, "Not by no means. We're not them kind o' +persons. Markis-dee, put away the camfire."</p> + +<p>Then a rickety gig rattled up to the gate: "Contusion--severe--no +danger--there!--be lame a while--so!--the other bandage--bridge +gone--creek half dry--bend your leg--so!--current turned up-stream--now +the shoulder--not strange Crawfish Creek should run backward--he! he!" And +the rickety gig rattled merrily off in search of broken bones.</p> + +<p>Alice, meeting the marquis outside the door, approached him in a way that +made him tremble. What was said will never be known, but she placed her +white little hand upon his shoulder, the golden head bowed for a moment +and her sweet lips touched his sunburnt face.</p> + +<p>By remaining quiet that night the colonel would be able to get back to +Thompson City in the morning. Before nine o'clock he was at rest in the +bed-room. A couch for Alice had been prepared in the same room. In the +other--kitchen, parlor and dining-hall--a blanket was thrown down for the +marquis, and two chairs fixed for the bed of Mrs. Ruggles. Before +retiring, however, she sat down at her lonely table, where, +notwithstanding the tea she drank to keep them off, an unusual number of +weak creepings came over her.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it," was all she said to the tea-pot. Whether she +referred to the tornado, or her kindness to the sufferers, or to the +manner of rendering the kindness, no one knows. That was all she said to +the tea-pot, but to her son, who sat for a while beside her, she spoke in +a low tone: "Markis-dee, you could never c'verse with her. You're better'n +she is. Put her out o' yer head. She laughed at ye."</p> + +<p>"But she kissed me wi' tears in 'er eyes afterward," was his answer as he +turned toward his bed on the floor.</p> + +<p>An hour later the tea was exhausted, but Mrs. Ruggles yet sat at her +lonely table, as still as the sleepers around her. The clock struck ten: +she nervously drew a soiled paper from her bosom. Eleven: she rose with +hesitation and set the tallow candle behind the door. Then she softly +entered the bed-room and stood before the window where Alice lay. The sky +was clear again. The moon shone on the face and form of the sleeping girl, +making softer their graceful lines, richer the shadows in the golden hair, +tenderer the tint of cheek and lip.</p> + +<p>She stepped again into the shade and stole to the colonel's bedside. His +disturbed mind had turned backward over the path of life from the sudden +death escaped, and, sleeping or waking, his memory had been busy with the +people and events of other days.</p> + +<p>"John Miller!" she said, in a suppressed tone. He started. "John Miller, I +know ye. Common name--I wa'n't sure afore to-day. When you pulled that +money out o' yer pocket I see that in yer face that satisfied me. It's fer +the good name o' the dead I've come. Elseways I never'd ha' troubled ye." +The astonished colonel shifted his position painfully, prepared to speak +or to listen. "There yer girl lies in the light o' heaven. Nex' room my +boy lies in the shadder an' dark. He don't know, an' he never will. John +Miller, I married as honest an' as good a man as ever you see. Folks has +come to me in sickness an' trouble, an' gone behin' my back to talk. Some +said I done right to take him--'twas Christian in me. Some said I must ha' +been a fool. Some said we wa'n't married a-tall. Wasn't I a Peables? +Didn't I know 'twould be flung up to my face? Wasn't I prouder'n any on +'em?"</p> + +<p>A moment's confusion and doubting of senses: then, as the suppressed voice +went on, the colonel remembered. A dozen years ago; before he had meddled +with railroads; back in the old town; soon after taking his father's shop; +he was plaintiff; Ruggles worked in the first room; Porter's testimony; +Becky Peables the sweetheart of both; burglary; loss trifling; George +Ruggles, for one year; came back and married when released; went West. The +old case had scarce crossed his mind for years.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you sent him, an' I waited fer him. The day he come out I married +him. We had to dig hard. I'd do it ag'in. Now his boy's saved yer girl's +life to pay ye fer puttin' his father'n State's pris'n. Two year ago +didn't Bill Porter--sick an' a-dyin'--hunt till he foun' me here? Didn't +he go an' swear? Done fer spite. Didn't he sen' me the affydavy?--an' I've +got it safe. Got it swore to by him, with the justice o' the peace's name +signed, an' two witnissis, an' the judge's red seal on top o' that. Could +I go back an' show that paper'n tell how 'twas? Too late! George was dead. +I couldn't go. My folks a'most disowned me when I took him. I said then I +never'd step my foot into their doors. Them that gives me the col' +shoulder once don't do it no more. Come to me?--well an' good. Go to +them?--never."</p> + +<p>The bewildered colonel, promising every possible reparation, would have +thrown himself at her feet, could he have done so, for the part he had +taken in the prosecution. But she permitted no interruption, and +continued: "He lay by the winder where yer girl lies. The moon come in on +his bed as it does on her'n. In the night, when I see the light o' the sky +shine there where he died, I feel his sperit in the room. I moved the bed +to this corner, where it's darker. I wa'n't good enough to lie there. But +'twas on his mind. He said, 'Becky, if I could prove it to you afore I +died!' An' I say, George's sperit sent Bill Porter here, an' sent you +here, an' sent me into this room to-night. Now, fer the sake o'him an' +Markis-dee, go back an' tell the truth!"</p> + +<p>Speaking the word "truth," she vanished across the light to her dark place +of rest.</p> + +<p>Next morning the colonel examined and copied the confession while a buggy +waited for him at the door. Respecting the evident wishes of Mrs. Ruggles, +he went away with no attempt to express the feelings that were uppermost +in his heart.</p> + +<p>She sleeps beside her husband in the orchard. Her old log-house has been +replaced by a large white box, of which her son the marquis is proprietor. +Each year adds to his acres or his stock. An able-bodied wife, whose +industry and English are equal to his own, sits near him at the door on a +summer evening, while he smokes his pipe, takes an oakum-headed child upon +his knee, and gazes quietly in the direction of the spring and across the +grain-fields where once he saw--or rather heard, without waiting to see--a +forest swept down in a moment. He smokes and gazes as he sees again a +dazzling creature ride down the dreary road, and wonders where on earth +that face can be, and how much it has changed, and whether, through so +many years, any memory of him can linger in her heart. He says nothing. +But he hugs closer the oakum-headed child as he remembers the one romance +in his hard, humdrum life.</p> + +<p class="author">Chauncey Hickox.</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="story" id="st06"> +<h2>Under False Colors.</h2> + + + +<div class="chapter" id="st06-ch01"> +<h3>Chapter I.</h3> + +<h4>Hoisting The Flag.</h4> + + + +<p>A dreary, murky November day brooded over Southampton, and an impenetrable +fog hung over sea and shore alike, penetrating the clothing, chilling the +blood and depressing the spirits of every unlucky person who was so +unfortunate as to come within the range of its influence. The passengers +on the steamship America, from Bremen for New York via Southampton, found +the brief period of their stay at the latter port almost unendurable; and +while some paced the wet decks impatiently, others grumbled both loudly +and deeply in the cabins, or shut themselves up in their state-rooms in +sulky discomfort. Those who remained on deck had at least the amusement of +watching for the steamboat which was to bring the Southampton +passengers--a pastime which, however, being indefinitely prolonged, began +to grow wearisome. It came at last--a wretched little vessel, rather +smaller than the smallest of the noisy tugs that puff and paddle on our +American rivers--and the wet, sick, unsheltered passengers were gradually +transferred to the deck of the ship.</p> + +<p>Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking +of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl, +apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible. She +would have fallen had not one of her fellow-travelers, a lady evidently +not much her senior, thrown her arm around her; thus aided, she managed to +reach the steamer's deck and to totter down the staircase leading to the +ladies' cabin. The active, busy steward at once bustled up to the two +young girls:</p> + +<p>"Your names, ladies, if you please. I will point out your state-rooms in a +moment. Miss Marion Nugent--Miss Rhoda Steele? Miss Nugent, berth No. 20, +state-room G--"</p> + +<p>"Cannot I occupy the same state-room with this young lady?" interrupted +the taller girl, who was still lending the support of her arm to sustain +her half-fainting companion.</p> + +<p>"Do not leave me, please," murmured the sufferer.</p> + +<p>The steward threw a compassionate glance upon the pair, went away, and +after a short consultation with the unseen powers, returned and said that +the arrangement had been effected, and that they could take possession at +once of their state-room, into which he proceeded to usher them. It was +more spacious than such apartments usually are, and abounded with all +those little contrivances for comfort and convenience for which the +steamers of the North German Lloyds are justly famed. The invalid sank +down on the soft-cushioned little sofa and gasped painfully for breath.</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake, get me some wine or some brandy!" exclaimed her +companion. "This poor thing seems very ill; and do tell the doctor to come +here at once."</p> + +<p>With a quick, energetic movement, as she spoke she unclasped the heavy +waterproof cloak of the sufferer and threw it back, thus revealing a fair, +pallid face, framed in loosened curls of silky golden hair. It was a face +that must have looked singularly lovely when tinted with the rosy hues of +health, so delicate were the features and so large and blue the +half-closed eyes, but it was ghastly pale, and a livid, bluish tinge had +settled around the small mouth, whose ruby hues had fled to give place to +a sickly purple. The steward speedily returned with some brandy, the +bull's-eye was thrown open, and the cold sea air and potent spirit soon +asserted their restorative powers. She sat up, a more natural color +over-spreading her countenance, and she murmured inarticulately a few +words of thanks, while the kind-hearted steward hastened away again in +search of the doctor.</p> + +<p>"I am subject to these attacks," she said, faintly; to her companion when +they were again left alone. "Only feel how my heart is beating."</p> + +<p>The ship's surgeon soon made his appearance. He was a young, light-haired, +solemn-looking German, who shook his head and looked very grave as he +listened to the labored breathing and felt the bounding, irregular pulse +of the sufferer.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity that the ship has started," he said in very good English, +"for I hardly think you are fitted to bear the fatigues of a sea-voyage at +this season of the year; and had we been still at anchor, I should have +counseled you to return to shore. But it is too late now, and you must try +to keep as quiet as possible. I would advise you to retire to your berth +at once: it will probably be a stormy night, and you had better settle +yourself comfortably before the motion begins to be unpleasant. I will see +you again in the morning, and if you feel worse meanwhile, let me know at +once."</p> + +<p>The doctor and the steward then quitted the state-room, and its two +occupants, being left alone, surveyed each other curiously.</p> + +<p>The active and energetic girl who had acted as spokeswoman and directress +throughout the brief scene we have just described had let fall her +waterproof cloak and stood arrayed in a black velvet jacket and dark silk +skirt, both much the worse for wear, and contrasting sadly with the neat +but simple traveling costume of her companion. But about her slender, +finely-proportioned figure there was an air of style and grace which lent +an elegance even to her shabby and faded finery, and which was wanting in +the owner of the fresher and more appropriate attire. Her face was +beautiful, with a singular and weird beauty which owed nothing of its +fascinations to the ordinary charms of delicate outlines and dainty +coloring. Her features were small and attenuated, and her complexion was +of a sallow paleness, whose lack of freshness seemed caused by dissipation +and late hours or by the ravages of illness. Heavy masses of soft silken +hair, black as midnight, with bluish reflections on its lustrous waves +<i>(bleu à force d'être noir</i>, as Alexandre Dumas describes such tresses), +untortured by crimping-pins or curling-tongs, were rolled back in plain +folds above her low, broad brow. Her eyes would have lent beauty to a +plainer face. Large almost to a fault, of that dark, clear blue which is +too perfect and too transparent ever to look black even under the shadow +of such long, thick eyelashes as shaded them in the present instance, they +were perfectly magnificent; and their lustrous azure and ever-varying +expression lent to the mobile countenance of their possessor its most +potent and peculiar charm.</p> + +<p>She was the first to speak. "Do you not think you had better retire to +your berth?" she asked. "The rocking of the ship is increasing, and we had +better, early as it is, settle ourselves for the night, before it becomes +so violent as to prevent us from moving."</p> + +<p>At this moment two porters made their appearance laden with packages. Two +small new trunks--one marked R.S., the other M.N.--were deposited on the +floor and identified by their possessors. The sick girl then attempted, +with trembling hands, to disembarrass herself of her apparel, but it was +not without much assistance from her companion that she was enabled to +remove her traveling costume and make her preparations for retiring. At +last, however, she was ready, and was about to make an attempt to reach +the upper berth, which was the one allotted to her by number, when a +quick, imperative gesture from her companion stopped her.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said: "you must take the lower berth. I can reach the upper +one without any trouble, and you are not strong enough for so much +exertion."</p> + +<p>"You are very, very kind," said the invalid, gratefully. She sank back on +the pillow and watched the other for some minutes in silence, as she +quietly and quickly gathered up and put in order the scattered articles +with which the state-room was strewn.</p> + +<p>"Will you not give me that little black bag?" she said at last. "Thanks! +that is it. I wished to be certain that I had put my letter of +introduction in it. Ah! here it is, quite safe. It would never do for me +to lose that letter, for the lady with whom I am going to live as +governess has never seen me, and she might take me for an impostor were I +to come without it. An English lady who was her most intimate friend +engaged me for her. I wonder what New York is like?--very rough, and wild, +no doubt, and I am afraid I shall be much annoyed by the rattlesnakes. You +are going to New York too, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"I am."</p> + +<p>"Have you friends there?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had some acquaintances among our fellow-passengers, but I do not +know a single one. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You have not told me your name yet. Mine is Marion Nugent; and yours--"</p> + +<p>"Is not so pretty a one--Rhoda Steele."</p> + +<p>There was something in the tone of these replies that quelled the +invalid's disposition to talk, and she remained silent while her companion +finished her arrangements and prepared to take possession of her berth. It +was time that she did so. The threatened gale was by this time blowing in +earnest, and the ship was commencing to roll fearfully; so, after securing +all the boxes and bags as well as possible, and hanging up all the +scattered garments, she made a hasty retreat to her couch, and lay there +only half undressed, but utterly prostrate, and as unable to touch the tea +and biscuits brought by the attentive stewardess as was her more delicate +and suffering room-mate.</p> + +<p>Time passed on: the daylight faded from the sky, a feeble glimmering lamp +shed its faint rays into the state-room, and the great steamship went +steadily on, though rocked and tossed like a plaything by the whistling +winds and angry sea. Then midnight came: the lights in the state-rooms +were extinguished and a profound silence reigned throughout the cabins, +broken only by the ceaseless throb of the mighty engines and the noisy +clanking of the screw.</p> + +<p>The state-room was wrapped in profound darkness when Rhoda Steele awoke +with a start as from some troubled dream. Was she still dreaming, or did +she indeed hear a strange choking sound proceeding from the lower berth? +She sprang to the floor at once, heeding neither the darkness nor the +violent motion, and clinging to the side of the berth she called aloud. +There was no answer: even the gurgling, choking sound she had at first +heard had ceased. She put out her hand, and it encountered her companion's +face. It was deathly cold, and the features quivered as if convulsed under +her touch. Again she called aloud--still no answer; and then, thoroughly +frightened, she caught up a cloak from the sofa, threw it around her, and +opening the state-room door, she rushed into the cabin. It was almost +deserted. The lamps swung heavily overhead, swayed by the unceasing +rolling of the ship; a drowsy waiter slumbered at one of the tables, his +head resting on his folded arms; and one or two sleepy passengers tried to +maintain a recumbent posture on the broad sofas that lined the sides. The +cries of the terrified girl soon brought several of the waiters to her +assistance, and Captain Wessels himself, who had not retired to rest, +owing to the stormy weather, came to ascertain the cause of the unusual +disturbance. Her story was quickly told: lights were brought, and the +captain accompanied her back to the state-room.</p> + +<p>It was a pitiful sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless +in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed, +and her small hands clenched as if in agony.</p> + +<p>"The doctor!--run for the doctor!" was the instant and universal +exclamation. The doctor came. One look at the pallid face, one touch on +the slender wrist, and he turned with a grave face to the bystanders.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing to be done," he said. "She is dead. I feared some such +catastrophe when I saw her last evening. She was in the last stages of +heart disease."</p> + +<p>"And who was she?--what was her name?" asked kind-hearted Captain Wessels, +looking down with pitying eyes at the fair pale face.</p> + +<p>The steward brought his lists.</p> + +<p>"Berth No. 22," he read--"Miss Rhoda Steele."</p> + +<p>"And this young lady?" continued the captain, turning to the other +occupant of the state-room, who had sunk back as if exhausted on the sofa, +still enveloped in the shrouding folds of her large waterproof cloak.</p> + +<p>She raised her head. The answer came after a moment's hesitation--came +with a strange, defiant ring in its tone:</p> + +<p>"My name is Marion Nugent."</p> +</div> + +<div class="chapter" id="st06-ch02"> +<h3>Chapter II.</h3> + +<h4>Under Full Sail.</h4> + + +<p>More than a year has passed away since the events narrated in our first +chapter took place, and the curtain now rises on a far different scene--a +dinner-party in one of the most splendid of the gorgeous mansions on +Madison avenue, New York.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Walton Rutherford, the giver of the entertainment in question, was a +member of a class unhappily now fast dying out of New York society--one of +those ladies of high social position and ancient lineage who adorn the +station which they occupy as much by their virtues as by their social +talents. A high-minded, pure-souled matron, a devoted wife and mother, as +well as a queen of society, inheriting the noble qualities of her +Revolutionary forefathers as well as their great estates--such was the +lady who presided over the brilliant festivity we are about to describe. +She had been left for many years a widow, and her surviving children--two +sons, Clement and Horace--were both of mature age; Horace, the younger, +being just thirty years old, and Clement, the elder, some seven years his +senior. Mrs. Rutherford herself was a few years over sixty. A year or two +before the period at which our story opens a terrible misfortune had +befallen her. Amaurosis--that most insidious and unmanageable of diseases +of the eye--had attacked her vision, and in a few months after it declared +itself she was totally, hopelessly blind. But, although debarred by her +infirmity from going into society, she still received her friends in her +own home; and her evening receptions and elegant dinners were always cited +as being among the most agreeable and successful entertainments of the +season.</p> + +<p>Another sorrow had recently come to trouble the calm of her honored and +tranquil existence--the marriage of her eldest son. Clement Rutherford, +unlike any other member of the family, was a cold, reserved man, +unpleasant in temper and disagreeable in manner. When he was still quite a +boy, his mother's only sister, Miss Myra Van Vleyden, had died, and had +bequeathed to him the large fortune which she had inherited conjointly +with Mrs. Rutherford from her father, the two sisters being the only +children of Schuyler Van Vleyden. She was a soured, morose old maid, and +probably saw some congeniality of disposition in her eldest nephew which +caused her to single him out as her heir. After he attained to years of +manhood, he always manifested a decided antipathy to ladies' society, and +was generally looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor; so that when he +announced to his mother the fact of his engagement to Mrs. Archer's pretty +governess, Miss Nugent, her distress of mind was fully equaled by her +astonishment. The match met with her strongest disapproval, as was to have +been expected; for it was hardly probable that she, the oldest surviving +representative of the old Knickerbocker family the Van Vleydens, an +acknowledged leader of society by the triple right of wealth, birth and +intellect, should be inclined to welcome very warmly as a daughter-in-law +the penniless beauty who had been occupied for some months past in +teaching Mrs. Archer's little daughters the rudiments of French and music. +Moreover, the investigations and inquiries respecting the young lady's +origin which she had at once caused to be instituted on hearing of her +son's engagement, had revealed a state of affairs which had placed Miss +Nugent in a very unenviable light. Her parents were well born, though +poor. She was the daughter of a curate in the North of England, who had +lost his young wife by heart disease when Marion was but a few months old, +and two years later Mr. Nugent died of consumption, leaving his little +daughter to the care of his unmarried and elderly brother, the Reverend +Walter Nugent, who, though the living he held was but a small one, +contrived to rear and educate his niece as his own child. He had only +allowed her to leave him and become a governess on the assurance of the +village physician that her health was seriously impaired, and that a sea +voyage and complete change of scene would prove the best and surest of +restoratives. But the pained though manly tone of the letter in which he +replied to Mrs. Rutherford's inquiries had prepossessed that warm-hearted, +high-minded lady most strongly against her future daughter-in-law. "I +loved Marion always as though she were my own child," wrote Mr. Nugent, +"and I cannot but look upon her total neglect of me since her arrival in +America as being wholly inexcusable. She has never even written me one +line since her departure, and I learned of her safe arrival only by the +newspapers. I can but infer from her obstinate and persistent silence that +she wishes to sever all ties between herself and me, and I have resigned +myself to the prospect of a lonely and cheerless old age. I trust that she +may be happy in the brilliant marriage which, you say, she is about to +make, and I can assure her that her old uncle will never disturb her in +her new prosperity."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rutherford had one long, stormy interview with her eldest son, and +learning therein that his determination to marry Miss Nugent was fixed and +unalterable, she had with commendable wisdom accepted the situation, and +resolved to so order the conduct of herself and her relatives as to give +the scandalous world no room for that contemptuous pity and abundant +gossip which an open rupture between herself and her son would doubtless +have occasioned.</p> + +<p>The manner of the wooing had been in this wise: John Archer, a sober, +staid gentleman of great wealth, was Clement Rutherford's most intimate +friend, and naturally, when the Archers moved into their new and splendid +villa at Newport, Clement was invited to spend a few weeks with them--an +invitation which he readily accepted. A few days after his arrival, Mrs. +Archer, who was a pretty, lively little coquette, not in the least sobered +by some thirteen years of married life, offered to drive him out in her +little phaeton. "John has just given me a new pair of ponies," she +said--"such perfect beauties and so gentle that I long to drive them." So +the pretty, stylish equipage, with its fair driver and faultless +appointments, made its first appearance on the avenue that afternoon, and +also, I am sorry to say, its last; for the "gentle beauties" afore-said, +excited to emulation by the number of spirited steeds around them, became +ambitious of distinction, and sought for and decidedly obtained it by +running away, thereby overturning the phaeton, breaking the harness, +bruising Mrs. Archer severely and dislocating Mr. Rutherford's ankle.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Archer was as well as ever in a few days, but the injuries received +by her guest proved sufficiently serious to compel him to maintain a +recumbent position for a long time, and prevented him from walking for +several weeks. She made every arrangement possible for his comfort, and +she had a charming little reception-room on the ground floor, adjoining +the library, fitted up as a bed-chamber, and installed him there; so that +as soon as he was able to quit his bed for a sofa, he could be wheeled +into the latter apartment, and there enjoy the distractions of literature +and society. For a few days after he made his first appearance there his +lovely hostess was all attention and devotion; but, finding that he was +anything but an agreeable or impressionable companion, she soon wearied of +his society. Mr. Archer, shortly after the accident had taken place, had +been summoned from home by important business connected with some mining +property which he possessed, and which necessitated his presence in the +interior of Pennsylvania; so Mrs. Archer, thus left with the entertainment +of her most uncongenial guest exclusively confided to her care, came +speedily to the conclusion that he was a nuisance, and began to look about +for a substitute to relieve her from her unwelcome duties. She decided +that her pretty governess, who spoke French so well, and sang little +French <i>chansonettes</i> so sweetly, and got herself up in such a charming +manner, giving so much "chic" and style even to the simplest of toilettes, +was just the person to take upon herself the task of amusing the +uninteresting invalid.</p> + +<p>"<i>Do</i> look after Mr. Rutherford a little, there's a dear, good creature," +whispered Mrs. Archer confidentially to Miss Nugent. "He is dreadfully +tiresome, to be sure, but John thinks the world of him, you know, and it +would not exactly do to leave him alone all the time. I wish him to +receive every attention while he is in the house, of course; but as for +sitting for hours at a time with him in that stuffy little library--just +in the height of the season, too--why, I cannot think of doing it. If you +will just go and sit with him sometimes, and read to him a little, it will +be an absolute charity to me. I'll see that Alice and Emily do not get +into any mischief."</p> + +<p>Which, considering that the young ladies in question were, one twelve, the +other ten years of age, and both much addicted to flirtation and dancing +the "German," was rather a rash promise and inconsiderately made.</p> + +<p>So Miss Nugent was definitely installed as reader and <i>garde malade</i> in +general, and Clement Rutherford soon learned to await her coming with +impatience and to welcome her with delight. All his life long will he +remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the +far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and +when the blue splendors of her lustrous eyes lent a new meaning to the +poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a +day when the book was laid aside, and the impassioned utterances of poetry +gave place to the more prosaic but not less fervent accents of a +newly-awakened passion. Cold, silent and morose as Clement Rutherford had +always been, it had so happened that but few women had ever attempted to +attract him, notwithstanding his wealth and social position; and the +interested motives of those few had been so apparent that he had been +repelled and disgusted, instead of being fascinated, by their wiles; so +that Miss Nugent's grace and beauty and syren charms proved all too potent +for his unoccupied though icy heart to resist; and thus it chanced that +the day before Mr. Rutherford left Newport he astonished his hostess by +requesting a private interview with her, and therein announcing his +engagement to her governess.</p> + +<p>"You could have knocked me down with a feather," Mrs. Archer said +afterward to an intimate friend. "I never should have suspected that such +a quiet, stupid man as he was would fall in love in that ridiculous kind +of a way. Good gracious! how indignant old Mrs. Rutherford will be! and I +shall be blamed for the whole affair, no doubt. I wish John had never +brought the man here--I never <i>did</i> like him; and then, too, it is so +provoking to lose Miss Nugent just now, while we are at Newport. Of course +I can find no one to replace her till we return to New York. Well, I +always <i>was</i> an unlucky little woman."</p> + +<p>The marriage took place in the latter part of September, only a few weeks +after the engagement had been first announced. Mrs. Rutherford, true to +her resolution of making the best of the affair, was careful that none of +the usual courtesies and observances should be neglected. The bridal gifts +from the Rutherford family, if less splendid, were as numerous as they +would have been had Mr. Rutherford married a member of his mother's +decorous, high-bred "set," and all his immediate relatives called most +punctiliously on the bride when the newly-wedded pair arrived in New York +after their six weeks' trip to Philadelphia and Washington.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rutherford decided to take rooms at the Brevoort House till he could +purchase a suitable residence. His mother's splendid home was not thrown +open to receive him and his unwelcome bride, as it would have been had he +made a choice more consonant with her wishes.</p> + +<p>But we have wandered far from the dinner given by Mrs. Rutherford in honor +of her new daughter-in-law, and with which our chapter commences.</p> + +<p>It was a superb entertainment, as the Rutherford dinners usually were. The +service of gold plate purchased by Schuyler Van Vleyden when he was +minister to Austria adorned the table, which was also decorated with three +splendid pyramids of choicest flowers. An exquisite bouquet bloomed in +front of each lady's plate, and the painted blossoms on the peerless +dinner-service of rare old Sèvres vied in every respect save fragrance +with their living counterparts. An unseen orchestra, stationed in the +conservatory, sent forth strains of music, now grave, now gay, as Gounod +or Offenbach ruled the tuneful spirit of the hour. Twelve guests only were +present, including Mrs. John Archer, to whom Mrs. Rutherford had in this +fashion testified her forgiveness, and who had accepted the proffered +olive-branch with delight, wearing, in order to do honor to the occasion, +an exquisite dress, fresh from one of the most renowned <i>ateliers</i> of +Parisian fashion. Mrs. Rutherford, as usual, notwithstanding her +infirmity, presided with unfailing grace and dignity; and in her splendid +dress of black satin, brocaded with bouquets of flowers in their natural +hues, her cap and collar of priceless old point lace, and her antiquely +set but magnificent ornaments of sapphires and diamonds, she still looked +a queen of society. A well-trained servant was stationed behind her chair, +who from time to time placed before her suitably-prepared portions of the +various delicacies of the entertainment, of which she slightly partook, in +order to obviate the restraint which her presence at the festivity without +participating in it would have occasioned. On her left hand sat her +younger son, Horace, whose watchful eyes followed her every movement, and +whose loving care anticipated her every wish. He was a tall, +stalwart-looking young man, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like his elder +brother, but his frank, joyous expression and winning manners bore no +resemblance to the sullen countenance and surly demeanor of Clement.</p> + +<p>The bride was, of course, the, cynosure of all eyes. Attired in rich, +creamy-white satin, the corsage shaded with folds of delicate lace, with +coral ornaments on her neck and arms, and with the heavy masses of her +dark hair interwoven with coral beads, she looked extremely beautiful, and +was pronounced by the ladies present to be "handsome and stylish-looking, +but decidedly dull." This latter accusation was more truthful than such +charges usually are. Mrs. Clement Rutherford did feel unusually stupid. +She was <i>ennuyé</i> by the long, formal, stately dinner; she knew but few of +the persons present; and her point-lace fan was frequently called into +requisition to conceal her yawns. The game had been served before her next +neighbor, a sprightly young New Yorker, who had been rather fascinated by +her beauty, contrived to arouse her into something like animation. He +succeeded at last, however, and it was not long before an unusually +brilliant sally drew a merry laugh from her lips. Her laugh was +peculiar--a low, musical, trilling sound, mirthful and melodious as the +chime of a silver bell.</p> + +<p>As its joyous music rang on the air, Mrs. Rutherford turned ghastly pale. +She gasped convulsively, half rose from her seat and fell back in a +deathlike swoon.</p> + +<p>Of course all was instantly confusion and dismay. The guests sprang up, +the waiters hurried forward--Horace was instantly at his mother's side.</p> + +<p>"She has only fainted," he said in his clear, decided tones. "She will be +better in a few moments. Let me beg of you, my friends, to resume your +seats. Clement, will you oblige me by taking our mother's post?"</p> + +<p>With the help of Mrs. Rutherford's special attendant, Horace supported the +already reviving sufferer from the room. They conveyed her to her sleeping +apartment, where restoratives and cold water were freely used, and she +soon regained perfect consciousness. But returning animation seemed to +bring with it a strange and overwhelming sorrow. When the servant had +retired, leaving her alone with her son, she refused to answer any of his +queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and +irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, +by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased +to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for +some time perfectly quiet and silent. At length she spoke:</p> + +<p>"Horace!"</p> + +<p>"What is it, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Describe to me the personal appearance of your brother's wife--minutely, +as though a picture were to be painted from your words."</p> + +<p>It was no unusual request. Horace was in the habit of thus minutely +describing persons and places for his mother's benefit.</p> + +<p>"She is rather below the middle height, and her form, though slender, is +finely moulded and of perfect proportions. Her hands and feet are +faultless, and her walk is extremely graceful, resembling more the gait of +a French-woman than that of an English girl. Her complexion is pale and +rather sallow, and her countenance is full of expression, which varies +constantly when she talks. The lower part of her face is somewhat too thin +for perfect beauty, and the chin is inclined to be pointed, and the cheeks +are rather hollow, but the upper part is superb. Her brow is low and +broad, and she folds back from it the heavy waves of her black hair in the +plainest possible style. Her eyes are her chief beauty, and would +transfigure any face into loveliness. They are very large, and of a dark, +transparent blue, of so lustrous and so perfect an azure that not even in +shadow do they look black. Stay--I can give you a better idea of her +appearance than by multiplying words. Did you, when you were in Munich, +visit the Gallery of Beauties in the Royal Palace?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember the portrait of Lola Montez?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly--as though I had seen it yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Marion resembles that portrait very strikingly, particularly in the shape +and carriage of her head."</p> + +<p>"I am not mistaken--it is she. Would that I had never lived to see this +day!" And Mrs. Rutherford wrung her hands in an agony of helpless, +hopeless distress.</p> + +<p>"It is she?" repeated Horace, in perplexity. "Whom do you mean, mother? +Who was Marion Nugent?"</p> + +<p>"She is not Marion Nugent--this impostor who has thrust herself into our +midst, bringing scandal and dishonor as her dower."</p> + +<p>"And who, then, is she?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rutherford turned toward him and fixed on his face her tear-bathed +eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read +his thoughts in his countenance.</p> + +<p>"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the +shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy? +Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will +believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly +denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable +anguish.</p> + +<p>Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own.</p> + +<p>"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all. +If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be +freed from the matrimonial chain."</p> + +<p>"Could that be possible?"</p> + +<p>"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if +you will but confide in me."</p> + +<p>"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I <i>will</i> +tell you all."</p> + +<p>Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest, +numbering among her passengers Horace Rutherford.</p> +</div> + +<div class="chapter" id="st06-id03"> +<h3>Chapter III.</h3> + +<h4>Striking the Flag.</h4> + + +<p>The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and +it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace +Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly +as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he +vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief +European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged +to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the +affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's <i>mesalliance</i>, his +mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent +seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all +afforded food for the insatiable appetite of the scandal-mongers. Then +Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of +Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had +been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at +her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the +elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street, +with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for +much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten" +would honor with its august presence the ball which Mrs. Clement +Rutherford proposed giving on Shrove Tuesday, which in that year came +about the middle of March. But as to that, it was generally conceded that +they would. Youth, beauty, wealth and the shadow of an old family name +could cover a multitude of such sins as rapid manners, desperate +flirtations and a questionable origin; and notwithstanding her fastness, +and, worse still, her <i>ci-devant</i> governess-ship, Mrs. Clement Rutherford +was a decided social success.</p> + +<p>On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his +appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, +and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual +manner.</p> + +<p>"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been +exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me +something about your travels."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message +for your wife: can I see her?"</p> + +<p>A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke. +"Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is +probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her <i>boudoir</i>, as she +calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see +her."</p> + +<p>He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his +hand.</p> + +<p>"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married +life?"</p> + +<p>"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "<i>they</i> +are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss."</p> + +<p>"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy," +muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a +harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight +before, me."</p> + +<p>The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, +was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and +on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of +taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fresco +by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after +them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a +delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the +Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few +chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the +tiny apartment. Étagères of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, +and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing +nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian +glass, Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and +Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the +one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited +for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been +selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring +and <i>riante</i> style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by +Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun +flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the +foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a +barren and precipitous shore.</p> + +<p>Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened +and his sister-in-law entered. He turned to greet her, and her beauty, +enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an +involuntary glance of admiration. Her dress was an exemplification of how +much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it +absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate. She wore a robe of +turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing +sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only +Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise. A band of the +same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and +showed to advantage the perfection of her figure. A brooch and long +ear-pendants of lustreless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with +gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and +gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking +woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer.</p> + +<p>"Welcome home, Horace!" she said in that low sweet voice which was one of +her most potent charms. "How kind it is of you to pay me a visit so soon +after your return!"</p> + +<p>She placed herself on the couch and motioned to him to take a seat near +her. He drew up his chair, and a short, embarrassed pause succeeded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rutherford toyed with her fan and stole glances from under her long +black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and +wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task +before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature.</p> + +<p>Wearied of silence, the lady spoke at last.</p> + +<p>"Have you nothing of interest respecting your travels to tell me?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>Her voice seemed to break the spell which paralyzed him. He turned toward +her with the look of one who nerves himself up to take a desperate +resolution:</p> + +<p>"Yes: I have a story to relate to you, and one of more than common +interest."</p> + +<p>"Really!" She yawned behind her fan. "Excuse me, but I was at Mrs. +Houdon's ball last evening, and the 'German' was kept up till five o'clock +this morning. I am wretchedly tired. Now do go on with your story: I have +no doubt but that I shall find it amusing, but do not be much surprised if +I fall asleep."</p> + +<p>"I think you will find it interesting, and I have no fear of its putting +you to sleep. But you must make me one promise. I am but a poor narrator, +and you must engage not to interrupt me."</p> + +<p>"I have no hesitation in promising to remain perfectly quiet, no matter +how startling your incidents or how vivid your descriptions may be."</p> + +<p>She leaned back among the cushions with another stifled yawn and shaded +her eyes with her fan. Without heeding the veiled impertinence of her +manner, Horace commenced his narrative:</p> + +<p>"Some twenty-five years ago a friendless, penniless Englishwoman died at +one of the cheap boarding-schools in Dieppe, where she had officiated for +some time as English teacher and general drudge. She left behind her a +little girl about five years of age--a pretty, engaging child, whose +beauty and infantile fascinations so won the heart of Madame Tellier, the +proprietress of the establishment, that she decided to take charge of the +little creature and educate her, her project being to fit her for the post +of English teacher in her school. But the pretty child grew up to be a +beautiful but unprincipled girl, with an inborn passion for indolence and +luxury. At the age of seventeen she eloped from the school with a young +Parisian gentleman, who had been spending the summer months at one of the +seaside hotels in Dieppe, and her benefactress saw her and heard of her no +more.</p> + +<p>"We will pass over the events of the next few years. It would hardly +interest you to follow, as I did, each step by which the heroine of my +history progressed ever downward on the path of vice. We find her at last +traveling in Italy under the protection of the Count von Erlenstein, an +Austrian noble of great wealth and dissolute character. She has cast aside +the name she once bore, and, anticipating the jewel-borrowed cognomens of +Cora Pearl and La Reine Topaze, she adopts a title from the profusion of +pink coral jewelry which she habitually wears, and Rose Sherbrooke is +known as Rose Coral."</p> + +<p>Horace paused. A short, sharp sound broke the momentary silence: it was +caused by the snapping of one of the gilded fan-sticks under the pressure +of the white, rigid fingers that clasped it. But the listener kept her +face hidden, and but for that convulsive motion the speaker might have +fancied that she slept, so silent and motionless did she remain. After a +short pause Horace continued:</p> + +<p>"The attachment of Count von Erlenstein proved to be a lasting one, and we +find Rose Coral at a later period installed in a luxurious establishment +in Vienna, and one of the reigning queens of that realm of many +sovereigns, the <i>demi-monde</i> of the gay capital of Austria. But the count +falls ill; his sickness speedily assumes a dangerous form; his death +deprives Rose Coral of her splendor; and the sunny streets of Vienna know +her fair face no more. I will not retrace for you, as I could do, each +step in her rapid descent from luxury to poverty, from splendor to vice, +from celebrity to ruin. But one day she makes her appearance, under the +name of Rhoda Steele, on board the steamship America, bound for New York. +The state-room which she occupies is shared by a young girl named Marion +Nugent, whose future career is to be that of a governess in the United +States. On the first night out one of the occupants of the state-room is +taken suddenly ill and dies, the corpse is committed to the deep, and it +is reported throughout the ship that the name of the deceased is Rhoda +Steele. The tale was false: it was Marion Nugent who died--it was Rose +Sherbrooke, <i>alias</i> Rose Coral, <i>alias</i> Rhoda Steele, who lived to rob the +dead girl of her effects and to assume her name!"</p> + +<p>The broken fan was flung violently to the floor, and Mrs. Rutherford +sprang to her feet, her face livid with passion and her blue eyes blazing +with a steel-like light.</p> + +<p>"How dare you come here to assert such falsehoods?" she cried. "You have +always hated me--you and all the rest of your haughty family--because it +pleased Clement Rutherford to marry me--me, a penniless governess. But I +am your sister-in-law, and I <i>demand </i> that you treat me with proper +respect. You came here to-day simply to insult me. Well, sir, I will +summon my husband, and he shall protect me from your insolence."</p> + +<p>She turned toward the door as she spoke, but he motioned her back with an +imperative and scornful gesture.</p> + +<p>"Softly, Rose Coral," he said, with a sneer: "the manners of the Quartier +Brèda are not much to my taste, nor do they suit the character you have +been pleased to assume. Do you think me so void of common sense as to +return home without full proof of your identity? I have in my possession a +large colored photograph of you, taken some years ago by Hildebrandt of +Vienna, and endorsed by him on the back with a certificate stating that it +is an accurate likeness of the celebrated Rose Coral. Secondly, I have +brought home with me two witnesses--one is Jane Sheldon, late housekeeper +for the Rev. Walter Nugent, and formerly nurse to the deceased Marion +Nugent; and the other is a French hairdresser who lived many years in +Vienna, and who, for several months, daily arranged the profuse tresses of +Rose Coral. One will prove who you are <i>not</i>, and the other will as +certainly prove who you <i>are</i>."</p> + +<p>"Who I <i>was</i>" she said, defiantly. "I will deny it no longer: I am Rose +Sherbrooke, once known as Rose Coral, and, what is more to the purpose, I +am the wife of Clement Rutherford. Have a care, my brother Horace, lest +you reveal to the world that your immaculate relatives have been touching +pitch of the blackest hue and greatest tenacity. Prove me to be the vilest +of my sex, I remain none the less a wedded wife--your brother's wife--and +I defy you. The game is played out, and I have won it."</p> + +<p>She threw herself back in her chair and cast on him a glance of insolent +disdain. Horace Rutherford looked at her with a scornful smile.</p> + +<p>"The game is <i>not</i> played out," he said, calmly. "One card remains in my +hand, and I produce it. It is the Ace of Diamonds, and its title is The +Rose of the Morning."</p> + +<p>A livid paleness overspread Mrs. Rutherford's features, and a stifled cry +escaped from her lips. She half rose from her seat, but, seeming to +recollect herself, she sank back and covered her face with her hands. +Horace continued, after a momentary pause:</p> + +<p>"My investigations into the history of the Count Wilhelm von Erlenstein +during the last years of his life revealed the fact that he had lost the +most valuable of the jewels of his family. It had been stolen. It was a +pink diamond of great size and beauty, known to gem-connoisseurs by the +name of The Rose of the Morning--one of those remarkable stones which have +a history and a pedigree, and which are as well known by reputation to +diamond-fanciers as are Raphael's Transfiguration and the Apollo Belvidere +to the lovers of art. This gem was worn by Count Wilhelm as a clasp to the +plume in his toque at a fancy ball given by one of the Metternich family, +at which he appeared in the costume of Henri III. of France. He afterward, +with culpable carelessness, placed it, amongst his studs, pins, +watch-chains and other similar bijouterie, in a small steel cabinet which +stood in his bed-chamber. His illness and the dismissal of Rose Coral +occurred soon after the fancy ball in question, and it was not till his +heir, the present count, had been for some time in possession of the +estates that it was discovered that the great diamond was missing. It was +not to be found, and suspicion immediately fell upon the late count's +valet, a Frenchman named Antoine Lasalle; who was found to have been +mysteriously possessed of a large sum of money after the count's death. He +was arrested, and it was conclusively proved that he had stolen a number +of valuable trinkets from his dying master, but still no trace of The Rose +of the Morning could be discovered, and Lasalle strenuously denied all +knowledge respecting it. The family offered large rewards for its +recovery, and the detectives of all the large cities of Europe have been +for some time on the alert to discover it, but in vain. As soon as I heard +this story, I thought that I could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to the +whereabouts of the missing jewel; and I caused investigations to be set on +foot in New York by a trusty agent, which resulted in the discovery that +The Rose of the Morning had been sold some six months before to a jeweler +in Maiden lane for about one-twenty-fifth of its value, the peculiar tint +of the stone, and the purchaser's ignorance of the estimation in which it +is held by the gem-fanciers of Europe, having militated against the +magnitude of the valuation set upon it. It was secured for me at a +comparatively trifling price. The person who sold it to the jeweler some +six months ago, in spite of a partial disguise and an assumed name, was +easy to recognize, from the description given, as that lady of many names, +Mrs. John Archer's governess. Now, Rose Coral, what say you? You may be +Mrs. Clement Rutherford, my brother's lawful wife, but you are not the +less a thief and a criminal, for whom the laws have terrible punishment +and bitter degradation."</p> + +<p>"This is but a poor invention: where are your proofs?" she cried, looking +up as she spoke, but her faltering voice and quivering lips contradicted +her words.</p> + +<p>"Here is my chief witness." He drew off his left-hand glove as he spoke, +and extended his hand toward her. On the third finger blazed the beautiful +gem of which he had spoken, its great size and purity fully displayed in +the pale afternoon sunlight that flashed back in rosy radiance from its +bright-tinted depths.</p> + +<p>"It is almost too large to wear as a ring," he said with great coolness, +looking at the jewel, "but I wish it to run no further risks till I can +transfer it to its lawful owner, which will be as soon as it has played +its talismanic part by freeing my brother from his impostor-wife."</p> + +<p>The lady rose from her seat, pale, calm and resolved.</p> + +<p>"Further insults are useless, sir," she said. "The game is ended now, and +you have won it. What is it that you wish me to do?"</p> + +<p>"You must sail for Europe in one of next week's steamers, leaving behind +you such a confession of guilt as will enable my brother to procure a +divorce without revealing the shameful fact that he was the innocent means +of introducing an impostor--a <i>ci-devant</i> lorette--to his family and +friends as his wife. Better this scandal of an elopement than the horror +of having such a story made public. An income amply sufficient for your +wants will be settled upon you, on condition that you never return to the +United States, and never, in any way, proclaim the fact that Mrs. Clement +Rutherford and Rose Coral were one and the same person."</p> + +<p>"I accept your conditions," she said, wearily. "I will go, never to +return. Now leave me. But stay: will you not answer me one question?"</p> + +<p>"I will, certainly."</p> + +<p>"Who was it that discovered my secret?"</p> + +<p>"My mother--my blind mother. Some years ago, before she lost her sight, I +accompanied her on a short European tour, in which we visited England, +France, Switzerland, and finally Italy. While we were at Rome I fell ill +with the fever of the country, and my physicians gave orders that as soon +as I was well enough to travel I should leave Italy for a more bracing +climate. We had not visited Naples, and I was anxious that my mother +should not return home without seeing the wonders of that city; so as soon +as I became convalescent I prevailed upon her to leave me in the care of +some friends and to join a party who were going thither. During her stay +she went frequently to the opera. One evening she was greatly disturbed by +the loud talking and laughing of some persons in the box next to the one +she occupied, and she was much struck with the beauty, the brilliant +toilette and the boisterous conduct of one of the female members of the +party. She inquired the name of the person she had thus remarked. It was +yourself, and she learned not only your name, but your whole history. When +at her own dinner-table she heard the sweet and singular laugh that had so +struck her on that occasion, the sensitiveness of hearing peculiar to the +blind caused her to recognize the sound at once; and the description which +I afterward gave her of your personal appearance only changed torturing +doubt into agonizing certainty."</p> + +<p>"Thanks for your courtesy: I will detain you no longer."</p> + +<p>Horace bowed and approached the door. Suddenly, as if moved by a sudden +impulse, he turned back.</p> + +<p>"Believe me, this task has been a hard one," he said, earnestly. "And +remember, if hereafter you may need pecuniary aid, do not hesitate to +apply to me. For Heaven's sake, do not return to the life you once led. +There was one redeeming feature in the imposture which you practiced: it +showed that some yearning for a pure name and an innocent life was yet +possible to you."</p> + +<p>"I want no sermons," she answered, abruptly. "Only leave me at peace. Go: +I am sick of the sight of you."</p> + +<p>As he closed the door he cast one parting glance on the room and its +occupant. She stood leaning against the back of a large arm-chair, her +clasped hands resting on the top, and her white, rigid face set in the +fixed calmness of total despair.</p> + +<p>Thus left alone, she remained standing for some time as motionless as +though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she +seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a +bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. Her maid +quickly appeared.</p> + +<p>"I have a wretched headache, Christine," she said. "I shall not come down +to dinner, and do not disturb me till nine o'clock: that will give me time +enough to dress for Mrs. Winchester's ball. I will wear the pale-blue +satin and my point-lace tunic. Be sure you change the white roses that +loop it for pink ones, and lay out my parure of pearls and diamonds, and +my point-lace fan and handkerchief. Now bring me the two phials that stand +on the third shelf of the closet in my bed-chamber."</p> + +<p>Christine departed on her errand and soon returned, bringing with her two +bottles, the smallest of which was labeled "Solution of Morphia--POISON. +Dose for an adult, ten drops;" while the largest Was simply inscribed +"Sulphuric Ether." These she placed on the chimney-piece, and then +proceeded to arrange the cushions of the lounge and to draw the curtains. +"I will now leave madame to her repose," she said. "Does madame need +anything more?"</p> + +<p>"No, I shall want nothing more," was the reply. The door closed upon the +maid's retreating form, and Mrs. Rutherford instantly shot the bolt.</p> + +<p>She cast a sad and wistful glance around the dainty room and on its +glittering contents. "<i>J'etais si bien ici</i>," she said regretfully. "I had +found here the existence which suited me, and now the end has come. It is +not in my nature to remain satisfied with a life of poverty and +respectability, and I will not return to one of degradation and vice. But, +after all, what does it matter? My fate would have found me sooner or +later, and this soft couch is better than a hospital bed or the slabs of +La Morgue: this draught is more soothing than the cold waters of the +Thames or the Seine. Life is no longer a game that is worth the candle: +let us extinguish the lights and put the cards away."</p> + +<p>She took up the phial of morphia, drew the little sofa nearer to the +fireplace and extended herself upon it. The daylight faded from the sky +and night came, and with the night came sleep--a sleep whose dream was of +Eternity, and whose wakening light would be the dawn of the resurrection +morning.</p> + +<p>"Accidental death" was the verdict of the coroner and the newspapers, and, +in fact, of the world in general--a conclusion much assisted by the +evidence of Christine, who testified that her mistress was in the habit of +using narcotics and anaesthetics in large quantities to relieve the pain +of the neuralgic headaches from which she was a constant sufferer. Society +said, "How sad! Dreadful, is it not?" and went on its way--not exactly +rejoicing, for the death of Mrs. Rutherford deprived its members of her +long-promised, long-talked-of Shrove-Tuesday ball, and consequently the +gay world mourned her loss very sincerely for a short time; in fact, till +a well-known leader of fashion announced her intention of giving a +fancy-dress party on the night thus left vacant, whereupon Society was +consoled, and Mrs. Rutherford's sad fate was forgotten.</p> + +<p>Only two persons--Horace Rutherford and his mother--suspected that her +death was not an accidental one; but they guarded their secret carefully, +and Clement Rutherford will never learn that his dead wife was other than +the innocent English girl she represented herself to be. Walter Nugent +wrote a pathetic letter to Mrs. Rutherford, begging that a lock of his +lost and now forgiven darling's hair might be sent to him; and it cost +Horace a sharp pang of regret when he substituted for the black, wavy +tress furnished by Clement a golden ringlet purchased from one of the +leading hairdressers of New York.</p> + +<p>"Heaven forgive me!" he said to himself, remorsefully, as he sealed the +little packet; "but I really think that this is one of the cases wherein +one cannot be blamed for not revealing the truth."</p> + +<p>A few months later, Horace Rutherford stood in Greenwood Cemetery +contemplating with curiosity and interest the inscription on a +recently-erected monument of pure white marble.</p> + +<p>"Sacred to the memory of Marion Nugent, beloved wife of Clement +Rutherford," he read. "Well, this is consistent at least. She wears the +disguise of a virtuous woman in her very tomb. Marion Nugent rests beneath +the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and here Rose Sherbrooke sleeps in an +honored grave beneath the shelter of the dead girl's stainless name. But +the deception has power to harm no longer, so let us leave her in peace. +It is well for our family that, even as a sunken wreck, we still find this +pirate bark Under False Colors,"</p> +</div> +<p class="author">Lucy Hamilton Hooper.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st07"> +<h2>The Hungry Heart.</h2> + + + +<p>A village on the coast of Maine; in this village a boarding-house; in this +boarding-house a parlor.</p> + +<p>This parlor is, strictly speaking, a chamber: it is in the second story, +and until lately it contained a bed, washstand, etc.; but a visitor from +New York has taken a fancy to change it to a reception-room. In the rear, +communicating with it, is a sleeping-closet.</p> + +<p>The room is what you might expect to find in a village boarding-house: the +floor of liliuptian extent; the ceiling low, uneven, cracked and yellow; +the originally coarse and ugly wall-paper now blotched with age; the +carpet thin, threadbare, patched and stained; the furniture of various +woods and colors, and in various stages of decrepitude.</p> + +<p>But a tiny bracket or two, three or four handsome engravings, two fresh +wreaths of evergreens, two vases of garden flowers, a number of Swiss and +French knickknacks, and a few prettily-bound books, give the little nest +an air of refinement which is almost elegance.</p> + +<p>You judge at once that the occupant must be a woman--a woman moreover of +sensibility and taste; a woman of good society. Of all this you become +positive when you look at her, take note of her gracious manner and listen +to her cultured voice.</p> + +<p>Her expression is singularly frank and almost childlike: it exhibits a +rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions: it is both vivacious and +refined, both eager and sweet. It would seem as if here were the +impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and +artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness and +feeling.</p> + +<p>In a large easy-chair reclines her rather small, slender and willowy form, +starting slightly forward when she speaks, and sinking back when she +listens. Her sparkling eyes are fixed on the eyes of her one visitor with +an intentness and animation of interest which should be very fascinating.</p> + +<p>He, a young man, not five years older than herself, very gentle in manner +and with a remarkably sweet expression of face, evidently is fascinated, +and even strongly moved, if one may judge by the feverish color in his +cheeks, the eager inquiry of his gaze and the tremor of his lips.</p> + +<p>The first words of hers which we shall record are a strange utterance to +come from a woman:</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you something which I have read lately. It sounds like a +satire, and yet there is too much truth in it: 'Every woman in these days +needs two husbands--one to fill her purse, and one to fill her heart; one +to dress her, and one to love her. It is not easy to be the two in one.' +That is what I have read, and it is only too true. Remember it, and don't +marry."</p> + +<p>A spasm of intense spiritual pain crossed the young man's fine and kindly +face.</p> + +<p>"Don't say such things, I beg of you!" he implored. "I am sure that in +what you have quoted there is a slander upon most women. I know that it +slanders you."</p> + +<p>Her lips parted as if for a contradiction, but it was evidently very +pleasant to her to hear such words from him, and with a little childlike +smile of gratification she let him proceed.</p> + +<p>"I have perfect confidence in you," he murmured. "I am willing to put all +my chances of happiness in your hands. My only fear is that I am not half +worthy of you--not a thousandth part worthy of you. Will you not listen to +me seriously? Will you not be so kind?"</p> + +<p>A tremor of emotion slightly lifted her hands, and it seemed for a moment +as if she would extend them to him. Then there was a sudden revulsion: +with a more violent shudder, evidently of a painful nature, she threw +herself backward, her face turned pale, and she closed her eyes as if to +shut him from her sight.</p> + +<p>"I ought to ask your pardon," she whispered. "I never thought that it +would come to this. I never meant that it should. Oh, I ask your pardon." +Recovering herself with singular quickness, a bright smile dancing along +the constantly changing curves of her lips, like sunbeams leaping from +wavelet to wavelet, she once more leaned cordially toward him, and said in +a gay yet pleading tone, "Let us talk of something else. Come, tell me +about yourself--all about yourself, nothing about me."</p> + +<p>"I cannot speak of anything else," he replied, after looking at her long +in silence. "My whole being is full of you: I cannot think of anything +else."</p> + +<p>A smile of gratitude sweetly mastered her mouth: then it suddenly turned +to a smile of pity; then it died in a quiver of remorse.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we cannot marry," she sighed. "We must not marry, if we could. Let me +tell you something dreadful. People hate each other after they are +married. I know: I have seen it. I knew a girl of seventeen who married a +man ten years older--a man who was Reason itself. Her friends told her, +and she herself believed it, that she was sure of happiness. But after +three years she found that she did not love, that she was not loved, and +that she was miserable. He was too rational: he used to judge her as he +would a column of figures--he had no comprehension for her feelings."</p> + +<p>There was a momentary pause, during which she folded her hands and looked +at him, but with an air of not seeing him. In the recollection of this +heart-tragedy of the past and of another she had apparently forgotten the +one which was now pressing upon herself.</p> + +<p>"It was incredible how cold and unsympathizing and dull he could be," she +went on. "Once, after she had worked a week in secret to surprise him with +a dressing-gown made by her own hands--labored a week, waited and hoped a +week for one word of praise--he only said, 'It is too short.' Don't you +think it was cruel? It was. I suppose he soon forgot it, but she never +could. A woman cannot forget such slights: they do not seem little blows +to her; they make her very soul bleed."</p> + +<p>"Don't reproach <i>me</i> for it," whispered the young man with a pleading +smile. "You seem to be reproving me, and I can't bear it. I am not +guilty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not you," she answered quickly. "I am not scolding you. I could not."</p> + +<p>She did not mean it, but she gave him a smile of indescribable sweetness: +she had had no intention of putting out her hands toward him, but she did +it. He seized the delicate fingers and slowly drew her against his heart. +Her face crimson with feeling, her whole form trembling to the tiniest +vein, she rose to her feet, turning away her head as if to fly, and yet +did not escape, and could not wish to escape. Holding her in his arm, he +poured into her ear a murmur which was not words, it was so much more than +words.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>could</i> you truly love me?" she at last sobbed. "Could you <i>keep</i> +loving me?"</p> + +<p>After a while some painful recollection seemed to awaken her from this +dream of happiness, and, drawing herself out of his embrace, she looked +him sadly in the eyes, saying, "I must not be so weak. I must save myself +and you from misery. Oh, I must. Go now--leave me for a while: do go. I +must have time to think before I say another word to you."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, my love--soon to be my wife," he answered, stifling with a kiss +the "No, no," which she tried to utter.</p> + +<p>Although he meant to go, and although she was wretchedly anxious that he +should go, he was far from gone. All across the room, at every square of +the threadbare carpet, they halted to renew their talk. Minutes passed, an +hour had flown, and still he was there. And when he at last softly opened +the door, she herself closed it, saying, "Oh no! not yet."</p> + +<p>So greedy is a loving woman for love, so much does she hate to lose the +breath of it from her soul: to let it be withdrawn is like consenting to +die when life is sweetest.</p> + +<p>Thus it was through her, who had bidden him to go, and who had meant that +he should go, that he remained for minutes longer, dropping into her ear +whispers of love which at last drew out her confession of love. And when +the parting moment came--that moment of woman's life in which she least +belongs to herself--there was not in this woman a single reservation of +feeling or purpose.</p> + +<p>These people, who were so madly in love with each other, were almost +strangers. The man was Charles Leighton, a native of Northport, who had +never gone farther from his home than to Boston, and there only to +graduate in the Harvard College and Medical School.</p> + +<p>The lady was Alice Duvernois: her name was all that was known of her in +the village--it was all that she had told of herself. Only a month +previous to the scene above described she had arrived in Northport to +obtain, as she said, a summer of quiet and sea-bathing. She had come +alone, engaged her own rooms, and for a time seemed to want nothing but +solitude.</p> + +<p>Even after she had made herself somewhat familiar with the other inmates +of the boarding-house, nothing positive was learned of her history. That +she had been married was probable: an indefinable something in her face +and carriage seemed to reveal thus much: moreover, her trunks were marked +"James Duvernois."</p> + +<p>And yet, so young did she sometimes look, so childlike was her smile and +so simple her manner, that there were curious ones who scouted the +supposition of wifehood. People addressed her both as "Miss" and "Mrs."; +at last it was discovered that her letters bore the latter title: then she +became popularly known as "the beautiful widow."</p> + +<p>It would be a waste of time to sketch the opening and ripening of the +intimacy between Doctor Leighton and this fascinating stranger. On his +part it was as nearly a case of love at first sight as perhaps can occur +among people of the Anglo-Saxon race. From the beginning he had no doubts +about giving her his whole heart: he was mastered at once by an emotion +which would not let him hesitate: he longed with all his soul for her +soul, and he strove to win it.</p> + +<p>Well, we will not go over the story: we know that he had triumphed. Yes, +in spite of her terror of the future, in spite of some withholding mystery +in the past, she had granted him--or rather she had not been able to +prevent him from seizing--her passionate affection. She had uttered a +promise which, a month before, she would not have dreamed herself capable +of making.</p> + +<p>In so doing she had acquired an almost unendurable happiness. It was one +of those mighty and terrible joys which are like the effect of opium--one +of those joys which condense life and abbreviate it, which excite and yet +stupefy, which intoxicate and kill. With this in her heart she lived ten +of her old days in one, but also she drew for those ten days upon her +future.</p> + +<p>After one of her interviews with Leighton, after an hour of throbbing, of +trembling, of vivid but confused emotions, her face would be as pale as +death, and her weakness such that she could hardly speak. The hands which, +while they clung to his, had been soft and moist, became dry and hot as +with fever, and then cold as ice. At night she could scarcely sleep: for +hours her brain throbbed with the thought of him, and of what stood +between him and her. In the morning she was heavy with headache, dizzy, +faint, hysterical; yet the moment she saw him again she was all life, all +freshness.</p> + +<p>From the point of confession there was no more resistance. She would be +his wife; she would be married whenever he wished; she seemed mad to +reward him for his love; she wanted somehow to sacrifice herself for his +sake. Yet, although she hesitated no longer, she sometimes gazed at him +with eyes full of anxiety, and uttered words which presaged evil.</p> + +<p>"If any trouble springs from this, you must pardon me," she more than once +whispered. "I cannot help it. I have never, never, never been loved +before; and oh, I have been so hungry, so famished for it, I had begun to +despair of it. Yes, when I first met you, I had quite despaired of there +being any love in the world for me. I could not help listening to you: I +could not help taking all your words and looks into my craving heart; and +now I am yours--forgive me!"</p> + +<p>Stranger as she was in Northport, everybody trusted the frank sweetness in +her face, and sought no other cause for admiring her and wishing her +happiness. The whole village came to the church to witness her marriage +and to doat upon a bridal beauty which lay far more in expression than in +form or feature. A few words of description--inadequate notes to represent +the precious gold of reality--must be given to one who could change the +stare of curiosity to a beaming glance of sympathy.</p> + +<p>Small, slender, fragile; neither blonde nor brunette; a clear skin, with a +hectic flush; light chestnut hair, glossy and curling; eyes of violet +blue, large, humid and lustrous, which at the first glance seemed black +because of the darkness, length and closeness of the lashes, and capable +of expressing an earnestness and sweetness which no writer or artist might +hope to depict; a manner which in solitude might be languid, but which the +slightest touch of interest kindled into animation; in fine, white teeth +that sparkled with gayety, and glances that flashed happiness.</p> + +<p>She was married without bridal costume, and there was no wedding journey. +Leighton was poor, and must attend to his business; and his wife wanted +nothing from him which he could not spare--nothing but his love. +Impossible to paint her pathetic gratitude for this affection; the +spiritual--it was not passionate--fondness which she bore him; the +softness of her eyes as she gazed for minutes together into his; the +sudden, tremulous outreachings of her hands toward him, as she just +touches him with her finger and draws back, then leans forward and lies in +his arms, uttering a little cry of happiness. Here was a heart that must +long have hungered for affection--a heart unspeakably thankful and joyous +at obtaining it.</p> + +<p>"I have been smiling all day," she sometimes said to him. "People have +asked me why I looked so gay, and what I had heard that was funny. It is +just because I am entirely happy, and because the feeling is still a +surprise. Shall I ever get over it? Am I silly? No!"</p> + +<p>Her gladness of heart seemed to make her angelic. She rejoiced in every +joy around her, and grieved for every sorrow. She visited the poor of her +husband's patients, watched with them when there was need, made little +collections for their relief, chatted away their forebodings, half cured +them with her smile. There was something catching, comforting, uplifting +in the spectacle of that overbrimming content.</p> + +<p>The well were as susceptible to its influence as the sick. Once, half a +dozen men and twice as many boys were seen engaged in recovering her veil +out of a pond into which the wind had blown it; and when it was handed to +her by a shy youth on the end of a twenty-foot pole, all felt repaid for +their labors by the childlike burst of laughter with which she received +it. Now and then, however, shadows fell across this sunshine. In those +dark moments she frequently reverted to the unhappy couple of whom she had +told Leighton when he first spoke to her of marriage. She was possessed to +describe the man--his dull, filmy, unsympathetic black eyes, his +methodical life and hard rationality, his want of sentiment and +tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Why do you talk of that person so much?" Leighton implored. "You seem to +be charging me with his cruelty. I am not like him."</p> + +<p>The tears filled her eyes as she started toward him, saying, "No, you are +<i>not</i> like him. Even if you should become like him, I couldn't reproach +you. I should merely die."</p> + +<p>"But you know him so well?" he added, inquiringly. "You seem to fear him. +Has he any power over you?"</p> + +<p>For a moment she was so sombre that he half feared lest her mind was +unstrung on this one subject.</p> + +<p>"No," she at last said. "His power is gone--nearly gone. Oh, if I could +only forget!"</p> + +<p>After another pause, during which she seemed to be nerving herself to a +confession, she threw herself into her husband's arms and whispered, "He +is my--uncle."</p> + +<p>He was puzzled by the contrast between the violence of her emotion and the +unimportance of this avowal; but as he at least saw that the subject was +painful to her, and as he was all confidence and gentleness, he put no +more inquiries.</p> + +<p>"Forget it all," he murmured, caressing her; and with a deep sigh, the +sigh of tired childhood, she answered, "Yes."</p> + +<p>The long summer days, laden with happiness for these two, sailed onward to +their sunset havens. After a time, as August drew near its perfumed death, +Alice began to speak of a journey which she should soon be obliged to make +to New York. She <i>must</i> go, she said to Leighton--it was a matter of +property, of business: she would tell him all about it some day. But she +would return soon; that is, she would return as soon as possible: she +would let him know how soon by letter.</p> + +<p>When he proposed to accompany her she would not hear of it. To merely go +on with her, she represented, would be a useless expense, and to stay as +long as she might need to stay would injure his practice. In these days +her gayety seemed forced, and more than once he found her weeping; yet so +innocent was he, so simple in his views of life, so candid in soul, that +he suspected no hidden evil: he attributed her agitation entirely to grief +at the prospect of separation.</p> + +<p>His own annoyance in view of the journey centred in the fact that his wife +would be absent from him, and that he could not incessantly surround her +with his care. Whether she would be happy, whether she would be treated +with consideration, whether she would be safe from accidents and alarms, +whether her delicate health would not suffer, were the questions which +troubled him. He had the masculine instinct of protection: he was as +virile as he was gentle and affectionate.</p> + +<p>The parting was more painful to him than he had expected, because to her +it was such an undisguised and terrible agony.</p> + +<p>"You will not forget me?" she pleaded. "You will never, never hate me? You +will always love me? You are the only person who has ever made the world +pleasant to me; and you have made it so pleasant! so different from what +it was! a new earth to me! a star! I will come back as soon as this +business will let me. Some day I will come back, never to go away. Oh, +will not that be delightful?"</p> + +<p>Her extreme distress, her terror lest she might not return, her +forebodings lest he should some day cease to love her, impressed him for a +moment--only for a truant moment--with doubts as to a mystery. As he left +the railway station, full of gratitude for the last glance of her loving +eyes, he asked himself once or twice, "What is it?"</p> + +<p>What was it?</p> + +<p>We will follow her. She is ominously sad during the lonely journey: she is +almost stern by the time she arrives in New York. In place of the summer's +sweetness and gayety, there is a wintry and almost icy expression in her +face, as if she were about to encounter trials to which she had been long +accustomed, and which she had learned to bear with hardness if not with +resentment.</p> + +<p>No one meets her at the railway station, no one at the door of the sombre +house where her carriage stops--no one until she has passed up stairs into +a darkling parlor.</p> + +<p>There she is received by the man whom she has so often described to +Deighton--a man of thin, erect form, a high and narrow forehead, regular +and imperturbable features, fixed and filmy black eyes, a mechanical +carriage, an icy demeanor.</p> + +<p>At sight of her he slightly bowed--then he advanced slowly to her and took +her hand: he seemed to be hesitating whether he should give her any +further welcome.</p> + +<p>"You need not kiss me," she said, her eyes fixed on the floor. "You do not +wish to do it."</p> + +<p>He sighed, as if he too were unhappy, or at least weary; but he drew his +hand away and resumed his walk up and down the room.</p> + +<p>"So you chose to pass your summer in a village?" he presently said, in the +tone of a man who has ceased to rule, but not ceased to criticise. "I hope +you liked it."</p> + +<p>"I told you in my letters that I liked it," she replied in an +expressionless monotone.</p> + +<p>"And I told you in my letters that I did not like it. It would have been +more decent in you to stay in Portland, among the people whom I had +requested to take care of you. However, you are accustomed to have your +own way. I can only observe that when a woman will have her own way, she +ought to pay her own way."</p> + +<p>A flush, perhaps of shame, perhaps of irritation, crossed her hitherto +pale face, but she made no response to the scoff, and continued to look at +the floor.</p> + +<p>After a few seconds, during which neither of them broke the silence, she +seemed to understand that the reproof was over, and she quietly quitted +the room.</p> + +<p>The man pushed the door to violently with his foot, and said in an accent +of angry scorn, "That is what is now called a wife."</p> + +<p>Well, we have reached the mystery: we have found that it was a crime.</p> + +<p>In the working of social laws there occur countless cases of individual +hardship. The institution of marriage is as beneficent as the element of +fire; yet, like that, it sometimes tortures when it should only have +comforted.</p> + +<p>The sufferer, if a woman, usually bears her smart tamely--with more or +less domestic fretting and private weeping indeed, but without violent +effort to escape from her bed of embers. Divorce is public, ugly and +brutal: her sensibility revolts from it. Moreover, mere unhappiness, mere +disappointment of the affections, does not establish a claim for legal +separation. Finally, there is woman's difficulty of self-maintenance--the +fact that her labor will not in general give her both comfort and +position.</p> + +<p>What then? Unloved, unable to love, yet with an intense desire for +affection, and an immense capacity for granting it, her heart is tempted +to wander beyond the circle of her duty. A flattering shape approaches her +dungeon-walls; a voice calls to her to come forth and be glad, if only for +a moment; there seems to be a chance of winning the adoration which has +been her whole life's desire; there is an opportunity of using the +emotions which are burning within her. Shall she burst open the gate on +which is written LEGALITY?</p> + +<p>Evidently the temptation is mighty. Laden with a forsaken, wounded and +perhaps angry heart, she is so easily led into the belief that her +exceptional suffering gives her a right to exceptional action! She feels +herself justified in setting aside law, when law, falsifying its purpose, +violating its solemn pledge, brings her misery instead of happiness. She +will not, or cannot, reflect that special hardships must occur under all +law; that it is the duty of the individual to bear such chance griefs +without insurrection against the public conscience; that entire freedom of +private judgment would dissolve society.</p> + +<p>Too often--though far less often than man does the like--she makes of her +sorrow an armor of excuse, and enters into a contest for unwarrantable +chances of felicity. Only, in general, she is so far conscious of guilt, +or at least so far fearful of punishment, as to carry on her struggle in +the darkness. Few, however maddened by suffering, openly defy the serried +phalanx of the world. Still fewer venture the additional risk of defying +it under the forms of a legality which they have ventured to violate.</p> + +<p>Why is it that so few women, even of a low and reckless class, have been +bigamists? It is because the feminine soul has a profound respect, a +little less than religious veneration, for the institution of marriage; +because it instinctively recoils from trampling upon the form which +consecrates love; because in very truth it regards the nuptial bond as a +sacrament. I believe that the average woman would turn away from bigamy +with a deeper shudder than from any other stain of conjugal infidelity.</p> + +<p>But there are exceptions to all modes of feeling and of reasoning.</p> + +<p>Here is Alice Duvernois: she is a woman of good position, of intellectual +quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out +this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To +her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, +grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has +seemed that the sanctity of a second marriage will somehow cover the +violation of a first.</p> + +<p>This aberration we can only explain on the ground that she was one of +those natures--mature in some respects, but strangely childlike in +others--whom most of us love to stigmatize as unpractical, and who in fact +never become quite accustomed to this world and its rules.</p> + +<p>On the very evening of her arrival home she put to her husband a question +of infantile and almost incredible simplicity. It was one of the many +observations which made him tell her from time to time that she was a +fool.</p> + +<p>"What do they do," she asked, "to women who marry two husbands?"</p> + +<p>"They put them in jail," was his cool reply.</p> + +<p>"I think it is brutal," she broke out indignantly, as if the iron gates +were already closing upon her, and she were contesting the justice of the +punishment.</p> + +<p>"You are a pretty simpleton, to set up your opinion against that of all +civilized society!" was the response of incarnate Reason.</p> + +<p>From that moment she trembled at her danger, and quivered under the +remorse which terror brings. At times she thought of flying, of abandoning +the husband who did not love her for the one who did; but she was afraid +of being pursued, afraid of discovery. The knowledge that society had +already passed judgment upon her made her see herself in the new light of +a criminal, friendless, hunted and doomed. The penalty of her illegal +grasp after happiness was already tracking her like a bloodhound.</p> + +<p>Yet when she further learned that her second marriage was not binding +because of the first, her heart rose in mutiny. Faithful to the only love +that there had been for her in the world, she repeated to herself, a +hundred times a day, "It <i>is</i> binding--it <i>is</i>!"</p> + +<p>She was in dark insurrection against her kind; at times she was on the +point of bursting out into open defiance. She stared at Duvernois, crazy +to tell him, "I am wedded to another."</p> + +<p>He noticed the wild expression, the longing, wide-open eyes, the parted +and eager lips, the trembling chin. At last he said, with a brutality +which had become customary with him, "What are you putting on those airs +for? I suppose you are imagining yourself the heroine of a romance."</p> + +<p>With a glare of pain and scorn she walked away from him in silence.</p> + +<p>It is shocking indeed to be fastened speechless upon a rack, and to be +charged by uncomprehending souls with counterfeiting emotion. She was so +constituted that she could not help laying up this speech of her husband's +against him as one of many stolid misdoings which justified both contempt +and aversion. In fact, his inability or unwillingness to comprehend her +had always been, in her searching and sensitive eyes, his chief crime. To +be understood, to be accepted at her full worth, was one of the most +urgent demands of her nature.</p> + +<p>The life of this young woman, not only within but without, was strange +indeed. She fulfilled that problem of Hawthorne's--an individual bearing +one character, living one life in one place, and a totally different one +in another place--upon one spot of earth angelic, and upon another vile.</p> + +<p>Stranger still, her harsher qualities appeared where her manner of life +was lawful, and her finer ones where it was condemnable. At Northport she +had been like sunlight to her intimates and like a ministering seraph to +the poor. In New York she avoided society: she had no tenderness for +misery.</p> + +<p>The explanation seems to be that love was her only motive of feeling and +action. Not a creature of reason, not a creature of conscience--she was +only a creature of emotion, an exaggerated woman.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, her husband, methodical in life, judicial in mind, +contemptuous of sentiment, was an exaggerated man. Here was a beating +heart united to a skeleton. The result of this unfortunate combination had +been a wreck of happiness and defiance of law.</p> + +<p>Duvernois had not a friend intelligent enough to say to him, "You <i>must </i> +love your wife; if you cannot love her, you must with merciful deception +make her believe that you do. You must show her when you return from +business that you have thought of her; you must buy a bouquet, a toy, a +trifle, to carry home to her. If you do these things, you will be +rewarded; if not, you will be punished."</p> + +<p>But had there been such a friend, Duvernois would not have comprehended +him. Ho would have replied, or at least he would have thought, "My wife is +a fool. She is not worth the money that I now spend upon her, much less +the reflection and time that you call upon me to spend."</p> + +<p>Two such as Alice and Duvernois could not live together in peace. +Notwithstanding her old dread of him, and notwithstanding the new alarm +with which she was filled by the discovery that she was a felon, she could +not dissemble her feelings when she looked him in the face. Sometimes she +was silently contemptuous--sometimes (when her nerves were shaken) openly +hostile. Rational, impassive, vigorous as he was, she made him unhappy.</p> + +<p>The letters of Leighton were at once a joy and a sorrow. She awaited them +impatiently; she went every day to the delivery post-office whither she +had directed them to be sent; she took them from the hands of the +indifferent clerk with a suffocating beating of the heart. Alone, she +devoured them, kissed them passionately a hundred times, sat down in +loving haste to answer them. But then came the necessity of excusing her +long absence, of inventing some lie for the man she worshiped, of +deterring him from coming to see her.</p> + +<p>During that woeful winter of terror, of aversion, of vain longing, her +health failed rapidly. A relentless cough pursued her, the beautiful flame +in her cheek burned freely, and a burst of blood from the lungs warned her +that her future was not to be counted by years.</p> + +<p>She cared little: her sole desire was to last until summer. She merely +asked to end her hopeless life in loving arms--to end it before those arms +should recoil from her in horror.</p> + +<p>No discovery. Her husband was too indifferent toward her to watch her +closely, or even to suspect her. As early in June as might be she obtained +permission to go to the seaside, and with an eagerness which would have +found the hurricane slow she flew to Northport.</p> + +<p>Leighton received her with a joy which at first blinded him to her +enfeebled health.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how could you stay so long away from me?" were his first words. "Oh, +my love, my darling wife! thank you for coming back to me."</p> + +<p>But after a few moments, when the first flush and, sparkle of excitement +had died out of her cheeks and eyes, he asked eagerly, "What is the matter +with you? Have you been sick?"</p> + +<p>"I am all well again, now that I see you," she answered, putting out her +arms to him with that little start of love and joy which had so often +charmed him.</p> + +<p>It absolutely seemed that in the presence of the object of her affection +this erring woman became innocent. Her smile was as simple and pure as +that of childhood: her violet eyes reminded one of a heaven without a +cloud. It must have been that, away from punishment and from terror, she +did not feel herself to be guilty.</p> + +<p>But the day of reckoning was approaching. She had scarcely begun to regain +an appearance of health under the stimulus of country air and renewed +happiness, when a disquieting letter arrived from Duvernois. In a tone +which was more than usually authoritative, he directed her to meet him at +Portland, to go to Nahant and Newport. Did he suspect something?</p> + +<p>She would have given years of life to be able to show the letter to +Leighton and ask his counsel. But here her punishment began to double upon +her: the being whom she most loved was precisely the one to whom she must +not expose this trouble--the one from whom she was most anxious to conceal +it.</p> + +<p>In secret, and with unconfided tears, she wrote a reply, alleging (what +was true) that her feeble health demanded quiet, and praying that she +might be spared the proposed journey. For three days she feverishly +expected an answer, knowing the while that she ought to go to Portland to +meet Duvernois, should he chance to come, yet unable to tear herself away +from Leighton, even for twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon of the third day she made one of her frequent visits of +charity. At the house of a poor and bed-ridden widow she met, as she had +hoped to meet, her husband. When they left the place he took her into his +gig and carried her home.</p> + +<p>It was a delicious day of mid June: the sun was setting in clouds of +crimson and gold; the earth was in its freshest summer glory. In the +beauty of the scene, and in the companionship of the heart which was all +hers, she forgot, or seemed to forget, her troubles. One hand rested on +Leighton's arm; her face was lifted steadily to his, like a flower to the +light; her violet eyes were dewy and sparkling with happiness. There were +little clutches of her fingers on his wrist whenever he turned to look at +her. There were spasms of joy in her slender and somewhat wasted frame as +she leaned from time to time against his shoulder. + +Arrived at the house, she was loth to have him leave her for even the time +required to take his horse to the stable.</p> + +<p>"Come soon," she said--"come as quick as you can. I shall be at the +window. Look up when you reach the gate. Look at the window all the way +from the gate to the door."</p> + +<p>In an instant, not even taking off her bonnet, she was sitting by the +window waiting for him to appear.</p> + +<p>A man approached, walking behind the hedge of lilacs which bordered the +yard, and halted at the gate with an air of hesitation. She turned ghastly +white: retribution was upon her. It was Duvernois.</p> + +<p>With that swift instinct of escape which sensitive and timorous creatures +possess, she glided out of the room, through the upper hall, down a back +stairway, into the garden behind the house, and so on to an orchard +already obscure in the twilight. Here she paused in her breathless flight, +and burst into one of her frequent coughs, which she vainly attempted to +smother.</p> + +<p>"I was already dying," she groaned. "Ah, why could he not have given me +time to finish?"</p> + +<p>From the orchard she could faintly see the road, and she now discovered +Leighton returning briskly toward the house. Her first thought was, "He +will look up at the window, and he will not see me!" Her next was, "They +will meet, and all will be known!"</p> + +<p>Under the sting of this last reflection she again ran onward until her +breath failed. She had no idea where she should go: her only purpose was +to fly from immediate exposure and scorn--to fly both from the man she +detested and the man she loved. Her speed was quickened to the extent of +her strength by the consideration that she was already missed, and would +soon be pursued.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't let them come!--don't let them find me!" she prayed to some +invisible power, she could not have said what.</p> + +<p>Mainly intent as she was upon mere present escape from reproachful eyes, +she at times thought of lurking in the woods or in some neighboring +village until Duvernois should disappear and leave her free to return to +Leighton. But always the reflection came up, "Now he knows that I have +deceived him; now he will despise me and hate me, and refuse to see me; +now I can never go back."</p> + +<p>In such stresses of extreme panic and anguish an adult is simply a child, +with the same overweight of emotions and the same imperfections of reason. +During the moments when she was certain that Leighton would not forgive +her, Alice made wild clutches at the hope that Duvernois might. There were +glimpses of the earlier days of her married life; cheering phantoms of the +days when she believed that she loved and that she was beloved--phantoms +which swore by altars and bridal veils to secure her pardon.</p> + +<p>She imagined Duvernois overtaking her with the words, "Alice, I forgive +your madness: do you also forgive the coldness which drove you to it?"</p> + +<p>She imagined herself springing to him, reaching out her hands for +reconciliation, putting up her mouth for a kiss, and sobbing, "Ah, why +were you not always so?"</p> + +<p>Then of a sudden she scorned this fancy, trampled it under her weary, +aching feet, and abhorred herself for being faithless to Leighton.</p> + +<p>At last she reached a sandy, lonely coast-road, a mile from the village, +with a leaden, pulseless, corpselike sea on the left, and on the right a +long stretch of black, funereal marshes. Seating herself on a ruinous +little bridge of unpainted and wormeaten timbers, she looked down into a +narrow, sluggish rivulet, of the color of ink, which oozed noiselessly +from the morass into the ocean. Her strength was gone: for the present +farther flight was impossible, unless she fled from earth--fled into the +unknown.</p> + +<p>This thought had indeed followed her from the house: at first it had been +vague, almost unnoticed, like the whisper of some one far behind; then it +had become clearer, as if the persuading fiend went faster than she +through the darkness, and were overtaking her. Now it was urgent, and +would not be hushed, and demanded consideration.</p> + +<p>"If you should die," it muttered, "then you will escape: moreover, those +who now abhor you and scorn you, will pity you; and pity for the dead is +almost respect, almost love."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how can a ruined woman defend herself but by dying?" She wept as she +gazed with a shudder into the black rivulet.</p> + +<p>Then she thought that the water seemed foul; that her body would become +tangled in slimy reeds and floating things; that when they found her she +would be horrible to look upon. But even in this there was penance, a +meriting of forgiveness, a claim for pity.</p> + +<p>Slowly, inch by inch, like one who proposes a step which cannot be +retraced, she crept under the railing of the bridge, seated herself on the +edge of the shaky planking and continued to gaze into the inky waters.</p> + +<p>A quarter of an hour later, when the clergyman of Northport passed by that +spot, returning from a visit to a dying saint of his flock, no one was +there.</p> + +<p>We must revert to the two husbands. Duvernois had long wondered what could +keep his wife in a sequestered hamlet, and immediately on her refusal to +join him in a summer tour he had resolved to look into her manner of life.</p> + +<p>At the village hotel he had learned that a lady named Duvernois had +arrived in the place during the previous summer, and that she had been +publicly married to a Doctor Leighton. He did not divulge his name--he did +not so much as divulge his emotions: he listened to this story calmly, his +eyes fixed on vacancy.</p> + +<p>At the door of the boarding-house he asked for Mrs. Duvernois, and then +corrected himself, saying, "I mean Mrs. Leighton."</p> + +<p>He must have had singular emotions at the moment, yet the servant-girl +noticed nothing singular in his demeanor.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Leighton could not be found. None of the family had seen her enter or +go out: it was not known that she had been in the house for an hour.</p> + +<p>"But there comes Doctor Leighton," remarked the girl as the visitor turned +to leave.</p> + +<p>Even in this frightful conjuncture the characteristic coolness of +Duvernois did not forsake him: after a moment's hesitation and a quick +glance at his rival, he said, "I do not know him: I will call again."</p> + +<p>On the graveled walk which led from the yard gate to the doorstep the two +men met and passed without a word--the face of the one as inexpressive of +the strangeness and horror of the encounter as the mind of the other was +unconscious of them.</p> + +<p>Leighton immediately missed Alice. In a quarter of an hour he became +anxious: in an hour he was in furious search of her.</p> + +<p>Somewhat later, when Duvernois came once more to the house, accompanied by +a fashionably-dressed youth, who, as it subsequently appeared, was his +younger brother, he found the family and the neighborhood in wild alarm +over the disappearance of Mrs. Leighton. The two at once returned to the +hotel, procured saddle-horses and joined in the general chase.</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock at night, and the moon was shining with a vaporous, +spectral light, when the maddest of chances brought the two husbands +together over a body which the tide, with its multitudinous cold fingers, +had gently laid upon the beach.</p> + +<p>Leighton leaped from his horse, lifted the corpse with a loud cry, and +covered the white wet face with kisses.</p> + +<p>Duvernois leaned forward in his saddle, and gazed at both without a word +or a movement.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what could have led her to this?" groaned the physician, already too +sure that life had departed.</p> + +<p>"Insanity," was the monotoned response of the statue on horseback.</p> + +<p>The funeral took place two days later: the coffin-plate bore the +inscription, "Alice Leighton, aged 23." Duvernois read it, and said not a +word.</p> + +<p>"If you don't claim her as your wife," whispered the brother, "you may +find it difficult to marry again."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I shall want to marry again?" responded the widower with an +icy stare.</p> + +<p>He was aware that he had lost a shame and a torment, and not aware that +she might have been an honor and a joy, if only he had been able to love.</p> + +<p class="author">J. W. de Forest.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st08"> +<h2>"How Mother Did It."</h2> + + + +<p>The year 1839--that is, the year in which I was born--is of no manner of +importance to myself or anybody else. The year 1859--that is, the year in +which I began to <i>live</i> (Charlie and I got married that year)--is of +considerable importance to myself and to somebody else. The two decades +forming the interim between those years constitute my Dark Age, in which I +teethed and measled and whooping-coughed, and went to school, and wore my +hair in two long pig-tails, and loved molasses candy, and regarded a +school-room as purgatory, a ball-room as heaven--when I sang and danced +and grew as the birds and grasshoppers and flowers sing and dance and +grow, because they having nothing else to do.</p> + +<p>Then came my Golden Age. That means, then came Charlie into my life, when +I felt for the first time that there was music in the birds' voices and +perfume in the flowers--that there was light in the heavens above and on +the earth beneath, for God was in heaven and Charlie was on earth--when I, +who had all along been hardly more than a human grasshopper, became the +happiest of happy women--so much happier, I thought, than I deserved. For +who was I, and what great thing had I ever done, that I should be crowned +with such a crown of glory as--Charlie? why should I, insignificant I, be +so blest among women as to be taken to wife by Charlie?</p> + +<p>I was insanely sentimental enough to rather resent the fact that Charlie +was prosaically well off: his circumstances were distressingly easy. It +would have been so much nicer, so deliciously romantic, if there had been +an opportunity afforded me to show how ready, nay, eager, I was to +sacrifice friends, home and country for his dear sake. But Charlie didn't +want me to sacrifice my friends; nor did it require any great amount of +heroism to exchange my modestly comfortable home for his decidedly +luxurious one; and as for country, nothing on earth could have induced +Charlie to leave his own country, much less his own parish, much less his +own plantation. So we were married without any talk of sacrifice on either +side, and moved quietly enough from father's small plantation to Charlie's +large one.</p> + +<p>There was but one drawback to the perfectness of my happiness: there was +so little hope of my ever having an opportunity to air those magnanimous +traits of character upon the possession of which I so plumed myself. I +felt sure that I could meet the most adverse circumstances with the most +smiling patience, but circumstances obstinately refused to be adverse. I +was inwardly conscious that the most trying emergency could not shake my +heroic but purely feminine fortitude; but, alas! my fortitude was likely +to rust while waiting for the emergency. Injury and wrong should be met +with sublime dignity, but the most wildly speculative imagination could +not look upon Charlie's placidly handsome face and convert him into a +possible tyrant.</p> + +<p>To tell how the longed-for opportunity to exercise my powers of endurance, +and my dignity, and all the rest of it, did finally come about, and to +tell how I bore the test, is the object of this paper.</p> + +<p>For the first six months of our married life, Charlie and I were simply +ridiculously happy--selfishly happy too. We resented a neighbor's visit as +an act of barbarous invasion, and the necessity of returning such visits +was acknowledged with a sublimity of resignation worthy of pictorial +representation in that exquisite parlor manual, Fox's <i>Book of Martyrs</i>. +If Charlie left the house for an hour or two, I looked upon his enforced +absence as a cruel dispensation of Providence, which I did <i>not</i> bear with +"fortitude and sublime dignity," but pouted over like the ridiculous baby +I was. Bare conjugal civility required that on leaving the house Charlie +should kiss me three times, and on returning six times: anything short of +that I should have considered a pre-monitory symptom of approaching +separation. If Charlie had ever been so savage as to call me plain +"Lulie," I should have felt certain he was sick and tired of me, and was +repenting of having married me instead of that spectacled bas-bleu, Miss +Minerva Henshaw, who read Buckle and talked dictionary. I believe I was +intoxicated with my own happiness, and was a little nonsensical because I +was so happy.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for the comfort of both Charlie and myself, his domestic +cabinet consisted of a marvelously well-trained set of servants, who were +simply perfect--as perfect in their way as Charlie was in his. They had +been trained by Charlie's mother, who had been the head of affairs in his +house up to the hour of her death--an event which had occurred some dozen +years before my first meeting with Charlie. Everybody said she had been a +celebrated housekeeper, and Charlie's devotion to her had been the talk of +the country-side. There were people malicious enough to say that if +Charlie's mother had never died, he would never have married, but I take +the liberty of resenting such an assertion as a personal insult; for, +although I don't doubt the dear old lady was a perfect jewel in her way, +yet, looking at the portrait of her which hangs over our parlor +mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold +gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither +high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, +in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls +peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with +a huge ruffled border radiating in a circumference of several feet, while +its two black-and-white gauze ribbon strings lie in rigid exactness over +her two rigidly exact shoulders. Looking on this portrait, I do not thank +anybody for saying that it was only because death chose that shining mark +that I had found favor in Charlie's eyes.</p> + +<p>We had been married, I suppose, about six months, when, sitting one +evening over a cozy wood-fire in our cozy little parlor, just under the +work of art I have described at such length, Charlie committed his first +matrimonial solecism. He yawned, actually gaped--an open-mouthed, audible, +undeniable yawn!</p> + +<p>Glancing up at him from my work (which consisted of the inevitable worked +slippers without which no woman considers her wifehood absolutely +asserted), I caught him in the act. "Are you tired, Charlie?" I asked in +accents of wifely anxiety.</p> + +<p>Tired! Poor fellow! he ought to have been, for he had ridden all over the +plantation that day, had written two business letters, and smoked there's +no telling how many cigars, and had only taken one little cat-nap after +dinner.</p> + +<p>He was leaning back in his arm-chair, with his eyes fixed in mournful +meditation upon his mother's portrait (at least I thought so), when I +asked him if he was tired, and I fancied he was thinking sad thoughts of +the mother who had not been dead so very long as never to trouble the +thoughts of the living; so, laying down my slippers, I crossed the rug and +perched myself on Charlie's knee.</p> + +<p>"Talk to me about her, Charlie dear."</p> + +<p>"About whom, little one?" asked Charlie, turning his eyes toward me with a +little lazy look of inquiry.</p> + +<p>"About your mother, Charlie: weren't you thinking about her just now?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know--maybe I was. Dear mother! you don't find many women like +her now-a-days."</p> + +<p>Reader, that was my first glimpse of Charlie's hobby. And from the +luck-less moment when I so innocently invited him to mount it, up to the +time when I forcibly compelled him to dismount from it, I had ample +opportunity to exercise my "smiling patience, sublime dignity and heroic +fortitude." Whether or not I improved my opportunities properly, I will +leave you to judge for yourself. But for two whole years "how mother did +it" seemed to be the watchword of Charlie's existence, and was the <i>bête +noir</i> of mine.</p> + +<p>So long as Charlie and I were in Paradise the house kept itself, and very +nicely it did it too, but by the time we were ready to come back to earth +the perfect servants, who had been taking such good care of themselves, +and our two daft selves into the bargain, were found to be sadly +demoralized. The discovery came upon us gradually. I think my husband +noticed the decadence as soon as I did, but I wasn't going to invite his +attention to the fact; and he, I suppose, thought that I thought that +everything was just as it should be.</p> + +<p>One of Charlie's inherited manias was for early rising--a habit which +would have been highly commendable and undeniably invaluable in a laboring +man, but which struck me, who had an equally strong mania for not rising +early, as extremely inconvenient and the least little bit absurd. Charlie +got up early simply because "mother did it" before him; and after he had +risen at earliest dawn and dressed himself, he had nothing better to do +than walk out on the front gallery, locate himself in a big wicker chair, +tilt his chair back and elevate his feet to the top of the banisters, and +stare out over the cottonfields. This position he would maintain, +probably, about twenty minutes. Then the pangs of hunger would render him +restless, and he would draw out his watch to note the time of day. The +next step in the formula would bring him back to my room door while I was +still sleepily trying to reconnect the broken links of a dream, from which +vain effort he would startle me into wide-awake reality by a stentorian +"Lulie, Lulie! Come, wife--it's breakfast-time."</p> + +<p>Upon which, instead of "heroic fortitude," I would treat him to a little +cross "Please yell at the cook, Charlie, and not at me. I'm sure if people +<i>will</i> get up at such unearthly hours, they should expect to be kept +waiting for their breakfast."</p> + +<p>Then the spirit of unrest would impel Charlie toward the back door, where +I would hear him commanding, exhorting, entreating.</p> + +<p>Mentally registering a vow to give my husband a dose of Mrs. Winslow's +Soothing Syrup on the coming night, I would relinquish all hope of another +nap, get up and dress myself, and join my roaring lion on the front +gallery, where we would both sit meekly waiting for the allied forces of +kitchen and dining-room to decide upon the question of revictualing us.</p> + +<p>"Lulie," said Charlie to me one morning at the breakfast-table, "things +are getting all out of gear about this house, somehow or other."</p> + +<p>I put down the coffee-pot with a resigned thump and asked my lord, with an +injured air, to please explain himself.</p> + +<p>"Well, when mother was alive I never knew what it was to sit down to my +breakfast later than six o'clock in summer or seven in winter."</p> + +<p>"How did she manage it, Charlie?" I asked, very meekly.</p> + +<p>"Why, by getting up early herself. No servant on the face of the globe is +going to get up at daybreak and go to work in earnest when she knows her +mistress is sound asleep in bed. I will tell you how mother did: she had a +pretty good-sized bell, that she kept on a table by her bedside, and every +morning, as soon as her eyes were open, she would give such a peal with +that old bell that all the servants on the premises knew that 'Mistress +was awake and up,' and bestirred themselves accordingly. There was no +discount on mother: that was the way she made father a rich man, too."</p> + +<p>"But, Charlie, you're already a rich man, and why on earth should we get +out of bed at daybreak just because your mother and father did so before +us?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, Lulie," said Charlie, the least little bit coldly, "I have no +desire in the world to force you to conform to my views: I only told you +how mother did it."</p> + +<p>Reader, you know how I loved Charlie, and after that I out-larked the lark +in early rising; and although Charlie and I did little more than gape in +each other's faces for an hour or two, and wish breakfast would come, and +wonder what made them take so long, he was perfectly satisfied that we +were both on the road that was to make us healthier, wealthier and wiser.</p> + +<p>Among other points on which my husband and I were mutually agreed was a +liking for good strong coffee, and we also held in common one decided +opinion, and that was, that our coffee was gradually becoming anything but +good and strong.</p> + +<p>Charlie broached the subject first. "Lulie, our coffee is getting to be +perfectly undrinkable," said he one morning, putting his cup down with a +face of disgust.</p> + +<p>"It is indeed, Charlie: it's perfectly villainous. Milly ought to be +ashamed of herself: I shall speak to her again after breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you don't give out enough coffee?" suggested Charlie.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how much Milly takes," I replied, innocently.</p> + +<p>"Takes! Do you mean to say that you don't know how much coffee goes out of +your pantry, Lulie? I don't wonder we never have any fit to drink!"</p> + +<p>If I had been of an argumentative turn, I would have asked Charlie to +explain how giving the cook carte blanche in the matter of quantity should +have had such a disastrous effect in the matter of quality. But I was not +of an argumentative turn, so I took no notice of his queer logic.</p> + +<p>"Why should I bother about every spoonful of coffee, Charlie? You assured +me, when I first came here, that every servant you had was as honest as +you or I, and I'm sure Milly knows better than I do how much coffee she +<i>ought</i> to take."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Charlie with a sigh of mock resignation, "that may be the way +they do things now-a-days, but I remember exactly how mother managed to +have good coffee." Here the hobby broke into a brisk canter: "I recollect +she had a little oval wooden box, that held, I suppose, about a quart--or +two, maybe--of roasted coffee, and that box stood on the mantelpiece in +her room; and every morning, as soon as her bell rang, Milly would come +with a cup and spoon, and mother would measure out two table-spoonfuls of +coffee with her own hands and give it to the cook, and the cook knew +better than not to have good coffee, I can tell you."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure it was only two spoonfuls, Charlie?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure," responded Charlie, solemnly.</p> + +<p>As good-luck would have it, while rummaging in the store-room a day or two +after that coffee talk, I came upon a little old oval wooden box, the lid +of which I detached with some difficulty, and as the scent of the roses +hung round it still, I had no difficulty in identifying my treasure-trove +with the wooden box that had played such a distinguished part in the good +old times when cooks "knew better than not to have good coffee, I can tell +you."</p> + +<p>Hoping that some relic of my dead predecessor might prove more +awe-inspiring to contumacious Milly than my own despised monitions, I +exhumed the wooden box, had it thoroughly cleansed, filled with roasted +coffee and placed upon my mantelpiece, giving Milly orders to come to <i>me</i> +hereafter, every morning, for the coffee.</p> + +<p>Charlie gave me a grateful little kiss when he saw the old box in the old +place, either as a reward for my amiable endeavor to do things as mother +did, or because he took the old wooden box for an outward and visible sign +of the inward and spiritual grace that was to move Milly to make good +coffee.</p> + +<p>But somehow or other, in spite of the unsightly old wooden box on my +mantelshelf, the coffee didn't improve in the least. Maybe the charm +failed to work because Charlie had forgotten which end of the mantelpiece +his mother used to keep it on, or I used the wrong spoon. I'm inclined to +lay it on the spoon myself, but there's no telling.</p> + +<p>The first cotton-picking season that came round after my marriage seemed +to afford Charlie no end of opportunities for riding his hobby at a fast +and furious pace. It seemed as if there was no end to the things that +mother used to do at that important season. I suppose she really was a +wonderful woman, and I humbly hope that by the time I have lived as long +as she did, and get to looking as she does in her portrait, and can wear a +wonderful-looking cap with the wonderful composure she wore it with, and +have little iron-gray curls hanging round my iron-gray visage, I may be +only half as wonderful.</p> + +<p>"Would I see to the making of the cotton sacks? That was one thing mother +always did." Thus Charlie.</p> + +<p>Of course I would: why should I object to doing anything that would +forward my husband's interests? Besides, I was actually pining for some +healthful occupation: I was tired of playing at living. I resolved on a +brilliant plan. I would out-mother mother, for she only <i>saw</i> to the +making of the sacks: I would make them myself, every one of them, on my +sewing-machine. If I couldn't make cotton-sacks on it, what was the use of +having it?</p> + +<p>Charlie had informed me that he would send me down seven or eight women +from the quarters to make the sacks. I informed him with a flourish that I +should need but one: I should want her to cut the sacks out. Charlie +thanked me, and Martha and I and "Wheeler & Wilson" made the sacks.</p> + +<p>Was I to blame that the wretched things burst in twenty places at once the +first time they were used? Was I to blame that two women were kept busy +mending my sacks until they ceased to be sacks? Charlie might think so, +but I did not.</p> + +<p>He reported the failure of my cotton-sack experiment with very unbecoming +levity, as it struck me, accompanying his report with a somewhat unjust +comment upon new-fangled notions, such as sewing-machines, etc., etc., +winding up with--"Now, when mother was alive" (I fairly winced), "the +house was not considered too good for the darkies to sit on the back +gallery with their work and make the sacks right under mother's +eye--sewing them with good strong thread, too, that was spun for the +purpose. I can remember the old spinning-wheel: it used to sit right at +that end of the gallery."</p> + +<p>Like Captain Cuttle, I "made a note of it" for future use.</p> + +<p>I often had occasion to wonder, during the early years of my married life, +how it happened that the son of such an exceptionally perfect woman as I +was compelled to presume my respected mother-in-law to have been, should +have grown up with such shockingly disorderly habits as had my Charlie. +The wretched creature would stalk into my bed-room--which I was +particularly dainty about--fresh from shooting or fishing, with pounds of +mud clinging to his boots, bristling all over with cockleburs, his hands +grimed with gunpowder; and helping himself to water from my ewer, he would +begin dabbling in my china basin until he had reduced its originally pure +contents into a compound of mud and ink, and would wind up by making a +finish of my fresh damask towel, and throwing it on the bed or a chair +instead of returning it to the rack, as he should have done.</p> + +<p>"Charlie," said I one day, saucily inviting a dose of "what mother did," +"what did mother used to do when you came into her room and turned it into +a pig-stye, and then left it for her to clean up again?"</p> + +<p>"She never let me do it," said Charlie with a laugh. "I'll tell you how +she did. She had a tin basin on a shelf on the back gallery, and one of +those great big rolling towels that lasted about a week; and after her +washstand was fixed up in the morning, we knew better than to upset it, I +can tell you."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir: I intend you shall know better than to upset mine, I'll +show you."</p> + +<p>In fact, things had come to that pass that I had mentally resolved to +"show" Charlie a great many things. I firmly believed that the secret of +the power that Charlie's mother had exercised over her household, and +still exercised over him in memory, lay in the fact that she made them all +afraid of her: so I firmly resolved that they should all be afraid of me, +poor little me! It is true, I was but twenty, and she was fifty; I was but +a pocket edition of a woman, and she was a <i>Webster Unabridged</i>; I had +little meek blue eyes, that dropped to the ground in the most shamefaced +manner if a body did but look at me, and she had hard, cold gray eyes, +that not only looked straight at you, but right through you. Still, I +hoped, notwithstanding these trifling drawbacks, to make myself very +awe-inspiring by dint of a grand assumption of spirit.</p> + +<p>To put it into very plain language, I resolved to bully Charlie off his +hobby. He had thrown his mother at my head (figuratively speaking, of +course) until, if she had been present in <i>propria persona</i>, I should have +been tempted to try Hiawatha's remarkable feat with his grandmother, and +throw her up against the moon. But as I could not revenge myself upon her +personally, I began to lay deep and subtle plans for inducing Charlie to +leave her to her repose.</p> + +<p>As the veritable bell which, in the days when "mother did it," had acted +as a sort of Gabriel's trump, was still extant, minus clapper and handle, +I was enabled to provide myself with its fac-simile. Armed with this +instrument of retribution, I laid me down to sleep by Charlie's side, +gloating in anticipation over my ripening scheme of vengeance.</p> + +<p>It was a rare thing for me to wake up before Charlie, but I did manage to +do so on the morning in question, by dint, I think, of a powerful mental +resolution to that effect made the night before. I raised myself very +softly, so as not to disturb my husband's gentle slumbers, and, possessing +myself of my big bell, I laid on with a will, raising such a clatter in +the quiet morning air that Charlie fairly bounded into the middle of the +room before he in the least comprehended where it came from.</p> + +<p>"In the name of God, Lulie, what is the meaning of that?" he exclaimed, +looking at me as if he half doubted my sanity.</p> + +<p>"That's the way mother did it, Charlie," I replied placidly enough, and, +replacing my big bell on the table, I settled myself on my pillow once +more, ostensibly to go to sleep again--in reality to have my laugh out in +a quiet fashion, for it was enough to have made the very bed-posts laugh +to see Charlie's funny look of astonishment and indignation. But of course +he couldn't say a word, you know.</p> + +<p>For two more mornings I clattered my bell about his precious old head, and +then he paid me to quit, and after that began riding his hobby at a little +slower gait.</p> + +<p>The next direct intimation he gave that his faith in inherited ideas was +growing shaky was a plaintive little request that I would not stick so +close to the old wooden box, but give out enough coffee to ensure him +something to drink for his breakfast.</p> + +<p>Now, I had no wish that my husband should drink bad coffee just because +Providence had seen fit to remove his mother from this sublunary sphere: I +merely wanted to cure him of telling me how mother did it; so as soon as +he thus tacitly acknowledged that his suggestion had not been a success, I +took matters into my own hands, and proved to him that coffee could be +made as well by young wives as by old mothers.</p> + +<p>In the due revolution of the seasons King Cotton donned his royal robes of +ermine once more, and sacks again became the one thing needful. It was the +very rainiest, wettest, muddiest picking-season that had ever been seen. +In pursuance of my plan, I had seven or eight women down from the +quarters, and a spinning-wheel also, which was set to humming right under +our bed-room window.</p> + +<p>The rainy weather had kept Charlie in the house, and he was lounging on a +couch in my room, enjoying a pleasant semi-doze, when the monotonous +whirr-r-r of the spinning-wheel first attracted his attention. "Lulie," he +asked, rising into a sitting posture, "what is that infernal noise on the +back gallery?"</p> + +<p>"The spinning-wheel, Charlie. They are spinning thread to make the sacks +with," I answered, without looking up from my work.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" and Charlie subsided for a while. "Ahem! Lulie, my dear, how long is +that devilish spinning to be kept up?"</p> + +<p>"Devilish! Why, Charlie, that's the way mother did it."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Charlie, scratching his head and looking foolish, "I know she +did, Lulie, but I'll be confounded if I can stand it much longer."</p> + +<p>"Why, Charlie, you used to stand it when mother did it," I answered +maliciously.</p> + +<p>"I was hardly ever about the house in those days, Lulie: I suppose that +was why I didn't mind it."</p> + +<p>"Why weren't you about the house much in those days, Charlie?"</p> + +<p>"Because you weren't in it, you witch, I suppose."</p> + +<p>This was such a decided triumph over the old lady of the portrait that I +could afford to be amiable; so, giving him a spasmodic little hug and an +energetic little kiss, I went out and stopped the spinning nuisance +immediately.</p> + +<p>After that the hobby went slower and slower, feebler and feebler. One more +energetic display of my bogus spirit and "the enemy was mine."</p> + +<p>Winter came on in its duly-appointed time, bringing with it the usual +quantity of wild ducks and more than the usual degree of severe cold. +Charlie was an inveterate duck-shooter, and with the return of the season +came the return of mud and dirt in my bowls.</p> + +<p>I determined to do as mother did. A tin basin made its appearance on the +back gallery, four yards of crash sewed together at the end were made to +revolve over the roller, and by way of forcing the experiment to a +successful issue orders were given that my own pitchers should be filled +only after nightfall.</p> + +<p>I was sitting in my bed-room sewing away, in placid unconsciousness of +outside cold and discomfort, when Charlie got home from his first hunt of +the season.</p> + +<p>"No water, Lulie?" and the monster took hold of my nice pitcher with a +pair of muddy, half-frozen hands.</p> + +<p>"On the gallery, dear, just where mother used to keep it;" and I smiled up +at him angelically.</p> + +<p>With a muttered something or other, poor Charlie bounded out to the back +gallery. He came back in a minute, his hands as muddy and cold as ever.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Lulie: the water's all frozen in that confounded tin basin out +there."</p> + +<p>"I'll have it thawed out for you," I said sweetly, rising as I spoke.</p> + +<p>"I say, wifey"--and the great, handsome fellow came close up to me with +his mud and his burs--"do you think it's exactly fair, when a fellow's +been out all the morning shooting ducks for your dinner, to make him stand +out on the gallery such a day as this and scrub the mud off his frozen +hands?"</p> + +<p>"That's the way mother did," was all my answer.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Lulie, I cry quits. If you'll only let a body off this once, +you may keep house on your own plan, little lady, and I'll never tell you +how mother did it again so long as I live."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, don't, that's a dear," I replied, "for you'll only make me +dislike her memory, without doing any good. Just be patient with me, +Charlie, and maybe after a while I'll be as good a housekeeper as your +mother was before me. The mistake you and all other men make is, in +comparing your wives at the end of their first year of housekeeping with +your mothers, whose housekeeping you knew nothing about until it was of +ever so many years' duration. I'm young yet, but I'm improving in that +matter every day, Charlie."</p> + +<p>With which little moral lecture I gave Charlie a kiss, and some water to +wash the mud from his poor red hands.</p> + +<p><i>Moral.</i>--My dear girls, don't you ever marry a man that cannot take his +affidavit he never had a mother, unless it is expressly stipulated in the +marriage contract that he is never to tell you how his mother did it.</p> + +<p class="author">J. R. Hadermann.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st09"> +<h2>The Red Fox:</h2> <h3>A Tale of New Year's Eve.</h3> + + + +<p>It was New Year's Eve, 184-. I and my two little boys, children of five +and seven, were alone in the house. My husband had been unexpectedly +called away on business, and the servant had gone to her friends to spend +the coming holiday.</p> + +<p>It was drawing toward night. The cold shadows of the winter twilight were +already falling. A dull red glow in the west told where the sun was going +down. Over the rest of the sky hung heavy gray clouds. A few drops of rain +fell from time to time, and the wind was rising, coming round the corner +of the house with a long, mournful howl like that of a lost hound.</p> + +<p>I am not a very nervous person, but I did not like the idea of spending by +myself the long evening that would come after the children's bed-time.</p> + +<p>We were living then in a very new place in Michigan, which I shall call +Maysville. My husband, an ex-army officer, had resigned the sword for the +saw-mill. Our house was the oldest in the village, which does not speak +much for its antiquity, as five years before Maysville had been unbroken +forest. The house stood outside the cluster of houses that formed the +little settlement: it was a quarter of a mile to our nearest neighbor.</p> + +<p>Now, Maysville calls itself a city, has an academy and a college, and a +great quantity of church in proportion to its population. Then, we "went +to meeting" in a little white-painted, pine box of a thing, like a barn +that had risen in life. The stumps stood about the street: the cows +wandered at will and pastured in the "public square," an irregular +clearing running out into indefinite space. Here also the Indians would +encamp when they came to town from their reservation about five miles +away, and here also, I regret to say, they would sometimes get drunk, and +add what Martha Penney calls "a revolving animosity to the scenery." The +squaws, however, would generally secure the knives and guns before the +quarrelsome stage was reached. Not unfrequently the ladies would bring the +weapons to Mrs. Moore or myself to hide away till their lords and masters +should be sober. Then, feeling secure that no great harm could happen, +they would look on with the utmost placidity at the antics of their better +halves until they dropped down to sleep off their liquor.</p> + +<p>There were no Indians in town that night, however, and if there had been, +I was not at all afraid of them, for we were on excellent terms with the +whole reservation. My feeling about staying alone was merely one of those +unreasonable sensations that sometimes overtake people of ill-regulated +minds.</p> + +<p>I went to the door and looked out at the gray, angry sky. It was not cold, +but chill. The wind howled and shivered among the leafless branches: +everything promised a storm.</p> + +<p>I was not at all sorry to see Mr. and Mrs. Moore drive up in their light +buggy, with their two high-stepping, little brown horses. Mrs. Moore had +in her arms a bundle in a long blue embroidered cloak--a baby, in short. +She and her husband firmly believed this infant to be the most beautiful, +most intelligent and altogether most charming creature which the world had +ever seen. They had been married three years, and little Carry was their +first child.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Moore were by no means ordinary people. Mrs. Moore--born +Minny or Hermione Adams--was a very small woman, exceedingly pretty, with +light brown curly hair, dark blue eyes and a complexion like an apple +blossom.</p> + +<p>Mr. Moore was the son of a Seneca mother and Cherokee father, with not a +drop of white blood in his veins. So he thought, at least, but I never +could quite believe it, because he could and did work, and never so much +as touched even a glass of wine. His parents had died when he was very +young, and he had been brought up and educated by a missionary, a gentle, +scholarly old Presbyterian minister, whose memory his adopted son held in +loving reverence.</p> + +<p>The story of our acquaintance with Richard Moore is too long to be told +here. Four years before he had come with us from the Pawnee country. He +had married Minny Adams with the full consent of her parents and the +opposition of all her other friends. Contrary to all prophecies, and with +that inartistic disregard of the probable which events often show, they +had been very happy together.</p> + +<p>Mr. Moore--otherwise Wyanota--was a civil engineer, and stood high in his +profession.</p> + +<p>"Look here, mamma," he said as he drove up. "Will you take in the wife and +the small child for to-night? I must go away."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said I, overjoyed. "But where are you going, to be caught in +a storm?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they have got into a fuss with the hands over on the railroad, and +have sent for me. I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when I left +him?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"English!" said Wyn, most expressively. "No one can stand the airs he puts +on."</p> + +<p>Now, such airs as Mr. Moore possessed--and they were neither few nor far +between--were not put on, but were perfectly natural to him.</p> + +<p>"Can't you come in and get your tea?" I asked as he handed me the baby and +helped his wife down.</p> + +<p>"No: I must go over directly and compose matters. Good-bye, little woman: +by-bye, baby! Do you know, we think she's beginning to say 'papa?'" said +Wyn, proudly; and then he kissed his wife and child and drove away.</p> + +<p>I carried the infant phenomenon into the house and took off its wrappings. +She was my namesake, and I loved the little creature, but I can't say she +was a pretty baby. She was a soft, brown thing, with her father's +beautiful southern eyes and her mother's mouth, but otherwise she +certainly was not handsome. She was ten months old, but she had a look of +experience and wisdom in her wee face that would have made her seem old at +twenty years. She sat on my lap and watched me in a meditative way, as +though she were reviewing her former estimate of my character, and +considering whether her opinions on that subject were well founded. There +was something quite weird and awful in her dignity and gravity.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she a wise-looking little thing?" said Minny. "She makes me think +sometimes of the fairy changeling that was a hundred and fifty years old, +and never saw soap made in an egg-shell."</p> + +<p>"This baby never would have made such a confession of ignorance, you may +depend. She would not have acknowledged that anything lay out of the range +of her experience. Take your chicken till I get tea, for I am my own girl +to-night."</p> + +<p>We had a very merry time over the tea-table and in washing up the dishes. +Until the boys went to bed we were in something of a frolic with them and +the baby, and it was not till the little one was asleep in her crib and Ed +and Charley were quiet in bed that we noticed how wild the weather was +getting.</p> + +<p>The rain, which had at first fallen in pattering drops, was now driving in +sheets before a mighty wind, which roared through the woods back of the +house with a noise like thunder. The branches of the huge oaks in the +front yard creaked and groaned as only oak boughs can. The house shook, +the rain lashed the roof, and the wind clawed and rattled the blinds like +some wild creature trying to get in.</p> + +<p>"I hope Wyn is safe under shelter,'' said Mrs. Moore.</p> + +<p>"He will have reached the end of his journey long before this. I hope he +will have no trouble with the men, but he is not apt to. I pity poor Mr. +Robinson. When Wyn chooses, his extreme politeness is something quite +awful."</p> + +<p>"I will say for my husband," observed Mrs. Moore, "that when he sets +himself to work to be disagreeable, he can, without doing one uncourteous +thing, be more aggravating than any one I ever saw in my life."</p> + +<p>"It is perfectly evident that he never tries his airs on you, or you would +not speak so. Hear the wind blow!"</p> + +<p>"It is no use listening to the weather. The house will stand, I suppose. +Have you got your work? Then let me read to you. It will seem like old +times, before I was married."</p> + +<p>Minny Moore was in some respects a very remarkable woman. Though little +Carry was her first baby, she <i>could</i> talk on other subjects. She did not +expect you to listen with rapture to the tenth account of how baby had +said "Da-da," or thrill with agony over the tale of an attack of wind. She +had been her husband's friend and companion before the baby was born: she +did not entirely throw him over now that it had come. She had always been +fond of reading, and she continued to keep up her interest in the world +outside of her nursery. She thought that as her daughter grew up her +mother would be as valuable as a guide and friend if she did not wholly +sink the educated woman in the nurse-maid and seamstress. These habits may +have been "unfeminine," but they certainly made Mrs. Moore much more +agreeable as a companion than if she had been able to talk of nothing but +the baby's clothes, teeth and ailments.</p> + +<p>I took out my work, and Minny began to read <i>Locksley Hall</i>, which was +then a new poem on this side the water. I had never heard it before, and I +must confess I was much affected--more than I should be now. Mrs. Moore, +however, chose to say that she thought Amy had made a most fortunate +escape, that she had no doubt but the hero would have been a most +intolerable person to live with, and that their marriage, had it come to +pass, would have ended in Amy's taking in sewing to support both herself +and her husband. As for the Squire, why we had no word for his character +but his disappointed rival's, and his drinking might be all a slander. As +to his snoring, why poets might snore as well as other people. If he loved +his wife "somewhat better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse," +"Why what more," said Mrs. Moore, "could any woman ask of a man given to +horses and hunting? If Calvin Bruce ever cares more for a woman than he +does for his brown pointer and his fast trotter, she may think herself +happy indeed."</p> + +<p>At that instant a sudden and furious blast rushed out of the woods, and +tore and shook at the four corners of the house as if to wrench it from +its foundations.</p> + +<p>"It's quite awful to hear the wind scream like that," said Minny. "It is +like the banshee. Hark! is not that some one knocking at the back door?"</p> + +<p>I listened, and amid the rattling and shaking of blinds and timbers I +heard what sounded like a hurried, impatient knock at the side door. "Who +can it be on such a wild night?" I said, and took the candle and went to +open the door. I set the light in the hall, for I knew the wind would blow +it out. In spite of this precaution, however, the flame was extinguished, +for as I drew back the bolt and lifted the latch the blast threw the door +violently back on its hinges, and rushed into the hall as though exulting +in having finally made an entrance.</p> + +<p>"Pretty bad weather, mamma," said some one in the softest, sweetest voice, +like a courteous flute, and there entered my old friend the Black Panther.</p> + +<p>This gentleman measured seven feet in his moccasins, and as he stood in +our little entry he looked gigantic indeed. He closed the door with some +difficulty, and I relit the candle.</p> + +<p>"You are quite wet through," I said, for the water dripped from his +blanket and woolen hunting-frock. He carried his rifle in his hand, and I +thought the old man looked very tired and sad, and even anxious.</p> + +<p>"You all well?" he asked, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. The captain has gone away, and Minny and the baby are here for +the night. My dear friend, where have you been in this weather? There is a +good fire in the kitchen. Come and get dry there, and let me make you a +cup of hot coffee and get you something to eat."</p> + +<p>Here Minny came out into the hall and held up her hands in sunrise.</p> + +<p>"Oh, uncle," she said, calling him by the name she had used toward him +since her childhood, "how could you come out in all this rain, and bring +on your rheumatism? How do you think any one is ever going to find dry +clothes for such a big creature as you?"</p> + +<p>The Panther gave a little grunt and a smile. He was used to Minny's +lectures, and he followed us both into the kitchen, where she made him sit +down by the fire and took off his wet blanket, waiting on him like a +daughter, and scolding him gently meanwhile. The old gentleman had of late +years been subject to rheumatism, and it was too likely that this exposure +would bring on another attack. The Panther patted her two little hands +between his own. Like most of his race, he had beautiful hands, soft and +rounded even in his old age, with long taper fingers that had, I dare say, +taken more than one scalp in their time.</p> + +<p>"Pooh!" said he, lightly. "You think old Ingin melt like maple sugar? You +well?" he asked, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Quite so."</p> + +<p>"And little one?"</p> + +<p>"As well as a little pig, fast asleep in the other room."</p> + +<p>"Where your husband?"</p> + +<p>"Gone over to the railroad on business."</p> + +<p>"And yours?" he asked, turning to me.</p> + +<p>"Gone to Carysville. Do you know anything about him? is anything the +matter?" I asked, a little alarmed at his persistent questioning and an +indefinite something in the old man's tone and manner.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said he, earnestly. "I come right over from our place."</p> + +<p>"Walked from the reservation in this storm!" said I. "What could have made +you do such a thing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing--just to see you. Not very strange come see two nice women," said +the old gentleman, with a little complimentary bow.</p> + +<p>The Panther was somewhat vain of his knowledge of what he called "white +manners," but I never saw a white man who could be so gently dignified, so +courteous, so altogether charming in manner, as the old chief when he +chose. He hardly knew one letter from another, but he had had sixty-five +years of experience in war and council. Many a man "got up regardless of +expense" in college and society might have taken lessons in deportment +from this old Pottawatomie. He had known Minny from her childhood. Her +father's farm had been the first clearing in all that part of the country. +Deacon Adams had always been on excellent terms with the Indians, and his +little daughter had found her earliest playmates among their children. The +Panther had carried Minny in his arms when she was a baby; and as his own +family of boys and girls died one after another, he clung closer to the +child who had been their pet as well as his own.</p> + +<p>The Panther was one of those big, soft, easy men who seem made to be ruled +by one woman or another. He was greatly respected in his tribe, and had +much influence. When they had been a nation he had been one of their most +distinguished warriors, and his word had been law. He had always +maintained toward the "young men" a somewhat imperious manner. He had +conducted himself with dignity and decision in all his visits to +Washington, where he had been a great lion, and in all his dealings with +the United States he had shown much wisdom and ability. But report said +that when once within the domestic circle and before his squaw, the +diplomatist and warrior was exceedingly meek. He bore his wife's death +with resignation, but he had never married again. He loved Minny Adams +better than anything on earth, and the girl had great influence over him. +She, in her turn, was very fond of him. From her earliest years he had +been her friend, confidant and admirer. He looked so fierce and dangerous, +and was so kind and simple, that the alliance between the girl and himself +was very much like that between a little child and a big mastiff--the +child protected and leader, the dog protector and led.</p> + +<p>Minny made flannel shirts for him, and he wore them: she trimmed his +moccasins, and the dainty cambric ruffles which he wore when in grand +costume were got up by her hands. The Panther, however, did not often +appear in full dress. She tried to teach him to read, and she did get him +through the alphabet, but he greatly preferred hearing stories read to +learning to do it for himself, and was especially fond of the <i>Arabian +Nights</i>, which he quite believed. She even coaxed him to go to church with +her, and might have made a convert of him but for the interference of an +exceedingly silly young clergyman. The Panther rather liked to hear the +Bible, but I fear he was more attracted by the sound than the sense: his +favorite chapter was the story of David and Goliah. He used to say that +"Ingin religion was good for Ingin, and white religion was good for white +man." However, he never offered the least opposition to the missionary who +had settled among his people: indeed, he rather patronized that gentleman.</p> + +<p>He and Wyanota were excellent friends. It was good to see the deference +and respect with which the younger man treated the elder. I always said +that it was the Panther who made the match between Minny and Mr. Moore. +Their house was one of his homes, and he was a frequent guest at our own. +He petted and spoiled my two children: he was very soft and kind to me, +whom he called "Mamma," after Wyn's example, and he considered that my +husband "understood good manners"--a compliment which he did not pay to +every one.</p> + +<p>A dear little daughter whom we had lost had been very fond of him: the +child had died in his arms. I was alone at the time, and the old man's +sympathy was such a comfort to me in my trouble that for his own sake, as +well as for our little girl's, he had become very dear to us.</p> + +<p>For an Indian, the Panther might be called almost a sober character. He +was seldom drunk more than four or five times a year, and when he was, he +always was very careful to keep out of the way of his white friends until +he was sober, when he would lecture the young men on the evils of +intemperance in most impressive fashion. He was a good deal of an orator, +possessing a voice of great sweetness and power; and though he was such an +immense creature, all his movements were light and graceful as those of a +kitten. He could speak perfectly good, even elegant, English when he +chose, but he did not always choose, and generally omitted the pronouns; +but his voice, manner and gestures in speaking were perfectly charming +when he was in a good temper. When he was not, he was somewhat awful, but +it was only under great provocation that he became savage. In general, he +was an amiable, kind, lazy creature, whom it was very easy to love.</p> + +<p>I could not but wonder that night, as I set out the table and made the +coffee, what had brought the Panther so far in such wild weather. He did +not seem like himself. He was usually very conversable, and would chat +away by the hour together, in a fashion half shrewd, half simple, often +very interesting; but now he was silent and <i>distrait</i>.</p> + +<p>"Carry," said Mrs. Moore, "are there not some of Wyn's things here yet in +that old trunk in your lumber-room?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Perhaps you can find something the chief can put on, and bring down +a pair of the captain's socks and slippers."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind, never mind," said the damp giant.</p> + +<p>"But I will mind," said the little woman; and she went out and soon +returned with the things, which she insisted he should go and put on.</p> + +<p>"Well, always one woman or another," said the Panther in a tone of +resignation: "always squaw git her own way. You see that little girl, +mamma? Could squeeze her up just like a rabbit. Always she order me round +since she so high, and I just big fool enough let her;" and he went into +the next room, and presently came out arrayed in dry garments, as to his +upper man at least. I set the table with the best I had in the house, and +Minny and I sat down to get a cup of coffee with our guest.</p> + +<p>At any other time the old gentleman would have purred and talked over this +little feast like an amiable old cat, but now he was rather silent; and I +noticed that in the pauses of the wind he would stop as though listening +for some expected sound. I began to think he was concealing from me some +misfortune or danger, and the same thought was evidently in Minny's mind, +for she watched him anxiously.</p> + +<p>When we went back into the parlor the Panther walked to the baby's crib, +and stood for a moment looking at the sleeping child with a tenderness +which softened his whole aspect. Then he asked for the little boys.</p> + +<p>"They are fast asleep in the next room," I said. "Go and look at them, and +you will be sure."</p> + +<p>The Panther smiled, but he went into my room, which opened from the +parlor, and bending down softly kissed the two little faces resting on the +same pillow.</p> + +<p>I drew a large chair to the fire for him, and Minny filled his pipe, for I +had "followed the drum" too long to object to smoking. The giant stretched +his length of limb before the fire, but he did not seem quite at ease, +even under the influence of the tobacco. He looked a little troubled and +anxious, and lifted his head once or twice with a sudden motion, like a +dog who has misgivings that something is wrong out-doors.</p> + +<p>The baby stirred in her sleep, and the chief began gently to rock the +cradle. "'Spose she order me about too, by and by," he said, "like her +mother."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you like to make that out," said Minny, "because you are such a great +big, strong man. If you were a little bit of a creature, you would always +be standing on your dignity to make yourself look tall. The last time Wyn +and I were at Detroit we went to church, and I heard the very smallest man +I ever saw preach a tremendous sermon about the man being the head of the +woman, insisting mightily on the respect we all owe to the other sex. When +we came out I asked Wyn what he thought, and he said he thought it was +exactly such a sermon as such a very tiny man might be expected to +preach."</p> + +<p>"Ah! and he heard you both, my dear," said I; "and he says Mr. Moore has +no element of reverence in his character!"</p> + +<p>Here the Panther dropped his pipe, and starting from his chair looked like +his namesake just ready for a spring, as the sharp, quick bark of a little +dog was heard from the nearest house.</p> + +<p>"Only dog," he said in a tone of relief, and resumed his smoking.</p> + +<p>"Uncle," said Minny, "I do wish you would tell me what the matter is, or +what you are listening for. You make me think there is something wrong."</p> + +<p>I looked up and seconded Minny's request.</p> + +<p>"'Spose I tell you, you think it all Ingin nonsense," he said, looking a +little embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Even if I did, sir, I should feel more comfortable," I said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, do tell us, please," said Minny, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said the old man, speaking with an effort, "last night went +out after a coon--up in the woods right back of here--"</p> + +<p>"Yes: well?"</p> + +<p>"And went up on that little hill over your pasture, and then," said the +old man lowering his voice and speaking with great earnestness, "hear <i>red +fox bark</i>--one, two, three times out loud, and then again farther off. +There, now!"</p> + +<p>I was greatly relieved at finding that I was threatened by nothing worse +than the oracle of the red fox. I knew the Indian superstition that if +this animal is heard to bark anywhere near a dwelling, he foretells death +within twenty-four hours to some one beneath its roof.</p> + +<p>"But," said I, "the red fox is only a sign for Indians. He does not bark +for white people, and you were not under a roof at the time, so it cannot +apply to you."</p> + +<p>"Don't know!" said the Panther, shaking his head. "Never know that sign +fail. Then here this little woman and this baby--all the same as Ingin +now."</p> + +<p>Minny looked a little troubled. In spite of his reading, his college +education and mathematics, Wyanota had sundry queer notions and +superstitions, about which he very seldom spoke, but which nevertheless +had some weight with him, and it is possible that he had in some degree +communicated his ideas to his wife.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe in signs," said Minny, but nevertheless she looked +annoyed.</p> + +<p>"So I thought," said the chief with a little smile. "Know mamma here think +it all nonsense, or else come over this morning to tell her. Then think +she not believe it and not mind, and so keep quiet. Then storm come up and +wind blow, and couldn't stand it; so set out and walk over here to take +care of her; and she--maybe she laugh at me?"</p> + +<p>"No indeed, sir," said I, greatly touched by the anxious affection which +had brought the old man so far in such weather. "How good you are to me! +You mean to stay here to-night of course, and in the morning you will see +that the red fox was simply barking for his own amusement; but I am sorry +he drove you to take such a toilsome walk, though we are glad to have you +here."</p> + +<p>"My business take care of you when your men gone. Got no one my own +blood," he said, rather sadly: "boys dead, girl dead, squaw dead--no one +but you two care much for old man."</p> + +<p>Minny went and kissed him softly. "You know I belong to you," she said, +"and baby has no grandfather but you."</p> + +<p>"Ah! your father!" said the Panther, rocking the cradle. "He and I always +good friends. 'Member when you come, your mother she got no milk for you, +poor little starved thing! My squaw she lose her baby--nice little boy +too," said the old man, with a sigh--"she tell your mother she nurse you; +so she did. You git fat and rosy right off. You all the same one of us +after that. No spoil your pretty white skin, though," said the Panther, +patting Minny's cheek with his brown fingers. "Seem just like that happen +yesterday: now you got baby yourself. Ah! your father--mighty well pleased +he be 'spose he see that little one."</p> + +<p>"How often I wish he could!" said "Minny with a sigh, for both her father +and mother were dead.</p> + +<p>"You 'pend upon it, he comfortable somewhere," said the chief, +consolingly. "Deacon Adams, he real good man. Look here, mamma! Like to +ask you question. You say when we die white man go to one place, Indian go +to another--"</p> + +<p>"I don't say so, sir. I don't pretend to know all this world by heart, +much less the other."</p> + +<p>"Well, that what Indian say, any way. Now 'spose that so, what come of +half-breed, eh?"</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" I asked, for neither Minny nor I could venture an +opinion on this abstruse point.</p> + +<p>"Don't know," said the old man. "Saw young Cherokee in Washington: he +marry pretty little schoolmistress go down there to teach, and their +little boy die. Then that young man feel bad, and he fret good deal 'bout +where that baby gone to, and he ask me, and I no able tell him. Guess me +find out when get there: no use to trouble till then, You make these?" he +asked, changing the subject, and looking with admiration at the captain's +embroidered slippers which I had lent him.</p> + +<p>"Yes. They were pretty when they were new. I'll make you a pair just like +them, if you wish. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>The old gentleman looked greatly delighted, for he was as fond of finery +as any girl, and took no small pride in adorning his still handsome +person.</p> + +<p>I brought out all my embroidery-patterns, and the giant took as much +pleasure as a child in the pretty painted pictures and gay-colored wools +and silks. I made all the conversation I could over the slippers, willing +to divert him from the melancholy which seemed to have taken possession of +his mind. Over my work-basket he brightened a little, and chatted away +quite like himself, and listened with pleasure to Minny's singing. We did +not rise to go to bed till eleven o'clock, which was a very late hour for +Maysville. When the Panther spent the night at our house, as was +frequently the case, he never would go regularly to bed, but would take +his blanket and lie down before the kitchen fire. With great politeness he +insisted on getting the wood ready for morning, a thing he never would +have dreamed of doing for a woman of his own race.</p> + +<p>As he came back into the kitchen from the shed he took up his rifle, which +he had set down by the door. As he did so an angry look came over his +face. "Look here," he said: "somebody been spoil my rifle!"</p> + +<p>I looked at the piece in surprise, for the lock was broken. "It cannot +have been done since you came," I said. "There is no one in the house but +ourselves."</p> + +<p>"Of course not, of course not!" said the Panther, eager to show that he +had no suspicion of his friends.</p> + +<p>"Did you stop anywhere on your way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said he with some slight embarrassment. "Stop at Ryan's," +mentioning a low tavern on the borders of the reservation, which was a +terrible thorn in the side of all the missionary's efforts. "Stop a minute +light my pipe, but no drink one drop," he added with great earnestness; +"but they ask me good deal."</p> + +<p>"Did you put your gun down?"</p> + +<p>"Guess so," he said after a moment's reflection. "Yes, know did put it +down a minute or two."</p> + +<p>"Then that was when the mischief was done, you may be sure. This lock was +never broken by accident. It must have been a mere piece of spite because +you would not stay. I wonder you did not notice it when you came out."</p> + +<p>"In a hurry, and kept the buckskin over it, not to git it wet. Wish knew +who did that," said he, with a look not good to see. "Guess not do it +again."</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry, but it can easily be mended."</p> + +<p>I spread out on the floor for him the comfortable and blankets I had +brought for his use, and hung up his woolen hunting-frock, now quite dry.</p> + +<p>As I took it into my hand, I felt something very heavy in the pocket.</p> + +<p>"I hope you have nothing here that will be spoiled with wet?" I said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing but money," said the chief, carelessly. "Mean to tell Minny +to take some of it and buy clothes for me."</p> + +<p>He took out as he spoke a handful of loose change--copper, silver and two +or three gold-pieces--and a roll of bills a good deal damp, and put it all +into my apron. I counted the money and found there were seventy-five +dollars. Strong indeed must have been the attraction which had brought the +old man away from the tavern-fire in his sober senses with such a sum of +money in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Just got that," he said. "Part from Washington, part sell deer-skins."</p> + +<p>There was no need to tell me that it had not been long in his possession. +Money in the Panther's hands was like water in a sieve.</p> + +<p>"You give me five dollars, give the rest to Minny," he said; and as this +was by much the wisest arrangement for him, I did as he wished.</p> + +<p>"You got captain's gun?" he asked me. "Never like to go to sleep without +something to catch up: hit somebody 'spose somebody come."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to say the captain has his rifle with him, and I lent the +shotgun to Jim Brewster this afternoon."</p> + +<p>He looked annoyed, but he went out into the woodshed and returned with the +axe, which was new and sharp. "Have something, anyway," he said, doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you think can possibly happen?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know. Always like to have something to catch up. Good-night, mamma. +You go to sleep."</p> + +<p>I went to bed and fell asleep almost on the minute, but I could not have +slept long when I was wakened by the noise of the wind against the +shutters. The rain had ceased, but the blast was still roaring without. +Minny and her child were in a room which opened out of the parlor opposite +my own. The lamp which was burning there threw a dim light into my +chamber, and showed me each familiar object and my little boys asleep +beside me.</p> + +<p>Some one says that between the hours of one and four in the morning the +human mind is not itself. I fully believe it. In those hours you do not +"fix your mind" on melancholy subjects--they fix themselves upon you. If +you turn back into the past, there comes up before you every occasion on +which you made a fool of yourself, every lost opportunity, every slight +injury you ever experienced. If you look at the future, you see nothing +but coming failure and disappointment. The present moment connects itself +with every tale you ever heard or read of ghosts, murder, vampires or +robbers.</p> + +<p>That night, either because of the wind or because I had taken too strong +coffee, I fell into "the fidgets," as this state of mind is sometimes +called, and selected for immediate cause of discomfort the Panther's +presentiment about the red fox. Who could explain the mysterious way in +which animals are warned of approaching danger? Perhaps the old science of +divination was not so entirely a delusion; and then I remembered all the +old stories in Roman history of people who had come to grief by neglecting +the oracles. The old idea that whatever incident is considered as an omen +will be such in reality, seemed to me at that hour of the night not wholly +an unreasonable theory.</p> + +<p>I had known, to be sure, some fifty presentiments which came to nothing, +but then I had known as many as three which had been verified: perhaps the +present case might be one of the exceptions to the rule. Then I remembered +all the stories in Scott's <i>Demonology</i>, which I had lately read, and +quite forgot all the arguments intended to disprove them.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: The Attack on the "Panther."]</p> + +<p>I thought of the broken gun-lock: I thought it not improbable that the +Panther had, when at Ryan's, mentioned that he was coming to our house, +and that it was very likely he had let it appear that he carried his money +with him. Ryan's was one of the worst places in all the State. I +remembered that the money was in the house, and I began to wish, like the +Panther, that I had something to "catch up." Then there were so many +noises about! I heard footsteps, which you will always hear if you listen +for them on a windy night. When our petted old cat jumped from his place +on the parlor sofa to lie down before the fire, I started up in bed in a +sudden fright.</p> + +<p>I must have been in this uncomfortable state of mind and body for the best +part of an hour before I remembered that in a drawer in the front parlor +lay two little old-fashioned pistols, unloaded but in good order.</p> + +<p>I had grown so excited and uneasy that I felt as if I could not rest +unless I got up, found those pistols and loaded them, though nobody had +ever heard of a burglary in Maysville, and half the time the doors were +left unlocked at night. Rather despising myself for my nervousness, but +yielding to it nevertheless, I rose, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, +lit my candle and went to find the two little pistols. I stepped very +softly, not to disturb Minny, for I should have been quite ashamed then to +have her know my cowardice. I looked in at the door as I passed. She was +sound asleep, with her baby on her arm. The baby, however, was broad +awake, but lying perfectly still, with her little finger in her mouth. Her +eyes shone in the lamplight as she turned them on me--not startled like +another child, but simply questioning. The little creature looked so +unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild +tale Wyanota had once told me about a remote ancestress of his who had +married some sort of a wood-demon. The legend ran that Wyanota's family +was descended from the offspring of this marriage, and I think Wyn more +than half believed the story.</p> + +<p>I passed on, and going into the next room found the pistols, carried them +back to my own chamber, and loaded them carefully. I was quite accustomed +to the use of firearms. There had been times in my life when I never sat +down to my work or went to rest without having rifle or pistol within easy +reach of my hand. When I had loaded the weapons, I put them on the table +by my bed and lay down again. My excitement seemed to have subsided, and I +was just falling asleep when I heard a door in the kitchen violently burst +open. I thought the wind had done it, and waited a moment to hear if the +Panther would rise and shut it.</p> + +<p>The next instant there was a shot, a wild cry as of mingled pain and fury, +the sound of a heavy fall and a struggle. Before I had well realized that +the noise was in the house, I found myself at the kitchen door with my +pistols in my hand. I was greatly startled, but my one idea was to help my +old friend. The miserable door resisted me for a moment. Seconds passed +that seemed hours. When at last I tore it open, I saw a man in his shirt +sleeves lying dead on the floor, his head shattered apparently by a blow +from the axe: another, a large, powerful Irishman, was kneeling on the +Panther's breast, with his hands at the old man's throat.</p> + +<p>I sprang forward, but something swifter than I darted past me with a +savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself +full at the ruffian's face and naked throat. It was our big old brindle +cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire. The unexpected fierceness +of Tom's assault took the man quite by surprise. Before he could tear the +creature away I had the pistol at his head.</p> + +<p>"If you move," I said, "I'll kill you;" for, as I saw that my old friend +was hurt, wrath took the place of fear.</p> + +<p>He gave in directly. Indeed the cat, a large, powerful animal, had almost +scratched his eyes out. In the most abject tones the fellow implored me to +let him go.</p> + +<p>"Don't you do it, mamma," said the Panther, faintly.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to," I said.</p> + +<p>Under the kitchen stairs was a dark closet with a strong outside bolt. I +ordered the man into this place. He obeyed, and I drew the bolt upon him. +His face and throat were streaming with blood from Tom's teeth and claws.</p> + +<p>All this passed in much less time than it takes to tell it. Roused by the +noise, the children, and Minny with the baby in her arms, were already in +the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, my poor darling!" said Minny, kneeling by the old man's +side, "you are hurt!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, quietly, "pretty considerable bad. Charley, you fasten +that door;" for the door into the shed, which had been secured only by a +button, was wide open. "You get the hammer and two, three big nails, and +drive 'em in," he continued. "Maybe more them darn scamps round."</p> + +<p>Charley obeyed directions in a way which did him credit. Little Ned, with +wide, surprised eyes, clung to me in silence; little Carry, seeing her +mother in tears, put up a piteous lip and sobbed in her unbaby-like, +sorrowful fashion; the old cat, in great excitement, went purring and +talking from one to another.</p> + +<p>"Tell me where you are hurt," I said, holding the chief's hand.</p> + +<p>He had been shot through the stomach with a great, old-fashioned +smooth-bore musket, which lay on the floor--a gun not carrying less than +twenty-five to the pound. I had seen gunshot wounds before, and I knew +that this was serious. It did not bleed much externally, but the edges of +the wound were torn and discolored.</p> + +<p>"That fellow dead?" asked the Panther.</p> + +<p>"Yes indeed!" for the man's head was split like a walnut.</p> + +<p>The old warrior looked gratified. "Mamma," he said, touching his +hunting-knife, "you take that fellow's scalp."</p> + +<p>"Don't think of such a thing," I said, not so much shocked as I might have +been had I not lived on the Indian frontier. "Do you know who they are?"</p> + +<p>"See them to Ryan's. Guess they some folks that mizzable railroad bring +into this country. 'Spect they follow me. Mamma," said the Panther, +looking up into my face, "tell you, red fox not bark for nothing. Better +be old man than you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear old friend, if you had only not come to us to-night! It was +all your love for us that has done this, but I pray God you may get well. +Charley, do you think you can go for Doctor Beach?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mamma," said the boy, though he turned pale.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said the Panther. "You no send that little fellow out in the +dark. Besides, no good. You go wrap yourselves up. You two, you git bad +cold."</p> + +<p>At that moment we heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet.</p> + +<p>"Go, Charley," said Minny. "Stop whoever it is, and tell them what has +happened."</p> + +<p>Charley ran out, and soon returned with Dr. Beach, who, happily for us, +had been out on one of those errands which are always rousing doctors from +their beds.</p> + +<p>Dr. Beach was a burly, rough-mannered sort of man, but he could be very +kind and tender in the exercise of his profession. He wasted no time in +questions, but looked grave when he saw how the old man was hurt.</p> + +<p>"Needn't tell me," said the Panther, quietly. "Know it's the end. Kill one +of 'em, anyhow!" he concluded in a tone of calm satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"And I wish with all my heart you had killed the other," said the doctor, +bitterly. "He got off, I suppose."</p> + +<p>The Panther showed his white teeth in a laugh. "No," he said, pointing to +me: "she got him--she and the cat. Pretty well for one little squaw and +pussy-cat. Mamma, you keep that kitty always."</p> + +<p>"Where is the scoundrel?" asked the doctor.</p> + +<p>"Shut up in that closet."</p> + +<p>Here the man within cried out that he was "kilt" already, and should be +hung if we did not let him go.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will, with all my heart," said the doctor.</p> + +<p>With some difficulty we helped the Panther into the parlor and laid him on +the sofa.</p> + +<p>He told us the story in a few words. He had been asleep when the door was +burst open. The man whom he had killed had fired the shot. He had kept his +feet to strike one blow with the axe, and the other man had sprung upon +him as he fell.</p> + +<p>The doctor did what little he could to ease his patient, and then went +away, but soon returned with some men from the village, who were quite +ready to lynch the criminal when they heard what he had done. They took +the man away, however, and I am happy to say he afterward received the +heaviest sentence the law would allow. He confessed that, knowing the +chief had a large sum in his possession, himself and his companion had +broken the lock of the rifle, intending to waylay the old man and shoot +him in the woods. They had not, however, been able to overtake him till he +reached the clearing, and then, fearing to encounter him, they had +followed him at a distance and watched him enter our house. Knowing that +the captain was gone, they had waited until all was quiet, and then made +their entrance as described.</p> + +<p>The Panther asked that some one might go to the reservation and send over +three of his friends, whom he named. He was very anxious to see Wyanota, +and Calvin Bruce, who had come with the doctor, instantly volunteered to +take his trotting mare and do both errands. The chestnut did her work +gallantly, though unhappily in vain, for the old man did not live to see +his friends.</p> + +<p>"Don't you fret, you two," he said, softly, as Minny and I watched over +him. "Great deal the best way for old Ingin. Die like a man now: not cough +myself to death, like an old dog. Minny, little girl, you tell your +husband be good to our people, well as he can. Not much of our nation left +now--not good for much, either," he added; "but you tell him and the +captain stand their friends, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed they will," said Minny in tears.</p> + +<p>A Methodist clergyman of some kind, who preached in Maysville at that +time, hearing what had happened, came in to offer his services and to pray +with the dying man. The Panther thanked him courteously, but he clung to +the simple creed of his fathers and his belief that "Ingin religion was +good for Ingin;" and Mr. Lawrence had the sense and feeling not to disturb +him by argument.</p> + +<p>"Want your Charley to have my rifle," he said to me. "Nobody left of our +people but my cousin's son, and he most a mizzable Ingin. You 'member +that, please," he said to Mr. Lawrence, who sat quietly at the head of the +sofa. "Do you think," he asked wistfully of the clergyman, "that I ever +see these two again where I go?" The minister--Heaven bless him!--answered +stoutly that he had not a doubt of it. "All right, then," said the +Panther, quietly. "Now, mamma, you see red fox know, after all."</p> + +<p>Minny brought her baby for him to kiss. Little Carry's dark eyes were full +of tears, for, like most babies, she felt the influence of sorrow she +could not understand. She did not scream, as another child would, but hid +her face on her mother's bosom and sobbed quietly, like a grown-up woman. +My two little boys, understanding all at once that their old friend was +going away, burst out crying.</p> + +<p>"Hush! hush!" he said, gently. "You be good boys to your mother. Say +'good-bye.'"</p> + +<p>We kissed him, keeping back the lamentations which we knew would trouble +him.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said, softly, and then he spoke some few words in his own +tongue, as Minny told me afterward, about going to his lost children. Then +a smile came over his face, a look of sweet relief and comfort softened +the stern features, the hand that had held mine so close slowly relaxed; +and with a sigh he was gone.</p> + +<p>The old minister gently closed his eyes. "My dear," said Mr. Lawrence to +Minny, who was in an agony of grief, "God knows, but it was His Son who +said, 'Greater love hath no man than this--that a man lay down his life +for his friends!'"</p> + +<p>When we buried the old chief we wrote those words on the stone we placed +over his grave.</p> + +<p>Since then the New Year's Eve brings back to me very vividly the memory of +the augury that so strangely accomplished its own fulfillment.</p> + +<p class="author">Clara F. Guernsey.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st10"> +<h2>Louie.</h2> + + + +<p>The great river was flowing peacefully down to the sea, opening its blue +tides at the silver fretting of the bar into a shallow expanse some miles +in width, a part of which on either side overlay stretches where the +submerged eel-grass lent a tint of chrysoprase to the sheathing flow, and +into which one gazed, half expecting to see so ideal a depth peopled by +something other than the long ribbons of the weed streaming out on the +slow current--the only cool sight, albeit, beneath the withering heat of +the day across all that shining extent. Far down the shores, on the right, +a line of low sand-hills rose, protecting the placid harbor from sea and +storm with the bulwark of their dunes, whose yellow drifts were ranged by +the winds in all fantastic shapes, and bound together by ropes of the wild +poison-ivy and long tangles of beach-grass and the blossoming purple pea, +and which to-day cast back the rays of the sun as though they were of +beaten brass. Above these hills the white lighthouse loomed, the heated +air trembling around it, and giving it so vague and misty a guise that, +being by itself a thing of night and storm and darkness, it looked now as +unreal as a ghost by daylight. On the other side of the harbor lay the +marshes, threaded by steaming creeks, up which here and there the pointed +sails of the hidden hay-barges crept, the sunshine turning them to white +flames: farther off stood a screen of woods, and from brim to brim between +swelled the broad, smooth sheet of the river, coming from the great +mountains that gave it birth, washing clean a score of towns on its way, +and loitering just here by the pleasant old fishing-town, whose wharves, +once doing a mighty business with the Antilles and the farther Indies, +now, in the absence of their half dozen foreign-going craft, lay at the +mercy of any sand-droger that chose to fling her cable round their +capstans. A few idle masts swayed there, belonging to small fishers and +fruiters, a solid dew of pitch oozing from their sides in the sun, but not +a sail set: a lonely watchman went the rounds among them, a ragged urchin +bobbed for flounders in the dock, but otherwise wharves and craft were +alike forsaken, and the sun glared down on them as though his rays had +made them a desert. The harbor-water lay like glass: now and then the tide +stirred it, and all the brown and golden reflections of masts and spars +with it, into the likeness of a rippled agate. Not one of the boats that +were ordinarily to be seen darting hither and yon, like so many +water-bugs, were in motion now; none of the white sails of the gay +sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the +usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that +deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed; +the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if +they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks, +had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will +disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing +here. In all the scene there was hardly any other sign of life than the +fervent sunbeams shedding their cruel lustre overhead: the river flowed +silent and lonely from shore to shore; the whole hot summer sky stretched +just as silent and lonely from horizon to horizon; only the old ferryman, +edging along the bank till he was far up stream, crossed the narrower tide +and drifted down effortless on the other side; only an old black brig lay +at anchor, with furled sail and silent deck, in the middle channel down +below the piers, and from her festering and blistering hull it was that +all the heat and loneliness and silence of the scene seemed to exude--for +it was the fever-ship.</p> + +<p>It was a different picture on the bright river when that brig entered the +harbor on the return of her last voyage, to receive how different a +welcome! But pestilence raged abroad in the country now, and the people of +the port, who had so far escaped the evil, were loth to let it enter among +them at last, and had not yet recovered from the recoil of their first +shock and shiver at thought of it in their waters--waters than which none +could have fostered it more kindly, full as they were in their shallow +breadth of rotting weeds and the slime of sewers. Perhaps the owner of +some pale face looked through the pane and thought of brother or father, +or, it may be, of lover, and grew paler with pity, and longed to do kind +offices for those who suffered; but the greater part of all the people +hived upon the shores would have scouted the thought of going out with aid +to those hot pillows rocking there upon the tide, and of bringing back +infection to the town, as much as though the act had been piracy on the +high seas. And they stayed at home, and watched their vanes and longed for +an east wind--an east wind whose wings would shake out healing, whose +breath would lay the destroying fever low; but the east wind refused to +seek their shores, and chose rather to keep up its wild salt play far out +on the bosom of its mid-sea billows.</p> + +<p>Yes, on that return of the last voyage of the brig the stream had swarmed +with boats, flags had fluttered from housetops and staffs, piers and quays +had been lined with cheering people, all flocking forth to see the broken, +battered little craft; for the brig had been spoken by a tug, and word had +been brought to the wharves, and had spread like wild-fire through the +town, that, wrecked in a tempest and deserted by the panic-stricken crew, +the steadfast master and a boy who stood by him had remained with her, had +refitted her as best they might when the storm abated, and had brought her +into port at last through fortunate days of fair weather and slow sailing. +The town was ringing with the exploit, with praise of the noble +faithfulness of master and boy; and now the river rang again, and no +conquering galley of naval hero ever moved through a gladder, gayer +welcome than that through which the little black brig lumbered on her +clumsy way to her moorings.</p> + +<p>But though all the rest of the populace of the seaport had turned out with +their greetings that day, there was one little body there who, so far from +hurrying down to shore or sea-wall with a waving handkerchief, ran crying +into a corner; and it was there that Andrew Traverse, the person of only +secondary importance in the river scene, rated as a boy on the brig's +books, but grown into a man since the long voyage began,--it was there he +found her when the crowd had let him alone and left him free to follow his +own devices.</p> + +<p>"It's the best part of all the welcome, I declare it is!" said he, +standing in the doorway and enjoying the sight before him a moment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Andrew," cried the little body with a sob, but crouching farther away +into the corner, "it was so splendid of you!"</p> + +<p>"What was so splendid of me?" said he, still in the doorway, tall and +erect in the sunshine that lay around him, and that glanced along his red +shirt and his bronzed cheek to light a flame in the black eyes that +surveyed her.</p> + +<p>"Standing by him so," she sobbed--"standing by the captain when the others +left--bringing home the ship!"</p> + +<p>"It's not a ship--it's a brig," said Andrew, possibly too conscious of his +merit to listen to the praise of it. "Well, is this all? Ain't you going +to shake hands with me? Ain't you glad to see me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Andrew! So glad!" and she turned and let him see the blushing, rosy +face one moment, the large, dark, liquid eyes, the tangled, tawny curls; +and then overcome once more, as a sudden shower overcomes the landscape, +the lips quivered again, the long-lashed eyelids fell, and the face was +hidden in another storm of tears. And then, perhaps because he was a +sailor, and perhaps because he was a man, his arms were round her and he +was kissing off those tears, and the little happy body was clinging to him +and trembling with excitement and with joy like a leaf in the wind.</p> + +<p>Certainly no two happier, prouder beings walked along the sea-wall that +night, greeted with hearty hands at every step, followed by all eyes till +the shelter of deepening dusk obscured them, and with impish urchins, +awe-struck for once, crying mysteriously under their breath to each other, +"That's him! That's the feller saved the Sabrina! That's him and her!" How +proud the little body was! how her heart beat with pleasure at thought of +the way in which all men were ready to do him honor! how timidly she +turned her eyes upon him and saw the tint deepen on his cheek, the shadow +flash into light in his eye, the smile kindle on his lips, as he looked +down on her--glad with her pride and pleasure, strong, confident, content +himself--till step by step they had left the town behind, wandering down +the sandy island road, through the wayside hedge of blossoming wild roses +and rustling young birches, till they leaned upon the parapet of the old +island bridge and heard the water lap and saw the stars come out, and only +felt each other and their love in all the wide, sweet summer universe.</p> + +<p>Poor Louie! She had always been as shy and wary as any little brown bird +of the woods. It was Andrew's sudden and glorious coming that had +surprised her into such expression of a feeling that had grown up with her +until it was a part of every thought and memory. And as for +Andrew--certainly he had not known that he cared for her so much until she +turned that tearful, rosy face upon him in welcome; but now it seemed to +him that she had been his and he hers since time began: he could neither +imagine nor remember any other state than this: he said to himself, and +then repeated it to her, that he had loved her always, that it was thought +of her that had kept him firm and faithful to his duty, that she had been +the lodestar toward which he steered on that slow homeward way; and he +thanked Heaven, no doubt devoutly enough, that had saved him from such +distress and brought him back to such bliss. And Louie listened and clung +closer, more joyful and more blest with every pulse of her bounding heart.</p> + +<p>After all, sudden as the slipping into so divine a dream had been, it had +need to be full as intense and deep, for it was only for a little while it +lasted. A week's rapt walking in these mid-heavens, where earth and care +and each to-morrow was forgotten, and there broke in upon them the voice +of the Sabrina's owner seeking for Andrew Traverse.</p> + +<p>Of course such conduct as that of one who preferred to do his utmost to +save a sinking ship rather than seek safety with her flying crew, was +something too unusual to go unrewarded: it must be signalized into such a +shining light that all other mariners must needs follow it. And if the sky +had fallen, Andrew declared, he could have been no more surprised than he +was when he found himself invited with great ceremony to a stately +tea-drinking at the house of the owner of the Sabrina. "Now we shall catch +larks," said he; and dressed in a new suit, whose gray tint set off the +smoothness of his tanned cheek with the color sometimes mantling through +the brown, he entered the house with all the composure of a gentleman used +to nothing but high days and holidays. Not that either the state or +ceremony at Mr. Maurice's required great effort to encounter with +composure--trivial enough at its best, wonderful though it was to the +townsfolk, unused to anything beyond. But Andrew had seen the world in +foreign parts, and neither Mr. Maurice's mansion-house and gardens, nor +his gay upholstery, nor his silver tea-service, nor his condescending +manners, struck the least spark of' surprise from Andrew's eyes, or gave +them the least shadow of awe.</p> + +<p>"This is some mistake," said the owner graciously, after preliminary +compliment had been duly observed. "How is it that you are rated on the +books as a boy--you as much a man as you will ever be?"</p> + +<p>"A long voyage, sir, slow sailing and delays over so many disasters as +befell us, three years out in the stead of a year and a half--all that +brings one to man's estate before his reckoning."</p> + +<p>"But the last part of the time you must have done able seaman's service?"</p> + +<p>"The captain and I together," said Andrew with his bright laugh. "We were +officers and crew and passengers, cox'n and cook, as they say."</p> + +<p>"A hard experience," said Mr. Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all, but worth its weight in gold--to me, at least. Why, sir, +it taught me how to handle a ship as six years before the mast couldn't +have done."</p> + +<p>"Good! We shall see to what purpose one of these days. And you have had +your share of schooling, they tell me?"</p> + +<p>"All that the academy had to give, sir."</p> + +<p>"And that's enough for any one who has the world to tussel with. How +should you like to have gone through such hard lines, Frarnie?" turning to +his daughter, a pale, moon-faced girl, her father's darling.</p> + +<p>"Were you never afraid?" she asked in her pretty simpering way.</p> + +<p>"Not to say afraid," answered Andrew, deferentially. "We knew our +danger--two men alone in the leaky, broken brig--but then we could be no +worse off than we were before; and as for the others--"</p> + +<p>"They got their deserts," said Mr. Maurice.</p> + +<p>"The poor fellows left us in such a hurry that they took hardly any water +or biscuit; and at the worst our fate could not be so bad as theirs, under +the hot sun in those salt seas."</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" said Mr. Maurice, who loved his own ease too much to like to +hear of others' dis-ease. And to turn the conversation from the possible +horrors into which it might lapse, he invited his guest out into his +gardens, among his grapehouses, his poultry and his dogs. It was a long +hour's ramble that they took there, well improved on both sides, for +Andrew of course knew it to be for his interest to please the brig's +owner; and Mr. Maurice, who prided himself on having a singularly keen +insight into character, studied the young man's every word and gesture, +for it was not often that he came across such material as this out of +which to make his captains; and to what farther effect in this instance be +pursued his studies might have been told, by any one keener than himself, +through the tone of satisfaction with which, on re-entering the parlor, he +bade his daughter take Andrew down the rooms and tell him the histories of +the surprising pictures there. For Mr. Maurice, one of the great fortunes +of the seaport, being possessed by a mania of belief that every youth who +cast tender eyes upon his daughter cast them not on her, but on her future +havings and holdings, had long since determined to select a husband for +her himself--one who evinced no servile reverence for wealth, one whom he +could trust to make her happy. "And here," he said, "I am not sure but +that I have him."</p> + +<p>When Andrew went in to see Louie a moment on his way home that night, he +was in great spirits over the success of his visit, and, dark as it was, +made her blush the color of the rose over the low doorway where they stood +when he asked how she would like to go captain's wife next voyage. And +then he told her of Mr. Maurice's scrutiny and questioning, and the half +hint of a ship of his own to sail some day, and of the pale-faced Miss +Frarnie's interest, and of the long stroll down the parlors among the +pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the +Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled +through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music +and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off +of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the +way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed, +how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he had had a +trifle more personal vanity, and had seen how this pale young +girl--forbidden by a suspicious father much companionship with +gallants--had forgotten all difference of station and purse, and had +looked upon him, nobly made, handsome, gay, knowing far more than she did, +much as upon a young god just alighted by her side a moment,--if Andrew +had been aware of this, and had found any words in which to repeat it, +then Louie might have had something to startle her out of her blessedness, +and pain might have come to her all the sooner. But since the pain would +have been as sharp then as at any future time, it was a pitying, pleasant +Fate that let her have her happiness as long as might be. For Louie's love +was a different thing from the selfish passion that any clown may feel: +she had been happy enough in her little round of commonplace satisfactions +and tasks before Andrew came and shed over her this great cloud of +delight--happy then just in the enjoyment of that secret love of hers that +went out and sought him every night sailing over foreign sunlit waters, +and hovered like a blessing round his head; and now that he had come and +folded her about and about with such warm devotion, it was not for the new +happiness he gave her that she loved him, but in order to make his own +happiness a perfect thing; and if her heart's blood had been needed for +that, it would have been poured out like water. The pale-faced Frarnie--if +question could be of her--might never know such love as that: love with +her could be a sentiment, a lover one who added to her pleasure, but a +sacrifice on her part for that lover would have been something to tell and +sing for ever, if indeed it were possible that such a thing should be made +at all.</p> + +<p>So day by day the spell deepened with Louie, and for another week there +was delightful loneliness with this lover of hers--strolls down through +the swampy woods hunting for moss to frame the prints he had brought home +uninjured, and which were to be part of the furnishing of their future +home; others across the salt meadows for the little red samphire stems to +pickle; sails in the float down river and in the creeks, where the tall +thatch parted by the prow rustled almost overhead, and the gulls came +flying and piping around them: here and there, they two alone, pouring out +thought and soul to each other, and every now and then glancing shyly at +those days, that did not seem so very far away, when they should be +sailing together through foreign parts; for Louie's father, the old +fisherman, was all her household, and a maiden aunt, who earned her +livelihood in nursing the sick and attending the dead, would be glad to +come any day and take Louie's place in the cottage.</p> + +<p>At the end of the week, Mr. Maurice sent for Andrew to his counting-room; +and after that, on one device or another, he had him there the greater +part of every day, employing him in a score of pleasant ways--asking his +advice as to the repairs of the Sabrina, taking him with him in his chaise +jogging through the shipyard, where a new barque was getting ready for her +launching, examining him the while carefully from time to time after his +wont; at last taking him casually home to dinner with him one day, keeping +him to tea the next, and finally, fully satisfied with the result of his +studies in that edition of human nature, giving him the freedom of the +family as much as if he had been the son of the house.</p> + +<p>"I've some plans ahead for you, my boy," said he one day with a knowing +shake of the head; and Andrew's innocent brain began to swim straightway +between the new barque and the Sabrina.</p> + +<p>"Look at him!" said Mr. Maurice to his wife one evening as Andrew walked +in the garden with Miss Frarnie. "My mind's made up about him. He's the +stuff for a sea-captain, afraid neither of wind nor weather nor the face +of clay--can sail a ship and choose her cargo. He's none of your coxcombs +that go courting across the way: he's a man into the core of his heart, +and as well bred as any gentleman that walks; though Goodness knows how he +came by it."</p> + +<p>"These sea-coast people," said his wife, reflectively (she was inland-born +herself), "see the world and learn."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you say to it? I don't find the flaw in him. If Heaven had +given me a son, I'd have had him be like this one; and since it didn't, +why here's my way to circumvent Heaven."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," said the wife, "I can't hear you talk so. And besides--"</p> + +<p>"Well? Besides what?"</p> + +<p>"I think it is always best to let such things take their own course. We +did."</p> + +<p>"Of course we did," laughed Mr. Maurice. "But how about our fathers and +mothers?"</p> + +<p>"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice, "not to force things."</p> + +<p>"And who intends to force them? It's plain enough the young fellow took a +fancy to our Frarnie the first time he laid eyes on her, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice again, "that if Frarnie should have the same +fancy for him, I don't know that there'd be any objection. He is quite +uncommon--quite uncommon when you consider all things--but I don't know +why you want to lead her to like any one in particular, when she has such +a nice home and is all we have."</p> + +<p>"Girls will marry, Mrs. Maurice. If it isn't one, it will be another. So I +had rather it should, be one, and that one of my own choosing--one who, +will use her well, and not make ducks and drakes of her money as soon as +we are gone where there's no returning, and without a 'thank you' for your +pains. Look at them now! Should you imagine they thought there was any one +else on earth but each other at this moment? They're fond of each other, +that's plain. They'd be a remarkable-looking couple. What do you think of +it?"</p> + +<p>"Frarnie might have that India shawl that I never undid, to appear out +in," said Mrs. Maurice, pensively, continuing her own reflections rather +than directly replying. "And I suppose we needn't lose her really, for she +could make her home with us."</p> + +<p>And so the conspiracy advanced, its simple victims undreaming of its +approach--Louie sighing faintly to think she saw so little of Andrew now, +but content, since she was sure it was for his best interest to make the +friendship of the Sabrina's owner; Andrew fretting to see how all this +necessary submission to superiors kept him from Louie, but more than half +compensated with the dazzling visions that danced before his eyes of the +Sabrina in her new rig--of the barque coming down for her masts and sails +from her launching.</p> + +<p>The Sabrina had been so badly injured by her disasters that it took much +more time to repair her than had at first been thought. "I'm going to +stand by the old brig," said Andrew to some one--by accident it was in Mr. +Maurice's hearing. "But if I'd known it was going to take so long to have +her whole again, I should have made a penny in taking a run down the bay, +for I had an offer to go second mate on the Tartar."</p> + +<p>"I'll go one better than that," said Mr. Maurice then. "Here's the +Frarnie, nearly ready to clear for New Orleans and Liverpool, with your +old captain. You shall go mate of her. That'll show if you can handle a +ship. The Sabrina won't be at the wharf till the round voyage is over and +the Frarnie coming up the stream again. What say you?"</p> + +<p>Of course what Andrew said was modest thanks--what he felt was a rhapsody +of delight; and when he told Louie that night, what she said was a sob, +and what she felt was a blank of fright and foreboding. Oh what should she +do? cried the selfish little thing--what should she do in the long, long, +weary days with Andrew gone? But then in a moment she remembered that this +was the first step toward going master of that craft in which her bridal +voyage was to be taken. "And what a long step it is, Andrew!" she cried. +"Was the like of it ever known before? What a long, long step it would be +but for that bitter apprenticeship when you and the captain brought the +wreck home!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Andrew, proudly: "I served my time before the mast then, if +ever any did."</p> + +<p>"And I suppose with the next step you will be master of the Sabrina? Oh, I +should so like it!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Andrew, more doubtfully than he had used to speak. +"I'm afraid the owners will think this is enough. This is a great lift. +I'll do my best to satisfy them, though; for I'd rather sail master of the +Sabrina than of the biggest man-of-war afloat."</p> + +<p>"We used to play round her when we were children," said Louie, +encouragingly. "Don't you remember leading me down once to admire the lady +on her stern?--like a water-witch just gilded in the rays of some sunrise +she had come up to see, you said."</p> + +<p>"Yes; and we used to climb her shrouds, we boys, and get through the +lubber-hole, before we could spell her name out. She's made of heart of +oak: she'll float still when the Frarnie is nothing but sawdust. We used +to watch for her in the newspapers--we used to know just as much about her +goings and comings as the owner did. Somehow--I don't know why--I've +always felt as if my fate and fortune hung upon her. It used to be the top +of my ambition to go master of her. It is now. I couldn't make up my mind +to leave her when the others did that cruel morning after the wreck; and +when the captain said he should stay by her, my heart sprang up as if she +had been a living thing, and I stayed too. And I'd rather sail her than a +European steamer to-day--that I would, by George!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course you will," said the sympathizing voice beside him.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Andrew again, more slowly and reflectively. "I've the +idea--and I can't say how I got it--that there's some condition or other +attached to my promotion--that there's something Mr. Maurice means that I +shall do, and if I don't do it I don't get my lift. It can't be anything +about wages: I don't know what it is!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said Louie, innocently, and without a glimpse of the train her +thoughtless words fired--"perhaps he means for you to marry Frarnie!" +laughing a little laugh at the absurd impossibility.</p> + +<p>And Andrew started as if a bee had stung him, and saw it all. But in a +moment he only drew Louie closer, and kissed her more passionately, and +sat there caressing her the more tenderly while they listened to a thrush +that had built in the garden thicket, mistaking it for the wood, so near +the town's edge was it, and so still and sunny was the garden all day long +with its odors of southernwood and mint and balm; and he delayed there +longer, holding her as if now at least she was his own, whatever she might +be thereafter.</p> + +<p>As he walked home that night, and went and sat upon the wharf and watched +the starlit tide come in, he saw it all again, but with thoughts like a +procession of phantoms, as if they had no part even in the possible things +of life, and were indeed nothing to him. How could they have any meaning +to him--to him, Louie's lover? What would the whole world be to him, what +the sailing of the Sabrina, without Louie? And then a shiver ran across +him: what would Louie be to him without the sailing of the Sabrina! for +that, indeed, as he had said, was the top of his ambition, and that being +his ambition, perhaps ambition, was as strong with him as love.</p> + +<p>But with this new discovery on Andrew's part of Mr. Maurice's desires, +Andrew could only recall circumstances, words, looks, hints: he could not +shape to himself any line of duty or its consequences: enough to see that +Mr. Maurice fancied his simple and thoughtless attentions to Frarnie to be +lover-like, and, approving him, looked kindly on them and made his plans +accordingly; enough to see that if he should reject this tacit proffer of +the daughter's hand, then the Sabrina was scarcely likely to be his; and +that in spite of such probability, the first and requisite thing in honor +for him to do was to tell Mr. Maurice of his marriage engagement with +Louie, and then, if the man had neither gratitude nor sense enough to +reward him for his assistance in saving the brig, to trust to fortune and +to time, that at last makes all things even. As he sat there listening to +the lapping of the water and idly watching the reflected stars peer up and +shatter in a hundred splinters with every wash of the dark tide, he could +not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession +or not. "What business is it of Maurice's?" he said to himself. "Does he +think every one that looks at his scarecrow of a daughter--" But there he +had need to acknowledge to himself his injustice to Miss Frarnie, a modest +maiden who had more cause to complain of him than he of her, since he had +done his best to please her, and her only fault lay in being pleased so +easily. She was pleased with him: he understood that now, though his +endeavors to enlist her had been for a very different manifestation of +interest. Perhaps it flattered him a little: he paused long enough to +consider what sort of a lot it would be if he really had been plighted to +Frarnie instead of Louie. Love and all that nonsense, he had heard say, +changed presently into a quiet sort of contentment; and if that were so, +it would be all the same at the end of a few years which one he took. He +felt that Frarnie was not very sympathetic, that her large white face +seldom sparkled with much intelligence, that she would make but a dull +companion; but, for all that, she would be, he knew, an excellent +housewife: she would bring a house with her too; and when a man is +married, and has half a dozen children tumbling round him, there is +entertainment enough for him, and it is another bond between him and the +wife he did not love too well at first; and if she were his, his would be +the Sabrina also, and when the Sabrina's days were over perhaps a great +East Indiaman, and with that the respect and deference of all his +townsmen: court would be paid to him, his words would be words of weight, +he would have a voice in the selection of town-officers, he would roll up +money in the bank, and some day he should be master of the great Maurice +mansion and the gardens and grapehouses. It was a brilliant picture to +him, doubtless, but in some way the recollection of two barelegged little +children digging clams down on the flats when the tide was out, with the +great white lighthouse watching them across the deserted stretches of the +long bent eel-grass, rose suddenly and wiped the other picture out, and he +saw the wind blowing in Louie's brown and silken hair and kissing the +color on her cheeks; he saw the shy sparkle of her downcast eyes, lovely +and brown then as they were now; and as he stood erect at last, snapping +his fingers defiantly, he felt that he had bidden Mr. Maurice's ships and +stocks and houses and daughter go hang, and had made his choice rather to +walk with Louie on his arm than as master of the Sabrina.</p> + +<p>It was a good resolution; and if he had but sealed it by speaking next day +to Mr. Maurice of his engagement, there would not have been a word to say. +But, though he valiantly meant to do it, it was not so easy, after all, as +he had thought, and so he put it off for a more convenient season, and the +season did not come, and the day of sailing did. And the outfit that went +on board the Frarnie was made and packed by the hands of Mrs. Maurice and +her daughter--such an outfit as he had never dreamed of; such warm woolens +for the storms, such soft linens for the heats, such finery for port, such +dainties and delicacies as only the first mate of the Frarnie could think +to have. And as for Louie, it was no outfit, no costly gift of gold or +trouble either, that she could give him: she had nothing for him but a +long, fine chain woven of her own hair, and she hung it round his neck +with tears and embraces and words that could not be uttered and sighs that +changed to sobs, and then came lingering delay upon delay, and passionate +parting at the last. But when the crew had weighed anchor and the sails +were swelling and the waves beyond the bar crying out for them, Miss +Frarnie and her mother could still be seen waving their handkerchiefs from +an upper window; and half blind with the sorrow and the pain he choked +away from sight, and mad with shame to think he had found no way but to +accept their favors, Andrew felt that their signal must be answered, and +sullenly waved his own in reply; and then the pilot was leaving the +barque, and presently the shore and all its complications, and Louie +crying herself sick, were forgotten in the excitement of the moment and +its new duties.</p> + +<p>"Didn't say a word of love to Frarnie, eh?" remarked Mr. Maurice in answer +to his wife's communications that evening. "A noble lad, then! I like him +all the better for it. He shall have her all the sooner. He won't abuse +our confidence: that's it. He'll wait till he's bridged over the gap +between them. The first mate of a successful voyage is a better match for +my daughter than the boy who stayed by the Sabrina, brave as he was. He's +fond of her? Don't you think so? There's no doubt about that? None at all! +All in good time--all in good time. I'll speak to him myself. They're +going to write to each other? I thought so."</p> + +<p>Short as the trip was that the Frarnie made in that favorable season, it +seemed to Louie an interminable period; but from the cheerful, hopeful +smile upon her lips no one would ever have known how her heart was longing +for her lover as she went about her work; for the little housekeeper had +quite too much to do in keeping the cottage clean, the garden weedless, +the nets mended, to be able to neglect one duty for any love-sick fancies +it might be pleasant to indulge. From morning till night her days were +full in bringing happiness to others: there was her father to make +comfortable; there were the sick old women, of whom her aunt brought word, +to concoct some delicacy for--a cup of custard, to wit, a dish of the +water-jelly she had learned how to make from the sea-moss she gathered on +the beach, a broiled and buttered mushroom from the garden; there were the +canaries and the cat to be cared for, and the dog that Andrew left with +her to feed and shower caresses on; and there was the parrot's toilet to +be made and her lesson to be taught, and the single jars of preserves and +pickles and ketchups to be put up for winter, and the herbs to be dried: +there were not, you may see, many minutes to be wasted out of that busy +little life in castle-building or in crying. One day there came a letter +with Victoria's head and the Liverpool stamp upon it: she knew it by heart +presently, and wore it next her heart by night and day; and even if she +had known that Miss Frarnie Maurice received one in the same handwriting +by the same mail, it would hardly have made much difference to her; and +one day the Sabrina, all freshly coppered and painted and repaired, with +new masts and sails, and so much else that it was not easy to say what +part of her now represented the old brig, came round to her old wharf and +began to take in cargo. Louie ran down one evening with her father, and +went all over her from stem to stern, only one old sailor being aboard; +and she could have told you then every rope from clew to ear-ring; and, as +if it were all the realization of a dream, a thousand happy, daring +thoughts of herself and Andrew then filled her fancy like birds in a nest; +and so swiftly after that did one day flow into another for Louie that the +Frarnie lay in the mid-stream once more before she had more than begun to +count the days to that on which her Liverpool letter had promised that she +should see its writer come walking into her father's cottage again.</p> + +<p>But she never did see him come walking into her father's cottage again. +That promised day passed and the night, and another--a long, long day that +seemed as if it would never quench its flame in sunset, and a night that +seemed as if it would never know the dawning; but the threshold of the +fisherman's cottage Andrew Traverse crossed no more.</p> + +<p>For Mr. Maurice, on his notable errand of circumventing Heaven, had been +ahead of Fate, and had gone down on the pilot-boat to meet the +Frarnie--with no settled designs of course, but in his own impatient +pleasure; and, delighted with the shipmaster's report and with the +financial promise of the voyage, the cargo, the freights, and ventures and +all, had greeted Andrew with a large-hearted warmth and after a manner +that no churl could withstand; and unwilling to listen to any refusal, had +taken Andrew up to the mansion-house with him the moment the ship had +touched the wharf.</p> + +<p>"You don't ask after her?" said Mr. Maurice when they were alone in the +chaise together. And knowing well enough what he meant, Andrew blushed +through all his bronze--knowing well enough, for had he not gone below in +a mighty hurry and tricked himself out in his best toggery so soon as he +understood there was no escape from the visit? Louie would have been glad +enough to see him in his red shirt and tarpaulin!</p> + +<p>"Oh, you scamp!" said Mr. Maurice, quickly then detecting the blush. +"Don't say a word! I've been there myself: I know how you're longing to +see her; and she's been at the window looking through the glass every half +hour, the puss!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maurice," began Andrew, half trembling, but wholly resolved, he +thought--although it must be confessed that with time, and distance, and +Frarnie's effusive letters and flattering prospects on the other hand, +Louie's image was not so bright at that moment as it had been at others, +and for that very reason Andrew was taking great credit to himself for his +upright intentions--credit enough to tide him over a good deal of baseness +if need were,--"Mr. Maurice--" he began; and there he paused to frame his +sentence more suitably, for it was no easy thing to tell a man that he was +throwing his child at one who did not care for her, and that man the +disposer of his fortunes.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Maurice saved him any such trouble. "I know all you're going to +say," he exclaimed. "I understand your hesitation, and I honor you for it. +But I'm no fool, and there's no need to have you tell me that you want my +Frarnie, for I've known that long ago."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maurice!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have," answered the impulsive gentleman. "Mrs. Maurice and I +talked it over as soon as we saw which way the wind lay; but of course we +decided to say nothing till we were sure, quite sure, that it was Frarnie +and not her prospects--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, you--"</p> + +<p>"Tush, tush! I know all about it now. But it becomes a father to be wary," +continued the other, taking the words from Andrew's lips in spite of +himself, and quite wary enough not to mention that in Frarnie's +easily-excited favor a young scapegrace was very likely to supplant Mr. +Andrew if things were not brought to a point at once. "It was my duty to +look at all sides," he said, without stopping for breath. "Now I know you, +and I see you'd rather give the girl the go-by for ever than have her +think you wanted her because she was her father's daughter, and not some +poor fisherman's."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed--" began Andrew again, leaning forward, his cheeks +crimson, his very hands shaking.</p> + +<p>"Of course, my boy," interrupted his companion as before--"of course. +Don't say a word: you're welcome to her at last. I never thought I'd +surrender her to any one so freely; but if I were choosing from all the +world, Andrew, I don't know any one I'd choose sooner for my son. She's a +sensible girl, my Frarnie is, at bottom. We know her heart: it's a good +heart--only the froth of all young girls' fancies to be blown off. And the +Sabrina always was a pet of mine, and, though I've said nothing of it, +I've meant her for Frarnie's husband this many a day." And before Andrew, +in his flurry and embarrassment and bewilderment, could enunciate any +distinct denial of anything or avowal of anything else, the chaise was at +the door, and Mrs. Maurice was waiting for him with extended hands, and +Frarnie was standing and smiling behind, half turned to run away. And Mr. +Maurice cried out: "Captain Traverse of the Sabrina, my dear! Here, +Frarnie, Frarnie! none of your airs and graces! Come and give your +sweetheart an honest kiss!" And Andrew, doubting if the minister were not +behind the door and he should not find himself married out of hand, +irresolute, cowardly, too weak to give up the Sabrina and that sweet new +title just ringing in his ears, was pushed along by Mr. Maurice's foolish, +hearty hand till he found himself bending over Frarnie with his arm around +her waist, his lips upon her cheek, and without, as it seemed to him, +either choice or volition on his part. But as he looked up and saw the +portraits of the girl's grandfathers, where they appeared to be looking +down at him stern and questioning, a guilty shame over the wrong he was +doing their child smote him sorely: he saw that he had allowed the one +instant of choice to slip away; the sense came over him that he had sealed +his own doom, while a vision of Louie's face, full of desolation and +horror, was scorching in upon his soul; and there, in the moment of +betrothal, his punishment began. He stole down to the Sabrina's wharf that +evening, after the moon had set, and looking round to see that it was +quite forsaken at that hour, he took from his neck a long, slender +hair-chain to drop over into the deep water there; but as he held the +thing it seemed suddenly to coil round his hand with a caress, as if it +were still a part of Louie's self. He stamped his foot and ground his heel +into the earth there with a cry and an oath, and put the chain back again +whence he had taken it, and swore he would wear it till they laid his +bones under ground. And he looked up at the dark lines of the brig looming +like the black skeleton of an evil thing against the darkness of the +night, and he cursed himself for a traitor to both women--for a hypocrite, +a craven, a man sold to the highest bidder. Well, well, Captain Traverse, +there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of +the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and +longed and waited, but Captain Traverse went back to the Maurices' +mansion.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>It is one of the enigmas of this existence how women forgive the wrong of +such hours as came to Louie now--hours of suspense and suffering--hours of +a misery worse than the worm's misery in blindness and pain before it +finds its wings.</p> + +<p>At first she expected her lover, and speculated as to his delay, and +fretted to think anything might detain him from her; and now she was +amazed, and now vexed, and now she was forgiving the neglect, accusing +herself and making countless excuses for him; and now imagining a thousand +dire mishaps. But as the third day came and he was still away--he who had +been always wont to seek her as soon as the craft was made fast to +wharf--then she felt her worst forebodings taking bodily shape: he was +ill, he had fallen overboard, he had left the vessel at Liverpool and +shipped upon another, and a letter would come directly to say so; or else +he had been waylaid and robbed and made away with: not once did she dream +that he was false to her--to her, a portion of his own life!</p> + +<p>How it was with him there were numberless ways in which she might have +discovered, for every soul of her acquaintance knew Andrew, and must be +aware of the fact if he were missing or ailing, or if any other ill chance +had befallen him. But as often as she tried to address one or another +passing by the window, her voice failed her and her heart, and she asked +no questions, and only waited on. A life of suspense, exclaims some one, a +life of a spider! And when we are in suspense, says another, all our aids +are in suspense with us. Day after day she stayed continually in the +house, looking for him to come, never stirring out even into the garden, +lest coming she might miss him. Night after night she sat alone at her +window till the distant town-clocks struck midnight--now picturing to +herself the glad minute of his coming, the quick explaining words, the +bursting tears of relief, the joy of that warm embrace, the touch of those +strong arms--now convinced that he would never come, and her heart sinking +into a bitter loneliness of despair.</p> + +<p>It grew worse with her when she knew that he was really in the town, alive +and well; for, from the scuttle in the roof, by the aid of her father's +glass, she could see the Sabrina, and one day she was sure that a form +whose familiar outlines made her pulses leap was Andrew himself giving +orders on the deck there; and after that she tortured herself with +conjectures till her brain was wild--chained hand and foot, unable to +write him or to seek him in any maidenly modesty, heart and soul in a +ferment. Still she waited in that shuddering suspense, with every nerve so +tightly strung, that voice or footfall vibrated on them into pain. If +Andrew, in the midst of the gayeties by which he found himself accepted of +the Maurices' friends, was never haunted by any thought of all this, his +heart had grown stouter in one year's time than twenty years had found and +left it previously.</p> + +<p>But Louie's suspense was of no long duration, as time goes, though to her +it was a lifetime. A week covered it--a week full of stings and fevered +restlessness--when her father came in one day and said bitterly, thinking +it best to make an end of all at once: "So I hear that a friend of ours +has been paid off at last. Captain Andrew Traverse of the Sabrina is going +to marry his owner's daughter Frarnie. Luck will take passage on that +brig!" And when Louie rose from the bed on which she lay down that night, +the Sabrina had been a fortnight gone on her long voyage--a voyage where +the captain had sailed alone, postponing the evil day perhaps, and at any +rate pleading too much inexperience, for all his dazzling promotion, to be +trusted with so precious thing as a wife on board during the first trip. +He had not felt that hesitation once when portraying the possibilities of +the voyage to another.</p> + +<p>It was not a long illness, Louie's, though it had been severe enough to +destroy for her consciousness both of pain and pleasure. Her aunt had left +other work and had nursed her through it; but when, strong and well once +more, she went about her old duties, it seemed to her that that +consciousness had never returned: she took up life with utter listlessness +and indifference, and she fancied that her love for Andrew was as dead as +all the rest. The poor little thing, laying this flattering unction to +heart, did not call much reason to her aid, or she would have known that +there was some meaning in it when she cried all day on coming across an +old daguerreotype of Andrew. "It isn't for love of him," she sobbed. "It's +for the loss of all that love out of my life that was heaven to me. Oh no, +no! I love him no longer: I can't, I can't love him: he is all the same as +another woman's husband." But, despite this stout assertion, she could not +bring herself to part with that picture: he was not in reality quite the +husband of another woman, and till he was indeed she meant to keep it. "He +is only promised to her yet, and he was promised first to me," she said +for salve to conscience; and meanwhile the picture grew so blurred with +conscious tears, and perhaps with unconscious kisses, that it might have +been his or another's: Miss Frarnie herself, had she seen it, could not +have told whose it was.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding all the elasticity of youth, life became an inexpressibly +dull thing to Louie as the year wore into the next--dull, with neither aim +nor object, the past a pain to remember, the future a blank to consider. +She could live only from day to day, one day like another, till they grew +so wearisome she wondered her hair was not gray--the pretty hair that, +shorn from her head in her illness, had grown again in a short fleece of +silky curls--for it seemed to her that she had lived a hundred years. And +because troubles never come alone, and one perhaps makes the other seem +lighter and better to be borne, in the thick of a long winter's storm they +brought home her father, the old fisherman, drowned and dead.</p> + +<p>Captain Traverse knew of the old fisherman's death through the newspapers +that found him in his foreign ports--not through Miss Frarnie's letters, +for she knew almost nothing of the existence or non-existence of such low +people; and therefore, conjecture as he needs must concerning Louie's +means of livelihood now, there was no intelligence to relieve any anxiety +he might have felt, or to inform him of the sale of the cottage to pay the +debt of the mortgage under which it was bought, or of the support that +Louie earned in helping her aunt watch with the sick and lay out the dead: +he could only be pricked with knowledge of the fact that he had no right +to his anxiety, or to the mention of her name even in his prayers--if he +said them.</p> + +<p>Poor little Louie! A sad end to such a joyous youth as hers had been, you +would have said; but, in truth, her new work was soothing to her: her +heart was simply in harmony with suffering, with death and desolation, and +by degrees she found that comfort from her double sorrows in doing her +best to bring comfort to others which it may be she could never have found +had she been the pampered darling of some wealthy house. Often, when she +forgot what she was doing, Louie made surmises concerning Frarnie Maurice, +wondering if she were the noble thing that Andrew needed to ennoble +him--if she were really so strong and beautiful that the mere sight of her +had killed all thought or memory of an older love; trying to believe her +all that his guardian angel might wish his wife to be, and to acknowledge +that she herself was so low and small and ignorant that she could only +have injured him--to be convinced that it was neither weakness, nor +covetousness, nor perjury in Andrew, having met the sun, to forget the +shadows; wondering then if Frarnie cared for him as she herself had done, +and crying out aloud that that could never be, until the sound of her own +sobs woke her from her forbidden dream. But at other times a calm came to +Louie that was more pathetic than her wildest grief: it was the +acquiescence in what Providence had chosen for Andrew, cost herself what +it might--it was the submission of the atom beneath the wheels of the +great engine.</p> + +<p>It is true that as, late in the night, when all the town was asleep and +only silence and she abroad, she walked home by herself from some deathbed +whose occupant she had composed decently for the last sleep, she used to +wish it were herself lying there on that moveless pillow, and soon to be +sheltered from the cruel light by the bosom of the kindly earth. For now, +as she passed the birches softly rustling in the night wind, and hurried +by, she remembered other times when she had passed them, and had stopped +to listen, cared for, protected, with Andrew's arm about her; and now, as +the clocks, one after another, remotely chimed the hour, the sound smote +her with a familiar sweetness full of pain; and now, as she came along the +sea-wall and saw the dark river glimmering widely and ever the same, while +its mysterious tide flowed to meet the far-off spark of the lighthouse +lantern, she recalled a hundred happy hours when she and Andrew in the +boat together had rocked there in soft summer nights, with sunset melting +in the stream and wrapping them about with rosy twilight; or those when +whispers of the September gales swelled the sail, and the boat flew like a +gull from crest to crest of the bar; or those when misty sea-turns crept +up stream and folded them, and drowned the sparkle of the lighthouse and +the emerald and ruby ray of the channel lights, and left them shut away +from the world, alone with each other on the great gray current silently +sweeping to the sea--times when she knew no fear, trusting in the strong +arm and stout heart beside her, before the river had brought death to her +door; when the whole of life seemed radiant and rich--times that made this +solitary night walk trodden now seem colder and drearier and darker than +the grave--that made her wish it ended in a grave.</p> + +<p>And so at length the year slipped by, and spring had come again, and the +sap had leaped up the bough and burst into blossom there, and the blood +had bubbled freshly in the veins of youth, and hope had once more +gladdened all the world but Louie. With her only a dull patience stayed +that tried to call itself content, until she heard it rumored among the +harbor-people that the Sabrina was nearly due again, and with that her +heart beat so turbulently that she had to crush it down again with the +thought that, though Andrew every day drew nearer, came up the happy +climates of southern latitudes and spread his sails on favoring gales for +home, he only hastened to his wedding-day. And one day, at last, she rose +to see a craft anchored in the middle channel down below the piers, +unpainted and uncleaned by any crew eager to show their best to shore--a +black and blistered brig, with furled sails and silent deck; and some men +called it the fever-ship, and some men called it the Sabrina.</p> + +<p>As the news of the brig's return and of her terrible companion spread +through the town, a panic followed it, and the feeling with which she was +regarded all along the shore during that day and the next would hardly be +believed by any but those who have once been in the neighborhood of a +pestilence themselves. Exaggerated accounts of a swift, strange illness, +by many believed to be the ancient plague revived again and cast loose +through the land from Asiatic ships had reached the old port; and aware +that they were peculiarly exposed by reason of their trade, small as it +was, the people there had already died a thousand deaths through +expectation of the present coming of the fever already raging in other +parts. Hitherto, the health-officers, boarding everything that appeared, +had found no occasion to give anything but clean papers, and the town had +breathed again. But now, when at last it spread from lip to lip that the +fever lay at anchor in mid-channel, knees shook and cheeks grew white, and +health-officer and port-physician, in spite of the almost instantaneous +brevity of their visit to the infected vessel, were avoided as though they +were the pestilence themselves, and not a soul in all the town was found +to carry a cup of cold water to the gasping, burning men cared for only by +those in less desperate strait than themselves, and who, having buried +two-thirds of their number in deep-sea soundings, were likely to be denied +as much as a grave on shore themselves; while to Mr. Maurice, half wild +with perplexity and foreboding and amazement at Miss Frarnie's yet wilder +terror,--to him the red lantern hung out by the brig at nightfall +magnified itself in the mist into a crimson cloud where with wide wings +lurked the very demon of Fever himself.</p> + +<p>Not a soul to carry the cup of cold water, did I say? Yes, one timid +little soul there was, waiting in a fever of longing herself--waiting that +those who had a right to go might do so if they would--waiting till +assured that neither Frarnie Maurice nor her parents had the first +intention of going, though affianced husband and chosen son lay dying +there--waiting in agony of impatience, since every delay might possibly +mean death,--one little brave and timid soul there was who ventured forth +on her errand of mercy alone. The fisherman's old boat still lay rocking +in the cove, and the oars stood in the shed: Louie knew how to use them +well, and making her preparations by daylight, and leaving the rest till +nightfall, lest she should be hindered by the authorities, she found means +to impress the little cow-boy into her service; and after dark a keg of +sweet water was trundled down and stored amidships of the boat, with an +enormous block of ice rolled in an old blanket; a basket of lemons and +oranges was added, a roll of fresh bed-linen, a little box of such +medicines as her last year's practice had taught her might be of use; and +extorting a promise from the boy that he would leave another block of ice +on the bank every night after dark for her to come and fetch, Louie +quickly stepped into the boat, lifted the oars, and slipt away into the +darkness of the great and quiet river.</p> + +<p>When, three days afterward, Captain Traverse unclosed his eyes from a +dream of Gehenna and the place the smoke of whose torment goes up for +ever, a strange confusion crept like a haze across his mind, tired out and +tortured with delirium, and he dropped the aching lids and fell away into +slumber again; for he had thought himself vexed with the creak of cordage +and noise of feet, stived in his dark and narrow cabin, on a filthy bed in +a foul air, if any air at all were in that noisome place, reeking with +heat and the ferment of bilge-water and fever-smell; and here, unless a +new delirium chained him, a mattress lay upon the deck with the awning of +an old sail stretched above it and making soft shadow out of searching +sun, a gentle wind was blowing over him, a land-breeze full of sweet +scents from the gardens on the shore, from the meadows and the marshes. +Silence broken only by a soft wash of water surrounded him; a flake of ice +lay between his lips, that had lately been parched and withering, and +delicious coolness swathed his head, that had seemed to be a ball of +burning fire. The last that he remembered had been a hot, dry, aching +agony, and this was bliss: the sleep into which he fell when waking from +the stupor that had benumbed his power of suffering--a power that had +rioted till no more could be suffered--lasted during all the spell of that +fervid noon sun that hung above the harbor and the town like the unbroken +seal of the expected pestilence. A strange still town, fear and heat +keeping its streets deserted, its people longing for an east wind that +should kill the fever, yet dreading lest it should blow the fever in on +them; a strange still harbor, its great peaceful river darkened only by +that blot where the sun-soaked craft swung at her anchor; a strange still +craft, where nothing stirred but one slender form, one little being that +went about laying wet cloths upon this rude sailor's head, broken ice +between the lips of that one, moistening dry palms, measuring out cooling +draughts, and only resting now and then to watch one sleeper sleep, to +hang and hear if in that deep dream there were any breathing and it were +not the last sleep of all. And in Louie's heart there was something just +as strange and still as in all other things throughout that wearing, +blinding day; but with her the calm was not of fear, only of unspeakable +joy; for if Andrew lived it was she that had saved him, and though he +died, his delirium had told her that his heart was hers. "If he dies, he +is mine!" she cried triumphantly, forgetting all the long struggle of +scruple and doubt, "and if he lives, he shall never be hers!" she cried +softly and with that inner voice that no one hears.</p> + +<p>And so the heat slipped down with the sun to other horizons, coolness +crept in upon the running river's breast with the dusk, dew gathered and +lay darkly glittering on rail and spar and shroud as star by star stole +out to sparkle in it; and Andrew raised his eyes at length, and they +rested long and unwaveringly on the little figure sitting not far away +with hands crossed about the knees and eyes looking out into the last +light--the tranquil, happy face from which a white handkerchief kept back +the flying hair while giving it the likeness of a nun's. Was it a dream? +Was it Louie? Or was it only some one of the tormenting phantoms that for +so many burning days had haunted him? He tried in vain to ask: his tongue +clove to the roof of his mouth; he seemed to be in the power of one of +those fierce nightmares where life depends on a word and the word is not +to be spoken. Only a vision, then: he closed his lids thinking it would be +gone when he lifted them, but he did not want it to be gone, and looked +again to find it as before. And by and by it seemed to him that long +since, in a far-off dream, he had gathered strength and uttered the one +thought of his fever, "Louie, what do you do now?" and she had answered +him, as though she thought aloud, "I stroke the dead;" and he had cried +out, "Then presently me too, me too! And let the shroud be shotted heavily +to bury me out of your sight!" And he was crying it out again, but while +he spoke a mouth was laid on his--a warm, sweet mouth that seemed to +breathe fresh spirit through his frame--his head was lifted and pillowed +on a breast where he could hear the heart beneath flutter like a happy +bird, and he was wrapped once more in slumber, but this time slumber sweet +as it was deep.</p> + +<p>Morning was dawning over the vessel's side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting +through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and +lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which +the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting +fountains,--morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant +airs stealing from warm low fields, when Andrew once more lifted his eyes +only to find that tranquil face above him still, that happy heart still +beating beneath his pillowed head. "Oh, Louie," he sighed, "speak to +me--say--have I died?--am I forgiven?--is this heaven?"</p> + +<p>"To me, dear--oh to me!" answered she with the old radiant smile that used +to make his pulse quicken, and that, ill as he yet was, reassured him as +to his earthly latitude and longitude.</p> + +<p>"And it was all a dream, then?" he murmured. "And I have not lost you?" He +raised his wasted hand and drew from his breast the little hair chain that +he had hidden there so long ago. "It was a fetter I could not break," he +whispered. "I wrote her all about it long ago. I wrote her father that he +should have his vessel back again--and I would take my freedom--and not a +dollar's wages for the voyage would I ever draw of him. But I should never +have dared see you--for--oh, Louie--how can you ever--"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush, dear!" she breathed. "What odds is all that now? We have our +life before us."</p> + +<p>"Only just help me live it, Louie."</p> + +<p>"God will help us," she answered. And as she spoke a sudden rainbow leaped +into the western heaven as if to seal her promise, and as it slowly faded +there came a wild salt smell, an air that tingled like a tonic through the +veins: the east wind was singing in from sea, bringing the music of +breaker and shore, and the fever was blasted by its breath throughout the +little Sabrina.</p> + +<p class="author">Harriet Prescott Spofford.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="story" id="st11"> +<h2>Old Sadler's Resurrection:</h2> + +<h3>A Yarn of the Mexican Gulf.</h3> + + + +<p>"Talking about ghosts," said the captain, "listen while I spin you a bit +of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit +of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on +board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India +squadron, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jesse Wilkinson.</p> + +<p>"It would hardly interest you to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and +ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two +steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the +taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us. He wore +gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat +eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the +quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we +planked up and down the lee side, tired enough, and waiting for eight +bells to strike to rush below and call our relief. He was an austere man, +and, unlike the brave old commodore, made no allowance for our pranks and +skylarking.</p> + +<p>"Among our crew, made up of some really splendid fellows, but with an odd +mixture of 'Mahonese,' 'Dagos,' 'Rock-Scorpions,' and other countrymen, +there was an old man-of-war's man named Sadler--a little, dried-up old +chap of some sixty years, who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, so he +said, and had been up and down, all around and criss-cross the world so +often that he had actually forgotten where he had been, and so had all his +geography lessons, learned by cruising experience, sadly mixed up in his +head; which, although small, with a little old, weazened frontispiece, was +full of odds and ends of yarns, with which he used to delight us young +aspirants for naval honors, as he would spin them to us on the booms on +moonlight nights, after the hammocks had been piped down. How well do I +remember the old fellow's appearance!--his neat white frock and trowsers, +his low-quarter purser's shoes, with a bit of a ribbon for a bow; no +socks, save the natural, flesh-tinted ones, a blue star, done in India +ink, gleaming on his instep; his broad blue collar, decorated with stars +and two rows of white tape, falling gracefully from a neck which, as we +youngsters asserted, had received its odd-looking twist from hanging too +long by a grape vine, with which the Isle of Pines' pirates had strung him +up when he was chasing them under old Commodore Kearney's command. Anyhow, +old, sharp-faced, wrinkled and tanned to the color of a sole-leather +trunk, the whole cut of his jib told you at once that he was a regular +man-of-war's man--one of a class whose faults I can hardly recall while +remembering their sense of duty, their utter disregard of danger, and the +reliance with which you can lead them on to attack anything, from a +hornet's nest to an iron-clad.</p> + +<p>"Well, it so happened, one hot day, while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, +that the news came to us that old Sadler was dead; and sure enough it was +so, for the old fellow had quietly slipped his moorings, and, as we all +hoped, had at last gone to where the sweet little cherub sits up aloft who +looks out for the soul of poor Jack. Then, after the doctors had had a shy +at him, to see why he had cleared out so suddenly, his remains were taken +in charge by his messmates, who rigged the old man out in his muster +clothes, sewed him up in his clean white hammock, with an eighteen pound +shot at his feet, and reported to the officer of the deck that the body +was ready for burial. So, about six bells in the afternoon watch, the +weather being very hot, and not a breath of air to ripple the glassy +surface of the water, the lieutenant of the watch directed one of the +young gentlemen to tell the boatswain to call 'All hands to bury the +dead;' and soon fore and aft the shrill whistles were heard, followed by +that saddest of all calls to a sailor at sea--'All hands bury the dead!'</p> + +<p>"Our good old boatswain, Wilmuth, seemed to linger on the words with a +feeling akin to grief at parting with an old shipmate, and as the last man +reached the deck, he touched his hat and in a sad sort of way reported, +'All up, sir,' to the first lieutenant, who in his turn reported, +'Officers and men all on deck, sir,' to the commodore, who thereupon gave +an order to the chaplain to go on with the services.</p> + +<p>"The courses were hauled up, main-topsail to the mast, band on the +quarter-deck, colors half-mast, and all hands, officers and men, stood +uncovered, looking silently and sadly upon the body as it lay upon the +gang-boards in its white hammock, ready for the last rites. Solemnly and +most impressively were the services read, and at the words, 'We commit his +body to the deep,' a heavy splash was heard, and poor old Sadler had gone +to his long home for ever. Some of us youngsters ran up in the lee main +rigging to see him go down, and as we watched him go glimmering and +glimmering down to a mere speck, we wondered where he was bound, and how +long it would take him to fetch Davy Jones' locker on that tack.</p> + +<p>"'Pipe down, sir,' says the commodore to Mr. Bispham; 'Pipe down, sir,' +says Mr. Bispham to Mr. Alphabetical Gray, who was officer of the deck; +'Pipe down, sir,' says Mr. Gray to the gentleman of the watch; 'Pipe down, +sir,' says this youngster to the boatswain; and then <i>such</i> a twitter of +pipes followed this order, and all hands were piped down, while poor old +Sadler was still off soundings, and going down as fast as the +eighteen-pound shot would take him.</p> + +<p>"Now, you know that people coming from a funeral on shore always have a +gay sort of air, suppressed it may be, but still cropping out; and just so +is it with sailors at sea; for, Sadler's body committed to the deep, all +hands felt better: the fore and main tacks were hauled aboard, the main +yard was filled away, and the jib sheet hauled aft, and we all settled +down into every-day life, which, after all, is not half so monotonous on +board a man-of-war as you might suppose.</p> + +<p>"Well, as I have said, the weather was very hot, the surface of the water +was as smooth as a mill-pond, the wind was all up and down the mast, and +so the old ship was boxing the compass all to herself, and not making a +foot of headway.</p> + +<p>"At one bell in the first dog watch, Boyle, the ship's cook, reported the +tea-water ready, and after this came the inevitable evening-quarters--and +some old man-of-war's men would think the country was going to 'Jemmy +Square-toes' stern first if they didn't have quarters--then down hammocks +for the night at six bells, and after that just as much of fun, frolic, +dance, song and yarn spinning as all hands wanted until eight bells, when +the watch was called.</p> + +<p>"John Moffitt, the sailing master, the best fellow in the ward-room mess, +and a great favorite with the youngsters, was officer of the deck from six +to eight o'clock; and my messmate, Perry Buckner, of Scott county, +Kentucky, the most dare-devil midshipman of us all, was master's mate of +the forecastle; Hammond, Marshall, Smith and I were the gentlemen of the +Watch; Rodney Barlow was quartermaster at the 'con;' the lookouts had just +been stationed; the men were singing, dancing, spinning yarns and +otherwise amusing themselves about the decks, while the old ship was +turning lazily around in the splendid moonlight as if admiring herself.</p> + +<p>"Discipline, you know, is the very life of a man-of-war, and this must +account for what now took place. Tom Edwards, a young foretopman, had the +lee lookout, and as seven bells struck he sang out, 'Lee cat-head;' but +the last syllable died away on his lips as his eyes rested upon an +object--a white object--standing bolt upright in the water before him, +about a hundred yards distant and broad off on the lee bow. Suppressing a +strong desire to shriek, and recovering himself, he touched his hat and +said, 'Mr. Buckner, will you step up here, sir, if you please?'</p> + +<p>"'What is she, Edwards?' said Buckner, as he quickly mounted the +hammock-rail.</p> + +<p>"One look, a dip down, a shiver, and, O Lord! what did he see but <i>old +Sadler standing straight as a ramrod, and heading right for the ship!</i></p> + +<p>"It took Buck a full minute to recover himself, and then, with one eye on +the lee bow and the other on the quarter-deck, he walked aft and +deliberately touching his cap, reported to Moffitt, 'Old Sadler broad off +on the lee bow, sir.'</p> + +<p>"'The d---- he is!' exclaimed Moffitt; but, checking himself, he said, +'Mr. Hammond, report Sadler's arrival to the commodore; and you, Mr. +M----, report it to the first lieutenant, sir.'</p> + +<p>"My eyes were as big as saucers as I rushed down the steerage ladder and +into the ward-room, where I found the first lieutenant quietly seated +reading over the black list; and when, with my heart in my throat, I said, +'Mr. Bispham, old Sadler is on the lee bow, sir,' he serenely replied, +'Very well, Mr. M---- I'll be on deck directly.'</p> + +<p>"'O Lord!' said I to myself--'to take a ghost as easily as all that!' +Bolting up the ladder on my way back to the deck, and trembling lest I +should see the ghost popping his head in through one of the gun-deck +ports, I ran into Hammond, who dodged me like a shot.</p> + +<p>"When I got on deck the news was all out, for Tom Edwards couldn't stand +it any longer, but had just yelled out, 'Ghost ho! ghost ho! Look out! +stand from under! here he comes!' and bolted aft, scared out of his wits.</p> + +<p>"In ten seconds all hands were on deck--ship's cook, yeoman, 'Jemmy Legs,' +'Jemmy Ducks,' 'Bungs,' Loblolly boy,' captain of the hold, and, by this +time, all the officers too, with the midshipmen scuttling up the ladders +as fast as their legs and hands could carry them.</p> + +<p>"Moffitt had hauled up the courses and squared the main yard, as much to +make a diversion as anything else, although the men thought it was to keep +old Sadler from boarding us; and as they rushed up on deck they filled the +booms; lee rigging, hammock--netting and every available spot from which a +sight of the old fellow could be had.</p> + +<p>"Very soon they saw that he was not approaching the ship: the old sinner +was just turning and turning around in the water, like a fishing-cork, +dancing away all to himself, while the moonlight, first on one side, and +then on the other, in light and shadow, gave a queer sort of look to his +features, sometimes sad and sometimes funny.</p> + +<p>"After watching him for a few minutes, Bill Ellis, the second captain of +the foretop, hailed him thus: 'Sadler, ahoy! What do you want?'</p> + +<p>"No answer being received, one of the mizzentop boys suggested that the +old man had come back for his bag and hammock, and that they ought to be +thrown overboard to him; but all this was cut short by the appearance of +the commodore on the quarter-deck, and upon him all eyes were turned as he +stepped upon the port horseblock, where a good view could be had.</p> + +<p>"Now, old Jess was as brave an old fellow as ever sailed a ship, but he +did not fancy ghosts, and the knowledge that all hands were looking at him +to see how he took it made him feel a little nervous; but with a firm +voice he called for his night-glass, and when the quartermaster, with a +touch of his hat, handed it to him, he quietly arranged the focus, and, as +we all supposed, was about to point it at Sadler, who was still dancing +away for dear life all to himself. But old Jess was too smart for that: he +quietly directed his glass to another quarter, to gain a little time, and, +gradually sweeping the horizon, brought it at last, with a tremor of +mortal dread, to bear dead upon the ghost. Bless my soul! how the old +gentleman shook! But recovering himself, with a big gulp in his throat he +turned to the chaplain and said, 'Did you read the <i>full</i> service over him +to-day, Mr. T----?'</p> + +<p>"'I did, sir, as well as I can remember,' replied Mr. T.</p> + +<p>"'Then, sir,' said the commodore, turning to Mr. Bispham and speaking in +an authoritative tone, 'we must send a boat and bring him on board.'</p> + +<p>"'O Lord! O Lord!--bring a ghost on board!' groaned the men.</p> + +<p>"'Silence, fore and aft!' said Mr. Bispham, 'and call away the second +cutter.'</p> + +<p>"'Away there, you second cutters, away!' sung out the boatswain's mate. +But they didn't 'away' one step, and we youngsters could hear the men +growling out, 'What does the commodore want with old Sadler? This isn't +his place: let the old man rip: he is dead and buried all right. We didn't +ship to go cruising after ghosts: we shipped to reef topsails and work the +big guns; and if old Jess wants old Sadler on board, he had better go +after him himself.' Some said he had come back after his bag and hammock, +and the best way was to let him have them, and then he would top his boom +and clear out. Others said the purser had not squared off his account; and +one of the afterguard was seen to tickle the mainmast and whistle for a +breeze, to give the old fellow a wide berth. But it wouldn't do: +discipline is discipline; and after a free use of the colt and a good deal +of hazing, the boat's crew came aft, the cutter was lowered, and the men, +with their oars up and eyes upon the ghost, were waiting the order to +shove off, the bow oarsman having provided himself with a boarding-pike to +'fend off,' as he said, if the old man should fight.</p> + +<p>"We youngsters knew that <i>somebody</i> else was needed in that boat, and that +<i>somebody</i> was a midshipman with his side-arms; but not a boy of us said a +word about it, and we were afraid even to catch the first lieutenant's +eye, lest he should be reminded that no young officer had, as usual, been +ordered to go; but the order came at last. When Moffitt asked the first +lieutenant, 'What officer, sir, shall I send in that boat?' we scattered +like a flock of birds, but all too late; for Mr. Bispham referred the +matter to the commodore, who, with a twinkle in his eye, said, 'Who +discovered the ghost, sir?'</p> + +<p>"'Midshipman Buckner reported him, sir,' was the reply.</p> + +<p>"'Then,' said the commodore, 'by priority of discovery he belongs to Mr. +Buckner, who will take charge of the cutter and bring him on board.'</p> + +<p>"I heard all this from my place behind the mizzen mast, and you may guess +how glad I was not to have been selected; but a groan, a chattering of the +teeth, a trembling and shaking of bones close by my side, caused me to +look around, and there was poor Buck, with his priority honors thick upon +him.</p> + +<p>"'Get your side-arms, sir,' said Moffitt: 'take charge of the cutter and +carry out the commodore's order.'</p> + +<p>"'Ay, ay, sir!' said Buck, but oh with what a change in his voice! As he +buckled on his sword I could see what a struggle he was making to feel +brave. As he went over the gangway to get into the boat I caught his eye, +and if you could have seen that forlorn look you would have pitied him; +for there was old Sadler turning and turning in the water, looking first +this way, and then the other, and, as Buck thought, just ready to hook on +to him and carry him down among the dead men.</p> + +<p>"It is no light matter to go up to a ghost, front face, full face, and +look him in the eye; but what must it be when you have to go up to him +<i>backward</i>, as that cutter's crew had to do while pulling their oars, +leaving only Buck and the cox-swain to face him? They just couldn't do it, +and at every stroke they would suddenly slew around on their thwarts and +look at the old fellow, who seemed to them as big as an elephant, and just +ready to clap on to them, boat and all, as soon as they turned to give +another stroke. Poor fellows! they made but little headway, and what with +catching crabs, fouling their oars, blasting old Sadler's eyes, and +denouncing him generally (one fellow fairly yelled outright when the bow +oarsman accidentally touched him), they had a hard pull of it; but still +they made some progress, and when Buck sang out, 'Way enough,' every oar +flew inboard, every man faced suddenly around, and with this the cutter +keeled over, and, her bow touching old Sadler on his shoulder, ducked him +out of sight for a second, at which all hands shouted, thinking that he +had gone for ever; but in a moment more up he popped, fresh as a lark, +higher than ever before, and this time right abreast of the stern-sheets, +where he bobbed and bowed to Buck, at which, with a yell of terror, all +hands went overboard, and, floundering in the water, begged for mercy. The +cutter had some little headway, and this of course brought Sadler astern +on the other quarter, and then there was a wild rush to get back into the +boat, for fear the old fellow was doubling on them to make a grab.</p> + +<p>"The commodore, hearing the row and fearing disaster, ordered another boat +to the rescue, but ere it reached the spot, Buck had, in some manner, +quieted his men, who, seeing the ghost still standing bolt upright in the +water and dancing away as if nothing had happened to scare <i>him</i>, manned +their oars again and pulled cautiously toward him; while he, with that +changeable moonlight grin on his face, was bobbing up and down to the +boat's crew, as if Buck were the commodore himself coming to pay him a +visit.</p> + +<p>"'Stand by, there in the bow, to hook on to him,' sang out Buck.</p> + +<p>"'Ay, ay, sir! I'll fix him;' and with that, and a heavy expletive in +regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike +right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel +touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape of steam, was heard, +and without a word old Sadler vanished from sight for ever."</p> + +<p>"But, captain, tell us what really brought the old gentleman back," said +one of the auditors.</p> + +<p>"Well, just think of that tight white hammock, the light weight of the +shot, and the very hot weather--think, too, how easily a fishing-cork is +balanced in the water by a very small sinker, and lastly how confined air +will buoy up anything--and you have the whole secret of his coming back. +Let that air suddenly escape, and you have the secret of his +disappearance.</p> + +<p>"Buck used to say that 'priority of discovery' was a good thing in the +days of Columbus, but if it was to be continued in force in the United +States navy, hang him if he should ever report another ghost, even if he +should see him walking the quarter-deck with the speaking-trumpet under +his arm."</p> + +<p class="author">R. D. Minor.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Not Pretty, But Precious, by John Hay, et al. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS *** + +***** This file should be named 11392-h.htm or 11392-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/3/9/11392/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Not Pretty, But Precious + +Author: John Hay, et al. + +Release Date: March 1, 2004 [EBook #11392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Illustration: "My uncle followed his words with a brightening face, +and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It +is a great gift! a great gift!'" + +The Victims of Dreams. Page 34.] + + + + +NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES. + +By + +John Hay, Clara F. Guernsey, Margaret Hosmer, Harriet Prescott +Spofford, Lucy Hamilton Hooper, Etc. + +Illustrated. + + +1872. + + + + +Contents. + + + +Not Pretty, but Precious, _Margret Field_. +The Victims of Dreams, _Margaret Hosmer_. +The Cold Hand, _Clara F. Guernsey_. +The Blood Seedling, _John Hay_. +The Marquis, _Chauncey Hickox_. +Under False Colors, _Lucy Hamilton Hooper_. +The Hungry Heart, _J.W. De Forrest_. +"How Mother Did It," _J.R. Hadermann_. +The Red Fox, _Clara F. Guernsey_. +Louie, _Harriet Prescott Spofford_. +Old Sadler'S Resurrection, _R.D. Minor_. + + + + +Not Pretty, But Precious. + + + +_Mille modi veneris!_ + + +Part I. + + +Mr. Norval: It is now four weeks since your accident. I have made inquiry +of your physician whether news or business communications, however +important, brought to your attention, would be detrimental to you, cause +an accession of feverish symptoms or otherwise harm you. He assures me, On +the contrary, he is sure you have not been for years so free from disease +of any sort, with the sole exception of the broken bones, as now. This +being so, I venture to approach you upon a subject which I doubt not you +are quite as willing to have definitely arranged, and at once, as myself. +I can say what I mean, and as I mean it, so much better on paper than in +conversation--as I have so little self-possession, and am so readily put +out in the matter of argument--that I have determined to write to you, +thinking thus to be better able to make you understand and appreciate my +reasons and motives, since you can read them when and how you choose. + +I have been your wife three weeks. The horrible strangeness of these words +is quite beyond me to compass; nevertheless, realize it or not, it is a +fact. I am your wife--you, my husband. Why I am your wife I wish simply to +rehearse here. Not that we do not both know why, but that we may know it +in the same way. You, a handsome, cultivated man, whose dictum is +considered law in the world of fashion in which you move and reign, with +an assured social position, a handsome fortune, and a popularity that +would have obtained for you the hand of any beautiful or wealthy woman +whom you sought, have deliberately chosen to make me, a poor, plain, +brown-faced little school-teacher, your wife. Not because you wanted _me_, +not because you thought or cared about _me_, one way or the other, but +simply because, in a time of urgent necessity, I was literally the only +available woman near you. It chanced, from many points of view and by a +chain of circumstances, that I was particularly available. So you married +me. The reasons for such a sacrifice of yourself were--you had behaved +badly, very badly, to a lady, compromising her name and causing a +separation between herself and her husband. Within a few months, her +husband having died, both herself and her father had determined to force +you to make her reparation by marriage. Going to work very warily, they +had taken an opportunity, after a very luxuriant and fast opera-supper, +when you were excited by your surroundings and flushed by the wine you had +been drinking, your head very light, your judgment very heavy, to draw +from you a promise of marriage at the expiration of the year of mourning +for her husband. As soon as you became aware of what you had done, you +ignominiously fled, and after a Western tour were about to sail for Europe +when this unfortunate accident overtook you. Your narrow escape from +death, upon having been thrown from the carriage of a distinguished +gentleman while driving with him behind a pair of celebrated racers, gave +such publicity to your adventure that your _amorata_ was at once aware of +your whereabouts. The fear of this had taken possession of you as soon as +you were able to think of anything, and the dread that she would follow +and marry you while you lay helpless was made a certainty by this telegram +from an intimate friend in New York, received the sixth day of your +illness: + +"It's all up with you, old fellow. The R. has heard you're fast with a +broken leg, and she starts on Monday for Boston. Have the clergy ready, +for it's marriage." + +Then in your bitter need you remembered having talked with me in this +hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of +your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing +me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying +helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you recalled +the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing you, the +delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such as finding +a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although some elegant +and fashionable girls were waiting with ill-suppressed eagerness for your +escort. Remembering all this, knowing as you did that I was poor, wearing +out my life in teaching, in your sore need you suddenly thought, "I wonder +if the girl wouldn't marry me? She'd make a good nurse, could look after +my traps, and, though she is as ugly as sin and a nobody, wouldn't be the +deuced disgrace to a fellow this Rollins woman will be. At all events, +she'll save me from that fate if she takes up with my offer. It's a choice +of evils, and this would be the least; and I'll try it." This, in plain, +unadorned speech, was what you thought. Then you sent for me, began very +pathetically to talk of your desolate state, your family all dead, and so +on; that it had been sadly brought home to you how alone you were while +lying sick, hour after hour, in this great hotel, with only your valet to +attend to you and take an interest in your well-being; and that, day after +day, as you lay thinking of your fate, my face had come before you, +recalling tender memories of your lost and dearly-loved sister. Then you +had remembered that as girl and boy we had been lovers, and really cared +very much for each other. As you got this far toward your _grande +denouement_, something in my face, I suppose, made you realize that if you +were to compass your ends with me it must be by honesty only. Then you +blurted it all out--in, as I could not help thinking as I listened, as +school-boyish and abashed a way as if you had--well, as if you had not +been a consummate man of the world, rather noted for your _aplomb_. + +It came across me (as I heard you in dumb amazement, with crimson face and +trembling frame) that even the best polish of years' laying on will crack +somewhere under very hard pressure. Well, you were honest and told me all, +never pretending, as you had at first essayed to do, that it was out of +any lingering regard for myself as your sister's friend that you sought me +now, but simply on account of my availability. Had there been some bright +young beauty with wealth and station at hand, no thought of me would ever +have entered your mind: all this I understood at once from your half +confessions--all this, I was glad to find, you had at least enough honor +to let me know, although you risked what to you in your actual situation +was very perilous--a refusal. + +I asked until the next day to consider the matter--whether it would be +better to take service with you, exchange for my boarding, clothing and +incidental expenses the daily care of your comfort and pleasure, or earn +my bread in the old wearing way. And the second day after that we were +married. That is all. I believe that to be a simple statement of the facts +in your case: I am right, am I not? + +The day after our marriage your lady-love and her paternal ancestor came. +At my own suggestion and with your eager consent I received them, and the +result you know. + +Now for my own reasons for this strange marriage. You are aware that my +father was a professor of mathematics in various schools and colleges of +the city where he lived, teaching in the school, among others, in which +your sister and myself were pupils. I believe you know that when a young +man he had eloped with and married one of his scholars, the daughter of a +rich and proud family, who discarded her. For years she was a stranger to +them, until her husband had won a name and handsome fortune for himself: +then she was taken into favor again, her husband's distinction in the +scientific world being supposed to add lustre to the family name. Alas for +us! it was a favor that has cost us dear. I was their only child. When my +sweet, pretty mother lay dying she left to me, her sixteen-year-old child, +my dreamy, unworldly father as a legacy. "Take care of him: he knows no +guile, and your uncles will wrong him if they can," she said. And they +did, or one of them. Ere the bitter agony of my mother's death had enabled +him to return to his duties, it was discovered that one of her brothers +had forged his name and literally stripped him of everything. + +Of course, then he went to work again to earn our daily bread--not with +his old love or ability, but in an inert, feeble way that was pitiful to +see. I think from the day my mother was buried he was dying. Some people, +you know, die hard--some part with life lightly, as if it was a faded robe +they shook off to don a brighter one. Others--my father was one, and I am +like him--see one by one their trusts, their hopes, their loves die: then +with a deathly throe sunder themselves from life. But pardon my +digression. + +When I was twenty my father died. Since then, spite of expressions of +disapproval and offers of support from my mother's family, I have +maintained myself by teaching in the schools where my father had been +known, preferring to do without assistance so long as I had health. One of +my uncles desired to take me into his family, and thus wipe out the wrong +done my father by his brother, and my aunts proffered me an income out of +their private means. I mention this to do them every justice, but I think +even a man of fashion like yourself will acknowledge the impossibility of +my accepting, while I could avoid it, a life of dependence. I could not +accept favors from those who had treated my dear parents unkindly; so I +have e'en gone my own way for these last ten years, and led a not unhappy +life, if a busy and rather wearing one. + +My gay cousins, all of whom you know well--the Wilber girls, Leta and +Jennie, pretty little Lou Barton, and another set of Wilbers whom I think +you do not know so well, who are married now--my gay cousins, then, most +of them beauties, all of them rich and fashionable, are somewhat ashamed +of me, and have let me feel it in every petty way that we women know so +well how to find. I am ugly and poor, my earning my own living is a spot +upon their gentility, and I have unfortunately, and quite against my will, +more than once given them cause for serious annoyance and apprehension. +Then, one of our uncles, who is a bachelor and very rich, has insisted +that I am never to be slighted--always to be invited to everything in the +shape of a party given by the family. If it lay with me, of course I would +never accept these invitations, but I have had it explained to me over and +over again that my not doing so is visited upon the party-givers in one +way or another by our masterful uncle Rufus. So, occasionally, very much +against my inclination, I leave my little third-story room, with its cozy +fire and humble adornments, and sit in the corner of their great rooms, a +"looker-on in Vienna" in every sense. + +I have many kind friends: it would be strange if in all these years I had +not found some who did not care for outward advantages. I have dreamed my +sweet love-dream, and it is over, and the roses have grown above my buried +hopes. + +Since then I have let one idea fill my life to the exclusion of everything +else, putting away from me all desires and thoughts of other needs; and +that too has left me. I call it an "idea" for lack of a better name. I had +put away all thought of marriage with my bright youth, but took into my +heart instead what I deemed would serve as well--a friendship for another +woman. For ten years we knew no separate life--I thought no separate +hopes. She had loved, been on the eve of marriage, her lover had died: +that was her heart's history, and henceforth the idea of love had fallen +out of both our lives--not the idea only, but the possibility of love. I +thought so--she _said_ so. + +I trusted her and loved her with a perfect love. I wound my hopes about +her: I gave up all my life to her as if she had been my lover. I never +cared to form other friendships. I deprived myself of all possibilities of +making other ties of any sort, and with the first opportunity she whistled +me down the wind, and cared no more for me than if she had never professed +to love me. She had been my one bright thing--she was sweet and +winsome--the one golden gleam in my sombre life. My future was bound up in +her so completely that when she severed the fine, close cords (brittle, +yet so strong) which had bound us together for years, she cut into my +heart--nay more, wrested from me all my sweet trusts and faiths. If she is +false, who else in all God's earth is true? I pity myself very much. You, +of course, will not see why her marrying should make a difference if we +loved, and will call me selfish. Not so, not so! She might have married as +soon as it pleased her, and I should have been glad. It would have made a +difference, of course: she must in some sort have been parted from me, but +that I could have borne if it made her happy. But from her acceptance of +her lover--about whom we will say nothing, save that he was the sort of +man she had always held in abhorrence--she has coolly ignored my right to +any part or lot in her fate. She had told me (or I, poor fool! thought so) +every hope and fear of her life: now she told me what she chose, and was +astonished that I expected more--hurt that I seemed changed and did not +find my friendship flourish on crumbs after being nourished for years from +full loaves--was quite unhappy that I cared so little for the minor +concerns of her life, when, good lack! I did not know what I might or +might not ask and not be snubbed; for once she told me there were things +due to the man one is going to marry (at that time she had not got to the +extent of saying whom one loves) that could not be spoken of to me. Of +course she had only to mention the fact to me to make it perfectly plain, +and henceforth he and his doings, his belongings and himself, all of them +of the tamest sort at best, were a sealed book to me. And again she +quenched a feeble effort of mine to get back to my old place, by telling +me such topics she could discuss only with her sister, "her shadow sister" +she prettily called her. So I am desolate! + +Knowing this, you may understand in some degree what could induce a little +waif like me to accept such an offer as yours. I think no one in all God's +earth is more desolate than I. In my heart I bear always that unforgotten +love in my life. I have only a barren waste to show. It is as if I had +started from a lovely, radiant garden in the fair morning of my life, in +which I had left the bright, sweet rose of my love, and walking along a +narrow, dark path, had clasped hands with, and drawn my light and warmth +from, a figure walking close beside me; and though from all sides as I +walked forms had come to me, offering me fair fruits and sweet flowers, I +declined them all without ever a word of thanks, being so content with my +one companion. And suddenly, when all my youth, all my prospects of other +things, had gone, this idealized one had withdrawn its hand-clasp, and +turning on me a face I did not know, faded into darkness, leaving me +nothing but my broken hopes, a wreath of withered flowers, + + "Tangled down in chains about my feet." + +You do not of course realize how the old French _emigre_ blood in my +veins, inherited from my father, makes this a very vital matter to me. We +cling to our hopes very tenaciously while they abide--then we are +distraught. We loved, my father and I, very few, but those with a clinging +oneness that is wellnigh pain: he loved my mother and myself--that was +all. Likewise I had my two: they having failed me, my life is a blank. I +have heard of empty-hearted people: I know now what the phrase means. I am +empty-hearted: I have not one hope, one particle of faith, one real, +honest desire, except to "drie my weir," as the Scotch say, doing my duty +as best I may, as it comes to me. But I have a woman's hatred of pity: my +cousins have long accorded me a contemptuous pity for being an old maid. I +laughed their pity to scorn while I had Esther Hooper. What more did I +need? We could enact over again the sweet old life of the Ladies of +Llangollen. + +We had planned our lives a thousand times. Poor we both were, yet we would +put something away every year for our old age, and work cheerily on until +we could work no more, then creep to our nest like a couple of old +kittens, and cuddle down by our warm, pleasant fire--together, and +therefore content. Well, you see it was not to be: she had grown +affrighted, I suppose, at the thought of all that weary life with only me, +and has married a man who outrages all her delicate instincts and +traditions of an accordant husband. But why speak of him? He supports her, +and she has escaped the obloquy of old-maidism. She has married a +maintenance. She says she loves him, so of course she does. + +For myself, my health, which has always been very rugged, has failed me +utterly this last year; but as my bread depends upon my ability to endure +daily and constant fatigue, I have forced myself to endeavor to get up the +amount of strength required for my winter's work by the present +expedition, planned for me by a friend. Bah! what do I talk of friendship +for? An old lady who was once a teacher in the school from which my father +had married my mother, and who, I think, had cared with more than +friendship for him, has in these last few years fallen heir to a small +property--not a very great deal, but enough to enable her to live in +comfort, and exercise her kindly heart in deeds of charity occasionally. +She has chosen for years to occupy rooms beneath my own, and has always +been a sort of mother to me. Most of the pretty things that have fallen +into my life, and most of its pleasures, have come to me through her. She +has many troublesome faults, as we all have, but she is old, and I have +always had Esther to talk them over and laugh them off with, so have borne +them easily. This year, because she saw I was dying, she took me with her +to the mountains of Vermont, and I have got a new lease of life, and new +capacities for suffering as well. + +On our way back she was suddenly attacked with the illness which detained +us at this Boston hotel. Here your accident laid you up, and the rest came +as I have told. + +You have married me to rid yourself of a union with a woman you detest, +being utterly indifferent to me. I have married you because I cannot bring +myself to go back to that old teaching-life, now so cold and gray. I think +I can earn my board in taking care of your belongings, and the having +saved you from a dreadful fate must compensate to you for the little of my +presence you will for the future be compelled to endure. It need not be +much or long continued if we start with a fair comprehension of each +other. + +This brings me to the reason of all this long history. I have always +looked upon marriage without love as nothing more or less than legalized +vice. I think you, who are so intrinsically a man of the world, will have +imbibed the (so-called) sensible and popular views upon such subjects, and +will at once coincide with me that in such a union as ours--a literal +_mariage de convenance_ on both sides--my ideas are not unwise. Since upon +you will henceforth depend my maintenance (as I of course understand that +a wife who worked for her own support would be a disgrace to you: indeed, +I doubt whether the having married a girl who has already done so is not a +cause of shame), I ask that now, when Mrs. Keller is about to leave me, +and my arrangements as your wife must be finally made--when, in fact, her +giving up her room necessitates my coming to yours, her leaving compelling +me either to go with her, or come, as of course I must, to you--we may +have a definite understanding as to our future relations. + +You have been kind enough to approve of the little I have been able to do +for you since our marriage--to say to Mrs. Keller you did not know what it +was to be taken care of in sickness; and to myself you have more than once +laughingly spoken of a wife as a good institution, adding, that had you +known how comfortable it was to have some one about you to think of and +care for you, you would have invested in the article before; and so on. I +am glad of this: I am pleased that my society has not proved repugnant to +you; for since it has been no annoyance in its first trial, I think we can +manage that it shall not be so in the future. I would ask, as an especial +piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors +at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister. +It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the +Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring +most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your +service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is +due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or +pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have no +expectation of winning your love: it has been an understood thing from the +first--that is something neither expects from the other--therefore any +show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping +with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain +that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during +these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to +pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this +cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our private +relations? + +For the rest, claiming nothing from you, giving you nothing but the +services for which you render me a full equivalent, I grant you, as far as +I have a right to do so, the largest liberty of action. We are only +jealous of those we love: therefore all women will be as free to you as +they have hitherto been or their will accords, save that you have debarred +yourself for a time from offering any one of them marriage. I hope to be +so little trouble to you, and so serviceable to you in many ways, that you +shall realize to the full that if an unloving union could be so much more +comfortable than a bachelor's life, a life passed with a loving and +beloved wife would be bliss indeed, and so when my life has ended you will +not be sorry that I stopped in your path a few years. For I shall not +trouble you very long. I am a poor little perfumeless flower, having no +sweetness or beauty with which to charm the eye or senses, only fit to +grow among the kitchen herbs--rue and thyme, and such old-fashioned +things. But I need a great deal of sunshine, spite of my plainness, to +keep life in me. And now that all the heat and passion of love, all the +sunny hopes and glow of friendship, have left me, I shall just fade and +fade until some day you will find the poor little weed has dropped to +earth for ever. + +I am but two years younger than yourself, and women, especially women with +a great sorrow, age cruelly fast. I look and feel older than I am--you +wear your years like a crown, and appear younger than you are. I have made +my little venture on life's ocean--made and failed: my barque, freighted +with a few cherished hopes, has been wrecked, and though I have reached a +rock to which I can cling for a time, yet I am terribly hurt, the waves +have buffeted me cruelly, and in a little while I shall let go my hold and +float out--out into the ocean of eternity. Ah! there is comfort after all: +life _is_ hard, but afterward there is peace and rest! + +I am nearly through this long tirade. Pardon its length: it is my first, +and shall be my last, heart-outpouring to you; and if it make you +comprehend me, I shall not have written or you have read in vain. + +Your income will not support the establishment your position in society +would require if we went to housekeeping; besides, you would feel as if +you must then be more stationary, more in your own home, than is at +present your custom, therefore in a degree in bondage. And a hotel-life is +very expensive and very cheerless. You have kindly said you intended +dividing your income with me, giving me half. At first I was indignant at +the idea, but now I think I see that it will be in every way the best. One +of my cousins has been occupying a very elegantly-appointed suite of rooms +on Twenty-fourth street. Harry writes me he is going very suddenly to +Europe. His rooms will of course be vacant: he talks of renting them +furnished. I have thought, if you would not object to it, we might take +them off his hands. I have calculated that the part of your means you +intend for me will meet all our expenses of every sort if you permit me to +have the arranging, of our daily affairs. I will pay the rent and meet all +the expenses of our living out of this sum, leaving you your reserved +funds to meet your ordinary requirements and pleasures. By this +arrangement, you see, I shall get my living free, and I am sure shall have +a surplus over and above our expenses, as I am a good manager and used to +making the most of everything. + +There is one sacrifice which, do we enter into this arrangement, I must +ask of you--that when we return to New York you give up your valet. For +more than one reason: I cannot have a spy upon the mode of life we are to +lead. I am foolishly sensitive of the position of a neglected wife, and I +feel assured your gentlemanly instincts will prevent your ever offering +any observable slight to the woman who bears your name. Besides, in the +apartments I propose our taking there will be no room for a man-servant, +and one of the maids connected with the house will be all the assistant I +shall require. When you are away on your frequent excursions to all parts +of the world it will be very easy to provide yourself a servant. Will you +try for a few weeks how well I can supply, or have the place supplied, of +this man, whom you intend in any case to dismiss? This is all. Next week, +the doctor thinks, you may be moved to a lounge, and perhaps the week +after be able to travel, or at farthest the week following. + +I acknowledge to the womanish feeling of being exultant at the idea of the +envy I shall awaken in the breasts of your adoring circle of lady +friends--my lady cousins among them--in having, spite of my +unattractiveness, secured the husband they have long striven by every wile +to win. Ah! they little know, and I trust never may, why I, without +seeking, have ensnared their _rara avis_ to be my legal bondsman. Rather a +contradiction in terms! + +The pretty fiction of our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old +love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet +has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my +girlish dreams. So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have +written to my uncles and stated verbally to Mrs. Keller, stand; also, that +the undue haste was caused by your pressing need of me during your +accident. I think, indeed, from my cousin Harry's letter yesterday, and +one from Shelton last week, they have taken the idea that we have been +spending the summer together, and that you were following me home when you +were stayed in your mad career by a broken leg. + +I am done; are you not thankful? There have been some things in this +letter very hard to say, which, if I were braver or knew you better, I +should have liked to be more outspoken about. But enough has, I think, +been said to make you appreciate my earnest desires and my reasons for +them. I am most truly, + +PERCY. + +And he, prone upon his back this warm September day, read this long +epistle from his new wife, then laid it down and closing his eyes murmured +softly, "What a strange little puss it is!" Lying in the dim light her +hand had created for him, he thought of his own troubles and hers, just as +she had stated them. The blood would flush up to his brow as her cool +ignoring of his surpassing attractions, to which all other women accorded +their full meed of praise, rose up before him. He of whom it had been said +if he beckoned with his finger women left their duties, gave up their very +life to do his pleasure!--he to have the girl he had honored by making his +wife, a little brown woman, plain and almost _passe_ (he was man enough +not to care for her poverty), show she cared no more for his love than he +did for hers I--was as indifferent to him as he to her! Indifference from +a woman was a new experience to him, and annoyed him. + +Yet her quaint, frank letter touched him. What did she mean by dying soon +and letting him be free again? Poor little midge! was she dying of a +broken heart because a treacherous woman had fooled her out of a part of +her life? Poor little robin! she was his wife now, and he could heal the +worst heartache in any woman's breast. He had tried that thing before, and +succeeded, even if he broke the heart afterward. Die, indeed! Not if he +knew it: even Death should not have a little woman he meant to be good to. + +And as he remembered all her faithfulness to him during these weary weeks +of pain, he thought, "By Jove! beauty's not all, for no woman, had her +face been like that of Phryne of Thebes, or her charms as entrancing as +the bewitching Dudu's, could have been more lovely in her kindness to me. +How brave and strong she has been! What a faithful little soul it is! +Always ready, day and night, to do just what I want done and in the way I +want it, never knocking things about or fidgeting round, but just +ready-handed, neat and bright. God knows, a handsome woman wouldn't have +risked the spoiling her beauty by all these weary, sleepless nights, +especially for a man she did not love." And then to think she was actually +willing to work and slave for him, and support him out of her share of the +booty, and let him fool away his own on other women! "Wonder what the +little dame means to buy her own fine things with, for even robins must +get clothing? I'll ask her that. Bless the little woman's soul! she makes +me think of her so much that I believe I'm half in love with her. Um!" and +he stopped: "I'm getting sentimental and poetic, I swear! But if it were +in me to love anything that was not beautiful, I believe I could love this +little girl, who has come into my life so strangely. She owns up to having +loved, and is done with all the stale farce. Some fools," and he felt very +indignant, "slighted her because she had no beauty, though, upon my soul, +now I think of it, I'm not so certain about that. There's a something in +her face takes a man's breath--something that one would rather die than +lose if he once loved it, and which once loved would be better than any +beauty. What's that Spenser says?-- + + 'A sweet, attractive kind of grace,... + The lineaments of gospel books,' + +That's just it: it's a look that makes one think about one's prayers, if +one only knew them. But whether the man slighted her or not, he missed +it--confound him!--in losing such a love. I'll make her tell me his name. +And as for being my sister, that's all nonsense, of course, as she's my +wife." Then more thoughtfully, "Well, maybe not: a household where there +is no love is cruel--I knew that in my early home--and children are a +beastly trouble, and as expensive as a man's wines. She's a brick, this +wife of mine, and as sensible as steel. I'll put myself in her hands for +better or for worse, I vow I will! + +"The jolly way she manged that Rollins affair was proof poz of her +ability. Her cool assumption of wifely dignity--her actually bringing them +up to see me without announcing their coming to me, and never letting them +have one bout at me, was beyond anything! It's like a dip in the sea to +recall it all. Her breezy voice coming in before them was all the warning +I had: 'Oh certainly, you can come up and look at him, but not talk to +him: he's nervous and feverish, and I cannot permit even such old friends +as you doubtless are to say anything to him. You know, of course, the +doctor thought he needed constant attention, and caused us to hurry our +marriage in a most Gretna-Green style; but I could not nurse him unless we +were married. And it did not matter so much, after all, since we had +loved'--and she hesitated with the prettiest affectation of having said +something she ought not--'we had cared for each other since we were quite +children. Ross's sister Bell was my school-friend.' Then she brought them +straight to the bed, and stooping down gave me the only kiss with which +she has honored me--her show kiss, I call it--saying, 'My darling' (how +soft she said it, too, with a little trilling cadence upon the sweet old +word!)--'My darling, you are not to speak, or even look, save this once: +now I must cover up my dearie's eyes;' and she laid her cool hand over my +eyes and held it there while they stayed. 'These are some kind New York +friends, Mr. Rollins and his good wife'--and a faint pressure on my face +emphasized the joke--'who are come to see you. I cannot understand all +they mean, except that you have been behaving badly, making these good +people's daughter believe you meant to marry her, when of course you were +only going to marry your little, ugly Percy. Oh, my bad boy, what shall I +ever do with you? Oh the hearts you have broken while you have been +waiting for me! Ah! dear, bad boy!'--and, as if overcome with tenderness, +she laid her cheek down on mine. I clasped my arms about her--the first +and last time I've had a chance, by George!--but she sprang away with a +laugh: 'No, you shall not be petted for being bad. Why, Ross, these dear +people came to take you and marry you to their beautiful daughter, for I +know she's a beauty, since her mother is still so handsome.' + +"Oh, it was gorgeous, to see the Rollins standing there in all her +Cleopatra-like splendor, utterly upset and put down by my little brown +berry! And the impossibility of correcting such a mistake without putting +herself in an absurd position actually stopped the Rollins speech, +and--Lord help me!--I thought that mouth could only be closed by bon-bons +and a man's kisses--any man's, _par exemple_. And her poor old catspaw of +a _pater_ stood helpless before my little hurricane--a very reed shaken by +the wind. Then my sea-breeze spoke again: 'But the doctor will shed vials +of wrath upon me for letting you see strangers.' (It must have cut the +Rollins sore to be called a stranger to me!) 'But these kind friends could +not realize your being ill, so I was fain to let them see my Apollo in his +box; but we will go now if you please;' and she positively ushered them +out in wordless dismay, bidding them good-bye at once, and seeing them no +more. I thought she would have rushed back to laugh the scene over with +me, but that shows how little I know her. When, in the course of an hour, +she did come, it was with such an utter ignoring of having done a smart +thing, waving aside my admiration of her _finesse_, that I was taken +aback. She said sadly, 'I am unused to falsehood, and _finesse_ of any +sort is distasteful to me. I quenched this woman this time, but, in spite +of her bad, hard face, I pity her very much. You, and such men as you, +have, I suppose, made her what she is, God help her!' So by this good +little girl's management I am rid of my troubles. I declare I'll do just +what she wishes, and be thankful my follies have worked me no more harm." + +Then he began to wish she'd come in, and to feel aggrieved and neglected +because she did not come--to feel an eager desire to see her and talk the +matter of the letter over with her. But he had read it through again twice +ere she appeared, and then, to his dismay, equipped for a journey, and +saying, in the most matter-of-fact, nonchalant manner possible, "Ross, +Mrs. Keller has come to say good-bye. I am going with her to Newport, +where she makes the only perilous part of the trip--the, to her, dreadful +change from cars to boat. So I shall be away all night, of course." + +Then Mrs. Keller came forward with--"I hope you don't mind my taking her +off, Mr. Norval?" + +"But I do mind it deucedly, madam," he said. "Why, Percy, I don't like +your traveling alone this way at all. Why can't James go with Mrs. +Keller?" + +"Not for the world, Ross, thank you. I'm used to taking care of myself, +and of Mrs. Keller too, for that matter. I'm not much of a traveler, +because I have not had much of a chance--none, indeed, except what she's +given me--but somehow I always manage to come out right. You are very kind +to offer to spare James, but he's your necessity. I have told him about +the medicines, and how to loosen the bandages at night. So I expect to +find you better than usual when I get back. He knows your ways so much +better than I, and I sha'n't be here to interfere;" and she went about +arranging little matters as she spoke, and not looking at him. + +But Mrs. Keller saw the look of annoyance upon his face, and said, "But, +Percy, Mr. Norval dislikes your going, and you're bound to stay." + +"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Keller! Of course he don't care particularly, as I am +going to be away but one night, and he's got to spend all my life with +me;" and her face saddened, he thought. "I'm sure to come back to-morrow: +my cousin Shelton says, 'Percy always manages to be at hand when she's +wanted.' Am I to write to Harry that we will take the rooms? I must do it +at once, or he may let some one have them;" and she came and stood beside +him. + +He answered, sullenly, "Do just as you like about it: it's no concern of +mine." + +"Of course I shall do nothing of the kind. If you had liked the idea, been +very much pleased with it, it would have been different. I only threw out +the suggestion as a mere suggestion. But we will think of it no more." All +this in her quick, bright way, without a shade of annoyance visible, and +she began talking of something else as if the matter was settled: "The +hotel-keeper will put a sofa-bed into your dressing-room for me to-morrow, +so I shall be quite out of the way when your callers are here. I have told +them about bringing my trunk in there from Mrs. Keller's room: James will +attend to it all for me. So, as long as you are a 'prisoner of hope' in +here, I'll reign supreme in the dressing-room. Now say 'Good-bye,' Mrs. +Keller: James will put you in the coach while I finish my adieux." + +"But, Percy, you mistake," he said, quite humbly, when her old friend was +gone: "you do talk a fellow down so confoundedly," with a laugh. "I like +your idea about the rooms most heartily: indeed, I like all your ideas, +all your letter, except where you are so deucedly severe upon me; but even +that is true, and I like it when you tell me of it. I think your +management the best in everything, and I expect to be as happy as a king, +or rather a good subject, with my little queen to rule over me and keep me +in order in our new domain." + +She clasped her hands in a quick, passionate sort of way at his words, as +if they gave her a pang. He saw that, but her calm face and voice made him +half doubt if it meant anything. "Are you quite sure, or are you only +saying it because you think I have a wish to go there? I thought you did +not seem to like it just now, and indeed I do not care: I shall be quite +content with whatever you arrange when you are well." + +"No, Percy: write and say we will take the rooms from the time he leaves +them. I"--with a half-abashed laugh--"I was only cross because you are +going away. I shall miss you sorely, dear, and I'm sorry you're going and +are so glad to go--that's all." + +Her face turned crimson to the very temples, and she said, "I'm sorry I +made my arrangements without consulting you: I will not do so in future. I +did not think you would care one way or the other." + +"You've been so good to me, little one, and I'm so unused to being cared +for except as a society ornament, that I think I shall never be able to +get along without you again." + +Her eyes filled with tears which she would not let fall, and she said, +"You are very kind to say so: I will be more careful in future. But I must +go now." He waited in quite an eager expectancy to see if she would kiss +him. "Take good care of yourself, and be sure I shall come by the first +train;" and she started to leave the bedside. + +He caught her dress and drew her toward him, holding her hands: "Is that +all, Percy? Is there nothing else?" + +"I think not, Ross," she said, doubtingly, but coloring painfully. + +"Kiss me good-bye, Percy." She held down her face instantly, and when he +had kissed her, drew herself away without a word; but he clasped his arm +about her: "You have not kissed me after all, my darling." + +"My kisses are nothing worth now, Ross: their sweetness died out years +ago. Yours are good enough for both;" and she laughed and left him. + +He was bitterly chagrined: it seemed a little thing to make him feel so +mortified. That she should leave him willingly, that doing so she should +refuse to grant him so small a favor, when almost all other women--her own +pretty cousins among them--had denied nothing he chose to ask, it was +incomprehensible! + +"By Jove! I never cared so much for a little thing in my life as her +leaving me and not caring to kiss me. I swear, I'm a perfect baby about +her! Little, truthful, honest soul! I believe she could make another +creature of me if she cared enough for me to try. There is something +restful in truth and honest purity, after all: one feels safe, and +grounded on a sure place. It's good to have a little fairy lying close in +one's bosom; and I vow I'll have my little brownie there yet, though I +have to go as suitor on a regular courting expedition to my own wife +before I win her heart. Curse this old lover of hers, who bars her heart +against me! And curse my own past follies, which make a good woman fear to +trust me! Marriage is a sell generally, even when a vast amount of +so-called love is brought to the sacrificial altar; so perhaps I shall not +make a bad thing of it if I win my wife's heart after she knows me _au +fond_, instead of in the glamour of gas-light flirtations. Poor little +heart! What a pitiful story it is! How quaintly she writes her pathetic, +desolate history! What a ready pen the little woman holds!" and he took +out her letter again. "I declare, the child has better attractions than +beauty--a lovely, faithful soul." + +But though he was tender of her in his thoughts, he was a hard master that +night: everything went wrong, nothing pleased or contented him, and the +sullen, much-tried servant at last announced that with the morning he +would leave his master to his own devices. + +"Go, and be damned to you!" was the savage reply; and the man took him at +his word, decamping, after making a few necessary arrangements, as soon +after breakfast as he could. + +"And I have been as good to that fellow the year he has lived with me as I +could," thought Ross Norval as hour after hour he lay alone wanting +everything--water, the papers, a handkerchief. There was nothing he did +not want, and he could reach nothing but those nauseous medicines. +"Service cannot be bought: in very truth, love and patience must be a free +gift. However, now even love and patience seem to have fled from me. I +want my wife--I want her awfully." + +Percy, with her sad little heart lying as heavy as a plummet in her +breast, was just as bright and useful and entertaining to her cranky old +friend as if life was a boon instead of a bane to her. You know from her +letter how bitter life was to her; and I think if you have ever known +sorrow and a great disappointment, you will comprehend how it was possible +for her, with the fear of God before her, and a desire to be His faithful +child, to make this match for herself. Anything was better than the dull +stagnation into which she had fallen: she had felt this year, unless some +great change came to her to take her out of this weary groove in which she +was set, she must go melancholy mad. She had laid out a hundred schemes, +all of them, she knew, impracticable; and now, in a strange, providential +way, this chance to change every thought and action of her whole life had +come to her. Do you wonder much she accepted it? I think it was not +strange. + +That night after his offer (the night she had asked for in which to +decide, although she said to herself, with a bitter little shrug as she +made the request, "A woman who hesitates is lost"), as she lay awake +pondering the whole matter, she thought: "It can't be worse than it is, +and it won't be very long either way, I think. I can be faithful to him, +make and mend, dig and delve, if needs be, for his benefit, in return for +the honor he does me in giving me his name and protection. I shall expect +nothing, literally nothing, from him that wives usually demand. I, who +have borne for years with the caprice of school-girls, can surely bear the +humors of one man, especially when his name shields me from other sorts of +ills. I have rather plumed myself these last few months upon having +learned the depth of meaning and force of truth there is in that +expression from _Sartor Resartus_ I used to think so wicked: 'Say to +happiness, I can do without you--in self-renunciation life begins,' I can +try it now. I need not be a spaniel or fawn upon my lord, and yet I can +obey and honor, if he will let me, this man to whom I shall vow myself for +life. For life! Can I endure it all the years I may have to live an +unloved wife--so near and yet so far from him to whom I am bound? Will it +not be a death in life? Will it be better than this dead, cold monotony I +now bear? Better or worse? Ah, there's the rub! I can never hope to win +his faithful, abiding love. Even did use make me acceptable to him, I +could not trust its continuance. And yet who knows whether, if I try to +keep a pure life and an honest purpose to walk before him worthily every +day, I may not win from him at last a sort of respect and friendship that +will be next to love? I will some time let him know of the friends my +literary efforts have brought me. I know he will be proud of the judgment +that scholarly men, whose opinions he honors, have placed upon the +heirloom of intellectual ability that has been my sole dower from my dear +father and his learned ancestors. And when I am Ross Norval's wife I will +reveal myself to these letter-friends of my inner life, and, meeting them +no longer in the spirit only, let them see eye to eye their hidden sister, +their 'nebulous child,' as they have half playfully, half angrily, called +me. A husband's hand shall rive the rock in which their crystal has been +for years embedded. + +"Oh, Ross, I shall be glad to come to my inheritance through you; to +gather my band of chosen ones into my actual, as I have long held them in +my inner, life; to know those at last whom my unprotected woman's state +has hitherto forbidden me to know. And if I take him, if I give myself to +him, I shall at last have the desire of my life. Ah, Ross! you will never +know that your boyish flattering, which meant nothing to you, and should +have meant nothing to me, did really mean so much that it simply broke my +heart, leaving me at sixteen so utterly incapable of loving any man but +yourself that since then no hand has ever touched the seal which closed +the fountain of love and passion in my heart for ever. Ah! I wonder what +penalty there is for those who carelessly destroy our hopes and blot out +all possibilities of love from us? What would you say, Ross Norval, if you +knew that the last kiss I ever gave to any man was given you that cold, +dark day they buried my father? You came with a note from Bell--she was +dying, she said; after to-day no one but her family would be admitted to +her: would I come and say good-bye to her, even from my father's grave? I +went with you, and stayed an hour with her. Then you brought me, more dead +than alive, back to my desolate home, and taking me in your arms carried +me from the carriage to my bed. As you laid me down you said, 'My sister's +little friend, I am glad to have seen you once again. Bell tells me all +these years I have been absent you have been pleasant friends to each +other. You are dear and sweet because she loved you. I shall never see you +again perhaps, for when she dies I shall have no ties here and shall go +elsewhere. Kiss me good-bye,' and I did. + +"For a year after that I was alone: then Esther Hooper came, and I was not +wretched. I have had my share of lovers and friends--what girl has +not?--have had rare treats of music, of books and paintings, and shared +their pleasant harmonies with an appreciative soul; and I have been very +contented. + +"But now I am desolate again, and out of the darkness you have come and +beckoned me to follow you and stand near you all the rest of my life. It +will be happiness enough, as much as is good for me, to live with you, +even if I am nothing to you, for, oh, I love you very faithfully!" + +And so, you know, they were married, with only the doctor and Mrs. Keller +to witness the ceremony; and at once, with her little decided way, the +sort of certainty that years of self-dependence give, she became his +nurse, attending to him as persistently and indefatigably as if the sole +purpose for which she had been born was that. From the first service she +rendered him--bathing his head and face through an intense August day with +iced water delicately perfumed, arranging the curtains so that the air, +when there was a breeze, blew freely to him, though the glare of the sun +was gone, and his room in dim, soothing shadow--she seemed a blessing to +him. Some hours after she came with her bright, quick ways, arranging his +disordered room, bringing order out of chaos on his dressing-table, never +peeping into things, and yet getting them into beautiful order, and, +wonderful to relate, keeping them so: the air seemed to grow cooler, his +medicine less bitter, the time shorter, and his broken leg and weary back +to ache less acutely. + +One day she said in a shy way, "Mr. Norval, if you will let James lay out +your things, I will see what mending they need, and will sit here and do +them, so you sha'n't spend so many hours alone. Mrs. Keller has made some +friends in the house, and they kindly sit with her so much that she does +not need me." + +"But, Percy, what's the use of James having a hand in it? Here are my +keys," with a laugh as he handed them to her: "you know they are a part of +the worldly goods with which I did thee endow; and the keys always belong +to the female department by right, don't they?" + +She took them with a vivid blush. "Shall I look over your trunks and +bureau, then?" she asked. + +"Certainly, while I go to sleep and dream what a jolly thing it is to have +you here." Then, pretending to sleep, he watched her with careful hands +examine his belongings, with a contemptuous little smile at this piece of +bungling mending or an anxious frown over that frayed place. Then how +neatly she folded and laid back all the good, and seated herself with a +pile before her and began to sew! When he opened his eyes she handed him +the keys. + +"No, Percy, keep them: I make all right and title to them over to you," he +said. + +From that day he seemed to feel delight in her companionship, reading to +her hour after hour while she sewed, always choosing some poetical or +light bit of reading--"To suit my capacity," she thought. + +So they had gone on week after week--with the single exception of the +Rollins episode--without any change. He was a rare favorite in society, +and every day received a host of calls from gentlemen, baskets of fruits +and flowers from ladies. Always, when a card was sent up, she would gather +all her womanish "traps" together and go to Mrs. Keller--this, too, in +spite of his earnest invitation to her to remain. + +"No: you can have a pleasanter call with no ladies present, and Mrs. +Keller needs me. I'll be back in time for your medicine." + +Once or twice some one, more intimate or free than usual, would run up +unannounced and catch her there. Her acceptation of the situation was, he +thought, perfect. Without a shadow of embarrassment she acknowledged the +introduction, "My wife," did the honors of the occasion, said a few words +regarding his state, and with some such words as "I will be back in an +hour or so, Ross," would leave the room. + +Thus he was utterly unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was +capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he +could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most +society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular +woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant +conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an +intelligent thinker for a woman, he did not dream. + +Nevertheless, the mere having her about him day after day, with her dainty +little ways, grew to be a pleasure to him: the making her grave little +face, with its haunting look of sorrow, break into smiles, the light come +into her soft gray eyes, became a real delight to him. Then the color +flushed over her cheek at his lightest word, and he found a real interest +in watching it glow and fade from her pale face. + +"She's the sort of _brune_ that colors well," he thought. "Old Sir John's +fancy of-- + + 'Her cheek was like a Cathrine pear, + The side that's next the sun'-- + +suits her exactly. And her hair, with the glint of gold in the chestnut +hue, would be a glory in a beautiful woman. Every motion of her heart +shows in her face. She'd never make a woman of the world: she cannot hide +her feelings, but lets one read them like an open book." Which was all he +knew about it, since, spite of her treacherous color, those years of hard +duty had trained her into the most perfect self-control on all needful and +great occasions and matters. + +How he missed her light step! how he had wanted her all these two days! +for, though it was scarcely past noon, and she had gone late the day +before, he was sure it was that--"And seems like six, by George!" But, as +he lay feverish and famished for a drink, a very ill-used man, she opened +the door, and the air seemed lightened of its troubles at once. + + + +Part II. + + +"Shall we go to Niagara for our wedding-trip?" Mr. Norval asked when the +doctor had taken his last fee, pronouncing his patient cured. + +"Unless you care particularly about it, I would rather go straight to New +York. I have canceled all my school-engagements by letter, having taken a +new service"--and she bowed to him--"and Mrs. Keller promised to see to my +little rooms and their belongings; but I should like to see Harry before +he sails." + +"Want to make him promise to be a good boy while he's away?" said he with +a smile. + +"Something like it," she answered, laughingly. "But Harry's not a bad +fellow, at all." + +"Well, then, let's start for home to-morrow;" and they made their +arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an +unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel +to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in +Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a +large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther +Hooper. He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and +the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not +being her heart's choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea +gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all. + +As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put +his arm around her, saying, "I've been very happy, little wife, here with +you. Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw +you?" + +"I have had no cause to regret it," she said quietly. + +"But you are not glad," he said, taking his arm away. + +"As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything--more glad than I am for most +things." + +He looked at her with a sigh. "My father--and I am like him--loved only +once." Her words came constantly into his mind. "I came too late," he +thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and +pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other +earthly thing he had ever known. He had left her side, and was standing +looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to +breakfast. After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head +against his arm. He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice +of the action. She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her +hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, "Dear Ross, I _am_ glad: I am +happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be. I would not undo the +deed we have done so long as you are content. I like being with you +dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your +wife--your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good." + +"My Preciosa"--and he drew her into his arms--"so long as we both shall +live, you mean. I want no life without you now." Then turning her, face +up, he scanned it hastily: "You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale! Are +you ill, my Percy?" + +"No, no," she said quickly. "I think I need my breakfast: I have been up a +couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night." + +"My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of +ours, perhaps you'll get some rest. But you talk in this strange way of +dying: just now you did, and once before in your letter. What makes you do +it? Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?" + +"Nothing--only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled +and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death +as a boon which God would send me soon." + +"But you do not now?--you don't want to die and leave me desolate?" + +"No, dear! indeed, no! though I don't think you'd care really." He clasped +her in a closer embrace and kissed her reproachfully. "Well, yes, just at +first, perhaps. Yet so long as you want me, I want to stay and be your +willing, working wife. I've got a new reason and aim now: I have you, dear +old Ross." + +"Oh, Percy, I _do_ care. God knows even the thought of it gives me a +bitter agony, I know you cannot trust me yet, because I married you so +carelessly, and because you think I can't be true to one woman with my +battered old heart. But that's because you judge me by what my long, +unloved life has made me. No good woman ever made me love her before. I +never knew how beautiful a pure life was, my darling, until I knew it +through watching yours. When I think of all you have saved me from, which +would have caused my undying gratitude had I learned to hate you--as if I +ever could!" and he paused to kiss her--"when I think of all the new and +better hopes you have awakened in my heart, I feel--God knows I do--as if +He had sent my angel, and let her drag me out of a hell into which I was +plunged, and year after year sinking deeper. Stay with me, dear: I will be +true. I never cared for any woman in the way--in the deep, absorbing +way--I do for you. I wish you would believe me." + +"I do, Ross--you are so good to me, so good! Oh, Ross, Ross!" and she held +up her face to his, "you are so good to me!" She clung to him one moment, +then suddenly, as soon as she could trust her voice, said gayly, "But it's +breakfast-time, and your wife is so unromantically hungry;" and with a +sigh that nothing more ever came of their talks he took her down. + +When they reached New York the next afternoon, they drove at once to the +rooms they had engaged. Percy's cousin, Harry Barton, was there to welcome +them, having come round from his hotel for the purpose. + +"Why, Norval," said he--they were old acquaintances--"you've won our bone +of contention, after all. I wonder what we shall do, now that Percy's +safely landed out of our reach? You're a brave man to dare our rage." + +"Don't, Harry!" said Percy, putting her hand on his arm. + +"I won't, dear, if you say not;" and he covered her hand with his own. "I +always did do your lightest bidding, little girl, didn't I?" + +"Yes, you're a dear old cousin. Ross knows how much I appreciate your +kindness to me always. Why, I gave up what he calls my 'bridal tour,' +partly because I wanted to come back and say 'good-bye' to you." + +His face flushed crimson at her words, and, all his careless, fashionable +manner gone, he said, "Did you, Percy? You always were good." + +"That, and because--because I shall be so sorry if you join this African +expedition." + +"Don't ask me not to, Percy--don't ask me to stay now you have broken my +hope for ever. I shall go to the dogs, dear, if I stay here now." + +"I don't want you to, Harry. Only your mother is so delicate and getting +old, and she loves you beyond all the rest of the world, though you think +she don't because she has been cruel to me. It will break her heart if you +join this dangerous enterprise. Stay in Europe, go to Heidelberg and +finish the course you so foolishly broke up. They'll blame me, Harry, for +all the evil that comes to you." + +"Well, I'll think about it, dear." Then to Ross; "Does she kiss you, +Norval?" + +"Well, I can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a +surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess +she did not. + +"Nor let you kiss her, either?" + +"Well, yes," with a laugh. "She can't very well help that, you know." + +"Don't you believe it: if she didn't want you to, you'd never kiss her, I +know. Why, we three cousins, Sheldon, Mac and I, have tried every way to +get her to kiss us for years, and never succeeded. You're a lucky dog!" + +"He's my husband, Harry;" and she laid her head down on Ross's arm. + +"Don't, Percy!" said her cousin with a quick motion of his hand: "I'll be +gone soon;" then hurriedly and gayly: "Let me do the honors of your new +domains. And, Norval, I have a great favor to ask of you. My little +cousin's _amour propre_ won't be touched, or herself involved now she's a +married woman, by taking an honest gift from me, and all brides take +bridal gifts, you know. I want you to let me give her all the traps I've +left in the rooms. It isn't much grace to ask, old fellow, seeing you're +to have her always and I not at all." + +"Why, certainly, Barton, I have no objections if she has none." + +"Percy, you've never let me give you anything all these years, you proud +little soul, nor any of the rest of us: you've come scot-free from all our +endeavors to snare you through all your hard-working life. You won't go +quite empty-handed to your husband's arms, just to plague me, will you?" + +"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them +once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they +began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole +suite!" + +"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you +Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines +among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?" + +As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had +regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little +reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about +him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying, +"May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered +her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!" + +As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old +Hal--promise me this!" + +"Anything, everything, Percy," he said. + +"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg." + +"I will, I will, since you wish it." + +She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet +kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!" + +He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace, +then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of +the house without a word. + +Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for +him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?" + +"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?" + +"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his +life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave +him reason." + +"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and +handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it, +child." + +"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed +her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think, +and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an +instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one +half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should +have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking +laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of +opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light manner gone, she +added: "You are very, very good to me, Ross. He would never have been so +patient of my old griefs and lost loves. I told you my masculine cousins +were always crying for the grapes that hung out of their reach, you know." +Then suddenly growing grave: "Oh, Ross, it was not my fault: I could not +help it. I think the boys got to pitying me because they thought my life +was hard, and because their sisters treated me very cruelly sometimes. +Then my uncles very foolishly ordained that I should teach their sons +their Latin and help them with their studies. So out of school-hours my +time was mostly spent with one or the other, or all of them. Sheldon +Wilber and I are of the same age, and having been my father's constant +companion, I was better up in all his studies than he was himself; so I +used to do his college lessons with him, until he got to thinking, as he +used to say, I was his very breath. Then afterward I gave the other two +the benefit of what we had studied, got them out of scrapes, and indeed, +being with them so much, kept them out. Don't let's talk about them any +more, Ross: I have 'fessed' all now." + +"Not all, my sweet: you have not told me who it is that has shut your +heart from us all." + +"Don't, Ross!" and she shrank away from him as if he had struck her a +blow. + +"Ah, well, my wife, keep your secret: I'll not touch your sacred past. +I'll try to learn to be content with my little sister, thankful I have so +much." + +"Oh, Ross, my good, kind Ross!" and she clasped her arms around his neck +in passionate, longing regret, "if I might tell you all--if I might!" + +"Tell me nothing, dear, you would rather keep. I am infinitely content to +even have you thus, and know you love me somewhat. Yes, I know, sweet," he +said with a sad smile as she kissed his hand in passionate regret--"the +very best you can, with all the heart you have. I know, I know!" + +Quite late in the evening, Sheldon Wilber came. After sitting an hour or +so, talking gayly, he rose to go. When they were standing he said, "Percy, +I had just left the Flemmings before I came in here." + +"Had you? I hope they are all well, especially Miss Lizzie, who is so +pretty." + +"They're all well enough. She--Miss Lizzie the pretty--is going to be +married." + +"To be married!--to whom?" she asked. + +"To my honorable self: don't you congratulate her?"--with a bitter laugh. +"I asked her to-night if she'd have me, and she said 'Yes.'" + +"I am so glad, Sheldon--so very glad!" and she held out her hand. + +"Are you? It's more than anyone else is but my mother. Well, no--I suppose +the Flemmings are, to get another daughter off their hands, and she to +have a safe man to pay her bills. And of course all our cousins and +sisters will be glad to have another house to dance the German in; so it +is rather a jubilee occasion, taking it all in all." + +"Oh, Sheldon, how hard and bitter you are! She loves you, I know, and the +rest think you will be happier with a good wife to care for." + +"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but _vive +la bagatelle!_ I want to know when I am to tie this knot?" + +"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered. + +"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when _I_ choose." + +Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife, +and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her." + +He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by +letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know +you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of +us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old +fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will +make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the +little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with +you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe +will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll +never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow +took himself away. + +"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was +conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so." + +"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman +would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women. +And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one +choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a +second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you." + +She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate +from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said +hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly. +If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's +early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere, +because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first. +It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way." + +"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to +go anywhere where you are not." + +"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go +to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I +feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm +unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home +with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this +talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and +her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep +from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed +emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs, +while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross! +please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove +by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at +length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had +appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as +a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist +his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them. + +The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an +agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many +hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as +a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines, +and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found +Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table +exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling +in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and +the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly +air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery. + +"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps +house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are +nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss +as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of +linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous +manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old +place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know, +Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's +housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old +mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and +visit me." + +Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair +which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire," +she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the +look upon his face and came to his side. "What were you thinking of, +Ross?" she asked, anxiously. + +"What a little tornado you were, for the first thing, and how I liked +seeing you busy among our household gods; also and moreover, that you had +not given me a chance to say a word; and worst of all, that you had never +given me my kiss of welcome, my rightful perquisite." Instantly she held +up her face. "Ah, pet, you are always submissive; but never aggressive: +still, this is sweet. And I was wondering what had become of the weeping +willow I left." + +"Wasn't I a silly goose, Ross?" she said, a little breathlessly. + +"Well, no, dear: you were very nervous and worn-out." + +"I hate nervous, fidgety women so: they're detestable with their whims." + +"I did not find you so, but I'm glad you're over it, all the same." + +"And so am I. You could not make me cry like that again, Ross, if you were +to pinch me." + +"But I did not make you cry." + +"Yes you did, though. In truth, I was unstrung, and you were so kind and +unlike what any one had ever been to me before, so different from what I +had expected when we were married "--and her lips quivered--"that it +touched me to the quick." + +"Why, darling, did you think I was going to be a brute to you?" + +"I thought you would be nothing to me, one way or the other--simply forget +me, and be utterly indifferent so long as I kept your clothes made and +mended, and did not bother you about my wants or tastes or opinions." + +A flush came over his face at the truth of her words. It would have been +just so had he found her what he expected her to be; but he said, "I don't +think any one could treat you like that, little girl." Then, while they +ate their dinner, he told her of his day's doings and of his determination +for the future: "I have a good opening--no man better. I mean to attend to +my practice hereafter, make a name and fortune for my sweetheart, and in a +few years we'll go to Europe and see the sights. Ah, Percy, such a vista, +such a new life, such a bright future, as I see opening before me! But, +first of all, I am going shopping with you, young lady, to-morrow. I have +ordered a carriage at eleven, and we'll buy all those pretty fixings you +women doat on. Do you know, little bride, I think all my vanity is going +to take the form of having you more prettily dressed than your cousins, +mine ancient flames when I was a bad boy?" + +"Oh, Ross," with a little laugh, "you can't do it: you can't make a rival +specimen out of your bad bargain. Nothing will make me a beauty." + +"Don't, Percy! I do like beauty. I have run after and made a fool of +myself for years over pretty women, but I like your face, just as it is, +better than any other woman's face I ever knew. If I could change you any +way, I would not do it. Your face is beautiful to me, though I know it is +not a pretty one: you are like sunlight to me." His voice shook, and he +strained her slight form to him with a clasp that was positive pain. "I +said I would not change you, but I would if I might put that old love out +of your heart for ever. Why, in those far-off years when we were childish +friends, did I not know my truest life lay in winning you? It is strange! +I have never failed to gain the love I wanted until now, when I want the +only one that would complete my life. Dear Percy, love me all you can. If +there are things in me--and I know there are many--which turn you from me, +tell me of them and I will change them if I can." + +"Oh, Ross, don't, don't! I am not worthy of such words." + +"Oh, little Preciosa, I am glad to have even a little of your heart: the +half of your love has come to be more to me than the love of all the world +besides." + +Do you think it was not agony for her to hear such words as these and make +no response to them, fearing lest with assurance should come satiety? And +yet the knowledge of his growing love was very sweet to her, and worth the +agony. + +They settled down in their new home, and were purposely "out" to all +callers during the next month--then returned the cards that had been left +for them. As they grew accustomed to their new life, she thought to see +his pleasure and interest in it wane as the novelty wore away, but it was +not so. That love of home which is, after all, the truest test of a really +manly nature, seemed to grow upon him. It was always so bright and cheery +by their cozy fire, the glare of public rooms, the noise and glitter of +theatres and concert-rooms, struck him with a feeling akin to disgust, +after the soft, subdued light of his home, and his wife's merry, breezy +voice. He sang and played for her, never giving a thought to her having +any musical ability, since she never touched the instrument. He read to +her hour after hour, having at last discovered her taste and ability to +understand the kind of books he relished, perfectly content if she would +favor him by sitting near enough to him to let him pull down that wealth +of "tresses brown," a glossy cloud about her. + +Of course this Arcadian life could not continue in the very heart of +Sodom. Society was not going to lose Ross Norval if he _had_ made a fool +of himself and married a little nobody. So callers flowed in upon them, +and Ross, having in boyish glee arrayed himself in purple and fine linen, +took her in state to see his friends. + +Of course her cousins and their friends hated her: she had won their +_bonne louche_, and the crimson of her plainness and poverty, of the +having to "have Percy always around to please Uncle Rufus," was pink to +the enormity of her being Ross Norval's wife. And "why he married her," +and "of course he's dead tired of her by this time," were their politest +surmises. + +One morning they paid a cousinly visit--a triple call. "And, by Jove!" +thought Ross as he watched her haughty little face and _nonchalant_ +manner, "she's no milk-and-water nature, though she's always so +sweet-tempered with me. She's got all the temper a true nature ought to +have." + +"To think of your ever getting married, Percy, and to Mr. Norval, of all +men!" said Miss Leta Wilber. "Why, we thought him engaged to the beauty +and belle of last winter, Miss Agnes Lorton." + +"Well, yes, Leta, old girls like you and I are rather off the cards: we +don't expect to catch the prizes generally--we leave that for these +younger ones, like Jennie and Lucille," said Percy, coolly. + +"A Roland for your Oliver, Leta!" laughed Jennie Wayne. "I never venture +to break a lance with Percy: she always has an arrow in reserve to pierce +you with. I suppose you've found that out, Mr. Norval?" + +"Found what out? I fear I don't follow you, Miss Jennie," said he. + +"That she's very able to take her own part, this little cousin of ours," +said she, her beautiful face scarlet at his manner. + +"Is she, though? Well, I like that amazingly, do you know?" + +"Like ill-tempered people?" said Miss Leta, snappishly. "Is it possible?" + +"Ill-tempered people?" with a wellbred stare. (Is there such a thing?) +"No, indeed! Why, birdie"--and he leaned over, and, taking her hand, +raised it to his lips--"to think of any one calling you ill-tempered!" + +"You silly boy!" laughed she. "I'll take my hand if you please, and don't +you believe but what you've married a termagant." + +The girls said afterward, in recounting the scene, it was simply +disgusting. Leta vowed, "The little baggage must be a witch and throw +spells over people. Look what fools she's made of our boys for years, and +Ross Norval, with all his splendid endowments, is just as bad." + +"And he did use to admire your form, Leta," said Jennie, maliciously. +"I've seen him waltz you until it was hard to tell which face that long +blonde moustache belonged to." + +"Ditto, cousin, and worse, if gossips speak the truth. But don't let's say +ugly things to each other. We both hoped to win him once, and we have both +lost him. The little wretch will watch him like a hawk, and never let him +come near a body." + +"Oh dear!" said her sister Laura, "if I only knew I was to do a German +with him to-night, I'd be happy: he holds one better than any man I know; +and if Percy will let him dance with a body occasionally, I'd as leave she +should have him as the rest of you." + +"Unless he'd chosen yourself, Laura, I suppose?" + +"Well, yes, that would have made a difference, even to my laziness, +especially if she'd have made dear old Harry stay at home by marrying +him." + +That's the way they talked, yet in a couple of weeks after each house had +sent her an invitation to a large party--"for you and Mr. Norval, dear +Percy"--and the invitation-cards stated the fact. + +"It's my Viking they want," laughed she: "they take his mouse in for the +sake of securing him. He's such a credit to the family!" + +"Well, it's your Viking they won't get," said he. + +"Now, Ross, don't be a bother, dear, and complicate matters. They will +say--and be glad of the chance--that it's my fault. You've such a passion +for dancing, they will say I prevented your coming. And besides, as I +dance so little, you'll ask them as much as ever?" + +"How do you know I am so fond of it, Percy?" + +"I've watched you too many years not to know that. You forget that, though +a flower unnoticed and unseen--a very wall-flower in fact--I have been a +looker-on in Vienna. I might have made a point of that, Ross, if I'd +thought in time, and 'hung i' the walls of Venice, a sightly flower.' You +were the bright particular star, or sun, in whose light all the fairest +flowers disported themselves. Why, I could tell you every woman--that is, +of your own set--you've been what Jennie calls 'bad about,' for years." He +held up his hand deprecatingly: she laughed gayly. "Never fear. I don't +intend to name them: I have not time to go over such a thing of shreds and +patches. Ah! the hopes I've watched you raise to heaven and then dash to +earth!" + +"Oh, Percy, I don't wonder that you are afraid to trust me now: I am +paying the penalty of my years of folly." + +"That's nonsense, Ross. I don't believe in fashionable women's hearts. You +were too good for them, and they led you on always," she said, almost +passionately. + +"That's my good darling trying to excuse her sinner. But how was it you +never danced at any of those parties? Harry and Mac are both good dancers, +and Sheldon's the best waltzer I ever saw. How is it you never danced with +them?" + +"With them, indeed! Why, that would have been an aggravation past enduring +to my rich relations. Sheldon had actually the insolence to tell his +sister Leta that I was the best waltzer in society. Think of the prize +you've got, young man!" + +"I do always, sweetheart," he said, answering her gay tone with a grave +one. "Did you waltz much with Sheldon and the others?" + +"I never waltzed with any of them in my life. Why, Ross, I never let them +speak to me at parties, except by turns to take me out to supper and +home." + +"But how have you managed to keep up your waltzing then?" + +"Oh, Mr. Vanity, men are not all. Esther and I waltzed constantly: then I +used to help Lucille, who is my favorite cousin, 'along in her paces;' and +the children at our school-parties doat on me as a partner. Would you like +to know who was the last man, and indeed almost the only one, I ever went +round a room with?" and her face turned crimson, though she laughed. + +"Indeed I should--curse him!" he said under his breath. + +"Your honorable self, at Madame's school-party;" and she sprang away from +his outstretched hands with a mocking laugh. + +The day of the party she wrote a few little violet-perfumed notes, and +sent them off. This is a specimen: + + "DEAR DOCTOR: You have so often wanted to know your 'nebulous child,' + and been indignant that she hid her face from you behind her veil of + clouds, you will be pleased to know that the sunshine has dispelled the + clouds, and made her at last able to meet the starry train of which you + are the sun. Will you greet Ross Norval's bride at the Wilber party + to-night as the child you have trained and been so good to in the past, + and who, ever honoring you, is still your loving child for the future? + If you'll ask me prettily to-night, I'll sing the foolish words I made + for the sweet, tripping Languedoc air you sent me last year. I am, now + and ever, + + "MIRA CANAM." + +In consequence of these notes, when Ross led his wife into the room, +arrayed in a crimson cloud of his choosing, which made even her brown face +a picture, all her bronze hair, her husband's glory, floating round her +far below her waist, confined lightly here and there by diamond clusters, +which sparkled like stars amidst its creped luxuriance--"Daring to dress +in the very height of the fashion," said Leta, "and all those diamonds on +her--his mother's, of course;" and of course they were--the consequence, I +say, was, that first one distinguished man and then another met her with a +warm greeting--"deucedly warm," thought the jealous fellow, who was so +uncertain of her yet, and wanted all of her--and were introduced to "my +husband." Taking for granted that "my husband" was glad to get her off his +hands, they took possession of her, to his infinite disgust. + +These were the men with whom she could talk, whose minds struck diamond +flashes from her own, whose thoughts she had followed for years, and who +looked upon her as their peer, and deferred to her opinion on many things. +And she, knowing Ross was her amazed listener, was stirred to do her best +before him--glad her triumph over her relatives should be in his presence +and brought to her through his means. It may not have been a lovely thing +in her to desire or enjoy a victory, but ah! it is so natural, and my +little heroine had had hard lines meted out to her for years. Besides, no +woman is free, you know, from vanity: only men are that. + +She stood near the door of the dancing-room. Ross came to her after every +dance, but it was always, "Not me yet, Ross--Leta, or Jennie," or whoever +stood nearest her. Even the girl to whom report had given him (with +reason) the year before was, at her open entreaty, which he could not +evade, his partner; but half the time he stood beside her, forgetful of +the dance in listening to the conversation in which she bore so large a +part. + +A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing +hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last +waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor, +who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss +Jennie Barton and her cousin Laura gave a sweet duo, in rather a tearing +style, Jennie being a fast young lady everyhow; another lady sang a +Scottish ballad as if it had been manipulated by Verdi; then one of the +gentlemen said, "Mr. Norval, I hope you will lay your commands on your +wife to sing for us." + +"_I_ hope that will not be needed," he said, bowing (thinking with a pang, +"They all know her better than I do"). "I am sure she will do equally well +if we all beg the favor of her." + +"She has promised me to sing," said Dr. B----, "my pretty Languedoc air, +which she has--" + +"Now that's enough, you foolish old doctor!" and she went to the piano. +"Foolish old doctor!" He was the great gun of the scientific world: the +people about looked aghast at such impertinence, but the "great gun" only +laughed and said, "I am mute if you command." + +How her hands trembled as she began! This was her last and greatest card: +by it she had always felt she must hold him to her for ever, or lose her +husband's love in time. She had never touched the piano before him or sung +a note, but much of her leisure since their return to New York had been +taken up, when he was out, in keeping herself in practice against the time +when she should have a chance to play for him and sing to him. She played +the sweet air, with its Mozart-like, mournful cadences, entirely through +ere she felt nerved enough to begin. Then she sang in such a voice as made +the most indifferent pause--a voice that was like purple velvet for +richness, as sweet as the breath of an heliotrope to which the sun had +just said adieu, as clear as the notes of an English skylark--this little +song: + + "See, love! the rosy radiance gleams + Athwart the sunset sky: + List, love! and hear the bird's sweet notes + In lingering cadence die. + Clasp, love, thy clinging hands in mine, + And, holding fast by me, + Trust, love! I will be true, my dove, + Be ever true to thee-- + So true, sweetheart, I'll be, + Sweetheart, to thee! + + "Come, love! I waiting pine so long, + And weary watch for thee: + Dear love! amidst my darkest night + Thy star-like face I see. + Heart's love! ah, come thou close to me: + I'll shelter thee from harms, + From every foe or secret woe, + Close clasped within my arms: + Lie safe from all alarms, + Sweetheart, with me." + +While they listened to her, those careless men and women, they thought +they began to understand why this little, plain girl had won Ross Norval. +While everybody praised her, he stood utterly silent, too moved for words +she saw, and refusing to sing again, she went up to him as the band began +to play. "My waltz, Ross," she said. He put his arm around her with a +loving gesture that made those about them smile, and whirled her off. + +"He's the hardest hit man I've seen for years," said one. + +"And that such a thing should come to pass, as Ross Norval in love with +his own wife, is beyond belief--after making love to everybody else's!" + +"That's it! He was always the darling of fortune: the choicest fruit +always dropped his side the wall." + +But Ross, as he held her in that "tight hold" which was so much admired by +his partners, said only, "Percy! Percy! I do not know you at all. How +cruel you are to me! Everybody knows you and your gifts but me." + +When the German had commenced he came to her and whispered, "Do you care +for it?" + +"The German, Ross? Indeed no: I am tired too, and was just coming to ask +you if I might let old Mr. L---- take me home: he says it will be no +trouble." + +"And you would not have asked me to take you?" he said, reproachfully. + +"Take you away from the German, Ross! Such an unheard-of thing as that! +You must think me very selfish. Indeed; I am not where your pleasure is +concerned: I only want you to enjoy yourself." + +"Then, for Charity's sake, let's go home," he said. + +"With all my heart if you really wish it!" and she started; then pausing: +"Are you going because you think I want to go? I do not indeed: I will +stay gladly." + +"I am going because I want to--because I am dead tired, and long, with a +perfect passion, for our cozy room, the dim firelight, and my darling +toasting her pretty slippers." + +"You dear, foolish Ross!" and she was gone like the wind. On their way +out, Sheldon Wilber met them in the hall, and, handing her something, +said, "To-night, little girl: if you have ever doubted, doubt no more. And +remember, a trusting heart is a priceless one;" and he was gone. + +When they were home and comfortable, Ross said, "My wife, it was cruel to +let me learn your wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me +cruelly." + +"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had +hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and +now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I +could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think +I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped +it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet +to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and +steadfastly into his eyes. + +"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song +you sang." + +She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is _your_ love-song, dear--your very +own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you _all_ about myself now, +Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you +pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing +protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason +those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his +embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I +translated from the German, others from the old Provencal tongue, with +which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did +this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they +had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade +them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by +his name, feared nothing any more." + +"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all +hope of winning you when I learn these things of you." + +"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike +literary women." + +But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your +endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all +else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it. +Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out +of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!" + +She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss +on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her, +"Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you +to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face +upon his breast and tremblingly waited while he read it. It ran thus: + + "Sheldon, my cousin, it can never be: give up all hope for ever. I kill + it now, because it is best you should know the truth. I almost give up + my life, my cousin, when I make my heritage of woe known to you. You + will pity me, Sheldon, when you realize what agony the confession you + thus wring from me gives my heart. But if it cures your passion it is + not borne in vain. I love with an undying love, a faith that knows no + change, an endurance that years of neglect have not weakened, that years + of cruelty could never change, a man who would laugh to scorn my very + name. I love--and have loved since I was sixteen years old, until + now--Ross Norval. Keep my secret. + + "PERCY HASTINGS." + +It was dated four years back. + +"Ross, Ross! you know it now! Oh, my love! my love!" + + * * * * * + +I will attempt no painting of the effect that confession had upon him. But +after a long, long time she whispered, "I will sing the last verse of your +song, dear, which only you shall ever hear." And lying on his breast, she +sang-- + + "Dear love I thy face above me gleaming + A sunset radiance gives: + Ah, love! thy tones' sweet cadence dying + Sings in my heart and lives. + Clasped, love, close to thy heart, thy birdling + Foldeth her wings in peace-- + Trusts, love! feeling nor cold nor shadow, + Finding at last her ease, + From fear a safe release, + Heart's love, with thee." + +MARGRET FIELD. + + + + +The Victims of Dreams. + + + +My friend Bessie Haines had no mother, but her father was such a very +large man that I remember thinking, when I was quite a child, that a kind +Providence had intended to make up her loss in that way. She and I did not +live in the same city, but managed to keep up a lively friendship through +the medium of correspondence and half-yearly visits. + +I was a complete orphan, and my uncle, with whom I lived, was her father's +attached friend. She had a very happy home, and I was glad to enjoy it +with her, particularly when my uncle accompanied me, for then her father +and he became absorbed in each other, and left us to our own devices--not +very evil ones, but too childish and trifling to claim the sympathy of +such very grave men as they were. + +We had both become tall, womanly girls, but Uncle Pennyman and Mr. Haines +called us children, and treated us as such; and Bessie was just writing to +me about her father's telling her she must begin to think of serious +things, when my uncle remarked to me that the time was approaching when I +should prepare myself to assume the duties and responsibilities of a +rational female. Just as if we had waited to be told this, when in fact +Bessie and I had been consulting about our bonnets and dresses in the most +grave and mature manner for years past, and arranging our future on plans +that for variety and agreeability could not have been surpassed had we +been brought up on the _Arabian Nights_ and Moore's _Poems_, instead of +Baxter's _Saint's Rest_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_. + +"There are several questions of vital importance that have been growing +daily stronger in my mind," said my uncle Pennyman. "My friend Thomas +Haines has a gift in clearing points and expounding meanings; so that I +feel it to be for my mind's edifying and my soul's profit to go to him for +counsel." + +I was delighted to hear this. I wanted to see Bessie, and I blessed the +bond that united these good brothers in Israel and drew us together so +often. Mr. Haines was good at texts, and my uncle was wonderfully expert +at dreams. Mr. Haines was a great dreamer, and my uncle constantly +stumbled over passages needing elucidation. So we lived in harmonious +intercourse, and Bessie and I talked of all our plans and delights while +they got themselves entangled in obscurities with a commentary under each +arm. + +It would have appeared, from Mr. Haines' dreams, that Bessie's mother had +been a most fussy and bothering lady, though I was told by the +housekeeper, who knew her well, that she was the mildest and most timid of +little wives while living. + +According to these visions, she was constantly troubled in her spiritual +state on the greatest variety of small subjects; and my expert uncle, in +expounding her communications, was always able to draw from them strong +religious lessons, and to administer much strengthening comfort to his +friend the dreamer. + +"I was hoping papa would soon have a vision," said Bessie when we were +settled together all comfortably, and she had told me how glad she was to +see me again. "Mrs. Tanner said last week that she was sure he was going +to have another, because the spire which he felt he was directed in his +last dream to put on the little chapel was all complete, and the +missionary outfit which he had believed himself called upon to provide was +ready and gone to the South Seas, and he naturally looked for more work. +When he said last week, 'Bessie, I have sent for Brother Pennyman +concerning a visitation in the night,' I was so glad, for, Winnie +dear--would you believe it?--I have been dreaming too, and I want you to +tell me if I have read my dream aright." + +Now, this was the most wonderful thing that Bessie Haines could have told +me--the most startling and least to be expected altogether; for if ever +there was a wide-awake girl, it was she. + +I suppose my perfectly frank stare said as much, for she blushed a little, +and continued with a very suspicious flutter, which I had learnt, in the +case of young engaged persons I knew, to look on as a bad symptom: + +"I do not mean dreaming with my eyes shut, you know, but having deep, +serious thoughts, unlike the gay fancies that have held me captive all my +life." + +"Dress trimmings and poetry?" I suggested. + +"Yes, yes--all the useless, perishable fancies of thoughtless youth," she +replied. + +This sounded more like an Essay on Vanity than Bessie Haines, and I really +was astonished, and had nothing to say for a little while, during which +she, being full of her subject, went on: + +"I can scarcely trace the beginning of the--the awakening, shall I call +it?" + +"You called it a dream before." + +"Yes, dear Winnie, but it is so hard to know how to classify new emotions, +and this is such a peculiar one that it seems nameless. You know papa +feels bound, ever since that water-dream he had, to go down to the +Mariners' Chapel on Sunday afternoon, and I used to read solemn poetry +when it was too warm or too cold to go with him. Well, about two months +ago it was fearfully warm, and papa had come home a fortnight earlier from +the shore, on account of a suspicion he had that he had dreamed something +and had forgotten it as soon as he awoke. This indistinct warning made him +think we had better go home at all events, and home we came the first week +in September, to the roasting, dusty city. But I did not then know that I +was perhaps drawn back for a purpose; and oh, dear Winnie, there may be +something in papa's visions, after all." + +"He has had a good many of them," I said. + +"So he has," assented Bessie; "and I was inclined to be impatient at this +one, since it brought me home in the heat, and the house seemed so lonely, +because Mrs. Tanner was still in the country with her married daughter." + +"She having received no spectral warning," I hinted. + +"Oh dear! no. Mrs. Tanner never dreams: she's opposed to it. Well, the +first Sunday was so warm that I took up _Solemn Thoughts in Verse_ instead +of the Mariners'; and after I had read eight pages, it really seemed as if +I had better have tried the heat out of doors, it was getting so gloomy +within. So I got up and dressed, meaning to walk out and meet papa, and +return with him. I don't know whether it was the _Solemn Thoughts_ that +confused me, or whether I was not paying attention, but I actually lost my +way by turning at the wrong corner, and so came down Barton street toward +a little chapel that I had often noticed before. Two dreadfully red-faced +and short-haired little boys were at the entrance by the small iron gate. +They had disagreed about something, I suppose, just as I came up, and they +instantly began to fight, with the wickedest determination visible in +their freckled little faces. At first, they kicked at each other, and +growled out some awful words without the least sense, but with a great +deal of profanity in them, and then they laid down their little books and +tracts, and apparently tried to pull each other's head off. Of course it +made me quite wretched to see them hurt each other in that shocking way, +and so I interfered and tried to reconcile them, but the naughty little +souls must have had a certain amount of kicking and scratching on hand to +dispose of, for they united in bestowing it all on me the moment I came +between them. + +"I was just trying to save my dress and lace sacque from their boots and +claws, when a reverend gentleman appeared at the door, and the bad boys +became sneaking cowards at sight of him. I picked up their little tracts, +while he tried to apologize for them; and it was so sad, Winnie, to think +that those dear children had not profited by their lessons: one was called +'Love One Another,' and the other, 'Be Meek and Lowly.' + +"While we were talking a lady joined us, and I went into the school at +their invitation. + +"Winnie, do you know anything practical about Sunday-school?" + +"I went to one, and was for years in the class of an elderly maiden lady +who urged us all to learn Scripture and hymns. I was so expert and high in +favor that I could repeat forty verses at a time as glibly as a parrot." + +"But I don't quite mean that sort of thing," said Bessie. "I mean a real, +earnest teaching-place, where children are gathered in and told all about +Christ's love and mercy--where they are softened and won to better +thoughts and kinder actions, and their poor little minds filled with +shining truth, instead of street dirt and abuse." + +"I never thought about it before, but such an institution could not help +being a popular one, and a very useful one too," I confessed. + +"Oh, I am so glad, so very glad, that you approve, dear, for I am engaged +in that work; and I did not want to write it to you, for somehow it seemed +so strange for such a thoughtless, silly girl as I have been to attempt +such a serious thing." + +"As teaching in a Sunday-school?" + +"Yes, in a sort of mission school for little scholars of the lower +classes. Miss Mary Pepper and I have at this time nearly two hundred boys +and girls of all ages, and some of them are very interesting and lovable, +while others are--" + +"Like the two gladiators who introduced you to the scene?" + +"Yes. I am afraid there are quite a number of that kind; but, Winnie, you +must like Miss Mary Pepper. Oh, she is one of the most excellent women I +ever knew, so truly, so nobly, so devotedly good. You cannot imagine what +a comfort it is to me to be with her--to feel that I am under her +influence, and may learn from her to be a little like her." + +"Miss Mary Pepper?" I repeated: "then she is a young lady?" + +"No--not young: indeed, she is rather elderly." + +"An old maid," I remarked, coldly. "She is pretty and sweet, though faded, +I suppose." + +"Why, no--not to look at: her nature is beautiful, but her manner and +figure are rather--rather unprepossessing at first." + +"A stiff, hard, straight-laced old maid," I said, contemptuously. "Well, +really, I cannot see the fascination--" + +Bessie's face flushed painfully: "I confess that dear Miss Pepper's person +is not so beautiful as her nature, but, Winnie, it is the cause of doing +good and trying to be good that draws us together so closely; and of +course I do not love her as I love you, my dear, precious first friend." + +These last words were full of balm, for of course it was the sting of +jealousy that had made my heart resent the venerable Pepper's powerful +influence over my dear Bessie. Being once assured that it was a +second-rate power, and that I still held my supremacy, I entered into the +Sunday-school question like a second Raikes, and volunteered to help, and +try to learn the way to the young hearts that beat under the pugilistic +exterior of the juveniles of Canon lane, where the mission chapel was. + +Then, having become one on this serious subject, we began to wonder what +Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the +verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made his +latest stumble. + +"Mrs. Tanner thinks it was something about a journey, and she is quite out +of sorts on the subject: for, as she says, the house can't be shut up +without worriment, and as to staying in it alone she really has not got +the nerve." + +"I do not think that Uncle Pennyman will interpret it that way, because he +cannot go too, as he is at present very deep in the minor prophets, and +has fallen out of humor with all the commentaries." + +"I am so glad!" said Bessie, placidly--"so glad, I mean, that we need not +go: I think every one must find his life-work at home." + +I stared a little at this, because I knew that only a few months before +Bessie Haines had wanted very much to find style and fashion abroad; but I +remembered the Sunday-school, and tried to be as serious and convinced as +I could; and to that end I talked a good deal of church interests, and the +prophecies, and _Light in Obscurity_, a new work which had utterly +confused me at the first chapter, but which I had read through to Uncle +Pennyman one warm July day when he stayed at home to keep Tom's birth-day. + +That reminds me: I have not mentioned Tom, but as he was away at college, +and Bessie never seemed to like to talk of him--I'm sure I can't see +why--it is quite natural that he slipped out of my memory. + +He was a ward of Uncle Pennyman, who called him his son, and indeed had +adopted him formally. + +How two such opposite people ever came to love each other as they did, I +never can explain. It was not a natural, commonplace affection: it was a +strong, deep, earnest love, as firm in the hearts of both as the life that +caused their throbbings. + +Tom was wild and full of frolic: if there is a graver word than gravity, +it should be used to describe Uncle Pennyman's demeanor. Tom was quick and +restless by nature, but his good sense and determination to make a niche +for himself in life, and fill it respectably, had toned down his exuberant +spirits into active energy; while Uncle Penny man's naturally slow +tendencies had become aggravated by the ponderous character of his +pursuits and tastes: all hurry was obnoxious to him, and he firmly +believed that haste was another name for sin. Yet the solemn, slow old man +loved the busy, merry young one, and neither saw any fault or failing in +the other. + +There was no earthly relationship between Thomas Gray Pennyman and me, and +yet I was always spoken of as his sister by my dear, worrying old uncle. +Tom did not seem to like it, and I knew I did not. + +People often said to me, "What a splendid brother you have, Miss Pennyman +but what a pity that all these handsome brothers have to be given up to +stronger ties!" + +How utterly silly! I never had any patience with such nonsense. + +There was not much comfort in talking to Bessie about him. I'm sure I do +not know why, but I suppose she saw that I avoided the subject; so I was +really quite surprised when she said to me, laughing and looking a little +mischievous-- + +"Mr. Tom is to join us by and by, your uncle says. I hope we may be able +to make it pleasant for him. I believe he likes Mrs. Tanner: he used to +like her buns when he was a boy, and I hope he has not forgotten the +fancy." + +Tom coming to visit the Haines! Such a thing had never happened before, +and must mean something now. I began to feel quite uneasy, though I really +could not have explained why. + +We never had much of my uncle's or Mr. Haines' society except in the +evening: they spent the day going about together and worrying texts of +Scripture with other good old men, before whom Mr. Haines liked to show +off uncle's Bible knowledge. They took some pious excursions in company, +and had a solemnly festive time, I have no doubt, for they always came in +looking perfectly satisfied with the result of their day. + +It generally took some time to hear the dream and find its proper +interpretation. While it was pending the expounder generally gave out his +puzzling verses, and then both pondered a good while before they arrived +at their conclusions and made them known. + +Both the dream and the text must have been of an unusually difficult +nature this time, for a whole week went by without either transpiring; and +although Bessie and I watched for some allusions to them in our morning +and evening family worship, at which the two good men officiated +alternately, yet not a hint could we gain until one night at the end of +the week it seemed from Uncle Pennyman's prayer that the matter in some +wise referred to Bessie, since Divine guidance was sought under many +rhetorical forms for the welfare, future and temporal, of "the young +handmaiden, the daughter of thy servant, who would fain know thy will +concerning her." + +"Bessie," said I that night, when we got up stairs, "I think I have found +out what your father's last dream was: I solemnly believe that he means to +send you out as a missionary." + +Now I thought I had said something calculated to make Bessie turn pale and +gasp, but I could scarcely believe it when I looked up, expecting to find +her almost fainting, and saw her pensively, but by no means alarmedly, +shaking her head. + +"I am not devoted enough, Winnie, love," she remarked. "I have not the +grand self-abnegating spirit necessary for such a work. No; mine is a home +field." + +If I had not known about the young warriors of Canon lane, I should have +thought her demented: as it was, I could scarcely wait for the next day, +which was Sunday, to be introduced to the scene which had already produced +such a marked change in her character and tastes. + +It transpired during breakfast that Uncle Pennyman's peace had been +disturbed by a verse in the book of Nahum, that talked about the lions and +lionesses, and their whelps and prey, in what appeared to him a mysterious +manner. Mr. Haines, who was a dear, good man, elaborated it so that we all +felt as if we had made a visit to the Zoological Gardens, and afterward +been carried into Babylonish captivity. My uncle followed his words with a +brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed and +long-syllabled, he would exclaim softly, + +"It is a great gift! a great gift!" and seem really overcome with the +magnitude of his friend's powers. + +I never saw any harm in Uncle Pennyman's texts: they never worried any one +but himself; though I must confess that verse about Ephraim being a cake +not turned affected us a little. But that was because he had the ague, and +Mr. Haines was attending some kind of convention; and what with the +chills, and that unexplained cake of Ephraim's, we were kept a little +uncomfortable for a time. + +But Mr. Haines' visions were perplexing: no one could tell where their +signification might point; and this sending for Tom (of course he would +never have thought of coming if he had not been sent for) made me quite +uneasy. + +I began to fear that this would be the first time I had ever gone to see +Bessie without enjoying the visit; and as we walked along to Canon Lane +Chapel together, her manner was so absent and fluttered that I really did +not know what to do. + +"It is a delightful and meritorious thing to be pious, no doubt," I said +to myself, "but it has not improved the manner of my dear Bessie: on the +contrary, I should say it has entirely shaken her nerves, and given her +palpitation of the heart." + +When we reached the chapel we found quite a number and variety of youths +already collected around the door, and when we went into a large and airy +room, well lighted and filled with seats, a goodly selection awaited us +there. + +A lady stood on a small platform with a bell in her hand: she had a large, +bony figure, and a long, bony face, and turned her eyes toward us without +changing their expression into any beam of recognition, as she used her +voice without any softening tone or tender cadence whatever: + +"Miss Haines, good-afternoon. Mary Bryan, where's your brother? John Mott, +you have dropped your tract. Miss Pennyman, glad to see you. Sarah Harper, +give your sister a seat." + +Bessie had pushed me on her attention between the monotonous sentences she +jerked out at her scholars, and she gave me five words just like the rest, +and dropped me off again. + +Bessie seemed to become calmer after she had looked around the room once +in a hasty, fluttered way, and placing a chair for me, she threw herself +energetically into her philanthropic work. + +I never knew before what a serious thing it was to be a Sunday-school +teacher, or how varied the requirements for such duty were. Thirst seemed +to be a prevailing agony among the scholars, and it seized its victims as +an epidemic does--without warning. They would just reach their seats and +drop into them listlessly, or gain them by energetic contest with some +previous intruder, and after an empty stare around them would be taken +with a sudden pang, expressed in writhing, shaking the right hand wildly +and gasping, "Teacher, I want a drink! I want a drink!" + +Then they were subject to a terrible vacillation on the subject of their +hats: they would almost consign them to the care of a monitor appointed to +hang them on the pegs made and provided, when a sense of their +preciousness would suddenly present itself to their minds, and they would +rescue them wildly, and throw themselves on the defensive while they sat +upon or otherwise protected the contested article of dress. + +There were six windows with broad sills in the room, and every child +seemed beset with a passionate desire to leave its seat and lodge itself +in a surreptitious manner on one of these perches, as if they had been +posts of honor. + +Whether bits of bright tin, glass bottle-stoppers, ends of twine, broken +sticks and marbles were accessions to biblical instruction, or were only +so considered by the pupils themselves, did not transpire, but poor Bessie +seemed to find them stumbling-blocks in her path, and Miss Pepper had no +sooner confiscated one lot than another appeared in circulation and broke +the story of Joseph's coat into a parenthetical narrative: + +"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental +regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he +prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John +Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The +bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and, +Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and +bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in +Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will +leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the +bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little +conscious (Dicky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and +prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another +drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!" + +Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do +good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with +children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was +a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious +firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the +minds of little ones. + +I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I +saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice, +interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved +boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to +thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin, +wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set, +hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss +Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with +words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and +inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a +moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her +words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the +thin and the square face. + +"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the +injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed-- + +"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at +me." + +Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of +Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced +to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly +grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a +new feature was added to the scene. + +I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear +girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and +made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and +good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his +appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He +gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt +anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown +away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh +dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's +self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry +purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper +like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every +single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which +individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul +addressed. + +He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a +little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the +machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there +with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be +helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little +at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite +self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and +more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he +planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with +personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have +better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have +liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a +strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the +attraction irresistible. + +I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he +closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I +saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was +being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as +pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted +hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted +to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom +Bessie had the good sense to appreciate. + +The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my +prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was +the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, +she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and +taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school +to his church duties in a different quarter. + +"Bessie, does your father know--?" I began as we went homeward together. + +She interrupted me: "About Miss Pepper? Oh yes, indeed! She called to ask +his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice +since. + +"You know I don't mean her at all," I said, laughing. "I mean her nephew, +Bessie Haines." + +But Bessie faltered: she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was +evident they had not spoken so to each other yet. She knew she loved and +was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it +was yet unavowed between them. + +"All I am afraid of, Bess," said I, determined to make her practical, for +she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all +their days--"all I am afraid of is, that your father's vision may threaten +your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why +should uncle keep praying for you as a 'young damsel,' and 'handmaiden,' +and 'female pilgrim,' and all that?" + +Bessie seemed troubled, but she could not be brought to confidence until +the minister had opened his heart to her. I saw that, and though I had +never had a warning dream in my life, I felt it was my mission to help +her. + +The Rev. Charles and I had had a little, a very little, talk, but I saw +that Bessie had named me to him--that pleased me; that he was very +desirous of gaining my good-will--that pleased me too. So I had happened +to say that I admired church architecture, particularly Gothic: some one +had said that his church belonged to that style, and he immediately, +offered to take us to examine it. I asked him to call for us next day, and +he delightedly promised that he would. + +I told Bessie, and the ungrateful creature was alarmed and nervous, and +gave way to all sorts of nonsense; but I consoled her and admired him in a +way that seemed to give her satisfaction. The next morning I made a +startling discovery. I went into the little bookroom that opened out of +the great old-fashioned back parlor, where uncle and Mr. Haines sat every +morning with Scott and Clarke and Cruden open before them: I went in very +quietly, and didn't make much noise when there. Mr. Haines was talking in +a slow, set way, and I could hear the scratching of a pen over stiff +paper. + +"Would you mention my reasons for recording this, my dear Daniel?" he said +to Uncle Pennyman. + +"I have set them down at the commencement," said my uncle, who was acting +as scribe. "I have said that, your mind being clear and your feelings at +ease, you retired to your couch on the night of the 28th of October; that +the form of your dear wife seemed waiting for you, since you became +conscious of her presence immediately after your sinking asleep; and so +on." + +"Yes," said Mr. Haines, witty a deep sigh: "it is a great thing, no doubt, +to be so guided in the visions of the night, and I have many times +considered myself greatly favored by the knowledge of the ministry of my +dear wife's blessed spirit; but, friend Daniel, if she had been a little +more explicit in this instance it would have been a great comfort to me. +Follow me now, friend Daniel. You have got it down to where she spoke. +Well, she raised her hand and seemed to point to the couch of Dorcas +Elizabeth" (that was what Bess had been baptized, and was called by her +father on solemn occasions)--"my thoughts had been dwelling on the child, +and her increasing age and future duties--and she said, 'Marry her wisely +to Thomas,' and repeated the words three times." + +I heard the scratching pen and Mr. Haines' depressed, uncertain sigh, and +my own heart sank heavily. There was no Thomas to marry her to but our +Tom, and such a thing was simply preposterous and wicked. I could not, I +would not, bear even to think of it. + +Oh, good Mrs. Haines, departed so long ago! why should you come back +troubling us about such, things? and, above all, why could you not as well +have said Charles as Thomas? + +"I have that set down," said Uncle Pennyman. Mr. Haines sighed again in +that anxious, uncertain way of his: + +"During the first day after the visitation, Daniel, I could not recall +whether my wife's appearance said, 'To Thomas, marry her wisely,' or as we +now put it down; but since you have set it clearly before me, and your son +will so soon be here, I feel that I am justified in having it stated in +that way, and that Providence is guiding me." + +Oh how my heart rose against Uncle Pennyman as I listened! He was the one +to blame for such a shameful, foolish notion stealing into Mr. Haines' +head! Left to himself, any name would have suited him equally well, and +here was Tom's thrust in without any earthly reason. It was really +dreadful! I could scarcely stand on my feet when I remembered how Tom +loved his adopted father, and with what unselfish devotion he always spoke +of him. "If he's told that it will be a family blessing, he never will +have the heart to deny them and grieve Uncle Pennyman. Poor Tom! he is so +shockingly unselfish himself that he would rather enjoy a sacrifice than +otherwise, I suppose." So ran my thoughts, and I grew desperate. +Desperation awakens courage. Tom would be there in the evening, and if +anything could be done it had to be done at once. + +I slipped out silently as I came: no one heard me. I did not mean that +they should do so, for, to confess the truth, I was listening on purpose. +I dressed to go out with Mr. Pepper; so did Bessie, though I must say she +was very nervous and uncertain about it. "You know papa does not know him +in--in the character of a friend of mine," she said, hesitatingly. "Miss +Pepper introduced him, and that is all." + +"But that is no reason why it should be all," I said to myself, and paid +no attention to her little bashful fussiness. + +When he arrived, I saw in his eyes that he meant to take advantage of the +opportunity I was making for him, and so I boldly carried out my plan. We +started, and had gone a block or two when I discovered that they were +becoming unaware of my existence and completely absorbed in each other. +"Poor dears!" I thought, "let them have a still better chance." So I +stopped in the most natural way possible at a window where trimmings were +displayed, and began to stare at some ribbon. "The very shade!" I said: "I +would not miss it for anything. Pray go on slowly, and I'll join you +presently. Keep on till you reach the church--I know the way. And be sure +you stay till I come. No, you shall not come in: I insist that you go +right on, and do not bother. I have a sort of pride in making bargains, +and they never can be made in company, you know." I laughed and wouldn't +listen to their waiting, and managed it so well that they went away as +unsuspecting and tender as two lambs. I waited till they were out of +sight, and then I started straight for home. + +I was in high glee till Mrs. Tanner came up stairs. + +"There are great preparations making for Mr. Tom," said she with a +portentous face. "Mr. Haines has given more orders about his reception +than I ever knew him to issue before; and, what seems strange, he actually +insists on my calling him Mr. Thomas, when I never can get my tongue round +anything but Mr. Tom, in the world." + +Both seemed threatening--the preparations and the name; and when Mrs. +Tanner asked where Miss Bessie was, and heard that she had gone out, she +shook her head and said that she was afraid her pa wouldn't like it. This +convinced me that she too had guessed the nature of the vision, and made +me more than ever anxious to save poor Bessie and Tom from mutual +unhappiness. The first effort was made, and I must consider the next step. +I felt nearly sure that by this time the two dear Sunday-school workers +had become personal in their conversation, and taking up my position on +the broad sofa in the quiet, shady back parlor, I set myself to thinking +out the plan. It was a great, solidly-furnished old room, staid and +handsome like the rest of the house, and meant for comfort in every +particular. Over the mantelpiece, and directly opposite to me, was a +life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of +expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a +baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her +daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so +dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the +family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while +there was a living opportunity. + +I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman +without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the +circumstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to +have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time +to question the feeling until I was sound asleep. + +A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate, +for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my +presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed +shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly +under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and, +although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his +heart. + +"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie +too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is +selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid." + +He told her I was too good, too lovable to quarrel with their bliss, and +held her to his heart while he looked up to the flaxed-haired, baby-faced +mother for a blessing with quite a glow of feeling on his face and real +tears in his eyes. + +There was something in mine I suppose, for when I looked too I could +scarcely believe them: the portrait seemed to show a different face +entirely. The blue eyes bent down on those upturned to meet them with a +look I had never beheld in them before, and the delicate little pink mouth +seemed to tremble with a blessing. + +"Am I dreaming?" I almost asked it aloud, and the question and the sound +of Uncle Pennyman's voice in the book-room gave me a new idea. Softly I +slipped from my place and out at the open door, leaving the absorbed ones +to themselves, and joined my uncle and Mr. Haines where they were +preparing for another conflict with the commentators. + +"I have had a dream," I said solemnly. + +"A dream!" repeated they. + +"Yes, and it was so lifelike that I must tell it to you, for I am +convinced it is no common warning, but one full of meaning and truth." + +They gazed at me blankly, and I went on, fearing to stop an instant lest I +should lose my courage: + +"I was lying on the sofa opposite Mrs. Haines' portrait--" + +"The very place where I lay when last I dreamed," murmured her husband. + +"And I saw Bessie and a gentleman hand in hand beneath it, looking up into +the sweet face for a blessing; and oh such a heavenly smile lighted it +while the beautiful lips seemed to murmur, 'She will marry wisely, dear +Thomas!'" + +Mr. Haines was so shaken by my words that my heart misgave me. He covered +his face with his hands. "She used to call me dear Thomas," he said, and +the tears ran through his fingers. + +"Then the name was _yours_" said Uncle Pennyman with weighty +consideration. "You remember I said it was capable of a double +application: those things are wonderful, and interpret each other. Winnie, +my dear girl, could you distinguish this person's face?" + +Before I could answer, Mrs. Tanner at the door said, "Here's Mr. Tom, +bless his heart! I never can learn to call him anything else." + +Tom was _so_ glad to see me! Yes, I may as well tell it, for it told +itself: dear Tom never seemed so glad before. + +"Was it his face, Winnie?" whispered Mr. Haines. + +If ever _No_ was said with energy and decision, it was in my reply. The +parlor door opened just as we were about to go in all together, shaking +hands and making kind speeches over Tom, and Bessie and the Rev. Charles +appeared in the act of taking leave of each other. + +"That's the face!" I cried dramatically; and then I really and truly did +faint--stone dead, as Mrs. Tanner said afterward--for I was not used to +telling lies, and even white ones were exciting things to tell, and +scarcely justified themselves to my conscience by the magnitude of the +good they were to do. + +When I came to myself, Bessie was hanging over me with all the love she +had left from Mr. Charles, I suppose; and I heard Mr. Haines and Uncle +Pennyman talking with Tom, and trying to explain to him the remarkable +nature of the vision that had overcome me. I sat up, and tried to laugh +and declare that it was nothing at all, though my heart kept throbbing. + +"You have all had dreams," said Tom: "you have yet to hear mine. Uncle, I +dreamed that Winnie and I loved each other, and that I asked you for her +and you said yes." + +"No, Thomas," said Uncle Pennyman gravely, but with a kind of breaking +about his mouth: "your eyes were open when you had that vision, and you +must not jest with serious subjects. But it is well you mentioned it, dear +boy, and it is well our child Winnie received such a remarkable direction, +since it throws light on friend Haines' visitation, and apparently the +happiness of that excellent young minister and our dear Bessie here." + +"The young man has just expressed himself in corroboration of the vision," +said Mr. Haines, much affected. + +Bessie threw her arms round her father, then round me, and then she ran +away. Mr. Haines and Uncle Pennyman went out to their commentaries, Mrs. +Tanner to see to her buns: Tom and I were alone. + +"What is this about, Winnie darling?" he said. + +"Tom," said I, "we are all the victims of dreams." + +MARGARET HOSMER. + + + + +The Cold Hand. + + + +There is a rocky hill in what was till recently the town of Dorchester, +looking out over Boston Bay. It takes its name from the stiff black savins +with which it is covered, and which contrive to find nourishment and +support in the rock to which they cling. Some of these trees show their +great age by their gnarled and knotted trunks and boughs. Black and +impassive they stand, alike in the brightest summer or the grayest winter, +sighing restlessly in the breeze, but wailing piteously when the sea-winds +sweep over the hill. Partway up the little rocky eminence stands an old +house, now fast falling to pieces. It is a low building, with a gambrel +roof and a huge chimney. It has stood there many years, for it was built +not long after the Revolution, and it might have stood many years more had +it not been suffered to go to decay with a carelessness which seemed to +belie the general thrift of the town. + +Wandering over the hill one bright winter day, with no companion but a +large dog, I stopped to look in at the window of the old house. The glass +was gone from the sash, and the sash itself was broken in many places; but +the obscurity was so deep within that I obtained only a partial glimpse of +an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I +felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its +forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where +the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of +everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect +it offers to few of the natives. The front door was locked, but I obtained +an entrance without difficulty at the back, and made my way through a +little shed, which was evidently of more modern construction than the main +part of the building. I came first into the kitchen, where was a large +fireplace blackened with the smoke of long-dead fires, and a narrow, high +mantelpiece. A little cupboard was let into the side of the great chimney, +which projected far across the floor. The room was long and narrow, +running the whole length of the house, with a window at each end. The +blackened plaster was dropping from the walls and ceiling, exposing in +some places the heavy beams, and the floor was dark and discolored with +age and dust, although quite firm to the tread. By a low door I passed +into a small room lighted by two windows--one in front, the other at the +end of the house, and presenting the same appearance of desolate decay. +There were four doors in this room--the one through which I had just +entered, another leading to the rooms above, a third, secured by a bolt, +which I did not then open, and a fourth leading into a narrow passage, in +which was the locked front door. I crossed this passage, and found myself +in a room of the same size as the one I had just left. It was that into +which I had attempted to look from the outside. Here I missed the dog, who +had hitherto followed me, though with seeming reluctance, and no +persuasion could induce him to cross the threshold. This room was in +rather better repair than were the other two. There was the same high +mantelpiece, rather less narrow, and the same little cupboard let into the +massive chimney. The floor was less discolored, but there was a deep burnt +spot on it near the fireplace, as if some one had dropped a shovelful of +hot coals, or rather as if some corrosive fluid had been spilled. I +remained here a few moments, idly wondering what might have been the +history of the former tenants, and what could have induced any one to +build a house in a spot so bleak and exposed, where scarcely a pretence of +soil offered itself for a garden. As I stood there, a singular impression +came upon me that I was not alone. For a moment, and a moment only, I +became conscious of another presence in the room. The impression passed as +suddenly as it had come, but, transient as it was, it awoke me from my +reverie. Smiling at myself for the fancy, I recrossed the passage and +ascended the steep, narrow winding stairs to the chambers above. There +were four small rooms, opening one into the other, with a closet +partitioned off in each, and so low that in the highest part a tall man +could but just have stood upright. Here the ruin was farther advanced. The +floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the +ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining +portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through +the roof. The place had a lonesome, forlorn look, even more than usually +belongs to a deserted house, though such might not have been its aspect to +other than my unaccustomed Western eyes. + +Turning, I made my way down the short staircase, and was about to leave +the house when the third door, as yet unopened, caught my eye. I drew with +some difficulty the rusted bolt, and found myself at the head of a steep +flight of stairs, seemingly longer than that which I had just descended. +It led to the cellar, and though the afternoon was getting on, I thought I +would finish my exploration, and therefore went down, though repelled by +the close and peculiarly damp air. The cellar was blasted and hewn in the +solid rock to a depth which, considering the extreme hardness of the +stone, seemed remarkable in a house so unpretending. A dim light made its +way through a narrow window at each end and fell upon the stone floor. I +walked forward, looking up at the windows, but I had not taken ten steps +before I recoiled with a start. At my feet lay a pit, seemingly of +considerable depth, and filled with water to within four feet of the top. +The cellar did not lie under the kitchen, but only under the two front +rooms and the passage, and this pit occupied the whole length and fully +half the breadth of the space of the rooms above, and, what was more +peculiar, seemed to extend even farther forward than the house itself. +Another step, and I should have fallen into it. Curious to try its depth, +I picked up a little fragment of stone and dropped it in. As the stone +touched the water, and the circles on the sullen surface began to widen, a +current of air rushed down the stairs, and the door above shut violently. +At that moment the impression which I had experienced in the room above +came back upon me with tenfold distinctness, and was accompanied with a +feeling of exceeding horror. It seemed as if there was closing around me +some evil influence, from which I could only escape by instant flight. For +one moment I resisted the unreasonable terror, and made an attempt to +explain, or at least analyze, a sensation so unwonted: the next, the +loathing dread grew too strong. I turned and hurried across the damp +floor, up the narrow stairs, and, opening the door, made my way as quickly +as possible into the outside air. The dog was waiting for me in the little +shed, and seemed delighted at seeing me again. I closed the door, ashamed +of my senseless fright, but nevertheless I was thankful that I had found +no trouble in getting out. I am not quite prepared to say, however, that +these sudden and apparently unreasonable starts are independent of +external causes. The Vermont-bred horse will be thrown into an agony of +fright when the closed cage of a lion passes by, though he has never +learned by experience that lions will kill horses, and though the lion +himself is unseen. + +I walked briskly home. I had some distance to go, and had quite lost the +impression of my ghostly terror when I reached the house where I was +staying, a modern shingle Gothic erection, which in vain endeavored to +disguise its barny appearance with sundry wooden adornments modeled after +crochet-work. + +"Freda," said I to my friend after tea, when she and I were sitting +comfortably by the fire in the library, "do you know anything about the +old yellow-gray house up on the hill?" + +"Why, what of it?" + +"Nothing, only I went into it to-day. What is its history?" + +"Nothing particular. It was built for a Doctor Haywood. Have you read +Alp's last essay on the Semi-occasional?" + +"Yes, and great stuff it is." + +Freda looked inexpressibly shocked. I had better have condemned law and +gospel together than made light of Alp; but she put up with it, probably +considering it excusable as the utterance of a savage from the wilds of +New York. + +"Never mind him now. He shall proclaim his figs in the name of the Prophet +for all time if you will tell me about the old house. I know it has a +story." + +She rose and took from the drawer an old manuscript volume, which she +placed in my hands. It was a little note-book, in which the entries were +made not from day to day, but at irregular intervals, in a singularly +clear, precise hand: + +"_Nov._ 3, 1784. This day my neighbor Ball's cow, getting out of the +pasture and running on the highway, was put in the pound. Took her out, +and cautioned my neighbor to have more care of the creature. _Mem.:_ To +bespeak a pair of shoes for her eldest girl. + +"_Jan._ 1, 1785. This day the wind very high. + +"_Jan._ 10. Neighbor Ball's cow, getting among my wife's rosebushes, did +do some damage, whereat she was much vexed. Caught the said cow, and +begged my neighbor to keep her at home, which she promised to do, but in +an hour back again. However, she is a widow. + +"_Jan._ 13. Doctor Haywood, newly come to this place from the old country, +has taken lodging with Neighbor Ball. Said to be a learned man--has much +baggage, and they say some curious machines. Is curious about plants and +the like. Neighbor Ball did hint to my wife that he knew about matters +better let alone, whereat my wife did tell her that she wished he would +give her a charm to keep her cow out of our yard. + +"_Jan._ 15. Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the hill, and is to build upon +it. Has spoken to me about it. Have drawn the plan, and shall make the +estimate. + +"_Feb._ 1. Doctor Haywood hurries on the work--says he is in haste to get +into his own house. Saw Indian Will to-day, quite drunk. With much trouble +got him to our house, where my wife did let him lie in the kitchen all +night. Had she not done so, the poor man might have frozen to death before +morning, for it was a very cold night. Argued with him in the morning, +whereat he promised amendment. + +"_Feb._ 10. My daughter Faithful this day, with my consent, promised +herself to John Clark, skipper of the Federalist schooner. + +"_Feb._ 18. Blasting out the cellar for Haywood's house. He wants it more +than common deep--says it makes the house warm. + +"_Feb._ 21. Came this day upon a great hollow in the rock filled with +water, which ran in as soon as pumped but. The doctor much displeased at +first--talked of beginning over again, but finally contented himself. + +"_June_ 3. Doctor Haywood moved into his house this day. Has much curious +stuff. The minister says he is a chemist. + +"_June_ 8. Went up to the doctor's house to settle with him. He came to +the door and said he was too busy then, but would drop round soon. They +say he lets no one inside the place since he moved. Has taken a pew in the +meeting-house, and comes once of a Sabbath. + +"_July_ 22. Doctor Haywood and me did settle accounts. He beat everything +down to the last penny--offered to pay part in attendance on my family if +sick. Did not care to settle that way, knowing his charges. Charged James +Sumner five dollars for one visit to his child, which child, nevertheless, +he did greatly help. + +"_August_ 18. News came this day that the Federalist went down in the gale +of the tenth, off Marblehead, with all on board. A sore affliction to my +daughter Faithful. The Lord's will be done! + +"_August_ 26. Neighbor Ball's eldest girl gets lower. Doctor Cray does no +good. She would call in Doctor Haywood if she dared, but his charges are +so high. James Sumner and me did consult together and agree to take the +charges between us. I have heard say that he has helped several poor +people free: did especially help Indian Will when he lay like to die of +pleurisy at Neponset Village. + +"_Sept._ 1. Neighbor Ball, going up the hill last night to call Doctor +Haywood to her daughter Hepsey, did tell my wife that she had a look into +the south room as he opened the door, and that there were queer things +there, such as a brick furnace, all red with fire; and she did say, too, +that she saw things like snakes, only thin like mist, twisting about in +the air by the firelight, which I do hold to be her own invention or mere +foolish notions. + +"_Sept._ 2. Doctor Haywood has helped Hepsey Ball some considerable, +though he says he cannot cure her, for she has consumption. + +"_Sept._ 16. Doctor Haywood told James Sumner and me that he would ask +nothing for attending Hepsey Ball, but would keep on to ease her what he +could as long as she lived. He told my wife she might last a year. + +"_Nov._ 3. Jonathan Phelps told me that Doctor Haywood had borrowed one +hundred dollars of him, giving security on the house and lot. + +"_Nov._ 8. James Sumner this day, his wife being dead a year, did ask my +daughter Sophonisba to marry him, the which she did refuse, and snapped +him off too short. Then he spoke to Faithful, and she burst out crying and +ran up stairs, and could by no means be got to listen. Recommended James +to Hannah Gardner. + +"_Nov._ 16. Doctor Hay wood this day borrowed fifty dollars of me. If he +had not been so considerate to Widow Ball should not have felt like +letting it go. + +"_Dec._ 16. Coming home from Boston last night, overtook Indian Will. He +showed me a big iron tobacco-box nearly full of money--silver, with two +gold-pieces, one a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. He got +it for a lot of deer-skins in Boston. Begged him not to drink it all up, +which he said he would not do, but would give it to his squaw. Did ask him +to come home with me, which he refused, as he meant to go on to Neponset +Village. + +"_Dec._ 17. The wind blowing these two days to the land made it very high +water, coming nearly up to Governor Stoughton's elm, and covering the +road. + +"_Dec._ 18. A great gale last night--much damage at sea, doubtless. The +water very high. + +"_Dec._ 19. Two men out in a boat found an old hat and blanket floating by +the Point, said to belong to Indian Will: no one has seen him since the +16th. Likely he went to the tavern and got drunk, so missed his way and +was drowned by the tide. + +"_Dec._ 20, Last night Indian Will's body came ashore, much beaten by the +rocks, but known to be his by those who knew him. The verdict was, +'Drowned by the tide.' + +"_Feb._ 11, 1786. Doctor Haywood spent the evening at our house. He has +been more social of late, going a good deal among people, especially poor +people, to help them. Has never paid me the fifty dollars, but makes +promises. I was led on to speak of Indian Will. The doctor said the night +of the 16th he thought he heard some one cry out, but thought it some +drunken person, and besides was busy with his studies, and so did not +mind. My wife asked him what he studied. He said a good many different +matters, but that he had given it all up now, and meant to practice. +Shortly after jumped up and went away very sudden." + +Here the journal came to an abrupt end. The rest of the book was filled +with accounts relating to the business of a milliner and dressmaker. +Slipped in between its leaves were two letters, written in a cramped, +scratchy hand and rather irregular in spelling. They were directed to +Sophonisba T----, Salem, Massachusetts, and seemed to be from a mother to +her daughter: + + "DORCHESTER, May 1, 1786. + + "My Dear Child: I take my pen in hand to let you knew that we are all in + good health, and hope you are enjoying the same blessing. James Sumner + is married to Hannah Gardner. Most people think she will have her hands + full with his children. Parson H---- married them. She wore a blue silk + at two dollars the yard. Hepsey Ball is dead. She departed this life on + the 29th of April, at half-past eight in the evening, being quite + resigned and in good hope of her election to grace. She had not much + pain at the last. Doctor Haywood called to see her in the morning, and + she being then, as we thought, asleep, did start up and cry out that + there was a black shadow, not his own, always following after him, which + made me think her light-headed; but her mother says the doctor turned as + pale as a sheet, and made as if to go off again. Your sister Faithful is + at Mr. Trueman's, helping to make up Lorenda's wedding-clothes. I would + not have had her go, but she seemed willing to undertake it. Your loving + mother, ANNA T----." + +The second was also addressed to Sophonisba, who on the 3d of June was yet +visiting friends in Salem. After a few details of domestic news, it went +on: + + "Doctor Haywood is missing: no one knows where he is gone. He has been + looked for in Boston, but they have found no news of him; only that a + little black boy says he saw a man like him go on board a ship bound for + the East Indies. Now he is gone, they find he owes money to a great many + besides your father. He owes to people in Boston for drugs and + medicines--some, it is said, very costly, and sent for express to the + old country. Mr. Sewell, the bookseller there, says he tried to dispose + of his books to him; and when he did not buy them, thinks he sent them + to the old country. He owes every one he could get to trust him. It is + odd what he did with all the money. It is thought Jonathan Phelps will + get the house. They went up to it and found the door unlocked. They + found nothing in the house but the furniture, and that very common and + cheap. There were none of all those things they said he had; only in the + south room a lot of bottles and jars, and a brick place built up with a + vent outside, which Parson H---- says is a furnace such as folks use + that study chemistry. There was a great heap of ashes in the fireplace, + as if he had burned papers or books there, and a great burned spot on + the floor right before it." + +"Who was the writer of these?" I asked as I refolded the little old +letter, "and what became of Doctor Haywood? Was nothing more heard?" + +In answer to these questions my friend gave the following narration. + +The writer of the journal was my great uncle, Silas T----. Sophonisba and +Faithful were my mother's cousins. Both were much older than she, but I +have often seen Faithful when I was a girl, and I had all the story there +is from herself. The little house on the hill fell into the hands of the +chief creditor, who took down the furnace in the south room and offered +the place to rent, but no tenant ever remained there long, either because +of the bleak situation or the want of a garden. There were rumors that the +place was not quite canny. One woman, indeed, went so far as to declare +that she had seen the doctor's figure, dim and unsubstantial, standing +before the fireplace in the twilight, and that once, as she came up the +cellar stairs, something followed her and laid a cold hand on her +shoulder; but as she was a nervous, hysterical person, and moreover was +known to be somewhat given to exaggeration, no one paid much attention to +her tale. + +It was certain, however, that there was a great deal of sickness in the +house. One family who rented the place lost three children by fever in one +summer, and it was remarkable that all three seemed to fall under the same +delusion, and insisted that something or some one, coming behind them, +laid upon their shoulders a cold hand. One of them, toward the last, said +that a shadow kept moving to and fro in the room, and kept the sunshine +all away. The woman who had seen the vision of the old doctor became a +widow the next month, and so much sickness and death took place in the +house that at last no one would live there, and it was shut up by its +owner. + +In due course of time the father and mother of Sophonisba and Faithful +were laid in Dorchester burial-ground. Mr. T---- had never been a rich man +by any means, and when he died there was little left for the two girls, +even after the sale of the homestead. They did not, however, consider +themselves poor, but with their fifteen hundred dollars in the bank and +their trade of milliner and dressmaker thought themselves very well to do +in the world. Sophonisba, the elder, was at that time a little under +fifty--an energetic, hard-working woman, with a constitution of wrought +iron and bend leather, and no more under the influence of what are called +"nerves" than if they had been left out of her system entirely. If ever a +woman was born into this world an old maid, it was Sophonisba T----. Her +fine name was the only romantic thing about her. She had had more than one +offer of marriage in her day, but she had no talent for matrimony, and had +turned such a very cold shoulder on her admirers that the swains became +dispirited, and betook themselves to the courtship of more impressible +damsels. There was no hidden romance or tale of unreturned affection in +Miss Sophonisba's experience. The simple fact was, she had never wished to +be married. Miss Faithful was five years her sister's junior. She had +never found room in her heart for a second love since John Clark went down +in the Federalist. She had been a young and pretty girl then, and now she +was a thin, silent, rather nervous little body, depending entirely upon +her sister with a helpless kind of affection that was returned on Miss +Sophonisba's part by a devotion which might almost be called passionate. + +"I tell you what it is, Faithful," said Miss Sophonisba one evening, as +they sat over their tea, "if they raise the rent on us here, I won't +stay." + +The sisters had lived in the house ever since the death of their mother, +five years before. Their business had prospered, and they were +conveniently situated, but, for all that, Miss Sophonisba had no mind to +pay additional rent. + +"No?" said Faithful, inquiringly. + +"That I won't! We pay all it's worth now, and more too. It ain't the extra +four shillings," said Miss Sophonisba, rubbing her spectacles in +irritation, "but I do hate to be imposed upon." + +"It will be some trouble to find a new place," suggested Miss Faithful +meekly, "and we can afford it, I suppose." + +"I don't care if we can afford it a dozen times over," said her sister, +with increased decision. "I won't be imposed upon. If I've got either to +drive or be driven, I'd rather drive." + +"Of course," said Miss Faithful, who had never driven any living creature +in the whole course of her life. + +"I saw Peter Phelps to-day," said Miss Sophonisba, "and he says he'll let +us have the old house up on the hill for anything we like to give." + +Miss Faithful gave a little start: "Would you like to live there, +Sophonisba?" + +"Why, it's a good convenient situation, and plenty big enough for you and +me and the cat." + +"But you know," said Miss Faithful, timidly, "they have told such queer +stories about it." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "You don't +believe them, I hope?" + +"No," hesitated her sister, "but then one remembers them, you know. Widow +Eldridge always said she saw old Doctor Haywood there." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba again. "You know perfectly well +you couldn't trust a word she said about anything." + +"Oh, Sophonisba, she's dead!" said Miss Faithful, shocked. + +"I can't help that, child. It don't hinder her having told fibs all her +lifetime." + +"Her husband died the next month." + +"Well, so he might anywhere. My wonder is he lived as long as he did, +considering." + +"And Mrs. Jones's three children died there." + +"Well, and didn't Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and +I never heard their place was haunted; and didn't two die out of the +Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town? It was a dreadful +sickly summer." + +"And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever." + +"Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything. Doctor Brown told me +himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and +there ain't anything so bad as that." + +The last vestige of a ghost was demolished: Miss Faithful had nothing more +to say. + +"It's nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off," said Miss +Sophonisba. "It ain't very probable he's alive now; and if he is, he won't +be very apt to come back: and if he is dead, he certainly won't. If he +did, I'd like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars. I +saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he'll fix the place all up for us if +we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd +spoken to you." + +"Just as you please, Sophonisba," said Miss Faithful. + +"He says he'll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and +let his man dig it up for us. I went up and looked at the house. It ain't +so much out of repair as you'd think." + +"Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?" asked Miss Faithful with some +interest. + +"Yes, I saw it--a great blackened place. Most likely he spilled some of +his chemical stuff on it." + +Miss Sophonisba was not, as she expressed herself, one to let the grass +grow under her feet. She concluded the bargain for the house next day, and +informed their landlord--who, by the by, was a son of their old neighbor, +Widow Ball--of their intention to move. That gentleman was not at all +pleased at the idea of losing his tenants. In vain he offered to recede +from the obnoxious demand of four shillings more. Miss Sophonisba told him +that she had made up her mind, and that _she_ wasn't in the habit of going +back from her bargains when she had given her word, whatever other people +might be. + +"Well, Miss T----," said Mr. Ball, "I hope you won't repent. They've said +queer things about that house ever since the old doctor went off so +mysterious. Some folks said he drowned himself in that place in the +cellar." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "The old doctor never hurt any +one when he was alive, except by borrowing money of them, and it ain't +likely he'll want to do that now that he's dead; and if he did, I +shouldn't let him have it." + +"Well, my mother was in the house when Miss Eldridge came running up the +stairs as pale as a sheet, and said he came behind her and caught hold of +her shoulder." + +"Joanna Eldridge was always a poor, miserable, shiftless, narvy thing," +said Miss Sophonisba, "and half the time you couldn't believe a word she +said." + +"Well she was a connexion of our'n, Miss T----, and I always thought there +was something in it. Narves won't account for everything." + +"Well, I never trusted her a bit more for that," said Miss Sophonisba. "I +know one time she told mother a long story about how you sent in a bill +for shoes to Widow Sumner that James had paid you before he died, and she +said you'd have made her a deal of trouble if she hadn't ha' found the +receipt. A good many folks talked about it, but I always said it was just +one of Joanna's stories." + +Mr. Ball was put down, and took his leave. + +As soon as the necessary repairs were finished the sisters moved into the +house, and during that summer found reason to congratulate themselves on +their change of abode. The high, airy situation was very pleasant in warm +weather, and the view over the waters of the bay across to Boston and far +out to sea, with the coming and departing ships, afforded much pleasure +and a subject of conversation to the sisters. Their little garden on the +flat throve well, and was a source of never-ending interest. They had been +troubled by no ghostly visitations. Miss Sophonisba had indeed once heard +a mysterious noise in the cellar, but on going down stairs she found that +the cat had jumped on the hanging shelf and was helping herself out of the +milk-pan. + +The sisters were sitting one day toward the end of November--I think it +was the twenty-fifth--in the north room, which they had made their +work-room. The south room, according to the custom of our ancestors, still +religiously preserved among us, was shut up "for company." The kitchen +served them also for dining-room, and the largest room up stairs was their +bed-chamber. Miss Sophonisba was trimming a bonnet, a task for which she +had an especial gift. Ladies came to her even from Boston, saying that her +work had an air and style quite its own, while her charges were not nearly +so high as those of the more fashionable milliners in the city. Faithful +was altering a dress of her own. Both were much engaged with their work, +and neither had spoken for some time. Suddenly, Faithful started slightly, +and the needle dropped from her hand. + +"What's the matter?" asked her sister. + +"Nothing," said Faithful, rather confused. + +"Yes, there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "People don't jump that way for +nothing. What is it?" + +"Oh, I don't know," hesitated Miss Faithful. "I guess I pricked my +finger." + +"Umph!" said Miss Sophonisba in a very incredulous way, but she pushed her +inquiries no farther. + +As soon as her sister was silent, Miss Faithful's conscience began to +chide her for her little evasion. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and +as often checked herself, but the third time the words were uttered: "If I +tell you, Sophonisba, you will laugh at me." + +"Well, that wouldn't kill you, child." + +"No; but--well--it was only that I thought all of a sudden some one was +standing behind my chair." + +"How could you think so when there was no one there?" + +"I don't know, but it felt as if there was." + +"Nonsense, Faithful! If you didn't see any one, how did you know there was +any one? Have you got eyes in the back of your head?" + +"I didn't see it--I sort of felt so." + +"'Sort of felt so!'" said Miss Sophonisba, with good-natured contempt. "If +I was you, I'd take some catnip tea when I went to bed: you're kind of +narvy." + +Miss Faithful assented, and went on quietly with her sewing, but she +changed the seat which she had occupied, with her back to the cellar door, +for one close to her sister. + +No further disturbance occurred till the middle of December. It had been a +very windy day. The bay was tossing in long gray-green lines of waves +crested with flying foam. The black savins sighed and wailed as they bent +to the cutting blast. The wind was east, and it took a good deal of fire +to keep the old house warm, but wood was cheap in those days, and Miss +Sophonisba, though prudent and economical, was not given to what New +England expressively calls "skrimping." + +Miss Faithful, not feeling very well, had gone up stairs to bed soon after +tea. A windy day always made her uncomfortable, recalling, too vividly +perhaps, the gale in which the Federalist had gone down. Miss Sophonisba, +having some work on hand which she was anxious to finish, was sitting up +rather beyond her usual hour. Pausing for a moment in her sewing, she +heard some one walking about in the room above her to and fro, with a +regular though light step, as of bare or thinly-shod feet, on the boards. + +"Why, what can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about +barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put +down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly +lecture. To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other +living creature was in the room. It could not have been the cat this time, +for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs. Miss +Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a +repetition of the sound. + +Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly. Miss Faithful started +from her sleep with a cry of terror. "Oh, I have had such a dream!" said +she, clinging to her sister. + +"What was it?" said Miss Sophonisba, soothing and quieting her like a +child. + +"I thought I was lying in bed just as I was, when all of a sudden I knew +that Something had come in, and was going up and down, up and down the +room." + +"What was it like?" asked her sister, rather impressed in spite of +herself. + +"I couldn't see: it was all shifty and mist-like--like the shadow of smoke +on the ground--and I couldn't tell if it was like a human being or not; +but it seemed to me as if I ought to know it and what it was, and as if it +was trying to make me understand something, and couldn't, just as it is +when the cat sits and looks at you. You know the creature wants something, +if she could tell what it was." + +"She wants something out of the cupboard most generally," said Miss +Sophonisba; "but go on." + +"And finally," said Miss Faithful with a nervous shudder, "after it had +gone back and forth two or three times--and I could hear it on the floor +too, just like some one walking in their stocking-feet--it came close up +to me and seemed to bend over me, or to be all around me in the air some +way--I can't tell you how--and I was dreadfully scared, and woke up." + +"It made a noise, did it?" said Miss Sophonisba. + +"Yes; and somehow the noise made me feel as if I ought to know what it +wanted and what it was." + +"It was the wind," said Miss Sophonisba. "It got mixed up in your dreams, +I expect. How it does blow!--fit to take the roof off. There! the cellar +door has started open. That latch doesn't catch: I must go down and bolt +it." + +At that moment the cat rushed up the short staircase from the lower room, +and springing on the bed, stood with bristling tail and glaring eyes, +intently watching the door. + +"Has she got a fit?" exclaimed Miss Sophonisba; and she put out her hand +to push the cat off, but it turned to Miss Faithful, who was sitting up in +bed, and crawling under the bed-clothes, lay there trembling and mewing in +a very curious fashion. + +"Some one has got in down stairs," said Miss Faithful, turning white. "Oh, +Sophonisba, we shall all be murdered!" + +"Nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba, quite restored to herself at the thought +of actual danger. She caught up a great pair of tongs and started down +stairs, the candlestick in one hand, the tongs in the other, Miss +Faithful, who dared not stay behind, threw a shawl over her night-dress +and followed close at her sister's heels, while the cat crawled still +farther under the clothes, and refused to answer to Miss Sophonisba's +call. There was nothing unusual down stairs. The two outside doors were +locked, the fire was burning brightly, and Miss Sophonisba's work lay on +the table just as she had left it. The cellar door indeed, which latched +imperfectly, stood open. + +"Some one has come in and locked the door after them, and gone down +cellar," was Miss Faithful's whispered suggestion. + +"How could they?" said Miss Sophonisba. "We didn't hear any one; and +besides, they would have left their tracks on the floor this wet night; +but I'll go down and look. You stay here by the fire." + +But Miss Faithful preferred to follow her sister. They found nothing out +of place in the cellar, into which, if you remember, there is no outside +door. Every tub and barrel and milk-pan was in its place, and the surface +of the pit of water, which served the family as a cistern, was +undisturbed. + +"It must have been the door flying open that scared the cat," said Miss +Sophonisba, "Faithful, you're as white as a sheet. I shall just heat up +some elderberry wine and make you drink it;" which she did then and there, +and, no further disturbance taking place, the sisters went to bed. The +cat, however, whose usual place was by the kitchen fire, would not go down +stairs, and when at last turned out, she mewed so piteously and scratched +so persistently at the bed-room door that Miss Sophonisba gave way to her +and let her in to sleep all night at the foot of the bed. + +No further annoyance took place, nor was Miss Faithful troubled with a +repetition of her curious dream. The next week, however, as Miss +Sophonisba was in the kitchen making preparations for tea, she was +startled by a scream from her sister in the next room, succeeded by the +sound of a heavy fall. She hurried into the work-room. Miss Faithful lay +on the floor quite insensible. It was some time before her sister's +anxious exertions were rewarded by signs of returning animation. When at +last she opened her eyes, she burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing and +crying. + +"For gracious sake, sister!" said Miss Sophonisba, really alarmed, "what +is the matter?" + +"Oh dear! oh dear!" sobbed Miss Faithful. "It was John! I know it was +John, and I could not speak to him!" + +"What?" said Miss Sophonisba, alarmed for her sister's wits. "What was +John?" + +"It--that--the thing that came behind me: I know it was!" + +"When?" asked her sister. + +"As I was sitting there in my chair something came behind me and put a +hand on my shoulder. It was John--I know it was. His hand was all cold and +wet: he came out of the sea to call me." + +"Now just look here, Faithful!" said Miss Sophonisba. "John was one of the +most careful, considerate fellows I ever knew, and he was always +particular careful of you. Do you think it's likely he wouldn't have no +more sense, now that he's a saint in heaven, than to come scaring you out +of your wits in that way? Is it like him, now?" + +"But oh, sister, if you had felt it as I did, clear into the bone!" + +"Then it's over twenty-five years since the Federalist was lost. Do you +suppose he's been going round the other world all this while without +getting a chance to be dry? Did you see him?" + +"No, but I felt it." + +"Well, now if there'd been anything real there, anything material, you'd +have seen it; and if it wasn't material, how could it be wet?" + +Faithful was not prepared to answer, but it was evident that she had +received a great shock. In vain did her sister argue, reason and coax. She +could not explain, but that something had come behind her, and that this +Something had touched her, she was convinced; and she added: "I do believe +it was John I saw the other night. I thought then I was awake all the +time, and now I know I was." + +This last assertion quite overset Miss Sophonisba's patience, "If ever any +one was asleep," she said, "you were when I came up stairs. I thought I +heard you walking about with your bare feet, and I came up to see." + +"Then you: heard it too?" said Miss Faithful, eagerly. + +It was an unlucky admission, but Miss Sophonisba would not allow that she +had made it. + +"I heard the wind make the boards creak, I suppose; and do you think John +wouldn't have more sense than to be walking about our room at half-past +ten at night? What nonsense!" + +"You may call it nonsense as much as you like, Sophonisba," said Miss +Faithful, beginning to cry afresh, "but I know what I know, and I can't +help it." + +"Well, well, dear, we won't think of it any more. You're nervous and +worried, and you'd just best put on your wrapper and lie down and try to +go to sleep." + +"I don't like to stay alone just now," said Miss Faithful, timidly. + +"I don't want you to: I'll bring my work up stairs and stay with you." + +Miss Sophonisba helped her sister up stairs, and began to assist her to +undress. As she took into her hand the cape of Miss Faithful's woolen +dress she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise, but checked herself +in time. On the left shoulder was a wet spot, and the dress directly +beneath was quite damp. Miss Sophonisba said nothing, of this matter to +her sister, but she made an excuse to leave the room for a moment, and +going down stairs looked to see if any water had been spilled on the +floor. There was none, and Miss Sophonisba was puzzled. She remembered +that when her sister was startled before she had occupied the same seat, +with her back to the cellar door. She noticed that the door was slightly +ajar, and it occurred to her that the cold air blowing through the crack +might account for her sister's feeling of sudden chill, if not for the +dampness. She went down the cellar stairs, carrying with her a lighted +candle. Bold as she was, a singular sensation came over her when she saw +upon each stair a print, as if some one with wet feet had ascended or +descended, and that very recently. The track was not such as would be left +by a person heavily shod: it was rather like that of one wearing a +stocking or thin slipper. + +"What under the sun--" was her perplexed exclamation as she went down, +following the marks of the unknown feet until they were lost on the stone +floor. It was certain that there was no one in the cellar, but as she went +up again, and paused for a moment at the top of the staircase, she heard, +or thought she heard, close to her ear, a long, weary sigh, as of one in +pain, and a sudden breath of cold air swept past her down the stairs. She +turned, and crossing the little passage went into the south room. The +burned spot on the floor was covered by the neat rag carpet, but there +were still some slight marks on the wall of the old doctor's brick +furnace. Miss Sophonisba glanced round the room, but her eyes fell upon +nothing but the familiar and well-preserved furniture; yet there came over +her a strange sense that she was not alone. She saw nothing, but in spite +of herself a feeling of a Presence not her own gathered about her. It was +but for a moment, and then her habitual firmness and common sense +reasserted themselves. + +"Stuff and nonsense!" she said. "I am getting as bad as Faithful;" and +leaving the room, she went back to her sister. Miss Faithful had sought +comfort in her devotions, and was more composed than could have been +expected. Neither felt inclined to comment on the recent disturbance. Miss +Faithful's health seemed to have received no permanent harm from the +sudden shock she had undergone, but she had a nervous dread of being +alone, which was a source of some inconvenience to her sister. + +The month of December passed, and the uncomfortable impression left by +Faithful's attack was beginning to fade away from the minds of both, when +it happened that the disturbance was renewed in a singular manner. + +Miss Sophonisba was alone, her sister having gone to a household in the +village to take the measure for some mourning garments to be made up +immediately. Miss Sophonisba was busy with a black bonnet intended for a +member of the same family, and was thinking of nothing but the folds of +the material directly under her fingers. Gradually there came over her a +feeling that she was not alone. She struggled against it, and resolutely +bent her mind on her work; but the impression grew upon her, and with it a +sensation of horror such as she had never before experienced. The idea +that something stood behind her became so strong that she raised her eyes +from her work and looked around. Was there anything actually there, or was +the shapeless darkness anything more than an accidental shadow? Another +instant, and something touched her cheek--something like soft, cold, moist +fingers. The touch, if such it was, was very gentle, such as a child might +give to attract attention. Miss Sophonisba would not give way. She took up +her work and went quietly on with it, though her fingers trembled. The +same long sigh fell upon her ear, the same chill breath of air swept past +her, and the Presence, if such it was, was gone, and with it the shadow. + +"Well," said Miss Sophonisba to herself, "some things _are_ kind of +curious, after all!" + +There had certainly been no living creature in the house but herself, for +their cat had disappeared some days before, and the loss of their favorite +had been a great vexation to both sisters. The shadow behind her chair, if +indeed it had been anything but fancy, had been too indistinct to allow +her to say that she had really seen it before it had vanished, but what +had given her the touch, the recollection of which yet caused a shiver? +She put up her hand to her cheek. The place was wet--an actual drop of +water adhered to her finger. + +"Dear me!" said she, "I wish I did know what to think." + +To one of her temperament the uncertainty was very annoying. She could not +bear to think that her experience was not directly owing to natural--by +which she meant, common--causes. "I am very glad Faithful was not here," +she thought as she turned to her work again. She would not indulge herself +by changing her seat, but kept her place with her back to the cellar door, +though she could not help now and then casting a glance over her shoulder. +Neither shadow nor substance, however, made itself manifest. + +That same night Miss Sophonisba woke from her sleep with the feeling that +some one had called her. She found herself mistaken, however, and lay +quietly awake, thinking over the events of the afternoon. The more she +thought the more puzzled, and even provoked, did she become. She was one +of those people who cannot bear to feel themselves incapable of accounting +for anything that is brought under their notice. A mystery, as such, is an +exasperation to them, and they will sometimes adopt an explanation more +perplexing than the phenomenon itself, rather than say, "I don't know." As +she lay there thinking over the matter, and trying to make herself believe +that the afternoon's experience was the effect of the wind or her own +fancy, she was startled by a step on the floor of the lower room--the same +light step. It crossed the floor, and she heard it on the stairs. Miss +Sophonisba raised her head from her pillow and looked around. There could +be no doubt that she was awake. She could see everything in the room: her +sister slept quietly at her side, and the moonlight shone in brightly at +the window. The slow step came up the stairs and in at the open door. She +heard it on the boards: her eyes beheld the shadow of her sister's vision, +so wavering and indistinct that she could not say with certainty that it +wore the semblance of a human form. The blood at her heart seemed to stand +still, but yet she neither screamed nor fainted, nor tried to wake her +sister. She watched the Thing as it moved to and fro in the chamber. +Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as +Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her +with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence +obscured the moonbeams. Miss Sophonisba bent all her will to the effort, +and with an heroic exertion she put out her hand to try by the sense of +touch if indeed she was in her waking senses. Her fingers were met by +others, soft, cold and damp. For a second, which seemed an hour, they +grasped her extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way +seemed half familiar. For one instant the shapeless gloom appeared to take +definite form--a tall human figure, a man in poor and ragged clothes; for +one instant a pair of wistful, eager eyes looked into her own; the next, +the cock without crowed loud and shrill. Her hand was released, and with +the same long, weary sigh the ghostly Presence passed away. Miss +Sophonisba sank back on her pillow nearly insensible. She did not know how +long she lay there, but when she at last gathered her senses she saw and +felt, with an involuntary shudder, that her hand was wet and cold, and +that across the floor, plain in the moonlight, leading to the half-open +door, were the marks of wet feet. She did not waken her sister, who still +slept quietly at her side, but it was with unspeakable relief that she saw +the morning dawn at last. + +In spite of herself, Miss Sophonisba was forced to the conclusion that, +except on the supposition that some inhabitant of another world had been +permitted to approach her, her experience was wholly inexplicable. "If it +comes again," said she to herself, "I'll certainly speak to it. Goodness +me!" she added, somewhat irritated in spite of her terror, "if it's got +anything to say, why don't it speak and be done with it?" + +She said nothing of the matter to her sister, and she so far controlled +herself as to preserve her usual manner. + +The sisters were busily engaged all day over the mourning dresses, when +toward night Miss Faithful's thread gave out and her work came to a +stand-still. + +"How provoking!" said she. "Three yards more would finish, and now I shall +have to go down to the village and buy a whole skein, just for that." + +"No," said Miss Sophonisba, who would not have acknowledged to herself her +dread of being alone in the house, "I think there's some like that in the +chimney cupboard in the south room: I'll get it." + +She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room. +Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began +searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters. Some +slight noise startled her. She turned, and saw standing before the +fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar, +though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it. It did +not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood +for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak. The +eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse. She had not seen +the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side. It, was too +much, even for her. She turned and sprang through the open door into the +passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face +bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor. The Thing did not follow +her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more +timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room. +Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown, +the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced +the past night: it was all this, together with a sense of an evil +influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul +and in body. However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she +could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence. The +candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning +all her strength, with an inward prayer she recrossed the threshold. The +light still burned brightly, the thread she had come to seek lay on the +floor where she had dropped it, but the figure was gone. She looked about +the room: there was no trace of living presence save her own. She had even +the courage to stoop down and examine the place on the carpet where the +Shape had stood, and which covered the burned spot on the floor; but this +time the mysterious footsteps had failed to leave their mark. + +"Whatever shall I do?" said Miss Sophonisba to herself. "If Faithful was +to see what I have, she'd nigh go crazy; and what excuse can we make for +leaving the house?" + +If no one but herself had been concerned, I think she would have stood a +siege from the hosts of the unknown world rather than confess that she +left the house because it was haunted. She caught herself up as the word +was formed in her thoughts. "Haunted, indeed!" she said. "I'll think I'm +losing my wits first. Stuff and nonsense!" But she paused, for through the +middle of the room, close by her side, making an angry gesture as it +passed, swept the same Shape, visible for one moment, vanishing the next. +She went back into the other room, and giving her sister the thread, sat +down so as to hide her face, busying herself with her work until she could +in some measure regain her wonted steady composure. + +Miss Faithful was much engaged with her sewing just at that moment, and +her sister's unusual agitation escaped her notice. Presently she said, +"Sophonisba, isn't there a bit of old black ribbon in that cupboard? I +want something of the kind, just to put round inside the neck of the +dress, and then it will be done." + +"Yes--I don't know--I think not," said her sister, with a hesitation so +unlike her usual promptness that Miss Faithful looked up surprised. "I +mean, I think there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "If you'd like to look, +I'll hold the candle for you." + +"Oh, you needn't put down your work for that," said Miss Faithful, but +Miss Sophonisba dropped the ribbon she was plaiting and followed her +sister with the candle. She threw a half-frightened glance around the room +as she entered, but the Vision did not reappear. It was some time before +the ribbon was found. It had been pushed into the farther corner of the +lower shelf, which was a wide and very thick pine board, slipping easily +on the cleats by which it was upheld. One end of the roll had caught +behind this shelf, and Miss Faithful pulled the board a little forward. As +she did so a little roll of paper fell into the bottom of the cupboard. +Miss Sophonisba picked it up. It consisted of several stained and +discolored sheets of paper, seemingly torn from an account-book or +journal, and covered all over with very fine and closely-written though +perfectly legible characters, in a very precise hand. + +"What is that?" said Miss Faithful. + +"It's nothing of ours, I'm pretty sure," said her sister, looking at it. +"But come, if you've got what you want: let's go into the other room--it's +cold here." + +As they crossed the threshold, Miss Faithful started. + +"What's the matter?" said her sister, though she well knew the reason. She +too had heard the same long sigh felt the same breath of chill air. + +"Why, it seemed as if something breathed close to my ear," said Miss +Faithful, turning white; "and what's more," she continued, as they crossed +the passage and entered the work-room, "I believe you heard it too, and +that you've seen things in this house you haven't told me of." + +"Well, child," said Miss Sophonisba in a subdued tone, "there _are_ some +queer things in this world, that's a fact--queerer than ever I thought +till lately." + +Miss Faithful did not press for an explanation: she went quietly on with +her dressmaking, and her sister, hurried though she was about her work, +set herself to examine the papers. + +I remember seeing the original manuscript when I was a little girl, but it +was unfortunately destroyed by an accident. My father, however, had copied +part of it, and this copy is yet in my possession. Miss Sophonisba could +make very little of the record, which related to scientific matters of +which she was quite ignorant; and as the most important words were +indicated by signs and figures, she was completely puzzled. The writer +seemed to have been seeking in vain some particular result. She looked on +through the dates of the year 1785, and saw here and there familiar names, +and at last commenced reading at these words: + +"_June_ 3. This day took possession of my house. Busied in making +arrangements. Shall build my own furnace. Am sure now that I am in the +right way. Am determined no one shall come into the house." + +Much followed which Miss Sophonisba could not understand, until, under the +date of July 1, she found recorded: + +"Being over at Neponset, looking for the plant witch-hazel, bethought +myself to ask of the fellow they call Indian Will. Going to the little +hovel he lives in, found him lying very ill with pleurisy. By the grace of +God was able to help him. His wife told me where to find what I sought. To +my surprise, discovered she knew much of its virtues. It may be these +people have a knowledge of simples worth investigating. + +"_Sept._ 3. No nearer my great end. My means fast growing less. Have +borrowed from Jonathan Phelps, but the sum is but a drop for such a +purpose. Most like some of these people, who complain of my price for the +exercise of my skill, would give me threefold did they know what I work +for, if they might share in its result. Yet I know I am in the right way. +Should I die before I come to its end--Is Death the gate of knowledge?" + +"_Oct._ 7. I advance just so far and no farther. Why is it that I see my +path so plain just to the one point, and there it stops? How small our +understanding of the endless mysteries around us! yet should something +differing from every day's experience befall us, how quickly we speak of +the _supernatural_! + +"_Oct._ 29. No nearer, no nearer, and my money all but done. Took some of +my books into Boston and offered them to sell. Refused, of course. How +should they know their value? Have sent them to London. It was hard, but +patience! patience!" + +"_Oct._ 30. This day Indian Will brought the plants I wanted. Have bade +him never to tell any one that he comes here. He only has ever entered. So +far as I know, he has obeyed. He thinks me like one of his own powahs. + +"_Dec._ 15. At last! I have passed the crisis, and without accident. How +simple it seems, now that I know! It was my last bit of the essential +metal: like from like. Each element has its seed in itself. The poor +people say I have been good to them. Should success be final, I can indeed +help mankind. + +"_Dec._ 16. Last night, lifting the crucible from the furnace, spilled the +liquor on the floor. Had I one particle more of the essential element! All +was utterly lost: no one will lend to me. + +"_Dec._ 18. What have I done that I should feel guilt? What was worth the +life of such a useless creature to the interests of mankind? Why did he +not trust my word and give me what I needed when I asked him? If he had +not waked from his half-drunken sleep when I made the attempt, I would +have given him threefold. I gave him his life once: why will not that +atone? No one will know ever. I will devote my life to relieve distress. +What is such as his, weighed in the balance with my purpose? It is strange +that since then I have forgot the very essential thing in the process. I +cannot read my own cipher in which I wrote it down; but it will come, it +will come. + +"_Dec._ 19. Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain. Have lost +the key, have forgotten the chief link. Until I can recall it the metal is +useless. What if it should never come to me? This night went down to the +Point. Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pass. +The tide will soon wash them away. + +"_Dec._ 20. Surely it is not meant this thing should be known. To-day a +body came on shore, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by +those who should have known best. Now, no one will ever search this house. +Twice to-day I have been to look at the place: nothing can be seen. +Providence means I should live to finish my work--to complete that which I +alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken +off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would +the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck +at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not +human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us. + +"_Dec._ 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to +go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days? + +"_Dec._ 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no +guest but one I dare not name-- + + 'Tumulum circumvolat umbra.' + +"_Dec._ 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I +will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help +those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?" + +Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786: + +"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I +see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest +the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press +me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it +was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty +dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before, +thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it +will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I +will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will +rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of +all men, have seen unveiled the mystery. I will leave This behind. When I +am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if +that is what it seeks. Then it will cease to persecute me with its step +close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch." + +Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a +strange expression that her sister was startled. "Put on your bonnet, +Faithful," said she: "I'm going down to see the minister." + +"What do you mean?" said Miss Faithful: "it's nearly nine o'clock." + +"I don't care if it's midnight. I'm going to show these to him, and tell +him what's happened here, and he may make what he can of it." + +"Then you have seen something?" said Miss Faithful, turning pale. + +Miss Sophonisba made a sign of assent; "I'll tell you all about it when we +get there, but do come along now. You're work's done, and I'll take the +bonnet with me and finish it there." + +They lived at some distance from the parsonage, and the roads were in even +worse condition than they are now. It was a tiresome walk, and Miss +Faithful, clinging to her sister's side, was almost inclined to wish they +had braved the terrors at home rather than ventured out into the dark. The +clergyman was a middle-aged bachelor, a grandson of the Parson H---- +mentioned by Mrs. T----. He heard Miss Sophonisba's story in silence, but +without any sign of dissent. Faithful, in spite of her terror, could not +but feel a mild degree of triumph in her sister's evident conviction that +what she had seen was, to say the least, unaccountable. + +Mr. H---- looked over the papers which had been found in the cupboard, and +which Miss Sophonisba had brought with her. "This is undoubtedly Doctor +Haywood's writing," he said at last. "I have a book purchased of him by my +grandfather, and which has marginal notes in the same hand." + +"What shall we do, sir?" asked Miss Sophonisba. + +"If I were you I should leave the house as soon as possible. If there is +anything in the air which induces such--" Mr. H---- hesitated for a +word--"sensations as these, it would be better to go." + +"Sensations!" said Miss Sophonisba, almost indignant. "I tell you I saw it +myself; and what made the wet spot on Faithful's cape, and the rest?" + +"I can't undertake to say, Miss T----; but if you like I will just come up +to-morrow, and we will look into the matter a little. My cousin, +Lieutenant V----, is here from his ship, and he will assist me. And +meantime you had best stay here to-night: my sister will be very glad to +see you." + +Miss H---- was a particular friend of the sisters, but she could not but +feel a little curious to know the object of their visit. Miss Sophonisba +would have kept the matter to herself, but Miss Faithful, in her +excitement, could not but tell the story of their experiences. Miss H----, +however, was a discreet woman, and kept the tale to herself. + +The next evening the clergyman, his cousin the lieutenant and Miss +Sophonisba went quietly about dusk to the old house. They went down into +the cellar, and the drag which the sailor had constructed brought up some +bleached bones, and at the second cast a skeleton hand and a skull. As the +latter was disengaged from the drag something fell glittering from it upon +the cellar floor: two coins rolled to different corners. Mr. H----, picked +them up. One was a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. + +"Miss T----," said the clergyman in a low tone, "I will see that these +poor relics are laid in the burial-ground; and then--really I think you +had better leave the house." + +Miss Sophonisba made no opposition. + +The three ascended the cellar stairs, but as they entered the room they +paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it passed, a wild +gesture of despair, swept the Shape, living yet dead. + +"What was that?" said the clergyman, who was the first to recover himself, +"_It_," said Miss Sophonisba in a whisper. + +"I have seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy passage +round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the +waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to +board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a +corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I +could not bear it and hid my face. One of the sailors, however, took from +the dead hand a paper covered with characters in cipher, which no one +could read. This paper afterward fell into my possession, and I submitted +it in vain to several experts, all of whom failed to read it. By an +accident it was destroyed, and the secret, whatever it was, is hidden for +ever; but the face of that corpse was the face I have just seen in this +room." + +CLARA F. GUERNSEY. + + + + +The Blood Seedling. + + + +In a bit of green pasture that rose, gradually narrowing, to the tableland +that ended in prairie, and widened out descending to the wet and willowy +sands that border the Great River, a broad-shouldered young man was +planting an apple tree one sunny spring morning when Tyler was President. +The little valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills, +patched with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering +columbines. In front was the Mississippi, reposing from its plunge over +the rapids, and idling down among the golden sandbars and the low, moist +islands, which were looking their loveliest in their new spring dresses of +delicate green. + +The young man was digging with a certain vicious energy, forcing the spade +into the black crumbling loam with a movement full of vigor and malice. +His straight black brows were knitted till they formed one dark line over +his deep-set eyes. His beard was not yet old enough to hide the massive +outline of his firm, square jaw. In the set teeth, in the clouded face, in +the half-articulate exclamations that shot from time to time from the +compressed lips, it was easy to see that the thoughts of the young +horticulturist were far from his work. + +A bright young girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that +skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail +of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a +thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually +expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their +love as so airy and delicate in structure that the flowers they tread on +are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation. But not +being a poet or in love, we must admit that there was no resurrection for +the larkspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie +Barringer landed. Yet she was not of the coarse peasant type, though her +cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday +mornings, and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from +shoulders to waist. She was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl, +with a slightly freckled face, and rippled brown hair, and astonished blue +eyes, but perfectly self-possessed, and graceful as a young quail. + +A young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress. The +flight of this plump bird in its fluttering blue plumage over the +rail-fence caused our young man to look up from his spading: the scowl was +routed from his brow by a sudden incursion of blushes, and his mouth was +attacked by an awkward smile. + +The young lady nodded, and was hurrying past. The scowl came back in +force, and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss: +"Miss Tudie, are you in a hurry?" + +The lady thus addressed turned and said, in a voice that was half pert and +half coaxing, "No particular hurry. Al, I've told you a dozen times not to +call me that redicklis name." + +"Why, Tudie, I hain't never called you nothing else sence you was a little +one so high. You ort to know yer own name, and you give yerself that name +when you was a yearling. Howsom-ever, ef you don't like it now, sence +you've been to Jacksonville, I reckon I can call you Miss Susie--when I +don't disremember." + +The frank amende seemed to satisfy Miss Susie, for she at once interrupted +in the kindest manner: "Never mind, Al Golyer: you can call me what you +are a-mind to." Then, as if conscious of the feminine inconsistency, she +changed the subject by asking, "What are you going to do with that great +hole?--big enough to bury a fellow." + +"I'm going to plant this here seedlin', that growed up in Colonel Blood's +pastur', nobody knows how: belike somebody was eatin' an apple and throwed +the core down-like. I'm going to plant a little orchard here next spring, +but the colonel and me, we reckoned this one 'ud be too old by that time +for moving, so I thought I'd stick it in now, and see what come out'n it. +It's a powerful thrifty chunk of a saplin'." + +"Yes. I speak for the first peck of apples off'n it. Don't forget. +Good-morning." + +"Hold on a minute, Miss Susan, twell I git my coat. I'll walk down a piece +with you. I have got something to say to you." + +Miss Susie turned a little red and a little pale. These occasions were not +entirely unknown in her short experience of life. When young men in the +country in that primitive period had something to say, it was something +very serious and earnest. Allen Golyer was a good-looking, stalwart young +farmer, well-to-do, honest, able to provide for a family. There was +nothing presumptuous in his aspiring to the hand of the prettiest girl on +Chaney Creek. In childhood he had trotted her to Banbury Cross and back a +hundred times, beguiling the tedium of the journey with kisses and the +music of bells. When the little girl was old enough to go to school, the +big boy carried her books and gave her the rosiest apple out of his +dinner-basket. He fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions; +which latter, by the way, never gained her any great credit. When she was +fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week +during one happy winter to singing-school. This was the bloom of +life--nothing before or after could compare with it. The blacking of shoes +and brushing of stiff, electric, bristling hair, all on end with frost and +hope, the struggling into the plate-armor of his starched shirt, the tying +of the portentous and uncontrollable cravat before the glass, which was +hopelessly dimmed every moment by his eager breath,--these trivial and +vulgar details were made beautiful and unreal by the magic of youth and +love. Then came the walk through the crisp, dry snow to the Widow +Barringer's, the sheepish talk with the old lady while Susie "got on her +things," and the long, enchanting tramp to the "deestrick school-house." + +There is not a country-bred man or woman now living but will tell you that +life can offer nothing comparable with the innocent zest of that old style +of courting that was done at singing-school in the starlight and +candlelight of the first half of our century. There are few hearts so +withered and old but they beat quicker sometimes when they hear, in +old-fashioned churches, the wailing, sobbing or exulting strains of +"Bradstreet" or "China" or "Coronation;" and the mind floats down on the +current of these old melodies to that fresh young day of hopes and +illusions--of voices that were sweet, no matter how false they sang--of +nights that were rosy with dreams, no matter what Fahrenheit said--of +girls that blushed without cause, and of lovers who talked for hours about +everything but love. + +I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when +I say that there was nothing that our superior civilization would call +love making in those long walks through the winter nights. The heart of +Allen Golyer swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and +devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with his pretty enslaver. +But he talked of apples and pigs and the heathen and the teacher's wig, +and sometimes ventured an illusion to other people's flirtations in a +jocose and distant way; but as to the state of his own heart, his lips +were sealed. It would move a blase smile on the downy lips of juvenile +Lovelaces, who count their conquests by their cotillons, and think nothing +of making a declaration in an avant-deux, to be told of young people +spending several evenings of each week in the year together, and speaking +no word of love until they were ready to name their wedding-day. Yet such +was the sober habit of the place and time. + +So there was no troth plighted between Allen and Susie, though the youth +loved the maiden with all the energy of his fresh, unused nature, and she +knew it very well. He never dreamed of marrying any other woman than Susie +Barringer, and she sometimes tried a new pen by writing and carefully +erasing the initials S.M.G., which, as she was christened Susan Minerva, +may be taken as showing the direction of her thoughts. + +If Allen Golyer had been less bashful or more enterprising, this history +would never have been written; for Susie would probably have said Yes for +want of anything better to say, and when she went to visit her aunt +Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone _engaged_, her finger bound +with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises. But she went, +as it was, fancy free, and there is no tinder so inflammable as the +imagination of a pretty country girl of sixteen. + +One day she went out with her easy-going aunt Abigail to buy ribbons, the +Chancy Creek invoices not supplying the requirements of Jacksonville +society. As they traversed the court-house square on their way to Deacon +Pettybones' place, Miss Susie's vagrant glances rested on an iris of +ribbons displayed in an opposition window. "Let's go in here," she said +with the impetuous decision of her age and sex. + +"We will go where you like, dear," said easy-going Aunt Abigail. "It makes +no difference." + +Aunt Abigail was wrong. It made the greatest difference to several persons +whether Susie Barringer bought her ribbons at Simmons' or Pettybones' that +day. If she had but known! + +But, all unconscious of the Fate that beckoned invisibly on the threshold, +Miss Susie tripped into "Simmons' Emporium" and asked for ribbons. Two +young men stood at the long counter. One was Mr. Simmons, proprietor of +the emporium, who advanced with his most conscientious smile: "Ribbons, +ma'am? Yes, ma'am--all sorts, ma'am. Cherry, ma'am? Certingly, ma'am. Jest +got a splendid lot from St. Louis this morning, ma'am. This way, ma'am." + +The ladies were soon lost in the delight of the eyes. The voice of Mr. +Simmons accompanied the feast of color, insinuating but unheeded. + +The other young man approached: "Here is what you want, miss--rich and +elegant. Just suits your style. Sets off your hair and eyes beautiful." + +The ladies looked up. A more decided voice than Mr. Simmons'; whiter hands +than Mr. Simmons' handled the silken bands; bolder eyes than the weak, +pink-bordered orbs of Mr. Simmons looked unabashed admiration into the +pretty face of Susie Barringer. + +"Look here, Simmons, old boy, introduce a fellow." + +Mr. Simmons meekly obeyed: "Mrs. Barringer, let me interduce you to Mr. +Leon of St. Louis, of the house of Draper & Mercer." + +"Bertie Leon, at your service," said the brisk young fellow, seizing Miss +Susie's hand with energy. His hand was so much softer and whiter than hers +that she felt quite hot and angry about it. + +When they had made their purchases, Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with +them, and was very witty and agreeable all the way. He had all the wit of +the newspapers, of the concert-rooms, of the steamboat bars at his +fingers' ends. In his wandering life he had met all kinds of people: he +had sold ribbons through a dozen States. He never had a moment's doubt of +himself. He never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would +not interfere with business. He had one ambition in life--to marry Miss +Mercer and get a share in the house. Miss Mercer was as ugly as a +millionaire's tombstone. Mr. Bertie Leon--who, when his moustache was not +dyed nor his hair greased, was really quite a handsome fellow--considered +that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interests of trade must be +made good to him in some way. So, "by way of getting even," he made +violent love to all the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels--"to +have something to think about after he should have found favor in the +strabismic optics of Miss Mercer," he observed, disrespectfully. + +Simple Susie, who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and +blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the +free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was +something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a +faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt +Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate +in the most recent Planters'-House style, she cordially invited him to +call--"to drop in any time: he must be lonesome so far from home." + +He said he wouldn't neglect such a chance, with another Planters'-House +bow. + +"What a nice young man!" said Aunt Abigail. + +"Awful conceited and not overly polite," said Susie as she took off her +bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings. + +The oftener Albert Leon came to Mrs. Barringer's bowery cottage, the more +the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticised +him, until it was plain to be seen that Aunt Abigail was growing tired of +him and pretty Susan dangerously interested. But just at this point his +inexorable carpet-bag dragged him off to a neighboring town, and Susie +soon afterward went back to Chaney Creek. + +Her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could +have done--the belle of the neighborhood. Non cuivis contingit adire +Lutetiam, but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county-town +is a shrine of fashion. Allen Golyer felt a vague sense of distrust +chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons' ribbons decking the pretty head +in the village choir the Sunday after her return, and, spurred on by a +nascent jealousy of the unknown, resolved to learn his fate without loss +of time. But the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned +friendliness, talked so much and so fast about her visit, that the honest +fellow was quite bewildered, and had to go home to think the matter over, +and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever, +or had drifted altogether out of his reach. + +Allen Golyer was, after all, a man of nerve and decision. He wasted only a +day or two in doubts and fears, and one Sunday afternoon, with a beating +but resolute heart, he left his Sunday-school class to walk down to +Crystal Glen and solve his questions and learn his doom. When he came in +sight of the widow's modest house, he saw a buggy hitched by the gate. + +"Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel, by jing! What is Dow after out here?" + +It is natural, if not logical, that young men should regard the visits of +all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious +impropriety. + +But it was not his friend and crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came +out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling +Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the +period--light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black +moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers +that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished +boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod +men in the world. + +Golyer's heart sank within him as this splendid being shone upon him. But +with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the +gate, and said, "Tudie, I come to see you. Shall I go in and talk to your +mother twell you come back?" + +"No, that won't pay," promptly replied the brisk stranger. "We will be +gone the heft of the afternoon, I reckon. This hoss is awful slow," he +added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie. + +"Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr. +Leon." + +Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the +West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again." He lifted Miss +Susie into the buggy, sprang lightly in, and went off with laughter and +the cracking of his whip after Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel. + +The young farmer walked home desolate, comparing in his simple mind his +own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilet, his awkward address +with the other's easy audacity, till his heart was full to the brim with +that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy, from +which pray Heaven to guard you. + +It was the next morning that Miss Susie vaulted over the fence where Allen +Golyer was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree. + +"Something middlin' particular," continued Golyer, resolutely. + +"There is no use leaving your work," said Miss Barringer pluckily. "I will +stay and listen." + +Poor Allen began as badly as possible: "Who was that feller with you +yesterday?" + +"Thank you, Mr. Golyer--my friends ain't fellers! What's that to you, who +he was?" + +"Susie Barringer, we have been keeping company now a matter of a year. I +have loved you well and true: I would have give my life to save you any +little care or trouble. I never dreamed of nobody but you--not that I was +half good enough for you, but because I did not know any better man around +here. Ef it ain't too late, Susie, I ask you to be my wife. I will love +you and care for you, good and true." + +Before this solemn little speech was finished, Susie was crying and biting +her bonnet-strings in a most undignified manner. "Hush, Al Golyer!" she +burst out. "You mustn't talk so. You are too good for me. I am kind of +promised to that fellow. I 'most wish I had never seen him." + +Allen sprang to her and took her in his strong arms: she struggled free +from him. In a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had +produced in her passed away. She dried her eyes and said firmly enough, +"It's no use, Al: we wouldn't be happy together. Good-bye! I shouldn't +wonder if I went away from Chaney Creek before long." + +She walked rapidly down to the river-road. Allen stood fixed and +motionless, gazing at the light, graceful form until the blue dress +vanished behind the hill, and leaned long on his spade, unconscious of the +lapse of time. + +When Susan reached her home she found Leon at the gate. + +"Ah, my little rosebud! I came near missing you. I am going to Keokuk this +morning, to be gone a few days. I stopped here a minute to give you +something to keep for me till I come back." + +"What is it?" + +He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe +lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed. + +She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched +him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It +would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him. +I'd like to hear it." + +An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a +shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the +piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse +passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face. +He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of +weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung +clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued +with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would +have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who, +though working against hope, was still not without resolute will. + +Dame Barringer, who had seen him coming up the walk, bustled in: +"Good-morning, Allen. How beat out you do look! Now, I like a stiddy young +man, but don't you think you run this thing of workin' into the ground?" + +"Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile--"leastways I've been +a-running this spade into the ground all the morning, and--" + +"_You_ want buttermilk--that's your idee: ain't it, now?" + +"Well, Mizzes Barringer, I reckon you know my failin's." + +The good woman trotted off to the dairy, and Susie sewed demurely, waiting +with some trepidation for what was to come next. + +"Susie Barringer," said a low, husky voice which she could scarcely +recognize as Golyer's, "I've come to ask pardon--not for nothing I've +done, for I never did and never could do you wrong--but for what I thought +for a while arter you left me this morning. It's all over now, but I tell +_you_ the Bad Man had his claws into my heart for a spell. Now it's all +over, and I wish you well. I wish your husband well. If ever you git into +any trouble where I can help, send for me: it's my right. It's the last +favor I ask of you." + +Susceptible Susie cried a little again. Allen, watching her with his +ambushed eyes, said, "Don't take it to heart, Tudie. Perhaps there is +better days in store for me yet." + +This did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least. She was +greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man's heart: she +was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not. If any +explanation of this paradox is required, I would observe, quoting a phrase +much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age, that Miss Susie +Barringer was "a very female woman." + +So pretty Susan's rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time +her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and +plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent +delight of a Lady Bountiful. + +"There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance +in all things." + +"Very well, then, you work less and play more. We never get a sight of you +lately. Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie." + +It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter +married and settled with "a stiddy young man that you knowed all about, +and his folks before him." She had observed with great disquietude the +brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter +in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil +of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is +a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet +would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a +Cocodes.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't +be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller." + +Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame +Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on +his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making +Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol. + +Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's +dismay, Mr. Leon did not come. + +"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away +from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet +and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The +artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so +she added, "I was expecting a letter from my aunt." + +"No letters here from your aunt, nor your uncle, nor none of the tribe," +said old Whaler, who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place, and so +had no further use for good manners. + +"I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch," said Susie that +evening, "and I won't go near his old post-office again." But Susie forgot +her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family +affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie _must_ have +written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly, +"Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres--that's what's the +matter." + +Poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried +from that dreadful post-office, scarcely hearing the terrible words that +the old gin-pig hurled after her: "_And he's forgot you!--that's what's +the matter._" + +Susie Barringer walked home along the river-road, revolving many things in +her mind. She went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen-knife +over the latch, and sat down to have a good cry. Her faculties being thus +cleared for action, she thought seriously for an hour. If you can remember +when you were a school-girl, you know a great deal of solid thinking can +be done in an hour. But we can tell you in a moment what it footed up. You +can walk through the Louvre in a minute, but you cannot see it in a week. + +_Susan Barringer (sola, loquitur)_: "Three weeks yesterday. Yes, I s'pose +it's so. What a little fool I was! He goes everywheres--says the same +things to everybody, like he was selling ribbons. Mean little scamp! +Mother seen through him in a minute. I'm mighty glad I didn't tell her +nothing about it." [Fie, Susie! your principles are worse than your +grammar.] "He'll marry some rich girl--I don't envy her, but I hate +her--and I am as good as she is. Maybe he will come back--no, and I hope +he won't;--and I wish I was dead!" (_Pocket handkerchief._) + +Yet in the midst of her grief there was one comforting thought--nobody +knew of it. She had no confidante--she had not even opened her heart to +her mother: these Western maidens have a fine gift of reticence. A few of +her countryside friends and rivals had seen with envy and admiration the +pretty couple on the day of Leon's arrival. But all their poisonous little +compliments and questions had never elicited from the prudent Susie more +than the safe statement that the handsome stranger was a friend of Aunt +Abbie's, whom she had met at Jacksonville. They could not laugh at her: +they could not sneer at gay deceivers and lovelorn damsels when she went +to the sewing-circle. The bitterness of her tears was greatly sweetened by +the consideration that in any case no one could pity her. She took such +consolation from this thought that she faced her mother unflinchingly at +tea, and baffled the maternal inquest on her "redness of eyes" by the +school-girl's invaluable and ever-ready headache. + +It was positively not until a week later, when she met Allen Golyer at +choir-meeting, that she remembered that this man knew the secret of her +baffled hopes. She blushed scarlet as he approached her: "Have you got +company home, Miss Susie?" + +"Yes--that is, Sally Withers and me came together, and--" + +"No, that's hardly fair to Tom Fleming: three ain't the pleasantest +company. I will go home with you." + +Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her, and leaned upon it +with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home through +the balmy night under the clear, starry heaven of the early spring. The +air was full of the quickening breath of May. + +Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Allen +Golyer. He talked more than usual, but in a grave, quiet, protecting +style, very different from his former manner of worshiping bashfulness. +His tone had in it an air of fatherly caressing which was inexpressibly +soothing to his pretty companion, tired and lonely with her silent +struggle of the past month. When they came to her gate and he said +good-night, she held his hand a moment with a tremulous grasp, and spoke +impulsively: "Al, I once told you something I never told anybody else. +I'll tell you something else now, because I believe I can trust you." + +"Be sure of that, Susie Barringer." + +"Well, Al, my engagement is broken off." + +"I am sorry for you, Susie, if you set much store by him." + +Miss Susie answered with great and unnecessary impetuosity, "I don't, and +I am glad of it!" and then ran into the house and to bed, her cheeks all +aflame at the thought of her indiscretion, and yet with a certain comfort +in having a friend from whom she had no secrets. + +I protest there was no thought of coquetry in the declaration which Susan +Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of +the May heaven. But Allen Golyer would have been a dull boy not to have +taken heart and hope from it. He became, as of old, a frequent and welcome +visitor at Crystal Glen. Before long the game of chequers with Susie +became so enthralling a passion that it was only adjourned from one +evening to another. Allen's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with +fatigue-duty, and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much +soap. Susie's affectionate heart, which had been swayed a moment from its +orbit by the irresistible attraction of Bertie Leon's diamond breastpin +and city swagger, swung back to its ancient course under the mild +influence of time and the weather and opportunity. So that Dame Barringer +was not in the least surprised, on entering her little parlor one soft +afternoon in that very May, to see the two young people economically +occupying one chair, and Susie shouting the useless appeal, "Mother, make +him behave!" + +"I never interfere in young folks' matters, especially when they're going +all right," said the motherly old soul, kissing "her son Allen" and +trotting away to dry her happy tears. + +I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married--so soon that when +Miss Susan went with her mother to Keokuk to buy a wedding-garment, she +half expected to find, in every shop she entered, the elegant figure of +Mr. Leon leaning over the counter. But the dress was bought and made, and +worn at wedding and _in-fair_ and in a round of family visits among the +Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the +pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on +Allen's prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs. +Golyer to trouble her joy. In her calm and busy life the very name faded +from her tranquil mind. These wholesome country hearts do not bleed long. +In that wide-awake country eyes are too useful to be wasted in weeping. My +dear Lothario Urban us, those peaches are very sound and delicious, but +they will not keep for ever. If you do not secure them to-day, they will +go to some one else, and in no case, as the Autocrat hath said with +authority, can you stand there "mellering 'em with your thumb." + +There was no happier home in the county, and few finer farms. The good +sense and industry of Golyer and the practical helpfulness of his wife +found their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing +orchards. The Warsaw merchants fought for his wheat, and his apples were +known in St. Louis. Mrs. Golyer, with that spice of romance which is +hidden away in every woman's heart, had taken a special fancy to the +seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted. +Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a +child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he +reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling. He spaded and +mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits +and in summer from terebrant grubs. It was not ungrateful. It grew a noble +tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, +and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell. The first peck of +apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first +bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud in his +admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on: "Great Scott, Golyer! +I'd rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than +be Senator." + +"You've got your wish, then, colonel," said Golyer. "Me and my wife have +called that tree The Blood Seedling sence the day it was transplanted from +your pastur'." + +It was the pride and envy of the neighborhood. Several neighbors asked for +scions and grafts, but could do nothing with them. + +"Fact is," said old Silas Withers, "those folks that expects to raise good +fruit by begging graffs, and then layin' abed and readin' newspapers, will +have a good time waitin'. Elbow-grease is the secret of the Blood +Seedlin', ain't it, Al?" + +"Well, I reckon, Squire Withers, a man never gits anything wuth havin' +without a tussle for it; and as to secrets, I don't believe in them, +nohow." + +A square-browed, resolute, silent, middle-aged man, who loved his home +better than any amusement, regular at church, at the polls, something +richer every Christmas than he had been on the New Year's preceding--a man +whom everybody liked and few loved much--such had Allen Golyer grown to +be. + + * * * * * + +If I have lingered too long over this colorless and commonplace picture of +rural Western life, it is because I have felt an instinctive reluctance to +recount the startling and most improbable incident which fell one night +upon this quiet neighborhood, like a thunderbolt out of blue sky. The +story I must tell will be flatly denied and easily refuted. It is absurd +and fantastic, but, unless human evidence is to go for nothing when it +testifies of things unusual, the story is true. + +At the head of the rocky hollow through which Chaney Creek ran to the +river, lived the family who gave the brook its name. They were among the +early pioneers of the county. In the squatty yellow stone house the +present Chaney occupied his grandfather had stood a siege from Black Hawk +all one summer day and night, until relieved by the garrison of Fort +Edward. The family had not grown with the growth of the land. Like many +others of the pioneers, they had shown no talent for keeping abreast of +the civilization whose guides and skirmishers they had been. In the +progress of a half century they had sold, bit by bit, their section of +land, which kept intact would have proved a fortune. They lived very +quietly, working enough to secure their own pork and hominy, and regarding +with a sort of impatient scorn every scheme of public or private +enterprise that passed under their eyes. + +The elder Chaney had married, some years before, at the Mormon town of +Nauvoo, the fair-haired daughter of a Swedish mystic, who had come across +the sea beguiled by dreams of a perfect theocracy, and who on arriving at +the city of the Latter-Day Saints had died, broken-hearted from his lost +illusions. + +The only dowry that Seraphita Neilsen brought her husband, besides her +delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes, was a full set of Swedenborg's +later writings in English. These became the daily food of the solitary +household. Saul Chaney would read the exalted rhapsodies of the Northern +seer for hours together, without the first glimmer of their meaning +crossing his brain. But there was something in the majesty of their +language and the solemn roll of their poetical development that +irresistibly impressed and attracted him. Little Gershom, his only child, +sitting at his feet, would listen in childish wonder to the strange things +his silent, morose and gloomy father found in the well-worn volumes, until +his tired eyelids would fall at last over his pale, bulging eyes. + +As he grew up his eyes bulged more and more: his head seemed too large for +his rickety body. He pored over the marvelous volumes until he knew long +passages by heart, and understood less of them than his father--which was +unnecessary. He looked a little like his mother, but while she in her +youth had something of the faint and flickering beauty of the Boreal +Lights, poor Gershom never could have suggested anything more heavenly +than a foggy moonlight. When he was fifteen he went to the neighboring +town of Warsaw to school. He had rather heavy weather among the well-knit, +grubby-knuckled urchins of the town, and would have been thoroughly +disheartened but for one happy chance. At the house where he boarded an +amusement called the "Sperrit Rappin's" was much in vogue. A group of +young folks, surcharged with all sorts of animal magnetism, with some +capacity for belief and much more for fun, used to gather about a light +pine table every evening, and put it through a complicated course of +mystical gymnastics. It was a very good-tempered table: it would dance, +hop or slam at the word of command, or, if the exercises took a more +intellectual turn, it would answer any questions addressed to it in a +manner not much below the average capacity of its tormentors. + +Gershom Chaney took all this in solemn earnest. He was from the first +moment deeply impressed. He lay awake whole nights, with his eyes fast +closed, in the wildest dreams. His school-hours were passed in trancelike +contemplation. He cared no more for punishment than the fakeer for his +self-inflicted tortures. He longed for the coming of the day when he could +commune in solitude with the unfleshed and immortal. This was the full +flowering of those seeds of fantasy that had fallen into his infant mind +as he lay baking his brains by the wide fire in the old stone house at the +head of the hollow, while his father read, haltingly, of the wonders of +the invisible world. + +But, to his great mortification, he saw nothing, heard nothing, +experienced nothing but in the company of others. He must brave the +ridicule of the profane to taste the raptures which his soul loved. His +simple, trusting faith made him inevitably the butt of the mischievous +circle. They were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to +external influences. One muscular, black-haired, heavy-browed youth took +especial delight in practicing upon him. The table, under Gershom's +tremulous hands, would skip like a lamb at the command of this Thomas Fay. + +One evening, Tom Fay had a great triumph. They had been trying to get the +"medium"--for Gershom had reached that dignity--to answer sealed +questions, and had met with indifferent success. Fay suddenly approached +the table, scribbled a phrase, folded it and tossed it, doubled up, before +Gershom; then leaned over the table, staring at his pale, unwholesome face +with all the might of his black eyes. + +Chaney seized the pencil convulsively and wrote, "Balaam!" + +Fay burst into a loud laugh and said, "Read the question?" + +It was, "Who rode on your grandfather's back?" + +This is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor +Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended, +but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen +counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and +incorrigible indolence. He accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom, +and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents. + +Here, with less criticism and more perfect faith, he renewed the exercise +of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and +want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to +make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings +and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as +evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an +oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they +expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time +to the circle, and their reports heightened the half-uncanny interest with +which the Chaney house was regarded. + +It was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that Allen Golyer, standing +by his gate, saw Saul Chaney slouching along in the twilight, and hailed +him: "What news from the sperrits, Saul?" + +"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world +takes care of the like o' you." + +Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors +abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think +for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up +and ask Gershom what's come of it." + +"Come along, if you like. It's been a long while sence you've crossed my +sill. But I'm gitting to be quite the style. Young Lawyer Marshall is +a-coming up this evening to see my Gershom." + +Before Mr. Golyer started he filled a basket, "to make himself welcome and +pay for the show," with the reddest and finest fruit of his favorite apple +tree. His wife followed him to the gate and kissed him--a rather unusual +attention among Western farmer-people. Her face, still rosy and comely, +was flushed and smiling: "Al, do you know what day o' the year it is?" + +"Nineteenth of Aprile?" + +"Yes; and twenty years ago to-day you planted the Blood Seedlin' and I +give you the mitten!" She turned and went into the house, laughing +comfortably. + +Allen walked slowly up the hollow to the Chaney house, and gave the apples +to Seraphita and told her their story. A little company was assembled--two +or three Chaney Creek people, small market-gardeners, with eyes the color +of their gooseberries and hands the color of their currants; Mr. Marshall, +a briefless young barrister from Warsaw, with a tawny friend, who spoke +like a Spaniard. + +"Take seats, friends, and form a circle o' harmony," said Saul Chaney. +"The me'jum is in fine condition: he had two fits this arternoon." + +Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak. He reclined in a great hickory +arm-chair, with his eyes half open, his lips moving noiselessly. All the +persons present formed a circle and joined hands. + +The moment the circle was completed by Saul and Seraphita, who were on +either side of their son, touching his hands, an expression of pain and +perplexity passed over his pale face, and he began to writhe and mutter. + +"He's seein' visions," said Saul. + +"Yes, too many of 'em," said Gershom, querulously. "A boy in a boat, a man +on a shelf, and a man with a spade--all at once: too many. Get me a +pencil. One at a time, I tell you--one at a time!" + +The circle broke up, and a table was brought, with writing materials. +Gershom grasped a pencil, and said, with imperious and feverish +impatience, "Come on, now, and don't waste the time of the shining ones." + +An old woman took his right hand. He wrote with his left very rapidly an +instant, and threw her the paper, always with his eyes shut close. + +Old Mrs. Scritcher read with difficulty, "A boy in a boat--over he goes;" +and burst out in a piteous wail, "Oh, my poor little Ephraim! I always +knowed it." + +"Silence, woman!" said the relentless medium. + +"Mr. Marshall," said Saul, "would you like a test?" + +"No, thank you," said the young gentleman. "I brought my friend, Mr. +Baldassano, who, as a traveler, is interested in these things." + +"Will you take the medium's hand, Mr. What's-your-name?" + +The young foreigner took the lean and feverish hand of Gershom, and again +the pencil flew rapidly over the paper. He pushed the manuscript from him +and snatched his hand away from Baldassano. As the latter looked at what +was written, his tawny cheek grew deadly pale. "Dios mio!" he exclaimed to +Marshall. "This is written in Castilian!" + +The two young men retired to the other end of the room and read by the +tallow candle the notes scrawled on the paper. Baldassano translated: "A +man on a shelf--table covered with bottles beside him: man's face yellow +as gold: bottles tumble over without being touched." + +"What nonsense is that?" said Marshall. + +"My brother died of yellow fever at sea last year." + +Both the young men became suddenly very thoughtful, and observed with +great interest the result of Golyer's "test." He sat by Gershom, holding +his hand tightly, but gazing absently into the dying blaze of the wide +chimney. He seemed to have forgotten where he was: a train of serious +thought appeared to hold him completely under its control. His brows were +knit with an expression of severe almost fierce determination. At one +moment his breathing was hard and thick--a moment after hurried and +broken. + +All this while the fingers of Gershom were flying rapidly over the paper, +independently of his eyes, which were sometimes closed, and sometimes +rolling as if in trouble. + +A wind which had been gathering all the evening now came moaning up the +hollow, rattling the window-blinds, and twisting into dull complaint the +boughs of the leafless trees. Its voice came chill and cheerless into the +dusky room, where the fire was now glimmering near its death, and the only +sounds were those of Gershom's rushing pencil, the whispering of Marshall +and his friend, and old Mother Scritcher feebly whimpering in her corner. +The scene was sinister. Suddenly, a rushing gust blew the door wide open. + +Golyer started to his feet, trembling in every limb, and looking furtively +over his shoulder out into the night. Quickly recovering himself, he +turned to resume his place. But the moment he dropped Gershom's hand, the +medium had dropped his pencil, and had sunk back in his chair in a deep +and deathlike slumber. Golyer seized the sheet of paper, and with the +first line that he read a strange and horrible transformation was wrought +in the man. His eyes protruded, his teeth chattered, he passed his hand +over his head mechanically, and his hair stood up like the bristles on the +back of a swine in rage. His face was blotched white and purple. He looked +piteously about him for a moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand, +cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's +no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: +ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of lying? I +done it." + +He paused, as if struck by a sudden recollection, then burst into tears +and shook like a tree in a high wind. In a moment he dropped on his knees, +and in that posture crawled over to Marshall: "Here, Mr. Marshall--here's +the whole story. For God's sake, spare my wife and children all you can. +Fix my little property all right for 'em, and God bless you for it!" Even +while he was speaking, with a quick revulsion of feeling he rose to his +feet, with a certain return of his natural dignity, and said, "But they +sha'n't take me! None of my kin ever died that way: I've got too much sand +in my gizzard to be took that way. Good-bye, friends all!" + +He walked deliberately out into the wild, windy night. + +Marshall glanced hurriedly at the fatal paper in his hand. It was full of +that capricious detail with which in reverie we review scenes that are +past. But a line here and there clearly enough told the story--how he went +out to plant the apple tree; how Susie came by and rejected him; how he +passed into the power of the devil for the time; how Bertie Leon came by +and spoke to him, and patted him on the shoulder, and talked about city +life; how he hated him and his pretty face and his good clothes; how they +came to words and blows, and he struck him with his spade, and he fell +into the trench, and he buried him there at the roots of the tree. + +Marshall, following his first impulse, thrust the paper into the dull red +coals. It flamed for an instant, and flew with a sound like a sob up the +chimney. + +They hunted for Golyer all night, but in the morning found him lying as if +asleep, with the peace of expiation on his pale face, his pruning-knife in +his, heart, and the red current of his life tinging the turf with crimson +around the roots of the Blood Seedling. + +JOHN HAY. + + + + +The Marquis. + + + +Mrs. Ruggles lived near Crawfish Creek. Crawfish Creek ran near Thompson +City. Thompson City was in a Western State, but now is in a Middle one. It +was always in the midst of a great country--accepting local testimony and +a rank growth of corn and politicians as the tests of greatness. The earth +there was monotonously parched in summer, and monotonously muddy at all +other times. The forests were gigantic, the air carbonic, and when the +citizens wished to give Thompson City the highest commendation, they did +so by saying that "fevernagur" was worse in some other places. + +In the parlor of Mrs. Ruggles, which was also her kitchen and dining-hall, +hung a frame containing a seven-by-nine mirror, which was the frame's +excuse for being, although a compartment above and one below held squares +of glass covered with paint instead of mercury. The lower one was colored +like the contents of a wash-tub after a liberal use of indigo; and in the +centre was a horizontal stroke of red, surmounted by a perpendicular dash +of white, intersected by an oblique line of black--all of which +represented a red boat, with a white sail and black spar, making an +endless voyage across the lake of indigo. The black crosses in the sky +were birds. The black lines on the left were bulrushes. And among these +bulrushes a certain gloomy little object was either a Hebrew prophet or a +muskrat. + +Above the mirror was painted a long-tailed coat, from behind which +extended a hand holding a bell-crowned hat, to whose scarlet lining the +holder seemed inviting the spectator's particular attention. There were +also a pair of legs and boots, a heavy shock of hair, a labyrinth of +neckcloth and a florid human face. Under the boots were the words, + +MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE. + +And the beholder was ever in doubt whether the marquis was trying to stand +exclusively upon this title or was unconsciously trampling it into the +ground. + +Mrs. Ruggles admired this picture. Her knowledge of French was not great, +but her ear was delicate; and thinking the words "sounded handsome," she +had deliberately conferred them in full on her first-born. When in +good-humor she was content with calling him "Marquis-dee." In fact, it was +only when chasing him into the street with a lilac bush in her hand that +she insisted on addressing him by his full name. At such times, between +each flourish of the lilac bush and each yell of the young nobleman, she +pronounced with significant fullness, with fearful exactness, the +handsome-sounding name of Marquis de la Fayette Ruggles. His playmates, +however, had not the delicate ear of the mother, and as the son had brown +specks on his face, he was popularly known as "Frecky Rug." + +Mrs. Ruggles and her late husband were pioneers in the Crawfish Valley. +Subsequent settlers knew little, and apparently cared less, about her. +They knew, however, that she had been a Peables, and that Peables blood +was still doing its duty in her veins. And from her independence and +reserve they argued that the Peableses must have been "high up"--at least +in the estimation of Mrs. Ruggles. After Mr. Ruggles had been overcome by +malaria in clearing the creek bottoms the pride of the Peables blood had +sustained her in a long, brave fight with circumstances. + +It was while he lay one night upon his deathbed, mistaking a watching +neighbor for his wife, that he started up, saying, "Becky, if I could +prove it to you afore I died!" + +"Out of his head," was the quiet remark of Mrs. Ruggles to the watching +neighbor by the bedside. There was no further sign of delirium. That +exclamation of the dying Mr. Ruggles was a mystery to the women of +Crawfish Creek, and remains so to this day. + +It may be that the pride of Mrs. Ruggles was in excess of her wisdom. It +may be if that pride had been a little more respected by the irreverent +Crawfish settlers, they would not have had occasion to wonder, as they did +wonder, how a heart so true, an honesty so stoical, a discrimination so +acute could exist with an independence so absurd, a mind so uncultured, a +sense of dignity so ridiculous as were found united in her character. It +may be that the Peables blood was worthy of receiving honor as great as +the ridicule it did receive. It may be if the world had known the +Peableses it would have been as proud of them as she was. + +She was a person of scrupulous neatness, careful never to be seen by +strangers except in a tidy dress, and with her hair in a Grecian knot, +gracefully secured by a leather string and a wooden peg. "Weak creepings" +were her main reliance in the way of disease. She was also troubled, at +times, with a "fullness of the head." In addition, there were other times +when her right side "felt separate." But she seldom complained of anything +belonging to herself. Even her maladies, she took pleasure in knowing, +were very different from those enjoyed by certain other women. Unwilling +to be too familiar with any one baser than a Ruggles, she usually dined, +as she lived, alone with her noble son. + +On a certain summer evening she stirred her tea a long time in silence. +She stirred it vigorously, creating a maelstrom inside her cup, where, +very like a whale in the story-books, a little crust of bread disappeared +and reappeared, and sailed round and round as if very much perplexed. Then +she unconsciously reversed the current of the maelstrom, sending the baked +and buttered whale to the bottom. + +[Illustration: "She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the +young naturalist's feelings."] + +"I never see that air Miller, no odds how well I be," she remarked +mechanically to the tea-pot, "but what I feel weak creepin's come over me. +He puts dye-stuff on his baird. An' when a man's whiskers is gray an' his +head keeps black, it's a sign he uses his jaw more'n he does his brains. +An' that yaller-headed doll-baby o' his'n--the peert thing:--I'll lay +fifty cents she never washed a dish. To think o' her sayin' a thing like +that about Markis-dee!--an' there's more o' the Peables in him to-day--But +I s'pose she don't know no better." And Mrs. Ruggles rose from the table, +while the corner of her apron made a sudden journey to the corner of her +eye. It was evident her moral nature had received a wound that rankled. + +A year before this time the marquis and his playmates had watched several +vigorous fellows plant a theodolite on the bank of Crawfish Creek, very +much as the natives must have watched the Spaniards plant their first +cross on San Salvador. The contract for grading the new railway bed was in +the hands of a stranger named Miller, who was said to have known better +days, and in the time of his prosperity had been thought a proper person +to be called Colonel. He was a bluff man of forty years, who appeared to +have known both the ups and downs of life, and whose determination to wear +a black beard was equaled only by its determination to be gray. Rumor said +that he had been a railroad president, that he made and spent vast sums of +money, and that his home was somewhere in the East. + +His only child, Alice, ten or twelve years old, bright, fair, full of +animal spirits, who was indulged to the last degree by the roughly +generous colonel, sometimes accompanied him about the half-developed +country, searching for strange birds and blossoms in the woods or watching +demurely the laborers ply their picks and shovels while he inspected their +work. + +The two rode almost daily between Thompson City and the line of +excavation, passing the house of Mrs. Ruggles and a cool spring by the +roadside near it, whence that lady had obtained the water which made the +tea which was stirred into the maelstrom which has been described. While +obtaining it, clad in her working garb, the patter of hoofs and a clear +girlish laugh--sweet as the carol of a meadow lark--came ringing along the +road. As the colonel and Alice halted to let her high-mettled pony and his +heavier Morgan drink, Mrs. Ruggles, who could not otherwise escape +observation, with becoming pride and modesty stepped behind the thick +willows, leaving the marquis with a pail of water between his legs and a +bunch of mottled feathers in his hand. + +He stood dumb before the lovely girl, with her face sparkling from +exercise and enjoyment, and her golden hair escaping from its prison of +blue ribbons. While the horses drank she espied a cluster of cool violets +brightening the damp grass near the spring. The marquis had presence of +mind enough left to step forward and pluck them. Her "Thank you!" added +greatly to his embarrassment, which he expressed by vigorously twisting +the mottled feathers. + +"What bird are those from?" asked Alice. + +The question so increased his embarrassment that now the marquis could +express it only by chewing his cap, and she smilingly waited a moment for +the composure of the young naturalist's feelings. + +"She was a low, chunky hen," said he, at length--"she was a low, chunky +hen, an' she laid a hundred an' seven eggs, an' then she had spazzums an' +whirled roun' till she died." + +A burst of irrepressible laughter escaped Alice, with the exclamation, +"Did anybody ever see such a boy?" as she and her father rode away. And +those were the exceptionable words concerning her son which so rankled +that evening in the heart of Mrs. Ruggles. + +The marquis gazed with hungry eyes after the airy little figure as it +dashed down the unlovely, worm-fenced road. The golden hair, overflowing +its boundaries of blue ribbon, was more glorious to him than the golden +sunshine overflowing the blue sky. They met no more at the spring, but +several times a week, from a respectful distance, he watched her riding +by. From Thompson City to the little log bridge over Crawfish Creek the +road lay for four miles through heavy woods. Then came cleared fields, and +soon the house of Mrs. Ruggles. + +So the summer days went by. The season was waning, the grading was almost +done, and soon the contractor would be elsewhere. Then came one +particularly warm and sultry day. The screams of locusts everywhere +suggested that they were frying. The colonel, riding once more slowly out +toward the workmen with his daughter, was near the middle of the forest. +The trees on either hand were tall, and the road was so straight and +narrow that the sunlight scarcely touched it. The marquis, in the top of a +tall chestnut that overhung the road near the edge of the wood, was +overhauling a nest of flying squirrels--perhaps in the hope of finding +mottled feathers on their wings. From his elevation he could see for a +great distance down the level, dusty road between the trees, and far +across the surrounding country. + +The sun did not shine bright, yet no cloud was in the sky. The atmosphere, +thick, oppressive, opaque, veiled the horizon with strange gloom. Not a +leaf could stir in the vast forest. Not a dimple nor the semblance of a +current broke the surface of the sluggish creek. Not a sound, save the +interminable frying of the locusts. + +The colonel slackened his pace, surprised that his horse should so soon +begin to drip and pant--Alice, familiar with the road, in the mean time +riding a mile ahead. The marquis clung to the topmost branches, looking at +the still sky far above him, the still stream far below him, the still +tree-tops far around him, till he caught a glimpse of the only interesting +object to be seen--a black pony bearing its usual burden, if Alice Miller +could be called a burden, and pacing leisurely up the road beneath him. He +gazed as far as the palisade of trees permitted, but her father was not +yet in sight. + +Suddenly, in the west, a single vein of lightning darted down the sky. A +few trees shuddered as if to shake the gathering shadows from their +bosoms. Then tenfold stillness. A bird flew past with a scream of terror, +the marquis looking in vain to see a hawk pursuing it. The distant moan of +a cow came from the fields. Not another sound, it seemed, was in the +world. + +In an instant the south-west was black. A strange, remote murmur smote the +colonel's ear. Overhead he could see but a strip of hot, hazy sky. Had he +seen the whole heavens, he could have done nothing but go on. Quickly the +murmur became an awful muttering, then a deafening roar. The clatter, the +rush, the crash of a tornado were behind him. The groans of the very earth +were about him. The darkness of twilight was upon him. Alice and Death +were before him. A cloudy demon, towering high as the heavens, in whose +path nothing could live, was striding near and nearer. + +Farm-houses were overthrown. Trees were twisted off from their roots and +torn to pieces. Wild animals and birds were dashed to death. Streams were +emptied of their waters. Human beings and horses and cattle were lifted +into the air, hurled hither and thither and thrown dead upon the earth. + +The whirlwind was following the line of the road! Colonel Miller had no +opportunity to see this, nor could he ride aside from that line if he +chose. He could but cry aloud, "My darling! O God! Alice!" and lash his +horse forward. The high, close forest would keep the wind from lifting his +horse from the ground or himself from the saddle. But the great trees +crashed like thunder behind him. Their fragments whirled above him. Their +branches fell before him. The limb of a huge oak grazed his face, crushed +his horse, and both rolled to the ground, blinded with dust, imprisoned +within a barricade of splintered trunks and shattered tree-tops. + +The marquis, from his high lookout, saw, before any one else, the +approaching tornado, and, descending like a flash, he yet noted its +direction. As Alice reached the foot of his tree he was on the ground, had +seized the pony's mane, was half seated and half clinging in front of her, +had snatched the reins from her hand, and was urging the frightened animal +to its utmost speed. Overcome with terror and confusion, Alice clung +instinctively to the saddle and to him, without hearing his hurried advice +to "stick like a old burdock." + +They shot like an arrow up the road. The noise of the tempest was audible. +Closer it was coming, crushing, rending, annihilating all before it. The +way grew darker. The terrified pony scarce touched the ground. His only +will was to go forward, and he still obeyed a firm use of the bit. But who +could hope to outrun a hurricane? Twelve miles an hour against eighty! The +marquis heeded nothing. Not far behind, the road was but a slash of +fallen, writhing tree-tops. The sweat dropped from his face. He dared not +look behind. + +They reached it--the lane, by the log bridge, running at right angles to +the road--and in a moment, behind them, that lane was choked with whirling +debris. + +But in that moment they had cleared the track of the whirlwind. For the +first time Alice comprehended the conduct of the marquis. For the first +time he turned to see. A quarter of a mile each side the road the +hurricane had carried complete desolation. But after passing the heavy +timber it had veered several degrees, and was sparing the house of Mrs. +Ruggles. + +With a white face she met them at the gate. A word of explanation from the +marquis--an ejaculation of mental anguish from the girl. Two fugitive +tie-choppers from the woods turned back to find the colonel's body. Mrs. +Ruggles, carrying Alice in her arms to the door--the yaller-headed +doll-baby that never washed a dish--did what she could to soothe her, but +did it as silently as possible. + +Mrs. Ruggles intercepted the returning tie-choppers in the lane. A look of +eager joy was in their faces. The bruised colonel, assisted to the +threshold, sank into the big arm-chair, and Alice was in his arms. Mrs. +Ruggles did not see their meeting, not at all. No, her back was toward +them, but the corner of her apron made another journey to the corner of +her eye as the father folded his lost child once more to his heart. + +His desire to express his gratitude to Mrs. Ruggles and her boy was +equaled only by her fears that he would do so. As a last resort he called +the marquis to him, and, while a tear stood on his rough cheek, drew a +handful of money from his pocket. But a bony hand appeared majestically +between them, and a voice said, "Not by no means. We're not them kind o' +persons. Markis-dee, put away the camfire." + +Then a rickety gig rattled up to the gate: "Contusion--severe--no +danger--there!--be lame a while--so!--the other bandage--bridge +gone--creek half dry--bend your leg--so!--current turned up-stream--now +the shoulder--not strange Crawfish Creek should run backward--he! he!" And +the rickety gig rattled merrily off in search of broken bones. + +Alice, meeting the marquis outside the door, approached him in a way that +made him tremble. What was said will never be known, but she placed her +white little hand upon his shoulder, the golden head bowed for a moment +and her sweet lips touched his sunburnt face. + +By remaining quiet that night the colonel would be able to get back to +Thompson City in the morning. Before nine o'clock he was at rest in the +bed-room. A couch for Alice had been prepared in the same room. In the +other--kitchen, parlor and dining-hall--a blanket was thrown down for the +marquis, and two chairs fixed for the bed of Mrs. Ruggles. Before +retiring, however, she sat down at her lonely table, where, +notwithstanding the tea she drank to keep them off, an unusual number of +weak creepings came over her. + +"I couldn't help it," was all she said to the tea-pot. Whether she +referred to the tornado, or her kindness to the sufferers, or to the +manner of rendering the kindness, no one knows. That was all she said to +the tea-pot, but to her son, who sat for a while beside her, she spoke in +a low tone: "Markis-dee, you could never c'verse with her. You're better'n +she is. Put her out o' yer head. She laughed at ye." + +"But she kissed me wi' tears in 'er eyes afterward," was his answer as he +turned toward his bed on the floor. + +An hour later the tea was exhausted, but Mrs. Ruggles yet sat at her +lonely table, as still as the sleepers around her. The clock struck ten: +she nervously drew a soiled paper from her bosom. Eleven: she rose with +hesitation and set the tallow candle behind the door. Then she softly +entered the bed-room and stood before the window where Alice lay. The sky +was clear again. The moon shone on the face and form of the sleeping girl, +making softer their graceful lines, richer the shadows in the golden hair, +tenderer the tint of cheek and lip. + +She stepped again into the shade and stole to the colonel's bedside. His +disturbed mind had turned backward over the path of life from the sudden +death escaped, and, sleeping or waking, his memory had been busy with the +people and events of other days. + +"John Miller!" she said, in a suppressed tone. He started. "John Miller, I +know ye. Common name--I wa'n't sure afore to-day. When you pulled that +money out o' yer pocket I see that in yer face that satisfied me. It's fer +the good name o' the dead I've come. Elseways I never'd ha' troubled ye." +The astonished colonel shifted his position painfully, prepared to speak +or to listen. "There yer girl lies in the light o' heaven. Nex' room my +boy lies in the shadder an' dark. He don't know, an' he never will. John +Miller, I married as honest an' as good a man as ever you see. Folks has +come to me in sickness an' trouble, an' gone behin' my back to talk. Some +said I done right to take him--'twas Christian in me. Some said I must ha' +been a fool. Some said we wa'n't married a-tall. Wasn't I a Peables? +Didn't I know 'twould be flung up to my face? Wasn't I prouder'n any on +'em?" + +A moment's confusion and doubting of senses: then, as the suppressed voice +went on, the colonel remembered. A dozen years ago; before he had meddled +with railroads; back in the old town; soon after taking his father's shop; +he was plaintiff; Ruggles worked in the first room; Porter's testimony; +Becky Peables the sweetheart of both; burglary; loss trifling; George +Ruggles, for one year; came back and married when released; went West. The +old case had scarce crossed his mind for years. + +"Yes, you sent him, an' I waited fer him. The day he come out I married +him. We had to dig hard. I'd do it ag'in. Now his boy's saved yer girl's +life to pay ye fer puttin' his father'n State's pris'n. Two year ago +didn't Bill Porter--sick an' a-dyin'--hunt till he foun' me here? Didn't +he go an' swear? Done fer spite. Didn't he sen' me the affydavy?--an' I've +got it safe. Got it swore to by him, with the justice o' the peace's name +signed, an' two witnissis, an' the judge's red seal on top o' that. Could +I go back an' show that paper'n tell how 'twas? Too late! George was dead. +I couldn't go. My folks a'most disowned me when I took him. I said then I +never'd step my foot into their doors. Them that gives me the col' +shoulder once don't do it no more. Come to me?--well an' good. Go to +them?--never." + +The bewildered colonel, promising every possible reparation, would have +thrown himself at her feet, could he have done so, for the part he had +taken in the prosecution. But she permitted no interruption, and +continued: "He lay by the winder where yer girl lies. The moon come in on +his bed as it does on her'n. In the night, when I see the light o' the sky +shine there where he died, I feel his sperit in the room. I moved the bed +to this corner, where it's darker. I wa'n't good enough to lie there. But +'twas on his mind. He said, 'Becky, if I could prove it to you afore I +died!' An' I say, George's sperit sent Bill Porter here, an' sent you +here, an' sent me into this room to-night. Now, fer the sake o'him an' +Markis-dee, go back an' tell the truth!" + +Speaking the word "truth," she vanished across the light to her dark place +of rest. + +Next morning the colonel examined and copied the confession while a buggy +waited for him at the door. Respecting the evident wishes of Mrs. Ruggles, +he went away with no attempt to express the feelings that were uppermost +in his heart. + +She sleeps beside her husband in the orchard. Her old log-house has been +replaced by a large white box, of which her son the marquis is proprietor. +Each year adds to his acres or his stock. An able-bodied wife, whose +industry and English are equal to his own, sits near him at the door on a +summer evening, while he smokes his pipe, takes an oakum-headed child upon +his knee, and gazes quietly in the direction of the spring and across the +grain-fields where once he saw--or rather heard, without waiting to see--a +forest swept down in a moment. He smokes and gazes as he sees again a +dazzling creature ride down the dreary road, and wonders where on earth +that face can be, and how much it has changed, and whether, through so +many years, any memory of him can linger in her heart. He says nothing. +But he hugs closer the oakum-headed child as he remembers the one romance +in his hard, humdrum life. + +CHAUNCEY HICKOX. + + + + + +Under False Colors. + + + + +Chapter I. + +Hoisting The Flag. + + + +A dreary, murky November day brooded over Southampton, and an impenetrable +fog hung over sea and shore alike, penetrating the clothing, chilling the +blood and depressing the spirits of every unlucky person who was so +unfortunate as to come within the range of its influence. The passengers +on the steamship America, from Bremen for New York via Southampton, found +the brief period of their stay at the latter port almost unendurable; and +while some paced the wet decks impatiently, others grumbled both loudly +and deeply in the cabins, or shut themselves up in their state-rooms in +sulky discomfort. Those who remained on deck had at least the amusement of +watching for the steamboat which was to bring the Southampton +passengers--a pastime which, however, being indefinitely prolonged, began +to grow wearisome. It came at last--a wretched little vessel, rather +smaller than the smallest of the noisy tugs that puff and paddle on our +American rivers--and the wet, sick, unsheltered passengers were gradually +transferred to the deck of the ship. + +Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking +of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl, +apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible. She +would have fallen had not one of her fellow-travelers, a lady evidently +not much her senior, thrown her arm around her; thus aided, she managed to +reach the steamer's deck and to totter down the staircase leading to the +ladies' cabin. The active, busy steward at once bustled up to the two +young girls: + +"Your names, ladies, if you please. I will point out your state-rooms in a +moment. Miss Marion Nugent--Miss Rhoda Steele? Miss Nugent, berth No. 20, +state-room G--" + +"Cannot I occupy the same state-room with this young lady?" interrupted +the taller girl, who was still lending the support of her arm to sustain +her half-fainting companion. + +"Do not leave me, please," murmured the sufferer. + +The steward threw a compassionate glance upon the pair, went away, and +after a short consultation with the unseen powers, returned and said that +the arrangement had been effected, and that they could take possession at +once of their state-room, into which he proceeded to usher them. It was +more spacious than such apartments usually are, and abounded with all +those little contrivances for comfort and convenience for which the +steamers of the North German Lloyds are justly famed. The invalid sank +down on the soft-cushioned little sofa and gasped painfully for breath. + +"For Heaven's sake, get me some wine or some brandy!" exclaimed her +companion. "This poor thing seems very ill; and do tell the doctor to come +here at once." + +With a quick, energetic movement, as she spoke she unclasped the heavy +waterproof cloak of the sufferer and threw it back, thus revealing a fair, +pallid face, framed in loosened curls of silky golden hair. It was a face +that must have looked singularly lovely when tinted with the rosy hues of +health, so delicate were the features and so large and blue the +half-closed eyes, but it was ghastly pale, and a livid, bluish tinge had +settled around the small mouth, whose ruby hues had fled to give place to +a sickly purple. The steward speedily returned with some brandy, the +bull's-eye was thrown open, and the cold sea air and potent spirit soon +asserted their restorative powers. She sat up, a more natural color +over-spreading her countenance, and she murmured inarticulately a few +words of thanks, while the kind-hearted steward hastened away again in +search of the doctor. + +"I am subject to these attacks," she said, faintly; to her companion when +they were again left alone. "Only feel how my heart is beating." + +The ship's surgeon soon made his appearance. He was a young, light-haired, +solemn-looking German, who shook his head and looked very grave as he +listened to the labored breathing and felt the bounding, irregular pulse +of the sufferer. + +"It is a pity that the ship has started," he said in very good English, +"for I hardly think you are fitted to bear the fatigues of a sea-voyage at +this season of the year; and had we been still at anchor, I should have +counseled you to return to shore. But it is too late now, and you must try +to keep as quiet as possible. I would advise you to retire to your berth +at once: it will probably be a stormy night, and you had better settle +yourself comfortably before the motion begins to be unpleasant. I will see +you again in the morning, and if you feel worse meanwhile, let me know at +once." + +The doctor and the steward then quitted the state-room, and its two +occupants, being left alone, surveyed each other curiously. + +The active and energetic girl who had acted as spokeswoman and directress +throughout the brief scene we have just described had let fall her +waterproof cloak and stood arrayed in a black velvet jacket and dark silk +skirt, both much the worse for wear, and contrasting sadly with the neat +but simple traveling costume of her companion. But about her slender, +finely-proportioned figure there was an air of style and grace which lent +an elegance even to her shabby and faded finery, and which was wanting in +the owner of the fresher and more appropriate attire. Her face was +beautiful, with a singular and weird beauty which owed nothing of its +fascinations to the ordinary charms of delicate outlines and dainty +coloring. Her features were small and attenuated, and her complexion was +of a sallow paleness, whose lack of freshness seemed caused by dissipation +and late hours or by the ravages of illness. Heavy masses of soft silken +hair, black as midnight, with bluish reflections on its lustrous waves +_(bleu a force d'etre noir_, as Alexandre Dumas describes such tresses), +untortured by crimping-pins or curling-tongs, were rolled back in plain +folds above her low, broad brow. Her eyes would have lent beauty to a +plainer face. Large almost to a fault, of that dark, clear blue which is +too perfect and too transparent ever to look black even under the shadow +of such long, thick eyelashes as shaded them in the present instance, they +were perfectly magnificent; and their lustrous azure and ever-varying +expression lent to the mobile countenance of their possessor its most +potent and peculiar charm. + +She was the first to speak. "Do you not think you had better retire to +your berth?" she asked. "The rocking of the ship is increasing, and we had +better, early as it is, settle ourselves for the night, before it becomes +so violent as to prevent us from moving." + +At this moment two porters made their appearance laden with packages. Two +small new trunks--one marked R.S., the other M.N.--were deposited on the +floor and identified by their possessors. The sick girl then attempted, +with trembling hands, to disembarrass herself of her apparel, but it was +not without much assistance from her companion that she was enabled to +remove her traveling costume and make her preparations for retiring. At +last, however, she was ready, and was about to make an attempt to reach +the upper berth, which was the one allotted to her by number, when a +quick, imperative gesture from her companion stopped her. + +"No, no," she said: "you must take the lower berth. I can reach the upper +one without any trouble, and you are not strong enough for so much +exertion." + +"You are very, very kind," said the invalid, gratefully. She sank back on +the pillow and watched the other for some minutes in silence, as she +quietly and quickly gathered up and put in order the scattered articles +with which the state-room was strewn. + +"Will you not give me that little black bag?" she said at last. "Thanks! +that is it. I wished to be certain that I had put my letter of +introduction in it. Ah! here it is, quite safe. It would never do for me +to lose that letter, for the lady with whom I am going to live as +governess has never seen me, and she might take me for an impostor were I +to come without it. An English lady who was her most intimate friend +engaged me for her. I wonder what New York is like?--very rough, and wild, +no doubt, and I am afraid I shall be much annoyed by the rattlesnakes. You +are going to New York too, are you not?" + +"I am." + +"Have you friends there?" + +"None." + +"I wish I had some acquaintances among our fellow-passengers, but I do not +know a single one. Do you?" + +"No." + +"You have not told me your name yet. Mine is Marion Nugent; and yours--" + +"Is not so pretty a one--Rhoda Steele." + +There was something in the tone of these replies that quelled the +invalid's disposition to talk, and she remained silent while her companion +finished her arrangements and prepared to take possession of her berth. It +was time that she did so. The threatened gale was by this time blowing in +earnest, and the ship was commencing to roll fearfully; so, after securing +all the boxes and bags as well as possible, and hanging up all the +scattered garments, she made a hasty retreat to her couch, and lay there +only half undressed, but utterly prostrate, and as unable to touch the tea +and biscuits brought by the attentive stewardess as was her more delicate +and suffering room-mate. + +Time passed on: the daylight faded from the sky, a feeble glimmering lamp +shed its faint rays into the state-room, and the great steamship went +steadily on, though rocked and tossed like a plaything by the whistling +winds and angry sea. Then midnight came: the lights in the state-rooms +were extinguished and a profound silence reigned throughout the cabins, +broken only by the ceaseless throb of the mighty engines and the noisy +clanking of the screw. + +The state-room was wrapped in profound darkness when Rhoda Steele awoke +with a start as from some troubled dream. Was she still dreaming, or did +she indeed hear a strange choking sound proceeding from the lower berth? +She sprang to the floor at once, heeding neither the darkness nor the +violent motion, and clinging to the side of the berth she called aloud. +There was no answer: even the gurgling, choking sound she had at first +heard had ceased. She put out her hand, and it encountered her companion's +face. It was deathly cold, and the features quivered as if convulsed under +her touch. Again she called aloud--still no answer; and then, thoroughly +frightened, she caught up a cloak from the sofa, threw it around her, and +opening the state-room door, she rushed into the cabin. It was almost +deserted. The lamps swung heavily overhead, swayed by the unceasing +rolling of the ship; a drowsy waiter slumbered at one of the tables, his +head resting on his folded arms; and one or two sleepy passengers tried to +maintain a recumbent posture on the broad sofas that lined the sides. The +cries of the terrified girl soon brought several of the waiters to her +assistance, and Captain Wessels himself, who had not retired to rest, +owing to the stormy weather, came to ascertain the cause of the unusual +disturbance. Her story was quickly told: lights were brought, and the +captain accompanied her back to the state-room. + +It was a pitiful sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless +in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed, +and her small hands clenched as if in agony. + +"The doctor!--run for the doctor!" was the instant and universal +exclamation. The doctor came. One look at the pallid face, one touch on +the slender wrist, and he turned with a grave face to the bystanders. + +"There is nothing to be done," he said. "She is dead. I feared some such +catastrophe when I saw her last evening. She was in the last stages of +heart disease." + +"And who was she?--what was her name?" asked kind-hearted Captain Wessels, +looking down with pitying eyes at the fair pale face. + +The steward brought his lists. + +"Berth No. 22," he read--"Miss Rhoda Steele." + +"And this young lady?" continued the captain, turning to the other +occupant of the state-room, who had sunk back as if exhausted on the sofa, +still enveloped in the shrouding folds of her large waterproof cloak. + +She raised her head. The answer came after a moment's hesitation--came +with a strange, defiant ring in its tone: + +"My name is Marion Nugent." + + + +Chapter II. + +Under Full Sail. + + +More than a year has passed away since the events narrated in our first +chapter took place, and the curtain now rises on a far different scene--a +dinner-party in one of the most splendid of the gorgeous mansions on +Madison avenue, New York. + +Mrs. Walton Rutherford, the giver of the entertainment in question, was a +member of a class unhappily now fast dying out of New York society--one of +those ladies of high social position and ancient lineage who adorn the +station which they occupy as much by their virtues as by their social +talents. A high-minded, pure-souled matron, a devoted wife and mother, as +well as a queen of society, inheriting the noble qualities of her +Revolutionary forefathers as well as their great estates--such was the +lady who presided over the brilliant festivity we are about to describe. +She had been left for many years a widow, and her surviving children--two +sons, Clement and Horace--were both of mature age; Horace, the younger, +being just thirty years old, and Clement, the elder, some seven years his +senior. Mrs. Rutherford herself was a few years over sixty. A year or two +before the period at which our story opens a terrible misfortune had +befallen her. Amaurosis--that most insidious and unmanageable of diseases +of the eye--had attacked her vision, and in a few months after it declared +itself she was totally, hopelessly blind. But, although debarred by her +infirmity from going into society, she still received her friends in her +own home; and her evening receptions and elegant dinners were always cited +as being among the most agreeable and successful entertainments of the +season. + +Another sorrow had recently come to trouble the calm of her honored and +tranquil existence--the marriage of her eldest son. Clement Rutherford, +unlike any other member of the family, was a cold, reserved man, +unpleasant in temper and disagreeable in manner. When he was still quite a +boy, his mother's only sister, Miss Myra Van Vleyden, had died, and had +bequeathed to him the large fortune which she had inherited conjointly +with Mrs. Rutherford from her father, the two sisters being the only +children of Schuyler Van Vleyden. She was a soured, morose old maid, and +probably saw some congeniality of disposition in her eldest nephew which +caused her to single him out as her heir. After he attained to years of +manhood, he always manifested a decided antipathy to ladies' society, and +was generally looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor; so that when he +announced to his mother the fact of his engagement to Mrs. Archer's pretty +governess, Miss Nugent, her distress of mind was fully equaled by her +astonishment. The match met with her strongest disapproval, as was to have +been expected; for it was hardly probable that she, the oldest surviving +representative of the old Knickerbocker family the Van Vleydens, an +acknowledged leader of society by the triple right of wealth, birth and +intellect, should be inclined to welcome very warmly as a daughter-in-law +the penniless beauty who had been occupied for some months past in +teaching Mrs. Archer's little daughters the rudiments of French and music. +Moreover, the investigations and inquiries respecting the young lady's +origin which she had at once caused to be instituted on hearing of her +son's engagement, had revealed a state of affairs which had placed Miss +Nugent in a very unenviable light. Her parents were well born, though +poor. She was the daughter of a curate in the North of England, who had +lost his young wife by heart disease when Marion was but a few months old, +and two years later Mr. Nugent died of consumption, leaving his little +daughter to the care of his unmarried and elderly brother, the Reverend +Walter Nugent, who, though the living he held was but a small one, +contrived to rear and educate his niece as his own child. He had only +allowed her to leave him and become a governess on the assurance of the +village physician that her health was seriously impaired, and that a sea +voyage and complete change of scene would prove the best and surest of +restoratives. But the pained though manly tone of the letter in which he +replied to Mrs. Rutherford's inquiries had prepossessed that warm-hearted, +high-minded lady most strongly against her future daughter-in-law. "I +loved Marion always as though she were my own child," wrote Mr. Nugent, +"and I cannot but look upon her total neglect of me since her arrival in +America as being wholly inexcusable. She has never even written me one +line since her departure, and I learned of her safe arrival only by the +newspapers. I can but infer from her obstinate and persistent silence that +she wishes to sever all ties between herself and me, and I have resigned +myself to the prospect of a lonely and cheerless old age. I trust that she +may be happy in the brilliant marriage which, you say, she is about to +make, and I can assure her that her old uncle will never disturb her in +her new prosperity." + +Mrs. Rutherford had one long, stormy interview with her eldest son, and +learning therein that his determination to marry Miss Nugent was fixed and +unalterable, she had with commendable wisdom accepted the situation, and +resolved to so order the conduct of herself and her relatives as to give +the scandalous world no room for that contemptuous pity and abundant +gossip which an open rupture between herself and her son would doubtless +have occasioned. + +The manner of the wooing had been in this wise: John Archer, a sober, +staid gentleman of great wealth, was Clement Rutherford's most intimate +friend, and naturally, when the Archers moved into their new and splendid +villa at Newport, Clement was invited to spend a few weeks with them--an +invitation which he readily accepted. A few days after his arrival, Mrs. +Archer, who was a pretty, lively little coquette, not in the least sobered +by some thirteen years of married life, offered to drive him out in her +little phaeton. "John has just given me a new pair of ponies," she +said--"such perfect beauties and so gentle that I long to drive them." So +the pretty, stylish equipage, with its fair driver and faultless +appointments, made its first appearance on the avenue that afternoon, and +also, I am sorry to say, its last; for the "gentle beauties" afore-said, +excited to emulation by the number of spirited steeds around them, became +ambitious of distinction, and sought for and decidedly obtained it by +running away, thereby overturning the phaeton, breaking the harness, +bruising Mrs. Archer severely and dislocating Mr. Rutherford's ankle. + +Mrs. Archer was as well as ever in a few days, but the injuries received +by her guest proved sufficiently serious to compel him to maintain a +recumbent position for a long time, and prevented him from walking for +several weeks. She made every arrangement possible for his comfort, and +she had a charming little reception-room on the ground floor, adjoining +the library, fitted up as a bed-chamber, and installed him there; so that +as soon as he was able to quit his bed for a sofa, he could be wheeled +into the latter apartment, and there enjoy the distractions of literature +and society. For a few days after he made his first appearance there his +lovely hostess was all attention and devotion; but, finding that he was +anything but an agreeable or impressionable companion, she soon wearied of +his society. Mr. Archer, shortly after the accident had taken place, had +been summoned from home by important business connected with some mining +property which he possessed, and which necessitated his presence in the +interior of Pennsylvania; so Mrs. Archer, thus left with the entertainment +of her most uncongenial guest exclusively confided to her care, came +speedily to the conclusion that he was a nuisance, and began to look about +for a substitute to relieve her from her unwelcome duties. She decided +that her pretty governess, who spoke French so well, and sang little +French _chansonettes_ so sweetly, and got herself up in such a charming +manner, giving so much "chic" and style even to the simplest of toilettes, +was just the person to take upon herself the task of amusing the +uninteresting invalid. + +"_Do_ look after Mr. Rutherford a little, there's a dear, good creature," +whispered Mrs. Archer confidentially to Miss Nugent. "He is dreadfully +tiresome, to be sure, but John thinks the world of him, you know, and it +would not exactly do to leave him alone all the time. I wish him to +receive every attention while he is in the house, of course; but as for +sitting for hours at a time with him in that stuffy little library--just +in the height of the season, too--why, I cannot think of doing it. If you +will just go and sit with him sometimes, and read to him a little, it will +be an absolute charity to me. I'll see that Alice and Emily do not get +into any mischief." + +Which, considering that the young ladies in question were, one twelve, the +other ten years of age, and both much addicted to flirtation and dancing +the "German," was rather a rash promise and inconsiderately made. + +So Miss Nugent was definitely installed as reader and _garde malade_ in +general, and Clement Rutherford soon learned to await her coming with +impatience and to welcome her with delight. All his life long will he +remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the +far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and +when the blue splendors of her lustrous eyes lent a new meaning to the +poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a +day when the book was laid aside, and the impassioned utterances of poetry +gave place to the more prosaic but not less fervent accents of a +newly-awakened passion. Cold, silent and morose as Clement Rutherford had +always been, it had so happened that but few women had ever attempted to +attract him, notwithstanding his wealth and social position; and the +interested motives of those few had been so apparent that he had been +repelled and disgusted, instead of being fascinated, by their wiles; so +that Miss Nugent's grace and beauty and syren charms proved all too potent +for his unoccupied though icy heart to resist; and thus it chanced that +the day before Mr. Rutherford left Newport he astonished his hostess by +requesting a private interview with her, and therein announcing his +engagement to her governess. + +"You could have knocked me down with a feather," Mrs. Archer said +afterward to an intimate friend. "I never should have suspected that such +a quiet, stupid man as he was would fall in love in that ridiculous kind +of a way. Good gracious! how indignant old Mrs. Rutherford will be! and I +shall be blamed for the whole affair, no doubt. I wish John had never +brought the man here--I never _did_ like him; and then, too, it is so +provoking to lose Miss Nugent just now, while we are at Newport. Of course +I can find no one to replace her till we return to New York. Well, I +always _was_ an unlucky little woman." + +The marriage took place in the latter part of September, only a few weeks +after the engagement had been first announced. Mrs. Rutherford, true to +her resolution of making the best of the affair, was careful that none of +the usual courtesies and observances should be neglected. The bridal gifts +from the Rutherford family, if less splendid, were as numerous as they +would have been had Mr. Rutherford married a member of his mother's +decorous, high-bred "set," and all his immediate relatives called most +punctiliously on the bride when the newly-wedded pair arrived in New York +after their six weeks' trip to Philadelphia and Washington. + +Mr. Rutherford decided to take rooms at the Brevoort House till he could +purchase a suitable residence. His mother's splendid home was not thrown +open to receive him and his unwelcome bride, as it would have been had he +made a choice more consonant with her wishes. + +But we have wandered far from the dinner given by Mrs. Rutherford in honor +of her new daughter-in-law, and with which our chapter commences. + +It was a superb entertainment, as the Rutherford dinners usually were. The +service of gold plate purchased by Schuyler Van Vleyden when he was +minister to Austria adorned the table, which was also decorated with three +splendid pyramids of choicest flowers. An exquisite bouquet bloomed in +front of each lady's plate, and the painted blossoms on the peerless +dinner-service of rare old Sevres vied in every respect save fragrance +with their living counterparts. An unseen orchestra, stationed in the +conservatory, sent forth strains of music, now grave, now gay, as Gounod +or Offenbach ruled the tuneful spirit of the hour. Twelve guests only were +present, including Mrs. John Archer, to whom Mrs. Rutherford had in this +fashion testified her forgiveness, and who had accepted the proffered +olive-branch with delight, wearing, in order to do honor to the occasion, +an exquisite dress, fresh from one of the most renowned _ateliers_ of +Parisian fashion. Mrs. Rutherford, as usual, notwithstanding her +infirmity, presided with unfailing grace and dignity; and in her splendid +dress of black satin, brocaded with bouquets of flowers in their natural +hues, her cap and collar of priceless old point lace, and her antiquely +set but magnificent ornaments of sapphires and diamonds, she still looked +a queen of society. A well-trained servant was stationed behind her chair, +who from time to time placed before her suitably-prepared portions of the +various delicacies of the entertainment, of which she slightly partook, in +order to obviate the restraint which her presence at the festivity without +participating in it would have occasioned. On her left hand sat her +younger son, Horace, whose watchful eyes followed her every movement, and +whose loving care anticipated her every wish. He was a tall, +stalwart-looking young man, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like his elder +brother, but his frank, joyous expression and winning manners bore no +resemblance to the sullen countenance and surly demeanor of Clement. + +The bride was, of course, the, cynosure of all eyes. Attired in rich, +creamy-white satin, the corsage shaded with folds of delicate lace, with +coral ornaments on her neck and arms, and with the heavy masses of her +dark hair interwoven with coral beads, she looked extremely beautiful, and +was pronounced by the ladies present to be "handsome and stylish-looking, +but decidedly dull." This latter accusation was more truthful than such +charges usually are. Mrs. Clement Rutherford did feel unusually stupid. +She was _ennuye_ by the long, formal, stately dinner; she knew but few of +the persons present; and her point-lace fan was frequently called into +requisition to conceal her yawns. The game had been served before her next +neighbor, a sprightly young New Yorker, who had been rather fascinated by +her beauty, contrived to arouse her into something like animation. He +succeeded at last, however, and it was not long before an unusually +brilliant sally drew a merry laugh from her lips. Her laugh was +peculiar--a low, musical, trilling sound, mirthful and melodious as the +chime of a silver bell. + +As its joyous music rang on the air, Mrs. Rutherford turned ghastly pale. +She gasped convulsively, half rose from her seat and fell back in a +deathlike swoon. + +Of course all was instantly confusion and dismay. The guests sprang up, +the waiters hurried forward--Horace was instantly at his mother's side. + +"She has only fainted," he said in his clear, decided tones. "She will be +better in a few moments. Let me beg of you, my friends, to resume your +seats. Clement, will you oblige me by taking our mother's post?" + +With the help of Mrs. Rutherford's special attendant, Horace supported the +already reviving sufferer from the room. They conveyed her to her sleeping +apartment, where restoratives and cold water were freely used, and she +soon regained perfect consciousness. But returning animation seemed to +bring with it a strange and overwhelming sorrow. When the servant had +retired, leaving her alone with her son, she refused to answer any of his +queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and +irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, +by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased +to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for +some time perfectly quiet and silent. At length she spoke: + +"Horace!" + +"What is it, mother?" + +"Describe to me the personal appearance of your brother's wife--minutely, +as though a picture were to be painted from your words." + +It was no unusual request. Horace was in the habit of thus minutely +describing persons and places for his mother's benefit. + +"She is rather below the middle height, and her form, though slender, is +finely moulded and of perfect proportions. Her hands and feet are +faultless, and her walk is extremely graceful, resembling more the gait of +a French-woman than that of an English girl. Her complexion is pale and +rather sallow, and her countenance is full of expression, which varies +constantly when she talks. The lower part of her face is somewhat too thin +for perfect beauty, and the chin is inclined to be pointed, and the cheeks +are rather hollow, but the upper part is superb. Her brow is low and +broad, and she folds back from it the heavy waves of her black hair in the +plainest possible style. Her eyes are her chief beauty, and would +transfigure any face into loveliness. They are very large, and of a dark, +transparent blue, of so lustrous and so perfect an azure that not even in +shadow do they look black. Stay--I can give you a better idea of her +appearance than by multiplying words. Did you, when you were in Munich, +visit the Gallery of Beauties in the Royal Palace?" + +"I did." + +"Do you remember the portrait of Lola Montez?" + +"Certainly--as though I had seen it yesterday." + +"Marion resembles that portrait very strikingly, particularly in the shape +and carriage of her head." + +"I am not mistaken--it is she. Would that I had never lived to see this +day!" And Mrs. Rutherford wrung her hands in an agony of helpless, +hopeless distress. + +"It is she?" repeated Horace, in perplexity. "Whom do you mean, mother? +Who was Marion Nugent?" + +"She is not Marion Nugent--this impostor who has thrust herself into our +midst, bringing scandal and dishonor as her dower." + +"And who, then, is she?" + +Mrs. Rutherford turned toward him and fixed on his face her tear-bathed +eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read +his thoughts in his countenance. + +"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the +shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy? +Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will +believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly +denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable +anguish. + +Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own. + +"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all. +If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be +freed from the matrimonial chain." + +"Could that be possible?" + +"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if +you will but confide in me." + +"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I _will_ +tell you all." + +Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest, +numbering among her passengers Horace Rutherford. + + + +Chapter III. + +Striking the Flag. + + +The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and +it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace +Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly +as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he +vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief +European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged +to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the +affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's _mesalliance_, his +mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent +seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all +afforded food for the insatiable appetite of the scandal-mongers. Then +Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of +Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had +been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at +her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the +elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street, +with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for +much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten" +would honor with its august presence the ball which Mrs. Clement +Rutherford proposed giving on Shrove Tuesday, which in that year came +about the middle of March. But as to that, it was generally conceded that +they would. Youth, beauty, wealth and the shadow of an old family name +could cover a multitude of such sins as rapid manners, desperate +flirtations and a questionable origin; and notwithstanding her fastness, +and, worse still, her _ci-devant_ governess-ship, Mrs. Clement Rutherford +was a decided social success. + +On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his +appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, +and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual +manner. + +"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been +exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me +something about your travels." + +"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message +for your wife: can I see her?" + +A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother. + +"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke. +"Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is +probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her _boudoir_, as she +calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see +her." + +He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his +hand. + +"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married +life?" + +"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "_they_ +are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss." + +"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy," +muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a +harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight +before, me." + +The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, +was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and +on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of +taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fresco +by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after +them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a +delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the +Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few +chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the +tiny apartment. Etageres of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, +and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing +nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian +glass, Dresden and Sevres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and +Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the +one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited +for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been +selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring +and _riante_ style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by +Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun +flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the +foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a +barren and precipitous shore. + +Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened +and his sister-in-law entered. He turned to greet her, and her beauty, +enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an +involuntary glance of admiration. Her dress was an exemplification of how +much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it +absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate. She wore a robe of +turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing +sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only +Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise. A band of the +same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and +showed to advantage the perfection of her figure. A brooch and long +ear-pendants of lustreless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with +gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and +gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking +woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer. + +"Welcome home, Horace!" she said in that low sweet voice which was one of +her most potent charms. "How kind it is of you to pay me a visit so soon +after your return!" + +She placed herself on the couch and motioned to him to take a seat near +her. He drew up his chair, and a short, embarrassed pause succeeded. + +Mrs. Rutherford toyed with her fan and stole glances from under her long +black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and +wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task +before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature. + +Wearied of silence, the lady spoke at last. + +"Have you nothing of interest respecting your travels to tell me?" she +asked. + +Her voice seemed to break the spell which paralyzed him. He turned toward +her with the look of one who nerves himself up to take a desperate +resolution: + +"Yes: I have a story to relate to you, and one of more than common +interest." + +"Really!" She yawned behind her fan. "Excuse me, but I was at Mrs. +Houdon's ball last evening, and the 'German' was kept up till five o'clock +this morning. I am wretchedly tired. Now do go on with your story: I have +no doubt but that I shall find it amusing, but do not be much surprised if +I fall asleep." + +"I think you will find it interesting, and I have no fear of its putting +you to sleep. But you must make me one promise. I am but a poor narrator, +and you must engage not to interrupt me." + +"I have no hesitation in promising to remain perfectly quiet, no matter +how startling your incidents or how vivid your descriptions may be." + +She leaned back among the cushions with another stifled yawn and shaded +her eyes with her fan. Without heeding the veiled impertinence of her +manner, Horace commenced his narrative: + +"Some twenty-five years ago a friendless, penniless Englishwoman died at +one of the cheap boarding-schools in Dieppe, where she had officiated for +some time as English teacher and general drudge. She left behind her a +little girl about five years of age--a pretty, engaging child, whose +beauty and infantile fascinations so won the heart of Madame Tellier, the +proprietress of the establishment, that she decided to take charge of the +little creature and educate her, her project being to fit her for the post +of English teacher in her school. But the pretty child grew up to be a +beautiful but unprincipled girl, with an inborn passion for indolence and +luxury. At the age of seventeen she eloped from the school with a young +Parisian gentleman, who had been spending the summer months at one of the +seaside hotels in Dieppe, and her benefactress saw her and heard of her no +more. + +"We will pass over the events of the next few years. It would hardly +interest you to follow, as I did, each step by which the heroine of my +history progressed ever downward on the path of vice. We find her at last +traveling in Italy under the protection of the Count von Erlenstein, an +Austrian noble of great wealth and dissolute character. She has cast aside +the name she once bore, and, anticipating the jewel-borrowed cognomens of +Cora Pearl and La Reine Topaze, she adopts a title from the profusion of +pink coral jewelry which she habitually wears, and Rose Sherbrooke is +known as Rose Coral." + +Horace paused. A short, sharp sound broke the momentary silence: it was +caused by the snapping of one of the gilded fan-sticks under the pressure +of the white, rigid fingers that clasped it. But the listener kept her +face hidden, and but for that convulsive motion the speaker might have +fancied that she slept, so silent and motionless did she remain. After a +short pause Horace continued: + +"The attachment of Count von Erlenstein proved to be a lasting one, and we +find Rose Coral at a later period installed in a luxurious establishment +in Vienna, and one of the reigning queens of that realm of many +sovereigns, the _demi-monde_ of the gay capital of Austria. But the count +falls ill; his sickness speedily assumes a dangerous form; his death +deprives Rose Coral of her splendor; and the sunny streets of Vienna know +her fair face no more. I will not retrace for you, as I could do, each +step in her rapid descent from luxury to poverty, from splendor to vice, +from celebrity to ruin. But one day she makes her appearance, under the +name of Rhoda Steele, on board the steamship America, bound for New York. +The state-room which she occupies is shared by a young girl named Marion +Nugent, whose future career is to be that of a governess in the United +States. On the first night out one of the occupants of the state-room is +taken suddenly ill and dies, the corpse is committed to the deep, and it +is reported throughout the ship that the name of the deceased is Rhoda +Steele. The tale was false: it was Marion Nugent who died--it was Rose +Sherbrooke, _alias_ Rose Coral, _alias_ Rhoda Steele, who lived to rob the +dead girl of her effects and to assume her name!" + +The broken fan was flung violently to the floor, and Mrs. Rutherford +sprang to her feet, her face livid with passion and her blue eyes blazing +with a steel-like light. + +"How dare you come here to assert such falsehoods?" she cried. "You have +always hated me--you and all the rest of your haughty family--because it +pleased Clement Rutherford to marry me--me, a penniless governess. But I +am your sister-in-law, and I _demand _ that you treat me with proper +respect. You came here to-day simply to insult me. Well, sir, I will +summon my husband, and he shall protect me from your insolence." + +She turned toward the door as she spoke, but he motioned her back with an +imperative and scornful gesture. + +"Softly, Rose Coral," he said, with a sneer: "the manners of the Quartier +Breda are not much to my taste, nor do they suit the character you have +been pleased to assume. Do you think me so void of common sense as to +return home without full proof of your identity? I have in my possession a +large colored photograph of you, taken some years ago by Hildebrandt of +Vienna, and endorsed by him on the back with a certificate stating that it +is an accurate likeness of the celebrated Rose Coral. Secondly, I have +brought home with me two witnesses--one is Jane Sheldon, late housekeeper +for the Rev. Walter Nugent, and formerly nurse to the deceased Marion +Nugent; and the other is a French hairdresser who lived many years in +Vienna, and who, for several months, daily arranged the profuse tresses of +Rose Coral. One will prove who you are _not_, and the other will as +certainly prove who you _are_." + +"Who I _was_" she said, defiantly. "I will deny it no longer: I am Rose +Sherbrooke, once known as Rose Coral, and, what is more to the purpose, I +am the wife of Clement Rutherford. Have a care, my brother Horace, lest +you reveal to the world that your immaculate relatives have been touching +pitch of the blackest hue and greatest tenacity. Prove me to be the vilest +of my sex, I remain none the less a wedded wife--your brother's wife--and +I defy you. The game is played out, and I have won it." + +She threw herself back in her chair and cast on him a glance of insolent +disdain. Horace Rutherford looked at her with a scornful smile. + +"The game is _not_ played out," he said, calmly. "One card remains in my +hand, and I produce it. It is the Ace of Diamonds, and its title is The +Rose of the Morning." + +A livid paleness overspread Mrs. Rutherford's features, and a stifled cry +escaped from her lips. She half rose from her seat, but, seeming to +recollect herself, she sank back and covered her face with her hands. +Horace continued, after a momentary pause: + +"My investigations into the history of the Count Wilhelm von Erlenstein +during the last years of his life revealed the fact that he had lost the +most valuable of the jewels of his family. It had been stolen. It was a +pink diamond of great size and beauty, known to gem-connoisseurs by the +name of The Rose of the Morning--one of those remarkable stones which have +a history and a pedigree, and which are as well known by reputation to +diamond-fanciers as are Raphael's Transfiguration and the Apollo Belvidere +to the lovers of art. This gem was worn by Count Wilhelm as a clasp to the +plume in his toque at a fancy ball given by one of the Metternich family, +at which he appeared in the costume of Henri III. of France. He afterward, +with culpable carelessness, placed it, amongst his studs, pins, +watch-chains and other similar bijouterie, in a small steel cabinet which +stood in his bed-chamber. His illness and the dismissal of Rose Coral +occurred soon after the fancy ball in question, and it was not till his +heir, the present count, had been for some time in possession of the +estates that it was discovered that the great diamond was missing. It was +not to be found, and suspicion immediately fell upon the late count's +valet, a Frenchman named Antoine Lasalle; who was found to have been +mysteriously possessed of a large sum of money after the count's death. He +was arrested, and it was conclusively proved that he had stolen a number +of valuable trinkets from his dying master, but still no trace of The Rose +of the Morning could be discovered, and Lasalle strenuously denied all +knowledge respecting it. The family offered large rewards for its +recovery, and the detectives of all the large cities of Europe have been +for some time on the alert to discover it, but in vain. As soon as I heard +this story, I thought that I could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to the +whereabouts of the missing jewel; and I caused investigations to be set on +foot in New York by a trusty agent, which resulted in the discovery that +The Rose of the Morning had been sold some six months before to a jeweler +in Maiden lane for about one-twenty-fifth of its value, the peculiar tint +of the stone, and the purchaser's ignorance of the estimation in which it +is held by the gem-fanciers of Europe, having militated against the +magnitude of the valuation set upon it. It was secured for me at a +comparatively trifling price. The person who sold it to the jeweler some +six months ago, in spite of a partial disguise and an assumed name, was +easy to recognize, from the description given, as that lady of many names, +Mrs. John Archer's governess. Now, Rose Coral, what say you? You may be +Mrs. Clement Rutherford, my brother's lawful wife, but you are not the +less a thief and a criminal, for whom the laws have terrible punishment +and bitter degradation." + +"This is but a poor invention: where are your proofs?" she cried, looking +up as she spoke, but her faltering voice and quivering lips contradicted +her words. + +"Here is my chief witness." He drew off his left-hand glove as he spoke, +and extended his hand toward her. On the third finger blazed the beautiful +gem of which he had spoken, its great size and purity fully displayed in +the pale afternoon sunlight that flashed back in rosy radiance from its +bright-tinted depths. + +"It is almost too large to wear as a ring," he said with great coolness, +looking at the jewel, "but I wish it to run no further risks till I can +transfer it to its lawful owner, which will be as soon as it has played +its talismanic part by freeing my brother from his impostor-wife." + +The lady rose from her seat, pale, calm and resolved. + +"Further insults are useless, sir," she said. "The game is ended now, and +you have won it. What is it that you wish me to do?" + +"You must sail for Europe in one of next week's steamers, leaving behind +you such a confession of guilt as will enable my brother to procure a +divorce without revealing the shameful fact that he was the innocent means +of introducing an impostor--a _ci-devant_ lorette--to his family and +friends as his wife. Better this scandal of an elopement than the horror +of having such a story made public. An income amply sufficient for your +wants will be settled upon you, on condition that you never return to the +United States, and never, in any way, proclaim the fact that Mrs. Clement +Rutherford and Rose Coral were one and the same person." + +"I accept your conditions," she said, wearily. "I will go, never to +return. Now leave me. But stay: will you not answer me one question?" + +"I will, certainly." + +"Who was it that discovered my secret?" + +"My mother--my blind mother. Some years ago, before she lost her sight, I +accompanied her on a short European tour, in which we visited England, +France, Switzerland, and finally Italy. While we were at Rome I fell ill +with the fever of the country, and my physicians gave orders that as soon +as I was well enough to travel I should leave Italy for a more bracing +climate. We had not visited Naples, and I was anxious that my mother +should not return home without seeing the wonders of that city; so as soon +as I became convalescent I prevailed upon her to leave me in the care of +some friends and to join a party who were going thither. During her stay +she went frequently to the opera. One evening she was greatly disturbed by +the loud talking and laughing of some persons in the box next to the one +she occupied, and she was much struck with the beauty, the brilliant +toilette and the boisterous conduct of one of the female members of the +party. She inquired the name of the person she had thus remarked. It was +yourself, and she learned not only your name, but your whole history. When +at her own dinner-table she heard the sweet and singular laugh that had so +struck her on that occasion, the sensitiveness of hearing peculiar to the +blind caused her to recognize the sound at once; and the description which +I afterward gave her of your personal appearance only changed torturing +doubt into agonizing certainty." + +"Thanks for your courtesy: I will detain you no longer." + +Horace bowed and approached the door. Suddenly, as if moved by a sudden +impulse, he turned back. + +"Believe me, this task has been a hard one," he said, earnestly. "And +remember, if hereafter you may need pecuniary aid, do not hesitate to +apply to me. For Heaven's sake, do not return to the life you once led. +There was one redeeming feature in the imposture which you practiced: it +showed that some yearning for a pure name and an innocent life was yet +possible to you." + +"I want no sermons," she answered, abruptly. "Only leave me at peace. Go: +I am sick of the sight of you." + +As he closed the door he cast one parting glance on the room and its +occupant. She stood leaning against the back of a large arm-chair, her +clasped hands resting on the top, and her white, rigid face set in the +fixed calmness of total despair. + +Thus left alone, she remained standing for some time as motionless as +though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she +seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a +bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. Her maid +quickly appeared. + +"I have a wretched headache, Christine," she said. "I shall not come down +to dinner, and do not disturb me till nine o'clock: that will give me time +enough to dress for Mrs. Winchester's ball. I will wear the pale-blue +satin and my point-lace tunic. Be sure you change the white roses that +loop it for pink ones, and lay out my parure of pearls and diamonds, and +my point-lace fan and handkerchief. Now bring me the two phials that stand +on the third shelf of the closet in my bed-chamber." + +Christine departed on her errand and soon returned, bringing with her two +bottles, the smallest of which was labeled "Solution of Morphia--POISON. +Dose for an adult, ten drops;" while the largest Was simply inscribed +"Sulphuric Ether." These she placed on the chimney-piece, and then +proceeded to arrange the cushions of the lounge and to draw the curtains. +"I will now leave madame to her repose," she said. "Does madame need +anything more?" + +"No, I shall want nothing more," was the reply. The door closed upon the +maid's retreating form, and Mrs. Rutherford instantly shot the bolt. + +She cast a sad and wistful glance around the dainty room and on its +glittering contents. "_J'etais si bien ici_," she said regretfully. "I had +found here the existence which suited me, and now the end has come. It is +not in my nature to remain satisfied with a life of poverty and +respectability, and I will not return to one of degradation and vice. But, +after all, what does it matter? My fate would have found me sooner or +later, and this soft couch is better than a hospital bed or the slabs of +La Morgue: this draught is more soothing than the cold waters of the +Thames or the Seine. Life is no longer a game that is worth the candle: +let us extinguish the lights and put the cards away." + +She took up the phial of morphia, drew the little sofa nearer to the +fireplace and extended herself upon it. The daylight faded from the sky +and night came, and with the night came sleep--a sleep whose dream was of +Eternity, and whose wakening light would be the dawn of the resurrection +morning. + +"Accidental death" was the verdict of the coroner and the newspapers, and, +in fact, of the world in general--a conclusion much assisted by the +evidence of Christine, who testified that her mistress was in the habit of +using narcotics and anaesthetics in large quantities to relieve the pain +of the neuralgic headaches from which she was a constant sufferer. Society +said, "How sad! Dreadful, is it not?" and went on its way--not exactly +rejoicing, for the death of Mrs. Rutherford deprived its members of her +long-promised, long-talked-of Shrove-Tuesday ball, and consequently the +gay world mourned her loss very sincerely for a short time; in fact, till +a well-known leader of fashion announced her intention of giving a +fancy-dress party on the night thus left vacant, whereupon Society was +consoled, and Mrs. Rutherford's sad fate was forgotten. + +Only two persons--Horace Rutherford and his mother--suspected that her +death was not an accidental one; but they guarded their secret carefully, +and Clement Rutherford will never learn that his dead wife was other than +the innocent English girl she represented herself to be. Walter Nugent +wrote a pathetic letter to Mrs. Rutherford, begging that a lock of his +lost and now forgiven darling's hair might be sent to him; and it cost +Horace a sharp pang of regret when he substituted for the black, wavy +tress furnished by Clement a golden ringlet purchased from one of the +leading hairdressers of New York. + +"Heaven forgive me!" he said to himself, remorsefully, as he sealed the +little packet; "but I really think that this is one of the cases wherein +one cannot be blamed for not revealing the truth." + +A few months later, Horace Rutherford stood in Greenwood Cemetery +contemplating with curiosity and interest the inscription on a +recently-erected monument of pure white marble. + +"Sacred to the memory of Marion Nugent, beloved wife of Clement +Rutherford," he read. "Well, this is consistent at least. She wears the +disguise of a virtuous woman in her very tomb. Marion Nugent rests beneath +the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and here Rose Sherbrooke sleeps in an +honored grave beneath the shelter of the dead girl's stainless name. But +the deception has power to harm no longer, so let us leave her in peace. +It is well for our family that, even as a sunken wreck, we still find this +pirate bark Under False Colors," + +LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER. + + + + +The Hungry Heart. + + + +A village on the coast of Maine; in this village a boarding-house; in this +boarding-house a parlor. + +This parlor is, strictly speaking, a chamber: it is in the second story, +and until lately it contained a bed, washstand, etc.; but a visitor from +New York has taken a fancy to change it to a reception-room. In the rear, +communicating with it, is a sleeping-closet. + +The room is what you might expect to find in a village boarding-house: the +floor of liliuptian extent; the ceiling low, uneven, cracked and yellow; +the originally coarse and ugly wall-paper now blotched with age; the +carpet thin, threadbare, patched and stained; the furniture of various +woods and colors, and in various stages of decrepitude. + +But a tiny bracket or two, three or four handsome engravings, two fresh +wreaths of evergreens, two vases of garden flowers, a number of Swiss and +French knickknacks, and a few prettily-bound books, give the little nest +an air of refinement which is almost elegance. + +You judge at once that the occupant must be a woman--a woman moreover of +sensibility and taste; a woman of good society. Of all this you become +positive when you look at her, take note of her gracious manner and listen +to her cultured voice. + +Her expression is singularly frank and almost childlike: it exhibits a +rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions: it is both vivacious and +refined, both eager and sweet. It would seem as if here were the +impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and +artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness and +feeling. + +In a large easy-chair reclines her rather small, slender and willowy form, +starting slightly forward when she speaks, and sinking back when she +listens. Her sparkling eyes are fixed on the eyes of her one visitor with +an intentness and animation of interest which should be very fascinating. + +He, a young man, not five years older than herself, very gentle in manner +and with a remarkably sweet expression of face, evidently is fascinated, +and even strongly moved, if one may judge by the feverish color in his +cheeks, the eager inquiry of his gaze and the tremor of his lips. + +The first words of hers which we shall record are a strange utterance to +come from a woman: + +"Let me tell you something which I have read lately. It sounds like a +satire, and yet there is too much truth in it: 'Every woman in these days +needs two husbands--one to fill her purse, and one to fill her heart; one +to dress her, and one to love her. It is not easy to be the two in one.' +That is what I have read, and it is only too true. Remember it, and don't +marry." + +A spasm of intense spiritual pain crossed the young man's fine and kindly +face. + +"Don't say such things, I beg of you!" he implored. "I am sure that in +what you have quoted there is a slander upon most women. I know that it +slanders you." + +Her lips parted as if for a contradiction, but it was evidently very +pleasant to her to hear such words from him, and with a little childlike +smile of gratification she let him proceed. + +"I have perfect confidence in you," he murmured. "I am willing to put all +my chances of happiness in your hands. My only fear is that I am not half +worthy of you--not a thousandth part worthy of you. Will you not listen to +me seriously? Will you not be so kind?" + +A tremor of emotion slightly lifted her hands, and it seemed for a moment +as if she would extend them to him. Then there was a sudden revulsion: +with a more violent shudder, evidently of a painful nature, she threw +herself backward, her face turned pale, and she closed her eyes as if to +shut him from her sight. + +"I ought to ask your pardon," she whispered. "I never thought that it +would come to this. I never meant that it should. Oh, I ask your pardon." +Recovering herself with singular quickness, a bright smile dancing along +the constantly changing curves of her lips, like sunbeams leaping from +wavelet to wavelet, she once more leaned cordially toward him, and said in +a gay yet pleading tone, "Let us talk of something else. Come, tell me +about yourself--all about yourself, nothing about me." + +"I cannot speak of anything else," he replied, after looking at her long +in silence. "My whole being is full of you: I cannot think of anything +else." + +A smile of gratitude sweetly mastered her mouth: then it suddenly turned +to a smile of pity; then it died in a quiver of remorse. + +"Oh, we cannot marry," she sighed. "We must not marry, if we could. Let me +tell you something dreadful. People hate each other after they are +married. I know: I have seen it. I knew a girl of seventeen who married a +man ten years older--a man who was Reason itself. Her friends told her, +and she herself believed it, that she was sure of happiness. But after +three years she found that she did not love, that she was not loved, and +that she was miserable. He was too rational: he used to judge her as he +would a column of figures--he had no comprehension for her feelings." + +There was a momentary pause, during which she folded her hands and looked +at him, but with an air of not seeing him. In the recollection of this +heart-tragedy of the past and of another she had apparently forgotten the +one which was now pressing upon herself. + +"It was incredible how cold and unsympathizing and dull he could be," she +went on. "Once, after she had worked a week in secret to surprise him with +a dressing-gown made by her own hands--labored a week, waited and hoped a +week for one word of praise--he only said, 'It is too short.' Don't you +think it was cruel? It was. I suppose he soon forgot it, but she never +could. A woman cannot forget such slights: they do not seem little blows +to her; they make her very soul bleed." + +"Don't reproach _me_ for it," whispered the young man with a pleading +smile. "You seem to be reproving me, and I can't bear it. I am not +guilty." + +"Oh, not you," she answered quickly. "I am not scolding you. I could not." + +She did not mean it, but she gave him a smile of indescribable sweetness: +she had had no intention of putting out her hands toward him, but she did +it. He seized the delicate fingers and slowly drew her against his heart. +Her face crimson with feeling, her whole form trembling to the tiniest +vein, she rose to her feet, turning away her head as if to fly, and yet +did not escape, and could not wish to escape. Holding her in his arm, he +poured into her ear a murmur which was not words, it was so much more than +words. + +"Oh, _could_ you truly love me?" she at last sobbed. "Could you _keep_ +loving me?" + +After a while some painful recollection seemed to awaken her from this +dream of happiness, and, drawing herself out of his embrace, she looked +him sadly in the eyes, saying, "I must not be so weak. I must save myself +and you from misery. Oh, I must. Go now--leave me for a while: do go. I +must have time to think before I say another word to you." + +"Good-bye, my love--soon to be my wife," he answered, stifling with a kiss +the "No, no," which she tried to utter. + +Although he meant to go, and although she was wretchedly anxious that he +should go, he was far from gone. All across the room, at every square of +the threadbare carpet, they halted to renew their talk. Minutes passed, an +hour had flown, and still he was there. And when he at last softly opened +the door, she herself closed it, saying, "Oh no! not yet." + +So greedy is a loving woman for love, so much does she hate to lose the +breath of it from her soul: to let it be withdrawn is like consenting to +die when life is sweetest. + +Thus it was through her, who had bidden him to go, and who had meant that +he should go, that he remained for minutes longer, dropping into her ear +whispers of love which at last drew out her confession of love. And when +the parting moment came--that moment of woman's life in which she least +belongs to herself--there was not in this woman a single reservation of +feeling or purpose. + +These people, who were so madly in love with each other, were almost +strangers. The man was Charles Leighton, a native of Northport, who had +never gone farther from his home than to Boston, and there only to +graduate in the Harvard College and Medical School. + +The lady was Alice Duvernois: her name was all that was known of her in +the village--it was all that she had told of herself. Only a month +previous to the scene above described she had arrived in Northport to +obtain, as she said, a summer of quiet and sea-bathing. She had come +alone, engaged her own rooms, and for a time seemed to want nothing but +solitude. + +Even after she had made herself somewhat familiar with the other inmates +of the boarding-house, nothing positive was learned of her history. That +she had been married was probable: an indefinable something in her face +and carriage seemed to reveal thus much: moreover, her trunks were marked +"James Duvernois." + +And yet, so young did she sometimes look, so childlike was her smile and +so simple her manner, that there were curious ones who scouted the +supposition of wifehood. People addressed her both as "Miss" and "Mrs."; +at last it was discovered that her letters bore the latter title: then she +became popularly known as "the beautiful widow." + +It would be a waste of time to sketch the opening and ripening of the +intimacy between Doctor Leighton and this fascinating stranger. On his +part it was as nearly a case of love at first sight as perhaps can occur +among people of the Anglo-Saxon race. From the beginning he had no doubts +about giving her his whole heart: he was mastered at once by an emotion +which would not let him hesitate: he longed with all his soul for her +soul, and he strove to win it. + +Well, we will not go over the story: we know that he had triumphed. Yes, +in spite of her terror of the future, in spite of some withholding mystery +in the past, she had granted him--or rather she had not been able to +prevent him from seizing--her passionate affection. She had uttered a +promise which, a month before, she would not have dreamed herself capable +of making. + +In so doing she had acquired an almost unendurable happiness. It was one +of those mighty and terrible joys which are like the effect of opium--one +of those joys which condense life and abbreviate it, which excite and yet +stupefy, which intoxicate and kill. With this in her heart she lived ten +of her old days in one, but also she drew for those ten days upon her +future. + +After one of her interviews with Leighton, after an hour of throbbing, of +trembling, of vivid but confused emotions, her face would be as pale as +death, and her weakness such that she could hardly speak. The hands which, +while they clung to his, had been soft and moist, became dry and hot as +with fever, and then cold as ice. At night she could scarcely sleep: for +hours her brain throbbed with the thought of him, and of what stood +between him and her. In the morning she was heavy with headache, dizzy, +faint, hysterical; yet the moment she saw him again she was all life, all +freshness. + +From the point of confession there was no more resistance. She would be +his wife; she would be married whenever he wished; she seemed mad to +reward him for his love; she wanted somehow to sacrifice herself for his +sake. Yet, although she hesitated no longer, she sometimes gazed at him +with eyes full of anxiety, and uttered words which presaged evil. + +"If any trouble springs from this, you must pardon me," she more than once +whispered. "I cannot help it. I have never, never, never been loved +before; and oh, I have been so hungry, so famished for it, I had begun to +despair of it. Yes, when I first met you, I had quite despaired of there +being any love in the world for me. I could not help listening to you: I +could not help taking all your words and looks into my craving heart; and +now I am yours--forgive me!" + +Stranger as she was in Northport, everybody trusted the frank sweetness in +her face, and sought no other cause for admiring her and wishing her +happiness. The whole village came to the church to witness her marriage +and to doat upon a bridal beauty which lay far more in expression than in +form or feature. A few words of description--inadequate notes to represent +the precious gold of reality--must be given to one who could change the +stare of curiosity to a beaming glance of sympathy. + +Small, slender, fragile; neither blonde nor brunette; a clear skin, with a +hectic flush; light chestnut hair, glossy and curling; eyes of violet +blue, large, humid and lustrous, which at the first glance seemed black +because of the darkness, length and closeness of the lashes, and capable +of expressing an earnestness and sweetness which no writer or artist might +hope to depict; a manner which in solitude might be languid, but which the +slightest touch of interest kindled into animation; in fine, white teeth +that sparkled with gayety, and glances that flashed happiness. + +She was married without bridal costume, and there was no wedding journey. +Leighton was poor, and must attend to his business; and his wife wanted +nothing from him which he could not spare--nothing but his love. +Impossible to paint her pathetic gratitude for this affection; the +spiritual--it was not passionate--fondness which she bore him; the +softness of her eyes as she gazed for minutes together into his; the +sudden, tremulous outreachings of her hands toward him, as she just +touches him with her finger and draws back, then leans forward and lies in +his arms, uttering a little cry of happiness. Here was a heart that must +long have hungered for affection--a heart unspeakably thankful and joyous +at obtaining it. + +"I have been smiling all day," she sometimes said to him. "People have +asked me why I looked so gay, and what I had heard that was funny. It is +just because I am entirely happy, and because the feeling is still a +surprise. Shall I ever get over it? Am I silly? No!" + +Her gladness of heart seemed to make her angelic. She rejoiced in every +joy around her, and grieved for every sorrow. She visited the poor of her +husband's patients, watched with them when there was need, made little +collections for their relief, chatted away their forebodings, half cured +them with her smile. There was something catching, comforting, uplifting +in the spectacle of that overbrimming content. + +The well were as susceptible to its influence as the sick. Once, half a +dozen men and twice as many boys were seen engaged in recovering her veil +out of a pond into which the wind had blown it; and when it was handed to +her by a shy youth on the end of a twenty-foot pole, all felt repaid for +their labors by the childlike burst of laughter with which she received +it. Now and then, however, shadows fell across this sunshine. In those +dark moments she frequently reverted to the unhappy couple of whom she had +told Leighton when he first spoke to her of marriage. She was possessed to +describe the man--his dull, filmy, unsympathetic black eyes, his +methodical life and hard rationality, his want of sentiment and +tenderness. + +"Why do you talk of that person so much?" Leighton implored. "You seem to +be charging me with his cruelty. I am not like him." + +The tears filled her eyes as she started toward him, saying, "No, you are +_not_ like him. Even if you should become like him, I couldn't reproach +you. I should merely die." + +"But you know him so well?" he added, inquiringly. "You seem to fear him. +Has he any power over you?" + +For a moment she was so sombre that he half feared lest her mind was +unstrung on this one subject. + +"No," she at last said. "His power is gone--nearly gone. Oh, if I could +only forget!" + +After another pause, during which she seemed to be nerving herself to a +confession, she threw herself into her husband's arms and whispered, "He +is my--uncle." + +He was puzzled by the contrast between the violence of her emotion and the +unimportance of this avowal; but as he at least saw that the subject was +painful to her, and as he was all confidence and gentleness, he put no +more inquiries. + +"Forget it all," he murmured, caressing her; and with a deep sigh, the +sigh of tired childhood, she answered, "Yes." + +The long summer days, laden with happiness for these two, sailed onward to +their sunset havens. After a time, as August drew near its perfumed death, +Alice began to speak of a journey which she should soon be obliged to make +to New York. She _must_ go, she said to Leighton--it was a matter of +property, of business: she would tell him all about it some day. But she +would return soon; that is, she would return as soon as possible: she +would let him know how soon by letter. + +When he proposed to accompany her she would not hear of it. To merely go +on with her, she represented, would be a useless expense, and to stay as +long as she might need to stay would injure his practice. In these days +her gayety seemed forced, and more than once he found her weeping; yet so +innocent was he, so simple in his views of life, so candid in soul, that +he suspected no hidden evil: he attributed her agitation entirely to grief +at the prospect of separation. + +His own annoyance in view of the journey centred in the fact that his wife +would be absent from him, and that he could not incessantly surround her +with his care. Whether she would be happy, whether she would be treated +with consideration, whether she would be safe from accidents and alarms, +whether her delicate health would not suffer, were the questions which +troubled him. He had the masculine instinct of protection: he was as +virile as he was gentle and affectionate. + +The parting was more painful to him than he had expected, because to her +it was such an undisguised and terrible agony. + +"You will not forget me?" she pleaded. "You will never, never hate me? You +will always love me? You are the only person who has ever made the world +pleasant to me; and you have made it so pleasant! so different from what +it was! a new earth to me! a star! I will come back as soon as this +business will let me. Some day I will come back, never to go away. Oh, +will not that be delightful?" + +Her extreme distress, her terror lest she might not return, her +forebodings lest he should some day cease to love her, impressed him for a +moment--only for a truant moment--with doubts as to a mystery. As he left +the railway station, full of gratitude for the last glance of her loving +eyes, he asked himself once or twice, "What is it?" + +What was it? + +We will follow her. She is ominously sad during the lonely journey: she is +almost stern by the time she arrives in New York. In place of the summer's +sweetness and gayety, there is a wintry and almost icy expression in her +face, as if she were about to encounter trials to which she had been long +accustomed, and which she had learned to bear with hardness if not with +resentment. + +No one meets her at the railway station, no one at the door of the sombre +house where her carriage stops--no one until she has passed up stairs into +a darkling parlor. + +There she is received by the man whom she has so often described to +Deighton--a man of thin, erect form, a high and narrow forehead, regular +and imperturbable features, fixed and filmy black eyes, a mechanical +carriage, an icy demeanor. + +At sight of her he slightly bowed--then he advanced slowly to her and took +her hand: he seemed to be hesitating whether he should give her any +further welcome. + +"You need not kiss me," she said, her eyes fixed on the floor. "You do not +wish to do it." + +He sighed, as if he too were unhappy, or at least weary; but he drew his +hand away and resumed his walk up and down the room. + +"So you chose to pass your summer in a village?" he presently said, in the +tone of a man who has ceased to rule, but not ceased to criticise. "I hope +you liked it." + +"I told you in my letters that I liked it," she replied in an +expressionless monotone. + +"And I told you in my letters that I did not like it. It would have been +more decent in you to stay in Portland, among the people whom I had +requested to take care of you. However, you are accustomed to have your +own way. I can only observe that when a woman will have her own way, she +ought to pay her own way." + +A flush, perhaps of shame, perhaps of irritation, crossed her hitherto +pale face, but she made no response to the scoff, and continued to look at +the floor. + +After a few seconds, during which neither of them broke the silence, she +seemed to understand that the reproof was over, and she quietly quitted +the room. + +The man pushed the door to violently with his foot, and said in an accent +of angry scorn, "That is what is now called a wife." + +Well, we have reached the mystery: we have found that it was a crime. + +In the working of social laws there occur countless cases of individual +hardship. The institution of marriage is as beneficent as the element of +fire; yet, like that, it sometimes tortures when it should only have +comforted. + +The sufferer, if a woman, usually bears her smart tamely--with more or +less domestic fretting and private weeping indeed, but without violent +effort to escape from her bed of embers. Divorce is public, ugly and +brutal: her sensibility revolts from it. Moreover, mere unhappiness, mere +disappointment of the affections, does not establish a claim for legal +separation. Finally, there is woman's difficulty of self-maintenance--the +fact that her labor will not in general give her both comfort and +position. + +What then? Unloved, unable to love, yet with an intense desire for +affection, and an immense capacity for granting it, her heart is tempted +to wander beyond the circle of her duty. A flattering shape approaches her +dungeon-walls; a voice calls to her to come forth and be glad, if only for +a moment; there seems to be a chance of winning the adoration which has +been her whole life's desire; there is an opportunity of using the +emotions which are burning within her. Shall she burst open the gate on +which is written LEGALITY? + +Evidently the temptation is mighty. Laden with a forsaken, wounded and +perhaps angry heart, she is so easily led into the belief that her +exceptional suffering gives her a right to exceptional action! She feels +herself justified in setting aside law, when law, falsifying its purpose, +violating its solemn pledge, brings her misery instead of happiness. She +will not, or cannot, reflect that special hardships must occur under all +law; that it is the duty of the individual to bear such chance griefs +without insurrection against the public conscience; that entire freedom of +private judgment would dissolve society. + +Too often--though far less often than man does the like--she makes of her +sorrow an armor of excuse, and enters into a contest for unwarrantable +chances of felicity. Only, in general, she is so far conscious of guilt, +or at least so far fearful of punishment, as to carry on her struggle in +the darkness. Few, however maddened by suffering, openly defy the serried +phalanx of the world. Still fewer venture the additional risk of defying +it under the forms of a legality which they have ventured to violate. + +Why is it that so few women, even of a low and reckless class, have been +bigamists? It is because the feminine soul has a profound respect, a +little less than religious veneration, for the institution of marriage; +because it instinctively recoils from trampling upon the form which +consecrates love; because in very truth it regards the nuptial bond as a +sacrament. I believe that the average woman would turn away from bigamy +with a deeper shudder than from any other stain of conjugal infidelity. + +But there are exceptions to all modes of feeling and of reasoning. + +Here is Alice Duvernois: she is a woman of good position, of intellectual +quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out +this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To +her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, +grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has +seemed that the sanctity of a second marriage will somehow cover the +violation of a first. + +This aberration we can only explain on the ground that she was one of +those natures--mature in some respects, but strangely childlike in +others--whom most of us love to stigmatize as unpractical, and who in fact +never become quite accustomed to this world and its rules. + +On the very evening of her arrival home she put to her husband a question +of infantile and almost incredible simplicity. It was one of the many +observations which made him tell her from time to time that she was a +fool. + +"What do they do," she asked, "to women who marry two husbands?" + +"They put them in jail," was his cool reply. + +"I think it is brutal," she broke out indignantly, as if the iron gates +were already closing upon her, and she were contesting the justice of the +punishment. + +"You are a pretty simpleton, to set up your opinion against that of all +civilized society!" was the response of incarnate Reason. + +From that moment she trembled at her danger, and quivered under the +remorse which terror brings. At times she thought of flying, of abandoning +the husband who did not love her for the one who did; but she was afraid +of being pursued, afraid of discovery. The knowledge that society had +already passed judgment upon her made her see herself in the new light of +a criminal, friendless, hunted and doomed. The penalty of her illegal +grasp after happiness was already tracking her like a bloodhound. + +Yet when she further learned that her second marriage was not binding +because of the first, her heart rose in mutiny. Faithful to the only love +that there had been for her in the world, she repeated to herself, a +hundred times a day, "It _is_ binding--it _is_!" + +She was in dark insurrection against her kind; at times she was on the +point of bursting out into open defiance. She stared at Duvernois, crazy +to tell him, "I am wedded to another." + +He noticed the wild expression, the longing, wide-open eyes, the parted +and eager lips, the trembling chin. At last he said, with a brutality +which had become customary with him, "What are you putting on those airs +for? I suppose you are imagining yourself the heroine of a romance." + +With a glare of pain and scorn she walked away from him in silence. + +It is shocking indeed to be fastened speechless upon a rack, and to be +charged by uncomprehending souls with counterfeiting emotion. She was so +constituted that she could not help laying up this speech of her husband's +against him as one of many stolid misdoings which justified both contempt +and aversion. In fact, his inability or unwillingness to comprehend her +had always been, in her searching and sensitive eyes, his chief crime. To +be understood, to be accepted at her full worth, was one of the most +urgent demands of her nature. + +The life of this young woman, not only within but without, was strange +indeed. She fulfilled that problem of Hawthorne's--an individual bearing +one character, living one life in one place, and a totally different one +in another place--upon one spot of earth angelic, and upon another vile. + +Stranger still, her harsher qualities appeared where her manner of life +was lawful, and her finer ones where it was condemnable. At Northport she +had been like sunlight to her intimates and like a ministering seraph to +the poor. In New York she avoided society: she had no tenderness for +misery. + +The explanation seems to be that love was her only motive of feeling and +action. Not a creature of reason, not a creature of conscience--she was +only a creature of emotion, an exaggerated woman. + +Unfortunately, her husband, methodical in life, judicial in mind, +contemptuous of sentiment, was an exaggerated man. Here was a beating +heart united to a skeleton. The result of this unfortunate combination had +been a wreck of happiness and defiance of law. + +Duvernois had not a friend intelligent enough to say to him, "You _must _ +love your wife; if you cannot love her, you must with merciful deception +make her believe that you do. You must show her when you return from +business that you have thought of her; you must buy a bouquet, a toy, a +trifle, to carry home to her. If you do these things, you will be +rewarded; if not, you will be punished." + +But had there been such a friend, Duvernois would not have comprehended +him. Ho would have replied, or at least he would have thought, "My wife is +a fool. She is not worth the money that I now spend upon her, much less +the reflection and time that you call upon me to spend." + +Two such as Alice and Duvernois could not live together in peace. +Notwithstanding her old dread of him, and notwithstanding the new alarm +with which she was filled by the discovery that she was a felon, she could +not dissemble her feelings when she looked him in the face. Sometimes she +was silently contemptuous--sometimes (when her nerves were shaken) openly +hostile. Rational, impassive, vigorous as he was, she made him unhappy. + +The letters of Leighton were at once a joy and a sorrow. She awaited them +impatiently; she went every day to the delivery post-office whither she +had directed them to be sent; she took them from the hands of the +indifferent clerk with a suffocating beating of the heart. Alone, she +devoured them, kissed them passionately a hundred times, sat down in +loving haste to answer them. But then came the necessity of excusing her +long absence, of inventing some lie for the man she worshiped, of +deterring him from coming to see her. + +During that woeful winter of terror, of aversion, of vain longing, her +health failed rapidly. A relentless cough pursued her, the beautiful flame +in her cheek burned freely, and a burst of blood from the lungs warned her +that her future was not to be counted by years. + +She cared little: her sole desire was to last until summer. She merely +asked to end her hopeless life in loving arms--to end it before those arms +should recoil from her in horror. + +No discovery. Her husband was too indifferent toward her to watch her +closely, or even to suspect her. As early in June as might be she obtained +permission to go to the seaside, and with an eagerness which would have +found the hurricane slow she flew to Northport. + +Leighton received her with a joy which at first blinded him to her +enfeebled health. + +"Oh, how could you stay so long away from me?" were his first words. "Oh, +my love, my darling wife! thank you for coming back to me." + +But after a few moments, when the first flush and, sparkle of excitement +had died out of her cheeks and eyes, he asked eagerly, "What is the matter +with you? Have you been sick?" + +"I am all well again, now that I see you," she answered, putting out her +arms to him with that little start of love and joy which had so often +charmed him. + +It absolutely seemed that in the presence of the object of her affection +this erring woman became innocent. Her smile was as simple and pure as +that of childhood: her violet eyes reminded one of a heaven without a +cloud. It must have been that, away from punishment and from terror, she +did not feel herself to be guilty. + +But the day of reckoning was approaching. She had scarcely begun to regain +an appearance of health under the stimulus of country air and renewed +happiness, when a disquieting letter arrived from Duvernois. In a tone +which was more than usually authoritative, he directed her to meet him at +Portland, to go to Nahant and Newport. Did he suspect something? + +She would have given years of life to be able to show the letter to +Leighton and ask his counsel. But here her punishment began to double upon +her: the being whom she most loved was precisely the one to whom she must +not expose this trouble--the one from whom she was most anxious to conceal +it. + +In secret, and with unconfided tears, she wrote a reply, alleging (what +was true) that her feeble health demanded quiet, and praying that she +might be spared the proposed journey. For three days she feverishly +expected an answer, knowing the while that she ought to go to Portland to +meet Duvernois, should he chance to come, yet unable to tear herself away +from Leighton, even for twenty-four hours. + +In the afternoon of the third day she made one of her frequent visits of +charity. At the house of a poor and bed-ridden widow she met, as she had +hoped to meet, her husband. When they left the place he took her into his +gig and carried her home. + +It was a delicious day of mid June: the sun was setting in clouds of +crimson and gold; the earth was in its freshest summer glory. In the +beauty of the scene, and in the companionship of the heart which was all +hers, she forgot, or seemed to forget, her troubles. One hand rested on +Leighton's arm; her face was lifted steadily to his, like a flower to the +light; her violet eyes were dewy and sparkling with happiness. There were +little clutches of her fingers on his wrist whenever he turned to look at +her. There were spasms of joy in her slender and somewhat wasted frame as +she leaned from time to time against his shoulder. + +Arrived at the house, she was loth to have him leave her for even the time +required to take his horse to the stable. + +"Come soon," she said--"come as quick as you can. I shall be at the +window. Look up when you reach the gate. Look at the window all the way +from the gate to the door." + +In an instant, not even taking off her bonnet, she was sitting by the +window waiting for him to appear. + +A man approached, walking behind the hedge of lilacs which bordered the +yard, and halted at the gate with an air of hesitation. She turned ghastly +white: retribution was upon her. It was Duvernois. + +With that swift instinct of escape which sensitive and timorous creatures +possess, she glided out of the room, through the upper hall, down a back +stairway, into the garden behind the house, and so on to an orchard +already obscure in the twilight. Here she paused in her breathless flight, +and burst into one of her frequent coughs, which she vainly attempted to +smother. + +"I was already dying," she groaned. "Ah, why could he not have given me +time to finish?" + +From the orchard she could faintly see the road, and she now discovered +Leighton returning briskly toward the house. Her first thought was, "He +will look up at the window, and he will not see me!" Her next was, "They +will meet, and all will be known!" + +Under the sting of this last reflection she again ran onward until her +breath failed. She had no idea where she should go: her only purpose was +to fly from immediate exposure and scorn--to fly both from the man she +detested and the man she loved. Her speed was quickened to the extent of +her strength by the consideration that she was already missed, and would +soon be pursued. + +"Oh, don't let them come!--don't let them find me!" she prayed to some +invisible power, she could not have said what. + +Mainly intent as she was upon mere present escape from reproachful eyes, +she at times thought of lurking in the woods or in some neighboring +village until Duvernois should disappear and leave her free to return to +Leighton. But always the reflection came up, "Now he knows that I have +deceived him; now he will despise me and hate me, and refuse to see me; +now I can never go back." + +In such stresses of extreme panic and anguish an adult is simply a child, +with the same overweight of emotions and the same imperfections of reason. +During the moments when she was certain that Leighton would not forgive +her, Alice made wild clutches at the hope that Duvernois might. There were +glimpses of the earlier days of her married life; cheering phantoms of the +days when she believed that she loved and that she was beloved--phantoms +which swore by altars and bridal veils to secure her pardon. + +She imagined Duvernois overtaking her with the words, "Alice, I forgive +your madness: do you also forgive the coldness which drove you to it?" + +She imagined herself springing to him, reaching out her hands for +reconciliation, putting up her mouth for a kiss, and sobbing, "Ah, why +were you not always so?" + +Then of a sudden she scorned this fancy, trampled it under her weary, +aching feet, and abhorred herself for being faithless to Leighton. + +At last she reached a sandy, lonely coast-road, a mile from the village, +with a leaden, pulseless, corpselike sea on the left, and on the right a +long stretch of black, funereal marshes. Seating herself on a ruinous +little bridge of unpainted and wormeaten timbers, she looked down into a +narrow, sluggish rivulet, of the color of ink, which oozed noiselessly +from the morass into the ocean. Her strength was gone: for the present +farther flight was impossible, unless she fled from earth--fled into the +unknown. + +This thought had indeed followed her from the house: at first it had been +vague, almost unnoticed, like the whisper of some one far behind; then it +had become clearer, as if the persuading fiend went faster than she +through the darkness, and were overtaking her. Now it was urgent, and +would not be hushed, and demanded consideration. + +"If you should die," it muttered, "then you will escape: moreover, those +who now abhor you and scorn you, will pity you; and pity for the dead is +almost respect, almost love." + +"Oh, how can a ruined woman defend herself but by dying?" She wept as she +gazed with a shudder into the black rivulet. + +Then she thought that the water seemed foul; that her body would become +tangled in slimy reeds and floating things; that when they found her she +would be horrible to look upon. But even in this there was penance, a +meriting of forgiveness, a claim for pity. + +Slowly, inch by inch, like one who proposes a step which cannot be +retraced, she crept under the railing of the bridge, seated herself on the +edge of the shaky planking and continued to gaze into the inky waters. + +A quarter of an hour later, when the clergyman of Northport passed by that +spot, returning from a visit to a dying saint of his flock, no one was +there. + +We must revert to the two husbands. Duvernois had long wondered what could +keep his wife in a sequestered hamlet, and immediately on her refusal to +join him in a summer tour he had resolved to look into her manner of life. + +At the village hotel he had learned that a lady named Duvernois had +arrived in the place during the previous summer, and that she had been +publicly married to a Doctor Leighton. He did not divulge his name--he did +not so much as divulge his emotions: he listened to this story calmly, his +eyes fixed on vacancy. + +At the door of the boarding-house he asked for Mrs. Duvernois, and then +corrected himself, saying, "I mean Mrs. Leighton." + +He must have had singular emotions at the moment, yet the servant-girl +noticed nothing singular in his demeanor. + +Mrs. Leighton could not be found. None of the family had seen her enter or +go out: it was not known that she had been in the house for an hour. + +"But there comes Doctor Leighton," remarked the girl as the visitor turned +to leave. + +Even in this frightful conjuncture the characteristic coolness of +Duvernois did not forsake him: after a moment's hesitation and a quick +glance at his rival, he said, "I do not know him: I will call again." + +On the graveled walk which led from the yard gate to the doorstep the two +men met and passed without a word--the face of the one as inexpressive of +the strangeness and horror of the encounter as the mind of the other was +unconscious of them. + +Leighton immediately missed Alice. In a quarter of an hour he became +anxious: in an hour he was in furious search of her. + +Somewhat later, when Duvernois came once more to the house, accompanied by +a fashionably-dressed youth, who, as it subsequently appeared, was his +younger brother, he found the family and the neighborhood in wild alarm +over the disappearance of Mrs. Leighton. The two at once returned to the +hotel, procured saddle-horses and joined in the general chase. + +It was ten o'clock at night, and the moon was shining with a vaporous, +spectral light, when the maddest of chances brought the two husbands +together over a body which the tide, with its multitudinous cold fingers, +had gently laid upon the beach. + +Leighton leaped from his horse, lifted the corpse with a loud cry, and +covered the white wet face with kisses. + +Duvernois leaned forward in his saddle, and gazed at both without a word +or a movement. + +"Oh, what could have led her to this?" groaned the physician, already too +sure that life had departed. + +"Insanity," was the monotoned response of the statue on horseback. + +The funeral took place two days later: the coffin-plate bore the +inscription, "Alice Leighton, aged 23." Duvernois read it, and said not a +word. + +"If you don't claim her as your wife," whispered the brother, "you may +find it difficult to marry again." + +"Do you think I shall want to marry again?" responded the widower with an +icy stare. + +He was aware that he had lost a shame and a torment, and not aware that +she might have been an honor and a joy, if only he had been able to love. + +J. W. DE FOREST. + + + + +"How Mother Did It." + + + +The year 1839--that is, the year in which I was born--is of no manner of +importance to myself or anybody else. The year 1859--that is, the year in +which I began to _live_ (Charlie and I got married that year)--is of +considerable importance to myself and to somebody else. The two decades +forming the interim between those years constitute my Dark Age, in which I +teethed and measled and whooping-coughed, and went to school, and wore my +hair in two long pig-tails, and loved molasses candy, and regarded a +school-room as purgatory, a ball-room as heaven--when I sang and danced +and grew as the birds and grasshoppers and flowers sing and dance and +grow, because they having nothing else to do. + +Then came my Golden Age. That means, then came Charlie into my life, when +I felt for the first time that there was music in the birds' voices and +perfume in the flowers--that there was light in the heavens above and on +the earth beneath, for God was in heaven and Charlie was on earth--when I, +who had all along been hardly more than a human grasshopper, became the +happiest of happy women--so much happier, I thought, than I deserved. For +who was I, and what great thing had I ever done, that I should be crowned +with such a crown of glory as--Charlie? why should I, insignificant I, be +so blest among women as to be taken to wife by Charlie? + +I was insanely sentimental enough to rather resent the fact that Charlie +was prosaically well off: his circumstances were distressingly easy. It +would have been so much nicer, so deliciously romantic, if there had been +an opportunity afforded me to show how ready, nay, eager, I was to +sacrifice friends, home and country for his dear sake. But Charlie didn't +want me to sacrifice my friends; nor did it require any great amount of +heroism to exchange my modestly comfortable home for his decidedly +luxurious one; and as for country, nothing on earth could have induced +Charlie to leave his own country, much less his own parish, much less his +own plantation. So we were married without any talk of sacrifice on either +side, and moved quietly enough from father's small plantation to Charlie's +large one. + +There was but one drawback to the perfectness of my happiness: there was +so little hope of my ever having an opportunity to air those magnanimous +traits of character upon the possession of which I so plumed myself. I +felt sure that I could meet the most adverse circumstances with the most +smiling patience, but circumstances obstinately refused to be adverse. I +was inwardly conscious that the most trying emergency could not shake my +heroic but purely feminine fortitude; but, alas! my fortitude was likely +to rust while waiting for the emergency. Injury and wrong should be met +with sublime dignity, but the most wildly speculative imagination could +not look upon Charlie's placidly handsome face and convert him into a +possible tyrant. + +To tell how the longed-for opportunity to exercise my powers of endurance, +and my dignity, and all the rest of it, did finally come about, and to +tell how I bore the test, is the object of this paper. + +For the first six months of our married life, Charlie and I were simply +ridiculously happy--selfishly happy too. We resented a neighbor's visit as +an act of barbarous invasion, and the necessity of returning such visits +was acknowledged with a sublimity of resignation worthy of pictorial +representation in that exquisite parlor manual, Fox's _Book of Martyrs_. +If Charlie left the house for an hour or two, I looked upon his enforced +absence as a cruel dispensation of Providence, which I did _not_ bear with +"fortitude and sublime dignity," but pouted over like the ridiculous baby +I was. Bare conjugal civility required that on leaving the house Charlie +should kiss me three times, and on returning six times: anything short of +that I should have considered a pre-monitory symptom of approaching +separation. If Charlie had ever been so savage as to call me plain +"Lulie," I should have felt certain he was sick and tired of me, and was +repenting of having married me instead of that spectacled bas-bleu, Miss +Minerva Henshaw, who read Buckle and talked dictionary. I believe I was +intoxicated with my own happiness, and was a little nonsensical because I +was so happy. + +Fortunately for the comfort of both Charlie and myself, his domestic +cabinet consisted of a marvelously well-trained set of servants, who were +simply perfect--as perfect in their way as Charlie was in his. They had +been trained by Charlie's mother, who had been the head of affairs in his +house up to the hour of her death--an event which had occurred some dozen +years before my first meeting with Charlie. Everybody said she had been a +celebrated housekeeper, and Charlie's devotion to her had been the talk of +the country-side. There were people malicious enough to say that if +Charlie's mother had never died, he would never have married, but I take +the liberty of resenting such an assertion as a personal insult; for, +although I don't doubt the dear old lady was a perfect jewel in her way, +yet, looking at the portrait of her which hangs over our parlor +mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold +gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither +high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, +in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls +peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with +a huge ruffled border radiating in a circumference of several feet, while +its two black-and-white gauze ribbon strings lie in rigid exactness over +her two rigidly exact shoulders. Looking on this portrait, I do not thank +anybody for saying that it was only because death chose that shining mark +that I had found favor in Charlie's eyes. + +We had been married, I suppose, about six months, when, sitting one +evening over a cozy wood-fire in our cozy little parlor, just under the +work of art I have described at such length, Charlie committed his first +matrimonial solecism. He yawned, actually gaped--an open-mouthed, audible, +undeniable yawn! + +Glancing up at him from my work (which consisted of the inevitable worked +slippers without which no woman considers her wifehood absolutely +asserted), I caught him in the act. "Are you tired, Charlie?" I asked in +accents of wifely anxiety. + +Tired! Poor fellow! he ought to have been, for he had ridden all over the +plantation that day, had written two business letters, and smoked there's +no telling how many cigars, and had only taken one little cat-nap after +dinner. + +He was leaning back in his arm-chair, with his eyes fixed in mournful +meditation upon his mother's portrait (at least I thought so), when I +asked him if he was tired, and I fancied he was thinking sad thoughts of +the mother who had not been dead so very long as never to trouble the +thoughts of the living; so, laying down my slippers, I crossed the rug and +perched myself on Charlie's knee. + +"Talk to me about her, Charlie dear." + +"About whom, little one?" asked Charlie, turning his eyes toward me with a +little lazy look of inquiry. + +"About your mother, Charlie: weren't you thinking about her just now?" + +"I don't know--maybe I was. Dear mother! you don't find many women like +her now-a-days." + +Reader, that was my first glimpse of Charlie's hobby. And from the +luck-less moment when I so innocently invited him to mount it, up to the +time when I forcibly compelled him to dismount from it, I had ample +opportunity to exercise my "smiling patience, sublime dignity and heroic +fortitude." Whether or not I improved my opportunities properly, I will +leave you to judge for yourself. But for two whole years "how mother did +it" seemed to be the watchword of Charlie's existence, and was the _bete +noir_ of mine. + +So long as Charlie and I were in Paradise the house kept itself, and very +nicely it did it too, but by the time we were ready to come back to earth +the perfect servants, who had been taking such good care of themselves, +and our two daft selves into the bargain, were found to be sadly +demoralized. The discovery came upon us gradually. I think my husband +noticed the decadence as soon as I did, but I wasn't going to invite his +attention to the fact; and he, I suppose, thought that I thought that +everything was just as it should be. + +One of Charlie's inherited manias was for early rising--a habit which +would have been highly commendable and undeniably invaluable in a laboring +man, but which struck me, who had an equally strong mania for not rising +early, as extremely inconvenient and the least little bit absurd. Charlie +got up early simply because "mother did it" before him; and after he had +risen at earliest dawn and dressed himself, he had nothing better to do +than walk out on the front gallery, locate himself in a big wicker chair, +tilt his chair back and elevate his feet to the top of the banisters, and +stare out over the cottonfields. This position he would maintain, +probably, about twenty minutes. Then the pangs of hunger would render him +restless, and he would draw out his watch to note the time of day. The +next step in the formula would bring him back to my room door while I was +still sleepily trying to reconnect the broken links of a dream, from which +vain effort he would startle me into wide-awake reality by a stentorian +"Lulie, Lulie! Come, wife--it's breakfast-time." + +Upon which, instead of "heroic fortitude," I would treat him to a little +cross "Please yell at the cook, Charlie, and not at me. I'm sure if people +_will_ get up at such unearthly hours, they should expect to be kept +waiting for their breakfast." + +Then the spirit of unrest would impel Charlie toward the back door, where +I would hear him commanding, exhorting, entreating. + +Mentally registering a vow to give my husband a dose of Mrs. Winslow's +Soothing Syrup on the coming night, I would relinquish all hope of another +nap, get up and dress myself, and join my roaring lion on the front +gallery, where we would both sit meekly waiting for the allied forces of +kitchen and dining-room to decide upon the question of revictualing us. + +"Lulie," said Charlie to me one morning at the breakfast-table, "things +are getting all out of gear about this house, somehow or other." + +I put down the coffee-pot with a resigned thump and asked my lord, with an +injured air, to please explain himself. + +"Well, when mother was alive I never knew what it was to sit down to my +breakfast later than six o'clock in summer or seven in winter." + +"How did she manage it, Charlie?" I asked, very meekly. + +"Why, by getting up early herself. No servant on the face of the globe is +going to get up at daybreak and go to work in earnest when she knows her +mistress is sound asleep in bed. I will tell you how mother did: she had a +pretty good-sized bell, that she kept on a table by her bedside, and every +morning, as soon as her eyes were open, she would give such a peal with +that old bell that all the servants on the premises knew that 'Mistress +was awake and up,' and bestirred themselves accordingly. There was no +discount on mother: that was the way she made father a rich man, too." + +"But, Charlie, you're already a rich man, and why on earth should we get +out of bed at daybreak just because your mother and father did so before +us?" + +"Of course, Lulie," said Charlie, the least little bit coldly, "I have no +desire in the world to force you to conform to my views: I only told you +how mother did it." + +Reader, you know how I loved Charlie, and after that I out-larked the lark +in early rising; and although Charlie and I did little more than gape in +each other's faces for an hour or two, and wish breakfast would come, and +wonder what made them take so long, he was perfectly satisfied that we +were both on the road that was to make us healthier, wealthier and wiser. + +Among other points on which my husband and I were mutually agreed was a +liking for good strong coffee, and we also held in common one decided +opinion, and that was, that our coffee was gradually becoming anything but +good and strong. + +Charlie broached the subject first. "Lulie, our coffee is getting to be +perfectly undrinkable," said he one morning, putting his cup down with a +face of disgust. + +"It is indeed, Charlie: it's perfectly villainous. Milly ought to be +ashamed of herself: I shall speak to her again after breakfast." + +"Maybe you don't give out enough coffee?" suggested Charlie. + +"I don't know how much Milly takes," I replied, innocently. + +"Takes! Do you mean to say that you don't know how much coffee goes out of +your pantry, Lulie? I don't wonder we never have any fit to drink!" + +If I had been of an argumentative turn, I would have asked Charlie to +explain how giving the cook carte blanche in the matter of quantity should +have had such a disastrous effect in the matter of quality. But I was not +of an argumentative turn, so I took no notice of his queer logic. + +"Why should I bother about every spoonful of coffee, Charlie? You assured +me, when I first came here, that every servant you had was as honest as +you or I, and I'm sure Milly knows better than I do how much coffee she +_ought_ to take." + +"Well," said Charlie with a sigh of mock resignation, "that may be the way +they do things now-a-days, but I remember exactly how mother managed to +have good coffee." Here the hobby broke into a brisk canter: "I recollect +she had a little oval wooden box, that held, I suppose, about a quart--or +two, maybe--of roasted coffee, and that box stood on the mantelpiece in +her room; and every morning, as soon as her bell rang, Milly would come +with a cup and spoon, and mother would measure out two table-spoonfuls of +coffee with her own hands and give it to the cook, and the cook knew +better than not to have good coffee, I can tell you." + +"Are you sure it was only two spoonfuls, Charlie?" + +"I am sure," responded Charlie, solemnly. + +As good-luck would have it, while rummaging in the store-room a day or two +after that coffee talk, I came upon a little old oval wooden box, the lid +of which I detached with some difficulty, and as the scent of the roses +hung round it still, I had no difficulty in identifying my treasure-trove +with the wooden box that had played such a distinguished part in the good +old times when cooks "knew better than not to have good coffee, I can tell +you." + +Hoping that some relic of my dead predecessor might prove more +awe-inspiring to contumacious Milly than my own despised monitions, I +exhumed the wooden box, had it thoroughly cleansed, filled with roasted +coffee and placed upon my mantelpiece, giving Milly orders to come to _me_ +hereafter, every morning, for the coffee. + +Charlie gave me a grateful little kiss when he saw the old box in the old +place, either as a reward for my amiable endeavor to do things as mother +did, or because he took the old wooden box for an outward and visible sign +of the inward and spiritual grace that was to move Milly to make good +coffee. + +But somehow or other, in spite of the unsightly old wooden box on my +mantelshelf, the coffee didn't improve in the least. Maybe the charm +failed to work because Charlie had forgotten which end of the mantelpiece +his mother used to keep it on, or I used the wrong spoon. I'm inclined to +lay it on the spoon myself, but there's no telling. + +The first cotton-picking season that came round after my marriage seemed +to afford Charlie no end of opportunities for riding his hobby at a fast +and furious pace. It seemed as if there was no end to the things that +mother used to do at that important season. I suppose she really was a +wonderful woman, and I humbly hope that by the time I have lived as long +as she did, and get to looking as she does in her portrait, and can wear a +wonderful-looking cap with the wonderful composure she wore it with, and +have little iron-gray curls hanging round my iron-gray visage, I may be +only half as wonderful. + +"Would I see to the making of the cotton sacks? That was one thing mother +always did." Thus Charlie. + +Of course I would: why should I object to doing anything that would +forward my husband's interests? Besides, I was actually pining for some +healthful occupation: I was tired of playing at living. I resolved on a +brilliant plan. I would out-mother mother, for she only _saw_ to the +making of the sacks: I would make them myself, every one of them, on my +sewing-machine. If I couldn't make cotton-sacks on it, what was the use of +having it? + +Charlie had informed me that he would send me down seven or eight women +from the quarters to make the sacks. I informed him with a flourish that I +should need but one: I should want her to cut the sacks out. Charlie +thanked me, and Martha and I and "Wheeler & Wilson" made the sacks. + +Was I to blame that the wretched things burst in twenty places at once the +first time they were used? Was I to blame that two women were kept busy +mending my sacks until they ceased to be sacks? Charlie might think so, +but I did not. + +He reported the failure of my cotton-sack experiment with very unbecoming +levity, as it struck me, accompanying his report with a somewhat unjust +comment upon new-fangled notions, such as sewing-machines, etc., etc., +winding up with--"Now, when mother was alive" (I fairly winced), "the +house was not considered too good for the darkies to sit on the back +gallery with their work and make the sacks right under mother's +eye--sewing them with good strong thread, too, that was spun for the +purpose. I can remember the old spinning-wheel: it used to sit right at +that end of the gallery." + +Like Captain Cuttle, I "made a note of it" for future use. + +I often had occasion to wonder, during the early years of my married life, +how it happened that the son of such an exceptionally perfect woman as I +was compelled to presume my respected mother-in-law to have been, should +have grown up with such shockingly disorderly habits as had my Charlie. +The wretched creature would stalk into my bed-room--which I was +particularly dainty about--fresh from shooting or fishing, with pounds of +mud clinging to his boots, bristling all over with cockleburs, his hands +grimed with gunpowder; and helping himself to water from my ewer, he would +begin dabbling in my china basin until he had reduced its originally pure +contents into a compound of mud and ink, and would wind up by making a +finish of my fresh damask towel, and throwing it on the bed or a chair +instead of returning it to the rack, as he should have done. + +"Charlie," said I one day, saucily inviting a dose of "what mother did," +"what did mother used to do when you came into her room and turned it into +a pig-stye, and then left it for her to clean up again?" + +"She never let me do it," said Charlie with a laugh. "I'll tell you how +she did. She had a tin basin on a shelf on the back gallery, and one of +those great big rolling towels that lasted about a week; and after her +washstand was fixed up in the morning, we knew better than to upset it, I +can tell you." + +"Very well, sir: I intend you shall know better than to upset mine, I'll +show you." + +In fact, things had come to that pass that I had mentally resolved to +"show" Charlie a great many things. I firmly believed that the secret of +the power that Charlie's mother had exercised over her household, and +still exercised over him in memory, lay in the fact that she made them all +afraid of her: so I firmly resolved that they should all be afraid of me, +poor little me! It is true, I was but twenty, and she was fifty; I was but +a pocket edition of a woman, and she was a _Webster Unabridged_; I had +little meek blue eyes, that dropped to the ground in the most shamefaced +manner if a body did but look at me, and she had hard, cold gray eyes, +that not only looked straight at you, but right through you. Still, I +hoped, notwithstanding these trifling drawbacks, to make myself very +awe-inspiring by dint of a grand assumption of spirit. + +To put it into very plain language, I resolved to bully Charlie off his +hobby. He had thrown his mother at my head (figuratively speaking, of +course) until, if she had been present in _propria persona_, I should have +been tempted to try Hiawatha's remarkable feat with his grandmother, and +throw her up against the moon. But as I could not revenge myself upon her +personally, I began to lay deep and subtle plans for inducing Charlie to +leave her to her repose. + +As the veritable bell which, in the days when "mother did it," had acted +as a sort of Gabriel's trump, was still extant, minus clapper and handle, +I was enabled to provide myself with its fac-simile. Armed with this +instrument of retribution, I laid me down to sleep by Charlie's side, +gloating in anticipation over my ripening scheme of vengeance. + +It was a rare thing for me to wake up before Charlie, but I did manage to +do so on the morning in question, by dint, I think, of a powerful mental +resolution to that effect made the night before. I raised myself very +softly, so as not to disturb my husband's gentle slumbers, and, possessing +myself of my big bell, I laid on with a will, raising such a clatter in +the quiet morning air that Charlie fairly bounded into the middle of the +room before he in the least comprehended where it came from. + +"In the name of God, Lulie, what is the meaning of that?" he exclaimed, +looking at me as if he half doubted my sanity. + +"That's the way mother did it, Charlie," I replied placidly enough, and, +replacing my big bell on the table, I settled myself on my pillow once +more, ostensibly to go to sleep again--in reality to have my laugh out in +a quiet fashion, for it was enough to have made the very bed-posts laugh +to see Charlie's funny look of astonishment and indignation. But of course +he couldn't say a word, you know. + +For two more mornings I clattered my bell about his precious old head, and +then he paid me to quit, and after that began riding his hobby at a little +slower gait. + +The next direct intimation he gave that his faith in inherited ideas was +growing shaky was a plaintive little request that I would not stick so +close to the old wooden box, but give out enough coffee to ensure him +something to drink for his breakfast. + +Now, I had no wish that my husband should drink bad coffee just because +Providence had seen fit to remove his mother from this sublunary sphere: I +merely wanted to cure him of telling me how mother did it; so as soon as +he thus tacitly acknowledged that his suggestion had not been a success, I +took matters into my own hands, and proved to him that coffee could be +made as well by young wives as by old mothers. + +In the due revolution of the seasons King Cotton donned his royal robes of +ermine once more, and sacks again became the one thing needful. It was the +very rainiest, wettest, muddiest picking-season that had ever been seen. +In pursuance of my plan, I had seven or eight women down from the +quarters, and a spinning-wheel also, which was set to humming right under +our bed-room window. + +The rainy weather had kept Charlie in the house, and he was lounging on a +couch in my room, enjoying a pleasant semi-doze, when the monotonous +whirr-r-r of the spinning-wheel first attracted his attention. "Lulie," he +asked, rising into a sitting posture, "what is that infernal noise on the +back gallery?" + +"The spinning-wheel, Charlie. They are spinning thread to make the sacks +with," I answered, without looking up from my work. + +"Oh!" and Charlie subsided for a while. "Ahem! Lulie, my dear, how long is +that devilish spinning to be kept up?" + +"Devilish! Why, Charlie, that's the way mother did it." + +"Well," said Charlie, scratching his head and looking foolish, "I know she +did, Lulie, but I'll be confounded if I can stand it much longer." + +"Why, Charlie, you used to stand it when mother did it," I answered +maliciously. + +"I was hardly ever about the house in those days, Lulie: I suppose that +was why I didn't mind it." + +"Why weren't you about the house much in those days, Charlie?" + +"Because you weren't in it, you witch, I suppose." + +This was such a decided triumph over the old lady of the portrait that I +could afford to be amiable; so, giving him a spasmodic little hug and an +energetic little kiss, I went out and stopped the spinning nuisance +immediately. + +After that the hobby went slower and slower, feebler and feebler. One more +energetic display of my bogus spirit and "the enemy was mine." + +Winter came on in its duly-appointed time, bringing with it the usual +quantity of wild ducks and more than the usual degree of severe cold. +Charlie was an inveterate duck-shooter, and with the return of the season +came the return of mud and dirt in my bowls. + +I determined to do as mother did. A tin basin made its appearance on the +back gallery, four yards of crash sewed together at the end were made to +revolve over the roller, and by way of forcing the experiment to a +successful issue orders were given that my own pitchers should be filled +only after nightfall. + +I was sitting in my bed-room sewing away, in placid unconsciousness of +outside cold and discomfort, when Charlie got home from his first hunt of +the season. + +"No water, Lulie?" and the monster took hold of my nice pitcher with a +pair of muddy, half-frozen hands. + +"On the gallery, dear, just where mother used to keep it;" and I smiled up +at him angelically. + +With a muttered something or other, poor Charlie bounded out to the back +gallery. He came back in a minute, his hands as muddy and cold as ever. + +"Look here, Lulie: the water's all frozen in that confounded tin basin out +there." + +"I'll have it thawed out for you," I said sweetly, rising as I spoke. + +"I say, wifey"--and the great, handsome fellow came close up to me with +his mud and his burs--"do you think it's exactly fair, when a fellow's +been out all the morning shooting ducks for your dinner, to make him stand +out on the gallery such a day as this and scrub the mud off his frozen +hands?" + +"That's the way mother did," was all my answer. + +"Look here, Lulie, I cry quits. If you'll only let a body off this once, +you may keep house on your own plan, little lady, and I'll never tell you +how mother did it again so long as I live." + +"Well, then, don't, that's a dear," I replied, "for you'll only make me +dislike her memory, without doing any good. Just be patient with me, +Charlie, and maybe after a while I'll be as good a housekeeper as your +mother was before me. The mistake you and all other men make is, in +comparing your wives at the end of their first year of housekeeping with +your mothers, whose housekeeping you knew nothing about until it was of +ever so many years' duration. I'm young yet, but I'm improving in that +matter every day, Charlie." + +With which little moral lecture I gave Charlie a kiss, and some water to +wash the mud from his poor red hands. + +_Moral._--My dear girls, don't you ever marry a man that cannot take his +affidavit he never had a mother, unless it is expressly stipulated in the +marriage contract that he is never to tell you how his mother did it. + +J.R. HADERMANN. + + + + +The Red Fox: A Tale of New Year's Eve. + + + +It was New Year's Eve, 184-. I and my two little boys, children of five +and seven, were alone in the house. My husband had been unexpectedly +called away on business, and the servant had gone to her friends to spend +the coming holiday. + +It was drawing toward night. The cold shadows of the winter twilight were +already falling. A dull red glow in the west told where the sun was going +down. Over the rest of the sky hung heavy gray clouds. A few drops of rain +fell from time to time, and the wind was rising, coming round the corner +of the house with a long, mournful howl like that of a lost hound. + +I am not a very nervous person, but I did not like the idea of spending by +myself the long evening that would come after the children's bed-time. + +We were living then in a very new place in Michigan, which I shall call +Maysville. My husband, an ex-army officer, had resigned the sword for the +saw-mill. Our house was the oldest in the village, which does not speak +much for its antiquity, as five years before Maysville had been unbroken +forest. The house stood outside the cluster of houses that formed the +little settlement: it was a quarter of a mile to our nearest neighbor. + +Now, Maysville calls itself a city, has an academy and a college, and a +great quantity of church in proportion to its population. Then, we "went +to meeting" in a little white-painted, pine box of a thing, like a barn +that had risen in life. The stumps stood about the street: the cows +wandered at will and pastured in the "public square," an irregular +clearing running out into indefinite space. Here also the Indians would +encamp when they came to town from their reservation about five miles +away, and here also, I regret to say, they would sometimes get drunk, and +add what Martha Penney calls "a revolving animosity to the scenery." The +squaws, however, would generally secure the knives and guns before the +quarrelsome stage was reached. Not unfrequently the ladies would bring the +weapons to Mrs. Moore or myself to hide away till their lords and masters +should be sober. Then, feeling secure that no great harm could happen, +they would look on with the utmost placidity at the antics of their better +halves until they dropped down to sleep off their liquor. + +There were no Indians in town that night, however, and if there had been, +I was not at all afraid of them, for we were on excellent terms with the +whole reservation. My feeling about staying alone was merely one of those +unreasonable sensations that sometimes overtake people of ill-regulated +minds. + +I went to the door and looked out at the gray, angry sky. It was not cold, +but chill. The wind howled and shivered among the leafless branches: +everything promised a storm. + +I was not at all sorry to see Mr. and Mrs. Moore drive up in their light +buggy, with their two high-stepping, little brown horses. Mrs. Moore had +in her arms a bundle in a long blue embroidered cloak--a baby, in short. +She and her husband firmly believed this infant to be the most beautiful, +most intelligent and altogether most charming creature which the world had +ever seen. They had been married three years, and little Carry was their +first child. + +Mr. and Mrs. Moore were by no means ordinary people. Mrs. Moore--born +Minny or Hermione Adams--was a very small woman, exceedingly pretty, with +light brown curly hair, dark blue eyes and a complexion like an apple +blossom. + +Mr. Moore was the son of a Seneca mother and Cherokee father, with not a +drop of white blood in his veins. So he thought, at least, but I never +could quite believe it, because he could and did work, and never so much +as touched even a glass of wine. His parents had died when he was very +young, and he had been brought up and educated by a missionary, a gentle, +scholarly old Presbyterian minister, whose memory his adopted son held in +loving reverence. + +The story of our acquaintance with Richard Moore is too long to be told +here. Four years before he had come with us from the Pawnee country. He +had married Minny Adams with the full consent of her parents and the +opposition of all her other friends. Contrary to all prophecies, and with +that inartistic disregard of the probable which events often show, they +had been very happy together. + +Mr. Moore--otherwise Wyanota--was a civil engineer, and stood high in his +profession. + +"Look here, mamma," he said as he drove up. "Will you take in the wife and +the small child for to-night? I must go away." + +"Certainly," said I, overjoyed. "But where are you going, to be caught in +a storm?" + +"Oh, they have got into a fuss with the hands over on the railroad, and +have sent for me. I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when I left +him?" + +"Why not?" + +"English!" said Wyn, most expressively. "No one can stand the airs he puts +on." + +Now, such airs as Mr. Moore possessed--and they were neither few nor far +between--were not put on, but were perfectly natural to him. + +"Can't you come in and get your tea?" I asked as he handed me the baby and +helped his wife down. + +"No: I must go over directly and compose matters. Good-bye, little woman: +by-bye, baby! Do you know, we think she's beginning to say 'papa?'" said +Wyn, proudly; and then he kissed his wife and child and drove away. + +I carried the infant phenomenon into the house and took off its wrappings. +She was my namesake, and I loved the little creature, but I can't say she +was a pretty baby. She was a soft, brown thing, with her father's +beautiful southern eyes and her mother's mouth, but otherwise she +certainly was not handsome. She was ten months old, but she had a look of +experience and wisdom in her wee face that would have made her seem old at +twenty years. She sat on my lap and watched me in a meditative way, as +though she were reviewing her former estimate of my character, and +considering whether her opinions on that subject were well founded. There +was something quite weird and awful in her dignity and gravity. + +"Isn't she a wise-looking little thing?" said Minny. "She makes me think +sometimes of the fairy changeling that was a hundred and fifty years old, +and never saw soap made in an egg-shell." + +"This baby never would have made such a confession of ignorance, you may +depend. She would not have acknowledged that anything lay out of the range +of her experience. Take your chicken till I get tea, for I am my own girl +to-night." + +We had a very merry time over the tea-table and in washing up the dishes. +Until the boys went to bed we were in something of a frolic with them and +the baby, and it was not till the little one was asleep in her crib and Ed +and Charley were quiet in bed that we noticed how wild the weather was +getting. + +The rain, which had at first fallen in pattering drops, was now driving in +sheets before a mighty wind, which roared through the woods back of the +house with a noise like thunder. The branches of the huge oaks in the +front yard creaked and groaned as only oak boughs can. The house shook, +the rain lashed the roof, and the wind clawed and rattled the blinds like +some wild creature trying to get in. + +"I hope Wyn is safe under shelter,'' said Mrs. Moore. + +"He will have reached the end of his journey long before this. I hope he +will have no trouble with the men, but he is not apt to. I pity poor Mr. +Robinson. When Wyn chooses, his extreme politeness is something quite +awful." + +"I will say for my husband," observed Mrs. Moore, "that when he sets +himself to work to be disagreeable, he can, without doing one uncourteous +thing, be more aggravating than any one I ever saw in my life." + +"It is perfectly evident that he never tries his airs on you, or you would +not speak so. Hear the wind blow!" + +"It is no use listening to the weather. The house will stand, I suppose. +Have you got your work? Then let me read to you. It will seem like old +times, before I was married." + +Minny Moore was in some respects a very remarkable woman. Though little +Carry was her first baby, she _could_ talk on other subjects. She did not +expect you to listen with rapture to the tenth account of how baby had +said "Da-da," or thrill with agony over the tale of an attack of wind. She +had been her husband's friend and companion before the baby was born: she +did not entirely throw him over now that it had come. She had always been +fond of reading, and she continued to keep up her interest in the world +outside of her nursery. She thought that as her daughter grew up her +mother would be as valuable as a guide and friend if she did not wholly +sink the educated woman in the nurse-maid and seamstress. These habits may +have been "unfeminine," but they certainly made Mrs. Moore much more +agreeable as a companion than if she had been able to talk of nothing but +the baby's clothes, teeth and ailments. + +I took out my work, and Minny began to read _Locksley Hall_, which was +then a new poem on this side the water. I had never heard it before, and I +must confess I was much affected--more than I should be now. Mrs. Moore, +however, chose to say that she thought Amy had made a most fortunate +escape, that she had no doubt but the hero would have been a most +intolerable person to live with, and that their marriage, had it come to +pass, would have ended in Amy's taking in sewing to support both herself +and her husband. As for the Squire, why we had no word for his character +but his disappointed rival's, and his drinking might be all a slander. As +to his snoring, why poets might snore as well as other people. If he loved +his wife "somewhat better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse," +"Why what more," said Mrs. Moore, "could any woman ask of a man given to +horses and hunting? If Calvin Bruce ever cares more for a woman than he +does for his brown pointer and his fast trotter, she may think herself +happy indeed." + +At that instant a sudden and furious blast rushed out of the woods, and +tore and shook at the four corners of the house as if to wrench it from +its foundations. + +"It's quite awful to hear the wind scream like that," said Minny. "It is +like the banshee. Hark! is not that some one knocking at the back door?" + +I listened, and amid the rattling and shaking of blinds and timbers I +heard what sounded like a hurried, impatient knock at the side door. "Who +can it be on such a wild night?" I said, and took the candle and went to +open the door. I set the light in the hall, for I knew the wind would blow +it out. In spite of this precaution, however, the flame was extinguished, +for as I drew back the bolt and lifted the latch the blast threw the door +violently back on its hinges, and rushed into the hall as though exulting +in having finally made an entrance. + +"Pretty bad weather, mamma," said some one in the softest, sweetest voice, +like a courteous flute, and there entered my old friend the Black Panther. + +This gentleman measured seven feet in his moccasins, and as he stood in +our little entry he looked gigantic indeed. He closed the door with some +difficulty, and I relit the candle. + +"You are quite wet through," I said, for the water dripped from his +blanket and woolen hunting-frock. He carried his rifle in his hand, and I +thought the old man looked very tired and sad, and even anxious. + +"You all well?" he asked, earnestly. + +"Certainly. The captain has gone away, and Minny and the baby are here for +the night. My dear friend, where have you been in this weather? There is a +good fire in the kitchen. Come and get dry there, and let me make you a +cup of hot coffee and get you something to eat." + +Here Minny came out into the hall and held up her hands in sunrise. + +"Oh, uncle," she said, calling him by the name she had used toward him +since her childhood, "how could you come out in all this rain, and bring +on your rheumatism? How do you think any one is ever going to find dry +clothes for such a big creature as you?" + +The Panther gave a little grunt and a smile. He was used to Minny's +lectures, and he followed us both into the kitchen, where she made him sit +down by the fire and took off his wet blanket, waiting on him like a +daughter, and scolding him gently meanwhile. The old gentleman had of late +years been subject to rheumatism, and it was too likely that this exposure +would bring on another attack. The Panther patted her two little hands +between his own. Like most of his race, he had beautiful hands, soft and +rounded even in his old age, with long taper fingers that had, I dare say, +taken more than one scalp in their time. + +"Pooh!" said he, lightly. "You think old Ingin melt like maple sugar? You +well?" he asked, anxiously. + +"Quite so." + +"And little one?" + +"As well as a little pig, fast asleep in the other room." + +"Where your husband?" + +"Gone over to the railroad on business." + +"And yours?" he asked, turning to me. + +"Gone to Carysville. Do you know anything about him? is anything the +matter?" I asked, a little alarmed at his persistent questioning and an +indefinite something in the old man's tone and manner. + +"Oh no," said he, earnestly. "I come right over from our place." + +"Walked from the reservation in this storm!" said I. "What could have made +you do such a thing?" + +"Nothing--just to see you. Not very strange come see two nice women," said +the old gentleman, with a little complimentary bow. + +The Panther was somewhat vain of his knowledge of what he called "white +manners," but I never saw a white man who could be so gently dignified, so +courteous, so altogether charming in manner, as the old chief when he +chose. He hardly knew one letter from another, but he had had sixty-five +years of experience in war and council. Many a man "got up regardless of +expense" in college and society might have taken lessons in deportment +from this old Pottawatomie. He had known Minny from her childhood. Her +father's farm had been the first clearing in all that part of the country. +Deacon Adams had always been on excellent terms with the Indians, and his +little daughter had found her earliest playmates among their children. The +Panther had carried Minny in his arms when she was a baby; and as his own +family of boys and girls died one after another, he clung closer to the +child who had been their pet as well as his own. + +The Panther was one of those big, soft, easy men who seem made to be ruled +by one woman or another. He was greatly respected in his tribe, and had +much influence. When they had been a nation he had been one of their most +distinguished warriors, and his word had been law. He had always +maintained toward the "young men" a somewhat imperious manner. He had +conducted himself with dignity and decision in all his visits to +Washington, where he had been a great lion, and in all his dealings with +the United States he had shown much wisdom and ability. But report said +that when once within the domestic circle and before his squaw, the +diplomatist and warrior was exceedingly meek. He bore his wife's death +with resignation, but he had never married again. He loved Minny Adams +better than anything on earth, and the girl had great influence over him. +She, in her turn, was very fond of him. From her earliest years he had +been her friend, confidant and admirer. He looked so fierce and dangerous, +and was so kind and simple, that the alliance between the girl and himself +was very much like that between a little child and a big mastiff--the +child protected and leader, the dog protector and led. + +Minny made flannel shirts for him, and he wore them: she trimmed his +moccasins, and the dainty cambric ruffles which he wore when in grand +costume were got up by her hands. The Panther, however, did not often +appear in full dress. She tried to teach him to read, and she did get him +through the alphabet, but he greatly preferred hearing stories read to +learning to do it for himself, and was especially fond of the _Arabian +Nights_, which he quite believed. She even coaxed him to go to church with +her, and might have made a convert of him but for the interference of an +exceedingly silly young clergyman. The Panther rather liked to hear the +Bible, but I fear he was more attracted by the sound than the sense: his +favorite chapter was the story of David and Goliah. He used to say that +"Ingin religion was good for Ingin, and white religion was good for white +man." However, he never offered the least opposition to the missionary who +had settled among his people: indeed, he rather patronized that gentleman. + +He and Wyanota were excellent friends. It was good to see the deference +and respect with which the younger man treated the elder. I always said +that it was the Panther who made the match between Minny and Mr. Moore. +Their house was one of his homes, and he was a frequent guest at our own. +He petted and spoiled my two children: he was very soft and kind to me, +whom he called "Mamma," after Wyn's example, and he considered that my +husband "understood good manners"--a compliment which he did not pay to +every one. + +A dear little daughter whom we had lost had been very fond of him: the +child had died in his arms. I was alone at the time, and the old man's +sympathy was such a comfort to me in my trouble that for his own sake, as +well as for our little girl's, he had become very dear to us. + +For an Indian, the Panther might be called almost a sober character. He +was seldom drunk more than four or five times a year, and when he was, he +always was very careful to keep out of the way of his white friends until +he was sober, when he would lecture the young men on the evils of +intemperance in most impressive fashion. He was a good deal of an orator, +possessing a voice of great sweetness and power; and though he was such an +immense creature, all his movements were light and graceful as those of a +kitten. He could speak perfectly good, even elegant, English when he +chose, but he did not always choose, and generally omitted the pronouns; +but his voice, manner and gestures in speaking were perfectly charming +when he was in a good temper. When he was not, he was somewhat awful, but +it was only under great provocation that he became savage. In general, he +was an amiable, kind, lazy creature, whom it was very easy to love. + +I could not but wonder that night, as I set out the table and made the +coffee, what had brought the Panther so far in such wild weather. He did +not seem like himself. He was usually very conversable, and would chat +away by the hour together, in a fashion half shrewd, half simple, often +very interesting; but now he was silent and _distrait_. + +"Carry," said Mrs. Moore, "are there not some of Wyn's things here yet in +that old trunk in your lumber-room?" + +"Yes. Perhaps you can find something the chief can put on, and bring down +a pair of the captain's socks and slippers." + +"Oh, never mind, never mind," said the damp giant. + +"But I will mind," said the little woman; and she went out and soon +returned with the things, which she insisted he should go and put on. + +"Well, always one woman or another," said the Panther in a tone of +resignation: "always squaw git her own way. You see that little girl, +mamma? Could squeeze her up just like a rabbit. Always she order me round +since she so high, and I just big fool enough let her;" and he went into +the next room, and presently came out arrayed in dry garments, as to his +upper man at least. I set the table with the best I had in the house, and +Minny and I sat down to get a cup of coffee with our guest. + +At any other time the old gentleman would have purred and talked over this +little feast like an amiable old cat, but now he was rather silent; and I +noticed that in the pauses of the wind he would stop as though listening +for some expected sound. I began to think he was concealing from me some +misfortune or danger, and the same thought was evidently in Minny's mind, +for she watched him anxiously. + +When we went back into the parlor the Panther walked to the baby's crib, +and stood for a moment looking at the sleeping child with a tenderness +which softened his whole aspect. Then he asked for the little boys. + +"They are fast asleep in the next room," I said. "Go and look at them, and +you will be sure." + +The Panther smiled, but he went into my room, which opened from the +parlor, and bending down softly kissed the two little faces resting on the +same pillow. + +I drew a large chair to the fire for him, and Minny filled his pipe, for I +had "followed the drum" too long to object to smoking. The giant stretched +his length of limb before the fire, but he did not seem quite at ease, +even under the influence of the tobacco. He looked a little troubled and +anxious, and lifted his head once or twice with a sudden motion, like a +dog who has misgivings that something is wrong out-doors. + +The baby stirred in her sleep, and the chief began gently to rock the +cradle. "'Spose she order me about too, by and by," he said, "like her +mother." + +"Oh, you like to make that out," said Minny, "because you are such a great +big, strong man. If you were a little bit of a creature, you would always +be standing on your dignity to make yourself look tall. The last time Wyn +and I were at Detroit we went to church, and I heard the very smallest man +I ever saw preach a tremendous sermon about the man being the head of the +woman, insisting mightily on the respect we all owe to the other sex. When +we came out I asked Wyn what he thought, and he said he thought it was +exactly such a sermon as such a very tiny man might be expected to +preach." + +"Ah! and he heard you both, my dear," said I; "and he says Mr. Moore has +no element of reverence in his character!" + +Here the Panther dropped his pipe, and starting from his chair looked like +his namesake just ready for a spring, as the sharp, quick bark of a little +dog was heard from the nearest house. + +"Only dog," he said in a tone of relief, and resumed his smoking. + +"Uncle," said Minny, "I do wish you would tell me what the matter is, or +what you are listening for. You make me think there is something wrong." + +I looked up and seconded Minny's request. + +"'Spose I tell you, you think it all Ingin nonsense," he said, looking a +little embarrassed. + +"Even if I did, sir, I should feel more comfortable," I said. + +"Yes, do tell us, please," said Minny, earnestly. + +"Well, then," said the old man, speaking with an effort, "last night went +out after a coon--up in the woods right back of here--" + +"Yes: well?" + +"And went up on that little hill over your pasture, and then," said the +old man lowering his voice and speaking with great earnestness, "hear _red +fox bark_--one, two, three times out loud, and then again farther off. +There, now!" + +I was greatly relieved at finding that I was threatened by nothing worse +than the oracle of the red fox. I knew the Indian superstition that if +this animal is heard to bark anywhere near a dwelling, he foretells death +within twenty-four hours to some one beneath its roof. + +"But," said I, "the red fox is only a sign for Indians. He does not bark +for white people, and you were not under a roof at the time, so it cannot +apply to you." + +"Don't know!" said the Panther, shaking his head. "Never know that sign +fail. Then here this little woman and this baby--all the same as Ingin +now." + +Minny looked a little troubled. In spite of his reading, his college +education and mathematics, Wyanota had sundry queer notions and +superstitions, about which he very seldom spoke, but which nevertheless +had some weight with him, and it is possible that he had in some degree +communicated his ideas to his wife. + +"I don't believe in signs," said Minny, but nevertheless she looked +annoyed. + +"So I thought," said the chief with a little smile. "Know mamma here think +it all nonsense, or else come over this morning to tell her. Then think +she not believe it and not mind, and so keep quiet. Then storm come up and +wind blow, and couldn't stand it; so set out and walk over here to take +care of her; and she--maybe she laugh at me?" + +"No indeed, sir," said I, greatly touched by the anxious affection which +had brought the old man so far in such weather. "How good you are to me! +You mean to stay here to-night of course, and in the morning you will see +that the red fox was simply barking for his own amusement; but I am sorry +he drove you to take such a toilsome walk, though we are glad to have you +here." + +"My business take care of you when your men gone. Got no one my own +blood," he said, rather sadly: "boys dead, girl dead, squaw dead--no one +but you two care much for old man." + +Minny went and kissed him softly. "You know I belong to you," she said, +"and baby has no grandfather but you." + +"Ah! your father!" said the Panther, rocking the cradle. "He and I always +good friends. 'Member when you come, your mother she got no milk for you, +poor little starved thing! My squaw she lose her baby--nice little boy +too," said the old man, with a sigh--"she tell your mother she nurse you; +so she did. You git fat and rosy right off. You all the same one of us +after that. No spoil your pretty white skin, though," said the Panther, +patting Minny's cheek with his brown fingers. "Seem just like that happen +yesterday: now you got baby yourself. Ah! your father--mighty well pleased +he be 'spose he see that little one." + +"How often I wish he could!" said "Minny with a sigh, for both her father +and mother were dead. + +"You 'pend upon it, he comfortable somewhere," said the chief, +consolingly. "Deacon Adams, he real good man. Look here, mamma! Like to +ask you question. You say when we die white man go to one place, Indian go +to another--" + +"I don't say so, sir. I don't pretend to know all this world by heart, +much less the other." + +"Well, that what Indian say, any way. Now 'spose that so, what come of +half-breed, eh?" + +"What do you think?" I asked, for neither Minny nor I could venture an +opinion on this abstruse point. + +"Don't know," said the old man. "Saw young Cherokee in Washington: he +marry pretty little schoolmistress go down there to teach, and their +little boy die. Then that young man feel bad, and he fret good deal 'bout +where that baby gone to, and he ask me, and I no able tell him. Guess me +find out when get there: no use to trouble till then, You make these?" he +asked, changing the subject, and looking with admiration at the captain's +embroidered slippers which I had lent him. + +"Yes. They were pretty when they were new. I'll make you a pair just like +them, if you wish. Shall I?" + +The old gentleman looked greatly delighted, for he was as fond of finery +as any girl, and took no small pride in adorning his still handsome +person. + +I brought out all my embroidery-patterns, and the giant took as much +pleasure as a child in the pretty painted pictures and gay-colored wools +and silks. I made all the conversation I could over the slippers, willing +to divert him from the melancholy which seemed to have taken possession of +his mind. Over my work-basket he brightened a little, and chatted away +quite like himself, and listened with pleasure to Minny's singing. We did +not rise to go to bed till eleven o'clock, which was a very late hour for +Maysville. When the Panther spent the night at our house, as was +frequently the case, he never would go regularly to bed, but would take +his blanket and lie down before the kitchen fire. With great politeness he +insisted on getting the wood ready for morning, a thing he never would +have dreamed of doing for a woman of his own race. + +As he came back into the kitchen from the shed he took up his rifle, which +he had set down by the door. As he did so an angry look came over his +face. "Look here," he said: "somebody been spoil my rifle!" + +I looked at the piece in surprise, for the lock was broken. "It cannot +have been done since you came," I said. "There is no one in the house but +ourselves." + +"Of course not, of course not!" said the Panther, eager to show that he +had no suspicion of his friends. + +"Did you stop anywhere on your way?" + +"Yes," said he with some slight embarrassment. "Stop at Ryan's," +mentioning a low tavern on the borders of the reservation, which was a +terrible thorn in the side of all the missionary's efforts. "Stop a minute +light my pipe, but no drink one drop," he added with great earnestness; +"but they ask me good deal." + +"Did you put your gun down?" + +"Guess so," he said after a moment's reflection. "Yes, know did put it +down a minute or two." + +"Then that was when the mischief was done, you may be sure. This lock was +never broken by accident. It must have been a mere piece of spite because +you would not stay. I wonder you did not notice it when you came out." + +"In a hurry, and kept the buckskin over it, not to git it wet. Wish knew +who did that," said he, with a look not good to see. "Guess not do it +again." + +"I am very sorry, but it can easily be mended." + +I spread out on the floor for him the comfortable and blankets I had +brought for his use, and hung up his woolen hunting-frock, now quite dry. + +As I took it into my hand, I felt something very heavy in the pocket. + +"I hope you have nothing here that will be spoiled with wet?" I said. + +"Oh, nothing but money," said the chief, carelessly. "Mean to tell Minny +to take some of it and buy clothes for me." + +He took out as he spoke a handful of loose change--copper, silver and two +or three gold-pieces--and a roll of bills a good deal damp, and put it all +into my apron. I counted the money and found there were seventy-five +dollars. Strong indeed must have been the attraction which had brought the +old man away from the tavern-fire in his sober senses with such a sum of +money in his pocket. + +"Just got that," he said. "Part from Washington, part sell deer-skins." + +There was no need to tell me that it had not been long in his possession. +Money in the Panther's hands was like water in a sieve. + +"You give me five dollars, give the rest to Minny," he said; and as this +was by much the wisest arrangement for him, I did as he wished. + +"You got captain's gun?" he asked me. "Never like to go to sleep without +something to catch up: hit somebody 'spose somebody come." + +"I am sorry to say the captain has his rifle with him, and I lent the +shotgun to Jim Brewster this afternoon." + +He looked annoyed, but he went out into the woodshed and returned with the +axe, which was new and sharp. "Have something, anyway," he said, doggedly. + +"Why, what do you think can possibly happen?" + +"Don't know. Always like to have something to catch up. Good-night, mamma. +You go to sleep." + +I went to bed and fell asleep almost on the minute, but I could not have +slept long when I was wakened by the noise of the wind against the +shutters. The rain had ceased, but the blast was still roaring without. +Minny and her child were in a room which opened out of the parlor opposite +my own. The lamp which was burning there threw a dim light into my +chamber, and showed me each familiar object and my little boys asleep +beside me. + +Some one says that between the hours of one and four in the morning the +human mind is not itself. I fully believe it. In those hours you do not +"fix your mind" on melancholy subjects--they fix themselves upon you. If +you turn back into the past, there comes up before you every occasion on +which you made a fool of yourself, every lost opportunity, every slight +injury you ever experienced. If you look at the future, you see nothing +but coming failure and disappointment. The present moment connects itself +with every tale you ever heard or read of ghosts, murder, vampires or +robbers. + +That night, either because of the wind or because I had taken too strong +coffee, I fell into "the fidgets," as this state of mind is sometimes +called, and selected for immediate cause of discomfort the Panther's +presentiment about the red fox. Who could explain the mysterious way in +which animals are warned of approaching danger? Perhaps the old science of +divination was not so entirely a delusion; and then I remembered all the +old stories in Roman history of people who had come to grief by neglecting +the oracles. The old idea that whatever incident is considered as an omen +will be such in reality, seemed to me at that hour of the night not wholly +an unreasonable theory. + +I had known, to be sure, some fifty presentiments which came to nothing, +but then I had known as many as three which had been verified: perhaps the +present case might be one of the exceptions to the rule. Then I remembered +all the stories in Scott's _Demonology_, which I had lately read, and +quite forgot all the arguments intended to disprove them. + +[Illustration: The Attack on the "Panther."] + +I thought of the broken gun-lock: I thought it not improbable that the +Panther had, when at Ryan's, mentioned that he was coming to our house, +and that it was very likely he had let it appear that he carried his money +with him. Ryan's was one of the worst places in all the State. I +remembered that the money was in the house, and I began to wish, like the +Panther, that I had something to "catch up." Then there were so many +noises about! I heard footsteps, which you will always hear if you listen +for them on a windy night. When our petted old cat jumped from his place +on the parlor sofa to lie down before the fire, I started up in bed in a +sudden fright. + +I must have been in this uncomfortable state of mind and body for the best +part of an hour before I remembered that in a drawer in the front parlor +lay two little old-fashioned pistols, unloaded but in good order. + +I had grown so excited and uneasy that I felt as if I could not rest +unless I got up, found those pistols and loaded them, though nobody had +ever heard of a burglary in Maysville, and half the time the doors were +left unlocked at night. Rather despising myself for my nervousness, but +yielding to it nevertheless, I rose, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, +lit my candle and went to find the two little pistols. I stepped very +softly, not to disturb Minny, for I should have been quite ashamed then to +have her know my cowardice. I looked in at the door as I passed. She was +sound asleep, with her baby on her arm. The baby, however, was broad +awake, but lying perfectly still, with her little finger in her mouth. Her +eyes shone in the lamplight as she turned them on me--not startled like +another child, but simply questioning. The little creature looked so +unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild +tale Wyanota had once told me about a remote ancestress of his who had +married some sort of a wood-demon. The legend ran that Wyanota's family +was descended from the offspring of this marriage, and I think Wyn more +than half believed the story. + +I passed on, and going into the next room found the pistols, carried them +back to my own chamber, and loaded them carefully. I was quite accustomed +to the use of firearms. There had been times in my life when I never sat +down to my work or went to rest without having rifle or pistol within easy +reach of my hand. When I had loaded the weapons, I put them on the table +by my bed and lay down again. My excitement seemed to have subsided, and I +was just falling asleep when I heard a door in the kitchen violently burst +open. I thought the wind had done it, and waited a moment to hear if the +Panther would rise and shut it. + +The next instant there was a shot, a wild cry as of mingled pain and fury, +the sound of a heavy fall and a struggle. Before I had well realized that +the noise was in the house, I found myself at the kitchen door with my +pistols in my hand. I was greatly startled, but my one idea was to help my +old friend. The miserable door resisted me for a moment. Seconds passed +that seemed hours. When at last I tore it open, I saw a man in his shirt +sleeves lying dead on the floor, his head shattered apparently by a blow +from the axe: another, a large, powerful Irishman, was kneeling on the +Panther's breast, with his hands at the old man's throat. + +I sprang forward, but something swifter than I darted past me with a +savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself +full at the ruffian's face and naked throat. It was our big old brindle +cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire. The unexpected fierceness +of Tom's assault took the man quite by surprise. Before he could tear the +creature away I had the pistol at his head. + +"If you move," I said, "I'll kill you;" for, as I saw that my old friend +was hurt, wrath took the place of fear. + +He gave in directly. Indeed the cat, a large, powerful animal, had almost +scratched his eyes out. In the most abject tones the fellow implored me to +let him go. + +"Don't you do it, mamma," said the Panther, faintly. + +"I don't mean to," I said. + +Under the kitchen stairs was a dark closet with a strong outside bolt. I +ordered the man into this place. He obeyed, and I drew the bolt upon him. +His face and throat were streaming with blood from Tom's teeth and claws. + +All this passed in much less time than it takes to tell it. Roused by the +noise, the children, and Minny with the baby in her arms, were already in +the kitchen. + +"Oh, my dear, my poor darling!" said Minny, kneeling by the old man's +side, "you are hurt!" + +"Yes," he said, quietly, "pretty considerable bad. Charley, you fasten +that door;" for the door into the shed, which had been secured only by a +button, was wide open. "You get the hammer and two, three big nails, and +drive 'em in," he continued. "Maybe more them darn scamps round." + +Charley obeyed directions in a way which did him credit. Little Ned, with +wide, surprised eyes, clung to me in silence; little Carry, seeing her +mother in tears, put up a piteous lip and sobbed in her unbaby-like, +sorrowful fashion; the old cat, in great excitement, went purring and +talking from one to another. + +"Tell me where you are hurt," I said, holding the chief's hand. + +He had been shot through the stomach with a great, old-fashioned +smooth-bore musket, which lay on the floor--a gun not carrying less than +twenty-five to the pound. I had seen gunshot wounds before, and I knew +that this was serious. It did not bleed much externally, but the edges of +the wound were torn and discolored. + +"That fellow dead?" asked the Panther. + +"Yes indeed!" for the man's head was split like a walnut. + +The old warrior looked gratified. "Mamma," he said, touching his +hunting-knife, "you take that fellow's scalp." + +"Don't think of such a thing," I said, not so much shocked as I might have +been had I not lived on the Indian frontier. "Do you know who they are?" + +"See them to Ryan's. Guess they some folks that mizzable railroad bring +into this country. 'Spect they follow me. Mamma," said the Panther, +looking up into my face, "tell you, red fox not bark for nothing. Better +be old man than you." + +"Oh, my dear old friend, if you had only not come to us to-night! It was +all your love for us that has done this, but I pray God you may get well. +Charley, do you think you can go for Doctor Beach?" + +"Yes, mamma," said the boy, though he turned pale. + +"No, no," said the Panther. "You no send that little fellow out in the +dark. Besides, no good. You go wrap yourselves up. You two, you git bad +cold." + +At that moment we heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet. + +"Go, Charley," said Minny. "Stop whoever it is, and tell them what has +happened." + +Charley ran out, and soon returned with Dr. Beach, who, happily for us, +had been out on one of those errands which are always rousing doctors from +their beds. + +Dr. Beach was a burly, rough-mannered sort of man, but he could be very +kind and tender in the exercise of his profession. He wasted no time in +questions, but looked grave when he saw how the old man was hurt. + +"Needn't tell me," said the Panther, quietly. "Know it's the end. Kill one +of 'em, anyhow!" he concluded in a tone of calm satisfaction. + +"And I wish with all my heart you had killed the other," said the doctor, +bitterly. "He got off, I suppose." + +The Panther showed his white teeth in a laugh. "No," he said, pointing to +me: "she got him--she and the cat. Pretty well for one little squaw and +pussy-cat. Mamma, you keep that kitty always." + +"Where is the scoundrel?" asked the doctor. + +"Shut up in that closet." + +Here the man within cried out that he was "kilt" already, and should be +hung if we did not let him go. + +"I hope you will, with all my heart," said the doctor. + +With some difficulty we helped the Panther into the parlor and laid him on +the sofa. + +He told us the story in a few words. He had been asleep when the door was +burst open. The man whom he had killed had fired the shot. He had kept his +feet to strike one blow with the axe, and the other man had sprung upon +him as he fell. + +The doctor did what little he could to ease his patient, and then went +away, but soon returned with some men from the village, who were quite +ready to lynch the criminal when they heard what he had done. They took +the man away, however, and I am happy to say he afterward received the +heaviest sentence the law would allow. He confessed that, knowing the +chief had a large sum in his possession, himself and his companion had +broken the lock of the rifle, intending to waylay the old man and shoot +him in the woods. They had not, however, been able to overtake him till he +reached the clearing, and then, fearing to encounter him, they had +followed him at a distance and watched him enter our house. Knowing that +the captain was gone, they had waited until all was quiet, and then made +their entrance as described. + +The Panther asked that some one might go to the reservation and send over +three of his friends, whom he named. He was very anxious to see Wyanota, +and Calvin Bruce, who had come with the doctor, instantly volunteered to +take his trotting mare and do both errands. The chestnut did her work +gallantly, though unhappily in vain, for the old man did not live to see +his friends. + +"Don't you fret, you two," he said, softly, as Minny and I watched over +him. "Great deal the best way for old Ingin. Die like a man now: not cough +myself to death, like an old dog. Minny, little girl, you tell your +husband be good to our people, well as he can. Not much of our nation left +now--not good for much, either," he added; "but you tell him and the +captain stand their friends, won't you?" + +"Indeed, indeed they will," said Minny in tears. + +A Methodist clergyman of some kind, who preached in Maysville at that +time, hearing what had happened, came in to offer his services and to pray +with the dying man. The Panther thanked him courteously, but he clung to +the simple creed of his fathers and his belief that "Ingin religion was +good for Ingin;" and Mr. Lawrence had the sense and feeling not to disturb +him by argument. + +"Want your Charley to have my rifle," he said to me. "Nobody left of our +people but my cousin's son, and he most a mizzable Ingin. You 'member +that, please," he said to Mr. Lawrence, who sat quietly at the head of the +sofa. "Do you think," he asked wistfully of the clergyman, "that I ever +see these two again where I go?" The minister--Heaven bless him!--answered +stoutly that he had not a doubt of it. "All right, then," said the +Panther, quietly. "Now, mamma, you see red fox know, after all." + +Minny brought her baby for him to kiss. Little Carry's dark eyes were full +of tears, for, like most babies, she felt the influence of sorrow she +could not understand. She did not scream, as another child would, but hid +her face on her mother's bosom and sobbed quietly, like a grown-up woman. +My two little boys, understanding all at once that their old friend was +going away, burst out crying. + +"Hush! hush!" he said, gently. "You be good boys to your mother. Say +'good-bye.'" + +We kissed him, keeping back the lamentations which we knew would trouble +him. + +"Good-bye," he said, softly, and then he spoke some few words in his own +tongue, as Minny told me afterward, about going to his lost children. Then +a smile came over his face, a look of sweet relief and comfort softened +the stern features, the hand that had held mine so close slowly relaxed; +and with a sigh he was gone. + +The old minister gently closed his eyes. "My dear," said Mr. Lawrence to +Minny, who was in an agony of grief, "God knows, but it was His Son who +said, 'Greater love hath no man than this--that a man lay down his life +for his friends!'" + +When we buried the old chief we wrote those words on the stone we placed +over his grave. + +Since then the New Year's Eve brings back to me very vividly the memory of +the augury that so strangely accomplished its own fulfillment. + +CLARA F. GUERNSEY. + + + + +Louie. + + + +The great river was flowing peacefully down to the sea, opening its blue +tides at the silver fretting of the bar into a shallow expanse some miles +in width, a part of which on either side overlay stretches where the +submerged eel-grass lent a tint of chrysoprase to the sheathing flow, and +into which one gazed, half expecting to see so ideal a depth peopled by +something other than the long ribbons of the weed streaming out on the +slow current--the only cool sight, albeit, beneath the withering heat of +the day across all that shining extent. Far down the shores, on the right, +a line of low sand-hills rose, protecting the placid harbor from sea and +storm with the bulwark of their dunes, whose yellow drifts were ranged by +the winds in all fantastic shapes, and bound together by ropes of the wild +poison-ivy and long tangles of beach-grass and the blossoming purple pea, +and which to-day cast back the rays of the sun as though they were of +beaten brass. Above these hills the white lighthouse loomed, the heated +air trembling around it, and giving it so vague and misty a guise that, +being by itself a thing of night and storm and darkness, it looked now as +unreal as a ghost by daylight. On the other side of the harbor lay the +marshes, threaded by steaming creeks, up which here and there the pointed +sails of the hidden hay-barges crept, the sunshine turning them to white +flames: farther off stood a screen of woods, and from brim to brim between +swelled the broad, smooth sheet of the river, coming from the great +mountains that gave it birth, washing clean a score of towns on its way, +and loitering just here by the pleasant old fishing-town, whose wharves, +once doing a mighty business with the Antilles and the farther Indies, +now, in the absence of their half dozen foreign-going craft, lay at the +mercy of any sand-droger that chose to fling her cable round their +capstans. A few idle masts swayed there, belonging to small fishers and +fruiters, a solid dew of pitch oozing from their sides in the sun, but not +a sail set: a lonely watchman went the rounds among them, a ragged urchin +bobbed for flounders in the dock, but otherwise wharves and craft were +alike forsaken, and the sun glared down on them as though his rays had +made them a desert. The harbor-water lay like glass: now and then the tide +stirred it, and all the brown and golden reflections of masts and spars +with it, into the likeness of a rippled agate. Not one of the boats that +were ordinarily to be seen darting hither and yon, like so many +water-bugs, were in motion now; none of the white sails of the gay +sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the +usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that +deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed; +the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if +they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks, +had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will +disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing +here. In all the scene there was hardly any other sign of life than the +fervent sunbeams shedding their cruel lustre overhead: the river flowed +silent and lonely from shore to shore; the whole hot summer sky stretched +just as silent and lonely from horizon to horizon; only the old ferryman, +edging along the bank till he was far up stream, crossed the narrower tide +and drifted down effortless on the other side; only an old black brig lay +at anchor, with furled sail and silent deck, in the middle channel down +below the piers, and from her festering and blistering hull it was that +all the heat and loneliness and silence of the scene seemed to exude--for +it was the fever-ship. + +It was a different picture on the bright river when that brig entered the +harbor on the return of her last voyage, to receive how different a +welcome! But pestilence raged abroad in the country now, and the people of +the port, who had so far escaped the evil, were loth to let it enter among +them at last, and had not yet recovered from the recoil of their first +shock and shiver at thought of it in their waters--waters than which none +could have fostered it more kindly, full as they were in their shallow +breadth of rotting weeds and the slime of sewers. Perhaps the owner of +some pale face looked through the pane and thought of brother or father, +or, it may be, of lover, and grew paler with pity, and longed to do kind +offices for those who suffered; but the greater part of all the people +hived upon the shores would have scouted the thought of going out with aid +to those hot pillows rocking there upon the tide, and of bringing back +infection to the town, as much as though the act had been piracy on the +high seas. And they stayed at home, and watched their vanes and longed for +an east wind--an east wind whose wings would shake out healing, whose +breath would lay the destroying fever low; but the east wind refused to +seek their shores, and chose rather to keep up its wild salt play far out +on the bosom of its mid-sea billows. + +Yes, on that return of the last voyage of the brig the stream had swarmed +with boats, flags had fluttered from housetops and staffs, piers and quays +had been lined with cheering people, all flocking forth to see the broken, +battered little craft; for the brig had been spoken by a tug, and word had +been brought to the wharves, and had spread like wild-fire through the +town, that, wrecked in a tempest and deserted by the panic-stricken crew, +the steadfast master and a boy who stood by him had remained with her, had +refitted her as best they might when the storm abated, and had brought her +into port at last through fortunate days of fair weather and slow sailing. +The town was ringing with the exploit, with praise of the noble +faithfulness of master and boy; and now the river rang again, and no +conquering galley of naval hero ever moved through a gladder, gayer +welcome than that through which the little black brig lumbered on her +clumsy way to her moorings. + +But though all the rest of the populace of the seaport had turned out with +their greetings that day, there was one little body there who, so far from +hurrying down to shore or sea-wall with a waving handkerchief, ran crying +into a corner; and it was there that Andrew Traverse, the person of only +secondary importance in the river scene, rated as a boy on the brig's +books, but grown into a man since the long voyage began,--it was there he +found her when the crowd had let him alone and left him free to follow his +own devices. + +"It's the best part of all the welcome, I declare it is!" said he, +standing in the doorway and enjoying the sight before him a moment. + +"Oh, Andrew," cried the little body with a sob, but crouching farther away +into the corner, "it was so splendid of you!" + +"What was so splendid of me?" said he, still in the doorway, tall and +erect in the sunshine that lay around him, and that glanced along his red +shirt and his bronzed cheek to light a flame in the black eyes that +surveyed her. + +"Standing by him so," she sobbed--"standing by the captain when the others +left--bringing home the ship!" + +"It's not a ship--it's a brig," said Andrew, possibly too conscious of his +merit to listen to the praise of it. "Well, is this all? Ain't you going +to shake hands with me? Ain't you glad to see me?" + +"Oh, Andrew! So glad!" and she turned and let him see the blushing, rosy +face one moment, the large, dark, liquid eyes, the tangled, tawny curls; +and then overcome once more, as a sudden shower overcomes the landscape, +the lips quivered again, the long-lashed eyelids fell, and the face was +hidden in another storm of tears. And then, perhaps because he was a +sailor, and perhaps because he was a man, his arms were round her and he +was kissing off those tears, and the little happy body was clinging to him +and trembling with excitement and with joy like a leaf in the wind. + +Certainly no two happier, prouder beings walked along the sea-wall that +night, greeted with hearty hands at every step, followed by all eyes till +the shelter of deepening dusk obscured them, and with impish urchins, +awe-struck for once, crying mysteriously under their breath to each other, +"That's him! That's the feller saved the Sabrina! That's him and her!" How +proud the little body was! how her heart beat with pleasure at thought of +the way in which all men were ready to do him honor! how timidly she +turned her eyes upon him and saw the tint deepen on his cheek, the shadow +flash into light in his eye, the smile kindle on his lips, as he looked +down on her--glad with her pride and pleasure, strong, confident, content +himself--till step by step they had left the town behind, wandering down +the sandy island road, through the wayside hedge of blossoming wild roses +and rustling young birches, till they leaned upon the parapet of the old +island bridge and heard the water lap and saw the stars come out, and only +felt each other and their love in all the wide, sweet summer universe. + +Poor Louie! She had always been as shy and wary as any little brown bird +of the woods. It was Andrew's sudden and glorious coming that had +surprised her into such expression of a feeling that had grown up with her +until it was a part of every thought and memory. And as for +Andrew--certainly he had not known that he cared for her so much until she +turned that tearful, rosy face upon him in welcome; but now it seemed to +him that she had been his and he hers since time began: he could neither +imagine nor remember any other state than this: he said to himself, and +then repeated it to her, that he had loved her always, that it was thought +of her that had kept him firm and faithful to his duty, that she had been +the lodestar toward which he steered on that slow homeward way; and he +thanked Heaven, no doubt devoutly enough, that had saved him from such +distress and brought him back to such bliss. And Louie listened and clung +closer, more joyful and more blest with every pulse of her bounding heart. + +After all, sudden as the slipping into so divine a dream had been, it had +need to be full as intense and deep, for it was only for a little while it +lasted. A week's rapt walking in these mid-heavens, where earth and care +and each to-morrow was forgotten, and there broke in upon them the voice +of the Sabrina's owner seeking for Andrew Traverse. + +Of course such conduct as that of one who preferred to do his utmost to +save a sinking ship rather than seek safety with her flying crew, was +something too unusual to go unrewarded: it must be signalized into such a +shining light that all other mariners must needs follow it. And if the sky +had fallen, Andrew declared, he could have been no more surprised than he +was when he found himself invited with great ceremony to a stately +tea-drinking at the house of the owner of the Sabrina. "Now we shall catch +larks," said he; and dressed in a new suit, whose gray tint set off the +smoothness of his tanned cheek with the color sometimes mantling through +the brown, he entered the house with all the composure of a gentleman used +to nothing but high days and holidays. Not that either the state or +ceremony at Mr. Maurice's required great effort to encounter with +composure--trivial enough at its best, wonderful though it was to the +townsfolk, unused to anything beyond. But Andrew had seen the world in +foreign parts, and neither Mr. Maurice's mansion-house and gardens, nor +his gay upholstery, nor his silver tea-service, nor his condescending +manners, struck the least spark of' surprise from Andrew's eyes, or gave +them the least shadow of awe. + +"This is some mistake," said the owner graciously, after preliminary +compliment had been duly observed. "How is it that you are rated on the +books as a boy--you as much a man as you will ever be?" + +"A long voyage, sir, slow sailing and delays over so many disasters as +befell us, three years out in the stead of a year and a half--all that +brings one to man's estate before his reckoning." + +"But the last part of the time you must have done able seaman's service?" + +"The captain and I together," said Andrew with his bright laugh. "We were +officers and crew and passengers, cox'n and cook, as they say." + +"A hard experience," said Mr. Maurice. + +"Oh, not at all, but worth its weight in gold--to me, at least. Why, sir, +it taught me how to handle a ship as six years before the mast couldn't +have done." + +"Good! We shall see to what purpose one of these days. And you have had +your share of schooling, they tell me?" + +"All that the academy had to give, sir." + +"And that's enough for any one who has the world to tussel with. How +should you like to have gone through such hard lines, Frarnie?" turning to +his daughter, a pale, moon-faced girl, her father's darling. + +"Were you never afraid?" she asked in her pretty simpering way. + +"Not to say afraid," answered Andrew, deferentially. "We knew our +danger--two men alone in the leaky, broken brig--but then we could be no +worse off than we were before; and as for the others--" + +"They got their deserts," said Mr. Maurice. + +"The poor fellows left us in such a hurry that they took hardly any water +or biscuit; and at the worst our fate could not be so bad as theirs, under +the hot sun in those salt seas." + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Maurice, who loved his own ease too much to like to +hear of others' dis-ease. And to turn the conversation from the possible +horrors into which it might lapse, he invited his guest out into his +gardens, among his grapehouses, his poultry and his dogs. It was a long +hour's ramble that they took there, well improved on both sides, for +Andrew of course knew it to be for his interest to please the brig's +owner; and Mr. Maurice, who prided himself on having a singularly keen +insight into character, studied the young man's every word and gesture, +for it was not often that he came across such material as this out of +which to make his captains; and to what farther effect in this instance be +pursued his studies might have been told, by any one keener than himself, +through the tone of satisfaction with which, on re-entering the parlor, he +bade his daughter take Andrew down the rooms and tell him the histories of +the surprising pictures there. For Mr. Maurice, one of the great fortunes +of the seaport, being possessed by a mania of belief that every youth who +cast tender eyes upon his daughter cast them not on her, but on her future +havings and holdings, had long since determined to select a husband for +her himself--one who evinced no servile reverence for wealth, one whom he +could trust to make her happy. "And here," he said, "I am not sure but +that I have him." + +When Andrew went in to see Louie a moment on his way home that night, he +was in great spirits over the success of his visit, and, dark as it was, +made her blush the color of the rose over the low doorway where they stood +when he asked how she would like to go captain's wife next voyage. And +then he told her of Mr. Maurice's scrutiny and questioning, and the half +hint of a ship of his own to sail some day, and of the pale-faced Miss +Frarnie's interest, and of the long stroll down the parlors among the +pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the +Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled +through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music +and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off +of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the +way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed, +how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he had had a +trifle more personal vanity, and had seen how this pale young +girl--forbidden by a suspicious father much companionship with +gallants--had forgotten all difference of station and purse, and had +looked upon him, nobly made, handsome, gay, knowing far more than she did, +much as upon a young god just alighted by her side a moment,--if Andrew +had been aware of this, and had found any words in which to repeat it, +then Louie might have had something to startle her out of her blessedness, +and pain might have come to her all the sooner. But since the pain would +have been as sharp then as at any future time, it was a pitying, pleasant +Fate that let her have her happiness as long as might be. For Louie's love +was a different thing from the selfish passion that any clown may feel: +she had been happy enough in her little round of commonplace satisfactions +and tasks before Andrew came and shed over her this great cloud of +delight--happy then just in the enjoyment of that secret love of hers that +went out and sought him every night sailing over foreign sunlit waters, +and hovered like a blessing round his head; and now that he had come and +folded her about and about with such warm devotion, it was not for the new +happiness he gave her that she loved him, but in order to make his own +happiness a perfect thing; and if her heart's blood had been needed for +that, it would have been poured out like water. The pale-faced Frarnie--if +question could be of her--might never know such love as that: love with +her could be a sentiment, a lover one who added to her pleasure, but a +sacrifice on her part for that lover would have been something to tell and +sing for ever, if indeed it were possible that such a thing should be made +at all. + +So day by day the spell deepened with Louie, and for another week there +was delightful loneliness with this lover of hers--strolls down through +the swampy woods hunting for moss to frame the prints he had brought home +uninjured, and which were to be part of the furnishing of their future +home; others across the salt meadows for the little red samphire stems to +pickle; sails in the float down river and in the creeks, where the tall +thatch parted by the prow rustled almost overhead, and the gulls came +flying and piping around them: here and there, they two alone, pouring out +thought and soul to each other, and every now and then glancing shyly at +those days, that did not seem so very far away, when they should be +sailing together through foreign parts; for Louie's father, the old +fisherman, was all her household, and a maiden aunt, who earned her +livelihood in nursing the sick and attending the dead, would be glad to +come any day and take Louie's place in the cottage. + +At the end of the week, Mr. Maurice sent for Andrew to his counting-room; +and after that, on one device or another, he had him there the greater +part of every day, employing him in a score of pleasant ways--asking his +advice as to the repairs of the Sabrina, taking him with him in his chaise +jogging through the shipyard, where a new barque was getting ready for her +launching, examining him the while carefully from time to time after his +wont; at last taking him casually home to dinner with him one day, keeping +him to tea the next, and finally, fully satisfied with the result of his +studies in that edition of human nature, giving him the freedom of the +family as much as if he had been the son of the house. + +"I've some plans ahead for you, my boy," said he one day with a knowing +shake of the head; and Andrew's innocent brain began to swim straightway +between the new barque and the Sabrina. + +"Look at him!" said Mr. Maurice to his wife one evening as Andrew walked +in the garden with Miss Frarnie. "My mind's made up about him. He's the +stuff for a sea-captain, afraid neither of wind nor weather nor the face +of clay--can sail a ship and choose her cargo. He's none of your coxcombs +that go courting across the way: he's a man into the core of his heart, +and as well bred as any gentleman that walks; though Goodness knows how he +came by it." + +"These sea-coast people," said his wife, reflectively (she was inland-born +herself), "see the world and learn." + +"Well, what do you say to it? I don't find the flaw in him. If Heaven had +given me a son, I'd have had him be like this one; and since it didn't, +why here's my way to circumvent Heaven." + +"Oh, my dear," said the wife, "I can't hear you talk so. And besides--" + +"Well? Besides what?" + +"I think it is always best to let such things take their own course. We +did." + +"Of course we did," laughed Mr. Maurice. "But how about our fathers and +mothers?" + +"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice, "not to force things." + +"And who intends to force them? It's plain enough the young fellow took a +fancy to our Frarnie the first time he laid eyes on her, isn't it?" + +"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice again, "that if Frarnie should have the same +fancy for him, I don't know that there'd be any objection. He is quite +uncommon--quite uncommon when you consider all things--but I don't know +why you want to lead her to like any one in particular, when she has such +a nice home and is all we have." + +"Girls will marry, Mrs. Maurice. If it isn't one, it will be another. So I +had rather it should, be one, and that one of my own choosing--one who, +will use her well, and not make ducks and drakes of her money as soon as +we are gone where there's no returning, and without a 'thank you' for your +pains. Look at them now! Should you imagine they thought there was any one +else on earth but each other at this moment? They're fond of each other, +that's plain. They'd be a remarkable-looking couple. What do you think of +it?" + +"Frarnie might have that India shawl that I never undid, to appear out +in," said Mrs. Maurice, pensively, continuing her own reflections rather +than directly replying. "And I suppose we needn't lose her really, for she +could make her home with us." + +And so the conspiracy advanced, its simple victims undreaming of its +approach--Louie sighing faintly to think she saw so little of Andrew now, +but content, since she was sure it was for his best interest to make the +friendship of the Sabrina's owner; Andrew fretting to see how all this +necessary submission to superiors kept him from Louie, but more than half +compensated with the dazzling visions that danced before his eyes of the +Sabrina in her new rig--of the barque coming down for her masts and sails +from her launching. + +The Sabrina had been so badly injured by her disasters that it took much +more time to repair her than had at first been thought. "I'm going to +stand by the old brig," said Andrew to some one--by accident it was in Mr. +Maurice's hearing. "But if I'd known it was going to take so long to have +her whole again, I should have made a penny in taking a run down the bay, +for I had an offer to go second mate on the Tartar." + +"I'll go one better than that," said Mr. Maurice then. "Here's the +Frarnie, nearly ready to clear for New Orleans and Liverpool, with your +old captain. You shall go mate of her. That'll show if you can handle a +ship. The Sabrina won't be at the wharf till the round voyage is over and +the Frarnie coming up the stream again. What say you?" + +Of course what Andrew said was modest thanks--what he felt was a rhapsody +of delight; and when he told Louie that night, what she said was a sob, +and what she felt was a blank of fright and foreboding. Oh what should she +do? cried the selfish little thing--what should she do in the long, long, +weary days with Andrew gone? But then in a moment she remembered that this +was the first step toward going master of that craft in which her bridal +voyage was to be taken. "And what a long step it is, Andrew!" she cried. +"Was the like of it ever known before? What a long, long step it would be +but for that bitter apprenticeship when you and the captain brought the +wreck home!" + +"Ay," said Andrew, proudly: "I served my time before the mast then, if +ever any did." + +"And I suppose with the next step you will be master of the Sabrina? Oh, I +should so like it!" + +"I don't know," said Andrew, more doubtfully than he had used to speak. +"I'm afraid the owners will think this is enough. This is a great lift. +I'll do my best to satisfy them, though; for I'd rather sail master of the +Sabrina than of the biggest man-of-war afloat." + +"We used to play round her when we were children," said Louie, +encouragingly. "Don't you remember leading me down once to admire the lady +on her stern?--like a water-witch just gilded in the rays of some sunrise +she had come up to see, you said." + +"Yes; and we used to climb her shrouds, we boys, and get through the +lubber-hole, before we could spell her name out. She's made of heart of +oak: she'll float still when the Frarnie is nothing but sawdust. We used +to watch for her in the newspapers--we used to know just as much about her +goings and comings as the owner did. Somehow--I don't know why--I've +always felt as if my fate and fortune hung upon her. It used to be the top +of my ambition to go master of her. It is now. I couldn't make up my mind +to leave her when the others did that cruel morning after the wreck; and +when the captain said he should stay by her, my heart sprang up as if she +had been a living thing, and I stayed too. And I'd rather sail her than a +European steamer to-day--that I would, by George!" + +"Oh, of course you will," said the sympathizing voice beside him. + +"I don't know," said Andrew again, more slowly and reflectively. "I've the +idea--and I can't say how I got it--that there's some condition or other +attached to my promotion--that there's something Mr. Maurice means that I +shall do, and if I don't do it I don't get my lift. It can't be anything +about wages: I don't know what it is!" + +"Perhaps," said Louie, innocently, and without a glimpse of the train her +thoughtless words fired--"perhaps he means for you to marry Frarnie!" +laughing a little laugh at the absurd impossibility. + +And Andrew started as if a bee had stung him, and saw it all. But in a +moment he only drew Louie closer, and kissed her more passionately, and +sat there caressing her the more tenderly while they listened to a thrush +that had built in the garden thicket, mistaking it for the wood, so near +the town's edge was it, and so still and sunny was the garden all day long +with its odors of southernwood and mint and balm; and he delayed there +longer, holding her as if now at least she was his own, whatever she might +be thereafter. + +As he walked home that night, and went and sat upon the wharf and watched +the starlit tide come in, he saw it all again, but with thoughts like a +procession of phantoms, as if they had no part even in the possible things +of life, and were indeed nothing to him. How could they have any meaning +to him--to him, Louie's lover? What would the whole world be to him, what +the sailing of the Sabrina, without Louie? And then a shiver ran across +him: what would Louie be to him without the sailing of the Sabrina! for +that, indeed, as he had said, was the top of his ambition, and that being +his ambition, perhaps ambition, was as strong with him as love. + +But with this new discovery on Andrew's part of Mr. Maurice's desires, +Andrew could only recall circumstances, words, looks, hints: he could not +shape to himself any line of duty or its consequences: enough to see that +Mr. Maurice fancied his simple and thoughtless attentions to Frarnie to be +lover-like, and, approving him, looked kindly on them and made his plans +accordingly; enough to see that if he should reject this tacit proffer of +the daughter's hand, then the Sabrina was scarcely likely to be his; and +that in spite of such probability, the first and requisite thing in honor +for him to do was to tell Mr. Maurice of his marriage engagement with +Louie, and then, if the man had neither gratitude nor sense enough to +reward him for his assistance in saving the brig, to trust to fortune and +to time, that at last makes all things even. As he sat there listening to +the lapping of the water and idly watching the reflected stars peer up and +shatter in a hundred splinters with every wash of the dark tide, he could +not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession +or not. "What business is it of Maurice's?" he said to himself. "Does he +think every one that looks at his scarecrow of a daughter--" But there he +had need to acknowledge to himself his injustice to Miss Frarnie, a modest +maiden who had more cause to complain of him than he of her, since he had +done his best to please her, and her only fault lay in being pleased so +easily. She was pleased with him: he understood that now, though his +endeavors to enlist her had been for a very different manifestation of +interest. Perhaps it flattered him a little: he paused long enough to +consider what sort of a lot it would be if he really had been plighted to +Frarnie instead of Louie. Love and all that nonsense, he had heard say, +changed presently into a quiet sort of contentment; and if that were so, +it would be all the same at the end of a few years which one he took. He +felt that Frarnie was not very sympathetic, that her large white face +seldom sparkled with much intelligence, that she would make but a dull +companion; but, for all that, she would be, he knew, an excellent +housewife: she would bring a house with her too; and when a man is +married, and has half a dozen children tumbling round him, there is +entertainment enough for him, and it is another bond between him and the +wife he did not love too well at first; and if she were his, his would be +the Sabrina also, and when the Sabrina's days were over perhaps a great +East Indiaman, and with that the respect and deference of all his +townsmen: court would be paid to him, his words would be words of weight, +he would have a voice in the selection of town-officers, he would roll up +money in the bank, and some day he should be master of the great Maurice +mansion and the gardens and grapehouses. It was a brilliant picture to +him, doubtless, but in some way the recollection of two barelegged little +children digging clams down on the flats when the tide was out, with the +great white lighthouse watching them across the deserted stretches of the +long bent eel-grass, rose suddenly and wiped the other picture out, and he +saw the wind blowing in Louie's brown and silken hair and kissing the +color on her cheeks; he saw the shy sparkle of her downcast eyes, lovely +and brown then as they were now; and as he stood erect at last, snapping +his fingers defiantly, he felt that he had bidden Mr. Maurice's ships and +stocks and houses and daughter go hang, and had made his choice rather to +walk with Louie on his arm than as master of the Sabrina. + +It was a good resolution; and if he had but sealed it by speaking next day +to Mr. Maurice of his engagement, there would not have been a word to say. +But, though he valiantly meant to do it, it was not so easy, after all, as +he had thought, and so he put it off for a more convenient season, and the +season did not come, and the day of sailing did. And the outfit that went +on board the Frarnie was made and packed by the hands of Mrs. Maurice and +her daughter--such an outfit as he had never dreamed of; such warm woolens +for the storms, such soft linens for the heats, such finery for port, such +dainties and delicacies as only the first mate of the Frarnie could think +to have. And as for Louie, it was no outfit, no costly gift of gold or +trouble either, that she could give him: she had nothing for him but a +long, fine chain woven of her own hair, and she hung it round his neck +with tears and embraces and words that could not be uttered and sighs that +changed to sobs, and then came lingering delay upon delay, and passionate +parting at the last. But when the crew had weighed anchor and the sails +were swelling and the waves beyond the bar crying out for them, Miss +Frarnie and her mother could still be seen waving their handkerchiefs from +an upper window; and half blind with the sorrow and the pain he choked +away from sight, and mad with shame to think he had found no way but to +accept their favors, Andrew felt that their signal must be answered, and +sullenly waved his own in reply; and then the pilot was leaving the +barque, and presently the shore and all its complications, and Louie +crying herself sick, were forgotten in the excitement of the moment and +its new duties. + +"Didn't say a word of love to Frarnie, eh?" remarked Mr. Maurice in answer +to his wife's communications that evening. "A noble lad, then! I like him +all the better for it. He shall have her all the sooner. He won't abuse +our confidence: that's it. He'll wait till he's bridged over the gap +between them. The first mate of a successful voyage is a better match for +my daughter than the boy who stayed by the Sabrina, brave as he was. He's +fond of her? Don't you think so? There's no doubt about that? None at all! +All in good time--all in good time. I'll speak to him myself. They're +going to write to each other? I thought so." + +Short as the trip was that the Frarnie made in that favorable season, it +seemed to Louie an interminable period; but from the cheerful, hopeful +smile upon her lips no one would ever have known how her heart was longing +for her lover as she went about her work; for the little housekeeper had +quite too much to do in keeping the cottage clean, the garden weedless, +the nets mended, to be able to neglect one duty for any love-sick fancies +it might be pleasant to indulge. From morning till night her days were +full in bringing happiness to others: there was her father to make +comfortable; there were the sick old women, of whom her aunt brought word, +to concoct some delicacy for--a cup of custard, to wit, a dish of the +water-jelly she had learned how to make from the sea-moss she gathered on +the beach, a broiled and buttered mushroom from the garden; there were the +canaries and the cat to be cared for, and the dog that Andrew left with +her to feed and shower caresses on; and there was the parrot's toilet to +be made and her lesson to be taught, and the single jars of preserves and +pickles and ketchups to be put up for winter, and the herbs to be dried: +there were not, you may see, many minutes to be wasted out of that busy +little life in castle-building or in crying. One day there came a letter +with Victoria's head and the Liverpool stamp upon it: she knew it by heart +presently, and wore it next her heart by night and day; and even if she +had known that Miss Frarnie Maurice received one in the same handwriting +by the same mail, it would hardly have made much difference to her; and +one day the Sabrina, all freshly coppered and painted and repaired, with +new masts and sails, and so much else that it was not easy to say what +part of her now represented the old brig, came round to her old wharf and +began to take in cargo. Louie ran down one evening with her father, and +went all over her from stem to stern, only one old sailor being aboard; +and she could have told you then every rope from clew to ear-ring; and, as +if it were all the realization of a dream, a thousand happy, daring +thoughts of herself and Andrew then filled her fancy like birds in a nest; +and so swiftly after that did one day flow into another for Louie that the +Frarnie lay in the mid-stream once more before she had more than begun to +count the days to that on which her Liverpool letter had promised that she +should see its writer come walking into her father's cottage again. + +But she never did see him come walking into her father's cottage again. +That promised day passed and the night, and another--a long, long day that +seemed as if it would never quench its flame in sunset, and a night that +seemed as if it would never know the dawning; but the threshold of the +fisherman's cottage Andrew Traverse crossed no more. + +For Mr. Maurice, on his notable errand of circumventing Heaven, had been +ahead of Fate, and had gone down on the pilot-boat to meet the +Frarnie--with no settled designs of course, but in his own impatient +pleasure; and, delighted with the shipmaster's report and with the +financial promise of the voyage, the cargo, the freights, and ventures and +all, had greeted Andrew with a large-hearted warmth and after a manner +that no churl could withstand; and unwilling to listen to any refusal, had +taken Andrew up to the mansion-house with him the moment the ship had +touched the wharf. + +"You don't ask after her?" said Mr. Maurice when they were alone in the +chaise together. And knowing well enough what he meant, Andrew blushed +through all his bronze--knowing well enough, for had he not gone below in +a mighty hurry and tricked himself out in his best toggery so soon as he +understood there was no escape from the visit? Louie would have been glad +enough to see him in his red shirt and tarpaulin! + +"Oh, you scamp!" said Mr. Maurice, quickly then detecting the blush. +"Don't say a word! I've been there myself: I know how you're longing to +see her; and she's been at the window looking through the glass every half +hour, the puss!" + +"Mr. Maurice," began Andrew, half trembling, but wholly resolved, he +thought--although it must be confessed that with time, and distance, and +Frarnie's effusive letters and flattering prospects on the other hand, +Louie's image was not so bright at that moment as it had been at others, +and for that very reason Andrew was taking great credit to himself for his +upright intentions--credit enough to tide him over a good deal of baseness +if need were,--"Mr. Maurice--" he began; and there he paused to frame his +sentence more suitably, for it was no easy thing to tell a man that he was +throwing his child at one who did not care for her, and that man the +disposer of his fortunes. + +But Mr. Maurice saved him any such trouble. "I know all you're going to +say," he exclaimed. "I understand your hesitation, and I honor you for it. +But I'm no fool, and there's no need to have you tell me that you want my +Frarnie, for I've known that long ago." + +"Mr. Maurice!" + +"Yes, I have," answered the impulsive gentleman. "Mrs. Maurice and I +talked it over as soon as we saw which way the wind lay; but of course we +decided to say nothing till we were sure, quite sure, that it was Frarnie +and not her prospects--" + +"Oh, sir, you--" + +"Tush, tush! I know all about it now. But it becomes a father to be wary," +continued the other, taking the words from Andrew's lips in spite of +himself, and quite wary enough not to mention that in Frarnie's +easily-excited favor a young scapegrace was very likely to supplant Mr. +Andrew if things were not brought to a point at once. "It was my duty to +look at all sides," he said, without stopping for breath. "Now I know you, +and I see you'd rather give the girl the go-by for ever than have her +think you wanted her because she was her father's daughter, and not some +poor fisherman's." + +"Indeed, indeed--" began Andrew again, leaning forward, his cheeks +crimson, his very hands shaking. + +"Of course, my boy," interrupted his companion as before--"of course. +Don't say a word: you're welcome to her at last. I never thought I'd +surrender her to any one so freely; but if I were choosing from all the +world, Andrew, I don't know any one I'd choose sooner for my son. She's a +sensible girl, my Frarnie is, at bottom. We know her heart: it's a good +heart--only the froth of all young girls' fancies to be blown off. And the +Sabrina always was a pet of mine, and, though I've said nothing of it, +I've meant her for Frarnie's husband this many a day." And before Andrew, +in his flurry and embarrassment and bewilderment, could enunciate any +distinct denial of anything or avowal of anything else, the chaise was at +the door, and Mrs. Maurice was waiting for him with extended hands, and +Frarnie was standing and smiling behind, half turned to run away. And Mr. +Maurice cried out: "Captain Traverse of the Sabrina, my dear! Here, +Frarnie, Frarnie! none of your airs and graces! Come and give your +sweetheart an honest kiss!" And Andrew, doubting if the minister were not +behind the door and he should not find himself married out of hand, +irresolute, cowardly, too weak to give up the Sabrina and that sweet new +title just ringing in his ears, was pushed along by Mr. Maurice's foolish, +hearty hand till he found himself bending over Frarnie with his arm around +her waist, his lips upon her cheek, and without, as it seemed to him, +either choice or volition on his part. But as he looked up and saw the +portraits of the girl's grandfathers, where they appeared to be looking +down at him stern and questioning, a guilty shame over the wrong he was +doing their child smote him sorely: he saw that he had allowed the one +instant of choice to slip away; the sense came over him that he had sealed +his own doom, while a vision of Louie's face, full of desolation and +horror, was scorching in upon his soul; and there, in the moment of +betrothal, his punishment began. He stole down to the Sabrina's wharf that +evening, after the moon had set, and looking round to see that it was +quite forsaken at that hour, he took from his neck a long, slender +hair-chain to drop over into the deep water there; but as he held the +thing it seemed suddenly to coil round his hand with a caress, as if it +were still a part of Louie's self. He stamped his foot and ground his heel +into the earth there with a cry and an oath, and put the chain back again +whence he had taken it, and swore he would wear it till they laid his +bones under ground. And he looked up at the dark lines of the brig looming +like the black skeleton of an evil thing against the darkness of the +night, and he cursed himself for a traitor to both women--for a hypocrite, +a craven, a man sold to the highest bidder. Well, well, Captain Traverse, +there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of +the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and +longed and waited, but Captain Traverse went back to the Maurices' +mansion. + + * * * * * + +It is one of the enigmas of this existence how women forgive the wrong of +such hours as came to Louie now--hours of suspense and suffering--hours of +a misery worse than the worm's misery in blindness and pain before it +finds its wings. + +At first she expected her lover, and speculated as to his delay, and +fretted to think anything might detain him from her; and now she was +amazed, and now vexed, and now she was forgiving the neglect, accusing +herself and making countless excuses for him; and now imagining a thousand +dire mishaps. But as the third day came and he was still away--he who had +been always wont to seek her as soon as the craft was made fast to +wharf--then she felt her worst forebodings taking bodily shape: he was +ill, he had fallen overboard, he had left the vessel at Liverpool and +shipped upon another, and a letter would come directly to say so; or else +he had been waylaid and robbed and made away with: not once did she dream +that he was false to her--to her, a portion of his own life! + +How it was with him there were numberless ways in which she might have +discovered, for every soul of her acquaintance knew Andrew, and must be +aware of the fact if he were missing or ailing, or if any other ill chance +had befallen him. But as often as she tried to address one or another +passing by the window, her voice failed her and her heart, and she asked +no questions, and only waited on. A life of suspense, exclaims some one, a +life of a spider! And when we are in suspense, says another, all our aids +are in suspense with us. Day after day she stayed continually in the +house, looking for him to come, never stirring out even into the garden, +lest coming she might miss him. Night after night she sat alone at her +window till the distant town-clocks struck midnight--now picturing to +herself the glad minute of his coming, the quick explaining words, the +bursting tears of relief, the joy of that warm embrace, the touch of those +strong arms--now convinced that he would never come, and her heart sinking +into a bitter loneliness of despair. + +It grew worse with her when she knew that he was really in the town, alive +and well; for, from the scuttle in the roof, by the aid of her father's +glass, she could see the Sabrina, and one day she was sure that a form +whose familiar outlines made her pulses leap was Andrew himself giving +orders on the deck there; and after that she tortured herself with +conjectures till her brain was wild--chained hand and foot, unable to +write him or to seek him in any maidenly modesty, heart and soul in a +ferment. Still she waited in that shuddering suspense, with every nerve so +tightly strung, that voice or footfall vibrated on them into pain. If +Andrew, in the midst of the gayeties by which he found himself accepted of +the Maurices' friends, was never haunted by any thought of all this, his +heart had grown stouter in one year's time than twenty years had found and +left it previously. + +But Louie's suspense was of no long duration, as time goes, though to her +it was a lifetime. A week covered it--a week full of stings and fevered +restlessness--when her father came in one day and said bitterly, thinking +it best to make an end of all at once: "So I hear that a friend of ours +has been paid off at last. Captain Andrew Traverse of the Sabrina is going +to marry his owner's daughter Frarnie. Luck will take passage on that +brig!" And when Louie rose from the bed on which she lay down that night, +the Sabrina had been a fortnight gone on her long voyage--a voyage where +the captain had sailed alone, postponing the evil day perhaps, and at any +rate pleading too much inexperience, for all his dazzling promotion, to be +trusted with so precious thing as a wife on board during the first trip. +He had not felt that hesitation once when portraying the possibilities of +the voyage to another. + +It was not a long illness, Louie's, though it had been severe enough to +destroy for her consciousness both of pain and pleasure. Her aunt had left +other work and had nursed her through it; but when, strong and well once +more, she went about her old duties, it seemed to her that that +consciousness had never returned: she took up life with utter listlessness +and indifference, and she fancied that her love for Andrew was as dead as +all the rest. The poor little thing, laying this flattering unction to +heart, did not call much reason to her aid, or she would have known that +there was some meaning in it when she cried all day on coming across an +old daguerreotype of Andrew. "It isn't for love of him," she sobbed. "It's +for the loss of all that love out of my life that was heaven to me. Oh no, +no! I love him no longer: I can't, I can't love him: he is all the same as +another woman's husband." But, despite this stout assertion, she could not +bring herself to part with that picture: he was not in reality quite the +husband of another woman, and till he was indeed she meant to keep it. "He +is only promised to her yet, and he was promised first to me," she said +for salve to conscience; and meanwhile the picture grew so blurred with +conscious tears, and perhaps with unconscious kisses, that it might have +been his or another's: Miss Frarnie herself, had she seen it, could not +have told whose it was. + +Notwithstanding all the elasticity of youth, life became an inexpressibly +dull thing to Louie as the year wore into the next--dull, with neither aim +nor object, the past a pain to remember, the future a blank to consider. +She could live only from day to day, one day like another, till they grew +so wearisome she wondered her hair was not gray--the pretty hair that, +shorn from her head in her illness, had grown again in a short fleece of +silky curls--for it seemed to her that she had lived a hundred years. And +because troubles never come alone, and one perhaps makes the other seem +lighter and better to be borne, in the thick of a long winter's storm they +brought home her father, the old fisherman, drowned and dead. + +Captain Traverse knew of the old fisherman's death through the newspapers +that found him in his foreign ports--not through Miss Frarnie's letters, +for she knew almost nothing of the existence or non-existence of such low +people; and therefore, conjecture as he needs must concerning Louie's +means of livelihood now, there was no intelligence to relieve any anxiety +he might have felt, or to inform him of the sale of the cottage to pay the +debt of the mortgage under which it was bought, or of the support that +Louie earned in helping her aunt watch with the sick and lay out the dead: +he could only be pricked with knowledge of the fact that he had no right +to his anxiety, or to the mention of her name even in his prayers--if he +said them. + +Poor little Louie! A sad end to such a joyous youth as hers had been, you +would have said; but, in truth, her new work was soothing to her: her +heart was simply in harmony with suffering, with death and desolation, and +by degrees she found that comfort from her double sorrows in doing her +best to bring comfort to others which it may be she could never have found +had she been the pampered darling of some wealthy house. Often, when she +forgot what she was doing, Louie made surmises concerning Frarnie Maurice, +wondering if she were the noble thing that Andrew needed to ennoble +him--if she were really so strong and beautiful that the mere sight of her +had killed all thought or memory of an older love; trying to believe her +all that his guardian angel might wish his wife to be, and to acknowledge +that she herself was so low and small and ignorant that she could only +have injured him--to be convinced that it was neither weakness, nor +covetousness, nor perjury in Andrew, having met the sun, to forget the +shadows; wondering then if Frarnie cared for him as she herself had done, +and crying out aloud that that could never be, until the sound of her own +sobs woke her from her forbidden dream. But at other times a calm came to +Louie that was more pathetic than her wildest grief: it was the +acquiescence in what Providence had chosen for Andrew, cost herself what +it might--it was the submission of the atom beneath the wheels of the +great engine. + +It is true that as, late in the night, when all the town was asleep and +only silence and she abroad, she walked home by herself from some deathbed +whose occupant she had composed decently for the last sleep, she used to +wish it were herself lying there on that moveless pillow, and soon to be +sheltered from the cruel light by the bosom of the kindly earth. For now, +as she passed the birches softly rustling in the night wind, and hurried +by, she remembered other times when she had passed them, and had stopped +to listen, cared for, protected, with Andrew's arm about her; and now, as +the clocks, one after another, remotely chimed the hour, the sound smote +her with a familiar sweetness full of pain; and now, as she came along the +sea-wall and saw the dark river glimmering widely and ever the same, while +its mysterious tide flowed to meet the far-off spark of the lighthouse +lantern, she recalled a hundred happy hours when she and Andrew in the +boat together had rocked there in soft summer nights, with sunset melting +in the stream and wrapping them about with rosy twilight; or those when +whispers of the September gales swelled the sail, and the boat flew like a +gull from crest to crest of the bar; or those when misty sea-turns crept +up stream and folded them, and drowned the sparkle of the lighthouse and +the emerald and ruby ray of the channel lights, and left them shut away +from the world, alone with each other on the great gray current silently +sweeping to the sea--times when she knew no fear, trusting in the strong +arm and stout heart beside her, before the river had brought death to her +door; when the whole of life seemed radiant and rich--times that made this +solitary night walk trodden now seem colder and drearier and darker than +the grave--that made her wish it ended in a grave. + +And so at length the year slipped by, and spring had come again, and the +sap had leaped up the bough and burst into blossom there, and the blood +had bubbled freshly in the veins of youth, and hope had once more +gladdened all the world but Louie. With her only a dull patience stayed +that tried to call itself content, until she heard it rumored among the +harbor-people that the Sabrina was nearly due again, and with that her +heart beat so turbulently that she had to crush it down again with the +thought that, though Andrew every day drew nearer, came up the happy +climates of southern latitudes and spread his sails on favoring gales for +home, he only hastened to his wedding-day. And one day, at last, she rose +to see a craft anchored in the middle channel down below the piers, +unpainted and uncleaned by any crew eager to show their best to shore--a +black and blistered brig, with furled sails and silent deck; and some men +called it the fever-ship, and some men called it the Sabrina. + +As the news of the brig's return and of her terrible companion spread +through the town, a panic followed it, and the feeling with which she was +regarded all along the shore during that day and the next would hardly be +believed by any but those who have once been in the neighborhood of a +pestilence themselves. Exaggerated accounts of a swift, strange illness, +by many believed to be the ancient plague revived again and cast loose +through the land from Asiatic ships had reached the old port; and aware +that they were peculiarly exposed by reason of their trade, small as it +was, the people there had already died a thousand deaths through +expectation of the present coming of the fever already raging in other +parts. Hitherto, the health-officers, boarding everything that appeared, +had found no occasion to give anything but clean papers, and the town had +breathed again. But now, when at last it spread from lip to lip that the +fever lay at anchor in mid-channel, knees shook and cheeks grew white, and +health-officer and port-physician, in spite of the almost instantaneous +brevity of their visit to the infected vessel, were avoided as though they +were the pestilence themselves, and not a soul in all the town was found +to carry a cup of cold water to the gasping, burning men cared for only by +those in less desperate strait than themselves, and who, having buried +two-thirds of their number in deep-sea soundings, were likely to be denied +as much as a grave on shore themselves; while to Mr. Maurice, half wild +with perplexity and foreboding and amazement at Miss Frarnie's yet wilder +terror,--to him the red lantern hung out by the brig at nightfall +magnified itself in the mist into a crimson cloud where with wide wings +lurked the very demon of Fever himself. + +Not a soul to carry the cup of cold water, did I say? Yes, one timid +little soul there was, waiting in a fever of longing herself--waiting that +those who had a right to go might do so if they would--waiting till +assured that neither Frarnie Maurice nor her parents had the first +intention of going, though affianced husband and chosen son lay dying +there--waiting in agony of impatience, since every delay might possibly +mean death,--one little brave and timid soul there was who ventured forth +on her errand of mercy alone. The fisherman's old boat still lay rocking +in the cove, and the oars stood in the shed: Louie knew how to use them +well, and making her preparations by daylight, and leaving the rest till +nightfall, lest she should be hindered by the authorities, she found means +to impress the little cow-boy into her service; and after dark a keg of +sweet water was trundled down and stored amidships of the boat, with an +enormous block of ice rolled in an old blanket; a basket of lemons and +oranges was added, a roll of fresh bed-linen, a little box of such +medicines as her last year's practice had taught her might be of use; and +extorting a promise from the boy that he would leave another block of ice +on the bank every night after dark for her to come and fetch, Louie +quickly stepped into the boat, lifted the oars, and slipt away into the +darkness of the great and quiet river. + +When, three days afterward, Captain Traverse unclosed his eyes from a +dream of Gehenna and the place the smoke of whose torment goes up for +ever, a strange confusion crept like a haze across his mind, tired out and +tortured with delirium, and he dropped the aching lids and fell away into +slumber again; for he had thought himself vexed with the creak of cordage +and noise of feet, stived in his dark and narrow cabin, on a filthy bed in +a foul air, if any air at all were in that noisome place, reeking with +heat and the ferment of bilge-water and fever-smell; and here, unless a +new delirium chained him, a mattress lay upon the deck with the awning of +an old sail stretched above it and making soft shadow out of searching +sun, a gentle wind was blowing over him, a land-breeze full of sweet +scents from the gardens on the shore, from the meadows and the marshes. +Silence broken only by a soft wash of water surrounded him; a flake of ice +lay between his lips, that had lately been parched and withering, and +delicious coolness swathed his head, that had seemed to be a ball of +burning fire. The last that he remembered had been a hot, dry, aching +agony, and this was bliss: the sleep into which he fell when waking from +the stupor that had benumbed his power of suffering--a power that had +rioted till no more could be suffered--lasted during all the spell of that +fervid noon sun that hung above the harbor and the town like the unbroken +seal of the expected pestilence. A strange still town, fear and heat +keeping its streets deserted, its people longing for an east wind that +should kill the fever, yet dreading lest it should blow the fever in on +them; a strange still harbor, its great peaceful river darkened only by +that blot where the sun-soaked craft swung at her anchor; a strange still +craft, where nothing stirred but one slender form, one little being that +went about laying wet cloths upon this rude sailor's head, broken ice +between the lips of that one, moistening dry palms, measuring out cooling +draughts, and only resting now and then to watch one sleeper sleep, to +hang and hear if in that deep dream there were any breathing and it were +not the last sleep of all. And in Louie's heart there was something just +as strange and still as in all other things throughout that wearing, +blinding day; but with her the calm was not of fear, only of unspeakable +joy; for if Andrew lived it was she that had saved him, and though he +died, his delirium had told her that his heart was hers. "If he dies, he +is mine!" she cried triumphantly, forgetting all the long struggle of +scruple and doubt, "and if he lives, he shall never be hers!" she cried +softly and with that inner voice that no one hears. + +And so the heat slipped down with the sun to other horizons, coolness +crept in upon the running river's breast with the dusk, dew gathered and +lay darkly glittering on rail and spar and shroud as star by star stole +out to sparkle in it; and Andrew raised his eyes at length, and they +rested long and unwaveringly on the little figure sitting not far away +with hands crossed about the knees and eyes looking out into the last +light--the tranquil, happy face from which a white handkerchief kept back +the flying hair while giving it the likeness of a nun's. Was it a dream? +Was it Louie? Or was it only some one of the tormenting phantoms that for +so many burning days had haunted him? He tried in vain to ask: his tongue +clove to the roof of his mouth; he seemed to be in the power of one of +those fierce nightmares where life depends on a word and the word is not +to be spoken. Only a vision, then: he closed his lids thinking it would be +gone when he lifted them, but he did not want it to be gone, and looked +again to find it as before. And by and by it seemed to him that long +since, in a far-off dream, he had gathered strength and uttered the one +thought of his fever, "Louie, what do you do now?" and she had answered +him, as though she thought aloud, "I stroke the dead;" and he had cried +out, "Then presently me too, me too! And let the shroud be shotted heavily +to bury me out of your sight!" And he was crying it out again, but while +he spoke a mouth was laid on his--a warm, sweet mouth that seemed to +breathe fresh spirit through his frame--his head was lifted and pillowed +on a breast where he could hear the heart beneath flutter like a happy +bird, and he was wrapped once more in slumber, but this time slumber sweet +as it was deep. + +Morning was dawning over the vessel's side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting +through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and +lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which +the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting +fountains,--morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant +airs stealing from warm low fields, when Andrew once more lifted his eyes +only to find that tranquil face above him still, that happy heart still +beating beneath his pillowed head. "Oh, Louie," he sighed, "speak to +me--say--have I died?--am I forgiven?--is this heaven?" + +"To me, dear--oh to me!" answered she with the old radiant smile that used +to make his pulse quicken, and that, ill as he yet was, reassured him as +to his earthly latitude and longitude. + +"And it was all a dream, then?" he murmured. "And I have not lost you?" He +raised his wasted hand and drew from his breast the little hair chain that +he had hidden there so long ago. "It was a fetter I could not break," he +whispered. "I wrote her all about it long ago. I wrote her father that he +should have his vessel back again--and I would take my freedom--and not a +dollar's wages for the voyage would I ever draw of him. But I should never +have dared see you--for--oh, Louie--how can you ever--" + +"Hush, hush, dear!" she breathed. "What odds is all that now? We have our +life before us." + +"Only just help me live it, Louie." + +"God will help us," she answered. And as she spoke a sudden rainbow leaped +into the western heaven as if to seal her promise, and as it slowly faded +there came a wild salt smell, an air that tingled like a tonic through the +veins: the east wind was singing in from sea, bringing the music of +breaker and shore, and the fever was blasted by its breath throughout the +little Sabrina. + +HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. + + + + +Old Sadler's Resurrection: + +A Yarn of the Mexican Gulf. + + + +"Talking about ghosts," said the captain, "listen while I spin you a bit +of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit +of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on +board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India +squadron, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jesse Wilkinson. + +"It would hardly interest you to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and +ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two +steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the +taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us. He wore +gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat +eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the +quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we +planked up and down the lee side, tired enough, and waiting for eight +bells to strike to rush below and call our relief. He was an austere man, +and, unlike the brave old commodore, made no allowance for our pranks and +skylarking. + +"Among our crew, made up of some really splendid fellows, but with an odd +mixture of 'Mahonese,' 'Dagos,' 'Rock-Scorpions,' and other countrymen, +there was an old man-of-war's man named Sadler--a little, dried-up old +chap of some sixty years, who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, so he +said, and had been up and down, all around and criss-cross the world so +often that he had actually forgotten where he had been, and so had all his +geography lessons, learned by cruising experience, sadly mixed up in his +head; which, although small, with a little old, weazened frontispiece, was +full of odds and ends of yarns, with which he used to delight us young +aspirants for naval honors, as he would spin them to us on the booms on +moonlight nights, after the hammocks had been piped down. How well do I +remember the old fellow's appearance!--his neat white frock and trowsers, +his low-quarter purser's shoes, with a bit of a ribbon for a bow; no +socks, save the natural, flesh-tinted ones, a blue star, done in India +ink, gleaming on his instep; his broad blue collar, decorated with stars +and two rows of white tape, falling gracefully from a neck which, as we +youngsters asserted, had received its odd-looking twist from hanging too +long by a grape vine, with which the Isle of Pines' pirates had strung him +up when he was chasing them under old Commodore Kearney's command. Anyhow, +old, sharp-faced, wrinkled and tanned to the color of a sole-leather +trunk, the whole cut of his jib told you at once that he was a regular +man-of-war's man--one of a class whose faults I can hardly recall while +remembering their sense of duty, their utter disregard of danger, and the +reliance with which you can lead them on to attack anything, from a +hornet's nest to an iron-clad. + +"Well, it so happened, one hot day, while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, +that the news came to us that old Sadler was dead; and sure enough it was +so, for the old fellow had quietly slipped his moorings, and, as we all +hoped, had at last gone to where the sweet little cherub sits up aloft who +looks out for the soul of poor Jack. Then, after the doctors had had a shy +at him, to see why he had cleared out so suddenly, his remains were taken +in charge by his messmates, who rigged the old man out in his muster +clothes, sewed him up in his clean white hammock, with an eighteen pound +shot at his feet, and reported to the officer of the deck that the body +was ready for burial. So, about six bells in the afternoon watch, the +weather being very hot, and not a breath of air to ripple the glassy +surface of the water, the lieutenant of the watch directed one of the +young gentlemen to tell the boatswain to call 'All hands to bury the +dead;' and soon fore and aft the shrill whistles were heard, followed by +that saddest of all calls to a sailor at sea--'All hands bury the dead!' + +"Our good old boatswain, Wilmuth, seemed to linger on the words with a +feeling akin to grief at parting with an old shipmate, and as the last man +reached the deck, he touched his hat and in a sad sort of way reported, +'All up, sir,' to the first lieutenant, who in his turn reported, +'Officers and men all on deck, sir,' to the commodore, who thereupon gave +an order to the chaplain to go on with the services. + +"The courses were hauled up, main-topsail to the mast, band on the +quarter-deck, colors half-mast, and all hands, officers and men, stood +uncovered, looking silently and sadly upon the body as it lay upon the +gang-boards in its white hammock, ready for the last rites. Solemnly and +most impressively were the services read, and at the words, 'We commit his +body to the deep,' a heavy splash was heard, and poor old Sadler had gone +to his long home for ever. Some of us youngsters ran up in the lee main +rigging to see him go down, and as we watched him go glimmering and +glimmering down to a mere speck, we wondered where he was bound, and how +long it would take him to fetch Davy Jones' locker on that tack. + +"'Pipe down, sir,' says the commodore to Mr. Bispham; 'Pipe down, sir,' +says Mr. Bispham to Mr. Alphabetical Gray, who was officer of the deck; +'Pipe down, sir,' says Mr. Gray to the gentleman of the watch; 'Pipe down, +sir,' says this youngster to the boatswain; and then _such_ a twitter of +pipes followed this order, and all hands were piped down, while poor old +Sadler was still off soundings, and going down as fast as the +eighteen-pound shot would take him. + +"Now, you know that people coming from a funeral on shore always have a +gay sort of air, suppressed it may be, but still cropping out; and just so +is it with sailors at sea; for, Sadler's body committed to the deep, all +hands felt better: the fore and main tacks were hauled aboard, the main +yard was filled away, and the jib sheet hauled aft, and we all settled +down into every-day life, which, after all, is not half so monotonous on +board a man-of-war as you might suppose. + +"Well, as I have said, the weather was very hot, the surface of the water +was as smooth as a mill-pond, the wind was all up and down the mast, and +so the old ship was boxing the compass all to herself, and not making a +foot of headway. + +"At one bell in the first dog watch, Boyle, the ship's cook, reported the +tea-water ready, and after this came the inevitable evening-quarters--and +some old man-of-war's men would think the country was going to 'Jemmy +Square-toes' stern first if they didn't have quarters--then down hammocks +for the night at six bells, and after that just as much of fun, frolic, +dance, song and yarn spinning as all hands wanted until eight bells, when +the watch was called. + +"John Moffitt, the sailing master, the best fellow in the ward-room mess, +and a great favorite with the youngsters, was officer of the deck from six +to eight o'clock; and my messmate, Perry Buckner, of Scott county, +Kentucky, the most dare-devil midshipman of us all, was master's mate of +the forecastle; Hammond, Marshall, Smith and I were the gentlemen of the +Watch; Rodney Barlow was quartermaster at the 'con;' the lookouts had just +been stationed; the men were singing, dancing, spinning yarns and +otherwise amusing themselves about the decks, while the old ship was +turning lazily around in the splendid moonlight as if admiring herself. + +"Discipline, you know, is the very life of a man-of-war, and this must +account for what now took place. Tom Edwards, a young foretopman, had the +lee lookout, and as seven bells struck he sang out, 'Lee cat-head;' but +the last syllable died away on his lips as his eyes rested upon an +object--a white object--standing bolt upright in the water before him, +about a hundred yards distant and broad off on the lee bow. Suppressing a +strong desire to shriek, and recovering himself, he touched his hat and +said, 'Mr. Buckner, will you step up here, sir, if you please?' + +"'What is she, Edwards?' said Buckner, as he quickly mounted the +hammock-rail. + +"One look, a dip down, a shiver, and, O Lord! what did he see but _old +Sadler standing straight as a ramrod, and heading right for the ship!_ + +"It took Buck a full minute to recover himself, and then, with one eye on +the lee bow and the other on the quarter-deck, he walked aft and +deliberately touching his cap, reported to Moffitt, 'Old Sadler broad off +on the lee bow, sir.' + +"'The d---- he is!' exclaimed Moffitt; but, checking himself, he said, +'Mr. Hammond, report Sadler's arrival to the commodore; and you, Mr. +M----, report it to the first lieutenant, sir.' + +"My eyes were as big as saucers as I rushed down the steerage ladder and +into the ward-room, where I found the first lieutenant quietly seated +reading over the black list; and when, with my heart in my throat, I said, +'Mr. Bispham, old Sadler is on the lee bow, sir,' he serenely replied, +'Very well, Mr. M---- I'll be on deck directly.' + +"'O Lord!' said I to myself--'to take a ghost as easily as all that!' +Bolting up the ladder on my way back to the deck, and trembling lest I +should see the ghost popping his head in through one of the gun-deck +ports, I ran into Hammond, who dodged me like a shot. + +"When I got on deck the news was all out, for Tom Edwards couldn't stand +it any longer, but had just yelled out, 'Ghost ho! ghost ho! Look out! +stand from under! here he comes!' and bolted aft, scared out of his wits. + +"In ten seconds all hands were on deck--ship's cook, yeoman, 'Jemmy Legs,' +'Jemmy Ducks,' 'Bungs,' Loblolly boy,' captain of the hold, and, by this +time, all the officers too, with the midshipmen scuttling up the ladders +as fast as their legs and hands could carry them. + +"Moffitt had hauled up the courses and squared the main yard, as much to +make a diversion as anything else, although the men thought it was to keep +old Sadler from boarding us; and as they rushed up on deck they filled the +booms; lee rigging, hammock--netting and every available spot from which a +sight of the old fellow could be had. + +"Very soon they saw that he was not approaching the ship: the old sinner +was just turning and turning around in the water, like a fishing-cork, +dancing away all to himself, while the moonlight, first on one side, and +then on the other, in light and shadow, gave a queer sort of look to his +features, sometimes sad and sometimes funny. + +"After watching him for a few minutes, Bill Ellis, the second captain of +the foretop, hailed him thus: 'Sadler, ahoy! What do you want?' + +"No answer being received, one of the mizzentop boys suggested that the +old man had come back for his bag and hammock, and that they ought to be +thrown overboard to him; but all this was cut short by the appearance of +the commodore on the quarter-deck, and upon him all eyes were turned as he +stepped upon the port horseblock, where a good view could be had. + +"Now, old Jess was as brave an old fellow as ever sailed a ship, but he +did not fancy ghosts, and the knowledge that all hands were looking at him +to see how he took it made him feel a little nervous; but with a firm +voice he called for his night-glass, and when the quartermaster, with a +touch of his hat, handed it to him, he quietly arranged the focus, and, as +we all supposed, was about to point it at Sadler, who was still dancing +away for dear life all to himself. But old Jess was too smart for that: he +quietly directed his glass to another quarter, to gain a little time, and, +gradually sweeping the horizon, brought it at last, with a tremor of +mortal dread, to bear dead upon the ghost. Bless my soul! how the old +gentleman shook! But recovering himself, with a big gulp in his throat he +turned to the chaplain and said, 'Did you read the _full_ service over him +to-day, Mr. T----?' + +"'I did, sir, as well as I can remember,' replied Mr. T. + +"'Then, sir,' said the commodore, turning to Mr. Bispham and speaking in +an authoritative tone, 'we must send a boat and bring him on board.' + +"'O Lord! O Lord!--bring a ghost on board!' groaned the men. + +"'Silence, fore and aft!' said Mr. Bispham, 'and call away the second +cutter.' + +"'Away there, you second cutters, away!' sung out the boatswain's mate. +But they didn't 'away' one step, and we youngsters could hear the men +growling out, 'What does the commodore want with old Sadler? This isn't +his place: let the old man rip: he is dead and buried all right. We didn't +ship to go cruising after ghosts: we shipped to reef topsails and work the +big guns; and if old Jess wants old Sadler on board, he had better go +after him himself.' Some said he had come back after his bag and hammock, +and the best way was to let him have them, and then he would top his boom +and clear out. Others said the purser had not squared off his account; and +one of the afterguard was seen to tickle the mainmast and whistle for a +breeze, to give the old fellow a wide berth. But it wouldn't do: +discipline is discipline; and after a free use of the colt and a good deal +of hazing, the boat's crew came aft, the cutter was lowered, and the men, +with their oars up and eyes upon the ghost, were waiting the order to +shove off, the bow oarsman having provided himself with a boarding-pike to +'fend off,' as he said, if the old man should fight. + +"We youngsters knew that _somebody_ else was needed in that boat, and that +_somebody_ was a midshipman with his side-arms; but not a boy of us said a +word about it, and we were afraid even to catch the first lieutenant's +eye, lest he should be reminded that no young officer had, as usual, been +ordered to go; but the order came at last. When Moffitt asked the first +lieutenant, 'What officer, sir, shall I send in that boat?' we scattered +like a flock of birds, but all too late; for Mr. Bispham referred the +matter to the commodore, who, with a twinkle in his eye, said, 'Who +discovered the ghost, sir?' + +"'Midshipman Buckner reported him, sir,' was the reply. + +"'Then,' said the commodore, 'by priority of discovery he belongs to Mr. +Buckner, who will take charge of the cutter and bring him on board.' + +"I heard all this from my place behind the mizzen mast, and you may guess +how glad I was not to have been selected; but a groan, a chattering of the +teeth, a trembling and shaking of bones close by my side, caused me to +look around, and there was poor Buck, with his priority honors thick upon +him. + +"'Get your side-arms, sir,' said Moffitt: 'take charge of the cutter and +carry out the commodore's order.' + +"'Ay, ay, sir!' said Buck, but oh with what a change in his voice! As he +buckled on his sword I could see what a struggle he was making to feel +brave. As he went over the gangway to get into the boat I caught his eye, +and if you could have seen that forlorn look you would have pitied him; +for there was old Sadler turning and turning in the water, looking first +this way, and then the other, and, as Buck thought, just ready to hook on +to him and carry him down among the dead men. + +"It is no light matter to go up to a ghost, front face, full face, and +look him in the eye; but what must it be when you have to go up to him +_backward_, as that cutter's crew had to do while pulling their oars, +leaving only Buck and the cox-swain to face him? They just couldn't do it, +and at every stroke they would suddenly slew around on their thwarts and +look at the old fellow, who seemed to them as big as an elephant, and just +ready to clap on to them, boat and all, as soon as they turned to give +another stroke. Poor fellows! they made but little headway, and what with +catching crabs, fouling their oars, blasting old Sadler's eyes, and +denouncing him generally (one fellow fairly yelled outright when the bow +oarsman accidentally touched him), they had a hard pull of it; but still +they made some progress, and when Buck sang out, 'Way enough,' every oar +flew inboard, every man faced suddenly around, and with this the cutter +keeled over, and, her bow touching old Sadler on his shoulder, ducked him +out of sight for a second, at which all hands shouted, thinking that he +had gone for ever; but in a moment more up he popped, fresh as a lark, +higher than ever before, and this time right abreast of the stern-sheets, +where he bobbed and bowed to Buck, at which, with a yell of terror, all +hands went overboard, and, floundering in the water, begged for mercy. The +cutter had some little headway, and this of course brought Sadler astern +on the other quarter, and then there was a wild rush to get back into the +boat, for fear the old fellow was doubling on them to make a grab. + +"The commodore, hearing the row and fearing disaster, ordered another boat +to the rescue, but ere it reached the spot, Buck had, in some manner, +quieted his men, who, seeing the ghost still standing bolt upright in the +water and dancing away as if nothing had happened to scare _him_, manned +their oars again and pulled cautiously toward him; while he, with that +changeable moonlight grin on his face, was bobbing up and down to the +boat's crew, as if Buck were the commodore himself coming to pay him a +visit. + +"'Stand by, there in the bow, to hook on to him,' sang out Buck. + +"'Ay, ay, sir! I'll fix him;' and with that, and a heavy expletive in +regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike +right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel +touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape of steam, was heard, +and without a word old Sadler vanished from sight for ever." + +"But, captain, tell us what really brought the old gentleman back," said +one of the auditors. + +"Well, just think of that tight white hammock, the light weight of the +shot, and the very hot weather--think, too, how easily a fishing-cork is +balanced in the water by a very small sinker, and lastly how confined air +will buoy up anything--and you have the whole secret of his coming back. +Let that air suddenly escape, and you have the secret of his +disappearance. + +"Buck used to say that 'priority of discovery' was a good thing in the +days of Columbus, but if it was to be continued in force in the United +States navy, hang him if he should ever report another ghost, even if he +should see him walking the quarter-deck with the speaking-trumpet under +his arm." + +R. 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