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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Bread-winners, by John Hay
+
+
+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: The Bread-winners
+       A Social Study
+
+
+Author: John Hay
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 17, 2005  [eBook #16321]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BREAD-WINNERS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Michael Gray (Lost_Gamer@comast.net)
+
+
+
+THE BREADWINNERS
+
+A Social Study
+
+New York and London
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+
+1901
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+A MORNING CALL
+
+
+
+A French clock on the mantel-piece, framed of brass and crystal, which
+betrayed its inner structure as the transparent sides of some insects
+betray their vital processes, struck ten with the mellow and lingering
+clangor of a distant cathedral bell. A gentleman, who was seated in
+front of the fire reading a newspaper, looked up at the clock to see
+what hour it was, to save himself the trouble of counting the slow,
+musical strokes. The eyes he raised were light gray, with a blue glint
+of steel in them, shaded by lashes as black as jet. The hair was also
+as black as hair can be, and was parted near the middle of his
+forehead. It was inclined to curl, but had not the length required by
+this inclination. The dark brown mustache was the only ornament the
+razor had spared on the wholesome face, the outline of which was clear
+and keen. The face suited the hands--it had the refinement and
+gentleness of one delicately bred, and the vigorous lines and color of
+one equally at home in field and court; and the hands had the firm,
+hard symmetry which showed they had done no work, and the bronze tinge
+which is the imprint wherewith sky and air mark their lovers. His
+clothes were of the fashion seen in the front windows of the
+Knickerbocker Club in the spring of the year 187-, and were worn as
+easily as a self-respecting bird wears his feathers. He seemed, in
+short, one of those fortunate natures, who, however born, are always
+bred well, and come by prescription to most of the good things the
+world can give.
+
+He sat in a room marked, like himself, with a kind of serious
+elegance--one of those apartments which seem to fit the person like a
+more perfect dress. All around the walls ran dwarf book-cases of carved
+oak, filled with volumes bound in every soft shade of brown and tawny
+leather, with only enough of red and green to save the shelves from
+monotony. Above these the wall space was covered with Cordovan leather,
+stamped with gold _fleurs-de-lis_ to within a yard of the top, where a
+frieze of palm-leaves led up to a ceiling of blue and brown and gold.
+The whole expression of the room was of warmth and good manners. The
+furniture was of oak and stamped leather. The low book-cases were
+covered with bronzes, casts, and figurines, of a quality so uniformly
+good that none seemed to feel the temptation either to snub or to
+cringe to its neighbor. The Owari pots felt no false shame beside the
+royal Satsuma; and Barbedienne's bronzes, the vases of Limoges and
+Lambeth and bowls from Nankin and Corea dwelt together in the harmony
+of a varied perfection.
+
+It was an octagon room, with windows on each side of the fire-place, in
+which a fire of Ohio coal was leaping and crackling with a cheerful and
+unctuous noisiness. Out of one window yon could see a pretty garden of
+five or six acres behind the house, and out of the other a carefully
+kept lawn, extending some hundred yards from the front door to the
+gates of hammered iron which opened upon a wide-paved avenue. This
+street was the glory of Buff-land, a young and thriving city on Lake
+Erie, which already counted a population of over two hundred thousand
+souls. The people of Clairfield, a rival town, denied that there was
+anything like so many inhabitants, and added that "the less we say
+about 'souls' the better." But this was pure malice; Buffland was a big
+city. Its air was filled with the smoke and odors of vast and
+successful trade, and its sky was reddened by night with the glare of
+its furnaces, rising like the hot breath of some prostrate Titan,
+conquered and bowed down by the pitiless cunning of men. Its people
+were, as a rule, rich and honest, especially in this avenue of which I
+have spoken. If you have ever met a Bufflander, you have heard of
+Algonquin Avenue. He will stand in the Champs Elysees, when all the
+vice and fashion of Europe are pouring down from the Place of the Star
+in the refluent tide that flows from Boulogne Wood to Paris, and calmly
+tell you that "Algonquin Avenue in the sleighing season can discount
+this out of sight." Something is to be pardoned to the spirit of
+liberty; and the avenue is certainly a fine one. It is three miles long
+and has hardly a shabby house in it, while for a mile or two the houses
+upon one side, locally called "the Ridge," are unusually line, large,
+and costly. They are all surrounded with well-kept gardens and
+separated from the street by velvet lawns which need scarcely fear
+comparison with the emerald wonders which centuries of care have
+wrought from the turf of England. The house of which we have seen one
+room was one of the best upon this green and park-like thoroughfare.
+The gentleman who was sitting by the fire was Mr. Arthur Farnham. He
+was the owner and sole occupant of the large stone house--a widower of
+some years' standing, although he was yet young. His parents had died
+in his childhood. He had been an officer in the army, had served
+several years upon the frontier, had suffered great privations, had
+married a wife much older than himself, had seen her die on the Plains
+from sheer want, though he had more money than he could get
+transportation for; and finally, on the death of his grandfather he had
+resigned, with reluctance, a commission which had brought him nothing
+but suffering and toil, and had returned to Buffland, where he was
+born, to take charge of the great estate of which he was the only heir.
+And even yet, in the midst of a luxury and a comfort which anticipated
+every want and gratified every taste, he often looked longingly back
+upon the life he had left, until his nose inhaled again the scent of
+the sage-brush and his eyes smarted with alkali dust. He regretted the
+desolate prairies, the wide reaches of barrenness accursed of the
+Creator, the wild chaos of the mountain canons, the horror of the Bad
+Lands, the tingling cold of winter in the Black Hills. But the Republic
+holds so high the privilege of serving her that, for the officer who
+once resigns--with a good character--there is no return forever, though
+he seek it with half the lobby at his heels. So Captain Farnham sat,
+this fine May morning, reading a newspaper which gave the stations of
+his friends in the "Tenth" with something of the feeling which assails
+the exile when he cons the court journal where his name shall appear no
+more.
+
+But while he is looking at the clock a servant enters.
+
+"That same young person is here again."
+
+"What young person?"
+
+There was a slight flavor of reproach in the tone of the grave
+Englishman as he answered:
+
+"I told you last night, sir, she have been here three times already;
+she doesn't give me her name nor yet her business; she is settin' in
+the drawin'-room, and says she will wait till you are quite at leisure.
+I was about to tell her," he added with still deeper solemnity, "that
+you were hout, sir, but she hinterrupted of me and said, 'He isn't
+gone, there's his 'at,' which I told her you 'ad several 'ats, and
+would she wait in the drawin'-room and I'd see."
+
+Captain Farnham smiled.
+
+"Very well, Budsey, you've done your best--and perhaps she won't eat me
+after all. Is there a fire in the drawing-room?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Let her come in here, then."
+
+A moment afterward the rustle of a feminine step made Farnham raise his
+head suddenly from his paper. It was a quick, elastic step, accompanied
+by that crisp rattle of drapery which the close clinging garments of
+ladies produced at that season. The door opened, and as the visitor
+entered Farnham rose in surprise. He had expected to see the usual
+semi-mendicant, with sad-colored raiment and doleful whine, calling for
+a subscription for a new "Centennial History," or the confessed genteel
+beggar whose rent would be due to-morrow. But there was nothing in any
+way usual in the young person who stood before him. She was a tall and
+robust girl of eighteen or nineteen, of a singularly fresh and vigorous
+beauty. The artists forbid us to look for physical perfection in real
+people, but it would have been hard for the coolest-headed studio-rat
+to find any fault in the slender but powerful form of this young woman.
+Her color was deficient in delicacy, and her dark hair was too
+luxuriant to be amenable to the imperfect discipline to which it had
+been accustomed; but the eye of Andrea, sharpened by criticising
+Raphael, could hardly have found a line to alter in her. The dress of
+that year was scarcely more reticent in its revelations than the first
+wet cloth with which a sculptor swathes his kneaded clay; and pretty
+women walked in it with almost the same calm consciousness of power
+which Phryne displayed before her judges. The girl who now entered
+Farnham's library had thrown her shawl over one arm, because the shawl
+was neither especially ornamental nor new, and she could not afford to
+let it conceal her dress of which she was innocently proud; for it
+represented not only her beautiful figure with few reserves, but also
+her skill and taste and labor. She had cut the pattern out of an
+illustrated newspaper, had fashioned and sewed it with her own hands;
+she knew that it fitted her almost as well as her own skin; and
+although the material was cheap and rather flimsy, the style was very
+nearly the same as that worn the same day on the Boulevard of the
+Italians. Her costume was completed by a pair of eyeglasses with steel
+rims, which looked odd on her rosy young face.
+
+"I didn't send in my name," she began with a hurried and nervous
+utterance, which she was evidently trying to make easy and dashing.
+"because you did not know me from Adam----I have been trying to see you
+for some time," she continued.
+
+"It has been my loss that you have not succeeded. Allow me to give you
+a chair."
+
+She flushed and seemed not at all comfortable. This grave young man
+could not be laughing at her; of course not; she was good-looking and
+had on a new dress; but she felt all her customary assurance leaving
+her, and was annoyed. She tried to call up an easy and gay demeanor,
+but the effort was not entirely successful. She said, "I called this
+morning--it may surprise you to receive a visit from a young lady----"
+
+"I am too much pleased to leave room for surprise."
+
+She looked sharply at him to see if she were being derided, but through
+her glasses she perceived no derision in his smile. He was saying to
+himself, "This is a very beautiful girl who wants to beg or to borrow.
+I wonder whether it is for herself or for some 'Committee'? The longer
+she talks the more I shall have to give. But I do not believe she is
+near-sighted."
+
+She plucked up her courage and said:
+
+"My name is Miss Maud Matchin."
+
+Farnham bowed, and rejoined:
+
+"My name is----"
+
+She laughed outright, and said:
+
+"I know well enough what your name is, or why should I have come here?
+Everybody knows the elegant Mr. Farnham."
+
+The smile faded from his face. "She is more ill-bred than I suspected,"
+he thought; "we will condense this interview."
+
+He made no reply to her compliment, but looked steadily at her, waiting
+to hear what she wanted, and thinking it was a pity she was so vulgar,
+for she looked like the huntress Diana.
+
+Her eyes fell under his glance, which was not at all reassuring. She
+said in almost a humble tone:
+
+"I have come to ask a great favor of you. I am in a good deal of
+trouble."
+
+"Let us see what it is, and what we can do," said Farnham, and there
+was no longer any banter in his voice.
+
+She looked up with sudden pleasure, and her glasses fell from her eyes.
+She did not replace them, but, clasping her hands tightly together,
+exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, sir, if you can do anything for me----But I don't want to make you
+think----" She paused in evident confusion, and Farnham kindly
+interposed.
+
+"What I may think is not of any consequence just now. What is it you
+want, and how can I be of service to you?"
+
+"Oh, it is a long story, and I thought it was so easy to tell, and I
+find it isn't easy a bit. I want to do something--to help my parents--I
+mean they do not need any help--but they can't help me. I have tried
+lots of things." She was now stammering and blushing in a way that made
+her hate herself mortally, and the innocent man in front of her tenfold
+more, but she pushed on manfully and concluded, "I thought may be you
+could help me get something I would like."
+
+"What would you like?"
+
+"Most anything. I am a graduate of the high school. I write a good
+hand, but I don't like figures well enough to clerk. I hear there are
+plenty of good places in Washington."
+
+"I could do nothing for you if there were. But you are wrong: there are
+no good places in Washington, from the White House down."
+
+"Well, you are president of the Library Board, ain't you?" asked the
+high-school graduate. "I think I would like to be one of the
+librarians."
+
+"Why would you like that?"
+
+"Oh, the work is light, I suppose, and you see people, and get plenty
+of time for reading, and the pay is better than I could get at anything
+else. The fact is," she began to gain confidence as she talked, "I
+don't want to go on in the old humdrum way forever, doing housework and
+sewing, and never getting a chance at anything better. I have enough to
+eat and to wear at home, but the soul has some claims too, and I long
+for the contact of higher natures than those by whom I am now
+surrounded. I want opportunities for self-culture, for intercourse with
+kindred spirits, for the attainment of a higher destiny."
+
+She delivered these swelling words with great fluency, mentally
+congratulating herself that she had at last got fairly started, and
+wishing she could have struck into that vein at the beginning. Farnham
+was listening to her with more of pain than amusement, saying to
+himself: "The high school has evidently spoiled her for her family and
+friends, and fitted her for nothing else."
+
+"I do not know that there is a vacancy in the library."
+
+"Oh, yes, there is," she rejoined, briskly; "I have been to see the
+librarian himself, and I flatter myself I made a favorable impression.
+In fact, the old gentleman seemed really smitten."
+
+"That is quite possible," said Farnham. "But I hope you will not amuse
+yourself by breaking his heart."
+
+"I can't promise. He must look out for his own heart." She had regained
+her saucy ease, and evidently enjoyed the turn the conversation was
+taking. "I find my hands full taking care of myself."
+
+"You are quite sure you can do that?"
+
+"Certainly, sir!" This was said with pouting lips, half-shut eyes, the
+head thrown back, the chin thrust forward, the whole face bright with
+smiles of provoking defiance. "Do you doubt it, Monsieur?" She
+pronounced this word Moshoor.
+
+Farnham thought in his heart "You are about as fit to take care of
+yourself as a plump pigeon at a shooting match." But he said to her,
+"Perhaps you are right--only don't brag. It isn't lucky. I do not know
+what are the chances about this place. You would do well to get some of
+your friends to write a letter or two in your behalf, and I will see
+what can be done at the next meeting of the Board."
+
+But her returning fluency had warmed up Miss Maud's courage somewhat,
+and instead of taking her leave she began again, blushingly, but still
+boldly enough:
+
+"There is something I would like much better than the library."
+
+Farnham looked at her inquiringly. She did not hesitate in the least,
+but pushed on energetically, "I have thought you must need a secretary.
+I should be glad to serve you in that capacity."
+
+The young man stared with amazement at this preposterous proposal. For
+the first time, he asked himself if the girl's honest face could be the
+ambush of a guileful heart; but he dismissed the doubt in an instant,
+and said, simply:
+
+"No, thank you. I am my own secretary, and have no reason for
+displacing the present incumbent. The library will suit you better in
+every respect."
+
+In her embarrassment she began to feel for her glasses, which were
+lying in her lap. Farnham picked up a small photograph from the table
+near him, and said:
+
+"Do you recognize this?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "It is General Grant."
+
+"It is a photograph of him, taken in Paris, which I received to-day.
+May I ask a favor of you?"
+
+"What is it?" she said, shyly.
+
+"Stop wearing those glasses. They are of no use to you, and they will
+injure your eyes."
+
+Her face turned crimson. Without a word of reply she seized the glasses
+and put them on, her eyes flashing fire. She then rose and threw her
+shawl over her arm, and said, in a tone to which her repressed anger
+lent a real dignity:
+
+"When can I learn about that place in the library?"
+
+"Any time after Wednesday," Farnham answered.
+
+She bowed and walked out of the room. She could not indulge in tragic
+strides, for her dress held her like a scabbard, giving her scarcely
+more freedom of movement than the high-born maidens of Carthage
+enjoyed, who wore gold fetters on their ankles until they were married.
+But in spite of all impediments her tall figure moved, with that grace
+which is the birthright of beauty in any circumstances, out of the
+door, through the wide hall to the outer entrance, so rapidly that
+Farnham could hardly keep pace with her. As he opened the door she
+barely acknowledged his parting salutation, and swept like a huffy
+goddess down the steps. Farnham gazed after her a moment, admiring the
+undulating line from the small hat to the long and narrow train which
+dragged on the smooth stones of the walk. He then returned to the
+library. Budsey was mending the fire.
+
+"If you please, sir," he said, "Mrs. Belding's man came over to ask,
+would you dine there this evening, quite informal."
+
+"Why didn't he come in?"
+
+"I told him you were engaged."
+
+"Ah, very well. Say to Mrs. Belding that I will come, with pleasure."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+A HIGH-SCHOOL GRADUATE.
+
+
+Miss Matchin picked up her train as she reached the gate, picked up her
+train as she reached the gate, and walked down the street in a state of
+mind by no means tranquil. If she had put her thoughts in words they
+would have run like this:
+
+"That was the meanest trick a gentleman ever played. How did he dare
+know I wasn't nearsighted? And what a fool I was to be caught by that
+photograph--saw it as plain as day three yards off. I had most made up
+my mind to leave them off anyway, though they are awful stylish; they
+pinch my nose and make my head ache. But I'll wear them now," and here
+the white teeth came viciously together, "if they kill me. Why should
+he put me down that way? He made me shy for the first time in my life.
+It's a man's business to be shy before me. If I could only get hold of
+him somehow! I'd pay him well for making me feel so small. The fact is,
+I started wrong. I did not really know what I wanted; and that graven
+image of an English butler set me back so; and then I never saw such a
+house as that. It is sinful for one man to live there all alone. Powers
+alive! How well that house would suit my complexion! But I don't
+believe I'd take it with _him_ thrown in."
+
+It is doubtful whether young girls of Miss Matchin's kind are ever
+quite candid in their soliloquies. It is certain she was not when she
+assured herself that she did not know why she went to Farnham's house
+that morning. She went primarily to make his acquaintance, with the
+hope also that by this means she might be put in some easy and genteel
+way of earning money. She was one of a very numerous class in large
+American towns. Her father was a carpenter, of a rare sort. He was a
+good workman, sober, industrious, and unambitious. He was contented
+with his daily work and wage, and would have thanked Heaven if he could
+have been assured that his children would fare as well as he. He was of
+English blood, and had never seemed to imbibe into his veins the
+restless haste and hunger to rise which is the source of much that is
+good and most that is evil in American life. In the dreams of his early
+married days he created a future for his children, in the image of his
+own decent existence. The boys should succeed him in his shop, and the
+daughters should go out to service in respectable families. This
+thought sweetened his toil. When he got on well enough to build a shop
+for himself, he burdened himself with debt, building it firmly and
+well, so as to last out his boys' time as well as his own. When he was
+employed on the joiner-work of some of those large houses in Algonquin
+Avenue, he lost himself in reveries in which he saw his daughters
+employed as house-maids in them. He studied the faces and the words of
+the proprietors, when they visited the new buildings, to guess if they
+would make kind and considerate employers. He put many an extra stroke
+of fine work upon the servants' rooms he finished, thinking: "Who knows
+but my Mattie may live here sometime?"
+
+But Saul Matchin found, like many others of us, that fate was not so
+easily managed. His boys never occupied the old shop on Dean Street,
+which was built with so many sacrifices and so much of hopeful love.
+One of them ran away from home on the first intimation that he was
+expected to learn his father's trade, shipped as a cabin-boy on one of
+the lake steamers, and was drowned in a storm which destroyed the
+vessel. The other, less defiant or less energetic, entered the shop and
+attained some proficiency in the work. But as he grew toward manhood,
+he became, as the old man called it, "trifling"; a word which bore with
+it in the local dialect no suggestion of levity or vivacity, for Luke
+Matchin was as dark and lowering a lout as you would readily find. But
+it meant that he became more and more unpunctual, did his work worse
+month by month, came home later at night, and was continually seen,
+when not in the shop, with a gang of low ruffians, whose head-quarters
+were in a den called the "Bird of Paradise," on the lake shore. When
+his father remonstrated with him, he met everything with sullen
+silence. If Saul lost his temper at this mute insolence and spoke
+sharply, the boy would retort with an evil grin that made the honest
+man's heart ache.
+
+"Father," he said one day, "you'd a big sight better let me alone, if
+you don't want to drive me out of this ranch. I wasn't born to make a
+nigger of myself in a free country, and you can just bet your life I
+ain't a-going to do it."
+
+These things grieved Saul Matchin so that his anger would die away. At
+last, one morning, after a daring burglary had been committed in
+Buffland, two policemen were seen by Luke Matchin approaching the shop.
+He threw open a back window, jumped out and ran rapidly down to the
+steep bluff overlooking the lake. When the officers entered, Saul was
+alone in the place. They asked after his boy, and he said:
+
+"He can't be far away. What do you want of him? He hain't been doing
+nothing, I hope."
+
+"Nothing, so far as we know, but we are after two fellows who go by the
+names of Maumee Jake and Dutch George. Luke runs with them sometimes,
+and he could make a pile of money by helping of us get them."
+
+"I'll tell him when he comes in," said Saul, but he never saw or heard
+of his son again.
+
+With his daughters he was scarcely more successful. For, though they
+had not brought sorrow or shame to his house, they seemed as little
+amenable to the discipline he had hoped to exert in his family as the
+boys were. The elder had married, at fifteen years of age, a journeyman
+printer; and so, instead of filling the place of housemaid in some good
+family, as her father had fondly dreamed, she was cook, housemaid, and
+general servant to a man aware of his rights, and determined to
+maintain them, and nurse and mother (giving the more important function
+precedence) to six riotous children. Though his child had thus
+disappointed his hopes, she had not lost his affection, and he even
+enjoyed the Sunday afternoon romp with his six grandchildren, which
+ordinarily took place in the shop among the shavings. Wixham, the
+son-in-law, was not prosperous, and the children were not so well
+dressed that the sawdust would damage their clothes.
+
+The youngest of Matchin's four children was our acquaintance Miss Maud,
+as she called herself, though she was christened Matilda. When Mrs.
+Matchin was asked, after that ceremony, "Who she was named for?" she
+said, "Nobody in partic'lar. I call her Matildy because it's a pretty
+name, and goes well with Jurildy, my oldest gal." She had evolved that
+dreadful appellation out of her own mind. It had done no special harm,
+however, as Miss Jurildy had rechristened herself Poguy at a very
+tender age, in a praiseworthy attempt to say "Rogue," and the delighted
+parents had never called her anything else. Thousands of comely damsels
+all over this broad land suffer under names as revolting, punished
+through life, by the stupidity of parental love, for a slip of the
+tongue in the cradle. Matilda got off easily in the matter of
+nicknames, being called Mattie until she was pretty well grown, and
+then having changed her name suddenly to Maud, for reasons to be given
+hereafter.
+
+She was a hearty, blowzy little girl. Her father delighted in her
+coarse vigor and energy. She was not a pretty child, and had not a
+particle of coquetry in her, apparently; she liked to play with the
+boys when they would allow her, and never presumed upon her girlhood
+for any favors in their rough sport; and good-natured as she was, she
+was able to defend herself on occasion with tongue and fists. She was
+so full of life and strength that, when she had no playing to do, she
+took pleasure in helping her mother about her work. It warmed Saul
+Matchin's heart to see the stout little figure sweeping or scrubbing.
+She went to school but did not "learn enough to hurt her," as her
+father said; and he used to think that here, at least, would be one
+child who would be a comfort to his age. In fancy he saw her, in a neat
+print dress and white cap, wielding a broom in one of those fine houses
+he had helped to build, or coming home to keep house for him when her
+mother should fail.
+
+But one day her fate came to her in the shape of a new girl, who sat
+near her on the school-bench. It was a slender, pasty young person, an
+inch taller and a year or two older than Mattie, with yellow ringlets,
+and more pale-blue ribbons on her white dress than poor Mattie had ever
+seen before. She was a clean, cold, pale, and selfish little vixen,
+whose dresses were never rumpled, and whose temper was never ruffled.
+She had not blood enough in her veins to drive her to play or to anger.
+But she seemed to poor Mattie the loveliest creature she had ever seen,
+and our brown, hard-handed, blowzy tomboy became the pale fairy's
+abject slave. Her first act of sovereignty was to change her vassal's
+name.
+
+"I don't like Mattie; it ain't a bit romantic. I had a friend in
+Bucyrus whose name was Mattie, and she found out somehow--I believe the
+teacher told her--that Queen Matilda and Queen Maud was the same thing
+in England. So you're Maud!" and Maud she was henceforward, though her
+tyrant made her spell it Maude. "It's more elegant with an _e_," she
+said.
+
+Maud was fourteen and her school-days were ending when she made this
+new acquaintance. She formed for Azalea Windora one of those violent
+idolatries peculiar to her sex and age, and in a fort-' night she
+seemed a different person. Azalea was rather clever at her books, and
+Maud dug at her lessons from morning till night to keep abreast of her.
+Her idol was exquisitely neat in her dress, and Maud acquired, as if by
+magic, a scrupulous care of her person. Azalea's blonde head was full
+of pernicious sentimentality, though she was saved from actual
+indiscretions by her cold and vaporous temperament. In dreams and
+fancies, she was wooed and won a dozen times a day by splendid
+cavaliers of every race and degree; and as she was thoroughly false and
+vain, she detailed these airy adventures, part of which she had
+imagined and part read in weekly story-papers, to her worshipper, who
+listened with wide eyeballs, and a heart which was just beginning to
+learn how to beat. She initiated Maud into that strange world of vulgar
+and unhealthy sentiment found in the cheap weeklies which load every
+news-stand in the country, and made her tenfold more the child of
+dreams than herself.
+
+Miss Windom remained but a few months at the common school, and then
+left it for the high school. She told Maud one day of her intended
+flitting, and was more astonished than pleased at the passion of grief
+into which the announcement threw her friend. Maud clung to her with
+sobs that would not be stilled, and with tears that reduced Miss
+Azalea's dress to limp and moist wretchedness, but did not move the
+vain heart beneath it. "I wonder if she knows," thought Azalea, "how
+ugly she is when she bawls like that. Few brunettes can cry stylishly
+anyhow." Still, she could not help feeling flattered by such devotion,
+and she said, partly from a habit of careless kindness and partly to
+rescue the rest of her raiment from the shower which had ruined her
+neck-ribbon,--
+
+"There, don't be heart-broken. You will be in the high school yourself
+in no time."
+
+Maud lifted up her eyes and her heart at these words.
+
+"Yes, I will, darling!"
+
+She had never thought of the high school before. She had always
+expected to leave school that very season, and to go into service
+somewhere. But from that moment she resolved that nothing should keep
+her away from those walls that had suddenly become her Paradise.
+
+Her mother was easily won over. She was a woman of weak will, more
+afraid of her children than of her husband, a phenomenon of frequent
+occurrence in that latitude. She therefore sided naturally with her
+daughter in the contest which, when Maud announced her intention of
+entering the high school, broke out in the house and raged fiercely
+for some weeks. The poor woman had to bear the brunt of the battle
+alone, for Matchin soon grew shy of disputing with his rebellious
+child. She was growing rapidly and assuming that look of maturity which
+comes so suddenly and so strangely to the notice of a parent. When he
+attacked her one day with the brusque exclamation, "Well, Mattie,
+what's all this blame foolishness your ma's being tellin' me ?" she
+answered him with a cool decision and energy that startled and alarmed
+him. She stood straight and terribly tall, he thought. She spoke with
+that fluent clearness of girls who know what they want, and used words
+he had never met with before out of a newspaper. He felt himself no
+match for her, and ended the discussion by saying: "That's all
+moonshine--you shan't go! D'ye hear me?" but he felt dismally sure that
+she would go, in spite of him.
+
+Even after he had given up the fight, he continued to revenge himself
+upon his wife for his defeat. "We've got to have a set of gold spoons,
+I guess. These will never do for highfliers like us." Or, "Drop in at
+Swillem's and send home a few dozen champagne; I can't stummick such
+common drink as coffee for breakfast." Or, "I must fix up and make some
+calls on Algonkin Av'noo. Sence we've jined the Upper Ten, we mustn't
+go back on Society." But this brute thunder had little effect on Mrs.
+Matchin. She knew the storm was over when her good-natured lord tried
+to be sarcastic.
+
+It need hardly be said that Maud Matchin did not find the high school
+all her heart desired. Her pale goddess had not enough substantial
+character to hold her worshipper long. Besides, at fifteen, a young
+girl's heart is as variable as her mind or her person; and a great
+change was coming over the carpenter's daughter. She suddenly gained
+her full growth; and after the first awkwardness of her tall stature
+passed away, she began to delight in her own strength and beauty. Her
+pride waked at the same time with her vanity, and she applied herself
+closely to her books, so as to make a good appearance in her classes.
+She became the friend instead of the vassal of Azalea, and by slow
+degrees she found their positions reversed. Within a year, it seemed
+perfectly natural to Maud that Azalea should do her errands and talk to
+her about her eyes; and Miss Windom found her little airs of
+superiority of no avail in face of the girl who had grown prettier,
+cleverer, and taller than herself. It made no difference that Maud was
+still a vulgar and ignorant girl--for Azalea was not the person to
+perceive or appreciate these defects. She saw her, with mute wonder,
+blooming out before her very eyes, from a stout, stocky, frowzy child,
+with coarse red cheeks and knuckles like a bootblack, into a tall,
+slender girl, whose oval face was as regular as a conic section, and
+whose movements were as swift, strong, and graceful, when she forgot
+herself, as those of a race-horse. There were still the ties of habit
+and romance between them. Azalea, whose brother was a train-boy on the
+Lake Shore road, had a constant supply of light literature, which the
+girls devoured in the long intervals of their studies. But even the
+romance of Miss Matchin had undergone a change. While Azalea still
+dreamed of dark-eyed princes, lords of tropical islands, and fierce and
+tender warriors who should shoot for her the mountain eagle for his
+plumes, listen with her to the bulbul's song in valleys of roses, or
+hew out a throne for her in some vague and ungeographical empire, the
+reveries of Miss Maud grew more and more mundane and reasonable. She
+was too strong and well to dream much; her only visions were of a rich
+man who should love her for her fine eyes. She would meet him in some
+simple and casual way; he would fall in love at sight, and speedily
+prosper in his wooing; they would be married,--privately, for Maud
+blushed and burned to think of her home at such times,--and then they
+would go to New York to live. She never wasted conjecture on the age,
+the looks, the manner of being of this possible hero. Her mind
+intoxicated itself with the thought of his wealth. She went one day to
+the Public Library to read the articles on Rothschild and Astor in the
+encyclopedias. She even tried to read the editorial articles on gold
+and silver in the Ohio papers.
+
+She delighted in the New York society journals. She would pore for
+hours over those wonderful columns which described the weddings and the
+receptions of rich tobacconists and stock-brokers, with lists of names
+which she read with infinite gusto. At first, all the names were the
+same to her, all equally worshipful and happy in being printed, black
+on white, in the reports of these upper-worldly banquets. But after a
+while her sharp intelligence began to distinguish the grades of our
+republican aristocracy, and she would skip the long rolls of obscure
+guests who figured at the: "coming-out parties" of thrifty shop-keepers
+of fashionable ambition, to revel among the genuine swells whose
+fathers were shop-keepers. The reports of the battles of the Polo Club
+filled her with a sweet intoxication. She knew the names of the
+combatants by heart, and had her own opinion as to the comparative
+eligibility of Billy Buglass and Tim Blanket, the young men most in
+view at that time in the clubs of the metropolis.
+
+Her mind was too much filled with interests of this kind to leave any
+great room for her studies. She had pride enough to hold her place in
+her classes, and that was all. She learned a little music, a little
+drawing, a little Latin, and a little French--the French of
+"Stratford-atte-Bowe," for French of Paris was not easy of attainment
+at Buffland. This language had an especial charm for her, as it
+seemed a connecting link with that elysium of fashion of which her
+dreams were full. She once went to the library and asked for "a nice
+French book." They gave her "La Petite Fadette." She had read of
+George Sand in newspapers, which had called her a "corrupter of
+youth." She hurried home with her book, eager to test its corrupting
+qualities, and when, with locked doors and infinite labor, she had
+managed to read it, she was greatly disappointed at finding in it
+nothing to admire and nothing to shudder at. "How could such a smart
+woman as that waste her time writing about a lot of peasants, poor as
+crows, the whole lot!" was her final indignant comment.
+
+By the time she left the school her life had become almost as solitary
+as that of the bat in the fable, alien both to bird and beast. She made
+no intimate acquaintances there; her sordid and selfish dreams occupied
+her too completely. Girls who admired her beauty were repelled by her
+heartlessness, which they felt, but could not clearly define. Even
+Azalea fell away from her, having found a stout and bald-headed railway
+conductor, whose adoration made amends for his lack of romance. Maud
+knew she was not liked in the school, and being, of course, unable to
+attribute it to any fault of her own, she ascribed it to the fact that
+her father was a mechanic and poor. This thought did not tend to make
+her home happier. She passed much of her time in her own bedroom,
+looking out of her window on the lake, weaving visions of ignoble
+wealth and fashion out of the mists of the morning sky and the purple
+and gold that made the north-west glorious at sunset. When she sat with
+her parents in the evening, she rarely spoke. If she was not gazing in
+the fire, with hard bright eyes and lips, in which there was only the
+softness of youth, but no tender tremor of girlhood's dreams, she was
+reading her papers or her novels with rapt attention. Her mother was
+proud of her beauty and her supposed learning, and loved, when she
+looked up from her work, to let her eyes rest upon her tall and
+handsome child, whose cheeks were flushed with eager interest as she
+bent her graceful head over her book. But Saul Matchin nourished a
+vague anger and jealousy against her. He felt that his love was nothing
+to her; that she was too pretty and too clever to be at home in his
+poor house; and yet he dared not either reproach her or appeal to her
+affections. His heart would fill with grief and bitterness as he gazed
+at her devouring the brilliant pages of some novel of what she imagined
+high life, unconscious of his glance, which would travel from her
+neatly shod feet up to her hair, frizzed and banged down to her
+eyebrows, "making her look," he thought, "more like a Scotch poodle-dog
+than an honest girl." He hated those books which, he fancied, stole
+away her heart from her home. He had once picked up one of them where
+she had left it; but the high-flown style seemed as senseless to him as
+the words of an incantation, and he had flung it down more bewildered
+than ever. He thought there must be some strange difference between
+their minds when she could delight in what seemed so uncanny to him,
+and he gazed at her, reading by the lamp-light, as over a great gulf.
+Even her hands holding the book made him uneasy; for since she had
+grown careful of them, they were like no hands he had ever seen on any
+of his kith and kin. The fingers were long and white, and the nails
+were shaped like an almond, and though the hands lacked delicacy at the
+articulations, they almost made Matchin reverence his daughter as his
+superior, as he looked at his own.
+
+One evening, irritated by the silence and his own thoughts, he cried
+out with a sudden suspicion:
+
+"Where do you git all them books, and what do they cost?"
+
+She turned her fine eyes slowly upon him and said:
+
+"I get them from the public library, and they cost nothing."
+
+He felt deeply humiliated that he should have made a blunder so
+ridiculous and so unnecessary.
+
+After she had left the school--where she was graduated as near as
+possible to the foot of the class--she was almost alone in the world.
+She rarely visited her sister, for the penury of the Wixham household
+grated upon her nerves, and she was not polite enough to repress her
+disgust at the affectionate demonstrations of the Wixham babies.
+"There, there! get along, you'll leave me not fit to be seen!" she
+would say, and Jurilda would answer in that vicious whine of
+light-haired women, too early overworked and overprolific: "Yes,
+honey, let your aunt alone. She's too tiffy for poor folks like us";
+and Maud would go home, loathing her lineage.
+
+The girls she had known in her own quarter were by this time earning
+their own living: some in the manufactories, in the lighter forms of
+the iron trade, some in shops, and a few in domestic service. These
+last were very few, for the American blood revolts against this easiest
+and best-paid of all occupations, and leaves it to more sensible
+foreigners. The working bees were clearly no company for this poor
+would-be butterfly. They barely spoke when they met, kept asunder by a
+mutual embarrassment. One girl with whom she had played as a child had
+early taken to evil courses. Her she met one day in the street, and the
+bedraggled and painted creature called her by her name.
+
+"How dare you?" said Maud, shocked and frightened.
+
+"All right!" said the shameless woman. "You looked so gay, I didn't
+know."
+
+Maud, as she walked away, hardly knew whether to be pleased or not.
+"She saw I looked like a lady, and thought I could not be one honestly.
+I'll show them!"
+
+She knew as few men as women. She sometimes went to the social
+gatherings affected by her father's friends, Odd Fellows' and Druids'
+balls and the festivities with which the firemen refreshed themselves
+after their toils and dangers. But her undeniable beauty gained her no
+success. She seemed to take pains to avoid pleasing the young
+carpenters, coachmen, and journeyman printers she met on these
+occasions. With her head full of fantastic dreams, she imagined
+herself a mere visitor at these simple entertainments of the common
+people, and criticised the participants to herself with kindly sarcasm.
+If she ever consented to dance, it was with the air with which she
+fancied a duchess might open a ball of her servants. Once, in a round
+game at a "surprise" party, it came her turn to be kissed by a young
+blacksmith, who did his duty in spite of her struggles with strong arms
+and a willing heart. Mr. Browning makes a certain queen, mourning over
+her lofty loneliness, wish that some common soldier would throw down
+his halberd and clasp her to his heart. It is doubtful if she would
+really have liked it better than Miss Maud did, and she was furious as
+a young lioness. She made herself so disagreeable about it that she
+ceased to be invited to those lively entertainments; and some of the
+most eligible of the young "Cariboos"--a social order of a secret and
+mysterious rite, which met once a week in convenient woodsheds and
+stable-lofts--took an oath with hands solemnly clasped in the intricate
+grip of the order, that "they would never ask Miss Matchin to go to
+party, picnic, or sleigh-ride, as long as the stars gemmed the blue
+vault of heaven," from which it may be seen that the finer sentiments
+of humanity were not unknown to the Cariboos.
+
+Maud came thus to be eighteen, and though she was so beautiful and so
+shapely that no stranger ever saw her without an instant of glad
+admiration, she had had no suitor but one, and from him she never
+allowed a word of devotion. Samuel Sleeny, a carpenter who worked with
+her father, and who took his meals with the family, had fallen in love
+with her at first sight, and, after a year of dumb hopelessness, had
+been so encouraged by her father's evident regard that he had opened
+his heart to Saul and had asked his mediation. Matchin undertook the
+task with pleasure. Pie could have closed his eyes in peace if he had
+seen his daughter married to so decent a man and so good a joiner as
+Sleeny. But the interview was short and painful to Matchin. He left his
+daughter in possession of the field, and went to walk by the lake shore
+to recover his self-possession, which had given way beneath her firm
+will and smiling scorn. When he returned to the shop Sleeny was there,
+sitting on a bench and chewing pine shavings.
+
+"What did she say?" asked the young fellow. "But never mind--I see
+plain enough it's no use. She's too good for me, and she knows it."
+
+"Too good!" roared Saul. "She's the golderndest----"
+
+"Hold on there," said Sleeny. "Don't say nothin' you'll have to take
+back. Ef you say anything ag'in her, you'll have to swaller it, or whip
+me."
+
+Saul looked at him with amazement.
+
+"Well! you beat me, the pair of you! You're crazy to want her, and
+she's crazy not to want you. She liked to a' bit my head off for
+perposin' you, and you want to lick me for calling her a fool."
+
+"She ain't no fool," said Sleeny with sullen resignation; "she knows
+what she's about," and lie picked up another shaving and ruminated upon
+it.
+
+The old man walked to and fro, fidgeting with his tools. At last he
+came back to the young man and said, awkwardly dusting the bench with
+his hand:
+
+"Sam, you wasn't 'lowin' to leave along o' this here foolishness?"
+
+"That's just what I was 'lowin' to do, sir."
+
+"Don't you be a dern fool, Sam!" and Saul followed up this judicious
+exhortation with such cogent reasons that poor Sleeny was glad to be
+persuaded that his chance was not over yet, and that he would much
+better stay where he was.
+
+"How'll _she_ like it?"
+
+"Oh! it won't make a mite o' difference to her," said the old man
+airily, and poor Sam felt in his despondent heart that it would not.
+
+He remained and became like the least of her servants. She valued his
+attachment much as a planter valued the affection of his slaves,
+knowing they would work the better for it. He did all her errands;
+fetched and carried for her; took her to church on evenings when she
+did not care to stay at home. One of the few amusements Saul Matchin
+indulged in was that of attending spiritualist lectures and seances,
+whenever a noted medium visited the place. Saul had been an unbeliever
+in his youth, and this grotesque superstition had rushed in at the
+first opportunity to fill the vacuum of faith in his mind. He had never
+succeeded, however, in thoroughly indoctrinating his daughter. She
+regarded her father's religion with the same contempt she bestowed upon
+the other vulgar and narrow circumstances of her lot in life, and so
+had preferred her mother's sober Presbyterianism to the new and raw
+creed of her sire. But one evening, when she was goaded by more than
+usual restlessness, Sleeny asked her if she would go with him to a
+"sperritual lectur." To escape from her own society, she accepted, and
+the wild, incoherent, and amazingly fluent address she heard excited
+her interest and admiration. After that, she often asked him to take
+her, and in the long walk to and from the Harmony Hall, where the
+long-haired brotherhood held their sessions, a sort of confidential
+relation grew up between them, which meant nothing to Maud, but bound
+the heart of Sleeny in chains of iron. Yet he never dared say a word of
+the feeling that was consuming him. He feared he should lose her
+forever, if he opened his lips.
+
+Of course, she was not at ease in this life of dreamy idleness. It did
+not need the taunts of her father to convince her that she ought to be
+doing something for herself. Her millionaire would never come down to
+the little house on Dean Street to find her, and she had conscience
+enough to feel that she ought to earn her own clothes. She tried to
+make use of the accomplishments she had learned at school, but was
+astonished to find how useless they were. She made several attempts to
+be a teacher, but it was soon found that her high-school diploma
+covered a world of ignorance, and no board, however indulgent, would
+accept her services. She got a box of colors, and spoiled many fans and
+disfigured many pots by decorations which made the eyes of the beholder
+ache; nobody would buy them, and poor Maud had no acquaintances to whom
+she might give them away. So they encumbered the mantels and tables of
+her home, adding a new tedium to the unhappy household. She answered
+the advertisements of several publishing companies, and obtained
+agencies for the sale of subscription books. But her face was not hard
+enough for this work. She was not fluent enough to persuade the
+undecided, and she was too proud to sue _in forma pauperis_; she had
+not the precious gift of tears, by which the travelling she-merchant
+sells so many worthless wares. The few commissions she gained hardly
+paid for the wear and tear of her high-heeled boots.
+
+One day at the public library she was returning a novel she had read,
+when a gentleman came out of an inner room and paused to speak to the
+librarian's assistant, with whom Maud was at the moment occupied--a
+girl whom she had known at school, and with whom she had renewed
+acquaintance in this way. It was about a matter of the administration
+of the library, and only a few words were exchanged. He then bowed to
+both the ladies, and went out.
+
+"Who was that?" Maud asked.
+
+"Don't you know?" rejoined the other. "I thought everybody knew the
+elegant Captain Farnham. He is president of our board, you know, and he
+is just lovely. I always manage to stop him as he leaves a board
+meeting and get a word or two out of him. It's worth the trouble if I
+only get a bow."
+
+"I should think so," assented Maud. "He is as sweet as a peach. Is
+there any chance of getting one of those places? I should like to
+divide those bows with you."
+
+"That would be perfectly splendid," said her friend, who was a
+good-natured girl. "Come, I will introduce you to the old Doctor
+now."
+
+And in a moment Maud was in the presence of the librarian.
+
+She entered at a fortunate moment. Dr. Buchlieber was a near-sighted
+old gentleman who read without glasses, but could see nothing six feet
+away. He usually received and dismissed his visitors without bothering
+himself to discover or imagine what manner of people they were. "I do
+not care how they look," he would say. "They probably look as they
+talk, without form and void." But at the moment when Maud entered his
+little room, he had put on his lenses to look out of the window, and he
+turned to see a perfect form in a closely fit ting dress, and a face
+pretty enough to look on with a critical pleasure. He received her
+kindly, and encouraged her to hope for an appointment, and it was in
+accordance with his suggestion that she called upon Farnham, as we have
+related.
+
+She did not go immediately. She took several days to prepare what she
+called "a harness" of sufficient splendor, and while she was at work
+upon it she thought of many things. She was not even yet quite sure
+that she wanted a place in the library. The Doctor had been very kind,
+but he had given her clearly to understand that the work required of
+her would be severe, and the pay very light. She had for a long time
+thought of trying to obtain a clerkship at Washington,--perhaps Farnham
+would help her to that,--and her mind wandered off among the
+possibilities of chance acquaintance with bachelor senators and
+diplomats. But the more she thought of the coming interview, the more
+her mind dwelt upon the man himself whom she was going to see--his bow
+and his smile, his teeth and his mustache, and the perfect fit of his
+clothes. One point in regard to him was still vague in her mind, and as
+to that her doubts were soon resolved. One evening she said to her
+father:
+
+"Did you ever see Captain Farnham?"
+
+"Now, what a foolish question that is I'd like to know who built his
+greenhouses, ef I didn't?"
+
+"He is pretty well off, ain't he?"
+
+Saul laughed with that satisfied arrogance of ignorant men when they
+are asked a question they can answer easily.
+
+"I rather guess he is; that is, ef you call three, four, five millions
+well off. I don't know how it strikes you" (with a withering sarcasm),
+"but _I_ call Arthur Farnham pretty well fixed."
+
+These words ran in Maud's brain with a ravishing sound. She built upon
+them a fantastic palace of mist and cloud. When at last her dress was
+finished and she started, after three unsuccessful attempts, to walk to
+Algonquin Avenue, she was in no condition to do herself simple justice.
+She hardly knew whether she wanted a place in the library, a clerkship
+at Washington, or the post of amanuensis to the young millionaire. She
+was confused by his reception of her; his good-natured irony made her
+feel ill at ease; she was nervous and flurried; and she felt, as she
+walked away, that the battle had gone against her.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE WIDOW AND HER DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Mrs. Belding's house was next to that of Mr. Farnham, and the
+neighborly custom of Algonquin Avenue was to build no middle walls of
+partition between adjoining lawns. A minute's walk, therefore, brought
+the young man to the door of Mrs. Belding's cottage. She called it a
+cottage, and so we have no excuse for calling it anything else, though
+it was a big three-storied house, built of the soft creamy stone of the
+Buffland quarries, and it owed its modest name to an impression in the
+lady's mind that gothic gables and dormer windows were a necessary
+adjunct of cottages. She was a happy woman, though she would have been
+greatly surprised to hear herself so described. She had not been out of
+mourning since she was a young girl. Her parents, as she sometimes
+said, "had put her into black"; and several children had died in
+infancy, one after the other, until at last her husband, Jairus
+Belding, the famous bridge-builder, had perished of a malarial fever
+caught in the swamps of the Wabash, and left her with one daughter and
+a large tin box full of good securities. She never afterward altered
+the style of her dress, and she took much comfort in feeling free from
+all further allegiance to milliners. In fact, she had a nature which
+was predisposed to comfort. She had been fond of her husband, but she
+had been a little afraid of him, and, when she had wept her grief into
+tranquillity, she felt a certain satisfaction in finding herself the
+absolute mistress of her income and her bedroom. Her wealth made her
+the object of matrimonial ambition once or twice, and she had
+sufficient beauty to flatter herself that she was loved more for her
+eyes than her money; but she refused her suitors with an indolent
+good-nature that did not trouble itself with inquiries as to their
+sincerity. "I have been married once, thank you, and that is enough";
+this she said simply without sighing or tears. Perhaps the unlucky
+aspirant might infer that her heart was buried in the grave of Jairus.
+But the sober fact was that she liked her breakfast at her own hours.
+Attached to the spacious sleeping-room occupied in joint tenancy by
+herself and the bridge-builder were two capacious closets. After the
+funeral of Mr. Belding, she took possession of both of them, hanging
+her winter wardrobe in one and her summer raiment in the other, and
+she had never met a man so fascinating as to tempt her to give up to
+him one of these rooms.
+
+She was by no means a fool. Like many easy-going women, she had an
+enlightened selfishness which prompted her to take excellent care of
+her affairs. As long as old Mr. Farnham lived, she took his advice
+implicitly in regard to her investments, and after his death she
+transferred the same unquestioning confidence to his grandson and heir,
+although he was much younger than herself and comparatively
+inexperienced in money matters. It seemed to her only natural that some
+of the Farnham wisdom should have descended with the Farnham millions.
+There was a grain of good sense in this reasoning, founded as it was
+upon her knowledge of Arthur's good qualities; for upon a man who is
+neither a sot nor a gambler the possession of great wealth almost
+always exercises a sobering and educating influence. So, whenever Mrs.
+Belding was in doubt in any matter of money, she asked Arthur to dine
+with her, and settle the vexing questions somewhere between the soup
+and the coffee. It was a neighborly service, freely asked and willingly
+rendered.
+
+As Farnham entered the widow's cosey library, he saw a lady sitting by
+the fire whom he took to be Mrs. Belding; but as she rose and made a
+step toward him, he discovered that she was not in mourning. The quick
+twilight was thickening into night, and the rich glow of the naming
+coal in the grate, deepening the shadows in the room, while it
+prevented him from distinguishing the features of her face, showed him
+a large full form with a grace of movement which had something even of
+majesty in it.
+
+"I see you have forgotten me," said a voice as rich and full as the
+form from which it came. "I am Alice Belding."
+
+"Of course you are, and you have grown as big and beautiful as you
+threatened to," said Farnham, taking both the young girl's hands in
+his, and turning until she faced the fire-light. It was certainly a
+bonny face which the red light shone upon, and quite uncommon in its
+beauty. The outline was very pure and noble; the eyes were dark-brown
+and the hair was of tawny gold, but the complexion was of that clear
+and healthy pallor so rarely met with among blonde women. The finest
+thing about her face was its expression of perfect serenity. Even now,
+as she stood looking at Farnham, with her hands in his, her cheek
+flushed a little with the evident pleasure of the meeting, she received
+his gaze of unchecked admiration with a smile as quiet and unabashed as
+that of a mother greeting a child.
+
+"Well, well!" said Farnham, as they seated themselves, "how long has it
+taken you to grow to that stature? When did I see you last?"
+
+"Two years ago," she answered, in that rich and gentle tone which was a
+delight to the ear. "I was at home last summer, but you were away--in
+Germany, I think."
+
+"Yes, and we looked for you in vain at Christmases and Thanksgivings."
+
+"Mamma came so often to New York that there seemed no real necessity of
+my coming home until I came for good. I had so much to learn, you know.
+I was quite old and very ignorant when I started away."
+
+"And you have come back quite young and very learned, I dare say."
+
+She laughed a little, and her clear and quiet laugh was as pleasant as
+her speech.
+
+Mrs. Belding came in with gliding footsteps and cap-strings gently
+fluttering.
+
+"Why, you are all in the dark! Arthur, will you please light that
+burner nearest you?"
+
+In the bright light Miss Alice looked prettier than ever; the jet of
+gas above her tinged her crisp hair with a lustre of twisted gold wire
+and threw tangled shadows upon her low smooth forehead.
+
+"We have to thank Madame de Veaudrey for sending us back a fine young
+woman," said Farnham.
+
+"Yes, she _is_ improved," the widow assented calmly. "I must show you
+the letter Madame de Veaudrey wrote me. Alice is first in languages,
+first----"
+
+"In peace, and first in the hearts of her countrywomen," interrupted
+Miss Alice, not smartly, but with smiling firmness. "Let Mr. Farnham
+take the rest of my qualities for granted, please."
+
+"There will be time enough for you two to get acquainted. But this
+evening I wanted to talk to you about something more important. The
+'Tribune' money article says the Dan and Beersheba Railroad is not
+really earning its dividends. What am I to do about that, I should like
+to know?"
+
+"Draw your dividends, with a mind conscious of rectitude, though the
+directors rage and the 'Tribune' imagine a vain thing," Farnham
+answered, and the talk was of stocks and bonds for an hour afterward.
+
+When dinner was over, the three were seated again in the library. The
+financial conversation had run its course, and had perished amid the
+arid sands of reference to the hard times and the gloomy prospects of
+real estate. Miss Alice, who took no part in the discussion, was
+reading the evening paper, and Farnham was gratifying his eyes by
+gazing at the perfect outline of her face, the rippled hair over the
+straight brows, and the stout braids that hung close to the graceful
+neck in the fashion affected by school-girls at that time.
+
+A servant entered and handed a card to Alice. She looked at it and
+passed it to her mother.
+
+"It is Mr. Furrey," said the widow. "He has called upon _you_."
+
+"I suppose he may come in here?" Alice said, without rising.
+
+Her mother looked at her with a mute inquiry, but answered in an
+instant, "Certainly."
+
+When Mr. Furrey entered, he walked past Mrs. Belding to greet her
+daughter, with profuse expressions of delight at her return, "of which
+he had just heard this afternoon at the bank; and although he was going
+to a party this evening, he could not help stopping in to welcome her
+home." Miss Alice said "Thank you," and Mr. Furrey turned to shake
+hands with her mother.
+
+"You know my friend Mr. Farnham?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am--that is, I see him often at the bank, but I am glad to owe
+the pleasure of his acquaintance to you."
+
+The men shook hands. Mr. Furrey bowed a little more deeply than was
+absolutely required. He then seated himself near Miss Alice and began
+talking volubly to her about New York. He was a young man of medium
+size, dressed with that exaggeration of the prevailing mode which seems
+necessary to provincial youth. His short fair hair was drenched with
+pomatum and plastered close to his head. His white cravat was tied with
+mathematical precision, and his shirt-collar was like a wall of white
+enamel from his shoulders to his ears. He wore white kid gloves, which
+he secured from spot or blemish as much as possible by keeping the tips
+of the fingers pressed against each other. His speech was quicker than
+is customary with Western people, but he had their flat monotone and
+their uncompromising treatment of the letter R.
+
+Mrs. Belding crossed over to where Farnham was seated and began a
+conversation with him in an undertone.
+
+"You think her really improved?"
+
+"In every way. She has the beauty and stature of a Brunhild; she
+carries herself like a duchess, I was going to say--but the only
+duchess I ever knew was at Schwalbach, and she was carried in a wicker
+hand-cart. But mademoiselle is lovely, and she speaks very pretty
+English; and knows how to wear her hair, and will be a great comfort to
+you, if you can keep the boys at bay for awhile."
+
+"No danger there, I imagine; she will keep them at bay herself. Did you
+notice just now? Mr. Furrey called especially to see her. He was quite
+attentive to her last summer. Instead of going to the drawing-room to
+see him, she wants him to come in here, where he is in our way and we
+are in his. That is one of Madame de Veaudrey's notions."
+
+"I should fancy it was," said Farnham, dryly; "I have heard her spoken
+of as a lady of excellent principles and manners."
+
+"Now you are going to side against me, are you? I do not believe in
+importing these European ideas of surveillance into free America. I
+have confidence in American girls."
+
+"But see where your theories lead you. In Algonquin Avenue, the young
+ladies are to occupy the drawing-room, while the parents make
+themselves comfortable in the library. But the houses in Dean Street
+are not so spacious. Most citizens in that quarter have only two rooms
+below stairs. I understand the etiquette prevailing there is for
+parents, when their daughters receive calls, to spend the evening in
+the kitchen."
+
+"Oh, dear! I see I'm to get no help from you. That's just the way Alice
+talks. When she came home to-day, there were several invitations for
+her, and some notes from young gentlemen offering their escort. She
+told me in that quiet way of hers, that reminds me of Mr. Belding when
+he was dangerous, that she would be happy to go with me when I cared to
+go, and happy to stay at home if I stayed. So I imagine I am booked for
+a gay season."
+
+"Which I am sure you will greatly enjoy. But this Madame de Veaudrey
+must be a sensible woman."
+
+"Because I disagree with her? I am greatly obliged. But she is a saint,
+although you admire her," pursued the good-tempered woman. "She was a
+Hamilton, you know, and married Veaudrey, who was secretary of legation
+in Washington. He was afterward minister in Sweden, and died there. She
+was returning to this country with her three girls, and was shipwrecked
+and they all three perished. She was picked up unconscious and
+recovered only after a long illness. Since then she has gone very
+little into the world, but has devoted herself to the education of
+young ladies. She never has more than three or four at a time, and
+these she selects herself. Alice had heard of her from Mrs. Bowman, and
+we ventured to write to ask admission to her household, and our request
+was civilly but peremptorily declined. This was while we were in New
+York two years ago. But a few days afterward we were at church with
+Mrs. Bowman, and Madame de Veaudrey saw us. She called the next day
+upon Mrs. Bowman and inquired who we were, and then came to me and
+begged to withdraw her letter, and to take Alice at once under her
+charge. It seems that Alice resembled one of her daughters--at all
+events, she was completely fascinated by her, and Alice soon came to
+regard her in return as the loveliest of created beings. I must admit I
+found her a little still--though she _was_ lovely. But still, I cannot
+help being afraid that she has made Alice a little to particular; you
+know the young gentlemen don't like a girl to be too stiff."
+
+Farnham felt his heart grow hot with something like scorn for the
+worthy woman, as she prattled on in this way. He could hardly trust
+himself to reply and soon took his leave. Alice rose and gave him her
+hand with frank and winning cordiality. As he felt the warm soft
+pressure of her strong fingers, and the honest glance of her wide young
+eyes, his irritation died away for a moment, but soon came back with
+double force.
+
+"Gracious heavens!" he exclaimed, as he closed the door behind him, and
+stepped into the clear spring starlight, hardly broken as yet by the
+budding branches of the elms and limes. "What a crazy woman that mother
+is! Her daughter has come home to her a splendid white swan, and she is
+waddling and quacking about with anxiety and fear lest the little male
+ducklings that frequent the pond should find her too white and too
+stately."
+
+Instead of walking home he turned up the long avenue, and went rapidly
+on, spurred by his angry thoughts.
+
+"What will become of that beautiful girl? She cannot hold out forever
+against the universal custom. She will be led by her friends and pushed
+by her mother, until she drops to the level of the rest and becomes a
+romping flirt; she will go to parties with young Furrey, and to church
+with young Snevel. I shall see her tramping the streets with one, and
+waltzing all night with another, and sitting on the stairs with a
+third. She is too pretty to be let alone, and her mother is against
+her. She is young and the force of nature is strong, and women are born
+for sacrifice--she will marry one of these young shrimps, and do her
+duty in the sphere whereto she has been called."
+
+At this thought so sharp a pang of disgust shot through him, that he
+started with surprise.
+
+"Oh, no, this is not jealousy; it is a protest against what is probable
+in the name of the eternal fitness of things."
+
+Nevertheless, he went on thinking very disagreeably about Mr. Furrey.
+
+"How can a nice girl endure a fellow who pomatums his hair in that
+fashion, and sounds his R's in that way, and talks about Theedore
+Thommus and Cinsunnatta? Still, they do it, and Providence must be on
+the side of that sort of men. But what business is all this of mine? I
+have half a mind to go to Europe again."
+
+He stopped, lighted a cigar, and walked briskly homeward. As he passed
+by the Belding cottage, he saw that the lower story was in darkness,
+and in the windows above the light was glowing behind the shades.
+
+"So Furrey is gone, and the tired young traveller is going early to
+rest."
+
+He went into his library and sat down by the dying embers of the grate.
+His mind had been full of Alice and her prospects during his long walk
+in the moonlight; and now as he sat there, the image of Maud Matchin
+suddenly obtruded itself upon him, and he began to compare and contrast
+the two girls, both so beautiful and so utterly unlike; and then his
+thoughts shifted all at once back to his own early life. He thought of
+his childhood, of his parents removed from him so early that their
+memory was scarcely more than a dream; he wondered what life would have
+been to him if they had been spared. Then his school-days came up
+before him; his journey to France with his grandfather; his studies at
+St. Cyr; his return to America during the great war, his enlistment as
+a private in the regular cavalry, his promotion to a lieutenancy three
+days afterward, his service through the terrible campaign of the
+Peninsula, his wounds at Gettysburg, and at last the grand review of
+the veterans in front of the White House when the war was over.
+
+But this swift and brilliant panorama did not long delay his musing
+fancy. A dull smart like that of a healing wound drew his mind to a
+succession of scenes on the frontier. He dwelt with that strange
+fascination which belongs to the memory of hardships--and which we are
+all too apt to mistake for regret--upon his life of toil and danger in
+the wide desolation of the West. There he met, one horrible winter, the
+sister-in-law of a brother captain, a tall, languid, ill-nourished girl
+of mature years, with tender blue eyes and a taste for Byron. She had
+no home and no relatives in the world except her sister, Mrs. Keefe,
+whom she had followed into the wilderness. She was a heavy burden on
+the scanty resources of poor Keefe, but he made her cordially welcome
+like the hearty soldier that he was. She was the only unmarried white
+woman within a hundred miles, and the mercury ranged from zero to -20
+degrees all winter. In the spring, she and Farnham were married; he
+seemed to  have lost the sense of there being any other women in the
+world, and he took her, as one instinctively takes to dinner the last
+lady remaining in a drawing-room, without special orders. He had had
+the consolation of reflecting that he made her perfectly proud and
+happy every day of her life that was left. Before the autumn ended,
+she died, on a forced march one day, when the air was glittering with
+alkali, and the fierce sun seemed to wither the dismal plain like the
+vengeance of heaven. Though Farnham was even then one of the richest
+men in the army, so rigid are the rules imposed upon our service, by
+the economy of an ignorant demagogy, that no transportation could be
+had to supply this sick lady with the ordinary conveniences of life,
+and she died in his arms, on the hot prairie, in the shade of an
+overloaded baggage wagon. He mourned her with the passing grief one
+gives to a comrade fallen on the field of honor. Often since he left
+the army, he reproached himself for not have grieved for her more
+deeply. "Poor Nellie," he would sometimes say, "how she would have
+enjoyed this house, if she had lived to possess it." But he never had
+that feeling of widowhood known to those whose lives have been torn
+in two.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+PROTECTOR AND PROTEGEE.
+
+
+A few days later, Mr. Farnham attended a meeting of the library board,
+and presented the name of Miss Matchin as a candidate for a subordinate
+place in the library. There were several such positions, requiring no
+special education or training, the duties of which could be as well
+filled by Miss Maud as by any one else. She had sent several strong
+letters of recommendation to the board, from prominent citizens who
+knew and respected her father, for when Maud informed him of her new
+ambition, Matchin entered heartily into the affair, and bestirred
+himself to use what credit he had in the ward to assist her.
+
+Maud had not exaggerated the effect of her blandishments upon Dr.
+Buchlieber. The old gentleman spoke in her favor with great fluency;
+"she was young, healthy, active, intelligent, a graduate of the high
+school."
+
+"And very pretty, is she not?" asked a member of the board,
+maliciously.
+
+The Doctor colored, but was not abashed. He gazed steadily at the
+interrupter through his round glasses, and said:
+
+"Yes, she is very fine looking--but I do not see that that should stand
+in her way."
+
+Not another word was said against her, and a ballot was taken to decide
+the question. There were five members of the board, three besides
+Farnham and Buchlieber. Maud had two votes, and a young woman whose
+name had not been mentioned received the other three. Buchlieber
+counted the ballots, and announced the vote. Farnham flushed with
+anger. Not only had no attention been paid to his recommendation, but
+he had not even been informed that there was another candidate. In a
+few sarcastic words he referred to the furtive understanding existing
+among the majority, and apologized for having made such a mistake as to
+suppose they cared to hear the merits of appointees discussed.
+
+The three colleagues sat silent. At last, one of them crossed his legs
+anew and said:
+
+"I'm sure nobody meant any offence. We agreed on this lady several days
+ago. I know nothing about her, but her father used to be one of our
+best workers in the seventh ward. He is in the penitentiary now, and
+the family is about down to bedrock. The reason we didn't take part in
+the discussion was we wanted to avoid hard feelings."
+
+The other two crossed their legs the other way, and said they
+"concurred."
+
+Their immovable phlegm, their long, expressionless faces, the dull,
+monotonous twang of their voices, the oscillation of the three large
+feet hung over the bony knees had now, as often before, a singular
+effect upon Farnham's irritation. He felt he could not irritate them in
+return; they could not appreciate his motives, and thought too little
+of his opinion to be angry at his contempt. He was thrown back upon
+himself now as before. It was purely a matter of conscience whether he
+should stay and do what good he could, or resign and shake the dust of
+the city hall from his feet. Whatever he recommended in regard to the
+administration of the library was always adopted without comment; but,
+whenever a question of the sort which the three politicians called
+"practical" arose, involving personal patronage in any form, they
+always arranged it for themselves, without even pretending to ask his
+or Buchlieber's opinion.
+
+The very fact of his holding the position of chairman of the board was
+wounding to his self-love, as soon as he began to appreciate the
+purpose with which the place had been given him. He and some of his
+friends had attempted a movement the year before, to rescue the city
+from the control of what they considered a corrupt combination of
+politicians. They had begun, as such men always do, too late, and
+without any adequate organization, and the regular workers had beaten
+them with ridiculous ease. In Farnham's own ward, where he possessed
+two thirds of the real estate, the candidates favored by him and his
+friends received not quite one tenth of the votes cast. The loader of
+the opposing forces was a butcher, one Jacob Metzger, who had managed
+the politics of the ward for years. He was not a bad man so far as his
+lights extended. He sold meat on business principles, so as to get the
+most out of a carcass; and he conducted his political operations in the
+same way. He made his bargains with aspirants and office-holders, and
+kept them religiously. He had been a little alarmed at the sudden
+irruption of such men as Farnham and his associates into the field of
+ward politics; he dreaded the combined effect of their money and their
+influence. But he soon found he had nothing to fear--they would not use
+their money, and they did not know how to use their influence. They
+hired halls, opened committee-rooms, made speeches, and thundered
+against municipal iniquities in the daily press; but Jacob Metzger,
+when he discovered that this was all, possessed his soul in peace, and
+even got a good deal of quiet fun out of the canvass. He did not take
+the trouble to be angry at the men who were denouncing him, and
+supplied Farnham with beefsteaks unusually tender and juicy, while the
+young reformer was seeking his political life.
+
+"Lord love you," he said to Budsey, as he handed him a delicious
+rib-roast the day before election. "There's nothing I like so much as
+to see young men o' property go into politics. We need 'em. Of course,
+I wisht the Cap'n was on my side; but anyhow, I'm glad to see him
+takin' an interest."
+
+He knew well enough the way the votes would run; that every grog-shop
+in the ward was his recruiting station; that all Farnham's tenants
+would vote against their landlord; that even the respectable Budsey and
+the prim Scotch gardener were sure for him against their employer.
+Farnham's conscience which had roused him to this effort against
+Metzger's corrupt rule, would not permit him to ask for the votes of
+his own servants and tenants, and he would have regarded it as simply
+infamous to spend money to secure the floating crowd of publicans and
+sinners who formed the strength of Jacob.
+
+His failure was so complete and unexpected that there seemed to him
+something of degradation in it, and in a fit of uncontrollable disgust
+he sailed for Europe the week afterward. Metzger took his victory
+good-naturedly as a matter of course, and gave his explanation of it
+to a reporter of the "Bale-Fire" who called to interview him.
+
+"Mr. Farnham, who led the opposition to our organize-ation, is a young
+gen'l'man of fine talents and high character. I ain't got a word to say
+against him. The only trouble is, he lacks practical experience, and he
+ain't got no pers'nal magn'tism. Now I'm one of the people, I know what
+they want, and on that line I carried the ward against a combine-ation
+of all the wealth and aristocracy of Algonkin Av'noo."
+
+Jacob's magnanimity did not rest with merely a verbal acknowledgment of
+Farnham's merits. While he was abroad some of the city departments were
+reorganized, and Farnham on his return found himself, through Metzger's
+intervention, chairman of the library board. With characteristic
+sagacity the butcher kept himself in the background, and the committee
+who waited upon Farnham to ask him to accept the appointment placed it
+entirely upon considerations of the public good. His sensitive
+conscience would not permit him to refuse a duty thus imposed, and so
+with many inward qualms he assumed a chair in the vile municipal
+government he had so signally failed to overthrow. He had not long
+occupied it, when he saw to what his selection was attributable. He was
+a figure-head and he knew it, but he saw no decent escape from the
+position. As long as they allowed him and the librarian (who was also a
+member of the board) to regulate the library to their liking, he could
+not inquire into their motives or decline association with them. He was
+perfectly free to furnish what mental food he chose to two hundred
+thousand people, and he felt it would be cowardice to surrender that
+important duty on any pitiful question of patronage or personal
+susceptibility.
+
+So once more he stifled the impulse to resign his post, and the meeting
+adjourned without further incident. As he walked home, he was conscious
+of a disagreeable foreboding of something in the future which he would
+like to avoid. Bringing his mind to bear upon it, it resolved itself
+into nothing more formidable than the coming interview with Miss
+Matchin. It would certainly be unpleasant to tell her that her hopes
+were frustrated, when she had seemed so confident. At this thought, he
+felt the awakening of a sense of protectorship; she had trusted in him;
+he ought to do something for her, if for nothing else, to show that he
+was not dependent upon those ostrogoths. But what could be done for
+such a girl, so pretty, so uncultivated, so vulgarly fantastic? Above
+all, what could be done for her by a young and unmarried man?
+Providence and society have made it very hard for single men to show
+kindness to single women in any way but one.
+
+At his door he found Sam Sleeny with a kit of tools; he had just rung
+the bell. He turned, as Farnham mounted the steps, and said:
+
+"I come from Matchin's--something about the greenhouse."
+
+"Yes," answered Farnham. "The gardener is over yonder at the corner of
+the lawn. He will tell you what is to be done."
+
+Sam walked away in the direction indicated, and Farnham went into the
+house. Some letters were lying on the table in the library. He had just
+begun to read them when Budsey entered and announced:
+
+"That young person."
+
+Maud came in flushed with the fresh air and rapid walking. Farnham saw
+that she wore no glasses, and she gained more by that fact in his
+good-will than even by the brilliancy of her fine eyes which seemed to
+exult in their liberation. She began with nervous haste:
+
+"I knew you had a meeting to-day, and I could not wait. I might as well
+own up that I followed you home."
+
+Farnham handed her a chair and took her hand with a kindly earnestness,
+saying,
+
+"I am very glad to see you."
+
+"Yes, yes," she continued; "but have you any good news for me?"
+
+The anxious eagerness which spoke in her sparkling eyes and open lips
+touched Farnham to the heart. "I am sorry I have not. The board
+appointed another person."
+
+The tears sprang to her eyes.
+
+"I really expected it. I hoped you would interest yourself."
+
+"I did all I possibly could," said Farnham. "I have never tried so hard
+for anybody before, but a majority were already pledged to the other
+applicant."
+
+She seemed so dejected and hopeless that Farnham, forgetting for a
+moment how hard it is for a young man to assist a young woman, said two
+or three fatal words, "We must try something else."
+
+The pronoun sounded ominous to him as soon as he had uttered it. But it
+acted like magic upon Maud. She lifted a bright glance through her
+tears and said, like a happy child to whom a new game has been
+proposed, "What shall we try?"
+
+Simple as the words were, both of them seemed to feel that a certain
+relation--a certain responsibility--had been established between them.
+The thought exhilarated Maud; it seemed the beginning of her
+long-expected romance; while the glow of kind feeling about the heart
+of Farnham could not keep him from suspecting that he was taking a
+very imprudent step. But they sat a good while, discussing various
+plans for Maud's advantage, and arriving at nothing definite; for her
+own ideas were based upon a dime-novel theory of the world, and
+Farnham at last concluded that he would be forced finally to choose
+some way of life for his protegee, and then persuade her to accept it.
+
+He grew silent and thoughtful with this reflection, and the
+conversation languished. He was trying to think how he could help her
+without these continued interviews at his house, when she disposed of
+the difficulty by rising briskly and saying, "Well, I will call again
+in a day or two, about this hour?"
+
+"Yes, if it suits you best," he answered, with a troubled brow. He
+followed her to the door. As she went out, she said, "May I pick a
+flower as I go?"
+
+He seized his hat, and said, "Come with me to the rose-house in the
+garden, and you shall have something better."
+
+They walked together down the gravel paths, through the neat and
+well-kept garden, where the warm spring sunshine was calling life out
+of the tender turf, and the air was full of delicate odors. She seemed
+as gay and happy as a child on a holiday. Her disappointment of an hour
+ago was all gone in the feeling that Arthur was interested in her, was
+caring for her future. Without any definite hopes or dreams, she felt
+as if the world was suddenly grown richer and wider. Something good was
+coming to her certainly, something good had come; for was she not
+walking in this lovely garden with its handsome proprietor, who was,
+she even began to think, her friend? The turf was as soft, the air as
+mild, the sun as bright as in any of her romances, and the figure of
+Farnham's wealth which she had heard from her father rang musically in
+her mind.
+
+They went into the rose-house, and he gave her two or three splendid
+satiny Marechal Niels, and then a Jacqueminot, so big, so rich and
+lustrous in its dark beauty, that she could not help crying out with
+delight. He was pleased with her joy, and gave her another, "for your
+hair," he said. She colored with pleasure till her cheek was like the
+royal flower. "Hallo!" thought Farnham to himself, "she does not take
+these things as a matter of course." When they came into the garden
+again, he made the suggestion which had been in his mind for the last
+half hour.
+
+"If you are going home, the nearest way will be by the garden gate into
+Bishop's Lane. It is only a minute from there to Dean Street."
+
+"Why, that would be perfectly lovely. But where is the gate?"
+
+"I will show you." They walked together to the lower end of the lawn,
+where a long line of glass houses built against the high wall which
+separated the garden from the street called Bishop's Lane, sheltered
+the grapes and the pine-apples. At the end of this conservatory, in the
+wall, was a little door of thin but strong steel plates, concealed from
+sight by a row of pear trees. Farnham opened it, and said, "If you
+like, you can come in by this way. It is never locked in the daytime.
+It will save you a long walk."
+
+"Thanks," she replied. "That will be perfectly lovely."
+
+Her resources of expression were not copious, but her eyes and her
+mouth spoke volumes of joy and gratitude. Her hands were full of roses,
+and as she raised her beautiful face to him with pleasure flashing from
+her warm cheeks and lips and eyes, she seemed to exhale something of
+the vigorous life and impulse of the spring sunshine. Farnham felt that
+he had nothing to do but stoop and kiss the blooming flower-like face,
+and in her exalted condition she would have thought little more of it
+than a blush-rose thinks of the same treatment.
+
+But he refrained, and said "Good morning," because she seemed in no
+mood to say it first.
+
+"Good-by, for a day or two," she said, gayly, as she bent her head to
+pass under the low lintel of the gate.
+
+Farnham walked back to the house not at all satisfied with himself. "I
+wonder whether I have mended matters? She is certainly too pretty a
+girl to be running in and out of my front door in the sight of all the
+avenue. How much better will it be for her to use the private entrance,
+and come and go by a sort of stealth! But then she does not regard it
+that way. She is so ignorant of this wicked world that it seems to her
+merely a saving of ten minutes' walk around the block. Well! all there
+is of it, I must find a place for her before she domesticates herself
+here."
+
+The thought of what should be done with her remained persistently with
+him and kept him irritated by the vision of her provoking and useless
+beauty. "If she were a princess," he thought, "all the poets would be
+twanging their lyres about her, all the artists would be dying to paint
+her; she would have songs made to her, and sacred oratorios given under
+her patronage. She would preside at church fairs and open the dance at
+charity balls. If I could start her in life as a princess, the thing
+would go on wheels. But to earn her own living--that is a trade of
+another complexion. She has not breeding or education enough for a
+governess: she is not clever enough to write or paint; she is not
+steady enough, to keep accounts,--by the Great Jornada! I have a
+grievous contract on my hands."
+
+He heard the sound of hoofs outside his window, and, looking out, saw
+his groom holding a young brown horse by the bridle, the well-groomed
+coat of the animal shining in the warm sunlight. In a few moments
+Farnham was in the saddle and away. For awhile he left his perplexities
+behind, in the pleasure of rapid motion and fresh air. But he drew rein
+half an hour afterward at Acland Falls, and the care that had sat on
+the crupper came to the front again. "As a last resort," he said, "I
+can persuade her she has a voice, and send her to Italy, and keep her
+the rest of her life cultivating it in Milan."
+
+All unconscious of the anxiety she was occasioning, Maud walked home
+with her feet scarcely aware of the pavement. She felt happy through
+and through. There was little thought, and we may say little
+selfishness in the vague joy that filled her. The flowers she held in
+her hands recalled the faint odors she had inhaled in Farnham's house;
+they seemed to her a concrete idea of luxury. Her mind was crowded and
+warmed with every detail of her visit: the dim, wide hall; the white
+cravat of Budsey; the glimpse she caught of the dining-room through the
+open door; the shimmer of cut glass and porcelain; the rich softness of
+the carpets and rugs, the firelight dancing on the polished brass, the
+tender glow of light and repose of shadow on the painted walls and
+ceilings; the walk in the trim garden, amid the light and fragrance of
+the spring; the hot air of the rose-house, which held her close, and
+made her feel faint and flushed, like a warm embrace; and through all
+the ever-present image of the young man, with his pleasant,
+unembarrassed smile, the white teeth shining under the dark mustache;
+the eyes that seemed to see through her, and yet told her nothing; and
+more than all this to poor Maud, the perfect fit and fashion of his
+clothes, filled her with a joyous trouble. She could not dwell upon her
+plans for employment. She felt as if she had found her mission, her
+true trade,--which was to walk in gardens and smell hot-house roses.
+The perplexities which filled Farnham's head as to what he should do
+with her found no counterpart in hers. She had stopped thinking and
+planning; things were going very well with her as it was. She had lost
+the place she had wished and expected, and yet this was the pleasantest
+day of her life. Her responsibility seemed shifted to stronger hands.
+It had become Farnham's business to find something nice for her: this
+would be easy for him; he belonged to the class to whom everything is
+easy. She did not even trouble herself to think what it would be as she
+loitered home in the sunshine. She saw her father and informed him in a
+few words of her failure; then went to her room and sat down by her
+window, and looked for hours at the sparkling lake.
+
+She was called to supper in the midst of her reverie. She was just
+saying to herself, "If there was just one man and one woman in the
+world, and I had the picking out of the man and the woman, this world
+would suit me pretty well." She resented being called into other
+society than that of her idle thoughts, and sat silent through supper,
+trying to keep the thread of her fancies from breaking. But she was not
+allowed to go back undisturbed to her fool's paradise.
+
+Sleeny, who had scarcely removed his eyes from her during the meal,
+rose with a start as she walked into the little sitting-room of the
+family, and followed her. She went to the window with a novel to make
+use of the last moments of daylight. He stood before her without
+speaking, until she raised her eyes, and said sharply:
+
+"Well, Sam, what's the matter?"
+
+He was not quick either of thought or speech. He answered:
+
+"Oh! nothin'. Only----"
+
+"Only what?" she snapped.
+
+"Won't you go and take a walk by the Bluff?"
+
+She threw down her book at once. She liked exercise and fresh air, and
+always walked with pleasure by the lake. Sam was to her such a nullity
+that she enjoyed his company almost as much as being alone. She was
+ready in a moment, and a short walk brought them to the little open
+place reserved for public use, overlooking the great fresh-water sea.
+There were a few lines of shade trees and a few seats, and nothing
+more; yet the plantation was called Bluff Park, and it was much
+frequented on holidays and Sundays by nurses and their charges. It was
+in no sense a fashionable resort, or Maud would never have ventured
+there in company with her humble adorer. But among the jovial puddlers
+and brake-men that took the air there, it was well enough to have an
+escort so devoted and so muscular. So pretty a woman could scarcely
+have walked alone in Bluff Park without insulting approaches. Maud
+would hardly have nodded to Sleeny on Algonquin Avenue, for fear some
+millionaire might see it casually, and scorn them both. But on the
+Bluff she was safe from such accidents, and she sometimes even took his
+arm, and made him too happy to talk. They would walk together for an
+hour, he dumb with audacious hopes that paralyzed his speech, and she
+dreaming of things thousands of miles away.
+
+This evening he was even more than usually silent. Maud, after she had
+worn her reverie threadbare, noticed his speechlessness, and, fearing
+he was about to renew the subject which was so tiresome, suddenly
+stopped and said:
+
+"What a splendid sunset! Did you ever see anything like it?"
+
+"Yes," he said, with his gentle drawl. "Less set here, and look at it."
+
+He took his seat on one of the iron benches painted green, and
+decorated with castings of grapes and vine leaves. She sat down beside
+him and gazed out over the placid water, on which the crimson clouds
+cast a mellow glory. The sky seemed like another sea, stretching off
+into infinite distance, and strewn with continents of fiery splendor.
+Maud looked straight forward to the clear horizon line, marking the
+flight of ships whose white sails were dark against the warm brightness
+of the illumined water. But no woman ever looked so straight before her
+as not to observe the man beside her, and she knew, without moving her
+eyes from the spectacle of the sunset, that Sam was gazing fixedly at
+her, with pain and trouble in his face. At last, he said, in a timid,
+choking voice,
+
+"Mattie!"
+
+She did not turn her face, but answered:
+
+"If it ain't too much trouble, I'd like to have you call me Miss when
+we're alone. You'll be forgetting yourself, and calling me Mattie
+before other people, before you know it."
+
+"Hold on," he burst out. "Don't talk to me that way to-night--I can't
+stand it."
+
+She glanced at him in surprise. His face was pale and disordered; he
+was twisting his fingers as if he would break them.
+
+"Your temper seems to be on the move, Mr. Sleeny. We'd better go home,"
+she said quietly, drawing her shawl about her.
+
+"Don't go till I tell you something," he stammered hastily.
+
+"I have no curiosity to hear what you have to say," she said, rising
+from her seat.
+
+"It ain't what you think--it ain't about me!"
+
+Her curiosity awoke, and she sat down again. Sleeny sat twisting his
+fingers, growing pale and red by turns. At last, in a tremulous voice,
+he said:
+
+"_I_ was there to-day."
+
+She stared at him an instant and said:
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Oh, I was there, and I seen you. I was at work at the end of the
+greenhouse there by the gate when you come out of the rose-house. I was
+watchin' for you. I was on the lawn talkin' with the gardener when you
+went in the house. About an hour afterward I seen you comin' down the
+garden with him to the rose-house. If you had stayed there a minute
+more, I would ha' went in there. But out you come with your hands full
+o' roses, and him and you come to the gate. I stopped workin' and kep'
+still behind them pear trees, and I heard everything."
+
+He uttered each word slowly, like a judge delivering sentence. His face
+had grown very red and hot, and as he finished his indictment he drew a
+yellow handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his
+forehead, his chin, and the back of his neck.
+
+
+"Oh!" answered Maud, negligently, "you heard everything, did you? Well,
+you didn't hear much."
+
+"I tell you," he continued, with a sullen rage, "I heard every word. Do
+you hear me? I heard every word."
+
+The savage roughness of his voice made her tremble, but her spirits
+rose to meet his anger, and she laughed as she replied:
+
+"Well, you heard 'Thank you, sir,' and 'Good-morning.' It wasn't much,
+unless you took it as a lesson in manners, and goodness knows you need
+it."
+
+"Now, look'ye here. It's no use foolin' with me. You know what I heard.
+If you don't, I'll tell you!"
+
+"Very well, Mr. Paul Pry, what was it?" said the angry girl, who had
+quite forgotten that any words were spoken at the gate.
+
+"I heard him tell you you could come in any time the back way," Sam
+hoarsely whispered, watching her face with eyes of fire. She turned
+crimson as the sunset she was gazing at, and she felt as if she could
+have torn her cheeks with her fingernails for blushing. She was aware
+of having done nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of. She had been
+all day cherishing the recollection of her visit to Farnham as
+something too pleasant and delicate to talk about. No evil thought had
+mingled with it in her own mind. She had hardly looked beyond the mere
+pleasure of the day. She had not given a name or a form to the hopes
+and fancies that were fluttering at her heart. And now to have this
+sweet and secret pleasure handled and mauled by such a one as Sam
+Sleeny filled her with a speechless shame. Even yet she hardly
+comprehended the full extent of his insinuation. He did not leave her
+long in doubt. Taking her silence and her confusion as an
+acknowledgment, he went on, in the same low, savage tone:
+
+"I had my hammer in my hand. I looked through the pear trees to see if
+he kissed you. If he had 'a' done it, I would have killed him as sure
+as death."
+
+At this brutal speech she turned pale a moment, as if suddenly struck a
+stunning blow. Then she cried out:
+
+"Hold your vile tongue, you----"
+
+But she felt her voice faltering and the tears of rage gushing from her
+eyes. She buried her face in her hands and sat a little while in
+silence, while Sam was dumb beside her, feeling like an awkward
+murderer. She was not so overcome that she did not think very rapidly
+during this moment's pause. If she could have slain the poor fellow on
+the spot, she would not have scrupled to do so; but she required only
+an instant to reflect that she had better appease him for the present,
+and reserve her vengeance for a more convenient season.
+
+She dried her eyes and turned them on him with an air of gentle, almost
+forgiving reproach.
+
+"Sam! I could not have believed you had such a bad, wicked heart. I
+thought you knew me better. I won't make myself so cheap as to explain
+all that to you. But I'll ask yon to do one thing for me. When we go
+home this evening, if you see my father alone, you tell him what you
+saw--and if you've got any shame in you you'll be ashamed of yourself."
+
+He had been irritated by her anger, but he was completely abashed by
+the coolness and gentleness which followed her burst of tears. He was
+sorely confused and bewildered by her command, but did not dream of
+anything but obeying it, and as they walked silently home, he was all
+the time wondering what mysterious motive she could have in wishing him
+to denounce her to her father. They found Saul Matchin sitting by the
+door, smoking a cob-pipe. Maud went in and Sam seated himself beside
+the old man.
+
+"How'd you get along at Farnham's?" said Saul.
+
+Sam started, as if "the boss" had read his uneasy conscience. But he
+answered in his drawling monotone:
+
+"All right, I guess. That doggoned Scotchman thinks he knows it all;
+but it'll take nigh on to a week to do what I could ha' done in a day
+or two, if I worked my way."
+
+"Well," said Saul, "that ain't none o' your lookout. Do what Scotchee
+tells you, and I'll keep the time on 'em. We kin stand it, ef they
+kin," and the old carpenter laughed with the foolish pleasure of a
+small mind aware of an advantage. "Ef Art. Farnham wants to keep a
+high-steppin' Scotchman to run his flowers, may be he kin afford it. I
+ain't his gardeen."
+
+Now was Sleeny's chance to make his disclosure; but his voice trembled
+in spite of him, as he said:
+
+"I seen Mattie up there."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, tranquilly. "She went up to see about a place
+in the library. He said there wasn't none, but he'd try to think o'
+somethin' else that 'ud suit her. He was mighty polite to Mat--give her
+some roses, and telled her to run in and out when she liked, till he
+got somethin' fixed. Fact is, Mat is a first-rate scholar, and takes
+with them high-steppers, like fallin' off a log." Saul had begun to
+feel a certain pride in his daughter's accomplishments which had so
+long been an affliction to him. The moment he saw a possibility of a
+money return, he even began to plume himself upon his liberality and
+sagacity in having educated her. "I've spared nothin'--Sam--in giving
+her a----" he searched an instant for a suitable adjective, "a
+commodious education." The phrase pleased him so well that he smoked
+for awhile contemplatively, so as not to mar the effect of his point.
+
+Sam had listened with, a whirling brain to the old man's quiet story,
+which anticipated his own in every point. He could not tell whether he
+felt more relieved or disquieted by it. It all seemed clear and
+innocent enough; but he felt, with a sinking heart, that his own hopes
+were fading fast, in the flourishing prospects of his beloved. He hated
+Farnham not less in his attitude of friendly protection than in that
+which he had falsely attributed to him. His jealousy, deprived of its
+specific occasion, nourished itself on vague and torturing
+possibilities. He could not trust himself to talk further with Matchin,
+but went away with a growing fire in his breast. He hated himself for
+having prematurely spoken. He hated Maud for the beauty that she would
+not give him, and which, he feared, she was ready to give to another.
+He hated Saul, for his stolid ignorance of his daughter's danger. He
+hated most of all Farnham, for his handsome face, his easy smile, his
+shapely hands, his fine clothes, his unknown and occult gifts of
+pleasing.
+
+"'Tain't in natur," he growled. "She's the prettiest woman in the
+world. If he's got eyes, he knows it. But I spoke first, and he shan't
+have her, if I die for it."
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+A PROFESSIONAL REFORMER.
+
+
+Sleeny walked moodily down the street, engaged in that self-torture
+which is the chief recreation of unhappy lovers. He steeped his heart
+in gall by imagining Maud in love with another. His passion stimulated
+his slow wits into unwonted action, until his mind began to form
+exasperating pictures of intimacies which drove him half mad. His face
+grew pale, and his fists were tightly clinched as he walked. He hardly
+saw the familiar street before him; he had a far clearer vision of Maud
+and Farnham by the garden gate: her beautiful face was turned up to the
+young man's with the winning sweetness of a flower, and Sam's irritated
+fancy supplied the kisses he had watched for in the shadow of the
+pear-trees. "I 'most wish't he'd 'a' done it," he growled to himself.
+"I had my hammer in my hand, and I could 'a' finished him then and had
+no more bother."
+
+He felt a hand on his shoulder, and, turning, saw a face grinning a
+friendly recognition. It was a face whose whole expression was
+oleaginous. It was surmounted by a low and shining forehead covered by
+reeking black hair, worn rather long, the ends being turned under by
+the brush. The mustache was long and drooping, dyed black and profusely
+oiled, the dye and the grease forming an inharmonious compound. The
+parted lips, which were coarse and thin, displayed an imperfect set of
+teeth, much discolored with tobacco. The eyes were light green, with
+the space which should have been white suffused with yellow and red. It
+was one of those gifted countenances which could change in a moment
+from a dog-like fawning to a snaky venomousness.
+
+The man wore a black hat of soft felt; his clothes were black and
+glistening with use and grease. He was of medium height, not especially
+stout, but still strong and well knit; he moved too briskly for a
+tramp, and his eyes were too sly and furtive to belong to an honest
+man.
+
+"Well, Samivel!" he began, with a jolly facetiousness, "what's your
+noble game this evenin'? You look like you was down on your luck. Is
+the fair one unkind?"
+
+Sam turned upon him with an angry gesture.
+
+"Hold your jaw, or I'll break it for you! Ever since I was fool enough
+to mention that thing to you, you've been cacklin' about it. I've had
+enough of it."
+
+"Go slow, Quaker!" the man rejoined. "If you can't take a joke, I'll
+stop jokin'--that settles it. Come along and get a glass of beer, and
+you'll feel better."
+
+They soon came to a garden near the lake, and sat down by a little
+table at their beer. The consumers were few and silent. The garden was
+dimly lighted, for the spring came slowly up that way, and the air was
+not yet conducive to out-door idling. The greasy young man laid a dirty
+hand on the arm of Sleeny, and said:
+
+"Honor bright, now, old fellow, I didn't mean to rough, you when I said
+that. I don't want to hurt your feelings or lose your confidence. I
+want you to tell me how you are gettin' along. You ain't got no better
+friend than me nowhere."
+
+"Oh," said Sam, sulkily, "I got nothin' to say. She don't no more care
+for me than that there mug."
+
+The expression that came over his friend's face at these discouraged
+words was not one of sympathetic sorrow. But he put some sympathy into
+his voice as he said:
+
+"Jest think of that! Such a fine young fellow as you are, too. Where
+can her eyes be? And I seen you walking this evenin' by the lake just
+like two robins. And yet you don't get ahead any!"
+
+"Not a step," said Sam.
+
+"Anybody in your light, you think? Hullo there, Dutchy, swei glass. Any
+other fellow takin' your wind?" and his furtive eyes darted a keen
+interrogation. Sam did not answer at once, and his friend went on:
+"Why, she don't hardly know anybody but me and you, and, he-he! I
+wouldn't stand no chance at all against you--hum?"
+
+"Of course you wouldn't," said Sam, with slow contempt, which brought
+the muddy blood into the sallow cheek in front of him. "She wouldn't
+look at you. I'm not afraid of no man, Andy Offitt,--I'm afraid of
+money."
+
+He flattered his jealous heart by these words. It was too intolerable
+to think that any mere man should take his sweetheart away from him;
+and though he felt how hopeless was any comparison between himself and
+Farnham, he tried to soothe himself by the lie that they were equal in
+all but money.
+
+His words startled his friend Offitt. He exclaimed, "Why, who does she
+know that's got money?"
+
+But Sleeny felt a momentary revolt against delivering to even his
+closest confidant the name of the woman he loved coupled with the
+degrading suspicions by which he had been tormented all day. He gruffly
+answered: "That's none of your business; you can't help me in this
+thing, and I ain't agoin' to chin about it any more."
+
+They sat for awhile in silence, drank their beer, and ordered more.
+Offitt at last spoke again:
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged if you ain't the best grit of any fellow I know.
+If you don't want to talk, a team of Morgan horses couldn't make you. I
+like a man that can hold his tongue."
+
+"Then I'm your huckleberry," said Sleeny, whose vanity was soothed by
+the compliment.
+
+"That's so," said Offitt, with an admiring smile. "If I wanted a secret
+kept, I'd know where to come." Then changing his manner and tone to an
+expression of profound solemnity, and glancing about to guard against
+surprise, he said: "My dear boy, I've wanted to talk to you a long
+time,--to talk serious. You're not one of the common kind of cattle
+that think of nothin' but their fodder and stall--are you?"
+
+Now, Sam was precisely of the breed described by his friend, but what
+man ever lived who knew he was altogether ordinary? He grinned uneasily
+and answered:
+
+"I guess not."
+
+"Exactly!" said Offitt. "There are some of us laboring men that don't
+propose to go on all our lives working our fingers off to please a lot
+of vampires; we propose to have a little fairer divide than heretofore;
+and if there is any advantage to be gained, we propose to have it on
+the side of the men who do the work. What do you think of that?"
+
+"That's all solid," said Sleeny, who was indifferently interested in
+these abstractions. "But what you goin' to do about it?"
+
+"Do!" cried Offitt. "We are goin' to make war on capital. We are goin'
+to scare the blood-suckers into terms. We are goin' to get our rights--
+peaceably, if we can't get them any other way. We are goin' to prove
+that a man is better than a moneybag." He rattled off these words as a
+listless child says its alphabet without thinking of a letter. But he
+was closely watching Sam to see if any of these stereotyped phrases
+attracted his attention. Sleeny smoked his cigar with the air of polite
+fatigue with which one listens to abstract statements of moral
+obligations.
+
+"What are we, anyhow?" continued the greasy apostle of labor. "We are
+slaves; we are Roosian scurfs. We work as many hours as our owners
+like; we take what pay they choose to give us; we ask their permission
+to live and breathe."
+
+"Oh, that's a lie!" Sleeny interrupted, with unbroken calmness. "Old
+Saul Matchin and me come to an agreement about time and pay, and both
+of us was suited. Ef he's got his heel onto me, I don't feel it"
+
+Offitt darted a glance of scorn upon the ignoble soul who was content
+with his bondage; but the mention of Matchin reminded him that he had a
+final shot in reserve, and he let it off at once.
+
+"Yes, Saul Matchin is a laborin' man himself; but look at his daughter.
+She would die before she would marry a workman. Why?" and his green
+eyes darted livid fire as they looked into the troubled ones of Sleeny.
+
+"Well, why?" he asked, slowly.
+
+"Because she loves money more than manhood. Because she puts up her
+beauty for a higher bidder than any------"
+
+"Now, shet up, will you?" cried Sam, thoroughly aroused. "I won't set
+here and hear her abused by you or any other man. What business is it
+of yours, anyway?"
+
+Offitt felt that his shot had gone home, and pursued his advantage.
+
+"It's my business, Sam, because I'm your friend; because I hate to see
+a good fellow wronged; because I know that a man is better than a
+moneybag. Why, that girl would marry you in a minute if you was rich.
+But because you're not she will strike for one of them rose-water snobs
+on Algonquin Avenue." Sam writhed, and his wheedling tormentor
+continued, watching him like a ferret. "Perhaps she has struck for one
+of them already--perhaps--oh, I can't say what may have happened. I
+hate the world when I see such doin's. I hate the heartless shams that
+give labor and shame to the toilers and beauty and luxury to the
+drones. Who is the best man," he asked, with honest frankness, "you, or
+some high-steppin' snob whose daddy has left him the means to be a
+loafer all his days? And who would the prettiest girl in Buffland
+prefer, you or the loafer? And you intend to let Mr. Loafer have it all
+his own way?"
+
+"No, I don't!" Sam roared, like a baited bull. "Ef any man crosses my
+path, he can find out which is the best man."
+
+"There, that's more like you. But what can you do alone? That's where
+they get us foul. The erristocrats, the money power, all hang together.
+The laborin' men fight singly, and alwuz get whipped. Now, we are goin'
+to change that. We are goin' to organize. Look here, Sam, I am riskin'
+my head in tellin' you this--but I trust you, and I like you, and I'll
+tell you. We _have_ organized. We've got a society in this town pledged
+to the cause of honest labor and against capital--for life or death. We
+want you. We want men of sand and men of sense, and you've got both.
+You must join."
+
+Sam Sleeny was by this time pretty well filled with beer and wrath. He
+felt himself in a certain sense bound by the weighty secret which
+Offitt had imparted to him and flattered by his invitation. A few
+touches more of adroit flattery, and the agitator's victory was
+complete. Sleeny felt sore and tired to the very heart. He had behaved
+like a brute to the girl he loved; he had been put clearly in the wrong
+in his quarrel with her, and yet he was certain that all was not well
+with either of them. The tormenting syllogism ran continually through
+his head: "She is the prettiest woman in the world--rich fellows like
+pretty women,--therefore--death and curses on him!" Or sometimes the
+form of it would change to this: "He is rich and handsome--girls like
+men who are rich and handsome,--therefore------," the same rage and
+imprecations, and the same sense of powerless fury. He knew and cared
+nothing about Offitt's Labor Reform. He could earn a good living by his
+trade no matter who went to Congress, and he hated these "chinny
+bummers," as he called them, who talked about "State help and
+self-help" over their beer. But to-night he was tormented and badgered
+to such a point that he was ready for anything which his tempter might
+suggest. The words of Offitt, alternately wheedling and excoriating,
+had turned his foolish head. His hatred of Farnham was easily extended
+to the class to which he belonged, and even to the money which made him
+formidable.
+
+He walked away from the garden with Offitt, and turned down a filthy
+alley to a squalid tenement house,--called by its proprietor Perry
+Place, and by the neighbors Rook's Ranch,--to the lodge-room of the
+Brotherhood of Bread-winners, which proved to be Offitt's lodging. They
+found there a half dozen men lounging about the entrance, who scowled
+and swore at Offitt for being late, and then followed him sulkily up
+two flights of ill-smelling stairs to his room. He turned away their
+wrath by soft answers, and hastily lighting a pair of coal-oil lamps,
+which gave forth odor more liberally than illumination, said briskly:
+
+"Gentlemen, I have brought you a recruit this evenin' that you will all
+be glad to welcome to our brotherhood."
+
+The brothers, who had taken seats where they could find them, on a
+dirty bed, a wooden trunk, and two or three chairs of doubtful
+integrity, grunted a questionable welcome to the new-comer. As he
+looked about him, he was not particularly proud of the company in which
+he found himself. The faces he recognized were those of the laziest and
+most incapable workmen in the town--men whose weekly wages were
+habitually docked for drunkenness, late hours, and botchy work. As the
+room gradually filled, it seemed like a roll-call of shirks. Among them
+came also a spiritual medium named Bott, as yet imperfectly developed,
+whose efforts at making a living by dark seances too frequently
+resulted in the laughter of skeptics and the confusion of his friends.
+His forehead and cheek were even then purple with an aniline dye, which
+some cold-blooded investigator had squirted in his face a few nights
+before while he was gliding through a twilight room impersonating the
+troubled shade of Pocahontas. This occurrence gave, for the moment, a
+peculiarly sanguinary and sinister character to his features, and
+filled his heart with a thirst for vengeance against an unbelieving
+world.
+
+After the meeting had been called to order, and Sam had taken an oath
+of a hot and lurid nature, in which he renounced a good many things he
+had never possessed, and promised to do a lot of things of which he had
+no idea, Mr. Offitt asked "if any brother had anything to offer for the
+good of the order." This called Mr. Bott to his feet, and he made a
+speech, on which he had been brooding all day, against the pride of
+so-called science, the arrogance of unrighteous wealth, and the
+grovelling superstition of Christianity. The light of the kerosene lamp
+shone full on the decorated side of his visage, and touched it to a
+ferocious purpose. But the brotherhood soon wearied of his oratory, in
+which the blasphemy of thought and phrase was strangely contrasted with
+the ecclesiastical whine which he had caught from the exhorters who
+were the terror of his youth. The brothers began to guy him without
+mercy. They requested him to "cheese it"; they assisted him with
+uncalled-for and inappropriate applause, and one of the party got
+behind him and went through the motion of turning a hurdy-gurdy. But
+he persevered. He had joined the club to practise public speaking, and
+he got a good half hour out of the brothers before they coughed him
+down.
+
+When he had brought his speech to a close, and sat down to wipe his
+streaming face, a brother rose and said, in a harsh, rasping voice, "I
+want to ask a question."
+
+"That's in order, Brother Bowersox," said Offitt.
+
+The man was a powerful fellow, six feet high. His head was not large,
+but it was as round as an apple, with heavy cheek-bones, little eyes,
+close-cut hair, and a mustache like the bristles of a blacking-brush.
+He had been a driver on a streetcar, but had recently been dismissed
+for insolence to passengers and brutality to his horses.
+
+"What I want to ask is this: I want to know if we have joined this
+order to listen to chin-music the rest of our lives, or to do
+somethin'. There is some kind of men that kin talk tell day of
+jedgment, lettin' Gabrel toot and then beginnin' ag'in. I ain't that
+kind; I j'ined to do somethin';--what's to be done?"
+
+He sat down with his hand on his hip, squarely facing the luckless
+Bott, whose face grew as purple as the illuminated side of it. But he
+opened not his mouth. Offitt answered the question:
+
+"I would state," he said glibly, "the objects we propose to accomplish:
+the downfall of the money power, the rehabitation of labor, the----"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Bowersox interrupted, "I know all about that,--but what are
+we goin' to _do?_"
+
+Offitt paled a little, but did not flinch at the savage tone of the
+surly brute. He began again in his smoothest manner:
+
+"I am of the opinion that the discussion of sound principles, such as
+we have listened to to-night, is among the objects of our order. After
+that, organization for mutual profit and protection against the minions
+of the money power,--for makin' our influence felt in elections,--for
+extendin' a helpin' hand to honest toil,--for rousin' our bretheren
+from their lethargy, which, like a leaden pall----"
+
+"I want to know," growled Bowersox, with sullen obstinacy, "what's to
+be done."
+
+"Put your views in the form of a motion, that they may be properly
+considered by the meetin'," said the imperturbable president.
+
+"Well, I motion that we stop talkin' and commence doin'----"
+
+"Do you suggest that a committee be appointed for that purpose?"
+
+"Yes, anything." And the chairman appointed Bowersox, Bott, and Folgum
+such a committee.
+
+All breathed more freely and felt as if something practical and
+energetic had been accomplished. The committee would, of course, never
+meet nor report, but the colloquy and the prompt action taken upon it
+made every one feel that the evening had been interesting and
+profitable. Before they broke up, Sleeny was asked for his initiation
+fee of two dollars, and all the brethren were dunned for their monthly
+dues.
+
+"What becomes of this money?" the neophyte bluntly inquired of the
+hierophant.
+
+"It pays room rent and lights," said Offitt, with unabashed front, as
+he returned his greasy wallet to his pocket. "The rest goes for
+propagatin' our ideas, and especially for influencin' the press."
+
+Sleeny was a dull man, but he made up his mind on the way home that the
+question which had so long puzzled him--how Offitt made his living--was
+partly solved.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+TWO MEN SHAKE HANDS.
+
+
+Sleeny, though a Bread-winner in full standing, was not yet
+sufficiently impressed with the wrongs of labor to throw down his
+hammer and saw. He continued his work upon Farnham's conservatory,
+under the direction of Fergus Ferguson, the gardener, with the same
+instinctive fidelity which had always characterized him. He had his
+intervals of right feeling and common sense, when he reflected that
+Farnham had done him no wrong, and probably intended no wrong to Maud,
+and that he was not answerable for the ill luck that met him in his
+wooing, for Maud had refused him before she ever saw Farnham. But, once
+in a while, and especially when he was in company with Offitt, an
+access of jealous fury would come upon him, which found vent in
+imprecations which were none the less fervid for being slowly and
+haltingly uttered. The dark-skinned, unwholesome-looking Bread-winner
+found a singular delight in tormenting the powerful young fellow. He
+felt a spontaneous hatred for him, for many reasons. His shapely build,
+his curly blond hair and beard, his frank blue eye, first attracted his
+envious notice; his steady, contented industry excited in him a desire
+to pervert a workman whose daily life was a practical argument against
+the doctrines of socialism, by which Offitt made a part of his
+precarious living; and after he had met Maud Matchin and had felt, as
+such natures will, the force of her beauty, his instinctive hate became
+an active, though secret, hostility. She had come one evening with
+Sleeny to a spiritualist conference frequented by Offitt, and he had at
+once inferred that Sleeny and she were either engaged to be married or
+on the straight road toward it. It would be a profanation of the word
+to say that he loved her at first sight. But his scoundrel heart was
+completely captivated so far as was possible to a man of his sort. He
+was filled and fired with a keen cupidity of desire to possess and own
+such beauty and grace. He railed against marriage, as he did against
+religion and order, as an invention of priests and tyrants to enslave
+and degrade mankind; but he would gladly have gone to any altar
+whatever in company with Maud Matchin. He could hardly have said
+whether he loved or hated her the more. He loved her much as the hunter
+loves the fox he is chasing to its death. He wanted to destroy anything
+which kept her away from him: her lover, if she had one; her pride, her
+modesty, her honor, if she were fancy-free. Aware of Sleeny's good
+looks, if not of his own ugliness, he hated them both for the
+comeliness that seemed to make them natural mates for each other. But
+it was not in his methods to proceed rashly with either. He treated
+Maud with distant respect, and increased his intimacy with Sleeny until
+he found, to his delight, that he was not the prosperous lover that he
+feared. But he still had apprehensions that Sleeny's assiduity might at
+last prevail, and lost no opportunity to tighten the relations between
+them, to poison and pervert the man who was still a possible rival. By
+remaining his most intimate friend, he could best be informed of all
+that occurred in the Matchin family.
+
+One evening, as Sam was about leaving his work, Fergus Ferguson said:
+
+"You'll not come here the morn. You're wanted till the house--a bit o'
+work in the library. They'll be tellin' you there."
+
+This was faithfully reported by Sam to his confessor that same night.
+
+"Well, you are in luck. I wish I had your chance," said Offitt.
+
+Sam opened his blue eyes in mute wonder.
+
+"Well, what's the chance, and what would you do with it, ef you had
+it?"
+
+Offitt hesitated a moment before replying.
+
+"Oh, I was just a jokin'. I meant it was such an honor for common folks
+like us to git inside of the palace of a high-toned cuss like Farnham;
+and the fact is, Sammy," he continued, more seriously, "I _would_ like
+to see the inside of some of these swell places. I am a student of
+human nature, you know, in its various forms. I consider the lab'rin'
+man as the normal healthy human--that is, if he don't work too hard. I
+consider wealth as a kind of disease; wealth and erristocracy is a kind
+of dropsy. Now, the true reformer is like a doctor,--he wants to know
+all about diseases, by sight and handlin'! I would like to study the
+symptoms of erristocracy in Farnham's house--right in the wards of the
+hospital."
+
+"Well, that beats me," said Sam. "I've been in a lot of fine houses on
+Algonquin Avenue, and I never seen anything yet that favored a
+hospital."
+
+This dense stupidity was almost more than Offitt could bear. But a
+ready lie came to his aid.
+
+"Looky here!" he continued, "I'll tell you a secret. I'm writin' a
+story for the 'Irish Harp,' and I want to describe the residence of
+jess such a vampire as this here Farnham. Now, writin', as I do, in the
+cause of humanity, I naturally want to git my facts pretty near right.
+You kin help me in this. I'll call to-morrow to see you while you're
+there, and I'll get some p'ints that'll make Rome howl when they come
+out."
+
+Sam was hardly educated up to the point his friend imagined. His zeal
+for humanity and the "rehabitation" of labor was not so great as to
+make him think it a fine thing to be a spy and a sneak in the houses of
+his employers. He was embarrassed by the suggestion, and made no reply,
+but sat smoking his pipe in silence. He had not the diplomatist's art
+of putting a question by with a smile. Offitt had tact enough to
+forbear insisting upon a reply.
+
+He was, in fact, possessed of very considerable natural aptitude for
+political life. He had a quick smile and a ready tongue; he liked to
+talk and shake hands; he never had an opinion he was not willing to
+sell; he was always prepared to sacrifice a friend, if required, and to
+ask favors from his worst enemies. He called himself Andrew Jackson
+Offitt--a name which, in the West, is an unconscious brand. It
+generally shows that the person bearing it is the son of illiterate
+parents, with no family pride or affections, but filled with a bitter
+and savage partisanship which found its expression in a servile worship
+of the most injurious personality in American history. But Offitt's
+real name was worse than Andrew Jackson--it was Ananias, and it was
+bestowed in this way: When he was about six years old, his father, a
+small farmer in Indiana, who had been a sodden, swearing, fighting
+drunkard, became converted by a combined attack of delirium tremens and
+camp-meeting, and resolved to join the church, he and his household.
+The morning they were going to the town of Salem for that purpose, he
+discovered that his pocket had been picked, and the money it contained
+was found on due perquisition in the blue jeans trousers of his son
+Andrew Jackson. The boy, on being caught, was so nimble and fertile in
+his lies that the father, in a gust of rage, declared that he was not
+worthy the name of the great President, but that he should be called
+Ananias; and he was accordingly christened Ananias that morning in the
+meeting-house at Salem. As long as the old man lived, he called him by
+that dreadful name; but when a final attack of the trembling madness
+had borne him away from earth, the widow called the boy Andrew again,
+whenever she felt careless about her spiritual condition, and the youth
+behaved himself, but used the name of Sapphira's husband when the lad
+vexed her, or the obligations of the christening came strongly back to
+her superstitious mind. The two names became equally familiar to young
+Offitt, and always afterward he was liable to lapses of memory when
+called on suddenly to give his prenomen; and he frequently caused
+hateful merriment among his associates by signing himself Ananias.
+
+When Sam presented himself at Captain Farnham's house the next morning,
+he was admitted by Budsey, who took him to the library and showed him
+the work he was to do. The heat of the room had shrunk the wood of the
+heavy doors of carved oak so that the locks were all out of position.
+Farnham was seated by his desk, reading and writing letters. He did not
+look up as Sam entered, and paid no attention to the instructions
+Budsey was giving him. For the first time in his life, Sleeny found
+that this neglect of his presence was vaguely offensive to him. A week
+before, he would no more have thought of speaking to Farnham, or being
+spoken to by him, than of entering into conversation with one of the
+busts on the book-cases. Even now he had no desire to talk with the
+proprietor of the house. He had come there to do certain work which he
+was capable of doing well, and he preferred to do it and not be
+bothered by irrelevant gossip. But, in spite of himself, he felt a
+rising of revolt in his heart, as he laid out his tools, against the
+quiet gentleman who sat with his back to him, engaged in his own work
+and apparently unconscious of Sleeny's presence. A week before, they
+had been nothing to each other, but now a woman had come between them,
+and there is no such powerful conductor in nature. The quiet in which
+Farnham sat seemed full of insolent triumph to the luckless lover, and
+scraps of Offitt's sounding nonsense went through his mind: "A man is
+more than a money-bag"; "the laborer is the true gentleman"; but they
+did not give him much comfort. Not until he became interested in his
+work did he recover the even beat of his pulse and the genuine
+workmanlike play of his faculties. Then he forgot Farnham's presence in
+his turn, and enjoyed himself in a rational way with his files and
+chisels and screwdrivers.
+
+He had been at work for an hour at one door, and had finished it to his
+satisfaction, and sat down before another, when he heard the bell ring,
+and Budsey immediately afterward ushered a lady through the hall and
+into the drawing-room. His heart stood still at the rustle of the
+dress,--it sounded so like Maud's; he looked over his shoulder through
+the open door of the library and saw, to his great relief, that there
+were two female figures taking their seats in the softly lighted room
+beyond. One sat with her back to the light, and her features were not
+distinctly visible; the other was where he could see three-quarters of
+her face clearly relieved against the tapestry portiere. There is a
+kind of beauty which makes glad every human heart that gazes on it, if
+not utterly corrupt and vile, and it was such a face as this that Sam
+Sleeny now looked at with a heart that grew happier as he gazed. It was
+a morning face, full of the calm joy of the dawn, of the sweet dreams
+of youth untroubled by love, the face of Aurora before she met
+Tithonus. From the little curls of gold on the low brow to the smile
+that hovered forever, half formed, on the softly curving lips and over
+the rounded chin, there was a light of sweetness, and goodness, and
+beauty, to be read of all men, and perhaps in God's good time to be
+worshipped by one.
+
+Budsey announced "Mrs. Belding and Miss Halice," and Farnham hastened
+to greet them.
+
+If Sam Sleeny had few happy hours to enjoy, he could at least boast
+himself that one was beginning now. The lovely face bore to his heart
+not only the blessing of its own beauty, but also a new and infinitely
+consoling thought. He had imagined till this moment, in all
+seriousness, that Maud Matchin was the prettiest woman in the world,
+and that therefore all men who saw her were his rivals, the chief of
+whom was Farnham. But now he reflected, with a joyful surprise, that in
+this world of rich people there were others equally beautiful, and that
+here, under Farnham's roof, on terms of familiar acquaintance with him,
+was a girl as faultless as an angel,--one of his own kind. "Why, of
+course," he said to himself, with a candid and happy self-contempt,
+"that's _his_ girl--you dunderheaded fool--what are you botherin'
+about?"
+
+He took a delight which he could not express in listening to the
+conversation of these friends and neighbors. The ladies had come over,
+in pursuance of an invitation of Farnham's, to see the additions which
+had recently arrived from Europe to his collection of bronzes and
+pottery, and some little pictures he had bought at the English
+water-color exhibition. As they walked about the rooms, expressing their
+admiration of the profusion of pretty things which filled the cabinets
+and encumbered the tables, in words equally pretty and profuse, Sleeny
+listened to their voices as if it were music played to cheer him at his
+work. He knew nothing of the things they were talking about, but their
+tones were gentle and playful; the young lady's voice was especially
+sweet and friendly. He had never heard such voices before; they are
+exceptional everywhere in America, and particularly in our lake
+country, where the late springs develop fine high sopranos, but leave
+much to be desired in the talking tones of women. Alice Belding had
+been taught to use her fine voice as it deserved and Cordelia's
+intonations could not have been more "soft, gentle, and low,--an
+excellent thing in woman."
+
+After awhile, the voices came nearer, and he heard Farnham say:
+
+"Come in here a moment, please, and see my new netsukes; I got them at
+a funny little shop in Ostend. It was on a Sunday afternoon, and the
+man of the house was keeping the shop, and I should have got a great
+bargain out of him, but his wife came in before we were through, and
+scolded him for an imbecile and sent him into the back room to tend the
+baby, and made me pay twice what he had asked for my little monsters."
+
+By this time they were all in the library, and the young lady was
+laughing, not loudly, but musically, and Mrs. Belding was saying:
+
+"Served you right for shopping on Sunday. But they are adorable little
+images, for all that."
+
+"Yes," said Farnham, "so the woman told me, and she added that they
+were authentic of the twelfth century. I asked her if she could not
+throw off a century or two in consideration of the hard, times, and she
+laughed, and said I blagued, and honestly she didn't know how old they
+were, but it was _drole, tout de meme, qu'on put adorer un petit bon
+Dieu d'une laideur pareille._"
+
+"Really, I don't see how they can do it," said Mrs. Belden, solemnly;
+at which both the others laughed, and Miss Alice said, "Why, mamma, you
+have just called them adorable yourself."
+
+They went about the room, admiring, and touching, and wondering, with
+the dainty grace of ladies accustomed to rare and beautiful things,
+until the novelties were exhausted and they turned to go. But Budsey at
+that moment announced luncheon, and they yielded to Farnham's eager
+importunity, and remained to share his repast.
+
+They went to the dining-room, leaving Sleeny more than content. He
+still heard their voices, too distant to distinguish words; but he
+pleased himself by believing that there was a tender understanding in
+the tones of Farnham and Miss Belding when they addressed each other,
+and that it was altogether a family party. He had no longer any feeling
+of slight or neglect because none of them seemed aware of his presence
+while they were in the room with him. There was, on the contrary, a
+sort of comfort in the thought that he belonged to a different world
+from them; that he and Maud were shut out--shut out together--from the
+society and the interests which claimed the Beldings and the Farnhams.
+"You was a dunderheaded fool," he said, cheerfully apostrophizing
+himself again, "to think everybody was crazy after your girl."
+
+He was brought down to a lower level by hearing the door open, and the
+voice of Offitt asking if Mr. Sleeny was in.
+
+"No one of that name here," said Budsey.
+
+"I was told at Matchin's he was here."
+
+"Oh! the yonng man from Matchin's. He is in the library," and Offitt
+came in, looking more disreputable than usual, as he had greased his
+hair inordinately for the occasion. Budsey evidently regarded him with
+no favorable eye; he said to Sleeny, "This person says he comes from
+Matchin's; do you know him?"
+
+"Yes, it's all right," said Sam, who could say nothing less; but when
+Budsey had left them, he turned to Offitt with anything but welcome in
+his eye.
+
+"Well, you've come, after all."
+
+"Yes," Offitt answered, with an uneasy laugh. "Curiosity gets us all,
+from Eve down. What a lay-out this is, anyhow," and his small eyes
+darted rapidly around the room. "Say, Sam, you know Christy Fore, that
+hauls for the Safe Company? He was telling me about the safe he put
+into this room--said nobody'd ever guess it _was_ a safe. Where the
+devil is it?"
+
+"I don't know. It's none of my business, nor yours either."
+
+"I guess you got up wrong foot foremost, Sam, you're so cranky. Where
+can the ---- thing be? Three doors and two winders and a fire-place,
+and all the rest book-cases. By Jinx! there it is, I'll swear." He
+stepped over to one of the cases where a pair of oaken doors, rich with
+arabesque carving, veiled a sort of cabinet. He was fingering at them
+when Sam seized him by the shoulder, and said:
+
+"Look here, Andy, what _is_ your game, anyhow? I'm here on business,
+and I ain't no fence, and I'll just trouble you to leave."
+
+Offitt's face turned livid. He growled:
+
+"Of all Andylusian jacks, you're the beat. I ain't agoin' to hurt you
+nor your friend Farnham. I've got all the p'ints I want for my story,
+and devilish little thanks to you, neither. And say, tell me, ain't
+there a back way out? I don't want to go by the dinin'-room door.
+There's ladies there, and I ain't dressed to see company. Why, yes,
+this fits me like my sins," and he opened the French window, and
+stepped lightly to the gravel walk below, and was gone.
+
+Sleeny resumed his work, ill content with himself and his friend. "Andy
+is a smart fellow," he thought; "but he had no right to come snoopin'
+around where I was at work, jist to get points to worry Mr. Farnham
+with."
+
+The little party in the drawing-room was breaking up. He heard their
+pleasant last words, as the ladies resumed their wraps and Farnham
+accompanied them to the door. Mrs. Belding asked him to dinner, "with
+nobody but ourselves," and he accepted with a pleased eagerness. Sleeny
+got one more glimpse of the beautiful face under the gray hat and
+feather, and blessed it as it vanished out of the door. As Farnham came
+back to the library, he stood for a moment by Sam, and examined what he
+had done.
+
+"That's a good job. I like your work on the green-house, too. I know
+good work when I see it. I worked one winter as a boss carpenter
+myself."
+
+It seemed to Sleeny like the voice of a brother speaking to him. He
+thought the presence of the young lady had made everything in the house
+soft and gentle.
+
+"Where was you ever in that business?" he asked.
+
+"In the Black Hills. I sawed a million feet of lumber and built houses
+for two hundred soldiers. I had no carpenters; so I had to make some. I
+knew more about it when I got through than when I began."
+
+Sleeny laughed--a cordial laugh that wagged his golden beard and made
+his white teeth glisten.
+
+"I'll bet you did!" he replied.
+
+The two men talked a few minutes like old acquaintances; then Sleeny
+gathered up his tools and slung them over his shoulder, and as he
+turned to go both put out their hands at the same instant, with an
+impulse that surprised each of them, and said "Good-morning."
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+GHOSTLY COUNSEL.
+
+
+A man whose intelligence is so limited as that of Sam Sleeny is always
+too rapid and rash in his inferences. Because he had seen Farnham give
+Maud a handful of roses, he was ready to believe things about their
+relations that had filled him with fury; and now, because he had seen
+the same man talking with a beautiful girl and her mother, the
+conviction was fixed in his mind that Farnham's affections were placed
+in that direction, and that he was therefore no longer to be dreaded as
+a rival. He went home happier, in this belief, than he had been for
+many a day; and so prompt was his progress in the work of deceiving
+himself, that he at once came to the conclusion that little or nothing
+now stood between him and the crowning of his hopes. His happiness made
+him unusually loquacious, and at the supper-table he excited the
+admiration of Matchin and the surprise of Maud by his voluble history
+of the events of the day. He passed over Offitt's visit in silence,
+knowing that the Matchins detested him; but he spoke with energetic
+emphasis of the beauty of the house, the handsome face and kindly
+manners of Farnham, and the wonderful beauty and sweetness of Alice
+Belding.
+
+"Did that bold thing go to call on him alone?" cried Miss Maud,
+thoroughly aroused by this supposed offence against the proprieties of
+life.
+
+"Why, no, Mattie," said Sam, a little disconcerted. "Her ma was along."
+
+"Why didn't you say so, then?" asked the unappeased beauty.
+
+"I forgot all about the old lady, though she was more chinny than the
+young one. She just seemed like she was a-practisin' the mother-in-law,
+so as to do it without stumblin' when the time come."
+
+"Hullo! Do you think they are strikin' a match?" cried Saul, in high
+glee. "That would be first-rate. Keep the money and the property all
+together. There's too many of our rich girls marryin' out of the State
+lately--keeps buildin' dull."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," Maud interposed. "He ain't a man to be
+caught by a simperin' schoolgirl. And as to money, He's got a plenty
+for two. He can please himself when he marries."
+
+"Yes, but may be he won't please you, Mattie, and that would be a
+pity," said the ironical Saul.
+
+The old man laughed loudly at his own sarcasm, and pushed his chair
+back from the table, and Maud betook herself to her own room, where she
+sat down, as her custom was, by the window, looking over the glowing
+lake, and striving to read her destiny as she gazed into the crimson
+and golden skies. She did not feel at all so sure as she pretended that
+there was no danger of the result that Sleeny had predicted; and now
+that she was brought face to face with it, she was confounded at
+discovering how much it meant to her. She was carrying a dream in her
+heart which would make or ruin her, according as it should prove true
+or false. She had not thought of herself as the future wife of Farnham
+with any clearness of hope, but she found she could not endure the
+thought of his marrying any one else and passing forever out of her
+reach. She sat there, bitterly ruminating, until the evening glow had
+died away from the lake and the night breeze spread its viewless wings
+and flapped heavily in over the dark ridge and the silent shore. Her
+thoughts had given her no light of consolation; her chin rested on her
+hands, her elbows on her knees; her large eyes, growing more luminous
+in the darkness, stared out at the gathering night, scarcely noting
+that the sky she gazed at had changed from a pompous scene of red and
+yellow splendor to an infinite field of tender and dark violet, fretted
+with intense small stars.
+
+"What shall I do?" she thought. "I am a woman. My father is poor. I
+have got no chance. Jurildy is happier to-day than I am, and got more
+sense."
+
+She heard a timid rap at her door, and asked, sharply:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+"It's me," said Sleeny's submissive voice.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked again, without moving.
+
+"Mr. Bott give me two tickets to his seance tonight,"--Sam called it
+"seeuns,"--"and I thought mebbe you'd like to go."
+
+There was silence for a moment. Maud was thinking: "At any rate it will
+be better than to sit here alone and cry all the evening." So she said:
+"I'll come down in a minute." She heard Sam's heavy step descending the
+stairs, and thought what a different tread another person had; and she
+wondered whether she would ever "do better" than take Sam Sleeny; but
+she at once dismissed the thought. "I can't do that; I can't put my
+hand in a hand that smells so strong of sawdust as Sam's. But he is a
+good soul, and I am sorry for him, every time I look in the glass."
+
+Looking in the glass, as usual, restored her good humor, and she
+started off to the ghostly rendezvous with her faithful attendant. They
+never talked very much when they were alone together, and this evening
+both were thoughtful. Maud had never taken this commerce with ghosts
+much to heart. She had a feeling, which she could hardly have defined,
+that it was a common and plebeian thing to believe in it, and if she
+ever heard it ridiculed she joined in the cry without mercy. But it was
+an excitement and an interest in a life so barren of both that she
+could not afford to throw it away. She had not intelligence enough to
+be disgusted or shocked by it. If pressed to explain the amount of her
+faith in the whole business, she would probably have said she thought
+"there was something in it," and stopped at that. In minds like hers,
+there is no clearly drawn line between the unusual and the
+supernatural. An apparent miracle pleased her as it would please a
+child, without setting her to find out how it was done. She would
+consult a wizard, taking the chances of his having occult sources of
+information, with the same irregular faith in the unlikely with which
+some ladies call in homoeopathic practitioners.
+
+All the way to the rooms of Bott, she was revolving this thought in her
+mind: "Perhaps he could tell me something about Mr. Farnham. I don't
+think much of Bott; he has too many knuckles on his hands. I never saw
+a man with so many knuckles. I wouldn't mention Mr. Farnham to him to
+save his life, but I might get something out of him without telling him
+anything. He is certainly a very smart man, and whether it's spirits or
+not, he knows lots of things."
+
+It was in this mood that she entered the little apartment where Bott
+held what he called his "Intermundane Seances." The room was small and
+stuffy. A simulacrum of a chest of drawers in one corner was really
+Bott's bed, where the seer reposed at night, and which, tilted up
+against the wall during the day, contained the rank bedclothes, long
+innocent of the wash-tub. There were a dozen or so of cane-bottom
+chairs, a little table for a lamp, but no other furniture. At one side
+of the room was a small closet without a door, but with a dark and
+dirty curtain hung before its aperture. Around it was a wooden railing,
+breast high.
+
+A boy with a high forehead, and hair combed behind ears large and
+flaring like those of a rabbit, sat by the door, and took the tickets
+of invited guests and the half-dollars of the casuals. The seer
+received everybody with a nerveless shake of a clammy hand, showed them
+to seats, and exchanged a word or two about the weather, and the
+"conditions," favorable or otherwise, to spiritual activity. When he
+saw Maud and Sam his tallowy face flushed, in spots, with delight. He
+took them to the best places the room afforded, and stammered his
+pleasure that they had come.
+
+"Oh! the pleasure is all ours," said Maud, who was always
+self-possessed when she saw men stammering. "It's a great privilege to
+get so near to the truth as you bring us, Mr. Bott."
+
+The prophet had no answer ready; he merely flushed again in spots, and
+some new arrivals called him away.
+
+The room was now pretty well filled with the unmistakable crowd which
+always attend such meetings. They were mostly artisans, of more
+intellectual ambition than their fellows, whose love of the marvellous
+was not held in control by any educated judgment. They had long,
+serious faces, and every man of them wore long hair and a soft hat.
+Their women were generally sad, broken-spirited drudges, to whom this
+kind of show was like an opera or a ball. There were two or three
+shame-faced believers of the better class, who scoffed a little but
+trembled in secret, and a few avowed skeptics, young clerks on a mild
+spree, ready for fun if any should present itself.
+
+Bott stepped inside the railing by the closet, and placing his hands
+upon it, addressed the assembly. He did not know what peculiar shape
+the manifestations of the evening might take. They were in search of
+truth; all truth was good. They hoped for visitors from the unseen
+speers; he could promise nothing. In this very room the spirits of the
+departed had walked and talked with their friends; perhaps they might
+do it again; he knew not. How they mingled in the earth-life, he did
+not pretend to say; perhaps they materialized through the mejum;
+perhaps they dematerialized material from the audience which they
+rematerialized in visible forms; as to that, the opinion of another--he
+said with a spacious magnanimity--was as good as his. He would now
+request two of the audience to step up and tie him. One of the
+long-haired ruminant men stood up, and a young fellow, amid much
+nudging and giggling among the scorners, was also forced from his
+chair. They came forward, the believer with a business-like air, which
+showed practice, and the young skeptic blushing and ill at ease. Bott
+took a chair inside the curtain, and showed them how to tie him. They
+bound him hand and foot, the believer testified that the binding was
+solid, and the skeptic went to his seat, playfully stepping upon the
+toes of his scoffing friends. The curtain was lowered, and the lamp was
+turned down.
+
+In a few moments, a scuffling sound was heard in the closet, and Bott's
+coat came flying out into the room. The believer pulled back the
+curtain, and Botts sat in his chair, his shirt sleeves gleaming white
+in the dust. His coat was laid over his shoulders, and almost as soon
+as the curtain was lowered he yelled for light, and was disclosed
+sitting tied as before, clothed in his right coat.
+
+Again the curtain went down amid a sigh of satisfaction from the
+admiring audience, and a choking voice, which tried hard not to sound
+like Bott's, cried out from the closet: "Turn down the light; we want
+more power." The kerosene lamp was screwed down till hardly a spark
+illumined the visible darkness, and suddenly a fiery hand appeared at
+the aperture of the closet, slowly opening and shutting its long
+fingers.
+
+A half dozen voices murmured: "A spirit hand"; but Sam Sleeny whispered
+to Maud: "Them are Bott's knuckles, for coin." The hand was withdrawn
+and a horrible face took its place--a pallid corpse-like mask, with
+lambent fire sporting on the narrow forehead and the high cheek-bones.
+It stayed only an instant, but Sam said, "That's the way Bott will look
+in----"
+
+"Hush!" said Maud, who was growing too nervous to smile, for fear of
+laughing or crying.
+
+A sound of sobbing came from a seat to the right of them. A poor woman
+had recognized the face as that of her husband, who had died in the
+army, and she was drawing the most baleful inferences from its fiery
+adjuncts.
+
+A moment later, Bott came out of the closet, crouching so low that his
+head was hardly two feet from the ground. He had a sheet around his
+neck, covering his whole person, and a white cap over his head,
+concealing most of his face. In this constrained attitude he hopped
+about the clear space in front of the audience with a good deal of
+dexterity, talking baby-talk in a shrill falsetto. "Howdy, pappa!
+Howdy, mamma! Itty Tudie tum adin!"
+
+A rough man and woman, between joy and grief, were half hysterical.
+They talked to the toad-like mountebank in the most endearing tones,
+evidently believing it was their dead baby toddling before them. Two or
+three times the same horrible imposture was repeated. Bott never made
+his appearance without somebody recognizing him as a dear departed
+friend. The glimmering light, the unwholesome excitement, the servile
+credulity fixed by long habit, seemed to produce a sort of passing
+dementia upon the regular habitues.
+
+With these performances the first part came to an end. The light was
+turned on again, and the tying committee was requested to come forward
+and examine the cords with which Bott still seemed tightly bound. The
+skeptic remained scornfully in his seat, and so it was left for the
+believer to announce that not a cord had been touched. He then untied
+Bott, who came out from the closet, stretching his limbs as if glad to
+be free, and announced that there would be a short intermission for an
+interchange of views.
+
+
+As he came toward Maud, Sam rose and said:
+
+"Whew! he smells like a damp match. I'll go out and smoke a minute, and
+come back."
+
+Bott dropped into the seat which Sleeny had left.
+
+To one who has never attended one of these queer _cenacula_, it would
+be hard to comprehend the unhealthy and even nauseous character of the
+feeling and the conversation there prevalent. The usual decent
+restraints upon social intercourse seem removed. Subjects which the
+common consent of civilized creatures has banished from mixed society
+are freely opened and discussed. To people like the ordinary run of the
+believers in spiritism, the opera, the ballet, and the annual Zola are
+unknown, and they must take their excitements where they can find them.
+The dim light, the unhealthy commerce of fictitious ghosts, the
+unreality of act and sentiment, the unwonted abandon, form an
+atmosphere in which these second-hand mystics float away into a sphere
+where the morals and the manners are altogether different from those of
+their working days.
+
+Miss Matchin had not usually joined in these morbid discussions. She
+was of too healthy an organization to be tempted by so rank a mental
+feast as that, and she had a sort of fierce maidenhood about her which
+revolted at such exposures of her own thought. But to-night she was
+sorely perplexed. She had been tormented by many fancies as she looked
+out of her window into the deepening shadows that covered the lake. The
+wonders she had seen in that room, though she did not receive them with
+entire faith, had somewhat shaken her nerves; and now the seer sat
+beside her, his pale eyes shining with his own audacity, his lank hair
+dripping with sweat, his hands uneasily rubbing together, his whole
+attitude expressive of perfect subjection to her will.
+
+"Why isn't this a good chance?" she thought. "He is certainly a smart
+man. Horrid as he looks, he knows lots. May be he could tell me how to
+find out."
+
+She began in her airiest manner: "Oh, Mr. Bott, what a wonderful gift
+you have got! How you must look down on us poor mortals!"
+
+Bott grew spotted, and stammered:
+
+"Far from it, Miss Matchin. I couldn't look down on you."
+
+"Oh, you are flattering. That's not right, because I believe every word
+you say--and that ain't true."
+
+She rattled recklessly on in the same light tone.
+
+"I'm going to ask you something very particular. I don't know who can
+tell me, if you can't. How can a young lady find out whether a young
+gentleman is in love with her or not? Now, tell me the truth this
+time," she said with a nervous titter, "for it's very important."
+
+This question from any one else would not have disconcerted Bott in the
+least. Queries as absurd had frequently been put to him in perfect good
+faith, and answered with ready and impudent ignorance. But, at those
+giggling words of Maud Matchin, he turned livid and purple, and his
+breath came heavily. There was room for but one thought in that narrow
+heart and brain. He had long cherished a rather cowardly fondness for
+Maud, and now that this question was put to him by the agitated girl,
+his vanity would not suffer him to imagine that any one but himself was
+the subject of her dreams. There was, to him, nothing especially out of
+the way in this sort of indirect proposal on the part of a young woman.
+It was entirely in keeping with the general tone of sentiment among the
+people of his circle, which aimed at nothing less than the emancipation
+of the world from its old-fashioned decencies.
+
+But he would not answer hastily; he had a coward's caution. He looked a
+moment at the girl's brilliant color, her quick, high breathing, her
+eager eyes, with a gloating sense of his good luck. But he wanted her
+thoroughly committed. So he said, with an air in which there was
+already something offensively protecting:
+
+"Well, Miss Matchin, that depends on the speer. If the affection be
+unilateral, it is one thing; if it be recippercal, it is another. The
+currents of soul works in different ways."
+
+"But what I mean is, if a young lady likes a young gentleman pretty
+well, how is she going to find out for sure whether he likes her?" She
+went intrepidly through these words, though her cheeks were burning,
+and her eyes would fall in spite of her, and her head was singing.
+
+There was no longer any doubt in Bott's mind. He was filled with an
+insolent triumph, and thought only of delaying as long as possible the
+love chase of which he imagined himself the object. He said, slowly and
+severely:
+
+"The question is too imperious to be answered in haste. I will put
+myself in the hands of the sperruts, and answer it as they choose after
+the intermission."
+
+He rose and bowed, and went to speak a word or two to his other
+visitors. Sam came back and took his seat by Maud, and said:
+
+"I think the fun is about over. Less go home."
+
+"Go home yourself, if you want to," was the petulant reply. "I am going
+to stay for the inspirational discourse."
+
+"Oh, my!" said Sam. "That's a beautiful word. You don't know how pretty
+your mouth looks when you say that." Sam had had his beer, and was
+brave and good-natured.
+
+Bott retired once more behind the railing, but took his seat in a chair
+outside the curtain, in full view of the audience. He sat for some
+minutes motionless, staring at vacancy. He then slowly closed his eyes,
+and a convulsive shudder ran through his frame. This was repeated at
+rapid intervals, with more or less violence. He next passed his hands
+alternately over his forehead, as if he were wiping it, and throwing
+some invisible, sticky substance, with a vicious snap, to right and
+left. At last, after a final shudder, which stiffened him into the
+image of death for a moment, he rose to his feet and, leaning on the
+railing, began to intone, in a dismal whine, a speech of which we need
+give only the opening words.
+
+"Dear brothers and sisters of the earth-life! On pearly wings of
+gossamer-down we float down from our shining speers to bring you
+messages of the higher life. Let your earth-soul be lifted to meet our
+sperrut-soul; let your earth-heart blend in sweet accordion with our
+heaven-heart; that the beautiful and the true in this weary earth-life
+may receive the bammy influence of the Eden flowrets, and rise, through
+speers of disclosure, to the plane where all is beautiful and all is
+true."
+
+He continued in this strain for some time, to the evident edification
+of his audience, who listened with the same conventional tolerance, the
+same trust that it is doing your neighbor good, with which the ordinary
+audience sits under an ordinary sermon. Maud, having a special reason
+for being alert, listened with a real interest. But during his speech
+proper he made no allusion to the subject on which she had asked for
+light. It was after he had finished his harangue, and had gone through
+an _entr'acte_ of sighs and shudders, that he announced himself once
+more in the hands of the higher intelligences, and ready to answer
+questions. "It does not need," he whined, "the word of the month or the
+speech of the tongue to tell the sperruts what your souls desire. The
+burden of your soul is open to the sperrut-eye. There sits in this room
+a pure and lovely soul in quest of light. Its query is, How does heart
+meet heart in mutual knowledge?"
+
+Maud's cheek grew pale and then red, and her heart beat violently. But
+no one noticed her, and the seer went on. "If a true heart longs for
+another, there is no rest but in knowledge, there is no knowledge but
+in trewth, there is no trewth but in trust. Oh, my brother, if you love
+a female, tell your love. Oh, my sister, if you love--hum--if you
+love--hum--an individual of the opposite sex--oh, tell your love!--Down
+with the shams of a false-hearted society; down with the chains of
+silence that crushes your soul to the dust! If the object of your
+hearts' throbs is noble, he will respond. Love claims love. Love has a
+right to love. If he is base, go to a worthier one. But from your brave
+and fiery heart a light will kindle his, and dual flames will wrap two
+chosen natures in high-menial melodies, when once the revelating word
+is spoke."
+
+With these words he subsided into a deep trance, which lasted till the
+faithful grew tired of waiting, and shuffled slowly out of the door.
+When the last guest had gone, he rose from his chair, with no pretence
+of spiritual dignity, and counted his money and his tickets. He
+stretched himself in two chairs, drew his fingers admiringly through
+his lank locks, while a fatuous grin of perfect content spread over his
+face, as he said aloud to himself, "She has got it bad. I wonder
+whether she will have the nerve to ask me. I'll wait awhile, anyhow.
+I'll lose nothing by waiting."
+
+Meanwhile, Maud was walking rapidly home with Sam. She was excited and
+perplexed, and did not care to answer Sam's rather heavy pleasantries
+over the evening's performance. He ridiculed the spirit-lights, the
+voices, and the jugglery, without provoking a reply, and at last he
+said:
+
+"Well, what do you think of his advising the girls to pop? This ain't
+leap year!"
+
+"What of that?" she answered, hastily. "I don't see why a girl hasn't
+as good a right to speak her mind as a man."
+
+"Why, Mattie," said Sam, with slow surprise, "no decent girl would do
+that."
+
+They had come to Matchin's gate. She slipped in, then turned and said:
+
+"Well, don't be frightened, Mr. Sleeny; I'm not going to propose to
+you," and she was gone from his sight.
+
+She went directly to her room, and walked up and down a few moments
+without taking off her hat, moving with the easy grace and the
+suppressed passion of an imprisoned panther. Then she lighted her lamp
+and placed it on her bureau at one side of her glass. She searched in
+her closet and found a candle, which she lighted and placed on the
+other side of the glass. She undressed with reckless haste, throwing
+her clothes about on the floor, and sat down before her mirror with
+bare arms and shoulders, and nervously loosened her hair, watching
+every movement with blazing eyes. The thick masses of her blue-black
+curls fell down her back and over her sloping shoulders, which glowed
+with the creamy light of old ivory. The unequal rays of the lamp and
+candle made singular effects of shadow on the handsome face, the
+floating hair, and the strong and wholesome color of her neck and arms.
+She gazed at herself with eager eyes and parted lips, in an anxiety too
+great to be assuaged by her girlish pride in her own beauty. "This is
+all very well," she said, "but he will not see me this way. Oh! if I
+only dared to speak first. I wonder if it would be as the spirits said.
+'If he is noble he will respond!' He _is_ noble, that's sure. 'Love
+claims love,' they said. But I don't know as I love him. I _would_, if
+that would fetch him, quick enough;" and the hot blood came surging up,
+covering neck and brow with crimson.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+A BUD AND A BLOSSOM.
+
+
+Farnham was sitting the next evening in his library, when Budsey
+entered and said Mr. Ferguson desired to see him. The gaunt Scotchman
+came in and said with feverish haste: "The cereus grandiflorus will be
+goin' to bloom the night. The buds are tremblin' and laborin' now."
+Farnham put on his hat and went to the conservatory, which was
+separated from the house by the entire extent of the garden. Arriving
+there, the gardener took him hurriedly to an inner room, dimly
+lighted,--a small square piece between the ferns and the grapes,--where
+the regal flower had a wall to itself. Two or three garden chairs were
+disposed about the room. Ferguson mounted on one of them, and turned up
+the gas so that its full light shone upon the plant. The bud was a very
+large one, perfect and symmetrical; the strong sheath, of a rich and
+even brown, as yet showed only a few fissures of its surface, but even
+now a faint odor stole from the travailing sphere, as from a cracked
+box of alabaster filled with perfume.
+
+The face of the canny Fergus was lighted up with an eager joy. He had
+watched the growth and progress of this plant from its infancy. He had
+leaned above its cradle and taken pride in its size and beauty. He had
+trained it over the wall--from which he had banished every rival--in
+large and graceful curves, reaching from the door of the fernery to the
+door of the grapery, till it looked, in the usual half light of the dim
+chamber, like a well-regulated serpent maturing its designs upon the
+neighboring paradise; and now the time was come when he was to see the
+fruit of his patience and his care.
+
+"Heaven be thankit," he murmured devoutly, "that I was to the fore when
+it came."
+
+"I thank you, Fergus, for calling me," said Farnham, smiling. "I know
+it must have cost you an effort to divide such a sight with any one."
+
+"It's your siller bought it," the Scotchman answered sturdily; "but
+there's nobody knows it, or cares for it, as I do,--and that's the
+truth."
+
+His glance was fixed upon the bud, which seemed to throb and stir as he
+spoke. The soft explosive force within was at work so strongly that the
+eye could watch its operation. The fissures of the sheath widened
+visibly and turned white as the two men looked at them.
+
+"It is a shame to watch this beautiful thing happening for only us,"
+Farnham said to the gardener. "Go and tell Mrs. Belding, with my
+compliments, and ask her and Miss Belding to come down." But observing
+his crestfallen expression, he took compassion on him and said: "No,
+you had better remain, for fear something should happen in your
+absence. I will go for the ladies."
+
+"I hope ye'll not miss it," said Fergus, but his eyes and his heart
+were fixed upon the bud, which was slowly gaping apart, showing a faint
+tinge of gold in its heart.
+
+Farnham walked rapidly up the garden, and found the Beldings at the
+door, starting for evening service with their prayer-books in their
+hands.
+
+"Do you wish to see the prettiest thing you ever saw in your lives? of
+course I except your mirrors when in action," he began, without
+salutation. "If so, come this moment to my conservatory. My
+night-blooming cereus has her coming-out party tonight."
+
+They both exclaimed with delight, and were walking with him toward the
+garden. Suddenly, Mrs. Belding stopped and said:
+
+"Alice, run and get your sketch-book and pencil. It will be lovely to
+draw the flower."
+
+"Why, mamma! we shall not have time for a sketch."
+
+"There, there! do as I tell you, and do not waste time in disputing."
+
+The young girl hesitated a moment, and then, with instinctive
+obedience, went off to fetch the drawing materials, while her mother
+said to Farnham:
+
+"Madame de Veaudrey says Alice is very clever with her pencil; but she
+is so modest I shall have to be severe with her to make her do
+anything. She takes after me. I was very clever in my lessons, but
+never would admit it."
+
+Alice came down the steps. Farnham, seeing her encumbered by her books,
+took them from her, and they went down the walks to the conservatory.
+They found Ferguson sitting, with the same rapt observation, before his
+tropical darling. As the ladies entered, he rose to give them seats,
+and then retired to the most distant corner of the room, where he spent
+the rest of the evening entirely unaware of any one's presence, and
+given up to the delight of his eyes. The bud was so far opened that the
+creamy white of the petals could be seen within the riven sheath, whose
+strong dark color exquisitely relieved the pallid beauty it had guarded
+so long. The silky stamens were still curled about the central style,
+but the splendor of color which was coming was already suggested, and a
+breath of intoxicating fragrance stole from the heart of the immaculate
+flower.
+
+They spoke to each other in low tones, as if impressed with a sort of
+awe at the beautiful and mysterious development of fragrant and lovely
+life going forward under their sight. The dark eyes of Alice Belding
+were full of that vivid happiness which strange and charming things
+bring to intelligent girlhood. She was looking with all her soul, and
+her breath was quick and high, and her soft red lips were parted and
+tremulous. Farnham looked from her to the flower, and back again,
+gazing on both with equal safety, for the one was as unconscious of his
+admiring glances as the other.
+
+Suddenly, the sound of bells floated in from the neighboring street,
+and both of the ladies started. "No, don't you go," said Mrs. Belding
+to her daughter. "I must, because I have to see my 'Rescue the
+Perishing.' But you can just as well stay here and make your sketch.
+Mr. Farnham can take care of you, and I will be back in an hour."
+
+"But, mamma!" cried Miss Alice, too much scandalized to speak another
+word.
+
+"I won't have you lose this chance," her mother continued. "I am sure
+Mr. Farnham will not object to taking care of you a little while; and
+if he hasn't the time, Fergus will bring you home--hm, Fergus?"
+
+"Ay, madam, with right guid will," the gardener said, his hard face
+softening into a smile.
+
+"There, sit down in that chair and begin your sketch. It is lovely just
+as it is." She waited until Alice, whose confusion had turned her face
+crimson, had taken her seat, opened her sketch-book, and taken her
+pencils in her trembling hands, and then the brisk and hearty woman
+drew her shawl about her and bustled to the door.
+
+"I will walk to the church door with you," said Farnham, to the
+infinite relief of Alice, who regained her composure at the instant,
+and began with interest to sketch the flower. She thought, while her
+busy fingers were at work, that she had perhaps been too prudish in
+objecting to her mother's plan. "He evidently thinks nothing of it, and
+why should I?"
+
+By the time Farnham returned, the cereus had attained its full glory of
+bloom. Its vast petals were thrown back to their fullest extent, and
+shone with a luminous beauty in which its very perfume seemed visible;
+the countless recurved stamens shot forth with the vigorous impulse and
+vitality of sun rays; from the glowing centre to the dark fringe with
+which the shattered sheath still accented its radiant outline it blazed
+forth, fully revealed; and its sweet breath seemed the voice of a pride
+and consciousness of beauty like that of the goddess on Mount Ida,
+calmly triumphant in the certainty of perfect loveliness.
+
+Alice had grown interested in her task, and looked up for only an
+instant with her frank, clear eyes as Farnham entered. "Now, where
+shall I sit?" he asked. "Here, behind your right elbow, where I can
+look over your shoulder and observe the work as it goes on?"
+
+"By no means. My hand would lose all its little cunning in that case."
+
+"Then I will sit in front of you and study the artistic emotions in
+your face."
+
+"That would be still worse, for you would hide my subject. I am sure
+you are very well as you are," she added, as he seated himself in a
+chair beside her, a little way off.
+
+"Yes, that is very well. I have the flower three-quarters and you in
+profile. I will study the one for a panel and the other for a medal."
+
+Miss Alice laughed gently. She laughed often from sheer good humor,
+answering the intention of what was said to her better than by words.
+
+"Can you sketch and talk too?" asked Farnham.
+
+"I can sketch and listen," she said. "You will talk and keep me
+amused."
+
+"Amusement with malice aforethought! The order affects my spirits like
+a Dead March. How do the young men amuse young ladies nowadays? Do they
+begin by saying, 'Have you been very gay lately?'"
+
+Again Miss Alice laughed. "She is an easy-laughing girl," thought
+Farnham. "I like easy-laughing girls. When she laughs, she always
+blushes a very little. It is worth while talking nonsense to see a girl
+laugh so pleasantly and blush so prettily."
+
+It is not worth while, however, to repeat all the nonsense Farnham
+uttered in the next hour. He got very much interested in it himself,
+and was so eager sometimes to be amusing that he grew earnest, and the
+gentle laugh would cease and the pretty lips would come gravely
+together. Whenever he saw this he would fall back upon his trifling
+again. He had the soldier's fault of point-blank compliment, but with
+it an open sincerity of manner which relieved his flattery of any
+offensiveness. He had practised it in several capitals with some
+success. A dozen times this evening, a neat compliment came to his lips
+and stopped there. He could hardly understand his own reserve before
+this laughing young lady. Why should he not say something pretty about
+her hair and eyes, about her graceful attitude, about the nimble play
+of her white fingers over the paper? He had uttered frank flatteries to
+peeresses without rebuke. But he held his hand before this school-girl,
+with the open dark-brown eyes and a club of yellow hair at the back of
+her neck. He could not help feeling that, if he talked to her with any
+forcing of the personal accent, she would stop laughing and the clear
+eyes would be troubled. He desired anything rather than that, and so
+the conversation went rattling on as free from personalities as the
+talk of two light-hearted and clever schoolboys.
+
+At one moment he was describing a bill of fare in a Colorado hotel.
+
+"With nice bread, though, one can always get on," she said.
+
+"True," Farnham answered; "but this bread was of a ghostly pallor and
+flatness, as if it had been baked by moonlight on a grave-stone."
+
+"The Indian women cook well, do they not?" she asked.
+
+"Some are not so bad as others. One young chief boasted to me of his
+wife's culinary accomplishments. He had been bragging all the morning
+about his own exploits, of the men he had killed and the horses he had
+stolen, and then to establish his standing clearly in my mind, he
+added: 'My squaw same white squaw--savey pie.'"
+
+"Even there, then, the trail of the pie-crust is over them all."
+
+"No! only over the aristocracy."
+
+"I should like so much to see that wonderful country."
+
+"It is worth seeing," he said, with a curious sinking of the heart, "if
+you are not under orders."
+
+He could not help thinking what a pleasant thing a journey through that
+Brobdingnaggian fairy-land would be with company like the young girl
+before him. Nature would be twice as lovely reflected from those brown
+eyes. The absurdities and annoyances of travel would be made delightful
+by that frank, clear laugh. The thought of his poor Nellie flitted by
+him an instant, too gentle and feeble for reproach. Another stronger
+thought had occupied his mind.
+
+"You ought to see it. Your mother will need rest before long from her
+Rescue-the-Perishings, and you are overworking yourself dreadfully over
+that sketch-book. There is a touch of malaria about the fountain in
+Bluff Park. Colorado will do you both no end of good. I feel as if I
+needed it myself. I haven't energy enough to read Mr. Martin's 'Life of
+the Prince Consort.' I shall speak to Mrs. Belding as soon as she
+returns."
+
+"Do, by all means. I should like to go, but mamma would not spend three
+nights in a sleeping-car to see the Delectable Mountains themselves."
+
+He rose and walked about the room, looking at the flower and the young
+artist from different points of view, and seeing new beauties in each
+continually. There were long lapses of conversation, in which Alice
+worked assiduously and Farnham lounged about the conservatory, always
+returning with a quick word and a keen look at the face of the girl. At
+last he said to himself: "Look here! She is not a baby. She is nearly
+twenty years old. I have been wondering why her face was so steady and
+wise." The thought that she was not a child tilled his heart with
+pleasure and his face with light. But his volubility seemed to die
+suddenly away. He sat for a good while in silence, and started a little
+as she looked up and said:
+
+"Now, if you will be very gentle, you can see my sketch and tell me
+what to do next."
+
+It was a pretty and unpretentious picture that she had made. The flower
+was faithfully though stiffly given, and nothing especially remarkable
+had been attempted or achieved. Farnham looked at the sketch with eyes
+in which there was no criticism. He gave Alice a word or two of
+heartier praise for her work than she knew she deserved. It was rather
+more than she expected, and she was not altogether pleased to be so
+highly commended, though she could hardly have said why. Perhaps it was
+because it made her think less of his critical faculty. This was not
+agreeable, for her admiration of him from her childhood had been one of
+the greatest pleasures of her life. She had regarded him as children
+regard a brilliant and handsome young uncle. She did not expect from
+him either gallantry or equality of treatment.
+
+"There! Do not say too much about it--you will make me ashamed of it.
+What does it lack?"
+
+"Nothing, except something on the right to balance the other side. You
+might sketch in roughly a half-opened flower on the vine about there,"
+indicating the place.
+
+She took her pencils and began obediently to do what he had suggested.
+He leaned over her shoulder, so near her she could feel his breath on
+the light curls that played about her ear. She wished he would move.
+She grew nervous, and at last said:
+
+"I am tired. You put in that flower."
+
+He took the book and pencils from her, as she rose from her chair and
+gave him her place, and with a few strong and rapid strokes finished
+the sketch.
+
+"After all," she said to herself, with hearty appreciation, "men do
+have the advantage of girls. He bothered me dreadfully, and I did not
+bother him in the least. And yet I stood as near to him as he did to
+me."
+
+Mrs. Belding came in a moment later. She was in high spirits. They had
+had a good meeting--had converted a Jew, she thought. She admired the
+sketch very much; hoped Alice had been no trouble to Farnham. He walked
+home with the ladies, and afterward smoked a cigar with great
+deliberation under the limes.
+
+Mrs. Belding asked Alice how they had got on.
+
+"He did not eat you, you see. You must get out of your ideas of men,
+especially men of Arthur Farnham's age. He never thinks of you. He is
+old enough to be your father."
+
+Alice kissed her mother and went to her own room, calculating on the
+way the difference between her age and Captain Farnham's.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+A DRAMA WITH TWO SPECTATORS.
+
+
+The words of Bott lingered obstinately in Maud Matchin's mind. She gave
+herself no rest from dwelling on them. Her imagination was full, day
+after day, of glowing pictures of herself and Farnham in tete-a-tete;
+she would seek in a thousand ways to tell her love--but she could never
+quite arrange her avowal in a satisfactory manner. Long before she came
+to the decisive words which were to kindle his heart to flame in the
+imaginary dialogue, he would himself take fire by spontaneous
+combustion, and, falling on his knees, would offer his hand, his heart,
+and his fortune to her in words taken from "The Earl's Daughter" or the
+"Heir of Ashby."
+
+"Oh, pshaw! that's the way it ought to be," she would say to herself.
+"But if he won't--I wonder whether I ever could have the brass to do
+it? I don't know why I shouldn't. We are both human. Bott wouldn't have
+said that if there was nothing in it, and he's a mighty smart man."
+
+The night usually gave her courage. Gazing into her glass, she saw
+enough to inspire her with an idea of her own invincibility; and after
+she had grown warm in bed she would doze away, resolving with a stout
+heart that she would try her fate in the morning. But when day came,
+the enterprise no longer seemed so simple. Her scanty wardrobe struck
+her with cowardice as she surveyed it. The broad daylight made
+everything in the house seem poor and shabby. When she went
+down-stairs, her heart sank within her as she entered the kitchen to
+help her mother, and when she sat with the family at the breakfast-table,
+she had no faith left in her dreams of the rosy midnight. This
+alternation of feeling bred in her, in the course of a few days, a sort
+of fever, which lent a singular beauty to her face, and a petulant tang
+to her speech. She rose one morning, after a sleepless night, in a
+state of anger and excitement in which she had little difficulty in
+charging upon Farnham all responsibility for her trouble of mind.
+
+"I won't stand it any longer," she said aloud in her chamber. "I shall
+go to him this day and have it out. I shall ask him what he means by
+treating me so."
+
+She sat down by her bureau and began to crimp her hair with grim
+resolution. Her mother came and knocked at her door. "I'm not coming to
+breakfast, I've got a headache," she said, and added to herself, "I
+sha'n't go down and get the smell of bacon on me this morning."
+
+She continued her work of personal adornment for two hours, going
+several times over her whole modest arsenal of finery before she was
+ready for the fray. She then went down in her street costume, and made
+a hasty meal of bread and butter, standing by the pantry. Her mother
+came in and found her there.
+
+"Why, Mattie, how's your head?"
+
+"I'm going to take a walk and see what that will do."
+
+As she walked rapidly out of Dean Street, the great clock of the
+cathedral was striking the hour of nine.
+
+"Goodness!" she exclaimed, "that's too early to call on a gentleman.
+What shall I do?"
+
+She concluded to spend the time of waiting in the library, and walked
+rapidly in that direction, the fresh air flushing her cheeks, and
+blowing the frizzed hair prettily about her temples. She went straight
+to the reference rooms, and sat down to read a magazine. The girl who
+had prompted her to apply for a place was there on duty. She gave a
+little cry of delight when she saw Maud, and said:
+
+"I was just crazy to see you. I have got a great secret for you. I'm
+engaged!"
+
+The girls kissed each other with giggles and little screams, and the
+young woman told who _he_ was--in the lightning-rod business in
+Kalamazoo, and doing very well; they were to be married almost
+immediately.
+
+"You never saw such a fellow, he just won't wait;" and consequently her
+place in the library would be vacant. "Now, you must have it, Maud! I
+haven't told a soul. Even the Doctor don't know it yet."
+
+Maud left the library and walked up the avenue with an easier mind. She
+had an excuse for her visit now, and need not broach, unless she liked,
+the tremendous subject that made her turn hot and cold to think of. She
+went rustling up the wide thoroughfare at a quick pace; but before
+arriving at Farnham's, moved by a momentary whim, she turned down a
+side street leading to Bishop's Lane. She said to herself, "I will go
+in by that little gate once, if I never do again." As she drew near,
+she thought, "I hope Sam isn't there."
+
+Sam was there, just finishing his work upon the greenhouse. Farnham was
+there also; he had come down to inspect the job, and he and Sleeny were
+chatting near the gate as Maud opened it and came in. Farnham stepped
+forward to meet her. The unexpected rencounter made her shy, and she
+neither spoke to Sam nor looked toward him, which filled him with a
+dull jealousy.
+
+"Could I have a few moments' conversation with you, sir?" she asked,
+with stiff formality.
+
+"Certainly," said Farnham, smiling. "Shall we go into the house?"
+
+"Thank you, sir," she rejoined, severely decorous. They walked up the
+garden-path together, and Sam looked after them with an unquiet heart.
+
+She was walking beside Farnham with a stately step, in spite of the
+scabbard-like narrowness of the dress she wore. She was nearly as tall
+as he, and as graceful as a young pine blown to and fro by soft winds.
+The carpenter, with his heart heavy with love and longing, felt a
+bitter sense that she was too fine for him. They passed into the house,
+and he turned to his work with a sigh, often dropping his busy hands
+and looking toward the house with a dumb questioning in his eyes. After
+a half hour which seemed endless to him, they reappeared and walked
+slowly down the lawn. There was trouble and agitation in the girl's
+face, and Farnham was serious also. As they came by the rose-house,
+Maud paused and looked up with a sorrowful smile and a question.
+Farnham nodded, and they walked to the open door of the long, low
+building. He led the way in, and Maud, looking hastily around, closed
+the door behind them.
+
+"He's goin' to give her some more of them roses," said Sam, explaining
+the matter to himself. But he worked for some time with his blond beard
+on his shoulder in his impatience to see them come out. At last, he
+could resist no longer. He knew a point where he could look through the
+glass and see whatever was taking place among the roses. He walked
+swiftly across the turf to that point. He looked in and saw Maud,
+whose back was turned toward him, talking as if she were pleading for
+her life, while Farnham listened with a clouded brow. Sleeny stood
+staring with stupid wonder while Maud laid her hand upon Farnham's
+shoulder. At that moment he heard footsteps on the gravel walk at some
+distance from him, and he looked up and saw Mrs. Belding approaching.
+Confused at his attitude of espionage, he walked away from his post,
+and, as he passed her, Mrs. Belding asked him if he knew where Mr.
+Farnham was.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "he's in there. Walk right in;" and in the midst of
+his trouble of spirit he could hardly help chuckling at his own
+cleverness as he walked, in his amazement, back to the conservatory.
+
+While she was in the house, Maud had confined herself to the subject of
+the vacancy in the library. She rushed at it, as a hunter at a hedge,
+to get away from the other matter which had tormented her for a week.
+When she found herself alone with Farnham she saw that it would be
+"horrid" to say what she had so long been rehearsing. "Now I can get
+that place, if you will help me. No earthly soul knows anything about
+it, and Minnie said she would give me a good chance before she let it
+out."
+
+Farnham tried to show her the difficulties in the way. He was led by
+her eagerness into a more detailed account of his differences with the
+rest of the board than he had ever given to any one, a fuller narrative
+than was perhaps consistent with entire prudence. Whenever he paused,
+she would insist with a woman's disconcerting directness:
+
+"But they don't know anything about it this time--they can't combine on
+anybody. You can certainly get one of them."
+
+Farnham still argued against her sanguine hopes, till he at last
+affected her own spirits, and she grew silent and despondent. As she
+rose to go, he also took his hat to return to the garden, where he had
+left Sleeny, and they walked over the lawn together. As they approached
+the rose-house, she thought of her former visit and asked to repeat it.
+The warm breath of the flowers saluted her as she crossed the
+threshold, bringing so vivid a reminiscence of the enchantment of that
+other day, that there came with it a sudden and poignant desire to try
+there, in that bewitched atmosphere, the desperate experiment which
+would decide her fate. There was no longer any struggle in her mind.
+She could not, for her life, have kept silent now. She walked slowly
+beside him to the place where the pots of roses stood ranged on their
+frames, filling the air with dense fragrance. Her hands were icy cold
+and quick flushes passed through her, while her face reddened and paled
+like a horizon smitten by heat-lightning in a sultry night of summer.
+She looked at the moist brick pavement at her feet, her eyelids seemed
+too heavy to lift, and the long lashes nearly touched her cheeks.
+
+"What sort will you have?" said Farnham, reaching for the gardener's
+shears.
+
+"Never mind the roses," she said, in a dry voice which she hardly
+recognized as her own. "I have something to say to you."
+
+He turned and looked at her with surprise. She raised her eyes to his
+with a great effort, and then, blushing fiery red, she said, in a
+clear, low voice, "I love you."
+
+Like many another daughter and son of Eve, she was startled at the
+effect of these momentous words upon herself. Of all forms of speech
+these three words are the most powerful, the most wonderworking upon
+the being who utters them. It was the first time they had ever passed
+her lips, and they exalted and inebriated her. She was suddenly set
+free from the bashful constraint which had held her, and with a leaping
+pulse and free tongue she poured out her heart to the astonished and
+scandalized young man.
+
+"Yes, I love you. You think it's horrid that I should say so, don't
+you? But I don't care, I love you. I loved you the first time I saw
+you, though you made me so angry about my glasses. But you were my
+master, and I knew it, and I never put them on again. And I thought of
+you day and night, and I longed for the day to come when I might see
+you once more, and I was glad when I did not get that place, so that I
+could come again and see you and talk with you. I can tell you over
+again every word you ever said to me. You were not like other men. You
+are the first real man I ever knew. I was silly and wild when I wanted
+to be your secretary. Of course, that wouldn't do. If I am not to be
+your wife, I must never see you again; you know that, don't you?" and,
+carried away by her own reckless words, she laid her hand on his
+shoulder. His frown of amazement and displeasure shook her composure
+somewhat. She turned pale and trembled, her eyes fell, and it seemed
+for an instant as if she would sink to the floor at his feet. He put
+his arm around her, to keep her from falling and pressed her closely to
+him. She threw her head back upon his shoulder and lifted her face to
+him. He looked down on her, and the frown passed from his brow as he
+surveyed her flushed cheeks, her red full lips parted in breathless
+eagerness; her dark eyes were wide open, the iris flecked with golden
+sparks and the white as clear and blue-tinged as in the eyes of a
+vigorous infant; her head lay on his shoulder in perfect content, and
+she put up her mouth to him as simply and as sure of a response as a
+pretty child. He was entirely aware of the ridiculousness of his
+position, but he stooped and kissed her.
+
+Her work seemed all done; but her satisfaction lasted only a second.
+Her face broke into happy smiles.
+
+"You do love me, do you not?" she asked.
+
+"I certainly do not," he answered; and at that instant the door opened
+and Mrs. Belding saw this pretty group of apparent lovers on a rich
+background of Jacqueminot roses.
+
+Startled more at the words of Farnham than at the entry of Mrs.
+Belding, Maud had started up, like Vivien, "stiff as a viper frozen."
+Her first thought was whether she had crushed her hat on his shoulder,
+and her hands flew instinctively to her head-gear. She then walked
+tempestuously past the astonished lady out into the garden and brushed
+roughly by Sleeny, who tried to detain her.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Sam! I hate you and all men"; and with this general
+denunciation, she passed out of the place, flaming with rage and shame.
+
+Mrs. Belding stood for a moment speechless, and then resorted to the
+use of that hard-worked and useful monosyllable,
+
+"Well!" with a sharp, falling inflection.
+
+"Well!" returned Farnham, with an easy, rising accent; and then both of
+them relieved the strained situation with a laugh.
+
+"Come, now," said the good-natured woman, "I am a sort of guardian of
+yours. Give an account of yourself."
+
+"That is easily given," said Farnham. "A young woman, whose name I
+hardly know, came to me in the garden this morning to ask for help to
+get some lady-like work to do. After discussing that subject
+threadbare, she came in here for a rose, and, apropos of nothing, made
+me a declaration and a proposal of honorable wedlock, _dans toutes les
+formes_."
+
+"The forms were evident as I entered," said Mrs. Belding, dryly.
+
+"I could not let her drop on the damp floor," said Farnham, who was
+astonished to find himself positively blushing under the amused
+scrutiny of his mother-confessor. "Consider, if you please, my dear
+madam, that this is the first offer I have ever received, and I was
+naturally somewhat awkward about declining it. We shall learn better
+manners as we go along."
+
+"You did decline, then?" said Mrs. Belding, easily persuaded of the
+substantial truth of the story, and naturally inclined, as is the way
+of woman, to the man's side. Then, laughing at Arthur's discomfiture,
+she added, "I was about to congratulate you."
+
+"I deserve only your commiseration."
+
+"I must look about and dispose of you in some way. You are evidently
+too rich and too fascinating. But I came over to-day to ask you what I
+ought to do about my Lake View farm. I have two offers for it; if I had
+but one, I would take either--well, you know what I mean;" and the
+conversation became practical. After that matter was disposed of, she
+said, with a keen side-glance at Farnham, "That was a very pretty girl.
+I hope you will not be exposed to such another attack; I might not be
+so near the next time."
+
+"That danger, thanks to you, is over; Mademoiselle will never return,"
+he answered, with an air of conviction.
+
+Mrs. Belding went home with no impression left of the scene she had
+witnessed but one of amusement. She thought of it only as "a good joke
+on Arthur Farnham." She kept chuckling to herself over it all day, and
+if she had had any especial gossip in the town, she would have put on
+her hat and hurried off to tell it. But she was a woman who lived very
+much at home, and, in fact, cared little for tattling. She was several
+times on the point of sharing the fun of it with her daughter, but was
+prevented by an instinctive feeling that it was hardly the sort of
+story to tell a young girl about a personal acquaintance. So she
+restrained herself, though the solitary enjoyment of it irritated her.
+
+They were sitting on the wide porch which ran around two sides of the
+house just as twilight was falling. The air was full of drowsy calls
+and twitters from the grass and the trees. The two ladies had been
+sitting ever since dinner, enjoying the warm air of the early summer,
+talking very little, and dropping often into long and contented
+silences. Mrs. Belding had condescended to grenadine in consideration
+of the weather, and so looked less funereal than usual. Alice was
+dressed in a soft and vapory fabric of creamy bunting, in the midst of
+which her long figure lay reclined in an easy chair of Japanese bamboo;
+she might have posed for a statue of graceful and luxurious repose.
+There was light enough from the rising moon and the risen stars to show
+the clear beauty of her face and the yellow lustre of her hair; and her
+mother cast upon her from time to time a glance of pride and fondness,
+as if she were a recovered treasure to which the attraction of novelty
+had just been added anew.
+
+"They say she looks as I did at her age," thought the candid lady; "but
+they must flatter me. My nose was never so straight as that: her nose
+is Belding all over. I wonder whom she will care about here? Mr. Furrey
+is a nice young man, but she is hardly polite to him. There he is now."
+
+The young man came briskly up the walk, and ran up the steps so quickly
+that he tripped on the last one and dropped his hat. He cleverly
+recovered it, however, and made very elaborate bows to both the ladies,
+hoping that he found them quite well. Mrs. Belding bustled about to
+give him a chair, at which Alice knitted her pretty brows a little. She
+had scarcely moved her eyelashes to greet her visitor; but when Mrs.
+Belding placed a light chair near her daughter and invited Mr. Furrey
+to take it, the young lady rose from her reclining attitude and sat
+bolt upright with a look of freezing dignity. The youth was not at all
+abashed, but took his seat, with his hat held lightly by the brim in
+both hands. He was elegantly dressed, in as faithful and reverent an
+imitation as home talent could produce of the costume of the gentlemen
+who that year were driving coaches in New York. His collar was as stiff
+as tin; he had a white scarf, with an elaborate pin constructed of
+whips and spurs and horseshoes. He wore dog-skin gloves, very tight and
+red. His hair was parted in the middle with rigorous impartiality and
+shed rather rank fragrance on the night. He began conversation with an
+easy air, in which there was something of pleasurable excitement mixed.
+
+"I come to receive your congratulations, ladies!"
+
+"What, you are engaged?" said Mrs. Belding, and even the placid face of
+Miss Alice brightened with a look of pleased inquiry.
+
+"Oh, dear, no; how could you think so?" he protested, with an arch look
+at Alice which turned her to marble again. "I mean I have this day been
+appointed assistant cashier of our bank!" Napoleon, informing Madame de
+Beauharnais [* - Perhaps Josephine told Napoleon herself, but I think
+she was clever enough to let him imagine he owed the appointment to his
+merits.] that he was to command the army of Italy, probably made less
+ado about it.
+
+Mrs. Belding made haste to murmur her congratulations. "Very
+gratifying, I am sure,--at your age;" to which Alice responded like a
+chorus, but without any initiative warmth, "Very gratifying, I am
+sure."
+
+Furrey went on at some length to detail all the circumstances of the
+event: how Mr. Lathers, the president of the bank, had sent for him,
+and how he complimented him; how he had asked him where he learned to
+write such a good hand; and how he had replied that it came sort of
+natural to him to write well, that he could make the American eagle
+with pen and ink before he was fifteen, all but the tail-feathers, and
+how he discovered a year later that the tail-feathers had to be made by
+holding the pen between the first and second fingers; with much more to
+the like innocent purpose, to which Mrs. Belding listened with nods and
+murmurs of approval. This was all the amiable young man needed to
+encourage him to indefinite prattle. He told them all about the men in
+the bank, their habits and their loves and their personal relations to
+him, and how he seemed somehow to be a general favorite among them all.
+Miss Alice sat very still and straight in her chair, with an occasional
+smile when the laughter of Mr. Furrey seemed to require it, but with
+her eyes turned to the moonlit night in vagrant reverie, and her mind
+in those distant and sacred regions where we cannot follow the minds of
+pure and happy girls.
+
+"Now, you would hardly understand, if I did not tell you," said Mr.
+Furrey, "how it is that I have gained the confidence----"
+
+At this moment Alice, who had been glancing over Mr. Furrey's shoulder
+for a moment with a look of interest in her eyes, which he thought was
+the legitimate result of his entertaining story, cried:
+
+"Why, there comes Mr. Farnham, mamma."
+
+"So it is," said her mother. "I suppose he wants to see me. Don't move,
+Mr. Furrey. Mr. Farnham and I will go into the house."
+
+"By no means," said that gentleman, who by this time had mounted the
+steps. "I was sitting all alone on my porch and saw by the moon that
+yours was inhabited; and so I came over to improve my mind and manners
+in your society."
+
+"I will get a chair for you," said Mrs. Belding.
+
+"No, thank you; this balustrade will bear my weight, and my ashes will
+drop harmless on the flower-bed, if you will let me finish my cigar."
+And he seated himself between the chair of Furrey and the willow fabric
+in which Alice had resumed her place. This addition to the company was
+not at all to the taste of the assistant cashier, who soon took his
+leave, shaking hands with the ladies, with his best bow.
+
+"After all, I do prefer a chair," said Farnham, getting down from his
+balustrade, and throwing away his cigar.
+
+He sat with his back to the moonlight. On his left was Alice, who, as
+soon as Furrey took his departure, settled back in her willow chair in
+her former attitude of graceful ease. On the right was Mrs. Belding, in
+her thin, cool dress of gauzy black. Farnham looked from one to the
+other as they talked, and that curious exercise, so common to young men
+in such circumstances, went through his mind. He tried to fancy how
+Mrs. Belding looked at nineteen, and how Miss Belding would look at
+fifty, and the thought gave him singular pleasure. His eyes rested with
+satisfaction on the kindly and handsome face of the widow, her fine
+shoulders and arms, and comfortable form, and then, turning to the pure
+and exquisite features of the tall girl, who was smiling so freshly and
+honestly on him, his mind leaped forward through corning years, and he
+said to himself: "What a wealth of the woman there is there--for
+somebody." An aggressive feeling of disapproval of young Furrey took
+possession of him, and he said, sharply:
+
+"What a very agreeable young man Mr. Furrey is?"
+
+Mrs. Belding assented, and Miss Alice laughed heartily, and his mind
+was set at rest for the moment.
+
+They passed a long time together. At first Mrs. Belding and Arthur
+"made the expenses" of the conversation; but she soon dropped away, and
+Alice, under the influence of the night and the moonlight and Farnham's
+frank and gentle provocation, soon found herself talking with as much
+freedom and energy as if it were a girls' breakfast. With far more,
+indeed,--for nature takes care of such matters, and no girl can talk to
+another as she can to a man, under favoring stars. The conversation
+finally took a personal turn, and Alice, to her own amazement, began to
+talk of her life at school, and with sweet and loving earnestness sang
+the praises of Madame de Veaudrey.
+
+"I wish you could know her," she said to Farnham, with a sudden impulse
+of sympathy. He was listening to her intently, and enjoying her eager,
+ingenuous speech as much as her superb beauty, as the moon shone full
+on her young face, so vital and so pure at once, and played, as if glad
+of the privilege, about the curved lips, the flashing teeth, the soft
+eyes under their long lashes, and the hair over the white forehead,
+gleaming as crisply brilliant as fine-spun wire of gold.
+
+"By her fruits I know her, and I admire her very much," he said, and
+was sorry for it the moment afterward, for it checked the course of the
+young girl's enthusiasm and brought a slight blush to her cheek.
+
+"I ought to have known better," he said to himself with real penitence,
+"than to utter a stupid commonplace to such a girl when she was talking
+so earnestly." And he tried to make amends, and succeeded in winning
+back her attention and her slow unconscious smiles by talking to her of
+things a thousand miles away. The moon was silvering the tops of the
+linden-trees at the gates before they thought of the flight of time,
+and they had quite forgotten the presence of Mrs. Belding when her
+audible repose broke in upon their talk. They looked at each other, and
+burst into a frank laugh, full of confidence and comradeship, which the
+good lady heard in her dreams and waked, saying, "What are you laughing
+at? I did not catch that last witticism."
+
+The young people rose from their chairs. "I can't repeat my own mots,"
+said Arthur: "Miss Belding will tell you."
+
+"Indeed I shall not," replied Alice. "It was not one of his best,
+mamma."
+
+She gave him her hand as he said "Good-night," and it lay in his firm
+grasp a moment without reserve or tremor.
+
+"You are a queer girl, Alice," said Mrs. Belding, as they walked into
+the drawing-room through the open window. "You put on your stiffest
+company manners for Mr. Furrey, and you seem entirely at ease with Mr.
+Farnham, who is much older and cleverer, and is noted for his sarcastic
+criticisms."
+
+"I do not know why it is, mamma, but I do feel very much at home with
+Mr. Farnham, and I do not want Mr. Furrey to feel at home with me."
+
+Upon this, Mrs. Belding laughed aloud. Alice turned in surprise, and
+her mother said, "It is too good to keep. I must tell you. It is such a
+joke on Arthur;" and, sitting in a low arm-chair, while Alice stood
+before her leaning upon the back of another, she told the whole story
+of the scene of the morning in the rose-house. She gave it in the
+fullest detail, interrupting herself here and there for soft
+cachinnations, unmindful of the stern, unsmiling silence with which her
+daughter listened.
+
+She finished, with a loud nourish of merriment, and then asked: "Did
+you ever hear anything so funny in your life?"
+
+The young lady was turning white and red in an ominous manner, and was
+biting her nether lip. Her answer to her mother's question was swift
+and brief:
+
+"I never heard anything so horrid," and she moved majestically away
+without another word.
+
+Mrs. Belding sat for a moment abashed. "There!" she said to herself, "I
+knew very well I ought not to tell her. But it was too good to keep,
+and I had nobody else to tell." She went to bed, feeling rather
+ill-used. As she passed her daughter's door, she said, "Good-night,
+Alice!"  and a voice riot quite so sweet as usual replied, "Good-night,
+mamma," but the door was not opened.
+
+Alice turned down her light and sat upon a cushioned seat in the
+embrasure of her open window. She looked up at the stars, which swam
+and glittered in her angry eyes. With trembling lips and clinched hands
+she communed with herself. "Why, why, why did mamma tell me that horrid
+story? To think there should be such women in the world! To take such a
+liberty with him, of all men! She could not have done it without some
+encouragement--and he could not have encouraged her. He is not that
+kind of a vulgar flirt at all. But what do I know about men? They may
+all be--but I did not think--what business have I thinking about it? I
+had better go to bed. I have spent all the evening talking to a man
+who--Oh! I wish mamma had not told me that wretched story. I shall
+never speak to him again. It is a pity, too, for we are such near
+neighbors, and he is so nice, if he were not--But I don't care how nice
+he is, she has spoiled him. I wonder who she was. Pretty, was she? I
+don't believe a word of it--some bold-faced, brazen creature. Oh! I
+shall hate myself if I cry;" but that was past praying for, and she
+closed her lattice and went to bed for fear the stars should witness
+her unwelcome tears.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+A WORD OUT OF SEASON.
+
+
+Arthur Farnham awoke the next day with a flight of sweet hopes and
+fancies singing in his heart and brain. He felt cheerfully and kindly
+toward the whole human race. As he walked down into the city to
+transact some business he had there with his lawyer, he went out of his
+way to speak to little children. He gave all his acquaintances a
+heartier "Good-morning" than usual. He even whistled at passing dogs.
+The twitter of the sparrows in the trees, their fierce contentions on
+the grass, amused him. He leaned over the railing of the fountain in
+the square with the idlers, and took a deep interest in the turtles,
+who were baking their frescoed backs in the warm sun, as they floated
+about on pine boards, amid the bubbles of the clear water.
+
+As he passed by the library building, Dr. Buchlieber was standing in
+the door. "Good luck," he said; "I was just wishing to see you. One of
+our young women resigned this morning, and I think there may be a
+chance for our handsome friend. The meeting, you remember, is this
+afternoon."
+
+Farnham hardly recalled the name of the young lady in whose success he
+had been so interested, although recent intimate occurrences might have
+been expected to fix it somewhat permanently in his remembrance. But
+all female images except one had become rather vague in his memory. He
+assented, however, to what the doctor proposed, and going away
+congratulated himself on the possibility of doing Maud a service and
+ridding himself of the faintest tinge of remorse. He was not fatuous or
+conceited. He did not for a moment imagine that the girl was in love
+with him. He attributed her demonstration in the rose-house to her
+"congenital bad breeding," and thought it only one degree worse than
+other match-making manoeuvres of which he had been the object in the
+different worlds he had frequented. He gave himself no serious thought
+about it, and yet he was glad to find an apparent opportunity to be of
+use to her. She was poor and pretty. He had taken an interest in her
+welfare. It had not turned out very well. She had flung herself into
+his arms and been heartily kissed. He could not help feeling there was
+a balance against him.
+
+As he turned the corner of the street which led to the attorney's
+office where he was going, he saw a man standing by the wall with his
+hat off, bowing to him. He returned the unusual salutation and passed
+on; it was some moments before he remembered that it was one of his
+colleagues on the Library Board. He regretted not having stopped and
+made the effort to engage his vote for Maud; but, on second thought, he
+reflected that it would be as well to rely upon the surprise of the
+three to prevent a combination at the meeting. When he reached the
+entrance of the building where his lawyer's offices were, he turned,
+with a sense of being pursued by a shuffling footstep which had
+hastened its speed the last few paces, and saw his colleague coming up
+the steps after him with a perspiring but resolute face.
+
+"Hold on, Cap," he said, coming into the shade of the passage. "I was
+thinkin' o' comin' to see you, when I sighted you comin' round the
+corner."
+
+"I am glad to see you, Mr. Pennybaker," said Arthur, taking the clumsy
+hand which was held out to him.
+
+"Gettin' pretty hot, ain't it?" said Pennybaker, wiping his brow with
+his forefinger and dexterously sprinkling the floor with the proceeds
+of the action.
+
+"No danger of frost, I think," Arthur assented, admiring the dexterity
+of Pennybaker, but congratulating himself that the shake-hands was
+disposed of.
+
+"You bet your life. We're going to have it just sizzling from now on."
+
+"Were you wishing to see me about anything in particular?" asked
+Farnham, who saw no other way of putting an end to a meteorological
+discussion which did not interest him.
+
+"Well, yes," answered Pennybaker, getting around beside Farnham, and
+gazing at the wall opposite. "I heerd this mornin' that Minnie Bell was
+goin' to get married. My daughter is doing some sewing for her, and it
+slipped out that way. She was trying to keep it secret. Some girls is
+mighty funny that way. They will do anything to get engaged, and then
+they will lie like Sam Hill to make believe they ain't. Well, that
+makes a vacancy." He did not turn his head, but he cast a quick glance
+sideways at Farnham, who made no answer, and Pennybaker resumed: "So I
+thought I would come to you, honor bright, and see if we couldn't agree
+what to do. That's me. I'm open and square like a bottle of bitters."
+
+Farnham gave no indication of his surprise at this burst of candor, but
+asked:
+
+"What do you propose?"
+
+"That's it," said Pennybaker, promptly. "I don't propose nothing--I
+_ex_pose. You hear me--I _ex_pose." He said this with great mystery,
+one eye being shut fast and the other only half open. He perceived that
+he had puzzled Farnham, and enjoyed it for a moment by repeating his
+mot with a chuckle that did not move a muscle of his face. "I'll tell
+you the whole thing. There's no use, between gentlemen, of playing the
+thing too fine." He took his knife from one pocket and from another a
+twist of tobacco, and, cutting off a mouthful, began his story:
+
+"You see, me and Bud Merritt and Joe Dorman have most generally agreed
+on paternage, and that was all right. You are well fixed. You don't
+want the bother of them little giblets of paternage. We've 'tended to
+'em for what there was in 'em and for the good of the party. Now Bud he
+wants to be auditor, and he's got Joe to go in with him, because, if he
+gits there, Joe's brother-in-law, Tim Dolan, will be his debbity. Bud
+is weak in the Third Ward, and he knows it, and he knows that Jake
+Runckel can swing that ward like a dead cat; and so they have fixed it
+all up to give the next vacancy to Jake for his sister. She's been
+turned out of the school for some skylarking, and weighs pretty heavy
+on Jake's hands. Very well. That's the game, and I'm a-kickin'! Do you
+hear me? I'm a-kickin'!"
+
+Pennybaker pushed up his hat and looked Farnham fairly in the face. The
+assertion of his independence seemed to give him great gratification.
+He said once more, slowly closing one eye and settling back in his
+former attitude against the wall, while he aimed a deluge of
+tobacco-juice at the base of the wall before him: "I'm a-kickin' like a
+Texas steer."
+
+He waited a moment to allow these impressive words to have their full
+effect, while Farnham preserved a serious and attentive face.
+
+"Well, this bein' the case," continued Pennybaker, "I comes to you, as
+one gentleman to another, and I asks whether we can't agree against
+this selfish and corrupt game of Merritt and Dorman. For, you see, I
+don't get a smell out of what they're doin'. I'm out in the cold if
+their slate goes through."
+
+"I don't see that I can be of any service to you, Mr. Pennybaker. If I
+have any influence in the matter, it shall be given to Miss Matchin,
+whom I proposed once before."
+
+"Exactly! Now you're talkin'. Miss Matchin shall have it, on one little
+proviso that won't hurt you nor me nor nobody. Say the word, and it's a
+whack."
+
+And he lifted up his hand to strike the bargain.
+
+"What is it?" asked Farnham, in a tone which was severe and
+contemptuous, in spite of him.
+
+"Namely, just this," answered Pennybaker, "You ain't on the make;
+you're fixed. You don't care about these d---- little things except to
+help a friend once 'n awhile," he said, in a large and generous way.
+"But I ain't that kind yet. I've got to look out for myself--pretty
+lively, too. Now, I'll tell you what's my racket. You let me perpose
+Miss Matchin's name and then go and tell her father that I put it
+through, and it'll be done slick as a whistle. That's all solid, ain't
+it?"
+
+Farnham's brow clouded. He did not answer at once. Pennybaker repeated
+his question a little anxiously:
+
+"That's all solid, ain't it?"
+
+"You will excuse me, Mr. Pennybaker, if I do not quite understand your
+racket, as you call it. I do not see how you make anything out of this.
+Matchin is a poor man. You surely do not intend----"
+
+"To strike Saul for a divvy? Nothing of the sort," said Pennybaker,
+without the least offence. "The whole thing lies just here. Among
+gentlemen there's no use being shy about it. My brother wants to be
+assessor in Saul Matchin's ward. Saul's got a lot of influence among
+the boys in the planing-mills, and I want his help. You see?"
+
+Farnham thought he saw, and, after assenting to Pennybaker's eager
+demand, "That's all solid?" he walked away, too much relieved by the
+thought that Maud was provided for to question too closely the morality
+of the proceeding which the sordid rascal had exposed to him.
+
+In the afternoon, at the meeting of the board, the programme agreed
+upon was strictly carried out.
+
+Pennybaker proposed Miss Matchin's name as soon as the vacancy was
+announced, to the amazement of his late confederates. They moved a
+postponement, but to no purpose; Maud was elected; and the angry
+politicians had no better revenge than to say spitefully to Pennybaker
+on the stairs, as they went away, "How much did the Captain give you
+for that sell-out?"--a jeer which he met by a smile of conscious
+rectitude and a request to be informed the next time they organized a
+freeze-out against him. It must be said, however, that he lost no time
+in going to Matchin, informing him that he had succeeded in carrying
+Maud in by unheard-of exertions, and demanding and receiving on the
+spot five per cent of her year's salary, which he called "the usual
+commission."
+
+Saul announced the appointment that evening at supper. Maud flushed
+crimson, and the tears started to her eyes. She was about to declare
+she would not have it, when her father's next words put a different
+face on the matter. "And it's no thanks to Cap'n Farnham, neither. He
+tried it oncet, and couldn't make the riffle. But me and Joel
+Pennybaker got together and done it. And now I hope, Mattie, you'll
+behave yourself and save money. It's like a fortun' comin' to you, if
+you're smart."
+
+Maud found no reply ready. She could not wholly believe her father's
+story. She still fancied the appointment came from Farnham, and there
+was a certain bitterness in it; but, on the whole, she received it not
+without a secret complacency. Mrs. Matchin's pleasure was checked by
+her daughter's morose confusion. Sam made no pretence of being pleased,
+but sat, unmoved by Matchin's speech, in scowling silence, and soon
+went out without a word of comment. The scene he had witnessed in the
+rose-house had poisoned his mind; yet, whenever he looked at Maud, or
+tried to speak to her, he was met with an air of such fierce and
+beautiful defiance, that his eyes fell and his voice stuck in his
+throat. So the piece of good fortune, so anxiously awaited in the
+household, brought little delight when it came. Maud reported for duty
+next day, and soon learned the routine of her work; but she grew more
+and more silent at home, and Saul's hope of a wedding in the family
+died away.
+
+Arthur Farnham walked away from the meeting with the feeling of a
+school-boy who has finished a difficult task and who thinks he deserves
+some compensating pleasure. The day had been fine and warm, but the
+breeze of the late afternoon was already blowing in from the lake,
+lending freshness and life to the air. The sky was filled with soft
+gray clouds, which sailed along at a leisurely rate, evidently on very
+good terms with the breeze. As Farnham walked up the avenue, he cast
+about in his mind for the sort of dissipation with which he would
+reward himself for the day's work and he decided for a ride.
+
+But as he was drawing on his boots, it occurred to him, for the first
+time in his life, that it was a churlish and unneighborly proceeding
+for him to go riding alone day after day, and that he would be doing no
+more than his duty to offer his escort to Miss Belding. He said Miss
+Belding to his own thought--making it as formal and respectful as
+possible. So, sending an order to his groom to keep his horse at the
+stable for a moment, he walked over the lawn to the Belding cottage and
+asked for the ladies.
+
+"I believe they are upstairs, sir. Walk into the drawing-room, and I
+will see," said the neat housemaid, smiling at Farnham, as indeed was
+the general custom of women. He took his seat in the cool and darkened
+room facing the door-way, which commanded a view of the stairs. He sat
+in a large willow chair very much at his ease, looking about the pretty
+salon, enjoying its pictures and ornaments and the fragrance of the
+roses in the vases, as if he had a personal interest in them. The maid
+came back and said the ladies would be down in a moment.
+
+She had announced Farnham to Mrs. Belding, who had replied, "Tell him,
+in a moment." She was in the summer afternoon condition which the
+ladies call "dressing-sack," and after an inspection at the glass,
+which seemed unsatisfactory, she walked across the hall to her
+daughter's room. She found Alice standing by the window, looking out
+upon the lake.
+
+"There, I am glad you are all dressed. Arthur Farnham has called, and
+you must go down and excuse me. I said I would come, but it will take
+me so long to dress, he will get tired of waiting. You run down and see
+him. I suppose there is nothing particular."
+
+"Oh, mamma," said Alice, "I don't want to see him, and especially not
+alone."
+
+Mrs. Belding made large eyes in her surprise. "Why, Alice, what has got
+into you?"
+
+Alice blushed and cast down her eyes. "Mamma," she said, in a low
+voice, "do not ask me to go down. You know what you told me last
+night."
+
+"There, that will do," said the mother, with a tone of authority.
+"Perhaps I was foolish to tell you that silly little story, but I am
+the judge of who shall visit this house. You are too young to decide
+these questions for me, and I insist that what I told you shall make no
+difference in your treatment of Mr. Farnham. You think too much of your
+own part in the matter. He has come to see me, and not you, and I wish
+you to go down and make my excuses for keeping him waiting. Will you
+go?"
+
+"Yes, I will go," said the young girl. The blush had left her cheek and
+she had become a trifle pale. She had not raised her eyes from the
+floor during her mother's little speech; and when it was over and her
+mother had gone back to her room, Alice cast one glance at her mirror,
+and with a firm face walked down the stairs to the drawing-room.
+Farnham heard the rustle of her dress with a beating of the heart which
+filled him with a delicious surprise. "I am not past it, then," was the
+thought that came instantly to his mind, and in that one second was a
+singular joy. When she came in sight on the stairs, it was like a
+sudden enchantment to him. Her beautiful head, crowned with its masses
+of hair drawn back into a simple Greek knot; her tall, strong figure,
+draped in some light and clinging stuff which imposed no check on her
+natural grace and dignity, formed a charming picture as she came down
+the long stairs; and Farnham's eyes fastened eagerly upon her white
+hand as it glided along the dark walnut baluster. His heart went out to
+meet her. He confessed to himself, with a lover's instantaneous
+conviction, that there was nothing in the world so utterly desirable as
+that tall and fair-haired girl slowly descending the stairs. In the
+midst of his tumultuous feeling a trivial thought occurred to him: "I
+am shot through the heart by the blind archer," he said to himself; and
+he no longer laughed at the old-fashioned symbol of the sudden and
+fatal power of love.
+
+But with all this tumult of joy in the senses waking up to their
+allegiance, there came a certain reserve. The goddess-like creature who
+had so suddenly become the mistress of his soul was a very serious
+personage to confront in her new majesty. He did not follow the impulse
+of his heart and rush forward as she entered the room. He merely rose
+and bowed. She made the faintest possible salutation, and, without
+taking a seat, conveyed her mother's excuses in a tone of such studied
+coldness that it amused Farnham, who took it as a school-girl's
+assumption of a grand and ceremonious manner suitable to a tete-a-tete
+with man.
+
+"Thank you," he said, "but I did not come especially to see your
+mother. My object was rather to see you." She did not smile or reply,
+and he went on, with a slight sensation of chill coming upon him from
+this stony dignity, which, the more he observed it, seemed less and
+less amusing and not at all artificial. "I came to ask if you would not
+like to go to ride this afternoon. It is just gray enough for comfort."
+
+"I thank you very much for being so kind as to think of me," she
+replied, "but it will not be convenient for me to go."
+
+"Perhaps the morning will suit better. I will come to-morrow at any
+hour you say."
+
+"I shall not be able to go to-morrow either, I think."
+
+Even while exchanging these few words, Alice felt herself growing
+slightly embarrassed, and it filled her with dismay. "I am a poor
+creature," she thought, "if I cannot get this self-satisfied gentleman
+out of the house without breaking down. I can't stand here forever
+though," and so she took a seat, and as Arthur resumed his willow chair
+with an air of content, she could not but feel that as yet the skirmish
+was not in her favor. She called her angry spirit to her aid, and
+nerved herself to say something which would promptly close the
+interview.
+
+His next words gave her the opportunity.
+
+"But you surely do not intend to give up riding altogether?"
+
+"Certainly not. I hope to ride a good deal. Andrews will go with me."
+
+"Ah! Your objection to me as a groom is entirely personal, then."
+
+"Now for it!" she thought to herself, and she said firmly, "Yes."
+
+But the effort was too great, and after the word was launched her mouth
+broke up into a nervous smile, for which she despised herself, but
+which she could not control for her life.
+
+Farnham was so pleased with the smile that he cared nothing for the
+word, and so he continued in a tone of anxious and coaxing good-nature,
+every word increasing her trouble:
+
+"You are wrong as you can be. I am a much better groom than Andrews. He
+has rather more style, I admit, on account of his Scotch accent and his
+rheumatism. But I might acquire these. I will be very attentive and
+respectful. I will ride at a proper distance behind you, if you will
+occasionally throw a word and a smile over your shoulder at me."
+
+As he spoke, a quick vision flashed upon him of the loveliness of the
+head and shoulder, and the coil of fair hair which he should have
+before him if he rode after her, and the illumination of the smile and
+the word which would occasionally be thrown back to him from these
+perfect lips and teeth and eyes. His voice trembled with love and
+eagerness as he pleaded for the privilege of taking her servant's
+place. Alice no longer dared to interrupt him, and hardly ventured to
+lift her eyes from the floor. She had come down with the firm purpose
+of saying something to him which would put an end to all intimacy, and
+here, before she had been five minutes in his presence, he was talking
+to her in a way that delighted her ears and her heart. He went rattling
+on as if fearful that a pause might bring a change of mood. As she
+rarely looked up, he could feast his eyes upon her face, where now the
+color was coming and going, and on her shapely hands, which were
+clasped in her lap. He talked of Colorado as if it were settled that
+they were to go there together, and they must certainly have some
+preliminary training in rough riding; and then, merely to make
+conversation, he spoke of other places that should only be visited on
+horseback, always claiming in all of them his post of groom. Alice felt
+her trouble and confusion of spirit passing away as the light stream of
+talk rippled on. She took little part in it at first, but from
+monosyllables of assent she passed on to a word of reply from time to
+time; and before she knew how it happened she was engaged in a frank
+and hearty interchange of thoughts and fancies, which brought her best
+faculties into play and made her content with herself, in spite of the
+occasional intrusion of the idea that she had not been true to herself
+in letting her just anger die so quickly away.
+
+If Farnham could have seen into the proud and honest heart of the young
+girl he was talking to, he would have rested on the field he had won,
+and not tempted a further adventure. Her anger against him had been
+dissipated by the very effort she had made to give it effect, and she
+had fallen insensibly into the old relation of good neighborhood and
+unreserved admiration with which she had always regarded him. She had
+silenced her scruples by the thought that in talking pleasantly with
+him she was obeying her mother, and that after all it was not her
+business to judge him. If he could have known his own best interest, he
+would have left her then, when her voice and her smile had become gay
+and unembarrassed according to their wont, with her conscience at ease
+about his faults, and her mind filled with a pleasant memory of his
+visit.
+
+But such wisdom was beyond his reach. He had felt suddenly, and once
+for all, in the last hour, the power and visible presence of his love.
+He had never in his life been so moved by any passion as he was by the
+joy that stirred his heart when he heard the rustle of her dress in the
+hall and saw her white hand resting lightly on the dark wood of the
+stairs. As she walked into the parlor, from her face and her hair, from
+every movement of her limbs, from every flutter of her soft and gauzy
+garments, there came to him an assertion of her power over him that
+filled him with a delicious awe. She represented to him, as he had
+never felt it before, the embodied mystery and majesty of womanhood.
+During all the long conversation that had followed, he had been
+conscious of a sort of dual operation of his mind, like that familiar
+to the eaters of hashish. With one part of him he had been carrying on
+a light and shallow conversation, as an excuse to remain in her
+presence and to keep his eyes upon her, and with all the more active
+energies of his being he had been giving himself up to an act of
+passionate adoration of her. The thoughts that uttered themselves to
+him, as he chatted about all sorts of indifferent things, were
+something like these: How can it have ever happened that such beauty,
+such dignity, such physical perfection could come together in one
+person, and the best and sweetest heart have met them there? If she
+knew her value, her pride would ruin her. In her there is everything,
+and everything else beside: Galatea, the statue, with a Christian soul.
+She is the best that could fall to any man, but better for me than for
+any one else. Anybody who sees her must love her, but I was made for
+nothing else but to love her. This is what mythologies meant. She is
+Venus: she loves laughter, and her teeth and lips are divine. She is
+Diana: she makes the night beautiful; she has the eye and the arm of an
+athlete goddess. But she is a woman: she is Mrs. Belding's daughter
+Alice. Thank heaven, she lives here. I can call and see her. To-morrow,
+I shall ride with her. She will love and marry some day like other
+women. Who is the man who shall ever kiss her between those straight
+brows? And fancies more audacious and extravagant fed the fever of his
+heart as he talked deliberate small talk, still holding his hat and
+whip in his hand.
+
+He knew it was time he should go, but could not leave the joy of his
+eyes and ears. At last his thoughts, like a vase too full, ran over
+into speech. It was without premeditation, almost without conscious
+intention. The under-tone simply became dominant and overwhelmed the
+frivolous surface talk. She had been talking of her mother's plans of
+summer travel, and he suddenly interrupted her by saying in the most
+natural tone in the world: "I must see your mother before she decides.
+I hope you will make no plans without me. I shall go where you go. I
+shall never be away from you again, if I can help it. No, no, do not
+frown about it. I must tell you. I love you; my whole life is yours."
+
+She felt terribly shocked and alarmed, not so much at his words as at
+her own agitation. She feared for a moment she could not rise from her
+seat, but she did so with an effort. He rose and approached her,
+evidently held in check by her inflexible face; for the crisis had
+brought a momentary self-control with it, and she looked formidable
+with her knit brows and closed lips.
+
+"Do not go," he pleaded. "Do not think I have been wanting in respect
+and consideration. I could not help saying what I did. I cannot live
+without you any more than I can without light and sunshine. I ought to
+have waited and not startled you. But I have only begun to live since I
+loved you, and I feel I must not waste time."
+
+She was deeply disturbed at these wild and whirling words, but still
+bore herself bravely. She felt her heart touched by the vibration of
+his ardent speech, but her maiden instinct of self defence enabled her
+to stand on her guard. Though beaten by the storm of his devotion, she
+said to herself that she could get away if she could keep from crying
+or sobbing, and one thought which came to her with the swiftness of
+lightning gave her strength to resist. It was this: "If I cry, he will
+take me in his arms, and we shall repeat the tableau mamma saw in the
+rose-house."
+
+Strong in that stimulating thought, she said: "I am too sorry to hear
+you say these things. You know how much we have always thought of you.
+If you forget all this, and never repeat it, we may still be friends.
+But if you renew this subject, I will never speak to you again alone,
+as long as I live."
+
+He began to protest; but she insisted, with the calm cruelty of a woman
+who sees her advantage over the man she loves. "If you say another
+word, it is the end of our acquaintance, and perhaps it is best that it
+should end. We can hardly be again as we were."
+
+Farnham was speechless, like one waked in the cold air out of a
+tropical dream. He had been carried on for the last hour in a whirlwind
+of emotion, and now he had met an obstacle against which it seemed that
+nothing could be done. If he had planned his avowal, he might have been
+prepared for rejection; but he had been hurried into it with no thought
+of what the result would be, and he was equally unprovided for either
+issue. In face of the unwavering voice and bearing of Alice, who seemed
+ten times more beautiful than ever as she stood before him as steady
+and unresponsive as a young Fate, his hot speech seemed suddenly
+smitten powerless. He only said:
+
+"It shall be as you wish. If I ever offend you again, I will take my
+punishment upon myself and get out of your way."
+
+She did not dare to say another word, for fear it would be too kind.
+She gave him her hand; it was soft and warm as he pressed it; and if he
+had only known how much softer and warmer her heart was, he would have
+covered her hand with a thousand kisses. But he bowed and took his
+leave, and she stood by the lattice and saw him go away, with eyes full
+of tears and a breast filled with the tenderest ruth and pity--for him
+and for herself.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+THE SANTA RITA SHERRY.
+
+
+Farnham walked down the path to the gate, then turned to go to his own
+house, with no very definite idea of what direction he was taking. The
+interview he had just had was still powerfully affecting his senses, he
+was conscious of no depression from the prompt and decided refusal he
+had received. He was like a soldier in his first battle who has got a
+sharp wound which does not immediately cripple him, the perception of
+which is lost in the enjoyment of a new, keen, and enthralling
+experience. His thoughts were full of his own avowal, of the beauty of
+his young mistress, rather than of her coldness. Seeing his riding-whip
+in his hand, he stared at it an instant, and then at his boots, with a
+sudden recollection that he had intended to ride. He walked rapidly to
+the stable, where his horse was still waiting, and rode at a brisk trot
+out of the avenue for a few blocks, and then struck off into a sandy
+path that led to the woods by the river-side.
+
+As he rode, his thoughts were at first more of himself than of Alice.
+He exulted over the discovery that he was in love as if some great and
+unimagined good fortune had happened to him. "I am not past it, then,"
+he said to himself, repeating the phrase which had leaped from his
+heart when he saw Alice descending the stairs. "I hardly thought that
+such a thing could ever happen to me. She is the only one." His
+thoughts ran back to a night in Heidelberg, when he sat in the shadow
+of the castle wall with a German student of his acquaintance, and
+looked far over the valley at the lights of the town and the rippling
+waves of the Neckar, silvered by the soft radiance of the summer moon.
+
+"Poor Hammerstein! How he raved that night about little Bertha von
+Eichholz. He called her _Die Einzige_ something like a thousand times.
+It seemed an absurd thing to say; I knew dozens just like her, with
+blue eyes and Gretchen braids. But Hammerstein meant it, for he shot
+himself the week after her wedding with the assessor. But mine _is_ the
+Only One--though she is not mine. I would rather love her without hope
+than be loved by any other woman in the world."
+
+A few days before he had been made happy by perceiving that she was no
+longer a child; now he took infinite pleasure in the thought of her
+youth; he tilled his mind and his senses with the image of her
+freshness, her clear, pure color, the outline of her face and form.
+"She is young and fragrant as spring; she has every bloom and charm of
+body and soul," he said to himself, as he galloped over the shady
+woodland road. In his exalted mood, he had almost forgotten how he had
+left her presence. He delighted in his own roused and wakened passion,
+as a devotee in his devotions, without considering what was to come of
+it all. The blood was surging through his veins. He was too strong, his
+love was too new and wonderful to him, to leave any chance for despair.
+It was not that he did not consider himself dismissed. He felt that he
+had played a great stake foolishly, and lost. But the love was there,
+and it warmed and cheered his heart, like a fire in a great hall,
+making even the gloom noble.
+
+He was threading a bridle-path which led up a gentle ascent to a hill
+overlooking the river, when his horse suddenly started back with a
+snort of terror as two men emerged from the thicket and grasped at his
+rein. He raised his whip to strike one of them down; the man dodged,
+and his companion said, "None o' that, or I'll shoot your horse." The
+sun had set, but it was yet light, and he saw that the fellow had a
+cocked revolver in his hand.
+
+"Well, what do you want?" he asked.
+
+"I want you to stop where you are and go back," said the man sullenly.
+
+"Why should I go back? My road lies the other way. You step aside and
+let me pass."
+
+"You can't pass this way. Go back, or I'll make you," the man growled,
+shifting his pistol to his left hand and seizing Farnham's rein with
+his right. His intention evidently was to turn the horse around and
+start him down the path by which he had come. Farnham saw his
+opportunity and struck the hand that held the pistol a smart blow. The
+weapon dropped, but went off with a sharp report as it fell. The horse
+reared and plunged, but the man held firmly to the rein. His companion,
+joined by two or three other rough-looking men who rushed from the
+thicket, seized the horse and held him firmly, and pulled Farnham from
+the saddle. They attempted no violence and no robbery. The man who had
+held the pistol, a black-visaged fellow with a red face and dyed
+mustache, after rubbing his knuckles a moment, said: "Let's take it out
+o' the ---- whelp!" But another, to whom the rest seemed to look as a
+leader, said: "Go slow, Mr. Bowersox; we want no trouble here."
+
+Farnham at this addressed the last speaker and said, "Can you tell me
+what all this means? You don't seem to be murderers. Are you
+horse-thieves?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind," said the man. "We are Reformers."
+
+Farnham gazed at him with amazement. He was a dirty-looking man, young
+and sinewy, with long and oily hair and threadbare clothes, shiny and
+unctuous. His eyes were red and furtive, and he had a trick of passing
+his hand over his mouth while he spoke. His mates stood around him,
+listening rather studiedly to the conversation. They seemed of the lower
+class of laboring men. Their appearance was so grotesque, in connection
+with the lofty title their chief had given them, that Farnham could not
+help smiling, in spite of his anger.
+
+"What is your special line of reform?" he asked,--"spelling, or civil
+service?"
+
+"We are Labor Reformers," said the spokesman. "We represent the toiling
+millions against the bloated capitalists and grinding monopolies; we
+believe that man is better----"
+
+"Yes, no doubt," interrupted Farnham; "but how are you going to help
+the toiling millions by stopping my horse on the highway?"
+
+"We was holding a meeting which was kep' secret for reasons
+satisfactory to ourselves. These two gentlemen was posted here to keep
+out intruders from the lodge. If you had 'a' spoke civil to them, there
+would have been no harm done. None will be done now if you want to go."
+
+Farnham at once mounted his horse. "I would take it as a great favor,"
+he said, "if you would give me your name and that of the gentleman with
+the pistol. Where is he, by the way?" he continued. The man they called
+Bowersox had disappeared from the group around the spokesman. Farnham
+turned and saw him a little distance away directly behind him. He had
+repossessed himself of his pistol and held it cocked in his hand.
+
+"What do you want of our names?" the spokesman asked.
+
+Farnham did not again lose sight of Bowersox. It occurred to him that
+the interview might as well be closed. He therefore said, carelessly,
+without turning:
+
+"A man has a natural curiosity to know the names of new acquaintances.
+But no matter, I suppose the police know you," and rode away.
+
+Bowersox turned to Offitt and said, "Why in ---- did you let him go? I
+could have knocked his head off and nobody knowed it."
+
+"Yes," said Offitt, coolly. "And got hung for it."
+
+"It would have been self-defence," said Bowersox. "He hit me first."
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said Offitt, "that closes up Greenwood Lodge. We
+can't meet in this grass any more. I don't suppose he knows any of us
+by sight, or he'd have us up to-morrow."
+
+"It was a piece of ---- nonsense, comin' out here, anyhow," growled
+Bowersox, unwilling to be placated. "You haven't done a ---- thing but
+lay around on the grass and eat peanuts and hear Bott chin."
+
+"Brother Bott has delivered a splendid address on 'The Religion of
+Nature,' and he couldn't have had a better hall than the Canopy to give
+it under," said Offitt. "And now, gentlemen, we'd better get back our
+own way."
+
+As Farnham rode home he was not much puzzled by his adventure in the
+woods. He remembered having belonged, when he was a child of ten, to a
+weird and mysterious confraternity called "Early Druids," which met in
+the depths of groves, with ill-defined purposes, and devoted the hours
+of meeting principally to the consumption of confectionery. He had
+heard for the past few months of the existence of secret organizations
+of working-men--wholly outside of the trades-unions and unconnected
+with them--and guessed at once that he had disturbed a lodge of one of
+these clubs. His resentment did not last very long at the treatment to
+which he had been subjected; but still he thought it was not a matter
+of jest to have the roads obstructed by ruffians with theories in their
+heads and revolvers in their hands, neither of which they knew how to
+use. He therefore promised himself to consult with the chief of police
+the next morning in regard to the matter.
+
+As he rode along, thinking of the occurrence, he was dimly conscious of
+a pleasant suggestion in something he had seen among the hazel brush,
+and searching tenaciously in his recollection of the affair, it all at
+once occurred to him that, among the faces of the men who came out of
+the thicket in the scuffle, was that of the blonde-bearded, blue-eyed
+young carpenter who had been at work in his library the day Mrs.
+Belding and Alice lunched with him. He was pleased to find that the
+pleasant association led him to memories of his love, but for a moment
+a cloud passed over him at the thought of so frank and hearty a fellow
+and such a good workman being in such company. "I must see if I cannot
+get him out of it," he said to himself, and then reverted again to
+thoughts of Alice.
+
+Twilight was falling, and its melancholy influence was beginning to
+affect him. He thought less and less of the joy of his love and more of
+its hopelessness. By the time he reached his house he had begun to
+confront the possibility of a life of renunciation, and, after the
+manner of Americans of fortune who have no special ties, his mind
+turned naturally to Europe. "I cannot stay here to annoy her," he
+thought, and so began to plot for the summer and winter, and, in fancy,
+was at the second cataract of the Nile before his horse's hoofs,
+ringing on the asphalt of the stable-yard, recalled him to himself.
+
+The next day, he was compelled to go to New York to attend to some
+matters of business. Before taking the train, he laid his complaint of
+being stopped on the road before the chief of police, who promised to
+make vigorous inquisition. Farnham remained several days in New York,
+and on his return, one warm, bright evening, he found his table
+prepared and the grave Budsey waiting behind his chair.
+
+He ate his dinner hastily and in silence, with no great zest. "You have
+not forgot, sir," said Budsey, who was his external conscience in
+social matters, "that you are going this evening to Mrs. Temple's?"
+
+"I think I shall not go."
+
+"Mr. Temple was here this afternoon, sir, which he said it was most
+particular. I asked him would he call again. He said no, he was sure of
+seeing you to-night. But it was most particular, he said."
+
+Budsey spoke in the tone of solemn and respectful tyranny which he
+always assumed when reminding Farnham of his social duties, and which
+conveyed a sort of impression to his master that, if he did not do what
+was befitting, his butler was quite capable of picking him up and
+deferentially carrying him to the scene of festivity, and depositing
+him on the door-step.
+
+"What could Temple want to see me about 'most particular'?" Farnham
+asked himself. "After all, I may as well pass the evening there as
+anywhere."
+
+Mr. Temple was one of the leading citizens of Buffland. He was the
+vice-president of the great rolling-mill company, whose smoke darkened
+the air by day and lighted up the skies at night as with the flames of
+the nether pit. He was very tall and very slender, with reddish-brown
+hair, eyes and mustache. Though a man of middle age, his trim figure,
+his fashionable dress, and his clean shaven cheek and chin gave him an
+appearance of youth. He was president of the local jockey club, and the
+joy of his life was to take his place in the judges' stand, and sway
+the destinies of the lean, keen-faced trainers who drove the trotting
+horses. He had the eye of a lynx for the detection of any crookedness
+in driving, and his voice would ring out over the track like the trump
+of doom, conveying fines and penalties to the luckless trickster who
+was trying to get some unfair advantage in the start. His voice, a deep
+basso, rarely was heard, in fact, anywhere else. Though excessively
+social, he was also extremely silent. He gave delightful dinner-parties
+and a great many of them, but rarely spoke, except to recommend an
+especially desirable wine to a favored guest. When he did speak,
+however, his profanity was phenomenal. Every second word was an oath.
+To those who were not shocked by it there was nothing more droll and
+incongruous than to hear this quiet, reserved, well-dressed,
+gentleman-like person pouring out, on the rare occasions when he talked
+freely, in a deep, measured, monotonous tone, a flood of imprecations
+which would have made a pirate hang his head. He had been, as a boy,
+clerk on a Mississippi River steamboat, and a vacancy occurring in the
+office of mate, he had been promoted to that place. His youthful face
+and quiet speech did not sufficiently impose upon the rough deck-hands
+of that early day. They had been accustomed to harsher modes of address,
+and he saw his authority defied and in danger. So he set himself
+seriously to work to learn to swear; and though at first it made his
+heart shiver a little with horror and his cheek burn with shame, he
+persevered, as a matter of business, until his execrations amazed the
+roustabouts. When he had made a fortune, owned a line of steamboats, and
+finally retired from the river, the habit had been fastened upon him,
+and oaths became to him the only form of emphatic speech. The hardest
+work he ever did in his life was, while courting his wife, a Miss Flora
+Ballston, of Cincinnati, to keep from mingling his ordinary forms of
+emphasis in his asseverations of affection. But after he was married,
+and thrown more and more into the company of women, that additional
+sense, so remarkable in men of his mould, came to him, and he never
+lapsed, in their presence, into his natural way of speech. Perhaps this
+was the easier, as he rarely spoke at all when they were by--not that
+he was in the least shy or timid, but because they, as a rule, knew
+nothing about stocks, or pig-iron, or wine, or trotting horses,--the
+only subjects, in his opinion, which could interest any reasonable
+creature.
+
+When Farnham arrived at his house, it was already pretty well filled
+with guests. Mr. and Mrs. Temple were at the door, shaking hands with
+their friends as they arrived, she with a pleasant smile and word from
+her black eyes and laughing mouth, and he in grave and speechless
+hospitality.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Farnham!" said the good-natured lady. "So glad to
+see you. I began to be alarmed. So did the young ladies. They were
+afraid you had not returned. Show yourself in the drawing-room and
+dispel their fears. Oh, Mr. Harrison, I am so glad you resolved to stay
+over."
+
+Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had
+pressed his hand in silence:
+
+"Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?"
+
+Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said:
+
+"No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me."
+
+Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved
+away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a
+chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to
+pay."
+
+The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not
+guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey
+club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had
+gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound
+interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the
+hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was
+there.
+
+It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and
+chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty
+entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the
+proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a
+consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners
+and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered
+together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection--
+only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet
+retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long
+drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his
+quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had
+intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the
+efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge
+them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the
+correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and
+drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the
+place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them.
+Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in
+Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all
+capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than
+they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet
+and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched
+and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as
+girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his
+New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across
+the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less
+pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists.
+
+Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom
+woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her
+bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office
+with a red-and-gold Japanese fan.
+
+"Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that
+lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity
+depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be
+disgraced if it is delayed much longer."
+
+"That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham.
+"You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information
+will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he
+continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the
+club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson
+would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart
+and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding.
+
+He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady
+soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she
+was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after
+following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are
+crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_
+awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be
+brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair
+that way--I never liked those frizzes."
+
+Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than
+courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated
+beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs.
+Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas
+from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should
+look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was
+pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was
+safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved
+in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from
+rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved
+that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could
+watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every
+word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of
+her existence.
+
+Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him
+warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her
+shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice
+just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled
+gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which
+all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one
+woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there
+was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to
+throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss
+Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the
+universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was
+the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the
+treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman.
+She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a
+widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous
+personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his
+session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems
+and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion
+embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but
+which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print.
+
+He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with
+one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not
+easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was
+his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In
+fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had
+impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which
+characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright,
+keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a
+tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry
+and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its
+idolatry of her father and herself.
+
+"So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my
+good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid
+sentences, with a brilliant smile.
+
+Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said,
+intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia,
+and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she
+does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first
+thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_"
+
+We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with
+women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment.
+But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it.
+She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a
+misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her
+favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she
+rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French
+ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on
+the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but
+really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the
+names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation,
+sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes
+glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave
+Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to
+where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends.
+
+She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment;
+but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced
+in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of
+his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt
+as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She
+was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas.
+She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is
+all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it
+was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I
+liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I
+do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for
+self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous
+thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the
+girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men
+in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care.
+
+Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow.
+Lowering his voice, he said:
+
+"There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian."
+
+"Are you sure they are flirting?"
+
+"Of course they are. Just look at them!"
+
+"If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look
+at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to
+them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice.
+
+"Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good
+faith. He was very vain of his youth.
+
+"What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is
+going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I
+hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts
+are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this
+year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------"
+
+Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was
+lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic
+situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far
+away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever
+would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she
+had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not
+speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he
+loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she
+would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my
+whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent
+the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale
+as a lily.
+
+Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the
+regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away,
+indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied
+it.
+
+"What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the
+crews rowed in short sleeves."
+
+Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss
+Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the
+clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral
+light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so
+lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her
+blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with
+anger and contempt.
+
+"_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia.
+
+Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple,
+who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder,
+said:
+
+"Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no
+less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas."
+
+"Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss
+Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?"
+
+"Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will
+like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate
+sherry."
+
+"Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said
+the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away.
+
+They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a
+litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of
+wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting
+horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a
+cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and
+gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose.
+
+"Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that
+the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of
+oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever
+saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone."
+
+Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner
+had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had
+acquired such an unerring taste.
+
+"Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you
+will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?"
+
+Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in
+Spain, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Farnham.
+
+"You know this is the genuine stuff, then?"
+
+"No doubt of it."
+
+"_How_ do you know?"
+
+"The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know
+what they are about."
+
+"Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have
+learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans
+among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since,
+here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything
+about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my
+strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches,
+but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your
+grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I
+never forget its fashion of taking hold."
+
+This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a
+running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder.
+
+"I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you
+speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the
+paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you
+know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his
+effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I
+answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got
+no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have
+to pay for the two cables."
+
+He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he
+said, "the worth of his money every time."
+
+"Have some more?" he said to Farnham.
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer
+sixty-cent whiskey."
+
+Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the
+Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a
+general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town
+to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight."
+
+"What will it amount to?" asked Farnham.
+
+"Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The
+first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from
+three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike
+gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and
+safety-valve riveted down."
+
+Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly
+to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a
+disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were
+out of town.
+
+"How long have you known this?" he asked.
+
+"Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more
+or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did
+not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they
+brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern
+you."
+
+Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.
+
+"We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One
+of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of
+bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of
+loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on
+Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them."
+
+"Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool
+and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with
+something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own,
+and that in case of riot the two might suffer together.
+
+"There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a
+slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a
+row, I want to be allowed to help."
+
+"As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and
+stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can
+manage."
+
+"No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to
+explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They
+won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses
+and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of
+them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but
+I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if
+anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass
+of champagne."
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR.
+
+
+The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from
+Mr. Temple in these words:
+
+"Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no
+disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty."
+
+After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner
+he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an
+acquaintance crossing the street.
+
+"Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at
+having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and
+run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out.
+There won't be a train leave or come in for the present."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all
+over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't
+be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week."
+
+"Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and
+hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings.
+
+He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness
+and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence
+of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent
+expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot
+pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our
+city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property."
+
+"Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property
+are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen
+to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?"
+
+"I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all
+sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill
+falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every
+ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own
+house!"
+
+Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor.
+That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and
+dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the
+boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official
+papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his
+eyes.
+
+He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought
+it could not be changed for the better.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin."
+
+"Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth
+shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit.
+
+"There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in
+case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been
+directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I
+could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we
+must all look out for ourselves."
+
+The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and
+threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his
+hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an
+assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of
+Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital
+they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of
+perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to
+array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I
+hope it does not disappoint you."
+
+"Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely
+what I should have expected of you."
+
+"Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr."
+
+As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat
+to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and
+said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene:
+
+"That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me,
+on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough."
+
+Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found
+a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings
+with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an
+advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?"
+
+The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his
+watch.
+
+"Have you got it ready?"
+
+"No, but I will not be a minute about it."
+
+"Be lively! You haven't got but a minute."
+
+He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote
+his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a
+whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few
+minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The
+advertisement was in these words:
+
+"Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the
+Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet
+at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square."
+
+From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was
+a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having
+often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was
+Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when
+Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said:
+
+"Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?"
+
+"Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?"
+
+"I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot
+in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out
+for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old
+soldiers for patrol duty."
+
+"All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I
+don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen--
+dat's de dicket."
+
+"Have you got them?"
+
+"Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to
+de city."
+
+"Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the
+Square, and come yourself there at seven."
+
+"Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow
+beard at the prospect of service.
+
+Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large
+establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great
+annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The
+poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this
+morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it,
+but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of
+sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of
+the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there
+on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back."
+
+"What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham.
+
+"They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the
+only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move,
+just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we
+give in, then another gang will strike."
+
+"Do you expect to give in?"
+
+"Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to
+repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you
+this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is
+solemn fooling, so far."
+
+The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was
+Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of
+perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not
+let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked
+them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity
+of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed
+in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze
+you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad
+president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand
+dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot."
+
+"Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not
+suppress a smile as he said it.
+
+"Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose
+the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked
+that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function
+was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about
+North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll
+lick him."
+
+"Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy."
+
+"You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the
+story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that
+I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it."
+
+Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see
+what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible
+on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a
+general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of
+demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating
+and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless.
+For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all
+appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A
+group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them
+to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their
+exhorters in a confused fashion for a moment, and ended by obeying the
+summons in a sullen and indifferent manner. They took off their aprons,
+went to the hydrant and washed their hands, then put on their coats and
+went home in silence and shamefacedness, amid the angry remonstrances
+of the master-builder. A little farther on Farnham saw what seemed like
+a burlesque of the last performance. Several men were at work in a hole
+in the street; the tops of their heads were just visible above the
+surface. A half-grown, ruffianly boy, with a boot-black's box slung
+over his shoulder, came up and shouted, "You ---- ---- rats, come out
+of that, or we'll knock the scalps off'n you." The men, without even
+looking to see the source of the summons, threw down their tools and
+got out of the hole. The boy had run away; they looked about for a
+moment, as if bewildered, and then one of them, a gray-headed Irishman,
+said, "Well, we'd better be a lavin' off, if the rest is," and they all
+went away.
+
+In this fashion it came about that by nightfall all the squares and
+public places were thronged with an idle and expectant crowd, not
+actively mischievous or threatening, but affording a vast mass of
+inflammable material in case the fire should start in any quarter. They
+gathered everywhere in dense groups, exchanging rumors and surmises, in
+which fact and fiction were fantastically mingled.
+
+"The rolling-mills all close to-morrow," said a sallow and hollow-eyed
+tailor. "That'll let loose twenty thousand men on the town,--big,
+brawny fellows. I'm glad my wife is in Clairfield."
+
+"All you know about it! Clairfield is twice as bad off as here. The
+machine shops has all struck there, and the men went through the armory
+this afternoon. They're camped all along Delaware street, every man
+with a pair of revolvers and a musket."
+
+"You don't say so!" said the schneider, turning a shade more sallow.
+"I'd better telegraph my wife to come home."
+
+"I wouldn't hurry," was the impassive response. "You don't know where
+we'll be to-morrow. They have been drilling all day at Riverley, three
+thousand of 'em. They'll come in to-morrow, mebbe, and hang all the
+railroad presidents. That may make trouble."
+
+Through these loitering and talking crowds Farnham made his way in the
+evening to the office which he kept, on the public square of the town,
+for the transaction of the affairs of his estate. He had given
+directions to his clerk to be there, and when he arrived found that
+some half-dozen men had already assembled in answer to his
+advertisement. Some of them he knew; one, Nathan Kendall, a powerful
+young man, originally from the north of Maine, now a machinist in
+Buffland, had been at one time his orderly in the army. Bolty
+Grosshammer was there, and in a very short time some twenty men were in
+the room. Farnham briefly explained to them his intention. "I want
+you," he said, "to enlist for a few days' service under my orders. I
+cannot tell whether there will be any work to do or not; but it is
+likely we shall have a few nights of patrol at least. You will get ten
+dollars apiece anyhow, and ordinary day's wages besides. If any of you
+get hurt, I will try to have you taken care of."
+
+All but two agreed to the proposition. These two said "they had
+families and could not risk their skins. When they saw the
+advertisement they had thought it was something about pensions, or the
+county treasurer's office. They thought soldiers ought to have the
+first chance at good offices." They then grumblingly withdrew.
+
+Farnham kept his men for an hour longer, arranging some details of
+organization, and then dismissed them for twenty-four hours, feeling
+assured that there would be no disturbance of public tranquillity that
+night. "I will meet you here to morrow evening," he said, "and you can
+get your pistols and sticks and your final orders."
+
+The men went out one by one, Bolty and Kendall waiting for a while
+after they had gone and going out on the sidewalk with Farnham. They
+had instinctively appointed themselves a sort of bodyguard to their old
+commander, and intended to keep him in sight until he got home. As they
+reached the door, they saw a scuffle going on upon the sidewalk. A
+well-dressed man was being beaten and kicked by a few rough fellows,
+and the crowd was looking on with silent interest. Farnham sprang
+forward and seized one of the assailants by the collar; Bolty pulled
+away another. The man who had been cuffed turned to Kendall, who was
+standing by to help where help was needed, and cried, "Take me away
+somewhere; they will have my life;" an appeal which only excited the
+jeers of the crowd.
+
+"Kendall, take him into my office," said Farnham, which was done in an
+instant, Farnham and Bolty following. A rush was made,--not very
+vicious, however,--and the three men got safely inside with their
+prize, and bolted the door. A few kicks and blows shook the door, but
+there was no movement to break it down; and the rescued man, when he
+found himself in safety, walked up to a mirror there was in the room
+and looked earnestly at his face. It was a little bruised and bloody,
+and dirty with mud, but not seriously injured.
+
+He turned to his rescuers with an air more of condescension than
+gratitude. "Gentlemen, I owe you my thanks, although I should have got
+the better of those scoundrels in a moment. Can you assist me in
+identifying them?"
+
+"Oh! it is Mayor Quinlin, I believe," said Farnham, recognizing that
+functionary more by his voice than by his rumpled visage. "No, I do not
+know who they were. What was the occasion of this assault?"
+
+"A most cowardly and infamous outrage, sir," said the Mayor. "I was
+walking along the sidewalk to me home, and I came upon this gang of
+ruffians at your door. Impatient at being delayed,--for my time is much
+occupied,--I rebuked them for being in me way. One of them turned to me
+and insolently inquired, 'Do you own this street, or have you just got
+a lien on it?' which unendurable insult was greeted with a loud laugh
+from the other ruffians. I called them by some properly severe name,
+and raised me cane to force a passage,--and the rest you know. Now,
+gentlemen, is there anything I can do?"
+
+Farnham did not scruple to strike while the iron was hot. He said:
+"Yes, there is one thing your Honor may do, not so much for us as for
+the cause of order and good government, violated to-night in your own
+person. Knowing the insufficiency of the means at your disposal, a few
+of us propose to raise a subsidiary night-patrol for the protection of
+life and property during the present excitement. We would like you to
+give it your official sanction."
+
+"Do I understand it will be without expense to my--to the city
+government?" Mr. Quinlin was anxious to make a show of economy in his
+annual message.
+
+"Entirely," Farnham assured him.
+
+"It is done, sir. Come to-morrow morning and get what papers you want.
+The sperrit of disorder must be met and put down with a bold and
+defiant hand. Now, gentlemen, if there is a back door to this
+establishment, I will use it to make me way home."
+
+Farnham showed him the rear entrance, and saw him walking homeward up
+the quiet street; and, coming back, found Bolty and Kendall writhing
+with merriment.
+
+"Well, that beats all," said Kendall. "I guess I'll write home like the
+fellow did from Iowa to his daddy, 'Come out here quick. Mighty mean
+men gits office in this country.'"
+
+"Yes," assented Bolty. "Dot burgermeister ish better as a circus mit a
+drick mule."
+
+"Don't speak disrespectfully of dignitaries," said Farnham. "It's a bad
+habit in soldiers."
+
+When they went out on the sidewalk the crowd had dispersed. Farnham
+bade his recruits good night and went up the avenue. They waited until
+he was a hundred yards away, and then, without a word to each other,
+followed him at that distance till they saw him enter his own gate.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+A BUSY SUNDAY FOR THE MATCHINS.
+
+
+Matters were not going on pleasantly in the Matchin cottage. Maud's
+success in gaining an eligible position, as it was regarded among her
+friends, made her at once an object of greater interest than ever; but
+her temper had not improved with her circumstances, and she showed
+herself no more accessible than before. Her father, who naturally felt
+a certain satisfaction at having, as he thought, established her so
+well, regarded himself as justified in talking to her firmly and
+seriously respecting her future. He went about it in the only way he
+knew. "Mattie," he said one evening, when they happened to be alone
+together, "when are you and Sam going to make a match?"
+
+She lifted her eyes to him, and shot out a look of anger and contempt
+from under her long lashes that made her father feel very small and old
+and shabby.
+
+"Never!" she said, quietly.
+
+"Come, come, now," said the old man; "just listen to reason. Sam is a
+good boy, and with what he makes and what you make----"
+
+"That has nothing to do with it. I won't discuss the matter any
+further. We have had it all out before. If it is ever mentioned again,
+Sam or I will leave this house."
+
+"Hoity-toity, Missy! is that the way you take good advice----" but she
+was gone before he could say another word. Saul walked up and down the
+room a few moments, taking very short steps, and solacing his mind by
+muttering to himself: "Well, that's what I get by having a scholar in
+the family. Learning goes to the head and the heels--makes 'em proud
+and skittish."
+
+He punctually communicated his failure to Sam, who received the news
+with a sullen quietness that perplexed still more the puzzled
+carpenter.
+
+On a Sunday afternoon, a few days later, he received a visit from Mr.
+Bott, whom he welcomed, with great deference and some awe, as an
+ambassador from a ghostly world of unknown dignity. They talked in a
+stiff and embarrassed way for some time about the weather, the prospect
+of a rise in wages, and other such matters, neither obviously taking
+any interest in what was being said. Suddenly Bott drew nearer and
+lowered his voice, though the two were alone in the shop.
+
+"Mr. Matchin," he said, with an uneasy grin, "I have come to see you
+about your daughter."
+
+Matchin looked at him with a quick suspicion.
+
+"Well, who's got anything to say against my daughter?"
+
+"Oh, nobody that I know of," said Bott, growing suspicious in his turn.
+"Has anything ever been said against her?"
+
+"Not as I know," said Saul. "Well, what _have_ you got to say?"
+
+"I wanted to ask how you would like me as a son-in-law?" said Bott,
+wishing to bring matters to a decision.
+
+Saul stood for a moment without words in his astonishment. He had
+always regarded Bott as "a professional character," even as a "litrary
+man"; he had never hoped for so lofty an alliance. And yet he could not
+say that he wholly liked it. This was a strange creature--highly
+gifted, doubtless, but hardly comfortable. He was too "thick" with
+ghosts. One scarcely knew whether he spent most of his time "on earth
+or in hell," as Saul crudely phrased it. The faint smell of phosphorus
+that he carried about with him, which was only due to his imperfect
+ablutions after his seances, impressed Saul's imagination as going to
+show that Bott was a little too intimate with the under-ground powers.
+He stood chewing a shaving and weighing the matter in his mind a moment
+before he answered. He thought to himself, "After all, he is making a
+living. I have seen as much as five dollars at one of his seeunses."
+But the only reply he was able to make to Bott's point-blank question
+was:
+
+"Well, I dunno."
+
+The words were hardly encouraging, but the tone was weakly compliant.
+Bott felt that his cause was gained, and thought he might chaffer a
+little.
+
+"Of course," he said, "I would like to have a few things understood, to
+start with. I am very particular in business matters."
+
+"That's right," said Saul, who began to think that this was a very
+systematic and methodical man.
+
+"I am able to support a wife, or I would not ask for one," said Bott.
+
+"Exactly," said Saul, with effusion; "that's just what I was saying to
+myself."
+
+"Oh, you was!" said Bott, scowling and hesitating. "You was, was you?"
+Then, after a moment's pause, in which he eyed Saul attentively, he
+continued, "Well--that's so. At the same time, I am a business man, and
+I want to know what you can do for your girl."
+
+"Not much of anything, Mr. Bott, if you must know. Mattie is makin' her
+own living."
+
+"Yes. That's all right. Does she pay you for her board?"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Bott, that ain't none of your business yet, anyhow. She
+don't pay no board while she stays here; but that ain't nobody's
+business."
+
+"Oh, no offence, sir, none in the world. Only I am a business man, and
+don't want misunderstandings. So she don't. And I suppose you don't
+want to part with your last child--now, do you? It's like breaking your
+heart-strings, now, ain't it?" he said, in his most sentimental lecture
+voice.
+
+"Well, no, I can't say it is. Mattie's welcome in my house while I
+live, but of course she'll leave me some day, and I'll wish her joy."
+
+"Why should that be? My dear sir, why should that be?" Bott's voice
+grew greasy with sweetness and persuasion. "Why not all live together?
+I will be to you as a son. Maud will soothe your declining years. Let
+it be as it is, Father Saul."
+
+The old carpenter looked up with a keen twinkle of his eye.
+
+"You and your wife would like to board with us when you are married?
+Well, mebbe we can arrange that."
+
+This was not quite what Bott expected, but he thought best to say no
+more on that subject for the moment.
+
+Saul then asked the question that had all along been hovering on his
+lips.
+
+"Have you spoke to Mattie yet?"
+
+The seer blushed and simpered, "I thought it my duty to speak first to
+you; but I do not doubt her heart."
+
+"Oh! you don't," said Saul, with a world of meaning. "You better find
+out. You'll find her in the house."
+
+Bott went to the house, leaving Saul pondering. Girls were queer
+cattle. Had Mattie given her word to this slab-sided, lanky fellow? Had
+she given Sam Sleeny the mitten for him? Perhaps she wanted the glory
+of being Mrs. Professor Bott. Well, she could do as she liked; but Saul
+swore softly to himself, "If Bott comes to live offen me, he's got to
+pay his board."
+
+Meanwhile, the seer was walking, not without some inward perturbation,
+to the house, where his fate awaited him. It would have been hard to
+find a man more confident and more fatuous; but even such fools as he
+have their moments of doubt and faltering when they approach the not
+altogether known. He had not entertained the slightest question of
+Maud's devotion to him, the night she asked from him the counsel of the
+spirits. But he had seen her several times since that, and she had
+never renewed the subject. He was in two minds about it. Sometimes he
+imagined she might have changed her purpose; and then he would comfort
+himself with the more natural supposition that maiden modesty had been
+too much for her, and that she was anxiously awaiting his proffer. He
+had at last girded up his loins like a man and determined to know his
+doom. He had first ascertained the amount of Maud's salary at the
+library, and then, as we see, had endeavored to provide for his
+subsistence at Saul's expense; and now nothing was wanting but the
+maiden's consent. He trembled a little, but it was more with hope than
+fear. He could not make himself believe that there was any danger--but
+he wished it were over and all were well. He paused as he drew near the
+door. He was conscious that his hands were disagreeably cold and moist.
+He took out his handkerchief and wiped them, rubbing them briskly
+together, though the day was clear and warm, and the perspiration stood
+beaded on his forehead. But there was no escape. He knocked at the
+door, which was opened by Maud in person, who greeted him with a free
+and open kindness that restored his confidence. They sat down together,
+and Maud chatted gayly and pleasantly about the weather and the news. A
+New York girl, the daughter of a wealthy furrier, was reported in the
+newspaper as about to marry the third son of an English earl. Maud
+discussed the advantages of the match on either side as if she had been
+the friend from childhood of both parties.
+
+Suddenly, while she was talking about the forthcoming wedding, the
+thought occurred to Bott, "Mebbe this is a hint for me," and he plunged
+into his avowal. Turning hot and cold at once, and wringing his moist
+hands as he spoke, he said, taking everything for granted:
+
+"Miss Maud, I have seen your father and he gives his consent, and you
+have only to say the word to make us both happy."
+
+"What?"
+
+Anger, surprise, and contempt were all in the one word and in the
+flashing eyes of the young woman, as she leaned back in her
+rocking-chair and transfixed her unhappy suitor.
+
+"Why, don't you understand me? I mean----"
+
+"Oh, yes, I see what you mean. But I _don't_ mean; and if you had come
+to me, I'd have saved you the trouble of going to my father."
+
+"Now, look here," he pleaded, "you ain't a-going to take it that way,
+are you? Of course, I'd have come to you first if I had 'a' thought
+you'd preferred it. All I wanted was----"
+
+"Oh," said Maud, with perfect coolness and malice,--for in the last
+moment she had begun heartily to hate Bott for his presumption,--"I
+understand what _you_ want. But the question is what _I_ want--and I
+don't want you."
+
+The words, and still more the cold monotonous tone in which they were
+uttered, stung the dull blood of the conjurer to anger. His mud-colored
+face became slowly mottled with red.
+
+"Well, then," he said, "what did you mean by coming and consulting the
+sperrits, saying you was in love with a gentleman------"
+
+Maud flushed crimson at the memory awakened by these words. Springing
+from her chair, she opened the door for Bott, and said, "Great
+goodness! the impudence of some men! You thought I meant _you?_"
+
+Bott went out of the door like a whipped hound, with pale face and
+hanging head. As he passed by the door of the shop, Saul hailed him and
+said with a smile, "What luck?"
+
+Bott did not turn his head, he growled out a deep imprecation and
+walked away. Matchin was hardly surprised. He mused to himself, "I
+thought it was funny that Mattie should sack Sam Sleeny for that
+fellow. I guess he didn't ask the sperrits how the land lay," chuckling
+over the discomfiture of the seer. Spiritualism is the most convenient
+religion in the world. You may disbelieve two-thirds of it and yet be
+perfectly orthodox. Matchin, though a pillar of the faith, always
+keenly enjoyed the defeat and rout of a medium by his tricksy and
+rebellious ghosts.
+
+He was still laughing to himself over the retreat of Bott, thinking
+with some paternal fatuity of the attractiveness and spirit of his
+daughter, when a shadow fell across him, and he saw Offitt standing
+before him.
+
+"Why, Offitt. is that you? I did not hear you. You always come up as
+soft as a spook!"
+
+"Yes, that's me. Where's Sam?"
+
+"Sam's gone to Shady Creek on an excursion with his lodge. My wife went
+with him."
+
+"I wanted to see him. I think a heap of Sam."
+
+"So do I. Sam is a good fellow."
+
+"Excuse my making so free, Mr. Matchin, but I once thought Sam was
+going to be a son-in-law of yours."
+
+"Well, betwixt us, Mr. Offitt, I hoped so myself. But you know what
+girls is. She jest wouldn't."
+
+"So it's all done, is it? No chance for Sam?" Offitt asked eagerly.
+
+"Not as much as you could hold sawdust in your eye," the carpenter
+answered.
+
+"Well, now, Mr. Matchin, I have got something to say." ("Oh, Lordy,"
+groaned Saul to himself, "here's another one.") "I wouldn't take no
+advantage of a friend; but if Sam's got no chance, as you say, why
+shouldn't I try? With your permission, sir, I will."
+
+"Now look ye here, Mr. Offitt. I don't know as I have got anything
+against you, but I don't know nothing _fur_ you. If it's a fair
+question, how do you make your livin'?"
+
+"That's all right. First place, I have got a good trade. I'm a
+locksmith."
+
+"So I have heard you say. But you don't work at it."
+
+"No," Offitt answered; and then, assuming a confidential air, he
+continued, "As I am to be one of the family, I'll tell you. I don't
+work at my trade, because I have got a better thing. I am a Reformer."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Saul. "I never heard o' your lecturin'."
+
+"I don't lecture. I am secretary of a grand section of Labor Reformers,
+and I git a good salary for it."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Saul, not having the least idea of what it all meant.
+But, like most fathers of his kind, he made no objection to the man's
+proposal, and told him his daughter was in the house. As Offitt walked
+away on the same quest where Bott had so recently come to wreck, Saul
+sat smiling, and nursing his senile vanity with the thought that there
+were not many mechanics' daughters in Buffland that could get two
+offers in one Sunday from "professional men." He sat with the contented
+inertness of old men on his well-worn bench, waiting to see what would
+be the result of the interview.
+
+"I don't believe she'll have him," he thought. "He ain't half the man
+that Sam is, nor half the scholar that Bott is."
+
+It was well he was not of an impatient temperament. He sat quietly
+there for more than an hour, as still as a knot on a branch, wondering
+why it took Offitt so much longer than Bott to get an answer to a plain
+question; but it never once occurred to him that he had a right to go
+into his own house and participate in what conversation was going on.
+To American fathers of his class, the parlor is sacred when the
+daughter has company.
+
+There were several reasons why Offitt stayed longer than Bott.
+
+The seer had left Maud Matchin in a state of high excitement and anger.
+The admiration of a man so splay and ungainly was in itself insulting,
+when it became so enterprising as to propose marriage. She felt as if
+she had suffered the physical contact of something not clean or
+wholesome. Besides, she had been greatly stirred by his reference to
+her request for ghostly counsel, which had resulted in so frightful a
+failure and mortification. After Bott had gone, she could not dismiss
+the subject from her mind. She said to herself, "How can I live, hating
+a man as I hate that Captain Farnham? How can I breathe the same air
+with him, blushing like a peony whenever I think of him, and turning
+pale with shame when I hear his name? That ever I should have been
+refused by a living man! What _does_ a man want," she asked, with her
+head thrown back and her nostrils dilated, "when he don't want me?"
+
+As she was walking to and fro, she glanced out of the window and saw
+Offitt approaching from the direction of the shop. She knew instantly
+what his errand would be, though he had never before said a word to her
+out of the common. "I wonder if father has sent him to me--and how many
+more has he got in reserve there in the shop? Well, I will make short
+work of this one."
+
+But when he had come in and taken his seat, she found it was not so
+easy to make short work of him.
+
+Dealing with this one was very different from dealing with the other--
+about the difference between handling a pig and a panther. Offitt was a
+human beast of prey--furtive, sly, and elusive, with all his faculties
+constantly in hand. The sight of Maud excited him like the sight of
+prey. His small eyes fastened upon her; his sinewy hands tingled to lay
+hold of her. But he talked, as any casual visitor might, of immaterial
+things.
+
+Maud, while she chatted with him, was preparing herself for the
+inevitable question and answer. "What shall I say to him? I do not like
+him. I never did. I never can. But what shall I do? A woman is of no
+use in the world by herself. He is not such a dunce as poor Sam, and is
+not such a gawk as Bott. I wonder whether he would make me mind? I am
+afraid he would, and I don't know whether I would like it or not. I
+suppose if I married him I would be as poor as a crow all my days. I
+couldn't stand that. I won't have him. I wish he would make his little
+speech and go."
+
+But he seemed in no hurry to go. He was talking volubly about himself,
+lying with the marvellous fluency which interest and practice give to
+such men, and Maud presently found herself listening intently to his
+stories. He had been in Mexico, it seemed. He owned a silver mine
+there. He got a million dollars out of it, but took it into his head
+one day to overturn the Government, and was captured and his money
+taken; barely escaped the garrote by strangling his jailer; owned the
+mine still, and should go back and get it some day, when he had
+accomplished certain purposes in this country. There were plenty of
+people who wished he was gone now. The President had sent for him to
+come, to Washington; he went, and was asked to breakfast; nobody there
+but them two; they ate off gold plates like he used to in Mexico; the
+President then offered him a hundred thousand to leave, was afraid he
+would make trouble; told the President to make it a million and then he
+wouldn't. His grandfather was one of the richest men in Europe; his
+father ran away with his mother out of a palace. "You must have heard
+of my father, General Offitt, of Georgy? No? He was the biggest
+slaveholder in the State. I have got a claim against the Government,
+now, that's good for a million if it's worth a cent; going to
+Washington next winter to prosecute it."
+
+Maud was now saying to herself, "Why, if half this is true, he is a
+remarkable man," like many other credulous people, not reflecting that,
+when half a man says is false, the other half is apt to be also. She
+began to think it would be worth her while, a red feather in her cap,
+to refuse such a picturesque person; and then it occurred to her that
+he had not proposed to marry her, and possibly had no such intention.
+As his stream of talk, dwelling on his own acts of valor and craft, ran
+on, she began to feel slightly piqued at its lack of reference to
+herself. Was this to be a mere afternoon call after all, with no combat
+and no victory? She felt drawn after awhile to bring her small
+resources of coquetry into play. She interrupted him with saucy doubts
+and questions; she cast at him smiles and glances, looking up that he
+might admire her eyes, and down that her lashes might have their due
+effect.
+
+He interpreted all these signs in a favorable sense, but still
+prudently refrained from committing himself, until directly challenged
+by the blush and simper with which she said:
+
+"I suppose you must have seen a great many pretty ladies in Mexico?"
+
+He waited a moment, looking at her steadily until her eyelids trembled
+and fell, and then he said, seriously and gravely:
+
+"I used to think so; but I never saw there or anywhere else as pretty a
+lady as I see at this minute."
+
+This was the first time in her life that Maud had heard such words from
+a man. Sam Sleeny, with all his dumb worship, had never found words to
+tell her she was beautiful, and Bott was too grossly selfish and dull
+to have thought of it. Poor Sleeny, who would have given his life for
+her, had not wit enough to pay her a compliment. Offitt, whose love was
+as little generous as the hunger of a tiger, who wished only to get her
+into his power, who cared not in the least by what means he should
+accomplish this, who was perfectly willing to have her find out all his
+falsehoods the day after her wedding, relying upon his brute strength
+to retain her then,--this conscienceless knave made more progress by
+these words than Sam by months of the truest devotion. Yet the
+impression he made was not altogether pleasant. Thirsting for
+admiration as she did, there was in her mind an indistinct conscious
+ness that the man was taking a liberty; and in the sudden rush of color
+to her cheek and brow at Offitt's words, there was at first almost as
+much anger as pleasure. But she had neither the dignity nor the
+training required for the occasion, and all the reply she found was:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Offitt, how can you say so?"
+
+"I say so," he answered, with the same unsmiling gravity, "because it's
+the fact. I have been all over the world. I have seen thousands of
+beautiful ladies, even queens and markisses, and I never yet saw and I
+never expect to see such beauty as yours, Miss Maud Matchin, of
+Buffland."
+
+She still found no means to silence him or defend herself. She said,
+with an uneasy laugh, "I am sure I don't see where the wonderful beauty
+is."
+
+"That's because your modesty holds over your beauty. But I see where it
+is. It's in your eyes, that's like two stars of the night; in your
+forehead, that looks full of intellect and sense; in your rosy cheeks
+and smiling lips; in your pretty little hands and feet----" Here she
+suddenly rolled up her hands in her frilled white apron, and, sitting
+up straight, drew her feet under her gown. At this performance, they
+both laughed loud and long, and Maud's nerves were relieved.
+
+"What geese we are," she said at last. "You know I don't believe a word
+you say."
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. You've got eyes and a looking-glass. Come now, be
+honest. You know you never saw a girl as pretty as yourself, and you
+never saw a man that didn't love you on sight."
+
+"I don't know about that."
+
+"Don't all the men you know love you?"
+
+"There is one man I know hates me, and I hate him."
+
+"Who is it? This is very interesting."
+
+Maud was suddenly seized with a desire to tell an adventure, something
+that might match Offitt's tales of wonder.
+
+"You'll never tell?"
+
+"Hope I may die."
+
+"It's Arthur Farnham!" She had succeeded in her purpose, for Offitt
+stared at her with looks of amazement. "He once wanted to be rather too
+attentive to me, and I did not like it. So he hates me, and has tried
+to injure me."
+
+"And you don't like him very well?"
+
+"I don't. I would owe a good deal to the man who would give him a
+beating."
+
+"All right. You give me--what?--a kiss, or a lock of your hair, and he
+shall have his thrashing."
+
+"You do it and bring me the proofs, and we will talk about it."
+
+"Well, I must be off," he said, picking tip his hat. He saw on her face
+a slight disappointment. He put out his hand to take leave. She folded
+her arms.
+
+"You needn't be in such a hurry," she said, poutingly. "Mother won't be
+back for ever so long, and I was half asleep over my book when you came
+in."
+
+"Oh, very well," he said. "That suits me." He walked deliberately
+across the room, picked up a chair, and seated himself very near to
+Maud. She felt her heart beat with something like terror, and regretted
+asking him to stay. He had been very agreeable, but she was sure he was
+going to be disagreeable now. She was afraid that if he grew
+disagreeable she could not manage him as she could the others. Her
+worst fears were realized with his first words.
+
+"Miss Matchin, if you ask me to stay longer, you must take the
+consequences. I am going to say to you what I never said to mortal
+woman before: I love you, and I want you for my wife."
+
+She tried to laugh. "Oh, you do?" but her face grew pale, and her hands
+trembled.
+
+"Yes, I do; and I am going to have you, too."
+
+He tried to speak lightly, but his voice broke in spite of him.
+
+"Oh, indeed!" she replied, recovering herself with an effort. "Perhaps
+_I'll_ have something to say about that, Mr. Confidence."
+
+"Of course; excuse me for talking like a fool. Only have me, and you
+shall have everything else. All that wealth can buy shall be yours.
+We'll leave this dull place and go around the world seeking pleasure
+where it can be found, and everybody will envy me my beauteous bride."
+
+"That's very pretty talk, Mr. Offitt; but where is all this wealth to
+come from?"
+
+He did not resent the question, but heard it gladly, as imposing a
+condition he might meet. "The money is all right. If I lay the money at
+your feet, will you go with me? Only give me your promise."
+
+"I promise nothing," said Maud; "but when you are ready to travel,
+perhaps you may find me in a better humor."
+
+The words seemed to fire him. "That's promise enough for me," he cried,
+and put out his arms toward her. She struck down his hands, and
+protested with sudden, cattish energy:
+
+"Let me alone. Don't you come so near me. I don't like it. Now you can
+go," she added. "I have got a lot to think about."
+
+He thought he would not spoil his success by staying. "Good-by, then,"
+he said, kissing his fingers to her. "Good-by for a little while, my
+own precious."
+
+He turned at the door. "This is between us, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes, what there is of it," she said, with a smile that took all sting
+from the words.
+
+He walked to the shop, and wrung the old man's hand. His look of
+exultation caused Saul to say, "All settled, eh?"
+
+"No," said Offit; "but I have hopes. And now, Mr. Matchin, you know
+young ladies and the ways of the world. I ask you, as a gentleman, not
+to say nothing about this, for the present, to nobody."
+
+Saul, proud of his secret, readily promised.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+
+CAPTAIN FARNHAM SEES ACTIVE SERVICE AGAIN.
+
+
+Farnham lost no time in calling upon the Mayor to fulfil his
+engagement. He found his Honor a little subdued by the news of the
+morning. None of the strikers of the day before had gone back to work,
+and considerable accessions were reported from other trades. The worst
+symptoms seemed to be that many shops were striking without orders. The
+cessation of work was already greater than seemed at first contemplated
+by the leading agitators themselves. They seemed to be losing their own
+control of the workingmen, and a few tonguey vagrants and convicts from
+the city and from neighboring towns, who had come to the surface from
+nobody knew where, were beginning to exercise a wholly unexpected
+authority. They were going from place to place, haranguing the workmen,
+preaching what they called socialism, but what was merely riot and
+plunder. They were listened to without much response. In some places
+the men stopped work; in others they drove out the agitators; in others
+they would listen awhile, and then shout, "Give us a rest!" or "Hire a
+hall!" or "Wipe off your chir!" But all the while the crowds gradually
+increased in the streets and public places; the strike, if it promised
+nothing worse, was taking the dimensions of a great, sad, anxious
+holiday. There was not the slightest intention on the part of the
+authorities to interfere with it, and to do them justice, it is hard to
+see what they could have done, with the means at their disposal. The
+Mayor, therefore, welcomed Farnham with great cordiality, made him a
+captain of police, for special duty, on the spot, and enrolled his list
+of recruits of the night before as members of the police force of the
+city, expressly providing that their employment should cost the city
+nothing, now or hereafter.
+
+Farnham again made his rounds of the city, but found nothing especially
+noteworthy or threatening. The wide town, in spite of the large crowds
+in the streets, had a deserted look. A good many places of business
+were closed. There was little traffic of vehicles. The whistle of the
+locomotives and the rush of trains--sounds which had grown so familiar
+in that great railroad centre that the ear ceased to be affected by
+them--being suddenly shut off, the silence which came in their place
+was startling to the sense. The voices of the striking employees, who
+retained possession of the Union Passenger Depot, resounded strangely
+through the vast building, which was usually a babel of shrill and
+strident sounds.
+
+On the whole, the feature which most struck him in this violent and
+unnatural state of things was the singular good-nature of almost all
+classes. The mass of the workingmen made no threats; the greater number
+of employers made no recriminations. All hoped for an arrangement,
+though no one could say how it was to come. The day passed away in
+fruitless parleys, and at night the fever naturally rose, as is the way
+of fevers.
+
+When nightfall came, the crowd had become so great, in the public
+square that Farnham thought it might be better not to march his
+improvised policemen in a body up-town. He therefore dispatched orders
+to Kendall to send them up with their arms, singly or by twos and
+threes, to his house. By eight o'clock they were all there, and he
+passed an hour or so in putting them through a rude form of drill and
+giving them the instructions which he had prepared during the day. His
+intention was to keep them together on his own place during the early
+part of the night, and if, toward midnight, all seemed quiet, to
+scatter them as a patrol about the neighborhood; in case of serious
+disturbance anywhere else, to be ready to take part in restoring order.
+
+About nine o'clock a man was seen coming rapidly from the house to the
+rear garden, where Farnham and his company were. The men were dispersed
+about the place; some on the garden seats, some lying on the grass in
+the clear moonlight. Farnham was a little apart, talking with Kendall
+and Grosshammer. He started up to meet the intruder; it was Mr. Temple.
+
+"What's all this?" said Temple.
+
+"The manly art of self-defence," said Farnham, smiling.
+
+"I see, and I am glad to see it, too," answered Temple, warmly. "One of
+my men told me an hour ago that in the Tramps' Lodging House, last
+night, it was the common talk that there would be a rush on the houses
+in this region to-night. I went to the Mayor and tried to see him, but
+he was hiding, I think. I went to the Chief of Police, and he was in a
+blue funk. So I thought I would come up myself and see you. I knew you
+could raise a few men among your servants over here, and I would bring
+half a dozen, and we could answer for a few tramps, anyhow. But you are
+all right, and there is nothing to do but wait for them."
+
+"Yes, thank you!" said Farnham, "though I am a thousand times obliged
+to you for your good-will. I won't forget it in a hurry, old man. Are
+you going home now? I will walk a block or two with you."
+
+"No, I am not going home--not by"--[we draw the veil over Temple's
+language at this point]. "I have come to spend the evening. Have you
+any tools for me?"
+
+"Nonsense, my dear fellow! there is not the least use of it. There is
+not one chance in a million that there will be anything to do."
+
+The two men were walking toward the house. Temple said: "Don't be too
+sure of it. As I passed by the corner of the Square ten minutes ago,
+there was a fellow in front of Mouchem's gin-mill, a longhaired,
+sallow-looking pill, who was making as ugly a speech to a crowd of
+ruffians as I ever heard. One phrase was something like this: 'Yes, my
+fellow-toilers'--he looked like he had never worked a muscle in his
+life except his jaw-tackle,--'the time has come. The hour is at hand.
+The people rule. Tyranny is down. Enter in and take possession of the
+spoilers' gains. Algonquin Avenue is heaped with riches wrung from the
+sweat of the poor. Clean out the abodes of blood guiltiness.' And you
+ought to have heard the ki-yi's that followed. That encouraged him, and
+he went on: 'Algonquin Avenue is a robbers' cave, It's very handsome,
+but it needs one thing more.' 'What's that?' some fellows yelled. 'An
+aristocrat hung to every lamppost.' This was very popular too, you can
+bet your boots. On that I toddled off, so as to get you a chance to say
+your peccavy, anyhow."
+
+Walking and talking together, they had passed the house and come to the
+gate opening on the Avenue.
+
+"You might shut these wide gates," said Temple.
+
+"I do not think they have been shut in ten years," Farnham answered.
+"Let's try it."
+
+The effort was unsuccessful. The heavy gates would not budge. Suddenly
+a straggling, irregular cheer was heard from the direction of the
+Square. "There!" said Temple, "my friend the orator has got off another
+good thing."
+
+But Farnham, who had stepped outside at the sound and gazed on the
+moon-lighted avenue, said, "There they come now!"
+
+They both ran back to the house, Farnham blowing his watchman's
+whistle. "See here," said Temple, "I must have some tools. You have a
+club and revolver. Give me the club," which he took without more
+ceremony. The men came up from the garden in an instant, and quickly
+fell in at Farnham's word of command. Masked by the shadows of the
+trees and the shrubbery, they were not discernible from the street.
+
+"Remember," said Farnham. "Use your clubs as much as you see fit, if
+you come to close quarters; but do not fire without orders, unless to
+save your own lives. I don't think it is likely that these fellows are
+armed."
+
+The clattering of feet grew louder on the sidewalk, and in a moment the
+leaders of the gang--it could hardly be called a mob--stopped by the
+gates. "Here's the place. Come along boys!" one of them shouted, but no
+one stirred until the whole party came up. They formed a dense crowd
+about the gates and half-filled the wide avenue. There was evidently a
+moment of hesitation, and then three or four rushed through the gate,
+followed by a larger number, and at last by the bulk of the crowd. They
+had come so near the porch that it could now be seen by the light of
+the moon that few of them carried arms. Some had sticks; one or two men
+carried heavy stones in their hands; one young man brandished an axe;
+one had a hammer. There was evidently no attempt at organization
+whatever.
+
+Farnham waited until they were only a few feet away, and then shouted:
+
+"Forward! Guide right! Double time! March!"
+
+The men darted out from the shadow and began to lay about them with
+their clubs. A yell of dismay burst from the crowd. Those in front
+turned and met those behind, and the whole mass began striking out
+wildly at each other. Yelling and cursing, they were forced back over
+the lawn to the gate. Farnham, seeing that no shots had been fired, was
+confirmed in his belief that the rioters were without organization and,
+to a great extent, without arms. He therefore ordered his men to the
+right about and brought them back to the house. This movement evidently
+encouraged the mob. Loud voices were distinctly heard.
+
+"Who's afraid of half a dozen cops?" said a burly ruffian, who carried
+a slunfg-shot. "There's enough of us to eat 'em up."
+
+"That's the talk, Bowersox," said another. "You go in and get the first
+bite."
+
+"That's my style," said Bowersox. "Come along, Offitt. Where's Bott? I
+guess he don't feel very well. Come along, boys! We'll slug 'em this
+time!" And the crowd, inspirited by this exhortation and the apparent
+weakness of the police force, made a second rush for the house.
+
+Temple was standing next to Farnham. "Arthur," he whispered, "let's
+change weapons a moment," handing Farnham his club and taking the
+revolver from his hand. Farnham hardly noticed the exchange, so
+intently was he watching the advance of the crowd, which he saw, in a
+moment, was far more serious than the first. They were coming up more
+solidly, and the advantage of the surprise was now gone. He waited,
+however, until they were almost as near as they had been before, and
+then gave the order to charge, in the same words as before, but in a
+much sharper and louder tone, which rang out like a sudden blast from a
+trumpet.
+
+The improvised policemen darted forward and attacked as vigorously as
+ever, but the assailants stood their ground. There were blows given as
+well as taken this time. There was even a moment's confusion on the
+extreme right of the line, where the great bulk of Bowersox bore down
+one of the veterans. Farnham sprang forward and struck the burly
+ruffian with his club; but his foot slipped on the grass, and he
+dropped on one knee. Bowersox raised his slung-shot; a single report of
+a pistol rang out, and he tumbled forward over Farnham, who sprang to
+his feet and shouted, "Now, men, drive 'em!" Taking the right himself
+and profiting by the momentary shock of the shot, they got the crowd
+started again, and by vigorous clubbing drove them once more into the
+street.
+
+
+Returning to the shadow by the house, Farnham's first question was, "Is
+anybody hurt?"
+
+"I've got a little bark knocked off," said one quiet fellow, who came
+forward showing a ghastly face bathed in blood from a wound in his
+forehead. Farnham looked at him a moment, and then, running to his
+door, opened it and called Budsey, who had been hiding in the cellar,
+praying to all his saints.
+
+"Here, Budsey, take this man down to the coachman's house, and then go
+round the corner and bring Dr. Cutts. If he isn't there, get somebody
+else. It does not amount to much, but there will be less scar if it is
+attended to at once."
+
+The man was starting away with Budsey, when Temple said, "Look here!
+You won't need that arsenal any more to-night. Pass it over," and took
+the man's belt, with club and pistol, and buckled them around his own
+slim waist. Handing Farnham his own pistol, he said: "Thanks, Arthur. I
+owe you one cartridge."
+
+"And I owe you, God knows how much!"
+
+Farnham then briefly announced to his men that the shot which had just
+been fired was not by a member of the company, and was, therefore, not
+a disobedience of orders. Catching sight of Bowersox lying motionless
+on the grass, he ordered,
+
+"Two file-closers from the right, go and bring in that man!"
+
+But at that moment Bowersox moved, sat up and looked about him, and,
+suddenly remembering where he was, struggled to his feet and half-ran,
+half staggered to his friends in the street. They gathered about him
+for a moment, and then two of them were seen supporting him on his way
+into the town.
+
+Farnham was standing behind his men, and a little apart. He was
+thinking whether it might not be best to take them at once into the
+street and disperse the crowd, when he felt a touch at his elbow. He
+turned, and saw his gardener, Ferguson.
+
+"If I might speak a word, sir!"
+
+"Certainly--what is it? But be quick about it."
+
+"I think all is not right at the Widow Belding's. I was over there but
+now, and a dozen men--I did not count them,--but--"
+
+"Heavens! why did I not think of that? Kendall, you take command of
+these men for a moment. Bolty, you and the three files on the left come
+with me. Come, Temple,--the back way." And he started at a pace so
+rapid that the others could hardly keep him in sight.
+
+After the first repulse of the crowd, Offitt, Bott, and a few more of
+the Bread-winners, together with some of the tramps and jail-birds who
+had come for plunder, gathered together across the street and agreed
+upon a diversion. It was evident, they said, that Farnham had a
+considerable police force with him to protect his property; it was
+useless to waste any more time there; let the rest stay there and
+occupy the police; they could have more fun and more profit in some of
+the good houses in the neighborhood. "Yes," one suggested, "Jairus
+Belding's widder lives just a step off. Lots o' silver and things. Less
+go there."
+
+They slipped away in the confusion of the second rush, and made their
+way through the garden to Mrs. Belding's. They tried the door, and,
+finding it locked, they tore off the shutters and broke the windows,
+and made their way into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Belding and Alice
+were sitting.
+
+They had been alarmed by the noise and tumult in front of Farnham's
+house, and had locked and bolted their own doors in consequence.
+Passing through the kitchen in their rounds, they found Ferguson there
+in conversation with the cook. "Why, Fergus!" said the widow: "why are
+you not at home? They are having lively times over there, are they
+not?"
+
+"Yes," said the gardener; "but they have a plenty of men with arms, and
+I thought I'd e'en step over here and hearten up Bessie a bit."
+
+"I'm sure she ought to be very much obliged," responded Mrs. Belding,
+dryly, though, to speak the truth, she was not displeased to have a man
+in the house, however little she might esteem his valor.
+
+"I have no doubt he sneaked away from the fuss," she said to Alice;
+"but I would rather have him in the kitchen than nothing."
+
+Alice assented. "That is what they mean by moral support, I suppose."
+
+She spoke with a smile, but her heart was ill at ease. The man she
+loved was, for all she knew, in deadly danger, and she could not show
+that she cared at all for him, for fear of showing that she cared too
+much.
+
+"I am really anxious about Arthur Farnham," continued Mrs. Belding. "I
+hope he will not get himself into any scrape with those men."
+
+The tumult on the street and on the lawn had as yet presented itself to
+her in no worse light than as a labor demonstration, involving cheers
+and rude language. "I am afraid he won't be polite enough to them. He
+might make them a little speech, complimenting Ireland and the American
+flag, and then they would go away. That's what your father did, in that
+strike on the Wabash. It was in the papers at the time. But these
+soldiers--I'm afraid Arthur mayn't be practical enough."
+
+"Fortunately, we are not responsible for him," said Alice, whose heart
+was beating violently.
+
+"Why, Alice! what a heartless remark!"
+
+At this instant the windows came crashing in, and a half-dozen ruffians
+burst into the room. Alice sprang, pale and silent, to the side of her
+mother, who sat, paralyzed with fright, in her rocking-chair.
+
+A man came forward from the group of assailants. His soft hat was drawn
+down over his eyes, and a red handkerchief concealed the lower part of
+his face. His voice was that of Offitt, as he said, "Ladies, we don't
+want to do no violence; but, in the name of the Revolutionary
+Committee, we have called to collect an assessment on you." This
+machinery was an invention of the moment, and was received with great
+satisfaction by the Bread-winners.
+
+"That's what's the matter," they said, in chorus. "Your assessment, and
+be lively about it. All you've got handy."
+
+"I have no money in the house," Mrs. Belding cried. "What shall I do?"
+
+"You forget, mamma," said Alice. "There is some upstairs. If these
+gentlemen will wait here a moment, I will go and get it."
+
+Offitt looked at her sharply. "Well, run and get it. Bott, you go with
+her."
+
+Bott turned angrily upon his chief. "What's the use of calling names?
+What if I said your name was----"
+
+"There, there, don't keep the lady waiting."
+
+Alice turned from the room, closely followed by Bott. Reaching the
+stairs, she swept up the long flight with the swift grace of a swallow.
+Bott hurried after her as fast as he could; but she gained her bedroom
+door enough in advance to shut and lock it between them, leaving him
+kicking and swearing in the hall. She ran to her open window, which
+looked toward Farnham's, and sent the voice of her love and her trouble
+together into the clear night in one loud cry, "Arthur!"
+
+She blushed crimson as the word involuntarily broke from her lips, and
+cried again as loudly as she could, "Help!"
+
+"I hope he did not hear me at first," she said, covering her face with
+her hands, and again she cried, "Help!"
+
+"Shut up that noise," said Bott, who was kicking violently at the door,
+but could not break it down. "Shut up, or I'll wring your neck."
+
+She stopped, not on account of his threats, which suddenly ceased, but
+because she heard the noise of footsteps on the porch, and of a short
+but violent scuffle, which showed that aid of some sort had arrived. In
+a few moments she heard Bott run away from her door. He started toward
+the stairs, but finding his retreat cut off ran to the front window,
+closely pursued. She heard a scramble. Then a voice which made her
+heart beat tumultuously said. "Look out below there."
+
+A moment after, the same voice said, "Have you got him?" and then, "All
+right! keep him."
+
+A light knock on her door followed, and Farnham said, "Miss Belding."
+
+Alice stood by the door a moment before she could open it. Her heart
+was still thumping, her voice failed her, she turned white and red in a
+moment. The strongest emotion of which she was conscious was the hope
+that Arthur had not heard her call him by his name.
+
+She opened the door with a gravity which was almost ludicrous. Her
+first words were wholly so.
+
+"Good-evening, Captain Farnham," was all she could find to say. Then,
+striving desperately to add something more gracious, she stammered,
+"Mamma will be very----"
+
+"Glad to see me in the drawing room?" Farnham laughed. "I have no doubt
+of it. She is quite safe there; and your visitors have gone. Will you
+join her now?"
+
+She could not help perceiving the slight touch of sarcasm in his tone.
+She saw he was hurt by her coldness and shyness, and that made her
+still more cold and shy. Without another word she walked before him to
+the drawing-room, where Mrs. Belding still sat in her rocking-chair,
+moaning and wringing her hands. Mr. Temple was standing beside her
+trying to soothe her, telling her it was all over. Bolty was tying the
+arms of one of the ruffians behind him, who lay on the floor on his
+face. There was no one else in the room.
+
+Alice knelt on the floor by her mother and took her in her arms. "You
+are not hurt, are you, mamma dear?" she said, in a soft, tender tone,
+as if she were caressing a crying child.
+
+"Oh, no! I suppose not," said the widow; "but I am not used to such
+doings at this time of night, and I don't like them. Captain Farnham,
+how shall I ever thank you? and you, Mr. Temple? Goodness knows what we
+should have done without you. Alice, the moment you left the room, some
+of them ran to the sideboard for the silver, another one proposed to
+set the house afire, and that vile creature with the red handkerchief
+asked me for my ear-rings and my brooch. I was trying to be as long as
+I could about getting them off, when these gentlemen came in. I tell
+you they looked like angels, and I'll tell your wife so when I see her,
+Mr. Temple; and as for Arthur----"
+
+At this moment Bolty, having finished the last knot to his
+satisfaction, rose and touched his prisoner with his foot. "Captain,"
+he said, saluting Farnham, "vot I shall do mit dis schnide?"
+
+"They have got the one I dropped from the window?"
+
+"Jawohl! on de gravel-walk draussen!"
+
+"Very well. Take them both to the stable behind my house for the
+present, and make them fast together. Then come back here and stand
+guard awhile with the men on the porch, till I relieve you."
+
+"All right. Git up mid yourself," he said, touching his prostrate foe
+not so gently, "and vorwaerts."
+
+As they went out, Farnham turned to Mrs. Belding, and said, "I think
+you will have no more trouble. The men I leave as a guard will be quite
+sufficient, I have no doubt. I must hurry back and dismiss the friends
+who have been serenading me."
+
+She gazed at him, not quite comprehending, and then said, "Well, if you
+must go, good-night, and thank you a thousand times. When I have my
+wits about me I will thank you better."
+
+Arthur answered laughingly as he shook hands. "Oh, that is of no
+consequence. It was merely neighborly. You would have done as much for
+me, I am sure." And the gentlemen took their leave.
+
+When the ladies were alone, Mrs. Belding resumed her story of the great
+transaction. "Why, it will be something to tell about as long as I
+live," she said. "You had hardly got upstairs when I heard a noise of
+fighting outside on the walk and the porch. Then Arthur and Mr. Temple
+came through that window as if they were shot out of a cannon. The
+thief who stood by me, the red handkerchief one, did not stop, but
+burst through the hall into the kitchen and escaped the back way. Then
+Mr. Temple took another one and positively threw him through the
+window, while Arthur, with that policeman's club, knocked the one down
+whom you saw the German tying up. It was all done in an instant, and I
+just sat and screamed for my share of the work. Then Arthur came and
+caught me by the shoulder, and almost shook me, and said, 'Where is
+Alice?' Upon my word, I had almost forgotten you. I said you were
+upstairs, and one of those wretches was there too. He looked as black
+as a fury, and went up in about three steps. I always thought he had
+such a sweet temper, but to-night he seemed just to _love_ to fight.
+Now I think of it, Alice, you hardly spoke to him. You must not let him
+think we are ungrateful. You must write him a nice note to-morrow."
+
+Alice laid her head upon her mother's shoulder, where her wet eyes
+could not be seen. "Mamma," she asked, "did he say 'Where is Alice?'
+Did he say nothing but 'Alice'?"
+
+"Now, don't be silly," said Mrs. Belding. "Of course he said 'Alice.'
+You wouldn't expect a man to be Miss Beldinging you at such a time. You
+are quite too particular."
+
+"He called me Miss Belding when he came upstairs," said Alice, still
+hiding her face.
+
+"And what did you say to him--for saving this house and all our lives?"
+
+The girl's overwrought nerves gave way. She had only breath enough to
+say, "I said 'Good evening, Captain Farnham!' Wasn't it too perfectly
+ridiculous?" and then burst into a flood of mingled laughter and tears,
+which nothing could check, until she had cried herself quiet upon her
+mother's bosom.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+
+THE WHIP OF THE SCYTHIANS.
+
+
+Farnham and Temple walked hastily back to where they had left Kendall
+with the rest of the company. They found him standing like a statute
+just where he had been placed by Farnham. The men were ranged in the
+shadow of the shrubbery and the ivy-clad angle of the house. The moon
+shone full on the open stretch of lawn, and outside the gates a black
+mass on the sidewalk and the street showed that the mob had not left
+the place. But it seemed sluggish and silent.
+
+"Have they done anything new?" asked Farnham.
+
+"Nothin', but fire a shot or two--went agin the wall overhead; and once
+they heaved a lot of rocks, but it was too fur--didn't git more'n half
+way. That's all."
+
+"We don't want to stand here looking at each other all night," said
+Farnham.
+
+"Let's go out and tell them it's bed-time," suggested Temple.
+
+"Agreed!" said Farnham. He turned to his men, and in a voice at first
+so low that it could not have been heard ten feet away, yet so clear
+that every syllable was caught by his soldiers, he gave the words of
+command.
+
+"Company, attention! Eight, forward. Fours right. Double time. March!"
+
+The last words rang out clear and loud, and startled the sullen crowd
+in the street. There was a hurried, irresolute movement among them,
+which increased as the compact little corps dashed out of the shadow
+into the clear moonlight, and rushed with the rapid but measured pace
+of veterans across the lawn. A few missiles were thrown, without
+effect. One or two shots were heard, followed by a yell in the street--
+which showed that some rioter in his excitement had wounded one of his
+own comrades. Farnham and his little band took only a moment to reach
+the gate, and the crowd recoiled as they burst through into the street.
+At the first onslaught the rioters ran in both directions, leaving the
+street clear immediately in front of the gates.
+
+The instant his company reached the middle of the avenue, Arthur,
+seeing that the greater number of the divided mob had gone to the left,
+shouted:
+
+"Fours left. March--guide right."
+
+The little phalanx wheeled instantly and made rapid play with their
+clubs, but only for a moment. The crowd began to feel the mysterious
+power which discipline backed by law always exerts, and they ran at
+full speed up the street to the corner and there dispersed. The
+formation of the veterans was not even broken. They turned at Farnham's
+order, faced to the rear, and advanced in double time upon the smaller
+crowd which still lingered a little way beyond the gate.
+
+In this last group there was but one man who stood his ground and
+struck out for himself. It was a tall young fellow with fair hair and
+beard, armed with a carpenter's hammer, with which he maintained so
+formidable an attitude that, although two or three policemen were
+opposed to him, they were wary about closing in upon him. Farnham,
+seeing that this was all there was left of the fight, ordered the men
+to fall back, and, approaching the recalcitrant, said sharply:
+
+"Drop that hammer, and surrender! We are officers of the law, and if
+you resist any longer you'll be hurt."
+
+"I don't mind that. I was waiting for _you_," the man said, and made a
+quick and savage rush and blow at Farnham. In all his campaigns, he had
+never before had so much use for his careful broadsword training as
+now. With his policeman's club against the workman's hammer, he
+defended himself with such address, that in a few seconds, before his
+men could interfere, his adversary was disarmed and stretched on the
+sidewalk by a blow over the head. He struggled to rise, but was seized
+by two men and held fast.
+
+"Don't hit him," said Farnham. "I think I have seen this man
+somewhere."
+
+"Why," said Kendall, "that's Sam Sleeny, a carpenter in Dean Street. He
+orter be in better business."
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Farnham; "he is a Reformer. Put him with the
+others."
+
+As they were tying his hands, Sam turned to Farnham and said, in a
+manner which was made dignified by its slow, energetic malice, "You've
+beat me to-night, but I will get even with you yet--as sure as there's
+a God."
+
+"That's reasonably sure," said Farnham; "but in the meanwhile, we'll
+put you where you can cool off a little."
+
+The street was now cleared; the last fugitives were out of sight.
+Farnham returned to his garden, and then divided his men into squads
+for patrolling the neighborhood. They waited for half an hour, and,
+finding all was still quiet, then made arrangements for passing the
+night. Farnham made Temple go into the house with him, and asked Budsey
+to bring some sherry. "It is not so good as your Santa Rita," he said;
+"but the exercise in the night air will give it a relish."
+
+When the wine came, the men filled and drank, in sober American
+fashion, without words; but in the heart of each there was the thought
+of eternal friendship, founded upon brave and loyal service.
+
+"Budsey," said Farnham, "give all the men a glass of this wine."
+
+"Not this, sir?" said Budsey, aghast.
+
+"I said this," replied Farnham. "Perhaps they won't enjoy it, but I
+shall enjoy giving it to them."
+
+Farnham and Temple were eating some bread and cheese and talking over
+the evening, when Budsey came back with something which approached a
+smile upon his grave countenance.
+
+"Did they like it?" asked Farnham.
+
+"Half of 'em said they was temperance and wouldn't 'ave any. Some of
+the rest said--you will excuse me, sir--as it was d---- poor cider,"
+and Budsey went out of the room with a suspicious convulsion of the
+back.
+
+"I'll go on that," said Mr. Temple. "Goodnight. I think we will have
+good news in the morning. There will be an attack made on those men at
+Riverley to-morrow which will melt them like an iceberg in Tartarus."
+Mr. Temple was not classical, and, of course, did not say Tartarus.
+
+Farnham was left alone. The reaction from the excitement of the last
+few hours was settling upon him. The glow of the fight and his success
+in it were dying away. Midnight was near, and a deep silence was
+falling upon the city. There was no sound of bells, of steam-whistles,
+or of rushing trains. The breeze could be heard in the quiet, stirring
+the young, soft leaves. Farnham felt sore, beaten, discomfited. He
+smiled a little bitterly to himself when he considered that the cause
+of his feeling of discouragement was that Alice Belding had spoken to
+him with coldness and shyness when she opened her door. He could not
+help saying to himself, "I deserved a kinder greeting than she gave me.
+She evidently wished me to understand that I am not to be permitted any
+further intimacy. I have forfeited that by presuming to love her. But
+how lovely she is! When she took her mother in her arms, I thought of
+all the Greek heroines I ever read about. Still, 'if she be not fair
+for me'--if I am not to be either lover or friend--this is no place for
+me."
+
+The clock on the mantel struck midnight. "A strange night," he mused.
+"There is one sweet and one bitter thing about it. I have done her a
+service, and she did not care."
+
+He went to the door to speak to Kendall. "I think our work is over for
+to-night. Have our prisoners taken down to the Refrigerator and turned
+over to the ordinary police. I will make charges to-morrow. Then divide
+the men into watches and make yourself as comfortable as you can. If
+anything happens, call me. If nothing happens, good-night."
+
+He returned to his library, turned down the gas, threw himself on the
+sofa, and was soon asleep; even before Alice, who sat, unhappy, as
+youth is unhappy, by an open window, her eyes full of tears, her heart
+full of remorse. "It is too wretched to think of," she bemoaned
+herself. "He is the only man in the world I could ever care for, and I
+have driven him away. It never can be made right again; I am punished
+justly. If I thought he would take me, I believe I could go this minute
+and throw myself at his feet. But he would smile, and raise me up, and
+make some pretty speech, very gentle, and very dreadful, and bring me
+back to mamma, and then I should die."
+
+But at nineteen well-nourished maidens do not pass the night in
+mourning, however heavy their hearts may be, and Alice slept at last,
+and perhaps was happier in her innocent dreams.
+
+The night passed without further incident, and the next day, though it
+may have shown favorable signs to practised eyes, seemed very much, to
+the public, like the day which had preceded it. There were fewer shops
+closed in the back streets; there were not so many parties of wandering
+apostles of plunder going about to warn laborers away from their work.
+But in the principal avenues and in the public squares there were the
+same dense crowds of idlers, some listless and some excited, ready to
+believe the wildest rumors and to applaud the craziest oratory.
+Speakers were not lacking; besides the agitators of the town, several
+had come in from neighboring places, and they were preaching, with
+fervor and perspiration, from street corners and from barrel-heads in
+the beer-houses, the dignity of manhood and the overthrow of tyrants.
+
+Bott, who had quite distinguished himself during the last few days, was
+not to be seen. He had passed the night in the station-house, and, on
+brief examination before a police-justice at an early hour of the
+morning, on complaint of Farnham and Temple, had been, together with
+the man captured in Mrs. Belding's drawing-room, bound over to stand
+his trial for house-breaking at the next term of court. He displayed
+the most abject terror before his trial, and would have made a full
+confession of the whole affair had Offitt not had the address to convey
+to him the assurance that, if he stood firm, the Brotherhood of
+Bread-winners would attend to his case and be responsible for his safety.
+Relying upon this, he plucked up his spirits and bore himself with
+characteristic impudence in the presence of the police-justice,
+insisting upon being called Professor Bott, giving his profession as
+inspirational orator, his religion the divinity of humanity. When bound
+over for trial, he rose and gained a round of applause from the idlers
+in the court-room by shouting, "I appeal from this outrage to the power
+of the people and the judgment of history."
+
+This was his last recorded oration; for we may as well say at once
+that, a month later, he stood his trial without help from any
+Brotherhood, and passed away from public life, though not entirely from
+public employment, as he is now usefully and unobtrusively engaged in
+making shoes in the State penitentiary--and is said "to take serious
+views of life."
+
+The cases of Sleeny and the men who were taken in the street by
+Farnham's policemen were also disposed of summarily through his
+intervention. He could not help liking the fair-bearded carpenter,
+although he had been caught in such bad company, and so charged him
+merely with riotous conduct in the public streets, for which the
+penalty was a light fine and a few days' detention. Sleeny seemed
+conscious of his clemency, but gave him no look or expression of
+gratitude. He was too bitter at heart to feel gratitude, and too
+awkward to feign it.
+
+About noon, a piece of news arrived which produced a distinct
+impression of discouragement among the strikers. It was announced in
+the public square that the railway blockade was broken in Clairfield, a
+city to the east of Buffland about a hundred miles. The hands had
+accepted the terms of the employers and had gone to work again. An
+orator tried to break the force of this announcement by depreciating
+the pluck of the Clairfield men. "Why, gentlemen!" he screamed, "a
+ten-year-old boy in this town has got twice the sand of a Clairfield
+man. They just leg the bosses to kick 'em. When they are fired out of
+a shop door, they sneak down the chimbley and whine to be took on
+again. We ain't made of that kind of stuff."
+
+But this haughty style of eloquence did not avail to inspirit the
+crowd, especially as the orator was just then interrupted to allow
+another dispatch to be read, which said that the citizens of a town to
+the south had risen in mass and taken the station there from the hands
+of the strikers. This news produced a feeling of isolation and
+discouragement which grew to positive panic, an hour later, on the
+report that a brigade of regular troops was on its way to Buffland to
+restore order. The report was of course unfounded, as a brigade of
+regular troops could not be got together in this country in much less
+time than it would take to build a city; but even the name of the
+phantom army had its effect, and the crowds began to disperse from that
+time. The final blow was struck, however, later in the day.
+
+Farnham learned it from Mr. Temple, at whose counting-room he had
+called, as usual, for news. Mr. Temple greeted him with a volley of
+exulting oaths.
+
+"It's all up. You know what I told you last night about the attack that
+was preparing on Riverley. I went out there myself, this forenoon. I
+knew some of the strikers, and I thought I would see if
+the -- -- -- -- would let me send my horse Blue Ruin through to
+Rochester to-morrow. He is entered for the races there, you know, and I
+didn't want, by -- -- -- --, to miss my engagements, understand? Well,
+as I drove out there, after I got about half way, it began to occur to
+me that I never saw so many women since the Lord made me. The road was
+full of them in carts, buggies, horseback, and afoot. I thought a
+committee of 'em was going; but I suppose they couldn't trust a
+committee, and so they all went. There were so many of 'em I couldn't
+drive fast, and so I got there about the same time the head of the
+column began to arrive. You never saw anything like it in your life.
+The strikers had been living out there in a good deal of style--with
+sentries and republican government and all that. By the great
+hokey-pokey! they couldn't keep it up a minute when their wives came.
+They knew 'em too well. They just bulged in without rhyme or rule.
+Every woman went for her husband and told him to pack up and go home.
+Some of 'em--the artful kind--begged and wheedled and cried; said they
+were so tired--wanted their sweethearts again. But the bigger part
+talked hard sense,--told 'em their lazy picnic had lasted long enough,
+that there was no meat in the house, and that they had got to come home
+and go to work. The siege didn't last half an hour. The men brazened it
+out awhile; some were rough; told their wives to dry up, and one big
+fellow slapped his wife for crying. By jingo! it wasn't half a flash
+before another fellow slapped _him_, and there they had it, rolling
+over and over on the grass, till the others pulled them apart by the
+legs. It was a gone case from the start. They held a meeting off-hand;
+the women stayed by to watch proceedings, and, not to make a long story
+about it, when I started back a delegation of the strikers came with me
+to see the president of the roads, and trains will run through to-night
+as usual. I am devilish glad of it, for my part. There is nothing in
+Rochester of any force but Rosin-the-Bow, and my horse can show him the
+way around the track as if he was getting a dollar an hour as a guide."
+
+"That _is_ good news certainly. Is it generally known in the city?"
+
+"I think not. It was too late for the afternoon papers. I told Jimmy
+Nelson, and he tore down to the depot to save what is left of his
+fruit. He swore so about it that I was quite shocked."
+
+"What about the mill hands?" asked Farnham.
+
+"The whole thing will now collapse at once. We shall receive the
+proposition of the men who left us to-morrow, and re-engage on our own
+terms, next day, as many as we want. We shan't be hard on them. But one
+or two gifted orators will have to take the road. They are fit for
+nothing but Congress, and they can't all go from this district. If I
+were you, Arthur, by the way, I wouldn't muster out that army of yours
+till to-morrow. But I don't think there will be any more calls in your
+neighborhood. You are too inhospitable to visitors."
+
+The sun was almost setting as Farnham walked through the public square
+on his way home. He could hardly believe so sudden a change could have
+fallen upon the busy scene of a few hours before. The square was almost
+deserted. Its holiday appearance was gone. A few men occupied the
+benches. One or two groups stood beneath the trees and conversed in
+under-tones. The orators had sought their hiding-places,
+unnecessarily--too fearful of the vengeance which never, in this happy
+country, attends the exercise of unbridled "slack jaw." As Arthur
+walked over the asphalt pavement there was nothing to remind him of
+the great crowds of the last few days but the shells of the pea-nuts
+crunching under his feet. It seems as if the American workman can
+never properly invoke the spirit of liberty without a pocketful of
+this democratic nut.
+
+As he drew near his house, Farnham caught a glimpse of light drapery
+upon Mrs. Belding's piazza, and went over to relieve her from anxiety
+by telling her the news of the day. When he had got half way across the
+lawn, he saw Alice rise from beside her mother as if to go. Mrs.
+Belding signed for her to resume her seat. Farnham felt a slight
+sensation of anger. "It is unworthy of her," he thought, "to avoid me
+in that manner. I must let her see she is in no danger from me."
+
+He gave his hand cordially to Mrs. Belding and bowed to Alice without a
+word. He then briefly recounted the news to the elder lady, and assured
+her that there was no probability of any farther disturbance of the
+peace.
+
+"But we shall have our policemen here all the same to-night, so that
+you may sleep with a double sense of security."
+
+"I am sure you are very good," she said. "I don't know what we should
+have done without you last night, _and_ Mr. Temple. When it comes to
+ear-rings, there's no telling what they wouldn't have done."
+
+"Two of your guests are in jail, with good prospects of their remaining
+there. The others, I learn, were thieves from out of town; I doubt if
+we shall capture them."
+
+"For goodness' sake, let them run. I never want to see them again. That
+ugly creature who went up with Alice for the money--you caught him? I
+am so glad. The impudence of the creature! going upstairs with my
+daughter, as if she was not to be trusted. Well," she added candidly,
+"she wasn't that time, but it was none of _his_ business."
+
+Here Alice and Farnham both laughed out, and the sound of the other's
+voice was very pleasant to each of them, though they did not look
+toward each other.
+
+"I am beginning to think that the world is growing too wicked for
+single women," Mrs. Belding continued, philosophically. "Men can take
+care of themselves in so many ways. They can use a club as you do----"
+
+"Daily and habitually," assented Arthur.
+
+"Or they can make a speech about Ireland and the old flag, as Mr.
+Belding used to; or they can swear like Mr. Temple. By the way, Alice,
+you were not here when Mr. Temple swore so at those thieves. I was
+scandalized, but I had to admit it was very appropriate."
+
+"I was also away from the room," said Farnham; "but I can readily
+believe the comminatory clauses must have been very cogent."
+
+"Oh, yes! and such a nice woman _she_ is."
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Temple is charming," said Farnham, rising.
+
+"Arthur, do not go! Stay to dinner. It will be ready in one moment. It
+will strengthen our nerves to have a man dine with us, especially a
+liberating hero like you. Why, you seemed to me last night like Perseus
+in the picture, coming to rescue What's-her-name from the rock."
+
+Farnham glanced at Alice. Her eyes were fixed upon the ground; her
+fingers were tightly clasped. She was wishing with all her energy that
+he would stay, waiting to catch his first word of assent, but unable to
+utter a syllable.
+
+"Alice," said Mrs. Belding rather sharply, "I think Arthur does not
+regard my invitation as quite sufficient. Will you give it your
+approval?"
+
+Alice raised her face at these words and looked up at Farnham. It was a
+beautiful face at all times, and now it was rosy with confusion, and
+the eyes were timid but kind. She said with lips that trembled a
+little: "I should be very glad to have Captain Farnham stay to dinner."
+
+She had waited too long, and the words were a little too formal, and
+Arthur excused himself on the plea of having to look out for his
+cohort, and went home to a lonely dinner.
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+
+OFFITT DIGS A PIT.
+
+
+A week had passed by; the great strike was already almost forgotten. A
+few poor workmen had lost their places. A few agitators had been
+dismissed for excellent reasons, having no relation with the strike.
+The mayor had recovered from his panic, and was beginning to work for a
+renomination, on the strength of his masterly dealing with the labor
+difficulties, in which, as he handsomely said in a circular composed by
+himself and signed by his friends, he "nobly accomplished the duty
+allotted him of preserving the rights of property while respecting the
+rights of the people, of keeping the peace according to his oath, and
+keeping faith with the masses, to which he belonged, in their struggle
+against monopoly."
+
+The rich and prosperous people, as their manner is, congratulated
+themselves on their escape, and gave no thought to the questions which
+had come so near to an issue of fire and blood. In this city of two
+hundred thousand people, two or three dozen politicians continued as
+before to govern it, to assess and to spend its taxes, to use it as
+their property and their chattel. The rich and intelligent kept on
+making money, building fine houses, and bringing up children to hate
+politics as they did, and in fine to fatten themselves as sheep which
+should be mutton whenever the butcher was ready. There was hardly a
+millionaire on Algonquin Avenue who knew where the ward meetings of his
+party were held. There was not an Irish laborer in the city but knew
+his way to his ward club as well as to mass.
+
+Among those who had taken part in the late exciting events and had now
+reverted to private life was Sam Sleeny. His short sentence had
+expired; he had paid his fine and come back to Matchin's. But he was
+not the quiet, contented workman he had been. He was sour, sullen, and
+discontented. He nourished a dull grudge against the world. He had
+tried to renew friendly relations with Maud, but she had repulsed him
+with positive scorn. Her mind was full of her new prospects, and she
+did not care to waste time with him. The scene in the rose-house
+rankled in his heart; he could not but think that her mind had been
+poisoned by Farnham, and his hate gained intensity every hour.
+
+In this frame of mind he fell easily into the control of Offitt. That
+worthy had not come under the notice of the law for the part he took in
+the attack on the Belding house; he had not been recognized by
+Farnham's men, nor denounced by his associates; and so, after a day or
+two of prudential hiding, he came to the surface again. He met Sam at
+the very door of the House of Correction, sympathized with him,
+flattered him, gained his full confidence at last, and held him ready
+for some purpose which was vague even in his own brain. He was
+determined to gain possession of Maud, and he felt it must be through
+some crime, the manner of which was not quite clear to him. If he could
+use Sam to accomplish his purpose and save his own skin, that would be
+best. His mind ran constantly upon theft, forgery, burglary, and
+murder; but he could frame no scheme which did not involve risks that
+turned him sick. If he could hit upon something where he might furnish
+the brains, and Sam the physical force and the risk! He dwelt upon this
+day and night. He urged Sam to talk of his own troubles; of the
+Matchins; at last, of Maud and his love, and it was not long before the
+tortured fellow had told him what he saw in the rose-house. Strangely
+enough, the thought of his fiancee leaning on the shoulder of another
+man did not in the least diminish the ardor of Offitt. His passion was
+entirely free from respect or good-will. He used the story to whet the
+edge of Sam's hatred against Farnham.
+
+"Why, Sam, my boy," he would say, "your honor is at stake."
+
+"I would as soon kill him as eat," Sam answered. "But what good would
+that do me? She cares no more for me than she does for you."
+
+Offitt was sitting alone in his room one afternoon; his eyes were
+staring blankly at the opposite wall; his clinched hands were cold as
+ice. He had been sitting in that way motionless for an hour, a prey to
+a terrible excitement.
+
+It had come about in this way. He had met in one of the shops he
+frequented a machinist who rented one of Farnham's houses. Offitt had
+asked him at noon-time to come out and drink a glass of beer with him.
+The man complied, and was especially careful to bring his waistcoat
+with him, saying with a laugh, "I lose my shelter if I lose that."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Offitt.
+
+"I've got a quarter's rent in there for Cap. Farnham."
+
+"Why are you carrying it around all day?"
+
+"Well, you know, Farnham is a good sort of fellow, and to keep us from
+losing time he lets us come to his house in the evening, after working
+hours, on quarter-day, instead of going to his office in the day-time.
+You see, I trot up there after supper and get rid of this wad."
+
+Offitt's eyes twinkled like those of an adder.
+
+"How many of you do this?"
+
+"Oh, a good many,--most everybody in our ward and some in the
+Nineteenth."
+
+"A good bit of money?" said Offitt carelessly, though his mouth worked
+nervously.
+
+"You bet your boots! If I had all the cash he takes in to-night, I'd
+buy an island and shoot the machine business. Well, I must be gettin'
+back. So long."
+
+Offitt had walked directly home after this conversation, looking
+neither to the right nor the left, like a man asleep. He had gone to
+his room, locked his door behind him, and sat down upon the edge of his
+bed and given himself up to an eager dream of crime. His heart beat,
+now fast, now slow; a cold sweat enveloped him; he felt from time to
+time half suffocated.
+
+Suddenly he heard a loud knocking at his door--not as if made by the
+hand, but as if some one were hammering. He started and gasped with a
+choking rattle in his throat. His eyes seemed straining from their
+sockets. He opened his lips, but no sound came forth.
+
+The sharp rapping was repeated, once and again. He made no answer. Then
+a loud voice said:
+
+"Hello, Andy, you asleep?"
+
+He threw himself back on his pillow and said yawningly, "Yes. That you,
+Sam? Why don't you come in?"
+
+"'Cause the door's locked."
+
+He rose and let Sleeny in; then threw himself back on the bed,
+stretching and gaping.
+
+"What did you make that infernal racket with?"
+
+"My new hammer," said Sam. "I just bought it to day. Lost my old one
+the night we give Farnham the shiveree."
+
+"Lemme see it." Offitt took it in his hand and balanced and tested it.
+"Pretty good hammer. Handle's a leetle thick, but--pretty good hammer."
+
+"Ought to be," said Sam. "Paid enough for it."
+
+"Where d'you get it?"
+
+"Ware & Harden's."
+
+"Sam," said Offitt,--he was still holding the hammer and giving himself
+light taps on the head with it,--"Sam."
+
+"Well, you said that before."
+
+Offitt opened his mouth twice to speak and shut it again.
+
+"What are you doin'?" asked Sleeny. "Trying to catch flies?"
+
+"Sam," said Offitt at last, slowly and with effort, "if I was you, the
+first thing I did with that hammer, I'd crack Art Farnham's cocoa-nut."
+
+"Well, Andy, go and crack it yourself if you are so keen to have it
+done. You're mixing yourself rather too much in my affairs, anyhow,"
+said Sam, who was nettled by these too frequent suggestions of Offitt
+that his honor required repair.
+
+"Sam Sleeny," said Offitt, in an impressive voice, "I'm one of the kind
+that stands by my friends. If you mean what you have been saying to me,
+I'll go up with you this very night, and we will together take it out
+of that aristocrat. Now, that's business."
+
+Sleeny looked at his friend in surprise and with some distrust. The
+offer was so generous and reckless, that he could not help asking
+himself what was its motive. He looked so long and so stupidly at
+Offitt, that the latter at last divined his feeling. He thought that,
+without telling Sleeny the whole scheme, he would test him one step
+farther.
+
+"I don't doubt," he said carelessly, "but what we could pay ourselves
+well for the job,--spoil the 'Gyptians, you know,--forage on the enemy.
+Plenty of portables in them houses, eh!"
+
+"I never said"--Sam spoke slowly and deliberately--"I wanted to
+'sassinate him, or rob him, or burgle him. If I could catch him and
+lick him, in a fair fight, I'd do it; and I wouldn't care how hard I
+hit him, or what with."
+
+"All right," said Offitt, curtly. "You met him once in a fair fight,
+and he licked you. And you tried him another way,--courtin' the same
+girl,--and he beat you there. But it's all right. I've got nothin'
+against him, if you hain't. Lemme mark your name on this hammer," and,
+turning the conversation so quickly that Sleeny had no opportunity to
+resent the last taunt, he took his knife and began dexterously and
+swiftly to cut Sam's initials in the handle of his hammer. Before,
+however, he had half completed his self-imposed task, he exclaimed,
+"This is dry work. Let's go out and get some beer. I'll finish your
+hammer and bring it around after supper."
+
+"There's one S on it," said Sam; "that's enough."
+
+"One S enough! It might mean Smith, or Schneider, or Sullivan. No, sir.
+I'll put two on in the highest style of art, and then everybody will
+know and respect Sam Sleeny's tool."
+
+They passed out of the room together, and drank their beer at a
+neighboring garden. They were both rather silent and preoccupied. As
+they parted, Offitt said, "I've got a scheme on hand for raising the
+wind, I want to talk to you about. Be at my room to-night between nine
+and ten, and wait till I come, if I am out. Don't fail." Sam stared a
+little, but promised, asking no questions.
+
+When Offitt came back, he locked the door again behind him. He bustled
+about the room as if preparing to move. He had little to pack; a few
+shabby clothes were thrown into a small trunk, a pile of letters and
+papers were hastily torn up and pitched into the untidy grate. All this
+while he muttered to himself as if to keep himself in company. He said:
+"I had to take the other shoot--he hadn't the sand to help--I couldn't
+tell him any more. . . . I wonder if she will go with me when I come
+tonight--ready? I shall feel I deserve her anyhow. She don't treat me
+as she did him, according to Sam's story. She makes me keep my
+distance. She hasn't even shook hands with me since we was engaged.
+I'll pay her for that after awhile." He walked up and down his room
+breathing quick and hard. "I shall risk my neck, I know; but it won't
+be the first time, and I never will have such a reason again. She beats
+anything I ever saw. I've _got_ to have the money--to suit such a
+woman. . . . I'm almost sorry for Sam--but the Lord made some men to be
+other men's fools. . . ."
+
+This was the staple of his musings; other things less edifying still
+may be omitted.
+
+While he was engaged in this manner he heard a timid knock at his door.
+"Another visitor? I'm getting popular," he said, and went to open the
+door.
+
+A seedy, forlorn-looking man came in; he took off his shabby hat and
+held it under his arm.
+
+He said, "Good-evenin'," in a tone a little above a whisper.
+
+"Well, what's the matter?" asked Offitt.
+
+"Have you heered about Brother Bowersox?"
+
+"Never mind the brothering--that's played out. What is there about
+Bowersox?"
+
+"He's dangerous; they don't think he'll live through the night."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+This was not encouraging, but the poor Bread-winner ventured to say, "I
+thought some of the Brothers----"
+
+But Offitt closed the subject by a brutal laugh. "The Brothers are
+looking out for themselves these times. The less said about the
+Brotherhood the better. It's up the spout, do you hear?"
+
+The poor fellow shrunk away into his ragged clothes, and went out with
+a submissive "Good-evenin'."
+
+"I'll never found another Brotherhood," Offitt said to himself. "It's
+more trouble than it brings in."
+
+It was now growing dark. He took his hat and went down the stairs and
+out into the street. He entered a restaurant and ordered a beefsteak,
+which he ate, paid for, and departed after a short chat with the
+waiter, whom he knew. He went around the corner, entered another
+eating-house, called for a cup of coffee and a roll. There also he was
+careful to speak with the man who served him, slapping him on the
+shoulder with familiarity. He went into a drug store a little later and
+bought a glass of soda-water, dropping the glass on the marble floor,
+and paying for it after some controversy. He then walked up to Dean
+Street. He found the family all together in the sitting-room. He
+chatted awhile with them, and asked for Sleeny.
+
+"I don't really know where Sam is. He ain't so reg'lar in his hours as
+he used to be," said Saul. "I hope he ain't gettin' wild."
+
+"I hope not," said Offitt, in a tone of real distress--then, after a
+pause, "You needn't mention my havin' asked for him. He may be
+sensitive about it."
+
+As he came away, Maud followed him to the door. He whispered, "Be
+ready, my beauty, to start at a moment's notice. The money is on the
+way. You shall live like a queen before many days are gone."
+
+"We shall see," she answered, with a smile, but shutting the door
+between them.
+
+He clinched his fists and muttered, "I'll figure it all up and take my
+pay, Missy. She's worth it. I will have to do some crooked things to
+get her; but by ----, I'd kill a dozen men and hang another, just to
+stand by and see her braid her hair."
+
+Returning to his house, he ran nimbly up the stairs, half fearing to
+find Sleeny there, but he had not yet arrived. He seized the hammer,
+put it in his pocket, and came down again. Still intent upon accounting
+for as much of the evening as possible, he thought of a variety-show in
+the neighborhood, and went there. He spoke to some of the loafers at
+the door. He then walked to the box-office and asked for a ticket,
+addressing the man who sold it to him as "Jimmy," and asking how
+business was. The man handed him his ticket without any reply, but
+turned to a friend beside him, and said, "Who is that cheeky brother
+that knows me so well?"
+
+"Oh! that's a rounder by the name of Offitt. He is a sort of Reformer--
+makes speeches to the puddlers on the rights of man."
+
+"Seems rather fresh," said Jimmy.
+
+"A little brine wouldn't hurt him."
+
+Offitt strolled into the theatre, which was well filled. The curtain
+was down at the moment, and he walked the full extent of the centre
+aisle to the orchestra, looking about him as if in search of some one.
+He saw one or two acquaintances and nodded to them. He then walked back
+and took a seat near the door. The curtain rose, and the star of the
+evening bounded upon the stage,--a strapping young woman in the dress
+of an army officer. She was greeted with applause before she began her
+song, and with her first notes Offitt quietly went out. He looked at
+the clock on the City Hall, and saw that he had no more time to kill.
+He walked, without hurrying or loitering, up the shady side of the
+street till he came to the quarter where Farnham lived. He then crossed
+into the wide avenue, and, looking swiftly about him, approached the
+open gates of Farnham's place. Two or three men were coming out, one or
+two were going in. He waited till the former had turned down the
+street, and the latter were on the door-step. He then walked briskly up
+the path to the house; but instead of mounting the steps, he turned to
+the left and lay down under the library windows behind a clump of
+lilacs.
+
+"If they catch me here," he thought, "they can only take me for a tramp
+and give me the grand bounce."
+
+The windows opened upon a stone platform a few feet from the ground. He
+could hear the sound of voices within. At last he heard the men rise,
+push back their chairs, and say "Good-night." He heard their heavy
+shoes on the front steps. "Now for it," he whispered. But at that
+moment a belated tenant came in. He wanted to talk of some repairs to
+his house. Offitt lay down again, resting his head on his arm. The soft
+turf, the stillness, the warmth of the summer night lulled him into
+drowsiness. In spite of the reason he had for keeping awake, his eyes
+were closing and his senses were fading, when a shrill whistle startled
+him into broad wakefulness. It was the melancholy note of a
+whippoorwill in the branches of a lime-tree in the garden. Offitt
+listened for the sound of voices in the library. He heard nothing. "Can
+I have slept through----no, there is a light." A shadow fell across the
+window. The heavy tread of Budsey approached. Farnham's voice was
+heard: "Never mind the windows, Budsey. I will close them and the front
+door. I will wait here awhile; somebody else may come. You can go to
+bed."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+Offitt waited only a moment. He rose and looked cautiously in at the
+window. Farnham was seated at his desk. He had sorted, in the
+methodical way peculiar to men who have held command in the army, the
+papers which he had been using with his tenants and the money he had
+received from them.
+
+They were arranged on the desk before him in neat bundles, ready to be
+transferred to the safe, across the room. He had taken up his pen to
+make some final indorsement.
+
+Offitt drew off his shoes, leaped upon the platform, and entered the
+library as swiftly and noiselessly as a panther walking over sand.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF WINDOWS.
+
+
+Alice Belding was seated before her glass braiding her long hair. Her
+mother had come in from her own room, as her custom often was, to chat
+with her daughter in the half hour before bed-time. It gratified at
+once her maternal love and her pride to watch the exquisite beauty of
+her child, as she sat, dressed in a white wrapper that made her seem
+still taller than she was brushing and braiding the luxuriant tresses
+that gave under the light every tint and reflection of which gold is
+capable. The pink and pearl of the round arm as the loose sleeve would
+slip to the elbow, the poise of the proud head, the full white column
+of the neck, the soft curve of cheek and chin,--all this delighted her
+as it would have delighted a lover. But with all her light-headedness,
+there was enough of discretion, or perhaps of innate New England
+reserve, to keep her from ever expressing to Alice her pleasure in her
+beauty. So the wholesome-minded girl never imagined the admiration of
+which she was the object, and thought that her mother only liked to
+chat a little before sleeping. They talked of trivial matters, of the
+tea at Mrs. Hyson's, of Formosa Hyson's purple dress which made her
+sallower than ever, of rain and fair weather.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Bekling, "that Phrasy Dallas gets more and more
+stylish every day. I don't wonder at Arthur Farnham's devotion. That
+would make an excellent match--they are both so dreadfully clever. By
+the way, he has not been here this week. And I declare! I don't believe
+you have ever written him that note of thanks."
+
+"No," said Alice, smiling--she had schooled herself by this time to
+speak of him carelessly. "I was too much frightened to thank him on the
+spot, and now it would be ancient history. We must save our thanks till
+we see him."
+
+"I want to see him about other things. You must write and ask him to
+dinner to-morrow or next day."
+
+"Don't you think he would like it better if you would write?"
+
+"There you are again--as if it mattered. Write that 'Mamma bids me.'
+There, your hair is braided. Write the note now, and I will send it
+over in the morning before he gets away."
+
+Alice rose and walked to her escritoire, her long robe trailing, her
+thick braids hanging almost to the floor, her fair cheek touched with a
+delicate spot of color at the thought of writing a formal note to the
+man she worshipped. She took a pen and wrote "My dear Mr. Farnham," and
+the conventional address made her heart flutter and her eyes grow dim.
+While she was writing, she heard her mother say:
+
+"What a joke!"
+
+She looked up, and saw that Mrs. Belding, having pushed open the
+shutters, had picked up her opera-glass and was looking through it at
+something out of the window.
+
+"Do you know, Alice," she said, laughing, "since that ailantus tree was
+cut down, you can see straight into his library from here. There he is
+now, sitting at his desk."
+
+"Mamma!" pleaded Alice, rising and trying to take the glass away from
+her. "Don't do that, I beg!"
+
+"Nonsense," said her mother, keeping her away with one hand and holding
+the glass with the other. "There comes Budsey to close the blinds. The
+show is over. No; he goes away, leaving them open."
+
+"Mamma, I will leave the room if----"
+
+"My goodness! look at that!" cried the widow, putting the glass in her
+daughter's hand and sinking into a chair with fright.
+
+Alice, filled with a nameless dread, saw her mother was pale and
+trembling, and took the glass. She dropped it in an instant, and
+leaning from the window sent forth once more that cry of love and
+alarm, which rang through the stillness of night with all the power of
+her young throat:
+
+"Arthur!"
+
+She turned, and sped down the stairs, and across the lawn like an arrow
+shot for life or death from a long-bow.
+
+Farnham heard the sweet, strong voice ringing out of the stillness like
+the cry of an angel in a vision, and raised his head with a startled
+movement from the desk where he was writing. Offitt heard it, too, as
+he raised his hand to strike a deadly blow; and though it did not
+withhold him from his murderous purpose, it disturbed somewhat the
+precision of his hand. The hammer descended a little to the right of
+where he had intended to strike. It made a deep and cruel gash, and
+felled Farnham to the floor, but it did not kill him. He rose, giddy
+and faint with the blow and half-blinded with the blood that poured
+down over his right eye. He clapped his hand, with a soldier's
+instinct, to the place where his sword-hilt was not, and then
+staggered, rather than rushed, at his assailant, to grapple him with
+his naked hands. Offitt struck him once more, and he fell headlong on
+the floor, in the blaze of a myriad lights that flashed all at once
+into deep darkness and silence.
+
+The assassin, seeing that his victim no longer moved, threw down his
+reeking weapon, and, seizing the packages of money on the desk, thrust
+them into his pockets. He stepped back through the open window and
+stooped to pick up his shoes. As he rose, he saw a sight which for an
+instant froze him with terror. A tall and beautiful form, dressed all
+in white, was swiftly gliding toward him over the grass. It drew near,
+and he saw its pale features set in a terrible expression of pity and
+horror. It seemed to him like an avenging spirit. He shut his eyes for
+a moment in abject fright, and the phantom swept by him and leaped like
+a white doe upon the platform, through the open window, and out of his
+sight. He ran to the gate, quaking and trembling, then walked quietly
+to the nearest corner, where he sat down upon the curb-stone and put on
+his shoes.
+
+Mrs. Belding followed, as rapidly as she could, the swift flight of her
+daughter; but it was some minutes after the young girl had leaped
+through the window that her mother walked breathlessly through the
+front door and the hall into the library. She saw there a sight which
+made her shudder and turn faint. Alice was sitting on the floor,
+holding in her lap the blood-dabbled head of Farnham. Beside her stood
+a glass of water, a pitcher, and several towels. Some of them were red
+and saturated, some were still fresh and neatly folded. She was
+carefully cleansing and wiping the white forehead of the lifeless man
+of the last red drop.
+
+"Oh, Alice, what is this?" cried her mother.
+
+"He is dead!" she answered, in a hoarse, strained voice. "I feared so
+when I first came in. He was lying on his face. I lifted him up, but he
+could not see me. I kissed him, hoping he might kiss me again. But he
+did not. Then I saw this water on the stand over there. I remembered
+there were always towels there in the billiard-room. I ran and got
+them, and washed the blood away from his face. See, his face is not
+hurt. I am glad of that. But there is a dreadful wound in his head."
+She dropped her voice to a choking whisper at these words.
+
+Her mother gazed at her with speechless consternation. Had the shock
+deprived her of reason?
+
+"Alice," she said, "this is no place for you. I will call the servants
+and send for a surgeon, and you must go home."
+
+"Oh, no, mamma. I see I have frightened you, but there is no need to be
+frightened. Yes, call the servants, but do not let them come in here
+for awhile, not till the doctors come. They can do no good. He is
+dead."
+
+Mrs. Belding had risen and rung the bell violently.
+
+"Do, mamma, see the servants in the hall outside. Don't let them come
+in for a moment. Do! I pray! I pray! I will do anything for you."
+
+There was such intensity of passion in the girl's prayer that her
+mother yielded, and when the servants came running in, half-dressed, in
+answer to the bell, she stepped outside the door and said, "Captain
+Farnham has been badly hurt. Two of you go for the nearest doctors. You
+need not come in at present. My daughter and I will take care of him."
+
+She went back, closing the door behind her. Alice was smiling. "There,
+you are a dear! I will love you forever for that! It is only for a
+moment. The doctors will soon be here, and then I must give him up."
+
+"Oh, Alice," the poor lady whimpered, "why do you talk so wildly? What
+do you mean?"
+
+"Don't cry, mamma! It is only for a moment. It is all very simple. I am
+not crazy. He was my lover!"
+
+"Heaven help us!"
+
+"Yes, this dear man, this noble man offered me his love, and I refused
+it. I may have been crazy then, but I am not now. I can love him now. I
+will be his widow--if I was not his wife. We will be two widows
+together--always. Now you know I am doing nothing wrong or wild. He is
+mine.
+
+"Give me one of those towels," she exclaimed, suddenly. "I can tie up
+his head so that it will stop bleeding till the doctors come."
+
+She took the towels, tore strips from her own dress, and in a few
+moments, with singular skill and tenderness, she had stopped the flow
+of blood from the wound.
+
+"There! He looks almost as if he were asleep, does he not? Oh, my love,
+my love!"
+
+Up to this moment she had not shed one tear. Her voice was strained,
+choked, and sobbing, but her eyes were dry. She kissed him on his brow
+and his mouth. She bent over him and laid her smooth cheek to his. She
+murmured:
+
+"Good-by, good-by, till I come to you, my own love!"
+
+All at once she raised her head with a strange light in her eyes.
+"Mamma!" she cried, "see how warm his cheek is. Heaven is merciful!
+perhaps he is alive."
+
+She put both arms about him, and, gently but powerfully lifting his
+dead weight of head and shoulders, drew him to her heart. She held him
+to her warm bosom, rocking him to and fro. "Oh, my beloved!" she
+murmured, "if you will live, I will be so good to you."
+
+She lowered him again, resting his head on her lap. A drop of blood,
+from the napkin in which his head was wrapped, had touched the bosom of
+her dress, staining it as if a cherry had been crushed there. She sat,
+gazing with an anguish of hope upon his pale face. A shudder ran
+through him, and he opened his eyes--only for a moment. He groaned, and
+slowly closed them.
+
+The tears could no longer be restrained. They fell like a summer shower
+from her eyes, while she sobbed, "Thank God! my darling is not dead."
+
+Her quick ear caught footsteps at the outer door. "Here, mamma, take my
+place. Let me hide before all those men come in."
+
+In a moment she had leaped through the window, whence she ran through
+the dewy grass to her home.
+
+An hour afterward her mother returned, escorted by one of the surgeons.
+She found Alice in bed, peacefully sleeping. As Mrs. Belding approached
+the bedside, Alice woke and smiled. "I know without your telling me,
+mamma. He will live. I began to pray for him,--but I felt sure he would
+live, and so I gave thanks instead."
+
+"You are a strange girl," said Mrs. Belding, gravely. "But you are
+right. Dr. Cutts says, if he escapes without fever, there is nothing
+very serious in the wound itself. The blow that made that gash in his
+head was not the one which made him unconscious. They found another,
+behind his ear; the skin was not broken. There was a bump about as big
+as a walnut. They said it was concussion of the brain, but no fracture
+anywhere. By the way, Dr. Cutts complimented me very handsomely on the
+way I had managed the case before his arrival. He said there was
+positively a professional excellence about my bandage. You may imagine
+I did not set him right."
+
+Alice, laughing and blushing, said, "I will allow you all the credit."
+
+Mrs. Belding kissed her, and said, "Good-night," and walked to the
+door. There she paused a moment, and came back to the bed. "I think,
+after all, I had better say now what I thought of keeping till
+to-morrow. I thank you for your confidence to-night, and shall respect
+it. But you will see, I am sure, the necessity of being very
+circumspect, under the circumstances. If you should want to do
+anything for Arthur while he is ill, I should feel it my duty to forbid
+it."
+
+Alice received this charge with frank, open eyes. "I should not dream
+of such a thing," she said. "If he had died, I should have been his
+widow; but, as he is to live, he must come for me if he wants me. I was
+very silly about him, but I must take the consequences. I can't now
+take advantage of the poor fellow, by saving his life and establishing
+a claim on it. So I will promise anything you want. I am so happy that
+I will promise easily. But I am also very sleepy."
+
+The beautiful eyelids were indeed heavy and drooping. The night's
+excitement had left her wearied and utterly content. She fell asleep
+even as her mother kissed her forehead.
+
+The feeling of Offitt as he left Algonquin Avenue and struck into a
+side street was one of pure exultation. He had accomplished the boldest
+act of his life. He had shown address, skill, and courage. He had done
+a thing which had appalled him in the contemplation, merely on account
+of its physical difficulties and dangers. He had done it successfully.
+He had a large amount of money in his pocket--enough to carry his bride
+to the ends of the earth. When it was gone--well, at worst, he could
+leave her, and shift for himself again. He had not a particle of regret
+or remorse; and, in fact, these sentiments are far rarer than moralists
+would have us believe. A ruffian who commits a crime usually glories in
+it. It exalts him in his own eyes, all the more that he is compelled to
+keep silent about it. As Offitt walked rapidly in the direction of Dean
+Street, the only shadow on his exultation was his sudden perception of
+the fact that he had better not tell Maud what he had done. In all his
+plans he had promised himself the pleasure of telling her that she was
+avenged upon her enemy by the hands of her lover; he had thought he
+might extort his first kiss by that heroic avowal; but now, as he
+walked stealthily down the silent street, he saw that nobody in the
+universe could be made his confidant.
+
+"I'll never own it, in earth or hell," he said to himself.
+
+When he reached Matchin's cottage, all was dark and still. He tried to
+attract Maud's attention by throwing soft clods of earth against her
+window, but her sleep was too sound. He was afraid to throw pebbles for
+fear of breaking the panes and waking the family. He went into the
+little yard adjoining the shop, and found a ladder. He brought it out,
+and placed it against the wall. He perceived now for the first time
+that his hands were sticky. He gazed at them a moment. "Oh, yes," he
+said to himself, "when he fell I held out my hands to keep his head
+from touching my clothes. Careless trick! Ought to have washed them,
+first thing." Then, struck by a sudden idea, he went to the well-curb,
+and slightly moistened his fingers. He then rubbed them on the
+door-knob, and the edge of the door of the cottage, and pressed them
+several times in different places on the ladder. "Not a bad scheme,"
+he said, chuckling. He then went again to the well, and washed his
+hands thoroughly, afterward taking a handful of earth, and rubbing
+them till they were as dirty as usual.
+
+After making all these preparations for future contingencies, he
+mounted the ladder, and tried to raise the window. It was already open
+a few inches to admit the air, but was fastened there, and he could not
+stir it. He began to call and whistle in as low and penetrating a tone
+as he could manage, and at last awoke Maud, whose bed was only a few
+feet away. She started up with a low cry of alarm, but saw in a moment
+who it was.
+
+"Well, what on earth are you doing here? Go away this minute, or I'll
+call my father."
+
+"Let me in, and I will tell you."
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort. Begone this instant."
+
+"Maud, don't be foolish," he pleaded, in real alarm, as he saw that she
+was angry and insulted. "I have done as you told me. I have wealth for
+us both, and I have"--he had almost betrayed himself, but he
+concluded--"I have come to take you away forever."
+
+"Come to-morrow, at a decent hour, and I will talk to you."
+
+"Now, Maud, my beauty, don't believe I am humbugging. I brought a lot
+of money for you to look at--I knew you wanted to be sure. See here!"
+He drew from his pocket a package of bank bills--he saw a glittering
+stain on them. He put them in the other pocket of his coat and took out
+another package. "And here's another, I've got a dozen like them.
+Handle 'em yourself." He put them in through the window. Maud was so
+near that she could take the bills by putting out her hand. She saw
+there was a large amount of money there--more than she had ever seen
+before.
+
+"Come, my beauty," he said, "this is only spending-money for a bridal
+tour. There are millions behind it. Get up and put on your dress. I
+will wait below here. We can take the midnight train east, be married
+at Clairfield, and sail for Paris the next day. That's the world for
+you to shine in. Come! Waste no time. No tellin' what may happen
+tomorrow."
+
+She was strongly tempted. She had no longer any doubt of his wealth. He
+was not precisely a hero in appearance, but she had never insisted upon
+that--her romance having been always of a practical kind. She was about
+to assent--and to seal her doom--when she suddenly remembered that all
+her best clothes were in her mother's closet, which was larger than
+hers, and that she could not get them without passing through the room
+where her parents were asleep. That ended the discussion. It was out of
+the question that she should marry this magnificent stranger in her
+every-day dress and cotton stockings. It was equally impossible that
+she should give that reason to any man. So she said, with dignity:
+
+"Mr. Offitt, it is not proper for me to continue this conversation any
+longer. You ought to see it ain't. I shall be happy to see you
+to-morrow."
+
+Offitt descended the ladder, grinding out curses between his set teeth.
+A hate, as keen as his passion, for the foolish girl fired him.
+"Think," he hissed, "a man that killed, half an hour ago, the biggest
+swell in Buffland, to be treated that way by a carpenter's wench."
+"Wait awhile, Miss; it'll come my innings." He lifted up the ladder,
+carried it carefully around the house, and leaned it against the wall
+under the window of the room occupied by Sleeny.
+
+He hurried back to his lodging in Perry Place, where he found Sam
+Sleeny lying asleep on his bed. He was not very graciously greeted by
+his drowsy visitor.
+
+"Why didn't you stay out all night?" Sam growled. "Where have you been,
+anyhow?"
+
+"I've been at the variety-show, and it was the boss fraud of the
+season."
+
+"You stayed so long you must have liked it."
+
+"I was waiting to see just how bad a show could be and not spoil."
+
+"What did you want to see me about tonight?"
+
+"The fact is, I expected to meet a man around at the Varieties who was
+to go in with us into a big thing. But he wasn't there. I'll nail him
+to-morrow, and then we can talk. It's big money, Sammy, and no
+discount. What would you think of a thousand dollars a month?"
+
+"I'd a heap rather see it than hear you chin about it. Give me my
+hammer, and I'll go home."
+
+"Why, I took it round to your shop this evening, and I tossed it in
+through the window. I meant to throw it upon the table, but it went
+over, I think from the sound, and dropped on the floor. You will find
+it among the shavings, I reckon,"
+
+"Well, I'm off," said Sam, by way of good-night.
+
+"All right. Guess I'll see you to-morrow."
+
+Offitt waited till he could hear the heavy tread of Sleeny completing
+the first flight of stairs and going around to the head of the second.
+He then shut and locked his door, and hung his hat over the keyhole. He
+turned up his lamp and sat down by the table to count his night's
+gains. The first package he took from his pocket had a shining stain
+upon the outside bill. He separated the stained bill carefully from the
+rest, and held it a moment in his hand as if in doubt. He walked to his
+wash-stand, but at the moment of touching his pitcher he stopped short.
+He took out his handkerchief, but shook his head and put it back.
+Finally, he lighted a match, applied it to the corner of the bill, and
+watched it take fire and consume, until his fingers were scorched by
+the blaze. "Pity!" he whispered--"good money like that."
+
+He seated himself again and began with a fierce, sustained delight to
+arrange and sort the bank-bills, laying the larger denominations by
+themselves, smoothing them down with a quick and tender touch, a
+kindling eye and a beating heart. In his whole life, past and future,
+there was not such another moment of enjoyment. Money is, of course,
+precious and acceptable to all men except idiots. But, if it means much
+to the good and virtuous, how infinitely more it means to the
+thoroughly depraved--the instant gratification of every savage and
+hungry devil of a passion which their vile natures harbor. Though the
+first and principal thing Offitt thought of was the possession of Maud
+Matchin, his excited fancy did not stop there. A long gallery of
+vicious pictures stretched out before his flaming eyes, as he reckoned
+up the harvest of his hand. The mere thought that each bill represented
+a dinner, where he might eat and drink what he liked, was enough to
+inebriate a starved rogue whose excesses had always been limited by his
+poverty.
+
+When he had counted and sorted his cash, he took enough for his
+immediate needs and put it in his wallet. The rest he made up into
+convenient packages, which he tied compactly with twine and disposed in
+his various pockets. "I'll chance it," he thought, after some
+deliberation. "If they get me, they can get the money, too. But they
+sha'n't get it without me."
+
+He threw himself on his bed, and slept soundly till morning.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+OFFITT PLANS A LONG JOURNEY.
+
+
+The bright sun and the morning noises of the city waked Offitt from his
+sleep. As he dressed himself the weight of the packages in his pockets
+gave him a pleasant sensation to begin the day with. He felt as if he
+were entering upon a new state of existence--a life with plenty of
+money. He composed in his mind an elaborate breakfast as he walked
+down-stairs and took his way to a restaurant, which he entered with the
+assured step of a man of capital. He gave his order to the waiter with
+more decision than usual, and told him in closing "not to be all day
+about it, either."
+
+While waiting for his breakfast, he opened the morning "Bale Fire" to
+see if there was any account of "The Algonquin Avenue Tragedy." This
+was the phrase which he had arranged in his mind as the probable
+head-line of the article. He had so convinced himself of the efficacy
+of his own precautions, that he anticipated the same pleasure in
+reading the comments upon his exploit that an author whose incognito
+is assured enjoys in reading the criticisms of his anonymous work.
+He was at first disappointed in seeing no allusion to the affair in
+the usual local columns; but at last discovered in a corner of the
+paper this double-leaded postscript:
+
+"We stop the press to state that an appalling crime was last night
+committed in Algonquin Avenue. The mansion of Arthur Farnham, Esq., was
+entered by burglars between ten and eleven o'clock, and that gentleman
+assaulted and probably murdered.
+
+"Full particulars in a later edition."
+
+"LATER. Captain Farnham is still living, and some hopes are entertained
+of his recovery. The police have found the weapon with which the almost
+fatal blow was struck--a carpenter's hammer marked with a letter S. It
+is thought this clew will lead to the detection of the guilty parties."
+
+Offitt was not entirely pleased with the tone of this notice. He had
+expected some reference to the address and daring of the burglar. But
+he smiled to himself, "Why should I care for Sam's reputation?" and ate
+his breakfast with a good appetite. Before he had finished, however, he
+greatly modified his plan, which was to have the threads of evidence
+lead naturally, of themselves, to the conviction of Sleeny. He
+determined to frighten Sam, if possible, out of the city, knowing that
+his flight would be conclusive evidence of guilt. He swallowed his
+coffee hurriedly and walked down to Dean Street, where by good fortune
+he found Sam alone in the shop. He was kicking about a pile of shavings
+on the floor. He turned as Offitt entered and said: "Oh, there you are.
+I can't find that hammer anywhere."
+
+Offitt's face assumed a grieved expression. "Come, come, Sam, don't
+stand me off that way. I'm your friend, if you've got one in the world.
+You mustn't lose a minute more. You've got time now to catch the 8.40.
+Come, jump in a hack and be off."
+
+His earnestness and rapidity confused Sleeny, and drove all thoughts of
+the hammer from his mind. He stared at Offitt blankly, and said, "Why,
+what are you givin' me now?"
+
+"I'm a-givin' you truth and friendship, and fewest words is best. Come,
+light out, and write where you stop. I'll see you through."
+
+"See here," roared Sam, "are you crazy or am I? Speak out! What's up?"
+
+"Oh! I've got to speak it out, raw and plain, have I? Very well! Art.
+Farnham was attacked and nearly murdered last night, and if you didn't
+do it who did? Now come, for the Lord's sake, get off before the police
+get here. I never thought you had the sand--but I see you've got too
+much. Don't lose time talking any more. I'm glad you've killed him. You
+done just right--but I don't want to see you hung for it."
+
+His excitement and feigned earnestness had brought the tears to his
+eyes. Sam saw them and was convinced.
+
+"Andy," he said solemnly. "I know you're my friend, and mean right.
+I'll swear before God it wasn't me, and I know nothing about it, and I
+won't run away."
+
+"But how will we prove it," said Offitt, wringing his hands in
+distress. "Where was you last night from ten to eleven?"
+
+"You know where I was--in your room. I went there just after nine and
+fell asleep waiting for you."
+
+"Yes, of course, but who knows it? Sam, I believe you are innocent
+since you say so. But see the circumstances. You _have_ talked about
+goin' for him. You _have_ had a fight with him, and got put in jail for
+it, and--" he was about to mention the hammer, but was afraid--"I wish
+you would take my advice and go off for a week or so till the truth
+comes out. I'll lend you all the money you want. I'm flush this week."
+
+"No, Andy," said Sleeny, "nobody could be kinder than you. But I won't
+run away. They can't put a man where he wasn't."
+
+"Very well," replied Offitt, "I admire your pluck, and I'll swear a
+blue streak for you when the time comes. And perhaps I had better get
+away now so they won't know I've been with you."
+
+He went without a moment's delay to the chief of police and told him
+that he had a disagreeable duty to perform; that he knew the murderer
+of Captain Farnham; that the criminal was an intimate friend of his, a
+young man hitherto of good character named Sleeny.
+
+"Ah-ha!" said the chief. "That was the fellow that Captain Farnham
+knocked down and arrested in the riot."
+
+"The same," said Offitt. "He has since that been furious against the
+Captain. I have reasoned with him over and over about it. Yesterday he
+came to see me; showed me a hammer he had just bought at Ware &
+Harden's; said he was going to break Arthur Farnham's skull with it. I
+didn't believe he would, he had said it so often before. While we were
+talking, I took the hammer and cut his initial on it, a letter S." The
+chief nodded, with a broad smile. "He then left me, and when I came
+back to my room a little before midnight, I found him there. He looked
+excited, and wanted me to go and get a drink with him. I declined, and
+he went off. This morning when I heard about the murder I said: 'He's
+the man that did the deed.'"
+
+"You have not seen him since last night?"
+
+"No; I suppose, of course, he has run away."
+
+"Where did he live?"
+
+"Dean Street, at Matchin's the carpenter."
+
+The chief turned to his telegraphic operator and rapidly gave orders
+for the arrest of Sleeny by the police of the nearest station. He also
+sent for the clerks who were on duty the day before at Ware & Harden's.
+
+"Mr. ----, I did not get your name," he said to Offitt, who gave him
+his name and address. "You have acted the part of a good citizen."
+
+"The most painful act of my life," Offitt murmured.
+
+"Of course. But duty before everything. I will have to ask you to wait
+a little while in the adjoining room till we see whether this man can
+be found."
+
+Offitt was shown into a small room, barely furnished, with two doors;
+the one through which he had just come, and one opening apparently into
+the main corridor of the building. Offitt, as soon as he was alone,
+walked stealthily to the latter door and tried to open it. It was
+locked, and there was no key. He glanced at the window; there was an
+iron grating inside the sash, which was padlocked. A cold sweat bathed
+him from head to foot. He sank into a chair, trembling like a leaf. He
+felt for his handkerchief to wipe his wet forehead. His hand touched
+one of the packages of money. He bounded from his chair in sudden joy.
+"They did not search me, so they don't suspect. It is only to make sure
+of my evidence that they keep me here." Nevertheless, the time went
+heavily. At last an officer came in and said he was to come to the
+police justice's for the preliminary examination of Sleeny.
+
+"They have caught him, then?" he asked, with assumed eagerness and
+surprise. "He had not got away?"
+
+"No," the man answered curtly.
+
+They came to the court-room in a few steps. Sam was there between two
+policemen. As Offitt entered, he smiled and slightly nodded. One or two
+men who had been summoned as witnesses were standing near the justice.
+The proceedings were summary.
+
+One of the policemen said that he had gone to Matchin's shop to arrest
+the prisoner; that the prisoner exhibited no surprise; his first words
+were, "Is Mr. Farnham dead yet?"
+
+Offitt was then called upon, and he repeated, clearly and concisely,
+the story he had told the chief of police. When he had concluded he was
+shown the hammer which had been picked up on the floor at Farnham's,
+and was asked, "Is that the hammer you refer to?"
+
+"Yes, that is it."
+
+These words were the signal for a terrible scene.
+
+When Sleeny saw Offitt step forward and begin to give his evidence, he
+leaned forward with a smile of pleased expectation upon his face. He
+had such confidence in his friend's voluble cleverness that he had no
+doubt Offitt would "talk him free" in a few minutes. He was confused a
+little by his opening words, not clearly seeing his drift; but as the
+story went on, and Offitt's atrocious falsehood became clear to his
+mind, he was dumb with stupefaction, and felt a strange curiosity
+wakening in him to see how the story would end. He did not, for the
+moment, see what object Offitt could have in lying so, until the
+thought occurred to him: "May be there's a reward out!" But when the
+blood-stained hammer was shown and identified by Offitt, all doubt was
+cleared away in a flash from the dull brain of Sleeny. He saw the whole
+horrible plot of which he was the victim.
+
+He rose from his seat before the officer could stop him, and roared
+like a lion in the toils, in a voice filled equally with agony and
+rage:
+
+"You murdering liar! I'll tear your heart out of you!"
+
+There was a wide table and several chairs between them, but Sleeny was
+over them in an instant. Offitt tried to escape, but was so hemmed in,
+that the infuriated man had him in his hands before the officers could
+interpose. If they had delayed a moment longer all would have been
+over, for already Sleeny's hands were at the throat of his betrayer.
+But two powerful policemen with their clubs soon separated the
+combatants, and Sleeny was dragged back and securely handcuffed.
+
+Offitt, ghastly pale and trembling, had sunk upon a bench. The justice,
+looking at him narrowly, said: "The man is going to faint; loosen his
+collar."
+
+"No," said Offitt, springing to his feet. "I am perfectly well."
+
+In his struggle with Sleeny a button of his coat had been torn away. He
+asked a by-stander for a pin, and carefully adjusted the garment. The
+thought in his mind was, "I don't mind being killed; but I thought he
+might tear off my coat, and show them my money." From this moment he
+kept his hand in such position that he might feel the packages in his
+pockets.
+
+Sleeny was still panting and screaming execrations at Offitt. The
+justice turned to him with sternness, and said, "Silence there! Have
+you not sense enough to see how your ferocious attack on the witness
+damages you? If you can't restrain your devilish temper while your
+friend is giving his evidence, it will be all the worse for you."
+
+"Judge," cried Sam, now fairly beside himself, "that's the murderer! I
+know it. I can prove it. He ain't fit to live. I'll break his neck
+yet!"
+
+Offitt raised his hands and eyes in deprecating sorrow.
+
+"This is the wild talk of a desperate man," said the justice. "But you
+may as well tell us how you passed last evening."
+
+"Certainly," said Offitt, consulting his memory. "Let me see. I took
+supper about seven at Duffer's; I went to Glauber's drug-store next and
+got a glass of soda water; if they don't know me, they'll remember my
+breaking a glass; then I made a visit at Mr. Matchin's on Dean Street;
+then I went to the Orleans theatre; I come out between the acts and got
+a cup of coffee at Mouchem's--then I went back and stayed till the show
+was over, that was about half-past eleven. Then I went home and found
+Mr. Sleeny there."
+
+"You had better go with Mr. Fangwell, and let him verify this
+statement," said the justice.
+
+He then called the policeman who arrived first at Farnham's house the
+night before. He told his story and identified the hammer which had
+been shown to Offitt. A young man from Ware & Harden's swore that he
+had sold the hammer the day before to Sleeny, whom he knew. The justice
+held this evidence sufficient to justify Sleeny's detention.
+
+"I should think so," said some of the by-standers. "If it don't hang
+him, there's a loud call for Judge Lynch."
+
+"Silence!" said the justice. "The prisoner will be taken for the
+present to the city jail."
+
+Sam was led out, and Offitt accompanied the chief of police back to the
+room he had just quitted. He remained there several hours which seemed
+to him interminable. At last, however, the detective who had been sent
+to inquire as to the truth of the account he had given of himself,
+returned with a full confirmation of it, and Offitt was suffered to go,
+on his own engagement to give further evidence when called upon.
+
+He left the City Hall with a great load off his mind. It was not
+without an effort that he had sworn away the character, the freedom,
+and perhaps the life of his comrade. If he could have accomplished his
+purpose without crushing Sleeny he would have preferred it. But the
+attack which his goaded victim had made upon him in the court-room was
+now a source of lively satisfaction to him. It created a strong
+prejudice against the prisoner; it caused the justice at once to
+believe him guilty, and gave Offitt himself an injured feeling that was
+extremely comforting in view of what was to happen to Sleeny.
+
+He went along the street tapping his various pockets furtively as he
+walked. He was hungry. His diverse emotions had given him an appetite.
+He went into an eating-house and commanded a liberal supper. He had an
+odd fancy as he gave his order. "That's the sort of supper I would
+have, if it was my last--if I was to be hanged tomorrow." He thought of
+Sleeny and hoped they would treat him well in jail. He felt
+magnanimously toward him. "Who would have thought," he mused, "that Sam
+had such a devil of a temper? I most hope that Farnham won't die--it
+would be rough on Sam. Though perhaps that would be best all round," he
+added, thinking of Sam's purple face in the court-room and the eager
+grip of his fingers.
+
+He came out of the eating-house into the gathering twilight. The lamps
+were springing into light in long straight lines down the dusky
+streets. The evening breeze blew in from the great lake tempering the
+stale heat of the day. Boys were crying the late editions of the
+newspapers with "Full account arrest o' the Farnham burglar!" He bought
+one, but did not stop to open it. He folded it into the smallest
+possible compass, and stuffed it into his pocket, "along with the other
+documents in the case," as he chuckled to himself; "I'll read all about
+it in the train to-morrow--business before pleasure," he continued,
+pleased with his wit.
+
+Every moment he would put his hand into his side pocket and feel the
+package containing the largest bills. He knew it was imprudent--that it
+might attract the attention of thieves or detectives; but to save his
+life he could not have kept from doing it. At last he scratched his
+hand on the pin which was doing duty for the button he had lost in his
+scuffle with Sleeny. "Ah!" he said to himself, with humorous banter,
+"it won't do to be married in a coat with the buttons off."
+
+He went into a little basement shop where a sign announced that
+"Scouring and Repairing" were done. A small and bald Hamburger stepped
+forward, rubbing his hands. Offitt told him what he wanted, and the man
+got a needle and thread and selected from a large bowl of buttons on a
+shelf one that would suit. While he was sewing it on, he said:
+
+"Derrible news apout Gabben Farnham."
+
+"Yes," said Offitt. "Is he dead?"
+
+"I don't know off he ish tet. Dey say he ish oud mid his het, und tat
+looksh mighty pad. But one ting ish goot; dey cotch de murterer."
+
+"They have?" asked Offitt, with languid interest. "What sort of fellow
+is he?"
+
+"Mutter Gottes!" said the little German. "De vorst kind. He would
+radder gill a man as drink a glass bier. He gome mighty near gillin'
+his pest vrient to-day in de gourt-house droben, ven he vas dellin' vat
+he knowed apout it alleweil."
+
+"A regular fire-eater," said Offitt. "So you've finished, have you? How
+much for the job!"
+
+The German was looking at a stain on the breast of the coat.
+
+"Vot's dish?" he said. "Looksh like baint. Yust lemme take your coat
+off a minute and I gleans dot up like a nudel soup."
+
+"Say, mind your own business, won't you?" growled Offitt. "Here's your
+money, and when I want any of your guff I'll let you know."
+
+He hurried out, leaving the poor German amazed at the ill result of his
+effort to turn an honest penny and do a fellow-creature a service.
+
+"Vunny beebles!" he said to himself. "But I got a kevarter off a tollar
+for a den-cent chob."
+
+Offitt came out of the shop and walked at a rapid pace to Dean Street.
+He was determined to make an end at once of Maud's scruples and
+coquetry. He said to himself: "If we are both alive to-morrow, we shall
+be married." He believed if he could have her to himself for half an
+hour, he could persuade her to come with him. He was busy all the way
+plotting to get her parents out of the house. It would be easy enough
+to get them out of the room; but he wanted them out of hearing, out of
+reach of a cry for help even.
+
+He found them all together in the sitting-room. The arrest of Sleeny
+had fallen heavily upon them. They had no doubt of his guilt, from the
+reports they had heard, and their surprise and horror at his crime were
+not lessened but rather increased by their familiar affection for him.
+
+"To think," said Saul to his wife, "that that boy has worked at the
+same bench, and slept in the same house with me for so many years, and
+I never knowed the Satan that was in him!"
+
+"It's in all of us, Saul," said Mrs. Matchin, trying to improve the
+occasion for the edification of her unbelieving husband.
+
+Maud had felt mingled with her sorrow a suspicion of remorse. She could
+not help remembering that Sam considered Farnham his rival, with how
+little reason she knew better than any one. She could understand how
+her beauty might have driven him to violence; but when the story of the
+robbery transpired also--as it did in the course of the morning,--she
+was greatly perplexed. When she joined in the lamentations of her
+parents and said she never could have believed that of Sam Sleeny, she
+was thinking of the theft, and not of the furious assault. When they
+had all, however, exhausted their limited store of reflections, a thing
+took place which increased the horror and the certainty of Mr. and Mrs.
+Matchin, and left Maud a prey to a keener doubt and anxiety than ever.
+Late in the afternoon a sharp-faced man, with a bright eye and a red
+mustache, came to the house and demanded in the name of the law to be
+shown Sam's bedroom. He made several notes and picked up some trifling
+articles, for which he gave Mr. Matchin receipts. Corning out of the
+room, he looked carefully at the door-knob. "Seems all right," he said.
+Then turning to Matchin, he said, with professional severity, "What
+door did he generally come in by?"
+
+"Sometimes one and sometimes another," said Saul, determined not to
+give any more information than he must.
+
+"Well, I'll look at both," the detective said.
+
+The first one stood his scrutiny without effect, but at the second his
+eye sparkled and his cheek flushed with pleasure, when he saw the
+faint, red-dish-brown streaks which Offitt had left there the night
+before. He could not express his exultation; turning to Saul, "There's
+where he came in last night, any way."
+
+"He didn't do no such a thing," replied Saul. "That door I locked
+myself last night before he came in."
+
+"Oh, you did? So you're sure he came in at the other door, are you. We
+will see if he could get in any other way."
+
+Walking around the corner, he saw the ladder where Offitt had left it.
+
+"Hello! that's his window, ain't it?"
+
+Without waiting for an answer the detective ran up the ladder, studying
+every inch of its surface as he ran. He came down positively radiant,
+and slapped Saul heartily on the shoulder.
+
+"All right, old man. I'll trouble you to keep that ladder and that door
+just as they are. They are important papers. Why don't you see?" he
+continued--"bless your innocent old heart, he comes home with his hands
+just reg'larly dripping with murder. He fumbles at that door, finds it
+locked, and so gets that ladder, histes it up to the window, and hops
+into bed as easy as any Christian schoolboy in town, and he thinks he's
+all right--but he never thinks of Tony Smart, your humble servant."
+
+This view of the case was perfectly convincing to Saul and also to his
+wife when he repeated it at the supper-table; but it struck Maud with a
+sudden chill. She remembered that when she had dismissed Offitt from
+that midnight conference at her casement, he had carefully taken the
+ladder away from her window, and had set it against the house some
+distance off. She had admired at the time his considerate chivalry, and
+thought how nice it was to have a lover so obedient and so careful of
+her reputation. But now, the detective's ghastly discovery turned her
+thought in a direction which appalled her. Could it be possible--and
+all that money--where did it come from? As she sat with her parents in
+the gathering darkness, she kept her dreadful anxiety to herself. She
+had been hoping all day to see her lover--now she feared to have him
+come, lest her new suspicions might be confirmed. She quickly resolved
+upon one thing: she would not go away with him that night--not until
+this horrible mystery was cleared up. If she was worth having she was
+worth waiting for a little while.
+
+They all three started as the door opened and Offitt came in. He wasted
+no time in salutations, but said at once, "It's a funny thing, but I
+have got a message for each of you. The district attorney saw me coming
+up this way, Mr. Matchin, and asked me to tell you to come down as
+quick as you can to his office--something very important, he said. And,
+stranger than that, I met Mr. Wixham right out here by the corner, and
+he asked me if I was comin' here, and if I would ask you, Mrs. Matchin,
+to come right up to their house. Jurildy is sick and wants to see you,
+and he has run off for the doctor."
+
+Both the old people bustled up at this authoritative summons, and
+Offitt as they went out said, "I'll stay a while and keep Miss Maud
+from gettin' lonesome."
+
+"I wish you would," said Mrs. Matchin. "The house seems creepy-like
+with Sam where he is."
+
+Maud felt her heart sink at the prospect of being left alone with the
+man she had been longing all day to see. She said, "Mother, I think I
+ought to go with you!"
+
+"No, indeed," her mother replied. "You ain't wanted, and it wouldn't
+be polite to Mr. Offitt."
+
+The moment they were gone, Offitt sprang to the side of Maud, and
+seized her hands.
+
+"Now, my beauty, you will be mine. Put on your hat and we will go."
+
+She struggled to free her hands.
+
+"Let go," she said, "you hurt me. Why are you in such a terrible
+hurry?"
+
+"Why can you ask? Your parents will be back in a few minutes. Of
+course you know that story was only to get them out of our way. Come,
+my beautiful Maud! my joy, my queen! To-morrow New York! next day the
+sea, and then Europe and love and pleasure all your life."
+
+"I want to talk with you a minute," said Maud, in a voice which
+trembled in spite of her efforts. "I can't talk in the dark. Wait here,
+till I get a lamp."
+
+She slipped from the room before he could prevent her and left him
+pacing the floor in a cold rage. It was only a moment, however, until
+she returned, bringing a lamp, which she placed on a table, and then
+asked him to be seated, in a stiff, formal way, which at once irritated
+and enchanted him. He sat down and devoured her with his eyes. He was
+angry when she went for the lamp; but, as its light fell on her rich,
+dark hair, her high color, and her long, graceful figure, as she leaned
+back in her chair, he felt that the tenderest conversation with her in
+the darkness would lose something of the pleasure that the eyes took in
+her. This he said to her, in his coarse but effective way.
+
+She answered him with coquettish grace, willing to postpone the serious
+talk she dreaded so. But the conversation was in stronger hands than
+hers, and she found herself forced, in a few minutes, to either go with
+him, or give a reason why.
+
+"The fact is, then," she stammered, with a great effort, "I don't know
+you well enough yet. Why cannot you wait a while?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"Come with me, and you will know me better in a day than you would here
+in a year. Do not waste these precious moments. Our happiness depends
+upon it. We have everything we can desire. I cannot be myself here. I
+cannot disclose my rank and my wealth to these people who have only
+known me as an apostle of labor. I want to go where you will be a great
+lady. Oh, come!" he cried, with an outburst of pent-up fire, throwing
+himself on the floor at her feet, and laying his head upon her knee.
+She was so moved by this sudden outbreak, which was wholly new to her
+experience, that she almost forgot her doubts and fears. But a remnant
+of practical sense asserted itself. She rose from her chair, commanded
+him once more to be seated, and said:
+
+"I am afraid I am going to offend you, but I must ask you something."
+
+"Ask me anything," he said, with a smile, "except to leave you."
+
+She thought the phrase so pretty that she could hardly find courage to
+put her question. She blushed and stammered, and then, rushing at it
+with desperation, she said:
+
+"That money--where did you get it?"
+
+"I will tell you when we are married. It is a secret."
+
+He tried still to smile, but she saw the laughter dying away from his
+face.
+
+Her blood turned cold in her veins, but her heart grew stronger, and
+she determined to know the worst. She was not a refined or clever
+woman; but the depth of her trouble sharpened her wits, and she
+instinctively made use of her woman's wiles to extort the truth from
+the man who she knew was under the spell of her beauty, whatever else
+he was.
+
+"Come here!" she said. Her face was pale, but her lips were smiling.
+"Get down there where you were!" she continued, with tender
+imperiousness. He obeyed her, hardly daring to trust his senses. "Now
+put your hands between my hands," she said, still with that pale,
+singular smile, which filled him with unquiet transports, "and tell me
+the truth, you bad boy!"
+
+"The truth," with a beating of the heart which made his utterance
+thick, "the truth is, that you are the most glorious woman in the
+world, and that you will be mine to-morrow."
+
+"Perhaps," she almost whispered. "But you must tell me something else.
+I am afraid you are a naughty boy, and that you love me too much. I
+once told you I had an enemy, and that I wanted somebody to punish him.
+Did you go and punish him for me--tell me that?"
+
+Her voice was soft and low and beguiling. She still smiled on him,
+leaving one hand in his, while she raised the forefinger of the other
+in coquettish admonition. The ruffian at her feet was inebriated with
+her beauty and her seductive playfulness. He thought she had divined
+his act--that she considered it a fine and heroic test of love to which
+she had subjected him. He did not hesitate an instant, but said:
+
+"Yes, my beauty, and I am ready to do the same for anybody who gives
+you a cross look."
+
+Now that she had gained the terrible truth, a sickening physical fear
+of the man came over her, and she felt herself growing faint. His voice
+sounded weak and distant as he said:
+
+"Now you will go with me, won't you?"
+
+She could make no answer. So he continued:
+
+"Run and get your hat. Nothing else. We can buy all you want. And
+hurry. They may come back any moment."
+
+She perceived a chance of escape and roused herself. She thought if she
+could only get out of the room she might save herself by flight or by
+outcry.
+
+"Wait here," she whispered, "and be very quiet."
+
+He kissed his fingers to her without a word. She opened the door into
+the next room, which was the kitchen and dining-room of the family, and
+there, not three feet from her, in the dim light, haggard and wan,
+bareheaded, his clothes in rags about him, she saw Sam Sleeny.
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+
+A LEAP FOR SOMEBODY'S LIFE.
+
+
+When Sleeny was led from the room of the police justice in the
+afternoon, he was plunged in a sort of stupor. He could not recover
+from the surprise and sense of outrage with which he had listened to
+Offitt's story. What was to happen to him he accepted with a despair
+which did not trouble itself about the ethics of the transaction. It
+was a disaster, as a stroke of lightning might be. It seemed to him the
+work had been thoroughly and effectually done. He could see no way out
+of it; in fact, his respect for Offitt's intelligence was so great that
+he took it for granted Andy had committed no mistakes, but that he had
+made sure of his ruin. He must go to prison; if Farnham died, he must
+be hanged. He did not weary his mind in planning for his defence when
+his trial should come on. He took it for granted he should be
+convicted. But if he could get out of prison, even if it were only for
+a few hours, and see Andy Offitt once more--he felt the blood tingling
+through all his veins at the thought. This roused him from his lethargy
+and made him observant and alert. He began to complain of his
+handcuffs; they were in truth galling his wrists. It was not difficult
+for him to twist his hands so as to start the blood in one or two
+places. He showed these quietly to the policemen, who sat with him in a
+small anteroom leading to the portion of the city jail, where he was to
+be confined for the night. He seemed so peaceable and quiet that they
+took off the irons, saying good-naturedly, "I guess we can handle you."
+They were detained in this room for some time waiting for the warden of
+the jail to come and receive their prisoner. There were two windows,
+both giving view of a narrow street, where it was not bright at
+noonday, and began to grow dark at sunset with the shade of the high
+houses and the thick smoke of the quarter. The windows were open, as
+the room was in the third story, and was therefore considered
+absolutely safe. Sleeny got up several times and walked first to one
+window and then to another, casting quick but searching glances at the
+street and the walls. He saw that some five feet from one of the
+windows a tin pipe ran along the wall to the ground. The chances were
+ten to one that any one risking the leap would be dashed to pieces on
+the pavement below. But Sleeny could not get that pipe out of his head.
+"I might as well take my chance" he said to himself. "It would be no
+worse to die that way than to be hanged." He grew afraid to trust
+himself in sight of the window and the pipe: it exercised so strong a
+fascination upon him. He sat down with his back to the light and leaned
+his head on his hands. But he could think of nothing but his leap for
+liberty. He felt in fancy his hands and knees clasping that slender
+ladder of safety; he began to think what he would do when he struck the
+sidewalk, if no bones were broken. First, he would bide from pursuit,
+if possible. Then he would go to Dean Street and get a last look at
+Maud, if he could; then his business would be to find Offitt. "If I
+find him," he thought, "I'll give them something to try me for." But
+finally he dismissed the matter from his mind,--for this reason. He
+remembered seeing a friend, the year before, fall from a scaffolding
+and break his leg. The broken bone pierced through the leg of his
+trousers. This thought daunted him more than death on the gallows.
+
+The door opened, and three or four policemen came in, each leading a
+man by the collar, the ordinary riffraff of the street, charged with
+petty offences. One was very drunk and abusive. He attracted the
+attention of everybody in the room by his antics. He insisted on
+dancing a breakdown which he called the "Essence of Jeems' River"; and
+in the scuffle which followed, first one and then the other policeman
+in charge of Sleeny became involved. Sleeny was standing with his back
+to the window, quite alone. The temptation was too much for him. He
+leaped upon the sill, gave one mighty spring, caught the pipe, and slid
+safely to the ground. One or two passers-by saw him drop lightly to the
+sidewalk, but thought nothing of it. It was not the part of the jail in
+which prisoners were confined, and he might have been taken for a
+carpenter or plumber who chose that unusual way of coming from the
+roof. His hat blew off in his descent, but he did not waste time in
+looking for it. He walked slowly till he got to the corner, and then
+plunged through the dark and ill-smelling streets of the poor and
+crowded quarter, till he came by the open gate of a coal-yard. Seeing
+he was not pursued he went in, concealed himself behind a pile of
+boards and lay there until it was quite dark.
+
+He then came out and walked through roundabout ways, avoiding the
+gas-lights and the broad thoroughfares, to Dean Street. He climbed the
+fence and crept through the garden to the back door of the house. He
+had eaten nothing since early morning, and was beginning to be hungry.
+He saw there were no lights in the rear of the house, and thought if he
+could enter the kitchen he might get a loaf of bread without alarming
+the household. He tried the back door and found it fastened. But
+knowing the ways of the house, he raised the cellar door, went down the
+steps, shut the door down upon himself, groped his way to the inner
+stairs, and so gained the kitchen. He was walking to the cupboard when
+the door opened and he saw Maud coming toward him.
+
+She did not seem in the least startled to see him there. In the
+extremity of her terror, it may have seemed to her that he had been
+sent especially to her help. She walked up to him, laid her hands on
+his shoulders and whispered, "Oh, Sam, I am so glad to see you. Save
+me! Don't let him touch me! He is in there."
+
+Sam hardly knew if this were real or not. A wild fancy assailed him for
+an instant--was he killed in jumping from the window? Surely this could
+never happen to him on the earth; the girl who had always been so cold
+and proud to him was in his arms, her head on his shoulder, her warm
+breath on his cheek. She was asking his help against some danger.
+
+"All right, Mattie," he whispered. "Nobody shall hurt you. Who is it?"
+He thought of no one but the police.
+
+"Offitt," she said.
+
+He brushed her aside as if she had been a cobweb in his path, and with
+a wild cry of joy and vengeance he burst through the half-open door.
+Offitt turned at the noise, and saw Sam coming, and knew that the end
+of his life was there. His heart was like water within him. He made a
+feeble effort at defence; but the carpenter, without a word, threw him
+on the floor, planted one knee on his chest, and with his bare hands
+made good the threat he uttered in his agony in the court-room,
+twisting and breaking his neck.
+
+Sleeny rose, pulled the cover from the centre-table in the room, and
+threw it over the distorted face of the dead man.
+
+Maud, driven out of her wits by the dreadful scene, had sunk in a
+rocking-chair, where, with her face in her hands, she was sobbing and
+moaning. Sam tried to get her to listen to him.
+
+"Good-by, Mattie, I shall never see you again, I suppose. I must run
+for my life. I want you to know I was innocent of what they charged me
+with----"
+
+"Oh, I know that, Sam," she sobbed.
+
+"God bless you, Mattie, for saying so. I don't care so much for what
+happens, now. I am right glad I got here to save you from that----" he
+paused, searching for a word which would be descriptive and yet not
+improper in the presence of a lady, but his vocabulary was not rich and
+he said at last, "that snide. But I should have done that to him
+anyhow; so don't cry on that account. Mattie, will you tell me
+good-by?" he asked with bashful timidity.
+
+She rose and gave him her hand; but her eyes happening to wander to the
+shapeless form lying in the corner, she hid her face again on his
+shoulder and said with a fresh burst of tears. "Oh, Sam, stay with me a
+little while. Don't leave me alone."
+
+His mind travelled rapidly through the incidents that would result from
+his staying--prison, trial, and a darker contingency still, rearing its
+horrible phantom in the distance. But she said, "You will stay till
+father comes, won't you?" and he answered simply:
+
+"Yes, Mattie, if you want me to."
+
+He led her to a seat and sat down beside her, to wait for his doom.
+
+In a few minutes, they heard a loud altercation outside the door. The
+voice of Saul Matchin was vehemently protesting, "I tell ye he ain't
+here," and another voice responded,
+
+"He was seen to climb the fence and to enter the house. We've got it
+surrounded, and there's no use for you to get yourself into trouble
+aidin' and abettin'."
+
+Sam walked to the door and said to the policeman, with grim humor,
+"Come in! you'll find two murderers here, and neither one will show any
+fight."
+
+The policemen blew their whistles to assemble the rest, and then came
+in warily, and two of them seized him at once.
+
+"It's all very well to be meek and lowly, my friend," said one of them,
+"but you'll not play that on us twice--least ways," he added with
+sarcastic intention, "not twice the same day. See here, Tony Smart,"
+addressing a third, who now entered, "lend a hand with these
+bracelets," and in a moment Sam was handcuffed and pinioned.
+
+"Where's the other one you was talking about?" asked the policeman.
+
+Sam pointed with his foot in the direction where Offitt lay. The
+policeman lifted the cloth, and dropped it again with a horror which
+his professional phlegm could not wholly disguise.
+
+"Well, of all the owdacious villains ever I struck ---- Who do you
+think it is?" he asked, turning to his associates.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The witness this afternoon,--Offitt. Well, my man," he said, turning
+to Sam, "you wanted to make a sure thing of it, I see. If you couldn't
+be hung for one, you would for the other."
+
+"Sam!" said Saul Matchin who, pale and trembling, had been a silent
+spectator of the scene so far, "for heaven's sake, tell us what all
+this means."
+
+"Mind now," said the officer, "whatever you say will be reported."
+
+"Very well, I've got nothing to hide," said Sam. "I'll tell you and
+Mother Matchin" (who had just come in and was staring about her with
+consternation, questioning Maud in dumb show) "the whole story. I owe
+that to you for you've always used me well. It's a mighty short one.
+That fellow Offitt robbed and tried to murder Captain Farnham last
+night, and then swore it onto me. I got away from the officers
+to-night, and come round here and found him 'saulting Mattie, and I
+twisted his neck for him. If it's a hanging matter to kill snakes, I'll
+have to stand it--that's all."
+
+"Now, who do you think is going to believe that?" said the captain of
+the squad.
+
+Maud rose and walked up to where Sam was standing and said, "I know
+every word he has said is true. That man was the burglar at Captain
+Farnham's. He told me so himself to-night. He said he had the money in
+his pocket and wanted to make me go with him."
+
+She spoke firmly and resolutely, but she could not bring herself to say
+anything of previous passages between them; and when she opened her
+lips to speak of the ladder, the woman was too strong within her, and
+she closed them again. "I'll never tell that unless they go to hang
+Sam, and then I won't tell anybody but the Governor," she swore to
+herself.
+
+"It's easy to see about that story," said the officer still
+incredulous.
+
+They searched the clothing of Offitt, and the face of the officer, as
+one package of money after another was brought to light, was a singular
+study. The pleasure he felt in the recovery of the stolen goods was
+hardly equal to his professional chagrin at having caught the wrong
+man. He stood for a moment silent, after tying up all the packages in
+one.
+
+"It's no use dodging," he said at last. "We have been barking up the
+wrong tree."
+
+"I don't know about that," said the one called Tony Smart. "Who has
+identified this money? Who can answer for this young lady? How about
+them marks on the door and the ladder? Anyhow there's enough to hold
+our prisoner on."
+
+"Of course there is," said the captain. "He hadn't authority to go
+twisting people's necks in this county."
+
+At this moment the wagon which had been sent for arrived. The body of
+Offitt was lifted in. The captain gathered up the money, notified
+Matchin that he and his family would be wanted as witnesses in the
+morning, and they all moved toward the door. Sam turned to say
+"Farewell." Pinioned as he was, he could not shake hands, and his voice
+faltered as he took leave of them. Maud's heart was not the most
+feeling one in the world, but her emotions had been deeply stirred by
+the swift succession of events; and as she saw this young fellow going
+so bravely to meet an unknown fate, purely for her sake, the tears came
+to her eyes. She put out her hand to him; but she saw that his hands
+were fastened and, seized with sudden pity, she put her arms about his
+neck and kissed him, whispering, "Keep up a good heart, Sam!" and he
+went away, in all his danger and ignominy happier than he had been for
+many a day.
+
+The probabilities of the case were much discussed that night at police
+head-quarters, in conferences from which the reporters were rigorously
+excluded, and the next morning the city newspapers revelled in the
+sensation. They vied with each other in inventing attractive head-lines
+and startling theories. The _Bale-Fire_ began its leader with the
+impressive sentence: "Has a carnival of crime set in amongst us? Last
+night the drama of Algonquin Avenue was supplemented by the tragedy of
+Dean Street, and the public, aghast, demands 'What next?' A second
+murder was accomplished by hands yet dripping with a previous crime.
+The patriotic witness who, yesterday, with a bleeding heart, denounced
+the criminality of his friend, paid last night with his life for his
+fidelity." In another column called for a "monument, by popular
+subscription for Andrew Jackson Offitt, who died because would not tell
+a lie." On the other hand, _The Morning Astral_, representing the
+conservative opinion of the city, called for a suspension of judgment
+on the part of its candid readers; said that there were shady
+circumstances about the antecedents of Offitt, and intimated that
+documents of a compromising character had been found on his person;
+congratulated the city on the improved condition of Captain Farnham;
+and, trusting in the sagacity and diligence of the authorities,
+confidently awaited from them a solution of the mystery. Each of them,
+nevertheless, gave free space and license to their reporters, and
+Offitt was a saint, a miscreant, a disguised prince, and an escaped
+convict, according to the state of the reporter's imagination or his
+digestion; while the stories told of Sleeny varied from cannibalism to
+feats of herculean goodness. They all agreed reasonably well, however,
+as to the personal appearance of the two men, and from this fact it
+came about that, in the course of the morning, evidence was brought
+forward, from a totally unexpected quarter, which settled the question
+as to the burglary at Farnham's.
+
+Mrs. Belding had been so busy the day before, in her constant
+attendance upon Farnham, that she had paid no attention to the story of
+the arrest. She had heard that the man had been caught and his crime
+clearly established, and that he had been sent to jail for trial. Her
+first thought was, "I am glad I was not called upon to give evidence.
+It would have been very disagreeable to get up before a court-room full
+of men and say I looked with an opera-glass out of my daughter's window
+into a young man's house. I should have to mention Alice's name, too,--
+and a young girl's name cannot be mentioned too seldom in the
+newspapers. In fact, twice in a life-time is often enough, and one of
+them should be a funeral notice."
+
+But this morning, after calling at Farnham's and finding that he was
+getting on comfortably, she sat down to read the newspapers. Alice was
+sitting near her, with hands and lap full of some feminine handiwork. A
+happy smile played about her lips, for her mother had just repeated to
+her the surgeon's prediction that Captain Farnham would be well in a
+week or two. "He said the scalp wound was healing 'by the first
+intention,' which I thought was a funny phrase. I thought the maxim was
+that second thoughts were best." Alice had never mentioned Farnham's
+name since the first night, but he was rarely out of her mind, and the
+thought that his life was saved made every hour bright and festal. "He
+will be well," she thought. "He will have to come here to thank mamma
+for her care of him. I shall see him again and he shall not complain of
+me. If he should never speak to me again, I shall love him and be good
+to him always." She was yet too young and too innocent to know how
+impossible was the scheme of life she was proposing to herself, but she
+was thoroughly happy in it.
+
+Mrs. Belding, as she read, grew perplexed and troubled. She threw down
+one newspaper and took up another, but evidently got no more comfort
+out of that. At last she sighed and said, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall
+have to go down there after all. They have got the wrong man!"
+
+Alice looked up with wondering eyes.
+
+"These accounts all agree that the assassin is a tall, powerful young
+man, with yellow hair and beard. The real man was not more than medium
+height, very dark. Why, he was black and shiny as a cricket. I must go
+and tell them. I wonder who the lawyer is that does the indicting of
+people?"
+
+"It must be the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Dalton," said Alice. "I heard
+he was elected this spring. You know him very well. You meet him
+everywhere."
+
+"That elegant young fellow who leads germans? Well, if that is not too
+absurd! I never should have thought of him, outside of a dress-coat. I
+don't mind a bit going to see _him_. Order the carriage, while I get my
+things on."
+
+She drove down to the City Hall, and greatly astonished Mr. Dalton by
+walking into his office and requesting a moment's private conversation
+with him. Dalton was a dapper young man, exceedingly glib and well
+dressed, making his way in political and official, as he had already
+made it in social life. He greeted Mrs. Belding with effusion, and was
+anxious to know how he might serve her, having first cleared the room
+of the half-dozen politicians who did their lounging there.
+
+"It is a most delicate matter for a lady to appear in, and I must ask
+you to keep my name as much in reserve as possible."
+
+"Of course, you may count upon me," he answered, wondering where this
+strange exordium would lead to.
+
+"You have got the wrong man. I am sure of it. It was not the blonde
+one. He was black as a cricket. I saw him as plainly as I see you. You
+know we live next door to Captain Farnham----"
+
+"Ah!" Dalton cried. "Certainly. I understand. This is most important.
+Pray go on."
+
+With a few interruptions from him, full of tact and intelligence, she
+told the whole story, or as much of it as was required. She did not
+have to mention Alice's name, or the opera-glass; though the clever
+young man said to himself, "She is either growing very far-sighted, or
+she was scouring the heavens with a field-glass that night--perhaps
+looking for comets."
+
+He rang his bell and gave a message to an usher who appeared. "I will
+not ask you to wait long," he said, and turned the conversation upon
+the weather and social prospects for the season. In a few minutes the
+door opened, and Sleeny was brought into the room by an officer.
+
+"Was this the man you saw, Mrs. Belding?" asked Dalton.
+
+"Not the slightest resemblance. This one is much taller, and entirely
+different in color."
+
+"That will do"; and Sleeny and the officer went out.
+
+"Now may I ask you to do a very disagreeable thing? To go with me to
+the Morgue and see the remains of what I am now sure is the real
+criminal?" Dalton asked.
+
+"Oh, mercy! I would rather not. Is it necessary?"
+
+"Not positively necessary, but it will enable me to dismiss the
+burglary case absolutely against young Sleeny."
+
+"Very well. I'll go. I am so glad," she said to herself, "that I did
+not bring Alice."
+
+They went in her carriage to the Morgue. Dalton said, "I want to make
+it as easy as I can for you. Please wait a moment in your carriage." He
+went in and arranged that the face of Offitt, which was horrible,
+should be turned away as much as possible; the head, and shoulders and
+back being left exposed, and the hat placed on the head. He then
+brought Mrs. Belding in.
+
+"That is the man," she said, promptly, "or at least some one exactly
+like him."
+
+"Thank you," he said, reconducting her to her carriage. "The first
+charge against Sleeny will be dismissed, though of course he must be
+held for this homicide."
+
+
+A few weeks later Sleeny was tried for the killing of Offitt, on which
+occasion most of the facts of this history were given in evidence. Mrs.
+Belding had at last to tell what she knew in open court, and she had an
+evil quarter of an hour in the hands of Mr. Dalton, who seemed always
+on the point of asking some question which would bring her opera-glass
+into the newspapers; but he never proceeded to that extremity, and she
+came away with a better opinion of the profession than she had ever
+before entertained. "I suppose leading germans humanizes even a lawyer
+somewhat," she observed, philosophically.
+
+Maud Matchin was, however, the most important witness for the defence.
+She went upon the stand troubled with no abstract principles in regard
+to the administration of justice. She wanted Sam Sleeny to be set free,
+and she testified with an eye single to that purpose. She was perhaps a
+trifle too zealous--even the attorney for the defence bit his lip
+occasionally at her dashing introduction of wholly irrelevant matter in
+Sleeny's favor. But she was throughout true to herself also, and never
+gave the least intimation that Offitt had any right to consider himself
+a favored suitor. Perhaps she had attained the talent, so common in
+more sophisticated circles than any with which she was familiar, of
+forgetting all entanglements which it is not convenient to remember,
+and of facing a discarded lover with a visage of insolent unconcern and
+a heart unstirred by a memory.
+
+The result of it all was, of course, that Sleeny was acquitted, though
+it came about in a way which may be worth recording. The jury found a
+verdict of "justifiable homicide," upon which the judge very properly
+sent them back to their room, as the verdict was flatly against the law
+and the evidence. They retired again, with stolid and unabashed
+patience, and soon reappeared with a verdict of acquittal, on the
+ground of "emotional insanity." But this remarkable jury determined to
+do nothing by halves, and fearing that the reputation of being queer
+might injure Sam in his business prospects, added to their verdict
+these thoughtful and considerate words, which yet remain on the record,
+to the lasting honor and glory of our system of trial by jury:
+
+"And we hereby state that the prisoner was perfectly sane up to the
+moment he committed the rash act in question, and perfectly sane the
+moment after, and that, in our opinion, there is no probability that
+the malady will ever recur."
+
+After this memorable deliverance, Sam shook hands cordially and gravely
+with each of the judicious jurymen, and then turned to where Maud was
+waiting for him, with a rosy and happy face and a sparkling eye. They
+walked slowly homeward together through the falling shadows.
+
+Their lives were henceforth bound together for good or evil. We may not
+say how much of good or how much of evil was to be expected from a
+wedlock between two natures so ill-regulated and untrained, where the
+woman brought into the partnership the wreck of ignoble ambitions and
+the man the memory of a crime.
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+
+"NOW DO YOU REMEMBER?"
+
+
+Farnham's convalescence was rapid. When the first danger of fever was
+over, the wound on the head healed quickly, and one morning Mrs.
+Belding came home with the news that he was to drive out that
+afternoon. Alice sat in the shade by the front porch for an hour,
+waiting to see him pass, and when at last his carriage appeared, she
+rose and waved her handkerchief by way of greeting and congratulation.
+He bowed as he went by, and Alice retired to her own room, where she
+used her handkerchief once more to dry her wet and happy eyes.
+
+It was not long after, that Farnham came to dine with them. They both
+looked forward to this dinner as an occasion of very considerable
+importance. Each felt that much depended upon the demeanor of the
+other. Each was conscientiously resolved to do and to say nothing which
+should pain or embarrass the other. Each was dying to fall into the
+other's arms, but each only succeeded in convincing the other of his or
+her entire indifference and friendship.
+
+As Farnham came in, Mrs. Belding went up to him with simple kindliness,
+kissed him, and made him sit down. "You dear boy," she said, "you do
+not know how glad I am to see you here once more."
+
+Alice looked on, almost jealous of her mother's privilege. Then she
+advanced with shy grace and took Arthur's hand, and asked: "Do you
+begin to feel quite strong again?"
+
+Farnham smiled, and answered, "Quite well, and the strength will soon
+come. The first symptom of returning vitality, Mrs. Belding, was my
+hostility to gruel and other phantom dishes. I have deliberately come
+to dinner to-day to dine."
+
+"I am delighted to hear of your appetite," said Mrs. Belding; "but I
+think you may bear a little watching at the table yet," she added, in a
+tone of kindly menace. She was as good as her word, and exercised
+rather a stricter discipline at dinner than was agreeable to the
+convalescent, regulating his meat and wine according to ladylike ideas,
+which are somewhat binding on carnivorous man. But she was so kindly
+about it, and Alice aided and abetted with such bashful prettiness,
+that Farnham felt he could endure starvation with such accessories. Yet
+he was not wholly at ease. He had hoped, in the long hours of his
+confinement, to find the lady of his love kinder in voice and manner
+than when he saw her last; and now, when she was sweeter and more
+tender than he had ever seen her before, the self-tormenting mind of
+the lover began to suggest that if she loved him she would not be so
+kind. He listened to the soft, caressing tones of her voice as she
+spoke to him, which seemed to convey a blessing in every syllable; he
+met the wide, clear beauty of her glance, so sweet and bright that his
+own eyes could hardly support it; he saw the ready smile that came to
+the full, delicate mouth whenever he spoke; and instead of being made
+happy by all this, he asked himself if it could mean anything except
+that she was sorry for him, and wanted to be very polite to him, as she
+could be nothing more. His heart sank within him at the thought; he
+became silent and constrained; and Alice wondered whether she had not
+gone too far in her resolute kindness. "Perhaps he has changed his
+mind," she thought, "and wishes me not to change mine." So these two
+people, whose hands and hearts were aching to come together, sat in the
+same drawing-room talking of commonplace things, while their spirits
+grew heavy as lead.
+
+Mrs. Belding was herself conscious of a certain constraint, and to
+dispel it asked Alice to sing, and Farnham adding his entreaties, she
+went to the piano, and said, as all girls say, "What shall I sing?"
+
+She looked toward Farnham, but the mother answered, "Sing
+'Douglas'----"
+
+"Oh, no, Mamma, not that."
+
+"Why not? You were singing it last night. I like it better than any
+other of your songs."
+
+"I do not want to sing it to-night."
+
+Mrs. Belding persisted, until at last Alice said, with an odd
+expression of recklessness, "Oh, very well, if you must have it, I will
+sing it. But I hate these sentimental songs, that say so much and mean
+nothing." Striking the chords nervously she sang, with a voice at first
+tremulous but at last full of strong and deep feeling, that wail of
+hopeless love and sorrow:
+
+   "Could you come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
+     In the old likeness that I knew,
+   I would be so faithful, so loving,
+     Douglas, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true."
+
+There had been tears of vexation in her eyes when her mother had forced
+her to sing this song of all others; but after she had begun, the music
+took her own heart by storm, and she sang as she had never sung
+before--no longer fearing, but hoping that the cry of her heart might
+reach her lover and tell him of her love. Farnham listened in transport;
+he had never until now heard her sing, and her beautiful voice seemed to
+him to complete the circle of her loveliness. He was so entranced by
+the full rich volume of her voice, and by the rapt beauty of her face
+as she sang, that he did not at first think of the words; but the
+significance of them seized him at last, and the thought that she was
+singing these words to him ran like fire through his veins. For a
+moment he gave himself up to the delicious consciousness that their
+souls were floating together upon that tide of melody. As the song died
+away and closed with a few muffled chords, he was on the point of
+throwing himself at her feet, and getting the prize which was waiting
+for him. But he suddenly bethought himself that she had sung the song
+unwillingly and had taken care to say that the words meant nothing. He
+rose and thanked her for the music, complimented her singing warmly,
+and bidding both ladies good night, went home, thrilled through and
+through with a deeper emotion than he had yet known, but painfully
+puzzled and perplexed.
+
+He sat for a long time in his library, trying to bring some order into
+his thoughts. He could not help feeling that his presence was an
+embarrassment and a care to Alice Belding. It was evident that she had
+a great friendship and regard for him, which he had troubled and
+disturbed by his ill-timed declaration. She could no longer be easy and
+natural with him; he ought not to stay to be an annoyance to her. It
+was also clear that he could not be himself in her presence; she
+exercised too powerful an influence upon him to make it possible that
+he could go in and out of the house as a mere friend of the family. He
+was thus driven to the thought which always lay so near to the surface
+with him, as with so many of his kind; he would exile himself for a
+year or two, and take himself out of her way. The thought gave him no
+content. He could not escape a keen pang of jealousy when he thought of
+leaving her in her beautiful youth to the society of men who were so
+clearly inferior to her.
+
+"I am inferior to her myself," he thought with genuine humility; "but I
+feel sure I can appreciate her better than any one else she will ever
+be likely to meet."
+
+By and by he became aware that something was perplexing him, which was
+floating somewhere below the surface of his consciousness. A thousand
+thoughts, more or less puzzling, had arisen and been disposed of during
+the hour that had elapsed since he left Mrs. Belding's. But still he
+began to be sure that there was one groping for recognition which as
+yet he had not recognized. The more ho dwelt upon it, the more it
+seemed to attach itself to the song Alice had sung, but he could not
+give it any definiteness. After he had gone to bed, this undefined
+impression of something significant attaching itself to the song
+besieged him, and worried him with tantalizing glimpses, until he went
+to sleep.
+
+But Farnham was not a dreamer, and the morning, if it brought little
+comfort, brought at least decision. He made up his mind while dressing
+that he would sail by an early steamer for Japan. He sent a telegram to
+San Francisco, as soon as he had breakfasted, to inquire about
+accommodations, and busied himself during the day with arranging odds
+and ends of his affairs. Coming and going was easy to him, as he rarely
+speculated and never touched anything involving anxious risks. But in
+the afternoon an irresistible longing impelled him to the house of his
+neighbor.
+
+"Why should I not allow myself this indulgence?" he thought. "It will
+be only civil to go over there and announce my departure. As all is
+over, I may at least take this last delight to my eyes and heart. And I
+want to hear that song again."
+
+All day the song had been haunting him, not on account of anything in
+itself, but because it vaguely reminded him of something else--
+something of infinite importance, if he could only grasp it. It hung
+about him so persistently, this vague glimmer of suggestion, that he
+became annoyed, and said at last to himself, "It is time for me to be
+changing my climate, if a ballad can play like that on my nerves."
+
+He seized his hat and walked rapidly across the lawn, with the zest of
+air and motion natural to a strong man in convalescence. The pretty
+maidservant smiled and bowed him into the cool, dim drawing-room, where
+Alice was seated at the piano. She rose and said instinctively to the
+servant, "Tell mamma Captain Farnham is here," and immediately repented
+as she saw his brow darken a little. He sat down beside her, and said:
+
+"I come on a twofold errand. I want to say good-by to you, and I want
+you to sing 'Douglas' for me once more."
+
+"Why, where are you going?" she said, with a look of surprise and
+alarm.
+
+"To Japan."
+
+"But not at once, surely?"
+
+"The first steamer I can find."
+
+Alice tried to smile, but the attempt was a little woful.
+
+"It will be a delightful journey, I am sure," she faltered, "but I
+can't get used to the idea of it, all at once. It is the end of the
+world."
+
+"I want to get there before the end comes. At the present rate of
+progress there is not more than a year's purchase of bric-a-brac left
+in the empire. I must hurry over and get my share. What can I do for
+you?" he continued, seeing that she sat silent, twisting her white
+fingers together. "Shall I not bring you the loot of a temple or two?
+They say the priests have become very corruptible since our
+missionaries got there--the false religion tumbling all to pieces
+before the true."
+
+Still she made no answer, and the fixed smile on her face looked as if
+she hardly heard what he was saying. But he went on in the same light,
+bantering tone.
+
+"Shall I bring you back a Jinrickishaw?"
+
+"What in the world is that--but, no matter what it is--tell me, are you
+really going so soon?"
+
+If Farnham had not been the most modest of men, the tone in which this
+question was asked would have taught him that he need not exile
+himself. But he answered seriously:
+
+"Yes, I am really going."
+
+"But why?" The question came from unwilling lips, but it would have its
+way. The challenge was more than Farnham could endure. He spoke out
+with quick and passionate earnestness:
+
+"Must I tell you then? Do you not know? I am going because you send
+me."
+
+"Oh, no," she murmured, with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes.
+
+"I am going because I love you, and I cannot bear to see you day by
+day, and know that you are not for me. You are too young and too good
+to understand what I feel. If I were a saint like you, perhaps I might
+rejoice in your beauty and your grace without any selfish wish--but I
+cannot. If you are not to be mine, I cannot enjoy your presence. Every
+charm you have is an added injury, if I am to be indifferent to you."
+
+Her hands flew up and covered her eyes. She was so happy that she
+feared he would see it and claim her too soon and too swiftly.
+
+He mistook the gesture, and went on in his error.
+
+"There! I have made you angry, or wounded you again. It would be so
+continually, if I should stay. I should be giving you offence every
+hour in the day. I cannot help loving you, any more than I can help
+breathing. This is nothing to you or worse than nothing, but it is all
+my life to me. I do not know how it will end. You have filled every
+thought of my mind, every vein of my body. I am more you than myself.
+How can I separate myself from you?"
+
+As he poured out these words, and much more, hot as a flood of molten
+metal, Alice slowly recovered her composure. She was absolutely and
+tranquilly happy--so perfectly at rest that she hardly cared for the
+pain her lover was confessing. She felt she could compensate him for
+everything, and every word he said filled her with a delight which she
+could not bear to lose by replying. She sat listening to him with
+half-shut eyes, determined not to answer until he had made an end of
+speaking. But she said to herself, with a tenderness which made her
+heart beat more than her lover's words, "How surprised he will be when
+I tell him he shall not go."
+
+The rustling of Mrs. Belding's ample approach broke in upon her trance
+and Farnham's litany. He rose, not without some confusion, to greet
+her, and Alice, with bright and even playful eyes, said, "Mamma, what
+do you think this errant young cavalier has come to say to us?"
+
+Mrs. Belding looked with puzzled inquiry from one to the other.
+
+"Simply," continued Alice, "that he is off for Japan in a day or two,
+and he wants to know if we have any commissions for him."
+
+"Nonsense! Arthur, I won't listen to it. Come over to dinner this
+evening and tell me all about it. I've got an appointment this very
+minute at our Oriental Gospel rooms and cannot wait to talk to you now.
+But this evening, you must tell me what it all means, and I hope you
+will have changed your mind by that time."
+
+The good lady did not even sit down, but rustled briskly away. Perhaps
+she divined more of what was toward than appeared--but she did as she
+would have wished to be done by, when she was young, and left the young
+people to their own devices.
+
+Farnham turned to Alice, who was still standing, and said, "Alice, my
+own love, can you not give me one word of hope to carry with me? I
+cannot forget you. My mind cannot change. Perhaps yours may, when the
+ocean is between us, and you have time to reflect on what I have said.
+I spoke too soon and too rashly. But I will make amends for that by
+long silence. Then perhaps you will forgive me--perhaps you will recall
+me. I will obey your call from the end of the world."
+
+He held out his hand to her. She gave him hers with a firm warm grasp.
+He might have taken courage from this, but her composure and her
+inscrutable smile daunted him.
+
+"You are not going yet," she said. "You have forgotten what you came
+for."
+
+"Yes--that song. I must hear it again. You must not think I am growing
+daft, but that song has haunted me all day in the strangest way. There
+is something in the way _you_ sing it--the words and your voice
+together--that recall some association too faint for me to grasp. I can
+neither remember what it is, nor forget it. I have tried to get it out
+of my mind, but I have an odd impression that I would better cherish
+it--that it is important to me--that life or death are not more
+important. There! I have confessed all my weakness to you, and now you
+will say that I need a few weeks of salt breeze."
+
+"I will sing you the song first. Perhaps we may pluck out its mystery."
+
+She preluded a moment and sang, while Farnham waited with a strained
+sense of expectancy, as if something unspeakably serious was impending.
+She sang with far more force and feeling than the night before. Her
+heart was full of her happy love, as yet unspoken, and her fancy was
+pleased with that thought that, under the safe cover of her music, she
+could declare her love without restraint. She sang with the innocent
+rapture of a mavis in spring, in notes as rich and ardent as her own
+maiden dreams. Farnham listened with a pleasure so keen that it
+bordered upon pain. When she came to the line,
+
+   "I would be so tender, so loving, Douglas,"
+
+he started and leaned forward in his chair, holding his hands to his
+temples, and cried,
+
+"Can't you help me to think what that reminds me of?"
+
+Alice rose from the piano, flushing a pink as sweet and delicate as
+that of the roses in her belt. She came forward a few paces and then
+stopped, bent slightly toward him, with folded hands. In her long,
+white, clinging drapery, with her gold hair making the dim room bright,
+with her red lips parted in a tender but solemn smile, with something
+like a halo about her of youth and purity and ardor, she was a sight so
+beautiful that Arthur Farnham as he gazed up at her felt his heart grow
+heavy with an aching consciousness of her perfection that seemed to
+remove her forever from his reach. But the thought that was setting her
+pulses to beating was as sweetly human as that of any bride since Eve.
+She was saying to herself in the instant she stood motionless before
+him, looking like a pictured angel, "I know now what he means. He loves
+me. I am sure of him. I have a right to give myself to him."
+
+She held out her hands. He sprang up and seized them.
+
+"Come," she said, "I know what you are trying to remember, and I will
+make you remember it."
+
+He was not greatly surprised, for love is a dream, and dreams have
+their own probabilities. She led him to a sofa and seated him beside
+her. She put her arms around his neck and pressed his head to her
+beating heart, and said in a voice as soft as a mother's to an ailing
+child, "My beloved, if you will live, I will be so good to you." She
+kissed him and said gently,
+
+"Now do you remember?"
+
+THE END.
+
+
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